by Aaron Jay
The first things I ruled out were all the weapons that had no historical provenance. Weapons like the Dwarven Urgrosh or the Bat’leth were out. A weapon that had never killed anything IRL was nothing I cared to entrust my life to. Bye bye batarangs, chained chaos daggers, Scorpion’s “spear,” which was a blade at the end of a chain. Ridiculously, an incredible number of the Game’s weapons were just a more traditional weapon but with chains added to it or spikes sprouting everywhere on it. Bye to all that.
This took hundreds and hundreds of weapons out of consideration.
What remained was still overwhelming. It really drove home just how many ways we have invented to kill each other. From rocks to thermonuclear bombs. Standing at the ass end of history, I can tell you that it doesn’t even end with nuclear weapons. We basically cut out the middlemen and just weaponized our imaginations in the end.
I needed to be scientific about this. Looking over all the weapons, they were all variations on the stuff Archimedes (damn, another Greek!) figured out. Levers, wheels and axles, inclined planes, wedges, pulleys, screws: one way or another they were all examples or combinations of these.
Weapons are just simple tools for creating mechanical advantage. It was all about developing the skill to bring the right kind of force to the right place in the right way. And that is when I had my eureka! moment.
Eventually, just from continuing to grind, I would learn the very basics of the most universal melee weapons. Axe, mace, spear. I already had some familiarity with a sword. At that point, I’d have some mild ability to slash things, stab things and bludgeon things.
The time I had now would be best spent learning something I could use no matter what tool I had. I’d learn about the monsters themselves.
I flipped almost all the way to the beginning of the manual and selected Anatomy (xenomorph).
Logging in this time, I found myself in a large room made of metal. The paradigm was all sci-fi dystopic futurism—-so, not unlike the real world these days. There were metal lab tables and tanks embedded into the walls that had all sorts of specimens floating in liquids, with wires and tubes embedded in them. The place screamed creepy lab.
The air had that same smell of industrial disinfectant I recalled from my brief stay in the virtual hospital. It couldn’t quite mask another deeply biological smell underneath. Odd bodies filled with odd substances had been killed in this room so much that the best cleansers couldn’t quite get rid of the funk.
On the table in front of me was a creature I had long been familiar with. Hi Bugs. It was one of the monstrous desert hares I had fought and enjoyed as dinner so many times. Beside it was a dissecting kit.
At the front of the room was my professor. He was an Asian man in his early forties with long black hair parted in the middle and swept back behind his ears. His glasses couldn’t hide the arrogant contempt his eyes cast on the world.
“I’m Dr. Hojo. It is always good to find someone who wants to study ULFs.”
“ULFs?”
“Unidentified life forms. Ignorant and superstitious knuckle-draggers call them monsters.”
“Right, ULFs,” I said. “If the ULFs are unidentified, what can you teach me about them? I mean, if you studied them and know about them, at this point they are no longer unidentified are they?”
“STUDENT’s duty is not to think. It is to listen to those who think for them, like me,” he informed me.
Working with this program was going to be just a joy. Having established our relationship to his satisfaction, he then went on to answer my question.
“I am not here to help you memorize a list of creatures one by one. That would be tedious and beneath my genius,” said Hojo. He paused after his declaration of his own brilliance until he was assured that the world now knew and no one dared to refute his claim. That done, he continued, “I am here to show you the patterns and structure of biology. There is a design to life. That is what I shall endeavor to pound into your thick skull.”
For the next three days (twelve in game), he did just that.
“Canine skulls from Wargs to werewolves will have a thinning of the skull at a point found by intersecting two imaginary lines running from each ear to the opposite eye.”
“Slime-based creatures are best thought of as colloid hydrogels contained in a series of differing membranes. This explains their unique interactions with kinetic energy. Their resistance and apparent density in response to something puncturing their outer membrane can be described by an acceleration-to-power curve.”
“Alright, we have covered the motile root systems of plant-based monsters. Let us move up to the trunk of these types of creatures. They will have an internal structure made up of circles of the cambium, xylem, and phloem. These nested cylindrical vascular systems can easily reroute water, nutrients, strength, and mana around damage as long as any of the layers isn’t completely bisected. Hence, a bloodflower or devil’s snare can be harmed more easily by making a shallow laceration all the way around its stem or trunk than by cutting even halfway through the trunk.”
It wasn’t all lectures. I spent much of my time cutting up one specimen after another. I saw the inherent logic of how skeletal systems had to conform to specific shapes. How different types of joints had to be constructed to allow this or that range of motion. What kind of muscle attachments, ligaments and cartilage were necessary for a creature that moved like this, or attacked like that.
What Hojo got most excited about was pointing out what kind of morphology I could expect to find where one type of monster--excuse me, ULF--was blended to another. I nearly vomited while somehow also being bored to tears when he dissected a mermaid’s reproductive anatomy for me. I needed to know this like a fish needed a bicycle.
Eventually I was covered with a light coating of blood, tissue, sap, slime, scales, fur, hair, bone chips, and other substances I now knew the name of. The biggest thing I was covered in was a smile when the system rewarded me with an announcement.
Anatomy (Xenomorph)
"I profess to learn and to teach anatomy not from books but from dissections, not from the tenets of Philosophers but from the fabric of Nature." - Player William Harvey
Your careful and visceral study of the internal structures and organization of the monsters plaguing humanity has increased your skills.
Identify (monster)has increased by 100
Critical Hit Chance increased by .5%
Skinning has increased by 100
Weapon Proficiency: Small Blades added
Beyond the added stat bonuses, I was now confident that I knew what to hit with and where. I hoped that this kind of wisdom would translate to more than chopping up a bunch of monsters. School time was over.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It was time to meet Pulling. Before that I had to meet the Eastmans. This was going to be interesting. I had been playing solo for months. I should be looking forward to playing with other people. But, as some guy once said, “Hell is other people.” And that guy never even met the Eastmans.
The hard-packed dirt road out of the mine led up to the faintly shimmering entrance to the instance. It was late afternoon fading into evening in the game. Night would be falling in just a few hours.
I stood there and once again it looked like no one was waiting for me.
“Hello!” I yelled.
Silence.
“This is silly. You already revealed yourself to me before. I know you are there,” I said.
Still more silence.
“You know I know you are there. I know that you know that I know that you are there. Let’s have a little chat,” I offered reasonably.
I sat on my haunches and waited.
Nothing. Patient bastards.
“You know what is really annoying? When you are trying to keep still and your nose starts to itch. It is like the less you want to pay attention to your body the more it starts screaming at you to move. First it is just a little tickle you are barely aware of but the more
you ignore it the more it starts to bother you,” I began.
I stopped to give my words a chance to sink in.
“It might not be an itch on your nose. What are the chances that I came out right after you all got something to eat and took a piss? No, right now you are sitting there trying to ignore some itch or a stone that is jabbing you in the rear. Maybe your leg is starting to go numb because you can’t shift and the blood flow is cut off.”
I stood up and gave a big, yawning stretch and then ostentatiously scratched up and down my flanks. I gave that a few minutes and then I took out some jerky and ate it.
Still nothing. The scrub woods looked empty but I knew they weren’t.
As my big finale, I drank a few swallows of water from my water skin and then gasped, wiping some drops from around my mouth.
“Aah! Refreshing. Although now I really do feel like I need to pee. Drain the main vein. You know how it is. Once you think you need to pee, your body just starts demanding you take care of business.”
Still nothing. Nothing for it but to go all in. I began opening my fly to take a piss. Thankfully, that did the trick.
“Alright Boone. Keep it in your pants. No one needs to see what a small man you are,” said a ranger type with a bow and green-brown leathers who popped up from right where I had thought someone should be hiding the last time I came out to talk. She had hard eyes and seemed not to appreciate my sense of humor.
I gave her my biggest smile.
“Pardon. I wanted to talk to someone from the Eastmans.”
“Tasha told us not to bother her with anything from you anymore,” she informed me.
“Oh, that is ok. My message isn’t for her anyway.”
“So, what is it?” she asked.
“Alright, well you have to bear with me. I have to tell you a few things that might seem unrelated, but I promise you it is important. Alright?” I said.
“Fine.”
“Ok, so you know all that art you guys have in your demesne? Commemorating this battle and that? Showing what brave, stalwart defenders of humanity you guys are?”
“Art? Sure.”
“Ok, well, my dad told me something one time. You know my Dad? Numitor Boone, savior of humanity?”
She just looked at me hard, but I could tell she was interested. Dad had that effect on people.
“Back before the world ended, people did similar things. They commemorated important fights just like we do today. So, this one government, the U.S. Government, paid to commemorate one of their greatest military leaders’ most famous battles.”
“So?” she asked.
“Here is the thing. And this is important. They commissioned a painting of Colonel Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn.”
“Who?”
I grunted in frustration.
“No one knows history anymore. Custer led the 7th Cavalry Regiment through a lot of tough and dirty fights against the Indian Nations. Ok? He was a great military leader who had a dirty job and did it well. Got it?”
She was getting more and more interested. People often avoided thinking of the world that we had lost but, when forced, people were always compelled by stories of the time before.
“So, here is the thing. The painting they wanted and the battle they wanted to commemorate was of his greatest defeat. He died at the battle of Little Bighorn. Two of his brothers, his nephew and a brother-in-law died with him.”
“They wanted a painting of his greatest defeat?”
“That is right. Deep stuff. They wanted to commemorate a defeat. Not only that. They wanted a painting that tried to capture Custer’s last thought as best as the artist could do it. Got it? Custer. Indians. Defeat. His last thought.”
This hard-bitten military leader nodded her head in contemplation.
“So eventually the artist comes back with his painting. The president of the U.S., congressmen and senators all show up for the unveiling.”
She looked at me and didn’t interrupt.
“Those guys are like clan leaders now.”
“I know that. I’m not ignorant,” she snapped.
“Sorry. Well, they unveil this painting and it shows a perfectly clear lake. A fish is leaping from its waters with a halo on its head. But here is the other thing. On the hills all around the lake, the artist painted hundreds of Indians and they are all just screwing each other like crazy.”
“What?” said the ranger.
“That is exactly what the President said. He yelled at the artist wanting to know the meaning of all these Indians screwing. The artist just smiled innocently. You wanted Custer’s last thought. There it is. ‘Holy Mackerel! Look at all the fucking Indians!’”
She shook her head in confusion.
“I don’t get it. What the hell are you talking about?”
“Give it a moment. It will make more sense if you just think about it for a another second or two.”
My timing was pretty good. My act held their attention long enough for my Indians to attack.
Arrows fell on the area. A lot of arrows. Enough that some went way off course and would have hit me if I hadn’t been on the other side of the barrier. Instead they passed right through me like I was a ghost. A rogue who had been hiding just feet from me came out of stealth as the arrows fell.
From one side of the ridge, a wave of players descended towards the mine and the Eastmans blocking it. Spells and battle cries started to ring out.
“Boone, you…” said the Ranger, but she died looking like a hedgehog with all the arrows sprouting from her before she could finish the thought. I don’t think she liked my joke.
The rogue in front of me was reporting the situation to someone using some sort of communication spell he had in a scroll. The sounds of clashing weapons and armor from farther into the woods grew louder and louder.
Looks like it was time to get moving.
I stepped across the barrier.
The rogue’s eyes widened.
“He left the instance! I repeat: Boone has crossed the barrier. Code gamma gamma gamma!”
He finished reporting and came for me. He out-leveled me immensely. But I knew I had two advantages. One, he didn’t want to kill me. If he did, I’d just respawn back inside the instance.
This didn’t stop him from going for a grapple on me. Which is when my second advantage broke stealth. Pulling back-stabbed the Eastman rogue.
There was something fitting about a GM who liked to play as a thief class. Some honesty in that.
She dropped his corpse at her feet.
“Come on Miles. Pull your thumb out and get going. By the way, that joke was terrible,” she said.
And with that, we were off.
We ran through the woods, where a running battle was playing out between the Eastman hit squad and what had to be three times their number of players who Pulling had recruited to help.
From the numbers, you may think Pulling and I had it in the bag. But the Eastmans were Eastmans. They were Party. That means that their levels and equipment were far beyond what most players in the Crib could bring to the fight.
Thankfully, our plan didn’t need our team to win. They just needed to keep the Eastmans off me until I could escape.
A pair of what looked like more rangers popped up in front of me. I began to draw on them but Pulling stopped me. The first ranger was an older, big-bearded man who looked like he hadn’t spent a day indoors in years. The other had only a few years on me. He seemed like a bit of a pretty boy.
“They are with us. Where is Corwin?” she said.
“Fucking ganked,” said the bearded.
“Crap,” said Pulling. “He was our ride.”
The wizard Pulling had recruited to port me away was dead.
“Plan B,” I said.
“What is plan B?” asked the good-looking ranger.
“Run,” said Pulling.
And so the four of us ran. The two rangers worked as blockers. They would hold off any Eastman who c
ame at me long enough for more low-level regular players to swarm them.
The battle was a mass of confusion. The last time I had come through these scrubby woods I had been tied to the back of a lizard horse so I wasn’t clear on which way to go. Luckily, Pulling had that figured out and I did my best to keep up with her.
She was pretty high-level. At least on a par with these Eastmans, I thought. She confirmed my guess when we ran across a trio of players that the Eastmans must have positioned as a safety measure farther back from the mine entrance. A mage and two melee types.
One minute I was following her and the next she disappeared into some shadows. The rangers, whose names I hadn’t had time to learn, drew their bows and unleashed some arrows. I don’t know how they were able to coordinate, but maybe it was just obvious common sense. They concentrated their fire on the caster type with the Eastman trio. He popped up some sort of shield that made the wind deflect their arrows.
I closed in myself, figuring that since they needed to capture me alive, I could add to our side’s strength at little to no risk.
“Wound him! Go for a leg hit so he can’t flee!” shrieked the mage.
Oh. I probably should have thought of that. But I had already gotten too close. The two fighters with the mage came at me, apparently willing even to die as long as they could lame me. The problem with fights with people who can respawn is that anyone can be suicidally brave.
They should have kept an eye out behind them. Pulling faded into view with a pair of daggers and started puncturing lungs and dicing livers.
The wind barrier the mage had going was starting to lose steam as our two rangers kept up a steady stream of fire. He used the time his barrier gave him to cast something that required a decent amount of chanting. That was a bad sign. The longer the cast time, the bigger the effect.
Assuming that the guy was on the ball and was able to keep his mind on the main priority--capturing me--that spell had to be stopped. I didn’t think that Pulling could escape while lugging me around if he succeeded in turning me to stone or something.
