Gamers Read online

  Gamers

  Cambry Varner

  Copyright © Cambry Varner 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission from the publisher.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No affiliation is implied or intended to any organisation or recognisable body mentioned within.

  Published by Level Up in the United Kingdom in 2020

  Cover illustration by Sippakorn Upama

  Cover by Claire Wood

  ISBN: 978-1-83919-049-0

  www.levelup.pub

  Dedicated to all the girls and women who wanted to:

  Pull the Sword from the Stone,

  Join the Fellowship of the Ring

  Visit unexplored worlds

  Save Gotham and Metropolis

  Kill the Walking Dead

  And found their adventure by picking up a controller.

  Preface

  “Sally? Are you online?”

  “Just logged in.”

  “Cool! Main game and expansions installed? And updated?”

  “Took a couple of hours, but yeah, everything is installed and updated.”

  “Great, go ahead and start the game. If you set up the subscription during installation, it should skip to the start game icon. Click it and let me know when you get to the character creation screen.”

  “Okay, it’s loading up. How’s Gina?”

  “Saying I’m a bitch for trying to get you addicted to Shadow’s Deep.”

  “Tell her I think she’s right.”

  “Whatever, skank. On the character creation screen, yet?”

  “Not yet. Tell me about this game. It’s based off a tabletop game?”

  “Pretty much. It follows the same rules with the software rolling the dice for you, but there are some differences because it’s an online game. There yet, Sally?”

  “Yes, I’m there now. What race should I be?”

  “Depends. What class do you want to play as?”

  “What are Rogues like in this game?”

  “Pretty useful. They can pick locks, look for traps, sneak around, and backstab enemies. They don’t have high health points, but they are very hard to hit and deal some serious critical damage.”

  “Alright, Rogue it is then. Which race?”

  “Humans, elves, half-elves, halflings, or gnomes are all good for Rogues.”

  “I think I’ll go with half-elf.”

  “Next should be your stats. Be sure to click the roll icon and then assign your stats. Since you’re a Rogue, you’ll want to put your highest number in Dex and your lowest in Strength.”

  “Okay, the stats and skills are self-explanatory. I can handle it from here.”

  “Okay Sally. Ask if you have any questions.”

  “What class are you?”

  “I created a Cleric yesterday for tonight. Too bad a level fifteen Sorceress can’t enter low level dungeons.”

  “Why did you want to become a mentor in the first place? Don’t you get tired of answering the same questions over and over?”

  “It helps out the Shadow’s Deep community. A lot of new players get overwhelmed at first and quit playing before giving the game a chance. So, I answer questions and hold their hand through a first level dungeon and a few quests.”

  “Between playing and mentoring, that doesn’t leave much time for your job. Don’t you have articles to write?”

  “They don’t care what I do with my time as long as I turn in my material before deadline. Sometimes I’ll take a break from Shadow’s Deep to put my nose to the grindstone to pump out several articles to have on hand to send in. What about you? When are you going back to work?”

  . . .

  “Sally?”

  “Sorry, I was reading some of the skills. I might go back next week.”

  “You’ve been saying that for nearly three weeks.”

  “I mean it each time. I promise I’ll go back to work soon.”

  “Okay. Just don’t wait too long.”

  “I finished with the character. What do I do now?”

  “Alright, put on your headset and click start. It should spawn you near the Lair of Tears.”

  “Okay. See ya there.”

  Chapter 1

  The Incident

  It didn’t hurt. There was no flash of light or cry of horns, or anything to indicate that her life would change forever after clicking start. Sally had been sitting in a soft leather chair in front of the computer monitor watching the loading icon spin and then she was standing in a field. The cool breeze of the ceiling fan changed to the warm touch of a bright afternoon sun. Oiled leather armor replaced the comfy sweatpants and t-shirt. Her feet, which had been bare on a hardwood floor now found themselves snugged in a pair of worn leather boots and placed upon the thick green grass.

  Sally’s eyes slowly adjusted to the brightness. The bedroom had been dimly lit during the early evening, with the monitor serving as the primary light source. Why the hell was she outside now in the afternoon?

  She was surrounded by trees that stood like pillars of an ancient ruin. Birdsong echoed with the whisper of wind blowing through the leaves and foliage. A black mouth of a cave loomed before her, and in front of it was a woman in armor.

  The woman was of average height but seemed taller in the ornate armor. Embossed on the polished chest plate was a bright sun with curling rays. The woman was richly bronze-skinned, and black hair framed her face beneath a white hood. What drew Sally’s particular attention was the heavy iron mace being brandished in her direction.

  “Who the fuck are you?” the woman demanded, jabbing the end of the mace towards Sally.

  “Hey!” Sally backpedaled out of reach of the mace and wished she had a weapon herself, like a gun or a baseball bat. A sudden inclination dropped her right hand to her left hip and she drew a long thin sword from her belt. Holding the blade before her in one hand, Sally instinctively raised the other hand behind her for better balance. “You better back up before I put this through your eye and out the back of your goddamn head!”

  “I would love to see you try, honey,” the armored woman snarled.

  “I will if you don’t get out of here!” Sally cried.

  “Screw you, skank!”

  Sally blinked, stunned for several moments; then she called out, “Darcy?”

  The woman’s dark brows rose in complete surprise before she said, “Sally?”

  They slowly lowered their weapons and then simultaneously raised them again, threateningly. Sally glowered at the woman who either was or wasn’t Darcy. She sounded and spoke just like Darcy, but the woman’s appearance was too harsh, with sharp facial cheekbones and small eyes.

  “If you are Sally,” the woman said slowly, “then what kind of party did I have for my fifth birthday?”

  “I don’t know because I didn’t know you back then,” Sally replied. “Our parents didn’t get married until you were twelve.”

  “Oh-kay,” Darcy said, still not lowering her weapon. “Let’s try again. What game were you playing when our parents got married?”

  “Final Fantasy X,” Sally answered. “Look, I don’t know why you’re the one asking me these questions. You’re the one claiming to be Darcy.”

  “Because I am!” The woman snapped. “And you don’t look a thing like my step-sister!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Have you seen yourself?”

  Sal
ly looked at her hands and stared in astonishment. They were standard hands with all ten fingers, but they weren’t her hands. Hers had never looked so smooth and long. The nails ended in rounded tips and not the chewed nubs they had been before. She touched her face feeling her nose and eyes, but they did not feel familiar at all.

  Her stepsister hooked her mace at her hip and stared at herself in the reflective surface of her shield. “Holy shit…holy shit…This isn’t me…”

  Sally, all threats forgotten, crossed the distance between them and peered into the shield’s surface. “Oh God…”

  The face staring back at her belonged in a fashion magazine or on an artist’s canvas. A curtain of gleaming golden hair had replaced her mousy brown mop. And a porcelain face with bright blue eyes stared back at her in open shock: it was far from the face she had been accustomed to seeing in the bathroom mirror. Then Sally looked down at a body that couldn’t be hers. For one thing, it weighed fifty pounds less, with a flat tummy and a trim ass that worked the leather pants like a maestro.

  Placing her hands on her shapely hips, she said, “I guess I can slip into a size four now.”

  “Try a size one,” Darcy said. “I think I’m a foot taller.”

  “Jesus, are we on drugs? We have to be on drugs.”

  “God, I don’t know. The last thing I remember is logging onto Shadow’s Deep.”

  “Me too.” Sally ran a hand through hair that shouldn’t be hers. She froze and then grabbed her ears. “Sweet Jesus, what’s wrong with my ears?”

  “Let me see!” Darcy seized her head with one gauntlet hand that bit into Sally’s skin, making her wince, and swept aside the golden hair. “Shit, they’re elf ears. You have elf ears!”

  Sally wrenched herself from Darcy’s hand. “But why? What’s going on?”

  Darcy’s widening eyes stared at Sally, then down at herself, and the cave behind her. “Oh God…no, no, no, no, no.”

  “Darcy?”

  “Shit,” Darcy hissed, staring at the cave, then at the sun symbol on her chest, and then at Sally’s attire. “Shit, this isn’t possible. This can’t be possible. We’re in the game.”

  “What game?”

  “Shadow’s Deep!” Darcy yelled, rounding on her. “You told me you were making a half-elf rogue and now look at yourself! You’re a half-elf wearing level one Rogue’s outfit.” She waved at Sally’s clothing and then pointed at herself, “And I’m a third-level human Cleric, and that cave is the Lair of Tears.”

  “How do you know?” Sally peered at the cave, looking for a sign.

  “Trust me. As many times as I created characters for this game, I’d recognize the tutorial dungeon.”

  “Is this like VR thing?” Sally said, feeling a little comforted that they had gotten some answers to their situation, but still lost and confused.

  “Goddammit, you should know better than me that this isn’t a VR game. Did you put a VR headset on your head when you started the game? Shadow’s Deep isn’t played like that.” Darcy set her shield against her back. “And before you ask how we got inside the game, my answer is a big I don’t fricking know.”

  “Okay,” Sally said, feeling a bit miffed at being yelled at when she was just as much victim as Darcy. “So can you answer me this question? What do we do?”

  “Let me think,” Darcy said as she slid a finger up her nose where the glasses she usually toyed with when she was in deep thought were gone. She paused, evidently noticing the same issue. “It’s going to be weird seeing without glasses.”

  Sally crossed her arms beneath her breasts, which were smaller and perkier than her real ones, and looked around. The forest was empty, almost silent, save for the crackling of branches in the wind and wildlife disturbing bushes. “Darcy, shouldn’t there be other players?”

  “What do you mean?” Darcy glanced at her, looking annoyed to have been tugged from her thoughts.

  “Well, if this is the game, like you say, and this dungeon is where all the beginning characters start, then shouldn’t there be more people coming and going? Why is it just us two?”

  Darcy took in their solitary surroundings. It was empty save for the two of them. “I don’t know. It might be only us.”

  “But why only us?”

  “It’s going to get old to hear myself say “I don’t know” over and over,” Darcy moaned, shaking her head. “Just don’t ask me any more questions for the next five minutes, okay? I need to think.”

  As she waited for her half-sister’s attention, Sally looked down at her new body. It was the body she always wanted, or any woman would want for that matter. She could fit herself into a black catsuit, like Kate Beckinsale in Underworld.

  Darcy was mumbling to herself, as she did whenever she was puzzling over a problem, like she was studying in high school or writing up one of her RPG campaigns.

  Setting her hands on her hips, Sally stared at the cave. If this place was part of the game, then would it make sense to behave as if they were in one? “Darcy, I think we need to go through the dungeon,” Sally said.

  Her Cleric sister lifted her head. “Why?”

  “Think about it.” Sally motioned at the opening of the cave. “When a game puts you in a dungeon, you must reach the end to advance.”

  “That’s a good point,” Darcy said, considering. “The Lair of Tears is only a first-level dungeon with a minor treasure chest at the end.”

  “Then it should be easy,” Sally said. Then she considered all the games she had played before and remembered that they all had monsters and enemies to either avoid or fight. “Damn, we’re going to have to fight our way through, aren’t we?”

  “Yeah, but I think we’ll be alright. The monsters are low level, and I’m a third-level Cleric wearing heavy armor, and since you’re a Rogue, they’ll have a hard time hitting you.” Darcy waved her mace at Sally and then expertly swung it in a short arc. “And I think we know how to fight with our weapons. Give your rapier a few practice swings and see.”

  Sally hadn’t paid attention to how she was handling her weapon until now. Before today, she had never held anything more lethal than a kitchen knife. The rapier was light enough to hold in one hand; with a long, thin blade it had a white guard at the hilt. Instinctively, she drew her left hand back near her head as she raised the rapier with the right. Her offhand felt empty, as if she missed the grip of a second weapon. The blade whistled as she slashed the air, imagining the tip cutting through a carotid vein in the neck or slashing across a pair of eyes. Then she thrust forward, imagining the tip puncturing through the heart or between ribs into a lung. And down through the aorta vein in the thigh or groin.

  Where was this knowledge coming from? It was as if she had been taking fencing lessons for years, which couldn’t be further from the truth. The last time Sally had done anything of a sporting nature was the final year of high school PE.

  She ducked back just as a mace swung inches from her nose. Taking another step away, she lowered her upper body in a defensive crouch, the rapier at the ready to return the attack. Of course, it was only Darcy, so she straightened and lowered the blade. “You were testing me, right?”

  “Nah, I was trying to brain you,” Darcy replied, weighing her mace. “I knew you would dodge it. You put your highest score in Dexterity, right?”

  “Yes, like you told me too,” Sally said, wanting to sheath her rapier, but keeping it drawn in case Darcy tried to test her again.

  “What was your score?”

  “An eighteen, but it went up to nineteen because I chose half-elf as my race.” Wistfully, Sally thought back to sitting in front of her computer in her home.

  “Yeah, Dex is a racial stat bonus for half-elves,” Darcy said as she scanned Sally’s appearance. “They also get plus two to Charisma. What’s your Charisma score?”

  “That’s became my highest score after I chose half-elf. It started out as eighteen, then it became a twenty,” Sally said. In most RPGs, Charisma served as a means of completing
a quest or overcoming an obstacle without fighting. Sally enjoyed finding new lines of dialogue and taking advantage of any potential quest shortcuts to solving a challenge and gaining XP.

  “Holy shit, you got two eighteens? How did you get those?” Darcy asked.

  “I just clicked ROLL,” Sally said with a shrug. There had been a warning on the character creation screen that she could only have a maximum of six characters per account, with stats that were assigned after just one roll for each. Sally had figured if she didn’t like her initial Rogue, she could try again with one of the empty slots once she learned the game.

  “So you got two eighteens on your first try? Talk about lucky.” Darcy once again scanned Sally’s appearance and nodded. “With a Charisma score of twenty, no wonder you look like a runway supermodel. Do you remember your other stats?”

  “I know I put the lowest number in Strength, but that’s all I can remember. I didn’t think I’d have to memorize my character’s info screen.”

  “That’s alright. It shouldn’t matter. Between the two of us, we can handle a tutorial dungeon,” Darcy said.

  Sally noticed a trace of fear in her own voice as she sheathed her sword, “So we’re really going to do this?”

  “Hey, it was your idea that we try the dungeon,” Darcy replied as she dug through a backpack that Sally hadn’t noticed before. “Check your gear, let’s see what we have.”

  Noticing the weight on her own back for the first time, Sally shifted the bag off her shoulders and swung it around to inspect it. The backpack was made of durable cloth and leather with a bedroll tied to the bottom, and a coil of rope hooked on the back. The flap was secured by a small button, which she slipped free and looked inside. There was a small tinderbox, several packets of dried food that resembled beef jerky, actual torches, cutlery with a cup and plate, and a waterskin that resembled a canteen. Despite carrying a lot, there was plenty of space for more. There was, as well, something so small that she almost didn’t see it. A thin corked vial was held in a small sleeve stitched into the side of the pack. The red liquid within it had a gleam to it that reminded her of metallic nail polish.