Homeland: Ingame 2

by Kieron Uchee

  It was a fun feeling being with people that you like and get along with, I enjoyed it. Sadly, all good things do come to an end and after several hours we made our way outside to the street.

  Glancing at my two friends I spoke, “All right boys, you know what to do, and I have a lot of confidence in you doing it. Let's meet in three days at the park. If I am not there then you two fly over to the island and see what has happened to me.”

  With a friendly pat on the shoulders for luck, off we all went. I walked slowly down to the abandoned terminal, it was getting close to curfew and I did not want to be seen heading in that direction, I really did not want to be seen at all.

  Once I arrived at the terminal I cut two slits in the back of my jerkin for the wings and then metamorphosed the wings out, it was even faster and while I was hungry it was a lot better than it had been in the past. Reaching into my bag I pulled out the four extra orders of bird wings I had brought along. Munching on them I walked to the boarding platform and then with a jump and a snap of my wings I was standing on the cable.

  Slowly I began to walk out along the cable and across the sea wall until I was finally over the ocean proper. The journey was not hard with the wings, and the winds were not as strong as I had feared, still it was something I would not have wanted to do without wings. They really made balancing easy and that enable me to cross without falling a thousand feet to the ocean.

  Once I arrived at the island I saw that the terminal building was the twin to the one on the mainland. I simply kept walking into the building and then jumped down and made my way to the door to the work area. Opening the door I saw papers left where they had been dropped, all signs of a hasty exit.

  Making my way through the interior door I stopped on the small landing and waited. I always have my Dragon eyes activated and the gloom and dimness did not bother me. But I could sense something, not in the building but somewhere.

  I slowly made my way to the lockers, every noise or flicker causing me to stop and wait for several minutes. The normal night noises on the island were going strong, there was no sudden silence, but I had that tingle between my shoulders, the last time I had felt this way was the morning I had gone to the Temple mount and banished the Gods. That had been a terrible day, I had lost my family, my trust in a friend and my life.

  I continued to slowly work on the lockers, nothing untoward had occurred yet and I had the fruit of my labors in my bag. I also had recovered about fifty gold and some silver and copper, as well as seven soul bound bags that belonged to players. That fact unfortunately stopped me from opening them. Another hour passed and I finally had all the lockers opened and had looted everything, my pack was crammed with purses and bags.

  Slowly standing I made my way back through the building eventually emerging back on the boarding platform. Jumping down I slowly made my way around the building till I was on the side of the structure. I stood there looking at the terrace that I was standing on.

  There were some picnic tables scattered around, and several paths were visible going through the underbrush towards the islands interior. Seeing nothing on my mini map or visually that could indicate danger I began to walk towards the nearest path. My curiosity was like an itch, I had to know what had happened here that had caused this place to be abandoned.

  As I walked down the path I was amazed by the lush foliage and the abundance of things growing, it reminded me of Roundland in some strange way. Eventually, the path curved around and I saw that I was at the far edge of the island where there was a natural plateau that had been developed into an overlook rest area.

  Sitting at one of the tables I watched the predawn light begin to appear at the edge of the sky where it met the sea. Suddenly the sky changed and it was light. I shook my head and stood up, I had seen nothing to warrant the evacuation of the island and that was making me suspicious.

  Walking over to the railing I peered down, the drop was nearly vertical with the sea crashing all along this side of the island. There was no beach present, just some large rocks and then the vertical face of the cliff.

  I continued my stroll along the path, eventually arriving back at the terminal area. Picking another pathway I went for another walk. This one meandered a bit more but eventually I ended back at the terminal.

  It was mid-morning by now and I only had one more path to walk. Opening my bag I pulled out the leftovers from the Inn, they were greasy and too salty without a draft of beer to help wash them down but they still tasted good.

  This middle path went towards the center of the island whereas the other paths had followed the coastline. Once I reached the center I saw that the mountain peak in the middle of the island was where a stream descended down into a picturesque small lake.

  Again there were picnic tables and benches around the lake and even a small beach on one side. Knowing I was alone I stripped off the clothing I was wearing and sauntered into the water.

  The brief feeling of coolness passed as I began to splash around and I soon began to dive under the water and then tried to use my wings. With one stroke I shot forward at great speed, after some trial and error I realized that I needed to do one stroke of the wings and then fold them against my body before using them again. I am sure it had something to do with drag and resistance but for me, it is what felt the most natural and right.

  Eventually, I just floated in the lake with my wings extended and looked up at the mountain with the water coming down from near the summit. As I looked I noted that the sun seemed to be glinting off something, shaking my head I moved a few feet to the side and had another look.

  It was still there, a sparkling glint next to the waterfall. I was lucky to have seen it, if the wind had been up the spray from the falls would have hidden it, also the position of the sun helped in shining on the object at just the right angle.

  Swimming towards the shore, I decided to climb the peak and have a look at whatever this thing was. I could tell already that there was no easy way up there, it had not been meant to be on the tour. Snapping out my wings I beat the air for a minute and found the I was pretty much air dried by the wind buffeting around my body.

  Getting dressed I stared at the mountain, there was no obvious way up the cliff that the waterfall was descending from. I began to walk around the lake looking up and studying the slope. Eventually, I saw a small trail, that meandered its switchback way up the easiest slope. I began to push through the underbrush until I reached the mountains base where the trail began. Seeing the steepness of the slope I swore and then began the ascent.

  After about an hour of steep climbing, I reached the end of the trail, the only way to continue was to climb a steep slope freehand. Having no experience with climbing I could not tell if it was an easier climb or a hard one.

  Trusting in my nano-enhanced muscles and the fact that players are usually in much better shape and stronger than they are in real life, I reached up and grabbed a handhold and then started pulling myself upwards.

  I had to use my wings several times to give me a little extra lift to reach the handholds that were just out of my reach. Finally arriving at the small plateau, I stopped and caught my breath. I was now at least fifteen hundred feet above the ocean and I had a view of the whole island and the surrounding ocean. It was magnificent and I was glad that I could take in the view.

  Turning I saw that there were a couple of buildings on the east side of the island, the trails I had walked did not go anywhere near them. Once I was down I would be having a look at these structures. Glancing around I saw that while no trail existed it would be relatively easy to get to the area I had seen the sparkle from. Standing up, I made my way to the small open area near the stream just before it began its descent.

  Sitting on a small carved platform was what looked like a carved set of crystal dice, I recognized the script written on them, it was the runic script that had been tattooed on my chest by the mirror in the underground room. I slowly walked around the artifact noting that it was
given off tremendous emanations of mana infused power. I was at a loss, I had never seen anything like that nor had I heard of anything like it.

  I sat with my back to the mountain and opening up my interface, I logged into one of the backdoors I had left with Gnet and began to search the game forums. A couple of hours passed with no results until I found a small thread in a discontinued forum. As I read the summary I began to get excited, if what it said was true I might be sitting on top of a legendary quest line with some of the most amazing rewards available Ingame.

  The forum basically summed up that in the beta version of the game, legendary treasures had been placed to help the top players advance more rapidly in order to bring about the wars that the Gods had decided that they want Men to engage in.

  Only an advanced player would be able to find and retrieve the treasure and even then it was something that was not repeatable, only a handful of these artifacts had been scattered all over the game world.

  Sadly, the lead game designer had decided not to implement the artifacts or the quests lines, but instead of pulling millions of lines of code and rewriting all kinds of scenarios they had just buried all the information on the subject knowing that without gamers actively looking the artifacts would remain hidden. This information had never been officially released, but someone had heard of it and had leaked the info in a beta forum thread that had been closed as soon as the moderator saw what was posted.

  There was a good likelihood that I alone in the game world knew of these artifacts and the facts that they existed. Standing up I approached the dice and reaching out I grabbed them, suddenly the ding sounded and the interface window opened, scrolling down I read,

  Legendary artifact discovered

  The Dice of the Goblin King

  These dice were created by the Goblin King and his mightiest mages

  They are rolled once and then the pathway appears

  If you start on the pathway it must be finished

  Once the pathway has been walked the dice will bestow a blessing upon the

  bearer

  Accepting ownership of the dice makes them soul bound

  Do you accept ownership

  Yes, or No?

  The rewards were too great to even think of refusing and so I accepted ownership of the dice. Holding them in my hand I wondered if they had anything to do with the abandonment of the island. It might be how the programmers had made sure that these artifacts would remain hidden forever.

  As much as I wanted to roll the dice I decided to wait, I was anxious to check out the two buildings hidden amongst the trees. Looking at the sun I realized that it was getting late, looking around I saw that I had a little bit of an overhang to sleep under and that the air was still warm and dry. Looking over the view once again I decided to stay here for the night.

  Spreading my cloak, I pulled out my wineskin from my bag along with the remains of all the food I had brought. Taking a drink, I leaned back and lit a smoke, softly breathing out the smoke I thought of Ama, who had been pregnant with my child, a little one who would be five years old now. I thought of Twink being forced to be in the company of the Eldest. Of Raik and Gluzzie and Ama’s sisters all helping Oaktree with the orphans from the Kradula and Reona the new tenant at the haunted place.

  Wrapping my cloak around me I ate supper and finished the wine. Then putting my head down, I slept.

  Chapter Seven Levels

  The sun's glare was beginning to hit me when I woke up. I looked around, it was another perfect day. I stood up and began to do some stretches and light exercises. Once I was warm and limber I sat and meditated letting my thoughts wonder and slowly grow still.

  After a couple of hours, I slowly brought my conscious mind back and then just sat for a few minutes feeling peaceful and calm. Standing I slowly walked to the edge and looked down at the water falling into the pool five hundred feet below.

  After making sure I had everything I turned and ran to the edge and jumped off, snapping my wings open and feeling the play of air currents as they passed over and under the wings. I spiraled down to the lake, occasionally flapping my wings but for the most part just letting my body instinctively fly itself. As I approached the beach I flared out the wings flapped them down and out a couple of times.

  I landed softly moving no faster than a slow jog, it was an amazing experience flying. I did not have the power to achieve self-sustainable flight with my current strength levels but once I leveled up I would. I was eager to level up, I had a long grind ahead of me. Grinding out the levels would be a bit of work but I was determined.

  Glancing at my minimap I began to make my way to where I had added the waypoint for the location of the derelict buildings. The underbrush was thick and heavy and it took a fair amount of effort to push through it. I had once heard that hiking through the bush was actually pretty tough work and I soon came to believe it. Eventually, the minimap waypoint flashed and I knew I had to be pretty close to the buildings.

  Looking all around it took me a few minutes to spot the actual buildings. The first one looked rough and I could see that plants were pushing out the windows and growing from the inside. It was a clearly a ruined building and I did not bother to enter it. Walking around the building I saw the second structure. It was made of stones and did not look damaged. Moss was growing over most of the structure and it had no windows.

  I circled it and finally located the door which was flush with the wall and also covered in a layer of moss. After examining it carefully I gently pulled the moss off the area of the lock. The lock itself looked solid still and I knew that it would not be that hard to pick. Pulling out the tools of the trade I set to work and had the lock opened in less than two minutes.

  Once I heard the distinctive click of the mechanism unlocking I put my tools away. As I slowly pushed open the door I wondered how a world of magic could have advanced technological items like locks. If I were a real player I would submit a bug report and receive some free bling from the developers. As a ghost in the machine if I reported this I would be punted out of the game and that simply would not do. So sadly, this tidbit of information would have to be noticed and reported by someone else.

  The light from the exterior of the building showed a dim room with a table and several chairs. Entering farther into the room I was glad that my Dragon vision was helping me to see in the dim light. I made my way to the far end of the room where another door was located. This one was not locked and opened with a minor bit of effort. Going past the now open door I began to descend a long spiral stairway.

  I stopped counting once I hit five hundred steps. Activating the interface, I had the PIM display each step I took. At twelve hundred steps, I noticed that the walls were damp and the stairs were getting a little slippery. I continued for another one hundred feet until I came to an opening. Stepping through I saw that I was in front of a massive door carved in the shape of a Kraken with mermaids and other sea creatures making up the fine details.

  As I approached the door the now familiar ding sounded and a small window appeared on my interface.

  Congratulations Torn

  You have managed to reach level two

  Your stats have doubled

  Your strength at level two = 200

  Your agility at level two = 200

  Your health at level two = 200

  Your speed at level two = 200

  Your mana at level two = 200

  Enjoy the game and your new stats

  Smiling to myself I pumped my fist, at last, level two and no bloody errors. I was happy that at least the current incarnation of me seemed to be working normally. Taking a step towards the door I heard another ding and once again a small window appeared.

  Congratulations Torn

  You are the first player to find the Dungeon of the Deep

  As the first player, you have the option of claiming the dungeon or

  announcing it to the game world for twenty-five thousand experience points.
>
  If you claim the dungeon you must be able to completely clear each level

  including the level bosses. You will have one week to complete the dungeon

  This dungeon is an entry level and designed to be successfully completed by a

  team of five players at a minimum level of five

  Once completed you will have ownership of the dungeon it will be soul bound

  to you

  Do you wish to claim ownership

  Yes, or No?

  I hit the yes button on the interface and then sat down on the damp step to think. In most games, you level rapidly through dungeon crawls and as long as you could solo the dungeon you would be fine. If you had to do it with your guildmates or housemates, you would lose some of the XP bonus but would have a far better chance of success. If you had to do a dungeon as a PUG, you were almost guaranteed to fail. Originally PUG stood for pick up group but it quickly was universally recognized as a pretty ugly group.

  Here I was faced with both an opportunity and a challenge. I could not finish the dungeon at level two, even with my nanobots and abilities. But if I could finish the first level or two I would be sure to reach level five. If I went back and handed in the pub master quest I might make it to level three before I even had to start the dungeon.

  Thinking of these things I turned around and began the long ascent. I needed to buy some potions and buffs before I start this dungeon, I thought. Also, better gear is in order, something that hopefully has enchants. Once I finally reached the surface I left the building and breathed deeply, enjoying the smell of the sea and the fresh air.

  Arriving back at the terminal I knew I would have to wait for a couple more hours till the light faded. The day had been productive and I was eager to get back to the mainland and tell the guys what I had discovered. It was too bad that they could not come with me and run the dungeon, but most NPC are forbidden by the game from doing that.