Aggro Litrpg || Progression Fantasy

I'd lived in London most of my adult life.

I'd come down at seventeen with two mates to see a band in Hackney. The ticket had been cheap, the floors had been sticky, and the music had sucked.

Feeling oddly like we'd wasted an evening, we'd drifted into a nightclub after, which had been all noise and neon, and the doorman clocked my size before I even reached the queue. He'd asked, half-joking, I think, if I fancied the shift the following night, cash in hand, and mentioned there'd be spare room upstairs if I wanted it.

Having already received a number of snarky 'and what time do you call this?' messages from home, the thought of not getting the last train back to the Meddings house was suddenly unreasonably attractive. And, much to the surprise of my two friends, I found myself saying 'yes' and staying on.

It was hardly like the work was taxing. Stand outside in a suit and tie they'd bought for me and look intimidatingly at the queue. Funnily enough, I never had too many problems. I learned to check the wrists, not the eyes and how to step between drunks before they remembered they were angry. I doubt I even raised my voice in those first couple of weeks, and, what with one thing and another, I was probably as quietly contented with my lot as I'd ever been.

It was about a month later that a man who I soon learned was called Griff turned up in a good coat and with a smile that did not let the rest of his face know he was having a good time. Looking back, the whole thing was so obviously a well-worn route set up for kids who had just stepped off the train that, green as I was back then, I'm embarrassed I didn't see it. The lights, the noise, the promise of cash in hand and a room upstairs, it all worked the same way. Managers kept an eye on the door, chatted to the likely lads and the pretty girls, asked where you were staying, whether you were fixed for work, and whether London was treating you all right? Then came the first free staff meal, the second late shift, the quiet word in the back office about extra money doing a different sort of job.

I doubt many of those who passed through were put on the door, though. Even in the short time I was there, I saw faces change out inside the club overnight. New waitresses who arrived with suitcases and hope. Glass washers who kept their heads down and never seemed to go home. And bar staff in a steady stream, learning till codes by Tuesday and someone else wearing their apron by Friday.

I was tipped the wink that a 'guy wanted a word.' I said I was busy, but the door manager leaned in, voice friendly but eyes flat, and told me this was not a person you turned down. Ever. I wiped my hands, tried not to make a thing of it, and walked into the back room.

Griff sat at a small table with a ledger and a neat stack of envelopes. He pointed out that I looked like a 'mentalist', thanked me for keeping things so quiet, and said how he liked how he'd heard I moved people on without letting it get too loud. He'd asked me a bunch of questions about home and whether I thought London life was a better fit for me. As someone who never thought he'd fit anywhere, other than Halfway Hold, I'd found that a pretty easy answer. Looking back, I now realise that he watched my answers more than he listened to them.

Eventually, after about twenty minutes of chat, he began to circle around the existence of a different sort of job. One that came with all sorts of training and opportunities for career progression, he said. Nothing overly dramatic, of course. But he'd consider it a personal favour if I could be so good. He needed a few errands running. The delivery of a few conversations where a big, calm lad who did not scare easy could make life smoother for everyone. Cash in hand. I'd be out of the monkey suit. And he could probably see his way clear to doubling my take-home if I took the training.

He'd made it sound like I would be helping him out of a hole and doing the club a kindness.

I remember thinking that this was obviously some sort of con, but that – right then – I didn't really care. My phone calls home had moved from being hostile to icy polite to not even being answered anymore. If it hadn't been a 'Take Care of Yourself!' postcard from Aunt M, I wouldn't have spoken to anyone from up North in almost a fortnight. So I found myself nodding, and that nod felt like a key turning.

Stolen story; please report.

Training, he'd said. Well, I certainly got plenty of that in the coming years.

At an almost indecent speed, everything has changed: new doors, new rooms and lots of new faces. London's underlife got its hooks into me and didn't let go. I learned routes by habit and safe houses by smell. Sure, I was increasingly sent overseas in later years, but it was London that I always thought of as being my true home.

And now I was back.

And it would be fair to say that my minimap was going MENTAL.

It was blooming in the corner of my vision like stardust confetti thrown about in a hurricane, and every version of colour was fighting to the death for my notice. Shades of red flickering and flashing. White clusters. Blues threading through them all like quick fish. It felt like my System was trying to catch and categorise every heartbeat, soul and intention flowing around me and pin it to my grid for my notice.

Living in Bayteran had lured me into a false sense of security about how all this works. Most days in and around the village, I'd seen a couple of dozen dots at most. Hunters in the woods. One of my Shadow workers cutting across the scrub. A villager on a supply run. Back there, the horizon was a straight line I'd become very comfortable holding in my head. Even in the relatively short period of time I'd spent there.

The only time my map had ever looked even close to this crowded was during the siege and subsequent fight for the village, when the field went hot and the world narrowed to survival. And even then, all of the dots were a nicely uniform red. Standing here – whichever part Roderick had popped me out into – has the same imminent death vibe.

At the same time, hundreds of notifications kept pinging for my notice. Area alerts. Minor quests. Reputation ticks. Proximity warnings that meant nothing in a place where everyone was close to everyone else. My UI was chattering like a smoke alarm with a tired battery and a desire to keep me safe. I turned slightly to my left, trying to find a thread to pull that would help me to orient myself, but nothing. There was no thread. Just constant ebb and flow. The foot traffic surged, thousands of bodies and lights with nowhere ever certain to land.

I stepped to the edge of the pavement and looked around, forcing in and out a long breath. Fix a point. The tower block to the east. The smell of fried food and rain on hot stone. The thump of a black cab taking a pothole. I tried to remember how I used to make London into my playground, with lanes and corners and choke points. But, whenever I started to get my bearings, my minimap shouted even more information over the top.

Reluctantly, I did the only sensible thing I had open to me. I shrank my minimap to a thumbnail and killed my notifications.

The corner of my vision cleared as the boxes died.

I stripped it all out in order and took my minimap down to nothing. Threat bubble off. Notifications to 'never.' The undercurrent of the city stopped shouting and went back to something I recognised as almost normal. Engines. Footsteps. Someone was laughing behind me, and the sound was warm and ordinary, and I could feel my shoulders loosen as I started to make use of a particular set of skills I'd developed over many years.

I tried to read the street the old way. Faces. Hands. Gait. But it was hard to remember who I had been before Bayteran. So, I let the crowds flow and picked a lane through them, not following the optimal line, more the very human one. A bus hissed at the lights. Steam from a vent wrapped around my knees and made my jeans smell like a launderette.

Where I currently was in London moved without me, confident and ever so busy, and for a second, I just let it.

Which is when she came into the stream walking upstream. She was in a red coat, which was very wrong for the weather, and her white trainers were far too clean for the pavement. Her head was level and her eyes were steady… on me. She was not beautiful, but she was a bright flag in a sea of grey, and everyone else leaned out of her way without knowing they had done it. Her passage pulled focus, and if I'd had even a quarter of my head in the game, I would have clocked what was going on. A black cab horn went long and bored. A pigeon lifted with a flap that sounded like a rug being snapped outside a back door.

I knew what I was doing. You pick a single thing and ride it like a thread through the noise. It is a trick for crowd work and a trap if you give it too much. I gave it too much. I wanted a moment where my life felt like it used to feel. Brick. Rain. A stranger in a red coat that did not belong here. I let myself look straight at her, and I did not check the mirrors inside my head. I ignored the itch that said turn and the weight at the base of my neck that said keep the bubble up.

I thought, I will give myself ten seconds, and then I will switch it all back on and be sensible. I can be such a romantic sometimes.

Which is why I didn't see the guy with a snake for a head step out of the alley and shoot me in the face.