by Alex Mulder
“No!” screamed Silverstrike. Luke rushed forward at the worm, shifting into the stance of his combat ability right as he entered into range. He pushed his sword forward in a stabbing motion and felt his entire body lunge with superhuman agility.
PIERCE ATTACK
It was enough to puncture the creature’s hide, and a strangely vulnerable growling noise erupted from deep inside the worm’s body. Unfortunately, it wasn’t sufficient to get it to drop Silverstrike. A moment later, the worm was diving back underneath the sand, Silverstrike along with it.
“Damn it!” yelled Luke. Arex shot off more ice magic at the worm. It still had at least half of its health bar left, and now there were only three of them remaining to face it.
We don’t stand a chance without a full party!
“Kato, don’t stop moving!” yelled Tess. “It can only attack you if you become a target.”
She began to chant and glow green and then cast another spell on him, this time one that restored some of his magicka.
He held onto his sword and jogged in a circle around the center of the vibrating sand. A moment later, the worm burst up from the spot. It twisted into a frightening roll and shifted direction at the last second, crashing into Arex and sending him sprawling.
“Take this!” Luke used the opportunity to get another Pierce Attack in. It did a similar amount of damage compared to the first one. He kicked off from the worm’s body into the air, and then twisted and came down with one more strike.
The worm had less than half of its health bar left, but unfortunately it also had Arex in its mouth. The Red Mage struggled as the demon worm shook him back and forth, until his body hung limply from the worm’s jowls like a rabbit in the mouth of a dog. Luke watched as the worm tossed Arex into the air, his body fell lifelessly to the ground.
I still have the revival potion, maybe I can use it here?
Before he got a chance, the worm had turned his attention onto its next target, Tess. This time, it slithered across the sand, like a snake, with ferocious speed.
“Tess!” Luke screamed at the top of his lungs. He moved forward as quickly as his feet would carry him. He gripped his sword much more tightly than he needed to, and his skill menu popped up in front of his field of vision.
The words “Pierce Attack” began to glow in Luke’s skill list and suddenly, “Pierce Attack 2” was added to the inventory. Luke quickly studied the new move which was similar to the first and slammed his feet into the crumbling sand as he closed into range.
The next sequence of events unfolded in slow motion.
“Noooooo!” Tess swung her quarterstaff at the worm’s mouth in a useless gesture. The worm was locked onto its next target, blood dripping from the Dunidan’s teeth, it was a scene from a gory horror movie.
As Tess again made a futile attempt to ward off the monster, Luke suddenly found himself in striking range. He could use Pierce Attack 2 from twice the distance than he’d been able to with the original skill. As he pushed his sword forward into a lunge, an orange aura began to glow around his body.
He shot forward faster than he’d ever moved in the game before, fast enough to hear the air cutting by his ears as he went. His weapon pushed into the Dunidan’s hard skin and then kept going. Luke wasn’t sure what was happening, but he could see the damage to the creature’s health bar, which dropped to precipitous levels and then was empty.
Luke had cut all the way through the worm’s body, leaving a gory hole through the middle. Tess, still holding her staff defensively, watched as the creature slowly twitched into submission, falling flat into a dead, dormant heap on the sand in front of her.
“That…” Tess was staring at Luke with amazement in her eyes. “That wasn’t a level one skill…”
LEVEL 2 ATTAINED
LEVEL 3 ATTAINED
Luke stared at a new icon in the corner of his screen. He looked down at his bag and saw something glowing inside of it. He reached in and pulled it out, finding his Character Record journal. He opened it and suddenly the character stats written inside of it also began to glow.
The adrenaline from the battle was still rushing through him. He could see that the game had given him ten attribute points to spend, five from each level up. Writing in the journal with an ink quill from his bag allowed him to assign them. He dropped them evenly into Strength, Agility, Endurance, Speed, and finally, Luck.
There was a skill menu that looked similar to the one that activated when he squeezed his sword. Pierce Attack 2 was still there, and he realized that it was the skill that would typically be awarded to second level Sword Saints.
“Okay,” said Luke, exiting from the level up screen. “I think we won.”
“I’ll second that.” A familiar voice came from inside of the dead worm. A second later Silverstrike pulled his way out through the hole that Luke had created.
Luke smiled.
CHAPTER 8
“I think you should bring back Arex.” Tess crouched in front of the mangled body of the Red Mage and called over to Luke, who was busy cutting teeth and scales off the Dunidan.
“Oh yeah, I almost forgot I had this.” Luke jogged over to where Arex’s body lay on the ground and pulled out the revival potion. “So do I just, pour it on him, or…?”
Tess took the potion from him and then held it up to Arex’s face. The bottle glowed brightly, and then Luke saw Arex’s health bar reappear, but with only a sliver left in it. The Red Mage opened his eyes and slowly sat up.
“The worm is dead?” he asked. Luke nodded and watched as Arex stood up and walked over to the fallen creature without saying another word.
“He’s a little intense,” said Tess. Luke smiled at her and shrugged his shoulders.
“I think his encounter with this thing’s razor teeth might have a little to do with it.”
The four of them regrouped by the corpse of the giant desert worm and began stripping it of everything of value. Luke was amazed at how big the thing was. While they were fighting it, the motion of its body had obscured its size.
“How did you manage to kill it, in the end?” asked Silverstrike.
“I used one of my… abilities,” said Luke.
The advanced version showed up just in time. Without it, we would have all been slaughtered…
Tess appeared to be thinking the same thing, but she said nothing. Instead, she glanced around the area that they were in. The storm had died down, and they could see the zone for what it was.
It was located right up against the Inner Plain, just a short walk from Stark Town. Further off into the desert, the sand gave way to a series of dunes, but what caught Luke’s eye was what was in the center of the zone.
“Is that… an oasis?” he asked the other three. “Did they add mirages into Yvvaros for fun or something?”
Tess shook her head.
“I see it, too,” she said. “It must have been hidden by the sandstorm before, but it’s definitely there.”
“Before we do anything, I think we should talk about what happens now,” said Silverstrike. Luke turned to face him and nodded.
“You’re right,” he said. “There are a few smaller monsters left in the zone, but once we kill them, it’s going to be up for grabs. We should go ahead and form the guild now so that we don’t have to deal with transferring ownership later.”
In Yvvaros property was earned, not bought. If an un-confederated group of players defeated all of a zone’s monsters, the right to build belonged to the player with the most kills. On the other hand, if the group was a guild, the group as a whole retained rights to the land.
Once the zone was developed, NPCs or even other players could be hired to serve as farmers, merchants, and innkeepers. With the basic need for food and water to restore stamina came a type of economic order that mirrored the real world.
“Alright,” said Tess. “But what are we going to call ourselves?”
Luke glanced over at Silverstrike and Arex. Both of them looked
as though they had no real ideas of their own.
“KTSA,” said Luke. “It’s just the first letter of each of our character names put together. Kato, Tess, Silverstrike, and Arex.”
Nobody said anything for a moment. Finally, Tess stepped toward him and set her hand on his shoulder.
“I like it,” she said. “What about you two?”
“Yeah, it works,” said Silverstrike. Arex nodded slightly but looked distracted by his own thoughts.
“Alright, let’s get the charter written up,” said Luke.
The guild charter was a way of defining the laws and mechanics of a faction. In its most advanced form, it could include provisions that required players to pay taxes at regular intervals, contribute to the guild in different ways, and fight against the guild’s enemies as a single unit.
More often, it was just a simple contract that defined a particular property or zone as the home base controlled by the players of a guild. That was the kind of contract Luke scribbled down on the empty sheet of parchment.
“Alright,” he said. “We’ll share the zone together for now. I also specified that the guild hall that we eventually build will be communal property as well. If that sounds good to you guys, just sign right here.”
Luke had already signed it. He passed the charter over to Tess, who didn’t hesitate before signing her own name. Silverstrike didn’t have to think about it either, and after a moment Arex signed it in his own stoic fashion. Then, Luke folded the document in half, which caused it to glow with orange light. He then stuffed it back into his satchel.
“Alright, it’s settled,” he said. “Let’s take out the last few of these desert scrubs and then meet up at the oasis.”
The group spread out across the zone, which was only a square kilometer. They began cutting down the tiny, aggressive hyena-like monsters called Saripeds.
SARIPEDS: A native desert specicies. The Saripeds cry sounds like a cackle. They are solitary hunters and prey on desert mice and insects.
The guild members split off to cover more ground. The Saripeds were much easier to take out than the worm had been. Luke was the player who slew the very last one.
ZONE CLEAR
A flag suddenly appeared in his freehand, with the newly formed guild’s name scrawled across the fabric of the banner. He smiled and jogged over to show the other three.
In the center of their zone was a crystal clear oasis, about the length and width of a medium sized swimming pool. The area surrounding it was covered in lush grasses with clusters of palm trees close to the water’s edge.
“We did it,” said Luke. “The second I put this flag down, the zone is ours.”
“This is just the beginning,” said Silverstrike. “This could be a thriving area. We’ll build a guildhall, sure, but we’re so close to Stark Town! We can hire NPC merchants, and maybe even some farmers to irrigate the water and grow food and raise livestock.”
“Speaking of food, my stamina bar is depleting fast,” said Luke. “Let’s get down to business.”
“This could be our home,” whispered Tess. “In-game, I mean.”
Luke nodded to the ever silent Arex and then made his way over to the side of the spring. He brought the flagpole down into a spot on the ground that was more dirt than sand and watched as it began to glow. A short, concise message popped up in the bottom of his vision.
KTSA INHERITS SARCHIA DESERT ZONE 006
“Zone 006?” asked Tess. “That’s a terrible name for this place.”
“Let’s just call it, KTSA headquarters,” said Silverstrike. He scratched his head and raised one of his eyebrows at Luke.
“Dunidan’s Rest,” Arex spoke up, and Luke realized that he’d almost forgotten what the man’s voice sounded like.
“Dunidan’s Rest,” Luke repeated. “I like that. All in favor?”
Luke, Arex, Tess, and after a moment, Silverstrike, all raised their hands.
“Then it’s settled,” said Luke. “Let’s come back out here tomorrow to start thinking about how we’re going build this place up.”
They all agreed to meet the next morning. After a time was set, Arex looked at Luke and nodded slowly, and then without saying a word turned toward the desert and left.
“Where is he going?” asked Silverstrike. Luke shrugged his shoulders.
“Beats me,” he said. “But I know exactly where we should be going.”
Half an hour later, Luke, Tess, and Silverstrike were sitting at a table in the Stark Town Inn with food and drinks in front of them. Luke felt satisfied, as though the hard work and close calls of the battle had been for a purpose in the end.
“What did you get as your quest reward?” Luke asked, turning his attention to Tess. She smiled, and pulled a metal tiara out of her bag and put it on her head.
“This.” She blushed slightly. “It amplifies my healing magic. I figure it will come in handy on our next adventure.”
Our next adventure… Why does it make me feel so excited to hear her say that?
Silverstrike was distracted, busy downing ale and testing the limits of how the alcohol in Yvvaros affected players. Luke felt his heart begin to beat faster as Tess reached her hand over and set it on top of his on the table.
“I really want to thank you for helping me out today. It’s not something I could have done on my own, and I know it’s a little silly to say this, but it meant a lot to me.”
Luke nodded and smiled back at her.
“It’s not a problem,” he said. “We made a tidy profit ourselves, and now that we’ve claimed a zone for the guild, we can actually start playing this game the way it was meant to be played.”
“We can do more than just that!” Silverstrike sounded belligerently drunk. Luke wasn’t sure if it was an act, or if the game designers had coded inebriation into the game. He set his mug of ale down too hard and virtual liquid sloshed on the bar, some flying toward Luke making the hem of his shirt look wet.
“We control the oasis in that zone! There isn’t any water deeper in the desert, or in the zones around it! We might as well have a gold mine, or a raid dungeon, or, or…”
“Easy, man,” said Luke. “Do you want to go outside for a bit?”
“I'm all right,” mumbled Silverstrike.
“I’d… like to go for a walk, if you wanted to join me?” Tess set her hand on Luke’s shoulder as she spoke. He nodded and felt his heart begin to rattle within his chest.
“We’ll be back in a little bit, buddy,” said Luke. Silverstrike had his head down on the table but lifted a thumb up in acknowledgment.
The sun was slowly setting over the horizon outside. One of Yvvaros’ two moons were rising in the distance. It was the larger of the two, enormous and a bright azure blue.The floating city of Kantor had drifted off to the side a bit, but still reflected some of the sun’s light like a giant, white disc in the sky. Luke looked up for a moment and then glanced over at Tess, who was smiling at him.
“I want to show you something,” she said. “It’s a spot I found by luck while I was playing yesterday, right after I first made my character.”
She began to skip forward and Luke had to walk at double speed to keep up with her. There were fewer people in-game now. He wondered what time it was in the outside world as he followed Tess through the town.
She led him east, into the section of the Inner Plains that separated Stark Town from the dense wall of jungle of the Msitu Wilds. There was a hill that Luke had seen before but had never taken a close look at. She led him up to the top of it, the two of them hunching forward as the climb grew steeper.
There was a C shaped gorge on the other side of it, with a river at the bottom that ran out of the jungle and then curved back into it. The hill ended in a sharp drop off on the other side and Tess stood at the very edge of it holding her arms out.
The sun was setting. Everything had a fiery, orange glow to it, as though it was all just seconds away from igniting. Luke walked over to the edge of the cliff
and took a seat next to Tess, staring off into the distance over the continent of Yvvaros.
“The view is amazing,” said Luke.
Of course it’s amazing, that’s why she brought me here in the first place.
“Yeah… Thanks again for your help today.” Tess let out a deep breath and sat down next to him. For a moment, the air was silent. A light breeze blew through it, and Luke felt as though he could feel it on his virtual skin.
“It wasn’t really any trouble , you know,” said Luke. “I actually had fun. It was… nice, to be of use to somebody like that.”
Tess brushed a strand of hair from her face and kept looking off into the distance.
“What is a game like this?” she asked. “I mean, what is it really?”
Luke opened his mouth to answer and then thought better of it. Like Tess, he kept looking ahead and waited for her to continue.
“My life on the outside, in the ‘real world,' is so different from here.” There was a soft hint of emotion in Tess’s voice.
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“We put on the headsets to play in this world, and when we’re done, we take them off and go live in a way that’s so much less controlled.” She turned to look at him. “So much more chaotic.”
Luke turned his head to the side and shrugged.
“Where do you think this type of simulation, this game we’re in, is headed?” she asked. “I mean, there are already new headsets that interface with the brain, that actually connect to the nervous system. They’re right on the cusp of being released. What’s going to happen when it doesn’t just seem real, but it actually is real, to us?”
Luke shrugged again.
“I guess a lot more people will start playing?” He really had no idea how to answer. Tess had an intense look on her face. It was hard enough for him to think about regular things with her around, let alone the philosophy of virtual worlds and video games.
