<Main Character>

"We met on the apps."

7:02 AM - “Good Morning sleepy head 😍🌹❤️” 

7:02 AM - “You’re late.”

7:02 AM - “I’m sorry babe- I slept in. I’m all yours now.”

7:03 AM - “Good, where are we meeting?”

Today’s boyfriend drops a pin for a cafe downtown, about twenty minutes by bicycle. She accepts and <Main Character> assigns her an 

NPC pickup task nearby. 

Casting: Menacing, Criminal. 

Names: None

Immersion Bonus: $5.

She gets on her bike and stops a block down where a man in a green Fighting Irish hoodie looks around nervously. He’s hispanic, and handsome save for a gaunt face and huge bags under his eyes. They lock eyes as she pulls up, his hands fiddle with the knotted handles of a plastic bag he carries. 

“Are you -”

“No names” She grunts, shoving out her hands. He shifts from foot to food nervously, and she checks her watch in annoyance. Already 3 minutes late. 

“Time is money kid. Hand over the goods or I’m gone.” He shoves the bag into her hands and begins to babble, but she’s already securing it to the front basket and pedaling away. 

A confirmation pops up in her feed. She checks her phone at a stoplight. 

NPC delivery

Casting: Warm, comfortable.

Names: Virginia

Immersion Bonus: $10.

She pulls up to an apartment building 10 minutes later and grabs the bag. 

“Julia? It’s been months! Tell me you’ve brought me something good.” A middle aged woman in a stained nightgown is waiting with the door to the lobby open. 

“Virginia dah-ling, only the best for you.” She makes a mock flourish as she places the bag at the older woman’s feet. 

“Oh you do have such a flair for drama Julia. Give my regards to Weston will you?” 

“You’ll have to give them yourself my love, I’m in quite the rush. Toodles!” She leans in and gives the woman a social peck to each cheek. She’d seen it in a movie with a boyfriend last week and had been waiting to work it into a routine. 

The woman seems delighted with the intimacy of the gesture, and returns it eagerly. Then she’s back on the bike. 5 minutes later, she sits down in the cafe.

God, Main Characters are all so pretty. This one has dark skin and a strong jaw, with a tight crew neck that showed off a pair of bulging biceps. His brown-flecked hazel eyes lock with hers as she sits down. He blows a curl of his perfectly-just out of bed hair out of his face and winks at her.

“Took you long enough”

“I had a delivery job.”

“I haven’t had one of those in ages. How did it go? What were you moving?”

“Don’t know, don’t care.”

“You know if you get into the character a bit it will help your scores.” 

“Hey, you’re supposed to be fawning over me. Not giving me gig advice. You get me a latte?”

“Skim milk, two splendas. Just like my sweetie likes.”

“Honey.”

“What? It said you take it with Splenda- I double check-”

“He calls me honey. Not sweetie.”

“Oh…. Sorry. Honey.”

They stare at each other for a few seconds of awkward silence. She can’t stay mad at him. He’s just too pretty. 

-----------

The girl reaches across the table and takes his hand. She’s chubby and looks like she hasn’t showered in a few days- or maybe that’s just sweat from the bicycle. He doesn’t mind chubby though, sometimes they’ll pay for extra services… away from <Main Character>.

She only had him for an hour and he had a chance romantic encounter booked in the cafe literally right after. He actually sees her through the window of the cafe behind the 1-hour-girlfriend. She has her arm on the thigh of an older man with a prosthetic leg, laughing and flicking chestnut hair out of her face as the man tells some war story or another. Gorgeous. Mocha skin and ever-pouted lips, and a red tube top that really draws the eye if one isn’t careful…

The fat girl is snapping in front of his face.

“Hey. Should I cancel this? You’re just staring over my shoulder. You aren’t really acting like we’ve been together for five years.”

“I- I’m sorry honey, you know how I get, always day dreaming about the trips we could take. What if we went to Paris?” He grabs her hand and squeezes while pouring on the intense eye contact.

She blushes and looks down. God it was easy, most people are so starved for positive human contact that they won’t look a gift horse in the mouth. 

-----------

He was good looking enough, for a himbo. She could tell things weren’t going to go well before their date had even started. While Frank was in the bathroom she glanced over to where the man was smooth talking a curvy girl with crazy neon hair and a splay of intricate tattoos over her arms and legs. He was putting on his best casanova and the girl seemed to be eating it up. 

She wishes she could get interesting roles like the girl probably got. Shady back alley deals and detective intrigue, a hacker or an artist or something other than a damsel in distress. It gets repetitive. She wasn’t bored by it- no, people like Frank had interesting stories from varied backgrounds that she got paid to listen to. She can’t think of a better job quite Frankly (she laughs to herself over punning his name). She just wishes she could have some stories of her own. 

That was <Main Character> though. You only get the stories you pay for, and right now she was about to pay for a Romantic encounter with a man who had the subtlety of a police siren that won’t stop eye-fucking you. 

Thinking back to Frank, she realizes it’s been a few minutes since he went to the bathroom and checks her phone. Nothing there. Looking at the brief again she sees “caretaker, guardian” towards the end of the casting description. She gets up and walks to the bathrooms to check on him. 

Just before she reaches the Men’s room door to knock, she’s knocked into from the side. It’s the himbo. 

“Oh my god I’m so sorry I didn’t see you there.” He winks to her with a self satisfied grin. 

“Not right now.” She says as she pushes past him to knock on the bathroom door. 

“Frank? Are you in there?” No response. The himbo puts his arm in front of her face, leaning on the door frame and blocking her way.

“What’s the matter baby? Let the old man shit. I can’t believe I ran into such a cute little thing in a place like this.” 

“Fuck off dude. We aren’t supposed to meet until the end of the hour. Go take care of that girl while she’s paying you.” 

His face contorts in anger as she pushes past him into the bathroom. 

“You fucking bitch- I paid good money…”

Frank is lying on the floor, foam coming from his mouth. 

------

Medical dramas are on the shadier side of the law. She draws clear fluid out of the Narcan vial with a syringe and flicks it twice with a squirt to make sure it’s good to go. She grew up watching doctors do that on TV and never gets tired of doing it now. Not much to do but get paid to play the waiting game, parked right around the corner in the back of a private ambulance. Her partner is watching something on his phone up front. 

The issue with medical dramas is that there is always the risk something goes wrong. Sure, you know the location, time, and treatment to have ready, but there’s always risk. <Main Character> has gotten in trouble a few times for errors with communication between the client and NPC’s - one even resulted in a death. 

This job was cut and dry, though. Late 50’s male, opioid overdose. Simple- just wait for the call. 

When it comes in, they are in the cafe in under a minute, have him strapped to a gurney and narcan in his arm in 2. They’re good at their job, and they pretty much only do this nowadays. 

She has no idea why main characters want this to happen. Maybe rekindling a dying relationship, or walking the line between life and death, or just plain boredom. It’s all a payday. 

As they roll the man out of the cafe past a pretty couple yelling at each other, they pass the young bicyclist with the crazy hair that brought her the Narcan not 45 minutes earlier. She’s looking dour and staring daggers at the arguing couple. She smiles and nods at her as they rush past.

“Of all the gin joints in all the world, Julia!” she shouts. The girl’s face melts into disbelief and her jaw hangs slack.

Just another day on <Main Character>.