true life videogame: Chapter 3

Bulma put on her armor again. It sure didn’t do anything for her figure but these were the only clothes she had, except a thin white undershirt and shorts so the armor would rub her skin raw. It was thankful the game gave her that. It was probably a decency thing for when they changed armors. But still she was thankful that put that in there. She also found out it refused to move too. Like when Goku tried to pick up her helmet for her. It replied her hand, the same as it did him yesterday. The underclothes stayed where it was.

            Vegeta already left as he only had a cloak to his attire. The visions on other mages in the town come to mind. Vegeta seemed to dress a little more provocatively than the other mages here. With the cloak open showing his muscular chest. Not that she was complaining. Vegeta always pushed away from the mainstream. That was just him, he’ll never conform.

            She pushed the thought away and pulled on her gloves. The connections of the straps on the underside were a chore, as her reach was hindered by the unmoveable material. Putting this stuff on was almost a two-person job. Bulma finally was able to move enough to connect to last straps. After a short breather she placed on her helmet with the stupid visor that kept falling down.

            Stepping out of the inn, she looked to see the same people were walking around in the same pattern. This was all programmed after all. The only real things here were her and her friends. She had to keep the thought in mind. As long as there were save spheres and such, she couldn’t be harmed. Temporary pain as life points went down but that was all. It was time to be the warrior, to be out in front not in the background.

“Bulma.” She turned to see Goku coming out to her. He had a small mask on that covered around his eyes.

“Isn’t too early for Halloween?”

“Vegeta got everyone an upgrade piece of armor.” Bulma stared at him not believing. “He got lots of gold from the T-rex. According to him the game rewards you for battling alone and for taking on high leveled monsters if you are at a low level. At least I think that’s what he meant. I asked him six times and he didn’t repeat himself even once. He threw the mask at me and told me ‘now get lost before I roast your tailless carcase.’ I think I might have annoyed him a little.” Bulma smiled seeing how that happened in her mind. Vegeta had to power of fire here. He probably would, if you can attack the others in the party. With the different in levels and all. One blow could send Goku back to the save sphere. Bulma was amused on how quickly she was picking up on this. She was a genius after all.

“I’m sure only a little.”

            Bulma gave a startled yelp has the helmet was pulled off her head. Before she could turn, a new one was in its place. One without a viser and a strip of metal come down her forehead to the end of her nose. He turned to see Vegeta with her old one in hand.

“You can’t use that. How can you touch that?” Vegeta walked to the street vendor and handed it the old helmet. A few coins were put into Vegeta’s hand. He walked back to her.

“You can’t have two helmets equipped at one time. It was a starter. Be happy I brought you something.”

“Funny. But Seriously now, Goku earlier tried to pick it up and it repelled him.”

“In. The. Field. We’re in town now. Others can touch the others’ weapons and armor of classes. Just can’t use them in the field.” Bulma still couldn’t get over the fact he knew about these things. Diplomacy or not, it was too weird.

            Eighteen, Krillen and little Marron come up to them. Krillen was sporting new fangs that stuck lightly out of his mouth. But Marron, the best she could tell and Eighteen didn’t have anything new. Vegeta tuned to them.

“Alright. Marron isn’t leveling up because the sprites aren’t supposed to. They are the red light healers. Their powers are limited but they grow in power as the people in the group do. They can’t be attacked but they can’t attack either. They are practically the same was an NPC.” Eighteen kept a straight face but the eyes screamed relieve. Even though she couldn’t be killed. The mother’s instinct was to protect the child from all harm. Temporary or not, it made no difference.

“How do you know?” Bulma asked unsure of this. Vegeta points to a green tome next to the entrance on the town.

“That’s called a directory. Every game has one. It tells you the basic controls for the game, types of enemies, and any other kinds of information the developers decide to put in there. This one tells you about the classes and element protections certain enemies have here.” Bulma looked at him, like she was seeing him in a whole different light.

“It freaks me out that you know about these things.” Bulma said with her armored arms crossed for the most part.

“Not exactly proud of the fact that still do after all this time. Yet that is besides the point.” He said without turning to her. “Hey. Tin can.”

            Eighteen narrowed her eyes at the nick name. After all the time that had passed the name stuck with her. Vegeta was a creature of habit after all. Before a comment on his height and hair passed her lips, Vegeta tossed her a chain mail looking jacket.

“Do us a favor and put that on already. There are kids running around including yours. Show some class for once.” With that he turned on his heel and walked away.

            Eighteen smiled despite herself. They had a strange relationship. Not friendly and not enemies. Not sure what they were but it wasn’t enemies, not anymore. But Vegeta was alone by habit. She didn’t know his past but she did know they shared a common thing. Before they meet a special person on this planet, there live’s were empty and tried to fill it was the pain of others. Like her, there was a nice side, just wasn’t comfortable about showing it.

X)(X

After everyone got their new pieces of armor, thanks of Vegeta. As he was the only one with enough money to actually buy anything good, they exited town. Vegeta stood more to the right as that was the way he was going to go.

“We should split up again.” Trunks said lenning his expertise in the gamer genre. Vegeta almost rolled his eyes walking to the right path. “Dad! Were you going?!”

“While all of you are trying to figure this out. I’ll meet you at the next town.”

“Oh no you don’t!” Bulma somehow ran in front of him. “You are not leaving me again!”

“Well there’s one decided. Seven more to go.”

“Could you be a team player for once?”

“I was on a team once. And I killed my partner, remember?”

“That was different. He was . . . ”

“Evil?”

“Stop bringing that up!”

“You brought it up and keep bringing it up!”

“You saying it’s my fault we keep coming back to this?!”

“You figured it out. You must be a genius.” The sarcasm was so thick it was hard not to choke on it.

            The others watched them go back and fourth and back fourth with the auguring. Trunks was the only one unaffected by this. Wasn’t even concerned by it.

“Aren’t you going to stop it?” Krillen said to Trunks and only shook his head.

“No. This is normal. They need to blow off stream and each other are their favorite targets. Just give it a minute. They will burn themselves out.” Goku didn’t listen and walked over to the battling couple.

“Hey guys! Stop fighting please.” Both turned to him with eyes with murderous tents to them.

            Goku started to back up as Bulma raised her sword and Vegeta’s eyes flare with fire. She turned to Vegeta.

“He touched the save point right?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Keep him pinned to an area and leave the deathblow for me.” Goku started to back away a few inches at a time.

“You guys are playing with me right?” Vegeta and Bulma didn’t respond to him as they are still in conversion with each other.

“This is that team thing right?”

“Exactly.”

“What the hell.” Vegeta raised his hand, palm up forming a fire ball.

            Eighteen held on to the back of Chi-Chi’s one piece deer skin suit as she was trying to run over there to break it up.

“How long will this last for?” Trunks shrugged.

“A few minutes maybe. Parents. So immature at times.”

“Like you can talk. You blow off a play date so you could play this.”

“True, but I am a child. I’m supposed to be immature. Their grownups. What excuse do they have?”

X)(X

After Bulma and Vegeta blow off their stream on Goku and he came back from the save point, their auguring stopped completely and they went to the right. Trunks opted to stay with the others to help them with their inexperience. The same was Goten. There characters now couldn’t seem to be parted more than a fifteen feet. Or they hit an invisible wall and there herded back to each other. So there was no choice there. Eighteen and Goku tried pulling them in opposite directions but were pulled back to each other with force that nearly depleted there hit points. A quick heal later, they decided not to do that again and just deal with the strange game function or glitch.

X)(X

Coming out of the thicker part of the forest and back into the trail, Vegeta and Bulma straightened out there armored pieces and cloth. The game was really getting on their nerves now.

“Well that was uneventful.” Vegeta said staying neutral and he blasted a monster that was charging them. It died instantly and Bulma picked up the materials it had and money it was carrying. Before catching up to him.

“I know.” She looked down at him palm seeing the gold coins. “Why do monsters carry money anyway?” Vegeta looked at her on of the corner of his eye.

“The age-old question. No idea.” She sighed putting everything into her pouch that could hold thirty-five items despite the size, and could hold all the money in this virtual world.

“This sucks!” Vegeta smiled lightly.

“Last I checked. We couldn’t do that either.” An armor hand smacked his shoulder hard. But like in the real world it didn’t hurt him even if she was trying.

            One monster leaped out of the bushes and Vegeta blasts it without a second thought or care. Bulma picked up the tooth and few gold and rushed his side again.

“By the way. Is fire all you have?”

“No I have Fire two, Ice one, Thunder two, and Earth one. These have levels one to three. The higher the level the most MP or mana points if you will, the spell takes to cast them but they do more damage. There are additional spells without level here like Water, Flare, Dark, Osmose, Poison, Death, Zombie, Ultima. These spells cost a hundred times the gold we have now and sometimes have level requirements or other kinds of requirements to do before you can get them.” He stopped realizing just how weird this sounds coming from him. It wasn’t his fault. He had to listen and learn this stuff as a kid. And with his photographic memory, he would even forget it. No matter how hard he tried.

            Bulma smiled but didn’t say anything. She knew he didn’t have much of a choice when his father took him the meetings off worlds. She had similar things in her past with her father. And this was only to the other side of the country. She couldn’t imagine what off world would be like. Especially the whole different range of cultures there must have been.

 

X)(X

The trail on the left was mazed as the harder path to the right was straight forward. The others walked in circles for a bit. Before Trunks and Goten realized that fact. In the four-way split in the road, they looked down each way seeing they looked exactly the same.

“Great. We should have took the right path from the start. I don’t think Bulma or Vegeta is having this problem.” Krillen sighed being his depressing self like always.

“Too late now.” She looked down them again for some thing of a sign or different, but that would

have been too easy.

“We should spilt and check down these trails.”

“These trails could go on forever or in circles forever.”

“Are we lost, Mommy?” Little Marron’s voice rang out in her tiny sprite form.

“No, we are just not sure where we are at the moment.” Trunks looked around almost depressed until he saw Marron in Eighteen’s hand.

“Marron can help!” His got weird looks around. “I’m serious. She can fly into the canopy and seeing where the paths lead or see where the exit is and see if we can cut through.” Eighteen looked down at her with his mothering eyes. “Father said she’s like NPC and she can’t be attacked.” The eyes harder at the statement. Trunks took a step closer. “Miss Eighteen I know you and my father don’t get along so well for some reason but he wouldn’t lie about that. He would go straight for you if he wanted to hurt you, not her. Besides the worst than could happen is he was wrong and she going back to the save point.”

            Pale blue eyes descended on her daughter. She smiled up at her mother with a bright smile.

“Marron. You think you can find a way out of here?”

“I can do it!” She stood and spread her butterfly like wings. And she flew up into the trees.

            Marron flew up higher but saw leaves, leaves and more leaves until her saw the cleared away paths. She flew down and got face to hideous face with a sobering wolf. He walked to her and Marron put her hands in front of her face, too scared to scream. Moments and moments past and nothing. She peeked with one eye seeing nothing. Taken her hands away, she looked around seeing where it went. She looked behind her seeing it walk away. Mister Vegeta was right. The monsters wouldn’t attack her. It was like they didn’t see her. Going down the path with monsters and flying back without as much as a snarl thrown her way, she found them still waiting where she left them.

“It’s this way. But there lots of the mean wolfs here.”

X)(X

“I wonder if the others are having problems.” Vegeta ignored her. It was a stupid statement not worthy of a response. “This is supposed to be the harder path, right?”

“Yes. But I doubt they were expecting any character above twenty going through here. Not to mention the fact we are not done yet. We might have to fight some kind of boss.” The ground shook again. Vegeta looked up seeing a gore the toppled the trees with a huge club in his hand. “Sometimes I hate it when I’m right.”

“Boss?”

“Yeah.” Vegeta held out his hand then clenched into a fist fast. Fire burst around the ogre instantly. It dropped its club and was flashing red. Vegeta repeated the attack and the ogre dropped to him knees and straight to the ground, where it absorbed into it. A yellow flash surround Bulma as she went to level ten.

            Vegeta couched down seeing it left behind hand fulls of coins and a few things, he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to touch at first. Vegeta mind up his mind and scooped it into his bag clenching his teeth while doing it. If it was one thing, he learned you never leave anything behind. Even if you have ninety-eight of them. If it’s possible, you take it. That was the rule of these games.

“That’s it?”

“Like I said.” Vegeta looked over his shoulder at her. “The developers weren’t expecting anyone above level twenty this early in the game.”

“So that was Fire level two?”

“Yes.” Vegeta stood and continued on.

“Pretty cool.” Vegeta was just glad she didn’t say mando cool. He hated that phrase since the first time he heard it on Namkic.

“There it is.” Vegeta said as Bulma caught up with him seeing the next town. It was bigger, brighter, with stables and blacksmith shops all on the outside of it.

“Looks like the barraa.”

“Barraa? What’s that?”

“In the last game I played there was a this kind of marketplace where they sell the same things that they do in town but at different prices. Some lower some higher. In other cases one tent down there might lower their prices for a Mage but raise it for a Rogue. Or they may ask for a certain thing and they give you a special item or an item that is there but not for sale.

“So here you can save and get scammed at the same time here.”

“Exactly.” He started walking down the hill and Bulma started carefully. Vegeta looked back seeing her tip toe down the hill. Sighing and rolling his eyes as he walked back up there. “If we are going, let’s get there.” He picked her up bridle style. He couldn’t attack the enemies physically but his natural strength wasn’t affect by going into the game. Bulma, in the heavy armor, she was no more trouble to carry than a small, underweight child.

            Bulma looked up at him, cheeks burning red. She couldn’t even walk down a hill in this armor. She was no warrior. Even with the knowledge the enemies weren’t real, she got scared every time one jumped out of the shadows or the bushes on the path.

“I’m no help, aren’t I?”

“None at all.” Vegeta smirked lightly doing his best to make it look like a sneer. “Oh? Was that one of these moments there I was supposed to say something like ‘Don’t say that.’ Or maybe ‘You’re plenty of help to me.’ Or something else that mushy?” Eyes flared as her tempter rose.

“Jerk!” Her beat with armor hands on his unprotective chest. Vegeta laughed as her blows barely tickled. “Why do I put up with you?!” Vegeta resisted the urge to laugh and drop her on her metal-clad butt.

“I got a cute smile.”

“Not that cute.”

            Vegeta got to the bottom of the steep hill and on the grounds of the marketplace. Dropping her feet to the ground, Bulma stood on her power.

“Let get to the save point first. Then we can figure out what’s next. That’s why I hate these things. Fighting games were much easier and quicker this.” Vegeta stopped as a thought entered his mind. Bulma noticed and stopped too.

“What’s wrong?”

“We need to finish this game as soon as possible.”

“Okay. Yea. I agree. Did we need just now figure that out?” Vegeta to into his own thoughts didn’t take the bait. “Vegeta. You’re scaring me here. What’s wrong?”

“Let’s just say there’s never been a scary sight when a Third class Saiyan is starved.” Bulma never thought about food and other body needs. But there were too many questions left unanswered.

“Maybe these aren’t real bodies and they are digital.”

“Possible. Yet, I still have my natural strength and agility. If we were only digital, one would think the strength and speed would be in normal human parameters.” Bulma would have bit down of her knuckle, an odd habit from childhood, but the armor made that impossible.

“I hate it when you’re right. And if you are completely right, what will Goku do?”

“Hard to say exactly. Possible kill us and eat us. Then after we are gone. Starve to death and die.”

“You have a lovely way of putting things.”

“A gift.” Vegeta said walking through the entrance of the town. Bulma sighed looking his back.

“I wish you saved the receipt.”