by Dante Doom
“You know, I don’t really get dragons,” Sang said, never taking her eyes off of the sky.
“Yeah? What’s not to get? Big, scaly dragons with powerful jaws, fierce fighting skills, and intelligence to boot.”
“Well… will we get to see one?” she asked.
He could sense some genuine curiosity in her voice. He grinned and decided that he would share the great legend with her. “Some say… that there is an island,” he said, pointing to a distant island way off in the distance, “an island where dragon eggs can be found by the players. It takes a special quest and it’s very hard to do, but you could get a dragon egg and hatch it. Then you could raise it for your own and train it, and then eventually it’ll be big enough to ride.”
“Interesting. And you can fly on them?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard stories, and once I saw a player riding one a while back, but that was a long time ago. In reality, getting that quest is a pain. You gotta go through a whole song and dance to even make it to that island. Most people lose interest or don’t survive the journey.”
Sang looked at the island and back at Van. “Why don’t we go right now? Why can’t we make the ship go that way?”
“Short answer: the game is kind of on rails until we finish the first major quest. Long answer: it’s a very specific quest to get to that island and it’s not that easy to get to the quest.”
“Well, I’d like to go and get—” Her words were interrupted by a sudden blinking in his vision. Bright red words appeared. SLEEP TIME IS APPROACHING. PREPARE TO BE EJECTED.
“Ah crap, get to bed!” he shouted as he took off at a dead run for the bunks. He didn’t want to miss out on that sweet, sweet XP bonus.
He felt his boots thump, thump, thump toward the door and then, suddenly, he was lying in the pod. The shock was intense, and he felt himself shake awake. There were several tubes running fluids into his arms. It took him a second to realize that he was back in the real world. The difference between real life and being inside of the haptic pod was hardly noticable.
The pod whooshed as it opened up. He sat up and stretched his arms and legs, taking a deep breath. He felt a little worn out from everything, but otherwise felt relatively fine.
“Calm down! Calm down!” shouted one of the nurses as she wrestled with Sang. The agent was screaming hysterically and thrashing about. Van watched for a moment and then shook his head. She was such a noob. Couldn’t even handle the shift from VR to reality. He scoffed as he stood up and stretched a bit.
Eventually, the staff managed to calm Sang down, and then they escorted the two to their respective rooms. The doctor was waiting for Van by his door.
“Sup, Doc?” Van asked.
“Twenty minutes of walking on the treadmill; take your vitamins; then sleep,” the doctor said as he shook his head at Van. “This is an enforced policy.”
“Why?”
“It’ll keep you healthy… or, well, at least from getting worse,” the doctor said. “These haptic pods are a little worse because of the way you interact with them; you don’t really move around like the body should, so you’re going to decay muscles at an accelerated rate. Got it?”
“Sure, sure,” Van said as he yawned. He was starting to feel the fatigue kick in. He stretched a little bit more, took some vitamin pills from the doctor, and went into his room. He glanced at the big treadmill and rolled his eyes. He had managed to avoid exercise his entire life, and he wasn’t about to start now. Instead, he waited a few minutes before leaving his room and finding his way to where Sang was staying.
Her door was open. “Knock, knock!” he called out as he stuck his head into her room. She was sitting on the bed and looking down at a tablet computer, mumbling to herself.
“Just popping in to say hey, hope you weren’t too psychologically scarred from the sudden transition from falseness to reality,” Van said.
She stood up and walked up to him, and then she opened her mouth like she was about to say something, but simply pressed the button on the door to cause it to slide shut, locking him out.
“Aw, come on!” he grumbled. “I was just trying to be friendly!” He hadn’t been up to anything clever, really; he’d just wanted to make sure that she was doing okay. He could remember the weirdness that he’d had to deal with when he’d been a kid back in the day. His first trip to the ER had been because of the shock of suddenly being removed from a game when his power had gone out. He hadn’t lost his mind or anything, but he had gone into some kind of mild form of shock.
Van turned around to see Agent Neil standing there, his arms crossed.
“Hey, buddy,” Van said, trying to get around the man.
“Just checking in on our arrangement,” Neil said, grabbing Van by the arm. At first Van thought that he was being assaulted, but then realized that his legs had started to buckle a little bit and that the agent was just catching him.
“Ah, thanks. It’s going well, I think.”
“We’ve been closely monitoring her vitals. It’s not good,” Neil said.
“What do you mean, not good?”
“Well… her body is in top shape, but… her brain doesn’t seem to be doing too well with distinguishing reality from fantasy. Our top staff and the Draco forums say it’s to be expected, but I’m worried. Can… can this hurt her?”
“Nah, she’ll be fine. The problem is that VR is kind of like alcohol. You build tolerance to it over time. So, normally we start out with a beer or a cider. Then we try out wine. Then we do some shots, right? And eventually you’re able to drink enough without passing out. But throwing her into a haptic pod is like giving someone who’s never even seen a bottle of alcohol a full glass of moonshine and acting surprised when she pukes.”
“You’ve seen this before?” Neil asked.
“All the time. Rich kids on their birthdays; idiots who jack their graphics and haptic settings way too high. She’ll adjust.”
“Alright, fine. I’m just worried,” Neil said. He straightened his tie a little bit. “I just wonder if… if maybe this thing could kill her.”
The comment caused Van to burst out laughing as he managed to stand straight up again. “Kill her? This isn’t some kind of secret science fiction story, guy. It’s a video game; millions of people play this thing. And let’s face it, man—statistically, I’m more likely to die in there than her, and it’s going to be of a heart attack because I should have been taking care of myself. She’ll be great.”
Neil looked a little comforted at that. “Good... thanks. You’re doing good work, my friend. Keep it up.”
Van nodded as he staggered toward his bedroom. The exhaustion was kicking in way harder now. Those pods were no joke. He wasn’t sure why he felt so tired, though... he had never been this tired before when he’d just been using his old VR gear. Maybe it was the lack of sleep from the previous events? He found his bed and fell face-first into it, not even having the energy to take off his clothes. Darkness came quickly, though, and he found himself dreaming of being back in his apartment, staring at a screen.
Chapter Six
Van woke up feeling as if he had been on a ten-day drinking binge. He could barely even open his eyes. The headache was intense, and to say he felt sick was an understatement. “Ughhhh,” he groaned as he slowly tried to stand. His arms and legs were incredibly sore.
The doctor was standing over him. “Good morning,” he said. “We’ve got to get back into the pod now.”
“Sure, of course,” Van said, trying to stand. He couldn’t.
“Did you do your exercises?” the doctor asked as he helped Van stand.
“I looked at the treadmill, if that counts,” Van replied as they made their way slowly to the pod room.
“Of course, you did. Look, these pods are a little different than your system. There’s a reason why professional players require 24/7 care. The experience is a lot harder on the body than you think.”
“I’ll be fine. Just get me into the game…”
Van couldn’t finish his sentence; instead he felt himself drift off into a deep sleep for a few moments. He awoke while being violently shaken by Neil.
“Wake the hell up!” Neil shouted.
“Gah! I’m up!” Van yelled at him, glancing around. He was sitting in a chair in the pod room. He could see that Sang was waiting by her pod already, her arms crossed.
“Take this,” one of the nurses said as she gave him a small round pill. He looked at it suspiciously.
“Is this Cwake?”
“Just take the damn pill,” Neil said. “We don’t have time for this.”
“Hypocrites. Figures,” Van said as he popped the pill into his mouth. The familiar bitter fizzy taste of Cwake greeted his tongue. He chewed the pill and immediately felt it begin to work through his system.
Suddenly, he screamed aloud as he felt energy bursting through his entire body. It was as if someone had just hooked him up to a massive battery, and he felt more awake than he had in his entire life. “Wow! What… what is that stuff?”
“It’s a pure version of your favorite little party favor,” Neil replied as he grabbed Van and dragged him to the pod. “Doesn’t have all those stupid caffeine additives in them. It’s got the real juice.”
“Is it bad for you?” Van asked as he clambered into the pod.
“Extremely,” Neil answered, slamming the pod shut.
Van wasn’t sure what to do with that news, but he shrugged it off. He felt more alive than he had ever felt before, so that probably wasn’t a bad sign, right?
The pod plugged him in and he heard the friendly voice of the AI system inform him of the transition, and the next thing he knew, he was standing in a cabin onboard the ship. He checked his experience level. It was still only 200 points. He grimaced at the data; he hadn’t made it to the bed in time. All that delicious experience wasted.
“We’re back,” Sang muttered as she glanced around. She seemed to be dealing with the transfer into the system a little better this time.
“Yup, we’re close to the mainlands. Then we just gotta escort this old elf to the drop-off point and we can get moving,” Van explained as he pulled up his map. They were close to Vimier Wharf, the starting area for most newbies. It wasn’t a particularly dangerous area and he knew they’d be perfectly fine there.
“Great, so then we can get moving to the real stuff,” Sang muttered to herself as she looked around. A seagull was flying above them, squawking loudly as it dove down into the water, looking for food.
“Aye! We’re here!” said the voice of the old Elf. The ship had jumped forward a few hundred feet and now they were at the port.
“Well, let’s load the wagon and get moving,” Van said as he grabbed a few crates and began to heave them. They weren’t particularly heavy, but he could feel his character’s physical limitations, as he didn’t have the best strength. It was somewhat frustrating, really—the more he used his character, the more useless he realized he was. Sang, on the other hand, was able to carry quite a few boxes, loading them up into the wagon that had been waiting for them at the docks. The docks themselves weren’t particularly impressive; there was a large warehouse, a tavern, and a bunch of roughshod men gathered around to fish by the pier. There were no towns to speak of, and nor were there any villages within eyeshot. They could only see a long trail leading up to some trees.
“We must go forth,” the Elf said, “to the grand town of Marinever, about 3 miles from here! But I fear banditry!”
“Fear whatever,” Van grumbled. “We’ll be fine.”
They walked alongside the cart in silence. The oxen were pulling it steadily, bleating and blaring as they walked. There was little input from Sang.
Van glanced at his character map, noting that there were no red icons, meaning that the place was safe from enemies. Of course, his perception score wasn’t high enough for him to really see anything of value, either.
“You know, this is still so breathtaking,” Sang said as she glanced out at the forest in the distance. They were getting closer to it.
“Yeah, beautiful,” Van mumbled as he focused on trying to keep an eye out for bandits. He couldn’t remember if this quest had randomly generated bandits or if the attack was some kind of triggered event.
“I think it’ll be much more beautiful once we get an aerial perspective of this place,” Sang said.
“How so?”
“Well, whenever this thing hatches, we can ride it,” Sang replied as she pulled out a small purple egg from her satchel. Van immediately recognized it as a dragon egg—he could see the shifting within it, the pulsing energy that represented a primal force of energy.
“That’s… a… you… how?” Van stammered.
“It was easy enough; I used a backdoor into the system to give myself the dragon egg. It seemed like it would be useful, and you said it was hard to grab it through a quest, so I just hacked myself one.”
“Hacked? Hacked? Sang, you’ve got to hide that!” Van shouted he shoved the egg back into the bag.
“What’s the big deal?” Sang asked as she shoved him away from her.
“The big deal is that you just cheated to get an egg! You can’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s cheating! You can’t grab a high-level item and cheat like that!” Van shouted, growing more irate because of her nonchalance. It was ridiculous that she would do such a thing. Van didn’t mind taking shortcuts, using guides, or even paying for items that increased his skills or power, but all of that was within the legal framework of the game. Cheating was unforgivable in his world because it broke the sacred bond of trust that all gamers needed to share with one another.
“I hate to break it to you, but we’re on a mission here. We aren’t here for fun. I have zero problems with cheating,” Sang said. “You clearly seem to be upset about it, though; what’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is this: we are here to abide by the rules for many reasons, the first being—”
His words were interrupted as he felt an arrow sharply going into the side of his arm.
“Ahhh!” he screamed as warm blood gushed from the wound and he reeled back with pain. It felt really damn real at that moment. He saw his health bar immediately drop down to half.
“Crap! Sea raiders!” Sang shouted as she drew her bow. Behind them were three large, burly Orcs approaching. They were all Level 1 and none of them were elite mobs, though, so Van knew already that it shouldn’t be too much of a problem to fight them.
The three Orcs charged at the two guardians of the merchant. Van instinctively reached for where his great sword would have been kept, but realized that it didn’t exist. “Crap!” he shouted as he fumbled to pull out his darts instead.
“Sea raiders are evil cultists! We have to kill their high priest!” Sang said as she started shooting arrows at the tallest Orc.
“They aren’t sea raiders, they’re Orcs!” Van said. “They don’t have a high priest!”
Sang’s arrows were missing the Orcs.
“Why am I missing? My aim was dead-on!”
“They have a high Dodge skill, and you have to account for that!” Van said as he threw a few darts at the approaching enemies. The words Miss kept flying overhead of the Orcs. He certainly didn’t have enough points in his Dart Throwing skill for it to be useful here.
“Look out!” Sang called out as she tried to roll out of the way of one of the Orc’s clubs. The word Hit rose above her head and she immediately fell to her knees.
“Crap! Sang!” Van shouted as he saw her health bar drop down. Then another arrow nailed him right in the chest. He felt the pain surge through his body as he looked down to see the blood pouring from his wound. The health bar dropped at the same speed as the blood poured from him. The last thing he saw before he died was the Orcs laughing and pointing at him.
Sang opened her eyes. She was lying on her back by the beach. The gentle roaring of the waves seemed to greet her as she felt th
e cool breeze gently blowing across her face. A second ago, she had felt the impact of her skull being crushed by a massive club, but now she was alive and unharmed on the beach. What was going on?
Dang that sucked,” said Van as he stood up and brushed himself off from the sand.
“What happened?” Sang asked quietly, still staring up at the sky. She wasn’t sure what was going on and she was beginning to feel a little queasy. The game wasn’t so bad, but the transitions from location to location without warning had been extremely jarring. And she’d been so full of adrenaline during the fight that she hadn’t had time to come down from the high of it yet. Her heart rate was still hammering, her muscles were twitching, and despite the fact that there was no danger, she was in fight or flight mode. A split second had been all it took to completely remove her from the danger, but she had no idea what to do with the experience of that leap.
“We died. No big deal,” Van said.
“No big deal?” she repeated as she slowly got up.
“Yeah, it happens. Sometimes you bite off more than you can chew, or maybe you get greedy and try to open a trapped treasure chest; maybe you even mouth off to the wrong player and they really respect their mom enough to kill you over it... regardless, it happens. We just pop up at a random starting area or safe town with a few days of experience lost, and… well, we lose all of our items. Death is a little brutal in this game if you’re someone who has a lot of important items.”
“The egg!” Sang muttered as she grabbed her satchel and opened it up. She sighed a deep sigh of relief, though—it was still there. She had gone to a lot of trouble to get her hands on it, and there was no way she was willing to lose the thing over something so stupid as dying from a couple of Orcs.
“Yeah, it’s there, because you grabbed it illegally. That means the system doesn’t exactly know that you have it. Yet. And the keyword here is yet, because at some point Draco is gonna find out—and when they do, well, it’s gonna mean a ban for you. Or worse, they might find out who you actually are.”
