Thankfully, whatever time spent in the darkness was nearly unnoticeable this time, and Colton quickly found himself lying on a thick bed of wild meadow grass. Two things quickly jumped to his attention.
First, wow did he(?) ever feel different. He felt heavier overall, but definitely heavier in certain places. There was also a small pressure on his lips that he realized were Fiona’s small tusks. How could he feel his avatar’s tusks, and the weight of his avatar’s…assets? What little clothes he was wearing were scratchy and heavy in a way modern clothes never were.
The next thing he noticed was how real everything seemed. Moving his hands back and forth, every blade of grass seemed to shift between his fingers, and pressing down he could feel the moist dirt from which it grew. The overhead sky was bright blue, and the temperature was almost perfect, even if he could feel the suns’ rays slowly warming, and potentially eventually burning, his skin.
Thinking through the implications of what he was feeling, both in body and in environment, he quickly came to a conclusion:
‘This game is going to make a fortune!’
To be able to replicate everything he was feeling, with just the small inobtrusive headpiece he had to wear, was beyond remarkable. That it was apparently able to render all of these sensations from a file that fit on a thumb drive, running on a standard gaming PC was more remarkable still. If you had told him that in 20 years’ time that such technology might exist, he would have considered it just this side of possible. That it was happening now, and to the best of his knowledge he was among the first to experience, was simply unbelievable. Then again, seeing (and feeling) is believing, and here he was seeing and believing it.
Standing up, he felt his avatar’s body move around. The armor piece might not have been the optimal choice, but given his other choices, he was at least glad he seemed to keep everything in place. Feeling that all his obvious limbs were in place, he immediately made an executive decision to check the most important thing. Cautiously, he moved his hand down towards the piece of what appeared to be sackcloth covering his waist and the upper-parts of his legs, and gave it a light pat.
‘Okay, yes, that is gone…or not gone, just not here in game. I will probably want to give Winston a warning before he starts playing, because this is jarring.”
He also reached down to pick up his guitar (repeatedly thinking of it as a modified lute would grow quickly tiring), slung the strap over his shoulder, and started plucking a few strings. After spending a few seconds, he quickly became amazed/frustrated.
‘Is this actually using my skill in real life to play? Is it also using my skill in real life on a very similar, but slightly different instrument?’
Colton tried to pluck a few notes from Hotel California which he vaguely remembered. For some reason the line “you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave” popped into his head. His efforts were awarded with just a vaguely passable intro that might be recognizable if you told the listener beforehand what to listen for. While even on an actual guitar in his real body he would not have been able to play that song well, this “modified lute” was caused all types of unseen struggles. Whatever the strings were, they did not seem to bend in quite the same way, the neck seemed thicker, and the heavy wood it was constructed from had a weight that was far too different from a true, modern guitar. Suddenly he remembered his status screen, and the perk he had randomly chosen, imbue weapon.
‘Well, it did say that I can add whatever effect I wanted, so long as I had the mana pool. I have no idea how I’m supposed to use mana in the first in the first place, but I guess I’ll make like Luke Skywalker and use the force.”
Taking some deep breaths, Colton tried to visualize a flow of energy inside and around himself that was definitely not made up of tiny microscopic organisms. Continuing the visualization he took some of the energy from himself, and pushed it into the guitar, imagining it growing lighter, the strings more in-line with what he was used to, and the neck a little thinner.
Skill gained: +1 mana manipulation
‘Alright, skill gained, so that implies I was doing something right.”
Now placing his hands on the guitar, he tried to continue envisioning the flow of energy (magic?) into the guitar, and tried playing Hotel California once more. This time, while far from professional, it was much more recognizable. He continued to play, pushing magic into the guitar, even making it play louder. He played through the entirety of the song, with the exception of those sections he realized he had forgotten altogether, and as he ended stopped the flow of magic into the guitar. Immediately he felt it get heavier and more awkward in his hands.
Not realizing how loud he had actually made the guitar play, unbeknownst to him a small audience of fuzzy white rabbits had gathered. They were nearly identical to their horned counterparts, except with small horns growing out of their heads.
*CLANG* Colton took a step back as something impacted his chest piece.
“OWWW!” He screamed out loud, grateful for the armor. He had heard that getting boob-punched hurt, but up until now he had never been equipped to experience it for himself.
Looking down, he saw his three fuzzy attackers squaring off for additional leaps. Squinting at the closest one, another blue box suddenly appeared.
Horned Rabbit – Level 0
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Fodder for adventurers just starting out, these tiny pests have a single attack the consists of large jumps that try to puncture their opponents with their small horns. Weak against nearly everything.
While cute, it was hard to think these things could be as weak as the little blue box described. Had he not been wearing that chest piece, he had to imagine that little horn would have done a decent amount of damage. Also, why the fuck did that actually hurt? Up until now, the recreation of sensations was amazing, but he doubted many would be lining up for a game that stimulated pain, especially if it became too realistic.
“Alright, you wanna get nuts! Let’s get nuts.” Colton declared as he raised his guitar overhead and pushed magic into it to strengthen its construction. Right as he raised it up, another of the rabbits took a leap of faith directly for his midsection. Twisting his entire body, he swung his guitar as if it were a baseball bat, managed to clip the bunny hard enough to send it crashing into the ground.
'Home Run!' Colton shouted in his head. 'Or at very least a sprint to first base!'
Any further celebration was cut short as two things became apparent. The first that, even magically reinforced a guitar was not a melee weapon, as it had snapped in two from the sharp impact on the rabbit’s horn. The next was that another rabbit had leaped at him right as his swing took him off balance, once again impacting against Fiona’s chest piece.
While his character was slightly more coordinated than your average orc, orcs were not particularly coordinated, and that lack of coordination showed as the rabbits attack roughly shoved him off balance and caused him to fall over backwards.
Fall over backwards directly onto one of the rabbits that had tried to come around for a sneak attack. A 3-lb rabbit, no matter how ferocious, lost in the battle of physics as a 6’5” orc fell backwards onto it. Its sacrifice was not in vain, however, as its tiny horn manage to embed about an inch in Colton’s upper back as he squashed the rabbit flat.
‘Ow, ow, ow, ow, okay, this is too real, I have had enough.’
“Log out,” Colton yelled out loud while trying to raise his hands to his head as if removing the headset.
Still in the world, he continued to try to find the sequence of words that would end his gaming sessions.
“End game! Stop! Quit! CTRL, Alt, Delete! Main menu! Pause! Character Select…JUST LET ME OUT”
Looking down towards his feet, he saw the final rabbit preparing to lunge at him. Trying to crawl backwards on his hands, Colton let out another cry as the still embedded horn moved around as the rabbit corpse was dragged along with Fiona’s body.
Now firing in a panic mode, his thoughts bounced back and forth in a game of word association.
'Rabbit…wascally wabbit…looney tunes…ACME'
With that last thought, some weird instinct spurred him to push his magic out with a single image in his mind.
*THUD* Suddenly, manifesting a foot above the horned rabbit, a small anvil dropped to the ground and squished the remaining rabbit flat. Colton paused to blink out the panic and confusion in his eyes.
“…Ha! Okay, that was actually funny.” He declared to no one in particular.
What was not funny was what was actually going on. Certain things started piecing themselves together. A mysterious package. A piece of technology that shouldn’t (couldn’t?) exist. What appeared to be an AI capable of responding to any situation and query as if it were real. Sensations that were indistinguishable from reality, to include excruciating pain.
“I think…I think…” He paused as if not sure how to finish that thought.
“I think I fucked up.”
Skill gained: +1 mana manipulation
“Well, that’s something I guess.”
With that thought, a small bit of will summoned his status screen.
Name:
Fiona
Level:
1
Dexterity
11
Race:
Orc
Strength
8
Job:
Bard
Constitution
15
Experience:
115/200
Intelligence
11
Mana:
35/50
Charisma
16
Soulbound weapon:
Modified lute
Wisdom
11
Soulbound armor:
Shaped chest piece
Skills
Healing
8
Martial arts
5
Modified lute
12
Acrobatics
6
Archery
15
Singing
3
Drawing
13
Cooking
17
Swimming
11
Tinkering
19
Fencing
7
Map reading
9
Sleight-of-hand
30
Mana manipulation
2
Perk
Imbue weapon
Utilize magic to briefly imbue your weapon with a variety of effects. Make it harder than its base materials would otherwise be. Make it radiate cold. Make it lengthen or widen as needed. It's magic, its limitations are entirely up to you (and your mana pool).
Prank magic
Hey kid, you are not what any of us were expecting, and I dig that. I had to bend the rules a bit, but here’s an extra point for making things interesting. Think of Prank Magic like Roger Rabbit rules, you can do just about anything you want, but only if it’s funny.
Inspect
If Erious can bend the rules a bit, it seems orderly that I would be able to restore order and balance by ALSO providing a perk. Inspect will allow you to visualize characteristics of the world around you. While you are the only one who has "levels," Inspect will also estimate the level of your enemies and allies.
’15 experience for 3 rabbits in a battle that nearly killed me. I might have a problem.’