Chapter 15

When they arrived back at what Perry decided to call, during their walk back, “Castle Humanity,” they were greeted by Shane, who lay sideways on one of the couches.

“How’d it go?” Shane asked.

“About how you would have expected,” replied Perry, crashing onto a different couch.

“But, it turns out we’re in space,” Heather said with a grin.

“We also thought of something. We want to try making armour. That should be alright, right? It’s not a weapon.” Heather plopped herself down next to Perry. “Should we check with that Fibby guy first?”

“What’s that saying? It’s better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission,” said Shane. “Go for it.”

Perry asked Sparky for a list of armours. It presented its database. The descriptions were mostly lacking, but scouring through he managed to find one he thought was good. Thermal control, vacuum sealed with a slot to insert an atmosphere canister, shock-absorbing material, and best of all, it came in black with cool fire decals. It was called the Depreciator-4.

“Alright, make me a Depreciator-4 that’ll fit,” ordered Perry.

“Creation of the Depreciator-4 will overdraw your credit.”

That’s new, thought Perry. No one made mention of credit before. “What do you mean by overdraw our credit?”

“All materialization costs intergalactic credits. Since your sponsorship account is empty, items have been forged using a credit line provided by the dungeon game admins. Any costs not paid off promptly will incur an interest fee.”

This was starting to sound like a problem. Regardless of any disciplinary action that would come with them not paying off their credit card bill, which Perry already suspected couldn’t be good, if they ran out of credit they wouldn’t be able to make food anymore. Damn it, this was his fault! He should have known there must have been a cost to making this stuff. Like they would just give him access to make whatever he wanted for free. Of course, there was a cost.

“How much are we in debt for?”

“2566 credits. You have 2433 credit remaining on your credit line.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have made so many beds, 3 would have been enough. They didn’t need those couches. At least they still had some wiggle room. Perry looked to Shane and Heather for advice. The smile on Heather’s face had already vanished, and Shane looked pretty worried too.

“We should still get some armour,” said Shane. “Even if we have to max out our credit line, I think we should get some armour.”

“Ask it what happens if we don’t pay our bill first. No need to rush,” said Heather.

“What happens if we aren’t able to pay off our loan?”

“All times that can be repossessed will be and credited back to your account minus any incurred damage. The remaining balance will need to be worked off in a penal colony.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound good. But it’s better than being dead.” Shane ran his hand through his red hair. “In a day we are gonna have to fight for our lives, and from the sounds of it, the next game is supposed to be harder than what we just went through. Plus, these guys don’t seem to be able to heal us, so any injuries we get are permanent. We need this armour. We need something!”

Perry nodded. Shane would be quite convincing when he wanted to. When he got passionate about something he could turn into a charismatic leader. Though most of the time, he would just go along with whatever Perry wanted to do. Perry would drag him along to his hobbies, and Shane would happily tag along.

“Heather, you got anything objections?” asked Perry.

“No. Shane made a good point, who cares how much debt you have when you’re dead. But he mentioned the sponsorship account a couple of times already. Ask about that first.”

Perry asked Sparky, “How does the sponsorship account work?”

“Well, if people watching the game enjoy your exploits, they can donate to your sponsorship account. There is a max contribution you can receive for each game, to keep things somewhat fair. The dungeon game keeps 90% of all donations though as a processing fee. Currently, the max amount of donations you can receive, after the fee, is 8000 credits.”

“And no one donated last game, right? I guess no one was watching.”

“On the contrary, plenty of people were watching your team last round. But, yes, no one donated.”

“Damn, what does it take for them to donate?”

“One reason they might not have donated is that you didn’t take the time to request donating from the audience. That usually helps. Here, let me show you a video of a team that managed to get lots of donations.”