“What is this?” Tsuki asked, taken aback.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if it was some sort of practical joke,” Reaper surmised. “After all, who would have the knowledge and resources to actually pull this off?”
“It is not a joke. This is real.”
Omni stopped for a moment and looked towards the sky. It was so serene, so beautiful in its blue splendor; nothing like the raging thunderstorm from an hour past. Who would’ve thought that such an ugly sight was unfolding beneath this cloudless canopy of sapphire? He continued in his explanation, portraying the seriousness of the missive.
“I know this because I can sense the one who wrote this message. I cannot sense his exact location, but I sense his intentions. There is no pretense of humor in his words. Also, I did not see a logout button anywhere in the menu.”
Sensing emotions and intentions was not a feature of the game. Omni had been known as somewhat of a mystic in the real world. Having what people dubbed as an extra sense, unable to explain or comprehend his ability. In truth it was much more than that.
Tsuki shook her head in disappointment.
“So that is why these people are running around aimlessly? I can’t call this anything else but unevolved.”
“I call it being weak, spineless cowards.” Scarlet’s mouth twitched in disgust. “Look at them, running around like chickens with their heads cut off, crying like babies—absolutely disgusting,” she spat. “I say, bring it on. I’m more than ready for this.”
Truth be told, the greater the challenge, the faster Scarlet would rise to the occasion to meet that challenge with eagerness. She was just that sort of person. The energy of excitement was bursting out of her in crackling blasts.
“As far as I’m concerned, nothing’s changed. There is nothing to fear, we simply have to avoid death. That won’t be a problem for us, will it?” Reaper asked.
“If death comes for us, then it comes. Death is not something to be afraid of. It is a natural part of life. Our plans for this game remain unchanged. If nothing else, we may have to press on even harder, for we have things we must do in the real world as well. We cannot allow ourselves to be held captive in this virtual prison for too long,” Omni lectured.
“Agreed,” Tsuki nodded. “So then, what is the plan, we grind dungeons?”
“That is correct, though dungeons aren’t available until level 10. We’ll have to do quests and normal combat before then.”
“Gross. I hate questing.” Tsuki had cringe-worthy memories of her past decade of playing MMOs. The amount of fetch quests she had done were probably in the thousands. All of them had blurred together in a concoction of sickening similarity at this point.
Omni smiled for the first time. He too, hated the tedium of completing mundane quests for NPCs. It was however... “A necessary evil,” he said aloud.
Chapter 4
Dusk stood there, frozen like a statue, his racing mind careening off the track, out of his control. There were several ways in which to gain experience in MMOs. One of the methods was to grind mobs. Grinding mobs was fighting easy monsters out in the open world; killing them over and over, which would grant you experience points. Experience points were needed to level up. The mobs would respawn after a set amount of time, and the process could be repeated until you became so high in level that you no longer gained experience points from them. Each mob had a level, and a player had a corresponding level. Usually if the player was five levels higher than the mob or more no experience would be gained. For example, if the mob was level 2 and the player was level 8. Typically he avoided mob grinding like the plague. It was monotonous and boring, not to mention slow.
The second method of leveling was through battlegrounds, which is player vs. player combat. Battlegrounds were simulated skirmishes, one team versus another team. The teams could range from four vs. four combat all the way up to a hundred vs. a hundred. If the message was to be believed, players could not truly die in battlegrounds, though the rate of experience one could gain from battlegrounds was typically sluggish—a mere speck in comparison to some of the faster methods.
The most dangerous way to level was to do dungeons. These were closed areas such as buildings, caves, or castles. These had to be done with a group, usually consisting of four to six players. If one were to only run dungeons nonstop, they would shoot ahead of the other players like a rocket. Problem was dungeons were a true test of one’s abilities. They housed large packs of mobs, not to mention the formidable bosses that lurked within them. Dusk couldn’t take that chance with Stacy around. He was not about to drag Stacy with him into this raging tempest until he was sure they were prepared to brave such a monumental storm.
One of the other tactics to gain experience was to do quests for NPCs. NPCs stood for non-player characters. They are computer controlled units like the monsters that are placed in the game, but they are friendly to you rather than hostile. Some of them assign tasks for you to do, which are called quests. Quests are usually mundane tasks such as kill five boars. Sometimes the quests are a lot more complex and exciting than that, however. The NPCs that offer quests will usually have an exclamation mark over their heads so that players can easily tell which NPCs offer quests and which do not. Questing seemed to be the best option at the moment, because if he did the right quests, there was zero risk of death. Still, he couldn’t risk dying like he normally would in an MMO. He would have to play cautiously.
Or perhaps he could pick the last option? He could leave Stacy in the city where she would be safe, while he gained experience as fast as he could. He was confident in his skills. He knew that if anyone would be a part of getting everyone out of this virtual nightmare, it’d be him. He couldn’t afford to sit back on the sidelines and take it easy. He had to fight.
All of these different methods were soaring through Dusk’s mind like swift moving particles as he assessed them against one another. There was an added dimension that he had to consider here. If you died in this game, you died in the real world as well—if this message was taken as fact. He also had Stacy with him, and he couldn’t very well leave her alone if there was a possibility of her being in danger. Dusk clutched the sides of his head as the pangs of disturbance pounded through his cortex. What should he do?
Stacy called out to him.
“Drake.”
No response. She started poking him in the arm.
“Hey, Drake, wake up!”
Stacy’s finger cut through his trance, but Dusk still looked confused.
“Huh?”
“Are you all right? You look really pale and you were grabbing your head, not to mention the silly expression on your face.”
Dusk slowly turned to Stacy as his expression returned to normal, the color slowly filling out his formerly ghastly skin.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Hey listen, Stacy, I have something I need to ask you.”
“What?”
Dusk leaned forward and took Stacy’s hand in both of his, encompassing it in his warmth. His soul was spilling out through his eyes in desperation, pleading with her.
“Could you stay behind in the city until this game is beaten?”
“You mean until this prank is over? No.”
Dusk hung his head in disappointment, as if all the support within his neck had just given out. He expected this response from her, but he still wished against all odds that she would stay behind in the city.
“Why won’t you stay here?”
“I bought this game to play it with you; I’m not letting you leave me behind.”
“That was all fine and good until we just saw that message, and witnessed a man die in front of us! Don’t you understand what’s at stake here now, Stacy? This isn’t a game anymore!”
Stacy’s irritation was kicking up a notch with every word that came out of her friend’s mouth.
“I’m still not entirely convinced just from reading that message and seeing someone die in a game. Game characters die in videogames all the
time. I don’t know why you’re so gullible, Drake. Besides, even if that message were true, that’s all the more reason for me to come with you.”
“Why? That makes no sense! You have no idea how to play these games. You’d only get yourself killed or hold me back.”
In that instant, Stacy’s irritation spiked into violent anger. She pulled her hand away from Dusk fiercely. The frustration was oozing out from every pore, overflowing in a suffocating aura.
“Wow, Drake, wow. I really thought you knew me better than that by now. Don’t you know by now that I learn things quickly? Maybe I will hold you back at first, but as time passes, I’ll keep getting better. I’ll probably become better than you.”
“That’s not going to happen, Stacy; I’ve been playing MMOs for almost a decade now.”
“Oh, it will happen. You will definitely need my help in the future, I promise you that. If this message is true, do you really think that I would let you go out alone and possibly die on me? If you died and I knew I let it happen, it would be like a dagger to my heart. I could never forgive myself.”
Those last words hit Dusk in the stomach like a wrecking ball. He had spent all this time only thinking about his feelings, how he couldn’t let Stacy die. He didn’t take the time to realize that she felt the same way about him. There’s no way he could prevent her from coming with him if that’s how she felt. It would make him a hypocrite. His deep exhale spoke of defeat.
“Okay, you have a point, Stacy. I’m sorry.”
Stacy crossed her arms, content with this little victory.
“Of course I have a point. Besides, if you died on me, I wouldn’t be able to annoy you anymore would I?” Stacy smiled.
Dusk’s intense expression melted, changing into heartfelt laughter. Stacy always had a knack for making things more light-hearted.
“Haha, oh man. Never change, Stacy, never change.”
“I never will.”
Dusk smiled. He was suddenly very glad to have a friend here. The challenge that lay before them boasted impossible odds. To the average player it would seem that the odds of making it to the end and completing what the anonymous sociopath called the final objective had the same chance of succeeding as snatching the moon from the heavens—but through confidence, or perhaps excessive arrogance, Dusk had no doubt in his mind that he would trounce the massive trial that awaited him. He grabbed Stacy by the arm, dragging her into this new world of impossibility.
“All right then, come with me you pesky annoyance!” he said as he ramped up into a mad dash, forcefully pulling Stacy with him as his heart thumped.
“Drake, what are you doing? Where are you taking me?”
He didn’t even stop to turn his head and address her. His vision was tunneled on the goal before him; everything else may as well have been a blur—mere background noise. Stacy finally pulled her arm away from Dusk’s powerful grip. Once he felt the Cleric free herself from him, he stopped in his tracks and turned to face his friend, who was moments away from a verbal counter.
“Drake, will you chill out? Just stop for a second, what are we doing?”
“I’m going through the town so we can do quests in the city. This will be the safest way to level up until we run out of quests here. Then I can teach you some of the fundamentals of combat after that.”
“Okay, that’s fine Drake, but can we slow down a bit? This is a game; it’s supposed to be fun.”
Dusk shook his head, silently rebuking her.
“Stacy, all notions of fun went out the window when we found out that this was a place where you could actually die for real. I have an objective now that needs to be fulfilled. I have to become strong as soon as possible. Since you’re coming with me that means I have to make you strong as well. Protecting you and beating this game, those are my two primary objectives right now.”
Stacy exhaled deeply, clearly agitated.
“You’ve always been like this, Drake. You really need to slow down once in a while and just relax. There’s absolutely no proof that this is a place where you can actually die for real. Even if it was, life is what you make of it; whether it is real life, sports, a videogame, or a death game. You can have fun almost anywhere, depending on your perspective and how you approach things. We’ll definitely have fun here. I’ll make sure of that, even if you don’t want to!”
Stacy’s easygoing character was one of the reasons he enjoyed her company. Even so, in situations like this, such a light-hearted outlook served only to irk Dusk further rather than help him.
“Stacy, do you even understand the gravity of our situation? Every second we wait here is a second that someone could die because of our inaction!”
“I do understand that’s possible, I’m not stupid you know. But if you keep thinking of everything as an objective and never stop to rest or have fun you’ll go crazy. Eventually you will burn yourself out and then you could die yourself. We will become strong for sure, but you have to remember that having fun every once in a while is important too; you’re not a machine.” Stacy giggled. “At least I don’t think you are. I actually wonder sometimes.”
Dusk couldn’t help but chuckle at those words himself.
“All right, all right. Very funny, Stacy, I get the picture. We can have fun later, but right now, I need to teach you the basics of this game still.”
“Sure. Lead the way, Captain Nerd.”
“Tch, I see you’re back to your normal self, Stacy. All right, follow me.”
Four hours later, Dusk and Stacy both plopped down on a nearby bench and took a deep breath, taking a much needed reprieve. Stifling sweat trickled down their bodies. The sun had hid itself beneath the horizon as the moon began to rise. The cool air of a new twilight gently brushed against their worn bodies. They had been darting through the concrete web of the city in a deliberate fashion, completing quest after quest with not a second to spare. Stacy was the first to speak up.
“Finally it’s over. Anyways, did you see how quickly I’m learning this game? I told you I’m a quick learner.”
Dusk smirked at Stacy.
“Hey now, don’t get too cocky!”
Even he had to admit, Stacy was learning all of this relatively quickly considering she had never played an MMO in her life. Perhaps she was a savant of the virtual world—a prodigy who was just waiting to have her endless potential unlocked. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. He locked his hands behind his head and leaned back on the bench, staring at the blanket of darkness above, lit up only by the glow of cold stars. They had learned several things about the inner workings of this world in the four hours they had just spent questing.
Food in this world was just as tasty as in the real world, as they learned from one of their quests. Even so, they had not felt the pangs of hunger even once in this virtual medium. They could only surmise that hunger did not exist here. The primary purpose of culinary cuisines here was to augment your abilities, as the edible dishes quite literally boosted your stats and performance. Food could also be enjoyed for the simplicity of the wondrous adventure it afforded your palate. Even so, if they were so inclined, it was probable that any player could survive indefinitely without a single bite of sustenance here.
Several potions existed in this realm which held distinct medicinal properties. There were several antidotes which cured the various virtual diseases: poison, inability to cast magical spells, inability to attack, loss of health, and loss of mana to name a few. If only the real world was so convenient as to have a cure for every ailment.
Health and mana were a player’s primary lifelines to this world, designated by crimson and sapphire colored bars that stood proudly on the User Interface (UI). This was common practice in MMOs, as health and mana were well known terms. What wasn’t common was the appearance of a third bar on the UI which lurked in pale yellow. This bar was labeled Stamina Points, or SP. It corresponded to your level of physical and mental exhaustion, just like in reality. There were no medicines to bring bac
k your SP. The only way you could do so was through rest, sleep, or eating food.
All of this was valuable knowledge for players to store within the archives inside their heads. Much to Dusk’s pleasure, Stacy was picking up on these MMO concepts sooner than he had anticipated.
“Let’s take a break for fifteen to thirty minutes and then we’ll move on to the next stage,” Dusk suggested calmly to his MMO partner in training.
“The next stage?”
Dusk broke into a wide grin and simply replied, “Combat.”
Stacy rose from the bench and stretched to her full length. Her excitement immediately renewed as if she had been hit with a second wind of energy.
“Yay! Finally we get to the fun part. I was getting bored of doing quests all day.”
“Yeah, about that. We’re still gonna be doing quests as they give more experience. It’s just the objectives of the quests will be different now. Instead of doing errands for people we’ll be fighting specific mobs.”
“Well that’s fine with me, as long as we get to fight things. How do you fight in this game anyways?”
Dusk folded his arms as his eyes wandered, lost in his own world of thought.
“Hmm, well normally you press the button on your keyboard that corresponds to the move you want to execute, and then if the conditions for the attack are met, the attack executes and does its intended functions. There could be multiple conditions to activate the attack such as how close you are to the target, your position in relation to the target, and the amount of mana you possess. There are multiple types of attacks such as physical damage, healing, buffs, and debuffs, I’ll get into that later.”
The look on Stacy’s face told the full story. She was confused.
“Well, I don’t know about any of that. I think it’s better if you just show me, but it sounds like you don’t know how to fight in this game either. Well, let’s find out!”
“Agreed, let’s go outside the town and learn how to fight.”
Six hours had passed since the launch of War of the Elements. It was now midnight in the real world, and midnight inside the game as well. Far above the players was a night sky riddled with stars and a crescent moon, shining down upon the virtual prisoners as if it was a warden keeping them under its ever watchful eye. Dusk and Stacy passed through the cobblestone streets, which were dimly lit by lanterns and torches. The environment served as a stark contrast to the daytime of this game. Earlier the city was gripped by panic and chaos, but now that unrest had died down into a relatively quiet peace. Dusk imagined some people had come to terms with the message by now, while others lamented in silence. Still, he welcomed the quiet. After ten minutes of walking without a word to each other, the duo had reached the city gates. They both stopped in their tracks. The Phantom closed his eyes, clearing his body and mind for the battle ahead.
The Virtual Realm (War Of The Elements Book 1) Page 4