Part One:
Odetta sat at the top of the pecan tree in the backyard, bored out of her mind. After watching clouds very briefly, she gave up trying to guess what they looked like and instead hung upside-down from a branch. Apparently, according to her mom, the pounding of her fists against the punching bag in her room was loud and disturbed the guests. She could always walk to one of the stores in the area, but what would she even do there? She hung there from the tree for god knows how long before she started feeling dizzy from the blood rushing to her head, so she sat upright and started climbing down. Once at the bottom, she thought about her predicament. Maybe she could use the tree as a punching bag like she'd seen done a few times on TV. She turned to face the arboreal titan and began pounding her fists into the bark. Unfortunately, it hurt more than she expected it to and decided after a few punches that it was a stupid idea, so she walked back inside.
When she stepped inside, she found her mother and Laila preparing dinner, but saw that the living room and its three couches were empty. "Hey mom, when did your 'old friends' leave? Why didn't you tell me?" Seriously, who 'pops in to see an old friend' on a wednesday? Odetta didn't really care about them, but was a little annoyed that she could have been in her room punching her bag instead of a tree.
"We thought you knew," said Laila. "You couldn't have missed the sound of that humongous truck pulling out of the driveway from out there, could you?" Odetta gave a deadpan stare as that's exactly what happened. "Oooof course you could," she finished, apparently remembering who she was talking to.
Wordlessly, Odetta made her way up the stairs to her room, hearing her mom call out, "Hey, I'm spending my day off to make this so you'd better be here for dinner this time!" Odetta remembered how she'd fallen asleep on the roof last week and neither of them could find her. She felt a little bad considering how much her mom worked to provide for the family, leaving her only one day free between the two jobs. Odetta had told her several times to relax, since both her and Laila had jobs too now, but her mom wouldn't listen.
"Don't worry, I won't forget this time," she replied with a smile as she entered her room. She looked at all the things cluttering two of her walls. One of them had a shelf with model ships and military books, including an autobiography by Navy SEAL Chris Kyle. Another wall had her hunting rifle and fishing rods mounted along with the supplies for each respective activity in a cabinet underneath. She looked toward her punching bag with her boxing gloves resting on top, then looked at her fists that had recently beaten (or rather taken a beating from) the tree.
Yeah, that wasn't my smartest decision. I should probably hold off on punching stuff until the pain stops. Instead, she sat down at her desk, on top of which sat her computer and the tank that housed her beetle, Burke. She always felt the name was appropriate, since he was large, bulky, and looked pretty damn dangerous, just like an Arleigh Burke destroyer ship. Realizing he was probably hungry by now, she ran back down to the kitchen where she noticed that her mother was missing. When she asked, Laila told her that she had gone to get the mail.
The front door opened and her mom stepped back inside, carrying various envelopes and a small box. "Odetta, this one's for you." Mom handed the case to her. Odetta opened it to reveal a DVD, no, a game case that read CHESS. "I didn't know you played video games. Maybe they'll keep you from getting yourself hurt all the time." She looked at Odetta's hands as she said that. Odetta was focused on this case, though.
I don't... she thought in response to her mother while she looked at the elaborate case in front of her. She hadn't ordered anything, so who sent it to her? She recovered the torn brown paper and examined it.
No return address. Huh. She didn't have anything better to do today, so why not?
Odetta grabbed an old neglected banana from the fruit bowl to give to Burke then returned to the room, dropping it in his tank. It didn't really matter whether or not it was peeled, since he'd eat the entire thing eventually anyway without a problem. She didn't know much about games, so she called, "Laila, can you come help me with this when you're done?" She heard a distant "Sure" in response and turned her attention back to the case. It had a leaflet attached to the back, so she read that first.
Hello, you have been chosen to participate in CHESS, a feat that will be accredited to very few individuals. CHESS is an innovative, exciting new computer game meant to revolutionize gaming and life as we know it. Bringing you features from popular genres such as Simulation, Role-Playing, Adventure, Action, Strategy, Puzzle, and many more. Each of these features has been molded and refined to their maximum level. Upon installing the game, you will enter a world of mystery and suspense, all while enjoying the perfection that is CHESS.
Of course, it didn't matter what genres this game borrowed from since Odetta would be just as inexperienced with any game genre. The last time she had tried playing a game was when a rainy day spoiled her hunting trip with her friend Daniel, so he insisted they play a game about shooting instead, some game called 'Halo'. It took her ages to even figure out how to successfully move the character and the camera at the same time to navigate the area, so she got bored and gave up. She looked back at the box and saw more written there.
✜ If a PLAYER is slain, the KISS has to be given to the corpse and the DREAMSELF will come alive.
✜ If a DREAMSELF is slain, the PLAYER will nevermore dream on the MOONS.
✜ If a PLAYER with a dead DREAMSELF is slain, the player enters the AFTERLIFE.
Kiss? Dreamself? Pretty much every all-caps word in that text was unfamiliar to her, but she assumed there would be a tutorial to tell her what it all meant. She decided it was finally time try it out, so she started the computer and inserted the disc, waiting to see what CHESS had in store for her.
Part Two:
CHESS began to install itself immediately when Odetta put the disc in.
I really hope this thing isn't a virus, she thought.
Oh well, I was going to install it anyway so why not? After a few moments she saw Laila entering her room. After they each exchanged a brief "Hey sis," Laila walked over to the CHESS box, hesitating a little to grab it while it was right in front of Burke. Why didn't she like him? Beetles are adorable!
Laila looked at the box, turning it over and reading it as Odetta had recently done herself. "Well it's called CHESS, but by the looks of it this game isn't actually chess at all. The board game, I mean." Odetta knew that there were computer versions of chess, but for some reason it never came to mind that this game could be one of them. Perhap the all-caps-ness of the name threw her off, or maybe her mind completely ignored what the game was called and only saw 'free game!' Laila paused for a moment and asked, "Odetta, where did you even get this game from?"
"I don't know. I don't remember ordering it and it didn't have a return address." It didn't take much longer for the game to finish installing. A black box appeared prompting her to start the game.
Pick your personal color and press ENTER
> _
"Color? Can't I just leave it white?" Odetta asked to nobody in particular. It didn't seem like this game would need complicatedly awkward 3D movement, but, not having the best imagination out there, a text-based game didn't seem very fun.
"Come on, Odetta. Plain white is boring. Pick something more interesting, a pretty color that stands out. Pink! No, magenta is better!" It seemed that Laila was enjoying this game more than she was. Not really caring what color she chose, she typed in 'magenta' and hit ENTER.
Press ENTER to begin your personal adventure which the whole universe depends on_
Well, sis was definitely right. Magenta really did stand out. Although Odetta hoped the bright colors wouldn't begin to hurt her eyes after a while. "The whole universe? That seems pretty dramatic," said Laila. "Personal adventure also sounds promising. Do you think it's an adventure game? I love those!" True enough, before Laila had a job, she spent a lot of time playing those types of games, her favorite being The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. While she did that, Odetta usually preferred to be out in the great outdoors. "These sorts of games usually have really hard puzzles. I'll pull up a walkthrough, just in case."
As Laila began tapping on her phone, Odetta pressed ENTER. The words on the screen faded away, melding into the black background. After a few moments the view reappeared revealing a room with outdated graphics. In it were two pixelly girls surrounded by several objects that were sort of difficult to identify with these graphics. "Here, found it," sis notified and looked back at the screen. Her eyes went wide at the display. "Oh my god. That's your room, and that's us! But how..." She looked back at her phone and began scouring through the walkthrough.
At a second glance, the figures did kind of look like them; one with a short ponytail and darkish skin wearing a tank top and shorts, the other with long black hair, slightly darker skin and wearing t-shirt with jeans. There was a thing nearby on the desk that looked vaguely like Burke as well, along with the banana she had only recently put in. "Hey, you're right. That's actually pretty neat." A look at Laila's face as she read through the walkthrough showed that she didn't seem to agree. Soon another black box appeared with more instructions.
Welcome to CHESS. This is the ENTRY PHASE. To pass and enter the real game, you have to perform some tasks within the set time limit. If you fail, you will die_
"Die? Already? Ooh, way to up the tension," she said as she mindlessly began lifting and moving things around on the screen. She thought it would be good to click everything she could to figure this game out, and also it was kind of fun messing with her little virtual room. As she did that, Laila let out a weird, nervous laugh.
"The guy who wrote this walkthrough is crazy. Let's just keep going, we can figure this out on our own." Her voice was a little shaky, but Odetta dismissed the thought as more words appeared on the screen.
Task 1
> Equip something to act as your inventory
Time limit: 1 minute_
"What am I supposed to equip?" Odetta looked around the room, but it was difficult to tell what was what so she instead got up and searched around her own room. She was glad for the revelation of her room and the game character's room being one in the same. She looked to the large camouflage backpack in which she carried her supplies when she went on different trips, be they hunting trips, fishing trips, or even camping.
Laila took notice of where Odetta was looking and said, "The walkthrough says the size doesn't matter. It should probably be something you wouldn't lose. Here, I'll give you something to use." She reached behind her neck and unfastened her precious silver locket that contained a picture of the three of them. Sis was always sentimental like that, but why was she giving it to her? "Drag this onto yourself."
"I thought you said the walkthrough was junk," said Odetta, warily taking the locket and putting it down on the desk. She went back to the computer where she saw not only that the locket was in the same place in the virtual plane as well, but that there were 14 seconds left. She did as she was told and moved the locket onto her character. The timer stopped and
INVENTORY ACQUIRED! appeared over virtual Odetta's head. The next task appeared on the screen.
Task 2
> Equip something to act as your weapon
Time limit: 50 seconds_
Weapons...weapons... "Hey, do you think I could drag one of my model destroyers and it would let me use a destroyer as a weapon?" Odetta thought it would be fun to do that, but she realized that it probably wouldn't be able to travel anywhere. Furthermore, it might give her just the model instead of an actual one. How would someone even fight with a model ship? "Nah, that's stupid. My boxing gloves would probably be just as fun, punching whatever enemies this game has."
Laila gave a soft laughter and answered, "Well the walkthrough says you can use anything, but you should probably use a real and practical weapon. Your hunting rifles would be perfect." Odetta frowned. She didn't want to use a rifle, memories of her failure to play Halo coming back to her. She reached over to where they were mounted, but the angle made it so that they appeared bunched together, and the bad graphics made it hard to differentiate between the black stick shapes. She didn't feel like wasting time on trying to figure out which one was the rifle so she just picked one and dragged it to her character, just like the inventory.
FISHINGRODKIND ACQUIRED!
Damn it.
Task 3
> Deploy the PROTOTRUDER
Time limit: 40 seconds_
Odetta didn't have time to try getting the rifle again before the next task appeared. This one was easy enough since she had seen the deploy button earlier when she was messing around. She was ready to deploy when something caused the entire house to shake. Odetta prepared to get up and check but Laila put her hand on Odetta's shoulder and kept her from getting up. "I'll check, you keep playing," she said. Odetta nodded in agreement and started deploying. "The walkthrough says that you need to put the protortuder and another thing you deploy in the next task next to each other. Move your character somewhere that there's a lot of space...like the...living...room." She slowed down abruptly with the last sentence. Odetta looked back and saw Laila completely still as she looked out the window.
"You okay, sis? What is it?"
"Huh?" Laila looked back, snapping out of whatever it was. "Oh, it was nothing. Just keep playing, everything's fine." Odetta got up and pushed Laila to the side lightly to see what was happening. "No, just keep playing!" Laila tried to keep her from looking but it was too late.
Meteors. Meteors everywhere. They fell slowly from the sky, but one of them had hit and caused the shaking. "No way. So that's it? It's over, the world is ending?"
Laila nodded. "Looks that way." Her voice was trembling. "Just keep playing, I'll tell you why but please don't let the time run out." Odetta nodded and rushed over to the computer. 9 seconds left. She moved the girl to the living room as fast as she could and hit 'deploy'.
PROTOTRUDER DEPLOYED! Once it had been deployed, the machine released some sort of flashing ball thing. This thing was followed by
KERNELSPRITE RELEASED!
Task 4
> Deploy the ALCHEMITER
Time limit: 35 seconds_
Odetta didn't quite know what to make of this whole situation. "This task is easy. We have some extra time, so tell me why you want me to keep playing this game so bad." Apparently, sis thought playing this game was more important than knowing the world was ending.
A tear started forming and dripping down her sister's face. "I've always believed the supernatural existed, but I never imagined I'd get proof like this." Laila handed her phone to Odetta, showing her the walkthrough. "I had my suspicions about this game when you said it you didn't order it and it didn't have a return address, but it wasn't until I saw the room and read the walkthrough that I knew this was more than just a game. I really hoped I was wrong, though. When it said you would die it was talking about
you. And from what I saw outside, the part about the universe wasn't a lie either. I think you need to play this game to save the universe or something like that." That sounded ridiculous, but ridiculous didn't mean wrong. Either way, it was either play along with this and maybe survive or get creamed by a meteor storm. And if she was going to play, she might as well enjoy it.
Odetta handed the phone back to her sister."All right, I'll play. Just try to get out of here with mom. If the whole universe depends on this, I don't think this magic game will let me die if I play." Laila nodded and hugged Odetta before leaving. Realizing time was running short, she deployed the Alchemiter.
ALCHEMITER DEPLOYED! Suddenly, Odetta heard her phone ring. It was the generic default ringtone, but she didn't really have anything she wanted to change it to. She picked it up and saw that Laila was calling her so she answered.
"I tried my best to explain to mom, so we're going to leave now. You still have more tasks, though, and the walkthrough says this next one is probably the hardest." Odetta saw the new task appear on the screen.
Task 5
> Create the PORTAL
Time limit: 30 seconds
HINT: To survive, perform all the tasks before time runs out_
She was instantly thankful for her sister's assistance, since she didn't have the slightest clue how to even start doing this. Laila immediately began giving instructions. "It says you're supposed to put the kernelsprite, the flashing ball, into your inventory and then use it on the prototruder. Then you need to take the totematerial that appears and put it on the alchemiter and activate it."
Odetta began running through the things she had to do out loud as she did them. "Okay, kernelsprite, inventory, prototruder, totematerial, alchemiter. Got it." She was also thankful for the advice of putting the two large machines next to each other. There were two platforms on the Alchemiter, but the totematerial stuff looked like it fit better on the smaller one so she put it there.
PORTAL CREATED! Suddenly the alchemiter began to move and do something to the totematerial. A light formed and created a bright ring that she assumed was the portal. "Okay, that's done. What next?" As she said that the next task appeared.
Task 6
> Prototype the KERNELSPRITE
Time limit: 20 seconds_
Laila resumed her sort of mission control role and gave more instruction. "Okay, for this one you just drag something, anything, onto the kernelsprite and it becomes sentient, I guess. You can put two things in if the first isn't talking right. I think whatever it ends up becoming will stay with you, so don't put anything you hate in."
This one was also easy. If whatever it was would stay with her, then she would simply chose the only family member still in the house. She dragged Burke from his cage onto the kernelsprite creating BURKESPRITE.
KERNELSPRITE PROTOTYPED! The ball took the shape of a flashing rhinoceros beetle. Odetta then got the idea of combining Burke with his namesake, an Arleigh Burke destroyer, so she dragged a model she had built of it to the Burkesprite. Instead of becoming an ArleighBurkesprite, she saw it become BURKESTROYERSPRITE. That was a pretty cool-sounding name. It became a ship with wings on the sides, six legs, and a rhino beetle head at the bow. That was a pretty cool-looking ship-beetle thing.
"That's done too. Now what."
"Hello? Odetta?" That wasn't Laila's voice, it was mom. "I don't know what's happening, but please be careful."
Odetta paused for a moment. "I will, I promise." The next task appeared on the screen. It was self explanatory and she didn't need Laila's help this time.
Task 7
> ENTER
Time left: 8 seconds_
"I love you, baby."
"I love you too, mom."
The Earth shook once more as virtual Odetta stepped through the portal.
Peace. Odetta opened her eyes and found herself drifting through darkness, a vast empty space.
Where am I? How did I get here? She couldn't find an answer. She noticed an uncomfortable feeling on her chest and around her neck so she moved her hands there to see what it was and found a chain. Her hands moved along it until they touched a cold round object.
This...oh yeah. She looked down to see Laila's silver locket.
I don't like wearing jewlery... Her finger moved to the edge of the locket and pushed it open revealing a photo of her family.
But this isn't really something I'd want to get rid of. A smile started forming on her lips when her peace was abruptly broken.
HERRRRRRRRRRRN
Odetta's eyes snapped open.
What the hell? Was that a...HERRRRRRRRRRRN She covered her ears against what was clearly the horn of a destroyer, although fortunately scaled down because a real one would have left her deaf at this range. Wait a minute...not a destroyer. She looked over to see a familiar face although very little else about him was familiar. The one who had sounded the horn was Burkestroyersprite, who for some reason had black and white orbs leaving from him. She didn't pay much attention to those, though, and focused on Burke. After her hearing returned she heard something besides Burkestroyer in the background. Music? It had guitar and at some point a man started shouting. It made her feel pumped up and want to punch something. Burkestroyer interrupted and started talking. "Soldier, our position in the Land of Gleam and Growth is surrounded so I'm going to explain this once and I'm going to explain it quick." Odetta didn't know what was going on, but she nodded. She didn't feel like questioning the rhino beetle destroyer. "Your family is still on Earth, but they are still in danger. You are in the Medium, outside your universe and inside the game. You can check essential information on any computer, information which I will brief you on at a later time. Right now your fellow CHESS players are about to be attacked by enemies, so go and give them assistance!" Burke was like a drill sergeant, probably because he had been mixed with a navy ship.
"Yes sir!" Odetta saluted, playing along with the whole military thing. She looked around the room quickly for a weapon since she was going to be fighting enemies. The hunting rifle was her obvious choice so she grabbed it, her shooting gloves, and a couple of 5 round magazines and made her way out the door. Burkestroyer floated past her and made his way towards a strange floating...thing? She didn't focus on that, though. What she really cared about were the little black monsters running towards the group of kids. She crouched and aimed her rifle, hitting the lunging one straight in its big head. It was thrown back from the force but immediately got back up, changing its direction towards her.
Bulletproof? Another creature joined the first and they both chased after her. She shot the first one again then the second one, but bullets weren't working. The first had a much greater head start and caught up first. This was getting ridiculous. It was closing in and Odetta was out of options so she lifted her fist and slammed it down on the creature. "God DAMMIT!"
It appeared that her honest desire to kill this damn thing dead caused her strife weapon to materialize in her hand, the bottom end of the fishing rod slamming into the creature's head. She mindlessly proceeded to swing the pole into the side of its face, caught up in the moment and the irritation. The creature dissolved into black mist and left behind some big gem things. Odetta took a moment to look at the rod that had formed in her hand. "Sweet! But...how the hell am I supposed to actually use this as a weapon?" In her distraction the second creature caught up and bit her shoulder. "Agh! Dammit!" She angled her rifle and shot its body, but when that didn't work she tossed the useless rifle aside and pulled it off, throwing it onto the ground. While it was getting up she jumped onto it and started strangling it with fishing line, glad that it didn't cut into her skin thanks to her gloves. Sure she could probably have kept bludgeoning it with the rod, but this was much more satisfying.