Fate Revealed

by M E Robinson

  Whirling around, Eric was confronted by the three adventurers whose bodies he’d looted only a little while ago. The spearwoman was in the lead, striding over with a burning look in her eyes. If Eric had thought she looked mildly annoyed when she’d been glaring at him after he killed the red-maned wolf, then she now looked positively furious. Behind her, the warrior and the mage could be seen, slightly more hesitant but still following their fearless leader.

  Not wanting to become entangled with a party in the middle of the village, Eric raised his hand and without hesitation cried out, “Elegant Procrastination!”

  After a momentary pause, the spearwoman realized what he was doing and began to sprint towards him but she was too late. After a brief couple of seconds, Eric’s body began to dematerialize, disappearing before the party members stunned eyes.

  “Argh!” the redheaded spearwoman, Tamira, cried out, stomping the ground furiously as she watched her quarry disappear.

  “He got away,” the warrior observed.

  “I can see that, Alex. The question is, why didn’t you do anything to stop it?” Tamira asked furiously, staring unwillingly at the spot where Eric had disappeared as if he would magically reappear from the sheer force of her will.

  Alex raised his hands helplessly, “What did you want me to do? He was already logging out, and I don’t exactly want to start a fight in the middle of the village.”

  “I agree. Are you really sure he tried to kill you, Tammy?” the mage asked timidly. “He seemed to have just arrived right before I died. He did try to save me, even if he did miss…”

  “Even if he didn’t, how do you know he wasn’t working with whoever did kill me? The event log doesn’t tell me who it was. But it does say that it was a player killer. And he didn’t respawn like we did which means he wasn’t killed.”

  “Maybe he ran away?”

  “Or maybe it was his party member.”

  “Yeah but didn’t you say he saved you from the wolf? Why would he save you only to let his friend kill you?” Alexnir interjected.

  “Maybe he missed. He missed the first shot, even if Katzy thinks he tried to save her with his first shot, it was far closer to hitting me than it was to that wolf. Couldn’t he have just missed again?” Tamira argued.

  “It’s definitely a possibility, most players seemed pretty bad at archery in the tutorial…” Alexnir conceded, rubbing his face as he pondered.

  “Exactly! Don’t forget that he logged off as soon as he saw us. That’s not the action of an innocent man,” Tamira replied confidently.

  “Maybe he was just scared of the way you looked when you threatened to kill him,” Katzy muttered.

  “What was that, Kat?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Well, we didn’t lose anything important. Just the drops from hunting. I say we go out and continue grinding. Who knows how long he’ll be gone for, and with the time acceleration we could end up waiting hours or even days before he comes back,” said Alexnir, clearly anxious to make up for lost time.

  “Sounds good,” Katzy said in agreement, quickly cutting off Tamira’s retort.

  “Fine, but if we see him again, this time I’m charging his ass. He doesn’t get to run away next time,” Tamira said with a fierce glint in her eye. Not daring to reply, Katzy and Alexnir just shook their heads wearily, accompanying Tamira out of the village.

  - Chapter Twenty-Four -

  Skillful Talks

  Waking up, Eric removed the FateGear. He’d planned to log out normally and just hang out for a couple minutes waiting for the guys on Strife. But the unforeseen variable of a group of angry players accusing him of murder had forced him to re-evaluate his plans.

  Checking his watch, he saw that there was still three minutes before he had to be on Strife. Just enough time to grab a drink and maybe a quick bite to eat. Padding silently down the stairs, he was greeted by the large eyes of his cat, giving him that long unblinking stare that signified either disapproval or that she wanted to be fed. Perhaps both, he thought.

  “Here Jeyna… Here, kitty kitty,” he murmured, extending his hand towards her.

  Slowly, Jeyna turned her gaze on his outstretched hand, before extending her paws and giving a loud yawn. Turning around, she sauntered off, her tail held high in the air.

  “Yup, definitely disapproval,” Eric sighed as he watched her disappear around the corner. Shaking his head, he returned to his quest to get some refreshments before the meeting.

  Returning to his room with a glass of chocolate milk and a plate full of cookies, Eric quickly downed the glass, the cookies disappearing as if they’d been inhaled. Feeling properly refreshed, Eric grabbed the FateGear and lay back down on his bed.

  “Gear Connect!” With the activation phrase uttered, the FateGear whirled to life with a soft hum and Eric found himself once again lying on the couch in the seaside room. Checking the time, he realized that he was actually a minute late.

  Opening the Strife chat, Eric lay back and opened up the virtual keyboard, opting to relax on the couch instead of joining the virtual room. Opening a second monitor, he navigated to the Fate forums as he connected to the chat.

  Kyp has joined the room.

  Mark Alright now that we’re all here let’s go over what we’ve learned so far. I’m going to assume everyone has finished the tutorial and reached the starting zone. Did everyone pick village?

  Gio I did.

  Ryan Same

  Rob Same

  Eric Yup

  Griffin Yeah

  Jun Of course

  Mark Good. Griffin and I managed to meet up, we’re together in Vinbera Village. Did anyone else manage to party up?

  Ryan Jun, Gio, and I are all together in Tassebu Village.

  Gio Yup

  Mark That leaves Eric and Rob, did you guys manage to meet up?

  Eric I’m in Tonbura Village, near Stillwood Forest.

  Rob I’m in Hamour Village, also near Stillwood Forest.

  Griffin Stillwood Forest is near us too, looks like we’re all in the same general area.

  Ryan Yeah. People on the forums are saying that people’s starting zones were heavily influenced by their location in real life. Gio and Jun live near me so it looks like that’s why we’re all in the same starting village.

  Mark Yeah I was reading that earlier. We’re definitely going to want to all meet up fairly soon so we can start doing group activities together as a party. The faster we group up the earlier we can start looking for dungeons, hunting strong mobs, and PvPing as a group. Has anyone been able to find any potential new members?

  Jun Nah we just teamed up as we already had three people.

  Gio ^

  Ryan Yeah. Plus there weren’t any good players in the tutorial with us.

  Rob I found a guy who wants to join. He’s not very good but he’s been acting as a tank which lets me focus on magic.

  Eric You mean you’re using him as a meat shield so you can powerlevel your magic.

  Rob ^

  Mark We can always use more tanks so that’s good. Even if he can’t PvP he can still help us with PvE content. Griffin and I haven’t found anyone yet. What about you Eric?

  Eric I’ve added two people to my friends list. One of them does want to kill me though…

  Jun Who doesn’t?

  Ryan lol

  Mark …

  Mark Why did they add you if they want to kill you?

  Eric Well uh long story short. There’s also a group of three that want me dead.

  Ryan And you added one as a friend? Rofl

  Eric No she killed them and then I PvPd with her. I beat her and agreed to spare her life if she added me as a friend.

  Griffin You added someone who was trying to kill
you? And asked her to join us? Why…

  Mark Not sure that was the greatest idea ^

  Ryan Was she cute?

  Eric Of course. But that wasn’t why I added her. She was actually really strong. She’s the only other player I’ve met so far who can do wandless casting. Also just because I invited her to be my friend doesn’t mean she has to join us. If we don’t like her we don’t add her. Simple.

  Jun How strong can she be if you beat her?

  Gio lmao

  Eric Screw off Jun.

  Rob lol

  Mark Damn that’s pretty sweet. But why does a group want you dead if she killed them?

  Eric Well uhhh they might think I was with her.

  Jun LOL

  Mark ...

  Griffin Wait does that mean you can do wandless casting?

  Eric Yeah.

  Ryan Wait for real?

  Jun I call bs

  Eric I’ll show you guys soon enough. Anyways yeah I added her, I also added a really good archer in the tutorial. And I found a pretty skilled warrior. Jun do you know Master Berro?

  Jun The head of Phoenix Rise TKD? Yeah of course. I’ve sparred against his students a lot.

  Eric I met him too. I didn’t get to add him as a friend though

  Jun That’s actually legit. He’s a really good fighter.

  Mark Good stuff Eric. I think. Just make sure that adding her doesn’t come back to bite you.

  Eric Thanks, oh by the way Jun. You should try out your TKD moves in game. I gained several levels of basic martial arts just for using a kick.

  Jun Cool. I’ll try it.

  Mark Now apart from adding new members. Have any of you figured out how leveling works yet? Griffin hit level 2 but I’m still level 1. The forums are still trying to figure out how leveling works.

  Jun I’m level 2 as well. I soloed a wolf and it brought my Archery up to Beginner 10. I also hit level 2 at the same time.

  Griffin I hit level 2 when my Blocking skill reached Beginner 10 as well.

  Mark Yeah the forums and Riddit seem to think that reaching Beginner 10 in a skill has something to do with it. Everyone that has a verified pic of them being level 2 also has a skill at Beginner 10 or higher.

  Eric I’m Beginner 9 archery atm. If I reach level 2 when I hit Beginner 10 I’ll let you know.

  Mark k. Apart from that leveling skills themselves. Griffin and I hunted demon rabbits for a couple hours. We also killed a pair of wolves, but both wolves were alone not together. Our skills gained the most levels by far when we fought seven demon rabbits at the same time.

  Griffin Yeah I almost died, but my blocking skill went from beginner 7 to beginner 10 in that one fight. It only went up one level after killing a wolf. And it took me dozens of bunnies to get it to hit beginner 5 before that.

  Jun I’ve managed to hunt a few wolves solo while Ryan and Gio took care of a wolf between them. Wolves definitely give more xp than rabbits. We’ve been hunting wolves for about an hour since we discovered that.

  Eric I don’t think there’s actual xp. I gained a lot of levels from my fight with the PK girl despite not killing her. It seems like the more dangerous a fight, the more your skills will go up afterwards.

  Mark Yeah that’s what Griff and I thought.

  Griffin mmmh

  Ryan My swordsmanship skill went up two levels when I had to solo two wolves alone as Gio protected Jun. So that makes sense. I only killed one but it was still enough to let me gain 2 levels and also gain some levels in guard.

  Gio So skills level up based on how difficult the situation is? Or how well you execute them?

  Eric Looks like it.

  Mark We can assume so for now. Try to hunt the toughest stuff you can for now. Also, active skills don’t have to be invented manually. Griffin got one for hitting Beginner 10.

  Ryan Yeah Jun did too.

  Griffin I got the shield bash skill for hitting beginner 10 blocking. It said I’d started to understand that defence wasn’t purely defensive in nature.

  Jun I got Charged Shot. It lets me increase my accuracy the longer I aim at something.

  Mark Sweet. So it seems we’ll all get skills for hitting beginner 10. Has anyone created a skill yet?

  Eric I learned Evasive Shot after my fight with the PKer. It lets me attack while dodging. I also got a passive for evasion.

  Jun Yeah I’ve got that evasion passive too.

  Ryan Same.

  Gio I learned taunt after saving Ryan a few times by rushing at a wolf and making it attack me instead.

  Mark Nice nice. Alright so we’ll wrap up here for now. Our current goal is to all meet up which means we need to figure out where we all are. If someone can get access to a map take a pic and we’ll use that to figure out a meeting point. Apart from that, concentrate on leveling up and learning new skills for now. That means don’t fight demonic rabbits anymore, at least not one at a time. We need to figure out how to optimize our leveling so we can get a headstart on the other players.

  Eric Got it.

  Gio ^

  Ryan ^

  Griffin ^

  Jun ^

  Rob ^

  Mark Oh and Eric. Same thing I told Jun last time. Try not to be a dick ok?

  Jun LOL get f***ed Eric.

  Ryan rofl

  Eric -.-

  You have disconnected from chat.

  - Chapter Twenty-Five -

  Have it all

  Leaving the chat, Eric turned his concentration to the official Hurricane forums. Just like Mark had said, the forums were extremely active with dozens of threads trading places near the top of the page. Two threads, however, dominated the rest in terms of both views and comments. These two threads concerned the players starting areas and skill acquisition.

  Touching the first thread, Eric opened the post titled, “Starting Areas random? Why Can’t I play with my friends Hurricane??” As he did so the page unfurled, the thread turning into a scroll and hovering in midair where the webpage had just been.

  Okay, that was pretty cool, Eric thought with a grin, looking at the posts.

  [Smithsalt22] Why can’t I start with my friends? My friends and I all decided to play together. Some of us took time off work for this. A few of us have kids and got our wives to look after them. But after that stupidly long tutorial (It was pretty cool. I admit) we didn’t even get a chance to play together. I got lucky and was teleported to a town with two of my buddies. But the other three are in different villages and one is in a different kingdom entirely. How is this fair Hurricane?!

  [waterCat1] I agree with OP. I just wanted to play with friends. We’re not aiming for the championship. But if we were how is it fair that some groups get lucky and can start their party right away while others have to figure out how to regroup?

  [DreamingTowershot] +1

  [Archaeolomiss] My family all started in the same town. Same tutorial even. My friend who lives a few blocks away started in a village less than an hour away and my son at university out of the country is in a different kingdom entirely. It seems to be based on geographical location.

  [Smithsalt22] Wait really? My two buddies and I do live in the same neighbourhood. The other three are all spread out across the state. That could make sense. Still stupid though.

  [AKWolfguy45] +1 for Archaeolomiss. My friends and I all started in the same town and we all live in the same area.

  [Kingkraykray] Bumping this thread so Hurricane sees it. @Hurricane_Phantom why can’t we play with our friends?

  Scrolling down, Eric saw that many were corroborating Archaeolom
iss’ post. It seemed that each village, town, and city corresponded roughly to areas in the real world.

  If people lived within a few kilometers of each other and chose village, they would be paired up if they were both within the same village’s sphere of influence. The towns' spheres of influence had a much larger radius than villages did, with people almost a hundred kilometers away posting that they’d been successfully reunited in the same town after the tutorial. Cities seemed to have huge spheres of influence with people from hundreds of kilometers away being teleported to the same city. Perusing the posts, Eric noticed a Hurricane employee had actually responded to the thread.

  [Hurricane_Cosmo] Hey guys! Splitting players up based on geographical location was a choice we made for game balance reasons. Don’t worry though! We predict that players will be able to reunite with other players in the same kingdom by the end of the day, and with players in the same region by the end of the weekend. As for players from other regions, unfortunately it might take until the end of next week before players are able to play with each other. We hope you’ll understand and enjoy playing Fate with your friends and fellow gamers once you’ve reunited!