Gamers Read online

  The bottle didn’t have a label naming it a health potion, but it greatly resembled what Sally would expect one to look like. “I think I have a health potion.” Sally looked up when she didn’t hear a response from Darcy. “What’s wrong?”

  Darcy was also examining the contents of her backpack. On her face was a slight frown knitting her eyebrows together. Holding up her backpack’s camping gear, she said, “You don’t need these when you play the online version, but you do when you’re playing tabletop. Weird that we would have these. Anyway, have an extra one.” Darcy handed over a similar vial from her bag. “I have three of them, so that will be four health potions between us.”

  Sally tucked the potion into an empty sleeve next to the first one and closed the flap. “You know, this feels almost like a LARP.”

  Darcy moaned, “This is more than some weird costume shit.”

  Sally shouldered the bag, “What about when you and Gina do cosplay for conventions? Isn’t that weird costume shit too?”

  “Hey,” Darcy said stiffly, “Cosplay is art, but enough about that, I’ll take the lead, and you watch my back.” Darcy lit a torch with a bit of flint and steel. “Being half-elf, you’ll have low-light vision so you can see further in the dark than I can. Take the torch so I can use my shield, and you can use it as an offhand weapon if you need to.”

  ***

  Sally had always been a gamer since she first played Super Nintendo. It had been her cousin’s console, and she had instantly fallen in love with it. After months of begging her mother for one, she was delighted one Christmas morning when she opened a gift to see the image of a Super Nintendo gleaming at her. From there, it had been the GameCube, Nintendo 64, and then the Xbox and Playstation consoles. After a summer of saving her allowance and a semester of good grades, she bought her first PC and kept it upgraded to play the latest game titles. She had played all of the Final Fantasy games, the Myst series, and numerous other RPG franchises that caught her eye.

  Darcy was a different breed of gamer in preferring board games and tabletop RPGs; the more sociable forms of gaming. With her massive collection of rule books, campaign guides, maps and sourcebooks, Darcy had often played hostess to the games. There had been plenty of attempts by Darcy to get her involved, but Sally thought the games had too much math involved to be fun and that she would rather pop in a cartridge or disc and start playing without all the prep work of creating a character and learning rules. Also, console gaming was something she could do without having to endure the presence of others.

  It had surprised Sally when Darcy took to playing Shadow’s Deep, the latest and most popular MMORPG on the market. She had doubted that Darcy would figure out how to install the game, much less stick with it for so long. As each expansion for Shadow’s Deep came out, however, Darcy was the first in line to pick up her pre-ordered copy during the GameStop midnight release. Sally had never been interested in online games, finding single-player games more relaxing and fun without the pressure of other people being involved. It wasn’t until the previous week that Darcy finally convinced her to give Shadow’s Deep a chance.

  So here they were now, trudging through a tunnel and into a dungeon, wearing the bodies of adventurers in a fantasy world. Darcy stalked potential enemies with her mace and shield at the ready and Sally followed close behind her with the rapier and a torch to light the way.

  “Seriously? You can’t see the walls?” Sally whispered.

  “I’m human. I don’t have fancy low-light vision,” Darcy replied, pausing for a moment to listen and then moving forward at a cautious pace.

  Sally could see far beyond the edge of the torch’s light, but the stone wasn’t cast in a warm, orange glow. The walls appeared to her in grayscale like in an old TV movie. It was as though half her vision was color blind when the grayscale contrasted with the yellow flickering flames of the torchlight. This had to be what Darcy meant by low-light vision. It was eerie, almost surreal, like a bad dream.

  “So, what can humans do in this game that other races can’t?” Sally asked. As much as she wanted Darcy to pay attention to what was ahead, she was too nervous to stay silent for long.

  “Non-human races have bonuses assigned to certain pre-determined stats, but humans can put their bonuses into any stat they want.” Darcy pointed down the hall. “There should be a trap up ahead. Go ahead of me and look.”

  “I don’t know anything about traps,” Sally said, hearing a note of fear in her voice.

  “Yes, you do,” Darcy said impatiently. “Rogues have a bonus for finding traps. Just like with the sword, you’ll know what to look for.”

  She hesitated, pretty sure she didn’t want to tangle with any death traps.

  Darcy, seeing her trepidation, gave an exasperated sigh, “Sally, I’m sorry but I don’t have a ten-foot pole. You have low-light vision. You can see the trap before I can and I’m right behind you if anything goes wrong.”

  This statement offered little reassurance, but Sally knew that to proceed she had to go along with the search for the trap. Moving around Darcy with a light step, Sally held the torch high before her. Scanning the ground and holding her breath, she moved forward one step at a time. What was she supposed to be looking for? After she asked herself that, she saw it: a piece of string. It had once been strung across the floor, but something had cut it.

  Kneeling, Sally carefully lifted the string and examined the end. Not cut, it was broken. The fibers weren’t even as they would be if cut with a knife. The trap hadn’t been disarmed: it had sprung before they got here. Looking up, sure enough, she saw that a scythe-like blade was embedded in the wall opposite to where it had been released. Someone had walked through here and broke the string, which had released the mechanism that held the scythe in place.

  Where was all this information coming from? She was analyzing this string as if she was a CSI at a crime scene.

  “Sally?” Darcy said, interrupting her thoughts. “What is it?”

  A chill ran down Sally’s spine as she realized the implication of her analysis. “It’s a sprung trap and there’s blood.”

  Using her low-light vision, Sally could see a trail of blood leading deeper into the cavern. She pointed it out to Darcy and said, “Do you think a monster could have sprung it?”

  Darcy considered this for a moment. “It’s possible, but I wouldn’t think so. This trap is meant to teach new players about detecting and disarming traps.”

  “So, this means we’re not the only ones.”

  “No, shit. Even I can see someone’s been through here.”

  “No, I meant we’re not the only players in here.”

  Darcy nodded. “You’re right. C’mon, there shouldn’t be any more traps before the next room so we can hurry. Whoever it is has been hurt.”

  While Darcy’s armor clinked and rattled, Sally moved through the shadows as silently as a breeze. Before long, she could hear a screaming ahead. Evidently able to hear the howls too, Darcy dashed forward with her mace held high. Having been left behind, Sally hesitated, afraid to see the cause of the terrifying scream. Still, being left alone in the tunnel was just as scary and she ran into the next room a short distance behind Darcy.

  The room was a mayhem of rats as big as terriers nipping at the heels of a tall woman. She was the source of screaming, which she did while frantically kicking rats off her legs and batting at them as they jumped on her waist. With admiration for the bravery of her half-sister, Sally saw Darcy took a moment to take in the situation, before wading in, swinging her mace in downward arcs. The mace clubbed a rat in mid-leap and then nailed another between the ears. For her part, Sally found herself standing at the door, too afraid to follow Darcy into battle.

  The tall woman ran to a nearby wall and collapsed against it, wailing as a rat clung onto her arm and sank its sharp teeth into her skin. Galvanised, Sally ran forward and, without pause or doubt, deftly thrust the tip of the rapier into the rat’s skull. It died before it could make a s
queak of surprise and Sally had to shake the body off the sword.

  Darcy was making short work of the other rats, which had turned their attention from the stranger to the Cleric raining pain and death on them. They couldn’t bite through her metal boots, and she rewarded their efforts with kicks and stomps as if she were performing a crush video. Before too long, the ground was littered with dead rats, and Darcy was beaming in satisfaction.

  Sheathing her sword, Sally bend down to get a better look at the woman. Upon first glance, Sally had thought the woman was wearing leather armor like her own, but now she could see it was animal hide, which hung around her waist like a kilt. More leather hide and metal were fashioned into a bra with a fur pelt draped over her shoulders. There was a wound across her shoulders, not from the rat, but caused by an overhead slash. It had to have come from the triggered trap in the hall.

  “Are you alright?” Sally asked.

  “Oh God, I want to go home,” the woman moaned, covering her face with both hands.

  “Where’s home?” Sally asked, recognising a familiar accent.

  “New York City,” the woman sobbed. “My dorm room is C-twenty-three. Planet Earth. If that means anything.”

  “Actually, it does. We’re from Florida.”

  Chapter 2

  Meetings

  The woman’s name was Mi-cha Kim, it was Korean, but her American name, which she asked them to use, was Mina Kim and she had been a college student until she became a Barbarian, and found herself alone inside a dark dungeon.

  “I was wandering down the hall blind until something cut me!” She sobbed as Darcy looked over her injury. “Then I ran in here, and all these rats started biting me!”

  Sally was sitting beside Mina and knew she ought to be doing something to comfort her, but didn’t know how to go about it. Taking her hand was too personal. Patting her shoulder and going “there, there” seemed patronizing. In any case, it was more prudent and helpful to get answers about their situation. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  Mina sniffled. “Playing this stupid game. I was supposed to be doing a dungeon crawl with some game mentor and another player, but they were late, so went ahead by myself.”

  Darcy, who had been staring in deep thought at the injury, dropped down beside Mina. “Wait, what was your user name?”

  “Kit-Kat two-o-two,” Mina replied, wiping away a tear.

  “I’m the mentor you were waiting for,” Darcy said excitedly, then defensively, she added, “And I wasn’t late. We said six-thirty, and it was only six-twenty when I logged in.”

  The Barbarian woman rolled her eyes. “I was in a hurry. I have a chem test to study for, and I needed to learn how to play this dumb game by Friday.”

  “So, nothing strange happened?” Sally said sharply, to get the conversation back on a topic she felt was more important. “No lights, no voice of God; the room didn’t shake or anything?”

  “Nothing,” Mina assured her. “I was even texting my roommate and. then I was in this tunnel. I might have dropped my phone back there. Did you see it?”

  “Nope, no cellphone,” Darcy said, almost gleeful at a loss she deemed unimportant. “My glasses didn’t make it and nothing of Sally’s came through either.

  “Oh, great,” Mina muttered. “Maybe it’s still in my dorm.”

  “Hold still, I want to try something,” Darcy stood and closed her eyes in concentration. Then touching Mina’s shoulder, she began murmuring in an archaic language.

  A soft glow flowed from her fingertips and into Mina’s skin. It spread, highlighting the web of blood veins beneath the skin and made the bones of her shoulders stand out in dark shapes. The flesh shifted and moulded back together, reknitting, and becoming whole and smooth. Where the rats had bitten strips out of her skin slowly filled in and became unmarked. The cut across her shoulders now looked days old, scabbed over, and no longer bleeding.

  Mina sighed in relief and evident pleasure. “It feels like I’ve been injected with novocaine and morphine. What did you do?”

  “I cast a heal spell,” Darcy said, staring at her fingertips in utter amazement. “I just cast a goddamn spell.”

  “How did you know how to do it?” Sally asked, rising to get a better look at the healed injuries.

  “I’m a Cleric. Clerics get healing spells,” Darcy said, raising an eyebrow. “That’s basic gaming one-o-one, Sally.”

  “I know that,” Sally retorted. “But unless you’ve been keeping things from your family, you’ve never cast a spell in your life.”

  “It like you with the rapier. I wanted to cast a spell, and the knowledge came to me,” Darcy said, very pleased with herself.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Mina said, flexing her shoulders. She winced as the cut along her shoulders still ached.

  “It’s how the game works, and since we’re inside the game.” Darcy tapped the side of her head. “The knowledge is right up here. We just have to use it. Mina, are you well enough to keep going?”

  Mina was quiet for a moment. “Yeah, I guess so, but you didn’t heal all my health points. I’m down by three.”

  Darcy set her hands on her hips, both offended and suspicious, “How do you know how much health I’ve healed?”

  “I can see it right here,” Mina pointed at the empty space before her. “See? I’m at eleven of fourteen.”

  Sally looked at the space in front of Mina and saw nothing but empty air. Then with the gentleness of someone dealing with the disturbed, Darcy said, “Mina, there’s nothing there.”

  Mina glanced at both of them, squinting large dark eyes as if she was having trouble seeing them. “You can’t see it? It might be because it’s my character screen.”

  “See what?” Darcy demanded. “Would you please make sense?”

  Mina muttered something under her breath that was better left unheard. “Okay, close your eyes and think about your character screen, and you’ll see what I mean.”

  Darcy gave Sally a sardonic look before closing her eyes. After several seconds, she opened them and nearly fell back against the wall, face displaying sudden shock. Her eyes flicked about, and she turned her head this way and that. “Oh, my God! I can see my character screen! Can you guys see this too?”

  Sally tried it herself. Closing her eyes, she thought, I want to see my character screen.

  When she opened her eyes, a new object was there! While most of the world had faded to a faint background, right in front of her was a block of bright gold writing: her character information. Sally’s ability scores were listed along with her skills, equipment, health, and saving throws. Her health was at a full 9 points out of 9, which was reassuring, but also dismaying, in that the total was a lot less than Mina’s.

  Sally tried to touch the screen, but her hands passed through empty air. It was almost disorienting. Like staring at a 3D image in a movie theater. “How do I close out of it?”

  “Just think ‘close’ or ‘go away,’” Mina replied from behind the screen.

  Sally thought close, and the screen blinked away letting her see clearly. She brought it up again and then dismissed it several times to ensure she could do it again at will.

  Darcy was leaning against the wall, her lips moving as she read her stats. “Sally, I want to try something else. Give me back the health potion I gave you.”

  Taking the health potion from her backpack, Sally passed it to Darcy, who held it to her chest. After a few moments, she looked over with a pleased smile. “I had two health potions, and it updated to three once I took this one back. Look at your character screen and take this one back.”

  Sally summoned her character screen and looked at the list of her adventuring gear. On a line of its own was listed: 1 minor potion of health. Holding out a hand for the potion, she watched the line as Darcy handed over the vial. As soon as her fingers closed around the bottle, the line switched over to say 2 minor potions of healing.

  “You’re right. Mine updated, too,”
Sally said, feeling a sudden upsurge of elation.

  Mina looked between them, confused and still afraid. “What does this mean for us?”

  “It means there’s a system in place with rules that follows game mechanics I’m familiar with,” Darcy said. “We can use the rules to protect ourselves and maybe find a way home.”

  ***

  The useful trait of having low-light vision meant that Sally didn’t need torchlight to write. Darcy had a leaf of papers, an ink pen, and a little jar of ink stored at the bottom of her backpack.

  “Why do you have ink and paper?” Mina asked as she took a sheet from Darcy’s upraised hand.

  “Clerics are considered scholars in Shadow’s Deep,” Darcy explained, handing Sally a second sheet. “In the tabletop version, Clerics get paper and ink as part of their adventuring gear. I only have one pen though. Who wants to write their stats down first? Just the stats for right now, it’ll take too long to write down everything: I can guess your approximate skill levels from your stats and class.”

  Since she had better vision in the dark, Sally was chosen to write hers first. Darcy said it would give her a better idea of where everyone was at with their abilities and skills so she could make tactical decisions for the next few rooms. And it would be easier to reach their character information from a piece of paper than have them constantly relaying what they saw on their character screens.

  It was like a class assignment from middle school, she thought to herself as she penned her information.

  Race: Half Elf

  Level 1 Rogue

  HP: 9 (9)

  Armor Class: 16

  Str: 10

  Dex: 19

  Con: 12

  Int: 15

  Wis: 14

  Cha: 20

  Skills:

  Climb (Str/Dex)4

  Swim (Str)0

  Acrobatics (D)4

  Climb (Str/Dex)4

  Sneak (Dex)6

  Legerdemain (D)6