CWD: GA ~ Ten

Nacho appeared in a forest south of a river. In a daze, the only thing he could think about at first was that most of the trees had colorful leaves left on their branches. Underneath them lay a thick carpet of red, orange, and yellow. Around him rose the gasps, cries, and sighs of dozens of other people. Nacho recognized a few faces of his neighbors from the apartment complex.

He ignored them and focused on Reuben and Brie, easily identified in their tuxedo and wedding dress, standing on the dirt of the Starter World. Nacho was also in his tuxedo, holding the box from Gary’s General Store, but on top of it sat a paper plate holding a grilled sandwich. He remembered that the description of the Common Cook class had promised him a treat, but he’d thought that had been flavor text.

Brie was scowling. She didn’t look sad or scared, just furious, and a little odd with the big backpack buckled over her formal gown. Reuben hooked his thumbs into the straps of his own backpack. Face pale and sweat already dripping down his face, the big guy half-smiled. “So, Nacho, are you going to share your sandwich? Also, I can’t speak for her, but you are fully forgiven for the whole hostage thing.”

“…Thanks.” Nacho squatted and dropped the box on the ground, the first litter to grace this new world’s soil. He touched the pot, pan, and sandwich, whisking them into one of his extra-dimensional storage slots. A breeze swept the paper plate off the box and into the grass. Standing took some effort, since his backpack made rising a little unwieldy.

All the people around them were having a variety of reactions: shouting, talking, whispering. The Oscreech attack would happen in a few minutes—cross an emu with a giant eagle and the result was a nightmare bird experience. More than anything, he needed to get himself and his friends to safety.

The Juxtaposition had a little message for them first.

Nacho looked past the welcome message to see Reuben and Brie staring at their own screens, their eyes glowing blue to show they had their individual systems pulled up.

Hey there, intrepid Players, welcome to the Juxtaposition! You’re on your Starter World, Tier 0. Everyone is at Level 0, which means you have a long way to go if you want to rock ‘n’ roll. This is your System menu, where you can check your stats, your skills, and your Storage Slots. Have fun and good luck! Kill monsters for System credits! May your future be delicious!

“Come on,” Nacho ordered his people. “We need to move right now.”

“But… that’s Steve over there,” Reuben protested as he halfheartedly pointed into the distance. “We should get him to come with us.”

“No.” Nacho glared at his dense friend. “I know what’s about to happen, and we can’t help them. We have to just make sure we survive. I didn’t travel back through time and get you ready so that we could throw away this opportunity.”

Reuben nodded, though he was already close to tears. Brie’s eyes blazed with rage, and she clenched her jaw muscles. “What the abyss, Nacho? You knew the world was going to end and you didn’t tell us? That little game on abyss island sure was fun. When I say ‘fun’, I mean the exact freaking opposite!”

“How well did that work out? How fast would you have started avoiding me? I literally had to force you two to listen to me at the last minute.” Reuben only had eyes for Steve, another college student who was currently backing up with his eyes on the sky. Nacho knew Brie had a more utilitarian view of things, but his buddy was more soft-hearted. Nacho threw him a bone that he knew he’d never need to retrieve. “We’ll come back for them, Reuben. Let’s just go. I know a place we can hole up, and I can go over the game mechanics with you.”

“This isn’t a game!” Brie bellowed as her frustration boiled over. “This is real life. I should know. I spent a week in the Evaluation World bleeding out! I will not have you calling this a game.”

“The System calls it a game,” Reuben whispered to her, his soft voice a potent counterpoint to her maximum volume. “We’re Players. But you’re right, love. This is real.”

Nacho pushed them both toward an outcropping of rock peeking out of the forest in the distance. “We can talk about all of this once we find higher ground. But not too high. Oscreeches might be coming through here any minute. Six feet tall, three toes with claws as sharp as their beaks. Fun fact for you to keep your attention right here: emus have three toes, while ostriches only have two. Just bad luck to fight the Level Five monsters right off the bat. It’s unfortunate.”

“What?” Reuben twisted around and shouted, “Steve and… everyone else! Take cover! Demon birds are coming. Don’t try and fight them, just run!”

Nacho wasn’t sure if that would help anyone or not, but he no longer needed to physically move the big guy. Now that his team was on board, they ran as fast as they could manage in their formal shoes, with combat boots swinging off their backpacks. With their eyes to the skies, they headed off toward the river. A swift glance backward revealed that their apartment neighbors had congregated into groups of their own.

Nacho wished them luck. Perhaps being aware of an incoming threat might change things, hopefully for the better, but he couldn’t say for certain. He got his friends to the rocky outcropping, a little hill that overlooked the forest. He remembered that there was a narrow crack at the top where they could stop, talk, and change clothes. Those birds wouldn’t see them, and any monsters on the ground would have to clamber over rocks to get to them. By that time, the assassin… no, the cook, would have his blades ready.

He set his backpack on the ground, strung the bow, and got a few arrows ready before whipping off the tuxedo jacket and tie. “We need to change into better clothes. It’s not cold now, but it will be soon. There’s an easy dungeon about a day’s walk from here, but we’ll camp tonight and make our way there tomorrow. That’ll give us time to get you caught up.”

Reuben marched off to the corner of the crack. “But those people…come on, Nacho. I know you don’t mind playing neutral to neutral-evil characters, but like Brie said… this is real life. You can help them.”

Nacho wanted to yell at his friend to get with the new program, but that wouldn’t help him. He’d been patient and self-controlled up until now, and he couldn’t allow himself to fall apart. “Let’s just change and talk. Once we have a secure position, we can go see about everyone else.”

It was a lie. The attack would be quick and brutal, and once Reuben saw the result, he’d realize that holing up had been the right tactic. Brie was going to be a tougher nut to crack. “You knew this would happen. Nacho, that one morning… how could you go months and not say a thing about this?”

“Fifteen minutes before we were thrown into the Evaluation, how much did you believe me? When I forced you to listen, I seem to recall having the police called on me.” Nacho met her glare with his cool gaze. Brie didn’t say a word, but Nacho knew the truth. Trying to prepare them would have only driven them off, and he would have been too far away to save them. Again.

He powered into the silence. “If I would’ve insisted that the end of the world was coming, you would have cut me off. Reuben wouldn’t, but you would’ve. You wouldn’t have tolerated me seeming crazy. So right now, I need us to change into better clothes. I need you to strap on your weapons, and I need for us to be ready if we’re attacked. We have a real chance to not only survive, but to thrive. I was given the ultimate prize: I know how the game works, and I know what’s going to happen… at least for the next few months. I plan to change things after that.”

Their first challenge would be the Calamity monster, but he didn’t want to tell them about that particular nightmare just yet. Their faith in him was already hanging by a thread.

Brie glanced away and dropped her backpack. “Reuben, I need help with the dress.”

Just like that, she’d shifted into competition mode. Reuben came back from the edge of the crack and unzipped her dress while Nacho moved to the other end of the area and changed into the fatigues he’d packed. He couldn’t help but overhear his friends talking.

Reuben was whispering, but the sound carried. “I’m sorry, Brie. Our wedding day… I wanted it to be perfect.”

“I think we have bigger problems than that, Reuben. Don’t get me wrong, I’m livid, and someone is going to pay for doing this. There’s an intelligence behind this; there has to be.”

“Maybe. I just feel… the people.” The big man’s voice cracked as he tried to say what was on his mind.

“I know, Reuben. But Nacho knows what he’s doing. He got us here, together, we have gear, and he really seems to be invested in keeping us alive. Let’s just hear him out.”

A shadow blocked out the noonday sun, and Nacho’s eyes focused on the source. The Oscreeches were similar to eagles, but their coloring was varying shades of greens and blacks, while the talons were supernaturally big. Their necks and bodies were slimmer, almost serpentine, and they moved differently from the birds back on Earth—practically ignoring the physics of flight. That was the only explanation for the way they could drop into the trees, tuck in their wings, then run like ostriches… or emus.

Not a single Oscreech gave Nacho or his friends a second look. The monsters dove into the trees, followed by the anticipated shrieks of pain and shouts of anger, and as he remembered, the attack was over in moments. The quiet afterwards was terrible, but Nacho filled it with information for his pale, shaking friends. “Long story short, we were scooped off Earth, evaluated, and now we’re here on the Starter World. We eventually started calling this area the AKC, or the Alternate Kansas City, since we all landed here together.”

“Somebody help m-” The scream was cut off with a wet sound, and Nacho started speaking louder to drown out any follow-up sounds.

“The point of the game is to kill monsters, gain credits, and upgrade our skills. The last time I was here, I was the best assassin in the entire world. That gave me access to information and people like you wouldn’t believe. Believe me when I say: information is going to be the hardest thing for other people to get, but not for us. Now, the Store is like the Evaluation Mall, except virtual, and you don’t physically go there. You can pull up your display just by winking left, right, then shrugging. Even that isn’t discovered by other people for weeks. We have every advantage right now. Open it, look at the information, and then we can discuss.”

Brie’s and Reuben’s eyes glowed, proof that they were inspecting their character sheets.

He pulled up his own Stat Sheet:

Eli ‘Nacho’ Naches

Kronos Boon–Probability Vision—1/1 used

Class: Common Cook

Tier Class Name: Common Cook

Level: 0

Experience Points: 100 to Level 1!

Current Credits: 0

Build Type: Balanced, Delayed

Body:

• Fitness: 10
• Metabolic efficiency: 10

Mind:

• Mental energy: 10
• Circuit: 10

Satiation:

• Hunger: 100
• Thirst: 100

Total Health Points: 30

Bonus Physical Damage: 5%

Health Regen: 10% Health Regen/minute

Total Mana Pool: 25

Bonus Spell Damage: 5%

Mana Pool Regen: 10% Mana Regen/minute

Skill Slots (3/4)

• Small Blades (Passive) Level 0: 0% bonus damage on all knife attacks
• No Mana, Hydration, or Metabolic Cost




• Ingredient Processing (Active) Level 0: Remove Putrid Mana from monsters up to Level 2
• Mana Cost = 5%
• Hydration Cost = 5%
• Metabolic Cost = 5%




• Cooking Magic (Active) Level 0: Cook food that enhances a single stat by 0% of maximum
• Mana Cost = 5%
• Hydration Cost = 5%
• Metabolic Cost = 5%




• Open slot

Storage Slots (3/5)

• Stainless steel 3-quart saucepan
• 12-inch cast iron skillet
• Yummy grilled cheese sandwich
• Open slot
• Open slot

Connected to his Stat Sheet were links to the Store, which offered everything a player could ever want—with some notable exceptions—for a price. Nacho was pleased to see all of his practice with the knives had given him the Small Blades skill. “Yes! I even have a small blade, so this is perfect. Thought I bought a pot, though? What’s the difference between a pot and saucepan?”

He had so much to learn about cooking. Suddenly, he felt scattered: there was so much to cover, and he didn’t know where to start.

Thank goodness Reuben let out a laugh. “Okay, so the stats are pretty simple. Body for warriors, mind for mages, but what’s up with those satiation stats? It looks interesting. I can actually track my munchies? ‘Look, dude, I have a level three craving for pepperoni pizza’.”

Reuben’s relaxed demeanor, even if it was forced, was very welcome at that moment. Even his joviality didn’t touch Brie’s focus, though. She ignored the joke and waited impatiently for more information. They all sat down on the rocky ground, and Nacho took a deep breath. “We’ll get to the Satiation, but let’s start with Body. Fitness is both strength and agility. I’m assuming you both have ten points there.”

“Shouldn’t I have less?” Brie interrupted him immediately. “I haven’t been lifting weights, and I don’t have as much testosterone as you two.”

Nacho leaned against the stone, trying his best to get comfortable but knowing full well that such creature comforts were probably going to be gone for a long time. “Game logic. A lot of this world defies biology.”

Reuben’s grin was infectious. “Look at me, sitting on my butt most of my life while you worked out every day: now we have the same strength.”

Brie rolled her eyes, then searched for a stick that she could hit him with. Nacho could only chuckle at the antics, loving being back with his friends. This was so much better than slogging through the Juxtaposition alone. “Your ‘Total Health Points’ is based on your Fitness level. Fitness affects your ‘Total Physical Output’, or in other words gives you bonus damage. For now, we should all have a five percent bonus.”

Reuben sat cross-legged and looked relatively calm, but the sweat dripping down his face belied that. “Gotcha. Health Points, HP, and combat bonuses. Good thing my crappy eating habits back on Earth didn’t affect me too much. I have to say, the exercise you made me do was helpful in the Ew. Good call on the blackberries and peanuts.”

“The ‘Ew’?” Nacho itched his chin with the tip of the bow. “What?”

“You aren’t going to keep saying ‘Evaluation World’ all the time, right?” Reuben shook his head in disbelief. “You did, all the time, didn’t you? No wonder you’re no fun. You weren’t just the best assassin; you were a joy assassin.”

The now-Cook wasn’t sure what to say about that, so he simply moved on after a slight internal struggle. “Anyway… that brings us to food. The second part of your Body stat is your Metabolic Efficiency. That’s how well you use food and how fast you heal. Basically, your Health Regen is your Metabolic Efficiency, times your Hunger, divided by a hundred. That gives you the percentage. You’ll lose Hunger Points when you use your skills, but we’ll get to that.”

They hadn’t talked about their experiences in the… Ew, and Nacho didn’t know what classes his friends had chosen or what build type they had decided on. They had so much to cover. Again, Nacho felt his mind racing, and he had to forcefully regulate his breathing.

Reuben nodded at the information, taking it in easily, while Brie sat frozen, listening intently. The groom spoke up as Nacho worked to bring his anxiety down. “I’m assuming Body Players have combat skills that reduce their hunger, and Health Regen is really important for your fighter types. I went the Mind Player route. I work differently, amiright?”

“Yep.” Nacho agreed with the assessment. “Let’s talk about Mind Players for a minute.”

“I wouldn’t mind. Ayy, I don’t mind, because I’m a Mind Player!” Reuben laughed a bit too loudly. “I’m freaked out, people, but I’ll make jokes until someone steals my voice box.”

“Just keep talking, Nacho. You know he’ll just keep going till you stop him.” Brie practically deflated with the quip, amusing Nacho to no end. They really were perfect together. That made him wonder which class she’d chosen.

“For your mind stats, Mental Energy is like Fitness—it’s your basic mental acuity. That affects your Mana Pool, in the same manner that Fitness is connected to your Health Points. Now, Circuit is how efficiently you use the energy to cast spells or use skills. For me, I’m thinking that’ll be what I draw on for my Cooking Magic, though I need to physically craft food, so I chose a build that should give me the best of both worlds.”

Reuben made a face and held out a forestalling hand. “Hold that horse, mister. Cooking? I thought you said something about being an awesome assassin?”

Nacho held up a finger. “We’ll get to that. Remember that the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. Your Mana Regen is your Circuit, times Thirst, divided by a hundred. That means that while Body Players mostly use food, Mind Players mostly use thirst, and using your skills reduces your Hunger and Thirst points.”

“Actually, the only way to eat an elephant is in jail. Because it is illegal,” Brie informed him entirely seriously as she began rummaging through her backpack, eventually finding a hatchet in a sheath. She stood and threaded the sheath onto her belt. By now, both her wedding dress and Reuben’s tuxedo had vanished, meaning both were using a Storage Slot for their nice clothes. “I think I’m getting the hang of all this stuff. Beyond opening the screens and actually accessing it initially, it’s fairly intuitive. Only the stats make no sense at all.”

Nacho opened his mouth to speak, but Reuben reached over and patted his shoulder. “Let me try, Nacho—Brie and I speak the same language. Darlin’, Fitness and Metabolic Efficiency are your screams and grunts. The higher your Fitness, the more satisfied grunts of impact you hand out. That’s how you get the damage bonuses our boy Nacho talked about.”

“Screams and grunts.” Brie looked at him incredulously. “That’s what you call speaking the same language?”

“Did you understand it?”

“I mean…” Brie growled in frustration, “Yes, but why?”

Nacho looked between the pair. “Is this actually working?”

Reuben launched into the next part of his explanation. “Health is your scream canister. When your scream canister runs out of screams, you die. Health Regen is your scream re-filler. That seems to get faster based on your Metabolic Efficiency, and your Hunger points. Eat more, and you’ll be able to scream more. The Mind stuff works about the same. Only it’s magical screams and grunting. Your Mana Pool is your magical screams. Your Circuit score, along with water, refills your magical screams faster. Get it?”

“Magical screams and magical grunts.” Brie unclipped her sheath and lifted out the hatchet. “I want to stab you a little, but I think I get it.”

Nacho had to laugh; his friends actually did speak their own language. Brie wasn’t done asking questions. She started pacing while Nacho and Reuben tried to relax. “Food helps you fight and heal. Water helps you cast spells and refills your Mana Pool. The skills drop our Hunger and Thirst Points. Fine. What if you don’t use any skills? What if you just sit and don’t move?”

Reuben titled his head and slowly smiled. “You should have listened to me from the start and joined me instead of that lacrosse team. You’re a natural gamer.”

“I just like to win,” the transported bride stated simply, raising an eyebrow at him, “at things that matter. I wanted to prove that I was better than the other players, and you can’t just restart a lacrosse game if you’re losing.”

Nacho was impressed with the depths of world mechanics that her question dove into as well. “You’d be fine for one full day. If you go twenty-four hours without food, you get a Starvation Debuff, and you’ll lose one hunger point each minute until you go negative.”

Reuben used his fingers to do the math. “When your Health Regen turns negative, do you start losing percentages of your health? Say you have a hundred hunger points, but you lose one every minute. One hour, forty minutes, you go negative? A half an hour later, you’ll be losing three percent of your health. Then four percent, then five, then dead.”

Nacho was similarly impressed by how rapidly his friend had figured that out with so little information. “Yeah. Wow. That’s right. Once your hunger tanks, it’s a cascading effect. Thirst works similarly, but it’s called a Dehydration Debuff.”

Brie paced to the other end of the crack, turned and stomped back. “Lose all your health, and you die. Just like Earth. Fine. Does emptying your Mana Pool kill you?”

Nacho grimaced up at her. “No, but if it hits zero, you go unconscious. You can’t eat, and then you starve to death. Not eating gives you the Starvation Buff whether you’re conscious or not. Healing spells won’t work, and I’ve never seen a spell to feed someone.” Nacho had to pause, because he’d never had access to the Satiation Player skills. He wondered if there was some kind of feeding tube skill and made a note to check the Store.

A chill wind came down blowing through the crevasse, making the dried leaves crackle. Reuben’s eyes flashed blue as he went back through his tabs. The big guy was smart enough to intuit how diabolical the System was in practically no time flat. “There’s no tutorial, no information page. A lot of this makes sense, but why wasn’t there some… I don’t know, is there a logistics fairy to help us along?”

A coldness settled into Nacho’s belly as he thought about the hundreds of lives that had been spent on buying information. “You can buy info packs from the Store, though they’re expensive and—for the most part—useless. We’ll get to the Store in a minute. Suffice to say, whoever or whatever organized this game doesn’t seem to care much about our general health.”

Brie drilled him with a freezing stare. “But you know about all of this stuff. How?”

Nacho got to his feet and returned the stare. “A Patron, Kronos, gave me a boon called Probability Vision. Single use. I don’t know much about the Patrons, but they give boons to a few select players. Anyway, I had a vision of living through the Juxtaposition, a bunch of stuff happened, and I was killed. The minute I died in the game, three years from now, I was sent back to our apartment six months ago.”

Reuben got to his feet and shouldered on his pack. “Probability Vision. So it sounds like your Patron ran a simulation of probable events, and you were at the heart of it. That’s how you knew about this spot and the attack of the evil eagles and everything else. What’s the next terrible thing that’s going to happen? Can we play the lottery on this world? What’s my stock portfolio going to be worth in three years?”

Nacho squeezed past Brie, went to the end of the space, and readied his bow. Reuben held his own Gerber fixed-blade knife, and Brie had the hatchet as well as another knife.

“Let’s keep moving.” Nacho knew he hadn’t answered Reuben’s question, but he didn’t really want to talk about certain things yet. “Once we get some credits, upgrade our skills, and get an artifact or two, we’ll be in much better shape.”

“Leveling up is always good,” Reuben agreed slowly, trying to figure out what had just shifted in the conversation that made it end.

Brie eyed the weapon in her hand and shook her head. “I knew you two would drag me into playing one of your games at some point. At least a game that involves hiking is perfect for me.”

She was making jokes—that was good, but the look in her eyes indicated that she wasn’t relaxing into her fate.

Good. Nacho needed her focused and fighting.