Technology is incredible! Due to recent developments made by VR Technology, you can literally feel the world around you. The new device attaches itself into your nerve clusters allowing you to feel the grass bristling against your body, taste the food you eat and even feel the pain of an enemy’s attacks against your body!
What wonderful video game is this fancy technology being used on? Why none other than Towers of Terror, a giant MMORPG funded by both the government and SquareTlusSoft Inc where players must scale four towers. Rumours say that whoever reaches the top will win a massive prize…
Zack switched off his TV, rushing to his BoxStation 10 he plopped out his copy of Towers of Terror and placed it inside. He was surprised at how cheap a price he’d gotten the game and the VR gear, especially with how expensive video games had been getting nowadays but he wasn’t complaining. He needed this, especially with how stressful things around him had been lately.
There was a giddy excitement as he put on the VR Gear, feeling it attach itself to his spinal cord as the game started to boot up. As one of the Beta Testers of this game he knew how much potential it had and was excited to see the full package as soon as possible. He felt each second as the game started to download and once it was done he started it up and…
Then he felt the cobblestone pathways beneath them. The first safe zone of Asterice. Around him was a beautiful city straight out of a fantasy novel with wooden houses leading up an uphill pathway. He was surrounded by stalls with men and women dressed in typical medieval robes and dresses. He could smell the food from the stalls, the warthog meat being sizzled atop a hearth powered by fire magic, dried meat and fresh fruits and vegetables that dotted the stalls. Food in the real world didn’t even smell this good. It made Zack’s stomach grumble; he wouldn’t mind having a bite right about now.
He saw other players, dressed up in the default starting of a leather vest over a shirt (that was a colour of your choosing, Zack chose the default colour of purple) and black pants. Most of the players stood in front of stalls but others headed up the cobblestone pathway, where in the centre of the entire city was the great Asterice Castle in it’s pure white and regal glory, almost begging players to go inside and start whatever quests may be waiting for them with the way it stood over the entire city, in every player’s line of sight. And behind the castle, looming over everything was the First Tower, an ominous black building with red streaks that pulsed occasionally as the day went by. On the way to the castle was the Hero’s Guild where new players could meet up, take bounty hunting quests or choose a class once they hit Level 5. But Zack or ZZZHack49 wasn’t interested in any of that (maybe a snack but he’d have one later). He went into the Magic Shop, buying a Level 1 Healing spell and Level 1 fire spell with the 5000 gold every player was given, bringing him down to 3900 and headed out of the Kingdom into the Open Fields and the first major biome of the game.
Open Fields looked about what you’d expect from the name, a wide-open grass field home to low level monsters like Slimes, Giant Hoppers, Imps and the occasional Goblin. Zack could feel the blade of grass under his feet and the fresh wind blowing against his face. There was the occasional cave, home to low level undead that were weak to fire and healing magic. The highest-level dungeon in the area were the mines which was home to the first major boss most beginner players would run into which was the Zombie Swordsman.
Atop a hill, overlooking the walled Kingdom, Zack decided he’d do some grinding and challenge the Zombie Swordsmen. If you defeated it, you’d get the Greatsword which was a… well ‘great’ sword to have in the beginning of the game. He ran into a group of slime, bouncy green blobs with two dots that looked like eyes. He launched a fireball at the one in the middle, it was reduced to non-existence. He got the globule item and…
0 exp gained.
What?
A slime lunged at him, he slashed at it and threw a fireball at it but…
0 exp gained.
A slime attacked him, an HP bar at the corner showed that his health went down from 50 to 45. Zack felt the air leave his lungs when the Slime slammed into his stomach. It left him dazed for a while but when he regained his bearing he launched a fireball at the slime and as was expected…
0 exp gained
What the hell?
He filed a complaint and within seconds he got a response.
Hello ZZZHack49 or Zack Raiden, we have traced your IP address and have found that you were part of our beta testing project and have been responsible for various actions that have inconvenienced players such as hacking, stealing, provoking and racial…
Okay, okay. He wasn’t going to read all that.
As such we have decided the best course of action is to prevent you from gaining any experience whatsoever. If you attempt anything to bypass this, you will be banned.
Zack groaned. “God dammit.” So, he couldn’t gain any experience whatsoever. What was the point of playing the game then? It was at that moment he got a messaged.
SunnySkys69420: Yo where are u? its sky?
Zack sent his location.
SunnySkys69420: got a tlprt crstl, will see u…
“Now,” SunnySkys69420 aka Skylar, his best friend appeared in a flash of blue. His avatar shared his blonde hair and blue eyes but that’s where the similarities ended. His hair was long and tied up into a ponytail as opposed to wavy and his face was, well more handsome. His leather vest was worn over a red shirt which was Sky’s favourite colour.
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“Holy shit, Sky,” Zack said. “I’m surprised you’re here.”
Sky grinned. “Me too. But the tech and game were hella cheap and you wouldn’t shut up about this game so here I am.”
“Well, I think I might start shutting up about this game,” Zack said.
“Why?” Sky asked, frowning.
Zack forwarded the message he got from the team and Skylar burst out laughing.
…
After some levelling up, where Sky managed to grow to Level 2, they found themselves sitting on a rock looking over the fields as the evening sun made the grass look like fire. They were eating a kebab that Sky bought from one of the stalls, it was delicious. A few meters ahead were the Overgrown Woods, the second biome of the game.
“Yo, what are these skill point things?” Sky asked.
“You put them into your stats,” Zack said. “Allows you to customise yourself. You get 3 every level.”
Sky smirked. “Nice.” He put 2 skill points into strength and 1 into speed.
They sat there in silence for a while. “This place is nice, isn’t it? Air smells nice and the grass is crunchy to,” Sky said. “I’d say it’s better than real life. Food tastes better too.”
“Well in real life you have all the pollution to deal with,” Zack said. “And food injected with crappy chemicals.”
“Speaking of real life,” Skylar said. “How’s your family?”
“We’re pulling through,” Zack said. “Mum, Dad and Sarah have been working overtime which means I have to take care of Sammy. Sarah’s seems like she’s getting sick but she doesn’t want to admit. Her and Dad have been talking about marrying her off…”
“Sick?” Sky said. “She needs to stop working at that refugee camp. Medicine is expensive nowadays.”
“That’s what I keep telling her but you know how she is,” Zack said, sighing. “How about you, how’s the university thing going?”
Sky scoffed. “University’s a scam. Only people who can make it far are the rich kids with time on their hands. With all the jobs and crap, I have to do I barely have time to focus on my assignments but since mum and dad are gone, only person who’s going to take care of my cousin is me.”
Silence, they heard some players yelling as they killed some Slimes in the distance.
“Been thinking about getting married,” Sky said.
Zack laughed. “Yeah me too. As long as you don’t have any kids the government gives you money and after a few years you get your own apartment house? Talk about paradise.” Zack smiled. “So, who’s the unlucky girl?”
“Girl in my university,” Sky said. “Got a scholarship like me but scholarships don’t feed your family. Her dad doesn’t have jobs and her mother’s sick with something, she needs money bad and she’s willing to settle down with me if she wants and with all the benefits, I’m honestly down.”
Sky grinned. “Wish we could be stuck here forever, don’t you? Real world sucks.”
“Not if you’re stuck at level one,” Zack said. “I’m going to log off, there’s a night job I have.” He pulled out the menu and scrolled down.
“See you,” Sky said, getting off the rock. “I might head out too, need to do some studying.”
Zack scrolled down but the log out button was missing.
“Yo, Zack,” Sky said. “How come I can’t log out…?”
“Just refresh,” Zack said. “And…”
There was still no log out option.
“What the he…”
There was a flash of white and suddenly they were in the giant courtyard of the Asterice castle, surrounded by a bunch of players stumbling and staggering over one another. It seemed like every single player in the world was here as the people right next to him and Skylar were speaking a language he didn’t understand.
“Good evening, players of Towers of Terror,” a voice boomed across the courtyard in various languages. A holographic screen of a middle-aged man in a plain office flashed on screen. “As of now, Towers of Terror has a registered total of 100 million players, It isn’t the total us of the UN expected but it will have to do for what we’re about to carry out.”
Images flashed across the screen of run-down buildings, squatter camps, hospitals overrun with patients but understaffed and war zones. “As you all know, the world population is reaching disastrous rates, as of 2049 the world now has a population of over 10 billion and the world doesn’t have resources to spare. Towers of Terror is a joint effort by the world’s governments and SquareTlusSoft to cull the world population whilst also simultaneously providing benefits to those who manage to survive each of the four towers.”
A graph showing the four towers flashed on the screen and the benefits of clearing each tower.
Tower 1- monthly food supply for the victor’s family.
Tower 2- medical aid and free unlimited hospital access
Tower 3- monthly allowance of 10 000 dollars
Tower 4- a residential house on the outskirts of town.
“And whoever manages to defeat the final boss on the fifth floor will win a grand total of 1 billion dollars,” the UN spokesmen said. “After each tower attempt you will be given an hour to communicate with your family however you must be warned, if you die in this game, you die in real life. If you or your family attempts to remove the VR headset, you will die. As you can see what’s happening around you…”
People started disappearing in flashes of red. Suddenly an image flashed across the screen where a kid tried to take out the helmet like headset from his father but when he did the thing exploded and blood leaked out of the headset as if his head had been squashed.
“The government of your respective countries will provide residence and sustenance for your bodies as you attempt to navigate the world,” the spokesman said. “Happy hunting.”
The screen went off and soon the courtyard erupted into chaos. People were yelling and screaming, stampeding over each other as they attempted to escape the courtyard. Others desperately tried to group up during the ensuing chaos.
“Skylar,” Zack yelled. “Skylar where the hell are you?”
A person bumped into Zack and another almost made him fall to the floor. Suddenly he felt a hand pull him back and he was inside a tower.
Zack almost drew his sword. “Who the hell…”
“Relax, it’s me,” Skylar said. And it was Skylar but this time the façade of his avatar disappeared and he looked like the Skylar Zack saw almost every day. Wavy blonde hair, pimple with a spot on it and bluish green eyes. “We have to get the hell out of here and figure shit out.”
As they made their way out of the castle, Zack saw people stumble across the castle screaming and shout. People spilling out of the gate as if they were an overfilled bottle of water. They were ominous flashes of red that signified a dead player as people were trampled over and sliced through like they were animals. Zack and Sky navigated through the city and into the fields where Zack saw people dotted in the distance rushing into the woods and to the First Tower.
“What the hell is going on?” Skylar shouted.
“You heard the man,” Zack said, feeling out of breath despite being in a video game. “If we die in the game…”
“Yeah I know,” Sky said. “I fucking know. It’s just… it’s insane. What the hell are we supposed to do if we… if we..."
Suddenly a Slime jumped at them. What was once an easy enemy now made both Sky and Zack turn pale.
Sky’s hands were shaking as he tried to draw his sword. The Slime jumped at Sky but Zack launched a fireball.
The Slime exploded.
“Holy shit,” Sky said. “I don’t what came over me. I thought I was a goner. It’s just a fucking Slime.” Sky noticed Zack trembling. “Zack. Yo Zack what’s wrong.”
On his display, written in a blue screen was a brick wall impeding his progress. A brick wall whose implications Zack feared more than any monster. On that brick wall it was written…
0 exp gained.