---Maddy---
Maddy lay wrapped tightly in a lumpy tassel covered duvet-like blanket in the middle of her hard and uncomfortable rented bed. She stared up at the stone ceiling of her room in silence reflecting on her day.
Maddy couldn’t sleep – she had offered to share the room with Jess who had declined…and well. Without wanting to explain why – or show any ‘weakness’ – Maddy had dropped it. Besides Jess she hadn’t even offered the option to Troy. It would have been fine to share a room – they had already napped together in the dungeon after all... But he was kind of dense about some things and might think she was propositioning him if she asked now – after telling them to get separate rooms.
So here Maddy was alone, feeling like a little girl afraid of the dark.
Her regaining the safety net had been an event and a half. Logically it had went quite well! She got it back without any major cost. She learned some information – the necromancer had dropped stuff left and right not seeming to care about secrecy even if he didn’t want to answer her questions. Lots of puzzle pieces gained. Lots of benefit from the interaction.
Logically she now knew the source of his resentment – he was jealous. Logically she understood it was misplaced – she hadn’t done a single thing wrong. The necromancer was like a grumpy old man claiming he had been beaten as a child and ‘it was unfair the youth of today weren’t being beaten as well’. He ‘had to pay outrageous costs on stuff’ and ‘it wasn’t fair that those things were now cheaper’.
Logically nothing he had said should phase her…
‘Nothing you have done is special.’
‘Nothing you can do matters.’
Maddy pulled her shaggy not duvet up higher and felt a tiny bit safer.
Logically she should be fine – but emotionally, right here right now, it was hitting her quite a bit harder than it should have.
Logically she knew why that it was as well! She had a hole in her soul defense making her feel vulnerable and exposed. It all made sense.
I hate this. I hate knowing exactly why I feel bad and knowing it's stupid but not being able to push past it. I’ve always been able to control my emotions up till now right? Well…up till then I guess.
At just under 19 years of age Maddison Graves was married to a psychopath. Not one like from the movies – no she was married to a more mundane one. A CEO with a hobby of manipulating her.
For the first 18 years of her life she was brought up being taught how to manipulate others. How to act, how to talk, what to think, what to say.
She got quite good at it – at least she thought she had, everyone was just so easy to interact with. Everyone so easy to control. It was light harmless fun. She was winning at life. Manipulation was a positive thing.
Then she married someone better at manipulation than her and everything fell apart.
Those two years of her life were spent in luxury and pain – everything was her fault but it was fine he forgave her. She slowly grew to love him – think she loved him. A variant of Stockholm syndrome no doubt. Then her life got worse and worse.
She would make dinner for him and a client and then he would sabotage her meal – she only found that out afterwards – leading to her ‘embarassing him in front of the guests’. None of the abuse she went through ever made sense – there didn’t seem to be a goal to it other than him getting off on her misery.
But she could also never prove it. She tried to turn it around on him, act in ways to make him feel guilty – didn’t work – garner sympathy – didn’t work. He didn’t have empathy she could latch onto and treated all her mind games as a child’s attempt at playing.
And then she had run away and tried to meet up with her mother only for her to be waiting there with ‘him’. The traitorous old narcissist. The monster.
And everything continued.
And then just when her thoughts started to turn darker the system appeared. Offering her a way out. She took it, was transported to the tutorial village and tried to make the most of what she had.
‘You're not special, nothing you do matters.’
Maddy hadn’t once thought she was special or better than anyone else. She just wanted to get ahead. She just wanted to survive – but not in the way she knew. She didn’t want to manipulate others. She didn’t want to act like her mother, act like him.
That was it. That’s all she wanted.
‘…for even if you do ‘that’ it will have been my suggestion not your own…’
Maddy should start thinking of better achievements to aim for. As a group they had wasted most of the last day – they should move on. Head ‘deeper’ into this world. Make sure they stayed on the curve.
No need to try and please the dick resurrecting them.
No need to ignore the rarity achievements.
No need to ignore doing stuff just because others had done it before.
She would get stronger her way.
Besides…this world had magic and what human anywhere doesn’t fantasize about using magic?
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---Richard---
Richard was stopped at the gate to Ser by some nerd with a clipboard. Something something he needed to answer a few short ‘voluntary’ questions about his skills and stats and what his tutorial had been like…if anything strange had happened or if there was noteworthy information he felt like sharing.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“I have a skill called morning wood. It makes me good and hard whenever anything attacks me.” – Richard grabbed the nerds mechanical pencil and stabbed himself with it – the pencil snapped with his ‘skill’ demonstration. “Besides that I have oh uh…over thirty stats spread somewhat evenly. I don’t remember the exact number. My tutorial was fine – Can I come in now?”
“If that’s all…you should be fine. Some players did some weird stuff in the tutorial – if you’ve just left it here’s some common information we’ve discovered and are distributing.
There were roughly 40 players in each tutorial. Let out into this initial area there are over 100 – based on people confirming they were from 4 separate tutorials we can confirm there are potentially 160 that will end up in this second zone once everyone leaves the tutorials. Going further away from the sphere you left we link up to 4 other areas and there’s rumors of a third area further out. Both of those let us backtrack without a problem but people from separate areas can’t return to the same version of one.
Going back to the tutorial. Every ‘tutorial zone’ was an identical town filled with identical ‘NPC’s’ giving identical quests. One tutorial had someone break the clock tower – a player climbed up and smashed through the clock face looking for coins. In another tutorial someone killed the mayor and most of the guards – just broke in and slaughtered the ‘NPC’s’ running the place. None of the other tutorials were affected by those two cases and similar stories have begun to spread… some players seem to think their actions don’t have consequences anymore!
I’m here to tell you that’s not the case! Our guild is watching this town like hawks!
– we just want you to know anything that diminishes, or ruins other players experience will be punished severely.
Welcome to Ser! If you are interested in joining the united players alliance, feel free to seek out one of our reps near the dungeon!” The nerd excitedly finished his speech and waved Richard in.
…
Some players seem to be having fun. I'd like to get to know the guy who broke the clock tower – how did he get past the slippy area? Also Fuck guilds. All my homies hate guilds – they are like unions. Sure, In theory I agree with the principle behind them – 'fuck the rich' – but in practice they piss me the fuck off.
Bunch of annoying twats gathering together in large numbers. Think just because they are in a group, they are more important than the rest of us.
Richard took a deep breath and tried to put them behind him. He wasn’t going to get riled up – he had a goal.
Don’t bully the noobs, get to a higher leveled hunting ground. Figure out what breaking my skill outside of magic means. You got this! In and out. Directions, info. Oh hey look. Muggers!
Richard stared at a group of sleezy looking men rifling through a players bag. NPC’s – locals – harassing one of his fellows.
…seems like a change of pace? It's not like anything that bad can happen to players. Worse they die and revive. Ignore it. Go on, “get”. Stick to the plan.
Richard turned away then paused and glanced back. He looked for a map or a tourist booth or something…
Despite himself Richard found himself idly scanning the surroundings. No one was doing anything – both NPC’s and surpisingly the other players were just…ignoring it.
Oh, now they are punching the poor sap.
Richard glanced around for a weapon. If he used his hammer it would be…more lethal than he was intending. Feel too overused. Too much him simply blasting past with power. He needed something ‘safer’ like a foam hammer or bucket of slime. Something he could talk himself into using.
The road he was on was something like a commercial district – a wide bricked path lined with shops. Based on the sign one shop sold oil. One was a “fixer” – and looked something like a mechanics shop. One was a butcher.
Good enough.
Strolling over Richard stared at the butcher’s offerings – slabs of red and purple meat perfect for slapping people with. Haunches of strangely shaped creatures and plucked birds. Marbled offerings that looked to be processed with cheese or something. Sausages and meatballs.
Everything listed a price in ‘chips’…
Richard had one pip. What was the exchange rate between pips and chips? Could this buy him anything?
…probably not.
As Richard stood there a gross smell wafted past his nose – a rotting stench of sour meat. It smelt awful but somehow Richard didn’t mind? Probably something to do with defensive stats.
Following the smell around back Richard strolled until he found a large dumpster of garbage. Rags, plastic, unidentifiable goop and a pile of rotting meat.
Picking a mostly intact cloth bag out of the trash Richard began filling it with garbage. Picking some choice bits of rot out, then tying it together with a rubbery string he hefted the makeshift ‘weapon’.
“I’m such a good person” Richard muttered to himself heading back to the allyway to see if the mugging was still happening – oh good! He hadn’t missed it.
Taking a running start Richard came barreling in swinging.
Smack.
That…was the most glorious sound Richard had ever heard. Just the right tinge of wetness. The intake of breath and shout from his target were a nice touch as well.
…he was going to have to hear that one again.
Smack, smack, smack.
Richard knocked three muggers to their knees before they could react. The fourth and final thug turned held some stun gun-like device and jabbed it towards Richards's chest.
Letting it hit even as he swung downwards, Richard found himself slowed slightly – it felt like he was moving through fudge for a second and then whatever the item was stopped working with a spark.
Just before Richard kicked his knees in and began smacking the leaders face in with his smelly meat the man had a sudden flash of fear.
Smack,
Smack,
Smack.
Richard probably hit each of the four muggers over a dozen times each. At some point his bag had broken and Richard had needed to swap to slapping them with a sausage – just as satisfying but less effective.
The mugger's victim was long gone – he had disappeared a few seconds after Richard saved him...but really he didn't matter. what mattered was being able to smack thugs around.
Surpisingly after he had broken their slowing machine none of the men seemed to have much fight in them.
…them just sitting there and taking his beating, slowly sucked the fun out of the task for him so Richard slowly stopped.
🥩 Achievement get: Beat some meat with your meat. (rare)
Description: You dished out a punishment upon multiple people weaker than you using meat.
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Stat: +3 body power.
Yeah yeah I get it.
Fuck
What now?
Karma I guess – I forgot to loot the last bodies and these seem willing to give me some pennies.
Pulling out his translator and making sure it was on, Richard stared down at the NPC’s and got to talking.
“This right here? I’m calling it Richard karmic services. You lot seem to be taking things from people and I’m out here to take them from you instead.”
One of the men yelled some garbled nonsense and Richard reached out to stroke his face with his sausage.
“Shhh, shhh. I know…you robbed it fair and square. Well now I’m robbing it back fair and square – give me everything you got or I’ll switch to my friend back here.” Richard thumbed his hammer expectantly.
Looking at each other and talking more in their made up language – they might be planning on attacking him or running away, Richard didn’t really know or care. They hadn’t put up much of a fight anyways it might be fun if they tried something.
Slowly but surely a pile of rectangular crystals and bags and an eyepiece appeared in front of Richard.
Sweeping it all up Richard smiled at each of them then left the alleyway with a skip in his step.
“Violence can solve all your problems. – Hey I just realized I’m robbing hood! Where’s my achievement for mugging the muggers? Come on system don’t be stingy.”
The stingy system didn’t respond and Richard found himself moving on.
He found a map. On it there was some squiggles showing random places, there was some cities, monster dens – more importantly a place to go.
“Found the higher leveled zone…and it looks like there’s a blimp ride to it? Always wanted to ride one of those. Where do I go to hitch a ride?”
Continuing his sightseeing, Richard found he liked the aesthetics of this area. It reminded him of some games he had enjoyed. It gave him a good feeling. Happy memories.
Finally finding the blimp office Richard paid the 100 something chip fee to not have to walk anymore and boarded the giant dirigible.
“Why is my first thought I wonder how hard this would be to pop?” Richard looked around but found the few other passengers non responsive.
Guess I’ll just take a nap.