Last Horizon: Beta

by Daniel Schinhofen

  Mike laughed, “We can make him the butler.”

  The group broke up laughing and making suggestions for a few minutes as David watched them all with tears in his eyes. “My friends,” he broke off as the tears started, “thank you for sharing your lives with me. I have been truly blessed.”

  Everyone got up, even his sisters and had a big group hug with tears flowing as they each expressed their gratitude back to him. After a few minutes Bill pulled back and started chuckling.

  The rest slowly extracted themselves and looked at Bill, who nodded at David. “I remember the time he cost us the undying achievement. Not that we have let him forget it down these years, but still this brought it back.”

  The group started to chuckle, even David, as they recalled the event and his breaking of a glass at being an idiot. At that the group broke up, remembering the good and bad times of David's life as all wakes should do. He took a seat and chimed in on some of the stories.

  The party continued for hours before the guests all had to leave to make their return flights. He saw them all out and with tears in his eyes hugged them one last time. In the end only Lavender, Will, and his family remained.

  He talked with his family for a bit and apologized to them for being selfish and wanting to just let go. His younger sister hugged him tight and he winced feeling his ribs creak but didn’t say anything. When she finally let go she spoke, “I hate you right now, brother. I want more time with you and you won't let me have it. However I will not fight you, I love you and will miss you so much. Acerbic comments and all. We know you have always loved us.” She hugged him with more gentleness and then finally stood and walked out. Her children came over and wished him a good night with kisses and tears as they followed her out. His older sister looked down at him where he sat then touched the top of his head, “Always wanting to do it your way, regardless. We will miss you even when you are an asshole.” She placed a kiss on his head and walked out, her children and grandchildren giving him kisses and hugs as they left as well.

  That left just Will and Lavender with him and Miriam. He looked up, his eyes streaming tears silently, “I will miss all of them in the end. I am so sorry...” He broke at that point and curled into a ball and just sobbed with his friends and lover holding him and whispering comforting words.

  Minutes passed as he let the tears carry away his pain and anger at life. Eventually he came back to himself and sat back up slowly and thanked them. “Thank you, for always being there for me Will. You and Miriam have made this life worth living. I almost didn't make it through the loss of the first woman I loved. You both have kept me sane though all of life's issues. The passing of my parents when I had to be the rock for my sisters. The passing of our other longtime friends and more.”

  Will gently squeezed his shoulder and slowly stood and looked down at him. “I’ll give you some news, then, that hopefully will bring you joy. Amythyst's pod was moved to my home today. We are making our relationship more permanent by living together. I hope she doesn't kill me in the next few weeks.”

  David laughed and reached out, hugging his friends, “I wish you both the best with the time left to you in this life. I hope you will be there in game with me in the next few months until I’m gone.”

  They nodded and said they would be as Will finally called it a night. “We’ll be over tomorrow for dinner as Miriam has asked us to do. Then the next day for live we’ll all be there.”

  David got to his feet and walked them out and helped Will with loading the ramp back into the truck bed. As they drove off, he stood there holding Miriam's hand and smiling. She finally tugged him back inside and spent the remainder of the night treating him as a king.

  LAST HORIZON GOES LIVE

  The next night Will and Lavender stopped by and had dinner with them. Miriam again made the ever loved pulled pork and cheesy mac. The mood after dinner was upbeat, with them discussing the launch notes that had been posted that morning.

  “So all levels are reset back to one for the beta testers. I mean, we knew it was coming but it still kind of sucks. They stated all existing quest lines have been reset, which makes me think that Thallien's won't be available again as he died.” Will opined as Miriam brought out coffee and cookies.

  “Still curious as to what prompted them to make the NPCs be perma-death, instead of the respawn they had been at first.” David mumbled around a mouth full of cookie.

  Lavender took a sip of coffee to clear her mouth, “I would venture to guess that they wanted a certain turn over in the NPC department. The AI's they have running the game have control over specific areas. There are seven in total, each one watching a continent. Sis mentioned once that each NPC functioned like a brain cell to the AI. So the only thing I can guess is that they wanted the AIs to be in a state of flux, with cells being replaced on a somewhat regular basis.”

  David frowned, “So the seven AIs that watch over each area are a sum of the total NPCs? Does that mean if you kill enough NPCs in any given area that the AI gets slower and more non-responsive?”

  Lavender shrugged, “Who knows? The whole AI thing has only been up and running for the last ten years, or so. I’m sure that they’re finding all sorts of interesting things out about them. At least there hasn't been a self-aware one yet.” She shuddered, “Bad sci-fi stories, here we come. I mean, think about it- will it be a good AI or a bad AI? Are we talking the one who watched over humanity in Asimov's books or Skynet?”

  The group chuckled, “Well, the military has been using them for near twenty years, so a lot of the most critical issues have to have been found already one would think.” David helped himself to another cookie.

  Will frowned, “Yeah, but that doesn't mean they would have shared it with anyone else. What if they’re watching the game now to see what happens to AIs that are left up and running? The last news we had on the military's AIs was that they were replaced every two years to 'keep them updated'.”

  Miriam frowned and nodded, “True, and Last Horizon's AIs have been up for at least four years now, maybe closer to five. Jazzy did say something about them deviating from the quests and rewards.”

  The sat there for a moment pondering what that could mean for the game before David spoke again. “If there really was a problem they would have to shut the game down for a bit to make sure everything was okay. Then again, the reset from beta to live is probably going to wipe and refresh the current data. It sounded like it was a complete reset so it will probably clear up all the issues they were having.”

  His friends nodded before Will smirked, “Just as long as Smee doesn't take over Last Horizon. Can you think of what it would be like with him as supreme overlord?”

  The group started laughing as David rubbed his hands, “Oh my pretty little playthings. Dance for me my little friends.” He gave out an evil giggle as he finished. They laughed harder and smiled.

  “Yup, Gollum with the ring and delusions of grandeur,” Will chuckled.

  They finished up their coffee and the cookies and retired to the living room. “Lav, any word on how the weapon rewards are being handled for when live kicks open?”

  Lavender nodded, “Yes, sis contacted me before the game shut down and said that during the next log in we would get a prompt. All beta testers will have their character saved so you can just log back in with what you are used to, or you can tinker with it a bit. When you chose your initial gear the winners will be given a new prompt. That prompt will ask you to choose your weapon style for your reward.”

  David nodded and considered for a few minutes as Lavender spoke again. “As I am going healing again, I don't really need a unique weapon. None of the ones I saw looked like they had useful abilities for a healer. So if you get a staff for me I will get a sword and shield for you.”

  David laughed, “Gaming the system for maximum group efficiency. While I like the general idea, we haven't seen more than a small sliver of what the unique weapons can do. So I am unsure that the best way for
ward is us trying to do that.”

  Lavender dimpled, “Yes, but I don't use my staff much and you having a weapon with improved durability makes the most sense. So you pick up an excellent quality staff for me and I will get the sword and shield combination for you.”

  David shrugged and chuckled, “If that's what you want, I won't turn down overpowered gear. Are we pretty much specializing out the same way? I know I’m going to take Anger Howl first, Block at five, and Iron Blood at ten.”

  Lavender nodded, “Healing Light first for me, after that it will depend on how we think the best way to go forward is.”

  Will chuckled, “Are we setting up for wandering and slaying single monsters are focusing for dungeon clears with groups of mobs?”

  Kittish added, “Yes, that will tell me if Chain Lightning or Shock is the way to go first. I’ll take the other one at ten, and Healing Pulse at five for the extra healing coverage.”

  David frowned and rubbed his chin, “Let’s set it up for group composition, it will drain us faster if we are only fighting one mob but better to be prepared for multiple right out the door.”

  Will agreed, “Okay. I’m taking Stealth right off this time. Never hurts to have the ability to scout right away. At five I’ll take a bleed effect like Seeping Wounds, and at ten either Vanish or Smoke Bomb.”

  Lavender chimed in, “In that case I’ll take Dark Night for the AoE debuff that slowly drains life away at level five.”

  Having talked out what abilities they were going to be taking for the first few slots, they lapsed into silence for a bit. Looking at the clock reminded them how late it was getting and Will and Lavender starting saying goodnight.

  As his friends left, David helped Miriam clean the kitchen up. As the game wasn't launching until nine am the next morning they got ready for bed and snuggled. Whispering words of love and affection, they finally drifted off to sleep.

  The next morning Miriam made a hearty breakfast for them with a few hours to go before launch. David checked the web and it was all abuzz about Last Horizon finally going live. Speculation was rife about what tweaks might have been introduced without warning. People were looking for others to group up with at the start, looking for a way to power level up as quickly as possible. He noted the news that you could log in enough to make your character or modify one up to two hours early, but that the enter world button wouldn't be up until launch happened.

  Chuckling he scrolled though all the important looking threads and fielded a couple of texts from Mike and Gabriel. They both said they would make it to Stoutbank near the end of the first month after he had the castle all set up and ready.

  Wishing them the best of fun for the first month he put his phone down and went through a few more threads. He looked at the projected number of players to be ready for the game on the website, and whistled. They had sold over a hundred thousand pods when they had reopened sales a few months back so people could be ready for launch. This would bring the total number of players on launch day very close to three hundred thousand. Which might explain why they did the stress test of the Carnival during the last month.

  He left his computer and joined Miriam at the table for breakfast and filled her in on the news of the day. With thirty minutes before time to launch, they logged in to make sure their characters were still good and to select their weapons from the Carnival.

  Logging in, David looked over his avatar of Dumadin Shieldbreaker and thought for a moment of adding a little more gray, but decided not to. He chose his first ability of Anger Howl and quickly picked a staff as his reward from the event. Knowing he still had fifteen minutes before launch he just rotated his avatar and smiled waiting for the time. The clock at the bottom of the character creation screen hit nine and the enter world button lit up. He pressed it eagerly.