As we approached the city gates, a warrior character came running out, apparently just leaving town. He was wielding a dagger and a wooden shield, and his outfit matched the look a level 3 suit of armor gave his class. Apparently the game interpreted my looking at him as the equivalent of a mouseover, because his name showed up above his head: Randy.
He spotted us moments after we spotted him, and we all came to a stop. “Hey girls!” he chatted. “Hi!” and “Hey!” Tori and I replied, respectively. “Do you know how I can access the cash shop? I wanna buy Gentleman Adventurer’s Armor, but I can’t find the store in the interface,” he asked. Tori and I looked at each other. “The cash shop for this game used to be on the website, outside the game client. I’m not sure we can access it in our current state. That is, you’re both inhabiting your characters, too, right?” I asked. “I know I am!” said Randy, and Tori added “Same here”.
The warrior turned away from us, and then back. “You’re sure about the cash shop, though? Dang, this game is going to suck without bonuses!” For all the lack of facial expression in the game, he managed to look disappointed. I smiled internally. “I take it you used to play with cash shop bonuses in the past, then?” I asked. “You bet! Who’s got time for the long way around when a few bucks will get you there quicker!” was his reply. Tori LOLed. “You’re gonna have a bad time,” she added with a grinning smiley face. “I’m sure you’ll be fine,” I said, and followed up with “Would you like to join our party?”
“Sure!” he said, and one invitation and acceptance later, we could see he was level 3. “I died a few times, playing without cash shop armor is nuts!” he chatted. “Just use potions,” Tori pointed out. Randy turned toward her. “I can’t go through potions that fast, I’ll have to go buy new ones every two minutes!” he huffed. Something dawned on me. “You haven’t been fighting in the hell spawn, have you?” A short silence fell. “Hell spawn” refers to a location where the maximum number of monsters spawn. Players usually only fight there with a party of at least five. “What if I have?” Randy asked. Tori LOLed again. “Without cash shop items, you’ll need a strong party to take on the hell spawn,” I explained. “Cool, let’s go then!” was Randy’s reply, and he started running toward the plains. “Wait!” I exclaimed. He came running back.
“We’re not strong enough to be efficient in the hell spawn right now. And Tori and I need to buy and sell first. And I think we should train on a small spawn in Twilight Forest, so we have a chance to get higher level drops.” I chatted. Wonderfully convenient to chat with your thoughts, makes writing walls of text a lot easier. “Uhm, ok. I’ll wait,” Randy said. “We won’t be long,” Tori added. “Just need to get Laila here a decent robe.” “A robe?” Randy said, turning toward me and back to Tori. “I just sold a level 3 robe with priestess class bonus to an NPC!” Now it was Tori’s turn to look back and forth. “This game needs a soundboard with a sad trombone effect,” she chatted. Items sold to an NPC were lost forever in KGO. “Never mind,” I said, “the bonuses are mostly for spellcasting anyway. Let’s get a robe from an NPC and go to Twilight Forest.”
And so we did. Equipment bought from NPCs is usually overpriced and has the worst possible stats for the item in question. Still, the level 3 robe Tori and I bought did wonders for my defense, and finally covered my creepy hands in plain white gloves. Game logic. My dress looked a lot better, though. It now had purple accents and designs, and despite still looking thin and somewhat cheap, at least it wouldn’t be mistaken for a nightgown. Plus I now looked like I was wearing boots, even though I didn’t have any equipped. I love this game.
After buying the robe and selling our useless items (I kept the best light axe for Randy, remembering he appeared to have only a dagger), Tori and I returned to the city gates. Randy was still waiting there. “Say, Randy, I saved a light axe for you. Want to have it?” “Sure! How much?” he said. I blinked. “You can have it for free, I’ll drop it here,” I replied. He picked it up and equipped it. “Much better than the dagger, thanks! You sure you don’t want anything?” he asked. “As long as we’re partying, everything that helps you helps me, so no, I don’t need anything. Besides, I like to help people,” was my reply. “And that, kids, is why Laila became a priestess,” added Tori. Randy chatted a smiley face. “You got me!” I admitted.
We departed for Twilight Forest. This was one of the more ironically named areas in the game, as it featured maybe 30 trees in total, all located in a clump far from any monster spawn. I’ve never been sure, but I suspect that the initial version was full of trees, and playtesting revealed that the game’s camera system was woefully unequipped to handle that. Super Mario 64 style, baby. Anyway, the area featured stronger monsters that dropped equipment up to level 7, which would be a great help if we got lucky.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
On the way, we chatted about the game and how we ended up inhabiting our characters. Tori and Randy had also been visited by a genie in the night, spinning a similar tale about wish-fulfillment. Both were men in their late twenties/early thirties who had played KGO in the old days, just like me. Tori liked archers because of the active play style they required, and the large 1vs1 damage they developed on higher levels. Randy had initially picked the warrior class because it was the first option presented, and though he had later experimented with other classes, he found that the balanced toughness of his first choice fit him well. I told them about my love for healing and playing a glass cannon*, and how my best memories of the game were priestess moments.
We arrived at Twilight Forest and took a right turn to the closest small spawn. When we approached, two monsters appeared. One was shaped like a green cylinder with rounded endings, with white arms and legs and a red bandana around its forehead. It bounced energetically, and looked ready to take on any opponent with its red-gloved fists. A Boxing Bean, my game knowledge told me right before the game interface confirmed it. The other monster was a Firefly, and looked mostly like you would expect from its name, except its wingspan was about 8 inches. I knew it to have a ranged attack, albeit a weak one.
We charged right at the creatures, Tori sending her first arrow at the Boxing Bean just as it spotted us. It didn’t flinch, not from the attack of a level 3 archer with a level 1 bow. I sent a flame projectile at it as it started running toward Randy. Our warrior missed his first attack and got punched in the chest as the Firefly started shooting sparks and embers at him. As if to make up for missing the first, Randy’s second strike was a critical hit. It made a loud crash of metal against... well, whatever Boxing Bean monsters are made of, and this time the monster did flinch. It still had about 70% of its HP left, though.
With the three of us attacking it, the Boxing Bean didn’t last long. Just as it was about to fall, a second one spawned on Randy’s left. Considering that Boxing Beans do a lot more damage than Fireflies, we switched our targets to the newly spawned monster after its predecessor went down. We made quick work of it, only to be rewarded by two monsters spawning, another Boxing Bean and another Firefly. “Tori, can you take down the Fireflies? My fire-type attack won’t hurt them much,” I chatted. “Leave it to me,” she replied, and walked around us to get a shot at the ranged monsters without provoking any unnecessary attacks.
She killed off the Fireflies with just a few attacks each, their relatively low defense no match for her arrows. Just as she returned to help out with the Boxing Beans, a Forest Mushroom spawned. Its attack could result in getting poisoned, dealing damage over time and slightly slowing the target. Before I had even started writing a chat message, all three of us switched our attacks as one to the newly spawned monster. I gave a mental nod. “It’s good to play with veterans,” I chatted. Smiley faces were my reward.
We fell into a comfortable rhythm together, Randy being able to stay alive using the potions the monsters dropped. Every now and then, one of us was bathed in the column of light signifying a level up. After Tori found a better bow, things went even smoother. I found a pair of boots I could actually wear, and a ring that gave me an extra Hit Point. Not that 37 to 38 is a big difference, but I remembered at least two occasions in my former years of playing the game where I survived with 1 HP. Randy found a decent shield, and we all picked up lots of smaller things. I’m sure Tori and Randy equipped some of them, but the game graphics only show armor and weapon changes, and things would get quite spammy if players chatted about every small upgrade.
Before we knew it, our inventories were full of stuff we couldn’t use, and we went back to town to buy and sell. By this time, all three of us had reached level 8, and we resolved to move our operation to the Forgotten Swamps. Though I did not know it yet, two things awaited us in this miry expanse: a new friend, and a discovery my years of playing the game had not prepared me for...
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Footnotes:
*: A glass cannon is a highly vulnerable character able to inflict high damage from a distance. Playing it carries a greater risk of death in return for gaining EXP more quickly. Depending on the game, a concentrated playstyle can reduce the risk of death.