Currently, I am inside the living room, reading a book while Selena is watching some TV. It was my last visit to the doctors since I am officialy retired, so I won't be needing their help anymore. They even went as far as to beg me to let them change my eyes, but of course, I refused. They also said it was ok for me to try out VR as long as I don't stay in too much, although I have a sneaking suspicion that they tried to make it sound like it's ok for me to stay alot of time in VR, just so that I would have to come back to them.
As Selena was browsing through the TV channels, she stumbles upon a news channel, just as they were transitioning to their newest show, news about VR world. She immediately got interested and kept watching on.
"Hello ladies and gentlemen," starts a handsome male reporter " and welcome to our daily update about VR world," continues a pretty young woman in a slightly revealing dress.
"My name is Tom Sparrow" The male smiles and winks at the camera, which makes Selena frown in contempt.
"And my name is Louis Angela" The woman does a courtsy towards the camera. How do I know all this? Well, I am intently watching too.
"Today we have a very interesting topic to talk about, don't we Louis?" Tom turns towards louis, and starts having a normal conversation, completely ignoring the camera like a professional.
"Yes indeed Tom, from today, there are only 24 hours left until the most hyped about game EVER, will be released. And of course, I bet you know what I am talking about." Louis does the same, and smiles at Tom while doing her best to sound pumped up.
"That I do, Louis. In just 24 hours, the one and only RoyalRoadl will be finally released. But tell me Louis, why is this game so famous among the VR community?" Tom asks with a fake confused face, spreading his arms at the last part.
"Well Tom, besides the fact that it's the first MMORPG in VR, it does something that makes it very unique, and that is a couple of different things, and among those things are the abilities to do the following. Choose your own faction also CREATE your own faction later on in the game, choose your own race with near limitless choices, have a custom class made for you and only you, besides trying to conquer fortresses you can also dive into the different dungeons that randomly spawn across the globe and last but not least, the ability to conquer a fortress even though you have no faction. Yes, you heard it right, anyone and I mean anyone can conquer a fortress. I have heard that even monsters can do that making that fortress in a castle style dungeon." Louis finishes saying that in only one breath, showing that the word professional isn't just for show.
"Well Louis," Tom begins but stops with a confused face as he suddenly puts to fingers to one of his ears. You can clearly see that he's listening to someone through a headset. "Ladies and gentlemen, while I would love to continue talking about this I just recieved the information that the game has released an official trailer!" Tom says while gradually rising his voice, obviously shocked and pumped up.
Louis gasped, "You're kidding!" she puts her hands over her mouth and stares wide eyed at Tom.
"I kid you not Louis, in fact, we are going to play it right now!" And the screen changes to a black screen with a 10 second countdown. Once it hits 0 the screen changes again.
The camera starts fixated on a bug, walking around peacefully on the ground when all of a sudden we hear a shrill cry and the bug is eaten by a bird, there from the camera changes to the bird's perspective as it flies away into the sky and we see a ruin standing tall on a hill. Surrounding those ruins were 3 armies, each with their own banner. Red, a scorpion preparing to attack, Green, a deer walking gracefully through the woods and last but not least Blue, a fish, swimming freely in the water. Each of the army camps had 1 km distance between them, and you could feel them glaring at each other like some hawks looking at their next prey. In each of the army camps was one big tent surrounded by medium sized tents which in turn were surrounded by countless small tents. We could see soldiers bustling about, and guards keeping a good eye on their surroundings, suddenly the video goes into fast forward mode and we see the army quickly prepare for a battle. Soldiers getting in formation and siege equipment being pulled here and there. At the same time all 3 armies were prepared, and from somewhere a war horn resounded across the field, and with that all 3 armies became alive at the same time. With a big war cry they started running towards the fortress's walls.
The fortress has 4 gates, each gate facing towards one cardinal point and the armies were heading to it from 3 of them. But something odd happened, instead of attacking each others, the armies were completely ignoring each other, the answer for that soon made itself known. The Fortress suddenly became to life, mighty towers with turrets sprang up in seconds at started shooting like there's no tomorrow towards the armies. The doors of the fortress audibly locked themselves and silhouettes popped up on the walls. On a closer look you could see that those silhouttes were actually golems with bows. The turrets were continously firing off light bolts that looked like plasma, only for them to get deflected by a dome shaped shield on top of each army, but you could see that their mages were being strained.
Thankfully for the mages, they didn't have to keep the shield up for long, since they quickly arrived at the gates and started battering them with a battering ram. Ironically, the armies managed to breach the gates at the exact same time and all hell broke loose. The 3 armies met in the middle of the fortress's streets, which is a big plaza with a fountain in the middle. In that fountain was the statue of a figure holding a key. I say figure because it was a male mixed between a devil and an angel, it had an angel wing and beautiful face on one part and a horn and a leathery wing on the other side, while the camera was fixed on that statue, on the screen some words appeared.
IT'S TIME TO FORGE YOUR OWN PATH IN THIS UNFORGIVING WORLD. WILL IT BE ON A ROAD OF FIRE?
, at that the camera fixates on a man with red robes and a mage hat, holding an equally crismon wand towards an enemy, all of a sudden a giant fire snake appears, pouncing to that enemy, swallowing him in one single bite.
WILL YOU OVERWHELM YOUR ENEMIES WITH THE POWER OF WATER?
, now the camera fixates on a woman in blue robes, tightly wrapped around her hourglass figure, blue witch hat and an equally blue wand. All of a sudden a humongous wave appears in front of her, pushing dozens of swordsmen and mages alike on the nearby walls,
WILL YOU CRUSH YOUR ENEMIES WITH THE MIGHT OF THE EARTH?
,
now the camera fixates on a mountain of a man, shirtless, leather pants and an armband on his arm. As he is about to get hit by the wave, he slams his foot into the earth, rising a huge wall, completely nullifying the wave. After that he collapses the wall and stones around him start to tremble as he raises his arms.
All of a sudden, peebles and boulders alike shoot towards him, making an armor and a hammer of complete stone around him, and now he proceeds to squash every enemy that gets close to him.
OR WILL YOU SWIFTLY KILL ALL YOUR ENEMIES WITH THE SPEED OF WIND?
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
, now the camera fixates on the statue in the fountain, that is now kneeling hunched over the key. His wings tremble and flutter, and he visibly twitches everytime someone dies, as if he feels their pain. All of a sudden he rises with a savage howl, expanding his wings to their full wingspand, shooting tornadoes of air in all directions, stopping all action in the whole fortress. Soldiers of each army were flying everywhere, only 3 persons were left standing besides the statue.
One man in a full plate crismon armor. He had a helmet that covered his whole face, but you could see fiery red eyes through the slits and you could feel battle lust emanating from his whole being. He had only some gauntlets, so you could see that he was using his raw power to fight. The 2nd person was a man in brown robes with golden edges. He had a staff that looked so old that it could break at any moment, but by the way it was stabbed in the ground and was holding the man despite the whole wind, you could clearly see that it would hurt alot to get hit by something like that.
He looked like an old man, but by the look full of vigor from his eyes, you could tell that he still had enough kick in himself.
And last but not least, the last one standing was a man in blue light plate armor, with a sword and a shield in his hand, he was slightly crouching with his shield in front of him to protect himself from the wind, but even from that position his entire being was emanating power, as it he was saying ''don't underestimate me''.
Seeing those persons still standing, the enraged statue throws the key towards the sky, where it starts floating in a bubble, and he focuses on the 3 persons that dare defy him. The battle with the statue ends pretty quickly, but the effects of the battle on the fortress are devastating. And at the long last, the statue gives a last howl of pain, before shattering into sand and dissipating in the wind.
Though the battle was short, you could see that the 3 persons were tired. If you're curious about the armies, each and every one of them are ok. After the statue dissapeared every soldier appeared outside the fortress's walls completely fine, but they were blocked from entering inside by a magic wall and they couldn't fight each other becuase whenever one of them tried, they would fall to the ground as if the world was pressing him against itself.
Back to the 3 persons, now tired, they were looking at each other, waiting for one of them to make an opening.
Suddenly the bubble broke and the key fell down in the middle of the circle they had made. They were all hungrily looking at it, but all of a sudden a bug falls on the key. They all look at it confused, and all of a sudden they hear a shrill cry and a bird dives down and eats the bug, taking the key along with it.
Suddenly the barrier around the fortress shatters, and a huge text appears over the fortress saying
WINNER, AVIAN RACE, DUE TO WINNER RACE, FORCED EVOLUTION TO A SENTIENT BEING ENSUES.
Suddenly the the bird is grabbed by a magic strand from the castle of the fortress, and is dragged inside from where you can hear the desperate cries of the bird. Everyone was looking stupefied at the screen, until all 3 leaders fall on their backs at the same time and....they start laughing. Soon after the armies start laughing too, until you could hear the laughter from 10 kilometers away.
The screen blacks out and the next words appear
WHAT WILL YOUR PATH BE? RULERS BUILD
, suddenly the view changes to a mega city seen form a bird's view, the streets were teeming with human activity and you could see that it's an important city of a very wealthy country/faction.
AND TYRANTS DEVOUR
, now the camera changes again to a dark city, with a huge castle in the middle.
The castle had jagged towers that looked like saws, and the sky was constantly covered by dark clouds. You could see the citizens of the city, rushing about without much interaction, with dark expressions and ignoring pleading beggars. And then the video ends.
The tv changes again, fixated on Louise and Tom.
"Wow....just WOW" Tom says, taking his eyes away from the screen the video played on, and looking at Louise.
"I couldn't have said it better Tom...." Luise says, while taking her eyes from the screen too.
"Well I think that will be all for today ladies and gentlemen,'' says Tom after looking at his clock. "it would seem we ran out of time."
"Thank you for watching our news this week too, and we'll be sure to come with more informations next week, until then, have a nice game!" Louise snaps out of her daze, and recites an obviously memorized message. And then the news go back to normal daily life stuff from the smiling faces of Tom and Louise.
"That was amazing...." Selena mutters.
I slip back on my chair without her noticing, and pretend to continue reading the book.
"Yes, it was indeed." I reply to her mutter, making her head whip towards my direction.
"What are you talking about old man, you talk as if you saw the whole video" Selena asks with a smirk, trying to get a reaction out of me yet again.
"You underestimate my powers young girl." I say in a mysterious voice. She just rolls her eyes and focuses on the TV again.
The evening passes like this, and then we go to sleep.
---- In the middle of the night -------
My eyes flash open, and I silently get out of my bed. I slowly and soundlessly go through my house and equip the armor I had hidden behind the fridge, along with the weapons. I put my sunglasses on (yeah you guessed it, it's Albert lol) and exit the house through a hidden door. I sneak up behind the person that was hiding in a bush just outside my house. It was a woman laying on her stomach, using some binoculars to look through the window inside my room. I point my gun at the back of her head and audibly load it. She vizibly tenses up.
"Turn around slowly." I hiss in a cold voice. She fidgets at that and slowly turns on her back while trembling. As she turned around, I noticed her clothes.
She was wearing a one piece suit and had a motorcycle helmet next to her, along with a suitcase, most likely holding a weapon. She also had a face mask. So it was her that I heard stopping while I was watching the trailer with Selena.
"Who sent you?" I hiss again. She twitches and puts her hands up in defeat while avoiding eye contact.
"I a-am Elite Unit, Lorena. I-I was tasked with guarding your residence M-Mister Albert."
Lorena says while pointing at a pocked from her one piece, in which I could see she was holding a card. I snatched the card away, making her flinch at my ruthlessness and I saw Neil's business card.
-END OF CHAPTER 2-