"Now, before we begin, have you ever used a Re-Creator before?" Derrick asked, stepping back behind a large metal screen off to one side of the room. "It's kind of like hitting the Hardcore button in the regular Character Creator," he explained as it sounded like he was getting undressed back behind the screen.
Stephanie put her hands on her hips, her fingers going partway into her front pockets of the navy blue slacks she was wearing. "No," she commented as she looked around the room again, away from the direction of the unchanging male skunk. "I made my account months ago and only played it for a few hours before getting bored," she said. "I didn't have the TIS then. I just used the Custom button and a few of the Advanced Options."
"Ah! Well, the Hardcore button is something they added just after launch. Basically, it's like turning on Advanced Options on every single little detail. You can change even the smallest things like pupil size and blood type," Derrick noted as he stepped back out from behind the screen.
He was wearing a bloody smock over a brown mechanic's shirt and pants. Over his chest he wore a khaki vest that had many electronic items hanging out partway from all the pockets. Barefooted, he walked over to her and gave a slight bow. "Basically, it allows you full control over your whole body, even while you're in the body."
"Sounds kind of freaky," she smirked, looking him up and down. Yeah, he looked ready to work machine work, and that made her smile. If he could make her more deadly then his work would be complete for her. "But what does that have to do with now?"
"Well, you see, you have roughly four levels worth of upgrades at your disposal… the two you made earlier today and two that Stephanie's last owners never cashed in," he said, looking over a pad of information he had picked up from a nearby desk. "You can pick the things you'd like most by looking at their level-specific costs… then I can install them. Based on my skill, they may be more or less effective than what you ask for," he said, looking over to her. "I tend to be quite good at the lower level stuff, so I wouldn't worry about my skill until you get to the really hard, unpracticed stuff."
"So this is for-real surgery?" she wondered, realizing that as cool as it sounded to be turned into a killing machine, the actual process of doing that might not be fun or entertaining to participate in. She looked around the room, then back at Derrick who handed her a tablet PC as big as a piece of paper but about a quarter inch thick. On it was a 3D image of herself, nude. There was very tiny text floating all around her and a bunch of drop-down windows. She squinted for a second, then reached between her breasts and fished out her yellow-rimmed glasses, sliding them on over her nose so she could read the image.
"Well, I will have to make staggered rolls and preform a couple of minigame-like steps to open up parts of you and preform the tasks you request. Think Trauma Center," he smirked, but she looked up at him with a confused look on her face. "DS and Wii games… surgery?" he asked.
"Wii is for babies," Stephanie said without looking up from the page.
Derrick blinked, "Punch-Out was awesome," he said mater-o-factly. "In any event, minigames for me based on what you choose. You, however, will experience the event as if I were preforming a real experiment… unless you logout partway through… which I don't recommend. There's a better chance of getting a special 'Interact Bonus' for sticking through it.
"Interact Bonus?" she looked from the pad to Derrick, fixing her glasses over her short muzzle with her left hand. "That sounds good. What is it?"
"Simply, if you play out the actual events of Skill Leveling… taking In-Game Time to play your character learning something, you have a good chance to gain a Bonus just for spending the time to do the act in character," he explained as he moved over to a wall full of tools and looked them over. "As an example, if you were to minigame slash role-play out repairing your car you may end up with more horsepower or damage resistant tires."
"If you're going to be cutting me open, hon, could you at least drug me so I don't feel it?" she asked, stepping over to where he was. He leaned forward against the wall and pulled on a handle there, slowly moving an operating table out from the wall as he did so. Stephanie put her hand forward onto a handle near her and helped him move it to the center of the room.
"Of course," he said, pulling a mobile shelf over to where the table was. He grabbed a brown wrapped cloth and unfolded it over the shelf, displaying a lot of machine and computer tools across it. He smiled at her and asked, "Is there anything you think you'd want from that list?"