Chương 97: [I'll Smash This]

By mid-day the next day, they were back at the flat and the morning sessions were over. The initial rush of getting cleaned up had faded into a quiet afternoon slump, with everyone spread out across the living room just waiting for someone to decide what was happening next. Phil was the one who broke it. He'd gone next door while the others were settling in and came back with the trio following him, a PS5 tucked under his arm and cables in his hand.

"Elden Ring's on it," he said, setting it down on the table.

"Boots fine."

"Nice," Parmo said. The TV flickered to life. The menu came up. There was already a save file sitting there—one character, a hundred and twelve hours logged. Please Solo Her.

"What's that about?" Luka asked. Parmo and Leo looked at each other. They were both grinning.

"We'll explain later," Leo said.

"Bit of a meme," Parmo said.

"Good name choice though. Whoever owned this knew what they were doing."

"Can we play on it?" Phil asked.

"Rather not," Leo said.

"But we don't have to delete it. It's not one of those games with limited save slots. Let's just make a new character."

"Right," Phil said.

"Get on with it then." Parmo took the controller. The character creator opened and suddenly he was focused, looking like a man who had serious decisions to make. The slider for face shape moved. The nose got wider. The eyes got smaller. The jaw got heavier.

"What the fuck are you doing," Phil said.

"Tradition," Parmo said.

"You make them as ugly as possible."

"Why."

"I don't know, just feels wrong not to." The bowl cut appeared. Then the moustache—small, thin, sitting above a mouth way too small for the face it sat on.

"That looks like my uncle Terry," Luka said.

"Perfect," Parmo said.

"Can you please just name it and get on," Phil said.

"What class?" Sam asked.

"Vagabond," Leo and Parmo said together.

"Why?" Phil asked.

"Best health, decent strength and dex, easiest start. I don't want you quitting in the first hour again, Sam," Leo said.

"Man, that was ages ago. You told me Dark Souls was fun..."

"Dude, it is fun. It's just got a bit of a learning curve." Phil nodded.

"Whatever. So what's the best build?"

"Strength," Parmo said.

"Debatable. Strength's easiest, though," Leo disagreed. Phil looked at the classes and saw the one with the highest dex.

"Yeah, we're not doing dex, Leo. I ain't playing that weeb character."

"It's fun, man. Dex has cooler weapon combos."

"If by coolest you mean they look the most like something out of an anime, then no. Strength it is."

"Fine..." Leo opened the UI and sent Parmo a message. [Leo] Man the katana is sick though. Bleeds OP as well. [Parmo] i know mate [Leo] Well, it's not going to matter anyway. I'm going to enjoy watching Phil get stomped. [Parmo] 😄 Phil leaned back against the sofa.

"It's fine anyway. It's not a real PVP game. I'll smash it. Just watch, I'll make you nerds look bad at your own game." Leo and Parmo looked at each other. Parmo typed the name, then handed the controller to Phil. I'll Smash This. Phil stared at it.

"Very funny."

"I thought so," Parmo said. Phil took the controller.

"So me first? You sure?"

"Sure man, let's see how far you get," said Leo, trying to hide his glee. [Parmo] Let's tell him the first death doesn't count. He'll get wrecked off the tutorial boss and complain otherwise. [Leo] Yeah, he'll beat the soldier of godrick 'boss' and think he's mint, then he'll open the doors to Limgrave and... [Parmo] tree sentinel? [Leo] tree sentinel [Parmo] 😄😄😄 Phil took the controller with the confidence borne of being the best at most games the group played. The opening cutscene played.

"In the interest of being fair, the first guy you fight, you're kind of expected to lose. You get a cutscene after and that's the real start to the game. If you beat the first guy you get a pretty cool pair of swords and a shield," said Parmo.

"It's a pain; I'd probably die to it this early, even if it hadn't been a while since I played." The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Whatever. Let's see how far I get," said Phil. A minute later, Phil was waking up after being killed in a flurry of blades by the Grafted Scion.

"Yeah, that's bullshit."

"Told you," said Parmo, with a chuckle. Just like Leo and Parmo had guessed, Phil made quick work of Rick before moving up the lift to the exit.

"I thought bosses in this were meant to be hard. That guy was a piece of piss."

"Yeah, you did pretty well, man," said Leo, fighting the grin on his face. The doors opened and the Lands Between spread out in front of them, vast and golden. Rika leaned forward slightly on the couch without meaning to.

"It looks so real," she said quietly.

"Pretty close," Leo said.

"Who's that?" Torren asked, nodding at the screen as a mounted figure in gold armour turned slowly on the path ahead.

"That," Parmo said, "is a tree sentinel."

"Are we meant to fight him?" Phil asked.

"You can try," Leo said. [Parmo] he's going for it [Leo] of course he is Phil went for it. The Tree Sentinel's halberd came down in a long overhead arc. The character— Ill Smash This —caught it directly and dropped. YOU DIED. Rika looked at the name on the screen. She looked at Phil. She looked at the Tree Sentinel.

"Ooooh," Rika said.

"Looks like he smashed you, Phil." The silence lasted just long enough for the words to sink in before the room exploded. Leo, Luka, Parmo, and Sam broke out in laughter. Leo doubled over, pointing a finger at the screen and then at Phil, his face red as he struggled to breathe. Sam was howling, slapping his knee, while Luka leaned back and let out a loud bark of a laugh that didn't stop.

"Holy shit dude, you just got fucking wrecked," said Parmo, struggling to get the words out. Phil sat very still, staring at the bright red "YOU DIED" text as the weight of the accidental roast settled over him. Rika looked around at all of them—at the tears on Sam's face, at Leo holding his stomach, at Torren who had joined in, the laughter contagious. Even Shai was laughing along, relishing Phil's failure after all his bluster. Rika joined them.

"Can we," Phil said. Leo wheezed.

"Can we please," Phil said. Sam was wiping his eyes.

"Can we please continue," Phil said, his patience quickly running out. They got there eventually. Leo straightened up, still breathing carefully. Luka had tears on his face. Phil held out the controller to Luka without looking at anyone.

"Go on then. If it's so easy, you do it." Luka took it, cracked his knuckles, and died to the Tree Sentinel twice before handing it to Sam. Sam died to the Tree Sentinel once, looked at the screen, and handed it to Parmo without a word.

"That's it?" Phil said.

"I died to Dark Souls One for six hours straight years ago," Sam said.

"I know what this is." [Leo] he never made it out of undead burg... [Parmo] mans got trauma Parmo took the controller and ran straight past the Tree Sentinel, toward the church site of grace.

"Oi," Phil said.

"Where are you going?"

"Away from the Tree Sentinel," Parmo said.

"We're supposed to fight him."

"No we're not."

"Then why did we all just—""Because you went for him," Leo said.

"Only an idiot fights the Tree Sentinel before they've leveled up. Or someone who can no-hit the whole game, and that's not any of us."

"But you said—""I said you can try," Leo said with a smirk.

"Mate, you should have seen how many people complained about that guy on release day."

"You're really going to just skip it? That's kind of lame."

"We could sit here for hours and still not beat it, man. You'd need to not get hit and fight him for ages; you don't do enough damage yet. You want to do that or see more of the game?" said Parmo.

"Fine..." [Parmo] his face [Leo] he looks so pissed [Parmo] worth it Parmo didn't waste any more time. He navigated the character toward a specific gatehouse, rested at the grace, and triggered the cutscene. A moment later, Ill Smash This stood up and whistled. A shimmer of gold light swept across the screen as a horned horse appeared out of thin air. Rika sat up straighter, her eyes wide.

"What is that?"

"His horse, Torrent," Leo said.

"Where did it come from?"

"A little flask of light." Rika looked at him, unimpressed.

"That doesn't explain anything."

"I know," Leo said with a shrug.

"It's just how it works." Parmo powered through the next fifteen minutes, leveling up a few times and ticking off a few sites of grace. The trio fired off questions that Leo and Parmo fielded between them; Rika wanted to know about the enemies, while Torren asked about the ruins and the cryptic text on the grace sites. Shai watched the combat with total focus, clearly impressed by how Parmo timed his rolls to avoid being hit.

When she asked why some attacks seemed to pass right through him without doing damage, Leo did his best to explain the concept of I-frames, though explaining "invincibility windows" to someone who'd never played a game before was pretty difficult. Parmo took a detour, away from where Leo assumed he would go next. [Leo] Not doing the Margit fight yet? [Parmo] almost, just grabbing something first Looking at the screen and thinking for a second, Leo realized what the plan was. [Leo] Bloodhound Fang? Seriously?

[Parmo] its a sick sword [Leo] It's easy mode and you know it. What's next? You going to abuse spirit summons? [Parmo] If we don't get it, then they are going to quit before we beat Margit. [Leo] Ok fair"Right. The first real boss is through that fog door. It's going to wreck us. Like, a lot. Someone get a bit of paper. We can count how many times each of us dies," said Leo. Phil perked up at this.

"We can mark down who beats each of the harder bosses as well," said Parmo. Parmo walked through the gate and the cutscene played. Moments later, Parmo died.

"Yeah, I forgot how much of a pain in the arse this guy can be. It's going to take a few runs to get his moves down again." Leo took over. He lasted longer than Parmo before one of the quicker close-range combos caught him.

"Man, I always forget about that," said Leo. He passed the controller back to Phil, who died seconds into the fight.

"This game is fucking bullshit. I dodged that." [Leo] Man this is going to be so funny [Parmo] Yeah, I might throw my turns just to see how wound up he gets [Leo] Man, thats pretty evil. I love it. The death counter climbed. Phil died to Margit four times and started calling the delayed overhead attack a cheat. Sam died twice, accepted his fate, and spent the rest of his turns asking Leo questions instead of actually playing. Luka rolled off a cliff, much to the amusement of everyone else.

Torren watched Phil's fifth attempt on Margit. The delayed overhead came down. YOU DIED.

"Thought he was going to smash this," Torren said, to nobody in particular. Phil turned slowly to look at him. Torren looked back, completely calm. The lads lost it again—quieter this time, more tired, but no less genuine. Even Shai's shoulders were shaking. They'd been at it for a few hours when Parmo set the controller down and stretched.

"Right, should we put Return of the King on?"

"Yes," Rika said immediately, sitting up. Leo got up and found the case. He opened it. He looked at the disc inside for a moment longer than necessary.

"What?" Rika said. Leo pressed his lips together.

"That doesn't look like Lord of the Rings," Rika said, leaning forward.

"What is that?"

"So," Leo said.

"This is a film called Kung Pow: Enter the Fist." Rika stared at him.

"It's pretty funny," Leo said. Rika continued to stare.

"Someone must have put it in the wrong case," Leo said.

"We'll track down a copy; it won't take long. Someone in town will have—" He caught her expression and looked away.

"Sorry." A short silence. Rika took a deep breath.

"You promise you'll find a copy?"

"Yeah, everyone has the Lord of the Rings trilogy, even if they don't use DVD players anymore. I'm sure we'll find a copy lying around here somewhere," said Parmo.

"Fine. I'll play the game instead. We better find it soon, though. I need to see the ending," Rika said. Parmo handed her the controller. Three attempts later she was already doing better than Luka had managed in his entire session, and still going. Luka stared at the screen.

"How."

"I don't know," Rika said, eyes fixed on the TV.

"Just get good."