by A P Gore
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?”
“I knew it! You were staring at me.” Noah slapped the back of his head when he realized whom he was talking to. “I’m sorry for the perverted look I gave you. I was just admiring the stone work. But again, who are you? And aren’t you supposed to be a piece of code or something?”
“Coffee first, dude,” she hissed.
“Okay.” Noah willed another coffee and paid for it from whatever silver stash he had.
“It’s so fucking boring to be a god in this game. Dude, if you ever get a chance to ascend to the higher levels, like 500+, do not. I repeat. Do not chose to be a deity in this fucking game. You’ll be stuck on the small fucking prayers offered by the humans, demons or other fucking races that no one cares about.” She was sputtering and spitting all over the table now. Her body shook with anger.
“Were you a player or something?” Noah ordered another cup of coffee for her. She wasn’t making any sense. She couldn’t be a piece of code. She spoke like a real person.
“No. I ain’t one of the greedy players. I’m a crossroad demon.”
The mere mention of a crossroad demon recalled to mind the pain of four deaths. “Can you tell me where that asshole demon is who put me here and forgot to tell me I needed a name before entering the game?” Now his body was shaking in anger. Everything was coming back to him. The error, the random location message. He was put into some shit hole by the game, and there was no way out now. “I’ll be in your debt for this, Goddess.”
“Call me Sumara. Plain and simple. I’m fed up of this deity and goddess stuff. And the demon you are looking for… I don’t know where he is right now. We all work as individual contractors for the real gods, so can’t know where he is.”
“Damn. How can I get out of this mess then?”
“Coffee,” she demanded.
He ignored her demand.
She pulled a long dagger out of nowhere and slapped the back of his hand with the hilt.
“Ouch, that hurts!”
“Coffee.”
“Here you go.” He willed for five more cups, angrily. She was getting out of control now.
But only two coffee cups appeared, along with an error message for exhausting the daily quota of coffee.
She hastily drank both cups, wiped the foam with back of her hand, and smiled at him from the corner of her mouth.
“Now we can talk. You’ve earned my blessings, go ahead and ask as much you want.” Her words were sugary sweet. She shifted in the chair, but her steel-padded pants didn’t make a slightest noise. Noah wondered why that was.
“Is that real coffee?”
“Not actually, dude. We are in a game, but it fucking tastes like the real thing.”
“So, the asshole demon I met didn’t bother to tell me about the one good thing this game has.” All his senses were burning with anger, and if he had that asshole in front of him, he would smack the demon’s head on the same table he’d signed those papers on.
“If you are not an AI, or a piece of code, who are you really?” Noah was curious now.
“I’m a real-world demon, like the friend you met in this room. But for some unfortunate actions of mine, I was asked to join the game as a deity. I hope you know about the time dilution. One year in the real world is like 12 years in here. So, you can say I’ve been here for the last 1200 years. Anyway, leave that aside. Tell me about your anger issues.”
“I have no anger issues.” Noah snapped back.
“Okay, we’ll talk about that next time.” She paused, studying him. “Now tell me why you called me here.” Her face turned stone hard.
“Can you tell me where my spawn location is? And why your statue is in a paladin temple?”
“Who said it’s a paladin temple?”
“I chose paladin class. Ain’t I supposed to spawn in a paladin temple? I thought every human city has a Temple of Paladin.”
“Who the fuck said your spawn point is in a human city?”
Something heavy landed in the bottom of his stomach, making him gasp for breath.
6. New Class
A terrifying silence filled the room, infecting Noah’s mind with doubt. He had to push back the anger lodged in his throat to speak again.
“What do you mean? Where the hell am I spawning, then?”
“In a demon city: Drakonia,” the lady answered in a calm voice.
“Are you crazy, or what? I’m not supposed to spawn in a demon city. I need to get back to the human side. You and your game are damn shit.”
“Okay, that’s enough.” She rose, and a dark orb formed in her left hand. “Let me be clear, human. You are nothing but a tiny player for me. A player I can wipe from existence. Don’t ever fucking call me a crazy bitch. Coffee is finished, and I can live for another millennia on those five cups, so bear that it in your fucking mind. DO NOT, I repeat do not call me a crazy bitch, or I’ll get you killed every time you respawn in my fucking temple for eternity.”
The weight in the pit of his stomach intensified. Every breath he took became harder. The thought and pain of getting killed again and again pushed his ego up his own ass. “I’m sorry, Goddess Sumara. I’ll be careful around you from now on.”
A sweet smile covered her face, belied by the rage in her eyes. The spell she conjured faded away.
“I wouldn’t call it a city anymore,” she said. “A city that worshiped me a few decades ago. Now only the ruins of the city remain. It’s a town hanging by a thread. It goes by the name Town of Sumara these days, and your spawn point is bound to my temple, the only deity present in the town.”
“But why?” The words came out in an angry sputter. He regretted them immediately. “Sorry, once again. I meant, I’m a human paladin. Why did I get bound to your temple in a demon town? Makes little sense, right?”
“Let me check.” She pulled a screen out of thin air. “Yes, it was the randomizer. As you entered the game without a name, the game’s AI randomized your spawning location. Shitty AI, but not a big deal. Just delete your character and create a new one. You can do that when you get out of the pod and re-enter again. Just log out and start a new character.”
The weight in his stomach got heavier, settling lower, pulling everything inside him down with it. He couldn’t breathe for a few seconds. “No. This can’t be happening. I can’t log out. I’m kind of perma-stuck in the game.”
She swiped through some pages. “Oh, that’s unfortunate for you. Now I get it, you are one of the baddies in the real world who is sentenced to long term game time, like me.” She giggled.
He didn’t bother to tell her his life story. He needed a solution, not a bitching partner. “Goddess Sumara.” He dropped to his knees. “Is there a way out of this? If I go back there, demons will kill me repeatedly. But I want to get to a human town as soon as possible. Can you help me somehow?” She was a goddess, so maybe she could do something if he asked her nicely.
She sized him up for a moment, and her face softened. “Even if you survive the demon city, you won’t make it to the human side. There are many other demon cities on the way to the nearest human city.”
“Can’t you change my respawn location?”
“I can’t. There are certain rules I have to follow.”
“What can you do that is within your boundaries?” He sounded desperate, even to his own ears.
“Not much, actually. It’s a fucking shame, isn’t it? And top of that, you aren’t even my follower or a dark spectrum class. There is nothing more I can offer here, other than my advice.”
“What advice?”
“Change your class. Come to my side. Offer me prayers and complete my divine quests. If you promise to keep offering me coffee and completing my divine quests, I’ll offer you something unique and special.” She wore a cunning smile.
“But I like this class.”
Her smile turned evil. “A new class or a life stuck in this room for eternity. The choice is yours.”
“Can I take a moment to think?”
“Yes. Anyway, my time is up. You think for a day and call me again tomorrow. And order many of these.” She pointed at the empty take away cups lying on the table. It still smelled like delicious coffee. It was too bad that he had exhausted his quota for the day. He could have used one to think straight.
Noah nodded as she vanished.
Now what, Mr. Smart Ass Scientist?
He was stuck in a dire situation now. He couldn’t go back to the game, as the demons would obliterate him. Even if he survived the initial attack somehow, he would have to face new demons at every step of his journey. And being a level one character, he had no chance of getting past them. Logging out wasn’t on the table, and he didn’t want to be a demon either. He liked being human.
Noah thought for the whole night, but when he couldn’t find any other solution—and when he was done cursing the initial asshole demon he’d met—he came to a decision. He would accept the race change. At least he would have a chance to live and proceed.
The next morning, he called out to Sumara to tell her his decision.
“Goddess Sumara, your follower calls upon you.”
“Coffee please.” She said, before even walking through the door.
He willed five coffees into existence and dropped to his knees. “I’m ready to be turned into a demon, Goddess Sumara. Please grant me your blessings.”
7. Cursemancer
“A
demon?” She sounded so uncertain that Noah raised his head and found her staring at him in confusion.
“Yes. You asked me to change my class, right?”
“That’s hilarious.” She giggled, covering her mouth. “You don’t seem to get it at all. Okay, let me explain it to you as I would a child. I asked you to change your class, not your race. Even if you wanted to change your race, that’s not possible yet. Maybe in some future expansion...” She smiled, a hint of mischievousness creeping in.
A wave of relief washed over Noah. He felt a smile tilting the corner of his own mouth. “Thank God. I like being human. I can't imagine what would it be like to have two horns and a tail.” He shuddered.
“It’s a nice feeling, being one. Feeling one…” She winked.
Noah ignored the subtext. “So, what class do I need to choose? I need something that I can use even after arriving in a human town.” He had a year before his daughter came to the game. He could use that time to overcome all the obstacles and reach the human town.
Yes! That’s the plan.
She bit the back of her hand, suppressing a yawn. “Just pledge your loyalty to me. That will allow you to choose a new class.”
“Is that it?” He couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice. “Can I do that with any goddess? Or god? Chang my class anytime?” He’d thought it would involve some ceremony, that he might have to swear a blood oath or something. It it was simpler, that could be a big advantage to him. Once he reached the human town, he could go back to being a paladin.
“Technically, yes,” Sumara said. “But do you mind losing all your levels and other things?”
“Right now, I don't. I have none right now.”
“What about when you are level 20?”
“No way!” Noah didn’t know much about the game, but according to the forum guides, it took months for people to reach level 10 or beyond. The thought of losing months of work was like a shock of cold water on his skin.
“That's the trick. You can do it anytime, but no one does that because of the level and experience penalty.”
“Okay, that's a bummer. Anyway, here it goes. Hey Goddess Sumara, I pledge my loyalty
to you going forward.”
“Amen.” She laughed like she was watching a really funny cable sitcom, then placed her hand on his head. A beam light struck his body.
Congratulations! You have pledged your loyalty to a new deity. You are now blessed with Samara's Touch. Reward: Two extra skill points available for each new level up. Obtain new rewards by gaining more blessings from her. A new unique class is available for you: Cursemancer. Would you like to set it as your primary class? Yes/No?
He looked into the goddess’s eyes. “A Cursemancer? What’s that?”
She smiled mischievously. “This is a fucking awesome class, dude. You’ll love it. It's like poking a bear anytime, anywhere, with anything, and still having no fear of getting your face rubbed in its dung.” She bobbed one brow up and down. “Forget about the dung part. But this is the most fun class. It's my own base class, so I might offer you some extra insights in the future.” She winked again.
“Okay. I'll choose this class.” He selected yes. His body changed visibly. Earlier, he was a bit of a muscular guy, but now his muscles shredded to become lean, and he felt a rush of energy flooding his heart. Closing his eyes, he could see a marble-sized green energy ball rotating around itself in place of his heart.
Congratulations for choosing the Cursemancer class. As being the first of the class wielder, you receive three extra sentient skills from your deity. You can also select the second class now, which will become available once you reach level five. Choose the second class.
“First of the class wielder?” He stared at the goddess in confusion.
“That meant you are the first player to choose that class. I’m a Cursemancer too, but I joined the game as a Goddess, so that doesn’t count.”
He received another list of classes. Ignoring Sumara’s commentary, he chose the second class himself. If Cursemancer turned out to be a dud, he would want to have a good backup. And he knew which one would be good for him.