“Ok, so no hud?” he asked, looking around, he could see no heads up display in his peripherals anywhere.

“Nope, no hud.” Willow responded, looking at him with a funny look on her face. “You really jumped into this completely blind didn't you?”

“Yep,” he nodded, “so if there is no hud how do I check what stats I have the perks and all that.” it was a particularly valid point, she simply pointed to his wrist and looking down he found that his left arm had a device strapped to it. It looked like a thin screen that wrapped around the inside of his forearm, barely being a quarter inch thick and attached to his arm with two metal and leather bands that wrapped around from the back. Lifting it up he looked at it, wondering why it was on the inside of his forearm and not turned around to the outside.

He could always change that latter. Shrugging he tapped the screen, which caused it to buzz to life. It would appear as though the device would only display one color, which happened to be a whitish blue on a black background. It only had three tabs, one was labeled skills, another was labeled perks and the last had settings presented at the top of it. Without a thought he tapped on the settings tab and scrolled past all the worthless options in the menu until he found the one he wanted.

Trauma simulation values.

He nodded and cranked it all the way to the maximum value. A warning appeared on his screen, it was one that he had read far too many times…

WARNING!

Raising the simulated values of trauma can cause near realistic amounts of pain when in game injury is received, this can lead to psychological suffering if endured for an extended amount of time, symptoms include ghost pains, post traumatic str-

He skimmed over the long list of reasons why he souldnt turn this all the way to the highest value, then he signed his name at the bottom of the pop up on the small device and absolved the company of any and all blame for anything that happened to him due to using this feature.

“Why are you doing that?” Willow asked, now looking at him with a look that made it clear she thought he was completely crazy.

“Why indeed?” he asked, looking up at the sky through the hole in the roof that was letting in the sun. “I play games to have an outlet, a release, so I can be someone else, to be truly immersed in the experience.” he sighed and looked over at her. “It's hard to think of this as real when I am shot in the chest and don't feel like I am dying, like I am bleeding out, slowly.”

“But wouldn't the pain hender you skill? If you are busy worried about something hurting you don't have clarity of the mind.”

“Maybe that is how it works for some people, for me however the pain is reinforcement, you see when you fear something, when you know it will hurt you try to avoid it, you find ways to minimize the pain, to take as little damage as possible.” he looked over at her. “And so I play better, I outmaneuver my opponents, out think them, so they can't retaliate, so they can't hurt me, when you feel the pain of every shot, of every blow you learn much quicker to counter them, to avoid them.”

“You teach yourself,” she said, nodding, logically that made since, it was something straightforward that she could understand, it was teaching based on pure human instinct.

Pain is bad.

Pain is to be avoided.

“You might find this funny but I have ghost pains from doing this, and I still want to do it.” ghost pains were deep psychological pains where a person’s brain was so convinced a part of the body had been injured that it actually hurt, even though there was nothing actually wrong with it. “I was playing this game once, it was a sim of the old world war, the second one I believe.” he looked away. “I spent months in italian lands with my squad, going through hell, I remember trying to hold the blood in Private Mcland’s body as it leaked out right through my fingers.” he sighed, “Wound was fatal, bled out in minutes, after he died I don't remember much, just this rage, this anger, I remember rushing the enemy, I didn't even feel the rounds until later.” he laughed, shaking his head, his eyes clearing up, no longer cloudy as he remembered. “It was all so god damned real, that's what those casers are for though isn't it? It makes your brain think something is happening when it really isn't.” he spread his arms wide gesturing at everything around them. “Hallucinations, all of it just goddamn hallucinations.” he chuckled to himself, “It sounds funny doesn't it? Getting that angry, that sad just because some npc died?”

“I don't think so.” Willow responded, she had been listening to the entire story. “I think it sounds beautiful, artistic even, the fact that someone was able to create a world that believable, that realistic, filled with characters that you loved so much you mourned their passing sounds like the work of an artist.” she smiled, “But I might be a little biased, after all I am an A.I.”

She started laughing, and he found he was also joining in with her. “ so, what skills do you have?” he asked Willow after the two of them were done laughing.

“I am currently skilled in crafting and support,” she said, “I can craft basic clothing and armor, and I am even capable of crafting makeshift bullets if given the right materials and tools.”

“Bullets?” he asked looking at her in surprise.

“Makeshift bullets, they are rough, consisting of simple metal casings, explosive powder and bits of metal and other shrapnel, they are almost as likely to misfire or jam your gun as fire,” she said with a shrug.

“Still better than nothing.”

“Indeed.” she nodded, “I also know something about cooking and medicine.” she said.

“Do you have any combat skills?” he asked looking at her, watching as she shook her head, “Can I see your skills?” he asked and she offered her wrist, upon which sat a pad just like his own. He spent the next few minutes scrolling through her list of skills asking her of the use of some of them. “And this one?” he asked pointing to a particular skill.

“Herpetology?” she asked looking at the skill that he was talking about. “That is the study of amphibians and reptiles, part of the Zoology skill line, it costs fifty points to master as it is a sub skill...”

“Can you get rid of skills?” he asked.

“Well yes skills can be dropped at any time,” she said, cocking her head over to the side, not quite understanding why he was asking.

“Ok, so we will need to get you a weapon, and you will drop that skill and another to get skilled in that class of weapon.” he said nodding to himself. “Why would you even need to waist fifty points on the study of lizards?”

“Herpetology is a particularly useful sub skill that feeds into a lot of crafting for example, the more you know about an animal the more material you will be able to salvage from it to use for crafting or cooking.” she explained, “Are you sure you want me to drop that skill?”

“Well we will have to go over it after we have found you a proper weapon, you will need to be able to use one for yourself.” he said, and opening his pad he pressed the beacon button on it, and at his feet a small green disc about the size of a saucer appeared, humming slightly. Seeing that he had laid down his beacon Willow did likewise. “Well then, let's get this show on the road shall we?” he asked, he had no idea how long they had stood there talking but it was time to do a little exploration.

Looking around the room he found what he was looking for, a heavy piece of pipe that was twisted and sticking out of the wall at an odd angle. He walked over to it and gave it good tug, much to his relief the pipe was barely being held on by a small amount of metal where a portion of the brick wall had collapsed on it, and after some aggressive persuasion he was able to remove it. Holding the improvised weapon in hand he made his way out of the apartment.

They were 31 stories straight up, and he doubted very much that the elevator was operational. Creeping out into the hallway he looked both ways, they would need to set up some sort of way back, otherwise laying his beacon up there would be completely pointless.

The hall was dark, little to no light showed, well it was good to see that some things never changed, damned hallway was always dark.

31 floors down.

Well it wouldn't help to just sit there,

He started down the hall, on this floor there was only four apartments, his, Mrs Dernus an empty one and the final apartment was the one that belonged to the Swanson family. Mrs Dernus was the closes, only a short five or so feet to his right, he shared a wall with her.

Listening closely he made his way over to her door. And slowly he turned the knob, it would appear as though her room was open, and slowly he pushed the door open, he had reached the halfway mark when he felt the slightest resistance, not like it was something wedging it on from the floor but like something was was blocking the door near the mid area, he heard the softest click, and he needed to hear no more. Throwing himself back he tackled Willow and pressed her to the ground as a hole was blasted in the door right where he had been standing just seconds past. A fine rain of dust, debris and splinters rained down on him and his ears rang.

Opening his eyes he found himself face to face with Willow, he was pressing her to the floor and his face was mere inches from her own. She had solid aqua green eyes that seemed to shimmer in the dim light of the hallway. “How's it going?” he asked her casually, like he was talking to her about the weather, and not currently pressed up against her.

She looked off to the side, thought about it and then shrugged her shoulders ever so slightly. “Pretty good, how about yourself?” she asked with a slight smile. He pushed himself up, and extended her a hand, pulling her back onto her feet.

“Well it would seem as though my elderly neighbor Mrs Dernus is a little upset with me...” he laughed, all too aware that he was currently under the effects of adrenolyn and acutely aware of what a mental strain that would cause after it was done working its way through his system. “Mrs Dernus? I know I borrowed that pot and never really gave it back and all but was that necessary?” he asked, peeking his head in the new hole in the door.

She laughed slightly at his joke.

Seeing no new threat he opened the door, with just as much caution as last time until he revealed the room. Inside propped and hanging over an overturned table was a skeleton, at the floor of the table was a gun, a small 10 millimeter pistol. It would seem as though it was being held by the skeleton before the person had passed away.

This however was not the gun that had nearly blown him and Willow into meaty chunks, that gun was the smoking pile of wreckage that was mounted to a chair, it had at one point in time been a sawed off shotgun, single barrel by the looks of it, now however it was simply a twisted hunk of black iron and wood that smoked spitefully at the two of them.

“Wow, Mrs Dernus, maybe you were not as sweet and kind as I thought,” he said stepping into the room lightly, keeping his eyes peeled for any more traps...