Quasitech 1 (Patreon)

Tags: Gamer(?), Battletech, crossover elements/characters, multiverse

Quasitech

Chapter 1

-VB-

“So… in exchange for me going and becoming your entertainment in another universe, you will cure my mother of cancer, make sure my sister and brother become very lucky in their lives in their favor, and my dad will be happy?”

The “agent” across from me glared. 

And why wouldn’t he? 

After they pucked me out of my home for this forced negotiation, I negotiated a lot of things over the course of two hundred hours. I may not be a lawyer, but it’s not just lawyers who were great at negotiations.

You do not bring a market haggler and not expect them to haggle.

More importantly, the pain of the agent seemed to be a source of amusement for the gaggle of onlookers, each of whom looked much more important and powerful than the agent. I could be misled, but the agent in front of me showed a consistent deference to the onlookers in this white emptiness that we have been in for the past two weeks. 

“Alright, alright,” one of the onlookers finally got up and clapped her hands. She looked like a greek goddess in her toga with thin fabrics floating about her. “That’s good enough. No more negotiations. There’s more of us who are starting to get annoyed than those amused.” She looked around. “Does anyone else have an objection against the test that our participant will be partaking in and the limitations of the test?”

They all didn’t raise any objection.

She turned to me.

“Then welcome, initiate. I hope you can join our ranks soon. It has been getting rather dull here, you know?”

And then my vision turned dark and I knew no more.

-VB-

I opened my eyes.

[Welcome, Gamer!]

I stared at the screen for a second before snorting. “Yeah, welcome me.” I looked around and saw that I was laying on a small cot pushed up against the wall of a very small and narrow room. There was a bathroom attached to one wall, kitchen attached to the other wall, and there was a door leading outside. Oh and a folding table that seemed attached to the wall.

In total, this room was barely 150 square feet big. 

As for what was actually in the room…

It was a lot of bottles, and from the smell suffocating the room, all of the bottles used to have alcohol. There were so many bottles that the table had no extra space, the kitchen tops had no extra space including the sink, and there were bottles peaking out of the bathroom door.

‘Yeah. I think I know how this guy died,’ I thought to myself. 

One of my demands had been that I would not take over a living person’s body if I could not inserted in. The body of an alcoholic wasn’t good but it wasn’t someone who died a traumatizing death.

“Menu, please.”

[Menu:

Verse Information - Character - Store - Quests - Rewards] 

I pressed Verse Information. 

[Verse: Battletech

This is the 31st century, and war never changes. Humanity has expanded beyond Earth and the Solar System. And yet, they f….]

I skipped it. I knew where and when I was, both of which were familiar to me. I thanked God for a second that I did not end up during the First Succession War or the Jihad Era. 

I moved on from the verse to my personal information.

[Character: 

Name: Zachariah (no surname)

Residence: Tatania Slum, Harminous, Magistratcy of Canopus

FWL CitizenID: ***********

Age: 19 Terran years old

Asset: 0

System: N/A]

0. Zero? Nothing? 

A Canopian with nothing? Jesus Christ, that’s bad. Not as bad as a Capellan servitor or a Combine peasant but still pretty bad. 

I looked at the bottles.

And facepalmed. 

“I am at the literal bottom,” I muttered to myself as I got off the bed. I paused. “And no relatives who claimed him, too. Not even a last name.”

I got stood up and yawned. I winced at how stiff this body was. I looked down and -.

“Great. I’m also a skeleton.”

Ping!

I paused and looked back up. 

[Menu:

Verse Information - Character - Store - Quests[1] - Rewards] 

They already have a quest for me. I mentally pressed on it, and the screen changed. 

[Quest Logs

Active - Completed - Failed - EPIC

Your Choice by “The Seventh Eye from Below”]

That’s … quite a name. 

[Quest: Your Choice by “The Seventh Eye from Below”

The Free Worlds League is a hive of uncoordinated greed, nationalism, and infighting that has prevented it from dominating its weaker spinward neighbor and from breaking the stalemate against the stronger antispinward neighbor. 

If it continues in this path, then it will fracture and fall apart. 

So make your choice.

Rise up to truly unite the Free Worlds League.

Or be the anvil that ends it. 

Requirements (1 of 2)

1 - Join the ranks of the Free Worlds League and improve the Stability of the wider Free Worlds League (System automatically selects Europa Universalis (adjusted) System, automatic increase of rank from Destitute to Baron, +1,000,000 C-Bills)

2 - Be the anvil that ends it by destabilizing the Free Worlds League (+1 System Credit)]

… Jesus Christ, pushing me toward the bigger stuff already, huh? 

They certainly knew me. If I had it my way, then I would have just lazied about doing the bare minimum to get by. 

This truly was an entertainment of the gods. To influence the world for their amusement and petty egos. 

I didn’t choose anything yet but I backed out of the Quest Logs and selected the [System].

The System, as they explained to me, would be a way for me to use supernatural powers that may or may not be found here. Despite the canon stance that there was no “magic” in this setting, Phantom Mech Ability and Hyperspace were a thing and the continued support (or lack of denouncing the PMA) of the two meant that there was at least some magic/supernatural involved.

Looking at you, Draconis Combine. 

However, I was given a choice to design the System.

I chose to make the System to be video game mimic, not a Gamer mimic. As it had been explained to me, if I wanted to have a Gamer mimic System, then they would have to up the difficulty to Warhammer 40k level of difficulty, but not just any old difficult but Horus Heresy level of difficulty. And it wouldn’t be a scaled to end kind of scenario but from the start kind of scenario.

I did not want to deal with that kind of grueling and mindless grind. No thanks. 

Instead, I chose to have an incremental power-ups where I could add “video games” and their mechanics to the System. 

Of course, this came with a catch.

It only worked with games that I have played and the main antagonists of those games, if there was one, would enter the world and work nominally against me. But before I even went and chose a System, I needed to know which ones were available to me right now, because not all of them would be available.

I opened up the Store menu and perused what was available. 

[Store:

Available Credit - 0

Europa Universalis 4 (adjusted)

Minecraft

League of Legends (adjusted)

Team Fortress (adjusted)

Quasimorph(Adjusted)]

They were all interesting. EU4 by itself would not help until I got something to rule over, but by itself, it could help me simplify a lot of the work that needs a ruler and bureaucracy. Hell, it might even work if I simply have access. Corruption was a thing in that game, so it would not be totally weird if I was the corrupt actor skimming from the top.

Minecraft was minecraft. Pro: easiest way to accumulate wealth, respawns, exotic effects, and potentially untouchable realms where I could set up just about anything. Con: anything and everything I can do, Battletech can do better. Why have a single man mine and carry when you can have industrial miners dig up everything at once and dropships haul more and faster? What was a diamond sword to a heavy mech or even a ultralight mech. 

Team Fortress was not good enough. Maybe if I was in 20th or 21st century Earth or any pre-gun and magic-sparse setting like Game of Thrones but not so great in the 31st Century.

League of Legends could be great. However, I didn’t know how “adjusted” it would be. For all I know, it could be even more limited than the game itself or might allow me to access Runeterran magic. But I wasn’t going to take a chance with that, even if Nasus and Veigar’s infinite Q stacks for infinite damage stacking might be great to have.

… Out of these five options, Quasimorph was the best for me. 

Quasimorph was a  game that allowed the player to send clones on private military contract missions. But instead of being paid in money, they would get equipment and gears in return. The player could also farm materials during their missions and craft all sorts of items. The only items that couldn’t be manufactured were those of the extradimensional invaders, the Quasimorphs.

Um… and if I picked Quasimorph as my first System, they would definitely spawn somewhere in the Inner Sphere and start death cults.

But that would be infinitely better than Minecraft and the neverending and always hostile mobs. Or a team of ever respawning mercenaries of questionable sanity ruining mining sites or factories. Or any of the separatist factions in any of the Successor states getting EU4. Or the Void invading all sorts of places.

… Yeah, death cults that could be taken down with some bullets or a artillery shell might be better than most, and I did not want to deal with was an immortal, ever-respawning mercenary team out for my head. 

I went back to the Quest, since I didn’t have any “System Credit” to purchase a System. This was where I also had to make a decision.

Even if EU4 was not a great system for me right now, being raised up to the rank of a baron (and the lands or industry that came with it) as well as the big seed money I would have to start with, it was a pretty good choice to take. I would tie myself to the fate of the Free Worlds League, which was disfunctional on a good day, but it was also one that overcame many obstacles before it. 

On the other hand, I liked having more flexibility and safety net. And what could be more safe than never having to set foot on the battlefield myself?

For [Your Choice], I chose the Option 2, gained the System Credit, and chose Quasimorph.

The store fizzled out for a second before it was back up. The available credit had returned to zero after I spent it but now, I was looking at a whole new list of games, none of which were from the previous roster. 

[Store:

Available Credit - 0

Starcraft (Adjusted)

DREDGE (Adjusted)

Terra Nil (Adjusted)

Digimon (Adjusted)

World of Warcraft]

… Interesting. Every single one of them was interesting. But those choices were for the future. It could be as far later as decades depending on how well I progressed with my current mission. Because that was one of the changes they made to my power; I could only progress one official Quest at a time. 

Speaking of which, I pulled out of the Store and to the Character, which should have my System.

I looked for Quasimorph and -.

Huh?

[Character: 

Name: Zachariah (no surname)

Residence: Tatania Slum, Ariel, Free Worlds League

FWL CitizenID: ***********

Age: 19 Terran years old

Asset: 0

System: Quasimorph - Quasimorph of the Inner Sphere]

Huh?

What?

No, no, no, no, no no nonono -.

Why am I labeled a Quasimorph? Why am I not some PMC? Huh? Why do I have -?

Why the fu-?!

And then the non-physical reality, the pleroma, of the Inner Sphere struck me like a truck. 

I screamed as its thick and dense miasma sucked me in like a metaphysical sinkhole and disappeared from my room. 

---

I felt something deep and spoiled within me pulling at my needs.

A desire. 

A hunger.

Delicious. 

Delectable.

Delightful.

Humans.

… Oh no.

-VB-

On April 1st, 3000, the Canopian world of Harminous disappeared in a haze of near-impenetrable pseudo-nebula. In the following days after the pseudo-nebula’s appearance, Harminous would change. Its vast and once blue oceans warped to thick and opaque red like a pool of blood. Its vibrant green continents turned sickly yellow with tinges of red. 

And in the weeks that followed, the same red and yellow sickness would bubble up across all over the Inner Sphere, and quasimorphs, denizens of a realm unreachable by human hands, would claw out, hungering for human flesh.

The Inner Sphere would come to call this day the Q-Day, the day when the quasimorphs began their invasion. 

For the first time since the dawn of humanity, war changed … and changed for the worse.

-VB-

Welcome to Quasitech,

or How I became a Eldritch God Hungering for Human Flesh in the Inner Sphere.

or Also how I played 80 hours of Quasimorph in under 2 weeks. Goddamnit.