As if my eyes were taking a moment to adjust, the darkness on the other side of the door faded, bringing a long stone hallway into view. Shafts of light filtered from holes in the hall's ceiling, casting a dim glow on the vines that grew through cracks in the stone. Detritus littered the floor—wood, stone, and long-rotted adornments. A figure stood at the end of the hall, armor barely clinging to a shriveled body.
I shook my head, blowing out a long breath. This was a very classic start to a video game. I'd picked my starting weapon and now faced my first enemy. These were always laughably easy to beat, placed there to show the player the basics of combat. I'd been through this dozens and dozens of times, but standing there, smelling the musty, rotten castle and feeling the cool, damp air on my skin, the experience was vastly more intense.
"This is just the first enemy, Henry. You can do this," I whispered to myself. "It probably won't even attack. Just walk up and smack it in the head. Come on. You can do it. Come on." I stood still, staring at the skeletal mob.
"Nope."
I couldn't do it. I was frozen, the world too real. Dev had done his job far too well. Nothing about this, other than the hovering prompts, made it feel any less than real. The total immersion made the experience completely different from any other video game I'd ever played.
"I can't do this." I shook my head. "You damn coward."
I turned to go back through the door, but the door had vanished, leaving only a stone wall. "Dev," I shouted. "I can't do this. You have to let me out. I'm sorry, but I just… I just can't."
I glanced around, waiting for some kind of response. Nothing happened. Then I heard a scraping from behind. I turned. The long-dead warrior was moving slowly toward me. Its worn, tattered boots dragged against the floor with each step.
I stared in horror as it approached. I started to hyperventilate, my heart pounding. "Dev," I said, my voice high with panic. "Please, man. Let me out of here."
Dry, rotten flesh flaked from the mob's face as it continued forward. The smell of old decay filled my nostrils. My back hit the wall where the door had once been. I had nowhere else to go; the monster was upon me. I closed my eyes, a pathetic whimper escaping from between clenched teeth.
Something thudded against my stomach.
The monster was going to tear me apart. Would I respawn? Would Dev take pity on me and pull me from this game if I died? I braced myself for pain.
Another blow landed on my stomach, then a third. I cracked an eye open. The monster hit me a fourth time. Its bony hand was clenched into a fist, and it was punching me. A fifth hit, slightly harder than the others. It felt like bumping into the corner of the kitchen counter.
"Ouch."
The mob struck me a sixth time, this one nearing real discomfort. "Ow," I said again.
The monster punched me a seventh time. I pushed the monster away and rubbed at my stomach. "That hurt."
The monster stumbled back, almost falling. It really was a pathetic thing. It took a moment to regain its balance but then started back toward me.
I took a breath. "Fine, here we go." I stepped forward and swung my hammer as hard as I could. The hammer's head missed the mob completely, but the haft clanged into the askew helmet, knocking the monster to the floor. Unfortunately, I underestimated the momentum the hammer would have. It yanked me off balance, and I fell, hard. An illogical moment of panic struck as an image of the monster crawling atop me and biting my neck flashed before me. I scrambled back to my feet and stepped back.
The monster's head hung to the side as if I'd broken its neck, but it still squirmed on the floor. It flailed around for a few seconds before getting its hands and feet underneath its body. It started to get up slowly.
"Nope."
I stepped forward, bringing the hammer down in a two-handed chopping motion. I didn't swing as hard as before and was much more careful with my aim. The hammer's head smashed into the mob's back with a satisfying crunch. The body crumpled to the floor, whatever remaining life extinguished. A wisp of something blue rose from the monster and zipped into my chest, giving me a faint feeling of warmth. It faded almost immediately. A zero just on the edge of my vision appeared, quickly changing to a one and then a two.
"Cool, it's a souls-like."
I took a moment to gather my wits, my heart still pounding with the vestige of my panic. I carefully bent down to look at the dead body. I felt a slight draw to the corpse. "Am I supposed to loot it?"
I reached my hand forward, grimacing. I did not want to rummage through the remains of a rotten, long-dead man. Just as my finger brushed the crumbling leather armor, however, a three-by-eight grid appeared above the corpse, a second eight-by-eight grid opening to the right.
"Ha! There's an inventory system."
There were only two items in the monster's inventory. One was a picture of a bronze coin with a 2in the corner, and the other was a picture of what looked like some long-dried organ. I focused on the coins and mentally moved them over to what I assumed was my inventory. I heard the sound of clinking metal, and a number at the bottom left of my inventory ticked up from 0 to 2. Next to the 2 was a small image of a bronze coin. Three more numbers to the left read 0: a silver coin, then a gold coin, and last, a glowing coin I couldn't identify.
"That is very cool."
I'd seen this basic mechanic dozens of times before, but seeing it in this perfectly realistic world made it fresh and exciting.
I looked back at the mob's inventory and debated leaving the organ on its corpse, but with a sigh, I mentally moved it to my inventory. It was the beginning of the game. Who knew what would be useful or not? I pulled my hand from the dead body, the two inventories disappearing from my view.
Now, to see if I could open my inventory at will. I sat on the damp stone and gave a mental command. Sure enough, my inventory opened. I looked at the single square taken up by the dried flesh and focused on it. A tooltip appeared just beside the item.
Desiccated Liver
I tried to bring up any other information, but that was all I got. I imagined there was some way to see more details later in the game, but I wouldn't worry about that now. I really doubted the desiccated liver would be all that useful anyway. It was tutorial loot.
I looked over my inventory once more then frowned. Where was my equipment menu or my stats sheet? I tried to mentally open up my equipment, and sure enough, a new window opened on top of my inventory. I saw a third-person view of myself standing still. In one hand, I held my hammer. I focused on it, and a short item description tooltip appeared.
Basic Heavy Warhammer
Damage Type: Blunt
I doubted any of the other items would show anything I didn't already know, so I mentally closed my loadout. Next, I tried opening my stats sheet. And there it was. My character reduced to a few numbers:
Name: Henry Harding
Age: 28
Height: 6'6"
Weight: 360 lbs
Class: N/A
Race: N/A
Fragments: 2
Level: 0
Attributes:
Body: 2
Mind: 3
Faith: 0
Luck: 10
Affinities 0/2
Passive Abilities 0/3
Skills 0/6
Spells 0/6
"I mean, come on, Dev. I have some skills. I can read a data sheet, kinda okay." I slumped when no response came. Our discussions as I played were a huge part of the fun. He would ask a lot of questions, wondering how each element of the game felt, and what I thought could be improved. He also complained about all the stuff I missed and made fun of me when I didn't play well. I was basically his sole play tester. It was the most meaningful relationship I had.
I sighed, turning my thoughts back to the game.
The lack of health and mana stood out. I'd played a lot of souls-like and RPGs, and almost all of them quantified the player's health and mana in some way. Maybe it wasn't a feature in the tutorial and would become a mechanic later in the game? Did that mean I couldn't die?
I lifted my head and observed my surroundings. Dewy moss grew on the crumbling rock. Water dripped from somewhere down the corridor, and the smell of mildew and earth filled the ancient structure. Okay, yeah, this was still unbelievably cool even if I couldn't communicate with Dev.
I looked back the way I'd come and sighed, still no door. I turned back to where the mob had been when I'd first entered the tutorial. My heart quickened at the thought of facing more of these monsters, but surprisingly, fear wasn't the only emotion I felt. A part of me, a small part, was actually excited. That fight was the most physical thing I'd done for a long time, and I had actually succeeded. I'd beaten my first enemy. It had been the most pathetic first enemy of a game I'd ever encountered, but I had been the one to bring the hammer down. I wanted to see if I could do it again. A need for urgency pushed me to my feet.
I had a feeling Dev wouldn't let me out of this place until I at least reached the end of the tutorial, so forward was the only option. Alright, I could do forward.
I gripped my hammer, looked ahead, and started down the dim corridor.