Chapter 9

Slate

The third time hearing the Voice was like the others in that it sounded exactly the way it had before, but this time it seemed more integrated with the world. The words went off inside my head rather than be carried through my ears like normal sounds. The Voice actually seemed as if it was a part of me. It was something extremely personal, something only I could hear.

Instead of doubt and confusion, the Voice instilled upon me absolute confidence. The reptile portion of my brain recognized that it spoke nothing but absolute truth. When I tried to doubt this, it seemed to chase the conscious portion of my brain into hiding. Frightening, the Voice seemed to demand obedience. It was in control. If it ordered something done, it felt like I would be compelled to do it. I began to hate this new Voice all together, until I heard the words it said.

“You are now level 2,” The Voice announced. “You may choose to advance one of the following attributes: Mind, Body, Soul, Magic or Ki. Choose with care”

What the hell was this? Part of the game it mentioned? Am I stuck in an RPG? My closet geek has read several books and web novels with a premise of being stuck in a game world or being transported to one. That combined with my extensive MMORPG background made me believe that this was a way to build up my character, or in this case me.

Selecting skills or assigning points to certain stats was always my favorite part games so I did get a little excited when I heard the Voice announce that I had levels. It also meant that I could get strong enough to survive in this new world. The DING was a powerful thing and I used to grind for long hours, staying up way past when I should be asleep, in order to hear that wonderful chime. Planning ahead, researching builds and seeing which class was the best were all things that I enjoyed immensely. Oh, yea! I’m going to be fucking OP.

With this knowledge jumping through my brain, combined with my past reading web novels and a watching a little bit of anime here and there, I knew exactly what to do in this situation.

Channeling Kirito I raised my right fist in the air and yelled “Status Screen.”

…

Where the hell is the infamous blue screen?

I tried all the prompts I could think of, yelling out “Status”, “Character”, “Character Sheet”, “Information” and “Help”.

Feeling like an idiot, my hand slowly slid back down and I spent a few minutes thinking. I continued for some time attempting to find the magical words by speaking them, thinking them, and attempting motions that would allow me access to my personal stats but nothing happened.

I was having a hard time believing that didn’t work. In every one of the stories I read having a status screen was vital. It allowed you to see your progress and told you what your strengths and weaknesses were. The screen should also provide more information on this game and what was happening to the world. How could you know which way to build up a toon if you didn’t know where he was currently? This was bullshit.

As a matter of fact, aren’t I supposed to talk to a god who should be giving me an overpowered skill right about now? Some sort of old man to mentor me in the ways of the magic and martial arts?

“Fuck this shit,” I muttered. “What’s the fun of living in a game without a screen?”

There was no status screen. No god coming to bless me as his champion. No righteous cause to fall behind and fight for. It was just me in a smelly basement sitting alone in a basement with no fucking internet. Oh yea, and there was a stinking corpse in the corner.

I guess this is the real world still. A world that was without the almighty identification skill. I sure as hell know there is no coming back to life in this game. Seeing a friend die showed me that there were no extra lives. Seth sure has hell hasn’t stood back up either. He just sat there looking like the same annoying fuck he used to, only deader.

I sat there for a while and decided to go through my routine to clear my head. I used to separate my work out days in to upper body, lower body and full body. Like most normal humans I needed time for muscle recovery. Exercise tears tiny little holes in your muscles, and they heal back stronger. If you did too much, you would never heal and it was counterproductive. No longer is that the case with my body. Even before discovering that I could regenerate it had been recovering within hours. I pushed it today, going through the full spectrum and working until complete muscle failure.

Lying on the ground in pain filled euphoria, I thought about stupid mistakes made recently and the one made just now. Dehydrating my body while I was on limited resources and a cloud of purple death hanging around outside was an idiot move. The workouts were about the only thing keeping me sane at this point, so I wasn’t to upset about it. It was still a stupid move though.

I decided to ignore my totally unexplainable ability to see in the dark and do something about Seth. That ass hole was probably trying to rot in the corner as a final revenge. I wasn’t having it though. If I dragged him outside he may attract scavenger creatures to my yard, and that was unacceptable. Glancing around I noticed the deep freezer. Perfect, who hasn’t wanted to shove a body in one of those? That shit was on TV all the time.

A couple of grunts and groans later the only thing visibly left of Seth was a dark stain on the concrete. Surprisingly I was not upset at all at having accidently kill him. You would think taking my first human life would be more traumatizing, but it wasn’t. I just accepted it as part of the new world. Of course it probably helped that I had already considered killing him anyways.

I glanced around looking at the other furnishings and tried to figure out my new night vision. My range seemed to be about 25 feet and past that faded out into the darkness. It was like someone had put a night light above where I was now sitting and anything in range became visible in something similar to grayscale.

I got up and checked the seals on the windows. They were all good. There was none of that damned purple glow anywhere in the basement and no other sources of light. The brief search for a light source eliminated all other possibilities. I could see in the dark. Gaining this ability would not have made much sense prior to hearing the level up message. In games it was common to acquire skills and talents. I guess so far I had two: Regeneration and nightvision.

Shit was getting weird. If there was someone else alive in the basement I could talk this out with maybe we could figure it out together. My personal thought process was so jumpy that bouncing ideas off others really helped me stay focused. It would have also have been nice to test their healing and recovery rates as compared to mine. Was it a perk specific to me, or something that changed with the world becoming a game? Seth had screwed me one last time by dying. If he was alive, I could have used him as a test dummy.

Regeneration of HP was a common concept in a game, so I assumed everyone would have it. The nightvision was something else. Comparing my vision to Seth’s could tell us if it was a universal ability everyone gained, or if I had hit some sort of hidden requirements needed to get it. Maybe I got it from spending too much time in the dark. Hell maybe I got it because of murdering someone in the dark. I don’t know. He could have had perks that I did not, but maybe they could be obtained by repeating the actions he had. At the very least we could have compared notes.

Well shit, I guess I did feel a little bad about killing him after all.

Sitting down to meditate I tried to work on my questions without outside help. Meditation is a wonderfully simple and yet entirely complex process. The general concept is to empty your mind, but it is deceptively difficult. You usually start by focusing on breathing and slowly phasing out all other sensory input, but it is far easier said than done. There are a few other methods and views on meditation, but that one seems to work best for me.

Ever since Big John had talked me into yoga and meditation I had made a small study of it. I found that even doing it correctly for 20 to 30 minutes left me refreshed and energized. Beginning to learn how to meditate it is very easy to find yourself distracted. Instead of emptying the mind, my attention had been all over the place. There was the mild pain in my hips from sitting cross legged, the feel my clothing on my skin, all kinds of stuff. I thought of anything and everything else really except for the nothing I was going for. Prior to the deaths of my roommates, I had been meditating more for an escape. With all the recent practice slipping into a clear minded state now came quite easily.

What was new about my meditation was that I felt a tiny ball of energy deep inside my core. It was centered slightly above the belly button, but deep in the center of my being. Over the weeks I noticed that it had grown slowly with each session, but had finally stopped when it reached the size of a large blueberry. The energy did not do anything but sit there but it could possibly be the source of my healing.

Today I tried something new and meditated on the choices given by the Voice. It seems simplistic when you say it but to get to this point, where I could stay clear minded and think about specific issues, had taken a lot of effort. Thinking of the advantages of each attribute the Voice mentioned I scrutinized the choices. It was assumed that the gains would be similar to those received from leveling up in a game, and certain attributes would make certain types of players. Before choosing I thought of what the attributes could mean by comparing the games played in my past.

Mind – It seemed a combination of Intelligence and Wisdom. These stats were for magic users or priests and generally effected how well they used their spells. As the voice had listed Magic, and called this a game, I assumed that there would be some sort mana resource like in normal RPGs. Having more Mind should improve my use of the mana, and the mana pool. Or maybe it just made you smarter and better able to learn new skills. Hell I don’t know, Mind could do all of this or none.

Body – Games tended to break down the category of body into several different attributes, like agility, dexterity, strength and constitution. This is probably some kind of combination. Physical classes were generally the easiest to play in the beginning, so points in this would be something worth investing in immediatly.

Soul – I was not even sure I had a soul until this option was listed. This is good news. I have always believed that God existed. There are little signs everywhere that point to an intelligent creator if you are willing have a little faith, and little is what I had. It was enough to believe, but not enough to be sure. I have no idea what this attribute would do but am glad that the game thinks I have a soul. I just hope we all start with a soul and I don’t need to use a point to obtain one. Obviously that would suck. Note to self: put a point into Soul before dying.

Magic – I usually played a caster in most games, so I thought heavily about gaining magic. Being able to deal fiery death to foes from afar seems like a better way to play then spending all your time in close combat. Especially since this was a game without respawns. The problem was how does magic work? Is there a starter fireball spell or are you expected to teach yourself? With the lack of information the voice tended to give, it makes sense to expect the latter. Learning magic, like any other skill, is generally very time intensive, and probably requires knowledge that I do not have. Although I was not eliminating it as a choice to put points into later, I needed something that will help me survive right now.

Ki – Like Soul, Ki is a vague concept. Many cultures have their version of Ki, or Chi, or Qi, which is believed to be an internal energy that can be harnessed in various ways. I assume Ki would be something like that, but was scared it would be completely different. I was excited as couple of different ideas came to mind. In a favorite I see the DragonballZ characters yelling, “It’s over 9000!” as they throw power around. I would love to have that kind of ability, but the show always had huge training montages, so KI would probably not be immediately useful. Ki is probably like magic; hugely difficult to train enough to be of use but powerful if you can master its secrets.

Frustration entered my contemplative state and caused me to fall out of it. Sitting here thinking the issues out was useful, but the lack of information on this alleged game is stifling. Even with the peace meditation brings, I am just an angry man in a basement. Bunker dammit, call it a bunker. I will probably end up acting on my assumptions, but everyone knows what they say about assumptions.

My steps were heavy as I paced and quietly raged at the destruction of a world so that there could be some stupid game. My best friend is gone, civilization has been destroyed, an untold amount of people are dead and I haven’t even seen a girl in near two months. This isn’t a game, those are supposed to be fun. They were for entertainment. This is a horror movie. It was orchestrated genocide, an extinction level event that will be the downfall of humanity. My emotions built up until I could not keep them in any longer.

“And just what the hell is Ki anyways” I screamed at the heavens.

“You have Chosen Ki. Your current attributes are as follows:

Body – 2

Ki – 2”

Motherfucker.

What?