Cursemancer

by A P Gore

  “Thanks.” Noah's heart filled with joy—a heart shattering joy.

  4. Respawn

  R otting darkness surrounded Noah for a full minute before the contours of a wall beside him came into view. He looked around, but it was still too dark to make out anything else but the wall and a shiny red bar hovering to the left. Focusing on it revealed his health value: 175. For a moment, he was taken aback by the life bar occupying most of his vision, but then he remembered that’s how he would have access to the game functions. Suddenly, a notification popped up in front of him.

  *ERROR* Chose a name. *ERROR* Entity entered the game without a name. Starting location override. Randomizing.

  What the hell is this? How do I get rid of it?

  Noah tried to move the message, but it wouldn't go anywhere. He willed it to disappear, but it only turned translucent.

  Noah ignored the message, since it wasn't hindering his vision completely. He looked around again. He stood inside an enormous hall—about twenty or thirty meters tall. The surface beneath his feet was rough; he could feel it through the thin soles of his shoes. Blinking in sudden realization, he glanced down. He was wearing thin brown fur shoes under a long gray tunic and grayish pants. The white under-suit he’d worn in the black room had vanished when he passed through the door. He touched his robe, feeling the rough texture against his bare palm. It felt real, so real that he could smell the ancientness of the wind in that large hall.

  The surface of the hall was cluttered with stones, like someone had thrashed many things inside it and left it uncleaned. Bending, he picked up a stone from the ground. It felt as real as a normal stone. He dropped it on the ground, and a slow clattering noise echoed in the empty hall.

  Noah pressed onward. He had to get out of the hall to find out where he was. According to what he’d read on the forums, he would be in one of the five human nations spread across the known continents. He could have spawned in any temple or shrine. After a few steps, a statue of a metal goddess came into view ahead. A temple, then.

  The statue was a masterpiece. A small torch placed near its head helped him appreciate its beauty. The goddess stood almost fifty feet tall in a fighting stance. One hand was raised above her head, holding a dagger. Her other hand held a red crystal, and her expression was serious. All depicted that she was a warrior goddess.

  The warrior goddess wore metal plate armor on her chest. Below the waist, she wore leather pants padded with metal strips. She looked real, so real that Noah feared her eyes were tracking him.

  Noah stopped when he spotted few people in long black hoods worshiping in front of the statue. They were going through a cycle of bowing, chanting, rising, and again bowing; it looked weird and strange to him.

  Noah couldn't decide if he wanted to disturb them. They had a strange, mysterious air about them. He turned back, moving away from them and checking out the large pillars standing around the wall. Large broken flags hung on the huge pillars placed next to the walls like a line of test tubes in a research lab. Noah could almost say those pillars and the statue on the dias were the only tidy things remaining in the messy temple. It didn't look like a temple of paladins, though. He doubted the paladins worshiped a lady goddess holding a dagger.

  Noah had visited some ancient temples in real life, but none had a grimy feeling like this temple.

  According to the information on the forums and guides, he should spawn in one of the various Temples of Light created by High Paladins. Though his spawning location would be random, he shouldn't have ended up here. Had he missed something? Maybe someone had attacked this town and destroyed the Temple of Light, so he’d spawned in some other temple.

  That made sense.

  He inched closer to a pillar, inspecting the intricate writing and symbols on it. The pillar felt dead. Really dead. He couldn't put a finger on why it seemed like that, but he couldn’t shake the feeling. He suspected the pillars had long stood there, shining and enriching the beauty of the goddess the statue depicted.

  Noah bent and picked up another stone, wondering if it was really a piece of code. It felt real. Real in every sense. He could feel its texture, the cracks passing along it, and the mud stuck in those cracks. Everything seemed too perfect to be a game setting. After a quick scan of the surroundings, he licked the stone.

  Yuck.

  It tasted awful, like dog poop. Not that he knew how dog poop tasted, but it must have tasted something like that stone.

  No more licking things.

  Noah turned and trudged toward the other side of the hall. He roamed around, trying to find a door, but there was none on this side. The door had to be on the raised platform near the goddess statue. He didn’t want to disturb the devotees, but there was no other choice, so he trudged over to the stairs.

  While ascending the stairs, he squinted at the goddess, trying to peek through the annoying, transparent red error message. Her eyes still focused on him. The strange sensation of her watching him came back. Straightening his back, he looked away from her.

  Just as he reached the last step, one of the men worshiping the goddess turned to look at him. Two dark eyes stared at Noah. An icy chill ran down his spine as the man’s dark eyes locked with his. There was an unexpected rage in those eyes. Those were no human eyes. Something was wrong. In fact, the observer wasn’t human. He tilted his head, letting the hood fall back.

  The chilly sensation in Noah’s spine spread to his legs when he saw two horns protruding from the observer’s head.

  Instinctively, Noah took a step back. Just before he spun around, he spotted a snake hovering over the non-human’s head. It was black, with an arrowhead-shaped mouth, but no eyes.

  The non-human man zipped forward, and in less than a second’s time, he was standing next to Noah, sniffing him. He squalled something at his friends, and they all—with snakes hovering on their heads—stood up and turned to look at Noah. It was then that he realized those weren’t snakes. They were tails. Tails as sharp as knives. Unfortunately, he didn’t realize it until one pierced his gut.

  This is a game, Noah. And these are some kind of game constructs. They can’t kill you.

  His vision turned blood red when another tail pierced through his throat. Blood sprayed out of the wound like a river, and before he could protest he was falling down. Dead.

  ♦♦♦

  What the heck?

  Noah was back in the same black room where he’d met the self-professed demon-man, but this time he’d retained bloody clothes and memories of excruciating pain. The moment before he died, he’d felt like someone was stabbing his heart again and again and again. He knew who it was, the bloody black-eyed non-human.

  Noah grabbed his head as the harrowing sequence of death played in his mind. The torture continued for half an hour before the pain faded away from memory.

  Compared to the pain he’d felt, real-life death had to be better than this. At least a dead person didn’t feel the pain again. Dead was dead in real life. Now he understood the consequences of reserving 75 percent of magic. “You will feel everything.” The demon’s words echoed in his mind.

  When he could think straight, he noticed his bloody clothes.

  First, I need to get clean.

  His clothes reeked of blood—real, warm blood. Seeing the blood made the game real to him, more than anything else. He looked around, and a drawer glowed. He opened it and found a new pair of clean clothes exactly like the clothes he was wearing. He shed his clothes and looked at his body, finding it squeaky clean and fresh. The moment he dropped his dirty clothes on the ground, they vanished.

  He changed into the clean clothes and sat on the chair. There was a red bouncing at the edge of his vision. He opened it and received a message.

  *ERROR*. You received 200 critical damage. You have died. Respawn timer set to three hours. *ERROR.*

  He wondered why the error sign was popping up with every message. Whenever the error message floated in his vision, the notification st
ayed there.

  Heck, yes. I need to pick a name. But how do I do that?

  A window appeared with his character sheet in front of his eyes. The first thing he did was pick a name: Noah. He loved his name. Another prompt appeared to select his appearance. He opened the prompt and found his own face hovering in front of him. There wasn’t much he could do, other than changing his hair style. Everything else was grayed out, perhaps because he’d forgotten to set his name at the start. But no, he hadn’t forgotten it.

  He was facing the consequences of meeting an asshole demon.

  With a sigh, Noah pushed his anger aside and set his hair style to long hair. He liked it that way. When he confirmed those changes, another prompt appeared to view his character sheet. Selecting yes presented him the final details of his stats.

  Name: Noah

  Class: Paladin

  Second Class: Arcanist

  Stats:

  Strength 10

  Dexterity 5

  Constitution 5

  Intelligence 5

  Wisdom 5

  Chance 0

  Charisma 2

  Health 175/175

  Stamina 125/125

  Mana 50/50

  Spirit 50/50

  Skills

  Shield Bash: Hit the opponent with a quick thrust of your shield. Damage: 5 Mana cost: 5

  That looked pretty basic. But it was good to see his health at 175 points, maybe because of the strength attribute. He remembered reading strength increased health.

  Where it was in the menu?

  Yes, it was in the stat information menu. He willed it to come forward to read about each of the stats.

  Strength: It increases your health, stamina, and melee attack power. Each point increases 5 health, 5 stamina and 5% melee attack damage.

  Dexterity: It determines how much precision and power you have in your ranged attacks. It increases your health, stamina, speed, dodge chance, and attack range. Each point increases 5 health, 5 stamina, 1% of speed and dodge chance, and 5% of attack range.

  Good start, I should check more details on this.

  Constitution: It increases your health and stamina, along with resistance to fatigue. Each point increases 10 health and 10 stamina.

  Wow, this one is good for health.

  He had gone through the basic things while he was accessing the forums, but reading and seeing his own character sheet was much better for understanding how each one affected his overall stats. He made a note to learn more about the class types and only then associate the points, rather than screwing his character.

  Intelligence: It increases mana and mana school-based spell damage. Each point increases health by 5, mana by 10, and spell damage by 1%. This also adds to your elemental resistance by 1%.

  Wisdom: It increases spirit and spirit school-based spell damage. Each point increases health by 5, spirit by 10, and spirit damage by 1%. This also adds to your spirit resistance by 1%.

  Charisma: Who doesn’t like hot chicks around them? Or hot boys if you are a girl. Charisma determines how NPCs behave around you.

  There was no mention of the Chance attribute, which was strange. Maybe it was a hidden attribute.

  When Noah finished reading, he decided to take a nap. After all, he hadn’t slept in hours, and the memories of death still made him feel frazzled.

  5. Goddess Sumara

  T he loud clamor of the respawn timer woke Noah. He felt like game was telling him to get out. Maybe other gamers were eager to get out in the world, but he wasn't. Not after the brutal death he had experienced a few hours before. A torturous death.

  What the heck, I can’t even get a good nap.

  Noah yawned and stretched his sleepy limbs. One thing was sure, his body behaved like he was in the real world. His right bicep was sore from sleeping on it.

  Cursing the timer, he got to his feet and cursed it more. In the real world, he had never faced such an issue. He controlled his own time, and nobody questioned him about anything. If it wasn’t for the urge to meet his daughter, he would have slept for a few more hours. But the memory of her blue eyes drove him to act. She had lived twenty years without her father. No more. She would get the time she deserved from him. Even if it was only for few hours. And moreover, he was eager to meet her, to know about her. Her school, her friends, maybe her boyfriend too.

  Damn! Why am I missing an extra twenty years? I could have at least remembered seeing her growing.

  Noah looked around and found a wash basin in the corner of the room. With a splash of chilly water, his mood improved and lingering sleepiness fled. He was ready for the job. If only he could get a cup of coffee, or the masala tea he loved, it would make his day.

  The door to the game had appeared once again in the same place it was before, but before walking through it, he searched the forums for the non-humans with horns. Not much information was present there, but he got to know the species was called demons.

  A traveler’s journal entry said: Demons are another major race present in BlackFlame Online. They are dangerous by nature and hate humans. They have two pointy horns and a tail which can be used as a weapon. They live in the depths of the undiscovered lands and are rarely seen around human settlements. They are an intelligent species, and the rumor mill says they are as intelligent as all other races. They specialize in the dark side of the class spectrum.

  That was all. That was the sum of the information he found on the forums. But it didn’t explain why he’d found them in a paladin temple. What were they doing there? If they had formed a nest in his temple, that would be a problem. A major one.

  Think Noah, think.

  First thing first, he needed to get out of the temple and find some guards. With their help, he would wipe out the demons once and for all. Yes, he needed to do that.

  “Good plan, champ.” Noah patted his own back.

  With a smile on his face and a plan in his head, Noah passed through the door to the game world… only to be killed by a demon standing near his respawn point.

  Noah respawned back in the same black room. This time, he was missing his shoes. He remembered that the last time he’d died he’d been holding a sword, but he must have lost it when he died. But more than that, he was missing his sanity. The pain and memory of torture was taking over his mind again.

  Damn!

  The game was taking one thing from him whenever he died. He searched forums for answers. Until level one, the game would randomly take one item from his inventory. From level 1 to level 10, he wouldn’t lose anything. After level ten, he would lose experience and level progression.

  Damn!

  Noah slept, scoured the forums for more information, and then re-entered the game only to be killed by the same demon. When he woke up this time, his mind was shuddering with the pain he felt. The demon had carved out his eyes and then pierced his heart. He repeatedly touched his eyes to reassure himself that they were still there. This time, he remembered one new detail: the demon was wearing blue pants.

  He again went back into the game when the timer was over. The demon killed him once again, this time cutting his legs and then his heart. The pain he felt was real, excruciating. When he respawned for the fourth time, he gave up and cried for hours. He couldn’t handle it anymore. Going through the same brutal pain over and over was making him crazy. How could anyone be so brutal, and why had he chosen the 75% option? His greed was costing him dearly right now.

  He sat there for hours, his head on his knees, his eyes leaking water every few seconds, his heart torn apart with every new memory of his death. But he couldn’t gather back his courage to step through that door once again.

  No more. I ain’t going back there until someone gives me a solution.

  "I can’t go back there. Are you listening, whatever god you are?” he cried looking at the ceiling.

  A door opened, and a woman stepped through it. Her sudden appearance caught Noah off-guard, and he tumbled backward. While raising himself up, Noah
caught a good glimpse of the lady sitting across the table. She wore metal armor and leather pants padded with metal. She looked exactly like the statue in the temple he had spawned in.

  “Can you order a Starbuds for me? Extra sugar please.” She sighed, looking in his eyes.

  “You mean Starbuds coffee?” Noah asked, confused. Who was she, really? And how did she get there?

  She nodded.

  “Damn! This shit is getting so crazy. There is an asshole demon killing me every time I walk out of that door, and here you are asking me for a Starbuds coffee? Do I look like a fool to you all?” Noah would have thrown his shoes at her, if he still had them. But right now, he was about as naked anyone could get with only pants on.

  “Just will it, dude. It’s not that hard.” She smirked, a smirk he had seen on the statue lady’s face.

  Will it? Noah tried that too. A prompt appeared in front of him.

  Do you want to order a coffee from Starbuds? Cost: 1 silver. Yes/No?

  “What the heck is this?” He stared at the prompt, dumbfounded, and after almost a minute he selected yes. A take away Starbuds cup appeared on the table, and the lady snatched it like a kid snatching candy from his parent’s hand.

  The coffee brought a divine glow to her face. “Do you know how rare this is in my realm? I can only get it when a traveler orders it for me. And that hasn’t happened in hundreds of years.” She gave a long sigh and continued sipping her coffee.

  After every sip, she moaned like she was having an orgasm, and that disturbed Noah.

  “Can someone tell me what a Starbuds coffee is doing here?” Noah sat across from her. There was no point standing there staring at the crazy lady making all sorts of noises while drinking coffee.

  “I will, if you order another one for me.” She dropped the coffee cup, and a dustbin flashed to existence.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m the divine Goddess Sumara. Don’t you recognize me after staring at my breasts for like ten straight minutes?”