I sat there a while, Patches going back to sleep even in his cushy little bed while I sighed and took everything in.
We were all in a game, people were no doubt freaking out, and the moment I left this house I’d probably be open to taking damage yadda yadda etcetera.
That probably meant I better have all my t’s crossed and i’s dotted before I walked out of that door.
I decided to check up on the card reward. It showed at the bottom of my side panel and a lightly flashing notification.
YOU’VE RECEIVED A SKILL CARD!
It was a floating gift, complete with bow, wiggling in the periphery of my vision. I tapped at it, and the card exploded into view, looking like a game card for the most part: title, illustration, card type, and then the box on the bottom that half explained the effect.
The illustration up top was a ball of lightning, and beneath it read 1 Card Point. Some of the squad guys had played, but I never did much other than look at the art. I suddenly wished I’d paid more attention.
Static Shock
Level 1 (Common)(1CP)
Activate to deal an additional 1-4 lightning damage on a hand-to-hand or melee attack for the next minute. 5-minute cooldown.
Leveled up cards will do an additional 1-4 lightning damage per level.
‘As cybernetic upgrades go, it isn’t too flashy. But in the right situation, with the right play, it can be downright deadly.’
[https://i.imgur.com/3Ed0pLe.jpg]
Learn Chance 83% Would you like to study this skill now? Y/N
I mentally chose yes and then watched numbers fly about in the center of my vision. They settled onto a 52%.
Static Shock successfully learned!
The physical card itself materialized in my hand, and my side panel immediately opened to a series of empty boxes. In the upper right-hand corner of this screen there was the number 14 in deep, bloody crimson.
selected one of the empty boxes, and it filled with a miniature icon of my card. Meanwhile the number changed to 13(14).
Made sense. This was where I equipped cards and set myself up my abilities. At the bottom was a disclaimer -
Equipped abilities may be removed or replaced after a good night’s rest once every 24 hours.
“Well, it’s already equipped. Not like I have anything else to put in its place,” I said out loud.
When I closed this screen, I saw a hot bar appeared along the very bottom of my vision. The miniaturized icon of my card weakly in the bottom left corner of my vision in my periphery.
As an experiment, I selected it, and felt a hum of power crackle over my hands.
“Nice,” I said. Looking around, I found the clothes washer wand thingamajig and I smashed it with an electrical attack.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
It promptly exploded, and the lights of my apartment flickered momentarily.
I grinned. That power looked like a keeper.
I headed over and checked on Patches one more time. He was secure in his super futuristic pet bed, complete with shields and possible photon torpedoes. And still sleeping, lazy butt.
Good for him.
I bent down. “Dirk Stone is headed to go see what the deal is. You stick around, okay?”
Patches answered with an abrupt snore, and I patted his head. I didn’t have to say it, since he was well away out in dreamland, but it felt good to let him know I was going out.
Especially since I had absolutely no clue what I was about to get myself into.
I reached out, bashed at the buttons on the panel that appeared in the place where a knob should be, and suddenly I was back to full screen, the words of the text repeated via audio in a voice that I’d describe as deep, gravelly, and way too serious.
Welcome to Prestige Gaming - Cyber Prefecture Gojira X. The Ringo-Dango Yakuza sect has seized control of the back streets and dark alleys and the police are nowhere to be found. Meanwhile the rival Kebukai-Kogan Gang have seized the banking district. All traditional commerce is under their watchful eyes and contributes to their open purses.
What are their motives? What is the larger picture? Can Gojira X be saved from these unscrupulous characters?
YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE INTRODUCTION TO A STORY QUEST. THERE ARE MANY QUESTS AVAILABLE IN THE CYBER PREFECTURE GOJIRA X, BUT ONLY COMPLETING THE MAIN QUEST WILL ALLOW YOU TO CONTINUE TO THE NEXT TERRITORY.
I’d just been trying to head out my door. It’d been hard enough to figure out which button made it slide open. But the system constantly putting my brain in a headlock and forcing it to go and see this stuff full screen was really getting on my nerves.
It felt just like the regular game tutorials that tortured humanity every release since the advent of Nintendo.
I sighed, scanned the words, and listened to the AI narrative, my brain abstractedly feeling my body seize up and fall to the carpeted floor of the futuristic hallway.
“Ow,” I managed to moan, the dialogue finally finished and my real-world vision returning.
I'd just been rolling on autopilot all this time, accepting that I was in some sort of sim. But this was balls-to-the-wall strange.
I got to my feet and examined my surroundings. This was Gojira-X.
Huh.
For some reason I had expected to see a giant lizard or two smashing about the place.
This world of the future was more clinical than I had first expected. The familiar plaster walls of my former building had been replaced with stainless steel panels, polished to an eye-watering sheen that sent spikes into my brain when directly looked upon.
It was a sort of lens flare that would have made J.J. Abrams jealous, and made me wonder if aspirin were still a thing or if I would have to figure out some freaky alternative.
Like maybe a cybernetic upgrade?
That was all stuff for later, though. I had to think this through. When you start a game, you do Character Creation. Check. Then you set out and find something easy. Wherever you start there is always some simple and convenient way to level up.
For right now I figured I’d go door-to-door and look for that inevitable beginner quest. The AI had said that there would be other quests, and I’d been through enough kill-the-rats-in-my-basement stuff to know that intro stuff was easy and quick.
I strolled forward, confident in my assessment of the situation.
And was very surprised when knocking on the very gray-green plastic panel door of a neighboring apartment almost lost me my life.
It wasn’t the knock that got me, though that might have warned the thing inside. It was pushing the fricking button. I guess half of me expected that it would be locked up right and that nothing would happen. The other half expected a doorbell.
Instead, the door zipped open, a light and musical trill sounding over top of its slide, and then I saw the consummate V’ed fangs of a cyber dragon. One red-glowing robot eye scanned over me even as the teeth noisily dissected my neighbor, disassembling him into juicy red chunks.
“Nope,” I said, hitting the button and closing the door. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so easy.
I walked to the next door and put my ear to panel, cursing a moment later. It had been red hot, and there was no way that something not bad wasn’t happening next door.
Two doors down one of the apartment doors slid open, and one of my neighbors came out. She was red-haired, freckle faced, and apparently in a spot of trouble, because flickers of flame followed out her door behind her, licking at her retreating backside.
One thing I had to say about her, she didn’t scream or go all bug-eyed crazy. I paused and regarded her, sizing her up. Who was this gal?
She glanced over, looking me up and down.
“World’s gone crazy,” she said.
She turned and ran down the hall, a strange pair of plastic sneakers clicking with each step while she faded into the distance.
I shook my head to rid myself of mirages and hallucinations. Such things crept up on a man if he weren’t too careful. And if I wasn’t seeing things, then the world had gone straight to hell. This was going to require a sit down.
And a much more thorough check through of the apartment. Because who the heck knew what might have appeared in the old domicile since things changed.
Plus, let’s face it, after everything that I’d just seen, leaving Patches all by himself didn't feel safe anymore. Doggo was going to stay with me through thick and thin. I owed him that.
After all, he’d saved my life.
I turned back around, suspiciously eyeing my neighbors' doors as I jogged past them, only really breathing when I heard my own door slide closed behind me.
My heart beat fast, tightening in my chest, images of a sandy mountain flashing through my head, mortars blinking shots all around me.
Not now. I shook it away. There’d be time for all of that in my nightmares.
Popping open my door, I took one long stride through, then batted the door shut to give myself a bit of time for the apparently incoming chaos.
Whatever was coming, I had to be ready with everyone I had at my disposal.