Sky Realms Online- Grayhold

by Troy Osgood

  The small town, deep in the Green Flow Forest on the edge of the Gray Dragon Peaks, was the first bit of civilization in the floating islands that made up the Kingdom of Essec. It was also a questing hub for the southern half of the zone, the starting area for new Human and Half-Elf characters that were of the Gael subrace or had chosen alignment with Essec.

  Sky Realms Online, the game, was the name given to the world of Hankarth. Long ago, or so the lore said, the world had been torn asunder, the continents splitting into much smaller sections of islands, called Realms. Each of these sections was tossed into the void of the world and left floating, some higher, some lower. They defied all known laws of physics but Hankarth was a world of magic, and somehow, that magic kept them floating.

  The edges of the floating islands were sharp cliffs, rough and jagged. They appeared as one would expect, like pieces had been broken off. There were towns and castles ripped in two, roads that ended in a sheer drop to the nothingness below.

  No one knew what was below the islands. No one had ever tried to go down that far. The theory was that the coders hadn’t designed anything. If you fell off the edge, which was possible, you would fall a distance and then respawn. People gave up trying to see if there was a bottom, there was no real need, plenty of adventure was found in the floating islands of the Sky Realms.

  Each was unique and varied. It was the perfect way to expand the game. New Realms were found floating in the air whenever an expansion was launched. Airships and portals connected them. A world that was ever growing and expanding.

  There were many factions on the world, but five were the strongest: The Kingdom of Essec, The Storvgardians, The Arashi Kingdom, The Highborn Confederacy and the Draco Legion. Players choose their starting faction; fighting for either Essec, Storvgarde, or Arash if they were Human and a couple different ones for the other races. Along the way, as they leveled, they would meet and perform quests for dozens of lesser factions. Eventually, the players could change their allegiance.

  Hall had done so by joining the Greencloak Rangers, a lesser faction aligned with Essec. Timberhearth Keep was the nearest city with an auction house, all the other basic services, and the Rangers headquarters of Greencloak Hall. It was where Hall spent most of his time.

  He had not been to Grayhold in a very long time. There had been no need.

  Grayhold, all the buildings, were made of logs. Three high walls surrounded the many buildings that made up the Keep. The sheer face of a mountain formed the fourth. The town’s small Lord’s Keep was raised up on a low hill, putting the three-story structure over the rest of the buildings.

  In real life, Hall lived in a city and hated it. He had grown up in the woods, and in the game, he had made his character into a woodsman. That was why he liked Timberhearth so much. Deep in the wild woods, it was an untamed land. Grayhold was a little tamer but not by much, still in the woods. That was what had ultimately led him to choose Essec as his kingdom of allegiance over Storvgarde, which was mostly frozen plains, and Arashi, which was open grasslands bordering a desert.

  He made his way through the nearly empty streets of the town, his thoughts scattered. Did he really believe what the message had said?

  Sabine had left, gone off to explore and discover on her own. She had promised to message him if she found anything. He wondered if she would.

  Everything he checked indicated they were now in the game world. The interfaces were all the same but activated by thinking about them instead of hitting buttons with the VR equivalent of clicking. He had tried some of his level one abilities, including the Class Ability Leap. Instead of having to hit a button or activate a command, he just thought about it, and the ability worked. He could feel his Energy Pool draining when he used the ability. It was an odd feeling, similar to getting tired after working out in the real world. Not that he had ever worked out much.

  All the interfaces, anything that connected with the VR rig or anything else out of game did not work. Some options were missing, the others grayed out. After trying a couple other abilities that came with his level one character’s starting Skills, he just wandered the town, trying to determine what to do.

  They were all level one. None had any money or Craft Skills of any kind. Not at this point.

  Their bank boxes were empty. A couple different people had come into the Inn before he had left, complaining that all the items they had set aside in their bank boxes were gone now. Disappeared. No gold, no items. Nothing. Extra slots that they had bought were gone. Everything reverted back to what a level one, first day character had.

  Which was next to nothing.

  Hall was not looking forward to having to relevel -- if that was what he needed to do.

  He held out some hope that this was all a joke. Even a dream. But part of him was beginning to think it wasn’t. His new state of being just felt natural. His VR rig had been decent, not top-of-the-line but good, and no matter how immersive the game or how good the sensory input of the rig, he had always been able to feel a disconnect. Even when there was no lag. He always knew he was playing a game.

  Now that feeling was gone.

  Stopping outside the two-story structure that was the bank, he looked up at the double doors that led inside. Three steps up, banded in iron, the doors were thick. He turned away from the bank, not ready to face the empty boxes. He had some good gear stored there, plus some fun items. Next to the bank, in a much smaller building, was the post office.

  Hall looked up at the bank once more before heading into the post office.

  Inside there was just a single counter and an NPC standing behind it. The man was a Gael, fair-skinned and red-haired, as were most of the people in Essec. His red hair was short, bald on top, with a moustache. A name appeared above his head: Garrett. Below it read “The Postmaster.”

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  Hall paused. Normally he would activate the Action Cursor and hover it over the NPC he wanted to interact with, bringing up the NPC’s menu. But would that work now?

  He thought about the cursor, hoping to bring it up. The Postmaster just watched him, waiting, acting like confused adventurers was an everyday occurrence.

  “I’d like to mail a letter,” Hall finally said, feeling a little silly.

  “Of course, sir,” the Postmaster said. “Who would you like to send it to?”

  “Redfire,” Hall replied, surprised that speaking to the Postmaster really worked.

  The Postmaster’s head tilted his eyes going vacant as he thought.

  “I’m sorry but that person does not exist,” Garrett the Postmaster finally said.

  Hall tried a different name, getting the same response.

  He ran off the list of names from his friends list, not having to pull it up. He had done so already and had seen all the names grayed out. There hadn’t been that many of them. He started with the other Dragon Riders, his guildmates. The Postmaster said the same thing each time he spoke another name.

  “I’m sorry but that person does not exist.”

  There was one name left to try.

  “Groven.”

  “I’m sorry but that person does not exist.”

  Part of him had expected that answer. It would fit with everything else he had learned. He remembered seeing Groven’s avatar destroyed. Not just killed and faded away like normal. It had been destroyed, exploded. He had still been connected when the patch, that was not a patch, had hit. Did that mean Groven was one of those that the Electronic Storm message had said were killed by neural feedback?

  He hoped not. Groven was a good friend.

  “I would like to send a letter to Sabine,” Hall said, picking the name at random.

  “Certainly, sir,” the Postmaster said almost instantly. “What would you like the message to say?”

  Garrett pulled out a piece of paper, quill pen, and bottle of ink from underneath the counter. He set them on top and spread the items out. Hall stared at the items, unsure what to do. Had h
e ever actually written a letter with a pen? Even in real life, everything was typed. Reaching for the pen, he started to write his message.

  Sabine,

  This is a test. I tried sending mail messages to people on my friends list. None of them

  exist or can be found. I haven’t found out anything else.

  Hall

  “Very good, sir,” Garrett said once Hall was done writing the message. “This will be delivered shortly.”

  Garrett took the message, folded it carefully, wrote Sabine’s name on front and put it below the counter. He looked up at Hall, smiling.

  “That will be 1 copper,” Garrett said after a couple seconds of staring at Hall and waiting.

  Mail had always cost money, and a single copper was a good price, but Hall wasn’t sure what to do. The money would normally have been automatically subtracted from his total but that had not happened. Garrett just smiled pleasantly. On impulse, Hall reached into the small pouch on his belt and thought about taking out a single copper coin. He felt the object appear in his hand and retracted it, holding a copper coin, which he placed on the counter.

  “Will there be anything else?” Garrett asked, taking the coin and making it disappear below the counter.

  “No thanks,” Hall said and exited the building.

  Now what? he thought looking both ways. There were less people in the streets now, probably having realized the same things he did. He needed money, and there was only one way to get it.

  It had been a long time since he had done the beginner quests offered in Grayhold. He hoped he could remember where the quest givers were located.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Hall walked the hard-packed dirt of Grayhold’s streets. How many hours had he spent in his VR rig virtually walking these same streets when first starting out? He had been so impressed by the game’s interface, even with having to buy his first VR rig. Just an hour into the game during the beta test, he had fallen in love with it. The story, the gameplay. He had spent almost one hundred levels in the game, years of his life.

  But now, everything felt different.

  He couldn’t tell how, exactly. There was more life to the place, but even that failed to describe it. There was less pixelization to the buildings and the NPCs. No lag. He could feel his boots against the dirt, feel a light breeze against his face, hear the small sounds that normally were never heard. Creaks of leather harnesses, the neighing of horses.

  The game had always been immersive but there had been limits imposed by the quality of the VR rigs, the connections, and the available technology. But now, those limits seemed to be gone.

  Walking past a blacksmith’s shop, he paused. The sound of hammer against anvil rang out, and he could see the smith pounding on a long strip of metal against an anvil. A counter was off to the side with two bored-looking NPCs behind it. By concentrating, Hall was able to see the names of the three and their occupations. One of them was listed as the ‘Blacksmithing Trainer’.

  Skill Gain!

  Identify Rank 1 +.1

  He almost missed the prompt as it was not anything he had expected. Names of players and NPCs, which showed their level, Class, or Profession; was always visible or shown by concentrating on the Character. There had never been a skill involved.

  Now there seemed to be. The same basic information was available from the NPC, so Hall wasn’t sure the purpose of the Skill.

  He shook his head, pushing away the distraction. There would be time to figure it all out later.

  Thinking about his Character Sheet, it opened up in front of his vision, and he went to the Professions tab. All his recipes were gone, as were the three Professions he had spent so long learning. Each character could learn any combination of three gathering and crafting skills, but needed at least one of each. Two gathering and one crafting was the norm. Being a Skirmisher, Hall had gone for Leatherworking, Skinning, and Logging. He could make his own armor from the leathers he skinned and sell the logs he collected. It had made him a decent amount of gold.

  The Professions even looked different. A couple new ones, a couple missing.

  Crafting:

  Alchemy

  Blacksmithing

  Cooking

  Leatherworking

  Tailoring

  Woodworking

  Gathering:

  Herbology

  Lumberjacking

  Mining

  Skinning

  Hall knew he was a bit odd in how he had played the game. Always more interested in the questing and the lore behind it, he had never been a min/maxer, a powergamer. He used the best gear he could get, did the raids with friends, but was content with not being one of the top players. He wasn’t rich by game standards, and he was okay with that.

  He had fun and played his way.

  Closing the Character Sheet, he pulled up his inventory. Most of his bag slots were gone. He was left with the starting bag of twelve slots as well as the bonus four he had received for being a beta tester and one of the first sign-ups for the game. All the other bags, almost fifty slots worth, were gone.

  He was back to his starting equipment as well. All of it without a name and labelled in white.

  SPEAR

  Attack Power +1

  Damage 1d6

  Durability 6/6

  Weight 5 lbs.

  LEATHER CHEST

  Protection +1

  Durability 6/6

  Weight 5 lbs.

  LEATHER LEGGINGS

  Protection +1

  Durability 6/6

  Weight 3 lbs.

  LEATHER BRACERS

  Protection +1

  Durability 6/6

  Weight 1 lbs.

  LEATHER GLOVES

  Protection +1

  Durability 6/6

  Weight 1 lbs.

  LEATHER BOOTS

  Protection +1

  Durability 6/6

  Weight 2 lbs.

  JAVELIN

  Attack Power +1

  Damage 1d6

  Range 30 Yards

  Durability 6/6

  Weight 2 lb.

  DAGGER

  Damage 1d4

  Durability 4/4

  Weight 1 lb.

  The lack of gold was going to be the issue. He had a handful of Copper. Not even enough to learn Skinning, the quickest and easiest gathering skill to gain some coin. At the higher levels, mining and herbology were the best money makers. But early on, there was always an abundance of animals to skin for hides.

  Making the screens disappear, finding he was liking this new way of interfacing, he continued down the street toward the East Gate. Grayhold was on the southwestern edge of Cumberland, the farthest south of the three islands to which Essec Kingdom laid complete claim. Essec itself, the largest of the islands as well as the capitol, was to the north. Wales was just to the east and farther north a little bit from Essec. Just because Essec laid claim to them did not mean the islands were safe. Far from it.

  While not at war with the other factions, there were always groups rising up against the King. Nobles plotting against him, robbers on the highways, raiders and the various monsters that made the islands home.

  There was no such thing as a peaceful and calm land in the Sky Realms.

  The Gray Dragon Peaks ran from the south to the east, spreading north a bit on the western side, almost ringing in the Keep, which lay in the shadows of the mountains. Beyond the peaks was nothing, the end of the island. The Green Flow River, that gave the forest around it the name, came from far to the north and east where a water fell from the island of Edin a couple hundred feet farther up in the air. Edin was an unclaimed land. There was an Essec outpost there as well as one belonging to the Highborn Confederacy. The only way to get to Edin was by airship out of a large city on the northern edge of Cumberland, Land’s Edge Port, which was also the only way off the island and to the other realms for low levels.

  The waterfall was a sight to see. The designers had gone wild with it. The
river was wide where the water hit, a large pond. It fell and splashed against the rocks, making a huge roar that was audible for miles around. The water itself was a torrent, falling with force, a sheet only a couple feet thick.

  Some days, Edin could cast a shadow over the northern parts of Cumberland.

  Hall looked up and to the north, barely able to make out the dark shadows that were the rocky underside of Edin. It was a level twenty to forty zone, while Cumberland was level one to ten. The other Essec Islands were levels thirty to forty for Wales and a mix of low level and high level on Essec itself. The largest island was really three smaller zones, while Cumberland and Wales were each a single zone.

  The East Gate was a wooden arch covered in runes. It stood high above the log wall with ladders on either side leading to the walkway attached to the walls. The tops of the logs that formed the walls were sanded smooth, some higher than others forming crenellations. Large doors made of slats of thick wood banded in iron hung open. They were hinged to open out, making it harder for the many enemies of Essec to ram them open. The walls and gate were a common feature in all Essec towns and cities.

  The hinged open feature of the gates had come in handy during one of the World Events a couple years ago. One of the most fun in Hall’s opinion, but that had not been shared by the larger community. The Essec Revolution had seen the King’s once thought dead older brother return to try and take over the kingdom that he thought he rightfully should rule. The Prince had raised an army of monsters and bandits, along with a few nobles that supported him. One of the pivotal large-scale battles had been at Land’s Edge Port, the enemy trying to get at the airship at the Keep’s dock that would bring them directly to Spirehold, the capital city of Essec.