Soda Pop Soldier by Nick Cole Page B

” I whisper once more in my empty and very dark apartment.
    Gloomy clouds thicken on-screen, then a golden shaft of light, something my eyes are starving for, stabs down through the clouds.
    In Olde English script, the word Light appears as I hear a distant trumpet play a fading call to arms.
    â€œNoble Son”—it’s a different voice than the game announcer, kindly, a sage or a king perhaps—“I am Callard the Wise of Rondor, and I’m here to help you. You must rescue a child of hope from the clutches of the diabolical Razor Maiden. Your training as a Samurai of the mysterious East has given you the Focused Slash ability and the Iron Hurricane attack. Armed only with your katana Deathefeather, you have journeyed many leagues into the southern deserts to reach a fabled lost city buried beneath shifting sands so that you can climb the jutting ruin of the Marrow Spike and confront evil itself.”
    Pause.
    Wait for it, I tell myself.
    â€œAlas, you have been captured by the nightmarish horde of the black witch Razor Maiden . . .”
    There it is. Captured.
    I hate games where you start off in the hole.
    The question now is, How many of my fellow contestants are also captured? Whoever’s not captured has a big advantage. Even worse, am I captured by one of my fellow players? Someone playing Darkness ?
    â€œThe Black horde has taken your hand in payment for daring to approach their forgotten realm,” continues Callard the Wise of Whatever. “But fear not, Samurai, there is hope! Somewhere within this ancient desert lies the Pool of Sorrows. If you can find it, maybe its restorative waters will return your lost hand, and then, once you’ve found your legendary blade Deathefeather, perhaps you might dispense the justice Razor Maiden so richly deserves.”
    I feel cheated.
    Damn Iain.
    A thousand bucks down the drain on a one-handed Samurai that’s probably being tortured and raped from the get-go.
    The picture on-screen dissolves as the voice of Callard reminds me to “find the child.” What child, I’m not sure, but apparently a child must be found.
    The screen changes from panorama to point of view. I’m inside the avatar’s skin. The HUD comes online and I’m checking the layout. Vitals are down 50 percent. But who’s exactly a million bucks after having their hand lopped off? My right clicks are enabled, so I scroll through a menu of available feats I can slave to the mouse and bind to the keyboard. I like the old-fashioned mouse, none of these reticle-cued, SoftEye enhancements everyone’s trying to sell me these days.
    With part of my mind on the screen that shows my surroundings, and the other scrolling through a submenu checking what skills I can employ, most of which are offline, I see the grotesque feet of a large monster shuffling toward me. My POV is only responding to the vaguest of movements, like I’m drugged or chained up or something. Over ambient, beyond the scrape of the jailer-monster’s feet, I hear an agonized scream followed by repeated cries for mercy. Then the obligatory tormented scream punctuation as hot iron sears flesh. Again, the screaming.
    The Dungeon of Endless Despair flashes across my screen.
    The jailer nears my body and hauls me upright. I stare from the darkness of my snow-swamped apartment in midtown Manhattan, into the face of an Ogre on-screen. Protruding canines and bleeding gums compete for computer-rendered audacity with an oozing gash that was once an eye.
    â€œWot’s yur name, maggot?” growls the Ogre through my DellTashi display, something I purchased on credit after being confirmed for professional status with ColaCorp.
    A QuickMenu opens up asking me to type in my name.
    â€œLoser” springs to mind along with “Thousand-Dollars-Down-the-Drain Guy.”
    I can’t use PerfectQuestion. If ColaCorp knew I was gaming in the Black, I’d lose my pro status