The Crystal Crusade

by Mars Dorian

  Thank tech the world of Fourlando was big enough to never run into the guy again. I crossed the central player hub and looked at the quest board, hoping for a lower ranked job to build up experience and gain some skills. Dozens of quests popped up, but one job in particular stood out.

  7

  Quest: “Beasts of the wild”

  Type: Perimeter defense

  Location: Lynchburg, Norsefalia (Mainland)

  Reward: 250 credits, EXP, low grade bonus gear

  Description: The Reepo plague has infested a rim township near the forest and is corrupting the local animals. Resident farmers look for mercenary help and pay as much as 250 credits for slaying the infected creatures that threaten their land.

  ——————————————————————

  It sounded like a simple quest, like a good old hack and slash session, but the little experience I gained so far told me a different story: this VR game featured more than kill-all-creatures scenarios. The world was known for its moral dilemmas and variety in quests, enemies, and player types.

  Still, what choice did I have? I wanted to play, and if I were to reach Level 5 to pick my character class, I needed lots of experience. So I accepted the ‘job’ offer and looked for fellow Level 2 ranked players to form a party.

  And that’s when the trouble began.

  Everyone I approached declined my offer, even the Level 1 newbies. The players treated me as if the Reepo had infested my body. One classless Level 1 avatar even said, “Are you going to slay me from behind when I don’t comply?”

  “I don’t think the game mechanics allow for that,” I said. “Don’t we both have to agree for a player-versus-player match?”

  She shrugged and turned away. Looked like my little NPC-in-the-hole story went viral and turned me into a mobile plague no one wanted to party with. Sad.

  Still, I didn’t play for teamwork; I played for fun, so I joined the mission in solo mode. I traveled to the central departure station of the Academy and chose the main exit. With few credits, I could neither afford potions nor a train ride to the quest location.

  Near the station, where the steamy trains whooshed in and out, merchants treated their speedy fowls and offered hourly rides. The feathered, working animals functioned as cheap transportation and reached speeds up to sixty kilometers per hour. Unfortunately, I didn’t even own enough credits to rent a single fowl, so I picked the worst and most laborious transportation choice: I joined a snail-paced caravan. The ride cost me only fifteen credits which was all I could afford for the time being. Players and a few NPCs joined the crammed wagons and exchanged information. A menu updated into my vision.

  Ready to leave the Academy safe zone?

  (Yes/No)

  I picked yes and departed from the Academy complex. To hell with safe spaces.

  I found my niche on the crammed wagon and settled down. Narrow and tight, but hey, I wasn’t on a cruiser ride. An old geezer in rugged clothes focused on me. He wore customized plates and bracelets, covered in dents and smeared with dirt. Judging by his ragged demeanor, he must have seen half of Fourlando.

  “Where are you from, son?”

  “Pueblo West, Colorado,” I said when I realized the fellow traveler was a non-playable character. That’s why he contorted his leathery face upon hearing my answer. “Where in the world is that?”

  “Some far-off place no one cares about. I’m still a cadet at the Academy.”

  “Thought so,” he said. “You got the face of a rookie.”

  Could have been a subtle attack, but I had no interest in arguing with an NPC. “I just want to learn more about the world and get some experience.”

  The geezer nodded. “That’s what life is about—making decisions and hoping the Aeons are blessing you all the way.”

  I simply nodded. An ancient religion weaved through the game story, something about Aeons, energy, life after death, and all that jazz. Never caught my interest, but the NPC seemed to be of a curious nature. “Where are you heading?”

  “Lynchburg. Got an interesting job offer.”

  “Lynchburg, eh?”

  He pondered the name and dug up some old memories. “Great village; good, hardworking folks. Was on the verge of becoming an industrial town before the Reepo crept in and ruined the place.”

  His face squeezed in disgust. “Damn crystals are ruining little men’s lives while the higher-ups hide in their bloody castles and townships.”

  So the game played out a real class-difference narrative. To be honest, I was never interested in the game’s story. It was all just made up mumbo-jumbo about evil crystals corrupting everything, blah blah. I joined the game to play for fun, not to indulge in fake history lessons.

  The caravan soon arrived at Lynchburg. A misty village with brick-styled buildings interspersed with some industrial-like factories, and a gloomy atmosphere to scare the little ones. The NPC checked my reaction. “Believe me, son, this place used to be beautiful.”

  I shut up and pretended to listen.

  “Damn crystals,” the geezer said again and jumped off the caravan. “But it’s the world we live in now, eh?”

  “I guess so.”

  He patted my shoulder and gave me a friendly, old man smile. “You take care, son, and stay away from the forests. The Reepo is going crazy there.”

  Funny thing was my quest ordered me to go there specifically. I wanted action, experience, and skill points.

  “Later, sir, and thanks for the warning.”

  I saluted him goodbye and headed down the central road of the industrial village. Few people remained outside, most stayed in their houses and watched me through their curtained windows. The whole stranger coming into town thing—how original. Looked like even world-renowned developers fell victim to genre tropes.

  A few players passed by me, but no one greeted me. I activated my e-scroll and looked at the local map. A red cross at the rim of the village popped up. A few hundred meters away from the village, a lone ranch with fenced land came into view. I wiped my hands and prepared for the mission start.

  8

  I approached the wooden door and knocked. A middle-aged woman in farmer’s gear stepped out, her eyes narrowed. She looked malnourished. “Yes?”

  “Hello, milady, my name is Dash, and I found your quest offer at the Academy.”

  “Quest?”

  “Job, I mean.”

  Her eyes moved up and down. “I appreciate a young man taking up our offer, but aren’t you a bit too inexperienced for the job?”

  Was she criticizing my low-level rank? I thought NPCs lacked self-awareness. “I may not look impressive, ma’am, but I got mad fighting skills and a mechanized axe.”

  I proudly showed her my prize. She sighed but let me in. “I guess it’s better than nothing.”

  She treaded softly across the wooden floor. “My husband’s out there, setting up the defenses near the fence. We’ve lost a lot of our sheep because of the increase in creature attacks.”

  I listened to her advice and hoped to gain important quest details. What often sounded like boring conversation typically revealed tips and tricks for solving a mission. In the living room, a young girl with pigtails sat at the wooden table and observed me with her marble-like eyes. She slurped her hot cup of whatever and looked frightened.

  “What’s up?” I said.

  She kept on staring at me and let the silence speak.

  The mother said, “I have to warn you—the recent attacks have been vicious.”

  “Damn Reepo is going crazy again,” I said, channeling the old geezer from before.

  It was actually fun pretending to be part of the narrative. Acting like a certified cadet made you feel as if you were living in a real sci-fi fantasy world. “I can go out there right now and help your husband with the defense setup, ma’am.”

  “Would you do that?”

  “It’s what am I here for.”

  I didn’t mention the 250 credit r
eward I was looking for. These NPCs acted in a smart way, and I’ve heard plenty of cases where players chose the wrong answers and ruined their quest offers.

  “Are you going to save us?” the little girl in front of the table said.

  “I’m going to slay the creepers like there’s no tomorrow.”

  She smiled, and it was the cutest thing in the world.

  “Don’t you worry a bit,” I said.

  “Here,” the woman said and handed me two health potions. “A little replenishment in case you get hurt.”

  Nice. I thought about borrowing money to buy some potions, but thankfully, the NPCs were set up to support me.

  I saluted the two goodbye and stepped outside the house where the air thickened. Couldn’t tell what it was, but something sparkled in the atmosphere and forced pressure on me. Half a dozen meters in front of me, the husband had set up a used needle spitter at the north-east of the fenced ranch. The forest lurked only a dozen meters away and oozed like a sinister life form. It was the Finsterland Forest all over again, but I managed to suppress the shiver.

  The second I entered the farmer’s field of vision, he turned around with a tired smile. “I’m assuming you are the brave young man who has accepted our job offer?”

  “Sure am, sir,” I said, knowing I was going to get the best results by adapting my speech to their patterns.

  “No offense, young man, but you don’t look equipped for the job.”

  I showed him my crimson mech axe. The NPC drooled at my shiny toy. “Rather impressive. Where’d you get it from?”

  I stole it from a NPC that I left in the hole.

  Nah, bad phrasing. “I received it from another job.”

  The NPC nodded and kept it at that. I looked at his needle spitter with its iron ammo.

  “Pretty impressive equipment you got yourself, sir.”

  “Nah, it’s just a used turret I got from the weapon smith. This baby comes with point four five darts. Unfortunately, I have only fifty shots worth of ammo, so I have to rely on selective single fire.”

  He produced a little cylinder-shaped tube from his coat. Its content glowed in mesmerizing violet and flashed in my eyes.

  “Crystallized Reepo in refined form,” the NPC said with a moan. “Damn crystals power up our tech and kill us at the same time. The Aeons sure have a wicked sense of humor.”

  Developers, to be more specifically, but I didn’t want to interrupt his game narrative. The NPC shoved the tube into the needle spitter’s back socket. The second the tube plugged inside, the mechanical current came to life and activated its barrel. The device looked impressive, but featuring only a couple dozens of darts, it could barely stop a creature wave. That’s what the NPCs hired me for, I guess. And like any predictable scripted event, the howling erupted from the depths of the nearby forest.

  “Damn suckers,” the NPC said and checked his blunderbuss. My mouth drooled and I wondered if I would get the short-ranged weapon as a bonus for completing the quest. The NPC ignored my stare and fed slugs into the weapon.

  “Take position, son, here they come.”

  My head rotated toward the first line of crooked trees. Glowing violet eyes pierced through the darkness. I counted at least twenty-four. The mission added details in my heads-up display.

  Quest update: Protect the 2 farmers from the creatures.

  Bonus: Make sure that all 3 family members survive.

  9

  My confidence decreased with every pair of new eyes I counted. When I reached twenty-eight pairs, realized I should have brought another player into the quest as some form of backup.

  L’ocean, where art thou?

  Probably training with Scarface Rokkit.

  Seriously, this scenario looked like a fatal Finsterland Forest moment.

  The farmer’s sentries swiveled their metallic heads around and unleashed shots into the darkness. I readied my crimson axe and focused. Three Creepos escaped the first line of trees, and stormed toward me and the NPC with endless rage. The analyzer encircled their crystallized bodies and showed me the basic stats:

  Enemy: Adult wraggs

  Type: Beast

  HP: 40-55

  Weakness: Sharp weaponry

  Drops: Material for antidote, fangs

  I locked-on the nearest wragg and swung my mechanized axe. The servo-mechanics kicked in and doubled the speed of my swing. The blade smashed into the arrow-shaped head of the creature and cracked it wide open. Critical hit.

  The hefty attack knocked the creep to the ground and caused immediate bleed damage. The NPC fired off his blunderbuss at short range and prevented the creeper from jump-attacking, but the damage counted in the single digits. He acted as a support. I jumped over the wragg I just killed and attacked the next one threatening the farmer dad. Thanks to my ambush from behind, I caused 150% damage—gotta love directional action bonuses. The creature stood no chance against my mechanized axe swipe. From the corner of my eye, I saw the sentry gun piercing a wragg with its shells. Still, I knew I had more than enough Creepos left.

  “You’re tougher than you look,” the NPC said.

  I went full melee and picked the next suckers. “I’m not so bad once you get to know me.”

  “Be careful, son.”

  A wragg flanked me from the left and bit me. The pain tore through my arm like hot acid. I staggered and noticed my view turning orange. Damn those creatures were clever.

  “Out of ammo on turret one,” the NPC said.

  Dozens of darts had fired already, but at least they took down some wraggs. I took a health potion and attacked three beasts, killing all of them with my selective cuts. I stood close to the farmer and watched him occasionally hit a beast with his pellets. In no time, we wiped out a dozen wraggs. Maybe I overestimated the quest’s difficulty and underestimated my skill set. These beasts died quickly.

  “Oh no,” the farmer NPC said.

  He raised his finger past me. A pack of wraggs had circumnavigated the needle spitters and raced around the ranch. The cowards were avoiding us.

  “No, no, no,” the NPC said shakily.

  Four adult wraggs targeted the front porch of the rancher’s house with foaming mouths. Their spiked legs pushed them forward like speed devils.

  “It’s locked, right?”

  “It’s just a wooden door.”

  …restricted to game mechanics, I added in my mind. There was no way the wraggs could—nope, they did break through the door and invaded the house. So much for hope. I jumped over the fence and sprinted toward the broken door. The mechanized axe slowed me down, but it was the only weapon I carried so I wasn’t about to drop it. The NPC grabbed his blunderbuss and shadowed me. “Please, please, don’t let it be bad.”

  Screams tore through the air.

  I blasted through the front floor, ready to smash any adult wragg in my way. The screams became louder. I marched into the living room and saw two wraggs ripping the mother NPC to pieces. No way, that was way too cruel for a game like this.

  “Martha,” the male NPC shouted.

  “Be careful,” I said and approached the feasting wraggs from behind. One strong hit knocked over the smaller creeper, but the second one evaded my swing and hissed at me. Violet eyes, a foaming mouth, and tiny Reepo crystals pierced the creature’s skin like a rocky rash.

  It was by the far the scariest monster I had seen in my short game life so far. If ugliness was a monster, it would have been scared of the wragg.

  “What are you waiting for?” the farmer NPC said.

  I circled the creature and waited for the jump-attack. The second it launched into the air, I hit the beast’s head like a home run and smashed it into the nearby wall, causing extra damage. The creature howled in pain, which prompted me to jerk forward and swing a vertical axe attack to target the wragg’s now exposed stomach. With a final screech, the beast dropped dead.

  “Martha, Martha, Martha,” the NPC said and collapsed to his knees in front of his wife. He thre
w the blunderbuss away and checked her pulse. Tears ran down his cheeks. “She’s dead.”

  I knew she wasn’t because she was a game element, but of course he didn’t know that. I followed the dark bloodstains toward the storage room and found the little daughter with a bite on her neck. She coughed out darkened blood and looked at me with her starry eyes. Not gonna lie, the scene choked me up. I carried the girl from the storage and lay her on the couch in the living room. Her father joined my side and freaked out again.

  “I have a potion left,” I said.

  “No, no, no. She’s infected, don’t you see that?”

  Her violet veins popped out her skin, a sign from the Reepo infecting her blood. I had never seen that happening to a human, well, NPC being, but this game harbored more secrets than I was comfortable with. The male NPC wrapped sheets around his daughter’s bleeding arm. His teary eyes turned to me. “Don’t you have any antidote?”

  “Anti-Reepo vaccines? These exist?”

  “Of course they do!”

  The uncomfortable sentence squeezed from my lips. “I’m sorry… I don’t have anything with me.”

  The man’s eyes were full of disgust. His tears doubled when the violet color infiltrated the dying girl’s face. The father yelled at me. Realistic spit droplets splashed against me. “Didn’t you do any research before you accepted our job? What in the world did you prepare for at the Academy?”

  Nothing, to be honest. I wanted to hack & slash to gain some much needed experience. I had no idea this little quest would turn into yet another soul-wrenching drama.

  “I’m really sorry,” I said. “I’m still inexperienced.”

  “No kidding.”

  His daughter jerked. Limbs trembled. Her head twisted.

  “What the—?”

  “Oh no, she’s turning,” the NPC father said. “My child is turning into a Creepo.”

  Great, now the NPCs used in-game slang and I had no clue what the heck was going on. I watched the girl jerking her arms around like a possessed puppet.