The Good Guys Chronicles Box Set Page 2
“Actually, I don’t.”
“You don’t get to play if you don’t get in the game on time.”
“Oh. Shit.”
“Yes, my fault, entirely. I do apologize, and promise I will make it up to you. But, for the moment, perhaps you’ll tell me if you were actually serious with your choices.””
“I, uh—”
“Honesty is the best policy here today, because you have disrupted quite a lot of things, and we are in uncharted waters. Which, I do say, is beneficial for us as we can do some work on our end, clarify this and ensure this type of foolishness doesn’t happen again. Now. That said, if you really wanted to be a sentient rock lobster named Asdfjkl in a land-locked sand desert, that can still be arranged. But I have a feeling there was an error somewhere. So, perhaps you might tell me if the error was on your end, or ours.”
“I hit random for, like, everything.”
“Ah. Interesting tactic. Still, it shouldn’t be possible for that particular combination to happen. I’ll have to speak to Q and A. Questions for me?”
“What is this?”
“Did you not read any of the information about this product prior to purchasing?”
“Uh, it was a gift.”
The little man turned his head to the side, frowning in confusion. He took his glasses off, wiped them, and then checked his watch again.
“Unexpected,” he said, “but let me see if I can do this on the quick. You have the opportunity to live a new life.”
“I think, I mean, didn’t the big voice at the beginning say something about being a hero?”
“Yes, well, that’s the typical path your kind likes to take.”
“My kind?”
“Humans. From Earth. In this, well, verse.”
“Verse?”
“Let’s not focus on the cosmology, and instead, answer your question. This is a new life. Should you want to be a hero, sure. Do it. We’d love it. It’d be better for us and you. But it is your choice.”
“So I’m supposed to—”
“Ah, don’t go along that line of thinking. Stop imagining you are supposed to do anything. Instead, try imagining what you’ll be able to do.”
“Which is?”
“Whatever you like.”
“Fish at a lake?”
“Totally possible.”
“Build a house.”
“Rather advisable.”
“Not be a hero?”
“Sure. Be a villain. Dig ditches. Bake bread. Steal cookies from children or save infants from fires. Do something. Or nothing. But be aware, if what you are doing is awesome and wonderful, you’ll find that more viewers tune in to watch, and that those viewers will find ways to send you things. Presents, and coincidences, and—”
“Whoa, take it back one second there. Viewers?”
“Of course. This is largely free to you, but we must fund our operation somehow. So many of the many universes find this entertaining. Hugely popular, I might say. Hence, why everything is done in a gamified way.”
“I’m really not getting this.”
“One, I’m sorry. Two, usually that’s why we don’t do this sort of interaction. We’ve got a lovely video that explains most of it, plus a brief tutorial to introduce the concepts to you, play the game and understand how it works, give the chance to view the world and make educated choices. But unfortunately, due to time constraints, well, you were on the fast track already, and now, you are on the even faster track. So the day is getting away from us, and we have run out of time for questions. You will simply have to learn as you go.”
“But—”
“Right, Trade goods. Bother, and your character. So much to do, and we are so very late, character or trading?”
“I—”
“Character might a good start, because you might be able to make better choices with your trades. But, if you trade for something which opens up character options, you’ll be irritated you didn’t wait. Pluses and minuses all over the place, all the time. Such is the world in which you will live in. Now. Choose.”
I thought for a second. I’ve played games. A lot. I mean, I used to. Up until the bad times, with all the violence and the crime and the exceedingly poor choices, games were a primary hobby for me. The whole reason I did the Eagle Scout thing was because it let me go on camping trips where we’d play D&D, and I got good grades so my parents wouldn’t bug me when I spent 18 hours on a Saturday grinding out characters in WoW. I had experience both min-maxing and roleplaying, and though this was supposedly real, it certainly seemed like the best idea would be to go with making myself as overpowered as I could. This time around, I wanted an easy life.
“Do you mind if I ask your name?” I asked.
“Mister Paul will work,” he replied with a smile.
“Mister Paul, I’m—”
“I’m assuming your name will be changed, so perhaps you’d like to give me your in game name.”
“Oh,” I said, thinking. I’d never been particularly pleased with my name. It was fine — it was who I’d been. But now that I had the chance to change everything about myself, I couldn’t make a decision. Options ran through my mind, but nothing stuck out. “Well, what’s the naming convention like, on, you know, uh,—”
“Vuldranni?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“You mean, the planet that has many sentient races, each with multiple competing cultures, spread out across a planet that makes your Jupiter pale in comparison? How long have we got to sit here?”
“I—”
“Trick question, we are out of time. Name, or I’ll pick one for you. And, minor spoiler, it will be Betty.”
I didn’t want a lifetime as Betty — no offense, Ms. White — but my mind blanked. It’s always easy to speculate on naming, and I never had problems when I’d played games. I’d just do something silly, like I. P. Freely. But in games you never really get called your character name. Having to actually introduce myself as I.P.? That bothered me. I wanted something simple, strong, evocative of who I am, or who I wanted to be. I could name myself after my favorite football player. And yet, my favorite fictional character was a well-known archaeologist named after a state. Maybe there was a happy medium if I just—
“Time is up,” Mister Paul said softly, “please give me a name.”
I had nothing else.
“Montana.”
“Lovely,” he said, jotting it down on a piece of paper. “Race?”
“I remember seeing a ton of choices—”
“Truly a staggering amount,” Mister Paul replied. “But perhaps you’d consider an alternative--”
“Letting you choose?”
“You would let me?”
“Fuck it, man, sure.”
“Just for the rule mongers, let me clarify: you are allowing me to choose your race.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re human now, correct?”
“Far as I know.”
“That’s fine. Want to stick with being male?”
“Sure.”
“Moving right along. Do you understand attributes and traits and—”
“I think so, yes.”
“Perfect. Done with character. Trading.
“Uh, how does it normally happen?”
“Normally, if someone has brought along a thing or two, it happens automatically. You just find some bonuses in your inventory when you begin. You get a small bonus by making some choices.”
“Let’s do this.”
“My sentiments exactly,” Paul said with a big smile. “You managed to bring two humans with you. For that, you’ll get, say, what they would have received, points wise. “
“Sounds fair.” And by fair I meant that it sounded like I’d get an overpowered start, which I was totally fine with. I wanted to be overpowered.
“The other animals, well, how about—”
“—I can talk to animals?”
“Some bonus attributes and a bonus
to handling animals.”
“Uh, sure.”
“On to weapons. You’ve brought seven firearms, two knives, and one grenade. Rather impressive. For all that, I can give you a magical weapon—”
“Which kind of weapon?”
“You’ll choose at embark. Now, Nightvision goggles, easy translation—”
“Darkvision?”
“Instead of Nightvision? I suppose that’s doable. Body armor, how about a shield?”
“How about magic armor?”
“How about a magic shield? This is trading, not dreaming.”
“Fine.”
“I will also grant you a boon, just a little thing that deals with language, usually reserved for VIPs who buy the upgraded package, but here we’ll give it a trade for the wood floor.”
“Okay—”
“Now, penultimate, as we are running out of time,” he looked up at the clock, “really quite late. Do you have particular concerns about your appearance in your new life?”
“Not really, just, you know—”
“Perhaps you could just trust me?”
“That’s a lot of trust.”
“Then we might not finish in time, and—”
“Okay, if I’m letting you design me, I’m doing you a favor by getting you out of here on time, right? So, as a favor to you, I’ll say yes, just make me muscular, handsome, and with the capacity for a big bushy beard. And no balding. And not fat.”
He smiled, like a genuine smile. I swear I saw a twinkle in his eye. “Deal.”
He wrote a bunch of things on the paper very quickly. Then he stacked all the pages up and slid them neatly into the folder.
“I am ready to let you embark,” he said, “but I do have a question.”
“Hit me.”
“I have always wanted to see someone get down off this particular peak. If I were to give you a boon, would you be willing to start there?”
“What’s a boon again?”
“A special gift from a higher power.”
I narrowed my eyes. Now it was negation time. “Two boons.”
“Two boons of my choice.”
“Two boons of your choice that are useful to me and my long-term survival in this new world.”
“Agreed, and you’ll do well remembering that specificity in what is said matters in your new life and this new world.”
“So my spawn point is the top of a mountain,” I said, hoping I hadn’t gotten myself into some shit.
“For the moment, though it can be changed.”
“How many respawns do I have?”
“I’m not sure. There is sort of a limit, but it also depends on your rank and popularity with the viewers.”
“Can I see my rank?”
“No. And you cannot speak about it in the world. It’s very gauche, and ruins the verisimilitude we value. Most of your kind don’t know they’re being viewed, and we would appreciate keeping it that way. So once you leave here, you won’t remember any of this portion of our conversation.”
“You can wipe my memory?”
“We have immense access to you, as we are putting you in a whole new world. So—”
“What kind of world is it?”
“Vuldranni is a Medieval Fantasy.”
“Can I get a baseline of what average attributes are?”
Mister Paul smiled, just a tiny bit, and tapped his head. “Smart boy. For a human, average strength is around 13. A truly gifted athlete, 20. Enough?”
“Sure. Let’s play ball.”
“Beautiful,” Mister Paul said “We are truly getting you in right under the wire.”
He scribbled a few things on a sheet of paper, and slipped it into the folder, pulled an envelope out of the air, and put the folder and the papers into the envelope. The envelope poofed out of existence.
Mister Paul stood up and extended his hand.
I stood too, and we shook.
“Enjoy your new life, Montana.”
Chapter 3
I entered my new world falling.
Not far — maybe six feet — but a sudden fall is always disconcerting. Luckily, I had a soft landing, almost disappearing into deep snow.
I sat up shivering, and looked at my surroundings. My first peek at Vuldranni.
Mountains and snow. As promised, I was on top of a fucking mountain. One of the highest peaks around. I was above clouds, my breath coming out in white puffs of steam.
And I’d be freezing my new balls off if I wasn’t covered almost completely in fur. Thick white fur. It took me a second to realize that I was wearing it, not growing the fur. I had pants, boots, gloves, and a hooded jacket, all covered in ridiculously thick, heavy white fur. I even had a half-mask of fur that snapped onto the front of the hood, keeping my face toasty warm.
It was cold and windy, but quite beautiful in an extreme sort of way. Deep blue skies above, fluffy white trails below, and basically any which way I looked, peaks of other mountains. If I wanted to get out of the mountains, I only had one direction to travel. My starting position was less than ideal for anything other than aesthetic reasons. Also troubling: the sun was high in the sky, pretty much straight above me. Noon. So I had half the day to get off the mountain before I’d freeze to death at night, no matter how many awesome fur-clothes I had.
I could almost hear Paul chuckling above me. I stared at the snow and the rocks and the rugged world all around me, wondering how the hell I’d survive this nonsense.
Something nagged at the corner of my vision, and that made me think about points and abilities and all that, at which point my vision was completely filled with various prompts and menus and options, to the point that I was overwhelmed. I took a step back, tripped over my own feet in the snow, and fell on my butt, which did absolutely nothing for all the crap blocking my vision. I waved my hands around my face, and, after a moment, I realized that I could move the prompts about space, and, for the most part, the prompts would stay there. I put things where I could in order to get a handle on the situation.
The attributes seemed to be the normal gaming affair:
Attributes
Strength: 10
Agility: 10
Dexterity: 10
Constitution: 10
Wisdom: 10
Intelligence: 10
Charisma: 10
Luck: 10
Unassigned points: 54
At the bottom flashed a grim warning that I had 36 hours to allocate my points or lose them forever.
I didn’t bother standing — I needed to do some quick thinking before starting my hike down the mountain. If I got triple points for the assholes with me, that meant a normal person new to the game would get 18 points. So if you split your points evenly across all attributes, you’d be just below average in everything at level one with, maybe, one attribute just above. Interesting mechanics. That means the starting character needs to grind right away in order to approach heroics. But I’d start ahead of the pack, which was perfect because I wanted to live a life of quietude, not spend my time embroiled in combat or courtly intrigue. In that regard, dumping points into charisma seemed unnecessary. I put ten points in strength immediately. Given that Vuldranni was a medieval fantasy world, Strength would be something to keep me out of trouble. Five points into Dexterity to be nimble and avoid trouble, five points into Agility so I could run away from trouble. Ten points into Constitution so I might survive unavoidable trouble. I put three into Intelligence, three into Wisdom, and three into Charisma. Then, because I felt a bit like I’d had a crap first life, I tossed the rest into luck.
My finger hovered over the okay button. I wasn’t exactly sure how Intelligence as a stat worked here. Or Charisma for that matter. I still seemed to have all my memories and learning from my previous life, and people had liked me well enough there. I guess I’d just need to figure it out.
I pushed okay.
I checked the list again.
Attributes
Strength: 20
Dexterity: 15
Constitution: 20
Wisdom: 13
Intelligence: 13
Charisma: 13
Luck: 25
Unassigned points: 0
I pushed okay and stood up. I felt different. My body responded faster, better. I could breathe deeper, feel more. My muscles felt big, robust. I felt powerful, and smiled. I flexed, and my muscles responded, feeling taut and hard and awesome. I was big and beefy and not fat or balding. Maybe this was going to be all right.
The next set of notifications concerned the boons from Mister Paul. The first was:
Powerful Build - Count as one size larger for all strength-based skills and rolls.
Dope boon. Meant my strength of 20 would count as a lot more than a normal human. Might be super useful in this world. And offered me a slight surprise should anyone get a look at my attributes.
Regeneration - Outside of combat, your body will repair rather quickly. Given enough time, it’s possible you will heal from nearly any wound.
Now that was useful. Probably the most useful thing I could have received as a boon. As long as I could hide for a bit, I’d get better. And, it meant I could be pretty cavalier in combat, provided I could win.
The final one was the thing he’d said was usually reserved for VIPs or something.
Gift of Gab (Mister Paul) - Should you encounter a language you do not understand, as long as you hear at least three words of it, you will understand it, and speak it, perfectly.
Seemed to be the ideal thing to have as a tourist in an entirely new universe. I always wanted to speak another language, now it looked like I was going to be speaking all of them.
I needed to start down the mountain — this was taking a bit longer than I wanted. But I figured if I started down now, I’d end up paying too much attention to reading my notifications and walk right into a crevasse. Then, who knows? I’d be stuck there forever, regenerating my health as fast as starvation depleted it.