JohnWillStab’s character opened his eyes revealing intact, albeit shabby homes with rooves of grey-green tiles and cobblestone paths leading to and from the many buildings which filled the small town.
Before JohnWillStab could even come close to playing the game as intended, the chat was flooded with text.
“Duskshire Guard: Halt, undead!”
“Duskshire Guard: Stop, undead!”
“Duskshire Merchant: Another undead!”
“Duskshire Guard: Halt, undead!”
“Duskshire Farmer: Ahh, it’s an undead!”
The farmer cowered in fear, as a last resort he ran for his life into the safety of the undead-infested forest outside the walls of the well-guarded town.
“Duskshire Guard: Halt, undead!”
“Duskshire Milkman: Oh f#%k, it’s another one… “
JohnWillStab was immediately tackled by no less than six guards who proceeded to use appropriate force to disembowel his character, before decapitating him and walking back to their originally locations, bathed in blood and wearing the same, blank expression.
“(Dead)JohnWillStab: …”
“Why’d they k-…” he began, stopping mid-word.
His mouth remained open; his jaw dropped even further in fact, as he realised what the issue was.
He remembered the race description for the undead.
“…-as a trade-off they start off with negative reputation for all NPCs and can be killed by other player without any penalty-…”
He glanced over to the death-options.
“I can either respawn here, or the nearest… town…”
“…”
“I’M STUCK!” John realised, he leaned back in his chair, defeat weighing down his heart.
Quickly, JohnWillStab looked back into the chat, in a momentary stroke of genius he noticed several tabs in said chat menu.
With quantum-computer AI levels of pattern recognition, JohnWillStab analysed the three tabs.
“Local Chat”, “Private Chat”, “Global Chat”.
He selected the global chat and noticed the endless stream of texts.
JohnWillStab could spot several conversations going on.
“XPhaxX: No, I said invincible!”
“WillWillWas: Right…”
“XPhaxX: So why can everyone see it?”
“WillWillWas: Because it’s invisible…?”
“XPhaxX: No, I said invincible!”
“WillWillWas: Right…”
“Kevin: C’mon buddy, one last round, winner takes all!”
“Bolst: I DON’T HAVE ANY MORE MOSSBACK KIDNEYS!”
“Kevin: Sure you don’t, wink wink, nudge nudge~~~”
“Bolst: I F#$KING DON’T! “
“Oofgod: On must truly ask themselves, what is a table?”
“Kilin_: the table-faith lives on!”
“Kilin_: one day, table-Jesus will return!”
“Oofgod: We should make this into a religion!”
“Kilin_: Tableism~ “
“Oofgod: OOO”
“Kilin_: LET’S START A CRUSADE!”
“Oofgod: HELL YEAH!”
“XxFoxlyxX: frogpeople best race!”
“Muffinski: no, harpy”
“XxFoxlyxX: real men play the alpha-frogs, beta losers play harpies!”
“Muffinski: frog is weak, no good.”
“XxFoxlyxX: YOU FEAR OUR POTENTIAL!”
“XxFoxlyxX: THE DAY YOU SEE US FROG-PEOPLE BE SILENCED BY YOUR KIND IS THE DAY HELL FREEZES-OVER!”
“Muffinski: …”
“XxFoxlyxX: OH WAIT, WE HAVE RESISTENCE TO ADVERSE TERRAIN EFFECTS, SO WE’D BE FINE!”
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“XxFoxlyxX: AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
“Muffinski: …”
“Muffinski: This why you have no friends…”
JohnWillStab’s plea for help was thrust into the stream of messages like a grain of sand into the ocean.
“(Dead)JohnWillStab: The guards keep killing me in the Grimwood, what do I do?”
Nothing…
Nothing…
Suddenly, the “Private Chat” tab flared up.
Seeing the blue light, he clicked on the tab and saw two messages from “XPhaxX”.
“XPhaxX: Are you new?”
“(Dead)JohnWillStab: Yeah, I just joined today!”
Once again, the global chat erupted.
“XPhaxX: He’s actually new!”
“Oofgod: Bulls#$t”
“Kilin_: ^+1“
“Kevin: ^-1”
“XPhaxX: Seriously!”
“WillWillWas: Oi, JohnWillStab!”
“Kevin: JonathanWillStabbathan~ “
“Oofgod: …don’t”
“XPhaxX: Come back JohnWillStab!”
“Oofgod: COME FORTH!”
JohnWillStab felt like one of those people who go diving in shark-infested waters in a cage.
“JohnWillStab: Hey”
“WillWillWas: Are you a new player?”
“JohnWillStab: Yeah, I just downloaded the game today,”
“Kevin: whack“
“WillWillWas: How the hell did you find this game?!”
“WillWillWas: We didn’t have a single new player in almost half a year,”
“No new players in half a year?! How the hell did this game stay alive?!”
JohnWillStab looked around the town where his gruesome corpse lay in the middle of the street amidst a puddle of his own blood particles.
Suddenly, JohnWillStab remembered the reason he entered the global chat in the first place.
“JohnWillStab: So, I’m being killed every time I respawn, what do I do?”
The chat went silent for a few seconds.
“XPhaxX: alt f4”
“WillWillWas: Are you spawn camped by a player or???”
“JohnWillStab: No, I go killed by some guy and chose to respawn in the nearest town, now the NPCs are killing me.”
“Kilin_: You picked undead, didn’t you…?”
“Kevin: They absolutely picked undead,”
“JohnWillStab: WHAT’S THE POINT OF A RACE IF YOU CAN’T EVEN PLAY AS THEM!?” he demanded, more angry at his own ignorance of the warning given in the race description than the people in the global chat.
“Kilin_: rip”
“JohnWillStab: So, do I have to make a new character?” he asked.
“Kevin: Yeah, you can’t do that…”
“JohnWillStab: ?”
“Kevin: As in literally, you can’t make a new character or delete the existing one, something about the one server that was left not being able to handle more than one character per player,”
“JohnWillStab: …”
JohnWillStab’s confidence in playing any more of this game drastically decreased
“WillWillWas: Relax, you have to corpse-walk out,”
“JohnWillStab: What do you mean?” he asked trying to move his corpse around with the movement keys.
“WillWillWas: Wait the five minutes, respawn where your corpse is and run towards the town’s exit,”
“WillWillWas: Just keep doing that until your body manages to escape the guard’s detection range!”
Seeing the convoluted solution to his problem, JohnWillStab took a long, deep breath as he moved his mouse towards the “Respawn Here” button.
JohnWillStab’s body manifested near his corpse, in a flash he smashed the “W” key with enough force to shatter steel, his character broke into a sprint towards the gate, only for the nearby guards to turn their attention towards him like hungry vultures.
“Duskshire Guard: Stop right there, undead!”
“Duskshire Guard: Halt, undead!”
“Duskshire Merchant: On no… Another undead!”
“Duskshire Guard: Don’t move, undead!”
JohnWillStab almost felt relieved as the gate leading out of the town came closer.
Suddenly, his character fell down as his leg was pierced with a wooden arrow from the opposite end of the town, John moved his camera back seeing a few archers among the dozen guards that charged at him.
With a badly damaged leg, John’s character was stuck playing the crawling animation as he desperately tried to escape the angry mob of humans, ogres and wolfmen.
Another arrow hit him, this time it pierced his arm, further slowing him down as a guard finally made it close enough for JohnWillStab’s head to become detached from the rest of his character.
“At least I made it a bit closer-…” JohnWillStab was trying to stay positive as the guard that killed him turned back to his post.
What John didn’t expect was his corpse to get stuck in the man’s legs, pushing it all the way back to the middle of the town.
John was experiencing what some would call the Sisyphus experience.
“…”
“I hate this game…” he said to himself as he watched the countdown tick down, from five minutes to four then three and eventually zero.
In a burst of speed comparable to a speeding bullet, JohnWillStab returned to the land of the living, his character burst int a sprint towards the same gate again.
He ran past the building with the “Inn” sign, the blacksmith and even the few generic homes as from behind fell the barrage of arrows accompanied by a whistling noise.
JohnWillStab turned left, dodging a handful of arrows as in the chat a small notification appeared in green text.
“Athletics stat increased from 0 to 1!”
“Stats?”
With a wet splat an arrow pierced John’s skull causing his character to fall to the ground limply a few meters away from the town gate.
“…”
“Luck stat decreased from 0 to -1!”
“Fuck you too, game…” John thought bitterly.
JohnWillStab continued this fun adventure for almost twenty minutes before reaching the safety of the forest surrounding the town.
“Alright, this game is actually bullshit…” John complained.
He was considering quitting the game there and then as a new message appeared in the local chat.
“Bonifacius: Greetings’th! Are’th thou’th of’th an’th ill’th body’th, alien’th?”
JohnWillStab took a solid ten, silent seconds to process the message.
“JohnWillStab: Hi…”
The person stood on the cobblestone road running through the dark forest near the town of Duskshire.
He was clad in bright, metal armour with many flat faces and massive shoulder pads; on his back was a massive blade far too heavy for a real human to use as well as a shield of equally unrealistic proportions.
He had a short, well kempt beard and short hair, both were light gold in colour.
“Bonifacius: Once’th more’th, greetings’th! Are’th thou’th ill’th?“
“JohnWillStab: …”
“JohnWillStab: What?”
“Bonifacius: Thy’th skin’th is’th pale’th as’th the’th marble’th and’th thy’th eyes’th shine’th with’th a’th crimson’th light’th, could’th an’th infection’th be’th the’th reason’th behind’th thy’th troubles’th?“
“JohnWillStab: Are you having a stroke?”
Bonifacius breathed a sigh.
“Bonifacius: Divines’th! Could’th it’th be’th? Before’th my’th own’th two’th eye’th stood’th this’th entire’th time’th an’th undead’th?!“
The man placed a hand over his mouth as his eyes widened with a look of true shock.
A few awkward seconds occurred as JohnWillStab watched Bonifacius stand completely still.
“JohnWillStab: …I’m just… going to leave…”
“Bonifacius: I’th SHALL’th SMITE’th THEE’th!“ he cried, a solid five seconds later his character casually grabbed the sword and shield off his back.
“I guess there’s not escaping a fight, is there?” John thought smugly, he cracked his knuckles.
JohnWillStab ran up to the man and started violently spamming the [Slash] and [Kick] abilities, the only two attacks he started with.
“Strength stat increased from 0 to 1!”
“Dexterity stat increased from 0 to 1!”
After about ten seconds of John, violently stabbing and kicking his foe, Bonifacius simply smacked him back with the shield causing John to die in an instant with a strange crunch.
His limp corpse was flung into the sky, moments later he landed in a familiar spot, the centre of Duskshire.
“…”
JohnWillStab moved his camera around confirming that his character was in fact laying in his old, mostly dried-up puddle of blood from twenty minutes earlier.
“Dear god… I really am Sisyphus…” John thought with a look of horror upon his face.