《The Humanity Initiative (discontinued)》 Prologue 1/2 - Sporadic Wake ¡°Darling, remember when virtual gaming was a new thing? When people began living online rather than just staying there for a few games? When real life activities were almost as common as online ones? No, of course you don¡¯t. I know your grandpa doesn¡¯t like it, me talking about these things, but I think it¡¯s important that you at least imagine a life in reality. Not like it would¡¯ve been today, but as it once was: a place where people played, laughed, explored, thrived¡­ A world where space was plentiful, but energy not. A place where people enjoyed each others company, shared experiences, touched each other, all knowing that it happened for real, in its utmost sense¡­ Sob¡­ Where families¡­Sob¡± ¡°Mum, why are you crying¡± Two thick hands covered the youngling¡¯s ears from behind. ¡°Beth, are you forcing your ideologies to my kiddo again?¡± ¡°Please, it''s not an ideology, it''s realism. I think it''s time to..." ¡°God, why do you haft to be so religious about reality? No one I know has ever lived there, and that¡¯s for the better. Tell me, has any of your fanatics¡¯ forums ever hatched a truly skilled pro?¡± ¡°No, but that¡¯s not the point. He''s old enough to¡­¡± ¡°That¡¯s exactly the point! Stop messing with the kiddos potential, or I¡¯ll disown your noob of a husband, and raise him myself.¡± . . 11 years later. . . ¡®This is gonna give me at least half a day of lag spikes,¡¯ Jerry sighted. A tugging, incoherent with the visually possible, lifted Jerry upwards, preparing him to get into the real world again. A cold sensation hit the skin of his IRL face. It was now above nanofluid level. As his Oculars unmounted, an uncomfortably bright lit ceiling pained his eyes. While trying to adapt to the rapid change , he noticed a rhythmic sound to the left. He dismounted the oxygen supply and turned his head around. Fluid in his left ear popped free, unmasking a Birthday song. He stiffly waded towards the rim of his capsule, his own personal connection to the internet. With help, his half asleep body got seated on a chair next to his liquid filled home. His family was persistant; the singing didn''t stop for four more refrains. It felt like an eternity, but before he had gotten used to reentering reality, the song was over. ¡°Congratulations to your last game''s Pownage¡­ and happy birthday too!¡± his grandpa, Ingmar, chuckled smiling. ¡°Thanks,¡± Jerry replied, happy to be freed from the love overflow induced vacuum. ¡°We¡¯ll be in the living room while you¡¯re changing¡± his Mom said, smiling at him. A wall was raised, enclosing the area around the capsule. The wall left about a meter more of space than usual, teasing him into doing something he hadn¡¯t done since he was a little kid: He changed clothes lying down, delaying having to deal with gravity. ¡®Wow, the things I did in reality to escape boredom huh? Alright, time to start walking like a noob with a wooden capsule¡®. It had been long since he walked IRL; most birthdays were on the early part of the year and his was the first. ¡°Here¡¯s a plate, take some cake, the food will arrive soon,¡± his mom updated him. Jerry had a big slice and sat down on his own, stiff as board. Getting accustomed to reality, he started to enjoy the scenery. The orthodox realism of the real world had its charms, the few times you visited it. As always, being stripped of his in-game appearance he felt naked, yet, with only his family around it wasn''t too bad. Usually, a cake wouldn¡¯t be worth the hassle of having to DC later. IRL toilet visits were one of the noobiest thing Jerry could think of, but accompanied by potato pancake, bacon and whatever was in that awesome sauce, he could hardly complain. Even pro gamers had to adhere to antiquated rites sometimes. ¡°You know, Jerry, I never thought you¡¯d be able to hit pro after finishing that high school, it being IRL styled and all¡± his grandma praised. ¡°Yeah, we almost worried you¡¯d go for some real life bogus and aim for a job.¡±, his grandpa filled in. "With ''we'', you mean ''you'', Ingmar, our son does whatever he wants," Jerrys mom compelled to say. ¡°Yeah, yeah, twas never any need worry though, my lil kiddo always had my pro blood runnin¡¯ in him .¡± Ingmar casted the usual leer at Jerry¡¯s dad. Jerry¡¯s dad had to Ingmar¡¯s dismay stayed a casual since before Jerry was born. Him meeting Jerry¡¯s Mom hadn¡¯t made him less of a failiure in Ingmars eyes either. After a successful attempt by Jerry¡¯s younger sister to change topic, the social climate improved. Soon, a soft, melodic beep caught everyone¡¯s attention. Another drone had arrived to the delivery depot, this one carrying a ribbon wrapped package. ¡°Wow! You could¡¯ve just sent me a regular in-game gift or something¡±, Jerry said, trying to mask his disappointment. He had no idea what he had to unwrap. The sphere shaped thing was pretty big though. Why were they giving him an IRL gift? Hadn''t his last year''s rant been clear enough? ¡°That face of your is so totally gonna change when unwrapping that thing¡±, Ingmar laughed. ¡°Wait, this one''s from you?¡±, Jerry asked, he felt confused. ¡°Yep, this one¡¯s badass as fuck¡±, the old man almost giggled, excitedly awaiting the unwrapping. A spark of devouring interest grew as Jerry approached the delivery holder. Tearing half of the wrappings, the corners of a very recognizable logo got visible. On the now soon to be opened sphere-case, you could easily see the captivating logo of ¡®HIimmersion¡¯ , followed by a less noticable ¡®0.971 Beta¡¯. ¡°No way, this is.., this wasn¡¯t gonna get out until late next year¡±, Jerry burst out with joyful face, inextinguishable from one in panic. ¡°Who.., just how.., wow! Did the team sponsor get it for the rest of my teammates?¡± ¡°Your nobass friends don¡¯t deserve the luck you¡¯ve had this time¡±, Ingmar postulated. ¡°You know, a childhood friend o¡¯ mine, casual, too bad¡­Well, he actually got to me me after a tournament some months ago, offering a beta-testing position for the HIimmersion. ¡®T seems like he ended up in the UN. Turns out they¡¯ve finally done somethin¡¯ useful after dealin¡¯ with them earlier global warming hassles.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. ¡°What? So they¡¯ve finally started caring about what¡¯s actually happening in society?¡¯ ¡°It makes great sense ya¡¯ know, they¡¯re doin¡¯ a great favor for humanity, decreasing in-game delay n¡¯ connection lag n¡¯ all. I¡¯ve heard it¡¯s goin¡¯ to be lower maintenance than them current capsules too, Ingmar explained, knowing what Jerry thought. HIimmersion was the first ever Direct Stimulation Virtual Headpiece. For the past decades, gaming had been done in a capsule filled with nanobots. The small robots would stimulate sensory feedback to the nerve endings. HIimmersion changed everything; it was the first system ever to directly stimulate the brain, circumventing ¡®delay¡¯ from nerve endings to brain. ¡®Lagg¡¯ commonly experienced when having one''s nanobots unevenly distributed in thebody wouldn¡¯t be a problem either; You could enter and exit the internet without penalties. Even the iris reading holo-oculars were now obsolete. It was all brain interactions. As a pro gamer, trying to streamline every gaming action down to the millisecond, this was huge. ¡°Oh look at that face,¡± his mother said in a baby voice, seemingly forgetting that this was his 20:th birthday. ¡°Maybe we can see each other IRL more often with that thing. It should be easier, getting in and out of game, now when a nanosoup bath isn¡¯t needed.¡± Ingmar slapped his forehead. Why had his already idle son married this realist fanatic? ¡°C¡¯mon Lily, you gotta have some common sense at least. Disturbing the boy''s gaming like that would ruin his future! The boy¡¯d have to worry bout sleep n¡¯ eat n¡¯ and all the hassles accompanyin¡¯ that. Don¡¯t be unreasonable with ¡®im that¡¯s so much hassle! Why can''t he can just use the HIimmersion inside o'' ¡®is capsule? Ya know capsules we''re originaly made to feed serious gamers, nonobots being better than stim-suits was just a bonus." ¡°Oh, well¡±, Lily oncea again held back her irritation, as often was the case with Ingmar. The chatting went on for ages, at least according to Jerry, whose skin itched horribly, waiting to check out his new toy. Eventually it was time to try out the new equipment. ¡°Finally¡±, Jerry exhaled before mounting the HIimmersion to his head. He submerged into the warm, familiar, nanofluid. The artificial, relaxed breathing never got enjoyed; Before he had time to get all comfy in his capsule, his new device kicked in, bombarding all his senses. In eager excitement, he left the plainness of reality behind. **** Farah was a not a misfit of society, at least not to the part she considered worthy of the name. The two most promising subjects thus far had all turned her down, sad, but not devastating to this trip of guilty pleasures; she had rented a capsule over the day to visit the yearly online exhibition of older media. The exhibition was huge, as was its bandwidth consumption. About 54 Million people were currently connected to it. As Farah looked around, huge egg-like shapes of light were seen, spread out in all six directions. She directed her floating downwards, where the older media was, not caring much for the non-vertical directions; she couldn¡¯t care less about game genres. Soon, she hovered above one of the shining eggs. Inside of it was a huge cluster of old capsule precursors. Surrounding each group of ''capsules'' was a colorful signboard, advertising whatever game the group of capsules was assigned to. There wasn¡¯t as many lining up for game matchmaking here in the lower eggs as in the upper ones. Farah had noticed higher ratios of families each time she went for a lower located cluster. ¡®Most of these games probably only have people playing them out of tradition,¡¯ she concluded indifferently. The egg shaped coat, enveloping this cluster, was, as most other old media stations, made out of old TV screens. When passing near one of the floating, illusionary, displays, Farah felt its sounds of music and speech surround her, from all directions. To most, the flat screens were a great way to immerse visitors in the feeling of antiquity. Long time ago, flat screen technology had probably been impressive, little doubt about it; today though, they served little purpose other than invoking a feeling: void lack of stimulation. Perfect for setting the right atmosphere for old games from old eras. The shell of ancient entertainment understandably wasn¡¯t given much thought by any passerby, short of one; Farah was cemented next to one of the floating flat screens. Crude audiovisuals didn¡¯t deter her much; what captivated her was their traces of true, unadultered life. In this instance she was watching the third remake of ¡®Inception¡¯, a movie few knew to have inspired some pretty fundamental legislation, long, long, time ago. ¡®Pity those laws were ever needed,¡¯ Farah thought bitterly, gradually recovering from her own line of though. She loved watching these old movies. What she gazed onto was a world where everything was real; the people, the feelings, the clothes, the food, and foremost the culture,shared bt everyone; everything was real. Well, in this particular movie, perhaps not so, but at least the actors were all from a world where everything they ever knew and acted upon was real. Farah loved it, thus the guilty pleasure; she was in a fake world watching real people. She was escaping reality within a world not even real, yet she felt as if she was closer to how the world was supposed to be; much closer than before entering the rented capsule. The movie ended, and she immediately headed towards the center of the capsule cluster to get a good look at candidates for the next watching. After a while of focused staring, accompanied by her signature frown and tensioned lips, she was almost done pondering what to binge next. Before coming to a decision, her forehead went from unusually low to unusually high; a bit above a prospect movie, was a person standing; He was quite hidden by the flat screen actors around him, but bloody hell, he sure was watching a movie! Seeing another person, such as herself, had her both hopeful and nervous. She tried to quench her hesitation and fly straight over to him; ¡®one wouldn¡¯t just stay in the middle of nothing rather than watching one of the masterpieces just next to you. Would you?¡¯ Deciding not to give her anxiety another chance taking root, she started hover towards him, not awkwardly fast, in case he¡¯d see her, but fast. Small butterflies hit her stomach and fluttered upwards her throat as she wondered what¡¯d happen when she reached her destination. Arriving to his left side, she stopped for a moment, taking a glimpse at him, and the flat screen in front of him. He was at least 190 centimeters tell, blue, half long hair¡­ and, wow that as an impressively muscular back. ¡®Not the time to dream away.¡¯ She stopped about a meter away from him, careful not to disturb his view of what seemed to be an investigative drama. ¡° Hi,¡± she said, looking at him, looking down, looking at him, looking down, looking at him¡­ ¡°Hello?¡± she continued in a careful tone, biting the tooth gum bellow her lips. No reaction. Well, fuck it. She patted him on the shoulder. ¡°Hi¡±. ¡±Eeh, Hi?¡± the man replied. ¡°How¡¯s the show? ¡°she followed up. ¡°Good,¡± the man replied vacantly. ¡°Mind if I¡¯d join watching,¡± she asked, pointing at the flat screen in front of him. ¡°Fun joke,¡± he replied coldly, turning back his head. Farah was confused and didn¡¯t know how to respond. As if noticing her awkwardness, he continued: ¡°Only my family should be the ones disrupting me today, I¡¯m watching the quarter finals of BenDover versus Enigma god dammit.¡± His voice was less vacant now, but, his face frowned faintly instead. ¡°Asphyxia, block her¡±, he indifferently instructed his AI; his twitching eyes soon no longer to be seen. ¡°Fuck it, for reals, fuck it!¡± Farah burst out. He had been the third person she had tried to talk with today. She knew that realists were considered weirdoes, but the indifference she had met today was just burning her insides. If it was disgust, anger, anything, she wouldn¡¯t have had as much problem with the way she was treated, but this indifference; It was as if she didn¡¯t have the ability to exist in anyone¡¯s ¡®personal sphere of self-delusion¡¯. She hated it. Deciding to leave the socially empty exhibition, she started multitasking. One half of her mind repeated a impressive chain of curse words whilst the other focused on getting out of the capsule. She hovered towards the place she entered the exhibition from, neglecting that a voice command would suffice to exit the dimension. ¡°I¡¯m done with this fake world¡¯s, fake people... Probably fake backs too.¡± she muttered. As she kept up phase, an unfittingly happy and forward going voice hit her. ¡°You¡¯ve been registered watching a lot of old media, are you perhaps a fan of old style reality?¡± ¡°Fuck you too computer, what if I am,¡± she spat to her bodiless greeter. ¡°Then we¡¯re happy to inform you on UN''s recently released full immersion game...¡± the AI kept the same tone, clearly not programmed for social cues. ¡°Not interested¡±, Farah muttered. UN¡¯s recent shift in policy was a lego in her shoe. To have gone from saving the lives of billions, just to ''game zombify'' their offspring, the thought was one she''d rather not think. The era of immediate challanges, such as getting relocatingcountries, destroyed by global warming, might be over, but Farah hardly saw that as a reason to abandon reality and aid the world''s flight to empty fantasies. ¡°The immersion game is a sanctioned initiative, keenly modeled after reality. The log in rate has averaged three and a half million a day on different servers for the past month.¡± ¡®Just when things couldn¡¯t get more stupid; it¡¯s now officially more popular to play reality than actually experience it.¡¯ "Wait, what? There''s a reality inspired game all of a sudden?" ¡°Found 3 friends playing it together: Oscar Anderson, Khalid Babak and Hua Yawen, do you wish to join them?,¡± the AI once again ate away at social capital not existing. ¡°You know what? Screw you! Go uninstall system32 or something.¡± . . ¡°Take me to my friends already. I¡¯ve got about 6 hours left of no-refund on this stupid machine anyways.¡± Prologue 2/2 - Paradoxal break Farah was a not a misfit of society, at least not to the part she considered worthy of the name. The two most promising subjects thus far had all turned her down, sad, but not devastating to this trip of guilty pleasures; she had rented a capsule over the day to visit the yearly online exhibition of older media. The exhibition was huge, as was its bandwidth consumption. About 54 Million people were currently connected to it. As Farah looked around, huge egg-like shapes of light were seen, spread out in all six directions. She directed her floating downwards, where the older media was, not caring much for the non-vertical directions; she couldn¡¯t care less about game genres. Soon, she hovered above one of the shining eggs. Inside of it was a huge cluster of old capsule precursors. Surrounding each group of ''capsules'' was a colorful signboard, advertising whatever game the group of capsules was assigned to. There wasn¡¯t as many lining up for game matchmaking here in the lower eggs as in the upper ones. Farah had noticed higher ratios of families each time she went for a lower located cluster. ¡®Most of these games probably only have people playing them out of tradition,¡¯ she concluded indifferently. The egg shaped coat, enveloping this cluster, was, as most other old media stations, made out of old TV screens. When passing near one of the floating, illusionary, displays, Farah felt its sounds of music and speech surround her, from all directions. To most, the flat screens were a great way to immerse visitors in the feeling of antiquity. Long time ago, flat screen technology had probably been impressive, little doubt about it; today though, they served little purpose other than invoking a feeling: void lack of stimulation. Perfect for setting the right atmosphere for old games from old eras. The shell of ancient entertainment understandably wasn¡¯t given much thought by any passerby, short of one; Farah was cemented next to one of the floating flat screens. Crude audiovisuals didn¡¯t deter her much; what captivated her was their traces of true, unadultered life. In this instance she was watching the third remake of ¡®Inception¡¯, a movie few knew to have inspired some pretty fundamental legislation, long, long, time ago. ¡®Pity those laws were ever needed,¡¯ Farah thought bitterly, gradually recovering from her own line of though. She loved watching these old movies. What she gazed onto was a world where everything was real; the people, the feelings, the clothes, the food, and foremost the culture,shared bt everyone; everything was real. Well, in this particular movie, perhaps not so, but at least the actors were all from a world where everything they ever knew and acted upon was real. Farah loved it, thus the guilty pleasure; she was in a fake world watching real people. She was escaping reality within a world not even real, yet she felt as if she was closer to how the world was supposed to be; much closer than before entering the rented capsule. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. The movie ended, and she immediately headed towards the center of the capsule cluster to get a good look at candidates for the next watching. After a while of focused staring, accompanied by her signature frown and tensioned lips, she was almost done pondering what to binge next. Before coming to a decision, her forehead went from unusually low to unusually high; a bit above a prospect movie, was a person standing; He was quite hidden by the flat screen actors around him, but bloody hell, he sure was watching a movie! Seeing another person, such as herself, had her both hopeful and nervous. She tried to quench her hesitation and fly straight over to him; ¡®one wouldn¡¯t just stay in the middle of nothing rather than watching one of the masterpieces just next to you. Would you?¡¯ Deciding not to give her anxiety another chance taking root, she started hover towards him, not awkwardly fast, in case he¡¯d see her, but fast. Small butterflies hit her stomach and fluttered upwards her throat as she wondered what¡¯d happen when she reached her destination. Arriving to his left side, she stopped for a moment, taking a glimpse at him, and the flat screen in front of him. He was at least 190 centimeters tell, blue, half long hair¡­ and, wow that as an impressively muscular back. ¡®Not the time to dream away.¡¯ She stopped about a meter away from him, careful not to disturb his view of what seemed to be an investigative drama. ¡° Hi,¡± she said, looking at him, looking down, looking at him, looking down, looking at him¡­ ¡°Hello?¡± she continued in a careful tone, biting the tooth gum bellow her lips. No reaction. Well, fuck it. She patted him on the shoulder. ¡°Hi¡±. ¡±Eeh, Hi?¡± the man replied. ¡°How¡¯s the show? ¡°she followed up. ¡°Good,¡± the man replied vacantly. ¡°Mind if I¡¯d join watching,¡± she asked, pointing at the flat screen in front of him. ¡°Fun joke,¡± he replied coldly, turning back his head. Farah was confused and didn¡¯t know how to respond. As if noticing her awkwardness, he continued: ¡°Only my family should be the ones disrupting me today, I¡¯m watching the quarter finals of BenDover versus Enigma god dammit.¡± His voice was less vacant now, but, his face frowned faintly instead. ¡°Asphyxia, block her¡±, he indifferently instructed his AI; his twitching eyes soon no longer to be seen. ¡°Fuck it, for reals, fuck it!¡± Farah burst out. He had been the third person she had tried to talk with today. She knew that realists were considered weirdoes, but the indifference she had met today was just burning her insides. If it was disgust, anger, anything, she wouldn¡¯t have had as much problem with the way she was treated, but this indifference; It was as if she didn¡¯t have the ability to exist in anyone¡¯s ¡®personal sphere of self-delusion¡¯. She hated it. Deciding to leave the socially empty exhibition, she started multitasking. One half of her mind repeated a impressive chain of curse words whilst the other focused on getting out of the capsule. She hovered towards the place she entered the exhibition from, neglecting that a voice command would suffice to exit the dimension. ¡°I¡¯m done with this fake world¡¯s, fake people. Probably fake backs too.¡± she muttered. As she kept up phase, an unfittingly happy and forward going voice hit her. ¡°You¡¯ve been registered watching a lot of old media, are you perhaps a fan of old style reality?¡± ¡°Fuck you too computer, what if I am,¡± she spat to her bodiless greeter. ¡°Then we¡¯re happy to inform you on UN''s recently released full immersion game...¡±, the AI replied with the same tone, clearly not programmed for social cues. ¡°Not interested¡±, Farah muttered. UN¡¯s recent shift in policy was a lego in her shoe. To have gone from saving the lives of billions, just to ''game zombify'' their offspring, the thought was one she''d rather not think. The era of immediate challanges, such as getting relocatingcountries, destroyed by global warming, might be over, but Farah hardly saw that as a reason to abandon reality and aid the world''s flight to empty fantasies. ¡°The immersion game is a sanctioned initiative, keenly modeled after reality. The log in rate has averaged three and a half million a day on different servers for the past month.¡± ¡®Just when things couldn¡¯t get more stupid; it¡¯s now officially more popular to play reality than actually experience it.¡¯ "Wait, what? There''s a reality inspired game all of a sudden?" ¡°Found 3 friends playing it together: Oscar Anderson, Khalid Babak and Hua Yawen, do you wish to join them?,¡± the AI once again ate away at social capital not existing. ¡°You know what? Screw you! Go uninstall system32 or something,¡± Farah replied, quickly continuing: ¡°Take me to my friends already. I¡¯ve got about 6 hours left of no-refund on this stupid machine anyways.¡± 1 - The beginning of an adventure "Holy wow, these visual effects, I¡¯ve never seen anything like it." The usually colorblind Jess was amazed. She sat up, surprised to find gravity settings similar that of the real world. Resting her right hand towards the ground, she took the liberty of examining it a bit; feeling the softness of green grass accompanied with older, dried out, yellow straws. Yep, there was definitely at least one sucker for older games amongst the developers at the UN. She smiled for herself, enjoying the unusual game intro. On the topic of intros, there was probably some kind of tutorial nearby. The games features would likely be introduced incrementally. Jess stood up. ¡®Darn, these gravity settings really are hard core.¡¯ She made a confirming ¡®not bad¡¯ smile before looking around. She was standing on a field of grass, surrounding it was a distant pine forest. A few feet away from her spawning point was a thin path of cubical paving stones, glimmering faintly in the mornig sun. ¡®Hint taken,¡¯ Jessica thought as she started walking alongside the paved path, looking for indications of some kind of quest giver. A cool sensation surprised her after ashort stroll; the calves of her pants had gotten wet somehow. A short investigation whilst continuing found the culprit. There were miniscule droplets of water on the grass. ¡®That¡¯s an odd mechanic, she noted, wondering if the phenomenon was original or inspired by reality. Continuing the walk, now on the quartz path, she started ascending a hill. As she got close to the top of it, a shrine-like structure made it to her field of vision. The ¡®shrine¡¯ seemed to be made out of the same material as the road she walked on, marking the end of it. At the shrine there was a person doing mystical gestures. ¡°Perfect, it''s was about time get a proper tutorial.¡± *** -------------- This game, Iterorgina, would never make it big. The visuals were plain and unenhanced. The user interface was non-existent, as was the number of fucks seemingly given about modern world building trends; they had even set the gravity to IRL standard. An intended choice, KimZor presumed, as the developers could hardly have missed out on every game popularized since, like, before his grandma was even a newb. The white quartz stones, making up this white, altar-like, pile of stones next to him, were similar to the ones making the pathing to his location. Each block of stone was a massive cubit long on each polished side. At the center of the altar, two steps up, was an elevated spherical piece of polished black granite. It sat firmly on a pedestal of the white rock. KimZor ascended the steps, put his hand on the piece of granite and commanded: ¡°Activate!¡±. He waited for an effect to take place, but nothing happened. ¡°Start!¡±. He was met by nothing but silence. Frustrated by the negligence of his command, he stared into the sphere. As he was about to shout another command he froze. Something was odd about his reflection in the sphere. His facial features, they didn¡¯t look like his presets; they were awfully similar to those of ...his real face! What the fuck! Even if distorted through the convex stone, his facial features were easily spotted. Looking down at his skinny arms and somewhat chubby body, his breath went heavy. This was definitely his own body. Fuck, this was inconvenient! He glimpsed towards all directions. Was someone there to spot him in his embarrasement? To his dismay, two hundred meters away or something, a human shape walked on the white road. KimZor hurriedly grabbed the sphere, shouting more commands: ¡°Set my appearance to presets!¡± ¡°Take me to the character creation!¡± ¡°Activate AI interface¡± ¡°Centryxia, what the fuck is going on?¡± *Silence* ¡°Stupid stone, fucking activate!¡± Yet again nothing happened. With time running out, and an incoming feeling of embarrassment mcBBQ, he dejectedly uttered the command: ¡°Log me out.¡± Nothing happened. "What the fuck," he hissed. A chill struck him, freezing him to the spot. The previous irritation was replaced with fear. Inability to log out was unheard of, but that wasn¡¯t crossing his mind at the moment; what made him close to freaking out was him being forcefully put in a state worse than being naked. He was not being properly portrayed. This wasn''t fair, and someone was gonna see him. He had to do something to avoid the embarrassment! What the fuck should he do? He couldn''t meet people looking like this! **** Having passed another hill, Jerry was finally getting close to the end of the road. In front of him was a shrine of sorts. A pair of people were next to it, talking. He had liked the game this far; he always enjoyed breaks of casual strolling, it was a nice contrast to his intensive life. Practicing with his gaming team was always fun and fulfilling, but nevertheless, its non stop intensity took a toll on him. A break for some casual beta testing with his new HIimmersion was the perfect end to his birthday. ¡°Ok, so, we¡¯re lost, in the middle of nowhere, and you don¡¯t know how to get back to your village,¡± a young woman concluded.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. It seemed like they had been talking for a while. ¡°Yeah, pretty much,¡­ yeah,¡± an awkward NPC responded. ¡°What about this shrine then, any clues what it¡¯s about?¡±, the girl continued. ¡°Ehm, I don¡¯t know, I think so, maybe, yeah¡± the young NPC man answered hesitantly to the unexpected question. Not that it mattered much to the game mechanics (the things Jerry usually spent his days bisecting minutely) but the looks of the two people in front of him appeared rather unadorned...ungamified almost. ¡°Then please tell me if there¡¯s anything I should know about this shrine before leaving,¡± the girl continued. The NPC brightened up as if realising something, and answered: ¡°Oh, this shrine is old and filled with wonder, rumors of its splendid beauty had me traveling for days for just a glimpse of what ancient magic it might contain.¡± Strangely, his voice seemed more confused than solemn. ¡°Nice, do you know how to put its ¡®ancient magic¡¯ to use,¡± the young woman followed up. ¡°No idea at all, I mean, such knowledge probably wouldn¡¯t be granted to just any mortal happening to pass by, I happen to have inquired it myself.¡± The woman ascended the steps to the pedestal, inspecting its sphere. ¡°Ehmm, the words ¡®chip me¡¯ are literally carved into the stone.¡± ¡°There¡¯s a hammer and a chisel just behind the round rock,¡± Jerry said, joining in. ¡°Hi by the way, I¡¯m Ben, or [VA]BenDover, if you will. ¡°BenDover? Pfft, I bet you are,¡± the NPC replied, hardly convinced. ¡°I¡¯m Jessica, you can call me Jess,¡± the woman next to the sphere of granite said. ¡°Aand, The NPC calls himself Kim¡±, she followed up, rolling her eyes. ''Finally,'' Jerry thought. He had stumbled across both a tutorlike NPC, and a quest-ish shrine. ''Time to go all in powerlevling the shit out of this place from here on.'' His original intentions of relaxation had already faded. *** Jessica grabbed the tools on the altar and with a sharp sound, she put a score into the granite. The round block of granite spun 90 degrees, revealing a text, hidden beneath it. The text cryptically read: ¡®Since its creation, humanity¡¯s safety has never been a given¡¯. Next to it was a deeply carved abstract shape, similar to a foreign Chinese character, or an old viking rune perchance. Jerry couldn¡¯t tell. Language was stuff for AIs to do anyways. Below the carvings, a familiar text once more read ¡®Chip me ¿Ú¡¯. "Crack!"Jessica put a dent in the new check-box. The block moved, revealing the side that just a second ago was its bottom. On the smooth surface of the, previously spotless, granite was a glowing indention with more text. The surface resembled an old-school menu:
¿ÚQuit ¿ÚSkills
¿ÚStats ¿ÚItems
¿ÚMagic ¿ÚBeginners Survival Kit (1g)
¿ÚTime Warp
Intrigued of something game-like finally happening, Jessica quickly made a chip at the [Stats] checkbox. The granite sphere once again turned 90 degrees to reveal:
¿ÚBack Jessica Total glory: 0
Agility 0 ¿Ú+1 (10g) Strength 0 ¿Ú+1 (10g)
Endurance 0 ¿Ú+1 (10g) Intelligence 0 ¿Ú+1 (10g)
Stamina 0 ¿Ú+1 (10g) Wisdom 0 ¿Ú+1 (10g)
The mind related stats were insulting, they couldn''t be representing those of her own. She considered letting Ben try out his stats, but then decided against it; she wanted to experiment more with this menu in front of her. Jess put a dent in the Intelligence [+1]Checkbox, no response came, so she decided to move onwards, hitting the ¡®back¡¯ checkbox. The [Beginners Survival Kit] wasn''t affordable either. She tried to chip the boxes next to the other categories, but was left with a monotone message:
Earn Glory to access Shop
''Glory'' was weird name for a currency. Jess decided to just go with ''g'' as of now, like in older games where gold was commonly used. She liked older games. ¡°Alright, guess it¡¯s time to grind some ¡®g¡¯ then, unless you wanna have a go at your menu as well." *** Jerry had a try at the granite menu. His session with the granite sphere was no different from Jessicas. he blankly stared into the shrine for a second, pondering the best way to get going. As his eyes shifted out of focus, a face, both familiar and foreign, got visible in the stone. He scrutinized his visible body parts. They weren''t too many; the first person perspective was untogglable. He froze mid way his analysis. His appearance wasn''t like any of this different game accounts, it was awfully similar to hir IRL one. Blushing for not noticing things faster, he whispered a couple of commands. This was the kinda glitch you wanted to deal with asap. Nothing happened. ''Oh well, better get this over with.'' ¡°This is a bit weird, but, is your appearance also glitching?¡±. *** Jess raised an eyebrow, looking at him skeptically. After a split second, she took a look at one of her reflections. Awkwardness was now mutual. She quickly mumbled a couple of silent commands. A stiff silence passed. "The glitch is probably going to be fixed soon, we''re playing a beta after all," Ben remarked. Just standing there wouldn''t lessen the awkwardness. Jess suggested moving on to grind some gold or something.The suggestion was welcomely left uncontested. 2 - Rabbit Chasing It would probably have taken half an hour to walk to the forest, Jess thought, walking in a straight line that was, but Ben had thrown away at least an hour trying to grind the rabbits found along the way. Kim was the one to suggest throwing rocks at them, but he himself disdained from taking any part in catching them, claiming the experience was better needed amongst the newcomers of this world. Jess had tried her best to hit the first couple of rabbits they ran into, but the procedure''s wasteful recursive nature had her soon think otherwise; It took about five minutes to find and sneak up on one close enough to throw a stone, but the stones never hit; they always bounced a couple of feet away from each, rabbit. Damn, how little did it take to make them panic? The rabbits weren¡¯t as unattentive as was hoped for. Luckily, only two things made them run for their lives: things that move and things that don''t. Ben, though, hadn¡¯t been discouraged at all. Losing every stone worth throwing to the high greens, he vigorously continued anyways, every time a rabbit ran away. His stone throwing ability, if that was a thing, was obviously too low a level to get anything done. Eventually Jess finally had Kim convince Ben that there would be better ways of leveling up stone throwing. Ben had stopped, but every time a rabbit got within whoknowswhat radius, the fanatic was far beyond contactable, eyeing the prey like a predator... a horrendously retarded predator. *** Jerry and his companions had finally reached the opening of the forest. He started to get a feel for this game. It was pretty weird at first; the temporary lack of visible skills, or any skill interface at that, had him a bit confused. The skill thing was probably going to be resolved as soon as they went back to the white shrine from before, or maybe earlier; Jerry didn¡¯t intend on missing out on any free moves attainable. They had probably headed the wrong way earlier, rabbits as hard to catch as those just seen were obviously not beginner level; Jerry didn¡¯t mind heading for a bit harder area though, the challenge made him feel hardcore. In his mind, he could see the face of his approving grandpa nodding his head. The forest floor was covered with pine needles of varying properties, decay-wise at least. Flowers of white and blue grouped together in the few patches of directly sunlit needles. Smaller leaf covered saplings were to be found a little here and there, but most never made it big; the dominating proportions of the pines ensured them sun a monopoly for the foreseeable future. Jerry was quite sure of that. He had played plenty of plant sims when he was younger; After taking couple of hints from his grandpa, always mindful not to have another family member turn noob; he had gotten pretty good at it. Jerry liked walking around in these woods. These trees were kicking it, they were the undisputed pros of this place, just like Jerry when he swam in his own waters. Being around these trees made him ever so eager to kick ass. *** KimZor walked along with his ¡®captors¡¯ in the pine forest. The idea of posing as an NPC had worked pretty well at first. No one seemed to have noticed that he was an ordinary gamer, exposed; not that that it had ever been very likely anyways, he was way out of their league. Especially that idiot who thought he could get away, posing as one of his favourite gamers in the action arena genre. Calling him ¡®Ben¡¯ was pretty fun though, KimZor had decided, calling him so was like making a fool out of him, without ¡®Ben¡¯ even knew the better. Knowing a bit of chinese since high school, KimZor made sure to pronounce ¡®Ben¡¯ in the fourth intonation, bestowing the name with the subtle, but suiting meaning of ¡®idiot¡¯. KimZor hadn¡¯t planned on sticking for long with these two dimwits, but having put on a curtain of NPCiness, he didn¡¯t want on blow his cover. Besides, who knew what good could come out of this? The Ben guy had already run around like an idiot, chasing rabbits after just a little ¡®NPC guidance¡¯. Minions, no matter how stupid, could always be of some kind of use, KimZor was certain.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. The Ben idiot was busy watching the pines around them for some reason. Silly. As they moved onwards the ground started to get covered with fern, high to the knees. The Ben idiot, (maybe just call him Ben-Ben?) started to stomp down on the fern to clear a path through it. He soon stopped the stomping though; the poor tard had finally realized that the fern didn¡¯t obstruct walking. Good, at least his minions had minimum levels of adaptability. *** The terrain got slightly tricky after entering the fern clothed area. It wasn¡¯t as much the fern itself, but the roots hidden below it posed a problem. Jess had hit a root with her toe, and it had hurt. She was now walking more carefully, trying to raise her feet slightly at each step, but it was hard, not walking as one usually would on asphalt or open grass. After some more walking, Ben stumbled on a root and fell, cursing. ¡°Stupid game, why would anyone ever implement mechanics like this, this is just mean.¡± ¡°It seems as the young traveler Ben is having trouble walking like a grown man, fear not, you¡¯ll soon learn what¡¯s required to make it in this world of true challenges,¡± Kim sort of soothed Ben. He had a pretty weird pronunciation when calling Ben¡¯s name, now when Jess thought about it. Poor Kim, even if an NPC, Jess felt sorry for his vocal handicap. It was a pretty good NPC though; It was almost believable to be real at times, but the lurking weirdness about it gave it away. ¡°Does it hurt,¡± Jess asked. ¡°Yeah, the pain threshold is probably set all the way up to 4.8%. Sadists!¡± Ben grinned. Jess started to walk with her feet a bit higher. She noticed that Kim went a lot smoother than she and Ben did. So smooth, it was pretty much as smooth as when he was walking towards the forest, not inside of it. Guess there¡¯ll be a lot of learning if I want to make it in this game with grace, she thought, impressed with what was observed. To their side, there was a pine, blown down by wind. As it had blown down, many of its branches had broken off from it. ¡°Let¡¯s arm up,¡± Jess proposed, picking up one of the sticks lying on the ground. The stick reached a couple of feet above her head. It got thicker by the end, where it had been closer to the main trunk. ¡°This won¡¯t do,¡± she mumbled, putting one foot on the lower part of the stick, attempting to break it. ¡°Help me out a moment, will you,¡± she asked out, not caring who identified with the calling. Ben helped her out breaking the stick, it wasn¡¯t easy, and required them creating a few tricks, but they eventually got by. ¡°Could I take this part?¡± Ben asked pointing at the staff like leftover stick. Jess didn¡¯t object with him getting the longer part from the branch they broke. Her meter-long gradually thicker stick was cooler and more badass. He had a stick, she had a bloody club! Kim too picked up a stick, his lied a distance away from the fallen pine. He made some weird comment on how they did a good job ¡°adapting to the flow of weaponry,¡± and ''initiated'' a ¡°commencement of their grinding expedition.¡± *** Jerry tried out his new weapon against a sapling. It felt nothing like in the game he was used to dominate in; he had to do the entire swing manually; There was no preset combat move, no nerve stimulus urging the most efficient move, no nothing. Not even visuals displaying weaknesses. That would probably, and hopefully, be fixed after this grinding session though; fighting like this would have been weird. Glancing at Jerry with a frown, Kim hit his own stick against the trunk of a small pine. Splinters flew a few feet, and minute cloud of dust made its way through the inside of what used to be a Kim¡¯s weapon. After a short silence, seemingly of surprise, Kim burst out:¡°Behold, what¡¯s possible with proper training. Strength doesn¡¯t come easy, for it is the bread made from well cared for seed.¡± The waiting time between the weapon breaking and the comment made was a bit too long. Jerry wasn¡¯t entirely sure yet, it was hard to be, but it seemed as if Jerry was quite the funny NPC; pulling jokes at the same time as he pretended to be dead serious. This was some next level sarcasm! Kim continued walking as if nothing had happened, gracefully as seemingly only he could. Suddenly he stopped for a second. He was grimacing. Jerry noted though that by some reason, Kim¡¯s strides got shorter and higher; his knees almost hit 90 degrees before descending for a shift of foot to balance on. Jerry pondered about the new walking technique Kim displayed. He was no doubt in need to get a walking related skill in this game; those roots were vicious, horribly vicious, as was the ridiculous pain threshold. Jerry observed Kim closely whilst continuing. He tried to mirror the moves, and indirectly learn the NPC''s skill, but as for now, nothing had happened. After a while of copying the NPC, Jerry lost focus and noticed some well due bowel movements. What the??! The cake, potato pancakes and bacon needed a leave, urgently. ¡°Would you mind waiting for a while? he asked. ¡°I have some IRL business to get down with really fast... it was my birthday yesterday¡±. He left out the bacon n¡¯ cake details. ¡°I¡¯ll be back in 20 minutes, please¡± No one objected, so Jerry quickly uttered his personal log out phrase. Nothing happened. He had heard about people messing up their personalized logout phrases, but he didn¡¯t know of anyone who had experienced it. He wondered how he had messed up his. He uttered it again and experienced the same result. Worried, but not yet panicking, he said the standard log out phrase, the one capsules were required by law to have. A while passed, and nothing happened. Sheer shock was in Jerry¡¯s eyes. He couldn¡¯t log out. He was stuck, imprisoned, exiled. He was held captive in a way unheard of, and he badly needed to have... a shit. 3 - Intimidating Shouts ¡°Guys, we might have a serious problem here,¡± Jerry said, foreboding like never before. He was almost worried shitless, emphasis on ¡®almost¡¯, his bowel made that unpleasantly appearant. ¡°Stay here, I need to just check something,¡± Jerry said, already on the leave. There wasn¡¯t time for excuses; he needed a private spot, now. He passed pine after pine, biting his teeth. The trees were too big and too spread out, no hiding within sight. To focus on was two things, squeezing his buttocks tight as fuck first, getting the hell out of there second. Jerry sped up. The careful steps turned into strides. Hidden below the rushed through fern, was another root, or something else, but hard and immobile it was. Whatever his feet hit, it locked them in place, leaving his torso to fly freely forward. With legs still squeezing as hard as he could, he fell head long. Insane pain was there again. He frowned. ''Can''t move, not now, not for a while!'' Shit wouldn''t stay for long otherwise. Every extra second of dry pants was precious. He tried his best to keep them so. The day had been weird as it was; failing now would be too much. Jerry made a glance towards the others. Instead of the others, fern was all that filled his vision. A low laying screen of green was between him and the others. "Vegetation, sorry for hating, I really love you right now," he sighted, finally relaxing. *** Ben returned as promised. He had had Jess a bit worried. His face from before had been alarmingly red. ¡°Could you please tell what''s happening¡± Jess asked. The rabbit fanatic weirded her out. ¡°Oh, yeah, I was just...¡± Ben looked into the distance, almost looking embarrassed. He soon snapped out of it and went on: ¡° I can¡¯t log out. I mean, I tried both my own logout phrase, and the standard one, but... nothing. It''s insane!¡± ¡°Really? Show me¡± Ben a made couple commands and left them all in silence. Even Kim seemed to catch up with the escalating tension. Jess tried her own logout phrase silently first; it was almost as ridiculous as Ben¡¯s, darn, how young was she whenshe chose it? ¡°Holy shit, you¡¯re right, it, it doesn¡¯t work¡± The silence intensified. A breeze shook the tree tops'' needles. Jess heard it, but the sound faded out as thoughts exploded in her mind. ¡°Maybe it¡¯ll get fixed soon, I¡¯m not used with playing betas, but glitches are to be expected, aren''t they?¡± Ben said. "Do you think we''ll get any creds for reporting it?" Jess didn¡¯t know where Ben had gotten the ¡®Beta¡¯ thing from. She had joined the game together with some other old school enthusiasts. She hadn¡¯t been early to join either; the game had been running for a good month. She hadn''t heard from her friends yet. The game was, in modest words, lacking in communication features, or any features really. The visuals weren''t enough to compensate for the rest. Anyhow, this brat, spoiled in games, both modern and popular, didn¡¯t have a clue about the situation. Log out featuers were supposed to never ever ever malfuction. ¡°First off: how are beta testers supposed to tell developers about a log out problem if they can¡¯t even log out in the first place?¡± ¡°Secondly, this isn¡¯t even a beta; it¡¯s supposed to be a fully functioning game. I don¡¯t know where you got your beta ideas from, this is the second time you¡¯re making a fool out of yourself like that.¡± ¡°Well, actually, I happen to be a pro gamer, and¡­ ¡°Lastly I¡¯m pretty sure this violates at least one of the Inception Paragraphs. Do you have any idea how bad that is? . . "Well... Fuck!" *** KimZor finally walked in forefront of the group. Ben had persisted on leading the way for a brief moment. He said something about the path he had run towards earlier being rootier,or something like it; he hadn¡¯t been very specific. Seems like having minions already started to pay off, damn that root of satan had really hurt.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. He didn¡¯t mind sending his pawns out to get mutilated by roots, but Ben leading them had been both irritating and unnecessary; just telling about the way would have been enough. Oh well, the best pawns were usually the ones believing themselves to be free. The others not being able to leave the game either, was a bitter sweetness. He didn¡¯t know if it would make it easier or harder for him to log out, but he was glad others suffered too. Ben¡¯s ranting about getting back to IRL for some reason wasn¡¯t anything KimZor could relate to. Kim wasn''t weird like that. Being stuck in this game though, sucked, especially with nasty roots hidden as early as at the starting area. Ben had started asking him a couple of arbitrary questions. The fucker tried to poke a hole in Kims alibi, too bad it wasn''t gonna work, KimZor spun a weave of legit lies...facts about his distant forest village. He had some pretty good lolz, seeing the others submerge deeper intodelusion. Little did they know, little did they know. Everything went smooth until Ben asked how forest villagers wiped at the toilet. These questions were stupid. How did you answer them? Kim didn''t even know how IRL people did their dirty stuff. But he couldn¡¯t sound stupid in front of there two. Luckily, he had a pretty good to-go model for silly questions. ¡°Such talk is not dignified to be uttered amongst great travelers such as you. I imagine your imagination would be sufficient enough to envision every piece of grain in my humble village¡­¡± *** Ben was at the back of the fellowship, he preferred it that way; his itching behind made him walk weirdly. He wondered what had happened to the eaten cake and bacon IRL. In his mind, he saw himself floating in nanofluid, the same nanofluid that fed him. Somewhere in there his food had to have gone. How fast did turds dissolve into water? There was definitely a deadline he wanted to be out of this game well before. Ben tried to think aboutother things. Rabbits! They were too fast to catch, too small to hit, had he justbeen given more time... What about their burrows? Could he use them to his advantage somehow? His focus retracted. His ass still itched badly. How did they flush their behinds here? Why couldn''t the NPC be a bit more specific on inportant information? They had entered a bare, pine needled area, this time with a few occasional bushes a little here and there. The convenient footing had the pace increase. Ben, as the others, looked far into the distance. Time to turn something into exp. Nothing remarkable happened, not until Kim, walking in the front, lead them over a small hilltop.Screaming in a high pitched tone, he hurried backwards. Kim ran like Jerry walked when needy, but faster, and in reverse. A deer sprang away from its resting place. Apparently, getting stepped on and screamed onto didn¡¯t promote sleep. Kim calmed down and gave Ben a deep, focused eye. Ben soon got some tips on how to implement this ¡®powerful¡¯ intimidation technique on his own. He wasn¡¯t sure if Kim was pulling his leg. But, the powerful skill, as described by the NPC, was too good ignore. Ben needed abilities. Maybe, this powerful crowd controller would do the trick. Damn, how badly his ass itched! *** It had been some time since Kim had ''scared'' away their best grinding target thus far. There had probably been more, but the rabbit fanatic wasn¡¯t easily convinced to stop screaming his throat out, alerting any critter without a couple of kilometers. After some silent walking, Jess finally spotted something. In an area with fewer pines and more saplings, a beast laid down. As they stalked closer to the pray, weapons at the ready, Jess got a better glance at their prey. It was pretty dense in structure, covered with a thick coat of dark brown, long, spiky fur. At its teats were half a dozen of lively, striped piglets. She silently hoped they''s get away. Jess lost an argument of hand gestures. Having the biggest stick, she apparantly had to be the vanguard. They carefully sneaked closer to the she feeding boar mummy. As they got to meters distance, the wind shifted direction. The boar raised its head a bit, ears raised. ''Shit!'' Jess hurried forward, her club raised high. As she hurried a dead twig snactched The boar grunted and rolled around. Before getting its hind legs up to match the front ones, Jess hit it in the head. A distinct sound, similar to when Ben sparred with a sapling, was heard. The hairy pig fell, head first. Content, Jess inspected the floored pig. It inhaled slowly. Maybe she needed to hit it again. The inspection didn¡¯t last for long. The boar made a sad and ugly screech as it tried to stand up again. Before the terrifying sound ended, it was up on all wobbling four. The beast''s breath was heavy and raspy. It didn¡¯t sound anything like a pig, or any other living animal, for the matter. What charged towards her didn''t feel anything like a pig at all. The frenzied monstrosity, broader and sturdier than the biggest dog she had ever seen, burned into her cornea, unwilling to fade away. Her mind froze to ice and her legs ran faster than they ever had. *** Jerry had been close to running in Jess¡¯ footsteps, but being further away from the sow, his adrenaline filled consciousness took note of something. The beast couldn¡¯t run straight. In its concussed state, it was barely charged forwards more than sidewards. As fast as he could, he sidestepped to the side the pig had troubles walking towards. ¡®What would grandpa have done¡¯, struck his mind. The question had, as always, been rhetorical. He grabbed his staff as hard as he could. Ben rushed to the beast and hit it as hard as he could with the staff. The tilted over to its side, but quickly stood up again. It now charged Jerry instead. Luckily the pig still ran in heavily curved lines, standing still was enough to dodge it. Without control of its trajectory, the pig got stuck ina bush. Before it got loose from entanglement, Jerry hit it with some heavy swings, wielding the staff as an immense longsword. The hits bounced away from the boars back, dealing unknown damage. The pig got out and turned towards Jerry. It stopped for a second, preparing for something. Jerry jumped to the side, almost missing sighting the thing puking a yellow-green concoction. Shaking its head, the boar wryly charged again. *** It didn¡¯t take long for Jess to get back to her senses. The swine was heavily concussed and pretty much ready to be finished. Her heavy blow had made sure of that. The rabbit hunter, to no ones surprise, had another animal he couldn''t handle. Swinging his staff as if it was a sword or something, the skinny stick would never deal any damage. She ran to Ben''s aid, hoping that her own damage would be enough. Ben had switched strategy of fighting. He used the tip of the staff to stab at the she boar¡¯s head. He missed most of the hits though, putting all his bodyweight behind each stab. Luckily, he had unlimited tries on this half-finished pig. When she got back, one of the boars eyes was mashed in. In now ran in smaller circles than ever. Jess raised her club, delivering another hit to the head. The beast fell down to its side, legs twitching. She didn¡¯t test her luck this time; She hit its head at least another ten times before inspecting how much alive it was. It wasn¡¯t. If the pulp head wasn¡¯t enough evidence, a gamelike feature finally revealed itself; from the remains of the sow¡¯s head, a white fluffy ball started hovering, shining with a bright soothing light. 4 - Beginners Survival Kit Jess crouched next to the mutilated boar. She was careful not to have her clothes touch the clotting blood, sticking to the bristle of its head. Adrenaline was still pumping as she had a look at the glowing ball hovering above the pigs head. A warm, soothing feeling emanated from it, making her want to be closer to it. She put her hand closer to the fuzzy light source, almost touching it. When her hand got really close, the ball repelled form her, moved by the tiny current invoked by her hand movement. Intrigued by the interesting phenomenon, Jess grabbed it carefully to have a better look. Bouncing, free of gravity, between her hands was now a fuzzy orb, pulsating with a satisfying feeling of comfort and safety. Wow, holding this thing felt great. Having grabbed the ball, there wasn¡¯t much reason to be crouching over the ex-boar anymore. The thought of checking for more loot hit her, but was soon discarded; the carcass was partially covered in an easy flowing, smelly, yellow green liquid. Despite its lack of chunky elements, it put an end to any further looting endeavors. Jess felt sick. Ben didn¡¯t seem too comfortable either, spitting repeatedly as he backed away from the carcass. The rush of excitement and fear started to wear off. Regret surged through every fiber of Jess body. What they had done was ugly and horrendous. The joy usually accompanied grinding was not to be found. The reason, why realistic RPG games hadn¡¯t been able make it to the era of perfect immersion, was lying, sadly and obviously, in front of her. Shaken, she stared silently at the thing she had created in front of her. She experienced many feelings, but repulsion was the strongest. She and Ben, a group of two, stood still, looking into the far distance, empty eyed, both lips moving faintly, but no one uttering a word. A tempest of different emotions swirled in her consciousness, dulling the misplaced tranquility of the orb. She was naked in appearance, captured in a cruel game, doing things that made her want to cry out her multiple strains of disgust. Piglets, with eyes too newly opened to notice the danger happening around them, were confusedly looking for their mother. At the leg of Ben¡¯s blood pricked pants, was a piglet, sniffing, hungry and confused. Ben¡¯s frown went deeper. His head fell, looking at the piglet, or just the ground, Jess didn¡¯t know. Ben sobbed, shakingly, but silent. For a while, they just stood there, doing nothing. It wasn¡¯t enjoyable, maybe not needed, but near impossible to snap out of. A voice had the two freed of their apathy: ¡°Well done, mighty heroes, you¡¯ve completed your first battle¡­ and retrieved the old orb o¡¯ mine. Once we make it to my village, I assure you, you will be amply rewarded,¡± their tutor emerged from who knows where. Somewhat eased, being reminded that it was only a game, Jess removed the piglet from Ben¡¯s leg, snapping him out of whatever he was thinking about. This time the piglet found its way to what used to be its mother. Its siblings soon joined in, besides one, which laid still on its side. Jess looked at Ben¡¯s face, seeing a reflection of her feelings in it. It didn¡¯t feel good, but it felt a bit better so to share her sadness with. ¡°Jerk up, it¡¯s just another game!¡± she consoled him, lacking the confidence in her voice to make it sound believable. *** Jerry walked back to the shrine with the others, both arms full. He had had enough of the forest, and if there was an easier leveling area, he would go there, and never get back. In his arms were two piglets. They weren¡¯t struggling as much as when he had first grasped them, thankfully. He didn¡¯t want them to end up like their mother. He feared the cute little fur balls wouldn¡¯t make it without their, until not long ago, one and only food supply. There was still some hope for them, giving Jerry a smile on top of his bitterness; the NPC villager was an expert on raising critters, and had insisted that they should bring them along to the shrine. *** KimZor smiled for every step he took. A feeling of accomplishment surged though him, as he again reminded himself of how well he had performed, turning a potentially shitty morning to a promising day. In between his hands, he bounced his well-earned fluffy ball. He liked it; holding it gave him a feeling of serene calmness, to accompany his well-deserved sense of accomplishment. The protruding hair-like strains on its surface were in contact with his skin, yet he couldn¡¯t feel his skin connect with them.He only felt contact when touching the surface of the orb. He liked squeezing it. Every time he applied a small pressure to it, it would pop satisfactory; and split up into ten smaller copies, floating into all directions; letting pleasant pulses envelop him from their different places. It was a great feeling to crush the brittle orb into smaller pieces, as was leading all of the weightless orblets back to merge back into one, big orb. So satisfying, so satisfying, his unknowing minions had proven themselves useful already. They were getting close to the altar of awful reflections. KimZor¡¯s legs were starting to get heavy, yet another silly thing in this game. He hoped there would be some kind of regeneration at the shrine. There should be, but he didn¡¯t have any way of telling. He shouldn¡¯t have let the inspection of the black globe thingey to the two incompetents earlier. Now was the time to make up for that. He longed to buy a spell of instant baconification. He had made sure to bring the materials after all. Anything else could wait.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it They had made a disgusting mess of their first prey; things did turn ugly when he had others do his errands. It was for a well-motivated reason that he didn¡¯t join the fight though; he was proud of how he instinctively avoided the fight beforehand. It was for the best that he hadn¡¯t jumped in to score the pig kill; showing how real pros get stuff done would have been a bit too discouraging; he didn¡¯t want to give the others a minority complex; they needed to grow and become useful. KimZor knew that it was best for them to learn, by slowly realizing how ineffective they were. KimZor¡¯s legs ached in their heaviness. The weird feeling in his legs, the unnecessary simulation of hunger and thirst, none of the weird mechanics mattered much to him at the moment. He was finally about to get some stuff done with the granite globe at the shrine. Judging from the others performance with the pig, he wouldn¡¯t be the least surprised if they had misses a log out option at the stone menu. A sharp, skillful, sound was heard as he masterfully hit the checkbox next to [Items]. *** Jess¡¯ arms were hurting. It had been a long walk with two piglets to carry. Their weight hadn¡¯t been much, but the position she had had to fix her arms at had slowly infused a burning weakness into them. It hurt, but she figured she shouldn¡¯t complain too much; she was pretty certain her pain wasn¡¯t as high as 2.5%, the threshold sane developers usually had. The devs had been pretty cruel to create prolonged pain and discomfort like this though. ¡°Behold, your reward for returning my long lost orb,¡± an annoyed NPC announced, momentarily not playing with his glowing toy. At his side was a wooden box, accompanied by two massive linen sacks filled with things of protruding, round, shapes. ¡°First quest completed I guess,¡± Jess concluded victoriously, looking at Ben. ¡°What are these?¡± Jess asked, her forehead wrinkled, pointing at the brown and red ellipsoids in the linen sacks. ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure they¡¯re potatoes,¡± the rabbit hunter said. ¡°I didn¡¯t know you were into cooking games¡± ¡°Nha you know actually¡­¡± Ben had a rather long rethoric pause. ¡°My family makes potato pancakes every time someone has a birthday. It¡¯s sort of a family tradition. Mum is a bit weird that way, doing some stuff in real life... One day I decided to check what they were made out of, and when I was already at it, I kinda decided to go full pro on potatoes. ¡®Twas way back though,¡± the rabbit hunter eventually spoke out. ¡°So we¡¯ve got two sacks of potatoes and a myst¡­¡± ¡°Well, they¡¯re King Edward potatoes and Asterix potatoes, they differ greatly as how you c¡­¡± ¡°Yeah, two sacks of potatoes and a mystery box, let¡¯s check it out,¡± Jess spoke out fast, smiling. She had won the war of disruption. Beneath the lid of the wooden crate was an assortment of different items, each accompanied with a small label. ¡°Thank you a lot for your generosity, but is it possible that you have any, you know, more weapon like things? I don¡¯t know how long we¡¯ll haft to stay around until we can log off, but I¡¯d rather be a kickass warrior than a farmer,¡± a slightly disappointed Jess inquired. *** ¡°All things are weapons; fault never lies amongst things, for they¡¯re all a fearful bane to the right enemy,¡± KimZor replied to the overly, curious minion. Things hadn¡¯t gone as they should. Turns out the nice orb of his was the currency known as ¡°glory¡±. Why was this prison of a game so ambiguous, not telling him what¡¯s what. He had been glad to see his rightful head start of one ¡®g¡¯. The game had, instead of being cool, as it seemed, and should, tricked him of his nice little orb, and what did he get in return? Shitty stone age food and shitty stone age equipment. He could as well throw it away to the two idiots around him. It suited them. Jessica had emptied the crate and put the piglets into it. The bacon generator, or ¡®piggy home¡¯, as the na?ve club minion thought herself to have declared, was a reasonable compensation for the unfair loss; KimZor was starting to get a bit hungry. It was weird, he knew that he didn¡¯t need to eat; his body was in his capsule, but the hunger was irritating. An effective master shouldn¡¯t be strained by petty bullshit; he deserved bacon. While Ben-Ben, made stupid faces, petting the raw bacon, the club minion read out loud from the item labels: "Begginer¡¯s Survival Kit:" "Instructions: Basic Rope Making" "Instructions: Basic Pottery" "Instructions: Starting a Fire" "Instructions: How to deal with an Animal Carcass" "Four Waxed Water Leathers" "Bronze Knife, pretty sharp" "Whet stone. Makes things pretty sharp" "Flint" "Bronze Casserole" ''Boring, boring, boring, boring. This is worse that getting IRL presents at christmas.'' "Scroll of Fire Rune" ''Holy shit, that one''s going to me'' ¡°Oh, I¡¯m sorry, almost forgot I stashed the ol¡¯ fire Rune scroll o¡¯ mine in there,¡± KimZor confidently excused himself, grabbing his scroll before it got further contaminated with stupidness. He left the stone age tools for the others to play with. It was time to become the strongest in the group, in its truest sense, not just mentally. He sat down to learn the spell. Finally the game had decided to be fair and given him some OP stuff to abuse. *** Jerry every so often found himself having an involuntary spasm of an ugly grin as his thoughts relapsed to his turd bath dilemma . His itchy behind didn''t save him from his imagination. He had gotten more and more worried on whether or not he¡¯s make it back to his team¡¯s practice session tomorrow. His team would probably be left with more than one question; he had never missed a single practice opportunity before. Things were getting better though. Not that he was entirely sure if that was a good thing, but at least the itching had been alleviated after finding a combination of leaves and privacy. A hope that one of his teammates would contact his family and have him unplugged was there as well. They had, of course, never met in real life, where action needed to be taken, but, his family, especially mom and grandpa, were frequent visitors of Jerry, and where Jerry was, his team was too. His stomach rumbled out of hunger. Oh, that¡¯s right he had another purpose, being back to the forest. They had decided to make a fire, and he was to get tinder and firewood. Hopefully the flint found in the [Beginners Survival Set] would work as a fire starter somehow, otherwise there wouldn¡¯t be any opportunity for him to show off his potato skills. The next step, after finishing the hunger and thirst issue, would probably have to be tied to the primitive tools the NPC had given them. Nothing had happened when he had held the instruction scrolls, so it was pretty obvious that the entire part needed to be read until you¡¯d gain skill from them. The rope making part seemed pretty promising though; using ropes instead of abilities would probably give him an unfair advantage grinding wise, early on at least. He grinned. Sooner or later, he should be able to mass produce rabbit traps. Finally time for revenge on those fast little fuckers. 5 - Playing with Flames The ''food'' had been horrible. It was void of any taste, unworthy to be eaten by anyone. Plain, dull and disgusting. How did potatoes even become a thing? KimZor wasn''t pleased with the baconless menu. Dish of the day: boiled potatoes. Asterschmick, or whatever the potato-minion had insisted on calling it. The minions started whining about the fire scroll again. "Please do not make me repeat myself, magic is beyond what new travelers should be concerned about. Meddling with such grand things could end in eternal regret," KimZor explained to his botherer. His words had truth to them, at least they might have had, not that it mattered, but if it did, he was doing the overly curious followers a great service. Kim always had a weak part for people; he was too kind to others. One day he''d make them thank him for the risks he took in their stead. He silently slank away to take cover, crunching on the shrine side opposite to the one of the camp. Time to continue with the good stuff. Laying on the uneven mat of grass, was a crude piece of bright paper. Two small stones lied on each of its ends to prevent it from reverting into a bolt. Beneath the only understandable part of it -"Magic: Fire rune", was a clusterfuck of doodles, or a collection of them...six, to be precise. Their weirdness made them a clusterfuck anyhow. There was one big doodle connected to another, smaller doodle. To the smaller doodle there was a third doodle connected to a fourth, connected to a fifth. The last one in the main clusterfuck was anyhow drawn inside a depiction an open hand palm. Finally some clear clues! He put his hand to the obvious hand mark. Immediately the doodle next to it began glowing in a indigo hue, as did the next doodle in the chain of five. Not only the scroll was affected by the magic at display; the entire world seemed to turn more dark, blurry and vigorous. The grass whipped violently, as wind blew faster. Small clouds of insects and grass swirled towards different directions every time he blinked. Nothing was granted pardon by the natural powers, dancing around him. Holy shit! This was intense! Few things passed KimZor¡¯s mind before the world turned back to normalcy. The last two runes shone. The biggest doodle blazed in red orange. Above it, an illusion of liquid air blew by the wind. KimZor¡¯s reflexes withdrew his hand from the wave of heat. The scroll caught fire, but was soon quenched as the whole paper momentarily flashed blue . A stunned KimZor smiled vividly, eyes wide open. He rolled up the scroll, keeping it tight to his chest. What happened couldn¡¯t possibly have gone unnoticed by the others. A careful glance convinced him otherwise. ''Inattentive poor fuckers.'' He exhaled two lungfulls of air. Back to the good stuff. No message appeared earlier, so he wasn¡¯t sure if he had absorbed the secrets of the scroll or not. He tried to channel mana, but he didn''t feel a concrete response. He analyzed the scroll. Something as off with the doodles. The scroll was just as weird, but the sixth, super complicated doodle in the corner was missing. ''Well, time for a second try,'' he put his hand to the paper again. The doodle turned bright, and the vivid world from before revealed itself again. His surroundings were pretty much as before he touched the scroll, yet it was clearly different. Energy danced around him in great passion. The biggest doodle once again shone brightly, like ember on a pile of white ash. The air shook near it, visibly to the eye, then the paper took fire. The scroll evaporated, soon followed by the flaming, big doodle, briefly hovering on its own. He had done it!He had done it! And damn, had, it, been, cool! The story of the just and mighty Warlock, Kim, was about to unfold! Now it was time to replicate feeling. *** ¡°Plopp¡±,¡±Plapp¡±,¡±Ploftt¡±, ¡°Crack¡±, Ploff¡±,¡±Crack¡±¡­ The rabbit fanatic had taken a break from making ¡®ropes¡¯, and was now throwing stones around. ¡°Could you please stop doing that? There aren¡¯t even any rabbits around¡± Jess remarked to Ben. Well, you¡¯re the one obsessing about silence, you could just read them at another place you know,¡± Ben answered, notting the the instruction scrolls. He picked up some stones, spread out around a small boulder. ¡°Yeah, I could, but I¡¯m don¡¯t see any point for you even doing what you¡¯re doing. If there was a stone throwing skill, you would have been beyond novice level of it by now.¡± Her eyes met with Ben¡¯s, but he quickly stared at the grass instead, then the sky to his side. ¡°Well, yeah¡­ I¡¯ve figure that much, but, you know, maybe something good will come out of it.¡± ¡°Seriously, you¡¯re throwing small stones at a big stones. How''s that ever gonna help with anything? We have no idea for how long we''re gonna be stuck in this mess. Why don''t we at least try to make ourselves a bit comfortable here. I don''t think we were got that quest reward for no reason ¡± ¡°You¡¯re not wrong, but actually I¡¯m¡­ ¡° ¡° I don¡¯t get why you¡¯re bitching about it, we already had an agreement; I do the pottery, YOU do the ropes, . I don¡¯t know for how long we¡¯ll be stuck here, but if we¡¯ll be stuck here together, we should act like it. Don¡¯t go full noobtard on me!¡± Ben took his time preparing an answer. His vacant gaze flew into even more directions than before. His lips moved, but hesitated to form words. ¡°Do not neglect to enhance your potato prowess either; great culinary skills can vastly enhance ones vigor,¡± the NPC filled in, awkwardly late. Kim did have point on the potato cocking though. ¡°¡­ I¡¯m sorry, you¡¯re right, just¡­ It¡¯s not that I wanna waste any time, pulling fibers from grass got pretty tedious, and I had an idea¡­of sorts. Sorry for losing focus.¡± ¡°Well¡­ Sorry for being a bit harsh... pretty tough day.¡± *Silence* Ben headed towards the piggy home and crunched down. Jess did the same. Checking out on the cute little piglets was just as important as getting the infra structure going. Ben and she both sighted in relief. At least some of the mashed potatoes had been eaten. The two bigger piglets were eating while the other two slept serenely, like little angels of fur. She stroked the back of her hand to one of the sleeping piglets. She had carried this one for quite a walk.Stolen novel; please report. "They''re awfully cute" "Yeah" ¡° What was your idea about?¡± ¡°My what? Oh... well, you know that we don¡¯t have any real skills yet. We¡¯ve kind of got some manual melee abilities, for whatever that¡¯s worth.¡± He looked down again. ¡° But we don¡¯t have shits for ranged attacks, so I though that until then, maybe manually throwing stuff could fill a void, and maybe...¡± ¡°Maybe what?¡± ¡°Maybe throwing stones could be a bit useful later on; a skill besides your skills kinda, and maybe...¡± ¡°Yes¡± ¡°What¡± ¡°Maybe what¡± ¡°Err¡­ Maybe a skill like that could snowball us, always keep us a bit ahead of our levels you know, and maybe...¡± Jess stared at him with a skeptical face. ¡°Maybe we could hunt down some rabbits with them. You know, We sneak up on them, maybe make some traps, if we get good at throwing I think we could hit a few of them too. I think¡­ Maybe.¡± ¡°Well, Maybe you¡¯re obsessing about early game rabbits.¡± ¡°To achieve excellence in ones craft, doing, not speaking is usually of favor to young travelers,¡± the NPC said, finally getting Ben back to work. Jess, somewhat satisfied, left the piglets and continued to think of ways to get and prepare clay. Hardening stuff probably wouldn¡¯t be as easy as heating potato water either. ¡°Why do we even need pottery anyways?¡± ¡°I guess we kinda need to store stuff, water maybe. Damn, I wish we just had some Item slots.¡± She really wished she had some. ¡°Item slots?¡± ¡°Older game thing, that stuff would¡¯ve been the shit right now¡± ¡°Maybe we should take a look at the Items part form the stone menu thingey,¡± Jerry suggested. ¡°You already had a look a second ago, and since then, It¡¯s not as if you¡¯ve suddenly grinded some ¡®g¡¯... Damn, you don¡¯t even know how to make money in this game¡± ¡°Well, maybe if we could get some rabbits...¡± *Sight* Jess ignored the rabbit fanatic and got back into her deep thinking. *** It soon got dark, darker than most games Jerry usually played. Besides the fire, and the things it lit, nothing could be seen. The last pieces of wood were barely glowing. They had tried to put some grass onto the fire, but it hadn¡¯t burned too well, probably too moist. The grass that did burn didn¡¯t burn for long either. They, well, Jessica mostly, had decided that it was time to shut up and sleep. It had been a pretty exhausting day. Laying down felt great; His legs were sore. Not moving them felt satisfying in a way. He had made a bed of long straws of grass. It was pretty comfy, a lot more comfy than getting up to make a better one. He lied down content, letting pleasant sleep slowly overwhelm him. *** Digging, forming, kilning. Digging, forming kilning. Maybe make a flat spinning thing¡­ Digging, forming, kilning. Maybe it was a waste of time. Maybe she¡¯d be a potter forever. No, no, no, no, NO. She couldn¡¯t log out. Jess woke up. She didn¡¯t know why, but it ought to be due to either the cold or her need to pee. She needed to what!? Most of her sleepiness was washed away by her confusion. She sat up. This was weird¡­ She got back to her straw bed. It had taken a couple of tries, but she eventually kicked a large tuft of grass. Sadly, the flattened grass no longer provided any muffling for her back on the rough terrain. It had served a well as it could, but had lost to her weight. The weird cold wetness from the morning had begun sticking to the straws again. She wanted to sleep, but the cold made it hard. She turned to her side, waiting for the new dew to evaporate, or at least get heated somewhat. Maybe the cold could just be forgotten. She waited for the cold to disappear. She waited and waited. What was she waiting for again? *** ¡°Plopp¡±,¡±Plapp¡±,¡±Ploftt¡±, ¡°Crack¡±, Ploff¡±,¡±Crack¡±¡­ The lightly sleeping KimZor awoke. He wanted to get back to sleep, but noises didn¡¯t allow him to. ¡°Ey, you, the fuck you doing, he yelled to the ground. He hit the surface next to his stomach with a sleepy, closed fist. He felt unreal, things were weird and the world around him was weirder. The irritating sound was no more; what ever that had bothered him had passed. ¡°Pussies,¡± he muttered, and went back to sleep. ¡°Plopp¡±,¡±Plapp¡±,¡±Ploftt¡±, ¡°Crack¡±, Ploff¡±,¡±Crack¡±¡­ KimZor squinted his eyes, confused. The world was blurry and bright, way too bright. He burrowed his face into a turf of grass and tried to go back to sleep. ¡°Plopp¡±,¡±Crack¡±,¡±Ploftt¡±, ¡°Crack¡±, Ploff¡±,¡±Crack¡±¡­ ¡°Bloody fucking motherfuck-fuck shit-fuck fuck!¡± He sat, in dual sense, firmly erected; eyes red and wide open. He looked in the direction of the annoying sound, waiting for a blurry curtain to be raised. He tightened his fists as hard as he could, but they were still weak from sleeping. He didn¡¯t know where he was, he didn¡¯t care much either. Something important had happened during the night, and whatever made that disturbing sound deserved death. *** ¡°Crack¡±,¡±Crack¡±,¡±Ploff¡±, ¡°Crack¡±, Ploff¡±,¡±Ploff¡±¡­ Jerry was sniping the boulder pretty often now. It got easier when he relaxed, but relaxing hadn¡¯t been easy; throwing stones at full power felt soothing when upset. Boy had he been upset when he woke up. Relieving himself from the cold induced bladder tingling had given his turd bath paranoia a severe relapse. His current situation and all its implications made him nervous and restless. The others were still sleeping when he went up, so he figured he wouldn¡¯t be breaking their deal if he delayed the rope prototyping a bit. Experimenting with stones sure was more fun than experimenting with grass, and the more he hit, the more fun it got. He was starting to consistently hit the target boulder three out of ten throws now. If he could just keep these results with a target one tenth the size of the boulder, like ¡­ a rabbit! He envisioned himself averaging three rabbits an hour; In his mind, the NPC gave him some awesome rewards, and the control obsessed girl realized how he, being the pro gamer he was, was too capable to be put into any plans. Grandpa would¡¯ve been proud of him. Gotta powerlevel the little he had. He was at the boulder now, picking up stones spread around ut. Four out of ten this time! Damn, he was making improvement. Maybe he should get some more stones to throw... but then he¡¯d need to walk twice instead of one to fetch them after throwing. Sticking to his ten stones had his progress easy to follow, which was neat too. When he started throwing another volley, a rusty, angry, voice disrupted him. ¡°The fuck you doing you stone tossing dipshit!!?!¡± an NPC with barely open eyes yelled at him. ¡°Good morning Kim, any new quests for us today?¡± Jerry asked the weirdly behaving NPC. Whatever script that was running didn¡¯t really make Kim feel more real. He was a bit too out of character. The NPC stopped waving his hand for a moment and closed his eyes a bit more. ¡°You¡­, thou, should¡¯t, ¡­ shan¡¯t throw stones!¡± ¡°What¡¯s up then?¡± ¡°Do¡­ the thing! Eeeeh, youknow,¡± the NPC sighted demandingly. ¡°So, Practicing potato cooking? Continuing to twine fibers? Checking for low level grinding areas? Collect stuff?¡§ The NPC took a few seconds to simulate thinking. ¡°Check for¡­ eh, yeah, area things, do that! ¡°Alrightie, time to see how far these will get,¡± Jerry burst out with a smile, grabbing his staff with his right hand and pocketing stones with his left. He hoped to run into something easy, like giant snails, but whatever happened, he wouldn¡¯t disappoint his grandpa¡¯s legacy. Grinding time was grinding time! 6 - Sneaky Bacon A shuddering Jess woke. The sun was above the forest line, but not yet hot enough to compensate for the cold dew.¡°Where¡¯s the rabbit stoner,¡± a couldlike breath asked the nearby NPC. ¡°He¡¯s¡­ on a mission, important¡± Kim replied, his eyes red swolled, lower lips padding outwards. ¡°Jeez, what¡¯s he doing, when¡¯s he coming back?¡± ¡°Gaah, travelers quests are long.. ehm, unpredictable, I.. few can tell. It¡¯s important¡± ¡°What! What should I do then?¡± she asked. ¡°Err, no, just be a wise adventurer¡± *Sight* "Great" Being productive for the sake of the ¡®group¡¯ wasn¡¯t as appealing as before, not when its only other non-NPC member wasn¡¯t there. No pottery today then, she decided. If Ben didn¡¯t do his chores, neither would she. ¡°Should we feed the piglets again?¡± she asked while heading for the piggy home. The pig expert replied: ¡°Such¡­erm¡­ You should be able to spot such obvious things on your own, by the way you shouldn¡¯t disturb a¡­ ¡±. ¡°Aaaii, no, oh my god, NOO!¡± Jess whispered in falsetto. Next to a small pile of mashed potatoes, two of the cute furry ones were lying, spasming in shudders. She felt surreal. Jess quickly picked up them both and held them tight against her. Hugging them tightly, she could hear their tiny, hyperventilating breaths. They were cold, colder than the grass she had slept on. ¡°We need to light a fire, now!¡± ¡°Stop disturbing me. I¡¯m doing important things,¡± a rusty voice replied. ¡°What the...¡± She went to yesterday¡¯s fireplace. Lying there was nothing but a mix of black charcoal and white ash. There was nothing to start a fire with; all firewood had been used up yesterday. This wasn¡¯t gonna do. Body heat! That might work. There wasn¡¯t any time to prepare a fire, or at least there might not be. She went to the box to check out the other piglets. ¡°Oh, no, please, no.¡± The other, non-shaking piglets, lied way too still... She turned her back to Kim; he might be an NPC, but he still was a male. Then she took all of the piglets under her sweater. Their coldness stunned her for a second. ¡°It¡¯ll be better soon,¡± she promised them, as she looked for a dry turf of grass. She silently thanked the game creators for making her linen clothes big and loose. The still piglets had her worried the most. She held them to her chest, constantly hoping for signs of improvement. All muscles she knew of were flexed in her body. Her temperature needed to compensate for the acutely shuddering pigs. After half an hour, the two hyperventilating pigs shuddered less. She could do nothing but hope that it was a good sign. Nothing happened with the smaller piglets though. She couldn¡¯t see any breathing going on, nor could she sense any pulse on them. Tears dropped onto the little piglets in her bosom. She wasn¡¯t crying, she wasn¡¯t crying. ¡°Please, please stay alive.¡± The piglets were still cold, maybe not as cold as before, but that she couldn¡¯t tell; much of her body was still itching when regaining heat. She wished she had more heat. Fire, flames, bodyheat, anything. ¡°Hey Kim, come over here will you?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t disturb me.¡± ¡°Hey Kim!¡± ¡°Didn¡¯t you just hear me?¡± ¡°Hey, Kim, Hey!¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°Didn¡¯t you have some fire magic going on? Please light a fire or something! ¡°No, I can¡¯t.¡± ¡°What do you mean by that!?¡± ¡°You shouldn¡¯t look down upon magic, for it¡¯s violent nature isn¡¯t to be used as thoughtless as you just suggested¡± ¡°Come on, just a fire¡± *** An exhausted, yet cheerful Jerry walked back to the camp. For how long had be been gone? The sun was¡¯t even close to the center of the sky anymore. He had some bad news, and some very good ones for his new team. Rabbits were the easiest targets. No easier leveling anywhere where he had looked. Heck! This difficulty was so high, it wasn¡¯t even hardcore anymore. It was as if the developers never even wanted anyone to level up. That wasn¡¯t gonna be any problem though, not for a good while; Jerry had some good news that rekked shit! He had glitched the system; he powned despite having no ability unlocked. Too pro to be contained! Fuck yeah! He walked back cheerfully, eager to tell his story. In his right hand was the neck of a still rabbit, its belly was white, and its back was spotted, like a scoop of chocolate ice cream, with licorice, and mint sprinkles. As he got closer to the hill, the first person to be seen was Kim. He seemed to be doing a mysterious ritual again. Jerry had wanted to learn that one ever since yesterday, hopefully he¡¯d get it as a reward for today¡¯s endeavors. Not too worried about bothering the NPC, he was a NPC after all, Jerry knocked on his shoulder. ¡°Sup cap¡¯! I¡¯m back! The NPC briefly became airborne. ¡°Holy shit you¡­ Don¡¯t ever do that again!¡± ¡°Your quest had been completed, how about you teach me some of those moves as reward?¡± ¡°Well, oh, yeah¡­ the quest.¡± ¡°Pleeease! This game is almost unplayable right now.¡± ¡°Sorry, these moves are reserved for individuals whose level is twenty five or above.¡± ¡®Dammit¡¯ ¡°So, what about the reward?¡± ¡°Well, sometimes an adventure can be rewarding just as it is,¡± the NPC said, looking towards the forest. ¡°Yeah, I guess.¡± ''Today had been a pretty good day after all,'' Jerry thought, feeling the rabbit''s fur rub against his leg. He went on, looking for Jessica. She wasn¡¯t hard to find; he spotted her back next to the piggy house, carving on her club. He had missed the little cute ones. They had been so adorable last evening, eating their little mash of potatoes. He crunched down to get within petting range. Two of them were missing. He smiled at Jessica, who probably had them exploring somewhere. Her club now had a spiraling pattern on it, stretching form slightly below the thick end of it, down to the newly carved handle. ¡°Wow they¡¯re cute!¡± he remarked. Jessica continued on, carving. ¡°How are the other two doing.¡± *** The words stirred her a bit, but not enough to make her cause a scene; she didn¡¯t have enough mental fortitude to feel any more on the dead piglets behalf. ¡°They¡¯re dead,¡± she said in an indifferent tone. The last days had been hard on her. Either that or she just didn¡¯t care enough about the cute little piglets. Things didn¡¯t feel as clear as before. Ben¡¯s happy complexion visibly drained from his face. It sort of sucked to ruin the mood of her potential mood raiser, but what else could she have said? ¡°What happened?¡± ¡°They just died.¡± ¡°What?" . . "¡­ I though things were going pretty fine. I mean, they ate and...¡± the discouraged Ben fell short on words. ¡°We don¡¯t know that, we never saw all of them eat, only the ones still alive. The smaller two were smaller, maybe too small¡­ ¡° ¡°But that¡¯s not it, it was the cold! Even the two bigger ones were shuddering like noobs with weeks worth of spikes.¡± ¡°I tried to save them Ben, I tried. ¡° But they were...dead. She nor Ben seemed to have anything to say for a while.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°This game kinda sucks,¡± she said, dejectedly. . . . ¡°Yeah¡± Back to carving! She wanted to have her mind somewhere else than on the dead piglets. Ben didn¡¯t transfer into doing anything though. Poor guy, he seemed to be ever worse than her at handling furry cuteballs. There wasn¡¯t much left to carve at on her weapon. Not unless she would go ridiculously intricate, but carving with the bronze knife was pretty hard at it was. She had peeled off all bark of the club, except for a hand sized chunk at the tip, and a finger¡¯s worth of it at the other end, to save the grip from slipping. That was the easy part though. What had kept her busy was making spirally patterns in the naked wood. Carving her patterns was almost enough to keep her mind occupied. ¡°I¡¯m starving, we should get stuff for a fire¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± Hey Kim! Get over here, it¡¯s time to get going¡± Kim came, carrying two still piglets. ¡°You do that, I¡¯ll bury these piglets. They deserve a proper rite of passing, leaving this world. Jess snorted mentally at Kim. The NPC hadn¡¯t helped her save the piglets, but now he wanted to help her bury it. What was this? A 21:st century game? ¡°That one to your left, I carried him to here¡­ Thank you.¡± Ben said. No robot could''ve matched his dullness. ¡°Well fair enough then,¡± she didn¡¯t want to spend any more thoughts on the ex-piggies. ¡°Yeah, yeah, no problems traveler. Jessica, would you mind giving me the knife? I¡¯ll need it to carve some crosses¡± ¡°Oh, yeah, sure, I¡¯ll go fetch some cooking water again I guess,¡± Jess responded, leaving her almost finished club. ¡°But this time,we can''t camp here. Having our base next to this shrine is really stupid; It gets cold as hell during night, and every time we need to fetch stuff we have to walk for miles. ¡°Good idea,¡± Ben said monotonely. That guy really needed something to do right now. *** Time for experimental session nr. 2, codename: Sneaky Bacon. Kim had brought the two mini-pigs, with him. These would do perfect targets for his magic power leveling. Clearly he targets to cast his spells on, that didn¡¯t need any explanation at all. If rabbits weren''t so evasive he''d been a mage long ago. If it wasn¡¯t for the other two, we would have put the piglets to proper use, long ago. Well, well, he shouldn¡¯t complain too much, there still was a good chance for bacon getting out of this; tweaking his fire spell to become a baconator couldn¡¯t be too hard could it? *** Operation Sneaky Bacon had failed. He hadn¡¯t gotten any magic going; the thing definitely needed another scroll to work. There probably wouldn¡¯t be any bacon at all for a while, but when it was, he wanted it to be made smoothly. He hadn¡¯t brought the knife and the butchering instructions without purpose. He stuck his knife, as instructed, into the bellybutton of one of the still pigs, moving it upwards methodically. When he stretched the new opening with his hand, as instructed, the dead fucker started twitching for a second. Weird. Something urine smelling covered the innards of the pig. Crap, he had popped the urinal bladder when making an opening. Gross! He looked at the disgusting mess of urine covered half severed intestines. ¡°Disgusting! No way I¡¯m baconing this shit.¡± He backed away from it to have a more experienced try at the other carcass. ¡°Is that¡­? Wihoouw! Fuck yeah! Turns out they weren¡¯t as dead as the minions thought¡± Above the, now truly dead, piglet¡¯s head was a white and fluffy orblet. KimZor knew exactly what it was. He grabbed it contently. Yep, this thing sure pulsated with a familiar feeling. ¡°Seems like pretty much all pigs drops these things.¡± ¡°Fuck, yeah. One down, nine to go; another scroll is as good as mine.¡± The experimenting had turned into a great success! Even better was that the others didn¡¯t know how to make cash. He walked over, grinning, to the still, soon to be butchered piglet. ¡°Hey piggy-piggy! Sucks to be you today, doesn¡¯t it?¡± *** ¡°You know, I think we¡¯d have some pretty good use for those ropes when you get them done.¡± Jess and Ben were trying to get a hut going, but it was hard get any of the pine needled branched to stick to one another, at least at the points where it mattered. It was getting late, and their hut didn¡¯t even have a main frame. Jess thought it would be better to get their base going tomorrow instead. At least, they had enough firewood to last them the entire night. No more freezing while sleeping! Finally, the NPC came back. Trying to do carpentry without a sharp object had felt like a waste of time. ¡°Now hand me the knife, will you,¡± she instructed the NPC, which suddenly didn¡¯t seem to mind taking orders anymore. ¡°Ben, sorry for ruining the mood earlier. GZ to the rabbit! How did you get it? How was the quest? Ben brightened up from the comment. ¡°It¡¯s okay, shitty game was just shitty again.¡± ¡°Glad that you asked by the way,¡± Ben soon continued. Of course Ben had been dying to tell the tale of the silly rabbit fanatic going actual rabbit hunter. . . . ¡°Hand me the knife again, will you?¡± Kim demanded. He soon disemboweled and skinned the rabbit Ben had caught. The cutting movements were careful, yet awkward. Jess doubted that she¡¯d do any better on her own; the NPC seemed to know his stuff. *** ¡®Damn, the rabbit hunter haft to go hunt another rabbit tomorrow!¡¯ After a meal, lightyears beyond what they had yesterday, Jess proposed that they¡¯d settle for the night. ¡°NO WAY, I¡¯m NOT sleeping like this,¡± Kim whined. ¡°I frickin¡¯ heard wolves last night. No way I¡¯m sleeping without someone checking my back¡± ¡°Holy shit, wolves!? What level are those?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know¡± ¡°I don¡¯t wanna know.¡± . . After some debate, Kim had volunteered to take the first guard. Watching out for wolves, as well as keeping the fire going. Jess hadn¡¯t objected; she felt weak after the long day. She lied with one of the piglets in her arms, next to the fire. No way she¡¯d have them freezing! Ben lied a bit away, petting his piggy. When Jess looked carefully at them, they were slightly different form each other. Ben¡¯s had five bright stripes on its back, whilst Jess had four. The piglets lied down contently, munching on some leftovers from their meal. . . . ¡°Yeah, just look at it! It¡¯s gotta be something more than a quest item, right?,¡± Ben said excitedly. ¡°This¡­ We should definitely check it out at the shrine tomorrow.¡± ¡°Yeah, but what about Kim? Should we see if there¡¯s any quest on it real quick?¡± ¡°Nha, this one¡¯s kinda smaller, and what did the last quest give us? A bunch of potatoes, and some stone age items¡± ¡°Hey! We might¡¯ve had to respawn if it wasn¡¯t for the potatoes,¡± the rabbit hunter protested. ¡°Yeah, yeah. Or maybe we¡¯d just been logged out of this insanity¡± ¡°Sorry.¡± ¡°Sorry.¡± . . ¡°Good night.¡± ¡°G¡¯night¡± *** ¡°Plopp¡±,¡±Plapp¡±,¡±Plott¡±, ¡°Crack¡±, Ploff¡±,¡±Crack¡±¡­ Jess had joined Ben in the throwing exercise. It felt sorta stupid, but if the stupid rabbit fanatic had caught a rabbit yesterday, stupid was stupid no more. ¡°The fuck you¡­ you two doing!?!?¡± Finally the NPC was awake. She and Ben didn¡¯t wanna leave it without giving it some kind of heads up. She told him about their intended trip to the shrine. ¡°That¡¯s bullshit, you two need to be hunting boars.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry, we¡¯ll probably get to that later,¡± Ben said, tossing his white and fluffy ball into the air.¡±.. ¡°You¡­ How did you?¡­ Give it back to me!¡± ¡°Sorry, we¡¯ve got a thing we need to check out first. Don¡¯t you already have one of your own, by the way?¡± Kim searched his pocked for a moment. Oh, my pardons, there¡¯s been a misconception...Good job, great traveler, you have returned another of my orbs! Please give it back to me.¡± ¡°Sorry, we need to try something out first¡± ¡°That¡­ That¡¯s not ok! It¡¯s mine! Give it back, or, or I¡¯ll cancel your quest." That was a hard ultimatum. Whatever quest they had, it sucked pretty badly, but it was their only one. Jess didn¡¯t want to lose it, but before she got to say anything, Ben handed his orblet to the NPC. ¡°Good, well done, great Traveler!¡± A potential disaster had been averted. *** Jess and Ben paced slowly through the grass. It was impossible to hide form the annoyingly paranoid, long eared, rodents, but as long as they moved slowly, the rabbits wouldn¡¯t panic then they were noticed. In front of them, seven meters away, was a rabbit, eating grass. Well, it wasn¡¯t eating grass anymore, but... that was that it was doing before they snuck up on it. They spread out in opposite directions. Their goal was to guide the rabbits attention to one of them and let the other one throw a stone at it. This time, the rabbit turned it¡¯s back to Jess, staring carefully at Ben instead. She prepared a stone in her hand. This was their seventeenth sneak attack, and Jess¡¯ sixth. She raised her arm, tried to relax her shoulders, and hurled the stone at it. The stone hit! She had almost scored a headshot! The rabbit jumped high, straight up into the air.¡°Hell yeah!¡± she burst out, smiling viciously, as she ran to capture it. It was about time! The rabbits legs never stopped moving while airborne, neither did they when it landed on its back. Jess had no idea what would¡¯ve happened if it had landed on it¡¯s feet. Luckily the rabbit in front of her only spun in circles, legs running, but body lying. She tried to grab it carefully with her hands. When it didn¡¯t work, she forcefully pushed her forearm on the rabbit and smashed its head with another stone. ¡®Only one hit a time, this time,¡¯ she though. The rabbit quickly and silently lied still, dropping an expected orblet from its head. ¡°Hell Yeah!¡± ¡°It worked!¡± Next to her, Ben pocketed his stone. He hadn¡¯t said anything yet. ¡°This is great! Way better than the boar! That was disgusting.¡± ¡°...Yeah,¡± Ben replied. This guy was horrible at killing cuddly things. ¡°Time to get to the shrine before the NPC steals it,¡± Jess smiled, satisfied. . . "Crack" "Crack" "Crack"
¿ÚBack Jessica Total glory: 0.1
Agility 0 ¿Ú+1 (10g) Strength 0 ¿Ú+1 (10g)
Endurance 0 ¿Ú+1 (10g) Intelligence 0 ¿Ú+1 (10g)
Stamina 0 ¿Ú+1 (10g) Wisdom 0 ¿Ú+1 (10g)
"Holy shit! We just made money!" 7 - Shopping Spree The reasonably successful rabbit hunter went full retard. ¡°What did I say! What did I say! Stone throwing for the win! We¡¯ve glitched the system! Come on, let¡¯s go grind some more!¡± ¡°Heh, calm yourself down four kilos, will you? Having currency, to Jess, meant one thing right now: Information. ¡°Do you know what this means to us?¡± she asked rhetorically. ¡°Wiiheouw! That it¡¯s finally time to prep our skill trees!¡± ¡°... , let¡¯s have a look.¡± Jess chipped away at the granite ball in front of her.
¿ÚQuit ¿ÚSkills
¿ÚStats ¿ÚItems
¿Ú Time Warp ¿ÚBeginners Survival Kit(1g)
¿ÚQuit ¿ÚSkills
Jessica, Hatching Swallow
Blunt Weaponry
Finesse Potential
lvl 1 Hatching Swallow
Barely able to hold a weapon, you''ve managed to deal significant damage.
Overhand Stone Throw
Finesse Potential
lvl.3 Hatching Sparrow
With skill compareble to a five year old, you send pebbles flying
Easily comparable skill! Compared to lvl.1 Hatching:
+2 meter range (18+2)????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
-5% throwing spread
¡°Wait! What? I don¡¯t have any skills like these. I¡¯ve been going stone age manual style all the time!¡± Jess burst out, confused. ¡°It¡¯s ok, not everyone notice skill boosts kicking in. What¡¯s weird is how you are the only one to have the skill.¡± Jess wouldn¡¯t mind getting some skill related boosts, but she hadn¡¯t felt any. She wasn¡¯t sure if skill boosts could be in effect without one sensing anything.She couldn''t draw any conclusions with her headgear still being pretty new though. Maybe she''d see noticable changes if she leveled her skill more. Anyhow, Ben seemed pretty certain on the topic ¡°How can you know that?¡± Ben began talking in a confident and enthusiastic manner. Much like with his rabbit boasting yesterday, once again, there was something to boast about. And so he began having a boring monologue about his . ¡°¡­ that¡¯s why most people usually just know me on sight.¡± ¡°Okay... So, how does that even apply to anything? ¡° ¡°Sorry, what was the question again?¡± Whilst Ben talked on her, not to, Jess had been thinking. Her having the [Overhand Stone Throw] , but he not, would imply him somehow being better, hitting rabbits anyways. She didn¡¯t like such implications. With or without boosts, this rabbit hunter couldn¡¯t just go around and claim to be more skilled. Jess took her gaming skills seriously. How can you know that I killed my rabbit assisted, but you didn¡¯t?¡± She said, eyes tensioned. ¡°I¡¯m a Pro, didn¡¯t I tell you? Knowing skills is basically what I do for living.¡± ¡°Really? Let¡¯s check it out¡± ¡°What do you mean ¡®check it out¡¯?¡± ¡°Let¡¯s open your your skill window and see if yours¡¯ any different¡± Ben went on, explaining how that wouldn¡¯t be needed and that they could as well check out the other options first, but, there was no way Jess would have him back out of this. ¡°Crack, Crack, Crack, Crack¡±
¿ÚQuit ¿ÚSkills
Jerry Fredrikson, Skipping Sparrow
Overhand Stone Throw
Finesse Potential
lvl.3 Hatching Sparrow
With skill compareble to a five year old, you send pebbles flying
Easily comparable skill! Compared to lvl.1 Hatching:
+1 meter range (18+1)??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
-7% throwing spread
Nostril Excavation
Finesse Potential
lvl.3 Skippiing Sparrow
With habit comes result. Your precise finger movements will simultaneously impress and disgust your target.
Easily comparable skill! Compared to lvl.1 Hatching:
+19% Picking depth??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
+29% Picking speed
+7.5% Picking Yield
Cord Twining
Finesse Potential
lvl.2 Hatching Sparrow
With surprisingly precise finger movements, grass reaches beyond its potential.
Easily comparable skill! Compared to lvl.1 Hatching:
+19% Cord Durability???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
+21% Twining Speed
Staff Mastery
Finesse Potential
lvl.1 Hatching Sparrow
Barely able to hold a weapon, you''re performing as expected.
The rabbit hunter chipped away at the ¡°Back¡± box. He only hit it on his third attempt, not fast neough to hide the [Nostril Excavation]¡¯s many bonuses. ¡°OMG.¡± jess giggled before bursting into laughter. . . ¡°..., stop it, will ya?¡± ¡°Precise finger movement, plus 7.5% yield, haha! My ass I will!¡± Jess continued to laugh. It felt like the first time in ages. And this know it all, this know it all, nose picking rabbit crazy ¡®pro¡¯¡­ ¡°We should check out what else¡¯s hiding in the skill system,¡± the nose picker said, shifting focus. ¡°Haha! Hah! Yeah, we should, why don¡¯t you open up your skill window again, so we can¡­ move on from there, haha! . . ¡°Ok, alright, we¡¯ll use my skill menu, then,¡± Jess finally said, not yet breathing steadily.
¿ÚQuit ¿ÚSkills
Jessica Schultz, Hatching Swallow
Blunt Weaponry
Finesse Potential
lvl 1 Hatching Swallow
Barely able to hold a weapon, you''ve managed to deal significant damage.
Overhand Stone Throw If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Finesse Potential
lvl.3 Hatching Sparrow
With skill compareble to a five year old, you send pebbles flying
Easily comparable skill! Compared to lvl.1 Hatching:
+2 meter range (18+2)????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
-5% throwing spread
There didn¡¯t seem to be any leveling system, even Ben seemed to agree on that. What replaced it didn¡¯t bother Jess as much as it did Ben¡­ He didn¡¯t show any sign of irritation, but she was certain that the ¡®pro¡¯ didn¡¯t enjoy being second in a game. A plummeting sparrow ought to be better than a skipping chick. Who cared anyways? The guys highest level skill was nose picking! Her [Blunt Weaponry] of the [Swallow] grade was probably, more potent than [Overhead Stone Throw] of the [Sparrow] grade. The boar had made that clear as a dead ocean. Jess shuddered, imagining throwing pebbles at the the beast instead of bashing its head in. ¡°Hmm, dual skill system, right?¡± the pro nose picker declared, once again confident. ¡°Yup.¡± Dual skill systems had been popular about 30 years ago, Jess parents had made that very clear to her. They were always complaining of how things had been ¡°dumbed down¡± in the recent wave of retro gaming. ¡°What are you thinking of, let¡¯s get going,¡± Ben hurried her to continue check out the [Skills] tab. Jess made a dent at the ¡°Skill Shop¡± mark.
Skill Shop
Quality: ¿Ú+0.1g ¿Ú+1g ¿Ú+10g ¿Ú100g
Specificness (None) - Choose Orientation of skill ¿Úx2g
¿Ú Randomize skill
¡°Wait, what are you doing,¡± Ben burst out, when Jess started to make a couple of dents in the menu. Jess wanted to make an experiment. She liked experimenting, and gambling. Having the former as excuse for the other always a hit. ¡°Chill out, it¡¯s just 0.1 g¡¯ anyways. ¡° She decided to go all in on quality, and left the rest to her luck. A paper with the title: [Instructions: Carve Pointy Stick], materialized from an indigo cloud of light. Ben sighted, as they sat down, analyzing their new merchandise. The scroll contained a detailed instruction on how to make a pointy end on a stick. Detailed pictures were included, some of them were animated. A sharp knife was recommended. ¡°You gotta be shitting me! Do you know how hard it was to get that!?¡± Ben burst out in disappointment. This guy was overreacting again. Probably because the thing indirectly had to do with rabbits. Had there ever been a game where you could by anything useful with 0.1 of anythihng? "Well, time to get back to info gathering" They went on the check out the other options available, but to their dismay, they were once again met by the message:
Earn Glory to access Items
¡°Back to grinding then,¡± Ben muttered. *** Jess and Ben went on rabbit grinding. It was a bit more fun now, knowing that thy leveled their [Overhand Stone Throw] as they went on. In front of her was a rabbit. They had stalked it for a good hour now. Jess would''ve gotten vored if it wasn''t for the tension of excitement than bubbled up each time they got close to it. The rabbit¡¯s turned to Ben. Finally, a she had a new chance. She aimed for it¡¯s body, throwing the stone as hard as she could. The stone made a few skips, three or so meters away from the rabbit. It didn''t even panic. It glanced towards the turf of muffled bouncing, then skipped a few relaxed steps away. Was it even recognizing the threat? It could as well have gone for some tastier grass. That¡¯s how far off the stone had been. ¡°Dammit!.¡± She had missed again. The rabbit raised its head, ears in the direction of the swearing. It took two more skips, then commenced eating. The rabbit ate away at the grass, uncaring of its pursuers. Jess or Ben would never catch it, not with the head start from its buffer distance. The cunning little fluff fucker, it didn''t even give the two hunters a thought. Luckily it didn''t understand the sneakyness of stones. They sneaked up on the rabbit again, this time Jess managed to catch its attention. Ben threw a stone and actually hit! Finally! Jess got excited. This was the moment she had waited for for a long while. The rabbit jumped straight up into the air and landed on its feet. It panicked away, onwards and onwards. Jess and Ben followed it as fast as they could, but the rabbit was slightly quicker than them. Slowly though, its speed declined. It tripped on its unusually low hanging head, and then began running slower. Not too soon after, its flight came to an exhausted halt. Ben was the first one to catch up, stone ready in his right hand. Jess wasn''t far after. The Rabbit lied on its stomach, its chest spasmed up and down, like a fish out of water. Ben had his hand grasping the skin of its neck, but his stone armed hand hesitated. He jerked his body, freezing one killing attempt after another. Jess finished things off with a proper head smash. Smashing cute heads felt better now, but not good. Ben put his sad baby face on and went silent again. Finally they had made some cash again, but as always, Ben had to make his party-pooping sadface. Jess held back her inner cheering and tried to focus on their next action. ¡°Let¡¯s get back and have a look at the rest of the shrine¡¯s options.¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°Crack, Crack¡± ¡°Crack¡±
Item Shop
Quality: ¿Ú+0.1g ¿Ú+1g ¿Ú+10g ¿Ú+100g
Specificness (None) - Choose Orientation of item ¿Úx2g
¿Ú Randomize item
¡°Uh, so, the items and skills are pretty much the same. ¡° ¡°Wanna test it out?¡± Jess asked. A little more experimenting was always nice. ¡°For fucks sake!¡± Ben clearly didn¡¯t understand the intricacies of hitting buttons reading ¡®randomize¡¯. The only option left was the ¡°Time Warp¡± one. ¡°Ok then.¡± Jess put a dent into the last check box.
Time Warp
¿Ú Regular Time Warp 0.1g/day
¿Ú Unlimited Respawns 0.2g/day
¿Ú Unlimited Everything 0.4g/day
¿Ú Reduced Pain x2g
¿Ú+0.1g ¿Ú+1g ¿Ú+10g ¿Ú+100g
¿Ú Start
¡°Time to experiment.¡± ¡°No, wait!¡± ¡°Crack!¡± . . . Jess opened her eyes. Ben was still at her side, but the shrine was no longer in front of them. Bellow her feet, a tatami mat was spread out. Enveloping the mat, was a beautiful dojo. The building was roofless, only having Chinese styled pillars marking its four corners. There was a narrow roof, extending between each pillar. As the tatami mats ended, so did the dojo, beyond was a tenchlike brook. The water, a foot or two deep, flowed with a soothing sound. Inside the water, were rounded stones, piled on top of each other. The trench around the building was, when noticed, flowing onwards to a new trench with it¡¯s own dojo, connected to another dojo, connected to another. It was mesmerizing and confusing at the same time. She and Ben walked around for a moment. Jess took off her shoes and rubbed a foot against the mat, then she saw the sky. It was beautifully lit with a serene aurora soaring beneath the stars. ¡°What did you, what options did you choose ?¡± Ben asked. ¡°Full regular. I couldn¡¯t use less that 0.1 glory.¡± Ben wrinkled his eyebrows and gave off a sigh. They walked around for a while, checking the place out. Soon, Ben got restless and started to pick up stones from the trench, throwing them at a pillar. Jess joined in. She threw, and threw. Could as well make sure Ben didn¡¯t beat her at throwing stuff. . . . Much time had passed. Throwing got more, and more fun the more time they spent at it. They had soon quit throwing at the pillars. It was hard to see how well you hit if you actually hit it. Instead, Ben had arranged a bunch of stones at one of the trenches edges, they served as targets. A couple of stones marked distances to throw from as well. Jess had enjoyed getting better. According to Ben, she implicitly wasn¡¯t as good as him. But that was only because Ben favored precision. She could hit pretty close to the stones from a longer range. As Ben had finally agreed to give bonus points to hits made from further away, a dull voice sounded: ¡± One minute left.¡± ¡°Really? Did one day pass already?¡± Ben asked. He was right, It hadn¡¯t felt like an entire day. The Aurora was still lighting the midnight sky. Adding to that, she didn¡¯t even feel hungry yet. ¡°Weird!¡± ¡°Fifty nine¡± ¡°Fifty eight¡± ¡°Fifty seven¡± She and Ben grabbed as many of the stones as they could before the countdown ended. They had gotten used to throwing these smooth stones; they were much more comfortable to use than the uneven ones in the grass field. ¡°Two¡± ¡°One¡± Jess opened her eyes. She and Ben was back. The sun was pretty much the same as when they had left. Jess reached for her pockets. None of the rounded stones were there. ¡°The piggies!¡± Ben burst out, eyes widened. They hurried back to the camp. Both carrying one rabbit. The experiment might have been a way too experiential, but that wasn¡¯t something she could¡¯ve known. . . . *** The day had started twice as irritating as yesterday; Pig cozing minion number one had joined in on the stone tossing bullshit. Irritating. They were yet to understand how important it was for the brightest of them to sleep properly. Being surprised and all, again, he hadn¡¯t even managed to come up with a good reason for them to stop. On the to-do list: Prepare silly ¡®quests¡¯ for silly people to do. He needed ways to avert distractions. KimZor had been practicing, or rather, trying to practice his fire spell for the whole day. It was awfully plain that he needed another scroll. Silly! What game ever had you get two sets of anything? He had thought about speeding up the glory collection a bit, gutting the remaining piglets, but that would probably just set him off. Who knew how silly already silly piglet lovers would turn if they lost their walking bacon? Better not take chances, not when they now knew how to make glory through other means. The others had been surprisingly slow at getting their rabbit game down though. Jessica hadn¡¯t even brought a single one yet! Taking a tactical break from magic, he had decided to go manual on his bacon project. He had gone to the stash form yesterday, but covering his perfectly butchered carcass was a shitload of ants. "What the fuck! What the fuck!" Only some meat was left untouched. The rest would have to serve as ¡®quest reward¡¯ for the others. Stupid game! Why would ants ever act like that? Disgusting! Kim sat next to a fire, barbecuing the pieces of meat he hadn¡¯t already eaten. For extra safety, he had removed all piggy looking parts from the excellent cuts of meat. The others were weakly hearted. He sighted a bit. He was too caring about them. All of a sudden the others ran to him, worrying about the piglets. What was wrong with them? They had been away for like, half a day, and were already worried about the piglets. KimZor couldn¡¯t understand the others¡¯ worry. The bacons already had more mashed potatoes than they deserved. Anyhow, he noticed that they had brought some rabbits, and with rabbits dead, there ought to be some glory for him to collect. He knew perfectly how to handle the situation. He had been a bit harsh in the morning, but now he was prepared. ¡°Greetings friends, I see that you have once again succeeded in your adventures. Please come over and share my reward for your endeavors!¡± *** Jerry sat next to the others, enjoying the, by far, best meal thus far. He had worried for the NPC¡¯s response, had it figured out that they had used some glory for themselves, but the NPC seemed more forgiving in the later hours of the day. ¡°I think we¡¯ll need to make some kinda plan for the days to come,¡± Jessica remarked. Just what he thought too; she was pretty good for a casual. They had asked the NPC about hints, but he had only urged them to go hunt more. Something needed to be done in order to unlock the next quest. They probably missed something huge about either the game or the NPC; quests should be easier than this to get. Without any useful input from the NPC, they continued plan making. Jessica wanted them to get their base going. Prepare for rain or whatever other mean mechanic the game might throw at them. Jerry agreed with her to an extent, but progression was important as well. He had decided to put his experienced in competitive gaming to use. It was time to boost the new team¡¯s power leveling. He regretted having mentioned the title ¡±Head of power leveling¡± to Jess. She had mocked him for it... At least she did agree on his proposed power leveling schedules. So they should be soaring upwards from now. His skills shouldn¡¯t be second to Jess for much longer. Hopefully new and better skills would display at the top of his skill chart. There was a spell that he¡¯d very much would like to have in the bottom of the granite skill chart. ''Never picking my nose again in-game.'' In the afternoon they had tied a couple of broken saplings to a shoulder high pine branch. They had then covered the saplings with twigs, fern, and needly fir branches. Hopefully that would keep them somewhat dry if rain was to come. Jerry felt the heat of fire radiate. A scent of smoke hit his nostrils, but it wasn¡¯t intense to the coughing point; thankfully the wind led it away from him. The odd day finally didn¡¯t have many minutes left of it. Kim took the first watch, that seemed to be his thing. Next up would be Jess. Jerry lied under their rain shelter, hugging his piggy. To his sides lied Jess, already sleeping. She didn¡¯t look like his kind of girl, probably no one did without the right visual configurations. There was something appealing with her face as she slept though. She was grimacing, mouth open, yet she was kinda cute as she slept. Her face twitched every now and then, tickled by her pig¡¯s bristle. Jerry enjoyed the view for a minute, then closed his eyes. Thoughts streamed to Ben¡¯s tired mind.There was a lot to think about,and things he didn¡¯t want to think about. Damn, why had he thought that there were thoughts he shouldn¡¯t give a thought. It was too late now anyways. He fell asleep worried. The floating turd would never abandon him. *** KimZor opened his eyes. For once he hadn¡¯t been disturbed by any stone throwing. This morning was probably going to be the best shitty morning thus far. Then he looked around. Where the fuck was he? And why the fuck were there so many ugly guys and girls around him, staring like idiots? Transfer (Not a chapter) Hi! I''m sorry for making a break on the fic; It didn''t live up to my own expectations. I made a few experiments after it, and think that I''ve become better since. Making a suitable story for this site wasn''t as easy as I originally though. Anyhow, I''m sorry for letting you down on this story. I''ve adapted some of Its best features into a new story. It seems to be about 100% more popular, so I guess It''s better -.- (Making a new chapter of Humanity Initiative even less likely). Anyhow, If you enjoyed my writing earlier, you might like the new one. It''s about a Mage/penguin poke-trainer... sort of. I''ll link it below.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. I''m especially sorry to you, Zhalfirin and Porkstew. I''ll try to make up for it with better story ">