“Nothing much, just some trouble with a couple of players. I managed to get the Reaper’s cloak and scythe.”
“You mean that scary black drape hanging off the wagon? What was under-“
“Don’t ask!”
“But-“
“Editing the clips was hard enough. Go watch it if you really want to know. I suggest a puke bucket…no joke.”
“Sorry I asked. So about that weird barrel that used to hold beer. What is that purple liquid?”
“Poison and human flesh mixed together.”
“So don’t drink it, got it.” I suppressed a grin, but apparently not enough. “What is it?”
“Well you helped me feed some to a player to make an example.”
“How bad was it?”
“It hurts, like a lot. Get enough on you it starts going through your flesh.”
“So want to share?” She gestured at the scythe.
“You know how to use a scythe?”
“No, but it looks wicked.”
“I was planning to sell it actually to Solid Steel. I don’t know about the robe. I honestly can’t bring myself to wear anything that…thing was wearing. Most likely sell that as well. Don’t you have a shiny ring?”
“Ah yes, just a swing?” I handed her the scythe.
“Whatever you do don’t touch the blade. So what happened?”
“Terrorists hit the comm hub in my area. Whole grid went down. An emergency ejection is not fun, let me tell you.”
“I bet. So right now we are on our way to Str. Meeting the Mystery Man early if possible and then continuing on west. Apparently the Plantapus attacked Balkor and the Order was almost wiped out in the battle.”
“Damn, I have been missing out. I will have to watch that. Ok, this is a stupid weapon.”
“Yeah.” I took the scythe back. “So ready to keeping going?”
“Sure, where were you by the way?”
“Some players following us, I ambushed them, got four, one ran. You drive, I am going to keep torturing myself.”
“What now?”
“Dripping the poison on me in hopes of building up an immunity. Only been a day, but hopefully I will be done by Str. Want to try?”
“Alright, smallest amount.” I applied a small bit of poison on her arm. She let out a yelp and poured her canteen of water all over the spot. “No thanks. You may be into that stuff, but no thanks for me.”
“Wimp.”
“Saddist.”
We journeyed on. I lay in the back and kept smearing the poison flesh mix onto different parts of my body. It was frustrating not seeing any visible progress from my poison immunity. We stopped for the night without any more incidents thankfully.
We had pulled up to a farmhouse. There was a large family, two grandparents, parents, and seven kids. “Listen up, we want some good food. You don’t cause problems, I won’t kill you all. Questions?”
“Is this really how you do things?”
“Yeah, keeps it simple.” Tor let out a small sigh. “Move it people, oh, also get a bunch of water for a wash.” A bit later Tor and I were sitting against the door to the house. We had lain a large log to block them from opening the back door. We sat there munching on fresh bread and some sort of fruit.
“Not a bad idea. So you will really let them live?”
“I prefer cooperation. As long as they don’t cause trouble.”
“Well I am going to grab one of the older boys, maybe two. Watch my back.”
“Sure.” I moved away from the door and Tor knocked. One of the boys opened it. There was just a hint of stubble on his face.
“Borrowing him for the night, don’t worry good folks.” Tor dragged the boy out of the doorway and onto the porch. I shut the door in all their faces and went back to leaning against it. “You want a show?”
“Sure, why not.” After ten minutes the boy lay passed out in exhaustion and Tafe had a grin.
“He definitely didn’t last long. I think you broke him.” She kicked out and he let out a groan.
“Nope, just sore.”
“I swear that you lifted off the ground for a second there. Then you started going sideways. I heard you chanting something also, what was it?”
“Just a minor constitution buff so he wouldn’t deflate.”
“That sounds, both scary and amazing at the same time. I guess he thought so too the way he was screaming and thrashing about. You probably broke him for anyone else now.”
“Probably, but I like the idea of him dreaming about me forever and ever.”
“Until the next monster eats him.” She whacked me lightly on the shoulder.
“Don’t ruin the moment. You sure you don’t want a go?”
“Nah, I caught a player recently.”
“Oh, who?”
“No idea, anyways you already saw them.” She blinked and there was a moment of silence as her brain tried to process that.
“I am confused.”
“That barrel of poison didn’t just make itself. The scythe needs living things to excrete poison.”
“Oh. Well there probably wasn’t much left after you were done with her.”
“Well….”
“Go on.”
“She ripped.”
“Hah, called it.” I let out a long sigh at that.
“Whatever, I am going to call upon the a sex god to help me out.”
“Probably turn you into a woman.”
“Not doing that then.” The boy let out a groan.
“Looks like he is up. I might as well go for round two and maybe one of the others.”
“I can’t tell if it would be torture or a reward from the heavens. Probably both.”
The next morning we had freshly cooked vegetables and day old bread. We then set off, leaving three naked boys lying out on the porch. “Are you a dominatrix in your real life?”
“Hah, maybe. A girl never tells.”
“You really had to go for the third one?”
“Of course, he looked so sad when I grabbed the second one, I couldn’t just have fun with two of them.”
“I have been meaning to ask you something. After I defeated the Reaper I checked my screens and saw I had received a curse from Tafe. Did you get anything?”
“No, what does it do?”
“No clue, all it lists is question marks.”
“That is never good. Maybe your junk will fall off.”
“Don’t joke about stuff like that. How would you like it if I talked about your tits becoming saggy and hanging down to your knees?”
“Alright, alright. Well it can’t be that bad.”
“Well you know how the monsters regenerated in that mine.” There was a long pause.
“Oh god. You mean that monster is going to come back and is probably after us?”
“Maybe, depends on how much it wants its gear back. Why do you think I plan to sell it.”
“Smart, what about Solid Steel, won’t they be pissed if it comes after them.”
“I will make sure that whatever contract we sign has something like, ‘All sales are final and neither the buyer or seller is liable for anything that occurs from the sale of this weapon.’”
“Nice.”
“Well I did listen to Legal Bob for half an hour. I would hope I would pick up a bit of legal jargon.” We continued on down the road. I was in the back of the wagon continuing to poison myself. The scythe blade hung off the side of a cart about a foot away. Tor would say something if there was risk of it hitting a tree.
A bit after mid-day Tor stopped the wagon. I got up and grabbed the scythe. “Up ahead. There is a tree across the road. I would bet that there is a trap.”
“Bounty hunters. I think the real life price on me has gone up to twenty thousand something. People just keeping donating into the pool in the hope that some idiot offs me.”
“You do tempt a girl.”
“I am tempted to off myself.”
“So, what do you want to do?” We were in the middle of a large patch of trees. Not a true forest, but it would be a pain to get the wagon around, and I didn’t know if that was even possible. “I will circle through the woods. You stay on the cart and shoot anything that comes this way. Oh, and poison your arrows and just hit them. Unless their pain tolerance is insane…”
“Got it.” I loved how she always got serious when it was time for some fighting. It would have been a pain to debate every single thing. That trust was worth more than a sack of money. I ran off into the woods and Tor began stringing a bow. I held out the scythe in front me to push through the brush in my way. The plants and branches quickly melted into a black and green goo as the blade touched them.
“Oh shit!” Someone shouted. I turned and saw six guys standing around with bows and swords. One shot as he spun around. The arrow hit the arm of the person next to him who yelled out. Two of the men rushed towards me with a shout.
I held the scythe blade with my left hand as far up the hilt as possible while my right hand was on the base of the shaft. I stopped fifteen feet back. When the two men were just in front of me I pushed the scythe forward. It cut through a small tree and hit the arm of one man while striking the raised blade of the other. I yanked the scythe back to get a better grip and strafed to the side.
The man continued to move in and I kept slamming the scythe blade towards him, but two times he managed to block. I went high and he moved forward, probably thinking I missed. I then rotated the scythe and yanked it back towards me. The blade pierced the man’s back and I let go and continued to move through the trees. Arrows began to fly at me and I used my arm guard to block one of the shots that was very accurate despite my erratic movement.
There were four men closing in and a woman with swords. I also noted that a seventh was working to take the scythe out of the melting corpse. Another arrow flew in and I barely managed to dodge in time. I whipped out my throwing knives and kept moving. My SP was plummeting incredibly fast, I had about another minute. I was burning about twenty SP a second and had thirteen hundred remaining.
I had gone through all of my daggers and only managed to hit two people. My fast speed prevented the archers from getting a bead on me, but made it almost impossible to aim. There were too many, no way I could kill them all before exhaustion set in.
I retreated back to the wagon. Tor had gotten two based on the bodies screaming and twisting on the ground. I saw another two people hiding behind some trees. I moved in behind them and stabbed them in the back of the head one after the other. “Tor, coming out of the forest, apple.”
I stepped out and she let an arrow fly. It struck a person coming up behind me. He went down screaming and ripping at the arrow in his chest. “Thanks.” I walked out to the wagon and turned.
“Too many?”
“This place is swarming. Couldn’t get the scythe or daggers back. Focus on the archers” I prepared by hopping up onto the wagon and tearing through our gear to get a mug. I left my flaming blade next to Tor and dipped the mug and normal blade into the poison. I hopped off being careful not to spill the mug. “Who wants a drink!”
The group hesitated and Tor shot another one in the chest. He went down screaming. I rushed forward using the distraction to swipe the mug through the air. The death poison splattered against plants, tree trunks, and three players. One began to scream and run around trying to rub it off his face.
I ran back and hopped up on the wagon again. I almost fell into the barrel as an arrow went into my side. I filled up the mug and turned. Another arrow grazed my shoulder. Tor was firing as fast as possible, but there were a large number of enemies left. I saw one holding the scythe and grinning like a mad man.
“Power of the Death Scythe, take control, kill everyone that isn’t on the wagon! Tell them it isn’t controlling you!” There was a moment of confusion. Some players looked at me. Others looked at the guy with the scythe. After second, five of them rushed for the wagon while the scythe wielder started screaming he wasn’t being controlled as two players advanced on him.
I began scooping and throwing mugful after mugful of poison as fast as I could. The first wave went down screaming. The second wave spread out to encircle the wagon. Tor grabbed up the reigns and snapped them. The horses began moving and the players were forced to group behind the wagon to follow. I looked down into the half-filled barrel and shouted, “Shit were out!”
The players rushed like idiots. I did notice two or three hung back. One of the horses was shot with an arrow that missed Tor. The players charged into the tailgate in an attempt to climb up. That was where the robe was hanging. As they touched it they began screaming in pain. With the wagon stopped, I got behind the barrel and lifted it up. I felt an arrow hit it, luckily it was above the level of the poison so it didn’t start leaking.
I poured the barrel off the back of the wagon into the group of players. I heaved and the barrel flew into the middle of the group. I let out a groan. My side was literally killing me. Tor had resumed shooting, taking out another archer. I went back and picked up my flame blade.
“Flame on, fear aura two minutes.” I grunted out. I jumped lightly down off the wagon and saw my HP drop by another small chunk. I had a good twenty seconds of max speed left. I noticed that there were three players clustered around a weaponless player. Probably a caster. I stabbed the screaming people as I past and made my way towards the group.
“You have a choice. I can kill you, or you can leave. If anyone is alive when I am done, well I put up a lovely video of what I do to people who piss me off.” A couple of ripples of fire appeared in my wake as I had walked towards them and I had been ignoring my arrow wound. I looked at some of the screaming players and back to them. The group of four broke under the pressure ran away and that started a rout from the last couple of archers hiding in the forest. I walked back down the road and found the scythe lying next to the corpse of the guy who had picked it up.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
I took it and began to kill the remaining players with it while Tor watched for any surprise attacks. I walked back to the wagon and Tor had ripped up some spare clothes while I sat down. “Yank it out and wrap it up.” She yanked it out and I let out a small scream. She stuffed a number of bandages to the wound and I held them in place.
“Onciontituts help this foolish soul heal from his wounds more quickly over time with no permanent injury so that he may continue to fight.” The pain decreased and my HP stabilized a bit above two thousand.
“Thanks. Wrap me up.”
“Yeah in a second, someone is approaching.” I turned and saw a squirrely looking young man approaching. Tall and yanky, he had gone for an elf look but was nowhere near graceful enough to pull it off.
“Umm, please don’t kill me.” I just stared at him. “Umm, well I was hoping to join up with you. I am a really big fan. I would do anything you said and-“
“Shut up. No speaking unless I ask a question. Your job is to go and gather up all the loot off the corpses. Money, loot, weapons, anything valuable. If you find anyone still around bring them here or kill them. Sort out the loot next to the wagon. Next I want you to drag all the corpses out to the road here. Oh and make sure you find all ten of my throwing daggers. Once you have done all that we can talk.” Tor had started wrapping up my wound in the middle of my speech making it hard to concentrate.
“Thanks.” I gave him a glare. “Ooops.” He ran off and got to work.
“Not going to kill him?”
“Looting is tiring, I am hurt, and I am sure you are exhausted. Let the idiot work. Grab some water?”
“Sure, how about a beer?”
“Why not, get that barrel open.” We sat sipping beer and eating while we kept an eye out around us. The minion came back with another minion.
We just sat there sipping beer while the two guys just looked at us. The second one was a bulkier and was fairly large. They began to fidget and that was when I spoke. “Help him.” I gestured at minion one. They both got to work.
It was getting dark by the time they finished moving all the bodies near the wagon. I had told them to line them up in a row along the side of the road. There were twenty three corpses. I had taken the time thinking about how I wanted to handle the situation and discussing it with Tor.
“Come here.” The minions dropped a corpse and came over. “I am going to give you a choice. The first option is to take some of the loot and leave in payment for your help. Your second choice is to become my slaves. That means your life is mine, what I tell you to do you do. There is no questioning or arguing. You will probably die, but I will try to prevent that. In exchange, you may make one request of me. Just one. You can make it now or wait. I can refuse, but you can request something else if that is the case. Tor is my second and speaks for me if I am busy.” I paused and let my words hang in the air.
“Any questions, you may speak.”
“Umm, well I want to join up to get some action if you know what I mean.” Said lanky minion one.
“Very well, but that would happen normally. So you can request something still.”
“Nothing at the moment.”
“You?” I asked minion two.
“I want to kill a man called Albus.” I nodded.
“Revenge, very well. If you know where he is and we are nearby we can make a side trip. I won’t go out of my way across half the world. I also will decide how we kill him, it depends how strong he is and the situation. Can you accept that?”
“Yes, that is acceptable.”
“Last chance to back out with no consequences.” They both just stood there. “Very well, you both are mine. Strip and fold your clothes neatly off to the side.” Tor was already getting out the fur cloak and laying it on the ground. I pulled out a senbon I had dipped in poison that had pooled in the road. “Pain and pleasure, your lives are mine. Let us now see how strong you truly are. You, your new name is One, come and embrace your new life. Lie down on the cloak.”
He did and I kneeled behind his head. “Betrayal is met with pain. This is just a taste of what will happen. Endure it in silence.” I dragged the senbon across his forehead. His eyes widened and his body began to shake from the pain driving directly into his brain. “Then there is pleasure, scream out as you embrace your new life One.”
Tor climbed on top of him and he screamed and screamed. He lasted just half a minute. I rolled him off to the side and repeated the process with minion two. He managed to last an entire minute. I dragged the two off the fur cloak and Tor poured water over their foreheads. They both let out a sigh of relief.
“Get dressed and build a fire.” They pulled themselves up and got to work. Tor gave me a peck on the cheek.
“That was fun.”
“You can’t screw them all the time or they will go soft.”
“Yeah, but maybe once and a while?”
“Hmm, we shall see.” Soon enough a fire was built up in the middle of the road. “Get the dead horse and bring it here. Time for some fresh meat.” My minions perked up at that.
“No people?”
“Do you want to risk eating death poison?”
“Good point.” Soon slabs of horse meat were cooking away in our skillet. Minion two minded the food and I had minion one give me a shoulder rub. I shifted a ripple of flame got his hand. He let out a yelp but continued. I noticed that the fire only appeared if I was moving and went outside my clothes. If I remained still it wouldn’t occur. Unfortunately I liked to be in control if there was physical activity of a more personal nature, which was frustrating.
We soon began to eat the freshly cooked meat using bread to hold it. I let my minions have a mug of beer each. “One you have first watch. Wake us up if you see anything. I do mean anything. Two take second watch. Keep the fire built up and toss in the corpses one by one. Oh and cut off their heads before you do. I have a plan for them.”
Tor stayed up during the first watch and I stayed up during the second. When I started getting tired I poked myself with a poisoned senbon. That easily jolted me awake. Night passed without incident thankfully. All the corpses were burned and the fire pit had a number of bones in it. There was a pile of heads off to the side. We had breakfast and then I spoke.
“Set up the heads in a circle looking outward around the fire pit. Tor can you look through the loot?” They got to work. I picked up my flame sword and made my way to the fallen tree that lay across the road. I used three power slashes to cut it in half. Once everyone was done with their task we pushed the tree halves off to the side of the road. We set off on the wagon with a single horse.
I had Two drive while Tor took a nap. I had melted some more flesh with the scythe into a mug before we left and had One alternate between applying the poison to my body and giving me a head massage to help me relax through the pain. I kept a firm hold of the mugs handle at my side, resting in the frying pan to make sure there were no accidents. One used rectangular stone as he applied the poison to various parts of my naked body, except for the bandages, at my instructions.
Whenever he saw someone, Two would say something. We passed some farmers who gave us a wide berth. At mid-day there were two players approaching. I had One stop the poisoning but didn’t get up.
“Hey, how did the ambush go?” One of them called out.
“Tell him you have a load of stuff and are willing to trade some of it. Tor get ready.”
“We got a bunch of stuff. Want to trade?” Two shouted back.
“Sure.” The two approached. “Wow that is a big scythe. Wasn’t it what that one monster had? I wish I had something to trade-“ I slammed the scythe forward off the edge of the cart. It struck the player and he collapsed screaming.
“What the-“ I sat up and threw my sword. It pierced his chest, killing him instantly.
“Dammit, my wound is bleeding again. Two go loot them and clean off the blade and return it to me. Tor keep an eye on things please. One re-bandage me.”
Once the bandages came off I had an idea. “One, wash your mouth out with a mug of beer, quickly.” He did what I said. “Now clamp your mouth over my wound. Drink my blood.” His eyes widened but he obeyed. I carefully watched my HP, but it wasn’t dropping quickly at all and let him keep going for a minute before I told him to stop. “Wrap me back up. Any new status effects?”
“Cannibal one, depraved three, and demonic blood corruption one.” His voice shook as he read out his screens. We got going again the same way as before. The only thing to mark our passing was a refilled mug of poison and two melted corpses on the side of the road. Interesting that I could pass things on.
***
HatMan: Wow, that was a lot of people
Justice: Most of them were only around level thirty or so
GODHAXLOL: THEY KILLED HORSEY!
6996: He should try and get necro powers so he can have his way with corpses
Justice: Disturbing
Ramponator: The scythe is boss, I so want one
ADMIN NOTE: Scythe will be for sale by Solid Steel
UltimateSecret: OMG, that is going to cost a small fortune
FaceReaper: I bid ten buxom wenches
TheLordBreckley: I counter with a city
Ramponator: A city….I am looking at the bids and already it is at seven hundred dollars, three days left, this is going to be insane
FallenGod: He is somewhere near Balkor, I heard a rumor he is on his way to Str, lets steal it
6996: Yes announce your plans on his discussion board…smart
***
Below are a number of concerns about the RL setting and how the VR is set up that a reader brought up along with my response. I put it up in a bonus chapter, edited for minor grammar for readability. This is not the focus of the story and is mainly just alluded to. So for those who are curious, here is some info dump background.
BlackToTheFuture Wrote:
Spoiler :
First let me say I'm enjoying the story so far and look forward to continuing my reading.
Some questions and comments though (I'm only on chapter 3 So if you've answered some of these queries already my bad.).
I get this is a novel and all but you seem to want it to be realistic so here goes.
How is the company making this game gaining enough sales to make a profit. I mean with the 100% realism this game is essentially real life to people in it. So people in real life have no inclination to put themselves in a position where they are forced into a penal colony or raped by an NPC. You will not get any female users (unless that's their fetish) in a game where the programmed charterers are able to rape players without provocation. Especially in a situation where they start out much weaker (in terms of level) than children and the cultural level is set in the middle ages where something like that would be much more common. It's simply not appealing to the masses and that's where the revenue is.
In addition, (at least in the UK) in civil law you can't contract yourself out of liability for purposeful or neglectful harm caused to those who enter into a contract with you except for in certain circumstances. Even in criminal law I don't think the defense of consent covers this game situation. So even if their lawyers argue that the virtual harm isn't "real" or permanent. Psychological harm caused by the actions of their own programmed character would be a major issue.
It's a game after all, its primary purpose is to be enjoyable. This is purely enjoyable to the gore porn niche but even they would be hesitant to put themselves in the actual hot seat. Unless that market has exploded in your time period or the cost of making a game this advanced in negligible. Large corporations will not expend the money to create something with this level of helpless and unstructured game play.
Then we have to look at the social repercussion. If somehow they can wrangle their way out of legal issues worldwide you can be sure that there will be a large portion of the population who would latch onto this game as an affront to human nature. Suggesting things like in encourages real life violence, murder, rape etc then point at the fact that the NPC actions and game setup are programmed to encourage it in the players far past what is "reasonable".
There would be examples of real life crazies using this game as an excuse to go out and do these crimes then blaming the game for their actions. In a screen games these accusation could be brushed off like they have in real life. But in the game you have set up that is a real concern. The media would slaughter you, normal public opinion would turn and there is a good chance legislations would be brought in to control this kind of game play in the future.
Thanks for reading.
Thank you for all these comments/questions. I will try to answer them.
Omnitrek is about 20% of the worlds GDP. Due to time dilation of 5 to 1 most people use VR. Countries or individuals attempting litigation are shut out. It is as if the internet was owned by one company. They bought out or merged with competitors. To achieve VR a large amount of infrastructure is needed so small companies can't build a VR system to compete.
As the only game on the new system and everyone owning a system and a prize for winning there is a large player base. Also girls may play as guys. So the in game ratio is off compared to real life. The groups the MC meet tend to have less girls who have been protected by heroes.
At a certain point it is like anything that is popular. People join in since others have joined in. Let us say that there are 10,000,000,000 people. 70% have capsules, 10% play the game. That is still seven hundred million people.
That is also a reason why most governments use Omnitrek drones to suppress crime and terrorism. Omnitrek is a Mega-Corp and literally controls the world. FEAR could be considered an outlet for the frustration of the world's people.
There are terrorists who try and fight Omnitrek but are totally outmatched and their children are reeducated. My real world is very depressing, more so than the VR world. Most of the world's population work for Omnitrek or one of their client companies to stay in their atrium and pay the subscription fees Omnitrek charges.
Hope all that answers your questions and concerns.
***
Author’s Note: REVIEW, RATE, FOLLOW, and FAVORITE. If you want two chapters a day, get to work. Tell your friends to read, tell the other people to read, and boost up my ratings. Sign up to RR and do all of these. I honestly think this story can hit top 5 before the end of the year. Let’s make it happen.
It really takes a lot of effort to keep up this pace. Your support really does motivate me to keep writing at this pace. This chapter is dedicated to PureXXX, for making me chuckle ;p