Load Custom Character

by Tyler R Lee

  The highlight of the day came towards the end of their questing. They were battling the kobalds when Peter noticed that he unlocked a new skill. “‘Hovering Monk,’” he read aloud. “‘When you engage an enemy in the air, as long as you are attacking--physical or projectile--and landing said attacks, you will continue to stay in the air.’” This piqued his interest, and he had to give it a try.

  “Hey, Shield!” he called out to ShieldBro, who was currently making quick work of several kobalds. “Can you launch one of those things? I got a new ability I wanna try out.”

  “What? Lucky. Alright, here ya go!” his companion said as he quickly put his shield away, two handed his longsword, and swung upward into an approaching kobald, sending the unlucky creature soaring into the air. “Serve!” he called out.

  Peter dashed forward and jumped with all his might into the air, which was far too much. He approached the creature in the air quicker than he had anticipated. However, he adjusted quickly--he was becoming quite adept with this character--and began a barrage of punches, successfully landing a fifteen hit combo without descending a single inch in the air. When he stopped, he slowly started to descend. He landed, agily, on his feet, seconds after his prey did the same with a thud.

  “Okay, that was sweet,” Lysander said, walking toward Peter, who noticed about five kobalds coming up behind his friend.

  “Uh, Lysan--” his warning was cut off when Lysander, his expression never changing, produced a long, smooth, wooden rod in his hand, which he lifted into the air while he kept casually walking forward. Suddenly, multiple bolts of lightning struck the ground around the approaching enemies, leaving nothing but smoldering earth and kobald in their wake.

  “Damn, Gandalf,” Peter jested.

  “More like show-off,” ShieldBro chided with a grin.

  “Hey, don’t hate me ‘cause I’m bad-ass,” Lysander said as he pointed his staff at the both of them.

  With that, another burst of light exited Peter, showing that he had leveled up once again. This was the third time during their questing together he had leveled up, bringing him to Level 5.

  “Almost caught up,” ShieldBro said with a high-five, he and Lysander having leveled up along the way too, now sitting at Level 6.

  As much as he didn’t want to, Peter knew that this was as good a stopping point as he was going to find for the night. “Alright, guys. I better logout for the night. My parents’ll be pissed if I stay up too late and I’m late for school tomorrow.”

  “No worries, dude,” ShieldBro said as he fist bumped Peter, followed by Lysander doing the same. “Tomorrow, though, right?”

  “Yeah,” Lysander added. “Big things tomorrow. Big announcement and all.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” Peter said. With that, he clicked the settings button in his HUD, then touched the logout button. After a few heartbeats, his headset went dark and he was back in his room. Night had fallen and he remembered that he had not left a single light on, bringing him into the pitch-black darkness of his room.

  Peter sat in the dark for several minutes, holding the headset in his hands. He was back in the real world again. Clearly, his parents hadn’t cared about his absence. He could hear the TV downstairs. “Guess that’s all the better for me. They won’t bother me when I game.”

  He placed the headset next to his desktop monitor. School was going to be quite the endeavor tomorrow. All he wanted to do was jump back into Our World and continue playing. He looked on the bright side, though. If he could just make it through tomorrow, he had an entire weekend to play, and apparently something big was happening tomorrow to kick off the free weekend.

  Though he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep right away, Peter crawled into bed and let his mind play over everything he had experienced in the game today. He couldn’t help but smile. Sooner than he would have expected, Peter was fast asleep, dreaming about the virtual world where he had experienced the time of his life, and dreaming about what more was to come.

  Chapter 4

  School, indeed, seemed to last forever that Friday. Peter was able to avoid getting into any fights, though he did have to endure getting shoved a couple of times in the hallway. He didn’t fight back this time. He didn’t want to risk getting detention. No, he would take it all today and get home as quick as he could.

  Sadly, the only thing that he had been looking forward to about school that day he didn’t get to do. He was hoping to tell Ariel that he was on Our World now. She had helped him out, been kind to him yesterday. Maybe she would want to hang out in game sometime. However, she was not there that day. Peter thought it was probably for the best. He doubted she would have said yes, anyway.

  The moment the final bell rang, Peter was out of the classroom door and through the main door to his high school before the echo of the ringing had died away. He sprinted down the sidewalk and made it home in what he felt had to be record time. Forgetting to lock the front door behind him, he tripped and backpedaled, locking the door. He nearly tripped again when switching momentum back to moving forward, and halfway climbed the wooden railing for the stairs instead of simply walking around another foot. Excitement mounting, he took the steps two at a time, and was in his room, breathing hard, ready to head back into the game for the rest of his night.

  As he grabbed the Emerser and placed it on his head, he felt his hands shaking with anticipation. He flipped the switch as he laid down on his bed and let himself get swept away to the town of New Beginnings. He took note that this time there was no white room. This time, he was simply shown a picture of himself as his character with the words “Load Custom Character?” above it. Since this was his only character at the time, he chose and was dropped right into the town square, right next to the fountain with the warrior statue.

  “Alright. Got a couple of hours to kill before the big announcement. Guess I should check and see if Lysander and Shield want to team up and go through some more quests.” With that, he tapped the small speech bubble at the bottom right of his HUD. “I’m in. You guys wanna party up?” he said as the game recorded his voice message. With that, he tapped “send.”

  Deciding he would just wait by the fountain to see if they replied within a few minutes, Peter took a seat and looked around, examining the crowded town. There were far more people here than yesterday, and more kept dropping in every few seconds, materialising in bits of blue and green code. Today was definitely a day that many had been anticipating. Peter wouldn’t be surprised if every player made it online for this.

  While he took in the town, he heard the pop that indicated he had an incoming message. “That was quick,” he said as pulled up the new message. However, this wasn’t a voice message, nor was it from ShieldBro or Lysander; it was a text message from a player named ArielTheElf. “Ariel?!” Peter felt his face grow warm as he quickly looked back and forth around him. He certainly didn’t expect to see her in the game, especially after not seeing her at school. His hand trembled a bit. “Stop it,” he growled as he tapped the speech bubble. When it opened, he saw, “Hey! So you did get Our World! Where are you now? This is Ariel, by the way. From school.”

  Peter, never claiming to be adept at communication of any kind, particularly with girls, attempted to type out a response, but his hand was shaking too much. “Oh, gimme a break!” he growled as he erased his terrible attempt. Then, he recorded a voice response. “Hey,” he started, trying and failing to not sound nervous. “Yeah, I finally joined the fun. I’m actually at the fountain in New Beginnings.”

  Almost immediately after he sent the message, he got a response. “Great! Wait right there. I want to say hi.”

  “O...kay…,” he said, more to himself than anyone around. He looked around as he stood there, realizing that he probably looked more like he was trying to spot a sniper than waiting on a friend. Though, if he were to be honest, were they friends? They had only ever talked in passing, and never more than yesterday when she had helped him after his run in with the Stevens tw
ins.

  He didn’t get any further in his thoughts when he heard a familiar “Hey, Peter,” from behind him. When he turned, he knew it was Ariel. She looked different. She, like Lysander, had chosen to go with a dark elf skin tone--deep, dark purple--with the pointed ears to match, but he would have recognized her anyway. Though her black hair was a bit longer, it still held that slight wave at the tips. Her other features were the same as in reality, her eyes the same green as he saw that day when she helped him gather up his stuff. She wore that same wide smile he had seen only momentarily. However, he noted that this time she held it while waving at him, which, like everything else about her, made him blush. Thankfully, he didn’t think she could see him blushing in game.

  “Hey,” he greeted in a far too high-pitched tone as he waved back. Thankfully, if she noticed, she didn’t say anything about it.

  “Hey! It’s great to see you in the game. And just in time for the free weekend.”

  “Yep, couldn’t pass up this opportunity.” He decided he wouldn’t mention the completely unbelievable circumstances on how he had come to acquire the game and system.

  “Martial artist, not bad. Nice look.”

  “Oh, thanks. You...uh...you too,” he responded, then, in his own head, smooth, jackass. He then actually examined her character. She was a warrior type, with a really big greatsword on her back--she wore it diagonally since it was easily half again her size. Her armor seemed quite unique, however. It looked like the typical revealing female armor you see in most games, breastplate ending just above the midriff, pauldrons, gauntlets, greaves, and a metal skirt. However, on her midriff and arms, under her black and silver armor, she wore chainmail of a pleasant mixing of black, purple, pink, and dark blue. “That is...different than what you normally see.” He immediately thought that sounded rude when he said it.

  “Exactly!” she responded, a bit more forcefully than Peter expected. Then she was leaning in close to him with a finger pointed his way, causing him to lean back, eyes wide and fixed on her pointing finger. “And it isn’t an easy task for a girl to find and then mix and match the right armor, so I don’t look like a hooker for someone’s high-fantasy fantasy!”

  “Yeah,” Peter stuttered. “I would imagine that is quite annoying.” She leaned back and he straightened up. Then said, “It actually looks really cool. I’m just not good at...well, speaking to other people.” He smiled, which made her return it. Then they both had a chuckle.

  “Yeah, me neither, really,” she added through her laughter. “So, hey, do you want to--”

  Ariel was cut off by a shout of “Peter” from the side. They both turned to see ShieldBro and Lysander walking their way.

  Normally, Peter would have been happy to see them, but he was certain Ariel was about to ask to party up with him. Still, he managed to put on a smile and give a somewhat sincere “hey, guys” back.

  “Alright, let’s get to it!” Lysander said, clearly hyped for the day.

  “Right,” Peter said, now feeling a bit awkward, having asked them to team up, but really wanting to team up with Ariel. “Oh, guys, this is Ariel. She’s a friend from school.” Ariel gave a small smile and wave.

  “Hi,” ShieldBro said as he offered a hand her way. “ShieldBro.”

  “I’m Lysander. Nice to meet ya.”

  “Same,” Ariel replied, sincerely. Clearly she was a bit more adept at meeting new people than Peter was.

  “So, Lysander and I just stopped to say hi,” ShieldBro started, and Peter shot him a curious glance. “But, uh, we’ll let you two get back to...get back to your game.” He ended with a grin at both of them, which Peter returned with a tight lipped look and a shake of the head.

  “What?” Lysander asked, clearly not catching on. “I thought we came here to--” ShieldBro not so subtly elbowed him in the gut, which caused Lysander to adopt a look like he had just realized a difficult riddle. “Oh right. I gotcha.” He then gave Peter a thumbs up and a wink.

  Peter responded this time with a more vigorous shake of his head and repeatedly slicing his hand under his chin, mentally yelling at him to cut it out. He looked to Ariel, who was just grinning at the ground and shaking her head.

  “We’ll catch you two later,” ShieldBro said in a playful but mocking fashion, waving goodbye as he and Lysander walked away.

  “Bye,” Peter yelled back, forcefully, with a wave while thinking, I hate you both so much. He then forced himself to look at Ariel. “Well...that was fun.”

  “Very much,” she said with a smile.

  “Sorry about my friends.”

  “No worries,” she said as she put her hand on his shoulder. “Come on. Let’s see if we can catch you up with me before the big announcement.”

  Peter then noticed that she was Level 7. She had started over recently as well, he deduced. “Sounds like a plan.”

  ***

  Like the day before, Peter had more fun than he could remember having. Ariel and himself made it through several quests and successfully caught Peter up with her as they both reached Level 8. After they had quested for close to two hours, Peter suddenly said, “thanks, Ariel.”

  She stopped walking and looked back at him, a confused but thoughtful look on her face. “For what?”

  “For the other day, helping me with my stuff.”

  “Oh, no problem, Peter,” she smiled.

  “And for...for asking me to play...to level with you today.” She didn’t say anything this time, just looked at him, curiously. “It’s just...I don’t have many...any friends in the real world, if you haven’t noticed. And you met really the only two I have online. It’s just… nice that someone asked me to hang out, even if it is just in a game.” As he was saying this, he was trying, and barely succeeding, to keep his voice from cracking. It was hard for him to talk about not having friends, and even harder to show his appreciation.

  “Hey,” he heard as he felt a hand touch his shoulder. He looked up and she had moved right next to him. “You’ve got one now.”

  “What?”

  “A friend in the real world.”

  This time, Peter couldn’t hide his smile. He was almost certain, as preposterous as it was, that she could see him blushing. And he really didn’t care.

  She smiled back, then said, “Now, come on. We still have a few minutes before the big announcement.” As she started away, Peter thought that this game might be the best thing that has ever happened to him.

  Before they had gone too far, they noticed another player fighting off a few goblins. He seemed to be doing fine, though it looked like it might be a bit much for him to handle alone.

  “Looks like he might have gotten in over his head,” Ariel commented.

  “Wanna help him out?” Peter asked.

  “Yeah,” Ariel smiled. “I’ll ask,” as she started his way.

  Before she got far, she noticed the goblins had frozen in place. Like her, the player fighting the goblins looked confused, as did Peter.

  “Good evening, Our World players!” came a voice seemingly from the sky. The three of them looked all around, but Peter recognized the voice as Alexander Yoshitsune. And then, he recognized the form that appeared before them, right there in the middle of the field with all three of them. He looked exactly the same as when he had instructed Peter how to play. The memory brought a smile to the boy’s face.

  “As many of you can probably see, I’m projecting myself to the many different areas as I make the big announcement.

  “First of all, I want to thank every single one of you for playing my masterpiece, Our World. I am happy to announce that, currently, we have over eight million players logged in world wide!”

  Peter and Ariel looked to each other with expressions that showed they thought that number impressive.

  “I also hope that you will all be happy with the gifts I will be giving you now. In your packs you should find two vials of a special healing potion. If used when your HP is below zero, this will not only bring you up
to above zero, but will fully heal you.”

  “Below zero?” Peter asked as he checked his inventory. “Is it not game over if you hit zero health?”

  “Not quite,” Ariel said after checking her inventory as well. “It’s kinda like older D&D. Have you ever played Dungeons & Dragons?”

  “No. I never had anyone that wanted to play.” Peter hung his head a bit at this.

  Ariel grasped his hand and squeezed. “We’ll see if we can fix that later,” she smiled. “Anyway, in those games, you go unconscious if your HP goes below zero, but you only die if your HP reaches a negative number equal to either your constitution score or your total HP, depending on what ruleset you are using. In this game, you become unable to move if your HP hits zero, and every few seconds, you lose another point. You don’t die until you reach negative whatever your total HP is.”