by Jesse Wilson
She pointed her sword in his direction. “You seem different than the other scum I faced. Make you a deal. If you can defeat me, I will give up my gift of immortality and give it to you, also I will give you my greatest treasure. If not, you will die at the end of my blade like all the other parasites before you,” she said to him and Derek nodded.
“Fine,” he agreed and pushed the blue button floating in front of him to scan her at the same time. It disappeared and the readout showed up.
‘Silver Knight Elatrix. Level Eighty-Three. Weaknesses: None. Hit Points: Eighteen thousand. Special notes: Possesses an anti tech field to encourage honorable combat only with melee weapons and magic. Possesses Holy magic.’ Derek read this and sighed. “Oh good, no weaknesses,” he said to himself but that massive amount of hit points made him nervous. “The party, right,” he said and almost got to open his menu to disband the party, but it was too late.
Elatrix ran at him and that blade swung at his neck. He had no time to move. The armor he had on took the attack, but it knocked him off his feet and to the side with ease as if he were nothing more than a ragdoll. He rolled into the dirt and knew that attack would have killed him instantly if he was wearing anything other than the Obsidian Armor. He got up and formed the black serrated sword in his left hand as he did. “What part of disband the party, didn’t you get?” Draxis asked him and stood beside him as Derek stood up.
“Sorry, slipped my mind,” Derek replied and neither of them had any time to talk as the knight charged them.
Draxis pushed Derek out of the way and lifted his own titanium blade to block the silver one. The strength behind the silver sword was incredible. On contact it forced Draxis down to his left knee as he tried to fight it. He held the blade with both hands, she held hers with only the left hand, the shield in the right. “You are vampire scum, you can’t beat me, you never could,” she said and it sounded like she was smiling with the tone of her voice under that helmet.
Derek wasted no time in rushing back to the battle. He raised his blade and swung it with what comparably little strength he had. Elatrix lifted her shield and easily blocked the attack, then she thrust the shield out with enough force to send him flying back again, but she never took her eyes off Draxis. “Dissolve the party, now,” he yelled at Derek.
He wasted no more time and opened up his menu. Just as he did this he watched as the silver blade drove straight through the titanium blade and into Draxis’ helmet, into his head. Derek watched as his life bar went down to zero and his body disappeared. “Oh, come on,” he said to himself as he pressed the disband party button at the same time. Now he was on his own.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Elatrix’s level immediately dropped from eighty three to ten. He was level five so it made sense that the boss would always be stronger than the player, but now she would be much more manageable. At least, that is what he was hoping for. He gripped his blade in both hands and prepared to fight. She didn’t seem to notice the drop in the power level and attacked him again without hesitation.
She lunged at him, blade first and was much slower this time. He backed away and watched the blade swing past him. This wasn’t his first time playing a boss battle like this but it was the first time doing it in this way.
The second that blade made its full swing, he attacked. That black, serrated blade made contact with the silver armor on her left side and knocked her into that direction. He looked at the green life bar, however, and noticed that no damage had been done. The armor was still powerful and doing its job just like it was supposed to. He wasn’t sure how anyone was supposed to beat this thing. It had no weaknesses, none that he could exploit anyway that he knew of. Then he had an idea.
“Oh, immortal knight, you’re clad in that unbreakable armor. What do you say we test our courage and fight to the death without our protection?” Derek asked her and hoped that this was going to work.
“You, vampire, do you know the meaning of honor? How can I trust one such as you?” she asked him and Derek knew that he had to go first. He just hoped his sword wasn’t connected to the armor. With a thought that black Obsidian Armor disappeared. He was wearing the clothes that he had logged in with, that seemed like a life time ago now.
She stood up straight and crossed her arms. “Very well,” she said and did the same. She wore a dark green uniform that reminded him very much of an old military movie. It looked like ordinary cloth and there wasn’t much special about it, she was clearly nothing more than a regular human. However, he had yet to see even one human character in the game so far. He wasn’t even sure it as an option.
He expected the traditional game style where the women wore next to nothing under the armor, usually the armor was next to nothing anyway. It was always very strange to him why they would design characters like that. He supposed it helped sell games.
She spun the blade around in her left hand as if it weighed nothing despite how big it was, then she charged him. Now that he got rid of the armor, he had a chance. On the other hand, he was now able to be killed in one hit; at least he imagined that would be the case. He raised his blade and the two collided. She was strong.
Stronger than he was, even at this reduced level. The impact of the blades made his arms hurt and caused him to slide back in the dirt. He wasn’t going to give up. This close he could see her eyes. They were not gentle eyes, but grey with a slight glow to them. She was fierce and also angry, maybe just as insane as he suspected she was. Now was not the time to be looking into those eyes, however.
He jumped back and prepared himself again. “Critical hits,” he said to himself again. Hit points didn’t matter much in this game. She glared through him and he could feel those eyes, all of that hate coming from here from ages of combat and the pain of dying over and over again. She attacked and that giant blade swung slowly just like it did last time. He watched carefully and avoided the attack. The pattern was the same. That was always the weakness of these games. As soon as that blade passed him by he moved in for the attack.
He swung with all the power he could and was surprised when she kept spinning and blocked his blade with her shield. The impact made her slide back but she didn’t fall. At once she slammed her shield into the red ground and pinned his sword there. She smiled at him. “Back to the underworld with you, parasite,” she screamed and brought the silver blade in an arc towards his neck.
“No,” Derek said and did the only thing he could think of doing. He let go of his sword and threw himself back just as the killing blow came down, and missed.
“Hmm,” she said and seemed confused. “Most people never think to let go of their weapons, they are too attached to them in a panic,” she said and pulled her sword out of the ground. Derek stood up and the second her shield was lifted, he recalled his blade to his hand.
“I’m not most people, now let’s finish this already,” he said and tried to catch his breath. She had none to catch and there was no indication that she was ever feeling tired or worn down. He, on the other hand, despite being in a virtual world was feeling worn out. This game was truly a masterpiece in how it was working, he had to appreciate the finer details of the thing. “I tire of this battle, you can’t beat me,” she said and he stood up straight.
“Sure, I can, you just wait a little longer and I’ll show you that I can,” Derek replied and that silver blade began to burn with white fire.
“I will purge you from this world with my celestial light,” she said and it was about then he remembered the whole holy magic thing. He didn’t understand the mechanics of magic in Night World yet but now he was going to get a crash course in the matter, he supposed.
Her silver blade let loose as a blinding white beam of light flew in his direction. He dived to the left and hit the ground. The beam didn’t stop, however. She just followed him down. “Oh, come on,” he said and scrambled to get out of the way of the attack the best he could. Derek realized this wasn’t going to stop; enemies who weren’t p
layers typically had an infinite amount of power to draw from when needed.
He ran as fast as he could and that beam of light was right behind him. One slip up, one mistake and it was back to Pick’s Town for him. Also, he was pretty sure that this option, the deal they made was a onetime thing. Only one solution came to mind. One possible chance that he might have to win. He drew his blade back, quickly looked at his attacker to get the best view that he could. Then he threw his sword at her as hard as he could manage to do so.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The beam of burning white light died out. Derek heard the sound of the sword hitting something softer than the ground. He stopped and looked at his enemy. The sword found its mark, it had impaled her through the stomach. Her green life bar was in the red, just a tiny sliver of red at that. She fell to her knees. Derek all of a sudden felt really bad about what he had just done and he ran to her as fast as he could.
“Well, look at that, you got me,” she said and this was just making it worse. There didn’t seem to be any indication of pain, or blood.
“It was just a lucky shot, that’s all,” he said and dropped to his knees beside her. She smiled a little bit. Derek wasn’t sure what was going on. “A deal is a deal,” Elatrix said and two white crystals appeared, one in each of her hands. “Take them,” she said and Derek took the one on the left first. A menu popped up.
‘You obtained Alica’s blessing,’ it read and Derek had no idea what that was. He was going to have to check it out later. He reached over and grabbed the right crystal and the menu popped up again. ‘You obtained celestial light attack, level one.’ It read and Derek knew what that had to be.
“And with that, I can move on. Thanks, but do me a favor. Make sure that you never awaken the horde that sleeps, don’t let anyone wake it up,” she said and then began to glow a bright white before her body vanished. After it did there was a small silver key on the ground that caught his attention. He picked it up and the menu popped up again.
‘Congratulations, warrior. You have obtained Elatrix’s key. This is one of thirteen keys. If you are reading this, you have defeated the Silver Knight the correct way. Each area has a Spirit similar to this, if you can collect all thirteen keys, you will be rewarded with a great, one of a kind treasure. Warrior, you’d be wise not to tell anyone about this key or this quest. As it’s one of a kind, this key cannot be duplicated or stolen. Good luck!’ the menu read, then he closed it. “Secrets, I can do that,” he said and stood up.
Suddenly a red streak of light appeared and hit the ground beside him. It was Draxis, this time he was just wearing normal clothes. “I expected you to be dead,” he said to him and Derek shook his head.
“Once you left the level dropped and it was tough, but I beat her. I mostly got lucky,” Derek replied and shook his head. “Did you get anything?” Draxis asked and the only things that were left were her sword and shield.
“Just what you see. Tell you what, you can have the silver sword and shield. To make up for the sword you lost,” Derek said, doing his best to lie and keep the secret as best he could.
“Thanks, I guess. Hey why aren’t you wearing the armor?” Draxis asked him. “Um, well, you see I had to get rid of it. The enemy was programed to fight fair. I couldn’t penetrate the armor. When I removed mine, she took hers off, too. It was the only chance that I had,” Derek replied and the gladiator just shrugged as he went to pick up the items on the ground.
Draxis inspected the silver sword and found that it wasn’t all that special, it just looked nicer than most of the other blades did. “Well, at least I can hang it on my wall at home,” he said as he picked up the shield.
“Let’s go report that I got the job done, or we I guess, but if we say that you did it on your own, no one is going to believe us,” Draxis said and Derek shrugged; he didn’t care who got the credit, all he knew was that he got the better items. He wasn’t sure anyone else in the game had items like these before but he wasn’t going to tell anyone about it now.
Also, he realized that he didn’t get any experience points for the battle. That was strange, but sometimes boss monsters didn’t give experience points. At least that’s how it was in the consoles sometimes.
Draxis requested to party up with him again and Derek accepted it on his menu. A second later they were back in the Bone Yard office. Lucy was there, sitting behind the red desk waiting for them already. “It’s done, the usual tactic worked as it always does. The knight won’t be a problem for a while, until it respawns at least,” Draxis said and she smiled.
“Good to hear that the little scamper here can fight,” she said and sighed. “However, at only level five you’re going to be stuck here in the pit. We don’t allow any clan members to leave the pit until they hit at least level fifteen or so. It’s for their own protection,” she said and Derek felt miserable about that.
He was getting stuck on the first level like so many others and he hated it. He did his best not to roll his eyes in frustration, or reach across the desk and demand access to the rest of the game. “I understand, that makes sense to me anyway,” he replied reluctantly.
“Good,” she replied and nodded. “Well, you can go explore as you wish now. If we need you for anything we’ll call. Also, don’t worry about the cop, we sent an envoy to take care of that little problem for you,” Lucy said to him and he did feel a sigh of relief about that. However, in a game, maybe in real life too, justice, law and order and all the rest of it was nothing but really big lies. Derek didn’t want to be in here anymore and quickly disbanded the party he was in once again. “Until next time,” he said. He opened his menu and disappeared.
Chapter Twenty Seven
Derek reappeared in the Pick’s Town common area and expected to be mobbed, or at least have people look at him. No one did, thankfully. The black armor was still off of him and he looked like any other random vampire player who was new. His status had turned back to green. He opened up his menu and tried the log out button again, but still, it was the same as it ever was. The same old red error message. “Damn it,” he closed it out and sighed. All he wanted to do was just get out of this world and never come back. He was really beginning to hate his sister for doing all of this.
Derek walked to an empty bench and sat down. He wanted to check out the things he got from liberating the Silver Knight. He opened his menu and pushed the skills section. Another menu popped open and he pressed on the celestial attack option. The read out appeared below it.
‘Celestial light is a beam attack of holy magic. This attack does ten points of damage per second and ignores armor. It will increase the amount of damage by ten points per level. It is a continuous beam attack in a straight line effective up to four hundred units directly in front of you. You may aim in any direction while firing. The attack can be cancelled at any time. This magic is effective against the undead golems, demons and spirits,’ Derek read the menu and was unimpressed at first.
However, he slowly began to realize just how much power it potentially could have. Without a true level cap, it could be an extremely destructive force. Derek closed this menu and looked for the next thing he gained, but he didn’t know where to look exactly.
He scanned the menus and landed on the magic menu. He clicked it open and thankfully it was there. Alica’s blessing. He clicked on that and another menu popped up under that.
‘Alica’s Blessing is an aura type magic that is always active. This regenerates twenty life points every second, cuts the duration of status ailments in half and once a day returns you from zero to fifty percent hit points upon death. This aura magic can be leveled up five times only. At max level it restores one hundred hit points per second and upon death, once a day, it will restore you to full health,’ it read and Derek was really impressed with this. “Wow,” he said quietly to himself and smiled. He wondered what else there was to get in this game. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to find it.
He closed the menu and a hand fell on
his shoulder. Derek jumped and almost attacked. When he turned to look he saw that it was Otham. “Hey there, buddy. Thanks for the Heart Stone but why did you abandon us?” he asked and sat down on the bench.
“I don’t know if I should tell you,” Derek replied and Otham shook his head. “No really, you should tell us,” he replied. Derek looked at the ground and sighed.
“Well, the Delwrath clan wants me, but their rules are that I can only party up with people in their clan,” Derek said and the lizard person shook his head in disbelief.
“Well, aren’t you just special. Just like a typical player to align themselves with the strongest people they can to get ahead. I understand,” he said but was sad about it. Derek felt guilty, however he didn’t plan on seeing any of them again. He was going off into the rest of the game and now he was stuck here.
“It’s not like that,” Derek started to say. “I mean I can’t log out and,” Derek trailed off.“Oh, so you’re the one who jacked the Obsidian Armor?” he said as the smile returned to his face. “Yeah. I took it. The server wipe didn’t log me out. I was here all by myself,” Derek replied with depression in his voice.
Otham on the other hand was having his mind blown. “Dude, do you know all the things you could do here? You can own this town in no time at all if you want,” he said and a greedy sparkle seemed to shine in his eyes.
“Yeah, I could. I think that’s what the clan has in mind. But if I didn’t ally myself with someone, it wouldn’t matter what I stole because everyone would be after me. At least now I have some protection,” Derek replied, Otham wasn’t sure if he agreed with that statement right now or not.
