“But why me? Why can’t we go out there and capture a demon?”
She waved her hand. “Oh, I’m sure that’s what you’re really supposed to do. But neither of us are strong enough yet to capture one. When we watched Paulo go through the ceremony, the cleric said that this was the last demon they had locked up for this purpose. They would have to go out and grab more. Alternatively, they could also use practitioners of resurrection magic. There’s probably a groundling-only quest where you gotta go around kidnapping NPC worm surgeons and leechers and sneak them back to a temple without getting caught so the child groundlings can make their way to heaven.”
She paused, eyeing me apologetically. I felt terrible anticipation, like I stood at the bottom of a cliff that was about to fall on top of me.
“Tell me what it is,” I asked again.
She sighed. “Okay. So it’s called ‘amplification.’” She shuddered. “I watched Paulo perform it a couple times because he kept screwing up the ceremony and having to restart. Groundlings think their souls need a sort of invisible brand to get into heaven. This brand is inside of demons. And you guys too, I guess. Groundlings can only get this brand by cutting it out of a still-breathing demon. The moment the demons die, the brand goes away. The problem is, each demon is different, and the brand is hidden in one of, I don’t know, it’s like 50 different places. And you don’t actually know when you’ve received the brand. So the only way to be sure is to release all 50 areas. Doing this is called the sacrament of amplification.”
I looked at her, horrified. “So they’re going to start lopping off my body parts while I’m still alive?”
She cringed. “It’s a little worse than that. A cleric paralyzes you. They… bisect each section. Everything they cut remains attached to your body. They start with your toes.” She made a chopping motion. “They cut each one in half lengthwise so it’s still attached to your foot. They have this ceremonial blade that’s like a laser Xacto knife. It cuts the bones perfectly in half. So your five toes on each foot become ten toes on each foot. Then they cut your foot in half. Then the fingers. Then the hand. Then the leg below the knee.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “For the guys, the penis gets sliced in half. The testicles are each cut. Then the nose. The ears get cut. The eyelids, the lips. Each individual tooth in your mouth gets sliced. And your tongue. The tips of the nipples. Each eyeball is cut in half near the end.” She looked up at me. “The whole time, a group of clerics are casting spells to make sure you don’t die before the ceremony is over. If the groundling makes a mistake, they cast a spell to heal you completely, and the ceremony starts over. It ends with them folding you into a flower shape, something that’d be otherwise impossible if you were all intact. Then they cut out your heart.”
I didn’t say anything for several moments. My hands shook. Across the street, another groundling in a mech clanked by, waving at me.
“Why would they put something like this in the game?” I asked. “That’s sick. I refuse to believe they’d program something like this in.”
Clara shrugged. “There are dozens of ways to get tortured in this game. You know the caduceus race? Those lizard-headed guys? There’s a quest they have to do where they get their skin peeled off and then they get dipped in acid over and over until they form a new coating of blisters. The whole process takes like a week. And then they have to peel the blisters all off by hand. Anatoly told me that in single-player mode most of these torture events happened via cutscene. In co-op mode, you are supposed to get logged out during the events. You’re not supposed to actually experience them, even if you had your sensation setting up. You can watch. But that’s it. The third-person scenes were one of the first things Anatoly took out when he tweaked the game. It’s also why some of this stuff is so hard to figure out. You get a new weapon, there’s a cutscene tutorial that shows you how to use it. But they’re all gone now, so you’re on your own.”
“So when I get tortured, I have to just sit there and take it?”
She nodded. “Yep. But…”
This is too much. This is too much.
“Let me be very clear with you,” I said, interrupting her. “There is no way that is going to happen. And fuck you for even suggesting it.”
“It was the only thing I could think of,” she said. “But listen…”
“We can leave,” I said. “We can try to find another village.”
She closed her mouth, suddenly angry. “I am not going back out there. Not with Jenk prowling around. He knows we’re here. He’s looking for us.”
My mind kept going back to the thought of the knife slicing my penis in half. And my tongue. My eyes. Jesus. That’s worse than the death sequence. “I don’t know what he did, but it can’t be worse than that.”
She jumped to her feet. “You don’t know anything. You could be amplified for a week straight, with the sensation setting turned up to 200 and it wouldn’t be a pinprick compared to what he can do. I would torture you, your wife, and your precious daughter a thousand times over if that’s what it took to make sure he doesn’t get his hands on me again.”
She took a deep breath. I watched her mouth something, and I realized she was counting backward. I was taken aback, shocked into silence. She eased herself back into a sitting position. Banksy put his massive head in her lap. She started to pet him.
She looked at me. “As I was saying before. We’re getting the brands. We’re getting the surgery. The ceremony isn’t for two days after that. We’re gonna have to kill ourselves. But you’re not going to actually have to go through with it. Christ, Duke. I wouldn’t do that.”
I started to relax. Of course. We could always get away. The death sequence was terrible, horrific. But it sounded like a damn papercut compared to the sacrament. But then I thought back to her outburst.
I would torture you, your wife, and your precious daughter a thousand times over if that’s what it took.
I’d never told her who it was on the other side of the screen. She’d never seen. She’d pretended in the beginning to have not known, but she must have. Maybe she could have guessed, but I didn’t think so. She knew way more about this place and the people here than she was letting on. But her fear of Jenk, that was real. I was certain. You couldn’t fake that.
She’s the one who picked you, SmashSouth had said. She’d had an excuse. But was that true?
“Why were you there?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“When Anatoly visited Paulo. Why did he bring you?”
She looked down and was silent for several moments. “They always get a starter consumable, to make sure this is something they’re really interested in. It takes a lot of money and effort to get a consumable into the game.” She put her hands out. “That was my job. To ease them in.”
“Yeah, but didn’t he like boys? And wasn’t he a cannibal?”
Clara grunted. “Yeah.” She made a jabbing motion. “A stick right up the keister. Then he spins you over a flame. He told me he even stuck a fucking apple in their mouth. I’m not so sure he ever did anything in real life. Those cannibal guys are usually all talk. Anyway, it was pretty rare that I met the proper demographic. Anatoly used it as a marketing technique.” She tried to imitate his voice. “Now just imagine if you were cooking and eating a sweet boy.” Clara shook her head. “He never did meet that promise, though. Paulo was pissed when that kid came in here and he had fucking fairy wings. I ended up going to SmashSouth after that. In his case, I was what he was looking for. So I stayed with him.”
“He said you liked it,” I said.
She looked surprised, then angry. “No. He wanted someone who liked it. He wanted a strong, assertive consumable who would still succumb to him. People like that don’t really exist. So it became my job. I did not…”
The door swung open, and Jazz stuck her head out. “The brand is ready.”
Chapter 22
Clara opted for the Charnel brand to be placed on her chest,
right above her breasts. Banksy stoically received his on his neck.
For mine, I went with the center of my back, between the shoulder blades. Jazz assured me it was just as safe as a place as my chest. She rubbed a cool cream on my gray skin before she branded me.
“This will ease the pain,” she said. Her angry demeanor from before had changed to that of a caring mother. “Normally we charge more for it, but for you, no charge.”
Sure enough, I felt the heat of the brand, but it did not hurt. Just a dull pain.
Brand received! You have received brand access to the town of Charnel – Town Square.
Your available regeneration spots are
Bast – Player Base (default)
Charnel – Town Square
You may choose your preferred regeneration spot in the menu.
I pulled up my menu. I now had three choices for regeneration spots: Bast, Charnel, or whichever was closest. I picked Charnel. I noted a memo at the bottom of the menu I hadn’t noticed before:
Some quests and game areas will override your preferred regeneration spot with temporary locations.
I wondered what that meant. I suspected if you were knee-deep in some dungeons or boss fights, you’d come back right there instead of halfway around the world. It made sense. This game had a lot of stupid crap in it, but if it didn’t have something like that, it’d be a deal-breaker for most. I couldn’t imagine how frustrating it was to be almost through an area, to die, and to find yourself having lost several hours of grinding. Especially in a game like this where everything is trying to kill you.
I went into my familiar menu and switched Banksy’s regen over to Charnel.
I felt a huge weight lift off of me. I received another warning that I didn’t have a pet carrier, so we’d be separated if only one of us died. But that was still better than him bursting out of my chest. Finding a carrier would be our next priority. And then we’d level up some more and tackle the Shrill quest. We’d get the gazebo in Charnel repaired, teleport into Medina and then really start the process of getting ourselves as powerful as possible. And finally when we’re strong enough, we’ll pick up the game where Anatoly and the others left it off.
Clara’s cybernetic enhancements went first. Stonegate said the surgery would only take a few minutes. Banksy lifted his bulk up the side of the wall, turning to watch as Clara was prepared for surgery. The dentist chair converted to look like a massage table, and Clara went face first, her dainty arms hanging off the side. Stonegate muttered excitedly to himself as he rummaged around his tools. He pulled out a long syringe.
“Just a prick, and you’ll be straight into dreamland. You’ll wake up with a set of the most beautiful wings.”
Clara gave a thumbs up from her face-down position. He stabbed her with the needle.
“I’m so excited,” Stonegate said. He picked up a tool that looked like an ice cream scooper made of rusted metal. “I’ve always wanted to try doing this.”
“Wait, what?” Clara said, lifting her head. She conked back down. The word Unconscious appeared next to her name. A five-minute countdown started ticking.
“I hope that was a joke,” I said.
“Uh, of course it was,” Stonegate said, looking sheepish. He stood on a stool and went to work.
The surgery was fascinating to watch. Stonegate went about it with the glee of a child opening a Christmas present. He started by cutting a hole in the back of her half shirt. He used the scooper to peel away a chunk of her skin, exposing her mottled, tan-colored spinal column. He giggled as he worked. Blood boiled out, cascading off her and onto the floor. The moment the blood hit the floor, a clockwork mouse appeared, shooting from a tiny hole in the wall. It traveled over the blood, cleaning it up, making a loud ticking noise. Banksy tracked the mouse with his triangular head, quivering with excitement.
Stonegate placed a tiny metal box onto Clara’s spine with a chink. He smacked it with a hammer and slipped another needle into her neck. He started to sew her back up.
“Oh damn,” he muttered, pausing. “I did it upside down. We don’t want her flying into the ground, do we? Whoops.”
He repeated the process. “There we go,” he said, finishing the final stitch. The whole thing was over much more swiftly than I’d expected. “That was easy.” The countdown timer over Clara’s head still had a couple minutes to go.
He turned to me. “When she wakes up, she’ll be groggy for a bit. We’ll test her wings out to make sure I installed the correct module. And once she’s satisfied, we’ll move onto you.”
I felt a tug at my leg. I looked down to see a child groundling, no older than six years old standing next to me, looking up at me with giant, round eyes.
It was a boy, but with long hair down to his shoulders. He stood no taller than my knee.
“Hi mister,” he said. “My mommy told me I have to thank you for letting me get into heaven.”
“Chris,” I said, the word just coming out of my mouth. I shocked myself into silence, feeling as if I’d been hit by a truck. Why did you say that? But I knew why. I had that reaction every time I saw a child around that age. It was why I avoided kids if I could. I felt it there, at my chest. The anchor, I called it. It clutched onto me, dragging down. Not into the ground, but into myself. Into the dark, endless abyss. The abyss that lives in all people who’ve experienced such a terrible loss. It was always there, behind every frown, every smile, every grimace, and every smile. All pain was enhanced, all joy muted. I never forgot it, this abyss.
Sometimes one could pretend to forget the pain. They could live their lives, shuffling through their days, their heads down, not turning their eyes toward that blazing presence that was always there. I did that. I pretended to forget.
But not when I was in the presence of a child. Five years later, and it all came roaring back out of nowhere. And when it did that, it loved to remind you of how it’d never gone away.
Five years. He’d have turned eleven a few weeks back, on January second.
“Hello there,” I said to the boy, choking on the words.
“I’m not Chris,” the boy said.
I took a deep breath. “No you’re not,” I said, kneeling down. This is an NPC. This is not a real person. “What’s your name?”
“Everyone calls me Gulch,” he said.
“Gulch? That’s a silly name.”
He laughed. “You’re nice. You’re not so scary when you talk.”
I felt myself smiling.
Gulch continued. “My mom says that when I perform the sacrament on you, your soul will be free too. It’s helping you as much as it’s helping me. When we’re both in heaven, maybe we can be friends.”
My smile faded. “Yeah, okay kiddo,” I said.
“Okay, bye, Mister!” he said. “I gotta go practice my knife cuts. I keep accidentally slipping when I slice the practice dummy’s wiener.” He frowned. “Mommy says it’s not because of my seizures. Papa Mori will make my cuts straight. Mommy makes me start over when I mess up. Sometimes she cries and tells me to keep it a secret.” He turned and then scurried up the wall, climbing like a monkey. I couldn’t even see any handholds. He disappeared into the loft.
I glanced over at Clara, who was now awake. She watched me with wide eyes.
“You’re awake!” Stonegate cried, rushing forward. He pulled Clara up. “Sit up, sit up. Let’s try these out. Now, we won’t be able to actually fly in here. And it’s a tad dangerous outside. But we can maybe hover a bit, make sure they’re working. Now, do you think you can…”
Before he finished, a pair of glowing, metallic bat wings burst from Clara’s back. They made a swoosh noise followed by a ratcheting sound as they clicked into place.
“Okay, this is weird,” she said, flapping the wings up and down. Each wave clicked loudly. Her wingspan wasn’t nearly as wide as it probably should be, but the appendages still looked huge on her, probably about seven feet from tip to tip. The skeletal outline of the wings was made of a s
ilvery, metallic material. Each “bone” connected to a series of miniature clockwork joints and pistons and rods that twisted and ticked away like tiny train wheels. The membrane between the bones glowed a translucent blue, like electrified silk.
“It said these are special edition wings, only available from this particular vendor. I guess you can collect different ones. It’s weird. I know how to control them.”
The wings started to vibrate, buzzing loudly. Clara rose from the chair. Stonegate clapped loudly. “They work! They work! I didn’t kill you!”
He turned to me. “Okay, let’s do some brain surgery!”
Chapter 23
You have awakened from surgery!
World Map skill has successfully been upgraded to level 4.
Grappling Hook has been installed. Grappling Hook has successfully been upgraded to level 3. You may now install attachments to your cybernetic limb. These may be purchased from any Cyber Outfitters locations.
I sat up, groggy from the dentist chair. My ear felt sticky. Banksy hovered over me worriedly.
“Are you dead, father? He dropped your brain on the floor.”
“It was not your brain,” Stonegate said. “At least not all of it. You’d have died if it’d been all of it.”
I shook my head. My left hand felt weird. I had a headache, and my life points were worryingly low. I was almost out of soul power. I needed to kill something soon.
“I gave you the optional four-finger upgrade,” Stonegate was saying. “The base model is three fingers. Why don’t you try your new hand out?”
I gazed stupidly at the four metal fingers where my left hand used to be. If felt odd, itchy. Heavy. I still had sensation in my hand, though my four metal fingers tingled unpleasantly, like they were asleep. I could shoot my hand across the room. I felt the potential energy, like having a loaded gun in my hand. The knowledge was burned into my mind.
Kaiju- Battlefield Surgeon Page 18