I took a long moment, sitting a few yards outside the entry event arena. My eyes gazed off into the distance. I thought about all the things that had happened in such a short timeframe. My death. The pitch-black place where I’d chosen between my post tutorial options. My quite literally shitty Soul Space, and now this place. Hearth. Ada had probably found out about me by now. My chest clenched, and my fists curled. I hated not knowing if Lily was okay or not, but at least I hadn’t found her corpse among the slain players . . . Maybe that was a good sign. My girls . . . they were both going through some really hard shit right about now. I was emotionally and mentally exhausted, and while killing Mike had felt good, I was still utterly pissed. If he crossed my path again, I would continue to put him in his damn place.
I wondered how long it had been since I had woken up that morning. It must have been what? A few hours? Half a day? Time’s passing eluded me. Here the sun was falling toward the horizon. Dusk approached, but it seemed like I probably had a couple more hours before nightfall.
Remembering the village, The Notch, from the map during character creation, I headed north.
I noticed an inky, wet line spreading its way through the grass toward me. As I watched, it thickened slightly and split like a tree root. I inspected it.
Effect of The Black Domain
The Black Domain? Huh. That sounds . . . not great. I stepped aside as the line passed close by, deciding I didn’t want anything to do with the stuff for now. It trickled past and off into the distance.
I came up on a small group of trees and noticed a couple little critters out and about. Since I could see both their nameplates at the same time, a bold white multiplication modifier hovered between their nameplates.
Level 1 Hare x2
HP 1/1
Classic, I thought. I was becoming more and more convinced that whoever had dreamed up this place had been from Earth and had played a few popular MMORPGs.
While I walked, I had time to analyze my interface.
I noticed a map icon blinking on my right. I selected it and was awarded with a local area map. I saw myself as a green arrow smack in the middle. It showed about as far as I could visually see, which meant about a mile depending on my elevation. Beyond that was just black.
I noticed that the direction I was looking on the map was showing activity. A little critter darted between a couple trees, and I saw its yellow dot appear then vanish. Anywhere I wasn’t looking, the area was under fog of war. It showed minor details, like the terrain type, but didn’t show any live activity.
I looked at the corpses from the starter event and little X’s appeared on the map in the direction my arrow was pointing. I looked away from the corpses, and they disappeared off the map. So . . . it only shows what I can actually see. I put a rock between myself and one of the corpses. Its X disappeared off the map. And it doesn’t show obstructed objects either.
I saw that there was a global tab too. I selected it and was awarded with a view of the entire continent and the surrounding blue ocean. I could zoom in and out as much as I wanted which told me that the local area view was just a zoomed in portion of the global view. At fully zoomed out, the continent was purely black outside of a very small area which was my immediate location. I closed the map window which had a little red X in the top right.
In the bottom left of my interface there was the system log, local feed, global feed, and . . . I paused. I just noticed the last tab, which was labeled ‘Party Feed.’ It had a moderately large number next to the label, and it was ticking up and blinking. I mentally selected it and realized what it was. Oops. I scrolled to the top and read through a string of messages that Greg had left.
Greg: Sigh . . . here we go again.
Greg: Hey uhh . . . just FYI, the baby disappeared, actually I haven’t seen her since you left.
Greg: Hello? Can’t you see the blinking messages to your bottom right?
Greg: Why are humans so dumb?
Greg: God. It would be hilarious if you picked the wolf—damn.
Greg: Whoa wait a second.
Greg: Wait.
Greg: You get a second character? Huh. That’s new.
Greg: I haven’t ever seen this before.
Greg: Sigh . . . I hate my life. Even with two of you, you won’t win.
Mie: God, this place is hell. Ew. Why is Greg . . . so ugly? How do you work this thing? Why is he getting closer to me. Oh god. This guy should be dead.
Mie: Oh. Oops. Whelp . . . I guess I just sent that. Actually . . . that’s fine.
Greg: I . . . wish I was dead.
That was depressing. I was glad to see Mie’s name show up, and it registered to me that when you lose a life credit you must return to the Soul Space. That was good to know. I kept reading.
Mie: Stay away from me Greg. Why are you getting closer? STOP MOVING!
Greg: Wow. He did it.
Mie: Good job Sam! Seriously Greg. Stay away.
Greg: Oh, nice ring, been a bit since I have seen one of those.
Mie: Ah! SAM HELP. GREG IS TOUCHING ME!
Greg: I’m telling you: he can’t see our messages.
Mie: Okay pervert. Sam please. READ YOUR MESSAGES!
Greg: Pervert? Really?
Mie: Oh okay cool. I didn’t realize I could see Sam on the TV.
Mie: Yes. Okay I think he is looking down to the left. Hard to tell from this over the shoulder third person view. Looks like Fortnite.
Mie: Right There. No. Fuck. C’mon.
Greg: He’s messing around with his map I think.
Mie: There!
Mie: FINALLY. HELLO SAM!
Finally caught up, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, suppressing a grin. Specs of dried blood crumbled off as I replied by thinking into the input right below the feed. I needed some semblance of normal, and messing with Greg was exactly the sort of distraction I needed right now . . . especially if he wasn’t respecting Mie’s boundaries.
Sam: Oh hey. Sup guys.
Mie: Nothing much! You?!
Greg: You guys . . . are dumb. How did I end up with Earth youths?
Sam: You know, just chillin. Headed north.
Greg: This is pointless.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Mie: Oh nice. Yeah, I’m just chillin too, in this . . . dark wooden container . . . naked . . . with . . . Greg.
Mie: GREG DO NOT TOUCH ME NOOOOOOOO.
Mie: SAM, HE JUST TOUCHED MY BUTT!
Greg: You are a baby that is naked. How am I supposed to not touch your butt?
Sam: That’s messed up man.
Mie: Right?! I can see him Sam. He is all flustered now. Muttering to himself, drooling.
Sam: Stop touching her, pervert!
Greg: None of that is happening.
Mie: YES IT IS. UUUUGH. THIS PLACE IS THE WORST. GET ME OUT OF HERE.
Sam: I believe you. Greg is the worst.
I chuckled to myself. Fucking Greg. I really did feel for Mie though, and I was very glad I still had access to fresh air. . . and access to a non-Greg-containing area. More motivation to stay the hell alive. I decided to see if Greg was good for anything besides negativity and ask a few of my more pressing questions. I needed more information badly.
While we chatted, I followed a dirt path that went up and down over the rolling landscape.
Sam: I have some questions, Greg. Now a good time to throw those your way?
Greg: Sigh . . . fine. Sure.
Sam: Okay so, when a person dies, what happens? I mean I get some of the basics like a life credit gets used and their corpse gets left behind. But like Mie for example. What happens to her next?
Greg: She’s returned to the Soul Space.
Sam: Want to expand on that . . . ?
Greg: No. But fine . . . Do you see her in your party interface there all grayed out, indicating that she hasn’t left the party? Well, you should also see a timer. When a person dies, and if they have remaining life credits, they are penalized in a few ways. One of those ways is time based. The player’s character has to wait 4 hours to respawn. The second big penalty is that you lose your current experience progress toward your next level. Right now, that won’t feel like a huge problem, but later levels start requiring more experience. And dying when you are just a few XP points away from leveling up feels really bad (for you). Lastly, your corpse becomes lootable, and anything and everything in your character inventory becomes lootable by other people.
Sam: So back there, could I have looted those corpses?
Greg: Yep, but it would have just been more bread and water and their weapons which you wouldn’t have been able to equip anyways as you lack the battle art to equip them. Probably just a few coppers worth of gear.
Sam: Makes sense. What about getting back into the game? After the time penalty is up? Where do you respawn?
Greg: We have been over this Harold.
Sam: My name is Sam . . . ? And no, we haven’t.
Greg: What? Oh. Oops . . . all you players just start to blur together for me at this point. Anyways . . . your question . . . it’s mostly predictable but there are a few caveats. . . Basically, if there is an inn close by, characters will respawn there. If there are multiple in the area, it’s a roll. Also, the entry event is a barrier to Hearth. Typically, it’s a short quest or something like that . . . but they went hard this time with a free for all. You can’t actually unlock Hearth fully until you complete the event. So yeah, if you had died during that event, you would have to do it again . . . and again . . . until . . .
Sam: So does that mean Mie . . . will have to do it again?
Mie: Nope! I got the same unlocks you did.
Greg: Yeah, that’s the strange part. Typically, folks don’t have the ability to party up until after entry. I’m not sure, but I think having the prebaked party was an unknown exploit to the system.
Sam: Not mad about that. So, Mie will respawn over here at The Notch? In . . .
I checked her timer.
Sam: 3 and a halfish hours?
Greg: I suppose.
Mie: 3 AND A HALF HOURS?! Fuuuuuck me.
Sam: Sorry Mie . . . Okay and what exactly should I do . . . now? Like how bad is this realm really? I guess I’m asking . . . what is the point of it all?
Greg: Like what is the point of life? Lol. Death for you. And for me? Eternal hell. I’m actually not even sure what the exact rules of this instance of Hearth are yet.
Sam: What do you mean?
Greg: Nothing . . . Can we be done?
Sam: Greg. These are our lives we are talking about. You’re supposed to be our guide. Fucking help us.
Greg: I. Don’t. Care. BUT FINE. Every instance of Hearth has a different rule set for the people locked to them. Typically, the GM—Tittles in this case—gets to that in the first twenty-four hours or so. Sometimes it’s last man standing, sometimes it’s last party standing, sometimes it’s race focused. Like who can beat the end boss the fastest, etc. There . . . are A LOT of different variants. A metric shit ton.
Some things were starting to come together in my head. As things stood right now, this was starting to remind me a lot of any classic MMORPG outside of the life credits. Most MMORPGs just let you die as many times as you wanted . . . but not here. The other similarity was that there was typically a limit to the number of players that could play on a single instance, which meant the developers had to have a bunch of them available. I wondered how many Hearth instances were currently ‘running’ at the same time . . . Just how many people existed?
That thought, as it always did, made me feel small.
I want . . . to go home.
This all . . . has to be a dream. A mistake.
Darkness was approaching over the landscape and with it a black liquid sickness threatened to poison my veins. I pushed it down and away, and instead a red fluid swept through me uncontrolled. I let it. My vision blurred red at the corners.
Where . . . is my wife?
Why . . . am I here?
Lily . . . I prayed my body had been enough to shield her. Would I ever find out what happened to her?
What . . . is the point of it all? What sort of higher being would put a person through life on Earth, and then throw them into this? Or is it all just . . . chaos? The cosmos. Is it all just random and meaningless?
An image of Tittles face as he laughed at the name he’d pulled from his fishbowl rose through my mind.
To him . . . this is a game. To him . . . this is fun. A pounding sensation started to throb through my head, and the red liquid poured off heat like a radiator in an old home. It emanated along the back of my neck and within my chest.
I want answers. I need damn answers. And . . . somehow, I knew if I ran out of credits . . . I wouldn’t get any.
I let my emotions simmer as I took a minute to think about what to ask Greg next. As I walked with bare feet, the temperature dropped. I couldn’t help but miss my leather boots, jeans, and flannel jacket. I missed my normal life. I missed my kids . . . Fuck. Hopefully Dad wasn’t being a complete dickass to Ada and Lily. He was a straight boomer republican. You know the type.
A small town—The Notch, I assumed—appeared off in the distance barely visible in the dying light of dusk. The landscape around me rolled in all directions, except to the west where a tall forest rose.
I squinted, and a beacon of bright green light fell from the sky and hit the tops of the closest trees. At first, I thought this was some strange phenomenon, but then, I realized it was a marker that I had unintentionally placed. Some helpful details showed up next to the beam.
Shell Woods
Distance: 1520 meters
I mentally cleared the marker, and it disappeared. The mental interface really was astounding.
Another question formulated in my mind.
Sam: How many instances of Hearth have you been to Greg?
Greg: Thousands.
The number . . . was staggering. Especially if there were a million players per. The next question I didn’t want to ask . . . but I had to.
Sam: How many times did the person you were helping . . . make it?
The chat remained empty for some time before a response came through.
Greg: Not sure that really matters . . .
Sam: Answer the damn question Greg.
Greg: God. Fine. Zero. . . Only a handful have made it more than a few days.
Mie: I blame the guide.
Greg: . . .
Sam: Same.
Greg: Well fuck you guys too.
Sam: Greg. We are just kidding.
Mie: I’m not.
Sam: But . . . you have no idea what happens to the players who do make it?
Greg: . . . No . . . well, I do know the GM is somehow involved. But they are usually close-lipped on what comes after. No one left behind knows because . . . like I mentioned earlier . . . their Soul Space gets reclaimed and . . . the folks inside get . . . squished . . . then F’d. It’s . . . messed up.
Mie: Umm. You said . . . squished?
Greg: Yeah . . . you’ll see.
Mie: I’d . . . rather not.
That brought up a whole other host of questions about who exactly Tittles was. The GM? Not to mention . . . who Greg was and where he came from. But, before I could dig in, I heard and saw rustling in a large bush a few meters ahead of me.