Chapter 408: 108: Recruitment Announcement

Chapter 108: Recruitment Announcement

Psy-Ops sat in his hideout, waiting for his friends to arrive. Both Yuppie and Fursation were meeting him so they all could travel to Haven City to find Menagerie. Psy-ops leaned back in his chair and tossed a stress ball into the air. It was one of those things left inside the hideout when he found it, and the player enjoyed having something mundane to occupy his time.

The ball bounced against the wall and returned to the player's hand as he thought. Dr. Zlo's emergence in Mutatholis had kicked off a chain reaction of events no one expected. After the sporting event, the players discovered that the janitor inside the mutant school had been replaced with one of Dr. Zlo's minions, kept hidden from the other NPCs by using another villain's powers. Psy-Ops didn't even know it was possible to dive that deep into dialogue with the characters. Sure, he expected the NPCs to act reasonably advanced, but he didn't expect they would work to keep the janitor hidden after Dr. Zlo stole him.

It had opened up some options for Psy-Ops. Initially, he'd done most of his hero work with other players, ignoring the various NPCs and treating them as quest givers. He berated his past self a bit. Vert had even said that the NPCs would run with the use of neural networks. But like most of the others, Psy-Ops went into the world treating it like other MMO games. NPCs were there to give quests and didn't have much else unless you wanted to learn the game's lore.

But after Dr. Zlo appeared, Psy-Ops could see the benefit of fully interacting with the NPC characters. Sure, not all of them were advanced enough to hold a conversation. Pretty much every shopkeeper had limited dialogue unless they were a secret contact, and even those had fewer options than the quest NPCs.

It seemed the whole system worked in tiers. Leaders and primary quest givers had the most advanced dialogue. They could react to practically anything while the minor heroes and villains in the cities had a decent enough AI to hold conversations. Those NPCs could still respond to the unexpected, and sometimes they'd work together with the players if given the right dialogue. But more often than not, those heroes and villains held a specific quirk that prevented flexibility. Finally, there were the special contacts and the general populace. The special contacts could hold a conversation and were advanced enough to answer any question, but none would react to anything except their specific field of interest. The general populace was the same, and the only major reactions from them came from heroes and villains fighting.

It had made things a lot more interesting in Mutatholis. With his bias broken, Psy-Ops had gone to the Attorney's office in his secret identity and tried to start up a conversation. At first, he only got as far as aides and attendants, but then Psy-Ops decided to try another route. He waited until closing one night and entered the Attorney's office before she could go home. He'd startled her, but Psy-Ops calmed down the NPC and started talking about his fight against the chief of police.

Amazingly enough, the Attorney remembered the evidence that Psy-Ops had given last month. She said it was a good enough amount to indict the chief, but somehow the court system had been stacked against her. The judges dismissed most of the evidence, and all that they could pin on the chief were a few small infractions that resulted in fines. At least the fines were hefty, but it seemed someone was backing the chief.

With the new information, Psy-Ops and his friends started searching. Any evidence they found they brought to the Attorney. In turn, the NPC helped create a list of corrupt officials in Mutatholis. With the list, Psy-Ops, Yuppie, and Fursation all started their vigilante war on crime. Evidence of corruption was brought to light, and the three friends uncovered a hidden group of villains controlling the city from the shadows. It was the most fun Psy-Ops had had in a while, all thanks to a crazy villain.

Which was why when Dr. Zlo announced the start of something on Menagerie's channel, the three friends immediately decided they wanted in on the action.

Isaac sat in his chair at home, reading through the forums on World of Supers. His shift wasn't coming up until nighttime, so the IT professional was killing time. Today was one of the few days he'd gotten bored of everything else he had. His consoles didn't have anything new he wanted to play, his Viewtube subscriptions hadn't released anything new to watch, and the man had already clicked on Spreddit and closed the tab more times than he could count.

So Isaac found himself wandering over to the official forums for World of Supers. He didn't have anything particular in mind when scrolling, but sometimes it was fun to find threads with ridiculous complaints.

Reality warping needs a buff.

Isaac shook his head at the title but clicked on it to satisfy his morbid curiosity.

The current version of reality warping needs a buff. Right now the power is only good for crafting. But that's not what reality warping is. When I think of the power, I imagine characters that can change the world with their thoughts. Right now, Vert has reality warping as some advanced version of Photocrop.

Isaac rolled his eyes. Of course the power would only be good for crafting. This person obviously didn't know how many restrictions VR had. It wasn't like anyone had the programming capability to link an interface with someone's thoughts. And not to mention the insane amount of privacy violations that could ensue.

There was a reason why every power worked by interpreting hand signs or eye movements. Leave it to angry teenagers to complain about their power fantasy not being strong enough. Reality warping was plenty powerful. The number of insane traps someone could make that outright eliminated anything in the area was mind-boggling. The trade-off to that power was the complexity of it all. It was standard game design, and Isaac knew that the power would probably get nerfed once someone figured out how to exploit the ability.

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"Hey! How's everyone doing!" Mark said as he walked in. "What's on the menu today?"

"Hey Mark, Brad brought coffee, and Lisa snagged donuts from the marketing party," Isaac said.

"Right on."

Mark grabbed two donuts and poured a cup of coffee.

"So Mark, you hear about the gender swap guns?" Isaac asked.

"Oh yeah! Simple fix, but we had to dig through a ton of code, right Brad?"

"How'd you fix it?" Lisette asked.

"Oh, made it so the change holds a time limit. Only a few hours. Players could log out and come back later to find they're right as rain."

The phone ringing brought Isaac out of his memory. He looked at the number on the desk. Brad was calling, which didn't happen unless something was going down.

"What's up, Brad?" Isaac asked as he picked up the phone.

"Are you able to come in a few hours early? Ron hired some new techs today, but he forgot to send me a memo."

"Again?" Isaac questioned.

"Hey, you know how swamped he's been. These new hires were going to reduce the workload."

Isaac looked at the clock, "Yeah, if I leave now, I can make it in thirty minutes or so. Depending on traffic."

"You're the best," Brad replied.

Isaac hung up and shut down his computer. He took one last look at Menagerie's home page before he did and resolved to find someone who knew what Vert's response was going to be.

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