I Am Gamer

by Gabriel L Rathweg

  “Great job Walking.” I said, clapping the man on the back. He grunted slightly. I needed to check my new strength.

  “No real big deal. It’s just chopping some wood.” He replied but his tiny smile belayed his words.

  I headed over to the first newly cleaned tree in the line and got to work. I hefted the Fiery Hatchet in my right hand and bent over the tree. I activated my Flame and chopped. As I hoped the fiery iron head went through the wood like a knife through a cheese log. The fire didn’t burn the wood it cauterized it tempering it as I worked. The fire had the added benefit of helping the hatchet go through the wood easier as well.

  One chop was all it took to cut the twelve foot long tree in half. The strength of my new body was really amazing. I was able to move the six foot piece of tree around easily and with some more hits of the hatchet I soon had four planks of roughly similar size.

  Now I was in the zone and moved along chopping up tree after tree. I worked nonstop and plowed through the trees as if I had been doing it my whole life. Before long I finished the last tree and stood up stretching my back. It felt like my whole spine cracked as I straightened up sighed then looked around at my handy work. I had piles of wooden planks now and it only took about an hour to knock out. I turned to the twins and then noticed why things seemed off. Everyone in the area had stopped what they were doing and were staring at me with looks of awe and disbelief.

  “Right, well good job everyone.” I said as I coughed in to my free hand and reddened a bit at all the stares.

  I motioned for Dusk and Dawn to follow and picked up a stack of wooden planks. Accessing my Total Recall skill I had pulled some videos of how to build a food smokehouse last night and was already ready to go. Honestly it was easy. I was basically just building a giant wooden closet that I would hang meat from and smoke it so we could store it. An army ran on its stomach that was the first rule of war.

  A few trips to the stream for river rocks and clay for the base, then placing and hammering in the planks with my newly forged nails, and the majority of the work was done. I used clay and some fire hands to seal the planks and make them air tight. I built a small rock fire pit for the wood to burn inside and then moved on to the roof. I attached more planks and then cut out a hole for the chimney with my Ka-bar. After that more rock and clay then boom done with the roof.

  The twins and their crew, stopped collecting food as each of them returned, and began helping me. We plenty of resources at hand and lots of man labor. Another hour passed and we were done. All of us stood back and admired our handiwork. A newly built twelve by twelve by twelve foot wooden smokehouse dominated the resource area. Dusk and Dawn stood by my side along with the rest of the younger workers. Walking Coyote came over with his group as well. All of us stood around looking at the completed building.

  “That’s quite nice Law.” Walking Coyote said. “But what’s it for?”

  I huffed out the breath I’d been holding and looked at the old man then around at the rest. His quizzical look was mirrored in everyone else’s faces. I explained the idea of a smokehouse to the assembled tribes folk and when I was done about half the faces nodded impressed. Oh well the others would get it in time.

  “Nice wooden thing lover.” Moon Flower’s voice called out.

  “It’s a smokehouse.” I said exasperated.

  Turning to face my fiancé and preparing to explain what it was for all over again the words stuck in my throat when I saw her. She was as beautiful as ever but that wasn’t what cause me pause. She was riding Winston! What the fuck? My emotions must have been clear on my face because Moon Flower burst out laughing even Winston began nickering loudly.

  “Traitor…” I mumbled under my breath, while I waited for the two of them to stop their laughing. Finally, after what felt like eons they were done. “What are you doing on my horse?” I asked.

  “Your horse?” Moon Flower repeated, arching an eyebrow at me.

  “You heard me, yes my horse. And you, what are you doing Winston?” I kept going, not recognizing the warning signs.

  “Well fiancé.” She replied, stressing the word. “I have been with the others collecting ore for you and the first time I returned, carrying the rocks, Winston came up and helped me. He let me put my burden in your bags and ride him back and forth to the mining areas collecting the ore we’ve been mining so I could return faster.”

  “Oh… well that’s good… wait you can use my bags too?” I asked, now confused. She was riding my horse and using my stuff?

  “My father, you know Chief Running Hawk, organized us into three groups. Thunder Foot and Ice Blossom, Lightning Fist and Night Star, Him and Silent Mouse. I was the odd one out so he assigned me to collection. After my first trip back I was only able to carry a few rocks. But, with Winston’s help...” She paused patting my horse on the nose and he whinnied eating it up. “I was able to carry so much more, when I touched the bags I automatically knew how to use them. So here we are.”

  An info screen popped up.

  NAME – Moon Flower

  RACE – Human

  ALIGNMENT – Neutral Good

  CLASS – Fiancé

  EXPERIENCE – 1/100

  Level – 1

  HIT POINTS – 10/10

  MAGIC POINTS – 10/10

  The Companions to Jack-of-all-Trades are their own entities but gain bonuses from being a companion. The Fiancé class lets both fiancés share skills and all other aspects of life. The amount increases with level. Class gets own experience and upgrades different than Jack-of-all-Trades.

  YOU HAVE 12 POINTS FOR INITIAL ASSIGNMENT…

  WOULD YOU LIKE TO ASSIGN INITIAL POINTS FOR YOUR FIANCE… Y/N?

  Well damn, now I had access to Moon Flower’s character screen. She had access to all my skills and abilities? Honestly even though I felt a little violated this was actually super fucking awesome. I clicked yes and the screen changed.

  FLAME/IMBUE FLAME (Level – 1) – 1 Point needed for upgrade.

  NEPALESE GURKA STYLE (Level – 1) – 1 Point needed for upgrade.

  SMOOTH TALKER (Level – 1) – 1 Point needed for upgrade.

  NANBA RUN (Level – 1) – 1 Point needed for upgrade.

  SNEAK ATTACK (Level – 1) – 1 Point needed for upgrade.

  RAGE (Level – 1) – 1 Point needed for upgrade.

  DANGER SENSE (Level – 1) – 1 Point needed for upgrade.

  MAGIC MANIPULATION (Level – 1) – 1 Point needed for upgrade.

  BABEL FISH (Level – 1) – 1 Point needed for upgrade.

  FIELD DRESSING (Level – MASTER) – N/A.

  BOWMANSHIP (Level – 1) – 1 Point needed for upgrade.

  HORSEMANSHIP (Level – 1) – 1 Point needed for upgrade.

  STRATEGIST (Level – 1) – 1 Point needed for upgrade.

  LEADER (Level – 1) – 1 Point needed for upgrade.

  BUILDER (Level – 1) – 1 Point needed for upgrade.

  MAP MAKING (Level – 1) – 1 Point needed for upgrade.

  METALLURGY (Level – 1) – 1 Point needed for upgrade.

  MAGE BUILDER (Level – 1) – 1 Point needed for upgrade.

  WAR SHAMAN (Level – 1) –UNAVAILABLE

  Well crap, I only had twelve skill points available to assign to her. I saw she had Master in Field Dressing that made sense. War Shaman was unavailable. There can be only one… I snickered at my internal joke. I shook my head and thought. Should I specialize her or make her like a second me, another Jack-of-all-Trades, it was a tough question. I looked at my beautiful soon to be wife and made my decision. If we were going to be husband and wife we’d be equal. I’d put her on the same track as me. I quickly assigned all her points.

  POINTS ASSIGNED…

  UPDATING…

  SELECTIONS INITIALIZING…

  RESETING PARAMETERS…

  CHARACTER UPGRADES CONFIRMED…

  I finished up and closed the window. Moon Flower gave me a weird look then her eyes rolled up and she fein
ted slowly beginning to slide off of Winston.

  TRACK 37 – I FEEL IT COMING – THE WEEKEND, DAFT PUNK

  I dashed over and caught Moon Flower as she fell. I grunted at the effort, she was not a frail little thing. She was breathing softly so I knew she was alive. She began to mumble under her breath a bunch of nonsensical things. I set her down on the soft grass and she continued to mumble. Her eyelids began to flutter and then they shot open and she bolted up latching on to my arms and staring deeply into my eyes.

  “Holy fucking shit…” She breathed her mouth turning into a big smile. “It’s like my mind just exploded and now… now I know so much.”

  “Are you ok?” I asked smiling back at her.

  “Ok? I’m fan-fucking-tastic!” She said loudly.

  Then she leapt up and began looking around as if seeing the world anew. Then grinning even broader she held her hands up and they burst into flames. She cheered and hollered with joy than her MP ran out and her eyes rolled up again and she feinted, again. This time I wasn’t fast enough to catch her.

  I picked her up and took her to our yurt to let her recover. Then I went back and showed Dusk and Dawn how to get the meat ready for smoking and had Walking Coyote continue gathering wood but to focus on whole trees now. When I returned to Moon Flower she was just waking up, this time a bit more subdued than the first.

  She said that she now had all this new information inside her head. It was as if she was a new person. Moon Flower explained that she also had all this knowledge about my whole life and about the world I came from. We talked for a while and I answered her questions. She now had menus and stuff so I explained how they worked. I’ll give her credit she rolled with it. She didn’t freak out or anything like someone else might have.

  Anyway we decided to talk about things more in depth later that night. She headed back out on Winston to collect more ore and I returned to the resource area. Everyone was busy at work. I reached Dusk and Dawn and saw that they had done as I’d asked and the wild game was drawn and quartered. I told them to continue and headed back to the forge. I made some hooks and then some clay jars. Returning to the smokehouse I showed the twins how to use the hooks to hang the butchered meat and then told the other youngsters to go retrieve the clay jars I had made. We hung up the meat and I showed them how to build the fire so it would smoke and not burn the meat.

  The other workers returned with the clay pots and I showed them how to store the fruits and vegetables as well. When I was done with that I left them to it and returned to the forge. There were only a few hours left in the day but I wanted to finish up the remaining hatchets. Moon Flower kept a steady stream of ore coming with the aid of Winston and by the time dusk came and the elites all returned I had completed my goal. I had made one hatchet for each of my elite warriors.

  We all gathered at the Chiefs yurt for dinner once again and I handed out the new weapons. They were met with lots of acclaim and when I explained what they could do they wanted to rush out and try them right away. I patiently told them that after they show the workers where the mining areas are and give them instruction on the pickaxes then I’d show them how to use the hatchets. Dinner went quickly after that everyone exhausted again after another long day. After a round of goodbyes we all retired for the night to get some much needed sleep.

  I for one was tired as hell and stomped zombie like after Moon Flower to our yurt. My eyelids were already half closed as we went inside. I didn’t even have the energy to take off my soiled clothes from the day. That was why it was an even greater surprise when I opened my half lidded eyes to see Moon Flower already naked with her head bobbing up and down from my waist. Wow… that felt amazing. Maybe I wasn’t as tired as I thought. Her eyes looked up but she didn’t stop what she was doing.

  Moon Flowers new abilities had given her tons of extra energy and she made sure that I stayed awake to help her expend all of it. Which is why, despite my brand new body and abundance of stamina, I was exhausted as I made my way to the communal eating area the next morning. Not only was I tired as fuck, my pelvis and little Mr. Happy hurt like a motherfucker. Honestly, I kept checking my character sheet over and over again. It said I didn’t have any damage but I swear to all the gods my shit was broken.

  My beautiful fiancé was already munching away with the rest of the tribe, she grinned lasciviously as I approached. I sighed, the woman was insatiable. On the plus side the new smoked meats were a big hit. After breakfast everyone headed off to their tasks for the day. The rest of the regular warriors had finally returned with the proper pieces of wood for their bows. It took a bit longer than I thought it would. The elites helped them construct their new bows and then they all headed out to the mining areas. I used the time to make more pickaxes and outfitted the regular warriors with them.

  Walking Coyote and his people solely brought in trees now while Dusk and Dawn and their kids were solely working on preserving foodstuffs. Something changed in the power dynamic between The Chief and Moon Flower since she got her new power. She took over the elites while the Chief took over the regulars. That was fine with me. I kept working at the forge and produced enough hatchets for all the elites, regular warriors, and all my other workers. Now that I was done with those I moved on to arrowheads.

  I decided that I would make broad headed tri-tips for a kind of catchall arrowhead for multiple uses. The mould I was making was a bit more difficult and my Total Recall skill helped tremendously as I was able to review the video over and over again. By the time I infused my MP into the molten metal I felt like I had a good hold on what I was doing. When the mould cracked open and the light faded I examined my creation. It glowed in the coals with a fire all its own. I used my tongs and pulled the arrowhead out. After it cooled I took off to the Chief’s yurt where the arrow shafts were and attached the head to the shaft… he he… stupid dick jokes focus! Then I imbued it with my MP, another flash of light and I examined the new completed arrow.

  FIRESTEEL ARROW

  WEAPON TYPE – Projectile Fire Arrow

  CLASS – Unique

  UPGRADES – Flame

  WEIGHT – 0.05 lbs

  DIMENSIONS – 3” by 1” head 3’ shaft

  This arrow has a tri-tip steel head infused with MP. The user doesn’t need to have MP to activate the Flame upgrade. Each arrow is infused with a small reserve of MP that will activate no matter whom uses the arrow. After skill usage arrow is consumed. If Flame is not activated arrow is recoverable.

  Fuck yes! I had a definite kick ass creation. The others were going to love this shit! I hurried back to my forge and began churning out more arrowheads. By the time evening came I was already sitting at the Chief’s Yurt before the rest of the tribe returned. I had completed almost two hundred arrows. The crafting had gone so well I managed to use the skins from the wild game and made quivers for each of the elites, I’d make some for everyone eventually. I just added it to the growing list of shit that needed to get done. I checked the quivers info again.

  QUIVER OF DRYNESS

  WEAPON TYPE –Quiver

  DURABILITY – 75/75

  CLASS – Unique

  UPGRADES – Fire Resistant, Water Resistant

  WEIGHT – 12 lbs

  DIMENSIONS – 3’ by 6” by 6”

  This quiver is infused with fire magic and is tempered to keep the arrows inside dry when it rains. The imbued fire magic automatically keeps wetness out of the inside. The buckskin is also resistant to fire up to a certain degree.

  I closed the window as I heard Freak roar, he had been out with the miners, not in anger but in greeting. Good, they were all almost back, I couldn’t wait till they saw these babies.

  TRACK 38 – MAYOR OF SIMPLETON – XTC

  As expected everyone was really excited about the new arrows. At first the tri-form tip was a cause of much debate and wonder. I had to explain how they worked along with rotation, spin of the earth, gravity… yeah eventually I just sighed and said Coyote told me so we could m
ove on.

  The rest of dinner went quickly. Everyone discussed the day’s events and what the plan was for tomorrow. The regular warriors had made their bows and Moon Flower would use her new abilities to finish them off. The Chief had passed on the pickaxes and the new miners would head out in the morning. Silent Mouse would take out the warriors to patrol the area and make sure the miners were able to concentrate on their job.

  I had asked the Chief if Walking Coyote, Dusk, and Dawn could join us for dinner and he approved. They gave a run down of how things went respectively. Walking Coyote’s people had switched specifically to trees and they were now cleaning and then splitting them into planks. I still marveled at the ability of the elderly of this time. In the future everyone hit a certain age and became so frail.

  Dawn chose to fill in for the twin’s part and she turned out to have a perfectly normal voice for a teenage girl. She explained that they were filling the clay pots and hanging the meat for smoking. We went over what we’d be doing tomorrow and I tried to explain how a root cellar worked and I’m pretty sure I got zero of my point across, we tabled it and moved on.

  Shortly after that we all retired for the night, Moon Flower practically yanking me to our yurt. Once we got inside she closed the flap and raped me… Ok… she technically didn’t rape me I was willing but she was definitely driving. I’m not used to feeling well… used… it wasn’t bad per se, but it would take some getting used to. Maybe if I asked her she’d let me be on top every once in a while. We will see… I had had a Magic Eight Ball it would probably read ‘outlook not so good,’ best to just resign myself to a sore pelvis for the rest of my life. There could be worse things to worry about.