Tales of the Gemsmith

by Jared Mandani

  Dean shook his head. “Don’t look so happy about it, dude.”

  “Actually, unless Mr. Winters manages to score an even seven on his movement chart, I’m going to have to advise keeping him in.” Marcy looked down at her checkboard.

  “Keep me in? Really?” Dean wobbled on his feet. He was already using a cane, and his leg was splinted straight to one side. Added to that, the wheelchair they had brought him here in was still in the foyer downstairs.

  “It’s regulations, Dean,” the nurse said apologetically. “We’re not allowed to release you into the community if we think that would put you in more danger.”

  “Danger? Huh.” Dean choked back a bitter laugh. I’ve lost the use of my fingers and my leg. I can barely climb those stairs without stopping three times. The pain is making me want to be sick, I’ve lost my job and now my home. How much MORE danger can I be in?

  “Well, this might be a blessing actually, Dean –I’ve got the new baby on the way, and if you could stay in at least until we get a chance to sort something out here with the landlord…” Paul was saying, but his words had become a blur of white noise.

  I can’t breathe. Dean felt his chest go tight. It must be the pain meds. He must have taken too much. There was a band tightening around his chest, and he was starting to feel incredibly light headed.

  “Dean? Dean!” someone was saying, but the voice was too loud, and strangely, too slow. Dean took a step backwards as pain shot up the leg he had forgotten was useless, and with a shout of pain he fell to the floor, gasping for air.

  “Mr. Winters?” A softer voice, floating somewhere above him.

  I’m going to die. I’m going to die was all Dean could think, the words repeating over and over in his head as his heart beat a hundred times a minute. Just like in the store – with those fists and kicks raining down on me…

  “What’s happening to him?” Paul’s voice, but it sounded very far away to Dean’s ears, like he was at the bottom of a very deep well, and he had no way of climbing out.

  “I think it’s shock. Wait….” Cool fingers pressed to his neck, his temple, and then took his pulse. A light flared in his eyes, making them water and blink.

  “Yes…” The nurse’s soft voice returned. “Okay, can you hear me Dean? Just listen to me. Concentrate on the sound of my voice. I want you to breathe out one slow, long breath, for the count of three. One … two … three. Here, do it with me. Normal breath in, and out … two … three. Normal breath? And out…”

  Dean tried to do as the nurse directed, but it was hard to stop thinking about his racing heart or the pain in his lungs. He felt warm hands on his shoulders, and a can of something sweet and fizzy was pressed to his lips. After what felt like forever, he felt himself flush hot and then cold, as he blinked himself back to his apartment landing, lying on the floor with the face of Nurse Marcy and her ridiculous bobble hat hovering over him.

  “What – what happened?” he croaked, as Paul helped him into an upright position.

  “You went into shock. I’m quite certain it was a panic attack, Dean, exacerbated by the news of your apartment, and your current physical state,” Marcy said in low, clear tones. “You fell, and you’re lucky that we weren’t halfway down the stairs when you did.”

  “A panic attack?” Dean tried to shake his head, but he suddenly felt the landing spin as he did so. “That’s ridiculous. I’m not a nervous sort of person…”

  “But you have been through an awful lot, Mr. Winters,” Marcy said gently. “A lot for anyone, it doesn’t matter how brave they normally are. It’s not a sign of weakness, it’s a medical condition. It’s a sign that your body and mind need to take things easy. That you still have a lot of healing to do…”

  “I haven’t got time to heal!” Dean burst out, feeling his heart rate start to thud loudly in his chest once again. “They’ve got my stuff. Everything in there! I’m going to be homeless…!”

  “No, you’re not, Dean,” Marcy said finally. “You have a bed in the San Maria, and we’ll probably move you to the Occupational Therapy Ward now. That has its own private bathroom, television, full furnishing. It’s designed to keep you safe, until you’re better,” she said gently, and Dean, unsure of what else he could do, nodded weakly.

  Chapter 5: Enhanced Virtual Therapy

  “You know the great thing about the Occupational Therapy Ward?” Marcy was saying to him as they got Dean settled in, a couple of days after his return to San Maria when all of the appropriate paperwork had been signed off on.

  “It’s got better cushions?” Dean nodded to the bed, which this time was multicolored and bright.

  “Not only that, my friend!” Marcy said, turning to tap a gray box on the wall. “It also has these.”

  “What are they?” Dean frowned.

  “Hotspot boosters.” The nurse grinned. “These rooms are designed to mimic outside life as closely as possible, to help people get back on their feet – pardon the pun…”

  “Not funny.” Dean frowned.

  “…but also, so that they can maintain as much of their normal life as possible. So that means a full digital connection, not the limited ones we have elsewhere in the hospital. You can work and design your jewelry from these, and…” Marcy clapped her hands together gleefully. “We can get you into Aldaron.”

  “The RPG?” Dean was surprised. “You really want me playing games while I’m stuck here? What about my treatment plan?”

  “That’s the beauty of it, Dean – Aldaron is a part of your treatment plan!”

  “What?”

  Marcy looked embarrassed. “Well, I’ve had a chat with the consultant, given your current situation…”

  “My being homeless and disabled, you mean?” Dean tapped his cane on his left foot. Ow. Even that much pressure made his knee ache.

  “And, he agreed to help me run a test project with you. It’s called Enhanced Virtual Therapy – and you should think of it exactly like the Mani-Sim that we’ve been working you on. Just as virtual physical simulation helps your body to recover quicker, I’ve managed to argue the case that virtual mental simulation should help as well.”

  Help my mind recover, you mean? Dean cringed. I’m not crazy.

  Marcy could see the doubts and shame cross Dean’s mind as she patted the bed for him to sit beside her. At the foot of the bed he could see his VRM-Alpha unit already waiting for him, along with a stack of out-sized hospital clothes.

  “Panic attacks are a symptom of an illness. A highly recoverable one, Dean. I want you to know that. Interacting in virtual space will just help you work through challenges, stressful situations, as well as give your body lots of time to heal. Please, just give it a try. For me?” She looked at him with her startling green eyes magnified through her glasses.

  How could I refuse? he thought, feeling a blush flush his cheeks.

  “Well, I guess I won’t have this frigging knee in there…” Dean muttered, massaging around the support bandage.

  “Precisely. You can be anything you want in Aldaron – within reason of course,” Marcy said, one hand moving self-consciously to her own glasses. “In real life, without these I’m as blind as a bat. Seriously! But in there I don’t need them. It’s helped my confidence loads…”

  “Okay, I get the idea…” Dean muttered. For some reason he found himself not wanting to agree so wholeheartedly to the offer, even though a part of his heart raced at the prospect.

  It’ll be just like the heroes that I’ve read about in the books, and watched in the movies… Dean thought of his wall of books, locked away and unreachable in the depths of the Willis Building. Sanderson, Tolkien, Hobb, Bear, Jordan, Le Guin… Dean had read them all, plunging years of his life into their mythical worlds – the only escape he got from his work. What have I got to lose, in the end? he argued with himself. Real life—my life—sucks right now, doesn’t it?

  This is going to be a blast… he thought, unable to stop
the smile that crept its way across his features.

  *

  “Here it is.” Nurse Marcy returned after a very unsuccessful physical therapy session in which Dean only managed to make his hand and his knee ache, and then a very unappetizing hospital dinner of potatoes, bacon, and beans. It was heading towards evening in the San Maria General Hospital, and with that came the distant bustle and noise as doctors and nurses sped down the corridors, and the world beeped and blared distant alarms.

  “I’ll be glad to get a bit of peace, actually,” Dean confided in the woman who was fast becoming a friend.

  “Oh, well…” Marcy grimaced. “You probably won’t get much of that, I’m afraid, in Aldaron. It’s a world riven by civil war and an invasion by the Nightfell.”

  “The Whatfell?” Dean said, picking up what looked like a DVD box she had brought.

  “Oh, sorry.” Marcy poked out her tongue at him. “I forget that you’re still a muggle.”

  “Oh great. A muggle, am I?” Dean shook his head, looking at the box. It displayed a very scantily clad woman that looked a little similar to Marcy’s avatar. Tapered ears and large, almond-shaped eyes, only this one had white wings and a very shaped metal outfit. Next to her was a more grizzled human warrior with ragged black hair, leather-and-chain armor, and carrying a sword almost the size of himself. Behind them was a fantastic-looking castle sitting on the edge of some cliffs, and plumes of smoke and dark, winged creatures.

  “Yeah, well you’re going to be a muggle before you go in, and then I guess you’ll be a noob until you level up.” Marcy laughed.

  “What level are you in here then?” Dean felt more than a little jealous.

  “Eleven,” Marcy said proudly. “I’m a Multi-class Ranger/Druid, and a Darkwood Elf.” A proud raise of her chin. “Elves get loads of upgrades if we’re rangers, so…” She pushed her spectacles back up the bridge of her nose. “I guess you could say that I’m pretty powerful. In the Near Kingdom, anyway.”

  “The Near Kingdom?” Dean asked, opening the box to find a little thumb drive barely bigger than his own thumbnail.

  “You’ll see, Dean! Sheesh.” Marcy laughed. “That there has just got the loading sequences and the security protocols. Once we’ve got you logged in, you’ll be able to walk through all the rest of the setup yourself.”

  “Oh.” Dean felt a shiver of unease; an echo of his previous panic. He hadn’t realized quite how much he had come to depend on this woman until now. “So, you mean you won’t be in there with me?”

  Marcy paused, her eyes flickering as she cleared her throat. “I’ll be at King’s Market at midnight. You can find me there, if you want.”

  “But… How?” Dean said, but Marcy was already standing up, leaving him to his evening of entertainment.

  “I’ll find you, Winters,” she said with a sparkling laugh, closing the door behind her, and leaving Dean in a glow of embarrassment.

  Do I like her?

  It’s just a crush. It was bound to happen after spending most of every day in her company, and, he forced himself to admit: the nurse was paid to be nice to him. They were called the caring profession for a reason, right?

  “Ridiculous,” he muttered and shook his head.

  He eased himself back on the bed and repositioned the pillows under his damaged knee, before inserting the small cartridge into a slot under the lip of the VRM-Alpha machine.

  “Here goes nothing, I guess…” He put the headset over his head and lay back against the pillows.

  VRM-Alpha

  By Odge Entertainment

  Loading…

  Game Cartridge Detected…

  Connecting to External Portal...

  Success!

  Part 2: A Noob in Aldaron

  Chapter 6: Choose, Pilgrim

  Dean opened his eyes to a darkened chamber. Only it wasn’t completely dark, was it? There were burning sconces on the walls, set between stone pillars. When he looked up, he could see the high, vaulted walls of some sort of cathedral… Or crypt he corrected himself.

  Turning around, he could see that standing in a circle were four stands of armor, like mannequins, on a raised dais.

  Choose, Pilgrim… The words flared across his vision.

  “Choose what?” Dean said, hearing his words echo strangely in the chamber. “Damn, Marcy was right about the bitrate and resolution…” He turned around on the spot before the different suits of armor, marveling at the feel of the cold stone under his luminous body, the slight gritty texture as if a layer of sand had blown in from somewhere –though he could see no doors or windows. “Wait… I just gotta see this…” He paced over to the nearest column, looking at how the marble was finely veined with black, white, pink. When he ran his luminous hand over the stone, he could feel the many dents, scratches, and imperfections across the stone, as if it was very old.

  Or a lot of people had done the same.

  “Ha. Go on, I dare you, Dean…” He saw the burning sconce, guttering with thick, black oily smoke. He could smell the smoke in the back of his nose, and, bizarrely, it made him want to sneeze even though in here he knew he had no real nostrils to do so.

  Grinning manically, Dean waved a hand through the flaring orange flames.

  “Oh crap!” He snatched his luminous hand back. “I felt it. I felt that!” He looked at his white and yellow, strangely featureless glowing body. The memory of the brief searing heat faded from his body and his mind, leaving him with nothing but a not-so-normal looking glowing hand again.

  “Ghost-pain, isn’t that what Marcy called it?” he muttered, stepping back hurriedly from the burning torch, and turning to the stands of armor. It seemed quite clear that the game wanted him to choose one – but which? He turned to see that each suit of armor was completely different, and, as he stretched out a hand to touch the metal, chain, or leather, he was surprised by the glowing letters arriving again, only this time sliding out across his inner vision as if it were a text box in a game.

  *

  Warrior. CHOOSE? Y/N

  Excelled in fighting, the warriors are the backbone of the Near Realms, and vital if the Kingdom of Aldaron is to survive the Civil War – whichever side you choose! Whether they be bare-knuckle fighters or soldiers, street-toughs or pirates, the warrior class is for players who like getting into trouble, and like being surrounded.

  3 STR, +0 DEX, +2 CON, -1 CHA, +0 WIS, -1 MANA

  Light chain hauberk +4 Armor Class, -1 DEX.

  One Handed Weapon (choose either Sword, Ax, Maul).

  Dagger and camping kit.

  *

  “Okaaay…” Dean reached for the next suit of armor; a sort of stained leather jacket, with a dark cloak and hood.

  *

  Ranger. CHOOSE? Y/N

  Rangers are those trained in the arts of hunting, tracking, and survival – necessary assets for those wishing to travel the wild and dangerous Far Realms! They may be guides, hunters, explorers, scouts, or others who live in the wildwoods.

  1 STR +0 DEX, +3 CON, -1 CHA, +0 WIS, +0 MANA

  Studded Leather Hauberk +3 Armor Class.

  Simple Ranged Weapon (choose either Hunting Bow, Throwing Knives, Bolas, Catapult).

  Dagger and enhanced camping kit.

  *

  Rogue. CHOOSE? Y/N

  Rogues are an unfortunate necessity in these dark times. Not only can they provide valuable services for the right price (thieving, burglary, mugging), but they can also train to act as assassins, spies, poisoners, or charlatans.

  0 STR, +3 DEX, +0 CON, +1 CHA, -1 WIS, +0 MANA

  Leather Cuirass +2 Armor Class

  Small Weapon (choose either Long Knife, Cudgel, Garotte).

  Simple Ranged Weapon (choose either Hunting Bow, Throwing Knives, Bolas, Catapult).

  Dagger and lock-picking kit.

  *

  “Hmm. As fun as that would be…” Dean grinned, moving to the last suit of armor on the sta
nd. Only it wasn’t armor at all. It was a long robe.

  *

  Mage. CHOOSE? Y/N

  Whether you have been schooled in the Royal College of Aeturnum, or learned your art from a witch’s knee, mages are much sought after in the fight against the Nightfell. Unless, of course, you are a dark sorcerer, a servant of the Nightfell itself! Mages can come in many forms, whether as wizards, mystics, witches, shamans, druids, faith-healers, alchemists, or prophets.

  -1 STR, +0 DEX, -1 CON, +0 CHA, +2 WIS, +3 MANA

  Heavy Robes, +1 Armor Class.

  Polearm (choose either Staff, Quarterstaff, Cane).

  Dagger and scribing equipment.

  *

  “Wow. Now that really sucks!” Dean laughed as he looked at the statistics offered between the four classes of adventurer. He could either be a strong, powerful warrior but who would be appalling at magic, a Ranger who wasn’t very good at talking to people, a rogue who was an idiot, or a mage who would die every time he got into a fight. What the hell?

  “Marcy said she was a Multi-Class, a Ranger/Druid. How is that even fair?” Dean said, as there was a glow from the opposite side of his vision, and a similar stone-mounted text box slid out.

  Multi-Class: An option to combine and generate your own type of professions and character classes after Level 5. Some classes might directly hinder each other, such as Warrior/Mage, where the minuses to your statistics will still be taken into account once selected. However, the benefits of both classes are applied as well. A wise pilgrim chooses classes that complement each other, as well as complementing their race, nation, and playing style.

  The text block slid back, leaving Dean scowling. “Okay, great. I have to get to Level Five before I can start playing with all the good stuff, it seems. Okay then…”

  Dean turned back to the four different suits of armor and clothes, walking his way slowly between them. None of them really fit what he wanted to do at all. He wanted to make beautiful elf-jewelry, like he did in real life. And kick a few goblins in the head at the same time… He considered the fact that he could always choose to be a rogue and steal the jewelry instead, but that wasn’t the same as what Marcy had told him now, was it? That he could ‘make a killing’ in the King’s Market, wherever that was.