Glitch Boxset

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by Victor Deckard

Then I went upstairs and looked out one window. The sun was almost down. The invasion of the night mutants would soon begin. But I wasn’t surveying the terrain. Instead, I was looking up at the space station.

  Soon UFOs showed up and flew in different directions, streaking across the night sky. One of them was seemingly moving in my general direction. After some time passed, it zipped over my house. I ran across the room and looked out the window facing the opposite direction. The UFO disappeared in the distance in mere seconds. Then the purple beam shot up in the night sky.

  I raced down the stairs, taking several at a time. Reaching the garage, I opened the door, hopped on the bike, and shot out. Yanking at the handlebars, I executed a tight U-turn, dust kicking up around the tires, and guided the bike toward the purple light.

  The night air was filling with shrill screams of mutants spawning all around me, but I ignored them. Those materialized in front of me out of the air I skirted or ran over. Finally, I reached the base of the purple beam, which was a chest. I came to a stop several feet from the chest and got off the bike.

  Unfortunately, the lid of the chest wouldn’t lift. To get the chest open, I needed to push a button on the right side of the chest. Which I did. However, the lid was lifting way too slow. I realized there was no way the chest would open before the mobs circled me in.

  I straddled the bike and started driving around the chest, gunning down the overgrown bugs with my legendary pistol. Soon the first way was finished but the chest hadn’t opened yet. I figured that it would take a lid all night to get lifted. Dammit.

  After some waves passed, other players started to pull up to the chest to take whatever was inside. But I didn’t let them do that. Thanks to my unique outfit and powerful legendary pistol, I could handle myself, taking care of both the mobs and other players.

  Eventually, the night was over. When the last mob was killed, a message popped up.

  > Congratulations! You’ve survived!

  The night was over. The sun had already started to rise above the eastern horizon.

  I walked up to the chest, which was wide open now. There was a pistol inside. The first thing that I noticed was that unlike all the other items in the game, the pistol wasn’t emanating any light. It was sure strange.

  Before I could fix my gaze on the pistol to read its stats, a piece of text appeared before my eyes.

  > You have found out that the UFOs place chests at night, in which you can find useful items. The purple beams indicate the locations of such chests. Now you are going to––

  Then something weird happened. Before I could read all the text, the words started to switch around before my eyes until they formed an altogether different message.

  I read it.

  > Hey Max,

  > If you are reading this, it means that you have just finished the quest and we were finally able to get through to you. You sure have a lot of questions. How have you ended up in the game? Who is responsible for this? Who are we? How do we know about you? And so on. We’ll tell you everything later on. Moreover, we know everything about you. We know how you got trapped in this game, who is responsible for this, and so on. We know everything and we’re willing to explain this to you. But not now. There’s a lot to fill you in on but this message can contain only so many characters. So what you need to do is to complete all the main missions. By that time you complete all the main quests, we’ll have found a way to get you out of the game. We’ve been working on this for a while. But it’s a secret. If the developers find out about you––a player trapped in the game––as well as about us trying to help you out, they’ll tell THEM about it and we all will be in dire trouble. And you don’t want to mess with THEM. So, please, don’t have your friends post any more threads on the official forum. It was we who deleted the thread your friend created. We were fortunate enough to erase the thread before the developers and THEY could learn about it. THEY don’t know about you yet and it’s better for you as well as for us to keep it this way. So if you want to get out of the game, try to keep a low profile from now on.

  > About this pistol you found in the chest. It’s a kinda glitch. It deals lots of damage. It can help you out when you’re in a bad jam. Resort to it only when you really need it because if you fire it too often, the developers will learn about it and fix the pistol. And if they learn about the pistol, they also sure as heck will learn about you.

  > We almost reached the character limit. Hang in there, Max. We will have found a way to get you of the game by the time you get all the main missions done. Rest assured, we will make this happen.

  As soon as I read the message, it instantly disappeared as if whoever had written it was afraid that someone else might read it.

  A notification popped up.

  > The Main Quest 02: Sky beams completed!

  > Reward:

  > Exp: +3000

  > Money: +5500

  As soon as the text vanished, another emerged.

  > The Main Quest 03 is available! Check the map to find it.

  It was fully light already. The players and the mobs I had killed during the night as well as the chest had disappeared. The pistol was still on the ground, though. I fixed my gaze on it.

  > Name: gL1TcH

  > Weapon type: Pistol

  > Rarity: unknown

  > Level requirement: unknown

  > Damage: unknown

  > Accuracy: unknown

  > Fire rate: unknown

  > Magazine size: unknown

  > Elemental damage: unknown

  I bent over, picked the pistol up, and stowed it away in my bag. Mounted my bike, kicked it into life, and went roaring for my house.

  Whoever had written the message that had replaced the quest description had been right about me having lots of questions. After reading the message, I had even more questions like who had written it or why they were willing to help me out.

  What interested me the most, however, was who were those mysterious THEY. Whoever had written the message was really scared of THEM for some reason and told me that I should exercise discretion so that not to pop up on THEIR radar.

  Who were THEY? Why should I be afraid if THEM if they didn’t even know about me? What THEY had to do with my having been trapped in the game? What was THEIR role in it all?

  Like I had said, I had lots of questions to which I had no answers yet.

  Once at home, I removed the mysterious pistol from my bag and put it into one chest. Then I checked the map. To get the next main mission I needed to get over to the next location, which was designed for players whose level ranged from 20 to 30. My character level was already 20. Good.

  I mounted the bike and hit the road.

  THE END OF THE BOOK FIVE

  TO BE CONTINUED…

  Glitch Book Six

  Chapter One

  > Available quests:

  > The Final Main Mission (*)

  > Description: Hey Max. This is the final mission. It’s pretty simple and straightforward. All you need to do is reach one of the purple beams that appear at night and get within it. Any beam will do. But you need to do it before the UFO that created the beam flies away. When the UFO activates a purple beam, the UFO usually hovers above the beam for a few seconds and then flies away. However, now that we’ve tweaked the game code, all the UFOs will stay immobile for about thirty seconds. So keep it in mind. If you don’t get within a beam in time, you’ll need to try to do it again next night. After you finish this quest, we’ll fill you in on everything you want to know. How you’ve gotten inside the game, who’s responsible, etc. Can’t wait to finally meet you face to face. See ya soon, bud.

  > Goal: Get inside one of the purple beams.

  > Reward:

  > 1. Experience points: +755,000

  > 2. Money: +50,000

  > (*) Note: Be aware that if you accept the quest, you’ll need to go to a special location that you won’t be able to leave until y
ou complete the quest.

  > (Do you want to accept the quest: Yes/No)

  I accepted the quest. The page refreshed.

  > There are no available quests at the moment!

  I got back to my car––a very fast and maneuverable off-road vehicle––climbed in behind the steering wheel, and turned the key in the ignition. The engine purred to life. After putting the car into gear, I pulled out of the alley my car was parked in.

  I was deep in thought as I slowly rolled through the streets of the Dead City, the final location in the game with level requirement ranging from 95 to 100.

  The final level in the game was 100. I had recently leveled up to 97. I had also completed all the main missions save for the final one. My mysterious friends––the people who had gotten in touch with me via the main quest descriptions––had promised to get me out of the game by the time I would finish the main quests. My level was now 97 and the main quests were all but completed, yet I was still trapped in the game. Moreover, I still didn’t know anything about my so-called friends. Except for giving me a glitchy pistol a couple of months before, they hadn’t done jack to help me out.

  Speaking of the glitchy pistol, it was a puzzle. Although the handgun had no stats whatsoever, it dealt lots of damage to both mobs and players. Moreover, the pistol even did various additional elemental damage to my targets sometimes.

  Eager to reach the final level 100 and get all the main missions done in order to get the heck out of the game to my normal life, I had thrown caution to the wind. As a result of that, I had had a few close calls in the past several weeks, almost getting myself whacked. But thanks to the glitchy powerful sidearm, I had extricated myself from those jams every time.

  However, something was odd. Every time I used the glitchy pistol, the white spherical drones would appear. It took them a few minutes to several hours to show up. Once materialized, the flying robots would attack me.

  It was very strange. I had already met such robots twice. I had first met them when fighting the mobs at the Arena along with Christine and I had encountered such drones for the second time during the game updating. On those two occasions, the drones had paid no attention to me at all.

  The flying robots had no stats. I could hardly interact with them. Moreover, the white flying robots only materialized out of the air either when there were no players in the game––for example, during the game updates––or in such places where players couldn’t go to, which was why the robots were always beyond players’ line of sight. Players weren’t even aware of those drones existence.

  Their job was to maintain the game. Or so it seemed.

  But after I started using the glitchy pistol, they had begun to materialize out of the air somewhere near my character. They then charged at me, firing something along the lines of bolts of lighting and dealing electrical damage to me. After having a few such encounters with the drones, I decided to use the glitchy pistol only when push came to shove because the white flying robots were very tough to destroy.

  I lifted my left hand to consult the map. According to the final mission description, I would only have about half a minute to get into a purple beam. If I decided to stay in this location, I would have to navigate through the streets of this big city, taking side streets and the turns at the intersections in order to follow a fast-moving UFO. That would terribly slow me down. When a UFO would slow to a hover over some place to activate a beam, I would have thirty or so seconds to reach the place and get inside the purple beam. Being in the urban jungle, it was all but impossible to accomplish in such a brief period of time.

  So I decided to get to a desert location which was next to the Dead City. I had a building containing spare weapons, armor, and recourses almost in every location in the game. After consulting the map, I got on the highway leading toward the way out of the city and gunned the engine.

  By the time I reached the desert, a message popped up in the log.

  > Attention! The night will fall in 60 minutes!

  Since I didn’t know what to expect from the final mission, I’d better gear up so that to be prepared for anything. So I headed for the nearest vending machine to buy ammo and consumables. I bought plenty of stimulators and vigors to restore health and mana respectively and stowed them away in my bag. The bullets that I had bought were high-velocity. I had been using such bullets since the very first days in the game. They decreased weapon damage but their velocity was very high.

  > Name: Pistol bullets

  > Type: High-velocity

  > Rarity: Rare (blue)

  > Level: 96

  > Damage: –255

  > Bullet velocity: +1450

  > Special quality: Cold

  > Elemental damage: Cold

  > The stats of the elemental damage:

  > Description: This gun can place a debuff on a foe that decreases his or her movement speed over some time. While the debuff is active, the foe is getting hurt by cold damage.

  > The chance of placing the debuff on a foe is 70 percent

  > The duration of the debuff is 15 seconds

  > The damage that is dealt to a foe is 185 points per second

  Between my pistol loaded with the high-velocity bullets and its quite high Fire Rate attribute, along with my timely using the Acceleration psi-power to increase my movement speed, I was a very dangerous opponent and a really hard target to hit for both mobs and other players.

  This done, I stepped away from the vending machine, climbed back in my car, and continued with my journey.

  It took me about fifteen minutes more to reach one of my houses. After pulling into the garage, I climbed out of the car. First of all, I checked my gear.

  > Name: Punisher

  > Weapon type: Pistol

  > Rarity: Unique (purple)

  > Level requirement: 95

  > Damage: 1750

  > Accuracy: 295

  > Fire rate: 950

  > Magazine size: 30

  > Special quality 1: Increases the critical damage by 50 percent.

  > Special quality 2: When held in both your hands, the damage the pistol deals gets boosted by 100 percent.

  > Condition: 3586/5000

  > Elemental damage: Fire

  > The stats of the Fire elemental damage:

  > Description: This gun can place a debuff on a foe that set him or her on fire. While the debuff is active, the foe is getting hurt by fire damage.

  > The chance of placing the debuff on a foe is 65 percent

  > The duration of the debuff is 90 seconds

  > The damage that is dealt to a foe is 175 points per second

  The pistol was damaged. Had to fix it. Since I had the Repair skill and enough metal––the resource needed for repairing the weapon––I could repair my handgun. After I fixed my gaze on the firearm, a message popped up before my eyes.

  > To repair the pistol, you need:

  > Metal: 197

  > You’ve got:

  > Metal: 1039

  > You’ve got enough resources for repairing this item.

  > (Do you want to repair the Punisher: Yes/No)

  I pressed the Yes button and the page refreshed.

  > Condition: 5000/5000

  In the log, a notification emerged.

  > Metal: –197

  This done, I lifted my left hand, looked at the crystal again, and brought up Inventory.

  > Leather outfit (DONNED)

  > Unique bag (DONNED)

  > Unique belt (DONNED)

  > Unique holster (DONNED)

  > Punisher (unique pistol) (HOLSTERED)

  > Pistol ammo: 450 cartridges/15 magazines (BAGGED)

  > Stimulator: 20 (BAGGED)

  > Vigor: 20 (BAGGED)

  > Pieces of giant bug meat: 18 (BAGGED)

  I was interested only in the lather outfit I was attired in. Once I fixed my gaze on it, its stats appeared before my eyes. I shifted my gaze
toward the bottom line.

  > Condition: 6586/15000

  The jacket was somewhat damaged as well. I fixed it.

  Finally, all the preparations for the final mission were made. I lower my left hand as a message appeared in the log.

  > Attention! The night will fall in 10 minutes!

  I then went upstairs to look out one window. The sun was already down. The invasion of the night mobs would soon begin. However, I wasn’t surveying the terrain or looking for monsters. Instead, I was staring up at the X-shaped space station.

  Soon the final message appeared.

  > Attention! The night has just fallen!

  After some time passed, several UFOs showed up, emerging out of the space station and flying in different directions, streaking across the night sky. One of those things was seemingly moving in the general direction of the house I was in. After a couple of minutes elapsed, the object zipped over my building. I raced over the room to the window facing the opposite direction and looked out. The UFO was flying incredibly fast.

  I dashed down the stairs, taking them three or four at a time. Once in the garage, I jumped in the car and punched the button to remotely open the garage door. When it was high enough to let my car squeeze through, I floored it and shot out. Yanking at the steering wheel, I executed a tight U-turn, dust kicking up around the tires, and guided the car across the desert in the direction in which the UFO was heading. I shifted up through successive gears, picking up speed. Fifty. Sixty. Seventy-five miles an hour.

 

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