by Deck Davis
CHAPTER 1
‘When we set out to create Soulboxe Online, it was like shooting a cannon ball at the stars.
Budgets and time forced us to swap the cannon for a pistol, swap the stars for something more tangible. What did it become? It was more like shooting bullets at a duck.
People have written lots of stuff about our early motivations. The only sure thing I can tell you is this – we all had different dreams. Or nightmares, maybe.
Me? Most of you know me by now.
I wanted to make every player a god.’
- Lucas Coombs, Co-founder of Soulboxe Inc.
~
A psychic who would spend his twilight years in a maximum security prison once told Tripp that “every man greets the morning as a new version of himself.” Tripp had always thought it was a metaphor, something about every day being a fresh chance to seize life by the throat. Not that a man would literally wake up as someone else.
If only that was true, it would have saved him a hell of a lot of trouble.
A fresh fear sparked in him on the day that the psychic’s psycho-babble was proven correct. It was one to add to the existing two that he had always worried he would discover when he woke.
One fear was that somebody had broken into his apartment during the night and stolen all his stuff. Another was that he’d open his eyes and see that his hair had fallen out onto his pillow. It was a fear he’d had since he was a kid, and he’d never been able to shake it even though the signs hadn’t appeared yet.
It was time to add a third thing to the list – waking up as an orc.
Not just that. This morning, Tripp woke up cold and naked in a place he’d never been before. His memory felt like someone had sandpapered it.
The surrounding land wasn’t Earth, and he wasn’t human. Hangover? Alien abduction? Had he been at a bachelor party that had gotten way out of hand, then forgotten everything?
It wouldn’t have been crazy to guess that he was dreaming, but the breeze in the air felt too real for that. The weight of his feet on the ground felt like it should, the dew on the grass was wet when he touched it with his orc toes.
He touched his face, wincing at how different his bone structure felt. This couldn’t be a dream. Not if he could touch things.
Then again, a dream always felt real until you were out of it. It was only when reality hit that you noticed the logic faults that you had missed while you were sleeping.
The longer you looked at a dream, the more it flaked away like old paint. You noticed the strange details like half-formed trees and strangers composed from a mish-mash of the people in your life.
Tripp pinched himself, but nothing happened.
“Hello?” he said, turning in a circle. “Anyone?”
Despite getting no answer, he felt okay. Strangely so, as if a hand inside his head was stroking his mind to calm it.
He decided he should examine himself and see if that told him anything, and so he stretched out his new arms. They were green and stubby and more muscular than he remembered. All the benefits of gym work, without having to sweat for it.
It was the same for his legs, judging from the thigh muscles that he hadn’t earned. His toenails were in a cracked state that he’d never have allowed, even with his pretty average sense of hygiene.
Running his hands through his hair, it felt as thick as it had before. Phew; at least he hadn’t succumbed to the same problem as his brother, Rory. Rory had started balding when he was sixteen, and a year later his head was completely shiny. It ran in Tripp’s family, and it had been his biggest fear ever since he was a rug rat.
He’d always consoled Rory. “It doesn’t matter. What’s the big deal with hair, anyway? It’s insulation for your scalp.”
Secretly he thought, I hope to hell it doesn’t happen to me.
His hair was normal, but his teeth were a different story. His canines pressed against his lip, and when tapped one, it was strange to feel such a big tooth in his mouth.
“These things could tear through leather.”
So he was an orc. With deciding on that truth, came the problem of working out what to do with it. He could be surprised, scared, even angry. To wake up as an orc, someone had to have turned him into one, hadn’t they?
He had a nagging sensation in his head. A thought that couldn’t take full form, whispering that he shouldn't get pissed but had to get busy. There was something he needed to do, it told him. He always listened to those thoughts.
First, this place wasn’t Earth. The sky looked like it. Light blue color, misty clouds, the usual stuff.
Tracing his gaze a little east, the surrounding land was alien and beautiful. Rolling pastures of grass that spread out every direction, making it look endless. The land swelled in places, almost like waves made from dirt and grass. It was as though this whole place had been liquid once and then had solidified during the height of a storm. There were no paths, no fences that would have indicated that this land belonged to anyone.
Just east of him, there were ruins on the plains. A wall here, half a stone house there, a concentration of them that must have been a village once. That was a couple of miles walk away. Tripp watched, praying to see people, but nothing moved in that direction. If it had been someone’s home once, it was desolate now.
Way, way north was a mountain, a rock goliath that stretched so high that it was reaching for the clouds. It was rocky and colored sunset orange, with stretches of it dotted by grey ruins of steps and pillars. They seemed to form a curving trail around the mountain until they reached its peak.
The mountain loomed above everything, a giant beast that could uproot itself and stomp all over the landscape. Given that he’d woken up as an orc, that didn’t seem so impossible. It cast a shadow over the land in front of it, so Tripp could barely see what was there.
The breeze brought bird songs and a pungent smell that made his nostrils twitch. Dirt, animal crap, the faint whiff of rot, maybe.
There were no houses, people, cars, drive-thru fast-food restaurants. In another place, at another time, he could get used to this kind of thing. A glimmer of a memory came back about how he used to grab every chance to leave the city. Leave the smog and busy stuff behind and relax a little.
This could have been a relaxing place, if only it wasn’t for the massive bleached skull lying ten feet away from him.
“Woah!”
It was so big it made Tripp was just a flea in its shadow. He tapped the skull and a few shards of white came off, so he guessed it must have been here a while. On the other side of the skull, a large part of it was missing, and there were bite marks from its chin to its crown.
Logically, there were two problems in finding a skull so big that he couldn’t even climb onto it. Especially one with a bite mark in it.
One, it meant that creatures of that size were, or had been, around.
Two, it meant there were even bigger creatures, ones giant enough to kill it.
Was the creeping sense of dread in his chest normal? He guessed it was; it’d be a brave man who didn’t feel nervous when he saw a giant freaking skull.
This added another mystery to his growing list: what kind of monster had a skull that big?
He was naked and out in the open, and would make an easy morsel for anything giant, hungry, and on the hunt. That was the first thing he wanted to change.
There was still something nagging at him, though. An idea in his head, but it was foggy and when he tried to reach it, it dispersed.
Was it an idea, or was it a voice?
Wait…
A voice that gave him instructions before he got here, wherever here was?
He needed to remedy a couple of things; he needed somethin
g to eat, something to wear, and something better than his orc fists to protect himself.
He tapped the outside of the giant skull with his fingers until he found a chunk loose enough to pry away. He tore off a sharp fragment that was half the size of his forearm.
Weapon received: Crude Bone Dagger
Weapon received? Words floating in the air?
It was starting to fall into place. The reason he was here, the reason he was an orc, and the reason he was strangely accepting of it.
There were only two explanations, and one of those was that his mind had snapped.
The second explanation was easier to swallow, and it was the one that made him feel better. He needed to see more stuff to confirm it.
He eyed the ruins in the distance and started walking, feeling the wind blow cold against his naked parts. He’d only gotten a hundred yards, when he saw a strange object nestled in the grass.
Light glowed around it, almost as if it was trying to signal his attention. It wasn’t just a strange object.
It had his name on it. His name and a warning.
CHAPTER 2
Tripp Keaton,” he read. “Old Kimby calls your name. Can you hear her?”
He found a note on top of a leather bag discarded on the grass. The bag wasn’t his, and he wasn’t a thief, so he was going to leave it. Then again, he guessed that a note with his name on it was as good an ownership marker as any.
Next to it were two glass vials that looked like they’d been stolen from a laboratory. One lay in pieces on the grass, the other intact but empty save for the dregs of a red liquid.
This part of the plains was much like the rest, except for a grouping of berry bushes surrounding him. Disappointingly, only a few bushes actually had berries on them, and they were too rotten to eat. Even if they had been ripe, he was no forager and wouldn’t have known if they were poisonous or not.
At least he’d found the bag. That was something. A start. He set the note down, confused. “Who the hell is Old Kimby?”
He’d never heard the name. Reading on, he saw part of the note that worried him.
‘This is your warning. The eyes that watch you, decide which fate will drop. Consider your actions carefully.’
“Huh?”
The nonsense made his brain feel shrink-wrapped, and the sinister wording chilled him. He turned in a circle to check if he was alone, and seeing nothing but bushes, he felt better.
He needed to try to understand what was going on, even if now was a good time for him to admit that he was getting weirded out.
It wasn’t just his new body. That should have been enough but when he thought about that, he was sure that he’d made the choice to become an orc. He couldn’t say why, but he was certain.
It was the note that made him shiver. How it was alone in the plains of grass, a stone’s throw away from the skull of a monster big enough to swallow him like an olive.
He put the note to one side and opened the leather bag. Reaching inside, he felt his arm sink all the way in, as though the bag was bigger than should have been possible.
That did it.
There was only so much strangeness a guy could take before it stopped affecting him. It was like getting caught in the rain without a coat. The first few drips got you cold and wet and you’d be pissed with yourself for leaving the house so unprepared. After that, you didn’t care as much. You were already wet, what was getting wetter going to do?
Waking up here, being an orc, and seeing the skull were Tripp’s first few drips. The rest of it was just more water from the cloud.
He was over it. His surprise was gone and he could think clearly now. That was when he started to get excited, because there was stuff in the bag, and that meant one thing.
Tripp got excited about organization, making him a riot at parties. He organized stuff all the time. Sometimes he even looked at other people’s things and wished he could organize it for them. An untidy desk, a messed-up bookcase, it made him feel like a prospector hitting a vein of gold.
It was a good thing he knew social boundaries; you couldn’t just go rearranging people’s stuff. Here, the things were obviously his, since someone had left the vague note on the bag.
He took the things out of the bag and put them on the grass. When he was done, yet another strange thing happened. Another one to add to the list.
This strange thing was a list, one that floated in front of him.
A sudden pain flared in his neck. He put his hand to it and felt a thorn buried in his skin. He looked around to see if he had angered a wasp, but he couldn’t see one nor hear it buzzing.
The pain left so quickly that it was like it had never happened, as if it had been an illusion rather than real pain.
Before he could work through his confusion, agony sprang in his left shoulder. Another stinger was embedded in him. He looked around left and right, turning in a circle.
He felt woozy, and as his thoughts slowed to a near halt, he realized two things. The stingers were pumping venom into him. Worse, the circle of thorned berry bushes had shot them at him. They had been creeping closer and closer, so slowly that he’d barely noticed.
They were trapping him. They had looked like regular bushes at first glance, dense with leaves and branches. Now he saw the dozens of stingers sharper than arrows, and a ball of fear knitted itself in his stomach.
He spotted a gap in the bushes to his right, and he didn’t delay. As he sprinted for it, the bushes pushed together and trapped him.
Each section of bush pushed a stinger forward so that the tips stuck out of their shrubbery. He knew he was about to receive at least a dozen new body piercings.
There was no way out, and he had nothing to fight with except a bone dagger about as sharp as a plastic party fork. He could barely think straight, but he needed to do something rather than let the bushes shoot holes in him.
He had nothing to defend himself with. Nothing he could really use to attack them. He’d just have to run. Head toward the smallest bush, power through any thorn stings, and then leap to freedom.
Readying himself, he selected his bush and he charged. He winced as he trampled over a stone with his bare foot. Then he yelped when a thorn pricked into his rump. He heard a hiss, and three more thorns landed home, spreading pain through his thigh, calf, and lower back. His body was a hotbed of agony, each springing from a new location like thermal geysers then fading away.
Grunting, he neared the bush and got ready to leap over it, to the safety of the bush less plains beyond.
The bush started to rise, growing and stretching until it was looming ten feet over him. The rest of the bushes grew likewise, trapping him in this thorny circle of hell. They started to curve over him to form a domed roof, blocking out the sun. With every heavier shade of darkness, a sense of doom grew in him.
The thorny prison had trapped him. Though the bushes blocked daylight, he could at least see in a dim sort of way, as though his eyes had adjusted to the darkness quicker than expected.
Looking at his circular foliage of death, Tripp gripped his bone dagger. He had to try to hack his way out even while the stingers assaulted him.
Before he could move, he heard a roar. A flash of light, orange and blinding and hazy, cut through one bush. He smelled burning leaves and felt a gust of heat on his face.
It was fire. Something was burning through the bush.
Then he saw the metal gleaming underneath the fire, and he realized it was a silver sword. A full meter long and made from perfect silver. It was etched with strange shapes, and the flames burned on it without damaging the metal.
Bushes burned away either side of it, the fire spreading in a circle and engulfing each bush in turn. It was then that Tripp saw the person carrying the sword.
He was a short man with a craggy face, almost troll-like. Definitely not human, but who was Tripp to judge, in his current state? The troll-man wore a red hood and cloak and had a bulging leather bag swinging from his shoulder.
His clothes and skin were covered in black scorch marks. They almost looked like electrical marks, as though something had zapped him. He had the tanned skin and weary look of someone who had been travelling for many miles over many days.
He wore a belt that almost covered his whole waist. Vials were sitting in loops stitched all around it. The liquid in them made Tripp feel thirsty, though the closer he looked, the less appetizing they seemed. One vial had grey liquid with worms swimming in it, another looked too much like urine.
Strangely, his name was floating above his head, with three badges alongside it.
Jacobus – Trollite – Level 89
Hitpoints: 3/450
The badges looked like brooches a person might pin to a cloak, except they were floating by his head. They were made of metal, and depicted a golden hammer, a golden set of what looked like goggles, and a cauldron. Those weren’t what confused Tripp. They weren’t what made him feel that a memory was coming loose in his head.
Levels? Hitpoints?
Tripp understood now, but he felt like he needed to hear the words from Jacobus himself. He just wished he had something to offer him to help, since Jacobus looked on the brink of death. He wondered what had happened to him before he had arrived here.
He couldn’t take his eyes off the meter long sword, and the way flames waltzed over the metal yet didn’t hurt Jacobus. The craftsmanship was astounding. Tripp had never held a sword, yet as a carpenter, he could appreciate any kind of master workmanship when he saw it.
“Take this for the venom,” said Jacobus, tossing a small glass vial.
Tripp uncorked it and sniffed it.
“If it was poison, I wouldn’t waste it on you,” said Jacobus.
Seeing the logic, Tripp drank it, and he felt the venom begin to leave him.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Get up.”
He offered a hand, but Tripp didn’t like the way Jacobus was looking at him now. Cold, as if he was evaluating him. He got to his feet by himself.
“You’re right to be wary. Lots of bastards around here,” said Jacobus. His accent was rough. “Do you have any elixirs? My health’s down to its bare balls and I set my respawn back in the Henwright Inn. It’d take me a few hours to get back here, but there’s nowhere else around save Tillicult, Goddenstone, and Mountmend. I hate those places.”