A Gamer's Guide 401 (Patreon)

I look down. My ding-dong’s gone.

And here I thought I couldn’t feel any more like shit! 

Actually, no, I’m being dramatic. I don’t mind losing it—it’s not like I was using it or anything—it’s just, you know… One thing on top of another! Haha! 

Something gurgles up the back of my throat and I burp, a bit of harsh vanilla finding its way into my mouth. Eugh. Now, let’s see, what should I focus my spiralling on, now? The fact that I did it again? The fact that she’s happy that I did it again? The fact that if I hadn’t fallen through the floor, I might have done something to her, because the way she was looking at me—the sheer joy and gratitude, like I’d saved the whole world—scared me more than any black eyes ever have? Or maybe what happened just now. Because I don’t know what happened just now, but I know, as sure as I know my own name, that I do not want that to happen ever ever ever again. 

…Or maybe I should worry about the fact that I’m—

Gecko deftly pulls her robe over her head and drapes it across my body. It’s warm. 

…I guess that’s one worry less.

Across the hall, Leion and his cronies have apparently decided that, with nothing better to do, they might as well come greet me where I lie in Gecko’s arms. Because, clearly, when someone looks as horrible as I surely look, then they must want company. So they all shuffle over towards me, an uncertain, kind of pitiable look on their faces, like they can’t decide whether to kneel or bow or remain standing. And while I try to figure out if I’m supposed to say something at this point, there’s a clatter from the stairs again, clonk-clonk-clonk, and we all turn to watch as a startling mass of rats fall out, followed closely by some spindly, short-eared goblin, who bounds twice through the air before splatting onto the floor, a cloud of paper sketches exploding out of him to settle gracefully around him. 

Uhuh. 

Right, well, nobody else seems intent on moving, so I guess it’s up to me to fix this matter. 

Patting Gecko on the shoulder, I clamber out of her arms, only stumbling a few times before finally righting. Ah, no, this is worse. This is way worse. My stomach is doing the worm, funky style, and there’s something squishy about my feet. Actually, no, scratch that, it’s my whole body. It’s puffy and when I try to take a step towards the poor guy who fell over—Myrt, stupid name—I find myself falling again, the floor approaching at a steady pace. Hmm. 

Before I take a bite out of the sheer stone below, Leion catches me, his arms trembling as he asks me, very sincerely, “Are You alright, my God?”

Ughh. My body is so heavy. Damn it. When did my bones get replaced with steel beams? This sucks. Thankfully, I’m at least strong enough to jerk a thumb at Myrt, saying, “He needs help more than I do right now,” which is entirely true. Face flushed, he’s begun collecting his pieces of paper, teeth gritted as he pulls them closer on his hands and knees. I didn’t really get far enough to see what exactly is on the pages, but it seems to be charcoal sketches of some kind of monster holding a big fish. Such a talented goblin. 

“Yes, of course, my God,” Leion says, gesturing to two cronies next to him. They quickly infer from his fiery gaze what’s expected, and waste no time assisting Myrt with his gathering. That’s good. Less good would have to be the strange, harrowed look in Leion’s eyes. But I know why that is. I can tell what’s in his brain. I can see it.

Rats. Scurrying rats occupying the clothes previously worn by the verdite and the ambassadors and the archjudge. The violent drunk collapsing into rats, and the gathered officers too stunned to really make any sense of it, left with no escape but the most basic one: running away.

“I did that,” I mutter up at him, wiping some sick from my lips. His grip tightens on me. 

“You…?” He turns his heavy eyes towards me. 

“Not just the verdite and the archjudge. The army outside, too. Everyone not with me is dead. Only scraps remain of the civil populace, the few who had seen me. The few who had hope. Them, and your men.”

His gaze wavers in the midday light. The weight in them shifts, pools, and drops from his eyelids in big, heavy droplets. “Oh. Oh, thank You. Thank You, my God,” he says, and then he presses me into his chest, and he keeps saying, “thank You, thank You, thank You,” and after what feels like hours and hours and hours, finally, he says, as soft as a whisper, as thick as a prayer, “Thank You for this miracle.”

I can’t get out of his grip. I don’t know why. I try to rip open his throat, but when I reach up, I find my fingertips slipping harmlessly across his neck. Huh. That’s odd. That’s very odd. My body is too heavy and his arms are too strong to get out of so I can’t escape him at all, imprisoned within his comfort, forced to attend his sobbing joy.

And I’m not even phasing out of him. Why is that? Why is that? 

Something went wrong. Something went wrong when I came back from the rat pile but I don’t know what. I felt so hungry then like there was a big gaping hole in my stomach but then it exploded and now I’m not hungry at all. Not even the slightest. When was I not hungry last? I feel sick. I feel sick. I feel sick. 

After an eternity held by Leion he finally releases me. “We must let the people know,” he says, his voice full of awe. And he pulls me to my feet, supporting me by the shoulders, but I can’t stand anymore, so I fall over and he has to catch me again, carrying me in a princess carry. I let him. I can’t stop him anyways. 

Holding me in his arms, he carries me out of the castle. His cronies follow us, all reverent and happy. Like I did a good thing, and now I deserve a bit of rest. I saved everyone. Yay. 

A few paces behind, Gecko and Prop follow us, too. She seems worried, but I don’t know why. She’s too far away for me to know. Leion is close enough, though. I know exactly what’s going through his head. If I hadn’t known that, I might have worried he was only pretending to be happy so that I wouldn’t fight or anything, but that isn’t it. 

He is so, so happy. 

But I’m starting to feel a bit tired, which shouldn’t be possible, but I’m too tired to care, so I let my eyelids drift closed, trying not to think about how the locks of hair in my face aren’t black anymore, but a pure, milky white. 

A few minutes later, I’m awoken by a sobering heart attack, and I only barely have enough sense to not scream about it. 

Wh—where am—? Oh. This is… some kind of marketplace, I think? There’s a wooden scaffolding beneath me, and I’m sitting on a throne in the middle of it, and there’s a sea of goblins below, peering up at us. At me. Leion is standing up here too, shouting out to the masses about what has happened, how the city has been purged of all hopeless influences, and that this city will now be known as hope-something and everyone cheers for him, and for me. Because I’ve done such a good thing. I did good. Everyone agrees. 

I wish I still had my claws. Where did they go? I miss them. 

Nobody cares that I can’t move, nor do they care that I’m not saying anything. It doesn’t matter. They aren’t cheering for me, they’re cheering for Me. That’s why, every time they cheer, every time their thunderous voices reach a united crescendo, echoing through the streets as one, it sends a spasmic shock through me, like a defibrillator trying and failing over and over and over to bring me back. But I can’t be brought back. There’s nothing to bring back anymore and the sun is so harsh but at least I’m not naked. It could’ve been worse. Not by much, but, hey, little things, right?

I roll my eyes, but I can’t find Gecko. That’s a shame. I can’t smell her either. Is she dead? That’d be a shame. 

Ah, but, at the very front of this whole stupid thing, I can spot that Myrt guy, frantically scribbling in his notebook. I wonder if he’s writing down what Leion’s saying, or if there's something else going on. Eh. 

You know what? I’m going back to sleep. Maybe it’ll be permanent this time and I won’t have to see anyone anymore. 

I let my eyes drift closed, and in an instant, I’m gone.

“...Kitty…”

Aaaaand now someone’s bothering me again. Great. Amazing. That makes me so, so happy. 

“Kitty, are you there?”

“Ghhh,” groaning, I peek an eye open. Oh, there’s Gecko. Yay. Going by the softness of whatever it is I’m lying on, combined with the window next to me, it would seem that I’m lying on a bed in a room somewhere. I sniff, but I can’t smell anything. Or what I smell is so faint that I can’t tell what it is. How many are in the room right now? My only way of telling is to forcefully turn my head, heavy as a bowling ball, to look the other way. Let’s see, that’s that Prop guy, and that’s the girl who was hanging out with Gecko in that attic. So, there’s four of us in here, then? Ah, no, there’s that Myrt guy again. How does he keep popping up everywhere? Weird. The room I’m in is huge though, so it doesn’t feel crowded even with five people in here. 

I turn back to Gecko. She takes a seat at the end of the bed. Why does she look so worried? I don’t get it. “How, um… How are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” I rasp out.

She chuckles. “Yeah. That’s about how you look, too.”

Across the room, the other girl, Lindsey, starts pacing from one side to the other, chewing her nails as she goes. Prop watches her cautiously, and Myrt only glances up from his scribbling to give us all a cursory look. Okay. 

I turn back to Gecko. “What’s happening?” 

“They’re preparing a banquet.”

“It better not be in my honor.”

She lowers her head, shading her face with the brim of her hat. “I’m sorry.”

“Dang it,” I say, but I still smile, because I’m glad she got her hat back. It means a lot to her, after all. “I bet they’ll be eating the rats. Who cares that they were made with people if the people were hopeless bad guys, right? Eugh. Am I the crazy one here? I feel crazy. Am I crazy, Gecko?”

She doesn’t say anything, but I can tell what she’s thinking. “Sir Gerum suggested it, but Lejon shut him down, saying the rats were god-given or something. I didn’t really catch all of it.”

“God-given,” I parrot. Ew. “He really said that? Gross. Yucky.”

“Well, I mean…” She shrugs where she sits. “You are a god, Kitty.” I want to disagree by reflex, but there’s no use. It’d be empty at best, and a petty coping mechanism at worst. “You can’t really fault people for treating you like what you are.”

“But I don’t like it,” I mutter, like the child I still am. To complete my transformation, I cross my arms, only to recoil at my own touch because my skin is wrong. Too soft. Way too soft. Almost silken. Wrong. Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad.