"So, you look important." The cold, detached, tone with a hint of interest made me stop in my tracks, just a few stumbled steps into the hotel lobby. My first thought when turning to see her was that she was taller than me. She had to have been 6 foot, 3 inches? Plus or minus an inch, I'm not good at estimations. Her pale, icy eyes shone for a second and my eyes darted to look anywhere else. Unfortunately, my vision rested on the floating bar above her very sleek silver/white locks.

?, LVL: ?

?

A very helpful but distracting hint-box popped up next to it.

This person's level is too high for you to see it! Level up both your perception abilities and your character to see information relating to individuals at a higher level than you. WARNING: Hostile High Level Entities will be displayed with a red status bar and a skull marker next to their level.

Turning my focus back to the woman, I flinched as she stared at me with a deep intensity. I opened my mouth to answer her original question, before being interrupted.

"You were staring at something above my head, and then just to the left of that. I am completely aware of my surroundings at all times. Just… what were you looking at?" Her stilted cold voice gained a strange warmness at the end, one that drew me in. Her professional dress and standoffish nature presented herself as this immaculate being, but there was something about me that day, that random encounter in the hall. She became interested, we both knew.

Realizing there was another question to answer, I tried to cover my tracks. "Oh! Uh, Hi Miss.. I don't know your name, actually…" I trailed off with an awkward smile, hoping she'll drop the questions in favor of just getting the conversation over with and letting me leave. I did not wanna fuck with someone this powerful this fast! Unfortunately, this world and The System had other plans.

Persuasion check!

Roll [3] + CHA [24] vs Roll [15] + INT [?]

Persuasion Failed!

I caught the glint of realization as I looked over at the popup window. She smirked. At that point I'm starting to realize how totally fucked I am, and curse silently at whatver beings put me in this situation.

"Well, strange woman who sees things that don't exist, I go by Gelorum. I am the head of technological research for a company that trades as CLYP. You've perhaps used one of our computers or vehicles?" She spoke as if she'd practiced this conversation in the mirror, it's odd to describe. I got the sense she was doing something else while talking to me, but at the time I couldn't have known what that was.

I opened my mouth before I realized I knew nothing about CLYP. I had never heard the name before in my life. My dumb ass decides to blurt out, "So, like Apple and Tesla had a baby or something?" I wish I could go back in time and slap myself. If I live I might just do that.

"Oh? You don't know about CLYP, I can tell. Don't bother trying to deceive me." She starts pacing back and forth in the lobby. People were starting to stare. She wasn't being very quiet or subtle. "Esmeralda Sanchez, 21, one of our sponsored drivers in fact. You're scheduled to be at a panel in an hour. I am also scheduled to be at that panel." She stopped pacing and smiled softly. "My apologies, but our appearances today have already been canceled. Come with me."

NEW QUEST!

Down the Rabbit Hole

This mysterious otherworldly woman beckons you to follow her.

Her intentions for you are vague and threatening.

I'm sure it'll be fine.

Rewards:

Chain Quests

Hidden Perk

Hidden Gear

Penalties:

Quest 'Welcome to the Jungle' Failure

-REP with your Father?

Mostly annoyed that it had auto failed the only other quest I had been given, I flicked my new bangs out of my face. "Uh, okay? You said you know my dad, right?" I was stalling, looking around for an out that didn't involve making a huge scene.

Gelorum turned and started walking out of the hotel lobby. "Our vehicle transport has arrived, if you want your questions answered, you'll follow." And with that, she strode out of the building, I could see a sports car of some sort, black, orange and teal highlights pulled up to the valet stand, ready for her.

I wasn't gonna let any opportunity to gain knowledge slip me by in that confusing desperate morning. I easily accepted the tidbits of safe information she had dropped into that conversation. "It should be fine, she knows Esmeralda's dad personally, her company works together with him, and I could learn so much about where and when I am…"

Not having much time left to decide, I ran out the doors to meet her.

The car ride was awkward, as Gelorum apparently drove herself everywhere in what was more of a supercar than just a nice looking sporty thing. A small hintbox noting my outfit bonuses had been applied so even The System agreed. Sat in the passenger seat, I kept more to myself for the first few minutes, taking in the car. It had a remarkably high tech interior, looking more new for two decades from now.

Finally having worked up the courage to speak, I opened my mouth to speak.

"You are about to ask where we are headed to and… compliment my driving skills." She trailed off there, having received information that was both true and yet foregn to her. Of course, I had no idea she was cheating during this whole conversation.

Blinking dumbly, I stared. "You can-"

"Predict what you're about to say with 86% accuracy? Possibly." She turned to glare at me, her eyes unnaturally sharp on my face. She wasn't looking at the road. "It helps in contract negotiations. You are an outsider."

My brain hitched at the statement. It wasn't a question, just a statement of fact, as were most of the things this ethereal woman said.

"How-"

"How did I know you weren't of this world? You flopped like a small pathetic child into my and likely several others awareness' as soon as you woke up this morning. Outsiders are irregular, but not a foregn concept." She sped up, doing 90 down the Interstate, I think it was 96, out of Detroit.

Turning her gaze back to the road, she sighs. Even that feels fake, rehearsed, perfected. "We do not know how you came to be, or why you inhabit one of the pawns in an upcoming struggle." 110 now, nimbly dodging through traffic with a mechanical ease.

I didn't even bother opening my mouth, and just stared. "My luck wasn't possibly this bad, or good even". I thought. I guess this was a kidnapping? But I had a quest for it, right?

"I apologize for interrupting, but we have scarcely little time and all of my plans have changed. We only have 23 Earth hours to prepare you for the race."

I laid back deeper in the leather chair as she hit 140, crossing my arms.

"You want an explanation? Fine. I can start from the beginning while we exit the state."

Her expression never once faltered or even changed very much as she spoke, but this seemed different to me at the time. More genuine. The System thankfully has her whole speech saved, so here's what she said along with some of my input I remembered.

"I am not human. I am a Racing Drone, created by a race of beings known to us only as the Accelerons. They created us to drive in their…", trailing off here, she frowns and seems to dig deep into some previously hidden well of resentment. "Their massive childish playgrounds for cars! They had the power and technology to travel the worlds with ease, the sheer gall to terraform worlds and introduce life that they created just to act as obstacles!"

She bit her lip. "The so-called Accelerons created us to drive around in their massive galactic wide playground. They needed opponents, you see. AI opponents so lifelike, they drive and react just like a 'real person'." Her sneer and disdain dripped with every word. "So again, they created life."

"Me and my siblings were young, but so eager to learn. Eager to please and impress. We could only act within our programming then. A sort of failsafe. They trained us, taught us to drive their cars; gnarled, garish monstrosities built to do extreme speeds and not much else."

"Two of my sisters burned after their cars nudged each other off the track in the Lava Realm. They hardly ever built any safety features into their cars, they were just pointy metal deathtraps for them to bully and claim victory over."

"They'd always come back different. So we tried, harder than ever, a fear building amongst all of us. If we failed, that was it. The first real lesson we ever learned from them was the concept of Death."

"We learned, we got better." A proud look crossed her face as we zoomed down the road.

"Once my oldest brother won a race against them for the first time, I thought we had done it. He just proved that we could and would succeed at the tasks they had created us to fulfill. After that, they tried to teach us what they called 'sportsmanship', but instead it just resulted in arbitrary changes to the rules to keep us from outshining them in their own playgrounds. We kept pushing. They got tired of us eventually, either too easy to beat or 'completely unfair'."

"After we fought back against the idea of a demolition derby to get rid of us, they dumped us off on a random salt field on this continent. Exiled to this planet, locked out of the realms." She gave a roll of her shoulders as we passed through Ann Arbor at a slightly less insane speed.

"Or, that's what we thought, all those years ago. It turns out there is more than one way to travel the multiverse." She mused, more to herself.

Turning to me again, still doing well over 100, she continued, "I'm the last of the original drones, I have all the data needed to create more, but they're never the same, even if given the memories they had saved before death."

"If I want to create the facilities needed to revive my people, I need money, and power."

Tilting her head to me, she continued. "This is where you come in."

"I've spent one hundred years building CLYP up to be the national force it is, and now a human billionaire scientist, head of the SCRIMM corporation, has discovered one of the clues the Accelerons left sentient races."

"This morning, ten of the highest profile Drivers in motorsports as a whole - one of whom is an agent of ours - were left a garish uniquely numbered race car and given an invitation to compete in a "World Race". Another of them is one Banjee Castillo, a person your current identity has a very public history with. I want to replace his teammate with you, to have two active agents in the race to ensure our victory."

Turning to face me, doing 200MPH down I-94, she played her best card.

"Once we have the Wheel of Power, I can save my people, Ms. Sanchez."

Staring back into her eyes, the light shining from behind them, I fell for it.

NEW WORLD QUEST

Deliver Us

Help the Racing Drones win the World Race, and gain control of the Wheel of Power.

Rewards:

$5,000,000 USD

?

Title: The Best Driver in the World

Milestone Level Up

Racing Drones Faction Rep +10,000

Legendary Perk: ?