Chapter 2 - Glitch the Tutorial

Choking a nightmare creature to death from the inside was not how I’d envisioned this day going, not that I’d had any time to envision anything since Integration.

“Nali?” I croaked as I let my arms slump down, my fist still caught in the dead goblin’s throat.

Instantaneously, the hologram was there, a polite distance away with her hands folded in front of her. Her cheery disposition was back. “Yes, Ryan?”

I looked down at the twitching, black, oversized fingertrap dangling from my fist. The muscles in the creature’s jaw held on tightly, even after death. I shook the corpse, letting the gangly arms flop around bonelessly. The goblin’s charms and earrings clacked and jingled with the motion.

“What the hell is this?” I asked in a calm tone I wasn’t really feeling.

You take 1 bleeding damage.

Status removed: Bleeding.

HP 13/25

“You will need to be m-more specific, Ryan. What can I help you with?” Her face froze, mid-blink, and the program seemed to play the frames of the animation over and over again giving it a surreal blur.

“Is this,” I pointed at my disgusting new bracelet. “a part of your tutorial? Do you keep, like, a stable of goblins around for people like me?”

Her head flashed between tilted and straight a handful of times, but then whatever glitch she was experiencing passed. “I’m sorry, did you say something?”

“Scourge. Touched. Goblin.” I pronounced every word carefully. The adrenaline was ebbing now, leaving me a little giddy. “Is it-”

Nali’s eyes shot down to the goblin, and her expression turned from eager and helpful to horrified in a flash. Then she was gone.

Stunned, I blinked the Nali shaped tracers out of my eyes.

“Nali?” I called out, turning to see if she had reappeared somewhere else, but the room was empty and a shade darker than it had been.

I was alone.

The leaves rustled overhead and cast moving shadows over the walls and through the windows that seemed to hold more dangerous potential than before.

It was still eerily quiet here, something that unnerved me greatly and for reasons I couldn’t articulate.

Then I was far away, in a domed hab with tin patched walls. I was small, a child maybe. In my lap there was a little device with a screen where I played some game or another. Terratech or an emulation of it. There was a bin of discarded wire and circuit boards beneath my bed where I’d hidden my recycled toy sword I wasn’t allowed to have anymore. The wind howled outside. Gusts slammed into the walls over and over again bowing the metal, little pops of loose sheeting shifting in their frames, but I wasn’t worried. The hab walls would flex and bend, but the engineers that designed the building knew their stuff. No, my eyes were only for the screen. For the game.

I coughed, suddenly remembering to breathe again, where I was.

My mind was a mess. Nothing in my head connected with anything else in a way that made sense.

Disorientation, as Nali put it.

Sure would be nice to have something like a tutorial admin here to ask questions.

“Nali?” I called again, but no holographic woman appeared to help me.

I waited for a silent minute, hoping she would return. Nothing. Just alien birdsong.

I closed my eyes and let out a slow breath, nodding as I turned the situation over in my head.

Obviously, I couldn’t wait around for help to come to me. Nothing about this place was conducive to my continued existence, from the age, to the structure, to the fauna.

First order of business was safety. Then I could worry about the little stuff like who I was and what happened to me. Of course, I couldn’t go about my business dragging a dead goblin around on my arm. Despite its size, the extra poundage was starting to weigh me down, and the metal parts of my body were already doing that before Chompy came into my life.

I reached over and slid my hand under the goblin’s jaw to try and pry it open, slipping my fingers into the gaps where the teeth had been knocked out. As I touched the creature’s gums, a text window popped up in my vision.

Loot Scourge Touched Goblin? Y/N

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

I felt my eyebrows climb way, way up my forehead.

Loot, you say?

The word sent a tingle through my body, but the feeling was tainted by general disgust. While I enjoyed the concept of loot (who didn’t?) I was currently rubbing the gums of a dead monster stuck to my arm. Plus, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know what kind of loot this thing would produce. It already produced more than enough, mostly mystery fluids and foul smells.

Even so, my curiosity won the day. My quest was to learn what I was capable of, afterall, and it would delay me having to pry the little chomper off my arm.

Why not?

I chose ‘Y’

There was a colorful distortion in the air between me and the corpse, a kind of warp in the light like you might see while staring through oily stained glass.

Just above my hand, the smudge of light coalesced into a single cohesive shape, a long cylinder tipped with a triangular bit. The shape solidified into something crooked and pointy, then fell to the ground, rattling and clattering over the floor. I was also ‘gifted’ a dirty leather loincloth, a necklace of tiny bones, and a handful of earrings, all of which appeared over my hand and fell, one after the other to bounce off the goblin’s cranium then to the concrete.

Something in the corpse gave way. The goblin, now free, slid wetly off my metal fist and plopped down to the ground next to its loot.

Squinting, I raised my wet metal hand up to my face and examined it for any damage, of which there was none. The surface looked slimy but unmarked.

Okay. New arm is made of tough stuff. Noted.

I crouched down and examined my ‘booty,’ carefully so as not to reopen the wounds on my back. Though I could not see them, I was pretty sure my injuries were merely seeping blood now instead of the free flow of before. Whatever the System did to help me heal, it was great. I just didn’t want to move too quickly and end up with the bleeding status again.

Goblin Spear: A spear crafted in the style of goblins. That is to say, poorly, using whatever was lying around.

Damage: 1 to 4 (Piercing)

Quality: Poor

Style: Primitive

The System wasn’t lying when it said the quality was poor. The haft was crooked and too thin for me to comfortably grip, and the head was made of teeth fastened with leather cords and glued with some kind of resin. The length was all wrong too. It felt more like a prison shank than a real weapon.

The rest of the loot was of the “why would I want that” variety, from a dirty loincloth to various bones and crude jewelry.

I turned my gaze back to the goblin, lying on its back now with its mouth wide open and arms trapped beneath it. I hadn’t put it together before, but the looting process had stripped the little guy naked.

Yeah, I’m not touching that loincloth. Don’t care if the System magicked it up for me.

Testing the spear, I gave it a tentative thrust and confirmed that it was far too small to work in a way with which I was accustomed. The shaft was practically a twig, too small to grip. I tried it again in my metal hand to see if it was any different, clutching it hard so as not to let it slip, but I gave up after another couple test thrusts.

Changing tactics, I held it up to see if I could disassemble it and use the parts for something.

Core ability: Consume

Consume Goblin Spear? Y/N

The message hadn’t come up until I’d held the thing up in my metal hand. What’s more, now that I was doing so, I could feel something in my chest, the metal part where my heart was supposed to be, a faint emptiness that… wanted.

Do I have a heart anymore?

I shook my head, dispelling any inclinations I might have to go down that road. I needed to change my situation, then think about the implications of all this.

Consume. On the one hand, my inner dragon said I’d just gotten this stupid spear, a trophy hard won through mortal combat. The goblin tried to kill me, but I killed him. I deserved it. Furthermore, it was my only weapon, terrible as it was.

Then again, I couldn’t imagine killing anything with my shiny, gross, tooth-spear. It wouldn’t be much of a loss to see it go, and I needed to explore what I was capable of to advance the tutorial quest.

I held the spear up and selected Y.

*FWOOMF* The entire spear disintegrated into glowing orange embers that streamed down into a starburst-shaped aperture in the palm of my metal hand. I felt the heat from the process on my face, hot enough to make me flinch away. Then it was gone.

Goblin Spear consumed.

Gained status: Engine [1 MP/sec]

You gain knowledge of material: Mendau Wood [1/10]

You gain knowledge of material: Goblin Teeth [1/10]

You gain knowledge of material: Resin [1/10]

Core Ability: Consume is now level 1

A tiny thrill passed through my body, warm and energizing.

Quest Advanced: Tutorial

Tutorial: Learn of your new capabilities (continued).

“Greetings, Chosen!”

I practically leapt out of my skin, exploding to my feet, arms in a guard position and ready to fight. My heart burned in my chest.

“I- I apologize for frightening you, Ch- Chosen,” Nali chirped. She’d appeared behind me again, slightly to my left. She looked exactly as she had before in her work uniform and with that stupid, polite smile. “Integration alwayssssss causes some disorientation, and I’ve always found it best to get the initial greeting out of the way and get- get to it.”

I dropped my hands to my sides and took a cautious step forward. “Nali, what’s going on?” I asked.

“Ah, so you know my name, Defile- Ch- Chosen, so I can assume you know my purpose then. This will make things faster. Let’s begin the tutorial, shall we?”

“Uh. Nali what are you talking about?” My head did that confused tilt thing, as if leaning on that side of my brain would help me cognitively.

“Your tutorial, Chossssen. Let’s begin by bringing up your st-status screen.”

“Nali,” I interjected, taking a cautious step forward. “We’ve done this before.”

“Oh?” Her eyes flashed back and forth, reading something I couldn’t see. “Yes- Yes- I see an emergency restoration in my logs. I apologize for any confusion. What s-step of the tutorial are we on?”

“We- uh. We went over Shaping and then this.” I gestured down at the goblin. “This happened.”

Nali did that flash-step thing where she went from standing in the corner to crouching down next to the corpse without the in-between steps.

“I-I-I- No-” Nali began, but she never got to finish. In a flash of light she was gone again, and I was back to being alone.