SUMMONERS TALE
Hopping from foot to foot, Alexander Harper couldn't keep the grin off his face as he excitedly watched the deliverymen setting up his Virtual Reality Capsule (VRC), roughly three years after its initial launch, he could finally play Royal Road. Despite being able to easily afford the game, Alex's parents had forbidden him from purchasing the revolutionary game unless he graduated high school with high marks.
It'd taken a lot of studying and hard work but he'd graduated within the top ten of his year, far higher than his parents had expected. With his birthday coming up in a week and the school year finished, his parents had kept to their part of the deal and bought him the $1000 VRC and game, he'd have to pay the $200 monthly subscription fee himself but it was well worth it.
Being able to finally play what is considered the best game on the market three years running is worth any price. Alex had played a ton of games over the years, he'd played games spanning many genres but MMORPGs were always his favorite, finally getting to play Royal Road was like a dream come true for a him.
After seeing the trailers for its launch three years ago, Alex had immediately hopped online in search of information on Royal Road, something he'd continued to do despite not being able to play the game himself. Many hours were lost digging through the net, using all forms of translation programs to search the more informative Korean websites for wikis and stores, he'd compiled a great deal of information on the game over the years and felt more than ready to finally play.
As if hearing his thoughts, the two deliverymen stood from the floor and made their way over.
"There you go sir." The older of the two spoke, hitching a toolkit onto his shoulders. "The capsule's all set and ready to go."
"Thanks guys, I really appreciate it." Alex cheerfully replied, handing over a $20 tip and rushing them out the door.
Closing the door behind the two men, Alex quickly rushed back to his room where a large, cylindrical capsule was now taking up the far wall. A glance at the time showed that it was just past 10 am, that left him with about 7 hours until his parents returned from work. Today was a Friday, he'd graduated just two weeks ago and he wasn't scheduled to work for another three days, plenty of time to get some serious gaming in.
Before getting into the capsule however, Alex hopped onto his laptop and visited a particular site, there was something he needed to do before he could start playing.
All newbies start the game with a measly 10 coppers and as they couldn't leave the starting town for four weeks of game time, it was recommended that they spend that time working a job to earn coins. No way was he going to do that, he was already forced to work a job in real live despite his parents being quite well off, he had no plans on working a job in-game unless it earned him some stats or game skills. It was far easier to dip into his savings and buy some gold from a website with real cash, it wouldn't cost all that much.
Ignoring the ads for in-game items, as he could look at those after gaining some levels, Alex clicked the link to buy gold and selected the 'Newbie Pack'. The pack was comprised of a single sack of 1000 gold for $9.99, not much overall but quite a lot for a newbie, this would be more than enough to last him until level 50 or so.
Finished with his purchase, Alex memorized the provided reference number and hopped into the capsule, a wide smile stretching across his face as the door closed and the machine began powering up. There was a steady hum for a few seconds as he lay in the dark, then a flicker of white light and a glowing screen appeared in his sight.
[p=farleft]Connect to Royal Road?[/p][p=center]Yes | No[/p]
Almost vibrating in place, Alex was quick to reply.
"Yes."
With that confirmation, his vision went dark and he felt himself falling away...
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-The scan of your iris and vein has determined that you are an unregistered user, do you want to create a new account?
Hearing the feminine voice speaking in his ear, Alex was at first surprised but he was quick to respond, he'd already read up on the character creation stage so he knew what to expect.
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"Yes."
-Select the name of your Avatar.
"Godric." Alex supplied, this was the name he normally used in video games.
-Select your gender from male, female or neutral.
"Male please." Alex spoke up, trying another gender may be fun for some people but he'd rather stick with the gender he was most comfortable with.
-Royal Road has forty-nine races, you may select your race from the unlocked thirty-one.
"Elf." Alex replied immediately.
His favored class in all MMORPGs was that of a mage or magic user, specifically a summoner based character, he usually played solo and the summoner builds allowed him to summon minions to act as tanks while he dealt damage from a safe distance. It was considered a cowardly build by most, especially the angry kids that he continuously spanked in PvP, but a summoner build allowed him to solo most dungeons without the annoyance of dealing with other players or splitting loot. Don't get him wrong, he had no problems teaming up with friends made in real life or online, his only issue was having to wait for them to log on before being able to challenge tougher dungeons, summons allowed him to nicely bypass this issue.
Royal Road had many summoning based classes, the necromancer being one of the post popular ever since it was unlocked months ago, it was recommended to play as a vampire for this class however as their affinity to death and their undead nature boosted the classes effects. Alex preferred to play the more magic oriented elven race, necromancers were good and all but they lacked in overall damage, he preferred dealing direct damage with his spells over the curses and debuffs of the necromancer class.
-This race is separated into three sub-races, the Wood Elf, High Elf and Dark Elf, which sub-race would you like?
"High Elf." Alex spoke, already knowing his choice.
The dark and high elf sub-races were both highly magic oriented, with the dark elf favoring fire and wind magic while the high elf favored earth and water magic. The elements didn't make much of a difference to him but he'd found that the high elf had more base intellect than the dark elf, which meant more mana and magic potential.
With his selection made, an elfish version of Alexander Harper appeared floating before him. The double's appearance was exactly the same as Alex's, six feet tall with a lean and lightly muscled frame, somewhat tanned skin with short cropped, dirty blond hair and dull blue eyes. The only difference in his appearance was his ears, the avatar had the elongated, pointy ears of the elvish race.
-You may alter your appearance however you want.
While he would like to stay with his normal appearance, he didn't much come off as 'elvish' in appearance so Alex chose to alter his avatar to fit.
"Longer hair, maybe down to my shoulder blades." Alex provided, watching as the avatar changed to match his preferences. "Increase the height by five inches, change the hair color to a lighter shade of blond and the eyes to sapphire blue."
Watching as the changes took place, Alex nodded in satisfaction, the avatar was definitely more elvish in appearance now but it wasn't so different that people he knew would fail to recognize him, which was good as a few of his friends already played Royal Road.
"That's good."
-Your account has been activated, your stats and class shall be determined while you are playing Royal Road...
"Skip." Alex spoke up, he'd already read the full dialogue of the tutorial, he didn't need to sit through it again.
-Select the city and kingdom you want to start in.
"The Casak Forest, Kur Kingdom." Alex replied, having made this decision a while ago.
Casak Forest was the only elven settlement located near Haven, Brent and Thor kingdoms, the current locations of his best friends, it would make it easier to meet up with them later on.
-Welcome to Royal Road.
With that final message, Alex's sight dimmed once more and he felt like he was falling once again.
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