I skipped through the opening cinematics. Everyone else might have needed to be amped up, to ‘immerse’ themselves, but I’m on a mission: Get in, find Luke, and keep him safe until someone figures out how to end this. The setup ran like it was supposed to, and the servers were still up and running. According to the news, none of the guys running this thing had been able to do anything with the game’s coding since the incident started. There were more flowery terms for it, but it boiled down to no one being able to do shit.
Character generation wasn’t something I was too concerned about. My name’s Denise, and I pretty much kept to what I looked like in the real world. It’s not like it matters that much. I did get slowed down on jobs, though. That did matter. I might want to do something like a healer, but if I had to hunt for Luke, it wasn’t enough of a help. In the end, I took Warrior. Straightforward, able to take a hit, and I could just upgrade later if I needed to.
As on mission as I was trying to be, it was impossible not to be somewhat impressed by the level of detail in the world as I stepped out of the character-gen area and into the world itself. There were smells, not all great, but even that much said a lot about how this had been made. Some little herald guy came up, and introduced himself as Pembry, offering a quest to take a tour of the city. It didn’t hurt my chances of finding Luke, and it’s not like I knew where I was going. A few players were milling about and stared at me as I passed by. I checked to make sure I was wearing clothes, but everything seemed to be in order.
One of the players, wearing some sort of smock thing with a purple dragon on it got a stunned look on his face, and came running up, “Hey, hold up!”
I stopped. Luke had been wearing something similar when I’d seen him on stream, “Hey, I’m looking for a guy named Luke.”
The man blinked a moment before responding, “Luke... wait, do you mean Lugh?”
Ugh, right. Usernames, “Right, yeah. Lugh, he’s got a smock thing like you do. Do you know where he is?”
He took a minute, “I mean, probably at the barracks? Are you new?!”
The stress on the word new caught me, “Uh... yeah. I just made my character.”
I might as well have informed him that the sun rose in the west, and then a torrent of questions came out, “H-how did you sign in? Why did you sign in? Wait, can you log out?”
They weren’t terrible questions, and I fumbled around for the Character Journal the basic tutorial had covered. I checked my tabs, “Uh... I mean, I can pull it up, but like, I can’t click the logout.”
He deflated immediately, “Yeah, thought that might be hoping for a bit much... Wait, did the government send you?”
I shook my head, “I’m here to find my brother. I’m sorry, I really don’t have time for this. Can I just go straight for the barracks?”
The guy shook his head now, “I mean, you can, but you should finish up the quest with Pembry. It’ll give you a militia flyer, and some other stuff you’ll need for later.”
Sigh, “Okay. Well, I need to hurry then. Thanks!”
I moved on, following Pembry around as he took me on a tour. I did stop in at the Adventurer’s Guild, both to register as Pembry instructed and for questions. The NPC lady at the desk was taking down my information, “Hey, can I ask about a specific player?”
“I’m afraid most information on guild members is restricted, but I can tell you if they are attached to this branch, and what tier of adventurer they are if they are registered with us,” She replied, a simple but pleasant smile on her face.
“I’m looking for a human named Lugh.”
She nodded, “Oh, I know Commander Lugh. He's quite gentlemanly whenever he's here. He’s listed as a Unit Commander with the 13th Valorian Militia and is of the copper class of adventurers, but... it seems he has changed branches. According to our records, he last registered in the village of Rosewater.”
There was something weird about the fact she knew Lugh without checking anything. Was it cause of the speech I’d seen? Rosewater... where the hell is that? It was listed as a village, but it’s not like I had a map, “Shit.”
Okay, okay. We know he was with the militia, and my brother wouldn’t have just walked off without telling someone. Maybe this Temur would know. I finished up my tour, got my flyer, and went immediately for the carriage to get to the barracks. I tried just walking in, but the guards weren’t helping out, saying the area was off-limits. I tried talking my way past, “I’m here to see Unit Commander Lugh.”
“The Commander isn’t here, I’m afraid. He’s gone off to do work in other parts of Valoria. Perhaps I could take a message for him?”
My patience was dropping rapidly, “Oh, god damn it! If he’s not here, who is from his unit?!”
The display did attract attention, and another militia member came walking over, this one a half-orc, “Uh, hey. They won’t let you pass through unless you’re allowed. Did you get the flyer?”
Right, the flyer. I offered it up, “Does this get me in?”
“Ah, a new recruit for the 13th Valorian Militia. Splendid! Greetings and well met! We are in stark need of such stoic folks as yourself in these dark times! Come in, and register with Yeoman Granger at the desk.”
I rolled my eyes, “Really?”
The militia player chuckled, “I mean, come on. He’s an NPC. There’s only so much you can expect. I’ll help you through the sign-in. Party up. My unit has open slots.”
I raced through my registration, got a bunch of gear, and stuffed in my inventory. Screw all of this, I just needed to get to Lugh. My new friend waited patiently, “You should put the gear on. Most of it’s better than what you’ve got on now.”
“I don’t really care. Which room is Lugh in?”
Here he paused, “Oh, uh... Lugh isn’t here anymore. Did you want to talk to Chrysta? She’s the one he left in charge of his unit. I think she’s out in the training yard right now.”
I took off in the direction he pointed to for the training yard, and when I got out there, it was packed with people. Aside from the NPCs, a whole mess of players were scattered around the yard doing various stuff. I don’t have time for this, “Hey! I’m looking for Chrysta!”
Chrysta was hot. She stepped out from a roofed area with an anvil, pulling up a set of goggles to reveal amber eyes, “Can I help you, darlin'?”
“Uh, yeah. I’m looking for Luke, but they said he’s in some place called Rosewater,” I was trying to be polite, but patience was rapidly being overtaken by agitation.
The woman in the smith couture mouthed the name, then looked me over for a moment, “Oh God... Denise?!”
More people were starting to gather up, and I was getting more looks at my gear, “Uh, yeah. Why is everyone staring at me?”
“Cause you’re the only person on the server wearing starter gear anymore. How did you- No, come with me,” She said, grabbing my arm with one gloved hand and walking back inside, “Everyone else, get back to training. I’ll catch folks up later.”
She led me back through to her barracks room and gave me an invite to enter, leading me back to a small office, “Okay. I have questions, darlin’. Guess what they are?”
I’d tried shrugging out of her grip, but she was strong. It was also clear she wasn’t playing games here, “Look, I just need to find Luke. That’s why I’m here.”
She rubbed at her eyes, “How did you get in the game? Like, were you here the whole time?”
“Oh, no, I just signed in for the first time. I’d wanted to surprise Luke before... y’know.”
Chrysta leaned on the desk, “Why are you in the game? You get we can’t log out, right? So many people have already died.”
I was startled by that, “What? No one’s died! Well, I mean, a couple of people did, but they were all either really sick or really old.”
She put both hands over the bottom of her face, shocked registering fully as I caught up with what she was talking about, “Wait, have people died? Don’t they, like, just respawn or whatever from the last save? That’s how Luke’s other games work.”
“No. Anyone who’s fallen has stayed gone. There’s even a memorial in the Adventurer’s Guild, a few thousand folks so far.”
Oh shit. That can’t be a good sign, “Look, I don’t care. I’m going to keep Luke safe until someone figures out how to get everyone out. How do I get to Rosewater?”
A hand came down on my shoulder, “By yourself? You don’t. Wait here. I need to go get some people. If you want, there are some logs that Lugh wrote. You can read those over.”
She strode out of the office on a mission, and I went over to the desk where she’d pointed. I sat down and read the logbooks. Yeah, it was definitely Luke. No one else would be taking this degree of notes in this short a time. God, he must be so scared... and alone, from the entries I was looking at. I’d need to fix that. Thousands of people had been lost, but that didn’t make sense. Almost no one had died out there, so why weren’t they respawning? And why weren’t the 'dead' waking up? And yeah, it’s a bit morbid, but why weren’t they dead?
The questions of it all were annoying me, and it was a sentiment that my brother shared. He was trying to work out what happened from the inside, and he’d worked out a lot of it. I nearly jumped out of my seat when Chrysta returned, some sort of plant guy in tow, “Okay, Sylvain this is Denise, Lugh’s sister. Yes, IRL. Chrysta, this is Sylvain, he’s friends with Lugh. Now, I know you want to go, but if you head out like this, you’re dead meat, especially if you go out alone. Lugh said that you’re not a gamer. Have you ever played a game like this before?”
“Well, no. I mean, I tried a couple of games of Lugh’s back in the day, but they were like playing an Excel spreadsheet.”
Chrysta’s level of patience was about at the same level as my own, and the one called Sylvain smiled, laying a hand on Chrysta’s shoulder, “It’s alright. I’ve got it from here.”
He had me sit across from him in front of the desk as Chrysta departed, “Okay, by your gear, you took warrior, yes?”
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I nodded but didn’t add to it. He nodded sagely back, “Okay, so... welcome to Valoria. Okay, first things first: You need to look at what kind of warrior you want to be. There are just too many options to go over, so it would be easier to ask this way: Do you want to focus on protection, or damage dealing?”
This was useless, “What does this have to do with getting to Lugh?”
Sylvain patiently sat there, emerald eyes looking like every teacher I’d ever had, “Well, going Tank has obvious Prot bonuses, while DPS is always good, but it’s easier to find a static to proc raids as a Support. Really, it’s gonna depend on your gain, set bonuses, and stat boosts... and if that sounded like near-total gibberish to you, then right now, you’ll be less than useless to Lugh when you catch up to him. May I go on?”
I caught almost none of it, and my chest fell. Yeah, I’d watched him play before, but it’s not like I was really paying attention. I didn’t know a damned thing, “I fucked this up, didn’t I?”
He was smiling, “I mean, if you’re waiting for me to tell you this was the smartest life choice you’ve ever made, you’ll be waiting a long time, but there’s no use worrying over it. You’re in this now, and we need to start getting you put together to survive. By temperament, I’m going to say being a Tank isn’t in your best interests, so let’s focus on the wonderful world of beating the shit out of people faster.”
I snorted a little at that. Sylvain had probably been doing things like this for years, and now he’d saddled himself with a total scrub, “And I do that how?”
Sylvain stood, “First, you come with me after you get changed into your militia gear, and we start doing what we can to get you properly geared for it.”
I went through the inventory and added my militia gear, but something niggled at the back of my mind. I’d been so arrogant about this. Out there, I was pretty athletic, the kick-butt girlboss. In here, in Lugh’s world, I currently only rated as a risk to whoever I was around. These guys were almost all people who’d been doing games like this for years, and not for a moment had I considered that they were probably better suited than me. Sylvain led me out to the yard, and waved people off from pestering me with questions, “Okay, we start here. Sword and board, or sword and shield users, are aspected toward Tanking. Quick summary: Tanks protect from damage and focus enemies on themselves, keeping control of the field so others can focus on their jobs. Supports do just that, support their fellow party members by buffing the stats of their allies, debuffing the stats of their enemies, healing, and doing damage when time allows. DPS means Damage Per Second, and the role is rated by its ability to keep up a continuous string of damage to take down the enemy. All roles have ways to mitigate damage, DPS just does it by killing mobs faster, thus mitigating future damage.”
I nodded. It wasn’t precisely rocket science. He’d already said that I wasn’t a Tank so that meant I was DPS. Sylvain went to a rack of various training weapons, “Here, we begin your tutelage in the art of KTATTS.”
“The hell is kay-tats?!”
Sylvain smiled, “The art of Killing Them And Taking Their Stuff. Now, let’s see... Alright, drop your shield on the rack, and try starting with the longsword... and... yes, I believe the main gauche would be a classic accompaniment.”
My new KTATTS instructor led me over to some training dummies, “Alright, pretty basic way to start: attack the dummy and get used to your weapons and abilities with them. Let me know when you hear dinging sounds.”
I tried just swiping with the sword, and while I hit the dummy, it didn’t seem to do much. Sylvain stepped in, “Okay, so first, you need to get your body behind, like with throwing a ball or punch. Then try to immediately follow up with the knife.”
This went on for over an hour. I heard the dinging sounds, and Sylvain informed me about how that meant some of my stats had leveled up. He showed me in my Character Journal, sticking to the most relevant parts, then consulting a chart, and making some notes. The main things that were raising were my skills with the weapons themselves, rising quickly at first, then slowing down. My swing arcs changed with the rise in the abilities, and I could tell there was a significant difference, “So what, I just keep whacking at this dummy ‘til I’m the best swordswoman in the game?”
He chuckled a bit, “It doesn’t work that way. Truth is, leveling like this is pretty slow. Sooner or later, you won’t be making any progress against the dummy because it’s too low-level. It’s like weightlifting- twenty-five pounds starts out as a decent lift, but sooner or later, you’re not adding muscle. In the game, the key is to go after higher-level things and get better gear. For right now, we’ll be training you up, and Chrysta and I will make gear for you to get you started.”
“Chrysta seems a bit upset at me at the moment.”
One mossy eyebrow quirked up, “You just about threw your life away in one move jumping into a game we’re all trying to get out of. You only got lucky that you didn’t just charge out of the gate. Yes she's upset, but she's also worried about you.”
I hissed in embarrassment. Stated from that side of it, yeah, it made sense I wasn’t her favorite person right now, “But she’s someone Luke trusts?”
“Lugh... Oh god, you don’t have this tea!” He was positively giddy, “I’m so used to everyone just knowing!”
“Wait, are they like a thing?!”
Sylvain was nearly shaking his whole body from nodding so hard, and he stepped in to gab like we were between periods, “Oh yeah, have been for a few years now, but they both blame themselves for screwing it up!”
“Wait, why don’t I know about this? I’m his sister!” I gotta admit, I was feeling a little betrayed. We’d drifted, sure, but this seemed like a bit much.
Sylvain was the most excited I’d seen him. Up to now, he projected this aura of eternal calm, and now he was fully in throws of gossiping, “Oh it was a whole thing. Okay, so they got into a whole long-distance thing online. Chrysta’s from Alabama, and they met online on this absolutely horrific Minecraft Server. There was some playful banter back and forth online, and then the banter got a lot less playful, and more ‘your place or mine’.
“Okay, so eventually, it got more serious, so Lugh got it in his head that he could pick up a job in Alabama to move there. He was planning the move and everything, but when Chrysta found out, she got all ‘This Is a Serious Thing Now’, and wouldn’t let him ‘throw his life away’ to live with her. He got all, ‘I pushed too hard’ and backed off, but Chrysta was like, ‘Ah, I screwed up the whole thing cause of my own stupid crap’. Until the game, we kept trying to nudge them back at each other, and both were being totally stupid about it. But now, Lugh’s like FULL bore for it, and Chrysta wants it, but she’s like trying to talk herself out of wanting it, cause it’s a whole thing for her, and she can’t let herself have good things, but like, Lugh is pretty difficult to argue with when he’s all in it.”
The person he was describing sounded nothing like my brother. Luke was methodical and sustained progress given human form. Moving across country to be with a girl? Second guessing himself about what he wanted? That was stuff other people did. Not Luke. Every girlfriend he’d had in high school was a slow build-up through the whole thing. He’d never been... besotted? That sounds like the right word, but it was hard to apply it to Luke, “That... is a lot to process. Okay, but like, Luke’s okay, right?”
Sylvain blinked, “Wait, you don’t know? He’s pretty much running all of this. Like, that’s why he left. No one else was moving after the testers got wiped, so he grabbed up a party and rolled out.”
“My Luke? That... no, he never leads anything!”
He shrugged, “Ask anyone here, even some of the NPCs. I grant, usually Khargol- sorry, Rob- is the one running the show, but even he’s backing Lugh.”
Things in the game were very different, but I couldn’t waste more time. I had to get leveled and geared, “Okay, I know getting stronger’s a thing, but is there anything I can do that would be useful?”
“Gathering jobs. No one’s taking them because it means having to go outside the city, but for crafters, gathering is our lifeblood. It’s also a good way to make gold in the game, selling off your mats- materials- on the auction houses.”
I nodded slowly, “Okay. Gathering. Luke took some, right?”
He held up a finger, “Okay, first thing. Lugh, Khargol. It gets too confusing if we keep batting back and forth between the real names and avatars, so we all went with avatars because that’s what the game uses. It’s what’ll show up in your party bars, the various notations, everything,” He wasn’t talking down, he just made sure I understood before continuing, “Yes, Lugh took gathering jobs. His are all concerned with his role as Hunter for now, so stuff like Foraging, Skinning, Butchering, Tannery, and whatnot. Also, I can’t stress this enough, but you’ll want to grab Cooking as soon as you can. Seriously, the general purchase food is bland as hell.”
In the end, I spent two whole days on getting trained and geared for the road. Sylvain stayed with me through it, Chrysta being too busy with her duties as a Unit Commander for the militia. Sylvain and her did take some time to make me some decent gear, even if it was a little bit drab. Sylvain also introduced me to my loot chest, which contained my stuff from the Limited Edition, including a small purple dragon pet, which I named Iago. Sylvain let me know that Lugh- God, that would take getting used to- would know more about what I could do with my new pet. I also took time to stop by to pick up the gathering skills: Foraging, Woodcutting, Mining, Fishing, Skinning, Butchering, Harvesting, Prospecting, and Excavating. The last one seemed to relate to finding things in ruins, but most people seemed to think it wasn’t all that great. Oh well, they said to get Gathering jobs, I got Gathering jobs. I also grabbed Crafting Jobs: Smelting, Smithing, Tannery, Cooking, Fletching, and Herbalism. According to Sylvain, these were just starting jobs, and could eventually become other jobs as my abilities with them ranked up.
Finally, Chrysta, Sylvain, and a few others came forward, ready to help me get to Rosewater. Except for the two I knew, the others looked incredibly nervous about the trip, but it seemed easy enough. It was only about five miles from Farrelston to Rosewater after all, but everyone was reacting like we would be under assault. As we set out, I leaned over to Sylvain, “Why did you guys hang back?”
“Simple, we’re going omni-crafter, which is important in itself. The guys are gonna need gear as they level up, and in a lot of instances, crafted gear is better than most of what you find out in the world, outside of certain really rare equipment. The rarer the equipment, the more dangerous it is to get. We don’t need combat to level those effectively, we need just mats and time. We’re also keeping things going with militia training, and hopefully, convincing more people to go out of the city.”
Despite the fears of most of the party, nothing eventful happened as we traveled the road to Rosewater. It was quite lovely. It was decently warm out, there was a pleasant breeze, and some cool-looking critters were running around. I’m not sure why everyone had their backs up about it. We’d checked with the guild before departing, and Lugh was still registered in Rosewater. The militia March Step ability helped a bit, keeping everyone moving at the same pace in formation, which was kinda cool.
Rosewater itself was beautiful. There were various farms ringed with stands of trees and bushes, and each farm had giant walls of rose bushes in a variety of colors. Windows were lined with glass bowls and jars that had roses steeping in them, “Oh, that’s what rosewater is!”
Chrysta smirked, “Yeah, not gonna lie, sugar, I didn’t know that one either. I just thought it sounded pretty.”
Sylvain didn’t seem phased, “I did, but then I suppose I spend more time at ren faires and SCA than most of you.”
“What’s SCA?” I had no idea.
He sighed, “Philistines. I’m surrounded by Philistines... SCA stands for Society for Creative Anachronism. Medieval reenactment.”
I heard Chrysta laughing quietly behind me, apparently an inside joke amongst the group. There were a lot of these, and all went sailing comfortably over my head. I didn’t want to keep picking though, so I concerned myself with looking around. At first, it was wide farms, then growing more into formal buildings as we got close to the center of town. It was kinda interesting. All the buildings looked lived in. I wondered if they’d done something like with Hobbiton, where they had once been fully new buildings, and just found a way to ‘age’ them from there.
Chrysta called a halt as we got to the town square. In Farrelston, the streets were all cobbled and generally straight. Here, though, the road was packed dirt, with maybe some cobbled walks that led up to buildings. The buildings themselves were also shorter affairs, with more of a mix of wood and stacked stones, compared to the stone bricks of Farrelston buildings. Chrysta looked around quickly, “Alright, the guild’s over here. Let’s check in.”
We broke out of formation and stepped onto a covered porch. In Farrelston, the Adventurer’s Guild was a larger building, with a second story and a third story that stuck out over the first story. Here, it was more like a nicely upgraded cabin, and stepping inside, the feeling was much cozier, with only a single old man behind the counter as opposed to all the people running around in the Farrelston guild. As we stepped up, Chrysta pulled out a copper pendant, “We’re checking in.”
The old man looked and examined the pendant a moment, “Ah, welcome adventurers. Not often that we see so many militia in these parts adventuring. Well, welcome to Rosewater. We got jobs a plenty over on the board over there, though I’ll be honest, another group o’ you has been runnin’ our job board a bit ragged the last couple o’ days. Have a look around, though, and if you see a quest you fancy, let me know.”
Chrysta seemed oddly interested in the old man. I mean, he’s an NPC, what was so interesting? Chrysta sent the rest of us to check out the board, but her and Sylvain continued talking with the old guy, asking about things around town. You’d think he was some great sage the way they were acting. Gamers always baffled me.
It was while we were looking over the job board that we were people outside, and my heart started racing, “Finally.”
The door of the guild swung open to a massive orcish guy pushing it open with force, carrying a giant sack over one shoulder, “Honey, I’m home!- Oh shit, Chrysta! Something wrong in the city?”
More started filing in, and finally, I saw him, “Luke!”
I rushed over as he was startled at seeing me, and I saw the moment of recognition, “Denise?!”
Unfortunately, the excitement very quickly turned into Interrogation Mode, “What the hell are you doing here?!”
Ah, shit, “Well, uh... y’see... I’m, like, here to rescue you?”
Yeah, I’m acutely aware of how stupid that sounds now.