Type Online - Pariah Online: Chapter 1

Varnish. I only had a precious few seconds before the window to create my character was gone. I was joining a heavily populated server. That was my new name, I realized. Varnish. Great. I laughed, hearing it echo through my mind with my body completely unmoving. I tried to shift and adjust my body, but it didn't budge. Uncomfortable, yeah, but I was determined to get used to it. The server connection bar filled to completion and accepted my choice of name.

I had been trying to get onto this specific server for weeks. Lunar. It was probably the most popular of them all for Type Online. The popular types of players that made guides for content, and streamed were all on Lunar, so it made sense.

The character Type choice system appeared in front of me, and I felt my mind trying to breathe a sigh of relief, but it didn't connect with my brain.Ugh. There were always so many uncomfortable sensations associated with playing a VR headset game. There was no way to boot me out of the server once I had successfully reserved a spot with my character registration at least. Every other time I had tried to join it’d shoot me off and wake up my real body. It was such a shock, I hated it.

The Types and SubTypes you could switch to when you selected that Type were laid out in front of my eyes. Huge text boxes were under them that I mostly ignored, but from what I remembered,

[Merchant] – Alchemist (attacker), Smith (defensive), Chef (support)

I read the title of the Type and Sub Types for the last class on the list first.

Merchants were a pretty self-explanatory Type. They traded attack power, defensive power, and supportive power for a better capacity to make and craft items, and forage for better ingredients and materials for themselves and their fellow players. Even beginner potions and food tended to be in high enough demand to profit from it I had read. It'd be a cushy Type to play. A house in whatever city I wanted before I even hit the level cap for sure. And whatever the best armor and weapons I could ever want I could craft immediately if I had the friends to help gather materials. It'd help it make up a bit for its bad stats, and poor combat abilities.

But it could never measure up stat wise to any of the other Types when it came to any sort of combat on a competitive or high-level play. It’d mean spending a lot of time just sitting going through menus, though. Probably not as much exploration, which wasn’t really my thing.

[Light Mage] – Holy Mage (attacker), Cross Mage (defensive), Healing Mage (support)

The Light Magic Type, second from the top, was a hard maybe.

They were highly sought after for guilds and parties, it'd be a huge plus to have so many people interested in me even as a low-level character. Levelling would be easier, but solo play would be much harder. Holy Mage, their Attacker Type, was weaker than Wielders or Death Mage but could make solo play on lower levelled content go a lot quicker. If there were ever an overabundance of healing in a group switching to that SubType could make things a lot easier for a party lacking normal destructive power.

On the other hand, Cross Mage was their Defensive SubType. A mix of Shield magic, and Attack magic, it was harder to play, and only really brought out as a last ditch effort to survive. A Support Magic Type's defensive was still laughably bad even at it's absolute best. And [Light Mage] being all support and all healing power for other players was what it really had going for it. And that was reallyall it had going for it, you’d be straight out of luck if you wanted to ever be on your own.

[Wielder] – Swordsman (attacker), Axeman (defensive), Reaperman (support)

Right at the top is what I expected immediately.

The weird name of the SubTypes aside, it was by far the most popular Type. It was fun and easy to play. You'd get up close to enemies no matter what, and even it's Support SubType, Reaperman, was based around crowd control Tanking, pushing enemies, and being up close to the action. Its Attacker SubType Swordsman was about heavy damage, leaving itself open to all kinds of physical damage, but using the full capabilities of its high damage output. Its SubType Axeman was also probably the most useful, taking far less damage than any other Type, and having a host of Skills available to keep monsters interested in attacking them, and them alone.

They weren't in high demand, but they were absolutely an important Type within the game. Every group needed a [Wielder] talented at their Axeman and Reaperman SubTypes first and foremost. It probably wouldn't be hard to get used to playing, either.

[Death Mage] – Death Wizard (attacker), Cross Wizard (defensive), Environmental Wizard (support)

Second to the bottom of the list of Class Types, under [Light Mage], I finally glanced over the final Type, the least popular.

I stopped as my mind held the cursor over the Death Magic Type. It was by far the hardest Type to play, but also sounded the coolest. The Death Wizard SubType had the purest destructive power in the entire game, by far.

But it's tendency to draw attention away from the higher Defensive SubTypes put a giant target on it for monsters. They tended to destroy materials and enemy drops unintentionally too. Cross Wizard, it's Defensive SubType type had the worst Defensive Stats of any Defensive SubType in the entire game. It was more useless than Cross Mage, it's only plus was that it could use very basic Healing Mage spells.

And Environmental Wizard offered support in a strange, but incredibly helpful style. They could change the environment around the party and throw objects and obstacles from the environment into the fray, starting, stopping, and building dangerous conflict. Their role in the party changed depending on the environment around them. Switching between their three SubTypes could be the most powerful if done correctly.

I was never much of a sword type fighter kind of gamer. Or Merchant. I liked the idea of having a great amount of wealth, but not being able to contribute as much to a party setting or being good at fighting bothered me too much to even consider it. So it was either the Support Magic Type, or the Death Magic Type.

Death Magic Types weren't exactly sought out. Destroying drops wasn't really a plus in the community, even I had to admit I'd be upset if a drop I wanted was burnt to a crisp. But I could always just switch to environmental damage and use less destructive spells for something like that.

I could avoid it all together by just healing, though. Diana was a healer, she'd be ecstatic if I was one too.

I saw a PM through the server system in the corner. [Where you at???? You get in?????] I opened the box and started speaking.

[I'm picking a class- Type, I mean.] I frowned, not sure yet if I could delete what I was saying. I hadn't read the manual or any guides for how to log in, it seemed pretty straightforward. [I've almost decided, I think.]

I had barely sent that message when a second one appeared. [Hurry up!! Christ!] I shuffled it off the screen somehow and selected Death Mage without a second thought. It would annoy her at least. I had school and work to do, and it was going to be finals in a few weeks, I wasn't going to play too often or for too long.

The second I did that my entire body seemed to fill with life and air and scent and sight again. It didn't seem as off-kilter or strange, clicking things through a screen, paralyzed. I started staggering to keep upright before I could even fully register I was able to move.

The momentum of being standing again and trying not to move all at once was overwhelming. I breathed heavily, my chest light and buzzing. Before I felt myself falling backwards, water under me. It was cold but pleasant, the perfect temperature enveloping my entire body for just a moment. I instinctively stopped breathing and start flailing.

I had never played a VR game before. There were tons out, but I had honestly been too afraid. If I knew how to open my systems menu I would have opened it and quit myself out right then. I managed to right myself enough to stand knee deep, and inhaled, water dripping off my clothes and hair like a heavy oil with nothing remaining on my body after just a few seconds.

“It's taking her forever, geez!” A few feet in front of me was a taller girl with elegant long black hair, and beautiful white gown, detailed with soft steams of catholic robe style tassels and strips of fabric. She had a cute hat that matched. Her face felt familiar but far too beautiful to be normal or human.

I felt myself focusing on her, wanting to see what her name was. It appeared in front of me quickly and clearly, making me jump.

“Diana?” I asked. My younger sister's character, towering over me by at least a full foot. I never in a million years would've thought I'd experience her towering over me. I almost stepped back, but stopped myself, knowing I'd probably topple over again.

She looked at me, but without any intent or interest, “Varnish...” she narrowed her eyes and went back to staring at what I assumed was the spawn point I was in, a big crystalline pool of blue and green with a few other lucky people who managed to get through the server spam, slowly walking up from the water before opening their eyes, “Varnish.” she laughed, “Wow. Ew.”

Rude! “You're the one who wanted me to join the crappy server! Everything was taken, I only had like ten seconds!” I tried to puff myself up a little and put my hands on my hips, but I was so much smaller than her I doubted it looked intimidating.

She stopped staring at the water and walked towards me. Her dress pooled against her body and out in the water so elegantly when she entered the water, “Ashley?” She held out a well-manicured finger and poked the fat of my cheek.

“You look so- Gold Seller-ish.” Before I could ask why she grabbed me by the back of my neck and turned me back toward the crystalline pool. For a second I thought she might throw me in or try to drown me. I struggled, but she shook me until I calmed down and stared at what she was pointing me towards.

My reflection was... Generic. Black short hair, brown eyes, ethereal and beautiful like Diana, but completely boring. Baby-faced, and incredibly small. “Why am I like five feet tall? Wait, did I already make my character??”

Diana pulled me up, “You sure did. You didn't adjust any height or muscle mass sliders, didn't change your hair color. You probably just threw Varnish into the name slot and signed yourself up like this. Great job. A plus.”

She started guiding me a little towards the road, then released me and began walking down it. “Come on, we have to get you fixed up before someone kills you assuming you're trying to peddle gold-seller-best-deal-very-cheap dot com or something.”

The fields on the way to town were so green and lush. It looked totally untouched by people, besides dirt roads that lined the fields as far as I could see, leading off in random directions, towards forests, past the horizon.

The sky was clear and blue with a few soft and perfect clouds floating through the air. The smell of fresh flowers, grass, and wet earth wafted through the air. Everything was so perfect, I could see why Diana spent so much time cooped up in her room coming outside only to eat and drink and- Well, survive.

“Don't do anything weird. Better yet, don't talk.” I wanted to say something along the lines of 'I didn't even want to play this stupid game', but Diana would have probably slapped me to death and just grabbed me from whatever re-spawn point I'd end up at.

I held it in as we reached the town's front gates and crossed the threshold. She was probably worried I'd embarrass her in front of her popular friends even here.

The town itself was gigantic. It was full of little buildings made up of wood or stone, guards and people with carts drawn by big weirdly colored horses and birds. Just the first area we walked into was already bustling with children and both merchant NPCs and Merchant Type players. People of every size, beastmen, elfs, strange looking tree-ish druid people.

I was pissed I hadn't spent a few minutes checking out the rest of the options on screen. When I saw Lunar pop up as a possible server I just threw Varnish into the character name slot before spam hitting the confirm key over and over until I was sure I was in.

The druid looking race with green veins elegantly peaking out from beneath their skin like roots on the surface on the ground specifically made me feel like going back and trying to delete and start over. I knew there was no chance I'd get back in, though.

We passed a few vendors selling items I wanted desperately to stop, look at, and touch. They all looked so real, but they were all strange looking potions or totally fantastical other objects. A man selling apples of every color caught my eye, I stopped for a moment to examine them as Diana continued walking straight by and talking about something I wasn't even pretending to be interested in.

“Hey there, cutie. You new?” He had opal eyes, colors twisting and twirling as he moved, white hair, and a rather snake-like appearance. His features were pleasant, though. He grabbed my hand before I could react, and turned it over to put a lovely pure white apple in my palm. “Here, on the house.” It looked wonderful. I turned it over in my hands. I loved fruit, and it looked so real.

“It's beautiful! Thank yo-” Diana grabbed the mans arm and clutched it, causing him to cry out in pain, and in one swift motion with her other hand took the apple out of mine and threw it back into one of his many piles, causing some of them to fall over.

“Huuuuge hairy dude IRL, don't even think about it, buddy.” We began walking away swiftly before the man could get in a retort.

“What? No, I'm not! Diana!!” I tried to get my voice over the hustle and bustle of the crowd, but I wasn't sure it made it to him. Either way, it didn't matter much. Diana continued to march with a reverence, healers were supposed to be weak, but she completely overwhelmed me.

“He probably just wants you to join his guild or wants an e-girlfriend, ignore him.” Diana jerked me forward as we came to a cute little shop bursting with flowers and colorful cakes in the windows. She opened the door with the wave of her hand and pushed me through. It was getting tiring, getting dragged and pushed everywhere. In real life we were both petite, I was starting to think she was enjoying it more than she should.

“Krel! My adorable little sister requires your assistance!” she called into the cute shop. She ran towards the back as I looked around. It was so pink. The waiting room to the side was covered in pink cushions and a couch shaped like a heart. I wasn't expecting there to be that many in-game items so cartoonishly girly after seeing the fantasy setting style outside. Stepping in a little more I noticed a few chairs in front of some mirrors, and little cakes sitting plainly in front of them. It sort of reminded me of a salon if it had been drenched in... Valentine's Day.

I sat down to examine myself clearly for the first time in one of the mirrors. I had a young face. I didn't adjust the age slider to any older then the default, which was set to as young as humanly possible it looked like.

I was maybe fourteen, but based on how perfect and angelic everyone looked you could have told me my character was thirty and I would have believed you just as easily. Slight and small, I hadn't adjusted the height or body slider above the minimum either. Black hair about down to my ears, black eyes only a little brown in the light, pale white skin but not ghostly or unearthly. It was probably the only part I liked, the porcelain look of my skin.

Though it didn't match with my starting gear. I looked like a sickly generic peasant in a brown potato sack textured robe. My staff looked more like a stick with a ping pong ball glued onto it. I looked new for sure. And Diana was right, even without playing I could tell I looked unimpressive and quickly slapped together.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

A few seconds later a tired looking human woman wearing a puffy dark pink dress trotted out from the back. She looked a little like a fancy cupcake. Her blond hair was pulled back into two relaxed ponytails. She was around my character's height, maybe an inch or two taller, which I appreciated.

She had a matching puffy pink bag that was overflowing and stuffed with- A lot. I could see some potions peaking out, herbs, and cute carefully decorated cupcakes that seemed magically unable to smear over each other or her other items as they mashed together while she walked. Diana came out from the back a few seconds later with a large trunk. She put it down gently in front of me.

“The sister we've all heard so so much about.” Her voice was dry and strangely scratchy. It sounded uninterested and sarcastic. She set down her bag and motioned towards the little cake in front of me. “Just eat that and we'll get started. Diana sent me a DM about your situation.”

I picked up a little fork sitting next to the cake and brought it to my mouth. It had actual taste, which surprised me. Moreover, it was fantastic! “You can taste food in this game? No wonder you never eat anything I make, Diana.” as the words left my mouth I saw the mirror in front of me change. My features became ghostly and smokey, the mirror became some sort of screen, all kinds of hairstyles and colors in little icons on every side, “Whoa!”

“You look even worse next to styles that aren't horrible, geez,” Diana started clicking them frantically each time my hair would change drastically to a new cut, and swoosh down beautifully, or swish quietly with some sort of fake wind. A few looked nice, but there weren't as many long ones as I would have liked.

I would have wanted to match my hair in real life, but the longest one didn't really look close to mine, or very good, the bangs were blunted across and too high on the forehead. Diana started to slow, and eventually stopped, “You don't have any of the female styles...” She sighed and clutched her temples, “You idiot.”

“What?” I reached out and clicked one of the icons cautiously and examined myself. I kind of liked it, it was short but styled in layers and tomboyish. I clicked a darker brown coloring and started trying to highlight it with a lighter coppery brown color, then moved onto my eyes.

“Can you do anything about this? Or does she need to remake her character?” Diana and Krel spoke behind me, but I didn't turn around. I selected a dark purple eye color, and examined myself. It looked good enough. The hair would be similar to my own if I got a cute cut.

“Is this okay? I'm gonna pick this I think.” I hovered my finger over the accept button at the bottom of the mirror where a little confirm option sat.

“She won't be able to get back in, the servers are getting even more crowded. She was lucky she even got on when she did. Maintenance won’t be for another, what, two weeks?”

“Ugh, whatever.” I clicked the button quietly and watched my old features fade out into the new ones. “Well, get used to being a tiny gross little man,Varnish.”

“What?” I asked, turning around to see Krel going through a few menus, Diana looking over her shoulder and ignoring me almost entirely.

“It's got rare, expensive ingredients. Look at this, Mega Slime Tea, for one. Yuck, those high-level slime caves are gross. You might be able to get that with a raid group. Wouldn't be hard for you to gather some chumps up that'll just let you have the drop, but there's no way I can afford it right now.”

“Well, not much we can do this second. At least you look girly.” Diana opened the trunk she had brought in and started sifting through it, throwing out a few shirts and pants, then a slightly less generic looking staff. It had a small ruby atop a twisted strange knot in the shape of a heart. She picked that up and an elegant black robe and walked towards me.

It looked like starter gear, but it looked about as expensive as it could get. I smiled a little, Diana cared in her own weird way.

“I'm a guy? Does that change anything really?” I took the robe and staff out of her arms and they disappeared in a sparkle of smoke. I looked around and tried to open my menu before Diana reached out and held my head still and started pointing at a corner in my field of vision.

After staring at it for a few seconds it stretched into a big menu in front of me, and an inventory of my items. I selected the two she had just given me and they replaced my own clothes and weapon before I could even register it.

“Not as much as you being a Death Magic Type. Knights Guild won't accept him.” Krel shrugged and collected the trunk to take it to the back room.

“Her!” Diana yelled after her. She deflated and hunched over, “She's right though. You aren't going to be able to join my guild. We can't change your class either, the potion cost for that is like- just, beyond us. And it'll reset your progress.” she paused, staring me down, “Provided you can find anyone to actually help you level.”

“Oh.” That seemed like kind of an extreme. Some people had to play the class, it was in the game after all. Even if it could hurt drop rates. It just seemed too mean-spirited to completely exclude them, “Is there anywhere specific I should look for one? A guild, I mean.”

“I have no idea, I didn't socially outcast myself from the get go. I told you to pick literally anything else.” Krel walked back in with a little bag, filled with far less than her own she had before. It had a cupcake patch stitched on, and was bright pink with sprinkle-ish looking red beads scattered on it. She held it out to me.

“Oh! Thank you. I appreciate the help starting out at least, really.” I took it and slung it around my neck. It looked kind of funny with all the grimdarknss of my robe and staff, but I didn't say anything.

“Yeah, but now we can hardly play together now, you idiot. What was even the point?” Diana opened her menu as she talked and started typing things out at a pace I couldn't even comprehend. After her menu dissipated into thin air, and a note appeared in front of her. She took it and handed it to me.

“Here, if you do these quests you'll make it to level ten. Don't talk to anyone weird, just do these quests, it should only take a few hours. After that, we can take you to the first dungeon and start getting you buyable skills.” The moment it connected with my fingers it disappeared into my menu. What was the point, she couldn't have PM'd me?

I felt like deleting it in front of her and going off to explore, but I rolled my eyes instead. I could at least pretend I was going to off and grind some boring NPC quests.

“Thanks. I’ll be off then.” I waved goodbye to Krel and Diana, both already back off in their own world talking about stuff far beyond me like potion costs and dungeon mechanics.

The sun outside had gone down a bit, casting everything into a beautiful looking twilight. Though it was still just as populated, people running around and cutting through each other by pushing one another aside. 

Wow, no one clips into each other? I thought. I took a look at the sign outside of Krel's shop as I wandered off, “Hair, Eyes & Glamours Galore” Of course. Diana seemed like the type to spend all her money on superficial stuff like that before she got into the game all she did was buy clothes and makeup. Now she could entirely change every part of her face and hair with a cupcake apparently.

I wasn't planning to play the game for very long. A few hours sounded like a little much, I still had to do laundry and start dinner for when mom got home. I also wanted to take Kitty, our rather misleadingly named dog, for a walk and get a start on picking out an outfit for school the next day. I walked towards the town square yawning, but it didn't really make any connection of relief or tiredness to my brain. It felt kind of awkward, and I looked around hoping no one had noticed.

A couple of other players suddenly ran past me, one Wielder Type knocking into my arm and actually slammed a bit of my HP bar off and threw me over. It was a pretty harsh push from such a bulky forceful figure, but it didn't hurt much, it felt odd to have something knock into you so fast but feel practically nothing. I straightened myself up and tried to see where he was going.

There was a crowd gathering around a fountain I had passed earlier with Diana as we headed deeper into a city. I ran up and tried to get closer to the centre, which wasn't too hard with my being around the size of a short and slight teenage girl.

Two men were already in conversation at the centre, the crowd giving a wide birth around them of free space. One's features were dark and brooding. His jet black hair fell down to his ears, but a series of bandages continued down and wafted through the wind. His face was otherwise covered up by his impressive wizard hat, and some more bandages. It looked like he could only see out of one eye with how they were wrapped. His robes were more form-fitting and way better than mine, though still mostly blank and purple. It looked high level.

The other was a giant woman, fitted with armor so bright the setting sun glared off of it like diamonds. It was hard to tell her gender from armor, it didn't look any different than a man's, but her voice was strong and obviously female whenever she spoke.

I looked around and saw the Wielder that had run into me talking to another, excited. The bigger one that hit me had leather armor on, and a masculine hard face, and seemed to be in the Swordsman SubType. His friend was a little smaller, and in the Reaperman Subtype, his curved weapon resting strapped to his back and covered in some sort of cloth. His hair was green and spiked, and his eyes red. It sort of reminded me of Christmas, but I decided not to open with that.

“Hey, you knocked me over back there!” I said, poking the bigger man in the sternum. He didn't notice at first, but his friend turned to look at me first, then hit him hard in the stomach a little lower from where I had just poked. I saw his HP drop to a quarter and stepped back instinctively.

“Roni, the hell?!” the bigger man choked out, barely. I stared, trying to figure out how to switch SubTypes. As I thought about it my UI appeared in front of me. I focused in on an icon on the cover of my vision when I left it there for long enough and it showed three new icons. One of which was greyed out, a picture of a skull with fire behind it. I selected the one next to it, a skull with a little plus sign inside, my whole body tingled for a second. I didn't know how to do what I do but I tried-

“Heal!” the man's HP filled up a tiny bit, and I smiled. The charge of energy leaving my body felt fantastic. “Heal, heal!” It filled up to full and the man stood up again, looking from me to the other man, back to me.

“You can't go around hitting cute little girls, you ain't got a bit of sense in your head.” Roni, I thought. He bent down very slightly to shake my hand. “Sorry, kid. Some people, am I right? Forgive him, though.”

“I'm right here, Roni. That's a dude, and I didn't mean to either way,” I examined his character's name quickly, he was sending me a kind of intense glare. WolfChaos. Kind of strange, but I wasn't about to say that with a name like Varnish.

“Nah, cute girls always make cute looking little guy characters like this. Look at that bag.” Even I looked down, and did my best to turn it around so it'd be less visible after realizing, “We'll help you out after this to make up for it.”

“Yeah, well- I guess, but it isn't like that. I-” The other guy started, before being cut off by someone yelling.

“Fine, if you won't listen to reason than I, Alixandrea of The Knights Guild, challenge you, Apostate, Death Magic Type, to a duel in place of this young woman! She lost treasure rightfully hers because of your unkind and foul practices and magic, and if I rein victorious you shall pay her what you rightfully owe!” She pointed her sword from a young and cute looking female avatar with flowing brown hair and big brown eyes back to the man she had just named.

Why was she speaking like some melodramatic RPG character?

“This is all because he's a Death Magic Type?”

“Yeah, it tends to happen. Especially to this guy.” The man hadn't even replied when the woman moved. She swung her impressive sword toward him and he narrowly avoided it. Her weapon shifted after that to a large Scythe, and she swung again, this time hitting him, though not seeming to do any sort of impressive harm.

He stepped back again, spinning, and pulling out his stave. It looked beautiful, like a little planet surrounded by spinning stars and twirls of black holes. Even from here I could see how awesome it looked. It had to be endgame equipment.

He jumped back again, furthering the distance between the them, then seem to concentrate deeply. The air around them seemed explosive now, something in the very feeling of the world around them shifted. The woman stopped in her tracks as she came towards him, but after a few seconds he switched, and she took that moment to charge forward. The ground below her exploded, and she stopped just in time to avoid falling directly into the brunt of it.

Half of her HP had been shaved off almost immediately, while he seemed to be missing only a tenth or so. She jumped back, throwing her weapon slightly into the air. It glowed white and her scythe turned into a large and beautiful axe. She held it in front of her, and as the explosions below her feet erupted again she wasn't even moved. It only took her down to around forty percent. Roni laughed.

“That was a dumb move for Ms Knights Captain.” he pointed at a building behind her she had moved closer to, I didn't understand, “But then again, hard to notice if that weirdo's staring you down like that.”

As the woman got up to charge him again she seemed to be jerked back into place. She looked down, startled, and enraged. Around her were tough and gritty looking vines, wrapping around her armor and holding her stock still in place. By the time she noticed it had already begun taking her arms. The crowd was now shouting, telling her to cut the vines. As they overtook her completely it didn't look possible.

Apostate raised his stave, and as he did so she too moved up towards the sky with the vines holding her in place. She was at least one, two, three stories up. I looked around, trying to gauge the reaction of the crowd. A few seemed upset, but most were excited. When I turned back to the fight Apostate had closed his eye, and the knight woman- The knight woman had just begun falling.

She let out a scream, but she hit the ground too quickly to vocalize much. Her body was motionless after hitting the ground as some of the crowd cheered, but more screamed boos and obscenities.

“Good job, Apostate! You did it, man!” Roni screamed out, clapping and cheering enthusiastically. Maybe in a sarcastic tone, he seemed weird. He looked over at us as he yelled. Apostate's one eye was such a bright green it almost looked inhuman, he seemed so contained and unaffected by just killing someone.

Even if it was fake my heart was racing, eyes wide. I clutched my stave and gulped, hoping he wouldn't come after Roni next. But after a second he put his staff away behind his back, turned to look off in another direction, and then seemed to vanish into smoke.

“Alix!” The brown haired girl screamed, practically at the top of her lungs, as she tried to right the fallen knight. She switched in that weird glimmer I was still getting used to, and then seemed to be in deep concentration. The knight slowly got up in agony. I swear I could hear bones being snapped back into place.

The game seemed to still have some level of pain present, but getting pushed over must have been must different than being blown up and dropped until you were literally a lifeless corpse.

“For a video game that was... Intense.” I said out loud. I heard Roni begin to laugh again, WolfChaos shrugged.

“It's all good. Let's get you outside the walls. If you thought that was bad you're in for a treat the first time you get chewed out by a boar or mushroom or something. Hurts pretty bad no matter how you go."