Neck-Deep In It: A LitRPG and GameLit Series.

by Jason Cheek

  Not that such a thing stopped some gamers from falling in love with their digital companions or wishing that they were real, Jodi laughed in spite of herself. Non-gamers like to call such people incels, but in truth, what gamer hadn’t wished at one time or another that the virtual world they were playing in were real? Virtual worlds were an escape for a reason. Hell, Jodi had felt that way from simply reading an awesome book series. The only difference was that reasonable people accepted that such things weren’t real and went back to functioning in the real world.

  With all of that said, there was something about these NPCs that made Jodi react to them as real people whenever she was directly interacting with any of them. Partly, that was because she couldn’t recognize who were real players and who were NPCs unless she was told ahead of time. The other part of that was, no matter how hard she fought against it, whenever she was speaking to one of the NPCs of The World, they just felt real to her senses. Maybe, it was simply her upbringing to treat everyone as equals kicking in. Honestly, Jodi didn’t know, but there was no uncanny valley reaction, aka eeriness or disgust at imperfectly designed humanoid creations that failed to truly mimic humanistic looks and behavior, like she’d sometimes get in other MMO games when she was dealing with overly realistic in-game characters.

  “We’re going to be moving as quickly as possible through this next zone,” Ara called out to the raid, as she turned around to give the players behind her a no-nonsense look while running backwards, “While all of us are too low for this next zone, your lower levels will aggro every mob in the area if we’re not careful so make sure you follow orders and don’t slow down. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Zeppy said, glancing back at the rest of the group with a raised eyebrow as Jodi looked around at everyone’s faces. It was the same look that was reflected on her own face. These NPCs were more like players than any scripted program that she’d ever seen before.

  “Just one question Ara?” Zeppy called out, before the Swordswoman could turn back around, “Where are all of the zombies from yesterday?”

  “Oh, they’re around,” Ara replied with a laugh. As she pointed towards the seemingly lumpy ground around the perimeter of the clearing, Jodi realized that what she was seeing were concealed zombies. “We’re leaving them to reinforce Requiem in our absence which is going to make this run through the Dark Forest that much more difficult.”

  “The Dark Forest,” Zeppy laughed out loud at the name, “Sounds like a place we have back on earth called the Black Forest.”

  “Good,” Ara said, giving him a grim nod, “then you’ll have an idea of just how dangerous this place is without having to be told twice.”

  Without waiting for a reply, Ara turned back around as she unsheathed her shield and drew her sword. Simultaneously, the rest of the Warriors, and Rangers did the same with their own weapons. There were four separate groups of five surrounding the players formation. Jodi had initially found the number of Warriors in the groups somewhat odd, wondering why they needed three Warriors and one Ranger. That was, until she started doing Identifies and realized that there was only one actual Warrior in each group. The other three Warrior looking members of the teams were actually Frost mages and Priests. Though, you wouldn’t have realized that with their heavy chain-mesh leather armor and shields or from the swords, axes, and maces that they carried.

  It was honestly an impressive force, Jodi thought, as they entered the treeline to the Dark Forest. A part of her wondered if the NPCs were just being overly melodramatic. The Raid consisted of forty Rogues surrounding them in a Stealthy defense with twenty Rangers scouting ahead and another twenty covering their rear, besides the mix group of twenty NPCs guarding them. That was a hundred high-level NPCs without even taking into consideration the twenty-three lower-level players. Seriously, what could be so bad in this zone that they were still at risk of being slaughtered?

  Yeah … yeah, Jodi thought, laughing at her own mental bitching. She’d traveled through enough high-level zones and been repeatedly slaughtered for daring such places in other MMOs. Still, these NPCs had repeatedly made the trip back and forth through this supposedly dangerous zone. Seriously, how bad could it really be?

  ‘Nightmarish bad,’ Fiona’s words sounded in Jodi’s mind as there was a pop of displaced air next to her legs, ‘They’re insane to try and escort your newbie ass through such a deadly region.’

  ‘Fiona!’ Jodi mentally screamed while nearly jumping out of her boots in surprise as the Blink Lynx butted against her legs in greeting. The large cat’s sudden appearance nearly sent Jodi tumbling across the frozen ground before she managed to regain her balance. ‘Dammit, warn me when you’re going to do that shit!’

  ‘You’re going to have to do better than that if you don’t want to be monster feed,’ Fiona casually said, oblivious to Jodi’s angry glare as she excitedly leaped into the air with a flashy twirl. ‘Look at my new necklace,’ the Blink Lynx preened, ‘Bialaer offered it to me as my reward for helping with tracking down the newfar Rogues that were scouting out Requiem.’

  ‘Wait,’ Jodi asked, feeling confused as she saw the thick silver chain amulet with a large sapphire hanging around the Blink Lynx broad neck, “Bialaer did what?’

  ‘Look at my Character Sheet for yourself,’ Fiona smugly sent as she blinked three yards away and gave Jodi a supercilious look. ‘It really offsets my silver coat ppperrrfectlllyyy.’ The mental purr that reverberated in Jodi’s head just showed how happy the Blink Lynx was. ‘For a male Ranger, I must say he has a surprisingly exquisite eye for high style.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t like Light Elves,’ Jodi dismissively replied as she pulled up Fiona’s Character Sheet via her HUD. She had no idea that Combat Pets could be given items as upgrades. To her surprise, there were a number of slots that could be filled just like on a player. Finding the new addition to the feline’s inventory, Jodi couldn’t help her eyes widening in surprise as she read over the unique amulet’s stats.

  Frost Strike Amulet of Slowing

  Item Quality: Good

  Item Type: Common

  Slot: Neck

  Weight: .06 kg

  Adds an additional +40 points of Elemental Frost damage to all attacks.

  -Has a 25% chance to slow targets movement and attack speed by 50% on every successful melee attack.

  ‘He’s a Half-Elf,’ Fiona explained without hesitation, ‘not a pretentious Light Elf.’

  ‘Hey, not all Light Elves are pretentious-’ Jodi began to protest, when she finished reading through the amulet’s bonuses. ‘Holy shit! Do you have any idea how useful something like this would be for a Ranger?’

  ‘Of course, I do,’ Fiona sent with a disdainful mental sniff. Blinking ahead to keep Jodi in sight, the Blink Lynx began proudly buffing the sapphire gem with a paw, ‘Besides, Bialaer said I was worth it.’

  ‘Oh … my … gawd,’ Jodi thought back at the Blink Lynx, ‘you’re such a compliment whore.’

  In truth, that was one nice amulet, Jodi thought, as she struggled with her internal greed monster. While a part of her was tempted to take the amulet for herself, there was no doubt in her mind that doing such a thing would cause a rift between the two of them that could break her taming. A point that was repeatedly brought up in the in-game Wiki on acquiring your own Combat Pet. That, and it would be rude as hell for her to do so, especially when it complimented her silver coat so perfectly.

  Though, the second thought that Jodi had was why were these NPCs even taking players’ loot. She hadn’t even known such of a thing was possible. Jodi’s eyes covertly studied the NPCs running next to them, realizing for the first time that all of them were sporting some damn-nice equipment. Every one of them had rings on all of their fingers and amulets around their necks. Not only that, the armor and weapons they had were extremely high-end. It was the kind of stuff you’d expect to see on a savvy group of players that were constantly hitting the local dungeon to get geared up.

  Hell,
Jodi thought, that alone would’ve encouraged the players around Delonshire to hunt these NPCs down. If these guys hadn’t been allies, she would’ve been going after them herself to get some of that phat loot. Jodi hurriedly looked away feeling self-conscious for the ugly thoughts going through her mind as one of the female Rangers looked over at her questioningly. Thankfully, she just shrugged and looked away once she realized Jodi hadn’t been trying to talk to her.

  Getting control over the greed monster that lived deep in her soul, Jodi began focusing on the forest that they were entering. In moments, the smaller trunks at the edge of the treeline had all but disappeared as the trees around them began getting bigger and thicker around them. Within a minute of running, the trees had turned into massive oaks and evergreens that towered hundreds of feet into the air with trunks that ranged in size from the breadth of both her arms to as big around as the longhouse they’d been sleeping in the night before.

  It made Jodi wonder if this was something that had always been around or something that had occurred when the region increased in level. Did the trees themselves upgrade in level when the monsters did too? It was a curious question, Jodi thought, as the frozen snow crunched underneath her booted feet and the visibility dropping due to the setting sun being blocked out by the foliage overhead. Only the NPCs seemed to be able to move silently around her, which probably meant they were using Nature’s Grace. A level thirty-five Ranger spell that she wasn’t high enough to pick-up yet.

  The nearly complete lack of light gave the woods an almost spooky feel. If not for her Darkvision, she would’ve been completely blind to the surprising number of smaller animals roaming underneath the bushes and trees around them. Oddly enough, the NPCs seemed to be guiding them well around the larger clumps of bunnies and little rodents that were feeding on the berries and acorns that had fallen to the ground. Jodi was just wondering why they weren’t just running through the groups when the pastoral scene suddenly erupted in blood.

  ‘Oh, this should be good,’ Fiona’s mental voice came to Jodi’s mind as the Blink Lynx moved to a lower branch on a nearby tree.

  Jodi was just going to ask what the Blink Lynx meant, when the fluffy bunnies went completely berserk. Within a few seconds, she got a general idea of what had happened. A black fox had appeared out of stealth and used its whip-like tail to behead one of the bunnies at the edge of an especially large pack. As it grabbed up the corpse in its mouth, there was a cougar-like growling roar that came from the rest of the bunnies in the pack.

  It was a surreal course of events, Jodi thought as she watched in horror. Within the blink of an eye, the fluffy bunnies transformed into murderous killing machines as their little beady black eyes flared into glowing blood-red coals of pure hate while long claws unsheathed from their little paws like stilettos blades on steroids. As the fox ran away for its life, all of the fluffy bunnies in the area moved around to block its escape.

  As the much larger predator was finally cornered, the whole group bared their wicked fangs and charged like mindless berserkers. Though the black fox managed to take several members of the pack down, it was unable to escape as the survivors began tearing into its sides in an absolute feeding frenzy of epic proportions. Within a few seconds, there was nothing left but gore-covered rabbits gnawing the fox’s skeleton clean of the last vestiges of meat and blood.

  It was one of the most terrifying nightmarish scenes of absolute horror that she’d yet to witness in The World. Jodi had once seen a video of a bunny eating a bowl of strawberries only to have the hair around its mouth turn blood-red as if it were consuming a bowl of bloody meat. This was unimaginably worse as the majority of the bunnies were covered in drying blood and gore. It nearly made her puke from the unnatural carnage of it all.

  If that wasn’t appalling enough, the attack had brought the bunnies too close to one of the groups of silvery-grey rodents that were busy going about their business of collecting nuts. Jodi’s mouth dropped open in pure shock as the squirrel-like creatures turned around as one and shrieked. The shrill but cute sound was part of their attack, Jodi figured that out a half-second later, as a wave of Flame Blasts shot from the little monsters’ mouths to slaughter nearly all of the enraged bunnies.

  Instead of running away, the surviving gore-covered bunnies boldly rushed the gray-silver rodents with their bared fangs gnashing. The resulting melee was one of the most horrendous things Jodi had ever witnessed as copious amounts of blood and chunks of flesh stained the frozen snow red. Though outnumbered, the bunnies were each able to take two Flame Blasts before being brought down, while it only took one slash of their razor-sharp claws to inflict a mortal wound on the rodents.

  It was like watching the Rabbit from Caerbannog slaughtering the knights in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Except, in the Dark Forest, there were whole groups of these killer bunnies ranging as far as she could see with her Darkvision. As the two groups tore into each other in a brutal fight to the death, Jodi couldn’t really decide which of the little beasties were more terrifying. Surprisingly enough, the rodents didn’t seem interested in consuming the dead while the bunnies were just plowing through everything like living buzzsaws.

  ‘What in the fuck was that?’ Jodi asked in an appalled tone.

  ‘As you would say, those are the garbage mobs of the region,’ Fiona said in an amused tone, ‘Did you check their levels?’

  ‘That’s just not fucking right,’ Jodi silently swore, as she looked for another batch of the little monsters. That’s when she noticed the Rangers that they were following were painstakingly clearing out a path through the smaller groups with precise volleys that killed the little fuckers with one hit. Even so, she was able to catch a group of the bunnies close enough to her to use her Identify on. A second later, level 45 Elite Fluffy Death appeared over the nearest rabbit’s head in bright red script.

  “They’re level 45 monsters?” Jodi exclaimed in shocked surprise. “No wonder they’re keeping us so far away from the larger groups. Seriously, who ever heard of high-level trash mobs?”

  “Good thing we have some guides that know what they’re doing,” Tumms agreed from where he ran next to Jodi. “It would’ve sucked to be slaughtered by a bunch of fluffy cute-looking rabbits.” A shit-eating grin was plastered on his face. “Though, whatever developer that came up with those psychotic monstrosities is one sick-ass mother.”

  “They’re probably a Monty Python fan,” Jodi said with a strained laugh.

  “Probably,” Tumms agreeably said, before nodding towards another group of mobs on the other side. “Did you do an Identify on the rodents?”

  Following his gaze, Jodi saw another group of the cute little grey-silver squirrels peacefully collecting nuts. With a thought, she’d cast Identify as level 45 Pyro Spitter suddenly appeared over the little monster’s head. “A Pyro Spitter?” Jodi questioningly asked.

  “It fits,” Tumms said with a shrug, “Still, that’s one twisted sense of humor.”

  “Must be a gamer,” Jodi said, as they both laughed.

  “Check out the foxes,” Tumms said, nodding towards a black fox just as it snagged a rabbit from another group off to the side.

  “A level 50 Dire Shadow Stalker?” Jodi asked, somewhat confused by the name.

  “They attack from Stealth with a whip-like Sneak Attack,” Tumms explained, as they both watched the black-furred fox snatch up its kill and sprint around a tree, “before disappearing back into Stealth.”

  “If these are the local region’s trash mobs,” Jodi said, as a growing feeling of dread began building in her stomach.

  “Then what are the regular mobs going to be like?” Tumms finished her thought, as several of the Zeppy’s Heroes members around them traded nervous looks.

  “That’s why,” Zeppy said, in a little too loud of a voice, “we do whatever these NPCs say and don’t fuck around people.”

  “That’s great to hear,” Elandorr said in a low voice. Without looking back at them, he cont
inued in a sarcastic tone that raised more than one eyebrow amongst the group of players, “So how about keeping quiet and staying focused so you don’t turn into Fluffy Death feed?”

  It wasn’t that any of the players particularly disagreed with the NPC’s assessment, nor was it far off from something one of them might say to their buddies in a similar situation, Jodi thought, as they silently sped through the Dark Forest at a nearly breakneck run. The raised eyebrow was exactly because it was something that one of them would’ve said that had caught them all by surprise. That thought wasn’t solely Jodi’s either because she saw more than one member of Zeppy’s Heroes eying the NPCs around them, before switching to raid chat to continue their conversation.

  The raid had been traveling for nearly five minutes without any issues. Though there were several conversations going on in raid chat about the oddness of the NPCs, most of the players were simply focused on keeping the formation tight so they didn’t get too close to any of the rabid wildlife. Stupid mistakes like that could mean days of friendly teasing. That, and who wanted to be eaten alive by fluffy bunnies. It seemed like an especially horrific death, even if the experience only lasted for a half-minute or so.

  For the most part, Jodi focused on how the NPCs were moving through the region. She was curious to figure out the tactics behind their actions. At first, she’d thought the Rangers leading the group were simply discarding their kills and using arrows to keep the raid moving, but as she watched further, it slowly became apparent that the two Ranger groups had worked out a system so that nothing was wasted. While the lead group made the kills, chose the path through the mobs, and generally kept everyone moving, the rear group collected the bodies and shafts.

  It was quite an effective operation and kept the raid moving at a brisk run for the most part, Jodi silently thought. Being that the Rangers were faster than the players, they could easily catch up to the raid if they fell behind. Without even realizing it, the ease at which they’d been traveling through the massive trees had nearly lulled Jodi into a sense of complacency as she allowed herself to be led through the dangerous terrain by these surprisingly capable NPCs, when a horrendous cracking sound suddenly rang out from ahead of the scouting group.