by P. J. Frost
“Swell.” I walked my character to the feathers hovering above the ground and collected them sullenly.
A private chat square appeared at the corner of my screen with Coral's name and profile pic in the header: “Hey, come on, lighten up! So Donal is tagging along – so what? We can still have a good time!” She ended it with a smile emoji.
I sent the same emoji back, wishing I could share her upbeat attitude. Then again, she probably also enjoyed the attention and flirtation she got from him. I knew she didn't get a lot of that in real life.
Then again, neither did I.
And I didn't have much chance of getting it from any of the female players in the game, either. Not with Donal stealing my thunder every chance he got.
“Shall we continue apace, my stalwart cohorts?” Donal asked merrily.
Before either of us could answer, there was a terrible rumbling sound, and the ground beneath us began to quake. A thick rustling came from the foliage ahead of us, and I could see the tree trunks crashing to the sides, sending down storms of leaves and branches.
“Stampede!” Donal cried out, quickly shoving Quorull out of harm's way.
I wasn't quite so fortunate.
The herd of enormous Heinosaurs charged out of the jungle, their spiked and calloused reptilian feet raising a cloud of dust. I tried to move out of their path, but one of them still managed to trample me. After a few moments, the last of them seemed to have passed.
“Sydnar!” Coral called out. “Are you okay?”
I checked my health gauge and saw that it had been depleted by almost half. “Not really, no.”
“Do you think there might be more of them on the way?” she asked.
“I wouldn't worry too much about the Heinosaurs,” Donal commented mildly, looking at the direction they'd come from. “I'd be a bit more concerned with what they were running from.”
I spun my view around to check what he was talking about... just in time to hear a shrieking roar echo through the rainforest.
And to marvel at the source.
A dinosaur roughly the size of a skyscraper was lumbering toward us. It had two scaly heads protruding from the same neck – one of them was speckled red and yellow, while the other was blue and white. Those markings continued down the length of its tough hide, effectively bifurcating it.
“Dichotomous Rex,” I breathed, amazed. I'd heard plenty of rumors about these monsters being rolled out in future expansions of the game, and now I was face to face with one.
I couldn't wait to do battle with it.
I bounded toward it, preparing all of my most powerful spells and getting ready to quaff a healing potion when the beast inevitably drained almost all of my health meter. It opened its mouths, revealing rows of shark-like teeth. Flames poured forth from the red-and-yellow head, while an icy deluge spewed from the blue-and-white one. Both of these destructive torrents were about to converge on my position, and I braced myself for a valiant struggle...
...only to have Donal leap in front of me, raising his enchanted indestructible shield to absorb the impact of the ice and flames.
“Stay back, Sydnar!” Donal cried out. “I'm pretty sure my followers would much rather watch me topple this foul brute!”
As Donal hurled spells and daggers and puns at the monster, I surrendered to a deep existential anger. Suddenly, everything about this seemed silly and pointless to me. Why bother staying? So Donal could treat me like a prop in his goddamn streaming videos and make me feel like a useless moron? I got enough of that feeling at work. I didn't need to endure it here too.
“You guys have fun,” I said. “I'm done for the night.”
“Aw, Sid, don't go!” Coral pleaded. “Things are just starting to get good!”
Not for me, I thought miserably. “Nah, really, I had a rough day. I'm going to get some rest. See you at the office tomorrow.”
I hit the "Quit" option in the game menu and took off my headset, tossing it onto the desk a little more roughly than I'd meant to. It hadn't been cheap. But what difference did it make how much I'd spent on it or how cool it was when all I could hear through it was Donal being a world-class dick?
“'Chimps fall where they may,'” I grumbled, flopping face-down into bed without even bothering to get undressed. “Corny frigging line. I could come up with something better. Like... 'Heinosaurus? More like heinous-sore-ass.' Yeah. I'm smarter than he is, dammit. Funnier, too. I should have a bunch of fans, not him.”
Except in order to have fans and YouTube channels and sponsors, a gamer needed to also be a self-promoter. I wasn't one of those, and I had no interest in becoming one.
All I want is to be allowed to live in WarriorWorld, I thought bitterly as I drifted off to sleep. Is that really too much to ask?
Chapter Three
When I woke up, I was acutely aware that my jaw was aching. At first, I assumed it was because I had been grinding my teeth in the night, probably while having some nightmare about Donal. (Let's face it, it wouldn't have been the first time.)
But no, it wasn't just my jaw. The entire side of my face hurt – it felt like something a lot harder than a pillow was pressed up against it.
Aw, shit, I probably rolled over and fell on the floor, I thought miserably. Great way to start the day. I'm surprised the impact didn't wake me up.
Then I heard the voices.
“Dude, what's up with this guy?” The speaker sounded like a boy in his early teens.
“I dunno.” The second one sounded even younger. “Maybe he's dead or something.”
“Yeah, but if he's dead, why would he just be lying around?”
“That's literally exactly what dead people do, you dick!” A third voice, this one a girl.
What the hell was going on here? Why was everything still black? Why was I having such a hard time opening my eyes and looking around?
“Yeah, but they don't do it here!” the first voice protested. “When you die here, you, like, vanish until you create a new character and start over!”
“If you're a player, sure,” the second voice chimed in. “Maybe this is an NPC.”
“He doesn't look like an NPC,” the girl replied dubiously.
“Well, whatever he is, it looks like he's carrying a lot of cool shit,” the first voice pointed out. “Look, he's wearing Robes of Rashnakk, he's got a Cosmic Onyx, plus I'm betting he's got all kinds of spell scrolls and other magic junk.”
“We're not wizards,” the girl observed. “What are we gonna do with all that crap?”
“We can sell it to a wizard at the next village and make a butt-load of money, moron!” the second voice brayed.
I did my best to clear the cobwebs in my head and focused on pulling my eyelids apart. Finally, I succeeded... and the image that greeted me was bizarre, to say the least.
For the first few seconds, everything around me looked like walls of tiny interlocking squares that formed a series of colored patterns. I couldn't get any sense of what they were supposed to represent – I felt like I had lost all sense of depth perception, and the pixelated effect of the world closing in on me was threatening to overload my brain.
Then the shapes and patterns adjusted, becoming clearer until they formed...
WarriorWorld?
I pulled myself to my feet, looking around. Yep, this was the game, all right. I had been “sleeping” on what appeared to be a stony dirt path near the edge of the jungle... which meant I was still in the Valley of Monsters, which made sense. That was where I'd left off the previous night, right?
So I must have left the game running when I went to bed, I mused sleepily. Which is weird, because I was pretty positive I hit the “Quit” option first, like I always do. But I was feeling distracted and grouchy, so I guess I forgot this time.
But how am I hearing their voices? I had all the game sounds set to go through my headset, and I'm sure I remember taking that off last night.
Well, I didn't have time to speculate. I hadn't checke
d my phone yet to see what time it was, but if I had slept through my alarm, that meant I'd be late for work, and I'd be in deep trouble.
“Holy shit, the dude's alive!” The girl's voice belonged to what looked like a Level Two Dwarf Bard carrying a Flute of Bewitching.
“So he is a player, after all." The first voice was coming from a Level Three Hobgoblin Thief wielding a small dagger. "Good. I was worried he was some gay-ass NPC trap the game had set for us."
Ugh, mouthy little asshole, isn't he? I thought. And hey, when they talk, their avatars' lips move! That didn't used to happen. Could that be some new bit of in-game programming?
Except for that to be true, I'd have had to download an update. Which I definitely didn't do.
So unless I had somehow been gaming in my sleep (which, oddly, was becoming more and more of a workable hypothesis given how strange all of this seemed), I had to seriously wonder what was going on.
The second voice belonged to a Level One Human Barbarian armed with a broadsword. “Well, there's still three of us and only one of him, so I don't see any reason for us not to beat him up and take his stuff!”
“Look, kids,” I began, yawning, “I'm actually just about to log off and go to work, okay? So let's all just back off and go our separate ways.”
As I spoke, I instinctively reached for the mic on my headset so I could coil it closer to my lips... but it wasn't there. In fact, I didn't seem to be wearing my headset at all. Was it laying on my desk? Was the volume on it turned up so loud that I could hear their voices without even wearing it?
I was about to hit the main menu and select the "Quit" option for real this time when suddenly, it all hit me at once.
There was no mouse. There was no keyboard. There was no desk.
There was no screen framing this view of WarriorWorld. There was no apartment. There were no rumpled corduroys or stained flannel shirt.
Because, as I looked down at myself, I realized: There was no me, either.
I was Sydnar the Sorcerer, tall and gaunt and imposing, feeling the weight of the purple velvet robes draped on my shoulders. A faint but constant energy hummed from the polished black stone hanging from my neck.
I was really, truly, actually standing inside the world of the game.
Okay, so this must be a dream, then, I told myself reasonably. All right. That makes sense. I've been doing WarriorWorld for months now. It's perfectly normal to have dreams where I'm the character I play as. It's no different from bingeing a TV show and then dreaming about it. Happens all the time. I just have to ride this out to its conclusion, at least until my alarm wakes me up for work.
Part of me had to applaud my subconscious for making everything about the experience seem so real. Heck, I almost didn't want to wake up from it!
Except with my luck, I added mentally, Donal will show up here too and still manage to ruin my good time.
“Thought you said you were gonna log off, geezer?” the Hobgoblin Thief sneered. “So why are you still here?”
“He's screwing with us!” the Dwarf Bard squeaked. “He wants us to, like, turn our backs or drop our guard or whatever so he can attack!”
“Dicklicker probably thinks he's gonna make it to the Empress before us,” the Human Barbarian added. “Well, fuck that! If he's gonna stick around, I say we take him down and steal his shit! Teach him a lesson!”
“I'm trying to log off,” I retorted through gritted teeth. (My face was still sore! This was the most detailed dream I'd ever had!) “But I'm having some trouble with... wait, what the hell 'lesson' would that teach me, anyway? No, you know what? Forget it, never mind. Just seriously, back off, yeah? This doesn't have to get ugly.”
“'This doesn't have to get ugly!'” the Dwarf Bard mimicked in a falsetto. “God, would you listen to this cock-knocker? What a loser!”
“Yeah, go change your Depends, grandpa!” the Barbarian mocked. “Come on, let's get him!”
The trio rushed at me with their weapons at the ready.
I was close to deciding I'd just keep my guard down and take the damage. Theoretically, if I died in the dream, I'd wake up, right?
Except was that really true, or was it just a thing people said? If I died in a dream, who's to say I wouldn't just... be dead and stay in the dream? That could turn into a gruesome nightmare, to be sure.
And besides, I had been robbed of my fun during the actual game when Donal had shown up.
So why not take this opportunity to kick a little ass?
“Okay, you rude little scabs,” I growled. “Want some? Get some!”
But as they came at me, I realized something: No mouse or keyboard meant no way to access my stat screen, so how the hell was I supposed to use any spells or magic artifacts?
“Cosmic Onyx!” I blurted the words out in desperation... and was shocked when a tendril of black energy snaked out of the polished stone, zapping the Dwarf Bard and knocking her on her butt. She flickered red, and I knew I had inflicted damage.
“Fuck!” she snapped.
The Barbarian swung his sword, and the blade hit me in the shoulder. It didn't inflict any visible wound, but it really hurt! I yowled in pain as the whole world flashed red. Not only that, but it had subtracted energy from me – I felt noticeably slower and weaker after being struck by it.
I was starting to get an uneasy feeling about this dream.
But now wasn't the time to stand and think it over. Not when I was under attack.
The Barbarian made a series of whining and sniveling sounds to make fun of me. “Aww, what a pussy! I thought all you old guys, like, fought in Vietnam or something!”
“I'm in my thirties, you dumb brat!” I shot back.
The Hobgoblin advanced on me menacingly with his dagger at the ready. He stabbed at me, and I decided to see if the same trick would work twice.
“Robes of Rashnakk!” I called out.
Sure enough, a section of the robe twisted and coiled as though it had a life of its own, blocking the blade and shoving the Hobgoblin backward.
Holy shit! I thought triumphantly. I'm a real wizard! Like, I can actually cast spells and be a badass! This is what I've wanted my whole damn life!
“Big mistake, butt-munch,” the Barbarian threatened, preparing to swing his sword again.
“Flaming Shield of Sheznahar!” I yelped, trying not to flub the tongue-twister and praying it would work.
It did.
A translucent red energy shield rippled between me and the Barbarian. Not only did it absorb the strike, it sent a fiery blast back at him, causing him to blink red from damage.
“Argh! Flaming homo, more like!” the Barbarian spat.
“What is with you kids and homophobic slurs?” I asked, genuinely curious. “I thought your generation was supposed to be more tolerant when it came to that stuff?”
“Yeah, save it for the staff at the nursing home, pedo!” the Dwarf Bard jeered.
“Oh, so now I'm a pedo?” I was getting exasperated. “Really? Because I don't feel like having my crap stolen?”
“Because you're a pedo, pedo!” The Hobgoblin threw his dagger at me. I didn't have a chance to dodge or summon a spell before it hit me in the thigh. Once again, I felt the stabbing pain as I blinked red, even though no wound appeared. The blade disappeared, then reappeared in the Hobgoblin's hand.
Except it's not really the same blade, is it? I mused. My guess is that the number of daggers in his weapons stockpile just went down by one. Once he throws them, whether they hit their intended target or not, they're gone... they can't be picked up again. They just sort of blink out of existence.
And why not? That's how it works in the game, and I'm in the game, aren't I? In this dream, anyway.
Still, it was pretty crazy knowing I was inhabiting a world where all the laws of reality were entirely subject to the whims of a computer programmer.
The Dwarf Bard put the Flute of Bewitching to her lips, blowing into it.
This time, the sharp pains
started in my ears and spread down through my entire body. I groaned, feeling my muscles cramp and seize as my field of vision blinked red faster and faster. Strange as it may sound, I could actually picture my health meter draining quickly. A few more assaults like that one and it would be empty.
Maybe that meant I'd wake up, and maybe it didn't. At that moment, I didn't care.
Dream or no, I just wanted to pulverize these obnoxious creeps.
First of all, you need to stop defending and start attacking, I told myself sternly. You need to use your resources more effectively. Your health meter is a lot lower than any of theirs individually, and there's three of them, so there's no way for you to absorb the kind of punishment they can dole out and survive...
But your magic meter is still two-thirds full. So what kinds of spells can you spend it on in order to deliver the most damage?
Whatever I was going to do, I needed to do it fast. The Dwarf was still playing her flute, and I was starting to feel very woozy, as though I was losing blood.
I tried to remember which spells I'd collected, but there were dozens. Usually, I'd have been able to conjure up the stats screen and just choose from the list.
Not this time, though.
In fact, it was beginning to strike me as kind of peculiar which elements of the game my subconscious had chosen to remain faithful to and which ones it had altered to make things seem more “real.”
But I couldn't waste time pondering that. I had to save my digital ass while I still had one left.
The three middle-school-aged raiders closed in on me, and this time, they weren't teasing me or cursing at me. They were eerily silent, and from the expressions on their animated faces, it looked like they were out for my blood.
Do those expressions mirror the ones on the players' real faces, I wondered idly, the way the lips here are mirroring their speech? I mean, what's the logic of this, anyway? How does all of this work? What are the rules?
Well, I had already learned one rule the hard way for sure: When they hit me, it really hurt, and I wasn't in the mood for more of that.