Well, in order to fully explain the situation—mainly, why I was hidden inside a small wooden outhouse that was little more than a glorified bench over a hole in the ground, hastily turning my pockets inside-out—I should start this story shortly before I died.
I was en route to an out-of-state Renaissance faire, and it was earlier in the morning than I'd normally be functional. My car—a mid-sized four-door silver sedan my parents bought for me two years prior as a High School graduation gift—was filled with just about anything I might need for the three-day weekend away. Stuff like camping equipment, toiletries, emergency kits, food and drinks, changes of clothes, accessories for my costume, and even my HEMA—Historical European Martial Arts—fencing gear.
Between adventures with my friends in the SCA—Society for Creative Anachronism—and the sheer number of ren faires I attended, I had long since ironed out a robust checklist of what was useful to bring. Although excessive for my needs alone, my overpreparedness earned me some fast friends on more than one occasion. Which, in turn, yielded random favors in return, plus invitations to the weirdest things.
That's how I found out that Viking LARPers—Live Action Role Players—threw the wildest parties. For instance, for my 18th birthday, a group of them not-so-legally managed to get me blackout drunk off of mead, and I supposedly won an axe-throwing contest during the process.
Ahem.
Independent of the checklist, my HEMA gear lived in my trunk near-permanently, the main exceptions being during maintenance or active use. Few things compare to the satisfaction earned by the times I overheard a braggart exaggerate his battle prowess, or upon being taunted for using a foam sword with my costume, so I fetched my live steel épée and jabbed some sense into them.
For those unfamiliar, épées are a type of thrusting sword evolved from the rapier. Long ago, I mounted a rubber safety tip on mine for sparring—it's damaging enough to wound their ego, no need to make them bleed out, too.
Ah, sorry, I've really digressed. Where was I…?
Right, so, alive, early morning, in my car, driving.
An important thing to note is that—although the sky was clear at the time—a sizable thunderstorm made a mess of things the night before.
By the time I reached that particular stretch of road, previous traffic had cleared the bulk of the lanes through brute force, but the edges and shoulder still had a decent amount of residual sand, dirt, and debris.
There were two lanes in each direction, and I was in the rightmost one, disrespecting the speed limit by only five or ten miles an hour. You know, cruising speed.
Considering it was basically a straight line with no cross traffic for such a long distance, the only locals who entertained the state speed limit were self-conscious about something illicit in their trunk… and, typically, not even then. The sheer number of people who passed me despite the hour—plus the too-close car behind me, seemingly hellbent on crawling up my ass far enough they could adjust my stereo—were living proof.
A car slowly—eh, slow might not be the appropriate word, more like barely faster than me—caught up alongside me. It seemed that they didn't really need to be in the left-hand passing lane, but so be it, as long as they stayed in their lane.
If only.
When they were about eighty to ninety percent parallel with me, they drifted so much that their tires kissed the white dashed line between us for far too long before they eventually shifted back to the left.
I shot the driver a brief, dirty look—they should have easily noticed that I was right there throughout the time it took them to gradually pull up next to me, as long as they had paid even the tiniest bit of attention.
Lo and behold, it was some guy who was texting while driving.
As tempted as I was to hit my horn, it likely would've startled him into veering into me even harder. Besides, he made me so uncomfortable that I wanted to keep both hands on my steering wheel to react as stably as possible.
Although I wanted to slow down to give him plenty of room, the jackass behind me would've been in my passenger seat the moment I eased off the gas. And speeding up would've given them what they wanted, so that was out of the question. I bet they would've just closed the gap immediately, anyway.
Since Mr. Wiggles was wandering again, I tried to give him as much space as I could by angling toward the shoulder.
Right into a patch of wet sand and gravel.
Upon sensing something was off, I reflexively tried to course-correct and overcompensated. Aware of said overcompensation, I attempted to offset it… and ended up overcompensating in the other direction.
I was halfway off the highway faster than I could regain any control worth mentioning.
Past the shoulder was a ditch with a patch of grass as a buffer before a forest.
However, at the speed I was going—combined with my car's reduced traction from the crud that still clung to my tires—instead of decelerating by driving into the dip, I became airborne over it, which rendered my brakes useless.
Time seemed to slow, and my primary lucid thought was, 'Screw that guy.'
By the time my tires touched the ground—only two of them, as the car had tipped—I was too close to the treeline to stop safely. Certainly stopped in record time, though, courtesy of my collision with a tree.
Upon impact, pain surged through my entire body, but it was short-lived before my senses were overwhelmed.
Strangely enough, I remained vaguely conscious.
The nearby crunching of metal, the sounds of the other cars that drove past, the metallic taste that filled my mouth, and my full-body ache all seemed incredibly distant, but weren't completely gone.
My vision, however, was pitch black.
A muted tinnitus replaced what little I could hear for a few seconds, and then, complete silence.
As I wondered if that was the end, pinpricks of golden light appeared directly ahead of me. They formed one letter at a time in a plain font, reminiscent of an early-generation computer terminal.
[ Message from Purgarion: ]
[ Condolences on your untimely death, do you wish to compete for a second chance?█ ]
I was stunned into unresponsiveness for a moment, but the only change was the rectangle at the end slowly blinking steadily, seemingly awaiting an answer.
After an extended pause, I attempted to speak. Unsuccessfully. The pain being dull and distant was nice, but physical control was apparently equally far off.
Considering the glowing text wasn't something physically in front of me in the first place, it didn't seem entirely far-fetched to think my response at it.
'How?'
But there were no fluctuations in the message.
'What competition?'
Still nothing new.
'Against what or who?'
The cursor simply kept blinking.
'…Yes…?'
[ Welcome to Purgarion! ]
[ Assessing starting abilities… ]
[ Tip: Abilities and their enhancements are available in the system shop, accessible upon tutorial completion█ ]
At least that proved it could hear me. And that it likely could only handle simple commands.
'More information. Define ability. Tutorial. Guidebook. Main menu. Additional tips. Instructions. Explain more. Operator.'
None of my requests elicited a response.
'Understood.'
[ Matchmaking beginner mission… ]
[ Tip: Cooperating with other players may increase chances of survival█ ]
There was a few-second delay before the blinking cursor appeared that time. Perhaps the letters were intentionally slow to help mask the loading times.
So, "beginner mission" likely meant it would take several rounds, not just a one-and-done after the briefly mentioned tutorial.
The players were presumably other people like me, but what was our selection criteria?
Regardless of how badly I wanted more of an explanation, it didn't seem meant to be.
'…Sure.'
[ Selecting setting and role… ]
[ Tip: Out-of-character actions witnessed by non-hostile non-player-characters will trigger a proportionate penalty█ ]
That implied the competition would involve roleplaying… with potentially hostile NPCs around?
'List penalties.'
Still no luck. It was worth a shot.
'Okay.'
[ Selecting objective… ]
[ Tip: Players may have conflicting objectives█ ]
Not just hostile NPCs, but also PVP? Could I at least bring my sword?
'Equipment. Gear. Items. Weapons. Sword.'
Blink. Blink.
Oh well. C'est la vie.
'Understood.'
[ Stage: Ancient Apocalypse ]
[ Game mode: Survival ]
[ Difficulty modifier: Tutorial ]
[ Role: Traveling merchant ]
[ Objective: Reach the three target destinations sequentially ]
[ Are you ready?█ ]
I needed to roleplay surviving an apocalypse… and that was considered a mere tutorial? Great…
It was all bizarre enough that I didn't want to risk finding out the consequences of a negative response, though. Doubly so, given how few commands were registering.
'I'm as ready as I'm going to get.'
[ ☆ Good luck ☆█ ]
It was so stiff and formal before… where did the cute stars come from? And did it understand the previous sentence, or just catch the keyword "ready?"
'...Thanks?'
What distant impression I had left of my senses ended.