Fantasy Online
Hyperborea
(Book One)
By Harmon Cooper
Edited by George C. Hopkins
Copyright © 2017 by Harmon Cooper
Copyright © 2017 Boycott Books
Cover by Tom Shutt
Edited by George C. Hopkins (georgechopkins@yahoo.com)
www.harmoncooper.com
writer.harmoncooper@gmail.com
Twitter: @_HarmonCooper
To add me on Facebook, click here.
All rights reserved. All rights preserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Map of Hyperborea
Author’s Note
Prologue: Troll battles
Chapter 1: Tamana’s great leap of faith
Chapter 2: Home is where the killer droid is
Chapter 3: Digital hallucinations
Chapter 4: Goblin security and why you’re better off without it
Chapter 5: Paradise of the Insane
Chapter 6: Brotherly love
Chapter 7: Is this the real life, or is itファンタシー?
Chapter 8: Natty Dread
Chapter 9: Dream armor or bust
Chapter 10: The Thulean
Chapter 11: Back to life, back to reality
Chapter 12: Hanging coffins
Chapter 13: Breakfast in the sky
Chapter 14: Cherry blossom ninjas
Chapter 15: Game changer
Chapter 16: The gun has no trigger
Chapter 17: Boaster Toaster
Chapter 18: A tendril of white magic
Chapter 19: Digital memories
Chapter 20: A puppetless puppetmaster
Chapter 21: Rilakkuma pancakes on the fly
Chapter 22: Dirty Dave’s Armor and Weapons Depot
Chapter 23: Orc zombie battle royal
Chapter 24: An egg for another day
Chapter 25: Drop in, drop out
Chapter 26: Kaizen
Chapter 27: Shogyo Mujo
Chapter 28: Aramis Solid Waste Management and Abatement Service
Chapter 29: Life in the fast lane
Chapter 30: The golden door
Epilogue: Brother’s keeper
Ryuk Matsuzaki’s character sheet
LAUNCH MONTH SPECIAL OFFER
Tritania Basics
Acknowledgements & More
Fantasy Online Merch!
The Feedback Loop preview
LitRPG book list
The Fantasy Online series is dedicated to the memory of Tom Shutt.
Map of Hyperborea
Click to enlarge
“Continents, three,
Float over the Endless Sea,
Hyperborea, Polynya, and Ultima Thule.”
--A famous Tritanian poem
“Takha bae bitakh novlaa rakh Aya Bortaetae,
Huborakha, Polonkhya, Hutamae Dulekh.”
--Written in Romanized Thulean
Author’s Note
The Proxima Galaxy consists of uncounted digital dreamworlds, all developed by the Proxima Company, a very specialized entertainment corporation. To access a dreamworld, one ‘dives’ with the aid of a neuronal visualization (NV) visor, which induces a lucid dream-like state for the ultimate first person VR experience.
Tritania is the VRMMORPG world in which the action of this novel takes place; the real world setting is 2075 Tokyo, Japan.
Within Tritania, there are three floating continents. The starter continent is Hyperborea, which is the setting for this book. To travel to the next floating continent, Polynya, a player must reach level 15. To travel to the third continent, Ultima Thule, a player must reach level 35. The game mechanics of Tritania are based on the JRPGs that shaped my childhood.
For more information about Tritania, I’ve included a Tritania Basics section at the back of this book, including an explanation on the in-game language spoken in Tritania, some of the common terms, time, and the relation of this book my other series, most notably, The Feedback Loop. Tritania Basics is accessible through the table of contents.
-Harmon Cooper
Prologue: Troll battles
At half the length of her body, Tamana’s buster sword is meant to be held with both hands, to be used as both a shield and a weapon, but she’s never been one to do things in a conventional way. She takes to the air, and following a perfect arc, she slashes through the enemy troll’s poorly crafted leather chest plate.
-15 HP!
She botches the landing, still not used to her buster sword’s weight, and cartwheels to the right. A fiery explosion suddenly flings the mountain troll backwards.
-5 HP!
Glancing over her shoulder, Tamana watches Ryuk load another black marble into his magic slingshot. He pulls back and lets go. A blast at the troll’s hairy feet produces a cloud of dust and a scattering of debris.
“Both hands on the sword!” Ryuk shouts to her for the third time that afternoon. He pops off another black marble at the feet of the troll, causing more dust to obscure the air. Range isn’t an issue with his magic slingshot; it propels the marbles with magic, not elastic, and it self-adjusts for range.
This is a good thing, as Ryuk is utterly terrible with his new avatar.
Tamana is by his side moments later, the strands of her long white hair beating in the wind. “My attack looked cool though, right?” she asks.
He has to smile at this.
“You chose a much stronger avatar than I did,” he reminds her.
She winks at him. “You always were up for a challenge.”
They lock eyes for a moment longer than necessary.
A smaller troll, likely the bigger troll’s wench, flanks the two. Grimy dreadlocks cover her face and yellow man-bone jewelry clinks around her neck. She pauses, grunts, and charges.
Ryuk loses his footing and muffs his next shot. The marble explodes and a nearby bush bursts into flame.
Still holding her weapon incorrectly, Tamana side swipes her ironing board of a sword at the she-troll and manages to cut the wench’s hairy arm clean off at the elbow. The she-troll shrieks as her black blood jets into the air.
-39 HP! Critical hit!
The dust clears. “Doka duchaka!” Maddened with rage, the savage male troll charges at the two with his fists held high over his head.
“I’ve got this!” Ryuk procures a clear marble from the pocket on his belt, pulls back, and looses it.
What the … ?
The male troll freezes in place, his chiseled arms still held over his head. Ryuk glances back to Tamana to find that she’s also fixed in place, her tremendous sword held awkwardly in the ‘ready enough’ position at her side. Turning to the dying female troll, he gasps once he sees that the blood spraying from her arm is pixelated, it too frozen in midair. From the grass that was moments ago blowing in the wind, to a bead of sweat on the side of Tamana’s face – everything around him is completely stationary.
But I can still move, he thinks as he squeezes the handle of his slingshot.
Not knowing how long he has until time returns to its normal pace, Ryuk moves to the side of the alpha troll, takes a few steps back just to give himself some distance, reaches for a black marble and …
Time blazes ahead and the troll turns to him.
Taken off guard, Ryuk is seconds from being clobbered when the tip of Tamana’s buster sword pierces the creature’s chest, splashing oily black ichor onto Ryuk’s face.
Instakill!
The troll slumps forward and Tamana kicks his corpse off her buster sword. She keeps the troll’s blood on the blade as she turns to his smaller counterpart. One clean swipe and she finishes off the she-troll too.
-17 HP!
They are each awarded experience points and the guild coffers increase by about a hundred rupees. With a flick of his wrist, Ryuk checks their stats and swipes them away.
Ryuk Matsuzaki Level 2 Ballistics Mage
HP: 87/115
ATK: 40
DEF: 5
MATK: 51
MDF: 18
LUCK: 3
Tamana Nakamura Level 2 White Warrior
HP: 85/138
MANA: 68/79
ATK: 52
DEF: 19
MATK: 12
MDF: 38
LUCK: 3
“That was crazy ... ” Tamana wipes the digital sweat from her forehead. She stabs her bloodied sword into the soil, something she’s grown fond of doing since taking her new avatar. Glittery magic spirals around her hands as she lifts her arms into the air. A halo takes shape over her crown and a cloud forms over the two; iridescent snowflakes gently settle onto their heads and shoulders.
+45 HP!
“What did you do back there?” She asks, after they’ve healed up. “How did you freeze time? That’s, like, a level 30 spell or something!”
Ryuk shows her one of his clear marbles. “It’s these clear marbles. Like I told you, they’re wild cards.”
“You should have used more of those when we were leveling up earlier.” She shoots him one of her knowing smiles that he’s grown fond of over the years.
He shrugs her off. “I wanted to play it safe. I knew the black marbles were explosive, and they seemed the way to go.” He returns the clear marble to the pocket on his belt. “That was definitely cooler than I thought it would be. Next time, I’ll, um, do something a bit more productive when time freezes.”
The question he wants to ask is on the tip of his tongue.
He holds it there, decides to go for it, decides against it. Tamana and Ryuk had been gaming together for years. Ryuk wants something more and sometimes, he thinks that Tamana does too. One of the main reasons he’d agreed to re-roll, to become a resetter and start the game with a new avatar was to show her how committed he was to her.
Now he needed to say something about it. “Ahem … ”
Tamana’s smile fades as the thought of real world responsibilities spreads across her face. “I really need to log out now and take care of some homework. I keep pushing it off.”
Shit. He kicks a piece of rubble away. “Same here, but not homework – family.”
“You’re meeting your brother today?”
“Later today.”
Her eyes fill with concern. “Be careful, Ryuk.”
“You do the same.”
“My homework isn’t that dangerous!” With a laugh, she lifts her hand and the logout button appears, rimmed in glimmering gold. “See you soon.”
“Wait.”
“Yes?”
Ryuk pinches the bridge of his nose for a second, realizes he’s acting oddly, and looks up at her, away, and back again.
“What is it?”
He swallows hard. “Do you want to get dinner with me tomorrow night? I’d really like that.”
She shrugs him off. “Tomorrow night? Yeah, that’ll work. Same place? I love the miso ramen there.” Tamana cocks her head at him. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Dammit, Ryuk thinks, don’t be awkward!
“I mean, okay, how about I just come out and say it? Would that help?”
“You don’t like ramen?” she laughs. “I knew it! You never finish your bowl.”
“Not that.” Ryuk wipes his hands on his pant legs. “Okay here it is. I wanted to know if you’d like to go to a nicer place, some place more romantic.”
“More romantic?” Tamana turns away from him.
“Yes, like one of those Italian restaurants in Ginza. Or … ” He thinks as his face fills with blood. “Tokyo Sky Tree. Yes! We could have dinner there.”
Tamana gives him a curious look. “Are you asking me out on a date?”
“No!” Ryuk shuffles his feet. “I mean, not exactly, um, yes exactly. Yes. Sure, let’s call it a date. What do you say?”
She gives him a warm smile and nods. “Let’s talk about it later. Bye, Ryuk.” With that, she presses the logout button and her avatar dematerializes.
Chapter 1: Tamana’s great leap of faith
The NV Visor powers off.
As Tamana has done so many times before, she takes a deep breath and returns to her reality, away from the fantasy dreamworld that is Tritania. Even though her dorm is quiet, she can still hear the techno-mechanical bustle of the Tokyo streets below. There’s an indention on her brow, something she occasionally experiences when she wears a visor for too long.
She places the NV Visor on her pillow and takes off her haptic gloves.
Tamana sighs as she looks at a Flight Feet poster tacked to her wall. Set in Tritania, the same world she frequently dives to, the anime series reenacts famous quests and looting adventures. She’s followed the show for years, and two summers ago, she went to the annual Flight Feet convention at Tokyo Big Sight as Empress Thun.
“Just for a few hours,” she reminds herself. The thought of Ryuk asking her on a date returns to her. She smiles and the floor beneath her gently vibrates.
Typical for earthquake-prone Japan, Tamana hardly notices the subtle tremor.
She opens her eyes and her iNet screen appears directly on her retinae. She rereads the last real world message she received from Ryuk. He still doesn’t like the fact that she’d decided to start over in Tritania with brand new avatars, but he went along with it and she appreciates that about him.
She appreciates a lot about him, actually. Ryuk is a great guy, and while she never really explored it, her feelings for him have really grown since they graduated high school. He isn’t like the other gamers she’d met. He’s polite, quiet, considerate. Handsome too.
Tamana is just about to send Ryuk a message telling him she’d love to go on a date when something outside strikes the wall, bulging it inward.
The air conditioner jumps loose and hits the floor, its cord still plugged in.
Panicked, Tamana leaps to her feet and moves for the door; moves as far away as she can get from whatever is bulging the wall.
The wall flexes and ripples; a crack forms and grows from floor to ceiling. Bits and pieces of concrete and plasterboard tumble to the floor in a cloud of dust. As the crack widens, a hideous yellow eye peers in at her; a tremendous carnivore’s claw tears at the hole and widens it.
Tamana shrieks her surprise and terror, bolts from the room and slams the door behind her. She stops, looks back, listens intently for a moment as her breath comes hard and fast.
She rubs her eyes. Whatever she just saw can’t be real.
As if to give lie to that thought, the creature explodes through the wall and collapses into the hallway. It rises to its haunches; snarls, roars, and inflates the sacs around its neck into a monstrous veiny ruff. The monstrosity bellows again, curls its tongue and gnashes the ivory scimitars that are its teeth.
It can’t be real.
No one else sees it or hears it; there’s no noise, no commotion, no panicked exodus.
And then the creature’s stats appear:
Gunsyakhai ‘Land Dragon’ Level ??
HP: 3400/3400
ATK: 294
DEF: 551
MATK: 0
MDF: 471
LUCK: 12
“Stats? A land dragon?” she whispers, just as her reptilian brain votes overwhelmingly for FLIGHT and propels her to the main entrance of her dormitory. “Run!” she shrieks over her shoulder to a girl exiting her room. “It’s coming!”
“What?”
“RUN!”
She doesn’t wait for her dorm mate to response; she doesn’t wait to hear the land dragon tear her to shreds and snap her bones.
Seven stories worth of stairs make Tamana’s legs rubbery and weak, but she ignores the pain. Escape is everything; she pushes herself to gain as much distance from the monster as possible. Only when she has burst out to the busy streets of Shibuya does she stop to take a breath.
A bicyclist whips past her and nearly sends Tamana to the ground.
Damn!
A construction worker in baggy jodhpurs, a hachimaki headscarf, and a hard hat carries his lunch pail to his jobsite. A teen dressed as a maid clicks and clacks her heels against the pavement as she heads to the subway station, bound for Akihabara. A cacophony of bells and whistles chases a cloud of cigarette smoke through the open door of a pachinko parlor.
Tamana sucks in great volumes of tainted air and turns her head and looks up at her dormitory building.
It’s nothing … She rubs her temples for a moment and forcibly exhales.
Seven stories above her, the glass siding of her dormitory explodes outward as the land dragon plummets from the building. Its tiny wings flap hummingbird fast to no avail. The creature’s shadow looms over her; she dodges as shards of glass rain down around her.
This can’t be happening!
She’s already in motion as a shockwave knocks her forward. She refuses to look over her shoulder, refuses to let the creature catch her.
“Ryuk,” she says the name of her best friend again, “Ryuk!”
An instant message box appears on her pupil-based iNet screen.
Tamana: Help me! Near you! Going to Shinsen Station!
He replies instantly.
Ryuk: What’s happening!?
Tamana: Please, it’s coming!
A person in a Kumamon outfit stands outside an electronics store touting a sale. Tamana blazes past and shouts “Run!” over her shoulder.
Too late.
The costumed huckster’s cry of alarm cuts off as the land dragon stomps him flat.
Fear makes her swift, so focused is she on escape. Tamana races for the station, her only hope of sanctuary and salvation. She smacks her knee into an outdoor stand in front of a kissaten. Tears stream back across her face as she catches another message from Ryuk.
Ryuk: What’s coming!?
Tamana: Please. Please. Be there in five minutes. PLEASE!
Ryuk: What is going on? Are you okay?
The entrance to the Shinsen Station is only a few blocks away.
Even though her leg muscles are on fire, even though her heart is about to explode, Tamana continues her adrenaline-fueled sprint to the station. She weaves through pedestrians, illegally crosses streets, is almost sideswiped by a lowering aeros taxi, and spins and leaps over a woman pushing a baby stroller. The dragon-like creature relentlessly pursues her, roaring and bellowing and slaughtering all who stand in its way.
Another glance over her shoulder and she knows without doubt that her efforts won’t be enough, that there will be no happy ending to this story, that the creature will catch her and kill her.
Unless she kills it first.
“Come on, come on, come on,” she huffs.
Tamana skids to a halt at one of the entrances to the Shinsen Station. She hears the terrible monstrosity roar as she begins her descent.
Breakneck speed.
Her feet are pistons on pavement, her shoulders shovelers of bodies, her gaze aimed and angled downward. The land dragon smashes its bulk through a pillar and a portion of the subway entrance collapses around it. The monster cries out in anger; blood-tinged saliva hurtles from its gaping maw.
Tamana hits the bottom of the first stairwell and slaps her cheek. She rubs her eyes again to wipe away the image that just won’t leave. Is it a glitch? How is this even possible? Something has gone horribly wrong, and other than gouging out her eyeballs to fully disconnect her iNet feed, she has no idea how to make the creature stop.
“Come on …”
A Tritanian land dragon, shouldn’t be chasing her, not in Tokyo, not in the real world!
The rational part of her mind knows this; the rational part of her mind knows that she logged out of Tritania and took off her NV Visor; the rational part of her mind even suggests that Tamana let the creature catch her; this is the real world – it can’t do anything, it shouldn’t even exist here.
But the monster rips through a manga stand and the salesperson inside. Blood splatters the walls, bits of flesh actually land on her arm. She hears the creature tear into the subway station; she shudders at the death cries of those smashed beneath the rubble.
She stops just before the final stairwell and briefly turns to the land dragon. It cracks its hulking tail into an electronic billboard advertising Suntory Whiskey. Tamana picks up the pace – she thinks she sees Ryuk – but the station is too crowded to tell for sure.
Down another flight of stairs, Tamana collides with a pair of overworked salarymen in their crisply pressed suits. No time to bow, no time to apologize. She hits the bottom and bolts straight to the edge of the platform, where she stops, hesitates, thinks otherwise for a single, prolonged second.
Tamana’s leap induces gasps from those nearby.
Her landing, the sound of the train horn, the sickening crack.
Tamana is struck by the incoming train.
Tamana is struck by the incoming train.
The salarymen lift their heads, a woman drops her umbrella, a child reaches for its mother’s open arms, a white-gloved conductor runs towards her at sixty frames per second.
(0)__(0)
“Tamana! No!” Ryuk ends his desperate chase and slides to a halt.
Out of breath, Ryuk utters a sharp curse and slaps the flat of his hand against the pavement. Vomit rises in his stomach. He swallows the urge down as the crowd comes to life all around him. “Tamana!”
He wants to scream her name again, he wants to cry out, to somehow arrive in the train station moments earlier and stop her from jumping.
Why Tamana why? His thoughts scream inside his head.
All their interactions over the last several years come to him in a flash. They’d done everything together, gamed together, studied together in high school, gone to Tritania cons together. There was never a time in which she exhibited suicidal tendencies. She was a cheerful, happy person.
He truly believed she didn’t have a bad side.
Tears stream down Ryuk’s face. He sits with his back against the wall for a moment, oblivious to the people around him.
Alarms sound, bystanders jostle for position, snap their photos and instantly post them on iNet. A pair of conductors produce kawaii panda-shaped plastic barriers and urge the crowd back from the platform. Medics in light blue uniforms appear. An older man tsks at the fact that another Japanese youth has just committed suicide.
Ryuk swallows hard.
He reviews the messages he had just received from Tamana. He reads them again and again, looking for a reason for her actions, stupidly hoping to discover why she’d just killed herself.
Tamana: Help me! Near you! Going to Shinsen Station.
Ryuk: What’s happening!?
Tamana: Please! It’s coming!
Ryuk: What’s coming!?
Tamana: Please. Please. Be there in five minutes. PLEASE!
Ryuk: What is going on? Are you okay?
Ryuk: I’m here. Where are you? Are you okay?
Nothing, he thinks, there’s nothing there.
Ryuk staggers to his feet. Police have already begun to arrive he knows better than to get involved with them, not with his family ties to the Yakuza.
He turns away from the crowd.
Each step feels weighted, as if he is trying to climb up a sand dune. He can hardly keep it together, hardly keep himself together. The numbing pain is debilitating. He can’t believe this actually happened.
It can’t be …
The stairs that lead out of the subway seem so far away. Eons away. He envisions Tamana at the top as he climbs.
This can’t be true.
More tears come and he wipes them away. He pulls the hood of his sweatshirt up, and takes another weighted step.
Just need to get home, he thinks.
Chapter 2: Home is where the killer droid is
Ryuk doesn’t say a single word to the two thugs in the lobby of his apartment building, nor does he make eye contact with the two on his floor. His guards are ever-present, stereotypical Yakuza muscle from the latest Jollywood flick. Clean-cut suits with the top two buttons open, shiny materials, polished Italian boots, thin gold chains around their necks, the works. The fucking thugs.
And that’s not the scary part.
The scary part is inside, Hajime, his humandroid bodyguard.
Ryuk has been around these types of droids his entire life and nothing really bothers him about them, aside from the fact that Hajime could kill him in more ways than Ryuk can count.
“That was fast,” Hajime the humandroid says instead of hello. He wears a traditional Japanese robe and his hair is tied back into a manbun. “Did you happen to meet Tamana? I wouldn’t worry about the guards below; they won’t tell your brother that you snuck out.”
Is he reading my iNet messages again? Ryuk stares the humandroid down for a moment. He wipes his face and tries to cover the fact that he’s been sobbing.
“Your vitals indicate that you’ve experienced a recent trauma. There are comfort foods good for hyperstress. Would you care for something?”
Ryuk feels tears come and he sucks them down.
Hajime’s eyebrows lift. “What happened?”
“Not now, Hajime, please, not now.” Ryuk suddenly feels faint. He stretches his hand out to the wall to catch his balance. Hajime is at his side moments later. The droid helps Ryuk stabilize himself long enough for Ryuk to get his shoes off. He slips into his slippers and Hajime helps him to his bedroom.
Ryuk sobs and swallows again.
Tamana’s image keeps coming to him. The vision of her leaping into the coming train keeps replaying in his mind’s eye over and over again. Why Tamana, he thinks, why did you do it?
He suddenly feels incredibly stupid for trying to ask her out, he then feels stupid for feeling stupid for trying to ask her out after watching her die. The emotions are overwhelming, confusing. The urge to vomit again comes to him.
She didn’t deserve this.
Hajime leads him to his bed and Ryuk lies down. “I’ll get you some water.”
“Tamana’s dead.” Ryuk grabs Hajime’s arm.
“What?”
“I watched her jump in front of the train. I saw her do it with my own two eyes!” he sobs again, chokes it down. “She did it … ” He’s beside himself again. “The sound … the train. I saw it all!”
“She killed herself?” Hajime’s cadence and inflection sounds like any other Japanese man but he hasn’t quite mastered the art of human empathy.
Ryuk nods; he presses his blankets away and glances around his room. His room is clean, minimal, aside from a different black hooded sweater tossed onto his haptic chair. He wipes his runny nose.
“Just relax here,” Hajime turns to the door. “I’ll get you some tissue.”
Chapter 3: Digital hallucinations
A clawed hand tears Ryuk’s door from its hinges.
“Hajime!”
Ryuk scrambles to the ground and he sees a Thulean warrior – a dragon-descended humanoid – grab Hajime by the back of the neck. The image twitches and Hajime is suddenly standing there, normal as ever, staring curiously at Ryuk.
It cuts back and now the droid is being choked again. “Hajime!”
A hand presses over Ryuk’s eyes; a dazzling burst of light flickers across the inside of his eyelids. He kicks his feet and struggles to free himself from the steely grip. He tucks his chin into the crook of the elbow that encircles his neck; his teeth find purchase and he bears down hard. The arm tastes like …
Nothing. Cloth maybe, or some sort of skin-like plastic, but that’s about it.
“Relax.”
Why is Hajime’s voice behind me now!?
Ryuk swallows hard and struggles to master the overwhelming terror that surges through him. The realization strikes him – he’s sitting on the floor and someone is behind him, holding him as a mother would comfort her child. He tries to stand, but the arms restrain him.
“You’re hallucinating something,” the voice says into his ear.
“Hajime?”
“Open your eyes slowly. Remember, whatever you see is not real.”
Hajime’s voice.
“Hallucinating?” Ryuk asks.
“I’m here, nothing can hurt you. I’m removing my hand now.”
After a trembling breath, Ryuk opens his eyes. The Thulean’s stats appear on his iNet screen:
Thulean Warrior Level ??
HP: 5309/5309
ATK: 867
DEF: 2960
MATK: 131
MDF: 2116
LUCK: 311
Ryuk stares in horror as the Thulean brandishes a pointed spear and tests the weapon’s balance with a flashy whirl-parry-thrust. The dragon-descended humanoid’s grin is all pointed teeth and forked tongue. Painted on his forehead are three blood-red lines under a crescent moon.
“What do you see?” Hajime whispers in Ryuk’s ear.
“He’s … he’s … ”
Coming for me!
The Thulean casts a fanged grin and steps into a ready position.
His armor clinks as he charges at Ryuk.
(0)__(0)
The Thulean warrior’s spear passes through Ryuk’s body, followed by his hand, his arm, his shoulder, and his chest. All of him seemingly disappears right into Ryuk’s chest.
He blinks his eyes rapidly as he tries to comprehend it all.
The Thulean is suddenly gone, vanished completely. Ryuk’s in his room on the ground with Hajime behind him, who still holds tightly onto him.
“It’s over.” Hajime relaxes his grip on Ryuk’s body. “Relax.”
“What … was that?” He breathes heavily for a moment as he rubs his eyes. Suddenly visible on his pane of vision are a few minimized chat boxes, including Tamana’s final real world message.
“I’m going to let go now.”
“Fine,” Ryuk says, suddenly ashamed by his actions.
“I’ve scanned your vitals, and they are all within normal limits. Tox scan is negative, and I can find no cause for the hallucinatory episode you’ve just endured. May I tap your feed?”
“Please do,” Ryuk pulls himself to his feet and returns to his bed. A prompt appears on his pane of vision as Hajime accesses his feed.
[Will you allow Hajime, Model 08-67-53-09 to access your feed?]
[Yes/No]
“Yes.”
“Good. I would like to review your feed from when you followed Tamana into the train station. You did actually see her, correct?”
“I did,” he gulps, “right before she jumped.”
Ryuk’s stomach still churns from his unexpected encounter with a Thulean, in Tokyo. If he just hallucinated a Thulean warrior, what could Tamana possibly have seen?
“Maybe … ” he sniffs. “Maybe she was seeing something too, just like I did!”
“Clearly,” Hajime’s eyes flash, “but what I was checking was in regards to your feed.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let me show you.”
Hajime approaches the Holoscreen attached to Ryuk’s wall.
Ryuk rarely uses the thing – why watch anime on a screen when you can simply lie back and watch it on the inside of your eyelids? Still, it is helpful, or at least it was helpful, when he was enrolled at Waseda University.
As soon as the screen comes to life, the Waseda University bear mascot does a little dance in the bottom right corner. Ryuk has been meaning to fix that, but he still entertains the possibility of re-enrolling.
“Give me a moment to arrange the videos.”
Hajime stands in front of the screen and the volume icon appears. It adjusts itself, and once it is at a low level, two iNet feeds come up in split-screen. On the left is what Ryuk saw at the subway. On the right is his view of what just happened in his bedroom.
“This may be a bit disorienting,” Hajime warns as the videos start up. Sure enough, Ryuk can actually see the Thulean on his most recent feed, big as life and twice as ugly in his black scaly armor. All he can see on the left is Tamana running and leaping and …
No! Ryuk turns his head away at the very last moment. No sense in seeing her do that again.
“Now observe what happened just now from my perspective.” Hajime’s feed comes up. In the feed, Ryuk screams and scrabbles for no reason. Hajime surveys the whole room too fast to follow, moves behind Ryuk and pulls him into his arms.
Ryuk drops his face into his hand, suddenly confused and overwhelmed by what he’s experienced over the last thirty minutes. “What just happened?”
“I think something just hacked your iNet feed, and apparently this very same something also hacked Tamana’s feed,” Hajime concludes. “Based on the message you received and your feed, whatever she saw chasing her at the time of her death was real to her but to no one else. She leapt to avoid it; I don’t think she intended to kill herself.”
“What about my feed?”
“This appears to affect only the individual who experiences the digital hallucination, and is apparently quite subjectively real. I’ve collated some data about apparent Proxima dreamworld intrusions in the real world environment that caused lethal results.”
A chart springs to life on the holoscreen, its main line ticking upwards.
“This chart shows the number of dreamworld users who have experienced an unexpected or unusual death within seventy-five minutes of logging out, beginning in 2070. As you can see, the chart spikes from no reported cases in 2070 to fifty-six deaths in just the first two months of this year.”
Magazine and iNet articles flash on the screen in various languages with Japanese subtitles.
“The mainstream outlets are not carrying these stories,” Hajime points out, “most of these come from Proxima fan sites and Proxi-blogs. Based on what you have just experienced and what happened to Tamana, statistical probability indicates that something, likely NPCs, is coming through the digital dreamworlds and manifesting itself through the users’ iNet feeds. This is causing people to do horrible things to themselves and those around them.”
Ryuk shakes his head. “Are you telling me that there are killer NPCs?”
“No, you are saying that, but something is happening, and it’s manifesting from the Proxima Galaxy, from the online worlds that players around the world dive to, like the world you and Tamana frequent, Tritania.”
Ryuk buries his head in his hand. “Tamana,” he whispers. Just the sound of her name makes him want to sob again.
“She’s not dead,” Hajime says.
“What?”
“You of all people should know what I mean.”
Ryuk’s eyes go wide. “Her … her RPC!”
Hajime places his hands behind his back. “Yes, her Reborn Player Character, set to spawn in the Proxima Galaxy in the world of her choosing once she dies in the real world. I’m surprised you didn’t think of that already.”
“I just saw her die!” Ryuk cries out. “I was … ” He gets control of himself and remembers that Hajime is homo machina, very different from Ryuk.
“Do you think the online world of her choosing is Tritania?”
“Of course it is,” Ryuk says, “we haven’t been to another world in years. That’s definitely where her RPC would go.”
“Reborn Player Character,” Hajime muses, “the same thing as an AI generated NPC but with all the former users data.” The humandroid nods towards Ryuk’s NV Visor. “You should log in. I never thought I’d find myself saying this, but that may be the best thing you can do at this point.”
“Maybe you’re right,” he finally says. The more Ryuk thinks of it, the better it sounds. He can see Tamana in Tritania, be with Tamana, and together, they can uncover why NPCs are taking peoples bodies.
“You took new avatars, didn’t you?” Hajime asks.
Ryuk’s eyes dart to his dive rig. “Yes,” he says hurriedly. “It was her idea and I went along with it. We’re resetters now.”
“I remember you saying that your former guild was quite powerful,” Hajime adds. “Maybe they would be interested in what has happened here today.”
Ryuk shakes his head bitterly. “I, we can’t contact them. Like I said, we’re resetters now. Our guild – well, former guild now – has a ‘no communication clause’ with resetters to deny them any in-game advantages. Sounds stupid, but our previous guild’s leader doesn’t want someone to be able to call on their powerful friends.”
“Then go to their guild physically,” Hajime says. “I’m sure they’ll want to hear this.”
“Their guild is on Polynya, the second floating continent of Tritania. All new players, and resetters like Tamana and me, start on the first floating continent, Hyperborea. We can’t travel there yet.”
Hajime considers this for a moment. “Okay. Log in, meet Tamana’s Reborn Player Character, hash out what’s happened here with her, and go to Polynya and contact your former guild.”
A pained expression paints across Ryuk’s face. He swears he’s explained the basics of Tritania before, and besides, now of all times, is not the time. He gives Hajime the quickest explanation about the world’s mechanics that he can muster. “Okay, Tritania has three floating continents. All players start on Hyperborea and to go to the next continent, Polynya, we need to be at level 15. To go to the final continent, Ultima Thule, we need to be at level 35. Three continents with level requirements to get to the final two continents.”
“And your levels now?”
Ryuk shakes his head. “Two. We’re both at level two.”
“Then log in,” Hajime nods towards Ryuk’s rig. “Start your journey. You have a little time before you have to meet your brother later.”
Ryuk cringes. His brother, the bane of his existence. Meeting him will only make the day worse and he can’t say no.
“Consider this the ultimate quest,” Hajime offers. “Find Tamana, figure out what happened, grieve, level up, get to the next continent to meet your old guild, and stop this from ever happening here in the real world again.”
Ryuk nods wipes his nose one more time. The ultimate quest.
His chest swells and he gets out of bed. He plants his ass in the custom molded seat of his haptic chair, slips his hands into a pair of haptic gloves with the ease of long practice and leans back. The chair comes to life after he’s placed the sleek, gunmetal NV Visor over his head.
A familiar tone plays, letting Ryuk know that the system is starting up and the physical response system is ready to go.
Wavelengths appear on the inside of his NV Visor.
Chapter 4: Goblin security and why you’re better off without it
It was Tamana’s idea. “It’ll be fun,” were her exact words.
Start over in new classes and abandon the level 96 Ninja Warrior and White Mystic avatars that they had developed for nearly two years. Ryuk did it to impress her, to go along with her request. Just like that, they reset and Ryuk became a lowly level 2 Ballistics Mage. All their accumulated wealth and stats gone, the two signed a lease on shitty guildhall in the village of Jatla, near the Goblin Riviera.
In Thulean, ‘Jatla’ is a convenient term for any horribly filthy, vile, disgusting, feculent slum that is too wet and dirty for rats, flies, or roaches. The locals, a scabby, scaly, sub-race of flatulent, fungally-afflicted hillbilly ünter-trolls, are notorious for their brutal savagery and abysmal table manners.
Nighttime is when Jatla really comes to life.
Pernicious public intoxication, random assault, kidnapping for fun and profit, lynching bees, and unusually violent high stakes gambling games and tournaments such as Thulean Roulette, Kinbaku Master/Slave, Ponygirl races, the always popular ‘Bet Your Penis’ and Coprophilia Krunch, are always on display.
The city is also home to the perky glittering poo pixies, locally known as stinkerbells, who flit about from garbage heap to open pit latrine as they rummage around in noisome mounds of offal for magic treasure and rare metals.
“I hate it here.” Ryuk says as his gaze steadies on their guildhall. He checks his stats and then swipes them away.
Ryuk Matsuzaki Level 2 Ballistics Mage
HP: 115/115
ATK: 40
DEF: 5
MATK: 51
MDF: 18
LUCK: 3
They are shit, utter shit, but that’s what happens when you become a resetter.
How Tritania’s AI knows that force-spawning him outside of the guildhall rather than inside, where he normally spawns, would create more tension for Ryuk is beyond him.
Regardless, what matters most is seeing Tamana and her RPC is surely inside.
Most players, including Ryuk, have a Reborn Player Character set to spawn if they die in the real world, and someone who’s made the RPC conversion can access all of their life history, up to and including the actual moment of dissolution.
Deep breath in and Ryuk kicks the door open with the force of a Schwarzenator. The door creaks open and he’s greeted by a thoroughly vandalized interior and … no Tamana.
He feels a sudden sinking feeling in his gut.
In the center of the mess is their short goblin guard, Hiccup, who came with the rented guildspace.
“What the hell happened here?” Ryuk wonders as he skirts a table with all the legs broken off. A pool of mephitic indeterminate black gunk surrounds the goblin, and Ryuk strives mightily not to step in it.
He raises an eyebrow. Pinned to Hiccup’s belly with a spork is a note that reads:
We have taken Tamana hostage.
-Shinigami
“Shinigami?” He reads the note again as if it will say something different the second time. Tamana’s avatar has been taken, recently, and she was harried to her death, also recently. He instant messages her.
Ryuk: I’m at the guildhall. What happened? Where are you?
Ryuk: Please answer. Where are you?
Her instant messaging is down? He paces for a moment, wrought with worry. The only thing that can block instant messaging is an algospell ...
Hiccup moans and he ignores him.
Ryuk gets the urge to sob again. Not here, he reminds himself, do something.
“Arrrgghh … ”
“Quit pretending to be dead,” Ryuk snaps at the goblin. “You still have a few HP left. How many were there?”
The goblin moans, winces, lets one rip, and curses. He runs his hand over his eyes and rubs the sides of his bald head. “Those … those mitherfickers!”
“How many were there?” Ryuk none-too-gently nudges him with his foot. “Quick, tell me.”
“Five,” Hiccup groans, “maybe seven, or it might have been only five. Yes, it was five. No, seven. Enough to kick my ass and stick me with a spork, that’s how many! Can you believe that?” The goblin props himself up on an elbow. “And you. Are you going to just leave the spork sticking out of my tum-tum?”
“I thought taking it out would completely deplete your life bar, and I need answers. Did the kidnappers say anything about where they were taking her? I need to know now, dammit. This is a big fucking deal. Tamana – ” He swallows hard, bites his lip.
Hiccup places his hands around the spork’s grip and yanks it out. “Yoooooy!” The goblin bangs his fist against the ground. “Yoy! Yoy! Yoy! Dragon ficks!” He tosses the eating utensil aside.
“Are you done yet?”
“You don’t even have the common decency to offer me a healing potion? I know you’re holding out; all new avatars come with three.”
“I’m saving those,” Ryuk reminds the cantankerous goblin. “We’re low on funds, remember? I don’t want to go around trying to get healing potions in a shithole like Jatla, especially, at a time like now!”
The stocky goblin quivers his lip at the wound on his belly and looks up at Ryuk with big, moist puppy dog eyes.
Damn goblins. Ryuk grinds his teeth for a moment and fails to relax. “Fine, fine. If I give you a healing potion, will you tell me what they said?”
Hiccup gives him the thumbs up. “Now we’re talking! How about this: you give me two healing potions, you know, just to top me off, and I not only tell you what Tammy’s kidnappers said, I’ll fickin’ take you to the exchange place.”
Exchange place?
A quest box forms in front of Ryuk:
Quest: Will you give Hiccup two healing potions and allow him to accompany you?
Rewards: Possible level-ups and the other benefits associated with companionship.
Risks: Typical risks associated with goblin companionship included but not limited to general mayhem, thievery, asshattery and back stabbery.
(0)__(0)
“Glad we could make this arrangement.” Hiccup licks his fat lips. “Gimme, gimme, gimme.”
“Info first.”
“For crying out loud, Ryuk, I’m dying here! Give me the potion so I can at least get my swagger back!” He snorts and wipes more blood onto his pant leg.
Since when did you have swagger? Ryuk bottles the question, knowing all too well the futility of arguing with a goblin. Two small glass bottles filled with red liquid materialize and he hands them over to Hiccup, who greedily chugs them both at the same time.
“Hell yes,” the goblin says as the wound on his stomach heals up. Even the hole in his shirt repairs itself.
“Info, now.” Ryuk says.
Hiccup sticks his scabrous tongue out and savors the last few drops of potion. “Aramis, two days from now at the Hour of the Rabbit. That’s all I know, I swear. One of them whispered it in my ear.”
“And you said there were five kidnappers?”
“I said there were seven. Possibly only six.” Hiccup looks at the letter that was originally sticking out of his belly. “Shinigami. That’s their guild name. I don’t know how many there were. I didn’t really see them because they blindfolded me. Maybe there were four.”
“Three on six … ” Ryuk turns a chair around and sits.
“A bit of advice from a hundred and fifty-four-year-old goblin with a penchant for being right and a track record to match it – they’ll probably just return Tammy once they realize that you’re so broke you can’t even pay attention.”
Ryuk clenches his fists. “It’s Tamana, not Tammy.
Hiccup shrugs.
“Did they say something about a ransom?”
The goblin thinks for a moment. “Not that I can recall. Listen, Ryuk, relax a little. I’m sure they’ll return her at some point. Those kind of fickboys always do.”
He glares daggers the goblin. “For your information, Tamana died in the world up there, and I watched it happen. And just after that, a Thulean warrior attacked me in my own bedroom. Crazy things are happening. From what I can tell so far, NPCs have somehow infected our iNet feeds.”
Hiccup yawns and jams his finger inside his ear. He scratches, examines, and flicks something on the ground. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Ryuk huffs, “Never mind, you wouldn’t understand. The point is, I need to talk to her and together, we need to get to the bottom of this. I need to find Tamana’s RPC; she’ll know what to do next, she always does.”
Hiccup burps and pounds his fist against his chest. “Sorry. Damn healing potions always give me heartburn, and quickly too, let me tell you. Where was I? Oh yeah – so that’s why Tamana spawned with an RPC icon over her head! I was wondering what that was about, but to be brutastically honest with you kid, I was in the middle of a gob-nap so I figured I was dreaming or something.”
Ryuk nearly stomps his feet. “Are you telling me that the Shinigami were able to kidnap Tamana because you were sleeping?”
“I wasn’t sleeping, I was gob-napping,” Hiccup explains. “Parsing, I know, but the point remains: the dumbficks snuck in while I was all snoozled up and I woke up just in time to get sporked in the belly while one of them told me about the exchange place in Aramis.”
Ryuk takes a deep breath.
As a level 96, he could have found Tamana’s kidnappers, and fast – presuming they survived their initial encounter with Tamana, whose algospells could rend the very fabric of Tritania. He exhales and asks, “Did you at least catch their levels? Tell me you at least saw their levels.”
“How was I supposed to do that? They stabbed me while I was sleeping!” Hiccup shakes his head. “They’re some real fickholes if you ask me. Did I tell you about their weapons?”
“No.”
“They’re better than yours.”
“Of course they’re better than mine. I have a fucking slingshot.” Ryuk thinks for a moment. “Well, we need to level-up, regardless. If we plan to get Tamana back, you and I need to be at higher levels.”
“That’s all you,” Hiccup yawns again, “I’m happy with my current level so I’ll just be hanging here until you get back, then I’ll take you to Aramis. We cool?”
Hiccup’s stats appear before Ryuk:
Hiccup Level 8 Shield Thief
HP: 290/290
ATK: 64
DEF: 61
MATK: 11
MDF: 47
LUCK: 8
At level 8, Hiccup is still a handful of levels away from being even remotely useful. The Shinigami could be at any level, but were for sure higher than level 2 and level 8.
“Baka,” Ryuk mumbles under his breath.
“Look kid, you and Tamana are resetters, right? Why don’t you just ask your old guildmates to do you a solid? Then you and I pop some fickin’ Kayian popcorn, steal a twelve pack of Horse Piss Ale, call a few choice goblinette entertainers, and let your old guild handle this. What was your old guild’s name, again?”
“The Knights of Non Compos Mentis, and as guild policy, they don’t support resetters.”
His bushy eyebrows lift. “I forgot that you were one of the Knights! Must be early onset Goblinheimer’s. It’s fickin’ terrible, terrible to joke about too. But back to the Knights – is Sophia still running the show?”
“From behind the scenes, yes.”
“And then you decided to do the stupidest thing you’ve done all your life – reset and start your own guild.”
“That was Tamana’s idea.”
“And speaking of your guild, we still don’t have a name, something that also needs to be addressed.”
Ryuk stares bitterly at Hiccup. It’s not the goblin’s fault. He’s an NPC, he doesn’t quite understand what Ryuk just experienced. “We’ll get a name later,” Ryuk finally says, “when the time is right.”
“I’ve suggested ‘The Mitherfickers’ twice now. Just sayin’.”
Ryuk takes a deep breath that does little to calm him.
Tritanian goblins tended to be unimaginative and repetitive in their choice of lexical items, and overwhelmingly prefer one particular vulgarity for use as a noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb, preposition, and interjection.
Tritania’s most powerful Mind Mage grew weary of such grammatical constructs as, ‘fuck me, you fucking fuckwit, let’s go fucking fuck up those fucking fuckers right the fuck now,’ and cast an unbreakable algospell that prevents every goblin in Tritania from ever enunciating the word ‘fuck.’
The goblins were not fickin’ amused.
Ryuk sighs. “The Mitherfickers isn’t quite what we’re going for.”
“Sounds like some goblin discrimination if you ask me. Anyfickin’hoo, it looks like you’ll need to recruit a new couple of wankers to help you in your quest to get Tamana back. Now leveling up, that’s not really my cup of tea, but recruitment,” he shoots Ryuk a smug grin, “now we’re in my department. What kind of recruits do you want, anyway? NPCs, immiNPCs, RPCs, PCs, orc chippies – your wish is my command, el capitan.”
Ryuk paces back and forth for a moment. “Sure, recruit as many as you’d like, but I have final say, and we will all level up together. Got it?”
The goblin steps over to him. He’s more than a half a meter shorter than Ryuk, much wider too. “Well if leveling is a requirement, I’d like an additional bonus for my services then.”
The shakedown. This is to be expected anytime one deals with a goblin.
“Come again?”
Hiccup uses his grubby little nose-pickers to crack his neck. “There, that’s better. Here’s what I’m thinking: I get a percentage of the value of any treasure we take during this quest. How about twenty percent of the loot?”
Ryuk shakes his head. “Two percent.”
“Okay then, three percent, gross.”
“Fine, three percent, net. You get three percent net of whatever we get. Deal?”
“Deal!” Hiccup approaches him with an outstretched hand. “I promise it’s clean.”
Ryuk gives him a funny look before shaking his grimy hand.
“I’ll be back soon. Round up anyone you can and we’ll vet them together. I’ll try to find someone too.” He turns to the door. “And remember, I have final say. You don’t have to go for the cream at the top, but try to avoid scraping the bottom of the barrel.”
(0)__(x)
The village of Jatla’s unmistakable funk smacks Ryuk right in the digital sniffer.
The stomach-churning, retch-inducing civic effluvia is the perfect counterpoint for the pair of male goblins who patronize a public urinal in the most liberal and non-exclusionary manner imaginable. They splatter caustic ammoniated goblin lemonade everywhere and leave their toxic outflow for someone else to clean up.
Which never happens. Ever.
Why they even have these things when the goblins just piss anywhere is beyond Ryuk, and offends his ingrained, Japanese love of cleanliness and order. He’ll never get used to the mess that is Jatla.
He pulls up his hood as he sidles past the two goblins, who grunt and cackle loudly as they cross streams and compare sizes.
At his low level and without companionship or any skills, Ryuk knows better than to venture too far from his guildhall. That said, he and Tamana did make a few exploratory trips around the block just to see if there were any good shops – there weren’t – but they did discover a public bulletin board with postings from other noobs looking to guild up.
It’s as good a place as any to start, that’s for sure. Besides, there’s no telling what kind of riffraff Hiccup will bring back to the guildhall.
Ryuk rounds the corner and scans for the bulletin board.
To his left, across the cobblestone street, is an Empress Thun gift and souvenir boutique. Stinkerbells flit in and out of the broken windows and rummage through the heaps and mounds of trash piled around the establishment.
Business does not appear to be booming.
To his right is a fishmonger’s shop featuring dried fish from the Endless Sea. These fish are difficult and expensive to obtain, as the flying fishing smacks must descend from the continental shelf to harvest them.
Pressed against the fishmonger’s is a non-descript Dr. Dandy Dave’s Apothecary with heavily barred windows and a pair of massive, beastly, heavily armed and armored orcs loitering nonchalantly outside.
A scrum of scruffy, jittery, twitching PCs, NPCs and RPCs anxiously await entry and surge forward as the solidly reinforced door swings outward. The orcs lay into the crowd with the flat of their swords to drive them back as an equally scruffy, jittery, twitching NPC zips out and nervously skirts those waiting to get in.
“Only one of yaz goes in. ONE! YOU!” The wider of the two Orcs bellows, and the would-be patron he’s pointed out slinks into the shop.
Ryuk sighs and shakes his head at yet more wizardous addicts. Damn fiends.
The guard orcs are clad in Thulean armor and dragon helms, which are most uncommon on the continent of Hyperborea. Their carriage and demeanor reminds Ryuk of the muscle that secures the lobby of his apartment building back in the real world, and the Thulean armor is similar to the armor worn by the Thulean NPC that attacked him in his bedroom.
He shudders at the thought of it happening again.
In a welter of flying feet, fists, knees, and elbows, a pair of half-sized goblins roll out of the doorway just in front of him. The larger of the two beats his opponent to the ground and goes to put the boot in just as a third pops out of the doorway and delivers a penalty kick right to Mr. Big’s goolies.
Number one bounces up off the ground and sinks his teeth in the goal-kicker’s neck while Mr. Big clutches his tender nether region, rolls on the ground and noisily and abundantly soils his ragged knee breeches.
Damn goblins. Ryuk sees the bulletin board not too far ahead just as a goblin woman uncorks a blood-curdling shriek.
A Mutt and Jeff team of sinewy goblin nogoodniks have a granny goblin backed up against the wall, a slim dagger dimpling her throat. The little goblin footpad tears at her bodice and exposes her flabby, saggy bazongas as he roots around for any hidden valuables.
Goblin Thief Level 1
HP: 65/65
ATK: 11
MATK: 1
DEF: 3
MDF: 4
LUCK: 2
Goblin Thief Level 2
HP: 79/79
ATK: 14
MATK: 0
DEF: 4
MDF: 3
LUCK: 1
Ryuk springs into action. He reaches into one of two pockets on his belt for a clear marble, loads it into his slingshot, draws and looses at the little guy.
The clear marble strikes and the goblin lights up from within by a tremendous bolt of electricity. He spasms, crackles, pops and collapses in a sizzling puddle of his own goblin grease.
Instakill!
The second goblin lunges at Ryuk pointy end first. “Fickin’ bring it, you ficktard!” he snarls as Ryuk fumbles for another marble.
Ryuk ducks the first attack and dances out of the way of the backhand riposte. This is the one good thing that has come from being a resetter – he’s kept some of his fancy ninja legwork. He gets a marble out, gets the slingshot up, and avoids the goblin’s third slashing attack.
At ‘can’t miss’ distance, the black marble blasts into the goblin’s chest, explodes, and takes him off his feet.
-15 HP!
Ryuk launches another black marble into the goblin’s head and blasts it into bloody vapor.
-19 HP!
The headless goblin spasms and dies.
Ryuk collects a few experience points from the goblin, but not a single rupee. Goblin muggers usually don’t have much unless they’ve just robbed someone.
“Thank you, thank-you kind sir!” The nana goblin approaches Ryuk and bats her eyes at him. “I almost forgot!”
“It’s fine,” he starts to say.
The granny goblin unselfconsciously stuffs her dairy pillows back into her bodice as best she can. She cocks an eyebrow at him as she reaches under her apron and purrs, “Let me reward you for saving me from those two dreadful beasts. They were absolutely awful!”
“Um … ”
He doesn’t see the oversized kukri she slams up under his ribcage, but he most definitely feels it when she jerks the blade up and out and cuts his ribs away from his sternum.
-75 HP!
“Fuck!” he cries as he falls to his knees, his vision pane flashing.
“Let’s see what you have for your old Mimi then,” she chortles as she rummages through the pouch of his belt. “Ooh! I’ll be having that.”
The goblin wench takes his last healing potion out of the pouch and tucks it in the front of her blouse. She picks up the first goblin’s dagger, tests its edge and balance, pulls Ryuk’s head back and cuts his throat.
Damn goblins!
Chapter 5: Paradise of the Insane
Tritania’s AI apparently has it in for him.
Ryuk spawns outside his guildhall again. He swipes his stats away – no need to remind himself of how far down the totem pole he is or how badly he just had his ass whooped.
Betrayed by a goblin; a filthy, nasty, ungrateful, front-stabbing goblin granny.
There’s fresh graffiti on the door, but the muffled rattle-bang-clank coming from inside catches his attention.
He takes his magic slingshot from his belt. With a black magic marble in the slingshot’s pouch, he half-draws, takes a deep breath in and kicks the door open like a SWAT team at a crack house.
With a bellowed war-cry, Ryuk leaps in with slingshot fully drawn.
Hiccup screams like a sissy, emits a blast from south of the border, and nearly propels himself out of his chair. “What the fick was that all about, Marbles?”
Ryuk bristles at the nickname Hiccup has chosen for him. The goblin has done no tidying up, neatening, straightening, cleaning, or repairing of any description aside from stacking some of the debris in the middle of the floor and balancing the broken table top on it.
A suave-looking, expensively accoutered Player Character sits across from Hiccup in the only other unbroken chair in the place. He runs his hand over his slicked-back blond hair and his stats appear before Ryuk can lower his slingshot:
FeeTwix Fajer Level 8 Berserker Mystic
HP: 231/231
ATK: 56
MATK: 24
DEF: 39
MDF: 27
LUCK: 11
His arctic blue eyes change to solid black as he stands and extends his hand. The PC sports a pair of stylishly frayed fingerless phorusrhacid skin gloves, which is one way to show that you’re balls-deep in rupees.
In a digital world, anyone can customize anything, and Tritanian fashionistas have turned to adjusting the minutest details of a player’s outfit. Nothing is safe from this world’s high-end fashion designers.
The fact that this level 8 Berserker Mystic has custom fray on his fingerless gloves, a bejeweled and damascened clamshell armor, and a hand-embroidered overcoat made from Attla spider silk featuring artistically tattered cargo pockets immediately turns Ryuk off.
“Felix Arvid Fajer, from Sweden,” the guy says, “but you can call me FeeTwix.”
Ryuk eases the tension on his slingshot, lowers his arms and his weapon disappears.
FeeTwix grins. “Magic Slingshot, huh? Hold tight real quick so my viewers can get a good look at you.”
“Your viewers?”
Ryuk turns to Hiccup, narrows his eyes and glares.
“What the fick are you looking at me like that for?” the goblin huffs. “Fickin’ FeeTwix here is the best of a very bad lot.”
“Seriously? Kuso!”
Hiccup throws his hands up in the air. “It’s not like the high rank players are fickin’ falling all over themselves to join up with some gangly, slingshot-toting level 2 resetter, now are they? Slim pickins, Marbles, let me tell you. There were some level-nothing noobies with their poncy Bryanboy fan-fic outfits and plucked fickin’ eyebrows, and one over-brawned, under-brained steroid monster of a hobgoblin cranked out the wazoo on wizardous. And this guy.” He cocks a thumb at the Swede.
“Wizardous?” asks FeeTwix.
Hiccup snorts, “What? Haven’t heard of wizardous? This fickwad of an immiNPC from some other Proxima World introduced that shit to Tritania like fifteen years ago. Goes by the name of Dirty Dave ... ”
The goblin’s face goes blank as he trails off. “Where was I?”
“You were talking about recruiting,” Ryuk grumbles.
“Oh yeah – this big muscly fick-boy of a hobgoblin I was telling you about was all for joining us, but first he wanted me to stick a satchel of wizardous up his fickin’ bunghole so he could smuggle it to Polynya on one of those fancy-schmancy airships. And you wouldn’t believe how he wanted me to do it, neither! So when this fickin’ backdoor bandit turned, I cut his fickin’ head off and sold the wizardous to one of the poncies in the Bryanboy outfit.”
Hiccup lifts the hobgoblin’s head from the floor by its elaborately braided topknot, sets it on the table and turns it so Ryuk can fully appreciate its expression of extreme surprise. “I should be able to score some rupees for it, too – I know a guy who turns these into novelty beer steins.”
“Ha!” The Swede claps his hands together. “This is great! He’s polling quite positively with my fans right now. Check for yourself.”
Ryuk swipes the chart away, still not sure of what FeeTwix means by his fans. “Hiccup, I really don’t want to deal with your shit right now. Get that head out of here, now. And don’t let it drip on the floor!”
Hiccup rolls his eyes, stands, and uncorks a trouser-fluttering blast in Ryuk’s general direction. He sighs again, grabs the severed hobgoblin head by its convenient grab handle, slings it over his shoulder and heads out the door.
“Okay, explain to me why you want to join our guild.” Ryuk moves to Hiccup’s chair, eyes the fresh skid mark and elects to remain standing.
“Glad to.” FeeTwix turns his chair around and straddles it cool-teacher style. He grins, and Ryuk notices that FeeTwix’s eyes are blue again. “Here’s the short version, but first, I need to ask – do you really not know who I am?”
“Should I?”
FeeTwix clears his throat. “Most Proxima heads have at least heard of my TwitchTube Red channel. No, I’m not as popular as #RocketRocket, but I’m often in the top twenty when it comes to viewers.” He points at his eyes as they turn black.
“Your viewers are watching now?”
“Of course they are! Approximately 353,339 people are livestreaming this.”
The door slams shut. Hiccup reenters the guild and heads straight to the ripped and stained chaise that’s missing all four of its legs. He plops down onto it, kicks his feet up, and accesses a scrollazine entitled Hot Wet Goblin Holes.
“No livestreaming,” Ryuk says, “for the moment at least.”
“Fine, fine. Sorry guys, you heard the man. Keep playing one of the games on my feed during the down time – remember, one lucky winner gets a free three-year TwitchTube Red subscription as well as a ton of schwag personally autographed by me! Also, earn extra points by viewing my earlier feeds. Check out my latest feed from Steam for double pointage!”
FeeTwix finger waves goodbye to his own face and his eyes revert to their normal icy blue. “Sorry, my fans get pissed whenever I have to turn off the stream, and I have to keep them entertained.”
Ryuk nods. “I see.”
“Where were we? Ah yes, my backstory. Tritania’s becoming popular again, and it’s a thus-far highly underserved advertising market. My sponsors pay me for every single person who streams my feed or views my archives, so I’m partly here for the ad cash. I chose Berserker Mystic as my main class so that I can play the game the way it should be played, the way my hero and role model – the man, the myth, the Legendary Quantum Hughes – would play it. Ever heard of him?”
“I was a guild member of the Knights of Non Compos Mentis up until a week or so ago.”
FeeTwix gives him a confused look. “That’s nice for you, but so what? Who’re they?”
Ryuk sighs and rubs his forehead. “Never mind. Yes, I’ve heard of Quantum Hughes. He’s one of the founders of my former guild.”
FeeTwix leans back in his chair. “Good, so then you know how I mean to play – anything goes – and I’ll equip just about anything as long as I can avoid a ton of damage from in-game penalties.”
While outside weapons are frowned upon in Tritania, it is totally legal to use them. Firearms are a different story – a player who uses outside firearms takes HP penalty.
Ryuk glances over to the map of Tritania that hangs in the center of the room. Three continents – Hyperborea, Polynya, Ultima Thule – all floating above the Endless Sea. They’ve got a long way to go, and he knows firsthand that it isn’t a walk in the Hamarikyu Gardens.
He turns back to FeeTwix. “If it’s advertising dollars you want, there are other guilds whose sole purpose is to generate ad revenue.”
“Your goblin–”
“I’m not anybody’s goblin, and I have a name!” Hiccup growls from his perch on the broken chaise.
“Hiccup explained to me what happened to your guildmate in the real world, and I’m sorry to hear that. I know it doesn’t mean much coming from a stranger, but I really am sorry to hear it. What a horrible way to die. I also find it very curious that her Reborn Player Character has been kidnapped by the Shinigami.” FeeTwix bites his lip and thinks for a moment. “That sounds real fishy, if you ask me.”
“Actually, it gets stranger.”
Ryuk quickly briefs him on his real-time attack by an NPC, what Hajime’s collated data seems to indicate, as well as the contents of Tamana’s final message.
“So she very obviously didn’t commit suicide.” FeeTwix purses his lips and nods. “Clearly she didn’t.”
“Exactly, I think she was trying to lead the creature in front of the train and misjudged her jump. And since the Shinigami took her as soon as she spawned here, they probably had something to do with it too.”
FeeTwix considers for a moment. “You will find that I am a different person when my feed is off. I’ll be frank with you: sure, solving this will give me ratings and it will also allow me to tap into a huge number of new fans and I’ll get new endorsement offers like crazy mad. So there’s that, but there’s also this … ” His flamboyance all but disappears; he leans in and lowers his voice. “About two months ago, a long-time fan of mine named Tomas committed suicide. He was one of the first ones to get the word out about my TwitchTube Red channel, so I owe him something. And just like your friend whatzername … ”
“Tamana.”
“I call her Tammy,” Hiccup barks.
“Yeah, Tamana, my fan’s RPC-spawned here and almost immediately disappeared – poof, gone. Something’s not right; something’s going on.” He places his hands on the table. “These are all connected, they have to be. Can’t prove it, but it sure feels like it. I’d like to get to the bottom of this and put a stop to it and get some payback for Tomas, for your friend, and for you. So what do you say? Are we doing this?”
A prompt appears:
FeeTwix Fajer would like to join your guild. Will you allow it?
Ryuk takes a few steps forward and bows his head. “Welcome to our guild.”
FeeTwix Fajer, Level 8 Berserker Mystic, has joined your guild!
“Do we have a guild name?” FeeTwix asks.
“The Mitherfickers.” Hiccup tosses his scrollazine over his shoulder. “I keep telling him how catchy it is.”
FeeTwix cracks a genuine grin.
“We need to start leveling up,” Ryuk tells them both. “We have two days to get stronger.”
(0)__(0)
“We got sort of a sausage party going here,” Hiccup informs Ryuk and FeeTwix after they’ve spawned in the Hills of Hillshire, “Just saying.”
A gray mist scattered with turquoise and lavender covers the lower portions of the hills. The place smells of brimstone and wet grass.
FeeTwix places his hands on his hips. “These, my friends, are the Hills of Hillshire.” He looks out over the hills so his followers can get a glimpse through his black eyes.
“Let’s just focus on finding a good place to level-up,” Ryuk tells them.
“Oooh, that looks fun!” The Swede points to the entry point of a mist-covered path on the hill closest to them.
“What are you going on about, Twixy?” Hiccup asks.
“There’s a hidden sign over there.” FeeTwix approaches the goblin. “Do you mind?” He makes a peace sign and crosses his two fingers together.
“What kind of ass fickery are you trying to pull here, mate?”
“I’ll show you.” FeeTwix lightly touches the goblin’s temple. “It’s about the only thing I’ve found useful with my mystic abilities.”
“Dragon ficks! There’s a sign and a whole lot more that way!” Hiccup’s face goes from excited to apprehensive. “Do you think there are ghosts over there?”
“I don’t see anything … ”
“Look now.” FeeTwix lightly touches Ryuk’s temples and sure enough, a sign appears on the opposing hillock. Carved into a wooden sign are the words: Paradise of the Insane.
FeeTwix takes his hand away and the sign disappears.
Ryuk is unsurprised by the invisible sign. When Tamana was still a White Mystic, she solved plenty of puzzles and found an abundance of hidden pathways and badass treasures with her mystical abilities.
“Let’s go there.”
Ryuk leaves little time for discussion.
He treks down the hill and is instantly waist-deep in mist. The ground is moist, and he can sense smaller creatures moving away from his footsteps. Nothing worth gaining experience over, unless he wanted to add critter hunting to his repertoire. Hiccup catches up to him, and short as he is, the mist covers everything but the top of his bald head.
Ryuk feels a leathery hand grab hold of his and squeeze tight.
“Don’t say anything about this,” Hiccup hisses up at him. “And remember, I’m not your little goblin fickboy, got that?” An owl lifts out of the mist. Wisps of fog barely have a chance to leave its body as it dips back in. “What the fick was that!?”
A mirror appears in FeeTwix’s hand and he holds it in front of his face. “My people. Just wanted to let everyone know that we’ve decided to check out the Paradise of the Insane. Pretty cool, huh? Remember, today’s sponsor is McStarbucks, and hey – great news! Cucumber Spice McWater is back for a limited time! Get a 50% off insta-coupon with purchase of any Frappe or Value Meal over eight euros at participating locations across the EU. Mention #FeeTwixRox for a free three-piece jumbo McNuggets with any one liter drink purchase. Offer not available in the UK. Sorry, Brexiteers! I’ll hook you up with something sweet next time!”
This guy and his feed … Ryuk is just about to ask him to put a can on his advertising spiel when the mist parts. A clear strip, a pathway in a labyrinth, cuts through the fog. Hiccup is beside himself.
“What the fick was that!? You fickholes can go by yourselves, I’m going back to Jatla.”
“No, no,” FeeTwix slings a comradely arm around Hiccup’s shoulders. “You have to come with us, pal, everyone loves you.”
“Who?”
“Everyone watching through my feed.” FeeTwix taps the side of his skull. “Currently, nearly 395,000 people are live-streaming our adventure.”
“Turn it off for a moment,” Ryuk says.
“Really?”
“Just a moment, please. I need to tell you something.”
“Sorry, folks, I’ll be streaming again in a moment!” FeeTwix says to himself. “And … we’re off.”
“How do I know again?” Ryuk asks.
“Look into my eyes.”
FeeTwix’s eyes flash Aryan blue. “When I’m streaming, they go solid black.”
“That’s what I figured, I just wanted to double-check.”
FeeTwix’s eyes flash solid black. “Hi everyone, be right back.” His eyes are blue again.
“Got it. Here’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Ryuk says carefully, “and I don’t want to offend you by doing so.”
“You are so Japanese!”
“You can tell?”
“Some of my fans did some research on your avatar origins,” FeeTwix explains, “they are useful like that. Their ability to research in real-time has saved my ass more times than you know.”
“That’s fine, but I don’t want you recording anything … emotional. Got that?”
“Ah, you are such a sweet little snowflake fickwit,” Hiccup laughs. “Oh boo-hoo! I don’t want anyone to see me cry, wah-wah-wah. Hey! Shit! Shit! What the hell is that!?” The goblin practically leaps into Ryuk’s arms. “Dragon ficks, did you guys hear that? I think it’s a ghost!”
With a loud snort, two bulky creatures step out of the mist about twenty feet ahead of them. The stats of the creature closest to Ryuk appears:
Nian Level 1
HP: 39/39
ATK: 11
MATK: 15
DEF: 18
MDF: 22
LUCK: 1
Nian Level 2
HP: 51/51
ATK: 13
MATK: 15
DEF: 19
MDF: 22
LUCK: 1
“A pair of nians,” Hiccup says with wonder in his voice. “Why, I thought these things were extinct! Aha!” He pulls a double-bladed ax out of thin air, and a wooden shield materializes in his other hand. “Some backassward daughter-fickin’ farmer bred these two – my guess. They’re supposed to have the body of a bull and the head of a lion; these dainty little fickers have the body of a cow and the head of an alley cat – how tough can they be?”
The grouchy goblin smacks his ax against his shield. “All right, boys, who’s ready to christen the Mitherfickers as combat ready?”
(0)__(x)
The off-brand cat-cow lowers its head to meet Hiccup’s first attack, feints left and head butts the enthusiastic goblin into the air like a beanbag.
The goblin lands hard and lets out a loud oomph! The knock-off nian takes to the air and Ryuk lets one fly from his slingshot.
The black marble explodes on contact and knocks the nian into its compadre.
-10 HP!
“Chainsaw it is!” FeeTwix says to his unseen audience his eyes solid black. The weapon appears in his hand and he hits the thumb starter, locks the trigger, and the saw roars into life.
With a flashy overhand toss that Ryuk has to grudgingly admit looked cool, FeeTwix lands the saw bar-first in the nearest nian’s shoulder. The creature howls and claws at the source of its torment.
-13 HP! -2 HP!
The uninjured nian roars, gnashes its teeth and paws the ground at Ryuk and crew. It hesitates to attack on its own.
“I’ll finish the ficker off!” Hiccup runs towards the wounded nian, drops to the ground in a baseball slide and uses his shield as a boogie board with his feet kicked out in front of him.
-12 HP!
His attack connects and the nian dies. “Fick yeah!”
The surviving nian roars in outrage and leaps teeth-first at the distracted Hiccup.
Ryuk has another marble ready to go and zings it right down the cow-cat’s gullet. One muffled whumpf later and the critter’s neck is rags and tatters and its head flops to the side, even as it lands in a heap on top of Hiccup.
-39 HP! Instakill!
New skill learned!
“Get it off me!” Hiccup cries. FeeTwix helps him move the carcass off his body as Ryuk quickly reviews his new skill:
Skill: Tonsil Shot
Level One: 1 in 15 chance of connecting.
Damage: Damage: 20% damage if enemy is less than level 30; 10% damage if enemy is greater than level 30.
Odds of instakill: 2%
Requirements for instakill: LUCK > 3
My first skill! Not bad. Twenty percent damage to any creature under level thirty and ten percent to any creature over level 30, and that’s at level one! As for the instakill, he did get lucky. With his LUCK at exactly three, his odds of landing the attack were astoundingly low.
“New skill?” FeeTwix asks.
“Tonsil Shot,” Ryuk says.
Hiccup wipes a piece of nian off the front of his shirt. “That thing could have killed me!”
Ryuk ignores the goblin as he goes over the spoils of battle. Not a lot of experience points and no rupees, but at least the EXP will compound.
The Hills of Hillshire will be fine for auto-leveling, he thinks.
Each avatar in Tritania can gain ten levels through auto-leveling, which allows a player to log out and keep their avatar fighting. A disadvantage is that a player won’t learn any new skills by auto-leveling, but they can improve upon skills already acquired.
“Shall we continue?” he asks as he passes Hiccup and FeeTwix. “I want to take part in one more fight and then leave my character to auto-level. I have something to do in Tokyo.”
“I wish I could auto-level,” Hiccup laments. “Go home, sleep, wake up a higher level.”
“I’ll stay logged in,” FeeTwix says as they continue along the path cut into the mist, “I’ve got nothing on the agenda for the next few hours.”
Hiccup calls after them. “You know, guys, I’m just saying, but it’s probably a good idea to send someone to Aramis to see what we can learn about the Shinigami. You know, leave you guys to the leveling.”
FeeTwix waits for Hiccup to catch up and pats him on the shoulder. “Nah, you’re staying here with us. After all, what would the Mitherfickers be without Hiccup?” He stares at the goblin for a moment with his big black eyes, live-streaming everything. “Besides, it’s more entertaining this way.”
(x)__(x)
As they make their way deeper into the Hills of Hillshire, a ghost town slowly emerges from the mist. Bad things have happened here; buildings are burned and blasted; skeletons in rusting armor clutch broken swords and battered shields; and the decomposing carcasses of eldritch war-beasts litter the side streets and alleyways.
“This fickin’ place gives me the willies,” Hiccup complains. “Let’s get the fick out of he – YOOOY!”
A buffalo-sized mountain of angry muscle smashes into him from behind and sends him cartwheeling. The beast skids to a stop, reverses direction in its own length and glares at them with red, piggy eyes. It’s a mahoosive Chiup hog with slavering jaws, razor-sharp tusks, and Thulean script branded into its hide.
Chiup Hog Level 3
HP: 169/169
ATK: 44
MATK: 1
DEF: 15
MDF: 14
LUCK: 0
Ryuk zings a pair of black marbles against the critter’s hairy hide. They explode and knock the dust off, but don’t do much more.
-2 HP!
Pathetic.
“Which weapon?” FeeTwix asks the fans livestreaming his feed. “Poll quickly!”
The results appear in front of him and he swipes them away.
“What, the Ma Bell treatment? Damn,” he grins, “you guys don’t make it easy for me!” The Swede stretches the cord between the handset and the phone body and charges at the Chiup Hog. He skips, flips, and lands astraddle the hog’s back, wraps the phone cord around its neck, and pulls his impromptu garrote tight.
The war pig is barely inconvenienced; it bucks, jumps, thrashes and tosses FeeTwix around like a rodeo clown in a hurricane. He hangs on tight as he yells for Ryuk to take his shot.
Black marble or clear marble? Ryuk loads a clear marble into the pouch of his slingshot. The bucking bronc-hog is more than stone’s throw distance, so a targeting reticle comes up on his viewing pane as he draws and looses.
“Holy fick!”
For once, Hiccup is right.
The clear marble morphs midair into an ethereal phoenix. The legendary bird cries out and flaps its wings to speed itself along. -38 HP! It smashes into the hog dead on, knocks it out from under FeeTwix and tumbles it into an abandoned outhouse.
The Chiup claws its way up out of the outhouse pit, and Ryuk pops off another pair of ineffectual black marbles. The shit-covered Chiup roars in disapproval and charges straight for Ryuk.
The unmistakable sound of gunfire makes Ryuk pause in mid reload. Great gouts of blood and tissue blast from the enraged Baconator as it hits the ground hard and slides to a stop at Ryuk’s feet.
Instakill!
“What the hell is that thing?” Ryuk asks after the dust has settled. He takes a step back from the dead hog, afraid that it may come back to life and take his leg off.
FeeTwix sports some crazy-looking amalgam of gun and sword; a wisp of smoke curls from the muzzle. “It’s called a slice bang.” He executes a raffish sword salute and then strikes a Captain Morgan pose. “I scored this in a Steampunk world. The barrel of the gun is right after the guard, alongside the blade. That way you can shoot and stab, or slice and bang, at the same time. Pretty cool, huh?”
“Aside from the fact that you’ve taken a health bar penalty from using an outside weapon, it isn’t bad.”
“It was worth it,” FeeTwix says, “and my fans seem to agree.”
“Fickin’ groupies again? Is this all we’re ever going to hear about?” Hiccup limps over to the Chiup hog. Experience points appear in the air and are divvied up amongst the three. “Wait a fickin’ minute … ” A vicious-looking gut hook appears in the goblin’s grubby paw and he uses it to neatly slice the hog open from vent to sternum. He rummages around inside, makes one or two delicate cuts and extracts a small vial made of green glass. “Aha!”
Having a Shield Thief in the party isn’t so bad after all, Ryuk thinks.
While he has never partnered with someone whose main class was Shield with a subclass of thief, he is very familiar with the thief subclass, as he almost chose it less than a day ago. A thief isn’t as strong as other characters, but they are good at detecting rare and valuable items in places one wouldn’t expect.
“Don’t say I never did nothing for ya, Marbles.” The goblin tosses the small, sticky vial to Ryuk.
“What is it?” FeeTwix peers over Ryuk’s shoulder as he pops the top off the vial. Inside is a note scribbled on a scrap of parchment that reads: ‘To my grandson, I leave my dream armor. It won’t be easy to find, but if you’re as brave and strong as your grandfather, you’ll discover it in an abandoned cellar in the Hills of Hillshire.’
Quest: Will you be as brave and as strong as the old hag’s husband?
Rewards: Dream armor.
Risks: You’ll end up in the belly of a Chiup hog.
Without consulting the other two, Ryuk accepts the challenge and then reads the message aloud.
“Ha! I guess the little ficktwerp wasn’t as brave and as strong as his grandfather,” Hiccup says, “But I do like a challenge, especially when it involves treasure.”
Ryuk hands him the slip of parchment. “Good, this will keep you busy. I’m going to log out now and leave my avatar with you guys to level up. I’ll be back as soon as humanly possible. Please,” he turns to FeeTwix, “keep me alive.”
“No problem. Say goodbye to everyone.” FeeTwix points to his eyes. “Where are you going anyway?”
“To see my older brother.”
Chapter 6: Brotherly love
Dim red lights give the place an otherworldly feel.
Everything is a shade of maroon, from the long leather sofas to the black tables, lit by a single tea candle floating in blood-red liquid. The column that runs in the center of the room decorated with tiny square mirror tiles casts reflections onto the flashy outfit of the gaijin hostess, who sits before Kodai and anxiously pours him his second glass of whiskey. The malt whiskey from Nikka is made exclusively for his club, produced by the single barrel, and ordered a bottle at a time due to the astronomical price.
It is the only spirit he drinks.
Everything is going to plan, Kodai reminds himself, and it is a glorious plan indeed.
“What are you thinking about?’ Sarah asks.
“Your Japanese. It has improved,” Kodai tells the Australian woman, Sarah, whom customers call Seera. The young mob boss tosses his oshibori on the table. It is the second hot towel he has cleaned his hands with in the last thirty minutes, and if he has to wait any longer for Ryuk, there will be a third.
Sarah carefully finishes pouring his drink and returns her hands to her lap. “Arigato gozaimasu,” she says with a full bow of her head.
“You should be more relaxed around me,” he tells her coldly, “I am your employer, after all.”
“I understand.” Sarah scoots closer to Kodai.
“You are not really my type,” he states in perfect idiomatic American English. “When I lived in New York, girls like you were a dime a dozen.”
She bats her eyelashes at him. “Americans still use coins?”
Kodai remembers now why he told the manager to hire her. Sarah was witty, and for the crown prince of a fairly large criminal empire, wit was something he didn’t often encounter. Still, it irked him when she spoke out of line.
“Is something wrong, Kodai-san?”
He sips his whiskey and enjoys the way it warms the back of his throat. Finally, he asks, “How have the other girls been? Anything out of the ordinary?”
Her eyes dart left and right. “No, Kodai, of course not.”
He switches back to English. “If you ever see anything or hear anything, I expect you to tell me. This is one of ten hostess bars that my father owned; it is the most successful and I plan to keep it that way. It’s also close to my home.”
“You got it.”
“Good.” He looks at her fondly and she offers him a rare smile. “Sarah, have you gained weight?”
Her smile falters. “Not that I know of.”
“I think you’ve gained at least half a kilo since the last time I saw you.” He pinches at her waist. There is nothing really to pinch; she squirms and he pinches her even harder.
“Please, Kodai.” She tries to keep what’s left of the smile on her face. “Please.”
“You should be more careful,” Kodai grits.
A bell rings and the women at the other tables stand. Only then does Kodai let go. Sarah slides her ass out of the booth as quickly as she can manage. She adjusts her turquoise bra, smooths her hand over the pink pinch mark, and bows to him yet again.
“Look better next time,” he tells her. Sarah apologizes and moves to the next table. Hitomi, a nineteen-year-old Japanese woman approaches his table.
“Hello, Kodai-san,” she says with a long, drawn-out bow to cover her hesitation. “Your brother is here.”
“It’s about time,” he says in English. Kodai takes another sip from his whiskey and savors the smoky taste. “Send him over.”
(0)__(0)
“Kodai.” Ryuk silently inhales through his nostrils as he chokes down the first rising tendrils of anxiety. Realizing he’s still in his hood, he quickly throws it off his head and returns his hands to his front pockets.
“Are you going to sit?” Kodai eyes his brother with suspicion.
“Yes … sure.”
“Well then do it, idiot.”
Hitomi the hostess bows again and silently backs away from the table.
“Where’s Hajime?”
“He’s outside out of sight, as you instructed.”
“Good. Droids give people the wrong impression of this place.” Kodai takes a sip from his whiskey and says, “We don’t want that to happen.”
Ryuk seats himself in the circular booth. He spots two of Kodai’s security detail hovering near the bar, each nursing a bottle of designer water. One says something to Hitomi, looks to Ryuk, and laughs.
“Why are you late?” Kodai checks the Ice Blue Rolex Cosmograph Daytona that he always wears. Ryuk knows it well; it was given to him by their late father. “One hour and thirty-two minutes late, to be exact.”
“I was busy,” he says a bit too fiercely.
“Playing your stupid games again?”
“Like I said, I was busy. Isogashii desu.”
Kodai jerks forward with a cocked fist and stops just in time. Ryuk flinches as his older brother bellows with laughter, long and loud and hard, just barely holding onto his whiskey. “Don’t be such a little bitch, Ryuk, I was just joking with you. I’m not going to hit you. The hour you left me waiting gave me time to see how the business was running and to check on a few things over iNet. Water under the bridge, as they say in America. Hey, are you paying attention to me?”
Ryuk blinks rapidly, feels anger and fear rise and quickly settle. “Yes, sorry.”
There hasn’t been a moment in Ryuk’s life that he wasn’t connected to iNet, the retina-based internet service so necessary and ubiquitous that it has become a basic human right.
Even as they speak, he is viewing his avatar auto-level through the Proxima in-game view, which allows him to watch his avatar battle in the lower left hand corner of his field of vision. It is quite common for just about everyone to have multiple real-life occurrences directly in front of them and some iNet feed streaming in their field of vision. The Internet of Things and the human brain were laced together in the middle of the century. Now they’ve become stitched and soon, they’ll become an amalgam.
“What’s the matter?” Kodai asks his little brother. “Did I say something wrong?”
Ryuk clenches his fists together under the table. “A lot has happened today,” he finally says. Tamana. He gets the urge to tell his brother what he witnessed but bites his lip instead. He knows Kodai won’t care, he’s that heartless.
His brother takes another sip from his whiskey. “Let’s discuss what I called you here to discuss.”
Hitomi the hostess returns and sets a glass down on the table. She opens a Tundra water bottle, quickly fills the glass, and quietly retreats.
An obese patron at the dimly lit table across from Kodai laughs drunkenly and lays a ten thousand Yen note on the table. The hostess sitting next to him nods and obediently removes her top. He presses his face to her remarkably oversized breasts, and with a snort of appreciation, snuffles and slobbers as she gathers up the price of her self-respect. Ryuk’s stomach churns; Kodai hardly notices.
“You haven’t enrolled for fall classes yet.”
“It isn’t even February yet.” Ryuk glances down at his hands. “And besides, I told you, I don’t want to go there. There’s a Proxima-based technical school … ”
Again, Kodai laughs long and hard. “A Proxima-based school? Fuck me if you aren’t just about the biggest loser I’ve met all day!”
“You called me here to tell me that? You could have just told me over iNet and saved us both the trouble.”
Ryuk steels himself not to react when Kodai grinds his heel into his foot. Kodai grins, bears down, and suddenly releases the pressure as he turns to watch the patron slobbering on the topless shōjo.
“Mother isn’t happy.”
Ryuk grimaces at the pain radiating off his toes. “And when is she ever happy?”
“Aren’t you going to eat something?” Kodai asks. “Come on, we own the place; sit back and have whatever you’d like, including one of the girls.” He scoots closer to his brother and nudges him. “We have a gaijin now, from Australia. Sarah, she’s fierce. At first I didn’t like her, but she’s growing on me.”
“Can I go?” Ryuk asks. “I have other shit to do.”
“Like play in your little fantasy world with Tamana? That is what you were doing right?”
Ryuk bares his teeth at his brother. “Damare!”
Kodai’s eye twitches. “You should know better than to speak to me like that in my club!” He points a finger at Ryuk and spittle flies from his lips as he shouts, “I will NOT be disrespected!”
The club comes to a halt.
The music keeps playing, but everyone cuts eyes to Kodai’s booth, even the inebriated moistener of schoolgirl funbags in the booth across the way. Kodai immediately notices and immediately reasserts control. “Where were we? School. Yes, you need to enroll. I’ve told you before, my four years at NYU were difficult, but look at me now.”
You’re a Yakuza crime lord. Is there a major for that?
“Well?”
“I’m looking,” Ryuk says.
“You know what,” Kodai finishes his drink and squeezes his glass for a moment. “I actually have something I want to show you. Something mother told me to give you, to remind you of family and tradition.” He sets the glass down. “Please, join me in the back. That’s why I called you here.”
(0)__(x)
Ryuk steps out into the bitter January night, and stuffs his hands in the front of his black hoodie. The fragrance of grilled chicken skewers from the back-alley izakaya behind the hostess bar hits his nostrils. His mouth waters as he tries to remember the last time that he ate.
“Where are you taking me?” he asks his brother.
“I thought you might be hungry.” Kodai turns to Ryuk and smiles. Several meters past the izakaya stands Gorira, one of Kodai’s most massive security escorts, whose bulk effectively blocks the alley from that direction. Gorira’s parka is too tight across his shoulders; it forces him to hunch over and hold his arms slightly away from his body.
Mmmm … that smell.
Ryuk considers ordering yakatori when Kodai’s fist flattens his nose.
His vision pane jump-cuts and he sees stars and planets. His head snaps back, he stumbles into the back wall of the hostess club and slides down.
Hands on hips, Kodai looks down at him, shaking his head in disgust as he waits for Ryuk to stand. Once he does, Kodai feints with a right and Ryuk flinches into a solid left that throws him flat. His older brother then steps in with a series of short, punishing kicks.
He pulls Ryuk up by the back of his hair. “Fight back, pussy-boy!” Kodai screams in his face. “You dishonor yourself and our family with your cowardice! Stand and fight!” He drops his younger sibling to the ground and gives him another kick.
“Stop,” Ryuk sobs, “please stop hitting me!”
“DEFEND YOURSELF!”
Ryuk closes his eyes, wraps his arms around his head and turtles up as he braces for Kodai’s next kick. MedStar warnings flash across his iNet screen and catalog his injuries; he is advised to seek immediate medical assistance.
He winces as he hears several thuds in rapid succession, a violent whoof of forcefully expelled breath and the sound of a slab of beef hitting the pavement.
“Hey!” Kodai shouts. “You aren’t supposed to do that!”
Ryuk opens his eyes to the most beautiful sight in the world – Hajime, stands over the gasping, twitching form of Gorira the bodyguard.
“A wise man would stay down,” Hajime advises the fallen man-mountain. He turns to Kodai and bows. “With respect, your organization hired me to protect Ryuk, and my contract is surprisingly non-specific. If you cease and desist now, I need not provide any further protection and the matter ends here.”
“Like hell I will!” Kodai reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls a small, black handgun. “I’ll shoot you.” Confidence returns as he flips the safety off.
“Don’t shoot him!” Ryuk tastes blood as soon as he opens his mouth.
Hajime keeps his eyes trained on Kodai’s weapon as he says, “If that is your response then I suggest you do it now.”
Kodai glances left and right. After a quick breath, he slowly lowers his weapon. “Get your shit together,” he tells his younger brother, “I expect you to be enrolled by the next time we meet and you … ” He points a shaky finger at Hajime. “I’ll see to your contract.”
Kodai returns his weapon to the inside of his jacket, huffs, and leaves his battered bodyguard in the alley as he steps back into the hostess bar.
Chapter 7: Is this the real life, or is itファンタシー?
Tokyo stretches in every direction. The lights of the endless city bear down upon its inhabitants, driving away the shadows. No matter how much light humanity shines upon itself, the shadows of the past always find a way to infiltrate the present. The sounds, the ever present traffic of humans and their mechanical counterparts, the claustrophobic bustle – the Vertical City has a good chance of reaching heaven by the century’s end.
Tamana. Thinking the name makes him choke up again. He wishes he’d said something smarter to her before she logged out that final time. Instead, like a total loser, he asked her on a date. It feels so petty now, so stupid to be concerned about such a thing after witnessing her jump in front of the train. Still, the thought is there, swirling with a host of other thoughts about their last encounter.
Ryuk’s aeros taxi flies in a lower airlane at about ten stories height above ground. Private vehicles and public transport aeros move all around him, their cabins filled with the swirling chaos of life. It is utter pandemonium to the uninitiated; natives know that it is just the way things are.
The humiliation from his encounter with his older brother still burns, and he hasn’t said anything in the way of thanks to Hajime for saving his ass, not a word. He sits quietly in the backseat of the aeros taxi, monitoring his avatar’s progress on his iNet screen. Slightly hungry, he’s already had a Rakuten droid drop off a yakatori protein plus bar at his flat just to put something in his stomach.
A long night ahead, Ryuk plans to use a technically illegal Somnium skip box he special ordered from Alibamazon Blaq. The Somnium skip box overrides the NV visor’s RW game-time governor, which is usually six to eight hours. This allows him to remain in the REM state necessary for digital dreamworld diving and still derive the benefits of a normal sleep cycle.
Leveling up all night is one of the best ways to grind.
“You should let me teach you how to defend yourself.” Hajime’s voice takes Ryuk off guard. The humandroid has been completely silent since they left the back alley.
Ryuk glances down at the wad of bloodied tissues clenched tightly in his hand. He wipes his nose again and says, “He’ll still win.”
Lights from the city flash across Hajime’s face revealing a look of contemplation. “Perhaps, but then again, perhaps not. During my daily recharge, I peruse the annals of human history for knowledge and entertainment. The theme of David and Goliath ... ”
“Who?”
“I’m sorry, I forget that most Japanese aren’t familiar with Judeao-Christian instructional parables. The ‘underdog archetype’ is a common theme which runs throughout humanity’s shared narrative. It is present in your stories and often times, it plays out in real life. The underdog archetype can revolve around a single entity or a collective who are expected to lose. Against all odds, the entity or entities win, but it is usually through careful planning and knowledge of its own limitations that it does so.”
“So you’re saying?”
“Is my meaning unclear? I’m saying you should let me teach you how to defend yourself in real life so your brother doesn’t commit fratricide.”
Ryuk scoffs at this suggestion. “He’s not going to kill me; he just gets a little too rough. Always has.”
“You must always be prepared. History is rife with stories of ambushes that could have been prevented. Knowing Kodai, he will modify my contract and I will no longer be able to protect you from him. This will not be particularly beneficial to him, however. MercSecure, the company that licenses out my services, has adjusted my violence-decision governor to a point where I’m able to make all my own choices, which is illegal in most countries.”
Ryuk still tastes blood in his mouth. “I didn’t know that was possible.”
“Almost no one does. It would be best if you kept this to yourself. However, you cannot presume that I will always be there to protect you.” Hajime is quiet for a moment. As the taxi descends into another airlane he continues, “Kodai’s fearlessness is something I noted after he drew his weapon. I’ve never seen anyone’s vitals go from one extreme to the other so quickly. He was not afraid of me in the least bit, when any rational entity should have been. I fear that this seriously discounts your unfounded belief that he will not kill or seriously injure you.”
“He’s not that bad … ” Not that good either, Ryuk thinks of adding.
“He aimed his weapon at the right side of my chest, a few centimeters from my underarm, actually.” Hajime touches the point he is referring to. “This is my auto-disable point; a bullet strike there would have incapacitated me. As you know, we don’t experience pain the way you do. Disabling my legs or emptying his weapon into my face wouldn’t necessarily disable me.”
Ryuk looks at Hajime with wonder. “Are you saying that you can be shot in the face and still operate?”
“I am.”
“What about your ocular feed?”
Hajime places his hand over his eyes. “I want you to put your pointer finger somewhere in the space in front of you.”
Ryuk lifts his finger, moves it around and settles in a place near the window. With one hand still covering his eyes, Hajime raises his pinky finger and lightly presses it into the side of Ryuk’s pointer finger.
“My ocular feed helps with recording and judging color; I have one hundred and eight thermal scanners and lidar sensors strategically located on my body. This is how I obtain most of my data about the external environment.”
“Interesting,” Ryuk says.
“That’s one way to put it.”
The two are quiet for another minute or so as Ryuk monitor’s his avatar’s progress. He suddenly can’t wait to log back in, to escape the real world. Finally, Hajime speaks, “We will begin your training tomorrow morning. You should get good rest tonight; fortunately for you, the Somnium skip box promises a full night’s sleep.”
“How did you know I was going to use that?” Ryuk asks. “Can you read my thoughts too?”
The humandroid laughs, which always strikes Ryuk as a little strange. “No, although I am an entity of many talents, that is not one of them. Statistical probability indicates that you would Proxima dive all night tonight, just as you have after every other meeting with your brother.”
(0)__(0)
Ryuk scarfs down his yakatori protein plus bar once he arrives home. His room’s a bit nippy, so he keeps his black hooded sweatshirt on rather than cranking up the heater. He’s done that before while diving and the results can be icky.
Anything to escape, he thinks as he seats himself and the haptic chair comes alive. He fixes the NV Visor over his head; the sine wave starts up and prompts him to choose his login point.
As soon as he spawns, he’s greeted by the potty-mouthed goblin.
“Fick me that’s the good stuff!” Hiccup pounds the healing potion given to him by FeeTwix. The rips and tears in his clothing repair themselves; the scratches, bruises and contusions on his hairy goblin arms quickly fade away.
Ryuk quickly checks the guilds stats and swipes them away:
Ryuk Matsuzaki Level 3 Ballistics Mage
HP: 133/151
ATK: 43
MATK: 65
DEF: 10
MDF: 19
LUCK: 3
FeeTwix Fajer Level 9 Berserker Mystic
HP: 187/255
ATK: 71
MATK: 24
DEF: 44
MDF: 28
LUCK: 12
Hiccup Level 9 Shield Thief
HP: 350/350
ATK: 65
MATK: 24
DEF: 83
MDF: 47
LUCK: 8
Tritania is different from other VRMMORPG dreamworlds, which allow for extreme stat customization. The Proxima developers who originated this world wanted everyone – from the newest noob to the Proxima lifer – to be able to immerse themselves completely, and their surprising way to accomplish this was to keep the stats incredibly simple.
To do so, the developers based Tritania’s base mechanics off JRPGs from the 1980s and 1990s, where a player didn’t have a say in their deciding their attributes. They then merged this with newer MMORPG concepts, with their tailored skills based on character choices.
The early test results were stunning.
An ode to simplicity, Tritania’s mechanics quickly became something that was truly life-like for the end user. Just like in the real world, one couldn’t simply add points to a certain stat, yet they could get good at something and they could, through practice and repetition and chance, develop new skills. Tritania’s original mechanics also mirrored JRPGs with a turn-based battle system, which was something that was nixed through the reboot in the 2060s.
“Anything interesting happen out there in your other world?” Hiccup drops the empty vial on the ground and lets out a belch that rattles the chainmail vest he’s recently acquired.
“Nothing.” Ryuk swallows his recent humiliation. “Nothing at all. Just had some dinner. What’s the status on the dream armor? Any leads?”
“Trust me,” Hiccup assures him, “if either Twixy or me got some dream armor, we’d be fickin’ wearing it by now, ain’t that right, Twixster?”
“You are fickin’ correct.”
“It’s catching on!” Hiccup pumps his fists in the air. “Finally!”
Ryuk shakes his head.
Hiccup’s usage of ‘fick’ is the last thing he hopes will catch on. The damn Mind Mage that cast this spell on the entire goblin population really didn’t think it through. Better to just stop them from even conceptualizing the idea of cursing altogether, but knowing goblins, they’d figure something else out pretty quickly.
“Let me see … ” FeeTwix scrolls through his list, equips an air horn, and holds it above his head. “Just something I picked up at one of those back alley weapon sellers in Jatla. They have tons of schwag!” FeeTwix admires the air horn and briefly shows it to his audience. “Supposedly, it attracts enemies. Let’s try it out.”
The horn lets loose a tremendous WHO-O-O-N-K and Hiccup nearly jumps out of his ill-fitting armor.
“Fickin’ fickered ficktwat! Give me a warning next time, why don’t ya!?”
The ground rumbles as a creature smashes out of the misty surroundings, stomps its feet, and points a long staff at the three Mitherfickers. Its stats appear:
Tuskarr Level 9
HP: 220/220
MANA: 56/56
ATK: 38
MATK: 73
DEF: 5
MDF: 31
LUCK: 4
The tusks of the aeros-sized humanoid walrus are coveted for their magical properties, and Ryuk wonders why it’s here, so far away from water. The creature gives its staff a menacing twirl and shoots the three its surliest, most cantankerous scowl.
“Wait!” Hiccup puts his hand up. “Let’s make sure he isn’t a friendly.”
The Goblin plasters on his biggest, fakest grin and walks up, hands empty. “Heya, pal, just checking to see if you’re really up to this. I like you, Tusky, really I do. I had a friend who was a Tuskarr; boy could that big ficker throw back the Horse Piss. And he was generous, jeezly fick was he generous. All this to say, there’s something about your big yellow eyes, the white mustache that hangs over your tusks that reminds me of my friend.” Hiccup sniffles. “Go! Go! TWIXY, GO! MARBLES, GO! FICKIN’ KILL THE FICKER!”
Ryuk looses a combo of clear and black marbles. The black marble explodes with minimal effect; the clear marble hits and a tremendous stone block drops onto the tuskarr’s head and crumbles into sand.
-49 HP!
The anthropomorphic walrus twists his staff and zaps Hiccup with a beam of orange and yellow light.
“Yoy!” Hiccup’s eyes roll into the back of his head; he froths at the mouth, shivers and twitches.
“Oh shit … ” FeeTwix lifts his hand and scrolls through his list. “Hiccup’s turned!”
The now-frothing goblin charges; FeeTwix flips the temporary turncoat facedown.
The Swede places his knee on the back of Hiccup’s neck as he equips heavy duty flex-cuffs and secures the goblin’s paws behind his back. “That’ll hold him,” he announces to his audience as he removes knee from neck and straightens up.
With the speed of a striking cobra, Hiccup pivots on his round little goblin belly, sinks his blunt yellow teeth into FeeTwix’s ankle and drags him to the ground.
“Dammit!”
As his two teammates roll around, Ryuk lobs two black marbles at the tuskarr’s feet for a little distraction action, zigzags to the left, and lets go with another clear marble.
The wild card marble surprises him yet again as the Great Wave of Kanagawa levels the tuskarr, swooshing the creature away as the magnificent waves wash over him.
-15 HP!
Ryuk aims two black marbles at the spot where the tuskarr should be and …
He glances left and right – no tuskarr. FeeTwix and the still flexi-cuffed Hiccup are mud-wrestling in the wave’s residue, but that’s about it.
Ryuk’s life bar flashes: -6 HP!
The tuskarr appears to his left; his four-fingered hand strokes the air as he casts his spell.
DisNike Vader™ choke!
A sponsored attack? Ryuk instinctively raises his free hand to his throat as an invisible force squeezes his neck. -7 HP! With no other option, Choking Ryuk palms a clear marble, pulls back on his slingshot, and looses it at the Tuskarr.
The creature’s spell-casting hand explodes with a purpley-green flash. -96 HP! The pressure on his neck immediately subsides.
FeeTwix finally gets his ankle out from between Hiccup’s gnashers.
He rolls out of the mud and equips a heavy wool blanket, tosses it over Uncle Goblin, and rolls him up like a dog meat street burrito. After a couple of wraps of hot pink duct tape to keep him secure, FeeTwix places one foot on the struggling, bound goblin, shoots Ryuk a grin, and rolls him away.
“Fick you, you fickin’ fickers! Fickery! Fick-faced fick bags!” Like some vulgar goblin tamale, Hiccup continues to scream and curse from within the wooly depths.
The tuskarr snuffles and moans; he’s on his knees and clenches the stump of his wrist with his other hand.
Ryuk: I’ll finish him off.
FeeTwix: Have at it!
Ryuk places a black marble in the slingshot’s pouch, draws and aims. The tuskarr’s features run like water, swirl, and coalesce into the face of the Thulean who attacked him in his room, in the real world. He pauses and the creature’s face swirls again; now it wears his brother’s face.
“Kodai?”
It can’t be. He shakes his head, steadies his gaze, and pulls back even harder on his magic slingshot. Fury rolls over him as he looses the marble.
Instakill!
The tuskarr falls over, lets out a prolonged gasp, and dies. Experience points are awarded, hundreds of them, and a healing potion appears on the ground. The tuskarr’s staff floats in the air, upheld by a halo of shimmering light.
(0)__(X)
“Sweet!” FeeTwix makes a beeline towards the staff, grabs it, runs his hand along its contours, spins it three times, and puts it in his inventory list. “I’ve been needing a good shaman staff.”
“How many items do you have in your inventory list anyway?” Ryuk asks.
“A lot.” His finger comes up and he scrolls through his list. “Approaching three hundred as we speak, but I try not to brag about the items I have, and I’ve got no problem letting them go if they’re taking up space. There’s no sense in having shit that I’ll never use. My list has been upwards of six hundred items before.”
“Will you fickers quit comparing list sizes and get me the fick out of this carpet!” Hiccup wiggles and thrashes and rolls himself back into the mud puddle. “YOY!” he splutters, “Dammit! Someone get me out of here!”
FeeTwix shows Ryuk a poll of his audience.
“They think it’d be funnier if we keep him in the blanket for a while and just log-roll him anywhere we plan to go.”
Ryuk offers FeeTwix a rare smile. “That would be funny.”
A mirror appears in FeeTwix’s hand and he speaks to his reflection. “Sorry, everyone, Hiccup is a guild-mate and you just don’t do a guild-mate like that.”
“Damn straight!” The goblin barks.
FeeTwix drags the blanketed Goblin out of the mud and cuts the tape. Ryuk helps him unroll Hiccup, who’s seething with disgruntlement. FeeTwix produces an ornate pair of solid gold diagonal cutters and frees Hiccup’s wrists.
Hiccup pulls himself to his feet, turns to Ryuk and clenches his fists at his sides. “PTSG is a real thing, you fickin’ fickwads, and you got one right here – a Pissed off, Tired, Stressed out Goblin. Kick me in the mouth, zip-tie my hands, roll me in a carpet … ”
“Blanket.” FeeTwix interrupts.
“ … blanket, and drown me in a mud puddle. I call that the Genghis Goblin treatment! Ever heard of that guy? He used to roll people up in carpets and have them beaten to death.”
“Why carpets?” asks FeeTwix.
“Because it was less bloody that way. He was a real hemophobe. He sent his harem to Polynya whenever they were visited by the red horse. But even he wouldn’t have rolled me into a mud puddle to drown!”
“Trust me, Hiccup, we didn’t do that to you,” FeeTwix explains, “you did that to yourself.”
“Yeah, yeah, and I suppose it is my fault that the tuskarr bewitched me and the sun was orange this morning and the only ficker I could recruit for our fickin’ guild was a vain Swedish videophile with a bunch of voyeuristic, fanboy cellar dwellers for followers. Let me see, what else? Oh, and I suppose it is my fault that Tammy was captured and we’re out here leveling up when I should be sleeping because just like hobbits – and fick those guys, by the way – goblins need several naps a day. Somehow, all of this is my fault.”
Ryuk clears his throat. “Actually, most of what you just said is indeed your fault.”
“Like fick it is, Marbles!”
FeeTwix claps his hands together and his eyes flash back to their normal color of blue. “Before we continue, I must tell you that my audience just loves you! It’s like the more outrageous you are, the more they like you.” FeeTwix laughs. “It’s very, very odd. You should run for Overlord of Public Sanitation the next Tritanian election cycle. You’d make a great politician!”
“Whatever, Twixy.”
The Swede’s eyes turn black again. “Okay, back on, say something funny.”
“I’m not some sort of one trick fickin’ pony and you’re not the boss of me!” Hiccup eyes the tuskarr’s corpse, equips a cleaver, and drops to his haunches. He quickly hacks at the creature’s dental appendages with all the finesse of a Rwandan rhino horn poacher and makes a revolting, bloody mess of it.
“So whaddya think?” He grins and holds the tusks up in front of his mouth, waggles them at FeeTwix, and then adds them to his inventory.
What was that? Movement near an abandoned cathedral about ten meters away catches Ryuk’s attention.
A dark shadow appears on the side of the cathedral; it sinks into the ground, leaving an ink-like stain on the soil. Ryuk has a black marble on the way faster than he can think about it.
The explosion is fiery, satisfying even.
“Cripes!” Hiccup jumps backwards and tosses his ax to the ground. “What the fick are you shooting at?” He asks as he grabs his ax and the tusks.
“There’s an ink shadow over there,” Ryuk says.
FeeTwix equips an industrial-sized can of medical freeze spray. “This will work, right?”
Ryuk shrugs. His slingshot is aimed in front of him; a pair of clear marbles now rest in its pocket. “I’ve only seen mind and ice magic work against the higher level ink shadows.”
“Ink shadows are bad luck,” Hiccup says, his face wrought with worry, “really bad luck, fellas. My brother got bit in the chalupa by a dyckbyter snayke after seeing an ink shadow in his garden. He still walks with a limp!” He wipes his bloodied hands on his pant legs.
Ryuk steps in front of him. “Just stay behind us and we’ll take care of it.”
The three motley Mitherfickers approach the cathedral, Ryuk scanning right and FeeTwix scanning left. The cathedrals of Tritania are the only places to initially select and later change classes, although changing one’s class can require months of paperwork, another reason some simply become resetters.
A private message appears on Ryuk’s vision pane.
FeeTwix: Hey, my audience is telling me to use Hiccup to bait the ink shadow. Apparently, they like teasing goblins.
Ryuk: There must be some other way. I really don’t want to hear Hiccup’s bullshit after we suggest using him as bait.
FeeTwix: True. Let me check.
Ryuk watches as the ink shadow slithers from the ground to the roof of the cathedral. For some reason, it’s not engaging them.
FeeTwix: My peeps got nothing. Not much is known about ink shadows other than they love to gamble and they generally dislike goblins.
Ryuk and FeeTwix lock eyes, or better, Ryuk locks eyes with FeeTwix’s legions of followers. “Do you have any games in your list?” he asks loudly. “Specifically gambling games?”
The ink shadow perks up and slowly turns its head to them.
Hiccup tugs on Ryuk’s shirt. “What in the hell are you going on about? You’re supposed to be protecting me!”
“Why is it that ink shadows hate goblins?” Ryuk asks under his breath. “Remind me, I forget.”
Hiccup clears his throat. “Because we’re better gamblers than a bunch of fickin’ fart clouds!”
“Did someone say something about gambling?” The ink shadow boils up from the soil and presents itself to the three Mitherfickers.
“You heard me!” A hand ax appears in Hiccup’s grip. “You want a piece of me, come and take it!”
The blob of animate darkness looks from Hiccup to Ryuk for a moment and finally speaks in a low, melodic voice. “Did I hear, ahem, the goblin say something about gambling?”
“I said it, meant it too!”
FeeTwix steps in front of Hiccup to hold him back.
“Interesting,” the ink shadow lifts a tendril of inky blackness and strokes the place where its chin should be. “In that case, would you be willing to make a wager?”
“Would we be willing … Ryuk! Blast the crap out of this guy and let’s get on with it!”
“If you win, I’ll grant each of you a level.”
Ryuk speaks up. “You can’t just grant each of us a level.”
“Yes, in fact I can.”
The ink shadow’s stats appear:
Ink Shadow Level 49
HP: 851/851
MANA: 367/367
ATK: 254
MATK: 335
DEF: 256
MDF: 293
LUCK: 47
“You’re level 49?” Ryuk asks. “What are you doing here?”
“I grew bored so I figured I would stop by my old home.”
“You used to live here?”
The ink shadow nods. “Yes, The Paradise of the Insane, as it’s called, used to be known as simply ‘The Paradise.’ You let in a few too many ink shadows and everyone goes insane.”
Hiccup grumbles a string of curses about the species.
“Now me, I’m not the spooking type, but I do like to play games, especially high stakes games. So, if you win, I will let you destroy me. All of you are at pathetically low levels and you’ll benefit from the experience that you’ll reap from besting me.”
“And if we lose?” Ryuk asks.
“What do you have that I want?” The ink shadow seeps into the ground and comes up directly in front of Ryuk. At this range, Ryuk almost can see the outline of an old man’s face. “Nothing,” the ink shadow says.
The ink shadow moves to Hiccup, who immediately looks away, shivering with fright. “Nothing.” He stops in front of FeeTwix. After examining him for a moment he says, “Something.”
“So you want something from my list?”
“I do.”
“And what would that be?”
The ink shadow shakes its head. “If I tell you that, it wouldn’t be a surprise. So what do you say?”
“It’s up to you,” Ryuk tells FeeTwix, “it’s your list.”
“We’ll do it,” FeeTwix says proudly.
“What?” Hiccup stomps his feet. “Are you fickin’ kidding me?”
FeeTwix steps back and puts his arm around Hiccup’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, goblin friend. You said you were a better gambler than he is, so I’m betting on you.”
A prompt appears before Ryuk:
Challenge: Will you engage in a game of chance with the ink shadow?
Rewards: A shit-ton of experience.
Risks: FeeTwix will lose an unspecified item from his inventory list.
Ryuk glances at FeeTwix, who gives him the go ahead. He presses his finger down onto the “accept” button.
Chapter 8: Natty Dread
The cathedral door silently swings open, and a breeze whips out of the cavernous interior, bringing with it the scent of arsenic and old lace. The ink shadow sinks into the earth and reappears in front of the open doorway.
“Shall we begin?” he asks in a syrupy voice.
A mirror appears in FeeTwix’s hand as he leads the way. He quickly updates his audience about his current decision-making process as Ryuk hangs back. Hiccup is a spiky ball of angsty nerves, equally pissed off at the ink shadow and spooked by the abandoned cathedral.
“There could be ghosts in there,” he grumbles, “and boy, do I fickin’ hate ghosts.”
“So what if there are? We can battle them, no problem,” Ryuk assures him.
“Easy for you to say, Mr. Big Resetter who’s been to all three continents and has vanquished enemies big and small. Ooh-ahh, Mr. Big Balls over here thinks he’s got a third leg up on the supernatural! Must be nice; must be nice to be so confident about the unknown.”
The mention of his previous travels calls to mind a vision of Tamana, back when she was a level 96 White Mystic. Ryuk had been on the brink of death so many times only to see Tamana hovering over him, her hands radiant white as she healed him, as she saved him – something he couldn’t do for her.
He suddenly feels cold; he suddenly feels helpless and useless and empty, as if Tamana’s death also took part of his life. He pushes the memory away as he enters the derelict cathedral.
The pews inside the cathedral have been arranged in a circular pattern, facing inward, and the stained glass depiction of a famous Tritanian deity who oversees all three floating continents is the only source of illumination in the darkened former house of worship.
“Now where is it … ” The ink shadow scratches the place where his chin should be for a moment. “That’s right!”
The ground shakes and the wooden floor of the cathedral gives way as a vertically positioned disk the size of a monster truck tire rises from the ground. Its outer edge is marked in a repeating pattern of different images – a death’s head, question mark, broken leg bone, crossed swords, and ‘spin again.’
“Natty Dread?” Hiccup shakes his fist at the ink shadow. “You got some fickin’ nerve challenging me to a game of Natty Dread!”
The ink shadow seems genuinely hurt. “It was that or Buffalo Soldier, and I figured this would be more to your taste.”
FeeTwix scoots up next to Ryuk. “Am I missing something here? What exactly is Natty Dread?”
“It’s a game that originated in the city of Naklin on the continent of Polynya. You roll dice, and if you get an odd number, you spin the Wheel of Dread. If you get an even number, you’re good to go – no spin necessary.”
“And let me guess, each item on the Wheel of Dread is trouble in some way?”
Ryuk nods. “If you land on a death’s head you die instantly. If everyone dies, the game is over and we respawn back at our guild.”
FeeTwix checks out the Wheel of Dread for a moment. “And the question mark?”
“This is about the only good thing on the wheel. The question mark allows us to ask one question, which the ink shadow must answer truthfully.”
The ink shadow crosses his heart. “On my mother’s grave, I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me Empress. To assure my veracity during the questioning phase, I’m temporarily given access to everything the Sage of Gotha knows. Everything.”
“And the broken bone?” FeeTwix asks Ryuk.
“If you land on the bone, you permanently lose a limb.”
“This is just bloody fickin’ great,” Hiccup laments. “My cousin, Spew Gorge, lost his chalupa in a game of Natty Dread. Talk about unexpected bone loss!”
The ink shadow considers this for a moment. “Well, the baculum is a bone, although not precisely a bone like any other bone. I suppose in the spirit of good sportsmanship, I could leave your taquito alone.”
“Chalupa. And you promise not to touch it?” Hiccup protectively cups his hands over his groin.
“You have my word, and to be frank with you, I avoid the touching of goblin churros whenever possible.”
“Chalupa,” Hiccup growls.
“Yes, yes – your chupacabra. Now that that’s settled, shall we play? Does anyone have dice? If not, you can use mine.” The ink shadow presents three eight-sided black onyx dice with numerals inlaid in gold.
“Do we look like we were fickin’ spawned yesterday?” Hiccup scoffs.
“I have these.” FeeTwix flips his hand over and three oversize dice of solid gold with diamonds inlaid as the spots appear in his palm.
The ink shadows form waivers. “Good! You’ll each get two rolls. If any of you survive two rounds, then you may kill me and reap in the rewards for the entire guild!”
Hiccup holds his hand out to FeeTwix. “Give me the dice; I’m going first.”
The goblin cups his hands and rattles the dice hard enough to shake the inlaid gems loose, blows on them, hops from foot to foot as he rattles them again, whispers ‘daddy needs a new pair of shoes,’ and lets loose the dice. They quickly settle on the old cathedral floor: 6, 2, 4.
“Twelve, an even number!” Hiccup bounces to his feet, pumps his fist in the air, and clumsily does a few air-boxing moves. “Let me go again!”
“Not so fast,” the ink shadow objects, “we will circle around and then you can go again.”
“That’s not how Natty Dread is played!” Hiccup equips a tomahawk and shakes it at the ink shadow. “If a player gets an even number on his first roll, he’s allowed to make his second. Everybody in Tritania knows that.”
The ink shadow sighs. “Very well, if you wish to play double-ups, then double-ups is what we’ll play. Roll again.”
“That’s what I fickin’ thought.” Hiccup scoops up the dice and repeats his pre-roll shenanigans. This time, he blows on the dice a final time before he tosses them. As they settle, a look of horror spreads across the goblin’s face: 2, 5, 2.
“Nine!” the ink shadow chortles. “Time to spin the Wheel of Dread, goblin-friend!”
“Son of a fickin’ warlock!” Hiccup says as he approaches the wheel.
“Just get it over with,” FeeTwix tells him, “so we can take our turns.”
Hiccup swallows hard as he approaches the disk. He moves it up and down a little bit just to judge its weight, sucks in a deep breath and finally gives it his best spin.
The series of items blur past a red pointer that marks the stop spot; they become more distinct as the disc slows, and just as it looks like the red arrow is going to land on question mark, it skips over and lands on the image of a bone.
Hiccup draws his ax and his small shield. “You want a bone, huh? Come and take it!”
The ink shadow suddenly fills the cathedral all the way up to the rafters. “By agreeing to this game,” he announces in a deep and booming voice, “you have entered into a legally binding magical contract with me. You of all people should have known this, goblin.”
“Me and my friends never played with no magical contracts!”
“I’m not your friend,” the ink shadow chaffs.
With that, Hiccup’s right arm completely disappears. No blood, no violence, no nothing. It’s gone as if it never existed. Hiccup cries out and pats the place where his arm used to be. “Fick! He fickin’ took it! You ficker! And that was my favorite wanking arm!”
FeeTwix and Ryuk both make the ‘Eww’ face at this revelation. Hiccup slumps his shoulders, drops his chin to his chest, and shuffles over to one of the pews. He lies on his back, his blank and staring gaze focused on nothing as he puts his remaining hand on the spot where his arm used to be. FeeTwix takes a few steps back and crouches beside him. As he speaks to the de-armed goblin, Ryuk picks up the dice.
“Let’s get this over with.”
The ink shadow diminishes to its former size. “Remember, the three of you have to survive, that’s all. Losing a limb isn’t as bad as it seems.”
“Like fick it isn’t!” Hiccup moans.
Ryuk rolls the three die: 3, 3, 3.
“I win again!” The ink shadow does a brief but tasteful end zone celebratory dance. “Looks like you are on the path to losing, commoner.”
Ryuk curses under his breath as he moves over to the disk. He places both hands on it, and gives it the type of spin that would definitely give him an edge in the Showcase Showdowns of the past. The Wheel of Dread spins and spins and shows no sign of slowing down for a good ten seconds. Eventually, digital gravity takes hold and the wheel begins to slow. The red arrow just barely passes the peg separating the skull and the question mark, where it settles.
The ink shadow sulks for a moment. “All right, all right,” he finally mumbles, “what’s your question?”
Ryuk: I’m going to ask him about killer NPCs. He must know something.
FeeTwix: Good idea.
“Okay,” Ryuk says, “I have one question that I think you may be able to answer.”
“Go on.”
“Recently, NPCs have begun attacking people in the real world over their iNet feeds. What do you know about this?”
The ink shadow recoils.
The temperature inside the cathedral drops, and what’s left of the stained glass windows vibrate and rattle. Suddenly, whole sections break free and whirl around the circle of pews before they shatter on the floor. For the briefest fraction of a second, Ryuk glimpses a robed figure outside the cathedral, its form outlined in green magic. He blinks and the form is gone.
The ink shadow appears behind Ryuk and whispers in his ear, “There are larger forces in play here. You’ll know the answer to your question soon enough.”
He reappears next to the spinning disc as if nothing has happened. Even as the windows rattle and the ground shakes, he invites FeeTwix to roll the die. “Your turn, Berserker!”
“That’s not an answer!” Ryuk protests.
“That’s the best I’m allowed to give you.” the ink shadow subvocalizes. Then, in a louder voice says, “You! Overcoat! Your turn!”
As soon as the Swede scoops up the dice, everything reverts to its pre-question state. FeeTwix rolls the dice between his palms and casts them at his feet: 3, 2, 5.
“Ten, an even number. Double-ups,” he says, using the word Hiccup used earlier to roll again. This time, he blows on the die a few times before letting them go: 5, 1, 1.
“Seven!” The ink shadow’s form lifts into the air and settles. “Ready to roll the Wheel of Dread?”
FeeTwix is quiet for a moment as he reads through some messages from his followers.
“Well?” asks the ink shadow, his form starting to grow again.
FeeTwix: They’re telling me to just barely give it a tap and hit the question mark again.
Ryuk: Worth a shot.
The popular gamer steps up to the disc and gives it the daintiest of spins. It barely makes one revolution, almost stops on a question mark, but at the very last second, ticks over onto the crossed swords.
“A battle!” The ink shadow is beside itself with excitement. “Good luck!”
(0)__(0)
Standing in the back of the abandoned cathedral is a female warrior with a bodybuilder’s physique and improbably large cantilevered breasts. The mystic warrior’s features are hidden by a death’s head mask; her figure accentuated by a painted-on fantasy onesie. A sword appears in each of her hands. A wave of iridescent light zips around the blade in her left hand; her other blade bursts into flame as she makes ready.
Blade Mistress Level 10
HP: 150/150
MANA: 35/35
ATK: 87
MATK: 89
DEF: 56
MDF: 48
LUCK: 6
FeeTwix springs into action with a firefighter’s high-pressure water hose and blasts the swordmistress with a jet of gold-flecked water. His golden shower attack does little to douse the woman’s flame sword, but it does leave her soaking wet and angry as a hive of hungover hornets.
Please be ice, please be ice … With a mighty THWAP, Ryuk zings a clear marble on its way, and the impact freezes their adversary inside a solid clear blue mass.
New skill learned!
Skill: A Simple Request
Level One: 1 in 7 chance of a request being granted.
Caveat: Only works with a clear marble.
Requirements: LUCK > 2
A new skill! Ryuk would pat himself on the back if it weren’t for the fact that a fissure in the ice has already began to form around the woman’s fire sword.
FeeTwix sees his opening and springboards off a pew into a flying icepick attack; the blade mistress breaks a sword arm free, skewers him in mid-leap, and holds him like a butterfly on a lepidopterist’s spike.
Ryuk loads two black marbles and one clear marble into his slingshot, cries, “Instakill!” and zings them on their way.
-23 HP!
His simple request doesn’t take, but the attack does force the iced-up sword mistress to toss FeeTwix aside with her firesword still jutting from his body.
She shrugs, flexes, and bursts out of her icy imprisonment. The luminescent sword comes up and she turns to Ryuk, just in time to get another black marble right in the kisser.
-5 HP!
She shakes it off.
Why isn’t it hurting her as badly?
He looses three more.
-7 HP!
What the hell?
“Instakill!” Ryuk lets go with another clear marble in the hope that his new skill will take this time. The transparent messenger of uncertainty slams into the center of her chest, and a red web of energy tendrils blasts across her upper body.
Enhance!
Her muscles bulge and her eyes flash red. She’s in front of him in the blink of an eye, and he barely manages to avoid a slash from her sword.
The marble backfired!
The busty sword-babe boots him in the head and sends him crashing through a pew.
-11 HP!
She follows him in and kicks the slingshot out of his grip. The tip of her sword dimples his throat; her feral grin is all pointy teeth and raging bloodlust.
“FICK YOU!” Out of nowhere, Hiccup blindsides the warrior and knocks the living Empress out of her. It’s an epic snap, meat on meat, slab on slab.
-35 HP!
Once she’s back on her feet, Hiccup is roundhouse kicked right in the chalupa for his troubles. He collapses in a one-armed, panting heap. “Fick me to tears,” he gasps as he beats the ground. “Yoy! That fickin’ hurts!”
FeeTwix empties a health potion and wipes his mouth on the back of the hand that isn’t pointing his slice bang right at the warrior. Three shots from the stabby shootin’ iron sends the blade-wielding broad crashing into a pew.
Instakill!
Tritania’s firearms penalty brings FeeTwix to his knees, his form flashing red. He chugs yet another health potion and staggers to his feet, considers his life bar, tosses the bottle over his shoulder, and downs one more still. His eyes are his own now, and he looks shocked that she was able to skewer him.
The ink shadow floats over the warrior’s corpse, and as it descends, she fades and vanishes.
“The game must go on! Are you ready for your final roll?” He cackles for a moment. “Sorry, this is just so much fun!”
Ryuk snatches up the dice and turns them over in his hand. “Let’s get this over with.”
(0)__(x)
“Well, it looks like you have to spin the Wheel of Dread again.” The ink shadow chuckles. Ryuk glares down at what he just rolled, cursing under his breath: 1, 1, 1.
“Cheating ficker! He’s using magic!” Hiccup positions himself behind Ryuk, just in case his accusation generates any blowback from the ink shadow. “You’re a dirty, filthy, lying, cheating, granny-fickin’ diarrhea stain!”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions.” FeeTwix equips a small wooden horse with a mane of yellow yarn. He circles the Wheel of Dread and waves the miniature horse high and low, shakes his head and announces, “Nope, no magic in use.”
“Well, how the fick do you know?” Hiccup objects.
“If there were magic in play, the mane would have stood up straight.” the Swede waves the carved wooden steed in the air just to be sure. “Nope – still nothing. Isn’t it cool? A fan gave it to me after I announced that I’d be live-streaming from Tritania.”
Hiccup groans as Ryuk steps up to the Wheel of Misfortune. “Let’s get this over with.”
Ryuk takes a deep breath and gives it a hearty spin. The images whirl and blur and come into focus as the wheel slows, slows, slows a bit more, and stops … on the question mark.
+2 LUCK!
If the ink shadow is disappointed, he conceals it well. “I am an entity of my word,” he begins, “Ask me any question and I will answer with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me Empress.”
FeeTwix: Ask about the Shinigami. Find out why they took your friend.
Ryuk: Her name is Tamana, and good call.
Hiccup: Screw that! Ask about my arm, and how the hell I’m supposed to get it back!
FeeTwix: We already discussed your arm. Trust me, I’ll take care of it after this.
Ryuk steps forward, ignoring the fact that Hiccup is grumbling and kicking at the dust behind him.
“Ask your question and you shall receive an answer,” the ink shadow tells him.
“Why did the Shinigami guild kidnap the RPC Tamana?”
The ink shadow’s form trembles.
A portion of the ceiling collapses inward; the support beams above moan and creak as the walls of the cathedral shake and vibrate. Dust and debris cloud the air as the entire structure starts to move. Again, Ryuk sees the robed figure outside the church – it vanishes just as he spots it.
“I will not be intimidated!” The ink shadow cries out. “The Shinigami are a guild that are trying to … ”
Debris rains down around it, but it dodges them.
“They are … !”
The stained glass bursts from their lead strips and rains down upon the three Mitherfickers. The ink shadow disappears again, and reforms directly in front of FeeTwix.
“KILL ME!” it cries out. “Before they do!”
FeeTwix shoots Ryuk an uncertain look.
“Do it! Do it!” The ink shadow balloons in size. “KILL ME!”
FeeTwix pulls back and stabs his slice bang directly into the ink shadow’s center, pulling the trigger on the hilt of his weapon as soon as the blade is in. The creature turns to crystal and explodes.
Instakill!
Each of the Mitherfickers is bumped up a level, just as the cathedral collapses around them in a landslide of stone and rubble. Enough big pieces stack up to partially shield them from the falling debris. Once it looks like the last of the big stuff has fallen, Ryuk picks himself out of the scree. He runs his hands over his body and feels for injuries.
No hit point damage – that’s odd.
Ryuk helps FeeTwix push a particularly large stone off his body and offers him his hand.
“Where’s the goblin?” FeeTwix asks. Ryuk notices that his eyes are still blue.
“Not livestreaming?”
“Not yet. I’ll give everyone an update after we find Hiccup.”
They hear a muffled cry from a particularly robust pile of rubble and go to work uncovering the goblin. They lift the larger stones together and once they’ve removed most of them, the goblin wiggles his way out from beneath a pew.
“Jeez!” Hiccup breathes heavily as he’s helped to his feet. “That was fickin’ terrible … and my arm. That filthy ficker took my arm! That’s my ass-scratching hand, dammit!”
“I thought that that was your wank … uhh!”
Ryuk interrupts FeeTwix with an elbow in the ribs. With his magic slingshot up, he scans the area for the shadowy outline he saw earlier, but the mist is thickening up, and the dust from the collapsed building isn’t helping the visibility.
“I told you not to worry, Hiccup.” FeeTwix scrolls through his seemingly endless list and equips an arm made of brass that’s studded with gears and wheels and levers.
The goblin stares in horror at the steampunk amalgamation.
“Relax … ” FeeTwix’s eyes turn black. “Welcome back everyone. Sorry the feed was cut! As many of you saw, Hiccup lost his arm to the ink shadow back there in a game of Natty Dread. Now he’s set to get a brand new arm and boy am I excited about that. Hiccup? Not so much, but what can you do? Also, this week only, I want to remind everyone in Scandinavia that In ‘N’ Out in the Box has just opened two new locations in Copenhagen in the Vesterbro District, to better serve you! Mention #FeeTwixRox at the ordering kiosk or when you place your iNet order to receive a free upsize on any one menu item! So back to the arm … ” He points the arm in the air. “Now bring me the goblin!”
“Nuh-uh, not happening, video boy. You’ve gone off your fickin’ rocker if you think I’m going let you strap a big brass dildo on me! You said you had a solution, not a cyborg sex toy!”
Ryuk stops scanning the horizon for a moment and asks, “How does it work?”
“It’s steam-powered, but the steampack has been built in so as not to be obtrusive.” FeeTwix turns to the goblin. “What are you waiting for you? You need an arm, I have an arm. Sounds like a win-win to me. Now, to connect it … ”
“Anyone have any fickin’ hooch?” Hiccup asks. “Some drorikh, preferably.”
“No,” Ryuk says with disapproving abruptness.
“Marbles, you have the empathy of a fungal growth in the cleft of a dragon’s ass.”
“Don’t worry,” FeeTwix grins. “I’ve used one of these before. The attachment process isn’t really all that painful. Come on – don’t be a big baby.”
“The fick, you say!” Hiccup huffs, sighs, and with eyes squinched shut and head turned away, reluctantly presents his armless shoulder. The gears spin up, the fingers come alive and the shoulder end opens like the maw of a lamprey. FeeTwix presses the mechanical arm onto Hiccup’s shoulder, and the goblin’s flesh tendrils up and settles around the union of goblin shoulder and steam-powered arm. The external gears click and clank as the arm makes minor adjustments.
FeeTwix lets go and the brass arm dangles there for a moment. “Don’t be afraid of it; it may actually be of some benefit to you.”
“Who’s afraid? Other than my second ex-mother-in-law, I’m not afraid of anything that’s not trying to kill me.”
“What about ghosts?”
The rearmed goblin ignores Ryuk. He holds his mechanical hand up in front of his face, bends and twists the wrist, flexes and wiggles the fingers. An idea occurs to him; he reaches around and gives his ass a most vigorous scratch. He grins and thumps his foot in time to the scratching. “Oh yeah; that’s the ticket. That’s the good stuff!”
FeeTwix laughs. “Glad I got that on video, and I’m glad you like it!”
Hiccup runs his other hand over his new brass arm. He knocks on it for a moment. “I can’t say that I hate it, and it sure isn’t my first choice, but it’ll do for now,” he remarks as he sniffs the fingers he just scratched his ass with. “All right, where to, boss?”
That anyone would consider him boss is a strange and alien concept, even if he is technically the leader of the guild. Ryuk turns his head to conceal the uncertainty he feels, clears his throat and says, “We need to find the dream armor that’s located somewhere around here. And I’ve realized the fatal flaw in my avatar: I have no way of protecting myself in hand-to-hand combat.”
Hiccup continues to test the capabilities of his new arm by vigorously mining his oversized nostrils and flicking the extracted deposits at FeeTwix. “You just now realized that?”
“What’s so special about dream armor?” FeeTwix asks, as he pivots out of the way of Hiccup’s ejecta.
“Dream armor is metamorphic; it becomes whatever armor the wearer needs. It’s almost impossible to get and super, super expensive if you can find it. I was Level 96 and I couldn’t afford any even if I’d found some.”
“Well, if it’s dream armor you really want,” Hiccup says, “I’m your goblin to find it, but it won’t be cheap.”
“You’re already getting two percent of whatever treasure we find,” Ryuk reminds him.
“I thought it was four percent.”
“No, it’s three.”
“That’s fine, but when I find this armor, you’ll need to toss me a little bonus. How about a healing potion? I know you still have one left.”
FeeTwix drapes an arm onto Hiccup’s shoulder and wipes a goblin booger back onto him. “Sure, we’ll give you a healing potion when you find the dream armor.”
Hiccup jams his new metallic finger into his mouth, gives it a good slobbering, and sticks it up in the air. “It’s that way,” he says as he turns to the east. “We are close, so get ready. I got the feeling one of those classic big boss battles is on the horizon.”
Chapter 9: Dream armor or bust
Shall I use my air horn again?” asks FeeTwix.
“Does insanity run in your fickin’ family, Twixy? Ever heard of the element of surprise? I’m trying to find us some dream armor here, not get my ass handed to me on a dragonscale platter. Priorities, mate, priorities, and a goblin’s priorities are as follows: treasure and sex.”
“What about violence?”
“Violence is a natural extension of treasure and sex.”
A soft, red glow around a storm shelter catches Ryuk’s attention. He examines the glow for a moment and it flashes, intensifies.
New skill learned!
Skill: Magic Eye
Level One: A colored glow indicates that magical properties are present. Higher levels allow for more detail and access to the Wikipedia of arcane knowledge. A red outline signals that a hidden enemy is near.
Requirements: Level 4 Mage, LUCK > 4.
Another skill, three now, he thinks. He checks his stats again just to get a sense of where he’s at after his last level up.
Ryuk Matsuzaki Level 4 Ballistics Mage
HP: 185/185
ATK: 45
MATK: 74
DEF: 13
MDF: 22
LUCK: 5
Getting better, and he’s only used one auto-level, nine left. Still, the Shinigami could be at any level and according to Hiccup, they were tooled up pretty seriously. While it’s fun grinding and milling about in the bucolic splendor of the Hyperborean countryside, he needs to keep his eye on the prize – Tamana’s rescue. And there’s other stuff going on as well, such as the robed figure at the cathedral. ‘Bigger forces at play’ is an understatement.
“Where are you heading?” FeeTwix asks.
“That storm shelter,” Ryuk says, “there’s something off about it.” He draws his slingshot and pouches up a clear marble. With any luck, his Simple Request will work next time.
“Thanks, guys, for taking care of me for once.” He swipes away the poll.
FeeTwix brandishes a double-bladed sword and gives it a slow whirl. With a flick of his wrist, the two blades shift on the hilt and lock into place, thirty degrees off from their normal position.
“That’s exactly the type of place that has fickin’ ghosts.”
Hiccup equips a spiked club. In his new mechanical hand he clutches a crooked dagger. “What?” he asks as FeeTwix admires his stabby weapons. “You think you’re the only one with a big fickin’ inventory list? I call this one Frank’s Toe Knife.”
“How should we do this?” Ryuk keeps his slingshot trained on the storm shelter’s opening.
“Are you sure something is in there?” FeeTwix asks.
“I’m getting magic readings,” Ryuk explains, “it’s a new skill. Whatever it is, it’s moving a lot.”
Hiccup nods to Ryuk. “I sense it too. There’s treasure, and whenever there’s rare treasure there’s someone looking to keep that treasure for themselves.”
“Well, let’s go in weapons a-blazing then.” FeeTwix lifts his hand to scroll through his list. “I’ll toss a few grenades in there to get things off to the right start.”
Too late. The doors of the storm shelter snap open and arm-thick vines burst out, slapping and slamming against the ground. Hiccup ducks just in time to avoid the first swipe. “That’s fickin’ big!”
The creature’s stats appear:
Giant Vine Squid Level 20
HP: 431/431
ATK: 76
MATK: 32
DEF: 239
MDF: 64
LUCK: 8
“Have at it, boys!” Hiccup charges in bashing and slashing at anything he can reach; one of the vines he doesn’t reach snatches him up and jerks him off his feet. He roars his indignation and stabs, clubs and cleaves in a blur of furious motion.
-2 HP! -2 HP! -2 HP! -2 HP!
The vine flings him into a moss-covered and weather-stained statue of Empress Thun. He bounces off, lands with a ‘Yoy!’ and hops to his feet just in time to club another incoming vine. FeeTwix dashes in and slashes his way into a wall of waving greenery; funky vine juice splatters all around him.
-12 HP! -20 HP!
Two black marbles fly past the Swede’s head and explode inside the storm shelter; the three Mitherfickers hear a blood-curdling, water-boiling, gut-wrenching screech.
“It’s definitely pissed now!” Hiccup charges, leaps, and brings his club down on a vine beelining towards Ryuk.
-10 HP!
More vines burst out of the storm shelter, lift into the air and snap against the soil. They writhe and curl as FeeTwix hacks into them.
-9 HP! -9 HP! -9 HP!
A vine yanks Ryuk’s feet out from under him and suddenly, he’s airborne.
The slingshot’s pouch slips out of his grasp; the two black marbles he’d had on deck fly wide and explode against a dead tree in a nearby courtyard. The vine hurls him through a picket fence and he lands in a garden overgrown with thorn bushes, grass burrs and wait-a-minute vines. -21 HP!
He painfully extracts himself from nature’s barbed wire plants and the vine smashes him right back into the spiky unpleasantness. As he falls backward, Ryuk jams a handful of black marbles in the slingshot’s pouch and zings them off; the slingshot warms from overuse.
Ryuk: We’re getting KILLED here. Any surprises in your list?
FeeTwix: Oh yeah, I got just the thing!
FeeTwix swings his double-bladed sword just enough to keep the vines off him and equips a mahoosive crossbow of silver and mahogany with intricate golden inlays. The weapon flows and spreads and encases his left arm in a web of pulsating symbiotic tendrils that crackle with energy as the weapon charges up.
Hiccup: Fick yes! FICK YES!
Ryuk: You have a mutant hack!?
An eyeball searing green flash momentarily dispels the fog and gloom as FeeTwix unleashes a bolt of sheer hellfire straight into the shelter entrance. The ground shakes; the great vine squid shrieks in pain and dismay as the blast vaporizes most of its vines. Smoke and steam boil out of the shelter and the air is filled with the fragrance of boiled asparagus and calamari well past its best-by date.
-300 HP!
“Oh kuso! That didn’t kill it!?” Ryuk leaps to his feet and bolts over to FeeTwix, just in time to see his mutant hack return to its crossbow state. He loads two clear marbles into his magic slingshot and aims it at the shelter entrance.
“My hackbow,” the Swede says as he returns the weapon to his list. “Long story behind it, but until I can get it looked at by a master weaponsmith, it’ll only shoot once per day. Still, it doesn’t give me a life penalty, so you can’t beat that.”
Hiccup appears at his side and drops his mechanical hand onto the Swede’s shoulder. “You didn’t fickin’ tell me you had a mutant hack! The Shinigami are done for – we will fick them up, down and sideways five ways from Friday! Those fickboys won’t know what fickin’ hit them!”
“It’s not something I advertise; others will want to fight me for it if I do.”
Ryuk notices that FeeTwix eyes are blue.
“You weren’t streaming that?”
“Again,” he says, “my mutant hack is not something I advertise, at least not until the big battle. Make them work for it.”
FeeTwix’s double-bladed sword takes shape in his hand. The blades shift thirty degrees and a miner’s headlamp appears on his head. “What are we waiting for? Let’s get our asses in there and finish it off.”
(0)__(0)
The back-blast from FeeTwix’s mutant hack seriously damaged the entrance to the storm shelter, forcing the three Mitherfickers to traverse a partially collapsed stairwell that they can barely squeeze through.
“How far down do you think it goes?” Ryuk asks FeeTwix, who’s in the lead.
“I can’t really tell from here.”
Hiccup’s teeth start to chatter. “I don’t know about you fickers, but I’m seriously freezing my massive goblin testes off here. This is why goblins live on the coast of Hyperborea and not in Ultima Thule FYI. We hate the cold.”
“And goblins hate ghosts, working, leveling up, personal hygiene, and not whining, apparently. Equip a jacket.” FeeTwix laughs.
“How am I supposed to save your asses if I’m all bundled up like Nanook of the North and my mobility is reduced? No, we’ll get the dream armor and then it’s gobnap time. I’ve got a flask of drorikh I’ve been saving.” Realization flashes across his eyes. “Fick me! I should have chugged that back when you rearmed me. Shit.”
A fetid breeze moves up the stairwell, pushing stale air past the three Mitherfickers.
“Getting closer,” FeeTwix whispers. “I’m going live again.” He clears his throat. “Sorry everyone, some tech difficulties! We’re back, about to go in for the kill.”
Ryuk keeps his magic slingshot at the ready. He has a single clear marble ready to go; the explosive black marbles could cause a cave-in, and having survived one in the Mines of Rotlana, he’d rather not go through that again.
“We’re coming to the bottom,” FeeTwix whispers. “Weapons up!”
“Treasure!” Hiccup pushes past his two guildmates. He explodes into a wide open space and disappears to the right.
Damn goblin!
FeeTwix steps out into the opening and what’s left of the giant vine squid drops down and engulfs him. The oversized barrel-shaped cephaloplant has FeeTwix wedged most of the way down its gullet. It writhes and struggles as he hacks and slashes at its insides, and then violently disgorges him in a burst of bilious plantopus goo.
The Swede rolls backwards, springs to his feet, and with a flick of his wrist, bile and goo flies off his double-bladed sword. His eyes flash.
“I will not be humiliated!” He charges back in with his blades held high, slips in a puddle of vine squid gunk and most ungracefully skewers himself as he falls on his fancy double-sword – Schwip!
(0)__(x)
FeeTwix: Shit! I should have gone with a gun! It’s up to you and the goblin if he ever shows back up! P.S. 675,309 fans are livestreaming this, so no pressure … Remember, if you guys die, we have to start back at the guild again, so no pressure there either.
“No pressure,” Ryuk whispers, says the Tritania noob who fell on his own sword. No pressure.
FeeTwix’s miner’s lamp still shines, and the giant vine squid tries to scoot out of the light. Hiccup pops out of the shadows and ultra-thuds the plant-animal in the back of the head.
-12 HP!
The vine squid pirouettes on the stubs of its tentacles and punts the club-wielding goblin right in his dangly bits. Hiccup screams ‘Yoy!’ as he hits the ceiling, drops to the floor and covers up just that little bit too enthusiastically with his new brass hand. The plus-size vine squid lands on him gaping beak first and begins the process of deglutition.
“Marbles! A little fickin’ help for the kid, eh?” His new mechanical arm clatters and bangs against the floor as he scrabbles for a handhold.
FeeTwix: Use your explody marbles to kill it and Hiccup if you have to. As long as you’re not dead, we’ll respawn there after the battle. Plus you’ll get all the EXP, and you’re the one who needs it the most.
Well when you put it like that … Ryuk loads a combo clear and black marble in the pocket of his slingshot. He draws and aims and the slingshot grows uncomfortably warm in his grip.
FeeTwix: Watches are surging! 700,301 people right now. No pressure!
I need more light …
FeeTwix’s headlamp grows brighter and brighter, and the shadows leap away to reveal a number of treasure chests in the far right corner.
FeeTwix: How did you do that!?
Ryuk: I just thought it and … it worked!
FeeTwix: A spike in views, now approaching 800,000, no pressure, man but seriously, kill that thing! How do they say it in Japanese? Ganbatte! Ganbatte!
No pressure, Ryuk thinks as he releases a clear marble and a black marble simultaneously. “No pressure,” he whispers as the two marbles explode against their target.
+1 LUCK!
Skill level up!
Skill: A Simple Request
Level two: 1 in 6.75 chance of a request being granted.
Caveat: Only works with a clear marble.
Requirements: LUCK > 4
Hiccup is blasted into the wall as the giant vine squid suddenly grows more giant; it inflates like a weather balloon, it bulges and squeaks against the floor and ceiling, swells and bursts in a shower of guts and viscera.
FeeTwix: What did you do? The fans are going crazy!
Level up!
Ryuk is awarded a ton of experience points, easily enough to level up.
Ryuk Matsuzaki Level 5 Ballistics Mage
HP: 182/213
ATK: 48
MATK: 81
DEF: 17
MDF: 24
LUCK: 6
A new pouch appears on his belt and a prompt appears:
New marble acquired! Knife marbles have continuous damage capabilities and can cause an instakill in the right circumstance and at the right level. BONUS! Double damage if they strike an unarmored portion of the target.
Hiccup is bad off, banged around, and angry to boot, but he still has life left and he’s less grumbly when FeeTwix’s avatar materializes, healing potion in hand. The goblin snatches it away, guzzles it down, and uncorks a satisfied ructus.
He narrows his eyes at Ryuk as the beak-bites, scrapes, scratches, bruises, contusions, evulsions, and eviscerations heal right up. Even the dings and dents in his mechanical arm repair themselves as he holds out his brass hand and wiggles his fingers.
“Don’t you hold out on me too,” Hiccup tells Ryuk.
“I got mugged back in Jatla. I don’t have a healing potion.”
“Now isn’t the time to be a cheapfick.”
“Never mind that – where the hell did you run off too when we got down here?” Ryuk asks.
“Show, don’t tell. Am I right?” Hiccup strolls over to one of the treasure boxes and kicks it open. Sure enough, it’s filled with rupees. “My guess is that there are several thousand rupees in here. Now I’m not saying we’re dragon eggs and Yoshi McNuggets for breakfast rich, but us Mitherfickers can afford finger bowls and appetizers next time we dine out.”
Ryuk does a quick check. The guild’s shared bank account now stands at 5,309 rupees.
Getting better.
“And the dream armor?”
“Gee, I dunno. What do you think is in this other chest?”
“Nice.” Ryuk works his way over to Hiccup, careful not to step on a severed vine or in any of the visceral giant vine squid splooge. The spell he inadvertently cast on FeeTwix’s headlamp is still working, but the far corners of the room have already started to darken.
“Potion.” Hiccup extends an open palm to Ryuk.
“Seriously, I was robbed. When I went out to recruit for the guild, there were these two guys mugging a goblin grandma. Well, I killed them, and then she stuck me with this great big knife and stole all my stuff.”
“Ha! That’s the oldest trick in the book right there!” Hiccup chortles, snorts, and winces when he slaps his thigh with his new mechanical hand. “By the Empress’ Mahoosive Mammaries, you are fickin’ pathetic. We’ll just have to stock up in the next town, and now that we’re back in fundage we can afford the good stuff. I’m telling you guys, there are a couple of healing potion manufacturers, but Hopkins’ Holistic Healing Nostrums, well they’re the best.”
“I usually charge for endorsements,” FeeTwix reminds him.
“Yeah? Well I don’t have a terse and witty comeback for that, but if I did, I’d say it now. The night is young, kiddos, so get your dream armor, Marbles, and let’s get to the nearest town. We could all use a little rest and we have two more days before we have to face off against the Shinigami.”
FeeTwix brings up a blue map and scrolls through it. “A resort town called Sotla isn’t very far from here; I bet we can get there without getting in another fight.”
“Sounds like a plan, Twixy.”
Ryuk approaches the treasure chest. He runs his hand along its surface, admiring the wood grain for a moment. He pops it open and a rainbowesque energy radiates all around him. A tingling sensation wraps around his body as the armor takes shape. Aside from a chest piece and epaulettes, the dream armor forms peculiar looking ribbed vambraces on Ryuk’s arm.
+30 DEF!
“Holy fickered hog tits. I’ve actually seen this armor in use before! Watch and learn, Marbles.” Hiccup equips a tomahawk and tries to whack Ryuk’s arm off. Mid-swing, Ryuk’s vambraces extend downward, deflecting Hiccup’s attack.
“It morphs to meet the attack.”
“It sure does.” Hiccup tries again and the armor peels off Ryuk’s arm to meet the attack.
“Cool, huh?”
“Very.” Ryuk admires the dream armor for a moment and instantly wishes Tamana were here to see him growing into a more formidable character.
She will be soon, he reminds himself.
Chapter 10: The Thulean
The three Mitherfickers take the long and winding road to Sotla and Ryuk gets the uneasy feeling that they’re being watched. Soft glows in the misty forest catch his eyes and keep him on guard. Nothing comes of it, other than the growing realization that if his magical abilities continue to develop at their present rate, he may become much more formidable than he imagined he ever would be when he chose to become a Ballistics Mage.
He keeps half an eye on the forest and lets his mind drift back to less than a day ago when he and Tamana visited the cathedral in Jatla to choose their new resetter classes. She suggested they try something different, something more challenging, more difficult to master. She’d take on the healing and face-to-face battling as a White Warrior while he would pummel enemies from afar. It was a perfect match.
Originally, he didn’t agree.
He’d wanted to be a Dark Assassin, one capable of intensely fast attacks. Assassins level up quickly and are useful in battle and quest-based scenarios. Add a dark magic sub-class to that and you get twice the killer. But Tamana hadn’t wanted him to – and she had considerable influence over him, more than anyone else for that matter. He’d caved to her wishes – well, her directions more exactly – and the rest was history.
I need to test out my new knife marble, he thinks, as they pass a sign pointing towards the city of Jatla. The moon provides enough illumination to outline the sign and highlight its carved letters. He slows his pace so Hiccup and FeeTwix can go ahead, pouches up a marble and draws it back. The business end of the marble stretches into a sharp point, yet the base of the marble remains round.
So that’s how it works.
He relieves the tension on his slingshot and the knife marble returns to its original shape. He tries again, quickly this time, and as he pulls back on the pocket with the marble inside, the silver marble again stretches into a sharp blade on its business end.
He looses the blade and it makes a thunk sound as it hits the sign.
“Dragon Ficks!” Hiccup drops to the ground. “Incoming! Get down! Get down!” His spiked club appears in his mechanical hand. “Down you fickers, down! Someone’s shooting at us!”
FeeTwix laughs. “It was only Ryuk testing his new marble.”
Hiccup tries to push himself up, grimaces at the pain in his lower back, and eventually rolls to his side. “Hey, fick-face. Little help for your elder?” As FeeTwix helps him to his feet, Hiccup curses with a passion and depth of feeling usually reserved for faster cars, younger women, and older whiskey.
FeeTwix is impressed; Ryuk ignores him and looses another shot at the wooden sign.
“This is so cool! Did you see how this works?” he waves FeeTwix over and turns his hand slightly to show him the knife marble. “When I pull it back,” he demonstrates, “the other end stretches into a blade.”
“It’s like you’re pulling a blade out of thin air!” FeeTwix’s scrolls through his list. A classic TruMark Wrist Rocket appears in his hand and he offers a palm to Ryuk. “Let me give it a try.”
Ryuk hands him one and he pouches it up.
FeeTwix pulls back and …
Nothing. Ryuk smiles, feels ashamed for smiling, and looks away. Once he’s sure that his smile has vanished, he returns his focus to FeeTwix, who is still trying to pull a knife out of thin air.
“I guess you have to be a Ballistics Mage to use its magical properties.” FeeTwix gives the marble back and Fwitt! Ryuk sticks another one into the sign.
“You know,” huffs the brass-armed goblin, “some Sotlan signmaker is going to be royally peeved that some fickin’ douche canoe has been dagging his sign all night. How ‘bout you stop all the fickin’ around and we get to town.”
“Relax, goblin friend.” FeeTwix pats him on the shoulder. “It’s only just ahead.”
“I’m jumpy, that’s all.”
“Why are you jumpy?” he asks as they weave through a particularly dark part of the path. The sounds of wild animals howling in the distance prick Ryuk’s ears up. He turns to the misty woods, scans it again for foes. Again, nothing.
“Why wouldn’t I be? I’ve been bamboozled by a racist ficktard ink shadow, had my arm stolen, been zip-tied, carpet-rolled, dragged through the mud, slammed around by a fickin’ vine squid – and that’s just since second lunch! Then Mr. Trigger Happy Japanese Ramen Sushi Sandwich over here just about gives his only friend a Valhalsian tonsure.”
“You aren’t my only friend.” Ryuk stays behind his two guildmates, another marble in the pouch of his slingshot just in case there is actual trouble. He’s entered enough Tritanian towns after dark to know to come prepared. He’s no longer of the ninja class now, but he was one for long enough to have some of the abilities permanently engraved upon his psyche.
Hiccup calls back to him, “Well, maybe FeeTwix here is your friend too, but you’ve only known each other like five hours or something so you can’t be that close. Who am I missing?”
Don’t let him egg you on … Ryuk reminds himself. Too late. “Tamana is my friend.”
“Oh, that’s right! I forgot what all this was about. Okay then, pretty little Tamana. Tammy and Good Ol’ Uncle Goblin, your only two pals.”
FeeTwix, always the mediator, says, “You know, Ryuk, you’re polling quite high with my fans, which is a good thing. I’ve seen them get quite nasty about people I join up with. Now before you get all impressed with yourself, I do have to tell you that you’re not polling quite as high as Hiccup, but I think that’s mostly because Hiccup brings the comic relief, and the fans like to see him get hurt or do something stupid.”
“Hey!”
FeeTwix continues, “But people really seem to like you.” He turns to Ryuk and points at his eyes. Ryuk can see that they’re not recording. “Remember, most of them don’t know why we’re doing what we’re doing,” he explains, “I try to record in a way that leaves those details out. Once they do, I expect they’ll really start pulling for you. Romance sells, and everyone loves an underdog.” His eyes turn black and widen. “Approaching the town of Sotla, who knows what we will find!”
Hiccup tugs on FeeTwix’s sleeve. “How many people are watching right now?”
“A little over 600,000, my dearest goblin friend. Viewership declines when we’re not in battle, which is understandable.”
“We goblins got a phrase for that – bandwagon fickboys. Sounds like you have about 200,000 of them.”
Small cottages and farmhouses occur more and more frequently the closer they get to town. Most are all thatched roofs, cobblestone paths, and flowering window boxes back-lit by softly glowing candle light – the trademarked industrial quaintness and cookie-cutter individuality of KinkadeCo Proxima Properties. The occasional cottage is dark and empty-looking, and Ryuk wonders briefly about the places that don’t look lived in.
Do they belong to NPCs, or have player characters purchased them?
It is quite common for PCs to use real world money to buy digital, intangible real estate in Tritania. Some properties – especially those in Valhalla, the high-end fashion district of Porthos – can fetch upwards of fifteen to twenty million real world dollars. Location, location, location – and if you stick a price tag on it, some idiot will buy it.
“We’re here!” FeeTwix announces to his legion of fans. “Welcome to Sotla!”
Hiccup doesn’t even wait for the guards to swing the city gate all the way closed before he goes to bail on his guildmates. He clutches his groin a tad too enthusiastically with his brass hand, winces, and remarks, “Fick, don’t know my own strength yet. Anyways, fellas, as much as I’ve enjoyed our little sausage party, I need to take my own sausage to a party, if you get my drift.”
Ryuk looks blank; FeeTwix sniggers.
A passerby glances over at the Swede. He chuckles as he shakes his head and moves on.
With a theatrical roll of his eyes, the goblin elucidates. “A Yoshi ranch. A fancy house. The land of happy endings. Okay, a brothel. I need to visit a brothel, specifically one that has orc-gals.” His eyes unfocus for a moment as he murmurs, “Mmmm … orc-gals with nether teeth … ”
FeeTwix cringes at the word nether teeth.
The goblin shakes it off and resumes, “Might as well give you two the straight fickin’ scoop now that we’re guildmates and battle buddies and all – This ain’t my first rodeo, and it takes some pretty fancy bronco-busting to wet my willy if you catch my drift, but we can talk about that later.”
FeeTwix laughs. “Yes, you’ll have to go into great detail for me!”
“Later, Twixy, over a keg of Horse Piss.” Hiccup looks around for a moment, “... over there.” He points to the village square, a lovely open space with trees and flowers and chirping birds and a baroque fountain that features cherubs on unicorn-backs tastefully peeing into the central basin. “Tomorrow morning at the Hour of the Morning Wood … Just fickin’ with you, that’s too early. How about the Hour of the Morning Fire? Yeah that should be fine. Don’t be late, and if I’m late, wait for me.”
Ryuk starts to object but Hiccup silences him with a wave of his brass hand. “We all have our ways to recharge, Marbles, see you boys tomorrow.”
With that, the goblin heads east towards the small town’s tenderloin.
(0)__(0)
“Let’s head to the general goods store.” FeeTwix takes the lead, and quickly stops when he hears Ryuk curse. “What is it?”
He punches his fist into his hand. “That miserable fucking goblin grabbed half of the rupees that we scored in the storm shelter! How did he even do it? I put control panel locks on the funds knowing that he’d try to get more than his cut.”
“Did you promise him a cut?”
“I promised him 3%, which I will gladly give him.”
Their conversation is interrupted by a man pulling a rickshaw. Comfortably ensconced in the rickshaw are a pair of starry-eyed elven NPCs. “Make way for the honeymooners,” the runner shouts. “Honeymooners here! Make way!”
“Honeymooners?” Ryuk watches the runner weave in and out of the pedestrian traffic in the town square. There isn’t much, but he does have to pay attention to the mobile obstructions.
FeeTwix takes a mirror from his front pocket. “Anyone?” he asks his own reflection. “Ah, I see.” He returns the mirror. “My peeps say that there is a famous natural spring around here that’s noted for enhancing … um … endurance and fertility, which has made Sotla a popular honeymoon destination.
He jerks his thumb to the west and Ryuk notices the dozens of elaborately designed hotels that are situated on two narrow lanes. Their signs are illuminated by twinkling fireflies and advertise their various romantic amenities – from hot tubs in each room to something called a lube slide.
A tall, slender woman in form-fitting armor walks towards them. She stops and a breeze ruffles her short orange mop.
“She looks interesting.” FeeTwix nods his head up and down as he reads messages from his followers. “Oh I see, she’s a Thulean!” he says just a bit too loud.
Thulean Juvenile Level 11
HP: 308/308
ATK: 89
MATK: 8
DEF: 78
MDF: 43
LUCK: 14
She glances at Ryuk, executes a perfect cartoon double-take, draws two short swords and charges. Ryuk gets a knife marble in the air, which she flicks aside with a casual sweep of her sword. With barbwire baseball bat in hand, FeeTwix moves in a-swinging, only to be lifted in the air by an invisible force and slammed into the ground.
FeeTwix: What the hell was that?
Ryuk: Using her ghost limbs!
The Thulean descends upon Ryuk with both her short swords. He parries, and brings up his forearm as the armor fans out to shield him. Another dodge and duck and Ryuk is inside her reach. She spins to meet him as Ryuk crosses his arms over his head in a defensive X.
“We don’t want to fight you!”
The orange-haired warrior strikes with both blades and again his armor morphs to meet her attack. She grunts, grimaces, bears down on him and he just manages to kick her off.
FeeTwix: So that’s what ghost limbs are? COOL! Fans to the rescue!
The Thulean brings her blades down again and again Ryuk catches them with his armor. She lifts her leg up lightning fast and spin kicks him right in the face: -32 HP!
His vision pane flashes as he stumbles left and hits the dirt. He’s still okay for hit points, but a boot to the noggin is still a bell-ringer. He fumbles out a clear marble, zings it on its way and gets the sword mistress with a good, solid hit.
The town freezes all around him.
Individual droplets of cherub piss hang suspended in midair; the rickshaw man stands motionless, poised in mid-step.
A time marble!
Ryuk hops to his feet, palms a knife marble, steps in front of the intransigent warrior and aims right for her scaly, green-tinged throat. He waits for time to resume its normal pace so he can end this foolishness.
Well, he thinks, then again maybe not. It would probably be a better idea to interrogate her first and maybe kill her later, if necessary. He sighs, returns the knife marble to its pouch, equips a black marble and aims just in front of her.
Time undilates, the marble explodes and takes the Thulean warrior off her feet. FeeTwix sports an oversized blunderbuss, and as their orange-haired adversary struggles to regain her feet, he blasts her with it.
A bolo net wraps her up like a kosher-vegan-halal salami and takes her back to the ground.
In a conversational tone, FeeTwix warns her, “The net’s self-tightening monomolecular diamond wire, so you probably want to stop struggling before it slices you into sashimi.”
“Release me now, commoner scum,” she demands. “NOW!”
FeeTwix crouches in front of her and offers her a friendly and disarming grin. “All in good time, all in good time. You attacked us first, remember?”
She moves and hisses in pain as the diamond wire tightens.
“Anyone recognize her?” he asks his audience, his eyes black. He reads responses for a moment as Ryuk crouches down and considers her for a moment.
“What’s up with attacking us for no reason?”
“Not no reason. I thought you were an enemy, and clearly you are!” Her ghost limbs strain against the net, and again she hisses in distress.
“Seriously, what part of self-tightening diamond wire don’t you understand?” FeeTwix asks.
Ryuk: I’m sure your fans have already told you this, but if we kill her, every Thulean this side of Ultima Thule will be on our asses.
FeeTwix: They mentioned that, yeah.
Ryuk: What did your fans say?
FeeTwix: They said to question her.
Ryuk: That’s what I was thinking.
Ryuk examines her more closely, and can see how her chainmail armor is relieved to accommodate her invisible ghost limbs; the vestigial remnants of their dragon ancestor’s wings.
“Give us your word of honor that you will cooperate and we’ll release you,” Ryuk finally tells her.
She frowns and narrows her eyes to orange slits. “I swear not to immediately kill you; I make no promises beyond that.”
FeeTwix shrugs, makes the don’t ask me face.
“It’ll have to do,” Ryuk sighs.
(0)__(x)
The Thulean stands and adjusts her armor and accoutrements. “This way,” she directs them.
“Aren’t you going to tell us why you attacked us?” Ryuk asks.
“This way.” With her head held high she turns towards the string of love hotels gently illuminated by a silver moon.
Ryuk: Keep some type of weapon equipped. She may be leading us into a trap.
FeeTwix equips a black Desert Eagle in .50 Action Express and tucks it into the back of his pants. “What?” he whispers as they follow the Thulean. “You said to stay frosty.”
They temporarily lose sight of her when a cabriolet drawn by a clipped-wing Pegasus passes in front of them. Another set of newlyweds snuggle in the back, the man with his hand up under her wedding gown and a wolfish leer plastered on his face as she radiates waves of unease and uncertainty.
Yikes, Ryuk thinks.
The carriage passes and they catch up to the Thulean, who carries herself with the serene self-assurance of the grandest tiger in the jungle.
It troubles Ryuk that they so easily overcame the woman; even at low levels, Thuleans are notoriously skilled combatants and are usually much stronger than the average player.
Something wasn’t right; Thuleans are a snooty and exclusionary group. A player can’t select a Thulean avatar; there aren’t any. The Thuleans all either NPCs or Reborn Player Characters, and just being an RPC doesn’t automatically get you in either – there’s an interview and a waiting list of up to year, last time Ryuk checked.
They think they’re the one per cent; most everybody else thinks they’re an over-rated bunch of scaly assholes. Even so, there are plenty of RPCs who are simply marking time until a new Thulean avatar becomes available. Most of them hang out in Valhalla, but they can be anywhere, really.
Their erstwhile foe leads them to a rose-red, horseshoe-shaped love hotel. Softly glowing love seats and topiary rose bushes border a decorative path that cuts through its center. An intricately carved, sled-shaped sign proclaims the hotel to be The Rosebud.
“Why are we here?” FeeTwix inquires.
“This is where I’m staying.”
Another message from FeeTwix appears on Ryuk’s vision pane.
FeeTwix: This is great! A big, strapping Thulean babe brought us to a love hotel! My fans are going insane!
Ryuk: I guess it does look a little strange …
She stops at the front door and turns to them. “Well? Are you two going to stand outside and look stupid, or are you going to come in … and look stupid?”
“You know this is like … um … a love hotel, right?” Ryuk asks.
She sighs, puts fists on hips and shakes her head. “Yes. Yes, I know this is like … um … a love hotel. This is Sotla; there are no inns here, just love hotels, and at least this one has a fairly decent restaurant.”
The lobby of the love hotel reeks of ambiance. It’s dimly lit and features dark red furniture and a clerestory of heart-shaped windows.
The desk clerk doesn’t bat an eye at the thin, seven foot tall Thulean swordswoman with two young, handsome-ish guys in tow. This is probably the second tamest thing he’s seen all day; he merely nods at the trio and returns to his leather bound copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
“The restaurant is this way.” The Thulean leads the two down a small flight of stairs and into a narrow corridor.
A hostess in a black and white dress with mouton sleeves and hoop skirt curtsies in greeting and launches into her well-rehearsed spiel: “Welcome young lovers! For your dining and amative enjoyment this evening, we have available La Room de Boom-Boom, La chambre de votre premier amour, La chambre de l'amour sans fin, and La salle d'une liaison!” She gives Ryuk a knowing wink. “May I suggest La Room de Boom-Boom? It is … ” Eyes wide, she places her hands over her mouth and giggles.
“It’s what?” FeeTwix asks.
She throws her hands out. “Scandaleux!”
“Enough,” the Thulean female narrows her eyes on the hostess. “Which room is most comfortable for three?”
“Pour trois?” She speaks to herself in French for a moment.
“What’s she saying?” Ryuk asks FeeTwix.
More importantly, why aren’t things being translated in real-time? Everyone in Tritania shares a common tongue, which is whatever language they speak natively. The only language not translated in real-time is Thulean, and there are apps and magical devices for that. In actuality, when Ryuk speaks to FeeTwix, he speaks in Japanese, which is then translated into Swedish. When FeeTwix replies in Swedish, it’s immediately translated to Japanese.
“She’s speaking nonsense, otherwise.” FeeTwix smiles briskly at the hostess. “We will take the Amor Sans Fin Chambre.”
“Magnifique!” Careful of her hoop skirt, the hostess turns to the long corridor. “Madame, Messieurs, follow me if you please.” She chuckles to herself as she leads them down the long corridor. She arrives at a waist-high door and crouches. Her key ring jingles as she searches for the right key, opens the door and duck-walks through, which is no mean feat in a hoop skirt.
“Why is the door so short?” asks Ryuk.
FeeTwix shrugs. “I think it may be some sort of architectural commentary on endless love or something. That’s my guess, anyway.” He follows their hostess’ example, as does Ryuk. The Thulean crouches but is still too tall; instead, she drops to her knees and crawls in.
They’re greeted by the soothing sound of gently tinkling water; the room features an artfully constructed water wall that that feeds into a heated pool. A metal towel rack with big, fluffy pink towels sits within convenient reach.
The hostess twitches her nose and an ornately carved hearts, flowers, and cigar-smoking cupids with hammer and sickle sashes-themed wooden table and three well-upholstered stools appear.
ТЕЛЕГРАМКанал с обзорами, анонсами новинок и книжными подборками
Книжный Вестник
Бот для удобного поиска книг (если не нашлось на сайте)
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Свежие любовные романы в удобных форматах
Любовные романы
О психологии, саморазвитии и личностном росте
Саморазвитие
Детективы и триллеры, все новинки
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Фантастика и фэнтези, все новинки
Фантастика
Отборные классические книги
Классика
ВКОНТАКТЕБиблиотека с любовными романами, которая наверняка придётся по вкусу женской части аудитории
Любовные романы
Библиотека с фантастикой и фэнтези, а также смежных жанров
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