by Vic Connor
“The classic RPG conundrum.” I nodded and leaned over the bird’s-eye view of the canyon offered by the desk, surveying our ragtag party of four. “Classic in the old-school sense, like playing with no knowledge of what the game will throw at you and without following a detailed walk-through toward an optimized build. Do we spend our points now, arguably raising our short-term survival chances, or do we wait and see if better point-investment opportunities present themselves?”
According to the Crafting Screen, with the broken parts we had salvaged and my current Repair skill, I’d be able to craft a maximum of three crude flintlock pistols.
“Other Memories I could unlock cannot be more expensive than 1VP each…” I said thoughtfully.
“What makes you think so?”
“We got 2VPs for killing those thugs, correct? And, before that, it cost us 1VP to unlock the Gunslinger memory, right?”
She nodded. “And you received one VP from paying that mean-spirited priestess with the coin I gave you.” She offered a cute, exaggerated pout. “I would’ve thought you’d treasure those mementos from me a little more, boss.”
I smiled. “Coins come and go, Svetty dear. The memory of your lovely self, though, is forever bounded to my soul.”
She laughed, clapping slowly. “Okay. That was neat, I’ll give you that.”
“I could be learning from the best?”
“You may prove to be a good student, my good Jake.” She adjusted her dark-rimmed glasses. “Now, sorry for having interrupted your train of thought, sir. You mentioned some classic conundrum?”
“It’s the first portion of the game,” I explained. “As we’ve seen so far, VPs are given out or spent in tiny amounts, just one or two points each time. The game thinks we only have 2VPs right now…”
“But you got tortured by bugs before and earned six more—right, boss? During the Pain Tutorial?”
“Brightest bulb in this boardroom, Svetty. If killing those thugs gave us two points, there’s no way in hell anything we find tomorrow will cost more than that. We have eight points total at the moment, so…”
“Worth the risk of crafting more pistols, you think?”
I leaned back in my chair, staring at the ceiling. “It’s always a bet between risks, right? We can roughly double my toon’s firepower, from four guns to seven. That’s a lot. Is it an overkill? Maybe… But dying tomorrow because I happen to need those three extra shots and losing the game with 8VPs still unspent, that would be terribly stupid, I think.”
She kept quiet, letting me gawk at the ceiling at leisure.
“And crafting also takes time…” I said, thinking aloud and double-checking the Crafting screen. “Nine hours for those three extra guns. Spending the night this way is a good investment, while if we find out tomorrow that I need those guns, I may need to waste the whole day crafting them.”
“Told you, Hardcore.” She smiled. “Choices are tough bitches.”
“But real life won’t let you hoard stat points, son,” I whispered to myself. “You just have to dump them somewhere…”
She pursed her lips. “Sorry, boss. I didn’t quite catch that?”
“If I wasn’t here… I mean, if Dad was well and good, and we were at home and he felt like it was time to share a bit of father-to-son talk, he’d brew some of that impossibly sweet tea with bucket-loads of sugar he likes so much, and I’d chide him about his glucose levels being so high they may hit a satellite out of orbit… And, after joking and small chat and family news about Uncle This and Aunt That who we haven’t seen for ages, he’d say, ‘So, Jake, have you given any thought to what you want to do with your future?’”
She smiled. “Doesn’t every parent worry about their kid’s future?”
“Yeah. I think it’s something universal about their job description: The less future your parents have left, the more they pester you about yours.”
“Come on, Jake.” Her smile disappeared, becoming a gentle frown. “Your dad sounds like a sweet guy.”
“He is,” I agreed. “He really is. Except when he pokes about my future and I’m like, what future? Like when he asks if I know what sort of job I’d like to get, but you only know if you like something after you try it, right?
“And then, how about things you think you may not like, but actually do after you try them? Maybe I’d love to be a lawyer, even if now I think it’s the most boring job in the world. I also thought I wouldn’t like ceviche the first time I saw it, but then I tried it—after Dad insisted and insisted and insisted some more—and it turns out it’s great, and now ceviche is one of my favorite dishes, so how can you know what you’ll like and what you won’t?
“Even if you know what you like, and even if it looks like a solid choice at the moment, who knows what a good choice will be in twenty years? I think I like medicine, and doctors get great salaries today, but what if you spend a decade and a half to become a surgeon and three years later, some AI armed with robotic scalpels makes human medics obsolete? I mean, in a decade or two, your friends at NozHealth may have replaced the entire medical profession with smart AIs and Capsules, right?”
“That’s probably their end-game, yes,” she admitted. “At least, that’s what Marketing would love to sell to the world. I’ve seen some of their brochures: AI and robots taking care of healing. Their goal isn’t to force doctors out of their jobs, of course… But, well, not so long ago, my aunt Oksana worked as one of the few female long-haul truck drivers on the Trans-Mongolian highway—damn proud of it she was—then, one day, autopilots became cheaper and faster and safer, and the human drivers gave way to software.”
“Exactly my point. How many taxi or truck drivers thought driving was a great idea when they were young, and enjoyed their jobs—and then, blam, disruptive technology hits like a frigging meteorite. And it’s not that you’ve lost your job, really, but the job itself has gone the way of dodos and dinos?
“Anyway,” I went on. “After listening to me and brewing another cup of tea with so much sugar it could sweeten the Dead Sea, Dad would go, ‘Well, Jake, my boy… Life is like an old-school RPG, you know? You gotta dump your stats somewhere without a clue of what the end-game is.’ Because RPGs usually ask you to choose your race, class, profession, or whatever early on, even right at the start of the game when you don’t have a clue which play style or what build would work best.
“I mean, we all check wikis and walk-throughs, so we know without a doubt which combos the players’ hive mind has found to be the best. But when you don’t have those guides…” I indicated the bird’s-eye view the desk offered on my ragtag party, “that’s how we played RPGs back in the day. When you don’t know what to expect, optimal builds stop being a thing. Just like real life. You can make a guess, but you can’t be certain.”
“Sweet and wise, your Dad,” Sveta said kindly. “Yes, that’s what the single-player part of Istoria aims to do. That’s why it’s unique for every player, and different each time. Just like real life.”
I looked back at the Crafting screen. “Just like real life. Perma-death included.”
“I’m afraid so, boss. I can tell you that the Launch version will have respawning—probably by providing the player with an endless supply of gold coins, like the one I gave you—but Tournament rules make it more lifelike in this regard.”
“All the more reasons to not give a crap about the optimal end-game builds,” I said confidently. “We don’t know what the end game is, and we don’t have the luxury of respawning while we’re leveling up, so…”
In the Lobby, crafting was as simple as just thinking about it. In the desk’s top-down view, I watched my avatar rummage and sort and click things together.
Gun Repair: Success!
1 Crude Flintlock Pistol
-1VP; 3 hours spent
After a few seconds, the light inside the canyon dimmed as time passed and the sun set.
“Ah, that’s another reason they want me crafting in the Lobby,” I observe
d. “Making time pass quicker. Can you wait, for just a few seconds?”
“I’ll wait for whatever length of time you need me to, sir.”
I peered into the canyon and mentally pulled myself into my toon…
…dropping like a stone through the desk surface…
All is dead quiet. A full moon stands guard over us, sharing its pale light.
Abe, Miyu, and Juanita are fast asleep.
I check the repaired flintlock pistol: a clone of the other four I already have.
“Sleep tight, samurai girl,” I whisper toward Miyu. “If any bad luck comes our way, it won’t be the fault of Five Guns Jake.”
I load the pistol with some gunpowder, cotton, and a bullet we looted from Barboza’s thugs, place my loaded weapon on the canyon’s rocky floor, and focus once again on the pile of broken gun parts.
“To be honest,” I mumble, “I’d be lying if I said I don’t like the look of this.”
I’m pulled backward, upward, out.
Sveta had spent those few minutes preparing a frothy, steamy cup of coffee, which she placed in front of my seat.
“You know my weak spots all too well, Svetty dear,” I said, bringing the tiny porcelain cup to my lips.
“Like the back of my hand, sir.” She inspected her lacquered nails. “You hold no secrets for me.”
“That sounds uncomfortably close to a threat, I have to say.”
“Oh no, sir, not at all. Not at all, as long as my yearly bonus arrives on time!”
Ah, so we were back to the boss-subordinate role play. “Please don’t forget to remind Accounting of this crucial fact, Svetty. We wouldn’t want you to miss even a single appointment at the Glitzy Nail Bar & Spa.”
“Already on it, boss.”
“I fail to imagine how this company would exist for a single day without you, my dear. Now, about that memo from Weapon Production—”
Gun Repair: Success!
2 Crude Flintlock Pistols
-2VPs; 6 hours spent
“—and it’s done.”
“Seven Guns Jake?” She smirked.
“I’m afraid ‘Septishot’ and ‘Heptagun’ were both vetoed by Marketing as nicknames, on the grounds of both of them sounding awful, and for once, I’m forced to agree with our paint-by-numbers experts. Then again, should I lay my hands on an eighth copy of these fine examples of arcane firearm technology, then ‘Octogun Jake’ has a cool UFC ring to it, wouldn’t you agree?”
She face-palmed, laughing.
I checked the Skill Screen to see if my Crafting skill had improved, but no luck: still an Apprentice on all counts.
And still a single outstanding quest: Rescue the Healer.
“Looks like we have a healing damsel in distress to rescue,” I said. “I wonder if that’s related to me choosing to unlock Gunslinger over the healing magic, back when we stopped under the tree.”
“Related how, boss?”
“A healer is exactly what our party needs to be complete, right? Abe is no doubt our meatshield, and Miyu seems like an effective tank, herself—able to keep foes at bay. Juanita strikes me as our support character, and I’m the long-ranger, or I will be when I skill up.
“What we need right now is a healer, which is who the Uitzli girl seems to be. I wonder if, had I chosen to be the healer myself, our party’s missing member would be the long-ranger, instead?”
“You mean has the game tailored who your missing party member is, so it’s the one that would better complement the skill you’ve just chosen?”
“Exactly. Does that seem what Istoria could do?”
“I’d say it sounds likely, boss,” she agreed. “But the only way to be certain would be to start the game again and try the other choices—”
“—Which isn’t something we can do during this Tournament. Got it. Did you notice anything strange about this Uitzli girl?”
“Can’t say I did, boss. You experience those flashbacks from unlocked memories a lot more intensely that I can follow them from here—they’re just a somewhat blurry cut scene for me, and I only have sight and sound. I don’t know what you smell or feel.”
“She was an albino girl. White skin, white hair, translucent eyes.”
“But … isn’t she Aztec?”
“And?”
“Well, I thought, you know…” She appeared flustered as she tried to find the right words.
“That those with dark skin don’t get albinism?” I offered.
“Well…”
“It’s the other way around, actually,” I told her. “Several forms of albinism exist. The most common form—the one in which you are super-white but, other than having to take extra care about the sun, you don’t have many other problems—is called OCA and is more common among Native Americans than Europeans. And even more common in Africa.”
“I didn’t know that. I thought…”
“That a disease which makes your skin white is more common among white-skinned folks? Yeah, on the surface it seems logical, but that’s the problem with common sense.”
She looked at me for a while, then asked point-blank: “Do you think she has your condition?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “If you get the lucky form of Chediak-Higashi, like I do, then you look like me. It may trigger when I’m middle-aged, but while it wouldn’t make my life easier, most folks would just think I’m a little pale, not an albino. If you get the unlucky Chediak-Higashi variant, which gets triggered at birth, then yeah, that’s one form of hardcore albinism… But, probably, you’ll be dead long before you become a teen, because that variant has a whole bunch of nasty side effects that, as your character Razor would put it, are all tough bitches to deal with.”
“That’s—”
“Yeah. Nasty stuff. But, bottom line, I’d say our Uitzli may have the OCA type, which is far more common. Assuming Istoria follows the real-world rules, anyway.”
“Since the single-player world is largely based on what you know, boss,” she noted, “and you know a lot about this topic, I bet that’s the case.”
I peered downward and studied my sleeping crew. Tilting my head back and savoring every last drop, I finished her awesome coffee in one shot. “Very well, Svetty dear. Let’s find out what other choices your bespoke game throws at us, shall we?”
14
Glimpses of the Past
The sky above lightens up as the sun rises.
In the narrow gulch, however, everything remains shrouded in shadow. The air hangs damp and cool with the dawn’s dew.
My three companions sleep.
“Maneesh, you crazy, obsessive genius,” I whisper to the game as I trace my fingertips against the rocky wall, luxuriating in its rough texture. “Or, well, whoever it was among the NozGames engineers to code the algorithms to make every little detail look and feel like the real thing with such freakish precision.” There’s even dust you can sweep, if you scratch hard enough. “I swear, guys. If I live long enough in your game to find myself a hat, the first thing I’m gonna do is a hat off to you all.”
I have the odd feeling I’m being watched.
Heart pounding, I whirl around and recognize Miyu. She’s gone from prone to kneeling without making a sound. Behind her Noh mask, she has fixed her onyx bead eyes on me.
“Hello there,” I say. “Slept well?”
She could as well be a wax statue: no movement, no words.
I show her the three pistols I’ve repaired during the night. “I’ve got seven guns now. Bad luck no more.”
She tilts her mask backward a fraction of an inch. Or maybe I’ve just imagined it. She’s kneeling and I’m sitting, so her head is above mine.
“You wouldn’t happen to have water, would you?” I ask. My lips and throat are dry. “Like, a flask or something?” I mimic holding a glass to my mouth and drinking.
Her right sleeve recedes and her hand emerges, holding a small canister with a round beak. Her nails are onyx-black, like her eyes and hair. She of
fers it to me, her mask betraying nothing. Under the dim dawn light, her skin seems pale.
I wrap my lips around the canister’s beak and take a careful sip. It’s lukewarm water, as far as I can taste. I swallow a couple mouthfuls, but keep myself from indulging too much.
“Thanks,” I say, returning the canister to her.
The movement she makes with her head in response is a serious contender for the World’s Slightest Nod title, but at least she moved.
I spend some uncomfortable moments looking around the canyon while being drilled by her onyx beads, then focus on Juanita’s naked arms. Under the growing light, her tattoos resemble Aztec glyphs.
“Wish I knew how to read that,” I say. “I don’t suppose you do, do you?”
The white Noh mask is as silent as a full moon in the night sky.
“Nay, me lad,” growls Abe. He stretches, yawns, and sits up, rubbing his eyes and scratching his jungle of a beard. “Ol’ Abe cannae reads our Lord’s Bible, let alone thems pagan symbols. But he can tells you what ‘em tattoos says, and ‘em be sayin’ she be a slave, be sayin’ where she be captured, and be sayin’ when she be sold.”
I glance at Miyu. Her onyx beads are still fixed on me.
I turn back to Abe. “How do you know so much about slave marks?”
He casts his eyes down. “This old sea dog be brokenin’ enough Commandments to knows Hell hath a burnin’ place for Ol’ Abe’s twisted soul…” His steel-gray eyes rise to meet mine. “But Ol’ Abe never engaged in t’ flesh trade, if that be yarr meanin’. Whoever be sayin’ else, better be willin’ to says so before t’ sharp end o’ me cutlass.”
I raise my hands, trying to appease him. “I didn’t mean to imply that, my friend. I’m sorry if it seemed like I did.”
His shoulders relax. “Think nothin’ o’ it, me lad. But thems tattoos—” He waves toward Juanita’s arms “—anybody that’s been spendin’ some time sailin’ t’ Seas could tells how I did. Even ya, when ya knews thems things ya now forgots.”