Mythic Quest

Oh, no!

Were you just barking?

No.

Oh. How...

How long was I out?

I don't know.

You were in the zone, so I left.

I figured one of us should get decent sleep.

Well, at least you brought me breakfast.

Oh, this is mine. It's prescription.

A prescription bagel?

Legally, you're actually not allowed to ask me about it.

Whatever. I fixed the white noise bug.

I'm gonna go home and take a shower.

I have a lunch today, and I can't go like this.

You've got a lunch?

Yes, Michelle, I can have a lunch.

Hey, Poppy?

Yeah, what's up, uh, you... Um...

Zachariah.

- Zachariah? - Uh, it's Paul.

What's up, Paul?

Um, I think we've got a problem.

- Is it important? - Yeah, actually, it's the Masked Man.

So, he's handing out thousands of dollars of free loot every minute.

So far we've lost about $300,000.

Is that bad?

Yeah. That's bad, Zach.

Sorry. It's Paul.

I don't care.

So...

this is bad?

Yes, this is bad. How does nobody know this is bad?

It's bad. He's spewing up loot like a busted ATM.

Oh, he just gave away a horse. Those are expensive.

- Okay, this is bad. - Mm-hmm.

I'll go loop in Ian.

Whoa, whoa, no, no, no, you don't need to tell Ian.

He'll just freak out and hold it over my head

for the rest of forever.

- All right. Fine. I'll loop in Brad. - No! Don't tell him either.

This is a closed loop. You don't need to call a meeting

and get the entire company involved in every decision.

But I rule by committee. That's my strength.

No, David, that's your weakness.

No. My weakness is my shoulders. You know this.

I... Can you please let go of my arms? I can't escape your grasp.

You know what a strong leader does?

He puts out the small fires before anyone even knows about them.

He doesn't call in the entire fire department

because a trash can is burning.

Well, if you had a trash can fire,

you're gonna want the entire fire department...

Let's just keep it simple. I'm gonna fix the bug,

you stop the Masked Man from giving away any more loot.

Me? What do I do?

I figured out that he can't give away loot

if you're hitting him. So, sit here,

follow him around, and bash him until I can fix it.

It's that button. Trust me, we got this. It's no big deal.

If it's no big deal, then why is your neck covered in stress hives?

These? Oh no, I get these all the time. They could be from anything.

No. That's from stress. Absolutely. I know.

I was covered in them during my divorce proceedings.

It wasn't my fault.

- I mean, my wife, she's... - David.

Fine. Look. I won't loop in Ian on this, but he's gonna find out.

I mean, the second he sits down at his computer.

Don't worry about Ian. I got a plan.

- Morning, gentlemen. - Morning, Ian.

- Hey. How you doing? - Good morning.

Good to see you, everybody.

All right.

- Ah, Maria! - Ian.

- Hola. - Hola. ¿Cómo estás?

Muy bien. ¿Y usted?

- Muy bien, gracias. ¿Qué me cuentas? - Uh, tengo café.

- Okay. Qué bueno. Me alegro mucho. - Okay.

- Okay. Chao, chao. - Okay.

Hey, Ian.

- Hey, Pop. I was just talking to Maria. - Cool.

Yeah. In Spanish. I don't know if you caught that.

- What? - I speak Spanish.

- Yeah, great. I... - Ah, g'day.

Okay.

That's Australian.

Sure. There's someone I want you to meet, uh, just over here.

This is Paul, our new gameplay programmer.

- Paul, this is Ian. - Hello, Paul. Welcome to the team.

Hello. It's such a pleasure to be here.

Yeah.

Cool. Uh, great.

Nice to meet you. Welcome...

Welcome. You can go ahead and sit down.

- Let's get back to work, everyone. - I have a surprise for you, Paul.

I heard that you have a bad back,

- so I got you a standing desk. - Wow.

Thank you. That's great. It's really exciting to be here, you know.

I'm a huge fan of your work, Ian.

I used to go on your blog a lot back in the old days.

You know, to gain a bit of inspiration and just a big fan...

Huh?

- He's a big fan. - Yeah.

It's a pleasure to have you.

"Big fan." Okay, great.

Back to work.

- Back to work, everybody. Yeah. - Okay.

- Great job, Paul. - Thanks.

Great.

Great, great, great.

Great, great, great.

Great.

Oh, my God!

Wyld_D.

Yo, what up, y'all?

This is Wyld_Danimal coming at ya.

I'm a streaming noob, but I'm an OG gamer,

so subscribe for all of the red-hot MQ action.

C.W.'s in the shot.

Well, I don't know where the camera is.

How can you not see it? It's right here.

- Oh, does it, uh, pick up this, hmm? - Oh, God.

And that's a cut.

Thank you for that, C.W.

Come on, man, we talked about this, buddy. You gotta be quiet, okay?

And, Dana, maybe be less quiet.

This is supposed to get people excited about your channel,

so maybe don't act like you're in a basement in Kabul.

Give me a giggle.

- I don't really giggle. - Try it out.

C.W., let's go. Zip it up.

Find somewhere else to peddle your digital smut.

Hey. We gotta keep this operation under wraps.

I refuse to write another word until this office is restored.

That's too bad because I was just about to ask you

to join the stream team.

Maybe write Dana a little backstory.

"Backstory"?

- Go on. - Yeah.

That'd be great. I love your cutscenes, C.W.

No.

Your flattery is nothing more than a siren song...

meant to lure me in and then dash me upon the rocks.

I shall not listen, lest I fall prey to your beautiful poison tongue.

I don't really like when he talks about my tongue.

Yeah. It's not great.

Close the door. Can't see with the glare on the screen.

Sorry, who are you?

I'm Lou. They brought me up from the third-floor tester pool.

Replaced some chick who quit or died or something.

Um, her name is Dana, and you can't replace her.

Um, sure she was a saint, God rest her soul.

Anyway, upshot is I'm up here from now on.

Okay, uh...

You know what? Let's maybe not talk for the rest of the day.

I'm kinda chomping at the bit to test out these new maps.

So...

It's actually "champing."

Sorry, what?

You said "chomping at the bit."

It's actually "champing at the bit."

Don't worry about it. It's a common mistake.

Okay. Thanks, Lou.

Let it be known,

if you take my office, I will occupy yours in kind.

In the '70s, I participated in my fair share of sit-ins.

I was once forcibly removed from Jane Fonda's house.

Sorry, what?

Hey, C.W., man, Brad's not here, so you're just bothering me.

Okay? I'm trying to do my work, so just let me focus.

Why are you harming the creation I helped define?

I'm not harming him. The Masked Man is an NPC.

He's an automated character.

He does what we program him to do.

So, just let me do my work.

Whoa, whoa, sitting in my chair, huh? Oh.

What? You have taken my office, Brad.

In retaliation, I have taken yours.

It's a power move. I like that. Kudos.

No hard feelings. I found a new writer.

Oh?

Mm-hmm.

What the hell is that?

Oh, this thing?

It's an AI server that can spit out a brand-new backstory for Dana.

That's preposterous.

A computer cannot write a story, dear boy.

Oh, it can. And you know what? It already has.

See? Just took about three seconds. You want to read it?

Oh, please,

that monstrosity isn't able to generate a story

with the emotional resonance of a Nebula Award-winning writer.

David, this matter needs your immediate attention.

What? You guys, come on.

I'm working over here. Just you two figure it out yourselves.

Sometimes a fireman has to grab a hose and put out the fire alone.

Okay, I'm gonna go give this backstory to Dana

while David plays with his hose.

Uh...

Hm.