Typo:

Amazing what ticks the Avatar.VFX service chose to express, Alain’s code likely a cousin to some smarmy merchant in the verse or cribbed entirely. “I also doubt the diagnostic purpose.”

I really like the poker game as a way to have an insight. It's a common plot device but somehow this instance of it feels very unique, maybe because of the mind reading and VR stuff woven through it.

Nora knew that was impossible. She’d love to claim victory and move on, but something still wasn’t right. “In computer science, most bugs get traced to a single cause. People psychology is exactly the opposite, usually requiring unraveling entire lifetimes of mistakes. At KorBridge we work somewhere in the middle.”

I bet he got hacked by TENEX, blindsight style, just a memetic nudge that starts the dominos falling. And Nora's right, closing a bug report before you understand what happened is asking for trouble lol

Jack ranting about the bilgerath raid being cleared too fast makes me think of world of warcraft and how raiding parties got faster and faster at clearing expansions and the developers can't really keep up anymore.

“I see an act of desperation, devotion. Maybe even an act of love,” said Caleb, appearing at the doorway looking weary. Jack knew that his time in The Basement was taking a toll, but this guy looked like shit. Skin like a grey ghost, eyes that lost sight of their soul. And when was the last time he trimmed that beast he called a beard? Company docs had given him a clean bill of health, but Jack was considering consulting a second opinion.

the basement?! sounds super sinister... I thought the "pharmaceuticals" was a euphemism for them taking acid or something but I guess not

Jack pointed at a plaque with six riddles about reflections. “Or players could fucking read!” he yelled to the pair that wasn’t really there. The runes clearly spelled out the order they should be lit based on the current phase of the moon and signs of the stars. Anyone with a passing understanding of Stormverse astrology, Er’lastrian paralexigraphy, and autodidactic knowledge of geometric optics could figure this out, assuming access to a few petaflops of compute to calculate all the angles. He’d had a hand in authoring this solution himself before the burden of command became too great to get in the weeds.

lol I love this guy, first he complains about them completing content too fast and now he complained about them being too slow

I know how he feels tho, designing balanced puzzle is so hard :c

Instead, the shape hovered above, rendered as a soulless eye atop legs spindly and jagged. Not technically arachnid, their number counted thirteen. Its stare beheld her at its center, erasing her shadow with a dark spotlight. Unfolding, the shape sprouted sixfold stalks in the form of bleeding nerves stretched and torn from their sockets. Each stalk spawned an optic child and six more, cloning itself in endless branches. Infinite corneas cursed and recursive, all eyes on her. Invasive lenses looked for secrets long locked away. The shape mapped her mind, attached itself to dreams and dares, fame, fate, and fXXXX.

memetic hack or stress induced nightmare? only time will tell!

Nora shrugged. “Sorry, losing track of time isn’t out of character for me. Me and Vance named the guild the Dawnbreakers because we stayed up so late the sun would be coming up by the time we took off our headsets.” I love this little detail, it feels so realistic and MMO-y

poor tenex, just wants to make friends...

please keep posting! I want to know what happens next, I've just been rly busy irl lately with a house move

Substantive edits to Chapter 16 to hopefully improve readability and flow.

Considering moving this to Substack or Medium, but will probably leave this here for a while to see if there's interest.