by Alex Mulder
To the west, lay a vast ocean studded with pockets of unexplored islands forming an extensive archipelago only a few kilometers from the shore. The Western Sea, as it was known, was the western most expanse of claimable territory in Yvvaros. The islands themselves were full of dense deciduous forests and the sea teamed with an enormous diversity of aquatic life.
The eastern front was made nearly impenetrable by an ancient jungle. Beyond the lush forest lay the Msitu Wilds. Only the highest level players dared to venture within. The Msitu Wilds were ringed by volcanic mountains thaterupted without warning, turning everything in the resulting lava flow into a hellish inferno.
Luke spotted Tess leaning up against a fence right on the edge of where the desert started. She was again dressed as an apprentice healer and held a long quarterstaff in one hand. In the other she held a scroll and was reading it carefully.
“Hey there,” called Luke. “I got your letter. You’ve got nice handwriting.”
He’d meant it as an honest compliment, but Tess’s face was bright red as she turned to face him. He was a little surprised that the game was able to interpret an emotion with that much nuance into a proper facial expression.
“Oh, shut up,” joked Tess. “I had to write it with an old-fashioned quill and ink. It’s not as easy as history makes it look.”
She twirled her staff around as he closed the distance between them. Luke noticed that it still looked a little unsteady in her hands, and pulled his own sword out of the sheath that hung from his side.
“First piece of advice, you want to keep your fingers locked around your staff a little more tightly,” said Luke. “Like this. Enemies can disarm you if they attack your hands or weapon, but it’s harder for them if you have a proper grip.”
“Like this?” Tess took hold of her weapon with both hands and gave it a small test swing forward. The effort was improved, but it still looked a little too uncontrolled to Luke.
“Yeah, that’s a start,” said Luke. “What class are you, anyway?”
“I’m a White Priestess, one of the Healer subtypes.” Tess brushed a couple of strands of hair from her face. “And I need your help on my very first quest!”
“You mean the wolf pelts? We’ll have to head closer to town for-”
Tess shook her head.
“No, I got this quest from the High Priestess Azalene.” She smiled at Luke, as though she was happy to know something that he didn’t for a change.
“Well, what do you need help with?”
Tess opened her mouth to answer, but before she could, the sand underneath them began to rumble. The vibrations were made visible by plumes of dust rising into the air. Confused, Luke scratched his head and looked around. As suddenly as it began, the ground stopped moving.
An earthquake? I didn’t think that natural disasters were a part of this game…
Again, the rumbling started. This time, it was more intense. Tess tried to take a step and was knocked off balance. She fell forward into Luke. He caught her and held her up, feeling his body begin to autocorrect underneath the shifting sands beneath them.
The mystery of what was causing it was very short lived. From deeper off into the desert, the sand split open in the center, and a gigantic form emerged that was beyond what Luke could have imagined.
“That’s it,” said Tess. “I have to kill that worm to complete my quest.”
CHAPTER 7
DUNIDAN: One of the dominant life forms in the Sarchia Desert. Little is known about the worms and their habits, other than that they are extremely intelligent, eat anything smaller than themselves and are blind. They see and hunt through sound and vibrations in the sand.
The worm was a least ten feet wide in diameter, possibly more. Its body was the color of sand, and if it weren’t for the razor sharp, blood red spikes protruding from its scaly hide, it might easily have blended right in with the desert. It was also incredibly long. It traced a wide arc as it threw itself into the air before burrowing back beneath the ground. Most of its girth remained above ground even as it began to create another sinkhole in the dry desert wastes.
“That…” Luke was at a loss for words, his eyes completely transfixed on the sight of the worm. “What is that?”
“It’s one of the Dunidan,” said Tess. “Gigantic, super intelligent desert worms. I need to bring back one of its teeth for my quest.”
Luke couldn’t hide the skeptical look on his face as he turned to look at her.
“That thing?” he asked. “You’re telling me that your quest is sending you to make an attempt at killing that thing?”
“Not just me,” said Tess. “The High Priestess told me that I’d need to form a party to accomplish my quest.”
“Even with a party.” Luke shook his head. The ground was still shaking, even as the creature moved away from them and disappeared back underneath the ground.
“It has to be doable!” said Tess. “Look, this is a first level quest. I don’t think the developers would have coded a suicide mission into the very start of the game.”
She’s right. But then why is it that I still feel such a strong impulse against having to face that behemoth of a worm?
Tess crossed her arms and did her best to look as though she was disappointed in Luke. It was easy for him to see that it was an act and that she was as scared as he was. She may have been mockingly disappointed, but he could see her desperation as well.
Why is it that it hurts more to see her like this than to look at the worm?
Luke sighed.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he said. “I’ll help you. I’ll do it.”
Tess’s eyebrows pushed upward in surprise.
“Really?” She stepped closer to Luke, almost bringing their bodies into contact. “But… why? I mean, I just wasn’t expecting that.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Luke smiled at her, but stayed right where he was, braving the strange tension in the air between the two of them. “I still owe you one.”
The moment of closeness felt like an eternity. Finally, he turned and looked back toward the worm. It had disappeared even deeper into the desert. Other than a scattering of dust on the air, it had left no trace of its presence.
“We’ll need more people,” said Tess.
“I know at least one person who would be happy to help, a particular rogue friend of mine,” said Luke. “And I can help you find others.”
He smiled at her, and suddenly Tess did something unexpected. She took the final step forward between the two of them and pulled him into a hug. It took Luke a second to wrap his arms around her to reciprocate, but once he had, he felt his heart began to skip along, beating in double time.
Why the hell does she feel so warm, and so soft?
Finally, after several long seconds, the two broke apart. Luke could see something in Tess’s eyes that he didn’t recognize, something that he hadn’t known the game was capable of picking up and expressing through the headset.
“So all we need is a Mage, then?” asked Tess.
Luke nodded.
A Warrior, Rogue, Healer, and Mage. A balanced, capable adventuring party will have one of each.
“Let’s head back to Stark Town and see who we can find,” he said. “I’m sure that there must be at least one spell slinger crazy enough to join up with us.”
The two of them made quick time walking back to the small town. Luke was again surprised by the scarcity of other players in the wilderness. Like the day before, everyone looked to have clustered inside of the safety of the town lines.
Well, with creatures like that giant worm lurking around, it’s really no wonder.
“Alright, so how do we find another player, exactly?” asked Tess. “Do we just shout out into the marketplace crowd.”
Luke shook his head.
“Ben… er, Silverstrike explained it to me back before the game was even released,” he said. “All we have to do is head over to the notice board and leave a description of the
kind of character we’re looking for.”
They walked toward the center of Stark Town. “Is this it?” asked Tess. The notice board was outside of the inn, and though it wasn’t that big, the notes pinned to it shifted and alternated as Luke read each one.
“Yep, this is it.” Luke pulled his quill and parchment out of his satchel and began scribbling. “Okay, so we’re looking for a level one or level two Mage, somebody who is actually working to tackle these starter quests instead of just sitting around.”
He finished writing the description down on the note and pinned it to the notice board. The text shifted, still keeping the gist of his message but editing it to correctly describe the character requirements in statistical form.
“Alright, now let’s go find Silverstrike while we’re waiting for someone to respond to this.” He looked over at Tess and saw her smiling at him. She was distractingly cute and he nearly tripped over his own feet as the two of them started forward.
Silverstrike was inside the Stark Town blacksmith, admiring an expensive dagger in the corner of the shop as the NPC Smith worked his hammer against a red hot strip of metal. Luke had to wave his hand in front of his friend’s face to pull his attention away.
“Hello, are you in there?” asked Luke. “I found something interesting for us to do.”
Silverstrike turned and looked at Luke, and then at Tess, and then back to the dagger on the table.
“Is there gold in it?” he asked. “I need to upgrade out of my starting daggers, badly.”
Luke shrugged.
“Uh, there should be, I think?”
“Yes, there will be,” said Tess. “I need one of the Dunidan’s teeth, but the rest of them and the scales can be yours to divide up.”
“A Dunidan?” Silverstrike turned back to them and crossed his arms. “You mean one of those giant worms down south?”
Tess nodded her head, and Silverstrike took a step back.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “A bunch of players that went after one of those things respawned in Kantor a short time ago. One of them was just in here telling me the story. He was still shaking. He said that the worms just surfaced underneath them and swallowed them whole. It took hours for them to die inside its stomach, their bodies turned to mush in its stomach acid.”
“Oh, come on,” said Luke. “Look… how about this? What if we don’t just take out the worm but clear the zone too?”
Silverstrike looked at Luke with a noncommitted expression on his face and waited for him to continue.
“It’s simple,” said Luke. “We find a zone that only has one worm in it, take it out, and fight off whatever other minor creatures are around. Then, by the rules of the game, it would be ours, right?”
“If we formed a guild together after killing it, then yes,” said Silverstrike. He had one hand on his chin and looked like he was beginning to consider it.
“Alright, that’s what I’m going to do then,” said Luke. “Tess, are you with me?”
Tess nodded.
“What about you Silverstrike? We can’t do this without a rogue…”
Several silent seconds went by before Silverstrike finally nodded his head.
“Alright,” he said. “I’ll do it. But if it looks like a suicide mission, I reserve the right to bail.”
“A… suicide mission?” A new voice pushed into the blacksmith’s hut, coming from the door. Luke turned and saw a lanky man wearing a baggy red robe walk in. His face was partially obscured by his hood and his hands were hidden by the robe’s flowing sleeves.
“You look like a mage, to me,” said Luke. “Any chance you’re answering our group request?”
The man nodded.
“My name is Arex,” he said. “I’m a Red Mage. I’m still at level one, but I know the basics.”
“That will do just fine,” said Luke. “Alright, let’s officially form up as a group so that we can see each other’s main stats.”
He pulled another piece of parchment out of his satchel, remembering witnessing several other players demonstrate how to do it on his first day in-game. He wrote “Group Quest” at the top of it, and one by one, all four of them signed their name.
The logistics of forming a group was familiar. Most of the menu and info screens in Yvvaros were streamlined, designed to be immersive rather than following the conventional MMORPG standards. But for the group overlay, at least, it was still like any other game. In the upper left-hand corner of his field of vision, Luke saw the health, stamina, and magicka bars of his team members. A portrait of each member sat next to his or her stats, their avatars showing their movements in real time. Luke smiled and saw Tess’s portrait smile back at him.
“Alright, is everyone ready?” asked Luke. “Arex, like the notice said, our goal is to take down a Dunidan worm. We also want to claim the zone for ourselves. You can help out with as much or as little of that as you’d like.”
Arex nodded.
“I don’t have a guild yet,” he said.
“Neither do we,” said Luke. “After the zone is clear, we can draft the guild contract and get it set up.”
Arex nodded slightly in agreement.
Not a man of many words, I take it.
The four of them headed back into the grasslands south of Stark Town and continued onward until the Sarchia Desert was within view again. The weather had changed drastically in the short time that Luke and Tess had been away.
A massive sandstorm was ripping across the zone. A wall of dust had formed on the horizon. Luke continued forward noticing that the dry tempest blocked the sun’s light.
“Maybe we should head east or west, and then south?” asked Silverstrike. “There are dozens, probably hundreds of desert zones where we could potentially find the worms.”
The ground rumbled underneath them, and then Luke saw a gigantic, tubular silhouette burst out of the sand within the storm.
“No,” he said. “We can do it here. This zone is one of the closest to Stark Town, anyway. The enemies here will be a bit more proportional to our level because of that.”
“Hold on.” Tess stepped in front of the group and held her arms out to the side. “I only have a basic, level one group buff, but let me cast it before we head into battle.”
Luke hadn’t seen any in-game magic yet. Tess chanted under her breath and held her quarterstaff in the air. A gold circle of light pulsed outward from her, enveloping all of them before disappearing, leaving each of them draped in a light afterglow.
BLESS: +1 to all Combat Attributes for one hour.
“Alright,” said Luke. “Do you have anything like that you could cast, Arex?”
The mage shook his head. Luke shrugged.
“So before we head in, I think it would be a good idea if we came up with a-”
“Charge!” Silverstrike cut Luke off in midsentence and charged forward toward the wavering spot in the sand where the Dunidan was surfacing. Arex crouched low and followed after him, holding his cloak up over his face to block the wind and keep his vision clear.
“Alright, whatever,” said Luke. Tess followed behind him as he moved forward into the sandstorm.
The worm didn’t notice them at first. Luke watched Silverstrike drawing closer to it and felt less than optimistic about his friend’s prospects. His daggers looked tiny compared to the giant creature’s red razor spines and jagged teeth.
The storm subsided briefly and Luke had a clear view of Silverstrike’s first charge. He rushed forward leaping into the air, performing an acrobatic aerial roll before striking one of his blades against the creature’s skin.
A health bar popped over the worm indicating the Dunidan’s health was hardly affected. Luke tightened his grip on his sword and moved forward toward it. Beside him, a giant icicle flew through the air from Arex’s direction, Luke glanced at the Mage and saw a faint glow left lingering after the spell was cast.
The icicle struck a glancing blow against the worm, doing only a little more damage th
an Silverstrike’s dagger. Luke was just about within attacking distance of the Dunidan when it whirled around, curling its long body back toward him and lunged at him head first. He caught a brief glimpse of the inside of its mouth, overly full of razor sharp, spiny teeth and leaned to the side just in time to escape a killing blow.
The side of the Dunidan’s body banged into his chest, knocking him to the ground. He saw his health bar sink to half of its length as he pulled himself up from the sand and silently swore under his breath.
“Kato!” yelled Tess. Luke heard her start chanting again, and a moment later he was enveloped in blue, health restoring light.
“Thanks, Tess!” he yelled. Silverstrike and Arex were still doing their best to spar with the worm, avoiding its attacks only slightly more effectively than Luke had been able to.
“We have to use our combat abilities against it!” yelled Silverstrike.
“What?” Luke rolled as the worm’s tail surfaced and swung toward him. He realized that he’d never even bothered to take a look at his starting abilities. He had assumed that they’d be useless at level one.
“Just grip your weapon tightly and the menu should pop up!” Silverstrike threw both of his daggers at the beast, using one of his unique combat abilities. His duel blades cut into the worm and returned to him, boomerang style.
Luke let both of his hands squeeze into the hilt of his sword, and sure enough, a list of his abilities appeared.
SWORD SAINT COMBAT ABILITIES
PIERCE ATTACK
LOCKED
LOCKED
LOCKED
LOCKED
LOCKED
LOCKED
LOCKED
It was almost more of a tutorial, rather than a selection, a moving image of his character shifting into the starting position for something called the “Pierce Attack.”
“Alright, here goes-”
He was interrupted by their enemy. The worm had pushed all the way up and out of the sand, holding in the air for a moment like a strange, living skyscraper before falling flat. The ground shook violently as it slammed down. The effect of all of its weight hitting the sand at once created what felt and looked like a wave in the sand. Luke was knocked off his feet. Luke quickly pulled himself up, just in time to see Silverstrike being devoured by the creature.
