Rush to Level 0: The Game (Chapter 6)

People come and go, but threats remain forever. The game was no different. An hour after sunset, Spaff decided he had had enough of me and went along his way. The last piece of “advice” he had given me was to keep walking towards “the Spire” constellation until I reached the village. Before I could ask which constellation that was, he flickered out of existence before my eyes. I was left at the edge of a forest, after dark, shackled, with no reliable directions. By now Jeff had probably arrived at my apartment. Knowing him, he might have picked my lock and gone inside. I wasn’t looking forward to our talk in the real world. That, though, was a problem for another time.

“Anything new, Twinkle?” I asked.

“I haven’t managed to complete the map, Sarah,” the AI sighed. “I can only show you the places I’ve been to.”

“It’s fine.” This world was larger than any I’d played in before. Even games that boasted realistic scale distances had tricks to ensure a player could get from one side to the other in an hour and a half at most. Usually walking speed was increased to the point that players could cross miles in minutes. In this game, not only was the speed not scaled, but muscle pain and exhaustion were real things, as were thirst and hunger. “Are there any mobs in the forest?”

“I don’t know, Sarah.” Twinkle stretched. “Do you want me to check?”

“Yes.” Being invulnerable was a nice perk, but only when there weren’t “exceptions” to the rule. Thinking about it, I should have asked Spaff what the culling worm’s cooldown was. If it was anything less than a day, I needed to advance as fast as possible.

The Spire...

I looked at the sky. Whoever had made the constellation suffered from a severe form of inferiority complex mixed with OCD. I was able to distinguish five color types and seven size variations, arranged to form an impressionist painting. The more I focused, the more stars I noticed. Eventually, I gave up trying to make sense of anything and decided to take a cluster that resembled a mountain to be the Spire. Either way, my decision was based purely on chance. As Spaff had said, there was no way to know if the information given was true or not.

“Twinkle!” I shouted. “Come back here.”

A few seconds later, my companion ran out of the forest, tail shooting up in danger mode.

“There are creatures in the forest!” he said, rushing towards me. “I found five distinct sets of tracks!”

Things were just getting better and better. “What kind of tracks?” I looked around for anything I could use as a weapon. A tree branch was an option, though not a very viable one.

“Two had claws, three were round.” Twinkle leapt on my shoulder, giving me the urge to throw him off. “I saw a few nests as well, but they were empty. Do you want me to continue searching?”

“No.” Tree branch it was. “Keep an eye out and let me know when you notice anything.”

Equipping myself with the universally most useless weapon, I entered the forest. Ten minutes later, I regretted giving Twinkle any instructions whatsoever. It was well-known that AI companions took orders literally, but Twinkle was so old that he went a mile beyond. Not a minute would pass without him letting me know that a leaf was falling or a new track was discovered. The single time anything remotely resembling a mob appeared was when a squirrel like creature ran through the branches. I was only able to get a brief glance. Hopefully it wasn’t going to end up being a threat.

After a while of walking, things started to look eerily similar. To think I used to take minimaps and game compasses for granted… Having to rely on my own senses showed me how bad at it I actually was. If it wasn’t for Twinkle keeping a record of the areas I’d been to, I would have gotten hopelessly lost. After what felt like hours, I reached a large grey rock which could serve as a landmark. Upon reaching it, I saw the first good news since I had arrived in the game: the words Simile Village, carved with scary precision.

“Twinkle, search the area,” I said as I leaned on the rock. “When you find a village, come back and tell me. And don’t talk to anyone!”

“Sure thing, Sarah!” my companion mewed and flew off between the trees.

My younger self would have wanted things to get interesting: start an encounter, maybe even join an event. My current self just wanted for some calm and rest, and for my punishment to end so I could get back home.

Would Jeff try to pull me out if he found me? Technically, the action was considered illegal and punishable with up to ten years imprisonment. The online lobby wanted to make sure that no one disturbed their constant money flow. As an afterthought, there was a one in five-thousand chance for a person to receive psychological damage in the process. Of course, there were semi-legal ways to achieve the same result with a fraction of the punishment; if the power supply of a rig was removed, the device went into shutdown mode, which included an auto logout of any game the user was engaged in. Jeff knew that, and likely more. The fact that he hadn’t tried to interfere suggested he hadn’t arrived yet.

“Found the village, Sarah!” Twinkle returned with the largest smile I’d seen him capable of. “It’s two hundred and fifty meters that way!” He pointed.

Like the letters on the rock, two hundred and fifty meters was too precise for my taste. “How many people?”

“I don’t know.” The smile turned into a frown. “I flew back when I saw the buildings. Do you want me to go and check?”

“It’s fine.” I had myself to blame here. “Stay close and don’t talk unless I tell you.”

I looked at the stick I had chosen as my weapon. After a moment’s thought, I threw it on the ground. If someone had the resources to build a house, they wouldn’t be impressed by a branch.

“Saint Jeremy be with me,” I whispered and continued forward.

The sun had started to rise when I reached the village, changing the edge of the sky from black to a slightly lighter blue. In my case, that didn’t matter much—apparently one of the perks of being level one hundred was to have night vision. From what I was able to see, the village lived up to its name: a few dozen houses—mostly made of stone—of varying complexity, a three-story wooden tower, and a large amount of merchant stalls in-between. Strangely enough, no walls or other defenses were visible.

You better have my back, Claire.

A small arch marked the entrance of the village, a cobblestone path extending from it to the edge of the forest. Games liked to use similar visual cues to mark their areas of interest, but in this case, the stones seemed to have been put there manually. Avoiding the path altogether, I headed towards the tower. There, I came to a circular area—the equivalent to the town square—with a large stone obelisk in the center. A single word was etched into the stone: Welcome.

Cute, I thought as I slid my hand along the cold surface. There was a sense of sincerity that made me welcome and wary at the same time.

“You’ll see more of it as you level down,” a voice said beside me.

I jumped to the side, muscle memory making my fingers perform a shortcut combat sequence as I did. My would-be attackers—a trio of children, no older than twelve—stared at me in amusement. I felt my cheeks burn in embarrassment.

Great. My first impression in town was that of an idiot newbie, and as everyone knew, in the online world there were no do-overs.

“Cool moves, newbie,” a scrawny girl laughed. She was the only girl of the three, blonde, dressed in a cross between an evening gown and a military uniform. A long skirt of cyan silk flowed from her shoulders over an elbow-sleeved recreation of an officer’s shirt from the Napoleonic wars, with over a dozen medal ornaments pinned all over. Skinny brown trousers continued down, ending in her metal tipped leather boots.

“You going to get registered?” the boy who had addressed me earlier asked. He was a head taller than the rest, pale skinned, and bulky with short curly red hair and dimples to match. If I were to see him in real-life, I’d say he was from one of the east coast trailer cities. He too had his own version of uniform collage: leather boots, denim overalls, and a Soviet military shirt, all with medals and insignia. “You don’t get to use village benefits if you don’t register.”

The last of the bunch was mostly average, bronze skinned and hazel-eyed, as if he’d been taken straight off a surfer beach. At present, not that many could afford to surf. With the rise of e-tourism, the business lobbies had all but banned physical surfing, demoting it to a free sample in a tourist package tour. If this kid could afford to get a tan from surfing, his parents had to be loaded.

“What benefits?” I smiled, hoping it might wash off some of the embarrassment I’d put myself into.

“Total newbie!” The girl laughed again, then turned around and walked away, losing interest in me.

“Info benefits,” the red haired kid replied. “Bring some info to the village, and the village brings all info to you. It’s a good start for newbies.”

“Why do you think I’m a newbie?” My gamer reaction kicked in.

The boy pointed at his left eye. “Level one hundreds have green eyes.”

“She’s a bust,” the surfer boy said with a frown. “Let’s catch another one.” He joined the girl in walking away from me. They were discussing something in a language I had never heard before, possibly something unique to the game.

“Umm.” The redhead hesitated. His eyes moved from me to his friends and back before he came to a decision. “Tell us if you find any glow flowers!” he shouted while running to catch up with the other two. Moments later, I was alone at the monument once more.

“Twinkle,” I whispered. “Next time, mew if someone gets near.” Welcome indeed. Maybe there was a reason Spaff hadn’t set foot in the village.

As the sun rose, so did the amount of people. It was strange that I never saw any of them walk out of their houses. All of them just appeared, almost as if they had spawned behind my back while I wasn’t looking. Sometimes a blink was all it took for someone to show up, doing some casual activity, as if they had been doing so for hours.

None paid any special interest in me. A few nice words would get exchanged, a brief hello, a few comments on my looks, but the moment I asked any specific question, people would walk away. Interestingly enough, all of the “merchants and workers” were in their late twenties and early thirties. Children would run around in groups, deliberately avoiding me and most of the adults, as if there were two distinct groups of people.

So, age is a factor here. That was something Claire could look into.

Spending some more time, I found the only thing common for both groups—their reverence towards a large stone building, with a sign that read Depository, situated in the corner of the village. No one said anything directly about it, but the reactions were unmistakable. From school, I knew that people only ignored things this much when they knew exactly what was going on, but were afraid to share or were choosing not to. After an hour of failed attempts to strike a conversation with anyone, I took my chances and went inside.

The building had all the markings of an in-game guild hall. The room was large and imposing, with more pews than a church, all stacked against the walls. On the other side of the hall rose a large marble counter with knight and dragon motifs.

“Good morning,” a middle-aged woman in a clerk’s outfit greeted. Her appearance was the embodiment of the ideal middle-class soccer mom of the start of the century—warm, caring, and with enough body mass to be slightly curvy. “Welcome to the Depository. How may I help you?”

Twinkle rubbed himself into my legs as I stood, letting out a mew.

“Yes.” I bent down to try and picked him up. Before I could, Twinkle ran to the side of the hall, precisely at the spot where two giant boards covered the wall. Dozens of sheets of paper were filled each board, all of them blank.

“He’s a playful one.” The woman smiled. “What’s his name?”

This was the first time anyone had addressed my companion directly. Then again, she was the only one who had made an effort to be helpful. Even Spaff had seemed more interested in my company than anything else. Having worked in the service industry for a few years, I had become really good at telling when someone was trying to bait a potential customer. This woman ticked all the boxes.

“Twinkle.” I scooped him from the ground. “Usually he’s better behaved.”

“One of the game’s peculiarities. You never know what you might get, especially with pets. You’re lucky it wasn’t hostile. Though, there’s not much that can hurt you,” she added with a faux chuckle.

“Or so they say.” Placing Twinkle on my shoulder, I made my way to the counter. “There are exceptions from what I saw.”

“Culling beasts,” she sighed in a fashion reserved to minor nuisances. “They really are a nuisance. I understand their purpose, but there could have been better methods. Still, I guess it’s a way to ensure players get to the ninety range.”

“Level hundred is that great, huh?”

“Oh, definitely.” She leaned towards me. “Except for licks and culling beasts there are no limitations at level hundred. You cannot be harmed, hurt, or killed, you can use any skill and item, and have a number of other benefits, all of which I’ll gladly share should you choose to register with the village.”

There was the sales pitch—a huge, too-good-to-be-true advantage in exchange for a simple registration. I’d read enough terms of service to know where this usually went.

“What exactly does registration entail?” I decided to play dumb. “Do I need to pay a membership fee?”

“Only in a manner of speaking.” The typical marketing line hit me. “We are aware that as a new addition to the game, you don’t have much to offer. Most new players are confused when they enter the world. After all, an invitation can only explain so much.”

There she went with the invitation. Whatever it involved, I definitely hadn’t gotten one. Hopefully, Claire—as my new partner—would be able to find out something on the matter. If this was a thing people received before starting the game, he’d be able to track it.

“Statistically, any unaffiliated newbie has a twenty-eight percent chance to survive their first week,” the woman continued. “And yes, we did crunch the numbers. Being affiliated, however, increases the chance to eighty-seven.”

“Not a hundred percent?” I couldn’t hide my sarcasm.

“There’s no such thing as absolute certainty in the game.” The smile was still there, but the tone had changed. There was a note of annoyance, possibly linked to the fact that I was ruining her presentation. “Anything above eighty percent is considered as certain as one might hope.”

“Great.” I forced a smile. The numbers were as bad as Russian roulette. “Let’s say I get affiliated. What exactly do I have to do?”

“You wouldn’t have to do anything,” the woman chuckled. “Affiliation only ensures that you’re able to read our task boards.” She nodded in the direction of the wall behind me. “Each complete task earns you credit which you can then use to buy items, training, or information. Tasks vary based on what is needed: mapping out unexplored areas, to finding solutions, to killing top tier monsters. All is entirely your choice.”

“Very gamy.” It was a good system, if a bit standard. In any other world, I would have registered without question. My experience with Kyle and the elf made me cautious. When something was too good to be true, it usually ended up being good for the other side.

“This is a game, after all,” the woman said warmly. “In a world full of chaos, some order usually is a good thing. At least, we at the Depository like to think it is. Of course, you can always think about it and make a decision later. Hopefully, before the next culling beast appears.”

She was playing on my fears of losing out. It was one of the first rules I was taught after getting my cleaning service job. Nothing attracted clients more than an offer with an expiration date. Usually the offer was linked with money, but having my game life threatened also did the trick.

“What about trial membership?” I asked. “Any chance I could try out your services for a few days before I make my choice?”

The woman’s smile vanished. I was half expecting for her to start yelling at me, or throw me out outright. She did neither. For a moment, her expression reminded me of my mother. As much as I liked to point out to online acquaintances that I was a service class child, this hadn’t always been the case. My family was never particularly rich, but we got by. Back when my father managed to obtain a mid-level position and boost his credit limit, we could almost be considered affluent. That was the time at which I had received my AI companion, considered to be among top of the line back then. It was also the time during which I had been somewhat spoilt. I remember once sneaking into my parents’ room and snatching my mother’s credit card so I could buy the fashionable online dress of the day. I had been caught—three-way security was difficult to beat when you were eight. My mother hadn’t yelled at me as she often did when I did something bad. Instead, she had looked me in the eye with a mixture of sadness and understanding, then bought the virtual dress I so much wanted. Even now, I could never forget her expression.

“A one-week trial period is possible,” she said after a while. “You’ll have to offer something. Do you have anything to trade?”

“I don’t expect you’ll go for these?” I raised my hands a bit, showing my shackles.

“No.” She shook her head with a polite smile.

“The cat is out of the question,” I said quickly.

“The best currency would be information. Provided you have any.”

The reaction was expected, although it put me in a somewhat impossible situation. Being new, there was no chance I’d have any info she’d lack. Now was a time I needed Claire. He traded in information; even if out of the game, there was enough to win me a few favors.

“I have something.” Technically it was two things, though there was no telling if either amounted to a lot. “If I tell you, will you share it with the rest?”

“That is the practice,” the woman said.

“Okay.” I continued with my bluff. “I didn’t get an official invitation to join the game.”

In my mind, I had already prepared for her to laugh me out of the building. When she didn’t, I instantly regretted sharing that fact. The fear that I had given away too much popped into the back of my mind. The small ring that was placed on the counter further reinforced that fear.

“I’ll try to delay spreading that info,” the woman said with understanding. “But don’t expect much. I’m bound by Depository rules. I’m Elvira, the local representative. Any questions you might have about the Depository, just let me know. As long as you have that, you’ll get answers.”

“Sarah.” I took the ring, it felt surprisingly warm. “How long does it give me?”

“A week at least. After that, it’ll depend on how useful you are. My advice? Learn the basics fast, then start doing tasks. The more info you bring, the more likely you’ll extend your trial membership.”

“Thanks for the tip.” I put the ring on my little finger. “So, who’s in charge of the Depository?”

“I have no idea,” she chuckled. “Reach level fifty, though, and you just might find out.”