Archery range initiating . . .
Target ascension initialized . . .
Targets set for: 30m, 50m, 60m, 70m, 80m . . .
Bull's eye!
Bull's eye!
Bull's eye!
Bull's eye!
Bull's eye!
In a span of less than a couple minutes, all five targets were shot down in a rapid succession. The bow used was a standard recurve bow with a draw weight of about 50 pounds, similar to the ones used in olympic archery. Hitting five perfect shots on targets increasingly further away was no small feat even for professional athletes, but the man holding the bow didn't even break a sweat. How could he, when archery was what he's been doing all his life? Both in this world, and virtually.
Take away the bow, and he looked like your normal young adult. About six feet tall, hair black as a crow's feathers, his eyes not much lighter; almost pitch black mixed with a deep, swampy shade of brown. His complexion was pale, as you would expect someone living in Scotland to look like, and he could pass as both a young teenager or a businessman in his thirties. You couldn't tell that he was an athlete from a single glance, although it was obvious that he took care of his body; his figure was slender and sleek, his shoulders were on the wide side and the posture he took when shooting the bow has somehow emitted strength and confidence, and the moments before him releasing the bowstring had the same, bone-chilling energy as the calm before a great storm.
When I say he was an athlete, I don't mean the olympic kind. In this day and age a talented individual had a lot of other choices to improve their physical capabilities and surpass their limits. Of course, this young man could have qualified to be a professional sportsman, an olympic archer like his dad was for example, but his interests took a turn when he was just 14 years old, 9 years ago.
His father, Zachary Quill was a 4 time olympic gold medalist for the UK before he died in a terrible car accident, along with his wife, Jocelyn. Their 14 year old son, Sebastian survived the crash, and has been raised by his aunt ever since.
Seb has never quite been the same ever since, and haven't touched the bow for more than a year. He barely ate, slept even less and was on the verge of physical degradation. This was around the time when Virtual Reality was going through breakthrough after breakthrough and was improving in a rapid pace.
A little while after Seb turned fifteen, a huge hit shook the VR world: Valhalla. The first competitive virtual battleground that was played by millions and millions across the world has just launched, along with the newest generation of VR helmets designed just for this game. It soon became a pop culture icon; everybody knew what it was. A class based PvP game with various game modes, either solo or in teams. Long story short, there was huge money in it, and it grew to be just as popular as soccer or the olympics itself. Professional teams were formed, sponsorships were made, players rose and fell.
Seb, well... he only rose. The game of course offered a playable ranger class, and since his aunt bought the new VR helmet for his 15th birthday, he decided to give it a go. The game rekindled his love for archery and he soon began training again, pushing his body with physical workout, and his mind with Valhalla.
A year after the game's launch it was time for the first Valhalla's Heroes Championship. A tournament, where teams fought through seasons and cups in the most popular, 5v5 game mode. Seb was only 16 at the time, but he has already been a well known archer on top of the leaderboards. This is when he and his best friend he met through the game, Ace Brookmann, or as he was known in Valhalla, Blade, decided to try and form a team for the Championship. They were both regional superstars leading a lot of charts, but they were way too late to find a sponsor to have a chance at competing in the VHC.
Thankfully their problem quickly got sorted out when another talented frontliner, Jack "Ryder" Goldmane, son of Gerard Goldmane, one of the UK's wealthiest real estate magnates offered them partnership, and with the money he got from his father, the trio laid down the foundations of the biggest legend of Valhalla: Team Avalon.
Sebastian was chosen as the de facto leader of the team, which was already pretty unorthodox, since it was mostly frontline players who were elected as team captains, but it worked incredibly well for them: the archer's precision, decision making, understanding of the battlefield and control were unmatched.
After a bit of scouting the roster was finally put together:
Sebastian Quill, alias Zephyr was the team's captain and Ranger.
Ace Brookmann, a.k.a. Blade was their main frontline as the team's Knight.
Jack "Ryder" Goldmane was their golden melee DPS, their Lancer.
The two remaining slots on the main roster went to Jessica Dwight, a young and talented Summoner with the alias of "One Girl Army" and Killian Shore, an impulsive but not any less skilled Assassin who became known as "Lowkey".
Avalon was a new team in the midst of well established organizations, and although everyone knew that each member of the roster could have been considered a prodigy in one way or another, they were yet to prove themselves as a working unit. It was a universally accepted statement that solo performance on ranked ladders didn't always transition well into the professional league, since there were multiple pros who were relatively unknown on the ladder before coming into the VHC like a supernova.
Seb's group however did not disappoint. Ever since their very first competitive qualifiers, Avalon played almost flawlessly, and with each game their performance only improved. Ryder and Lowkey were blazing fast, taking out enemies in quick succession whenever they made even the tiniest of mistakes, Jessica was true to her alias as her summons flooded the battlefield, disrupting melee and ranged alike, while being able to protect her against ambushes very effectively, and Ace was like a moving fortress, neigh-unkillable, holding the line and never failing to control the close combat engagements. He even earned the nickname "God of War", as his combined might and strategic capabilites made him look like an unmatched general.
The all-star of the team however, was still the Bow God himself. Zephyr has never missed. Of course, since this was a virtual reality game, IRL skills directly influenced how one played the game, and Seb, even as a 16 year old teenager was already qualified to follow in his father's footsteps.
His damage output was constantly above all the other members of the team, while his calm demeanor, precision and tactical thinking made sure that Avalon was always three steps ahead of opposing teams. They blazed through the Qualifiers, and ended the first season of the VHC at the very first place of the global rankings with an undefeated record. They massacred established teams like Team Hyper, Optical Gaming, Fantastic and even Kingzguard, one of the likely candidates to win the upcoming World Championships.
The only teams that Team Avalon has dropped 3 games against in the entire season (while still winning the respective best of 3 matches) was Generation of Disorder, a US team led by lancer Keith "Keith" Racket, and the Japanese top dog Zer0 Gaming, the team of the world's number 1 ranked player, Ren Shishido alias Hidden, an assassin nicknamed "King of Blades".
What was even more incredible was that during the season, Sebastian Quill had only died 3 times, during the three games they lost. Other than that no team could make Zephyr bite the dust during the VHC. A couple times he was the last man standing on Team Avalon, facing off against two or three professional players, and he still pulled off the victory.
Then the Valhalla World Championship has started, with the top 16 teams of the VHC qualifying to participate:
Team Avalon
Generation of Disorder
Kingzguard
Zer0 Gaming
Crypt1c
Ypsilon Esports
Team DuoMid
Team Hyper
11 Samurais
Stolz Gaming
Fantastic
Bloody Fingers
Source Esports
Journey
Le Bataillon
Optical Gaming
The 16 teams then battled it out during a 5 day live event, and after Team Avalon beat Kingzguard in the semi finals with a clear 3-1 victory, and Zer0 Gaming has managed to pull ahead in a very close 3-2 against Generation of Disorder, the last day of the championship came.
The finals was a best of 7 match, but Avalon made quick work of Zer0 Gaming, winning the World Champion title with a relatively straightforward, 4-1 result.
The first Valhalla World Championship was 7 years ago. Ever since then Team Avalon has won 3 consecuitve world champion titles, making them the only team in the world that are 3 time victors.
After the last victory 5 years ago, when Seb was 18 years old, something happened. The team was still performing well, but the members started to follow their own choices instead of relying on the Team Captain, which led to disorder and a noticeable loss in performance. Individually, they were still top of the food chain, but Jessica, Killian, and especially Jack were getting increasingly angry about their poor performance, which was ironically mostly due to their own lack of judgement during important moments.
In season 4, Team Avalon has barely qualified for the World Championships with their 16th place in the league, and although they managed to get to the semi finals after what looked like them pulling their stuff together and once again listening to the shotcaller, during the match against Generation of Disorder, who have been on a streak lately and were said to be the best candidate for World Champions, Avalon had suffered a crushing 0-3 defeat. GoD has then went ahead and beat the french Le Bataillon in the finals of season 4, winning the world championships.
This has led to the fate changing meeting between the teammates. Seb was of course not satisfied with how most of his teammates were playing. Ryder and the rest of the team were refusing to take the blame for their lack of performance and ignoring calls. Ace and his sister Cassie, who was one of the substitute players for the team along with Killian's younger brother Jake, were on the side of Seb, while the other three Avalon members were saying that maybe their problems were due to an inefficient leader. Jake took the side of his older brother due to Killian's explosiveness, and as the young sub was only 15 at the time, he didn't want any family issues.
Seb was right, however unfortunately Team Avalon was standing on a foundation that was created by the wealth of the Goldmane family. Ryder knew this all too well, and had convinced Jessica, Killian and Jake, who reluctantly agreed only because of his older brother's influence, to sell their respective shares of the team to him. With the four of their parts joint together, Sebastian was forced to leave the organization, and when Ace and Jessica stood up for him, Ryder threatened them with taking away everything they managed to get during their time in Avalon.
Seb didn't want his friends to lose everything, so he signed a deal with Ryder: he retires from competitive Valhalla, gives up all his shares to Ryder in exchange of him letting his friends leave the organization on their own terms. It was a win-win situation for Ryder either way so he accepted the deal. Ace and Jessica didn't want to agree to such conditions, but their captain left them no choice. They sold their shares, joined another, somewhat successful team and lived a good life after.
Seb was left with almost nothing. He has made millions under the banner of Avalon, but most of this wealth was now taken away by Ryder and the rest of the team. Of course he had assets that he used to disappear from the UK. He cut contact with everyone, moved to northern Scotland, bought a nice condo and has been living there ever since. It was a bitter ending of the legend of Bow God Zephyr, but at least he was sleeping well due to knowing his friends were safe and sound.
Ace and Jessica retired a year later from competitive gaming. The best thing about all this was the fact that in season 5 and season 6 Team Avalon, under Ryder's lead has fallen off. They couldn't qualify for worlds in season 5, and in season 6 they fell out of the VHC as well. The supernova that was Team Avalon soon turned into a falling star.
After season 6, the studio behind Valhalla, New World Enterprises announced the shutdown of the servers, which took the world by storm, but the creators revealed that they were working on a brand new technology, that would "bring virtual reality as close to reality as possible. Soon a new realm will emerge, that's going to not just be worthy of Valhalla's successor, but will eclipse it's glory tenfold".
This announcement was about 3 years ago, and as of today, the whole world was holding their breath, since the "new realm" they were talking about was right on our doorsteps.
Seb let out a deep sigh. He spent about an hour in the archery range, the only modern one in northern Scotland, and as he was getting ready to leave, a black SUV stopped by the entrance. A man stepped out of the vehicle: tall and muscular, with wavy, brown hair and a well kept beard. He was wearing a matte black suit and sunglasses despite the cloudy weather that was pretty much a given at these parts of the world.
Just what I needed, Seb thought.