Cat's Quest

by Roman Prokofiev

  Constitution was represented by hit points and the amount of damage the character could suffer. Durability dictated damage that can be inflicted and the ability to lift heavy weights. Charisma skills helped win the allegiance of NPCs (non-playable characters) and, consequently, to undertake more interesting quests. Intelligence affected the damage done by magic and the amount of mana points available to the character; I didn’t really need it. And then there was Luck, too… the subject of the most vicious holy wars on various gaming forums. Some players believed it to be the least useful skill while others believed it to be the most useful. Basically, that was it.

  The variety of available skills was bewildering. The descriptions alone would take half a day to read. The skills were sorted into various groups: Combat, Craft, Social, Magic, and many others. I picked Combat, and of course, there were lots of subtypes: One-handed weapons, Two-handed weapons, Hand-to-hand, Shields, Mental weapon, Archery—these were just the basic ones. Each group featured subgroups of advanced skills, which required first developing the basic skills in order to level up. Having opened the one-handed weapon category, I spotted skills for long swords, short swords, daggers… in order to obtain the skill, one had to be at least level three in One handed weapon 300/1000 SP and so on…

  Sounded harsh. I only had 50 starting skill points. I confidently invested them all in trade skills. Why? So I could gain access to the game auction, the functionality of which I was going to try first off. Yes, having gained access to the auction, one could do all kinds of trading, but only after having developed the necessary skills.

  ARE YOU READY TO COMPLETE CHARACTER CREATION CHARACTER?

  YES!

  WARNING. GENERATING RANDOM RACIAL CHARACTERISTICS

  What the heck is it? My mouth dropped, but the system gave good news:

  YOUR RACIAL SPECIALITY: ‘SMART’!

  CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE ACQUIRED A RARE RACIAL CHARACTERISTIC: ‘ANCIENT GENE’!

  The character dummy now featured two new icons. The first one was clear:

  SMART. Your mind is quick. You can gain experience faster than other players and are able to learn quickly. +10% to experience gained.

  Nobody warned me about that—a nice bonus! Now I can level up quicker. However, the description of the second icon was confusing.

  ANCIENT GENE. Ancient blood is dormant in your veins, but nobody knows when and why it may awaken.

  Mysterious. Well, I guess we’ll find out.

  CHARACTER CREATION COMPLETE.

  DO YOU WANT TO ENTER THE GAME?

  Hell yeah! Here I come, Sphere! Watch out!

  CHAPTER 2 TUTORIAL

  WARNING! BEFORE ENTERING THE GAME, SET UP FULL IMMERSION LEVEL

  Oh, I see. The usual. After the neural interface was developed, the developers faced a serious dilemma regarding user pain sensations. The internet rapidly flooded with all kinds of rumors and horror stories about people going nuts or even dying from heart attacks when fully immersed. Naturally, there could not be a true experience of pleasure without also experiencing pain; the two feelings were deeply intertwined. Like spicy food is a matter of taste, some like it hot—others can’t stand it. Oddly enough, a solution was found by the super popular web portals featuring… umm… virtual girls and adult VR entertainment. Fighting the mandatory legal limit on full immersion, the (50-60%) that was considered safe, they came up with a progressive scale, based on individual tolerance. The idea was well received and rapidly implemented across various VR services, looking as follows:

  Immersion level is a scale where 100% is the maximum pain threshold a particular user can endure. It varies from one individual to another. While one person might pass out from a slight pinch, another can endure the sensation of touching hot metal. Thus, 100% immersion did not represent the realness of pain, but rather the limit a given individual could endure. Just to be safe, at the dawn of the VR, a technology known as ‘mental block’ was developed: capsules that didn’t feature this technology couldn’t get certified. Various indicators, triggered by body signals, went ahead and disconnected the user from the internet. That made dying from pain in the game impossible while immersing oneself to 100% pretty much guaranteed an extreme and unforgettably real experience.

  According to millions of excellent game reviews all over the internet, all the five senses were within the framework of the game, featuring worlds with outstanding levels of reality detail. Physically, the game was allegedly implemented on the molecular level.

  I don’t know, we’ll see. I shifted the immersion level control to the middle. 50% would be enough to get a sense of it.

  WARNING! BY SIGNING THIS AGREEMENT, YOU HEREBY CONFIRM THAT….

  DO YOU WISH TO PROCEED WITH BASIC TRAINING?

  Training? I guess a small tutorial won’t hurt.

  LOADING THE GAME

  Finally! Everything around me turned dark and then I was given my virtual body.

  LOCATION: DORSA world, continent DORSA, city GOLDEN FAIRS, sewage, top level.

  QUEST: Sewage and rats

  TRAINING QUEST: You’re surrounded by abandoned city sewers. Get out of the dungeon, finding your way up.

  REWARD: Experience, artifact

  WARNING: This is a training task designed to get you familiar with the basic principles of the game. Entourage and features are limited to the status of your account. You can cancel at any time.

  So, I was down in the sewage. Penetrating the surrounding darkness, a dim light came though the barred skylights. I was standing ankle-deep in water in what appeared to be a semicircular tunnel, about double my height. The stone walls were covered with a slippery-looking brown-green mold, and a cobweb hung from the ceiling. Yeah… not exactly a pretty starting location. The quest description implied that conditions depended on one’s account type. Because I had a free wooden account, I ended up down in the sewer. The discrimination was amusing. No doubt those who had selected the silver account started somewhere in the valleys, in the light of day, surrounded by bunnies.

  So… Water, or whatever the liquid was that was running beneath my feet. It was cold and wet, but it didn’t smell like sewage. I wondered if that was due to the 50% immersion level setting. Perhaps, I should’ve gone deeper. I moved my arms and feet: everything seemed to be in control, just like in reality. Everything around me looked so real. I jumped and touched the dirty, gray robe I was wearing. The fabric felt rough, as if it was made from a potato sack, with lots of holes in it and thick ugly seams.

  “Interface on” I said, a standard VR command. A semi-transparent character interface appeared in front of me. It was surprisingly empty, just a character list and various settings. It didn’t feature the quests log or system chat. The inventory wasn’t there either. Just three bars on top: red for HP, blue for mana, green for stamina. After a minute’s revision, I discovered I was wearing two items:

  Beggar Rags, cloth, durability 2/5 and Beggar Pants, fabric, durability 3/5.

  Both items reduced my Reputation by 10 points. Beside these, I had nothing else. No weapon, bag, or even shoes. Yeah, they didn’t exactly provide a welcoming experience to the new users.

  “Heeeey…” I shouted into the depth of the dark tunnel. The echo bounced off the wales. It’s kind of spooky here, I thought. Rushing to leave, I headed in the direction the water was coming from. But about ten steps into my journey, I tripped on something underwater. At my feet, I was looking at a wooden club. I picked it up. The system lit up the artifact:

  ROTTEN STICK

  One-handed weapon

  Quality: common

  Material: wood. Durability 13/20

  1-3 physical (crushing) damage

  Hurray! At least now I had some kind of weapon. Anything was better than being empty handed. Where’s my training? Let’s go further. The sewer tunnel was dark and damp, and something was constantly dripping on my head. From the depths, there came a perceptible cold, musty breath. Yes, I knew these were just neural interface signals fooling my
brain, yet everything looked frighteningly real. It felt so familiar. As a child, I used to sneak into the old sewers with friends.

  The tunnel led to a large room with an uneven spherical ceiling. Above me, shone a gaping hole from an unlatched hatch, and right below it, in the middle of the room, a pyramid of trash, that had been piling up for quite some time, evidently made of garbage dumped from above. On top of the pile, and all around it, I finally saw the game’s first living creatures: gray and shabby with long bare tails. Rats! I smiled to myself. Hundreds of computer games, including the classics, started similarly with a quest where the hero had to kill rats. Nothing original, damn it...

  The rats were big, the size of a cat, I thought. Their agro-zone seemed to be wide enough, as no sooner had I appeared, then they started to hiss and crawl towards me. Not crawl, rather attack! I was glad I was still a few meters away. The first and the quickest was crushed by my club. Then, I felt a sharp pain in my feet—the creature had managed to bite me. I jumped away and kicked the rat with my foot, but many more had reached me by then. The little notification started to blink informing me of the damage points being inflicted. My green hit bar was decreasing rapidly. They’re gonna eat me alive! Despite 50% immersion, I could clearly feel the pain: it felt as if I was being bitten by a horsefly. Mostly, I felt disgust and a touch of panic. I was swinging my club and trying to kick as many rats as I could. The only available system chat was flashing with notifications, communicating the damage I inflicted or received. Finally, one lucky hit sent a rat flying and smashing against the wall, securing my first perk:

  Your One-handed weapon skill has been increased by 1! Current level: 1/1000.

  Damned rats, I was sweating, trying to hit as many creatures as possible. I had to back off (feeling ashamed) and moved to the narrow tunnel where I could smash them one by one. By the end of combat, I was literally out of breath, sweating all over, and only had half my hit points and half the club’s durability. On the positive side, I had acquired my first four skill points for One-handed weapon, which added +0.4% to my club inflicted damage, and +1 to Athletics—the skill responsible for walking speed, running, and ability to endure other physical loads. My stamina bar was nearly empty, and my state dropped accordingly. I took a few minutes to rest and decided to look closely at the bodies of the dead rodents. An unpleasant surprise awaited me as I focused on a dead rat’s body. The system prompted:

  A dead rat? Do you want to take it?

  Impossible. You don’t have a bag.

  So, what else I could do, I wondered. Fighting natural reluctance, I touched the body.

  Do you want to cut it?

  Impossible. You don’t have the appropriate tools.

  Whatever. Damned rats. There had to be something in that room for me. I hadn’t been fighting them for nothing, had I? Poking around dark corners with my club, and then the pile of trash in the middle, I finally found a few valuable items:

  A rusty key.

  A piece of apple. Food. Restores 1 HP

  Having nothing to carry it in, I decided to leave it. The rooms served as a merging point for three different tunnels. I chose the one opposite to where I had come in from and headed onwards. So, who do I fight next? By then, my stamina level had almost recovered; I felt ready for new combat. Then, I found myself suddenly at a dead end. Mounted to the wall was a metal ladder, leading upwards. An exit? Perhaps. The only thing was… next to the ladder, there sat a skeleton. I approached it carefully and looked at the terrifying object, though, there was nothing that terrifying about it, just a white skeleton, like one they use in an anatomy class. There was not a cloth around. The skeleton appeared to be chained to the wall with a heavy rusty chain. Next to it lay a rusty sword, and one of the eye sockets was lit up from inside. Perhaps there, I might find something of value. I leaned forward trying to see what it was, but jumped back in horror, as the skeleton suddenly moved. The chains rang as the bones moved with a creaking sound. The dead man came to life, rising to his feet, a rusty blade in his hand. A whistle from the swing came as I jumped back in an attempt to dodge. The skeleton was now walking towards me. I could see clearly that the object lit-up in the skeleton’s eye socket was an ominous-looking bluish stone.

  I tightened my grip on the club, mentally welcoming the system tips. Well, this was only a training. Whatever happened, happened! The skeleton raised the rusty serrated blade once again. His strokes were quick and unpredictable. I tried to block his sword with my club, but only gasped, feeling the extent of his power.

  You blocked the strike! One-handed weapon skill increased to 5. Rotten Stick durability decreased: 8/20.

  The skeleton tried to reach me with a thrusting blow to the chest, but I managed to turn around, pressing my back against the tunnel wall. I shamefully retreated to a safe zone. The chains containing the enemy prevented him from pursuing me. The skeleton froze, holding up his rusty sword in a fighting stance. So… looks like keeping defense, is not an option. His moves are slow. Maybe try getting past him really quick?

  I jumped into the mud and then into the water. Rolling over the stone floor, I scraped my knees and elbows, but did manage to get behind the skeleton and, while he was turning around, I whacked his white skull with my club, as hard as I could.

  You have inflicted 3 points of damage. One-handed weapon skill increased to 6. Rotten Stick durability decreased to 7/20.

  The enemy's lower jaw dropped to the floor with a bang, but this didn’t affect his combat capability. He deflected my next attack with the club, with his sword, reducing my club’s durability by another two points. He was now counter-attacking, forcing me into the dead end by the ladder. The stick cracked in my hands and fell apart, leaving me holding a small stump. I suddenly realized that my back was now pressed against the wall leaving me nowhere to retreat. A rusty iron blade, flashing before my eyes, plunged deep into my stomach with a nasty smack. I think I screamed. The sensation was way too real as if you were a tin can cut open with a rusty piece of iron. While the pain was bearable, I had the nastier feeling of being pierced through. Those who have undergone surgery at some point in their lives will probably understand what I am talking about.

  The hit point bar decreased dramatically, and an alarming bleeding icon was now flashing beside it. My hands, which I instinctively pressed against the wound, turned red. Damn it, he’s gonna kill me!

  I was horrified to see the enemy raising his weapon, which was already covered in my blood. The next blow was aimed at my head. The world shuddered and seemed to split into pieces. I then found myself in the safety of the darkness that had consumed me.

  The skeleton dealt a critical strike! You received 21 damage!

  HP 0/40. You are dead.

  Would you like to respawn?

  WARNING—failing tutorial does not result in a penalty for dying.

  No. EXIT. The capsule lid opened, and I got out. I grabbed a bottle of mineral water from my table and swallowed it with a single gulp. My heart was pounding, and hands were shaking.

  “Honey? Are you ok?” Alena asked, entering the room.

  “Yeah… just a scary thing in VR. Horror. Real horror.” I tried to smile.

  “Horror? Wow, let me see. You know how I love it!”

  “Hm, I can’t reprogram the capsule for you myself. It would have to be a technician.” I lied. The last thing I needed was to get my wife hooked on VR. I couldn’t afford another capsule. I was still struggling to pay off her car loan.

  “I see. Just like always.” She didn’t seem to buy it and was looking offended. “Whatever. You carry on with your VR, I’m going to hang out with Leyla.”

  Leyla was an obnoxious little dog, who a friend of Alena had asked us to look after while she was on vacation. I hated this particular breed of dogs and I figured the dog felt the same way about me. Having calmed down a little, I got into the capsule again. I was angry. How could I, practically a veteran of VRMMO, be defeated by the first tutorial skeleton? No, I’m not gonna leav
e it like that!

  ENTERING THE GAME...

  WOULD YOU LIKE TO RESPAWN?

  LOCATION: DORSA WORLD, DORSA CONTINENT, city: COLDEN FAIRES, sewage, training quest.

  There I was again, in the middle of a sewer tunnel with full HP, but empty handed. The club was no longer there, and the rats’ dead bodies had not disappeared. That meant my progress had been saved. That was good.

  Revising my stats, I noticed a fourth bar had appeared below my HP, mana, and stamina. It was gray and semi-transparent, filled to about a quarter. What was that bar? Experience. 25 out of 100. Yes, having checked the log, I realized, for each of the rats I had killed, I got 5 experience points. Interesting. The SPHERE didn’t feature levels. What’ll happen when I get 100 experience? Let’s find out.

  The skeleton proved to be a dangerous opponent. Remembering my first death, this time, I decided to think more carefully. I figured, in order to defeat him, I had to explore the other tunnels. Where do I go? Of course, to the left.

  The left tunnel from the Rat’s Merge was long and dry. Just as I suspected, it led nowhere. Though, this time, there was a door. The thick wooden door that turned green with age, had thick copper strips. I pulled the handle. No use. The door was locked. I pushed against it with my shoulder trying to force it open, but the system kindly informed me, I needed 50 Durability, when I only had one. 50! How do I get it up to 50?