A Gamer's Guide 386 (Patreon)

Had Rafiloe Smith had friends before this whole mess, she would have liked to be called Ralfie. Or maybe Filly. Anything but Miss Smith. 

“Three, four, five…” 

Gecko was an alright name. It had a certain ring to it, she supposed. Gecko. Not intimidating, not endearing, but alright. The only difficulty was that it had no good aetongue translation, so it often got butchered by any goblins trying to talk to her.

“Six, seven, eight pieces… And fourteen bits. That about right, Jeeko?” her boss asked, briefly pausing to check his abacus. 

“Fifteen bits,” she corrected like the straight-A student she was. “Mrs Jumuun gave me an extra one for the necklace since she thought I should eat more.”

“How cruel of her. All you humans look thin; she must not be so gobliocentric.” Muttering to himself, the stout, apron-wearing goblin slid the day’s wages over the counter to her, adding one more small coin as he did. “Besides, I doubt you’ll get any more food even if she’d given you a halfer. No need to waste your money while times are tough.”

“I guess so,” Rafiloe said, plucking the coins from the counter and depositing them into her coin satchel. Frowning, she recalled the time she used to wear her coin purse on her belt, thinking that no thief would be dumb enough to steal from a human. The memory made her cringe. 

Once the satchel was all filled up, she put it in her inventory where it belonged, and bade farewell to her boss. He waved her off with a well-worn smile, and she exited the little jewelry shop into the cold late-winter afternoon. Though, on second thought, she supposed it was closer to spring. According to the forums, the current date was something akin to February 16th, had this place operated on Earth months. 

Only a few more months and she’d been in Purgatory for a year. Hooray.

The skies were gray and dull and although it was cold there was no snow. As she began walking homewards to get changed, she wondered how the besiegers were doing. Did they sleep in tents? Did the cold leave them frozen from top-to-toe? There must have been a lot of disease about. 

She felt a shudder run through her and pulled her robes tighter. Beyond the walls of the fortified city, she heard a great bang followed by some shouting and then another bang. The goblins passing by her on the street didn’t even pause to look. They just kept going, and so did she. 

She had an appointment in an hour which she couldn’t afford to be late to, even if it meant cutting her work-day short.

When she passed by the Tutorial Centre, she reevaluated her situation, and decided to stop by real quick, just in case.

A bell above the door gave a pleasant chime as she opened the door, and Maggie said, “Welcome! How may I—” Her eyes fell on Rafiloe. “Oh, you are going to be so late.”

“I’m not,” Rafiloe said, “I just have to get changed and I’ll be ready.”

“You forgot your bling-bling at home again? Gecko, I love you, but this is starting to get crazy. We’re in a game! Just put it in your inventory like a normal person!”

“Shut up, I know, I know,” Rafiloe said, crossing the distance between them by striding up to the counter, only a little stressed and not panicking whatsoever. “All I need is a quick refresher, that’s all.”

“It’s all in my message,” Maggie said. She blinked down at Rafiloe. “Oh, no. Girl, this isn’t high school rethorics class, you’re allowed to read it straight-off! Please don’t tell me this is why you sat up all last night grinding exhaustion resistance like you were about to participate in the Russian sleep experiment.”

Rafiloe considered the pros and cons of lying to her friend. Leaning onto the counter, she decided to let hurry decide. “I kind of don’t have time, so, just, you know… The three points. Please.”

Maggie rolled her eyes, but it was purely theatrical. Leaning back, she checked to make sure she was the only one in the centre. This was indeed the case. Aside from her and Gecko, there were only three other humans who had been caught up in the city. One of them managed the tutorial centre, but she was apparently not in, meaning Maggie could goof off to her heart's content. “Alright, fine. But you owe me one, okay?”

“Thank you. Now, please…”

“Hush, hush, I’m getting to it. Point one, second strongest argument. Humans are banned to participate in organized armed conflicts between nations by the Server Alliance, further rectified to include when it’s for bullshit reasons like Meow-Meow’s supposed ascension. So even if the wall somehow got breached, we’d be good for fuck-all and we’d just end up running anyways.”

Nodding, Rafiloe started taking mental notes. “Bullshit reasons, right.”

“Right. Point two, the weakest one. If he smuggles us out the Server Alliance might reward them.” She clicked her tongue. “Did that guy ever get back to you on that? ‘Cause might is a piss-poor argument. You pull up saying they might get some money for risking their lives to save our sorry butts and they’ll throw you into the trenches.”

“Contravallation,” Rafiloe corrected. “There are trenches too, but the structures you’re thinking of are—”

“Blah-blah-blah, whatever. Big dirt walls. Go down there and your godless ass is toast, you hear me? Anyways, that’s point two—they might give money. If we beg ‘em enough, that is. Though, I doubt we could beg the Server Alliance any more than this other than going down on our knees and…”

“I get it, I get it, just… Point three?”

“Oh, right. Point three, strongest argument. Humans are god-sent warriors here to protect the world from the threat of the god of kings. If they let us die in this petty fucking conflict they’ll be going against the will of the gods. Even more damning—and you really need to sell this part—you’re in the hard difficulty. You’re ten times more valuable than the regular vanilla-variety human, and you need to act like it! I know you want to, but you absolutely can’t go and mention that Oh by the way if you want to leave us to die that’s okay because I no longer have a patron god to give me magic haha because then we’re fucked, you hear me? Capital f!”

“I wasn’t going to,” Rafiloe said, dismissing all thoughts of confessing the truth to the archjudge. Archjudge Gun of Limum, she thought to herself. Archjudge. Your Honor. My Honor? No, Your Honor.

A pit in her stomach made itself known by sending a cramp through her left side, making her buckle over.

“Aw, shit, you good?” Maggie asked, leaning over the counter.

Hand on the counter, Rafiloe stood back up again. “Yeah, I’m alright. I just… Gosh. Thanks for the recap. I’ll report back on how it went.”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Maggie told her. “If he couldn’t smuggle his own family out, I doubt we have any chance.”

“I know,” Rafiloe said. “But it’s worth another shot, right?”

“Right.”

Restraining the urge to puke, Rafiloe left the tutorial center and continued hurrying home. Along the way, she instinctively tried to cast a spell of haste on herself, only to get confused when she wasn’t going any faster than before. Damn it, she castized herself.

The small apartment she shared with Maggie was pretty far from the city center, though not close enough to the walls to be in active danger or anything. Unless they started using more incendiary tactics, that is. Had they done that from the start, she doubted that this whole thing would have been able to go on for as long as it had. 

With the sheer size of the city, nearing seventy thousand inhabitants, it was unlikely the siege could go on for more than a month or two longer. Food was already becoming expensive, and neither she nor Maddie had any points to use for emergency rations. 

It doesn’t have to turn out like Magdeburg, she told herself as she hurried along the steep decline. Tilly didn’t know what he was doing. It was all Pappenheim’s fault, snake whispering in his ear. Besides, the siege before the sacking took way longer. Several months, not just one. Both sides were so exhausted neither could give the other anything but death and violence. We still have food and so do they. But not much longer. It is still winter, after all. Or early spring. Who’s to say?

Shaking the thoughts from her head, she turned into a small alleyway, disregarded the memory of being mugged in that same alleyway a week earlier, and ducked into the tiny doorway leading into their shared accommodations. She fished for her bundle of keys, usually hanging on her belt, only to find it missing. A bead of sweat ran down the side of her face. Anxiously, trying to keep herself calm, she began groping for the keys, because they must be on her belt, that’s where she always kept them, unless someone stole them—

She froze.

…Which someone did do the other week, forcing her to replace all her keys (which had been capital-e expensive) and start keeping her keys…

She pulled the keys from her inventory. Sighing, she gritted her teeth, and unlocked the door. 

It was a very small abode, only really containing a sleeping area for two, a small stove, and a washbasin. Every day she thanked the gods that humans didn’t need to relieve themselves, or else this situation would have been entirely unbearable. With no time to thank them again, she strode through her room and over to her bed, under which she kept her jewelry box. Unlocking it, she allowed herself to spend a few seconds basking in the gleaming perfection of her masterpieces. 

Made out of fully bloodless blutsiek, with easily removable spellstones, hinged joints that ended in sharp, fully functional claws, her murder-gloves were indeed the highlight of her existence so far. Her only regret was that if she ever did grow real claws as she had always dreamed to, then she would no longer be able to wear them. Or, at least, she would have to do quite a few alterations. 

The fantasy of having claws briefly replaced the stress in her head, and she felt herself begin to melt at the thought. Claws… Fangs…

The jewelry box in her hand clinked a little.

Reality did a smash-cut into her brain and she remembered that she couldn’t get claws if she was dead, so she replaced it with the next-best thing and slipped on the rings, carefully undoing the stupid knots that the chains had made. They looked so cool, but the functionality was questionable.

With her jewelry attached, she slid the box back under her bed, rushed out of the house, locked the door behind her, forgot that she locked the door, went back to lock the door only to realize it was already locked, and then rushed off properly, putting the keys in her inventory and not somewhere they could easily get swiped. 

Then, she ran.