Checkpoint Saved…
“Let me buy you a drink,” I offered Beau, ignoring that very disturbing message that ricocheted through the rest of my mind.
“Your health and mana weren’t errors, were they?” Beau swung his head left and right.
“I read a lot of LitRPG,” I explained without explaining, handing him another cup of ale. Beau gave the mug a suspicious look. “It’s clean. I have no reason to harm you now.” Except annoyance and bygones. And a new button in the lower left corner of my vision.
“I wouldn’t say no reason.” He switched our drinks before taking a sip. Beau oozed flirtation like a black pudding oozed filth. Even his lightest banter was a teasing conversation that willed you to fall for his oodles of charm. I tried to focus on that charm instead of that new button. “The Nemesis Engine must have picked you for some reason.”
I pressed the purple elephant button. The world stuttered and swirled alarmingly. It was just a purple button. It didn’t have an elephant on it, but it did have two triangles pointing left and a line. I knew what it should mean.
“Let me buy you a drink,” I found myself saying. I couldn’t believe it really did mean that.
“Your health and mana weren’t errors, were they?” Beau swung his head left and right.
“No,” I answered, pressing the button again.
“Let me buy you a drink,” I was saying again. Neat. Um. I did my lines. He did his lines, and I pressed it again. Because I could. You would. You know you would. When we get to the end of this, you and me, I’m going to let you press that button. You’ll see. You’d have done it too.
“Your health and mana weren’t errors, were they?” I kicked Beau in the balls before he could say the next line and watched with delighted satisfaction as his eyes bulged. I let him swing at me but pushed the button right before the fist hit my cheek.
You call it a problem; I call a creative opportunity. I pushed the button a lot. It was so fun! I kissed him, ew. I kicked him, everywhere, but mostly in the balls. I killed him twice. That was therapeutic.
I gave a chuckle and took a drink of the ale. I had no more interest in Beau when I was done. I let the scene play out to see what came next. I killed Mabel and Marlo and every adventurer standing around there. Whenever it looked like I might be losing, I hit the button and restarted. I didn’t kill Chester or Lily, not even when they tried to defend their friends. You have to admit that it’s nice to know that I had some limits.
I cast poison on Beau just for fun and waited for him to feel it.
“What the hell?” He set the drink down, his charm slipping only slightly. Don’t worry. I pressed the button after all that carnage and everyone was right back where they started.
“It’s not the ale,” I told him, casting a backhanded Cure Poison. I followed up with a Lift Spirits. I had pressed the button enough that I felt like I had a good feel for how it worked.
Lift Spirits +1
“I’d invite you to run a dungeon with me, but I don’t think your build is ready for the one I’m going into next.” I drank my ale and stared at the campfire. The adventurers still lounged about as if they had nothing else to do with their virtual lives. I had a magical button, but did Fizzbarren know about it? Could he stop it? Would he remember reboots? Would anyone?
“I didn’t need a lot of health until you,” Beau was saying, and I nodded like I cared as he took another drink.
“Terra?” I asked in our minds. “Do you remember?”
“My stomach is sick,” Terra gave a dry hiss, but I ignored the sound. Yeah, she remembered.
Something lifted from my mind. It was fear. Fear is such a persistent companion that we often don’t know that we carry it, and we also don’t consider the weight. I sat, sipped ale, let Beau entertain, and I thought. For the first time in the longest time, I had a chance to think. It didn’t matter if Fizzbarren heard my thoughts, I could rewind to my checkpoint. If Fizzbarren hadn’t shown up yet, then he wasn’t going to. Just to test it, I thought crazy thoughts about him. Then I said crazy things. Then I did crazy things. I held my finger over that button and did alarmingly dangerous things until Fizzbarren showed up.
“You will tell me that to my face, you ungrateful swine!” Fizzbarren’s face bloomed with rage and mine bloomed with a beautiful smile. I hit the button, said my lines, and waited. I thought crazy thoughts, I did crazy things and I pissed him off again. I hit the button and put it all out of my mind as I said my lines again.
I was already thinking of my next set of fights. I was headed to that Eroomtsim dungeon and my mind was half there already. I cast Lift Spirits on every person out there at the campout. My head wasn’t here with Beau or our conversation because this time he didn’t have any information for me that I probably didn’t know more about than he did. I’d had half a mind to take a few of the higher levelled fighters with me just as cannon fodder, but that didn’t seem right either. Half of me cared but half of me didn’t. The first half won by a slim margin.
“I think I’ll play here long enough to get enough coins for the coaches before I head back to my wife.” Beau didn’t know that he wouldn’t make it back to his wife. He’d only make it to a shelf on Fizzbarren’s wall of failures. I let Beau entertain while my mind spun. I hit the rewind button several times just to have a little more time to think it through.
“That sounds almost wise,” I quipped unkindly when I was ready to move forward again. “Most unlike the Beau I knew.” I wasn’t buying the act of honorable husband. He hadn’t cared about my marriage to another man the last time he’d wanted me to meet him in the middle of the night and I didn’t think this leopard had changed his spots.
“I don’t know how you got all this way in three days, but I think maybe it makes me realize that home is exciting enough for me and mine.” I stared at him a moment too long for his comfort.
“I’m sure there are a dozen Marlos on the way to take the sting out of your defeat here today,” I patted his shoulder, having already dismissed him from my mind. I couldn’t do anything about that shelf now, but I’d take care of it eventually. I had my eyes on a prize that I was starting believe was not only possible but inevitable.
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Beau had begun to speak again, but I was already walking over to Chester and Lily. I had treasure to sell, and while I wasn’t going to take Chester or Lily on any of my adventures, I knew I had to clear my inventory. I didn’t want to wait until morning, and I didn’t want to be alone.
“Hey Chester,” I called out to him, laying a friendly hand on his shoulder, “I know it’s late, but can we do a little business?”
Why didn’t I want to be alone? That’s easy. The moment I was alone, this happened…
“So, who do you want to bring from your world?” Sammi popped in over my shoulder as I swung a silver sword at a skeleton in the Eroomtsim dungeon.
Because while the reboots were helpful, therapeutic, and just plain cool, they didn’t get me the stats, levels, and skills I needed to defeat Fizzbarren. The further I got from the checkpoint, the more I had at stake, because this kind of stat and skill grinding was already boring enough without having to repeat them. The button had appeared at a checkpoint and that checkpoint was defeating a Nemesis. I wouldn’t defeat another one for a while.
“Now?” I complained, taking a step back and finishing the thing with a Blast spell. I’d stalled Sammi through four loops and this was as far as I’d been able to push the encounter back. It was enough. I was ready to move forward.
“You don’t seem busy,” Sammi said, stepping over the collapsed corpse. The upgrade to my Flare spell now did an amazing thirty damage from each snap and sixty from the double snap. This dungeon was all undead, but fire melted through the trash mobs like butter. I was really working on my sword skill. While I loved knife fighting, sword fighting was more impressive. I figured that if I could get it up, I’d have options for fights that didn’t really work in close combat… like skeletons and zombies and the other really gross mobs in the current dungeon. It was worth a little effort.
Skill Learned: Swordplay
Skill Learned: Slashing
“What about my being in the middle of a graveyard full of skeletons makes you think not-busy?” I popped my sword into my inventory and dodged behind Sammi to cast another couple of Blasts at another skeleton, the last one on the porch of the Victorian mansion that was pretending to be a castle.
“I could come back later,” Sammi tossed out the empty threat, hands on their hips. “If you don’t want your quest reward.” Sammi needed me to accept the quest. Fizzbarren would accept nothing less. I knew that.
“That would be great.” I pretended to focus on the skeleton instead of Sammi, calling their bluff.
“What?” It was nice to see Sammi taken aback. The fact that Sammi was acting this way made me believe that they didn’t remember. I’d asked Sammi outright in the last rewind. Fizzbarren had shown up and tried to kill us all.
“Busy,” I insisted, casting Lift Spirits, which did something like poison damage to these undead. I had given myself enough time to think and I knew what I wanted. I thought I knew Sammi enough to know how to get it.
“What?” Sammi repeated, completely uncaring about the skeleton that simply reached through him to smack me for twenty health.
“Busy trying not to die.” I dodged, realizing a little late that the skeletons didn’t see Sammi.
“You have over two thousand health points.” Sammi blocked my vision of the skeleton, but not their vision of me. This was not good for my health, even if it was as Sammi said. I got skimmed by a rusty long sword that stabbed at me right through Sammi’s leather coat and crossed arms. I didn’t have all of those two thousand health points, but I had enough that I could chat. I didn’t want to yet.
“At twenty health per hit, it would only take a hundred rounds of damage to take me dangerously low.” I did the math as I cast my double Blast through Sammi. “That’s five hundred seconds before I’m in critical danger. While that may seem like a lot, it’s really less than nine minutes.” The skeleton bashed at me with a wooden shield doing its twenty points of damage. “There are less than ten minutes between life and death for me and you want me to take a break and try to figure out which of my beloved family members to bring into this very dangerous world?” I cast Lift Spirits again.
Dirty Skeleton – Level 16 (Health 429/672) (Mana 300/464) – Cheerful (-12/5 seconds)
Health -45 (1714/2175)
Intelligence +1
Identify +1
Lift Spirits +1
Exp +20 (6584/13669)
“And half the time, they hit for double that amount, so I really only have six minutes between life and death,” I pondered on, switching back to my Blast spells. And you thought high school algebra wasn’t useful for life. It was marvelous at getting my intelligence stat up. “Halve it again if I happen to stumble upon two of these monsters at a time. I’d hardly call my situation stable enough to make decisions as huge as who I’m bringing over.” I hadn’t been able to use my poison in this dungeon, and my littlest spells were almost useless as low as they were, so I was alternating between the silver sword I’d looted off of a vampire guard, Lift Spirits, and Blast. With Sammi as a distraction, I didn’t see the skeleton’s eyes blaze with its magical attack until it was too late to dodge.
Health -59 (1655/2175)
Dirty Skeleton – Level 16 (Health 359/672) (Mana 300/464) – Cheerful (-12/5 seconds)
Will +1
“You’ve been too busy for three hours,” Sammi protested.
“And then they do something like that and I’m even closer to death!” I gave a half-hearted whine, panting a bit with effort I didn’t feel. I’d really thought Sammi would let me get through the dungeon before trying to make me make a decision. Honestly, I was just trying to make Sammi and Fizzbarren sweat a little.
Health -19 (1636/2175)
Dirty Skeleton – Level 16 (Health 347/672) (Mana 300/464) – Cheerful (-12/5 seconds)
Dodge +1
Exp +10 (6594/13669)
“I tried to talk to you while you were healing,” Sammi started, ignoring the skeleton and my Blast spell.
“I need to concentrate and I’m getting tired.” I dodged around Sammi and into another attack. Sammi was getting annoyingly painful in their insistence. I wasn’t overly worried, but they didn’t need to know that.
Health -19 (1636/2175)
Dirty Skeleton – Level 16 (Health 287/672) (Mana 300/464) – Cheerful (-12/5 seconds)
Blast +1
Exp +10 (6604/13669)
“You said you would stop at the end of the graveyard.” Sammi pointed at the front porch of a large mansion that was the backdrop of the graveyard. It wasn’t a castle. It was a gothic mansion of epic proportions. The front yard was the graveyard full of trash mobs that I’d taken out one after another. Another example of Fizzbarren’s lack of imagination was how this graveyard looked like someone had decorated their front yard for Halloween. All that was missing was the candy rewards. What I wouldn’t have done for a Snickers bar or a Whatchamacallit.
Health -29 (1607/2175)
Dirty Skeleton – Level 16 (Health 215/672) (Mana 300/464) – Cheerful (-12/5 seconds)
Dexterity +1
Identify +1
Dodge +1
Exp +20 (6624/13669)
“This is the porch.” Sammi stomped a booted foot on the worn planks. Sammi was solid enough to clomp, but not stop an attack coming at me.
“I didn’t go in the house.” I slid behind a porch swing, letting the rusted chain rattle at the aggressive bones. “I would have stopped to heal.” I failed again to see the glowing eyes.
Health -49 (1558/2175)
Dirty Skeleton – Level 16 (Health 143/672) (Mana 300/464) – Cheerful (-12/5 seconds)
Blast +1
Exp +10 (6634/13669)
“Sammi,” I grit out, “a corpse can’t collect quest rewards. Now get out of the way before you get me killed!”
“You’ll deal with me after this skeleton?” Sammi persisted and I held back my smile.
“Yes!” I shouted and cast again. Two more spells and I could sit on that porch swing instead of using it as a shield. I was looking forward to that right up until that stupid last skeleton blasted the porch swing to smithereens bashing through it to get to me.
Health -19 (1539/2175)
Dirty Skeleton – Level 16 (Health 71/672) (Mana 300/464) – Cheerful (-12/5 seconds)
Dodge +1
Exp +10 (6594/13669)
This is what happens when your anger hits a wall. Your body drops out of emergency mode and into stop-or-else mode. That’s a technical term. I learned it in pre-med. Yeah, I was getting loopy and not nearly as suave as I remember myself to be, but then I’m writing it. I realized that in all these reboots, I hadn’t slept. I needed a nap. Witty conversation and exhaustion don’t go hand in hand but Quill here is letting it go for the moment. Maybe I was that witty. Yeah, I don’t think so either.
Health -19 (1520/2175)
You have killed a Dirty Skeleton – Exp +672 (7266/13669)
I cast a spell to repair the porch swing and sank onto dusty, disintegrating cushions.