Sigil Online: Paragons

by Jeff Sproul

  Riley sighed. No, there had to be something better. He looked back at the billboard.

  -

  Quest:

  Construction

  Description:

  Living in a city full of monsters and super-powered people can be dangerous! Sometimes the streets and buildings get caught in the crossfire and become damaged. Find a zone currently under repair and help them out with the repairs.

  Reward:

  City reputation increase for each minute worked.

  -

  Riley rubbed at the back of his scalp. He didn’t really need to increase his reputation with the city. He glanced over to the map, noticing that he was in ‘Gargantuan City.’

  He thought about the location for a minute, trying to get his bearings. Wait, he knew where he was! His eyes lit up. He didn’t need to bother with quests to scrape together a few credits or items. He could go talk to his friends over at ‘Bunker 7.’

  He looked at the map one last time, to make sure that he’d be going in the right direction. “Up, end of the street, hook a right,” he said at first and then repeated it several times as he turned and headed up the street he was on now.

  He sighed. “Not sure why I didn’t think of this before,” he mused. He felt a bit ridiculous, thinking that he actually had to start from the bottom like some new player. He could just ask his old buddies to spare him some crappy gear and maybe a few credits to get him rolling again. Besides, he’d healed plenty of people from Bunker 7. It was a popular hangout for people looking for groups.

  As he walked, he realized that he was going to have to prove that he used to be Radiance. He was going to have to wait to see who was there so that he could then figure out how to convince them. Probably bringing up old boss-fights would be a good idea.

  No-longer wanting to put his character out of breath, he decided to remain at a walking pace. It felt terribly slow. Even Radiance didn’t have a lot of stamina or dexterity, but he could’ve ran for a while to get from place to place. Some players even had special abilities that let them move around quickly. He remembered that Shadow Witch was able to grab herself with shadows, and then push herself up to high places, but it was a slow process.

  Riley pondered his prospects and who he might encounter over at Bunker 7.

  Crunch

  Riley blinked and looked around at the buildings nearby. He then looked up, trying to figure out where the dull crunch sound had come from. As he looked up, dozens of chunks of rubble cascaded from the building across the street.

  His eyes widened as he backed-up against the wall of the nearby building on his side of the street. He was out of the way from any falling debris, but several civilians had been caught unaware and were laying on the ground on the other side of the street.

  Riley’s heart raced as he spotted some dark shape race across the sky and into the five-story building that had a chunk missing out of it. He blinked.

  The fifth floor of the building erupted in flames. Nearby windows on his side of the street shattered and rained glass shards from above. He knelt and covered his head with his arms, hearing glass breaking all around him. He felt chunks hitting his back, but his vision didn’t flare red yet, to show that he’d taken damage.

  He heard several more crunches from high above and the grating of metal on metal.

  When his body was no-longer being pelted by glass fragments, he turned his head and looked up. The building was still standing, but the fifth floor was on fire, with the flames billowing upwards to the sixth and seventh floor.

  Bursts of red energy pellets streaked out from the flames and impacted against the buildings above Riley. He wasn’t safe here! He leaned up and ran, trying to put as much distance between him and the current fight happening above. There were loud bursts coming from the flaming building, almost like the sound of a shotgun, but unmuzzled in any fashion. Each time he heard the sound, he saw a new flurry of red pellets.

  People were screaming and running in the streets. He looked around, watching people scrambling in all directions, just trying to escape the ongoing conflict. He pumped his arms and looked ahead.

  He told himself not to look back. He couldn’t do anything anyway! Don’t look back. Run forward. He kept repeating to himself until a strange pressure built up within his chest. His legs stopped wanting to push forward as he slowed to a walk again, but he’d made it to the end of the street. He turned right, but not before glancing up to the building on fire. There were no more bursts of red energy. He stared for several more seconds, waiting to see something happen. There was nothing, only the aftermath of the destruction.

  He shook his head and headed quickly down the next street. Whatever had happened, he was glad he hadn’t gotten caught by it. He kept his gaze forward, he could see his destination in the distance. As he walked, he considered what he’d just been through. It had only been about a minute of ducking and running. Maybe two minutes? It was hard to tell. The casualties he’d seen on the street, were probably NPCs. But it felt real. He felt like he was in danger. The screams, the debris, the explosion. Is that what civilians in the game felt all the time? The players who couldn’t find powers?

  It had been so long ago when he’d first started the game. He’d started Sigil Online when it first came out, which meant that there weren’t many people with powers running around destroying anything. It had only been low-level monsters. But now, with two years of progression, he had no idea that playing a level zero civilian could be like this. What did civilians even do to manage to survive from day to day?

  He thought about his friend Aaron. He knew he had a shop, and that he crafted and made items that he sold from it. Was Aaron at risk when he walked the streets in the cities? Or did he have something to protect himself?

  Riley wondered if he needed to be more concerned with protecting himself as a civilian, than rushing to find powers. It wouldn’t do him any good if he kept getting caught in the middle of a fight and ended up dying.

  He lost himself in his thoughts as he walked along the street, his hands in his pockets, his gaze down.

  A bare-chested man with gray cargo pants headed down the street towards him. The man had bright red hair which almost seemed to glow. His hands were encased in a pair of gray gloves.

  Riley slowly looked up, noticing the man coming his way. He definitely looked out of the ordinary, he had to be a player.

  There were several people ahead of Riley on the street. The first was a young man about Riley’s age. The moment the young man began to pass by the red-haired player, a gloved hand reached out and shoved the young man to the side.

  When Riley saw this, he slowly edged closer to the right, so he’d be near the buildings.

  The second person to reach the red-haired player was a woman. When she reached him, he shoved her from the sidewalk to fall into the street where the occasional car was driving along.

  The next was an older man in plain clothes. None of these people seemed to be players, like himself. The older man seemed to notice what had happened to the other two people that had come into contact with the red-haired player and he slowly inched over to the wall to give as much space as he could to him.

  It didn’t matter.

  The bulky player grabbed him as well and practically threw him out onto the street. A blue car veered to the side and just barely managed to avoid the pedestrian being tossed in front of it.

  This left only Riley in the other player’s way. Well, luckily he was smarter than three NPCs. He diverted his direction and walked out onto the street a few feet. There was still plenty of room for cars, since it was a one-way street and most players in the game seemed to obey traffic to some extent, but the majority of the cars in the game were being driven by NPCs.

  The red-haired player didn’t look over to Riley as he passed by him. Once the other player had gone by, Riley let out a silent sigh of relief. He kept walking, his sights ahead and on Bunker 7. He wondered if there’d be—

  A gray glo
ved hand flashed in front of him and seized his shirt and jacket. He felt himself being hoisted up into the air.

  “Stupid Civy!” came a gravelly voice from over his shoulder. The next thing he knew, he was propelled through the air. His arms and legs flailed as he was thrown across the street.

  Crack

  He smashed into something that had given way from the impact of his body. His eyes opened. His vision flashed red repeatedly. His legs were out before him and he turned his head. He saw the red-haired player continuing down the street.

  Riley looked down and realized he’d been thrown into the front windshield of a nearby car. His vision flashed red again, and was doing so every two seconds. His body was slow to react. He pulled himself painlessly from the broken windshield and rolled off the front of the car, onto the street. It took him a few moments to stand, but once he did, he limped over to the side of the street he’d just been thrown from. The player that had attacked him was already further down and unconcerned with anything behind him.

  Riley looked at his health, which was in his upper vision. His health bar was at about twenty-five percent. He gestured to bring up his stats screen. His vision was still flashing. He looked at his status and didn’t see any bleeding effects. Well, that was a plus. He didn’t have any items to heal himself with. He had nothing. He kept walking. As he did, occasionally his health bar would slowly increase, but it wasn’t going very fast. At its current rate, it would take about an hour to reach full.

  “What the hell was wrong with that guy?” he murmured. “He could’ve killed me!”

  Riley kept walking. Was he even going to survive the journey to Bunker 7? All he was doing was walking down the damn street!

  He kept his sights on his destination. As he got closer, his health had recovered a bit more and was roughly at thirty-six percent. He looked at the building, which appeared to be made of concrete and metal, and had a sign above two metal doors which read ‘Bunker 7.’ Well, at least he’d made it.

  Now he just needed to find someone to help him, and not kill him.

  Chapter 4: Old Friends

  Riley pushed open the door to the bunker. It was heavier than he remembered. He stepped inside and looked around. The lighting inside was minimal. Once the door closed behind him, you couldn’t tell if it was still day or night, as there weren’t any windows to the outside. He looked around to the various high tables with stools. There were two bars and several lounging areas with couches. He took a moment to get his bearings. The place felt familiar to him, but he wasn’t recognizing any faces yet. To be fair, it had been a while since he was last at Bunker 7.

  He walked over to one of the bars and sat down. The woman behind the bar stepped over. She had bright purple hair and her eyes had a soft purple glow to them. She was dressed in a fine women’s suit. She was dark-skinned and even her nails glowed purple.

  “What can I get you?” she asked.

  “Um, wouldn’t suppose you’d know if you’ve seen some of my friends?” he asked.

  She tilted her head to the side. She looked Riley over and raised a brow. “Who you looking for?”

  Riley leaned his arms on the counter. “Let’s see,” he thought for a moment. The recent crew he’d been grouping with as Radiance wouldn't come here. They’d only be in the more-fancy hangouts.

  “Blue Scythe?” Riley asked.

  The woman shook her head.

  “The Bronze Amazon?”

  The woman shook her head.

  “Then how about…Neon Blaster? Or Shadow Gorilla? Or Stopper?”

  The woman shook her head. “Haven’t seen or heard of any of those people,” she said.

  “How long have you been here?” Riley asked.

  “About four months,” she said. “Why you looking for these people?”

  “I uh...had to reroll,” Riley admitted, thinking he wouldn’t really lose anything by saying it, since he didn’t actually have anything to his name.

  “Oh yeah? What were ya?” she asked.

  “I was Radiance,” he said. At this point, he didn’t see any harm in telling her. He needed anything he could get. Maybe she was a fan?

  “Oh yeah?” she asked, her expression seemingly unchanged.

  Then, she blinked and glanced away a moment. “You just died like...yesterday, right?” she asked. “I hadn’t heard of you before until that segment on the news. You were what, a T-two, right? Some kinda healer?”

  “Yeah, I was,” Riley answered. “And now I’m just trying to crawl my way back up. You know, trying to find some old friends to help me out.”

  “Well, I’m Marcella,” she offered. “I’m just a T-one, so no cool name for me yet.”

  “Yeah, it can take a while,” said Riley.

  “I’ve been playing for a year,” said Marcella. “So you don’t have to tell me.”

  “Sorry,” Riley murmured.

  Marcella looked him over for a few more seconds. “So, you fresh out of the changing room?” she asked.

  “Yeah, just came down the street,” he said. “And I almost died twice, just walking here. First there was this red-energy pellet user. There was an explosion and...well, I’m not sure what happened to him. Then, some bare-chested guy with red hair shoved me into an oncoming car and I’m actually still recovering my HP from that.”

  “Tough start,” said Marcella. “Red-pellet user? Did it sound like a shotgun?” she asked.

  “Yeah, a bit,” said Riley.

  “Then that was probably Red Shotgun.”

  “Well, he either killed whatever was fighting him, or he burned up in the fifth floor of one of the buildings on the way here.”

  “Red Shotgun’s a woman,” Marcella corrected. “She’s kind of a badass. I hope nothing got her. She frequents the bunker a lot. Good player.”

  “Oh, my bad,” said Riley.

  Marcella shrugged.

  The sound of metal scraping against concrete drew Riley’s attention to the left of him. A guy that appeared a bit older than himself sat beside him. He had silver hair and when he looked over to Riley, his eyes were purely white.

  “That other ‘gentleman’, was Rodney,” said the white-eyed guy. “Sorry, didn’t mean to intrude. Kinda waiting for some friends, thought I’d pop on over and chat up my love, and also say hi to the new guy.”

  Marcella sighed and shook her head, but a small smile curled the corner of her lips.

  Riley offered a half smile and extended his hand to the silver-haired guy. “I’m Riley. You say the guy that almost killed me was Rodney?” he asked.

  “Nice to meet you, I’m Seth,” he shook Riley’s hand and released it. “Yeah, that guy’s an ass. He takes some sort of weird pleasure in beating up on NPCs.”

  “I tried avoiding him, but it only seemed to piss him off even more,” said Riley.

  “Yeah, he...well, like I said, he’s an ass,” said Seth. “So you said you just rolled out of the changing room? Used to be that healer Radiance?”

  Riley’s eyebrows lifted. “Yeah, that’s me. Had you heard of me?” he asked.

  “Well, yeah, kinda,” Seth said, his fingers rasped a few times on the counter. He glanced over to Marcella. “Love, could I please have a number...nine, for myself and our new arrival? He could probably use some hit points and a bit of a stat bump.”

  “Coming right up,” said Marcella as she stepped over to a machine and began tapping at it. Two glasses appeared, and then a purple-white swirled liquid filled the glasses. She brought them over and sat one in front of each of them. “Your tab, I’m assuming?” Marcella asked, tossing a glance to Seth.

  “Thank you, and of course. Our new compatriot probably doesn’t have a credit to his name,” said Seth.

  “Thanks, I really appreciate it,” said Riley. “I’ll pay you back when I get back on my feet.

  Seth waved his hand. “Don’t mention it. It’s a pittance, anyway.”

  Seth grabbed the glass before him and brought it to his lips and began to sip away
at it. “Mmm, I have no idea what this even is, or what flavors the devs tried to replicate, but It’s better than anything at the bars I live near.”

  Riley reached out for his own glass, then remembered what Seth had said. “What did you mean ‘well, kinda’ when I’d asked if you heard of me?” Riley asked as he brought the drink to his lips.

  “Well, from what I heard, you were kinda an asshole too,” said Seth, before taking another drink.

  Riley choked for a moment, just about spitting up the drink as he pulled it away and looked over to Seth. “Wait, really? Where’d you hear that?”

  Seth shrugged. “I dunno, just seemed to be the general consensus anytime I ever heard about Radiance,” he said. “At least around here.” He pointed over to one of the televisions behind the counter. “I do a lot of waiting around for people in-game. So I chill here. Anytime Radiance came up on the tv, people didn’t have the nicest things to say about you. Saying that you were stuck-up and only ever partied with people at your level or above. Apparently, you didn’t help anyone beneath you and you constantly moved on to other party members when you found people with stronger powers. They say you used your high-level healing capabilities to get groups that only benefitted what you wanted to do, and you never helped any other parties for the sake of helping others.”

  Riley sat there, his fingers around the glass, staring at Seth.

  “At least, that’s just what I heard,” said Seth. “I personally didn’t know Radiance, so I have no idea.”

  “That’s not true!” Riley spoke up. “I helped people all the time when I didn’t have anything to gain.”

  Seth shrugged. “Hey, like I said, I didn’t know Radiance. That guy’s dead, right? All I know is this new scrub who walked into Bunker Seven, who said his name is Riley. So I bought Riley a drink to help him out.” Seth smiled. “So drink up! Get some stats in ya. Won’t last forever, but might help keep you alive for a few more hours.”