“What am I even scared about?” I try to say to myself reassuringly. It's late afternoon and I’m sitting at my computer desk while having a staring competition with the VR headset sitting on my bed. I haven't been able to bring myself to put the thing on after the nightmare I had yesterday morning. It ended up being around the same time yesterday when I got home from classes, but still feeling uneasy I avoided playing The Realm Of Timeless Lands. I didn’t have any classes or plans for today so I spent most of the time browsing the web or social media, though I also spent some time researching the hero’s sword Excalibur.
Truthfully I didn’t find a lot about the sword apart from what I already knew about from the in-game lore and some details about the real world mythology. However, I did learn more about the divine classes in the game. Usually in TROTL you can freely choose your primary and secondary class out of all available classes in the game, except for the divine classes. These classes, phoenixborn, demi-light, and demonic are incredibly rare and hard to find. Only a small number of players have been able to unlock them since the game’s launch. What really interested me though is there are rumors of a fourth divine class, the hero class. Only one player has apparently ever actually earned it though, Someone named Elysium. But at the end of the day no one actually has any evidence. All of it is basically as credible as playground rumors telling you can actually unlock the final boss as a playable character in your childhood game or something. Supposedly Elysium rarely logs on but there were multiple forum posts asking about him and his sword, Excalibur.
Even the image of the sword in my mind is enough to make me want to vomit. Why is this whole nightmare thing scarring me off of playing so much? Just because it felt realistic? Do I seriously think I got hurt? Just the thought of the pain I felt is enough to make me clench at my chest again. God I’m being such an idiot, it wasn't even real!
“Damn it! Come on, let’s just get this over with!” With resolve and a bit of annoyance I get up and move onto the bed. Putting the headset on my face, I take a deep breath to try and calm myself one last time before turning the system on. Like normal I enter the system menu and boot up The Realm Of Timeless Lands. The game appears to start normally as well. I'm at the character select screen in the meadows just outside Silverhelm just like normal. I take a close look at my character Echo_Of_Amber as well, same story, nothing different from what I can see on this screen. His appearance isn’t altered, he doesn’t have a different sword, and best of all he isn’t trying to kill me. I move onto the next screen and breathe a little sigh of relief. The destination screen is normal, no extra glitch option. Good, proof once and for all it was all a bad dream.
I decide to head to Silverhelm, I don’t really have any objectives, just wandering around the main hub to kill time sounds good enough for me. However as soon as I appear outside the gate to the city I get an in game message. It’s from StarDrifter; It looks like she is online as well. The message reads: “Hey, wanted to talk more after the other day. Wanna meet at the tavern in Silverhelm?” Well I guess that decides what my plan is for now.
The tavern isn’t too far down the main road, so I get there in no time. The bar is filled with a colorful cast of characters. Most people use it as a sort of gathering hub, to meet up before venturing out on quests. Others like to just hang out and pretend to drink their hearts out, though some people might drink some real alcohol before playing. In the back corner I spot the white haired brawler and make my way to the booth she is sitting at.
“Oh! It’s you. How’s it going? Please take a seat!”
“I’m alright, how about yourself?” I take my seat across from her at the table.
“Good, good, If I remember correctly you said people call you Echo right?”
“Yeah, that’s usually what everyone calls me.”
“Hmm? My first thought would have been to call you Amber.” she moves her hand to her chin and seems to really give it some thought for a moment.
“Well I don’t really mind. If you want to, you can call me Amber.” her face looks a little surprised for a moment but that fades to a friendly smile.
“Amber it is, then. Feel free to call me Star if you’d like.” Her hand moves to open her menu as she makes an order. Just as soon as she orders a drink resembling a cocktail appears in front of her. “If you want I can pay for yours?”
“Oh, you don’t need to do that.” It's not like this is an actual meal. In games like this food can be bought with the equivalent of pocket change. I open my menu and order a drink for myself. It's a dwarven ale from Glimmerdrath’s Forge. I grab the drink that appears in front of me and take a sip.
“How does it taste?” asks Star. “I don’t usually drink alcohol, both in-game and IRL.” Honestly it’s a lot more gentle than anything you would typically expect dwarves to drink. Though, I don't have a lot of experience with drinks IRL to compare it to myself.
“It tastes really good, though it's a lot closer to the taste of a soda than an ale.” The drink I ordered comes with a 5 percent boost to enemy drop rates for some time. Just about every piece of food or drink in the game comes with some kind of small buff, but most of the time they don't do enough to really worry about unless you are speedrunning bosses or something.
“I did want to thank you again for the other day. I’m sure you noticed how many hackers have been running around in this game. It is seriously starting to piss me off.”
“Oh, it’s nothing. Blatant cheaters like that get on my nerves too.”
“Hey, at least you were able to take one of them down a peg! And guess what, I got a message back yesterday morning that the guy was banned after you beat him!” Star lets out a snicker at the hacker’s expense.
“That's a relief, I was a little worried that he would just come back and harass all of you after I left.” After Dead-F3 was defeated we all made sure to report him for cheating properly. The moderation team can be a little slow, so I figured he might cause more chaos before his time was up. Thankfully, it seems I didn’t need to worry.
“You’re pretty good at the game. How long have you been playing?” I take another sip of my drink before answering.
“Well I’m nowhere near the top, but I have played a little over a year if I remember correctly. What about yourself?”
“Ah, so you're experienced. It’s been almost 2 months for me." Star responds with a smile but then she brings her hand to cover her mouth while she starts to giggle a little to herself. Confused by her laughter I ask.
“Sorry, did I say something wrong?”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just a little funny is all.” Star calms herself down before continuing. “Actually we met before, on my first day trying the game.”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Huh? Wait seriously?” My shocked reaction only brings back her laughter.
“Yeah. It was a quick conversation with a stranger so I’m not too surprised you don’t remember. It was at the city center by the statue of Luminastria. You mentioned that I should visit the grand library at night...” She freezes her reminiscing, her expression becomes conflicted as she stares thoughtfully at her drink. She lets out a sad little laugh before running her finger along the top of her glass. “Thank you for recommending it, it actually helped me a lot. And it's one of the reasons I keep playing.”
I’m a little caught off guard by her serious tone. Now that She mentions it I do think I remember meeting her before. Like she said, it was a really quick conversation. I happened to run into her looking completely lost with beginner equipment in the middle of the city center after a fight broke out. I just so happened to recommend the library roof on a whim, because her username reminded me of times I would read the in-game books and lore up there at night. I don’t really know why something like that would mean so much to her.
“I didn’t really do anything special… but if it really did help you, then I'm glad we met that day.” As I finish speaking, Star pauses for a moment. She lets out another little laugh, before shaking her head and looking up at me with her soft smile returned.
“Yeah, me too.” She reaches down to pick up her glass. “How about a toast, to our little chance encounter, and our reunion.” I nod and raise my glass as well. I'm unsurprisingly not one to go out to parties or drinking, so toasting feels a little awkward to me. Especially toasting in a VRMMO. We clink our glasses together and we both finish off our drinks. “Ah, that's right, there was one more thing that was a little silly back then.” She sets her empty glass down before continuing “Back then you said I should contact you if I needed anything, but I think you forgot that new players have other people's usernames hidden by default.” Wait, that's true. Ugh, I have been playing for some long, I completely forgot about that setting. That's a little embarrassing. Yay a new memory to remind me how stupid I can be. I sigh and sink my head down.
“Sorry about that.” I whimper out in a defeated tone. Star lets out a giggle at my embarrassment, but waves her hand.
“Nah, it was a bit confusing since you didn't even introduce yourself, but it's nothing to be sorry about.” She opens her menu and presses a button, after which our empty drinks vanish into thin air. “Well why don't we go fight something or do a quest? Get the most out of our money? Seeing how you fought the other day kind of makes me want to show off what I can do.” I pause before I nod in agreement and we both sit up out of our seats. “Where should we go? Anything you need to farm for?”
“Not really anything specific. I'm fine fighting whatever at the moment, well maybe a raid would be too long for tonight.” Raids in TROTL tend to go for multiple hours tackled by a group of 12 players. They are meant to be long endurance challenges. Featuring multiple puzzles, enemies, and unique bosses. With it being so late in the day already a raid would definitely go into the early hours of the morning.
“How about we just head into the Rhovan Meadows and go goblin hunting? I have a side quest to gather 30 corrupt petals that I’ve been meaning to finish.” That should work for me too. Currently my main focus in the game is improving my thief skills, which you can do fighting any enemy.
“Sounds good to me, I don’t need the drops so I don't mind giving them to you either.”
“Sweet, more for me! Alright, Let’s go show them what we’re made of.” I open my menu and send her an invite and we join a group together. From there I move to destinations and select the Rhovan Meadows combat zone. Rhovan Meadows is located outside the borders of Silverhelm and as such is the first combat zone available to players. The two most common enemies found here are low level goblins and the vile flora, a race of monstrous plants. Despite being filled with weaker monsters TROTL features level scaling, meaning lower leveled opponents have inflated levels to have a better fight.
It doesn’t take long for us to load into the zone. Even though it's a combat zone, that doesn’t mean it isn’t pretty, it is called a meadow for a reason. The region is a sprawling plain with small hills filled with white and yellow flowers. It has a few trees spread across sparingly and a small river stream that runs across heading east. Star steps forward from our spawn point first and points to a lone tree near the river.
“If I remember correctly, there should be some flora by that tree there.” As she suggests I follow behind her, and spot a chest under the tree. But once we get close enough a locked symbol appears above the chest and a large figure begins to grow in front of it. A massive sunflower with red petals sprouts up and begins flailing its vines as if they were arms, on each of its sides a smaller copy of the flora also emerges. “I call dibs on these guys. Blazing Soul!" As soon as she calls out her skill a red aura appears around Star and she begins to start rushing towards her challengers.
I believe that’s an enchanter skill, I think it applies a small amount of fire damage to attacks if I’m not mistaken. Being close enough to start the battle she lets out a breath and moves into a fighting stance, one fist raised towards the large flora while the other rests near her hip. The first to take action is the large one. Moving its vines to the ground its roots begin to grow, across their combat ring small spike like roots pop out of the ground. Next the smaller two aim their vines at StarDrifter and they begin to stretch out onward her at a high speed.
Star remains unfazed by the rushing attacks however. In one fluid motion she uses her palm to deflect one of the vines while using the momentum to spin in place, dodging the second. Then she returns her palm into a fist and brings it to the ground, sending a shockwave of fire and heat around her, burning the roots the flora had grown. Despite the low damage received for the roots the vile flora still squirms in pain. It begins swinging its vines once more, but this time using them as whips to attack with. While she is hit a few times she is able to easily dodge most of the strikes through twisting and turning. However it soon raises both of its vines to the air and they slowly twist and combine before swinging it down like a hammer to a nail. This time Star is forced to reposition and she jumps back as the vine smashes into the ground right in front of her. I can see the wide smile on her face as she then leaps onto the monster’s hammer like vine. The vile flora raises its vine once more and begins unwinding it midair, launching Star into the air.
“Skybreaker!” Mid air she swings her body and begins to launch a kick. Flames ignite around her foot and leg as she flies directly toward the larger flower she hits it in the bullseye, dead center. Star jumps back and lands in a T-pose as the monster quickly burns to nothing.
“Wow…” that’s all I have been able to get out this whole time. I know these are not the strongest enemies, but she is still making this look a little too easy. She said she has only been playing for 2 months and she can fight like this?
The two smaller flora definitely don't seem too pleased to lose their leader and launch their vines toward her once more like before. This time however she catches them, tanking the damage. She stretches her arms back slightly before swinging both arms down, hitting both of them in the center of their flowers as well. There are no flames this time, meaning Blazing Soul must have worn off. That doesn’t matter though as the two flora begin to turn completely red and vanish. Star brushes the small amount of dust off her outfit and moves her bangs out of her face before looking back toward me.
“That’s 3 down, how’d I do?”
“Hah, that was incredible…” I say giving her a thumbs up, still a bit stunned. “Are you sure I’m the experienced one here?” She laughs and turns her focus to the chest the monsters were guarding. With the lock symbol removed she opens the lid and looks inside.
“There’s 3 more petals in here… but not really anything else worth anything. See any more flora around?” I begin turning my head back and forth looking for enemies to pick a fight with. While I don't see any flora, something else catches my eye.
“Hey over there by the riverbed, there are two goblins trying to fish- mind if I take those?”
“Hmm?” She takes a peek at the river. With the two of them focused on fishing they should make for easy targets for a sneak attack. “Sure, knock yourself out.” nodding I walk toward the river bed. I slowly creep towards the pair as the ground beneath my feet transitions from grass to rock. I slowly begin to unsheathe my sword. I draw it forward slightly and begin to prepare for a strike. However, at that moment something went terribly wrong. My sword began to glow, illuminating the area. In an instant my sword transforms and warps to a new shape. My breathing stops as I look in horror at my new blade. It’s now a sword I’m beginning to be very familiar with. The weight in my hands is exactly as I remember. My blade has been replaced by the legendary sword, Excalibur.