Chapter 3

  "No, I don't think the receptionist would get a 40 year old movie reference." Joan groaned as she inspected the stale bread and chowder sitting on the table in front of her. Her eyes seemed to be calculating whether the food was more insufferable than her partner. Despite literally having an ability called Read the Room, it currently did nothing to help me with social cues. It would only kick in if I had messed up so badly that my conversation partner wanted to literally harm me.

  "Ghostbusters is timeless!" I snapped back, so defensive of the cinematic classic that I missed Joan's point entirely. "Are you the Gatekeeper?"

  With an eyeroll Joan countered, "It's not a matter of whether the movie is a classic. Did you forget where we are?" She exasperatedly gestured to the surroundings.

  At that moment, we were killing time inside what could only be described as A Tavern from Moby Dick... Were they called taverns? Inns? For the sake of me not having a copy of Moby Dick in my inventory, I decided to stick with tavern. Anyway, everything looked old and made out of wood. Nothing was comfortable. The occupants looked like they'd be filler characters to attack Popeye while Bluto tried to get freaky with Olive Oil. Everything smelled and tasted like that salmon you brought home in a doggy bag two weeks ago, and kept telling yourself you'd eat it, but you never did, but then you got super high one night and it was too late to order take-out so you ate it because it was literally the only thing in the fridge... You know the smell and taste.

  The only exception to the rustic look of the tavern was...

  "If they have Ms Pacman, I'm sure there's a chance they have heard of Ghostbusters."

  Amidst all of the two-century-old stylings of the tavern sat a Ms Pacman arcade cabinet in the far corner. It was plugged into an outlet on the wall, which was puzzling since electricity didn't seem to be a thing in the rest of the establishment. Inconsistencies seemed to be the only consistent thing in this world we had been involuntarily thrust into.

  The only response I received from Joan was an annoyed sigh and her choosing to stuff her face with the disgusting food rather than keep the conversation going.

  Thanks Read the Room, you are worthless.

  "There is no Dana, only Zuul!"

  "Yeah, I got the reference the first thirty times. You could have just said I didn't realize this world had gatekeepers too, like a normal person. Come on, Clay. Focus."

  My stomach tightened. Not because of the really questionable seafood I was eating, but because I realized my tangents had annoyed Joan. It's one thing if we were both participating in playful banter, but her tone made me realize that the playfulness was one-sided.

  "I'm sorry." I wanted to tell her that when I get anxious I say anything that pops into my head, and because of the way my brain works, that includes a lot of random topics and references. But the fact didn't make me any less unbearable.

  As usual, the silence following my tangents crossing a line seemed never en....

  "Why do you think we weren't able to get in to see the mayor?" Joan spoke almost immediately after my apology, completely shattering my expectations of impending social awkwardness. "I mean, I know what the receptionist said, but this is a game, right? You know the rules better than me. What sort of things would cause an NPC to be locked away?"

  My eyes opened wide, not just because she brushed off my negative quirks, but because her question pointed out something so obvious. As someone who had spent most of their life with my nose buried in video and table-top games, I should have been the one to try to apply game logic to this world. Instead, Joan had to bail me out for my shortcomings. To say I was grateful for her company would be an understatement.

  "In video games, there's usually a trigger that needs to be activated if an NPC is blocking your progress. It's not too different from table-top games, but usually the GM would find more creative ways to railroad the party to the stuff they need to know or do."

  "Railroad?"

  "The best and worst part of table-top RPGs is that the party can do nearly anything they want. Obviously there are limitations based on stats and such. But as fun as that can be, the GM has a specific plot they are trying to establish, and if the party is too random the entire campaign can leave the plot altogether. So the GM will sometimes railroad the party to the plot points, meaning they kind of force feed the linear progression of the plot, like how a train can really only travel on the tracks that are laid out for it. A lazy or completely fed up GM might railroad the party by doing something obvious like forcing an encounter. But there are less overt ways of doing it. Like... Imagine if we walked into this tavern to get information, as the GM I give the description of the tavern by glossing over everyone in the bar and hyper focusing my description on a very over-the-top pirate at the bar in gaudy clothes loudly drinking his ale. Who would you have your character approach?"

  "Obviously the pirate. Everyone else just seems like filler characters."

  I flagged down a waitress, "Could I get another beer?" She nods and walks off.

  "It doesn't happen in plays so much, because typically only important characters are on the stage, but what you're describing is pretty common in other forms of writing. The writer will create generic characters to fill out the scene so it doesn't seem so empty, but any important character gets details that make them stand out." She was interrupted by a drunk man stumbling and bumping our table.

  "Exactly. In stuff like books and movies, and I guess plays since you keep acting like they still exist, the audience is on a set path so there really isn't any choice they have to make. But in interactive media like games, the players have a choice which can carry them away from the plot. But a good storyteller in interactive media can insert things to create the illusion of choice. That's railroading... Although sometimes the illusion of choice isn't very subtle."

  "Hey, are you the ones who were lookin' fer Mayor Night?"

  Following the source of the gravely voice, I find a giant bare chested man covered in tattoos standing over the table. Despite the rest of him being overwhelmingly intimidating, his smile erases any possibility that he is nefarious in any way.

  "We just came from his office. The receptionist turned us away." Joan responded, hopeful to find more information.

  "Aye. You won't find him much at these hours. He makes himself scarce until usually just an hour or so before sunset. If you ask me, I think he's up to no good. What kind of mayor does most of his business at night?"

  A man at the entrance to the tavern speaks over the crowd, "Hey Ray! Quit yer yappin'."

  "Sorry, it looks like I need to go. Hopefully that was helpful. If you find yourself lost, you can find me around. Just ask for Ray Elrode." The large friendly man quickly turned and made his exit, not leaving any time for either of us to respond.

  "He seems nice. What were we talking about?" I asked, completely distracted from our previous conversation by the chance encounter.

  "It's not important anymore, but if what he says is true, we have a few hours until we have any chance of meeting up with Mayor Night." Joan took a bite of her chowder, immediately regretting it as her face twists in disgust. After a moment, she composed herself. "Any ideas what we should do in the meantime?"

  Maybe this was the perfect time to finally discuss that. If I were being honest with myself, we should have dealt with this issue much sooner, but in a rare moment of transparency, I admit I was afraid. It was easy to keep kicking it down the road, but after the situation with Riff, I came to a realization that putting it off for too long might be deadly in one way or another.

  "Actually, I think instead of blindly searching the town, I think we should review stats and abilities. Maybe we can come up with some strategies."

  Now that it was out there, I had to hope for the best. There was nothing preventing Joan from refusing to disclose her information. And even if she appeared to volunteer her stats and abilities, there would be no way of immediately verifying if she had told me the truth. I needed to trust her.

  No, that's not true. I did know something... Or at least, I was nearly certain of something. My mind immediately flashed back to the incident earlier that day with Riff. When I had sensed the killing intent from Joan, she gave something else away. While I didn't know specifics, I could at least get a good idea of verifying her honesty. If she included the thing that I am suspecting, then I should be able to trust everything she reveals.

  I summoned my notebook into my hand, brandishing my pen as I opened to a blank page. "Let's start with your skills. Read them to me, and I'll copy them down for future reference. You've already said you don't know much about gaming, so I would guess that you don't fully understand what they do."

  With a raised eyebrow Joan summoned her journal, she opened the brown leather-bound book to the first page. Although I couldn't see it well from where I was sitting, it didn't really matter since the page would only show itself to me as some sort of glitch. "You know, I might be jinxing myself, but it's actually kind of creepy when you get all serious. I'm more used to the insufferable idiot."

  "I can be more insufferable if you like." I smirked before continuing, "I can't really control it, I wish I could. Some times it's easy to focus and be serious, other times my head's all over the place. If I'm really trying to solve a puzzle, my mind usually clears up pretty well, like it knows I need to focus. Just think of Dr House, but much less witty and significantly worse paid."

  "You really like comparing yourself to Sherlock, don't you?" She says, returning my smirk. My eyes open wide as she surprised me with her pop cultural knowledge. The character of Gregory House from the show House MD was based off of Sherlock Holmes, in fact it was easily my favorite portrayal of the unhinged brilliant detective. Did she have a greater knowledge of pop culture than I had realized, or was it simply because House was directly associated with Sherlock Holmes and therefore connected to the realm of literature.

  "Is it wrong to want to follow in the footsteps of your idols?"

  "If they are fictitious narcissists... Yes." Once again proving in the battle of wits, Joan was the sharper of the two of us, I found myself at a rare loss for words. I might have a quick wit, but Joan had a gift for finding the exact things to put me in my place. It would have been disadvantageous to fail to make a note to use her sharp wit to its advantage in interrogations.

  "Do you want me to read you my skills, or not?" Joan added, dragging us back to the original conversation. He willingness to get the train back on the rails made me much more optimistic that she would be honest.

  As she spoke, I wrote them down in my journal.

  Critic

  Allows user to see the statistics of another player/monster.

  Increase level to see their skills.

  Level 1

  Elevator Pitch

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Once per 24 hours, user gets 3x normal persuasion on a single target.

  (Argument must be under 30 seconds or the attempt fails.)

  Increase level to increase allowed length of argument.

  Level 1

  Bohemian Hunger

  User requires 50% the average food to maintain normal health.

  (200% vulnerability to becoming sick.)

  Level MAX

  Death March

  Once per investigation, double STR CON and DEX base for 24 hours.

  (After skill period, all user's stats are 50% until user gets 12 hours of sleep.)

  (Resets on completion of investigation.)

  Level MAX

  Ramen Chef

  Instant noodles prepared by user give +5 buff to STR CON and DEX for 2 hours.

  (Once per 24 hours.)

  Increase level to allow improvised ingredients to add special bonuses.

  Level 1

  Opening Night

  Once per 2 hours.

  User has a 50% chance of compelling nearby NPCs to fill current room to capacity, or repel all NPCs from the current room.

  (Only includes non-combatant NPCs and NPCs not currently in combat.)

  Level MAX

  Pen is Mightier

  Raise weapon affinity and damage by 50% for small sharp improvised weapons.

  Example: A pen

  (Improvised weapon is indestructible when used by user.)

  Increase level to increase % buff.

  Level 1

  There it was. With Joan's inclusion of the skill Pen is Mightier, any tension immediately left me. I hadn't even paid attention to the previous skills, simply jotting them down in my journal as she read them off to me. My mind had been entirely focused on the existence of this ability.

  In the moment when I had jumped between her and Riff, connected to her hostile intent, I had also noticed the instrument gripped in her hand. At that time, there was no doubt that she had intended to use the item as a weapon against Riff, even though the item was far from an ideal choice. It was her journal pen.

  My suspicions were that Joan had some sort of ability that related to attacking with her pen. Pen is Mightier met every qualification of his suspicions and more. While the increased likelihood of Joan's honesty was a relief, there was also an element of unease that came with the existence of this ability paired with Joan's actions.

  Just how far was Joan planning to go if I hadn't stopped her from attacking Riff?

  "There's one more." Her voice cut in over my thoughts. Although my own mind was torn between relief and concern, her own face showed a deep confusion of her own. "The other ones are weird, but I think I understand most of what they do. This last one..."

  "No need to worry, just read it off to me and I'll break it down for you along with the others." Thinking the final ability likely contained language that wouldn't make sense to someone with no gaming experience, he didn't give it much concern.

  Not fully convinced, Joan tentatively read the final skill. Little did I know that her confusion and concern were warranted. The implications of this final skill raised infinitely more questions than it could possibly answer.

  Character Sheet

  Once per investigation, user can roll stats for an unassigned player character. Stats are directly linked to dice rolls and cannot be rerolled.

  Skills/Abilities not included.

  Level up to include minimal ability allocation.

  Level 1

  My pen stopped, my brain trying to wrap itself around what Joan had just relayed to me. Unless I was completely misunderstanding the meaning of this skill, it had extremely limited use. In fact, as far as I was aware, it had only one useable scenario, and only one player in the game would possibly fit the requirements. But what did this mean? The only way that made sense was...

  "That skill is specifically for me."

  As +h3 /\/u11, I was the only character that would be considered unassigned. As far as I was aware, I had no assigned stats. Was this skill created so that I would be reliant on Joan? But if I wasn't intended to be a part of the game, why would she have a skill that would otherwise be worthless?

  "What does it mean?" Joan could sense that I at least had an idea what the skill was for.

  "I can't say for certain until we use it, but I think it's designed to create my character stats. The first thing anyone does in an table top RPG is create their character which means completing a character sheet. Typically it involves a lot of math, researching the player guides, and working with the GM. The bare minimum is rolling to assign attributes to the character. But this skill says it only works for an unassigned player. So, if they already have stats, it wouldn't work..."

  Joan's eyes opened in recognition, "Your weird stats page. You're the unassigned character it mentions."

  "The one and only, if I understand it properly," I nodded, still reeling from trying to understand the situation, "But if I'm not supposed to be here, who would have created a skill like this? And why? It seems redundant."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I could have much more easily been just given stats like any other player. The skills adds an extra step. And not just that..." I tried to work it out in my head as I talked, not finding any real answers, "It would be one thing if I had the skill, because it involves my stats. But you have it. I wasn't supposed to be here, and even if I was, you and I aren't a couple like the other passengers, so why would it assume we'd automatically work together?"

  "But we are working together... Aren't we?"

  Joan's matter-of-fact response caused my heart to skip a beat and my cheeks to redden. From what I understood about this ability, I needed her. She could abandon me at any time and still function, but if I lost her, I might be dead in the water. To have her so flippantly assume they would stick together was heartwarming, but also did little to quell the very real fear of having to fully trust someone. Especially someone who up until less than a day ago had been a complete stranger.

  What would happen if I didn't have Joan use her skill? If we faced combat, would I be completely helpless? Although I had purposefully avoided sharing the sole ability that I had acquired out of thin air, I was well aware that the ability was passive and did nothing to attack or defend against foes.

  "I think we're just spinning our wheels if we don't actually test this thing out. Besides, I'd be lying if I didn't say that I'm more than a little concerned about running around with error for my stats."

  "I'm not disagreeing with you, but how do I even use this thing?"

  Since I didn't have any abilities that would require activating, I didn't have a way to personally check. The best I could do was wrack my brain to guess. "Is there a button next to the ability in your journal?"

  "Nothing, it just lists the abilities and levels. Nothing else."

  "How about extending your hand toward me and saying the name of the ability? That's how we summon the journal. It's fairly common for a spell to require an incantation, so maybe saying the skill name is kind of like that?"

  Taking my suggestion, Joan extended her hand toward me, "Character sheet!"

  At her command, three six sided dice and a basic character sheet appeared on the table between us. The dice were cold and glasslike, an almost opaque smokiness filled them shifting as if filled with miasma. The numbers on the dice glowed with a reddish fury, seeming to peer into my soul.

  "Alright. This is much more analog than I expected, but those dice are equally badass and traumatizing. I think that one die is judging me for taking an extra slice of pizza at the company pizza party four years ago. And damnit, Pam did it first so why shouldn't I?!"

  "You've gotten off track again, Clay. Focus." Joan scolded as she picked up the dice and inspected them.

  "Sorry. So, if this is Call of Cthulhu rules, we'll need to roll all three D6s and multiply their total by five to get each stat. So the lowest you'd have is fifteen and the highest is ninety. The first we'll roll for is..."

  "My journal says to roll all three and take the total, not to multiply by five." Cutting me off mid explanation, Joan corrected me.

  I took a moment to process what she told me. To be honest, I'd had my suspicions since I first looked at my glitched stat sheet. My stats matched more traditional table top role playing games, not Call of Cthulhu. That made things even easier.

  "Alright, so our stats are much more in line with basic table top gaming. That'll be much easier to explain to you once I start looking at your personal stats. So roll the dice when you are ready, the first three will be my strength stat unless the journal says otherwise."

  I watched anxiously as Joan shook the dice in her hand and rolled them onto the wooden table. A one, a two, and a five. "Eight. That's a pretty rough strength stat, but I've never been a muscle head anyway."

  "I'd say sorry, but it's random." Although her words sounded worried, her tone didn't show much concern.

  She rolled a second time. "This will be my dexterity." Not wanting to jinx it, I didn't voice my opinion, but if this roll went poorly I would have a very hard time in any combat situation. If I couldn't rely on strength, and since I didn't have any abilities to use intelligence or wisdom, dexterity was my saving grace. It also would better fit my actual physical build since I spent most of my physical fitness time at rock climbing centers and obstacle course gyms. I realized after constant ridicule from people around me that those fitness choices made me the butt of more than a few jokes, but I honestly always had fun doing it. Since childhood, I've always had the impulse to climb almost anything set out in front of me.

  The sound of the dice clacking across the table brought my focus back to the task at hand. They rested in front of me.

  With huge sigh of relieve, I grinned at the results. "Three sixes. A perfect eighteen. I'd love if you can do that with the rest of my rolls, but I appreciate this one. Next should be constitution." Another massively important stat if I wanted to be able to survive, but at least with high dexterity I'd be able to dodge attacks much easier than the average person.

  "Constitution? So like defense?" Joan offered as she rolled once again.

  A one, a three, and a six. "Exactly. And ten isn't bad at all, I'll definitely take it over something much lower. The next two are intelligence and wisdom. Best explanation I ever heard is intelligence is knowing tomato is a fruit, wisdom is knowing it doesn't belong in fruit salad. I'm not sure how they'll work with the investigation system, but we'll see."

  A three, a three, and a four. "Another ten. So that's good, right?" Joan says half as a question, and half as a weak attempt to lift my spirits.

  Wisdom next. A six, a five, and a one. "Awesome, I'll take it. So that just leaves... Charisma."

  A three, a one, and a one. "I mean five is better than my real life charisma, so I'll take it."

  "The lowest possible is three, and judging from the little I know about how this all works, you're at best a two in real life."

  Daggers through my heart, mostly because, "That's painfully accurate. I won't argue, as much as I wish I could."

  So after all of the dice rolls, my stats looked like this:

  STR: 8

  DEX: 18

  CON: 10

  INT: 10

  WIS: 12

  CHA: 5

  "Does the journal give any direction for rolling my sanity stat?" Glancing at my journal, the undefined next to sanity still gave me nightmares.

  Joan flipped back and forth across a few different pages in her journal before looking back and shrugging. "Nope. Nothing at all." She looked back at her notebook, a look of concern showed on her pale face. "So... I don't know if I understand how this works. Are you sure your stats aren't that bad?"

  "What do you mean?" Her quick shift in demeanor gave me pause. What did she see that brought this about?

  "My numbers are different. I mean, they're not even in the same universe as yours."

  Joan grabbed her pen, tore out a blank page from her journal and wrote the following:

  STR: 21

  CON: 26

  DEX: 34

  APP: 98

  INT: 90

  POW: 99

  EDU: 92

  LUCK: 84

  Once again, I was left reeling as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. Immediately an answer came to mind, but it raised even more questions that I thought had been answered already.

  "First, those look like stats from Call of Cthulhu. Think of them as a completely different language from my stats. Second, holy shit... Aside from physical stuff, your stats are insanely good." My eyes widened more each time I looked over her stats. "But, most likely it means... You and I are playing different games."

  If she had been a cartoon character, it would have been impossible to show her current expression without drawing a massive question mark over her head. To be fair, my cartoon version would have steam coming out of his ears, so we were both in a sad state.

  "What does that mean? I'm not saying that as... I guess I mean... Both within game rules, and in a bigger sense. What does that MEAN?" At that moment, I had never felt more connected to Joan. Our minds were both working overtime. We were the personification of that meme where there woman looks confused with a whole bunch of numbers and equations imposed in front of her face. You know the one.

  I didn't have an answer, but I couldn't just stay silent either.

  I needed to find something to bring me closer to the truth... I needed a path.

  The facts:

  1) Something claiming to be Azathoth told me I was not a part of this game

  2) My stats/abilities in my journal were nothing but errors

  3) Joan's skills include an ability to give me stats from nothing

  4) My survival relies on Joan's repeated support

  5) The stats created appear to be from a completely different game

  Conclusion:

  ...

  ???

  If I stripped away everything that's impossible...

  All that's left is...

  Even if it's unlikely...

  It's the only possibility, right?

  "Joan, hear me out. My inclusion in the game isn't a mistake made by that god. I mean if nothing else, I don't really believe that god is capable of making a mistake this massive... You know, the whole Deity thing. So some other party purposefully brought me here. They want you and I to stay together, or at least they want me to stick to you... Otherwise my stats would be erased after an investigation with no foreseeable way to fix them. I don't know what they think we are capable of, or what their goal even is... But we are the key."

  The entire time I spoke, Joan absorbed my words, connecting the same dots as me.

  "Or I'm just a pointless pawn in some unknown party's practical joke."

  Joan groaned loudly... But I wasn't done.

  "But if a pawn can reach the other side of the chess board, they can become absolutely anything, except for the king. So even if I'm their pawn, that doesn't mean I can't make things miserable for absolutely everyone. I might be an occasionally suicidal individual with more mental disorders than most people have even heard of. I might have had the two people I loved most in the world betray me in one of the worst ways imaginable. I might have recently realized that pretty much all of my friends were just mutual friends of the two who betrayed me. I might be mediocre at my job. I might be a little too obsessed with pop culture, especially regarding Japanese and gaming culture. I might..."

  "Focus!"

  "Right... Ummm..."

  You know that move in Naruto? The one where Sasuke's brother traps you in some sort of shadow world and stabs you repeatedly or something. Where no time passes in the real world but time inside the technique seems to take forever? I can't remember the name of the move or how long it was supposed to feel like it took for the person trapped inside. Maybe I'm even remembering it wrong, but maybe you at least understand where I'm coming from. If I'm completely wrong and this isn't a thing, it definitely should be. That would really suck getting stuck in something like that. Right? Anyway, the moment after Joan told me to focus, until I was able to remember what I was even talking about... That was the eternity of pain I experienced inside of Naruto's friend's brother's special technique.

  "I really am the worst, aren't I?"

  "Clay, for a second there I almost thought..." Joan paused for a moment, weighing her options. "But, yes, you're right. You are the worst."