April 11, 2039

Mokro Arts Policy Manual - Employee Fraternization

Two employees of Mokro Arts that are in the same department can not be in a relationship. Should this occur, one of the employees will need to transfer to a different department. If neither employee is willing to transfer, a meeting with the department head will be scheduled that could result in the unwilling transfer or termination of one or both employees.

Kyle sighed as he read this paragraph from the policy manual for the hundredth time. It still didn’t quite answer his question. Since early in the year, the USSC had been working with Mokro Arts. Each department had a member or two of the USSC working with them.

In February, Kyle had been promoted to zone development. This department had been working on revamping all of the zones. They had just completed all of the level 1-5 zones. They had added new monsters, new quests, and new drops. It was now time to move onto the level 5-10 zones.

More importantly, Kyle had the chance to work with Lance Corporal Jolene McKinna. She was one of the liaisons of the USSC for the zone development team. Kyle was pretty sure that she was the very definition of perfection. As she was a member of the USSC, she wasn’t technically an employee of Mokro Arts. She was in the same department though.

For the first few months, she barely seemed to notice the Mokro Arts employees were there. Fortunately, Kyle has noticed that Jolene spent a lot of time talking to Lance Corporal Jennifer Walker. She was part of the character development team. Jolene had a thin athletic build with jet balck hair. She was deeply tanned from spending so much time outdoors. Jennifer however, was average build with light brown hair. Her skin was pale from spending most of her time behind a computer screen.

Kyle had to work with Jennifer on many occasions while he revamped the 0-5 zones. Specifically, he needed to work with her about the new armor drops and new quests. It was important not to make any of the rewards be too powerful or not fit the appropriate class. While he did enjoy working with Jennifer, he was mostly looking for a wingman. Well, a wingwoman in this case.

Jennifer walked up to Kyle’s cubeical and looked over his screen at the employee manual. “Oh Kyle, you have it bad don’t you? Are you sure that you want to try for Jo? She can be a bit rough on her boyfriends.”

Kyle looked back over his shoulder at Jennifer. “Well sure. If I come at her like some jerk from the bar, that’s how I’m going to be treated. What we need is a way where we can work together and really get to know each other better.”

Jennifer grinned down at him. “Kyle, what do you think you know about Jo?” Kyle started counting off on his fingers. “She graduated second in her class from Quantico.” Jennifer muttered that she would have been second if it hadn’t been for catching the flu. “Second, she runs 4 miles before work each day. Normally, jogging by the fountain at about 7:30.” Jennifer shook her head. “That explains why you have been coming into work early.” Kyle ticked down a third finger. “ She plays Arella Everlasting. She is a level 24 Summoner with a specialization in ice.” Jennifer laughed and pointed at Kyle. “Nope, she is level 23. About time you got one wrong.”

Kyle cleared his throat. “She actually leveled up last night while she was in the Desert Lich’s Tomb.” Jennifer raises her eyebrow at Kyle. “OK, I may have been spamming her name in my search while I was on last night. Saying it out loud, it doesn’t really help me not sound like a first rate creeper.”

Jennifer blew out a long sigh. “Well, if you insist on giving it a try. We need to figure out a good reason for our departments to work together. I can tell her that I want you to work with the two of us. Any ideas as to what I can suggest to make that happen?”

Kyle rapped his fingers against the desk. “Obviously, we need something where character development and zone development work together. Ideally, for quite a while. I’ve been adding quests and mobs to to the newbie zones. Maybe we could do something fun with that. There are some zones that I worked on that didn’t have much traffic. I bet the Board would like to see more players in there.”

Kyle typed in a few commands and pointed to the results on his screen. “At any given time, less than five percent of the players are in any of these zones. Let’s use these. We could probably make a big event of it. A big summer promotion!”

Jennifer nodded and sat down on the edge of his desk. She leaned in and looked closer at the list. “Four of these zones have some type of NPC presence. What do you think about revamping them to be alternative starter zones?”

Kyle pulled up the first of the four zones that Jennifer pointed out. The island of Rakenetta. There was a small outpost of NPCs and even a few players that constantly frequented this island. Other than that, only mobs. There were a few promising aspects that they could work with.

Jennifer grabbed Kyle’s shoulder and squeezed. “I have the perfect idea! If you want to keep Jo’s interest, we need to talk about her interests.” From there, she started laying out her ideas.