I already know that being a pacifist limits my options for generating money. In many games, creatures drop literal coins when they die, as if they were carrying human money around with them during life. In others, killed creatures leave behind their bodies, which can be butchered into parts and sold. Sometimes they just leave behind "drop items" - valuable stuff like eyeballs, wings, scales, or even items that monsters would never carry - that can somehow be crafted into special gear with magical powers.
As a pacifist, that really doesn't fit with my worldview. I don't want to attack, fight, or kill anything, even if it's a mindless slime, which seems to be what lives outside the gates of Fountain City.
The fields outside the gates are covered with a colorful mixture of knee-high, jiggling, jelly-like creatures. They jump and slither in random directions. If they're anything like in other games, they'll only attack me once I'm within a certain distance. So if I walk quietly, I should be able to make my way through them and maybe even find some things to pick up. Someday, I'd love to befriend all the slimes. They're actually kind of cute, in a morbid way, like big blobs of jello. But I have no idea how to even start that. How do you make friends with a slime? What do slimes eat? Do they remember specific people? Do they remember anything? And if I made friends with a slime, or even a field of slimes, how would I keep them from getting killed anyway?
I crouch down in the grass, mimicking the stealth position I've seen in video games in the past. But for some weird reason, as soon as I crouch down to make less noise, the grass around me starts shaking. As if on cue, a dozen slimes stop what they're doing, notice me, and begin moving toward me. I stop moving and crouch down further, trying to hide from their view, but the noise from the grass somehow gets louder. I must be imagining it. The slimes also seem to be moving a bit faster. They're still a ways off, though, so I start walking back toward the gate, trying to quietly avoid them.
A couple of steps in, I look back. The slimes are gaining on me. Even with their slow, meandering jumps and slides, they'll definitely overtake me before I make it back to the city.
I decide to run for it.
Two steps in, I trip and fall. I reach out to catch myself with my arms, but I still end up crashing to the ground.
You have tripped.
You have fallen.
You have taken fall damage. HP -1
Hey! It took forever for those HP to regenerate! I don't want to have to wait again. And, of course, my arm hurts like crazy.
Come on Gabe! Get up and get away!
I get back to my feet and start running again.
Two steps in, I trip and fall again. Again I crash to the ground.
You have tripped.
You have fallen.
You have taken fall damage. HP -1
Pain sears through my body.
I think about giving up, but I don't want to be eaten by slimes just yet. I can do this. I can outrun a couple of slimes and stay alive.
I get back up and this time try slowly jogging instead.
Two steps in, I trip and fall. This time the fall is even more spectacular than before. Somehow I tumble head over heels multiple times before finally stopping, laying face down in the dirt.
You have tripped.
You have fallen spectacularly.
You have taken fall damage. HP -2
My body feels like it has been smashed, rolled, and crushed in one of the high-speed blenders you see in supermarket demonstrations. My body is in so much pain that I can't even move.
I don't know what is happening. All I did was start jogging, right? Should I just give up? Maybe creating this character was a mistake. Maybe there is literally no way for me to survive outside the city. What's the worst-case scenario? I die and get revived at the Fountain Square, right? Dying is going to hurt like crazy, but I've learned that I can't outrun or out-jog slimes because I trip over my feet. I can't walk faster than them because as soon as I try to avoid them, they come after me.
I still can't move. I just lie with my face in the dirt. Any second now, the ground will shake, and I'll be crushed by a slime.
You have taken damage. HP -1
What? Why? The pain in my legs, arms, and back is getting worse. I need to get up, but I still can't move.
I start to freak out. I can't move my body. I can't move my arms, legs, or anything at all. I can't even turn my head to see the approaching slimes. It seems like my breathing is okay, but it's like I'm trapped here on the ground. This is far more terrifying than a couple of slimes - it's like I'm a prisoner inside my own body.
I will my status menu to appear and see two debuffs: "stunned" and "internal bleeding."
Bleeding (Internal): You are losing 0.25 HP / minute
Stunned: You cannot move
Where did those come from? All I did was trip and fall a couple of times? Could there be invisible enemies that can cause status debuffs? No, this is a starting area. Invisible enemies that can stun and bleed would be too overpowered for the fields right outside of town. If there were enemies like that, no one would be here at all.
The last time I tripped, I must have fallen pretty hard.
You are bleeding internally. HP -1
My legs and back feel like they're on fire. My body is covered in a cold sweat. Minutes go by, and the voices of all my friends start echoing in my head. "Give up." "You could never play Dungeon Quest as a pacifist." "You're kidding, right? How will you get anything in a dungeon-crawling VRMMO? Are you going to kiss the dragon and ask it for treasure?" "You'll be level 1 forever." "Get ready to be PK-ed over, and over, and over noob."
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
No, my favorite heroes are the ones who never give up. They say that Dungeon Quest is for everyone - and that includes me. Maybe it'll be hard, but I can do this. I can do hard things, and I'm going to show them it's possible.
You are bleeding internally. HP -1
My head starts hurting, and I start to feel sick to my stomach. I can't move. I can't remember ever being in this much pain in real life.
You are bleeding internally. HP -1
You have lost 80% of your HP due to damage that includes blood loss. You are going into shock.
My vision begins to cloud, and if I could move, I would probably be throwing up right now.
You are bleeding internally. HP -1
Your HP has dropped to 1. If you sustain any further damage you will die.
I try to call out for help, but no voice leaves my throat. I was still within eyesight of the Fountain City gate when I fell, not far from a road where I had seen travelers pass by. The pain has spread throughout my entire body - a searing, burning pain that makes me feel as if I am going to be burned from the inside out. I pass out.
My HP drops to zero, and I die.
----------------------------------------
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHH!"
"I think that means we have a problem... right?"
The programmer laid his head on his desk while moaning.
"After months of beta testing and creating over 200,000 characters, how on earth did this happen?"
"What's up?"
"I was going through the Min/Max list and noticed that there was a weird character sheet that was appearing on multiple lists. Take a look at this."
He pulls up a character sheet.
Name: Gabe Proficiency:
None Level:
0 HP: 0/10 (DEAD) MP: 5/5 STR: 0 INT: 0 AGI: 0 WIS: 0 DEX: 0 CHA: 0 END: 0 PER: 0 LUC: 195 (HIDDEN)
"Cheater? Someone hacking into the system and trying to find a vulnerability? International spy?"
"That was my thought. So I checked the logs, but it looks like a real player. It seems like he logged out before choosing a weapon, then somehow joined a party and got to the Tutorial Dungeon without even touching one. Since he has no proficiency, there's no limit to allocating his points, and the secret "super unlucky" perk we built in to give 5 extra points to people willing to always be unlucky applied to all of his stats somehow."
"So no foul play?"
"I don't think so. Just someone who found a crazy loophole and did something insane with it."
"Well... the loophole needs to be fixed ASAP."
"I'll get on it immediately. I'll probably just have Cleo add something to character creation."
"Ok. Choose whoever you need to support her. Make sure it rolls out in the next 30 minutes to all unfinished characters."
"What should I do about this guy?"
He indicates the character sheet.
"Honestly? If he had done this with any other stat, we would have had to ban him or delete his character. A PER of 195 would break the game as soon as he had his first perception check, and anyone looking at his status sheet would immediately call foul play.
"...That said, look at the stats. Those are grays. I don't think it'll be an issue. He chose to be super weak, super slow, super clumsy, super frail, super dumb, super unwise, super repulsive, and super dull. A single hit will kill him, and he'll run into issues trying to do anything... permanently. Adaptive stats don't work when you're in the gray, so he'll be at zero forever."
"Actually, put him on the tracker. At full zeroes without adaptive stats, he's the best Min/Max case we've ever had - we probably couldn't pay someone to walk around with stats that low. Maybe he'll last a month before realizing he can't progress. Speaking of which, where is he now?"
"He just died in the fields outside one of the starter areas. Fountain town."
"Slime attack? How'd he pull that one off?"
"No. Apparently he was running and tripped a couple of times. The third time he fell hard enough that he triggered a fall damage stun and minor bruising. The stun lasted over 20 minutes, and the internal bleeding from the bruise never stopped. He bled to death while laying on the ground."
"Wow. I guess that's what you get when you tell Cleo to always calculate spectacular fails on AGI, DEX, and END checks," the senior programmer said. "Running faster than your AGI allows triggers an AGI check. If you fail, you trip. Since his AGI is a gray zero, he'll trip anytime he runs during a battle. Falling sometimes causes a DEX check to determine effects, with failed checks leading to status conditions - hence the stun and bleeding. Stuns and internal bleeding from a simple fall should go away within seconds, but the timing is based on END. But since every END check he ever makes will fail, that means he will never be able to recover from a stun or to stop bleeding once he starts."
"I'm changing my guess. I'm guessing he lasts less than a week before he completely rerolls his character from scratch."
"What about checking the Luck algorithms? What if he sticks around?"
"Just focus on fixing the loophole. Luck affects every single RNG roll made, so it's part of Cleo's system. We can't make changes there without interfering with the RNG, and that might get us into legal trouble. And resetting Cleo to allow her to create a new system would shut us down completely."
The senior programmer realized something and laughed.
"I think Gabe here will drop out. But if he survives, time will tell whether he's truly lucky or truly unlucky."
----------------------------------------
I wake up covered in cold sweat. Even though Dungeon Quest may hotwire my brain through its neural interface, my body still functions while I'm playing. The pain is gone, but the memory of my recent death is still fresh in my mind.
I replay what just happened.
I went outside the starting city to explore and gather some resources. I tried to sneak past some slimes, but they noticed me immediately. I tried to run away but ended up falling. Eventually, I tripped, fell, got stunned, and died.
I'm guessing all of those outcomes were a result of my stats. Ugh. Maybe I should just reroll my character. If it's going to be this difficult, I wouldn't be able to progress even if I weren't a pacifist.
No.
I remember an advertisement that hit me strongly and convinced me that even I could play this game:
The advertisement showed montages of players in the game. A centaur farming, and the hoe turns into a fishing pole, and suddenly it's a woman fishing. She gets a bite and pulls up a fish, which is suddenly in the mouth of a dragon with a tiny elf on its back. The elf swings a massive battle hammer, and it lands on a sword - a blacksmith pounding a sword at a forge. He holds up the sword, and it's being held by the warrior in a party of adventurers entering a massive dungeon. The rocks begin to shake, and the dungeon wall has become a massive golem, on a huge player-versus-player battlefield. A spell is cast, and the camera follows it to someone playing magic chess in a mountain garden... then the view spreads out, and you can barely see each of the players shown before - part of an infinite expanse.
"Be yourself! Try something different! Make your own rules! The game will mold to you - not the other way around. Here, even the smallest person can change the world."
As soon as I died, a 15-minute timer appeared on my gear. I've still got 12 minutes left. I take off the gear, check my phone for messages, take a quick shower to wash off the sweat, eat a banana, drink two cups of water, and put the gear back on with 40 seconds left. My neural connection is good, and my internet connection is stable.
Yes, I died. But it doesn't matter how many times I die. I am going to beat this game.