by Jesse Wilson
“I’ll help too, you’ll see,” Derek said as he did this. He avoided the right hand of the thing as it swung in his direction, then he swung his iron sword into the leg of the beast. He screamed as he did it only to watch as the blade hit the bone and stop there. “Oh, come on,” he said and was disappointed, he expected a little more than this to happen. The left hand of the thing wrapped around his body and picked him up. Tavon flew past him and stabbed the golem in the left eye. It screamed and dropped Derek to the ground.
“Don’t you have any other spells than healing?” Otham screamed as the golem tore him and his broadsword out its chest at the same time and threw him through the air. He landed with a thud and his life bar decreased by half again.
“I know one,” she replied and stepped forward. She pointed her hands at the golem they lit up with blue fire.
“Devon, move!” Otham said as he materialized a healing potion in his hand. Derek forgot what his name really was and didn’t pay attention to the warning he was given. However, the burning blue hands was all he needed to see to realize that he had to get out of the way. He got up and ran to the left. Tavon used his sword for leverage and jumped away from the beast. Cyren let her blue flames go and they shot forward into the thing.
The golem screeched in pain as the blue fire covered it from head to toe. Derek and the others watched as that long, green life bar shrank down to the halfway mark and turn yellow. “You know the spectral fire spell?” Otham asked and was impressed.
“I found a tome a few months ago and learned it, but that’s it. My mana is gone with this one shot,” she replied.
“Why didn’t you use it on another golem and get out of the pit on your own, this would have killed any of the shamblers in one shot in a normal situation,” he said and Cyren lowered her hands as the fire died out.
“I have my reasons. I stunned it, kill it before it can recover,” she demanded and watched as the skeletal golem began to move in their direction again.
“We’re over half way there all we need to do is be smart and we can win,” Otham said and Derek hadn’t seen anyone use their heads yet. He barely knew how to play the game but he was sure that charge head on into a fight wasn’t the best strategy they could have tried. He watched as Tavon and Otham rushed forward. He didn’t have a choice but to join in the attack. He gripped his blade again, still surprised that all of this felt as real as it did.
The golem’s blue fire died out just as Otham jumped towards it. He swung his blade and hit the thing between the eyes. The blade made contact and Derek watched again as the tiny red numbers reappeared over its head. Twenty-five, they read before disappearing. The life bar hardly moved at all. “This isn’t going to work,” Derek said to himself as he ran forward. He thrust his blade forward only to watch the golem move out of the way, spin around completely.
With its right hand it batted Tavon away and he flew towards Cyren. Otham was taken for a ride but managed to hold on to the monster’s face. Derek stopped, turned around only to watch as the axe blade slammed into his middle. He felt his armor tear apart and the blade sink into his skin.
It hurt. It actually was causing him pain, not what he expected but more of an electric shock. He figured this must be how the game makes you feel stuff when you get hurt, and it wasn’t fun. He hit the dirt and watched his life bar sink into the red as he rolled into the dirt. “Okay, that didn’t go well. None of this is going as planned,” he said and quickly opened his inventory and selected a healing potion. One appeared in his hand, it was bright red fluid and it almost reminded him of glowing blood.
He quickly opened the bottle and drank the stuff down. It tasted sweet, like soda with no fizz. The pain he felt went away and his energy filled back up to halfway, into the yellow. He was also well aware that this wasn’t going to do him any good.
“We need to retreat, this is never going to work,” Cyren said three seconds before watching Otham’s body getting broken in half by the golem as it held him in his free hand. Otham managed to give a thumbs up before his body fell apart into pixelated carnage, then disappeared. “We are leaving!” she yelled out again and Derek had no problem with this.
“We can still win, use your elixir and you can,” Tavon said and was cut off as the axe sliced him in half, vertically. His halves fell in opposite directions and disintegrated before they touched the ground. Derek watched as the golem appeared to move faster than it ever had before and jump in his direction. Without even thinking he raised his flimsy iron sword in an attempt to block it. The axe shattered the blade on contact and ripped his arm off. Derek watched as it disappeared, then his life bar shrank down from yellow, to nothing.
Chapter Eleven
Derek woke up with a start. He was in a nice looking, plain, but dull white room on a bed. “Welcome to the Recovery Room,” a voice said to him and he sat up, dressed in the clothes he was wearing when he got here in this cursed game. He opened his menu and pushed the log out button again, and again was met with a red error message.
“Come on, really,” he said and was getting frustrated. He got up and headed towards the door when his menu popped up on its own. “Incoming message, do you accept?” It asked him. He pressed the green yes button.
Hey man, nice shot. We’ll get it next time for sure. I’m logging out before the servers go down on the maintenance run, I hope to see you later, Otham. Derek sighed as he read it and opened the door. Instead of leading to a hallway or anything like that, this time it led straight outside to Pick’s Town. “Attention, five minutes until server shutdown,” a voice echoed over everything. Derek sighed in relief, he was finally getting out of here. He walked to a bench just outside the building and sat down.
He watched as people opened their menus and logged out, disappearing in a white flash all over the place. “Lucky,” he said and watched them go. He opened his menu and looked at his party status. All of them had the word, offline, beside their name, too.
“Awesome,” he said to himself and waited. No one even paid attention to him. He wasn’t sure why but he didn’t care. Soon he’d be waking up in his own bed and never ever come back here again. That was his plan. His worst fear came true the very first time he used this piece of junk; it screwed him over.
“One minute until server shutdown,” the voice said again and Derek smiled. He was sure a part of him would almost miss this place. Almost. He was counting the seconds down in his head and was pretty sure he was going right along with it. Suddenly a thick white line of light flashed over everything, as if it were scanning the area. It was coming right at him. Every player avatar it touched immediately disappeared. Derek smiled as it came towards him, then it passed over him.
Nothing changed. Derek expected to be waking up in his bed right now but there was no change. Now, he was alone in a virtual reality world. “You’ve got to be kidding me right now,” he said and stood up. This was just, well, it wasn’t right. “Damn you, I’m still here you stupid program, right here. Let me go already,” he screamed, but nothing answered. This was a town of no non-player characters, he was completely alone.
“What do I do now?” he asked himself and stood up. He had no idea how long he was going to be here. “I might as well explore,” he said to himself and the first place he wanted to check out was the Bone Yard. He’d played lots of games before and there was something that he wanted to check out.
Chapter Twelve
Derek opened his menu and selected the location option. He scrolled down until he found the Bone Yard selection. He pressed it and immediately found himself standing in front of the arena. This time, as he expected, there was no one there. “Well, if nothing else I can check something out,” he said and walked forward.
The torches on the walls still burned as they were meant to. He looked around and didn’t realize how big this place actually was. He looked at the wall in front of him and read the sections one at a time. There was only one thing he was interested in right now. “Hall of the Defeated,
” he read out loud just to hear anything at all and pressed the red button next to it. Then a red line appeared on the ground with a white pulse running through it. It was obvious that it was a guide line. Derek started walking to the right.
The trip wasn’t very long and soon he found himself exactly where he wanted to be. The champion said something about the defeated people’s gear going on a wall. Just after he entered the room he saw lots of weapons pinned to the wall. But none of them looked like they were too effective over all. He sighed and kept walking.
A few seconds later he saw something he didn’t expect to see at all. “No way,” he said to himself and walked up to a pedestal with Draxis’ armor on it being illuminated from above. ‘Armor of the Champion’ it read. No name attached. He figured that this was a temporary title. “Perfect,” he said and reached out to touch it.
A warning box appeared in front of him. He began to read it. ‘Crime and Punishment in Night World. There are no established laws in the Starlight Pit. However, if you steal, you will become an orange rated player for seven hours. If you kill a player character you will be a red rated player for three days. All ratings return to green after the allotted time. Each section of Night World has its own unique justice system,’ he read and smiled.
No automated guards had its upside after all and if he couldn’t get out of here, he decided he might as well make the best situation that he could. Below the warning box a message appeared. ‘Would you like to steal the Obsidian Armor?’ Derek smiled and he hit the green yes button.
All at once the black armor in the display disappeared and a second later it appeared in his inventory screen. The green dot beside his name turned from green to bright orange. He waited for an alarm to go off, guards to storm the hall. Something to happen, but right now he was completely alone.
“I wonder what else I can liberate,” Derek said to himself and opened his location menu again and selected the Pick’s Town Shop selection and disappeared. He found himself in the middle of town and started walking down the path. He saw plenty of targets to choose from. A healing center, item shops, more things that he could ever need or want. But one thing, a place, caught his attention more than any other.
Pick’s Town Police Department is what it said on a sign in front of the building. “Awesome,” he said and walked through its white doors. He supposed that no one bothered to lock any doors. No one was supposed to be here. Nothing was during the server shutdown period. He looked around. There were posters of player avatars on the walls, red players who’d killed others. Crude looking jail cells in the back to hold them.
“The players must take law and order in their little town seriously,” he said to himself and looked around. Then something caught his eye. It was laying on top of a desk covering some papers. It was a black weapon, not a sword or anything else. It was a gun. He opened his menu and scanned it.
“This is a level 25 Plasma Cannon forged by the Cyberdrones of Area Seven. It is capable of three modes of combat. Rapid fire suppression tactics. Hyper Beam attack, and medium range sniper shot. It belongs to Sheriff Holt, a level fifteen Night Eye Dwarf,” a voice said to him and Derek smiled. He reached out and picked it up. Before the option even came up he quickly added it to his inventory. “Look at me, stealing from the cops,” he said with a smile.
These games, they were always the same, he heard. Everyone had to be the hero, or at least follow the order of the game. You had a role, you had to play it. The myth of the game said that if you worked hard enough and put enough time in, you could be god. But the truth of it all was that if everyone was god, no one was.
The second he held the weapon in his hands, he knew exactly what he was going to do with it. “It’s a brand new day in Night World,” he said with a smile, opening his location menu. “Okay Golem, let’s rock,” he said and teleported back to the outland of the pit.
Chapter Thirteen
Derek appeared in the Outlands and he realized he had no idea how long a server shutdown lasted. He was alone and if there weren’t any people, maybe there wouldn’t be any monsters either. He didn’t quite understand the mechanics of the game yet. He walked forward and for the first time really got a chance to look around. His sister was right about this place.
He looked in all directions and saw that the pit went on for what appeared to be miles. Most of these directions looked the same, all but one. To the south there were tall mountains in the distance that couldn’t be missed. There was so much about this place that he’d never know, and that was the appeal of the place. Massive open worlds that could never be explored by one person entirely to keep people hooked and coming back. “Screw it, I’m going that way,” he said and started walking towards the mountains.
The world of the game was nothing like the real world. It tried to be reality, but not once did he feel hungry, tired or out of energy. He suspected that it might have had something to do with the immortality field as well. He walked in the bleak, black wastes for what felt like miles. But he never felt like he was getting any closer. He opened his menu up and sure enough there was a blue dot over the mountains. “At least they aren’t just background art,” he said and pressed the blue button.
‘This is the Zelrad Mountain Range. Warning, it is recommended you be at least level twenty five before coming here. The challenge level is high. Do you wish to go there?’ he read the menu read out and nodded. “Fine, let’s go there,” he said to himself and pushed the yes button. Immediately there was a white light and then he found himself standing at the foot of the mountains. In front of him there was a worn rock path and just in front of it, an old man dressed in a grey robe and a red hat supporting himself with a cane.
Derek walked towards the path. He never intended in talking to the man, but the man decided to talk to him. “Well hello there youngster. I am Gilead the Path keeper. What brings you to the Zelrads today?” Gilead asked him in a raspy voice.
“I am just—” Derek was cut off when the automated thing started talking again. “I suppose you seek the Airship, don’t you know that’s just a legend, sonny?” he asked him and Derek looked up the path.
“I don’t believe in such things, legends in a game like this are always real,” Derek said to himself and nodded. “I’ll find it,” he said with a smile. A menu box appeared in front of the old man. ‘Do you accept the quest to find the Airship Predator?” he read and then pressed the yes button.
“Well look at you, I sure hope you’re up for it,” the old man said with a glint in his eyes, took a deep breath and returned to his original stance and went quiet. Derek looked at the quest in his quest log and found a weird detail. ‘The last time this quest was attempted by anyone was four years ago,’ it read and he wondered why. This was a game, right? Questing and getting new things was all part of the deal, it didn’t make any sense to him but he didn’t care.
Derek started to walk down the path and it was very soon that he came to his first fork in the road. There were no signs, no guides. Nothing to indicate where he was going; worse all of the paths looked the same until the left and the right paths curved out of sight. The one straight ahead seemed to go into darker lands. The light of the moon was weaker here but he didn’t notice it being any harder to see. He was always a bigger fan of going left, so he turned and started to walk down the left path.
The mountains were quieter than he expected. As he moved down the path he didn’t get more than a few feet until he came across a yellow barrier line across the path with two guard towers on either side. “What in the hell is this about?” he asked and walked up to the yellow line. He touched it and a message appeared.
‘Travel beyond this point is forbidden by order of the Delwrath Clan. Failure to comply with this order will result in lethal force being used against you. Thank you for your cooperation,’ it read and Derek looked at the guard towers. Each one had a large cannon attached to the front of it but right now they were unmanned.
“Do they really get people to j
ust sit here and guard the path for hours on end?” Derek wondered out loud and how they would manage to convince people to do guard duty and why they blocked off the paths. At least he figured out why the quest hadn’t been attempted in so many years. Well there weren’t any guards now.
He walked right through the yellow holographic line and walked to the guard tower on the left and climbed the ladder. Inside it was empty, but there was stuff on the shelf under the cannon. Three healing potions and a blue potion beside them.
“Mana potion I suppose,” he figured and quickly snatched them all up, added them to his inventory as they disappeared from view.
He grabbed the cannon and tried to take that too. It was part of the guard tower and couldn’t be removed. “Well I tried, but these clan people should be taught a lesson,” he said and turned the cannon as far as he could towards the other tower and pulled the trigger. A bright green beam of energy flew towards the other tower.
Derek watched as the structure exploded, then the pieces fell down, hitting the ground and disappearing. The yellow beam blocking off the path disappeared at the same time. “Good deal,” he said with a smile and tried again to pull the weapon off the tower; it wouldn’t budge.
He opened up his inventory menu and selected the plasma cannon. The weapon appeared in his right hand and he smiled. “Never give up,” he said and took the cannon in both hands. It was heavy, but it felt good. “Swords, ha, not a chance,” he said with a smile. He aimed at the base where the cannon was attached and pulled the trigger. A blue beam tore a hole through the metal the cannon was attached to and knocked it loose.
Just before it fell he reached out to grab it. Derek realized why this thing was attached to a guard tower now. It was so heavy that it started to drag him towards the edge. “Oh, come on you heavy bitch don’t fall to the ground yet,” he said and started to walk backwards, pulling it back up. Soon the thing was laying on the floor of the guard tower.