“Oh for the love of…”
“Guess we could slay a few rats, eh Walter?” Oz said.
“Stupid starter quest,” I muttered.
“I’ll be at the tavern. Find me there when you’ve finished the task,” she said and wobbled away.
The book banged against my leg. I considered taking it to one of the watering troughs and submerging it and then beating the crap out of it with my mace.
“We need to deliver this potion first then we’re on it like white on rice,” Oz told her.
She didn’t even turn around to acknowledge us, she just kept on walking.
“Hey. What’s your name?” Oz asked.
“It’s Hilna,” I said because the quest had begun ringing a bell in the back of my head.
“It’s Hilna,” she shouted over her shoulder.
“You getting psychic on me or something?” Oz asked.
“Nah. I did that quest more than a few times back in the day. Used to be a meme about Hilna and her rat tails. It was stupid.”
“That’s a meme for ya,” Oz said sagely.
She went into the tavern, and we were right behind her.
The cute waitress was still there kneeling right next to the old farmer. Even Hull and Quaint were back at their table with fresh mugs of whatever piss they had been drinking. Hilna found a table and took a seat then she stared into space. The haze was back as was the smell. What was that? It was like a cross between burning tar and gas. Torches were nasty in real life.
“Oh hey. We got that potion stuff,” Oz said and offered it to the server.
“Blessings upon you, my lord,” the woman gasped as she took the potion. “My name is Vivian, and you have performed an exceptional service.”
“How come you never told me your name?” I asked.
The tavern server stood, curtsied to Oz, and completely ignored me. She popped the cork but no unicorn farts emitted from the vial. It did make a weird noise though like a little tinkling of bells in the distance. Oh shit! That was straight out of the game I knew. I actually breathed a sigh of relief.
This was going to be so easy. Sure there would be an adjustment, a learning curve to swinging real weapons, but a lot of this stuff was starting to come back to me. I would be able to breeze through the realm and get us out of here in no time.
The old man sipped the potion and then tilted the vial back and downed it in three gulps. He smiled and then sighed deeply. His eyes came into focus, and he stood up with the help of Vivian.
Oz jumped, took a stumbling step back and then looked around in awe.
“You okay?”
“Sure am, sirrah,” the old man said. “Never better in all my years. A true hero, your friend, is saving me in my time of need. Why I would have died without that potion.”
“Yeah but I’m the one who got it from the priest,” I said.
“Thanks to you both, I suppose,” Grundar with a frown. “Now I’ve got to get back to my mare. She’s a frightful sort. Mind if I offer a bit of advice?”
“Uh—sure?” I said.
“Don’t try to take the glory. Make your own story.”
“Look Mr. Miyagi, I appreciate the advice, but I did the work. It’s like AlgerTech all over again," I whined.
Old Gundar looked me up and down, frowned, straightened his worn black shirt that looked like it had been run over by a dozen Range Rovers, and walked away from us. As he opened the door, he muttered something, shook his head, and went out into the heat.
“Bye, Felicia.”
“This is so weird,” Oz said.
“No shit, man. I did most of the work. I don’t get how you got the experience.”
“No, the HUD. It just came alive,” Oz looked at me, but he wasn’t really looking at me. He sort of stared at my head like it was see through.
“HUD?”
“Yeah, bro. I just fucking leveled up!”
Son of a bitch. How in the hell was Oz better at this game than me?
GET A JOB!
After the disaster of a raid the night before the event—that’s what I’m going to call it in my journal from now on, The Event. It sounds better than trying to make it out to be some Matrix type thing. “You’ve been living in a dream…”
Anyway, after The Event, I hid away from my online friends and just sort of vegged for the rest of the night. I didn’t sleep well and the next morning was like a slap in the face. Of course, the bus was late, and I didn’t have any more canned coffee shots at home, so it required a trip to the world’s slowest Starbucks. The barista looked at me like I was nuts for ordering plain black coffee with some ice. What, the founding drink of your organization was no longer cool? I wasn’t about to start drinking that new stuff called NitroGroove that added some nano-sized protein molecules that worked on the adrenal system to release a wonder wake up drug.
You can take all the good stuff and put it in a drink that simulates the effects of mild cocaine all you want. I like my drinks old school. Besides, it gave me an excuse to keep a drink on my desk and add to my PlastiScine cup pyramid. They might be almost thin enough to see through, and as strong as steel, but I had a bet going that I would be able to stand on the top cup as soon as it reached its fifth level.
Then there was an accident on 4th Avenue and we got stuck for a while. I almost turned my full attention to the scene, but couldn’t tear my eyes off the announcement that Th’loria was getting a new expansion pack. More lands to explore. More creatures to kill. More darksiders to betray, and murder, and most importantly, six new raids. Holy crap on a Cinnabon. This was going to be a monster add-on for my favorite past time. Not only that but there would be at least one new shard to add to my monumental, assuming my guild didn’t kick my ass out after the raid wipe the night before.
I’d intended to brag to Karian about my amazing raid, but now that it was a flop there really wasn’t any reason to bring it up and embarrass myself. As if I could even work up the nerve to talk to her. I’d play it cool and try not to stare at her every time I went over to development.
Of course, my day didn’t go that way at all and Oz had been a dick and kept trying to get me to finish filling out a bug report from last Friday. Oz said it was actually a week older, but I didn’t think that was the case. Hell, maybe it was. I spent a lot of time staring off into space, dreaming of my next trip into Th’loria, or secretly surfing the message boards.
Damn. If I ever got out of this mess, would I even want to play the online game again?
“What did you mean when you said your HUD came alive?” I asked Oz.
We stood in the shade of the Grey Gull Tavern’s overhang, trying to stay cool as well as look cool. We had completed a quest, killed some stuff, and then rescued a man who was dying. Of course, I had done a lot of the work even though Oz got the credit.
Good lord, but it was hot. I eyed the trough across the dirt road and considered jumping in it. But I hadn’t been about to drink out of the thing because of animal slobber or whatever so I sure as hell wasn’t about to go sit my ass in it.
A woman walked out of her house and tossed a bucket of slop into the street. Dozens of crawbugs scuttled out of cover and devoured whatever scraps and shit they could find.
Oz stared into space.
“Dude.” I thumped his arm.
“What?” Oz said.
“I said tell me about this HUD thing.”
“You didn’t get yours yet?”
“No, Oz. If I had one why in the hell would I be asking you about yours?”
“Jeez, man. You’re touchy today.”
I sucked in a breath and did my best to ignore a vein throbbing in my temple. It beat right along to the pulse of my heart and probably looked like a fat angry worm.
“The HUD.”
“It’s kind of like a game but not really. I mean it’s right there if I look up to the right corner of my eyes. Just kinda shift my gaze, and it springs to life. Did you ever try one of those Google glass things?”
“Fair enough. It’s colorful, and I see a couple of circles. One’s red, and one’s clear like it’s not active yet,” Oz stared into space again.
“Okay,” I prompted.
“Sorry. I’m tripping balls here. So there’s also a bar across the top and even a compass thing, but I can’t make out any numbers. Just marks. Like hashes.”
“Huh,” I said trying not to let the disappointment sound in my voice.
“It flashed a bunch of new skills but they disappeared,” Oz said. “I bet those are in the book.’
“XP bar?” I asked.
“Nope,” Oz scratched his head. “I think once you level up you’ll get yours.”
“So what was it like when you leveled up?”
“It was awesome, dude. I felt like I’d just hit a huge blast of NitroGroove and chased it with a hit of crack or something. It was almost orgasmic, and I can’t wait for it to happen again.” He smiled.
I shifted my feet uncomfortably.
I needed to speed this up. I strolled out into the street where the crawbugs were feasting and smacked one with my mace. It crunched, and guts spewed all over his pals, but they didn’t seem to care and zipped around eating every piece of crap they could find.
I waited for something to happen, but even the damn book didn’t thump against my side.
“Are you done squishing bugs? I mean, they are pretty horrendous and all.”
“I was hoping it would give me a little XP.”
“Oh. Hey. How much money do we have left?” Oz asked.
I dug around in my bag and came up with a few small coins. Oz counted them and then took half.
“Hey,” I said.
“What? We both did the work. Only fair that we split the coins.”
“But I paid for the potion out of our money, so I got stiffed,” I argued.
“Oh for the love of …” Oz handed back a small coin.
I pocketed the money and then considered our next move. My stomach grumbled, and it reminded me that I had no idea when I had last had a meal. How long had we even been here? I looked at my wrist and regretted not seeing my watch. I missed it and my cell phone. Plus the internet. I also missed real clothes, cars, busses, and my cushy office chair.
“I think we should go do this quest, knock out a few baddies, collect some money, and then eat like kings,” I said.
“Brilliant. I’m hungry too, but I think it’s a good plan. How hard can some spiders or rats and shit be to kill?”
“Hopefully not as hard as those chitterlings,” I said and then scanned the street.
Several villagers had come out to work on their homes or small gardens. A woman dressed in bright red tended to a row of tomatoes that matched the color of her shirt. I took a few steps toward her and frowned at the fruit she was tending.
“What?” Oz asked.
“Have you noticed how nice everything is?”
“Yeah, man. Dirt roads. People dressed in little better than rags. It’s an amazingly beautiful place,” Oz scoffed.
“I mean look at those tomatoes. They’re perfect. Deep red and I don’t see a blemish or bug bite on them,” I pointed.
“Huh,” Oz said and turned to look up and down the street. “Did you see the ones near the ground? They look anything but perfect.”
He was right. A low hanging pair of tomatoes had turned brown and green rot splotched the surface.
“Weird,” I muttered.
I kicked at a crawbug who had taken an interest in my sandals, and he skittered away to join another one who lurked under a four-wheeled wagon manned by a farmer. The man wore a large straw hat and seemed to be perfectly content sitting in the direct sunlight.
“It’s this way,” I said and pointed at Hilna’s house.
“Yeah. Let’s get this over with,” Oz said and took the lead.
I hefted my mace, marked again how damn heavy the thing was, and then followed Oz.
HILNA’S HOUSE WAS A DUMP, and that was being kind to dumps.
The roof hung by a prayer and the exterior covered in dirt and baked on mud. One wall leaned out from the frame allowing a sliver of light. I tried to peer inside but my eyes met only darkness. The front door looked like it had been kicked in a few times then reattached with bubblegum. Hilna’s thatch roof hung in tatters and would probably blow away in a stiff breeze.
An animal scurried around in the dried vegetation up there and made my skin crawl thanks to the little-screeching noises it emitted.
Something thumped inside the house, and I found my mace lifted to waist height before I’d even thought about it. Oz similarly shifted his stance and dragged his short sword, slowly, out of his cloth belt.
“What do you think made that noise inside?” Oz said.
“What do you think? Probably one of the rats, unless she has a dog. This should be a cakewalk. I did this quest over and over again when I tried various noob characters.”
“Damn big rat.”
I nodded and put my hand on the door. There wasn’t a knob, which begged the question, how did people in this fantasy world lock stuff up? Sure I had occasionally worked on my thieving skills in the game, but cracking a deadlock came down to luck and skill stats. The game displayed an animated lock opening but the actual mechanics were left up to the imagination.
Luckily the door swung open, but the sound of the wooden hinges was something like a wolf getting chased by a big ass lion.
The room was dark, but I sucked it up and took a step inside and paused. Oz ran straight into me.
“Sorry,” he said as I tried to put myself back in my skin.
“Not so close,” I said.
“Said I was sorry.”
I took another step and waited for my eyes to adjust to the dark. When they did, I regretted it.
The room was spartan, to say the least. There was a rough wooden table on three legs with an equally rough chair knocked over. The floor was covered in dirt and leaves and, if I wasn’t mistaken, part of the roof. I looked up and realized why I was able to see at all. Sure enough, holes filtered in tiny beams that painted the room like the world’s most depressing disco ball.
The only other light was provided by a couple of homemade candles the size of large cheese wheels that had multiple wicks. Each wick burned, providing the pungent smell. Something like sulfur with an undercurrent of something flowery, like lavender. Honestly, it didn’t smell great in the place. It didn’t even smell good. Iron suffused the air as did the reek of sweat, and something else.
Animals.
The floor creaked as I took another step into the home.
There was a small room set off to the side, and when I glanced in, I found a bed that sagged in the middle. A thick woolen blanket bunched up in the center, barely covering a red stain on the thin mattress.
“Is that blood?” Oz said.
“Don’t know and it’s not our business considering she’s a woman,” I said.
“Dude. That’s not a cool thing to say,” Oz chided me.
“I’m just saying,” I said.
Oz shook his head and moved into the only other room in the home. I followed and found an iron stove with a long chimney that ran up the back of the home. She’d been cooking something in a cast iron pot that bubbled with something dark and noxious, but now sat over a burner that appeared to be cold. I held my hand near the stove to confirm there wasn’t fire.
Something thumped beneath us and the first round of fear set in. What had I been thinking? In Realms of Th’loria, it was a simple matter of looking at a new location, scanning for noob mobs, and then killing them until health was low. Then running back to the temple for healing, or quaffing a potion, and then getting back to the action.
But this wasn’t a game anymore. We were about to face a real threat, and if I’d learned anything from the battle with the chitterlings earlier, it was that I could be in real danger here. Getting hit, or
bitten, hurt—a lot.
“Where are they?” Oz breathed next to my neck, and I nearly had a heart attack again.
“Dude! Stop scaring the crap out of me,” I said as my heart raced.
“Oh right. Forgot how jumpy you are,” Oz said.
“You mean you aren’t jumpy right now?”
“Sort of, I guess,” Oz replied.
The floor thumped again.
“That doesn’t sound like a little rat to me,” I observed.
“Right there,” Oz pointed at a spot on the floor.
There was a little door cut into the floor and images of the old movie Evil Dead immediately popped into my head. It had a heavy round ring, and a sturdy wooden latch set into a depression in the floor.
“Okay,” I said more to myself.
“You open it, and I’ll be ready with my sword in case one of them comes out,” Oz said.
“Why don’t you want to open the door?”
“I don’t know. I guess because I’ve already leveled up?”
I turned my head so Oz couldn’t see me roll my eyes. This guy…
I put my foot on the door to hold it shut and then leaned over and shifted the latch to the side. When nothing burst out and tossed me aside, I moved my foot and then lifted the hatch.
It was heavier than I’d anticipated so I dropped to my knees and lifted with my legs. As the hatch came to a ninety-degree angle, something crashed into me.
The shape was about Rottweiler-sized and considerably more pissed off. Amber eyes met mine and teeth gnashed as they sought my midsection. The beast had to weigh fifty pounds, and it rolled over me like a truck.
I squealed. The giant rat squealed. Even Oz jumped back in shock and let out something like a squeal.
It smelled like a dead wet dog that had been left to rot for about a week. I gagged and barely managed to shove it aside before it could sink its teeth into my neck. Oz howled and rammed his sword straight through its back and into the floor.
The rat shrieked in pain, scratched at the ground with all four legs, and then went still.
“Fuck!” Oz and I said at the same time.
SHARDS OF REALITY: A LitRPG novel (Enter the Realm Book 1) Page 5