Authors note:
This is just a series of mini stories that I have experienced through playing a game called Archeage. The stories shall be written from the perspective of me if I was playing my character through a Virtual Reality (heavily inspired off of Sword Art Online), the game is not actually a VR game (obviously) but I think that writing it this way would be more interesting. Also my character's name is Kirain (pronounced Keer-ain).
The Beginning
The screen fades from black, the textures popping in, the ambience starting up, and the music begins to play. The few seconds of loading any game seems to be the longest time anything in it takes, the next 4 hours will pass by in a flash.
Looking down at my hands sends a tingle all through my spine, the rush of knowing that you are in a whole other world and that you can do anything you've ever wanted with no repercussions. Looking around at the city, I'm still awestruck. It's been a few months since I've played, it was September the queue times were crazy had to wait for a half hour to even get in the game, and when you did there were players everywhere, I chose one of the least populated servers just so I could start playing, but even my server was full of players. Comparing launch to now, the City of Towers is a ghost town, at least there's plenty of NPC's to liven the place up but it's still a little disappointing.
I glance at the health bar in the top left corner of my view, 26 Kirain Blighter. Back when I played in September I managed to get to level 26, the first 10 levels were a breeze and once you hit that your class is decided. Unlike most MMO's where you pick just 1 class and you can't change it (there's a few exceptions) but with Archeage you pick your 1st skillset when you start, a 2nd skillset at level 5, and a 3rd at level 10, based on those 3 skillset choices your class is chosen, I picked the skillsets Battlerage, Shadowplay, and Defense which gave me the class Blighter.
Everything's as I left it I think to myself. I bring up my friends list, I still get blown away how the system is connected to your brain, all you have to do is think commands and the VR helmet runs them, I tap the X button with my finger and the friends list disappears, Open Friends I think again, and the window springs up in front of my view. I tap the blank space at the bottom of the friends list and a keyboard pops up, I type, the character names my friends (from reality) sent me just a few minutes before, "awildgecho" and press Add friend, the name "awildgecho" appears at the top of the list, I shake my head "Why did he name himself that" I say under my breath. I repeat the process this time entering "Zarduke" and then "Deldar." I look at my friends list arranged by name, level and race, awildgecho level 1 Firran, Zarduke level 1 Firran and Deldar level 1 Firran. Seems like they all wanted to be Firran's I guess.
The game currently has 4 races, The Nuians are basically just your average humans from most MMO's they have the racial abilities to build faster, and keep some kind of buff for longer when they die (I didn't really look into them much). The Elves have the standard Elfish appearance with the racial abilities to swim faster and breathe underwater longer. The Firran are a race of cat looking people that take reduced fall damage and have an increased climbing speed. Lastly the Harani a smaller human race whose racial abilities allow them to gather plants and chop trees faster as well as have a reduced time in between when they can use the "recall" ability to return to a saved location.
Although there are the 4 different races they are divided into 2 factions, the Nui and Elves reside on the western continent of Nuia and are a part of the faction of the same name, and the Firran and Harani belong to the faction of Haranya and live on the eastern continent that also shares the name.
While my 3 friends chose to be Firrans I myself am a Harani so I need to make quite the trek to get to them. I know that the starting area for the Firran is Falcorth Plains so I bring up my map and place a marker in the zone known by most simply as Falcorth. While the map is open I glance to where I am, The City of Towers in Mahadevi, I'm going to need to travel all the way through the Tigerspine Mountains in order to reach them I think to myself.
I turn and face in the direction of Tigerspine and give a sharp whistle and my Leomorph, Gumgum, appears out of thin air.
Leomorphs are strange (almost scary) looking creatures that serve as mounts for the Harani, they are described as being machines covered in fur with the soul of an animal bound to them, this makes them just as living as any other creature (as living as anything in a game can get).
I hop on Gumgum's saddle and ride off towards Falcorth.