Interlude 01: The Posse that Killed Me

“Got ‘im!” Jessica said after the shot went out. In the distance the party of four saw the dark figure by the creek collapse.

“Shit, seriously? That’s it?” Anthony asked, an annoyed look on his fake face.

“What, we lucked out. Don’t tell me you’re actually disappointed that we got the drop on him,” said Will, his avatar looking more like a dwarf from Tolkein than someone from 19th Century America.

“Of course not,” Anthony replied. He and the rest of the party began moving towards the location of their quarry. “It’s just that this guy is supposed to be a high-level NPC and everyone in town’s scared of him, like he’s a god damn boogeyman or something. I mean, he took out Dave!”

The group broke out of the underbrush and into the notorious outlaw’s camp. There a nervous horse and the sprawled body of said outlaw met them.

“He’s still alive,” Jessica stated.

“That him?” Will asked Mark.

“Yup,” Mark answered back. He had been the one to accept the quest, so the details were in his logs.

“Cool,” Jessica said with a smile. “Dave is soooo gonna owe us for this.”

Anthony moved over to the body of the prostrated NPC and squatted in front of him.“Are you sure? This was way too easy. Hero Beaumont took out a Level 45 Player and two Level 30 NPCs. I thought he’d put up more of a fight.”

“Lean a bit closer and I’ll show you a fight, you stinkin’ Celestial!” shouted the outlaw.

Mark brought up his web browser and activated one of the saved tabs. “Yup. This is the guy. The wiki corroborates it.”

“Oh man,” Anthony said glumly. “How disappointing. I wanted a good fight. Whatever,” he pulled out his six-shooter and aimed at the prone NPC. “Let’s get this stupid quest over with.”

“Wait!” Jessica shouted. Before anyone could stop him though, Anthony pulled the trigger. A bright splatter of red flowered out from the outlaw’s head.

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“Dammit, Ant!” Will shouted in frustration.

“What?” Anthony stood up and put up his hands. He was obviously confused at why his friends were acting this way.

“If we’d brought him in alive, we’d get the bonus three times xp and money!” Will shook his head in agitation. “Why do you always jump the gun like this, Ant?”

“Oh shut up,” the young player pointed at the now cooling corpse. “Did you forget that Dave tried to do the same EXACT thing to this guy? And how’d that turn out for him?”

“He’s got a point,” Mark stated.

“At least we still get the ‘Hero Killer’ title,” Jessica said with a smirk, trying to get Will to look on the bright side.

Will shook his head, but a small smile still formed on his lips. “Fine, fine. Let’s just get the body back to town so we can get this quest completed. Oh, and be sure to grab Dave’s badge so he can get in the game again. Seriously, I didn’t even know a Founder’s item could be looted, let alone by an NPC.”

The group turned to the corpse of one of the most infamous bosses in the game, but all were shocked when the body became engulfed in a bright blue glow. The glow intensified until it flared into a white glare, then suddenly it blinked out leaving nothing behind except for a large puddle of blood.

“What the hell?” Jessica said.

“I knew it!” Anthony shouted. “I knew that guy wasn’t Beaumont!”

“Oh shit,” Will said. “We just PK’d a player!”

“But the wiki…” Mark trailed off.

“Fuck the wiki. That guy was obviously just some player who made his character look like Hero Beaumont. You know, like that asshole back in town who made his avatar look like Sephiroth.” Anthony shrugged. “Shit. Now we have to start back at square one.”

“Guys!” Will spat out. He looked panicked, and almost on the verge of hyperventilating. “We just PK’d a player! That means that guy can hire bounty hunters to come after us! And we can’t enter towns to resupply!”

“Calm down, Will,” Jessica placed a comforting hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Our IDs aren’t red!”

Will stopped panicking, then checked his status window. He let out a long breath of relief when he saw that the box was the same friendly green color it always was.

“But how?” Anthony asked. “We definitely killed a player. NPCs don’t respawn like that, not in this game.”

“Who knows?” Will said. “I scared myself shitless, guys. Let’s go back to town and log out. I’m done for the day.”

“‘Kay,” Mark stated. “I’ll file a bug report with the forums.”

“No!” Will shouted, almost panicking once again. “If you tell them this, we’ll get marked as Reds for sure!”

“But we’re beta testers,” Mark crossed his arms. “It’s our job to find bugs and report them.”

“This is open beta, dumbass!” Will retorted. “Nobody does that shit!”

And so the group of friends continued their argument. None of them knew that the strange event that had occurred would mark a monumental moment in video game history.