(Virtual Room in NERV HQ)
Morgan looked over to Isaac, frowning. “Can we really use
copies of the TV shows in the game?”
Isaac nodded. “Cleared it with legal. As long as they are
‘historical archives’ that require work to obtain, and we pay a corporate-level
subscription to a streaming service carrying the titles, then we’re golden. Our
corporate Amazon Prime account was enough for the old stuff. That new one,
though, is only on the network’s proprietary stream, so no joy on that.”
“Fine. I never watched that one, anyway. No way I’m buying a
streaming service for one show. So, how’s the fallout from his adventures messing
with the Senate?”
Isaac shrugged. “Tough to say right now. Black Star will
likely be in as good a position or better. Probably better, since he’s building
new ships, actively recruiting, and even has new designs coming down the pipe.
They’re going to start work on an actual battleship! First player-owned
battleship in the game. It’ll be nasty as all hell.”
Morgan frowned at that. “But so far he’s done fine with the
ships he’s had. What’s changed?”
“Apparently, he didn’t like getting smacked around by the
X’thari. And he’s got a whole address book of addresses that can be checked
out, but the X’thari are probably on the other side of at least a couple. So he
wants to have more ‘boom’ before doing serious exploring.”
“All right, that’s fine. But with him being the first mercenary
company to have battleships, and even be able to throw down at the same level
as actual militaries in a fleet action, that’s going to cause some people to
start complaining more and more.”
Isaac shrugged. “Tell them to get off their butts and build
themselves a battleship, then. Nobody handed our boy his toys. He went out and
took them, or made them himself. “
“Oh, and I’ve gotten another set of complaints from one of
the players that has crossed his path before. You know a player that goes by
‘Lord Kickass’?”
Leaning forward in his seat, Isaac smiled. “Really? Oh, this
should be good. What did the idiot do?” At Morgan’s questioning look, Isaac
shrugged. “The guy was a complete moron. Remember, he’s the one that Mollen
framed for the Major’s murder way back when? And since then they’ve run into
eachother once, and Kickass got sent down some rough roads because he kept
making bad choices, until he finally reset his character. So, what happened?”
“Apparently, his notion of a good idea was to get work as
soon as he had reset, and then enslave the people he worked for, spacing the
men and keeping the women as sex slaves. When he saw that Mollen was on the
same planet as he was, he freaked, and tried to attack him. Mollen’s people
took him down, and then kept him drugged until he woke up in an escape pod
already entering the Amazon planet’s atmosphere. He’s trapped on the Amazon
world, same as all the others, and he’s trying to say Mollen cheated.”
“Well, I guess idiots are the same all over. Did Mollen
actually cheat?”
Morgan shook her head. “No. He simply didn’t fight fair.
Instead of a freighter to freighter smuggler battle like Kickass wanted, he had
Shadowdancer watching in stealth for
anyone to be stupid, and they took down his ship without blinking.”
Isaac nodded sagely. “Proper planning is not cheating. Sucks
for Kickass, but the idiot should have known better. Anyways, tell him that he
will be eligible for a reset in three months, real world time. Until then,
there are Amazon women available for snu snu.”
Morgan snorted. “Ok, maybe I won’t say that last bit, but
yeah, his complaint is getting denied. So anyways, on to better things. What is
the situation with the dungeons?”
Isaac leaned back in his chair, and propped his feet up on
the table. “People couldn’t be happier. There has been too many people with
traditional MMO expectations and nothing to vent them on until now. The Ihm
dungeon is already popular enough that the outpost is growing into more of a
small town. Which is hilarious since it is on top of a mountain, and Ihm are
generally cold-blooded.”
“And other than that one?”
“A second dungeon has been discovered in the Ihm Imperium,
three in the Empire, two in the Free Worlds Alliance, and two in the
Confederacy. That’s for inhabited systems. There’s 2-6 dungeons per polity that
haven’t been discovered, either because they’re in interstellar space, or in
uninhabited systems. We’re also seeing divergence from the Deus and human
clones routine in the newer dungeons, which are being blamed on ‘corruption’ in
the code caused by whatever reason, allowing there to be different enemy types
in some dungeons.”
“That’s great! I can make sure that people know that there
are dungeons which are variants, which will get people out there, exploring
more, and bringing in new stuff.”
“Yes, I can’t wait until someone goes and finds the Chimera
homeworld. That will be an eye opener, and make no mistake!”
“Chimera homeworld? They’re all artificially created! How
can they have a homeworld?”
“Well, it seems that after the last war were chimeras were
used (and were declared to be off limits by pretty much everyone) some managed
to escape quarantines and containment zones, and they banded together in order
to survive, moving out away from established colonies so that they could live
without being hunted. The more unstable ones all got themselves killed, while
the smart ones stayed hidden on their homeworld.”
“But they can’t breed! Wouldn’t they have all died off by
now?”
“Well… it turns out that Chimeras with functioning anatomy
are capable of breeding, but the rate is something like two percent of normal
human fertility rates when breeding with other chimeras. When doing
cross-species pairings, that jumps to 30% of normal human rates. They’re the
only species in the galaxy that has more trouble procreating with their own
species than with an alien species.”
“Oh my. I can only imagine the problems if they get
discovered. When do you think that will happen?”
“Considering that there’s a dungeon on their planet’s moon?
Probably sooner than we’d expect.”
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Be sure to read my published works!
Frozen Soul series (Sci-Fi Supervillain story):
Frozen Soul https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071R125QT
Tales of the Void Traveler https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZZ52G37
Rules-Free VRMMO Life (Dark Fantasy GameLit):
Volume 1 - Tutorial
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VPRNDB
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rules-free-vrmmo-life-stuart-grosse/1128941349?ean=2940161995297
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0774T354X
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rules-free-vrmmo-life-omnibus-i-stuart-grosse/1128953195?ean=2940162052081
Book I - Game Start https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071LT5WGL
Omnibus I - Books 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077X2KR7Y
City of Champions Online (Superhero GameLit):
Issue I - Origin Stories https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075SHXQS1
Lewd Dungeon (Dungeon Core GameLit):
Book 1 - Welcome to the Apocalypse https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BB34DHF
Omnibus 1 - Books 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FBPF6HR
The Kalipshae Affair (A First Contact Short Story): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0739V6R6T
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