Dave woke in a dream, lying naked on a stone floor. This was quite unusual. Also unusual, there was a bearded man dressed as a monk with many emotions on his face; terror, panic, nausea, pain, surprise and utter relief.
“It worked! My Lady, it worked!” the man cried.
Dave pushed himself up as the monk leaned on an overloaded desk for support.
“Wha-” began Dave before he was interrupted by a harsh shout from the door.
“Yeh gonna die, priest!” said the voice and an axe crashed into the door.
New Quest: [Defender Of The Cloth]
You have awoken and are under attack. Use your combat abilities to survive.
Objective: Survive the Aristocrat Cultist’s attack.
Reward: 120 [Lesser Spirit Coin], 50 [Iron Spirit Coin], 5 [Bronze Spirit Coin]
Bonus Objective: Kill the Aristocrat Cultist.
Bonus reward: Loot the Aristocrat Cultist.
The text popped in front of Dave’s eyes and faded. The thought that he was dreaming of a video game had the barest moment to settle in his mind before there was another crash of an axe hitting the door.
“Nah, the rest of you go check the other rooms, I got this one. Ha! He can barely stand. Can’t you, priesty?” the voice teased loudly through the door.
Dave wondered how to press escape and check the game’s menu. A menu popped up as he mentally visualised the idea but the game didn’t pause so Dave quickly thought the menu away.
“What do I do?” said the white-faced monk. Now that Dave was really looking at him, the man didn’t look good. He had blood on his robes around the left leg and on the left side of his ribs.
“Stay there,” said Dave, holding his palm up to indicate the monk should stay at the desk. Dave moved beside the door and flattened himself against the wall. The voice outside had indicated he’d come in alone so Dave’s plan was to let the cultist walk past him, control the weapon and perform a takedown of some kind. Hopefully, the man would drop the weapon. If not, he’d have to think of something.
The door suddenly smashed open with a kick and a man with a rich, orange and yellow coat walked menacingly into the room.
“C’mere, pries-OH!”
Dave grabbed the man’s right arm from behind and immediately tried an arm drag as the becoated man turned around in Dave’s attempt to unbalance him and maybe snatch the axe. The arm drag worked but Dave’s opponent was, unfortunately, quite a strong man. He resisted Dave’s technique and almost lifted Dave with him as he stood up. Dave adjusted, keeping hold of the man’s wrist, he grasped at the collar of the man’s expensive coat with his other hand and used the man’s backward momentum to reap the leg in classic judo style. Dave followed the man’s fall with the hand on his collar, pushing him as he fell into the stone floor with a wet smack that sounded very final.
You have defeated [Aristocrat Cultist]
Quest: [Defender Of The Cloth]
Objective complete: Survive the Aristocrat Cultist’s attack.
Bonus Objective Complete: Kill the Aristocrat Cultist.
Quest complete.
Reward: 120 [Lesser Spirit Coins], 50 [Iron Spirit Coins] and 5 [Bronze Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory
Bonus reward: Loot [Aristocrat Cultist].
“You alright, Lord Damien?” came a voice from down the hall.
“Yeah, I’m okay! Little bastard threw salt in my face. I smashed his head on the floor.” called back Dave in a strained, raspy voice.
“Right you are, Lord,” came the reply.
The aristocrat’s body had a false-looking sparkly effect over it in contrast to the rest of the graphics that Dave was dreaming which were very realistic. He noticed that the body had a white-tinted circle around the centre of mass where, Dave presumed, it would surround his feet if he was standing as well as a greyed out name bar that read ‘Aristocrat Cultist’. Dale mentally right clicked the sparkly corpse, hoping for a menu but discovered that this was how you activated the loot ability.
Loot: 110 [Lesser Spirit Coins, 43 [Iron Spirit Coins], 13 [Bronze Spirit Coins]. 1 [Silver Spirit Coin], 1 [Basic War Axe] and 1 [Magic Essence] has been added to your inventory.
The monk in the room was clutching his side, his leg and staring at Dave with wide eyes. Dave gave him a silent thumbs up.
New Quest: [Secret In The Monastery]
Nobody knows you’re here. Sneak through the monastery until you find a safe zone.
Objective: Reach a safe zone without the cultists raising the alarm.
Reward: Racial ability evolution
Bonus Objective: Bring the monk of Knowledge with you.
Bonus Reward: Extra racial ability evolution
The dream had been action packed in these first moments but now, with a pause in the action, Dave had the time to notice that his very vision had a video game HUD over it. It looked inspired by role playing games such as World of Warcraft, Fable and Dragon Age. Although it wasn’t complete. It was like he was completing a tutorial and bits were being revealed at a time.
He’d just been offered a sneak quest. Dave had done quite a few sneak quests in video games in the past. His favourite way to do them was the body-dumpster method: Take down the sentries one by one and hide the bodies in a dumpster. That way, you don’t get surrounded and out of options when you’re halfway to the objective. It helped that a semitransparent, circular minimap had appeared at the bottom left of his vision that displayed terrain, enemies and allies. It currently showed two red dots in rooms from down the hall outside and a blue dot next to him.
“Lie down, play dead,” whispered Dave to the monk who gritted his teeth and complied, slowly lying down on the desk. Dave then walked to the next room, a storage room filled with boxes with an open door and called out.
“Oy! One of you come in here! Got something!” rasped Dave in his best, strained approximation of the aristocrat’s voice.
“What is it, Lord?” inquired a voice and feet padded down the hall.
Pressed to the wall, Dave watched as the dot went past his storage room. Dave silently padded behind the man, mentally selected him making that white circle around his feet, and took him straight into a rear naked choke. The man flailed for a few seconds and passed out. Dave dragged him into the storage room he’d started in and cut his throat with the axe. Dave noted that the cutting felt just like cutting through a pork belly roast. Dave shuddered. Goodness, but this dream was detailed! Dave looted the corpse which now had a sparkly effect above it.
Loot: 56 [Lesser Spirit Coins, 3 [Iron Spirit Coins], 1 [Machete] and 1 [Hunting Knife] has been added to your inventory.
“You guys alright?” called a third voice from the room down the hall. They hadn’t yet left the room and Dave felt they might and so, he padded quietly down the hall, axe in hand.
“The hell are they-” is as far as the cultist woman got talking to herself before Dave swung the axe into her chest and neck as she exited the room. Her hand briefly lit up with silver light as she died.
“Hmm, magic? Fantasy setting, I guess,” mumbled Dave to himself as he looted the corpse.
Loot: 45 [Lesser Spirit Coins, 4 [Iron Spirit Coins], and 30 [Hand Quintessence] has been added to your inventory.
“Quintessence? Didn’t I…” Dave continued mumbling to himself and focused on a bag icon on the bottom right of his vision. A window of sixty icon slots popped up along with a currency counter at the bottom. Dave mentally selected the magic essence he’d got earlier and was pleased to see it appear in the air at his belt-line. He quickly grasped it before it fell.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
It was a cube of every colour in every shade like a cubic gem made of a rainbow oil-slick. It was very beautiful.
As he focused on it specifically, it also got a white circle around the bottom. Curious, he focused on the body behind him and then it got a white circle.
“Okay, I can select objects on my HUD. Cool,” said Dave to himself as he walked back to the Knowledge monk. He read the tooltip on his selected item. He didn’t have a choice. It appeared that the default way of interacting with their game was text boxes that jumped inconveniently in front of your vision. It was kind of annoying.
Item: [Magic Essence] (unranked, common)
Manifested essence of magic (consumable, essence)
The ‘magic essence’ part of the tooltip had a slightly different colour text like a hyperlink, so Dave focused on it. The world went slightly shaded and a big menu popped up.
Magic Essence
Rank: None
Rarity: Common
The essence of pure magic of magic that has solidified. If absorbed, the magic essence will grant a variety of magical abilities.
Consumable item
Requirements: Less than 4 absorbed essences.
Effect: Imbues 1 awakened magic essence ability and 4 unawakened magic essence abilities.
You have absorbed 0/4 essences. Once absorbed, an essence cannot be relinquished or replaced.
You are able to absorb [Magic Essence]
Absorb Y/N?
Dave focused on the Y on the basis that he’d always liked playing spell casters and this sounded like the path towards that option.
The cube dissolved into a swirl of rainbow coloured smoke that Dave reached his hand into and immediately regretted it. It felt like sticking his hand into a jet of steam from a kettle but even through the pain, he could see the smoke was going into his arm as though absorbed. Dave fell to his knees and cried, cradling his burning arm. The pain was mind-numbing until… it wasn’t. As suddenly as it had come upon him, the pain had left.
You have absorbed [Magic Essence]. You have absorbed 1 of 4 essences.
Progress to iron rank: 25% (1/4 essences).
[Magic Essence] has bonded to your [Spirit] attribute, changing your [Spirit] from normal to [Iron 0]. Master all magic essence abilities to increase your [Spirit] attribute.
You have awakened the magic essence ability [Dispel Magic]. You have awakened 1 of 5 magic essence abilities.
Dave saw an ability icon pop up at the bottom of his screen, felt his new ability intrinsically and that he could deploy it with a wave of his hand and a word of denial. That was good enough for now. He walked back to his starting room and the monk of Knowledge was sitting up again, staring desperately at Dave.
“You killed them all?” wheezed out the monk.
“Yep. Got any spare pants?”
As it turned out, he did. The monk silently pointed at a box of folded trousers and habits on a shelf in several sizes. Dave took the largest trousers and immediately started cutting a habit into bandages with the hunting knife he’d just looted.
“How bad is it?” asked Dave, gesturing at the Monk’s wounds.
“Axe across the ribs and leg,” replied the man stiffly.
“Okay, give me a look.”
Dave ripped the monk’s trousers to view the leg wound, ignoring the man’s cringe of pain.
“Okay, it’s bleeding slowly. No major veins or arteries nicked.” Dave opened the monk’s habit and drew them back. “The same here but it looks deep.”
The monk nodded weakly and Dave began bandaging the man with the cut up habit.
“I’m Dave. What’s your name, monk of Knowledge?” asked Dave. He was concerned the monk would fall unconscious but wanted him awake for the juicy bonus quest rewards. This game was pretty good so far.
“I.. It.. I’m Hugh,” said Hugh.
Some colour was already returning to his face. Maybe it was because of the pain of an improvised compression bandage? Dave was willing to take what he could get. After all, this was the only non-hostile NPC so far.
“It worked,” mumbled Hugh, gazing at Dave with an astonished look.
“What did? Tell me about it, mate. What worked?” said Dave, encouraging the chitchat. It might keep him awake
“You… You’re here. I didn’t think it’d work,” the monk shook his head. “So many guesses, unverified calculations taken from the last time.”
“Last time?”
“Yes, the Asano astral event that happened... You don’t know about that, do you?” mused Hugh through an alternating haze of shock and then jolting pain.
“Not a bit. Tell on.”
“An outworlder… got summoned last year. I did… research.. Try to… reverse engineer. We got attacked here…Grrh! Oh! And, I did the astral summoning theory,” the monk gasped through gritted teeth as the bandages went around his torso.
Dave paused for a second.
“Wait. I’m the second? Not the main character? That’s a plot twist. My brain is dreaming some crazy original stuff right now!” laughed Dave.
The monk gave him a confused look even through the pain of breathing.
“Yes, you’re the second,” he confirmed hesitantly.
“Well, it’s a good game anyway,” Dave gave the monk a reassuring smile. “Let’s sneak to a safe zone and get some loot.”
The monk's eyes lit up.
“We must go to the abbot’s office!” he said with conviction.
“To the abbot’s office we go.”
Dave and Hugh physically looted socks off the bodies near them and put them on their own feet to soften their footfalls and, Dave supporting Hugh, started sneaking about the halls. Dave, with one eye always on his minimap.
Compulsively, Dave began focusing on and quickly reading all the buttons on his HUD. It all seemed pretty standard but the most pertinent for the moment seemed that he could access his inventory by reaching towards his belt while thinking about wanting to access his inventory. This was definitely superior to the drag-and-drop-icon method he’d discovered earlier which manifested the item at belt height with a real catch-me attitude. Probably, Dave figured, a method designed for taking out an item if it weighed more than he could carry.
“How do you already know how to fight?” asked Hugh.
“I got into Brazilian jiu-jitsu and then MMA when I was at uni. Had a few fights but with a full time study schedule, I could never train enough to beat the skilled, actual fighters,” Dave shrugged. “I just do BJJ now for fun.”
“Sorry, a bazillion ju-ju and Emma-May?” asked the monk.
“I did competitive combat sports as a hobby years ago,” simplified Dave, distracted and still staring at his minimap.
“Are you staring at a map ability?” whispered Hugh.
“Yes! How’d you know?” Dave whispered back.
“Asano got that too!”
“Asano is the first guy? From the real world?”
“The real world?”
A red indicator appeared on Dave’s minimap. He thrust his finger to his lips and pointed to the closest door. Face screwed up in pain, Hugh hopped in with Dave. They left the door open, most of the doors were, some with dead monks inside, and stayed quiet while the cultist approached noisily with a basket full of candelabras, goblets and coins. Dave waited until he went past, snuck up behind him and hit him in the back of the head with the flat of the axe. The cultist collapsed noisily and Dave dragged him into a room with a dead monk.
He was about to stuff him into the closet and stab his neck when Dave noticed that the monk’s cell had a window to the outside of some incredibly beautiful mountains. The building he was in had clearly been built on the side of a cliff face because Dave was looking out from a height into a green valley surrounded by steep cliffs topped with evergreens. He opened the window, letting in some biting alpine air. Dave looted the cultist, claiming a few valuable items, hoisted the cultist’s unconscious chest onto the windowsill, shoved the legs up as well until gravity did the rest and the body dropped out of the window.
Dave turned back to pick up the dropped valuables in the hallway when…
“Morgane?” called a voice down the hall.
Dave checked his minimap. A red dot had come into sight while he was fooling around being tricky with the body. Dave couldn’t get to the bag of loot in time, the red dot was already coming around the far corner to this hall.
“Morgane, this isn’t funny!” said the voice.
The red dot hesitated.
“This is bullshit. I’m getting Daniel!”
The red dot left.
Dave picked up the loot bag, inventoried the items into his belt-high storage space, and ran to Hugh.
“You heard?”
“Yes! Are you going to kill them all again?”
“Not this time, there could be a group coming, I don’t know. Now, Hugh, you live here, right? Where’s a hidey-hole we can use?”
There was a spot. It was actually quite well hidden. Dave found it on the minimap once Hugh had pointed it out. There was a spot where the cliff curved and the building wasn’t continuous with the curve of the cliff and there was a small recess big enough for two people to sit down but you couldn’t see it unless you stuck your head quite far out the window and knew just where to look.
“We used to hide contraband there for a while until the abbot found out,” gasped Hugh as he climbed out the window supported by Dave. Getting to the recess was quite easy for the physically able, if not for those prone to vertigo. You had to climb out the window and stand on the overhanging floor supports while grasping onto the overhanging corner braces from the roof and move one limb at a time.
Hugh was not physically able. He just about cried getting out of the window and despite the cold wind, was sweating as he went limb-by-shaking-limb to the recess. Dave didn’t tell him when the five red dots went past down the hall. He knew they’d find the bodies of their fellows and then check room by room on the way back. They had time enough for Dave to make sure Hugh, and his quest reward, were safe.
----------------------------------------
“Dave, why does your rogue have eighteen strength?” asked Marc, frowning as he looked at Dave’s character sheet on the coffee table.
Dave looked up from the kitchen of his two-bedroom flat where he was putting the kettle on and making snacks. Florian, Dave’s flatmate and the game master, also looked up with his goofy grin, anticipating a good answer.
“Athletics skill,” said Dave. “Take the athletics skill for the proficiency, rogues get expertise so that doubles the proficiency and I maxed out strength to boost it further. Since Flo banned multiclassing, I had to grab the Moderately Armored feat for shields, then Shield Master at level four so that Lord Harold Winchester can shove as a bonus action at plus nine.”
“Oh, look at you, Dave,” said Vash with a toothy smile, his Indian accent enhancing his sarcasm. “Making a complicated character even without multiclassing. What a flex.”
Dave grinned back at the jibe.
“Nah, I just read the campaign intro Flo sent. Saw it was in a mountainous setting and figured that the skill for climbing and pushing would be useful. Checked the rules for shove attacks and worked backwards to optimize it.”
Everyone else in the room looked blankly at Dave.
“Dave’s the only one of you who read the intro, isn’t he?” said Florian, grinning like a lunatic.