Kaiju- Battlefield Surgeon

by Matt Dinniman

  My wrist was still my original flesh, but it was now encased in a metal sleeve that reached all the way to my elbow. Like Clara’s wings, some cogs and wheels and pistons twisted along the sleeve. A flexible tube, red with blood, connected my wrist with my shoulder. I reached forward to touch the pipe with my right hand. It was warm to the touch, and my shoulder was sore where it entered me. But it felt otherwise solid, like hardened plastic.

  I clicked my four fingers together. The sensation hurt my brain. It felt as if I had four thumbs. “How far can I shoot it?”

  “The initial upgrade is about five meters. At your level three, you can fire nine meters. That can be extended with some of the accessories.” He looked up. “That’s not quite far enough to reach the ceiling. But you can reach the loft.”

  I looked up at the platform protruding from the side of the round building. There was no real handhold. I lifted my arm, pointed, and fired.

  My hand shot out like a harpoon. My hand rushed through the air, smashing painfully against the bottom of the extended platform. I winced, the sensation like punching a wall. The whole mechanism crashed to the floor in a pile, bouncing off the top of Jazz’s hearth with a loud clang. I had no sensation in the brass-colored cable that connected my hand and wrist.

  I pulled my shoulder instinctively, retracting the cable. The arm whipped about, flying back toward me, knocking over Stonegate’s tool table with a loud clatter. Banksy, who’d been coiled up behind the dentist chair, hissed in surprise. My whole body vibrated like a plucked string as my wrist thwapped back into place.

  “Let’s try that again,” I muttered. I aimed more carefully this time. I fired my hand. My fingers smashed the edge of the platform, and I grasped, catching the edge. I squeezed, and the metal crumpled under the power of my fingers. Without thinking about it, I locked the cable in place, making the rope rigid. I could swing, I could retract. If I retracted while still clutching onto the metal, I’d pull myself up to the loft.

  I let go, keeping the cable rigid this time, which kept it from thrashing about. “Dude,” I said, holding up my hand to admire it. “This is awesome.”

  Stonegate clapped his hands in delight. “Wonderful! Just wonderful! I trust your mapping upgrade is also working?”

  “I’m not sure what’s different,” I began, pulling up the world map. “Whoa, never mind.”

  At first glance it looked mostly the same, but as I called up the menu, it zoomed into my current location. All the shops in town were labeled with little icons indicating what they were. There weren’t too many other shops in town. Most appeared to be shops exclusive for groundling characters.

  Of the 22 kaiju, the map still only listed 16 of them. I was pretty sure the other six weren’t dead, but I didn’t know where they were.

  “There’s a search option,” I said. I pulled it up and mentally typed “Pet store.” Fifteen spots populated the map. All but one were inside of Medina. A green checkmark appeared over one of the locations, right in the center of Medina. I realized that was where I’d received Banksy. The game kept track of all the places I’d visited.

  The one pet shop outside the city was in a town called Little Cibola. The race icon over the village was that of the sundered, a humanoid race that exclusively used technology magic. The settlement was way on the other side of the map, down in the southeast corner, closer to the breach than any other town I could see. It’d take a week to walk there.

  A note appeared under the list:

  Additional, yet-to-be-unlocked areas of the map may contain additional results.

  A list of types of shops and spots of interest appeared under the search bar. One of them was called “Transport Gazebos.” I clicked on it.

  More than fifty dots populated the map. Most of them were grayed out, including one a quarter mile away from our current position. I assumed that meant it was out of order. About twenty of them glowed green, indicating them as still active. Fifteen of them were outside of Medina. My heart leapt.

  “There are a ton of active transport gazebos,” I said to Clara. I frowned, examining the results more closely. The only active gazebo that appeared to be inside of a town was also in that Little Cibola place. However, a red triangle with an exclamation point hovered over the icon. I clicked on it, and the tooltip said Access Restricted to Epsilon Corporate Business only. Whatever the hell that meant.

  The other active fast travel locations were scattered randomly about the map. Each one also had a red warning icon. It appeared each of these gazebos was surrounded by an enemy encampment. The symbol for these said Key Required. “Shit. It looks like we’d have to fight our way to each one. And even then we need to find some sort of key.”

  I played around a bit more. I found a toggle marked “Quest areas” and several popped up. It included the location of the Shrill, the two travel gazebos that needed fixing, the area of Medina where I still needed to finish my tutorial. It also showed a blinking cursor in the middle of a darkened town on the southwest side of the map. It was labeled “Andras.” That was the demon prince we were supposed to hunt down and kill for Stolas the owl demon.

  I clicked everything off and searched for the missing kaiju. I received a similar note to before at the end of the results:

  Additional, yet-to-be-unlocked areas of the map may contain additional results. Guardians using stealth or who are otherwise hidden may not appear.

  “Wait,” Clara said. “Does the map show you concentrations of enemies?”

  “Yes,” I said. I had the ability to create a heatmap of hostile creatures, though it seemed most of the map was a sea of red.

  “Can you sort it by difficulty?”

  “Hmm, let me see.” I played around a bit. There were multiple types of danger areas: encampments, breeding grounds, infestations, summonings, and something called pavilions. I found an option that allowed me to filter out regions that were too difficult for my level. Nothing appeared when I selected “easy” except a couple spots inside of Medina, all infestations. When I added the “intermediate difficulty” option, it appended twenty or so areas to the map, most of them also inside of Medina and in the forest we’d already traveled through. These were also infestations with a few encampments added to the list. A couple low-level monster blooms appeared on the outskirts of the abandoned city where the Shrill lived. That would be an excellent place to start once we escaped this place.

  “So, are you satisfied with your upgrades?” Jazz asked. She handed me a pouch. A notification appeared. 5,025 teeth.

  “Yes,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “Very well,” she said. “Stay here while we get the clerics.”

  “What?” I said. “Why?”

  “We need to take you into custody. If you don’t start the pillorying in the next few hours, you won’t receive the required two nights of public display before the sacrament.”

  I looked sharply at Clara, giving her a withering glare. “I didn’t realize that was a part of it.”

  “Oh yes,” Stonegate added. “You stand at the base of the temple for two days, locked in a neck clamp while the adept initiate prays at your feet. Other adept initiates may tear finger-wide strips of flesh as good-luck charms. Do not worry, though. A cleric will always be nearby so you don’t succumb to sepsis. Or starvation. We know your kind has special dietary considerations.”

  Jazz looked up at the loft. “Gulch, come on!”

  A head appeared. “I can leave the house?”

  “In two days, the gates of heaven will be opened to you. Yes, you may leave.”

  “Yay!” the boy cried. He flipped off the loft with his monkey-like arms, swinging to the invisible handholds on the side of the wall, scaling down lightning quick.

  “We’ll be right back,” Jazz said.

  And just like that, all three of them went out the door. I caught a quick glance of a mech standing sentry outside. It wasn’t Madame Throb, but I didn’t grab the name. It was some sort of guard, level 15.

 
“Public display!” I hissed at Clara. “Two days of public display!”

  “Well, shit,” Clara said. “I guess we’ll have to skedaddle right now.”

  I sighed. “Are these guys going to be gunning for me after this? I almost feel bad. They’re so excited.”

  Clara grunted. “They probably will be hunting us. So we won’t ever be able to come back here.”

  I nodded. “Okay, so how are we doing this?” All three of us needed to die before the others got back. In Dominion of Blades we used to call this trick “poor man’s fast travel.” But in that game you didn’t get tortured for two minutes when you died.

  Clara waved at Banksy. “Come here, boy. So you can’t kill Banksy, and he can’t kill himself, which means I’ll have to do it.” She looked at the worm, putting her hand on his massive head. “Sorry, buddy.”

  “It’s okay, Clara,” he said. “Shoot inside my mouth, and I will die.” He opened his triangular face flaps.

  Clara raised her handgun and fired, just like that. Banksy crumpled to the floor.

  Your familiar has died! You do not have a pet carrier installed! Familiar will regenerate at: Village of Charnel. You must travel to this location to retrieve him.

  His soul power flowed into me. I resisted the urge to heal myself.

  Clara laughed. “Hey, I went up to level 14!” She fished around in her pack and pulled out a candy apple. “I saved a couple of the non-blood nuggets because they taste better.” She tossed it to me. “Okay, so blow my head off and then eat the apple. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

  I nodded. I hated this part. I pulled my gun from my shoulder. It felt odd with my new left hand, though the metal of my hand attached to the barrel with a metallic clink. An aiming reticle appeared in my vision.

  Hey, that’s new. It must’ve been part of my grappling hook upgrade package.

  I raised the gun, aiming at Clara’s face. She cringed. “Do it,” she said through clenched teeth. I eased the trigger. Clara flew against the back wall, splattering. Her blood sizzled as it hit the hearth. My experience went almost to level 14, but not quite enough. Damn, I thought. I was going to lose half of it when I died.

  I raised the apple to take a bite, but I paused. I pulled up my experience again. It was right there on the edge. I eyed the door. If I could kill that mech out there. He was only level 15. If I took him by surprise… The mechs were probably deadly and powerful, but the groundlings driving them were absurdly exposed in the center. I could do a quick headshot, maybe take out a few more groundlings and then kill myself. I’d hit level 14 for sure.

  And if I was mistaken, if the mech killed me straight away? I’d be dead anyway.

  I didn’t need to think about it. I put my gun at the ready, eased myself to the door and ripped it open, jumping out onto the steps, screaming.

  Three mechs and a robed groundling now stood out there, including Madame Throb. She was level 26. The other two were both 15. The fourth was a level 49 cleric. They stared at me, surprised. The look on Madame Throb’s face turned first, evolving from surprise to rage in slow motion. She raised her hand with the skewer toward me, a billowing of steam rising from her suit. A metallic shield started to close around her exposed body.

  Oh fuck. I didn’t think about it. I aimed, putting the reticle between her eyes. I fired. The other two mechs were now reacting. Too slow. I took a knee and fired rapidly, hitting them in quick succession. I turned and fired once again, hitting the cleric.

  It happened so fast even I’d been surprised at how swiftly I’d shot. All four hit the ground almost at the same time. Notifications flew by. Level 17. I’d gone up to 17!

  I’d killed the three mechs, including Madame Throb. I’d knocked the cleric off his feet, but he appeared unhurt.

  I ducked as a shot ricocheted off the tin can over my head. A horde of mechs descended on me from both sides of the street. A siren started to sound, a low, sinister-sounding wail. I jumped back into the house, slamming the door as shots thumped against the metal of the building.

  “That’s right, bitches!” I cried. I laughed. It was the first time I’d laughed in a long time. I pulled the apple up and took two quick bites. The poisoning notification came.

  As the pain wracked me, I quickly searched for things to loot. I grabbed a brand off Jazz’s table, examining it.

  Branding Iron

  Village of Kinnegad.

  Huh. It went into the pack. I stole all of Stonegate’s tools, which still lay scattered on the floor. I eyed the loft, wondering if I could get up there in time to search. I should have done this first.

  Another pain wracked me, and my health points pulled me into death.

  ***

  You have died 12 times!

  Due to debts incurred, your regeneration location has been overridden.

  Entering Kinnegad.

  I awakened screaming. It’s not worth it. This is not worth it.

  But it was over now. As painful as it was, the physical remnants of agony did leave the moment it was over. All that was left was the memory. I took a deep breath, shaking my head. My neck slammed back. I groggily realized I was chained to something.

  Wait, where am I? This isn’t Charnel.

  I read that last notification with a terror that overshadowed any I had known up to this point in the game.

  I stood, my feet barely touching the ground. The musty smell from before was tenfold this close to the temple. The collar around my neck pulled upwards, just barely enough to keep me from suffocating. I was attached to a pole at the edge of a pavilion outside the entrance to their temple. Nearby, the brass badger head loomed, so large I couldn’t see above the snout. The entrance to the head-shaped temple had to be three stories tall. Torches and hissing pipes lined the interior of the church. My racing mind barely noted that the curved and ribbed roof of the temple’s nave gave the illusion of a mouth’s interior. If it wasn’t for the hundreds of groundlings worshiping within, and the fact everything was made out of brass, I’d think it was the severed head of Moritasgus.

  Mechs stood all around me, including Madame Throb, who had apparently regenerated before I had.

  She looked pissed.

  Oh fuck, I thought.

  Chapter 24

  One of the oddest consequences of having multi players mixed with AI-controlled NPCs in video games was the aspect of regeneration. Players inevitably end up killing everything they can. If the programmers made it so dead NPCs remained dead, certain parts of the game would end up broken. It simply wasn’t feasible. I had no idea if the single-player version of Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon had permadeath for the NPCs, but I doubted it.

  With the newest generation of AI-controlled NPCs, the problem was compounded. They remembered. They reacted to both your actions and words. They had distinctive personalities. And as long as you didn’t spend too much time with them, they could be indistinguishable from actual players.

  Most games handled NPC death in different ways. In DoB, non-important NPCs came back, but not for three days or so. Some of the more unique quest-giving NPCs were so powerful it was practically impossible to kill them. But if you did pull it off, they usually came back right away.

  In this game it seemed like essential NPCs respawned almost instantly. And they remembered you had attacked them. I bemoaned this fact now as the high-level cleric I had shot, Parson Broc, announced loudly that he would oversee young Gulch’s attempt at the Sacrament of Amplification in two-day’s time.

  The semi-circle of mechs surrounding me clapped and shouted their encouragement.

  “Did you think you could shoot your way out of here?” Madame Throb asked.

  “Yeah, that was the plan,” I croaked. I clutched at the neck clamp. My wrists were not bound. My gun was gone. So was my pack. I pulled up the inventory using the menus and received an error:

  Weapons, inventory, and spells are unavailable during incarceration.

  Would I get them back? Holy shit. If I lost my Epiviper, my
money, I’d have to completely start over.

  Oddly, I had the sense that I could still shoot my grappling hook. I sensed my left hand could still crush almost anything it tried. But I wasn’t going to attempt anything with half the town guard surrounding me.

  What was I going to do? The thought of having to actually go through with this sacrament thing… I wouldn’t make it. Not mentally. The death sequence was terrible enough.

  A cleric stepped forward. He cast a spell, and my pants disintegrated. I felt them sizzle and disappear, leaving my legs exposed. A notification appeared and disappeared, something about my armor breaking.

  I still wore a tattered loincloth. My boots remained. Oddly, my belt also remained. It felt odd against my bare hip.

  I watched as a young groundling girl, no older than three toddled toward me, holding a serrated knife as long as her forearm. She clutched it uncertainly in both hands.

  I kicked at her. “Get that thing away from me.”

  Pastor Broc waved his hand.

  You have been paralyzed! You are unable to move!

  My body froze in mid kick. I fell, not quite enough to choke me, but enough to be painful on my chin and the back of my head. I could still move my neck and head, but I couldn’t get it in a proper position.

  “Get the fuck away from me,” I cried again.

  “You’re going to suffer a thousand years of pain,” the toddler said, her voice heavy with a lisp. She turned back to the crowd. “Did I say it right?”

  A second cleric stepped forward, putting a stool down on the ground in front of me. The stool was painted in a ladybug pattern. He patted the girl on the head. The child stood on the chair, wavering slightly.

  “Whoopsie. I almost fall.”

  “You can do it, honey,” a woman groundling called. Her mother.

  The groundling girl stabbed me in my left leg, all the way to the hilt. The jagged knife entered my muscle and bounced off my bone with all the finesse of a chainsaw.

  I screamed.

  “No, no honey,” the mom said, coming forward. “That’s too deep. Pull it out.”