“One more!”
Fooly raised his new steel sword and slashed the goblin. The green beast, which was only as tall as Fooly’s waist, stumbled back. A split second later, an arrow spun out of the darkness and pierced the goblin’s head.
The goblin cried out as it collapsed to the ground with a thud.
Level up!
Fooly breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, after all the grinding, he was level 80! He was strong now, but not as strong as…
The vague memory of Orion killing Katrina flashed through his mind.
Fooly needed to be stronger! So, Fooly has asked his guild leader to lend him a party for two weeks in order to grind some levels.
“Fooly, man,” a male knight named Jibril said. “We gotta call it a day. We’ve already trained for a good six hours more than we normally do!”
“You’re right, you’re right. You guys can log off now. Same time tomorrow, though.”
The four other party members roared with delight and laughed as a group, probably due to the exhaustion. After saying goodbyes, Fooly was left sitting on a rock.
He opened his friend’s list.
He had around twenty names listed, but one name stuck out the most. Orion.
When Fooly had logged on, Orion was already on. Twelve hours later when Fooly is ready to log off, Orion was still online.
He tapped Orion’s name with a finger, causing the familiar small symbol of a megaphone to pop up.
“Hello?” Fooly talked with no one around, but his voice managed to reach someone else.
“Yo,” Orion’s voice ranged in Fooly’s ears.
“What are you up to? You’ve been online for a long time.”
“Looking for some mountains. A merchant told me it would be near Ravenhook but it’s so far away. I feel duped already and I haven’t even reached it yet.”
“Want some help? I could-”
“No thanks. It shouldn’t be much longer now and I don’t want to waste your time.”
Silence. Orion was far away from Fooly, but not just in a physical sense. Ever since he killed Katrina, it was as if a part of Orion died too. It seemed like an unfair trade; Katrina will respawn, but what if Orion stayed like this? Distant…
“Oh, I think I’m here now, actually. I gotta go, I’ll see you soon.”
The megaphone vanished, leaving Fooly sitting in silence. His heart churned in a sense of motivation; he had to catch up to Orion! Then, Orion would be forced to listen to him!
Just as his picked up his sword, a person appeared out of thin air. It was Samantha, the ranger from his party.
“Fooly?” She tilted her head. “What are you still doing online?”
“Uh… what are you?”
“I was going to ask the leader for something… Were you planning on training more?”
Fooly looked away. He didn’t want to make her feel guilty by leaving him so he didn’t want to tell her the truth. At the same time, she was one of the only members of the guild The White Hand that didn’t look at him as an object due to the merchant’s passive.
He couldn’t just lie to her.
As he thought of what to say, Samantha immediately caught on.
“Well,” she spoke up. “I suppose since I’m already on, I can train for a while longer.”
He looked at her with a blinding smile. “Well, I was going to go into the forest since those mobs would be easier for me to solo, but with you here we can stay in the cave. At the entrance of it the goblins were lower in levels, so a pair should be able to take them relatively easy.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she said, shooting him a thumb up.
They cut down goblins at a much slower rate than when there was a group, but eventually Samantha managed to level up and they said their goodbyes for definite this time.
The next day, the whole party was online and continued their training at a steady pace.
It had been nine days of constant grinding when the team stumbled on a small indention in the cave wall. It opened like a hallway, but Fooly couldn’t see too far down because of the darkness.
“Should I scout ahead?” Samantha asked.
Fooly nodded.
Because of her profession of ranger, Samantha could activate a skill that allowed her to see two times as far as any regular player. She would be able to see the mobs that waited for them in the darkness before drawing aggro and return to the party unharmed.
When she returned, she shook her head.
“It’s a boss.”
“Do you know which one?”
“No, I couldn’t get close enough. It’s full of goblins too, so the boss has to be at least level 120, maybe more.”
“Can we fight it?” The knight asked.
“No. Actually… call the guild leader. Tell him what we know about the boss and ask for reinforcements.”
“Roger that,” Jibril said, opening the guild member list, which was similar to the friend’s list. As he called, Fooly sat on the ground and scratched his chin.
“Did you see how many goblins there were?”
“No,” Samantha replied.
“He gave us approval,” the knight said. Then he sheathed his sword and dropped his shield in order to join Fooly on the floor. “We just gotta wait for another squad that’ll get here in an hour.”
Just then, Fooly’s stomach rumbled.
Their healer, a monk named Xevrend, sat next to Fooly. “Should I heat up that soup we bought from the traveling merchant the other day?”
“Hell yes.”
Fooly waited in anticipation as Xevrend crafted a fire and boiled the pre-bought soup. Even though it was already made and not fresh, it still tasted delicious. More so than if any of them cooked, so none of them had cooking mastery and a high level in said mastery was needed to add taste to meals.
But before he could dig in, a party appeared and unfortunately it wasn’t their reinforcements.
A large, body-building, power-lifting, meat-head looking man led the group. He wore some simple cloth armor that resembled fur but carried an enormous double headed axe over his shoulder. The axe must have been as tall as the warrior himself, which meant it took considerable strength to wield.
Fooly could already very well guess what the man’s profession was. Berserker; one of the heaviest hitters in the game but they lacked defense, hence his cloth armor.
Along with the armor, the leader also had a cloak draped down his back.
“Eh!?” He shouted when he saw Fooly’s squad.
Fooly stood, not wanting to seem weak by sitting. “Who are you?”
“Trick, one of the captains of Lion’s Roar. Who’re you?”
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Lion’s Roar!
“Fooly from The White Hand.”
Trick released a laughed that came from the bellows of his gut. “You hear that,” he said, looking behind to the rest of his team. “The White Hand!”
Fooly could already sense a confrontation rising. The two guilds have been rivals for longer than Fooly’s been in The White Hand. That being said, they never fight. Fooly’s guild doesn’t participate in player versus player while Lion’s Roar prides itself on pvp.
The number one rule for The White Hand is to have positive fame; no player with negative fame can join. The second rule is to not pvp. So when Lion’s Roar shows up, the leader of The White Hand demands all members to retreat.
“So what’re y’all doin out here, sittin around?”
‘He doesn’t know about the boss! Maybe if we don’t tell him, they’ll-’
“Somethin in there?” Trick asked, pointing a thumb to the opening in the wall that led to the boss. Fooly’s heart sunk and the berserker laughed as if feeling the dread. “Kindred! Run in there, will ya? Scout it.”
“Yes sir,” a woman wearing all black replied.
‘Damnit, they have someone to scout too!’
Kindred descended into the darkness and soon returned with the very information Fooly had been trying to hide.
Trick grinned from the news. “Oh? Waitin for reinforcements then? Say, you don’t mind if we steal it, huh? Unless, of course… you wanna fight for it.”
Fooly felt a hand clap his shoulder and turned to see Jibri, who was shaking his head.
“My, my,” a female voice called from the shadows. A woman cloaked in black stepped out from behind Trick and let her hood fall, revealing her face.
Katrina!
“I didn’t suspect we’d meet so soon,” she smiled.
“You know this guy?” Her leader asked.
“A bit. Well, are we going to fight? You can’t fight though, can you? Your friend had to save you before!”
Her laugh crackled through the cave.
“We were just leaving,” Jibril spoke up. The knight lifted his hands up to show innocence before beckoning for the team to follow.
“Running, you mean?” Katrina mocked. “You really are worthless. I’ve never seen someone so pathetic! How much gold did you drop for me on that ship? Eight hundred?”
824.
“That’s impressive, though. No, really! You must have worked so hard to get that much. So, lemme ask… you compensating? You are, aren’t you!?”
He couldn’t keep his eyes from breaking contact and dropping to the gravel beneath his feet.
“You are!” She crackled again. “You poor? You’re probably really stupid too if you’re playing this game instead of working. And weak! Holy shit, could you be any more pathetic? Look, the bug crawling around here is worth more than you.”
She stomped her boot again the ground which caused something to squish and smear along a rock.
His heart twisted and he felt so frustrated, he wanted to cry.
Someone cleared their throat behind him.
Fooly met Samantha’s eyes. There was silence at first, but after a few seconds she slightly nodded. Fooly looked back to Lion’s Roar and the half dozen smirks.
Fooly’s sword sung as it was released from its sheath and pointed towards the berserker. “Challenge!”
“You plan to make it official?” Trick laughed. “You afraid of losing fame? Whatever, a chance like this… the first PvP battle from The White Hand! I’ll gladly be the one to defeat you! Accept!”
A small circle the size of a quarter appeared on the ground between the two leaders, lighting the cave in a dim blue. Then, it expanded its radius outwards until becoming a border for the battlefield. Any player leaving the border wouldn’t be able to reenter.
“The boss’ll be pissed,” Jibril whispered, but lifted his shield anyway. After all, the challenge had already been issued and accepted; there was no turning back.
“Shine!” Fooly shouted. A bright light emerged from his sword and poured over Lion’s Roar. The entire enemy team then found their avatars charging forward without consent.
“Iron Wall!” Jibril slammed the bottom of his shield, which delved into a point, straight into the earth. This caused the ghost of a shield tall enough to touch the ceiling to erupt from the ground, completely shielding his team.
Lion’s Roar, which remained taunted by Fooly’s spell, found themselves attacking the enormous shield. Meanwhile, the rest of Fooly’s team darted around the enemy and circled around them. From the sides as well as from behind, the White Hand released a fury of spells, arrows, and sword strikes.
Fooly’s team managed to deal a considerable amount of damage. However, the battle soon changed.
“Roar!” As Trick shouted his command, his voice amplified tenfold and knocked Fooly along with Jibril onto their backs a few feet away.
Fooly cursed and managed to stand back up quickly but when he saw the battle, his moral plummeted.
PvP, or player versus player, is much different from PvE, or player versus environment aka mobs. Versus a boss, Fooly’s tactic of surrounding the enemy would have worked just fine against many bosses in Genesis.
However, Lion’s Roar easily turned on Fooly’s teammates and began slaughtering them. Other than Jibril, there was only one other tank in his team. While she did the best she could to draw aggression and tank, the damage dealers in Lion’s Roar seemed to melt right through her armor.
Before Jibril and Fooly managed to reach, the backup tank had fallen. Then the battle became a huge clusterfuck; all of Lion’s Roar focused on the damage dealers on Fooly’s team and nothing could be done.
Nothing could be done because of Trick. The berseker faced the merchant and knight all by himself; just his body and an insane battleaxe.
Each team had ten players originally. Other than the small skirmish of Fooly, Jibril, and Trick, plus one tank in White Hand already falling, that left the following players:
Seven players in the White Hand.
Nine players in Lion’s Roar.
Even though the White Hand didn’t participate in PvP, they were by no means weak. The battle even remained equal for the first few minutes. However, the number advantage began to take its toll as the White Hand’s numbers whittled down faster than Lion’s Roar.
“Fierce Strike!”
Trick slid his grip on the battle axe down to the very end of the handle. Then, after spinning and taking a step forward, he used the moment to force the axe to slice through the air.
Fooly managed to duck, but his knight was slower. Jibril held his shield up to the side in defense, but the blade of the axe smashed right into the shield and threw Jibril out of the border.
Fooly vs Trick.
Behind Trick, Fooly caught a glimpse of the main battle. His teammates were beginning to die at a rapid pace. He saw no way to win.
‘So this is PvP…’
Fooly collapsed to his knees with no motivation. Trick chuckled, pleased to see the weakened spirit of his enemy, and raised the battle axe into the air.
Fooly looked down, not wanting to watch the final blow, ashamed.
The next second; a black screen.
The virtual reality pod released the lock and opened, revealing Fooly’s real room. It was dirty due to the clothes spread out on the floor. He didn’t have a dresser; only a closet, which was full. In fact, the only furniture he had in his room was a bed and the virtual reality pod which was given to him by a friend.
He knew that Genesis wouldn’t allow him to log in for another twenty four hours, so he climbed out of the pod. His bedroom’s door creaked as it opened, revealing a hallway.
“Look out,” someone said. A second later, his ten year old brother shot across the hall towards his own room.
Fooly glanced out, confused.
Before his little brother entered the room next to Fooly’s he paused and glanced halfway to Fooly’s direction. “Mom’s home,” he muttered.
Fooly sighed and made his way to the kitchen, where he pulled out a water bottle and set it on the table. As he made a ham and cheese sandwich, he could hear the lock on the front door shaking. Eventually a woman managed to open it and stumbled into the apartment.
She made her way to the kitchen where Fooly quietly bit into the bread.
“You gonna pay for that?” she mumbled.
He could smell the liquor on her breath and it sickened him. However, he remained silent. If he were to say anything, literally anything at all, it would result in a barrage of drunken verbal abuse.
His mom, noticing the bottle, lifted it by the cap and strolled into the hallway towards her bedroom.
Fooly’s sandwich was slowly set onto his plate due to a sudden loss of appetite. He ultimately decided to split it in half with his younger brother. He was probably lucky than his two other brothers weren’t home or he’d feel obligated to split one sandwich into fourths.
Once the meal settled into his stomach, he went into the kitchen where the only computer for the family sat on a desk. He surfed to a forum for Genesis called the Market where players could sell anything in-game for real money; characters, items, information, anything.
Unfortunately, none of the items he had looted that day could sell for much. He was still a low level, under 100, so unless the item was incredibly rare he was shit out of luck. Still, he checked every day just in case.
After an hour of wandering around the Market, YouPlay, Jebbit, and Flitch, Fooly shut the PC down and went to bed.
The next day, he logged on to his spawn location; a small town. Within five minutes, a voice called to him. “Fooly,” it said. “This is Hirsane. Where are you currently? Can you make it to Flowrider?”
“I’m about an hour away from there, I think.”
“Good. I’d like you to meet me there to discuss… recent events. See you soon.”
Hirsane, the guild leader for the White Hand, stopped the call before Fooly could even reply.
Though his estimated time of an hour was accurate, the travel seemed to take all day to Fooly. Would he be suspended? Or maybe fully expelled? He deeply regretted fighting the rival guild because if he lost the guild, the game would become insanely harder. A solo player that’s a merchant? Forget about it.
When he finally reached the town, he paused in front of the guild building.
A guild house is a place for guild members to meet. It’s a tall building with two dozen rooms per floor. A guild leader, or someone in the guild with high standing, can rent a room for a day and all members of the same guild are allowed entry.
Guilds can have their own castles or mansions that are exclusive to them, but guild houses are spread around the world in major cities. If a guild needs to meet away from their headquarters, they can do so there for privacy.
When he summoned the courage, he followed his leader’s directions to the room currently rented for The White Hand.
The door opened, causing Fooly to almost bump into another player.
“Whoa!” Fooly exclaimed, taking a step back. “That was close, sorry about that. Where did you come from?”
“Hm?” the player replied.
“Where did you go?”
The man leaving the room tilted his head in confusion.
“Where did you come from, Cotton Eyed Joe?”
“I should be asking you that; you’re the one who almost bumped into me.”
“True… I’m meeting with Hirsane.”
“I won’t keep you then,” the player said, walking passed Fooly and making his exit.
In the middle of the room was a large, wooden round table that could seat twenty players. All the way at the other end sat Hirsane, whose long, pure white hair was brushed to the side.
“Sit,” the guild leader instructed. His voice was firm and confident yet held a touch of softness. “I have already heard from Jibril what happened. I’d like to hear your side now.”
“Forgive me, Hirsane. I… lost control of my emotions.”
Hirsane remained silent, waiting for Fooly to continue.
“I joined Genesis to find ways to make money. On the news they often showcase pro players who are living the dream and blogs always talk about how rare items go for a lot of money in real life. But lately I haven’t been lucky. Even though I’m a merchant, I can’t find rare items. I got irritated and Lion’s Roar baited me.”
“I see.”
“So… what’s my punishment?”
Hirsane stood and followed the edge of the table, his golden jewelry clinging together every step. When he reached Fooly, he placed a hand on the merchant’s shoulder.
“I have a job for you.”