Matthew Nesheim
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Chapter 28: Calista - The Game Master
🕑 Added 2023-10-20 04:44:45 +0000 UTCThey laid Thalias with the other corpses. The soldiers had gathered the dead and dying on a platform along the outer wall. Calista and Grumner carried the dead half-elf over there where they set him on an empty blanket. Both Calista and Grumner stayed for a moment as they looked down on their dead friend. They were here now in a game world where, in a past life, they had visited presumably to have fun. Now it was a real world with real consequences.
It really hit her as she entered the lodge where her nose was assaulted by smells of sweat, blood, urine, mutton, stale bread, and all of other things that come when you cram too many people into an enclosed space. Along the outer walls, she could see the soldiers were distributing food and supplies to the survivors via two lines, one for the blankets and bed rolls, the other for the hard bread and mutton soup.
She stepped to the side as she watched the scene unfold. The game did not behave like this before. Normally a scene like this would have just had a handful of actual people in here, just enough for you to understand what’s going on. But this place is packed. It really looks like all of the survivors of all the villages in the valley are here. She paused for a moment as she thought back to Thalias and Dogmoore.
That’s when she spotted him. He was sitting on a bench in the corner of the room and while his robe was stained with dirt and blood and who knows what else, there was no mistaking their golden color. A game master. The Attendant told me to seek the game master. She said he had something for me.
She took a quick glance around the room. No one else seemed to be interested in the man, which meant that there were either no other adventurers there, or none that had spotted him yet. He, however, was just sitting there, staring blankly out at the mass of people. It was the stare of a man who had just survived the horrors of war, which, she guessed, was likely the case.
Quickly, she began to make her way around the edge of the room. The food and the bedding could wait. She wanted to know what this man knew, and she wanted to know now.
She gently touched him on the shoulder, but he still startled when he looked up at her. “Hey,” she said.
“What … who …?”
She pointed to her chest. “My name is Calista. I’m a Delver, stuck here just like I assume you are.”
“I … My name is Kevin.”
She sat down on the bench next to him. “I’m Calista.”
Kevin did not respond, but continued to look out at the crowd with a shocked expression.
She asked, “Are you here with anyone else Kevin?”
He shook his head.
She said, “Well, myself and one other survivor made it out of Southwood. If you want, you can join up with us.”
Kevin replied, “I guess … I guess that would be good, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, so … are you a game master?” she asked. “I couldn’t help but notice the robes.”
“I am. Or at least I think that I was.” He shook his head as paused. “I’ve been here for over three days now. I don’t know what happened. Normally we can’t be attacked by the mobs. In fact, I was at a level that I had some admin power over mobs and NPCs, but now I can’t do anything. I can’t access my interface. I can’t communicate with anyone else on my team. I don’t have any admin privileges. I can’t log out. And what’s worse, my character has been reset to level one!” He threw up his hands. “Normally, I could use any spell or pull any weapon in the game. I had nine thousand, nine hundred, ninety nine hit points and now I’m down to six.” He looked at her with a mixture of fear and exasperation. “I HAVE SIX HIT POINTS!”
She did some math in her head. “Is that six hit points currently, or six hit points left.”
“BOTH!”
He’s a level one peasant. They reduced this guy to a level one peasant. She looked out at the mass of people. Families were gathering together on the wooden floor to share their food with one another. Parents were making sure their children ate first. Older people were refusing to eat. Soldiers were tending to the wounded. Does he know he’s been transported to a real-life game world? She didn’t know. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know, but she was going to ask this Kevin guy anyway.
“Have you met the Attendant?” She asked.
Kevin sighed and hung his head, “Yes.”
“So you know,” she replied. “You know that we’re here and that we can’t escape.”
“Yes. For a while I thought that maybe it was all a bad dream, but it’s not.” Kevin shook his head. “It’s not. Had I known I would have ended up in this place, I never would have taken that job at Concept. I never would have signed up for this had I known …”
“Yeah, me neither,” she said.
Kevin suddenly perked up. “You mean you’re stuck here too?”
She shrugged, “Yeah, I mean … I was …”
“Of course you are. How else would you know what had happened to me? How did you find out? What were you doing before they brought you here?”
“Ah …” she tried to think back. “I had just completed a dungeon with a frie … I mean another player I had just met. It was strange. It was like everything was falling apart and then suddenly it wasn’t and then there was this voice explaining it all to us.”
“It wasn’t like that for me at all,” the game master choked back a sob. “I logged in for the day. Work from home, you know? First thing I saw as I checked my email was that there was a memo. Straight from the top. It said the system had encountered a major error and that they needed everyone to stay at their posts until it was resolved. That everyone would be given double overtime. I remember I was talking with my friend Levi. He was another work from home like me. He had been messaging to see if he could find out what was happening. After an hour or so, just us chatting, he said he was going to sign off to see if he could talk to his manager. See if he knew what was happening. That’s when he screamed. Then the line went dead.”
“Then what happened?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head. “I had been here, in Sommerdale checking on the goblins because we had a mess of reports that they weren’t acting right. The goblins weren’t supposed to team up with one another yet. That was all part of a script that had been written for next year, but I guess the bonuses for teaming up might have already been coded into them, I don’t know. So I had been asked to look into it. I had just got here. Was wandering around the Lazy Vale, but couldn’t find any goblins to check their code. That’s when the memo came out. So I just walked to the nearest village and chilled out for a bit. Chatted with Levi. That’s when things all went to hell.”
That sounds like this is all a malfunction. But if this is all a malfunction, then is this even real? She looked out at the rest of the people in the lodge. So are these are these real people, or are they all just NPCs in a simulation? She was trying not to panic. “So, have you heard anything from anyone since you left the village?”
He shook his head frantically, “No. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I don’t know what the hell happened. After Levi screamed, I started looking around myself. Tried to find out what was going on. Tried to message the other game masters, but my messaging system went all haywire. Then I tried to log out, but found out that didn’t work either. So I walked to the nearest village, but all the villagers there were frozen, like the game had just shut down and they were just mannequins inside a store after hours. That’s when there was this bright light and suddenly I was in a cave with no light and no stats. A few minutes later, that Attendant showed up and told me I was actually on this Wraath planet and all I had was what you see on me now.”
“Okay,” she took a deep breath, “we need to stay calm …”
“I AM CALM!”
Everyone in earshot turned to look at them and as Kevin slunk further against the wall.
“Okay, not helping,” she whispered. “But I feel the same way you do.”
“No you don’t,” the game master snapped. “You’re an adventurer. You have weapons. You probably have skills. All I have are some hit points and a memo telling me that I’m screwed.”
She looked him over. Indeed, he had no gear to speak of other than his stained robes. “You don’t have any skills? No abilities? Nothing?”
He frantically shook his head. “That’s what I’m saying. I’m useless.” He grabbed her by the arm. “You have to protect me. Give me a dagger. Anything. I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Okay, okay, just chill out for a moment, will you?” She unbuckled one of her throwing daggers and handed it to him. “Maybe we can carve you a staff if we can find one. Maybe persuade a soldier to give you something too. I have a little gold. We’ll see what we can do.”
He let out a sigh of relief, “Thank you. Thank you so much … ”
Then an officer stood up on one of the tables and shouted, “Can I have your attention! I need all rangers, fighters, wizards, warriors, dungeon delvers, or any other sort of adventurer to report to the mezzanine in five minutes. The captain wishes to speak with you.”
