Lost Kingdoms Online
Fuck…...Fuck…..Fuck….that dungeon had taken way longer than I had anticipated. I glanced out above the canopies of the forest, inspecting the daunting full moon overhead; setting the time at a little after midnight. I wouldn’t have been as worried if I was adventuring in my usual farming grounds. But, nooooooo…. I just had to tempt fate and try my luck on soloing a fairly higher level dungeon. Why was I still soloing again? I figured I would be a part of a guild by now, especially with how things have changed with the state of Lost Kingdoms Online. God, how long has it been since I referred to it as that? Lost Kingdoms Online is, I’m sorry WAS the MMO I had been playing for the past 6 years. I started my freshman year of highschool and had somehow carried on into what would now be my second year of university. Well it should have been at least, but instead I am living what most would consider their wildest dreams come true. Fucking idiots.
At first I played with my close group of friends throughout most of highschool, not always being with the same members as at times many would quit the game swapping out with others we found along the way, only to eventually return when a new expansion was dropped. Man had I missed those days, when adventuring wasn’t all about the loot and exp. But instead adventures were full of name calling, harassing one another, and just happy to be with one other. Then life happened, and slowly but surely it began to rip us away from the computer one by one. I had actually been one of the first to do so. Girls are dangerous creatures after all. Who with their illusive charms can break even the most consumed creatures of habit. Well that charm had ended abruptly after a couple of months and all I had to show for it was gear that was no longer up to par and a broken heart. But on the bright side it had made me dive that much deeper into LKO, which was way more important now, than I could have ever imagined .
At first I had considered myself quite the hardcore player, but once I had began to properly apply my new found love for numbers, that I acquired at the university, into the game everything seemed to open up, it also helped that I no longer wished to visit the outside world, at least for the time being. I should have been able to put the two together much sooner, but sometimes things just didn’t click as easy as they should.
God… did I miss her.
With her out of the picture, I promptly returned to the game with the drive to be one of the best players in all of LKO, and that would require ridiculous strength. And in order to obtain that strength, many nights of play testing on different smurf accounts and hundreds of YouTube videos analyzing the best rotation of abilities, not to mention coffee, lots and lots of the stuff. Good thing the local coffee shop offered dollar iced coffees. God, how long had it been. How long had it been since LKO had actually become reality? Don’t get me wrong I loved the game and all, but I loved it because it was a game, an escape from reality really. But now this was reality, a scary one at that. Two months, I think it had to be that long ago, at the minimum. The really scary part was that I was slowly forgetting more and more of the real world. What if one day I couldn’t differentiate between the two, or what if my previous world had just been a dream in this one. Man, why was I thinking like this, it didn’t even matter. What mattered was I needed strength now more than ever. Don’t get me wrong, when the game was just that, a game, I was probably able to stand toe to toe with some of the best players in my region. But everything had changed yesterday. A simple message sent to all players changed the way everyone carried themselves.
A ball of flame whizzed by my head, missing me by a mere fraction of an inch. The pure heat sizzled my cheek leaving a proximity ignite on me, as well as a warm sensation. The source of the attack being a frighteningly tall and rather lanky wizard a couple of meters ahead. I was too far into my thoughts that I hadn’t even noticed the man. I was a fool. A fool that would be dead soon if I spent as much time in my head as I often did. As I grew nearer I was able to distinguish more of the man. He seemed surprised. It should have been an easy shot by all accounts. The PKer should have been used to picking off players before they could fully prepare themselves. What a coward. Now as I stood a mere couple of feet away from the man, I was able to note his gear. He appeared to be an above averagely geared wizard, most likely adorned with epic gear from head to toe. By the size and intensity of that fireball, he had undoubtedly gone the destruction tree. When playing wizard you had the choice of three skill trees; the most commonly played being the fire wielding destruction path, the overwhelming if played properly conjurer, or the 0.002 percent of people who played the utility tree. Even the name itself pushed users away.
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“Damn, I missed. Your evasion must be stupidly high for me to miss that shot,” he said as he stroked the end of his gray beard. He was right, so he was quite the intelligent player. Or he was an arrogant prick who would rather blame the miss on my evasion rather than his shotty aim. When LKO was just a game the evasion skill made it so your character would simply have a higher chance of dodging attacks at random. But now that it was reality it made it so your character would almost seem to pulse slightly in all directions. Making you a harder target to hit once combat has begun. My evasion being at 35% probably made it one of the highest in all the game, or better put; the world. Which wasn’t much of an accomplishment by any means. Most players preferred seeing their damage numbers increase rather than the odds of them being hit drastically decreasing. You would think that now that this was much more than just a game people would see the error of their ways…but no, high numbers are simply that seducing. Not that I didn’t blame them by any means, but an all around build is necessary for successfully fighting all the different array of classes.
“All right the fact that you are even in this area means you are a pretty high lvl. So how about you just hand over your coins and whatever else you looted in the dungeon and I let go on your way, it is getting quite late after all,” he said as he pointed to the glooming moon overhead. I said nothing as I unsheathed my long sword. It was really nothing to be wildly impressed oever. As a level 90 it was a pretty decent blade, the stats were good, the passive increased my crit damage drastically which made a remarkable difference to my burst potential, but when compared to the legendaries that many high ranking guilds could gather, it was subpar at best. But that was the cost of playing mostly solo, and so I had learned to make due, or better put- I had to make due.
“Woah,woah there, son. I already messaged my partners and they're going to be here within the minute. You’re done. Just put the blade down and hand over what I asked of you. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be. Yes I get it, you’re going to lose a hard day's work. But if me and my buddies end up killing you, you are looking at a week in the sanctuary. Now make the smart choice…”
He was right for most players; the smart choice would have been to hand over the loot and learn from this mistake. Even though he was a wizard with the lowest average health in the game, sitting at around 7k, no one: not even an assassin with max crit and backstab or a mage with a full rotation of spells can get over 5k burst damage in 5 seconds time. By that time, he would crack an Ice Block and stall for his buddies to arrive. Well no one I’ve met at least, or met me for that matter.
I lunged forward, attacking quickly and precisely. I was able to get 4 strikes off instantly before he could even register that I had decided to make the stupid choice. His eyes showed horror, as if he couldn’t comprehend what had just happened.
“What...what's... going on,” He was able to say as he staggered back with his hp over head marking it at the midway point. I stepped forward slashing once down his chest, then bringing it back up revealing a gash that sparkled in a white glow.
We did not bleed in this world.
“Arggghhhhh,” he screamed. We definitely didn’t bleed, but that didn’t mean we didn’t feel pain. I muttered a spell under my breath which caused him to freeze in his place.
“Howw….” he whimpered as his health bar was only a sliver of red at this point. Sweat beaded down his forehead. That arrogant face of his had been replaced with that of a man far past his prime. What he had just witnessed seemed to shatter everything he thought was true. Only an idiot would assume truths in a world as new as ours.
“Hundreds of hours of study. Hundreds of hours of gear tracking. Hundreds of hours of experimenting with all the classes. Oh and a really bad breakup, that I may still not be completely over..” I brought my hands and blade overhead and slashed him in half, bursting his body into pixelated light. He hadn’t died technically, but like he had said a week's time in the sanctuary was nothing to scoff at. I quickly recovered his fallen loot and made my way to town before his buddies could arrive.