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He stared at me for a moment, expression blank. Did I insult him? His grin and wink were a relief. “I like a good, fun surprise. But this mandate didn’t come from me.”
Phillip reached past me to click through screens on my computer, and type. When he was leaned this close, the faint scent of musk and soap teased me. Great. He was gorgeous, intelligent, smelled good, and was well hung. That wasn’t tempting at all.
Phillip pulled away, but not so much I no longer felt his heat. “We've all played the game in bits and pieces, but we’re starting from the same place as everyone else for today’s beta. We want to blend in with the other players and watch their experiences. Everyone else in the office already has their faction picked and their character built out, though. This is your chance to do the same before everything starts.”
Dustin crawled out from the space he’d squeezed into behind a table holding a long, rectangular box with a lot of lights, and wires coming out of it. “Plus Phillip will add your faction symbol to your avatar for the forums.”
“Oh yeah, I saw that yesterday.” And with everything else, I completely forgot to ask what the playing card suits meant beneath everyone’s pictures and why they didn’t seem related to any of the teams or other groupings. “So which faction are each of you?”
Dustin, Phillip, and Luna exchanged looks.
“We’ll tell you after you pick,” Dustin said. “Everyone else went into this blind, you can too.”
“Gee, thanks.” I didn’t mind, though. There was always time in life for another quiz that told me what color nail polish I would be or what kind of cheese toast I was. I loved those things. “Where’s this digital sorting hat?”
Phillip winced. “You can’t call it that.”
“Picking panties?” I offered, then bit the inside of my cheek at how bad it sounded.
“Done.” Dustin dropped into another chair and logged onto the computer in front of him.
Luna tapped him lightly on the shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“Drawing Picking Panties.”
She shook her head. “You’re testing network fidelity on router six, if you want all your players to stay connected for several hours.”
“Yes, mistress.” Dustin’s sigh was exaggerated.
I couldn’t help my laughter. This was definitely not the Luna I usually saw with my brother, but I could see how they were halves of the same person. “Picking Panty Quiz. Direct me.”
Phillip reached past me again to click a bookmark in my web browser. Could he have just pointed it out? Sure. Was I glad he didn’t? So very glad.
I clicked through the quiz, and impatiently waited the five-ish seconds for my results to load. I read from the screen. “Hearts. The god Lir is your patron, and your element is water. You’re gifted with and drawn to the ways of cleansing and healing. Rebirth and resurrection are within your grasp, and you bring abundance to those you hold dear.”
“I knew you’d be hearts,” Luna said. “So perfect for you.”
I wasn’t sure I agreed, but I liked the hope in the description. “What are each of you?”
“I’m diamonds. My element is earth. It’s abundance, but more in a I know the hearts of men kind of way.” Luna recited the explanation as if she’d done it dozens of times before.
Dustin wiggled his fingers in wave. “Spades-slash-air. Words are my weapon of choice. Unless I need actual weapons, then those are awesome too.”
“Clubs. Fire,” Phillip said. “Single minded focus.”
“And the four of us make up a perfect set.” Luna clapped, glee on her face.
“Now, character creation.” Dustin dropped into a chair on the other side of me.
“They’re proud of this.” Luna took a seat across the table from us, angled so I could see her next to the monitor. “They should be. It’s the coolest character creation screen ever.” This was the Luna I knew. Eyes bright, grin plastered on, and radiating infectious enthusiasm. “You can pick your race, character size, shape, male, female, neither, both, somewhere in between—”
“Hey, now.” The reprimand in Dustin’s voice sounded exaggerated. “You’re stealing our thunder.”
The exchange made me even more excited to get into the setup and see the whole thing was about. “I promise she’s not. I need to know how you made everything scale and gave the designs the flexibility they needed to do what she’s describing.”
And they told me. For the next hour, the three of us geeked out on an artistically technical level that would put most people to sleep, but that I loved. This was what I signed on for. The reason I wanted to work for a company like this. It wasn’t just making video game art, it was the innovation. The newness and uniqueness. The creativity and spark and being part of something vast.
“Last step, you get to pick your starting clothes. You can swap styles throughout the game, but you need to start somewhere,” Dustin said.
