Vaudevillain

Vert's corporate office was exactly how Dylan pictured it, a modern square office attempting to be upscale for the younger workers. The "work hard play hard" culture was still very much alive in tech companies, and Vert was no exception to the rule. The beige concrete building held inside it a welcoming open lounge, and Dylan found himself getting comfortable despite his slight nervousness. He'd used a couple of his vacation days from work to make his way over to the company to talk with Rick.

The two had communicated by email multiple times before this meeting, Rick explaining the basics while Dylan asked for elaboration. Eventually, the two decided it would be best to meet in person to discuss everything. It also seemed to Dylan that Rick wanted to show off Vert's progress. The man's emails mentioned sales and expansion more than once.

So now Dylan found himself in the lobby of Vert's main offices, a list of questions for the company on his phone. Thomas and the others had compiled the list from a few surveys sent to members in Menagerie working toward the faction's overall goal.

That had taken a bit of time to work through.

It was true that Menagerie's initial event had attracted new members, but most of them were more interested in Dr. Zlo than the group's actual goal. Most of the survey answers were less focused on Vert's balance of the game and more focused on getting close to Dr. Zlo. The survey answers creeped Dylan out more than anything else; he wasn't used to all the attention directed at him.

But eventually, Thomas and the other founders had narrowed the surveys down to a few questions. Dylan would ask about them while going over the contract for the raid boss position.

Footsteps from down the hall attracted Dylan's attention.

"Mr. Jensen?" a friendly voice asked.

Dylan looked to see a woman, dressed in business casual, addressing him.

"Great!" the woman smiled. "Rick will meet you in the playpen. If you'll come with me."

Dylan raised an eyebrow but stood and followed. The woman led him out of the welcome lounge and through a colorful hallway, pictures of the VIS and World of Supers art hanging on posters across the walls.

"So, why is it the playpen?" Dylan said, trying to make small talk.

"Oh, it's a little joke here at Vert," the woman said. "It's the conference room we use to discuss the different scenes in the games. Since it's where we have the most fun, someone started calling it the playpen. And well, the name stuck."

"I almost thought you were leading me to a slide or something," Dylan joked.

"Oh no, that's three rooms over."

Dylan looked at the woman in surprise, then saw the joking smile on her face. "You got me," he said. "I really believed you had one for a second."

The two arrived in front of the conference room door, the woman showing Dylan inside.

"To be honest," the woman said, leaning in conspiratorially as the two entered the room, "I wouldn't put it past Arthur to have one tucked away somewhere. The man's all kinds of eccentric. Did you know that the other day he brought his pet snake into one of our meetings?"

"No way," Dylan said, part of him thinking she was joking.

"I'm completely serious," the woman said. "It wasn't a large one. Actually, it was small enough to fit into the man's shirt pocket. But it spooked half the room when the tiny creature popped its head out."

"Ah, Becky!" A voice said, interrupting the two's conversation. "I take it this is Dylan?"

Dylan turned to see a tan man in khakis and a button-down shirt walking into the room. Brown hair, styled with more hair product than Dylan knew existed, sat on the man's head in a perfect comb-over, adding to the man's professional yet laid-back look.

"This is him, yes," Becky said.

"Good to hear!" the man said. He thrust his hand out to Dylan for a handshake, "I'm Rick. Though, I'm sure you caught that from my distinctive voice."

Dylan took Rick's hand and gave it a firm shake, "I wouldn't have noticed until you said anything."

Rick shook his head and tsked, "Blasted voice equipment. It can never get a good recording of me. But we aren't here to talk about that! Come, let's talk business. Thank you for leading him, Becky."

Rick tried to place a hand on his coworker's shoulder, but the woman had already moved out of reach. "It was no trouble, Mr. Sanchez. I hope you aren't held down by a meeting next time."

Rick turned back to Dylan as Becky left, "We're always busy here, as you can see."

"I bet," Dylan said. "I've seen how quickly you're all growing. It's impressive, to say the least."

"Two-hundred percent growth in as many days," Rick said. The man motioned for Dylan to take a seat.

"It isn't true, of course," Rick said.

"What?" Dylan asked.

"The numbers," Rick answered. "But two-hundred in two-hundred sounds much better than the specific numbers the accountants came up with."

"I see…" Dylan said, a bit confused.

"Don't be so stiff!" Rick said jovially. "We're here to talk about good news, aren't we?"

"Oh, definitely," Dylan said. "I just wondered where growth fit into it."

"Right, right," Rick said. "I ended up giving you the salesman speech. You're a lot better dressed than the last two we talked to."

Dylan looked down at his simple polo shirt and black jeans, wondering what the others came in to give Rick such an impression.

"Alright, enough banter," Rick said. "We're here to talk business."

The man leaned back in the conference chair, "I have to say, when I first saw videos of your character, I loved the idea. A cartoonish villain that performs all the classic crimes with a twist? It's absolutely perfect for a game like World of Supers."

"Thanks," Dylan said, a bit sheepish. "I didn't think it would get so popular, to be honest."

"Of course it'd be popular!" Rick exclaimed. "We haven't had a villain like this for years! At least not one with as much showmanship as Dr. Zlo. That's why we'd love to work with you to bring it into World of Supers's lore."

"Right, you talked about that over email," Dylan said. "I have a few questions, though."

"Fire away," Rick said.

Dylan pulled out his phone and opened up the list he and his friends made.

"So, the initial announcement for this mentioned becoming a raid boss, but the last event was nothing of the sort. The Orange Visitor was only from the same race as the actual villain. How would that work with someone like Dr. Zlo?"

"Right, right," Rick said. "Arthur was a bit overzealous in his announcement, but he wasn't wrong. It's very much possible to make you a raid boss, or whatever it is that you'd call it. However, we can't exactly have you controlling the character."

"Why's that?" Dylan asked.

"Think of it this way. These expansions are something like scripted events. Thus, the villains in them are limited to certain actions. Players acting as the raid boss wouldn't be able to act outside of certain conditions, which isn't something a lot of players want to deal with."

"Okay, that makes sense," Dylan said. "So then how would you make Dr. Zlo a raid boss?"

"Well, Vert would make a copy of your character and have them act as the final boss. Of course, during that time, we'd ask that you not have Dr. Zlo involved in other events."

"Wait wait," Dylan said. "You'd only be copying my character. Why can't I keep playing him?"

"To keep the world feeling real," Rick answered matter-of-factly. "If we had your character in the final boss area, but you still ran around doing whatever you wanted, players might get the wrong idea."

"Dr. Zlo has Zlobots, though," Dylan argued. "It's completely possible for it to look like he's in two places at once."

"Let's put a pin in that then," Rick said. "The other option is to work with us and design a boss for the expansion. You'd get most of the creative control, and Vert would do its best to accommodate. We wouldn't be able to do everything, of course. You understand."

"Yeah," Dylan said. Despite Vert's advanced technology, they wouldn't be able to work with everything given to them. Some ideas were still out of reach. "I'm guessing that's what the last person picked."

"You got it," Rick said. "He worked with us to make the alien invasion."

"Speaking of that," Dylan said. "I had a question about it as well. The last event was rather scripted and limited the freedoms the player normally had inside the game. Would it be possible to try and limit that for my event?"

"You have to understand," Rick started. "There's only so much we can fit into the expansion, and the easiest way to make the idea in your head work is to script a few events."

"What if I'm not all that attached to a strict story," Dylan said.

"I'm sure we could talk with the developers about it," Rick said. "But that's getting into territory I'm not familiar with." The man gave a winning smile, "I'm here to help you through the signing process."

Dylan looked down at his list of questions, only noticing one more that fit into the current conversation.

"What about making permanent changes to the world?" Dylan asked.

Rick raised an eyebrow in question.

"Like, say I wanted to send an asteroid down onto a city or something," Dylan said. "Like, a giant world-ending event. If players fail, would the city get destroyed?"

"Hmm," Rick said, clasping his hands together in thought. "I'm not sure, to be honest. Since it is a new expansion, changes to the game's world are possible, but destroying an entire city permanently means removing players' progress in the area. Maybe if we created a new area just for your expansion."

Dylan nodded. It seemed reasonable enough.

"Any other questions?" Rick asked.

"Oh, plenty," Dylan answered. "But I don't think you can answer the others."

"Ha!" Rick laughed. "You might be right. I remember one of the others that came in before you. They had all sorts of questions on the inner workings of our VIS tech. I couldn't give him any answers, I'm in the relations department after all. Besides, between you and me, I think that man was a corporate spy."

Dylan laughed, "Oh yeah?"

"A lot of people want their hands on our tech right now," Rick said. "Though, I don't know why. We've patented the process and everything. It's not like they could make anything from it. But enough talk about others. Are you ready to start making some lore?"

Rick pulled out a stack of papers and slid them over to Dylan.

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