It was a brisk autumn morning and Monty was half-enjoying a walk by the Thames. The reason for his less than full enjoyment of the breezy cold winds was his preoccupation with his girlfriend, soon to be ex-girlfriend, Julie. They had argued again, and this one looked to be the real finisher. Previous arguments that had seemed to end their relationship had always resulted in surprise come-backs, like a conductor scooting back onto the stage for one more song.
But this one had been a real blowout argument. There would be no encore, the band had really taken their bows and packed away their instruments and half of them were on the bus back to Wigan. It was the real end of it all. One of the tubas had been split in half and the woodwind section had thrown away their contrabassoons.
But dash it! He loved her. Or at least he was quite sure he loved her. Never having been in love before it was a new emotion to him. He had read about it in the great works of the Romantic poets and written many poems about that transcendental feeling, Love. But feeling it for real, especially in the middle of an argument made it seem more dental. His teeth ached from grinding.
It was his mistake, he was man enough to admit. He had little time for the sciences and their inhuman division of every part of nature into neat little packages. He knew that Julie was a great fan of everything rational and orderly, but he was a poet! How could he accept the horrific skeletonising of living breathing nature? Not everything needed to be tagged and ordered and classified.
But he should have kept his mouth shut about it all. His comparison of her geology teacher to a decaying wall of shale that obliterated warm feeling with a landslide of cold and sharp facts had been too much. He was proud of the metaphor, but not the effect it had had on his girlfriend. He should have kept that one to himself.
All he could do now was take his walk through Temple and along the Embankment towards Westminster, hoping it would take his mind off things. Perhaps a detour through Trafalgar square and into Soho, where he could drown his sorrows with other writers and artists. There was always a flash of inspiration that came from talking with his fellow lovers of words. Failing that, there was always coffee and beer.
He looked out over the low Thames, the brown waters barely lapping at the muddy banks, and considered the poets and writers that had looked out over this tumultuous river. His own heart was heaving low just like the river of his own beloved London. Had any poet truly captured this feeling of broken-heartedness?
“I gazed ‘pon the Thames,
With broken heart...”
He tried to find a rhyme for Thames. Pens, opens, mens. Mens- that would do.
“I gazed ‘pon the Thames,
With broken heart.
And felt like all the mens...”
“Hmm, what’s a non-cliche rhyme for hearts.”
Before he could finish the next line, The Incident occurred. There were many names for it in the beginning, The London Overlay, The Hideous Occurrence, That Great Bloody Bang, but all later histories settled on the Incident. Except the ones that didn’t and decided to call it the London Overlay. History, as they say, is written by the victors of Wikipedia edit wars.
One moment Monty was considering the tender fragments of his broken heart and how to cram them into an ABAB rhyme scheme, the next a painful snapping sound assaulted him . It felt like a sheet of air flicking itself against his ear drum. He clasped his ears, and through teary eyes tried to read the floating words that appeared before him.
“Welcome to the System.”
“The System? Is this an advertisement? Sounds a bit anti-monarchy.”
The words faded and more appeared.
“You have been assessed as a Player Character. Would you like to choose a class?”
“Change my class? No thanks, I’m happily upper-middle class. Couldn’t do with those snooty types and I’m not fit for the factories.”
"System will assess... Level 1 Sword Poet class.”
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
“Well it’s a rather nice method, making these words hover about like a horsefly, but your copy is absolute gibberish, and you’ve almost burst my eardrums with your barmy fireworks.”
Monty peered around to spot the urchin holding a firecracker could be, but there was only the empty street.
The words faded. He felt no different, but like millions of others, he had been enrolled into this mysterious System as a player character.
“Sword Poet Intrinsic: Sword Mastery: ability to wield any sword. Level 1 Valour Ability: Cutting Blow.”
“Must be a hallucination brought on by lovesickness.” Monty rubbed his face to dispel the odd feeling. Now he had to think up a rhyme for hallucination. Appreciation?
“Through my discarded appreciation,
I suffer with painful hallucination...”
He shook his head to clear the ringing. There was a clank sound besides him. A sword was lying against the stone barrier.
“Ah did somebody drop their sword?” Again he looked around and saw no humans, just some small boats bobbing their way upriver. In the distance he spotted an old hansom carriage. The driver had dismounted and was having some trouble with his horse, but he was much too far away to have dropped this sword.
He picked it up and turned it over carefully. It looked like quite a nice sword, as swords went. He had seen plenty of swords, hanging above fireplaces in ancestral homes. Quite a few cousins of his cousins in Scotland had whole collections of the things. It was a proper sword, not the fencing sabres he had practiced with.
“More advertising gimmicks eh?”
He took a few swipes in the air. It felt surprisingly heavy but yet easy to wield. There was a romantic idea to fighting with pure muscle and steel. He despised guns as too modern.
“Imagine being a gentlemen in proper old London eh? I’m sure I could have won a duel or two with you.” The sword said nothing, but glinted in the morning night.
“This is a true hero’s blade, it must be said. I should find out who dropped it though.”
A sudden mist was descending around him. He was no stranger to the thick fog that coated the city in early mornings and cold days, but this was the most sudden he had ever experienced.
“Dash it, I should make for Charing Cross and catch a taxi cab there.”
***
If you were to zoom along the riverside west, all the way past the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, through Pimlico and stopping in the borough of Chelsea, apart from getting an awful case of motion sickness, you would be in the vicinity of the likewise lovesick Julie. Sat in her room, staring out the window her method of dealing with lovesickness was to analyse and muse.
“What an addle pate he is! Always dreaming of poetry and writing, but hardly putting pen to paper. Oh why can’t he at least have a little responsibility? I was going to introduce him to my parents, you know?” Her last sentence was aimed at her feline companion, Baxter. A contented black and white cat who was purring in her lap. He gave no response to the weighty confession he had just heard.
“He is so cutting of others, and yet doesn’t think what to make of himself. Oh, I love him, but how can I marry an unmade man? He should be expected to make something of himself, shouldn’t he, Baxter?”
Baxter stretched in way that only cats can stretch, minimum effort with maximum effect. The movement rippled from his front paws, through his arching back and then into his tail with a little flick. Fleas could have surfed along that stretch, but of course being well groomed Baxter had no fleas.
Before she could confess more to her pet, Julie and Baxter experienced the Incident, hearing a terrible sound as the local atmosphere filled with nanoparticles. Baxter yowled in pain and scooted under Julie’s bed, whilst she sat up straight in her chair with a shock.
Words appeared before her, familiar to anybody who has read preceding paragraphs.
“Welcome to the System.”
“You have been assessed as a Player Character. Would you like to choose a class?”
“Do we have a choice? We are born to our class,” she muttered.
“System will assess... Level 1 Beast Master. Familiar assigned, House Cat, Level 1.”
The words faded.
“I don’t feel well. Am I dreaming?”
She peered into her mirror, and pulled her eyes down. No bloodshot or paleness. She held her finger to her wrist, counting her pulse for a minute or two. Pulse was normal.
She hadn’t suffered any head injuries recently, so it couldn't be concussion. Perhaps it was just exhaustion from the argument with Monty and her worrying. She sighed and took to her bed. A lie down for a few minutes should help.
She was unaware of the fine mist sinking down outside the window, though she did feel the sudden cold seeping from the window.
“Beast Master Intrinsic: Beast Talk: converse with friendly animals. Level 1 Mind Ability: Analyse Beast.”
She tried to ignore the new words. It must be the stress of loving a hopeless cause like Monty.
Baxter leapt up onto the bed besides her, and he snuggled down next to her. His purring was reassuring, even more reassuring that normal. It seemed like his purr could soothe away her worries completely. She wondered if anybody had studied the reciprocal relationship of cats and humans beyond the obvious advantage of food and pest control. There could be a psychological benefit to both species. She drifted off into sleep.