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

by Rachel Ford

  She laughed. “You walked right over it, on the way to the turrets.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s a giant harvest rune carved into the floor. You can only see it from above. On the ground, it just looks like unevenness.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Jack donned the greaves, and they led Shimmerfax to one of the levers. Jack brought up his companion commands, and as he turned to the control, a few new ones appeared:

  Direct companion to work lever now.

  Direct companion to work lever on your command.

  He selected the on your command option, and Shimmerfax lowered his head and whinnied in acknowledgement. Then he and Jordan descended the stairs. She headed to the turret across from the battlecorn, and he headed to the far end of the cavern.

  Then, positioning himself as near the door as he could, Jack pressed the lever and gave the command to Shimmerfax.

  The clock started up again, and the cavern shook. Jack sprang for the door and flew down the stairs, running as fast as he could without losing his footing. He got about three quarters of the way down before he ran into wisps. The whole chamber seemed to be swarming with them.

  Jack ducked and dodged and finally jumped off the stairs. He had only twenty seconds left. He kept running. The greaves did make a difference. He could tell that.

  Still, the three crystals had already started their retreat long before he got to the fourth lever. So he sighed, and returned to deal with the wisps.

  It was a long fight, but Jordan and Shimmerfax joined him; and, since they could see this time, they prevailed in the end. “Well?” he asked. “Should we try again?”

  They did, half a dozen times. Jack got no closer, and a shadow of a frown crossed Jordan’s face each time. Finally, after clearing the last rush of wisps, she said, “We need to try something else.”

  He nodded, handing back the greaves. “You want to try running?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think it’s going to work. We need someone else. Companions, ideally. But, obviously, that’s not going to work. We’ll have to see if we can get another player on.”

  “Can we do that?”

  “Sure. The game’s designed to allow you to play with a whole team, if you want. The only tricky part is going to be…well, I haven’t exactly run this past Avery.”

  “Oh. You think he’ll stop you?”

  She hesitated. “I don’t know. I don’t really want to find out, though, either.”

  “So…what are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to get someone to help who won’t go running to tell.”

  “Who?”

  “If you don’t mind waiting, Richard.” Jack groaned, and she laughed. “I know he’s – well, Richard. But if I get Nate or one of the other guys…they’re already ticked that Avery has them going through the logs, trying to find a way to get you out. They find out I’m playing a game while they’re working…”

  Jack nodded. He didn’t want to lose Jordan. She was a good player, and a reasonable teammate; and much better company than Nate or anyone who might end up on Jack babysitting duty. “Good point. Fine, let’s wait for Richard.”

  They did. Jordan insisted that Jack try to get some more sleep. “You barely got an hour earlier.”

  So he slept, setting his alarm – this time – for the start of Richard’s shift. Not that he needed to. He passed the next few hours waking up every half hour, until, at last, he couldn’t take it anymore. So he called Jordan back, and she gave him coffee and a second meal.

  Finally, though, Richard got in. Jordan disappeared for an exceptionally long time, but eventually she came back. “Alright, it took a little persuading, but Richard’s going to do it.”

  “I better not get fired for this,” he heard the intern call from somewhere in the background.

  “Just get logged in, Richard.”

  “This station’s slower than that one. Give me a minute.”

  It took five minutes, but eventually he said, “Okay, I have it loaded. Joining your game now, Jack.”

  Jack looked around, expecting to see the orc woman any second. Nothing happened.

  Jordan seemed to have the same idea as him, because her avatar turned in a three-hundred and sixty degree spin. “Richard?”

  “Hold on. Something’s going on…huh. That’s weird.”

  Jack had had his fill of phrases like that. He figured he was good for a lifetime. They always boded ill, but never so much so as when your mind was locked into a videogame. “What’s wrong?”

  “It kicked me out. Crashed the game on my end.”

  “Really?” Jordan asked. “Let me look.” Then, her character froze. Jack could hear faraway sounds like footsteps, and Jordan and Richard talking distantly. “What the…”

  “I know.”

  “Try starting the game again. It could just be that device.”

  “It is a dinosaur.”

  A minute of silence followed, then Jordan’s avatar turned around. “Hey, we’re just spinning up Richard’s game again. Going to try again.”

  He nodded, but she’d already gone; her avatar stood stock still, fixed in place.

  And nothing happened. Jordan’s voice, sounding faraway again, said, “Sugar. That’s not good.”

  “No,” Richard agreed, distantly. “Maybe I should try a different device.”

  “Yeah. There should be a spare in testing lab C.”

  “You’ll need to badge me in. I don’t have access.”

  Jordan’s player sprang to life again. “Hang tight, Jack; we’re going to try another computer.”

  He nodded again, and Richard’s faraway voice laughed. “It’s not like he’s going anywhere, Jordan.”

  Then, footsteps sounded, and a door opened and closed. And Jack heard nothing at all for a good ten minutes.

  Even if Richard’s absence hadn’t been a tipoff, Jordan’s tone as she returned would have been. It sounded worried and depressed, all at once. “So we’re still having a problem with this, Jack.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “The game crashes, with an error code about maximum participants in an in-memory session. I think – and I hope I’m wrong – it might not be letting me in because the build you’re running is the one that’s stuck in memory. Not the new build.”

  “You mean…because I’m playing the buggy version?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. I’m going to go talk to Nate –”

  “I thought you didn’t want to do that?”

  “I don’t. But, we need to get Richard into the game. He worked with Alex on the cooperative play engine. I’m hoping he’ll have some good news.

  “But, you probably won’t hear from me until my next shift. So, if you don’t, don’t worry, okay?”

  He promised he wouldn’t, even though he was pretty sure that was a lie. He figured he’d be worrying five minutes after she left. But she seemed to take the promise at face value, because she, in turn, promised to do everything she could, and disappeared.

  Her character did not, though. And a minute later, Richard’s voice sprang from Jordan’s avatar. “Yo, Jack, you ready to kick some hindquarters?”

  Much to Richard’s dismay, they didn’t get to quest. Jack didn’t want to leave the area, and there were no side quests here.

  Still, the intern made the most of a bad situation. “I’ve never played Jordan’s character before. She’s got a sweet build,” he told Jack. “Pretty hot, too. Looks a lot like her, actually.”

  Jack didn’t comment on that, and Richard amused himself by switching Jordan’s outfits. As near as Jack could tell, he was trying to find the most provocative getup she had in her inventory.

  “Uh…what the heather are you doing?” he asked after a while of watching tops and bottoms swap.

  “Oh, just seeing what she’s got in here.”

  “How about you don’t? How about you just leave her character alone.”

  Richard ignored the comment.
He settled first for a pair of skin tight leather leggings in place of her lower armor. The shirts continued to flash by for a few moments, until he picked a bard’s top, complete with billowy sleeves, a low neckline, and an outward facing corset. “There we go. Much better.”

  “How is that better?”

  “Well, it gives her an agility boost and a persuasion boost.”

  “We’re about to fight wisps, Richard. Who is she going to persuade?”

  Richard – Jordan’s avatar – shrugged. “You never know.”

  “Put her armor back.”

  “Come on, dude. She’s much cuter this way.”

  Jack shook his head. “You know what? I’m going to actually try getting some sleep.”

  “Really? Well, no worries. I can wait for you.”

  “Actually, I haven’t slept in a while. So this is going to take a long time.” Richard shrugged, like he was about to argue. “So you can shut the game down. I’ll call you if I need you.”

  “When you need me,” Richard corrected.

  “Right. When I need you.”

  Richard went at that, with the promise to come back on as soon as Jack wanted. “Sleep well, man.”

  Jack rolled his eyes. He had no intention of sleeping. He’d already tried that. But he didn’t feel like he could deal with Richard at the moment, either.

  His resolve lasted hour upon long hour. Finally though, with nothing but Shimmerfax to keep him company, and nothing to do until Jordan got back, he summoned Richard again.

  The intern hopped on the line eagerly. “Yooo, Jack: I thought you forgot about me.”

  “If only,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Just…yawning.”

  “Oh. How was your beauty sleep?”

  “What? Oh, yeah, it was good.”

  “Great. You ready for me to join the game?”

  “Sure.”

  This time, with Jordan’s character gone, Loreesha appeared in a minute. “There we go. That’s better. So, what are we doing?”

  “I don’t know…I don’t suppose you heard anything from Nate?”

  “Not a peep.”

  “Oh. Well, maybe we could explore the caves outside. We passed a few side passages on the way here.”

  Loreesha nodded. “Awesome. Let’s go hunting.”

  They spent the rest of Richard’s shift exploring stone chambers. Jack found a few skeletons, and a little treasure; and he even managed to grab some of it before Richard pocketed it. They ran into wisps, and Jack tripped a fire trap that cooked half of their hit points away.

  But the truth was, though marginally better than staring at blank stone, the whole business bored Jack to tears. He didn’t care about these caves or their treasures. Maybe, if he was playing because he wanted to, he might. Probably, if he’d picked the game up after a long day at work, he would have spent hours scouring the haunted caverns, seeking out every scrap of treasure. But right now, he was just killing time; and he’d been playing for – well, he didn’t even know how long. He had no interest in rooting around caves.

  Finally, though, Richard’s shift ended, and Jordan came back on the line. He could tell immediately, as soon as he heard her voice, that her news wasn’t good. “Hey Jack. So, I talked to Nate.”

  She paused, and he forced himself to wait patiently.

  “Well, he’s still looking. But…heck, Jack, I don’t know how to say this. He doesn’t think there’s going to be a fix. Not until we get you out of there.”

  “But…how are we going to do that if I can’t finish this level?”

  “I don’t know. But we’re going to figure something out, Jack. I promise.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  They talked through their options, hitting dead end after dead end, for a long time before Jordan spun up her character. When she did, though, she stared at him, mouth agape. “What the heck happened?”

  “Oh, sugar.”

  “Was this you?”

  “No,” he protested. “Of course not. You left your character loaded, and Richard – well, I don’t know why. But he didn’t like your armor, or something.”

  She stared at him, a little suspiciously and a lot reproachfully. “That’s kind of creepy, Jack.”

  “I told him to leave you alone. I told him to put you back to how you were.”

  “Well, he didn’t,” she said, switching out of the bard’s outfit and the tight pants and into her armor in the blink of an eye.

  “Yeah, sorry. I didn’t know he was going to change anything.”

  “Did he mess with my spells?”

  “No idea.” He added again, “Sorry, Jordan. I told him I didn’t want to quest when he started messing with your character. But it was too late.”

  “I’m going to have to kick his tushy.” Jack snorted, the substitution sounding all the stranger coming from Jordan; and she sighed. “Good Lord…that really is bad.”

  “Yup…”

  “Okay, so…back to the game. We need to figure this out.”

  “Yup.”

  “How are we going to do that?”

  It seemed to be a question for herself more than him, because she stood there frowning for a long minute. “You know, I do have some ingredients that I could probably make a speed potion with. Scratch that…I’ll just generate one. Desperate times, and all that.”

  He nodded. As a developer and an admin, Jordan would be able to call up console commands to interact with the game any time she wanted. That’s how he got burgers and coffee and pancake platters from her. “Can’t you just mark the objective complete? Or spawn the tears of saint what’s her face?”

  Now, though, she shook her head. “Can’t. It’s a quest item. Only one allowed in the game at a time.”

  That, he figured, was a dumb rule, and he told her as much. She said it was a precaution following a catastrophic bug in an earlier game, where one of the developers forgot to delete a second quest item he’d spawned for testing purposes and consequently made the new release unplayable for millions of people on release day. Marshfield Studio rolled out a patch within twelve hours to delete the second quest item and the entire testing room containing it, and sales had only marginally been impacted. But the press in the tech world hadn’t been great, and it solidified the studio’s reputation for releasing bug-riddled games.

  Jack knew the game, and the bug. “Ice Kingdom Quest,” he said. “The third game. King Raylor’s missing blade. The game didn’t recognize the real one, because the test one had been created after it.”

  She nodded. “That’s right. Even though people were picking up the blade, the game saw there was still another one out there. So it wouldn’t mark the objective complete. When Kyle added a second sword, the game basically lost the tie-in to the first one.”

  He’d read all about that, and laughed at the unknown developer who had sabotaged Marshfield Studio’s big release. “You forget I’ve played all these games,” he told Jordan. “I had to wait hours for the patch to release, and then the servers were slow –”

  She shivered. “Yeah. The whole thing was a giant cluster. We had so much nerd rage coming in on Twitter, Facebook, email…everywhere. Long screeds, death threats.”

  Jack felt it necessary to say, “None of that was me. I might have – did – complain a little. But I didn’t tag you guys or anything.”

  She grinned at him. “So you didn’t threaten to kill anyone because you took a day off to play the videogame, and we sabotaged you?”

  “Uh…no.”

  “You’d be surprised how many people did. I still have one of the emails somewhere. Printed it out and framed it.”

  He laughed. “That’s one way to handle it, I guess.”

  But the point was, with one Tears of Saint Acaria in-game already, Jordan couldn’t spawn another via the command console. But she could – and did – create the highest level speed potions available, and shoes and leggings enchanted with the maximum allowed speed boost, too. Th
e potion granted a fifty percent increase to his speed, and the shoes and leggings each gave a ten percent boost.

  Then, frowning, she said, “I don’t think it’s going to be enough.” So she went back to work on her console, this time spinning up a potion to soften his landing. “You should be able to bypass the bottom half of the stairs without any damage. You know, just jump.”

  “Can you stack them? So I could take two and jump all the way?”

  “No. You can drink as many as you want, but you only get the benefit of the last potion.”

  “Okay. What if I jump from, say, three quarters of the way down?”

  “From that height? You’ll take some damage. You might need a healing potion to keep going. But you won’t die.”

  Jack grinned. “Well then, let’s get to work.”

  They did, lining up as they had before: Shimmerfax waiting at one lever, Jordan taking up station on another, and Jack positioning himself to make the mad dash between the two turrets. “Ready?” he called.

  “Ready.”

  So he gave Shimmerfax the command, and he pulled his lever. Then he darted to the door, raced down about a quarter of the steps, and jumped. He broke his legs again, but a healing potion got him back to tiptop shape. He darted forward, running so fast the wind whistled around his ears.

  He could hear the gems in their three separate tracks toward the center. He could feel the cavern shake with the motion. He saw wisps materialize out of thin air, and pop out from behind rock outcroppings like they’d done so many times before.

  He reached the bottom of the next staircase. He ran, faster than he’d ever run before. Flight after flight fell away. The turret seemed within reach now. A few wisps turned their focus on him, but he shrugged off their attacks.

  He reached the halfway point, then the three-quarters. Then his timer hit zero. He hesitated for half a moment, miserable and furious as the gems started to return to their original positions.

  Then, driven by impulse, he kept going until he reached the turret, and the lever. He pulled it. The one gem that hadn’t moved started to come toward the center of the room. But the others all continued to recede. He shouted, “Jordan, pull your lever again,” and gave Shimmerfax the same command.