The universe flashes green bitmap text almost to fast to read, like the system is arguing with itself, and pissed.
Error Message: Premature Tutorial Exit
[LL007::EMPATHY_CALIBRATION] >>INCOMPLETE
[PROTOCOL OVERRIDE]HR /Heartware legacy file >>make_friend.exe
>>WARNING: Heartware Not Supported
[PROTOCOL RESPONSE] Assign makefriend.exe
[ONE-TIME INSTANCE] >>FLAGGED UNIQUE
>>make_friend.exe deleted from Global RiftBorn System
>>System Message Suppressed
[DEBUG NOTE] Retain instance for continuity; flag isolated anomaly.
The infinite blackness glitches again, fttz! and I’m back on the desert island.
“What the pluperfect f§ck was that?”
Nobody answers.
I don’t notice anything different. My character sheet’s the same. Probably just some digital debugging. What matters is the Training Cube is gone. So are the pirates. Finally, I’m left alone.
I walk across the island, exploring and feeling the sand between my toes, wondering how the designers made it feel so real. Isla Soledad is smaller than a football field, and there’s nothing on it. No boat, no dock, no people, just sand and trees.
I’m beginning to wonder if abandoning the tutorial was a serious mistake when I walk over a rise to discover the weirdest thing I’ve seen all day.
On the beach stands a penguin wearing a tasseled mortar board on its head like it just graduated from Princeton. The image is completely out of place, not just the penguin on a tropical island, but the graphics are from the dawn of time. Everything in the RiftBorn game is sleek and built of billions of colors—the penguin looks like something out of a Commodore 64, made of green and black 8-bit squares.
As I move closer, a janky digital chalkboard appears behind the penguin and displays bitmap text.
PLEASE SOLVE THE PUZZLE:
7 x 3 =
Professor Penguin’s frozen face looks like I’m about to give the best answer ever.
“Seriously?” I scowl, but the penguin doesn’t reply, frozen in place. “Screw it, why not? Twenty-one.”
The penguin claps, jerking back and forth between two frozen frames, the cheapest animation in the world. The bird’s face is so happy it looks like I just solved world hunger.
THAT’S RIGHT!
YOU JUST EARNED A GOLD COIN!
+1 Gold Coin
One-Eyed Willie Bonus +50%
1.5 gold added to inventory
What the hell is a One-Eyed Willy? “Is that a d§ck joke?”
The chalkboard resets.
PLEASE SOLVE THE PUZZLE:
21 ÷ 7 =
“Stupid.” I kick sand at the penguin. Why the hell is this thing even here? I don’t need a fourth-grade math quiz. What I need is a boa—
Scrounge +5
I see the alert flash and something glows faintly in the water. A few feet offshore, there’s something buried in the sand that looks like a sunken hull. I wade out into the water and brush the sand off until a notification pops up.
Item: Bathtub (Common)
A freestanding porcelain bathtub with a curved interior and clawfoot legs. The enamel surface is faintly worn, hinting at years of use. A ring of soap scum and human discharge circles the interior.
Add to Inventory? (Y/N)
A golden grid comes up in my dashboard thingy. Now we’re talking.
Inventory:
Belt Pouch (inventory/equipped)
Hermit Loincloth (filthy/equipped)
Okay, I get it, the belt pouch is my inventory. I click Y and the bathtub deletes from the water and appears in the first slot: Bathtub. How a clawfoot tub fits in a tiny leather pouch is game-logic insanity, but hey, works for me.
I walk back to shore and tap the inventory icon: Bathtub. The tub appears on the sand in front of me with a bloop.
Huh. Interesting. I click on the word Inventory and it flashes again.
Slots Occupied: 2/1000
Stolen novel; please report.
Huh. If I can get a whole bathtub in this thing, I wonder what else I can get in there. I scoop up a handful of sand.
Item: Sand (Common)
It’s sand.
I dump it in my inventory and one of the slots partly fills with a Sand icon. I scoop up another handful and add it, trying to figure out how to fill the whole slot. After twenty handfuls, the slot looks no more full than when I started. I mess with the menu and accidentally tap a button titled Empty All. The entire Sand slot dumps all at once, and I get an instant pile three feet high. Dammit.
I start over, but this time I take off the belt pouch, set it on a dune, and start a little avalanche that disappears into the pouch. After a while, the slot flashes full at 500lbs and sand starts spilling into the next slot. With a thousand slots, I can carry... 500,000lbs? I’m a human freight train.
I haven’t played many modern video games but the Resident Evil 2 inventory had 6 slots. You could upgrade to more, but Leon Kennedy only started with 6. Either the game designers forgot to give my Belt Pouch a limit, or the Hermit Class can carry a ton of junk.
I stare at the sea and let my sandolanche pour into my inventory, thinking. There’s no way off Isla Soledad. There’s no boat. The math penguin is useless.
If I want to get off Training Island, I’m going to have to do it myself.
I grab a few sticks and try to figure out how I would put them together to make a raft, but I’ve got nothing to bind them with. Maybe palm fronds? That will take forever.
Maybe I can do something with the bathtub. I jam one of the long sticks into the faucet pipes. As I do, a notification comes up.
MacGyver Skill Tree: MacHack
Combine any three items to create an Improvised Gizmo.
Bathtub+Stick+( - )
Hot damn, I’m Angus MacGyver.
Now we’re cooking. I’ve got the bathtub for a hull, the stick for a mast... all I need is a sail.
Unequipped: Hermit Loincloth (filthy)
Naked, I slap the loincloth on the stick and suddenly the boat, the stick, and the underwear fuse together into a single item: the ugliest boat you ever saw.
Gizmo Created: Vessel
Please Christen Your Vessel: Name?
Might as well give credit to Big Mac. I type it in.
Vessel: Boaty MacBoatface
Congratulations! Your Vessel is Lvl1
Excited, I dump the boat into my inventory and wade out to sea. Waist-deep, I pop Boaty MacBoatface into the water, where it immediately begins to sink.
Warning: Vessel Integrity 31%
The sea is coming up through the drain and there’s no rubber stopper. “Dammit!” I grab my belt pouch from the sand dune. The pouch now reads Sand: 50,000 lbs but doesn’t weigh a thing. I stuff the belt pouch into the drain to stuff the hole, but it doesn’t stop the water. The boat is sinking.
“Use MacHack!” I shout. “Combine item!”
MacHack: Max 3 items per gizmo
Dammit, I can’t use anything but the bathtub, the stick, and the loincloth. I need something else, something cone-shaped, that I can use to plug the hole.
I grab Professor Penguin and shove its beak into the drain. THONK!
Vessel Integrity 96%
“Yeahh!” I pull the loincloth, it catches the digital wind, and we sail into the open sea. “Let’s go!!”
I haven’t felt this good in years. Screw HumanAsset, screw the tutorial, screw the rules. “I’m on a boat motherf§cker!”
My joy is short-lived.
“Yaaa! Old coot dead ahead!” A hypercaffeinated teenage voice shouts. “Frag that f§cking Beach Boomer!”
Another pirate ship, the Blubberbutt, has spotted me. It cruises in, readying cannons, preparing to blow me sky-high. There’s nothing I can do. I don’t have any weapons or a way to outrun them. They’re going to sink my boat. I’ll be respawned back on Isla Soledad, and this time I won’t have any way to escape.
“F§ck it.”
I turn Boaty MacBoatface toward the pirate ship. Cannonballs whistle overhead as I cut underneath their fire. I grab my belt pouch and hurl it onto the ship.
Confused, several pirates stare at the little pouch on their deck. One points at it and laughs. “The old f§cker is trying to bribe us!”
I hit Empty All.
Pirates scream as my belt pouch disgorges 50,000 pounds of sand onto their vessel. It pours over the sides of the ship, fills the cargo hold, and spews out of the cannon ports. The pirate ship suddenly lists to one side and goes down like a rock. Pirates jump into the water screaming as the Blubberbutt dives for Davy Jones’ Locker.
My dashboard thingy flashes.
VICTORY!
Congratulations, you are the best in the world at doing whatever the hell you call what you just did!
Murder Payday! 120XP | 1000 gold (+50%)
You Did a Thing!
You survived your first encounter with a Rival Party! Your mom will be thrilled to hear you’re not totally useless! Survive First Party Encounter +100XP
You Did Another Thing!
Not only did you not die, you performed a TPK on all 12 Players of [Team Blubberbutt!] Keep it up, tiger! You may get the hang of this yet! TPK Bonus +100XP
Badge Unlocked! S.S. Suck It
Destroy a Pirate Vessel without using a weapon +200XP
LEVEL UP!
Congratulations! You reached a new level of excellence! You are now Hermit: Level 1
Health Bar Capacity +10%
Psyche +1
Stamina +1
Skill Tree Advancement
MacHack Success Rate +10%
MacHack Chance of Legendary Gizmo +1%
Blah-blah-blah—I won. That’s all that matters. Future Dave can figure out what all those numbers mean. I’m sure it’s all very awesome or whatever, but right now I’m just happy solving problems with a bag of sand instead of empathy training. A red light flashes in my dashboard thingy.
SysOp [PATCH 2.4.11.b]
>> LL Inventory_Empty_All() misuse: Issue Resolved
Bug Correction Applied
“Empty All” has been removed from LL Inventory Options
Thank you for helping improve RiftBorn?!
Somebody in corporate management got pissed enough at my Empty All solution to change the rules. That one patch note makes me happier than the whole level-up announcement combined. HumanAsset forced me into their game; I can force them to regret it.
My belt pouch reappears at my side, empty. Guess I won’t be able to use that trick again. Still. Not a bad start.
For a moment, I just enjoy the win. I’m in a boat on the open sea, no HumanAsset, no chemo, no pirates, no one trying to kill me. I’m buck naked in a bathtub, but for the first time in years, I feel almost human again.
At some point, I look down at my naked loins and realize that I’m as anatomically correct as a Ken doll. Where my junk used to be is just a smooth bump. I feel my face turn a furious red. “They took my money, they took my freedom, and now they took my d§ck.”
As I say the word, the world glitches pitch black. I start to wonder if I exceeded some cursing limit, but bitmap text appears for a split second.
Activate (auto):
make_friend.exe
Wait, what was that?
I hear a squeak from the front of the boat. “Excuse me? Hello?”
It’s a woman’s voice, high and bright. But the boat is empty. What the hell?
“Excuse me, sir? Can you help?” The woman chirps. “I seem to be stuck.”
The voice is coming from the penguin’s ass.