She’d never starved in dARkness: Online, and she wasn’t about to starve here.
Tanisha picked a handful of berries. The first time, she’d only grabbed two or three for a start, but the insistence of her stomach made her grab around fifteen or so now. They filled her palm with a solid weight, and they stayed that bright orange color.
“Are you going to behave now?”
The berries made no response, but they also didn’t turn a horrible smoke color that forced her memory into some of the least pleasant aspects of city life. Instead, they seemed plump and juicy in her hand. And they were waiting patiently for her to get over her anxiety.
“Alright,” she said cautiously, “but if you taste like the curb at Pike Place, I will burn every one of these bushes to the ground.”
Her plan was to try one berry at a time. But once she’d made up her mind to try the berries, the hunger pains won out. Half of the handful of berries filled her mouth, and she let out a little joyful sound when they tasted like berries instead of car exhaust. The texture was just like a blackberry, as expected, but the flavor was somewhere between a marionberry and a blueberry. Sweet, delicious, and just a tiny hint of tartness that made her wish for a pie crust to wrap around them.
Before she could finish swallowing that first handful, Tanisha had already begun picking more of the orange berries off the bush in front of her. Despite it being a pretty sizable bush, the berry bunches were relatively sparse, and in under a minute they were all gone. And all in her mouth. Even the ones that were a little mushy from being over-ripe, or the extra-tart ones that weren’t quite ready.
The presence of ripeness gave Tanisha a slight pause. This wasn’t a mechanic in dARkness: Online, but it made sense that the world would have its own quirks. The False Lands wasn’t just a copy-paste of the day one release. And as such, Otekah might have more weird mechanics up their sleeve.
She’d need to be careful.
“Ugh,” Tanisha said, groaning as she put a hand to her stomach. It still ached with hunger. She looked down at her bars, and grimaced to see how little her hunger bar had moved. “I’m going to need a lot of these. Good thing they’re tasty.”
The bushes ahead of her seemed to have more fruit on them, so she directed her chair in that direction. Stripping each bush of berries seemed to give her the barest fraction of her hunger bar, and so she just went from bush to bush, following the denser clumps of foliage.
After around twenty minutes—and a herbalism skill up—her hunger bar was about halfway full. Tanisha had traveled a pretty fair distance in search of more berries, and her travels had taken her closer to the river. She could see up ahead that there was a large stone outcropping, and so she decided to explore. There might be another purple mushroom up there, which would take care of her stability for a good long while.
Investigating the spot revealed it was another secluded location, just like the tutorial area. There were a few scattered trees, a bunch of tall grass running along the edge of the river, and scattered about were nearly a dozen berry bushes.
“Was this someone else’s tutorial area?” Tanisha stopped on the edge of the grotto, terrified that blundering into it would trigger another set of tutorial quests. “Or is this just a copied asset?” The little grotto didn’t answer, and Tanisha decided to brave it. At best, venturing in would give her a chance to refill her hunger bar. At worst, being trapped in another round of tutorial quests would give her the chance to learn more about the world. And possibly level up her skills somewhat.
Nothing popped up on her UI when she dug into the first bush. By now, the flavor of the berries had faded into the background. Instead, she was just focused on refilling her hunger bar. She let her mind wander.
A part of her was marveling at how nice this spot was. It felt secluded and private with the rocky outcropping providing a potential source of purple mushrooms, trees and grass for materials, and a dozen berry bushes—not to mention how many were in the forest behind her—for food. If she was looking for a place to set up a camp, to spend some time building crafting workbenches and gearing up, this wouldn’t be a bad place.
But that was a trap. At least, on that scale. She pushed the thought out of her head. She needed to play the game and to survive, sure, but securing this grotto would be a megaproject. There would always be something else to do, and eventually she’d lose sight of her original goal. Tanisha had lost entire weekends to booting up survival games on a Friday night and just ignoring the passage of real-life time until sometime midmorning. On Sunday. If she started to make camp to really gear up, there was no guarantee she’d ever stop. In six days, she’d be planning some large-scale project to build a giant watchtower, and another week grinding up her construction skill so the thing wouldn’t collapse. After that would be something silly, like turning the watchtower into a giant statue of herself, and trying to figure out how to make it breathe fire.
Otekah would be forgotten. Her life, too, would be forgotten. She’d be surviving, but not living.
Tanisha wrestled with the gamer and engineer parts of her brain before they could team up and start tackling the logistical challenge of a fire-breathing statue. It would certainly be a memorable monument. But her goal here wasn’t to mess around and waste time. She wasn’t blowing off steam after a long work week. If Otekah was to be believed, her life was on the line. And who knew what would happen in the real world the longer she was trapped here.
Was her truck still in that parking lot? How long before it was towed?
Since Tanisha lived alone with no current employment, how long would it be before someone reported her missing? And most importantly, could she still make it back in time for the start of bear season?
“Right,” Tanisha said aloud, around a mouthful of berries. “But I shouldn’t be here. I’ve been kidnapped against my will. Getting comfortable really isn’t an option. I need to get out, but just blindly trying to force that isn’t going to work. There needs to be a middle road.”
In response to her voice, something in the grotto made noise. It was a snuffling sound. And it was close. So close, in fact, that Tanisha jumped so hard she nearly fell out of her chair.
“Hello?”
The snuffling noise grew louder, and Tanisha swore she began to smell smoke. Her heart dropped into her feet as she looked down at the berries in her hands. They still looked like berries, and not like smog…
“Okay, so one of two things happened. Either there are humans here, and I’ve stumbled into someone’s camp and you just lit your fire at the sound of someone eating your food.” She looked around at the nearest berry bush, which was towards the sound, and hissed. “Or I’m in trouble.”
On the other side of the bush, only about ten feet away, was a big, dark shape. It had beady black eyes. A quadruped, a little smaller than a horse, with a broad head and little round ears, was standing there. It was oddly accurate to its real-world inspiration, unlike most of the fanart and out-of-game depictions.
Normal folks tended to prefer drawing grizzly bears and coloring them black, instead of learning the differences that distinguished them from the common black bear. The difference between a real black bear and this one, though, was readily apparent when it saw Tanisha. Its eyes lit up like someone ignited gas behind them, as the irises turned fiery red and tendrils of black smoke billowed out from between its teeth.
Tanisha cursed.
Besides their fire-breathing nature, blackened bears had a lot in common with real black bears. They tore apart bushes for their berries, ripped stumps to shreds for grubs, and would eat anything they could find unattended.
But unlike real black bears, blackened bears didn’t like to share. And they were also extremely aggressive.
Time to go.
Chapter 22
The bear reared back and a giant ball of fire erupted from its mouth. Tanisha’s hands flew to the sides of her chair and she maneuvered it away and to the left. The blast of fire was nowhere near hi
tting her, even without her dodge. But it did turn the berry bush she was next to into an inferno.
With a snarl, the bear lumbered towards her, and Tanisha very much wanted to avoid the incoming swipe of those wickedly curved claws. It wasn’t just that they were scary. Blackened bears were one of the strongest non-boss monsters in dARkness, rivaling even some of the lower-tier bosses in the game.
It was just a whole lot of nope.
Tanisha’s chair easily outpaced the bear as she retreated around the little grotto. The bear’s attacks would only be deadly if they connected, and it was slow. Easy to dodge.
She entertained the idea of standing and fighting. The berry bushes, tall grass, and other resources available in this area was definitely worth fighting for. Even if she didn’t want to make camp here, finishing the top-up on her hunger bar and securing another purple mushroom would be worth it.
Tanisha popped open her inventory and cursed at what she saw there. “Oh, come on.” She grimaced. The only thing of value was her axe. “I guess I’ll just have to make do?” She had materials to craft a few more tools, and could do so even while dodging the bear’s attacks. But that would require more involvement than she really wanted to deal with right now.
Darting in and baiting out the bear’s claw swipe was dangerous. But she was practiced at timing her movement, and Tanisha was able to duck out of the way and dart in with her axe in hand. When a little red six popped out of the strike, the tool felt terribly inadequate. She didn’t remember the exact number, but she knew blackened bears had hundreds of hit points.
This wasn’t going to be an easy fight.
The bear’s momentum was slow building, so Tanisha was able to get another five hits on the beast before she had to dodge the next claw swipe. It snarled when it attacked, and Tanisha’s anxiety spiked because of it. In response, her stability bar drained slightly.
“Nope. No worries, at all. I’ve got this under control. Not panicking! I’m fine!” She stepped up and swept her axe through the bear’s flank, rhythmically swinging out six more red sixes, and then darting away before the next claw could come. “This is entirely under control, game! No need to lose stability over nothing!”
The stability bar seemed unmoved by her pleas. Of course.
The bear turned towards her after its next swipe, its eyes flashing red. Tanisha recognized the tell and directed her chair to dart away, instead of in. Smoke billowed from the blackened bear’s mouth, and despite the long wind-up and early warning, Tanisha barely avoided the rolling cloud of fire that erupted from the creature’s body.
Her health bar suddenly seemed very, very small, as the wave of heat rolled off the attack and engulfed a nearby tree. The berry bush from before was starting to burn down, and the forest detritus around its base was beginning to light as well. In the game, there was never any worry of starting a forest fire when fighting one of these. But here? This was going to be dangerous. The fire was going to spread, and if it continued for too long—which it would, at this rate—the whole forest would go up in flames.
And Tanisha with it.
She couldn’t fight like this. It would be a deathtrap. If the bear caught her, it would chew through her half-empty health bar with only a few strikes, and if it didn’t, she still might die to the inferno to come.
So, she did what any sensible person would do.
She fled.
The chair’s walking speed was faster than the bear’s, but not by much. And the beast was relentless. She didn’t know how far the soldier bees had followed her the previous day, but the bear just kept lumbering after her, the distance between them growing by only scant inches as time went on. Tanisha wanted to direct her chair to sprint again, to leave the fire-breathing creature far behind, but her fuel was running low. And she hadn’t even taken the first steps towards making more. The chair’s normal speed was more efficient. And she couldn’t afford inefficiency, not with her stability and health so low, and her hunger still not refilled.
As she fled at a controlled pace, her stability bar kept draining. That made her more concerned than the on-fire bear who still tried to keep pace with her. What if it dropped low enough for the Stick Folk to menace her again? Would she be in for another night like the previous? She promised herself it wouldn’t get that bad again… but what if she couldn’t help it?
Tanisha tried to focus on keeping the chair moving at a smooth and even pace. She filtered out the snuffling and growling behind her. It felt like an entire day had passed before the noises stopped, and she turned to watch the bear finally give up on the chase. It was nearly fifty yards away, and she wondered how long she had been gaining by inches before finally being far enough away from it to lose its interest—or far enough away from its spawn point to leash it. Whichever.
It was still daylight, but things were looking a little dark around the edges.
In her concern for her stability bar, Tanisha had blocked out her surroundings while fleeing. But now that she was looking around, she noticed she’d left the forest behind. It was visible back where the bear was retreating out of view, but she was surrounded by empty grasslands. There were no berries here, and in fact, nothing that looked like food. Just scattered grasses, and some small stones here and there on the ground.
The Stick Folk were there as they had been in the forest, but now they were seriously much more menacing. They stood in the open field, their upper bodies sticking out of the tall grass. Tanisha hadn’t lost enough stability for them to be solid shadow, and so they were still faint and immaterial. But that was only just a matter of time, wasn’t it? How long before the stability bar next decided to randomly plummet?
“I won’t go back,” she said aloud, a snarl curling her lip. “I told you, I won’t let it get that bad again, and I won’t!” Tanisha turned to the nearest shadow form and yelled: “I won’t! Don’t think for a second I’ll let you get me!”
But what options did she have? There weren’t any big stone outcroppings here, so she couldn’t find any purple mushrooms. Even into the distance, she could see nothing of interest. The grasslands just seemed to stretch for miles in almost every direction. There was a mountain poking out of the horizon, but that was it. It reminded her of Kansas, and Tanisha shuddered.
The good news was that the sun wasn’t at its zenith, and so it wasn’t yet noon. So she might be able to make it to the mountain before nightfall, and just force-feed herself purple mushrooms through the night in defiance of whatever stability drain the darkness caused.
Of course, that would only work if she could find food there, too. And a way to restore her health. Oh, and her stamina, of course, which was seriously waning. Not to mention her fuel reserves, which might not even make it all the way to the mountain.
Her eyes started to sting, and Tanisha knew she was going to cry. She looked up at the sky and willed the tears back before they fell. There was too much to do. She needed to find food, a way to safely handle the nighttime, and she needed to engage with the systems built around this bizarre physics-defying chair. But she didn’t want to do any of that. She just wanted to leave. To go home.
“Why is this all so hard?” Her breath hitched as the tears finally overfilled her eyes and ran down her cheeks. She pressed her lips together, holding herself back from fully crying. “I’m good at this game, for whomever’s sake!” Her fingernails dug into her palms, and she whispered through gritted teeth. “I’m one of the top ten in the world. Top five, on a good week. I spawned and beat the Vritra boss pre-nerf! I’m two steps and three hours away from having the world’s first Yoichi Bow! I shouldn’t be getting out-fought and chased off by a trash mob! So why the heck is this so hard?!”
The answer, of course, came quickly. Tanisha wasn’t playing the game. Instead, she was trying to speedrun it blind, having never touched it before. She had no idea where Otekah’s castle was, and had wasted her first two days in-game running in a random direction because she didn’t want to play.
But if
she could find that middle ground? Play without getting lost? She might just have a chance.
The realization helped her control her breathing and banish the tears.
“I just have to play the game,” she said, and her voice came out even and calm. Tanisha nodded, before repeating herself. “Just play the game. That’s it.”
She looked across the grasslands now with fresh eyes. It wasn’t an obstacle. Instead, she could see it as a resource. Grass and stones? Perfect. And the forest behind her was wood and berries. And meat, still bounding around on the hoof.
“One problem at a time.” She took a deep, steadying breath. “And the first problem is night is coming. Easily solved. I just need a place to sleep.”
The first place of advice Tanisha gave to new players of dARkness—in opposition to many of the experienced players—was to be patient. Learn at your own pace. Handle problems as they come. There’s no rush. No one who starts playing is going to rocket to the top ten by taking on content beyond their reach, or hurrying to farm rare drops and pray they get lucky.
So, she turned and headed back towards the forest. This world already required some adjustment before she was comfortable. All she had to do was take her own advice. Handle things as they came. She was basing a lot of her expectations on the real world, and the current patch of dARkness. And those expectations were going to just cause more and more trouble.
One thing at a time.
And first? She needed to find a place to camp.
Chapter 23
At a more reasonable pace, it took Tanisha almost ten minutes to get back to the forest. She stopped and looked between the dense trees and scattered berries of the forest, and the dense grasses and scattered stone of the field behind her. The border between them was unrealistically defined. Trees didn’t thin out and give way to the field—they just stopped. There was all but a line drawn on the ground, and on one side, trees weren’t allowed to grow. It was weird to be there in person, but it kind of made sense to Tanisha. Games—especially survival games—tended to have environments that seemed to be painted onto the world, with well-defined borders.
Darkness Named Page 16
