Chapter 4

My bullet tore through his skull in a gory haze of blood.

River_R33L3R has been killed by Sammy#0421.

+25 XP Player Kill

+10 XP Headshot

Before the notification had spun up, or before River_R33L3R had even hit the ground, I had spun to check on my granddaughter.

Winnie was frowning, but I could see the surprise still on her face.

“I’m still not really here, remember?”

“That’s not the point,” I said as I pulled her in close. “He didn’t know that, obviously. Next time, likely in about an hour, he’ll think twice before he draws his gun again.”

I took longer than I should have to let Winnie go, but to her credit she didn’t force me to break my hug on her.

To fill the silence, I made a show of looking around the town to take in the damage from our earlier defense from the raid.

For the good or the bad of it all, the town was healing, literally. One of the few things that made this world feel different was that damage to physical structures was never permanent. Over time, likely before the next raid can be scheduled or whatever, the scars on the buildings, blast craters in the mud, and entirely burned down structures would see their issues fade away. Then the buildings would be back to normal and the next group could act like they were the first players to have the genius idea of raiding Easter for the easy experience.

Stepping over River_R33L3R’s body, we walked into the saloon to a full house. Winnie followed me as I pushed my way to some chairs that weren’t occupied, up on the second floor balcony, and caught up on everything that I had been missing in the real world.

As far as I could tell, we took over that bar for the next hour and everyone else ceased to exist.

After an hour of digital booze that, per her ‘condition,’ Winnie couldn’t taste, she told me that she needed to rejoin the land of the living.

I was terrified that when she logged off I wouldn’t see her again and it was clear she saw that in my eyes as we stood outside the saloon hugging.

“I’ve got to log off or Coot is going to starve to death,” she laughed at my concerns. She was right of course, but I hated it. “I’ll come back tomorrow. Either way, if you hit that record button I’ll be at least paying attention.” Winnie took on a look of pride. “I’ve got a new job to do.”

I was proud too, of her and everything she had become and still could be. I always would be. So, I comforted myself with how capable this young woman was and gave her one last hug before her avatar vanished from the realm of the dead cowboys.

I meandered out of the saloon at a mildly intoxicated rate before stopping in the dark of the evening in the mud and letting out a long whistle.

It had been about an hour, maybe a little more, and perhaps I might be able to locate this dummy that decided to shoot at my granddaughter and offer up some education.

Well, no ‘perhaps’ about it, actually. I could see his little red teardrop on my minimap and, assuming he was a noob, I could probably find him before he even thought to look at his map.

Horse, my appropriately named ride, came galloping into town before slowing down in front of me.

I swung my foot into the stirrup and climbed up.

“Your granddaughter, huh?” Horse asked me.

Horse was a player who had reached the coveted freedom of level 250. At 250, you could either switch games, or start swapping between them. He had decided to exercise that freedom another way and created a new character that was entirely just a horse.

I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me, before saying, “Yup, that was her.”

“That’s a lot to take in,” he said quietly. “How are you doing?”

I thought on it for a moment before answering. There had just been so many emotions in the last day that I was almost too exhausted to even understand what was going on in my heart or head.

“Scared,” I said at last. “Scared and excited, but mostly alright, I think.”

“Good enough for me,” Horse said with a snort. “Where to?”

“I’ll drive,” I gave as an answer. “I think we’re going to try and recruit someone new to the posse.”

“New people?” He snorted again. “That always works out well.”

“Oh?” I laughed at that. “Well, we have nothing to worry about. I already got the shooting-him part out of the way.”

“Then this should be easy.”

We rode out into the dark, I brought a lantern up from my satchel and held it up so that Horse and I could both see.

As we got closer to where the kid in suspenders seemed to be hiding, I saw his teardrop marker on my minimap disappear and smiled.

We came up to a set of bushes that I wouldn’t have seen without the lantern and I stayed on the horse as I called out.

“I know you’re there. I’m not planning to shoot you, so come on out.”

Crouched, he stumbled out of the bushes and fumbled with his pistol. He was acting as scared and intimidated as a bunny might around a big dog.

I patted the pistol I was lazily holding in my lap.

“First,” I said, “you’re going to need to calm down.” I raised an eyebrow that I wasn’t even sure he could see. “You know where you are right?”

He was staring at my pistol as he answered. “I died. That’s what the lady said. She asked me what kind of game I wanted to be in and I said I liked fishing and wanted to do something like that.”

It all started to click then.

“Did you show up in the middle of the raid, then?” I asked.

“Raid?” He looked confused, but his gun was down a bit more, so I took that as a good sign.

“A lot of noise and explosions? People dead in the streets?” I clarified.

He nodded enthusiastically and I let out a long and slow sigh.

This was what I was trying to put a stop to, but it clearly wasn’t going to be solved in one bloody battle with one gang.

“I told Eve, the lady you told that you wanted to go fishing, that I wanted to retire on a quiet farm and tend animals. One of those farming simulators that seemed peaceful. So she dropped me here, because it was the closest option out of what they had available.”

I left the pistol on my lap and stuck out my free hand. “My name is Sammy, what’s yours?”

Even though I asked him, I checked out his status on my heads-up display.

River_R33L3R

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Level 1

0/150 XP

Profession: None

“You can call me River,” he stood slowly and shook my hand. His free hand still held his pistol loosely, but I figured that he had mostly forgotten that it was there.

“Well, River,” I said, “Here’s your first lesson. Do you know how to pull up your minimap?”

“The small map in the corner? Yes, I think so.” He answered.

That made me think for just a second. Before I continued with the lesson, I figured it might be good to find out what kind of gamer I was dealing with.

“How old are you, River?” I asked.

“Not anything anymore,” he let out a nervous chuckle.

I laughed with him. “Gallows humor is good. It’ll help you with getting used to this. What were you when you died?”

“I was, am,” he shrugged. “I’m 63.”

“A youngin’,” I smiled. “I died at 89. Afterlife can be a little rough on us older folks.

River let out a whistle. “Well, you look good for being almost 90.”

I nodded at the joke. “Thank you. Now, back to the lesson. You see your minimap? That red dot is me because I shot you earlier. It’ll shift back to blue in a bit if we’re not attacking each other. The other dot, that’s a little bigger, is you.”

“Alright,” he wasn’t looking at me, but clearly had his eyes looking at his HUD. We could not see each other’s HUD’s but everybody got the same look when they were reading it. I felt it looked a lot like when folks are too into their phones and can’t be bothered to look up during a conversation.

“Now crouch,” I said.

He did and I watched as his eyes lit up.

“Where’d I go?” River asked.

“That is how stealth works in this game,” I explained. “You can be as quiet as you want, but everyone, including the NPC’s have a map. You will want to crouch if you’re sneaking around.”

“What’s an NPC?” River asked.

“Wow,” I laughed again. “You really do love to fish, don’t you?” He didn’t get my joke, clearly calling out the man thirty years younger than me for not knowing gamer terms. “An NPC is a Non-Playable Character. It just means the people who run the shops, hand out jobs, and generally aren’t floundering around trying to guess what’s going on.” I patted Horse. “Get on.”

“Your horse?” River’s face blanched.

“Yes, my horse. I’ve got a camp where you can rest for the night. If you want, you can join my posse, but you don’t have to. Either way, I’ll try to fill you in on how this world works while we head back.” I heard shots in the distance. “Get a move on. The dark doesn’t stop bullets and I’m holding a lantern.”

River tried it out a few more times before giving me a confused look.

“I was crouched when you came up. How did you find me?”

I chuckled. “Well, you weren’t crouched until we got close. The map gets a little bigger when you have an enemy on it. Are you getting on or what?”

“How do I know you won’t kill me?” River hadn’t moved his feet.

I shrugged. “I already did. It’s never as fun the second time around.”

It was probably an entire minute of River’s face contorting through different thoughts before realizing that I was telling a joke. He smirked and then took my hand.

With a grunt, I pulled him up onto Horse and behind me and let my equine companion take us back home.

The ride wasn’t long, but I went over the basics that I didn’t quite understand when I had arrived. I directed him to take on a job at the stables tomorrow and he would end up with a horse. He didn’t believe me when I told him not to be surprised if his horse talks to him.

One of the odd rules around keeping the narrative for the players is that the players that decide to be animals can only be heard by their owners and other animals. This led to me trying harder to convince River that Horse could talk than trying to get him to join The Pink Flamingos.

We talked about how shops work and how pricing makes less sense than it should before I spun off on the weird structure around reputation in this game.

Finally, I came to my mission. The idea of making the west a little less wild for new folks. Of course, this is when River decided to call me out.

“You shot me as soon as you met me,” he said from behind me.

I let a little bit of annoyance enter my voice. “You shot my granddaughter. I assume that even given the most peaceful mission, there is still inexcusable behavior.”

He agreed but didn’t say anything else about my mission. I started to wonder if it would be a mistake to add him to the posse, but he hadn’t accepted yet, so that was tomorrow’s concern.

Either way, if he accepted, I wasn’t likely to say no. I can't claim to be out here trying to do some good if I end up turning away the first person I meet who I can actually help.

When we got back to the camp, I had a better idea of River. He was married when he had died and along with the trauma of learning you’re dead and then waking up in Easter in the middle of a raid, he was still mourning his wife and wasn’t certain how he felt about anything outside of that. Eve hadn’t mentioned anything to him about the ghosts of our loved ones possibly joining and I figured that was more of a contractual thing. She probably didn’t want to tell him his family could join him digitally before he had a chance to settle into the game world and whatever legal documents that entailed had been finalized.

Or she just plain forgot.

Joan got River a bedroll and I went over to my tent for only a moment before changing my mind.

Winnie hadn’t known much about what was going on with Coot and Bear’s families, but she’d known enough. They were probably hurting and I wouldn’t be a good friend if I didn’t check on them.

Bear’s situation seemed simpler, so I meandered over to his tent.

He had a lantern on and was laying on his mat reading through a book that I couldn’t see the title of.

“How are you doing, Bear?” I asked.

He must have been deep into whatever he was reading, because he started at my voice.

He smiled and calmed some of my fears.

“I’m doing good, Sammy,” he patted the book and then glanced at where a pile of books I hadn’t noticed rested. “Just doing some homework. Who’s the kid?”

“That’s River,” I said. “And watch who you’re calling a kid around here. He’s in his sixties. I shot him in the face and felt bad, so I thought he could take a look at the camp and think about joining us.” I pointed at the books. “Homework for what?”

He waved at me dismissively, laughing as he did. “I already told you. I want to find some weed.” Bear held up the book he was reading. “Some of the herbs that I can locate need me to read up on them before I can. Now that you and Coot are over 10, you two should be looking over your professions, too.”

Oh shit.

I had forgotten about the professions.

How could I not, though. There was so much going on. Would there ever be a moment to take a breath?

Coot was level 12 now and I was level 11. We should have three letters, one for each of the professions, in our mail waiting for us. I hadn’t realized how excited for the profession choices I was until Bear reminded me. Well, that and the weed. I wasn’t going to deny my increased interest in Bear’s proclivities.

“I should try and read those tonight,” I said before changing the subject. “I was really asking you about Winnie and her media manager thing,” I nodded toward an open letter on the table. It was white and not the normally dirty yellow of the paper we normally had access to, so I assumed it had to be the letter from Eve. “And any news you might have.”

Bear’s smile shifted from the feel-good smile of a man on the hunt for weed to one that looked like he didn’t really want to talk about it.

“Your granddaughter seems nice, and I am happy she has the job. Better her than us, no offense.”

“None taken,” I replied. “I never understood social media or being viral.”

“Me either,” he said. “Besides, it can only make us more money, and I am all about that.” He picked up the letter, folded it and slid it into the book he still held. “The letter didn’t say much. My mom loves me. I’m good with that today.”

“Today?” I was genuinely confused.

Bear’s smile softened. “I am good with it today. Tomorrow is another day. I think it’ll take me a while to figure out how I feel about, well,” he held up the book again, “what she had to say. But today, I’m good.”

With that, he laid back on his bunk and I wished Bear a good evening before making my way over to Coot’s bunk. He sat on a stool and he was staring at the stark-white letter, but his eyes weren’t moving.

“Hey, Coot,” I started but he held up a hand.

“Small camp,” my friend forced a smile. “I heard you and Bear. I am happy that your girl is here but still among the land of the living. Making her our media manager will allow us to focus more on the jobs. I like that a lot.” I moved to open my mouth and Coot’s open hand turned to one finger, pausing me. “In no way are we discussing my letter. It is off the table to discuss until I say further. Does that work for you, boss?”

That was a little surprising, but not unexpected. You don’t have to be Coot to see that I was going to be asking everyone about what surprise the digital-gift-fairy gave them.

My mouth opened to reply before I thought better of it and closed it.

Instead, I nodded.

Friendships mean respect. Respect means boundaries too.

I could wait.

“Well, then,” I said instead, “what are you doing?”

His smile switched to something closer to genuine when he answered.

“I am assessing how to become a lucrative member of society.”

“You’re reading through your professions?”

“I was about to,” Coot set the letter down and grabbed a stack of yellow ones from behind him. “As you should. Bear is already a mountain man, so that’s gonna affect our decisions. We should read through them and discuss in the morning.”

“Fair enough. Rest well,” I said as I turned back toward my bed. “If you need me-”

“I know, I know,” he waved me off. “Now get!”