Markane was just a regular 16 year old highschooler. He went to school, joined clubs, and went to parties. He wasn't spectacular nor was he below average. He enjoyed playing MMO games as his hobby and that was what most people knew about him. However, he did have one particular hobby that most people didn't know about.
Myths. Stories about Gods, demons, and otherworld creatures were the sort of things he was interested in. After all, reading about things which could not normally exist in real life was far more interesting. He had read about all sorts of creatures and spirits, but what attracted him most was the Cthulhu Mythos. The numerous creatures and beings that existed in the Mythos interested Markane far more than anything he had ever read before.
This was also related to his addiction to MMOs. He was the sort of person who would choose to be a Warlock, Undead, or Demon in an MMO if it were possible. Preferably, the most stereotypical 'evil' race if he could. This was not out of a desire to be the strongest character, but more for his aesthetics. So when he heard that WorldEnding, a MMO with a wide variety of races, was coming out, he went out and bought the game.
The initial races involved humanoids, monsters, and spirits. The humanoids were the most picked race and were ideal for increasing one's abilities like skills and spells. This was because one could not improve as a human and could focus on more advanced classes like the Warlock. The monsters were a race that could improve their physcial or magical attributes as they increased their levels. They could also take classes, but it meant sacrificing increases in stats. Finally, spirits. Spirits had enormous amounts of stats and resistances, as well as inborn abilities and could learn more as they increased in levels, however there were consequences. They were not allowed to take classes or wear and use equipment. This was a huge penalty. To counter it though, they had resistances which far surpassed the other two races which make it diffciult to kill them. An example was if a Boss dealt fire damage, a Spirit Race that was 100% immune to fire would take 0 damage, while a regular humanoid would have to rely on equipment to lower damage. In addition, all Spirit Races had physical immunity which meant pure physical damage had no effect on them, however enchanted weapons or special skills could inflict damage on them.
Markane had read on the forums that if one went along the Spirit Race route, they could become a variety of beings. It was mainly divided up into six categories. Earth Spirits, Water Spirits, Fire Spirits, Wind Spirits, Light Spirits, and Dark Spirits. The 6 Races had preference for one particular element which granted immunity to that element and gave them abilities related to it. However, there were specializations within each particular race. For example, the Dark Race had demons, ghosts, devils, evil gods, and creatures from the Cthulhu Mythos.
The Cthulhu Mythos specialization had complete immunity to all the elements except for the Light element, however they did have resistance to it.
Naturally, Markane chose a Cthulhu Mythos Spirit. The Cthulhu Mythos Spirit Race ranked up in the following way. Aberration to Spawn to Elder God to Great Old One to Avatar and finally to Messenger of the Outer God. Upon arriving at each new Race, one was allowed to choose a feature from a particular Outer God to model themselves after. Each would grant abilities, stats, and resistances based on the one chosen. For example, Yog-Sothoth would give one stronger magic stats and magic capabilities for all elements, and Azathoth would give one stronger magic resistances and Darkness magic capabilities. There were a preset number of Outer Gods to model one's character after, however only a character with all of their features chosen from one Outer God would be able to achieve the final evolution Messenger of the Outer God. The problem was that this lead to an over-specialization which wasn't really effective in PVP, but was excellent in Boss Fights and Dungeons.
Nonetheless, Markane or Makanezaroth as his character name was called chose to follow the path of becoming a Messenger of the Outer God specializing in Azathoth. He had a small group of friends that played with him, and he was mostly a tank that relied on Dark spells. Since he could sponge damage and deal a small, but significant amount of passive damage to enemies within a 50 meter radius, he was often on the frontlines.
He had already reached max level and since he could not purchase equipment with the gold he earned, he just bought cosmetics. Cosmetics had no effect in battle, but could change one's chaharcter appearance. Up to a maximum of 5 cosmetics could be used on a single character at a time. Markanezaroth naturally had an appearance of a jet black blob of tentacles that oozed black fluid and released a blackish purple smoke. However, using cosmetics he included large eyeballs and gaping maws scattered across his body, along with a set of large bat like wings, a pair of arms ending with 3 razor-like claws, and finally another set of arms that ended with a serpent's moth filled to the brim with sharp needle like teeth. Most people would call it hideous, but to Malkane it was beautiful.
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He had participated in many of the game's events such as in boss fights and numerous instances. Numerous players knew about him and had worked with him or fought against him in PVP. He was also infamous amongst several of the NPCs in the game. WorldEnding had 6 territories, one for each element. The land of Solarnia had elves and beings inclined towards the light element. Earthnia had the kingdoms of men and other more mundane races. The land of Volcanus was wreathed in fire and brimstone with flame spirits and elementals. The land of Aquise had mermen and creatures of the sea. The land of Aeros was filled with windspirits and the air sprites. Finally, the land of Doomia was a ruined land of evil spirits and demons. Each land had agreements and conflicts with each other. Most species had dislike for the beings of Doomia for they had a tendency to attack the lands of other races. They were also worshipped and summoned by evil cultists which was often the premise for a quest for a character belonging to Doomia.
Markane had participated in raids against the other factions and almost always slew numerous NPCs either by accident due to his passive damage ability or intentionally through an attack. This lead to decreasing his affiliation meter with the other races. The meter determined how friendly one was with other races. If one had a high rating they could visit towns in other cities without being attacked and purchase items at better prices, the opposite was also true. Negative ratings essentially meant that all NPCs would attack on sight. Thus, Malkane did not hesitate to cut paths of destruction across the other countries as they fell prey to him again and again. He even obtained the achievement 'Evil God' for slaying 1,000 NPCs.
He played for hours each week on this game. Today, he had just come back from school and tommorrow was a Saturday, so he planned on gaming the whole night. He played for a whole 9 hours straight before going to sleep. He left his laptop on because he intended to continue in the morning.
However, right as he was falling asleep he saw a white flash.
World of Nakaim - Hidden Ruins of Alvaine
The World of Nakaim could be said to be a mirror copy of the one from WorldEnding. Except, the beings known as NPCs were actual real life people. Long ago, it was the era of the great heroes and the gods. Many powerful and mighty beings fought and slew to gain fame to raise their prestige. But just as there were heroes, there was also evil. The most malevolent of beings, creatures of darkness and terrors once roamed slaying all who stood in their path. However, 1000 years ago, that all changed.
The heroes and gods as well as the evils of the world disappeared. The regular-folk did not know where they had gone, but they recorded down the legends of such beings. Others began worshipping such beings and they were able to draw upon the power of their gods to use their elements to protect themselves and others. Lesser evils began to emerge as well. Those who relied upon the power of the wicked gods and demons in order to oppress and kill others.
The kingdom of Solain was one created from the union of a kingdom from Earthnia and Solarnia had created an order of paladins and magic casters to route out such evil cultists and to protect the peace of the people. However, little did they know that a powerful cult was working in the shadows.
The cult of Darnia was one that relied upon the power of demons and undead to carry out destructive acts on the kingdom. The members required sacrifices of the innocent to appease their demon masters and by laying out their atatcks, they could also weaken their enemies. However, recently they had stolen a particularly rare grimoire from the depths of the kingdom's royal library.
It was known as the Book of Destruction, it held info on the most dangerous and vilest entities in existence. It was even possible to tame and call up the evil gods which once roamed in the past. The cult's leader, Nurmine, had begun preparations to summon forth a being known only as the 'Destroyer'. It was reported that it was an Evil God so powerful that it destroyed countless countries in the past. It was said that any land that the Destroyer walked upon would turn to ruin and despair. The leader planned to unleash it in the capital of the kingdom and had made plans.
The name of the being was Malkanezaroth and there was a warning in the book that said they should not allow any being to cross the pentacle in which it was summoned lest the being escape and bring death to the entire world. Even through Nurmine planned to release the god, but he wanted to do so on his terms and he did not wish for the destruction of the entire world.
But, sometimes things don't workout so well.