by Aaron Jay
“Aaaaah!”
I recognized Barin’s voice--which faded as he slid down into the pit. I wish I could have seen his pretty face. I had been fantasizing about smacking the smug bastard for days and now that I’d actually done it, I missed the whole thing. All I got to see was a tiny -1hp damage notification.
“Come on Miles!” yelled Pulling.
Hoping that there weren’t any Eastmans in my way or about to tackle me, I stumbled toward her. No Eastmans grabbed me. Instead a tongue lashed its way around my ankle and pulled me off my feet.
“Help!”
My hands clawed into the sand of the side of the pit, desperately trying to stop being dragged to my death. But all I accomplished was dislodging waves of sand.
“Miles!”
More sand fell onto my face and then a hand grabbed onto my wrist and pulled against the Sarlacc.
The Sarlacc’s tongue was slowed down at least a bit by having to pull the two of us. But the giant maw was still able to slide us down toward its mouth.
“Hold on!” Pulling ordered.
What else did she think I was going to do? I could feel her twist and then unleash something with her other hand. We slid another few yards in the time it took her accomplish this maneuver. In a brief moment of blurred sight, I saw that she had somehow hooked a rope up to the flying ship. It was now a tug of war between the Sarlacc and Pulling’s grip strength.
Then I heard a laugh that I recognized. It was Maya.
“Cut the rope. Let the Sarlacc finish this for us.”
“Better not,” grunted Pulling as she was stretched taught. Even in the dry desert air my hand started to feel sweaty and slippery.
“Or what?” Maya asked.
“Or Miles will die. And then you won’t be able to capture him.”
“So, he dies. We know where his respawn point is. We have a team there already.”
“By the power of the Game. Authorization from GM Pulling code THX1138, initializing an investigation into claims of Spawn Camping.”
This stopped them.
“You can’t act in your capacity as a GM. Amulius will never endorse that.”
“You just threatened Miles Boone with waiting for him at his respawn point.”
“Not to fucking re-kill him. If we aren’t planning on killing him then it isn’t fucking spawn camping, is it?” I heard Vultan chime in.
“You make a good point but it still bears investigation. We should have a formal hearing. All interested parties will be ported to the nearest GM in-game station,” said Pulling with a smirk. “The nearest GM station from here is, why, in Lee territory.”
“You do this and the Party is going to bury you, GM Pulling. You lost, Miles. If GM Pulling tries to use her status as a GM to get out of this, there won’t be a deep enough hole for her to hide in,” said Maya.
“The GMs will no shit boot you and then throw you to the fucking wolves,” said Vultan.
“Miles,” Vultan continued, “Don’t let her do this for you. It’s a fucking bet. You are going to lose one way or another. You want her to fucking end up in a hole alongside you? An ex-GM without any clan backing is fucking doomed.”
I thought about Pulling. Maya and Vultan were right. If she was out as a GM, she was screwed.
There were rules to keep the GMs from getting punished professionally for in-game private play. The flip side of this were the rules that supposedly kept the GMs from using their professional power in-game to mess with other players.
The Eastmans couldn’t have had her fired for helping me against them up until this point. She hadn’t done it as a GM and hadn’t used her office… until now.
It would be simplicity itself to get Amulius to rule that she had abused her office with a BS investigation. Never mind that the Party might use similar tactics themselves. Having the law on your side is great but having the judge in your pocket is better.
“Miles. It’s my choice. I’ll be fine. If my career flames out, it will be worth it if you can win your bet,” she said.
I shook my head, assuming she could see it, and shouted past her.
“Maya! If she doesn’t use her GM powers, you leave her be. You do that and I’ll die here. You can wait for me at my respawn point. Just leave her alone.”
“Alright,” I heard her say after a moment.
“Promise?” I repeated.
“I said it, didn’t I?” Maya said.
There was an indistinct voice I hadn’t heard before.
“Jude? You there?”
A pause and then--
“Yes,” said Jude.
The Sarlacc gave a yank and I nearly lost my grip.
“Miles, don’t. I’ll be ok,” Pulling implored.
“Is Maya on the level?”
Another pause.
“Yes,” said my ex-best friend. What did his assurance mean?
“Alright, Miles? If GM Pulling doesn’t abuse her office I won’t come after her. Now let the giant mouth chew you up and spit you out so we can end this.”
“I have your word Maya! By the way, did you read the fine print on the Sarlacc? Enjoy waiting in the middle of nowhere for me for who knows how long!”
And with that I broke Pulling’s grip. I felt whiplash as without resistance the tentacle was able to snap me down to my doom.
Rubbing Maya’s nose in the Sarlacc’s habits was a petty gesture, I know. The Sarlacc’s slow killing would annoy her. It wasn’t like she would personally have to wait in the middle of nowhere for me to finally die. But she would certainly have to leave a team strong enough not only to capture me but also to hold off any rescue force as well. That would waste enough resources to ensure that Tasha was going to be pissed.
I laughed as I slid down toward teeth and a slow, painful death. An entire Eastman army was about to spend two months baking in the hills. Sometimes small revenges feel pretty good.
The glare of the sun stopped beating on my skin. I must have been in the mouth of the beast. Instead of sand and the driest tongue ever around me, things were getting… moist. Two months of slowly being digested sounded horrible. The only thing worse than dry sand in your sensitive bits is wet sand.
In the Belly of the Beast
You have been taken to the Dune Sea and cast into the Pit of Qarqoon, the nesting place of the all-powerful Sarlacc.
In his belly, you will find a new definition of pain and suffering, as you are slowly digested over a thousand years.
Sarlacc Saliva has paralyzed you 46%… 47%…48%…
When you are 100% paralyzed you will lose 1hp over 24 hours.
What did Han Solo say about this? Oh yeah, “On second thought, let's pass on that, huh?”
I couldn’t feel my legs, and waves of nausea and stiffness were competing with the cold feeling. With trembling hands, I retrieved the poison that Barin had given me.
I took a swig. The poison was so overpowered to take down someone of my level that I barely had a moment to register its sweet, herbal taste before death came for me. It was the easiest death I had found so far since I started my Game.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I respawned in the Mines of Madness!
Maybe you saw that coming. If you did, you should apply for a job with Tasha Eastman. She could use someone with your skills. Or maybe you think that I tricked you with how I am telling my story. That I should have respawned where Barin saw me reset my respawn point: back in the bleak hills on the edge of the desert surrounded by Eastmans.
In my defense, I did mention that I specifically had Pulling choose Barin and Vultan because we knew we couldn’t trust them. Does it make any sense then that I would listen to Barin’s suggestion to change my respawn point?
We chose when to “reveal” Vultan as a traitor. Well, we also chose when to let Barin “convince” me to change my respawn point. I had a low-level illusion spell called Silent Image. A little lightshow that mimics resetting your respawn point was within its capacity. Especially when it was amplifi
ed by two other people generating the same visual effect. I only wish I had thought of this gimmick back when the Eastmans pressured me into moving my respawn point into the Mines of Madness! in the first place.
Actually, that wouldn’t have worked as I didn’t yet have Aabid’s spell ring. They would have seen me casting. Too bad Aabid had turned into a rabid maniac. I really owed him for his spell ring but if I tried to thank him, he’d take the opportunity to try to kill me. Again. I did thank his corpse back in the Mines of Madness!
In any event, I was back in my little slice of the Crib.
The hidden valley was still a blighted wasteland. By my calculation, it would stay that way for another two weeks until Brady would have to choose whether or not to re-Fallow his territory.
As far as he and the rest of my growing list of enemies knew, I was stuck in the belly of the Sarlacc. They thought I was being slowly digested for the coming weeks. Since they believed me to be in a prison worse than the Mines of Madness! and they had my respawn point covered, there was no reason for Brady to continue the Fallow he had running on his land. He’d go back to business as usual and then so could I.
If the constraints on Amulius, the Party’s tame AI were broken enough that they could spy my gameplay I was screwed. Me and everyone else. Things weren’t that far gone.
I pictured Maya and Jude’s looks of satisfaction as they thought I was caught. Their imaginary gloating smiles had nothing on my real one.
Dust kicked up as I danced around and cackled. Tricking your enemies feels pretty damned good and no one was around to see me looking like an idiot.
The next question was, what should I do with my time off?
The answer was obvious. Train while I could.
The smell of an ice headache
The sound of dappled shadows cast through a tree’s leaves
The sight of cayenne’s burn
Exiting the game but not my pod, I found that the Pitts menu and lobby area was the same joyless joy house it was before.
How would you know? Try it.
I ignored myself.
With my last break from playing the Game, I had figured out a good course of study to improve my play. It was time to keep working through it.
Navigating around all the different ways you can make a beast with two backs--and plenty of ways to make a beast with more backs than that--I managed to get back to the Hardcore Play Manual. My hand shook as it swiped through the menus. My eyes darting off out of my control as words and pictures grabbed for my attention. It was getting harder and harder to say no to Lilith’s temptations.
Looking through the training options, I chose: Axe, Melee. Bit by bit I needed to acquire weapon skills. Why not start now?
A smile came to my face because it offered me the choice of a game-based teaching paradigm. Good, no artificial teachers. I was sick of dealing with people, NPCs or otherwise. Amazing how just a small manhunt, betrayal by supposed allies and running into your former best friend will put you off other people. Dying in the belly of a Sarlacc didn’t help either.
I initialized login for the training scenario.
Axe, melee training scenario initialization…
0/3 Complete
Opening my eyes, I was in a scrubby yard next to a hardscrabble cabin in the midst of an old growth forest. On one side of me was a pile of unsplit logs. Next to the cabin was the beginning of a stack of split logs. Wedged into a flat stump like Excaliber in the stone was a simple axe. It was obvious what was expected of me.
With a grunt I was able to pull the axe free.
A small, tinny trumpet fanfare began my training mini-game.
At first, I felt tentative with the thing. I was afraid I’d miss my swing and slice my leg open. But I quickly found that being slow and tentative was riskier than not.
There was feedback in the form of music cues. A harsh buzzer rewarded failure. I thought that the sound design had lost the plot when success gave a
Badly targeted logs often slipped out from under the axe blade. That was a pain in the ass because who knew then where the axe head would land. I had to drop the axe and jump back a few times.
Eventually, I began to get a feel through the handle of what was happening down at the head of the axe. My grip kept some control even when a strike went wrong.
I fell into a rhythm. The axe handle slid through my hands, the weight of the head doing a lot of the work. As I became more comfortable, the music cues changed and started supporting and playing off the rhythm of the work. The better I swung, the more elaborate the song became.
When the song came to a finish there was still more wood left.
I put a new log onto the stump. When I raised the axe for a strike and to begin a new training song, the log fell over. Leaning over, I set it back in position, but once again as I raised the axe to take a swing it toppled over. There wasn’t even the first note of a new training song.
Sighing, I swapped it out for a different piece of wood. This one fell over too. So did the next three logs I tried.
Eventually, I realized that the log tipped over as I raised the axe. What the hell?
Was I supposed to swing from the side? Nope.
I tried it one-handed. Nope.
I tried it with my left hand. The wood stayed steady as a rock. Apparently, I had to chop the rest of the wood as a lefty.
It felt awkward for a while but eventually I got the hang of swinging with my off hand. As the last log split, another tinny fanfare sang out and the world around me spun into a blur.
Axe, Melee
1/3 Novice Tasks Completed!
Enter Ferster’s Woods to continue your journey!
A glowing arrow invited me to walk a small trail leading into the woods. The game buzzed, reminding me to bring my axe.
The twisted and misshapen trees identified as Skinner trees. Despite my botany training I knew nothing about them. Between the Skinner trees and the painful looking thickets, I was boxed in on all sides. Without an axe I doubted I’d be able to make my way out of there--which I suppose was the point of this next training sequence.
With so little free space, there was only one tree whose bough I had a clear swing to chop. On the bough, between two small shoots and a knotty growth, a target was blazed for me to aim at. And so that is what I did.
My swing missed. For my failure, I heard a buzzer and a thorny branch gave me a painful jab in the side.
Trying again, my swing was too soft and the hit was still off-target a bit. Once again, I got the buzzer and the thorny pinch.
My next swing was too hard. Not only did I get the buzzer sound but they amped up the negative feedback. The bough I hit felt like iron, and my hands vibrated and stung numbingly with the rebound. After rubbing the feeling back into my grip, I took up the axe again.
This time my swing was like Goldilocks’s: not too soft, not too hard. As I pulled my axe free, the tree in front of me puffed into dust and rotted away.
The other trees around me grew and shifted, forcing me forward. Now I had to use a back swing to take out the next bough. When I struck correctly, it too rotted and disappeared.
Every time I cleared a branch or trunk the forest moved around me, forcing me forward along a path. Branches, trunks, roots and boughs had to be cleared. Sometimes from high to low and then other times from low to high. Inside to outside and vice-versa. Whenever I missed the mark or swung too hard or too soft, I got a scratch or my hands and my grip would get a shock.
Right and left, the trail and trees forced me to swing with either hand.
The forest punishing my mistakes had the intended effect. I began to get a feel for how to swing hard enough to do damage but not so hard that my axe head would either rebound or get trapped. I learned how to swing from any orientation. Pain is a good teacher.
My axe a
nd I started to move faster.
The program could sense my growing competency and moved to keep driving me. If my pace began to slow the thorny plants crowding me from behind would prod me to keep up the pace.
Eventually, the game didn’t like it if I allowed the axe’s shock to my hands to make me falter. It dinged me even more if I broke my grip or couldn’t get my axe head free from my target. In actual combat I wouldn’t be allowed to reset my grip or call a timeout if my weapon got wedged into someone’s bone or joint. There was a method to the training.
Sweating and focusing as hard as I could, I began to pick up my pace. My axe would swing forehand to backhand, slicing through the woods. The next move in the sequence was revealed and I had to figure out ways to quickly shift the momentum of the axe head in whatever direction the next tree demanded. The game was forcing me to learn to spin and shift the weight in any direction depending on what the situation called for.
At first, I was allowed a rest every five minutes but as I gained capability the rest breaks got fewer and farther between. My fatigue was just psychosomatic but that didn’t change how desperately I wanted those breaks.
Bit by bit, my form got cleaner and more efficient. Wasted motion and effort were worn away under the conditioning.
At the end of every day I’d log out of training to check on my valley in the Game before getting some sleep. It was the same dustbowl every time I looked.
It took me almost two virtual days to cut my way clear of the woods. At the end of my second day I caught a brief glimpse beyond the trees of a beautiful vista overlooking a valley dotted with farms. I destroyed three more trees and stepped past the end of the woods.
Bah dah pa dah! The tinny electronic trumpet gave me a huzzah.
After a few minutes to enjoy the view, the world spun away again.
