Dead Man Gaming

by A. J. Markam

  “Usually when I want to learn something, I have to spend hours practicing it!”

  “And you will. The only way you can advance in your class is to pick a bunch of locks. So anytime you see a glowing lock, pick it, because that’s the only way you’re going to get better.”

  “That’s lame,” I grumbled. “I spent a silver on that?”

  She smirked. “Just wait – it’ll get more complicated. You’re only a level 2 right now. Wait till you’re a level 400.”

  She arched her chest out and put her hand on her lower back like she was stretching. “All right, time for me to go.”

  “What?!”

  “I have a real job, remember? I have to go to work in a couple of hours. I’m barely going to get any sleep as it is.”

  “But – how am I going to do this without you?!”

  “It’s not rocket science. Just play the game. Go get your quest and do whatever it says. Just remember to save your talent points until I get back.”

  “Talent points?”

  This was the first I’d heard of them.

  “They’re an automatic boost to professions like – never mind, just don’t do anything with them until I get back. Grind away, level up, and I’ll see you soon.”

  “Wait – ”

  But she had already begun to fade away. Within seconds, she was completely gone, and I was left alone in the land of the dead.

  15

  I wandered around the town, looking at my map, until I found the magistrate’s office. It was another big stone building that was falling apart, except it stood out from the others because it had giant pillars at the front. It looked like a horror movie version of the Lincoln Memorial, but without a statue of Honest Abe.

  I went inside and found a court hall filled with dead people. Some of them were dressed incredibly well – including the guy on a platform at the front with a yellow question mark hovering over his head. His name was Magistrate Taleros, according to his green name ID.

  As soon as I got within three feet of him, he looked directly at me and started talking.

  A ghostly ‘50 XP’ wafted up, and I heard a jingling sound.

  Mo’ money, mo’ money.

  “Korvos – I have heard your name celebrated by the captain of the guard,” he said in a phlegmy voice. “Good work in helping to clear Othril of the menace of the spiders.”

  His yellow question mark changed into a yellow exclamation point.

  “Surely you know there are other threats to the Revenants besides arachnids. The Starfire Crusade has once again found its way into our woods, and is slaughtering our people out of misguided religious zealotry. Will you go into the forest and kill eight of their soldiers, and make the forest safe once again for the Returned?”

  A new window appeared with a rehash of everything Taleros had said, plus a promise of 400 XP, 1 Silver, ‘Bracers of the Magistrate,’ and ‘Epaulets of Othril,’ whatever those were.

  I chose ‘Accept,’ and the golden ‘!’ above his head turned into a white ‘?’

  Time to get moving.

  I exited the building and headed out. A light drizzle had started up again. As I walked through the village, checking my map for which direction I should head, I thought about everything that had happened to me in the last 24 hours. It was no exaggeration to say this was the strangest day of my entire life. Who the hell would’ve thought that I would get busted for a crime I didn’t want to commit, and instead of going back to jail, the FBI would let me play a videogame?

  Of course, it would have to be a videogame that would lead to me infiltrating the most violent, dangerous criminal gang in the world.

  Looking around at all these dead people, it was hard to believe this wasn’t all just a bad dream. Part of me believed that I hadn’t gotten out of prison yet, and that it was just something I’d eaten in the cafeteria that was giving me nightmares.

  But it was real, all right. Real enough, anyway. That got proved in about five minutes.

  I made my way into the woods and ignored the spiders that crossed my path. One or two attacked me, but with my new Backstab abilities, I took them out pretty fast. Got a few extra coins, a little extra experience, and everything was good.

  Until I got to the object of my new quest.

  I had no idea what the Starfire Crusade was. I thought it might be some monsters made of light, or some dead guys running around in knight’s armor.

  Not exactly.

  I found the first guy lurking behind some trees, peeking around it, acting shady. It was his bad luck that he was looking in the wrong direction when I snuck up on him.

  The thing was, he was human. And alive. Pink skin, long hair and beard. He looked a little like Jesus in those Sunday School pictures – at least the beard and long hair did. He was wearing a long-sleeved blue shirt and a white tunic over that, with a belt around his middle and a sword in a sheath.

  Naaah – surely this isn’t the guy…

  “Excuse me,” I said, afraid of making a mistake and killing the wrong guy. “Are you part of the Starfire Crusade?”

  The guy turned around and fixed me with such a look of hatred that his expression was the only thing I needed for confirmation.

  Of course, he went on to give me a whole lot more than that.

  “Fiend!” he screamed. “Your vile kind is an abomination upon the earth! Prepare to descend back to the grave whence you came!”

  As if I needed any more hints, his white tunic had a bunch of stars on it – four-pointed dots scattered across his chest. Now that I thought about it, he looked like a live-action version of a crusader from the Middle Ages. And I, like a dumbass, had just announced my presence instead of taking him out with the element of surprise.

  He drew his sword and lunged at me. I did my best to dodge, but the sword still slammed into my back, hurting like hell.

  I drew my daggers and started screaming, “Vicious Strike, Vicious Strike!”

  I got in a couple of good shots before he swung the sword again. One swipe and my hit points went down by half.

  This sucks!

  I tried diplomacy as I continue to stab him – which probably wasn’t the most effective tactic.

  “I’m not your enemy!” I shouted. “I don’t even know who you are!”

  “I know who you are, monster – the enemy of all that lives!” he roared as he swung the sword again and cut deep into my arm.

  My hit points dropped to 25%.

  If you’d asked me before this began, What will happen to you if you die, I would have told you that I would just go back to the damn graveyard and lose some durability points on my knives. That was all.

  But the fight felt real. And I was panicking, so I just kept screaming, “Backstab! Vicious Strike! Backstab! Backstab!”

  Because my energy bar kept dropping to zero, I probably only got in about 1/3 of the strikes I wanted.

  Miraculously, I actually got in more shots than he did. At the end, it was a race to see who would lose all their hit points first. We were neck and neck, dropping towards zero – and then I got in one final Backstab, and he screamed and fell to the ground with my blades still stuck in him.

  I collapsed on the forest floor next to him, huffing and puffing.

  A yellow, translucent ‘100 XP’ floated through the air above me, followed by the sound of jingling coins. I looked around but didn’t see anything.

  Then a window appeared:

  Search the body to find your loot, including a dagger and gloves.

  I searched the body. Pretty messed up, but I wasn’t out here to play Boy Scout.

  As soon as I touched the coin purse at his belt, I saw the coins in my own bag window go up by 50.

  The heavy leather gloves I easily pulled off his hands and slipped onto my own. Perfect fit – which I guess is what happens in a video game, right? And the +2 armor ratcheted my own Armor total up to 14.

  Plus I found the dagger the message was talking about.

  Dagger
of Eternal Starlight

  Damage: 1.0 per second

  Durability: 40 of 40

  I inspected the weapon. The blade was gleaming steel and razor sharp.

  Yes! Way better than my crappy knives.

  I immediately switched it out with the blade with the broken tip, and dropped the old knife in my bag.

  I tried to pick up his sword, but it just passed through my hand like I was a ghost (even though I wasn’t). Oh well – the other stuff was enough.

  Strangely enough, though, the body didn’t disappear like the spiders had.

  I wondered what the hell was going on, when I heard a voice maybe 100 feet away.

  “Jorvin – are you all right? I heard you fighting – where are you?”

  Crap!

  This guy had buddies, and at least one of them was nearby.

  I glanced at my hit points in a panic. They were literally at about 15% and climbing slower than a slug on wall.

  If another one of these Starlight Crusade assholes stumbled across me, I would be dead in one second.

  How do I get my hit points back up? I thought frantically.

  I looked down at my action bar and the tiny icon of the bloody mouth.

  I recalled what Arkova had said about how it was a racial trait – that I could replenish my hit points by eating another person, living or dead.

  Aw Jeez… no…

  “Jorvin, are you there?” the voice asked again, even closer.

  Dammit…

  If I had been thinking straight, I would have just taken the respawn and gone back to the graveyard. But, in the heat of the moment, I wasn’t thinking straight.

  I hit the ‘Cannibalize’ icon on the action bar.

  Again, it was like an invisible puppeteer took over my body. I pulled the daggers out of the guy’s back with a squick sound, then proceeded to tear open his tunic and go to town on his guts. I’ll spare you the horrible details, but let’s just say it wasn’t pretty.

  I thought I would gag and throw up as I was doing it, but strangely enough I didn’t. In fact, there wasn’t anything particularly bad about the experience at all, taste or texture-wise. It was sort of like biting into soft chewing gum – and it tasted, oddly enough, like bacon.

  Funny – I would’ve predicted chicken.

  My hit points zoomed up to full within a matter of seconds. As soon as they did, I stopped eating. Not because the taste was disgusting – just because it was disgusting in general.

  Another guy in a blue tunic stumbled into the clearing. He was clearly shocked to see his friend laid open like a Thanksgiving turkey without any stuffing in the middle. And me kneeling there with a bunch of red gunk smeared across my face.

  I was damned if I was going to eat a bunch of guts again two minutes after the first guy, so I leapt up with my daggers, yelled “Vicious Strike!” and went to town.

  Because I attacked hard and fast, he didn’t get any initial attacks in. Thanks to that, he was dead by the time I was down to 50% hit points.

  Yay! No need to eat anybody else!

  I spent another half-hour hunting in the forest. I figure that’s the only thing you could call it, when you go around stalking people trying to kill them. It was freaky, for sure – but I kept reminding myself that it was just a video game, no matter how real it seemed. No need to get all butthurt about killing people who didn’t even exist.

  Funny – I had been a nonviolent safecracker in real life, and then the FBI arrested me and turned me into a cannibalistic hitman serial killer who offed people for pennies a person.

  On the other hand, I got some good loot. A new pair of leather pants, a leather belt, and a ring that upped my stamina by +2.

  After I was done killing the eight Starlight Crusaders, I left the forest and trudged back to the magistrate’s office. Strangely, nobody seemed off-put by the blood all over the lower half of my face. Magistrate Taleros certainly wasn’t.

  “Excellent work, Korvos. You have our gratitude. Accept this payment from a grateful town, along with a few presents for your troubles.”

  He handed me some leather wrist bands and shoulder guards.

  At first I was like, What? I need armor, and you’re giving me freaking gay clubbing attire?

  But it turned out the wrist guards and the shoulder thingees each added +2 agility apiece, not to mention more armor. My agility went up to 18, plus I got a silver coin as a result of my murderous deeds.

  But the best of all was the experience points: 400.

  A wave of light enveloped me, choirs of angels sang, and ‘Level 3’ appeared in gold.

  Awesome.

  A new picture appeared, then shrunk down and slammed into the third square on my action bar. It was a black cloak with two eyes visible in it.

  I hovered my finger over the image and the word ‘Stealth’ appeared above it.

  Sweet.

  Before I could test it, though, the magistrate started talking again.

  “The Starlight Crusade’s top field commander is a religious zealot named Furion. He and his men are responsible for the deaths of more than a thousand Revenants. Scouts have indicated that Furion has established a base in the southern part of the forest. Seek them out and end his life, that our people might be safe again.”

  According to the window, for my troubles I would receive three silver, a ‘Jerkin of the Damned,’ and 500 experience points.

  Sounded good to me. Even better, this sounded like a good chance to try my new Stealth abilities, so I accepted the quest.

  “May the Darkness protect you,” Taleron coughed as I walked away.

  As soon as I was out of the building, I hit the Stealth button. There was a soft whispering sound, and then suddenly I was invisible.

  I could still see myself – but it was like my ghost body when I was dead. I could see through my arms and hands. The difference was that the world was the same as it was before I went into Stealth. No monochrome silver color.

  Time to try it out first, though, before I used in combat.

  I walked up to my old friend Sentinel Lasterov, the guy who had given me my first quest, and waved my hand in front of his face.

  No reaction at all.

  But maybe game characters were programmed not to react. Time to experiment on live subjects.

  Next I approached a group of players with blue ID tags above their names. They were standing around the town square, not doing much of anything.

  I waved my hands in front of their faces. No one said anything at all.

  Awesome! I thought, and headed off towards the woods.

  For the first time, I was happy to be an undead Rogue.

  16

  Things didn’t work out quite as awesome as I was hoping, though.

  Oh, it was pretty cool at first. Spiders didn’t notice me, and neither did Starlight Crusaders. I was able to walk within feet of bad guys, and nobody knew I was there.

  Yes! I thought, pumping my invisible fist in the air.

  It was when I got beyond the real enemy lines that I really started to get nervous.

  The camp was deep in the woods, with a dozen tents and several campfires. There were literally dozens of soldiers everywhere.

  Stay calm, I told myself. All I had to do was just stab the guy while I was invisible, kill him, and then run off quick as you please. Easy peasy Japonesy.

  It didn’t exactly work out that way.

  I probably should have tried attacking a spider first in Stealth, but… live and learn.

  I searched around camp until I found a tent with a burly redheaded dude. He had a beard and several nasty scars running the length of his face. His red name ID identified him as exactly the man I wanted.

  Nice to meet you, Commander Furion.

  I pulled out my daggers, thought ‘Vicious Strike’ – and as I plunged my knife into the crusader’s side, I became fully visible.

  What the HELL?!

  I was so stunned that I didn’t follow up my first strike with anothe
r command.

  Furion screamed in pain and rage and locked eyes with me. “Foul assassin! To me, men! The Devil’s minion is attacking me!”

  The front flap of the tent whipped open, and two Starlight guys ran inside.

  I yelled out “STEALTH!” but nothing happened. I stayed 100% visible.

  I looked down at the action bar. The Stealth icon had a red outline around it, and no matter how many times I clicked it, nothing happened.

  Meanwhile, the Starlight mofo’s went to town on me with a club and a sword.

  Furion pulled out a giant battle axe and lifted it into the air.

  “This is how we deal with the Devil’s children here!” he yelled, and swung it straight down at my head.

  17

  I woke up in the graveyard. Surprise, surprise.

  The Grim Reaper just watched me silently as I ran off into the forest.

  As I went, I tried to figure out what had gone wrong.

  Apparently I couldn’t attack while in Stealth mode. Or at least I couldn’t stay in Stealth mode as soon as I stabbed somebody.

  That SUCKS.

  My life had gone from super easy to complicated in less than 30 seconds.

  I raced back to the camp. After a few seconds of fruitlessly searching Furion’s tent, I finally found my body on a trash heap in the woods.

  Assholes!

  Then I thought, Well, Jimbo, you DID try to sneak in and kill him… And it would’ve been a pain in the ass if they had actually buried you…

  I thought about jumping back in my body immediately, but I had still had some time on the resurrection clock, so I decided to use my ghostly abilities to figure things out. At least I knew there was no way they could kill me again while I was already dead.

  My ghost went back into the tent and found Furion at a makeshift desk constructed out of cinder blocks and a piece of timber lying across them. He was writing a letter on a piece of parchment with a sharpened feather that he dipped in a tiny pot of ink – old-school, George Washington style.

  I looked around and wondered if there was something I could do that would keep him from killing me when I came out of Stealth. I didn’t see anything. His axe was strapped to his back, and there was nothing in the tent that would be of any real use to me in thwarting an attack.