I got to my feet and kicked the dead rat in the head.
“Well. That didn’t go as planned,” Oz said.
“No shit! I thought I was dead. What happened to all that ‘you open the door and I’ll be ready with my sword if one of them comes out’ stuff?”
“It was so fast. Hey, on the plus side, one down, right?”
If there were more than one of those things, I didn’t feel like going down the stairs at all.
Oz grabbed the long stringy tail and straightened it out. He yanked his blade out of the rat and wiped it on the creature's fur. Then he lifted the blade and chopped off the tail, leaving a bloody splatter on the hard dirt floor.
I stood there like a moron with my mace in one hand and my dick in the other.
“Sweet. That’ll earn us a couple of coins. This isn’t so hard,” Oz said.
Son of a bitch!
I hefted the mace and studied the dark entryway for the count of three. Then I took a pissed off breath and stormed them.
Big mistake. Really big mistake.
I got halfway into the cellar when I realized I hadn’t even thought to bring a light of any kind. At least the basement door allowed a bit of light, but it was like going from daylight straight into a cave.
Make that a cellar.
I truly was shit at this real life adventure crap.
“Hah!” I yelled as I hit the last stair and brandished the mace nice and high above my head. So high, in fact, I hit the roof.
“Wait, man,” Oz yelled, and then his feet thumped across the floor. Was he running off? Oh crap. I’d gone and upset him, and now he was leaving me here to die.
Something—or three somethings—lurked in one corner sniffing and skittering around on claws I imagined were eight inches long. Dagger-long teeth waited to taste my blood.
I waved the mace around in front of me as I backed up the steps. Oz came pounding across the floor again but this time coming toward me.
“Hey. Use this,” Oz said.
I turned and found him holding one of those huge candles.
“Good call, Oz. You come up behind me, ‘k?”
“Yeah. Just go easy.”
“On it,” I said, suddenly relieved that we were working together as a team.
The light from the candles was barely enough to push back the darkness, but it was better than the near pitch black I’d found myself in.
More skittering in the corners as I stepped back onto the hard packed earth. I moved at a snail’s pace as Oz brought up the rear and illuminated the room. He kept the candle balanced in one hand while somehow also wielding the short sword.
“Come on, bastards,” I said.
They didn’t come on.
I took another couple of steps and shapes flashed past my feet. I swung and caught nothing but air.
“I think they’re scared of the light,” Oz said.
“Let’s herd them into a corner then you can put the light down, and we’ll finish them off. Just do me a favor. Let me at least slay a few of these beasties, cool?”
“Of course. You’ll feel better after you get a few more kills.”
‘Yeah, it will be a relief.”
“Not what I meant,” Oz said. “Just—you’ll see.”
I kept the mace low and put my other hand out like a wrestler as I shuffled deeper into the dark cellar.
Another shape came at us, but I was ready this time. I didn’t bother lifting the mace. I just used it like a very large and very heavy fly swatter and let gravity do part of the work. I caught the rat around its lower back, and something crunched. Then it squealed and scurried away, dragging one leg.
I followed after because I wanted to give it the coup de grace. I stomped on the oversized rat’s tail to stop it in its tracks and then whacked it again, this time with a lot more force. The beast squealed again and tugged with his front legs.
Something flashed past us and brushed my leg. Oz drove his sword in but missed and caught earth.
“Sorry. I know you want a few kills,” Oz said.
“If one of those things gets behind me, be my guest. I don’t want to have to figure out how to get a damn rabies shot in epic fantasy land,” I said with a shudder.
The rat turned to bite at me, and I lifted the mace which by now felt like it weighed fifty pounds, and smashed the little bastard’s head to a pulp. It stopped moving and squealing, but it did let out a stream of piss that soaked my feet and candles.
“Gah!” I yelled.
Then something happened.
The world went woozy for a second, and the book thumped against my side. A flicker of light across my eyes, and then another. Bars popped up and extended across my vision, then they quickly shrank and occupied the right corner of my eyes.
A warmth suffused my body, and I felt like I was lifted up on a cloud. Suddenly I wasn’t so tired. I had a little more life in me after all. The mace didn’t even feel as heavy as before.
“You got it, right? The HUD?” Oz said from behind me.
“I sure the hell did. Oh man, it's incredible,” I said.
YOU HAVE REACHED LEVEL 2
It was. There were pools of color on the lower corners of the HUD and the progress bar up top. Letters took shape and then flickered away again before I could make them out, and no matter how hard I squinted they didn’t come back.
YOU LEARNED A NEW SKILL: MACE
YOU LEARNED A NEW SKILL: DODGE
YOU LEARNED A NEW SKILL: Y/*_#$#@##*
Messages scrolled across my HUD too fast to follow before they fell away. The last one baffled me because it looked like a glitch.
I would have to deal with it later, as well as the fact that I had just leveled up. In a game. In a world that could not exist.
Another dog-sized rat snarled and advanced on us with malevolence in its eyes. Oz leaned over and set the candle down and stepped to my left side.
The rat seemed to be appraising us. Well good luck with that, sucker. We’re a couple of rat slaying bad asses with weapons in hand.
“Let’s take him together,” I surprised myself by saying.
“Cool,” Oz nodded.
The rat sniffed at us and with Oz’s sword leading the way, he slammed the blade into the beast’s back while I bashed in its head. The rat didn’t even whimper, but it did curl up around strikes and stop moving. Again the book thumped, and the little yellow bar at the top of my HUD advanced about a tenth of the way.
“Teamwork,” Oz held up his hand.
“Maximum effort,” I grinned and high fived him.
“Didn’t figure you for a Deadpool guy,” Oz said.
“The third movie was my favorite,” I said.
“Really? I thought the third was the weakest, but it’s all good,” Oz said.
“Weakest? Dude. They had…”
Something big moved in the back of the cellar. It grunted and then shuffled toward us. A rat that clearly wasn’t the run of the mill oversized-holy-shit beast we had already faced.
Amber eyes the sized of small coffee cups came into the light.
“Uh,” I said.
“Run!” Oz yelled.
CELLARS, RATS, AND CLICHÉS
As time has elapsed, more and more of the weird last night in our world came back to me.
It was thoughts of Karian that triggered them. She had been arguing with that guy Gabriel. She kept asking about the drink, yeah, that was it. Then something else about the experience. Finally, she had snatched one of the cups off a counter and sucked it down while Albert tried to knock it out of her hand.
But Karian was quick and backed away with one of her hands in the air clearly saying “back off.”
What had been in the drink? It had a minty flavor and some kind of alcohol. I assumed it was NitroGroove, but now that I thought back, I realized it was a special concoction, and it had a name, but I couldn’t remember it to save my life. Maybe that was the key to this whole mess. I’d been drugged and so had Oz. Now we had a shared dream.
&n
bsp; But if that was the case, where in the hell was Karian? Why did I get stuck with Oz instead of the girl of my dreams?
And why were we inside an old build of the game if this wasn’t a shared dream? This was shelved years ago because it was too damn hard. But that wasn’t the only weird thing. The game was also different than I remembered. The momma-rat was the perfect example. Not to mention the pissy townsfolk.
If there was a chance we could get to the upgraded server, I would practically be a god. Then I’d show Oz how this game was meant to be played.
This wasn’t your normal overstuffed and squealing Th’loria rat. Nope. I’d been an idiot. One of the reasons this quest had been so awesome was that once you killed off the little ones you got to battle momma and find some goodies her brood had hidden under their nest in the back of the cellar. Momma had been a knock over in-game, but she did require a bit of strategy to get the quest over with quickly.
Pretty cool, right?
Here’s the thing. If the little rats were the size of Rottweilers, the momma-rat was a water buffalo with teeth. It barreled toward me as I turned and followed Oz right up the stairs. I nearly smashed my head into the roof but leaned forward at the last second allowing my hair to snag and a tuft to rip free.
“Yeow!”
“She get you?” Oz panted as he exited the cellar and spun to confront the threat.
I nearly ran into him as I rubbed the back of my head. “No. But that edge of the door did.”
The momma-rat hit the stairs, and the shack shuddered. A huge pink nose shot out of the hole and teeth gnashed at us. I backed up and hefted the mace again, intent on at least looking somewhat dangerous. Oz was quicker and stabbed at the she-beast, but it retreated from view, so he hit a whole lot of air.
The shack shuddered again, and a piece of thatch the size of a bath towel thumped to the floor followed by an unholy mess of dust and detritus that immediately set my allergies on a one way trip to hell. My eyes watered up as the burning arrived. Then I sneezed at least half a dozen times as we backed away from the cellar.
“She’s pissed,” I said between gasps and explosive sneezes.
“We should get out of here before the place comes down,” Oz said.
“But we need the tails to prove we killed a few of her brood,” I protested, and then leaned to the side and sneezed again. Son of a bitch.
“Dude. We need to get the hell out of here. Screw the rat tails because we don’t know what happens if we get killed here,” Oz argued.
“Shit,” I said as I backed up a few more steps.
A larger section of the roof collapsed, sending even more debris crashing around us. I turned and ran after Oz as he made for the front door.
Behind me, there was one more crash, this one louder than before. I paused, like an idiot, to see what she was up to.
Oh. About four feet!
Yeah. She had driven her body into the cellar opening and smashed through the wood. Her head was first, followed by her body which had pendulous nipples hanging so low they brushed the floor as she shot out into the room. She took one look at me, squealed like a maniac serial killer chasing a teenage girl, and barreled toward us.
I stumbled into the wall and nearly fell through it. Oz paused at the exit and reached back inside the house, grabbed my shirt collar, and yanked me outside.
We hit the ground in a heap and tumbled over each other. Momma-Rat struck the door frame and got stuck, but her teeth gnashed out and nearly took off my leg right at the knee. I barely swung my legs apart, and that was even worse because I swear to God she set her eyes on my crotch.
“Not today, Satan,” I howled and scrambled back.
Oz grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet. I brushed at the dirt and crap all over my clothes, which were also idiotic. She didn’t care what I looked like, just what I tasted like.
“When she gets stuck again let’s take her out,” Oz said. “We can do it. We wouldn’t have been sent on a simple quest if we weren’t capable, right? Game logic.”
“There is no logic. None. It ceased to exist when we woke up inside of a game,” I shot back.
“We can do it. We worked as a team a few minutes ago, how is this different?”
“Because she’s fucking pissed off and she’s huge. Did you see those teeth?”
“What’s she doing in there?” Oz stepped toward the door like the guy in horror movies who’s all hey guys, what’s that over there? Before he gets disemboweled.
“Don’t go near the…” I didn’t get to finish my sentence because she hit the doorway again and this time it took the frame right off the side of the home. She lunged toward us as the rest of the roof caved in, covering her in the thatch. She dragged it as we backed up, but the frame caught in a piece and managed to stop her in her tracks. She turned her head and tried to shake the frame off but only managed to drag more of the roof of the house’s frame down.
I hefted the mace again and thought of a plan. A really, really, stupid plan.
“Okay. I’m going to distract her. You stab her in the head, or neck, or eye. Just make sure you get her good and deep.”
“Distract her?”
“Yeah,” I said and then waved my hands in front of my face. “Hey, bitch queen. Check me out.”
I dashed to her side and nearly got my left hand snapped off. She would have pounced, but Oz stepped in and lifted his sword. She set her beady eyes on Oz and yanked hard at the remains of the doorframe until the rest of the roof gave up the ghost and joined the pile of rubble that was now Hilna’s house.
As the rat lashed out at Oz again, I hit her hard, in the rib cage, with the mace. She ripped free of the debris and came at me like a bullet train. There was no finesse in the blows I delivered. I struck her again and again, and she got her fat body turned, and her beady eyes sought me instead of Oz.
She flung chunks of wood around, and one of them struck Oz across the face and sent him reeling. I backed away as she advanced on me until I stumbled into the street. Shit. Where were the damn guards when we needed them? Any minute now Quaint and Hull were going to come dashing out of the tavern and kill this thing.
I couldn’t believe how big she was now that her body was exposed. She could eat me and then have room for Oz.
The rat-bitch tried to take a bite out of my arm as I nearly stumbled and went down. I swung the mace around, and it made an impressive whistling noise but didn’t do anything besides pull me off balance. She was quick and managed to snag a chunk of my shirt. Then I ended up getting hauled around and tossed across the hard road. My previous bruises met with even more bruises as I rolled over and ended up on my stomach.
The rat-bitch pushed me with her snout as her feet dug into my legs and immobilized me, preventing me from scrambling away. I slammed my elbow back and caught her across the nose. She hissed in anger, and that’s when I knew I was about to die.
How bad would it hurt? Would I wake up back in the real world? Dammit. I hadn’t even had time to find a place to bind my soul. Talk about a noob mistake.
My HUD flashed in the corner of my eye, and I glanced up to find the red circle on the left side had diminished a little bit.
Wait. That was my life pool, wasn’t it? It was far from over. Was I really about to be rat raped, like the bear who gave it to DiCaprio back in the day? No. Hell no. I was a badass in this game.
The rat screamed in pain, and the weight was suddenly off my leg. I rolled over and swung as I sat up. The mace struck the side of her head, and she staggered back.
Breath coming out in short ragged gasps. Heart about to pound out of my chest, a cold sweat covered my body as panic set in.
“We can do this,” Oz yelled.
I gathered my strength and lurched to my knees. My legs were heavy, and my arms felt like they were being dragged underwater while attempting to lift anvils. But Oz fought the rat-momma with his short sword, swinging wildly while ducking her snapping teeth.
I planted the mace head on t
he ground and pushed myself all the way up until I was back on my feet. Oz yelled in pain as the rat smacked him silly. He almost dropped the sword but managed to duck as she about took the top of his head off.
I put one foot in front of the other until I was behind her. I lifted the mace above my head with both hands and tried to think of something amazing to say.
“Fuck off,” was the best I could do.
The mace came down and crashed into her back. She screamed and whipped her head around, catching me in the side and sending me flying once again. Oz then drove the sword into her head so hard it bit into the dirt as it exited the bottom of her jaw. Her back legs kicked a few times and then she went still.
My book thumped, and my XP bar jumped about a quarter of a bar.
What the hell? We’d just killed a high-level creature, and that was all I got? This game was getting on what was left of my last nerve.
OZ HELPED me up again and then we took a seat on the back of our kill. I rubbed thatch out of my hair and then lifted my shirt to find a huge red splotch that would surely be purple tomorrow.
My entire body trembled from the adrenaline. Or maybe it was from getting tossed around like a rag doll.
Oz had yanked the sword free and again wiped it clean on her back.
“What in the name of Leefser have you done?” a familiar voice exclaimed.
I turned and found Hilna running toward us from the direction of the tavern. Behind her were Hull and Quaint as well as a couple of townsfolk.
“We got her,” I said and slapped the beast’s back, then regretted it because a flea the size of my thumb leaped and landed on my arm. I jumped up and slapped it off, then ground it into the dirt.
Oz came to his feet and moved a healthy ten or fifteen feet away from the flea-infested corpse.
“Yeah. Can you believe this thing was living in your cellar?”
“You have destroyed my home.” Hilna looked like she wanted to punch us.
“That?” I turned and pointed at her hovel, what was left of it. “It’s not that bad. I bet you can get a team of contractors and have the hay and stuff repaired in no time. The important thing here is that we have freed the town from a mighty threat.”
SHARDS OF REALITY: A LitRPG novel (Enter the Realm Book 1) Page 6
