Rebirth Online

by Michael James Ploof

  “It’s a long story,” I told her. “So, what now?”

  She placed the back of her right hand against my forehead. She was warm, hot even, and the closeness felt intimate. I tried not to stare at her cleavage busting out of the tight leather outfit beneath her cloak.

  “Well,” she said as she felt my neck. “You can’t see it, but I’m a level 10 priestess. And now, thanks to Mad Morgan, you’re my guinea pig. I’m just kidding. I’ve been gathering herbs and things, creating my own medicine for you. I could just kill something for a healing potion, but what fun is that? This way, I can level my alchemy and my healing at the same time.”

  “Where are we? How did I get here?”

  “In a cottage in the woods, about two miles south of Riverton. It’s for levels 6+. I hope to level up in the next few days and move on to the 11+ territory. Anyway. I found you on the road dead. When you didn’t resurrect, I knew that you must not have gotten back to your body yet, so I brought you here and performed a resurrection spell.”

  “What would have happened to me if you hadn’t come along?” I asked, wondering how long I’d been dead.

  “You would have remained there until someone else came along. It wouldn’t have been forever, there are NPC priests who travel the land looking for players to resurrect.”

  “Why the hell am I a level 9?” I asked. “I was a 10 when I started.”

  “That’s the beauty of Rebirth Online. There are consequences. Levels 1-10 are noob mode, with PVP turned off, you know, player vs player? But once you hit level 10, higher level players can gank your ass, and you lose a level with every death. If you drop back all the way to zero, then you’re permanently dead in the game.”

  “Permanently?”

  “Yup. Reach zero, and your spirit is transferred to the underworld,” she explained. “There’s actually a whole subculture popping up of players who hit zero on purpose. Supposedly there’s a whole nother storyline down there.”

  “How do you get out of the underworld?” I asked.

  “You don’t. Anyway, no one has figured out a way yet. And if you want to buy in with a new avatar, it costs you double.”

  “I don’t have the money to pay twice what I already paid for the game. I’m not rich, I got that money to buy into the game from my settlement,” I said, half to myself, half to her.

  “Settlement?” Her eyes sparkled with intrigue.

  “Nevermind. I guess I just need to make sure that I don’t hit level zero.”

  “It’s harder than you think,” she told me as she strode across the room. Her hips swayed alluringly, and when she bent to check on the soup I turned my head guiltily and looked out the window.

  Dusk had come, and the sky beyond the pines outside the cottage was a collage of deep bruised blues, muted reds, and streaks of violet. A lone star twinkled in the waning daylight.

  “I’ve reached level 12 before,” she said. “But I’ve been knocked back down to 10 about a half a dozen times. It’s getting frustrating as hell.”

  “Aren’t you in a guild?” I asked. I knew that much about the game, everyone did. A player’s best bet was to join a guild. Already there were at least three with almost 30 members.

  “Nope, haven’t found one yet that didn’t have an asshole for a leader.”

  “Why don’t you start one then?” I asked sincerely. “I’d join.”

  “No one wants their leader to be a healer,” she explained.

  “Why the hell not?” I asked. “It’s one of the coolest things you can be.”

  “What about you?” she asked. “Why’d you pick a fire mage?”

  “I wanted to be able to blow shit up,” I said with a shrug. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I debated what class I was going to be for weeks, but in the end, I just thought a mage would suit me best.”

  Anna returned to my bedside with a bowl of soup, and she shut me up pretty quick when she blew the steam off a spoonful and locked me in her gaze. She spooned the helping into my mouth and my taste buds exploded with flavor.

  “Holy shit that’s good,” I said, and accepted the bowl and spoon. I knew in the back of my mind that my real body was hooked up to an IV back in the real world, but in this world, I was starving, and the soup warmed me just as well as anything my grandmother had ever made.

  Alright, maybe almost as well as grandma.

  “It won’t heal you quickly like a potion, but real food is important here, just like in the static world,” Anna informed me.

  Static World was the name given to the real world by a group of gamers who called themselves the Seekers. They believed that our reality was just one of many levels in the cosmic game of life. To them, Rebirth Online was the next level, and somewhere hidden inside was the gateway to yet another level. These weren’t men and women, boys and girls trying to hide from reality. They were trying to find it.

  “You’re a Seeker,” I noted.

  “Aren’t you?” she asked, and her face betrayed her thoughts—she had assumed so.

  “No, I mean, yeah, sure,” I stammered, and then let out a tired sigh. “No, I’m not. I’m a paraplegic lying in a hospital bed somewhere with a dozen tubes in my body. I didn’t come here seeking enlightenment, I came to escape a reality that I could no longer bear.”

  “Oh,” she clutched her chest and laid a warm hand on my thigh. “That’s why you were jogging when you spawned.”

  “Yeah,” I said with a smile. “I haven't jogged in a year, it was great. What about you? Who are you in the static world?”

  Her smile faded, and she moved over to a cupboard and nosed around inside long enough for the question to go stale in the air. When she returned to me, I had finished my soup, and she took the bowl while presenting me with a glowing vial in the other hand.

  “Here,” she said. “This will restore you to full health.”

  “You had this all along?” I said. “You could have healed me all along?”

  “I had to make sure you were a good person,” she said, and took my bowl to the water basin.

  I uncorked the glowing red liquid, tossed it back, swallowed, and watched my health go from 33% to 100% in five seconds.

  “Holy shit!” I yelled. I had sampled my share of drugs in college, but this was something altogether more amazing than anything humanity had ever cooked up. Taking the healing potion was like every drug wrapped up into one big happy, healthy concoction.

  It wore off pretty fast though, making me want to get injured again.

  “Yeah, pretty amazing, right?” Anna said from the kitchen. “Careful you don’t become addicted to that.”

  “Why, is that happening to people?” I asked, horrified and amazed.

  “Yup,” she said with a nod as she washed my bowl. “There are players out there so addicted to health potions that they injure themselves just to get a fix. It’s getting bad.”

  “How long have you been in game?” I asked.

  “A month,” she said. “Unlike you, I started out at level 1. You might think you got a head start over the rest of us by buying level 10 status, but you weren’t doing yourself any favors. I mean, you don't know shit, and you’re in a level 6-10 zone. Hell, Mad Morgan is the first NPC you learn about when you spawn in the safety of Tallis Arken.”

  She stared at me dubiously when I showed no sign of recognition.

  “You really don't know anything, do you?”

  “Sorry Anna, but all I know is how the interface works. I mean, that’s all the trainer told me, and that it’s a fantasy game.”

  “Right,” she said, and returned from the kitchen to sit on the foot of the bed. “Sorry. I mean it’s kinda cool. You not knowing anything, I mean. I always liked to teach.”

  I wondered what exactly she meant by that as she stared deep into my soul with those large orbs of sheer beauty.

  “You do?” I said hoarsely.

  “Yup, that’s why you should get dressed, and we should go out into the woods and grind.”

  “G
rind?” I said, my own eyes wide with hope.

  She squinted hers. “Grind, like grind out levels,” she said slowly.

  “Oh, right, yeah, let’s go grind,” I let out an awkward laugh. “Let’s go kill some shit.”

  “You can wear this for now,” she said and swiped something on her interface. I was reminded that Mad Morgan had looted everything from my corpse, which meant that Anna had found me naked. “It’s not much, but we should be able to loot something better in no time.”

  I checked my inventory and, seeing the new item, I dragged it to my avatar. A second later I was wearing the borrowed robes. They were crimson with gold trim like the ones that had been stolen from me.

  “Hey, by the way, what’s your special ability?” she asked as she strapped a wand to her thigh alluringly. Well, at least it was alluring to me.

  “Special ability?” I said, never having heard of such a thing.

  “Yeah, everyone has one, and they’re all random. They say that the abilities range from growing mushrooms out your butt to having the power to tame dragons. Everyone’s is different, and they aren’t all awesome.”

  “What’s yours?” I asked as I brought up my home screen. I tapped the character icon and scanned down until I found SPECIAL ABILITY.

  “Mine’s not that great,” she said with a shrug. “But it isn’t bad either. “I can turn anything into a healing talisman.”

  “Well, that’s pretty useful,” I said.

  “Yeah, yeah,” she said in a sing-song voice. “What’s yours?”

  I tapped on the icon for my special ability, and text unfolded on a long scroll. I read it aloud. “Character: Samson Sullivan. Race: Human Class: Fire Mage. Special Ability: The power to instantly level through…”

  “Instantly level?” she said, moving over to where I stood by the bed.

  “Yeah,” I said with a laugh, and read the rest to myself.

  The power to instantly level through sex with another (non NPC) character.

  “Well?” Anna said and slapped my shoulder, “What’s it say?”

  “Ugh… I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you.”

  “Try me.”

  “I don’t know. It’s weird,” I said, wondering if I had read it correctly.

  “Dude spit it out,” she said, arms wide. “It can’t be that bad.”

  “It’s not bad, really, just…”

  She stared.

  “Fine,” I said with a weak laugh. “It says that my special ability is the power to instantly level up through sex with non NPC’s.”

  She stared at me, but then her face exploded into a giant laugh.

  “I’m serious,” I told her.

  “Yeah, nice try, pal. Wow, now that is rich. ‘I level with sex’,” she said in a mocking tone.

  “Hey, that’s not all,” I said matter-of-factly. “Whoever I have sex with levels too. It says so right here, babe.”

  “Mmm, hmm,” she hummed. “I bet it does. Listen, if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine.”

  “I’m telling you the truth.”

  “Well, good luck with that,” she said with a wave of her hand as she strode to the door. “You done messing around? We’ve got a level to grind out.”

  I swiped the menu closed and joined her at the door. I tried to forget my special ability, but the sway of Anna’s hips didn’t make it very easy. Reluctantly, I pushed such thoughts aside and followed her out into the nighttime world.

  I was intent on getting back to level ten, one way or another.

  Chapter 4

  I followed Anna out of the cottage and into the star filled night. The weather was mild, about 69 degrees, with only a faint wind that rustled the tops of trees and whispered through the long reeds surrounding a small pond behind the cottage. It reminded me of early October back home. The air was crisp, and carried the smell of pine, wildflowers, pollen, and the musk of autumn.

  I tapped on the MAP icon on my interface, and the scroll rolled up and back down quickly. The map wasn’t much of a map at all, and only showed the road that I had died on, the cemetery, and the cottage.

  “My map isn’t showing me shit,” I noted to Anna.

  “That’s because you haven’t been anywhere. Don’t worry, once you explore some more your world will expand.”

  “What are the other areas like? Do the seasons change here?” I asked as I tried to keep up with her.

  “I don’t think so. But the seasons are different in each zone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know, like this zone is kind of always late summer/early fall. Other places are always winter, some are always spring, and so on.”

  “That’s cool,” I said as I tried to walk as gracefully and quietly as Anna, but it was near impossible, and I wondered if she had on enchanted boots.

  “Alright, let’s get to work,” she said as she stopped and pointed at the clearing in front of us.

  I came to stand beside her and peered into the clearing, and a shiver ran down my spine. The pines on the other side were completely covered in thick white spider webs and spread about were at least a dozen big hairy spiders the size of a Pomeranian.

  “That’s nasty,” I said. “I friggin hate spiders.”

  “Yeah, well, you’ll get over it,” said Anna. “Go ahead and blast one, let’s see what you’ve got. And aim for one of the outliers, we don’t want to pull aggro from the whole group. It’s harder to aim than you think.”

  I licked my lips and cracked my knuckles. Then I went through the hand gestures to conjure a fireball and instantly felt my right palm growing warmer. I took aim as best I could at the closest spider, cocked back my hand and waited for the spell to build, then thrust it forward. Fire about the size of a golf ball shot out of my palm, missed the spider, and hit a thick birch tree.

  “Almost,” said Anna. “Try again.”

  “Alright,” I said, and allowed the glowing spark in my palm to grow in intensity. I thrust my arm forward, unleashing a fireball the size of an apple. It streaked across the clearing and hit the spider I was aiming at right in the eyes. The arachnid was blasted through the web and caught fire, and I let out a hoot.

  “That was fucking awesome!” I said triumphantly.

  “It’s not dead yet,” Anna warned, and I turned to see the charred spider scurrying toward me.

  “Oh shit!” I aimed again and let loose another fireball but missed the spider by a foot.

  The health bar beneath its level indicator was down to 40%, and I thought for sure that one more hit would kill it, that is, if I could hit the damned thing.

  I fired again and again, and both times I missed. The spider covered the distance startlingly fast, and before I knew it, the thing leapt through the air and right at my face.

  “Die you little bastard!” I yelled and unleashed another fireball. This time I hit it point blank. The spider exploded in front of my face and speckled me with green ooze. “I got it!”

  I watched in wonderment as three translucent copper coins floated through the air toward me and disappeared into the sack tied to my belt. I checked my stats and smiled when the loot was added to my inventory.

  “Yeah, good job,” Anna said with a small laugh. “And it only took you 6 fireballs, and 60% of your mana.”

  “Hey, it was my first time. Let’s see what you’ve got,” I retorted.

  The beautiful elf cocked her head as if to say, “Challenge accepted,” then she pulled a silver tube about six inches long out of the inner folds of her cloak and flicked her wrist. To my delight, the six-inch cylinder expanded from both ends, and two seconds later it had become a five-foot-long staff.

  “Nice,” I said with growing respect for the woman.

  I watched mystified as Anna sprinted into the clearing, leapt into the air, spun a circle, and unleashed a glowing spell from the end of her silver staff. The spell hit a spider and shook the entire web.

  I realized that she was going to aggro the whole group,
but before I could call out a warning, Anna raised her hand into the air, screamed something in another language, and brilliant light shot out of her palm. The sparkling magical light cascaded outward like an umbrella, draping over the clearing and the spiders, who were suddenly rendered immobile. I watched with growing admiration as Anna ran around the clearing and laid into the prone spiders with her silver staff. Her spell was leaching their health by about 2% per second, and one strike with her spinning staff was enough to end them. She had burned all her mana in one spell, but it was way more efficient than I could dream.

  Before I knew it, she was standing beside me breathing a little heavily and smiling from ear to ear.

  “How do you like them apples?” she said as translucent bronze and silver coins floated through the air from the spiders’ corpses and disappeared beneath her robes. Then a translucent dagger, short sword, some type of herb, and an old boot floated into her sack.

  “Here,” she said and pointed a finger at the air in front of her. She swiped to the side, selected something, and the short sword that she had looted appeared in her right hand. She gave it a flip, caught it by the handle so that it was facing away from me, and handed me the sword.

  “Thanks.” I gave it a few swings. It wasn’t well balanced, and it didn’t look very sharp, but it was better than nothing.

  “You’re welcome,” she said with a warm smile. “It’ll take you some time to get good with it, but you know what they say, practice makes—”

  “Perfect,” I finished for her.

  “No,” she said. “Practice makes better. Here in Rebirth Online you’ve got to actually learn and practice swordsmanship. I mean, you can gain speed and strength and all that, but if you’re a klutz in the Static World then you’ll be a klutz here as well.”

  “I played a lot of sports in high school,” I told her, spinning the short sword like I knew what I was doing. “And I’m a fast learner.

  “Good. Let's find some more stuff to kill.”

  We moved deeper into the woods, and soon came across a big coil of snakes. They were huge, at least six feet long, and wrapped so tightly that I couldn’t tell if there were five or fifty.