User Unfriendly
Vivian Vande Velde
Magic Carpet Books
Harcourt, Inc.
San Diego New York London
Text copyright © 1991 by Vivian Vande Velde
Illustration copyright © 1991 by Gary Lippincott
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be
mailed to the following address: Permissions Department, Harcourt, Inc.,
6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.
First Magic Carpet Books edition 2001
First published 1991
Magic Carpet Books
is a trademark of Harcourt, Inc.,
registered in the United States of America and/or other jurisdictions.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Vande Velde, Vivian.
User unfriendly/Vivian Vande Velde.
p. cm.
Summary: Fourteen-year-old Arvin and his friends risk using a computer-
controlled role-playing game to simulate a magical world in which
they actually become fantasy characters, even though the computer
program is a pirated one containing unpredictable errors.
[1. Fantasy games—Fiction. 2. Computer games—Fiction.
3. Fantasy.] I. Title.
PZ7.V2773Us 1991
[Fic]—dc20 90-21060
ISBN 0-15-200960-4
ISBN 0-15-216353-0 pb
Designed by Camilla Filancia
E G H F D
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTSThis book is dedicated, with appreciation,
to Ed and Gary
for taking the time to explain
the game to somebody's mother,to Norm and Barb
for support and help above
and beyond the call of duty,and to Jane
for unrelenting enthusiasm.
1
DAY ONE
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2
PLAYER CHARACTERS
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3
PROVISIONS
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4
HORSES
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5
FOREST
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6
GLITCH
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7
LUNCH
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8
WHAT ARE FRIENDS FOR?
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9
ENCOUNTER
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10
DISAPPEARING ACT
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11
REAPPEARING ACT
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12
DAY TWO
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13
THE STATUE
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14
BOOTS, SWORD, CRYSTAL
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15
NONPLAYER CHARACTER
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16
THE SHADOW CAVES
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17
IN THE DARK
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18
LOST
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19
NIGHT WATCH
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20
DAY THREE
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21
SAND HANDS
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22
CHANGE IN PLANS
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23
BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON
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24
IN THE DARK OF THE NIGHT
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25
AFTERMATH
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26
DAY FOUR
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27
MILLER'S GROVE
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28
DESERT
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29
SANNATIA
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30
THE OTHER SIDE
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31
DUNGEON
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32
PRISONERS (PART I)
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33
PRISONERS (PART II)
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34
PRISONERS (PART III)
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35
DAY FIVE
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36
PRISONERS (PART IV)
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37
DORINDA
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38
FINAL SCORES
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The first thing I noticed was the smell.
Take that back.
The first thing I noticed was the stink. I nearly gagged, and rolled over from my side onto my back.
The second thing I noticed was that I was itchy all over. But before I could get too busy worrying that Shelton had set me down on an anthill—and figuring what I'd do to him if he had—I realized that I was lying on straw. The reason this place smelled like a barn was because it
was
a barn.
I moved the crook of my elbow over my nose. It didn't help. From just off to my right there was a soft
whuffing
noise. I turned my head and found I was about five feet away from this incredibly
big
horse. I mean, I've seen pictures of horses, and I know people used to ride them and all, but I'd never expected them to be so huge. The thing shifted its weight, setting this absolutely enormous hoof even closer to my head. Terrific. Twenty seconds into the game and I was about to get my face stepped on by the local transportation.
I wondered if anybody ever paid his money, got killed in the opening moves of the game, and spent the whole campaign in the cool gray gauziness that the computer calls death. It would only last an hour, but it would feel like five days. That hardly seemed fair. Surely there was some rule prohibiting it, or people would demand a refund. I backed off from that thought and from the thought that went with it: There was, in this particular campaign, no one to enforce the rules. Rules had already been broken just to get us here.
But then the computer conditioning kicked in.
I mean, I still remembered who I was and all that. But everything just sort of suddenly kind of
shifted.
Sure, I knew I was really Arvin Rizalli of Mrs. Kascima's eighth-grade class at Saint John the Evangelist School; but I
felt
like Harek Longbow of the Silver Mountains Clan, an elf warrior of the fourth level. All at once I had all these dim sort of ... I guess you could call them memories ... about how to ride a horse and take care of it, just as if I'd been doing it all my life. Just the way a fourth-level elf warrior would have.
I got to my feet and scratched the underside of the horse's neck. "Easy," I murmured, though before then I'd been the one in need of calming. As if from a great distance, I recognized my sense of surprise at the prickliness of the horse's hide and my sense of alarm when it tossed its head, its breath warm on my arm. But the Harek in me wasn't worried at all.
I looked around the stable. (And suddenly I knew it
was
a stable, and not a barn.) It was small, dark, smelly—even by medieval stable standards. Daub-and-wattle construction, I observed, though on my own I wouldn't even have been sure what that meant: twigs held together by mud and dung. Not a real high-class establishment. The door was open, letting in some light. Morning, I judged.
Well, the adventure wasn't likely to come to me here.
Shelton Jankowitz, I hope you know what you're doing,
I thought.
But it was too late for that.
I peeked out the door and found myself looking down a small village street. The stable was up against another building. An inn, I guessed, spotting a sign with a barrel painted on it.
Where were the others? One part of me, the Arvin part, answered that they were asleep in Shelton's basement rec room. All of us were. Shelton had parked himself in front of the computer, fat lot of good that would do him in the stage of sleep called REM—Rapid Eye Movement state. My mother, of all people, was on the recliner. Dawn Marie shared the love seat (of course) with Noah. Sometimes it seemed to me that the two of them must be attached with an invisible strand of Super Glue, but they're tenth-graders and sometimes tenth-graders get like that. Giannine was in the lounge chair. Cleveland, Dominic, and I were stuck with the pillows sprawled on the floor.
But where we really were was unimportant. What counted was where we felt we were. Or rather, where the computer hookup made us feel we were.
Find Rasmussem,
that was the one directive from Rasmussem, Inc., and there had been no reason for Shelton to change it when he'd pirated the program. Sometimes Rasmussem was a person, sometimes a place, occasionally an object—according to those who had played before. Shouldn't be
too
hard to find; it wasn't meant to be a puzzle, but only an introduction to the campaign for the player characters.
I headed for the inn, figuring that'd be the place to meet people, to ask questions.
But the inn was, in its own way, even worse than the stable. The floor was rough-hewn planks of wood. There were candle holders attached to the walls, though without any candles. I knew what they were by the globs of dripped wax and by the black, sooty crescents on the walls and ceiling. I was willing to bet the owners of this place wouldn't provide light except when it was absolutely necessary. Their customers were probably the sort who stole candles.
I walked in feeling self-conscious. My clothes were straight from an old Hildebrandts print, but there was no telling what had resulted from the combination of my instructions, Shelton's perception of them, and the computer's ability. If we had been doing this right—if we had gone through an official Rasmussem outlet—I would have had the benefit of all their expensive bio-feedback equipment, which would have responded directly to my conscious desires. Of course, if we had gone through Rasmussem, it would have cost a fortune, and we would have had their rules to contend with. Still, it was very disconcerting not to know what I looked like. I hoped I'd get a chance to see my face before the others did.
The room was hazy with smoke from the fireplace. There were maybe three dozen people sitting at beer-barrel tables, mostly humans, mostly guys—except for the serving wenches and a few women who looked even meaner than the men. My impression was that everybody knew everybody, except, of course, for me.
I hate being places where I don't know anybody.
I approached the bar, where a man with a gold hoop in one ear wiped up spills with a gray rag. I leaned against the bar, which was sticky despite the bartender's efforts. "Excuse me—"
"What'll it be?"
"I was wondering—"
"What'll it be?"
"I just have a question—"
"1 only answer questions from patrons. What'll it be?"
I felt the pouch at my belt. I would have been provided with a few starting gold pieces. At the last second I came to my senses enough to bite off a request for soda. "Do you have coffee?" I asked. My mom says coffee stunts a kid's growth; but I figured if it hadn't stunted me by fourteen, why worry about it now?
"Coffee?" the barkeep said. He flopped the rag over, and it smacked the bar wetly. "Never heard of it."
I sighed. "Could I just have some water then?"
He gave me this look like I was a real pain in the you-know-where.
"I'll pay."
He folded his arms and stared at me coolly. Finally, just as I was beginning to squirm, he took a tin mug from under the counter and wrung his rag over it. "One gold piece."
Cute. People were beginning to watch. Rough-looking people, with swords and eye patches and missing teeth. "Maybe I'll have a beer," I said. I didn't have to drink it.
The barkeep dumped the gray sudsy water onto the floor, barely missing my foot. He refilled the same mug with amber foam from a barrel behind him.
"Thanks so very much," I said.
Apparently sarcasm didn't faze him. He held one hand on the mug, the other out for the gold piece.
I handed it over. "I was wondering where Rasmussem is."
He let go of the mug only after biting the coin. "Information costs."
"I just paid you."
"You just paid me for beer."
I took another coin from my pouch and held it over his extended hand. "Where's Rasmussem?"
He wriggled his fingers. "Pay and I'll tell."
I sighed and dropped the coin.
He made it disappear into his apron pocket, then resumed wiping the bar.
"Well?"
"Well, what?"
"Where's Rasmussem?"
"Here, you dumb twit. This is Rasmussem. The Rasmussem Inn. Dumb twit of an elf, don't even know where you are." He shook his head.
Nice world. And I was going to spend five days here? I was insane for letting Shelton talk me into this, and I probably deserved whatever I got. I took my drink and found an empty table in the corner by the door.
Being careful not to spill, though they didn't look too careful about that sort of thing here, I tipped the mug to catch my warped reflection in the metal surface. My hair was long and very light blond. Sort of the color of the stringy stuff you have to pick off of corn on the cob. It was a shock. What I had asked for, but a shock.