The edge of the forest was just twenty yards away when we were caught by a group of running players. I spit out a curse. The last thing we needed were the Dementors. I always thought their leader Ed "Crawler" looked at me funny. Plus he teased me whenever he got the chance.
"Where are you guys going?" he asked, giving a jocular smile. "A romantic date in the Gloomwood? Or are you off to raid some rabbits?"
"Come on, Rodriguez," I answered.
In the last few months, I had grown used to my classmates teasing me. It always followed the same scenario. Now Malik "Infect," a swarthy Thief would make some joke about my progress, and "Bomber" Hung would pile on. Then Tissa would frown and try to bring her clanmates to reason, and Crawler would balk, saying they had no more time to waste on pathetic noobs...
"Not likely," Infect said. "A rare mob just popped up by the rabbits. They won't be able to take it; their equipment is too low level."
"Do you think they'll attack the butterflies?" Bomber asked, keeping the serious expression on his face. His father was Chinese, and his mother Swedish, which at least partially explained how Hung turned out a six-foot-six wall of muscle. "They're gonna get wiped, one hundred percent."
Ed stopped the act early, though. Waving his rare wand, he left a stream of fiery sparks in the air. Then he took a few steps toward me and said in confidence:
"Listen, Scyth. I understand that Aphrodite's family has it made, and her parents will set their daughter up with something cozy. Disgardium doesn't mean squat to her. But what about you?"
"What about me, Ed?"
"Call me Crawler, Scyth. This is the game, not the real world!"
"Back off!" Eve screamed.
She stood in front of me and shot Tissa a mean look.
"Hey Aphrodite, we were having a little talk here! For you all this," Ed led his hand over everything around, "means nothing. But for us it's very important. Much more important than what happens there, where the world is ruled by hypocritical bastards like your parents!"
"Don't you dare talk about my parents that way!" Eve flared up. "You have no idea what you’re talking about!"
"Oh, is your father going to be elected prefect? That’s what everyone’s saying. How many butts did he have to lick? Or is Mr...." Ed made a face and spit, "O'Sullivan not going to share the wealth with his special little princess?"
"Up yours, dumbass!"
"Choose your words carefully, fatty," Tissa said lazily.
"And what if I don't? Are you going to kill me? Ha!" Eve was going nuts, and I anxiously placed a hand on her shoulder but she threw it off. "It’s impossible to even really kill someone in your stupid game!"
She took a step forward and gave Rodriguez a slap. Ed easily dodged, then unwittingly threw a fireball. His flaming left hand came unclenched, launching a spurt of condensed plasma the size of a walnut. It reached Eve in one second, and fire covered her body like napalm.
Her clothes – a standard novice’s dress – caught fire and burned up in an instant, while her health points fell sharply downward. Eve screamed. Sensations of pain were significantly dulled here, but they did exist. The girl fell to the ground, trying to beat out the fire, but the damage was too much for her level one. A few moments later, she died.
"Geeze Crawler, what was that for?" Tissa wrinkled her nose.
She could hardly have been talking about the fire. Tissa Schafer visually mocked Eva's plump body, which was now only in underwear and beginning to flicker. Five seconds later it was gone. She left the world.
"What, you won't even go to bat for your stupid girlfriend?" Crawler asked acridly, egging me on.
"If you're talking about her intelligence, she's not stupid," I objected calmly. "Definitely not dumber than you."
"No, she isn't dumb. You're right there. But still she's a big piece of crap like the rest of her family!" Crawler provoked me, cradling a new fireball. "Well! Come on!"
"Do you really need a moral justification to kill a much weaker player? At the end of the day..."
"Mouthing off again, Scyth?" he interrupted. "You’d rather use your tongue than your hands? Ha-ha!"
"Good one."
He was thinking of his reputation with the city. Eve attacked him first, so he was defending himself there. It was his right to kill her. Now he was expecting me to do the same.
"Coward," he said, hawking another loogie.
"This is pointless, Eddie. There are four of you, all level fifteen. I won't even get through your armor. I mean sure, I could get myself whipped up into a righteous anger and tell you to go to hell. I could even call you a jerk and run at you swinging if that helps your send me to respawn with a clean conscience."
"So, he is running his mouth. Right guys?"
"Yep, running his mouth is all he's good for, Crawler," answered Bomber. "You want me to swat him down without all this heckling? You know, I could..."
"Let him be," Tissa interrupted. "We're wasting time!"
She turned to leave, but Rodriguez got what he was after. Regardless of what I said, their words hurt me and I wanted to respond.
"Hey, Ed..." I called. "You know what?"
"What?" he shuddered.
"At the end of the day, this is just a game. Nothing more! No matter how cool you make yourself here. No matter what you’re worth in the game, real life still means something..." They were all listening carefully, even Tissa, but they kept silent and I continued: "And you know what? No matter how hard you try, you're gonna have to live in a fake world. And that's if you can pass the citizenship test. Otherwise... The virtual mines? Working on plantations? Street sweeping? Is that life?"
Not one muscle twitched on the Dementors' faces. Just a light shadow ran by on Tissa's cheeks: she had lost her mother, and her father worked in Dis. She had no chance at university.
"Come on, to the nether with him guys. We're wasting time!" she said.
"Just a sec, guys. The ogres aren’t going anywhere." Crawler walked up to me, coming forehead to forehead. "As long as I've known you, Scyth, you've always thought you were above everyone else. I might not be so smart but, at the very least, I have friends. Do you have any friends, Alex Sheppard?"
"Yes. I do."
"And who are these invisible friends?"
I had no response. Only lonely kids dreamt about space. Everyone else had someone to lose.
"Exactly," Ed nodded. "Think about that... smarty pants. Tissa, buff me!"
The priestess of the Radiant God renewed everyone's movement speed buffs and they ran to the west, not looking back.
I exited Dis.
Scyth, you have left Disgardium.
Please wait to adapt to the real world.
Remaining time: 00:59… 00:58… 00:57…
I was immersed in impenetrable darkness. I felt deaf, dumb and unconscious. Just the flavor of ash was left in my mouth – a trick of the mind as I involuntarily recalled Aphrodite's burned body.
Just then the pod went vertical, it's sensors relinquished control over my body and handed the reins back to my brain. Then the intragel, which provided balance, shock-absorption, and also maintained muscle tone, was sucked into the pod walls for antiseptic treatment and filtration.
My senses returned. I was standing in the middle of the pod. It's doors slid aside silently.
I crawled out and froze. My hearing was back, and I could immediately tell that my parents were fighting loudly in the other room. Their fights had become a daily occurrence, nothing out of the ordinary.
I put on my shorts and t-shirt and went into the kitchen to get a couple sandwiches and a bottle of mineral water, which I was planning to consume as I studied the materials on the Leman expedition to Mars. But I stopped and listened. My father was trying to get something through to my mom, and he was calm. Now that was weird.
"... you'll have to tell him, Helene. He's a smart kid, he'll figure it out."
"Mark, you're so heartless! This is his last year of school, citizenship tests, do you even
understand what a blow this could be to him? He might not recover!"
"No, you don’t understand!" My father raised his voice. "Sooner or later, he'll have to find out! And let it be sooner rather than later so he has time to think it all over and decide what to do!"
What were they talking about? What was I supposedly going to figure out? I just happened to come out when my mother's mouth was open to answer. Seeing me, she gave a noisy sigh:
"Alex..."
"Mom, dad? Is everything alright?"
"Everything's alright buddy, everything is fine..." father muttered. His hands rested on my shoulders and we sat on the couch. He tossed a gaze at my upset mom and, looking aside, quietly said:
"Alex, your mother and I are getting a divorce. No-no, not now. We're going to wait until after your citizenship test."
"You're getting a divorce?" I repeated stupidly. "What about me?"
"Yes, you..." my dad looked at my mom. "Helene?"
"No way, this was your idea, you say it. I don't want him to hate me for the rest of his life!"
"Oh this was my idea now?" he asked, outraged. "You should have been thinking about our son when you..."
"Mark!" my mom whispered. "Not in front of Alex!"
My father nodded at her enraged gaze again, but held back. Their flares of tension were so intense I could almost hear them.
"Hey, so what’s all this? Care to explain calmly?"
"Alex..." dad coughed out. "We can't afford to pay for your studies. I'm sorry."
"But why?" I figured I'd misheard. "Why?!"
"Divorce will automatically lower our civil status to G. There won't be enough money to pay for university, and we can only help you get set up. You're gonna have to start working, son."
Working? With no education? And what, pray tell, did they think I was going to do? Oh nether, but they were saving for my studies! Or...
"And what about my college fund?" I made up my mind to ask, already knowing the answer.
"There he goes!" mom answered with particular vengeance, looking at my father. "What do you think we've been living on all this time? We haven't had a decent project for a long time!"
I looked helplessly at dad and he, working his jaws, looked away. But mom just kept coming at me:
"Our income is going to be barely enough to live on. Congratulations, Alex. You’ll be an adult soon and you’re gonna have to learn to fend for yourself..."
But I couldn’t hear her or my father, who was saying empty words. Just one idea was clanking around in my head? No outer space? Then I exploded.
"This isn't right!" I shouted. "Mom! Dad! What are you talking about? What divorce? Everything is fine! And sure, you fight sometimes, but so does everyone! Every couple fights, but they don't all get divorced!"
My face twisted and, trying not to burst into tears like a baby in front of my parents, I turned away.
"Sorry, son. Our minds are made up," came my father's voice from some unfathomable distance. "When you get older, you'll understand..."
Sensing my mood, our catdog AT rubbed up against my leg. He meowed and tapped me with his big forehead. I mechanically picked him up, brought him to my room, and only there let my silent tears out, my head buried in a pillow.
No work without higher education. No education without money. My basic income would only be enough for a cupboard in a building for poor L-class citizens, and all I'll have to eat is flavorless universal nutrient blend.
So, all I have left is Disgardium?
Chapter Four. Back into the Game
I WAS IN NO MOOD to watch materials on the Mars expedition now considering that my path there was blocked, perhaps forever. After all, I couldn't get a scholarship, for that I’d have to be a particularly bright student at least on my city level. But we had plenty of kids smarter than me. Maybe Ed Rodriguez thought me a "smarty-pants," but I was never so truly enthralled with learning to go beyond mandatory coursework.
I didn't know how long I sat there, staring aimlessly at the ceiling. I didn't pay any attention to my parents' fight flaring up again in the guest room, or to my communicator beeps. The only thing running through my head was how could two adults be so selfish that they could deprive their only son of his future. What happened?
My mind was searching fitfully for other options of how to solve the problem, refusing to accept my new reality and hoping it could all be solved. I even tried to talk to my mom and dad again, but that just got me in trouble and made everything worse. Seemingly, they hated one another so much that they didn't give a damn about me or my future. All they wanted was to forget one another and never see each other again.
That's when it dawned on me. Their relationship was like a shattered cup. It could never be glued back together. I'd have to look for other ways of getting money for my education. And the only way to do that was Disgardium.
And that actually comforted me. Now I knew what to do, though I didn't yet know what I'd do in the game.
But how to get back there? It may have seemed stupid, but I was worried how Ed, Tissa and the rest would react after all the stuff I'd just said. Why couldn’t I have just held my tongue?
I was also sorry that I hadn't gone to bat for Eve. After all, today she was my only close friend, and I was leaving her message unread!
Feeling pangs of conscience, I picked up my comm and listened to her recorded message:
"Hi! How's it going?" Eve's hologram moved into the middle of the room. "Did those bastards finally leave you alone? Don't worry about them, Alex! They’re just jealous..." she kept silent, not having made up her mind to continue. "Uh... Basically, remember when you said you were gonna watch something? If you want, I could come to your place. I mean it isn't urgent or anything, I just thought..."
She finally got too embarrassed, squeezed out a "Bye!" and the message came to an end. I valued her tact. She didn't call, she sent a message, so I didn't have to answer. But I did answer, though I kept it brief: "I'm going back on Dis. I'll explain next time I see you."
After that I went into the kitchen for food so I could force down some cold sandwiches and mineral water. I was planning to spend a lot of time in the pod, and I didn't have one of the advanced versions that could keep you fed and healthy.
I just couldn't forget about my parents' divorce. What went wrong in their lives and when?
Aw, to the nether with all that. Why keep putting off the inevitable? It was time.
Undressed, I walked up to the pod and placed my palm on the sensor. It read my prints, lit up green and gave a welcoming beep. The pod doors opened.
Going inside, I grabbed the handles and launched start-up. The pod closed, the lighting went out and intragel quickly filled the tube. I winced reflexively.
Loading...
I opened my eyes. I took a breath, filling my lungs with piney air and feeling rays of the sun baking my skin. I was surrounded by a bright and astonishing forest. A huge butterfly flew by, brushing my cheek with a wing. Trying to catch it, I took an awkward step and heard a branch crunch underfoot. My bare foot shot with pain, and I swore for a while then spent a bit of time sitting on a stone on the roadside, fishing out the splinter.
I finished and looked around in search of hostile mobs, then decided to think up a plan of action. I had to begin with a look at my character.
This time I wasn’t just browsing my stats in boredom, though. I was looking carefully, absorbed.
Scyth, level-1 human
Real name: Alex Sheppard.
Real age: 15.
Class: not selected.
Main attributes:
Strength: 2.
Perception: 2.
Endurance: 3.
Charisma: 2.
Intelligence: 2.
Agility: 2.
Luck: 2.
Secondary attributes:
Health points: 23/23.
Mana points: 12/12.
Recovery speed: 9 health points per minute.
Movement speed bonus: 2
%
Base damage: 1.2.
Carrying capacity: 108 lbs.
Accuracy: 20%
Spell power bonus: 2.4%
Dodge chance: +4%
Critical damage chance: +5%
Class-A Threat (Disgardium Book #1) LitRPG Series Page 3