by C A A Allen
“Um, thanks,” I say. “And my real name is Riff. So, we’re actually in the game?” I don’t care if the question is stupid. Everything is pointing toward that weird reality, and I just want to hear a solid Yes.
Yes, my dreams have come true.
Yes, this is as cool as it seems.
Yes, I’m about to be my own hero. “I’m in DCQ?”
Bella holds both arms wide and spreads her fingers. “Welcome to the stronghold of Chittor, in the Southwest region of the Kingdom of Fear. You’re in the middle of what you know as the Dungeon Crawl Quest Market Place.”
I look around. The pixelated game world I’ve spent so many hours staring at through a computer monitor clicks into place. A real-life 3D, to-scale scene that no longer looks foreign. A high granite block wall lined with battlements and watchtowers circles the area. The dusty road beneath my feet leads from where we stand to a lowered metal portcullis between two flanking towers. Three goats tied to a nearby stake bleat harshly, and I can smell their musky odor. It isn’t pleasant.
“It’s perfect.” I embrace the moment. I don’t know how I’ve gotten here, but the place looks exactly like the starting point in DCQ. The inn, the tavern, the trading post, and even the temple are all here, exactly as they should be.
I run my fingers through my hair and hit a throbbing bump. Maybe I’m still unconscious from my fall, but I’m going to enjoy this delusion as long as I can. Even with the clock counting down to midnight, I might unlock something in my subconscious that will allow me to beat the goblin once I exit this game-world or dream-world. Whichever it was.
“How did I get here, though?” I ask Bella.
“Probably the same way I did.” She drops her arms. “By putting your Grimoire into one of the den game stations.” She puts a hand on my shoulder and stares at me with beautiful green eyes. “That started the process of inserting you into DCQ. The technical term, of course, is Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. You’ve taken a full dive inside.”
“A VRMMORPG?” Is that even possible? I mean, there were theories and rumors and attempts to engineer something like this, but the concept never made it past the alpha testing stage. I step back and pinch my left bicep hard. There is no way I am standing inside my favorite game with a gorgeous girl gamer. “You’re serious?”
“Deadly serious, Riff. Your body, mind, consciousness—everything that makes you who you are—is now inside the game.” Bella bends over and picks something up from the ground, then stares ahead in what looks like a daze. Her eyes flick back and forth and, for a moment, I wonder if she’s having some sort of episode. Then I realize she must be looking at her virtual iris screen.
“Are you okay?” I wave my hand in front of her face.
She shakes her head and blinks. “As a mage I can’t equip with this.”
“You can’t do what?”
Bella holds out a piece of ebony wood with a slight pistol-grip curve. It’s carved into the shape of a man with a bulging rear and belly. “This came into the game with you. Do you know what it is?”
I take it from her hand and instantly recognize it by the feel. “This is Kurht’s dagger. But where’s the blade?” There’s a slot in the handle where the tang of the blade used to be. But it’s gone. “I pulled this out of a beam in The DCQ Den ceiling just before I blacked out. The blade must still be there, and all I got was the handle.”
“You brought in the Keris of Knaud.” Bella frowns. “Or, at least, the sooang part.”
“The Keris of what part of who?”
“The Keris of Knaud has three parts,” Bella says, as if talking to a first grader. “The sooang, the sampir, and the taguban.”
I don’t like that she knows more DCQ intel than me, but hey, I’ll swallow my pride if it keeps her talking. We are on the same team: save DCQ, no matter who kills the goblin in the end. And the more information I can gather, the better.
I recognize two of the words she said. Sampir, and taguban are the hand-annotated points on my map. Do I still have my map? I quickly pat myself down and feel the soft velum edges in my back left pocket.
“In layman’s terms,” Bella goes on, “sooang, sampir, and taguban mean hilt, blade, and scabbard. If compatible with its owner, a completed Keris of Knaud is said to grant supernatural power and extraordinary ability to its wielder. If you find the two other parts, you can put that theory to the test.”
I study both sides of the hilt. “Extraordinary ability does sounds nice.” There are no numbers here, not a one. And I’m sure I need those numbers to stop the goblin’s death smoke. Maybe the numbers are on one of the other two parts. But are the other two parts even in the game? Or are they back in the Den? This whole situation makes no sense.
Bella points to my waist. “Put it in your bag and watch what happens.”
I drop the hilt into my belt bag, and my Grimoire vibrates.
“Get ready to see your character sheet,” Bella says. “You should also get a message about a new primary weapon.”
A shock runs through my body and a transparent rectangle the size of a sheet of letter paper hovers in front of my face in 3D. “Whoa, I see it!”
NEW PRIMARY WEAPON: Keris of Knaud –2 (Sooang)
Damage: 0-0.
Range: N/A.
Frequency: Error.
Quality: Incomplete.
Melee Weapon Attack: Piercing damage.
Soulbound to ‘Jareth Goblinmasher’ - Item cannot be traded or sold.
NEW TASK: Complete the Keris of Knaud II
Acquire the sampir, and taguban to unlock the Keris of Knaud’s true power.
NAME: Jareth Goblinmasher
AGE: 22
LEVEL: 2
EXPERIENCE POINTS: 1,724
HIT POINTS: 30/30
ABILITIES: 50
ARMOR CLASS: 3/20
Leather Armor
GOLD COINS: 18
SILVER PENNIES: 18
SPELLS: N/A
PRIMARY WEAPON: Keris of Knaud –2 (Sooang) (Soulbound)
POSSESSIONS: Ring, Grimoire (5 of 7), Map+3, Heavynessless Bag, Perfect Placement Belt.
RACE: Human
CLASS: Fighter
ALIGNMENT: Good
TASKS: Complete the Keris of Knaud II
35:40:09 hours until DCQ server shut down.
Bella waves a hand in front of my face. “It’s a trip, I know. The DCQ interface uses a combination of the holographic vision screen, and the touch screen on your Grimoire.”
“Well, it’s awesome.” This whole setup is the best gaming experience I’ve ever had, and it’s a DCQ exclusive. “But something is wrong.” I reach out, trying to touch the words hovering in front of my face, but my fingers pass through them. “These aren’t my stats. I have a much better character than this. I should have more gold, better armor, and weapons. What I see here shows me at level two, like a complete newb, when I should be at level ten. What the hell?”
“You lose a lot of stats in the transfer to this live scenario.” Bella looks down and adjusts her belt. “I had a much better character too. Do you see the final stat line?”
“You mean the countdown clock for the server shut down? Anton wanted me to warn the other players, but I guess you already know. But wait, I thought we only had until midnight. This gives us an extra day.” I shake my head and the holographic sheet disappears.
“Yep, an extra day.” Bella takes my hand and pulls me toward a clump of buildings crowded with people. “Time works differently in the game.”
I drag my feet a little as I walk alongside her. I have more questions. I’m not ready to dive right in.
She pulls harder. “Here’s the deal, Riff. We have until midnight tomorrow night to find a way back home—that’s a day and a half in-game time. If we don’t get back to The DCQ Players Den before the servers are shut down, we die in here.”
I stop and pull my hand away from her. “By ‘die in here’ do you mean like dead-for-real-die? O
r like video game, respawn, get another life dead?”
“This is full immersion virtual reality in its worst form, Riff. I mean dead-for-real-die.
“How in the world do you know that?” I ask. “Do you have proof? I mean, how did you learn that?”
“The hard way,” Bella says. “You’ll feel the very real pain, and then get a message explaining how it works when you take your first damage. Shortly after arriving here, I led a party into the valley and got this.” Bella spreads the tassels of her skirt and peels back a strap of leg armor. A long stitched black and blue gash runs along her thigh. “Just so you know, the fighting skills of the non-player characters in here suck. Well, at least the skills of the ones I hired did.”
The wound looks nasty, but I can’t help admiring Bella’s athletic physique. She’s in amazing shape for a gamer. “So, you can get injured in here for real. Good to know. Did that hurt?”
Bella winces as she re-straps the armor. “At least a hundred times worse than breaking my arm on the monkey bars in elementary. It took me from a 40-hit-point-high to 6 hit points, poisoned, and struggling to live low. I was slashed to the bone, it was squirting blood, and I lost an additional hit point every fifteen minutes.”
“Yikes.” Damage-over-time injuries, spells, and poisons have killed my character Jareth, numerous times. So, I’m not surprised they exist in this real version as well.
“Tell me about it,” Bella says. “By the time I crawled up the steps of the Temple, I had only one hit point remaining. Once inside, it was murmur, chant, prayer, success. That healing unpoisoned me, and a lengthy stay at the Inn brought me back up to 25 hit points, but the whole ordeal cost me all but three of my gold coins.”
I look over to the Temple. It’s a square, stone building surrounded by tall grooved pillars. A short man in a brown robe scratches the ring of hair around his head and waves to all who pass by. Two acolytes in chain mail stand a few steps behind him. They both have shields on their backs and maces on their hips.
Bella glares at the Temple. “Death here happens just like it does in DCQ, but you don’t get to start over after the graveyard. Here, if you die, we’re digging a hole six feet deep for you to lie in. It’s dead-for-real-die and don’t forget it. Thankfully, over at the Temple, they can cure any ailment. For a price. I heard the high priest can turn stone to flesh, if you can afford an exorbitant tithe.”
She points to a long two-story building with three smoking chimneys on its roof. “An overnight stay at the Inn will restore hit points you’ve lost in combat, for a hefty price. There are also magic users that can help heal you, but you’ll find they are way stingy with their power.”
I knew this was too good to be true. “So, how do we get back home?” As much as I would love to stay and explore all the buildings and the DCQ marketplace, the dead-for-real stuff is too high stakes for me. I’m a gamer, not an idiot.
“To get home, we need to solve the greater goblin glitch,” Bella says.
If one more person calls the puzzle a glitch, I’m going to scream. “You mean unlock the puzzle?” I correct her.
“Yes.” She takes my hand and pulls in close to me. “I know how.”
“You do?” This girl knows all the right things to say. “How?”
Bella lets go of my hand and takes a deep breath. “I received a scroll from an old lady NPC just after I arrived. She told me she was mandated to give it to the first person she met with a Grimoire. The scroll had one cryptic passage.”
“What did it say?” A direct message to anyone with a Grimoire has got to be the goods.
Bella scratches her head and says:
The first of your kind to enter with a Grimoire deserves a gift,
Information about a mod granting portal your spirits will lift.
It will take you to the den of seven at the phantom and mainframe,
And will grant you special info so that your character will never be the same.
Down and up, through ooze, and past the luminosity,
Where you must go is on the opposite side of a quad-looped monstrosity.
“Easy!” Quad-looped must refer to the four ring knockers on the goblin’s door. “The Monster Allocation Chamber.”
“Right,” Bella holds up a finger. “My interpretation is that there is a portal inside the goblins chamber that will take us back to The DCQ Players Den. At least, that’s the only thing that makes sense. The problem is we have to kill the goblin in order to access it. If we kill the goblin, we save ourselves and the game. The scroll must have been slipped into the game as some kind of Easter egg.”
I love when developers hide stuff in game for us hardcore fans, especially when it comes with an award. But this is incredible. “Let me see the scroll. If it’s from the developer, I might be able to decipher it further.”
Bella shakes her head. “The scroll self-destructed like a mission impossible tape after I read it. When I looked up the old lady was gone too.” She takes slow steps toward the village buildings. “I know a lot about this world, Riff. Remember, you’re late getting here. First thing we need to do is assemble a team of six to enter the valley. It’s time to recruit some NPCs. There’s also another real gamer in here. A guy who claims to be the top ranked player in Germany. I suppose you’ll have to meet. Just don’t count on him joining us. He’s a loser.”
“There’s another gamer in here?” I stay put and raise my arms in a silent cheer. Gamers with Grimoires are the best of the best. With three of us in the game, our chances of success tripled.
“Yes. Now come on already.” Bella continues ahead without looking back.
I run to catch up with her and pass several youngsters in tunics hitting pells with wooden blades. Old men stand around shouting instructions and obscenities at them. I know this area. This must be the training grounds where new players create their initial character in the game. I still can’t believe I’m in the freaking game.
“Whoa.” I shuffle my feet just in time to miss a pile of fly-covered dung. This interface has every detail. Even the stench makes me gag as though the steamy aroma were real. I catch up to Bella in front of a three-story, timber-frame building with a steep roof clad in red tiles. A large board with the depiction of a menacing buck smashing into a docile hen overhangs the entrance.
I look up at the structure and pause. The Stag and Hen Tavern. I have assembled quite a few parties in this place on my dorm room computer. I can’t wait to get inside.
“Don’t get it twisted, Riff.” Bella stomps up the building’s front steps to an oversized red door and grabs its iron handle, looking back at me. “Just like in the game, it can be deadly in here. These NPCs will stab you in the back over a penny. It’s best to just forget you’re in a game and start treating this like real life.” She swings the door open and disappears inside.
CHAPTER 5
35:29:32 hours until DCQ server shut down.
Flickering torches, massive pillar candles, and a blazing hearth light up the tavern. Smoke fills the main area spiraling off a giant forest hog roasting over a rotisserie fire, and patrons burst into laughter around beat-up wood tables. I breathe in the aroma of roast meat and frothy ale, then choke on a wall of body odor.
“Do it already.” A stocky wrinkle-faced dwarf with a scraggly beard backs up to a wall. “Go on.” He opens his mouth wide and tilts back his head.
A younger dwarf, with a beard twisted into two thick braids, emerges from the crowd. He licks a finger and touches the air. “Mutton’s a fly, old man.” He cocks back his arm and launches a small chunk of juicy roasted meat across the room.
SPLAT! The brown hunk spins directly into the wrinkle-faced dwarf’s eye. He peels off the hunk, stuffs it into his mouth, and storms back to the crowd chewing. “You couldn’t hit an anvil with a sledgehammer, ya cockeyed pheasantshoer. Now, pay me what you owe.”
I take a few slow steps in and get cut off by a dainty girl scantily clad in strategically placed green leaves. She whisks by me, do
es three cartwheels, drops to a knee, and fires a dart dead center into a target board on the wall. She then stands, turns, and bows to cheers from some onlookers.
Nice shot. Her pointy ears decorated with glittering gold rings are a dead giveaway that she’s an elf, or maybe a half-elf. While I’m staring at her, a body bumps me from behind and I stumble forward.
“Step aside.” A diminutive man—part hobbit?—in a smart burgundy coat saunters around me.
“The word is ‘excuse me’, Bilbo,” I mutter.
The little man looks back at me and tilts his head. “Thirsty halfling in desperate need of a pint.” He weaves into the crowd.
I just mocked a hobbit. Then again, who would have thought they were so rude?
A skinny old man in rags drops to his knees in front of me. “The end is near, mon capitaine, so I am selling off. I will trade you my most excellent dagger for a coin of any type.” Shaking, he slowly raises a palm to present a short, thin, knife with gaping nicks in its blade.
It’s a far cry from Excalibur, but something is better than nothing. I don’t feel comfortable not having a weapon in this place. “You’ve got a deal.” I pull a silver penny from my bag and exchange it for the weapon. A skinny rectangle text box pops into the upper left corner of my vision.
SUBTRACT: 1 silver penny to Jolly Wompis. New silver penny balance: 17
Okay, one silver penny won’t break me.
“Thank you, mon capitaine.” Jolly clutches the coin and rises wobbling to his feet. His eyes darting from left to right. “If you need a quester for your party, my name is Jolly, and I am at your service.”
If this is the best NPC this place has to offer, we’ll never put together a party capable of surviving the valley, much less the goblin’s labyrinth.
A sheath appears at my belt, morphing into the shape of my new weapon. Nice! There are so many advantages to having a perfect placement belt. I insert the dagger and get a shock.
