Dying in an asteroid field would be better than staying in this bathtub. Why the game would go through the trouble of creating the stink that fills our little space-bubble is beyond me, but Rex is making my eyes water with his chili farts. Praying for a quick death, I dive inside the ring system and dodge rocks like I’m playing Asteroids on my last quarter. I find the source of the signal, an ice cube the size of Manhattan, and land on it.
Atmosphere: Good news! Air is 80% not poison. Please breathe responsibly!
I pop open the dome and breathe fresh air for the first time in an hour. “Dude!” I cough. “Did you eat a shunk filled with sh§t?”
“Sorry,” Rex reddens. “When I get nervous I get the booty honks.”
Pepper points. “There they are!”
I turn to see a figure at the base of an ice shelf. Our S.O.S. rescue.
Every few seconds, a flash of green light silhouettes a thin man in a pointy hat. Whoever he is, he’s focusing on something in the other direction; he hasn’t seen us. “Okay. Let’s be smart about this. We don’t want whoever this is to start shooting at us. Again.”
Rex ducks his head. “I said I was sorry, jeez.”
“Spread out.” Pep and Rex both have stronger range attacks than me. Which means I get to be the canary in the coal mine. “I’ll go see who it is. If he’s hostile, blast him before he attacks me. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Got it.”
They take cover and I sneak across the ice field praying I don’t get blown up. I use my Goonies skill to check for traps, but there’s nothing. As I get closer, I realize none of my caution is necessary. Our rescuee isn’t paying attention to anything but what’s in front of him.
It’s a wizard blasting ice gophers.
Player: Rincewind lvl2 Polymath
Race: Jaelin | Mana: 22
F2P | Gametime: 191.3 hours
He doesn’t have a RiftElite badge on his tag. It’s a Free-to-Play user.
Every few seconds, a fuzzy white gopher sticks its head out of a hole and the wizard incinerates it with a green fire spell titled Alacazam. A few seconds later, another gopher sticks its head out of another hole to see what happened to its buddy, and gets the same welcome.
With each kill I see an alert over the dead gopher. +1XP.
The wizard is dressed in red robes covered in stars and moons with a Merlin-style hat that looks like it’s seen better days. As I get closer, I see it’s not an old man, but a teenage kid who looks bored out of his mind.
I clear my throat. “Ahem.”
The Wiz Kid turns and regards me with bored eyes. “Yeah?”
“I’m here to…” He blasts another gopher. “I’m here to rescue you.”
He eyes me up and down. “No thanks. I’ll wait for the next one.”
What the hell is with this kid? “Hey! You’re the one who sent the distress signal.”
“Because I crash-landed when Season 2 started.” Rincewind waves his hand at a pile of wreckage that used to be a spacecraft, smashed halfway up the side of the ice wall. “They didn’t say we had to be inside the vessel. By the time I paid for the respawn, it was already too late.” He sighs and throws a hunk of ice. “I was on the grind for 70 hours to get that ship, and boom, screw me.”
I don’t feel a bit sorry for him. “So you’re just going to wait for the next guy to rescue you? It’s not like there’s a city bus every five minutes. If you’re worried about my Reputation score, I…”
“Your rep? I don’t care about your rep.” The Wiz Kid glances over his shoulder at me. “I can’t afford you.”
“Afford? What are you talking about?”
“You’re one of those new LivingLegend things, right? ‘So real even their mother can’t tell the difference?’” Rincewind snorts. “Only RiftElite whales have enough coin for LivingLegends.” He blasts another ice gopher for another +1XP. “I’m just a grinder.” He yawns. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m trying to do my homework.” I hear sounds come from his microphone and realize he’s tapping keys on his home computer somewhere in the real world.
For a second, I’m tempted to tell him I’m a comatose slave in Tallahassee and I’m the one who needs his help. But then I remember the 52 Icebox.
On cue, my HUD flashes.
EmpathyEngine?: Time is Precious!
There are only so many hours in the day! LivingLegends are strongly discouraged from comingling with F2P members. Please accept one of your 389 RiftElite Invites. Failure to accept an invite within the next 3 hours will result in an Icebox penalty. You don’t want that, do you?
“Dave?” Pepper’s head peeks up from an ice boulder. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. Guy doesn’t want to be rescued.”
Rincewind glances at Pepper. “Huh. Cute penguin.”
“Thank you!”
Rex lumbers up and towers over the little wizard, curious. “What are you doing?”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“Farming XP.” Rincewind blasts another gopher. “If I get to level 3, I can get the Gorilla Glue spell and fix my ship.”
“1 point at a time?” Rex laughs. “That’s going to take forever.”
Rincewind leers at him. “That’s why it’s called grinding.”
An ice gopher pops up at my feet and my HUD flashes.
Season 2 Heartware Activated:
Make_friend.exe (y/n)
Oh, for God’s sake, I’m going to be stuck with this empathy tutorial glitch forever. No, I don’t want to be friends with a gopher. I flick through my tabs until I find an auto-no option, like my auto-yes that collects junk into my inventory. I hit that and the alert goes away. Rincewind blasts the gopher and nearly takes off my foot. “Sorry.”
Forget it. If this prick doesn’t want help, he’s not going to get it from me. I’ve got bigger priorities, like staying alive in space. “Okay, let’s go. Adios, pal.”
“Bye.”
I turn back toward Boaty MacBoatface. “Wait!” Pepper chirps. “We have to help him.”
“You can’t help people who don’t want help, Cabbage Patch. Ask anybody at an AA meeting.”
“We could help him fix his ship!”
I eyeball the spaceship sprayed all over the ice cliff. “I’d have a better chance of fixing roadkill.”
“You could try!”
I hate it when she gets like this; I know she won’t give up until I give in. “Fine!” I storm toward the ice wall. “I’ll just fix everything!”
“Don’t go into the caves,” Rincewind says lazily. “The mountain’s filled with ice zombies. Ghost, show them the safe route.” I hear a whirr and a single-prop drone launches into the air, a cheap little robot that looks like a coffee can with a fan inside.
Ghost lvl1 Drone
Range: 1 mile | Power: ∞ (solar)
I storm toward the crashed spaceship, following the coffee can drone and cursing under my breath like Fred Flintstone. I’ve got three hours to figure out how I’m going to avoid being Iceboxed, and this is how I’m going to spend them? This side-quest is a waste of time, but I don’t feel like arguing with Pepper.
At the base of the cliff, I find a bunch of broken metal and weird space parts, but the bulk of the ship is embedded in the wall. “How am I supposed to fix it if I can’t reach it?”
“I can get it.” Rex jumps, latches on to a crag, and climbs up the wall like a gorilla. He grabs the spaceship by the fin and rips it out of the ice. I dive out of the way as the thing smashes into the rock where I was standing. “Look out below!”
“Good heads-up,” I grumble and assess the spaceship. There’s no way to fix this thing quickly. I’ve seen junkyard scrap that looks better. The cockpit is cracked in half, the ramscoop sub-light engines, whatever those are, have fallen off, and the whole thing is burnt to a crisp. I start dumping pieces into my inventory, each one labeled Space Junk.
Pepper looks distressed. “What are you doing?”
“I’ll give him the pieces and he can fix it with Gorilla Glue.”
“But you have to do something, Dave. You’re good at fixing—”
“Dammit, Cabbage Patch!” I’ve had it. I’ll help a LivingLegend like Rex, fine. He’s a real person in real trouble. But a player? Rincewind or whatever his name really is, this guy is sitting in his bedroom with a headset strapped to his face, munching on Doritos and drinking Boba tea. He’s better off than I am. “Every minute I stay here, I get closer to dying. There’s no Hype here, just a moron plinking gophers. Unless you can make a meme out of that, we’re going.” Pepper doesn’t say anything. I pick up the space junk and throw it in my inventory, angry. Avoiding my eyes, Rex quietly helps with some of the bigger pieces, and soon enough, there’s nothing left but slag. “There! Happy? I’ve picked up his mess for him!”
I storm back, ready to get the hell off this rock and come up with some kind of plan. As I turn the corner and lay eyes on Rincewind, my HUD flashes.
EmpathyEngine?: Pleasant Reminder!
Focus on RiftElite players, please! Do not waste your time fraternizing with F2P gamers, they have no value. This is against your best interests. Find gainful employment for your continued health care!
Above Rincewind’s head, just for a moment, I see what EmpathyEngine sees.
Player 51,423,991 [Rincewind(121)]
Total Revenue: $24.99 (1 Respawn)
Net Yield: Sub-Zero (–0.01 Resource Drain/Loss Leader)
The game sees him the same way HumanAsset sees me. Worth less than nothing.
A depreciating asset.
“These f§ckers.”
I stop. For a moment, I’m torn between wanting to save my own ass and sticking it to HumanAsset, RiftBorn, and the whole corporate machine. After a minute, I smile. Maybe there’s a way to do both.
I walk up to Rincewind, pull a hunk of his burned ship out of my inventory, and sit on it.
“You’re F2P, right? Free-to-Play?”
He looks at me like I’m stupid. “Yeah.”
“So you don’t pay for… membership or whatever? You don’t buy wins?”
He looks confused. “Are you supposed to be this meta?”
“What time zone are you in?”
The wizard blinks. “What?”
“Time zone. English isn’t your first language, you’ve got a hint of an accent. You’re in what, Asia? Japan?”
“Korea.”
“Annyeonghaseyo.” I’m no Rosetta Stone, but I’ve taught enough students that I can say ‘hi’ in sixteen languages. Korean was my third. “You know any gamers in Europe, the Middle East, maybe South America?”
“Uh…” He blinks stupidly. “Yeah, I mean, there’s a girl in my RiftCord from Delhi, or Kerala, one of the two. Why?”
I don’t answer him. The plan is still formulating in my head. “How many hours do you play a day? You know, while your mom thinks you’re doing your homework?”
“Pfft, like maybe five, six. She doesn’t even ask as long as my grades are good.” The wiz tilts his head. “Do all LivingLegends talk like this?”
EmpathyEngine?: For Your Own Good
Please exit the area. Fraternization with F2P gamers is outside of your mandate. You have 5 minutes to select and join a party. Failure to do so will result in Icebox 52.
This could work. I can see the pieces coming together in my head. “Most LivingLegends are a lot cooler than you think.” I pause. “You wouldn’t try to kill one, right? You know it’s bad luck.”
“What the heck is this, chingu?” He frowns. “Some kind of quest riddle?”
It is. And I’m just beginning to figure it out. “Pop Quiz: How much does it cost to rent a LivingLegend?”
“Ha! Way more than I can afford. $1000 American in the CoinRiver.” He snorts. “They take gold, but it’s a metric sh§t-ton.”
“How much?”
Rincewind offers his loudest snort yet. “Six million.”
I lean in. “Last question, Rincewind. Would you want two LivingLegends for the price of one?”
Pepper tilts her head. “Dave? What are you doing?”
Rincewind shakes his head and backs off. “Look, creep, if you’re some bot trying to upsell me, I told you, I don’t have enough money—”
I click the Dump trigger in my inventory.
Gold pours out of me like I’m a jackpot that just paid off. Coins smack the ice in five-foot stacks, tower after tower of gold that piles so high not even the computer can keep them together; they fall into mounds around us as Rincewind is buried in a treasure trove of gold, swimming in it like he’s Scrooge McDuck.
“HA!” He laughs, wide-eyed, like a kid who just won the RiftBorn lottery. “HahaHA!”
I stand up.
“I don’t know a lot about video games, but I played a little Dungeons & Dragons.” I point at Rex. “We’ve got a Barbarian.” My finger moves to Pepper. “A Cleric.” I point at Rincewind. “A Wizard.” Finally, I put the finger on myself. “And a Rogue.”
This is going to work. It has to.
“Where I come from, that’s one hell of a party.”
Let them flag me. If RiftBorn is gonna force me into a party, it’s gonna to be mine.