Trapped Body and Soul in a Video Game part 5

Chapter 4 – Levels 10,11,12 – Pallet Cleansing

            I wake up the next morning still in bed with Angel. She’s still clinging to me as if I’m going to leave. When she wakes up when I start to move, she still clings on.

            “What’s wrong Angel? I’m not going to leave you.”

            “I know. It’s just that I’m afraid if you do.”

            “Why?”

            “Because I try to be aggressive and tough to everybody to get friends. I haven’t been able to get any so when you treated me like a friend then I knew I couldn’t lose you.”

            “Hey you are tough. You saved my life and you’re the strongest person on the team. Now stop being so sad and be that strong girl I know you are.”

            “Ha. You stop being so nice and be that asshole I know.”

            “I’m trying to be good after what you did for me, but fine, you asked for it.”

            I kick her off the bed.

            “I thought I paid for a sexy whore, but all I got was this ugly bitch!”

            She instantly gets up.

            “Fuck you asshole! You wouldn’t know a good ass if it sat on your face!”

            “Oh that’s a good idea. That’s also the Angel I know.”

            She smiles and punches me in the face. We laugh then go out to the next floor.  I was expecting more horror, but this floor is a beautiful field of roses, wildlife, and vegetation. I look into the lore and it appears that after all the death of the previous horror and war floors, life began again and this is what it looks like. The monsters aren’t even aggressive here even when I go over to pet them.

            “Touch them Angel, they don’t bite.”

            Angel is hesitant to touch the wildlife, but when she does, it takes a liking to her and walks a short distance to dig up a new axe for her.

            “What? Where’s my sword?!”

            “Ha! You don’t get one!”

            The animals here seem to be the ones giving equipment and special items. All we have to do is appease them somehow. We have to ask certain NPC animal researchers to get hints as to what we need to do for certain ones, but it’s worth it for better equipment. Angel and I got brand new armor sets and I even got a shield that can deflect certain types of magic attacks. Since there are no real obstacles, we make it to the boss room and the boss is huge cute bunny, hamster, cat thing. There are multiple fruits and things to use to take care of the boss. Apparently, the lore states that this…thing…chimera…thing I don’t know how to describe it, was born from the peace that came after all the suffering and death and keeps this place the way it is. We literally take care of it as it were a pet. What the fuck? I guess this was just a puzzle floor, but still. I just got all this new stuff and I wanted to test it out. To my surprise, a camera takes a picture of us as we finish taking care of the big cuddly thing so that means we’re the first to get past here. That also means that Kerano must be helping his group get past the lower floors though I don’t think he can help them fight the bosses since you can’t grind them in this game.

            So after that, Angel and I try them out at the training fields back at town and they work wonders especially my new sword and shield. Angel’s axes are also pretty cool as they have extra reach when she uses them. The weapon elongates the blades when she uses them and they can cause bleeding damage as well.

            “You know I never expected to be so powerful in this game especially when I started,” Angel says, “I thought I would need to do some rough physical training, but I did it all naturally.”

            “Well the game lets you do it if your stats match up. If you did anything you did in the beginning in real life, you wouldn’t be able to.”

            “Yeah but-”

            “But this is a video game.”

            “I know but-”

            “But this is a video game.”

            “I get that but I wish-”

            “Butt, this is a video game.”

            “Oh fuck you.”

            “Hahaha. You should know most things in this game are fake.”

            “What about our relationship?”

            “I think it’s pretty real since we’re both assholes. We’ll know for sure when we get out of here.”

            “I can’t wait that long!”

            “Don’t worry, I’ll be with you until then.”

            She hugs me and I hug back. Keeping up with her usual attitude, she knees me in the crouch. Thank God the game doesn’t count it as a hit.

            “You better not be lying!”

            “I promise.”

            We go out to the next floor and it’s similar to the last with the main theme being puzzles, but this time we help people as in help them with chores, finding lost people, solving word puzzles and moving puzzles etc. It’s so weird that the game is like this more than halfway through. Yeah I get that times after such war and violence would usually bring about peacefully times like this, but it’s still so strange to me that I can’t get over it. I would have to say that the game is preparing us to just use our minds to solve problems. I think we might’ve already hit the level cap at forty since I haven’t gained any in a while. The people here gift us with more equipment and items and hints as to how to use more special kinds of equipment like leg armor that help us dodge and run faster and body armor that can lessen the damage of falls.

            With no trouble like the last floor, we make it to the boss room and hey it’s an actual fight! It’s a veteran from the wars and violence that have plagued this mountain. He’s dedicated in training soldiers to ensure that the atrocities of the past never happen again. He fights in variety of build styles including mage, swordsman, thieves, archer, everything basically. We have to put all of our knowledge and skills to defeat him. He’s very skilled at fighting both of us at the same time. He can almost instantly attack from behind him even when he’s attack me when I try to tank his hits as a distraction. It’s a real fight that I’ve been aching for and it is finished when I get to deflect his lightning bolts back at him. He doesn’t die, he just gets brought to one knee or more accurately, kneels to us. We show the same respect as the camera takes our picture.

            Since we’re on a roll, we go straight for the next floor and it’s…different. It’s still the same beautiful floors as the previous ones, but the monsters here fight us and don’t die. The only way to bring them to heel is to fight them as if they were mini bosses. They then kneel like the previous boss then don’t bother us anymore. We fight like five to six of these, which don’t give us any equipment or items to help us fight the boss so we just have to go with experience for it. No never mind that now as the boss uses a completely different fighting style than any other monster or human soldier that we fought before. It’s a warrior angel who supposedly taught man how to fight in the beginning of time. She has an odd way of fighting as she can use both close and long ranged attacks at the same time, which makes it a co-op focused boss fight or in other words pretty fucking cheap, but then again, pretty much everyone in this game fight together. It would be completely suicidal and fucking stupid to solo this game. Good thing I have my shield to deflect most ranged magic attacks and Angel is quick on her feet to dodge most of the attacks. The boss then screeches out and prepares for a big attack after we bring her down past half her health. She absorbs light, earth, and wind while we continue to attack her. The light around her changes from red to blue to black to white.

            “Angel! Get behind me!”

            Angel gets behind me as I think the boss is ready to let loose her attack.

            “Get ready to use party potions and buff items on me. Ready…”

            Everything goes silent and blinding white before we see the boss have seven arms with seven different kinds of weapons in her arms prepared to attack.

            “Now!”

            Angel uses items on me as I tank the boss’s attacks. These attacks hit hard and flow into one another as if the boss is doing a deadly dance of blades and magic. The orchestral soundtrack of the game follows suit and after a twenty-hit combo the boss finishes the dance with a huge crushing attack that calls down light from Heaven above.  Everything stops again even the music as the boss finishes in a bow. Angel walks out from behind me and bows too and I just fall the fuck over with 1 HP just as the camera takes our picture and the boss fight ends.

            “Kaylen!”

            “Haha. So I guess it was a good choice to put points in my luck stat.”

            “You son of a bitch. I’m just going to leave you here.”

            “Please don’t.”

            She starts to walk away.

            “Angel? Don’t do this to me cutie.”

            She keeps walking for a few more seconds before using coming back to pick me up. Whew. Got me worried there for a second. We go back to town to rest and eat. We watch tons of people walking around getting busy with the game or resting as well.

            “There are so many people here now than before,” Angel says.

            “Yeah. What’s the player count now?”

            “Almost a million.”

            “Wow. Do you know if anyone lost all their lives yet?”

            “I think so, but I’d rather not think about that especially since we have so little time.”

            “Oh shit! I just realized we’ve been playing this game for two days and a half!”

            Angel falls completely silent.

            “I don’t know if my body is going to be in any condition to get up by the time we get out of here.”

            She grabs and holds my hands.

            “Then let’s hurry up and finish the last few floors!”

            “But the thing is, I don’t know what the condition of my body is. I might even be dead right now and just a ghost in the system.”

            “Don’t you fucking say that to me! I want to be with you as soon as I get out of here!”

            “So why don’t we spend some time here together in real relaxation? There’s a chance that you’re in the same condition like me and we’re both basically dead.”

            Angel goes quiet for a second again.

            “But what if we still have a chance?”

            “Ok then. Let’s do both. We’ll spend a little time out then we’ll go out to finish the game so we don’t regret it. Deal?”

            “Deal I guess, but where are we going to go?”

            “How about the tenth floor? It was beautiful there and the monsters seem to like you.”

            “That does sound like a nice place. Ok let’s go then.”

            We teleport to the tenth floor, find a nice spot, and sit underneath the trees with the animals and enjoy each other’s company. Suddenly we hear rustling in the bushes and several players that look like they’re from Kerano’s group walk out and approach us.

            One of them says to us, “Do you think we can join you guys?”

            “Sure,” I say.

            “Thanks. We overheard you guys and thought that we should do the same.”

            “It’s fine. You don’t have to explain yourselves.”

            They come over and lay in the grass with us.

            After a while, one says, “You know I wish there was a place where we could just force our way out of the game and log everyone out.”

            I say, “I’d imagine it to be a completely white room with a stone panel in the middle and the whole thing would be guarded by an unbeatable boss monster. But then again, it’s a stupid idea to think a place like this exists in the game.”

            “But what if it did?”

            “Then the creators would only give you a few seconds to play with their source code before kicking you out and deleting the area.”

            “So it could’ve existed?”

            “I would say no. Because you would need some God level intellect and skill to learn and play with their source code especially in a game like this, which is a first of its kind. Even if someone like that existed in this world, most of the gamers here are around thirteen to fifty years of age. No one in that age range could possess such abilities.”

            “It would be cool if it was a person in a fictional story.”

            “Not really, cause a character like would completely break any tension in it.”

            “Oh.”

            “You really like ruining people’s fun imagination don’t you mister knowledgeable man don’t you?” Angel asks.

            “Hey I’m just using common sense. It doesn’t take a genius to realize what’s wrong with the concept if you saw it written down on paper and put more than three seconds of thought into it.”

            “Let’s just go back to relaxing.”

            “Alright.”

            We relax together for hours until sunset where everyone including the animals are sleeping. Angel looks so peaceful right now so I’d rather not wake her up to tell her that we’ve been here for too long. I look at the clock to see that a whole three days have past since we started the game so that means I should be dead by now. I cuddle up closer to Angel and close my eyes for what I think to be my last moments with her.

* As always, The actual published version of the book will have pictures, thoughts when making this book, and other goodies. If you offer your thoughts that are helpful to the book, I will include your name in the back.