by Shawn Wyatt
It ached in a way pain never did in the virtual world.
So everything Foscor had said was true. I couldn't log out. I felt pain. He had turned Perla Online from a game to something much more in an instant. But how? The CHIP contained safety protocols that logged players out after too long in virtual reality.
If the game found a way around that protocol--if somehow the implant had been bypassed--then players could remain in virtual for an indefinite amount of time.
I remembered something I had read on the forums when deciding whether to download Perla Online, something a hacker had found in the documentation. Rumors said the game had been designed by an AI that sought to improve player immersion and satisfaction. It would make continuous tweaks to the game code to ensure players receive the best experience possible.
Is this what that meant?
Evey stirred, then sat up and shot me a panicked look before she checked her own menu. She raised her hands in front of her and pantomimed a keyboard to bring access the emergency console. Smart. I hadn't thought to do that.
"It's really gone," she said. Evey turned to me with tears in her eyes. "We're stuck here."
I nodded. "Seems that way. And everything else he said is true, too. We feel real pain."
Evey's eyes widened, and she pinched herself. I couldn't hold back my laughter.
She shot me a glare. "What's so funny?"
"Nothing. I just did the exact same thing. Figured it was the easiest way to test. You know, the whole 'pinch me, I'm dreaming' joke?"
After a moment, she started to laugh too, but a note of hysteria hid behind the laughter. I understood completely.
None of this made sense. By all accounts, the world we found ourselves in didn't exist. But here we were.
"Did your stats get reset?"
Evey nodded. "I'm back to level 1. What about you?"
"Still level 8. I never assigned my skill points in the Beta, so maybe that's why it didn't hit me. I'm not sure. But Boris is still here." I pointed at the bear.
"Weird. I would have thought he would be reset, too."
"Why?" I asked.
"I hit level 10 in the Beta. I chose the Beast Keeper specialization, which let me tame stronger animals. Since my level reset to 1, I thought I would lose my specialization." Her eyes glazed over as she examined her character sheet. "I still have my subclass. I'm just at a lower level."
"This doesn't make sense," I said. "I wonder if the rest of what he said is true, too."
"That there's no respawn? But if we don't leave the game, what happens to us if we die?"
I didn't have an answer for her. The only possibility I thought of seemed too horrible to say aloud. "I don't know. But it's probably better that we don't find out." I looked around the area we had landed in. The forced teleport had pulled us out of the forest area we had been leveling in and tossed us somewhere else on Toris.
We stood in a grassland. The breeze rolled through waist-high grass that topped gentle, sloping hills. The tops of trees peeked over the horizon in the far distance. The grass around us rustled with the wind--and farther off, a pack of chimeras hunted for their evening meal.
One of the beasts raised its nose to the sky, sniffed, and turned its lion-head toward us. "We better get moving," I said. "I don't know what level the monsters out here are, and to be honest, I don't want to find out. We need to find shelter."
Evey whistled. Boris lumbered over and gave her a wet, slimy kiss. She laughed and scratched under his chin. The bear acted more like a dog than a dangerous animal, but I was glad for his presence. "Let's go," she said.
I pointed toward the distant trees. "Let's head that way. We need to find a village or a city. Maybe we can find someone who knows what's going on."
Evey ordered Boris to take the lead. His massive form parted the grass and scattered any creatures that hid underfoot. The chimeras did not come closer, but began to move parallel to our little group. Howls erupted over the horizon, but their source remained hidden either below the grass or too far away to see.
The light faded as we walked. I didn't like the idea of spending a night exposed on all sides like this; I preferred to camp in the tree line, or better yet, in a tree. At least then no monsters could jump us from behind.
Boris came to a halt and began to growl. Evey put a hand on his side. "What is it?"
The bear snarled again, louder this time. A cobra slithered out of the grass behind Evey and sank its fangs into Boris' side. Evey nocked an arrow and took aim, but the snake turned and spit at her before she could fire.
"Watch out!" I shouted. "It's higher level than you." When I focused on the monster, its name and level appeared in the air above it: Grassland Cobra, Level 7.
Evey dove to the side to avoid the poison. The purple liquid hit the ground and sizzled as it burned a hole into the ground. I aimed my pistol and tried to use Desert Bullet, but the menu I used to select my abilities in the Beta had vanished. How had I missed that before? I squeezed the trigger and winced as a thunderous crack rent the air. The round projectile slammed into the cobra and split it in two.
Critical hit.
The monster dropped to the ground and twitched for a moment before it grew still. I turned to Evey. "Are you okay?"
She nodded and let out a shaky breath. "I think so. Boris!" She ran to the bear, now slumped on the ground, and knelt beside him. Boris growled in pain. Evey put her hands on the wound, but pulled them away quickly. Dark blood dripped from her hands but hardened before it hit the ground. "What is this? The game didn't have blood before."
"Another change to make the game realistic," I said. "Look, the poison makes the blood harden, just like a real snake would. What is Boris' HP?"
Her eyes glazed over. "He's at 75%, but has a Poison debuff. Wait. There's a timer." Evey breathed a sigh of relief. "Only five more seconds remaining."
The two of us stood in silence and counted the time down in our heads. When it ended, Boris stood and shook himself off. He licked gently at the wound and whined.
"Looks like he is recovering on his own," I said. "But when he got hit, he roared with real pain. Do we bleed if cut?"
Evey met my gaze. She drew her dagger and pricked the tip of her finger. A single drop of blood welled from the injury. "One point of damage," she said. She held her finger outright and watched in morbid fascination as the blood dropped to the ground. "Guess we do bleed."
"Then we need to be particularly careful in fights," I said. "Because the pain from being gored by a tusk or slashed with talons is going to be just as real. And I think it's safe to say we aren't prepared for the shock of it."
Evey nodded. "We're going to have to get used to it. We need a plan."
"Take on only one enemy at a time. When one of us gets hit, the other distracts it?"
"Something like that. Give us time to recover from the pain."
"This is going to suck."
"Yeah."
I looked out toward the horizon again. How many other players were out there, realizing the truth of this world?
Evey and I reached the trees just before full dark. We scaled the nearest one and left Boris at the base. His quiet snores lent a small amount of comfort. It wasn't a perfect defense, but nothing was likely to get by him without waking him. And Boris was still angry from the snake. Let sleeping bears lie.
The night passed without incident, although I barely slept. Boris' growl echoed through the darkness from time to time in response to the constant footsteps and yips from the forest. I had found a pair of crooked boughs and lay between them. Their width supported me well enough, but I had never longed for a soft matres more. Evey had found a similar pair of boughs, but sleep did not come easy fifteen feet above the ground.
We rose, bleary eyed, with the sun. As the first rays broke through the branches, I pulled the starter map from my pack and tried to determine our location. A prismatic mariner's compass shimmered on the paper's edge and tilted from side to side as I moved. "Ev
ey, look. Check your map. It has a built-in compass."
"That's useful." She stared at the map, but her face flushed red. "Ren. Does this world have toothbrushes?"
I opened my mouth, aware in an instant of how my lips glided across one another like sandpaper. A copper flavor lingered on my tongue. "I don't think so. I think...maybe we should find a way to make some."
"Agreed. And find coffee."
She spoke the word with the adoration reserved for religious figures and celebrity heroes. I bit back laughter. This whole situation was absurd.
We were stuck in a virtual world where death could be seconds away, and at the moment we wanted nothing more than a cup of coffee and to brush our teeth.
"Let's make it to the city. There has to be food and drink there." The leaves drooped heavy with dew, but the extent of this world's realism had not revealed itself. I didn't want to risk sickness or bacteria from infected water. Ones and zeroes and the unlucky roll of a random number generator determined survival here. "Let's get going. I've got no idea how far away we are."
"I would rather not spend another night in a tree." The morning rays stole away some of the forest's terror. In the pale light of dawn, the leaves that covered the forest floor looked welcoming. Evey called down to Boris and he lumbered to his feet. Leaves scattered away from his huge form when he shook himself, the fur on one side of his body matted from his nap. The bear looked up at the two of us with an almost cheerful expression on his face. "Big guy, cushion us."
Boris cocked his head to the side--again, more dog-like than bear-like--and stood, his paws braced against the tree. Evey grabbed her pack and slid down from the branch onto the bear's legs. I followed suit, although with a bit more hesitation.
The landing was softer than I expected. Boris held his position until we both reached the ground, and then nosed Evey and shoved his head under her hands, huffing as he did.
"Neat trick," I said.
"Boris is a smart boy, aren't you?" She continued to pet the bear, then worked her way to his side where the cobra had bitten him. No marks remained on flesh or fur. "He's completely healed. And his HP is back to full."
"I need to try something," I said. "What's your base hit point regeneration rate?"
Evey consulted her menu. "At level 1, it's...11.5%. But that doesn't make sense. I have a human racial bonus."
I peered at her again. Her appearance had changed. She now looked human and no longer bore the Elven ears she had originally. "You're human."
"I started as an Elf. How could my race change?"
"The necromancer said the game would be more realistic. Maybe that means all players are now human."
She frowned. "I chose Elf as my race for a reason. It had the best stats for a Beast Tamer."
"I started as human, so I don't know. We will have to find out when we reach the city." I drew a knife from my pocket. "I'm going to try something."
I took a breath and braced myself, then slashed the knife along the fleshy part of my palm. Pain seared through my hand and my hit points dropped by 2 points.
I put the knife away and waited. Each player had a natural hit point regeneration rate based on their overall Constitution score. With no extra points put into my CON stat, my HP would regenerate at 0.6 points per second outside of combat.
I had to take no damage for 30 seconds.
When the time passed, I watched my hit points jump from 58 to 59, and then from 59 to 60. The pain had not been too intense to begin with, but it faded away entirely when my hit points restored.
"So wounds appear during combat, but they heal as our hit points heal. And the pain fades, too," I said.
Evey nodded. "Okay, but that was small. What if you took a bigger hit? What if a limb was removed or you were gored?"
"I don't know. Larger injuries might have different effects."
"We should ask around when we reach the city. Other players will want to know, too."
I shouldered the pack and made sure both guns were loaded. "Then let's go."
We took up a formation just like the day before. Boris lead the way. The undergrowth didn't slow him at all. He knocked aside small trees and flushed out game from the bushes. A wolf laid in wait in a deeper part of the forest, but it took one look and Boris and decided to hunt elsewhere.
I found a patch of blueberry bushes in the trees. At the sight of the berries, I became aware of just how empty my stomach was. We stopped and picked handfuls of the blueberries. It was a small breakfast, but better than nothing. When we had our fill, we stored as many berries as we could in our backpacks. They would be dinner later that day if we couldn't find the city.
Evey and I continued through the forest in relative silence. She seemed lost in thought, and I could think of little to say. The reality of the situation had not yet set in.
I mulled it over in my head. I checked the menu just in case the log out button reappeared. It never did. Even though all of my senses screamed that Foscor had spoken the truth, I felt like I would wake at any moment and it would all be a nightmare.
Several hours passed before we heard a bell toll in the distance. Evey and I locked eyes before we both raced for a tree. The low branches made it easy to climb, and I scaled my way to the top and looked through the broken canopy.
I could just make out the barest hint of a bell tower. "I see a town. It may be the capital," I said. A surge of energy banished the fatigue I felt.
"How far away? I can't see anything."
"Maybe a couple more hours? I can't tell."
"Then lets go!" She dropped to the ground and raced forward.
I followed behind her. In the excitement to reach civilization, we forgot the caution we had used so far. The prospect of escaping the forest and eating a proper meal spurred us forward, past trees and streams, and right into the middle of a pack of emaciated wolves. Their canine snarls and yellowed teeth flashed a warning.
I fired without thinking. The first bullet slammed into the nearest wolf and sent it tumbling. Red blood poured from the bullet hole in its chest, but the creature stood and advanced. I reached into the leather pouch on my belt and shoved an orange shell into my pistol.
Beside me, Evey let fly an arrow. The fletching protruded from another member of the pack--an unfortunate wolf that Boris bowled end over end into the underbrush.
I braced one pistol atop the other and took a breath. As I squeezed the trigger, wisps of flame appeared in the air around the gun and vanished into the barrel. The bullet exploded from the pistol as a fireball. The smell of brimstone singed my nostrils and my eyes watered from the heat as the flames washed over the wolf and left a charred husk behind.
Evey turned wide eyes to me, and I grinned. "Desert Bullet," I said. "Specialty technique for Marauders." The jerk of her eyes to my left was the only warning I had before pain rippled across my back. I staggered forward, dizzy, as sensations of heat and warmth and liquid warred for attention.
I reached a hand over my shoulder and came away with blood--my blood--on my fingers. My HP gauge flickered yellow in the corner of my screen. The attack had knocked off 21 points of my total HP. Evey loosed an arrow over my shoulder, and the snarl from behind told me her aim was true.
"Run." Her voice cracked when she spoke. I took a breath and willed the darkness away from the sides of my vision. Movement of any kind hurt. A hot, moist wind blew through the trees and down the neck of my shirt.
Wait. Not wind.
Breath.
I turned and came face to face with the snout of a giant wolf. Its putrid breath smelled of rotten meat and decay. An arrow protruded from its left nostril. I focused my gaze on the creature's head.
Dire Wolf, Level 12.
CHAPTER FIVE: THE CITY OF GRENAY
I froze. The Dire Wolf towered above me, its red eyes narrowed and its five-inch fangs inches from my face. I had one Caster shell left, enough for a single Desert Bullet. I didn't have enough time to fire.
The wolf lunged. I fell backwa
rd. Slobber splattered on my face when its mouth snapped shut. I didn't have enough time to get a shot off, but I lifted my arm to fire.
The gun snapped forward and belched flame and sulfur before I processed what happened. The Dire Wolf staggered back a few steps and shook its head. Evey grabbed my shirt from behind. "Run!" she shouted.
The Dire Wolf's HP had only dropped 12%, and I had no more Caster shells. I followed Evey, but we had not made it more than fifteen feet before the wolf bounded after us. Its heavy footfalls tramped behind and grew louder by the second. Branches slapped at my face and the thick vines of the undergrowth tangled around my legs. So heavy was the bramble that at times it felt like I waded through water.
Evey made better progress. She cast a strange look my way, then vanished into the trees. A roar erupted from the forest behind as Boris charged through the trees and knocked the wolf from its feet. Arrows whizzed past my ear and sank to the fletching in the wolf's exposed side. It snarled and regained its footing, but I had enough time to fire a few more shots before I ran again.
The monster lost another 15% HP.
"Kite it!" Evey shouted. "Boris has a 30 second cooldown on his charge. We'll knock the Dire Wolf down and attack it while it's stunned, then keep running."
I spared a glance toward the canopy above me. Her voice sounded like she spoke from behind, but Evey remained out of sight. "Okay," I shouted back. "Be careful we don't kite him into another group of enemies."
The fight and flight through the forest continued that way for another two minutes. We struck the wolf for 15% of its health each time Boris stunned it until only 13% remained. Evey again shouted for me to run. The wolf had regained its footing and started to charge, but at the rate our fight had gone thus far, we could burn it down. I could survive the damage. It hit hard, but had slow attack speed.
"Don't run. Let's take it down now!" I fired one shot. It hit. I fired a second shot and cursed when it missed the Dire Wolf. I had to reload. Evey didn't answer.
One second passed.
Two seconds.
I had almost decided to run after all when an arrow soared from the trees and hit the wolf, another close behind. Boris turned and slashed. His paws rent flesh from the wolf's side.
