Chapter 11 (If there’s a will, there’s a way)

All eyes were left upon the figure at the back of the group. His hands were equipped with metal gauntlets, a chain dangled from the side. The man turned towards his comrades,

“Let’s keep going shall we?” Tomas asked in a awfully cheerful way. His comrades formed an overly comedic O shaped mouth. But soon, they were away again.

“How’d you do that?” Dan soon voiced everyone’s thoughts as the group slowly, carefully proceeded.

“Yeah, I thought merchant’s couldn’t fight.” Andrew piped in. He let a glance at Tomas then at J then turned back his head towards the front.

“Ah… well you see, that’s where this comes in.” Tomas replied and everyone looked back at him, expectations were high across their faces. Tomas slowly lifted his hand, and tapped the side of his head. A look of annoyance and disappointment flooded their faces as they returned to their task.

“This is a secret, I’m not sure if anybody else knows, but I doubt more than a handful of people know.” This caught everyone’s attention as the group stopped and surrounded Tomas.

“Go on….” Andrew queried.

“First off, lets find the stairs to the last level first. Then we don’t have to face those.” Tomas pointed in front of the group, whose backs were now facing the way forward. They immediately turned around as roars filled the area around them.

“Here.” A sword was tossed at J, he caught it in mid air. “Nice. Use it.” Tomas gestured. He noticed the suspicious look on J’s look and added, “Trust me, merchants can fight too.”

“Lets go!” Dan yelled to the group as they met head to head with the monsters. This wave was incomparable to before. All 3 types of monsters in the dungeon were present here, and they totalled around 20.

The main force battled through the monsters, but they were overwhelmed quickly, surrounded on all sides. 3 wolf-like monsters slipped past them and turned their attention to Tomas and J. He flashed a smile at J and charged at them. At the same time, a monster jumped at him only to be met with a giant silver gauntlet in its face. The other 2 growled fiercely. One quickly turned its attention to J jumped at him.

J ducked and avoided it. ‘Can I really kill him?’ he thought in his mind. It wasn’t a question of could he, rather should he? He quickly flash Tomas a glance and saw him battling the 2 wolves, punches after punches. J shrugged his shoulders, “what the hell…” he softly whispered under his breath. The wolf jumped at him once again, its mouth wide opened, saliva dripping from its jaws. In a swift motion, J bought his left hand up and sliced the wolf cleanly in half, right down the middle. “Meh…”

J returned his attention to the others, to find that they had also pretty much taken care of everything and was just finishing off. He walked towards Tomas to join back with the group, but caught a glint of a glare. He stopped and turned to look at Tomas, whose gaze was filled with suspicion. Then it changed into a smile as quickly as the wolf was sliced by J.

“Nice one.” Tomas said and walked towards the group. J paused for a little, ‘it can’t be…’ his eyes narrowed ‘does he know?...’ he slowly trailed behind Tomas.

At last, after a few more battles, they had finally reached the last floor of the dungeon. They were currently standing on the stairs, the girls were sitting down on the steps and the guys were leaning on the walls. All pairs of eyes were focused on Tomas. He smiled a little and coughed.

“Alright. So basically, when I started playing I was amazed at how real this all was. I mean, everything about it. Touch, taste, smell..” His hand gestured to objects, the air as he said so.

“Yeah yeah, that’s the same with every VR game. Get to the point.” Dan interrupted.

“But it’s not is it? When I was in here, I felt something. Something different than just a game. I don’t know what it is, but I’m sure you’ve felt it too.” He looked at the members of the group one after another.

Now that he’d mentioned it, the people who played similar games before were deep in thought. They too had a gut feeling they couldn’t put off, that this game was different. But they couldn’t quite put a finger on it.

“So I tested it. Pushed the game to its boundaries.”

“What do you mean?” Andrew asked as he broke away from his thoughts.

“I tried a lot of things. Stupid things you wouldn’t think of at first. Eating random things that shouldn’t be eaten, not following the recipes on the skills, just trying different theories. See how far the game takes us.” He paused a little to watch the eyes of everyone. Then continued, “And I found something interesting.” He crouched down. “From what I’ve learned so far, I don’t think there are limits to the game.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” This time, Sarah who was silent throughout the dungeon spoke. Her face, confused.

“That you could literally do whatever you want.” He looked at their faces, none showed comprehension. J stood on a step a little lower than the others, then it hit him.

‘No way…’ His expression changed, Tomas took notice and smiled.

“So? It’s an open world, of course we can.” Gwen piped in, not understanding what he meant.

Tomas was filled with a delighted expression. A genius always loved to show his knowledge, his work, his pride. “Yes but I mean everything.” He took out a red potion from his bags and handed it to Gwen. “What is it?”

Gwen took it in her hands, looked at it from side to side. “A health potion?” she asked/answered. Normal adventurers do not really know how to distinguish the same potions. Not that they needed to, the only thing important was how much it recovers.

Andrew took the potion from Gwen, looked at it all the same and nodded. The potion was passed around until it came to J. He took the potion in his hand, and noticed Tomas’ flashing smile at him. He took the potion and eyed it suspiciously. Then his eyes widened. ‘No way… so its true…’ The inference J got from Tomas previously was now proven. He couldn’t help but smile himself too.

Tomas noticed that J understood, he eyes shone with a light as bright as the sun. The others noticed the rare change of expression on J’s face and sent him a questioning look.

“What is it?” Sarah asked, causing J to realize the looks of the group.

“Potions are categorized into 3 categories. Health, mana and buffs.” J explained. “There are then different types of each, small, medium, large, great and divine. Each varying in types of recovery.” The group nodded at his explanation. “But its not all that simple either. When an alchemist makes a potion, depending on his skill level, the recovery can vary. But the name of the potions are mostly the same in each type. There aren’t that many different names of potions in each type. But this name… I’ve never heard of it.” He said as he looked at the potion once again, his gaze then looked up and travelled to Tomas.

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“That’s because I created it.” A devilish smile appeared on his face. The others couldn’t quite understand but J knew what he meant. Tomas attempted to explain, “I CREATED it.” He put an emphasis on it.

“You mean the potion?” Dan asked unsure of what he himself meant.

“Yes but also the recipe.” This caused a load of blank looks from the group, apart from J. “Now do you understand? There are no limits in this game.” One by one, the looks of clouded expressions were cleared. Realization dawned on their faces as they knew the severity of this revelation.

“You… you mean we can create things? That aren’t in the game?” Andrew said as he rested his hand on his chin in deep thought.

“Yes. I tried a thousands of different combinations of herbs and finally got this. It wasn’t in any recipe provided in the game.” Tomas explained.

“But… that… maybe its just a recipe you didn’t know?” Claire chimed in nervously, a little unsettled by the revelation.

“I thought that as well, that’s why I tried it with different things.” He stood up from seat on the steps and suddenly two gauntlets appeared on his hand. “The biggest finding was this.” He looked at the gauntlets as he indicated them with his eyes.

“I found that anyone could become any profession they wanted.” Once again, the looks of the group showed they did not understand. “You could learn other skills from other professions. Like me, I’m a merchant, but I can raise my strength, attack stats. And I can put on armour.” His body was then equipped with chainmail and vambraces. “Like I said… there are no limits.” A pause of silence continued for several minutes. Everyone realized the gravity of the information that Tomas has just explained.

“So you mean… I could learn magic?” Andrew broke the silence.

“Yes, and no.” He held up his hand to prevent Andrew from asking, he then continued, “What I’ve realized is, I’m not sure why yet, but some people can’t learn certain things. But I don’t think it’s the game system that’s preventing it. More like the person just… didn’t have a knack for it. I found magic is especially hard to incorporate with other skills.” He paused for it to sink it. And pointed to Andrew. “Like you for example, an archer. My theory is, you could probably learn some of the skills from a thief. Or practice how to handle a sword even.” Andrew sat back and leaned himself against the stairs.

“Wow…” he breathed out. “If this is true…” Everyone looked on as they delved into their own world of thoughts.

“Melee skills is easier to learn, as long as you train for it, you can use it.” Tomas finally concluded, everyone nodded. They sat in silence for a good 15 minutes as they all thought about the ideas Tomas planted into their heads.

Help…, a cry flew through the dungeon and broke everyone from their thoughts. They immediately grabbed their weapons and ran down the stairs towards the location of the scream. They ran fast past several mobs of monsters which followed them. Occasionally they deflected their attacks, but their pace never slowed. Help… the sound came again as the dungeon vibrated fiercely like an earthquake around them. The noise soon died down, but the tremor only got bigger and bigger. They turned the corner and saw a massive door that was opened.

“This is the first stage of the boss.” Dan turned his head to explain but never stopped running. “On this dungeon, you must pass through 3 of these rooms until you reach the room of the boss.”

They entered through the door to see a massive hall like space, pillars spanned on the two sides of the wall. Torches kept the place lit up well.

“What the hell…” Dan spoke and everyone turned their gaze in the direction they were looking at. Through the hall, they could see another door, opened. And through that door, another opened door. And through that door, a massive minotaur was in combat with a group of people retreating. “How…” Dan whispered under his breath then charged. His question remained on everyone’s mind. A boss was never meant to be able to leave his room. The group followed as mobs of monsters trailed behind them.

They met the fight as the other group retreated into the second room with the boss. As they got closer to the boss, they could notice 3 adventurers. A girl magician at the back, and 2 guys who were fighting against the minotaur. At first, the girl’s expression cheered up as she saw the group enter the room. But then soon dyed a black, hopeless depression as she noticed the mobs of monsters behind the group. They must have numbered at least at 40.

“You guys help them fight the boss! I’ll take the mobs for a run and draw their attention! NOW!” Dan yelled as he let out his skills and taunted the mobs. Claire casted a spell of speed without a second wasted. Their teamwork was astounding. He immediately ran in the opposite direction around the room with mobs of monsters at his heel. It looked a little ridiculous and comedic.

Meanwhile, the group was had joined the fight with the minotaur. But it was a losing battle. The remaining two men left on the other group was certainly no tank. They dressed like a thief and a dueller. A little after they joined the battle, they both perished from the minotaurs attack. It was fruitless, they had no tank.

As the group desperately tried to attack whilst avoiding the minotaur’s blows, J quickly ran up to the girl.

“What class are you?!” He yelled over the noise of the battle. The girl’s expression was in a state of shock at the lives of her friends. “WHAT CLASS ARE YOU?! WHATS YOUR LEVEL?!” J bellowed which awoke the girl, she didn’t know whether to be afraid of the minotaur or the ashen expression of J.

“..En…enchanter… 89…” she replied, fear in her voice.

“Perfect.” He said. “How much mana do you have? Enough for two big spells?” The girl nooded. A smile slowly spread on his face.

"Good, I have a plan."

*Hi Blancq here. I started writing a second story. If you could find the time and heart to, please read it :)

The title: Link