Icid woke up inside a video game. She had been in one for about a month, but this time she unmistakably awoke inside one.

A set of quest updates flashed through her head as she opened her eyes. Light crept through the thick curtains of the rustic inn. Her first party member was sleeping on a bed next to her. The mouth-watering scent of food being cooked over a wood fire wafted through the cracks.

Decorated wood columns fanned into small overhead arches that held up the roof. Between them spanned panelled walls with occasional stained glass windows. Within the glass were the pictograms of strange beasts all moving counter-clockwise. The floor was covered with strange straw mats that were soft but firm.

And old stone hearth stood against the back wall and was decorated with bells on strings, stone bowls, oil lamps and candles. All she had to do is find a way to turn the room right side up and then this would look exactly like she had hoped for.

…

“Ah yes, Rowan told me to go sleep while hanging on the ceiling…”

Her back did feel painless and her body seemed otherwise well rested.

For a little while she looked at her spidery legs. They might not score high in the charm department, but this wall climbing might actually be quite powerful. Abilities that ignored terrain restrictions tended to be hard to balance. Even if the developer fiddled with them often. But then, this was a full-fledged simulated world and not a hand-coded game, so who knows.

Before this, she had not thought of it in purely mechanical terms. The realness of the world had made it hard to look at her person in a video game way. She might have an F minus in the cute stat, but if Rowan was to be believed, her body had at least three extraordinary abilities.

The [Wall Climbing] was confirmed.

She turned around to look at the end of her abdomen, there were indeed small creepy appendages there. What did she call them, spinnerets?

Now the question was how somebody ‘makes web’ so to say. She tried squeezing and relaxing the many weird muscles in the spidery part of her body until a thick clear fluid started oozing out. Instinctively the spinnerets seemed to twitch and hooked into the sticky liquid.

“Ohh dear, that is sickening.”

She took a couple of large breaths and envisioned a bright future filled with allies, castles and fighting dragons before her.

“Its… just… a… game. Explore, expand, exploit, exterminate. Optimise your build, use your abilities to their maximum potential.”

With new resolve, she took the tip of one of her hind legs and tapped it against the fluid. When she drew it back the spinnerets weaved the fluid into a fine white thread. The tread was semi-transparent and very stretchable, but seemed to rapidly become tougher as it was exposed to the air. She rubbed the sticky end against the ceiling, causing it to detach from her leg with surprising ease.

“Well ok, that is thread. Don’t really see the befit right now, seems cheaper to buy twine and a pot of glue. Is it one of those levelling skills? Man, I really need to find a way to get the [Inspect] skill so I can take a look at my stat sheet.”

Icid had read a bit about the game before she came here. It was supposed to the spiritual sequel to the greatest VRMMORPG ever made after all. And by most accounts, it was the most advanced video game on the market, but no one was going to pretend it was actually very good.

Horrid monetization practices had plagued it since launch and that had only gotten worse over time. But as it was one of the few fully free offerings, it always had a steady stream of new arrivals. These people tended to be dirt poor, of course, so they provided an insufficient amount of income for the parent company. For this reason the monetisation model of ‘free to live’ experiences would almost always shift to accommodate the ultra-rich.

In a way the scheme was perfect. The rich got a large bulk of miserable poor peasants to scorn at, so they could feel better about owning their large castles and armies of NPCs servants. While the money they spent on those castles funded the development for everyone else. Albeit that this tactic tended to require that the poor masses remain poor for the rich to keep enjoying their wealth. Happiness might be absolute, but status can only ever be relative.

In regular MMORPG’s the amount of currency you could get in each quest rises exponentially as the game progresses. In Aard this is reversed, as the game goes on the amount of money a regular person can make in a day levels off. This is partially because Aard pegs its currency to the universal credit, allowing real money to be spent instead of in-game coin.

To avoid massive inflation, the influx of money into the digital economy is regulated. At least for the poor scrubs. The ultra-rich tend to spend their cash on products offered by AFTERLIFE directly or on buying things from the other ultra-rich. For instance castle construction, plots of land in the highest circles, NPC servant wages, votes in the political system, etc. Money that flows into the economy via these ultra-rich rarely makes its way down the financial totem pole. So they are exempt from most hassles of taxes and dynamic item prices.

But the commoners have their financial livelihoods dependent on what economic circle they live in. By adjusting prices of inns, food stores, rent and so on, AFTERLIFE can hold control on the average daily income in each of those economic layers.

The balance is set in such a way that you will hit a dead end midway trough levelling. Your income no longer increases significantly, but the difficulty, importance of high-end gear, social status and your home base does.

By that time you are living a good life by modern standards. A moderate size family home, free on the weekends, some magical tools to make life easier, a garden well or other water source, maybe an NPC servant or two. But scarcely a life you would expect in a world of wizards, castles and dragons. Which is especially grating as the castles of the people who do have all of those things can be seen from everywhere.

Now there are ways around that. Money does not flow through the economic layers homogeneously. This leaves opportunity for you to amass wealth by excelling over other people. Or robbing people, form Icid’s current experience that worked quite well.

She looked over at the two remaining bags of cash that lay piled in the corner. But still, this was a silly amount of money to get as a reward for robbing an NPC owned mansion. Robbing real person’s home carries prison sentences if you got caught, albeit digital ones, so it was rarely done.

But as playing the thief character had been a traditional staple of role-playing games. So they had included some limited (non-criminal) support by allowing you to rob special houses owned by NPCs. There was a comically low punishment for getting caught robbing those, only a couple of days in jail at most.

But there was no way a quest NPC was going to send her to rob the house of a fellow player. So she had not bothered checking. But this stack of coins almost made her worried. The guards would come because of the whole stuff with the rings, the lady and the corpse. But that was likely part of the quest, so..., it should be manageable.

Returning to the topic at hand. She had her venom left to test, but unless Rowan was willing to volunteer that might prove difficult.

Suddenly she remembered she had gotten [Lesser Regeneration] as well.

For this skill she at least had a description, something along the lines of quick healing and limb regrowth. That could both be great or terrible depending on the speed. No doubt she would find which it was at the most inopportune time if she ignored it now.

She held one of her legs out in front of her. Somewhere in the middle of a red void, a goat whispered on top of a pile of corpses.

It’s all just numbers, none of this is real, knowledge is the root of all power, be the chosen one…

Fear of pain seemed to fade and her ears filled with the sound of pounding drums. She wanted this, this was the only way forward. Castles, loyal servants, royal dresses, gallant princes and jewels set crowns. Do it for those.

Throw away the pathetic human, it is not needed, nobody liked that person anyway.

Within a flash, her fangs had cracked through the shell around her leg and dug into her soft flesh. Burning hot pain flared up in an instant, causing her to reel back.

“Ah, that hurts! FUU-”

Profanity lockout triggered

Icid muscles locked in an instant, causing her to drop from the ceiling. Halfway through the fall, the tread, which was still attached to her abdomen, snapped tight. This forced her into a graceful swing, but that quickly ended when her face collided with the floor. A harrowing scraping sound erupted as her momentum continued to drag her across the rough wood.

You took 4, I am apparently a cannibal now, damage.

You took 2, spider venom (natural resistance), damage.

You took 4, my face got smeared over the floor, damage.

To add insult to injury someone downstairs was tapping a broom against the ceiling, demanding that they stop making a racket.

Rowan instantly leapt out of her bed and jumped onto the floor. Her eyes were squinted so tight, barely a line of the eyes was visible. She pulled a knife seemingly out of nowhere and threw it at the thread, sending Icid tumbling down to the ground completely.

“Aah! I am sorry I woke you up, I-I was ju-”

“Be silent.”

Rowan's voice had become a mere whisper, but managed to carry a frightening coldness nonetheless. For a hand full of seconds they sat in silence.

“Icid, put on your clothes, be quick.”

“What do you…, what is going on?”

“You took the worst time possible to indulge yourself in a truly perverted level of self-flagellation. The enemy is at the door.”

Rowan rushed into her clothes at a staggering speed. Icid, on the other hand, found herself struggling with one of her legs limp and useless.

“Come on, hurry up, or I will kick you out of this window without clothes on.”

Icid pushed away the pain and forced her semi-skirt and jacket on. When she grabbed her bags she saw Rowan tossing a hand full of coins under the bed sheets.

“Why-”

“Always pay appropriately for good service. The broom tapping was an old-fashioned warning. No one cares if you are loud in near dinnertime.”

At that moment a loud bang erupted from below and the sounds of heavy boots flooded through the building.

“Time to leave, get to the roof.”

Rowan hopped out of the window and made her way up, seemingly capable of scaling walls just fine without a spider mount. Just when Icid got the windowsill the small door smashed open and a couple of men tried to squeeze their wayside.

“Halt! By the jurisdiction of the 1st circle royal guard, you are under arrest!”

For a second she stared into the yelling man’s soft eyes. A scrappy leather coat, a worn badge and greying feathers on his raven-like head. The good detective, dedicated, honourable and eternally broke.

In a flurry of legs, he dived forward and grabbed her by the arm. Strong bony fingers, his flesh on hers. Rapidly ruby red flooded around her, coiling around her longs, prickling her throat. Drums build, faster, louder.

How dare this piece of code touch me? Her restraints seem to evaporate, her fangs itched and the song soured louder.

Then she bit, liquid anger seeming to flow into her very fangs. Bone cracked and the taste of iron flooded her mouth.

This time she could feel something gushing out of her, streaming into the warm veins. The bird-faced detective went white and as he instinctively jerked back. She felt the fluids ooze from her mouth and onto her clothes. The detective’s blood gushed out like water, staining large portions of the floor, causing men in the doorframe to freeze.

She had hurt a man, poisoned and injured him. But as the song pounded, and the blood gushed into her mouth she felt strong, in control. Their worried gazes, their stammering steps, they sent chills down her spine.

As they stared, they saw danger an enemy. Not weakness, failure, no fat ugly nerd. She couldn’t help but smile, this… felt good.

Without another moment’s hesitation, she leapt out of the window and joined her ally on the roof.