by Ben Ormstad
“The big question, though,” Darius said. “Are you still poisoned?”
I didn’t want to get disappointed, so chased away any hope of betterment. Brought up the Character States information.
The screen barely became visible before I flicked it back off. I only had to see the words until dead to know the affliction persisted. I closed it immediately, feeling a stone sink in my gut like an anchor. So much for not getting my hopes up. “Unfortunately,” I said, “yes, I’m still poisoned.”
“Really?” Frida’s eyes widened. The hopeful expression painting her face in happy folds now drooped like dark drapes. “No change at all?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“I can’t believe it. Too much energy passed through me for nothing to have happened. I even used up the rest of my magic points.” She grabbed my hand. “Check again. Please. You barely looked at it.”
I didn’t see the point, but whatever. After all, she’d spent her remaining MP. I took a breath and relaxed, brought up the states info again:
Character States
— Poisoned : 03:39:34 until dead
“Nothi–” I began. “Wait, what?”
She squeezed my hand. “What?”
“Holy shit,” I said when I realized what had happened. A spark of hope ignited after all. “I’m still poisoned, yes, but you’ve actually increased the time remaining until I’m dead.” I met her eyes, framed by long, black lashes. “The timer went from one hour and forty minutes, to three hours and forty minutes!”
“Yes,” she exclaimed. “I knew the effort wasn’t wasted.”
Darius’ white teeth glittered in his dark face as he smiled. “Impressive.”
“It’s amazing,” I said, stretched out my arms and gave her a good, long hug of thankfulness. When I eventually let her go, she looked away for a moment. “Wait,” I said, jokingly poking her shoulder, “are you blushing?”
“No!” she snorted, cute as cute can be. “I’m just really happy it worked. It means my abilities are truly worth something.”
“Did you ever doubt that?” Darius said. “Just think about what we went through a few days ago. Without your healing skills you’d be dead over and over again during that craziness. I mean, shit.”
“You’re right, of course,” she agreed, “but this was something completely new. Curing, or delaying, poison.”
“Yeah, I get that,” Darius said and laughed in his deep, rumbling voice. “Guess I’ve just been here so long it doesn’t really awe me in the same way anymore. I mean, it’s a fuckin’ game. Crazy shit should be possible here – at least considering the type of game OVERTAKEN ONLINE is.”
My curiosity wanted to know what they’d experienced before I rescued them, but the thing I wanted to know even more took its place: “Talking about what’s possible and not,” I interjected, “since you’ve been here a while…”
“Yeah?”
“I’m kinda curious about the Cyber-Mage class, since it’s what I actually wanted to be when creating my character – but the option was locked. It said I have to first select a base class, and then later, the game would guide me to someone who can assist me to become a cyber-mage, or something,” I said and sighed. “It seemed pretty damn convoluted, to be honest. Do you know anything about any of this?”
Smirking, Darius subtly shook his head. “Naw, man, cyber-mages… that’s a rare breed of people, I can tell you that. I know almost nothing about ‘em, other than that if you wanna become one, you’ve got your work cut out for you. I’m a second wave player, and I have yet to meet even one who’s managed to become a cyber-mage yet. A real player, that is; I have met a couple of NPC cyber-mages, though.”
“Really?” I perked up. “Could you maybe help me get in touch with them?”
Another burst of laughter rumbled in his throat. “Not likely. It was a long time ago, and just briefly during an especially intense mission.” He shrugged. “I have no clue where they came from or anything.”
“Oh…” I said, slumping back down. “I see.”
“Listen, son,” he said, leaning toward me. “What I can say is that if this game has taught me anything, it’s that it will guide you where you need to go. But becoming a cyber-mage, shit, that’s gonna take a while. The game’s designed for it to be something only the most eager players get to experience – like becoming enlightened or some shit, you know what I’m sayin’?”
I nodded. “That I should take my time.”
“Exactly. Relax, enjoy being a badass battle-marine, Level up, become better and better, expand your skills, and just keep the cyber-mage-shit in the back of your mind, until an opportunity presents itself.”
“I can do that, but do you know how long I’ll have to wait – at all? Just ish?”
“Beats me,” Darius chuckled. “But since the game needs you to get efficient with your base class first, I’d be surprised if it happened before you’re at least Level 10 or something. Which is where I’m now, by the way.”
I perked up again. “So you’ve gotten the chance to become a cyber-mage?”
“Hell no,” he said, laughing. “I ain’t on that path at all. I don’t wanna have to deal with all that crazy, reality-bending shit, hah! I just wanna splatter demons with cool-ass guns and explode shit sky-high!”
Both Frida and I joined him laughing, before I said: “Okay, so how long did it take for you to reach Level 10?”
Again he shrugged. “A few months.”
“Oh,” I muttered, “we’re dealing with timelines like that.”
“Yup, so as I said, just concentrate on being the best battle-marine you can for now, and seize any opportunity that might arise… whenever it comes.”
I glanced at Frida. “How about you – do you want to become a cyber-mage?”
Smiling, she immediately shook her head, lifting both hands. “Nope. I’m very comfortable just focusing on developing my skills as a healer and martial artist, thank you!”
“Okay, cool,” I said. “So I guess I’ll be one of those few, rare–”
My sentence got cut off when the sound of screeching metal penetrated the air. A flashback took me right back to the last time I’d been here and the entrance door screeched open. An unreal feeling of déjà vu hit me straight in the brain as footsteps from heavy boots and growling voices of daemonorgs filled the hallway.
We fell silent as fast as the flick of a switch.
Darius handed Frida the gun I gave him earlier. “Here.”
She shook her head. “As you should know by now, firearms are not my thing,” she whispered, but gestured toward the stick laying next to him, still covered in yellow corpse-spider blood. “But I’d be happy to borrow that, if you don’t mind?”
“We both know firearms saved your sweet ass just a couple of days ago,” he whispered, but silently leaned over and got the stick for her, while I crouched on all fours and snuck up against the door. Peeked past it into the hallway.
More daemonorg guards. Six of ‘em. Ugly as ever. Horns protruding from their foreheads, cheeks and chins. Eyes shining yellow. Like the others, these also wore brown tunics strapped with black belts crisscrossing their chests and waists. Their handguns reflected torchlight as they ran down the entrance stairs. Two of them had machetes with broad blades and jagged back edges.
In a rapid swoosh I fetched an overview of my Inventory. Intended for it to only show weapons and ammo, not including other items or any empty item slots available.
DARK BLUE DENIM JEANS – 4 Item Slots
1 : Celestial Basic Pistol : Blue Energy-Status
AMMO BELT – 6 Ammo-Item Slots
1 : Daemonorg Light Handgun Ammo : 15 Bullets
2 : Celestial Basic Pistol Ammo : 1 Energy Refill
SMALL BACKPACK – 8 Item Slots
1 : Makeshift Dagger
2 : Daemonorg Light Handgun : 13 Bullets
3 : Daemonorg Light Handgun : 6 Bullets
Okay, so I still have a couple of light hand
guns and the Celestial pistol. While keeping one eye on the approaching guards, I equipped the Daemonorg Light Handgun with 13 remaining bullets. Removed the 6 bullets left in the last one and loaded them into the first, leaving me 19 bullets total. Also, I still had 15 bullets in the ammo belt.
Darius came up to the other side of the doorframe. Frida snuck up behind me, curling her fingers around the frame. We exchanged looks. The guttural utterances of the daemonorgs echoed through the hallway. No more than five or six meters away. I was not about to be trapped in a cell with a fucking Ball-Buster grenade ever again. Calculated distance between this cell and the next open one a little farther back. In a hushed voice, I said: “Let’s get ‘em.”
Darius nodded, and I swiftly side-stepped out of the cell, gun leveled at the upper bodies of the closest guards. They halted in surprise as I squeezed the trigger twice. The gun jolted and sent two bullets flying, one for each of the two in front. Both hit. Wet redness spurted from their chests, discoloring their tunics. I immediately noticed it was easier to handle and aim the weapon now – as if I’d been training every day for at least a week. Sweet!
The remaining four guards spread out behind the ones who just fell to the ground. Some jumped into the closest open cells while a couple remained in the hallway, shooting at me. Again I felt the effect of leveling up. I efficiently backtracked my pre-planned route to the closest open cell. Applying the bonus ability points to Stamina, Speed and Agility made a huge difference. Darius stepped out in front of me, I bolted backwards and took cover behind the open cell’s heavy door, with the easiness of someone having lost a significant amount of weight.
Another guard bit the dust as Darius blasted his gun. Blood spattered on the brick wall next to him.
“Gri’kla ek, dji!” one guard shouted, waving his hand. “Blek, urg, zifa–” His sentence was cut short when my gun roared, splitting his face open with a well-placed bullet. The smell of gunpowder lay like an aura around me.
“Only a few left,” Darius said and advanced toward the ones who hid behind cells on each side of the corridor.
I got out from my cover, ran up to the guards I’d killed. Fired a couple shots to cover him, then searched the bodies on the ground.
+28 Ammo – Daemonorg Light Handgun
+15 Consumables
+50 Cash
+2 Machetes – Daemonorg Ripper (req. 1 Item Slot each)
A light-weight broad machete used by Daemonorg grunts specialized in blade arts and melee combat. Medium damage, but efficient in the right hands
I placed one machete in one of my jeans’ available item slots and gave the other to Frida. “Guess this is right up your alley.”
Her face lit up. “Indeed, it is!” She sheathed the stick in a kind of strap on the backside of her blouse and equipped the machete. Weighed it in her hand and did a few slicing moves in different angles to check the grip and whatever else. My pulse increased a bit watching her. Skills. Beauty. Rawness. I wondered what she really looked like, outside of OVERTAKEN ONLINE.
Pistol blasts behind us ripped me out of my fascination. Pieces of stone and dust erupted from the brick wall beside me as bullets dug deep. Frida and I jumped to each our sides, barely avoiding the following rounds. Darius grunted in pain in front of us. He grabbed his lower leg, threw himself into an open cell.
“Ambush,” I yelled and crouched against the wall. From the opposite side, more guards appeared. How did they get in? It wasn’t from the main entrance door, that’s for sure. But where? I’d inspected every inch of this floor and found no other doors leading out.
“I’ll take them,” Frida said, gesturing toward the remaining two guards in front, close to Darius.
“And I’ll take those,” I said and switched my focus to the new assholes poking their horned heads out from the corner in the far back of the hallway. While running, I squinted to see better through the distracting light of three torch cups hanging outside the cells between me and them. I fired multiple times. One horned bastard screamed, lost his footing and tumbled to the floor, face first.
Behind me I heard the swishing of a blade that sliced through air before it connected with living tissue and split open fabric, skin and meat. Daemonorgs growled in pain, metal clinked against the floor, and I knew Frida had everything under control.
Three guards stepped out from the corner. All equipped with machetes.
“Don’t bring knives to a gunfight,” I said, hammered the trigger. The muzzle flashed bright as the gun’s recoil traveled up my arm. Only one of ‘em got hit. The two others ducked, evading my shots. An arm suddenly flapped into visibility from the corner and threw a grenade at me.
Not again. I didn’t stop my forward momentum. Instead, I watched as the grenade arched toward me, and just as it was about to hit me, I held my breath in an intense focus, stopped it with my chest and flung it into the cell I ran past. Next, I jumped to get as far away as possible. Hit the floor with hands and knees and covered my neck and head as the entire hallway shook from the explosion.
The cell door burst off its hinges and slammed into the wall behind me. The torch cups swung from the force, blazing coal fell from them and littered the floor with burning debris. Smoke and dust whirled out of the cell. The doorway was nothing but a cracked hole in the wall.
Busy getting to my feet and brushing off brick fragments and checking myself for injury, one of the machete-wielding guards ran into me. He knocked the wind out of my lungs and sent my body headfirst into the wall. I had no chance to react before he swung the machete again. Just in time I pulled my hand back. Instead of slicing off my fingers, his polished steel cut into my gun and separated the barrel and slide from the grip. I gaped at the sharpness of his blade and threw the pistol grip in his face before kicking him in the stomach. He grunted and staggered backwards.
The second guard bolted past him, machete held high, ready to chop me down. This time I was the one to step backwards. I equipped my own machete. Even as I stepped on a large piece of stone that put me out of balance, I instantly realized I had a better understanding of how the weapon worked than when killing the corpse-spiders with the makeshift dagger earlier. I fell on my ass over the broken cell door and appreciated yet again the sense of increased mastery.
The second guard was over me in a split-second. His blade swooshed down at me. I rolled to the right and heard the steel smack into the door beside me. I braced myself against the next imminent attack, but it never came – he struggled to get the blade loose from a crack in the solid material. Using it to my advantage, I quickly rolled back around and swung my machete at him with full force. His soulless, yellow eyes widened as my sharpened steel dug into his neck. Easy as cutting a loaf of bread, I cut deeper and separated his head from the body. Blood spewed everywhere.
In the corner of my eye I registered a flash of reflected light. On instinct I kicked my right leg out and hit the first guard. My boot disrupted his plan, but he still managed to correct the movement somewhat. I groaned from the nauseating pain that exploded in my left shoulder as he thrust the machete into it.
-10 HP
Again I kicked him. Forced myself to get up and push him off balance in the same movement. Equipped the Celestial pistol with my left and pulled the trigger, standing a half meter from him. Electricity cracked in the air. He gasped as his tunic and body ignited and burned in a flash, before tumbling to the ground, scorched, dead.
I breathed heavily, wiped sweat from my brow. Holstered the Celestial pistol and equipped the last Daemonorg handgun. Reloaded it while turning and glancing back at Frida and Darius. Through the smoke I saw she’d destroyed the remaining guards and was kneeling by Darius. He looked badly hurt.
“I’ll be back,” I shouted and waved the gun in the direction of the last assholes hiding by the corner at the end of the hallway. Frida nodded and I think she made a circle with her thumb and index finger. OK.
The sound of boots running away reached my ears. Oh, no you don’t, I thought and
hurried toward the corner. Searched the dead guards on the way and picked up 3 machetes, 25 Consumables and 118 Cash.
Upon reaching the end of the corridor and turning the corner, I saw the feet of the last one turn the next corner. God dammit, they ran like hell. Invigorated by the chase, I yelled: “Wait!” and followed as quickly as my current Level allowed the character to move. I felt my pulse in the major arteries on the sides of my throat, and heard it pump in my ears.
Around the next corner I entered the opposite hallway. The guards just passed the cell where I had spawned – the only cell where the torch cup was ripped off its chains. Black soot still lay spread like a crater from the poison gas explosion I’d ignited. Ashes spread out into the corridor as a reminder to not fuck with me.
“Wait,” I yelled again. “Why are you running?” I pulled the trigger a few times and blasted shots after ‘em. Debris spurted from the wall, but I missed the guards.
“What?” I whispered to myself as they disappeared into the cell where the cloakers had rescued Ahlyana. Coincidence? I didn’t know, but kept up the pursuit.
A few meters from the cell, a bright, red light flashed out from the doorway and illuminated the corridor. My somewhat cautious nature wanted me to stop and wait. Instead, I pushed on quicker than before, ready for anything. Gripped the handgun tight and entered the cell just in time to see them evaporate into thin air as a portal of swirling red light beams swallowed them.
Of course these bastards have access to portal travel. Exhausted from the hunt, I leaned against the door frame and tried to swallow non-existent spit in my dry mouth. Legs and back ached.
The sense came first.
A deep, horrifying vacuum like a black hole appeared in my solar plexus. Tiny hairs stood on end down my forearms. Almost like on autopilot, I turned, exited the cell and looked to the stairs at the end of the hallway where the flight of steps up to the only physical exit were.
