Haligo slid under a powerful blow. Her heavy armor sparked on the dungeon floor, and the gust from the sword passing inches over her head scattered the sparks like fireflies. She pivoted and used her momentum to swing her massive axe up and it tore through The Martyr's ribs.
The huge man stumbled back. He gave a rattling cough, and a thick stand of blood splattered down onto his thick, tangled beard. His grizzled bass voice rumbled out, amplified in the makeshift arena amid a ruined church, "You fools have come too late. The Dread Titan approaches."
Haligo wasn't listening. She turned and nodded to the three adventurers regrouping at her side. Burn in 3, 2, 1! Haligo held her axe over her head and bellowed.
You have been granted Blood Fury. All Damage is increased by 10% for 20 seconds.
You have been granted Imbuement of the Wraith. Chance to Critically Strike is increased by 5% for 25 seconds.
You have been granted Gale Dance. Your skills recover 15% faster for 20 seconds.
Haligo's eyes erupted with crimson light, a sickly purple light coated her axe blade, and a vortex of turquoise wind spun up at her feet. She dashed forward and grabbed the hem of The Martyr's robe in her free hand and threw him down to land on all fours. A small woman in dark leathers ran in with perfect timing, kicking off the man's back and somersaulting over him. A rain of daggers lanced into his back, and they evaporated into the image of a blooming rose. The battle resolved quickly as blows from every direction tore the man to shreds. His deep laughter echoed throughout the room the entire time, until, as the last sliver of his health slid away, he collapsed.
Haligo doubled over, trembling, before she arched her back and shouted into the ceiling, "THAT! WAS! AWESOME!"
She whirled on the others, "Dara, so clutch! Bill, those DoTs! They're gonna nerf you, dude!" She grasped the tiny rogue by the arms and twirled her around, "Kimmy, those roses are A-MAZING!"
"Tara! Put me down! You're making me feel sick!" The tiny woman pleaded.
Haligo, Tara’s player character, spun to a halt and set her down, "Where's the alert? We did it, right?"
A thin man in a deep hood chuckled, "Give it a minute."
He bowed with his hand held towards the doors that had led them into the fight. A non-player character, one of the storyline AIs, burst through the doors. He rasped out, "By the gods, you've done it. He's dead! I only hope your deeds weren’t in vain..."
The relatively small man, adorned in a monk's simple burlap robes, rushed forward, and knelt by the slain boss. He held a trembling hand out to close the dead man’s eyes. He lowered his head for a moment before rising, "We owe you more than we can ever repay, but please take what little we have stored here as a reward... Come speak to me about what has transpired here when you are done."
You have completed The Broken Abbey.
The ringing of a massive bell rocked the room. A second notification, wreathed in gold, glowed in the center of Tara's field of view.
A band of heroes have slain The Martyr for the first time in Aare's history.
The Dread Titan's advance can no longer be prevented.
Adventurers, heed the call of the Dawn Queen, come to Haven's Crossroads, and prepare to defend mankind!
----------------------------------------
A World Boss event will begin in 10 minutes.
Will you accept the Dawn Queen's request to teleport you to Haven's Crossroads?
[ Yes ] [ No ]
That was followed by one last pop-up.
You have received a Legendary Title: "Dreadbringer".
"Yes! This is it!" Haligo pumped her fist.
She cast her lot on the rewards from the dungeon without looking at them and the moment the loot was distributed she hammered "Yes" to the teleport request. A few seconds later her vision collapsed in on itself and she popped into Haven's Crossroads, the largest city on the Northern Continent. There were already several hundred characters milling around the enormous courtyard at the center of the city. Many chattered and laughed, lounging on the broad marble slabs that tiled the area in a vast mosaic, and a good number of them gawked up at something above them. Haligo followed their gaze.
High above, but descending quicky, was a titanic man. The dreaded Dread Titan. He glared down imperiously as he rode on a burning thunderhead. Electricity and white fire roiled around his feet and his hands rested on the handle of a great sword that was as big as a semi-truck. She gave him a quick Size Up, her classes' codex ability, and jolted. He had over 900,000 health points. The boss they had just killed had 21,000 and it had taken them a good 10 minutes to whittle him down. We're going to need every player attending the preview to even attempt this, Tara thought.
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She turned towards a small group sitting in a loose circle and asked their Guardian, "Has anyone come up with a game plan? Do we have a Warband formed?"
The blue skinned man shrugged, "I haven't heard anything. Whoever triggered the event will probably shout out some orders before it starts."
She grimaced. She didn't want to manage and coordinate a thousand people. Her party started stepping through space around her, and she waved them in for a huddle, "I think they're all waiting for us to say something and start grouping people up. Suggestions?"
Dara's character, Bellatrix, raised her hand with a weak smile, "I'm not really sure what is going to happen, but we should at least start the Warband so people can chat across the battlefield. Then maybe we should split them up into as many two-three-five parties as possible, and those can report to a five-party alliance. That would make twenty alliances, assuming everyone shows up. Make sure they all have at least one healer if nothing else. Let’s get one main tank per alliance to coordinate in the Warband chat."
Haligo nodded along with the other two in their team, "Yeah, good thinking. I can't imagine we're all going to be wailing on the big guy. Some kind of adds mechanic maybe?"
Bellatrix shrugged, "I've never seen an event this big..."
Bill's character, Quietus, shook his head, "Either way, start the Warband and get healers to group up, uh, over there at the lion statue. We only have 5 minutes left."
Haligo sighed. Okay. Herding cats. Herding one thousand cats. Easy. Tara opened the group content menu and mentally scanned it for the larger group settings, which was at the very bottom. As she looked down for it, she noticed that a red bubble with the number 73 was pulsing urgently on her notifications bar. Her eyes went wide. She opened them and her field of view overflowed with bright red alerts.
Danger! A fire has been detected in your kitchen. Your game session will automatically end in 45 seconds.
Danger! A fire has been detected in your kitchen. Your game session will automatically end in 60 seconds.
They went on like that forever. Quietus caught the expression of pure panic on Haligo's face, and he asked, "What? What is it?"
"Fire! Kitchen! Gotta run! Don't start without me!"
Before any more could be said Tara mentally forced the game to exit.
She pod went dark, but it wasn’t opening. Her AI assistant spoke directly into her mind, “Preparing the quick desynchronization process. Please, do not be alarmed.”
A rapid-fire series of short clips flashed across her eyes. Hallways bending and distorting until the perspective prickled at her brain. Quick transitions from behind her characters eyes to third person views as she jogged in place. A scene of her looking down at plated mitts that melted away to the low-poly representation of her real hands; The ones that were used in the base operating system to represent the user. But there were also some strange visions. A field of a thousand, maybe more, rotating cubes. Planes of colors converged to form a rainbow, and then dispersed. White noise and harsh noise that felt like they were out of sync, somehow. It only lasted a dozen seconds, but Tara didn’t have that long. “Hurry up! Hurry up!” she chanted over and over, until it all stopped.
“Acceptable levels have been met. Thank you for playing Starchaser.”
The pod split and her head swam. The drop out process was already disorienting, and the cloud of smoke rolling in through the slowly expanding crack and flickering orange light blanketing the ceiling quickly sent her reeling. She stumbled out of the pod and sprawled out on the living room floor. She groaned as she saw flames licking out of the top of the partially melted stove top. She crawled along the floor, flung open the cupboard door under the sink, and retrieved the tiny fire extinguisher the landlord had placed there more than two years ago.
She scanned the yellowing sticker on the side of the canister as smoke stung her eyes. It was all nonsense to her in the chaos of the moment. She could feel intense heat prickling at the top of her head. She swore and ripped out the small metal pin at the top of the black plastic handle, pointed the snub nosed canister vaguely at the fire, and squeezed the handle upwards.
A minute later the oven was caked in a foul powder that smelled like boiling vinegar, but at least the fire was out. Tara slumped against the kitchen island with the empty canister between her legs. The fire alarm in the kitchen and hallway behind her blared and the sound felt like someone was trying to crack her skull with a chisel. She forced herself to stand, reached into the mess and turned the oven off, or what's left of it, then grabbed a broom from the pantry and managed to press the battery eject panel on the kitchen fire alarm in one thrust. Not bad for someone who's seeing double, Tara congratulated herself wearily.
The hallway alarm took a few more tries. A few dozen more. But eventually the shrill chirps stopped. She shuffled back to the living room, threw open the windows next to the entryway door, and then flopped onto the couch. She covered her eyes with both hands and begged the world to stop attacking her.
She squinted at the pods from between two fingers. Was it crazy that she thought she might be able to hop back on before that giant monster died? She groaned as her stomach did a backflip inside of her. She turned to Shelby's pod. It was humming along, completely unaffected by the turmoil. You... you and your stupid cakes.
She kicked the couch furiously, screaming into the cushions. Okay. OKAY! I'm fine. Crisis averted. Fire contained! It's all going to be okay. She stood up and took a deep breath. The smoke was mostly dissipated and she was feeling better. 33%, at least. The wreckage wasn't going anywhere, but her chance to be one of the first people to experience a World Boss event in Starchaser was disappearing by the minute. She should at least log on and tell her friends what happened. Then she could sleep. What a waste...
She sat down and let the pod quick-resume. The game flashed through its startup screen before stalling out in pitch darkness. A small, plain text prompt floated at eye-level.
Unable to connect to server. Error code: 1901. Access to server has been denied.
Tara stared for a minute, dumbfounded. I’m locked out? She looked at the system time. She should have 2 more hours to play. Tara quickly started a group message with her party:
Message from Tara R. to Dana S., Bill W., and Kimberly C.:
Tara R.: wtf, i can't login.
Tara R.: was there are game message or what
Tara R.: check your messages!!!
Tara R.: HELLO???
Message closed.
Tara opened the chat participants panel. All three of them were offline. What. The. Hell? She sulked out of the pod and opened a text chain on her phone, sending them a less-than-polite version of "I see that you've all gone offline for the night, would you care to fill me in on the details of your unexpected absence at your earliest convenience? I am healthy and safe; in case you were concerned about the unfortunate circumstances that required my attention."
Nothing. She stewed in raw anger for a minute longer before she committed the ultimate act of desperation and called them.
They did not pick up. By the tenth time she had heard "Bill's phone. You know the drill," she had a sick cold knot tangled in her stomach. She glanced towards Shelby's pod with apprehension. She stood and slowly walked over to it. She reached out with one finger and pressed down on the digital handle near the seam. It gave a low, sad beep. It was locked. She didn't even know it could be locked. She opened her phone and started a message with Shelby. The status message under her name read:
Shelby Baker is currently offline.