I'm changing the point of view up this time. Mostly to keep you on your toes. Might switch depending on the part of the story, but we'll see.
CH.1
Three Years Later
A group a people wandered through a murky swamp, furtively looking around, as if scared something would jump them. A towering man, fitted with full bodied plate armor, carefully led the party, a massive shield on his back, and a sword in his hand. He was followed closely behind by another man in a dark colored cloak, the hood pulled over his head, disgust clearly written on his face. He clutched a staff to his bosom, as if it would shelter him from the foggy depths of this dismal place.
Picking her feet carefully over a log, a woman came next. Her white cloak somehow keeping it's clear color, even with copious amounts of mud scraping over it. There was no hood on her head, leaving her blonde hair uncovered, long ears poking out from golden curls. Unlike the man in front, she seemed calm, a small scepter in her hand parting the mist with a soft light. Next was a burly short man, heavy in armor and hair. His beard almost scraped the ground, and her carried a double-headed war axe that was around the same size as him with ease.
As the party covered a few more meters, suddenly there was a shadow that appeared in front of them. The tank startled, which caused the mage behind him to scream in a very feminine manner.
"W-w-w-what is it??" The mage stuttered out.
Slowly, the shadow was given shape, a vaguely human presence was deciphered. In all black, and as most would describe as "ninja-like", the person had every part of their body covered in cloth, except for their dark brown eyes. Slight of stature, the ninja tilted his head at the mage.
"Why are you always so jumpy, Claus?" A muffled soft tenor voice came from the ninja. "I'm back from my recon, Garreth." This time, directing the statement at the tank.
"Ah, well, good job Shade," Garreth said, pulling himself up to his full height. "What did you find?"
"The prisoners are being taken into a fortress that is hidden in the swamp by magical means. To slip in unsuspected is impossible. I only got in because of my Skill." Shade made a dismissive gesture with his hand. "So that plans out."
The tank, Garreth, put on a thoughtful pose, when someone spoke up from behind. "Does that mean we rush? Because there's no way I'm leaving those poor villagers to the goblins. Those evil beasts must die." A crystal clear voice spoke the words firmly, with a noble accent.
Garreth turned to her and said, "Yes... That's probably the only option, Bell, and with our levels, and you healing us, we should be able to take down this fortress..." He trailed off. As the Leader, he always carefully considered each plan of action. "What do you suppose, Das?"
"Look, I just want out of this damn, stinking, mother-fuckin' piece of shit, mud-infested, BUG-infested--" The dwarf started ranting, but was cut off.
"We got it, Das. You don't like swamps." Garreth sighed. "I guess we're goin' in hot and ready."
Plan set, they followed the ninja to what looked like a moss covered mountain. It rose up out of the swamp, and was lit by torches every five meters.
They paused, Garreth turning to Shade. "I see your point. How did you get in there anyways?"
Shade barely glanced at him, before saying, "Like I said, it's a Skill I have. Makes me less noticeable. I found the location of the prisoners, but I wasn't able to free them myself. We're gonna have to be in and out fast. They have twenty soldiers on them, and about fifteen on the way to them. I'm not even gonna hazard a guess of how many we'll have to fight our way out of."
The party looked at each other, all but Shade who was staring at the fortress. Whispering started, the mage fighting with the elf, the dwarf grumbling at the tank, their volume slowly rising.
"--This is a death trap--"
"--we just have to kill a few--"
"No way in hell's anus am I--"
"--It'll be fine--"
"STOP." The party looked up at the shadow that was still staring off into the hill. "I can get them out if you all cause a distraction out here."
"But what?" Garreth asked.
Shade looked them over contemptuously. "In the quest we got, all it said to do was get the prisoners free. It says nothing about killing the goblins, and it says nothing about actually taking them back to their village. For all we know, they can find their own way back."
Doubtful, the rest of the members made a horizontal line through the air, from left to right. That gesture opens your menu. They looked over the quest log.
Free the Villagers
Difficulty F
The goblins have ransacked and captured ten citizens of the village of Barrum. Find where they were taken and free them.
Reward
Increased affinity with villages in the area
Undetermined
"Quick question," Shade muttered. "Why is this quest only the second lowest difficulty, when it should be at least E or D. I've been on harder quests, and they call for higher levels or more people. There's something fishy about this whole thing."
"Are you saying this quest is bugged?" Claus stated imperiously, his face affronted.
Shade finally looked at the group, then said, "I think this is a trap."
Garreth said slowly, "What do you mean?"
The ninja shook his head, "I read on a forum about a situation like this, where a fairly simple quest turned into a ranked A as soon as the objective was found. None of the group knew what happened, and they died in barely a few seconds. They said they had just been to focused on saving the villagers, but someone kept urging to kill the goblins..." Shade slowly turned toward the elf, his eyes blank.
"Wait," Bell said incredulously. "You think I'm some hacker? Or PvPer? I'm a healer for christ's sake. How would I even be able to kill you all?"
"Well," Shade shrugged, "Probably because you’re an AI, and the actual boss of this dungeon, which is why you joined up with us. Right Bell? I mean, Beelzebub."
The elf's face screwed up into a grimace, her eyes turning dark. "I usually get the adventurers into my lair before I destroy them, but I guess I'll have to kill you now." In a flash, her scepter whipped out, but instead of a healers wand, it was now a mace, and it slammed into the dwarf's face. Flying backwards a few meters, Das didn't get up. He was probably stunned, if not dead.
The elf's formed was slowly changing, in what seemed like a dark angel's façade, as her blond hair stayed gold, but her eyes were red, and her skin was black. Large wings rose from her back, and they seemed to buzz in anger. A blurred move later, and the mage, who had been standing there stupefied, was flung out into the fog, blood flying behind him.
Garreth barely recovered from his surprise to put down his tower shield, covering his huge body. To bad this boss was at least fifty levels higher than he was. She swatted at him like he was a bug, bursting a huge rend in his shield, making it fly from his hands. She then with a maniacal smile, slammed her mace down on the tanks head, his helmet unable to protect him, crushing his skull into his neck. His body slowly fell to his knees, a headless corpse, before falling over.
"One more left~" The monster sang out in a beautiful voice that contradicted her horrendous body covered in blood. She turned to the ninja, only to find him gone.
"Oh Shaaade~ Are you hiding from me? In the--" She giggled, the sound high and tinkling, "Shade?!" The Devil laughed, caught up in her own humor.
Suddenly, she whipped around, as if she heard a sound. "I fou~nd you." She sing-songed. Then she lunged, her movements so fast they blurred. A nasty, anticipating smile revealed long sharp teeth, and she was almost to where--
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*Squelch*
"Wha--" The Creature exclaimed, before what looked like a dark cloak fell onto her in her trapped state. "Shade! What awr yau doeen!!" Underneath the so called cloak, mud dripped all over her body, and, struggling, she slowly collapsed to the ground. She was stuck like a fly to a fly trap, slowly sinking into the quicksand-like swamp.The cloak lowered until it was flat on the ground, then everything went still.
You've Won!
Congratulations on beating the demo of World's Online. We hope that you consider being the full version when it is released in [2 days]!
You have beaten the demo in the fastest time!
What name do you want to represent yourself?
"Monster." A voice said, muffled by the sound of the VR helmet. Bypassing the rest of the end-demo schematics, a slim figure got out of the chair the VR Caffe provides, and walked out of the 2x2 meter room. Putting on a beaning and sunglasses, they bypassed the screens that showed what each of the people in various other rooms were playing, walking to the counter. They swiped they're card to signify they were done with gaming, and headed out the door.
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"What the hell was that!" A teenager exclaimed, looking up at one of the screens in the VR Caffe. It showed the time completed at the upper left corner, 15.35 minutes, and the screen repeated the fifteen minutes over and over, as it was the new best time. Not only that, but it was center screen, the one that showed the best play-through in the Caffe.
The Demo was for a new game that was coming out in two days, called World's Online, a VRMMO, with servers all over the world. A collab of Korean, Japan, and American game makers, it was supposed to be a game you could play no matter where you were, as the language barrier wasn't there, because no matter what you say, they other person will understand. It was even hinted that a few dark gamers, the ones that stopped playing three years ago, had a hand in the game, making it one of the hardest games, because even though it was advertised as a RPG, there were whispers that the AI were incredibly intelligent, even down to the easiest of monsters. They AI, if enough of the intelligence stat was given to them, would be on par or better than Chess AI's. Overall, you can play for fun, but if you want to get serious and be number one, the more challenging and confusing it will get. Traps, lies, and discrete happens frequently, the higher level you get. Because the Main AI doesn’t want you to beat the game. There were AI's on your side, but you will always question if they wanted to stab you in the back.
The Demo was a perfect example of this. You got to pick one character out of the five to save the villagers in this quest. The Tank and leader, which had high defense and the control of the party; The Mage, whose specialty was fire, and in a swamp, was an iffy choice; The Healer, who was a High Elf, whose only good point was she could probably keep herself from dying; The Warrior, who was a Dwarf, and was a master with is double-bladed axe; The Ninja, who scouts the area, and other than a Skill that makes them less detectable, most find useless.
Once you have picked a character, the AI randomly generates the Boss out of your own group. They never act different, and it is almost impossible to kill them. The few people that did picked the Tank, and got the Ninja as the Boss, luckily killing them with the help of the entire party. So most people used this strategy, hoping the Boss would be the Ninja, aka, demon dog.
But as the crowd slowly surrounded the screen, they watched four people trudge through a swamp, until a shadow shows up. Seeing it's the ninja, many people think that the AI this time must have been the boss, and the guy who played it must have gotten lucky.
But as time went on, they got confused, as the characters conversed, and suddenly the Demon was revealed—As Bell/Beelzebub. Beelzebub was by far the hardest boss, as she tends to kill you before you even realize what's happening. But, someone, the player had figured out the healer was the Boss AI... Wait, then, the player was the Ninja?
As Beelzebub quickly killed off the party members, the view shifted, following the ninja. He was rushing to a clearing in the swamp, neatly jumping over the huge placid seeming ground. They watched him climb up a tree, quickly grabbing the huge leaves that covered the branches. Pulling something out of his bag, he slapped what seemed like some adhesive like this to the leaves, sticking them together, and making them almost impossible to let go of in turn. The ninja looked up as a blurred shape ran in his direction, but was stopped in the clearing her had bypassed. Throwing the cloak of leaves, his gloves with them, it settled on the monster that was struggling to get out of the swamp. Slowly she sank, until the WIN screen came up, all in just fifteen minutes.
The watchers were dumbfounded. Where did he even get that adhesive stuff? Wasn't he on recon? And how did he even know it was Bell?
The tape replayed, and the crowd watched the four adventurers trudge through the swamp again.
"Wait," The original guy said. "Where the fuck is the Ninja? We should be seeing his feed?"
That's when one guy pointed out, "There!" To a shadowy existence that crept along the side of the group. As they walked, they picked up some various flowers and globs of what looked like mud into his bag, and kept a careful eye on the group. He walked with them for a few minutes, then appeared in front of them, and they saw the same scene play out again. But now they realized that he had lied. There was no recon, at least of the fortress. He had been reconning the AIs, to see which one was the one who would turn.
"But," A new guy asked, his face confused, "How did he know that it was Bell?"
Multiple people tried to figure it out, hypothesizing that they had probably played it a million times, and they caught them because somehow the AI was being different. They were arguing over what had happened, when they were interrupted by the store owner.
"Just gonna tell you guys, but that person's never been here once. The card they swiped was new, and I didn’t recognize their face ever being here."
The original guy walked up to the owner, "Then how the hell did they DO that?"
The Owner shrugged. "You know how they had those dark gamers to make the game harder, to make you think, to wonder? I think that was one of them. I couldn't see they're full face, and they've never had and pictures taken of them, but one of those gamers goes simple by the name 'Monster'." He pointed up at the screen.
Monster. The crowd started whispering.
"You mean--"
"--a Celeb!"
"Why would they come here?"
"Probably because the game comes out in two days." The owner stated simply. He messed with a tablet and turned it to the crowd. It had the 'World's Online' Logo, and underneath it, "Can you beat the dark? We'll be watching."
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Monster walked back to their apartment, this time a nice high rise, security manning the desks and watching for intruders. A definite step up from before, but these material things don't matter. They rode the elevator to their floor and got in their room with the same card they used back at the VR Caffe. It was a black card, and it could be used for almost everything, something they had configured themselves. It also needed they thumb and forefinger print to use, so it was relatively secure.
A sign called House rules graced the wall before the door as the slim figure walked in.
House Rules:
No Shoes
No Pants
No Shirt
No Boys
Stripping down revealed a very slim figure, only covered in the light muscle of a runner or fencer. Clad in only panties and a bra, scars from knives, guns, burns and more covering her body, Monster walked over to her favorite chair, and leaned back to the perfect angle. There was no water stain up there, instead, a beautiful painting of the Milky Way covered the entire ceiling.
"You're getting there. Soon." A soft murmur, a promise to a broken child that was never pieced together.
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First real chapter. Still sort of a set-up. But yes, it does reveal the gender of the MC. Of course, it also introduces more mysteries. I like mysteries... so much I want to punch them in the face. Then why the hell am I writing them?