Vaudevillain

Work was the same as usual. Dylan performed his daily tasks, chatted with coworkers, then went home after finishing a few emails. At home he went through his daily chores and made sure to get a bit of exercise in before jumping onto the computer.

Jack was already online to greet him and the two jumped into a video call.

“How’s my favorite villain?” she asked.

“Just dastardly,” Dylan answered. “How’re you?”

“Doing pretty good,” Jack answered. “About to get busy with some new plays at our theater but that’s pretty normal.”

“Which plays are you performing this time?” Dylan asked.

“Well I’m not performing anything,” Jack answered smugly.

Dylan rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“We’re doing another rendition of Hamilton,” Jack said with a sigh. “Don’t get me wrong, I love the play but its almost like the Scottish play at this point.”

“The Shakespeare one,” Jack answered. “With the three witches at the beginning.”

“Oh, MacBeth?” Dylan asked.

“That’s the one,” Jack said. “You get a pass because you aren’t in theater, but everyone knows the name is a curse.”

“I didn’t take you for superstition,” Dylan said.

“I mean, I’m usually not,” Jack said. “But you don’t mess with theater superstition. Something always goes wrong if you mess with theater superstition.”

Jack said the last sentence with such gravitas that Dylan figured something had happened in the past. He was about to ask when another joined the video call.

“Hey guys,” Oro said. “How’s it going?”

“Hey Oro,” Dylan said. “Doing good. Jack was telling me about theater curses.”

“Oh neat,” Oro said. “That our next plan in the making?”

“Nah,” Jack said. “My theater is putting Hamilton on and I was just complaining.”

“Gotcha,” Oro said. “Well if no one has ideas I’m down to do more heroic ventures. I heard the next step in Dr. Zlo’s plan is a lot of fun.”

“Are we going to ‘interfere’ in another hero’s journey again?” Jack asked.

“I think this one’s instanced?” Oro said questioningly. “I can check.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dylan said. “I think its more fun to go in blind. Experience the story without any spoilers you know.”

“Well, let’s get Dream and Rip in here then,” Jack said.

The group sent a few messages over to the couple. They exchanged small talk while waiting, Oro and Jack bouncing ideas back and forth for their respective heroes.

“So it turns out my character is more limited than I initially thought,” Jack said. “Gameset might be able to perfectly play any sport, but I have to stay within the rules of that sport. Which means I can’t improve weapons past a certain point.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t seem like protection is a part of that,” Oro said. “We should test if your power works while in an exosuit or something.”

“Oh we totally need to test that,” Jack said. “Speaking of testing, are you able to clone disposable weapons? Like grenades or throwing knives?”

“Sure can,” Oro said. “As long as its in Of a Kind’s right hand I can copy it to the left. The only restriction is size and complexity. Pretty much every mundane explosive is fine but anything past that is too much. I also have a stamina bar which somewhat limits the amount of items I can copy at a time. So far the limit I found is ten. At that point I need to wait a few seconds for stamina to regenerate.”

Dylan chimed in with a few comments until someone else messaged him on Netchat.

D.Black:

Hey, wanted to try and get you thinking about our next event.

Superfan39526:

Hold on, did something happen with Vert while I wasn’t paying attention?

D.Black:

No, why?

Superfan39526:

Oh.

It’s just the only times we’ve done events are to get back at Vert or grab their attention.

D.Black:

What no we haven’t? The big race wasn’t about Vert at all.

Superfan39526:

Somehow I forgot about that one.

D.Black:

All good. Anyway, since Dr. Zlo is kind of the face of Menagerie I wanted to rope you into things.

If you want to sit one out I’m cool with it as well.

Superfan39526:

No I’m totally down to run another event. I’ll have to get back to you on the idea.

I’ve got no clue where to take Dr. Zlo at the moment. What does a villain do after destroying the moon?

D.Black:

Well, technically the moon wasn’t destroyed.

Maybe something with that?

Superfan39526:

Maybe. I’ll get back to you.

Thanks for keeping me in the loop.

D.Black:

Anytime man.

“We definitely need to find a tech-guy,” Jack said as Dylan tuned back into the conversation.

“Why not just use your character?” Dylan asked. “Isn’t she a neutral mechanic?”

“I mean, we could,” Jack said. “But I kind of wanted to see what the NPCs had in store for heroes.”

“I can tell you that,” Oro said. “It’s a varying mix mostly. Crafter characters are always going to have better gear, but there are a few specific designs that only a NPC can make.”

“That doesn’t feel like its in line with the spirit of a sandbox game,” Dylan said.

Oro shrugged. “Maybe people haven’t tried to steal the plans yet. Or maybe security is just too strong.”

The call pinged as Sweet Dream and Riptide appeared.

“Sup, dudes,” the surfer said. “I hear we’re going hero again.”

“Yeah,” Oro said. “The next step in Vert’s Dr. Zlo story is supposed to be pretty fun.”

“We need to gear up first, though,” Jack said. “We were wanting to see if Gameset could use her powers with an exosuit while Of a Kind wanted to upgrade his arsenal of weapons.”

“Right on, dudes,” Riptide said. “I’ve got a great idea for Firestarter!”

“It’s not hairspray grenades, is it?” Dylan asked.

“Pff, no dude,” Riptide said. “It’s gotta be more punk. I’m thinking a rad guitar that shoots flames when I shred.”

“You can’t even play the guitar,” Sweet Dream said.

“That’s why its punk, dude!” Riptide laughed. “You don’t gotta be good to be punk.”

“How do we go about gearing up?” Dylan asked. “Jack was thinking of using NPCs for it, mostly to see what they have to offer.”

“I’m fine with that,” Sweet Dream said. “It would give us a different experience.”

“We might have to do a few sidequests for them,” Oro said.

“How about we look up one NPC crafter that could get us everything we need,” Jack said. “That way we only have to do one questline instead of tons of different ones.”

“Easy enough,” Oro said. “There’s a list of the popular ones.”

“Wait, it would be more fun to search on our own I think,” Dylan said. “If we have to pick a popular one, then sure but I’d much rather treat it like an emerging story you know.”

“That could take a bit, though,” Oro said. “I’d much rather finish the Dr. Zlo story as quick as possible before jumping into an NPC search.”

“Oro, is that list you’re searching have all the known NPC crafters or just the popular ones?” Jack asked.

“It lists the top ten but there’s a link to all the known ones,” Oro explained.

“How about we go through the list of known ones and pick the one that best fits out group?” Jack continued. “If I remember right we’re fronting as a punk band. We could make our crafter a retired sound tech or something yeah?”

“Dude that sounds awesome,” Riptide said. “Approximo is our sound guy though. What about something else?”

“What if they were a tailor or something,” Sweet Dream said. “Maybe someone who designs for aristocrats to link to Mirror Mirror?”

“Or some kind of sports engineer for Gameset,” Jack said. “Heck, it could even be someone who worked in the mafia.”

“I don’t think Approximo would know anyone,” Dylan said. “He’s not exactly well acquainted with earthlings.”

“So I’m looking through the list,” Oro said. “There’s an ex-mafia and a tailor, but I’m not seeing a sport engineer. I fact, nothing sport related.”

“Well I guess we have our two options,” Jack said. “Which sounds better?”