by Domino Finn
This wasn't real; it was hyper real.
Overload. In real life your brain works to ignore common stimuli. There's a world of inputs everywhere—you don't really need to feel the air against every tiny hair on your arm.
In the sim, I did. The shiver of the breeze, the baking of the sun, the trilling of the birds. Cold, hard, rough, loud... I was bombarded with sensation.
And then, interestingly, my brain went to work. My digital brain, anyway. A filter of sorts kicked in. Sounds receded into the background. The light grew less blinding. Temperatures normalized.
This was a tutorial, I reminded myself. My body was running diagnostics. Whatever I was now, whatever comprised my intelligence, it was learning all the inputs of Haven. Like being thrown into a pool of icy water, I'd frozen up at first but had now acclimated. Slowly but surely, everything began to feel normal.
Normal. Imagine that. There was nothing normal about this. I should've been in the back of a speeding ambulance or something. Instead I was here, continuing this dream that was feeling less and less like one.
Hyper real.
As far as I could tell, I was alone. The rope bridge stretched taut between rocky chasm ledges, flush with tree growth. Up and down the canyon, the giant river winded a few hundred yards before vanishing around a bend.
Traumatic. I bet Saint Peter thought he was funny.
I checked the help menu. The green and red buttons loomed over my head, but they were grayed out. Disabled for the play test. That was expected, I guess.
I switched over to my inventory. My bag contained a single whittling knife. An image of myself wearing the clothes and holding the spear depicted my equipped items. Right enough, the spear was hooked under my arm with the handrail.
I stared blankly at my meager supplies for a moment before selecting the spear and examining it.
[Woodman's Spear]
Oak and iron, a staple of the masses. This spear trades elegance for a sturdy frame.
I frowned. That wasn't really much help. I tried to look at my character sheet but didn't know how. Swiping the inventory just whisked it away, and any active thought to summon my stats wasn't answered.
It was just me and the terrifying bridge, then.
I mentally kicked myself. I was supposed to be an explorer, pioneering the land, not my character menus. I imagined a team of engineers watching the most boring play test ever. This was an adventure, wasn't it? Once my senses acclimated to the full DR experience things weren't so hard to handle. I grabbed the center of the spear in my hand and held it along the handrail, using my other arm for support, and stepped carefully ahead.
The bridge rocked under my shifting weight, taut bands groaning as if unaccustomed to passage. I advanced cautiously, trying not to visualize me tumbling into the killer current below.
What was I even afraid of? This wasn't real-real. It was a game. Besides that, pain wasn't a thing. Right?
Right?
Between the steady din of the river and my complete focus on footwork, I crossed a quarter of the bridge before I saw the figure eyeing me from the chasm's ledge.
I froze.
It was an ugly son of a bitch. Some cross between a hairless monkey and a Mordor orc. The creature was gray and misshapen but unnervingly humanoid. Thankfully it was only three feet tall.
I examined it as Saint Peter had taught me. The word [Imp] faded in above its head, colored orange.
"My first NPC," I said. My words lacked enthusiasm.
The creature regarded me with the frantic caution of an animal. Its shoulders jittered. A foot beat the ground. Some kind of threat display, maybe. Then its protruded snout opened and he bared his fangs. The growl was evident over the sound of the water.
As the beast aggroed on me, an intro dialog flashed into view.
[Imp]
30 Health
No, not an NPC. A non-player character would imply some intelligence. This was a monster. A mob. Its only purpose was combat.
I waited, as still as the rickety bridge would allow, for the imp to make the first move. He was just an animal. A freaky-as-shit animal, granted, but an animal.
I was a grown man with a spear. And a whittling knife. I'd never been considered tall, but I was a giant compared to this twerp. I was counting on my superior size and human tools to win the day.
Just as my confidence peaked, the imp turned tail and faced the trees. I stood tall and smiled as he chittered into the brush.
Five of his friends joined him on the ledge. My face blanched.
The collected group of imps bayed and scraped at the ground and hopped up and down in aggravation. My response is best described as shitting a brick. Metaphorically, thankfully.
"What kind of tutorial is this?" I complained. "Couldn't they just start me off with slimes or giant rats or something?"
The commotion on the ledge ended as the group came to a consensus. The original imp (I think) fixed hard eyes on me and stepped onto the rope bridge. It walked on all fours, mostly, using not just the thick central strand of the base but the vertical supports running up to the handrails.
"Shit on a stick," I said.
Every MMO I'd ever played started players out in a noob zone. Something easy, something tame. Something safe, above all. The idea was to get a handle on the combat system before facing real challenges.
Everything about this imp told me he was not a practice enemy. Sure, he was small enough as far as mobs went, but he was straight-up rabid. A vicious, electric little beast. Quick and spry and lugging a chip on his shoulder. I didn't want to face one imp, much less a pack of six.
Still facing forward, I retreated from the advancing enemy. I didn't give two shits if Saint Peter and the entire development staff were awaiting a heroic charge. I was more cautious than this. I'd show them glory was often overrated. That staying alive, even in a game, meant something to me.
I had a larger gait but the backward movement hampered me. The imp began to close with light steps. I was stuck in the middle of the bridge again, too far out to make it back at this clip. I threw caution to the wind, turned around, and sprinted to the far side.
The imp screeched and picked up his pace. I ran. The bridge rocked and bounced. With its lighter weight, the imp had a harder time of it than I did. He struggled to keep rooted to the lurching rope.
As I approached the ledge a wild idea struck me. I summoned my inventory menu and direct equipped the whittling knife. The spear disappeared in a blink. I should've done that a while ago. The knife didn't get in my way nearly as much. It almost felt like I had an extra arm now. That was a lesson to apply to the future.
The second my sandal clapped on solid rock, I spun around and brought the knife down on the rope handrail. The dull blade mashed against the weathered hemp.
The imp recognized what I was doing. For such a rabid little shit, he was far more intelligent than a monkey. He bounded toward me as I sawed at the bridge.
Both gestures were completely unnecessary. My crappy little knife barely managed to snap a few threads of the sturdy length. As the creature closed on me, I changed tack and threw the whittling knife at its head. The imp ducked. The knife bounced off a rope support and plummeted to the river below.
"Noob knife," I muttered.
A chattering laugh scraped my ears. The imp heaved up and down in mirth. Then it hissed and readied a lunge.
Feet planted firmly in the rock, I equipped the spear and held it straight out over the bridge. The iron point hovered a foot away from the creature's face.
We paused, taking stock of each other. The rest of the imp pack watched from the safety of the other side.
This was the strength of the spear. Positioning and reach. On the narrow platform, the imp could hardly skirt around my weapon. I had him at a supreme disadvantage. Any attempt to lunge could result in it being skewered or knocked into the deadly river. I held my spear firm, aware that I didn't really know how to use it but hoping it didn't matter too much.
Afte
r a solid minute of deadlock, I recognized the catch. I was keeping the creature at bay like an ace, but the second I turned around and went along my merry way, the imp would sink teeth and claws into my back. I'd turned this contest into a stalemate, but what I needed was a victory.
Once again, my confidence returned. I stepped forward, placing a steady sandal on the bridge and leaning my elbow on the handrail. It was imperative I kept both hands on the spear if I was going to strike with it. It meant I was slow, and my balance was off, but I was ready to kill my enemy.
The imp hissed with uncertainty. It backed away, but only enough to look for an opening. He clearly didn't have retreat in mind.
That made two of us.
As its back foot hit a knot, I lunged. I kept the spear horizontal, sliding it forward as if on glass. The imp batted at the tip but I held strong and pressed my weight forward. The strike pitched to the side but the iron still found gray flesh. It punctured the side of the creature's rib cage. The imp wailed in pain.
I pulled the spear back to strike again but dragged the imp with it. It swiped with a back leg and gashed my arm. My mind flashed red and a dull ache encompassed my forearm. Pain as a notification instead of a debilitating condition. I gritted my teeth and twisted the spear toward the beast's heart. I pinned it against the rope wall and sunk the weapon deep. Bone snapped and the imp convulsed and went limp.
A faint tickle scrolled past my head, much more subtle than the representation of pain. When I focused on it, I saw a stream of text notifications that I had missed in the heat of the moment.
Impale!
You dealt 14 damage to [Imp]
6 damage
Critical Hit!
You dealt 34 damage to [Imp]
[Imp] is defeated
150 XP awarded
Jeez, this really was an RPG. I wasn't interested in the numbers just yet but it seemed both my attacks had achieved special status bonuses somehow. I'd been lucky to impale the creature with the first strike, and its inability to defend itself from that position, and my targeting of the heart, had likely resulted in the crit.
"Fight smarter, not harder," I said smugly.
A new notification popped up:
You have killed a pagan. Doing so enrages all pagans.
Pagan Reputation -10
I hissed. I wasn't just gaining experience, I was gaining faction notoriety. That was a crappy flipside to what was supposed to be a victory.
If the pack of imps at the opposite cliff had been perturbed before, they were wildly agitated now. They hollered and batted limbs at each other. Five sets of teeth spun my way as the rest of the pack jumped onto the bridge and charged over the rope in a line. A couple of them even hopped on the handrails and ran along them on all fours.
This... this was not something I was prepared for.
Sometimes fighting smarter means not fighting. I turned tail and ran.
0060 Escape from Monkey Island
Instead of crashing into the dense forest and running into whatever packs of wild creatures lived on this side, I decided to run along the chasm edge. It was rockier ground and the narrow sloped path would give my spear an advantage. I could only imagine it getting tangled in the thick brush.
The downside to my strategy was that I couldn't readily vanish out in the open. I wasn't sure what mechanics Haven had in place for hiding, but I had five imps aggroed on me. I doubted I could pull off a disappearing act.
And I'd thought hiding in shadows was lame.
I raced around the curve of the ledge. The bridge disappeared from sight before the imps made it across, giving me some hope that I'd made the right choice. But scaling the treacherous cliff face proved more and more difficult. My thick sandals weren't very malleable and easily lost traction against the loose rocks. I tripped and stumbled. Once I would've slipped off the cliff entirely if I hadn't planted the spear into the ground for support.
My path—my only option now—actually sloped down into the chasm, running along the wall and closer to the white water. The edge of the cliff above me was bordered with boulders and trees, but several minutes into my retreat it opened into a nice solid platform.
The only problem was it was ten feet above my head.
The imps had to be pretty good climbers. I figured they could get up there if they needed to. However, if I could do so before they saw me, I was confident I'd lose them. I put my spear away and faced the sheer canyon wall.
Agility Check...
Fail!
My fingers scraped against unforgiving rock, unable to find a grip.
I tried again and slipped again. Lurching upward only meant I came crashing down on the return trip. I attempted a gentler climb. A careful foothold. Two hands spread wide, clutching only flat rock. I kicked up slowly and actually found another foothold. When I got there, though, there was nowhere else to go. As I reached for a jutting rock above, I slipped and slid back down to the outcropping.
The howls behind me grew closer. I was losing my lead. With a last-ditch effort, I pulled out my spear and planted the iron in the ground. I used it to climb partway up the wall. But after that, I couldn't make another move.
Around the bend, two of the imps appeared. They were just as rabid as ever.
I cursed and hopped down the cliff wall. This ledge wasn't a bad place to face them, if I needed to, but I still had a path to retreat along. The ground sloped closer to the river.
As I ran, the hollering of the imps grew louder but strangely distant. The rushing of the water was drowning everything else out. I was close to it now. The splash from the waves hit my bare calves and made the path slippery.
But the volume of the current was still much louder than it should've been. Were my senses out of control again?
A hazy mist smothered me. I pressed forward as droplets dotted my skin. A sinking feeling grew in my belly. The ledge I was sprinting along abruptly ended and I almost plummeted down a sheer drop—not into the river but with the river—hundreds of feet below. The noise and the mist were the result of a gargantuan waterfall.
I spun at a stray screech. The imps were closing on me, but I could see their hesitation. They didn't like the water maybe. Or the sound.
I looked down. There was another ledge below, running along behind the waterfall. I smiled. If I knew video games, there'd be buried treasure back there. A small stepped ledge ran away from the waterfall to the next level down. Keeping my spear up in defense, I pressed my chest against the rock edge and descended.
The five imps converged together. Crawling on top of each other, shoving through. All eyes were on me and the tip of my spear. I concentrated on my footholds until I found the bottom. Nice and wide, actually.
The imps stayed above, but they were between me and the waterfall now. The last thing I wanted was for them to rain down on my head as I passed beneath. I moved carefully, jabbing my weapon upward in warning. Three of the creatures were cowed, but two of them followed my path down the rocky steps. They joined me on the bottom and growled.
I was past the others, though, and the fire had left the filthy creatures. If I had to guess, the ones up top had canceled their aggro on me entirely. The two on my level followed half-heartedly. The nearer I got to the waterfall, the more defeated they grew.
The deluge of water jetted clear over the platform. A huge wall of white. It fogged the area and made the depths it reached entirely mysterious. But now that waterfall was my shield. The imps didn't dare walk under it. And as I moved deeper, I found a dark opening in the rock face.
I instinctively played the Zelda secret chime in my head.
Threat averted, I calmly strolled into the cave, eager to claim my prize. Fighting smarter, not harder, huh? I was starting to like the sound of that.
As I pierced the murky depths, the deafening sound of the waterfall gave way to multiple voices murmuring in unison. I tightened my grip on the spear and crept forward. I neared a bend, hoping to get a peek at my hosts, but their disquietin
g chanting suddenly cut out.
I took a breath and rounded the corner. In the darkness, it was hard to see anything, but I was pretty sure two figures were standing around a cauldron.
"Who intrudes on the ritual?" asked one of them.
Pagan Reputation -20
Crap.
"The civilized world will crumble," said a scratchy voice behind me.
I spun around. Standing a little taller than me was an imposing creature. She was blacker than the imps. Less monkey, more ogre, with wild mats of long hair. She licked her lips and leaned a bony face close. I gasped as I noticed the hollow cavities of her eyes.
[Crowlat - Boggart Witch]
200 health
"All pagan killers must suffer," she rasped.
She may have been blind, but she slashed a claw so fast I couldn't get my spear up in time. My gut exploded. Not pain, but full alert. The corners of my vision reddened and blurred out, and the boggart pulled a tangle of something that looked eerily like my intestines to her teeth.
Critical Hit!
88 damage
You are dead!
0070 Dead Space
"Ugh."
I shivered in my bed. Jerked awake, to be precise. I wasn't startled. This was a vaguely uncomfortable feeling. I didn't hurt, but my brain was still reeling from being eviscerated by a monster.
My eyes opened to the soft blue lighting of a small room. I turned my head, burying it in a fluffy white pillow. Sleep. Sleep was always good.
A chime went off beside me. Ding!
I took a moment to process the serene room. So this was it, then. The end of the dream. I'd woken up in the hospital and there'd be no more imps or boggarts or—
A wall of text scrolled into my vision, line by line.