Milly awoke several hours later, the early afternoon sun partially shaded by wispy clouds drifting across a gorgeous blue sky. A flock of birds glided through the air above her, landing the grass thicket a short distance away.
Her head ached and her mouth was dry. Sweat still soaked her hoodie, the vomit on the front now dried in the heat except where it clung to the sweat. The stench of the creature still hung in the air. She desperately needed a mint.
She reached down to touch Xavier, slowly opening her eyes and squinting as the glare from the sun gave her a headache. There was no sign of him.
“Xavier? Xavier!” Milly called frantically, terrible scenarios dancing across her mind as she felt herself start to panic.
“Over here. Keep your voice down,” came Xavier’s call, gruff and impatient, but very much alive. Milly’s heart soared.
She stood, her knees weak and tingling from kneeling so long. Had she been that tired? She remembered feeling drained after healing Xavier. She focused on the pool of energy inside her, and was surprised she could not only instinctively locate it, but know that it had been partially refilled while she had slept.
Milly found Xavier crouched over the creature’s body, its spear clenched in his hand and his fingers running through its mangy hair as if searching for something.
“How are you feeling?” asked Milly, reluctant to get any closer to the creature’s body. She stood in the tall grass, watching and waiting, absentmindedly picking off the ticks that had attached themselves to her while she rested.
“Fine,” came Xavier’s tight response. His shirt was caked in blood, but only a scab beneath his hair was left of his injury. He gave a frustrated grunt and stopped searching the corpse. He held the creature’s spear aloft, looked briefly at Milly, and then placed the spear in his own inventory.
“It was on his left side,” Xavier said as he walked by her.
“What?” Milly responded, confused by his tone.
“The spear was on its left side, not its right side, as you said,” he spat, “I had planned for his right side.”
Milly looked at him, flabbergasted. She felt her blood start to boil. “You…you ungrateful, condescending piece of shit!” she shouted at him, and he looked at her, shocked. “You ran in there, all sure of yourself, and fucked up. And somehow that is my fault? I almost died fighting that thing.” She showed him the slice through her hoodie, “I healed you and saved your life, and all you can say is ‘it was on his left side’?”
She was breathing heavily from her righteous anger, the emotion breaking through her layers of self-doubt and passiveness like a hammer through glass. “Don’t you dare…don’t you dare try to paint me with your failure. You’d be dead right now, food for that creature, if it wasn’t for me.”
He stared at her for a long time, eyes shifting as if trying to understand and respond. Eventually, he looked down, kicking softly at something unseen in the dirt.
“It was a goblin, I think,” he murmured.
“What?” Milly said, her voice cold as ice.
“The creature. A goblin. In many rpg games, it is one of the first monsters that players encounter. It is weak and feeble, meant to be easily defeated by the player for early level ups and to help the player learn how the game works. They are a joke. A joke.”
Milly was about to launch into another angry tirade, when she saw tears start to fall onto the ground beneath Xavier’s feet. He looked up at her, eyes wet and filled with fear and self-loathing.
“A joke, Milly. A joke. I’m fast. I’m strong. I know video games better than anyone. And I lasted two seconds. Two seconds! I could have died if you have not been here. This was my dream world, and it turns out I am as useless here as I am in real life.”
Milly’s anger broke like a wave crashing against the shore. She pulled Xavier into a tight hug. His arms went around her, and he buried his face in her shoulder and cried until he had no more tears to shed.
“You are not useless, Xavier,” she said when he had stopped shaking, “You are a jerk with the interpersonal skills of a lima bean, but you are not useless. Don’t ever think that. You just got unlucky. Isn’t luck just part of a game?”
Xavier leaned back, rubbing away the last of the tears. “You know, in certain genres, luck is added as a player stat that can be increased upon level up or with certain skills or items. I can help with…” he looked at her, then blushed red. “Sorry,” he apologized shyly.
“It’s ok,” she whispered, “I have never minded your rants. I never understood them, but it was just a part of why you are.” She gave him a soft grin and a laugh, “Besides, I guess they have more relevance now.”
He returned her laugh, and she felt the tension melt away between them. “Yah, I guess they do.”
“So…what were you doing with that…goblin?” she asked tentatively.
“Looting it,” he said simply, then elaborated when he saw her confused expression. “Umm… searching its body for useful items. Weapons, armor, trinkets, even body parts to sell or for crafting.”
“Eww…” Milly said, disgusted.
Xavier laughed, “Yah, don’t worry. I wasn’t ripping out its teeth or anything. No sense going there until we know whether it is a mechanic in this game.”
“Yah, I would rather not walk around with an inventory full of body parts,” agreed Milly, gagging, “Besides, this ‘looting’ occurs automatically. I got a message after…after protecting myself from that one. It said I earned one gold piece and it added a ‘soiled goblin loincloth’ to my inventory.”
“Auto looting,” Xavier said appreciatively, “That will save time and be far less gross. Gold is this world’s currency, which is also common. Let me see that loincloth.”
“I really, really don’t want to take the loincloth out,” Milly said. Her stomach was already churning with the smell in the air.
“Come on, it could be important. Let me see,” Xavier insisted.
Milly reluctantly opened her inventory and, with two very tentative fingers, grasped the icon for the loincloth and drew it out of the inventory.
The smell was horrendous, and they both gagged and covered their mouths, Milly dropping the loincloth to the ground and backing away. Xavier grabbed a nearby stick and lifted it gently. He focused and a small screen appeared next to it.
Item: Soiled Goblin Loincloth
Pointless, unless your buyer has an extremely specific underwear fetish
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
Benefit: None
Sell for: 0 gold
Xavier gave a weak laugh. “This system has a sense of humor,” he said, breathing through his mouth. “Do you want it?”
“Oh, gross, no. Keep it away from me,” Milly protested.
Xavier waved the stick in her direction, and she gagged. He laughed and used the stick to place it in his own inventory.
“You are keeping it?” Milly asked, disgusted.
“You never know what might come in handy,” Xavier answered, though even he looked doubtful. He stood up, walking away from the corpse.
“So…now what?” Milly asked, eyes darting back to the towers in the distance.
“Well, we really have two choices. Head back to the office, where we will fall behind the others, grow weak and scared, and probably die a horrible death. Or we press forward, grow strong and brave, and probably die a horrible death.”
Milly chuckled despite herself. It was absurd, but Xavier had a black and white outlook on the situation that seemed to cut through the constant fear knocking at her door.
“Press on then?” she said, hoping she sounded brave.
“Press on,” Xavier agreed, and they strode into the tall grass together.
* * *
They rested in the shade of a small copse of willow trees, their leaves gently rustling in the afternoon breeze. A small creek ran beside them, five paces across and slow as it wound its way across the flat prairie landscape.
Milly had her player profile open, and Xavier was showing her how it worked.
“See, when you beat that goblin, you leveled up. That’s how you got your talent point, though you don’t get one each time you level up. Tutoria kept that vague, and there seem to be multiple ways of receiving new talents. She did not tell me how though. Apparently, some parts of the game’s system are locked until we discover how to unlock them.”
Milly had her shoes off, one foot resting in the warm creek and the other clasped in her hands, her blue healing glow working its literal magic on a blister that had been forming. She reveled in its cool touch as it soaked up the pain like a sponge. “I could use more talents like this,” she purred. Her shirt was damp where she had tried to wipe off the vomit, but in the process had made the cut across her midriff wider. “Maybe tailoring.”
“Well, you will have your pick. I have never seen a talent map this diverse in a game. There are tens of thousands of options. I only read a fraction of them as we were walking here. There are common ones, like your healing magic or elemental magic, or combat ones like sword skills. I always go the swordman route, so that is the one I will pick first. Stealth and ranged weapon skills are common in games too. But then there is an entire section for agriculture and another for politics. One for art and another for construction. I saw one that gave the player an expert level understanding of ancient Sumerian. You could probably find any skill you wanted if you spent enough time looking for it.”
“Ok, so that’s talents. What are these?” Milly asked, pointing to her two unspent attribute points.
“Well, if the talent map is the most complex I have ever seen, the attribute system is the simplest,” Xavier scoffed, “There are only four attributes to choose from. Strength, which is how strong you are, obviously. Agility, which is your speed and nimbleness. Toughness is how well you withstand damage. And magic is for spellcasting, like your healer’s touch.”
“Then where should I spend my points?” Milly asked curiously.
“Honestly, I have seen games that require hours of complex micromanagement to strike the right balance and maximize gains. But here? You could choose any and be fine right now. They must have made this part of the system simple to understand so it was accessible to most players. Personally, I like multi-input complex systems that allow for creative manipulation of complementary attributes to maximize potential.”
“So…strength then?’ Milly asked.
“Sure, why not,” sighed Xavier, the intricacies of the art of system design lost on Milly.
Milly focused and saw her strength increase from two to four. Suddenly, the muscles throughout her body seized, tightening as if she were having a whole-body charlie horse. She started to scream, and then as suddenly as it came it was gone. And Milly felt…good. Really good. Stronger than she had ever been. It felt like every muscle in her body had been through a year of steady training in the gym.
“Holy crap,” she exclaimed, staring at her arms in wonder. “Xavier, this is amazing. I feel like I could take on the entire world right now.” She punched the air, not caring how silly she looked.
Xavier rested his arm against a fallen willow tree. “Let’s test that out. Arm wrestle?”
“You’re on,” exclaimed Milly excitedly.
It lasted five seconds before Xavier handily won.
Milly looked dejected, but Xavier just laughed. “I have been hitting the gym for five years, Milly. The system gave me a starting strength of six. You are at four with this boost. Not bad, but don’t overestimate the impact of your increase without assessing it first”
“You couldn’t have let me win?” she said sadly, rubbing her arm where Xavier had slammed it down.
Xavier laughed again, “I have never let anyone just win. You want to beat me? Get that strength above a six.”
Milly picked up a fallen twig and tossed it playfully in his direction, then stood up with determination. “I’ll beat you next time. I promise,” she declared, then she slid on her shoes and started walking along the stream further into the plains.
“I don’t intend to be beaten,” Xavier whispered as they left the copse of willows behind. “Not by anything, ever again.”
* * *
Milly knelt in the grass, watching Xavier get into position. The two goblins lay in the open, bellies full and their snoring providing cover as they snuck forward. She held her spear aloft, waiting for the signal.
Xavier whistled and jumped up, hurling his spear towards the closest goblin, and rushed forward with his rusted sword in hand before the spear had finished its flight. Milly did the same, spear flying towards her target and dashing forward with mallet in hand. Except, unlike Xavier, Milly had misjudged her newfound strength, causing her spear to sail wide, embedding itself into the ground next to Xavier’s target.
“Shit,” she whispered with frustration as her target started to stir, eyes opening wide just in time to watch Milly’s mallet speeding down towards its head, the last thing it would ever see.
“Xavier, do you need…” she started to call, then saw Xavier’s target with a spear impaled in its belly and sword lodged in its neck. Milly did her best to hold back the nausea, only vomiting once this time.
“Ugg…yuck. I will never get use to this,” Milly said, spitting the last of her vomit into the dirt.
Xavier pulled his sword from the goblin’s neck, its blood flowing out from the wound as it twitched on the ground in its death spasms. “Stop thinking of them as real,” he told her, “Just obstacles in our way.”
“That’s…I’m not comfortable with that, Xavier. I know these things will try to kill us, but they certainly seem real. I don’t want to assume that everything out here will be trying to kill us,” she said, uncertainly.
“Suit yourself,” Xavier said, opening the message screen and smiling as he read the results, “They are just bags of experience to me. Speaking of which, these bags were enough to give me my first level.”
Milly was uncomfortable with Xavier’s view, but she set her worries aside and opened her message.
You have defeated two Goblin Scouts.
You have been awarded 10 experience points.
Items: Soiled Goblin Loincloth.
Gold: 1
“How come I only received ten experience this time when we killed two goblins? I got ten experience last time for killing one. Same with gold.” Milly asked, curiously. “And what’s with all the loincloths!”
Xavier was quiet for a moment, then answered. “In some games, if you win as part of a group, the group splits the experience and rewards. It looks like this is one of those games. The larger your group, the less you will receive. It makes adventuring alone more effective and profitable.”
“But it is dangerous to go alone,” Milly added, holding her nose and passing over the loincloth, “Here, take this.”
Xavier burst out laughing at Milly’s words, though when she asked why Xavier said it was ‘a gamer thing’ so she would not understand. He simply took the loincloth and stuck it in his inventory, then finished his level up.
Milly watched as he gritted his teeth in pain for a moment as he assigned his attribute points, then saw a giant grin spread across his face, eyes dancing with delight. “Wow, this is amazing. Absolutely incredible.” He clenched his hands, delighting in his newfound abilities.
“What did you take?” Milly asked curiously.
Xavier paused for a moment, considering. “Two points in strength, and that talent for basic sword forms. But keep that to yourself. In these games, your strengths and weaknesses are best kept to secret. The less your enemies know, the more you can surprise them.”
“You are not my enemy, Xavier,” Milly said with confidence.
“Still…” Xavier said, “Best to keep it to yourself. Trust me. People change when they get powerful. So you need to focus on your own survival first.”
Milly wanted to argue with him. But what if he was right?
She glanced back at the office towers in the distance, and suddenly felt cold in the prairie sun.
***
Mildred Persephone Brown
Player
Level: 2
Specialty: Survival
Strength: 4
Agility: 3
Toughness: 8
Magic: 6