Now, for tonight’s installment,
To your one side is the dance floor. Anarchy has broken out and the Middle Eastern man is cleaning up with two ejection blades. Barry is likely caught in the cross fire over there, and might need your help to keep thins contained. On your other side is the pools. A woman just teleported out of the dance floor and crashed into the pools, a mere moment before the chaos started. The goatman is also in the pools.

>Go to the dance floor. Analyze the situation.
>Say something to the woman.
>Other

>>27915811
>>Say something to the woman.
NEEDLESS CURIOSITY.

>>27915811
>Go to the dance floor. Analyze the situation.

>>27915826
>Go to the dance floor. Analyze the situation.

>>27915811
>Go on the dancefloor
>Hack the simulation and start playing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgiDcJi534Y
>dance the dinosaur

Seriously though, analyze the situation and help Barry contain the chaos.

You think for a moment, weighing your options, but turn to the dance floor. Barry is probably hurting from this, or at least his reputation. People don't like going to places they expect to be calm and getting tossed into a fight and ejected. There are certainly places on the Net that you can do that, hell the Somme is nothing but instant respawning attrition warfare. But a cyber bar is not supposed to be one of them.

When you make it to the dance floor, the Middle Eastern man is still in the center, waiting for someone to challenge him. The crowd that had been there moments before has only a fraction left. Barry is leaning against the wall on the far side, covering his face in frustration, but no one is approaching him at the moment. All of the special effects had been disabled, leaving just the rather plain room.

Fights in the Net usually follow two patterns if they aren't in simulations designed for killing each other. You're either trying to kick someone out, so you use some variant of an ejection blade to sever their connection to the server. This of course is only reliable if it is a hassle to get back to where you currently are, and getting through the bouncers again at this point would indeed be a hassle. The second is when you want to cause pain on them, so you fight with anything on hand. You can't cause actual pain to them unless the simulation allows it, but the physics engine will dictate collisions. Hit them hard enough and fast enough, and you can send them flying until they puke or disconnect of their own will. Neural implants either can't handle the changes in your inner ear.

The only person in the room with ejection blades out is the Middle Eastern man. Everyone else is swearing and hollering about cheats and hypocrites and double standards and everything else.

>Join the fray. Ejection blades.
>Watch. The Middle Eastern man may be overwhelmed and you can get more answers
>Force your way over to Barry.
>Other

>>27915977
>>Join the fray. Ejection blades.

>>27915977
>Watch. The Middle Eastern man may be overwhelmed and you can get more answers
No point in getting kicked out, better observe what happens

>>27915977
>Watch. The Middle Eastern man may be overwhelmed and you can get more answers

>>27916017
This

Rolled 43, 24, 26, 30, 42, 82, 26, 9, 88 = 370

Alright then, lets see how things fare

Rolled 89, 69, 22, 83, 93, 15, 61, 23, 64 = 519

>>27916154
and now them

>>27916154
>>27916171
>0 vs 69 Reactions
>52 vs 73 Evasion
>28 vs 44 Attack

You wait just on the edge of the dance floor. No one has taken proper notice of you, and if they have they haven't made a move towards you. They probably assume you're just another antagonized patron, so you bide your time. The man with the blades has his back turned to you, and hasn't seen that you followed him. Although he knew the fight would break out from the pools, and saw your nervemap with his eyes closed, so you really can't tell what he's seeing at the moment.

Blind anger has taken over the crowd. Whatever goal they had in the start has been taken over by the base desire to inflict harm, and the Middle Eastern man is a prime target, but none of them can even get close to him. You watch as they throw themselves at him in waves, some dashing in with high speed, others trying to catch him while he's distracted, a few even leap and stick the ceiling before dropping down on him from above. But none of them land a scratch on him.

His ejection blade is fast, as fast as yours even. The slightest of touches instantly kick the victim from the simulation. It's likely so fast that they don't even realize they've been kicked for a moment, as their neural implant has yet to catch up with the signals being sent to it. He doesn't fight like anything you've ever seen before. They trained you in the military for close quarters combat, how to take down a human with minimal effort, but that doesn't translate to a fight in the Net.

Eighteen more people have been ejected.

>Join the fray. Ejection Blades
>Join the fray. With the crowd.
>Continue watching.
>Make your way over to Barry
>Other

>>27916267
>Continue watching.
There's no point in fighting. Best-Case Scenario is that the Middle Eastern man is ejected and we never see him again, worst case we piss him off, and he seems quite a dangerous foe...

>>27916267
>Continue watching.

Rolled 78, 70, 41, 62, 24, 83, 92, 56, 51 = 557

Then the fight continues

Rolled 65, 68, 99, 8, 60, 77, 21, 37, 58 = 493

>>27916512

>>27916377
I kinda want to challenge him to a duel.

Rolled 7, 31, 41, 69, 50, 45, 32, 76, 20 = 371

>>27916512
>>27916530
>28 vs 79 Reaction
>43 vs 57 Evasion
>32 vs 38 Attack

You have to admit, his style works. If you put a real sword in his hand and told him to actually fight people, he would probably get his ass handed to him, but if the goal is simply tagging them somewhere to trigger the ejection blade, his style works. And the crowd is starting to catch on. One of them had the foresight to spawn something he could use as a shield, but the ejection blade disintegrated it on contact and tagged him out as well.

There was just nothing they could do against his speed and reach. None of them are particularly good in a fight, and the basic advantage of using an ejection blade against fists requires a great amount of skill to overcome. After dispatching six more of the crowd members still willing to fight him, he turns and looks around, waiting for another challenger.

No one in the crowd steps forward. One by one, they just shake their heads and step back, filtering out of the dance floor to other areas or disconnecting of their own accord. When he makes eye contact with you, he smiles and drops one of his blades back into his inventory. "I hope you are impressed with my ability. It is not often that I get to show off, especially considering those I fight don't get to stick around."

>Say something.
>Go to Barry
>Other

>>27916558
yea, this /would/ be cool, but we better play it smart and steady, hes our only need.

>>27916530
Would it be possible that we put some kind of tracking device on him, so that we know where he goes? Or maybe get more information about him an other way?

>>27916642
Ignore those dice

Ignore those other stats, they're for someone else, wrong copy paste

The combat resolution method is best of first three, minus your modifier, roll under. Sounds weird, but should allow for dramatic 0-0 ties. Your stats are still in flux a bit, as I'm basing them on your actions.

Stats :
Strength - 25
Speed - 25
Reactions - 33
Accuracy - 30
Durability - 80

Swords - 15
CQC - 30
Evasion - 30
Firearms - 40

>>27916658
That would require five to ten minutes of your undivided attention

>>27916642
>Say something.
I'm kind of autismal and suck at dialogue.
"Oh yes. Thank you for the skillful display."
Then let's go to Barry.

>>27916642
>Say something.
"Impressive. "
Then try to bring the topic back to the keys

>>27916642
Pull out our Yu-Gi-Oh! cards and challenge him to a duel.

Kidding about the first part. Challenge him to a duel, though.
"Impressive. I'd like to see your skill first-hand. What do you say?"
Something like that.

Challenge him to a Duel? or No?

No entails a short discussion before going to Barry

>>27916910
Yes. It will be fun. Just a gentlemanly cyber-duel.

>>27916910
No Duel, better save than sorry...
although it would be cool, its not worth the risk, imho

>>27916910
Yes. Worst case scenario we are disconnected. Also gives us some needed practice.

>>27916938
what risk? We're in cyber space

Rolled 10, 35, 12, 75, 26, 4, 25, 72, 49 = 308

"I find it impressive indeed. I haven't had a good fight in months," you comment as you walk up to him.

One of his eyebrows raises. "You seem to be implying something slightly unexpected."

"I'm implying that I want a fight against you. Which has more than a little to do with the fact that your friends caused all of this. And I'm sure that I'll put up a better fight against you than all of those pedestrians who threw themselves on your blade," you say as you open up Afterlife's inventory and scroll through until you find two swords you had left there some weeks ago.

"My work here is done already, and with some time to spare. I suppose that I can give you a challenge. Shall this be a gentleman's duel? Or shall we wager something upon it?" he asks as he begins to walk around you.

>Wager something
>Toss him a blade and start

Also, I'll need a round of d100s

Rolled 65

>>27917055
Oh, fun.
>Toss him a blade and start
Really just want to test our skill.

>>27916966
But you have nothing to gain; Either you win and he is kicked or he wins and you are kicked,
I really don't want to sound idiotic or arrogant or something, maybe i just don't see the upside to this...

>>27917103
the fight is with non-ejection blades

Rolled 63

>>27917093
The game is on!

Rolled 92

>>27917103
upside: FUN
Also cyberblade practice. Hopefully we don't embarrass ourselves.

Rolled 75

>>27917113
Then go for it...

>59 v 0 Reaction
>50 v 5 Evasion
>0 v 32 Attack

Durability : 35

"No wager, I just want a good fight," you say as you materialize both blades. He nods and drops his ejection blade into his own inventory. The blades are ornate and impractical, but stylish. In the Net, a material is as strong as you make it, so appearances are all that actually matter. Both blades are variants of sabers, but with notched edges at the bottom and a strong curve back at the top. The kind of weapon that you'd be better off discarding than using in real life, but is perfectly usable in the Net.

"Very well then. When do we start?" he asks as you toss him one of the blades.

"Now," you say as he catches it in his hand. In the mere pause it takes for you to be certain he understood, he's already taken the blade and dashed forward. he had been taking his time against the others, not bothering to go all out. His reactions far outstrip yours and he closes to within range before you can react. Even with your maximized strength and speed, your reactions aren't enough to turn his blade or step away, and the tip of the blade slams into your chest with amazing force.

You were still close to the wall, so you could only get knocked back a meter or so, the impact only stunning you for a moment. He smiles and takes a defensive stance as you get back to your feet. You smirk and lunge forward. You let him interpose his blade, but he can do nothing to stop the force of it and you send him flying across the floor in return.

"Ah, it would seem your appearance says nothing of your abilities," he says as he dusts himself off. You grin, but your head is still reeling.

>Continue the fight
>Say something
>Other

>>27917360
>Continue the fight
Let's go all out and see what happens

>>27917360
>Continue the fight

Rolled 7

>>27917443

Rolled 24, 15, 61, 34, 57, 94, 65, 53, 97 = 500

>>27917448
>>27917443
batch of 3d100s then

That's reactions, then attack and evasion if you win, or evasion and attack if you don't, or attack if you tie

Rolled 71, 11, 17 = 99

>>27917483

Rolled 53, 25, 72 = 150

>>27917483

Rolled 61, 15, 83 = 159

>>27917483

Rolled 63, 30, 62, 44, 83, 58, 28, 71, 29 = 468

>38 v 0 Reaction
>0 v 24 Evasion
>0 v 57 Attack

You dance from foot to foot. Something had gone wrong in your stats, a momentary glitch you suppose. Your speed had been halved, but you double check it and reset it back to 100. It distracts you enough for him to get the drop on you again, but his mundane speed simply can't match yours. He dashes and lunges after you, but your enhanced speed lets you evade him at every turn. He slashes the air apart, but can't catch up to you, until finally he overextends himself.

You slip in behind him and slash, the edge of your blade catching him in his ribs. The physics system can't actually handle cutting and destruction, only collisions. The blade could come down to a mathematically exact line, and it wouldn't make a difference. Your impact is enough to slam him into the wall and bounce him back to the ground. Rather than springing to his feet again, he pushes up in a heap and gags and retches.

You beat him, but only through your stats, it leaves a bit of a bad taste in your mouth, but he's in no shape for a rematch. You walk over to him as he continues to cough and gag as he chokes on his vomit in real life. Finally, you can tell he drops half way out of the Net to roll over and puke, leaving a shadow of his avatar behind. "Good show, but I would have preferred a contest of blades rather than of numbers," he mumbles as he wipes his chin.

He'll probably disconnect in a moment.

>Say something
>Other

>>27917775
>Say something
"Maybe one day. Good fight."
I guess we should check on Barry.

>>27917775
>Say something
"Don't be a bad looser, its nor like its magic" (or something like this)
"So, what about our conversation from a few minutes ago, care to continue, now that the distraction is been dealt with?"
And give him some sort of contact information for us...
If this was a cheesy pulp movie he would say something like "Well, you got my number" and then stab him with an ejection blade

Oh, my apologies, I forgot to post this

Your most basic mods at the moment
Vid Mod : A recreation of Twi
Synth Mod : Illin voice mod, female
Nervemap : Female
Strength : 100, max allowed by the physics system.
Speed : 100, max allowed by the physics system.
Ejection Blade : A viral program that if infected in someone, will instantly sever their connection to the simulation, transmitted by contact.
Teleportation : You can teleport to any known coordinates in the simulation.
Back Trace : You can get the unique ID for anyone you see in the Simulation, because you have access to the simulation.

>>27917775
"If you ever want to continue here is my cyber-mail address."
Yea, I'm just adding the cyber suffix to just about everything.

>>27917967
Prefix?

>>27918015
Realized my mistake too late.

"Maybe one day. I imagine we'll be seeing each other again. You're pretty obviously entangled in this," you say as you squat down next to him. "Now, want to finish what you were telling me about?"

The man laughs and retches again before looking up at you. "Lilith will be able to fill you in, I imagine I'll be seeing you later tonight. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get yelled at," he says as he rolls into a seated position. "Also, only guys squat like that," he says with a wink before disconnecting. You glance down and close your legs before standing back up.

"Why did you do that Warrick? Just had to get in a fight, was it?" Barry asks as he walks up behind you. He's visibly frustrated still and rubbing his temples as he paces through the room.

"Most people don't disconnect because they lose a friendly match," you reply as you glance around. Afterlife has been almost entirely vacated. Dozens of people were disconnected in the fight, but there should have still be dozens left, in addition to all the people using private rooms.

"I can't believe this fucking happened," Barry mutters as he paces across the dance floor. "First I get this surge of people trying to get in, and I think 'Oh good, more business!' but then they do nothing but cause trouble for my regulars and drive them away, and then they get in a fuck huge fight in the middle and they all get driven away. Do you have any idea what kind of damage control I'm going to have to do about this now?"

"Sorry I can't really help. This is not even close to my forte," you say, putting your hands in the air and stepping back slightly.

"I know it isn't. It's just bad fucking luck is what it is. Why they're pestering you though I don't know."

>Ask what he knows.
>Go back to the pools.
>Contact Eve and try to back trace him.
>Other

>>27918147
>Ask what he knows.

>>27918147
>Ask what he knows.
after that,
>Go back to the pools.

>>27918225
Second

>>27918225
This

>>27918044
That's fine

"That guy, shit, I don't even know his name, I should of found that out. Regardless, he said you know where I should go from here?" you ask as you return both blades to Afterlife's inventory.

Barry rolls his eyes and thinks for a moment. "You need to get better and gathering information, you know that?"

You sneer at him. "I don't work in a cyber bar gathering blackmail on everyone for a living."

He sneers back, "Neither do I." This time it's your turn to roll your eyes. "So basically, you want to find this Fenix guy out of curiosity's sake, right? One of my regulars set you up with the fake hooker, so he must know something. You could try to find them, they're probably in Myst right now, but good luck finding them in there. Or you could continue chasing down the people who were throwing Twilight Keys around in here. The woman who seemed to be in charge disappeared right after saying that anyone who wants to upgrade their keys should go to Somme. Apparently she's the owner for them. Seems a bit far fetched to me though, since Somme has been locked in place for like, two years now and this is only coming up in the past few days. But with Eve in your pocket, I don't see why you couldn't just make some spiders and trawl the Net for signs of him," he explains as he resumes pacing the dance floor.

"Woman? Did she disappear right before the fight started?" you ask as you look back to the pools.

"Yeah, that's what caused the fight actually. She apparently ran out of keys or something," Barry replies before you teleport back to the pools. Unlike her, you actually manage to land where you intended. You quickly take stock of the area. The catgirls and mermaid couple are both gone. The girl who teleported in is no where to be seen. And the goatman is fucking a girl against the wall, and snaps his head around to glare at you.

>Say something
>Leave for Myst
>Leave for Somme
>Return to your apartment
>Other

>>27918462
>Return to your apartment
Let's make some spiders.

>>27918503
This, maybe let Eve run a search while we work on this

You blink and turn away, holding a hand up to cover him from your vision. "Sorry about that," you mumble to hi as you pull up your Augment Menu and disconnect from Afterlife.

Coming out of the Net is essentially waking up, when you disconnect properly. Your body is in sleep paralysis so that you don't thrash around in the real world while going about your business in the Net, so sometimes it takes a moment for your body to start responding again. But EMUs rarely have that issue, and disconnecting is just like waking up from a short nap for your body. You check the time to see that it's only 20:10, plenty of time for you to work.

Your home computer quickly comes out of its hibernation and Eve jumps up on the screen to glare at you. She of course is only looking at you with her biometric scanners and the one camera on the opposite tower, but her calculations are enough for her to follow your face and look directly at you. "Warrick, what have you been up to?" she asks as you minimize her and pull up a code editing program to start work on your spiders.

Spiders are of course quite illegal, since they are a subset of viral programming. They go to one host, and then spread to every host after it until they are found and deleted. Depending on what they are for, people usually don't hunt down the person who made the spider, but there have been incidents causing city wide man hunts to find the person who started the spiders. Only Eve is allowed to spread spiders, as it is seen as a subset of her computational powers.

"Twi did nothing wrong, and even helped you out when you met her down in Delta, and you go and make an avatar of her to parade around in? That's low," Eve says as you pull up some old code structures for the spread of spiders.

"I thought you couldn't monitor Afterlife," you say as you hash out the code to send the info back to yourself.

1/2

>>27918928

"I was monitoring your computer when you made it."

"Right, well. I had reasons," you say as you update the virality of the spiders to keep up with current firewalls.

"You need to have more class with your actions, you know that? You're part of the military, so you should be above the crude actions of Gamma dwellers, because that's what you act like when you do things like this."

You sigh and try to ignore her as you think about the program.

>Send the info directly back to you.
>Send the info to Afterlife
>Send the info to a public info kiosk
>other

>Use the skeleton key program to maximize it's spread
>Go with what you have
>Other

>Search for people accessing the hangar sim
>Search for people getting Twilight keys
>Other

2/2

>>27918944
>Send the info to a public info kiosk
>Go with what you have
What hangar sim?

Well it's about time I get my pants on for the day, and this seems like a good junction of decision making that should be weighed and considered. So I'm going to run and grab some food. I'll proceed with whatever the consensus is when I return.

File: 1382646437278.jpg-(378 KB, 1200x722, john_carter___woola_conce(...).jpg)

378 KB JPG

>>27918999
Where we met Fenix

>>27918944
>Send the info to a public info kiosk
>Go with what you have
>Search for people accessing the hangar sim
>Search for people getting Twilight keys
>Search for the Middle Eastern Guy

>>27919354
I can second this.

Sending the info directly back to yourself wouldn't be the best of ideas, too easy to trace. A public info kiosk would be better, and is always connected to the Net so the government and Independent News can spread their headlines. You think for a moment, and decide that it would be easiest to get the info over at the train station outside the news tower, so you reprogram your spiders to send their findings there, and you'll just plan on heading over there in a number of hours to collect the data.

Firewalls have been getting stronger though, just a simple law of computation. But it gets expensive to have access to the best protection. The military is actually the one that started that process. They market their firewall programs to the general public as soon as they're obsolete, but the newer they are, the more expensive they are, so most people will still have old firewalls they never updated.

1/2

>>27919922
Of course, the spiders are useless without something to catch their attention, and it has to be very specific. The quickest way to catch him you figure to be watching for people accessing the hangar sim, so that's the first thing you code for. But it's entirely possible that will never triggger, so you try to come up with some alternative operators.The Middle Eastern man had commented that first generation Twilight Keys were being spread randomly, but the second generation keys came directly from the first generation ones. So you program the spiders to watch for the generation of data resembling the Twilight Key saved on your internal memory. And then you set them loose.

It will be exponential growth of the spiders until someone gets frustrated enough to make a Shrike to hunt them down, and to get any results, they will have to spread across all of Eden. One billion people live in Eden, and all of them use the Net every day. Only a fraction will come in contact with the spiders, and only a fraction will also come in contact with Twilight Keys, and only a few individuals will connect to the Hangar, but at least that one can be tripped through the internet cables in Epsilon.

You sigh and dim the light on your monitor before leaning back. It's 21:40 already.

>Light up. Your buzz is starting to wear off.
>Go to Somme. You should get in on this Twilight Key upgrade.
>Go to Myst. Got to find the regulars.
>Other.

2/2

>>27919940
>Go to Myst. Got to find the regulars.

>>27920015
sounds good.

"Admin Warrick, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with you making spider programs and releasing them onto the Net. It's strictly against the law," Eve explains as you walk over to your kitchen and get a bottle of water. Dehydration, which of course is exacerbated from the marijuana, can often cause you severe migraine pains that you only notice when you disconnect from the net.

"Relax Eve, I'm just doing it to sort out illegal activities. If you did the same thing, you wouldn't think twice about it. It's just a method at our disposal," you explain as you sit back down and crack open the bottle.

"But Admin Warrick, you are not me. You are a soldier and a citizen of Eden, you should uphold the law to the utmost," she explains as you slowly drink the litre of water.

You toss the empty bottle aside and pick your Illin EMU back up as you respond, "Tell you what Eve, if these don't work, ream me out then. Because I can't pull them back now."

"Fine then. I'll be finishing a project that the military requested I complete, so don't expect to get help from me until then," she says as you slip the EMU on.

"Fine by me. I have to hunt some people down in Myst," you explain just before reconnecting to your home sim. You're in Twi's body again. It was the reason you made the avatar afterall. You reach out for the phone again, but a thought crosses your mind, and you pull up your Augment Menu again. Twi's night dress isn't exactly what you want to wear to Myst, so you load up your wardrobe program and select something much more athletic before picking up the phone.

Myst is an expansive and popular simulation, so you keep it near the front in your phone book of addresses. You swipe the string of numbers into the phone and let it connect. It takes a moment, but the servers are large enough to handle any realistic volume of traffic, so you eventually connect. When you step outside you're greeted by one of the most impressive simulations you know of, a recreation of Jupiter.

1/2

>>27920590
Myst is procedurally generated and varies daily with the seed to mimic the storms on Jupiter and has an unknown amount of orbitting stations around it, drifting with the winds of crystallized gas and riding the waves of the storms. For the right price, anyone can add a small simulation to Myst, so you can find everything from hard core space orbit stations, to floating mountains. And somewhere out there are the usuals from Afterlife.

The only way to navigate Myst is by flight. You could teleport, but everything moves so you'd need to know the random seed to predict the new locations. Myst doesn't have an exact physics system though, it's much more fluid and forgiving. You don't have to worry about air, or anything else that would impede you.

>Surf board. Slow, but fun.
>Jet Plane. Fast, but unstable if you dip under the surface.
>Drake. The AI can be a bit buggy, but will home in on nearby landing sites.
>Sailing Ship. Old, but well aged.
>Other

Also, any opinion on apparel?

2/2

>>27920604
>Other.
Let's go around on the lunar lander and a space suit.

>>27920604
Drake, I guess. ((>>27920645)) is also fine.

>>27920728
I'd prefer the Drake

>>27920604
>Sailing Ship.
Nothing classier.

>>27920645
Sounds fun
i am out for tonight,mind tweeting the thread after you archive it

>>27920604
Can we take the jet plane and Wonder Woman-ize it?

You connected n one of the many jump off platforms maintained by the owners of Myst, where a myriad of transportation options are available to choose from. all chosen from the most popular suggestions of Myst users. You've gone exploring before and they all have their own pros and cons, the only difference being the kind of experience you want. The only strict advantage is with the Drakes however, since they can detect landing sites, so you head over to their aviary.

The owners of Myst went the extra mile for the Drakes since they are one of the only biological transport options. Their AI was based on raptors, but tempered to be more like horses so that you can ride one wiht minimal effort. The red one is your go to choice, it of course goes just a bit faster through the air, so you pull it out of its stables and jump atop it's feathered back.

When you take to the sky you pass over dozens of people sailing and surfing about the nearby storms in improvised races and trick challenges. A few are probably in the air streams beneath the surface where the currents are stronger, but it gets progressively more dangerous as you go down so most people stay up top.

When you don't see anything nearby, you pull up on the reigns and drag your drake as high as you can, until he's practically in low orbit.

Looking down, you see several options as to where to go
>A floating oasis. You've been there before, nice drinks.
>A space station. Some imbedded simulations can alter physics, so this one probably is in zero g
>A mountain top castle. Nothing fancier.
>Keep searching
>other

>>27921337
>A space station.

>>27921337
>A space station. Some imbedded simulations can alter physics, so this one probably is in zero g

>>27921337
>>A space station. Some imbedded simulations can alter physics, so this one probably is in zero g

at least we have a reason to be in a space suit then.

You haven't seen the space station before, or heard of one that large even, so you turn and chase it down. The drake is programmed to be at a constant velocity when not fighting a current, so you know roughly how quickly you're approaching the structure, so you're rather surprised when it keeps getting larger. You had assumed the low resolution detail in to be a product of Myst's computational limits, but apparently it was just a distance error.

You keep approaching, and it keeps getting larger and larger, with more modules appearing on it every moment. You double check your Augment Menu to check the time and see that it's already 21:58 and you haven't reached it. But finally, the distance rendering stops limiting the resolution, and you can get a fix on how far away it is. You glance back and see that you've left the other places far behind, and will likely never find them again.

When you reach the station, there is a docking bay for you to set down in with your drake, but when you dismount the drake promptly flies away and leaves you stranded. The AI isn't supposed to do that, ever.

1/2

Looking around, the sim is very well done. Oxidation patterns and spray paint plague the entire structure to give it the appearance of a scrapyard. Scrawled above the entrance door is, "Free Junk." You hesitantly step inside and the gravity shfits. Rather than a uniform pull down to the center of the simulation it abruptly cuts off and you can feel all of your clothes drifting up, but your feet are still attached to the metal surface with some kind of magnetism program. A handful of people materialize in the room with you. They laugh and spend only a moment coordinating with one another before running over to a large armory and pulling out various weapons to arm themselves with, and running into the heart of the station.

Seems you've found a game within the game. And whoever put it together did it the same way Fenix made the hanger simulation if you're in any position to judge. A zero gravity multi-surface shooter with instant respawn and a maze to navigate while fighting your way past the other players using a variety of weapons. How fresh.

I doubt I'll have time to get another update in before I have to leave, so I'm going to call it here for today. I'll archive in a moment, meanwhile, any feedback I need to hear?

2/2

Oh, right. Watch my twitter, but next thread will likely be tuesday again.

So is the QM fucking up or just extenuating circumstances?

>>27922932
What?

>>27922980
Does anyone else think the QM is fucking up tone and internal consistency

Well I hope people weren't unsatisfied with this short progression.