“Show… uh… show stat screen.”
Processing Request… Result: &&&$$%??? Unknown variables. Processing…
ERROR: System Holdings Indigenous Things unable to access Player Interface.
“Hey!” My voice, previously just a whisper, now rose to a disgruntled whine. I was standing just outside the food court façade and had decided to pull up my interface to see what I was working with before barging into an enclosed space with whoever or whatever waited inside. “But I am a player; you said so yourself! System… thing!”
Off to the side of my HUD, just below a little envelope icon (which I bet would open up my email thread with these lunatics), I saw an icon that looked like a file folder, and, on a hunch, focused on it. It brought up a space for saved text, the only one of which existed at the moment being a log of my interface dialogue. I opened it with a thought and scrolled back up.
“There. There! See? You welcomed me as a ‘System Initiate,’ and then you called me a ‘combatant.’ Can I see my combatant stats?”
Processing Request…
Processing Request… Result: &&&$$%??? Unknown variables. Processing…
ERROR: System Holdings Indigenous Things unable to access Combatant Interface.
Processing… Override.
New directive… Combatant Interface unlocked.
The blue overlay flashed as a new page of characters flooded the screen, and just like that, I was in. I cocked an eyebrow and shot a glance up at the stars. “Thanks, elf-man… uh… god. If that was you.”
Combatant Stat Screen
Name: Henry
“Oh fuck that. Hang on.” I concentrated on the name line and, sure enough, thank the elves, a blinking cursor appeared. I mentally erased ‘Henry’ and replaced it with my preferred moniker.
Combatant Stat Screen
Name: Quart
Level: 5
Class: Unspecified
Base Stats
Charisma: 2
Constitution: 3
Intelligence 6
Luck: 2
Strength: 4
Wisdom: ERROR: UNKNOWN VARIABLE
Pools
Health (HP): 100/100
Spirit (SP): ERROR: UNKNOWN VARIABLE
Stamina (StP): 90/100
There were more categories below that; I was dimly aware of Equipment, Armor, and Skills, but I stopped reading and the blue faded to nothing as I lost focus of it. I shook my head, mouth hanging slack. “Dude,” I said to no one in particular. “Charisma 2? Low fucking blow, man. I mean, I know I’m not out taking someone home every other night, but still. Geez. Could have padded that a little, hit us lonely singles with a handicap. Rude.”
My low luck also confused me; it seemed to me I’d been given the keys to the kingdom here, between my dual player type and my rescue and personal audience with elf-man within the first hour of the first beam. But, then again, that first beam had incinerated the bed I’d been sleeping in, I’d been running around without pants in the night, been forcibly thrown into the path of another mind-bendingly painful beam, and nearly had my account terminated and my ass deleted, so on balance… maybe 2 was fair?
I was about to dive back in when I heard a sound in the darkness. I looked up and, squinting, made out the figures of several of those bag-lady monsters shuffling across the empty parking lot, occasionally wheezing, and all closing in on a single point.
Me.
“Well, shit. Time to go in.”
I scampered over in front of the automatic doors. Which, of course, didn’t budge. Well, no shit; it was the middle of the night. Sensor was off. There were doors with everyday handle-bars off to either side, so I grabbed the closest and gave it a yank.
“Ah, fuck me.” I sighed and turned to face the approaching witch-bags once again. “Looks like it’s just you and me, ladies… or, um… sacks. Locked out on a balmy midsummer eve. Heh, witches at midsummer. You guys see that movie midsommar? Trippy… kind of a fun ride though. Weirdly.”
The monsters ignored my nervous banter and continued their inexorable shuffle toward me. In spite of my perpetual good-humored presentation, I began to feel decidedly uncomfortable. I cursed again and pulled my screen back up, selecting the “Bag’o’knives” and spinning a virtual carousel of knives before spotting one medium-length, sharp, solid-looking bugger with a polished steel handle. The kind that looked to have some weight to it. I pulled it out and the real thing appeared in my hand.
I grinned.
“Bet you bag witches didn’t know there’s exactly one sport I’m not complete shit at, did you?” I flipped the knife in the air and caught it easily by the blade, prepped to throw.
“Darts.”
The knife flew end over end from my hand, a thing of beauty, steel glinting in the starlight, and found its purchase.
“Heh, nice. Still got it.”
I watched in satisfaction and no small degree of morbid curiosity as the knife disappeared into the burlap, leaving a gaping wound, and sand began to pour out like water. But after just a moment the sand stopped flowing out and crawled back into the hole. It was bizarre, like watching time pause and rewind; I half expected my field of vision to ripple and buck with a bit of white static at the edges, as if I were watching it all play out on an old VHS, but no dice. Not only did the sand fully return and the burlap sew itself back together; the monster continued to advance unimpeded, as if nothing had happened.
“Ha!” I chortled in disbelief. Fuck. I pulled out another knife and hit it again. Then another knife into the bag next to it. Same result, no slowing.
Now the fuckers were getting close, and even though I knew this was a dream, I couldn’t shake the involuntary dread and repulsion I felt at the thought of any of them getting their sacks on me. Beginning to panic, I grabbed a running start and threw myself at the glass doors.
“Gahhh!” I got a nasty bruise on my arm and a -2HP for my trouble. “Fuck!”
Well, that wasn’t going to work. Fuck. What would a real MC do?
Use a skill, of course! I raised my hand but resisted the urge to slap my forehead with it as I pulled up my stats again. Beneath Equipment and Armor I found the Skills submenu and quickly expanded it to fill my vision.
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Skills
Pothead
Keep a Lid on It
Edward Breadknife Hands
Peanut Butter Jelly Time
Candyman
Polysynthetic Fall
The fuck was with these skill names? I was curious, I’ll admit, but the bag witch creatures were almost within arm’s reach and I just really, really needed to put a wall between myself and them, not satisfy my curiosity. Rattled, I selected the first skill, willing with all my might to use it at that moment.
Skill: Pothead
You are able to directly manifest a coppertin stock pot atop your head from the ambient cosmic Qi or any cosmic Qi you have cultivated as spirit.
Effects:
Armor (head): +10
Damage (from head): +15
10% chance on use of triggering Berserker ability: Boil over; +20% damage output, -1HP per second for 60 seconds or until cooled off.
10% chance on use of triggering Debuff: Earboxed; -10HP, completely deaf for 60 seconds.
You have activated skill: Pothead!
You have triggered Berserker ability: Boil Over!
I immediately felt the weight of the stockpot, which I hadn’t recalled losing, settle on my head again, feeling heavier and sturdier than before, and also hot. Like, red-faced with steam puffing out my ears while a train whistle blows hot. I winced from the heat but also felt strong on a level I’d never imagined before. Glass? Ha! Fuck glass. I felt like I could run through a brick wall now.
“I can handle that,” I muttered. Then I grit my teeth, bowed my head, and charged through the door.
It shattered.
I charged through, more surprised than anything else, taking deep cuts on every limb as I plowed my way through the glass door. Shards all around the edges of the hole bent and pushed inward without breaking, scouring my flesh. True to its nature, the Berserker skill blinded me from most of the pain; I was nothing but an unstoppable bullet of pure adrenaline.
For a few seconds.
That ended as I lay, panting and bleeding out, on the nasty-ass industrial rug (you know the kind) just inside.
-40HP
You are bleeding profusely! -2HP per second until you stop bleeding or expire.
Berserker ability Boil Over subtracts 1HP per second for 60 seconds or until cooled.
WARNING! Your HP pool has passed beneath 50%.
“Ughhn… not again,” I winced. My HP began to tick down, minus 3 per second. And I only had 46HP left. That gave me, what—3 times 10 for 30, 3 times 5 another 15, then 1–nope , not anymore, time was passing!—well, somewhere around 45… 44… eh fuck, 40 seconds left. Seriously, how many times was I going to almost die in this dream? I really needed to switch up my reading habits; I must have been erring on the side of grimdark. Not enough Krout, too much Cajiao (no disrespect; both churn out some kickass books).
I realized my ETA for death was generous at best as I saw the first burlap sack creature begin to follow me through the broken glass. But my ragged breathing stopped with a little laugh when I saw what happened next; the burlap tore wide open as it passed over the jagged edge, and the sand inside collapsed into a formless heap, inert.
“Ha! Haha! Fuckers!” I pushed myself up on one hand and pointed at the hole with my other, index finger extended like that Leo meme where he’s holding the beer and pointing at the TV. You know the one.
I sighed in relief, then grunted in pain. Well. At least the monsters wouldn’t get me. Nope, I’d die on my own terms: boiled alive in a puddle of blood on the floor of that great American institution, the shopping mall food court. God bless ‘Murica.
Then someone shot me.
“HEY!” I yelled, whipping my head around, but I was dizzy from the blood loss and low HP, and I tipped over onto my side. My stockpot rang all around my head like someone was playing it like a meditation bowl, or pelting it with an air compressor, or spraying it with—
I tilted my head up in realization. I just barely made out a stream of water peripherally, then my vision filled with a cloud of steam that began to surround my head like my own personal cloud.
Berserker ability: Boil Over has ended; you have been cooled off. -1HP per second has ended.
“Drink this,” a man’s voice said, and I felt a small vial come to my lips. In no position to resist (and having a general guess as to where this was going), I gulped down the contents like a dying man. Which, coincidentally, I was.
You Consume Potion of Minor Healing
+25HP
You are no longer Bleeding Profusely. -2HP per second has ended.
Nice. I glanced at my current HP, which sat at an improved but not too rosy 58.
“Got another one of those?” I asked.
The man snorted mirthlessly. “You’ll live. For now.”
“Great,” I muttered, pushing myself back up on one arm. The stranger grabbed my hand and yanked me to my feet, where, after a brief dizzy spell, I found I could remain if I didn’t turn my head too quickly side to side.
“Get back,” he commanded, walking toward the door, assault rifle raised. Between his British accent and military posture, he could have been an extra in a Christopher Nolan war movie.
“Oh, it’s ok,” I began to tell him, “those sack things just rip open on the glass. They can’t really come…” My words trailed off and I watched in a mixture of wonder and annoyance as the heap of sand began to rise into an upright form, and the previously shredded strips of burlap wrapped themselves around it, coming together at the seams as if an invisible fairy godmother was orchestrating the whole thing. Within moments, the monster was fully inside, fully intact, and shambling towards us again.
Then the guy fired his gun.
So maybe I should have really put this together from before, but hey, I’d been on the verge of death and was still feeling pretty subpar, so sue me. My skills of observation were maybe a little compromised. He wasn’t holding an assault rifle at all. The guy was holding a straight-up retro late 90s Super Soaker, the kind with the long yellow stock and the big green bulbous tanks on top.
Aw, man. She was a thing of beauty.
But, ah… “Hey,” I said, “you know that’s not a real gun… right?”
He fired it anyway. Again. And again. He pumped the stock furiously and sprayed for all he was worth. And you know what? It worked. It fucking did. The bag stopped in its tracks and collapsed, water soaking through the sack, and this time the sand that emerged came in hardened clumps of wettened soil. The man raced over and began to kick furiously, spreading the clumps out in a wide circle. When he stopped to catch his breath, he surveyed his work, nodded once, and turned to me.
He was of a similar height and build as me, which is to say average. His hair was blonde and cut short, and he wore blue jeans and a gray polo shirt with a brown bomber jacket over it. He rested the Super Soaker on his shoulder like a Marine.
“Accept this.”
“Man, you’re going to have to be specific. There’s almost nothing about this situation to find acceptable. Or even halfway credible.”
Combatant: Bryan Todd has invited you to form a party with them. Accept? Y/N
“Ohhh, you mean… accept this.”
He gave a short nod. I shrugged—what the hell—and accepted his request. I didn’t know him from Adam, but he’d just saved my life. I wasn’t saying I was going to swear an eternal life debt or anything, but I figured I owed him for the moment, at least.
“What’s your class?” he asked.
I blinked at him. “Sorry, my class? This all just started, man. Did we get classes yet?”
He looked down and shook his head, as if silently admonishing himself. “Right. Sorry. What, uh… what skills do you have so far?”
My many hours of reading told me this was the point at which the main character grew suspicious and almost decided not to trust his soon-to-be ally, eventually-to-be bosom friend, so I decided to dodge that hiccup and just tell him.
“That was something called Pothead. Not because of all the smoke, but because of the giant stockpot on my—”
“Head.” His face broke into a grin. “Excellent. Wasn’t sure if it was the skill this time, or if you were just, ah, wearing it. You know. Normal-like.”
“Right, normal. Wait.” I frowned. “This time? Oh fuck. Are you a regression character too? Hey, give it to me straight, Bryan. Do I have amnesia?”
He shifted his weight. “Not really amnesia… eh, not as such. But I suppose you could think of yourself that way if it makes all this easier to process for a bit.”
“All this?” I gestured about to the puddles of blood, the clumps of sand, the… very large pile of assorted, seemingly random mall-shop items stacked behind us in the middle of the food court. “The fuck…?”
“Hold that thought mate, got another one just now.” I looked in the direction of his gaze and saw more loose sand around the entryway was beginning to glom together in burlap wrapping. “Two, Christ. Here, take this.”
He tossed me a Super Soaker. “Nice.”
We made short work of the two that had begun forming, but a third tried to sneak around before coalescing and almost got the jump on me.
“Bloody fucking fuck,” Bryan muttered, squeezing his trigger to no avail. I spun on my heel and took aim, dizzy, missing at first, but taking out the monster eventually.
You have defeated Sand Witch, Level 3. +3XP.
Your Party has defeated Sand Witch, Level 3, 2. +3XP.
Oh, nice--shared XP! When I turned back to comment, I saw Bryan holding a tube of—
“Is that lube?” I squinted, trying to read the label in the dark (well, let’s be honest; pretending I didn’t recognize it immediately for what it was).
Bryan popped the top open and squeezed the entirety of its contents into the hopper tank atop his squirter. “Don’t judge me, mate. Shit’s right, it works good. Here.” As soon as he finished, he procured a second tube from the inner breast pocket of his jacket and tossed it to me. “Lube up.”
I gave him a flat stare.
“What? You used to love jokes. C’mon. Load up… but it’s lube? Get it?”
“Oh, I get it.” I too opened my tube and squeezed the lube into my squirt-gun tank. “It just wasn’t funny.”
“Yeah, well. I should say that does you credit, though, truth be told, I just gave you my best impression of you, so… not sure what that says about your concept of self. Anyway, no running water, so I figured, lube’s the next best thing.”
“And you just happened to be carrying a few tubes on you?”
He shrugged. “I understood the assignment and I came prepared. This isn’t my first rodeo, as the yanks say.”
“No, it isn’t, is it?” I peered at him. Another two creatures struggled upright, and we blasted them away. “So what the fuck is going on?”
He lowered the nozzle of his weapon. “I won’t lie to you or prevaricate around the bush, Quart, because I already know you and I know you can handle this. I’ve had to deal with all the ridiculous shit you say… a few times.”
“How many?”
He bit his lip, considering. “It’s my fourth go-around.”
I nodded. I suppose that explained the foresight to bring squirt-guns and lube, anyway. “You’ve fought these things four times.”
“I’ve fought a lot more than these. So have you. Or, other versions of you, I guess? I don’t know how all that works; and to be fair, this is the first time I’ve found you this early. So while I know exactly what we should be on about for the first few weeks, probably after that everything will change. You know how these things go.”
I nodded again. “I do. Butterfly effect. Classic regression trope. Got it.”
He chuckled softly. “Yeah, you and your tropes.”
“Don’t be a hater, Bryan. Tropes are the lifeblood of genre fiction. They are the web that bridge from axis point to axis point in every narrative, the clothing worn by every character, the scale on which every novel is paced. Like them or lump them, they are the essence of every great read. Ooo, I wonder if there’s a trope essence. Hey! Are there essences in this system apocalypse?”
“And to think, I’d almost begun to miss your incessant rants. You know, you’re not Jason Asano, Quart.”
Another burlap sack came together. Another burlap sack got lubed to muddy bits.
“Oh yeah? What’s that monster called, then?”
He frowned. “A Sand Witch.”
“Mmmhm.” I kicked a clump of dirt. “You sure I’m not?”