Substrate

Vlad sent along a second snippet for our ongoing series! In this excerpt, one of the main characters, Melody, is teaching her rocker boyfriend how to play LukOL.

–

Melody was pretty giddy by the time Monday night came around. She set up her computer on her desk, got her clothes off her chair, found her old, big headphones – the kind that Derek liked to wear – in the closet and plugged them in. Normally, she would play on the bed, slouched over the computer or lying on her stomach, but she didn’t want Derek to quit on her fifteen minutes in because of back pain or something. She briefly considered making or buying a snack, then realized she had no idea what Derek liked to snack on. Anyway, he probably would forget all about food once he got into the game.

He showed up wearing less leather and fewer chains than usual, nodded first, then remembered she liked hugs, and gave her an awkward one. On well, better than nothing.

“So… you studying?” were the first words out of Derek’s mouth.

Melody rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’m working on my Ph.D. right now. Whatever. Studying can come later.”

Derek paused.

“What?”

“Well, um, I sort of ran into your mom…”

“And?”

“She sort of said that you’d better be studying and not playing your game, and that she thinks I should be a good influence on you.”

Melody chuckled. “Wonderful. Did she offer you a reward, too?”

“Huh?”

“You know. For being such a goody two-shoes that you would rather make your girlfriend study than have fun with her?”

“Uh… no?” Derek furrowed his brow, clearly trying to figure out what the right thing to say was.

Melody sighed. “Fine. Here – look – got my textbook out. Now will you sit down and play?”

Derek shrugged, and settled himself into the chair. He inspected the headphones. “They’re an old brand, you know.”

“Uh. Yeah, sorry. I can bring out the ones I usually play with, the newer ones? Sorry, I don’t-”

He was smiling. “Old is not always bad, when it comes to ‘phones. They don’t make these anymore, people think they’re too heavy, and the sound that comes out of them is… real. Not squeaky-clean, like some like these days. I hate squeaky-clean. I love this old stuff.”

Derek very, very rarely said the word “love”, and it was almost always in relation to goth music. It was strange to hear him talk about a pair of headphones this way, like he really cared about the sound and not just the death-hate.

“Um.” To her surprise, Melody found herself not knowing what to say. “You said… you were going to bring some music?”

“Oh yeah.” Derek pulled a flash drive out. “Mind if I plug it in?”

“Go ahead. There better not be a virus on it.”

“Don’t worry, I keep it clean.” He smiled, and she whacked him lightly upside the head. Dork.

Even though she wasn’t wearing the headphones, she could hear, when Derek pressed Play, the piercing sound of a guitar, the up-tempo drums. Derek had switched out death metal for some epic rock. Curiouser and curiouser.

“I thought this would help me concentrate,” he said by way of explanation.

“Okay. Now, remember how to log into your toon?”

“Toon?”

“Your character. The bayan – I mean, the singer of death?”

“Oh yeah. You know, I’ve played computer games before.”

“Fine, maybe if you’re so good at it, I should go hit the books. Be a good little student.”

“I didn’t say that,” by this point, Derek had managed to log in on his Bayan Larsuul, and was back on the Plains of Sorrow. “Okay, so what do I do now?”

“Hold on.” Melody gingerly reached over to the keyboard, and pressed a few keys. The screen filled up with little pop-up windows – charts, tables, even a heat map of the surrounding area. Derek blinked.

“What’s all this for?”

“This is for raid healing. Remember how I was going to show you the ropes?”

Derek furrowed his brow. “I thought you said healing was fun. This kinda looks like my dad’s work.”

Derek’s dad was a financial analyst who was always on time, never a hair out of place, and just sort of oozed boringness. Melody was in dangerous territory if Derek mentioned him.

She reached over again, and made most of the pop-ups disappear. There was just one now, a solid salad-green rectangle.

“Okay, let’s start simple. Walk over to the Training Tree.”

“The what?”

“There.” She pointed at a giant shadow in the distance, easily as tall as a mountain. “It’s um, the Oak of the Golden Chain. Everyone just calls it the Training Tree. You’re pretty low-level, so it will take a while to get there. Just shamble on towards it.”

Derek raised a very skeptical eyebrow, but Melody put on her most earnest face and even opened her Bio book. He sighed, and held down the Up Arrow, mapped to the forward key.

“Wrong.”

“What?”

“That’s called keyboard-moving, or keyboard turning. Slow. People will realize you’re doing it and laugh at you.”

Derek had the “what do I care about people laughing at me” expression on his face, but asked, patiently, “so what do I do instead?”

“Press both mouse buttons like that” – she put her hand over his and gently guided his fingers down – “and just keep holding them. Now you can turn by moving the mouse like so” – she dragged her hand to the left, and his with it – “and strafe like so” – she held down the “A” key and dragged the mouse. “See? Much faster.”

Derek shrugged. The next few minutes passed in silence, as Larsuul mouse-moved towards the gigantic shadow. As Larsuul approached it, the shadow resolved into a trunk as thick as a palace wall. Branches the size of Earth oaks spread out from the main tree body, shrouded in a canopy of person-sized leaves. Wrapped about the immense trunk was a chain of tarnished gold, which shook every once in a while as though an invisible force tugged on it from the other side of the tree.

“Great, you’re here. Now click on the chain.”

A dialog box popped up.

Deciding to skip the confusing directions, Melody guided Derek’s hand to Healing -> Raid. “Now click `Enter’”

The scene changed dramatically. They were now in a castle dungeon, illuminated by flickering torchlight. Several shambling bodies, identified as surrounded Larsuul. And across the dirty dungeon floor, ensconced in shadow, were several Things, red eyes glowing menacingly at the Bayan and his fellows.

“Uh. Now what?”

“See that pop-up?”

The salad-green rectangle from earlier had split into five smaller ones, one for Larsuul, four for his Resurrected Comrades.

“That’s the health bar of you and everyone in your party. When they take damage, left click on it and you will cast a heal.”

“That’s it? Seems pretty boring.”

“Oh, just give it one try. For me.” Melody smiled. “If it’s boring, you can quit anytime.”Melody was pretty giddy by the time Monday night came around. She set up her computer on her desk, got her clothes off her chair, found her old, big headphones – the kind that Derek liked to wear – in the closet and plugged them in. Normally, she would play on the bed, slouched over the computer or lying on her stomach, but she didn’t want Derek to quit on her fifteen minutes in because of back pain or something. She briefly considered making or buying a snack, then realized she had no idea what Derek liked to snack on. Anyway, he probably would forget all about food once he got into the game.

He showed up wearing less leather and fewer chains than usual, nodded first, then remembered she liked hugs, and gave her an awkward one. On well, better than nothing.

“So… you studying?” were the first words out of Derek’s mouth.

Melody rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’m working on my Ph.D. right now. Whatever. Studying can come later.”

Derek paused.

“What?”

“Well, um, I sort of ran into your mom…”

“And?”

“She sort of said that you’d better be studying and not playing your game, and that she thinks I should be a good influence on you.”

Melody chuckled. “Wonderful. Did she offer you a reward, too?”

“Huh?”

“You know. For being such a goody two-shoes that you would rather make your girlfriend study than have fun with her?”

“Uh… no?” Derek furrowed his brow, clearly trying to figure out what the right thing to say was.

Melody sighed. “Fine. Here – look – got my textbook out. Now will you sit down and play?”

Derek shrugged, and settled himself into the chair. He inspected the headphones. “They’re an old brand, you know.”

“Uh. Yeah, sorry. I can bring out the ones I usually play with, the newer ones? Sorry, I don’t-”

He was smiling. “Old is not always bad, when it comes to ‘phones. They don’t make these anymore, people think they’re too heavy, and the sound that comes out of them is… real. Not squeaky-clean, like some like these days. I hate squeaky-clean. I love this old stuff.”

Derek very, very rarely said the word “love”, and it was almost always in relation to goth music. It was strange to hear him talk about a pair of headphones this way, like he really cared about the sound and not just the death-hate.

“Um.” To her surprise, Melody found herself not knowing what to say. “You said… you were going to bring some music?”

“Oh yeah.” Derek pulled a flash drive out. “Mind if I plug it in?”

“Go ahead. There better not be a virus on it.”

“Don’t worry, I keep it clean.” He smiled, and she whacked him lightly upside the head. Dork.

Even though she wasn’t wearing the headphones, she could hear, when Derek pressed Play, the piercing sound of a guitar, the up-tempo drums. Derek had switched out death metal for some epic rock. Curiouser and curiouser.

“I thought this would help me concentrate,” he said by way of explanation.

“Okay. Now, remember how to log into your toon?”

“Toon?”

“Your character. The bayan – I mean, the singer of death?”

“Oh yeah. You know, I’ve played computer games before.”

“Fine, maybe if you’re so good at it, I should go hit the books. Be a good little student.”

“I didn’t say that,” by this point, Derek had managed to log in on his Bayan Larsuul, and was back on the Plains of Sorrow. “Okay, so what do I do now?”

“Hold on.” Melody gingerly reached over to the keyboard, and pressed a few keys. The screen filled up with little pop-up windows – charts, tables, even a heat map of the surrounding area. Derek blinked.

“What’s all this for?”

“This is for raid healing. Remember how I was going to show you the ropes?”

Derek furrowed his brow. “I thought you said healing was fun. This kinda looks like my dad’s work.”

Derek’s dad was a financial analyst who was always on time, never a hair out of place, and just sort of oozed boringness. Melody was in dangerous territory if Derek mentioned him.

She reached over again, and made most of the pop-ups disappear. There was just one now, a solid salad-green rectangle.

“Okay, let’s start simple. Walk over to the Training Tree.”

“The what?”

“There.” She pointed at a giant shadow in the distance, easily as tall as a mountain. “It’s um, the Oak of the Golden Chain. Everyone just calls it the Training Tree. You’re pretty low-level, so it will take a while to get there. Just shamble on towards it.”

Derek raised a very skeptical eyebrow, but Melody put on her most earnest face and even opened her Bio book. He sighed, and held down the Up Arrow, mapped to the forward key.

“Wrong.”

“What?”

“That’s called keyboard-moving, or keyboard turning. Slow. People will realize you’re doing it and laugh at you.”

Derek had the “what do I care about people laughing at me” expression on his face, but asked, patiently, “so what do I do instead?”

“Press both mouse buttons like that” – she put her hand over his and gently guided his fingers down – “and just keep holding them. Now you can turn by moving the mouse like so” – she dragged her hand to the left, and his with it – “and strafe like so” – she held down the “A” key and dragged the mouse. “See? Much faster.”

Derek shrugged. The next few minutes passed in silence, as Larsuul mouse-moved towards the gigantic shadow. As Larsuul approached it, the shadow resolved into a trunk as thick as a palace wall. Branches the size of Earth oaks spread out from the main tree body, shrouded in a canopy of person-sized leaves. Wrapped about the immense trunk was a chain of tarnished gold, which shook every once in a while as though an invisible force tugged on it from the other side of the tree.

“Great, you’re here. Now click on the chain.”

A dialog box popped up.

Deciding to skip the confusing directions, Melody guided Derek’s hand to Healing -> Raid. “Now click `Enter’”

The scene changed dramatically. They were now in a castle dungeon, illuminated by flickering torchlight. Several shambling bodies, identified as surrounded Larsuul. And across the dirty dungeon floor, ensconced in shadow, were several Things, red eyes glowing menacingly at the Bayan and his fellows.

“Uh. Now what?”

“See that pop-up?”

The salad-green rectangle from earlier had split into five smaller ones, one for Larsuul, four for his Resurrected Comrades.

“That’s the health bar of you and everyone in your party. When they take damage, left click on it and you will cast a heal.”

“That’s it? Seems pretty boring.”

“Oh, just give it one try. For me.” Melody smiled. “If it’s boring, you can quit anytime.”

Vladimir Barash is opening up our new blog feature, the Tuesday Tidbit, with an excerpt from his current work in progress, LukOL, a novel in which the real world and the online game of Lukmorye Online intersect in some frightening ways…

–

“Private Ariel.”

“Yes sir.”

“You are scheduled for permanent reassignment to the Remote Combat Unit, as of tonight. Seems Lieutenant Abner’s been impressed with your performance. You are also scheduled for promotion to… sergeant,” the sergeant announced the good news with visible effort, the dour expression on his face making it very clear he thought Ariel was far from ready for any promotion. “The promotion will be in force as of one month from now, barring conduct inappropriate an officer” – here the sergeant’s eyes scanned Ariel head to toe, looking already for any signs of inappropriateness – “or unsatisfactory performance in your new unit.”

“Th-thank you, sir.” Ariel had never quite gotten rid of the stutter.

“Thank you! Hah. Pack your bags, you rat. I’ve got fresh recruits coming in at 2100, and one of them’s going to be taking your bunk.”

Ariel, stunned, slowly raised his hand in salute. The sergeant returned the gesture, whirled about on his heels, and marched out of the barracks. Ariel watched in silence until the other man had gone, then turned to his bunk.

He neatly made up his bed, and got out a traveling backpack his mother had bought him before he joined the Defense Force – a vague memory of home. He checked that he had a spare set of clothes, his toothbrush, a picture of his mother and sister, and his favorite gaming keyboard. Then he reached between the mattress and the base of the bunk, and pulled out a scrappy notebook with a plastic cover, which he’d used to record mob spawn locations, DPS strategies and optimal rotations for LukOL matches. The last few pages had a few hasty scribbles he had jotted down over the course of the last week, after stealing away to the Remote Combat Unit time again, each time afraid that he was about to get caught, that it would be his last. Each time discovering a new way to play LukOL.

A new way to be in LukOL.

Ariel glanced up at the clock. 20.45. He had a little time to review. For the last six nights he’d been dreaming of getting into Abner’s chair whenever he wanted, without having to sneak around; and now, he was being promoted to Abner’s unit, going to spend his days in the same building as that toy. He was going to get permission to use it, and blow away his new lieutenant’s measly DPS records. Best way to do it? Study up.

Abner leafed back to the first entry. It just said, “Dizzy.” That night, he couldn’t even figure out what the device was, or how to play it. He managed to log in, but ended up wandering aimlessly around Kiev as Lamiah, lurching towards whatever he happened to glance at, bumping helplessly into walls and generally making a mess of himself. He remembered a few rude comments in chat, thinking that he was drunk or high. Frustrated, he tore off the device and left, thankfully, without being spotted.

Second entry. “Thoughts. It works by thinking.” This came to him the night after sneaking in, as he was turning over restlessly in his bed. Lamiah was so erratic because she responded directly to whatever was in his mind – whenever he looked at something, it would get into his head, and then she would walk to it. But how? He managed to get access to a laptop later on the second day after exposure (DAE, he named it), and looked up “BCI device.” Turns out, that BCI devices were machines that took the electrical impulses of your thoughts and transformed them into instructions that a computer could understand; if you hooked up a BCI to a computer, you could think thoughts and it would perform the instructions.

Mostly, the devices were used by paraplegics and other people who couldn’t use keyboard and mice and game controllers. Abner’s chair must have been a very advanced version of a BCI device; it was able to take whatever Ariel was looking at in LukOL, and turn that into a “move here’’ command for Lamiah. So, if he could control what he was looking at, he could make her move in a directed way.

Third night, “I can move!!” The dizziness started to go away. He could focus on a door and open it, focus on a bit of road and go there. It was time to try something more exciting.

Four night, “Disaster.” He went to Zmeylair, challenged some newbies… and lost. Badly. First, he tried to focus on one ability at a time; this was way too slow, like mouse-clicking or keyboard-turning. He got laughed at and called retarded. Ariel remembered pursing his lips in frustration and issuing another challenge.

He tried to think about all his abilities at once. Nothing happened. He tried to cycle through them in his mind as fast possible; Lamiah decided to use one at random, then another one. His brain must have not sent out the proper signal. More laughs, more insults. Ariel tore off the devices again and left, vowing never to come back to this waste of time.

Fifth night, “Baby steps.” He couldn’t leave; not if Abner was getting 1000 DPS faster than him. He just hadn’t mastered the new interface yet. Lamiah decided to abandon PVP for the time being, and moved to a lower level zone. With no pressure of imminent death, he found that he could adjust the speed of images in his brain. If he focused on his basic attack, he could move and attack at the same time, and do it a lot faster than with just a keyboard and mouse.

Sixth night, “Took some vengeance out on noobs. This might just be good enough for real PVP.” He decided to make things very simple – use just two abilities, Strangling vines and Servants of Water. This turned out to be plenty for the unskilled players who thought he was an easy mark after the previous night. But it wasn’t the victory that made Ariel happy; it was the fact that he could learn. And the DPS number on his screen – 5100. Nearly at his old level, with just two abilities. He had seventeen more to learn, and he wasn’t going to stop until he had mastered them all in the BCI chair, just has he had with the keyboard and mouse so many months ago. He was going to beat Abner at his own game.