“This is not how you die!”
I swam in darkness. Basil’s voice came from so, so far away. A blanket settled over me, thick, warm, and fuzzy. I felt like I was tucked into the comfiest bed in the universe. I didn’t even want to expend the energy necessary to tell him to go away.
“Come on, this has got to work!”
I felt a heat build in my chest. It went from warm, to hot, to positively searing. It kept building until it felt like I had the sun in my chest.
“Stay with me, lad!”
The pain was unreal. It continued creeping along my body until it had consumed everything. All that was left was my mind, and even then… I couldn’t stand it anymore. I wanted to give up, to give in, anything to stop the pain.
Quest complete!
Awarded: 200xp, 10 silver.
Level up!
+3 strength, +1 agility, +3 constitution, +1 free stat point.
Job available: Half-dead.
Accept job: Half-dead?
“You did it!”
The words drifted lazily down to me in my agony. It took an age to understand what he had said. I just wanted the pain to stop.
“Do you hear me? You did it! You beat the boss!”
“Let me die,” I mumbled.
I wanted the notifications to stop. They only added to the torment.
“You’re level five, right? Accept whatever job is offered!”
“No,” I sobbed out. “Just let me die…”
“Accept the job, you lazy arse!”
I could just barely feel him shaking me. That made my body ache even more. I didn’t know it was possible to hurt more than I already did.
“No.”
Pain rocked me again. This time, it was my face. With my nerves deadened, how hard had he hit me to get through that?
“ACCEPT IT!”
Internally grumbling, I took the job. That immediately changed everything.
Job accepted. Beginning transfiguration.
Level up!
+2 strength, agility, constitution, +1 wisdom, intelligence, charisma, +1 free stat point.
Level up!
+2 strength, agility, constitution, +1 wisdom, intelligence, charisma, +1 free stat point.
I screamed. I thought I had been in pain before. This was an entirely new level. Even the blackness went away, replaced by… nothing. Nothing but sheer agony. It felt like my body was being ripped apart at the molecular– no, the atomic level. Even further, down to the quantum level. I felt my body become nothing, then be rebuilt from the quarks and gluons up. I had no idea how I could feel to such a finite degree, unless it was the pain itself driving me mad.
Slowly, feeling returned. Then it kept returning. Suddenly, I could feel my toes, my fingers. I could feel my chest rising and falling. I could feel… I could feel my heartbeat. I had a heartbeat. Except, it felt like every other time it beat, it… didn’t?
“Ow,” I muttered.
“Oh, thank the gods.”
I cracked my eyes open, which was the wrong move. Basil’s horrifying undead face greeted me, concern written all over his rotten features.
“Oh, oh man. Please get out of my face. Oh, god, you reek.”
I pinched my nose, and watched as his face went through a whole range of emotions.
“Uh, boss, not to poke a bear, here, but how are you smelling me?”
That is a damn good question, I thought to myself. How was I smelling him? Zombies can’t smell. Kind of a requisite trait to be an undead sack of rotting flesh.
I opened my eyes again. He was standing a more respectful distance away. I sighed, then realized I was breathing again. My afternoon spent as a zombie had not killed such an ingrained process. The relief was strange, but fitting.
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“I appear to be alive.”
I saw Basil nod from where I lay. I held my hands up to my face and inspected them. They were disgusting.
“God, was I bathing in guts?”
“Uh, kinda? You really went crazy for a while there. Before the boss fight, I mean. You were… well, you were reveling in the fight. You looked and acted like a berzerker. I kind of expected you to get that as your job.”
“What is up with this ‘job’ business?”
I sat up, trying my best to scrape the blood and gore from my hands. Then I saw my legs, and torso, and oh gods, I’m naked.
“Why am I naked?”
“Which, uh… which question do you want answered first?”
“Why am I naked,” I repeated.
“You fought a boss monster five levels higher than yourself, which was on the verge of evolution, and you somehow won. You did die, though. Like, for real.”
“I died? Again?”
“I suppose so. Been a busy day for you, hasn’t it?”
“That doesn’t explain why I’m naked.”
“Oh, right. You were smacked around. A lot. Actually, a concerning amount. But you and I managed to kill the boss. The tentacles at the end were a death throes kind of deal.”
“How? Last I saw, it was still around three-hundred health.”
“Your tracker must not have known I was hitting the boss and killing the faces on the other side.”
“I… I see. Troubling. I thought the system was a kind of all-knowing deal. But, back to my question. Why am I naked?”
“Right. It beat your clothes off you.”
I held a hand up. “Don’t say that.”
“What?”
“Beat off. Just don’t.”
“Well it tore your clothes off.”
I shook my head, fighting the urge to vomit. My sense of smell was returning at a truly upsetting pace. I could smell myself, now, and it was dire.
“I need a shower. Don’t talk about my clothes anymore.”
“You asked.”
“I did. Now, please help me up, then explain the job thing while we track down a shower. There should be a good one somewhere in this insane mansion.”
He offered a hand, which was different from the one he’d had before.
“Did you swap arms again?”
“I was forced to. It hit me almost as hard as it hit you. And it was actually only my left.”
He showed his right arm, and it was the large, hairy one I remembered. I shrugged, then accepted his help up. I didn’t even bother covering up my bits. He was the last living thing in the area… well, unliving, I suppose. And he’d had an eyeful while doing whatever it was he did to revive me. Actually…
“How did you revive me?”
“I, uh… I spent the boss loot orb.”
“You can do that?”
“Kind of. Instead of grabbing it to disperse loot, like normal,” he started. I interrupted.
“Wait, loot orb?” I looked at him. “I don’t remember seeing any orbs. I had to touch the bodies to get the loot.”
“Yeah, you have a looting power. When you don’t claim it in a set period, or get too far away, it creates an orb in that place that is yours for a set time.”
“How long?”
He went quiet.
That was concerning.
“How long, Basil?”
“Uh… an hour.”
I stopped and faced him, shocked.
“I was dead for an hour?!”
“Well, actually, most of the afternoon, from what I gathered.”
“Why… how? How am I alive now?”
“Well, my faction didn’t disappear. From that, I knew you weren’t dead. Not truly, at least. Still clinging on, somehow. I put every bit of unguent on you I could, but that didn’t really do anything.”
“So you took this boss loot orb thing, then did what?”
“Shoved it into your chest. Then your heart started to beat, and your chest closed up.”
“Can… can you explain that a bit better?”
I turned and started walking again. The foyer was just in front of us. Corpses were everywhere. I was constantly fighting the urge to vomit, which would have done me no good. I hadn’t eaten in hours, if not longer.
“Your chest was splayed open, like a Zolzar.”
The last word sounded like static. Whatever he actually said really didn’t translate. “What is that?”
“What?”
“That last thing you said.”
“I said ‘what’.”
“No, before that.”
“Oh, Zolzar.”
The same static-like sound came from his mouth. It hurt my brain. “Yeah, that’s the one,” I said as I rubbed my temple.
“Ah, I shouldn’t say things like that. Strange, it usually allows dissemination of knowledge after initiation.”
“It? Initiation?”
“Right, you didn’t get the tutorial. Busy being dead, and all that.”
I shook my head. I vaguely remembered seeing a shower in one bathroom, down one of the wings. I started toward the east wing. “We keep getting distracted. Jobs?”
“You keep asking questions.”
“Yeah, well… shut up. What’s up with the job thing?”
“Which is it? Shut up, or explain?”
I looked at him, and his toothy grin was grotesque. Still, I couldn’t help laughing. “Jeez, you’re a sight. Please explain.”
“Jobs are offered starting at level five. If you accept, you finish the level up. You can decline, but it sets you back. In your case, if you had declined, you would have died. The only thing keeping you clinging to life was the pending level-up.”
“That makes more sense.”
Secret quest completed: Find the origin of your transition to Half-dead.
Reward: 10xp, new title: Reborn.
New title: Primal Rebirth.
“Aaaaand I just finished a secret quest.”
“You are the luckiest person I have ever met.”
I read the two new titles, and I had to agree.
Reborn:
You have been remade into a new race!
+1 to luck
Primal Rebirth:
As the first to be reborn in your universe, you are one of the luckiest ever born.
+1 to luck.
“Yeah, you might have something there.” I shared the details with him. He glowered at me for a moment.
“You are unbelievable. How many titles do you have now?”
I checked. “Uh, seven.”
He stopped and stared at me, mouth agape.
“What?” I looked at him, then around the hallway. There were still no other living people. Unliving. Whatever.
“I have heard of level one-hundred ancient beings that didn’t have five titles.”
I pointed a finger gun at him. “I’m awesome.”
“I’m starting to think that’s more true than either of us know.”
I rolled my hands backwards to mimic rewinding. “Back on topic, more about jobs.”
“Right. If you accept your first offered job, you finish your level up, and you earn your first job level. If you decline, your xp gain is split, with half going to earning a new job. You have to earn enough xp to hit level five twice, all while stalled at level five. And it doesn’t round up, so half an xp becomes zero.”
“That is brutal,” I said. “I guess I really am lucky.”
“What did you get for your job, anyway?”
“Half-dead,” I said distractedly. We found a bedroom, though it was as large as my apartment. I was busy looking through the wardrobe. Then I decided I shouldn’t touch nice clothing with my filthy hands and walked to the bathroom.
“Look, I want to get clean, so just wait for me here. Or, better yet, go find another bathroom and clean yourself off. I’ll meet you in the hallway in a half hour.”
He didn’t respond.
“Basil, hello? Earth to Basil!”
He snapped out of whatever had crashed his mind.
“You are a half-dead?”
I nodded. “Yeah, it’s the job I was offered.”
Basil threw his hands up and walked out. “I give up!”
I scratched my head, then shuddered as I remembered what my hands were coated in. I needed a shower. Luckily, the bathroom had an incredible one. I was ready to use every every ounce of hot water in the mansion.