Colm found himself in a pile of rubble, shaking his head. The other players were shouting and screaming, taking other people out of the area or running away from that thing.
That thing that was a short distance from Colm was a sprawling black tree that stretched heavenward, past the clouds. He collected himself and got up. There were other players standing at a distance and calmly watching the tree. It might be best to ask people who weren’t panicking. So he walked over to them and asked what it was.
A woman answered. She was shorter than him, with white, bob-cut hair. “You’re new here, aren’t you?” She stared at the tree. “That’s a Korvel. Biggest goddamn tree I’ve ever seen. Certainly beats all the other trees in the other areas. You stay away from it as far as possible, it’s gonna get ugly in the next several months.”
“What do you mean?”
She turned to Colm. “You really don’t know anything,” she said. “Never seen it on TV? Online?”
“I didn’t have the time for it.”
“Well, the Korvel attracts monsters. Really bad ones underneath the earth, but sometimes from other dimensions. Usually, low-ranked players can dispatch a Korvel in under a day, but this one looks different. For one, it’s thousands of times taller, so it’ll only attract high-ranked players in the area. I’d run now as fast as I can if I were you. And sleep in a hole where monsters can’t reach me.” She sighed. “Damn it. There goes the recruitment. I’d say it’s bad manners to wear a helmet while you’re talking to someone, but keep that on for now.”
The earth rumbled underneath them. “Is that a monster too?” He asked.
The player paused, thinking about it. Then she reached for her anti-grav boards. In the distance, black spires rose to the sky. “Worse,” she said. “It’s bringing an environment from the other dimension down here. We need to get out of here ASAP.”
She ran away, and Colm followed.
He remembered using anti-grav boards back then. It was an expensive thing which required regular maintenance and turned to a liability. When his mother disappeared, he was about to enter the local tournament and realized he wouldn’t have any money to eat. He sold it, and he had never been able to buy one ever since.
Now, as he jumped to his anti-grav board and followed the player, muscle memory kicked in. He saw easier paths they could take and the topography of the area seemed to unfurl in his sight.
He liked it. They surfed across the flat sands as the earth rumbled underneath them. Over a dozen other players were surfing along with them.
There was a flash in the sky and the sands shifted to deep black.
All the other players immediately stopped. Colm looked around and asked what was happening.
“Shit,” the player said, and pointed. “It started.”
And he saw it too. In the distance was a debris field of ancient structures stretching like a wall. Several spherical portals emerged in the area, and monsters started to seep out of it.
“Quick question,” Colm said. “If I die, what’ll happen?”
“You’ll lose all you have and there’s a 7-day respawn time.”
That spelled bad news. He wouldn’t have anything to earn. Well, it wasn’t like he would earn something now, but he learned that he had to find a safe place to store his avatar while he was logged out.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Colm realized that the longer he waits up here, more monsters would spill through the portals and make it more difficult to get to the other side.
He thought about offering the player for credits so he could act as bait and being in the front. It was only a game anyway, and this was only a bonus way of earning the money. But what if he disappointed them and died while he was navigating the debris? As bait, more monsters might claw at him first, and while he wasn’t entirely opposed to the idea of earning credits however they may be, dying would be too much of a risk.
While he was thinking about it, another player walked closer to the woman. “We have to move now,” the man said. “We can’t stay here forever. My team and I can move in the frontline and divert the monsters,” Then, he added, “For the right price.”
The player pursed her lips. There was a short discussion with the other players, but she and a few other players gave them around 1000 credits each. There were five of them in the front lines.
Colm cringed back, realizing he should’ve made that offer. But he was a new player, and he didn’t know how different surfing in the game and in the streets.
The woman turned to Colm. “You stay at the far back with the other less experienced players. It’s safer.”
Colm steeled himself. “I’ve been surfing the streets. I can act as bait.”
“No. No, you won’t.”
Colm gritted his teeth and grouped up with the other players. There was a downhill slope before reaching the debris field, which meant his speed would explode, which could make it harder to turn and spin his board.
He sighed. Another player chimed up with him. “Don’t sweat it. It’s better to be safe back here.”
“I know,” he said.
“How many players do you think will die in the front?”
Hopefully all of them, Colm thought, then quickly scratched that out of his mind. “Hopefully we all survive.”
They descended the slope at increasing speeds, and as Colm got closer to the ancient debris, his mind raced to a focus, and all sound drowned out. It always happened when he was surfing the streets. Every obstacle was a small puzzle, and his executions relied on his quick thinking and body coordination.
A thought occurred to him. What if he could prove he was worth that 1000 credits?
As they burst through the debris, Colm immediately sped up his anti-grav board to the middle of the group. He surfed from one side to another, from one street to jumping across an obstacle, or sliding past the large structures in the middle of the street. A few other player slammed and lost balance, and now there were fewer of them.
Then the monsters jumped in. They were pure, glowing white. They shredded across the black sands roaring, with jaws agape and full of razor sharp teeth. They looked like crocodiles. One of them caught the line and clamped down on a few players and chased the group. The frontline players spread out and distracted the giant monsters, but it wasn’t enough.
Colm sped up to the female player until he was next to her.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she said. “You’ll get us caught in an accident!”
“There’s monsters chasing us from the back,” he said. “I can distract them, slow them down so they don’t hunt and overwhelm the slower players.”
If he could distract them, the other player’s team time spent distracting the monsters would slow them down, which in turn would make the other monsters hunt them. The least Colm could do was diver their attention somehow.
“Then do it!”
Now comes the hard part. “I know this is a bad time but—500 credits in advance and 500 if we survive it.”
She seemed stunned, and it did not make him feel any better. She glared at him. “No advance, newbie. I’ll give you 2000 credits if you survive through the entire ordeal.”
Colm cursed. “Fine,” he said, and slowed down. Now he couldn’t afford to die.
Colm whistled at the monsters at the back, then he got too close enough that one of them almost chomped at him. Then, to their surprise, he quickly swerved to the side and away from the group, but keeping their pace. He slid the board through a gap and used the momentum to jump back to it. He entered through an open door then dived out of the window, using the anti-gravity to raise over his chest level. He was liking this.
He crossed over higher platforms, used walls to propel himself, while monsters bumped against each other and roared. When he caught up to the group again, they crossed to the open field of black sand The monsters didn’t chase them out here.
The group was cut down to about a dozen, nothing more. Colm sped up to the player.
“I lost them,” he said. “Are we done?”
“Take a look,” she said.
Rift portals started popping out. As it turned out, an open area was a recipe for disaster. Monsters could move, and they were all getting surrounded bit by bit.
“We’re gonna die out here,” she said, sighing.
And lose that 2000 credits? Colm spoke up. “Can we get through one of the portals?”