Chapter 2
Sammy#0421
Level 1
0/150 XP
Profession: None
Darkness surrounded me and it felt good. Actually, it felt warm and wet, and my feet were being tickled.
What the hell?
My hands moved about and I realized that I was naked, too. The tickling on my feet shifted to a scrubbing. It was like some large animal was licking my foot.
I yanked it back and my body shifted, plunging me into whatever the warm liquid was. When I came up, my eyes had loaded in, or opened, or whatever a digital avatar did to see.
The room was dark and I was sitting in a brass or copper tub. It probably wasn’t copper, or maybe it didn’t matter since all of this was digital. I realized that I was already struggling with what was real and what wasn’t and I either needed to accept my new reality or go crazy trying to understand it. The water was filled with bubbles and toward my feet there was a pair of hands holding a scrub brush.
The person attached to the hands looked a little annoyed.
“Um,” I had no idea what to say, “sorry?”
“Just give me the foot back so we can finish up here,” she said. Her voice was identical to Eve’s.
“Are you Eve?”
She shrugged and gave up on waiting for me to give her my foot back. Her hand plunged into the water, gripped my ankle and yanked it up. My head almost went back under, but I caught myself on the side of the tub.
“For now,” she returned to scrubbing my foot. “Just for the orientation into Wicked West."
The room was dark and difficult to see in. As my eyes adjusted, I realized that it was because it had only one lamp and it was one of those old camping lanterns. Tyler used to take those antiques and put LED's in them. Here, they weren't nearly as bright.
I took another look at Eve. She was young, likely around the age I was pretending to be. Most men would find her attractive, with the red hair and round cheeks. She was dressed plainly with a white dress that went along with the general aesthetic of the place. The dress was simple, but it looked aged, which brought a million more questions to my mind about the rules in my digital world.
The dress was also lower cut than I had been expecting for old west, and that led me to my next question.
"Are you supposed to be a whore?"
"You're direct, aren't you?" Eve didn't look up from my feet as she spoke.
"The only shame in the conversation won't be coming from me. Work is work." I shrugged. "Nobody knows what other people are struggling with."
Eve looked up and her eyes bore into me. It wasn’t anger or upset, she seemed genuinely to be observing me for the first time.
"I am going to have to watch you," she said quietly. "We don't get many like you in here."
"This a sausage party? Or do you mean old ladies who mind their own business?" I leaned back and tried to enjoy the foot scrub.
"I meant the second one," she grinned, "but this is the type of game to pull in more men than women."
As my eyes adjusted, I saw several stacks of clothes on a table in the corner. Likely mine,when I got out. Or at least, I hoped they were. I really hoped they didn't expect me to prance around naked until I found or stole clothing.
"You mentioned orientation?"
Eve nodded and shifted her hands to my other foot.
"You're already aware of the level requirement before you leave. Me borrowing this avatar is to prepare you for when you leave this room."
"Where can I see my current level?" Granny or not, I wasn't unfamiliar with gaming.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
As I said it, a series of images popped up in the air directly in front of my eyes. They were stationary directly in front of wherever my head was facing and I could move my eyes to look around. I realized that this was an in-game heads up display. On the left were two vertical bars. The one furthest left had a heart underneath it, while the one to the right of it had a lightning bolt.
At the top of my vision was a drawing of a cowboy with a plain expression. Underneath his face, it read "Neutral." To the right of that was listed $15.32 with a dividing line and the number 0 in gold type to its right. On the bottom right of my vision was an old-timey map, letting me take a look at my surrounding area. As I focused on it, it swelled so that I was looking at a map that filled all of my vision with the town of Easter, as it was labeled.There were a number of gray dots moving around, but Eve wasn’t one of them.
As I shifted my attention, the map receded. In the center at the bottom of my vision was the words, “Level 1.”
“You just found your HUD,” Eve explained. “You’re important information for everything going on at this moment can be found there.” She closed her eyes for a moment before opening them again. “You also have a journal,” she nodded behind me. When I craned my neck, I could see a pile of clothes that I assumed must be mine. “You will find it, and most of your basic equipment in your satchel there. The journal, aside from being a journal that only you can read and write in, also has a lot of pertinent information regarding how this game works, when items and equipment will become available to you. There’s also a lot of free space, so you can take notes on your journey. Your satchel is more or less unlimited. You can fit almost anything in there, without any effects on weight. Within reason, of course. You aren’t shoving a corpse into your satchel.”
Eve let my foot drop and she slid down the tub toward me.
“Look,” she said quietly, “you don’t have a lot of time. A raid started about three minutes ago and you missed out on picking a side to be on.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I sat up, looking to get out of the tub, but Eve’s hand clutched mine.
“It means that I only have enough time for one piece of advice for you,” she stood up and helped me from the tub, tossing me a towel when my feet touched the rough wood.
“What is it?”
“Levels don’t change anything except which gear you can purchase. It does not give your guns more power, and a headshot kills everybody.”
I moved toward the pile of clothing and rushed to put them on. The shirt was a dark red button up. The pants were gray slacks with suspenders that held them in place. That was when I saw the satchel and the gun belt. I put the belt on quickly, not sure how loose or tight it should be.
Once it was in place and the satchel was slung over my shoulders and situated behind my reach so as to be out of the way, I drew the pistol. Looking at it, my HUD switched to an item description.
Farmer’s Pistol
Six Shots
Accuracy 4/10
Distance 4/10
Damage 3/10
Underneath my money situation on the HUD a new item popped up. It showed a circle with a dot in it, meant to represent a bullet, I assumed, and to the right of it read “6/40.” I guessed that was my ammo count, with the first number being the amount loaded in the gun and the second being how many bullets I carried on me.
“If you get a chance,” Eve was saying as I looked the pistol over, “you reload the gun by miming putting bullets in the chamber. As long as you have ammo, it will work.”
Gunshots could be heard in the distance. I didn’t know the town or the area at all, but my map showed me several red dots moving quickly through the building I was in. A closer look showed me that they weren’t dots, so much as teardrop shaped, with the point of the teardrop being the direction they were facing. On them was also a small arrow aiming down. Footsteps and creaking floorboards filled my ears and as they got louder the small arrows disappeared. That must have meant they were on a level beneath me. As three of the dots stopped outside of the room, I raised the pistol and aimed at the door. As I did so, a small crosshair, almost like a laser sight, appeared on the door where I pointed the gun.
“One last thing,” Eve said. “Death isn’t permanent anymore. Don’t hesitate.”
My dad had taught me to shoot a long time ago. It was a fun thing to do when he would take me to visit my grandpa. We would aim at cans and try to do trick shots. He showed me how to safely handle a gun and how to be responsible with it. That was close to seventy years ago. Since then, I hadn’t had much use to use a weapon of any kind.
Somehow, the lessons he had taught me came back as if they had been yesterday. The gun felt like an extension of my arm.
The door burst open with a kick and I fired instantly.
My shot proved how comfortable I actually was with the weapon as I dealt deadly force to the door frame.
The man who kicked the door was covered in furs and a big hat. He saw me and wagged his finger.
“You only get the one shot,” then he raised his pistol and shot Eve in the head.
“Fuck,” I shouted as gore exploded from the impact. I dropped to my knees, hiding behind the tub.
“Is that a noob, Larry?” One of the guys in the back asked.
“Don’t be stupid,” the guy in furs answered. I peeked over the edge of the tub to let my HUD see Larry. Over his hat was his name and level, floating in the air as if it belonged there.
RadicalLarry19
Level 18
37230/38070 XP
Profession: Mountain Man
“Sammy,” Larry kept his voice soft, but he was still red on my map and I had no doubts about his intentions. “Level 1, huh?”
A boot hit me in the back and I sprawled out on the floor next to the tub. I saw the man who had snuck up behind me as I rolled over. Larry carried a sawed-off shotgun and had it aimed just inches from my head. The man who had kicked me also was aiming at me, but I was less concerned about him.
“Welcome to Wicked West.”
RadicalLarry19 pulled the trigger.