12:43 Sunday May 11 2042 Sioux Falls SD

I sat up in my bed, running my fingers through my hair. One downside of having long hair was how much it got in my face and eyes, but after eighteen years you learn to deal with it. Still, I reached for the hair tie on my bedside table and pulled my hair into its usual ponytail.

Only once I'd done that did I scrub my palms on the legs of my pants and allow myself to think about what just happened.

Dead

Again

That made...sixteen. Sixteen builds gone forever.

And I hadn't even made it past Level 14 this time.

That was just sad.

Not as sad as when I'd accidentally blown myself up as an Artificer (3 times), but still pretty pathetic.

I was better than that.

Sure my party stabbed me in the back and trapped me in a dungeon to be ripped to shreds by a horde of Troglodytes and Ghouls, but still...

I was better than that.

What the Fuck was that about anyway. Sure, we didn't really know each other, not IRL, but it just seemed completely pointless. They weren't even really cheating me out of a cut since we didn't get anything but a few cheep hides and some common shrooms. A few handfuls of copper at most, if that Mesmer had a decent bartering skill.

I spun myself to the side, letting my feet rest on the rug under my bed and shook my head hard, clearing it of questions I'd never get answers to. Some people were just Dicks, even in games.

I looked up from my knees then, to the poster than hung on my wall. It was a bonus from my per-ordering the game before launch.

It was of a purple sky, two bright stars and a golden crescent moon and an endless expanse of glowing trees. stretching to the horizon and, silhouetted against it all, a vague person-shaped outline was wreathed in rainbow lights. In one corner was a big, looping signature from Potter Smithe, the head developer of Cryptid Studios.

And right in the center bottom of the poster, right under the silhouettes' feet, were big block letters that read...

"Dauntless Online"

I sighed to myself. I should go get something to eat. Dying in game always took it out of me and it wasn't like I needed to dive right back in. I quick break to clear my head would do me good and I couldn't really trust my body's signals where food was concerned.

Outside of Character Creation, DO didn't have many hard and fast rules. But the biggest ones were the rules about death.

A character could only die three time. If you died three times in game your character was done. They could never come back or be played again.

Well, there were spells or items that could revive a player of course, but all the ones I'd ever heard of had to be applied within a minute or so of dying.

Which meant, unless my math was off (a definitely possibility given my math skills), I'd managed to die a total of 48 times over the last two years.

That was a whole lot of death hunger right there, even if it was spread out. I was lucky I hadn't gained weight.

I got up, propped my V-Crown in its stand on the far side of my bead, and turned to walk over to my bedroom door.

Which was, of course, when I managed to knock a stack of papers off my desk. A bit anachronistic, I know. Almost nobody uses paper anymore. Still, I always liked the feel of real paper under my hands and a pencil in my fingers. Plus, paper doesn't get smudge marks on them every time I touch them like tablets do.

I sighed and knelt down, taking my hand off the doorknob and gathering up the fallen papers in my hand; sorting through them for stuff I actually still needed and stuff I could toss into the incinerator.

Some notes for my Biology final... Don't need those any more.

Invite to that graduation party Alison Chu threw last week... Nah. Wasn't all that fun a night for those of us who don't enjoy being hit on by drunk former quarterbacks.

My acceptance letter from Augustana University. A new adventure only a few months away... Definitely need to keep that.

I sorted the rest of the papers either back onto the desk or into the trash chute. Jogging the papers I'm keeping into a more orderly stack, I slid them further along my desk this time, so just reaching to open my door wouldn't knock them off again. I'd probably move them again the next time I actually sat down at it, but it worked for the time being.

Now, finally, I could get some lunch.

Time in DO ran at twice the speed as the world outside. Not literally of course. Time dilation in VR had been attempted, but had been found to be not practical. The in game clock was simply sped up. In the game every second was counted as two, day in game past in only twelve hours and while the rest of the world had counted two calendar changes since the game first launched the game had had four.

Meaning that, while it was just past midnight in DO, it was really only a little past noon out here. The perfect time to make a nice grilled cheese sandwich.

Finally getting out of my room, my feet moved from hardwood floor to plush carpet. The wall directly opposite my room was thankfully blank, at my insistence, but the house was lousy with various framed works of "art". Some weren't too bad, like the stills of bowls of fruit or the prints of various famous works. But the abstract ones never failed to give me a headache if I stared at them too long.

It took a solid five minutes to get from my room to the stairs; a fact I was more than used to after eighteen years living here, but every now and again I would reflect on it and realize that I really did live in a ridiculously big house.

Yeah, my Dad was rich.

The "live in a mansion" kind of rich.

We had an actual marble staircase, a backyard with a fountain you could swim in and a garden that cost small fortune to maintain.

We didn't have butler, or servants period. My Mother was a moderating influence on Dad and she didn't want her kids growing up spoiled or looking down on people wherever they lived.

When she'd still been alive anyway.

I was honestly more than a little relieved to get through our foyer (yes we had one of those too) into the kitchen. It was small and cozy, much more my speed. Free of the gaudiness present everywhere else in the house.

I pulled on the apron hanging on a hook next to the door and got straight to work, getting out the skillet, bread, butter, spatula and other various things needed for a proper sandwich.

Flicking one of the burners on, I put the skillet and the pad of butter over the flame to melt while I buttered the side of the ungrilled bread. I'd done this a million times by this point, so I could let my mind wander while I worked.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

On the wall above the stove was a framed piece parchment. Or what looked like parchment anyway. I was never too clear on whether it was real or just an artistic piece.

It was my older brother Mick's addition to the kitchen decor; his favorite poem as well as a reminder to be careful in the kitchen.

"For want of a Nail the Shoe was lost.

For want of a Shoe the Horse was lost.

For want of a Horse the Knight was lost.

For want of a Knight the Battle was lost.

For want of a Battle the Kingdom was lost.

And all for the want of a horseshoe nail."

My chest swelled, like it usually did at the thought Mick. He was seven years older than me and we had different mothers, but neither of us cared about that and he'd always been the absolute best to me.

I worried, him going off to join the Military Police, but I got why he did it.

After the near collapse of the US back in in 2023 things had never really been settled in him. I mean, that was nineteen years ago he'd been all of six when his mother died and Sioux Falls had been nearly burned to the ground in the riots, but I could see how that would stick with you years later. And why joining the MPs seemed like a good idea when they'd literally saved your life.

When Chief Justice Roberts assumed emergency powers in 23, the country had been too deep in political shit or lawless rioting to actually think it would work. Still, with them as the only cohesive branch of government left, the some of the remaining generals committed their forces to making them stand up and they'd actually managed to take the nation back with a populace that was suddenly more interested in being able to live safely in their homes than abstract political ideologies.

After that the new Senate had been forced to accept the amendments capping the Supreme Court at nine, granting the Justices the power to set national policy and giving the courts their own dedicated armed forces answerable to solely them.

In short, the balance of power had shifted from the White House to the Supreme Court and Chief Justice Montoya had done been nothing but dedicated to maintaining the peace her predecessor had bought in the nine years since she took office. There were people still not so resigned to the new status quo, but nobody seemed too worried about it. Elections were coming up in another two years and stats showed a whole lot of the old guard didn't have such good prospects of getting re-elected.

Plus, if anybody wanted to do something serious about changing things back, they'd have to get through Mick Galilhai to do it.

Smiling once again at the thought of my big brother, and at the fact that my grilled cheese was perfect, I took proper hold of the spatula and lifted the golden brown bread out of the skillet and onto the waiting plate. I then turned off the stove and moved the skillet to the kitchen sink, turning on the water and leaning out of the way of the cloud of steam that erupted at the contact.

I waited a few seconds for the steam to clear before I poured in the soap, leaving the skillet and spatula to soak while I turned back to my sandwich and the empty glass set next to it. I spun to the refrigerator and took out the gallon jug of orange juice. I poured the glass half full, or half empty I thought to myself with a smile. Yes, my jokes were bad, but I did not care. The point, after all, was to amuse me, not anybody else.

I carried my plate and cup over to the circular kitchen table, much more comfortable than the dining room one, and stared aimlessly out the colorful glass windows at the garden flowers.

So, I thought, taking my first bite of deliciousness, what should I make this time?

I was, of course, going back into the game. I hadn't been playing this thing for two years only to give up now.

Maybe a Jack this time, I thought as I ate. Big. Tough skinned. Can't wear armor, but with one of those Two-Handed Axes... Or maybe a Trident. Makes for a good build.

Jacks were magical mutants in the game's lore. Former slaves of all races who'd been used for heavy labor in mines, ocean harvesting and, yes, lumber production; hence the name. They had some solid attack and defense options and a lot of players had had success with Jack characters.

Then again, so do Warriors. And look what happened to Hanno.

No.

Another Strength class wasn't the way to go here.

Well, maybe I should revisit the Bug Eater.

That was a lot of fun. Very weird gameplay, but total poison immunity combined with hunting new weird things to eat and make poisons out of was surprisingly enjoyable.

No! I thought to myself, as this wasn't the first time I'd had that thought. No playing the same class twice. We've been over this.

Besides, that class was too popular with well-explored strengths, weaknesses and development paths mapped to death. Which was how the PKers who'd ended Dairech the Bug Eater knew to use fire arrows when they shot me in the back.

No, if I was going to actually hit Level Cap this time and not get killed I was going to have to do something Different.

That meant a Spirit class.

There were only Five stats in DO; Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, Charisma and Spirit. While none of these were unheard of in RPGs, the way players selected their classes was.

The first thing players did in Character Creation was choose their Prime Stat. Whichever stat they chose would lead them to a choice of seven different classes, making a total of Thirty Five playable classes.

And of those, the seven Spirit classes were by far the least popular choices.

That was more than a little odd, seeing as Maccabee the Paladin had been sitting at the top of the leader board for a least a year now, and Paladins at least had seen an increase in players when he hit the number 1 slot. But you couldn't play it like a Champion or any other Strength class and a lot of players had backed off after finding that out. While you could customize your play-style a fair amount in this game, you couldn't make Spirit classes into a Mage or a Warrior any more than you could get a cat to ribbit.

Of course, there were some players who took the obtuseness of Spirit classes as a challenge, and those types dove right into the wilds as a Druid or mountain-tops as Monks, Even I'd tried my hand as both a Priest and a Necromancer. Though neither got very far before meeting an untimely end for the third time. Most people went for tried and true classes they actually knew how to play, avoiding the often confusing requirements of Spirit.

Especially for the Grave Walker class.

That was the hands down, bottom of the rung, fewest players in the game, one class nobody knew what to do with.

Or so everyone said. I'd never actually tried it myself.

Some parts of it looked cool; talking to ghosts and getting some unique locations to explore. But it was apparently almost impossible to level, even for a Spirit class. You couldn't cast like a Shaman, hit hard like a Paladin, heal like a Priest or even make ghosts pets like a Necromancer could with the dead. In the entire two years since the games' release the highest anybody had ever gotten with a Grave Walker was level 15.

Which means there's got to be plenty of surprises still out there...

Wait, I wasn't seriously thinking going Grave Walker was I? I mean, I was more likely to get stuck like everybody else than actually pull it off. And even if I could figure out they weren't exactly power-houses early on. I'd be a target for PKers for ages...

Which is exactly why I need to do something different.

Something had changed recently in the game. PKing had always been a possibility in DO, but it wasn't much of a draw since you couldn't grief players. Unless a player was on their third death they didn't leave anything behind when they died. Without that, or the ability to tell how many deaths any given character not your own had to go, Player Killing just didn't usually pay off except for the EXP. And there were plenty of high level mobs and quests if that was what you were after.

Still, for some reason, PKing had been on the rise the past six months or so. Tools like the ones who'd trapped me in a ghoul tunnel or straight up Player Hunters.

All the better reason, then, to pick a class that can actually take care of themselves. Stick with what you know works

A Paladin then, I decided as I finished my sandwich. The armor and war-hammer should at least help me get off the ground and not immediately die.

I nodded to myself as I got up, walked back to the kitchen to wash my plate and now empty glass. Big fancy house or no, my Mother was adamant that her children clean up after themselves. And it wasn't so terrible a chore really. I scrubbed out the now cooled skillet too with a thing of steel wool and, when it was done, set glass, plate, skillet and spatula to the side to dry, drying my hands on a hand towel.

I stretched, lifting my arms over my head and straining until I was met with a series of satisfying pops and sighed in contentment. I was full, stretched and I had a plan.

And I had a solid three months to focus on Gaming before college life became my main focus.

Happy thoughts of all the hours I had to spend on the continent of Alaze running through my mind, I spun on my heal and headed back through the kitchen door, back across the ridiculously big foyer and up the marble staircase, back through the hallways and into my room. In a few strides I reached my bed and turned to lift the V-Crown off its charging stand, the blue LED lights leaving the white lattice that still looked to me like a cross between branches and antler. I sat down on my bed with a careless energy as pulled my hair out of its ponytail and combed it out with my fingers before fitting the crown into place over my head; two of the "branches" touching to either of my temples and another two resting over my forehead.

The tech involved in V-Crows was beyond me, so why the various parts needed to be in exactly the right places over my head, or brain I guess, wasn't something I really understood. That said, I was aware of how the early experiments in Dive Virtual Reality had fried more than a few people's melons before the lab coat brigade had gotten it right, so I wasn't about to argue when the directions said to make sure the thing was adjusted properly.

With my headgear in place I laid down fully on my bed, settling in comfortably before I said my password to activate the thing.

"Open Saysme"

I could almost hear a faint humming and my vision blurred a bit before everything when white.

Welcome Back Andi Galilhai