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Yes/No

My breath caught as the neon lights flashed once again in front of my eyes. Last time I hit yes I came back to life and now it wants to evolve? At least I’ll get something out of this debacle. I suppressed my tears and slammed a finger onto the ‘Yes’ button.

---->----

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“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK” It’s over. I fucked up so hard. I turned to the boss, my tears no longer suppressed. “Boss. Critical failure evolved.”

“No godsdammed way. You’d have to have a luck stat in the single digits for something that terrible to happen. What’s your luck at??”

“Negative one” Luan looked at me open mouthed for a while before he leaned back in his chair and laughed loudly.

“I suppose we can’t do this half-way then can we? Cat, take the kid to his room. Training starts first thing in the morning.” With that rather eventful series of events wrapping up, Cat picked himself up off the floor and took me to a small dormitory in one wing of the guild.

“Alright Little Bird, we’ll get you back outside in a little while. Typically it’d be after a week or so of training but…it might be a little longer for you~” With those words of encouragement Cat waved and disappeared off into the guild. With nothing better to do I heaved a sigh and collapsed on the bed.

“Really, what the fuck.”

NAME: Jin ﴾Third Prong﴿

TITLE: Enigmatic/ Endless Sleeper/ Acolyte of the Third Prong/

AGE: 19

RACE: ???

LEVEL: 2

CLASS: Dark Acolyte

STRENGTH: 12

VITALITY: 13

SPEED: 17

AGILITY: 17

LUCK: -1

INTELLIGENCE: 15

DEXTERITY: 18

MANA: 5

SKILLS: Origin Lvl 2. Traveler (+lighten load). Enigma Lvl 1. Beginner’s mental resist. Aura of misfortune.

>------------

Gerald Stone looked up from the notice he was reading, A Petition to Remove the Concept of Bits, Pieces, and Wholes from RDK, at the sound of his intercom ringing. Happy for any excuse, he pressed the answer button on the receiver.

“What is it?” The intercom crackled quietly as Gerald waited for a response. He didn’t have to wait long as very quickly the voice of Tom Gibbs broke through the background noise and filled Gerald’s small office.

“Good news and bad news, Ger. We discovered the source of the turbulence.” Tom paused to let Gerald ask what the bad news was. He didn’t.

After a moment, Tom’s voice crackled again through the speaker, preceded by a sigh Gerald recognized as having passed his own lips more than a few times these months. “The bad news is that we tracked it to an automatic update set to be triggered by NG+ and input nearly two years ago by authorization key D. Michelson.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Michelson? You double checked? You triple checked?”

“I quintuple checked, Ger.”

Gerald Stone rubbed the bridge of his nose with a light groan. “Let me guess, it was a memory file.”

“Biggest one I’ve ever seen. No second biggest I’ve ever seen.”1

“Of course it was.” Gerald glanced at the coffee cup sitting on his desk and peered hopefully over the rim. Empty. Of course. He cursed quietly and started to get up to fetch more.

“Fill me in, Stone.” Gerald paused at the sound of a voice at his door, then, seeing its owner, sank back into his chair with a heavier groan and a gesture to an empty seat against the far wall. Susan Hatfield, RDKs biggest sponsor and influential member of the board of directors walked with steady purpose to Gerald’s desk and sat across from him.

‘When it rains, it pours.’

“Are you familiar with Dave Michelson?” Gerald asked with one last longing look at his empty mug.

1I’ve heard that before