You have suffered 2 HP damage.
You have suffered 1 HP damage.
You have suffered 2 HP damage.
The first prompt must have been the damage from the Gale Blast. The log went on in ones and twos like that for each subsequent punch and kick I received until the following message:
You have fallen unconscious.
I didn’t see any XP prompts until much later, probably when Leo had healed me. I assumed this was the XP I received for knocking out three of my aggressors before the mage attacked me.
You healed for 221 HP.
You have received 14 XP.
You have received 14 XP.
You have received 15 XP.
Thus ended the log and, along with it, what I hoped would be my trip to this world of magic and awe. This was new and terrifying.
“Thanks for your help, Leo,” I said as we reached my apartment and entered the building’s long foyer.
“Don’t worry about it”, he replied and kept moving forward toward the elevator.
Oh, he’s coming up with us? Why do you have to be so happy-go-lucky, Leo?
There didn’t appear to be much I could do to dissuade him. I supposed he did take care of Louie, after all.
“Leo, I don’t want to be any more of a burden to you,” I said as I put the key into my apartment’s door. “I’m sure you’re tired. You can go home and I’ll figure out the rest.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said and I silently cursed my luck for being blessed with such friendliness. “I just want to show you one last thing and give you a way to research on your own.”
“Is there really a manual for—” was all I managed to say before he interrupted me.
“Man, I haven’t been here for ages!” he said excitedly. “I think it was, like, two years ago. No, it was exactly two years ago. I sneaked into your apartment to set up the streaming station you always wanted.”
“The streaming station I once wanted, you mean,” I said, immediately biting my lip when I realized how ungrateful I must have sounded.
“Too bad you’re not utilizing it fully,” he continued, not paying any attention to my comment.
“Well, I don’t need to use the cameras, the lights, the microphone, or the stream deck to go live. You’ll know I’m alive if you see my game feed.”
“But how do you expect to grow on Twitch if you don’t show yourself or talk?” he retorted.
Sure, it was once my favorite hobby, even if I didn’t have nearly as good of a setup as I do now. But at that time, I had something more important that pushed me to achieve things.
“Do you want dinner?” I asked as I put a precooked chicken fillet in the microwave, completely ignoring his last question.
“I’m cool. Just come here so I can show you how to scan people.”
At this point, no matter how exciting this all sounded, I had made my mind that it was something that I didn’t need. Especially after having endangered Louie and earned myself a few stitches. I would be perfectly fine in my apartment if I just continued with my routine.
Having said that, I didn’t want to seem even more ungrateful to Leo than what I already was. And so I put some food on Louie’s plate and joined him in the living room.
“I bet you’ve already accidentally scanned people, since you were able to see that I’m a mystic,” he explained. “All it takes is to think about scanning the person or people in your field of view and you immediately absorb all of their information, since they are part of the Dark Energy. If you get question marks, it means that person has set their basic information to private and you can’t pull them.”
“Okay, sounds straightforward. But knowing all this… why are you still working as a developer?”
“Well, certainly not for the money,” he said and nudged me with his elbow, wearing a wide grin. “To be honest, I kind of liked it at first. It was entertaining and it made for a good change of pace. Anything to have some time away from my family, you know. Now, I guess I’m just used to it.”
“Sounds so weird to me that a magic-user would choose to spend his days developing games, but hey, you do you,” I said and shrugged. “What about that manual you mentioned?”
“About that. It’s not an actual hard-copy manual, but let’s say it’s something that’s available for free if you have a DEM account.”
“Are you going to make me ask?” I said and could almost hear him snickering as he scratched Louie’s belly. “What is a DEM account, Leo?”
“DEM is a massive corporation operating in multiple realms. Think Amazon but hundreds of times larger. Its full name is the very unimaginative Dark Energy Marketplace. You can find everything there, and I do mean everything: jobs, magic items, equipment, real estate, and much worse.”
“Like drugs and hitmen?” I asked him, thinking he was pulling my leg with some kind of Dark Web crap.
“There are far worse things in the Apocosmos than drugs and assassins, Alex. However, you can make a pretty penny if you invest some time in it. In any case, in order to access it, you need one of their devices. You can have mine for now. It’s old but it works just fine.”
He removed his hand from Louie, who was still lying on his back waiting for more scratches, and produced a white tablet from his bag. He gave it to me and as soon as I touched it, the screen lit up.
“It’s saying that I should register, since I don’t have a DEM account already.”
“Go ahead,” Leo prompted. “The device recognizes that someone else is using it and will guide you through the activation process.”
The device looked a lot like a tablet but had no slots or speakers. It was a featureless glass screen with the letters “DEM” engraved on the top. I did as Leo instructed and began filling out the questions it prompted me with. It seemed fairly standard—things such as name, address for deliveries, and the like—until I had reached the final part of the activation process.
“It’s asking me to hand the device over to the person who introduced me to the DEM,” I said and Leo took the device from my hands.
“Okay, this should do it. Let me get the book as well.” He continued mumbling as he prodded the screen and once he handed me the device, it looked exactly like the Windows operating system I used at work. “The device adopts an interface that’s suitable and easy-to-use for you. You can find the book in your Documents folder.”
“That is…” I searched for the right word for this weird amalgam of magic and technology. “That is some great technology. I see a browser too. Can I use it as a regular tablet as well?”
“For fuck’s sake, Alex. I just gave you an opening to the Dark Energy Marketplace and you’re interested in knowing whether you can watch your Linus Tech Tips videos?”
“It’s just a question,” I said. “I’m not sure I plan on having anything to do with this world at all just yet.”
“Then no, you can’t use it as an iPad. The browser is specific to Apocosmos sources, or websites if that makes it easier to understand. Whatever you can think of, and a lot more, exist online and are accessible with this device. But only Apocosmos content.”
As he was talking to me, I had started browsing through the wares on sale and my eyes were filled with wonder. There were objects I had read about in fantasy and science fiction books, anything from immovable rods and rings of storing to photon torpedoes and mech-suits. All were available for sale here. In dollars! Some of them had unbelievable price tags: $43,250,000 for a teleportation ring, or $3,850,000,000 for a luxury villa in a place called Risa. The Trekkie in me stirred before I was literally stirred by Leo.
“Hey, you can check those later,” he said and started pacing in the apartment again. “I said, have you considered moving to a smaller place closer to work?”
My excitement over the magical items in the DEM and the possibilities they brought with them was immediately eliminated by the thought of what he had just proposed. I wasn’t going to leave our house. Why would I? This was the pe
rfect apartment.
“No, not really,” I answered casually. “I like it just fine.”
“But the prices in the neighborhood must have risen a lot,” he continued. “Maybe you could start fresh in a studio closer to the office.”
Start fresh? Who the fuck said I want to start fresh? Why would I want to do that? I had it all and I was happy. This was our place. Our home. Why should I just leave and forget her? What would that make me? How would it affect Louie, who still waited for her to come every night?
No, I didn’t want to move. This was my house and I was just fine with how I lived my life. I didn’t need anyone telling me I should move on. I didn’t want the excitement. To hell with it. I didn’t ask to be pulled into this shit.
“Are you okay, man?” I heard him ask. “You blanked out for a moment there.”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I just need some sleep, I think. Thanks again for healing me,” I said as I moved to open the door for him to leave.
“Cool,” he said, kind of awkwardly and headed for the door. “We’re playing D&D tonight and we’re going to stream it.”
“I know. The Exandria one-shot. How come you’re streaming it though?”
“No, no. I canceled that since you had your little accident,” he replied with a smile. “This is a special table. Apocosmos only. I’ll send you an invitation by email later.”
“Okay. Have fun.”
“Take it easy, ragazzo,” he said as I closed the door on him.
Having slept in the hospital, I wasn’t feeling tired at all but I couldn’t stand yet another “you have to move on” and “life goes on” lecture. I had deliberately distanced myself from all the people who had insisted on telling me that, full-heartedly believing something of the sort was possible. I didn’t want to have to completely cut off my relationship with Leo as well…or rather whatever was left of it after three years of almost only interacting at work. He might push it a bit sometimes but I remembered having fun when we used to go out. He also took care of Louie whenever we went on trips. He was taking care of him the night I didn’t return home.
I made sure Louie’s bowl was filled with water and then got into the shower to clean myself of the dried blood and dirt. While in the shower, I experimented a bit with the text interfaces that kept appearing in my view, trying to make them almost translucent while I hid most of the unnecessary things. I didn’t need my vision cluttered by the damage logs and experience logs.
I also had to do something about the carnival of hair I had now. It wasn’t as if my usual long hair was the epitome of style, unless the person judging was in a 90s power metal band, but at least it hadn’t attracted much attention. My shaven side where the doctors had stitched me up now screamed “look at me” and I’d rather shave my whole head than look like an attention-whore. For now, I shaved the other side as well, trying to at least make it as symmetrical as possible.
When I was done, I’d collected enough hair to weave a blond sweater for Louie. I flushed it down the toilet and dared to take a look in the mirror. My head didn’t look that bad, but my beard wasn’t long enough to pull off a badass Viking look. I’d always kept it trimmed short, lest I invoked a styling intervention from my boss. Maybe now was the time to try and grow it out again.
I sat back on the couch and laid eyes on Louie who was following me to his usual position—the one he had slept in for more than three years. He was lying on the edge of his pillow, head on the floor in front of the door, looking underneath. Waiting. Every single night. And every single night, it broke my heart to see him there.
“I’m sorry for what I put you through, buddy,” I said, and even though he didn’t turn his head to face me, his ears pricked up. “I promise, I’ll hold myself back next time. Work, gym, home. The two of us.”
The vibration of my phone interrupted me and I picked it up to look at the notification. It was Leonardo’s invitation to his Dungeons & Dragons stream. I clicked on the link and, instead of being redirected to Twitch, YouTube, or another streaming platform, a prompt appeared, asking for the full name of the person who had invited me as well as my full name. I wasn’t exactly in the mood to watch his stream, but I knew he would ask me about it. Sometimes I wondered why he had never stopped trying to get me back out there, but I guessed that’s what good friends do. I typed the names and the URL field disappeared from my device completely. Before I managed to tap anywhere else on my phone, the stream entered full-screen.
A beautiful diamond-shaped wooden table, similar to the ones used by big D&D streaming groups, was surrounded by a group of people with Leo at its head. He had just started talking, introducing the game he was going to DM, but I paid little attention to what he was saying. Instead, I examined the people sitting around the table and instantly absorbed what information was available about them.
Name: Sierra Lancaster
Race: Human
Class: Mage
Level: 13
Name: Saa’za Gadit
Race: Night Elf
Class: Sorceress
Level: 16
Name: Chester Ironhoove
Race: Jungle Orc
Class: Paladin
Level: 43
Name: Hollis Aestrea
Race: Light Elf
Class: Scout
Level: 24
Name: Eleiah Narith
Race: Light Elf
Class: Oracle
Level: 34
Their classes and levels were as diverse as their races. I had to zoom in to believe what I was seeing. Three elves, one of whom had dark-gray skin, a human and an orc sitting around the same table as though the cast of Critical Role were playing in cosplay. Their demeanor was so casual it almost made me feel excited about becoming part of this world. But I knew that excitement was something I wasn’t worthy of anymore and this new world could only bring me and Louie more trouble.
Before I closed the stream, a notification popped on my screen, with the preview reading “INVOICE”. I turned off Leo’s stream and opened my email account thinking it would probably be some kind of phishing attempt. The body of the email seemed legit and came from the hospital I had been treated in earlier. It was kind of weird how fast they’d processed the invoice, but I opened the attached file to see the analysis of the hospital costs and what was covered by my insurance.
My insurance had paid $2,324.45 for my hospitalization and I was supposed to cover the remainder which was… Twenty-seven thousand fucking dollars? They must be on crack if they think I’m just going to pay this kind of money. $27,660 for the CT scan, the ambulance company’s bill, the stitches, and the bed.
Not wasting a second of the rage boiling in me, I called my insurance provider. As I went through their automated process of identification, where I had to speak out loud my credentials and reason for calling, I only became even angrier. So angry in fact, that before the agent had even finished his opening “my name is whatever, how may I help you” line, I was already screaming my lungs out.
“I’m not paying a single dime for this shit. This is why I’m paying you. This is why I’m letting you suck my blood month in, month out. For emergencies like this.”
“I am sorry, Mr. MacFie,” the man replied in a monotone voice, “but injuries from fights aren’t covered by your health insurance plan.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? I was beaten up by five people. I was left bleeding on the side of the street.”
“I truly am sorry for your misfortune, Mr. MacFie, but as I said, your current plan doesn’t cover these costs. However, you might want to consider upgrading to our…”
“I’m sorry, what was your name again?” I interrupted.
“My name is Gary, sir.”
“Well, fuck you, Gary!” I shouted, hanging up the call and sweeping everything off the kitchen table in one violent motion, breaking glasses and dishes as they hit the walls and floor.
The veins on my temples were throbbing and I
was seriously considering renting a car just to drive it to their offices downtown and through their glass entrance. But all my wrath escaped me when I saw Louie cowering in the corner of the room, shaking in fear.
“Oh, no, buddy,” I said and felt a wave of disappointment hit me as I realized it was the second time my temper had hurt him. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s fine. Everything is fine.”
He jumped up in my lap as I fell on my knees in front of him and his shaking immediately subsided. I knew that my feelings were a problem but it had never occurred to me that it could cause damage to anybody other than me. I put him on his pillow again and laid down next to him, petting his neck. Life had suddenly thrown me the most expensive curveball because of my temper and all I could think of was how it affected Louie. After all, I didn’t need money to live. Okay, perhaps I needed some to feed us and keep a roof over our heads, but nothing else mattered if it meant hurting him. He was the last thing and the only thing I loved. My last and only connection to her.
A few minutes later, I felt his eyes and head become heavier so I let him sleep in peace and went back to the kitchen to clean up the mess I’d made before Louie walked on a fragment and hurt his paws. As I started picking up the biggest of them, my mind drifted to how I would be able to afford to pay for the hospital expenses. I was making good progress on my student loans, especially since I didn’t travel or do anything fun really, but was still down eighty thousand.
I wasn’t being pressured as I’d never missed any of my payments but this additional cost would definitely change things. Maybe I could ask for some kind of loan from work.
No, I’d rather sell my kidney than ask them for money upfront. I wouldn’t mind selling my department lead’s kidney though…
Berserker: A LitRPG Urban Fantasy Adventure (Apocosmos Book 1) Page 4
