Gamelit Novel, 15 (Patreon)

Amanda unfolded herself from the nest of blankets her pony-self slept in while the caravan lumbered down the road. Getting off a moving wagon was fun when she didn’t have to worry about breaking a leg, and she hopped down with a wave to the team pulling the wagon behind hers.

As she expected, her son was loping out of the woods to join her, having been alerted by the system to her login. She yawned and accepted the roll he gave her. “I saved you this from breakfast.”

“In-game breakfast,” she said. “I didn’t make anything—”

He grinned, ears swiveling forward. “Don’t worry, I found Dad’s leftover bacon.”

She exhaled. “Oh good.” She nibbled the bread, found it edible. She longed to make some, but she had no idea how successful she’d be, proofing dough from the back of a moving wagon. “So… I guess I should ask… where are we going? Are we supposed to be going with these people? Is it a quest?”

Nick grabbed the tailgate of the wagon beside them and swung up onto it, perching there. “Sort of. We’re going to EverVigil to answer the king’s call for heroes to fight the next big war.”

Amanda nearly stumbled over her hooves. “They want me to fight a war? With what? A spatula?”

Nick shook his head. “No, it’s not like that. Not like a real war with soldiers and stuff. We’re PCs, we’re the heroes, the ones with crazy-cool skills. One of us is worth hundreds of normal fighters. You have to think like we’re in a fantasy novel.” He considered her. “You might have magic. You know, cast spells and stuff. You don’t need to be a tank to do that.”

Amanda shoved her dismay in a box where it wouldn’t register in her voice. Hopefully. “Is it likely that I’ll become that powerful before we get to this EverVigil? Doesn’t that take time?”

“Oh, people can powerlevel to endgame…” He paused as if realizing he’d lost her. That was novel, usually he didn’t pay that much attention. “Uh, but… the point of the beta is that the AI is going to evolve the game! Maybe they’ll need royal cooks? Armies need cooks, don’t they? Or you could become the king’s food taster!”

Amanda started laughing. “I’d rather not die of poisoning. That doesn’t sound very heroic.”

He grinned back at her. “Depends on how dramatically you die? They might even construct a statue of you!”

She threw her roll at him and he caught it, chortling, before tossing it back. And glory be, she caught it, and without effort. It was such a pleasure to be freeto move again. Maybe she could advance to become a fighter? But was that really her? What did she want to do? “Nick? I want to play the game. Really play it, the way it’s supposed to be played. I… I guess I just don’t know where I fit in.” She frowned at the roll, tore it in half just to have something to do with her hands. “I don’t want to be the pathetic mom people pity-watch. Is that a term, pity-watch? I don’t want that. I want to get it.”

For once, Nick was quiet, and not in a sullen or withdrawn way. He was thinking, and she liked how it changed his face. She saw a flash of what he’d be as an adult, and her heart hurt with pride. How did that work?

“I think you do get it, mom,” Nick said. “Because a game like Omen Galaxica’s supposed to be about how you want to play. They always said they were big on supporting multiple playstyles, but they never had the chance to put any effort into some of those routes because the killing things was far more popular. Now that the AI’s at work on it, though… you might be the next great inventress of healing potions, or composer of epic ballads, or you might administer a town… everything is possible.”

What a siren song this game sang. ‘Everything is possible.’ ‘You can do anything you set your mind to.’ Like real life, but without the frustrations. Or maybe there were frustrations and she hadn’t run into them yet, because so far her time in Omen Galaxica had been idyllic. “Okay. But I want to kill a thing.”

As she hoped, that made him laugh. She let him until he’d almost run out of steam, then said primly, “Right now. With my spoon.”

“Right now? Seriously?”

“There’s got to be a squirrel in there that will meet my spoon and mighty thews. Let me at ‘em!” As he collapsed into fresh gales, she said, “You can always rescue me if I get into trouble. Come on, we can catch up with the caravan later. Right?”

He wiped his eyes as he slid off the tailgate. “Absolutely.”

***

How had he forgotten his mom’s sense of humor? Dad did the dad joke routine really well, but you expected dad jokes from your dad. And dad humor was… well. Dopey, and pranky. But Mom was intentionally silly and it usually came out of nowhere. It had been so long since she’d made a joke.

Query: is this decrease in humor frequency related to your mother’s condition?

Calling pregnancy a condition made it sound like a disease. But come to think of it, she’d gotten lethargic pretty recently. Nick shook himself and thought back, Maybe? I don’t know anything about that stuff. You know. But it probably didn’t, so he forced himself to clarify, I’m a guy, I don’t have facts about… uh… childbearing… on instant recall.

Understood.

“So,” his mom said from behind him, “Squirrel?”

“Squirrels are critters,” Nick said. “You won’t get any XP from those, and if you’re going to be a heroic warrior pony by the time we get to EverVigil, you’re gonna need to level up.” He jogged deep enough into the forest to shake off the road’s non-aggro field, then grinned and ambled over a tiny hill. He knew what to expect, and he was looking forward to the result. “You ready?”

“Spoon deployed!”

“Don’t you have a knife?”

“I think so,” his mom said, as she walked right into a harrier cat.

Nick wasn’t sure which of them shrieked louder. He laughed and hopped up into a tree to get out of range. “Go for him, mom!”

Any thoughts of the knife had fled his mom’s brain at the sight of the mob; she had the spoon out and was beating the thing on the head frantically, and the sight was so ridiculous he couldn’t stop laughing. Harrier cats were the lowest level of feline monster in the human’s starter zone. The thing was level 3 and barely came up to his mom’s knees, but she was treating it like an eight-hundred-pound tiger. “Why isn’t it dying!”

“You need to whack it some more,” he said, trying to sound encouraging between giggles.

“Is the spoon even hurti—oh, I just saw a number! A green number!”

“That’s good! That’s how much damage you’re doing! What was the number?”

“One!”

Nick swallowed his mirth. “Uh, keep going!”

“It bit me! How dare it bite me!” *whack!* “Come back here! Did you see that? It bit my ankle! I’ll teach you to bite an ankle!”

Startled mom had been funny. Angry mom spanking a harrier cat like an errant pet was hysterical. And fortunately, she was laughing now too, so he didn’t have to feel bad about standing back and watching it like a comedy routine. “Seriously, Nick, how many of these stupid points do I have to get to make it lie down and die?”

“It’s got ten hit points. Just a little more, Mom, promise! You just have to stop missing—”

“AAAAHHHH MOM SMASH!”

It took far longer than it should have, but eventually his mother stood triumphant over the carcass, shaking her spoon at the sky and crowing. “I did it! I’m halfway to level 2! WITNESS ME!”

“Soon you will be the terror of the Greenweald,” Nick said, with a sigh for how much his ribcage hurt. “Oh man. That was ridiculous. If people don’t watch that on the stream and crack up they’re not human.”

“I am pretty funny, aren’t I,” his mom said with false modesty.

“You are. All the same, I’m gonna buy you a knife when we get to town. In the interests of putting the harriers out of their misery faster.”

“That would be good. For them.” She prodded the body. “Can we loot this now? Oooh! We can! I got… a scarred claw, and a tuft of fur!” She made a face, then brightened. “I’ll make a necklace from the bones of my enemies! Can you do that? Craft things?”

He chortled. “Yes, you can, barbarian. We’ll pick up supplies for it, if the centaurs don’t have them.”

“Another town, huh? Are we close?”

“Not too far,” Nick said. “You’ll love it. It’s called Donner’s Beck.”