“…

“There is no denying the fact that ‘Hexgestalt V: Malleus Reverie’ can be quite a challenging game at times.

“If you find yourself growing frustrated, dear Adventurer, know that the worst thing you can do is continue on repeatedly, without rest, at the cost of your own sanity, fueled solely by a sense of determination that has likely been warped through your own anger.

“Don’t get us wrong: perseverance is an admirable characteristic. And at times even necessary in your journey to reclaim your homeland. But to persist in doing the same thing over and over again without any change in technique or skill or method is like trying to scale a brick wall by merely throwing yourself at it for days on end and then getting angry when you see no progress.

“Would you not instead take a step back and survey the wall and its surroundings? Would you not examine its structure for weaknesses? Would you not test the ground to see whether it’s possible to dig through? Would you not fashion a rope and train your body’s strength to use it? Observe and analyze. Try different approaches. Take a break. Calm down, come back later with a clear head.

“To trudge on otherwise is to court a madness that will no doubt leave you vexed, or worse yet, crestfallen, no less hollow than the poor, mad souls you once vowed to vanquish …”

“…”

(Excerpt From: HexGes Development Team. “Official Starter Guide”)

Now, had Melody Quick, by this point unquestionably vexed, though perhaps not entirely crestfallen just yet, not torn to pieces, in her latest fit of rage (during which she frothed about the room, shredding and biting whatever she could get her hands on; and which, in her opinion, was a totally justified and appropriate reaction to her controller’s decision to run out of battery right as she managed to, for the first time ever, bring the Dark Prince’s health bar down to its last three—three!—notches, the farthest she’d ever gotten in any of her battles up to that point, which feat was promptly invalidated by the subsequent paralysis of her character, who—disconnected from the commands of her master, off in the real world scrambling frantically for the charging cable and screaming “Oh no no no no no”—stood idiotically still and made no attempt to prevent an otherwise easily avoidable, highly telegraphed swing of Firmament’s Edge from cutting her fucking head off), the pages of the game’s manual that directly followed the preceding extract, she might’ve picked up a few ideas on how to overcome this personal brick wall of hers (against which she had resumed throwing herself as soon as Laura excused herself from the rooftop a few hours ago, mumbling something about having to go back and study, or make sure Elysia, asleep, was okay, or whatever, their conversation irrecoverably killed either way by Melody’s confession), ideas such as putting more points in VIT so as to not be so squishy; actually using the consumables in her inventory, instead of hoarding all her buffs and enchants for later, just in case; reinforcing the Statues of Memoria with Sacred Offerings so that her healing potions restored more HP with each use; and of course not levelling DEX (or at the very least not telling others that she’d done so)—some of which suggestions she would in fact discover by herself in due time, and some of which wouldn’t occur to her at all until somebody went on to explicitly explain them to her, as was the case with the proper tactic of handling the skeleton archers who always managed to annoyingly get one or two arrows in during each one of her corpse runs … and whom she couldn’t possibly reach with any of her melee weapons … so what, then, exactly was she supposed to—

“Try ranged combat.”

Melody jumped at the voice, turned her head around. “E-E-Elysia! You scared me.”

“Sorry, Prima Melody. Didn’t mean to.”

“Is it—are you having trouble sleeping?”

“No … it’s—it’s morning. The sun’s been up for a while now.”

“What? No, it hasn’t, I—oh, look at that, it really is up.”

“I’m about to head to school.”

“Oh, right—I can see that.” Turning back to the game. “Err … Does Laura know you’re here?”

“Um … no. She had an early lecture so she left already.”

“Oh. Just asking. ‘Cuz she probably wouldn’t want you hanging around me.”

“Why’s that?”

“She thinks I’m crazy.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t think that.”

“Totally nutso. Anyway, um, I can”—without looking away from her avatar—“I can walk you to the academy, if you want.”

“No, that’s okay. I can get there myself.”

No hesitation whatsoever: “Okay. Watch out for cars then.”

“Hmm … I got a little bit more time.” She sat down next to Melody on the bare, hardwood floor, putting down her bookbag. “I want to watch you play for a little bit. Um … If that’s okay with you.”

“Sure, be my guest. But I’m warning you, it’s not all that interesting. I’ve been stuck on this boss for, um … which day is it today?”

Elysia told her.

“Oh. Ohhh. That’s no good. That’s no good at all. I don’t have that much time left.” She sighed loudly. Then, offering the controller: “You want to give it a shot?”

“Um … Well, I’d like to, but, you know.” Pointing to her cast.

“Oh, yeah.”

“Which is too bad, since I never get to play at home. Papa doesn’t allow ludo in the house.”

“That’s a shocker. Anyway, hey, we’re at a good part, watch this, I’ve gotten really good at this, this is gonna be cool,” said Melody, dashing headlong into a vicious-looking throng of enemies guarding the castle entrance, commentating while she did so with the bravado and swagger gained from repetition and practice: “Take three steps forward, so you aggro the big-looking dudes, and then you dodge left here, because the trolls always swing with their left arm—and you want to dodge under their attack—and then roll here to avoid the giant rats—ah, but you have to roll so that you land on this platform here, or else you’ll get trapped underneath the boulder golems, and just like that you’re home free, inside the castle, without taking a hit, without having to fight a single enemy. And you, ah”—jumping over a pack of rabid skeleton-dogs—”Ha, can’t touch me! Later, fuck-o. Oh, whoops. I mean … uh, I didn’t swear just now.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Swearing is bad. Don’t do it.”

“How come you’re just avoiding everything? You just run past enemies, you haven’t fought a single one so far.”

“Well, I’ve been on this same level for days now. And at first I did play it normally. But I soon realized that I’m replaying the same thing over and over again and it’s tedious if I stop and fight everything I see. In fact, I’ve been specifically optimizing my path from the Statue to the boss arena. Like seeing how fast I can do it, how little damage I can take while doing it.” At a fork in the path, Melody took a left.

“What happens if you go right instead?”

“That’s actually the original path. It leads to the outside courtyard, where there are some really tough enemies, and that section alone took me pretty much an entire afternoon to get through. I must’ve died there like more than thirty times.

“And when I did finally get through it I was actually both relieved but also dreading it, because I knew I’d probably die soon after that, and I didn’t want to go through the pain of fighting all the enemies in the courtyard again, since when you die you get put back to the beginning of the stage. But luckily, there’s this lever—right here, actually, this one—and when you pull it, it opens up the gate, the left path. Saving me from going through the courtyard again.”

“But … hold on … if you die and everything gets reset to the beginning of a stage, why does the gate stay open? Wouldn’t it be closed again, and you would still have to pull the lever?”

“I guess ‘reset’ isn’t the most accurate word. The enemies you’ve killed do come back to life, but anything you do to the physical world, like items you’ve picked up, or the shortcuts you’ve already opened, those aren’t affected. So, when you die, it’s not like time is being rewound. It’s more as if you’re being resurrected back into the same world where you just died—the catch being that, your enemies get the same treatment. In the grand timeline of events, each of your deaths actually happened. Each one is, uh, how would you call it”—trying to remember the word she saw when she skimmed the manual—“… uh, canonical. Time flows on.”

Elysia, intrigued: “He-eeeh.”

“Oh! Speaking of which, when you resurrect, and you pass the place where you died, your corpse is actually there, and you can reclaim your items. In fact, that’s your one chance—if you die again before you reach your body, you lose those unclaimed items for good.”

“That seems somewhat harsh.”

“I know, right? Right? That’s because this is a”—her nostrils flared, blood pressure rose—“stupid shit-game! Oh, I mean … I didn’t swear again, just now.”

“Yes, you did. Why do you keep playing it, if it makes you so angry?”

“It doesn’t make me angry.”

“But what about all those holes in the wall?”

“Those were already there.”

“And the writing desk is flipped over.”

“That was like that already.”

“There are bite marks on it.”

“Oh. That’s—must be rats.”

“But they’re human-shaped teeth marks.”

“Probably all the … chemicals in the water.”

“And the door’s broken.”

“Alright, that one I’ll freely admit to.”

“(Admit to?)”

“I tried to get in, but the door was locked, and the only key was with Noel, so I had to break it down.”

“Where’s Prime Noel now?”

“Uh. Dead, probably.”

“Oh, no …”

“Okay, we’re almost at the boss room. There’s just this one big area you still have to get through: the dining hall. Now, to my knowledge, you have to actually fight during this part. Problem is, if you don’t kill these guys, if you just run past them, they’ll cause trouble for you when you fight the Dark Prince.”

“They’ll follow you into the boss room?”

“No, but they can throw knives and fire spells at you through the boss entrance. I don’t know if it’s a glitch or what, but it makes the Dark Prince fight so much harder than it already is. It’s a real bitch.”

“Oh … you swore again …”

“Now, the trick to the dining hall is, you have to take out the spellcaster first. For the longest time I used to go for the armoured guys in front first. Nah. Even though he’s in the back, go straight for the caster. The armoured dudes will follow you, but if you hold down sprint, they’ll never catch up. See, if you try and fight them first instead, you’ll get pounded by fire spells while you slowly widdle their armour and health down, and at that point even if you win the encounter you’ll have lost a lot of health doing it—health that you’ll probably need for the upcoming boss fight. That’s why you have to go for the caster first. He’s totally weak, even my dagger will take him out in no more than three hits. And then once he’s been eliminated you can focus on the armoured barbarians without having to worry about distractions.”

Elysia watched Melody execute the tactic she’d just described.

“There! All clear.” She spun spastically in place to celebrate. “Now the only thing left to do is swap out the smoke bombs for fortification scrolls in the quick inventory, and switch out my heavy mail for something lighter so I can roll faster—and then take a deep breath and hope that this next attempt is the one. Prayer isn’t strictly necessary, but it can’t hurt. Okay. Wish me luck.”

“Good luck!”

“Heh, don’t need it,” said Melody smugly, as she began yet another walk up the stairs to the Dark Prince’s chambers.

Elysia: “You really have to go through all of this every time you want to fight the boss?”

“Sure do.”

“And you’ve been in this same cycle for several days now.”

“Mm-hmm. Been at it non-stop since I found the console.”

“Why don’t you just make a save right where you are now? That way, if you lose to the boss, you can just reload the save and try again immediately.”

“‘Save’?”

“Yeah. You save the game state so you can load it up later and continue on from where you left off.”

“I … definitely haven’t done anything like that. You can do that?”

“You should be able to. What else do you do when you turn the console off?”

“I’ve just left the game running all this time, so I haven’t had to do … anything.”

Elysia, tongue pressed against the inside of her cheek, thinking: “Hmm … Pass me that game manual?”

“It’s missing a few pages.”

“That’s fine … just want to see if … Ah! OK, here we go: ’There is no need for you to save manually. The game will take care of that for you. Bear in mind that this also means you will not be able to undo certain actions. Be mindful of your choices, for they might be irreversible …’ I guess that means it keeps saving to the disk constantly.” She hummed to herself as she proceeded to flip through another section of the manual.

“What are you looking for now?”

“I’m trying to find if it’s possible to re-spec your character.”

“‘Respect’?”

“Re-spec. I’m wondering if the reason you’re having such a hard time is because you leveled up too inefficiently. Your attributes could be spread too thin, in which case it’s better to re-allocate them such that you’re more focused towards a particular strength.”

Melody nodded, pretending to understand. “Wow, you know a lot about this kind of stuff, huh, Elysia?”

The girl blushed. “No, no, I don’t, I really don’t. Elegia knows way more than me. And I only know stuff because I watch him. He’s really good at games. We play sometimes, together, in his hospital room. There’s a small console available for the patients …” She reached the end of the book. “I don’t see anything about re-speccing. But you ate so many pages that it’s possible I missed something …”

“You can speed-read pretty quickly, huh? Also, I didn’t eat them,” said Melody, belching out part of an index.

“I could try looking online instead,” suggested Elysia. “We might also be able to find a better approach.”

“NO!” screamed Melody, who, to alleviate Elysia’s startled reaction, added, with an attempt at good humour, “I mean, it’s more fun to figure these things out for yourself, right? Nah, we don’t … we don’t need to bring outside networks into this.” All the while trying not to think, in case Elysia was a telepath, about the warped SIM card and shattered glass and scattered silicon sitting in the dumpster out back.

“But wouldn’t you want to try a different approach? If you’ve been at this for over seventy-two hours, shouldn’t you try something else?”

“… I guess. It really feels more to me like I’m flipping through a big book of iterations. There’s at least one page of me winning in there somewhere, and I’ve just got to keep … keep flipping. The book’s set in any event. I can’t change what’s in it. I can’t change what’s in it. I can’t change what’s in it.”

“(Iterations?)”

On reaching the top of the stairs Melody placed her hand in the wall of fog separating the boss room from the rest of the level and slipped (was pulled) through the one-way, translucent veil, on the other side of which the Dark Prince (and his orchestral score, whose notes—both the choir parts and the accompaniment—she figured she could bang out with ease on a piano by now, despite having, unlike her, never touched one) waited, Firmament’s Edge already drawn and aflame, blade perhaps pre-lit in anticipation or as likely still burning from her last death; and dodged his opener, a charged leap attack, the timings and precise boundaries of whose active hitbox she had come to, consciously or not (answer: not), internalize, the act of this evasion either the first step in a new dance or the recommencement of a longer, continuous one—to which performance, regardless of whichever one of the two it was, or its predecessors had been, an audience had now been introduced: a spectator, the girl, the academy student (who was going to be late if she sat around any longer) watching mesmerized as Melody struggled between the fight and her explanation of the fight: “This first phase I feel like I’ve got down, it’s not too bad aside from that initial stinger move, which can destroy you since he follows it up with a grab, which is bad because—” … “—and then when he sticks his sword in the ground he’s preparing to unleash a giant shockwave, so you have to move far away, to at least the pillars, it’s safe here, good opportunity to heal as well—” … “—so his eyes’ll start glowing once his health goes below half, and he’ll two-hand the sword and start to go after you more aggressively, like that, and—whoa! oh man, that was close—” … “—okay, now here we go, the last phase. Health down to the last-third. Now he goes all out, Elysia, no mercy. Look, he throws down his weapon and fights me bare-handed. It’s actually really bad-ass, and I’d appreciate it so much more if I didn’t want to kill myself right now—” …

“… but this. This is the one attack I don’t know how to deal with. I’ve tried rolling earlier, I’ve tried dodging at the last possible moment. I used to even try to parry it, but I don’t do that anymore because it’s a guaranteed instant death if you bungle it and it’s just too much risk. I mean, how am I supposed to practice the parry timing if I have to run through the entire level between every attempt! I’ve also tried just running away but—oh, he’s winding up to do it again—okay, I’m going to try sprinting away this time …” Melody contorted her right hand into a claw and sprinted in the opposite direction, only to get knocked down in another strike. “Again! I can only take one more and then I gotta re-do everything, everything you just watched me do. How is this … How is this fair? How is this fun?”

“You’re almost there, Prima Melody! You’re so close! A few more hits and he’s finished! Just play it safe, and don’t get too greedy …”

But Melody Quick, potions dry, mana exhausted, protection spells long since worn off and health bar unable to sustain even one more hit, scoffed condescendingly in the face of this optimism and said, in that one tone so common to all the world’s defeated: “Believe me, kid—‘Almost There’ is always a lot farther from ‘There’ than you’d like to think.”

And child aside how many times had she been in this situation now? Her knuckles white, palms sweaty, heart racing and adrenaline coursing—as much from the rush of the fight as the prospect of losing all her progress once again—this gnawing threat doing nothing to help her in battle; actively working, in fact, to sabotage her performances—a jumble of words in her head some variation on a bargain (“Just let this be over, just let me win already, please, I’ll give you whatever you want, just please let me win …”) her end of which she had absolutely zero intention of honouring, not knowing in any event what it was she’d even offered up for sacrifice, or what she stood to lose were the option ever to be exercised—symptoms indicating a disorder more severe perhaps than their actual root that would grow in frequency and intensity as the fight continued and reach their crescendo once the match deteriorated, as it always did, if she lasted long enough, into a mutual flailing devoid of any tact or strategy where each combatant simply raced to out-damage the other before they dropped: which for Melody meant spamming her light attack as fast as she could and hoping he wouldn’t wind up for another unblockable, undodgeable, unsurvivable attack; and then spamming it even more rapidly when he did wind up for exactly that attack, despite knowing full well that—

“—there’s just no possible way I can finish off his health in time. Look, he’s about to hit me with that same overpowered kick and then I’ll die again. This is impossible. And look how close I am to beating him, too. What, is he—is he fucking programmed to start this attack if it looks like I might have the remotest chance of finally winning! This whole—this whole thing is rigged. I’m going to kill myself. I’m going to slit my wrists. I’m going to—I’m going to hang myself with this controller.”

Now then. What did Melody need most at this moment? And who could give it to her? It couldn’t’ve been the girl at her side. So whose voice was it that was telling her to—

Shut up, Mel. Shut up and stop freaking out.

“Eh?”

What are you getting upset about?

She was a split second away from getting killed by an attack that would set her progress back. Again.

Already resigned yourself to failure then, have you? Now why is that?

Because the upcoming attack was impossible to dodge.

‘Impossible’ is awfully definitive. You sure you’re not just going about it the wrong way?

Implying what? That she was dodging ‘wrong’, somehow? How was that possible? Wasn’t it just a matter of timing? Something she couldn’t get down, couldn’t even practice effectively due to the overly punitive consequences for failure?

Okay, let’s take a few steps back. Let’s start with the basics. What’s the point of dodging?

She felt like she was being asked a trick question. Or made fun of.

Just humour me.

Fine. To avoid getting hit. To not take damage.

Right. Now how is that accomplished, exactly? Why don’t you take damage if you dodge properly?

There’s a brief period of invulnerability—those few frames before her feet touched the ground.

Okay. So let’s give that a quantifiable value. Let’s say for the sake of argument that it’s roughly six frames of active invulnerability. Now, tell me about this attack that’s causing you so much grief.

The Dark Prince’s flying roundhouse kick. Heavily telegraphed wind-up. Crazy range. Long duration. Hitbox still active during his wind-down and recovery animation.

So what’s the problem?

The problem was, if she dodged right as the kick began, the attack’s tracking would be at its strongest point and his solleret would basically gravitate towards her face. Conversely, if she dodged right at the last second before he made contact, she would come out of the roll to wind up in the tail end of his wind-down animation, taking damage just the same. To say nothing of what happened when she dodged somewhere in between those two points.

Meaning?

Meaning that his attack went on for too long. And that this whole game was bullshit.

Sure. Nevertheless, let’s assign a value to the attack’s active ‘hurt’ window too. Let’s say ten frames.

She was wondering where this was going. Because she was about two frames away from losing another battle.

Do I have to spell it out for you? Simply pressing dodge is not enough. This isn’t a rhythm game. You have six frames of invulnerability. So you shouldn’t rely on the act of dodging alone. You have to utilize it somehow …

So she should …

So you should …

“I SHOULD USE THE DODGE AS A MEANS OF POSITIONING! AND NOT JUST ITS INVULNERABILITY AS A CRUTCH!” screamed Melody, who, as the Dark Prince came spinning towards her, dodged not away from the attack as she had done so many times before (and as common sense and instinct would dictate), but directly into the hurtbox itself, using the brief invulnerability to pass narrowly unharmed through the eye of that storm, to end up directly behind him, out of the range of that damaging wind-down animation, and more importantly, where she now had unguarded access to his vulnerable backside.

She slashed. She missed. She slashed again. She dealt fifty-one points of damage. He finished his kick animation and began turning around to face her. She swung again. She hit for fifty-three points of damage. He wound up for a left-right-left combo. She swung, hit. Another forty-nine points of damage. He punched. His left gauntlet rushed towards her. She swung her axe one last time.

(During all this Melody had been sustaining a constant scream, which lead to her bursting a blood vessel in her right eye; beside her Elysia had covered her face with her free hand, and was peeking out through the slit between her middle and ring fingers.)

At first Melody thought she’d died again. That the punch had reached her before her axe had reached him; and that what she was seeing now, the smoke and blood and glowing particle effects rising up from the aftermath of their final, decisive strikes, was a new type of death animation, one she hadn’t seen before but which meant another defeat all the same. After all, that’s the outcome she had prepared for. The one she’d already resigned herself to.

But she was still standing. Still breathing. And the Dark Prince, whose body she eventually realized to be the sole source of all that blood and rising smoke, fell dazedly to his knees, and in doing so relinquished his hold on a crown to which he had no right.

YOU DEFEATED

“Oh. Oh, I did it. It’s over.”

“Wow, nicely done, Prima Melody! That was close at the end there, I—Whoa!”

Melody, arms wrapped around Elysia, shaking her about violently: “IT’S OVER. IT’S FINALLY OVER. I CAN’T BELIEVE IT. I think you’re my good luck charm, can I keep you here?”

Elysia, eyes swirling with dizziness: “I really should get to school …”

“Oh, don’t even worry about that. Look, I’ll let you in on a little secret. Whatever you do between now and the end of the month won’t matter at all. You can go around ditching school and causing trouble and it’ll all be reset at the end of the month. Go wild! Go, um, go kiss that boyfriend of yours. What’s his name? Daryl?”

Elysia, beet red: “He’s not my boyfriend! (And his name’s Darrin …)”

Melody released the girl and spread out on her back across the floor. “Man, what a relief. You wouldn’t believe how angry I first got when I first started playing it—”

“(I mean … it kind of seems like you still are, you swore a lot during that last fight … You probably didn’t realize it because of all the ellipses …)”

“—like, for real, you should’ve seen me, jumping up and down, throwing tantrums. And it was really late at night sometimes, I must’ve woken up a lot of people.”

“(… you seem really proud of that …)”

“But that’s all over now.” Melody beamed. “I’ll never get mad at anything ever again in my entire life.”

“(That seems like an unrealistic goal …)”

“We did it. We really, really did it.”

“Prima Melody, are you crying? (Also, your eye looks really scary like that …)”

So what if she was? What was so wrong about that? She could cry if she wanted to. She could spend the rest of the month sitting here, accomplishing nothing, ignoring more pressing matters, if she wanted to.

Right?