Uh, okay. Alan sent a reworded message and quickly received a reply.
Alan: Hello Phantom, I wish to try out for the Black Rose guild. I am a highly skilled human player capable of learning new things quickly. Chief Administrator 170 recommended I join your guild.
PhantomGlitch: Hello. So you’re the player that the old Chief recommended? All right, I’ll give you a simple task I want you to complete. If you complete the task I’ll interview you to see if you can be my squire. How soon do you think you can make it to Khersath? I can arrange to get you transport or get you teleported somewhere closer if you’re really far away.
Alan: Um, I’m just nine hours away, aboard a ship named the Titan. Also, this is the first time I’m doing something like this, anything I should prepare? What position is a squire? Can you tell me more about the guild/what would be required of me?
PhantomGlitch: Oh cool, you should make it in time then for the next noob launch. It should be an interesting time… Following the Chief’s advice has never failed me so far, so no need to prepare anything special. If you have his class you should be able to assist me with my research quite easily. Don’t worry, I won’t give anything away to anyone else. I’ll tell them you’re a promising recruit, and as the Chief Administrator told me you managed to survive all three rounds of the Survival Test, you are.
Now, a bit about the guild, I suppose. The “rigid” hierarchy is as follows: Elissandra (the Guild Leader), Generals, Knight-Commanders, Knights, Lieutenants and then everyone below that you can generally ignore or order about. That’s what I do. I’m a Knight of the guild, and the third highest ranked science officer.
Oh right, I’ll send you an example contract, it has the details of working for the guild. A squire is an apprentice basically. Being my squire shouldn’t be a difficult task. In fact, it will allow you to do your own thing, mostly testing experimental equipment, so you’ll get shiny new items not on the market if you get the position! The starting pay will be about 10,000 credits a month, plus whatever bonuses you get from missions or quests you finish, minus guild taxes, demerits and whatever other debt you have.
If it doesn’t seem like you’ll be a good fit as my squire, then we’ll figure out if you fit somewhere else in the guild. But, like I said, the Chief has never been wrong as long as I’ve known him. The initial contract binds you to the guild for five years. If you want to quit, you’ll be able to, but it’ll cost you around a million credits. No one’s quit in the first five years for as long as I can remember though. Sure, a few deaths, betrayals, and spies, but no one quit. Anyways, I got to go, but I look forward to meeting with you. Complete my task and get to the Black Rose Docking Bay on Khersath by 1100 tomorrow morning. If you know anyone else that might be a good fit for the guild, invite them too.
Alan: Sure. Thanks a lot for this opportunity!
Alan ended the conversation, and was notified he received a new message containing the Black Rose contract. A quest window popped up:
A Simple Task:
Pick up a package and bring it to the Black Rose Docking Bay by 1100 tomorrow morning. The package’s location will be provided on your minimap once you enter the Undercity at the designated location.
Time Remaining: 16:23:22
Alan began searching for information about the Undercity, and in the process learned quite a bit about Khersath. Unfortunately, the globalnet didn’t contain any pictures. No free ones, at least. Khersath was apparently an ecumenopolis, a city that made up the entire planet; the planet had roughly twice the radius of Earth. It was home for hundreds of billions of players, trillions of robots or other beings, and consisted of over 100 levels, each level around 5-stories tall. Every level was built on top of another, and the ground was rarely if ever seen by Khersath’s inhabitants. The most prominent and prestigious buildings were all on the top floor, where there was actual sunlight. The city-planet was divided into quadrants and each of those quadrants were further divided by levels in terms of class, species and other factors. There was a military quadrant, a merchant quadrant, a living quadrant and a private quadrant. At the center was the main plaza area. A player could easily spend their entire life in the Game simply playing on and in Khersath. While the majority of the planet was a safe-zone, there were multiple combat and hostile zones as well.
According to the Hub, the Undercity was the lowest portion of Khersath, and as the name suggested was home to the more dangerous and seedy elements of the city-planet. It was one of the few inhabited combat-zones, where combat between players was allowed. Hostile-zones were, like they sounded, zones generally uninhabited by players, but full of enemies to battle and potential items. There was little free information about the Undercity on the globalnet, not even any indication of how to enter it. Luckily, the quest provided Alan with a few supposed entrance locations, but as his map of the planet was mostly blank, the only location that was useful was one near the center of Khersath where the four quadrants met, by the main plaza. The main Administrative Center was in the main plaza as well, which was a place he wanted to visit. He’d have to figure out how he’d get there though…
Well, there were other things for Alan to do. He quickly sent a message to Icewolf after Eve reminded him, then, after a bit of consideration, sent another message to Kitana, Ace and Daisy informing them of the Black Rose guild tryouts. He and Eve then looked over the sample contract. Unlike beforehand where he would need to trust that Eve knew what was best, he was now able to get a sense of her reasoning, which was interesting. Eve had a clear way of weighing disadvantages and advantages, examining likely chances of worst or best case scenarios, a never ending dividing future that continued to propagate until—
Alan froze, his head suddenly starting to hurt. Whatever the case was, Eve was much less human than he had thought. She was definitely a machine. An intelligent machine, but one that only valued what Alan told it to value. At least, that was the impression Alan got. For all he knew Eve 2.0 might be hiding things, plotting behind his back…. but thinking that way would lead to madness. He would trust Eve, and hopefully she’d continue to act in a way that benefited them.
I will.
Alan grinned, then quickly looked at he got a message from Kitana.
Kitana: I’ll consider going to the guild trial, but first I must ask my swordsmanship trainer. Also, Thiago wishes to speak with you before we reach Khersath.
Alan: Okay. I’ll message him.
He soon received messages from Ace and Daisy, who had other plans. Thiago let Alan know the location of his quarters aboard the Titan. Alan stepped out of his room and went to Thiago’s room.
It turned out Thiago’s room was much nicer than Alan’s. It was a complete suite, along with an accompanying dining room. Alan didn’t want to know how much this extravagance cost. Thiago was sitting in the dining room, talking with Aphrodite, a series of windows showing graphs open in front of him. Thiago waved them closed as Alan entered.
“Ah, Alan!" he said. "Nice job defeating the third round in the Survival Test. That got everyone in the group a nice bonus. A pity you weren’t able to defeat the Predecessor though…”
“I’m not sure even the entirety of the United World Government could have defeated the Predecessor,” Alan said. Though talking in the Game was a bit different, Alan had thought he’d fully adjusted to his improved perception, but it now sounded as though Thiago was speaking in a drawl, irritatingly slowly.
“I’m sure,” Thiago said, grinning slightly. “Now, on to business. Do you want to join a guild? We’d be able to fund your admission to one of the better academies, maybe even a C-rank one.”
Black Rose members generally graduate from A-rank academies at the very least, Eve let Alan know.