It was ten minutes later when Rick came across the first barrier, and though the man standing at the entrance to the tunnel was large, it didn’t deter him.
The AI bot’s hands were massive, and his shoulders were broad. In most games, he’d be a “heavy,” though there’d been a few bots who’d been deceptively agile for how musclebound they were.
Rick got into position, annoyed he’d dumped the extra boost into strength. Speed had always been the best way to deal with a heavy fighter this early in a match, since there was no way to go at them punch for punch or overwhelm them with superiority in the stat they were built around.
The man was taller than Rick, with blonde hair and a linebacker’s physique. He wore a bully’s cruel smile as he cracked his knuckles, the obvious sign of a grappler.
They circled one another for a few paces before the brutish bot lunged at him, attempting a grab. Rick danced to the side and knocked the man off-balance. The bot recovered in two quick steps, and came back around with a faster-than-expected elbow. Rick pulled out of the way, but it nearly bottomed out his stat bar. He slipped in the loose gravel and barely got away from the man’s gorilla-like mitts. Behind him, the thunder from the storm circle sounded close. Gotta make this faster.
He sent out a quick jab and connected with the bot’s nose, then hooked as he stepped in close, but instead of knocking the bot backward, the grappler caught hold of him.
Panicking, Rick dropped like a stone, pulling the bot after him as he scrambled, kicking in the gravel, backing up through the man’s open legs before he could snap them closed on him.
Rick got to his feet and backed away, waiting for his stamina to hit the halfway point before he drove his right fist back into the man’s face as he was turning. The blow took only a medium-sized chunk of Rick’s stamina, so he followed up with a flying knee that landed awkwardly against the man’s hip. It had barely been enough to stagger the bigger man, but Rick still had enough stamina to trip the bigger man.
The bot went down, but there was no way Rick would prevail against such a beast of a man on the ground. He waited for him to hit the gravel before he swung the heel of his foot at his head.
Though he successfully landed the strike, Rick was horrified when the man caught his ankle and twisted it, sending him flying to the gravel beside the bot. Panicked for the second time in less than a minute, Rick shimmied away from the man’s vice-grip, using a hammer strike against the man’s wrist to drive it into the rough stone of the gravel beneath them.
Panting, Rick got to his feet. The bot winced as it held its wrist. Was it broken? He tried to hide his disappointment when the bot stood and shook out his hand, then flexed it, as if to display that it was still quite functional. Damn.
The bot cracked its neck and smiled. Rick lunged in once more, but then stopped short as the movement of the bot’s chest and shoulders signaled it was about to strike instead of grab.
Rick winced as the man’s massive fist came right at his face. As the Badger skill description had promised, the direct hit turned into the most glancing of blows. The bot’s massive weight carried its momentum forward, however, and Rick kindly obliged it by moving ever-so-slightly out of its way, then tripped it, and added his own weight to the big man as he fell, pushing the man’s head forward into the ground. When they landed, it made for an initial cranial impact followed by the force of Rick’s body slamming against him, driving the bot’s face back into the gravel again, though harder this time. Rick didn’t wait. He pummeled the man’s head with hammer strikes, not stopping until the man’s body faded.
Victory!
A blue and a yellow box appeared.
The deep boom of a nearby thunderclap captured his attention and urged him to process the spoils of victory more quickly than with the other attacker.
The blue box turned into an icon.
Active Skill Acquired!
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Four-Handed Windmill: This Kung Fu move allows you move off-axis from a direct strike and follow up with a double spin, first with two fists, then with two elbows. High chance of connecting with all four blows unless opponent has an appropriate counter-move.
Rick groaned. He’d been loathe to use kung fu of any type. He’d had it beaten into him in the real world that flashy moves brought nothing but pain and defeat.
The yellow box transformed into an icon.
Cosmetic Item Acquired!
Ultra-Rare Item!
Demon’s Horn, Left Side: This three-inch bone spike accentuates your dangerous look. No offensive capability—horn will not damage opponent—but you’ll look like the devil himself! Note: This is one part of a two-part item.
Great. What the hell am I gonna do with a demon’s horn? He collected the item to put into his cosmetic inventory, but paused. What the hell? Who says I can’t have some fun? He equipped the Demon’s horn and ran his hand over it. It felt significantly sharp. He pushed and pulled it, curious whether he could dislodge it. Try as he might, the horn stayed put. He unequipped it and rubbed his head. It was like it had never been there. He equipped it again before another thunderclap from the ever-advancing lightning ring made him hustle into the tunnel. If this isn’t a shortcut, I might be screwed.
Glowing stones set at the top of the cavern walls lit his way as he jogged along the tunnel that stretched ahead and at a slight downward grade. He looked back. The daylight wasn’t as bright as it had been. The lightning ring had caught him in a tunnel on previous runs; he had no safety from that type of weather. After another ten feet, he caught sight of the end of the tunnel. It ended in a wall. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
He ran—forward, not back. It was far too late to go back now. His only hope was that he had whatever the barrier required for him to get through. Every barrier had a solution—the game had taught him that.
His hopes dimmed as he got closer. It looked like a wall of solid stone. It wasn’t so much that the tunnel had been obstructed than that it seemed as if someone had simply gotten tired of carving a tunnel through solid rock and just… stopped.
He ran his hand over the rough stone wall, searching for… something—a loose section, a gap, a hole. A thunderclap boomed behind him. Holy shit. That was close. He searched more frantically, getting on his hands and knees to scrub the stone with his hands in wide circles. Come on. Come on!
He rose into a kneeling position. “Fuck! There’s got to be a way, dammit!” When he got back on his hands to search, he cursed again as his cosmetic Demon’s Horn scraped the stone. He reached for it, before remembering he had to store it to get rid of it, but when he saw the scratch he’d made, he froze. It was red. More than that, it was dripping.
“What the…” He dabbed his finger against the red and held it to his nose. He fought his own revulsion as he held it to his tongue. You can’t get a disease inside a dream simulation. The taste… “Blood? What the actual goddamned fuck?”
Because once the horn was in inventory, and because it was an anatomical item, he couldn’t remove the horn from his head without it going immediately into inventory. He stood, then bent his head against stone more carefully. Slowly, he scraped the stone, then checked again. “Whoa.”
What the hell do I do with a bleeding stone? The thunder roared again, sounding closer. Something about the air seemed changed, as if it had been imbued with a soft blanket of static electricity. He stared at the bleeding wall and ran his hand along the horn. What was I supposed to do if I didn’t have this? The simulation was basically a guided dream, but this sort of coincidence seemed strange, even taking that into consideration. Did the game limit its enemies and barriers to only those you have the possibility of overcoming? He’d have a lot of questions for Alex when he got out.
He turned his attention to the wall and scratched more, but this time, halfway through his scratching, the stone moved. More than that, it roared.
He looked up. The stone bounced down the tunnel as it scurried away, revealing there was more of a tunnel behind where the wall had just been. After a dozen or so feet, the bleeding stone wall vanished, and daylight took its place.
Rick glanced from side to side as he crept to the end of the tunnel. As he approached the exit, he slowed further, wary of an ambush. When he stepped out, he rapidly checked for any sign of whatever it was that had blocked the tunnel, but nothing presented itself. As a shadow fell over him, he tensed, then dove forward.
Whatever it was, it had barely missed him, and he turned to face it as he leapt to his feet.
What the hell? The creature must have been some variety of Wild One, though it didn’t look like any animal he’d yet encountered. The beast stood on its hindquarters and roared. It had a hawk’s beak, or rather a gargoyle-like interpretation of the same. It’s long, muscular arms almost dragged along the ground, though it stood fully erect. Plates of pale green, bonelike armor covered its chest, and its skin was leathery, if not scaled, reminding him of that of a tortoise. Long toes with long claws spread from its birdlike feet, though unlike the legs of a chicken, this beast’s legs were thick and muscular.
A flash of lighting lit the sky above them. Oh fuck, that’s close. How had ring-out boundary caught him so quickly?
The beast charged, and at the last moment, Rick dodged and deployed Four-Handed Windmill. His first strike missed, but the following three landed in rapid succession along the body of the strange creature, but to minimal effect.
Fucking Kung Fu.
The vegetation around the mouth of the cave he’d exited waved as the wind picked up. The light dimmed suddenly, as if a solstice had stolen the day from them.
He’d glanced down the path away from the cave, then back at the beast. There was no way he’d defeat this… monster—that was the only word that worked—and not get swallowed by the advancing ring.
Fuck…
He turned and ran. The beast pursued.