Dorkness Rising

“So… Gary.” Gil said, “I’m glad to tell you that you’re the front runner. With that said, you still need to prove yourself. I want a little more detail. You’ll need to tell my assistant here, but that shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

Gil and Rose had spent more than an hour poring through the choices available. They’d come down to just three particularly promising options that could identify at least part of all five worlds in his address book. There just weren’t enough tests that included both media wipes and access to the Bazaar for this trick to have become mainstream. Probably for the best; it would get patched so quickly if this was commonplace.

Glenn Whitmann from “Transformers” had some potential, recognizing all of the worlds in broad strokes. He’d been T2 unfortunately, due to an exceptional but niche skill at early 2000 era hacking. If Brockton Bay hadn’t been a disaster zone with spotty connection at best, Gil might have sprung for him.

Abed Nadir from “Community” was a close runner up, but he was also the kind of civilian that Gil didn’t like dragging into his problems on purpose. Too much like Charlotte. Very nerdy, but also just a bit too… well, sane.

New testers that weren’t internally promoted often had that problem. The folks Asenath was guiding were, in all likelihood, a bunch of normal folks from the 1920s or tossed into the 1920s haphazardly. They often shrank back from the kind of admittedly psychotic behavior that was expected of a tester in a power fantasy or pulp action genre test. He still would have won if Gil hadn’t found Gary, and Gil made a note to recommend Abed to anyone who asked. He seemed like he’d be a solid addition to a slice of life retinue.

Gary was apparently from a piece of media called The Gamers (Dorkness Rising, Hands of Fate). The Gamers was probably a series, based on the name. Gary was a thin man in his early thirties with short hair and a close cropped beard that didn’t venture above his lips. What really set him apart was his personality, especially his coping mechanism.

He seemed to believe that the world he found himself in was one big game. He had a level of comfort with danger that would be alarming to most, but given Gil’s full intention to power him up with a card, that mostly meant he’d need to be held back from picking unnecessary fights. It wasn’t likely his knowledge was encyclopedic, but he was probably the best that someone could hope for second hand. Random bits of his conversation with Rose leaked through the censor, enough to sound promising.

“Yeah. She can talk to animals, I guess? Maybe she’s resistant to poison? Not like, immune, but she died and got better after eating a death apple? Thats gotta be some kind of superpower, right?”

“I mean I mostly played Horde but I know… about them, yeah. I played through the starting zone once because they were meta in TBC, but didn’t really go anywhere with it.”

“So, like, he can split the timeline and make a mini multiverse, and then he chooses which one really happened. He’s kinda a little bitch, though.”

“You have like, fighting game combos, you see, and if you punch the right Seru guy then you can absorb them and summon them to do magic. Super underrated.”

“Fuck that module. The vampire guy is an asshole, or at least Kevin played him like one. Fuckin mind control eyes. He targeted me! Just because Luster was the only hot chick!”

“Alright. I’ve heard enough.” Gil said at long last, “At only one credit, I think you’ll be a perfectly acceptable addition to the team.”

Gil held out his hand and shook Gary’s, then stood up and cracked his knuckles.

“Alright Gary, welcome to the team. You and Rose here are going to go through the lists and find anyone that you think might qualify as a main character of their story.” Gil said, “I’m particularly interested in anyone who can fight worth a damn. If you can find at least one person that fits the bill, then you will have already paid for yourself. To be clear, Rose is in charge here. Oh. And one last thing.”

Gary nodded.

“Yeah man?” He asked lightly.

“Who the fuck is Luster?” Gil asked, “and why can I apparently spend 19 credits to turn you into them?”

Gil had checked Gary’s character sheet almost immediately, and had been pleased to find that the man was apparently a T1 big name himself. He’d been much more surprised to find that he could apparently be transmuted into a T5 as long as Gil was willing to pay the difference. Unlike a character card, Gil didn’t get the benefit of a full description of Luster’s abilities, but the difference in credit value lined up.

“That’s the Cleric I play in my friend’s D&D campaign.” Gary explained. “She’s super hot. 18 charisma baybeee! She started as a sorceress but then my DM decided to fuck with me.”

“So…” Gil asked delicately, “Is turning into her something you’d be ok with? It’s a special option. I’m not sure if you’d even still be in here if this was an option everyone had, or if it were visible from the shop interface.”

Alter egos were sometimes integrated into the system like this as purchasable upgrades, and Gil wasn’t exactly shocked to have the option. He imagined there were a lot of people from sitcoms and kids shows and the like who had at least one iconic superhero version of themselves knocking around. However, most of those tended to be… well… the same gender.

“Yeah. That’d be sick.” Gary answered, as if asked if he wanted a free car. “The superchick said you fight like monsters and shit so it’d probably work out, right?”

“And the part where you permanently become a hot sorceress cleric woman…?”

“Oh, yeah, she’s Bi.” Gary said, “It’s cool.”

“I think we are gonna get along great.” Gil said, patting Gary on the shoulder, “Now go get me some cannon fodder, eh?”

This simplified everything immensely. Gil didn’t actually have 19 credits to spare on a possibly delusional sorceress, but he’d noticed that character cards seemed to trend towards women. If Gary didn’t mind the idea of turning into a powerful woman as long as she was attractive, he’d go far.

The two Amelias and the Seal of Mercy went to Vanessa. As handy of an item as it was for Gil, to Vanessa it was basically the holy grail. Whatever happened, she could be certain that her defeat would be nonlethal. Given how often her hopes had been dashed by the perfectly reasonable decision to just kill the wretched bitch, Gil was not at all surprised to find that he could push her into giving him every conventional weapon in her armory plus a pile of her world’s currency. He could never know when having the blueprints for a sword the size of a man’s entire body in his armory would be useful, but now he’d never know the pain of its lack.

Almost as important, Rose had made a bet with Vanessa. Gil did his best to talk up the uses of the Seal, pointing out how it could make even the most angry, vengeful man decide to get creative with her punishment. He started to wax poetic for Vanessa, knowing damn well that it would turn her on, once he saw Gary sneaking around the edge of the hall towards Vanessa’s back. He had a very Rose-like expression on his face as he crept up.

Gil lowered his voice, prompting Vanessa to lean forward and display a substantial quantity of cleavage wrapped in red business casual. Even so, she wasn’t completely caught off guard when Gary swooped in close, grabbing her from behind and turning her around to meet his eyes.

There was a nearly visible haze of lust in the air as Rose unleashed the fullest force of her succubus gaze. She’d never pushed it quite so hard, and both she and Gary were overwhelmed by the response.

Scarlett, the identity currently inhabited by Vanessa, was no delicate flower. She was from a world where human baseline was a fair bit higher than Gary’s, or even any other world Rose was familiar with. She piloted combat mechs recreationally. She had once canonically gotten into a fairly even slap fight with a woman who could punch dragons to death. Even with his limbs reinforced into the smooth, lean muscle you might find on a female MMA champion, Gary was more or less immediately overpowered and dragged to the floor. Once there, Scarlett rode him for nearly an hour continuously, pinning him and milking him for every single drop.

Gil frankly got bored of the show, and wandered off to finish some business with Lillabeth. First he found Rose’s insensate body hiding nearby, and plucked his tablet out of her hands. He purchased a blue soapstone for 5 credits, essentially allowing him to answer requests from other testers trapped in uneven PVP matchups. A bit of mercenary work would break up the weekly monotony, though he didn’t intend to jump at every little thing.

He also traded Lil the Piura card for a pair of already dead “hollow pilgrims” she had in her retinue. She could use the card to revive one of her other near-mindless minions, which were themselves dirt cheap by the Bazaar’s logic since they were already dead. Still a lesser Gacha each for Gil. Gil had a few drinks with the guys, asked them to keep an eye out for Asenath, and returned to Vanessa’s stall.

There, he found the stacked blonde executive up with a flushed face and a sour expression. His wife stood nearby, looking at everyone and everything except for Gil and Vanessa.

“Great.” Vanessa said, “Now I’m horny. You should really brief your minions better, Gil. This bitch refused to grow a dick to properly satisfy me after that loser gave out.”

She jabbed a thumb at Rose and then Gary, who as it turned out was leaning against the stall with a dazed expression and covered in bruises. Gil laughed it off and apologized. Sure he wouldn’t be getting the extra materia, but it would be a learning experience for Rose.

Gary, the only real winner in this whole exchange, had an entirely different stance. This was easily the greatest first day on the job he’d ever had.

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