Chapter 002

Sisters

Home from school, Lily fell backwards onto her bed, using her heel to pry the shoes off her feet. Immediately the smell of unwashed socks filled the room causing her to wrinkle her nose. As she lay in her own stink, contemplating if it was bad enough to get up and do a load of laundry, her door burst open.

“Jesus Lily!”, her sister Amy blurted out, “You need to burn those socks! Gross!”.

Lily rolled her eyes and flipped over onto her stomach, “What do you want?”

“Sarah and Alice are coming over after school tomorrow for Release Day! I am so excited!”

Sarah is Amy’s best friend. She is an irreverent smart-ass, tough as nails and jokes about anything with no concept of political correctness. She would be considered plain, but her personality sets her apart from the crowd.

She is always quick to defend others and hates bullies. She comes across as a big in your face feminist, always talking about women's rights. Nasty rumors of her being a dyke tend to surface every few months, but Sarah ignores them and they are quick to fade.

Alice is in the same class as both Amy and Sarah. It was Sarah who convinced Alice to join the group as a way to break out of her shell and get away from a controlling ex. Alice is a shy girl with a clear case of hero worship towards Sarah.

“I was hoping you had a chance to look at the Dark Realms website and pick a race and class? Sarah is going to be a fighter and Alice a rouge.”

“Yea, Half-Elf... Mage ..”

Lily shook her head abruptly, “No. No. No. I said we all have to be human so we can start in the same city! If you are a half-elf you will start halfway across the world!”

“Sorry Sis, all you want me to do is haul stuff around and help you with your quests like last time. This time I am going to have my own character and I love the way the half-elves look, so that’s what I am going to play!”

About 3 and a half years ago, Amy discovered Online MMORPGs, fell in love and became an avid gamer. When she started playing Black Desert Online, she was invited into one of the larger guilds and ended up pressuring Lily to try it out with her.

Lily had no experience with video games, so she let Amy take the lead and set everything up. She ended up playing a Blonde Ranger named LadyLilyKins.

It started out fun at first. She was the center of attention as Amy’s group power leveled her. Amy told her where to place her stats, what skills to focus on and exactly what to do. Unfortunately it soon became apparent that her role was to stand in the back and add extra damage to hard fights. Oh, and to carry extra loot for Amy.

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She never really felt like a real member of the group, just an extra set of backpack slots. Often Amy’s guild would have a full group and Lily would be tasked to simply follow behind them so they could trade out their junk items for her to carry.

Things came to a head when she saw an amazing black haired sorceress shooting purple bolts of death and taking on large groups of monsters by herself. She told Amy that's the character she wanted to play.

Amy told her no, the guild had invested too much time in her already and now she owed them.

Amy called Lily out over guild chat and embarrassed her in front of the entire guild, calling her ungrateful and a child. Humiliated and hurt, Lily backed down, like she normally would. However something changed inside her, the freedom of being in a fantasy world allowed her to find a spark of rebellion.

Over the next few sessions, while the group was in a hard fight, she would shoot an arrow and aggro (anger) distant groups of monsters, which would then rush over to join the fight. She would laugh to herself as members of her group were killed. Several times the entire group was wiped and lost valuable time and experience.

Of course, after the slumber party incident with Melissa, Lily quit the game and drifted apart from everyone, including Amy.

“What's so special about half-elves”, Amy asked, “Sure they have a bonus to magic, but they are social outcasts and suffer negatives on all social encounters with the majority of NPCs.”

“They have unique customization options.” Lily replied. “Pale skin, black hair and amazing ears. In the character creator. I want to make an amazing vampire-looking character.”

Amy groaned, “Ugh, you are such a noob. You need to plan how to min/max your character, not spend all day on her appearance.”

“I don’t care…”

“Well you better care” Amy warned. “because its is a long way from the Elven Forests to the Human starting towns and we can’t wait around for you. By the time you get to us we will have jumped ahead on levels.”

“It will be fine, we can play separately the first few days. Dark Realms only allows you to have the one character and this time I am going to pick someone who represents me.”

Amy sighs, “I get it, I really do, but a half-elf? This isn’t like other games. Races don’t freely mix. Being a half-elf means your elven mother was raped by a human.”

“So?”

“Dark Realms is brutal! Half-elves are second class citizens. Many cities refuse access to half-elves, or keep them in special slums. Merchants can refuse to offer their services, or raise rates to cheat you. Many of the early quests are race specific, so you will find it much harder to level.”

Lily took a moment to consider Amy’s words. Everything she said was true, the game seemed to pride itself on not being fair. Several conservative groups had taken to Fox News to complain about the game and it's dark content. The fact that most of the hate and intolerance was a thinly veiled jab at modern conservatives seemed to have been lost on the majority of the protesters.

Lily’s expression hardened, “I get it! But my mind is made up! Once I level up and get out of the starter towns, none of that will matter anymore.”

“Okay, fine, but why a Mage? What about a nice Cleric?”

Lily sneered, “And be your personal healer? I don’t think so. I want magic! Powerful, flashy magic. Lightning, Fire, Death and Minions .. lots of Minions!”

“Fine! Do it the hard way, but just remember, we will not wait for you. If you want to screw around and waste your time, I won’t stop you.”

Amy looked Lily up and down, “And take a shower! You reek!” She left without another word.

Lily got up and headed towards the shower, dirty socks and pushy sisters forgotten. Her thoughts were on the future; she was 18 now and soon and everything would change.