Notes from Emmy:
It's amazing what getting stoned, good music and great conversation will do to shake the bad off. This chapter was fun to write!
As a reminder, the posting schedule will be Wednesdays and Saturdays. I would give you an exact time, but I'm waaaay too ADHD for that. :P
As always, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy.
Emmy

“So how long have you been playing?” I asked my companion as we wandered deeper into the canyon walls, or at least I thought we were going deeper. The thing about enclosed halls and tunnels was how easy it was to get turned around. We could have been going in circles for all I knew, but fortunately Gabin seemed to know his way around, or at least I hoped he did.

                “I started playing a few months ago when the game first opened to the public. Wasn’t sure what to think of it at first but it eventually grew on me.” I had been following behind the big guy since we left our friends all mangled and corpsified a few turns back. The more we journeyed on, the more I wondered what these tunnels had been used for. Gabin had said that you could get to just about anywhere in the city through these tunnels, but I hadn’t seen another person, other than the Chuds since I regained consciousness. NPC logic was one thing, but this just seemed strange. “How about you? Played any other games?”

                “A few,” I said off handedly. I learned a long time back early in my VR gaming career that it wasn’t a good idea to make it known what games you had played, or rather, I learned that it wasn’t a good idea to tell others who you played as in what games. Although a rare occurrence, VR stalking was something to keep in mind.

Most people logged in to either get away from the stresses of their meaningless lives, or for professional reasons, but there were some who took VR obsession too far. There were laws against cyber bullying and harassment, systems in place to deter this type of abusive behavior, but sometimes things slipped between the cracks, and sometimes people got fucked with. I knew this from firsthand experience.

                Gabin didn’t seem to take offence to my vague answer, instead simply nodding silently as we continued on. With conversation no longer happening, my anxiety began its silent twisting around my gut and up my spine. It wasn’t that the silence between us was uncomfortable, in fact most would probably say it was the  opposite. I had always been bad at social nuance, picking up on cues and all that kinda shit that people inherently developed and learned early in life. Unexpected lulls in conversations, especially with strangers, always left me feeling obligated to say something, even if there was nothing to say, which inevitably made me feel like I was fucking up somehow. When I was younger, teachers and what not urged my parents to get me in some form of therapy that would help me with this stuff, but naturally they declined on the basis that I was “perfectly fine,” that the only thing wrong with me was my lackluster academic performance, thus I went untreated. Now in my twenties, I had more difficulties connecting the social dots than ever. Sometimes I could skate by letting others lead conversations, but other times, like now, I would begin to break down little by little the longer a silence was drawn out, amicable or otherwise.

                My internal meltdown was suddenly halted as Gabin stopped a pace in front of me. I just managed to stop from running into him, my anxiety spiking with my startlement.

                “Ready to do this again?””

                It took me a secont to figure out what he meant, but the smell suddenly reminded me where we were. I nodded nervously then remembered he wasn’t looking at me and wouldn’t have heard my response. Before I could answer  verbally though, two Chuds appeared at the other end of the corridor, their oversized jowls dripping a disgusting slop all over the place.

                Gabin sprang into action, his tree trunk thick legs propelling him forward, fists swinging through the air like massive boulders. The chest of the first Chud imploded noisily as it went down in a heap, blood splattering everywhere. The secont Chud dodged the blow that would have no doubt decapitated it, instead lunging towards me, it’s claw like hands poised to wrip me to shreds. The memory of the last monstrosity to get me on the ground raced through my mind, galvanizing my reflexes, injecting terror and an unwillingness to die to one of these fuckers into my limbs.

                My sword was in my hand before I knew it, my legs side stepping the attack as I brought my blade up and around in a graceful arc that severed the bastard’s arm at the shoulder. As the thing cried out in agony and fury, I pivoted, my digital body knowing exactly what it needed to do as my sword sang through the air, cleaving the Chud’s skull in two.

                The body hit the ground with a muted thump, though my attention was now fixed on my now crimson blade. What the hell had that been? Astonishment welled up within me as I studied my handy work, my eyes taking in the carnage I had just unleashed.

                “Fucking hell!” Gabin exclaimed as he looked on in amazement. “Are you sure you’re a newb?”

                I shook my head and wiped my sword on the leg of the thing I had just killed. I had always seen something like this done in movies and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to do it now myself. I mean, how fucking degrading to your enemy is it to clean the weapon that killed them with their cooling corpse?

                “How did I just do that?” I replied, though I wasn’t sure if I was asking my companion or myself.

                “Well,” Gabin began. “I know I’ve seen lower level players take on higher level enemies before and win, though there was a great deal of planning involved when they did it. Maybe it’s a game mechanic thing? Like, maybe it’s a realism feature? Sharp sword plus fleshy neck equals dead body?”

                I sheathed my sword, an action that I noted felt as natural as breathing. This level of emersion and gameplay was beyond intense. It was like this body had undergone some sort of special training or something. The avatar instinctively knew what to do, I just had to know what to tell it. I could totally see why people who had the money locked themselves in long-term storage and stayed in VR for as long as possible.

                “You’re the vet,” I said as I took up the not so fun task of luting the corpse, not feeling so bad about pulling the credits from the thing and stowing them in my inventory. I did just earn these ones fair and square, and a glance at Gabin told me he agreed.

                “Whatever it is, keep it up and you’ll pull in XP like crazy, though I still wouldn’t chance letting them get ahold of you.”

                I nodded in agreement. I felt so much more confident now, so much so that the anxiety that followed me everywhere I went seemed to be muted or somehow quieter. I so wasn’t complaining about this development.

                A few minutes later, we were on the move again, our footsteps echoing off of the walls around us as we left two more fallen foes behind to rot.

                “You said that these tunnels connect to the city,” I blurted out loud before I could catch myself. “But I haven’t seen any signs of life other than our ugly friends.”

                “Yeah. All these passage ways are interconnected, but the further in you go, the more maze like things get. We’re in deep enough that the people who live here call us crazy for venturing so far. They prefer to stick closer to the outside, living in the first few layers. They don’t like the tunnels too much.”

                “Could it be because of the Chuds?”

                “Doubtful,” He said as he turned sideways to squeeze through a narrow section. “There’s enough of them that they could perge the tunnels of the bastards pretty easily if they wanted. I think there’s something down here, some sort of… Well you know how RPGs are.”

                “This is kinda dungen like,” I concurred.

                “Exactly,” he went on. “I’ve been here for about a week trying to figure out what’s going on. Most players are content to hunt for XP outside of the city, granted they die pretty quickly when the things in the sky catch them, but I think there’s something more to this place than interconnecting tunnels.”

                I had to admit, I was pretty intrigued. If there was something, it would probably be too high level for me to get involved with, but I didn’t have anything better to do, and besides. Gabin didn’t have to tell me all this. He could have ditched me the first chance he had and let me find my way out of here and go on to find this mysterious thing, whatever it was without me. But he had been kind enough to drag me along, even helping me collect experience and creds. Even if I was of no use, I was just happy to have someone watching out for me like this. It was an experience that was wholly alien to me, in or out of games.

                We cleared another passage only to find ourselves in a cavern like monstrosity of a room. Stalactites  hung from high above and the illumination here was less consistent as some of the lights were damaged. Having been in enclosed spaces up until now, the change in scenery was disconcerting to say the least.

                Bones lay scattered about along with pieces of clothing, left here to rot long after the original owners had died. Their fate wasn’t clear, but given the rusty brown stains where the remains lay, I was pretty sure it hadn’t been of natural causes.

                “Well now,” Gabin said in interest. “This is new.”

                “I take it you’ve never seen this before?”

                “Nope. I tend to take a different rout every time I come down here.”

                We continued into the space, our eyes sweeping in all directions as we watched for any threats. My hands rested on my sidearms as I peered about. This place gave me the creeps. I felt like we were too exposed out here, like we could be walking into an ambush, though I wondered if the Chuds were even smart enough to plan something like that out.

                “Look at this,” Gabin called. He had gone further into the room than me, his excitement evident.

                I quickly caught up to him and glanced at what he was examining. He had a card, possibly plastic in material in his fingers, his massive thumb wiping at the dust and who knew what else that clung to it.

                “What is it?” I asked as he passed it over to me. It reminded me of an identification card. A perfect rectangle, with strange glyphs stamped or engraved into either side.

                “I don’t kno, but looks promising.”

                I didn’t want to act like I knew about something I didn’t, so I simply nodded in response. I passed the card back to him and stood up to keep watch. I might not have known what the hell I was doing, but the least I could do is watch our asses while he was having his happy explorer moment. Gabin moved from dismembered skeleton  to dismembered skeleton like a kid in a candy shop, eagerly sifting through the remains for anything of interest.

                I wandered a little ways away from him, not wanting to disturb him as I tried to get a feel for how large this place was. More tunnels fed into the cavern from different parts of the walls, some looking in better shape than others. Whatever had happened here had done some damage to the supports holding everything aloft, something that really didn’t give me happy feels. Was it safe to be in here? What about the roof far above us. Were there cracks up there, just waiting for us to come in here so they could finish breaking, sending who knew how many tuns of stone down upon our fragile little heads?

                “New Girl!” Gabin called suddenly, “check this out.” I wanted to remind him what my name was, but once again he called me ‘New Girl,’ or more accurately, he called me a GIRL and I was feeling things, a great many things as a result. Was that, happyness, maybe excitement?

                Shelving those thoughts for now, I quickly made my way back to him. He was standing, something in his hand as he turned it over. When I reached him, he held up the trinket to reveal…

                “Is that?”

                “A key? Hell yes it is.” It was shaped like a key, but that’s where the similarities ended. There were some sort of crystals where the little teeth would be if this were in the real world, with a black raised line like a wire inset into the metal that ran the length of it. Definitely a key.

                “You know what this means, right?” He asked me. I didn’t say anything, letting him explain. For as excited as I was for my new friend and our little discovery, the excitement was starting to catch up to me and I was feeling more and more socially drained as time went on. It wasn’t Gabin at all. Just… My brain doing stupid things as usual.

                “This means I was right! Don’t you see? If this is a key, then that means there’s godda be something that this key goes to. Maybe a door, maybe some sort of vault or something. Probably hiding something valuable or…” Gabin really did look like a kid right now. Well, a seven foot tall kid with four arms and enough muscle to juggle a few hundred pounds of led blocks without breaking a swette, but you get the idea. He was practically bouncing in his excitement, which is why it wasn’t him that saw them first.

                “Gabin!” I squeaked in alarm. Really needed to get used to using this new voice. Girls voices didn’t do the kind of yell I was going for. “The tunnels!”

                Gabin spun on his heel and cursed. “How much do you want to bet me picking the key up was a trigger?”

                I didn’t respond, instead choosing to ready my revolvers. Chuds poured into the room from nearly every tunnel. There were so many of them, in fact I couldn’t even keep track of how many. I didn’t wait for Gabin to tell me what to do. It was self-explanatory at this point, you could even go as far as to say it was commin sense. I opened up with both guns, my fingers fanning the triggers as though I had done this my entire life. Bullets tore into our enemies, some hitting true, striking flesh and leaving jagged holes, others hitting the stone walls behind them. The sound of all those screams was nearly enough to  send me running, though I somehow managed to hang onto what little composure I had.

                Suddenly Gabin was in the largest cluster of our foes, his fists and feet destroying all that they came in contact with. He was a fucking machine, crushing, pounding, using bodies as shields and weapons as he rained all hell down on anything that thought to get in his way.

                 My revolvers fired again and again. With each shot, I felt just that little bit more confident in my abilities to use the things, though I was getting nervous. I had taken out anything that got too close, but it was getting crowded in here and eventually I’d have to resort to my sword. I wasn’t sure that would be the healthiest thing in the world, especially considering how they liked to gang up on their prey. If this kept up, we were as good as dead.

                I glanced over at Gabin to find him covered in Chuds. Even as they clawed at his body, he continued ruining every one of them, though I had to wonder what his limit was.

                Suddenly, a Chud got too close to me, it’s claw slicing into my skin just above my elbow. I cried out in agony, jumping backwards in an attempt to put some space between it and me. Fucking son of a fucking bitch that really fucking hurt! I forced myself through the pain, not bothering to look at the damage because there was no time. My revolvers were switched out for my sword as I tried to fend off my attacker. I sidestepped like before, my sword coming from down low to up high, cleaving through the offending asshole’s chest and sending it staggering away, hopefully to fall dead. I turned just in time to use the flat of my blade to ward off a strike that would have probably killed me instantly then drove my blade into its neck. Blood spirted out, catching me in the face and blurring my sight as the Chud fell away. This wasn’t good. I reached up with my injured arm intending to wipe the gore away but forgot about my own blood which just mixed with the Chud’s. Really not good!

                Suddenly something hit me from the side sending me sprawling. I  Got to my feet quickly before I could be piled on, but my vision was still blurry. They never talk about this problem much in books and movies. Seriously, a girl needs to know about this shit if she’s going to do the sword wielding thing!

                I tried once again to clear the blood from my eyes, just in time to see a blinding white flash of light just before a thunderous boom filled the space, sending me and everything else to the ground hard. A moment later, Gabin was there, one of his hands picking me up by my belt and yanking me into the air as he ran. Was it me or was everything shaking more than…

                Oh shit! The roof was coming down! Why the hell did I have to tempt fate earlier? I couldn’t make out much of what was going on other than large chunks of really heavy stone falling around us and a great cracking that was louder than anything I had ever heard, or so it felt like. Suddenly we were freefalling into nothing, all the illumination that we had relied on to find our way now completely gone.

                Gabin wrapped himself tightly around me, clearly trying to shield me with his body, but I had to wonder how much good that was going to do because we were still falling and…

                For the second time since starting this game, something hit me in the head, once again sending  me into Lala Land.

 

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