The misadventures of the necromancer

Chapter XL

Nausea hits him in waves, crashing over him with such force that his vision blurs and his thoughts scatter, leaving him grasping. He’s sitting with his head nearly between his knees.

“Dee, man, you look really bad!” He hears Jay’s somewhat concerned voice from behind him.

At that moment, without even turning around, the image of his friend lying on the bed comes to mind, along with the question of when his friend had arrived since he doesn’t recall him coming in.

For a brief moment, he prepares to turn towards the bed and talk to Jay. But a new wave of sickness stops him, forcing him to return to his previous position.

“Man, you’re really not well.” This is another one of Jay’s redundant, typical statements. The guy has a talent for pointing out the obvious.

“Dee, you need to be careful, man. You know you’re dying?” Yet another obvious remark.

Though a bit exaggerated, he does feel bad, but not that bad. At least, that’s what he thinks until he manages to lift his head a bit and can see the monitor in front of him.

The monitor displays the image of a game he immediately recognizes. The game shows his character Nero, a necromancer currently close to death. His life points are dropping, and judging by the icons at the bottom of the screen. He is stacking a ton of debuff's the worst being a burned status. The only thing keeping him alive is the effect of some potions, that just blinked off.

For a few moments, the image of himself being restrained by someone flashes in his mind before deciding to cast two of his most powerful fireballs on himself.

He shakes his head, whispering to himself “I’ve been playing too much. I’ve even started dreaming about this damn game.”

The shaking causes the nausea to return, forcing him to lower his head once more.

“Dee, you need to cast a spell, or you’re screwed.” For a moment, his friend’s comment doesn’t make any sense. That is until he feels slightly better letting him remember the game running on the monitor.

“Man, I’m sitting here feeling sick, and you’re talking about a damn game,” he complains in response to Jay’s words.

“But if you don’t heal yourself, you’re done for, man.” His friend’s voice behind him has a strange intensity that he doesn’t understand.

“Jay, in the worst-case scenario I just have to load a save. Maybe I’ll lose a few hours of gameplay. It’s annoying, but not a tragedy. Me ending up bedridden from being sick is much worse.” He almost shouts because of the strange conversation. Jay needs to understand what the real priorities are. At the end of the day, a game is just a game.

“Dee! I don’t think you’ll have that option. Cast the spell already.” As Jay speaks, he hears him moving on the bed, probably to get a better view of the monitor. Jay’s insistence on the damn game is really starting to irritate him.

So much so that he manages to overcome the urge to vomit and sits properly in the chair. Allowing him to see the monitor and the top of the desk clearly. For a brief moment, he’s even willing to just grab the keyboard and mouse and cast the damn spell, just to shut up Jay's weird obsession with the stupid game.

But, looking at the game, something doesn’t seem right. Something that makes him stop and think. Unfortunately, he can’t quite figure out what’s wrong, though that feeling won’t leave him.

On the monitor, he can see his character lying down. But not on the ground—it’s as, if he’s being dragged by something. It’s also strange that he’s seeing this in the third person because he usually plays in the first person. But there are several reasons why that might have happened. The simplest explanation is that he accidentally changed the perspective when he felt sick.

But that’s not the only strange thing. It’s just the first thing he noticed. A series of other details don’t make sense, like the graphics looking better than usual or the menus not appearing to be complete.

Everything feels well... weird. As he wonders at these differences the life points continue dropping. Not that it matters; after all, how many times has he died in this game before? It’s just a game, not real life.

“Dee, do it. Or you’re going to die!” Jay’s worried voice explodes behind him, pulling his attention away from all the weirdness on his computer monitor.

“Dude, how many times do I have to tell you not to call me...” he starts grumbling at his friend as he turns to confront him.

But as he’s turning, he looks at the wall. The old wall of his old room. A wall where he now sees a poster. A poster of a movie he watched on TV as a kid and fell in love with.

Tron a cool-looking movie where the main character is taken to a world inside his computer. A movie he pestered his dad about so much that his dad eventually bought a copy for the house. Later, on his birthday, his dad bought this very replica of the movie poster.

And finally, a poster that, since his father’s death, hasn’t been on this wall. He had taken this poster to his own house. It should now be on the wall of his living room as a reminder of his father. The memory of holding back a few tears while hanging the poster after the funeral is still vivid in his mind.

Looking back at the monitor, more things become clear, like how this monitor was never in this room. He also realizes that he lost this mousepad about ten years ago in some move.

“This is a dream.” His statement is cold and calm. After all, he’s merely stating a fact, nothing more.

“Man, cast the damn spell,” Jay’s exasperated voice sounds again.

But he doesn’t even have the energy to turn around, knowing that behind him isn’t really his friend, but simply his memory of him.

So, he looks back at the monitor, seeing the game on the screen. He starts to remember the strange dream he had earlier. A dream where he had been taken into this game. A dream where, strangely, he begins to recall more and more details. There are too many details as if he had actually lived those experiences.

Which is simply ridiculous because it’s totally impossible. How could something like that even happen? So, this is all a dream. A dream from which he now wishes to wake up and return to his normal, boring life.

Suddenly, he feels his chair moving as he’s pushed forward. And Jay’s voice whispers in his ear.

“Stop being stupid, man. Cast ######.” Jay said something he couldn’t understand. It’s as if his friend’s voice faded away at that very moment.

On the other hand, a hand grabs his arm, leading him to place his hand on the mouse. For a moment, he almost feels like he’s in a horror movie, where an unseen entity forces someone to do something horrendous.

But the intensity he feels from his friend has a layer of genuine concern.

“Man, come on. Save yourself, man. Come on.” Jay’s tense and worried voice sounds again. “You can do this. Cast ######, before it’s too late.”

In front of him is the monitor where Nero’s life points are now down to single digits. Compelled by Jay’s urgency, he opens the spell menu, only to find the text distorted, the letters shifting and blurring as if they’re written in a language he’s never seen before. This does catch his attention, causing him to exclaim. "What the hell is happening."

“Come on, man. #######” Jay repeats. But this time, something begins to emerge in his mind.

So much so that as he imagines the character on the monitor casting a spell, he is starting to recall. He chooses a spell in the list, even without being able to read it. He knows the spell and that it should be in that position on the list.

So, at the same time as Jay, he says the spell's name: “The Great Mercy of Merish.”

When those words leave his mouth, he explodes in a sea of pain. The pain is as intense, if not more so, than when he was on fire.

It’s the screams that wake him up. It takes some moments while looking up at the blue sky before he realizes the screams are his. So intense is the pain. As it starts to diminish, the concerned faces of Grumpy and Blondie appear in his field of vision.

Blondie's voice sounds stressed as he asks. "Nero, how are you?"

Even through the pain, he can't stop considering that he just woke up to an even worse nightmare.