Bitter 511-515 (Patreon)

Britta took off her helmet and let out a sigh. She had done it — reached the city, made a saving point so she could go back when she wanted, and finally logged out.

It wasn’t exactly defeating a dragon and claiming all its treasure, but it was completing a task she had set herself. Her reward was to stop playing. For a couple of days, anyway.

She rose from the bed and stretched. It was late Sunday afternoon and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten something. Breakfast? She could smell something cooking but she wasn’t particularly hungry. Running around in the game didn’t seem to burn many calories.

After taking a moment to get used to being back in a world where she was nobody special and had no powers, which was kind of a sad thing to have to accept, she got out her laptop and had a look for any news about the game.

It was sort of her job, so it was best to keep up to date with developments. That’s how she saw it now, a job to be taken seriously. It would be easy enough to log in every forty-eight hours and then forget about it, but her experiences so far had taught her not to take anything for granted.

A few minutes surfing revealed a heightened interest in the game. It had been a big deal when it launched a couple of weeks ago, and had maintained a steady presence on gaming sites, but the lack of video footage made it hard to hold onto the general public’s interest. That was until Dad’s videos surfaced.

His fires effort had been well received by players, but wandering around in tunnels was hardly entertainment. Then he released a series of ten-minute shorts showing what the game was capable of. It hadn’t taken long for them to become popular outside the nerd community.

Articles on news sites had taken what had initially been another AAA game title noteworthy only as a big money maker for corporate interests and made it seem culturally significant. The game had transcended gaming circles.

Fights with monsters, spells exploding and weapons clashing, heroes performing inhuman and impossible feats.

It looked like a movie, albeit one with no script, but with real people. You could easily tell these weren’t actors, especially when they ran into battle screaming, “Suck a dick!” and various other NSFW phrases. Dad hadn’t bleeped out swearing, but there was no real reason to censor for bad language when heads were being decapitated left and right.

You could also tell they weren’t fighting against a green screen. These monsters were real.

People wanted in.

They didn’t care how expensive it was, they wanted access for all. Complaints about elitism and restricted availability were everywhere. There were even rumours of protests and boycotts.

Britta was sure the PR department at APE was very happy that people were threatening to sue if they couldn’t play. A marketer’s dream.

New opportunities to join were promised SOON™.

It was mainly the violence they were attracted by. Interviews with players highlighted the joy of defeating creatures from nightmare and how cathartic it was. Britta wasn’t comfortable at how excited people were getting at being able to hack and slash their way through biologically convincing creatures. She knew it was just a game but that didn’t stop her feeling a bit queasy.

The last of Dad’s videos actually showed his face. He was at the abandoned ranch looking for clues.

Britta’s heart rate went up and she had her hand over her mouth. He went. She had told him he should go there, and he totally had. Would he look in the well?

She watched shaking with anticipation as he looked around. She held her breath as he heard the woman in the well and went to investigate. She jumped out of her chair as he was grabbed and disappeared into the dark, screaming.

The video stopped at that point. Britta let out a loud, satisfied shriek of laughter. She’d got him! She stood up with her arms raised victoriously singing, “Ding dong bell, Daddy in the well.”

“I can hear you,” Dad shouted across the landing. “That wasn’t funny.”

Britta went out of her bedroom and found Dad in his office at his computer. She was surprised to find him here.

“I thought you’d be in the game,” she said.

“I’m theorycrafting.”

“What’s that?” said Britta. “You’re making up theories?”

Dad looked at her like he was disappointed to discover his offspring had grown up to be so ignorant. “No. Theorycrafting is when you theorise about how to combine items and skills in interesting ways you haven’t tried yet. It requires a keen intellect and a wealth of experience to be able to imagine your way to a better build.”

He made it sound very grand and scientific, like the Manhattan Project, only more important.

“So, daydreaming about how cool you’d be if you had stuff you don’t have yet?”

“Please, this is far more complex than daydreaming. You have to be able to extrapolate and interpolate, often at the same time.”

“No, that doesn’t sound right,” said Britta, sensing something was off here. “This is the sort of thing you do when you can’t play because the server’s down or something. Or the kind of thing where you record yourself on your phone while you’re on the toilet.” Britta definitely recalled many times when Dad stayed far too long in the bathroom while talking to himself. It seemed he’d been theorycrafting then, too. Best place for it, she’d say. “You wouldn’t do this while you could still log into the game. Did something happen?”

“My daughter the internet detective,” said Dad with a rueful smile. “No, nothing happened. You sent me off on a wild goose chase, and while I was gone, thinking we were all too weak to be able to face the first raid of what was probably going to be many, someone came along and beat the raid boss. That’s all.”

He seemed depressed. He was quite capable of getting upset about video games, but Britta couldn’t tell why he was upset about this. Beating the raid meant new content. Dad loved new content more than anything. So why was he sulking?

“That’s good, isn’t it?” said Britta. “Everyone gets to see what’s up next.”

“Good. No, sweetheart, it’s not good. Ten people came out of nowhere and beat the thing all by themselves. They’re way ahead of the rest of us. They’re going to dominate this world and we’re all going to be their loyal subjects, bowing and scraping and taking orders. It’s not good at all. We’re going to be living under a fascist tyranny, forced to do the bidding of overpowered buffoons. How can that possibly be good?”

It did sound troubling, but it was pretty obvious to Britta what the true problem was. He was jealous.

“Come on, Dad,” said Britta. “You can still get stronger. If you find the magic shop and get a special doodah, I’m sure you’ll be able to be an evil dictator, too.”

“Not in the mood.” He gave her a pouty look. “I lost a whole level when I died.”

Britta tried to stop herself grinning. “Maybe next time you should try to be more careful around strange women who live in wells. You’ve seen The Ring, you should have known what to expect.” It was one of the most famous Japanese horror movies, and one Dad had made her and Marisa into watching when they were kids. Britta hadn’t been able to watch TV for a week. At least her prank on him wasn’t during his formative years.

“I was careful,” he said, “and it’s called Ringu, not The Ring. And there won’t be a next time. You didn’t see what was down there…” He shuddered and then returned his attention to the computer screen.

“Was it painful?” she asked him. She has assumed it would be a quick death.

“Very. I was stuck down there for hours while she told me her life story and how her husband left her. She lost the ranch and moved into the well with her cat. It was like listening to your Aunt Jo go on about her divorce when she’s had a few too many.” He shuddered again.

“So, you got to question her then? Did she tell you how to find the magic shop?”

“No, it was more of a one-sided conversation. That part true, was it, about the shop?”

“Everything I told you was true, Dad,” said Britta. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“Right, well, we’ll see. I don’t have time now. I’ve got to do this, and then I have to answer my fans.”

Britta slowly walked around to his side of the desk. He was on a forum, bashing away at the keyboard.

“Fans? Fans of what?”

“My videos. You don’t get to ten million views and not attract some recognition for your work. They love me and support me, unlike some.” He gave her a sideways glance that accused her of failing to do either. “Questions have been pouring in from all parts of the world seeking my guidance and expertise. Thousands of them.”

“And you’re answering them all?” Britta found it unexpected that Dad would take time out of his busy schedule (of mostly moping) to be that nice.

“Not all of them, just the subscribers. They’re even better than fans, they provide me with an income. I’ve got over two hundred thousand of them so far, most of them don’t even play the game — they respect my craft. Might end up making more money than you at this rate.” He seemed very pleased with himself. “You might think you got your old dad pretty good with your little prank, but the laughs on you, daughter of mine. People loved seeing me get dragged to my horrible end. Feel free to stitch me up again, anytime.”

It sounded like he was issuing a challenge. She would have to see what she could do.

“So, these people who beat the raid, who are they?

“No idea,” said Dad, typing as he spoke. “I logged back in after dying,” he said bitterly, “and it was all anyone was talking about. Their names are on the leaderboard, like ours were when we beat banshees — not that anyone remembers that anymore — and I didn’t recognise any of them. No one seems to know who they are or where they came from. Ten of them, geared with weapons and armour of a quality no one’s seen before, according to people who were there. They came in, seemed to know exactly what to do, and were super-organised.”

“A mystery team of experts?”

“Something like that,” said Dad, bristling. That was the sort of team he would want to be in.

“They just had better gear, probably,” said Britta. “Maybe they got lucky drops in some other part of the game.”

N-28 had mentioned that there were other regions controlled by other AI. It seemed possible players might have had an easier time levelling up over there, and then decided to try their luck here. It was pure speculation, of course. Britta didn’t even know if it was possible to transfer between regions.

“Maybe,” said Dad. “There’s more, though. When they beat the raid boss, it didn’t end the raid, it revealed a new, harder level. New boss, new mobs, new mechanics.”

Britta recalled N-28 having a Phase 2 to the raid, but that had been what killed off the players last time. This was apparently a whole new raid after beating the necromancer kobold. What she’d seen was just the warm-up.

“Did they beat the new level, too?” she asked, peering over Dad’s shoulder. He was scrolling through pages of articles too fast to be able to read anything.

Dad’s eyes scanned from left to right and up and down, able to pick out the salient details somehow. “They didn’t even try. They beat the first boss and then immediately left. Some of the people in the raid with them gave the new level a try and the new level has a new death penalty. If you die, you go back down to Level 0.”

That sounded harsh. If you lost all your levels everytime you died in the new raid, no one would want to even try taking it on. Not unless they were really confident of beating it.

“Which suggests they must have known,” said Dad. “They knew there was no point taking on the new boss, so they left.”

He was talking about the mysterious experts. Not only had they beaten the first boss, they somehow knew about the death penalty and avoided it. “How could they know if this was the first time this new mechanic’s appeared?” said Britta. “Maybe they just had something else they needed to do. A quest or something.”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Dad. “Too convenient. They came to kill the first boss and they knew it wasn’t worth attempting to take on the second one, not yet.” Dad’s eyes were shining as his mind turned this information over, looking at it from all angles. He slowly began rising from his chair. “My guess would be they beat another raid already, maybe a slightly easier one — no, no, it wouldn’t be easier. Maybe they found a cheese strat to beat it, yes, that sounds more likely, got good gear, and then faced their second boss. Would only take one death to realise what the penalty was. Once they knew how severe a cost they were facing, they probably left immediately, that’s what I’d do. Instead of trying to take on Level 2 and risk losing everything, the smart play would be to take your better gear and higher levels, and go look for some more Level 1 raids. Skim off all that cream for yourself, leave nothing for anyone else.” Dad was standing behind his desk now, his whole demeanour one of intense scrutiny, staring into the air like he was in the game looking at his status screen. “They’d be like gods, stronger than everyone. There’d be no way for anyone else to face the Level 2 bosses without the Level 1 power-ups, and they’d be able to beat everyone to them. They’d be unstoppable.”

He sounded full of admiration, which didn’t really surprise Britta. It was exactly the kind of strategy he would employ.

“But why would the game let them do that?” said Britta. “Why let one group of players become so dominant? Won’t it just make it so the rest of the playerbase get pissed off?”

Dad sat back down. “Yes, very. But it wouldn’t be the first time the people behind a popular game missed the obvious way around their designated path for progression. That’s all anyone cares about— progression. Once you lose that, what are you even playing for? A sense of pride and accomplishment. Ha. Progression, Britta, that’s the gold standard we judge games by.”

“I thought all you cared about was getting meaningless achievements that gave you fancy titles you could put under your character name. And unique hats that no one else had.”

“Sure, that too,” said Dad. “We all enjoy a nice fancy hat. But mostly you want your character to get stronger and find better gear. Most games find that easy at the beginning when everyone starts out the same, but harder once people are doing their own thing. It quickly becomes unbalanced. New World decided to make it really, really hard from the outset, which is fine since there’s so much else to do in the game. Just the novelty of a new world is enough for most casuals. You’ll still build up your strength slowly and then go into the big fights when you feel ready. But they should have region-locked the players, not let then roam around farming the lowest level raids from each area.”

“You’re just guessing, though,” said Britta. “That might not be what happened.”

“True,” said Dad. “But I’ve been playing games a long time, sweetheart. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that if there’s a really obvious way to ruin a game, nine out of ten devs will find a way to implement it within the first maintenance patch.”

“You worked on this game too, Dad. Aren’t these devs your friends?”

“Yes,” said Dad. “That’s how I know.”

Britta felt it was too early to be able to tell what had actually happened, despite Dad’s wealth of experience at criticising other people. And even if there were a group of players who were going to dominate the game, APE would step in and do something about it before things got out of hand, surely.

“Are you going back in the game?” asked Britta.

“Yes, at some point. No real urgency, I have no way to catch up to them at the moment. They’re only going to get stronger. But it’s fine, I still have my videos, my fans, that’s the important thing.”

It was almost like she could hear violins playing and then she realised Dad had started a Youtube video of violins playing.

“Come on,” said Britta, “it’s not all about being first and fastest. You don’t need to parade around in the best gear to impress everyone.”

Dad looked at her with intense disappointment, like she’d just told him she was going to go work for Apple, or something equally immoral.

“It’s an RPG Britta. Go BiS or go home.”

“Bis?”

“B, I, S. Best in slot. You can’t compete if you’re undergeared. That’s why I’m at home.”

How could a fully grown man be such a self-pitying mess, and more to the point, how had Mum decided this was the man for her? Were there hidden depths to men she wouldn’t be able to see until she was older? She seriously doubted it.

“You’re being a bit ridiculous, Dad. Why can’t you use your videos to get everyone up to the same standard as these mystery experts?”

“I wish you wouldn’t call them that, it makes them sound far too cool. And how are my videos going to help? A series of tutorials on how to defeat the Level 2 raid boss?”

“No, I mean you could find these… players, and get film of them doing whatever they’re doing. If you show everyone how they did it, maybe it would work for the rest of us.”

“Are you seriously suggesting I track them down, steal their secrets and give them away to the general public, completely ruining it for the experts? That is brilliant.”

He was out of his seat again.

“I was foolishly thinking of ways I could get them to let me join their crew, but this is far better. Find out what made them so special, and then take it away from them. When I break this story — this exclusive! — it’s going to make me the most important person in the game. We don’t live in medieval times anymore, sweetheart. You don’t control things with armies and weapons, you control it through the media. Information is king!”

His eyes were shining and he had a weird smile plastered across his face.

“I thought the most important thing to players was progression,” said Britta. “You seem more concerned about creating a media empire.”

“Progression is what players want, but you and me, sweetheart, we’re above that sort of thing.” He started tidying up his desk, turning things off and putting stuff away before someone came in and tidied up for him. He didn’t like it when Mum moved his stuff without asking, which was probably why she did it whenever she got the chance. “People like us don’t try to beat the meta, we make the meta.”

He stormed out of his office like a man on a mission, his motivation revitalised thanks to Britta.

“I’ve created a monster,” Britta muttered to herself as she followed. At least he would be in a world where monsters were welcome. Maybe the next raid boss would be him.

“You really don’t care if your character stays stuck at Level 1,” said Britta as she chased Dad down the stairs.

“Of course I care,” said Dad. “But once a game decides to throw the rule book out the window, along with the fun book, you have to find your own way to play.”

“They just made it a bit harder than most games,” said Britta. “I thought you’d enjoy the challenge.”

Dad stopped at the bottom of the stairs and gave her a withering look. “There’s a challenge and then there’s just wasting your time. It’s like when a game puts in a series of tasks it wants you to do in order to do another series of task. Collect stone, build a stone furnace. Collect iron ore, melt it in the stone furnace, use the iron metal to make an iron furnace. Collect copper ore, melt it in the iron furnace, use the copper metal to make a copper furnace. Collect bronze ore—”

“There’s no such thing as bronze ore,” said Britta. “It’s an alloy.”

“What? I know that. Don’t interrupt me when I’m being brilliant. I’ll do a video on this that will become an industry classic. Where was I?”

“Creating the impossible,” said Britta.

“One day I will, mark my words. My point is that they think any reason to grind is the same as a valid reason to grind. When you see a game slip into a mindless cycle like that, you have to get out as soon as you can. You’re being scammed.”

“Isn’t every game like that?” said Britta.

“No, not at all. The good ones create a story, one you feel part of, full of lore and characters that make you care. You have to help them because they need you, but to help them, you need to get stronger. You need a better weapon, better armour.”

“So you need better ovens to make the weapons and armour?” asked Britta.

“That could be a way to do it. But you’re building an oven, I mean a furnace with a purpose. Hmm, furnace with a purpose. I like it. I’ll use that as the title.”

“You’re still building an endless series of ovens,” said Britta.

“It’s totally different. Why you do things is important? The means justifies the end.”

“But this game gives you a reason to get stronger, doesn’t it?” said Britta. “Save the world or whatever? There’s a reason you have to level up.”

“Right. In this case, they give you a purpose, but make it incredibly hard to pursue it. That’s just as bad.”

He hurried into the kitchen, eager to get into the game he was criticising so heavily. It seemed to make him happy.

Mum was sat at the table, eating a bowl of soup and browsing the internet on a tablet. She looked up, surprised to see them both as they came in, Dad spouting an endless stream of rhetoric, Britta rolling her eyes.

“But you have to play the hand you’re dealt,” he continued. “They made it so it’s very hard to level up or increase your stats. That’s their choice. They probably have a reason they did it that way, a very dumb reason, but it’s up to them. We, as players, have our own choice to make. Struggle on trying to progress even though it isn’t much fun, or make our own amusement. That’s the great thing about a sandbox game, it’s up to you how you want to play. Up to you to show the devs they’re a bunch of hopeless losers who don’t know what they’re doing. Find a purpose, Britta, a purpose.”

“Did something happen?” asked Mum. “I thought your Dad looked a bit depressed earlier, so I made him some soup. He likes to sit in bed and eat soup when he’s feeling blue. You seem to have cheered him up, though.”

“Some people are doing well in the game,” said Britta, “and Dad’s going to put an end to their fun.”

Mum nodded like she wasn’t at all surprised.

Dad stopped and turned around with a look of hurt on his face. “I’m not going to put an end to their fun. I’m going to expose them for the cheating gits they are. Whatever shortcut they found, whatever sneaky exploit they used, everyone will know about it, and then together we’ll all use it to make the devs’ lives a nightmare. Then they’ll see the error of their ways. You can hardly blame me for wanting everyone to be on the same level playing field.”

Britta didn’t for a moment think Dad was fighting to restore balance and fairness to the virtual world. If he had an unfair advantage, he would guard it jealously and enjoy every moment of unearned victory over raging opponents.

“I don’t think it’ll matter,” said Britta. “Even if they do farm all the lower-level raids, I doubt they’ll be able to defeat the harder bosses. Not if they get knocked back down to zero every time they die. They’ll just be stuck in a bottleneck while everyone else finds other ways to catch up. Just because they slowed down the fighting in this game, doesn’t mean there aren’t other kinds of quests.”

Dad paused by the kitchen door as he was about to leave for his shed. He walked back to Britta and kissed her on the top of her head.

“You are a wise and clever girl, which you get from my side of the family.” Mum slurped loudly but didn’t interrupt. “Bear in mind that if these mysterious experts, as you call them, have found a way to break the game, it’s more than likely that APE will ask you to step in and sort it out.”

“Me?” said Britta. “It’s got nothing to do with me. I’m not even allowed to join the raids.”

Dad opened the door to the garden and gave her a sympathetic look. “You are the chosen one. Chosen to do the jobs no one else wants. Just check your bank balance if you need a reminder why.”

He left, slamming the door behind him.

Dad had a point, both with regard to the likelihood of her being called in to deal with any game-related shenanigans, and about the thousands of reasons to do as she was told that were sitting in her bank account. Maybe it wouldn’t come to that, though.

Now that he’d brought it up, though, she was curious to see how much money she had.

“Can I borrow that to check my bank account,” she said to Mum, indicating the tablet.

Mum pushed it towards her. “You can look but don’t touch.”

It wasn’t like she was going to rush out and buy herself a sports car. She checked her balance. It was a ridiculously large amount just sitting there doing nothing. She could actually go buy herself a sports car.

Britta sat down next to Mum at the kitchen table, perusing her account details. She’d always had a savings account with a few hundred pounds in it that she wasn’t supposed to use. She had a card to get the money out that she no longer remembered the PIN to.

This was a separate account, set up after APE began paying her, and needed either Mum or Dad’s permission to withdraw funds. A sixteen-year-old wasn’t supposed to be able to throw around several hundred thousands of pounds whenever they felt like it, even Britta understood that. It was nice to know she could have bought anything from just about any store in the world. It was an uplifting feeling.

“We should pay off the mortgage,” said Britta. Nice clothes and a car for her seventeenth birthday would be nice, but it was time for her to start making the responsible grown-up decisions.

Mum leaned across and looked at the screen. She shook her head. “You’ll need more than that.”

“Really? How much is the house worth?” It was a semi-detached property in the suburbs of London; it was hardly a palace.

“I’m not sure,” said Mum. “A house down the street sold a few weeks ago. Went for one and a half million.”

“What?” Britta was shocked. She looked around the small kitchen. “This place is worth over a million?” It did not look like the sort of place a millionaire would live in.

“It was eight hundred thousand when we bought it. A bit more after fees. House prices tend to be a bit mad, especially in desirable areas.”

Britta would never have thought of this as a desirable area. Even if she waited a whole year — assuming APE kept her employed that long — and spent none of her money, she still wouldn’t be able to afford a house on her own unremarkable street. How much money did you have to earn to be able to afford a mansion with a swimming pool and stables to the rear? Did rich people just get bigger mortgages and run up higher debts?

If you earned a million you were supposed to be set for life, at least that’s how it had always looked when that kind of money was out of her reach.

“And don’t forget you still have to pay taxes,” said Mum. “We need to get an accountant, a good one. They’re not cheap, either.”

Britta was starting to think she should have asked for more.

She realised she didn’t really understand finances. It had always seemed unnecessary. Even after she got a job and earned her own money, she expected it to be all taken care of by her employer. She would get money in her account at the end of every month and spend accordingly, no need to fill out any forms.

It was undoubtedly a naive outlook. Adulthood was all about filling forms.

She also had no idea how stocks and shares worked or what significance different money markets would have on her earnings. Lin would know. Lin would probably be able to affect those markets by buying and selling shares of various companies she owned. There was so much to learn if Britta wanted to be able to make wise choices concerning her future.

The game economy was also a mystery to her. What if she managed to collect a million gold coins? Would she be able to buy a castle, or only have enough to put a down payment on a cottage close to local shops and handy for the daily carriage service to the city centre?

Britta had never intended to have an extravagant lifestyle, in the game or IRL, but even a comfortable life without debt seemed out of her reach. She needed a lot more money to be able to not have to worry, which seemed ridiculous. It would be fine while she had money coming in, but once it stopped, her savings wouldn’t last long no matter how much money she put away.

And it wasn’t like she had another career to fall back on once the gaming world no longer had a use for her.

It was troubling.

“I think I should get an economics tutor, too,” said Britta.

“But you don’t take economics,” said Mum. She didn’t seem against the idea, just curious.

“I know, but it feels like something I should know more about. Perhaps I’ll take it as one of my A levels.”

“Well, I’m sure it would be of benefit. Everyone should know how the financial world operates, if they can stomach it. I could teach you. Put my degree to use for once.”

Mum had studied economics at university, even though she didn’t use it for work. Did that mean she’d be a good teacher? Britta could always find another tutor if it didn’t work out. She would have to fire her, though.

“Great,” said Britta. “Good.”

Mum smiled, looking like she was pleased to be included in Britta’s party of teachers and sages.

Britta had already decided to use her newly acquired wealth to hire tutors for her GCSE subjects. She was already feeling the benefit of that, even though it had only been a couple of weeks.

She would have to make sure she remained relevant as an employee, at least for the short term. One year was what she was looking at as her minimum investment. One year of being indispensable to APE, solving any issues they gave her to take care of. She saw it as a fair exchange.

She planned to use this window of wealth opportunity to make sure she had a sustainable future. One where she controlled how much she earned. Computer gaming was a very profitable industry, but her role in it was something of a fluke. It couldn’t be relied on, but it could be exploited.

What she would do was gather as much information as she could, decide on a course of action for her future, and then use her money to give herself the best possible chance of achieving that goal.

Those who were in competition with her would probably not have the same resources as her. The playing field would not be level. It wasn’t like she was cheating, though. She was theorycrafting.