Forced Login

by R K Billiau

  I turned away from the light again this time, stretching my hand out to feel the silky darkness. My fingers pressed against it, and I could feel I was moving, being pulled by some force towards the light. I pressed firmly against the wall when I felt a large gap. A passage? I knew I was onto something. This was more than just a repercussion of death. I had no way of locomotion and didn’t know how to get myself through that space, and soon my hand was sliding against another wall. I kept it there hoping for another gap to appear but shot through the light before one did.

  I materialized next to the cube again, but my mind was spinning. I had to figure out what was going on with that tunnel. The sun was setting now and I had explored the whole circumference of the island. I went to my map and updated it, filling in rough sketches for my idea of the zone boundaries. I had ideas on how I could progress and knew for certain that the hill had something I wanted.

  I had to admit, as angry as I had been at being brain-sucked into this world, I was actually enjoying it. The devs had created an interesting puzzle in this tutorial zone and piqued my interest. If I had to live here forever anyway, I might as well enjoy it, right?

  Chapter 3

  It was time to make a plan. I was going to find out what was on that hill. First, I had to get a little more information. I went to each of the zones and determined how far I could get before being noticed by the denizens. Swallowing my fear, I found the spiders wouldn’t attack me until I messed with their webs and could get about halfway into that zone before the webs were so prolific that it was impossible to continue without disturbing them. The spiders freaked me out so much that the Panic debuff would pop in and out sporadically. I tried my breathing technique again, forcing the fear down into myself.

  Congratulations! You have increased your Emotion attribute!

  It was interesting to see an attribute increase from that experience. I looked in the primer for the Emotion attribute;

  Emotion - Emotions are your base feelings. The higher your Emotion attribute, the more protected you are from opposing spells or skills that attempt to affect you, and the better you are at resisting social skills.

  Maybe if I kept increasing that attribute, I could overcome my fear of spiders. I supposed that meant I would have to spend time around them, though. I could wait to work on that. I ran out of that zone quickly and took the rest of the day off.

  The next morning, I entered the plant zone. It was filled with the blinding plants, and after some experimentation I found out what the clicking noise was. I picked up a rock and chucked it at one of the round pollen shooting plants and watched it burp the sluggish yellow stuff. Not long after, the flower heads on the bigger plants wiggled around, a long toothy vine came out of the center of the flower, it’s coiling and uncoiling producing the noise. The large plants also moved. The three-legged bodies moved like a man on crutches, hobbling towards the release of the pollen spray, flicking their vines. The ends of the vines all had needle-like protrusions that must have been what hit me when I died from these things before. This whole zone creeped me out, and as I turned to leave I heard the belch and knew what would follow. My face was covered in liquid pollen and my world went black. It didn’t take long before I was a pin cushion and back in the Death Tunnel.

  With the birds, it was tough figuring out what set them off until I noticed the nests. They left me alone until I drew closer to a nest, then their warbles would turn threatening, but if I moved away, they would go back to their singing. Once I knew what to look for, I tried to get past them but like with the spiders, there was a point where there were so many nests, I couldn’t go any further without being attacked. I noticed this part of the forest had a lot of trees with different fruits. I snuck out a few pieces with me.

  That solved one of my problems, a more diverse diet. I dropped my haul by the cube and my mouth watered at the thought of something other than coconut. I had grabbed an apple, an orange, and a small bunch of bananas. I had no idea if it was normal for all these types of fruits to be growing together, but I was not about to turn my nose up at this gift. I bit into the apple and swooned with how amazing it was. My salivary glands triggered as the taste overwhelmed my senses. Fresh fruit had always been a luxury for me, and one I had not indulged often. This apple however, tasted nothing like the few apples I had ever had before. The apple was crisp and juicy, and much sweeter than what I remembered. My stomach grumbled for more and all too soon I had eaten the whole thing.

  The orange was next, and my mind was blown. I didn’t know if the devs had taken creative liberties with the food in this world or what, but I had tasted nothing like it. Orange flavored things tasted like hand soap smells and this was, well this was just amazing. I meandered my way around the island thinking about how I would pass the obstacles when I opened a banana. Banana flavored FOOD™ bars had gotten it so wrong.

  A rock pelting me broke my reverie. I spun towards the tree line to see a lone monkey from its section of the trees looking at me. Well not at me so much as at the small bunch of bananas I was carrying. It continued to stare without making a sound as I finished the banana and pulled another off the bunch. It raised its hand as if trying to mentally pull the banana to it. I scanned the trees in the zone but couldn’t see any other monkeys, but I noticed something else. The only trees in that zone with food on them were coconut trees. Maybe the monkeys were just as sick of it as I was.

  Testing this theory, I moved a little closer, and pulled another banana off the bunch, holding it out to the monkey. The furry rascal did a little hopping dance and charged at me. I yelped and fell over backwards. This did not dissuade the monkey who ran like lightning, snatched the banana out of my hand, and tore off back towards its tree. It ripped into the snack like it was starving and I knew I had found a way to get past this area to the hill.

  Picking myself up, I walked towards the tree line, holding up the bunch of bananas in front of me like a holy relic. The monkey made a chuffing noise and climbed down to stand in front of me. I tossed a banana and watched as it tore off after it. Interesting. So the creatures could be motivated to leave their zones. I went deeper into the tree line, confident in my new monkey attractant when the monkey howled. He wanted more. Its howls brought out all his lovely little friends, but they did not pelt me with anything. I smiled as I tossed a banana here and there and watched as small groups of monkeys charged after them. As long as I was holding this bunch of bananas, they didn’t throw anything at me!

  I learned rather quickly it was only because they had lured me into an overgrown part of the forest where I was once again jumped by them. I threw down the bunch of bananas and the monkeys swarmed them leaving me with 25% health as they got into the scrum with the others, fighting for a morsel of the fruit. Unfortunately, the bananas ran out faster than I could run, and they graciously bestowed another point of Toughness on me as they pummeled me to death.

  This time the Death Tunnel had changed. Gone was the inky blackness to reveal smooth, marblelike walls. I was no longer floating but standing on a floor made of the same material. Looking up, the light that had been at the end of the tunnel had shifted to overhead filling the entire ceiling. The light did not project the bliss like it did when the tunnel was dark, it still called me intensely, but I was no longer being dragged around with no control. I walked down the hallway I knew was the same as it had been when black, and sure enough, where my hand had dragged across the wall was the gap, another hallway! I turned down it, and as I did, I felt the familiar loss of concentration that pervaded this place. It became difficult to want to continue instead of going towards the light.

  I pushed on, time getting wonky in my head, and found this hall reached an intersection leading out to four other hallways. I was onto something. I had no idea which way to go but my gut was telling me left was the best option. I followed it, and the pull to the light became almost unstoppable, I knew my time here was almost up, but I had to make it a bit further. I followed the path, coming to anothe
r intersection, this time just two ways, and before I could pick a path, the light enveloped me and sent me to spawn.

  I laid there, soaking up the sun and the sounds of the waves. There was a great mystery with the death mechanic, and I was determined to figure it out. Back to my immediate problem though. Getting to that hill. I had an idea, and it was time for action. My first order of business, I had to max out my Agility. Double-checking the primer, I read what it had to say about the attribute;

  Agility - Agility is a measurement of your quickness and grace. The higher your Agility the better you can dodge, and the more deadly you are in ranged combat.

  I began throwing rocks at self-imposed targets, but it didn’t seem to do much in the way of raising my Agility. After around 10 full Stamina bars it had only gone up 1 point. That was frustratingly slow. Agility affected ranged attacks and dodging, so I thought trying to hit targets would help me raise it. I really didn’t want to practice being attacked. The pain in this world was intense and deliberately hurting myself was not very appealing. I knew in many games you could grind, doing the same thing over and over to raise attributes or skills, and I knew that must be possible here as well from the increases I had gotten, but clearly I was doing it wrong.

  Maybe I needed to try harder targets, something that would challenge me? I looked around and smiled. The coconut trees. I gathered my rock collection and threw at the coconuts. It took some work to adjust my aim, and I burned through my Stamina faster as it was a harder target at a strange angle. I had almost depleted my Stamina bar when I finally hit one! The coconut shook but went still.

  Congratulations! You have increased your Agility attribute!

  It worked! I spent the rest of the day and into the night trying to hit the tree fruit to grind up my Agility. At some point just hitting the coconuts wasn’t enough, and I had to aim for the small joint holding it in the tree. Doing this I could knock the coconuts down without climbing, and I unlocked a new skill; Throwing Mastery, which gave me a small flat bonus to my ranged attack accuracy of 1% per level! I hit my Agility cap at the end of the second day unlocking my “average” bonus.

  Congratulations! You have increased your Agility attribute!

  You have achieved a milestone in your Agility attribute!

  Average Agility: +5% to Dodge, +5% to ranged attack accuracy, and +1% to critical chance for ranged attacks!

  You cannot gain more points in Agility while in the tutorial zone.

  That’s what I was hoping for! The bonus to Dodge might be just what I needed to survive the next step in my plan. It wasn’t much, but I figured with the skill and attribute caps on this tutorial island it would be enough. Surely the devs wouldn’t put something out of reach? I was guessing, but it felt right.

  I brought up my character sheet to look at my combat attributes. Agility raised your Dodge percentage by .25 per point, so with my new bonus my Dodge was at 7.5%. Not much, but hopefully enough. My base accuracy to hit in melee was only 14% with my fists but if I was throwing something it jumped up to 26%. Still crappy, but those numbers did not include weapon bonuses. I was curious why those numbers were so low though, so I highlighted over my accuracy and read the tooltip.

  Accuracy is more than just your representation of your ability to hit something, it also represents your ability to hit effectively. See: Hit Points.

  Even more curious, I looked at the tooltip for hit points.

  Hit Points are more than a representation of how much health you have, they represent a combination of durability both mental and physical, luck, and the desire to live.

  If I understood the thought process on this, then accuracy represents my ability to hit. Missing means I could have actually hit the target but not in a way to cause damage, like hitting their armor. That was a very interesting way of doing things that reminded me of old school tabletop games.

  I was sick of grinding, so it was time to see if I could get to that hill. I snuck through the outskirts of the bird zone, making sure to avoid any trees with nests, and plucked as much fruit as I could. I had nothing to carry it with, so I had to take it back to my staging zone one armload at a time. It took a long time, and a few harrowing near death experiences, but eventually I got what I needed. A trail of fruit leading from the spider zone, almost all the way to the monkey zone.

  I gathered a pile of rocks, made a mound of leftover fruit, and got the longest stick I could find. Standing on the outskirts of the spider zone I crept my way in with the stick out in front of me. I waved it around destroying webs and disturbing the brush. I didn’t have long to wait until the floor of the forest came alive with spiders. I shuddered, calming my nerves and with great care walked towards my rock pile, trying to keep within the threat range of the spiders so they would keep coming after me.

  Congratulations! You have increased your Emotion attribute!

  When I got to the pile, I had only a small amount of time before the spiders would overwhelm me, so I found my target, a tree with a large nest and lots of birds alighting on its branches. I took aim and threw for the nest. It took me a few tries, and as precious seconds ticked by towards my spidery demise, I hit the nest hard enough to cause a loud squawking noise from the bird within. I kept throwing, hitting the tree and all around as the angry bird within let out a shrill cry and flew right for me. I legged it out of there. I hoped that this would work and that I could survive the next bit.

  Several birds flew at me, raking me with their claws and talons. I dodged a few times and ran out of their threat range. I stood and watched as the birds flew back towards their zone. I was out of combat, so my HP bar was climbing, but the Pain debuff was still active. I held my breath as the birds flew over the moving carpet of spiders and let out a whoop of joy as I watched one bird dive and eat a spider! It let out a loud trill and soon the entire zone of birds took to the air and were swooping and diving around the spiders like it was a delicious all you can eat buffet! It was somewhat cathartic to watch those eight-legged bastards meet their end.

  I ran over to the pile of fruit I had left and followed the trail. As I got to the end, I hurled the fruit towards the monkey zone, finishing the path. Then I threw the rest of the fruit into the trees, watching and hoping. A monkey appeared and greedily grabbed the banana I had thrown, ripping into it. Then another and another, soon the first monkey was getting beat, and it ditched the fruit to go after another I had thrown. The screeching and hooting of the fight had called the others, and they were scrambling down the path of the fruit I had laid out. When the herd (swarm? What do you call a group of monkeys anyway?) got to the end, their aggressive tendencies took over and they launched themselves into the flock of birds, throwing rocks and sticks and anything they could find, and in turn, the birds let out their warning cries and attacked the monkeys. I had created a turf war that would hopefully leave all sides destroyed!

  I watched for a bit as the monkeys hooted and howled bringing more of their brethren out of the trees until the cacophony of flying and fighting birds and monkeys was so loud that it drew another angry guest to the party. The boar arrived, charging headlong through the fighting forces wreaking havoc. I wanted nothing to do with that thing, so I snuck towards the edge of the water and watched as the fight continued from a much safer distance.

  The monkeys with their unerring aim took down bird after bird, but the birds were no slouches and dive bombed without mercy, ripping monkeys apart with their beaks and talons. All while more of the birds feasted on the spiders. The boar for its part seemed to take great pleasure in charging headlong through the melee, flinging its tusks around and trampling bird and monkey alike. The boar was covered in spiders, but in a show of intelligence the beast charged straight into the water. I urgently swam a good way out, but it quickly got out of the water and continued to charge through the combatants.

  The spiders were thinning out, and the birds put all their focus on the intruders while taking heavy losses. It wasn’t much longer before there were hardly an
y birds or monkeys or spiders left. The handful of birds remaining broke ranks and flew away, off the island. The remaining monkeys continued to fight the boar, but it was so much bigger and faster they could barely hurt it. When the last monkey was trampled, the boar chuffed, stamped its feet and eyed me warily. I trod water, not wanting to get any closer. The beast turned and walked slowly towards the forest, when it collapsed into a very still heap.

  I swam out of the water and went to the boar, chest still and foam coming out of its mouth, it was well and truly dead, the venom from the hundreds of spider bites killing it off. This was a much better result than I had expected, except for one little thing; I didn’t get any experience points. I had been hoping that I wouldn’t have to get my hands dirty killing monsters to get XP, but it looked like that might be the case. That was frustrating, I really didn’t want to experience the pain of combat. Call me a wuss, but the thought of it made me cringe. Hopefully there would be a way to quest for XP. I mean, I knew I would have to take part in some combat, but I didn’t want to make it my focus.

  Curious I opened the primer to the section on experience.

  Experience and Leveling

  To advance your class to the next level you will need 100 experience points. This counter resets every level. Experience points are earned through completing challenges that require effort. You will not gain experience points for actions that pose no challenge, however you may still increase your skills in this way. The maximum level for a class is 100. skills and attributes earn experience through use.

  Dungeon Experience