AuthorPalt

A Gamer's Guide 173

Courthouse, exterior. Crowd is even bigger than yesterday. More signs, more shouting, more things thrown at me, more guards trying to suppress the rioting with less faked enthusiasm.

The only major difference would be in the addition of an anti-riot, consisting of a whole two people. When I and Moleman pass them by, Virgil tries to wave my way, but I ignore her. If the other people in the tutorial knew we were actually friends, I can’t imagine how they’d treat her. So, although it p...

RRL AD + random stuff

Anthrax bought me an ad spot so I drew this to fill it with! And then there’s a bunch of random stuff. Nothing of much interest or value. Typical, standard art. 

Gamer's Guide Books 1 and 2 pdf's

Here are the first two books (chapters 1-76 and 77-153 respectively) in pdf format, as promised. Hope you enjoy!

By the way, and this should go without saying, but please don't spread these around too much, I know it's not a request I can monitor in any way, but this is currently my only real way of making money, so... yeah. Thanks!

Cover for book 1 + various sketches and stuff

finally getting back into drawing this dude. been so long i kinda forgot what his face was supposed to look like…

A Gamer's Guide 172

I wake up. I’m in… a hospital, of some sort.

Not dead. Alive.

But I died.

And before that…

Cheering explodes across my skull and I press my hands against my head, hoping to silence it, if only a little. Wait. Hands? Yeah, now that I look at it, I’ve got hands. Everything else is healed, too. Except my clothes. Actually, if I look under the thin WHITE blanket I’m covered with, exactly nothing of that sort has regenerated. I’m in the nude.

Appr...

A Gamer's Guide 171

It feels strange. Life continues. Somehow, I didn’t expect to survive until lunch. Or, at least, that if I were to receive lunch, it would be in the form of my final supper. Instead, I’m looking into a bowl of clear broth, a piece of bread in my hand, and my own face staring up at me. I don’t recognize it too well. The surface of the broth has left it deformed in both shape and color, so the eyes that stare up to me aren’t liver-failure yellow, but instead RED.

Sinking my spoon ...

A Gamer's Guide 170

When we arrive for the trial the next day, there’s a crowd outside.

Where did they come from? Why are they here? I don’t know. What I do know is that a lot of people are shouting very loudly that I ought to be hanged. Moleman mutters something under his breath about word of mouth moving quickly in the tutorial, which does appear to be the case.

When they spot me, the shouting intensifies. Signs and boards are raised angrily and—hey, wait a moment. Isn’t that my pi...

A Gamer's Guide 169

The shower wasn’t exactly a shower, but it was warm water that fell onto me, so I had no reason to complain. I took my first proper shower in… two years, technically speaking? Then again, I wasn’t much of a shower-goer even before that, so it could have been longer.

It was nice. I had soap to use that smelled herbal and a little weird. I even got to dry off with a towel, and when I exited, Moleman had left me a change of clothes. Nothing extravagant, just a pair of dark p...

A Gamer's Guide 168

Swords slash, spears stab, arrows fly, magic magics, and I take it all. One spear goes into my stomach, an arrow stabs into my shoulder, a sword slashes my forearm, and a bit of magic bounces off me harmlessly. To the people around me, it must have seemed like I willingly took it, which I did. However, I made sure to move just enough to ensure no weapon hit any critical areas.

Like this, I will be more disturbing to look at.

My apathetic reaction to it all is enough for the person...

A Gamer's Guide 167

Lunch was good. Need I say more? We stumbled around for almost a full hour, moving around the entire circumference of the market district. We saw pubs, grander restaurants, small shops for armor and weapons and even magical items, alongside the whole of the marketplace itself. It was actually really cool. There were so many players selling so many things, others advertising their party and trying to gather more members to tackle Purgatory.

I was fine with any kind of food, but Moleman d...

A Gamer's Guide 166

While I’m still reeling, Logghammer continues, each word he says being carefully written down by one of the many people in attendance. “To preface this simple trial, we are not following the laws of any specific country, or of any specific server. Each server has their own rules and corresponding penalties, some of which overlap, others that don’t. Since the Server Alliance has yet to fully detail a collective law-book for the use of all challengers, this trial will act as part of the f...

A Gamer's Guide 165

“My username’s BeatriceTheAngel, but I’d prefer it if you called me Rice. All the other parts are so needlessly grand, and Rice is pretty similar to my real name, anyways,” she says as she shakes my hand.

“Kitty,” I say, shaking hers. “PrissyKittyPrincess.”

“And your friend?” She shoots a glance at the confused but not unhappy Moleman.

“SuperMoleman,” I say. “Moleman or Mole works.”

Moleman nods, “I’m fine with either.” His attempt to ...

A Gamer's Guide 164

“...Everything appears to be in order,” Patty says with the same gravity as someone reporting on the death of a beloved family pet. She only lacks the mournful shake of the head, the wiping at the eyes, or any other shows of humanity. “The floor eighteen all-skirmish will be at a quarter past thirteen. It is recommended to be in the preparation hall—right through that door—at least a quarter of an hour before the allotted time. Your party wins if any of you are the last standing, at...

A Gamer's Guide 163

We smile at each other. Isn’t life awfully simple sometimes?

“But, before that,” he says, as though a thought hit him only now, “have you signed up for the tournament yet?”

“The tutournament?” I parrot. “No. I only got here just now, and then I saw you being harassed… Um, talking with your friends, and after that…” I give a self-deprecating chuckle. “You know the rest.”

He nods at me thoughtfully. “In that case,” he says, stand...

A Gamer's Guide 162

I leap at them. Wide eyes meet me but before my claws can meet their arteries, a club-like staff meets with my face and I go tumbling.

Ah, a worthy opponent! Allow me to lick the blood from my nose in a sinister manne—

…Moleman?

As his brows furrow, Moleman’s grip on the staff loosens slightly. “...Kitty?”

In this moment, I have several thoughts running concurrently through my skull, one of these being ‘why did Moleman hit me with a stick?’ An an...

A Gamer's Guide 161

It’s dark. It isn’t cold, but the water and the humidity makes it feel colder than it really is. I’m… underground again? But not in a cave. There’s dirt below me, and also above me. I can’t hear much of anything beyond this, but I can see a pale stream of light fluttering in through a nearby hole leading up. Yeah, this is a hole. I can barely crawl, much less actually sit up. No, wait, if I allow my natural gamer hunch to solidify into a gamer crunch, I can sit upright.

…F...

A Gamer's Guide 160

I appear in the lobby, carrying both a strange weight in my chest, alongside an even stranger emptiness. A kind of heavy weightlessness, as paradoxical as it sounds.

Sixteen positive responses.

…But I didn’t completely clear the stage.

Should I pull out my hair or pray to sixteen gods at once?

<To repay your debt,

your inventory has been sold

for 42 points.>

<Current debt:

152 033 points.>

…Or I could curse a hundred gods...

A Gamer's Guide 159

Days pass comfortably. Like, unsettlingly comfortably. Just as the beast of fraud said—weird name, I agree—the dogs started willingly dragging themselves out of the water, more and more, with greater frequency over time.

And you know something interesting I learned?

The beast of fraud sleeps! I’m serious!

I asked him about it, and he straight-up told me that he simply enjoyed sleeping. Like, he didn’t need to sleep, he just did it anyway. Like a lun...

A Gamer's Guide 158

I look at the beast. My voice is even as I speak and say, “I’m still going to kill you. You’re useful to me now because you can help kill the dogs and you can bring me down into the abyss but after that…” I almost smile. “Doesn’t that bother you at all? That you’re looking at your future killer? Shouldn’t you be angry?”

His wolf’s head doesn’t even twitch. He's as still as a statue, but not out of fear, or any emotion like that.

<No matter how many t...