"Well, I'll tell you what, Barry," I told him, "I no longer think you're full of shit."

"Good. Now. Let's re-roll you. And let's not get so crazy on the stats. I'm giving you a few upgrades, but basically you'll be like the old Jamie. You’re going to have to level up the good old fashioned way from now one — completing quests and grinding."

I would have frowned, but, once again, I was without a damn face.

"Ok," I said, a little humbled and somewhat traumatised after the day’s experiences, "before you do that, though, just one question..."

"Yeah?"

"What in the flaming fuck of all that is fucky is fucking going on? Am I dead? Is this a game? How... Why— "

"It's... complicated," Barry didn't explain, "don't worry your pretty little head about it. All will be revealed in the fullness of — "

"— If I had hands I'd strangle you…”

“If you had hands you wouldn’t be pseudo-dead. Now, off you fuck back in. You’ve got some quests to complete."

BOOM

Whoah.

I had a body again.

And it didn't have stupid arms or a stupid dick to mess me up. I found myself back at my place, the small little flat I called home. It had a living room, which was tastefully decorated in the contemporary styles of 1973, filled out with a mustard yellow sofa, a burgundy red-brown armchair, and yellow-stained ceilings. If you had to choose one word to describe the carpeting you might have gone with threadbare, or maybe stained, whereas someone else less eloquent might describe it as a fucking-ugly-forty-year-old-piece-of-crap, though that may be pushing the limits of ‘one word’.

Turnip > Home sweet home?

The words appeared as green text in front of my eyes, kind of floating the air.

"How'd you do that?"

Turnip > It's the same mental process you use as when you're sitting at your computer cybering with fat men in South Dakota.

Experimentally I held my hands out in front of me and 'typed' into the air.

Big_D_J > Whoah. Cool.

Turnip > Unlike you.

BDJ > Piss off.

The thing you need to know about me, is I'm funny, I'm smart, and I'm brutal. You probably saw already the way I typed to Turnip. I'm also pretty cool as you also guessed by now.

Turnip > You're an unreliable narrator.

BDJ> What are you talking about?

Turnip > Nevermind. Ready for your first mission?

BDJ > Mission? Like, a quest?

Turnip > LOL

Turnip > If you like.

BDJ > Sweet. And can I like... check my inventory?

Turnip > Yeah. Look in your pockets.

BDJ > LOL. What about my status?

Turnip > Status: You're a douche.

BDJ > I meant stats! Typo!

Turnip > You're not even typing. You're waving your fingers in the air like a fool. How the hell did you manage a typo when you’re not even really typing? Moron. But yeah. Like this:

>stats

Name: Twat

Level: 1

HP: 100/100

MP: 0/0

SP: 10/10

Attack: 5

Defense: 5

Intelligence: 5

Wisdom: 5

Charm: 5

Stealth: 5

...

BDJ> Ummm. Can I change my name?

Turnip> What? You don't like it? I chose that for you.

BDJ > Yeah. I prefer to go by Big Dick Jamie.

Turnip > I ded.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

BDJ> ???

Turnip > “Big Dick Jamie” LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL!!!!1111one!1

BDJ> Fuck you.

Turnip> Ok you can change it. But there's a five character limit.

BDJ> 5 characters? Wtf?

Turnip > *5* You could go with just 'Dick'. That'd work.

BDJ > Did I say 'fuck you' yet? Because if not, I'm saying it now.

Turnip > LOL

After some experimentation I managed to 'input' a new name for myself. I went for the boring option and just typed in Jamie because I couldn't think of anything cool in only five characters. That, and since this 'game' was apparently on planet Earth, a name like Big Dick Jamie would probably make me stand out a little too much. Oh yeah, I was not impressed with my stats yet. Not at all. ‘5’ was some bullshit. Surely at least my charm should have been 50, right? You like me don’t you? (If you said ‘no’, then this is for you: DOUCHE)

BDJ > Anything cool I should know? And what's my first quest?

Turnip > Cool? By definition anything you know is no longer cool.

BDJ > F--

*You have been muted*

Turnip > Now, you have a few new abilities that the NPCs don't have. For example, you can see people's stats just by looking at them. You can also see their names — they should be floating just above their heads.

BDJ > *You have been muted*

Turnip > Alright, noob. I've got a three part quest for you. You'll get to learn a bit about the game mechanics and get some experience. Part 1 is this: You have to go to the rustic inn "The Collywobbler" and meet the thug Schizo. He will give you a package and an address to deliver it to. Oh yeah, watch out for Brinksy the Shadow.

BDJ > *You have been muted*

Turnip > You'll get Part 2 of the quest when the first part has successfully been completed. This is a branching tree quest, so depending on how you play, things can turn out differently. Any questions?

BDJ > *You have been muted*

Turnip > No? Really??? I'd expect an idiot like you to have tons of questions.

BDJ > *You have been muted*

Turnip > Guess you've grown a brain. Good to see it. Now, off you trot. I've got a hot Cali girl to go see. If you need anything send me a message. Later, loser.

BDJ > *You have been muted*

I slammed my hands down by my side in disgust and annoyance. What right did he have have to mute me? And when was I going to learn how to mute people?

Wait, fuck that.

Mute people? No, when was I going to learn to cast some goddamn fireballs and get to melee against a dozen warriors at once. That was the shit I wanted.

> Inv

You have:

Nothing of interest.

Gold: 8.50

Hmm. Well, that sucked. He could have at least given me a wooden sword or something. Though... come to think of it... maybe walking around Croydon with a wooden sword might attract the wrong sort of attention; make me look a bit dorky or something.

With a little experimentation I pulled up my Quest List:

>quest

Active Quest:

Part 1)

* Meet Schizo at the Collywobbler and collect package.

* Deliver package to ???

Part 2)

???

Part 3)

???

Wow. So informative. NOT.

I let out a sigh and sat down on my sofa. I would need a cup of tea before I started all this, I figured. And surely it would give me a +1 to my intelligence. I sighed again, getting up and going to the kitchen.

I'd need to get myself a serving wench soon — making cups of tea wasn't exactly what Big Dick Jamie the Super Warrior / Mage / Monk / Sorcerer / Barbarian / Mystic / Ninja should be doing.

Of course, I wasn't technically all of those things yet. I was still just an underemployed university graduate desperately hoping to get a grip on the bottom rung of the career ladder. And possibly dead.

Someone less intelligent than me probably would have stormed out the flat immediately to go find Schizo in The Collywobbler, the roughest pub in town, but I needed to get a few things straight in my mind first.

Sipping the tea out of my giant Sports Direct mug I tried to figure out what I knew:

- I died, then I came back to life. In a game. Or possibly the real world dressed up as a game.

- The guy I used to play Threshold of the Gods with, Barry, was now... helping me? Guiding me? Pissing me the hell off?

- The world is a game. Was it always a game? IS it a game? Was this a copy of the world I was on before I died? Is it the same world and I just didn't know I was in a game before? Was I an NPC before?

My brilliant thoughts and deductions were rudely interrupted by the ringing of the telephone affixed to the kitchen wall. I picked the sticky handset up, and, as I did every time, promised myself I’d wipe it down as soon as the call was over.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Jamie? It’s Stuart here, remember me?”

Stuart was the chief-cunt aka boss at the marketing agency I was temping at. When he asked if I remembered him it was in a tone laced with sarcasm of the nastiness kind.

“Stuart? Stuart who?” I asked, and then held the phone out at arm’s length.

Despite the distance from my ear the range and venom of the expletives that burst from it was barely diminished. I took another big gulp of tea while he carried on like a loon.

“Hello? Stuart, are you still there?” I said when he finally paused for breath. “I’m not coming in today”

“What in the everloving fuck of all that is fucky do you mean you little shit?”

“Yeah, I’m feeling a bit… bleh.”

“You fucking what?”

“I’m not feeling it today, Stuart. I’m going to the pub instead. See ya.”

I held out the phone again for another few seconds and basked in the warm glow of his fiery swearing before I began to actually grow scared that he might burst through the phone and throttle me. Though I had suffered worse deaths that day already, I wasn’t quite ready for it to happen again yet.

After hanging up I carried my small-bucket sized mug of Yorkshire Gold and took it to the bedroom and stared at myself in the mirror.

I didn't look any different to how I did before — the same old average twenty-something British guy suffering from the national ailment of misery that we all have from the age of about eleven until we become rich or dead.

But I wasn’t the same old me, was I? I was now a PC in the Real Real World and I had access to information and the chance to gain abilities that I never could have in my old life. In a way, I had already leveled up, hadn’t I?

And this was only the beginning. A new beginning.

"Listen up, fuckhead!" I said to myself in the mirror, my language perhaps inspired by Stuart’s.

"Who? Me?" I answered

"Yeah! This is it! This is the best thing that's ever happened to you! Now go out and complete your mission, you level 1 newb!"

"I'M A FUCKING TIGER BEASTMASTER WARRIOR PRICK! YEAH!"

In my enthusiasm I sloshed some of my tea onto the carpet and — get this — I didn't even bother to try and soak it up with some kitchen towel. I was in fuckin badass mode now.

“YEAH! YOU SPILL THAT TEA, COCKMASTER!”

I slammed the tea down on the bedside table and then started to swing my fists and shadowboxed in front of the mirror.

“TIME TO SLAY SOME BEASTS AND CYBER SOME BITCHES.”

I did a kick and nearly fell over.

“GRAB THE HONIES AND TAKE THE MONIES! LET’S ROLL!”

I slapped myself across the face as a final builder-upper.

“ROAAAAAAAR!”

Grabbing up my mug again, I bolted down the rest of the tea without even stopping for a biscuit and headed out the front door of my flat. Sweat beaded on my head and I felt like a million gold as I stormed out to conquer the world.