by Jakob Tanner
A quest prompt appeared in my HUD.
New Quest Alert: Disappearances in the Capital
The royal king of Laergard, Jared Ravenmour, wants you to investigate the circumstances surrounding the multiple disappearances of Land Shield’s civilians. Are the incidents connected in anyway? Is there a secret Arethkarian plot to overthrow the city from the inside?
Quest Type: Unique, Dynamic
Quest Difficulty: Hard
Time Limit: 1 Week
Reward: 10,000 EXP + Improved Relationship with the Laergardian Royal Family
Failure: If you leave the vicinity of Land’s Shield before the quest is completed, you will become an enemy of the state and hunted down
Accept: Yes/No ?
[Please note: refusal to accept this quest will significantly alter your status amongst the Royal Laergardian Family from “Respected Guest” to “Lifelong Prisoner”].
Wow. This was the first quest to come with a failure detail and I wasn’t sure what a “dynamic” quest type entailed either. Maybe it was related to the week-long time limit. This was also the first quest with serious implications if I chose to refuse it. The game wasn’t giving me a lot of leeway here. I wanted to make sure I was reading this correctly.
“What if I say no to your quest?”
The king shrugged. “I’d have to escort you down to our dungeon. I can’t have someone with the power of forbidden magic running amok in my kingdom.”
The young Prince Fergus gasped, peering up at his brother.
I bristled at his words. Serena burned with quiet rage beside me. She wanted to reach for her sword but we were standing in a room with a man capable of deleting our code, our very existence from this world.
A prompt appeared in my HUD. It was Serena talking in our party chat.
Serena: What are you thinking Clay?
Shade: This quest is a load of shite. Tell him off!
Serena: I believe I said, Clay, not Shade.
Clay: I mean, what can we do? He’s threatening to imprison us.
Shade: He’s bluffing!
Jared smiled and stroked his hand through the short spikes of his hair.
“But why wallow in such an awful hypothetical? You will say yes, won’t you? Being an honored member of my court will bring you many benefits. Look.”
A prompt appeared in my HUD.
You have received 500 gold coins from The Royal House of Laergard!
“There you go,” said the king. “One of many benefits.”
I didn’t like this guy and I didn’t like how he was bullying us into doing this quest, yet what other choice did we have? I didn’t trust this Jared fellow but saying yes brought a whole bunch of perks with it. There was the 10,000 experience points which would gain me a level or two; and there were all the questions I had for someone like Bertwald: about the mysteries behind Arcane Kingdom Online’s development, the unknown status of the lead designer and creator Konrad Takeshimi, the digital ghosts haunting my dreams. This guy held the answers to so much of the truth we sought.
I wasn’t sure if Serena or Shade would agree with me on what I was about to do. But to my mind, it was our best option. I focused on the prompt in my HUD and accepted the king’s quest.
9
I stood on the balcony of my assigned bedchamber, overlooking the city of Land’s Shield. The lights and buzz never dimmed even as the sky turned to night. Gears churned, chimneys whistled, and airship engines roared; beneath it all was laughter and crying, discussions and arguments. Life itself. It was nothing but a faint murmur from high up in the royal chambers. I let out a sigh and rubbed my forehead. I was still unsure of my decision to accept the king’s quest but the decision had been made. We either investigated the vanishing people or rotted to death in a dungeon. Or—the lack of death in this game becoming the ultimate punishment—simply rotted forever, no death, no end. Even outside the pressurized situation of the throne room, I failed to see a more viable option than the one I took.
My self-doubt was interrupted by an incoming message alert in my HUD.
Personal Message: WTF
What’s this I hear you were arrested by two Kingsblood soldiers?
Theobold
I laughed. If only we’d just been arrested. So much had happened between this morning and now I had completely forgotten about those back in Arondale. Theobold was the main apprentice mage mentor in southeastern Laergard. A grumpy old Rorn, he was supposed to be an NPC but in fact was a developer trapped in an NPC’s body. It was Theobold who had told me all about the power behind the Prophetic Seal. I messaged him back, explaining what happened, and how I had met another NPC with the dark mark. A response came back within a minute.
Personal Message: WTF (3)
Bertwald Graves, huh? The King of Laergard’s advisor. Powerful NPC to meet. Makes sense a developer would end up stuck in him. He plays a crucial role in a lot of possible quest lines, at least in the prototype version of the game from what I remember. Find out what his real name is and what department he worked in. Pass it all onto me once you know. He might be able to help us sort out whatever’s gone wrong with the game. Otherwise, stay safe. Land’s Shield is a much more dangerous place than Arondale. Try to have eyes in the back of your head.
Stay safe, huh? I had died three times on our way here. It was pathetic. I needed to get stronger. I called up my Apprentice Mage Class screen to review my abilities. I still had ten class skill points to spend.
The list of abilities was breathtaking. I faced a large skill tree divided by the four elements (fire, water, air, earth). Each element split off into two separate branches, one of which was a damage-based skill tree and the other a support/utility skill tree. Abilities were locked behind tier groups that opened up every five levels. I currently had access to any of the level 10 abilities or lower. I stared at the table of abilities in my HUD, overwhelmed at all the possibilities:
Fire (Damage Based): Fireblast (Level 5) > Flame Breath (Level 10) > Volcanic Eruption (Level 15) > Supernova (Level 20)
Fire (Support/Utility Based): Flame Dodge (Level 5) > Flame Wall (Level 10) > Ring of Fire (Level 15) > Summon Phoenix (Level 20)
Water (Damage Based): Water Blast (Level 5) > Ice Wave (Level 10) > Frozen Ground (Level 15) > Conjure Ice Blade (Level 20)
Water (Support/Utility Based): Healing Mist (Level 5) > Status Cure (Level 10) > Tidal Protect (Level 15) > Restorative Storm (Level 20)
Air (Damage Based): Air Blast (Level 5) > Lightning Ball (Level 10) > Relentless Crackle (Level 15) > Plasma Beam (Level 20)
Air (Support/Utility Based): Lightning Cage (Level 5) > Shocking Speed (Level 10) > Electric Blink (Level 15) > Skull Shock (Level 20)
Earth (Damage Based): Earthquake (Level 5) > Sand Storm (Level 10) > Stone Shards (Level 15) > Gravity Tremor (Level 20)
Earth (Support/Utility Based): Ruptured Ground (Level 5) > Stone Skin (Level 10) > Spike Field (Level 15) > Summon Rock Golem (Level 20)
Damn. All these abilities were so cool. I wanted to pour class skill points into all of them. I didn’t even know where to begin. Also I didn’t understand why the abilities only went up to level 20. Level 99 was the max level in the game so there must be more abilities. I selected “More Info” on my HUD to find out more on the development of my class. More prompts appeared.
Apprentice Mage is a starting tier 1 class that can evolve into stronger tier 2 classes. Please review the following chart to see the different development paths for the Apprentice Mage.
Apprentice Mage (Tier 1) > Mage (Tier 2) > Elementalist (Tier 3) > ? (Tier 4)
Apprentice Mage (Tier 1) > Illusionist (Tier 2) > Chronomancer (Tier 3) > ? (Tier 4)
Apprentice Mage (Tier 1) > Summoner (Tier 2) > Necromancer (Tier 3) > ? (Tier 4)
Apprentice Mage (Tier 1) > Medi-Mage (Tier 2) > Light Wizard (Tier 3) > ? (Tier 4)
Holy crap. Again all these higher tier classes sounded wicked. How did I go about unlocking them? My HUD, linked to my brain, answe
red my question with more prompts.
Mage: Complete one branch of two different elements to unlock Mage Trials quest chain.
Medi-Mage: Complete the support/utility skill branch of the water element to unlock Medi-Mage Trials quest chain.
Summoner: Must learn Summon Phoenix and Summon Rock Golem spells to unlock Summoner Trials quest chain.
Illusionist: Must learn Flame Dodge, Shocking Speed, Electric Blink, and Gravity Tremor to unlock Illusionist Trials quest chain.
I nodded my head at the new set of prompts. Interesting. This was helpful. It gave a rough guide of what abilities to choose depending on what tier 2 class you were hoping to unlock, but there were no specifics as to what each class did. They were easy to guess though. Medi-mage—the simplest and easiest tier 2 class to unlock as it only required one completed skill branch—was a dedicated healing class. Cool, but definitely not for me. I liked the idea of supporting my teammates but I also wanted to dish out badass magic as well. The next easiest was the Mage class. This was more my speed. I imagined it as a continuation of the apprentice mage abilities with newer and stronger elemental magic.
The final two piqued my curiosity though. To unlock either one required dedicating skill points to the less overtly powerful spells in the Apprentice Mage arsenal. To get the two summon abilities you had to put your points into both the support/utility branches of fire and earth magic. The summons must be way powerful, hidden at the back of the support skill branch, to reward investment over time. It also set one up well for the Summoner tier 2 class that—I only imagined—involved summoning loads of creatures and offering them support through buffs and utility skills. Meanwhile, the Illusionist class required you to spread yourself thin, learning abilities in three of the different elemental branches. It had been my experience in games though that the classes that started out the least powerful, usually became stronger and stronger, surpassing other classes as you got deeper into the game.
There was also the mystery of the tier 4 classes. What did they entail? A prompt appeared in front of me:
Dynamic Class System
A.K.O. utilizes a dynamic class development system that evolves as the game progresses. Classes can be combined in hybrid classes unlocking new subsets. The game will have new classes years from now that no one will have thought possible.
Oh wow, so tier 4 classes were hybrid classes then. I was just coming to grips with one class, the idea of adopting another one gave me a headache.
I shook my head. Focus on what currently can be done. I had eleven class points to spend on my Apprentice Mage abilities. What did I want to add to my arsenal? I looked over the list and ended up spending four points, learning the spells: Flame Dodge, Shocking Speed, Ruptured Ground, and Stone Skin. Learning these four abilities kept me in the running for the majority of the tier 2 classes and offered very valuable in-game benefits. Flame Dodge allowed me to roll away from my enemies while leaving a blazing trail of fire behind me. Shocking Speed gave me a 25% speed boost for thirty seconds. I didn’t really care for Ruptured Ground—it was a less expensive earthquake that dealt less damage though had a higher likelihood of debuffing opponents with “cripple”—but I needed to spend a skill point there to unlock the next ability on the branch, Stone Skin. The latter ability hardened my skin with a plate of stone armor offering me +50 toughness for thirty seconds.
I grinned at my new list of abilities when a knock came from my door, making me jump. I got off the balcony and returned to my bedchambers. It was a pretty snazzy get up: a chandelier hung from the ceiling, silk curtains billowed from the windowsill, and a brightly patterned carpet lay at my feet. This was the room given to visiting nobles not mercenaries hired by the king.
I opened the side door of my bedroom and found Serena, poking her head in nosily. “Looks like our rooms are connected.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Good thing Shade’s across the hall though. We’d wake up with all our stuff stolen.”
She smiled. “I wouldn’t count on a hallway to stop him.”
Serena skirted past me into the room. She paced back and forth while she flicked her fingers awkwardly at her sides.
“Clay,” she said. “Are you sure about this quest we’ve taken on.”
“I wasn’t left with much of a choice though, was I?”
Serena stood beside my open window and peered outward. “Escape is still a possibility, you know? I don’t trust this King Jared guy.”
“Neither do I, but the consequences for leaving now are pretty steep. You saw the quest prompt. We’d become wanted fugitives if we left now.”
Serena tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, thinking.
“Plus I want to chat with Bertwald more,” I said. “He can tell me more about this mark and the corrupted fragments.”
Serena grinned and shook her head.
“What?” I asked.
She didn’t answer me. She kept grinning and shaking her head, laughing at her own inside joke. “Of course you want to chat with Bertwald more. You’ve always followed your curiosity over comfort and safety, haven’t you?”
Her blue eyes locked onto mine as she said this.
She was referencing the biggest life choice I had made before logging into Arcane Kingdom Online. She was talking about my decision to drop out of college and travel the world. Most people assumed I was unable to handle the pressure of academia or that I was a lazy idiot. But it wasn’t either of those things. Well, it may have been idiotic, I’m not sure. It was certainly idealistic. I loved learning and discovering new things and I had assumed I was going to love college but when I got there, I found it to be this toxic hive of ego and status-craving individuals. Knowledge, truth, and learning—those were secondary goals in what was supposed to be the highest institutions of education. So I thought: fuck this, I’ll find my own truth, my own knowledge. I travelled around the world working odd jobs in bars and hostels and never looked back on my decision. Until the French government forced all non-native born citizens to return to their home countries as a protective measure against the ZERO virus.
“I assumed you thought I was a lazy bum like everybody else did.”
“No way,” she said, “It’s what I admire most about you Clay. Your ideals. You stick to them even if it means not playing it safe.”
“It’s merely stupid stubbornness,” I said back to her. “Your insane determination to stick within the rules always impresses me.”
Serena blushed. “Alright, enough complimenting for one evening. Are we going to go to bed?”
“Sure,” I said.
Serena didn’t move.
“Um, aren’t you going back to your room?”
Serena shook her head and smiled. “I like this room better. Okay if we share?”
She unclipped her armor until she was down to just her linen underwear and then she took off those as well.
10
###PROGRAM: DREAM TRIGGER##
RUNNING DIAGNOSTICS
……….
31454390287987083142093187431
Familiar streams of code rained down around me. Strings of algorithms descending like an endless waterfall. I didn’t know where I was, but I knew better than to ask. I’d been here before.
Off in the distance, a door appeared through the blank space of code. The brass knob twisted and turned until it creaked open. Stepping from the door was a pale ghost girl with brown hair, glasses, and pigtails. She always came to speak to me in my dreams. I had no idea who she was or what she wanted with me.
“The worlds won’t be healed until you free the others,” she said.
“Who are you talking about?” I yelled. “Who the hell are you?”
“Don’t give up on our world Clay,” she said. “I have to go. The bad one is watching.”
“Wait. Tell me what—”
“Goodbye for now.”
The ghost girl slipped through the door and then it shut and disappeared.
Morning light cast itself th
rough the window, waking me up. I rolled over to escape the glare. I lifted my arm, ready to wrap my body around Serena’s, cuddling with her warmth. I rolled over and grabbed empty air. So I was waking up alone. An all-too-familiar feeling.
“You better get dressed,” said Serena, standing in front of the bed, equipping the last pieces of her armor.
