Legend

“So, I want to pick “New Character,” I guess?” said Marcus.

“Yeah, Uncle Marcus, just focus on that option.” Ray’s voice seemed to come from inside Marcus’s head.

The screen shifted and swirled. A life-like man in a loincloth appeared. To his left was a series of numbers, icons, and sliders. Marcus read the words, but what they meant was a mystery.

“What do I do now? I see a bunch of numbers and pictures.”

“Okay, look near the top. Do you see a little gear icon?”

“Yeah.”

“Choose that and look for a space that says “referral code”. Enter the number I gave you.”

A notification appeared in front of Marcus:

Your new player code has been accepted; you will be Squired to Gordus for 24 hours. You and Gordus will receive bonus experience. You will begin the game at level 5.

None of that made any sense to Marcus. He was taken back to the naked man and all the numbers. Angry red icons had appeared next to most of them.

“This is like doing taxes. What do I do now?”

“There should be a little sword and shield icon at the top. Open it, select Brawler, and choose “Automatic Build”.

It took Marcus a minute to find the menu options. When he did, all the little red icons went away, and the naked man was clothed in a brown leather vest, pants, and leather gloves. “The naked man became a bum. Is that right?”

“Alright,” said Ray, “you should be able to start the game now. You’re going to feel a little pinch when the nanites get injected.”

The pinch came, and Ray laughed at Marcus’s yelp. A swirling rainbow disc appeared in front of Marcus. It began to reach out in every direction, colors filtering and pooling like a watercolor painting. The pools of color developed textures, and the virtual world loaded.

“Oh, damn! That was a trip,” Marcus said. A green-skinned man with two big teeth waved at him. It wore metal armor that spiked in every direction, with skulls decorating the pauldrons.

“Hey Uncle Marcus, it’s Ray! Welcome to the game!”

Marcus marveled at the idyllic pinewood forest that surrounded him. He could smell it and see it clearly. He moved his feet and felt the pine needles crunch beneath him. Birds sang high above him. It was heavenly. Marcus turned his attention to Ray and saw “Gordus lvl45” floating above his head.

“Ray,” he said, “you look ridiculous.”

“I’m a half-orc. You looked at yourself lately?”

Marcus looked down at his hands and bare chest. “What? I’m white!”

Ray burst out laughing. “Don’t worry, we can fix that with the editor later. It just defaulted you to white.”

If that ain’t a hint, thought Marcus.

“Follow me, we’re going to go raid a dungeon with my guild.” Ray turned and headed further into the woods.

“How do I walk? Is there a button?” Marcus asked.

“It’s full immersion, you just move normally.”

“I’ll walk right into wall, won’t I?” The room he had been placed in was very small, and the gizmo they put on his head was stuck to the ceiling.

“You’re not really moving, it just feels like you are. Go on, try it.”

Marcus took a tentative step forward, his arms stretched out in front of him. He didn’t bump into anything.

Finally, something I’ve done before, Marcus thought, and followed Ray.

Marcus explored like a toddler while he walked, touching trees and throwing stones. Many of the old aches were gone, he had escaped some of the stiffness that haunted his joints. Ray had to retrieve him when he stopped to watch squirrels chase each other over branches. They came to a cave entrance, skulls fitted to spiked poles decorating the outside. A group of other players were waiting.

“Hey guys,” said Ray, “sorry it took a while. This is my uncle, Marcus. Uncle Marcus, these are a few of my guildmates.”

They greeted each other. Their names floated above their heads.

“Ray, is this that uncle you were telling us about?” asked Destron. “Marcus Phillips?”

“Yup, that’s him,” Ray said proudly.

“Oh, wow!” An elf named Clario stepped up to him. “I watched your fight with Charles Dunwich. That was legendary! You were an incredible boxer.”

Marcus gave Clario an easy smile. He loved an ice breaker, and hearing that his nephew talked him up filled him with a warm glow. “Thank you, son. Charles was tough, could have gone either way.”

“Ha! My dad said you were doggin it, just to keep the fight interesting.”

“No comment.” Marcus winked at him.

“Oh, you were a boxer? You any good?” asked Pillico the dwarf.

Clario jumped in. “Any good? Marcus Phillips won silver at the Olympics. He’s a national Golden Glove champion, and he took out the world’s number two middleweight when he was only twenty years old! He’s still got a few hand-speed records too.”

“Dang! What are you doing here?” asked the dwarf.

“Ray’s been bugging me to try out this game for a while. Trying to get me out of my good chair. I don’t play video games, but I promised him I’d try it.”

“I set him up with the Brawler build,” said Ray. “Anyone have a spare pair of gauntlets he can use?”

Ray’s guild shuffled through their inventory. Pillico pulled out a pair of silver gauntlets and handed them to Marcus. “You can keep them. Unarmed is pretty trash.”

“Trash? Why trash?” He didn’t bust his ass in dank gyms for years to have boxing called trash.

“Low damage, no reach, not many powers. Did you take Iron Hands?”

“I don’t know. What’s that?” Marcus looked down at his gloved fists. Did Pillico mean these?

Ray answered for him. “Yeah, he’s got it. Came with the default build. Uncle Marcus, if you block an attack with your hands or arms, it’ll reduce the damage you take. Watch…”

Ray pulled out a dagger and slashed it across Marcus’s chest. Marcus shouted in pain and jumped back. A notification appeared.

*Gordus slashes you for 10 damage*

“I thought this was just a game!”

“Oh, Jesus. I’m sorry, I forgot!” Ray walked Marcus through opening his options to lower his pain settings to minimal. “We keep ours at max. It sucks sometimes, but it tells us a lot when we’re fighting. Now put up your arm and block the attack.”

Ray swung on Marcus, who raised an arm to intercept the shot. He felt a sting across his forearm, but weaker than before.

*Gordus slashes you for 4 damage*

“Just like that! If you block with your arms, it’ll do way less damage.”

Marcus looked at his unmarred arms. “Why the hell would someone want a video game to hurt?”

“Most people just take a shield to prevent all damage,” said Clario. “Or a second weapon to deal more damage.”

Marcus was getting confused. Was 10 damage a lot? Were the gloves necessary? Did he need armor like all these guys had?

“Alright! Let’s get in there and save some peasants!” Ray shouted, raising his sword in the air.

Marcus saw text appear.

*Leadership Bonus: +4.5% Defense*

It meant nothing to him.

The guild charged into the mouth of the cave, drawing exotic blades, blocky warhammers, and casting what Marcus assumed was magic as they entered. Clario turned to him as the others ran past. “Just stay with us, we’ll keep you safe.”

They descended a deep, winding path, the floor worn smooth by an ancient river long since dried. Clario created magic balls of light to illuminate their way. Marcus reached out to grab one, but his hand passed right through. He was starting to have fun, even though he didn’t really understand what was going on.

“Never should have come here!” a gruff voice shouted from up ahead. The tunnel opened into a cavern. Haphazardly stacked barrels and crates littered the floor. Toppled chairs surrounded a long table covered in piles of loose coins. A line of haggard, angry men brandished daggers and swords, cursing and taunting Ray’s guild.

“Bandit Mercenaries Lvl 30” floated over them. Marcus hung back as the two lines of combatants came together in a clash of startling violence, swinging blades and hurling balls of fire at each other. Notifications appeared over their heads, so many Marcus couldn’t make out what was happening. His attention shifted when one of the Bandits leaped in front of him, sneering and spinning a knife in one hand.

Old instincts flooded Marcus’s mind, ones that he had desperately tried to escape. It wasn’t the first time an angry man with a knife had tried to kill him. He raised his hands and widened his stance, the instincts he had forged day by day and night by night taking over for the instincts of a frightened boy.

“You just back off now, slick!” he said.

The bandit darted in, thrusting the knife at Marcus’s chest. Marcus weaved right and responded with a rapid three punch combination. For a brief instant he was twenty years old again.

*You strike Bandit Mercenary for 17 damage*

*You strike Bandit Mercenary for 17 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Mercenary for 34 damage*

To Marcus’s shock, the bandit didn’t collapse from the right hook that had KO’d hundreds of fighters. He was about to strike again when Ray charged into the bandit. The spikes on Ray’s armor tore into the bandit’s body and sent him sprawling.

*Gordus charges Bandit Mercenary for 144 damage*

The guild set upon the downed bandit like wolves, a blur of numbers appearing over the body, and the fight was over.

“What happened?” Marcus asked Ray. “I hit him stone dead. He should have been out!”

“Doesn’t work that way,” said Ray. “You need to reduce their HP, that’s the only way to kill them. Well, at your level anyways. When you level up, you’ll get more powers.”

“What’s an HP? Your momma know you play this game? Seems awfully violent.”

Ray laughed. “She knows Uncle Marcus. HP is how much health they have, when it goes to zero, they di…they’re knocked out. The faster you hit them, the faster they go down

Faster, that word stood out to Marcus. “What’s a ‘critically strike’? I did double damage with that.”

“You have a small chance to get a critical with any attack, but you’ll crit automatically if you hit vulnerable points. Different weapons have different vulnerable targets.” Ray turned to the guild, who were opening crates and barrels, sorting through treasures with lustful abandon. “You guys know where the critical hit location is for unarmed?”

Destron paused his hoarding just long enough to answer. “It’s somewhere on the face, I think.”

Marcus remembered. His ‘critical’ punch was a knockout, right on the button. Tip of the chin. That made sense. He smiled. Once upon a time, an old man had made him practice hitting that spot until he couldn’t miss.

“Okay, I think I get it. This is just like back at Bucky’s Gym,” he said to Ray.

“Yeah, now you got it!” Ray said.

They descended further into the bowels of the earth, picking their way around traps and alarms. Soon they came upon two bandit mercenaries and one bandit brawler. The brawler was a pot-bellied man with long, muscled arms. He stood taller than the bandit mercenaries.

“Let’s see if I remember how this works,” Marcus said, smacking his gloved fists together and approaching the brawler.

“You’re gonna get killed!” Pillico shouted.

“Son, he looks just like Billy Lispen. And if I whupped his behind 30 years ago, I can whup it again.”

Marcus ran up to the brawler while Ray and his guild attacked the other bandits. The brawler put up his gnarled boney fists and planted his feet. “I pummel you good!” he said.

Marcus laughed in recognition of the Brawler’s stance; feet close together, knees locked, leaning way over his front foot. The Brawler wound up a punch that was so telegraphed a blind man could have seen it coming.

“He fights like Billy, too!”

Marcus moved without thinking and began to unload a hurricane of blows. Marcus’s right shoulder didn’t pop, his hip didn’t creak, the plate in his knee didn’t slow him down. The brawler jerked and grunted with every hit, his counter attacks finding nothing but air.

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You critically strike Bandit Brawler for 34 damage*

*You have killed Bandit Brawler*

*You are now level 9*

The brawler let out a long moan of defeat and collapsed on the ground. Ray and his guildmates stared in open-mouthed shock.

“That was ridiculous!” Clario shouted “I’ve never seen someone move that fast! Did he even touch you? How did you land pure crits like that!?”

Marcus laughed. “Few hundred hours at the bags, that’s how. I guess you never really forget. Now, let’s go win the game.”

The sight of an Olympic caliber boxer taking down an opponent 30 levels ahead of him had whipped the group into a frenzy. They charged together into the final chambers of the dungeon, where cages of peasants lined the walls.

“Help us!” the peasants cried, shaking the bars of their cells.

The room was filled with bandits of every variety. They sneered and cursed and laughed bitter, hideous laughs as they drew their daggers and blades. The bandit commander jeered them from the center of the room. His name was red and had a little skull next to it.

The bandit commander drew a pair of elegant, curving daggers and spun them around his fingers before snapping into a combat stance.

“I’ll take the big one,” said Marcus.

“That’s—uh, alright!” said Ray. His guild picked their targets and ran in, unleashing a powerful alpha strike on the room.

Clario cast a spell on Marcus’s hands. They glowed and crackled with electricity. “Give him hell, champ!”

Marcus closed with the bandit commander, shifting his weight onto the balls of his feet, and began a graceful dance just outside of his opponent’s reach. The bandit commander shot forward in the blink of an eye, too fast to dodge, and began slashing with quick strikes. Marcus raised his arms up and blocked the shots, then started throwing counters.

*You critically strike Bandit Commander for 42 damage and 10 electrical damage*

This fight was different. The commander was faster and kept moving. He swung low and high, attacked in combinations, feinted and dodged, and raked Marcus’s arms with attacks that made Marcus’s vision flash green. Marcus wasn’t sure what that meant. The commander didn’t give up as many openings as the brawler did. But Marcus didn’t need many.

The commander started repeating the same attack patterns. Marcus learned his rhythm and soon he could smoothly dodge and counter every attack the commander threw at him. His heart was pounding, his breath was ragged. He felt alive.

“Kick his ass, Uncle Marcus!” Ray yelled. The guild had finished off the rest of the room and had gathered around Marcus and the commander, cheering him on.

Marcus could feel the lights on his skin again. He could hear the roar of a prize fight crowd. The canvas flexed under his feet, his coach spurred him on.

Marcus threw attacks faster and faster, faster than he thought he still could, maybe faster than he ever could.

“Dude, the numbers are blurring together!” Clario laughed. “This is bananas!”

Marcus lost balance as the bandit commander suddenly dropped dead in front of him, his hands passing through the body unexpectedly. The bell rang. Marcus was back with his nephew in a game.

Ray and the guild began to count, “One! Two! Three! Four!” At the ten count they cheered, and Clario raised one of Marcus’s hands into the air. “The winner, and new Bandit World Champion! Uncle Marcus ‘The Motor’ Phillips!”

Suddenly the world went black and white and Marcus fell to the ground. He could hear the guild members around him like he was underwater.

His vision faded to black, and a notification appeared.

Your account has been flagged for cheating for the following reasons:

Leveling too quickly

Excessive attack speed

Defeating enemies too far above your level

A moderator will review your log and contact you shortly.

Thank you for your patience.

Just an old man again, Marcus thought as he exited the game, the ghosts of arthritis returning to haunt his limbs. But, maybe I still got some glory ahead of me.