by Charles Dean
After jumping on the bed and rolling over to the other side, Lee did his best to remain as quiet as he could, hoping the madman with the knife wouldn’t hear him while he strafed away from the spot he landed. He used Ethan's eyes to try and find something he could grab in self-defense. Unfortunately, only thing nearby was a chamber pot; he grabbed it reluctantly and heard a swishing sound as he lifted it up into the air. Well, I did have a few . . . Maybe I don’t remember going. Lee could only hope he wasn’t holding someone else’s used chamber pot as he hoisted it up and held it out in front of him. Though it wasn’t much, it could potentially stop the man’s blade if he happened to lash out in the right direction.
“LEE!!” Miller’s voice rang from down the hall, and Lee turned to see light beginning to trickle in from the doorway.
Lee turned back to find his attacker just in front of him and looking at the doorway as well. Fearing the worst, Lee knew that he had to act quickly before the place was properly illuminated and he became an easy target. He hefted the chamber pot with both hands and struck the thief across the head with it, the vile contents inside splashing over the man’s face and into his eyes. It wasn’t much, but it would likely stop him from being able to see before he was able to wipe away the stinking liquid. Lee kicked out and caught the man in the gut, forcing him to stumble backward, but before he could follow it up, Miller burst through the door. The larger Firbolg rushed forward and punched the man in the face with so much force that the human spun around he plummeted to the floor.
“Don’t hurt my friends!” Miller shouted as he set the candle down and grabbed the downed man by the neck and yanked him to his feet with enough force to let the whole world know: Miller actually does lift. He swung the man into the wall like a heavy pillow, let him drop, and then repeated the action a second time. “You don’t hurt my friends!” he shouted, banging the man again. Lee just stood on the sidelines, holding onto the chamber pot and watching the scene unfold. Miller repeated the action once more, and Lee heard the man’s neck make a loud cracking sound.
Your party has killed the player DrZaus. Your party has been awarded 2 silver, 15 copper, one pair of leather gloves and 105 Experience. Your share of this is 46 copper, one pair of leather gloves and 53 Experience.
You are now Level 5. You need 709 Experience to reach Level 6. Your level increase has boosted all primary stats by 1. Your current Tower, Toughness and Spirit have been adjusted to 15.
Due to prolonged use of Sneak, Sneak has been promoted to Initiate Level 2. This skill improves one’s ability to stay hidden, move silently and act undetected.
Due to improving Sneak, you have received +1 Intelligence. Current Intelligence: 22.
Due to prolonged use of Golem Sculpting, Golem Sculpting has been promoted to Initiate Level 4.
Golems created by Golem Sculpting are now 5% more effective in combat. Current Combat bonus: 21.55%. Future golems created by Golem Sculpting may now take up an additional 5% more space. Current Max Space: 2.43 fluid ounces.
Due to improving Golem Sculpting, you have received +1 Intelligence. Current Intelligence: 23.
Miller continued to bang the man against the wall while yelling cringe-worthy phrases over and over, spewing blood everywhere while various other guests shuffled into the doorway one at a time to see what was happening. After a minute or two of savaging the wall with the corpse, he finally let it slide to the ground and turned to face Lee.
“Thanks, man,” Lee said to Miller. He looked around the room awkwardly, his eyes darting between people in the doorway, his bed, the two dead men, and the lumbering oaf that had run over to help him in his midnight fight.
“No problem. I had to come help when I found out you were in a fight,” Miller gasped between deep breaths. Smashing a human being against a wall had apparently taken a lot out of him. “If something happened to you, I’d never find those bandits,” he added, as if this were the comforting part.
Well, I guess I have to give you points for honesty. “You found out I was in a fight?”
“Yeah, I got a, umm . . .” Miller paused, his brain clearly trying to decipher whether it would be appropriate to say ‘notification prompt’ to an NPC or not. “I just heard you and rushed right over.”
You can talk to me about stats and levels and stuff, but you can’t just say you got a notification? Lee wanted to laugh at the idiot who couldn’t make up his mind on what was or wasn’t metagaming. “Well, I appreciate it either way.”
“What happened here?” Ramon’s voice came from the hallway as people made way to let him into the room. “Did someone get hurt?”
“Well, no, aside from them,” Lee answered, pointing to the two corpses.
“Why are you holding that?” Ramon asked, bringing attention to the fact that Lee still hadn’t let go of his final choice of a weapon.
“Oh. Uhh . . . my sword . . . Sorry, it’s just . . .” Lee put down the pot, walked over to the dead Firbolg, and wiped his hands on a dry portion of his clothes. When he was finished, he wrenched his sword free from the man’s stomach. “Yeah, sorry about that. I didn’t mean to make a mess. I just . . .” Lee began to explain, and his overly-polite nature kicked into full swing before his rational brain reminded him: This isn’t your fault, you were almost assassinated. Don’t apologize. “I was attacked and had to defend myself,” he finished.
“Well”—Ramon frowned at the bodies—“I’d normally comp the customer for their room if this happened, but it’s hard to do that when you didn’t pay to begin with. How about I treat you to breakfast in the morning as an apology for this happening to you under my roof.”
Back home, I’d probably get enough money to retire if someone’s lapse in security almost cost me my life, but sure, breakfast sounds fair. Lee just took in a deep breath and chuckled. “Will there be bacon?”
“Bacon?” the man looked at him inquisitively. “I’ve never had bacon. Is it something easy to prepare?”
Lee’s eyes stared at the man in horror. A world without bacon?! His heart stopped at the thought. Wait, Miller knows what bacon is at least, right? He looked to Miller only to see the same blank and confused expression that Ramon had. Is this a translator error? Is the word ‘bacon’ just not transferring properly? “You know, cured and smoked pork belly?”
“Never heard of curing and smoking meat,” Miller answered this time.
“We have pork belly, though,” Ramon offered.
Lee realized that the rest of the crowd was still bunched up in the doorway, eying him with increasingly confused looks with each new word that exited his mouth. The two self-defense killings in the inn they were staying at were common happenstance, but someone talking about different foods was apparently just plain strange.
“What about pizza? Or ramen, I mean, noodles?” Lee was beginning to think that this world was quickly turning into a dietary hell for a gamer like himself.
“Oh, we have noodles, but those aren’t really breakfast foods. You sure that’s what you want?” Ramon asked.
“Umm . . . How about we just go with pork and eggs?” Lee sighed.
“Sounds fine. Sorry again about this incident. I wish I could say it doesn’t happen all the time, but you know how these lands have been these last few months.” Ramon apologized one last time and then excused himself out of the room, shooing the rest of the mute onlookers out with him.
After a few questions from Miller about why one would ever smoke their foods instead of just cooking them, Lee returned to his bed and tried his best to go back to sleep. He didn’t realize it until he laid down, but his heart was beating a mile a minute, and he must have felt like every nerve in his body was perked up and at full attention. Maybe it was because he was so hyped up and alert, but everything seemed . . . off.
Your actions and deeds have successfully converted one person to your religion. Faith has increased by 1. Current Faith: 1.
What does Faith do? Lee asked naturally, starting to become used to handling the gam
e information system.
Each point of Faith the user has increases the ability of their deity to affect the world and increases the chance of their deity interfering on their behalf. As the Faith stat increases, physical characteristics and appearance may change. Faith also increases the chance for the user to resist curses.
Huh? May change? Like, do I get a halo or wings or something? I wonder who I even converted. Lee stared at the prompt, and then it struck him.
“Miss me?” A white mouse asked as it scurried up the bedpost and onto the bed, little Ethan hot on its tails. When Ethan caught up with the talking mouse, the real mouse turned and facepalmed with its tiny paw. “You get the ability to make any golem in the world, and you make one of me? I don’t know if that’s cute, annoying or sad. Personally, I would have made a tiny little samurai or ninja warrior—but I guess to each their own.”
Lee shrugged. “If it makes you feel any better, it wasn’t really on purpose. I don’t really know how to work Golem Sculpting yet, but he’s been very useful.” If it was anything but a mouse, I wouldn’t have caught that darn cat, and I wouldn’t have gotten my first convert. Then again, none of the rest would have happened, and I probably wouldn’t have come so close to dying so many times.
“So I’ve seen. I am surprised to find out that you were able to get a player convert so quickly. Most of them won’t read unless they’re antisocial, or it’s required for school.”
So, Miller actually read the book and joined the faith? Lee was slightly curious what could have prompted him to do that, but remembering Miller brought back an important question. “Why did you lie?”
“What are you talking about? I don’t lie. Everything I say is the whole truth and nothing but the truth . . . or something like that.”
“You said my Intelligence was zero. You showed me a stat screen with my Intelligence as zero, but after only gaining five points of Intelligence, it said the total was ten. So, clearly, you lied.”
“You must have gotten a few points from the language. I didn’t lie.”
“Augustus, I can count. You lied,” Lee pressed. “Did you lie about sending me back too?”
“What? No, of course not. I didn’t lie about anything! Drunks are always honest! If you can’t trust a drunk god, who can you trust?” the mouse replied with feigned indignity. “In fact, I’ve come to bring you to your world right away! Mouse’s honor!” The little rodent put a tiny paw over its heart, and as it did, Lee’s world faded black again and all of his senses disappeared.
Rather than freak out and scream like he did last time, he waited patiently until he regained sight. He was hoping he’d be in his own world, or at least see something from it that he recognized, but instead he found himself in the middle of a Roman bath with trays of grapes, bread, dates and cups of honey and wine lying next to him.
“Go ahead and have a bite. You’ve earned it,” Augustus said. A moment later, he materialized into being as a giant bear again.
Even though Lee knew the massive bear was Augustus and wasn’t going to eat him, being face to face with huge, sharp-clawed animal was far from a pleasant experience. He found himself preferring when the god took a smaller, more-manageable and bite-sized form.
“I thought we were going back to my world?” Lee asked, picking up one of the bunches of grapes and examining it for any marks or signs that it might be poisoned.
“Hey! I said you would, so you will. Just relax and let me finish a few things. Also, here.” The bear pulled out a suit that looked like it handmade by an Italian guy who had been at the craft for ages. “Put this on. I can’t have you going around in . . . that.”
Lee looked down at his tattered outfit. Even though he had only been the alternate world for a day, his appearance was shabby at best and downright degenerate at worst. His formerly neat and dry-cleaned attire was filled with holes, covered in blood stains, and marred with and tears.
“Yeah, probably a good idea,” Lee agreed and hurriedly changed into the new outfit. “This is a perfect fit.”
“Well, I am the God of Alcohol and Crafts. Tailoring is just one of the many crafts,” Augustus responded. “I’m keeping my word and sending you back, but you only have twenty-four hours until I return you to the other world, so get some rest. Half the reason I’m even doing this is to prevent you from being hit with the fatigue penalty. If you stay awake too long, you’ll end up getting yourself killed and never get around to spreading my name.”
“What, you don’t want me to convert players?” Lee blinked.
“No, convert them all you like, just make sure you convert those NPCs. I need them for . . .” Augustus’ demeanor suddenly shifted from calm and polite to angry in a split second. “Why do I have to explain it to you?” the bear roared. “So, what if I lied about your Intelligence? Why don’t you just stop hounding me and do what you’re told before I kill you off for fun?!”
If it had been twenty-four hours ago, Lee would have likely shriveled up at the thought of a giant bear roaring at him from two feet away. Now, while it was still unnerving, he didn’t even flinch. He just stared the bear down. “I don’t think you will. I don’t think you can afford to lose me.” Lee felt a wicked grin appear across his face. “But if it means going home again, I’ll get you your stupid followers.”
The bear glared down at him in silence for what felt like an eternity. Lee did his best to meet its stare with an equal measure of determination and was finally rewarded after the silence broke. “Alright,” the bear conceded. “Fine. So long as you’re doing what you’re told, I’ll send you back to the moment after I took you. No one will notice. But I’m laying down some rules: Do not let anyone know about the other world. I’ll also let you bring back, say, a pound of that bacon you seemed to want for breakfast at the tavern. Understood?”
“I get it.” Lee, who had no positive feelings about this deity given the hell he had been through recently, just huffed out his answer and waited for the warp.
“You need to know something before you go,” Augustus added as he pulled out a beer from nowhere and took a sip. “I’m not going to change you back to a regular human. You’re going to stay an in-game NPC. It would be too much work and require too much Faith to convert you back and forth each time. Don’t do anything a human couldn’t do, and do your best not to let people find out why you’re different than them.”
Wait, does that mean I’ll be able to golem sculpt in real life? Lee felt a strong desire to immediately test out the parameters of being a fantasy game NPC in a regular human world.
“One more thing,” the bear growled as Lee’s sense of touch and smell began to fade. “If you let people find out what you are . . . if you try to run or escape me . . . I’ll kill you. I will hunt you down and murder you. Then, I’ll kill your family. And I’ll make sure to take my time doing it,” the bear said with a cold, flat voice. It was the first time words from Augustus had actually sent chills through Lee’s spine.
Before Lee could fully react to the threat, he found himself once more sitting in his chair at work staring at the same screen full of text he had been working on before the little white mouse interrupted him. I’m back, Lee thought, touching random objects and then pinching himself to make sure this wasn’t just a dream.
After assuring himself to the best of his abilities that this wasn’t just his imagination, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then coughed. Forcefully. He let out a few more fake coughs and went to find his manager.
“What in the heck does the nerd boy want this time?” the manager said after sparing him a quick glance.
“Well, I’m sorry, but the ‘nerd boy’ is going to have to take one of his sick days. I’m really not feeling well, and I’m”—Lee faked a cough for effect—“I’m . . . I’m going to need to get some rest.”
The manager turned to look at him, giving him an empty, wide-eyed expression as her forehead wrinkled up. She let out a barrage of questions at him that left him completely off guard
. “How long have you been able to speak Spanish?” the manager asked. “Do you always know what I say about you? Is this some kind of joke? If you spoke Spanish, why wouldn’t you have put it on your resume? What’s wrong with you?! Are you messing with me? Have you been recording what I say?”
But I don’t speak Spanish? I’ve never really learned more than a few words at best. What is she talking about? Wait, is this an after effect of being an NPC? AI system, are you still with me? Did I speak English or Spanish?
Known and learned languages are adjusted to best suit the intended recipient. You were and currently are speaking a version of Spanish generated based on the accumulated Experience you have from overhearing and seeing the language in order to match the unknown intended recipient's own native language.
Crap, the prompts are still here? Even in this world? Lee winced. So, I’m really am an NPC now . . . Lee bit his lower lip as he imagined the possibilities before returning his focus back to the issue at hand: his manager was still asking him a ton of questions.
“Look, I didn’t try to deceive you, but I really am not feeling well today. Perhaps we can forget a few earlier things you’ve said.” Lee just assumed that the woman had used their language barrier as a chance to chide and mock him without his knowledge, and he felt like using it as a sort of HR corporate blackmail against her. “If you let me take a few days off to feel better . . .” He added in an extra cough, just in case the blackmail alone wasn’t selling it.
“Fine! Get out! Take your days off! I won’t say a word if you don’t. But lying to me for this long . . . What’s wrong with you?! You’re twisted, Lee, twisted.” The angry manager waved him out of the office, and Lee didn’t hesitate to bolt.
