Yeah, I'll just get some fishing in and—

Carl's perception changed abruptly. Wind buffeted him, forcing him to squint his eyes. A vaguely soft cushion or something was underneath him. His left hand was gripping a small, round something, and his right arm was holding…

He felt a wetness all along the right side of his body.

The steam-powered car he was apparently still driving sped at a very unsafe speed along a perfectly-visible cobblestone road, and he struggled to shift his focus in time to control it, easing up his bare foot on the ga—steam pedal quickly in the process.

Carl stared. His head—the left side of which was also noticeably wet—slowly turned to look to his right.

Clutched to his side was a body. Blood pooled atop the headless neck where part of a spine was sticking out, and a blouse which still had spots of light blue in some places was drenched in crimson.

Carl let the car roll for a time on momentum while he came to terms with what he was seeing. Memories that he'd pushed aside for the past several days rushed back, and his breath caught.

But only for a moment.

"Whoa, that was scary," he muttered, blinking a few times. He turned the steering wheel of Mina's car and adjusted his heading back towards the center of the road since he'd come to a resting position with the front wheels up off the side. Then he pressed the steam pedal and started driving again.

So that really was all real then. Wow. What the actual heck. I guess Mina hasn't logged back in yet? "Friend list," he called. The window appeared in front of him, remaining in its relative place as he drove.

Ir'alith Khir Turuhm BobTheGreatest

Offline

Mina

Offline

➤ FE 0/2 Online

Huh, she's still offline. Probably taking care of some real life stuff. Man, her life is pretty messed up. Wish I could help somehow, but… Ugh, now I feel awful for thinking any part of it wasn't real. Gonna definitely have to look up some of that Conflict Resolution stuff. As soon as I log out for sure. Hope she's doing okay. "Dismiss."

The window vanished, and Carl pressed the pedal down farther, causing the car to accelerate. Flat fields and grassy hills zoomed past for a time. At least the roads here seem pretty well-maintained. Unlike the ones outside the office. Ughhhhh…

Carl started tapping his thumb on the wheel. Actually kinda nice driving around like this with nobody around. I guess that nightvision thing must still be working? Everything's even clearer than when I've got my glasses on. Must only track time for the buff while I'm logged in. Pretty cool, even if I've gotta squint because there's no freaking windshields in this game yet.

A signpost approached. Carl, with his enhanced vision, could see that the split leading off to the right seemed to lead to a small town. Nah, not really in the mood to deal with people. He adjusted his right arm, trying to get the headless body to lay more comfortably against him. It didn't seem to be getting more comfortable no matter how he moved, and it reeked of what Carl assumed was supposed to be the smell of blood.

Well it's not like I can just leave her body somewhere. Lucky enough that nobody found her or the car with the…two-ish in-game days that passed since I was last on. The idea of time caused his thoughts to swirl. Nah, you know what, I just need to relax and zone out for a bit. Not gonna think about it.

Thus unencumbered by thinking about the temporal oddity that he would definitely get to when he had time and was in the mood for such things, he floored it. Mina's car is fast as heck, that's for sure. Drives way smoother than it should for how uneven the cobblestones look. Almost as smooth as my car, actually. And no gearbox, so the acceleration is…

He amused himself for the next few minutes by slowing and then quickly accelerating. The fit of his larger-than-usual body into the tight confines of the driver's seat kept him anchored well enough to avoid probably being flipped out the rear of the car or whatever when he abruptly floored it from a near stop. The body next to him jostled around a bit, but he couldn't really find a great way to hold onto it.

Feels like I should probably put this into my inventory, but that's a bit… He grimaced. Yeah, feels wrong. Not even sure I could, anyway. Putting a player corpse in your inventory seems like something that wouldn't be allowed; how would you rez then? And way too easy to grief with.

He came upon another intersection—this one a four-way—and slowed to read the sign. Let's see… Left sounds like some town, straight sounds like… I guess maybe it's a quarry? Ah, probably for, uh, what were they making mortar out of? Whatever. Right it is.

Carl smoothly steered along the road to the right, which led to "W. Charus". He'd taken to holding the headless corpse of the girl who was a little older than his eldest daughter around the waist—there was the least amount of blood at that point on her torso since it had mostly been soaked up by her clothes by the time it reached that far—and prevented it from sliding out of the vehicle.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

The vehicle which had no freaking seatbelts or even doors.

Carl sighed. This is like, exactly the car Sammy would make if she was into this kinda stuff. All speed and durability and flashy looks, but no regard for safety, even after driving it around a while. Even Bobby would realize you can't even drive that freaking fast in this thing or else you'd fly right out the side.

The thought of his youngest daughter brought his mind around to her problem. Gotta find some time to talk to Annie about that. A three-person LAN party is an important milestone in the life of any gamer. I think my first one was when I was like, twelve, so she's already pretty far behind the curve. But bringing that up when Rebecca's around is gonna be tricky. Maybe tonight? Rebecca said she might be out late so we gave her a key… I'll have to see how Annie's showdown at yoga goes with Deb's friend. She might be even more stressed when she gets home. Hm.

Carl drove for a while, not particularly thinking of anything and gradually entering a region with trees creeping in on the sides of the road. After he'd blown past a few more signposts, he glanced at the game clock in the corner of his vision. Looks like it's still showing me in-game time. Forgot to mention that to Roger the other day. He's surprisingly not that bad a guy. Kinda engineer-y in that has-to-correct-even-the-tiniest-inaccuracy way while we were talking, and he's pretty set in his ways about some stuff, but he's not as much of a dick as I expected. Pretty normal, even.

Suddenly, a giant dog-thing with glowing eyes, sharp-looking teeth, and bony spikes which jutted out of its back jumped out of the trees on the left and landed in the road ahead. It was maybe around the size of his real car.

"What the…" Carl brought both hands quickly around to the wheel to swerve around—

Mina's body flew out the right side of the car.

"Ah, shoot." Carl weighed his options for a moment, then pushed the brake a little and dove out the side of the car as it began to slow. Gotta practice these combat rolls at some point, I guess. He rolled a few times—again, not at all like he'd imagined he would—before managing to regain his feet.

The dog—maybe wolf?—thing had begun sniffing its way over towards the bloody corpse at the side of the road some distance back.

"Hey!" Carl called as he walked closer, feeling the unevenness of the cobblestones on the soles of his feet. Stupid physics engine. Why can't things just stay inside vehicles?

The huge dog-or-maybe-wolf thing paid him no heed, beginning to now sniff at the body.

"Inventory," Carl called, continuing to approach. "Stop it!"

The animal had started lapping away at the stump of the neck, continuing to ignore him. There was a loud crunch.

That's kinda gross. Is it chewing on her spine? Ugh, this game is too real in all the ways that it shouldn't be. He pulled his Fishing Spear of the Sea God out of his inventory. "Bad dog!" he shouted.

Perhaps due to his proximity to its meal, the creature finally turned, its muzzle stained red, and snarled at him.

Carl waved his spear a little. Pretty glad that it's a spear and not actually a fishing rod, I guess. Maybe I can just scare it off? I assume if I kill it then—

The animal charged him.

Carl waved his spear randomly again, obviously having no combat training since he was just a very normal forty nine year-old father of two who worked in IT.

It was then that Carl felt the power and knowledge of every previous user of his weapon flow through him. He assumed a fighting stance which now came naturally to him and took in a deep breath to ready his raging ki, which he now knew that he possessed and could use as easily as—

The dog-wolf thing's massive jaws clamped down on his face, its weight bowling him over backwards.

Carl stabbed the thing a bunch of times in its chest until it stopped being annoying and biting him, then grunted as he tried to push the dead animal-monster thing off himself. When that failed due to its weight—he found himself wishing that he hadn't reduced his strength attribute in the process, though now that he thought of it, stats were probably just for gear requirements like in every other game ever, weren't they—he tossed the spear out the side and gradually wiggled his way out after it. He sat up, looked down at himself, then sighed. Yup, if I kill it, it's gonna get even more blood on me. Really hoped going full chuuni would scare it off. Just more proof that Annie was right about that whole thing.

He shook his head, then used his spear to help him stand up. An indicator was blinking in the corner of his vision. "Huh, I leveled up," he murmured. A status window appeared immediately.

Name: Carl Title: IT Director Level: 11 (+10) Next Level XP: 11184 Health: 600 (+500) Strength: 25 (+15) Agility: 19 (+9) Stamina: 24 (+14) Intelligence: 12 (+2) Wisdom:  11 (+1) Luck:  72 (+3)

He stared at the window, rubbing his wet, bloody beard with his wet, bloody hand. Guess I must've picked some warrior class or something when I made this. Why's my—Wait, there's a luck stat? Why didn't I see that before? Ugh, there's another table of extended attributes, isn't there. So exhausting. "Dismiss."

The status window disappeared.

Carl grimaced. "So much blood…" He started squelching over to the corpse of the eighteen year-old girl's character which had led him to his current predicament. The neck of the body, which had previously had a definite and very noticeable piece of bone sticking out of it, now had no bone and instead a set of teeth marks where it had been gently nibbled on.

Also there was more blood.

Ugh… He started leaning down to collect the body, then paused when he had an idea. Water god spear, right? And it shot out a bunch of water that other time… He took the spear and, holding it with both hands just below the pointy part, slowly tilted it towards himself.