Fragged

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  So I’m gonna go ahead and skip past the five minutes of me screaming obscenities and punching trees because most of it is pretty repetitive.

  “At least things can’t get any worse… ha… haha…” I trailed off as I looked around at all the damage I’d done to the trees and dirt, the cracked bark and patches of holes looking like two gorillas had thrown a combined hissy fit.

  Did I care that I’d tempted fate? Course not, I’ve seen movies. Absolute worst thing that could’ve happened to me at that point was rain starting to pelt me to a freezing pulp.

  Yeah… I was wrong.

  Chapter

  Nine

  “Hey Cass,” I said with a wave as I came through the tree line and saw her squatting by a bush, “how’ve things bee…”

  Remember that whole ‘I’ll just get rained on thing’?

  “How in the Hell are you pregnant!?” I snapped as I looked around the cabin site and saw that it wasn’t just a one off thing, “Where did you? How did you? Why did you?”

  With those three stammered questions out of the way I came to a horrible realisation and made a break for the cabin’s door, throwing it open and discovering three men with their dicks flopping about in the wind.

  “Hello!” one said to another while the third sat in the corner, “Beautiful weather!”

  “Yes!” the other replied.

  “Put some damn clothes on!” the third snapped.

  It was like I’d walked onto the set of an unaired ‘Three Stooges’ episode the way they all just kept repeating the same lines of dialogue with increasing intensity.

  My first instinct was to slit all their throats, naturally, and save myself the hassle of having to cater to their needs, but when I saw that Melinda, their captor, had already gone to the effort of naming them Jerry, Jorry, and Jarry, I realised I couldn’t.

  Not because they had names or anything, I didn’t give a rat’s arse about that, no, it was because that meant that the community had already taken them into the fold and if I killed the idling twits I’d drop my already practically non-existent morale scale to nothing.

  That would be bad.

  I took a moment to calm myself down before looking up and smiling at the three nude morons, “You three, front and centre.”

  They did as they were told without a second’s hesitation, the girls clearly had taught them to listen to orders. To be fair though, ‘Go and wait in the cabin’ isn’t exactly a complex line of orders.

  I was stuck. I didn’t want them in my community, for one thing my population meter was about to reach maximum and that would mean grumbles and dissent until a new house was built, and for another I had to clothe them, which just opens up a whole new can of worms.

  And then I had an idea.

  Removed: 3 Large Sticks

  Crafted: 3 Wooden Spears

  Durability: 20/20

  Damage: 9

  -3 Wooden Spears

  You have given Wooden Spears to your party.

  “Alright, you guys take these spears and go and get me that Gold crate, okay? And if you run into anyone on the way you kill them, no recruiting.”

  They seemed happy with that, or at least were smart enough to keep their mouths shut, something I’d had a lot of difficultly with in the past with male citizens.

  Again, not trying to sound sexist, but for whatever reason the developers made the men more prone to anger, disobedience, dissent, and outright mutiny.

  Were there better ways to deal with that besides sending them to fight a t-rex with pointy sticks? Probably. Do I care? Not in the slightest.

  Rip the problem out by the roots I say, saves you from bigger problems down the road.

  “Now that’s sorted,” I said to myself once the cabin was clear, “time to find some lemons.”

  Chapter

  Ten

  As shocking as it may seem, finding a frickin’ lemon tree in Thren was about ten times harder than finding Biy Berries. Like, seriously, one of them instantly sends citizens through the stages of domestication like it’s nothing and the other makes it so they definitely give birth to girls.

  What about that seems fair, hm?

  I guess to be fair they were going for a level of minor realism in terms of finding stuff like that just out in the forest, it’s not like we were fighting dinosaurs or anything.

  Obvious sarcasm is obvious.

  “Finally…” I let out with a happy little sound as I spotted the sour, yellow beauties.

  That was another thing I missed about being in a clan, there was always stuff. You could always count on going into a supply closet or a refrigerator and finding exactly what you were looking for because the last player stored them.

  On my own I was left to harvest and hunt all on my onesies while I silently prayed my AI community didn’t rip itself apart from the inside out.

  But hey, at least I wasn’t gonna get stabbed in the back by my ‘friends’.

  I know it seems unfair to lump them all in together, most of them were great, but that didn’t change the fact that one of the apples in that basket was poisoned, and I was nowhere near ready to start playing hit and miss.

  Speaking of hitting things.

  +5 Lemons:

  Description: For getting rid of that pesky conjunctivitis. Just slice one open and squeeze directly into your eye and watch the magic medicine of Mother Earth do its work.

  Removed: 2 Lemons

  Crafted: 6 Lemon Seeds:

  Description: Go on, test that theory about growing trees in your belly, do it. Do it for science.

  I looked back around toward the cabin expecting to have to walk maybe fifty feet or so before finding them again, but I’ve never really been that lucky.

  Instead it seemed that in my search I’d somehow managed to travel a solid few hundred feet away, and as I pulled up my map, which was still mostly covered in the annoying ‘Fog’, I discovered I’d managed to get most of the way out of the forest and was inching dangerously close to the city of Liennam.

  Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to go to Liennam, the loot spawns alone were worth the trip, but the amount of players that moved their Home Bases there made the place nigh uninhabitable.

  Seriously, I’d bet that at least, and I’m talking genuinely bare minimum, half the server had set up base there and were spending the whole game nervously twitching and running to different buildings until they reached the centre where the glorious, impenetrable, and shiny Liennam Tower sat.

  Personally I never saw the appeal. It was a challenge, sure, but what were you supposed to do when you actually got there? It’s not like it had mini-games or unlocked super dope weapons. It was just a building that, once you were inside, made you invulnerable.

  Sure that sounds good, but that’s only a thing while you’re in the building, and even that just sounds so boring to me.

  That’d be like going for a midnight walk in Central Park with a bodyguard, it just ruins the fear factor.

  Okay fine, I desperately wanted to make it to the Liennam Tower at least once, but I decided that that was a quest for another day.

  “Oh fuck me dead…” I said as I turned around and spotted the gold smoke that was slowly but surely painting a clear line toward my cabin.

  “I am gonna kill those idiots!”

  Chapter

  Eleven

  “You colossal fucking morons!” I growled at the guys who were proudly waiting by the cabin door, the golden smoke still sending up billowing plumes into the sky and lighting my cabin up like a Goddamn Christmas tree for all the nuts out there.

  Realising that the idiots weren’t gonna do anything to help, I bolted over just as fast as I could and bashed in the smoke box attached to the side of the crate.

  “How in the sweet bumdly fuck did you manage to beat the rex!? You thwack him with your meat swords ‘til he left you alone? I mean… ugh… Take the crate inside. Now.”

  The three Js promptly did as they were told and dragged the crate into
the cabin, leaving me to put out what was basically a psychic dog whistle for the girls who all, despite looking about eight months pregnant, dropped what they were doing and ran over to me post-haste.

  “Alright okay alright…” I spouted out quickly as I tried to figure out exactly what it was I wanted to do, “Right, before I forget.”

  -1 Lemon

  -1 Lemon

  -1 Lemon

  I waited for what now seems like an unreasonable amount of time before realising that there wasn’t going to be any snarky dialogue when what I was basically doing was using a cheat code.

  “Okay, now that that’s out of the way this is how it’s gonna go…”

  Yeah, I still wasn’t quite sure.

  “Um…”

  Starting to get a bit embarrassing.

  “Uh…”

  And…

  “Ah!”

  There we go.

  “Everyone inside.”

  The three quickly walked around me after that and started talking to the guys inside like they’d done absolutely nothing wrong as I shambled in after them.

  I wasn’t in the mood to keep whining about them though, I’d moved onto greener pastures and figured that as long as we all stayed inside we’d be fine.

  Then I heard a roar.

  Chapter

  Twelve

  No, no way had the three bumbling buffoons led the t-rex right back home. A puppy maybe, but a t-rex? Phhbt, no way.

  I was listening to some pretty convincing footsteps that said otherwise though.

  Another thunderous roar shook the foundations of my cabin to their core and I decided to open the door an inch and have a quick peek.

  Horrible decision.

  Suddenly I was face-to-face with the toothy nightmare that proceeded to take advantage of the chink in the cabin’s armour, a big, nasty chomp coming right for me just before I managed to slam the door back shut.

  Hiding from dinos, eh? Now, now, what would your parents think of this display of weakness? Besides, hiding’ll probably only buy you a few extra seconds of terrified self-abuse before whatever it is out there decides they want in. This is perhaps the only scenario where being quick on the draw is a good thing.

  “Quick on the draw…” I muttered to myself before lunging out of the cabin like a lunatic with my bow drawn.

  Even though I’d shot out and under the legs of the t-rex with the speed of someone who really didn’t give a fuck I found that I still had to wait to loose my arrow before I was a hundred percent sure it’d hit my target.

  What can I say? I’m Z-day prepared, and every bit of ammunition counts.

  The lumbering beast wasn’t as conscious of failure as I was though, and once it’d reared around to face me it made damn sure I knew I was in trouble, locking its eyes with mine and snarling just enough to make its top lip quiver.

  See what you’ve done there is pissed it off. This play-by-play is pretty great, huh? Really lets you know that I’m still watching from the sky while you fight a… t-rex? I don’t know, this is just some programmed text, you could be up against a raptor for all I know. I’ll let you stew on whether or not you think I’m lying for a while, ciao ciao!

  I didn’t care what the game thought, I had had it. I’d been betrayed. I’d had to start over from the beginning. All my women were pregnant. I’d tried to mine iron with an axe and lost it all. But I would be damned if I was gonna lose that final fight.

  I was gonna beat the t-rex with my standard wooden bow, and I was gonna be damn proud of myself when I did, even if it took me all damn day.

  +1 Archery Skill

  Archery Skill: 1/100

  Level Progression: 60/100

  Ammo depleted

  Ammo depleted

  Ammo depleted

  “Oh doody…” I said as, and I swear that I wasn’t imagining it, the t-rex smiled at me with a huge toothy grin.

  In case you couldn’t tell, no arrows equals no killing ol’ rexy, and no killing ol’ rexy means… I’m not too proud to admit that I legged it like a bat outta Hell.

  I could practically feel the rumblings of the dinosaur’s belly gurgling against my back, its desperate impatience to eat me in a single gulp only measurable next to my fast depleting stamina bar.

  “Leave me alone!” I shouted between heaved grunts as I leaped over branches and squeezed between trees that my pursuer barrelled through with ease.

  The road started to come into view and my stomach dropped as I realised what I’d done by leaving the Gold crate to the lads and ladies back home.

  With next to no stamina, I spun around and ran back toward the t-rex, narrowly sliding under its legs as it too turned around, smashing its tail into and felling at least three trees before giving chase once again.

  The Gold crate was too valuable to lose, yes, and the thought of someone rolling into my Home Base after I’d left it unattended filled me with dread, but I was fast reaching the point where I wondered if it was all worth it.

  ReSpeCt_Ma_pRonOuns (Local): Gild crat os mine bitchs.

  “Oh no you fuckin’ don’t!”

  The scrub had barely made it within fifteen feet of my door before gloating and, as a result, had me to deal with. And I suppose the t-rex as well if you really think we should count it on the list of reasons he panicked and tried to run, but I’m pretty sure that I was the primary reason he squeaked like a field mouse.

  Let me dream, okay?

  I still don’t know what was funny, the player’s reaction to me, or the t-rex’s sudden change in course once he saw a more armed meal.

  Poor bastard didn’t stand a chance.

  ReSpeCt_Ma_pRonOuns has been eaten (World).

  Gotta say it was fun to watch an attempted thief get thrown around like a bag of sausage offcuts, so fun in fact that I totally forgot I was supposed to be running.

  Didn’t even occur to me that I should consider not standing outside and watching the display until well after the t-rex was done with its toy, its bloody face turning to me as if to ask for my final words.

  I reckon the only way my imminent execution could’ve been any more definite was if I was standing there with a blindfold with a cigarette dangling out of my mouth.

  “Welp…” I trailed off in defeat as I put away my bow and stood up straight, “there goes another two hours I’ll never get back. Get on with it then.”

  “Do-on’t stop. Be-li-eee-ven!”

  Chapter

  Thirteen

  I didn’t get the opportunity to let my jaw drop as out of nowhere two of my best friends in the world came smashing through the tree line in a big bloody ute blasting Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ over the local chat as they slammed into the side of the t-rex’s left leg, splattering me and my cabin with blood.

  The ute’s engine started smoking and the t-rex was trying its very best to take a chomp at the vehicle that’s wheels were boring into its thighs, but Paul and Chad weren’t ones to go down without a fight.

  Singing along to the almost unbearably loud song, the two pushed the clearly already bashed up vehicle to its limits as they sat there naked in the doorless front seat.

  Ah, the classic utility truck, or ‘ute’ as it’s affectionately called. Not only do you need a manual licence to drive half of these testaments to human engineering, you also need to make sure your Boss licence isn’t expired. You should probably just find a moped or something.

  The t-rex was clearly on its last legs, meanwhile mine were still rooted in place, stunned beyond belief as I stared at the spectacle that seemed to be only getting better and better.

  In an unexpected turn of events though, the t-rex cut its losses and ran, leaving the boy’s ute to crash down onto its wheels and breaking one of the wheels off.

  “Hey! It’s Zoey!” Paul shouted over the music as he quickly turned it down and climbed out of the broken ute, “Told you it was her dude.”

  “Well I’m sorry that I assumed she’d be somewhere slightly more
fortified.” Chad joked back as he clambered over the roof of the vehicle, “Take it you got hit too, huh?”

  For what felt like the first time in forever, I moved, nodding and walking at the same time, “Yeah, any idea what happened?”

  “Some fuckboy screwed us over would be my first guess.” Paul said before gesturing to his and Chad’s tattered rags, “But at least we got our bits hidden away. You talk to anyone else?”

  “Nah, didn’t really wanna play my chances in the game of trust.” I replied in a more pointed tone than I’d intended.

  “Hey, we feel you. Only reason we’re rollin’ together is ‘cause we spawned in at the same time.”

  I didn’t know if I could trust them, I mean, the treachery could’ve been a two man plot, but as I looked between them I couldn’t control the feelings of friendship and trust.

  Chad wasn’t exactly the type to hide the crap he’d done either, often going for an annoyingly honest approach when he got called out on his shit.

  And Paul, heh, well let’s just say that those frantic liars in movies and games looked like the world’s best politicians next to Paul.

  “Anyway,” Chad chimed in, breaking the silence that I’d accidentally created during my staring, “we were actually wondering if… I don’t know, we wondering if we could join up with you? My cabin got destroyed in all of five minutes, and Paul’s got snatched when he was out on a hunt.”

  My first instinct was to turn them away, kind of a bitchy move I know, but I still wasn’t a hundred percent convinced that they weren’t planning on screwing me over and stealing all my crap for themselves.

  See, this is what happens high school bullies, you make it impossible for anyone to trust that you’re not gonna throw stuff at the back our heads and trip us over when we’re walking quietly between classes.

  Dicks.