There's a glint, a swipe of steel. A shattering of metal, a steel mask flakes into pieces...
Then a gasp. "Palindrome…" mutters the knife-wielding man beside her, under the moonlit rain, beside the steel door she was half jutting out of.
Her expression contorts; fear. Panic. Sadness. Her hair flows onto her shoulders. There's no hiding the truth anymore...
HP
3/100
Her HUD is blinking red. Her HP bar and Character Portrait look like melting pixels.
The man hisses in a stunned breath. "You're a girl?"
And then the blast from a plasgun strikes her back. Voxels jump out of her skin. She groans once, and then...
HP
0/100
She collapses.
[You Are Dead]
(Code: 0110)
Reset
A jolt. A spark of death. Then a white light. Stats and numbers flickered across her screen. Her character sheet popped up for a brief moment, then vanished just as quickly. The only thing she caught sight of was her name: Palindrome.
And then the peaceful blue sky came into view. And that was all. A silent, gently caressing blue sky. She took a deep breath. Words began to hover on the sides of her eyes.
Taste...OK!
Smell...OK!
Touch...OK!
Visual...OK!
Auditory...Loading...
A second later:
Auditory...OK!
The sounds of gentle waves lapping at the edge of a sandy island's shores flowed into her ears. There was a distant chirping of birds, a subtle murmur of life somewhere.
I'm at Level 1. Aren't I?
She could already see her character sheet in the bottom right. Her HP bar listed 100, for once.
Palindrome (!)
Level 1
Shit.
She opened her inventory.
Inventory Black Mask Worn Rags Space Age Token
She swiped it away with a groan, revealing the sky once again. There was hardly a cloud in sight. Then, a thought; that exclamation mark… A quest?
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Palindrome looked again to the bottom right corner of her vision. She tapped the circular exclamation beside her name.
Rename Required:
[ ]
“Whaaaaaaat?” she groaned again. A black letter ‘X’ floated out of her mouth and covered it. Social interactions besides gesturing and flailing were off-limits until she changed her name. There was no getting around that.
She mulled it over for a while, put her hands behind her head and watched the clouds gently roll by, shut her eyes and thought and thought…
“Geez, it’s not like they have a random name generator in here or anything!” she blurted out suddenly, and that same letter ‘X’ appeared again. She tried to clamp it between her palms. It inflated until it popped, then faded away.
Damn emoticons… Fine. You want a name?
The box appeared before her again.
No need to hide my identity. I’m not afraid anymore.
“Seiko. That’s my name, ya hear me?”
Rename Required:
[Seiko]
Confirm?
O / X
Seiko pushed her finger into the circle so that it lit up and the box disappeared. Then her inventory returned, and a flash of small fireworks above the box indicated a level up.
“Woah, a level up already!?”
Seiko
Level 1.5
…Haah?
Level 1.5? Is this thing broken or something?
She resummoned her inventory with a dejected sigh.
Inventory Black Mask Worn Rags Space Age Token
Seiko poked twice at the floating box. It pushed back into place both times as though on a spring, and wiggled while it waited for her next input.
Then she prodded the Space Age Token. The box closed, a silver token fell from where she’d poked and into her hand. Looking closely, the silver token had an insignia of a spaceship blasting off on either side, and a date: A.D. 3050.
This might just be my ticket off this rock, she thought. Then, finally, finally… she stood. And she faced the stone mountains jutting out from the endless island before her.
The sand was warm under her bare feet. Her black robes blew from one side to the other over her body.
And then she remembered her mask. She pressed her palm into the side of it. It unlatched, nearly became an inventory object before she pulled her hand forward. It had become translucent while she moved it. When she stopped to admire it before herself, it became that black and purple helmet once again, smooth and sinister and mysterious…
How did you make it through the trip with me? Aren’t you supposed to be broken…? Aren't you supposed to be discarded...?
Seiko smiled.
I don’t need you anymore.
I don’t need to be mysterious, anymore…
Black Mask
Level. 90
Discard?
O / X
And she gently prodded the circle…
Ω
"Have a good night, thank you." said a forlorn shopkeeper, bowing his head slightly over the luminescent counter.
"You as well." The door jangled shut when it knocked the bell.
The shopkeeper instantly turned his attention to the next patron. "Ah, Paladin Royce. I take it you found everything to your liking?"
"I did." he managed, though he wanted only to groan. He ran his fingertips through his burly white beard, the one stuck to his fatty hammer-like head.
This side of the warp, it was truly hard to find anything you were looking for.
“I did indeed…” He placed down a couple of snacks on the counter: Cheesy Curly-Dudes and Ravenous Roritos. And then his gaze went cold. He drew his plasgun.
“H-hey! What are you…?”
“Your ploy ends here, Palindrome. Now, I want to know…” He leaned close, letting his misty breath fall onto the thin shopkeeper’s pale face. “What do you know about the Old World?”