The NPC

by Paul W Ryan

  * * *

  “Hey Awesome. I like, got a quest for you, or something,” Gene called out as he approached the annoying jerk.

  Awesome spun around from crafting yet even more iron daggers, chest stuck out, all his muscles shimmering in the morning sun, chiselled chin sticking out like a damn iron dagger of its own.

  “Ah, Rando Face! Better be worth it. Tell me more.”

  Gene twitched, trying to keep his posture as Awesome tiptoed around his back and began fishing through his pockets.

  “It's for the Ancient Heirloom of Power, deep within the Valley of One Thousand and Two Deaths.”

  Awesome snorted. “What's the drop chances?”

  Gene froze. Drop chances? The frig does that mean?

  “It's, uhhh, one hundred and . . . six?” Gene rolled his hand, hoping this would pass.

  Awesome's face cracked into a punchable smug smile.

  “And the XP? What about the min level requirements?”

  The min whos-a-what?

  “The ex-pee is . . . two . . . thousand?” Gene suggested. Awesome's eyes lit up. “And the min level is . . . Eighty?”

  Awesome's eyebrows rose even higher up his sweat-covered brow.

  Got him.

  Gene mentally patted himself on the back until Awesome's brows lowered into deep frowns. “How come I've never seen you before? You part of some new update already? Quest giver or some lame crap like that to bloat this buggy dumpster fire of a game further?”

  Gene paused. “Umm . . . Yes?”

  Awesome's face relaxed. “Yeah, all right. Guess I got a few hours to kill. Laters, Rando Face.”

  Awesome waved as he walked away. Gene gritted his teeth so hard he felt something crack, followed by a sharp pain fill his mouth.

  It didn't matter. Awesome was gone. Whatever the hell he had said seemed to satisfy that dick.

  Now he just needed to spring his trap and then this world would finally be rid of that annoying jerk.

  Why Would Anyone Level Anything Other Than Charm?

  Gene put his feet up on the end of his bed and stretched out. No more Awesome bothering the town. The mood in the town felt lifted, like everyone had a little spring in their steps. Vendors smiled at one another, some even offering free samples for their moods were so high. Musicians played in the streets. Children danced offbeat and freely to the beat, much to the amusement of their onlooking parents.

  Gene felt he had done good. The town deserved this instead of the tyranny of that jerk Awesome ruling over them all and using them as his playthings. No more playing by Awesome’s rules. Gene had freed them all at last.

  Gene decided he should take advantage of all he had done. He was the hero after all. He had banished the overlording jerk.

  A woman selling roses from a basket around her neck smiled as he passed by. He paused in his steps and smirked as he noticed her gaze lingering on him for a moment extra. I suppose I’ve earned a little fun. Some harmless flirting. After all, I’m the hero of this town now.

  “Evenin' milady.” Gene leaned up against the cobblestone wall beside her and offered her his best pearly smile.

  “Hello, hero.” The way she purred hero sent a warm shiver through Gene in all the right places. Keep it cool, hero. You've got this.

  “So, you, uhh, come around here often?” Gene winced as the words left his lips.

  “Umm, yeah. I do live here like everyone else.” Her raised brow and slight smile wasn't a good sign, but it meant Gene still had a ledge to hang onto.

  “I just thought I would have noticed you sooner. I mean, a beautiful lady selling beautiful flowers? Amazed you slipped my sight for so long.”

  “I suppose plotting to trap the king in a dangerous land does leave you blind,” the flower lady said.

  Crap. Not good.

  “Well, I . . . Uh . . .”

  A smirk broke out, followed by a giggle.

  “Relax. He was a dick. We're better with him gone. And off to the Valley of One Thousand and Two Deaths? Phew, he should be gone for quite some time.”

  “I sure hope so. Gives me more time to get to know you better.”

  Her cheeks flushed. Hell yes, Gene boy. Charm test: natural 10, baby!

  Gene shook his head.

  Where did that come from?

  Gene leaned in closer and plucked a rose from her basket. He gave it a deep smell and then smiled back at her. She gazed up at him from underneath her long lashes. Her body arched towards his.

  Damn, Gene, you smooth bastard. You got this! Why would anyone ever level anything other than Charm?

  Gene shook his head again. Damn inner voice was making no sense.

  She closed her eyes and pushed out her lips. There it was.

  Gene's heart hammered in his chest. He leaned in close, his lips centimetres from hers.

  “Gene! There you are. Come. We have a problem.”

  A gnarled hand grabbed his shoulder and yanked him backwards.

  Gene found himself looking into the snarling, soot-peppered face of the elderly shopkeeper/turned landlady.

  “Really? You couldn't wait at least five minutes.”

  “Five minutes?” the flower girl called out. “Sounds like someone needs to level more into stamina.”

  She patted him on the shoulder and took her leave.

  “No, no,” Gene protested. “That’s not what . . .” He sighed and dragged a hand down his face.

  “What can I do for you?” Gene asked the old lady.

  The old woman's brow furrowed. Two hardened eyes that could scare the dead in their tombs stared out from behind her unruly fringe.

  “We just got word from our scouts. Awesome is dead.”

  Gene rolled his eyes.

  “And I should care why exactly?”

  The old woman pulled Gene closer by the shirt. Holy hell, someone's been levelling into Strength!

  “Because, you idiot, that dragon you sent him after has escaped the Valley of One Thousand and Three Deaths.”

  “I thought it was One Thousand and Two Deaths?”

  “It was until you got Awesome killed, idiot!”

  “Ah, now I see why that sounds bad.”

  As if to accentuate his point, an ear-splitting screech filled the skies above. A dark shadow fell over the town, followed by screams and cries from the people around.

  Gene craned his head upwards to see rows upon rows of armoured scales glimmer before a body longer than the eye could trace blotted out the sun. The beast's body shimmered, not with light, but as though the binds holding reality together were coming undone. The dragon's wings seemed to move unnaturally, in a jerking fashion as though out of sync with reality.

  The beast's chest swelled out, followed by a fireball Gene could not help but notice moved, too slowly, as though stuttering in the air before it slammed down onto the walls surrounding the town. Guard towers crumbled to the ground like dominoes flicked over by an impatient child.

  Another fireball spewed forth from the mighty beast's mouth, obliterating farms, grain silos, and storehouses alike. The town was quickly becoming nothing more than scorched earth to the dragon's fury.

  Guards pushed past Gene, chainmail armour clanking against overlapping plates, spears and crossbows in hand.

  “We need to get out of here!” the old lady yelled as a series of loud thunks filled the air. Gene watched as a barrage of crossbow bolts sailed through the air, just to snap or somehow pass through the dragon's body as though it were incorporeal.

  “Yeah, that's probably a good idea,” Gene replied.

  The old lady pushed her way through the crowd, using her tiny bulk to shoulder aside the streaming crowd as it scattered to and fro.

  Is she part dwarf or what in the holy hells is going on?

  Another barrage of crossbow bolts sailed into the air before the sweltering heat of another fireball incinerated the guards, leaving behind sizzling flesh and the smell of charred meat in the air.

  “Any destination in
mind?” Gene yelled over the cacophony of screams and cries as yet another fireball struck the town.

  “I've got a friend who can help. Get ready. This is going to feel uncomfortable.”

  The old lady tapped at the open air in front of her in a calculated manner as numbers and strange words flickered before her.

  “Whoa, whoa. What the hell are you doing?” Gene backed away.

  “No time to explain.” She grabbed hold of Gene before reality itself seemed to pluck them free and then hurl them into the abyss.

  The Developers' Room

  Reality stretched before Gene in streaming, blurry lines, like moving at thousands of miles per hour, before coming to a jolting halt.

  Gene fell flat onto his face, bile burning in the back of his throat. His eyes rattled in his skull before rolling back to focus.

  “Where the hell are we?” Gene rasped.

  “Easy, lad. Breathe. The sickly feeling will pass.” The old lady rubbed his back, which felt more like two boulders bouncing down on each rib.

  “What did you do back there?” Gene shrugged himself free of her touch. “What are you?”

  “That might be a little difficult to explain right now,” she answered.

  “A witch?”

  The old lady chuckled. “Not even close. I'm an NPC like you. Only, let's just say my Holy Code is not as pure as yours.”

  Gene's head throbbed. This was getting way too confusing, way too fast.

  “Holy what? Okay, let's put that aside for a moment and try something easier. Where are we?”

  “We are in the room that connects all. We are beyond the walls that bind us,” the old lady responded.

  Gene blinked the stars from his vision.

  “Yeah, no. That answer was no easier.”

  “Beyond . . . Our walls.”

  Gene shook his head. How he hated working with wizards, witches, mages, warlocks—whatever the damn difference between them all is.

  “Come on. I'll show you.” The old lady yanked Gene to his feet with enough force to almost rip Gene's arm free from its socket. “To put it one way, we're not in Kansas anymore.”

  “Kansas?” Gene rubbed his aching arm as another figure walked towards them.

  “Beatrice, my sweet, it is so good to see you.” The figure clad in flowing white robes held his arms out wide for a hug. Beatrice pushed his hands aside.

  “Cut the smooth talk crap, Wiz. We need your help.”

  The figure known as the Wiz looked Gene up and down.

  “Interesting choice of companion, Beatrice. Quite the interesting facial construction, if I'm to be honest.”

  “Yeah, not much of a looker yourself there, bathrobe,” Gene replied.

  The Wiz shrugged and then gestured for them to make themselves comfortable in his strange palace.

  “What is this place?” Gene asked. The Wiz chuckled.

  “Take a look for yourself and tell me.”

  The room defied all possibilities. Gene walked around, taking in the too bright room and all its strangeness. The place seemed to have no walls; rather, the distance seemed to shimmer, as though looking through a foggy mirror. The world beyond the shimmering opulent walls was stretched and blurry. Beyond that, Gene could see what looked like lines of numbers and indecipherable sentences racing past with symbols he thought only existed in math and for those weird thinkers who stroked their beards all day and sat up in their ivory towers.

  “Wiz, this here is Gene Eric.”

  “Gene . . . Eric.” The Wiz tested the name and then laughed to himself.

  “Yeah, yeah. My parents were dicks and must have gotten a good laugh out of it too.”

  “Interesting name choice and the one who released the dragon? Wow, you sure know how to make a good first impression,” the Wiz smirked.

  “Yeah, well, you sure know how to make a dick outta yourself,” Gene shot back.

  The Wiz cocked an eyebrow. Beatrice shrugged in response.

  “So, you gonna introduce me to whatever the hell this not Kansas place is?” Gene asked. A knowing smile spread across the Wiz's face.

  “Welcome, Gene Eric, to the walls beyond our existence. Welcome, to the developers’ room.”

  * * *

  The Wiz held his arms out in a wide as though waiting for a standing ovation. Gene looked to Beatrice for some guidance of what this stereotypical wizard was yammering on about.

  “And that means?” Gene prompted.

  “This. Is the playroom of the Makers.”

  “The Makers? Can you wizard, witches, whatever-the-hell just speak simply for once?”

  The Wizard stroked his beard.

  “You're familiar with the old joke 'a wizard did it?' Well, in this case, a nerd did it. Two actually.”

  Gene paused. “Wait, wait—We're the creation of a what?”

  “Nerds. Losers. Outcasts. You know the type. Kinda like you. Except with more proportional faces. And less of the whole . . .” The Wiz whistled. “Anyway, they built all of this you see.”

  “Why would they do such a thing?”

  “For profit.”

  Gene blinked.

  “I'm sorry, what?”

  “They built all of this to make money.”

  Beatrice and the Wiz nodded as though this answer made perfect sense.

  “So that's all we are to them? Something to sell?”

  The Wizard shrugged. “If it makes you feel any better, this is not the only world. There are many others, well beyond the invisible walls that bind us. But they all link here. To the developers’ room.”

  Gene pinched the bridge of his nose and blinked.

  “So, hold on now. These Makers, they what, plan on selling us all one by one?”

  “Walk with me,” the Wiz prompted.

  “Nah, I'm good,” Gene replied. The Wiz sighed.

  “Just do it, lad,” Beatrice prompted. The look she gave him said she was more the type to beat you with a steel maul instead of a wooden spoon if you disobeyed. Gene gulped and then obeyed. The Wiz's features softened as he launched into an excited lecture.

  “It's a little more complicated than that. The Makers sell copies of our world, copies of us all, every grain of grass, every wisp of a cloud, copied across infinite universes. Well, maybe not infinite, given server sizes and all . . . “

  Gene blinked, his mouth opening and closing.

  “But that's not important. What's important is that you released an unfinished boss into our world seed who is destroying us block by block.”

  “It's that jerk Awesome's fault!” Gene snapped. “If he hadn't—”

  The Wiz tapped his staff on the ground for silence.

  “I don't care if he slept with your momma and then called you sonny boy. You need to fix this. And soon.”

  “I get it: dragon will destroy everything here etcetera etcetera. My bad.”

  The Wiz shook his head.

  “It's worse than that. The dragon might not have to. If he is discovered by the Makers, they will delete our whole world.”

  “Oh, that's much worse.”

  “Indeed it is.”

  The Wiz's brow furrowed. He turned to the Beatrice.

  “He always this annoying?”

  “Pretty much,” Beatrice replied. “But at least not at Awesome's level.”

  “Yeah, that guy was a dick,” the Wiz said. They both rolled their eyes at the thought of Awesome.

  “Anyway, what matters now is that you are here. Now, you, Gene. You need to fight.”

  * * *

  Gene looked at the Wiz, who stood still staring at him. He whispered something to Beatrice who shrugged.

  “We gonna do this or what?” Gene asked. “Hello? Fighting a dragon, saving the world and all that?”

  “What are you? You are not like the others,” the Wiz accused.

  “Could ask the same of you, beardo. You're not an NPC, are you?” Gene asked.

  The Wiz stroked his beard and circled Gene, inspecting every
inch of him.

  “No, Gene. I am not.”

  “Then what are you?”

  “I am a Player.”

  “A what?”

  “Don't let him lie to ya, lad,” Beatrice interrupted. “He's no Player. He's a Duper.”

  The Wiz hissed at Beatrice who shrugged in response. Gene cocked an eyebrow. “I assume that's a bad thing, because . . . ?”

  “Let me show you.”

  The Wiz walked over to one of the display tables and picked up a glowing red battle axe. With his other hand, he tapped at the air much alike Beatrice had when the dragon attacked. Gene watched in wonder. This was not some type of sorcery. This was something else.

  A moment later, the Wiz threw the axe into the air where it vanished in the blink of an eye. The Wiz then wagged his brows as behind him, the same axe manifested back in its place.

  Gene gave him a slow clap.

  “Wow, great teleporting trick there, Wizzy.”

  “That was me earning an easy fifteen dollars.”

  Gene rolled his eyes. “I hate wizard talk. You teleported the axe. Big deal.”

  “How little you know, Gene.”

  “So, you sit here teleporting weapons across the room and 'earning an easy fifteen dollars' all day long?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Sounds like a pretty dull life.”

  “I would disagree. I have made more in two weeks than you could ever imagine. The thing is: my time here is limited.”

  “Now you want to yammer on about mortality?”

  Beatrice stepped in to interrupt, “It's more than that, lad. The next Big Patch will be coming soon. And with it, old Wizzy here runs an even bigger risk of being hit by the Ban Hammer.”

  “Ban Hammer? What is that? Some kind of legendary dwarfen hammer thingie?”

  “If that makes it easier for you to understand.”

  “Can we use the Ban Hammer to stop the dragon?”

  Beatrice snickered before covering her mouth. “The world doesn't quite work that way, lad,” she said. “If the Ban Hammer comes, old Wiz here is a goner. But you, you can stop the dragon before the world becomes too corrupted and draws the attention of the Makers.”