Chapter 4

“None of that makes any sense,” I stared at the paper, yellowed with age, that held the job specifics for me.

“What doesn’t make sense about it?” The stable manager, Henrik Clancy, was getting frustrated with me, which I could understand. Your average gamer probably accepted the jobs without any questions, but I saw myself with a rare opportunity to test the limits of what the NPC’s could do.

Yes, they were normal people with tasks assigned, but maybe they could be negotiated with for more pay or easier jobs for the same pay. I didn’t know, and until I actually took the time to go to that damned post office, I had to learn the hard way.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go to the post office. It was that I felt that was when the nature of my new reality would hit me the hardest. Up until now, everything was weird, but it all felt real. As far as I understood it, the post office would be the place where my game questions were all answered. It was the closest thing to texting or email that I was ever going to find again, but in a scenario that made it seem like a normal part of the Wild West. The two opposing ideas, email and the edge of prairie life, scared me.

So, I was here accepting a job to become an outlaw instead of going and checking my mail. Somehow, that was easier.

Mr. Clancy was my height with hair that resembled straw poking out from underneath a well-worn hat. His hands were as dirty as he smelled, which was to be expected, given his line of work.

“I read it, and I hear you,” I let out a long sigh, “there’s just no logic to it. You want me to go and steal a horse for you, and then you are just going to give me the horse?”

Henrik stepped forward with a finger on his lips, shushing me as he moved in. “Listen, noob. The reward is part of the story. Normally, it’ll be gear or some good cash and knowing about it in advance is why you take the job. Not this time. This time, it’s on there so that you know, but it has to seem natural. You bring back the horse, and I see that you don’t have one, so I offer you this one, implying that you’ll bring me more horses in the future. It sets us up for a mutually beneficial relationship, if that’s the route you want to go. Either way, that’s how you get your horse. So, stop being an idiot and let me play my bit out.”

That was the first time in a while that I remembered I was supposed to be broadcasting on that streaming thingy. Henrik saw my thoughts shift and held up a hand, stepping back to his original spot as he did.

“Don’t worry about broadcasting, yet,” he explained. “You could, if you’ve been to the post office, but nobody cares about the horse mission.”

There was that damned post office again. Whether I liked it or not, the entirety of this game was pushing me in that direction. Realizing that my holdup with the post office was similar to Henrik’s wanting to stay in character for handing out missions, I nodded and put the mission in my bag.

A ‘ding’ went off in my head and my HUD popped up without warning. My minimap expanded until I was looking at a place just a little north of Easter. A spot marked by a box, a barn I was guessing, had three red X’s in it.

I figured that those had to be the horses.

I got out of the map and saw that there was a red line leaving my teardrop mark on the map and extending behind me.

“The maps have GPS?” The idea was hilarious and I snort laughed for a moment before realizing that Henrik was just staring at me.

“It’s not GPS,” his frustration hadn’t left from earlier in the conversation. “It’s a visual representation of your supposed knowledge of the area.” He held up his hands and shouted to the digital sky, “It’s for the people who are trying to remain in character.”

“Alright, alright,” I held up my hand, frowning at him. “I get it.”

Henrik lowered his hands and stared at me for a moment longer before turning back to the stables and leaving me alone in the road.

That was when I realized that I didn't have a horse yet, which meant that I had to walk to wherever this ranch was that had horses to steal.

The path on my map stayed to the roads, which I learned quickly enough, was the safe route. Anytime I strayed from the path, the ground became uneven and it didn't take me long to find that the entire town of Easter was surrounded by cliffs. To the east were cliffs that rose above Easter, and I could see those in the distance looking relatively impassable. It made me wonder if the odd game world that I found myself in used the terrain to lock people in.

To the west, and in the general direction that I needed to go, were cliff edges with more than 200 foot drops. The road wound between the valleys and along the cliff sides, allowing for safe passage. It was easy to see how the people who saw this as more a game and less their new way of life might try to slide down the cliff or hop down in an attempt to invent a shortcut, but that kind of stupid thinking would get you killed. With every death stealing an hour from you, that was a guaranteed way to lose daylight.

And I had no intention of discovering how it felt to die with a broken neck, or bleeding out from a torn off or crushed limb.

I passed people on the road, too. NPC's on their way to Easter were working their way up the winding trail on their horses.

I thought about trying to steal one of them. I had a pistol and was on my way somewhere to do just that. I was up to my waist in river water, crossing the lowest point of the first valley when it took everything in my power not to draw my pistol on the NPC smirking down at me from his horse.

I came close to shooting him then, but I was looking at all of this as if it was my new world. These people didn't die, but they could probably hold a grudge or two. I'm sure I would have plenty of time to earn grudges, I didn't need to start making them just because I didn't enjoy walking.

On the plus side, I wasn't getting tired. Maybe three miles into the walk, I realized that I should have been a little wiped, but I wasn't feeling anything. I picked up the pace as the decline switched to an incline. I figured if I wasn't getting tired, then it shouldn't be a problem running.

That was dumb-think.

It turned out that Wicked West's stamina bar climbed down slowly throughout the day, and mine had barely been affected during the march to criminality, but when I started to run, it dropped fast.

When the bar was below half, I stopped and searched through my satchel. The first bit of meat I found showed that it would help my stamina a little, so I bit into that. My bar went up a bit, but not enough to be of much value. I would have to eat all of my meat to recover the stamina, and I wasn't ready to finish off my entire supply of meat, yet.

So, I kept walking.

After what felt like forever, but was closer to under two hours of travel, my minimap trail disappeared and the map flooded with red. When I expanded it, I saw that the red only covered the farm that I had come up to. Inside one of the structures on the map were three red X's. I figured that those had to be the horses and I had a sudden concern that I had been set up.

Three horses could mean a lot of different things. The simplest is that this job wasn't meant to be done alone. Should I have found another new guy, or maybe a veteran, to help me with this? I had spent the last few years relearning how to live alone and I could see how that wasn't helping me in my planning. If the three horses meant that I wasn't supposed to do this alone, then the forces aligned against me were probably forces meant for fighting three outlaws instead of one. I wasn't prepared for that.

Come to think of it, I wasn't really prepared for any fight, yet.

That many horses could also mean that when the mission started they would scatter. Three horses would give me options on which to catch, but also meant that even if I survived I might still fail the job if they all ran away.

I studied the map some more before realizing that I needed to move closer. I inched into the red until I was fully engulfed by it. When my teardrop was surrounded by the red, it disappeared and red teardrops popped up everywhere.

The enemy NPC's.

Or, as my conscience called them, 'the rightful owners.'

Something tickled my memory at that moment and pulled back out the paper that the job from the Organized Horse Criminal had given me.

The bit I was looking for was at the bottom.

If you get the law on you, lose them before coming back.

I wasn't the smartest retiree at the party, but I figured that there was no way to avoid the law with all those people there. Maybe I could put off them seeing me until the last minute.

Near the front of the barn, I could make out nine other people. I moved close enough that I could see a handful of them and the barn. From the way it looked, I might be able to get into the back of the barn without being seen.

The barn was a large brown building. Other than the color, it looked like it was designed like one of those farms you give toddlers. The ones with the Weebles or whatever.

I hugged the tree line and moved closer until I was directly behind the barn. I took a deep breath before stepping out of the woods. The surrounding area was mostly flat land and thick trees. The house, smaller than the barn, was off to the side and I couldn't see it from behind the barn. Inside, I could hear the horses moving around.

It was weird how the flatter lands around the farm were so close to the cliffs. It all looked so realistic, yet this flat area seemed to make me question that. Or maybe I was being a little too critical of something because I knew it wasn't real.

This is real, Sammy, I cursed myself. Accept it or things aren't going to get easier.

I shook the thoughts from my head and drew my Farmer’s Pistol before walking up to the door on the back of the barn. The front had a large double-door setup for the animals and wagons to move in and out of, but the back had a single door for people just off center to the right as I was facing it. On the left side was a window with no glass in it. That seemed dumb to me, but what did I know? I was never a farmer.

Or a reality/game designer.

The window was a perfect opportunity, though. Looking through and not seeing anyone, I double-checked my minimap and, seeing nobody inside, crawled through.

The horse stall that I landed in was empty. The gate on the stall was my next hurdle. I pushed it open, half expecting it to let out a shrill cry for oil, but it opened silently.

Two steps out of the stall was as far as I made it before a hand yanked my hair back and a blade was pressed against my throat.

“Noobs making noob mistakes,” a gravelly voice grunted into my ear.

“What the hell?” I gasped. “How?”

I figured I was dead anyway, so I looked again at my map and there he was. A bright red teardrop shape almost covered my own white teardrop.

“A word of advice,” the knife slid into my neck and I felt the sharp sting as my flesh pulled apart. It was slow and I felt all of it as he emptied my throat on the floor of that barn. “Don’t come back until you figure out how I hid from you.”

He let me go and I spun around, falling to my knees as blood pulsed out my new neck-hole. It sprayed onto his feet and then I was on my knees gasping and getting weaker.

What the hell was this? Why wasn’t I dead, yet, instead of bleeding out slowly. Was this an option? This was a nightmare. It was every nightmare.

I finally looked at my killer.

He was in his late forties at best. An older man than the body I chose for this new wild west rebirth I was going through. He had silver hair and a little scruff on his chin with an orange shirt, brown slacks, and suspenders.

“Y’all come back soon.”

Finally, I died.

The weird photograph thing filled my vision again, showing a picture of the farmer with his bloody knife. Everything went black for a moment and then I could feel the grass under me again.

“Fucking hell,” I shouted.

How the fuck hadn’t I seen him? This was the wild west, with realistic rules, as I understood it. People didn’t go invisible.

I had to think this through.

First, though, I had to see where I had resurrected.

“Well, I didn’t hear a shot, so I’m guessing they stabbed you,” a raspy chuckle said. “Or you got mauled by something. You’re well into bear country here.”

"I didn't fall," I said. "A guy slit my throat."

The prospector looking guy tipped his hat up and looked me up and down. There was nothing sexual about it, but I felt like I was being weighed.

It was another moment of me staring at this man in denim overalls before I managed to take in the rest of where I had resurrected. They were covered in holes and he didn't seem to be wearing anything else with them besides his hat. He had a dirty beard with some sort of weeds stuck in it.

When I finally looked at my surroundings, I was no better off than I had been when I first woke up. I was somewhere in the woods on the side of a hill. It was too thick to see anything but the trees.

The old man let out a long and slow whistle.

"That'll do it alright. Did he sneak up on you?"

I nodded. "Yes. How did he do that? I didn't see him on the map at all."

"Map helps, but it can't tell you everything. It ain't Google. You're gonna kick yourself when I tell you."

"I can take it."

"Look at your map," he said and I brought it up. There was his marker on the map directly next to her own.

He crouched and the teardrop marker disappeared.

When he stood up, the mark appeared where it had been. He did it about three more times before I held up my hand.

"Alright," I said, "I get it. So, when I jumped through the window, he was crouched somewhere in the barn."

"Bingo!" he snapped his fingers and winked at me.

Deciding it was in my best interest, I brought up my hud and examined the old man.

D0C70RC007

Level 6

No Profession

"What's that name?" I asked. "Doctor Cool? I can't read the number speak as well as everyone else."

He let out a holler of laughter, something like a shrill laugh and stood from where he had been crouched. "No, ma'am. That's Doctor Coot. You can just call me Coot, but I don't take too kindly to being called Cooter."

"Well, thanks Coot." I had a sudden fear about his level, even being only 5 above mine, and put my hand on the but of my pistol. "You probably wouldn't tell me if you were going to kill me would you?"

"Can't say that I would, but," he shrugged, "I was actually waiting on you, little lady."

"How?" I looked around. "I didn't even know that I was going to be here."

"Not you, silly," Coot shoved his thumbs under his overall straps and flashed a grin that was missing as many teeth as it had. "I was waiting for anyone else to die and spawn where I did."

"How long have you been waiting? I can't imagine everyone spawns in the same place."

"Nah," he gave a wink that was entirely unnecessary, and explained. "I figured that no matter how many spawn locations there are, that even a set spawn circumference only has 360 degrees. Even if the distribution was uneven, sooner or later someone had to pop up here."

"Level 6, though. You could probably handle it yourself."

Coot shook his head. "I might as well be a level 1. I got these by shooting rabbits and eating them."

My eyes went wide. "Level 6 by just shooting and skinning rabbits?"

Coot looked embarrassed. "I've been here a while."

"Maybe we could help each other out," I suggested.

"That was my plan," his energies returned to their cartoon-like levels. "We need a gang."

"A gang?"

"A gang, or a posse, a party. A shared experience group where we coordinate our efforts, but with a wild west turn."

"You want to attack the farm together?"

Coot nodded so hard it looked like his head might snap off.

"I'm all for that, but how much ammo do you have left?" I didn't know that we could party up, but it made sense. Everything seemed only limited by how big we could think. Making a gang and stealing the horses together made sense, but I wasn't sure Coot was a great idea for a teammate.

"I have 3 bullets and a knife left." He rushed forward and pressed his finger to my mouth. "I have something better, though." He stepped back and started digging in his own satchel. "About a week ago, these came in the mail for me as some sort of welcome package."

He pulled out three sticks of dynamite.

Coot started giggling and I was beginning to think that the old man was insane.

"How do we start this gang?"

"Ask me to join your gang. It's that easy," Coot explained.

"Alright," I said, "Coot, will you join my gang, please?"

"Yes," he beamed.

The HUD displayed a new message.

You have started your Gang. Would you like to name it?