The Kill Stealer: An Adventure Loosely Based on the Quantified Self Movement

By Dean Paul Dominguez

On his birthday of all days, 13 year old Divi Rogallo gains unspeakable powers through the power of level jumping after slaying a gargantuan, dozen-headed Terrabird already bloodied and weakened by the army that failed to kill it, making him a person of interest for mercenary leader Clip Sharinggen.

In The Kill Stealer: An Adventure Loosely Based on the Quantified Self Movement, Dominguez thematizes the quantification systems that exist in video games and brings them to life in fiction. He artfully demonstrates the pervasiveness of these systems in the everyday lives of the characters. Kill Stealer is in the same genre and is similar to Sword Art Online, Accel World, Log Horizon, Btooom!, the Dot Hack/ .Hack and Hack GU series, and other genres containing MMORPG themes. Those who enjoyed these series may also enjoy Kill Stealer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312038523

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The Kill Stealer: An Adventure Loosely Based on the Quantified Self Movement

The Kill Stealer: An Adventure Loosely Based on the Quantified Self Movement

All rights reserved.

Copyright © by Dean Paul Dominguez

First Ebook Edition: January 2014

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental, The Author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.

Dean Paul Dominguez

ISBN 978-1-312-03830-1

Thanks to my parents for supporting me and giving into my wishes of getting video games whenever I asked them to during the many Christmases of my childhood. Their generosity and love inspired me to write this book.

The Kill Stealer: An Adventure Loosely Based on the Quantified Self Movement

By

Dean Paul Dominguez

Table of Contents

Cycle -1: Gather Friends

Cycle 0: Introduction

Cycle 1: Tutorial

Cycle 2: SIGHT

Cycle 3: Level Jumping

Cycle 4: The Way of the Army

Cycle 5: The Pilfering

Cycle 6: The Return

Cycle 7: The First Mission

Cycle 8: The Celebration

Cycle 9: On the World and its Properties

Cycle 10: The Question Concerning Banned Technology

Cycle 11: Show and Tell

Cycle 12: Training at the Fort

Cycle 13: Flowers High, Flowers Tall

Cycle 14: The Innate and the Untrained

Cycle 15: Hiatus

Cycle 16: The Alpha’s End

Cycle 17: The Military Academy

Cycle 18: The Scroll Province

Cycle 19: Organization and Recuperation

Cycle 20: The Reverie of Two Swords

Cycle 21: Dress Your Wounds for the Crows

Cycle 22: Feather by Feather

Cycle 23: The Escape

Cycle 24: Daze and Reclaim

Cycle 25: When Mercenaries Imbibe

Cycle 26: Her Pride

Cycle 27: Strike Before Sweat

Cycle -1: Gather Friends

We’re obsessed with quantification, aren’t we?

What? Ricopan said, dumbfounded by my question. Ricopan passed some lizard egg-drop soup to Germina, who was sitting across from me on a log. Germina flapped his wings and caused the dying fire to rekindle. With new life, the bonfire illuminated all our faces with a vibrant red hue.

"We’re obsessed with putting numbers on things that don’t need numbers. I mean—why do we even have a thing called a level anyway?"

"Are you crazy, Divi? That’s like asking ‘Why are we obsessed with the earth being round when it could be flat?’ We’re not obsessed with the earth being round—it’s just the way things are. We describe the earth as round because it is round. The same is true for levels. We’re not obsessed with levels because we like quantifying stuff—we use levels as a means of quantifying life, strength, speed, and defensive capabilities. We use levels because they are true and they exist. Just like how the earth is round, not flat. It can’t be any way else."

But what exactly is true? I said, taking more broth from the cauldron above the fire, "It’s not uncommon for lower level humans to defeat higher level monsters, but according to the theory of levels, the monster is supposed to win because its level is higher than the human’s. What truth in levels is there?"

Germina downed his soup in a few gulps and looked at me with the bowl covering his mouth. The reflection of the fire shown in his eyes. He squinted, adjusted his seat, and the reflection went away. You must also remember the theory of tools in order to justify the truth in your argument.

His voice echoed from inside the bowl. He didn’t seem to mind and continued, It’s not uncommon for a lower level human to defeat a higher leveled monster, but I can bet you this: that when you painted that story for all of us, did you imagine a human unarmed, defeating a monster? Or did you see human holding a weapon, killing that thing?

Ricopan and I both agreed that we imagined a human holding a weapon, killing the monster, That’s the only conceivable way that that would happen.

Tools and reason allow humans to become the exception to some theory of levels, but not all. If two monsters of the same type were to fight and both were of comparable health but different in level, then there is no doubt in my mind that the one with the higher level is going to win.

Germina— I said, putting my bowl down in the sand, truth and falsity have nothing to do with obsession. You still didn’t answer my question—aren’t we obsessed with quantification?

I’m afraid I’m going to have to side with Ricopan and call you a middle-aged coot. If mankind decides to develop a sophisticated form of mathematics, I don’t think we can call mankind obsessed about numbers. There is a natural inclination for seeking truth. The theory of levels is another discovery caught up in our efforts to seek the truth—I don’t think anyone’s obsessed about anything.

Germina poured more broth into his soup bowl and plopped the head of his spoon into the center of the bowl. A droplet of soup skydived into the bonfire and made a brief tssssing noise.  He looked at Ricopan, then looked at me, "I will side with you on one thing, Divi: that people rely on it to predict outcomes with some kind of supernatural justification, when in reality, outcomes are governed by so much more than mere facts. Two true pieces of facts can’t guarantee a specific outcome with 100% certitude. Returning to the example of the two monsters, it’s a near guarantee that the higher level monster will win, but it could just as easily lose if a rock falls from a cliff and stuns it with enough force to let the lower level monster kill the other. There are too many variables in real battle to assert that an outcome must happen. I think that’s how people are obsessed with levels—they assume it can guarantee indubitable outcomes. I’m sure there’s a status parameter for luck, but they haven’t discovered it yet."

But the fact of the matter is that levels exist and they are true, Ricopan said, sipping from his soup bowl, and pride can’t produce truth. I looked at the serving bowl in the middle of the bonfire and it wasn’t even half empty. It looked like we were going to be here for a while. For a bunch of fugitives, we were good at running away but we were also good at staying put, debating trivialities with each other on those sleepless nights.

***

Cycle 0: Introduction

I tell you this story in confidence only and you are not to share it with anyone. If you do, I cannot guarantee your safety, nor can I tell you about the parties who will come after you, thinking you know anything about me. I will tell you about my childhood and how I became to be. I will help you relive my life as if you’re standing inside the messy and untied shoes of a 12-year-old suburban kid. I will admit that looking back at my life 30 years later will allow me to elaborate on events and people with diction and description far beyond the ability of any 12-year-old boy. I act now as a translator for my past self—any sensations, feelings, and conversations I had as a child will be interpreted with my specific style of prose, influenced with the thoughts and knowledge I have as an adult. Some call it selective memory, others call it embellishment. I would call it an enriching translation, if anything. Bear with me, as my narration will paint the blank canvas with more shades of color than you thought existed. True account or tall tale, it is my story.

Cycle 1: Tutorial

I am bedazzled by any thoughts that persist in persuading me that this world could have been otherwise. I say this in light of our quantification systems that we take for granted. Age, something that tells us how many years we have been living, is an intuitive number to me, one that increases as time passes. But we also have something called a level and it is just as commonplace of a quantifier as age. A level is a quantifiable measurement of one’s strength and intellect, to be put simply. But yes, I know—it is ambiguous, yet widely accepted. I too, am highly skeptical. With age measured in years as its unit, a level is measured in cycles. A cycle is determined by the accumulation of experience points while fighting, learning, or experiencing in general. Unlike age, the level does not increase with time. It increases only in the event that one experiences.

But aren’t we experiencing all the time? That much, I concede, is true. However, the level system does not seem to care about our continuous experience, i.e. that we fall asleep and wake up as the same person; that we’re constantly ourselves at any given moment. In other words, the level only pays attention to larger events, like fighting, training, studying, reading, etc. Smaller events, like talking, or doing basic math in one’s head, don’t seem to count. Experience points are obtained by doing only a handful of meaningful events.

I have to say that our textbooks in elementary school did a stellar job explaining all this to us. You can go to the local library to look them up:

Aco, Larsons. Level Determination. Principia Cyclia. Germinata Publishing, QQ: 3903, 59-68.

Kalamity, Sam. Omission of the Trite. Seminal Academics Publishing, SA: 3904, 300-312.

Those two references have exactly what I explained above, only in greater and more scientific detail. Anyway, I can remember the lectures in elementary school in somewhat vivid detail. Our Levels and Cycles 101 class were right after algebra and finished right before lunch.

******

All right, class, my professor said energetically, everyone turn to page 130, the history of HP.

As you can see, HP, or hit points, are the basic units of life. Just as age is measured in years, levels are measured in cycles, and lifeforce is measured in HP. When your lifeforce reaches zero, you are dead. When you reach 0 HP, it is often said that you are ‘in the red.’

There are machines that can reverse this. Resuscitation machines, ones that shock a heart into beating again, can increase the HP from 0 HP to 1 HP and revive the person. After reviving the person, the person is fed regeneration IVs to let the HP increase steadily. After a while, the body’s self-regeneration ability will take over to complete the process.

Drowning, too, can cause a person to reach zero HP. If a person is running out of breath, their HP diminishes rapidly until it reaches zero. The point at which they run out of breath is zero. CPR, just like the resuscitation machines for stopped hearts, can reverse it, but with very low chance.

"A tardy resuscitation for either case, however, can result in something rather aberrant. If one resuscitates a person who is brain-dead and increases the person’s HP by 1, then the dead body will move around. This effect is called ‘zombie.’ It is forbidden by law to do so. Those who have made zombies usually level down when they resuscitate someone because it is considered negative experience. As far as we know, this is the only kind of negative experience that occurs in our world. With respect to preserving your level and honoring the dead, it is in your best interest, children, not to make zombies."

The lecture so far was fascinating since it had explained more things about the world. This is science, I thought to myself. The inner workings of the world revealed to us. And to think that this information was once unavailable to civilization. Only in the last 400 years was this common knowledge. And here we are, the children of the future, learning such things.

The quantification of that which cannot be quantified by nature is most certainly evidence of the existence of man on earth. If apples happened to fall on the ground in the same area, then one could quantify them. Five apples have fallen, would be the most accurate utterance, something occurring quite frequently in nature.

But if one were to ostend at a gorilla and say, This gorilla has a level of 76 cycles, it is apparent that nature did not expect man to discern the inner-workings of the world and convert intangible attributes into numbers. Instead of saying that the gorilla is strong, we can say that the gorilla is of a level, something that indicates to us, in relativity to our own level, that that gorilla is either relatively strong or relatively weak. From this, man’s discernment has increased by a measurement that is more specified than terms such as strong or weak.

The intelligence quotient (IQ) was once an indication of intellect, but it was based on criteria like solving problems in the mind, logic, math, and geometry. However, the level is something completely unambiguous and purely scientific—at least that’s what they say. The inner workings of a level is like the law of gravity. Just as gravity will act anywhere, anything that is sentient has a level. Insects, animals, and human beings have a level. Rocks don’t have levels. Water doesn’t have a level. But flowers do. Even branches that have been snapped off its tree have levels. The only exception to this rule is that robots, created by humans, have a level. There are strange rules accompanied by this, however.

Cycle 2: SIGHT

Professor Fry, after lecturing, rolled out a silver machine. Etched in the side of the machine were these letters: S-I-G-H-T. The infamous Sight Machine. It was the machine that started it all. The unveiling of these Dionysian truths were blessings, though. To decipher one’s level was like holding up a mirror to the self; a looking glass into the innards of strength and intellect. Learn more, gain a level. Fight more, gain a level. It all made sense to us, the new generation who was raised on these principles.

With the greatest amount of delight on his face, Professor Fry addressed us, These books, at times, do not give the real thing justice. The SIGHT machine was created by the famous inventor Luksa Gen-Gen in the year 2008. Now, how does one discover the existence of a level? Any ideas?

The classroom was a little stunned by this question, as was I. How did Luksa stumble upon such a thing? Since a level was an occurrence in nature, though hidden from the eyes of man, it seemed that either nature cut a hole in its veil to unearth some of its secret to man, or the converse—that man ripped a hole in the veil to generate a view.

One of my friends, Minerva Halgen, decided to attempt the question. She had red hair to her shoulders and a ribbed hairband. Her inquiries were mostly from intuition and she had the propensity to plumb even the most difficult of questions.  She stood from her plain square desk and began to speak eloquently and directly from her mind, Perhaps Luksa was pestered by the fact that a reality without quantity was abject.

Professor Fry decided to elicit a more direct answer to his question, That may have been her motivation to discover it, but what about actually finding it? Did she use a microscope?

No, I don’t believe she used a microscope, although she devised a way to tally one’s strengths and intellect. It was called a Sight Scope, I think.

What is strength? The elenchus between Professor Fry and Minerva began.

Strength is the ability to fight and defend.

And how is the ability to fight and defend determined?

By how well others deliver attacks and their ability to continue living.

None of us here have passed on. Doesn’t everyone have the ability to continue living?

We live in troubled times, professor. Though safe in our cities, much of the world is uncharted and animals, monsters, and other beings roam freely. There will be, on occasion, attacks from the uncharted lands. It will be up to us to defend the city if the army fails.

That’s precisely the case, but you still haven’t answered my question.

Well… Minerva put her finger to her lip, trying to come up with something, Luksa created it for the army. She never wanted another failure from the army and therefore created a machine to appraise the strength and intellect of any dangerous creature that could potentially destroy cities.

Minerva, I am impressed by your furnishing us of the history of Luksa and her Sight Machine. However, I will have to ask you to sit down so I can continue the demonstration of the Sight Machine.

Minerva sat down, content with her responses. But Professor Fry had a penchant for perplexing questions, so most of them were not easily answered. Anyone who lasted that long was respected by everyone. Now that Minerva had sat down, the entire class was leaning forward obsequiously, waiting for the answer to be revealed.

"The level, as you remember, is a system that occurs in nature. The level was not manufactured by us—it was given to us. Does anyone claim that man invented fire? Man simply harnessed it from nature. The level is much the same. Nature merely hid it and man mistakenly discovered it.  We did not invent levels, children! The level was discovered… by calibrating the Sight Scope to the universe."

The class was clearly dissatisfied with another ambiguous answer. But that’s precisely what it was. At least that’s what it said in textbooks. That’s what scientists said at press conferences. That’s what politicians said about it. Sight Scope Sees the Universe! was even made a sticker by vendors. I was growing tired of a catchphrase being used as a surrogate to a real answer. I decided to contest Professor’s response,

What entails the calibration of a machine to the universe?

Professor Fry took a deep sigh, indicating to me that he knew the answer, but had to find the proper words to explain it to us 7th graders, There’s nothing more behind it. The machine can appraise people’s levels perfectly. When people level up, the mathematics behind calculating the level up add up perfectly, even to the last decimal point. The tabulations are flawless, Mr. Divi Rogallo.

Ah, I said, dumbfounded. I sat back down and conceded to his answer. I was still dissatisfied, just like the rest of the class.

Well, since everyone has finished asking questions, I will now demonstrate how the machine works. You place your head in the padded area and your body in the part that looks like it has an indentation of the human body. It reminds me of a coffin to be perfectly honest, but there’s no point in entertaining such morbid thoughts. Besides, it’s appraising your lifeforce, so it looking like a coffin is truly the last thing on your mind.

This particular machine is rather bulky, but it’s a model used in classrooms. The Sight Machines of the army are more compact and portable. The ones we have are coarse, but financially optimized.

Professor Fry pressed a button and the Sight Machine began to activate. It made some noises, indicating turning gears and expenditure of energy. After much whizzing, it finally stopped and a print out came out from the back of the machine.

Ricopan, why don’t you help me read it? The professor was just stepping out from the machine. Ricopan got up from his desk and approached the front of the class. Ricopan was a small boy of about 12 that had curly brown hair. He was rather phlegmatic and spoke laconically. He was the young son of the army’s famous general, Pelepan.

He carefully ripped the printout at the perforation and began to read it aloud. This is what it read:

Garner Fry

Age: 45 years

Level 90 cycles

HP: 90/90

Professor Fry was a teacher, which explained his high level. He didn’t seem all that strong, though. In a case like this, his level is overstating his strength. Then again, I may be underestimating him in general. This is the only problem of the Sight Machine, I thought to myself. It only gives one number for two, rather disparate attributes: strength and intellect. It was flawed, in a way. Everyone knew that, yet still believed in it.

Everyone was impressed that Professor Fry’s level was twice his age. Before Ricopan had a chance to sit down, Professor Fry was grateful to him, "Thank