I slowly made my way through the ruins, turning down the only available path once I reached the end of the first corridor. I walked to its end, eyes darting as I desperately tried to avoid being surprised by a creature clinging to the ceiling or camouflaged against the wall or floor. In some games, the tutorial would have at least one surprise attack to let the player know to expect more later.
The second corridor ended with two doorways. The one directly ahead had a once-solid door opened just a crack. The second had no door but was filled with a large pile of stones and broken wood. It looked like the ceiling had caved in above the room's entrance.
It was obvious I was supposed to continue through the ajar door. I started toward it but paused just as I placed my hand on the cracked wood. This wasn't a typical video game. This was a game created by Dev, an AI I was now convinced was the most advanced intelligence on the planet. The game's mechanics, while very game-like, also had to be more advanced. I stepped back and faced the pile of stone.
The blockage was huge, and would take me a long time to get through. How much time would I have before I was back in the real world? What would Dev do if I didn't make it through the tutorial before my shift ended?
A worrying yet slightly exciting thought made me take a step back. Dev was obviously manipulating my senses. Was it possible he could manipulate my sense of time as well? If one hour in the real world was ten hours here, I could spend days playing while my body slumped in my uncomfortable chair. I opened my mouth to ask Dev but slowly closed it instead. He wouldn't answer, and there was nothing else I could do to find out. If Dev wanted me to finish the tutorial before my shift ended, but had no way to make sure that happened, then he might just have to suck it up.
I stepped to the pile of stones, placed my hammer to the side, and tried to pick one up. Each stone was about triple the size of my relatively large head. I knew they would be heavy, but I wasn't prepared for the weight. I grunted and heaved, picking the stone up with a form I'm sure any powerlifter would have grimaced at. I waddled a few steps and dropped the stone a ways from the door. I scratched my head and stared at the dozens and dozens of stones. The pile didn't look to reach far into the room, as if the ceiling just above the door was all that collapsed. Maybe I didn't have to move all or even most of the stones.
I slowly crawled up the pile and peered through the crack to the room beyond. Indeed, I could see the room on the other side. It wasn't large, but I saw a broken table and cobwebbed shelves.
Alright, I just needed to push the stones at the top of the pile and squeeze through the gap. I pushed a stone and it clattered halfway down the pile on the other side before coming to a stop. I pushed another, then another, and another. My breathing was coming hard, and I felt a bead of sweat roll down my temple. This game was truly something else.
Twenty minutes later, I lay gasping on my back, staring at a crack in the ceiling. This was so much more work than I thought it would be. I'd created a sizable gap that someone much smaller than me could fit through, but I was only about halfway from making a gap large enough for myself. The further I got, however, the more rocks I needed to push away, so in reality, I was much less than halfway. I looked at the ajar door, so simple, so inviting.
An anger deep and buried stirred. Instead of stuffing it down and giving up like I would in the real world, I leaned into it. There was no one to hurt here.
No.
I wasn't going to give up at the first sign of difficulty.
I rolled over, the sharp corners of a few stones digging into my side, and I started pushing and pulling the large stones with renewed strength. Forty minutes later, I collapsed, heaving in great, greedy breaths. I had never pushed myself that hard. I lay on the stones for a few minutes longer, waiting until my heart rate had settled to a normal level.
"Alright, Dev. There better be something in that room."
I climbed to my hands and knees and eyed the hole I'd created. I just needed to squeeze through. I crawled to the gap, brought my hands to my chest, and shimmied using my tucked elbows to get my head and shoulders through. My belly scraped the stone, causing the first real pain I'd felt since the game started, but I kept moving. Suddenly, I had more weight on the decline than on the top of the pile. I rolled forward, my heels smacking into the top of the doorway. I stopped near the bottom of the stone pile, my body aching in a dozen places.
"There really better be something worthwhile in here, Dev." I looked down at my stomach and saw a few small spots of blood on my shirt. "Also, if there's some knob you can turn to dial back the pain, that would be great."
I was amazed at how real the pain felt. I couldn't imagine I'd feel anything different had I rolled down a pile of angular stones in the real world. I stood up and looked around the room. It was dim, but enough light came in from the hallway to see old and empty bookshelves standing against one wall and a table broken across the floor. I walked over to the shelves and carefully peered at each. I found a few mildewy piles that I assumed were books that had succumbed to the damp air long ago. Other than that, there was nothing. Frustrated, I combed every inch of the room, looking for any small, easy-to-miss loot or panel that would lead into a secret tunnel, but there was nothing. I looked through everything one more time, certain all of this wasn't for nothing, but that's exactly what I found.
"Fuck me." I looked up at the ceiling to shout curses at my super-intelligent and cruel dungeon master when my eyes fell upon a dark hole leading to a room on the second floor.
"If you have any control over what I find up there, you'd better make it good. Otherwise, I will quit tomorrow, and you'll lose your guinea pig."
I made my way up the pile of stones and peered into the darkness. My eyes took a bit to adjust, but I could just make out a closed door on the other side of the room. While on the pile of rocks, my shoulders just cleared the floor. There was no way I would be able to pull myself up.
I sighed. It looked like I'd need to move more stones. I laughed, thinking of Dev watching me, getting frustrated as I wasted my first play session moving stones around an empty room. If Dev couldn't alter my perception of time, my shift would end soon, and I'd only beat one tutorial enemy. Eh, it was his fault for making any of this possible in the first place.
And thus began my third session of moving stones. I felt like an ancient bodybuilder who had nothing but rocks for weights. In only twenty minutes, I added a couple of feet to the pile under the hole. I could have done it faster, but I wanted to ensure the pile was wide enough to keep from shifting under my weight.
I gingerly stepped up the pile, not wanting to knock any of it over. Now, my stomach just reached the floor of the room. Alright, a small jump and shimmy was all that was between me and getting an epic, hidden weapon that would allow me to slay all my enemies with ease. If not, I would rage quit. Even with Dev's absolute control over everything I saw, smelt, heard, and touched, I'd find a way.
I jumped, my belly slapping against the cold stone. My arms splayed forward, grasping at the smooth, dusty floor. With most of my weight on the ledge, I didn't slide back, and like a beached whale trying desperately to get back into the ocean, I kicked and slid my way into the room.
"Hell yes!" I shouted, pumping my fists into the air. I'd done it. I basked in my success for half a minute and then rolled to my feet. This room was similar to the one below, empty of anything worthwhile, except that this one had a door.
I approached the door, grabbed the rusted handle, and pulled. With an unpleasant squeak, the door swung halfway open, a dark room on the other side. I chuckled in relief. I hadn't just wasted over an hour of my first play session. I just needed my hammer, and I could continue. My hammer… With a sickening realization, I remembered putting it down in the hallway before I'd first begun moving stones.
"Dammit, dammit, dammit!"
I looked through the half-open door and clicked my teeth. I could just go a bit further to see if there was a need first. Maybe it would be a short corridor with a chest at the end, and then I could return.
What if the chest were a mimic, or once I opened the chest, an enemy fell from the ceiling behind me? I still wasn't sure what the death penalty would be, so possibly I'd get some cool item, die, and immediately lose it.
I sighed, heavy and long, then turned and returned to the hole to the floor below. In reverse of how I'd gotten up, I got on my stomach and scooted backward. While I was prepared to need to fall a foot or two, it still came as a surprise. I slid off the edge, landing on my feet and falling backward. I cushioned the fall somewhat with my hands, but my rear still landed hard on pointy stone. If it was possible to get bruises here, I would be mottled black and blue in no time. I shoved a few more stones aside to make squeezing through the door a little easier, crawled through, managed to control my descent down the other side, and retrieved my hammer.
"Let's not do that again." I had no obvious way to strap the hammer to my body, so I tried sending it to my inventory. Nothing happened. "Hmmm, I really thought that would have worked." I opened my inventory and tried again. The hammer disappeared from my hand and appeared in my inventory, taking up three slots.
I closed my inventory and tried to withdraw my hammer with a thought, but again, nothing happened. I opened my inventory a second time and tried withdrawing it that way. It appeared against my palm but fell to the floor when I didn't immediately grip it.
"Good to know."
It looked like carrying a weapon on one's body would give quicker access, but the weapon could still be stored in the inventory. Knowing what was ahead of me, I stashed my hammer in my inventory and crawled through the door for the third time. Getting up to the second floor was just as uncomfortable and slow as before, but with a relieved sigh, I stood before the door I'd labored so hard to find.
"That was entirely too much work."