Vanessa

“Oi!” Gil called, “Vanessa! How are you doing? How’d things go with that… uh… shield guy?”

He walked right up to her, prompting a raised eyebrow. They weren’t exactly friends, but they knew one another. Well enough for Vanessa to know that he wouldn’t approach without an offer, anyway. Of course, neither of them were in a hurry.

“Terribly. Naofumi sold me into slavery to some warlord, with my mind fully intact no less.” She answered with a sigh. “The script for our initial few encounters was far too harsh. By the time I had the autonomy to decide how to approach things, he didn’t want anything to do with me.”

“Ouch.” Gil said with a wince. “I’m sorry I asked, didn’t mean to dredge up bad memories.”

Vanessa, though that probably wasn’t her current name, had done very well for herself. Where Gil took whatever job he could get his hands on and racked up credits that way, saving for retirement and promoting friends. Vanessa spent most of her credits on sculpting her tests. For many, that would mean waiting for an untold amount of time in stasis until an appropriate test crops up while they were available, but Vanessa had strange tastes. She always had work.

She genuinely, earnestly enjoyed the sensation of being brainwashed. It was a kink she’d developed before Gil had met her, partly due to a slider being pushed all the way to the **** by one of her Game Masters. To that end, she actively sought out PvP or support scenarios in which she was expected to eventually lose or be subjugated; for obvious reasons, these were not particularly popular among most testers.

She’d purchased perks to ensure that she would always take the role of a physically attractive woman, that methods for mind control would always be either part of the intended experience or at least available, and that her opposition would always be people that found women attractive. She preferred men, but only slightly… though she tended to develop a noticeable misogynist or misandrist streak whenever someone brainwashed her, as an easy expression of her sadism. Once she entered the test, she’d play whatever role she was given to the best of her abilities, bait her opponents when convenient, and hope against hope that someone would scramble her brains. She wouldn’t make it easy, but she’d always make sure it was possible.

She’d disappointed many, many players or testers who wanted to keep her, some of which Gil knew personally, but she’d negotiated a mental reset clause into her contract so she could do it all again.

“He had me, literally, in stocks.” She ranted, nursing her drink. “He could have done anything, even kill me, and it would have been less cruel. I hate the unsexy **** narratives; why the hell do people pay to have a hot girl wrong them if they don’t intend to bend her over and fuck her in the ass? So anyway, I got half a country away, slit a few throats, and rode out the rest of the story in a book store with a fake name. It happens. So, what are you up to now?”

“Weird experimental shit.” Gil said, laughing, “planeswalking, bindings, missions, but everything got nerfed into the ground. I feel like I should have come into this one with an open locker, you know? You?”

It was possible to send gifts to your patron, the one who recommended you for promotion, a few times per test. It could be anything, more or less, from a postcard, to a consumable, to a set of power armor, to a member of your retinue. These items would be stored in their locker, to be retrieved at a later date. Of course, Gil rarely accessed his locker. He could get a bonus if he agreed to keep it closed for an entire test, so naturally he let the items pile up. If he ever did crack that bad boy open, he’d probably have a few thousand gifts to sort through. They wouldn’t all be useful, but he’d certainly have been less bored that first week, and he’d have plenty to trade.

“Head of weapons R&D for Shinra.” She said with a shrug. “Standard evil corporation type. I’m not sure exactly who the protagonist is in this one. Front runners are either a group of ecoterrorists I’ve heard about or a disgruntled low end employee, depending on how much the guy spent on his intro and how much he wants to play hero. I’ve been drawing upon a few things from the hentai timelines with brainwashing materia, naturally, so even if he doesn’t have a binding we should be alright.”

“Ooh!” Gil said, “Got any extras?”

She smiled wickedly and looked Rose up and down.

“I don’t have any I can spare at the moment, unfortunately.” She said, “I’ll probably auction them off if I ever manage mass production, but you know how it is with mad science. Everything is an impossible to duplicate one and done. Is this one for sale, by the way? She’s cute.”

Gil blanched. When Vanessa went down, she relished taking others with her.

“No, definitely not.” He said, “No offense, but I don’t think I’d ever trade anyone I actually liked to you. Not to mention it’s bad form to make that kind of offer in front of guests.”

Rose grew pale, realizing the danger she was in. Gil did seem fond of her, but hearing someone ask about purchasing her like a common **** was unsettling. All the more so because she knew that Gil absolutely could make such a trade if he felt so inclined, he merely chose not to.

“Party pooper,” Vanessa said, waving one hand. “Most guests are too fried to even understand the question, regardless. So, why are you here?”

“Well, I’ve got an expense account and I was hoping to arm a few of my people with firearms.” He explained, “I heard you might have a few in stock. I’ll probably need to ask a lot, I’m afraid. I’ve only really got credits to spend.”

Vanessa smiled and started flicking her wrist. With each gesture, a weapon thunked onto the wooden table in front of her. Gil watched enviously. He technically could buy a baseline inventory already if he wanted to, but that could only contain six items. Vanessa casually pulled out more than thirty.

“Rose, what do you think?” He asked, turning to her. “Pick out any that you think we should add to the armory.”

The slight young woman surveyed the table, scattered with swords, firearms, gauntlets, and strangely glowing marbles. She started with the guns, drawing upon her perfunctory training with the PRT in common firearms. Though they were an unusual make and appeared to use rounds of a caliber not found in America, she was pretty easily able to pick out a pistol, submachine gun, shotgun, and bolt action rifle based on their profile. Physics tended to stay pretty consistent, so firearms only varied so much.

“These seem mostly oriented around close quarters,” Rose said thoughtfully. “You said you picked up a sharpshooter recently, right Gil? Give her the rifle. Also, what are these indentations for? Are they connected to those green marbles?”

Gil marked each of the items Rose selected, and together the 4 guns were worth less than the minimum threshold to trade for a single credit.

“Oh yes, those are materia.” Vanessa explained. “I’ve already had Sally test them, and they seem to work anywhere with ambient magic. If properly utilized, they allow the wielder to use a fairly safe and controlled set of magical abilities. These ones are fairly cheap mass produced tat, but they work.”

“We need more in our cart anyway.” Gil said, “What do they do?”

“Fire, ice, thunder, healing.” Vanessa said, handing each in turn to Gil, “I’m not surprised you’re interested; these sell well here. I’m making an absolute killing. I don’t have much to spend it all on, but I can swap anyone I buy into a role at Shinra. Sending out pretty, loyal girls as field agents should help me figure out who I’m up against.”

The marbles each looked nearly identical, with swirling dark and light green in a glassy orb. However, they each felt subtly different. The fire materia was warm to the touch, the thunder materia seemed to faintly vibrate, and the healing materia caused a pleasant tingle to run up his arm. The four, together, were considered equivalent to one credit on their own despite Vanessa’s unflattering description.

“Can I get a couple more of these?” Gil asked, “I’ll take an extra thunder and healing, I think.”

“Sure, I’ll take your credits. I’ll throw in a few bangles you can slot them into so you don’t need to look visibly armed.” She said with a smile. “I can send Bernie here down to Wall Market to pick up more the moment I get back.”

She tapped the quivering man she was sitting upon on the helmet.

“Yes, ma’am.” He said.

They completed the exchange, and the system caused the selected items to vanish. If he’d wanted to keep them around they would have remained, but Gil didn’t want the extra burden.

“Well, since I’m here, anything else you can offer?” Gil asked, “I’m thinking I’d like to pick up a few tier one companions, with the combatant tag if possible.”

The combatant tag was a strange one, generally meaning that an individual’s physical combat ability was good for their tier. Martial artists, swordsmen, gunslingers, that kind of thing. On a tier one it generally more meant that they were willing to fight than that they were good at it, but Gil didn’t really want to keep them for long.

“Can’t sell any employees.” Vanessa said, shrugging. “The others on the board would ask too many questions if I started to vanish people without an explanation.”

She thought for a moment, then grinned.

“Actually? No. How do you feel about a mount?” She said, “Extremely fast, loyal, pretty easy to feed, and not at all scared of monsters. I can sell it at tier two because the poor things are terribly dim.”

“I mean…” Gil said, "It sounds moderately useful; I’ve got a monster tamer on staff to keep it in line. That said, two credits is a lot and it’s not exactly what I was going for.”

Living creatures were an odd situation. Because the official store had set prices for people of certain tiers, the poor algorithm refused to deviate. It was often a better idea to use credits as a medium of exchange for almost anything but people, as the actual value of an individual could vary quite a lot.

“What if I sweeten the pot by telling you how you can get four tier ones with that last credit?” Vanessa asked playfully. “Combatant tag and all.”

Gil crossed his arms, and typed something into the trade box on Vanessa’s side.

“The information promised: how to get four tier 1s with the combatant tag for the price of one credit. Within the next two hours.”

The “item” was marked green. That was, indeed, a piece of information she had and was allowed to share. He relaxed.

“You know what, sure.” He said, putting two credits onto his side of the scales. “Lets make a deal.”

She placed a “draft chocobo,” into his cart, which by Company mandate would absolutely conform to the description she’d provided, and they made the deal. She started speaking immediately, the words spilling out of her as the pact was struck.

“Onyxia just started a new test.” She said, “She wanted to buy materia off of me, but she didn’t have anything I particularly wanted. We did a price check and some of her more aggressive slaves were each worth only slightly more than a piece of materia according to the system.”

Rose sighed.

“So the first step of this procedure is to purchase more materia from you with the last of his credits, which you want so much.” She said, “Which I’m sure is only a coincidence.”

“Not at all.” Vanessa said. “The system ensures none of us can provide undue assistance or screw each other over. This benefits him, me, and a dear old friend.”

She met Gil’s eyes, and they both smiled slightly. Chains of trades like this were, in essence, an exploit. Everyone knew better than to discuss oversights in The Company’s systems like this, which don’t actually impact the customers. Much better to keep the loophole wide enough to walk through, lest they try to assign everything in existence a specific set value in credits and destroy the current economy.

“Alright, so… set of four types and that bangle with the four slots?” Gil said, “She’d need one of those to use them all properly, right?”

“Deal.” Vanessa said, “I’ll even be nice and remind you to ask how to use this stuff. It only takes a few minutes to explain, but it’s a little tricky to figure out on your own.”