CHAPTER 3
“Pay up, beeeesh!”
“Damnit, I thought for sure he’d pick a fighter.”
“Heh heh. Short little fat dude, thinks he’s all smart? Yeah, he’s on a Napoleonic power trip.”
“I figured with a past like that, he’d want to be a fighter so he can be the bully this time.”
“Nope, gotta play the long game, brah. He thinks he’s smarter than everybody else in the room.”
“I saw that in the interviews.”
“Guy like that gets picked on his whole life by jocks, he fancies himself better than them, doesn’t think he needs to beat them at their own game. He wants to outthink them, prove to them that brains are better than brawn, that he’s the superior one, because he knows he’ll never beat them otherwise.”
“That...that’s incredibly insightful coming from you. It almost makes me think you’ve--”
“Don’t finish that sentence, douchenozzle.”
My voice echoes around the clearing, then...nothing. I don’t know what I expected. Maybe a crash of thunder, a rising swell of orchestral music, hell, I would even take a bird chirping in response, but I get nothing. I shrug and move on.
I take my first step out into the greater world of Pentamria, whatever that means, and immediately my wizard’s robe gets caught on a thorn bush. Not exactly an auspicious start, I think to myself. I pull the snagged cloth away from the bush, and turn to look at my new world.
Ok, I think to myself, now what?
Just in my immediate surroundings, the trees are spaced out enough to see 40-50 yards in all directions. The vibrant greens and rich earth tones suffuse the bright sunlight through a dream-like filter, and I begin to feel relaxed and at ease. I have no pressing deadlines, no bills to pay, no responsibilities to worry about. I gaze up into the trees and close my eyes, reveling in the silence and comfort of knowing that I am home.
As I do so, I am vividly reminded that I am in a video game. In addition to the map, several other familiar-looking user interface items have appeared to clutter up my vision. Ok, maybe not clutter, but my visual landscape definitely looks like the screen from any number of games I have played over the years. There is a red globe near the lower left corner, perhaps two inches across, with an identical blue globe in the lower righ, connected by a thin green bar. Ok, so that’s my health, mana, and stamina respectively, I think to myself. There is also a row of small icons underneath the stamina bar, low in the middle of my field of vision, right between the red and blue globes. There is an open hand, a spellbook, a scroll icon, a bag icon, and what looks like a compass rose, along with several others. There is a map window of some kind in the upper right corner, and a small empty box that looks like a chat window in the lower left corner, just outside the red health globe. Now, all of this is great information to know about my user interface, but it still doesn’t tell me jack shit.
I’ve played sandbox-type games before, where you start out in a low-level zone, safe for the most part as long as you don’t go too far too soon. The idea is you have an initial quest or obvious direction the game wants you to pursue, but after you are introduced to it, the game opens up completely before you. Beginning gamers are usually totally freaked out by it, because the game doesn’t hold your hand, guide you through the story, put you on a safe little path that your growing skills can handle. In sandbox games, if you stray too far afield from where you start, you could very easily run into something a bit more than you can handle. Sometimes you gotta play it safe in sandbox games. If you ignore the “Kill 10 Rats” quest from the merchant’s hot daughter to go seek your fortune in the great unknown, you usually stumble onto the “run for your life from the pack of rabid wolves” quest. Well, less of a quest and more of a scenario. Usually a losing one, at that.
It might be boring, but the “Kill 10 Rats” quest will garner you xp, which will get you levels, which will eventually allow you to take on the “Defend Against the Invading Goblin Tribe” quest, which then leads to the “Go Find the Goblin Hideout and Kill Them All With Extreme Prejudice” quest. Before you know it, you’re taking down dungeons on autorun with one hand and ordering delivery pizza with the other. Standard operating procedure for most gamers.
But here, I have no guide, no quests, and no clue. And I’m a little freaked out by it.
With my meta-musings about gaming distracting me, my less-than-catlike-agility rears its ugly head once more. Turning away from my revere, I trip over a root or some shit, and my arms flail out, grasping at a nearby sapling. It buckles under my ham-fisted attempt catch myself, and I slam full-body onto the ground. I spit out the dirt and leaves I face planted into, but my muscles lock up when I hear something move in the underbrush off to my left.
I slowly turn my head, wondering if I’ve already found myself into the less-desirable of the two scenarios in my musings, and I see a small pair of beady little black eyes staring at me over a thick snout. Not much more is visible underneath the thick, broadleaf shrub it’s hiding under, but I get the impression it’s a rodent of some kind. A really big one.
I inch my hands underneath my shoulders and attempt a slow pushup, getting one knee underneath me as quietly and non-threateningly as I can. In lieu of the hunt, it seems my first challenge in combat has found me. I stand, and the rat-thing twitches briefly. I can tell it’s currently debating on whether or not to attack me, and it is at this time that I realize that I am in deep shit.
I don’t have a weapon.
My hands slap and fumble at the simple rope belt I’m wearing, searching vainly for a dagger or knife. Hell, I’d even take a spork at this point. I begin standing up and turning my head with the intention of ducking back into the campsite to pick up the dagger or the staff when I see that it is gone. Not the dagger or the staff, mind you.
The entire campsite.
When I stepped from the edges of the clearing, it appears I was disgorged into the heavy undergrowth of a forest with no way of getting back into the campsite. I am truly and deeply screwed.
I look around on the ground for a stick or branch or something to defend myself with, but there is nothing but the grass of the forest interspersed with the occasional low shrubbery and tree trunk. I hear a grunting pig-like...something, followed by the approaching sound of rustling in the undergrowth. Whatever this thing is, I am now certain it can smell fear, either that or incompetence, because it charges. As it gets closer, a disturbingly loud squeal comes from straight ahead, and I finally get a good look at it as it clears the last 10 feet of its headlong rush.
It looks like a capybara, moves like a leopard, and is charging like a bull in Pamplona. It doesn’t slow as it approaches, grunting and squealing viciously. Before I can even think about my action, I lash out with my foot and catch it in the side of the head. A damn good blow, too, from the throbbing of my toe. The thing’s body gets spun around from the force of the kick, and as its backend whips around, it catches me across the back of my planted leg’s knee. With one foot in mid-kick, the other foot is swept out from underneath me and I’m airborne, horizontal for what feels long enough to whip up a batch of popcorn to watch the show before gravity reasserts its dominance. I come crashing down. I land flat on my back on the forest floor, and it feels as though an elephant has come along and sat on my chest. I remember this feeling once from elementary school, when I fell off the monkey bars at recess. It was nearly a minute before I could stop gasping for breath, listening to the laughing and taunting of my classmates, and it seems to take nearly that long again. In the meantime, I can hear the rat monster regaining its senses next to me. It’s grunting loudly, thrashing around trying to get back to its feet.
I roll over onto my side and gain my feet, wheezing and gasping for oxygen. Pigrat is nearly on its feet when I kick it in the head again. And again. I pause to get my breath fully back as it twitches on the ground.
So I kick it again.
And again. And again, and again and again and again andagainandagain...
I enter some sort of mini frenzy, like Michael Bolton from Office Space when he takes out his frustration on the copier out in the field, but it goes deeper than that. Much deeper.
Rage builds inside me as I stomp on the remains. This rat attacked me (stomp). Unprovoked (stomp). Unwanted (kick.). Just because I was afraid and defenseless (stomp). Just like everyone (kick) and everything (stomp) else in my life (stomp). I had no weapon (stomp), no skill (stomp), no (stomp) chance (stomp). And yet….
Breathe.
I take another ragged breath, and my throat burns. With a shock, I realize that I have been screaming. I might even have been screaming the thoughts in my head, I’m not really sure. I even have a vague memory of a prompt window appearing in front of me, but my flailing, bloody hands must have brushed it away or dismissed it. My knuckles are busted, even openly cut in some places. It dawns on me that I am on my knees, robes soaked in the blood of my first kill. My face feels wet, and I’m not sure if it’s sweat from my physical exertion, tears, or the splattered ichor from the rat. There’s no point in using my hands to check, as all I would accomplish is to smear gore all over my face.
I sit back on my heels and take one more cleansing breath. The world seems to rush back in on me all at once. The forest has gone quiet. Perhaps it was the noise. Perhaps it was the violence.
Or perhaps…. I had always heard that when a predator was around, lesser animals went silent so as not to attract the attention of the hunter, not to bring attention to themselves as prey.
Perhaps the forest has gone silent in recognition that there is a new danger around, one that is a terrifying force to be reckoned with.
I had won. My first instinct was to fight back, an action that I never had the courage to do in my other life. And I had won.
I look back down at the lumpy, bloody mass of shattered bones, torn fur, and twisted, ropey intestines strewn about in front of me like a place setting at a picnic, and promptly vomit all over it.
After I finish voiding myself (of what? What had this body eaten since being created 10 minutes ago?), I shakily climb to my feet, careful not to touch any of the carnage on display in front of me. I pause, leaning my head back to take one more deep breath to cleanse myself both mentally and physically, and I hear a sound that makes me smile.
Running water.
There is a stream somewhere nearby and I desperately need to, at the very least, wash the stench of blood and offal off my hands. Plus, with the cuts and some of the more...suspicious-looking clumps of stuff on my hands, infection is a very real concern.
Oh, doth thou-est remember the deadly Bonefist the Brave?
Yes, wasn’t he the one brought low by tetanus from punching the shit out of a capybara? Literally?
Verily, indeed! Also, what is tetanus?
Staggering along a narrow path, I follow the sounds of the babbling brook, and I am forced to smile. You always hear that term, “babbling brook,” and it brings to mind a happy sound, like the laughter of children, or the intro music to your favorite computer game. Well, this sound actually does make me happy. Not because I look like Sissy Spacek from Carrie and I need to get clean, it’s the actual sound itself. It’s a clear, pure sound, promising life and hope and ok yeah, I really need to get clean.
I break through the trees and come across what appears to be something off a postcard from the Colorado Rockies. Tall, aspen-like trees frame a rollicking, foaming stream maybe fifteen yards wide. Looking back to what my visual map says is north, the path of the water is lined with more trees, meandering back and forth, but still wide enough to see a small, twenty foot waterfall playing down two, in some places three, levels. Even further back, the tops obscured by clouds, the twin peaks of a mountain tower on either side of the stream. The mountain looks like it’s been riven in half by a giant axe..
I am stunned by the view. My eyes strafe right to left and back again as I take in my surroundings. I look down at the flowing water again, and I giggle as I’m suddenly taken with a flight of fancy. I find a rock in the middle of the stream, and fix my gaze on it, not blinking, not moving, with laser-like focus. I watch the water play across its surface, some spraying up, some merely gliding smoothly over it to continue unabated downstream. I don’t move for more than a minute. Then two.
I don’t believe it, I think, there’s no loop. In most games, any large amount of moving pixels, whether it’s trees waltzing in the breeze or water playing across rocks in a stream, has a pattern to it. It usually is a constant loop, just a couple of seconds, of the same motion over and over again. When placed in this brief loop, it appears to be flowing, or waltzing, or whatever you like. Even in sports games, it just looks like they might have the fans in the stadium cheering on their favorite pixelated characters by the thousands. However, if you look closely, it is three, maybe four of the same people doing the same three or four motions. They scatter those characters around, setting them all to different timings, so that it looks like there are 80,000 fans in attendance doing their own little celebratory dance when you score. Sometimes the algorithm gets jacked and it’ll park a few “fans” with the same animation and timing within a few inches of each other, revealing the ruse. The purpose of that is to not have to keep track of every object in the game individually. If the system had to keep track every drop of water, every branch in every tree, every bee going to every flower, it would quickly bog down and lock under the pressure.
However, as I stand there at the edge of this imaginary stream, watching these imaginary trees sway in an imaginary breeze wafting imaginary smells towards my imaginary nose…. There. Is. No. Loop.
Impossibly, this is a real-time stream. To prove it to myself, I find a broad leaf on the ground near my feet. It is shaped roughly like a large maple leaf, and after a brief inspection, I see it will serve my purpose. I step into the water, leaning down to splash some on my face, and find a relatively quiet section of the stream. Gently, I place the leaf in the current like a little boat. My hand relaxes, and I watch as my little vessel floats all the way down, braving the rapids alone. At one point, it even gets caught up in an eddy, twisting and turning at the whims of nature, until it gets snared by the current again. I watch it carefully, both for the simple beauty in it as well as my deeper purpose. At no point does it reset or disappear; it flows onwards, inexorably as time itself. I have the very strong feeling that if I were to take off running south, following my little makeshift boat down the current, it would eventually end up in the sea. Or a lake. Or whatever the hell this stream feeds into.
Once the leaf rounds a slight bend, moving out of my sight, I hear another familiar sound. But this one has nothing beautiful or interesting about it at all.
It’s the snort-squeal of a pigrat. And the sound is coming from behind me.
I turn to see the little monster, shuffling and snuffling along the water’s edge. Of course, you idiot! Just because we’re in a beautifully idyllic setting in a video game (albeit a very techno-advanced video game) doesn’t mean the wildlife won’t be programmed to live their life in as natural a way as possible. And in this case, it means drinking water.
My heart begins to beat faster. I don’t think the nasty little varmint has noticed me yet, so I keep as still as possible. I see my chance, and I steady my nerves.
Ok, here we go, I think. Time to bring on the death!
I take a deep breath, flex my fingers, and then...realize I have no idea how to cast this spell. Ordinarily, I would just press a key or click my mouse, but that obviously won’t work here. I close my eyes and look around at the different icons available to me. The map, of course is still in the upper right corner, and on it I can see the yellow arrow that represents me, but I also see a small red pixel straight in front of me. I smile, realizing it’s the pigrat, a dozen yards away. On a whim, I focus on the minus arrow, and the map zooms out quite a bit. The pigrat’s dot shrinks drastically then disappears altogether as I zoom out. The motion stops after a second or two, and I can see nothing but blackness, save for a thin line of green wavering through the dark. I zoom back in and realize that is my path through the forest, including a round, bulbous area where I must have fought the first pigrat.
Which, of course, reminds me that I have one sitting right in front of me, perhaps already charging me to attack. Focus, numbnuts! I chastise myself.
If I can bring up the map icon with a thought, I consider, shouldn’t I be able to bring up a spell book, too? No sooner do I think about the spellbook icon that than a blue screen pops up.
SPELLBOOK
Domain: Death
* Raise Skeleton
Rank
1
1
Ok, kinda pathetic spellbook. And surely there’s an easier way to cast spells, but whatever.
I mentally click on Domain: Death and several things happen at once.
I reach into the core of my being, without even knowing how. Time seems to slow down around me. The trickle of the brook suddenly drops in pitch, almost comically, and the sunlight reflecting off the ripples in the water slows from a flicker to a barely-perceptible roll; I can see individual droplets of water splashing up off the rocks midstream. My mind clears instinctively, and an image of a shelf of books appears. Well, a shelf with one book appears. But there’s room for more books, to be sure. The single book is bound in black leather, a small, ivory human skull near the top attached to a spine running down the back of the book. I see what you did there, I think, a spine on the spine. The cover has a dull, non-reflective appearance, and is disturbingly non-cow leather. I try to avoid thinking any more about that, and mentally select the book.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
In my vision, the book seems to leap off the shelf and open to the front of the thick tome, hovering in place just in front of me. I look down to see scrawlings in a spidery language I don’t recognize, and yet somehow I can read and know exactly what to think, what to say, and how to hold my hands just right.
I know, somehow, in my soul that doing these gestures and speaking these words is a path to opening a portal into another world, possibly even dimension, where the life force of...something will come through and animate the bones of any dead creature. From my earlier experience with that other dimension, I almost hesitate; if I’m being completely honest with myself, that wordless voice terrifies me.
Man up, Bonefist! I chastise myself, and my new name, my new self, gives me the confidence I need.
I focus on the page, and suddenly there is a...stirring in my head. A portal splits the emptiness in my mind. It opens up, and I sense that same dread Presence as before, that same rotting smell and oozing crawl, but this time it is different. It almost seems to be asking what I require, as if responding to an annoying neighbor’s request to borrow a drill. I begin to perform the words and gestures in the image of the book, and I can sense the Other Thing knows what I want. When I do, there is a draining sensation, the feeling of power being drawn from my body, and the blue globe in the lower right corner of the screen drops down drastically, nearly three-quarters of the way. I feel slightly light-headed, but not in an uncomfortable way. In fact, it’s almost thrilling, like the first ten feet of the big hill on a rollercoaster.
So *that’s* what it feels like to use mana to cast.
Within a fraction of a second, I feel...energy flowing through the portal, a tendril of something otherworldly and powerful. The tendril reaches out and begins a sweep around me in jerky, frantic motions. I can half see its violet, ethereal form probing the ground around where I stand in a roughly 20-foot circle. It looks like black and purple lightning flickering across the ground in search of something. The sweep gains speed, and in a completely unexpected turn of events, the Other Thing somehow, some way, exudes utter contempt and disgust. Don’t ask me how I know, it’s not like the thing has a mouth, nose, or face of any kind, and yet somehow I feel judged and belittled.
Suddenly, the portal snaps shut on the tendril, cutting it off from its source. It immediately evaporates into a deep, purple smoke, like a bruise floating away on the air.
Time returns to normal with the snapping shut of the portal, and the world around me accelerates back up to its original speed. I have a horrible moment of vertigo, what I can only describe as backlash from the casting failing for some reason. The current whisks my leaf down the stream once more, the sun is flickering off the surface of the stream once more, and more importantly, my vision clears from magic books, shelves, and probing green lightning tentacle-doohickies.
Unfortunately, my cleared vision gives me a great front row seat to the fact that I am left standing there, in a manner of speaking, with my underwear down around my ankles and a bottle of lube in my hand.
The pigrat’s head has snapped around to stare at me with its beady, vicious little eyes, and I realize that my chanting to cast the spell has given me away. After an awful, pregnant pause, it squeals and charges me. I crouch down slightly, trying to time my kick, and this time I aim more for the shoulder as it gets within range. My kick connects, and with much different results. First of all, I am not able to stun it with a shot to the head, but at least I do manage to keep my feet under me. The impact still knocks the thing down, however, and I seize my moment of advantage. Quite literally.
I grab hold of the pigrat’s pink, ropey tail and pull. I can feel the thing squirming in my hand grotesquely, the heavy weight of the body unbalancing me as I begin to swing it around in a circle like an olympic hammer toss. It’s not easy to get the weight going, what with it wriggling around, and the fact that it weighs as much as a medium-sized golden retriever puppy. I am able to get it going, however, and on my third pass around, I slam it’s squealing face into a nearby boulder on the edge of the riverbank. Needless to say it stops moving, but I can tell it’s not quite dead; probably just stunned. I swing it once more, dashing it against the rock again, and this time I know it’s gone. Mainly because there’s a loud “crack” from the skull and I see something fall out. I try not to look too closely at it. I drop the corpse to the ground, my heart pounding in my chest from the exertion, excitement, and adrenaline. I look at the corpse and I have to do a double take. There’s a strange glimmer or sheen on it. I don’t know how to explain it, other than it almost appears to be blurred, like I’m seeing a double image rather than a dead corpse. Is it a glitch in the system? I blink a few times trying to focus, but no good. It’s causing my head to swim a little bit, so I reach down to see if I can resolve the issue by touching it. A small window pops up in my vision.
YOU HAVE KILLED A FOREST RAT!
You have received 150 XP.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO LOOT FOREST RAT?
Forest Rat Tail
Forest Rat Incisor
Forest Rat Meat (Raw)
Loot all?
CONFIRM CANCEL
After a brief explosion of laughter, I confirm the looting. I reach down and touch my leather bag hanging at my waist to open my inventory. In the first three boxes of the inventory screen are three new square icons I’ve never seen. One is a small, pink curlicue, the second is an image of a sharp tooth, and the third looks vaguely like a stereotypical raw steak. I briefly look at all three icons, and confirm I have looted the items from the corpse. I look down at the body and see, to my surprise, that the teeth are indeed now missing, as is the tail. The flesh of the rat doesn’t look deflated or “less than” because I apparently now have a rat steak in my inventory, but that must just be a little quirk in the system.
I chuckle to myself as I ponder on this discovery. I wonder why I didn’t see this on the first rat I killed, but then I consider two things. I either couldn’t see the double-image because I had smashed all the corpse’s loot in my rage, or I couldn’t see it because it was covered in vomit.
My meta-gamer kicks in once more and I think, Or maybe it’s randomly generated loot and the first rat I killed just rolled up nothing on the loot chart.
Either way, I have looted my first corpse!
After the novelty wears off, as well as the adrenaline from beating the piss out of a pigrat the size of a cocker spaniel, a surge of anger wells up inside me.
Why hadn’t my spell worked?
My eyes close, and again I bring up the spellbook icon, choosing the Death magic book from the shelf. Instead of activating the spell once more, I think about the description of the spell that flashed up in my view upon first learning it. Immediately I am rewarded with some rather important information.
RAISE SKELETON
Domain: Death
Mana Cost: 50
Range: 20 yards
Cooldown: 15 minutes
Duration: 10 minutes
This spell will raise any single existing dead creature within its range. There must be a full set, or close to a full set, of bones within the range of the spell to take effect. You may raise one skeleton per 2 ranks of spell, and each rank raises the duration by 1 minute.
Any skeleton will have half the amount of hitpoints it had in life, and must be of equal or lower level than the spell rank.
I’ve heard of “facepalming” before, of course, but it was usually just an emoji or described action. Well, not this time. I literally slap my hand over my face, shaking my head in humiliation. Of course. I’m a fuggin’ idiot.
In my defense, even if I had cast the spell on the corpse of the first rat I had killed, it probably wouldn’t have raised because of the state of the remains. Plus I probably would have read it if they didn’t have a window pop up every time I farted! I’ve only been here a few hours but I feel like I’ve seen a thousand of these damn things already.
“I’m a friggin’ gamer! I don’t need a damn tutorial!” I shout at the heavens. “I know you’re watching, and this one’s on YOU!” It is an uncomfortable truth, but I’m sure there is something in one of those waivers and disclaimers I signed stating that they would be observing me, both physically and mentally “to ensure my safety and the integrity of the program.” Not only that, but a tutorial probably would have kept me from making that simple mistake of not knowing the specifics of the spell. But I’ll be damned if I ever let them know that. I reach up and flip off the azure sky with authority, anyway. Although if my suspicions are right, it might be more accurate to flip myself off, as they will probably only be able to see what I am seeing, being hooked directly into my brain and all. Well, I think, get a load of *this*, assholes!
I start to open the spellbook window again, but a thought strikes me. I shift my line of thinking, and instead I bring up the feeling I had when I first opened myself to the portal. I am rewarded with the sense of the portal opening once again. Can I really call it “rewarding” when it feels like maggots are slithering under my skin every time I cast a damn spell? I ask myself. I find I don’t really need to read the book, that I know all the words, intonations, and gestures required to bring the forest rat back from the dead. Spell quickslot! I congratulate myself as I finish the casting.
My mana drops again, and since it hadn’t fully recovered from the first failed attempt to cast Raise Skeleton, it drops to dangerously low levels. I need to find out how quickly my mana recharges before I start throwing spells around willy-nilly, I think to myself. Once again, that thrilling feeling of power rushes through me. This time, however, it is accompanied by a wave of nausea that threatens to overwhelm me. I hold the final pose of the spellcasting long enough for the deep violet lightning probe to shoot from my hands and begin its search for a corpse to raise, then I sway on my feet for a moment. Is that just a side effect of mana loss, or did it signify something else? I resolve to look into that later, as well.
The lightning seems to find what it is looking for in the corpse of the forest rat, because the search ceases and something begins to happen. Flickers of black and violet lightning crawl across the outside of the rat’s mottled brown fur, and the skin of the beast ripples as wet, popping sounds issue from within. Suddenly the lips peel back over the gaps from where the incisors used to be, revealing a still-formidable set of chompers. The action doesn’t stop there, however, as a set of bony claws appear at the corner of the rat’s mouth, ripping and tearing away at the flesh. From the inside.
The face splits open as the front claws peel the pelt, flesh and muscles away like a ripe banana, and a bloody rat skeleton emerges. As the back claws kick their way free of the empty meat bag of a body, I am reminded of a disgusting video I saw on the internet of childbirth. To this day I don’t know why I watched it, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. I’ve regretted it ever since, blocking it from my memory as best I could. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’ve even thought about it until this exact moment in time, as I watch a grotesque parody of birth unfold before me, a thing of death crawling from a corpse. The undead thing stands up, its entry into this world complete, and I take a moment to really look at my new best friend. After a second or so of scrutiny, an unbidden screen of information pops up in front of me.
SKELETAL FOREST RAT
LEVEL 1
Summoned by Bonefist
Might 3
Agility 8
Constitution 8
Perception 3
Intelligence 3
Charisma 1
Luck 1
Stamina (M+A+C) 23/23
Mana (P+I+C) 7/7
Hitpoints (M+A+C+L+P) 22/22
Attacks:
Bite 3-6 (Critical damage x2)
Claw x2 3-6 (Critical damage x2)
As the intrusive blue screens go, this one isn’t so bad as it actually contains useful information. I look at the hitpoints and attack damage, and I’m slightly surprised. If this thing gets a good solid couple of criticals on something, coupled with a claw or two, it could do some major damage.
I like it! I think, as I dismiss the window.
I look down at my little beasty, and twin, ghostly bright violet points of light stare back. Slight wisps of that bruised vapor that I have become all-too familiar with trail off to either side, as well as from a large, gaping hole in the skull. Oops, I think to myself. Sorry, buddy. The skeleton stands abnormally still, almost like a statue, and after watching it for a few seconds I figure out why it bothers me so much. Normal animals are always moving; shifting from foot to foot, looking around, and most importantly, breathing. With no lungs, no need to relax muscles, and nothing to pay attention to except his master, this little guy has no need to move. I look down to my little pet, waiting patiently beside me. “I’m going to name you Boner,” I say with a laugh.
So with Boner in tow, I finish cleaning myself up at the edge of the stream and walk back to the trees. I have an idea, and go back to where the pigrat first left the tree line. Sure enough, there’s a small little game trail leading deeper into the forest. This must be a regular path the rats take when they come to the stream, Which means, I think, whatever is on the other end of this path must be where this little guy calls home.
I follow the trail, having no idea where it leads, and after a few minutes, a notification I haven’t seen suddenly pops up.
QUEST ALERT!
YOU HAVE FOUND A NEST OF FOREST RATS!
Forest rats are the bane to farmers and villages everywhere. They eat crops, dig into basements, and spread disease. Do you want to clear the nest of forest rats?
Awards: 1000 xp
CONFIRM CANCEL
I want to whoop with excitement, but I’m sure the nest of rats a dozen yards away would take exception to that. I sneak up to the edge of the small clearing, and I can hear them before I can see them, multiple squeal-snorts varying in pitch and depth. I move a small branch from in front of my eyes and see a pile of nasty, squirming rat bodies, perhaps a dozen or more. Some of them are the size of both the first one I killed and the one that trots loyally along beside me. Most of them are small, no larger than a chihuahua, and just as hideous. In fact, if I were pressed, I’m not sure I could tell them apart in a police lineup. One of them, however, is enormous, relatively speaking. It’s the size of a labrador, with teeth like garden trowels jutting out in front. I focus closely, and yet again another information screen pops up in my vision.
ALPHA BULL FOREST RAT
LEVEL 3
Might 10
Agility 13
Constitution 15
Perception 11
Intelligence 3
Charisma 5
Luck 5
Stamina (M+A+C) 38/38
Mana (P+I+C) 13/13
Hitpoints (M+A+C+L+P) 44/44
Attacks:
Bite 5-12 (Critical damage x2)
Claw 5-12 (Critical damage x2)
Wonder why his name is yellow, I think to myself, while Boner's is green? Then, a juvenile laugh almost explodes from me with a snort. “I have a green Boner,” I mumble to myself quietly, trying to stifle a laugh. Most games color coded the monsters you fought to let you know how you would fare against them. Any color that had a positive connotation (blue, green, grey, etc.) generally meant the monster was at or below your level. Any monster that would show up in a “danger” color, such as yellow, orange, or red, meant buyer beware, essentially. I consider the circumstance, thinking about how easily I’ve taken down two of these things without a scratch, and I nod to myself. This is doable. I’ll focus on the alpha bull and let Boner take on the rest.
I look down at my silent companion and, revelling both in the irony and perhaps a little in the sadistic nature of the situation, mentally command him to run into the clearing and attack.
Without hesitation, my little buddy digs his claws into the ground and bursts into the clearing. He immediately takes one of the babies in his teeth, and with a sickening crunch, extinguishes its life. I actually flinch with the savagery, the efficiency with which he kills the ratlings. Small little bodies fly this way and that before the other rats can even react. Maybe they smell the rat-ness on him, and it’s this hesitation that allows him to get his teeth sunk into one of the adults.
And that’s when shit goes sideways.
Without warning, Boner’s frame glows briefly for just a second, and then the bones collapse into a pile. What the hell? I think, Where did my Boner go??
My eyes are glued to his slack remains in shock, and so I miss when the alpha bull comes charging in at me. He clips me with his shoulder on the side of the leg and knocks me off balance. His ferocity and strength is astounding, and I feel the first real pang of fear. Had I bitten off more than I can handle here?
I roll up to my feet, seeing that his charge has taken him several yards past me into the trees, so I take advantage and reach over to kick the closest rat. It flies away from me and strikes a nearby tree, the grunt of air being blasted from its lungs sounding more like a wheeze than a squeal.
I turn to punt another forest rat when suddenly my entire field of vision is obscured by one of those damned screens again.
CONGRATULATIONS!
YOU HAVE EARNED YOUR FIRST SKILL!
You have gained the skill UNARMED COMBAT! Thanks to your persistence and dedication to the art of fighting with your hands and feet, you have achieved Rank 1 in the skill UNARMED COMBAT!
+1 to all UNARMED COMBAT rolls
CONFIRM
My kick misses wide, and I scream, “MOTHER FUCKER!” My hands begin flapping at the screen blocking my sight, looking for the confirm button, but in my haste to avoid death by rat, I stumble backwards over the bones of my former pet and fall on my ass. The first bite I feel is on my thigh, a scream of agony torn from my throat as the three-inch teeth savage my leg. There’s a second stabbing sensation as another forest rat joins the assault, clamping down on my right hand. To my horror, I can feel the fingers break in the powerful maw. I smash my left hand down onto the head of the rat gnawing on my leg, and the pain intensifies as the teeth are torn free. Another rat lunges at me but misses, and the one that took my fingers pulls free, taking two of my fingers with him. Panic overwhelms me, and I try to roll away instinctually, turning over onto all fours to use my good leg to stand. As I struggle to get to my knees with the agonizing pain in my hand and leg, I suddenly remember how I was able to select items from these damn windows by thought. With a flash of disgust, I mentally dismiss the window by shouting, “Ok, yes, confirm, you bitch!”
The window vanishes from my field of view and is replaced by the sight of the alpha bull, mid-leap, lunging up at my head. I feel his teeth sink into my face, the top row of front-jutting incisors jamming directly into my eyes, and the bottom row entering my mouth. I can actually feel my eyeballs burst as his teeth enter the sockets, and the world goes instantly black. Pain explodes in my face, and I have the mind-numbing feeling of his upper teeth grinding against the bones in my orbital ridge, his lower teeth sinking into the tender flesh at the roof of my mouth. His claws dig into the sides of my neck and shoulders as he latches on. When he bites down, I feel more than hear a wet crunch. I’m sure most of my nose comes off along with the upper part of my mouth as he tears his head back and away. I try to scream, but all that comes out is a disgusting grunting noise, along with a slight whistling sound, as air escapes from my ruined face.
That may be the last thing I see, but it is not the last thing I feel. The rats continue to mangle my body as I scream, and I feel my limbs being jerked and tugged this way and that by the enraged, hungry creatures. I enter a state of shock, a self-defense mechanism I assume, to protect the mind from the fact that I’m being eaten alive. In a strangely dispassionate observation, I am surprised at just how long it takes me to die.