Bugs and Loopholes: A LitRPG Adventure (Beta Tester Book 3)

by Rachel Ford

  He felt like crying at that. It seemed like his last hope had just disappeared. He was stuck in a videogame with no way out and no way forward. “You got to know. If you don’t know, what am I going to do? No one else cares, Jordan. Avery hasn’t even checked in. I haven’t heard from that danged doctor in – I don’t even know how long. Nate blew me off. Richard’s tired of me bugging him.”

  “Hey,” she said, “I didn’t say we weren’t going to figure it out. I just don’t know yet. But we’re going to solve this, Jack, okay?”

  He drew in a shaky breath, then nodded. “Alright.”

  “Good. Okay, Richard said you and Nate tried some stuff?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Run me through everything you did so far.”

  So Jack did. He told her all about his trials and tests. And the more she listened, the bleaker she sounded. “You were really thorough.”

  “I know.”

  She went silent for a long moment. Then, she said, “Okay, I’m going to make a spreadsheet, and list out every possible combination of tests we can think of. And then we’re going to go over them all.”

  She did, and they poured through every variant possible. Jack remembered some of his tests, and didn’t remember others. He didn’t know if he’d tried the horse, then Migli, then Karag, then Arath and lastly Ceinwen. He might have, or he might have tried Shimmerfax, Migli, Karag, Ceinwen and finally Arath. Regardless, he tried both variants for her, and every possible combination between.

  They all came to nothing. Jordan kept at it, though, giving him a scenario and checking it off the list in turn. Finally, she swore under her breath. “I told those dummies to verify their code builds before they checked everything in. If they’d done that, we’d be alright.”

  “Who?”

  “Nate, and the rest of them.”

  He glanced back at Shimmerfax, who had just followed him across the bridge for the umpteenth millionth time. “Well, someone listened to you. Unfortunately.”

  Jordan didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, she asked, “You mean, with Shimmerfax?”

  “Yeah. Nate told me his code’s up to date.”

  “It is.”

  “That’s what I mean. Everyone I need is gone, and I’m stuck with a dumb, sparkly horse.”

  “Jack,” she said, and she sounded downright offended, “that’s a battlecorn, not a horse. And he’s not dumb. He’s Shimmerfax, Lord of the Battlecorns. It’s a nod to Tolkien. You know, like Shadowfax, Gandalf’s horse? We were thinking of calling him Skinfaxi, from Norse mythology: shining mane. But we wanted a tribute to Tolkien.”

  It sounded more like a slap to Tolkien than a tribute to him. But something in the way she’d gotten so defensive so quickly cautioned him against saying it out loud. “Jordan…who put a sparkling unicorn in the game? Was that your doing?”

  Jordan snorted. “What’s that supposed to mean? Are you trying to say that just because something sparkles, a woman had to make it?”

  He considered for a moment, then accepted the criticism inherent in the question. “Alright, I apologize. I guess I was kind of stereotyping there.”

  “You’re darned right you were. But it’s very mature of you to admit you’re wrong.

  “So, in the same spirit, I’ll admit yes, Shimmerfax was me.”

  He frowned up at the sky. He could hear the amusement in her tone. “Why the heather would you put a sparkly horse in the game?”

  “He’s a bad a-s-s.”

  “He sparkles.”

  “So? He’s fabulous. A fabulous bad a-s-s.”

  He glanced back at the battlecorn, sparkling and shimmering in the midday sun. “He’s ridiculous. I’m supposed to be a knight, an adventurer, on a dark, gritty quest to save mankind. Not some kind of weirdo in a My Little Pony meets Twilight crossover.”

  Jordan laughed. “Good Lord. It’s a macho thing, isn’t it?”

  “Of course not,” he snorted.

  “Okay, if Shimmerfax didn’t shimmer, would he bother you?”

  “He’d still be a unicorn.”

  “Suppose he was just a mighty battle steed. Would that bother you?”

  “What color?”

  “Any color. Say, black.”

  “No, probably not.”

  “Exactly. So it is a macho thing.”

  “It is not a macho thing. I just don’t want to be walking around with a sparkling unicorn. It’s…well, girly.”

  “What’s wrong with being girly?”

  “Nothing. If you’re a girl. I’m not.”

  Jordan laughed at him. “Oh Jack. Well, I’ll have you know that everyone on the team loves Shimmerfax.”

  He snorted. “Those guys can’t even remember to check their code in right. I’m not taking their recommendations. Anyway, I thought you were a level designer, not a character designer.”

  “I am, mostly. But there’s some crossover as needed.”

  He harrumphed. “Well, no wonder they don’t let you do much of it, if this is the kind of thing you come up with.”

  “Oh really?”

  He shrugged. “You’re not working on a Barbie adventure, Jordan.”

  She made a sound that was somewhere between a snarl and a harrumph. “Okay, what about the black knight…what did you think of him?”

  “Now that was a bad buns character.”

  Jordan laughed out loud. “Oh really? Bad buns, was he?”

  He scowled, “That wasn’t what I was saying.”

  “I know. But that doesn’t make it less funny. But anyway, back to my ‘bad buns’ knight…he didn’t look like a Barbie adventure character, did he?”

  “That was you, too?”

  “You bet your ‘buns’ it was, buddy.”

  He thought back to the man, before he’d been toothpaste-ified. He recalled the skulls for spaulders, and the bridge full of dead people. “Wow. That was really twisted.”

  “Oh, so now I’m twisted?”

  He nodded. “You bet your ‘buns’ you are: sparkly, and twisted.”

  Chapter Nine

  Jordan seemed not to mind the characterization. On the contrary, she asserted, “Everyone is sparkly and twisted, to some degree or another.”

  Which, of course, Jack didn’t buy. Not for a second. He was many things, but sparkly wasn’t one of them. She just laughed when he told her that, and changed the subject.

  They went through the entire spreadsheet, exhausting every possible option. And they came up emptyhanded.

  So Jordan decided a new tactic was in order. She just didn’t know what, yet. “I need to think about this one, Jack.”

  “And what am I supposed to do in the meantime? You can’t contact me, and I don’t know what time it is. Richard’s going to smother me in the VR machine if I keep bugging him.”

  She laughed, and said, “Give me a minute.”

  In fact, she took three minutes, game time anyway. Then, a message flitted through his thoughts.

  Added to inventory: alarm clock

  “There,” she said. “It’s a clock, synced with the real world. You can use it to set an alarm for yourself.”

  He frowned. Not having an alarm to worry about was one of the few things that made being stuck in a videogame a little more palatable. “Why would I want to do that?”

  “You can set it for when my shift starts. That way, you’ll know when to contact me.”

  “Oh. Okay. But that still doesn’t help me get out of the game.”

  “No. But I need to spend some time doing research, and running a few tests on my own.”

  “What if you don’t figure anything out?”

  “I will, Jack.”

  “What if you don’t?”

  “Then you’re going to be stuck for all eternity in a videogame with a sparkly unicorn as your only friend. You should probably start being nice to him, shouldn’t you?”

  Jordan signed off, but not before giving him a stack of pancakes and a few lattes to stuff in his inventory. They
’d be piping hot and fresh whenever he took them out.

  She told him to set his alarm for her next shift, and to rest in the meantime. “You need sleep, Jack. You’re going to kill yourself at the rate you’re going. I want you to close your eyes, and sleep as long as you can.”

  Which he did, for a full forty-five minutes. Then, he woke up. He knew the time, because only forty-five minutes had elapsed on his clockface. It certainly didn’t feel like less than an hour, but the clock wouldn’t lie – and his addled senses would. So he laid down to sleep again, and lasted an hour and a half that time.

  He slept in chunks of time anywhere between twenty minutes to two hours. The in-game day passed, and a new one started. He got up mid-morning, and scarfed down his pancakes and chugged a latte.

  Then, he waited. He still had four hours, so he decided to explore the countryside. His road would take him eastward. That’s what Ceinwen had said before she vanished. So he set out to follow it.

  Shimmerfax trailed along behind him, glittering and shining in the sun like some kind of bewitched arts and crafts project sprung to life. The further they got from the bridge, the more wildlife he encountered – birds and rabbits, squirrels and even the occasional deer.

  Which reminded Jack of Er’c, and the young orc’s penchant for hunting. Jack didn’t bother hunting himself. He just kept walking, following the eastern road.

  Then, his alarm went off. He hadn’t been expecting it. Whereas before the day had dragged on like an eternity, the four hours seemed to vanish in the blink of an eye. He’d been at the bridge one moment, and the next thing he knew, BRINGGGGG: the alarm was sounding.

  So he jumped, and cursed, which came out as an emphatic, “Sugar.” Then, he fished the alarm out of his inventory pouch, and stopped its infernal ringing.

  He caught his breath, and said, “Speak to supervisor.”

  To his dismay, Richard’s voice rolled over the highlands. “Yo, Jack, one second dude. Jordan’s just getting settled. I assume it’s her you’re here to talk to?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Oh good. I mean, just one minute.”

  Jack waited, not one minute, but five, at least according to his clock. Then Jordan’s voice filled his ears. “Jack?”

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Sorry. I was late getting in, and then Richard had some stuff to tell me. He’s building some kind of model. Anyway…”

  She was talking fast, like she’d downed too many espressos on the way in to work. “Everything okay?”

  “Well, no. I mean, you’re stuck in a game that you can only win with your companions, and the companions vanished. The real question is, how are you doing?”

  “I’m fine,” he said. Which, of course, was a bald-faced lie. He wasn’t fine, for all the reasons she’d just listed. But he had got a decent amount of sleep, even if it had been interrupted. And she was back on the line, so he wasn’t alone anymore. Which didn’t make him fine, but he was defiantly approaching fine-ish territory.

  “You sure?”

  “I’ll be better if you tell me you figured something out.”

  Jordan laughed. “Well…I may be nuts. I should warn you, I didn’t sleep much. Okay, at all. And I’ve been drinking coffee straight for the last eighteen hours, and haven’t eaten anything.”

  He frowned. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “No. What I’m saying is, it may be a terrible idea. I’m giving you fair warning.”

  “Wait, you have an idea?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  This, of course, demanded a further explanation. Even if it turned out to be a bad idea, it beat no idea, which was all Jack had at the moment.

  “Okay, so, this game is meant to be played any way you want, right?”

  “Sure, I guess.”

  “Single player, or cooperative mode with friends. Both modes are built in, out of the box, and you can switch between them. You can start single player and add friends, or start with friends and finish on your own.

  “I think we should try switching to cooperative mode.”

  “Cooperative?” he repeated. “You mean, add more players? Real players, instead of companions?”

  “Exactly.”

  “You can’t strap anyone else into these things, Jordan. They’re death machines. First William Xi, now me? Who knows who else they’ll trap.”

  “It doesn’t have to be someone playing from a VR unit. They can play the same way we do when we interface with Migli: headset and keyboard. Heck, they can play full old school: keyboard and mouse.

  “The point is, you don’t need another VR player.”

  “Oh.” He considered for a long moment. “So…you could join the game?”

  “That’s what I was thinking, yeah. I mean, I have a character already built for my own testing. And I’m here all day anyway, so why not?

  “But, I mean, if you rather one of the other guys, I can see if we can get Avery to sign off. I know Nate worked on parts of this level too. He should be able to –”

  “I don’t want Nate,” he interrupted.

  “Well, we could get whoever you wanted. I think if I explained it to Avery, he’d sign off.”

  “I want you. I mean, you know the level too, right?”

  “I should. I helped build it.”

  “There you go. See? You’ll be perfect.”

  It wasn’t quite as simple as that, though. Jordan explained that switching modes brought its own set of risks. “It all passed the alpha test mode. But – so did this. And here we are.”

  But Jack didn’t have a better solution, and the idea of playing with Jordan intrigued him. He’d had no real human contact in weeks now. And Migli was a poor substitute for an actual person.

  So she spun up her copy of Dagger of Doom, and told him she was joining the game.

  “So does your character look like you?” Jack wondered. “You know, real life you.”

  “I hope not. I play as an eight foot, bearded giant.”

  “Really?” He frowned. He didn’t even remember seeing giants as a playable race when he picked out his character build.

  “No, of course not. My character looks like me, yeah.”

  He thought of his own character, and the height and muscle mass he’d added to a generally similar base model. “Really like you, or like you the way my character is like me?”

  She laughed. “What do you care?”

  He shrugged. “I have no idea what you look like, is all. I know what Richard looks like: a pencil with legs. I met him when they put me in this dratted machine.”

  She laughed again, but wouldn’t tell him. “You’re just going to have to finish the game and see for yourself, I guess.”

  Jack waited for her character to enter, and promptly made up his mind that Jordan probably looked exactly like her avatar: slim and stylish, with brown hair cut short but not too short, bright, keen eyes, and a take no bullshit from anyone poise. He’d talked with her long enough to pick up on the no bullshit part. He figured the rest rang true too – other than her attire, which was plate armor. She worked in a videogame studio, which probably meant she had some latitude in just how weird she could be. But plate armor would be too weird, even for programmers.

  She was quite pretty – the kind of pretty that, if Jack had been any less occupied or knew her less well, he would have found very intimidating. But he didn’t clam up or forget half the English language.

  “I like the armor,” he said.

  “Heavy armor,” she said. “With a weight bonus, from sky horse feathers.”

  Jack shuddered. “I try not to remember that part of the game.”

  “Because you failed it so epically?”

  “Because it was ridiculous. Who wants to spend their time creating the perfect horse, Jordan?”

  She shrugged. “It’s been one of our highest ranked segments of the game so far in our focus groups.”

  “Your focus groups are crazy.”
/>
  “Of course. They didn’t agree with Jack Owens. They must be nuts.”

  He grinned at the sarcasm in her tone, but nodded. “Exactly. Now, why don’t you show me how to get the heather out of this game?”

  “Okay, so the way it works is I basically get a copy of your game world so far, but with my character. When I save, whatever updates have happened to my character get saved, and I can port them into my main game.

  “You don’t get my character, or any of her items or perks. You’ll share companion perks only as long as I’m in the game. But, whatever progress we make together is in your game.

  “So, if I find some treasure or whatever, I can take it to my game. If we complete an objective, it’s here, in your game.”

  Jack nodded again. “Sounds complicated, but I think I’m following.”

  “It is. Basically, if you start the game cooperatively and play only in co-op mode, both players share the save. That’s not what we’re doing. I’m joining your in-progress game, so the save is yours.”

  “So you’re here to help me, and that’s it.”

  “Right. I can level and find treasure, but that’s about it. I don’t progress any on my quests.”

  “As long as I do, that’s what matters.”

  She shook her head. “A real knight in shining armor.”

  Chapter Ten

  Jack had been heading in the right direction: east. But he had a long way to go yet. They walked through a seemingly endless stretch of rugged, rocky countryside. They ran into enemies now and then. One time, it was a pack of wolves. Jordan said, “Hey, head’s up: we’ve got hostiles incoming.” She needn’t have, though. An ominous music rolled across the hills and valleys to announce the arrival of danger. They dispatched the enemies and collected a few pelts. “If Er’c was still here, you’d have the option of asking him to craft things with the hides.”

  “Really? What kind of things?”

  “Depends on the hides. Some can be used for leather armor. If I remember correctly, wolf and bear fur can add accents to your armor. Give it a kind of barbarian aesthetic. But it also adds some bonuses in the woodlands track. You become harder to detect, and more imposing to small predators. A couple of other perks, depending on which accents you choose: cape or spaulders or whatever.”