The Warped Forest

by Thomas Carpenter

  A step above letter opener. Congrats.

  Dmg: 1-3 ׀ 2/5 Durability

  "Wonderful," said Alex.

  She took a long look at her clothes and after a few seconds she learned they were Cloth Breeches and Cloth Shirt respectively.

  During her investigation, her glasses slipped down her nose slightly, notifying her of their existence in the game. Alex was surprised by this revelation, as every game she'd ever played had given her a representative avatar in which to navigate the artificial world, but in this one she would be playing as herself.

  Quest Offered: Establish a camp (+1,000 XP) [Y/N]

  After accepting the quest, Alex lurched around trying to figure out how to check her stats, but she was interrupted by a great crashing further in the forest. Alex sheathed the dagger and stood on the good section of the rotting log to see over the undergrowth. Leaves, branches, and whole trees shook with the passing of a large creature. As soon as she realized it was headed her way, Alex decided that she didn't want to find out what dying was like in this world and took off running the opposite way.

  There was no path, so she was forced to plow through the wispy bushes and saprolings. The hanging branches whipped at her arms and torso as she ran by.

  While she wasn't the best runner, she'd loved hiking in the Kentucky hills and had the stamina to go long distances, but she hadn't run two hundred yards before she couldn't catch her breath. A glance to the upper right revealed a floating stat screen.

  Fatigue: 54%

  Great. I'm a three pack a day smoker in this game.

  Behind her, the forest shook with fervor. Any thought of turning to fight, or hoping that it was friendly, ended when a great and bloody horn rose above the undergrowth.

  Alex doubled her effort, hoping a frantic sprint might get her out of range of the beast so she could hide behind a tree or something. At least the cloth breeches were easier to run in than the pair of tight, hip-hugging jeans she'd been wearing when she'd logged into the game.

  She was so focused on staying ahead of her pursuer that she missed that she'd run right past a bramble bush.

  You take 1 damage. 9/10 health remaining.

  "Ouch!"

  The thorn had taken a gash out of her arm. Worse was that it'd slowed her down. She had little hope that it would slow down the creature that seemed to be pursuing her.

  Realizing that she wouldn't make it far before it caught up to her, she looked for a tree with low enough branches that she could climb. She found one a dozen paces away, took a glance at the approaching storm of rustling undergrowth, and took off for the tree.

  The rough bark scratched at her palms as she pulled herself onto the first branch, which bent beneath her weight. Alex kept going, climbing into the middle section of the tree.

  High enough to avoid immediate impact, she checked on her pursuer to find a massive squat beast with armored scales plowing through the undergrowth. Not only did a thick white horn adorn its wide head, but sticking out from its jaws were two curved tusks. She understood why it had both when a pop-up window appeared above the creature.

  Brutal Rhinoboar, Warped Animal, Level ??

  You have gained a skill point: +1 Analyze

  Alex knew from the double question marks that the creature was probably much higher than she was capable of killing, especially without a weapon or a real understanding of how combat worked in Gamemakers Online.

  The Brutal Rhinoboar stopped beneath her tree, grunting and moaning in a way that put shivers in her spine. It nudged the tree, scarring the bark with its tusks and shaking the leaves around her.

  After a minute of milling around beneath her hiding spot, the Brutal Rhinoboar trotted away, grunting as it went.

  Alex waited for about five minutes before deciding it was safe to climb back down.

  Since the Brutal Rhinoboar had gone the other way, Alex decided her current heading was good enough. The forest continued for another couple hundred yards before opening up into a pond surrounded by strange reeds that reminded her of bamboo.

  Alex went wide around the pond, not trusting the waters. She'd seen the movie Lake Placid far too many times not to know there was something big lurking beneath that calm exterior.

  The forest fell away when she found a deep chasm in which a river meandered far below. The gap between her side and a field of high grass was at least a hundred feet, which meant she wouldn't be getting to that side anytime soon. In the distance, a single trail of smoke suggested a settlement, or at least a group of intelligent enemies.

  "I have a feeling that I really need to get over there," said Alex.

  Quest Offered: Reach the Plains of Warsong (+5,000 XP) [Y/N]

  "Well this is something I can appreciate," she said, swiping YES to accept the quest.

  When her stomach rumbled, Alex decided she needed to take stock of her situation. The Brutal Rhinoboar had forced her to keep moving, but now that she'd found a relatively safe spot, she needed to figure out how the game worked.

  Plopping onto the ground in a cross-legged position shifted a weight on her back, and when she reached to her shoulder, she realized she was wearing a backpack. As soon as she thought about it, an interface appeared.

  Item: The Handysack [Slots 20]

  It's not a Gucci, but it holds more.

  There were three items in the Handysack, a stack of five traveler's food, a stack of five water, and a Random Starting Item, which was shaped like a question mark. When Alex touched the Random Starting Item, it appeared in her hand.

  Item: Random Starting Item

  Big bucks. No whammies.

  "Oh, boy," she said, knowing this could either be really good or completely meh.

  When she opened it, the question mark transformed into a handle, which at first she thought was at the end of a weapon, until she realized it was a cooking pot.

  Item: Dented Cooking Pot

  You were told this game was hard, right?

  Dmg: 1 ׀ 3/5 Durability

  "Yeah, yeah," she said, trying not to be disappointed. It wasn't even worth using as a weapon. She probably punched harder than one damage, so she put it back in the Handysack and pulled out a single food and water.

  The traveler's food looked like a quality of beef jerky slightly above shoe leather. The water at least looked clear, and when she placed it against her lips, she found it was cool and soothing.

  She chewed through the jerky and downed the water—the whole time marveling at how real it felt—and received a "Fed" icon next to her fatigue bar.

  The next step was to figure out how to access her character sheet and to log out. The first appeared at a thought.

  Character: Alexandria Duke

  Level: 1

  Class: Undecided

  Subclass: Undecided

  Health: 10/10

  Faez: 16/16

  Fatigue: 36%

  Skills:

  Analyze: 1

  "Wonderful," said Alex, "I'm a total newb. But I guess there's nowhere to go but up."

  She was surprised there were no stats, but maybe those didn't come into play until she leveled up.

  Next, she thought about logging out and a window appeared.

  Log out? [Y/N]

  It's not too hard for you, is it?

  The passive-aggressive comment boxes were amusing. Alex chuckled as she swiped "No."

  It was weird to have pop-up windows in a place that felt like real life. Her VR unit mimicked the same setup, but she didn't get the tactile or olfactory inputs like she did here, and the regular senses were lifelike rather than slightly cartoonish like the Avatar of Destruction.

  As she sat in the grass, examining the scratches on her palm from climbing, wondering if they would transfer back to the real world, she detected a slight buzzing in her ear. At first, she thought it was a reaction to the authenticity of the game, but as it grew she realized it was external.

  Cupping her ears and turning them like a satellite dish identified the sound a
s coming from over the cliff.

  Alex tentatively approached the chasm. The buzzing increased in intensity as she leaned over the edge, which led her to look down.

  About twenty feet below her location, there was a cave that she hadn't seen before. Hovering around the outside of it were a half dozen winged creatures.

  Bloat, Animal, Level 2

  Alex didn't understand the nature of the danger until she saw the grotesque proboscis hanging beneath their swollen bodies. The bloats surged upward towards her, moving faster than their distended bodies should be able to move.

  At first the six bloats hovered over her, their proboscises reaching towards her eagerly like elephant trunks. Rather than reach for her dagger, Alex performed the finger gestures to produce a flame spit. The Five Elements were the basic magic that even the faez-less learned as a more complex version of rock-scissors-paper.

  In the real world, she could shoot a wad of elemental magic a good twenty feet. But when she finished the spell, feeling the pull of faez in her mind, the fire spell sputtered like a sad sparkler.

  You have gained a skill point: +1 Fire Spells

  Her faez bar shifted to half.

  The bloats, who had kept their distance, seemed encouraged by her failure at spellcasting. They surged towards her, forcing her to pull her Nicked Dagger to defend herself.

  Alex prided herself at being calm and methodical when it came to online combat. She usually practiced the basic moves until they came as natural as breathing.

  But Gamemakers Online had given her no tutorial or in-game help, so she was left flailing as if she were fighting off a swarm of mosquitoes, which she quickly realized was an apt analogy as the proboscises ventured toward her unprotected back each time she spun around.

  A bloat got too close, and Alex managed to slash it with her knife.

  You deal the bloat 2 damage!

  You have gained a skill point: +1 One-handed Slashing

  The quick skill gains gave her hope that she could make progress in the game, once she dealt with the bloats. But her early success turned to terror as the bloats adjusted their tactics.

  The flying mini-blimps spread out around her. One bloat would attack at a time, while the others waited until she'd committed before reaching towards her back.

  You have taken 2 damage!

  The stinging pain from the hit distracted Alex. In her immersive VR games, damage, and by extension, pain, was a formality, a mathematical formula to consider when comparing attacking and defense. The hit from the bloat completely revised her expectations of how Gamemakers Online was going to be played. The pain was real. Her left shoulder burned where the bloat had attached its proboscis for a brief moment. What the hell was going to happen if she died?

  Alex thought about escaping into the forest, but her fatigue was already up to 63%. There was no way she would make it far.

  The best defense is a good offense, she decided.

  She needed to even the odds, and quickly.

  Alex crouched lower, forcing the bloats to descend if they wanted to threaten her.

  When one came in range, she lunged upward like a pogo stick, stabbing the bloat in the belly.

  Critical hit! You deal the bloat 8 damage! You have killed the bloat!

  You have gained experience: 5 XP

  Her small victory turned pyrrhic when the bloat, with the dagger imbedded into its belly, fell away from her and tumbled over the cliff.

  "Oh, no."

  Alex attempted another fire spell as the bloats descended on her, but it sputtered like the first. The hits from their proboscises came fast and furious as she flailed at her defense, but there were too many and before long she was covered in the bloats.

  You have taken 2 damage!

  You have taken 2 damage!

  You have taken 1 damage!

  Critical Hit! You have taken 5 damage!

  You have died!

  Chapter Eight

  Alex woke at the decomposing log, curled in the fetal position with a lingering ache from where the bloats had sucked away her blood.

  "That was unpleasant," said Alex, wanting a shower to scrub away the death.

  When she looked down to find her sheath empty, she was reminded that her first kill had taken her dagger away.

  "Great, I need a new weapon," she said.

  Part of her wanted to log out and get her bearings, but she hated sucking at anything. Better that she grind for a while and figure out how the game worked. So far it'd been a one-way ass kicking.

  Before Alex set off, she tried her fire spell twice, both times accomplishing nothing more than a spritz of sparks. But it used up her faez, and maybe she would get a skill increase if she kept at it.

  Alex headed in the direction she'd run from the rhinoboar, hoping she might find a broken tree limb that would serve as a makeshift weapon. But as she followed the path, the only branches she found had been pulverized into splinters.

  When she reached the bramble patch, Alex looked for a way around only to feel a sharp sting in the back of her calf.

  You have taken 1 damage!

  A foot-long rat with a tail full of spikes hissed at her from a fallen log behind her. Its tail rose above its head and whipped forward to send a volley of needles at her, which she sidestepped.

  Raticore, Warped Animal, Level 3

  Alex quickly surveyed the area. If there was a group of them, she was doomed. But it seemed like it was only the one, which would be challenging enough without a weapon.

  She searched around, spying a section of bramble that had been dug up from the charging rhinoboar. She grabbed the base of the thorny plant and yanked it from the soil, spilling dirt over her hands. She held the three long lashes of thorny plant material that hung limp from her grip.

  You have taken 2 damage!

  "Ouch, you little bastard," said Alex, rubbing her leg where the needles had pierced her skin.

  The raticore hissed gleefully as it prepared another strike, its tail hovering seductively behind it as if it were a cobra. Alex hit first, bringing the thorny tri-whip down upon the critter in an overhead blow, but only one of the lengths hit the creature.

  You deal the raticore 3 damage!

  You have gained a skill point: +1 Devious Device

  The raticore, suddenly sensing that it was outmatched, squeaked and tried to scamper from the log, but Alex kicked it before it could move.

  You deal the raticore 1 damage!

  The kick flipped the critter on its back, so Alex brought the tri-whip down on the raticore, and since she was much closer, she hit with two of the whips.

  You deal the raticore 4 damage!

  You deal the raticore 3 damage!

  You have slain the raticore!

  You have gained experience: 10 XP

  Breathing heavily from the fight, Alex surveyed the damage. Though the battle had been brief and her opponent tiny and fierce, she felt like she'd taken down a boss. Adrenaline coursed through her body, leaving her a little light-headed.

  Victory meant a lot more when each hit felt real. She was beginning to understand why Professor Marzio had said this was the hardest game in the world. Overcoming the pain during battle was a challenge in itself.

  When Alex touched the body of the raticore, she was presented with a loot pop-up.

  You have received: Rat Meat

  Yum, yum, yum, in your tum, tum, tum.

  "Haha, very funny," said Alex as she hit accept, which moved the rat meat into her Handysack.

  At least Patron Dimple had a sense of humor, which helped lessen the horror of the inflicted pain in Gamemakers Online.

  When Alex checked her experience bar to check how far her kill had gotten her in the level progression, a stone formed in her gut.

  XP: 10/20,000

  The magnitude of the challenge became abundantly clear in that number. She'd have to kill a metric tons of raticores and bloats to hit level 2. While she wasn't opposed to grinding, the amount of times that she
would have to take damage to achieve that was daunting.

  If it were a normal game, she'd expect to level up to max in a few weeks, or months at the most. Since there were five years at the Hundred Halls, she wondered if each year was broken down into twenty levels, or if the gap grew exponentially.

  "One thing at a time, Alex," she said, blowing out a breath.

  First things first. She wanted to work on her new weapon. It'd hit harder than her Nicked Dagger and had a longer reach, which was important for not taking damage—an important distinction due to the realism. But the three branches made it hard to be accurate and the root system was slippery with fresh dirt. She needed to find a better way to grasp the weapon.

  When she was younger, her dad had taken her on camping trips in the Daniel Boone National Forest. He'd taught her survival skills, which she hoped would translate to this game world.

  Alex found good sturdy fibrous grass that she could use to weave around the roots to create an easier hilt to grip. She used longer strands to bind the three lengths together, making them into a thicker thorny whip. As soon as she tied the last loop, the item shimmered with a brief transformation.

  You have gained a skill point: +1 Devious Device

  You have received: Vicious Thorny Whip

  The whole weapon looked sturdier than what her grass loops could provide, suggesting that the game had translated her actions into an actual item. She examined her new weapon.