Thankfully, we didn’t have to fight anymore enemies after that. One or two alerts more popped up, but we managed to avoid fighting by just getting the hell out of Dodge.
Oddly, I never got tired. We’d been walking for a good straight three more hours through the dense forest, and yet there wasn’t even a hint of exhaustion in my body.
“Dude,” Jess began. “Are you absolutely, a hundred percent sure you’re not at least the slightest bit tired? It’s been almost a full day since you last fell asleep.”
“I’m certain,” I told her. “If anything, I’d say I felt better than I did when I woke up this morning. I’m more worried about you. You hardly slept yourself, and you’re clearly more tired than me."
“No, I’m fine,” she snapped, dazed look in her eyes betraying her. “Me being tired is a good thing. It means my senses aren’t out of whack. The fact that you don’t feel tired is more pressing.”
“Really? How so?”
“Hold that thought, look at that,” Jess said, pointing ahead of us. “The trees are finally starting to thin out. Jensen should be just up ahead.”
“Jeez. Finally,” I sighed in relief.
The thick copse of trees thinned out to reveal a large gathering of tents. At least two dozen of the fur-lined shelters were spread out throughout the clearing, all of which stood out against the backdrop of the small town behind them.
“What in the world is this?” I asked. “Is a quest line going on here?”
A couple of people were walking between the tents, though most stood around in circles conversing with each other.
“I don’t think so,” said Jess. “Look at what they’re wearing.”
Every person that stood around near the tents was wearing some sort of mishmash of multicolored, garish armor. The whole venue looked like a rainbow had thrown up over a renaissance fair.
Jess put her right hand over her head to blot out the glare of the rising sun. “Those look like…”
“Players!” I yelled.
“What the hell are you two shouting at?” came a sudden voice from behind us.
“Ack!” Jess screamed, turning around. “You scared me half to death.”
The person that had given Jess the fright of her life was a scraggly-looking man. He had long brown hair and an unkempt beard. His shoulders were slouched, giving him a casual appearance. Reminded me a lot of my old weed-smoking roommate.
“You two are new, aren’t you?” he asked, ignoring Jess’ remark.
Jess was the first of us to straighten up. “Y-yeah,” she stammered. “What’s going on here?”
“Hold your horses there, brah. First things first. Is it just the two of ya?”
“It’s just the two of us,” confirmed Jess.
“Righteous. Second thing. Both of y’all got that message, right? The one that explained this funk we’re all in?”
We nodded.
“Last thing. Have either of you had anything weird happen to you that the message didn’t mention? Like being able to feel intense pain? What about having your body changed into an entirely different one?”
Jess and I looked at each other. “Both of us had our bodies changed,” I answered. “And I started feeling actual pain a couple of hours ago. I’m Crystal. This is Jess.”
The man’s eyes widened. “Shizz, did you just say the both of youse had your bodies changed?”
“We weren’t sure if it’s happened to anyone else,” I said. “We haven’t met anyone else yet. Sounds like this didn’t happen to everyone.”
“Only a couple. Hey, I can explain more on the way to the player camp. Gots to bring you two over to the boss, on account of the fact that both of you had your bodies changed.”
“The boss?” Jess piped up. “Is it someone from Altera?”
The long-haired man shook his head. “No, the Altera guys are all over in Ralcor.” The man began to walk towards the mass of tents, gesturing for us to come with. “Look, I can explain more on the way to meet the head honcho of this little gathering of players. Then he can give you a full rundown on everything.”
We both headed up towards the man. Jess was the first to ask a question.
“How do you know that the Altera staff are all in Ralcor?”
“Boss told me. He used to be a playtester for ‘em. His name’s Darrick, by the way. Most people just call me J, short for Jesus. Can ya guess why?”
She eyed his long scraggly brown hair and beard. “I can figure,” came Jess’ flat response.
“No fun, are you?” Jesus murmured.
“What about the pain?” I chimed in. “And our changed bodies?”
“Hate to say it, chica, but we don’t really know anymore about that stuff than you. A lot of people are starting to feel actual pain when they get hurt by mobs. About one in three of us. We got a couple theorems floating around about why.”
“You mean theories.” Jess corrected.
“Yah, sorry. I’m kinda tired right now.” The shabby haired man flashed me a smile. “I know you ain’t, though.”
Jess gave him an inquisitive look. “That of course means…?”
“Everyone who can feel pain also doesn’t get sleepy. Darrick is worried about that, but I think it’s pretty cool!”
I cocked my head to the side. “You mean, I don’t need to sleep at all? “
“Pretty sure you don’t. Darrick thinks y’all might crash at some point without realizing, but no ones passed out yet.”
We came to the front of a tent. “I’ll let Darrick here tell you the rest.”
As J opened up the tent flap, Jess and I saw a tall dark-skinned man with cropped, clean-cut brown hair. He was bent over and staring at some kind of floating screen. It wasn’t possible to tell what another player’s screen displayed, but judging from the look on the man’s face, it was important.
Next to him was a man that was unusually short. He couldn’t have been more than five feet. For some reason, his appearance reminded me of a person I’d seen before, though I couldn’t place my finger on it.
“Yarn!” squealed Jess, staring directly at the shorter man.
Yarn? That’s right!
Yarn was a character in an old kid’s TV show. A vague recollection stirred in my mind. But Yarn’s not real. Not unless this isn’t Yarn...
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Immediately a look of distaste crossed the man’s face as he turned to the knight. “Ugh. Another newbie here to call me Yarn again.”
“You’ll have to excuse Raymond here,” said the dark-skinned man, looking up from his screen. “He gets touchy about his new appearance.”
“I do not get ‘touchy,’” hissed the man Jess had called Yarn.
“Well, whatever,” laughed the taller man. He turned to Jesus. “J, I assume that at least one of these guys ended up with a new body?”
“You’re in luck, Darrick my man, both of them have new bodies. Meet Crystal and Jess. And Crystal here is a Waker.”
Darrick gave me and Jess a surprised look. “The both of you have new bodies?”
“Yeah.” J smirked. “Found the both of them heading this way. The tall guy is Jess and the girl is Crystal.”
“The both of them together?” Darrick questioned, before focusing on us. “That’s surprising. I’m sure you two have plenty to ask.”
“Yeah,” I affirmed. “A lot.
Darrick nodded. “Ask away then. Though I can’t say I have all the answers. Or very many, actually.”
“Why is all of this happening to us?” asked Jess.
“That I don’t know,” Darrick said, frowning. “All I know is that everyone got that same strange message from Altera. I was an old playtester for the company, so I used my inside knowledge to organize as many players as I could together.”
Jess furrowed her brow. “But J said all the staff were in Ralcor. Why is that? And how are you an exception?”
“I’m not staff anymore. I’m pretty sure all of the employees are in Ralcor because that’s where they spawn by default. Especially since I haven’t met one yet. Apparently no one from Altera thought it prudent to spread out their avatars across the world. I’m guessing that the same hack that trapped us all in here also disabled a good portion, or all, of their moderator powers, which is why they can’t just teleport us all to Ralcor. On the other hand, the fact that they’re not here to help us indicates that they logged in to their own characters. All mod characters are level 50 powerhouses.”
“Fat lot of good that does us,” remarked Raymond. “All that strength and it’s all cooped up in a place no one can get to.”
“Relax, Ray,” Darrick said. “People might’ve spawned in all over a bunch of different places, but the devs know where those places are. They’re probably sending a team to help us out as we speak.”
“Anyways,” Jess continued. “What happened to our bodies? Why are they so changed like this? I mean, I used to be a girl! And Crystal here was a guy!”
That caused both Jesus and Raymond to have a double take, but Darrick looked unfazed.
“I’m sorry that this won’t exactly be a satisfactory answer either, but the truth is that I simply don’t know why. Obviously it must be a part of the hack, but none of us can figure out a reason for why some people’s bodies have changed so much. There are a few possible explanations that have come up, but they’re all just speculation so far. All I know is that a couple people had their bodies totally replaced with another one. There are only about three others here that have the same problem as you. Raymond included. Their sex stayed the same though, so obviously you two change things up a little. I’d like to ask you how you two have been dealing with it, but that can wait.”
Jess sighed and I felt like doing the same. No explanation for almost anything so far. With little hope, I haphazardly asked my own question.
“What about the pain that I felt earlier?”
“Another question I can’t really answer. All I know is that about a third of all players started feeling their wounds and that it first happened a while ago. We’ve been trying to power level for a while so that all of us can get to Ralcor in one piece. At one point, a few players were off fighting monsters and grinding levels when one of them got impaled by a boar, straight through the stomach. Normally, they would’ve just had to drink a healing potion or two, right?”
“Right.” I could see where this was going.
“The guy that got impaled screamed like hell. Everyone panicked and the party ended up getting wiped, respawning at the inn. That guy and one other ended up feeling real, extreme pain when they got hurt. Eventually, we figured out who could feel pain by having people nick themselves with a knife. If they could feel it, they could sense any agony. That was how Raymond found out he could feel it too. Worse still, as I'm sure you’ve noticed by now, the people that feel pain don’t get sleepy. Some people, like J here, have taken to calling them Wakers.”
“I still don’t see how not needing to sleep is a problem, man,” J challenged.
Darrick sighed, sinking into a chair. “Jesus, as fun as you are, you really need to learn to think more critically. If the hack prevents people from sleeping, the need for it doesn’t just magically go away. I’m more worried about Wakers not needing sleep than I am that they can feel pain. At least the pain is just pain. For all we know, Wakers might keep on going like normal until their bodies give up from sheer mental exhaustion.”
“You mean, I could, like, die?” I asked Darrick nervously.
“Don’t put words into my mouth. I never said that. You’ll probably just pass out at some point. Even still, I’m worried about what kind of toll this could have on the body. Add that to the fact that Wakers can feel pain, and I’ve sort of had to treat them with kid gloves.”
He had a point. Sleep deprivation did all kinds of things to people. It made them more irritable or prone to hallucinations. Constant lack of sleep could cause everything from high blood pressure to heart problems. Maybe being able to feel pain was a result of not sleeping, rather than just another symptom.
“Any more questions?” the sitting man asked. “No?”
Jess shrugged. “Well, we have a lot more. Just none that you could really answer.”
Darrick grimaced. “Then I guess I should formally introduce you to what’s going on here.”
He opened up the back tent flap to unveil a busy mass of people. Some were hustling to and from the town while others were locked onto their own floating screens, doing God knows what. A few were knocked out on bedrolls, sleeping. Horses were lined up nearby, with leads attached to poles.
“When I spawned, I was in a pretty big town, about twenty players. When we all got the message, I calmed the rest of us down and organized everyone into groups and sent them out to surrounding towns in order to find as many players as we possibly could.”
“After I gathered up as many players as possible, I sort of became the de facto leader. Since then, I’ve been assigning people to do tasks. Anyone below level seven I’ve been sending out to complete quests until they reach level that level. Anyone level seven or above, I’ve been sending out on horses to farther away towns to try and find more people.”
“So you’ve been trying to organize people together,” Jess concurred.
“That’s right,” the leader said.
“But there has to be dozens of thousands of players trapped in here with us. The game world is huge. Even with multiple people out looking, this can’t even be a fraction of the player base. Not to mention that they’re all headed to Ralcor, away from here. You can’t hope to gather everyone.”
“Nor do I intend to,” he rebutted. “I just want to help out as many people as I can. We’re gonna camp out here for a while, leveling up and getting as many resources as we can, all the while looking for players. Once enough people get close to level 20, we can leave as a group for Ralcor, with higher level players escorting lower level ones. Should take us a few days to get everyone leveled up. I planned on watching the Wakers and what to do about them. If we should do anything about them. At least, all of that was the initial plan.”
“Why? What happened?”
“I’m sure you’ve noticed this already, but the AI isn’t just selectively ignorant anymore. That’s caused a few problems. For one thing, they seem to know that it was us who stole all of their goods right at the start of all this. And they don’t ignore terms they should, like the word “NPC” or anything that’s out-of-lore. From what I can tell, they’ve started to resent us camping out here. They think we’re some kind of demons.”
“Demons?” I asked. This couldn’t be good. From Jess’ face, I could tell she thought the same.
“You know how they should normally just ignore us when we respawn back at inns? They don’t do that anymore.”
“That’s right,” I interrupted. “When I respawned at the inn, the innkeep got really confused when he saw me back there. He even grabbed me. I didn’t even know that was possible.”
Darrick scratched at his head. “You’re lucky he didn’t see you actually respawn. When the innkeep here saw a group respawn before his eyes, he ran out of the place, screaming. We still use it as our respawn point, though. As for the fact that an NPC grabbing you should be impossible, there’s the other problem that the ‘Safe’ and ‘Vulnerable’ statuses don’t seem to function anymore. You’re vulnerable no matter what, in town or out of town.”
“God,” groaned Raymond. “I still can’t believe that some glorified chatbots are causing such an issue.
I went on. “If all the NPCs here know that we were the ones who stole everything, and they all think we’re demons, then why do they let you camp out here?”
“Because we’re helping them,” said Darrick. “Even if they think we’re demons that talk about things they can’t understand, we’ve still been running quests for them. And I've told everyone to stop stealing from the shops. So long as we keep assisting them with quests, they seem to at least tolerate us. Still, it’s a tenuous relationship at best. For all that the townsfolk are just lines of running code, there’s so much tension.”
J threw up his hands. “Tell me about it. They all keep giving me the stink eye when I try to get into the bank.”
“Oh that reminds me,” the leader said. “The fast travel nodes that are near the bank are disabled. We couldn’t have used them to get to Ralcor anyway, but it seems the hack disabled the chances of us being able to travel long distances.”
Jess’ piped up. “Another thing we can’t do. Anyways, what did you mean when you said that your first plan was your initial plan? What do you intend to do now?”
“About the same as we’ve been doing, more or less,” he answered. “We’re going to keep leveling up and gathering more people. Until one of two things happens. Either the townsfolk get sick of us and refuse to give us quests or we get enough high leveled people to head to Ralcor.”
Jess looked exhausted. Whether it was from lack of sleep or the news Darrick had given us, it was hard to tell.
“So,” she cautioned. “anything else we should be aware of, or are you finally done with the bad news?”
“It isn’t all so bad,” Darrick replied. “For one thing, like I said earlier, even though all of the Altera staff might be holed up in Ralcor, I have no doubt that they’ve sent out people to help us from within the city. It might take a while for them to reach us, but they will.”
“Great,” she murmured. “Help that may or may not come.”
Darrick stood up to place a gentle hand on Jess’ shoulder. “Look, I know it may seem rough, but we’re doing the best we can. At the rate we’re going, we can leave in a few days. That is, if we aren’t already pulled out by then.”
She pushed away the man’s hand. “Sorry, I’m just a little frustrated.”
He patted her on the shoulder before putting his hand away. “I’d be more concerned if you weren’t. We’re in up to our necks with trouble. It’s only natural for you to be a little frustrated. What about you, Crystal?” He turned to me. “You doing alright?”
“I’m fine. At least this is more entertaining than my job. Being gored by a werewolf on the way here wasn’t fun, though. It got me right through the arm and slashed my stomach.”
I would’ve shown him where the wolfman had hit me, but armor in the game repaired itself on its own. There was nothing to see.
Darrick cringed. “I can’t imagine the pain you must’ve gone through. I’m sorry to hear it.” He sat back down in his chair. “I’m sure I’ve bummed you two enough already, but I do have something to ask the both of you.”
“Why not?” Jess said. “Shoot.”
“We’re planning to hit up a nearby dungeon that I messed around with during the play testing period of the game. It’s primarily aimed around level 7 players. With you at 8, Jess, and Crystal at 6, you’re high enough level to participate. We planned on grinding the place repeatedly each day to get more gear and levels, but we needed enough high level players to make it close to level 7 first. As luck would have it, we also needed another tank. Would you two care to join? The loot and levels will obviously be split across everybody, including you two should you join us.”
I eyed him carefully. “You didn’t forget that I’m a Waker, right? As in, if I get hurt, I’ll feel the pain.”
“Of course I haven’t forgotten,” the leader confirmed. “That’s why I’m only asking. I totally understand if you’d rather stay here and skip out on the dungeon. There are other ways to help out. I’m asking because some of the Wakers have decided to come with us, in spite of the pain they might end up feeling. A lot aren’t coming—and that’s fine—but a good portion of them are. They’re going to take advantage of the fact that they don’t need to sleep. We’ll leave if they crash, of course, though in the meantime they’ve decided to make the most of their involuntary insomnia.”
I stirred. Was it worth going? I didn’t want to get hurt again, but I also didn’t want to lag behind everyone else. What to do…?
“Woah, what is that?” exclaimed Jesus, pointing to my side.
Not my side, my arm. My right arm. The gloves from my armor had fallen slightly off, revealing my scales.
“Guess now is as good a time as any to show you all,” I remarked, pulling off my glove entirely.
Raymond looked sick. “Oh my gosh, gross.”
Jesus hushed him. “Shh! I think it’s some sort of skin disease. Don’t talk so loudly that she—er, he—can hear you!”
“You’re pretty bad at keeping quiet,” I quipped.
Darrick cracked a huge grin. “I was wondering who the first person to find the special Drakonid Ring would be. Didn’t think that they’d appear right in my tent, to be completely honest with you.”
“Drakonid Ring? What’s that?” inquired Raymond.
I didn’t think it was possible, but Darrick smiled even more. “Why don’t you give everyone a demonstration, Crystal? You can tell me whether you want to join the raid later. We’ve still got another day before we can leave.”
I smirked. “With pleasure.”