With a suitably loud crash, the drawer broke apart into the thicker face, and a collection of wooden shards. I was about to examine the damage to the desk, but there was now a growing rustling sound from the direction of the closed offices, and it sounded like trouble. I began to walk over when all at once the doors burst open, a storm of grey wings flooding out towards Lindsey. She screamed as the pack of medium sized birds descended on her. I turned back and grabbed the front section of the drawer I had just smashed, and ran towards the melee.
By the time I got there, there was a growing pile of bisected birds scattered around Lindsey's feet, courtesy of her power, but she was still stuck at the center of the uncountable mass of irate avians and didn't look to be faring too well. I dashed towards them and started knocking them out of the air with my improvised weapon, each bird body making a satisfying THUNK when I managed to connect. I had been hoping to take the pressure off of my companion, and it seems that my plan worked flawlessly.
Like clockwork, as soon as I engaged the horde, roughly half of the blue-grey birds shifted their ire to me instead. It was at this point that I realized that this was not my brightest idea, as I swung my drawer face frantically around me, trying to ward off the pecking, clawing beasts.
The mounting pain caused me to black out, and the next thing I knew I was on the ground, curled into a fetal position, with Lindsey standing over me. She had her hands outstretched, and was warding off what few birds remained with controlled applications of her power. She seemed to cut into them only partially, instead of cutting completely through, which was apparently enough to kill or at least disable these birds. She was covered in tiny wounds, drenched in sweat, and was looking rather paler than when I saw her last. I started to get up, and instantly regretted it. My back, legs, and arms were absolutely covered in tiny, bleeding lacerations and existence was not very fun at the moment. I made it to my feet just as she was finishing off the last bird.
"Thank you," I croaked out, my voice hoarse probably from all the screaming I had probably been doing.
"You are welcome," she said with a great deal more decorum than I had managed, then narrowed her eyes and continued, "but why would you be willing to play a game if they are like this? Are gamers all masochists?"
"No, this is definitely not normal," I said, getting my voice back under control, "VR games, even ones with the ability to simulate pain, only do so a tiny bit, and only if they are trying for realism or an authentic sort of experience. This is totally out of proportion with what I would expect from a game. Also, there is always some sort of movement assist system, so you don’t have to literally fight, just trigger actions like ‘heavy attack’ or ‘dodge roll’ and the assist system will take over. You normally don’t have to actually know how to fight in order to play."
"Maybe my first cultural observation, then. Thank you for your perspective, this task will be much easier with your continued assistance," she said with a faint smile. It was at this point that I noticed that her starter clothes had not survived the wrath of the birds. I had managed to protect most of the front of what I had been wearing by curling up. On the other hand, she was barely covered, the only intact thing she was wearing was the watch she had found earlier. I carefully averted my eyes, the nervousness I had felt when I first met her returned in full force.
"Yeah, no problem. I'm glad to have you around too," as I said it, I felt a faint ping in the metaphysical region I was rapidly coming to associate with game functions, but when I didn't receive any other message or feedback I continued, "You certainly held together in that fight better than I did."
"Those of my station are generally required to learn at least some self-defence, in case of kidnapping attempts. And when equipped with fantastic powers, it seems mostly a matter of remaining calm." Her power, at least, was definitely fantastic. I wasn't feeling great about mine. She kicked some of the birds’ remains to the side, and sat down heavily on the thickly carpeted floor, once brown but painted red in a large radius around us. "I do not think that I can use my power any more now, I feel stretched to my limit."
"Yeah, you don't look so good. Rest here, try to catch your breath, and I'll take a look at the smaller rooms. It should be fine, but if there is anything suspicious then I'll come back rather than disturbing things again."
She nodded, and I began to inspect the private offices, more comfortable to be away from the borderline indecently dressed woman. I felt bad for pulling aggro from those birds, but she didn’t seem to hold it against me, so I tried to put it out of my mind.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
There were seven private offices. The desk in each was largely identical to those outside, but with nicer wood and slightly larger. Only one of them deviated from the standard office supplies and contained more of those candy bars with indistinct labels. The chairs, also, were better made. They were metal and false leather, not so different from cheap office chairs I was familiar with. Each office, however, seemed to have one other interesting feature as well. Three had bookshelves, two had filing cabinets, one had a golf bag complete with clubs and a set of strange clothing which may or may not be golf apparel, and the final one had a large door leading to the very back of the floor. The door was ornate, made of some oiled dark wood, with a golden handle. I decided to leave that alone for now, as it was obviously a miniboss room or something similar.
I went back to pick up the golf bag, as the clubs were the best improvised weapons we had found yet, and Lindsey was in dire need of clothing. I brought the bag back to Lindsey, only to see that some of the bird corpses had begun to disintegrate into ethereal yellow shards, drifting up and away on some unseen wind.
"This is normal?" She asked me.
"This is normal enough. It is probably to signal to players that they aren't real animals, so you don't feel bad. I'm surprised that it didn't happen sooner. Anyway, I found a set of clothes for you and a backup weapon. I’m going to finish ransacking."
I pulled the outfit from the bag, and pulled out two of the clubs, leaving the outfit and one club for Lindsey. With some trepidation, I stored the rest in my inventory. I found that it was no trouble at all. I suppose my power tires quickly, but then recovers quickly too? I’ll need to do more testing, obviously.
I went back to the bookshelves, club in hand in case of any surprises, but found only a combination of binders containing blank pages and tables, and books filled with blurred smudges instead of text. Focusing on the smudges gave a faint impression that they represented boring office things, which was a sort of interesting effect, but ultimately useless.
I moved on to the filing cabinets. The first was filled with various folders full of pages of smudges, all giving the impression of being just a ‘boring personnel file’. As I was digging through the second one, I noticed a weird glow in the back of the bottom drawer. I found that, behind a divider which I had mistaken for the back of the drawer, was a file folder which was literally glowing with a yellowish light. Remembering that furniture here tended to be literally identical, I went back to the previous one and found, in the same hiding spot, an ornately decorated golden box which I was pretty sure shouldn’t fit in the hidden space I had located.
Finding nothing else interesting, I brought the ornate box and glowing folder back to where Lindsey was resting. I arrived to find that she had eaten half of the candy bars, and was dressed in the ill-fitting golf clothes. The outfit seemed particularly tight about the chest area, but at least she was covered.
I glanced at the empty candy wrappers, and tried to arch my eyebrow. I couldn’t pull it off, but she seemed to get the picture.
“Comfort food. I do not generally encounter so much discomfort in my daily life as this,” she said, “and I expect it will not impact my figure, so I did not see a reason not to.”
“Sensible,” I concluded, “I found some things that look special. Take a look at this,” I said as I passed the folder to her.
I found the latch, and popped the box open, feeling a brief twinge in my game mechanics area. The box dissolved into golden dust, leaving me holding a folded set of blue jeans. I was familiar with pants like this, they were apparently ubiquitous a handful of decades ago. Now, though, they weren’t produced, and vintage anything was outside of my price range, so I had never owned any.
“I think that box just created something specifically for me. I felt some sort of a connection inside, how it feels when the game tells me something.”
She glanced up to see me holding the pants, and gestured to one of the open offices.
“By all means, it should be easy to test if you are right,” she said, and then returned to her examination of the glowing pages covered in colorful splotches.
I headed back and changed quickly. The pants fit me perfectly, though the material was stiff and rough. Why had people worn these so much if they were so uncomfortable? The past was weird. I kept them on though, because they seemed many times sturdier than the grey pants I had started with. Also they were fully intact, which is a plus for pants.
When I got back, Lindsey looked me up and down, and nodded. I wasn’t entirely sure what the gesture was intended to mean. She held the glowing folder out to me.
“This, I think, is also for you. It is a manual for improving your power at low levels, as well as explaining some simple things for the game. I read the titles only, each was followed by a warning that reading further will prevent others from being able to do so. I think it will be more useful in your hands.”
“I’m not sure,” I said, hesitating, “you haven’t picked up anything other than that watch, and I already have these magic pants.”
“The candy bars, they are mine,” she said.
I barked out a laugh, and took the folder from her, pushing the other half of the candy towards her with my other hand. I added the ones I had found in the private office.