>>3431363
>Tell her the truth - it's her job to control him, not yours.
Hopefully the future has better parenting standards than [CURRENT YEAR], but judging by this lady, it doesn't seem that way.

Also, nice setup with explaining all the exciting virtual games and culture surrounding it and the subsequent letdown of the MC being just a proprietor.

>>3431380
Proprietors need their spotlight too, darnit! Writing now.

You let out a short sigh at the woman, massaging the bridge of your nose as you struggle to reign in your irritation.

“Ma’am, I appreciate the sentiment, but if you’re worried about how much he plays games, you need to stop him from coming here.” You see her eyes widen, mouth forming into a frown of indignation, but you cut off the remark with a look. “My job is to admit paying customers so they can have fun. If you have an issue with him coming here, then tell him yourself – you’re his mother.”

Whilst it may have come off harsher than intended, you can’t bring yourself to care as the woman bangs both her hands on the counter again, knocking over your pencil holder for a second time.

“I will contact your MANAGE-“

“I am the owner of this business, ma’am. I will reiterate – it’s your job to control him, not mine.”

She freezes, a variety of emotions flashing across her face, before growling and stepping back with a beet red face. Whether it’s due to anger or embarrassment, you didn’t know; but a part of you was slightly satisfied regardless.

“DENHALM!” She bellows, causing other customers who weren’t plugged into VR to look over with faces ranging from frightened to severely irritated. A few moments later, you see a boy with a shock of blonde hair look around a Tetris XXI machine. With a searing look from his mother, he comes over to her side with no resistance. The mother leans down with a few angry whispers, followed by grabbing his hand and leading him towards the door. Denhalm looks back at the store with a defeated, wistful gaze – and then he disappears around the corner.

Boy, you’ve hardly opened and it’s already a hell of a day.

Leaning against the counter with a heavy sigh, you stand up the pencil holder once more as the concerned bystanders go back to their respective machines. The mellow blue lights of the room do little to calm your agitation, nor does the sudden blink of your smart phone. You have a message – and if the name of the sender says anything, it’s not a good one.

How do you proceed?

>Answer the text, it’s not good to keep this person waiting.
>Procrastinate the text and instead go and observe some of the clientele.
>Reflect on who you are and how you ended up with this irritating job.

>>3431459
>Reflect on who you are and how you ended up with this irritating job.
...unless it locks us out of the other options, in which case:
>Answer the text, it’s not good to keep this person waiting.

I gave you heck before, but in all due seriousness I really like this idea.

>>3431459
>Procrastinate the text and instead go and observe some of the clientele.

>>3431482
>>3431489
Did a coinflip between the two of you, and it's time for some self reflection! Writing now.

A part of you begins to reminisce about the better times in your life, before you opened this game café. You wouldn’t say that you were unhappy working here, but it was times like this where you had a hankering for who you used to be and what you used to do.

It was around five years ago since you had put that life behind you – whilst you certainly had claimed glory, the rise to fame always had a rapidly declining descent when all was said and done. You shake your head with vague bemusement, you aren’t quite sure why you’re skirting around it when you’re thinking to yourself. Trauma? No. Bad memories? Absolutely.

In 2025, a now popular game had just been birthed into existence – it was known simply as Warscape. At the time, it was considered one of the first forays into full virtual reality gaming – a first-person shooter that you could plug yourself into. It was revolutionary, to say the least; it added tension to multiplayer games that hadn’t been felt before, made people want to play it because they could *feel* the adrenaline of war.

At the same time, however, it offered a competitive platform that none could match. So much so that it is still considered one of the most popular games to this day – hell, the last you had checked, it was still the most played game on the market.

Putting all of its accolades aside – you were drawn like a moth to flame. At that time, you were an avid gamer just like every one of your customers, and you were damn good. Enough that once you gathered a team for the 5v5 ranked mode release, you blazed through the competition with reckless abandon; at one point, you were in the top 5 ranked teams in the entire world.

Unfortunately, those days were long behind you, and you don’t quite like thinking about them. Due to what happened after your historical climb, you ended up buying this store, and that’s where you’ve been for the past five years.

Isn’t self-reflection fun?

>Answer the text, the blinking is getting on your nerves.
>Watch your clientage game with cautious enthusiasm.
>Shed a tear for days long past, perhaps in combination with one of the two options above.

>>3431554
>Answer the text, the blinking is getting on your nerves.
Goddammit.

>>3431554
>Answer the text, the blinking is getting on your nerves.

>>3431591
>>3431609
The text beckons with sweet dulcet tones...what could it say? Writing now.

After eyeing your phone with trepidation, you sigh mentally and pick your phone off of the counter, the blinking notification taunting you with what laid beyond. You gulp, a slight nervousness coming over your thoughts – you didn’t like to have conversations with this person for a reason, after all. However, the march of time waits for no one, so you force down your hesitation and awaken the technological rectangle.

After typing in an inordinately complex PIN code on the slightly outdated device, the phone accepts it and the lock screen fades away, revealing the picture of some vaporwave shit that you have as your wallpaper. Admittedly you had set it as such a long while ago, but honestly you were too lazy to do so now, and the text takes precedence over that particular issue.

You click on your messages app – and there it is. You stare at the name, and it stares back.

Alexis Bryant, otherwise known as your building’s landlord.

She was a woman that infuriated you more than anyone else in this world – mainly because you had to talk to her in the first place. When the whole shebang happened, it was no stretch to say that you had cut everyone out of your life. Friends, family, online acquaintances; all of it was gone and would never return. She was the only person in your phone, and not only did you have to talk to her, but you had to put up with her jabs because she owned the goddamn building.

Enough about that particular spiel, time to read the message.

‘Good afternoon! I hope you’re doing well, and that you’ve had lots of business today!

I figured it’s been a while since we’ve had a chat, I know you’ve been awfully busy running that little shop of yours. I’m going to be coming down in a few hours, so be sure to be ready for me! I know how skittish you get sometimes!

See you soon!’

God, you hate her. You hate her little chats, because you know goddamn well that she’s going to either up the rent or try and squeeze some money out of you like always. All with that pointed smirk on her face, all because she knows who you are.

>Sit back and wait for her to show up, it’s not like you have anything else to do.
>Watch people play games to ignore impending fate.

>>3431668
>Watch people play games to ignore impending fate.
Try to be nonchalant about it.

>>3431668
>Watch people play games to ignore impending fate.
I wouldn't say we're ignoring it, we're just mentally preparing ourselves.
Besides, it is a good idea to make sure everything is going all right with the customers.

>>3431694
>>3431714
Time to go observe the masses! Writing now.

You sit for a minute, and you acknowledge the fact that idly waiting will only cause that pit of nervousness in your stomach to grow, so you stand and shake your head. Might as well go see what the place is up to, you need a distraction.

You lift up the divider between you and the rest of the world; walking out into the midst of cheers, loud beeps, and calm lights. This place wasn’t the biggest in the world, but it’s smaller space created a sense of closeness, in your opinion. The blues and purples of the lights washed over every surface, the sense of calm they were supposed to provide doing nothing to dissuade the excitement of the crowd. It made you smile, just a bit.

Moving between machines, you spot a small gathering out of the corner of your eyes. Two of the many VR stations you provided were occupied by two teenagers, and judging by the screen in front of them, they were playing some sort of strategy game that you couldn’t remember the name of. The crowd was looking on with calculating glances, murmuring to themselves when one of the two made a move. It was a welcome sight in a building where you often had to tell people to tone down their voices, and you find yourself leaning just out of sight to observe them.

From the looks of things, the girl with the trendy pink sweater was winning by a large margin. In fact, you’d say you had stumbled across the last vestiges of the game, as it seemed she had his final base surrounded in a bad way. And just as you thought, moments later she snatched victory from him, the screen broadcasting that she was indeed the winner. The two removed their helmets, and she giggled at his grumpy expression, leaning in and giving him a quick kiss.

You had to smile at the sight. There was nothing better than playing games with someone that you loved, in your opinion. You move away and make your way through the building with a measured pace, being sure to reprimand those who were getting too excited and patting a young lad on the shoulder when he beat the high-score on Galaga Remaster Supreme.

Honestly, when you thought about it, some of the newfangled game names were just downright silly.

Eventually however, after your meandering through the building and promising that you’d finally fix the osu III machine, you make your way back to your desk…and you pause.

There’s someone standing there, and not anyone you had been expecting. You initially assume that she’s a customer, but there’s a certain poise to her that you don’t often see. She’s here for a reason.

>Walk behind your desk and greet the girl.
>Turn around and busy yourself with owner work, like a coward.

Gonna take a break to go shower and eat, I'll get back to anything that's here when I return!

>>3431840
>Walk behind your desk and greet the girl.
Nah, I don't think it's in-character to spurn a customer.

Is this going to be like King's Avatar that would be kind of cool?

>>3431840
>>Walk behind your desk and greet the girl.

>>3431840
>Walk behind your desk and greet the girl.

I'm back! Had to leave the house, neighbor needed some help. Just checking in, off to dinner and the bath for me.

>>3431912
>>3431992
>>3432022
It's only polite to greet a lady, will write when I'm back!

>>3431922
Who could say, really!

You shake your head at the mere THOUGHT of turning around, fleeing this customer in front of you due to her posture. Who cares what she’s here for? She is standing in front of that desk, and that makes her a customer, therefore you will attend to her as such. That’s the real owner work in this café, you’re no coward.

With that in mind, you walk over and undo the latch to the desk, causing the girl to slowly look up at you with a look of confusion. As you walk over to your chair, you see her eyes follow you, followed by a quick shake of her head, and ending with the widening of her eyes.

“Good evening, ma’am. Are you looking to play?” You ask her, chancing a smile as you settle behind the desk. From this distance, you can see that her eyes are a warm brown behind a thin pair of glasses, her face framed by long locks of wavy brown hair. A grey coat adorns her body, no doubt to combat the bite of the chilly Autumn wind. Honestly, she didn’t look like she belonged in a game store, but you’ve seen more out of place people in your day.

She takes a few moments to speak, and when she does, her voice is strangely small.

“…you look different.”

Despite the seeming frailty of her voice, the words cause the smile to go from your face and affix into a confused expression.

“Have we met?” Was the natural follow-up that came from your mouth, to which she shakes her head.

“…no…we haven’t…but…I remember you.”

You feel your blood turn to ice, and you cough into your hand.

“I believe you have me confused with someone else.”

“No…you’re…”

>What is your name?

[Now comes an interesting part: name selection! As I’m quite new to this board, I figure that I’ll leave 20 minutes and if there’s more than one suggestion I’ll just roll to choose between them!]

John Smith, because I'm boring like that.

>>3432294
Wolfgang O'Neal.

>>3432312
>>3432336
The titillating battle between John Smith and Wolfgang O'Neal...let's roll.

dice+1d2

Rolled 2 (1d2)

>>3432399
I am an idiot and now have done so properly, please laugh at my lack of reading like I deserve.

“No…you’re…Wolfgang O’Neal…right?”

Her measured tone of voice does nothing to quell the sudden pang of fright that spikes through your body at her words, coughing again as you move to straighten your posture. You’d like to play dumb at this point, but you know that wouldn’t fly – your reaction to the name shows you’re exactly who she thinks you are.

Fuck. Not like this, colonel.

“…what do you want?” The veneer of friendliness between customer and provider was now gone, your eyes narrowed with suspicion at the girl whose eyes are once again widened. You can’t bring yourself to care, as you feel your mental walls erect and your posture change into something more guarded.

You don’t have issues, you swear.

“Ah…I’ve been…looking for you…”

Apparently, if she had managed to find you. Ever since the incident that you’re still being mentally vague about, you had been careful to hide your tracks once everything was all said and done. With the stigma you had incurred against your name, you just wanted a quiet life – and you had found it. Now it was like everything was being dug up from the earth once more, making you feel quite insecure and also kind of sweaty.

Either way, you needed to get this girl to leave.

>Ask why she’s been looking for you.
>Try and divert her somehow. (Bonus points if you describe how to divert her.)
>Shed a tear for days long past being brought up again, perhaps in combination with the above options.

>>3432462
>>Ask why she’s been looking for you.

>>3432509
That's the polite way to do it! Writing now.

After a few minutes of silence between the two of you, you manage to force yourself into a moderate state of calm. Deep breaths in and out, enough so that you’re able to look her in the eyes again. She seems worried yet does not say a word. That’s perfectly fine by you.

“Why have you been looking for me?” You force out through gritted teeth, and this time she leans forward, dainty hands pressing against the counter as she does. Her fingers begin to idly tap as more carefully calculated words breach the now tense silence.

“…I want…to recruit you.”

If you were in a TV sitcom, a record would have scratched at these words. It takes you a moment to come back from that, having mentally received a bitch slap so powerful that it sent you back on your heels, but you’re able to recover and stare at her with a look only describable as incredulous.

“E-Excuse me?”

“…you heard me. I want…to recruit you.” She repeated the words with the exact same intonation, with no evidence of impatience or the like. She was stating a fact, and it was one that shook you to your very core. It took you more than a mere moment to process this one, mentally jumping through many hoops.

This girl had not only gone through the trouble of somehow finding you in spite of how careful you were to disappear, but she was standing directly in front of you asking what seemed like the impossible. You weren’t a fool – you knew exactly what she was trying to recruit you for, she wouldn’t have done all this for nothing.

“No.” Your response is firm and resolute, and you go to turn around, when she speaks again.

“…I want to…recruit you.”

“And I just refused. Leave me alone.”

“…no.”

You have had enough of this day.

>Repeat yourself: no means no.
>Attempt to walk away: she isn’t going to listen to you.
>Tell her to leave.

>>3432577
>>Attempt to walk away: she isn’t going to listen to you.
Are we going to be the guy who, in a VR world where everyone uses guns, uses a sword, because we are the Dorito?

>>3432590
no

Rolled 3 (1d20)

>>3432590
Yeah, you don't need to take this from her! Writing now, also rolling for no reason.

“Listen, you’re obviously not hearing what I’m saying, so either go and find a game to play, or get out.” You stand from your chair and go to turn away from her – if she’s going to be stubborn, then you’d just remove yourself from the equation! To your abject surprise, however, you feel something take hold of your wrist. You attempt to move, but the hold is like iron.

What the fuck?

You turn back to analyze the situation you are now in, and you couldn’t help but make a noise in shock at what you were seeing. The girl was half leaned over your counter, her pale and dainty hand latched firmly on your wrist. You try and pull away, but she only clamps down harder and WOW that actually kind of hurts.

“…I want to recruit you…and I don’t intend…to take no for an answer.”

Her gentle voice sends a chill down your spine now, sounding anything but nice.

“You can’t force me.” Those are the first words you can think of to say, trying to force down your fear as you stare into her dark brown eyes. Her face is as expressionless as a mask, eyes boring into yours with intensity. What the hell was with this day, you had opened less than an hour ago!

“I can’t...but I can…challenge you.”

“Why would I accept?”

“Because…I won’t leave…until you do.”

“And if I call the police?”

“And…reveal your location?”

…fuck, she has a point. It wasn’t like you were in legal trouble or anything, but if the police came around to remove her, there was always a chance that your name would come into the spotlight. Why couldn’t you have had a nondescript name like John Smith? Why did your parents name you Wolfgang O’Neal?

Metatextual naming conventions aside, you two were staring at each other now – her gaze one of flat resolution, and yours one of put-upon anger.

What do you do?

>Okay, man, the jigs up. What did you DO?
>Accept her terms.
>Try and refuse, even if it won’t work. You never know senpai.

>>3432644
>Accept her terms.

>>3432685
Sometimes you just need to go with the flow. Writing now!

>>3432644
>Accept her terms.
But after closing hours or in private?

>>3432644
No stop!
>Wait her out.
Our land lord lady can call cops and ask for her removal!
Our name won't be needed

>>3432740
You're too late, anon.

>>3432740
[I'm so sorry, anon. It's too late, the gauntlet has been thrown.]

The silence that stretches on between you two feels like it lasts forever, a mental battle of wits being waged through staring. Part of you can see some customers beginning to look at you two out of the corner of your eye, but you pay them no mind. Right now, it was time to decide.

What were the pros? None that you could see other than getting this girl off of your back, honestly. It was a situation that held no gain for you – either you face this girl down in a game, or she continues to hound you until you eventually cave. You’re very well aware of what game she’s going to choose – Warscape. It was the reason she came here, and what she’s trying to recruit you into – a team for that blasted game that ruined your life. What were the cons? Everything. Disgrace from losing after stepping into her gauntlet, being forced to join her team without any say in the matter. You were absolutely seething, teeth grinding against each other…and then you pause.

You blink once. Then twice.

“…fine. I’ll take your fucking challenge.”

Finally, a visible reaction. Her brown eyes widen, and her lips part a fraction – she wasn’t expecting you to say yes, not after all of the fuss you had just put up. Part of you wasn’t even sure why you said what you did just now, but you can’t turn back time – the gauntlet had been thrown, and you had walked into it.

“…I see.” She responds, and you frown. It sounded like her voice grew a touch lighter, and you hated it.

“What are we playing?” You ask.

“…you know.” She responds. Yeah, you know just damn well what she wants to play.

“Then let’s get this over with.” You scowl, managing to forcefully tear your arm from her grasp with no small effort. You stalk over to your divider and raise it, stepping out and rolling your neck. You walk further into the building without saying a word to the girl, knowing exactly where you needed to go and that she would follow you.

As you walk by a broken machine that needed fixing, you catch a glimpse of yourself. Shaggy black hair, now shoulder length. You knew your green eyes didn’t have much light to them anymore, you had seen them in the mirror this morning. It was a far cry from the 16 year old boy with slicked back hair, a cocky grin, eyes burning to take on the competition.

Whatever. All you cared about was making this girl go away and continuing your peaceful life, and if you had to step out of retirement for one last match?

Well, so be fucking it.

[This is the end of my writing for tonight as I really do need some sleep! Please leave questions, comments, critiques, and concerns if you’d like – thank you so much to everyone who contributed, I’ll be back tomorrow fresh and early! Good night, and have a great day!]

>>3432748
NOOOOOOOO!

Well, I can't think of any critiques, but I will say I am a huge fan of this idea so far, and I like your mystery boxes; who is this woman/robot? What is she recruiting us for? What traumatized us so badly that we needed to go into hiding?
Obviously I don't want you to answer those now, I'm interested in seeing how these are revealed in the story.
I was off-put by our occupation as simple shop owner, but you almost immediately made the character more interesting by leaving his past ambiguous.

That said, I am looking forward to more. Let's show this lady who is probably some kind of machine how good we really are!

>>3432785
[Thank you so much for the kind words! I hope to continue doing well with this.]

Despite the blaring noises of the machines and the looks you were now receiving from your clientele due to your pace, you paid nothing any mind as you march towards a well-used area of the arcade. As you remember noting earlier, you had a smattering of VR stations – so much so that you have the entire back two walls of the building dedicated to them. Unlike the consoles you could purchase at home however, these were made expressly to have one game installed. You have a few dedicated to the strategy game that the teens from earlier were playing, four stations set for Tetris XXI (you would be surprised at the popularity of VR Tetris), along with other miscellaneous games.

You didn’t need to say that you have plenty of Warscape machines – despite your spite towards the game, it’s the most popular game in the market. Only a fool of an owner wouldn’t include it in their lineup.

You glance over your shoulder quickly to make sure the girl is following you, and as you had suspected, she’s walking without a word. Admittedly, you expected her to at least observe the building around her – there was plenty to look at, after all – but her eyes are locked on you. You turn your head back around with a sigh, running a hand through your unkempt hair. Hopefully you could get this business squared away in time to meet Alexis; you never would have thought those words would cross your mind, but right now she’s most definitely the preferable option.

You move past a group of Street Fight XV machines, and there they are. It was no exaggeration to say that the entire wall of the arcade was dedicated to Warscape – and a large amount of the machines are occupied. Young kids to full grown adults were plugged in, bodies still in life yet fully mobile in the game. You can see full scale battles being waged on the majority of the screens – a heated 1v1 there, the final duel of a 5v5…formerly you would have perhaps been excited by the sights, but you’ve long grown cold to the game. Exposition aside, look, there’s two free machines! A person is lingering by them, however – a regular that you recognize, in fact!

“Yo!” She calls to you as you approach, eyes lighting up as she stands from the chair and moves towards you.

Her crimson-dyed hair accentuates her blue eyes well, and she wears a grey hoodie with a blue undershirt and blue jeans. The hoodie is rolled to her elbows, and you can see a full sleeve tattoo on her right arm – you knew it was meant to portray dragon scales along with a smattering of other symbolism.

“Did I forget to pay my monthly fee?” She must have been shocked to see you coming towards these machines, as you aren’t quiet about your distaste towards Warscape.

>Ask her politely if you can use the machine.
>Yeah, she has forgotten, actually.
>Flirt – she’s quite beautiful, after all.

>>3433159
>Yeah, she has forgotten, actually.

>But we can overlook that for our favorite customer

>Ask her if you can use the machine

>>3433186
We all forget things sometimes! Writing now.

[Sorry for the wait!]

The idea briefly comes to your mind to remind her that yes, she actually had forgotten her payment for the month, but you decide to let it slide. She was quite literally one of the first customers that you ever had after opening this place, and you were making enough that you could cover her fee, just this once.

“No, you’re good. Are you using that?” You point at the machine she had just moved away from, and upon following your gaze, she shakes her head.

“Nah, I was waiting for some friends to squad up with. Why, what’s up?” She crosses her arms, and you see her eyes move over your shoulder. Upon glancing over once again, you see the mysterious girl standing stock still, looking back at the two of you with the same expressionless gaze as before.

God, she was kind of creepy, honestly. As well as annoying, as well as a few other choice adjectives.

“…because I’d like to play.” You utter, looking back towards the girl again. ‘Like to play’ was a relative term here, considering that you were practically being forced into it, but her knowing that would only lead to trouble. She was hotheaded enough that she’d probably try and take the girl on in an alleyway or something like that. “Is that okay, Cinder?”

“Huh!” Cinder, the customer in case it wasn’t clear, steps back with a surprised look. As you had said before, she knew that you disliked Warscape – she didn’t know why, but she knew it in general. It was easy to see that what you said has shocked her, but she recovered in record time.

“S-Sure! Do you want to play against me? I’ll go easy on you!”

“No, unfortunately.” You point at the girl over your shoulder with a thumb, feeling another flash of irritation at the situation. “It’s annoying, but I’m going to be playing against her. If I’m lucky, it’ll be the only time I play this damn game.”

Cinder’s eyes narrow at the silent girl, but she ends up clicking her tongue and not saying anything to her.

What do you do now?

>Sit down in the chair and log in, no point in delaying the inevitable.
>Warn the quiet girl that she’s about to have the fight of her life.
>Tell Cinder to make sure she enjoys the sight, since it’ll be the only time she sees you play.

>>3433251
>Sit down in the chair and log in, no point in delaying the inevitable.
Screw theatrics, we didn't ask for this.

>>3433260
It's damn true. Writing now!

>>3433251
>Sit and log in.
We don't dilly-dally, we are too dead inside for that.

>>3433316
...OP post didn't show up.
Goddangit.

>>3433260
>>3433316

Instead of allowing the tense silence to continue any further, you step past Cinder and move towards the chair. The chair has a tall back to it, made specifically to comfort players who are in games for long periods. Back when you played, you had seen too many places go with hard-backed chairs that left you aching when your mind unlinked, so you made sure to try and avert that issue as best you could.

You are the goddamn shining image of a great owner, yes you are.

Upon sitting in the chair, you notice that the girl immediately does the same, taking the bulbous helmet that accompanied the machine and sliding it over her head. Admittedly, it looked kind of silly with her long hair sticking out of the helmet, but you chose not to snark. You had to log in yourself, after all – and it’s not like she would have heard you anyways. You noticed her body slump slightly, the tell-tale sign that someone had linked into the game.

You let out a long sigh, picking up your own helmet and staring at it for a moment. It had been a long time, and you couldn’t help the memories that now come to your mind. Great victories orchestrated by great people, the cheering of thousands causing arenas to rumble in their wake, the feeling of seizing another win alongside your closest friends…geez, when did you start to get sentimental?

You crack your neck and fasten yourself in the chair, sliding the device over your head. It cradled your head quite nicely, the padded inside just as comfortable as it was all those years ago. Pressing down the last vestiges of hesitation within you, you raise your hand and press the button on the side of the helmet. Whilst you were certain that in reality, your body had slumped the same as hers – your mind was as sharp as ever, the inky darkness of the helmet receding as your vision turned white. Moments later, colored polygons began to form – the prismatic sheen of the login screen hit you with nostalgia.

“Hello, user.” The robotic voice of the machine whispers into your ear, sending a tingle down your spine. “Thank you for using Auxilia Systems’ virtual reality console…do you have an account, or do you wish to create a new one?”

“I have an account.” You say to her, and a translucent screen pops up in front of you. It has two simple words followed by blank spaces.

>Username:
>Password:

[Another important thing for you guys to choose, oh joy! I’ll give this 20 minutes like I did with the name, and if more than one person replies, I’ll roll between you!]

>>3433324
>Username: PussySleyerxXx_69_xXx
>Password: F4st_4s_fucc_b01

>>3433324
>Username: N0v4_C43s4r
>Password: v*B^@1W20rHl|6?z
Completely random pasword.

>>3433360
>>3433373

You know what, screw rolling, I know how to integrate both of these. Writing now!

>>3433324
>xxSn1pe
>F4st_4s_fucc_b01
We were a pro right? Even if our name was cringy it would have been changed by our sponsors/team/coaches to something barely more acceptable.
I can however accept
>S1eyer

Unless this is a personal account, then pussy slayer is fine, but why would we keep one?

>>3433386
FUCKING CAPTCHA 5 MINUYES

I give up, any name is fine.

>>3433387
I'm so sorry, anon.

You stare at the screen, now having a mental debate on what to do. As most pro players do, you have two accounts – the one you used for playing the majority of your matches, and the other one for bullshitting around when you didn’t feel like playing seriously along with being able to play games without scrutiny. So many choices, by which you mean two choices, and you eventually decide to log in with the alt.

>Username: PussySleyerxXx_69_xXx
>Password: F4st_4s_fucc_b01

You click the button, and a little polygonal pinwheel begins to spin in the middle of the window. A moment later, it halts.

“I’m sorry, user.” The voice begins again, and you feel a pat on your shoulder. “This account has been terminated due to the username containing the term ‘pussy’. Please try again.”

Well, fuck. You had designed this account name with the utmost care, choosing something that couldn’t be linked back to your main account in any way whatsoever. And then they just TERMINATE IT because of PROFANITY? Fucking laaaaaame, what kind of game is this, having a profanity system?

As you click back into the login screen, you can’t help but feel that the robotic voice is disappointed in you, somehow.

Well, time to go in with your actual account.

>Username: N0v4_C43s4r
>Password: v*B^@1W20rHl|6?z

Despite it being 5 years since you had entered this password, you still remember it as clear as day. Mainly because it had been a long and arduous process to memorize it in the first place, doubly so by the fact that you couldn’t bring a reminder into the system with you. Thankfully, this account goes through, and the window disappears.

“Welcome back, Nova.” The voice says, the technology being advanced enough in order to not read out the name with numbers. This was the true robotics advancement that the world needed, truly.

The rainbow-colored polygons fade into darkness once more, and after a short minute of pure silence, the sound of running water graces your ears. The darkness fades away again, and you’re now looking at your personal lobby from all those years ago.

>Observe the room for old times sake.
>Prepare your loadout for the upcoming battle.

>>3433451
>Prepare your loadout for the upcoming battle.

>>3433463
You have your priorities straight. Writing now!

You shake your head – you knew damn well what the room looked like, it looked exactly the same as it had 5 years ago. Instead you raise your hand and snap your fingers, and just like that, another window appears in front of you – significantly larger than the login screen. It has quite a few options available, even if the design is quite different to what it formerly was.

Each option was segmented into vertical columns with the name of the contents displayed in gold text above it, standing out against the grey background.

>Loadout
This menu shows a quick option to select your guns on the spot, rather than teleporting to the personal armory that every player is given. In the armory contains every weapon that a player has collected, bought, or otherwise obtained through special events. It also contains a doorway that leads to the community market, where guns are sold and auctioned every day. You wouldn’t be using that feature as of now, but now you know that it exists.

>Avatar
This menu has no quick options available, instead showing a small slowly spinning recreation of your current avatar. It was tiny enough that you could hardly make out any detail other than your hair, which was black and windswept, but hey if you needed a little sprucing up you could always pop into that menu. She’s forcing you into this, so she can damn well wait if you want her too!

>Social
This menu was simply for coordinating things with other players. There was a folder for a friends list, a folder for team and army chatting, direct messages, the whole works. You knew far too well that all of yours were empty, so you don’t even bother considering to check any of them.

>Settings
This was self-explanatory, you could fine tune your experience of the game here. Many options were there to change your peripherals, how intense the color is, the sounds – this game really did pride itself on being accommodating to any player, and you could appreciate that.

You chuckle to yourself as you click on the quick select for Loadout, and a separate window pops up. Within the window is a list of loadouts that you had used once upon a time, and whilst they were quite simple in nature, they were quite effective in the hands of someone like you.

Well, someone who was like the old you. What do you choose?

>Loadout: Sniper – Helmsplitter Rifle, Greyhound Pistol, Combat Knife. A build meant for the long haul, the long-range game will be yours if you’re careful.
>Loadout: Control – Vagabond Assault Rifle, Greyhound Pistol, Combat Knife. A build meant to control the field at your leisure. Dominate from mid-range and give them no quarter.
>Loadout: Assault – Skyfire Shotgun, Punchline Revolver, Bladed Gloves. A build meant to get up close and personal. Move swiftly, and it’ll all be over with brutal efficacy.
>Loadout: Stylish – Dual Punchline Revolvers, Combat Knife. A build meant to disrespect the enemy, something that only a high-level player would dare to do.

>>3433576
>Loadout: Control – Vagabond Assault Rifle, Greyhound Pistol, Combat Knife. A build meant to control the field at your leisure. Dominate from mid-range and give them no quarter.

>>3433576
Ffffuck I'm late. It seems everything's been going fine, though.

>Loadout: Control – Vagabond Assault Rifle, Greyhound Pistol, Combat Knife. A build meant to control the field at your leisure. Dominate from mid-range and give them no quarter.

As much as I'd love to humiliate the fuck out of this bitch with the Stylish build, we may need any advantage we can get.

>>3433616
Better late than never!

And I'm going to go make myself something to eat, then afterwards I'll come back and write whatever choice is the majority at that point in time.

Thank you for all of the responses, it does mean quite a bit to me!

Alright, I'm back! Writing now.

After a moment of serious contemplation, you decide on your Control build. Whilst it would be quite fun to take her on with your Stylish loadout, you haven’t played this game in five years, therefore you weren’t sure you could pull it off without messing up. In order to win this match, you would need adaptability, doubly so because you no longer had a team to cover your bases.

You were all alone in this fight, a fact that simultaneously made you nervous yet calm.

You click to confirm your choice, and the window morphs back into the regular menu. You wave it away, and it’s when you do that that you notice something odd. Something you hadn’t registered initially, as it had been so long.

The air in here smelled fresh. And while that wasn’t something that would normally alarm you, it was the fact that you could smell at all in this game that did. When Warscape was first released to the public, it was one of the first games to ever implement a link to the mind – and as such, it wasn’t really life like. As the technology was very new, they didn’t have the ability to code things such as scent. To your recollection, the only thing they actually had was touch, sight, and hearing. Even then it was nothing advanced – there was no wind in the maps, there was no complex feeling…despite being able to interface with the mind, they hadn’t learned how to apply everything. It seems they’ve come along way.

Whatever, you probably won’t be an issue, right?

You take the opportunity to do a little test, hoping that you were making the girl wait a little longer. The room is lit very similar to your café, very mellow lighting along with a wall-spanning fish tank that was filled with virtual wildlife. You walk over to it and press your hand to it, and not only do the fish scatter away, but you can feel the smoothness of glass under your palm. This was unnerving in a manner, knowing that studios could now code such a thing into games, but you force yourself not to dwell on it.

Another visual sweep of the room shows a long black leather couch, absent of decorative pillows or anything of the sort. In front of it is a glass coffee table, and next to it is a small stand with a lamp. All of the items that once were held here had been confiscated, along with your in-game funds. It was a small wonder that they let you keep the damn room in the first place.

And speaking of that, your eyes wander to the last section of the room. A cylindrical pedestal sits there, the top a deep cerulean. That was how you registered yourself for matches in this game, and what you would need to do to start the match with the irritating girl.

Next to it, a girl stands, non-blinking. Short blonde hair, blue eyes, and a blue uniform. Wherever you go, her eyes follow.

You choose to ignore her.

>Queue up for matchmaking, she knows your username already.
>Inspect your avatar, she can damn well wait.
>Reflect on your empty social tab.

File: 1545603880276.jpg (114 KB, 1280x720)

114 KB JPG

>>3433791
>Reflect on your empty social tab.

>"Gonna go offline now, see you guys later."
>Last online: 6 years ago

>>3433804
But seriously, check on our avatar. If they got so far as to add aerodynamics then we should account for it.

>>3433791
>Inspect your avatar, she can damn well wait.

>>3433808
>>3433819
Smart thinking, time to reflect on your past choices in fashion! Writing now.

You go to walk towards the matchmaking cylinder (you’ve named it that just now and are proud of it), but you pause halfway there. Why did you need to go right away? It’s been ages since you’ve been in here, you should also look at your avatar. You might need to update it if you have any cosmetics available to do so, especially now that they seem to have gotten advanced enough to add advanced touch.

Swiping your hand through the air, you bring the menu back up and click on your miniature avatar. A split second later, you’ve been moved into a different room, similarly lit like your main floor with the added feature of a giant closet.

As you suspected however, the closet has nothing inside except old hangers, everything inside long gone. You grumble in irritation, facepalming as you do so. You walk inside the closet regardless and locate the mirror inside, standing in front of it in order to give yourself a onceover.

It seems like they weren’t able to take off the cosmetics you had on your person, thankfully. Your avatar’s hair looks like it’s eternally windswept, black locks sticking up in a way that would make one think you had sat in front of an industrial fan. Your eyes are a dark red, and you cringe at that – back when you were sixteen, you thought those eyes would intimidate players you were facing off against, and now you realize you had fallen victim to a teenage stereotype. Without another thought, you tap the mirror and another menu comes up, this one offering hair, skin, and eye customization. You immediately turn your eyes to your regular green, albeit a bit brighter than in reality.

Your clothes didn’t look too bad, thankfully – a dark coat that went down to the back of your knees with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, some form of body armor above a simple t-shirt, and dark slacks with brown boots. Unfortunately, you had moved past this type of fashion a long time ago, but with no other clothing options other than the default, it suited you just fine.

You hear a chime from behind you, and upon turning, you see the other accessory of this room. A device akin to a touchscreen vending machine, only one that sold clothes and offered a teleport into the in-game market. Back in it’s early stages, it didn’t matter what you wore into a fight, so you could just do what you want – if it mattered now, you might be in big trouble.

Regardless, you’ve spent enough time on fashion, and you return to the main room.

>Queue up for matchmaking and prepare for a fight.
>Regard the solemn woman next to the pedestal.

>>3433858
>Regard the solemn woman next to the pedestal.

>>3433858
>Regard the solemn woman next to the pedestal.

>>3433858
>Regard the solemn woman next to the pedestal.

>>3433867
>>3433869
>>3433879
Writing now!

Upon getting yourself ready for the ordeal ahead, you still feel eyes on you. You turn around and face them, and obviously it was the blonde girl standing next to the pedestal. You step to the left; her head moves to follow. You step to the right, she does the same. All throughout, her face remains devoid of any emotion – the girl from earlier at least showed a trace of humanity, this woman had no such advantage.

It would make sense, you suppose. After all, the woman here isn’t a human’s avatar.

You walk towards her, and she doesn’t move. When you stop in front of her, she doesn’t step back. The same soulless gaze watches on, and to be quite frank, it’s creepy and irritating. With that in mind, you raise a hand and start knocking your knuckles against her forehead. No movement still, although her eyes do avert upwards to look at you.

You sigh and reach for the matchmaking pedestal, and for the second time today, your wrist is caught inside of an iron grip.

“I am required to scan you.”

“…I know.”

“Please hold.”

The hand around your wrist begins to emit a green light, followed by a thin-fibered digital mesh to come over your body. It lingers for about a minute, and then all too quickly, it’s gone like it wasn’t there in the first place.

“No abnormalities detected at this time. You are free to play, Nova.”

“Whatever.”

As you press your hand against the pedestal, the woman next to you begins to change. The skin covering her faux metallic frame begins to shift into a silvery substance, and then begins to attach itself to your wrist. You let it happen without struggle, you’ve seen this process happen before.

You are teleported from the main floor once more into a new room, one that’s all white save for another pedestal in the middle. This is what’s known as a private lobby room – normally there would be far more pedestals and far more people around, along with the room actually being furnished and filled with the light of an eternally blue sky. In comparison to those, this room felt like solitary confinement.

As you approach the pedestal, you hear a pinging noise in your ear. It appears you have been hooked up to the matchmaking system, and you already have a game request from a single person.

>From: 0phelia
>Lobby: Recruitment.

You scowl at it.

>Accept the message and get on with the show.
>Be petty and don’t do it, wait for her to message you instead.
>Observe the blinking bracelet now around your wrist.

>>3433930
>>Observe the blinking bracelet now around your wrist.

She can wait a minute.

>>3433930
>Observe the blinking bracelet now around your wrist.

>>3433930
>>Observe the blinking bracelet now around your wrist.

>>3433937
>>3433941
>>3433943
Gotta look at the shiny lights! Writing now.

You scoff at the invite, deciding instead to take a look at what was now strapped to your wrist. If she has a problem, she can shoot you a DM.

You raise your arm to get a closer look at the device – it was made of a silver substance, just as smooth as it had looked when it was moving towards your arm. It had three lights on it – one red, one yellow, and one green. Currently the red light was the one blinking, the others dormant. If you had to put a guess to it, you figured that the yellow light would turn on when the world was loading, and green when you were actually in the match. Goddamn, these things were incredibly thorough, another thing that you respected yet hated because it was on your own arm.

Monitoring bracelets were one of the worst things to have in this game, purely due to the connotations attached to them. You don’t feel like thinking about this subject anymore.

As you lower your arm, you hear another beep – and as you go to check it, you can’t help but smirk a bit spitefully. A DM from 0phelia, and one that felt like a small petty victory.

>”Are you planning to play?”

You couldn’t help but chuckle at the impatience, and it leads you to type out a response at record-speeds.

>”Dunno, was just thinking about it!”

Her response comes just as fast.

>”I didn’t expect a former pro player to be so irritating.”

This emits a full-on laugh from you, despite your now twitching eye.

She really pisses you off, and you’ve hardly known her for an hour. Perhaps you needed to get out more?

>Accept the match invitation and show her what you’re made of.
>Continue to be a petty man, because she deserves it.

>>3434008
>Accept the match invitation and show her what you’re made of.

>>3434008
>Accept the match invitation and show her what you’re made of.
Might as well...

>>3434008
>Accept the match invitation and show her what you’re made of.

Just caught up. This quest has been great so far. Can't wait to see where this goes.

>>3434008
>>Accept the match invitation and show her what you’re made of.
You're about to find out just how irritating I can be.

>>3434008
>”I didn’t expect a former pro player to be so irritating.”
Says stalker. Two words for that bitch, restraining order

>>3434008
>Accept the match invitation and show her what you’re made of.

Oh, we're the irritating one, now? Hilarious, coming from "princess ultimatum" over there.
Shit talk aside, I'm excited for this.

>>3434017
>>3434024
>>3434026
>>3434027
>>3434050
The time for your first battle in five years comes. How will you fare against this woman who's tracked you who knows how far? Writing now.

The room is dead quiet as you stand in front of the pedestal, the screen almost taunting you with it’s presence. No more messages come from 0phelia, and instead leave the shadow of sudden doubt to hang over yourself. It was a feeling that you had felt many times before, but not recently – your old coach called it stage fright, but there was no stage here. All there would be in this battle is you vs her, and no one else.

You had always had a team at your side when you played this, people who would pat you on your back and tell you to lighten up, who had saved you from losing countless times in the face of your enemies. And sadly, that was the mindset you had had as a competitive player – anyone not on your team was an enemy, someone to be wary of even outside of the game. House break-ins, slashed tires, anything to get ahead of the opponent. Even if this wasn’t a professional match – in fact it was anything but that – you still felt your hands clam up and a nervous titter go through you. And just as you always did, you took in a deep breath, and exhaled after.

>”Calling me irritating? We’ll see how long you last.”

She was your enemy now.

>”I look forward to the challenge.”

With a snarl, your hand raises, and you jam your finger against the button to accept the match. A mere moment later, your vision goes white.

---

[Going to take a small break here, just to jot some plans down for the immediate future of the quest. I’ll be back shortly, and with another choice before your five year hiatus ends in a clash of bullets and steel!]

Hello! It’s me once again, returned with some fleshed out things for the battle to come. First order of business is to introduce some mechanical things – starting with this!

>Player: Nova
>Health: 100/100

That’s going to appear when you take damage in combat! Health trackers are always vital to games, and this one is no exception. The next bit is some info about the loadout you’ve chosen, just so you know how much damage you’ll be putting out should you hit your opponent.

>Vagabond Assault Rifle – Ammo: 30/150 – Damage: +20 to arms and legs, +25 to torso, +40 to head and neck.
>Greyhound Pistol – Ammo: 16/80 – Damage: +10 to arms and legs, +15 to torso, +30 to head and neck.
>Combat Knife – Damage: +25 to arms and legs, +50 to torso, +75 to head and neck.

Mmm, look at that knife damage. Got to get close for that to work, though, and do you really want to risk that?

And the final thing gameplay wise is that in combat situations, I will mark the choices with numbers – this is the number that needs to be beaten for that to be a successful action. In these early stages, there won’t be a set number and I’ll be rolling situationally, although this is certainly subject to change later.

Finally, as a personal aside before the choice, thank you for showing interest towards this quest! As I said earlier in the thread, I am a relative newcomer to this board, and therefore am not well versed on etiquette or the like. I’m gonna continue to make this as good as possible, so feel free to critique me on anything you feel necessary and please give your opinion as to how things are going!

Now, here’s your final choice before your first battle. What will you choose?

>Skyscraper: Your battle will be set across a set of skyscrapers, all interconnected by various means with no safety net to catch you should you fall. Whilst thick with supplies, other factors may prove crippling to those caught unaware.
>Crevice: Your battle will be set in the mountains, across an abandoned town that was ruined by the mile-wide crevice that opened in the ground. Due to the event, your opponent might not be the only hostile entity around.
>Flatlands: Your battle will be set in the beautiful countryside, dotted with groves of trees and local wildlife. Small houses are located here and there, and supplies may be hard to come by.

>>3434198
>Skyscraper: Your battle will be set across a set of skyscrapers, all interconnected by various means with no safety net to catch you should you fall. Whilst thick with supplies, other factors may prove crippling to those caught unaware.

>>3434198
>Skyscraper: Your battle will be set across a set of skyscrapers, all interconnected by various means with no safety net to catch you should you fall. Whilst thick with supplies, other factors may prove crippling to those caught unaware.

Thank you. You're doing a wonderful job. I don't have any criticism nor critique I could offer you.

>>3434198
>Skyscraper
Sounds like a very technical map, but without outside factors. We should have the advantage.

Also you doing fine, don't worry about it.

>>3434198
>Crevice: Your battle will be set in the mountains, across an abandoned town that was ruined by the mile-wide crevice that
opened in the ground. Due to the event, your opponent might not be the only hostile entity around.

Skyscraper sounds like close quarters only. With mid range loadout we should pick Crevice.

>>3434208
>>3434216
>>3434218
It appears Skyscraper is the winning vote! Get ready, get set, because the fun's about to begin! Writing now.

Your body feels as if it’s in freefall, the sensation rushing down to your bones. You try to move against the fall, but you find yourself unable to – you reckon that you’re being deposited into whatever map the system had chosen, but it had never felt like this before. This was an intensity that you weren’t used to, and just as you began to accept the pressure, it ended as soon as it began. Moments after it, you felt your feet touch something solid, and the whiteness that surrounded your peripherals faded away into something absolutely breathtaking.

From the looks of things, you’re very high up in the air. So much so that all you can see above you is a stretching blue sky, minus the area to your left that had clouds forming. You look around you, and to your surprise, there are seven other buildings similar to this one in a square formation. From the looks of what little you can see from this angle, you’re directly in front of where the formation’s center should be…and yet there’s none to be seen.

The wind tousles your hair as you contemplate your environment, absentmindedly reaching down to make sure you’re armed. In some of the old maps, you would have to go to a location for your weapons, but it didn’t seem to be the case this time – your pistol and knife were holstered to your belt, and your Vagabond was strapped across your torso.

You can’t help but chuckle. You’re back in the saddle.

Snapping out of your reflection, you look around the rooftop that you’re on – there are a few air conditioning vents that you could take cover behind were anything to happen, there’s a door that presumably leads into the building, and you think that’s a bag leaning up against the railing farthest from you? There’s a lot of things to look at currently.

What do you do?

>Go to the railing and inspect the battlefield further.
>Go through the door and into the building.
>Investigate the bag leaning against the railing.
>Other. [I’m open to suggestions, and if people vote on what you suggest, I’ll put it in!]

>>3434341
>Carry the bag to cover, inspect it then move to a vantage point.

>>3434351
+1

Heading to town to grab some dinner, I'll be back soon and I'll write whatever's highest voted!

>>3434341
>>3434351
>Carry the bag to cover, inspect it then move to a vantage point.

This is smart; hopefully she isn't a Sniper, but I also doubt the game would allow contact to happen this quickly.

>>3434351
>>3434363
>>3434399
I'm back - time to carry that bag! Writing now.

After crafting a game plan in your head, you crouch low and begin to move towards the bag. You can’t see her anywhere, but that could change at any moment – in theory she should have spawned a distance away, but you didn’t know if she was the type of player to just run on over and bullrush you.

Judging by how meticulous she had been in real life, you would doubt that to be the case, but you had seen weirder things in your day.

You make it over to the bag, and you peer over the railing facing away from the building square – that was a very long way down to the street below, and the honk of a car horn startles you away from the edge and towards the back of the rooftop entrance wall. You do a precursory check around to make sure you aren’t being observed, and when you’re satisfied, you press your back to the wall and unzip the pack.

The bag contains the following:
>A moderate length of rope.
>Three health patches, each able to heal +20 HP a piece.
>Binoculars.
>A flashlight that would fit on either your rifle or pistol.

Well, that was an odd smattering of items – the odder thing yet, however, was the voice that you heard when you finished rifling through the bag.

“Participants have found their starting items. Invulnerability has been removed.” You jolt away from the wall, seeing a translucent sheen cover your body and disappear just as quickly. “The time limit has been set at one hour. Good luck, participants. The match is officially started.”

…that wasn’t a feature that you could recall existing, but you needed to make pace fast it seemed. With that in mind, you unstrap your rifle and move around the corner, keeping it levelled at the rest of the buildings. When nothing came to greet you, you open the door to the building and shut it behind you. Making haste, you rush down the stairs and kick open the door to the first available floor – it looks to be some sort of office space that’s entirely abandoned, not a single soul to be seen. Upon seeing this, you move into the room quickly and take cover behind a desk. The windows here take up the entire wall, meaning she could have seen you by now.

How do you proceed?

>Check around the room for anything of use.
>Make your way down to the next floor.
>Use binoculars to try and scout the other buildings.
>Other.

>>3434679
>grab something that can be thrown, in order to fake a flashbang/grenade throw and produce a distraction
>mount the flashlight on the rifle
>check the other buildings with the binoculars
Need info, more than anything. Dunno if fake flashing is still a thing, this isn't counter strike after all.
Health patches are instantaneous?

>>3434696
These ones in particular are, yes!

>>3434705
Nice.
I'd say the priority right now is mapping our surroundings and finding the enemy position, in order to not go in completely blind and to avoid possible ambushes.

Do we recognize the map structure, or it's different from the last time we played?
Sorry about peppering you with questions.

>>3434736
No need to apologize, I'm writing yours out now!

This isn't a map you're familiar with, and I can go beyond that to say every map you would have known has changed significantly! It has been five years after all!

thank you for asking questions it helps me solidify some stuff as well

>>3434696
+1 to all of this

First off, you need to get this flashlight hooked up. If this game had truly become nigh-on realistic, in theory she could cut the power to this place, and even if it was daytime you couldn’t predict how the day and night cycle would change within an hour. You shrug off your pack and grab the square flashlight, sliding it on underneath the barrel.

>Player: Nova
>Health: 100/100
>Battery: 100%

When you secure it to the rail, a screen comes to life on the side of it showing a full, green battery. It fades, and you reach out to tap it, causing it to come back to life again. Good, now you know how to check it just in case you’re uncertain about it at any point in the future. Hint hint.

After spending a moment to memorize how to turn it on and off again, you poke your head above the table. No sign of anyone that you could see, but she could be stealthily hidden whilst having eyes on you. You reach up and clumsily move your hand around until you clasp a coffee mug, and without much thought, you throw it above the desk in an attempt to bait her into firing.

No bullet comes, but that doesn’t mean you’re safe. It only means she’s smart.

You wait a few seconds just to be sure, and when nothing out of the ordinary happens, you reach for your binoculars and press them to your eyes. You begin to scan the buildings from left to right, not seeing anything out of the ordinary…but the one right across from you has something foreboding.

The door that would lead to the stairwell is wide open, meaning that she had came down from the roof as well.

The question is…when had she done so?

>Search around for anything of use.
>Move to the next floor.
>Other.

>>3434767
Well, it's unlikely that she's just rushing towards us so it's time to determine her route:
How many floors look like are accessible on the other skyscraper? Where is it connected to ours? We need to understand if she could come straight at us, needs to descend a number of floors or could just get herself a sniper nest.
On the plus side, we know in which building she is unless she ran full tilt from the start.
As for actions:
>Pick up another throwable, but keep it on us
The moment we hear steps or we think she's nearby we can gain a small distraction and throw off her aim.
>See if there's something clearly meant to be picked up
I doubt there will be another goodie bag, but there might be a random drop or something useful.
>Descend
Slowly. Keep a clear line of fire on entrances, be ready to roll or jump for cover.
My IP probably changed again, oh well.

>>3434796
Sound reasoning! Writing now.

>>3434796
Support. Maybe we should deliberately throw the match? Winning against somebody who just might be a high profile player or coach/recruiter in such a crowded public place is likely *exactly* what she's counting on. Even if we technically beat her at her bet, she still wins since our secret will be laid bare for everybody to see.

>>3434833
I'm sure op has a contingency for just such an occasion. Don't you, OP?

>>3434853
You'll see.

>>3434833
Was the deal that we go with her if we win, or go with her if we lose? Hmmmm...

>>3434866
As I was a little vague, I can clarify that - the deal is if he wins, she will leave without a fuss. If he loses, he's recruited.

You narrow your eyes, allowing another bit of time to pass before you stand up, still keeping yourself half hunched in case you needed to dive down quickly. While you’re at it, you swipe another empty coffee mug off of the table and stow it in your pack. You’d use it in case you needed to make a split-second distraction, because if there were grenades anywhere, they weren’t showing themselves.

Speaking of that, you should probably try to scour this room for anything that you could potentially use. While trying to remain unseen, you skirt around the various tables and overturn a few in the process, finding nothing except a mysterious syringe hid between where two tables meet. Your brow furrows at this, but you put it into your backpack, hoping that the needle won’t stab you in the middle of a sprint.

>Mysterious Syringe – Effects: ???

Well, isn’t that a nice thing to find in an office. You shake your head and move towards the door, sending another glance outside to make sure nothing had changed. You click your tongue and open the door once more, closing it behind you as you go down the spiral stairwell.

“Heh…this is insane.” You murmur to yourself as you move, ears trained for any movement. You highly doubt she could have moved over here that fast, nor was it viable strategy wise. She knew this game better than you; therefore, you were on the defense. Luckily, you had made a damn good name by overturning the odds, even if that name was now dragged through the mud.

At least if you win this, your secret will remain safe. Due to the strict policy that game cafes had nowadays, there was a built-in feature that censored player names and related details in order to protect customer privacy. It was common courtesy, and places could be fined without it – and you were quite thankful for it now, because there was no fucking way you would have taken the challenge otherwise.

A lot of etiquette went into game cafés, after all!

You make it to the door and open it slowly, rounding the doorframe to peek into the room. Another office area, this time structured more like a meeting room rather than a work area. Once again there were no rooms on this floor other than the one you were in, causing you to crouch down behind another table.

Peeking over the top with the binoculars, you still don’t see any sign of her.

>Search the floor for anything valuable.
>Descend.
>Take a risk, creep to the windows and see if you can spot anything.
>Other.

>>3434935
>>Search the floor for anything valuable.

>>3434960
Gotta scrounge like a pro! Writing now.

>>3434935
hey are game cafes like manga cafes
>Search the floor for anything valuable.

You desperately search for something that could even the odds, frantically looking under tables and through drawers and cabinets – right now you were incredibly exposed, and if she was making a fast pace, you’d be vulnerable. Every good player had a plan going into a match, and you had none. This was a new game with new rules, it seemed like a lot of what they had first made had been thrown out the fucking window, and here you are with a coffee mug.

You fought against the pit of nervousness that had begun to grow in your stomach, instead choosing to continue your search across the room. With every new area scoured, the pit only grew and grew to the point where you were murmuring to yourself…

And that’s when everything went wrong.

You couldn’t see what had happened, but all of a sudden something crashed into the building, the loud bang nearly rupturing your eardrums along with the cacophony of thousands of windows breaking in a horrible symphony. The force of the blow, while not knocking the building over, certainly upset your position and sent your head crashing into a file cabinet.

>Player: Nova
>Health: 95/100

“What the FUCK!?” You couldn’t maintain a whisper, springing up against your better judgement and moving towards the window. When you looked down, you saw something that made your blood turn to ice.

Down in between the buildings, at an angle you couldn’t have possibly seen unless you had leaned your head over the rail…were bridges. All starting from a level area about three floors down, they each had a connection to every other building, as impossible as it seemed. And the one between yours and the building opposite had been cut.

It took you a few moments to see her, and when you did, another nervous spike went down your spine.

She looked nothing like she did in real life. Her hair was now a light blonde, waving freely in the wind as she stood frozen like a statue. You couldn’t see anything in detail from here, but you knew she was wearing dark clothes and had a length of steel in her hand, arm still outstretched from cutting the cables.

The worst part of it…was that she was looking at you.

You had taken her bait.

>Try and fire at her, she already knows you’re there.
>Flee, try to get to a different building and find a new vantage point.
>Taunt her from your position, showing that her move didn’t faze you in the slightest.
>Other.

>>3435035
>Try and fire at her, she already knows you’re there.
Let's hope the shooting mechanics haven't changed.

>>3435035
>Try and fire at her, she already knows you’re there.

We have a mid-range rifle, guys. I don't think it's going to hit.

>>3435035
>Other: get behind cover and analyze her loadout as best you can.
See what she's carrying, both in hand and on her body, anything that's visible on character models.
Maintain cover and watch her next move if possible.

>>3435035
>Other: get behind cover and analyze her loadout as best you can.

>>3435072
>>3435090
Ignore >>3435038, this is a much better idea.

>>3435072
+1

>>3435072
>>3435090
>>3435101
>>3435112
Time to get a good look with your handy dandy BINOCULARS. Writing now.

You slap your face hard in order to force yourself out of your shock and awe, instead moving away from the window to make her believe you were going back to the door. In reality, at least in your mind, she was three floors below you and therefore couldn’t confirm if you had or not. So, when you moved far enough, you immediately made a U-turn and positioned yourself between a water cooler in a desk, allowing you a full view down at her.

You let out a sigh of relief when you see that she isn’t looking at you anymore, so you take this opportunity to dig out your binoculars and raise them towards her.

Fuck, that was one scary outfit.

The binoculars aren’t clouded over in any way, so you can see her perfectly; her eyes are a deep crimson, her face morphed into a sharp frown. She was wearing a pair of well-fitting pants with black combat boots, the only thing on her torso being a white crop-top of sorts and a black cape affixed to her neck and shoulders. It certainly took you off guard, as a part of you had forgotten that people often made their avatars to look different than themselves. She must have been no different. You shake your head, leaning closer to see what she had on her person in general. All you can see is a medium-sized blade at her hip, and a sawed-off shotgun on the other.

Fucking hell, they added SWORDS to this game? This was a first-person shooter!

After a few more seconds of contemplation, she turns on her heel and begins to walk back into the building. A thought pops up into your head, a potentially dangerous one.

You might be able to make that shot, if you were skilled enough.

>Take the shot at her head, despite the risk. (Roll needed: 18 or higher.)
>Begin to descend to the bridges, you need to MOVE.
>Other.

>>3435155
>Begin to descend to the bridges, you need to MOVE.
Best to MOVE

>>3435155
Knowing online games, sword wielders probably have some *teleprots behind u*-tier bullshit.

>>3435155
>Begin to descend to the bridges, you need to MOVE.
We have to get closer.
so would it be a d20 to take the shot?

>>3435179
Yessir.

Try to move and set up ambush

Rolled 4 (1d20)

>>3435155
>SHOOT THE BITCH

Quick question out of nowhere - anyone have any speculation as to what you may be hiding?

>>3435155
>>Begin to descend to the bridges, you need to MOVE.
She's got a sword and shotgun;
this is the worst-case scenario we need without something that takes advantage of corners and hallways. Somehow I'm think we'll have to take it anyway.
>>3435202
Nice one.

>>3435174
>>3435179
>>3435213
Time to disappear, you have a plan to forge! Writing now.

>>3435205
a few guesses:
Had a falling out with our team/friends, leaving a bad taste in our mouth wherever the game is concerned
Suffered a particularly humiliating defeat at some point (maybe at a world championship?), bonus points if it actually wasn't our fault.
Smear campaign against us/our team led to us being coerced into early retirement
Just stopped having fun with the game at some point down the line

>>3435205
I think we threw a game

You resist the urge to fire, instead waiting for her to fully walk into the building. When she moves out of sight, you rise and sprint towards the door, not pausing until you passed through the threshold and slammed the door behind you. You lean against it, running a hand down your face.

“She’s close ranged…she needs to get in close to hurt me. But I didn’t see her third weapon, the game always makes you log in with three…could she have discarded it? Could she be hiding it for a last-ditch effort?” You murmur to yourself, sweat rolling down your neck as you tried to work through the mental hoops on what to do next. Chances are she’s using your absence to move to another building, it was shown that she’s fast enough to do so. You hurry down the stairs as you continue to talk, skipping the seventh and sixth floors and going down to the fifth, where you knew the bridges were.

You pause at the door and raise your rifle.

“…well, here we go.” You mutter, steeling your resolve and opening the door as quietly as possible…nothing happens, thankfully. The only thing that greets you is a gentle breeze, and that’s what makes you pause. You hadn’t stepped out into the doorway yet, because just before you were going to do so…you reach into your pack and grab the porcelain coffee cup. Instead of throwing it like last time, however, you clip it onto your belt.

Call it a feeling, but something seemed fishy.

>Move into the room slowly and keep close to the ground.
>Throw porcelain coffee cup into room, just in case.
>Try to get in as fast as possible, immediately ducking into cover.
>Other.

>>3435253
>Throw porcelain coffee cup into room, just in case.

>>3435205
We pulled something heinously illegal to gain an unfair advantage in a championship without our team's knowledge, and it was discovered and revealed during the game.

>>3435223
I agree with everything but the last one, and also >>3435227 could be onto something.

>>3435253
>Move into the room slowly and keep close to the ground.
She shouldn't have gotten that far that quickly.

>>3435265
She was on that level, as she cut the particular bridge leading to your skyscraper. She could still be there, for all you know!

>>3435253
>Throw porcelain coffee cup into room, just in case.
She might not fall for it, and she may even have heard the first time we tried it, but it's better than going prone when our enemy has a frickin shotgun!

See... I thought she was going to be a sniper at first, all her actions thus far pointed to that, but something something book by the cover, and all that.

>>3435271
+1

You unclip the cup hesitantly, pressing yourself against the wall as much as you could. You hadn’t looked into the room yet, but you felt that something was wrong – instincts that you had forged five years ago were telling you that something was wrong. And as much as you wanted to put your past with this game behind, you knew to trust them.

With that thought in mind, you throw the porcelain cup past the door frame.

>I want someone to roll a 1d20. First come, first serve.

Rolled 11 (1d20)

>>3435293

>>3435298
My, my. Writing now.

You hear the cup clatter against the ground, the sound breaching the tense silence and causing you to sag in relief. You really had thought she had planned something – you were almost expecting her third weapon to be a sniper, and for her to pick you off as soon as something peeked around the corner. You let out a sigh in relief, and that’s when a certain noise hits your ears.

Mechanical whining followed by skittering against a hard floor.

“What the…” You listen closely, peeking into the room only slightly, enough that a bullet would be hard to hit you. The noise was definitely coming from that room, and as it was unknown to you, you decided to take a gamble.

The screaming of a mechanical object greeted you, so high-pitched that you had to flinch and draw back. When you opened your eyes to look at the source, your eyes widened, and you threw yourself back around the corner, receiving a swift reminder as to how much the game had changed.

BOOM

Fire floods your vision as you’re sent back against the far wall, head banging off of it as the sound of roaring flames fills your ears.

>Player: Nova
>Health: 80/100 (-15 HP)

It was a spider. A fucking spider, about the size of your hand and made out of metal. It had moved towards the cup and detonated, the throw tripping some sort of motion detection. The only thing you were thankful for was that it blew up the cup and not you, and unfortunately, it had left you with two brand new dilemmas.

1. This woman had explosives that had never existed in the original game. You didn’t know how many more she had, but the fact was that she had them in the first place – and it meant she could have other things. This was dangerous, and you were in unknown territory.

2. That fire was in the way of where you needed to go, the place being out of this fucking building. Even if the direct bridge to her building had been severed, you could likely make it to another if you moved fast enough. As far as you could tell, she hadn’t cut any of the cables to other bridges.

This…was a quandary indeed.

>Run through the fire and onto the bridges, trying to shield yourself as best you can. (-10 HP)
>Go to the floor above – it would take more time, but you could possibly find a way down to the bridges through the window.
>Other.

>>3435298
That would have been heat-seeking if you had rolled one lower.

>>3435360
>Use a health patch
>Run through the flames

>>3435360
Anything from a crit

Yell out to her and say "this is a little unfair all this futuristic crap"

>>3435380
Also this
>>3435370

>>3435380
If it were a crit...well, I can't tell you what would have happened.

>>3435370
>>3435380
Writing now!

“Motherfucker!”

You spit, standing from your position on the floor and glaring at the flames. You first slide off your backpack, taking out one of the milky white patches – you press it against yourself, and it disappears with a light tune. A moment later, you feel any fatigue from moments earlier fade – in fact you’d go to say that you felt like a brand-new guy.

>Player: Nova
>Health: 100/100 (+20 HP)

You winced, however, because you knew exactly what you were about to do. You also slide off your jacket, being sure to put your backpack on again right afterwards. You pick up your rifle and affix it to your chest, you check the weapons on your belt, and then you put the jacket over your face and arms, leaving area for you to actually see.

“Let’s fucking go!”

You tear forward into the inferno, and your body begins to sting heavily. Thankfully the system didn’t replicate actual serious pain, that’d be horrendous, but whenever you incurred an injury it did sting quite a bit. It was to let you that you had been hit in the first place, and boy howdy did it work. You fight through the sensation and make your way out into the bridges, making sure to not stumble off by accident and securing yourself against the cable railing. You remove the jacket, and seeing it’s condition, you throw it off into the street below.

You wouldn’t need it.

>Player: Nova
>Health: 90/100

Your vest still remained intact, along with the rest of your clothes. You shake off your disorientation and refuse to take in the swaying of the bridge, and you move to go to one of the bridges connecting to her building.

“Hm, you actually survived that.”

The voice cuts through the sound of wind and crackling in your ears, and you look up to see it’s source. As expected, 0phelia stands tall on the bridge quite a way in front of you, regarding you with something between surprise and a sneer.

“All this futuristic crap is a little unfair, don’t you think?” You call to her, removing your pistol and knife from their holsters.

“It isn’t my fault that you didn’t think to do your research.” She smirks at you, reaching down and drawing her sword from its sheathe. “And now we’re on even ground, don’t you think?”

“Where’s the rest of them?”

“In the surrounding buildings. My goal was to either kill you in there or draw you out here, and I believe I have succeeded.”

You go to speak again, but you hear a rumble of thunder. Upon looking up, you realize that at some point, the beautiful blue sky had become dark grey with ominous clouds. You had been so focused on trying to find a means to fight her that you hadn’t paid attention to your environment.

You were really out of practice.

“Shall we begin?"

You say nothing, only crouching into a ready position.

It was time for you to finally show her just how damn well you could fight.

I'm afraid I'm gonna have to call it here for the night, I have to get up early to go with my grandmother to chemotherapy. I hope you enjoyed this, and thank you all for contributing! Please leave your questions, comments, critiques, and concerns - I appreciate all of the feedback I can get! Have a great night.

>>3435451
good night OP

>>3435451
Geez. Well, I really hope everything goes well (both for you and your gram). As much as it counts for from a "1 post by this ID" Anon on an underground snail racing forum, I send my blessings.

Stay well, and hope to see you soon!

Well, that went about as well as it could have. I was half expecting her carrying a rocket launcher or c4 and just blowing up our building.
As it is we've burned through 30 hp and are currently sitting on 90, but can recover 40 more. We are at about medium distance? Meaning a good chance of hitting her with a couple shots before she can close in and make her use whatever patches or health packs she got in her bag.
Then what? If we get in a couple headshots she will be plenty vulnerable to a handgun follow-up, otherwise she will hold advantage with her very close range kit.
Currently cursing myself I've been IP hopping unfortunately for suggesting mounting the flashlight on the rifle instead of the handgun, as it could have blinded the enemy when whipped out, but we can still make use of it by not allowing her to look at us directly while at long range. Problem is reducing her accuracy is all we can do, unless we wanna take our chances and blind her close range: we have only one ranged option, one close range and a CQC; usable items are rope (that unless we want to secure ourselves or lay down a tripwire won't be very useful) and the MYSTERY BOX that is the syringe and I don't really want to try it out on ourselves but it will probably either be a revive or a drug, or an instant kill, or even a buff/regen, could be anything really.

Knowing her kit our best option would be camping her out, but that's kinda outta the question so sharpshooting it is.

On other matters, why did she want us to be on the bridge? Just a close quarters matter? Or does she want to show this to someone? It's a private lobby isn't it?

About what we did: something that caused us to go into hiding AND get most of what we had IG stripped away from us? Something illegal for sure, be it taking a deal from an opposing team or cheating. It could also be it wasn't us, and we were framed/badmouthed.

Thanks for running OP, it's been pretty good so far. Hope the situation on your end isn't that bad, I've been in that spot before.

>>3435447
I don't get it and don't like it. We are supposed to be veteran or something. And here we are she stand right in the open we got gun in our hands and we let her monolog. It doesn't really make sense.

>>3436047
We didn't even have voting options maybe the post isn't done all the way?

>>3436064
>>3435447
>“Hm, you actually survived that.”

After that line we should start shooting. The fact that we are talking is silly.

>>3436066
That's a fair opinion to have! Admittedly, I would have given you the option to do so had I not needed to sleep, but I needed to create some form of stopping point to pick up from later today.

File: shittymap.png (34 KB, 339x351)

34 KB PNG

All is silent except the crackling of flames, and despite her bold claim of beginning the fight, she makes no move towards you. Now that her monologuing is over, you figure that it’s time to step back a bit – analyze the situation and form a plan of attack. You were a bit ready to get into a fight just now, which you always should be when it came to this game, but allowing her to monologue? That was some anime bullshit right there, and you should know better.

Such bad form, honestly.

However, setting your professional skill level aside, you have quite a few options in front of you; some with more risks than others! Let’s focus on what you know.

To start with, you know two of her three weapons. She has a sawed-off shotgun and a medium-length blade, firmly cementing her as primarily close-range fighter. Judging by the fact that she outwardly claimed that she had more mines in the rest of the buildings – bad form on her part, unless it was a bluff – you could mark her as a demolitions type player overall, you were pretty confident about that.

Next, your location. Currently, you have two places you can run to. There’s a building directly behind you, and one to your left – you had no idea what lied within, but it would be better than fighting her in the open. From what you can recall, weapon drops were a thing that happened when you played previously, however you had just been made painfully aware how much things had changed. Despite that, you had one advantage over her – your assault rifle. The Vagabond was a burst fire weapon, and from here you were fairly confident that you could hit – it also helped that she would need to get closer to hit you with anything that wasn’t fucking explosions.

The sky rumbles with thunder. It’s time to choose.

>Take your shot, if you’re accurate enough you can end this right here.
>Flee into one of the buildings, despite her threats. You were pretty sure there had to be some sort of restriction on how many mines she had.
>Other.

[And with that I’ll be gone for 6 – 8 hours, sorry for my last post being subpar! In the shitty map you are green and she is red.]

>>3436156
>Take your shot, if you’re accurate enough you can end this right here.

>>3436156
>Flee into a building.
Go to the one on the middle left, it's closer and there might be something of use inside, providing there isn't another explosive hidden.

>>3435974
I was thinking explosives too, but the more conventional kind, not the fucking spiders everywhere kind. The sword thing threw me off, too!

Thinking about this, with all the patches and changes in the game, maybe some weapons have to be earned through victories or lootboxes; which might explain why we got generic FPS options. Hell, we didn't even get grenades in our kit! But this is not a complaint, I like a system that rewards gameplay.

>medium distance
Yeah, not sure why people are thinking she's going to be hard to hit, assault rifles shoot accurately at longer distances than people think, and since we have our actual fingers on the trigger instead of a controller, it would be easier to space our bullets one at a time instead of burst firing/spraying.
I feel like if she's able to close the distance gap, it'll be over for us, between the shotgun and the fuck-off sword she has. Hit and run might be our best chance, and hopefully she doesn't have bullshit anime speed!

>blinding tactic
I didn't think about that. That would have been a good fallback option for her getting close, as long as our QM/dice roll decided to go with that line of reasoning. I said this before, but I want to emphasize that we are most likely going to fucking die if she gets within blade's reach of us. Not only because of assumed damage values, but our MC has been portrayed as "skittish" and he hasn't played in half a decade, we may have some unseen malus working against us in close combat.

>syringe
God damn, I want to try it so bad, but that's a pitfall. Like you said, it could be anything, and I wouldn't doubt there would be such items that you could jab your enemy with to cause debuffs. If it were the 90's, I'd say there's no such thing as a bad pickup, but we shouldn't risk it knowing how evolved this game is.

>she's showing off
I agree with this theory. Probably live streaming or recording the match somehow, to show her superiors (if she has any, she could be the leader). She did say she was recruiting us, after all.

>>3436156
>Take your shot, if you’re accurate enough you can end this right here.
SHOOT HER, SHOOOOOOT HEEER!

Old memes aside, we have nothing to lose from taking the shot, except a few bullets. On the off-chance she picked up a throwing weapon along the way, she might counterattack, or hell, shotguns may actually be realistic in this game, but I think we're in a position to be able to eat a little damage.

>>3436256
>>3436265
Never mind what I said, I support this.

>>3436156
>>3436265
Yeah, we are sitting on 90 HPs and even our knife does only 70 on a head hit. We're not in immediate danger.
Unless she got some armor that raises her total hp we should be able to inflict serious damage.

My vote is
>take your shot
too
We got the accuracy advantage, but even if she starts to close in or shoots back we can just strafe and/or retreat.
In that case it'd be better to hide back in our starting building, as her trap was already triggered and we don't risk blowing ourselves up again.

Thing is there's many things we need to account for and adapt to on the fly, because of lack of information ooc and ic, but it's pretty fun to devise tactics to minimize danger while keeping the offensive.

Hello, I'm back and ready to resume!

>>3436176
>>3436265
>>3436382
>>3436514
A lot of really interesting ideas, I'm enjoying seeing how you work through these issues! Writing now.

>>3435974
>>3436256
Good call on the flashlight, that line of thought will be used.

As if it was a starting pistol in a race, the crack of thunder roars overhead, and 0phelia is moving forward. As she runs, she also removes her shotgun from its holster – it’s a scary sight, but you feel your resolve strengthen as you holster your pistol and knife just as fast, choosing to raise the rifle instead.

With a concise movement, you reach forward and tap the ON button for your flashlight, hopefully obscuring her view as you pull the trigger.

The sound of gunfire tears through the air as three bullets fly forward, the girl squinting her eyes as she quickly darts from side to side. Unfortunately for her, and fortunately for you, you hear a meaty crunch as one of them makes contact with her right arm. Immediately after you confirm that you hit, you turn on your heel and fucking book it to the left building, running as fast as your virtual legs can carry you. You hear the crack of a shotgun behind you, but by some miracle none of the spread makes contact – you were outside of accurate range, thank god. You knew that you could survive at least one shotgun blast from close range, however if she got near you with the sword, it would be all over.

“Not so fast!” You hear her voice rise beyond it’s usual tone, and you turn your head in time to see her running parallel with you on the inner ring of the bridge. She unclips something from her belt and aims it just in front of you, at the bridge’s railing. A moment later, you see a black rope spring forward and latch on to the thick cable, and it begins to pull 0phelia towards you as well.

She has a GRAPPLING HOOK? What had happened to this game while you were away, for fucks sake?

She’s approaching at a very fast rate, enough so that you wouldn’t trust firing due to the time it would take, and so due to that you settle for the most bullshit thing you had done in five years.

You spring forward as she reaches the rail, turning in midair just in time to send your boot into the side of her head.

Catching your footing, you continue your dead sprint to the building, the only sound following being the clattering of her body against the metal grates that made up the bridge.

You hate to admit it, but you’re grinning. It felt good to give as good as you got.

>Run inside and ascend to a higher floor, turning around now could allow her to close the distance.
>Turn around and risk another few shots, you could end this if you acted fast.
>Other.

[You finally got some offense in, look at you go!]

>>3437111
>Run inside and ascend to a higher floor, turning around now could allow her to close the distance.

>>3437111
>Run inside and ascend to a higher floor.

She'll kill us if we pause.

>>3437187
>>3437225
Writing now!

You weren’t feeling that risky, not after everything it took just to score some damage on her. You barrel into the building, locating the door to the stairwell and opening it, slamming it behind you without looking back. You whip around and raise your rifle, aiming it to where you believe her head would be if she decided to follow.

All is quiet, other than thunder and rain pattering against the walls. No footfalls, no mechanical skittering, nothing. You don’t allow yourself a sigh of relief, instead aiming towards the stairwell and ascending with focused eyes. She could have used her grappling hook to ascend to the floor above you for all you knew, you didn’t have an idea as to how long the range was, nor how many uses it had.

You did have an idea as to her general equipment, though – she has her hook, her spiders, and her weapons. You didn’t know the third weapon, nor what else she had obtained from her starting bag or the general environment – there were many unknown factors, but what little you did know worked to your advantage. There was a time limit, and she would have to get close or use her spiders to finish you – something tells you she won’t be taking a draw for an answer, either.

You reach the door to the sixth floor, bracing yourself outside of the wall just like you had before. This time, there were no questions about it, you’re going to check every room that you go into now. If memory served you correctly, which at this point it probably didn’t, direct explosions did about -80 HP. You’re certain that the only reason you got off as good as you did was because it was the force of the explosion, not the blast itself.

You lean forwards and press your ear against the door, and upon hearing nothing, you obscure yourself from view and gently open the door. Looking around, you’re able to find a stray pencil, and you toss it in.

Nothing is heard, and you know you can enter without trouble. When you step around the door frame and into the room, however, you find yourself tripping over something. You catch yourself just fine, and you turn to see what tripped you…

>[Along with any choice you vote for, roll me a 1d100, please! When I tally the results, I’ll randomly pick the roll between whoever voted.]

>Get up and grab what you tripped over, continuing to search the room for anything of value.
>Grab what you tripped over and go to the window, taking cover as you search for your opponent.
>Other.

Rolled 31 (1d100)

>>3437289
>Get up and grab what you tripped over, continuing to search the room for anything of value.

Rolled 33 (1d100)

>>3437289
>Grab what you tripped over and go to the window, taking cover as you search for your opponent.

Rolled 95 (1d100)

>>3437289
>>Grab what you tripped over and go to the window, taking cover as you search for your opponent.

Rolled 77 (1d100)

>>3437289
Are the windows broken in this building? Go to the edge of the window and repel down and just hang there until she comes in then ambush her

Rolled 74 (1d100)

>>3437289
>Grab what you tripped over and go to the window, taking cover as you search for your opponent.

>>3437319
That roll.

Rolled 2 (1d3)

>>3437316
>>3437319
>>3437325
Let's see who's roll goes through!

>>3437320
The windows aren't broken in this one, only in the building you started inside!

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>>3437375
EZ

>>3437383
Oh boy.

>>3437396
Is that a good "Oh boy", or a bad "Oh boy"?

>>3437429
You just enabled some cool shit to happen at a point in time. I have no qualms in telling you that you just got something damn good.

You stand up and check what you tripped over, and to your surprise, it’s a sleek black case. Something that a business man would carry on his way to work, and seemingly untouched. You reach out and grasp it, lifting it up and moving over to a table in order to open it. Upon undoing the clasps, you open it to find the interior lined with black foam. In the middle sits a simple black cube, devoid of any abrasions or deformities. You pause, reaching out to run your hand across the top; when you do so, dark red lines appear on it in an indescribable pattern. You retract your hand, and as you do, the cube disappears.

…what the hell?

>??? acquired.

You shake your head and hope that it hadn’t done something that would fuck you over, crouching down and moving to the window as fast as you could. Thankfully, there’s a desk pressed right against the glass, so you try and obscure yourself from view whilst checking the bridge below.

It was empty. The blow hadn’t stalled her for long, it would seem.

Your eyes roam across the battlefield once more, trying to search for any sign of the girl – you find none, and you rack your brain on what to do next. You could go down and try to make your way to another building, although if it happened to be the one she was hidden in, you’d have a tough battle ahead. You could work this place over for more supplies, and even if it would allow her to set up some more traps, it could potentially give you a better means to fight them.

”Contestants, I am notifying you that half an hour has passed.”

The voice makes you frown, had it been that long already?

What do you do?

>Search the building for supplies, you need any advantage you can find.
>Go back down to the bridges and try to draw her out.
>Descend and find another building to move to, hopefully not containing either her or spiders.
>Other.

>>3437493
>Search the building for supplies.
We need to find something long range, if we do we can take her out without her getting close at all.

Also that cube is ominous.

>>3437493
We need to be rather cautious, but we can take our chances with this building I guess.
Just need to be careful with the spiders.
>search the building
Now that we're back inside we can arrange some simple traps with the rope, mostly tripwires. Snares are simple enough and effective, but we would need something springy.
The other just requires the rope to be tense, most effective right behind doors or corners.

>>3437585
>>3437617
Time to stay vigilant and get loot. Writing now!

With another sweep across the outside, you stand up and begin to search the rest of the floors as cautiously as you can.

This involves you walking half crouched for who knows how long, moving as silently as possible while trying to remain fast and thorough. You finish up looking on this floor very quickly, moving to the one above and following suit until the ninth floor. Each time you check out the window, and each time you see no evidence of her presence, even when checking with binoculars.

You have to give her a little credit, she’s very good at remaining unseen.

Your search ends on the ninth floor, as you aren’t willing to go onto the roof. For one it would leave you wide open, doubly so as you didn’t know how the range of her grappling hook was nor if she had found a long-range weapon. After doing a precautionary check, you finally begin to go through your inventory, reaffirming what you had going on.

>Player: Nova
>Health: 90/100
>Battery: 95%, OFF.

>Inventory:
>A moderate length of rope.
>Two health patches, each healing +20 HP a piece.
>Flashlight – currently equipped to your rifle.
>Binoculars.
>About two handfuls of caltrops, a small spool of wire, and an unidentified spherical object. (Found on Floor 6.)
>A strange rusty hook. (Found on Floor 7.)
>Three vials of a green, bubbling acid. (Found on Floor 8.)
>A set of throwing knives. (Found on Floor 8.)

Your only other discovery had been what seemed to be an ammunition stash on the floor you’re currently on, seemingly able to dispense any bullets needed. You have no idea if there’s a limit on how much it can put out overall, but it’ll be useful while it lasts.

Overall, you hadn’t found much to help you offensively other than the vials of acid. Defensively, however, was a different story.

It all depended on how you want to play it, honestly. You had once prided yourself on your adaptability, after all!

>Play offensively – go down to the bridges and seek her out yourself.
>Play defensively – set up traps and wait for her to come to you.
>Play brashly – brazenly taunt her from the rooftop, because that will certainly help your circumstances.
>Other.

>>3437711
I forgot to also add the knives to what can help you offensively. Bad form on my part, truly.

>>3437711
>Play defensively – set up traps and wait for her to come to you.

>>3437711
>>Play offensively – go down to the bridges and seek her out yourself.

>>3437711
>wire
>CALTROPS
Very nice, setting up extremely damaging tripping traps would now be way easier and way sneakier. Or we could just try to choke her lol.

>hook
Not sure about this, but could be used as the trigger for the snare together with rope and, again, something springy.
Could also work for a pulley trap I guess, but I am not sure how we are going to fix that to the ceiling.
Or we could make a grappling hook for ourselves, without the fancy self-respooling engine.

>Throwing knives
Pretty nifty, good as distraction and for damage. Probably can be used in a trap with the wire but no ideas.

>acid
Can work as makeshift grenades or set in traps in order to fall on the victim. Great find.

I'd say
>play defensively
Unless she can bring down the building or pick us off with a sniper rifle we hold the advantage here.
Taunting her could work, ironically, to bring her to our position but we need quality bantz to make her pissed enough.

>Pays a team of hackers
>successfully deletes data in server
>deletes game too to everybody
>world goes into chaos
>invesgators scratch there heads to who did it
>used a VPN the whole time

>>3437716
+1
Most of the doors that we leave behind us should be propped open a little bit and then if we can balance something on top so when she opens it all the way it'll make a sound kinda lile this

https://youtu.be/M3ttcnCzrp4?t=14m21s

I hope that link works

At a drive-thru right now so I'll continue when I'm back home.

>>3437749
Are you implying that a defensive taunt combo is in order?

>>3437772
Sometimes it really do be like that.

>deletes recovery file
>uh-oh whoopsie doopsie loopsie
>another game like that would take years to develop without source code

>>3437778
Defensive taunting sounds great.

"How can you expect to lead a team when you can't even beat an old washed-up pro like me?"

"You know, I was expecting a little more out of you with the whole mysterious stranger shtick but I guess looks can be deceiving."

"Were you ever planning on using that sword of yours or is it as much for show as your guns are?"

"As talented as I am, even I'm not gonna be able to carry your team if this is the kind of ineptitude that I'll be working with."

>>3437819
you do realise the whole game is gone, and you're asleep with a VR headset on...

>>3437711
>Play defensively, also taunt like one anon suggested.
Just keep hurling stuff at her until she gets fed up and comes after you. Hopefully she'll be blind to the traps, because in close quarters without an advantage, we're fucked.

>>3437711
>Move to another building to search for more supplies

You close your eyes, leaning against the wall with crossed arms and pursed lips. You briefly entertain the thought of going down to fight her on even territory, however a moment later you conclude that you’d most likely lose. She had more knowledge of the game than you at this point in time, coupled with the fact that she seemed quite skilled. Chances were without the odds stacked in your favor, she would win without contest and you’d be forced to join her sham of a team.

That meant you needed to end this fight in this building. Although you didn’t have many materials, you could try and rig a few traps throughout the rooms and halls. You didn’t have to worry about how you’d get her inside, you had a damn good feeling that she wouldn’t be content to let a draw happen. As if spurred on by your thoughts, a voice rings out throughout the arena.

”Fifteen minutes remaining.”

You run your hands through your hair, staring holes into the floor. Today had been one hell of a day, that’s for sure. First the mother, then your landlord, and now you were back playing this game due to your persistent opponent. It was really troublesome, especially because no matter how the outcome of this match happens, you still need to go meet with Alexis.

Whatever, real life didn’t matter right now. You have a match to win, so you stand up and get to work. It’s quite a process, flitting throughout the halls and setting up your half-baked traps. Hell, with no time to properly test anything, you’re hardly sure if the damned things will work – and unfortunately, your main plan of attack relied on a trigger.

Here’s what you managed to come up with;

>Floor 7
Quite frankly, this was the one that took the least amount of effort to set up – you had found any breakable and sharp object that you could locate, and in turn put them all up and down the stairwell. This mixture of ceramic and staples was the distraction for the real danger above – the segments of rope you had cut would trip her if she wasn’t careful, sending her into the caltrops you had placed within the shadows. While it was the easiest to set up, it was also the one most likely to be noticed.

>Floor 8
Using the rest of the rope, the hook, and most of the twine had allowed you to make a very rudimentary pulley system that spanned the entire room. The trigger was a multitude of wires in the middle of the actual room – above it hung a vial of acid, suspended from a light fixture using some rope and the hook. All of this hinged on the acid vial falling, because when that occurred, the other special surprise you had prepared would spring upon her.

You had neglected to trap Floor 9, mainly due to lack of materials and time. The majority of the set up had gone into the complex acid trap, which admittedly, was your final gambit. If that failed, you’d be forced to fight her at her own whim – with how late it was, she’d be going in for the kill.

All that was left to do was lay out the bait – yourself.

>>3438183
>Go up to the roof and begin taunting.
>Break out a few windows on Floor 6 – you’d make her follow you up the stairs.
>Do some last-minute preparations. [This is the suggestion option – purely because I’m sure I missed something in my very tired state.]

Speaking of that, I’m going to go take a nap. I’ve been awake since six in the morning and can hardly keep my eyes open, so this is where I’m calling it for the moment. Apologies for not really getting a lot of writing done today, I’ll be sure to put out more either later tonight or tomorrow! As always leave questions, feedback, comments, criticisms, and concerns – I am marking down any comments that are made so I can improve upon the story, and I apologize if this post is sub-par due to my tiredness. Have a great night!

>>3438187
>Go up to the roof and begin taunting.

Goodnight OP.

>>3438187
>>Go up to the roof and begin taunting.

>>3438187
>Break out a few windows on Floor 6 – you’d make her follow you up the stairs.
Take some potshots at her if she's within sight. Taunting her only makes our plan that much more obvious, after all our previous seriousness.

>>3438494
Yep, we have to pretend we got nothing to go on to lure her into a false sense of security.

>>3438498
you didnt actually vote, you know

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>>3438804
>concurring with a vote isn't voting
Okay.
>Break out a few windows on Floor 6 – you’d make her follow you up the stairs.

Hey is the game they're playing called gun x glory? We never got confirmation on that.

>>3439023
the name of the game is in like, the third post

>>3438811
No, no it isn't. Generally you try to make the process of counting votes as easy as possible. This includes copying the vote properly, using greentext when appropriate, and linking the relevant storypost for your vote.

>>3439040
Now I feel silly

>>3438187
>Break out a few windows on Floor 6 - you'd make her follow you up the stairs.

Gotta agree with >>3438494 we've been pretty serious up until this point, and at least there will be cover if her unknown weapon is long range.

>>3438494
>>3438811
>>3439106
Good morning, and my god, I don't think I've had that good of a sleep in years. Writing now.

You briefly entertain the idea of marching up to the rooftop and screaming vague obscenities and insults at your opponent, but you realize that this would be in bad form and stop thinking about it.

You were a professional once, and you have STANDARDS.

Instead of leaving yourself exposed to the elements, you move downstairs whilst being careful to avoid your caltrops and tripwire, and you enter the sixth-floor office once more. Disregarding caution for the moment, as you’re actually trying to get her to see you, you walk up to the window and sit on a nearby desk. Withdrawing your binoculars from your belt, you raise them up and try and scan the neighboring buildings for any signs of the girl. As you were quickly becoming used to, you saw no sign of her, so you sigh and raise your rifle instead.

Technically, this was a waste of bullets, but you had hardly fired shit and you have an ammo cache above you, so you don’t give a shit.

You sweep your gun from left to right, firing burst after burst of rounds and shattering every single window. As you do, the heavy wind rushes into the room, blowing your hair back even further as rain begins to pelt your body. You can only pray that a stray bullet would somehow hit her, but you aren’t holding your breath on that one. Even so, you finish your task and reload your weapon, having spent a whole clip for the name of bait and vandalism.

It’s when you turn and back away from the window that you hear it – the sound of a metallic crunch.

Upon looking over your shoulder, you see a black cable sticking into the desk you had just been sitting on, the metal claw having embedded itself deeply within the wood. You turn on your heel and make to flee towards the door, and you hear the sound of something hitting the ground behind you, and the cock of a shotgun.

It seems you hadn’t been wrong in her closing in quickly, but what do you do?

>Run into the hallway and ascend to the eighth floor, hoping she falls onto the caltrops.
>Turn around and fire at her with your rifle, with 90 health you could afford to take the hit. [If you vote for this, roll a 1d20. Roll to beat: 14.]
>Other.

>>3439396
>>Turn around and fire at her with your rifle, with 90 health you could afford to take the hit. [If you vote for this, roll a 1d20. Roll to beat: 14.]
eh, wear her down

Rolled 3 (1d20)

>>3439396
>Turn around and fire at her with your rifle, with 90 health you could afford to take the hit. [If you vote for this, roll a 1d20. Roll to beat: 14.]
Haven't got to shoot anything yet

Rolled 12 (1d20)

>>3439415

Rolled 1 (1d20)

>>3439396
>Turn around and fire at her with your rifle, with 90 health you could afford to take the hit. [If you vote for this, roll a 1d20. Roll to beat: 14.]
A word of advice, of you have people roll for a choice, it might be better (or worse, I suppose, from the player's point of view) to save the call for a dice roll until after the choice in question is locked in, otherwise you might have people changing their votes if they see that a particular action has only bad rolls

Rolled 16 (1d20)

>>3439396
>Turn around and fire at her with your rifle, with 90 health you could afford to take the hit. [If you vote for this, roll a 1d20. Roll to beat: 14.]

Rolled 11 (1d20)

>>3439425
>he says as he rolls a 1
I was going to choose the first option as that is the most LOGICAL but now I can't because I'll look like one of those people. Thanks.
>>3439396
>Turn around and fire at her with your rifle, with 90 health you could afford to take the hit. [If you vote for this, roll a 1d20. Roll to beat: 14.]

>>3439425
Like you, for instance?

>>3439425
That's a very good point, thank you for the advice!

Why was everybody choosing to turn around when she already cocked her shotgun again? We have our back turned to her.

Rolled 4 (1d5)

>>3439415
>>3439417
>>3439425
>>3439426
>>3439434
Alright, let's see who's roll goes through. Writing now.

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>>3439459

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>>3439459

You whip around and raise your rifle, pulling the trigger just in time to see her crouched form fire her shotgun. It feels like time slows as the bullets fly, you throwing your form to the right just as she throws hers to the left. You grit your teeth as you prepare to feel the sting of the bullets, hoping that you had somehow managed to dodge the spray.

You feel something hit you in the chest, but no stinging. You look down just in time to see the armor left over from five years ago disappear into blue shards. It was a fucking miracle.

She, on the other hand, didn’t move fast enough to dodge the bullet that pierced her cheek.

A strangled yelp comes from her as she’s unable to catch herself, hitting the floor hard. You manage to catch yourself just fine, and you come to realize that you now have a modicum of opportunity to finish this. You raise your rifle once more, but then she does something that takes you entirely off-guard.

She throws herself out of the fucking window.

You hear her crash against the metal of the bridge, and then footfalls preceded by a muffled curse.

What do you do?

>Go to the window and see if you can fire at her from your vantage point – she still needed to reload her gun, and you didn’t want to risk her sword coming into play.
>Hurry down to the fifth floor – if you keep your pursuit, she’ll have nowhere to fall back to.
>Go through the window yourself to take the fastest route to her – you have her on the defense, you could end this right now!

>>3439493
I can't believe you've done this.

>>3439459
>The only successful roll
Aww yiss
Her aiming is shit, no wonder she went into CQ demo :^)

>>3439512
>Go to the window and see if you can fire at her from your vantage point – she still needed to reload her gun, and you didn’t want to risk her sword coming into play.
Like hell are we getting that close.

>>3439512
>Go to the window and see if you can fire at her from your vantage point – she still needed to reload her gun, and you didn’t want to risk her sword coming into play.

>>3439512
>window shooting
I wonder if it's gonna end up in a draw or if hp will be counted, should time run out.

>>3439512
>>Go to the window and see if you can fire at her from your vantage point – she still needed to reload her gun, and you didn’t want to risk her sword coming into play.

When you're good, you're good.

You don’t hesitate, rushing towards the window and scanning for her – for once, you’re able to spot her immediately. She’s running down the bridge, having almost made it to the inner circle – you raise your rifle and fire off some potshots at her, but all of them hit the metal grate. You curse to yourself, getting her into your sights to try again, when she suddenly turns on her heel and extracts something from her belt. Before you can take advantage of her pause, she fucking throws a dark object right towards your position.

Something that glints when a lightning strike occurs, the crack of thunder doing little to mask it’s extremely loud screeching.

For the love of god, ANOTHER ONE?

>Run back into the stairwell – you need all the health you can afford, and you need to develop another plan of attack.
>Try and shoot the thing in midair – it would prevent the explosion from reaching you, although it would obscure your view of her for a few seconds.
>Use the one throwing knife you have left to try and deflect it back at her – an extremely risky thing to attempt, but you had seen an old team member pull it off with a grenade and their own combat knife.

>>3439595
>Use the one throwing knife you have left to try and deflect it back at her – an extremely risky thing to attempt, but you had seen an old team member pull it off with a grenade and their own combat knife.
no u

>>3439595
>Use the one throwing knife you have left to try and deflect it back at her – an extremely risky thing to attempt, but you had seen an old team member pull it off with a grenade and their own combat knife.

>>3439595
>throwing knife
I know it's the meme option, but I want to pick it so bad.

Does that ball look like the one we picked before?
We could throw her our own for double no u points

>>3439595
>>Use the one throwing knife you have left to try and deflect it back at her – an extremely risky thing to attempt, but you had seen an old team member pull it off with a grenade and their own combat knife.
We aren't a pro for nothing.

>inb4 this turns into the Phantom Ganon fight

>>3439616
>>3439617
>>3439627
You guys picked the option that I didn't think would be picked. I can't believe this.

However, there is a roll associated with this one, and it's quite high due to trying to reflect a fucking grenade with a throwing knife. What were you thinking picking that option. I love all of you.

Everyone roll me a 1d20, and add a +5 to it due to reasons. I'm not sure if the option lets you add a +5 since I'm new here, but if it doesn't, I'll add it to the roll myself.

>>3439621
Roll as well since you really wanted to pick it. Also, the ball doesn't look like the one you have in your pack, but that's a good idea that I'll bring up at some point in the future.