Collide Gamer

 

After watching Victoria and Rave put their clothes back on, John turned to the veritable flood of windows he had received.

Money was way less enticing than a weapon for either him or Aclysia. Plus 20’000 was a lot but it wasn’t the world. If he could just keep farming, he would be able to easily clear the weekly tribute he needed to pay Travolta.

“…I get the feeling Gaia is mad at me.” John said as he closed the last window.

“Why is that?” Rave asked, wiggling her butt a bit so the waistband sat more comfortably.

“Well, she just gave me an Achievement that sounded like an angry grandma whose calls I have been ignoring for a month.” He explained and adjusted his own jeans. ‘I should probably give these a wash before I give them back.’ John patted some pine needles off his back, his eyes wandered onto Aclysia.

He had honestly forgotten the Artificial Spirit was around for a second there. She was a low presence at the best of times and hadn’t moved from her spot since he had ordered her to keep watch over Victoria. His mind had, understandably, been elsewhere.

Now that he was looking in her direction, Aclysia took it as her opportunity to ask, “Was this sexual intercourse?”

“Uhm, yes,” John wasn’t overly surprised she knew what that was. What she did or did not know was a bit spotty, but sex was so fundamental to John that a creation of his not knowing what it was would have been odd. Still, he felt like a Twitch Streamer that left the stream running by accident and was caught watching porn.

“Why do you engage in it? Do you wish to procreate?”

“No,” Victoria was first to answer.

“Feels really good,” Rave responded soon after and John confirmed that with a nod.

“What is ‘feeling good’?” Aclysia wondered. This was, once again, taking a difficult direction. To the best of his Wisdom, John tried to answer.

“Well, we generally separate the things we do into good or bad, even if that doesn’t always work. As an example, your purpose is to protect me, correct?” Aclysia nodded. “If you failed at that, that probably would feel bad.”

“I understand… the idea fills me with a sensation of… unpleasantness… like receiving damage earlier.” So she could feel pain, or at least a muted variant of it. “Or…” she stopped and shuddered, a new display of emotion he hadn’t seen before, “…being put into your inventory.”

John blinked a few times, “Could you elaborate on that? What do you feel when you’re in my inventory?”

“Nothing,” Aclysia spoke, her tone as void as the meaning of the word. “I am left in timeless darkness. My awareness persists vaguely. I know I am where I can neither serve nor react to any dangers you may face. My chest constricts. Sometimes I see your hand, pulling things out of the darkness. Time freezes when you’re gone. There are no breaks between the appearances of your hand. Still, in that nothingness, I feel empty and alone.”

“…You’re sad,” John realized. “Sad and… full of dread whenever I leave you in my inventory?”

“Sadness… dread…” Aclysia spoke the words, as if to taste their meaning. Slowly, she nodded. “I believe this is the case.”

John looked to the ground. He could empathise with those emotions. They echoed what he had felt when sitting alone in his seat at school. The class or the break, time barely existed during them. He was just waiting until he had the opportunity to head home and play games. “And when I pull you out, what do you feel?”

“Like I am once again given the opportunity to fulfil my purpose. After the dread fades, I face you, Creator, and ready myself for the duty.”

“Sounds like that makes you happy.”

“Happy…” Again, Aclysia tasted the word. “I believe so. I will contemplate.”

John felt guilty, watching her stand there. Both for the torture he had unwittingly put her through and for the state of limbo between sapience and instincts she seemed to be in. Was it just experience in emotions that she lacked or should he increase her Mental Stats further? He wished he had the answers, but he was an inexperienced creator.

Contemplating the questions himself, he turned to the Loot. Many items were scattered over the forest floor, where the Minor Tree of Life had been. It was time to check on what the final haul of this grind was.

5 Magical Saps

6 Treant Barks

30045$ in total

“By the way I levelled up too!” Rave exclaimed with a smile.

“Which means we have level parity now,” John pointed out.

One of Rave’s eyebrows shot up and she checked the party interface. “Nah, that’s stupid. I can still whoop your butt.”

“For a couple more weeks, maybe,” John responded and glared challengingly at his girlfriend. She glared back. They stood there like that, until she started laughing. It was too sweet a sound not to join.

The truth of the matter was that levels only reflected Stats. The combat experience and Skills Rave had ahead of him were not listed in the purely mechanical recounting of the numbers. The accuracy of Stats was difficult to gauge anyway. For John and Aclysia, for those directly part of his system, they could be taken at their full value. For everyone else, they were more like estimations.

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll see,” Rave waved the topic goodbye. “Stupid Latebloomer stuff.”

John checked his Character Sheet. Not to distribute the Stat Points, there would be time for that in a minute, but to see if he even had the inventory space to transport all of this Loot. The answer to that was a resounding no. He was already at near full capacity.

That Dragonscale was taking up most of his inventory space. ‘I wanted to check the Quest rewards anyway,’ he thought. ‘I can decide how to handle this afterwards.’

Reaching into his inventory, he grabbed the Dragonscale. It was as simple as that being the thing he wanted to grab. Then he pulled and out came a giant red lizard scale. Dark blue swirling patterns decorated the surface of the teardrop shape, two-finger thick object. He kept pulling and pulling, stepping back once then a second time. “Huh, this is pretty li—IGHT!”

He should have known better, after previous experiences with Aclysia. Once the scale was fully out of his inventory, the weight suddenly kicked in. He had to let go of it and he still felt the sudden pull snap something in his wrists. Dirt and forest debris scattered, when the scale came to a rest with a dull sound, as if he had just dropped a concrete slab. Gamer’s Body fixed his wrists a moment later.

“What is that?” Victoria asked a simple and expected question.

“A Dragonscale. Gaia gave it to me as a reward,” John answered honestly. After all else that had happened today, he didn’t feel like hiding things from her.

The answer left Victoria open mouthed and staring. Eyes darted between the object and him. Rave giggled and leaned onto John’s shoulder. “Ya see that face? That’s the face you made whenever I told ya anything about the Abyss.”

“Are you telling me my powers are as weird to the Abyss as the Abyss is to mundanes?”

“I’m telling you your powers are bullshit.”

“Crude but apt!” Victoria agreed, then cleared her throat to get her tone back under control. “Did you get something else?”

“Yes, actually, let’s see if it is any good.”

What he held in his hand was a European longsword. Long grip, long blade, and a moderate guard. It was forged from light steel and the brown leather wrapped around the grip made it pleasant to hold. John could hold it alright in one and in two it laid comfortably. Even with the Lightweight enchantment, it wasn’t really made for him. “Jane, want to take a swing?”

“Oh, can I?” Rave grabbed it and immediately took a stance. She swung it around randomly a few times. It looked impressive, although John wasn’t certain if that was because she was just fast or because she was good with swords. The final swing sent the blade a third through a nearby tree trunk. “It’s way lighter than it looks. Also is it just me or does it glow golden?”

“Lightweight and holy enchantment, respectively,” John explained.

“Pre-enchanted Loot. Yup, total bullshit.” She turned away from the sword. “I was never one for weapons though. Are those gloves any good for punching?”

“Nope, they make plants grow faster.”

“Yeah, ya can keep those. I take care of one plant and that’s enough for me.”

“Do you want something, Victoria?” John asked the gunslinger. Her fire support had been really handy during that fight, he would be remiss not to offer something.

“I would like to make my money back for the ammunition. Give me the shield, it should sell for enough.” The Gamer looked at the Rare drop. Just for rarity, he would have loved to keep it. However, he wasn’t sure what to do with a shield and he had made the offer.

“It repairs itself, if that’s important for the price.”

Victoria nodded. “How do you know all this?”

John hesitated, but Rave quickly responded. “He has a Skill that lets him see some limited stuff about people and objects.”

“People?” Victoria suddenly looked deeply worried. “Did you use it on me?”

Scratching the back of his head, he admitted, “Yeah. It told me you are the Granddaughter of a family that fled the Soviet Union and that they got into the Abyss because they needed money. Also, that you didn’t trust me at first.”

“…Less now,” Victoria hissed and grabbed the shield. “I’ll see you tomorrow!” With those forceful words, she left the Illusion Barrier.

John groaned and turned to Rave. “Did you have to reveal it to her?” he asked.

“Yeah, ‘cause it's kinda screwy that you can do that,” Rave responded. “Longer ya keep it a secret, the more it’ll hurt later.”

“I’m already doing it less,” John grumbled. Personally he still viewed it as part of him, to be used like his eyes, but he could see Rave’s point so he tried to not do it as much. With a long sigh, he added. “You’re right, but it’s also been… a day. I don’t think we should trust people that we know for a day with everything I can or can’t do.”

“Ya wanna build that harem? Ya gotta take some risks with other girls,” Rave stated. “I think we’ll be fine. Today went pretty great, all things considered, right?”

She had him there. Threesome, levels, Loot, today had a whole bunch of good things. “Right… alright, let’s deal with this problem though,” he pointed at the Dragonscale. “I doubt you want to carry that and I can’t put it back into the inventory even if I wanted to.” He scratched the back of his head. He could use Craft on it, but with how low his level in the Skill was that felt like a waste. Neither Craft nor Enchant were ever going to be his focus. There was another option that felt more worthwhile. “Aclysia, can you eat that?”