“Caw, caw! Caw, caw!”
Ezreal grumbled, trying to get a few more minutes of sleep before his shift started. Maybe if he pulled the covers up over his ears, he might be able to block out the noise just for a little bit…
Ah, yes. The softness of his blanket was the one thing he loved wholeheartedly, especially how it… fluttered in his fingers?
“… The fuck!?”
Ezreal jumped up from his “bed”, diving to the side while trying to focus on the thing he had just grabbed through his blurry eyes. It took a second for his eyes to adjust to the bright lights in his room, but unbelievably his eyes settled to a bird nesting right on top of a rock, right next to where his pillow was.
Wait, where was his pillow?
He took a step back, trying to recalibrate his senses to the completely unfamiliar environment around him. The first thing he noticed was the sea of green all around, with towering trees enclosed all around where he was. Through the cracks foliage of the dark green leaves, the brilliantly lit blue sky peeked through with the white whisps of the clouds blending in with the rich blue sky. It was a sight he had seen plenty of times before in video games, but something about this felt completely different.
He could actually feel the wind brushing across the hairs of his skin – the heat of the sun shining through the leaves – and hear the chirping of birds singing their song all around. It was an experience that bordered on a complete realism. Ezreal shuddered at the thought of how long the world generation must’ve taken, and how much processing power was being used just to render the polygons around him. He hoped that the headset had decent cooling, since he had his fair share of older headsets tanning rings around his skin due to the lack of a proper cooling system.
After enjoying the breeze and the sun for a bit longer, Ezreal stood up, taking account of the situation the game had spawned in him. After taking a quick peek at his body, he realized that the game had spawned him in completely nude, with no clothing, bag, or item to his name. The most frightening thing was just how realistic the in-game model was in comparison to its real-life counterpart, and its incredible accuracy in reflecting his actual body – which he had no clue how the game would even know how it would look like. Perhaps his body was really just average in every capacity? What a depressing thought.
“Caw?”
The bird Ezreal had grabbed just a few moments ago stared at him, seemingly cocking its head at Ezreal’s regard of his own body.
“What? Never seen a naked body before?” Ezreal snapped at the bird. “What are you, a raven or something?”
“CAW!”
The bird stared at him with such an air of anger that Ezreal could’ve sworn it was offended. It quickly flew up high into the air, vanishing almost immediately out of sight – but oddly enough, Ezreal could still feel its presence somewhere around him as if there was an invisible rope tethered to the back of his mind to it - understanding that it was there, but the rope had a line so long he couldn’t tell exactly where it was.
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“… A crow. It was a crow, not a raven.” His grandmother had always loved crows.
Quickly shaking off the nagging feeling of uncertainty in his head, Ezreal began walking through a cut path in the woods that he had noticed in the corner of his eyes. Normally he’d feel embarrassed walking completely naked – but who really cares about what happens in a video game? Most NPCs wouldn’t even react besides the occasional one-liner about his nakedness, which was exactly how the Youngster Scrolls 7 had done it, the cutting-edge of Action RPG games the market had to offer in this day and age.
Although the breeze did feel a tad bit chilly on his bare skin, Ezreal couldn’t be bothered to even notice it if it was freezing. He was far too busy in awe at the world all around him, and just realistic it felt in every capacity. Not that Ezreal had any experience in an actual forest that he could compare it to – forests had been locked up in specific logging districts due to the scarcity of wood reserves, although his grandmother had spoken quite a bit about the true beauty of nature. Ezreal had always scoffed at those stories, but truth be told, he always felt the strong pangs of sadness at the fact that he would never be able to experience what she had in her own life.
But now he could experience a slight inkling of it in its pure, raw form! Not to mention this was probably only a beta test and would only get progressively better from here. If this was the baseline of what the game offered, which was exactly what the trailers had shown on the Black Forums, then this would revolutionize… well, the entire industry of gaming. Not even Avirsta in their multi-trillion dollar company could match the work of this single indie developer.
Ah… right. This was the end of the line for him, though. He probably only had a few more hours to spare before –
“HELP ME!!! SOMEONE, PLEASE HELP US!” Screams echoed throughout the forest to the right.
Ezreal’s ears perked up immediately at the cries, his heart rate and blood flow rushing at the sound of action. Acting before his mind could properly register what exactly just happened, he began crashing through the rough foliage and terrain on his bare feet, scraping and cutting them across the sharp stones lying on the ground. The branches did a number on his legs and arms, scratching him at every turn as he sprinted through the dense network of trees that almost seemed to enclose around him to block his path towards the noise.
Crashing through the final wall of branches and stone, Ezreal dug his heels in to a stop as he entered a wide-open clearing. In front of him lay four wood wagons lit by flames, the fire raging high above the tree line. In the midst of the flames, rubble of cut stone and wood littered the ground in huge chunks, with some armored NPCs in chain mail and metal helmets caught underneath them. They laid there crushed, their armor dented by the sheer weight of the material above, with blood pooling all around them. Some in similar armor and uniform were spared from that fate, fighting with drawn iron swords that seemed rusted out in the daylight.
Waves upon waves of goblins crashed into the NPC’s hastily made lines, the holes in their defensive line surrounding the handful of civilians only widening as the seconds ticked by. It was almost too much for Ezreal at that moment – the clang of the swords colliding into each other, the screams of the civilians being protected by the lives of the soldiers, and the crackling of the flames…
An armored man, his legs crushed by the weight of a large stone, lay right by Ezreal’s feet.
“You… please… help them…” He grunted, blood splattering all around the dirt as he spoke. “Wait… why in the name of Hevliva are you naked…?”
‘That’s an awesome scripted line’, thought Ezreal. It was simply amazing how much detail went into this!
“Ah, I have no clue. You see, I’m a guy who’s just about to die –“
“It doesn’t… cough… matter! You must help them! Please!” cried the man, his tears and blood wetting the soil.
“Ugh… you know, It would reeeeallly suck to have to respawn and do this bit all over again. I wonder what would happen if I sprinted off into the wild…?”
“NO!” shouted the man, as he hastily shoved his rusted sword into Ezreal’s hands. “The oath! You must remember the Oath of Man!”
“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but… fine, I might as well test out the combat mechanics.”
Relief flooded the man’s face, moments before the light in his eyes dulled into a dim gray and his body slumped once more onto the ground. Ezreal stood with the sword in hand with a smile on his face, ready for the action ahead – but yet, the tickle of uncertainty kept nagging the back of his mind.
Why did the conversation just now feel so… uncannily real? As if it wasn’t scripted at all?
Shoving his thoughts to the side and taking a quick look at the overall situation before him, Ezreal quickly sprinted towards a part in in the line held solely by a single soldier, mere moments away from being swamped by a group of goblins. It was almost pitiful, seeing the short soldier swinging the large sword around at the dastardly quick goblins. But no matter – Ezreal was here to save the day. Maybe there’d even be a reward bounty at the end of this!
“Let’s fucking GOOOOOOO!” screamed Ezreal, the familiar rush of adrenaline surging through his veins at the promise of combat.