Resurgence: The Rise of Resurgence Book 1

by Joshua W. Nelson

  I didn’t want the guys to start running off on their own. I was looking at this in a very logical and linear way, which I knew would be necessary from the outset. I was loathing to take on the leadership role again, as I told the guys I wanted a lot more inclusion from the group, but I knew I didn’t want us to just run out and start killing mobs either. Yes, leveling was going to be one of our first priorities, but I wanted us to do it smart. Work smarter, not harder I believe is the saying.

  We headed back to town, and I saw that I hadn’t spawned all that far from the main gate. The fact that everyone else spawned inside town, and I out in the forest, was still worrying me in the back of my mind. I figured it had something to do with me trying to cancel the download and it not working. All of those error messages must have messed with my spawn point. That was fine when you spawned just outside of the town and nothing attacks you. Not so good if it did so again and I found myself deep in an area with hostile mobs.

  As we got closer to the town I saw that there was a wall running around the entirety of the town to the coast line. It was called Port Town after all. There were a few guards out in front of the gate that allowed entry to the town. There were also several players running around fighting bunnies that were numerous just outside the gate. While I was taking all of this in a player ran right past our group yelling “INCOMING!”

  I didn’t hesitate. “Run guys. Run now. Head for the gate but try to pass by the guards!”

  We hoofed it to the gate, with Wayne slightly ahead of us and gaining ground. I would need to look into that. It was either a racial bonus or due to the amount he put into Strength and Constitution that allowed him to have a faster movement speed than the rest of us.

  We arrived just in time as I saw a line of five or six bunnies coming our way. The guards dispatched them in mere seconds. They were starter mobs after all. The Halfling who had run by us approached very sympathetically. “I’m so so sorry guys. I was just trying to see how the mobs would react to me getting close, you know, see if they would aggro. And before I knew it I had a bunch chasing after me.”

  The name over his head read “Sayhey.” But I didn’t need to ask who he was. It was Gary from our large group. I could tell because, despite being half as tall, the face looking at me was Gary’s face. It was at this point I looked at Dan, Jason, and Wayne. And just like Gary, they all had their own faces. I imagined mine looked similar as well. Dear lord, AltCon was going to make a fortune off this new technology. Because if you could put Gary’s face on a three-foot-tall Halfling and make it look natural, you could put any face on anybody.

  “It’s no problem Gary, these things happen. Thanks for yelling incoming though. I don’t want to see where my respawn point is just yet.” Wayne said. Gary didn’t look surprised at all that we recognized him. “All good guys. Heading back to the others, and I’m sure we will be grouping up soon. Laters!” Gary said as he ran off toward the center of Town.

  I was in agreement with Wayne. I did not want to find out where my respawn point was either. Especially since I spawned that first time in the forest. I knew that traditionally when a character dies they will respawn at a designated point and then have to travel back to their body, unless they can get that body resurrected. Resurrection required a very high level cleric so none of us were going to be receiving that for a while. On top of that, respawn points in other games were always somewhere safe, like in a city. Such as Port Town. This was good when you died and you didn’t want your character to respawn in the middle of nowhere surrounded by angry mobs. But it sucks if you have to travel great distances to get your body with all of your gear on it.

  We headed toward the center of town where I could clearly make out a square with a fountain in it. I had no idea what or who the sculpture was supposed to represent sitting in the middle of the fountain, high on a pedestal. I was more interested in the number of other people sitting around the square. There were quite a few groups, but not as many as I thought there would be considering the numbers mentioned by AltCon. Several moments later a group of eight people shimmered into existence. And then ten seconds later, eight more. I saw that we hadn’t all logged on to the Beta at the same time.

  My teammates and I walked over to one of the corners of the square and took seats at a picnic like table. All of their eyes were on me. I decided for this moment I would take the initiative and wear the leadership role. “You guys, I have a bunch of ideas on where to start. I’m going to throw them out there, and I want you to interject if you think there is a better way than mine. Hell, I need you to interject. Because the faster we get through this first phase, the faster we get to leveling and having some real fun.” All of them nodded their heads.

  “First things first,” I said “We need to figure out how to form a group. I am hoping that in a group we will be able to see everyone’s status and make it easier to know when the other is in trouble. So before we do anything else, let’s figure out the interface for the game.”

  There was a shimmer of eight more people arriving, and before we could delve into our interfaces, the sky started going dark, with ominous clouds rolling in. I thought this awfully cheesy on the part of AltCon. But hey, that is what Beta is for, so we can tell them what works and what doesn’t. Most players think it is just the in game functions that the company wants to hear about and test. Are there any glitches or bugs? Does the interface do what it is supposed to? But a good Beta team will also give honest feedback on the story line and details around the game so that the overall experience is better as well.

  From out of nowhere there was suddenly a voice, whose rich sounds could be heard clearly in the square. I ventured to guess this sound was being pumped directly into each of our RACs and we all heard it at the same volume, no matter where we were in the game.

  The land of Tholtos has seen one thousand seasons of peace and prosperity. All races in our lands have lived under the Truce of Perdition for generations. The realms of King Kameron, stretching from the Mason Mountains in the North, to the Globi Desert in the South; from the Serene Sea in the West, to the Uncharted Lands east of the Foresworn Forest, have not known aggression in the minds of any man, woman, or child living. But a new danger has arisen. Long thought lost to the annals of lore, and only known through rumors and tales told to frighten children, an unspeakable evil has returned. Rising out of the wastes past the Uncharted Lands, the embodiment of hate and corruption awakens. Brave Rangers have uncovered the remnants of a time long past and the still beating heart of a people long thought dead. The Children of Loust. Winding through the Uncharted Lands and approaching from all sides, the Children of Loust bring with them a Resurgence of evil into our kingdom. The Children of Loust see all within the Kingdom as enemies and will stop at nothing to eradicate one and all from these lands. Without brave heroes, there will be no future for our children! The call has gone out! All heroes and adventures willing to fight the hordes of evil, know that your King is behind you and waiting for you to answer the call!

  I had wondered early on, in the discussions we had in our groups if we would be pitted against the dark forces in Resurgence. If Humans and the other “good” aligned characters would have to do battle against those who had an “evil” alignment. But it appeared now that the major antagonist of this game, the Children of Loust, would not differentiate between good and evil. This made grouping for raids easier if you wanted to have Barbarians with Ogres or Trolls. At least one question had now been answered.

  There was another flashing light and there was suddenly a man in full armor standing in the middle of the square. This was likely the NPC, or Non-Player Character, who would be responsible for the quest. Unlike the mobs, who were also NPCs, the ones that gave quests would not normally attack you, although it has been known to happen. In essence, the NPC was generated by the Artificial Intelligence of the game to play out a certain script. In this case, to further the story line.

  “Who will answer the call?” He bellowed out. Definitely
the NPC quest giver.

  “Well, looks like we know where our first quest comes from,” Dan said. Players began lining up to interact with the new comer and it looked like each was given a quest. As each player turned to leave, they were enveloped with a bright light, which appeared to signify they had accepted a quest. My team continued to look on at the scene, not moving from our seats. We were in receive mode, soaking up all the data before deciding how to go forward.

  “I am betting this is the beginning of a major arc quest. It starts here but likely goes from one quest to the next with an eventual massive reward, with lots of other rewards in between,” Jason said. “We should definitely get in on this, but I don’t think we need to rush to it just yet. If this is THE big arc quest, that guy will always be here I am betting.”

  I was in total agreement with Jason on this one. Besides, I wanted to learn about our characters before we started running around and doing quests. The more time we spent on this beforehand, the better our chances for success would be. “If it’s ok with everyone, before we start accepting quests, I suggest we get to know how this whole game works.” They all nodded agreement.

  * * *

  “So let’s start with the interface. We don’t want to accidentally try to say “hi” to someone and end up attacking instead,” I said. These things were definitely known to happen in adventure games. “So let’s figure out how we even use these interfaces and go through our basic commands.”

  Everyone took on a bit of a faraway look as they started to activate their interfaces. In the old school days of gaming you would have a keyboard and a mouse in front of you, and that is how you would interact with your character and your surroundings. But all that had changed with the introduction of virtual reality. In the earliest models you would need to have your pod strapped on and at the least a set of gloves. One would give a verbal command, such as “inventory,” and your inventory would open up. Using your hands, connected to your gloves, you would manipulate what was in the inventory. You could also set up your character so that verbal commands would do other actions. For instance, if you were a Tank and you wanted to engage a target you would first need to select who you wanted to attack by using your glove interface to reach out toward the general area of the mob. This would show the mob as being selected. Then you could say something like, “Attack 1” and your character would “Bash” the mob, attack it with your weapon, and give it a “Kick.” All of this would follow in that sequence according to your command. Some characters would specialize their commands, which you would hear them yelling in game. A Wizard might say, “Time to rest,” meaning his character would sit down to meditate and regain mana. They could just as easily say “meditate,” but this allowed players to customize the game for themselves.

  It seemed the only verbal command necessary in Resurgence was the word “Interface.” We were told this before entering into the game on this first day, but the designers would tell us nothing more about how to interact in the game, as this was part of the Beta. I whispered the word, barely audible to my own ears, and several icons appeared before my eyes. I immediately noted icons that were common place in all games. A picture of a backpack, which I guessed represented my inventory. A rolled up scroll that I assumed would list my current quests, and possibly old quests. I also saw a picture of an envelope. Although people stopped sending envelopes a decade ago, the symbol had lived on and likely represented the mailing system.

  There were other icons as well, and to be honest the interface was a jumble of information and it was all over the place. I knew I would need to set up special menus to clear up some of this mess, but was still trying to figure out how it all worked.

  “Oh, very cool! You can customize the interface. They have pre-settings in place that will move all these damn icons around,” Dan said. I heard him mumbling, common in Virtual Reality when a character was interacting with their interface, and then said, “There we go, much cleaner now. Guys, go into your sub-system settings and select team mode.”

  I started whispering my instructions and heard the other two doing the same. Dan was right. This was much better. My inventory, quests, and mail were all in small boxes along the right side of my interface. Across the bottom were 10 empty locations where icons could be placed. On the left was a small Icon with a “+” sign. I imagined that was to add team members to the group and I immediately tried to figure out how to make it work. I started to move my hand in front of my face to put my hand over the + sign when I heard Dan say “Woah!”

  I paused mid-reach and waited. Dan had discovered something and I figured it had to do with the interfaces. And true to form, “Holy shitballs man! You just use your eyes!”

  I had no idea what he was talking about. “Explain Dan.”

  “First call me TheClaw.”

  “Really, you are going to go that far into Character like Allister here is?”

  “No dude. Not ‘First, call me TheClaw. I said you have to first call me TheClaw. As in you don’t get nada unless you say my name!”

  I couldn’t help it, I started laughing. “You are a total ass clown Dan, but I love it. Fine. TheClaw, can you tell me what you found?”

  “Ah yes. The sounds of sweet victory.” Dan said quite smugly. I planned on getting him back for this one. “So, as it turns out, because we are in a complete and total immersion, even our eyeballs tracking what is on the screen is being picked up by the sensors. Don’t move your hand, just focus on an icon with your eyes. And then when it is illuminated, say ‘open.’ Just like that you will see things pop up.”

  Dan was totally right. Doing just as he instructed I opened my inventory. It was empty, with the exception of a dagger, some bread, and some water. I had no gear, so this was to be expected. But still this wasn’t a totally liberating experience. I still had to keep saying things to make them work. I had hoped that with the total immersion there would be freer movement. I was looking at the mail icon, which was illuminated, and closed my eyes for a second to think about what to look at next, when I opened them because I remembered I still needed to form the group. And there in front of me was my mailbox, open and ready for view. I looked at the inventory icon and did the same thing. Closed my eyes for a second and when I opened them, the inventory was gone. This was epic!

  “Guys! Guys!” I exclaimed. “Just look at the icon and then close your eyes for a second!”

  I could hear everyone exclaim when it worked. This was definitely an improvement. The freedom to access your inventory in the middle of doing something else and not having to move your hands led me to believe that you could possibly do the same with items. Focus on the item till it was illuminated and then click your eyes to activate it. There were still lots to be tested here, but I could see all the different possibilities opening before me.

  Now to make the group. First I looked at the “+” sign again until it was illuminated and blinked my eyes quickly. Nothing happened. Good to know. It required a premeditated act, in this case closing the eyes for longer than just a blink. I still had the “+” sign illuminated so I “clicked” my eyes close on the icon and a window enlarged, empty at this time. I then looked over at Dan and focused only on Dan. This put a highlight around Dan. I was going to take it that this meant I had selected Dan. To test my theory, I ran my eyes over Wayne and Jason but did not focus on them. My target remained Dan. This was good and bad. If I needed to change mobs in the middle of a fight I would have to focus away from the one I was attacking. That could spell death in the middle of the fight. Oh well, another thing to figure out later. For now, I wanted to get this party formed.

  While still illuminating Dan, I whispered “invite.”

  “Cool! A box just popped up in front of me that said ‘Alex has invited you to join a group. Do you accept?’ Under that line is a smaller box with the word ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’ I’m going to do the verbal confirmation here to test that. Yes,” he said.

  I now had TheClaw as one of my group members. While I c
ouldn’t tell what level Dan was by looking at him, as there was no indicator above his name as to what his level was, I could now see as much in my group box. He was, as you can imagine, level 1. I tried to figure out some way to use just visual cues to invite Jason to the group, but in the end I still had to say the word ‘invite.” Jason accepted using only the eye clicking method. Wayne tapped accept with his finger to see if that worked, and it did.

  CHAPTER 8

  Now that the group was formed it was time to look at our individual stats. In the top left portion of the screen, just above the group box, was a small icon with a silhouette of an upper body. I focused on this icon and blinked. A new window was in front of me that showed my character in the middle, wearing only a tunic, and a number of open slots for gear and jewelry. On the right side was my individual statistics. Each character would be seeing the same thing. I studied my character and saw the following stats:

  Racial Bonus: Half-Elf Vision: Half-Elf can see clearly in near darkness. Half-Elf cannot see in total darkness.

  Class Bonus: Rogue has innate ability to perform Critical Strike from level 1.

  I looked again to make sure I was seeing this right. And there it was, according to my character, my Chance was at 50 and not the 5 I thought I had started with. I didn’t understand why this was and thought it could have to do with the errors I received as I logged in. I didn’t mention this to the other team mates as I wanted to see if the next time I logged in this fixed itself. If not, I would need to report my findings to the Beta team.

  Instead I focused on my other statistics. It appeared that each point of Strength gave you 10 attack. And each point of Constitution gave you 100 hps. This made sense in the overall scheme of things.

  “Ok. I have 60 attack and 600 hit points and a movement speed of 10. I don’t have any mana for obvious reasons, and all of my resistances are at 0. I have a racial-bonus of Half-Elf vision which means I can see in near dark, but not absolute dark. And I get the class bonus of being able to perform Crit Strike with daggers at level 1. That’s it for me,” I said to the group.