《Seven Gates》 1.1: Download Name: N/A Level: N/A Experience: N/A Health: N/A Stamina: N/A Mana: N/A Body: N/A Sense: N/A Mind: N/A Intuition: N/A Yin: N/A Yang: N/A Stat Total: N/A Beep! Before Jonathan Clark is aware that he¡¯s awake, before he sees the light sneaking past the blinds, before he feels the sweat beading his skin from a night of dreams he won¡¯t remember, almost before the alarm even goes off; his hand shoots out, blind, fumbling till his fingers find the smooth screen of his phone. He snoozes the alarm in less than three seconds and slips back into oblivion. Beep! Sleep being timeless, Jonathan has no knowledge of how much time has passed, or even that this isn¡¯t the first alarm. He reaches out and shuts it off. Beep! He shuts it off. Beep! He shuts it off. Beep! He shuts it off. He¡¯s maybe twenty, thirty percent awake at this point, aware only of the comforting warmth of his bed and his hatred for the shrill noise trying to pull him from it. Beep! He shuts it off, but a moment later there¡¯s a pounding at his door. ¡°Jonathan?¡± his mother¡¯s voice. ¡°It¡¯s already eleven, you need to get up! You have work today.¡± Jonathan blinks, rolls over, eyes beginning to adjust. He sees the bright stripes of light on his bed, the shelf with the models of giant robots he hasn¡¯t touched since he was twelve, the clothes scattered across the floor. His phone is in his hand. He doesn¡¯t remember picking it up. He''ll go get ready for work in a minute. No games on here of course. He opens Reddit instead. Nothing new or interesting on the home screen. Ditto on the ¡°For Me¡± tab. Same for r/Gaming. He heard once that guys in AA, the ones who are serious about sobering up, won¡¯t even go into a bar. They won¡¯t go to a party with alcohol. Like, it¡¯s not enough to give up drinking, you have to give up even looking at drinking. That¡¯s what they have to do, that¡¯s how you beat addiction. Jonathan thinks about that a lot. Sometimes he even deletes the Reddit app. Stupid thing to do. He can just use the website, and, he always downloads it again anyway. He presses the ¡°new¡± button on Reddit. One last dive. He¡¯ll get cleaned up and go to work, right after this. There¡¯s not much to see. Pics of brand-new games and systems. Iterations of memes he¡¯s already seen. Rants about the state of games today. A picture of a sky. White, fluffy clouds against a background of brilliant, perfect blue. No scenery, no horizon, the camera must be pointed more or less straight up. He almost scrolls past it. I mean, it has to be miscategorized, right? This guy meant to post in r/sky or r/photography or something and got the wrong group. But there''s something off about the photo. Someone else might not have caught it, but Jonathan has spent more time looking at digital skies than the real thing, and there¡¯s something about this one, a trace of artificiality he can¡¯t put his finger on, that makes his gut say, ¡°screenshot¡±. Still no big deal. He¡¯s played Breath of the Wild, he¡¯s played The Witcher III, he¡¯s played Elden Ring. A lot of games have good skies these days. The highest praise you can give graphics is that they look just like real life, as if being like real life is the point, as if the point of games isn¡¯t to be as different from real life as possible. Still, a sky you would mistake for the real thing is nothing new and he¡¯s about to keep scrolling or, better yet, put down the damn phone and go to work. Then he sees it. There¡¯s a butterfly in the clouds. Not a, popcorn, what-does-that-cloud-look-like-mama kind of butterfly, but a damn good one. It¡¯s side on, flying away from him so you can see the bottom of one wing and the curving outside rim of the other. They mirror each other, the patterns inverted, the near wing made of puffy cumulous clouds with gaps of blue sky for markings that are echoed on the other wing in reverse, wisps of cloud against a negative space of sky that only takes on the contours of a wing when you take into account the gray cloud edging in the foreground. It even has antenna, two long contrails sprouting from the head.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. It¡¯s probably art then. Photoshop. Good, but not really Jonathan¡¯s thing. He¡¯s never heard of a game that puts butterflies in its clouds, and it''s too precise, too perfect for real life. Still, someone put it in r/gaming, didn¡¯t they? Maybe it¡¯s not a mistake. He taps the image. 0 upvotes, 0 comments, almost no context, just the image and, far enough beneath it Jonathan almost misses it, a link. He taps it. Reddit pauses for a moment, and he¡¯s directed away, finds himself in the app store. It¡¯s a game, apparently, called Seven Gates. No reviews. Less than a hundred downloads. Just the title, a small square image of that butterfly in the clouds, and the install button. He doesn¡¯t do it consciously. No thought takes place. His thumb just reaches out on it''s own and hits the button. It goes pale, downward arrow replaces by a rotating circle of dots. ¡°Jonathan!¡± He jerks up. Even though his mom can¡¯t see, couldn¡¯t possibly see, he flips the phone down, finger finding the power button and shutting off the screen. The app store goes blank but he¡¯s already up, reaching for his clothes. ¡°Coming!¡± he calls. People always think that anyone who games must be good with computers. This is why his dad is always asking him to fix his laptop. This is why teachers used to get him to help them with their projectors. Jonathan himself believed it until halfway through his first semester he got his midterm back in CS 113 Introduction to Computing. Jonathan is not good with computers. He doesn¡¯t even like them that much, he just likes what they let him do, who they let him be. About all he can do is bluff programing competence. He bluffed long enough to get a job working the help desk at Kopernick''s Electronics For You. Jonathan¡¯s already five minutes late when he walks through the door. Hardly matters, there isn¡¯t a soul here. Why they make him come in at noon when it seems the customers only start to show at two or three, he will never understand. The only people at the desk are DJ and Kat. DJ is on the customer side of the desk, leaning against it hard enough folds of his belly billow up and flop across the top. Kat is standing so far away her back is actually against the wall. Not this shit again. DJ turns his head as Jonathan approaches, chins quivering. ¡°Jonny!¡± he says ¡°I was just telling Jailbait about Skyrim. Can you believe she¡¯s never played?¡± Jonathan hates being called Jonny, but probably not as much as Kat hates being called Jailbait. It takes a special kind of person, he thinks, to see a skinny teenage girl lost in her too-big hoodies, too-long hair, and huge, buglike glasses and decide to call her Jailbait. ¡°Skyrim¡¯s more than ten years old, dude,¡± he says. ¡°Kat was just a kid when it came out. She probably grew up with Fortnite and shit.¡± ¡°Minecraft,¡± says Kat, so quietly probably only he can hear. ¡°Weeeeellllll,¡± DJ says, drawing the word out long, jowls, flapping, like Jonathan''s pissed him off somehow, ¡°guess that makes sense. You played anything good recently, Jonny?¡± ¡°You know I haven¡¯t.¡± ¡°Too bad. The new Zelda rocks.¡± "Don''t you have shelves to stock or whatever it is you do around here?" "Fuck you, Jonny." "Fuck you, DJ." With one last shit-eating grin, DJ turns and lumbers off. Silence descends on the help desk. Jonathan lets his eyes slide across the Kopernick''s. The stacks of merchandise. The empty aisles. The big signs with bold letters proclaiming SALE SALE SALE that never go away but are only moved to different parts of the store. He stretches. Yawns. Damn he¡¯s tired. ¡°You don¡¯t game, Jonathan?¡± asks Kat. ¡°No,¡± he says. ¡°Oh.¡± Silence. Kat¡¯s looking down, fizzy hair falling across her face. Shit. Kat is absolutely necessary at the help desk, because she actually knows computers. She can code. She can crack the skin of a laptop or tablet and work on the gleaming insides, a surgeon of silicon and wire. She goes to some kind of special school for gifted kids and begged her mom to drive her here a couple of times a week so she can work a job fixing computers. When Kat¡¯s not there the help desk goes to shit. Jonathan¡¯s thought more than once that he''s only here to keep Kat from getting too nervous and translating for customers who can¡¯t hear her tiny voice. ¡°Ok,¡± he says, ¡°I used to game a lot. Too much. So much I flunked out of college and moved back home and promised my parents I''d quit. I have to see a therapist and stuff. DJ brings it up because he¡¯s a dick.¡± ¡°Oh,¡± says Kat. Silence. Double shit. He¡¯s just made it worse. Why can¡¯t he ever say the right thing? The seconds tick by. Kat plays with a frayed cuff on her hoodie. Jonathan finds he¡¯s bouncing on the balls of his feet, makes himself stop. He pulls out his phone. No new messages. No new emails, except one from the fencing club at school announcing an upcoming tournament. They''re the last holdout from college, the one organization that keeps emailing him no matter how often he tries to unsubscribe. There are no games. Not even Candy Crush. Not even Solitaire. He swipes back and forth through the pages of apps that aren¡¯t games, until something catches his eye. A blue square with clouds in the shape of a butterfly. Seven gates. He¡¯d almost forgotten. He should just delete it, unopened. He really should. His thumb hovers over the icon. Maybe he¡¯ll just take a look. Just to see what it¡¯s about. He hits it. An explosion of light and color. He can¡¯t see. Everything is too bright. The phone isn¡¯t in his hand. He grabs for the desk. It¡¯s gone. He¡¯s leaning forward, he pushes back to keep from falling, too hard, he¡¯s stumbling back, he¡¯ll hit the wall. There is no wall. Jonathan falls, lands right on his ass. It doesn¡¯t hurt. There¡¯s a hard, slapping sensation like he¡¯d gone over backwards into a pool, but no actual pain. Jonathan¡¯s breathing hard. He sits there on his butt, hyperventilating, and finally his brain figures out what his eyes are seeing. It¡¯s a sky. Blue and bold with fat, puffy clouds trailing across it and a sun as bright as any he¡¯s ever seen. He blinks. It¡¯s still there. This is crazy. It¡¯s crazy. Is he crazy? He looks around. He¡¯s on some kind of terrace, the paving stones cracked, edges worn smooth with time. Surrounding him stand statues of huge and imposing beasts. He turns and looks behind him. There¡¯s a ruined castle carved, from the looks of it, right out of a mountain peak, towers fallen, trees growing up through holes in the roof. No sign of Kopernick''s anywhere Impossible. He¡¯s dreaming, he must have fallen back asleep after his mother called and he¡¯s dreaming the whole thing. A crumbling balustrade lines the edge of the terrace and beyond it, there''s nothing but sky. A cool wind blows against his skin. The air is thin and pure in his lungs. Somewhere, a bird lets out a high, alien cry. If it¡¯s a dream, it¡¯s the most detailed one he¡¯s ever had. Something moves. He looks up. It¡¯s just some clouds drifting across the sky. They do seem to be moving more quickly than normal clouds, though. One cloud crosses another, and for a moment, he sees it. A butterfly in the sky. The picture on Reddit, but a thousand times bigger. Its antenna are tall as skyscrapers. Its wings big as oceans. It flaps once, and is gone. ¡°Holy shit!¡± he says. ¡°I¡¯m inside the game!¡± A rectangular blue box pops up in front of his face, supported by nothing. It contains a single line of text. ¡°Welcome to Seven Gates¡± 1.2 Back In Name: N/A Level: 1 Experience: 0/2 Health: 50/50 Stamina: 50/50 Mana: 5/5 Body: 1 Sense: 1 Mind: 1 Intuition: 1 Yin: 1 Yang: 1 Stat Total: 6 ¡°Jonathan, are you ok?¡± His¡¯s head jerks up. Electric lights glow overhead. TVs and laptops and phone cases stretch out in ranks and there¡¯s Kat, peering up through her glasses. He¡¯s back in Kopernick''s. ¡°Did, did you see that?¡± he asks. ¡°See what?¡± ¡°The,¡± he has no words, ¡°uh, the sky?¡± ¡°No?¡± ¡°You sure?¡± ¡°Yes?¡± Kat¡¯s looking at him like he¡¯s crazy. Maybe he is. His heart thunders in his ears. ¡°I need to go to the bathroom.¡± The stall door slams closed. It takes Jonathan three tries to shut the bolt, his fingers are shaking so badly. He sinks onto the toilet. He¡¯s breathing fast and hard, his whole body vibrating with what¡¯s just happened. Maybe tomorrow he¡¯ll be able to tell himself it wasn¡¯t real. Maybe tomorrow he¡¯ll think it was just a daydream, or that he had nodded off standing up, or that his meds are making him see things. People believe all kinds of shit to make their lives make sense. But today he knows what he saw and nothing makes any fucking sense. Seven Gates took him somewhere else, an actual place he actually went. It wasn¡¯t VR. Jonathan¡¯s done VR, it didn¡¯t hold a candle to Seven Gates, it can¡¯t engage all five senses, and he wasn¡¯t wearing a rig. The most obvious, and absurd, possibility is that he was just isekaied. Jonathan¡¯s watched enough anime to know how that¡¯s supposed to work, and Seven Gates looked about right. It even had the blue text box. In unreasonable circumstances, unreasonable explanations start to seem plausible. The problem, though, is that he came back so quickly, and that Kat was apparently watching him the whole time. He can¡¯t have been magically transported to another world while he was still in this one, can he? Ok, how about this? It was a hallucination, the app sent out a specific sequence of colors and subliminal sounds to make him crazy. Or maybe he was in a VR environment stimulated entirely in his own brain, like the Matrix, and the app just networked with a microchip they put in his head when he was getting his wisdom teeth removed or something. In this scenario, Kat shook him out of the trance. God, he¡¯s sounding crazy. Next he¡¯ll accuse the government of colluding with aliens and slipping hallucinogens into the water. Though, compared to Seven Gates, that doesn¡¯t even sound that crazy. His world is off-kilter, tipping further and further from what he knows. The only way to figure it out is to go back in. The moment he thinks it, Jonathan knows he¡¯s going to do it. He was always going back. How could he not? This is the greatest thing that¡¯s ever happened to him, maybe the greatest thing that¡¯s ever happened to anyone. Wait. This thumb stops a milimeter from the Seven Gates icon. How will he get out? Last time he needed Kat to wake him up. Will he be stuck in here till DJ comes banging on the door asking if he¡¯s still alive? Maybe he can ask Kat to get him. No, he¡¯s in the men¡¯s room, and anyway that¡¯s weird as hell and how would he explain it to her? He¡¯ll set an alarm on his phone. How long? Two minutes, he should be safe for that long, right? But what could he really discover in just two minutes? He should go for three. No, five. He sets an alarm for seven minutes. He takes a deep breath, watching the seconds count down on the screen. 6:57¨C6:56¨C6:55. Now that it comes to it, he¡¯s scared. 6:54¨C6:53¨C He switches back to the main screen. Taps the icon. The world changes, and he¡¯s in. The castle, the statues, the wind, the sky. It¡¯s all here, just the way it was before. Holy fucking shit, this is really happening. Jonathan takes a deep breath of the crisp air. He jumps, feels the ground hard and real beneath his feet. Ok, what next? How do you tell if you¡¯ve been magically transported to another world, or if you¡¯re a simulation, or if you¡¯re just plain crazy? He walks to the edge of the terrace and leans on the crumbling balustrade. Maybe he¡¯ll, like, find a clue out there? What he sees is sky. Above him, sky, on the horizon, sky, below him, and Jonathan grips the balustrade and leans out to see as far as possible, there¡¯s an abyss of sky and swirling clouds. There¡¯s no bottom. He pulls back, gripped by vertigo. He¡¯s in a damn flying castle. Before Jonathan can sort out all the implications of this, he sees his arms extended, hands still anchored to the balustrade. They¡¯re white. Not like, caucasian, but white-white, the washed-out empty white of mannequins in store windows. He raises his arms slowly, turning them back and forth. The whiteness is uniform, the backs of his hands are no darker than his palms. He¡¯s pretty sure these fingers are a little bit longer than his but that his hands are wider. The scar he got from falling off Logan Goldsmith¡¯s bike in second grade is gone. These arms are completely hairless. With a sense of rising dread, he looks down at his white, naked body. He doesn¡¯t have a penis. He doesn¡¯t have a vagina either, instead, his crotch is smooth and hairless all the way down. He probes with his fingers just to make sure and, yet, no opening. A completely androgynous body. Does that mean¡­ He shifts his fingers around to the back. After what feels like an eternity, he¡¯s sure. There¡¯s no hole. No even a crack, his glutes grow together seamlessly. He¡¯s not sure how to process this. He¡¯s never really thought through all the implications of the video game logic where characters are always wearing underwear and while they may eat, they never need to take a shit. Now he¡¯s living it. At least this makes the VR theory the clear frontrunner. If this was really another world, the people here would probably need to eat and procreate sometimes. And sure, he might be crazy, but could he really be crazy enough to imagine that he doesn¡¯t have an asshole? I mean come¨C Beep! He¡¯s back in the stall at Kopernick''s. His hands are his hands. There¡¯s the scar from the bike accident. He can feel a comforting bulge in his jeans. He¡¯s Jonathan again. Beep! He shuts off the alarm. It worked. This is amazing. So, it looks like wherever he goes when he¡¯s in Seven Gates, part of him is still here, enough that something can catch his attention and pull him out. As long as he sets an alarm, he should be able come and go as he likes. How long should he go for this time? Another seven minutes? Ten? How long before Kat gets someone to come looking for him? He¡¯s been in here for what, ten minutes now? He¡¯ll say he was sick, he¡¯ll say he had indigestion. He can get away with twenty, twenty-five minutes, surely. He sets the alarm for fifteen minutes. Taps the app. He¡¯s in. He does a quick one-eighty, taking in the sky, statues, and stone. Alright, what now? The first time in, didn¡¯t a text box pop up? How did he do that? ¡°Uh, this is a game?¡± he says. The box appears instantly.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. ¡°Welcome to Seven Gates,¡± it reads. ¡°Is this place VR? Like, virtual reality?¡± says Jonathan. The little blue box doesn¡¯t move. ¡°Am I in some kind of controlled hallucination?¡± Nothing. ¡°Are you with the government?¡¯ Nothing. ¡°Aliens?¡± Nothing. ¡°Is this like, a real place, or is it just being created by manipulating impulses in my brain?¡± The damn blue box doesn¡¯t say a thing, just sits there smugly looking at him. ¡°Ok, look, what the hell am I doing here?¡± Just like that, more little boxes pop up over the first one. ¡°This is the Tutorial Castle. Level up to proceed to the main game! ¡°Quest added: Main Quest; Reach level 10. ¡°Quest added: Bonus Quest; Find the Adventurer¡¯s Remains.¡± Well. That didn¡¯t exactly answer his questions, but it didn¡¯t answer them in the most video game way possible. This has to be a game. Jonathan¡¯s played a lot of games, and he knows that most of them will feed you information as you progress. If he just keeps playing, he may be able to figure out what¡¯s going on. How hard could it be? He¡¯s good at this shit. He might even finish the tutorial before his alarm goes off. With only one way to go, he heads toward the castle. The high arched gate stands open, but rubble¡¯s fallen from higher in the castle and he has to clamber over it to get inside. The courtyard within is completely overgrown. The roots of huge trees dig into the cobblestones while their branches reach up, clawing toward the light. It¡¯s shaded and pleasantly cool down here. As his eyes adjust he sees there¡¯s a path through the foliage. He follows it as it weaves around trunks. A flash of red lying among the fallen leaves catches his eye. ¡°What¡¯s this?¡± he says, squatting. A blue text box pops up. ¡°Apple. A good snack for the trail.¡± Huh. Jonathan had just been talking to himself, but if the menu is willing to answer questions about things he finds, that could be useful. He brushes off the apple, takes a bite. It tastes¡­ not much like anything really. A little bit sour. A touch of sweetness, so faint he might be imagining it. He chews and swallows mechanically. Maybe this body doesn¡¯t have much in the way of taste buds. Maybe the apples in Seven Gates are just shit. He throws away the rest of the apple and picks up a branch lying on the ground. ¡°What''s this?¡± ¡°Branch. Damage +1. Firewood. Possible crafting material. A weapon if you¡¯re desperate.¡± Nice. His first weapon. Jonathan gets up, takes the branch in one hand and sets off down the trail. ¡°What¡¯s this?¡± he says, pointing at a hoary old tree by the path.¡± ¡°Tree. A source of wood.¡± ¡°Yeah, no shit. What about this?¡± he points at a much slimmer tree with smooth, shiny bark. ¡°Tree. A source of wood.¡± ¡°What¡¯s this?¡± he asks, pointing at a fern. ¡°Fern. It may have medicinal properties.¡± ¡°It may have medicinal properties? I could have told you that. Is there a way to level you up or something, because honestly right now you¡¯re kind of¨Chello!¡± Rounding a corner, Jonathan finds himself face-to-face with a skeleton. It sits with its back against a tree, head tilted back and jaw hanging frozen in macabre laughter. It¡¯s kind of gross, but it¡¯s also kinda like a Halloween decoration with vines growing on it, and therefore no big deal. This must be the adventurer. More interesting than the corpse is the sack Jonothat notices sitting beside him. A quest reward if he¡¯s ever seen one, but someone else got here first. A small, furry creature squats on its haunches before the sack, rummaging inside it. ¡°Hey!¡± he says. The animal ignores him. It has its whole head stuck in the bag. ¡°Hey, that¡¯s mine,¡± he says and pokes it with the branch. A remarkably hairy head pops out, followed by two long, simian arms. Little black eyes glare up at him. It¡¯s bigger than he thought. Maybe fifty, sixty pounds. ¡°Shoo,¡± he says, poking it again. ¡°Get lost.¡± That was a mistake. Quick as a wink, the monkey snatches the branch from his surprised fingers and hurles it to the ground. It bares its teeth in an expression that could not possibly be interpreted as a smile. Jonathan backs up a step. ¡°Now, just hold on a¨C¡± The monkey jumps. It flies through the air, startlingly quick, and sinks its teeth deep into his upraised hand. There¡¯s no pain, but an unpleasant, tingling sensation shoots up his arm. Unbidden, words appear above the monkey¡¯s head. ¡°Bearded Monkey: Lvl 1¡± Beneath the words is a short red bar. Jonathan¡¯s own health bar appears in the upper left corner of his vision with a sizable piece missing. The black numbers on the red line read 43/50. He screams. He grabs the monkey by its facial hair and he¡¯s shaking it, pulling, trying to get it off. It lets go. Drops to the ground. But it lands on its feet, ready to spring, and before Jonathan can move it¡¯s on him again, teeth digging into his thigh. 36/50 Jonathan kicks. It doesn¡¯t let go. He kicks again, more violently. It flies off his leg and before it can even hit the ground he¡¯s turning, running. He has to get away. He¡¯s not ready. This isn¡¯t the way it is in a game. In a game you just fucking click the button and the avatar does the fighting. Here, he is the avatar. Something hits him in the back, latches on. Jonathan stumbles. He looks back to see two mad, beady black eyes and a head of wild hair a moment before the monkey bites into his shoulder. 29/50 Jonathan screams again but he¡¯s not looking where he¡¯s going and his foot gets caught on a root and he¡¯s going over. They hit a tree on the way down and he and the monkey bounce off in different directions. He hits the broken cobbles in a heap, air knocked from his lungs. The sharp, not-pain sensation is everywhere now, radiating across his body like a million tiny pins. 27/50 He doesn¡¯t even make it to his knees before he feels the monkey¡¯s little hands around his foot, teeth sinking into his ankle. 20/50 He¡¯s going to die. He¡¯s going to fucking die and he never got to show his mom that he could get better. That he could get clean. ¡°Leave me alone!¡± he wails, and kicks at it. The first kick glances off its shoulder. The second misses entirely. The third connects so hard the monkey flies a few feet before crashing down into a fern. It wobbles to its feet almost at once, but there¡¯s something dazed in its expression. A hint of fear in its eyes. Like its only now realizing precisely how much smaller it is than Jonathan. He gets a good view of its health bar, and a chunk''s definitely been taken off the top. There¡¯s so much adrenaline pounding through Jonathan¡¯s veins right now he could tie a tourniquet around his own amputated limb and not feel a thing. He wants to scream. He wants to throw up. Millions of years of evolution deep in his nervous system see the monkey¡¯s fear and reevaluate the situation. They smell blood, flip the fight or flight coin. It comes up fight. Fight all the fucking way. And suddenly Jonathan is angry. Vastly, transcendently angry, like a volcano erupting in his brain. He lurches towards the monkey. It bares its teeth at him, gleaming wetly with his blood, and takes a step back. Too late. Jonathan is on it. He grabs it by the arm, pulls it close. It bites him. Jonathan doesn¡¯t care. He gets a good haldful of the fur by its ear with his other hand and pulls it off him. 13/50 Now he has both hands on its head. He wrestles it down. The monkey claws at him desperately, fingernails leaving long scratches down his arms. 11/50 A tree root has split a cobblestone in two. One sharp corner of stone juts into the air. Jonathan manhandles the monkey over it. 9/50 He brings its head down, hard, onto the point. Its health bar plummets. 7/50 He raises it up, slams it back down again. 5/50 Again. Something crunches. The monkey¡¯s hands drop. It lets out a despairing wail that echoes through the trees. He smashes the head down one last time. It¡¯s like trying to open a fucking coconut. The monkey¡¯s health bar drops nothing and vanishes. The animal goes limp beneath him. He did it. He won. Without warning, a whole slew of system notifications appear one after the other. ¡°Defeated Bearded Monkey: Lvl 1¡± ¡°2 Experience Gained¡± ¡°Level Up!¡± ¡°Level: 2¡± ¡°Experience till next level: 0/3¡± ¡°Unspent Skill Points: 1¡± Finally they stop. ¡°What.¡± Jonathan¡¯s breathing so hard every word almost is a separate sentence. ¡°The fuck. Was that?¡± ¡°Bearded Monkey. A low-level inhabitant of Tutorial Castle. Usually found by trees or in the upper levels of the castle. Often travel in groups and answer to a single leader.¡± ¡°These things.¡± pant. ¡°Travel.¡± pant. ¡°In groups?¡± A long, angry scream sounds from the trees above. Jonathan looks up just in time to see the monkey plummeting toward his face. 1.3 Awaiting Respawn Name: N/A Level: 2 Experience: 0/3 Health: 0/50 Stamina: 0/50 Mana: 0/5 Body: 1 Sense: 1 Mind: 1 Intuition: 1 Yin: 1 Yang: 1 Stat Total: 6 Jonathan¡¯s cold. He¡¯s wet, shirt soaked through with sweat, and Kopernick''s relentless AC is blasting across his body. He¡¯s still alive. A second later he¡¯s on his feet. He actually crashes into the stall door with his shoulder before he remembers it¡¯s locked. Ages pass as he fumbles with numb fingers to get it open. The bolt slides back. He bursts out. Rushes to the mirror. .His reflection stares out at him skin pink and miraculously unmarked by monkey bites. He raises a trembling hand to his forehead where the second one had tried to chew off his eyebrow. He isn¡¯t hurt. It didn¡¯t happen, at least not in this body. Oh shit, the avatar. What if it¡¯s dead? What if he can¡¯t go back? He taps through his phone to Seven Gates so fast the screen blurs and he wonders if the cpu¡¯s stalled out. He doesn¡¯t miraculously travel to another dimension. He¡¯s still right here, in the bathroom at Kobernicks, tiles a little grungy because DJ hasn¡¯t cleaned yet. The screen reads, ¡°Respawn in: 7:59.¡± Even as he watches, it ticks down to 7:58. He waits several painful seconds. Breathes in and out. The number doesn¡¯t change. Not eight minutes then. Eight hours. Eight hours till his avatar is alive again. On the one hand, he feels weak with relief. Like actually weak, legs rubbery and uncertain as stilts. He¡¯s been in Seven Gates for less than twenty minutes and already it¡¯s changed his life. He isn¡¯t ready to let it go. On the other hand, what the hell is he supposed to do for the next seven hours and fifty-eight minutes? The obvious answer is work. That doesn¡¯t go so well. He emerges from the bathroom sweaty, shaky, and so pale DJ actually stops him in the aisle and asks if he¡¯s all right. Kat keeps shooting him worried glances from under her bangs. He hears a customer wrong. He misspells his password on the employee computer nine times in a row. He bumps into a rack of TVs and nearly brings the whole thing crashing down. It gets so bad Adam, their legendary hardass manager, tells him to go home. For chrissake, he says, Jonathan shouldn''t come in when he''s feverish and shaking. What the fuck does he think sick days are for, huh? He drives home in a daze. The minute he steps inside the door he¡¯s back on Reddit. He wants to check the original post, maybe find some clues. He can''t find it. He scours r/Gaming, goes pack through more than 8 hours of posts, but it¡¯s just not there. The picture of the clouds is nowhere to be found. He checks the app store. Maybe he can find some reviews or something? Only problem is, he can¡¯t find Seven Gates on the app store either. After fifteen minutes of trying every conceivable arrangement of letters, (Seven Gates? 7 Gates? 7 Gaits? Se7en Gates? Gates Seven?) and sorting through many pages of increasingly irrelevant, increasingly shitty-looking games, he gives up. The publisher must have removed it from the store. But why? It makes no sense. Jonathan has to keep checking the icon on his phone to reassure himself that it does, in fact, exist. The only thing that happens when he taps on it is that his screen goes blank and says ¡°Respawn in: 6:23¡±. There¡¯s no settings, no creator¡¯s info or anything. But it''s still an app , so his phone should have some information about it. He goes to ¡°settings¡±, ¡°apps¡±, and finds the butterfly icon. He learns that Seven Gates was downloaded today at 11:21 am. It takes up a grand total of nine megabytes of his hard drive, which is more than like, his calculator, but not by much. For a game it¡¯s nothing. It requires no permissions. It hasn¡¯t used any data or battery. In short, he doesn¡¯t learn shit. Time to try something else. He googles ¡°seven gates¡±. Apparently, there¡¯s a haunted spot in Pennsylvania called the Seven Gates of Hell. After a few minutes of reading about burning insane asylums and crazy doctors, Jonathan¡¯s pretty sure it has nothing to do with his Seven Gates. He tries ¡°seven gates game¡±, ¡°seven gates app¡±, ¡°seven Gates disappearing app¡±, ¡°seven gates VR¡±, and even, in a moment of profound desperation, ¡°seven gates isekai¡±. Nothing.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. But it turns out there are real bearded monkeys. They¡¯re called, he learns, bearded saki, they¡¯re native to South America, their diet consists mostly of nuts and berries, and they''re generally considered pretty harmless. They¡¯re quite a bit smaller than the monkeys that chewed on him and their fur is mostly black, not brown, but otherwise there''s a fair resemblance. Maybe he was magically transported to Bolivia. Honestly, Jonathan isn¡¯t ruling anything out at this point. And, hey, it turns out Brazil is the biggest producer of apples in the world. He googles ¡°tasteless apples¡±, and is swiftly lost in a sea of articles and opinion posts about which kind of apple is the best, organic orchards, transporting fruit long distances, and global warming. He isn¡¯t getting anywhere. Fuck it. Jonathan goes to his closet, pushes past the winter coats and moves a few shoeboxes until he finds the slim box his highschool graduation hat and robes came in. He opens it. The hat went missing on graduation day, but the robes are still here and, tucked inside them, is a pack of edibles. He takes one out and roles it between his fingers, checks the Seven Gates app with his other hand. Respawn in: 5:56 Almost six hours. These particular edibles aren¡¯t that strong, he should be able to take one and sober up in six hours. His psychiatrist said not to use weed while on his medication, but fuck that guy. Maybe it will help him think clearly. He pops it into his mouth. While waiting for it to kick in he goes downstairs and puts a couple of frozen chalupas in the microwave. He drinks two full cups of water watching the glass plate go round and round. A full stomach and solid hydration keep his highs mellow. Short and sweet. He eats the chalupas. ¡°Respawn in: 5:39¡± With both his parents at work and nothing particular to do, Jonathan turns on the TV and starts casting twitch from his phone. He¡¯ll lean his dad¡¯s recliner back and watch streams in style. Misty Kim streamed this morning. It was Geshin Impact, not his favorite game, but he watches all her stuff. ¡°Hey guys!¡± she beams at him from the TV. ¡°Thanks for coming to my stream! Geshin has some new drops today, and I love them! We want to get them, fast as possible!¡± She punctuates the last sentence with a little fluttering clap. It¡¯s one of her signature gestures. Jonathan settles in to watch the stream. She¡¯s been putting a lot of time off-camera into her English, and it definitely shows. Jonathan discovered Misty when she was a little, Korean streamer with a shitty mic who only played Minecraft. He got hooked right away. It wasn¡¯t just her looks, though, yeah, there¡¯s that too, but the obvious enthusiasm with which she¡¯d given tours of her psychedelic, sprawling mansions. Jonathan¡¯d watched it all even though he hadn¡¯t understood a word. Now she¡¯s acquired a great mic and thousands of subscribers and some fairly subtle cosmetic surgery, but she still brings that energy to her streams. He¡¯s proud of her. He doesn¡¯t exactly have a lot of experience, but he¡¯s pretty sure this is what love feels like. Under the effects of the edible, his mind starts to wander. He thinks about Seven Gates. Should he tell someone? Who? His parents? His psychiatrist? The police? What if they don¡¯t believe him? What if they lock him up? What if they take his phone away and he can¡¯t go back? He thinks about Misty¡¯s tits. Way back, someone in chat said that Misty¡¯s boobs were as perky as she was. Dude got banned, but Jonathan had felt that on a spiritual level. He thinks what will happen if they do believe him. Lots of scientists and brain scans, probably. Would they still let him play? Would they monitor him all the time? After batting ideas back and forth for like an hour, he decides that, whether they believe him or not, nothing good can come of telling people. He¡¯ll have to keep it a secret for now. There¡¯s no new information, but he¡¯s a bit relieved just having figured that much out. He thinks about Misty¡¯s lips. Pressed tight in moments of tension, split into a huge smile when things go well. He wonders what it would be like to kiss them. This is not new territory for his brain. A number of well-worn fantasies pop into in his mind, but even with the edible, there¡¯s just too much else to think about right now. He thinks about the, he checks, four hours and eleven minutes he still has to wait before he can play Seven Gates. This isn¡¯t the first game he¡¯s played that has a cooldown before you can play again. There are a bunch of mobile games that have an energy system where you can only play so many games in a row, or where heroes who die need time to recover. For those games, the design philosophy is obvious; get the player hooked on a supposedly free game and then make them pay real-world money if they want to play without waiting for the recharge. But if Seven Gates is after his money, it¡¯s playing the long game. It hasn¡¯t even asked for his credit card information. Why a death timer then? Every game he¡¯s played without microtransactions has let him try again immediately after dying. Usually, you go back to the last checkpoint. Sometimes you lose money, items, or experience when you die. To get those resources back, and to get back to where you were, takes time. The game punishes you for being bad by making you play more, giving you more practice. A really hard-assed game like Dark Souls threatens to take all your stuff unless you can make it back to the place you died without dying again. If you play bad, you¡¯re forced to play better. Seven Gates punishes bad play with a fucking eight-hour cooldown. Why? Then he gets it. He sits up so fast the recliner snaps back to his upright position and almost throws him to the floor. Misty Kim complains loudly about drop rates, but Jonathan isn¡¯t listening. Seven Gates is a black box. A total mystery. The technology is impossible, the method of dissemination makes no sense. It''s gone from the app store, it doesn¡¯t exist on Reddit or Google. There¡¯s no information about it anywhere except in the game itself. The only way to figure it out is to keep playing. But what happens if you die? You¡¯re slapped with a hefty eight hours in the no-play zone. Bad players are effectively banned from making progress. The only way to figure out Seven Gates is to be good at it. And that¡¯s perfect, because if there¡¯s one thing Jonathan¡¯s good at, it¡¯s games. Legendary rank in Call of Duty. Every single steam achievement for the Witcher 3. Four thousand hours in Minecraft. You name a game, he¡¯s a hundred percented it. He¡¯s a completionist. Doesn¡¯t know when to quit, doesn¡¯t know how. There¡¯s nothing he can¡¯t beat. Seven Gates caught him by surprise. He wasn¡¯t thinking about what he was doing when he approached the monkey. Or at least, he wasn¡¯t thinking like a gamer. Of course the game would put an enemy encounter in front of the quest reward! That¡¯s what games do! He should have expected to have to fight the monkey. He shouldn¡¯t have given up his only weapon so easily. He should have attacked the moment he saw it. Jonathan settles back in the chair, rewinds the stream a few minutes in case he missed anything. He checks the Seven Gates app. Respawn in: 3:58 Jonathan points a finger at the ceiling. He can feel the zen focus of marijuana in his veins, the smile creeping onto his face. ¡°Four hours you monkey bitch! I¡¯m coming for you!¡± 1.4 Alpha Gamer Name: N/A Level: 2 Experience: 0/3 Health: 50/50 Stamina: 50/50 Mana: 5/5 Body: 1 Sense: 1 Mind: 1 Intuition: 1 Yin: 1 Yang: 1 Stat Total: 6 In the dark, the ceiling looms as black and endless as a void. Little lights, normally invisible, blink like satellites. The smoke detector. His charging wireless headphones. The LED alarm clock he never uses. Jonathan checks his phone. Respawn in: 32:11 When his parents got home, Misty was turned off and he was lying on the couch looking as pale and out of it as possible. With everything that''s happened today and the edible, that second part wasn''t exactly difficult. He told them he was sick and had to leave work early. His mom fussed over him a bit and make him some soup, but he had all the excuse he needed to take his pills and go to bed early. Respawn in: 28:21 The minutes stretch impossibly. How can time move so slow? He puts in headphones, tries to watch some videos, but even Misty Kim can¡¯t hold his attention. Respawn in: 21:03 Respawn in: 19:07 He¡¯s hooked. He¡¯s a gamer again. He promised his parents he would never go back, but here he is. Respawn in: 15:52 And, honestly, was he ever going to keep that promise? What does he have in life besides games? Respawn in: 11:37 But he never would have dreamed of this. Seven Gates. A game and a mystery and another life, far away from here. He knows he should feel bad about it, but it''s just so damn exciting. Respawn in: 10:19 Ten minutes. He sets a timer for three hours, then makes sure the volume''s low so it won''t wake his parents. That should give him a good long time in the game. Respawn in: 8:43 His mouth is dry. His palms are sweating. He wipes his hands on the sheets, picks the phone back up. Respawn in: 7:23 He keeps the phone up now, watching the numbers drop. 6:00 God, he¡¯s nervous. He breathes deep, let''s it out slow, a calming ritual his therapist taught him. In, out, in, out, in, out, watching the numbers go down. 5:00 4:00 3:00 2:00 1:00 0:45 0:30 0:15 0:10 Ten seconds now! Time for one last breath. In! 0:09 0:08 0:07 0:06 Out! 0:05 0:04 0:03 0:02 0:01 Silver light washes over him. He¡¯s standing in the open, in the dark, stars glittering overhead. There are more stars out there than he''s ever seen in his life. A great shape looms up behind him in the darkness. After a moment of squinting, he recognizes the castle. Looks like Seven Gates has a day-night cycle. He''s back in. Time to get to work. "Can I see my stats, please?" He says to the air. A window pops up full of numbers. Level: 2 Experience: 0/3 Health: 50/50 Stamina: 50/50 Mana: 5/5 Body: 1 Sense: 1 Mind: 1 Intuition: 1 Yin: 1 Yang: 1 Stat Total: 6 Huh. Those are unusual stats, he was expecting strength and dexterity and stuff. "How do I apply my stat points?"The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. A window pops up. Body: 1 + Sense: 1 + Mind: 1 + Intuition: 1+ Yin: 1 + Yang:1 + Unspent points: 1 Leveling up gave him one point. Where should he spend it? Maybe he can get more information. "Can you tell me anything about my stats? Six windows pop up. "Body: Applies power to the physical body. Increases strength, stamina, and health. Used in equipment, building, mining, and crafting checks." "Sense: Applies power through the senses to observe the world. Enhances sensory inputs. Increases information gained through the status window. Used in crafting checks." "Mind: Applies power through the conscious mind. Increases mana. Increases information gained through the status window. Used for casting spells." "Intuition: Applies power through the unconscious mind. Increases mana. Used for intuitive magic. Used for taming and diplomacy checks." "Yin: Applies power through positive emotions. Improves health and stamina. Used for crafting potions. Used for spells and magics." "Yang: Applies power through negative emotions. Improves mana. Used for crafting poisons. Used for spells and magics." Jonathan reads it all, then reads it again to make sure he isn''t missing anything. There''s a lot to unpack here, but it looks like his choice is pretty clear. Mind, Intuition, Yin, and Yang are all used for spellcasting, and he doesn''t have any spells yet. Sense would be useful, but doesn''t help him fight and the immediate obstacle is the monkeys guarding the dead adventurer. He needs to kill shit. He hits the little "+" next to "Body" in the status window. The window closes. Did it work? He flexes. Jumps up and down. Everything feels the same. "Status," he says. Name: N/A Level: 2 Experience: 0/3 Health: 52/52 Stamina: 52/52 Mana: 5/5 Body: 2 Sense: 1 Mind: 1 Intuition: 1 Yin: 1 Yang: 1 Stat Total: 7 Ok, so his numbers did go up. Honestly, he was hoping for more dramatic changes. Still, it''s just one level. There are plenty more where that came from. Time for round two with the monkeys. He heads into the castle. On the way to the adventurer he combs the path for branches. It¡¯s a lot harder to find stuff in the dark. Eventually he comes across one that¡¯s a bit bigger than the others. He breaks it in half over his knee, throws away the skinny end, and snaps off the twigs. What¡¯s left bears a passable resemblance to a club. He gives it a few experimental swings, feeling the weight in his hands. ¡°What¡¯s this?¡± he says. ¡°Stick. Damage +2. Firewood. Possible crafting material. A makeshift weapon.¡± Well, that¡¯s twice as strong as the branch he used last time. He¡¯s making progress. He doesn¡¯t stick so close to the path this time. He wanders off in both directions, seeing what¡¯s there. He finds mostly more trees, plants, and some berries that the status window will not definitively say are not poisonous. The menu is kinda shit sometimes. Soon enough he spots the dead adventurer through the trees. The bag is still lying next to him with, just as he expected, an animal sniffing at it. This is a scripted encounter. What is surprising is that this particular animal doesn¡¯t look like a monkey. It¡¯s longer, lower to the ground, and he can see its large ears twitching back and forth. ¡°Status?¡± he whispers ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± A window pops up. ¡°Miser Rat. A low-level inhabitant of Tutorial Castle. Usually found at night or in the lower levels of the castle. What do they do with the things they steal?¡± He was trying to be quiet, but the rat swivels to look at him. The stars gleam in its little black eyes. Above its head appear the words ¡°Miser Rat: Lvl 1¡± and a red health bar. Nothing for it. Jonathan steps slowly towards the sack, club held at the ready. Maybe this rat has a greater sense of self-preservation than the monkey, maybe he can scare it off. ¡°Hey!¡± he says. The rat¡¯s ears twitch, but otherwise, it doesn¡¯t move. ¡°Hey, piss off!¡± Nothing. He slams his club against the nearest tree, creating a boom and a shower of twigs but no reaction from the rat. Fine. He¡¯ll do this the hard way. One more step and the rat is moving, a streak of fur and flying, naked tail. He steps back, swings his club, both too slow. It sinks its teeth into his ankle. Not-pain shoots up his leg, and his health bar appears at the edge of his vision. 47/52 Shit! Jonathan bellows and swings the club into the rat¡¯s side. It lets go. A neat slice vanishes from its health bar. It scampers off a few feet, lets out a high bellow that sounds nothing like a squeak, and then it¡¯s coming at him again. Jonathan¡¯s ready for it this time. His club hits it just beneath the ear before it can reach him. It reels back, blood darkening its fur. They keep at it for a few long minutes, scrambling back and forth, crashing through the underbrush, Jonathan¡¯s breath booming loud in his ears. His club is proving a definitive advantage, the rat just can¡¯t get at him. It will run off a bit, keeping away from the club, then dart in to try to catch him off guard. Jonathan isn¡¯t doing too well either though. He''s hit it a few times, but he can¡¯t get in close enough finish it off. It¡¯s too fast. He tries to pin it against a tree or the walls that loom up out of the darkness, but it always slips away. He may be winning the battle in terms of health, its red bar is going down faster than his, but a green bar has appeared beneath it in the corner of his vision. Stamina. The avatar¡¯s tiring. He can¡¯t do this forever, while the rat seems inexhaustible. Worse, if he stumbles on a root or something in the dark, it will be on him pretty damn qu¨C Shit! It''s coming. He swings the club down only just in time, clipping it on the shoulder and sending it scurrying back. It has maybe a third of its health left. It lets out a high, chirping cry, as though in pain. The monkey screamed too, when it knew it was going to lose. That''s when the second one showed up. Jonathan steps back, only just in time as the underbrush explodes and now there¡¯s two of them. The rats circle him, indistinguishable save for their health bars, and he has to get away, he has to put his back to a wall before¨C They attack at the same moment. He gets one of them with the club, is turning towards the other, but it leaps, hits him in the side of the knee, and he¡¯s falling. He crashes to the ground, roots and dead leaves whirling across his vision. Sharp little teeth dig into his thigh. 42/50 He struggles to rise, but the other rat is on his back, paws scrambling against his skin, teeth biting into his shoulder. 37/52 32/52 He¡¯s going to die again. In a panic, Jonathan lashes out blindly with his club. The rat behind him backs up a step. Its health bar is nearly full. That means the first one, the wounded one is on his back. 29/52 Planting the butt end of his club on the ground, Jonathan pushes himself to his knees. He reaches up with his other hand, sinks his fingers into something furry and squirming. With a howl he pulls it off him and slams it into the ground. The other one is back on him instantly, but no time for that now. 24/52 The rat twists and writhes, but he has his whole weight on it, holding it down. 18/52 He slams his club into its head. Once. Twice. Three times. It goes still. ¡°Defeated Miser Rat: Lvl 1¡± ¡°2 Experience Gained¡± The other rat lets go. Acting on instinct and adrenalin, Jonathan whirls, reaching for it. It''s turned its back and is heading away from him. It''s trying to run. He throws himself flat, his fingers close on the end of a ropey tail. The rat squeals, writhing, pulling, digging its paws into the earth. He lets go of his club, lays both hands on the tail, and hauls it towards him, struggling up to elbows and knees. It digs its paws into the undergrowth, fights him for every inch, but Jonathan is too strong for it. He regains his feet, and now he has the wiggling little bastard by the tail, half suspended above the ground with its back legs kicking furiously at nothing. The rat screams. He screams back, louder. He pivots, puts all his weight, all his momentum behind a swing that picks the rat off its feet and carries it flying through the air until it hits a tree with a loud thump. Half its health disappears. Jonathan hauls it back around, swings it again. It¡¯s kind of like baseball, except instead of trying to hit a little ball with a bat you¡¯re trying to hit a huge tree with a rat. Lot easier than baseball, really. Which is just as well, because Jonathan was always shit at sports. The rat squeals and goes limp. ¡°Defeated Miser Rat: Lvl 1¡± ¡°2 Experience Gained¡± ¡°Level Up!¡± ¡°Level: 3¡± ¡°Experience till next level: 1/5¡± ¡°Unspent Skill Points: 1¡± He laughs, primal and alive. 1.5 Spoils of Victory Name: N/A Level: 3 Experience: 1/5 Health: 18/52 Stamina: 35/52 Mana: 5/5 Body: 2 Sense: 1 Mind: 1 Intuition: 1 Yin: 1 Yang: 1 Stat Total: 7 The first thing to do, after Jonathan¡¯s gotten his breath back, is assign his new stat point. He thinks about Sense, but, ultimately puts it in Body. Even with the increase in strength and durability, he lost two-thirds of his health and a fourth of his stamina fighting the rats. If all the encounters are this difficult in Seven Gates, he can¡¯t afford to invest in anything right now except raw power. Then he goes to find the sack. The fight took them surprisingly far from the dead adventurer. He wanders through the trees for a few minutes before finally seeing the hollow glow of starlight on bone. But when he reaches out to touch the sack, it disappears beneath his fingers. A window appears in its place. ¡°Bonus Quest, Find the Adventurer¡¯s Remains Complete!" "Obtained Adventurer¡¯s Sack!" "Inventory unlocked." "Try opening the inventory.¡± No button with the word "inventory" appears. Is he supposed to ask for it? ¡°Uh, ok,¡± says Jonathan. ¡°Open inventory?¡± A window appears before him with rows of empty boxes. Only one of them is full, in the top left box sits a scrap of tattered paper. He taps on it. Touching the window is like touching a soap bubble, a membrane on the world that bends under his fingers. The paper appears in his hand. The surface is rough, coarse grained, and something''s been drawn on it in thick black ink. Hard to see what in the light. He moves, looking for a beam of starlight that makes it through the trees, and, yes, there. It¡¯s a drawing of the castle in profile, with sections cut away to reveal chambers and passageways inside. There are little ¡®x¡¯s scattered across it. This is a map. ¡°Quest added: Bonus Quest; Find the Adventurer¡¯s Tools.¡± ¡°Tools found: 2/14¡± That¡¯s a lot of items for a tutorial quest. But he already got two of them, so it must be counting the sack and the map. Maybe they won''t be that hard to find. He checks the map again, squinting, and counts the ¡®x¡¯s. Yup, there are fourteen of them, so all the rewards are on the map. Two of the marks, one right on top of the other, are grayed out, so the map updates when he collects a tool. Makes sense, from a game design perspective. But wait, there¡¯s a third ¡®x¡¯, right under the other two. He missed one of the tools. It takes him an embarrassingly long time to find. He searches the underbrush, he checks the cracked tiles, and he walks around looking at the trees before he thinks to check the skeleton. Pushing away some of the leaves and debris that have fallen over the lower half of the body he sees something sharp gleaming in the skeletal hand. ¡°Quest updates: Bonus Quest; Find the Adventurer¡¯s Tools.¡± ¡°Adventurer¡¯s Knife. Damage +4. Useful for crafting, for starting a fire if you have flint, and for dressing game. A weapon in a pinch.¡± ¡°Tools found: 3/14¡± Excellent. If there¡¯s anything he wants right now, it¡¯s a better weapon, but the other applications sound useful too. ¡®Dressing game,¡± in particular, caught his attention. First, though, he needs to practice using the inventory. Gingerly, he taps an empty box in the inventory with the map. It disappears from his hand and appears in the box. He takes it out. Puts it back in again. It¡¯s a weird experience. The map isn¡¯t pulled from his hand, it¡¯s just gone. His fingers are left confused, closing in on absent parchment. He deposits and withdraws the knife a few times too, just to get the hang of it, and goes to find the rats. Standing over the corpses, though, he''s having second thoughts. On the one hand, his gamer instincts say that you should always, always, always loot your kills. It¡¯s basic. On the other hand, the idea of cutting up this dead animal is profoundly unappealing. It¡¯s not like Jonathan¡¯s ever been hunting or anything, he doesn¡¯t have any idea what he¡¯s doing. Don''t you have to, like, take out all the guts and stuff? What useful stuff could he even get from these things anyway? He squats and pokes the body with his knife. A window appears. ¡°Would you like to butcher Giant Rat; Lvl 1?¡± ¡°Yes¡± ¡°No¡± Oh, thank God. It¡¯s automated. He hits ¡°Yes¡±. The body vanishes. ¡°Gained 1 Raw Rat Meat¡± ¡°Gained 1 experience¡± ¡°-5 Stamina, 36/52¡± He checks his inventory and, yep, there¡¯s the rat meat. This is big. Since the game lets him automate actions that grant resources and experience, if he figures out how to manage his stamina correctly it could be incredibly powerful. ¡°System,¡± he says, ¡°how do I replenish my stamina?¡± Wonder of wonders, he actually gets an answer. ¡°Stamina can be replenished by eating, certain spells, potions, and resting. To rest you must construct a shelter." ¡°What about my health?¡± ¡°Health can be replenished by certain spells, potions, and resting. To rest you must construct a shelter." Resting, eh? A lot of games have a resting system and it¡¯s always basically instantaneous from the player¡¯s perspective, but he¡¯s willing to bet Seven Gates is different. That would fit its style, punishing getting hurt with time out of the game. He doesn¡¯t have any spells or potions that can heal him so the only way to regain health is to rest, but he can also regain stamina by eating. Therefore, if he can find stuff to eat and crafting projects he can potentially gain infinite experience without getting hurt and without ever leaving the game. First things first, he butchers the second rat. Now, if he had a fire, he could cook the meat he just gained and hopefully it would give him more stamina than he''s lost. Unfortunately, he has neither fire nor any idea how to make one. He''s no boy scout. But there¡¯s another option; where was that apple he found earlier?Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. He retraces his steps, heading back towards the terrace. He doesn¡¯t remember the exact spot, but if he keeps his eyes peeled he should be able to find¨C there¡¯s one, a spot of red against the ground. That wasn¡¯t so hard. Is it just him, or is it getting lighter out? He picks up the apple and takes a bite. It¡¯s just as tasteless as he remembers. Maybe there¡¯s a better way. ¡°Can I eat this through the menu?¡± he asks, mouth full. A window obligingly pops up. ¡°Apple. A good snack for the trail. Eat?¡± ¡°Yes¡± ¡°No¡± He hits ¡°yes¡±. The apple disappears. ¡°Stamina +2, 27/54¡± Not much, but there''s more where that came from. Even a quick look around shows red globes hanging from the branches of the nearest tree. He circles it, plucking every fruit he can find and eating them as he goes. ¡°+2 Stamina, 29/54¡± ¡°+2 Stamina, 31/54¡± ¡°+2 Stamina, 33/54¡± ¡°+2 Stamina, 35/54¡± ¡°+2 Stamina, 37/54¡± ¡°+2 Stamina, 39/54¡± That¡¯s everything within easy reach and he¡¯s replenished all the stamina he lost butchering the rats, but there¡¯s still more of them up there and he has to remember to think like a gamer. A gamer doesn¡¯t just loot what he needs right now. A gamer loots everything. He grabs the lowest branch and pulls himself up. This is a huge tree, and there¡¯s fruit everywhere. He leaves the inventory open as he goes, depositing what he picks directly into storage. It¡¯s definitely getting lighter out, he can see much more easily now. He¡¯ll pick the tree clean, then move on to the next task. Maybe if he can collect enough branches he can craft a shelter, maybe get some experience and even level u¨C An angry chittering stops him dead in his tracks. Jonathan turns slowly from the cluster of apples he''s pilfering to see a monkey squatting on the branch above him, teeth bared in an expression Jonathan has become all too familiar with. ¡°Bearded Monkey: Lvl 1¡± Shit. The trees are the monkey¡¯s domain, the status told him that. He forgot. He got greedy. Stupid, stupid! The first monkey he fought almost killed him, and now he only has eighteen health for this one. He¡¯s going to get killed again. The monkey stares at him. Jonathan stares back. He hardly dares blink or breathe as he moves his hand slowly, oh so slowly towards the inventory. The monkey chitters. His heart is about to pound out of his chest. Almost there. His eyes twitch to the inventory and he hits the knife and his fingers wrap around the hilt but by the time he looks up back the monkey is a furry blur. It hits him, teeth sinking into the flesh of his shoulder, and he¡¯s tilting, going over. ¡°Health; 13/54¡± No time to pull the monkey off. He grasps at the tree. His hand closes on leaves and twigs, scrapes past them to something solid. He grasps the branch for dear life. With his other hand he stabs wildly. The monkey is too close, there''s fur in his face, he can¡¯t see. The blade passes through the air. Glances off something hard, maybe wood. Lodges in flesh. The monkey grunts. He pulls the knife out, stabs again. They''re slipping. The branch he''s got hold of isn''t thick enough, it''s bending under his weight. He twists his legs, trying to wrap them around the branch, trying to hold on. Not good enough. He''s sliding, slipping, nearly prone, torso perpendicular to the tree. In another second he¡¯ll fall. The monkey¡¯s scratching at him, and, shit! A line of not-pain across his ribs. He just cut himself with his own knife! 8/54 He stabs again. Finally, the monkey lets go. It gurgles and falls away from him, pulling the knife from his hand. ¡°Defeated Bearded Monkey: Lvl 1¡± ¡°2 Experience Gained¡± ¡°Level Up!¡± ¡°Level: 4¡± ¡°Experience till next level: 0/8¡± ¡°Unspent Skill Points: 1¡± No time to celebrate. Jonathan pulls himself back up, unwraps his legs from the branch, and makes like hell back down the trunk. Already he can hear other monkeys chittering in the distance. Half way down. Shit, he can actually see one, jumping over from the next tree. He scrambles down a few branches. The ground is only a few yards away. The monkey is closer. Time to jump. He¡¯s moving though the air, ground rushing up to meet him, leaves brushing across his face. He hits the ground, hard. 5/54 He rolls, crawls to the dead monkey, pulls the knife out of it''s body, and flips over. He lies there, breath coming in and out like a bellows, holding his knife up at the tree above him. Two monkeys sit in its branches. They chitter, jump around, and scream at him, but they don¡¯t come down. Evidently, they¡¯ve decided the ground is his territory. He made it. He¡¯s safe. After he''s gotten his breath back, the first thing to do is assign his new stat points. Body, again, given the fact that he just about got killed by another monkey. Speaking of the monkey, the time to butcher it. At the cost of five stamina, it nets him an experience and a monkey meat. Monkey meat and rat meat. Can you imagine anything less appetizing? Next he gathers up all the apples that got knocked off during the fight, which turns out to be quite a lot. Time to replenish his stamina. He starts eating. ¡°+2 Stamina, 32/54¡± ¡°+2 Stamina, 39/54¡± ¡°+2 Stamina, 39/54" But when he pulls out the fourth apple, the option to eat it doesn''t appear. "I want to eat this," he says. A window pops up. "Satiation reached. Can eat again in 2:30." Since when does a game have a satiation system? This sucks. If the stamina he can regain without resting is capped, then no matter what he does he will eventually have to rest. Seven Gates is really trying to kick him off. Also, it means he''s on a timer if he wants to rest and regain any health. He has to get a shelter constructed before he runs out of stamina. He starts gathering branches. While he''s at it, he comes across a vine crawling up the castle wall which the status window tells him can serve as a rope. He hacks off every bit of it, and finds he has a new problem. He''s filled up his inventory. Jonathan curses out loud. Limited inventory space is a relic, a product of an age where game designers put players through endless tedious shit. What is this, 2005? But there''s nothing for it. He fills his arms with vines and heads to the dead adventurer, who happens to sit in the nearest thing to a clearing the courtyard has. Time to get crafting. After a lot of trial and error, he figures out he can construct a lean-to if he piles together lots of branches and vines and taps them with his knife. It''s a weird process. Seven Gates lets him see where the structure will go before he builds it, fanned out through the air kind of like a hologram. He can move it around by waving his hands. To an observer who couldn''t see the interface, he''d probably look crazy. He kinda feels crazy. Once he gets it where he wants it against a tree, he hits the build button. It takes a whopping seven stamina, grants an experience, and creates a shaky pile of sticks that falls down almost the moment it''s constructed. Well, shit. Maybe it had structural problems? He shifts to another, bigger tree, with flatter ground beneath it and tries again. It stays up this time. He squats down and sits inside it. It''s not what he''d call fine living or anything, but hey, it''s a start. He starts to stand up, knocks his head on the top, and the whole thing collapses. Now Jonathan''s running out of supplies and, with all the walking around finding stuff he''s done, he''s running out of stamina. He disassembles the two failed lean-tos for branches and vines, keeping an eye on his ever diminishing stamina bar. One more shot. This time, he chooses to prop it up between two trees. He hits the build button. A crude triangle of sticks appears, seemingly from nothing, and his stamina bar plummets into single digits. It doesn''t fall over. He walks around it. It doesn''t fall over. He lays a hand, ever so gently, on top of it. It still doesn''t fall over. Jonathan laughs. He can finally rest. He hunches inside and lies down on the stone. You wouldn''t think it would be that comfortable and, honestly, it''s not, but this body seems pretty immune to discomfort. Maybe it''s because he''s lying down, but the menu pops up on its own. "Would you like to rest?" "Full rest 5:15" "Partial rest" "No" Over five hours. That''s not that much better than just dying and respawning. Still, Jonathan will take what he can get. He hits full rest. A moment later Jonathan finds himself in his own body, in his own bed. The house is quiet and dark. He stretches and, damn, he''s stiff. He must have been lying here without moving the whole time. What time is it? His phone says 10:59. When he checks his timer, he finds he still has almost half an hour left. He sets a new timer, this one for 5 hours and15 minutes. When the avatar wakes up, he''ll be ready for it. Jonathan doesn''t think he''ll be able to sleep. I mean, shit, after the day he''s just had? So many thoughts fill his head. Questions about Seven Gates. The technology. The curious design philosophy. What lies deeper in the castle? What are the other tools of the adventurer? How long will it take time to find them all? What lies past the tutorial? Who else found the app before it vanished? Who else is playing? And he''s gone, snoring into his pillow, phone still clutched in his hand.