Viridian Gate Online: The Artificer by J. A. Hunter

Author:J. A. Hunter [Hunter, J. A. & Witt, S. R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shadow Alley Press, Inc.
Published: 2017-09-17T22:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-TWO:

Dungeon Dive

Sandra tossed the spent ashes of the customized port-scroll into the weeds and clapped the soot from her hands. She wrinkled her nose at the smoky aroma lingering in the air like a cloying perfume. “It would’ve been nice if you’d made these a little less messy. Every time I use one, my hands smell like I smoked a pack of cigarettes.”

Osmark snorted. “If you think those stink, wait until you meet Rozak. You’re going to love his pipe. And, FYI, not everything here is my doing. The Overminds do most of the heavy lifting when it comes to filling in the gaps between the broad strokes we used to design this place.”

Sandra grinned and threw a playful punch at his shoulder. “Sorry, boss. I just figured since it was a single-use scroll directly to your restricted area that maybe you’d customized it down to the tiniest detail. Like you tend to do.”

Osmark couldn’t suppress a chuckle at that. Sandra was right. He had a perfectionist streak that drilled all the way down to his core. If he’d had more time, Robert probably would’ve thrown a week’s worth of work at the port-scroll to make sure it delivered him in a puff of just the right colored smoke with a swelling orchestral score rising on the wind to give him a majestic entrance. Not everything in life could be perfect, though. Sometimes—as much as it irked him—settling was the only feasible option.

With V.G.O., that axiom proved especially true.

The tech, platform, and game had been ten years in the making when 213 Astraea appeared on the distant horizon of space, hurtling toward Earth like a runaway train. True, he’d known about the asteroid before almost anyone, thanks to his generous financial support to the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, but even with his foreknowledge, he’d had less than eight months to get V.G.O. up and operational. Eight measly months, when the planned release date was still over two years off.

There were so many things he would’ve changed with enough time—first and foremost, V.G.O. wouldn’t be a fantasy world. A fantasy-based MMORPG was great for money, but it certainly wasn’t his idea of Heaven. With two or three years, he could’ve turned V.G.O. into a futuristic paradise even better than the world they’d left behind. But reprogramming the Overminds in eight months? Impossible. So, he’d done what he could. He’d made things serviceable.

Maybe there were a few hiccups. Maybe he’d made some shady deals. Maybe the Overminds were still undertested.

But the game worked.

That was the important thing to cling to.

“Let’s get inside, and see what goodies are waiting for us,” Osmark said, heading toward the half-hidden door in the side of the hill ahead of them. He had a vague sense of what he might stumble across, but it was impossible to say since so much of the programming rested with the Overminds. But whatever was in there would be good. Very, very good. Honestly, he felt like a kid on Christmas morning.

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