A voice trickled through my awareness.
“I wasted two weeks doing this goddamn questline. I spend a 100 credits a month paying for this stupid fucking game, and I want my slave now!”
I opened my eyes, and immediately regretted it.
Ow!
The voice continued its tirade, “I pay your salary, fucknuts. You know that, right? No, I will not go on hold—Oh, you motherfucker.”
I managed to open my eyes, the pain easing with every passing moment. Wait! Pain? Why the hell was I feeling pain? And how did I end up on the floor? This shouldn’t be possible. I turned on my interface to contact employee services and was confused by what I saw. It didn’t look like my normal employee interface. There were bars for health, stamina, mana, and a couple other things I didn’t have time to examine.
When BigSword and I locked eyes, it was electric - not in the soulmates kind of way - but more in the domestic dispute, verging on murder-suicide, kind of way.
“Fuck this,” he said, drawing his sword as he stomped across the room towards me.
Need to stay in character. Need to stay in character! But all I could think about was my brain trying to squeeze its way through my eyes. God, my fucking head!
I managed to get to my feet, the dizziness retreating slightly. I composed myself as much as I could, and said, “Brave knight, thank you for-”
BigSword wound up his sword like a baseball bat and tried to decapitate me. I instinctively raised my arm to protect myself. This wasn’t the first time a customer had tried to kill me, but usually I wasn’t birthing an Alien from my head and would just wait until they got bored. I couldn’t feel anything anyway.
Except, when BigSword’s blade slashed my arm, it actually hurt! Not like I’m about to lose my arm hurt, but like when a cat suddenly says fuck you and gives you a warning slash. Still, didn’t feel nice. Text flashed in my vision:
BigSword69 did 1(49 blocked) damage.
What in the actual fuck?!
I backed away, holding up my arms to calm him. “Whoa, okay, that actually hurts. Don’t do that, please.” He had a murderous glint in his eye, and was following me as I tried to skip away. A newly formed red tinge surrounded him like an aura. “No, dude, I’m serious. Something’s gone wrong and my pain reducers aren’t firing correctly. Let me contact-” The fucker swung again.
BigSword69 did 1(49 blocked) damage.
Pain slashed across my thigh, and I let out an undignified yelp. Fuck, I was totally going to be fired. I frantically tried to select the log out button on my interface when BigSword wound up for a third strike. Now I was getting pissed.
He was winding up slow, getting off on my pain, so I had plenty of time to close the distance and shove him backwards. I just needed some space so I could log out.
But when my push hit him in the chest, he didn’t stumble back. No, he fucking launched across the room…and straight out the window, his legs clipping the window edge as he tumbled through. I rushed to the window and looked down to see a Jackson Pollock made of blood and guts. BigSword’s limbs were origami-ed in a way that humans don’t bend, his body crumpled like a soda can when you stomp on it. My mouth hung open in utter shock.
He was dead.
Critical Hit! You did 367(1330 overkill) environmental damage to BigSword69.
“Ohhh, fuck…” In a corner of my vision, a small combat log materialized.
After action report:
BigSword69 did 2(98 blocked) damage.
You did 367(1330 overkill) environmental damage to BigSword69.
Unarmed combat level up 1(+3) → level 4.
Unarmed defense level up 1(+3) → level 4.
In a panic, I opened my menu to get on the line with Employee Services, but the option was gone. What the fuck! In fact, nothing on my menu looked familiar except the logout button. There were options for Map, Inventory, Character, Skills, Quests, and-
“Oh, thank god.”
I reached out to the menu hovering in the air and clicked on the Customer Service option. A chat box popped into existence in front of me with the prompt:
Please describe the nature of your request.
I thought about typing back: Everything fucked, need assistance, but thought better of it. There was still a chance I kept my job. Or, at least, that’s what I told myself.
So, instead, I typed:
Hello, this is employee #2759901. I’m in need of immediate assistance. My pain reducers aren’t working correctly, and my interface is bugged out….
After a moment, I added:
And my client is really unhappy...and dead. Could you send a GM to give him a respawn or something? Thanks…
An automated response filled the chat square immediately.
Hello, thank you for contacting Swords & Sorcery Customer Service. Unfortunately, I couldn’t determine the nature of your request automatically. Would you like to be connected to an agent?
Y/N
I typed back: Y
Connecting, please hold…
A dial tone rang once, then a voice answered.
“Thank you for contacting Customer Service-”
“Yes, hello! I have a serious probl-”
“The current wait time is: 33 hours,” the voice continued on automatically.
“Are you kidding me!” I yelled at the air.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Okay, okay, don’t panic. You’re going to be fine. This isn’t your fault! The pain reducers weren’t working. No one can blame you for not wanting to be physically assaulted on the job. Self-defense is still a thing in virtual worlds, right?
Shit.
Well, one thing was clear to me - I wasn’t going to wait 33 hours for a phone call. I needed to get out of my pod and talk to a real-life human being to sort through this mess.
I keyed the logout button on my menu, a little scared it wouldn’t work. I swear to god, if I’m stuck in a video game, I’m gonna sue the shit out of S&S!
Thankfully, the log out sequence started. A notification appeared in my vision:
You are flagged for combat. Log out timer counting down…
30...
29...
28...
Combat? Seriously? How could a damsel be flagged for combat? Something had gone seriously wrong, and it damn sure wasn’t my fault.
The countdown finished, and my vision faded to black.
And when I opened my eyes, I was still standing at the top of the tower, staring down at BigSword69’s corpse.
Oh, no…
In a panic, I went back through the Customer Service channels until I was put on hold again.
“Current wait time is: 35 hours,” the automated voice said cheerily.
No…no fucking way. Two more hours?!
Okay, think, Ray. You’ve been here for about three hours. There’s six more in your shift. So just six hours until someone starts to wonder why you haven’t clocked out - if not sooner, when they realize you aren’t taking any interactions.
There was muzak playing over the line - you know, that terrible elevator music that is so bad it has its own name. It was filling the room, and I couldn’t find a way to switch it off.
This was going to drive me crazy.
There was nowhere to sit in the tower room, so I propped myself against the dais. As I sat there, movement caught my eye. There were items hovering under the windowsill - loot from BigSword’s…murder? No, that wasn’t fair! His fall? Tumble? He tripped…sort of. Defenestration? No, that had an aggressive tone to it. Maybe it was all some weird hallucination, anyway. I had fallen pretty hard myself. I wasn’t sure if concussions applied in virtual reality, but I definitely wasn’t feeling right. I moved back over to the window. He wouldn’t be there - this was all just some trick my mind was playing on me. I’d fallen asleep or something…
I peeked over the window’s edge. Below, his body was horrifically configured, limbs askew and blood splattered around and beneath him. His neck was bent at an impossible angle, and I felt my stomach flip. I pushed off the windowsill and retreated back into the tower.
I was going to be sick!
But what the hell was I even talking about? Stomach flip? Nausea? This was a goddamn video game! Realistic, sure. But there weren’t biological functions outside of pain, blood, and death.
So why did I feel like I was going to throw up?
I needed something to distract myself, so I pulled up my menu to examine the things I hadn’t looked at earlier. There was Map, Inventory, Character, Skills, Quests, Customer Service, Guild, and Chat.
In a small corner of the list was the option Log Out.
This wasn’t my usual menu when I was working. Normally, there was Employee Services, Request New Interaction, Request Breaks, Clock In/Out, and Log Out. But I was a gamer, nothing in my new menu was unheard of - I just had never explored S&S as a game before. I was more into shooters.
Map wasn’t very interesting. A projection of the dungeon popped up in front of me, with a selection for region, and world map. I at least knew enough about S&S to recognize the major continents and the region this dungeon was in. From the map, I saw four main continents - one for each playable faction in the game, along with the fourth NPC faction that would probably be playable in an upcoming expansion. There were numerous smaller zones, an archipelago, and a locked continent that would also no doubt be part of an expansion pack at some point.
I opened Inventory next. It popped up in front of me - empty. Not a surprise. There were 36 individual slots, with room for additional bags.
Next, I opened my Character menu, and just stared at it for a moment, dumbstruck.
General
Stats Misc Name (Error)
Strength
100 (+) Health Points
1000/1000 [Skill Tree] Level 100 Dexterity 100 (+) Class Damsel Intellect 100 (+) Mana Points
200/200 [Inventory] Specialization N/A Mind 100 (+) Gender Female Vitality 100 (+) Stamina
500/500 Free Stat Points
500 Faction Consortium Endurance 100 (+)
The first thing that jumped out to me was that number next to Level. The Character menu had me at level 100? But max level was 60. That was strange. The next thing I noticed were my stats and my free stats. Not only did I have 100 stat points across the board, but I had 500 free stat points to allocate! It was like I was an actual player! I clicked the little plus sign next to the Strength stat. It went to 101 and a little confirmation box appeared next to it. I quickly declined, not able to process what was happening.
I backed out of the menu system, afraid to touch anything. Who knew what I might break if I fiddled with it?
Out of the corner of my eye, something flashed, like it was signaling me.
It was BigSword’s loot…