by Dante Doom
Suddenly, a strong arm seized her by the back of her armor and began to drag her through the dozens of bodies who were all attacking her. She tried to fight back against the removal, but her Health had dropped down to 1. Yet, even though she was taking dozens of blows (and feeling them all), her health bar didn’t drop past 1. Instead, the status of Dazed had appeared over her head, and she realized that she didn’t have the ability to move. She was dragged straight out of the tavern and thrown to the ground. It was a barkeeper NPC with the words Keeper Griff above his head.
“Oy!” Keeper Griff said as he dusted his hands off. “And stay out of my fine establishment!”
“Hey, you’re not dead!” Van said as he trotted up to the collapsed Sang. She was still unable to move. Anytime she tried, the words YOU ARE DAZED would flash right in front of her eyes.
“I’m unable to move,” she hissed.
“Yeah, looks like you took a beating there, but no worries, we’ll get you back up in no time!” Van said as he took out his bagpipes. “I shall now play the “Song of Recovery”! It’s going to cause your health regeneration to boost!”
“Please… don’t,” Sang wheezed in vain. The horrid shrieking began once again, though, and she saw the words YOU ARE BEING INSPIRED appear in front of her. She watched as her health bar glowed a bright red and began to speedily increase its regeneration. It went from 1 to 50 in a matter of seconds.
“There!” Sang said as she stood up and dusted herself off. She noticed that the tearing on her skin had vanished, as well as the bruises and signs of the punches she’d taken. “That song is powerful! Why didn’t you use that during combat?”
“Oh, it’s a non-combat spell; only works during camping or in towns,” Van replied.
Sang glanced at her experience points to see that, despite the fact that she had knocked out at least seven people, her experience had only gone up by a few ticks... not even a hundred. “I don’t get it—I fought a lot of men, so why aren’t I leveling up?”
“I told you before: you don’t really get experience just for getting into fights,” Van explained as they began to walk toward the forest. “We get experience by doing practical things and accomplishing goals. For example, we’re going to go and set up a camp so that you can get fully healed, and we can score some delicious experience points.”
“Camping gives us experience?” Sang asked.
“Yeah, exactly. Observe!” Van said as they approached a small clearing by the side of a river. He took out his logging axe and began to cut down one of the trees. It fell over pretty quickly and shattered into dozens of perfectly formed logs.
“Now we can use the logs to create a fire, build ourselves some seats by the fire, and get comfortable for the night,” he explained as he began to dig a firepit. “Go fetch the water.”
“I’m not fetching anything!” she shouted back at him, startled at his order. He paused from his digging and looked at her blankly.
“This is a team game,” he said quietly. “I’m building the fire, but we also need water, so…” he trailed off and looked at her.
“Fine, I’ll get the water, but I don’t take orders from you!” she hissed as she stomped towards the river. She couldn’t believe the nerve of him, to just order her around like that. As she approached the water, she could hear its burbling, and the rushing sound was so lifelike that she had to pause to glance at just how beautiful the surrounding nature was. It was strange, but she couldn’t help but notice how much cleaner the environment was here, compared to what she was used to. In reality, things were a little more spoiled or soiled... at least, they were where she came from. But as she went down to draw water into a bucket from the glistening water, she took a small sip from the brook. It tasted just like real water… except she didn’t have to worry about it being dirty or gross.
As she filled the bucket with water, a small bar appeared over her bucket. Collecting…. Collecting…. Collecting… the bar said as it slowly filled up with a green indicator. It flashed Complete! Once the bucket was full. 300 experience points immediately rushed to her experience bar. She watched in excitement as it filled up to being 350/2000. All that just for fetching water? She glanced up to at her map interface to see a few little green blips not too far off. She grinned and rushed out to find them…
Van sat patiently by the fire, wondering where in the hell Sang had gone off to. It had been almost an hour since he’d sent her to get water. He wondered if she’d run into some kind of trouble, but knew that, if she had, he wouldn’t have been able to do her much good in a fight. So, he’d just lit the fire, built the beds, and was now practicing his Bagpiping skills. He thought he should probably spend more of his points in this area on his next level, as the efficiency of his song spells depended on his skills rank.
As he fiddled with his bagpipes, trying to figure out if the instrument could be tuned or not, he heard a rustling. A deer suddenly threw itself out from the bushes and crashed into the ground before the fire, eliciting a scream from Van as he leapt up and pulled out his tiny little knife in surprise.
“It’s just me!” Sang announced as she emerged from the bushes behind the deer, holding a ton of herbs and vegetables in her hands. “I got the water, some healing herbs for potion making, and some vegetables for food, and managed to track and kill this deer.”
“It’s barely been an hour, and you did all that?” Van asked.
“Yes,” Sang said.
“Wow, that’s crazy. How did you manage so much?”
“I used my Map skills and my hunting abilities. We’re going to get so much many experience points now for our camping, right?”
“Yeah, for certain,” Van said excitedly. “This is probably enough for us both to level up. Once we both sit at the fire, it’ll score us.”
“Both of us? I’m the one who did all the work!” Sang argued with a frown.
“Well, this is a team endeavor, so we get ranked as a team and rewarded as a team,” Van said. “Remember, this is all about teamwork.”
“I see,” Sang said as she crouched down to sit. “Well, it still doesn’t seem fair that we be equally rewarded when I do all of the work.”
“Hey, I dug the firepit, cut the logs, and got the tree. Sure, you killed a deer, but that doesn’t mean you’re somehow better than me!” Van said. “The whole point of this game is to teach people how to work together, remember, so that they can become a finely tuned machine. There’s so much value in learning how to be allies and get stuff done together, you just have to have an open mind.”
“I suppose,” Sang said, “but why’s there such an emphasis on teamwork? Why bother rewarding such detailed camping for a video game? Wouldn’t encouraging combat and violence be more their speed?”
Van shifted a little and grinned. “Well, there has been this rumor floating around for the longest time… um, more like a theory really... but the idea is that maybe this game was actually designed by a survivalist group who’s dedicated to preparing mankind for the apocalypse. Think about it. When everything goes down, when the world is blown up due to nuclear annihilation, who will have the skills to survive? Everything here is so detailed that it makes you realize you‘re fully equipped to go camping even in real life. I know everything there is to know about organizing, building, camping, and survival, all thanks to this game. So, it makes you wonder, what if this whole thing was made by some kind of conspiracy theorist group?”
Sang nodded thoughtfully. “I suppose it makes some level of sense. But I’d be reticent to assume that this group would make a game solely as a means to educate the population in survivalism... if anything, it would seem that this game is preventing people from surviving due to the fact that it’s keeping them used to living their entire lives indoors. I mean, the fact is that this would better be some kind of a way to keep people occupied while the actual apocalypse happened.”
“Maybe. I dunno... Draco is an odd company, that’s for sure. They’ve made a few games here and ther
e, but no one saw this one coming. I mean, the day it released was the day it was announced. No press conferences, no game trailers up until the release. They just said, ‘hey, it’s here.’ And then word of mouth kinda blew it up into the biggest game of all time,” Van replied.
“I see,” Sang said, glancing upwards to the sky. Van glanced up, too, and watched as the brilliant hue of red and orange slowly turned darker as the sun settled.
“Well, let’s rack up those points!” Van said as he activated the fire interface. A screen popped up in front of the both of them.
Van looked on in excitement as he saw 1,300 experience points fill up his bar right before his eyes. He wasn’t too far off from leveling up now!
“Wow!” Sang said, “We got that many experience points just for all of that?”
“See? When we work together, we can get way more points than when we’re alone,” Van replied, “so let that be a lesson. And this was just a small camp in a safe area. There are other zones where you can have a lot more exciting adventures and camping is more risky than this. That translates to more experience points. Plus, the more players we add, the more tasks we’ll need to do.”
“Well, it’s just you and me for this mission,” Sang said as she yawned.
“Right, right,” Van said as he looked at the display in front of his face: SLEEP TIME IS APPROACHING..
“Well, looks like we’ll be able to sleep in our beds this time, meaning that we’ll have access to those experience points bonuses for being well rested,” Van said as he climbed into his cot. It was real enough that he felt the creaking of the wood he’d used to craft the bed.
“I look forward to jumping in again soon,” Sang said as the night began to overtake them. “We’ll be at a higher level in no time.”
“Yeah,” Van said as he felt his character fall asleep, “a higher level in no time.”
Chapter Eight
Van sat in his windowless room and ate his allegedly nutritious breakfast. His dreams were far more vivid than they’d used to be. The doctor had told him that it was perfectly normal and that, after a few days, they would go away... but Van wasn’t sure he disliked the intensity of his dreams.
As he sat and ate the egg whites that had been so graciously provided, his door slid open, revealing Sang. He was surprised to see her at this hour—she usually never spoke to him outside of the pod unless it was to tell him to leave her alone. He was trying to create some kind of a friendship with the woman, but she didn’t seem to have any interest in getting to know him... and least, not outside of what his expertise in the game had been.
“Good morning,” he said cheerfully as she sat in the chair opposite of his. The white room had very little going on for it—just a bed, two chairs, and a table—but it was enough for two to have a conversation, and they didn’t need anything more, considering how much time spent in the game. The exercise machine had been removed due to the fact that Van had refused to use it. Instead, they just had O’Hara drag him out of bed at 5 in the morning and force him to run outdoors—sometimes at Taserpoint.
“We’ve finally got a break,” she said as she pulled up a small map on her tablet computer.
“How so?” Van asked. He still had zero clues about what anyone was doing in this whole mission, but as far as he could tell, the mission was literally just helping her power level. They had gone up a few levels in the last few days and she was certainly getting better at the game. The only problem was that she wouldn’t tell him what the whole point of all of this was.
“There’s an area that I need to investigate and it’s close to where we are,” she said, pointing to the map of the game. Van could see she had highlighted the Mountains of Mortal Peril.
“Those mountains aren’t normally accessible without a questline,” Van replied as he bit into his eggs.
“Well, how can we make them accessible?” Sang demanded.
“You know, why do we have to talk about the game outside of it? I mean, here we are, talking for the first time outside of these pods, and you just want to ramble about the game. It’s not particularly fair, is it? Why can’t we talk about anything else? I’m honestly getting sick of all of this.”
“Sick of all of this? I thought you loved this game.”
“Yeah, but I also liked sleeping for 13 hours after playing the game way too late. I loved being able to switch to another crappier game on my phone for a little bit, taking a break. I liked being able to get up and walk outside without a red-haired nutjob chasing me with a Taser,” Van replied.
Sang crossed her arms. “This isn’t the attitude I want to hear.”
“Well, tough, because it’s the attitude that I have!” Van practically shouted. “You might be fine with all of this intense CIA crap, but I’m getting really sick of it. I don’t think I can take it anymore, to tell you the truth.”
“Calm down, Van,” she said as she shook her head.
“Why is it that you have to be all business? Why can’t we have one conversation where you don’t order me around or make disparaging remarks? I mean, you’re the one who hates video games, right? Let’s just talk for once about something that isn’t this stupid game or mission!” Van exclaimed. He was a little more rattled than he’d realized, but as he expressed his frustration, he suddenly understood why the mission had been souring on him. While he was helping Sang out, they certainly weren’t friends, and it sucked to play video games without people who were your friends. She hadn’t even tried to make an effort to befriend him, and it was starting to wear on him. The more he thought about it, he really wasn’t sure how much more he could take.
“I don’t know what you want from me; I’m just doing my job,” she quietly replied, putting her tablet back into her satchel.
“I just want you to actually maybe not be like a complete robot whose sole mission is to do a job and also insult me on occasion. I don’t know a single thing about you!”
“I don’t know anything about you, either,” Sang said. “And I’m sorry, but this kind of work isn’t really about bonding or becoming friends—it’s about getting something done. We’ll never see each other after this, so why invest the time in getting to know each other?”
The words kind of stung. Van wasn’t sure why, but he felt like he’d been wounded by them. “Look, you might think that you’re so important with your mission and that I’m a nobody, but it’s not okay to treat people like cattle. Just because we aren’t going to see each other ever again after this frustrating little chapter of our lives doesn’t mean you have the right to act like I’m not a person.”
Sang shrugged. “Whatever you want. I’m sorry, but I’m not interested in it. I’m not much of a people person to begin with.”
“Really? Because you could have fooled me,” Van sniped as he stood from the table. “Let’s just get in the stupid pods and forget I said anything. I mean, you’re going to forget about me the moment we’re done with this anyway.”
He stormed out of the room, feeling a strong sense of anger and sorrow within him. It shouldn’t have been affecting him so much, but he’d been spending nearly 20 hours a day with her for the last four days, so how could she care so little about him? He was trying his best to help her and get her to accomplish great things with her mission, and he was trying to have conversations with her, but… but she just didn’t seem to care about his life. Perhaps it was the contrast that bothered him so much. She was this smart, accomplished hacker for the CIA whose life was probably incredible. She probably had a nice house, maybe a husband or boyfriend who adored her, and a car instead of a bicycle with a flat tire. And who was he? He was just some gamer who spent far too much time playing something insignificant.
He usually took pride in his gamer ethos, and in the fact that he spent far too much time gaming. It was an identity, a part of himself, but in the last few days—as he had been surrounded by people with real careers, who were making a real impact on the world—it had all made him feel so insignificant. He�
��d been so happy working toward getting Draco’s attention to become a professional gamer, and now… now he felt almost embarrassed by his ambition. The way everyone around him looked at him with a level of either disgust or disinterest was really starting to hit home, ruining his self image.
Now he was realizing that, more or less, he was just a dumb kid in front of everyone else. Thinking about it from this perspective, though, and how condescending the men and women around him had been acting, something of his earlier determination to show them what he could do began to come back, if slowly. As he walked toward the pods, the emotions almost seemed to boil over within him until he swore that he’d show them all just how serious he was. He’d get Sang to where she needed to be, and then as soon as he was allowed to leave, he’d be gone. No more trying to be friendly, no more being nice. If she wasn’t going to care about him, then he certainly wasn’t going to care about her. He was just going to do his job and then, hopefully, go home.
Van trudged through the cold swamp water. The smell was putrid and stale, the flies flew overhead, and he slapped at the mosquitos in frustration. He had been walking in pure silence alongside Sang, hoping that she would be frustrated with his silent treatment, but much to his chagrin, she didn’t seem to have noticed or care at all. Occasionally, they’d stop to check the map or discuss something, but the conversation was always terse and short. There were no jokes, and nor were there any disagreements between them.
They were heading to the village of Hearthborne, which was at the base of the Mountains of Mortal Peril. There were still some requirements to be met in order for them to access the area still, though—mainly, an NPC companion had to be unlocked. The lead to the NPC would be at the town.
“How far out are we?” Sang asked curtly.
“Aren’t you the map person?” Van asked.
“I mean, how far are we from the questline? You said there was a minimum level requirement.”