by Mia Archer
What the fuck were the game designers thinking putting a high level zone like this right next to a fucking low level zone? It would’ve made no sense in world building terms if this were a real world, but then again it wasn’t.
This was a scenario put together by a bunch of hack writers who were probably getting paid peanuts and working ridiculously long hours with no overtime, which meant verisimilitude was probably the farthest thing from their minds when they were creating scenarios.
Not to mention having a terrifying high level zone like this close to the starter zone gave players something to look at and aspire to while being separated from all the nasties in the zone by that seemingly giant mountain range that wasn’t actually a mountain range.
Though in my case I was looking at the zone and trying how to figure out how the fuck I was going to survive the next five minutes.
More people were gathering at the edge of that zone entrance. An inspect showed they were anywhere from twenty to one hundred in the level category, but they were all staring into the zone like they were looking for something.
I had a pretty good feeling that something they were looking for was me, and I wasn’t going to like it when they found me. Whatever was lurking in this zone might kill me, but those fuckers gathering around the zone entrance back there were definitely going to kill me.
Fuck.
I took a couple of steps back, and that’s when I felt it. Something hot and just a little smelly running down my back. I turned around, knowing with every breath as I slowly turned that I wasn’t going to like whatever I was about to find lurking behind me, and found myself looking up at a massive bear with rotting bits of flesh dropping off of it in various spots. Like the thing was massive enough that its head was level with my own, for all that I was standing on two legs and it was still on all fours.
“Oh lovely,” I said. “A welcome bear.”
The bear responded by rearing up on its hind legs and bellowing. Let me tell you, its breath smelled worse than the rest of it. That was fucking saying something considering how terrible the rest of it smelled.
The welcome bear was a terrifying tradition as old as MMOs, almost. Going back to the days when people played these games on two dimensional screens and manipulated their character using mice and keyboards with their hands like baby toys. The animal had affectionately come to be known as a welcome bear because of a common experience in World of Warcraft, but really a welcome bar could be any kind of high level creature lurking at the edge of a nasty zone to let players know they were in for a bad time in said zone if they couldn’t take out the scary creature at the entrance.
It looked like the people who’d put together this zone had taken the old trope literally, so there was a welcome bear here to tell me that I was definitely on the wrong path, and it looked like it was about to take a swipe at me.
Oh, and it was also in between me and the exit to the lower level starter zone. Not that there’d probably be anyone waiting for me on the other side who’d care about saving me from the stupid fucking zombie bear about to fuck my shit up considering most everyone in that zone was waiting around for their turn to fuck my shit up.
“Fuck,” I breathed as the bear took that swipe at me. I ducked out of the way and broke into a run. Not that I thought it was going to do me much good.
This day was going from bad to worse. About the only good thing was I was being chased by a mob instead of a human with a brain, but I had a feeling I was going to be just as dead when this bear got through with me as I would’ve been when those player characters caught up with me.
13
Predator and Prey
It might be terrifying experiencing this as though it was all very real, but there was one nice thing about playing a more realistic game. In a regular MMO that zombie bear would’ve fucked my shit up whether or not I ducked out of the way. The simple math would’ve said I was on a one way trip to one-shotsville.
Here I was able to duck out of the way because the game had a level of realism that said if I was ducking down then obviously the paw that was traveling through the space my head had just occupied wasn’t going to land. So I ducked and scrambled away.
I heard the thing drop to all fours behind me and let out a roar that was terrifying for both its volume and the smells that wafted over me even at a distance. Though that distance wasn’t going to last by the time that thing really got going if it was dropping to all fours to give chase.
That realism was going to be a bitch once that bear started eating me.
So I did what any low level player would do when confronted by a welcome bear that was more than a few levels higher than they were able to handle. I picked up the speed like the low level noob bitch I was!
“I really wish this game wasn’t this fucking realistic!” I shouted to no one in particular.
It’s not like there was anyone around to hear me. If there’d been anyone around to hear me, knowing my luck lately, the bastards probably would’ve tried to kill me instead of save me.
The bear took another swipe at me. The only way I knew it was taking another swipe at me was the feeling of wind at my back where there shouldn’t be any considering the dense forest all around us.
I was pretty sure that dense forest was the only thing keeping me alive. I might be having some trouble getting through that dense forest, but I was small enough that I could maneuver through the dense forest easily enough. The same couldn’t be said for the oversized monster zombie bear that really didn’t seem suited for hunting in this environment.
It was a hell of a lot bigger than me, which put it at an obvious disadvantage when it came to slipping through trees. I turned around to glance at the thing and regretted it. The fucker was right there, for all that it was still lagging behind me just a bit because it was way more chunky than me.
It was also prone to having giant chunks of its body torn off whenever it tried to make its way through the denser parts of the forest that I was able to slip through easily enough, which meant it could follow me with some difficulty even if it was losing huge chunks of its body to do it.
Someone in the art department deserved a nice bonus for putting together that particularly disgusting bit of imagery.
The thing bellowed behind me, and again I was hit with the stink of decay and death. Granted I’d never run into an apex predator before in my life, one of the benefits of growing up in the middle of an endless city where humanity had long since killed anything big enough to take us out and then moving to an elevator where the biggest threat were the assholes giving me shit for who I was and the occasional micrometeorite punching a hole in one of the windows, but something told me that rot and decay was even worse than I could expect from your typical apex predator that spent all its time eating smaller things or resting so it could store up enough energy to chase and eat smaller things.
Yeah, zombie bear. Just fucking great.
“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to give up if I offered to go into the nearest town and get you some nice brain flavored honey?” I shouted over my shoulder. “Maybe a pic-a-nic basket to tide you over or something? I promise I won’t tell the ranger!”
Another roar seemed like the only answer I was going to get from the thing. Clearly this was a zombie bear of very little brain that wasn’t interested in bargaining.
Fuck.
Another swipe. That time I knew it was swiping at me because its claws raked across my back. Not deep enough that it did any permanent damage, but enough that it certainly got my fucking attention!
It also set the old hit point counter going down, which wasn’t good. That counter had barely recovered from my fall as it was.
“This is not what I had in mind when they said this was going to be the most immersive game experience ever!” I shouted.
Immersive my ass. I didn’t want the immersive experience to be a giant fucking zombie bear taking a piece out of my ass, damn it! The thing roared again, and then I saw somet
hing ahead of me that looked interesting.
Two giant trees that were very close together. Close enough that I could squeeze through, maybe, but not so close that something bigger might be able to squeeze through.
Like, say, a giant fucking bear that was doing its best to turn me into a two-legged pic-a-nic basket. Damn this thing was annoying, it didn’t smell all that great, and I was so fucking over this game already even as I’d never felt more exhilarated playing a game in my life!
Besides, this thing seemed dumber than a box of rocks, with its only overriding directive being to take a bite out of me, so maybe I could use some of that stupidity to my advantage. Not to mention those trees looked big enough that I figured they could put a stop to even the giant zombie bear.
I aimed for the trees. Or maybe it was a single tree that’d split as it grew. Either way the thing was something that’d been put together by some digital designer at some point and not a real tree at all, and I really fucking hoped this worked as I squeezed my eyes shut and dove headfirst through the thing.
It was it was close. I heard and felt something snapping shut behind me, and when I wheeled around the fucking bear was right there snapping its jaws at me.
If I’d been just a little bit slower in that chase I would’ve been fucked. Well, actually I really hoped I wouldn’t have been fucked. That would’ve been kind of awkward and unpleasant getting that kind of treatment from a zombie bear. I’m sure there was some scary part of the Internet that was into undead ursine necrophilia, but that wasn’t a part of the Internet I was interested in visiting thank you very much.
“Ha!” I shouted. “Not so fucking tough now, are you?”
I sensed an opportunity here. I had my blades on me, after all, and it didn’t look like that bear was going anywhere with the way it was wedged firmly between those trees.
The smart thing would be to get the hell out of here while the getting was good, but after the day I’d been having I wasn’t ready to do the smart thing. No, I was ready to take out some of my frustration on something.
So I pulled out my daggers and slammed them into the bear just on the other side of the tree where the bitey end couldn’t get at me. Its hit points only went down by maybe a percentage point, but it was something.
I figured all I had to do was sit here and hit the thing over and over until it was lights out for Mr. Welcome Bear, and then I could reap all the benefits by getting some sweet experience that promised to be way beyond anything I should’ve been getting at this level! I could level up a few times with that kind of kill, assuming there wasn’t XP scaling.
Yeah, that was a good plan. I hit the thing over and over, and it only seemed to get more and more pissed off every time I hit it. As though the zombie bear could somehow sense the injustice of being taken out by a low level newbie who had no business being in this zone, let alone taking it out.
Well Mr. Bear could go fuck himself. I guess I was just smarter than the average zombie bear when it came to the whole combat thing.
The only problem with that genius plan was the aforementioned zombie bear bits that were coming off of the thing the entire time I’d been running. That hadn’t stopped now that it was wedged between two trees.
No, if anything the process of rapid decomposition had only increased now that the thing was rubbing against two trees on either side and I was slicing at it with my puny low level daggers. Chunks of muscle and sinew ripped off the thing, and every time one of those chunks broke free it let out a yell of pain that was accompanied by one of the most horrible smells I’d ever been forced to endure in my life.
I really felt bad for the poor fuckers who had to be part of the clinical trials that let the game designers see what parts of the brain were lit up when they smelled certain nasty things so that I could have this unfortunate immersive experience.
“Damn you’re ugly and smelly,” I said.
It was a moment after that I realized just how bad things could get, because the bear started to lurch forward. There was now enough of the bear on the ground versus between the trees that it was able to take a step forward. Sure it was more skeleton than zombie at this point, but it looked like those bits of skeleton were more than ambulatory despite that making no sense considering most of the muscle that’d usually move those bones was now lying on the forest floor.
Panic seized me as I realized the fucker was about to break free from its tree prison, and I had a pretty good idea from the murder in its eyes that the first thing it was going to do after getting out of prison was enjoy a nice meal. So much for my plans for getting a bit of XP out of this situation.
Fuck!
14
Odd Statuary
I scrambled back from the bear, not bothering to hit it with any more shots from my mostly worthless daggers. I could do the fucking math based on how quickly its hit bar was going down, and I knew this fucker would break free and do its best to kill my ass, and there was no amount of wailing on the thing with my daggers that was going to reduce its hit points to zero before it had a chance to fuck my shit up.
Something told me my hit points were going to go down a hell of a lot faster when this thing bit me than its hit points went down when I hit it with the puny dagger attacks I had at my disposal.
At least I could hope for a quick death. I’d heard that bears in the real world sometimes left things alive until they came back to eat them later, sort of a sadistic version of meal preservation that used pumping blood and terror instead of freezing temperatures to keep the food good, but I could hope and pray that the digital ursine equivalent wouldn’t be so much of a dick.
Or that the people who created this bear hadn’t been too realistic with their creations.
“Nice bear,” I said. “You don’t have to do this!”
Only from the way the thing bellowed at me it seemed to be of the opinion that it very much needed to do this. No, it wanted to do this.
The bear pulled free. I yelped and turned to run, then promptly fell over some stone I hadn’t even noticed because it’d been buried in the forest floor just enough to keep from being noticed while also sticking out of that forest floor just enough that I could trip over it and give the fucking zombie bear a nice attack of opportunity. It looked like I’d stumbled across the sort of ancient ruins that dotted fantasy landscapes, and in this case those ancient ruins were going to seriously fuck me up.
Damn it.
I fell forward and slammed into some ancient stone work I hadn’t even noticed because the forest was so dense here. I looked up and found myself staring up at a statue of a beautiful woman wearing practically nothing. Which was distracting considering how realistic it was, but not enough to distract me from the zombie bear right behind me ready to give me a bad fucking day.
I turned and scrambled back on my hands, ass, and legs to get away from the thing. Meanwhile the bear, seemingly sensing that its hunt was almost over, growled and took a couple ofsteps forward into the clearing. Though for some reason it seemed hesitant. As though its desire to make a meal out of me was reduced somewhat by where I was about to be turned into a meal.
It stopped and sniffed at the air. Let out another growl that was more uncertain and less full of death than the first growl.
What the ever loving fuck was going on with this thing?
Whatever the fuck was bothering the thing about this spot, it wasn’t enough to stop it entirely. No, it still growled a low threatening growl, and the whole thing was made all the more intimidating by the fact that most of the meat had been removed from its bones while it was stuck between those trees, which gave the whole thing a decidedly skeletal effect with chunks of meat being the exception rather than the rule now.
Not that having all its muscles removed were enough to actually stop it. I guess the game designers had to draw the line somewhere when it came to being too realistic in a game with walking skeletal zombie bears.
And it was still coming for me, ready to bite a chunk out of
my ass. Or maybe my brains considering it looked very undead.
Perfect. Just fucking perfect.
I scrambled back and away from the giant bear. Its breath was only in maybe the top five most horrific things about it, but it was still pretty terrifying all things considered. Especially since its breath was the only thing that was reaching me at the moment.
Though I knew it wasn’t going to be long before its teeth and claws were paying me a visit. Yeah, melee range was going to be way more unpleasant than the thing’s weaponized stank breath.
“Oh fuck,” I said. “This is really going to fucking hurt!”
Only that moment of ultimate pain never came. Something bright flashed above me. I looked up to see that statue of the woman wearing practically nothing glowing. Then it really surprised me by moving an arm and pointing at the bear.
Not the kind of behavior you expected to see from a fucking statue of all things, but then again this was a game world so it’s not like it was that weird to see stone moving. It was all an animation, after all.
The glow moved to the tip of the goddess’s finger and shot out to the bear. One moment the thing was standing there looking like it was about to chow down on my ass, and the next moment its colors seemed to reverse and then there was nothing but a few wisps of what had been zombie bear fur and bone dust floating through the air.
I coughed and waved my hand in front of my face as some of that bone dust reached me. Just fucking great. The last thing I needed was to breathe in zombie bear dust, damn it. I really hoped the rules in this game didn’t include some contagion vector for zombieism that would have me turning into a zombie if too much of that dust got attached to my virtual lungs.
I looked up at the statue that had become my improbable savior. I scrambled to my feet and stared with no small amount of trepidation, wondering if I was next. The statue turned down and looked at me, then smiled.