6 Chapter 4: Darkness, My Old Friend

Pulling off his headset he surveyed himself, smiling as he resisted the urge to call up a status screen.

He really was that hungry. "Stupid energy bars. Two meals my butt."

Swinging his legs off the bed he noted there was no stiffness whatsoever. In fact, he felt relaxed and loose as if he had just had a massage. It was only eight. It had certainly felt a lot longer. Playing the game had messed with his sense of time.

He shrugged. Most of what he had done was the intro and some practice exercises. If he had actually wasted a massive amount of time on pretend exercise he would have been really annoyed.

"As he stepped into the kitchen he saw his mom cleaning up. She hadn't put the main dish in the fridge yet.

"Mom! Wait!" David called out theatrically. "Nooo! Leave the food out!"

"Finally done?" she said. She was a young looking woman. Which simply means that she was young when the Pandemic swept the globe. Aging was really slow after that. If you were already old it didn't help much but if you were young you suddenly had a lot more time than you thought. "Was it everything you thought it would be?"

"I guess," Dave said as he loaded up his plate with spaghetti. "It had a kinda dumb system but the graphics are awesome. More real than reality!"

"Right," his mother said skeptically. She used an older VR headset for her job. While it was pretty real, she would never call it better than reality. "So are you going to hole up there all summer? My boss says there are no long term effects but I don't want you to ignore your friends."

"No worries. They all ordered headsets. Once the beta is over we can group up."

"Group up? Like a club?"

Dave looked at his mom, his eagerness visibly deflating. "Yeah. Like a club."

"Well, I suppose that's okay. But if I see you getting thinner or you forgetting to bathe I will throw that headset out so fast your head will spin, no matter how my boss loves them."

"Hey there, don't get crazy," Dave said, waving his hands. "I came out because I was hungry. See, this is me gorging on this delicious spaghetti," Dave paused a moment. "This is me wondering why it's so cold."

"This is your mother getting annoyed that you didn't eat with your mother and father and let your food get cold."

"Ah," Dave nodded firmly. "This is me shutting up now."

After filling himself up on pasta he went back to the game and logged back in. He figured he could at least stay up until twelve without his parents bothering him.

"System, set alarm for 12 AM."

"Acknowledged."

"Okay, back in the starting village," Dave muttered to himself. He had a ranged attack and a movement skill. He probably should get a defensive skill and a close range attack. Looking around he saw that Deridel had gone back to her default spot. Considering the people still on the range chances were they had their own invisible NPC looking over their shoulder.

Walking around to the village center he walked up to the NPCs there. "Who can give me advice on defensive skills?"

The knight raised his hand. Bolyn, Trainer, HP:10000, Mana:5000, Psi: 10000. "I would be pleased to aid our new recruits in fighting our terrible oppressors." Deridel looked at him sideways and shook her head. The mage studiously ignored him.

"Great! What are my options?"

"Starting out you could work on Telekinesis. Eventually you can form it into a shield. This may be the strongest and most versatile option. However, it costs energy, more than the other options, and therefore cannot be active at all times. You can eventually use it to create blockades and shield others."

"Hmmm," Dave wasn't sure he wanted to play with others yet. His friends weren't online and buffing a bunch of strangers didn't appeal to him. "Next option please."

"Your next option is rather difficult. Clairvoyance has a basic danger sense. It will allow you to dodge and avoid danger as well as predict very short term effects. When it gets advanced past level 10 you will be very difficult to hit. However, when you are you will go down very quickly. I would recommend this a secondary defense. It works well in combination with movement abilities."

Oh, a spider-man option. That would be cool but as the knight said he could work with it later. "Next please."

"Bio feedback is a popular talent tree for defense. One of the early talents unlocked is block pain and regeneration. However, for raw defense it also has Fortify. This allows you to use psionic energy to strengthen your defenses. It is a passive skill and only draws psionic points when you take damage. It is approximately as strong as a telekinetic force field, however, you cannot use it on someone else."

"Oh, that's nice! There's nothing stopping me from learning TK forcefield later, right."

"Nothing accept the time investment. I have found that the further along I am in my training the harder it is to find time for the basics."

Dave looked at him in disbelief. The game had been active for about six hours. While it was humorous seeing the knight boasting about his experience he thought it was to be expected in an RPG game.

"What else?"

"Manifestation can create armor, however, it is best used with weapons, unless you have some way to mitigate the power draw. In functionality, it is very similar to telekinetic force fields. You can do this with psionic energy or mana, however, we can only train you in the psionic version. You will have to unlock the other skills yourself."

"You can unlock elite skills?"

"The first person to unlock a custom skill can name it," the system whispered in his ear. "After a slight delay, this skill will be available to all players."

"Oh, neat." It would have been better to have a custom skill all his own, nevertheless, he supposed naming it would be a decent consolation prize. "What else?"

"The Imbue skill, mana or psionic, can create enchanted or enhanced equipment. It doesn't work so well with cloth," the knight said while gesturing to Dave's rough spun peasant pants and shirt. "This is best used once you find better defensive gear."

"Okay. Seems pretty clear. Unless you wanted to try to start a wizard or cleric you should go with the Bio Feedback."

"An excellent choice," the knight began before interrupted by the robed figure.

"Everything you are working on now is simple basic skills. You can always train your 'mage and cleric' skills later. You will find that some skills you develop will not work well in combination with others. However, Bio Feedback is a decent general skill. Most people have this in addition to other abilities."

The knight looked over in irritation, then glanced back at Dave. "It is true your journeys are just beginning. Let me teach you the ways of this talent." Placing his hand on Dave's forehead he felt a transfer of energy and method of moving energy from one location of the body to others.

"You have learned a new skill in the Bio-Feedback tree, Pain Suppression, Level 0."

"You have learned a new skill in the Bio-Feedback tree, Regeneration, Level 1."

"You have learned a new skill in the Bio-Feedback tree, Fortify, Level 2."

"It starts out at level 1 and 2?" Dave asked. Neither the system or the knight replied. He shrugged. Sixth edition M&M was known to be arbitrarily whimsical. "System, I think you need to include some training montage. The skills are cool but that just felt rather... eh." Dave said while waving his hand lethargically.

"Feedback noted."

"Okay, now I need a short range attack, any suggestions?"

"I am not sure I understand, your psionic bolt can be used at short range and long range," the knight responded hesitantly. "I think you mean you need a trained response for dealing with an attacker at close range."

"I could have sworn that's what I just said," Dave responded. Now he was confused.

"How about we give you a basic hand to hand course."

"Wait a minute, you can teach me kung fu?" Dave said with a smile blooming on his face.

"It's a rather complete set of skills, boxing, wresting and martial arts to deal with the three ranges of hand to hand. Some of the moves would be from traditional skills."

"Wow, kung fu," Dave said, completely ignoring the knight's explanation and breaking the game's immersion. "I don't care if you have a lousy class system if you can make me a kung fu master. Maybe we can make this a Wuxia type game."

Once again the knight put his hand to the player's forehead. This time in addition to the sensation of knowledge and energy being transferred he was struck with images, almost hallucinations, of him and the knight training in hand to hand techniques for days on end.

"You have learned a new talent, Combat, level 2"

"You have learned a new skill in the Combat tree, Hand to Hand, Level 2."

When it finally stopped Dave fell to his knees and dry heaved. "Oh my god! That was horrible! It was like being in a dojo while on a roller coaster! I changed my mind! No more montages. Just gimme the damn skills."

"Feedback noted."

Staggering to his feet Dave was grateful there was no vomit taste in his mouth. That would have been too realistic for comfort. "Where can I train the new skills?"

"Combat golems are behind the other building," the knight gestured to his right.

"Right. See you, like never again," Dave said as he staggered off.

Sure enough, around the corner of the second intact building was a cobblestone courtyard divided in several sections. Several players were already wresting, kicking and generally using mixed martial arts on the human-sized stone golems. Going to one of the sections with a golem and no player he approached one of the stone forms.

"Would you like to spar?" A voice similar to grinding rock was emitted from the golem.

"Sure," Dave said as he gave a patented Bruce Lee come hither gesture. A moment later he was diving out of the way as the golem did a standing leap kick towards him.

Once he got used to letting the system guide him he was able to attack and defend in a reasonable manner. After what seemed a few hours of fun mayhem he was starting to feel exhausted.

"System, why am I so tired. There's no stamina stat, right," he asked as he back away from the golem and gestured for a break.

"There is no stamina statistic, however, you are using several bio feedback techniques at once. Each of these requires psionic points when activated."

"I hadn't realized," Dave said as he brought up his stat screen. "You never mentioned it."

"Player Nathaniel has requested to not be alerted when he has skill ups."

"Nathaniel? Oh, right that's me. I did say that. Let's take a look at the stat screen." The status screen came up. This time it had much more information.

Name: Nathaniel., Class: Recruit level 1, HP:40, Mana: 30. Psi: 50, Intelligence: 20, Constitution: 40, Strength: 30, Dexterity: 32, Luck: 55

Skills:

Technology Level 1 (Int based)

Clairvoyance level 3 (Luck based)

-Remote Viewing, level 2

Peasant Skill (No base)

Mana Manipulation Level 2

Telepathy Level 5

Telekinesis Level 10

-Telekinetic Movement Level 3

Meditation Level 0

Psionic Bolt Level 10

Psionic Manifestation Level 0

Imbue Object With Mana level 0

Imbue Object With Psionic Energy level 0

Bio Feedback Level 2

-Pain Suppression, Level 0

-Fortify Level 2

-Regeneration Level 1

Combat Level 6

-Hand to Hand Level 8

"Huh, that's a big change. And a title alteration," Dave said to himself. He assumes that was his overall character level. "System, what time is it?"

"It is eleven o'clock."

"Why does time seem to go by so fast? I feel like I've been training for hours," he asked rhetorically, mostly in wonder since he had experienced this while training his psionic blast.

"Modern nerve stimulation and simulation can allow the brain to operate at accelerated speeds for a short amount of time. Likewise, it is simple to give the player the sensation that large amounts of time has passed. Much like a low-level version of a montage."

"Okay, but keep the montaging to the lower level versions. I guess this was pretty fun but since I have another hour before I have to log off. I think I'll look at the quests."

Going back to the front of the building he looked at the quests again. There were a couple of kill quests. He accepted them. Usually, you did those on the way to other quests. Oh, the dungeon quests unlocked. His skills were above eight, so that may be fun.

There was a new one since earlier called "Knight Errant". Apparently, even though the Empire had been temporarily driven back they had some mostly abandoned supply depots that were generally unguarded except for a stray Husk or two. A noble from the Rebellion diplomatic team had been captured and they needed someone to bring back the supplies and rescue the noble. Since the husks were too stupid to do anything except guard there was a danger of this noble starving to death.

That sounded like fun. Since the notice showed as available hopefully the husks wouldn't curb stomp him. He still had a slight shiver as he recalled being chased through the village streets by the festering creatures.

"System, do I have a map?"

"Yes. This is the method to activate the map." There was a sensation of how to move energy within his brain.

"That's not a command, that's Remote Viewing," Dave said in exasperation. "You really are riding heavily on this whole psionic theme." The system did not respond.

"All right let's see if I can do this in an hour," he said, psyching himself up as he began to run out of the village, following the map. As often as he could he boosted himself with Telekinetic movement. After a few minutes he reached a large grassland with unusually large buffalo roaming the plains.

"Ah. Mutant buffalos," Dave nodded to himself. For the first one he tried to sneak up to one of the isolated ones before firing off a psionic blast."

"You have acquired the talent Stealth, Level 0"

"You have acquired the talent under Telepathy, Cloak Presence, Level 0."

"Good grief. Really?" he muttered as the system whispered it messages. The mutant buffalo must have had excellent hearing because it immediately turned its head towards Dave and charged. With a yelp, he used his TK movement to slide out of the way and hit the buffalos rear with a psionic blast. It jerked convulsively and fell over dead.

"That was easier than I thought," Dave said as he stood up. A moment later he heard approaching thunder. With some trepidation he looked towards the plains and saw an entire herd of mutant buffalos stampeding his way.

"Oh my lord," he exclaimed as he analyzed his options. He could run, but there wasn't much cover and the animals were very fast. He could try to hide but he didn't even know how his new stealth worked. Oh well.

"Cowabunga!" he cried as he ran towards the mutant herd bearing down on him. He shot a few of the leading animals, then slipped in between the newly created gap letting whispers of his clairvoyance guide him.

One of the animals looked like it didn't see him so he leaped up using a burst of TK movement and landed on its back. Getting a grip on his mount he used a free arm to start shooting the mutants from his elevated position.

"This is a hell of a lot of fun," Dave smiled as the herd swept past him. They were more caught up in running than targeting him now that he was not on the ground. He fired a few more times, dropping the last few for his quest.

Then he pointed and willed a psionic blast but nothing happened. Boy, he sure was tired. He was thinking this as his mount started to buck. After only a few seconds he was kicked off and again surrounded by stampeding murderous mutants.

For some reason his clairvoyance wasn't giving him any hints and he couldn't get his movement to trigger. Then the first mutant stepped on him. That hurt a huge amount. Where'd his pain suppression go? Then he got knocked to the ground again and it felt like ten other mutant beasts ran over him.

Then there was blackness and pain. A soul-searing unendurable pain. It twisted his soul and seemed to go on forever. Then he woke up.