“For sure.” I lifted up my ceramic mug. “Even the coffee’s better. And this pecan cake is killer—oh, sorry. . . .”
“It’s fine, really. I’m totally over it. It’s definitely not worse than your death.”
“So when did it happen?”
“Summer of ninety-one. Right after I signed up for beta testing.”
“You were a beta tester?”
“Yeah, that’s how I got woken up so early. I helped create Comic Fucking Heaven, actually.”
“Oh cool. It seems like everyone got brought back before me. I mean I died way before you, right after I signed up for DA.”
“I know, but they couldn’t make you a beta without your permission, could they?”
“True.” The thought flashed through my mind that I had been enough of a beta in real life. In Conquest, however . . .
Anaksa asked, “So, there’s really nothing you wanted to do with your life? I mean, I get that you didn’t get much time to think about it.”
I looked at her a moment, then took a breath. “I wanted to be in a band. I wanted to be a drummer.”
“See, that’s cool.”
“Not really. I sucked. My mom bought me a drum set, and I tried, and I totally sucked. There was no hope.”
“But did you really try hard enough? Practice enough?”
“I don’t know. I thought I did, but . . .” I shook my head. “I tried to tell myself it wasn’t that important to me, but it was. I really wanted it.”
“Well, it’s never too late to try again. Especially in this world.”
“I don’t know,” I said ambiguously. Time to turn the subject away from me and my failure. “So what kind of music do you like? I still haven’t checked out the record store.”
“Oh, mostly classical. You know, Sabbath, Maiden, et cetera.”
“No way! I’m a total classical-head. That’s the kind of stuff I wanted to play!”
“Oh cool! We have a lot in common.”
“I just can’t get into modern music, like random frequency and stuff like that.”
“Random freq had pretty much died off by the time I, uh, died.”
“You’re lucky.”
“Yeah, but it got worse. Fart-core was just starting to take over the charts.”
“Fart-core?”
“It’s as bad as it sounds. But you should totally check out the record store here. They literally have everything. And I mean literally literally.”
“You know, I still haven’t ventured outside this town.”
“Yeah, the games are pretty addictive. I did finally go to Japan a few months ago.”
“Japan? I can go to Japan?”
“Well, it’s not like a replica of the whole country, but there’s a miniature Tokyo and a miniature Osaka, and there’s a section of Kyoto modeled with a lot of old temples and stuff.”
“Sweet! I’ve always wanted to go to Japan, but I never got the chance. Are plane tickets expensive?”
“You don’t need a plane. You can walk to the train station about half a mile from here and take a replica of a JR train. It’s about a ten-minute ride, more for the experience than anything else. We should go sometime and have okonomiyaki in Osaka.”
“I’d like that. Hey, I was wondering . . . do you ever talk to your friends back in the real world?”
She set her mug down and gave me a sad smile.
“I’ve called a few of them. They were nice enough but . . . they seemed very . . . distant. Of course they are very distant, but I mean, I could totally tell they were weirded out by talking to someone who had been stabbed to death in a Xié Burger parking lot and then turned into a leather jacket. They went to my funeral, you know?”
“Yeah. I guess I should forget about calling my friends. If your friends were like that, imagine how mine would be after I’ve been gone sixteen years.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t recommend getting in touch with them. It sucks, but no matter what technology has done for us, to them we’re basically ghosts.”
“Yeah. . . .” I stared into my empty mug.
“But you know what? We’ve got centuries, possibly millennia if they can keep the data intact that long, to make new friends.”
I nodded and lifted my mug. “To new friends—especially ones who listen to classical music and like comic books.
Anaksa corrected me.
“Love comic books.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
I woke up in the inn in Poirsville so refreshed it was hard to believe I’d spent the whole time in Verterria. Anna was just getting out of bed, the wooden floor creaking as she strapped on her boots.
“I hunger.”
“I’ve got something for you to eat. . . .” Oh shit, did I just say that?
“Have you food?”
“Uh, no, I just remembered I ate it all. We’ll have to go get breakfast.”
We went out and wandered around until we found a merchant on the side of the road selling a “fortifying fast-breaking assortment.” It was basically pancakes, eggs, and sausage. It was great, but I would’ve boned a One for a cup of coffee.
We stood on the street and ate as we discussed our plans, which mostly involved getting laid and racking up EP to prepare for our journey. An old man, clearly an NPC, overheard us.
“Go ye travelers to the castle upon Acrophobia Mountain?”
“Aye,” answered Anna.
“Then ye shall want of warmer articles.” He looked at my bare torso. “It is most frigid upon the mountain.”
I looked out in the distance, where the castle loomed in the sky, and saw the white cap that coated the top half of the mountain. I decided the fake old man was right. Just looking at the snowy peak made my nipples hard, and not in a good way.
“An ass be recommended to carry one’s equipages to the summit.”
“Oh, I’ll definitely be on the lookout for some ass. Maybe a donkey, too.” With an audience of always-in-character Anna and an NPC, my remark fell flat on its ass.
I checked the ethereal tattoo on my left palm:
Experience: 15200
Attraction: 400
Stamina: 200 (Max)
Health: 350 (Max)
Gold: 1313
Magic: 76
Health and Stamina were maxed out after a good night’s rest and a hearty breakfast, and I had enough Experience to take up something to Eight. I wondered how I should apply it. If I put the points on Weapon, I could replace my broken lance, but I didn’t know how much it would cost to gear up for the mountain. Strength seemed like a good idea, but I didn’t want to lose my six-pack, so I put 12,800 on Attack. Only five more attributes to go to make myself an Eight, I thought with much sarcasm. It felt like I had a long way to go.
“I need some more Experience. A lot more. Attraction points, too.”
The wise old NPC said, “Be ye full of caution after nightfall, adventurers. There be monsters in this town, and out they come after the sun does set.”
Anna turned her head to me, her gorgeous amber eyes shifting the rest of the way to avoid turning her body.
“Go then, Karl. Find what wenches you will, and meet me here just before dusk.” Then she turned to the NPC and addressed him as if he were a real person. “We fear no creatures of the night.”
And so, as suggested by Anna, I went forth to find wenches, and wenches I did find. With my new-found powers of recovery and untiring libido, I spent nearly the entire day plowing through every woman who would have me. Merchants and peasants, witches and archers, I had them all. I did it in inns, in taverns, in alleys, on the side of the street, in the middle of the street, my Seven up nonstop apart from a short break for lunch.
Mostly they were Fives and Sixes, and one was a Four, but I made up for it in volume. After I leveled up my Face, I scored a girl my own level and then used the points to bring up my Body. The timing was perfect: as I strolled down the street showing off my chiseled stomach, I came across a sexy level-eight warrior who
was staring at a level-nine sword on display in a shop window. I heard her say, “Damn, I just need sixty-four hundred AP to level up my tits to Nines!”
I was happy to help her out, though as I smashed into her against the window, she seemed more interested in the sword than in me.
By the time the shadows of the town’s building grew longer and deeper and I headed to meet Anna, my Face, Body, and Size were all at Level Eight, and I still had 7,200 AP left over.
I found Anna leaning against the side of the building, and when she turned at the sound of my steps her blond brow lifted at the sight of my improved looks. I stared at her and saw I wasn’t the only one who’d been busy getting busy: the bosom under the wispy flap of linen had grown more full, even more shapely, and her golden curves somehow held even more appeal. Her eyes shifted from me out to the horizon, and I turned to watch the color of the sky deepen. Anna’s bow had been propped on the rough plank siding, but now she took it up.
“Ready yourself,” she said in that breath-stifling accent. “Night falls.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
ANNA and I stood in the street waiting for the monsters. I held my lance with a relaxed grip, saving my hand strength for when I really needed it, and Anna had an arrow already on her cord.
I whispered, “Okay, we’re ready, now all we need is a mon—” I stopped and stared. “—ster. . . .”
The puddle across the street reflected the moonlight, and I’d noticed the wobble of the light, like the wind had disturbed the surface. But I didn’t feel any wind.
The reflection kept moving, bending. The whole puddle was bending, lifting off the dip in the street until it formed a liquid head. The puddle had a torso and was sprouting legs by the time Anna raised her bow. The thing stepped forward with its watery feet and Anna loosed the arrow.
It went clean through, with a splash and a little spray of water as the arrow stuck into the door of the carpenter’s shop across the street.
The thing plodded at us with heavy, splish-splashing steps. When it was right on us I swung my lance, but it was like slicing through the spray of a fountain. The thing swung its hand out, and when it hit me it was solid enough: I went flying into the wall.
Anna nocked another arrow but had no time to shoot before the thing knocked her to the ground, her fine body rolling a few times in the dirt.
But this time I had noticed: just before the blow struck her, the thing’s body solidified. The effect was subtle, but certain, like water turning into clear plastic.
As the thing came at me, it was just a matter of timing. I waited until it lashed out at me, and as I stepped back I stuck out the lance like a snake’s tongue, puncturing the thing in its liquid chest.
It was like popping a water balloon: the human shape exploded in a burst of liquid, splashing over me cold and wet. The ground around me was wet, too, but a quick check of my hand showed the EP and MP to prove the creature’s demise.
Anna was on her feet, her thin clothing wet from the spray. It was a little distracting.
“Excellent. Your skill exceeds the expectations of your station.”
Well, I thought, I had been playing video games for like fifteen years before I died. I didn’t bother saying it out loud, since she would’ve pretended to not understand.
We made our way down the street, our eyes sharp. I hoped having a level-eight Attack made up for only having a level-six lance, and a broken one at that. I realized my helmet, too, despite its grandiose title, was still only a Six. I felt rather under-armed for a Seven.
As we passed an alley, I caught a shadow skulking in the shadows. I darted from Anna’s side and a second later my lance came down on the thing’s head. When it melted into a slimy pile of goo, I realized it was the same thing I had encountered in Noob Town.
I thought it was kind of silly for such a low-level monster to be in Poirsville, until I saw more of them. A lot more.
The alley brimmed with the things, a swirling crowd of black shadows, hardly distinguishable from the real shadows except for the fact that they all came at me.
An arrow whizzed past my ear with a flare of green, and by the burst of light I watched the single shaft take out dozens of the shadows. Anna was at my side.
I hacked and slashed my way down the alley, taking out anything that survived my companion’s magic arrows, and by the time we reached the end of the alley the ground behind us was overflowing with festering black slime.
We walked down the back street behind the buildings. A few demon-wolves sprang out at us, and I almost berated the devs for reusing game assets too much until I noticed these were faster, their AI better. Despite that, we dispatched them without taking any damage.
We carried on down the dark street until I noticed a crate next to a building with two crates stacked up right next to it. The sight triggered instincts built from a lifetime of game playing. A short lifetime, I’ll admit, but enough to know the crates weren’t just for show. I climbed up onto the single crate, then onto the stacked ones, and then hauled myself up onto the roof. I waved Anna up and she followed.
I scanned the roof. It didn’t take long for my experienced eye to catch the line of a slightly wider shadow in the shingles. I walked over and crouched down next to a gap just high enough to slide my fingers into, and so that’s just what I did. I lifted up a section of the roof and peered down into darkness.
“I wish I could see down here.”
“Use your lance.”
“How—oh, I get you.” I lowered my lance into the building and summoned the yellow glow from the blade, revealing an attic. And just before the magic faded I saw the chest in the corner.
“Let’s go,” I said with an eager smile.
“Down there?” The trepidation in her voice made me think she was about to break character at last.
“I thought you feared no creatures of the night? Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark.”
“I?” Her whisper was nearly a roar. “Anna of the southern lands afraid of the dark? Watch your tongue, warrior.” So much for breaking character.
“Come on, then.” I hopped down into the darkness, crouching as I hit the floorboards. I heard Anna land next to me, and I swore I heard a whispered oath in her native language. In a minute our eyes adjusted, but not enough. I could feel the chest, but I could hardly see my hands.
A glow filled the room. Anna held an arrow.
“Be quick.”
I used my dagger to pry off the rusty lock and opened the chest. It was loaded with gold coins, two magic scrolls, and four bandages.
We divvied up the scrolls and bandages. The arrow’s glow gave out before we started taking the gold, but it didn’t matter, we just felt our way in the darkness, stuffing our pouches to bursting with the coins. We couldn’t bother with evenly dividing the loot, but there was plenty to go around.
When there was absolutely no more room for gold, at which point I resorted to slipping it into my boots, I checked my Gold stat with a smile, and said, “Okay, let’s get out of here.”
Our point of entry was too high to reach, and the room was too dark to see any doors, so I reached for my lance to fire up a little magic. Before I did so, a faint red glow penetrated the gloom. I said to Anna, “Thanks, I was just about to do that.”
Except I noticed she had frozen, her hand clutching a few coins. There was nothing else in her hands.
It wasn’t Anna’s arrow lighting the room.
We turned our heads slowly behind us to see three glowing orbs.
Eyes.
I couldn’t see what sort of body was attached to the eyes. I struck out with my lance, aiming at the glowing, unnatural ocular arrangement, and as my blade flashed yellow it revealed a horrible peepshow of shiny black, like the body of a beetle or a black widow, and I found nothing human in the glimpse given of the face which my lance punctured. I heard a horrible inhuman cry and felt a spray of blood and the eyes went out.
Anna and I crouched in the darkness for
a moment, but not long: more sets of eyes lit up one after the other.
A lot more.
I didn’t stop to count them all. The glowing eyes filled the space in front of us. I could see from the corner of my eye that the eyes were on our left, too. I turned my head to the right and an awful feeling of dread crept over me as I confirmed that the things surrounded us, their insect-black bodies hidden behind the ominous glow. A nauseating clicking noise arose from the mass of creatures.
But as my head kept turning I spotted the shutters to our right, just visible behind a trio of eyes. I tapped Anna’s arm.
“Window!”
I hardly got the words out when she loosed an arrow to our right. We dashed to the window and I swung my lance in front of me like a lawnmower and from the corner of my eye I saw the red spots close in and I launched myself at the closed shutter like a linebacker and felt the boards give way against my head and shoulder and the next thing I knew I was flying out from the second story to the street.
I managed to roll as I hit the ground, breaking the fall like I learned from judo class, but I still came down hard. I turned to see Anna jump down from the window more carefully than I had, and as she landed in a crouch a few feet away she whipped a red-tipped arrow from her quiver and loosed it just as the first three-eyed horror began to crawl out of the window with a stomach-churning array of glossy black legs.
A flash of red and then a burst of bright red light shooting out from the window with a deep boom.
Shingles rained down from the roof and smoke poured from the infested attic we just left. I turned to her with my lips hanging apart.
“What the hell was that?”
“Red arrow. It was so expensive I almost didn’t buy it, but I’m sure glad I did.” Then her eyes suddenly widened as she realized with horror that she had broken character.
I opened my mouth to mock the hell out of her, but before I said anything my smirk faded—I saw the green smoke wisping from a single red puncture in her leg. She followed my eyes and gasped.
Conquest Page 14