Orc Glitch- The Mad King

by KJ Harlow

  “You must be the orc Kai informed me of.” A older, shorter werejaguar shuffled out from behind the fire. While she was blue like the werejaguars who fought the eryn, her fur was more so the color of the sky on a hot, summer’s day. The cane she gripped in her right hand was topped with the skull of a small rodent, ruby eyes gleaming from its sockets.

  “Karst imbues you, Elder Keizen,” Gram said. Keizen raised a hand to brush the greeting away.

  “You are in the midst of the Elder of Rawdriad village, orc! Kneel!” Kai’s snarling voice pierced into Cal from behind.

  “Now, now Kai. Let us not stand on social propriety. Orc or not, he is still a visitor to our village,” Keizen said, shaking her head slowly.

  Kai pushed off the wall, standing in line with the Cal and Gram. “Grandmother–!”

  “That is enough, Kai.” Kai dipped his head and swallowed his indignation.

  Keizen turned back to the visitor. “Kai tells me your name is Cal.”

  “It’s actually Callahan, but I preferred to be called Cal.”

  Her eyes twinkled. “I see.” Gram and Kai watched a few paces away as the Elder shuffled around him.

  “Kai tells me that you were the orc who prevented us from defeating the eryn from the last moon.” She stopped in front of him. Her eyes glowed red like the gnarled metal creature on her staff. “He ripped your throat out.”

  Cal cleared his throat. “That, he did.” Kai smothered another throaty purr-laugh a few feet away.

  “If that is the case, could you explain to me how it is you stand before me today?” Erika had a ginger tabby cat with a stump for a tail before it got run over. It would claw his legs and spray his wheelchair at every opportunity. Every time he looked at it, it seemed to always be watching him. As Keizen stared into his face, he couldn’t help but feel she was hunting for a certain answer.

  He had been so distracted by everything around him that he hadn’t considered his story. Oh well, honesty is the best policy.

  “I might look like an orc, but I’m not. Like I said, my name’s Callahan and I come from Earth. This,” Cal waved his big, green hands vaguely around the room, “is all a video game called ValorVale.” The gigantic fire popped behind Keizen, sending sparks whizzing into the air. She didn’t blink.

  “Right now, I’m lying in a hospital bed, wearing a headset that has transported me into Terrafaytum. On Earth, I can’t walk. I have a… condition that cripples me. My friend got me ValorVale as a birthday present. It came with the latest Sol headset. So when I put it on, I became an orc and can walk around. I guess I took I wrong turn the other day and got myself involved in the beef between you werecats and the eryn.”

  “Insolence!” Kai roared. In a flash, he had closed the distance between the wall and Cal, his weapon aflame and raised.

  “Kai!” Gram barked. He grabbed Kai around his torso and dragged him to the floor.

  “Unhand me! This orc is clearly insane! He had the nerve to call us ‘werecats’!”

  “My bad, I meant ‘werejaguars’.” The heat in the room was rising and it wasn’t just because of the bonfire churning away in the middle. Luckily for Cal, it seemed like the Elder was equal parts curious and amused.

  “You didn’t answer my question, Callahan. If Kai killed you, how is it that you stand before me today?”

  “Oh, right. Well, being a video game, I respawn when I die. That sort of means I come back to life at my last checkpoint, minus a few things like unallocated stat points. The first time I played, I started on one end of Mercat Lake. The second time, I was on the other side, close to the entrance of the forest. Guess that means–”

  Cal blinked. A flaming spear was protruding out of his chest, pointing at an angle towards the ceiling.

  “Kai!” Keizen snarled.

  “He said that he can come back to life. I wanted to see for myself.” Gram released her grip on Kai, dusted herself off and stood up.

  “Apologies, Elder. I couldn’t restrain him.”

  Keizen put a small hand on Cal’s chest. “Callahan?”

  Cal couldn’t hear her. He fell to his knees, then his side. He closed his eyes. Great, maybe now I can...

  You have died

  You will continue from last save point.

  OK

  4

  Brain Dead

  “Ma’am, I will tell you what’s going on as soon as we know. Please wait outside; we can’t have you in here.” Aristotle didn't get headaches when he saw patients. Rather, his mind would clear up. In fact, the more complicated the issue, the sharper his focus would be. He only had headaches when his ER wasn't being managed properly and right now, it felt like his head was under the wheel of a Mack Truck.

  A nurse slipped up beside him. “Dr. Tran, another one?”

  Aristotle nodded gravely. “Wheel this one into the cafeteria. Don’t let the mother see.” He looked around the ER. 10-car pile ups? A couple came through last year. A football team struck by lightning? Yep, no one in the team died, plus they ended up winning the match.

  He put his hands on his hips, surveying the damage. 50 beds, all filled with the brain dead. Mostly male, they ranged from teens to young adults. He had hooked the first few up to monitor their vitals. Everything was normal: heart rate, breathing, blood pressure. The only thing that wasn’t was their brain. The EEG showed flat lines.

  What made even less sense were the explanations the people who brought the patients in were giving. They were playing some sort of VR-MMORPG, one of those damn video games where you wear a headset. Aristotle had heard a few dozen hysterical explanations and while they varied, they had one disturbing similarity: the people who brought them in took the headset off while they were playing.

  It made no sense. He’d treated ‘phantom’ pain, even PTSD from people getting killed in game, but brain death from taking the headset off? He furrowed his brow as an intern waved at him from across the room. Another one. It was like the headset supplied charge to their brain and taking it off was like pulling the plug out.

  Aristotle took his glasses off, polished them and put them back on. He hadn’t even broken the news to the first patient’s parents when another half a dozen burst through the doors, streaming through the ER and down towards the cafeteria. He glanced at his smart watch: 20:47. It was going to be a long night.

  “Dr. Tran!” A woman with chestnut-brown hair down just past her shoulders ran in. Where have I see her before? He arched an eyebrow as she put her hands on her knees, gulping air down.

  “How’s Cal doing?”

  “Oh, Erika right?” The day that Cal stopped coming for his regular check-ups, he stopped seeing her too. “You’ve grown.”

  She appeared not to have heard this. “Have you checked on Cal today?”

  Aristotle frowned. “I was going to, but then all these brain dead people started coming–”

  Erika collided into his shoulder. “I’m sorry.” The emergency exit door hissed as she took the steps up two at a time.

  Please let me get there in time. Aristotle rounded the corner, his white coat fluttering in haste. He spotted the ‘5503’ on the wall, seven doors down.

  “Erika! Don’t take off his headset!”

  He gripped the sides of the door frame, catching his breath. Erika stood by Cal’s bedside, arms hanging by her side. Her head was downcast as she took in the sorry sight. Thank Christ.

  “An event started in ValorVale a few hours ago called the Battle of Urath.” Erika said lifelessly. Aristotle swept in, rolling the EEG to the other side of Cal’s bed. He stole glances at Cal’s childhood friend as he carefully slid the probes underneath the Sol headset and attached them to his temples.

  “Anyone who participated was promised limited edition epic gear and their choice at selecting a King or Queen to pledge their allegiance to.” Why was she telling me this?

  “My Twitter feed was blowing up. People all over the world were being rushed to the hospital because…”

  “Someone pu
lled off the headset while they were playing.” Erika and Aristotle’s eyes met above Cal.

  “The Firestorm Studios website is down. The CEO has been approached for comment, but there hasn’t been any response. I…” Erika cupped her mouth. Oh no, no waterworks please…

  She sniffed and exhaled shudderingly. “How is he?”

  “It’s hard to say from preliminary readings, but it looks like…” Erika didn’t dare to breathe. “Oh.”

  “What?”

  “He has brain activity.” Aristotle set his mouth into a thin line. Dragging his eyes away from the monitor he glanced at Erika. “The other patients in the ER flatlined. They were brain dead. No one home. Have a look at this.” Erika strode to the other side of the bed. “You see these ups and downs in the line? That means that there’s brain activity.” Aristotle furrowed his brow.

  “But…?”

  Aristotle was quiet for about a minute as he mentally pored through the medical lore in his brain. “When people play this game, do they go to sleep?”

  Erika frowned. “I don’t think so. You’re in a conscious state the entire time. Is Cal not–”

  “No, he is. It’s just that…” Aristotle muttered to himself. “See these lines here?” Erika nodded. “This is called theta-band activity. You see this sort of activity at the edge of consciousness and unconsciousness. In other words, just when you’re about to fall asleep.” He crossed his arms and straightened his back. “The brain still thinks it’s awake. This sleep can usually be pretty easily disrupted.”

  Please be theta… he held Cal’s head still with one hand and delivered a stinging slap across his face with the other.

  Erika’s hands flew up to her mouth. “Why did you…?” Aristotle’s eyes bore into Cal’s brain. Come on… a minute passed and he didn’t stir.

  Aristotle shoulders slumped. “It makes no sense.” Erika was silent. “Even though EEG shows theta-band activity, it’s more like he’s in Stage 3 sleep.”

  “Deep sleep,” Erika said. Aristotle glanced at her. She had woven her fingers into Cal’s warm hand.

  “Here.” Erika smiled sadly at the doctor and accepted the chair. “What do you know about this event in the game?”

  “Only what I heard online.”

  Aristotle pulled the curtains open. He leant on the window sill. A few, eager stars had already begun their shift, shining through the rosy twilight. How on earth does a video game render someone brain dead?

  Erika probed the headset. “What if we just turned it off?”

  “I wouldn’t do that. It’s clear that the connection between the headset and the user’s consciousness becomes deeply entwined in game. Especially after this Battle you mentioned.” Aristotle took his glasses off and cleaned them on the hem of his white coat. “I suggest you keep it plugged in.”

  Erika pulled the box out of the brown, paper bag and opened it. The power cable was still in its original condition, bound in a circle and with a twist tie keeping it from unravelling. She found the charging socket and lined the cable up with it. It clicked into place magnetically and a tiny, green, battery icon appeared on the visor.

  All the while, Aristotle busied himself listening to Cal’s breathing, checking his pulse and carefully sliding his fingers under the visor to check his pupils. “His body is fine. I’m just not sure where he is at the moment.”

  Erika rested her chin on the bed; her hand hadn’t separated from Cal’s the entire time. His palm was slightly clammy. She unfurled his fingers and pressed into the middle of his hand with her thumb, as if there was a button that would bring him back.

  “He’s not far.”

  5

  Keizen’s Questions

  20,155th Cycle

  3-Karst

  Exit, damn it. Exit, exit, exit!

  “You’ll have to excuse Kai. He can be… temperamental sometimes.” Gram watched the orc become increasingly frustrated.

  Cal collapsed the screen. Shouldn’t have come back into this game. Shouldn’t have played it at all. “Is everything OK?” Gram asked.

  Cal stopped and turned to the feline. “Do you believe me?” Gram’s eyes were large, giving off a golden glow in the dappled shade of Rawdriad Forest.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Before, when I said that I came from a different world, Earth, and that everything was a game and that I was a human who couldn’t walk… did you believe me?”

  Gram considered the orc’s question. “I only believe what I can see with my own eyes.”

  “So you don’t believe me then.”

  “I believe that you can ‘respawn’ as you call it.”

  Cal sighed, deep and low. After finding himself on the wrong side of Kai’s spear, he had respawned on the edge of Mercat Lake. Gram was waiting there when he came to existence; the look on her face said it all. Now that he had convinced her that he could do this, he just had to find a way to prove that this world was all just a video game.

  A tiny, dangerous thought seeded itself in his mind. What if I’m stuck here? What if I can’t go back? He’d never eat another pizza ever again. Never watch another movie. And Erika. He closed his eyes. He had been such a dick to her after she had given him the gift. What if that was the last time they ever spoke?

  Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. ‘Nothing is certain but death and taxes’, or whatever the saying was. The government’s pity money made it a non-issue, but combined with the piddly income he got from Moon Macrosystems, he gave most of it back anyway. He could be speaking too soon, though. There could have been a central bank in Terrafaytum for all he knew.

  Cal looked across at Gram. It was weird how the only thing human about werejaguars was their hands. Their legs, body, head and especially their tail… everything else was cat-like. Duh Cal, how else would they hold their spears?

  “Can I help you, Cal?”

  Might as well try and make small talk. “What happened the other day with the… eryn was it?”

  The air between Gram and Cal became a couple of degrees hotter. “A team of our fighters were training in the glade about two leagues west of the village. The eryn attacked us. I believe it had come down from the Valley of Anguish.”

  “Why did it attack you?”

  “You were there, were you not? We were too busy trying to defend ourselves from her to ask questions.”

  “So it’s not normal for them to attack out of the blue like that?”

  Gram stopped. “‘Out of the blue?’”

  Right, different world. “Errr… unprovoked.” The snowy wildcat nodded.

  “In a way, werejaguars and eryn are similar races. We have a leader who oversees the entire race. Our doors are open to outsiders but we keep to ourselves. If we are attacked, we will fight back. Always.” Gram abruptly stopped and closed her eyes. She turned her face up, her ears flickering on their own. Red moon beams pierced the canopy like the spears the werejaguars wielded.

  A fathomless quiet settled over the forest. Peace draped itself over Cal and Gram, like silk woven from moonlight. It was the first time since he slipped on the Sol headset that he had time to breathe.

  “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you could just let me go?” Cal asked.

  Gram opened her eyes. “Let you go where?”

  Gram opened his mouth and closed it after a few seconds. Where would he go? All he knew was Rawdriad Forest and Mercat Lake. As much as he hated to admit it, the werejaguars were his only friends in this world, if they could be called that.

  “Don’t worry. I just reckon that if I went back to Rawdriad Village, Kai would impale me again. It’s not fun dying, even if you’re an immortal like me.”

  Gram laughed, deep and throaty and Cal’s orc heart skipped a beat. “Elder Keizen has been chastising him from the moment he impaled you back in the main chamber. He won’t be doing anything that stupid again any time soon.” Something in the tone of her voice told Cal that she didn’t quite believe her own words.

  Cal and Gram
walked in comfortable silence. Might as well check my stats:

  NAME: Callahan Rogers

  AGE: 29 (Earth)

  CLASS: Orc Fighter

  LVL: 6

  HP: 105/105

  MP: 105/105

  AFF: Earth (x1)

  STR: 10

  DEF: 10

  AGL: 11

  INT: 10

  ABILITY: Examine, Verdant Whisper

  SKILL: Earth Wall – Level 1 – Next Level in 47%

  WEAPON: Axe – Level E – Next Level in 87%

  “Gram.”

  “Mmm?”

  “This might be a weird question, but can you bring up a status screen?”

  “Of course.” Gram’s yellow irises seemed to glow faintly. “You can’t see mine though. We’re not in a party.”

  Cal chuckled. He had to hand it to the devs. The world they created was so immersive that he had forgotten he had just been talking to a bundle of 0’s and 1’s. Nothing around them was real. Yet…

  “Duck!”

  His legs moved faster than his brain could process. Still getting used to the idea of having functioning legs, Cal hit the forest floor. The loamy surface cushioned most of the blow but stars still tumbled into his line of vision.

  You are dazed!

  +30% chance of hurting yourself in confusion!

  Cal planted his arms onto the floor and pushed himself into a crouching position. A burst of heat momentarily lit up the trees seven yards away.

  What the hell are those? Gram grasped her spear in both her hands. Three wasps each the size of a small child hovered around her. Covered in inch-long, striped, black and acid-yellow fuzz, they were taking it in turns throwing themselves stinger first at Gram. He focused on the one closest to him.

  "Examine," Cal whispered.

  NAME: Direwasp

  LVL: 9

  AFF: Wind

  HP: 180/180

  MP: 110/110

  ABILITY: Poison Sting