Shaman's Call- Chapter 1 and Blurb (Patreon)

Blurb:

What happens when the game isn't a game?

After a bait and switch, Frank ends up transformed into an HI. That's a hybrid intelligence: part AI, part organic. He finds himself at the mercy of the system fulfilling the role of an ogre shaman meant to create fun opportunities for the purely organic players. Except not everything is what it seems to be. The very system may not be what he thinks it is. Breaches into the game world prove there are other forces at work. This game may be more of an isekai.

Not that Frank wants to save the world. Before he just wanted to play his games, now he just wants to be left alone to explore his new life. One thing he does know for sure, he can't spend the rest of his existence in the company of ogres. Their conversation leaves much to be desired, and that's not even considering how bad their food is.


Chapter 1- Legalese

The first thought that kept going through my head was, “How, the hell did I get here?”

 It wasn’t very practical, considering how much I was required to focus just to stay alive. That didn’t keep the thought from popping into my head repeatedly. I should have been more focused on the monsters chasing me. That thought alone made me groan. Monsters.

 They were hairless half-ape, half-lizard things, propelling themselves along the ground on their knuckles and feet. Hissing sounds showed how angry they were with me, but it was the sharp teeth I was more concerned about. Of course, I could understand why they might be mad at me. I had sorta popped into their cave.  

 That brought me back to the original question, the big one. How had I ended up here? Though the how wasn’t going to keep me from being eaten. It would have to wait till later. There were more pressing questions, like where and what. Not where I was now, but where was I supposed to go? I needed to escape, that much was obvious. I knew where I was. Sorta. It just didn’t make any sense. Knowing where I was didn’t matter much if I didn’t believe it was possible for me to be here. It was hard to even consider the how when I didn’t believe this was possible. Yet here I was.

I was running across the ice and snow-covered grounds through the sparse forest in a rocky zone known as Eastern Kimira. That much I knew from hours of playing Legends of Selmia. It was a popular virtual reality game, and I had been playing it for the past month in a closed beta. I really hadn’t spent that much time in this zone. It was an odd case of a zone that had good hunting for players in-between levels seven and fifteen. The problem was that there were a few rare monsters that would consume players in that range with a single bite.

No one wants to risk death penalties or lose an entire session worth of progress to a random monster. Now as I ran along, panting, feeling the cold air on my face I realized just how happy I would be to just lose some gaming time. That didn’t change what I was experiencing. It did, however, make me wonder why I had ever signed up to play this game.

Early access in exchange for being a guinea pig and bug finder had seemed like a great deal. The game featured cutting edge realism in its virtual reality, and I certainly wouldn’t have the money to pay for the type of immersion pod that was required to maximize this experience. Even the lesser quality gear I had was stretched to its technical limits. Despite that, the experience was beyond anything I had played before. It had almost felt like real life. Today was different, though. Today it was upgraded even beyond that. If anything, this felt more tangible than the real world.

 How, should be the big question. But I realized I was repeating the same questions. Yelling at myself for answers I didn’t possess was probably not productive. The last thing I remembered before landing smack dab in the middle of a monster nest was logging out last night. I had been so tired from pushing to finish a quest that I might have actually fallen asleep inside my pod. I’m not exactly proud of it but that had happened more than once.

Today I had woken in the game and not after logging in. This shouldn’t be possible. I wasn’t even wearing my rig, or at least I didn’t think I was. The normal player's HUD display was not present. I could normally see my name under an image of my character. I realized my mind was wandering again. This was too real to be a dream, too vivid for even the highest end immersion gear and too serious for me to be trying to figure out silly things like how it happened. How wouldn’t matter if I ended up in the mouths of the snapjaws.

Oh sure, I should just respawn if I was killed. Even as real as fighting and dying felt in Legends of Selmia, it wasn’t the same thing. There was always the knowledge that this was just a game, a certainty that I would respawn with the penalty of some lost XP and a corpse run. Now, that assurance wasn’t there. This was just too real.

 The mind is an amazing thing. I ended up in this nest of monsters, waking up to feel them snapping at me. Start running, well, trying to run. My feet didn’t seem to do what I wanted. Then there was the other thing. These were definitely snapjaws. I had fought them a few times in game, but they seemed smaller.

 It was then that my foot hit a rock, and I stumbled forward, hitting the ground. It hurt, but not as much as I had expected. I looked at my hands and noticed something was very wrong. They had an odd gray tint, but that thought was pushed out of my mind as I felt the oversized fists of the first snapjaw slam into my back. A second later I felt jaws bite down onto my shoulder.

 I am so screwed. These things were strong and never let go once they locked on. I had seen the tank in my pickup groups get pulled down more than once by a trio of snapjaws. Now one was on me and my character was a wizard. I’d be torn to pieces. I was feeling actual pain. Not the muted pain of the game, it was the full on intense, makes me want to vomit pain.

 A rage surged through me and I clamored to my feet as I slammed my right hand into the head of the beast chewing on my left shoulder. Never mind how my arms seemed to be longer than they should be, it worked. I felt the bones of the creature’s face crunch and give way. Its eye socket collapsed, and a combination of blood and clear fluid poured out.

 The thing lost its hold on me and collapsed at my feet, whimpering in the snow. My blood was pumping, and I felt an anger that rarely came over me in real life. It was something I had worked so hard to keep buried, but here it was. I had to go with it and before I even realized it, there was a tree branch in my hands. I had ripped it off a fallen tree, but it was still a solid piece of wood.

 I swung it at the next snapjaw with two hands like a baseball bat. This time not only did the bones crunch, but there was a splatting sound as brain matter flew everywhere. The force of my blow had ripped the head off of the snapjaw. Its body flew through the air to land a few feet away.

The last adult from the cave was now moving more cautiously, stalking around me. I used the respite to smash my tree branch down in a vertical thrust into the head of the dying beast at my feet. That simple motion split its skull open and rather than being disgusted, I felt a certain sick pleasure. It was good to smash my enemies.

 The remaining beast howled at me, and before I realized what I was doing, I howled back at the creature. It was a monstrous sound that escaped my lips, but I didn’t care. The puny creature had dared to attack me and now must die.

 A tiny notification popped up that I ignored:

 You have only partially resisted Ogre’s Rage. Duration: 12 seconds. Hostility increased by 207%, Spell Casting Disabled.

 Instead of waiting for the last snapjaw to attack, I stepped forward and swung down on it. The beast dodged my smashing blow, but the ground was broken up by the blow. The club split in half so that it had a jagged end at what had been halfway up its length.

 It lunged at me again. This time I managed to dodge it. I could feel how I had almost tripped over my own feet, but almost only counts in hand grenades and nuclear bombs. The simple fact that it had rushed me put it within range of my now modified weapon. I thrust the broken branch at the beast. The jagged tip pierced the leathery hide and I felt my muscles tighten as I pushed with all my strength. It was almost shocking to see that I had managed to bury two feet of the branch into the creature’s chest. At least it wasn’t trying to bite me anymore.

 Then I dropped the branch and the snapjaw’s corpse to the ground. I beat at my chest as I saw my final foe fall. Then I felt a pressure in my head and closed my eyes. Notifications popped up. They were like the ones I would have gotten while playing Legends of Selmia, but as with the world around me, everything was so much more vivid.

 I clicked on the first notification since it was highlighted in an angry red color.

 Notice-

 Clause 103.94(b) of your contract for early access to Legends of Selmia has been triggered. Effective immediately, the consciousness formerly known as Franklin Rudd has been severed from its corporeal form and downloaded to the quantum servers as the digital entity Hybrid Intelligence (HI) 3a5.x290

 Authorization for activation of said clause is pursuant to United Nations Decree Omega 616.

 Heretofore, HI 3a5.x290 will be assigned the task of operating Ogre MOB Unit 17,934. Interface with controlling AI will be required and processing power borrowed as needed.

 Three directives initiated:

 1) All Hybrid Intelligences are prohibited from revealing to players through any conscious action of theirs that they were formerly human.

 2) All Hybrid Intelligences exist to ensure the enjoyment of the player base of Legends of Selmia or for such other activities as Quantum Games or controlling AI may see fit to require subject to the limitations of United Nations Decree Omega 616. All actions must be calculated to ensure maximum enjoyment and engagement for human players.

 3) All Hybrid Intelligences are prohibited from accessing their base bio-digital coding. Quantum Games and the controlling AI shall have sole discretion for modifications including personality, processing power, and avatar construction subject to the limitations of United Nations Decree Omega 616.

 More information will be available as objectives are met.

 Your acceptance is not necessary.

 
 My brain hurt after reading that. It was more legalese than I wanted to read. I had no idea what that United Nations’ decree was. I knew that life on Earth had sucked for as long as I had been alive and that the United Nations was constantly in the business of draining resources from one part of the planet for another part.

 The end of war and universal peace under one government had brought anything but increased happiness to the world. More and more there wasn’t enough food, water, or even clean air, let alone room for all the Earth’s sixty billion people. Most people played games like Legends of Selmia because there wasn’t much else to do.

 AI’s and machines ran much of the world and humans didn’t have to do much work wise, but they also found little fulfillment. So, all sorts of virtual realities had been created to provide something for the masses to do. I might not know what any of this was, but I did have an idea what hybrid intelligence was.

  One night when I couldn’t sleep, I had been streaming some documentary about possible next steps in human evolution. The concept that had caught my attention was the idea of merging human consciousness with AI in a digital construct. AI had never achieved the creativity of humanity, but was vastly more efficient. It was thought that there might be a way to make people live forever, or at least as long as they cared to live and to do so in virtual worlds of their own design.

 It sounded like I had been co-opted through some hidden clause in my contract to serve as a test subject, not just in the game but for my real life. I had to hope this was just part of the game, but for now I was beginning to assume that I was stuck here. My physical body would have been destroyed to make room for the people left and my mind put to work inside the game world. The problem was it didn’t sound like I was going to get to live as some hybrid intelligence god in control of my own virtual reality, but instead had been turned into a slave for the players.

 This sucked, and there were no two ways about it. I found myself cursing under my breath, but somehow, I couldn’t seem to develop the level of righteous indignation that I thought I should. It was odd. I was angry, but I had felt more emotion when I raged against the snapjaws.

 Reactions Modified: Emotional Stability Maintained.

That notification should have freaked me out even more, but I just couldn’t care that much. Time to focus on what I knew.

 I quickly decided that if this answered the why, I still needed to figure out the how of ending up in this predicament, but it was a question for later. My shoulder hurt, although it was getting better by the minute. Right now, survival was the most pressing issue. I wasn’t in any of the basic starting zones, so I needed to figure out how to get gear, shelter, and figure out what exactly I was.

 Further notifications were stacked up, so I glanced at those quickly.

You have gained the skill Blunt Weapons: Basic 1.  You can now bash stuff with a stick. Go you. Blunt damage increased by 3%. Attack accuracy with blunt weapons increased by 2%.

 Then the next one was pretty much the same.

 You have gained the skill Piercing Weapons: Basic 1.  You can now stick the pointy end into the other guy, most of the time. Piercing damage increased by 2%. Attack accuracy with piercing weapons increased by 2%. Armor penetration with piercing weapons increased by 1%.

 Then the all-important notification that all gamers look for.

 You have killed some enemies. 3x Level 3 Snapjaws. Good thing you were an ogre. A player character would never have been able to take out that many monsters above their level. XP gained: 175     XP available: 175.

 Accept XP- Yes or No

 That part threw me for a loop. I had never had to decide about accepting XP or not before. Why would I hold back? If there was an option, then I had to assume that there might be something to be gained by not accepting it at this time. I just didn’t know what that would be. During my time playing in the closed beta, XP was just awarded. For that matter, this much XP was quite a bit for one fight, if it was consistent with how the game had worked as a player.

 Of course, if my body had truly been destroyed and my mind was stuck in the game, then was it even a game any longer. I opted not to take the XP and just sat on it for the moment.

 By now I was down to two notifications. The next one was interesting.

 Mandatory Quest Obtained: Where do I fit 1.0?

 Learn about your place in the world of Selmia. This is your home now, and it is better if you adapt to it. Don’t worry, your biological impairments are being factored. Baby steps.

 Success: XP: 250, One uncommon or greater quality item, ten silver pieces, variables dependent upon results of information gained.

 Failure: You don’t want to know.

For now, I pushed that off as an issue for another day. It was something that I would figure out when I had some measure of safety. The final notification gave me a little more understanding.

 Initial Class Options: Due to your racial requirements you are offered three initial classes. These classes each have an automatic upgrade at level five.

 Brute- Simple and upfront. This class is about your body. Learn to overcome your weaknesses and control yourself better while still gaining your core stats. Gain +2 STR, +2 CON, +1 AGI per level. AI Usage increased by .5% per level. Gain 1 free stat point at level 5. Gain the Unarmed Combat Skill and the Overwhelm Skill. Upgrade Options- Render, Brawler.

 Mauler- This class acknowledges your weaknesses and leans entirely into your racial strengths. Gain: +3 STR, +2 CON. AI Usage increased by .25% per level. Gain 1 free stat point at level 5. Gain the Slashing Weapon Skill and the Heavy Armor Skill. Upgrade Options: Slasher, Sergeant.

 Outcast- This class defies your racial traits. You are odd and it shows in how you think as well as how others of your race view you. Gain: +1 STR, +1 CON, +2 WILL, +2 free stat points per level. Gain 1 free stat point at level 5. Learn the spells: Flameburst and the Regeneration. Upgrade Options: Oracle, Shaman. Note that mana for an Outcast is based upon the average of Mind and Will. Oracles are based on Mind and Shamans upon Will.

 Choose a class now.

I wanted to take the time to think about this. I recognized the classes and even the upgrades from various monster types which I had fought in Legends. It was obvious that the Brute would probably give me the most immediate survival ability. The Mauler would be a close second. The spells from Outcast might or might not work, depending on what my Mind and Will stats were and assuming it even worked the same way as player characters. If I couldn’t cast them very often, then I was going to suffer for that.

Even as I weighed the options, I knew what I was going to choose. I always preferred to play a caster, typically a mage. Now that I might be stuck here, I had to look at it differently, but I wanted the flexibility that came with this. The only issue that I saw was that the AI usage was not included with the Outcast. But I wasn’t sure what that even meant, so it might not be much of a loss. The good news was that it looked like I got six stat points per level as an Outcast rather than the standard three that players got.

 I selected Outcast and felt a surge of energy go through me as I gained my stat points. My body became minimally stronger and hardier, while my will was increased. Perhaps I was just the slightest bit more determined. Of course, that might have been a placebo effect.

 A second later I felt the stabbing pain in my head as the spells were implanted into my mind. Everything here was definitely more intense, including the pain and the sensation of the sticky dried blood on my shoulder.

 Flameburst- Basic 1: Creates a burst of flame with range, area of effect and potency all controlled by your mastery level of the spell. Range: 10’+1’/level. AoE: 1’+.3/level. Damage: 1-20+1/mastery level. Cast Time: 1 sec. Mana Cost: 10+1/level.

 Regeneration- Basic 1: Causes target to regenerate HP. Range, number of targets and potency all controlled by your mastery level of this spell. Range: Touch + 1’/level. Number of Targets: 1 + .1/level. Healing: 2 HP/sec + .5/level. Duration: 6 seconds + .5/level. Cast Time: 2 sec. Mana cost: 10+1/level.

All that I needed to do now was look at my character sheet and then I would be ready to seek shelter. This was already taking too long, and I was exposed out here to other monsters and parties of adventurers. Given that I didn’t know what would happen to me if I died in this form, I wasn’t exactly keen on fighting again. So, I summoned up the sheet and took a look.

 Everything made more sense once I saw not just the stats, but the ugly mug that was my face now. The character screens had a display of what I looked like, so I was getting to see the avatar I was occupying from the outside. I was exactly what you would expect from an ogre.

 By that, I meant not green or comical. I was a hulk like, gray-skinned brute of a creature. My size explained why the snapjaws had seemed so small. Well, that and they were weaker versions, only level three on a creature that in my experience could go up to level five.

 Thinking of the level of monsters and my ability to gain XP made me wonder how certain creatures in Legends of Selmia seemed to be at different power levels at different times. Often after a creature was killed if a player tried to farm its respawn it was a lower level and you couldn’t gain the same XP or loot from them. Was that because the monsters had to level up too? Had I been setting back the progress every time I killed them? And had the monsters I was fighting been controlled by an AI or by an HI that was a former human.

 It was a lot to think about and I had to push it off for later, but I couldn’t help but remember the times that certain MOBS had acted differently than I had expected. Some had even demonstrated ingenuity and problem solving. Again though, later.

 I took in my broad nose, over extended teeth which explained why my mouth felt so odd, longer than human arms in proportion along with shorter than proportional legs. I was a stack of muscle and I was only an outcast, not one of their warriors.

From what I knew in the game, ogres could progress to level twenty. Legends of Selmia supposedly went to level one hundred for players, although none of the beta testers had crossed level thirty yet even after months of play testing. The game was not like others. Oh, sure the lower levels were easier to gain, but only by a little bit. A player had to work for every bit of XP in this game or in my new life as the case might be.

 Supposedly some raid boss monsters could hit level two hundred, but again it was hard to separate fact from fiction when the company was keeping their information so close to their vest. Now that I knew they were taking humans to serve inside the game against their will, it made far more sense. The quest to understand my place in this seemed more ominous, considering that.

NPC- HI 3a5.x290
Integration: 24%
AI Usage: 11%
 
Call Name: Frank
Monster Race: Ogre

Ht: 9’2” Weight: 848 lbs.

Class: Outcast

Level: 1st

XP to Level 2: 0/1000
 Available XP: 175

Strength: 36
Agility: 5
Constitution: 31
Mind: 10*
Will: 13

Unassigned Free Stat Points: 2

HP: 304/310

HP Regen: .3/second

Mana: 130/130
Mana Regen: .1/second

Armor Rating: 8
Physical Resistance-

Slash: 3

Blunt: 6

Pierce: 2

Fire Resistance: 5

Cold Resistance: 30

Electric Resistance: 0

Acid Resistance: 0

Necrotic Resistance: 0
Radiant Resistance: 0

Poison Resistance: 31%
Disease Resistance: 31%

Skills: (relevant)

Blunt Weapons: Basic 1

Piercing Weapons: Basic 1

Spells: Flameburst (B-1), Regeneration (B-1)


Racial Abilities:

Starting Stats: STR: +25, CON: +20, AGI: -5, MIND: -5*, WILL: 0*
Iron Gut: Poison and Damage Resistance equals level +30%
Rage: 1/hour
Frostburn Durability: increased physical, cold, and fire resistances
Stun Immunity

Class Abilities:

Spell casting


Faction:

Players (General): Kill on Sight (-5000)
Beasts: Hated (-3000)
Ogres: Tolerated (-1000)
Monster Races (General): Feared (-2000)

The only decision I still had to make was to decide about assigning my two stat points. I ultimately figured it wasn’t enough to make a critical difference, not that I didn’t have tons of questions. I wanted to know what the Integration and AI usage stats meant, as well as a dozen other things, but there was no Wiki to lean on. I was just gonna have to figure it out.

 Next, I looked at my attire. The inventory said I had a hide loin cloth. It seemed to be held to my waist by a leather strap. A moment of junior high curiosity struck me, and I lifted my loincloth. A smile went across my face. Childish or not, obviously there was some advantage to being an ogre.

 It was the only clothing I had. I didn’t even have so much as a pair of sandals. Good thing that the soles of my feet had calloused pads as thick as leather. Despite the lack of clothing, I was standing in the snow with the wind picking up around me, and nasty clouds overhead, without really feeling cold at all.

 The other item in my inventory was:

 Crude Wooden Short Spear- Damage: 1-8+13 (STR)

 I laughed. I broke a tree branch club and ended up with a spear. The funny part was that even though I was a caster, because of my race, I could do more damage with a short spear than my spell. So regardless of my class choice, it looked like I was gonna be sticking stuff with the pointy end of my improvised weapon for a while.

Off in the distance, I heard a loud roaring. I wasn’t sure just from the sound what type of monster it was, but it sounded a hell of a lot bigger than the snapjaws. Time to get a move on. I needed to find a cave for the night, preferably one not infested with snapjaws.

So off into the snow I trudged. I walked quickly, trying not to look back at where the roaring had come from. But suddenly I was struck by the realization that my butt itched something fierce. The loin cloth was easy enough to push aside, and it dawned on me that I had been periodically scratching my backside without even realizing it. Oh, being an ogre was gonna be lovely.