“We need a healer,” she implored.
Oswald and I looked at each other. I didn’t know much about healing beyond applying a Band-aid. That guy needed to go to the ER and get a tetanus shot or something. Maybe some stitches or super glue. I saw that in a zombie movie once.
“What the hell is going on?” I said.
“I think I know, but I also think we need to follow the game rules. We can talk about it later,” Oswald said.
“We should talk about it right goddamn now,” I insisted.
“You two. Grab weapons and help out or I’ll have you horsewhipped out of town,” Mug sipper yelled in our direction before he and his twin could depart the tavern.
“Us?” I said.
“I don’t see any able-bodied warriors here, so I guess you’ll have do. Couple of towsers like you will probably be killed in the first minutes of the battle. Maybe you will live and gain experience. Doesn’t matter to me as long as you fight,” he said and strode out the door.
The book thumped against my side again.
I sat back in the chair and tried to will myself out of the dream. Wake up. I screamed inside. WAKE-UP!
“Go! The town is in need,” the barmaid said. “But bring back a healer as soon as you can. Old Grundar won’t last much longer without a potion or a scroll of healing.”
The little book thumped my side once again. I was about ready to toss the possessed tome into the fire. I hadn’t heard the name of Old Grundar in years, but there he was in the flesh. It came back to me then. If we did assist, and he lived in this instance, he would reward us with some money and a clue about a quest.
“Let’s at least take a look.” Oswald rose to his feet.
“Did she say a healing potion?”
“Or spell. Don’t forget that part. Maybe you should write it down in your book,” Oswald said.
“Maybe you should write it on your face,” I snarked back. It was important to get the steps to a noob quest just right. Otherwise, it turned into a mess of running all over the place over and over again.
Oswald rolled his eyes, but he took the lead and moved toward the entryway.
As I stepped into the sunlight, I came to a dead halt, and my mouth dropped open.
The town, such that it was, consisted of several small buildings with single-story wooden walls. Roofs were constructed of thatch, while some had actual clay tiles. Smoke rose from chimneys and dissipated in a gentle breeze. Some kind of four-winged bird lofted on the same breeze, then it dove toward the earth, snapped up a thing that looked like a tiny shrimp with four legs, and was gone like a shot.
Slingbird, and Crawbug, I mentally noted.
The building directly across from us had an ornate doorway, and a pair of banners hung next to the entrance. The blue banner on the right featured a wizard’s pointy hat. The banner on the left was a brawny arm holding a sword.
A pair of people fled toward us and then veered down a dusty side street. They were a young couple with a baby clutched in the mother’s arms. They both wore outfits similar to ours although the man at least carried a large knife in a leather belt.
I couldn’t believe it. We were really in Candleburn, and we were about to take on a noob quest. That meant we needed weapons.
One of the soldiers hung back, Stew eater if I had to guess, and pointed at a low fence that lined the tavern. A pair of weapons lay there covered in rust and cobwebs.
“You want us to use those?” I asked.
“No, towser. I want you to go out there and fight with your fists and feet like the Calia Rai of the East. Your friend has the look, apologies if you’re one of the monks,” he said as he lowered his visor.
“Because I’m half-Asian?” Oz said. “Racist much?”
“Only racing to slay beasts. You are one of the worst recruits I have ever laid eyes on. A little experience will fix that I suppose. That or we’ll bury you in the evening.”
Oswald grabbed a weapon by the hilt and picked it up. The short sword bore many nicks along the blade. The leather wrapping around the hilt hung by a prayer and not much else.
“But I’ve never used a weapon before,” I protested. “And who just leaves this stuff lying around to collect rust?”
“It matters not who deposited the weapons there. It’s a good enough time to learn their use.” The soldier snapped his visor shut again and pulled out an impressive silver sword that gleamed in the daylight.
I picked up the second weapon and grunted. It was simple in its brutality. A long metal pole attached to a heavy orb in which spikes were set. I tested its weight and found it wouldn’t be easy to swing.
I rubbed my fingers over some worn etching on the mace’s metal grip, then lifted it to eye level to make out the marks.
1 LE
1 DU
0 MA
3 DA
“Does this writing mean what I think it means?” I showed Oswald the mace’s haft.
In the Realms of Th’loria game this information would have been passed on via the interface, and it would have also described the weapon in greater detail.
“My sword has something similar. I’m guessing that 1 Le is level one. 1 Du means it has low durability, and 3 Da means it can do 3 points of damage.”
“Ma?”
“Mana. It’s not a magical weapon, Jesus, dude. You live in a fucking MMO.”
“I know what mana is,” I said in frustration. “It’s just that none of this is like the game.”
“Duh,” Oz smirked.
Someone screamed in the distance. One of the soldiers turned to us, “Step lively, or I’ll see your guts around my neck. Move!”
“You could really use some lessons on how to motivate people,” I told him.
He snarled and spun away to catch up with his twin.
I stumbled down the first step and onto a dirt road that had a pair of runnels on the packed earth. A water trough filled with brackish fluid sat across the street next to a couple of barrels. I was glad I hadn’t tried to drink out of that thing.
“Wait…” I said again.
“No time to wait. Follow us, towsers, or we’ll have you both in chains by time we finish sorting out the chitterlings, then we hang ya,” the other soldier said.
“There you go with the motivational speeches again,” I said.
The man pointed the tip of the sword at my head and then clenched his other fist. Fine. I got the message, dude. Jesus.
I turned to Oswald and said, “This is Candleburn and we’re in Realms of Th’loria.”
“That’s really perceptive, man, and it’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. What everyone here has been trying to say to you.”
“But how is this even possible?” I said and let my gaze travel upwards to settle on a pair of large yellow objects in the sky. One was a sun much like the one that Earth orbited. The second object was a smaller star much farther away. It would get weird when night came, and three moons rose. “We can’t be in a game world. Seriously. This is all so stupid.”
“Is it stupider than ‘Look. Chitterlings are overrunning the western gate’?” Oswald asked and then pointed at the fighting that took place thirty feet away.
I sucked in a breath and nearly dropped my mace.
LEARN A SKILL—STUPID TOWSER
I’ve been trying to piece together what happened. How we ended up here. I remember going to the company party and having a few drinks. Then a few more drinks. One of the guys talked my ear off. Gabriel was a jerk because he liked to blab about how much money he made and how he had paid cash for a Tesla. It was great that he had stock options and all. Good for you, pal. I was just a lowly QA tester who made forty grand a year. I had a place of my own, and paid my bills most of the time. I occasionally had to plead with Mom and Dad for some extra money and they usually provided it with the understanding that I never, under any circumstances, tried to move back in with them again. As long as I had money for my subscription to the video game I was a happy guy.
&
nbsp; At least Karian had been at the party and had even dressed up for it. She wore this slinky dress, and I almost didn’t recognize her. She tended to wear ball caps because she had told me once that her hair was an unruly mass of curls. Tonight she had let it out. Big dark tight rings hung around her face. When she walked around I practically drooled, and my heart raced. She got a lot of attention from some of the other guys even though one of them, a guy named Merrill, had once claimed to know she liked girls. What a doofus. He sure as hell didn’t seem to have a problem with her right now.
Gabriel droned on and on about something or another before he started hitting on Karian. She wasn’t having it so he got bold and said he could show us something new, and amazing.
So why was Oz here, and not Karian? My luck sucked worse than an ‘80s pop band.
The rest was black.
I needed to fill in the holes, and there didn’t seem to be a way to start. So, for now, I have to bide my time and see what happens in this new world.
It’s not every day you see a bunch of rabid, four-legged freakazoids fighting against armed and armored men, but that’s exactly what greeted my eyes. Chitterlings were the kind of thing you scoffed at when you’re level five. When you’re level one, they can kick your ass all over the place and send you to a respawn point quicker than you can scream “ouch, mother fu-!”
The waist-high monsters make a weird sound that was created by their razor-sharp teeth chittering together. You’ve never seen a stranger looking lobster in your life. Multiplying the bizarre is the fact that they have six large clackers each of which is the size of a normal person’s head. They’re also skinny and have bodies shaped like a bug’s carapace with segments that are hues of dark red to light green. Chitterlings bodies are topped by what looks like an upside-down cricket’s head. Their eyes are purple and never blink. When chitterlings weren’t trying to kill you, they were trying to kill something else, anything else. If it has a pulse, they wanted blood.
“Chitterlings can’t be here,” I said in shock.
“You keep saying that things can’t be and yet they are,” Oswald said.
“It’s not that. Chitterlings got deleted in the 3.0 patch that came out a few years ago. In fact, this entire zone was restructured to make it easier on noobs. They nuked most of the village and replaced it with smaller and easier mobs.”
Mobs were a shortcut for ‘mobile’, a gamer term for any NPC, nonplayer characters or any creature in the game.
“This place doesn’t look like it was nuked to me,” Oswald grimaced.
“Luckily we’ve played the game so it should be easy, right?” I said and then wondered for whose benefit I had made that statement.
I hefted the mace and considered what it was going to be like to swing the heavy weapon. In the game, this would have affected my stamina bar quickly. No one started with a mace. You had needed a level or two before you tried it. The best starter weapon was a staff or a dagger. Plus, Paladins kind of had the market cornered on the mace. I hated playing paladins because they were a multi-class. Weapons and healing weren’t my things. Blasting creatures with magic spells or a staff were.
Two chitterlings bore one of the warriors to the ground. His pal turned and lopped the head off of one, sending yellow blood fountaining into the air. The creature kicked its legs a few times as it crashed into the dirt road. The other man rolled on top of the second slobbering monster and drove his helmeted head into the chitterling’s face, smashing it to a pulp. Lucky for the fighter his body was encased in armor those claws couldn’t seem to penetrate. He got to his knees, batted aside a pincer that went for his neck, and drove a four-foot long sword through its chest.
“Doesn’t look too hard,” Oz said.
He broke into an easy jog and lifted his sword.
“Wait, what are you planning to do?” I yelled, but Oswald ignored me and moved in on the battle.
The wooden gate had been smashed almost to kindling, and five chitterlings skittered through the opening. One of them screeched and ran at Oz. Oz stood his ground for all of two seconds then turned and ran back toward me. He had looked confident a second ago. Now his eyes were wide, and his mouth opened in a silent scream.
I advanced on the chitterlings, intent on showing Oswald how this was done. It was just a starter mob. An irritant I had killed by the hundreds a few years ago.
The chitterling was surprisingly fast considering it basically ran on open claws and razor-sharp stiletto feet.
I swung the mace as the chitterling came within striking distance, and bashed an upraised claw. The force of my swing tugged me around in a semi-circle, so my back was to the chitterling. Something dug into my thigh, and I screamed in pain. Then I dove out of the way attempting to do something like a summersault, and ended up on my face, in the dirt, gasping for air.
Oswald dove in and drove his sword into the chitterling’s carapace. The creature howled but danced away nearly pulling the weapon loose. Oz held on and spun with the chitterling as it did its best to rip the short sword from his hand.
I got to my feet, turned to face the beast, and tried to summon murder in my heart. What would my character do in this situation? For starters, I wouldn’t be in this situation. I was a high-level sorcerer with a monumental and my first shard. I would have blasted past this tiny annoyance with a spell that would have left the ground scorched.
I hefted the mace, lifted it above my head, aimed, and swung hard, intent on smashing the creature’s head into seafood salad. The chitterling ducked at the last second, and one of the mace’s spikes swept across the side of its face sending a chunk of shell flying. It howled in pain and spun so fast I didn’t have time to react.
A claw came out of nowhere, caught me in the chest, and knocked me flat. The chitterling followed up with a second howl of rage that scared the bejesus out of me. I fled across the packed ground, legs pushing quicker than my hands could keep up, looking like a drunken crab.
The chitterling tripped on his pal and sprawled, claws and legs akimbo. I used the opportunity to come up to my knees and loop the mace from the ground in an arc that took off one of its claws. It backed off, growled, and spit at me. So I spit back.
A second chitterling dashed across the ground heading straight for us.
“You got that guy?” I yelled to Oz because if one of us turned our back, we’d be dead meat.
“You got that guy?” Oz yelled back.
No, I did not, but we would have to divide and conquer to survive. I just hoped we could hold our own.
Oz wasn’t a friend, he was barely an acquaintance, but he was my only link to the real world. I did a fast look between the creature he fought and the one coming at me. Then my head whipped between the two again. Oz ducked a blow from an open claw and came up swinging his sword in an arc that reached from the ground, through the chitterling’s leg, and then into the air, like he had been born a fighter.
I turned to face the first chitterling. This was a game that I was very good at. I’d used just about every weapon in Th'loria.
Just about.
The chitterling put on a burst of speed and instead of standing my ground like a warrior, I backed up several steps, but that only made the little jerk move faster. He leaped the last few feet and nearly collided with me, but I spun to the side to duck and ended up twisting my legs together and landing in a puff of dust. My tailbone took the brunt of it, as did my wide ass. But even that cushioning didn’t stop me from feeling the blow all the way in my head. My teeth clacked together painfully and if I hadn’t been careful, I probably would have bitten my tongue in half.
I rolled to the side which might have been graceful or it might have looked like a drunk orangutan trying to salute while doing a butt pirouette. The chitterling hit the tavern's outer wall, hard, and then came around in a dance of skittering claws. One of them reached for me, and I did the only thing I could. I rolled forward into a half-hearted summersault and smashed into the chitterling that Oz fought.
It rolled over thanks to my blow and Oz used the opportunity to drive the blade into the green-hued carapace. Yellow fluid burst out of the wound and flowed across my legs. I rolled again and attempted to get to my feet but the damn second chitterling was right there. A claw flashed in. I swung the mace and managed to block the blow. Another claw headed toward my face. Breathless and amped to the point of blowing an adrenaline gasket, I leaned back until I was flat on the ground.
My Jackie Chan move didn’t save me for long.
Oz grabbed a claw and dragged the creature off me. I sat up and pushed myself to my feet. Oz lopped off a leg while I struggled for breath. My heart jackhammered inside my chest and I felt dizzy to the point of fainting.
But there was no way Oz was going to defeat the second chitterling all by himself. I sucked it up, turned, and swung the mace, all seemingly five-hundred pounds of metal, and caught the chitterling across the back. Its shell cracked, and something inside snapped. It screeched in pain, and the chitterling’s legs went out from under it. Oz moved quickly and stabbed it in the head, and it stopped moving except for a single leg that twitched back and forth.
I sat down and looked at the mess we had created in the center of the street. Goddamn chitterling claws and guts everywhere. Yellow fluid down the front of my crappy pants. Me sitting next to the four-foot-long corpse of a creature that only existed in fantasy land.
Some hero I was.
But I felt something. Elated? My vision went blurry for a moment, and I could have sworn I saw a little display hovering over the corner of my eye like a HUD. Then it was gone, so I attributed it to being smacked around like a piñata doll.
The book thumped against my side again. What was with that stupid thing?
“That was well fought, friends,” the bearded soldier said. “I am Hull, and my friend is Quaint, and you have our thanks.”
“Aye,” the second one, Quaint, removed his helmet and gave us a grin. “Well fought indeed. You have done the impossible and defeated a pair of chitterlings. I shall take you to the fighter’s guild in the morning and introduce you to the captain of the locals. Isled Larkson will be impressed with your heroics. He may even have a quest for you.”
SHARDS OF REALITY: A LitRPG novel (Enter the Realm Book 1) Page 3
