by Jason Cheek
“Mages and archers target the regular Goblins and Worgs. I’ll take out the bosses.” My shout rang out across the valley as the low-level players peered out at us from the safety of the mine’s rocky outcrop. “Sarka, we’re going to need you and your guards help with this. Just make sure you keep an eye on our six.” Lowering my voice, I address the group around me directly. “Tinyr, Vardrid, and Miya see if you can take down those Worgs the bosses are riding or do your best to keep them off of me. The rest of you focus on the elite Goblins and Worgs.”
Hearing a round of quick affirmatives from my melee team, I stab both blades into the ground at my feet as the Orc Leader, Shivshank Rockcrusher, began shouting out insults in its guttural voice. I wasn’t sure if I was expected to listen through the mob’s monologuing or not, but if my attacks weren’t being blocked, I wasn’t going to stand here like a dumbass. Calling forth the power of my Frost Magic, I began blasting Flurry bolts out at the two Goblin Mini-Bosses, Turok Bloodripper, and Grunac Skinscalper, as fast as I could while the rest of the mages and hunters in the Raid opened up with their attacks.
The suddenness of our attack caught the mobs by surprise as the Goblins kicked their Worgs into a bounding lope, but before they clear five feet my Frost Nova froze them all in place as I immediately went back to targeting the mini-bosses. All around me the Raid surged forward in a wave of bodies that washed over the Worgs and Raiders alike.
My focus was on the bosses. Five shots each was all it took to drop the named Goblin mini-bosses. Ignoring the enraged mounts, I switched targets to the Orc as Vardrid and Miya lunged at the Worgs before they could leap on top of me. Dual fisting with my Flurry bolts, I hammered Shivshank Rockcrusher at range until his frozen corpse crumpled to the ground, never having closed the distance to me. His mount, on the other hand, did manage to cross the gap as it lunged for my throat. I managed to rip my blades out of the ground in time to block the level 22 Worg’s attack as Tinyr leaped onto the creature’s back. Before I could throw the mob back, the little rogue took the massive beast down with a flurry of Backstabbing combos that ripped its Hit Points down within seconds.
Tossing the dead Worg away, I hurriedly pulled Tinyr to his feet as we both swung around searching for more enemies to kill. It took both of us a moment to realize there was no one left to attack as a profound silence settled over the valley. For a long moment, the Light Elves and Gnomes look around in shock at each other as if they couldn’t believe we’d done it. As everyone’s eyes settled on me, I thrust my fist into the air with a shout of triumph as the entire Raid cheered back pumping their fists in the air and laughing with tears in their eyes.
Thankfully no surprise attacks come from behind, or we’d have been wiped out for sure. Cheering out in victory, I staggered back as Sarka jumped into my arms to hug me as Yun pounded me on the back happily. As soon as Sarka releases me, Unalia took her place hopping up and down excitedly while hugging my neck as Tinyr gripped my hand for a shoulder bump, which was comical in and of itself since he had to leap a foot in the air to connect. Setting Unalia back on the ground, I turn around only to find myself being warmly congratulated by the Valkyrie players as we clapped each other on the back.
Laughing and talking together excitedly, the entire Raid made its way back to Delonshire as we acted out portions of the battle. Sarka momentarily took center stage as she went into a blow-by-blow account of how she and Unalia held back the swarming Goblin Raiders yapping at our heels with Sergeant Traovudd’s help when Vardrid suddenly cut her off incredulously. “Wait, is that the Slave Master’s armor?” Preening like a peacock, Sarka posted the armor’s stats in the Raid chat as she knuckled Vardrid in the arm happily. “Read it and weep.”
We all talk about various strategy for taking out the Slave Master and his Slave Drivers along with how we picked up the odd escort quest with the ‘Recommended for a 20+ Raid’ sub-note for rescuing the prisoners. Vardrid cornered me to ask if I just cleaned out the majority of the Slave Drivers with my Frost magic first as I’d done with the Goblin Worg Riders. I reassured him that I’d only managed to get two of the Slave Drivers knocked about before the fight started and I’d blown out a large portion of my Mana Pool.
Maybe it was bad of me, but I just let him think that it was my high stat level from my Nightmare start that had made the difference for us succeeding. While that was partly the case, if it hadn’t been for the Silver Dire Wolf mother, we’d have never made it through the fight. Still, right or wrong, I wasn’t ready to share the information about my new companion or how I’d acquired her. In-between passing out meat to help people recover, I checked on my sleeping beauty comfortably tucked away in my backpack. I’d been a little nervous about putting the puppy there, but anything within my bags seemed to exist in its own pocket dimension that in some ways acted like your typical inventory window within an MMORPG. I found out that I could actually think of an item when I was reaching my hand into my backpack, and it would automatically pull up what I was looking for. Thankfully whatever the dimensional space was, it didn’t have any problems with Neysa using my inventory as her make-shift bed. I guess I could’ve just dismissed her back to whatever ether that mounts get sent to when you unsummon them, but I didn’t feel right doing that to my newborn pup.
The Delonshire guards turned out half of the town’s barracks before they realized our group wasn’t a hostile force. Not that I blamed them since it was past midnight and we did have a group of forty-five players and NPCs approaching their town. It was a good hour before we managed to get everything settled. By then, I was nearly falling asleep on my feet. The experience points I earned from both killing the Slave Master and Rescuing the Prisoners bumped me up another three levels, gave me a bag full of silver and a neat pair of boots I just stowed away in my backpack without even looking at the stats. Surprisingly enough I was level 25, which meant I’d picked up another level during all the fighting.
Looking at my friends, I was even more surprised to see Unalia was at level 22, while the rest of the team had managed to reach level 21. Waving our farewells, I asked the mine’s guards and Gnomes to return whatever gear that belonged to us at The White Unicorn the next day. After another round of thank you’s and a hug from Minny, we headed out for the night. While the Valkyrie players headed to their Inn on the far side of town after thanking us again for letting them join the raid, the rest of us agreed to meet up at 10 o’clock in the morning to take another shot at the Dungeon. With a warm goodnight, Tinyr and Unalia headed in the direction of the Valkyrie players as I went ahead and followed Sarka and Yun to The White Unicorn.
Unfortunately, it looked like I was the only one who hadn’t purchased a room ahead of time. I felt like the walking dead as we crossed the empty courtyard to the darkened building of the Inn. I was trying to figure out if it would be possible for me to get a room this late in the evening when Sarka jogged my shoulder.
“Here take this.” She said handing me a wrought iron key that hung from a wooden plaque with the number 22 on one side.
“You got me a room this morning?” I asked, looking up at her in surprise.
“Of course we did silly. Least we could do after all your help with those assholes this morning.” Sarka said, blushing slightly.
“You didn’t think we were going just to let you disappear on us that easily, did you?” Yun chimed in with a grin.
“I didn’t expect us to do more than explore the dungeon for a little bit before calling it a day. At the time, I just figured the room would make it easier for us to meet up tomorrow so we could give the dungeon a serious go.” Sarka said shaking her head incredulously. “Who’d have expected we’d knock out one of the Dungeon’s bosses on our first day?”
The heavy oak door creaked open as we entered the main room where the ashes in the fireplace still burned bright enough for us to make our way to the stairs at the back of the room. Getting another hug from Sarka and a firm handshake from Yun, I headed up the steps with a final goodnigh
t. The room was small but cozy. I lit the candle that was left out on the small table with my level 0 fire Magic, which was more than high enough to let me light the candle with a snap of my fingers. Quickly stripping out of my armor and gear, I washed the copious amount of dried blood and grime covering my body in the simple washstand.
Once I was finished cleaning up, I filled the little cup by the nightstand with water and pulled a few strips of wolf meat from my bag and quickly sliced the meat into small, thin portions. Once done, I scooped Neysa out of my rucksack and laid back on the comfortable bed. Laying the tiny Silver Dire Wolf pup out on my bare chest, I cuddled the little beastly as I fed my ravenous new companion the thin strips of meat until she’d eaten everything I’d prepared and had drunk some water. Rubbing her fat little belly, I cover us both up with the woolen blanket and trigger the logout feature.
Slowly the game world faded away to darkness. Popping open the egg, my vision slowly adjusted to the soft rolling light of my red lava lamps as I urgently reached for the massive cup of water waiting for me on the desk nearby. Guzzling the liquid down, I stripped out of my gear and stumbled to the bathroom to relieve my overfull bladder and drink down another glass of water, before staggering to the kitchen. Popping the fridge open, I pulled out a baggie of deli ham and cheese and a plastic tub of potato salad. Pulling out a spoon, I started wolfing down the food while standing up at the counter butt ass naked. In between bites I gulp down the milk directly from the container, wiping away the rivulets that escape my lips to run down my chest as I hurriedly sucked the cool liquid down.
Today was freaking unreal. I still had that incredible rush that came from being the first to knock out a major accomplishment inside a new game. Events like today were what sold my media streams and ultimately allowed me to continue living the life of a pro-gamer. While such events had been cool in other MMORGs, nothing would have prepared me for the adrenaline rush I’d experienced today. The World had completely blown me away. From what Vardrid and Kyarina had said, no one had managed to take down any of the mine’s bosses or trigger an event like they’d gone through today when we’d escorted the prisoners out of the mine’s entrance. Even crazier, this morning I’d only planned on making a quick trip to Delonshire to learn healing magic to help my people’s injured.
Leaning back against the refrigerator and closing my eyes, I finally started to feel that full feeling in my stomach as I wiped away the milk mustache that I’d acquired with the back of my forearm and started putting everything away. I knew there was still a crapload of things I should be doing, but it was already 2:30 in the morning and I was exhausted. Promising myself that I’d get up early to check up on everyone, I stumbled into the bedroom and collapsed on the bed. My last conscious thought being, “Wow, that was just the end of my second day!”
Chapter Two
(Wednesday, April 23rd/Day Three of The World)
This time the bleeping of the alarm ringing in my ears felt like it was drilling a hole in my head as I fought my way back to consciousness. I tried blindly switching the damn thing off, but I was finally forced to admit defeat and cracked my eyes open. Seeing the alarm nowhere near the bed, I was forced to sit up and take a more active approach at eliminating the head-splitting sound.
“Who’s the moron who put my shit all the way over there?” I grumbled unhappily stumbling to the dresser on the far side of the room. I could barely lift my arm to switching off the alarm. Everything hurt. It felt like I’d just run a triathlon. Shambling carefully to the bathroom, I flipped on the hot water and let it beat on my aching muscles. Stepping out of the shower twenty minutes later, I stared at the haggard vision looking back at me in the mirror. I freaking looked like death warmed over.
I shouldn’t be surprised at the changes occurring to my body. We’d all seen the before and after pictures of the alpha testers. I knew that everything I was doing inside the game was affecting my body in real life like a fitness program on electronic steroids. Most of us on the forums had joked that gamers in the future would all be buff beefcakes and not overweight computer nerds. People would see a six-pack teen passing by and whisper, “He must be a gamer.” It was a nerd’s dream come true. We’d all laughed at the time but here was the reality of it coming to life.
Nerd was a moniker that many people wore with pride nowadays, especially gamers. You could see how popular the term had become in this day and age with shows like The Big Bang Theory and Esports and the popularity of Cosplay conventions. A far cry from the days of shows like Revenge of the Nerds when I was growing up. In those days deviating in any way from the stereotypical acceptable behavior in society just made you a target for the cool kids and the jocks. You didn’t choose to be a nerd, a gamer or a loner; the label was forced on you by your peers. Unfortunately, my ‘In’ into this subculture was from being all of the above. I always joked that I was a nerd before it was considered cool to be a nerd.
Laughing at my introspective thoughts, I cleaned up and headed to the kitchen not bothering to dress. No sense in getting dressed now when I’d just be stripping down in a moment to put on my sensor suit for the game. Making a quick breakfast and a cappuccino, I sat down to eat with my laptop going through emails. My guildmates were kicking ass and taking names. Glen and Kitty had just reached level 17 and were working their way through a nearby dungeon with various groups of PuGs. Jimmy had managed to make his way through the mountains to join up with the couple where they were leveling in the Dwarven realm and was still only level 15, which was pretty damn good and unsurprisingly still higher than Hefe’s level 13. AJ, Jill, and Krystal had all reached level 18, which luckily helped to keep Hefe from getting into too much trouble.
Jill’s emails had multiple video clips of Hefe’s mishaps from one of the dungeons the team had found nearby. They were all mercilessly ragging on Hefe for not letting the girls pull the mobs safely to the group. Well, it would have been poor Hefe if he wasn’t being such a stereotypical ass and refusing to let the girls put themselves in danger first. He kept on trying to play what he called a warrior/barbarian. Krystal just pointed out that with his low intelligence and warrior class, he was basically a barbarian. I laughed because she hadn’t specified in or outside of the game, which just made the email chain that much funnier.
They were all planning to team up with Mike who had reached level 20 from his dealings with some Drow assassin’s house. Mike had stayed mostly silent during the whole exchange about joining up together to quest and level up which just made me laugh all the more since I knew he had no desire of wiping out on his Nightmare quest due to Hefe not listening to simple orders. I couldn’t help but laugh as I stirred the pot a little more by chipping in about what a great plan that was as I offered up the current location of Mike’s House of Tuin’Dyrr. From our earlier discussion, it was supposedly directly east of Duraddor Fortress, the Dark Elves’ capital. I couldn’t let Mike get ahead of me in the highest level competition we normally had going on when starting a new game. I chuckled to myself while hitting send. I couldn’t wait to see his reply.
Quickly, I went through the remaining emails I had waiting for me. Jimmy, Anthony, and Danielle had reached level 12 from helping Domenic with his Nightmare quest, which was pretty impressive since they’d only started with their base ten stats. Domenic was only level 15, so the four of them were all within a good range to help each other out with leveling up, although personally, I wouldn’t want to face the mobs in a Nightmare start with only basic stats. I was a little surprised at Domenic’s low level, but from what I’d read earlier in his messages, he was dealing with a bunch of annoying political intrigue and religious zealotry crap that was taking an immense amount of time away from actually leveling. I silently wished him the best as I read through his most recent email, since the more I read about his quest chain, the more it sounded like the path of a paladin. A smile came to my lips as I opened up the attachment on the email chain. They’d taken a group screenshot together with the four of them p
osing like gangsters in front of a small fortress. Jimmy’s crazed-looking Gnome was a riot as he stood in the forefront of the picture, barely coming up to everyone’s waist. Shaking my head, I opened the last waiting email, this one from John saying that he’d just started playing with his daughter and her boyfriend and they were all trying to catch up to Jimmy, Anthony, Danielle and Domenic in the human area.
All in all, it sounded like everyone was doing pretty good for where we needed to be at the start of day three. I quickly shared out my previous day’s events, taking time to explain about the skills I’d acquired on my own, my first PVP experience, the local mine instance and the two new couples that I’d met. I also included the tactics I used during the Slave Master’s fight. Describing how I released the chained up Silver Dire Wolf to save our asses and how it ended up giving me a Silver Dire Wolf whelp as a combat mount. With a grin, I attached a few pics of Neysa’s cute, furry face as she ate strips of meat while laying on my stomach the night before. I also gave a quick warning about the escort quest we’d ended up completing late last night and how we’d faced an unbelievable swarm of mobs. Finishing up the email, I let everyone know that I’d be forming the guild this morning and hoped to get invites out by the end of the day, before hitting send.
My last email was to my account representative at Twitch. With the upswing in Pro-Gamers selling subscriptions of their media streams and the widespread interest in computer games, Esports had finally gone mainstream, and companies from all around the world were getting in on the action. While I typically tried to save a little money by editing my own videos before uploading them to the website, my platinum level account came with the option of using Twitch’s in-house video editing services for a small fee.
The option was especially helpful when I had too much going on within a game and couldn’t break free for eight hours to edit my stream. Making a few notes for the video editing tech that would be doing the work, I started the upload process to my account and sent the email off. My main concern was keeping the location of my Nightmare start private and the trick I’d used with the Silver Dire Wolf to take down the Slave Master to get my reward, but at the same time, I wanted to make sure the audience got a good look at my new furry companion.
