The beast's eyes, as if made of rock sulfur, blazing with ocher-crimson flames, were piercing the insides of mine. Chalk-white fumes were purging out of its enormous jaws, radiating damp, vile heat, almost shrouding this deformed panther muzzle. A giant, silver-shining blade tilted and twisted and vibrated as the beast was holding it betwixt its monstrous ivory fangs. White-gray manes were holding themselves up throughout the beast's neck and spine, looking like war spikes, barraging out as they were like one solid matter. Beast's dark gray flesh twitched and twisted all around its body; muscle spasms and out-poking veins created patterns out of themselves, as if it were some kind of tribal art carved upon the beast's blood-filled carcass. The beast roared through its teeth, shatteringly loud, and its gaze wasn't shifting even a bit from the gaze of mine.
Wickedness filled the air; the stench of bloodthirst roamed through the place. The beast lowered its head, tightened the grip on the blade of it, and dashed at me at once. As the beast reached me, it swung the giant blade downwards at my puny figure. I jumped and rolled out of the blade's sight, so it struck the earth under, shattering it into a long ravine, bringing demolished pieces of rock and soil up into the air. The beast ominously forced the blade out of the ground and struck its bloodthirsty look into my soul once more, and yet again the beast's body cannonballed straight at me. I rushed myself to the closest tree, running upon it and jumping onto the beast's head as it tried to slice me up, slashing the wood growth under, cutting down the tree from which I flew from. I landed myself onto the beast's skull and ravaged my own sword into it, striking and cutting the skull uncountable times. Through the fangs, the beast screamed in pain and frantically swooshed its head around trying to fling me off itself, yet I stood hard upon its skull, holding myself up with the mane of the beast as if it was a trusty leash. Blood spills splashed all about as the red horizontal bar floating over the beast was emptying itself out. The bar fully cleared as I gave my all into the last puncture, vigorously jamming the edge of my sword into the head of the monster, and at last… the roar and the screams stopped. The corpse of the late beast, crushed down to the earth, lifelessly.
I got myself up from the now prey of mine, stood up on both of my legs in front of the bloody gray heap of flesh. The prolonged sigh came rushing out of my trembling jaw as my whole body began slipping into the post-fright relaxation. With absence of thought, not moving a pinch of muscle, simply gazing around, I stood there like a statue, lifelessly, like the beast lying down at my feet, dead.
I swayed my head all about in an attempt to regain the proper attention to the surroundings. I tilted the edge of my sword slightly upwards and landed a gentle puncture onto the beast's lifeless head. A dark-wood textured tab popped out of air at the seat of puncture. "Silver Fang" was written atop the window, arguing the nameworthiness of the beast. Further down were present the now attainable treasures, firmly the heaps of fur, flesh, and meat, yet the one prize stood out from all others. The "Silver Fang's Talon", a mythical-rarity greatsword, the name written in the color of deep dark purple; unmistakably, it was the edge the beast guarded in its jaws. I landed another puncture with my sword, now only to the button located at the loot window's bottom, with "Loot All" written atop it. The tab firmly vanished back into the air, the same way it appeared from it, meticulously transporting the now possessions of mine into my inventory space.
Two fingers of mine, the index one and the middle one, swayed themselves from the left to the right, making brand new dark-wood tabs flash out of thin air. [Equipment], [Inventory], [Status], [Skill Tree], [Map], [Socials], and [Settings], the callings of the tabs, were listed down in this way. At the beginning of all, it felt to be a month coming over now, there were the eighth tab in the menu, the [Exit] one.
I landed my finger over [Equipment] and so slightly pushed. Next I touched the icon of my trusty longsword, a fine piece of metal with a crimson-red hilt and sharp dull-gray blade, about a meter in length, carrying the name "Arduous Stout-Iron Longsword +10" on it and having itself down in the first weapon slot. A window with all my gained weaponry appeared in front, so I selected and set down my newly acquired greatsword, replacing my old blade. The longsword vanished out of my hand, turning into a myriad of mint-green circular particles, so now the talon rested in its place.
The impeccable magnificence of a sword it was. The whole thing was about my own height in length and felt much heavier, much more powerful than its predecessor. The unnaturally clean metal of the blade reflected my own image in itself, mirror-like. The form of the edge was of the roaring flames, waving itself up the length of the blade. Nubs, protruding from the sides at where the flaming edge ended, were like the beast's fangs. The guard violently spiraled itself out of the sword, hooking on the ends of each side oppositely. The lengthy handle was loosely wrapped in some kind of tar-black cloth, which hung down loose from the hilt. The silver-cast fang of the pommel barraged itself out on the opposite tip of the greatsword.
It shined and twinkled in front of me, alluring my mind into thoughts of awaited exploits destined to be with this sword, yet for now the blade was a useless heap of formed-out silver, as I lacked the stats required for the proper, efficient use of it. I fell short in dexterity, counting on myself only twelve points acquired in comparison to the required twenty-four. That meant I had to level myself up a minimum of six times and deluge gained skill points into the dexterity branch of a skill tree, granting myself two points in dexterity for each used skill point. It sure was unwise to unbalance your uptakings, spilling lots of points into one only branch, yet the only outlook of a sword, which it seemed was laying thoughts straight into my mind, made my next objective unmistakably clear.
The talon shifted into the thin air as I got ahold of my old longsword back. I brought my sight all about the surroundings yet again. No hostile presence did I sense, yet only broad pieces of foliage filled the panorama. The place where I found myself in that moment was a swamp-like forest. Crooked willow trees with flowery crowns enormous and dense enough to deadlock any beams of light to the trees' bulging roots. Tall bushes and grass and infinite rows of reeds conquered all the place about, all of them lush and wet. The landscape cut through by rivulets and creeks and completed by uncountable ponds and lakes betwixt, all of them of sombre, deep purplish-blue waters. On the world map, the place carried the name of Wetlands Forest.
As all the treasures acquired from the defeated boss now were in my inventory, the corpse of the beast began to shift into nothingness, lingering in smolder like a thin sheet of burning parchment, leaving behind nothing more than vast emptiness. As it atomized completely, with ashes caught up by the air and dispersed into the under-heavens, the sigh of tired ease left out my arid throat once again. The battle met its end; there was not a point anymore to remain here, bled out of health and powers and any remedies to make out any good.
Once more I swung my fingers to the side, and thus the game menu opened before me. I pushed onto the [Map] plate, and there stood the drawing of the whole, discovered, earthly plane of this world. I swooshed my fingers down across the map to the stone circle, abiding on the edge of an ocean and land, and severed across by a river. Njerg, the Town of Arrival, that circle was, hence the name, the place where all of us happened to arrive to, on a boat, at the game's launch. In the circle's center loomed a symbol resembling a figure, a statue chiseled out of rock, it was a Waystone, as how it was called. My finger lay upon it, and a moment later, shining particles of golden light alike a swarm of locusts, spiraled around me, leaving nothing but a color of white across my sight.
The first thing I saw after the light was the town's plaza packed with small fountains, sculptures, gardens, and foliage, stretching dozens of meters all around me, standing in the center of it, and the cathedral, or the town's hall, as how people called it, standing behind my back. The hall was a tall, grayish-light masterpiece of Gothic architecture, with tainted glass windows and cut-out stone sculptures flowing out of the walls. Sharp ridges and ribs of the cathedral shone with elegance, and the lamp-handling rock gargoyles set the made alight. This marvelous structure from the beginning became one of the greatest meeting and trading grounds, as well as the plaza surrounding it.
The sun sneaked below the horizon a few hours ago, and so the nightlife leaked into the streets of the town. The plaza was filled with groups and solitudes of people, talking, speaking, speculating, and having the day's final rest. Colorful and bleak, known and those who were without name, all the players were steadily arriving to and filling the town's center. My destination lay in the greatest tavern to the date, carrying the name Smiling Pangolin. The place was another large public ground, but mostly what happened there was the heavy ale drinking. Alcohol happened to be a real thing in this game, giving to its consumer almost the exact same effects as the real one did on the other side.
I led myself through the town's alive streets to the spoken tavern. Presented in front of me was the large rock-wooden house resembling architecturally nearby buildings but distinguished from them by its sheer size. The golden yellow light was pushing its way through the tavern's window into the street below as the enormous wooden door stood in front of me for me to open. Entering the tavern, a second had not yet passed before the familiar face glimpsed into my sight, loudly calling my presence. Plump, bearded face, sparkling azurish eyes, and curly brass hair. Wooden cup shaking in the right hand and the drunk, moronic smile. His real name was Thomas, a good mate of mine, somewhat dumb but inspiringly brave. He waved to me across the tavern's hall and shouted for me to sit at the table with him:
— Juni! Get your ass right here!
I strafed my way to the table where he sat, leaned over the table, and said to him:
— Has anybody ever told you to be quieter?
— Yeah, you, many times.
— But why the fuck then do you shout all across the fucking Pangolin?
— Alta… You seem like you had a rough day.
I sighed and fell on the bench across from Thomas.
— Yeah, you can call it rough. Nearly died, but the prize outweighed it.
— Juni the madman, you are always you. What did you get anyways? — he asked me, sucking on his ale.
— Mythical two-hander, beautiful, magnificent, but needs a lot of dex.
— Dex's better than sex, am I right?
— Hah, I haven't heard that in a while. — I laughed.
The dialog then went as always, "What's new?", "What's up?" and everything in between and out, and in the moment I was talking about my battle with the Silver Fang, I received a message from someone. I opened my menu, got into [Socials], and saw a text from Hennessey: "Come to the plaza. I need to talk to you.". "Can't we talk it out like this?" I replied to her. A second later, "Don't you want to see my cute face, you prick!?" was what I got. "Ok, few minutes" I answered and got digitally smooched with her "xoxo" reply. Thomas seemed dazzled looking at me and asked:
— What's up with that? Who are you talking to?
—I need to leave, apparently…
— Huh, mann? How's bros over hoes?
— Oh, don't you dare break my balls. — I smirked at him.
— Go, go Juni, you pathetic virgin…
— Go to hell, alta… — I laughed.
I stood up and waved to Thomas with my back to him and strafed between tables and hordes of people to the tavern's door. I rushed myselfback to the plaza, and having a short look around, I saw a tiny silhouette with wavy crimson red hair sitting on the rim of one of the fountains. I got close to her from the back and growled over her ear:
— Here… you… are…
— Oh my fuckf…ing god! You! You fucking jerk!? — she ear-bleedingly wept.
Her elegant, rouge face and wide brown eyes were nothing less than miraculous, and even mimics of terror didn't make her look less charming.
— Hey Hen…
— Don't you dare fucking do that again!
— Okay, okay, chill out.
— You jackass, you know I don't like it!
— Hen, look I'm sorry, what was you wanted to talk about?
— Huh?! Uh… yes, we're raiding the Smoldering Depths tomorrow!
— What…? No, I'm not coming.
— Who said you had a choice? — she grinned slyly at me.
— That's a stupid idea, that's a raid dungeon and there are only twelve of you in a guild.
— Who said only Strikers were going? — her smiled widened.
— What?
— Baldwin, The Order's guildmaster, invited me and the Strikers to raid with them tomorrow, and we had an empty slot, so I decided to take you with us, being as precious as I am.
— Who? This guy is a douchebag. He invited you only because you're pretty and he wants you in his harem or some shit, and he even knows that I'll be there? He'll go mad when he sees you with me.
— There's plenty of guys in my guild… oh… I see… so you're jealous then?
— No… wha…?
— Oh, so you think I'm not pretty? — she raised her eyebrow at me.
— Oh my god Hen… okay, good… when?
— Good boy… five pm at the dungeon's entrance, it will take about four hours, so we'll be up on the plateau at around nine. Finally gonna make some progress beating this godforsaken game.
— God-forsaken? It's getting to you, isn't it? — I grinned at her.
— Yeah, and I don't understand why it doesn't get to you. — she said, raising up her eyebrow.
— You know perfectly that it is a better place for me to be in right now.
— I could understand that when we played Worlds of Yore, but this is a fucking death game, Juni! All these games are cesspools full of degenerates and psychos, and now we have to be fucking entrapped with all of them here. I'm just… scared. I just don't want to die here. — she told me, with her eyes running all around, her hands slightly raised gesturing out the nuisance, and her voice subsiding and trembling.
I didn't know how to answer her, and nothing better than to hug her around the shoulder didn't come to my mind. She didn't cry, yet the blueness and fear of hers started getting even to me.
— You know, I'm always at your side.
— I just don't know anymore… Will I live another day, or will it be my last…?
— We don't even know what happens if we die here.
— Oh, don't talk bullshit, Juni. If it was nothing at all, we would all be free right now.
— Hen, listen, I'm always here for you. I can at least do that for how many times you helped me to get my head straight.
— Thanks, Juni. Anyways, wanna be a gentleman and walk me to my place? — she asked me with her face turning rouge again and her smile appearing anew.
— Sure.
The inn where Hennessey stayed was one on the outskirts of the town, not carrying any ear-catching name and quite similar to the one where I spent my nights. We waved to each other silently as she entered the inn and vanished behind closed doors. The day was ending for me as well, and the stroll across the half-packed, half-empty town's streets and alleys led me to my sanctuary for tonight.
Prices at these kinds of places were quite low, so nothing extraordinary was offered. A mirror, a window, a small wooden table, and a bed, all in a blank and plain, tiny, dusty, and stuffy room. The only thing about this chamber that was special was only how boring it could be described and really was. I tore off the armor away from myself and was left standing dressed only in some dingy linen pantaloons. I let my body crash onto the bed, and in a few seconds my mind drifted off away into the unconsciousness.