by Eric Ugland
Finally, the last step in creating any character, at least for me. A name. Always the thing that took the longest. For some games, I used my character’s name as some form of psychological warfare. But in this game, I wanted to experience a more immersive experience, and certainly not get pulled out by having people refer to me as xxBUTTMASTER69xx. What if I got a title? Would I be Lord ButtMaster? There was a little parenthetical under the box, which simply said: Elves of the Sun and the Moon typically have names similar to their nation of birth. That didn’t exactly help. I ran through some ideas in my head, thinking maybe I’d take something from pop culture. But that seemed lame. I needed something cool but also blasé. Something that would gain cool because of me, not something that was cool before me. Clyde Hatchet. Boom. See you later, Ben! I was now Clyde Hatchet.
I clicked, Yes.
The game asked if I was sure about things. About who I was going to be.
Yup.
Sure.
Hit me with a new life.
Chapter 6
The beeping in my room reached a crescendo before disappearing altogether. Then everything went black. Not like I died or anything, though. I was still conscious, just, like, everything was black. Everything.
“Welcome, Hero!” a deep and melodious voice boomed out from the nothingness. “You have been summoned to the world of Vuldranni! A magical world full of flights of fantasy and mobs of monsters.”
Below me, a bright light flared, and I could see myself (or some of myself) suspended in space. But it wasn’t the old me, little Ben Zuckowski. It was new me. The elf, Clyde Hatchett.
I smiled. I couldn’t help it, but I didn’t want to help it. I had a new life. I was done in the old world, I had a new one to go to. And, looking down past my elven feet, I saw it. A big planet rotating around serenely. Very big. And coming closer to me. Or, more likely, I was getting closer to it. It looked interesting, I mean, I loved staring at the globe as a kid or losing hours playing around on Google Earth, but this was a different experience. I tried to take it all in, to see all the separate landmasses, how they must have fit together. All the mountains, with lines of white cutting through deep browns and verdant greens. There were vast oceans and lakes, and ribbons of blue rivers here and there. It went by so incredibly fast that I couldn’t possibly catch it all.
While I zoomed across the sky, I realized that this experience was exactly what I’d hoped for, and been afraid of: this was the start of a whole new life in an entirely new world. My old world, my old self, the mistakes I’d made and the problems crushing me, all that was left behind. My broken life, the disaster of my family. I was the only one I had to take care of now — just me 2.0 in this new world.
And something seemed a bit off. I wasn’t exactly playing a game. I was, I mean, it seemed like I was entirely encapsulated in the game. I was, well, I was feeling things. This wasn’t just a game, was it?
I came to a stunning stop right above a city.
The deep and melodious voice continued: “The city of Glaton. The center of a great empire, Glaton is one of the most populous cities in all of Vuldranni, and some would argue it is the most cosmopolitan. But it is a city of illusions and shadows. Of heroes and villains, all held in check by the slightest sense of civilization.”
I stopped paying attention right around there because I realized I probably wouldn’t get an opportunity to have a top-down view of the city again. So I did my best to memorize it, and I tuned out the droning melodic voice. North of the city, not very far, was a massive waterfall. Beyond, high foothills that turned into jagged mountains with snowy peaks. To the west, first a river, and then the wilderness. A road cut through the forest there, but I couldn’t see much else in the way of civilization. To the south and east of the city were farmlands as far as the eye could see. The river presented a clear demarcation: civilization on the east side, wilderness, or savagery I guess, on the west.
Glaton was on a flat spot at the end of the hills. A large port cut into the city and the river, providing access to various riverboats. In fact, past the waterfall, the river grew enormously until it looked like I imagined the Mississippi did. I’d never actually seen the river in person, but I knew it was a place where steamboats could cruise, just like this one. Two bridges crossed the river: one to the north of the city and one to the south, with roads leading directly to large gates. Massive walls surrounded all of Glaton, with large round towers at irregular intervals. Dark grey stone lent an ominous tone to the whole place.
There was a massive series of buildings and a whole lot of green space in the north-central portion of the town, butting up against the western and northern walls. Given the maze I could just barely make out tucked in the back of the green, I hazarded a guess that it was probably the Imperial palace. Or something along those lines. To the east of the palace, still in the northern part of the city, there were vast estates that gradually tapered off into smaller houses, before becoming vast estates once again. To the south, the homes were, well, less like houses and more like tenement buildings. Especially the farther south and east you went. The roads almost disappeared between the buildings. A broad avenue cut the city in half, east-west, and another went north-south. The north-south one ran straight from the palace to the main city gates. There was—
I started moving again.
“… And so we hope you have learned all you needed from our tutorial,” the voice boomed. “Enjoy your new you.”
Balls. I probably should have paid attention.
Chapter 7
One second I was hanging out above the city, incorporeal and just, you know, kickin’ it, and the next I was thrust bodily into reality. It felt weird. Unnatural even. I mean, it was unnatural, quite fundamentally so. Obviously. Just coming into being is not the natural way of things. Mainly because I wasn’t planning on coming into being. Up to that point, I’d taken the verisimilitude of the game as a byproduct of high-quality medical drugs I’d been given to ease the pain of being burned alive. Sure, it was a bit trippy, floating in space and looking at a city, but now I was in a city. I was suddenly and inexplicably standing on a pile of trash at the end of an alley between two buildings smelling the noxious odors are only possible when masses of humans toilet together out of doors. It was hot, humid, and smelly. That wasn’t just something that game developers managed to squeeze into new mobile games. I was there. I was in the world. Actually, in the world.
Immediately, as soon as I was, for lack of a better term, real, small animals of various types who possessed seemingly different numbers of legs and pincers started crawling all over my feet, which thankfully were covered in very basic shoes. Looking up, I could see a small slice of deep azure sky. Most of the sky was blocked by buildings soaring up above five stories on either side of me. The street below, or alley more like, was made of cobblestone. Rounded cobblestones that looked as if they’d seen more than one generation of trash dumped upon them.
And, there wasn’t just trash under me, there was trash around me. Rubbish in boxes and bins, wooden crates, some empty, some decidedly not, holding the sad remnants of things that might have once been edible. It also smelled terrible and seemed to have a plethora of crawlies moving around in the slop.
I blinked, and with that small action, my vision was overwhelmed with all sorts of text boxes and graphics. The largest, and most ornate, also provided the least amount of information.
Welcome to Vuldranni.
That was all the first notification said. Not exactly useful.
Congratulations, you have been given the VIP package, which includes the boon:
Gift of Gab (VIP Package) - Should you encounter a language you do not understand, as long as you hear at least three words of it, you will gain fluency in it.
That was a pretty sweet gift. Likely super useful in a whole new world where English wasn’t exactly the language of the day.
Do you wish to open your starting gear?
Yes/No
I wonder
ed how to pick yes, and as I thought about it, yes was selected. That made me feel better about things happening in this game world, if things came up in public, in or the moment of a fight or something, I could select yes or no, or anything, really I supposed, without having to speak the command aloud. And thinking about the game world made me actually take a minute and think about the fact that I was in another world. That I had been in a hospital bed, listening to the doctor and my dad fight, listening to the beeps of my monitors and whirring of the machines keeping me alive, and then I filled out a form on a mystery phone, and now I was here. In another world, living as an elf. And it wasn’t a fever dream, or, if it was, it was a pretty damn realistic one, because the bug biting my arm hurt more than a dream ever would.
A quick slap and the bug was spread out across my elven skin. The slap I also felt. A slight sting. This wasn’t a dream. This was a reality.
GG! You’ve killed a Winged Flerb (LVL 2 Scout).
You’ve earned 5 XP! What a mighty hero you are.
Okay. GG? Good game? Harsh. And a flerb? That was the name of the bug I just smashed? Great. A sassy game world. I guess it was better than a droll one.
A list sprang into view, hovering in the air. I was struck by their UI design, and not in a good way. It felt dated. Anyway, the list had different sets of gear, five of them, ostensibly all tuned towards specific playstyles. Or, you know, because this was, in a sense, a new life, specific lifestyles.
The first had a dagger and a longbow. Ranged attacks.
The second had a short sword and a small shield. Up close and personal.
The third had a hammer, a saw, and a carving knife. Crafting.
The fourth was a fishing pole, a pick, and a hatchet. Gathering?
But it was the fifth which caught my eye. A hand crossbow, a black leather cloak, an advanced lockpick kit, and climbing gear. The perfect kit for a thief. Mostly. Now, to be clear to the uninitiated, I was going to be a rogue. A rogue and thief are not precisely the same. They’re similar, one can argue that all thieves are rogues, but not all rogues are thieves. I wasn’t sure the specific type of rogue I wanted to be, but, perhaps, a thief was a decent place to start. The fifth kit seemed the coolest of the bunch and was the closest to what I was thinking of playing.
Naturally, I picked number five.
You have found the starting kit: Second Floor Man
Hand Crossbow.
Black Leather Cloak.
Advanced LockPick Set.
Lockpicking Skillbook.
Rations.
Climbing Kit.
Knapsack.
Bandage.
Money Pouch.
Bone bolts (20).
Lifeform Identification Spellbook.
Basic Object Identification Spellbook.
Cool.
All the stuff appeared at my feet, and I knelt down to inventory the gear. The knapsack wasn’t great, it was a super basic model, metal bits poorly made, and the canvas fraying in more than one spot. I’d spent most of my middle school and high school electives in craft-based classes, mainly skipping anything that involved physical contact and/or exercises thanks to my gymnastics coach telling me it was unsafe to engage in any other physical activity, and thanks to two years of Home Economics, I knew I’d be able to make something better if I had access to some thread and a needle. Not that I was disappointed with something free, but, I mean, I got what I paid for. The knapsack didn’t even match the black leather cloak, being a sort of the vague beige of natural canvas. The cloak was black. Like really black. Impressively so. Not quite VantaBlack, but one of the darker blacks I’d encountered. I pulled the cloak out, and wrapped it around my shoulders, taking a second to look at my overall outfit. Again, pretty basic stuff. My guess was cotton, or some native variant thereof. Soft, pliable pants, a dirty white color. Cheap leather boots that fit, mostly, and were definitely each exactly the same. There didn’t seem to be a difference between the left and the right boot. Interesting. And a shirt, that was, well, mostly shirt-like, but also somewhat sack-like.
The crossbow was the worst thing I got. It was tiny, the wood was poor quality, and I had the feeling it would be hard-pressed to send a bolt with enough velocity to perforate paper, let alone damage an attacker. It might kill a pigeon. Or piss it off. Even chances.
The money pouch was simple leather and empty. The rations looked like hardtack biscuits.
There were three books in the pile of stuff, and I picked them up. The first was a small black book with an embossed key on the front. I flicked it open, and a prompt floated out of the book settling right in front of my eyes.
Would you like to learn the skill: Lockpicking?
Yes/No
Easy answer: Yes.
The book started vibrating in my hand, and as the vibrations grew in intensity, the book seemed to phase in and out or reality. Then it popped right out of existence, and I felt this pressure on my head. I closed my eyes, relaxing my brain as if I was just letting the knowledge come in. As I did, I felt a distinct burning sensation start at my head and work through my arms, as if the knowledge itself forged physical pathways. But then it stopped, and I knew how to pick locks. At least to a certain extent.
Cool Beans, you’ve learned the skill Lockpicking (LVL 15). You can unlock and lock locks without keys. At level 15, you make less noise while shimmying picks around. +15% to unlock abilities, -5% detection.
When I peeked over at my character sheet, there it was, my very first little skill under the appropriate heading: Skills.
Skills
Lockpicking - (LVL 15): +15% to unlock abilities, -5% detection.
Skill books were awesome.
Next book, then. Also small, pocket bible sized, it had a black cover and a gold magnifying glass. As soon as I tried to open the book, the same thing happened as before. A notification swirled up out of the book and settled in front of my eyes.
Would you like to attempt to learn the spell: Lifeform Identification?
Yes/No
Attempt? Did that mean I could fail? That’d suck. Fail to learn the basic spells you get at the start of the game. I wondered if you only got the one chance?
Well, balls, I had to do it. I needed the spell. At least, I was pretty sure I needed the spell. I said, yes.
There was the same sort of thing as the first book, and then, poof, I knew magic.
Look at that, you’ve learned the spell: Lifeform Identification
Lifeform Identification allows you to examine creatures and know certain traits. At higher spell levels, you will gain access to additional information.
One more book, one more magical moment, and I had another spell.
Look at that, you’ve learned the spell: Basic Object Identification
Basic Object Identification allows you to examine objects and identify certain traits. At higher spell levels, you will gain access to additional information.
I leaned back and looked up at the blue sky above. I wanted to use my spells. I wanted to do magic. I could feel it, that little connection to magic, to do something completely different that was beyond anything I’d ever experienced. It felt awesome. I wondered how I’d cast the spell, but as I thought about it, I just knew how to do it. I extended my hand, and I let some of my mana flow out of my fingers. The magic would do the rest.
There weren’t any birds in the sky, but there were plenty of little things crawling around the trash. I angled my index finger at a rather ugly looking bug that had a bulbous body and spindly legs, then let the mana fly.
Infernal Flower Beetle
Lvl 0 Insect
Huh. Interesting. The spell provided really the bare minimum of information. I wondered if, at higher levels of the spell, I’d get more?
I fired off my other spell at the wall, figuring that might qualify as an object.
It did.
Red Brick
Item Type: Common
Item Class: Structural
Material: Brick
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Durability: High
Weight: 4 lbs
Description: A brick. That is red.
Illuminating. Sure, it was a bit pithy, but, then again, I’d used an identification spell on a brick.
I was part of a whole new world, and I wanted to just fire my spells off each and every way. In fact, I was pointing at another insect, ready to work on my entomology merit badge when I heard a popping sort of noise, followed by some short words I just couldn’t quite make out exchanged between man and woman. Definitely an argument, but obviously I couldn’t hear it distinctly enough, or I’d have learned the language.
Another unidentifiable sound came, something violent, though because immediately after the noise came a scream. A scream of pain. I assumed the worst.
Still on my knees, I scooched out between the boxes, my off-white pants becoming nasty-white pants, and I leaned out just far enough to get a glimpse down the rest of the alley. One direction was just garbage-strewn alleyway until a relatively empty sun-filled street. The other, well, that held something of more interest to me. Or anyone really, because there were actual people there. Living beings that were thinking and breathing and bleeding. Emphasis on the bleeding in this case because it was apparent I was interrupting a rather intimate act. A man killing a lady. Stabbing her. Over and over and over again. Now, I don’t really think he was enjoying his job, but he was definitely doing it.
His appearance was slightly disconcerting because there was a somewhat overwhelming amount of blood splashed over and around the man. Like, more than I would have expected for the duration of his attack or the size of his opponent. Opponent really isn’t the right word because ‘opponent’ implies an attempt to fight back, but the chick had no chance here. Victim fit better.