Luckily, Ah'Ming woke up back in his bed.
Unfortunately, it was the bed within the resentful resort instance, not the bed in his real home.
Luckily, the red bar was back up full, so he had time to stay in his room and rot.
Unfortunately, he had nothing to do in his room either.
There wasn't even a mini-bar!
No TV, no books, not even a note pad. It was almost as if the hotel room was designed to keep people out of it.... which it probably was. A smart move, Ah'Ming admitted, on the system's part. It would be a lot easier to keep players up and moving if they had nothing else to do.
Sitting, no- drowning in the same fluffy pile of pillows, he sat.
Ah'Ming couldn't really decide what to do, especially since there didn't seem to be much to do. The sub-stories he'd encountered so far were boring, and even the punishment instance had nothing important.
Hmm....
Should he.... Should he just stay in the room and wait to enter another punishment instance? That seemed like a pretty stupid idea though. It would surely irk the system, and lead to a lack of rewards. Plus, waiting in the room for that long seemed like a really boring thing to do. THough he'd gotten a C evaluation, it had been in a C level instance. That meant it was still worth a lot. Judging by the estimates, he had another seven hours to kill if he wanted to go to another punishment instance.
You know what, maybe it was just that Ah'Ming had really bad luck when it came to substories. Maybe, he'd only been through the easiest ones.
That seemed like a pretty great idea, especially since it meant there was the chance that there are interesting substories too. Who knows, maybe there'd be a battle royal or a chance to slaughter.
Ah'Ming pulled open the forum, trying to find a list of the hardest substories within the instance. Yes, he wanted something difficult, but he didn't want an uncomfortable one. Such as no underwater instances, ones set in bathrooms or any that had to do with... stuff that might not pass censorship. He'd need to seek out the ones that fit him well himself.
Hmm.
No way was he gonna go into the under lake retrieval one (which was popular, for some reason.). He didn't really want to do anything to the clinic, since doctors were scary and they meant evil syringes and tests, electrical shocks and all. He also didn't want to do a customer service one either.
That... got rid of a lot, actually.
Not much was well, not related to customer service.
Which was stupid.
This was a resort!
The players should be guests here, no?
Though.
There was apparently the main plot. Since the resentful resort was a time-based instance, there was no real need to clear the main story. Because of this, not many people ever tried, leaving the record to the main story clearance being at 37%. The substories, though, bringing relatively low danger and higher rewards, were often at around 70.
The only problem was that the system banned guides to the instance you were currently in. The logic being that when you were in the substory, you couldn't access any forum guides or messages relating to the substory you were in, unless published by someone who is in there actively with you. If you were in an instance, you couldn't access any forum guides or messages relating to the instance you were in, again, unless published by someone who is in there actively with you.
This meant that there weren't any guides on how to clear the resentful resort. Well, there probably weren't many possible ghost stories behind hotels and resorts, especially large scale ones.
If it had been a small scale instance, maybe around ten to fifteen people, it was entirely possible that the plot could be small and unimportant. Like, an angry woman who was murdered by her husband in a hotel after catching him cheating. Or, a hotel that would bait and trap tourists, then sacrifice them to an evil god?
But, this current instance had over a hundred players. It was currently day three, leaving four more days.
With these two factors combined, it meant that the plot had to involve a large-scale backstory, one that is relatively simple. From what Ah'Ming had heard, the system may be evil, but not ruthless.
No matter how difficult the instance may be, there is always a way out. Be it through following the proper route and finding clues, or just brute force.
Of course, it does take a certain level of skill and power to clear instances. Idiots may not be able to solve puzzles, so should hope for a certain level of strength. Smart people might hope for purely puzzle based instances, because they might be hopeless in terms of physical ability.
Most players were all rounders, for good reason. All instances had both mental and physical components, and the special instances required more. Things such as looks, vibes and musical ability, along with hundreds of other things, are all components that might be needed one day.
Ah'Ming, though, was a purely physical power-based player. At least, that's what he thought. He was a BUG anyways, so his power should be able to clear most instances anyways. The only issue might be that there wouldn't be high ratings from both the viewers and the system itself.
Actually...
Could the audience see him now? He wasn't in a substory.
Ah'Ming thought about it for a second, then shook his head. It didn't really matter if they could or couldn't. Like the great motto, hope for the best, prepare for the worst, there wasn't much he could do about it.
He groaned, then got out of bed.
Though he wanted to find a cool or fun sub-story to play in, there was a far more pressing matter: Food.
Really: Food.
Though Ah'Ming hadn't eaten in over two days now, he wasn't all that hungry. It was mostly a survival habit to find food, them being the pure drones that they were. Drones were designed and bred to be able to work hard on little food.
It wasn't as though any drones would complain about it, since a mix of hive mind and lack of sentience left them in a state of pure subservience.
Ah'Ming didn't have hunger the way that most people did. There wasn't any gnawing pain from the abdominal regions, no sharp needles attacking his stomach.
It was more of a... sense of knowing. He knew when his stomach was empty, when he needed more food.
Like now:
Food.
That would be his first sub-scenario back. An important part of a resort like a cafeteria surely had its own substory, no?