The fun has been doubled!
And by that I mean I had so much fun writing something new, I decided to do yet another Mass Effect story.
These are just two things that popped into my head, figured I'd commit them to text.
Unnecessary but necessary disclaimer: I don't own Mass Effect.
The Normandy was silent.
All the crew slept soundly in their quarters, and they slept either happily alone, or happily together, as well. Everything was tranquil since the fall of The Reapers. Even so; there were still a significant amount of 'heretic' Geth running unchecked, as well as the endless and sporadic amounts of raiders and pirates that sailed the inky void of space. So Shepard and her crew were no doubt kept occupied. Which in case of a certain few crew members, was a good thing.
Now, regardless of everyone sleeping, there were the odd few that were not. Least surprising of those being Shepard herself. She and 3 others were up, in the mess hall, playing a game. An old Earth game that Shepard had taken a liking to, first discovering it when her parents left her in the company of a friendly babysitter while they went off and fought in skirmishes. And Shepard being the person she was, thought that when she picked it up on the Citadel for just a few credits, that her crew would rather enjoy playing it.
It was a rather straightforward game: Dungeons and Dragons.
Well...
Straightforward for some.
The game had advanced since the 20th century. Since then it'd become immersing to great extent. You put on some goggles and bam, you were in the world of D&D. You went to a starting screen, chose your race and class, mapped out your attributes, chose your starting equipment, and you were good to go. Except all that characters participating were against each other, starting at different locations on the map they simply went around levelling up, or grinding, as some called it. You could make partnerships as well and team up against others. It was obvious however that most would simply destroy the others.
Currently playing were; Shepard, Legion, Miranda, Garrus, and Jack.
"Ahh! Screw this! Why does your mage get +5 to damage resistance? She has no shield! And if she's a biotic, she can't use a heavy weapon, she wouldn't be able to hold a sword that big!" Miranda fumed at Shepard, "This is stupid, all of you have high level characters and yet my character dies every few seconds and requires reviving!"
"Well then you should have joined in at the beginning instead of being a prissy bitch." Garrus chuckled. His own character, named after him; Vakarian, an elf rogue, had massed a nice little fortune killing monsters and slavers and taking their gold. He'd got himself some nice armour that gave him a +7 resistance against magic, and offered +2 to damage. He smiled when he'd bought it, it gave him a good defence against Shepard, who'd had to retreat after coming at him with some spells that didn't pass a resistance check.
"To be fair, Miranda; my mage isn't a biotic, she isn't limited by what she can wield." Shepard smiled, "She would be normally, but she's a Spell-Sword, or in other words; she can use magic and wield weaponry other than a staff, and wear armour. It's an unlockable specialisation." Shepard turned to one side, as if looking out for someone, "And my being a mage, coupled with the armour I'm wearing means a resistance to everything through magic imbued armour. Comes in handy considering Garrus is over to my right about to fire arrows at me."
"Shit." Garrus whispered. Vakarian unleashed several arrows at Shepard's character, which was an elf mage, and only 1 passed a resistance check. Shepard had gotten stronger since their last bout it would seem, and she could heal herself easier now. He was in trouble. Sirantha, the character in use by Shepard, also named after her, drew her longsword from it's sheath, and parried a charge of steel from Vakarian. He'd thrown a dagger, but it was harmless.
"You'll have to get in close if you wanna hurt me, Garrus." Shepard laughed. And then she blinked in surprise as her character dropped dead from a surprise attack burst of fiery magic. That meant Jack was here and in the mood.
"Got'cha bitch. Aint so untouchable in here are ya?" Jack taunted. Her Tiefling character, Ne'sha, looked almost exactly like herself, except for the pink-ish red skin, the hooves, and the small two crests on the characters temple. She was evidently a cross between a berserker and a mage. That was a heavy damage attack.
All the daggers and arrows in the world couldn't save Garrus as Vakarian was carted into the air, blasted with fireballs and lightning strikes, then impaled on several short-swords that Ne'sha had launched at him.
Jack grinned ear to ear triumphantly. "I like this game."
"Fuck! Not again! God-dammit how did you live after that? I charged at you and stabbed you!" Miranda whined towards Legion. Who was playing as an drow warlock. Not surprisingly he'd called his character 'Geth'.
"We are powerful in areas that your organic shell lacks power." Legion stated, then continued. "We allocated an equal amount of points to attributes we use the most in our character. While subtracting from the ones not in use or used minimally, allocating the excess to ones we already use."
"That still doesn't explain how you could kill me so easily." Miranda huffed, folding her arms.
"A scan of your character revealed your attribute 'Constitution' was at 15. Your race of 'Human' starts at a constitution of 10, meaning that of the 10 points available for allocation at the beginning; you placed half of them in an attribute which only gave you an addition of 4 health points." Legion explained, his character staying perfectly still over the corpse of Miranda's character. "Our attributes 'Wisdom' and 'Charisma' have both 23 points each from subtraction of other attributes and levelling. Our main magic attack does 3D10+12. We rolled which came out to 23. In total: 35. Your character only had 14 health points. Our attack caused you to have -21 health points. We killed you."
"I am aware." Miranda growled through her gritted teeth. "Fuck. This. Game."
She promptly left. Everyone else continued quite happily.
It was much later that the game had finished. In Earth time, they'd started at 11pm, and by Earth time, it was now 3am. Dungeons and Dragons was indeed a long game if you had a Dungeon Master that wasn't soley focused on the game.
Legion had left after the game had been declared finished. 821 of the mobile platforms programs had decided that they should go play on the available console that was recently put in the mess hall, so after discussion and a reached consensus, they'd logged onto the 'Xbox 360-21' with a new account hence named, 'LegionInfiltrator'. Legion had tried to get his own designated name, but it had been taken.
On a pile of games stacked next to the console, he picked one at random, turned out it was 'Call of Duty: Alliance Warfare 4." Legion didn't know the difference between a game that kicked ass and a game that sucked so hard it may as well of been a whore, but either way he popped the small disk into the tray and let it load up.
The loading screen came up, and the carnage began.
...And it took Legion exactly 2 hours and 41 minutes to beat the entire campaign on the hardest difficulty. He played it through again however, trying to utliise every strategy possible, see how many different ways could be implemented in beating a level.
It was only a matter of time that he happened across the multiplayer. Legion was not prepared.
"Yo, faggot! 'LegionInfiltrator' huh? Shitty name, brah!" Shouted out a random within 5 seconds of entering a lobby for Team Deathmatch.
Legion failed to understand. He proceeded to activate extranet protocols and search the word 'faggot'. His searches mostly turned up the definition of 'A bundle of sticks', or 'Meatballs.' So he was somewhat conflicted over the comment as he could not make sense of it.
"We do not understand, 'X-x-3-pic-snip-3-r-x-x'", pronouncing the name as literal terms as opposed to what humans understood as 'Leet Speak'. "We are not sure why you are referring to us as a type of Earth food, or sticks."
'Xx3picSnip3rxX' spoke back to him with a laugh. "No man! I'm calling you gay!"
Legion knew this word. "This mobile platform does not contain the parameters you specify. Invalid statement."
"Ah dude, you're like a fucking robot. I'm gonna kick you ass!"
Legion read through the description of 'Team Deathmatch.' quickly. Kill the opposing members on the enemy team. 1000 points to win.
Well, he found the persons comment to be pretty much the same as every mercenary Commander-Shepard and him had faced. That thought they'd have a good chance at killing them was an error in judgement on their parts. He was certain this one was not like a mercenary, but acted like one.
Legion would have to put him in his place.
Match begins in 3... 2... 1...
"Hey Tali, have you seen Legion?" Shepard asked the Quarian. She shook her head upon sighting Shepard.
"No, but I think he may be up in the mess hall." Tali smiled, not that Shepard could see. "I hear clicking and such, I would assume he's up there building a consensus."
"Thanks." Shepard patted her shoulder. "He ran off after our game. Which I didn't see you join in with."
"Games aren't exactly my thing. The ones where you're in it anyway." Tali explained, "Motion sickness, somehow. Ironic I know."
"I see. Well, off to find Legion."
And she did find him, as Tali had said. Hearing his voice upon exiting the lift.
"You are distressed." Legion stated. "Please state your problem."
"You! You fagggooot! Urgh! Why do you keep killing me?"
"Because it is the objective of this game."
"Argh! How did you hit me? I'm halfway across the map!"
"Sniper rifles have a variety of ranges. You were within our range."
"Fuck you! You're a hacker."
"We do not need to hack this game. It is not difficult."
"And again! Oh my goodd! You're a freaking hacker! You haven't died once! And that grenade shoudn't of killed me!"
"We are not hacking. We are being careful, staying to one area is an effective method of not being killed. Grenades have a high explovise blast radius of several metres, you were within the proximity of the initial radius."
Shepard laughed. It didn't surprise her that he was kicking some serious arse.
"Oh fuck you! You keep killing me!"
"It is the objective of this game. If you do not wish to continuously die; either kill our own avatar, or do not stand in our line of fire."
Legion had devestated everything. The end score was 1000 to 130. His K/D spread was 71/0. His teammates were in awe, and everyone else on the enemy team backed out within an instant.
"You kick more arse on a virtual battlefield than you do the real one." Shepard laughed.
"That is only because Shepard-Commander steals the kills."
"Oh really?"
"Yes."
"Wanna battle on here?"
"Certainly."
Another day, another odd story.
Who do you think will win?
Till next time.