A subtle flashing had been going on in the corner of my vision since my escape. It was the achievements icon. I clicked on it, and multiple new achievements appeared in my vision.
New Achievement!
The Most Dangerous Game (Title: The Blooded)
Everyone makes a big deal about the actor-enabled Bosses in this game. Oh, they’re so lifelike. Oh, they make the game so realistic. Oh, they make the dungeons so fresh and difficult.
But you and I know they’re still just scripted-encounter bullshit. Might as well slap some lipstick on your hand and call it your wife.
Everyone that isn’t lying to themselves knows that the true measure of a competitive hunter is the big game. And the bigly-est game of them all is your fellow man.
You’ve tasted that delectable dish now; murdered your first player in cold blood. That man had a family, Ray! Still does, but he did then, too! And then you looted his body, stealing his hard-earned braces money for his second child. You monster!
Just kidding, Osgoth is loaded and that was just his fuck-around cash. Family man or not, Osgoth deserved that corpse run. But if we’re being real, Ysillith is the real psychopath of the pair, and he needs to get put in the ground more than once.
There’s always next time.
Proud of you, boo.
New Achievement!
You Hurt Someone’s Feelings (Title: The Hunted)
Someone got into their feelings a wee bit! A gold bounty has been placed on your head by a member of an opposing faction. Some lil’ bitch who I won’t name and shame has put out a hit on my sweet little Ray-Bae…
Okay, it was Ysillith. I probably just violated HIPAA or something, but fuck it! Who’s gonna stop me?
Ahem, anyways, to recap:
1. Ysillith’s a lil’ bitch
2. There’s a bounty on your head
3. People are gonna be looking to kill you even more than they were already naturally inclined to.
4. And…Ysillith’s a lil’ bitch
But there’s a silver lining! Bounties cut both ways in this game, and if you kill Ysillith, YOU get the bounty he put up! Isn’t that neat?
BONUS: I will personally pay you 1000 gold for every tea-bag you perform over Ysillith’s corpse.
CURRENT BOUNTY: 100,000 gold
(ADMIN NOTE: 1000 gold tea-bag bonus in effect)
CURRENT TEA-BAG COUNT: 0
New Achievement!
I Fought the Law…and the Law Lost (Title: Outlaw)
You got into a tussle with some Town Guards…and you lived! Johnny Law ain’t got shit on you!
Brave of you to fuck with the police in our current political environment. The world’s largest gang doesn’t pull any punches, and their particular brand of curb-stomping justice usually ends in a dead body or three.
But don’t let it get to your head - these were just some low-level outpost scrubs. The Reno 911s of Swords and Sorcery.
Don’t try this at home, kids. Literally. If you aggro the guards in a major city, they WILL push your shit in.
New Achievement!
Player Killer 1x (Title: Soldier)
This is a progressive achievement.
The more enemy players you kill, the greater the titles and rewards. I expect a literal river of blood in the near future, my young disciple, but the first is always the sweetest. Savor this feeling.
Visit your faction’s capitol to turn in the spoils of war for rewards and perks.
(ADMIN NOTE: BigSword didn’t count towards this achievement due to being of the same faction. You already got those achievements big boy.)
I closed out my achievements page. Al was in rare form with those achievements, but I found it hard to appreciate the levity. I had been completely at Ysillith and Osgoth’s mercy for a minute there. There was zero repercussions for them incapacitating me, and if there had been more of them, I would have been dead - no question.
And the tally of close-calls today was steadily rising. My nerves were frayed, and I didn’t know if I could live my life this way. Before this, the most stressful thing in my day-to-day life had been the thought of my next shift, followed closely by the decision on what to eat next. Going from that relatively cushy life - if unfulfilling - to this literal revolving door of near-death experiences was overwhelming.
It’s not like I wanted to give up, but in less than 24 hours, I’d been in a brawl with a GM, faced down corporate lawyers looking to zero me out, nearly drowned while trying to take a shower, been attacked by two max-level players - oh, and literally fucking died, I’m told. Was I a pussy for not handling it that great?
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I shook my head to clear my mind. These kind of thoughts were leading me nowhere. I needed a plan, some sort of purpose, to keep me moving forward. Silver lining, Al had said in one of the achievements. Find a silver lining…
Well, I’m alive - I get a second chance. And, I’m in the most popular game in the world. And, despite what I had said to Al earlier, Swords and Sorcery was a fantastically fleshed out game. Deep world-building, complex mechanics, and a player base numbering in the tens of millions, if not hundreds.
And, I was overpowered. Or, at least, I would be, if I survived.
If I played this right, I could be a major influence in this game. Dungeon clearing, raid progression, PvP dominance - it was all a possibility if I worked on advancing my gear and found a community to support me.
A ping in my chat pulled me from my thoughts. A series of messages from Jeremy were waiting for me. They must have been silenced while I was in combat, because there was a series of them timestamped over the last 20 minutes.
SnotPuppy: dude, u ok? Says ur stunned
SnotPuppy: Ray, bro, wtf?!?! Ur pvp flagged!
SnotPuppy: ur scaring me man. Should I fly back?
SnotPuppy: im assuming ur busy. Hit me bcak as soon as ur done
There was a fifteen minute gap between this message and the next.
SnotPuppy: oh, shit, I dont wanna interrupt w/e ur doing, but u should check out that S&S news site. SwordsAndSorceryCrawler.com or something. Theres some dickweed talking about u
I typed Jeremy back a quick message.
RayGun47: Yo, I’m good. The rogues that ganked you took a pass at me too. But I killed one of them and then they took off. Scared me shitless, but I’m okay.
RayGun47: Who could be talking about me on S&S Crawler?
I sent the message, but the realization hit me right afterwards. There were a handful of people that knew about my situation other than Al and Jeremy. I had my suspicion on who might reach out to a news site dedicated to the game, but I pulled up my browser to check.
On the front page of the largest news site for Swords & Sorcery, the headline read:
S&S Employee Turns Rogue; Murders Customer and Steals His Gold
The text that followed wasn’t much better:
It was a normal day in Swords & Sorcery for Allen Marketh (aka BigSword69). He was reaching the culmination of a questline that all you S&S junkies know well. The quest to get Isabella is the first Companion quest in S&S, and is designed to be a solo quest line. Easy, comfortable, and success guaranteed with enough effort.
So, it was with great shock, when our hero, BigSword69, found himself on the other end of a deadly [Damsel] actor/actress. He had successfully killed the boss, and went to claim his companion, when the actor/actress turned hostile. With zero prompting, the [Damsel] charged BigSword69 in a fit of fury. He was confused, as anyone would be. He tried to flee, reach out to Customer Service, but was mercilessly chased down by this rogue employee. Despite his best efforts, the level 100 Companion beat him to death with her bare hands, shouting obscenities all the while. In BigSword69’s own words:
“I was so scared. She flipped a switch so suddenly, and before I knew it, I was on the ground, begging her to stop. She didn’t kill me right away, you see? She tortured me, breaking my bones and laughing at my pain. I-I’ve never seen anything so evil.
I’m just like you all - just trying to unwind from the stress of the corporate grind. But that employee took that from me. Ruined that outlet, and I don’t know if I’ll ever feel safe in a game again. I…I lost something last night. And I don’t mean the money the employee stole from me. No, I lost something deeper. That sense of wonder we all feel in S&S…it’s gone. I only pray S&S can bring their wild employee to heel…for all our sakes.”
Powerful words from BigSword69. We were unable to reach S&S for comment.
So the question remains, will there be #JusticeForBigSword? Read below to find out!
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I just stared at that last line for a moment. #JusticeForBigSword? They had created a fucking hashtag for this lying scumbag? The heat rose to my face, my heart pounding wildly. I felt an irresistible urge to hit something. I jumped to my feet, turning towards the tree I had been sitting against, and I punched it as hard as I could. The tree swayed drunkenly, but didn’t fall. The skin on my knuckles shredded, the pain a distant thing in my mind. I wasn’t satisfied. I abandoned caution, trudging through the jungle to find the nearest mob to obliterate. Then the next. And the next.
SnotPuppy: u see that hashtag…?
RayGun47: I fucking saw it.
There was a pause, then:
SnotPuppy: its trending…
I annihilated the first mob I saw in a wave of blood and guts that showered the jungle in a ten-meter radius.