First Quest (Video, username 'westandreamcatcher')

[lightnovelexperiences]

[So.

The camera picks up an idyllic looking sandy Mediterranean beach, near a patch of grass and forest. It shakes a fair bit, like a cell phone cam in an unsteady - or nervous - hand.]

This is... this is uh. Deedee. ...'s player. Don't... if you know my real name from before the Badgernet crash don't throw it around.

I uh.

I'm on the fucking Shores of Awakening. I'm on fucking Mundus.

And taller and y'all hear how high my voice is. I can feel my tails.

I woke up alone face-down on the sand here. Felt it burn. I uh.

Please advise.

Comments

video, un: thorne

[turingcompletionist]

[Congrats and have some of Dr Durante in full Thorne cosplay. She is looking very stressed out.]

Okay. Fuck. That's another mind-machine connection failure, on top of all the others that have already been called in. Okay. Shit.

Re: video, un: thorne

[lightnovelexperiences]

It's nice to know someone knows what's going on.

More than I do.

I.

Shit.

Can't log out. ...sendjewel works a little, I'm using it to connect, I'll try to see who's here. I'm uh, first level and my gear is crappy starter stuff.

Re: video, un: thorne

[turingcompletionist]

... wait, what?

That's. Fuck. That's not supposed to be happening. I mean, okay, I was kind of wondering why the fuck you were back on one of the Shores of Awakening, but I dunno, maybe you'd been on a boat?

[She draws a hand down her face.]

Okay. You can't log out because something's fucked up with the neurohelm and instead of leaving part of your mind where it should be, in your body, so you can tell when you need to use the bathroom or hear the fire alarm or whatever, all of it is in Mundus. That's why everything seems so immediate and real and shit.

You've got a roommate, right? Can you PM me their phone number? They need to know to get you to a hospital and on life-support, until we can fix this-- [She turns her head, suddenly, and mutes the audio for a minute, before turning back to the screen and unmuting.] Okay. Shit. This seems to be happening all over the Chimaera server, not just you. We've already been notified about another good hundred equipment failures, just like this one.

Nate thinks it's a cyberattack. I'm starting to think he's right. This kind of thing will happen every now and then--that's why there's warning stickers on the neurohelms telling people not to remove them if the users go catatonic and to call the toll-free number to report it immediately--but this is fucking ridiculous. Hundreds of neurohelms shouldn't be crapping out all at once!

[lightnovelexperiences]

Hang on I -

Okay. Don't bother calling my roommate. In fact you have permission to break down the door if you need to from me.

[She starts walking.]

All of this happening at once is uh, yeah no. I don't think it's a coincidence that this is happening to the expansion with not!China in it. I don't blame you, I just.

...I just heard a scream.

[She starts running.]

[turingcompletionist]

Oh Jesus fucking Christ, why would they-- we had sensitivity readers go through the update! From Taiwan and mainland China! We always have fucking sensitivity readers!

[She groans.]

Are we sure it's not, fuck, corporate espionage? I mean, if it's equipment failure, it could just as easily having been fucking Miles Sterling baking some goddamn fucking planned obsolescence into the parts the manufacturers got from him, that would be just like that piece of shit. Wouldn't even necessarily be a cyberattack in that case, just a stupid greedy pendejo who doesn't care who he endangers as long as he gets paid for the replacement parts.

Except, fuck, that would be happening for other games too, wouldn't it? [She turns her head to the side and pitches her voice towards someone not in the camera's viewpoint.] Nate, can you call the neurohelm people and see if anyone else's games are having this problem?

Fuck. We need to get Io on this, see if they can break everyone's connections on the rest of the server before more machines crap out.

[lightnovelexperiences]

I'm talking about the ones upset that China's intruding on their castles and dragons at... never mind.

Look, uh, I'm not... I can't help with inside baseball so I'm just gonna... help whoever screamed, and find my guild. Good luck.

[turingcompletionist]

Oh, right, fuck. Those shitheads. Yeah, I could see that. Well, fuck them. The world's bigger than just Europe and so's Mundus. If they're pissed off now, they're not going to be in much better shape after the next couple planned updates--once we get to opening up the New World they can kiss my brown ass.

But yeah, shit. Go do that. I might PM you in a minute, but.

[Screaming person more important than being someone for her to bounce theories off of.]