Zone: Central Dewalt
Location: Lemond’s Crossing – Eternal Crystal
Lore: (Specific) It wasn’t until many years after the founding of Lemond’s Crossing that her Eternal Crystal appeared, rising from the ground in the region’s southwest quadrant and flattening a small hunting shack as it emerged. Obscured by the mountainous terrain, its existence wasn’t even discovered until nearly a week after its appearance, when the shack’s wounded owner dragged himself into town in search of help, only to pass away shortly after. It’s said that his spirit can sometimes still be glimpsed in the hours just prior to dawn, stalking the rough terrain in search of game. The area around the crystal has since been excavated, unintentionally creating a circular amphitheater with the Eternal Crystal on display at its heart.
Starting Town
Restrictions: None
The orange glow receded, and Vannin opened his eyes to find himself staring directly into a patch of vibrant green clover. He closed his eyes again and laid there for moment, face down in the groundcover, taking in the silence. The game world had a distinctly different feel than that of Eternity’s Solace, a sort of undefinable pressure that anchored him to reality but did nothing to alleviate his constant, depressing numbness.
Maybe this time will be different, he wondered, idly chewing a mouthful of clover. Maybe this will be the rebirth that finally wakes up my sense of smell, of taste, of touch. It was the same thought every time he died and was reborn, the same hope that something would be different this time, that whatever glitch had cursed him with this flavorless existence would finally resolve itself and give him some reason to look forward to every day.
But, like with every rebirth he had thus far experienced, nothing about this one was any different. With a dejected grumble, he pushed up to his knees and spat out a glob of gooey greenery.
A line of puffy clouds obscured the afternoon sun, draping the open area around the Eternal Crystal in shadow. A barely noticeable breeze teased the low clover. The clearing around Lemond’s Crossing’s crystal was empty, save for a single, black-furred Minos sitting cross-legged before a pyramid-shaped pile of [Small Stone].
The Minos stared at him through narrow, questioning eyes. “I hope you’re not planning on ruining this beautiful day by talking.”
His mouth opened reflexively, but her intense look made him reconsider. A squat window materialized over her avatar – a simple nameplate.
Atrea Walscott. Pretty sure I’ve seen her around town. Hard to forget a female Minos. His mouth clicked closed and he flashed her a thumbs up.
“Good,” she said, leaning back on her hands and turning her gaze to the sky. “We’re already well on our way to becoming best friends.”
With a watery ‘pop’, D blinked into existence beside him.
The little daimon did a little spin move. “Happy Laksun, Master!”
Vannin winced at his companion’s burst of energy and lowered his voice, hoping D would follow. “You really don’t have to tell me the day every time I come back from dying.”
D didn’t get the hint. “Looks like we made it back to Lemond’s Crossing none the worse for wear, but if you take this most recent death into account, your experience debt is-”
Vannin shushed the orb of light, watching as Atrea shifted about in irritation. “I don’t want to know! I’m sure it’s awful.”
D bobbed up and down. “It’s definitely not good. If you aren’t careful, you’ll never gain another level, and I’ll be stuck like this until Phaeron swallows the sun!”
The Minos closed her eyes and groaned. “If you’re gonna argue with yourself, could you at least go do it elsewhere? You are killing the vibe here, kid.”
He frowned. He may not know how old he really was, but Vannin definitely took offense to being called ‘kid’ by someone who willingly dressed up as a sentient cow. “It’s not me. My daimon’s a bit of a chatterbox.”
“Sure, kid,” she chuckled. “Only aquanauts get daimon.”
“...Aquanaut?”
“Full-dive VR. The rarest and most expensive type of rig you can use to play this game. Last I heard, less .001% of Teravitum’s players are aquanauts, and most of them have sponsorship deals and popular TeraTube channels. And I don’t see a Vidcrys hovering over your head.” She sighed, letting the afternoon sun warm her face. “And thank the Five Siblings for that.”
Vannin’s silence must have annoyed her more than D’s chatter, because it wasn’t long before she shot him a confounded sideways glance. “Why are you looking at me like you don’t know what ‘full-dive VR’ is?”
“Because I don’t know what that is?”
“Everyone knows what that is! The whole world wishes they could afford a full-dive rig. I mean, I have a pretty high-end partial dive setup, and I would shave my head and permanently dye my scalp blue to upgrade it to the next level. Why would you pretend to have a daimon if you didn’t even know what a full-dive…”
She trailed off. Her eyes narrowed as she got a better look at him, then widened. “Holy s- You’re that-that-that permanent resident guy. The one that can’t log out? The one that lives in the game?”
Vannin shrugged, uncomfortable with her reaction and level of scrutiny.
And this is why I try not to talk to people.
Atrea cocked her head, then quickly rolled back onto her elbows once more and turned her gaze back to the sky. “That’s cool, I guess. It’s nice to meet you, Vannin. I’m Atrea.”
“Yeah. Nice to meet you, too.”
A subtle rumbling turned his stomach, reminding him that he hadn’t had a chance to eat anything while he was farming the Battleswine, but before he could reach for his pack, a different subtle rumbling filled the air, and Vannin could just make out the rhythmic pounding of approaching horses.
Scowling, the Minos’ head slumped. “For the love of- Now what?”
A team of horses came to a stop at the crest of the stone staircase, their riders laughing to one another as they dismounted. From the direction they came from, Vannin suspected they had just come straight from the town proper. Two Heems dressed in light travel clothes hurried down the steps, and a smaller humanoid creature with a long-stem pipe hurried along behind them.
Vannin had always found Pucks to be the most unnerving of the five Races of Fortune. Though many would argue them to be little more than half-sized Heems, their oversized features gave them an almost cartoonish quality. Bulbous noses, crinkled ears like a two-hundred-year-old man, prominent jaw bones, saucer-shaped eyes...everything about them seemed comically exaggerated.
“Aww,” moaned the female Heem, though her robotic body language did nothing to support the disappointment in her tone. “Were we too late? Did we miss him?”
Shaking his head, the male Heem crossed his arms and stopped about halfway down the stairs. When he spoke, an odd tinny noise accompanied his words. “Not a chance. He hadn’t even made it to the second floor of the old clock tower by the time we ditched him.”
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“Maybe we misjudged him.” The Puck spewed out a bulbous cloud of smoke and tapped the pipe’s stem on his craggy butt chin.
The female Heem erupted in laughter, her standard belly clutching motion a dead-giveaway for a properly timed emote. The male Heem pointed over at her and grinned. “I’m with Steph. I don’t care what he says, that old has-been is so full of hot air he’s more likely to float to the top than climb.”
Behind Vannin, the Eternal Crystal hummed to life, a sharp orange glow building within its many facets.
The female Heem went still, her excited tone once again not in line with her actions. “Is it him? Is it him?”
The Puck nodded. “Could be. Timing’s about right.”
His own curiosity growing, Vannin turned to look, but when he located the glow, he was surprised to find it crawling up the inside of the crystal instead of approaching the inner edge at ground level. Confused, he watched it ascended toward the very tip-top of the crystal, pulsing with increased speed and intensity until, with a bright flash, the glow emerged and coalesced into a solid shape.
Vannin had zero time to react before a screaming Heem dropped right onto his face, bearing them both to the ground. The three recent arrivals burst into a fit of laughter at the sight.
“Gah!” yelled his attacker, struggling to right himself like some kind of drunk turtle. All his flailing and jostling did little more than grind Vannin’s face into the clover, who was suddenly grateful for his inability to taste. “Unhand me, you unwashed cretin!”
Vannin lifted his head, once again spitting out a mouthful of greenery. “I’m not doing anything! You’ve got me pinned!”
“Hah! Giving up already, are you? Bet you never suspected you’d be facing off against the junior assistant wrestling supervisor for Hallcreek Prep two years running, did you, you cheese-breathed fop!”
Unwashed cretin? Cheese-breathed fop? “What are you even going on about GET OFF!”
With a forceful shove, Vannin launched to his feet, sending the other man tumbling end over end through the clover. He skid to a stop on his back at the feet of the three newcomers, who were laughing so hard at this point they were almost silent.
“Uh oh,” said D quietly.
Before he could ask what was wrong, a faint tearing sound accompanied a shift in the weight on Vannin’s chest. His chest piece, a [Ragged Leather Cuirass] that had been with him for as long as he could remember, slipped off his shoulders and dropped to the ground. He instinctively tried to grab it, but the cuirass burst apart, showering the clover in bits of [Leather Fragment].
He glared at the newcomer, but his irritation with the skinny Heem would have to take a number.
The Puck leaned forward, peering down at the newcomer with huge, watery eyes. “Please tell me you at least made it out onto the clock face, Norik. I have hefty pouch of cor riding on you at least making it that far.”
Norik stared up at them, surprised by their presence at the foot of the Eternal Crystal. “Nagramood? Lena? Justin? How the heck did you get here so quick?”
“That’s easy,” said Lena. “We left as soon as you were out of sight.”
Justin shook his head, sneering. “I honestly can’t believe we beat you here. Without our help stabilizing the platforms, I figured you’d catch air waaaaay sooner than you did.”
Nagramood waved his pipe dismissively. “But not TOO soon.”
Norik practically teleported to his feet, moving far faster than Vannin thought possible. His clenched fists shook with barely restrained rage and his nasally voice jumped up an entire octave. “You LEFT ME?!?!! I can’t believe you! We’re supposed to be on the same team here!”
Justin’s sneer only deepened. “You wish, probie. Truth is, you’ve done nothing of note to prove you deserve to be a full-fledged member of our guild, and you’ve had more than enough time.”
“This was my shot! With the raid on the Pristine coming up, I thought the guild could use the extra boost from the Chimera emblem once we found someone willing to go Heroic and fill the slot.”
“Putting aside the fact that no one even knows what the Chimera emblem is good for, you need three Marks of Distinction to unlock a new Heroic slot, so helping you get the Tower Mark would only get you slightly closer. The raid is less than two weeks away. Even with the whole guild helping you, there’s no way you could get the other two in time.”
The more the man spoke, the more Vannin disliked him. Not only did he find the strange hiss that accompanied his speech painfully annoying, the man’s elitist attitude instilled in him an anger unlike anything he’d ever encountered. The uncomfortable heat swelled throughout his chest, infiltrating his muscles until they twitched and spasmed and yearned to take up his spear and drive it straight through his stupid, squishy face.
Norik flailed around frantically. “You don’t understand! I already have the other Marks. This was the last one I needed!”
“God, you lie like a rug! There’s no way some useless, wet-behind-the-ears nobody like yourself could have either the skill or resources necessary to accrue even ONE Mark of Distinction, let alone two.”
Atrea balked. “Holy hell, Norik. How do you even put up with this blowhard?”
Justin shot her a foul look but didn’t take the bait.
“Did you at least make it past the lifts?” asked the Puck, shuffling forward.
“Of course not!”
Justin, smirking, extended a hand to the Puck. “Pay up.”
Nagramood’s shoulders slumped in defeat. He slapped Justin’s hand away, and the sound of shuffling coins filled the air.
“Come on, Justin.” Norik was practically begging now, and Vannin shifted anxiously in place, having a hard time watching. “We can try again in three hours. One more Heroic slot might mean the difference between success and failure!”
“Geez, it’s just a game.” Lena sighed. “How dumb can one person really be?”
“We were never gonna help you, Norik. We just thought it would be funny to screw with you. Everyone in the guild knows you’re full of it. Commissary Gevrin would have kicked you to the curb weeks ago had Sollisa not insisted on keeping you around.”
That earned a low whistle from the Minos, who had thus far been completely ignored by the group despite sitting in front of her pyramid of rocks no more than ten feet away. “Wait, the Mithril Ankh? Not that Sollisa?”
Norik puffed his chest like a preening grouse and grinned. “The one and only!”
“You’ve got some powerful friends for a probie.” She clicked her hooves together. “Kinda makes one wonder why you stooped to ask for help from these upstanding citizens.”
Justin snorted. “Yeah, well, don’t get used to it. Once word gets round that you’re both useless and delusional, Sollisa will have to listen to Commissary Gevrin. She’ll have no choice but to cut you loose.”
He shrugged, an evil sneer peeling back his lips. “Then again, maybe you just need to find a couple of losers like yourself to help you get that last elusive Mark of Distinction. These two seem like they have nothing better to do with their lives.”
That brought Atrea to her feet. “And just what makes you so special?”
He held his hands up, feigning difference. “Oh don’t get up! You were so much less scary sitting over there in the clover.
“Really though, look at the two of you. That one of there is either too stupid or too poor to repair his armor, to the point that a little environmental damage is enough to break it beyond the ability to fix. If I had to guess, I’d put all the money I just won from Nag and then some on him running around with an experience debt so big he’d better off just deleting his character and going back to the tutorial.”
Vannin felt his jaw tighten as the heat once again flared in his chest, but the pompous bastard wasn’t exactly wrong. He wished D was smart enough to have an opinion, to back him up like a real friend, but the orb just floated lazily in the air next to his shoulder. Waiting.
Justin waved a hand toward Atrea. “And as for you? You’re just hanging out in a respawn zone like some kind of filthy leper. What kind of loser sits in the middle of nowhere… stacking rocks? It’s not like there aren’t plenty of loose stones to stack out in the real world. Maybe you should sell your account to someone with two brain cells to rub together before you can’t afford groceries. The food here’s not exactly nutritious.”
Lena practically cackled as she scampered back up to the horses. With an apologetic shrug, Nagramood turned and followed. Justin, though, wasn’t finished. Justin stepped up into Atrea’s personal space, his nose mere inches from her own, and, without taking his eyes off her face, kicked the pile of [Small Stone] with his boot, hard enough to send them tumbling in multiple directions. With a flat look, the Minos watched the smug Heem back up the staircase and mount his horse.
He shook his head one final time. “Losers.”
The fading rumble of horses marked their rapid departure, and silence finally returned to the field of clover surrounding the Eternal Crystal.