Chapter 4: welcome to the game of death

Chapter 4: welcome to the game of death

“Welcome to our little hangout” Tyr called out, throwing his arms out wide as he gestured around the shop we had bought and got partway through converting it into a workshop, we had just plastered over where we had tore all the fittings out, the counter, shelves, everything. The only furniture in the dimly lit room were some crates and barrels we used for tables and chairs, a series of worktables in the far-left corner allowed us to follow our chosen crafts. In the beta, I had invested heavily into the manufacture and synthesis of mutagens and stimulants. While mutagens offered a permanent boost to a given stat, you couldn't inject yourself with that many before some serious penalties started setting in, “mutagen burn” we called it, Stimulants on the other hand, offered a temporary boost to a given stat for a much lower price, you could inject yourself with as many as you like, however its not recommended because it causes light damage and can cost a fortune in the long run. My workbench had pestles, mortars, Bunsen burners, test tubes, conical flasks, syringes and just about anything that can be used for chemicals, but aside from that, was very well organised.

Tyr, on the other hand, was a mess, and he had chosen to follow the path of creating and setting runes which enhance a persons physical capabilities, while in most other games, you set runes into a weapon or piece of armor, in this game, your starting clothes always stay on beneath all your armor, and runes are directly applied to that set of clothing, allowing you to carry runes over no matter what you wear, with weapons, a piece called the core remains the same, although it can be customized to suit the weapon your using, runes are imbued into the core.

“Hey guys!” a woman’s voice, with a Japanese accent called out, all three of us, me at my workbench figuring out what I could whip up with what’s available, Tyr and Anon, who were sitting down, Tyr doing his best to keep up with Anon's constant questioning about the game, any exploits, hints or tips he could gather, we turned to see two people, both of whom were young women, one with short black hair, the tips of which were dyed red, a happy, cheerful expression on her face, a saber hanging at her side, her right arm was held above her head and waving “Tyr! Wolf!” the woman yelled as she wrapped Tyr in a massive bear hug, I walked over to say hello myself, the woman then released Tyr before holding me in a warm embrace, I felt myself blushing. She let go and looked me in the eyes, hers were emerald green in color “Wolf, you bleached your hair, didn't you? Almost didn't recognize you for a moment there. Looks great on you” the woman complemented, causing me to hope she didn't notice me blushing (I sort of had a crush on her, but DON'T tell her please, I might die of embarrassment) “brown hair just did not suit you at all” she stated “thanks, Kat” I answered, bluntly.

I looked over Kat's shoulder at her friend, immediately the similarities struck, this other person, with a familiar black hairstyle and face. This woman was almost definitely a relative of CyberTyr. “hello” She said in a quiet voice, her clothing was blue and red, a mace hung on her right thigh, a buckler was on her left. “well, the similarities are obvious, guys, this is my sister, her character name's Crystal, she's a journalist, trying to do a report on MMO's for a local paper” Tyr said, introducing his sister “sis, this is BloodWolf752” he said, gesturing to me “don't let the name scare you, though, he's completely harmless.... mostly” Tyr joked, I grinned. “you've met Katalya” Tyr said, gesturing to Kat “and this is Anonymous, a newbie who, by the looks of things, plans on being an information broker, the way he keeps plying me with questions” Tyr said, gesturing to Anon “uhm, do any of you mind giving an interview?” Tyr's sister, Crystal asked “sure, I don't mind” I answered, sitting on one of the barrels which served as a makeshift chair, I gestured to another one, inviting her to sit. When she was comfortable, she started asking questions like: “do you think playing MMO's affects a persons ability to interact with other individuals?”, to which I answered “well, in an MMO, your forced to interact with other people if you want to do well, I mostly work alone, but I do enjoy working together from time to time because, there’s a limit to what I can do solo, and I enjoy the company” the questioning descended into questions and answers for several minutes before Crystal said “OK, last question, what's your view of this MMO we're currently playing?” “well, the guy who made this wanted to create a living, breathing world which, for all intents and purposes, is real, it's a complete success, even though I know none of this is real, I still feel more alive in here than I do in the real world” I finished by saying.

“well, thanks for the interview, Wolf, it was uh, very helpful” Crystal said, standing up to move and sit next to her brother “hey, what time is it?” I asked “ 'bout eight o'clock, why? Got somewhere you need to be?” Kat asked, grinning “sort of, it's my turn to make dinner back home, see you later” I said, waving as I swept my menu open and selected the option on the far left, the gear and pressed the logout button, I seemed to subconsciously know where everything was on my menus.

5 seconds past, I was still standing in the shop, “OK”, I thought, “this usually takes a little time”

10 seconds... “any time now, game” I thought

15 seconds..... “game?.....”

20 seconds. “OK, what the hell?” I said aloud before looking down at the menu, each icon on my options page had an image and a word or two to go over what they do, well... most of them.
The “logout” option had nothing next to it, I tapped it several more times, to make sure, nothing happened “guys? Can you logout?” I asked, they all opened their menu's and tried to logout “no, I can't” Kat answered “me neither” Tyr added “I can't either” Crystal said “OK, what the hell?” Anon asked “hold on” I said as I selected another option, “contact GM” which allowed me to talk to the person who was running things in-game, almost definitely Thomas Sheldon.

A minute passed, no response, we waited for several minutes and got a whole lot of nothing for our efforts “alright, I have a brother and two sisters, they should be coming back from work by now, they'll find me, pull me out, then I'll be able to get help, what about you?” “I live alone” Anon answered, sounding a bit nervous “our parents are out, should be back later” Tyr said, which just left Kat “my father's on a business trip overseas, I'm home alone” she said after a few minutes “OK, I'm sure the tech guys are freaking out trying to fix this, they'll probably pull everyone out soon and close the server as they try to fix the problem” Tyr said in an attempt to calm his sister, who looked scared half to death “yeah, now we just have to wait” Kat said in an attempt to comfort Crystal, except the tone in her voice suggested she was just as terrified as Crystal, she was just doing a better job at hiding it “I'm going to go out, try and figure out what the hell's going on” I said as I rose to my feet and walked out the door and onto the crowded road, there were people running from person to person, asking them something, causing them to check their menus before panicking, it was probably the same question I had. One of the players ran up to me, just before he reached me, his whole body started cracking, pieces flying off, similar to if the man died, a look of shock replaced the expression of fear, I looked down at my hands as a shocked expression replaced my worried one, the same was happening to me, as well as everyone else in the crowded city street, it reminded me of one of the beta server shut downs I was in, to fix the problem of people spawning without senses, except this was different.

The cracking of my skin and clothes kept spreading, it felt very.... well, strange is the only word I can think of to describe it, after a few moments, it had spread from my hand, up my arm and to my chest, which caused me to shatter.

I immediately found myself in a massive courtyard, big enough to hold an Olympic event, despite the fact the cobblestone would provide a horrible play-surface.

All around me, more people were showing up, most were shouting angrily, trying to make sense of what was going on, I looked around, massive walls surrounded the central courtyard with numerous shop fronts lining the walls, most of which, were to let, allowing the players to purchase and run their own businesses.

A tap on my shoulder snapped my attention and made me jump. I turned to see Katalya, a grim expression on her face “I doubt they're doing stress tests” I stated, as I moved over to join her and the others, I gestured to one of the shop fronts, muttering “bank terminal” Tyr and Kat all looked surprised as we all started shuffling through the crowd towards the terminal that was sunk into the wall, in this game, you can withdraw items like money or tools at any banking terminal, just like in the real world with a bank account but, minus the chip an PIN, you just use your hand print, however, there’s a fee and if you want to put items or money in, you need to head to one of the banks, in a bank, you can withdraw items all you want without a fee.

I allowed Tyr and Kat to use the bank first, Tyr was bathed in a warm light as several runes faded into his starter clothing “huh, Tyr, your runes are back” Kat said, stating the obvious, Tyr shuddered “yeah, and I believe my mutagens are back, too". Most of Tyr's mutagens were about accuracy and evasion, Kat's were all about mana and stamina while mine revolved around pure physical power, like strength, health, regeneration and damage resistance.

Tyr's clothing suddenly changed, his starter clothing was replaced by black studded leather, a few segments of his body were covered in chain mail and a large hood covering his head, the sort of thing a ranger would wear. Kat stepped forward and placed her hand on the terminal, the same thing happened to her, warming light, followed by a shudder as the mutagens set in, her clothing changed into a large officers coat, some steel plates formed on her arm.
"Now it was my turn", I thought as I stepped up and donned my gear. thick, heavy plate armour covered my body, a few pouches lined the armour, adding immediate storage space as a large, grey hood appeared on my head, heavy armour, that's what I specialised in, while it offered only a tiny increase to mobility, it gave me a massive boost to protection. Kat was focused on medium armour, sort of a 50:50 between mobility and protection. Tyr, however, was focused in light armour, almost completely devoted to mobility.

Suddenly lots of people gasped for breath, I turned to see what was going on, everyone was looking up. I followed their gaze and gasped myself. The sky was fracturing the same way, a strange oily liquid was seeping out the cracks and forming in a large, ever-shifting, ever-expanding sphere. The sky darkened as the sphere lost it's shape before taking on a very humanoid form, the mass started to develop details, a face, fingers and a large flowing robe.

The form;s developing face was concealed by a hood, I felt my fingers instinctively clasp my sword.

The robes developed a deep red and yellow coloring as the massive figure, I guessed sixty feet tall, easily floating a few hundred feet above the ground. The crowds shouts were growing louder, they wanted answers, and they wanted them now.

“Silence!” The man boomed, raising his hands, the crowd fell silent in moments “my name is Thomas Sheldon and welcome to my world” “what?” I gasped “my world?” “as most of you may have noticed, there is no logout option, that is not a glitch, I repeat: not a glitch. You are, as of now trapped in my world, the only way to escape is to complete all five hundred floors and defeat the boss on each floor.” “what the hell!? Trapped!? What the fuck's going on!” I found myself shouting before immediately shutting up before I started ranting. “And, one more thing before I leave you to your fate, if you die in this world, you will die in the real world, no second chances, no respawns, you will die. If someone removes the Digicomm, you will die” Thomas boomed, several windows burst into view right in front of me, making me jump, I looked around and everyone had a similar event happening. Looking at the screens, I saw it was BBC and Sky news web pages, the headline caught my eye “15 die in gaming tragedy” as I skim-read the article I saw references to Rise Of The Dawn blade, Thomas Sheldon, Digicomm and a warning, “experts speculate people who purchased Rise Of The Dawn Blade will die if the helmet is removed” “as of now, 254 people have failed to heed this warning, and, as such, the current player population is 14,746. if you wish to survive, stay here, if you wish to escape, run, fight, kill. Good luck” Thomas finished solemnly and vanished, as he disappeared, the sky brightened. I was in shock, “how could anyone do this?” “why would anyone do this?” these two questions were bouncing around inside my head like a ball in a tennis court in the Wimbledon finals as the crowd was in stunned silence so palpable, you could shatter it with a hammer.

“c'mon” a voice behind me whispered as a hand gripped my wrist, I felt myself getting pulled, I offered no resistance, I turned to see Kat had a tight grip around my wrist with one hand, in the other, she was dragging Tyr, who was gently pulling Crystal, Anon was following shortly behind. We quietly slipped out the plaza as people started shouting and screaming.

“What the hells going on!?” I yelled. We were back in the shop, Crystal was narrowly managing to avoid crying, the others were sat down on assorted crates and barrels while I had resorted to pacing back and fourth, ranting “look, if we want to survive, we need to work together” Kat said, for the twentieth time “ugh, I heard you the first time” Tyr said, for the nineteenth time.

I opened my map, revealing the area within an in-game kilometre of Aeronin was revealed “if we want to survive, we need to bail, there's no way some 14,000 people can live comfortably in this city, it'll be a slum before we know it” I started before I was cut off by Crystal “I went to a South African slum for a new report while I was freelancing, it was horrible so, BloodWolf's right, we need to leave....” “as I was saying, if we want to make it we need to perform a sort of exodus” I stated, pointing to a main road, we need to make a beeline for the second village, I know where a few good hunting grounds are, we can grind at a few of those, I suggest we reach level 5 by the time we arrive in Myus, the village following this road” I said pointing to an area of the map, roughly where the village was “now, I'm leaving in 10 minutes, with or without you, I know this may make me sound like a callous bastard but, I want to survive and, here's my logic for this one, the sooner we win this, the sooner we're free and clear so we can carry on with our lives as normal, that is, after we sue the clothes of Sheldon's back” I stated.
“Whatever, I've survived my entire life on my own, I'm not going to start relying on other people just because you asked nicely” Anonymous answered, raising his voice as he rose to his feet and walked briskly out the door “Anon!” Kat yelled after him as she rose to run after him. “let him go, Kat” Tyr said, grabbing her arm “look, he'll get himself killed!” Kat yelled “if he does, it's his problem, not ours and besides, he has the look of a survivor about him, he'll be fine” I said soothingly, stepping between the two, hoping to defuse the situation before the two came to blows, again.

After a minute of the two staring each other down, Kat finally submitted “ugh, fine. Wolf, Grab everything that's easy to move and not nailed down. destroy the rest, the door's a very low level, it's be easy to pick or break down, we'll have squatters and looters before we know it, Tyr, sell the place, Crystal, help me keep watch” Kat said, offering Crystal a hand, which she took and followed her outside. Tyr and I watched them go. I grinned “one last time? For old times sakes?” I asked “sure, why the hell not?” Tyr replied, removing his armour and sitting down.