“You.” The grunt, a wood-elf guy with a long-bow over his shoulder, glared at me. “Over there.” He nodded to the corner of the cave. I crawled in that general direction.
By the time I got there the stone was shimmering and the floor was quaking. Out came Angie behind me, just as sodden a mess as I. The elf grabbed her by the hair and pulled her toward me. I was surprised that, for all the apparent strength of her frame—she looked like a total tank—she apparently hadn’t the ability to resist at all.
Or maybe they’d just broken her, too.
“You look like hell,” she muttered as the elf pushed her into me.
“Good to see you, too.”
“Move,” he barked. I looked up and saw a passage before me, leading deeper into the caves. I shrugged and started crawling.
The elf sighed. “On your feet. C’mon.”
“I don’t think I have the strength,” I said.
“Or stamina,” Angie added.
“Hold on a second.”
We waited.
The cave buffed up our health points. Our other stats remained halved, for now, but the HP had some other, unquantified effect. 50HP just felt better than 10HP, and before long, I found I was able to slowly rise to my feet.
The wood-elf made us walk down another long, narrow passage. Had it been unlit, I wouldn’t have been able to see a thing. Even though I’d gained a second level in Night Vision, it was halved just then, back down to level 1. But this tunnel was illuminated by the intermittent glow of more of the brightly colored magical mushrooms. As we trudged along, my HP continued to climb. I hardly saw it as a cause for celebration.
Eventually the passage opened into another cavern, even larger than the first. It was ringed with smaller tunnel openings, I thought at first. Then I looked closer at the openings and saw the bars. Those weren’t tunnels.
They were prison cells.
“Stand and deliver,” the wood-elf called out. In front of me, a truly massive character stood. His skin fairly glowed with a faint blueish hue over his rippling muscles, and the tips of fangs protruded from his massive underbite. He looked even more a troll than Angie.
“Hold still now,” he rumbled. His voice pealed out like a tiger growl, and I froze in place, terrified at the sound of it.
Debuff: Heart of Fear
We can’t all be brave all the time. You have been struck with debilitating fear. All movements slowed by half for one minute. Strength, agility, and intelligence all lowered by half for one minute. Stiffen up that backbone!
Very funny.
I don’t know if I could have moved if I’d tried. The truth is, almost a minute went by before I even thought of it, so odd was the effect of the debuff. I was in a malaise, unable to form a plan or even analyze the situation intelligently. After a few seconds, the troll-man grunted.
“This one’s clean. Must have dropped everything at the runestone, then.”
“Nothing of value,” the wood-elf said quietly. He held out a small slingshot—my slingshot—and the troll-man took it with a sneer.
“Next.”
The moving mountain performed the same trick on Angie, then on another guy who came behind us. I recognized him as the other character she had been with in the woods before we’d partied up with Taco Tuesday.
“Ah, ah. This one has a bound item.” The fangs protruded a bit more as a ghastly smile passed over the troll’s face. “Let’s see it, then.”
The character—human, by the look of him—shook his head. His voice came out shrill and tight with fear. “I don’t—I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“None of that, now.” The troll took a ponderous step toward the man, growling. He tried to back up but the wood-elf pressed a dagger to his back. “Bring it out, pipsqueak. Let’s see what you’re hiding.”
“Ok! Ok, God, ok!”
I heard the faint sound of liquid hitting stone, and looked toward it only to see the man wetting himself, a stream coming from the bottom of his thick cotton tunic. I turned away, embarrassed for him.
The troll gave a throaty laugh. “Ah, now, don’t be shy, night-elf. Look at me.”
I resisted.
“LOOK AT ME.”
My eyes snapped to him, my head turning against my will, and then I couldn’t look away.
You Have Been Stunned
Something (or someone—let’s be real) has shaken you to the core. You are unable to move of your own volition for ten seconds.
The troll closed the last remaining step. His hot, stinking breath washed over me like an unholy shower. “You’d do well to do as you’re told, night-elf,” he grunted. “I have authority to do more than just scare you, if I deem you a threat.”
I saw the man hold something up in my peripheral, but I couldn’t tell what it was. The wood-elf snatched it from his hands and there was a faint tear, like that of thick paper. Parchment, then. “What’s this?” he snarled. I heard him unroll the parchment. After a moment of silence, he laughed softly. “Oh, sure. Good luck getting out there, tycoon.”
“Lemme see.” The troll took the scroll and laughed much more raucously. “Worthless!”
There was more tearing. “No,” the man said. “Please!”
“Relax,” the wood-elf said. “It’s bound. It’ll reappear in your inventory. Not that it will do you any good. You could never make it that far out, noob. Not even if you were free.”
“Now get in line,” the troll said. Then he left my line of sight.
A few seconds later the stun wore off. Angie and the other guy had fallen in at the end of a line of characters who were all heading slowly out through another tunnel. I saw a number of cells had been opened. We were being herded in with the prisoners, then. I wish I could say I stopped for a moment and considered my options, but the truth is they had my number. I got in line and followed the others into the dark.
___
A cell is a cell. Doesn’t matter where you are. What was interesting about mine was the amount of time I’d been left inside without any prompt or system warning about needing to logout soon. I guess I’d been hoping through all of this that eventually there would be a forced logout, once I’d exceeded Janus Corp’s recommended login time by whatever amount was necessary to get flagged. I was a little hazy on how long I’d been lying up against the cold stone wall in the back of my cell, but I was pretty sure it had been at least a full day since I’d first lay down and put on the interfacing headset. The company recommended scheduled breaks at least every two to three hours, and warned against remaining in-game for more than twelve uninterrupted hours. So I should’ve been noticed by now, right?
I shared my cell with three other characters—players, I assumed, though I’d been too out of it to check their stats. Of course they’d separated Angie and me. I must have been muttering out loud, because after one of my bouts of near-sleep, one of the guys—he looked like a burly dwarf—leaned over to me and said, “It’s the time compression. Remember?”
I didn’t remember. I looked at him askance. He sighed, his breath rattling a little in his chest.
“There’s like a two-to-one ratio. One day in here is only half a day out there.”
“One day in—” My head hurt too much to figure that out. “How did they manage that?” I rolled to face him, my mouth hanging open. I felt like shit.
“Dude, did you even read your player’s manual?”
I frowned, closing my mouth. It hurt to swallow. I was thirstier than I’d ever been. I glanced at a dim flashing box in the corner of my vision and it expanded, notifying me of two debuffs in effect, one for hunger and one for thirst. My strength, stamina, and agility had all been dinged again by nearly half, but it was a little message at the bottom of each debuff that was most interesting and troublesome:
Stat reductions will become permanent if you do not take sustenance within the next in-game period of 48 hours.
“Shit,” I muttered. “Do they ever feed us?”
The dwar
f gave a mirthless chuckle. “Yeah, they feed us. If you can call it food. Just enough to avoid the permanent debuffs, which I guess you’ve noticed, eh? Can’t have their workers’ strength cut in half.”
So the game penalized you if you went three days without food or water. Heavily penalized you. I took note of that for later. Whatever was going to happen to me, I’d be even more at everyone else’s mercy if I lost so much power so quickly.
“Where’s the manual?” I mumbled, toggling through my screens.
“Dumbass.” The dwarf looked at me like I’d just asked what two plus two was. “You can’t access it now! Don’t you get it yet, bro? Your shit is locked down. You’re a prisoner for real. You got nothing but what they let you have.”
“But I’ve got…” My mouth dropped open again as I flipped through my screens. He was right. I had nothing. My slingshot was gone, my map was wiped, my stats were still dinged from the death debuff, too, and worst of all, my invisible bag… I called to it in my mind, willed it to appear, even reached out on the ground around me like I’d dropped a coin, but nothing. It was just… gone.
“Fucking Taco Tuesday!” I growled, sitting up. My head throbbed in protest.
“Dude,” he laughed. “You came in on a Tuesday? They called themselves Fish Fry Friday the day they scooped me up. And this guy here—” he hitched his shoulder at one of our cell-mates, a bearded human character clad in light, stained leather—”they told him they were called Meatloaf Monday. That’s why we call him Meatloaf.” He squinted at me. “I’ma call you Chipdip. Because I like to dip my tacos, and because you’re obviously a dipshit.”
“But my name is Gid—”
“Chipdip. Chip. Dip.”
My frown deepened, but after I’d been so totally taken for a ride in my first day of play, I could hardly argue the point. “Pleasure,” I said. “We call you what, Nemo?”
He laughed again. It was a nasty sound, bitter and raspy. “That’s not too bad, really. You hear that, fellas? Y’all can call me Nemo from now on.”
Meatloaf grunted in acknowledgment. Behind him sat a hooded figure, shrouded in the shadows of the corner.
“Who’s that?” I asked quietly.
“Oh him? He doesn’t play well with others. But c’mere, Fangs. Introduce yourself.”
The figure stayed put but lifted his head. What dim light was available glinted back from a pair of sharp, elongated teeth. I sucked in my air in fear.
“Whoa man, are you—are you a vampire?”
The guy put his head back down.
“Nah man,” Nemo said, “Fangs is a mongrel. Only he’s been locked in his humanoid form by these douchebags, so even he can’t exploit his loathsome powers to try to get out. By the way. If you’ve been lying there wondering how you’re gonna get out, allow me to dispel any remaining hope you may have. You’re new here, so I understand if you’re feeling optimistic, but… well. You’re pretty much fucked. We all are.”
“Has anyone tried?” I asked.
Fangs raised his head again. “I have,” he said, his voice like the whisper of death itself. A chill crept down my spine and I half-expected to find another fear debuff staring me in the face.
“Tell him what happened, Fangs,” Meatloaf said. The man crossed his arms and looked back from me to the mongrel.
Fangs merely growled and bowed his head back toward the ground.
I looked up at the sound of iron clanking against iron. There was some commotion out in the cavern beyond the cells. The other guys sighed and gathered themselves near the cell-door. Even Fangs stood up.
“What’s up?” I asked Nemo.
“Shift-change,” he said glumly. “Time to get to work.”
Our door swung open as if by magic—no, probably actually by magic, I reasoned—and we filed out to find the other cells open as well, and the other prisoners all coming out and lining up. I searched frantically for Angie until I spotted her. She looked proud again, defiant, standing tall with her shoulders back. Hell yes, little sis. We weren’t going to take this lying down.
“Angie!” I yelled to get her attention. Our eyes met and we shared a brief, pained smile.
“KEEP QUIET!”
The troll’s voice boomed in the cavern, bouncing off the stone walls and making nearly everyone in line cower in fear. I got hit with the Heart of Fear debuff again. Geez. They’d better feed us, I thought, or I wasn’t going to have enough strength to stand. I glanced up again, realizing I’d been staring at the ground, but Angie was looking straight ahead now. Her line, adjacent to mine, was moving into a tunnel. In seconds I lost sight of her.
“Shit.”
My line was being marched slowly into another tunnel. At its entrance sat a bored-looking goblinoid player. As each of us passed, he armed us with a work tool.
“Pickaxe,” he said, his voice flat as he handed the digging instrument to Fangs. Meatloaf came behind him. “Shovel.” Next came Nemo. “Bucket.” Then it was my turn. “Pickaxe.”
I took the pickaxe from his hand, expecting to hardly be able to lift it. My strength was practically negligible at this point, after all. But to my surprise, the item almost felt light. I looked at it, my eyebrows rising.
Tool: Enchanted Pickaxe
Status: Armed
Strength Required: ???
Skill Required: Beginner
Durability: ???
“What the—”
“Keep moving,” the goblin said, an edge coming into his voice. I staggered forward, staring at the pickaxe. Why was the strength requirement unreadable? Maybe that was enchantment—any strength would suffice? That would make sense, I suppose, if you wanted to arm a slave-force without actually arming them against you. That way you could keep their strength low. Must effect durability too, I mused.
Staring at whatever found its way into my hands and reading numbers… it was weird, man. I was not a hardcore gamer. I wondered absentmindedly what it was like for people who were. Did they walk around in real life, half-expecting system messages to deliver stats on their items whenever they picked up their phones or sat down to a bowl of soup? Crazy.
“Ow!”
For a moment I was stunned. Something had hit me square in the face.
Damage Taken
-1HP
I looked around dumbly for who or what had struck me. From in front of me, Nemo shook his head in disgust. “Geez man. Pay some fucking attention.” He nudged something at me with his foot. I bent down and retrieved a small, hard, gray object. Some kind of rock?
New Item: Worker’s Bread
It’s stale, it’s old, it’s rotten to the core, but what did you expect, a five-star meal? This hunk of low-quality food will provide sustenance, and that’s all that counts. Or at least, that’s what you should tell yourself.
Would you like to add this item to your inventory or use it now?
Warning: this item is already expired.
Huh. I turned the bread over in my hand. I could hardly call it bread, truth be told. I grimaced. “This thing full of maggots?” I muttered.
“God, I hope so,” Nemo said. “Protein gives more strength. C’mon, suck it down. We gotta keep moving.”
Once you got through the tough-as-a-board exterior, it wasn’t too bad. I was able to chew it and get it down, at any rate. I willed myself not to think about the taste or texture. All that mattered was getting rid of the hunger debuff before it became permanent. To that end, it worked. So did the water they passed down the line in a skin flagon, though the taste was even less savory. I decided not to worry about lead poisoning or bacterial infections. If the game developers had managed to make either a reality, they could go to hell. I was thirsty.
They led us down a long tunnel to another cavern, the far side of which consisted of a substantial pile of rubble. Then they lined us up at the foot of the rubble heap.
“Get to work!” Another goblin squeaked. All around me, other prisoners hefted their pickaxes and began splitting the boulders, sink
ing their tools into rock and pulling them out again. Those with shovels and buckets began scooping up the smaller pieces. Sighing, I lifted my pickaxe and sank it into the stone before me.
To say it was monotonous would be the understatement of the century. Hours passed. Up went the pickaxe, down went the pickaxe. The air of the cavern filled with a heavy cloud of dust, making all of us stop and cough from time to time. Gradually I made progress grinding my stone down to a pile of rubble, which others carted away. I began to consider the awful possibility that no forced logout would take place. Anyway, these other guys would have been logged out by now if that were a thing. Fuck. I hacked away, my mind too numb with shock to even process anger.
Passive Skill Unlocked: Hard Labor
Have you been bad? You’ve been sentenced to hard labor. Congratulations, you’ve begun to hone a skill that will help you survive! Hard Labor is a passive skill that can only be improved upon through use. It is also an influencer skill. Leveling it will improve baselines in strength and stamina.
Skill: Hard Labor
Type: Passive; Influencer (Strength, Stamina)
Level: 1 (scalable)
Effect: 1pt increase to Strength and Stamina for every in-game twenty-four hours’ use
I paused a moment.
Now that was interesting. I hadn’t expected to gain skills while hacking away at this stupid thing. I almost laughed at the ridiculousness of it. Neither improved-upon stat were part of my intended build. Neither had anything to do with magic. And it wasn’t as if I could put the increases to use while I was locked up in here. A steady increase in any stat was nothing to sneeze at, but only 1pt for every full day in-game? That was a pretty slow trickle, I imagined. And anyway…
Finally, I started to get angry.
“Who the actual fuck,” I growled, “What kind of sick, demented developers dreamed up this skill? I’ve been bad? Dude!”
Quest for Vengeance Page 7
