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by R K Billiau

  “I believe you were close that time, you made an impact,” the Adjudicator said.

  I growled, not wanting to be placated and embraced the light.

  Death 99

  There they were, feasting on my corpse. There were enough fresh corpses that a lot of the zombies were distracted, only a few coming after me. I turned to run, just to come face to face with another couple zombies. I gave one a haymaker, and as it stumbled back, I ran, evading the next one. All of this drew the attention of the horde eating the corpses, since you know, moving living things must taste better or something. I punched and kicked and shoved. I lasted long enough for my haymaker to reset and I popped it off on the closest zombie, giving me an opening!

  I dashed through, taking a few hits, but making it to an area where the damn undead weren’t so thick! My health had plummeted, but I was still alive, I could make it! I ran for everything I was worth, gasping in terror and determination. I had done it. I made it out of the horde! Then I fell into a fun little addition to this nightmare that Tim had cooked up, a pit trap. There were no spikes, but only because it was easier to just fill it with hungry zombies. DAMNIT.

  Death 100- Prime Death

  I did not enter the Death Maze. I had definitely died, and I went somewhere, but I had no idea where ‘somewhere’ was.

  I was standing on a flat black line floating in the air. Below me was a map made of billions of lights, some bright, some not. Above me was a bleak, gray emptiness, and a being in a billowing black robe.

  “Oh good,” a voice from within the robe said, “a Viator, now I may have something more interesting to talk to.”

  “Uh….” I said, still trying to get a grip on these surroundings.

  “Blast. It appears I was wrong.” The figure floated closer, getting down to the same level as me. I could see that it was dressed in all black, a silky type substance. The classic smell of Old Spice filled my nostrils. It wore an old school evening suit complete with diamond encrusted ascot. The dark hooded cloak was so black it was hard to focus my eyes, and within the hood the blackness continued, not resolving into any features. “HELLO VIATOR, CAN YOU SPEAK!?” it shouted, slowly, at me this time.

  “Er… Yes, YES, I can speak. Who… what are you?”

  “Ah, good, well then. Welcome… to…. LIMBO!” It waved its hand in an expressive gesture towards the surrounding expanse. As it did, lights from the map below flew up passing over a horizon and changing from a light to a rabbit, then a deer, then some weird tentacled thing, and various other types of animals, then crashed down through the horizon becoming lights again to land within the map.

  “Are… are you an Archon?” I asked, awed.

  “What?” It stopped gesticulating and the light show stopped, returning to the static view it had been upon my arrival. “What did you ask me? Am I an Archon? A better question would be, how do you know about Archons?” It turned its empty faced cloak toward me as if actually looking at me for the first time.

  “Oh, BLOODY HELL!” It threw its arms in the air. “Millions of bloody Viators in the world, and the first one that comes here is a vassal already?! I spent ages coming up with this grand setting, depicting the balance between life and death, a brilliant show to explain the bloody mysteries of the bloody Zone of Limbo, and it’s a bloody claimed vassal already that shows up?”

  His arms were flailing so much I had a mind to move away from him, but I wasn’t convinced of my ability to walk backwards on this strange line I was on.

  “I’m… sorry?” I stammered.

  “As you bloody well should be!” It lowered its arms and stopped, and I could swear it was taking a calming breath. “Right then. Welcome to Limbo, the land of death between rebirth.” Its voice had lost the booming echo of power and was a little nasally. It sniffed. Without a nose it was quite the feat. “I, am Death.”

  Well that was a shocker. More so that the Archon of Death seemed a little… whiny. “You’re Death?” I asked.

  It huffed. “Not very bright, are you? I don’t know why Judy picked you then.”

  “Judy?”

  It’s amazing how even without a face I could definitely tell it was rolling its eyes.

  “The Adjudicator. Do try to keep up. Wait, scratch that. You won’t be here long, anyway. I’ve decided that this will be a do-over, yes that’s it. This will just be practice for the next Viator that arrives.”

  I looked at it, still confused. “So, you like, control death, or something?” I wanted to learn whatever I could about this Archon. “What do you do? What is this place?” Maybe if I showed interest in its performance I could get it to talk.

  “Oh no, NO, no. Not you, sorry old boy, you’ve gotten your fill of Archons talking to you. I’ll just go ahead and reserve my answers for the next Viator that arrives. For you I have one thing.” It tapped me on the forehead, and I felt a chill go down my spine. A System message appeared.

  Congratulations! You have gained a PRIME POWER!

  You were the first to die 100 times and have gained the Prime of Death!

  Prime of Death - Once per day, when you die, you may choose to spawn at any location you know and have been to before. You are now no longer afflicted by the Death debuff when you die, although you will still lose experience, your items will not lose durability. You may only ever have a single Prime power if you wish to obtain a new one you must relinquish this one.

  As the first person to earn a Prime power, you have earned the title “First Prime”.

  Title: First Prime - Grants you the ability to negate any Prime power used in your presence, or against you. You may only have one active title at a time.

  Because you earned a Prime power in your first incarnation, you have earned the title “Prime”.

  Title: Prime - Allows you to use your Prime power multiple times per day, each successive use has a cumulative cost of 10 XP per use.

  Multiple titles and a Prime power? What in the world was a Prime power? Another world event System message appeared to give me a clue.

  Attention world! A Prime power has been discovered! There are many Prime powers, what will YOURS be?!

  Attention world! The FIRST PRIME has been named! Who will become the SECOND PRIME?

  At least the game kept doing one thing well: keeping players in the dark while giving out just enough hints to keep them curious.

  I tried to talk to Death, but it cut me off before I could get more than a syllable out.

  “Right then. Off with you. Bloody wanker, wasting my time.” It waved its hands and sent me flying away, the world of Limbo spiraling around me faster and faster as I plummeted into the map of lights. It got brighter and brighter until everything was white. I recognized the feeling of being embraced by the light and accepted it.

  I didn’t spawn in the death trap. That was great. Instead, my world was doused into blackness, as if someone had poured a gallon of black paint over my head. I let my eyes roam across the field of blackness, looking for answers. I spun around searching when my eyes found two small pieces of light.

  One was bigger than the other, and I tried to get a better look at it. My field of vision zoomed in, and it looked like a satellite image of the valley the tribe lived in. The blackness surrounding it must have been areas I had never explored, with the valley that was visible showing the places I had been.

  Curious, I looked at the other speck of light. Zooming in, I saw it was the tutorial zone island! I zoomed in even closer and found that like a street view, I could go all over the island on a near 1:1 basis. I couldn’t see any mobs though, so either this mode didn’t show them, or there weren’t any there anymore, which I doubted. I went to the spot that I had spawned into the game and smiled, reaching out to touch the blue floating cube. As I reached out a message window appeared.

  Would you like to spawn here? YES/NO

  I selected NO and pulled my attention back away from the island. Interesting that my Prime power would allow me to spawn there. I didn’t see Limbo o
r the Temple of the Adjudicator, so those must follow different rules. This whole Prime power business was really streets ahead. It made me wonder what other kind of Prime powers there were. I shook my head. I probably should deal with the more pressing matters like, taking down Tim and Cora. I frowned and looked back towards the valley.

  Once again, I couldn’t see any mobs or players anywhere, so I assumed that was a limitation of the power. I flew all around the area trying to decide where to pop out. I settled on making a grand entrance and headed towards the tribe cave. In this mode, everything was a little desaturated and not as crisp. It made me slightly dizzy to walk through. I approached the cave to see the entrance barricaded by rocks, logs and other debris. I was able to walk right through them like a ghost. Inside I could see the fire pit with a crackling fire, so I knew people had to be there. I had no real idea of how long I had been gone, but I hoped the tribe was doing okay. I picked a spot right by the fire, sitting on one of the logs, then concentrated.

  Would you like to spawn here? YES/NO

  I selected YES, and watched as the world lost its hazy texture, solidifying into reality, the silence breaking as the screams began.

  Chapter 24

  I picked myself up from the dirt, having been shoved off the lap of the poor Shaman that I had appeared on as she ran screaming away. Some grand entrance. I brushed myself off. A quick glance at my buff zone showed no Death debuff. Sweet.

  “Uh… hi there. Remember me?” I rotated around to get a view of inside the cave. Besides the glares of the few people closest, what I saw was disappointing. There were only eight people left here. A couple Shaman, a lone Hunter, several Gatherers, and a smile lit my face as I saw Madison and Arnold with the rest running over.

  “You… how… what?” Arnold said running up. It was nice to see him speechless for once. Madison on the other hand, it was just nice to see period. She ran over, her hair bouncing and her smile huge. I realized at that moment that I was drawn to her, more than I had even thought. It helped that instead of trying to talk, she jumped into my arms.

  “Hudson!” Madison screamed, and she hugged me tight. This would have been much more enjoyable if the hard metal plates of her armor weren’t digging into my flesh. “I was so worried!” She squeezed me harder.

  “OUCH!” I hugged her back, but I didn’t really care that it hurt. It was worth it. “It’s okay, I’m back. I escaped, and I have a ton to tell you all.” I set her down and rubbed the sore spots on my body. “But first, what’s going on here? Why are there so few left?”

  Madison had her arms stretched out, hands resting on my shoulders as she gave me a once over. A huge grin that reached her eyes spread across her face.

  “And why are you in your underwear?” Madison asked.

  I looked down. I was in my game provided indestructible underwear, and only my game provided indestructible underwear. My hands immediately went to cover my not visible, but still too visible, parts.

  “Aww man! Durability! All my gear was destroyed from dying so many times! Wait a minute. Madison! Why didn’t you lose all your stuff?”

  She chuckled and looked me up and down again, wolf whistling. “Part of my class features. My gear doesn’t lose durability.”

  Arnold looked slightly annoyed. “Anyway, after you ran out, we thought we defeated the zombies that had been breaking in,” he shook his head at the memory, “but somehow a pair of zombies were raised behind you. They tore into us before we could take them down and who you see is all that made it.”

  Madison frowned. “I ran back as fast as I could, but there was a straggler I had to fight off, I couldn’t… I couldn’t help much.” Her shoulders slumped. “We’ve been holed up in here ever since. We barricaded the door and we’ve just been… surviving. Keeping the fire going in hope some escape Tim.”

  “Hudson, did you see Cora? Did Tim get her too?” Chief Arnold asked, concern clear in his eyes.

  “You don’t know?” I turned to Madison. “You didn’t see?”

  “Know what?” Arnold asked.

  “See what?” Madison asked at the same time.

  “Cora betrayed us. I don’t know what her reasoning is, but I think she was working with Tim the whole time.”

  “No!” Arnold said. “That can’t be true, she wouldn’t. Not with him, she hated him!” Arnold didn’t look concerned anymore as his face turned red with anger. I moved so I was standing directly in front of him and looked him in the eye, trying to will my seriousness to show.

  “Arnold, Cora is the one that killed me. After Madison left, she literally stabbed me in the back. With a knife and left me to die. The last thing I saw was them kissing.” My tone was hard but kind. It wasn’t his fault that he had developed feelings for her. He looked away, anger still seeping into his face, but said nothing.

  “I’m not saying I believe you but tell us your story,” Arnold said as he motioned everyone to huddle around the fire. Madison grasped my hand and I blushed, forgetting about Cora and Arnold and the whole tribe for a second. I squeezed her hand and smiled at her, then released her hand, inhaled and stepped to the center, raising my voice.

  “Hello everyone. Yes, I’m back. Sorry for startling you. Look, I know it’s been tough for a lot of you living in this new world. You were forced here, some of you didn’t even get to pick a class, forced into the role you have, then you get to see people like Kai, or Me, or Madison, who have more powerful classes and I know it’s frustrating. I have great news though, about this game, and I want to stress that while yes, it is our life now, it is still a game, designed to be fun and not misery. The first thing I want to tell you is that you are not stuck in these classes forever!”

  That got a reaction. Several of the Tribal members took seats, stunned. Chief Arnold lost that look of anger that had been building up on his face and replaced it with a calculating curiosity.

  “How do you know this?”

  I told them of my experiences with the Adjudicator, and everything I had learned while I was there.

  “Did you see those world messages that popped up? Those were about me; I have accepted vassal-hood under the Adjudicator.”

  The lone Hunter spoke up. “That is great man, but like, how does this help us now, man? Like with this Tim guy coming at us, we still don’t stand a chance and like, won’t live to be like 100 or whatever man. I mean he may kill us 100 times or whatever, but like who wants that, man?” He spoke like someone who spent most of his time high before coming here.

  The Gatherer, a slight woman with a brown skin tone and jet-black hair piped in after him. “It sounds like we wouldn’t be as lucky as you. We wouldn’t get some power to avoid spawning in the middle of the zombies, since only one person can have it. if what you say about a Prime power is true.”

  “Well, I’m getting to that. I think I have an idea. Something else I learned from all of this; Intention is Everything.”

  “Hey! I told you that!” Madison said.

  I finger-gunned her. “Point, credit where credit is due. I figured out what it means, and how we can get this tribe back on track. I wish I knew why Tim and Cora were so intent on its destruction. Especially if they’ve been working together, their logic for attacking us falls into the ‘insane’ area.”

  “I think I can answer that,” Chief Arnold said, his face turning red for a different reason. “Now, I’m not saying that I believe you about Cora, but I was in politics long enough to know that you shouldn’t trust anyone, and I’ve begun to possibly doubt that my trust in her has been shall we say, too much.” He hesitated, taking a deep breath. “One thing I learned when I got this class; if the tribe is ever killed to one man within the time of a single day, everyone is sent back to the tutorial zone to start over.”

  Murmurs erupted from the tribe.

  “Why would this be a bad thing, man? Like, we could get a fresh start and like, get some of those badass classes, man!” the Hunter, Steve, I think his name was, said.

  “You would
n’t be able to,” Arnold said. “You would be stuck in a Primitive class still, as the price for failure is everyone would be forced into a Primitive class.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “Why would Cora want that?”

  “Well I also told her how I got the Chief class. She asked every detail about my time in the tutorial zone… I think… maybe she wants to take over as the Chief.”

  The realization dawned on him and his shoulders slumped. “What a fool I’ve been. I should have known better. She wasn’t happy with her place as a Hunter, she wanted to be a ruler. I’m thinking she wasn’t a waitress back on Earth like she said.”

  Madison placed her hand on his shoulder, comforting him. I felt bad for him too, being played like that. Also, because I wanted her to put her hand on me. I had to stop thinking like that, there were more important things to worry about.

  “But why would Tim go along with her?” I asked. “I wouldn’t think he would want to reset.”

  Arnold shrugged. “You never lose your carryover skill, maybe he thought it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. What did you mean when you said you figured out how to beat them?”

  “Right!” I snapped my fingers. “That. ‘Intention is Everything’, that’s the key to getting a new class. If you learned new skills and used them and trained them up before your reincarnation, you are given different class options. What I’m saying is, we need to learn skills, pool our resources to learn everything everyone here knows, so that we can be strong enough to free our tribe members and get them all attuned. Then we start destroying the spawn zones forever, freeing us from the possibility of that death trap.” I paused to catch my breath having just spit all that out like a cat’s hairball. ‘We have to learn everything we possibly can.”

  There was a lot of head swiveling and anxious faces.

  “I’m going to kick her out of the tribe,” Arnold said.

  That confused me for a second. “What? Who? Wait, Cora? NO! Don’t do that yet! You’ll tip her off that we know something, and can we please focus over here? I laid out a great plan!”