"A nervous breakdown from stress? I don't even have that much stress…" I thought, opening the apartment door. The smell of smoke and laughter immediately hit me.
"Bien sûr que tout va bien. Elle est sexy au lit, ahaha."
I heard Bernard's voice, followed by his friend laughing. I didn't know what they were talking about, but I was sure I wouldn't like it.
Ignoring them, I went into my room and closed the door.
There were still two months before exams, so stress from studying was… highly unlikely. I was a pretty calm person and hadn't really felt stressed. Procrastination almost got me—I was already about to lie down and leave everything for… later—but I forced myself to get a grip.
"Alright…"
I walked up to the шкаф and reached out to it. Slowly, my fingers touched the wooden surface… nothing unusual.
After confirming nothing strange was happening and the hallucinations weren't returning, I let out a sigh of relief. Having that happen with everything I touched would've been… inconvenient, to say the least.
Then I took out my laptop again, placed it on the table, opened it, and started touching the screen… nothing. Just a normal screen, now slightly smudged from my fingers.
"Twenty-one years old and already losing my mind," I exhaled.
Then I launched Diablo again to test it.
My character—the Necromancer—appeared, and the game resumed. Taking a breath, I more confidently reached my hand toward the monitor and—
"Shit…"
The distortions appeared again, and my finger passed through the screen.
Now I didn't pull my hand back. Instead, I tried to focus on my sensations. My finger felt a pleasant coolness, and slowly I began pushing my hand further in. For a moment, I remembered how in movies something messed up always happens and people end up losing a hand, but I tried not to think about it, because, well… it was just a monitor. And this strange sensation spreading further and further both intrigued me and added some color to my gray life.
At one point, I felt something, as if I was touching… something. It startled me badly, and I almost yanked my hand back, but stopped when I realized the interference seemed to flicker, and my hand was touching… my character. As if those distortions were bringing him closer specifically, and my hand felt cold armor, as if he were real. And I also had a persistent feeling that I could… pull him into reality. As if all I had to do was tug, and the Necromancer would end up here.
"I mean, this can't just be hallucinations, I just… don't even know," I said, pulling my hand away from him, from the character, and opening the inventory. There was a lot of junk there, but my eye caught a ring with a blue gemstone. "Stone of Jordan Ring," that's what it said when I hovered over it with the mouse.
Now I reached my hand toward the inventory again, once more feeling that pleasant coolness, and soon… my fingers touched something cold, metallic, with small ridges, it felt like a ring. Carefully gripping this "something" between my fingers, I began pulling my hand out of the monitor. The closer the moment came when my hand would fully leave the screen, the faster my heart pounded.
And then...
"Holy shit…" There simply weren't any proper words in my vocabulary that could describe my shock as precisely as that one did. In my hand was a ring, exactly the same as… "It disappeared from the inventory…" I noticed.
And then it hit me. No, not hit me.
IT. HIT. ME.
"N-no, this is nonsense, total nonsense… but the ring…" I could clearly feel it, its coolness, its solidity. Rubbing it between my fingers did nothing, it was firm, and the blue gem seemed to draw all attention to itself. For a moment, I felt like Gollum and almost said, "My precious…"
"Okay, Viktor, calm down. There's absolutely no reason to panic. So what, I stuck my hand into a monitor and pulled out a game ring, happens all the time, right?" I sat down in my chair and closed my eyes. "Still, this doesn't feel like hallucinations. Everything is too… natural, too real. So if it's not hallucinations, then it's actually happening. And if that's the case, what does it give me?"
I opened my eyes and stared at the ring in my hand. After thinking for a bit, I decided to try it on. Remembering its in-game stats, it gives +1 to all skills, adds lightning damage, +20 to mana, and +25% to maximum mana.
"Oh… this… what is this…" I froze in place. Something passed through my entire body… I don't even know how to describe it. It was like turning on hot water in the middle of a freezing night, that's the kind of sensation it created, spreading throughout my whole body.
If the game stats are to be believed, this should be the feeling of mana… but I never had it before, because it doesn't exist in reality. It was just something made up by writers to impress gullible readers. But if, just for a second, I assume the ring actually has the same properties as in the game… then I've just gained mana.
"I just don't know how to use it," I frowned, trying to "pull" at something inside myself, to latch onto any feeling, but it was useless. I simply had no idea where to start. I could feel this "something," since I had lived twenty-one years without it, but I still couldn't do anything with it. It's like learning to wiggle your ears when you've never been able to before, even though you know it's possible. You just don't have the right muscles developed. This felt… kind of the same. At least, I think so.
"Yeah, it's kinda cool, but it still doesn't really give me anything," I concluded. Magic is cool and all, but what's the point if you don't know how to use it? Coming to that conclusion, I took the ring off, and that strange feeling disappeared. "Hmm, so the effect only works when you're actually wearing the item… makes sense."
I put the ring in my pocket. I'll check later if it disappears or not, but for now…
Yeah, I went back to my laptop and started browsing my inventory again. And then I noticed an item whose effect would be very noticeable. The "Cat's Eye Amulet." +30% faster run/walk, +20% increased attack speed, +100 defense, +100 defense vs missiles, +25 dexterity.
Once again, I reached my hand in, and soon I felt the original item. Grabbing it, I started pulling it out. Soon, I had an amulet in my hand about half the size of my fist, engraved with a sinister five-pointed star.
And when I put the amulet around my neck, I immediately felt… that same strange sensation, but now as if in my muscles. Taking a step forward…
"Whoa…" I almost slammed into the wall. That +30% movement speed was very noticeable, it felt like I had taken not one step, but almost one and a half without realizing it. Walking around the room, I felt like after stepping off a treadmill at the gym, when for a few moments it feels like you're still moving faster than normal. Except now, that feeling was constant.
And I don't know how much "+25 dexterity" actually is for my stats, but… standing on one leg, I had absolutely no trouble keeping my balance, like I could stand that way until I got tired. But when I took the amulet off, I immediately started swaying from side to side, clearly having to put in effort just to stay upright. So the effect was very obvious. It even felt like I was walking differently, like… more efficiently? I don't know how to describe it. Like my coordination had improved and walking required less effort.
"I guess I really haven't gone insane. Or if I have… well, I won't know," I shrugged. Inside me, a long-forgotten feeling began to ignite again… excitement. There are a lot of useful items in Diablo, and they can be sold too…
"Although they're from a game, and any expert could recognize them… and all these items clearly contain this 'magic'… how long before someone tracks me down and wants to know where I'm getting all this?" I said out loud.
Yeah, movies, books, and games had taught me not to trust any government. That a single person's rights can be ignored easily if people in power decide so. With power, people become less patient, and many things can be obtained simply by applying pressure… And there's nothing I could do about it. I'm just an ordinary person, no wealthy or influential family. Basically just… average.
"What does Diablo have that could help me with that?" a new thought came to me. Magic without actual skill to use it is useless, and I don't remember any manuals for learning magic in the game. But there are charms that boost stats, various bonuses and resistances. Also gems that let you use abilities instantly without learning them in the skill tree… and there are skill books and scrolls too…
Wait…
What if I try… not Diablo?
That idea suddenly felt both reasonable and incredibly tempting. I'm not exactly a hardcore Diablo fan anyway, I just played it because why not, so I might not even know all its mechanics. On my laptop desktop, I also had Terraria and… The Sims. Yeah. The fourth one, with vampires and stuff. It was fun for a couple of hours, but after that I just got tired...