I looked at him not quite understanding. What was he talking about, simulation? Besides this was a dream it’s not like anything would matter tomorrow.
“When you wake up everything will have changed. Good luck Law.” Colt said.
I started to respond but flew backwards startled then began to feel like I was falling down into the earth deeper and deeper, until the light faded and then nothing.
TRACK 5 – HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN – THE ANIMALS
A scratchy sensation on the left side of my face accompanied by a rumbling car engine woke me up. I blinked slowly in the dawn’s new light nursing a massive hangover and pushed Freak’s head away from my face.
“Grrrrrr…” An animal sounded.
My eyes shot open and I turned my head at the sound. A giant set of two inch long fangs filled my vision.
“Fuuuckkk!” I screamed, leaping up from my rocky sleeping place now fully awake and realizing there was a giant monster inches from me. A giant grey and white tiger at least eight feet long stood next to me its massive tongue lolling out between its razor sharp fangs.
“Gggg… good… good kitty…” I stammered, reaching a hand out tentatively in either defensive or supplication, I wasn’t sure which
“Rowr…” The huge monster tilted its massive grey head to the side and looked at me with surprisingly familiar florescent green eyes.
I stared into those bright beautiful orbs and knew instinctively that this giant monstrosity was my Winston. It was my little Freak, now a much bigger Freak.
“Freak?” I asked softly.
“Rowr.” The huge cat responded.
“Holy fucking shit…” I breathed, then reaching out and Freak moved his head into my hand bumping into it hard.
I petted and then moved on to scratching his massive head with both my hands. My god he was so big now. But it was my same kitty. He enjoyed being scratched and petted in all the same places he was just five hundred pounds now and twelve feet long from nose to tail. He sat at my side and I rubbed his head as I looked around the campsite now that I was fully awake.
Everything, besides my now giant tiger cat, looked the same. There was the fire pit, now just ashes and there was my pack and bedroll. I stopped and did a double take. My gear was all different now. As a matter of fact much was different now and as I looked at my hands, which were now much bigger than they used to be, I knew shit had just gotten real.
I closed my eyes and took a deep calming breath. I needed to not freak the fuck out and to think rationally. After a few deep breaths I opened my eyes and felt much better, at least not on the verge of a panic attack anyway. From the corner of my eye I spotted something. Walking over I examined the item. It looked like a piece of paper. Not just regular paper though. It was made of a fine type of vellum, like something made by hand. It was folded in half so I opened it and saw that it was written in beautiful flowing cursive. This is what it said;
Hey buddy,
I told you to call me Colt. I trust this letter finds you well. I hope our mutual friend Westley didn’t scare you too bad. Besides I like him better this way and I’m sure you will agree in time. Anyhoo, I don’t know exactly what you remember from last night, you were faded as fuck, but the gist of it is the world is now changed forever. You were nice to me and offered me your hospitality that means a lot to us old folks. For that I gave you a couple of legs ups for the new world order. I hope you don’t mind, last night I went into your head and saw some things, you’re one sick fuck, by the way. I also saw that your love of video games and books would really benefit you here. So to get you started just think Menu. I gave you some special abilities that I think will really make sense to you. I’ll let you thank me later. I know you are asking why me? As I told you before you shared your hospitality and each of us gods gets to save members of our family. That’s right, I said family, you are my great, great, great, great, great, great, well the list keeps going but you are my blood.
Sincerely Your Friend,
Colt ‘Coyote’ the God.
(P.S. This message will self destruct in ten… nine… eight…)
(P.P.S Just Kidding)
I almost dropped the message the first time I read it then stopped and shook my head reading the message again. Halfway through the second read through the paper started to smolder then started to catch on fire. I dropped it on the ground and watched it turn black and then to ash. The wind blew and I swore I heard Colt laughing on the wind.
“Motherfucker…” I whispered, sucking my new larger singed fingers.
Ok, let’s take some time and think some things through. I tried to piece last night together but everything was a drunken and high blur. I remember the guy looking like Willie Nelson… then… shit it was all fucking jumbled in my brain. I definitely remember the death… ugh that sucked… and I remembered watching the world… dammit… I couldn’t think straight. The paper had said think the word Menu. I looked at Freak, now a giant tiger, and decided what could it hurt, I closed my eyes and thought.
In the blackness of my minds eye a screen appeared. My eyes opened involuntarily and the world was there normal. I looked around and slowly closed my eyes again. The screen was back and floating in the blackness were the words;
MENU – select option below;
Tutorial…
They flashed over and over bright white in the darkness. I reached out with my mind and the flashing button clicked and the screen changed. This new one read;
TUTORIAL SECTION 1
Welcome to the old world. While you were sleeping everything has changed. Over seven billion people once lived on this orb of ours. As of sunrise this morning there are only 350 million people in the entire world. The myths and legends of the past are real, magic is once again alive, and the world’s balance has been reset. You’ve been sent back to the fourteenth century. The world is in disarray. The Black Plague and other epidemics have ravaged the globe. Incessant war and famine have destroyed civilizations around the earth. It is back to a time of chaos. The balance has been reset. The old gods are born anew and the world is ready to start again.
Good luck and god speed!
Class Selected, Jack-of-all-Trades. Race selected, Half-Human. All remaining available starting options for character creation have been pre-selected by Admin Coyote. Character creation is complete...
Character Screen… Character Screen… Character Screen…
I read the words over and over again. What the fuck? I couldn’t make any choices? They had all been made for me? What the hell is Jack-of-all-Trades? There was no warrior or god damns mage? What the hell is a Half-Human? I’d heard of a Half-Elf but Half-Human was damn vague…
The words character screen were flashing now, what was going on? Once again I stopped and breathed deeply. I opened my eyes and looked around. I walked to the edge of my camping area and looked down at the view from the previous day. My knees got weak and I had to sit down. Everything around me was different.
“I never lost it. I always had control of myself. I fucking walked in on my girlfriend riding my best friend like a rodeo rider! I could handle this shit. Breathe mother fucker! Breathe and get your shit together! Own your life! Fuck!” I screamed this out over the mountain top.
Somehow that helped and I got myself together. I closed my eyes and the screen appeared again. I selected the blinking option.
TRACK 6 – GOT YOUR MONEY (FEAT. KELIS) – OL’ DIRTY BASTARD, KELIS, RICH TRAVALI
This screen shows your growth and the skills and abilities you have learned and can use. These may only be affected by items and activities you choose and will grow organically based on your actions and choices. You may also select certain skills and abilities to learn more about them and access any information once learned.
NAME – Lawrence ‘Law’ Wrath
RACE – Half-Human
ALIGNMENT – Neutral Good
CLASS – Jack of all Trades
EXPERIENCE – 0
LEVEL –
1
HIT POINTS – 10/10
MAGIC POINTS – 10/10
FEATURES
HEIGHT – 6’5”, WEIGHT – 275 lbs, HAIR COLOR – Black, EYE COLOR – Amber, SKIN COLOR – Bronze
ATTRIBUTES
STRENGTH – 1
DEXTERITY – 1
CONSTITUTION – 1
INTELLIGENCE – 1
WISDOM – 1
CHARISMA – 1
ANIMAL COMPANIONS – N/A
The character sheet sat in my vision behind closed eyelids. Was I going to see this stupid screen whenever I shut my eyes? Taking a deep breath I opened my eyes and the screen was gone. What the hell? Ok, even though all this shit was crazy as fuck it was time to roll with it until I figured this insaneness out. Thinking a bit more rationally I realized the screen popped up when I thought about it and went away apparently when I thought it as well.
It was time to test the theory. I thought about the screen and closed my eyes. Once again the screen was there floating in the dark. I opened my eyes, no screen, think, close, screen, open, think, close, and no screen. Ok, that made some sense. I was literally looking for any kind of handhold to keep my sanity. Any sense of control to help me deal with this no series of unfortunate events that had just befallen me, any port in a storm and all that.
I stood there in my little campsite blinking my eyes open and shut over and over again for I don’t know how long. Eventually I got the hang of it and started experimenting in different ways. It seemed my mind was the control for the menu and character sheet. Just thinking about it accessed it.
“Rowr?” Freak growled questioningly at me.
“Oh shut up.” I replied to my cat, now tiger. “Just watch out for danger?”
He just looked at me quizzically with the same cat look he had always had but now on a giant tigers head. Man, this was gonna take some getting used to. Then he nodded and began walking around the camp. Did he just do as I said? Ok, I’ll come back to this later.
I realized that my standing there and blinking my eyes open and shut with my mouth just hanging open and not moving, was probably a weird sight. Whatever, I had just figured out how to have an opaque window in the world with my eyes open and could access the screen that way. This was much better as I didn’t want to be standing around with my eyes closed when I was playing with my menus.
Now that that was settled I accessed the menu again, pulled up the character sheet, and began to study things in earnest. Selecting the tutorial option I began again watching as a little bubble popped up over each area of information that I thought about and looked at. For all intents and purposes everything was very straightforward if you have ever played video games, RPG’s specifically. One thing I did learn was what a Half-Human was. The screen popped the definition up for me when I selected it.
HALF-HUMAN – These are beings that are half human and half something else. They are called half humans because almost each one is different and unknown until their other half manifests itself. This happens in a variety of ways and times depending on what the other half’s race is.
The character sheet screen made sense so I switched to the next blinking tab, which just had a little picture of a stick man on it, and pulled up the screen. In place of the text a smaller version of my current self, albeit much smaller, translucent, and 3-dimensional, spinning slowly in the air in front of me. That was cool. As before with the character screen little bubbles of information popped up as I looked at them. The breakdown was as follows:
CHARACTER EQUIPMENT
Head – N/A
Neck – N/A
Shoulders – N/A
Chest – N/A
Upper Arms – N/A
Lower Arms – N/A
Hands – N/A
Waist – N/A
Underwear – N/A
Upper Legs – N/A
Lower Legs – N/A
Feet – N/A
Fingers X 10 – N/A
Toes X 10 – N/A
Face – N/A
Eyes – N/A
Ears X 2 – N/A
Nose X 2 – N/A
Ok that all made sense. The fingers and toes thing was a little different but I always thought it was dumb when games only gave space for like one ring or something. My eyes opened wide as saucers and my mouth dropped agape. It may have been the shock of everything or I was just an idiot but I just realized something about my little avatar.
He was butt fucking naked… That meant I was butt fucking naked as well… No wonder it was so goddamn cold! I blinked my eyes and the screen winked out of existence. Looking down I confirmed my hypothesis and Mr. Happy was pulling a turtle head. My hands shot over my jibbly bits and exit hole. Freak was still looking at me like I was an idiot but somehow added mocking to his gaze. Seriously cat?
I looked around the campsite for some type of covering for my nips. I mean they were hard enough to cut glass. Why did your nipples grow and get hard in the cold while your bait and tackle gets all shivery and small? The world may never know. Focus Law focus… I started looking around and suddenly I remembered… my pack! There it was still by my feet.
Only now that I had calmed down a bit I saw that it was a hand stitched leather bag, so dark brown it was almost black, and on it were little silver, gold, and gunmetal grey studs that accented its stitching. Kneeling down I grabbed the bag, it was actually two bags, and looked just like saddle bags from an old western or something. As soon as I opened one of the flaps a screen popped up similar to the previous two.
This new window was labeled Inventory and had a semi-transparent grid that was a giant glowing rectangle separated into two rows of squares that were five spaces long and two spaces wide respectively. The first two squares were blinking and each had something in it. The first was a picture that looked like the parchment I had picked up before and the second was a picture of what looked like some type of cloth item.
The parchment started glowing brighter than the cloth so I tried to select it. Nothing happened. It kept glowing. Mentally I tried to access it again and again nothing. I reached out and poked at it with my hands and they just passed through the space. What the hell? After a few more moments of mental and physical pokes at the opaque screen I closed it with a thought and stared down at the saddle bags. Then it occurred to me to try to just open the thing with my hands the normal way, so I did.
TRACK 7 – CHELSEA DAGGER – THE FRATELLIS
Inside the first pouch was the glowing piece of parchment. I reached in, pulled it out, and began reading it. This note was also from Coyote.
Hey Buddy,
I told you to call me Colt. Anyhoo, that was pretty funny you trying to open the pack with your mind. Ha! That joke never gets old. Now that you’ve figured out how to use a bag, ha! Damn I’m hilarious, think of this as a gift from me to you. I know it’s tough getting taken from your own time and from all your friends and family then sent back in time to do the bidding of a god. So, this is one little way for me to make it up to you. Oh, and you should throw those undies on, I mean you’re looking a little small. Ha! Dick jokes, oldies but goodies, they never get old.
Enjoy,
Colt
(P.S. this message…)
I quit reading after Colt then tossed the parchment on the ashes of yesterday’s fire pit and watched as the vellum burst into flame. I think Coyote might be kind of a dick, just saying. The combustible message did have the added effect of restarting the fire so that was nice. It really was cold as fuck in my birthday suit this high up in the mountains. The fire helped and I scooted as close as I could without getting burnt and refocused back on the bags.
This time when I looked at the bags an info bubble popped up.
COLT’S DARK MOON SADDLEBAGS OF HOLDING
These are the god Coyote’s hand tooled leather saddlebags made for him by an old friend the god Capa, also known as Beaver, for his personal use. The interior is made up of a created astral space that accesses and stores items for use.
User may store any item that will fit in the mouth of the bag inside. Bags will always weigh the same and stay the same size no matter what is stored inside. These are scalable and grow with the owner’s level.
LEVEL 1 – 10 slots/5 per saddlebag
DIMENSIONS – 12” by 12” by 24” each bag
WEIGHT – 25 lbs
I grunted and closed the window. A bag of holding! Scalable at that! Holy fucking rusted metal Batman! Scalable meant it would grow in power as I did. Well finally I had something to thank Coyote about. Shaking my head in awe I reached back in the bag and pulled out the cloth item. An information bubble popped up again.
COLT’S UNDER WRAPS OF COMFORT AND SNUGNESS
These are the god Coyote’s hand made underwear created for him by an old friend the goddess Koyangwuti, also known as Spider, for his personal use. These are known as some of the most comfortable underwear in creation along with MeUndies. These wraps, similar to Japanese Mawashi, provide limited protection from the elements. Item automatically sizes to wearer.
LEVEL – N/A
DIMENSIONS – N/A
WEIGHT – 0 lbs
I held the off white piece of cloth in my hands. This was Coyote’s underwear? Ugh… involuntarily I dropped the underwear to the ground and forced down my gag reflex. Is that why they were off colored? I shivered slightly and looked down at the dirty item. The wrap had unrolled and another of those parchment letters fell out. Sighing I picked it up and began reading.
Hey Buddy,
I told you to call me Colt. Haha! You’re ridiculous. Like I’d give you used underwear, c’mon guy, would I do that? That’s nasty… Anyhoo, you need to put that shit on or some of your shrinky dinky bits are gonna freeze and fall off. I mean, I changed your body a bit but it’s cold as fuck up in those mountains this time of year. Chop-chop buttercup times a wasting. Wrap that lifesaving underwear round those frosted tips.
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