Fragged, Page 2

  You have successfully created a Tier One community.

  Ah, Tier One, subservience and blissful ignorance. Like children. Sweet, innocent, owned children. Sure they’re Freemen, but is it really the same as freedom?

  You know what? I think the game was actually making a pretty good point on social responsibility in government.

  “Now, who’s ready for some more berry force-feedings?”

  Chapter Four

  -1 Biy Berry

  -1 Biy Berry

  -1 Biy Berry

  You have fed THREE Freemen Biy Berries.

  You have successfully created a Tier Two community.

  Hey look! You unlocked Tier Two, bully for you! Now all future captured Rabids will start at Tier One! Isn’t that great? You can also name them now, you know? Like pets. How does it feel to have human pets? Hmm?

  Renamed Citizen One to Georgia.

  Renamed Citizen Two to Melinda.

  Renamed Citizen Three to Cassandra.

  -1 Biy Berry

  -1 Biy Berry

  -1 Biy Berry

  You have fed THREE Freemen Biy Berries.

  You have successfully created a Tier Three community.

  Oooh, someone’s unlocked the highest level community. I’d say great job, but the thought of that makes me throw up in my mouth. These guys’ll be able to act on their own now, doing what they assume is your bidding while you’re off hunting children in the woods or whatever it is you do to sate your sick appetite. Anyway, all future captured Rabids will start at Tier Two, you know, because you’ve taught the others that it’s for the best if they just fall in line.

  -1 Biy Berry

  You have fed Georgia a Biy Berry.

  You have successfully made a specialist!

  What would you like Georgia to be a specialist in?

  ENGINEER, HUNTER, GATHERER, MEDIC, BUILDER or WARRIOR?

  Georgia has become a Warrior.

  Warrior? Heh, typical warmonger. I wish I had more to say on the matter. I bet you think Vietnam was a great idea, huh?

  -1 Biy Berry

  You have fed Melinda a Biy Berry.

  You have successfully made a specialist!

  Melinda has become a Medic.

  So you forced someone to become a Medic, huh? You do know how stressful it is for them, right? But I bet you don’t care about that, as long they follow your plan for them. You make me sick.

  -1 Biy Berry

  You have fed Cassandra a Biy Berry.

  You have successfully made a specialist!

  Cassandra has become a Gatherer.

  Gatherer? Really? Didn’t pick you for a vegetarian, but I suppose orphan souls aren’t technically meat, huh?

  Would you look at all those specialists? Fun fact, everyone you bring into your community now will start at Tier Three and your specialists will be able to give them orders and automatically assign new citizens to each specialist depending on your community’s needs. Wanna know another fun fact? They don’t need you anymore.

  I know what you’re probably thinking, ‘Jesus Christ that was a lot of game text!’ to which I would say blow it out your arse, this is LitRPG.

  However, if you were thinking more along the lines of ‘Why would the game have a system where you can just force-feed your citizens berries to go up through the Tiers of Domestication?’ and that answer’s a whole lot simpler.

  I don’t know.

  I mean sure you can take the longer route of actually levelling them up by getting them to perform specific tasks and whatnot, and I guess that that would make it so that they didn’t get to the Third Tier without having any discernible skills, but it takes forever.

  Anyway, as much as I wanted to get about to getting more Rabids to fill the specialist gaps of builder, hunter, and engineer, I knew that I had bigger fish to fry.

  “Hey,” I snapped at the three nudists who’d taken to talking amongst themselves, “you three are coming with me.”

  After a few seconds of awkward shuffling the three eventually formed a tight triangle and started following me over to a tree just beside the cabin where I started beating it with my mostly blunt axe.

  Tree: 147/150

  +3 Large Stick (Blunt):

  Durability: 15/15

  Damage: 2

  Removed: Small Rock

  Crafted: Simple Stone Knife

  Durability: 30/30

  Damage: 6

  Description: Used primarily for basic whittling, but it’s really good for getting that gunk out of your eye.

  Removed: 3 Large Sticks

  Crafted: 3 Wooden Spears

  Durability: 20/20

  Damage: 9

  Description: Pointy end goes in thing you want to kill. Or you can go ahead and go all Village of the Damned on yourself, you know, the rake scene. Just gotta find a high enough rooftop...

  +1 Crafting Skill

  Crafting Skill: 2/100

  Level Progression: 50/100

  -3 Wooden Spears

  You have given Wooden Spears to your party.

  Great job on arming your community, really, kudos to you. It’s the mark of a great leader to give people who hate you weapons.

  “Alright then, let’s check out this cabin then, eh?” I asked my cheerful followers who seemed absolutely engrossed with their new toys.

  I always enjoyed that, how happy the citizens got when you did something for them. It didn’t have to be anything big, something as simple as a pair of shoes or a shield was enough to make them start smiling at you every time you passed by.

  It was like having a little family.

  “That’s it…” I muttered to myself as I reached the cabin’s door, “Our community shall be called Little Family!”

  I was met with blank stares and one nosepicker.

  “Yeah,” I let out with a defeated sigh, “still doesn’t beat Boobland. Come on.”

  Chapter Five

  I knew there was no need for it, but I found myself bracing for a combat environment as I opened the door to the cabin, bursting in with my axe held above my head as I quickly scanned the entirety of my cosy, if slightly dishevelled, home.

  There weren’t any enemies though, just a simple bed, a dresser, a fireplace, and what appeared to be a refrigerator but may very well have been an inflated, rusty, white cupboard. Okay, so it was definitely a fridge, sue me for trying to be interesting.

  Following my instincts, I made for the bed and laid down in it for all of two seconds.

  Home Base defined.

  You laid down on a bed and now all of a sudden it’s your ‘Home Base’? Man, conquering new lands just got a whole lot easier. Anyway, you’ll spawn if you accidentally get jerked away from our world and into the alternate… Why bother? If you lose connection ‘cause the electric company doesn’t take food stamps then you’ll wake up here after you’ve given yourself out on the street and earned the dirty money to pay your utilities.

  I was forced to do a little stretch as I got back up, my body apparently aching so much after laying down for so long, and when I was done I turned my attention back to my awaiting citizens.

  “Scavenge. Anything you find you can keep.”

  I know that seems like an awfully kind gesture, but it really wasn’t, it was just easier than having them run up to me every few seconds with some new doodad they found like a proud little puppy.

  Do not make the mistake of thinking I’m nice, I will punch you.

  A few minutes went by with me trying to figure out what I wanted to name the community before the girls finished scavenging, their skin finally covered up with the various clothing options scattered throughout the house.

  “My oh my do you guys clean up good. Now I’m gonna go grab some stuff… and junk. You guys just…” I trailed off as I remembered the more annoying parts of the game.

  “Ugh, fine. Georgia, defend the house. Cassandra go gather some berries and store them in the fridge, and Melinda… just go idle. Stay within a hundred feet
of the cabin though.”

  I wish I’d gotten nods, but instead I just got a few barely noticeable twitches followed up by the gals walking off in separate directions.

  “Yeah… figures.” I said bitterly as I left the cabin.

  As much fun as it was to work with solely AI compadres I can’t deny that I enjoyed doing stuff with people. There was just something about a government system amongst real people all over the world.

  Sure our community was built up mostly of close friends, but we also had our fair share of outsiders in the mix.

  Granted the AI were much less likely to stab me in the back, no pretending otherwise, but the human element really made Thren something that you could sink your claws into for hours at a time.

  “Alright,” I said to myself as I equipped my bow and stormed off toward the forest, “let’s go exploring.”

  Chapter Six

  I got pretty far from the cabin, and I was actually having a pretty good time just looking around too, before I noticed the tell-tale chittering surrounding me.

  “Fuckin’ cellies…” I cursed as I drew my bow and started looking around for the first of my targets.

  Cellies, or if you wanna be technical, coelophysis, nerd, were nasty little, waist-high bastards, their tendency to run in packs only furthering their ability to really mess with your day.

  Also their eyes were creepy as all sin, all big and yellow and… ugh, I don’t like them.

  “Well come on then! Give me your bes-wuh oh, shit!”

  Yeah, turns out dinosaurs aren’t really spooked by overconfidence, they all just charge you at the exact same time when you least expect it.

  Suddenly they were everywhere, five of them, and I made the totally logical and not at all scared decision of tactically retreating the fuck out of there.

  So you’ve met some dinosaurs. Pretty cool, huh? All beady-eyed and teeth, kinda like you, am I right? Anyway, you probably couldn’t take a dino on your best day, so I’d get running back home so you can cry to your mumma.

  I hated proving the game right, hate, hate, hated it, but I wasn’t exactly endowed with a plethora of options at that moment.

  Cellies at my back, God knows what at my front, I was panicking to say the least, and as I came smashing out of the forest and found myself on a dirt road that feeling only got worse.

  And that’s when I heard it, “Los Dos Laredos…”

  Now, when I say that the sound of cellies surrounding me makes me feel like I’m goin’ across the border with weed in the car you better believe it, I’m not one to exaggerate about my fears, in fact more often than not I play them down.

  So I hope that when I tell you that hearing ‘Los Dos Laredos’ sends chills up my spine like Rogue from the X-Men is about to give me a pap you understand the gravity of the situation and that everything I did after hearing it was completely justified.

  I dropped down into a bush and hid like a little bitch, okay? Christ, get off my back.

  The cellies, being the smart yet completely idiotic beauties that they were, ran out into the middle of the road right as the song reached deafening proportions, the massive, repurposed, fully-armed eighteen-wheeler came thundering down the road, collecting three of them on its barbed wire covered bull bar and sending the other two running.

  They were just a couple of RvB fans, nothing wrong with that, but the fact that every server they landed on ended up getting colonic irrigation levels of discomfort from their custom truck that they had a habit of ramming through community gates was enough to make most players server hop the second they heard the song.

  I’m not most players though, and once the danger was more or less gone I decided to turn around and head back to base, setting the road as my imaginary property line, but that’s when the game decided to do something really annoying.

  SERVER (World): A Gold crate has been deployed.

  I spun around, my head on a swivel as I looked for the golden smoke trail, finding it coming down a good forty metres away on the other side of the road.

  A Gold crate, huh? Man, you’re so gonna get killed by everyone on the server. Gold crates are like the… well, they’re gold crates, I’m sure even you can take a stab in the dark and guess what they’re worth. Good luck. Bring lube.

  Chapter

  Seven

  It was hard to egg myself on through the forest with the knowledge that at any moment I could hear the music again and suddenly be a squished pile of nothing. Every instinct built through countless hours in hundreds of videogames told me to slow down, take cover, survey my surroundings.

  But all that took a backseat to my desire, my need, to get whatever was in that Gold crate.

  “Come on, come on, come on…” I whispered as I bounded through the forest like an Apache warrior chasing down a Colonial.

  My blood was burning, my stomach turning, my arms sweating… Anyone else feeling like spaghetti?

  “Stay back!” a voice roared from just ahead of me, making me come to a complete stop and drop to the ground.

  “If there’s anyone out there just stay back! Are you sure it’s a-”

  “Would I joke about that!?” a second, slightly more prepubescent voice squeaked back.

  Again, instinct normally took over, but the allure of the Gold chest was undeniable and I soon found myself crawling along on my belly toward it.

  “What are the chances?”

  “I don’t know, I really don’t know. And you’re sure it’s really… it?”

  I was finally in view of the two players, blue sweatsuit wearing, AK47 toting, teenage boys looming over the open crate, a golden glow coating them as whatever it was they were looking at was obstructed from view.

  I just hate MacGuffins, don’t you?

  Anyway, as the two looked over what I can only assume was the soul of Marsellus Wallace I drew an arrow and got ready to loose it on the older of the two, figuring that he was probably the brains of the operation, but stopped as I heard a rumbling.

  If you had a glass of water you could’ve probably guessed what’s a-comin’.

  “Oh no…” I groaned, vibrations rippling through my body as the deep roar rocked through the forest.

  I wasted no time in getting to my feet and preparing to make a break for it, but the dipshit twins seemed to have something lodged in their brain that made them think they could two V one a t-rex.

  “Idiots!” I said a bit louder than I meant to, earning me a few shocked looks through the cover of the trees before I spun on my feet and ran back toward the cabin.

  The thought to go in for the Gold crate didn’t even cross my mind for so much as a second as the two who’d found the glorious thing first were ripped to pieces by a giant, excitable carnivore.

  Do I wish that I’d taken a risk? Yeah, but it’s much easier to say that after the fact, you know?

  The gift of hindsight is a cruel blight on humanity, and the day they start handing out memory removal I’ll be the first in line, but for the time being I’ll just stick with wallowing.

  Chapter

  Eight

  Once I’d gotten myself well and truly out of the hunting grounds of the big ol’ scavenger I decided to ease up my pace, taking to a bit more exploring and thinking.

  “See, where we went wrong last time was by having a proper ‘community’,” I said to myself to try and stave off the loneliness I felt, “the whole gated suburbia thing doesn’t work. Too open, too inviting, too… friendly.”

  I realise that it probably wasn’t in my best interest to wander around the woods talking to myself, probably drew in all kinds of undesirables who decided I just wasn’t worth the effort, but it’s just something I do.

  I find comfort in hearing words, any words. It makes me feel like I’m a part of something bigger than myself.

  Perhaps that’s why I never found religion…

  Would you look at that! You’ve found yourself some iron! Won’t that make some great shackles for your little slave society?
>
  “Iron?” I asked the air as I looked around, “What iron?”

  My feet were rooted in place, but my head was on a gyro, looking every which way in the hopes of spotting the little black rock speckled with grey.

  “There’s no iro-oh… right.”

  Let’s just say in that moment I was glad that I didn’t have any players hanging about, mostly because the fact that the obvious hadn’t occurred to me straight away.

  You see, the game has this weird thing where it assumes that line of sight includes directly below your feet, not in a radius or anything, just straight down.

  At first people sent in complaint after complaint, but when the guys responsible for writing the kind of narration on display for item descriptions get players whinging at them about something as trivial as a viewport glitch they… well, after a week of ‘punishment’ we players decided that we’d just live with the apparently ‘unfixable’ bug.

  Anyway, opting to go ahead and save the durability of my tools, I starting digging down with my bare hands, quickly filling my inventory with stacks of the stuff that I quickly dumped before it could become a proper nuisance, but not before the ol’ faithful narrator could jump in with his excellent advice.

  +10 Dirt:

  Description: High in nutritional value. Start eating handfuls of it now and I guarantee that your skin will be more radiant than ever.

  It took about a minute than it should have to reach the metal I needed to really kick things off for my community.

  Even though I’m me, I can’t deny that I smiled like the world was made of gumdrops and fairy floss as I looked over the iron ore, admiring the subtle glints from the sunlight overhead.

  After a few seconds of googly eyes I finally whipped out my axe and went to work, smashing the ore until it was all but dust, my stamina bar reading naught as I stood over it heaving, waiting for the +5 Iron Ore to pop up.

  No such luck I’m afraid.

  Great job there Bessie, you’ve gone ahead and smashed a perfectly good resource into nothing. Guess what? We have pickaxes for a reason. Try to remember that next time you find some of the most important stuff in the world.