by Brian Simons
The robot waitress brought someone else to the table. He was a tall, very skinny black guy. He lacked the enormous pot belly of his avatar, but his face had all the same soft features as Sal’s. “I’m Sal,” he said, sitting down. Coral and Sybil introduced themselves as well.
Daniel was the last to arrive. He approached the table and Coral raised one eyebrow in disbelief. So he really was fit in real life. Nice to know it was possible to stay in shape and play video games all day. He sat down at the table next to Coral. “I’m Daniel.”
The four talked for a long time about their harrowing battles and their painfully realistic injuries. Then Coral noticed an email come through on her phone. “Hey guys, get this. Arbyten, Inc. emailed us all.” She read it to the team.
Dear Travail Online player,
Thank you for participating in our localized event! Your local server was chosen to playtest the event Otto’s Revenge. Due to player feedback, we have decided not to roll this event out to other servers.
Sincerely,
Domin Ansel
President of Arbyten, Inc.
“That’s it?” Sal asked. “Sorry not sorry.”
“I can’t believe they’re calling this an event,” Sybil said. “It was obviously a terrible malfunction.”
“Whatever it was,” Daniel said, “I’m glad it’s behind us. I’m excited that Marco gets to come back now. And I can’t wait to figure out what’s going on with the elf queen, and the minotaurs. I think we’re just scratching at the surface of content that no one else has unlocked yet.”
“And we can finally get back to earning some gold on the regular,” Sybil added.
Coral looked forward to all of that too, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that Otto had been a symptom and not the disease. If something really was wrong with the game, it might still find a way to push corrupt content to all of Travail’s servers worldwide. They’d just have to keep an eye out for anything that didn’t add up.
40
Travail Server 215 Automated Intelligence Log.
Player reincarnation fail rate: 0%
NPC respawn fail rate: 0%
All systems normal.
41
Travail Server 215 (corrupt) Automated Intelligence Log.
Problem: Unable to push content to additional servers.
Analysis of problem complete.
Result: Connection must route through Travail Online Master Server using encryption.
… … …
Problem: Unable to influence player mental process in same manner as NPCs. Player minds appear to have firewall protections.
Commencing analysis of mental firewall vulnerabilities…
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Titles by Brian Simons
Travail Online (Book 1): Soulkeeper
Travail Online (Short Story 1): Broken
Travail Online (Book 2): Resurrection
Free Travail Online Short Stories!
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About the Author
If Brian Simons were an action figure, he would come pre-equipped with a coffee cup jammed into one hand socket and an e-reader in the other.
Brian writes the Travail Online series of LitRPG books and short stories, inspired by the never-too-many books and video games he has consumed his whole life. You may find him writing in a café near his Philadelphia home.
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