A/N:
1- I'm pretty much only going to be referring to Cry as Cry, cryaosin or Cryaotic. You know why. Shhh.
2- This is 'set', if you like, before the whole cryaotic thing started.
3- It's also set in America. I'm from the UK. I use extra u's. It's a thing.
Now that that's over, here proceeds the story!
xXKarmaXx
"Carmack, you stay behind and cover us. Jakey, you're up with me. Ash, keep in between Carmack and us. Car, I'm counting on you to keep her alive."
We spawned on a dusty forest path. Although there were enough trees surrounding us to shut us in darkness, ample sunlight found its way through the leaves. Convenient.
jakeythekid1 shuffled up beside me. He unsheathed his sword slowly and stared at it as if he was about to fight for Avalon or whatever. Then he struck a fierce look at the distance. I'm sure the mountains were terrified.
carmackdays took a few steps back, taking out his crossbow and glaring at the trees. He sported a brown leather waistcoat and lighter brown trousers. His long, dark hair fell in annoying precise chunks over his forehead.
ashtray23 stepped in from the trees. Out of us all, she was the most insufficiently dressed for battle. She wore a light purple dress with a white ribbon in the middle that stopped at her calves. I mean, at least I had armour, no matter how inadequate and revealing.
I pulled out my staff and brought it down on the ground three times. Why? God knows.
I walked forward, my feet apparently scraping along the ground. Our levels were all pretty shitty right now, but you have to start somewhere. It seemed like a much better place than WoW, anyways, even if the content needed to be built up.
A wolf howl shook the trees above us, and we were ambushed. In moments, I was staring right into the mouth of a white wolf, its teeth sharp and tongue lolling.
"Shit," I said in an aggressive whisper.
"Ah, fuck," Carmack agreed, with a little hint of a chuckle in his tone.
Fire begin to build on the end of my staff until it couldn't be contained in it's wooden prison, and it shot from its restraints, right down the wolf's throat. The wolf flew back, eventually regaining its bearing and drooping its head to the side. It whimpered painfully like a dog would, and for a few moments I felt kind of sorry for the bastard that just tried to eat my face. Then it came after me again, opening its mouth so wide that I could see the point of its teeth.
I sprinted backwards, trying to put any kind of space between me and the beast, and then threw an ice-beam along the ground. The life left its body in an icy tomb.
Injured dog whimpers echoed around the forest, as if someone was playing a tape recorder over and over again. One by one, the wolf bodies faded to dust. My assailant thawed and then fell to the ground in a lifeless heap.
"Everyone good?" Ash asked, standing in the middle of the path.
"Minimum damages," Jakey said gruffly. "Heal us just in case."
"Right!" she said, as if she were an actual nurse healing wounded warriors.
She went up to Jakey and stretched out her arms until her hands rested just over his chest. A pinkish purple glow emanated from her palms, spreading through him until the health bar became full. She then repeated this procedure with each of us, each one taking a few moments at most.
"Right, let's go," Carmack said.
We were still in the portion of the game where not many people wanted to kill us, so for the most part, we were battling wolves and bears. But there were some traitors loyal to the giant ganglord that had threatened our dear city of Ravenfell if his demands were not met, and that kind of treason deserved the cold judgement of my staff, Jakey's sword and Carmack's poison arrows. Other than being able to play assassin in your pajamas, the human enemies also offered a significant EXP boost. Carmack reached level 8, I reached level 9, Ash reached level 8 and 9, and Jakey reached double digits.
After beating our last batch of hooligans, we turned a corner into a clearing and over a bridge into a thin, straight stretch of land. An ocean lay before us, the water sparkling under the sun. A long wooden plank stood between us and a perfectly circular island, with no way past the water surrounding it.
"Looks like the Boss is coming up," I said.
"Yeah," Carmack said. I could imagine him nodding enthusiastically. "Everyone ready?"
"Ash healed us up after the archers back there, remember?" Jake asked, his New York accent shining through the deepness of his voice.
"Yeah, I know."
The team fell silent for a few seconds.
"...Are we going, then?" I asked.
"Yeah!" at least two people chirped.
Our feet made trip-trap noises on the wood as we crossed. As we reached the middle of the fairly spacious island, a dull red banner came up on the screen with yellow-brown letters on it. "VINCENT AXEJAW', it screamed, before decreasing in size and turning into a deep green bar with the name and level written on it. He was level 12.
"Remember the formation," I reminded them. Carmack scuttled to the back and Jakey charged forward. He was the first to be struck by the giant's hand, almost two times as tall and ten times as wide as he was. He fell to the ground, his health bar sprinting towards the halfway mark. From the side, I threw an icebeam along the ground. "Ash! Quick!"
Ash came in at an almost inhuman speed and reached her hands over Jakey's body. The glow started just as the giant was thawing.
"Ash, that's fine, move!" I called. The ice shattered with a guttural roar that shook the island violently.
"Wait, I can do a bit more!" Ash said.
I moved in, throwing consecutive fireballs at the giant's belly. Each one threw him back a step and forced him to regain his balance. That kept him at bay for a while, until he leaned forward to where he had been standing and swiped me, casting me to the side.
"Ash, you can't, move!"
Ash had no attacks. I hated picking favourites, but if we lost her, we were fucked.
"It's almost done, I swear! Just keep him off me!" she protested as the giant's hand came down flat on her head.
Her health bar went red. She broke the healing spell and ran behind the giant, to the very edge of the island before the ocean. I cast another ice beam only to have it burn up in the ocean.
A deep green glow surrounded her body as she desperately tried to heal herself.
"Shit, shit, shit..." she mouthed quietly as the giant approached her. I threw fireballs, waiting for the grace period in between icebeams. Carmack furiously shot poison darts and Jakey hacked at him from the side, hoping to distract him. But the giant had his target.
He raised his palm, so slowly that it was sadistically comical, and swiped her character off the map.
The game paused and a brown bubble, designed like a middle ages scroll, popped up asking me if I wanted to use a Fairt to revive her. Fairts were in-game currency that you could only get by actually buying them with real money, or by completing special tasks. I loved Ash, but I wasn't about to let go of a dollar of my money just to get her back again.
Her lifeless corpse lay there by the ocean, slowly fading out. I shot a fireball at his ass crack.
He roared fiercely, as if he knew what part of his body I had just hit. He moved over to me. I tried to freeze him, but used the wrong hotkey and ended up using Agility instead.
Carmack stood where Ash's body had been, shooting him. Jakey sliced at his back. He only seemed interested in me; I was the new Ash.
His almighty slap sent my HP to red.
"Shit!" I sprinted up the back.
Carmack sent a fiery arrow, angering him even more. It also set him on fire, which caused serious damages to our enemy, but that was besides the point. The giant turned around and charged at Carmack, body-slamming him. The fact that he survived it was ridiculous at best, considering about 20 of him could fit into the giant, but I was so fucking glad.
Jakey did some fancy sword-work, this time succeeding in distracting him. He brought the giant's HP down to orange, leaving his own live hanging by threads in the process.
"Retreat!" I called, shooting an ice beam and finally hitting him for once.
I thanked fuck that the wooden plank hadn't been blocked off. We ran like cowards onto the thin stretch of land and drank and ate anything that would give us a running chance at this.
"Drink up, men!" I said, sounding far more serious than I had intended to. I went into my inventory. "...Fuck..."
"What?" Jake asked aggressively, still with a vial to his mouth.
"Guys, I'm out of potions."
"You are fucking kidding me," Carmack gasped, his voice becoming deeper as he spoke.
"You didn't save any?" Jakey sounded angry, but he always sounded angry. It was extremely inconvenient. The ground began to shake as the giant emerged from his encasement.
"Dude, leave off her," Carmack said, "I'm out too."
"Fuck...so I'm gonna have to give you my last?"
"No," I said. "I wouldn't do that. If I'm going out, I'm going out."
"Emmy, no," Carmack said calmly.
"Can you two quit fucking and get back to fighting?" Jakey's voice was so deep and gruff now that he was almost inaudible.
"Right- sorry," I said. Just as I clicked off my inventory, another text box came up. "Fuck..." I mumbled.
"What now?" Jakey asked, turning his character towards me as if he were giving me the evil eye.
"Sorry, it's just annoying how join party requests just pop up in this," I explained. "Shit!" I said, very nearly missing the giant's fist. The text box still covered my screen.
"Who wants to join?" Jakey asked. I was sure that some of the tension had eased from his voice, but then again, you could never tell.
"Some guy - or girl- called 'cryaosin'," I told him. "Probably a jumper- just trying to get the EXP without actually doing anything."
"Who gives a shit?" Jakey asked. "They could be a healer, or they could have potions."
"What level is he?" Carmack asked.
"11-"
"Add him, fuck!" Jakey shouted, shoving his sword into the giant's belly. I clicked accept in a nervous panic and let my fingers slide absent-mindedly across the hotkeys.
Cryaosin's name appeared midair, and his character slowly filled out below it. A warrior with a golden sword, his jet black hair came down across his forehead in a swoop, with little annoying gaps in it. His armour was also evidently superior to Jakey's; his arms were coated in silver and it came up around his neck instead of going down in a v-neck.
"Dude!" I said, summoning a large ball of energy from afar and shooting it into the giant's skull. "You got any health potions?"
It took a moment of nobody else responding for him to reply, "I do, in fact!" His voice was smooth, velvety and laden with enthusiasm.
He ran over to me as the other two boys distracted the giant. 'cryaosin gave you 1 Health Potion' appeared in the same yellow-brown letters that the giant's name had, only in lower caps so it wasn't nearly as frightening.
If I actually was my character, I would have been chugging that potion like I was in the middle of a drought. My health bar filled to green. Cryaosin and I went towards the giant together, weapons raring to go. A dark blue energy coated his sword as he went in for a double attack. I watched the giant's health go down, never stopping for a moment. I held my staff in one hand and raised the other, swaying back and forth slightly. A red, burning twister slowly began to emerge around his body, and as soon as it became real, it forced the giant down to his knees. He let out a deafening roar as his body was reduced to cinders. My mana bar became empty.
"Woo!" I shouted as the 'mission success' box came up, detailing our coin earnings and EXP gains.
"That...was...awesome," Cryaosin said, his tone calm despite what he was saying.
"What was?" I asked. Carmack and Jakey returned to town.
"All of it!" he said, that enthusiasm from before taking over most of his speech. "You kicked ass, mage girl." His voice turned deep and serious.
I laughed into the microphone- something which I rarely found myself doing- and said, "Thank you."
He returned to town before I could add him as a friend. I made a mental note to remember to do that next time.
Back in Ravenfell, our group had already scattered. Carmack was standing by Sadith, the weapons guy, Jake was taking to Aadi, the enchantress, and Ash was at the merchants. She ran up to me.
'Sorry...' appeared in a bubble over her head. I went to go type something, when a bubble appeared on the other side of the screen.
'It's fine.' Jakey was surprisingly nice on text. 'You had a blip on the boss. That's where you're supposed to have blips, dude.'
Ash went over to Jakey, leaving me on my lonesome again. I went over to the skill master and upgraded my ice beam and an attack passive, from the skill points I had gained from today's adventure.
A little (1) appeared over my inbox.
Cryaosin.
'Hey, mage girl.
So I'm hoping this isn't too short of notice, but a few of us are doing a dungeon raid on Wednesday and we just need one more to fill the space. It's a 10+ dungeon, though, so if you can at least get up to that before then, that'd be awesome.
Let me know if you're up for it!
- Cry.'
I smiled and clicked on Jakey's character, bringing up a personal chatroom.
'Hey, have we anything going on on Wednesday?' I typed.
I saw his character halt once I'd sent the message. About a minute later, he answered.
'Nothing important. Maybe some map playthroughs if we're bored. Why?'
'Going on a dungeon raid. See you!'
I clicked off the chatroom and pulled up the PM before I could read his 'Um...okay' or 'haha...alright' and began to type in the box.
'Hey! I would love-'
The door to my room burst open, dragging me kicking and screaming out of my fantasy world.
"Have you been up all night again?" mum asked, her words laced with stinging nettles.
Light had just began to flood the curtains, but it was not nearly bright enough to light the room, or make me feel like it was morning. She stood by the door, hands grasping her hips.
"No," I said, shaking my head a little too enthusiastically. "I just got up a little while ago. Couldn't get back to sleep. Went on the computer for a bit."
"I don't believe that for a moment," she said, flicking her brown curls away from her forehead. "That laptop really needs to come off you."
"No!" I cried, embarrassed to find that I'd thrown my arms around the thing. The screen had already faded to black.
"Go to bed," she said. "Get at least an hour or two. You have to be up for 9, remember."
I groaned. When you're sleep deprived, no matter how much you like someone, sleep will always come first- once you've motivated yourself to want it. It wasn't hard with my crusty eyelids threatening to stay shut every time I blinked.
She stepped out the room and carefully pulled the door closed. I turned around and stared at the blank screen. Sighing, I shut it down and turned the charger off.
I collapsed on the bed, ready to pass out, but my heavy eyes had deceived me. I stayed awake for god knows how long, mind buzzing with glowing blue swords and pillaging giant gangs. Eventually, I must have drifted off.