The four friends took a minute to let what they'd just heard sink in. As they did, a cool breeze blew down the path as the sun neared the horizon.
“So, let me get this straight,” Alyssa said. “Our characters somehow became sentient and figured out a way to swap bodies with us? So there's some video game consciousness in my real body out there in the real world right now?”
“That's what it sounds like,” Mitch replied.
“That's impossible. This is all impossible,” Stephanie said, a little too soft for the others to hear, shaking her head.
Overcome with emotion, the four friends went silent once again. Thoughts of never seeing their family and friends, being stuck in this strange land, filled their minds. Everyone but Luke, that is. He was still swinging his longsword around.
“This is fucking awesome!” he yelled.
“You're out of your mind,” Mitch replied.
“Bro, how many times have we talked about how cool it would be to actually be our characters. We talk about that shit all the time. Now that it's actually happened, you guys are sitting around like a bunch of chumps. Let's go kill some monsters! Bang some wenches! Come on!”
“You're disgusting,” Alyssa said. “And you're the reason we're stuck here!”
“How is this my fault?” Luke asked.
“The scroll said they were sick of doing vile and disgusting things. They're talking about you!”
“Oh, come on. I don't do anything that bad!”
“Please,” Alyssa said, angrily. “Just last week you skull fucked a hobgoblin after chopping his dick off and making him literally kiss it goodbye.”
“What?” Luke replied, calmly. “He said I looked skinny. It pissed me off.”
“And then there's that,” Alyssa continued. “Do you have to piss on the corpse of every monster you kill?”
That's another reason why people liked Bloodfeast MMO: All the characters were anatomically correct. When you created your character, you even got to design his or her private parts if you wanted to. It was highly customizable.
And the characters could do all kinds of things – things that you couldn't do in most other online role-playing games. One example of this, as Luke was quite fond of doing on his dead enemies, was that your character could urinate. Bloodfeast MMO allowed its players a lot more freedom than most other games in the genre.
“It's kinda my thing, yeah. I piss on the corpses of my enemies. It's what I do.”
“You're absolutely disgusting,” Alyssa said, shaking her head.
“Guys, this is getting us nowhere,” Mitch said, standing up. “We need to accept what's happened and proceed accordingly.”
“By doing what?” Alyssa asked.
After taking a moment to collect his thoughts, Mitch answered, “The first thing we need to do is to get to Lakewind. The sun is setting and we'll be better off staying at the inn than out here in the forest. We'll talk to some players and some NPCs. Try to figure out what to do next.”
“We need to figure out how to get back into our normal bodies back in our normal world,” Alyssa said.
“No shit,” Luke said, suddenly taking an interest in the conversation. “But we're not gonna figure it out by standing around here. Mitch is right. Let's go into town and talk to people. Our characters obviously figured out a way to swap bodies with us. We just have to do whatever they did.”
“The orb,” Stephanie said, finally standing up like the rest of them. “We need to find another... what was it called?”
Mitch unrolled the scroll and answered Stephanie's question: “Orb of Displacement.”
“We need to find another Orb of Displacement,” Stephanie continued. “If our characters were able to use it to swap minds or whatever with us, maybe we can do the same thing to get back to normal. Anyone ever heard of the Orb of Displacement before?”
They all shook their heads, no.
“All right, then,” Mitch said, putting the scroll away. “Pack your stuff, grab your weapons, and lets start walking to Lakewind.”
The sun was setting fast and the forest became creepier by the second. All four of them had grown up in the city and found their new surroundings to be intimidating – some more than others. Mitch did his best to comfort Stephanie, who he knew must be scared. He was terrified himself, but hid it as well as he could. She was able to find a little comfort in his words, but it wasn't enough to silence her racing thoughts. Still, she appreciated the effort.
All packed up and maximized for speed, the four friends started walking up the narrow path through the forest. There was just enough light to see where they were going. Luke led the way, longsword in hand. Well, hands: it's a two-handed sword. He walked a few paces ahead of the group – as he always did when they played – occasionally swinging his sword to pass the time.
“I still don't understand how our characters could become sentient within the game,” Mitch said, walking next to Alyssa.
“I don't get it either,” she replied. “I mean, the AI (Artificial Intelligence) in the game is good, but not that good. I have a friend that goes to MIT and is all about AI. He told me that they don't even fully understand what consciousness is, let alone how to create it artificially.”
“Yet, here we are,” Stephanie said, walking just behind them.
“Yet, here we are,” Alyssa parroted.
“I guess it doesn't matter how our characters became sentient,” Mitch said. “All that matters is that we figure out how to switch back.”
Suddenly, Luke stopped. He held his longsword to the side, signaling the others to stop walking, too. All four of their hearts started beating fast, their senses piqued. They looked ahead and listened closely. At first, all they heard was the rustling of the wind blowing down the path. They stood in silence, exchanging glances while staring at the path ahead.
“I don't hear anything,” Mitch whispered.
“Shhh,” Luke said. “Listen.”
Snap. Crunch! Clink.
All four of them heard some kind of movement ahead on the path. Luke stood at the front, his longsword ready and waiting. They all readied their weapons. Stephanie quietly pulled an arrow out of her quill with shaky hands.
Crunch! Crunch! Clink, clank. Snap. Crunch!
The eager smile on Luke's face slowly morphed into a look of intense focus. They all heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps and they were getting louder. Mitch's heart was beating faster than he'd ever experienced before. He had to remind himself that he wasn't in his normal body. If he was, he'd probably be on the verge of having a stroke. In Bloodfeast, Mitch was a wolf shifter who's animal side came out when he was really angry or really scared. Standing there on the path, hearing footsteps coming toward them didn't make him angry... but he was scared shitless.
With every passing second, the footsteps got louder. They could hear talking and laughing, though it wasn't in English, the language most players and NPCs spoke. As the voices and footsteps got closer, the four friends prepared for battle. Mitch, Stephanie, and Alyssa didn't recognize the language being spoken. But as they got a little closer, Luke did.
“Oh, fuck yeah,” he whispered, raising his sword. “It's on like a marathon, muthafuckas.”
Chapter 3 - We're Not In Boston Anymore
“Orcs!” Alyssa yelled as they became visible, walking up the winding path.
The second he saw the first orc, Luke rushed forward and unleashed a deafening battle cry. All six orcs were surprised and quickly reached for their weapons. They carried a variety of old and beat up rusty swords, knives, hammers, and axes. Before the lead orc could even unsheathe its sword, Luke's longsword came crashing down on its shoulder, lopping its right arm clean off.
“Ahhhhhh!” the orc screamed.
Blood was squirting out of the lead orcs arm like water from a broken fire hydrant. It tried to stop the bleeding with its left hand and it worked for about half a second. The orc looked up from whe
re his right arm used to be just in time to see the smile on Luke's face as he swung his longsword a second time. With one powerful swing, Luke chopped the orc's head off.
“This is fucking awesome!” Luke yelled.
As the orc's body collapsed to the ground, Luke saw +67 Exp float up from its corpse into the air, disappearing after a few seconds. He thought it looked cool, but didn't have time to think about it further. There was more blood to shed.
The remaining five orcs had all readied their weapons. They spread out, semi-surrounding the group. Alyssa started reading from her spell book, preparing to cast a protection spell. Mitch's heart was beating even faster and he felt like he was about to have a panic attack. He just stood there, motionless.
One of the orcs, rusty dagger in hand, took a few steps toward Stephanie. She pulled back on her bow, her hands still shaky, and launched an arrow straight through the orc's head, point blank. The arrow went right through his eye, the tip smashing through the back of his skull. +67 Exp appeared as the orc fell to the ground. Though she was utterly disgusted by what she'd just done, Stephanie couldn't help but crack a little smile. It was a good shot.
While Alyssa was reading the final lines of her protection spell, a battle axe came crashing down on her spell book. The orc's axe tore the book in half and sent both pieces flying from Alyssa's hands. She looked up at it with fear in her eyes as it prepared to swing the axe again. This time, she knew, it was coming for her.
All the racing thoughts in Mitch's mind disappeared and were replaced by pure, focused aggression. Adrenaline filled his veins as he watched his body transform before his very eyes. His arms became hairy and vascular, razor-sharp claws sprouting from his hands. Mitch looked right at the orc with the battle axe and licked the top row of his teeth. He could feel his wolven fangs and had an overwhelming urge to try them out.
Just as the orc was about to swing its battle axe at Alyssa, Mitch lunged at it, tackling it to the ground. The orc's battle axe went flying from its hand, landing at Alyssa's feet. Mitch opened his mouth wide, giving the orc a brief opportunity to see the lethal teeth that were about to end its life. The orc tried to push Mitch off him, but it was too late. Mitch bit into the orc's throat, tearing its larynx. As the orc gasped for air, Mitch finished it off with a second bite. Even more ferocious than the first, Mitch bit into the orc's throat, shredding its carotid artery, sending blood squirting everywhere.
67 Exp floated above the deceased orc but Mitch didn't notice. He was too busy still chomping on its corpse. This was his first time shifting into what could best be described as a wolf-man. He could still stand on two legs and maintained his human intellect but took on a number of wolven features. The best of both worlds, really. But Mitch still had to learn how to control his animal impulses. Letting his inner wolf control him, Mitch continued to feast on the blood of his first kill. That is, after all, the name of the game.
The three remaining orcs looked at each other, fear apparent in each of their eyes. As dumb as they were, they knew they were no match for the four adventurers. All three of them took a step backward and Luke knew they were about to turn and run.
“Oh no you don't!” he yelled.
Luke lunged forward, swinging his longsword high above his head. The orc in front of him did the only thing it could. Knowing that it would catch Luke's longsword in the back of the head if it tried to turn around and run, the orc held up its rusty sword in the hopes that it would block Luke's sword when it came crashing down.
It did not.
Luke's longsword came crashing down, slashing right through the orc's rusty weapon, splitting its head wide open. Dark red blood pooled from the orc's head as its corpse collapsed to the ground. +67 Exp floated out of it, disappearing a few seconds later. Luke's smile grew even wider.
The last two orcs turned around and started running back up the path. Stephanie readied another arrow, took aim, and let it fly. This time, her hands were much steadier. However, she missed her target. Stephanie was aiming for the orc on the left, but missed him by several feet. Though she missed the orc she was aiming for, Stephanie's arrow just happened to hit the other one, piercing it right through the neck. Almost immediately, the orc fell to the ground and +67 Exp appeared above its body.
The only surviving orc disappeared up the path, running as fast as it could. Luke tried to catch up to it but, between the weight of his armour and longsword, couldn't run fast enough.
After killing her second orc, Stephanie saw the words Congratulations, you've reached level 34! flash before her eyes in bright red letters. The words lingered for a while, then slowly faded. Once they did, they were replaced with what looked like a popup window floating in front of her. It was a window she'd seen thirty-three times before.
Every time you leveled up in Bloodfeast, like many other role-playing games, you'd get an extra stat point to allot however you'd like. You could put it into strength, intelligence, speed, charisma, constitution, or luck. You'd also get an increase in maximum hit points and magic points, if you were a spell caster.
Stephanie just stared at the strange window in front of her for a few seconds. She was used to seeing it on her computer screen, not right in front of her face. And without a mouse, Stephanie wasn't sure how to allot her extra point, even though she knew right away which stat to put it into. The only thing she could think to do was reach out and touch which stat she wanted to increase. Your LUCK has increased to 17 read across the screen. Stephanie, since she started playing the game, had been putting a stat point into luck on every even level.
“Nice shot, Steph!” Luke said, returning to the group after giving up trying to catch the last orc. “Right through his neck. That was awesome!”
“Yeah, seriously,” Alyssa said. “That was a fantastic shot!”
Stephanie knew it was only by sheer luck that she killed that second orc. But the others didn't. Since the end result was the same, she didn't see any harm in taking credit for the lethal shot.
“Thanks guys!” she said with a smile.
The four friends searched the dead orcs. Aside from a few silver and copper coins, they didn't find anything worth taking. Luke got excited when he found a bottle of what he thought was wine, but angrily threw it into the woods when he realized it was just dirty, undrinkable water.
Mitch, his wolven side now completely suppressed, just stood over the corpse of the orc whose blood he'd just feasted on. While he'd killed a variety of monsters by shifting into a wolf in the game before, Mitch had obviously never done it while actually in the game. It was a much different experience and he needed a moment to process what he'd just done - and to digest the uncooked orc flesh he'd just consumed.
“That went well, huh?” Luke asked.
“Not for all of us,” Alyssa said, picking up the pieces of her spell book.
“I mean none of us were injured and we killed five orcs,” Luke clarified.
“It could've gone a lot worse, that's for sure,” Stephanie said.
“Mitch?” Luke asked, walking over to his friend. “What'd you think?”
“I...” Mitch said, still standing over the dead orc, “I think that was the strangest experience of my entire life. I've never felt anything like that before. The aggression. That focus. It was intense.”
“I bet!” Luke said. “I wish I could've watched you tear that orc apart but I was too busy killing orcs myself. What I saw out of the corner of my eye, though, was vicious!”
“Thanks,” Mitch replied, knowing that was a compliment coming from Luke.
The four friends gathered up their belongings. It was now after sundown, but the full moon offered enough light to navigate their way up the remainder of the path. They knew that Lakewind was only a little bit further away.
“All right,” Mitch said. “You guys ready? Let's keep going.”
“Ready,” Stephanie answered.
“Yup,” Alyssa replied.
“You guys go ah
ead,” Luke said. “I'll catch up with you in a minute.”
Mitch, Stephanie, and Alyssa started walking up the path. A moment later, they heard the unmistakable sound of corpses getting peed on coming from behind them.
“So disgusting,” Alyssa said, shaking her head.
Chapter 4 - The Town
The four friends got to the edge of the forest and could see Lakewind off in the distance. They continued onward across the plains, eventually getting into town. While all of them had been there before plenty of times, it'd always been while playing the game – not while actually in it. Being in Lakewind was a totally different experience.
The first thing they all noticed was the smell. To get to the heart of the town, they had to first walk through the slums. Beggars and prostitutes lined the streets, NPCs mostly. While Bloodfeast players could choose to be anything they wanted, most chose more glamorous professions. The slums reeked of garbage and human waste. And Mitch certainly wasn't making it any better.
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