《Gods and Men: A litRPG Adventure》


 01

    "Holy fucking shit its here!" I screamed, jumping around my apartment like a child. A thumping sound from beneath my floor communicated to me the wishes of the others living in my building. I stopped and sat on my bed, breathing deeply as an exercise of self-control. What had brought me to this level of emotion I hear you ask, well the release of a new game.


    Sure, of course I had played other games before, and you wouldn''t be wrong to say that I had been excited for the release of them as well. But if you were to say that I would first counter with, why have you been watching me followed very promptly by the statement that as good as all of those games had been, none of them even nearly compared to what had just been released.


    ''Legend Has It.''


    The first ever full dive game. Yes I know how pretentious that sounds, you''re probably thinking Bart, this is real life, not some shitty light novel. That or some snide remark at my name, a choice by my parents that I had suffered for greatly in primary school. Anyway off topic again, yes it does seem rather fantastical for a full dive to have been released but after a swathe of medical and technological breakthroughs, we had arrived at the present. A world that had a game in which you could truly become your character, and I was understandably hyped.


    Sure I had used full dive before, it had been around for nearly a year now. But until this point, it was used as nothing more than a convenient place for businesses to conference with each other and a platform for exceptional porn. A medium which I am unashamed to have tried.


    ''Legend Has It'' had been developed at a breakneck speed by two men and anyone who they could pay or convince to volunteer. It was a passion project, an ''MMORPG'' that these two geniuses from Silicon Valley had slaved at. They had refused big sponsorships, stating on their social media that they wouldn''t "whore out their dream" for big companies. Legend has it was a world in which the player takes the form of a spirit of their own making. A unique idea in which no one plays a mortal character and the players fight for the worship and prayers of the people of the land, (npc''s) The concept was somewhat simple, the more prayers or followers, the more power that your character gains. I thought it was interesting as it encouraged a variety of playstyles. For example, I had heard people on the forums discussing playing as evil tyrants and forming a pantheon together.


    Oh shit yeah I forgot, pantheons are basically the guild mechanic, if you and a couple mates wanted to help one another then you formed a pantheon and shared prayers from your group of followers.


    I stopped my internal monologue and wondered why I had been talking to myself in such a conversation manner. Was I going mad? I shook my head and began walking downstairs. I lived in the space above a small family cafe. A place I was looking to stock up at, I wasn''t planning on leaving my room for a while. It was the holidays at my college and without any close family I was planning on boost levelling the living shit out of myself.


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    I walked into the shop from a side door into the kitchen and was met by an interior that one would, if they were being kind, describe as modern or technical and if they weren''t as clinical and reminiscent of a hospital. It wasn''t the nicest place but it sold cheap coffee, food and was close to a university so nonetheless, it held onto a dedicated fan base.


    I sashayed up to the counter, a winning smile plaster on my face and my eyes locked with the owner''s daughter, the current attendant at the register. She noticed me to if the slight blush and the crossing of her arms around herself was any indication. I leaned against the counter and winked at her.


    "The usual?" She asked meekly, her eyes darting anywhere but me.


    "You know me so well." My smile reaching predatory levels. It was nice to be noticed, something she did quite a lot of, it wasn''t that I was particularly handsome and nor was she. But I was above average and the few perks of a literature degree were seeming smart to girls so I got by.


    "Here you go, three muffins, one hamburger and a black coffee." She handed me the bag of my stuff and was tactful in her willful ignorance of how much I consistently bought from this cafe. In my defence the food was cheap and it was either this or the can of beans that was left in my fridge. But those beans looked as though they were older than me and as such, I refrained. Cafe food for me.


    Next, I made a show of slapping my pockets and then looking at her bashfully. She looked at me oblivious for a moment before the cutest look of realisation blossomed upon her face.


    "Oh no Bart, did you leave your wallet at university again?" She asked, genuine concern flooding her features and voice.


    "It would appear that way, I''m so sorry I''ll pay you back tomorrow. Promise."


    "Ok, you need to take better care of yourself." She said and I had the impression she was going to say more, but I had a game to play and was already halfway up the stairs to my apartment by the time she had finished speaking. All with absolutely no intention of paying her back.


    I walked into my room half a muffin already shoved into my grinning face.


    "Did you miss me, baby?" I said through a mouthful of a muffin to the dive helmet resting on my bed. I danced toward the setup and lay down next to it and caressed its side. "We are going to have fun you and I." My cackling was muffled by the helmet when it was put on and my vision was filled with large white lettering that read, ''Initialising.''


    I lay on my bed, fidgeting slightly as I waited for the initialising to come to an end. When it did and my vision went dark my mind filled with all the possibilities of a new world. My new Eden, where I can be whoever the fuck I want.

 02

    White, white everywhere. It was as if my eyes had been packed with freshly fallen snow, or I had been transported to a midwestern Catholic church. I was floating in a void of pure and featureless blankness. Wondering whether or not the game had glitched I began to fly around, it was then that I realised that my body was gone. It was a weird and unpleasant sensation to be disembodied, a consciousness devoid of a vessel. I wasn''t sure how I should feel, on one hand, it was freeing, like skinny dipping, I felt light and fast. On the other, I found myself craving stability in a way I had never before. And when the time came I was happy to be placed back in my body.


    Standing on a floor that was indistinguishable from the sky I found myself back in my lanky body, complete with track pants and the hoodie I had worn for the past 4 days, Pleasant. The white room seemed had changed since my transformation most notably it was now populated with a plain wooden door, a sign on which indicating that this was the entrance to ''Legend Has It,'' I shrugged and walked through briskly. After doing this I would find myself falling and regretting my choices quite vehemently as it appeared the doorway had no floor on the other side of it and I was quite disorientingly falling through a white void, identical in appearance to the previous room.


    "Shit fuck, piece of shit game!" I yelled in abject terror and rage. What kind of game does this, it has to be a lawsuit waiting to happen right, like what if some kid freaks the fuck out and dies of shock. Fuck that what if I die of shock.


    The wind, however, was taken out of me as my fall was suddenly arrested, much like a person of colour in a midwestern church. I was left wondering what the fuck was going on while restrained in a limbo. Soon after I was let go and resumed falling for about 50cm before landing on the ground in a heap. Scrambling to my feet I began to brush myself off and square my shoulders to the distance in a futile attempt to appear larger and tougher than I was.


    "Greeting being of the Aether. It appears you want to enter into the mortal realm. If this is so you must first answer, the questions." A booming voice spoke from an undisclosed or discernable location. I chuckled internally for a moment, the questions it sounded so cliche that it was hard to take the guy seriously even after the fall, it was only a game after all.


    "Lay them on me then oh disembodied one," I spoke grandiosely whilst performing a mock bow. I wasn''t entirely sure why I acted the way I did, in hindsight, I supposed it may have been some sought of inherent defence mechanism. That, however, was beside the point, as after I answered the being three pillars rose from the featureless white mass that passed for ground, each around one and a half metres in height and with an object resting upon them.


    The first pillar was covered in a layer of spongy moss and was layered in a series of motley mushrooms and vines that grew from somewhere within the mass of nature, resting upon the top, however, was a small, emerald cartouche. The second pillar was crafted out of a roiling mass of shadow and creeping darkness. it looked to be bleeding in an odd, unnatural way, more of an oozing tar. Resting upon it was an eye, it looked around the room frantically, blinking rapidly in abject panic. The third and final pillar looked to be crafted out of pure and unmarred light, radiant in its holiness and resting upon its surface was a small flame, it wasn''t burning from any obvious source of fuel and seemed to survive through sheer willpower.


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    I stared at the pillars for almost a minute in silence waiting for the disembodied voice. I cleared my throat and shifted my weight from foot to foot. Staring at the pillars. It was then that I realised I was meant to choose between them.


    "Fucking idiot," I mumbled under my breath as I trudged toward the pillars. This had to be some kind of abstract character creation, choose an object that corresponds to the character you want to play, they were making the player work for it a plus in my book, it helped create a form of mystery. Standing before the pillars I raised my arm above the objects, my fingers dancing as I puzzled as to their hidden meaning. After several moments I came to a tentative conclusion.


    Light, absolute and unyielding, it perseveres and stays for as long as it needs to, to overcome its enemies. Dark, corrupting and oozing, it doesn''t rush because it doesn''t have to, it knows that eventually all things will return to darkness and so it waits, oozing and spreading influence, placing and moving pieces across the board until the night comes.


    it was the first pillar that actually had me stuck. In passing, I saw it as a sure thing, nature. Plants, trees and elves, all things basic bitch fantasy game players love, I mean they had to appeal to the casual player who wants to be a beautiful elf, using flower magic and controlling their haram of nature peoples. Except, the cartouche didn''t fit with that. The cartouche represents power, royalty and legitimacy. Not very akin with a mushroom or moss. Unless.


    "Life," I mumbled as the cogs began to turn in my head. Similiar to nature but not entirely. Life wasn''t pure nor was it evil and corrupting, it just was. Life was noble and it was powerful. It was there before concepts such as good and evil light and dark and it would be thereafter. My hand unconsciously wrapped its fingers around the small carved gem, gripping it with white-knuckle intensity. I didn''t notice it until it finally shattered in my hand producing a thin, green tinted mist that began to expand and swirl around me.


    "Good choice, today you are a creature of the Aether no longer, take your place primal spirit of the world heart. Take your place with a sword or with magic but no matter the means people will remember you, they will tell your story and when they do they will say. Legend has it that today. A god was born."


    I smiled, I was starting to like this game.

 03

    "So then I said, I''ll stab you in your fucking face how about that!" Screamed a Scottish man who was sitting next to me at the bar of a cordoned off area in which we were waiting. He had been loudly telling me a story for the past twenty minutes, an ordeal that became more bearable and eventually fun as I consumed increasing amounts of scotch.


    How was I talking to a Scottish man in a bar whilst drinking Scotch you wonder. Good question my astute listener for it is a riveting tale. You see after the mist engulfed me I was taken here through a means reminiscent of hyperspace in sci-fi movies or a bad acid trip. Nevertheless, it had repositioned me to a foyer, packed to the brim with people. A small amount of casual eavesdropping later and I knew that I and many others were waiting for the opening of "Legend Has It'' to the public, an event which would happen In an hour. Why was it postponed? Well, the answer to that would be that the devs wanted to make a speech before the launch of their flagship game and they were waiting for a larger crowd to log into the game first.


    Besides my hero worship for these two men and the fact that I was absolutely chuffed to have a chance to meet them, or a digital representation of them, I was still perturbed at the fact that I was to wait an hour for this event while surrounded by the large crowd of strange people who had logged in. This also called into question their definition of large, as the crowd in the foyer alone was reaching biblical proportions already.


    I digress. I, over the course of five or so minutes, would gravitate toward the entrance to the 18+ waiting area and after flashing some ID was allowed to enter and partake in one of the many great features of VR, consequence-free drunkenness.


    "Hey man, what did you choose in the last section, you know with the pillars?" I asked, running my fingers through my hair.


    "Hm, oh yeah that. I choose the dagger. What about you." Was he fucking with me, Was I being fucked with, I looked at him questioningly. Am I blind I swear there wasn''t a dagger and I told him as such. Minus the ''being fucked with thing'' as he seemed much larger and more imposing than me and I didn''t mean to offend.


    "What do you mean no dagger, there was the dagger on the rusted pillar, the boar skull on the bone one and the pile of rocks on the ice one." He said with utter sincerity and I was inclined to believe him. After the conversation, I looked back down the half-finished glass of scotch and began to think.


    How did they manage to personalise the choices? As far as I was aware we weren''t required to answer anything before playing the game. Apart from the obvious registration things such as your age, name and general location. So then how. I puzzled for a while before coming to the weak conclusion that maybe it had something to do with the actions we made after joining the game. It seemed the only possible or legal way. Shrugging I turned back to the large Scotsman.


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    "Hey man whats your username, do you wanna friend and chat about stuff during the game?" I asked him, sending a friend request through the user interface as I did so, another feature of the game I had found out about after leaving the foyer.


    "I don''t know, kinda didn''t want to pantheon up right from the start. Wanted to do my own thing, to begin with, you know?" He rubbed the back of his neck as he said so. Damn, I was usually the introverted and antisocial one, what kind of world is this?!


    "Yeah same I only asked because it would be nice to have someone to talk to and stuff during." After this, he accepted the request and we parted ways. I had a private chuckle out of earshot in regards to his username, ''SmolBoy''and ironic username that I mused definitely didn''t relate to his height, maybe something else?


    I strolled aimlessly, asking the system to sober me up while I did so, yet another pleasant feature of VR.


    So there I was, walking through the crowd and minding my own business when a screen popped up in front of my face, causing a manly jump and squeal which I hope no one heard. Anyway, the screen held within it two figures. One was small in stature and bore the distinctive features of an eastern heritage, his name was Geng Zhi, half of the team that had created this game, the other half stood far more awkwardly next to him. A gangly proportioned African American who held a handful of palm cards close to bespectacled eyes. He cleared his throat and began the speech.


    "Um, hi. My name is Levi Marshal and next to me is Geng Zhi. Um, we are here today to announce the long-awaited launch of "Legend Has It" a game which we have been working on for a long time, I already said ''long'' didn''t I?" He trailed off and began to stand there silently for a few moments before Zhi tactfully took the palm cards and continued in his accented English.


    "This game has been the passion of both me and Levi for a long time now, I can remember when VR came out five years ago, us sitting in our small apartment surrounded by a variety of fast food rappers. We turned to each other and smiled it was then ''Legend Has It'' was born. A rundown of the game will be given to you when you enter but before that, I just want to address something that will become readily apparent as you enter. There is no character creation to begin with, the reasons for this will be addressed and it is important to the concept of the game." He said with the frustration of a man who has had to argue the same point many times. "Anyway, please, I hope you enjoy our world and create your legend within and so I present to you, ''Legend Has It'' please enjoy." And with that the screen cut-out only to be replaced with another a small, unassuming white panel that read ''Would you like to enter Legend Has It? Y/N''


    I smiled at it and watched as several people began to disappear from around me. Don''t mind if I do, I pressed yes and my life changed forever.

 04

    I was in a new room, on the far wall was a large map. It was disorienting to have been surrounded by so many people and then none. Shrugging I walked toward the map, it was very different from any depiction of earth and from what I assumed it was the game world. Marked on it were sections, it was like the regions of the world had borders like countries and written on them was a name and a small description.


    And after several moments of reading, I came to these broad conclusions.


    First were the northern regions, the three of which being Himdra, Lamastch and Vanhirm words which strained my English speaking mind to pronounce.  From what I could gather from the broad, poetic strokes of the map Himdra appeared to be more tribal than the other two populated by a variety of nations and tribal federations that fought over the seasonal migration of a great, undisclosed beast. Lamastch, it looked to be a form of tyrannical dictatorship as the entire region was ruled over by a single kingdom and a king of a different culture, from what I assumed the people of the land didn''t take kindly to that. Last of the northern regions was Vanhirm. The map gave a brief history of this region it seemed as if an empire had been born here, one that would go on to hold both this and the Lamastch region and parts of the Himdra region. The only remnants of this empire are the kingdom in Lamastch whereas the people of Vanhirm are fractured and left in a political vacuum devoid of laws.


    In regards to the central regions they were many and similar, they were somewhat of a clone of the basic, broad strokes of early medieval ages Europe, similar in the fact that they were broken into a vast array of kingdoms. It was the Eastern regions which really caught my eye however. They were separated from the others by an ocean being on a different continent and all. The closest of the eastern regions was a vast desert, and the further eastern ones seemed to be a head nod to the weeb community, basically a clone of feudal Japan. It was the desert region that I found myself drawn to though, it seemed very Arabian nights and Prince of Persia. Also, the idea of being a djinn in the game was quite appealing to me.


    Those were the thoughts that went through my mind as a pushed my hand against the map of the desert region, I was surprised when my hand went straight through, pulling me along with it. When I was through the map I found myself in a vast area of desert, empty on all sides the most noticeable change, however, was the return to disembodiment something which was still as uncomfortable as ever.


    It was then that an opaque screen pooped up before me, it was probably the explanation as to why I had no status, just an indicator of my username and an options menu that both resided in the top left-hand corner of the room. That and the number zero. It read:


    Greetings being of the world heart and welcome to the mortal plane. This is a message from the elder gods, (a name I assumed was the cannon alias of the developers.) The reason you have both no status or physical form is due to the number on the top left of your screens, as of right now it should read zero and will increase as you gain worshippers, prayers, sacrifices and other forms of worship. As this number increases you will gain the ability to take a physical form and do other, more advanced forms of divine intervention. As of this moment, your character can do very little more than speaking and will only expand in capability as you gain worship. Good luck players. Sincerely the elder gods.


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    You''re kidding me right, they expect me to bullshit my way into prayers before I can even play the game? Also why the fuck did I spawn in the middle of a desert?!


    So there I was a disembodied god-wannabe travelling the vast emptiness of a desert whose name I didn''t know. Fun, I felt as if at any moment I would break down and begin drinking my own pee out of pure boredom, but as the man himself said, improvise, adapt, overcome. This wasn''t my first rodeo either, and having played MMO''s before knew just how grindy they could be. So I kept wandering the desert aimlessly with the vague hope that I would find a village or something.


    And it was only moments later, as I screamed the concept of welcoming players to a helpless scorpion I had found that my wishes were granted. I heard another human voice.


    "Is someone there? Please help me." The voice screeched out hoarsely. And I fucking jumped for joy. Not because of the clear weakness of the voice, well not fully but mostly because the game was about to start and a weak body means a weak mind and a weak mind is easily influenced. So I flew, I flew as I had never before in the direction of the voice, I went so fast that I very nearly missed the small figure sprawled on there back against the sand.


    She looked so pitiful, what I assumed was once luscious black hair was ratty and dry with dehydration, much like the rest of her now skeletal frame. She was so realistic that I had to remind myself it was just a game. Well Bart, time to sell false hope to a dying woman.


    "Please, please, please don''t leave me. Don''t leave you bastard I heard you, I know you''re there." She begged pitifully, her eyes leaking out the last ounces of water she had left and I was once mesmerised at the realness of this game. How here eyes burned with a determination found only on the brink of death. It almost made me feel bad about the fact I was about to lie to her. Almost.


    So, squashing the Australian accent in my voice and adopting my best imitation of an authoritative tone I spoke my first ever words as a god.


    "Do not despair mortal, for divine help lies within your grasp. You need only grasp for it." I thought I sounded good, very grandiose, so I was understandably a little pissed when I was dismissed outright with the statement.


    "Fuck, I''ve finally gone mad." It was then she started to cry in earnest. This was going to be more difficult than I thought.

 05

    Sitting next to a girl as she cried her eyes out. Ah, back to a world I was familiar with, although usually the girl wasn''t dying nor did she consider me a figment of her imagination. But hey there is a first for everything. Seriously though, I needed to to get this girl to believe I was real, or at least believe enough to give me some sought of worship so I could leave this fucking desert and get to a more populated place. As such I sat my character down next to her and tried talking to her, gaining her trust and what not, this time in a much less grandiose manner. Sad thing was her crying was putting me off my conversation game as such the best I could muster for a conversation starter was a pathetic.


    "So, do you like jazz?" Now, I didn''t know it at this moment but that seemingly unimportant and throwaway line would lead to my eventual captivity within the confines of the internet. In hindsight I am reminded of an article I read about the game, it was released by the developers in the upcoming days to the release.


    The article written in some tweet or another and stated that the game, upon release, was expected have bugs as it was the first of its kind in this genre. As such the developers advised us as proactive players to inform the development team of said inconsistencies.  One of which I assumed that I had just found.


    For the NPC, in response to my enquiry started to without provocation, spasm uncontrollably, kicking up a furious cloud of dust and sand that forced me to instinctively fly away. When the storm had eventually gone down the girl was in the same position she was when I had first approached, sobbing softly to herself.


    The only difference being both the fact that the number in the top-left of my screen which I would come to refer to as Prayer Points now read not as a value of zero but instead at 1,285, 733 and that my vision was clogged up with an excess of pop-ups the likes of which a veteran porn user would have if they were ignorant of antivirus software.


    My jaw fucking dropped, figuratively of course. I had a vast array of achievements and options now available to me. Which, when all compiled into a list looked something like this:


    - Achievement, Getting Started! (Rewarded for gaining over 100 scores in worship.)


    -Achievement, On My Way. (Rewarded for gaining over 1000 scores in worship.)


    -Achievement, True divine. (Rewarded for gaining over 100,000 scores in worship.)


    -Achievement, Miracle. (Gain over 1,000,000 scores in worship from one act.)


    -Achievement, World leader. (Have the most worship points either saved or invested into your character out of anyone in the world.)


    - Alert, you now have access to the divine manifestation feature. You may now take physical form.


    - Alert, You may now select your class features.


    -Alert, you have over 1,000,000 in unspent points.


    I think it was then that I logged out of the game. I awakened in my room sweating like a roasted pig and my heart pounding like a tribal drum. I could hear the flow of blood in my ears and it was almost deafening. I had to move. I stood and began to pace, rubbing the back of my neck and trying to focus on my breathing as I had before entering the game. An exercise I had learnt a long time ago.


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    Maybe it was just a visual glitch. I dashed to my computer and turned the thing on, smashing my keyboard like a petulant child as I furiously typed the URL for my accounts analytics. Grabbing either side of the monitor and shaking it slightly as the page loaded with the speed of fucking molasses. Shitty pc! Fuck, I had forgone uploading the thing, instead, investing in the full dive equipment.


    The page loaded, its mocking purple background colour staring at me across the field, daring me, I scrolled down looking at all the stats, Hours played, no. Achievements, come on this isn''t what I want. Worship Score, fuck yes, finally. I clicked on the sub-heading faster and more aggressively than I had anything else in my life, It popped open a drop-down menu.


    1,285,733 WP.


    I flopped back onto the floor of my room and closed my eyes. Now at this point, you may be wondering as to my reaction. Why oh why was I so panicked and emotional about a high score in a game. Well, you see in the hype that lead up to this game being released, people went a little crazy and eventually, the real world price of a worship point became around one-tenth of a US dollar. I had just made approximately $128,573.30 this was more money than I had ever held before in my life. I had just found a source of free money.


    "Fuck me, this doesn''t happen in the real world." Then I began to laugh, a small giggle at first, to try and steady my nerves but it would eventually turn into a torrent of cackles so loud that I''m amazed someone didn''t tap on my floor again.


    Why was I sad? I had found a glitch to make me super fucking powerful. Wasn''t this what I wanted?! My god, please say no younger self, it will make thing so much fucking easier, you don''t want this, just say it, please. Repeat after me I don''t want this.


    "Fuck yeah I want this!" The naive piece of shit.


    I stood up and ran back to my bed, shovelling yet more food into my mouth and downing an entire bottle of water that was next to my bed. The water was stale but I didn''t care or even notice. My mind was filled with other possibilities, like what if someone found my money maker, my beautiful dehydrated, jazz-loving, goldmine. Or what if the glitch was a one-time thing and would never happen again. Or what if the developers fixed it?! I had never logged into a game faster.


    After logging back on finding myself once again next to my water deprived goddess I asked her the fateful words again, reverently almost like a prayer. A prayer from a god to a mortal woman, to a piece of code.


    "Do you like jazz?" I whispered it lovingly into her ear. And as her eyes glazed over and her muscles seized a tear was brought to my eye. This was my shot at real power. And I wasn''t going to let it go, no matter how much I would grow to regret it.

 06

    An alarm blasting annoyingly as Janet woke up. She rubbed her eyes, contemplating whether she should finally get rid of the alarm clock. A memento of a love long gone, wanting to wake up earlier so they could work out. Self-improvement he said, getting healthier and happier he said. Maybe he should have tried to improve himself by not cheating. She stared at the alarm clock for a while longer before she got up, dressed, downed a coffee and some quick food and left for work, shivering her breath fogging up the air she walked to her car. Fucking winter.


    "Hey, Janet. How are you today?" Spoke an overly chipper voice, Janet turned her head and locked her dead eyes with the glowing smile of her next door neighbour. She internalised a smile as she held the other woman''s gaze for several moments, she briefly entertained the idea of just getting in her car and driving away, not going to work, not coming home and not dealing with this lady''s shit. Just driving into the unknown, living free. The American dream.


    "I''m fantastic Linda, how are you?" She winced in shame, she was nothing if not a follower.


    "Oh you know, can''t complain. Are you going to work?" No, Linda, I like waking up at 6 am to drive around town for no reason before returning home 8 hours later, where do you think I''m going?!


    "Yes, you know how it is." Janet smiled warmly as she screamed inside. The conversation petered out after some passive aggressive comments that implied Janet should marry. She sat down on the ice like leather of her car seats and shivered until the heating kicked in. Pulling out of her driveway in a damaged getz she drove through a beat-up neighbourhood, watching at least three felonies on her way to work.


    When she finally arrived it was several minutes late, she had, had to wait in traffic. Some soccer mum had rear-ended someone and was making a show and holding up the main street. She walked up the spartan hallways, at least here she wasn''t expected to greet anyone. Reaching her desk she slumped down and threw her head over the back of her chair. Looking upside down at the myriad of encouraging posters that smothered the concrete walls of the office building.


    "Janet, wake the fuck up, you''re on the clock." Her boss hissed from his office down the hall. A sigh managed to pass the borders of her mouth as she sat up and forced a freezing earpiece into her ear and began to start her job.


    "Customer service how may I help you today?" She said, imitating Linda to the best of her ability. It was a skill she had developed to get the proper cadence for feigned interest.


    "Ugh, yeah I would like to report a bug or a hacker. Yesterday someone in the desert regions managed to gain both the miracle and world leader achievements. And I believe that this should be impossible within the first day of the game''s release." A snort at the end of the statement punctuated it, fucking gamers. She worked at a call centre for the most recent and first ever full VR game. Something the developers had made in preparation to the game as they had anticipated a large number of bugs. Janet had first excepted the job as she had imagined gamers to be too socially awkward to call in large numbers, free money for little work. She had grossly underestimated the vindictive and argumentative power of a disenfranchised nerd.


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    "Alright, your complaint has been noted let me check with or analysts to see whether or not it is a valid complaint. If you wouldn''t mind I am required to put you on hold as I do so." After receiving a grunt of confirmation she smashed the hold button and rubbed her eyes again before yelling into the office space about the complaint. Truth be told she had no idea who checked these complaints or made sure of them only that they always responded to her yells and that they were situated at the far left side of the room. Also, they had done a shit tone of work during the Beta and Alpha phases of development. Around five minutes later she received a response.


    "Nah, some guy in quadrant 4592 just, apparently managed to trigger the damsel in distress quest and then defeat the dungeon that spawned from it with a dust storm spell. Lucky bastard, no idea how he managed to do it but it checks out. Bastard is going to be rich." She was about to respond to the caller, except one word had caught her ear, a special word. The word rich.


    "Rich, what do you mean?" She was slightly nervous as she asked, this was the first time they had spoken two or more times to one another. A break from the monotony at least.


    "You don''t know? The points or experience in the game have a real-world value. The kid who owns the account just made the equivalent of over $120,000 or thereabouts in one day." He sounded incredulous, and truth be told so was Janet. She didn''t let it show and resumed conversation with the complainer that she still had on the line.


    "Sorry for the wait. It seems that this was achieved through completely legitimate means, the player managed to defeat a very high-level dungeon." She resumed the fake voice.


    "You''re telling me that someone managed to defeat a legendary dungeon on the first day of release?!" Janet didn''t know what a legendary dungeon was or if this was a significant achievement, but she was just about done with this call.


    "Yes." Then she hung up. It got her thinking, however, $120,000 in a day, that was more than she made in a year. Maybe she should try this game. Yeah, that could be fun. At least more so than this. Janet stared accusatorily at the posters behind her one last time before resuming work, it was going to be a long day.

 07

    I lent back in my chair, a guffaw of laughs escaping me. I was thinking about the game, even when outside of it now I was thinking about how since finding the bug I had done several things, the first was build myself something to protect my secret weapon, I had built a castle, out of the sand using a form of earth magic to solidify the walls. A castle at the bottom of which houses nothing more than an oubliette. An unaltered patch of desert accessible only by flying. A prison that houses a single, dying woman. Unethical, yes, did I care? Fuck no.


    I lent back forward and hunched over my monitor again, I was scanning through the game''s forums, an activity that I had derived great enjoyment out of for several reasons, first was the fact that my inner lore junky was going wild on all the bits of story people had found from several different regions. The other came from a very specific thread I had found.


    "He is a fucking hacker I''m telling you!" Typed an obviously angry man with the handle of player567, the thread was called ''Partholon, Hacker or Pro?'' Partholon was my username for those wondering, derived from an Irish hero. However, this thread was absolutely gold. On one hand, it appealed to a deep-seated urge of mine to be praised and on the other, it gave some pretty solid information. Such as the fact that I figured out why the bug worked, apparently, some guy called the helpline about me after checking the world leaderboards and had found that my little goldmine was actually the opening character that led to a chain of quests. Culminating in the spawning of a legendary dungeon, the highest kind. it also seemed that she was dying from a spell also triggered by my words, a broken spawn event that finished the dungeon and all the subsequent quests for me.


    I crawled onto my bed and pulled away the blankets, throwing them onto the floor, it was summer here and fucking hot. I shoved the dive equipment onto my head and logged on.


    I dug my toes into the sand, a feeling I relished. It reminded me of my days living on the coast. I had created an avatar since being here last and he was basically just a scaled up of my scruffy looking self, except where I was lacking he excelled. He had a light beard with long dark hair that cascaded over his shoulders, and eyes the colour of the night sky. He was dressed in a simple pair of cloth clothes and walked barefoot. Apart from that, I looked very human. I flew to the top of my castle, pant legs fluttering in the breeze as I did so. My hud, however, had undergone a far more apparent and drastic change.


    It had gone from the minimalistic, spartan arrangement of few numbers to the entire top of my screen being filled by various changing statistics, where before both the bottom corners were empty they were now housing two separate minimaps. One showed my location in the world, the other was the same map but with an overlay, it was scanning for the position of lay lines and other sources of primal mana.


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    I had min-maxed my character, investing very heavily in magic, physically my avatar was very similar to a human in its capabilities, the magic was far greater though. I had even passed the point where I was able to create my own form of craft. For that, I chose the manipulation of pure, primal mana. Thus the need for the map showing me its location.


    I walked the hallways of my Ziggurat shaped castle, my fingers dancing lightly over the walls as I passed them. I was heading to a specific room. I entered through a doorway and a pleasured sigh escaped my lips. It never ceased to take my breath away.


    The room had an insanely high ceiling that I looked at with wonder as I walked toward the centre, as I did so I went down the stairs onto the lowered section of it. My feet sank into the soft floor of this bowl-like formation in the centre of the room, it was filled with pillows and rugs, both created by my mana. In the centre was a massive throne. It was simple and stately it didn''t need to be flashy as it had nothing to prove. It was bulky and geometric and screamed both restrained excess and awesome power, it reminded me of me. I liked my throne.


    However, my castle was missing a very specific thing. Worshipers. Luckily for me, I had scouted out several villages to source them from. I wanted a haram for my throne room, I wanted soldiers for my walls, I wanted servants to feed me. I wanted it all, a hedonistic paradise where I was a king. No, where I was a god.


    I walked down the halls and through false doors and secret halls. I knew where I was going and entered the pit silently, flying down to the unaltered desert floor through the flickering torchlight that cast a sinister glow on the affair that followed. On the floor lay the woman, unmoved and unmistakable.


    She looked up at me with saucer dish eyes, wide in fear and panic. I knelt next to her and stroked her hair. She recoiled from my touch but I held her firm. Tears began to well up in her eyes as I leaned in closer.


    "I just need a top up," I said softly. Her eyes closed and the tears fell freely from their prisons. She looked up to me and with chapped lips parsed out the words.


    "Please don''t." She whispered. I kissed her forehead, uttered the words and flew away.

 08

    The air was blowing through my hair and the loose clothes I wore billowed softly as I flew toward the town. I had spoken some more to SmolBoy, after topping up my score. He was in the northern region and was currently fighting a pack of massive wolves to gain the favour village of a hunting village in some woods or another. He was very surprised to hear of my new circumstances and he said he would be sure to visit after gaining a larger following.


    The village approaches.


    It was a small collection of mud rooves, around a hundred or so in total. When I came closer the people seemed to scatter into their houses, running like scared ants at my approach. I landed in the town centre and walked around for several seconds. I have no clue what to do here. My whole power was a result of my inability to speak as a deity, I was unsure of how to approach this dialogue.


    "Alright, the fuck are you doing here?" Said a voice from behind me, wheeling around I found myself face to face with a strange looking being. He looked to be a construct, formed of sand and rock, the objects that gave him material form constantly shifting and flowing around his form like liquid.


    "Um, I assume you''re the god of these people?" I said somewhat awkwardly, rubbing the back of my neck, I was very unsure of how this interaction was meant to go. Alright, come on Bart, time to alpha up.


    "Yeah, got a problem with that." The Rock Being said from somewhere within his mass. it was really unnerving how there was no expression to be shown.


    "Yeah, I do actually." Turning to the houses and adding an inflection of magical power to my voice I continued. "People of the desert, you need no longer scrape a living out of sand and dust, come home with me and the desert will weep rivers into being and all will have enough to eat and drink." They gave no response, it was a little disheartening. Don''t know what I was expecting, they had a god. Keyword had.


    "Alright, time to go." He walked up and put a hand on my shoulder, the rocks feeling surprisingly warm to the touch. As he did so though he came into contact with my shield A skintight, invisible bubble of raw mana, encompassing my whole form. The mana flew up into his form. I assumed he was a primal spirit, so the mana didn''t do as much to him as expected but it still tore his arm apart in a haze of electric blue fire.


    What happened next was a haze, like when you are in a room and you have no idea how you got out. Adrenaline flooded my body, this was the first fight I had been in since high school. Next time my conscious thought returned I was hovering above the village, and the rock boy? He was moulded with the ground, ripping rocks out of it and forming a small tornado of stone around him. I reached my hand toward the air and the clouds began to swirl, becoming more and more violent and, for the first time in forever, it rained in the desert.


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    The people heard the soft pitter patter of rain on thatch and poked their heads out to look, they found me standing in the sky, legs together, one hand by my side and one pointed toward the sky. My clothes billowing around me furiously due to the storm, it was a divine pose. I had my audience.


    "People of this village," I didn''t know the name, a fact I was regretting. "You have fallen before the feet of a false god. Know that I am not mad, I am instead happy, for it will help me show you the power of the true king of the sands. The lord of the eternal fire, your god. Partholon." The guy flinched when he heard the name, the game had a policy of showing no indication of someone being a player, as it may break the immersion of some others. It seemed both that I was famous, and something was about to be a lot more broken than his immersion.


    I reached up higher into the sky, my fingers scraping the wisps of cloud that surged about me. I plunged my hand deep into the roiling mass and from within tore out a tongue of dragon fire. A bolt of lightning that crackled furiously and bucked in my grip like a wild horse. At this moment I was strong, I was powerful. I was, for the first time in my life, in control. I fucking liked it. I through the spear down into the town, onto the opposing god. He tried to jump away but the bolt followed him through the air and connected with a tempest of sparks, bright and blinding. When the light show ended and the fires were put out all that was left of the other god was the hovering blue flame, the indicator, his death marker. A place where he could regain his former power. For when you died all of the worship you had accumulated was drawn into those fires, fires anyone could access.


    I flew down, my toes lightly scraping the ground as if caressing the body of a lover, a sweet kiss of contact resulted in me walking stately for the remainder of the distance. I took the fire in my hand and ordered the people to come before me.


    One and all they came, old and young, men and women. They came before me frightened and scared, hungry and lost. I looked at their wide eyes and smiled. My fist enclosed upon the fire, extinguishing it. They knelt before me in a wave, going down to their knees and crying in worship and begging for my mercy. I smiled. Niccolo Machiavelli had once said that "It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both." I agreed, what he had never written of, however, never put into words was the truly intoxicating feeling it is to be feared. How it smothers a man in a hunger for more and a need to assert his will. How it twists the minds of the great and makes great, twisted minds of the weak. ''Yes, it is a good thing to be feared'' I thought. Try and guess into which category I fell.

 09

    I had made the ziggurat bigger, more grandiose, to fit my new self. I don''t think it could be called a castle anymore, sought of a city that resided within the confines of a single structure. After my encounter with the other god at the village, whose name I still had not discovered, I had cast my gaze outward. Subsuming several more villages into my little fortress of sand and prayer.


    The people didn''t need to farm or do any work they devoted their entire existence to prayer and worship. My magic took care of all of the menial tasks such as farming and crafts. I had weaved it into the walls of the structure and now water oozed out of the walls in some places, creating a series of fountains and natural baths.


    The people here lived in pure contentedness and so did I. I spent much of my time languidly laying in my chair, girls lay about me, sprawled aesthetically across the floor and pillows, a thin cloud of incense hugged the floor of the chamber in which they lay, it kept them... Docile. It also looked exceptionally cool.


    Regardless, it had been a couple of days since the defeat of the previous god and since then people were very, enthusiastic about either there vows to destroy my perceived monopoly of a legendary dungeon and of the desert region or their support of me and vows to join my banner. In fact, that is exactly what SmolBoy, had done. I had teleported to the northern region to find him in a weakened state after losing his hunting village to a pantheon of players. We fucked them up good and then I brought him back to my castle as a right-hand man.


    It was nice to have someone to talk to. Besides him, there were other people, players that worked for me. They weren''t important, however, inconsequential characters in the telling of my story. All they represent is the growth of a power base and influence in the game.


    I had called SmolBoy to me several moments ago, I knew he had a reluctance to enter this room, the throne room. I also knew why, he was adamant in his white-knighting of women. A byproduct of a backstory he was yet to share with me. Anyway, it was with a sneer of mild disgust on his features as he walked into the room.


    He walked before me and kneeled. A cruel smile reached its way across my features as he did so. The reason I had called him you ask. Well don''t, I''m embarrassed to parse out the words even now. It was the beginning of my descent and the least favourite part of my personality. I had a voracious need for validation. What was the point of power if there was no one to recognise it. What was the point of outplaying the system if there was no one to congratulate you on the skill with which you did it?


    So, as I formed a chair out of the floor and made it rise up to meet him I asked him to sit before me. When he did so I leant forward, my hands fidgeting nervously in my lap.


    "Hey, Cinead?" I asked with an inflection in my voice. I had found out his name a short while ago.


    "Yeah man, why did you call me here?" He said, his eyes scanning the floor of my room as the corners of his mouth turned down and his brow began to crease more intesely.


    "I uh," I scratched the back of my hand and licked my lips. My gaze piercing into his. "Hypothetically. What would you do to get to the top." I said the words softly, my eyes cloudy as I did so, I was millions of miles away at that moment, I was in a cave of dark and sorrow I stood before a decrepit queen, mummified in her own grace and glory. I shook my head, a random action to the outside observer. I had been seeing the oubliette more recently. I held sway over my dreams. She was a dream.


    "It depends. What did you have in mind for me to do?" His tentative question brought me back to reality, my eyes found his and we locked gazes for several moments, he broke eye contact first and I continued with a passion that surprised even myself.


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    "Come, you have to follow me." I stood up vigorously, dematerialising the chair as I did so, causing Cinead to stumble before he caught himself on my shoulder. I grabbed his wrist firmly and pulled him after to me. I couldn''t hear his protests, all I could hear was sobbing, all I could see was the darkness. Come, I muttered over and over again. Follow me.


    We reached the cell, the location of my obsession and I flew myself and Cinead to the floor. I immediately ran to the side of my queen and knelt before her. Cinead followed me, stopping several metres back as he noticed another form in the darkness.


    The room was silent for a handful of seconds after that. It was a pregnant silence as if reality had a  lump in its throat that was ejaculated up in a form of word vomit.


    "What is this." He muttered he sounded, not angry. Somewhere between shocked and dissapointed. Incredulous if anything. I wheeled on him in a passionate fury and spouted vitriolic rhetoric all over him.


    "Isn''t it wondrful, we found each other in the desert. She helped me, we helped each other. She was cold Cinead. Don''t you understand she was cold! And Thirsty, but I can''t give her either can I, if I did she wouldn''t be her, I wouldn''t be me. Do you understand Cinead? Do you understand!?" I screamed the last few words into his face, they exploded onto him in a hail of spit and zealous fury. The silence that followed was deafening. I was grabbing onto his shoulders, steadying myself against his bulk as if the previous torrent had taken a physical toll upon my being. It was peaceful in the silence, I felt as my princess must. At peace with one''s self and reality, the secret was out and any second Cinead would lavish praise upon me, he would tell me how smart I was, how proud he was of me! It was eventually broken, all good things come to an end.


    "H-Help me." Spluttered out the lady of the sands. it spurred Cinead into action, He ripped my arms from his shoulders and pushed me to the floor.


    "You''re going mad Bart. The fuck is wrong with you, why are you doing this, this isn''t human. Fuck, its this game man, it''s doing something to your head, you need to take a break. Get some medical help. Fucking seriously man, this is totally fucked!" He spat the words at me, and he probably said more but my ears didn''t hear it, my eyes didn''t see it. All I saw was a man, before me, telling me what to do, not praising me for what I had achieved.


    "Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up,!" I covered my ears as I said it and pushed my hand toward him. A bolt of lighting sparked off my fingers and into him. He spasmed furiously and the smell of cooked meat made my mouth water. When the lightning subsided he was gone and the room was veiled in the sinister glow of his death marker. I crawled over to the princess and cradled her head in my arms. I kissed each of her eyes, the salty taste of her tears was intoxicating.


    "It''s okay now. We have silence." I held her as gently as one would a freshly plucked flower. Taking in her fragrance with each of my senses. It was so real. This was my reality.


    My king, another divine petitioner has arrived at the gates do you wish for her to be sent in prayed one of my watchmen to me. Again the whispers in my head, the static that blocked out my thought, it talked to me.


    "Yes," a smile crept across my features. "Send her to the throne room please."