Chapter 2
While jumping world to world (my normal routine), doing as I pleased, I kept seeing an avatar and name over and over again out of the corner of my eye. He happened to always be near a blind spot and off in the distance. I knew he must be following me, two worlds in a row could easily be a coincidence, but not more than three, certainly not five, that's right out. I had to test him, so I left the world and waited a few minutes for him to pursue. Of course he didn't. When I landed again and went back to my business, I couldn't see him anywhere, even on my player scanner. Who was ZealousOrca, and what did he want with me? He obviously wanted me to see him or notice him. He didn't bother to shut off his name plate, I normally do in PvP zones and I recommend others do the same. I tried to send him a message, but he was a 'private' user, he could only receive messages from people on his approved friends list. Did he want me to send him a friend request, or did he want me to waltz over to him and hand him some freshly picked daffodils? So I sent him a friend request, my first.
I didn't get an immediate response so I followed my gut instinct and went back to the zone hub for the world I was currently on and got back to the teleporter and jumped to a different zone. I had a schedule I wanted to keep to anyway, I planned on doing some ranked matches in the PVP brackets. Waiting in the queue I changed my mind, the non-encounter shook me up and I felt like I had an observer still. I did something I said I would never do in the OASIS. Go shopping.
I jumped a few more times from teleporter to teleporter and then used a craft to taxi my way back to one of the world's I just left. These virtual malls made me nervous, but it soothed me compared to how I currently felt. I made a few laps around the ad painted walls of the Avarice 209 Mega Mall. Nothing but window shopping for me, I wanted to spend some credits on neat things to use in the real world, outside of the OASIS, but the chances of it making it to me after I made the purchase were minescule. Anyone could steal it off the doorstep, it could get stolen or even just call off the truck. The risks outweighed the potential benefits, besides, I knew a guy. He could probably get me whatever I needed: New, used, refurbished, for a good price. It still felt good to not to have my nose to the grindstone for a change, it felt like I had project after project piling up and sucking up my time. The levels of which may have consumed a lifetime to satisfy.
I eventually logged out and returned the next day. Still no response and I still felt concerned. I felt up to doing my ranked matches this time and worked through them. I lost count of my win/loss ratio, but it must have been good, maybe even impressive. I managed to surpass my previous wall and moved up in the bracket a whole five subdivisions. I didn't even realize how much time I spent jacked in until I heard my pocket device sound my wake up alarm. I spent all day and all night grinding my way up the ladder. I had a problem, this thing had become a serious addiction. I pulled my visor off and turned off my alarm. I stuff everything back into it's hiding place and zipped up my sleeping bag all the way to the top only leaving enough room to poke my hand out and let some air circulate through it. Once my body was situated and comfortable I blacked out and slept for 12 hours.
A few days passed, still nothing interesting. I resume my prior behaviors, like doing some daily quests in some Everquest clone for an item it won't even let me use off world. I'm cleaving away at a mob in a dark and grey forest when I feel a presence.
"Xaos." The mysterious voice just stated my name, no inflection, and he pronounced it correctly.
"I was wondering when you'd come backā¦" I turn around with a cocky tone only to be smitten with confusion. I don't know this avatar and he knew my name with my nameplate turned off.
He drew his two-handed sword from his back, "Nothin' personal."
"Real funny." I am actually terrified in this moment. I PVP all the time, but in a controlled environment. If either of us die out here we lose it all, but I'm mainly concerned about myself, obviously.
I try running, but he stays in pursuit, close behind and gaining. I jump on a faster flying mount and try to zone him out, as I look behind me he has already changed mounts and is even closer than before. I take him out over a cliff and maneuver higher to change direction severely and come back towards him. As I bank, I can see him dismount on the edge of the cliff, priming a long cast spell. He releases it and it connects hard. Hard enough that I am free falling without a mount. I can't see through the fog below me, if it's water, I won't take any damage, other than that, I'm dead. Knowing my odds I return fire with the only ranged weapon that works while moving, my bow. It's awful, no real damage and I haven't built up any proficiency. Knocking and loosing arrows as fast as I can, they just bounce off of him, but it is canceling his mount cast. Still falling, now passing the edge of the cliff, I knock and hold my last arrow. I watch him mount and pass the edge and come at me. I fire the last arrow with a concussive spell attached. It stuns him and knocks him off his mount and shoves me further away with the blast. We're both falling, outside of melee striking range, without being able to do anything to stop it. I try to relax while this idiot is screaming. The thought ran through my head about muting him, but there was no time for that.
Splash. Unfortunately we both land safely. I have already contemplated the loss of all my progress on this avatar so I'm ready to shred this guy like news paper. He is still stunned from my arrow when I strike him again. Stacking another incapacitating effect. I drag his battlemage heavy armored ass to the shore and start beating him in the face with my cudgel, chipping away at his health. Suddenly he begins to glow white and jumps up. He stops taking damage and starts running. He started this altercation, and I'm going to end it. His invulnerability effect wears off in less than two seconds and he can't stop to heal because I'll catch up. I wish I would have saved maybe one arrow to make this easier. He halts abruptly and I almost crash into him, when I look up to see two more mounted avatars with their names tags off on top of a nearby hill. He runs towards them while they turn and run at me. What am I getting myself into, I thought. Three on one is hardly in my favor. They reach him by the time I close the gap with him myself.
One of the riders bellows, "Complete the contract or die!"
"Contract?" I ask, and they ignore my question.
"Yes." He turns to face me, "of course." He draws his sword again, I re-brandish my cudgel and short sword. I'm waiting for him to make the first move, my heart is pounding so hard it's making my visor move. When the other rider kicks him towards me, I side step his lumbering advance and strike his back with my sword.
"Enough, I'll kill you both." The first rider dismounts and conjures a pet demon with his staff in hand.
I panic a little bit again, I have no idea what I'm in the middle of. The burly blue demon charges me as I strafe back around to my original pursuer, it ignores me, tackling my target. I take the opportunity to turn and cheap shot the gabby warlock and knock him down. Surprisingly that gets everyone's attention. Our resident demon, the battlemage and warlock shift their focus to me and the other rider dismounts and produces a bow. I assess the threat priority in my head: Legolas does the most damage, Dr. Strange and his pet do minimal damage, but can control the field if I let them, and Maximus just needs a babysitter. I say break in my head like I am picking a play and giving the X's and O's nicknames. I kick the demon's face back at Maximus and it returns to chasing him, then I turn and jump, launching my cudgel at Legolas for a quick stun and landing on Dr. Strange. A quick slash, slash, thrust combo puts the warlock on a bleed out. He is reduced to a prone crawling position until he can heal, meanwhile his demon starts to fade, then I roll over and retrieve my cudgel and trip the archer and knock him to the ground, putting my foot on his head forcing his face into the ground. The battlemage stomps over to aid his buddies and he eats my truncheon to the face while I continue to whip on the archer and rend the warlock.
"Yield" I yell, "or I won't have any other choice!"
"Never." the warlock let out a grunt.
I stab him with my short sword and end his bleed out and his progress. "It doesn't have to be this way." Removing my foot from the archer's head.
Legolas shouted, "You will die here!"
I pin him to the ground with my short sword through his shoulder and turn to to retrieve my mace. "It's you and me again, friend." I pointed at Maximus and he remained unamused. "I don't think it would be a good idea to run again."
"I won't have to." He said with extraordinary confidence.
Thwack! Thwack, thwack! Three arrows in my back. Now I'm bleeding out, movement speed is now a crawl and I am losing the remainder of my health slowly. Legolas is almost too close to fire off another arrow, if I can get to him I can finish him off, he's already down to one knee. Maximus knocks me further away and raises his sword high to impale me. I can't get away fast enough. He drops his sword at my center mass, I roll. He grazes me, chipping a sliver of my already dwindling health, but it still might be too much to survive the bleed. I hear an arrow loose and hit.
I'm still alive, it didn't hit me. I hear another arrow impact and I watch Maximus fall to one knee. One more arrow connects and he slumps next to me, dead. I play dead as the archer tries to stand, I watch him use his bow to balance him like a cane. He turns his back and tries to mount, but the bleed is keeping him from completing the cast. I reach for my sword and slide it towards me, quietly. It catches a rock makes a ringing noise. An arrow pierces the ground next to my hand and I hear the bow creek as he knocks another arrow. I can see him trying to aim, it's wildly shifting to the left and back to the right, if an arrow even knicks me, I'm done. I toss my sword at him, haphazardly. I'm losing strength and control. The handle bounces off of his leg, tripping him, he falls flat on his face, loosing the arrow. Maximus's corpse catches the would be killing blow. Legolas is still alive, I can hear him crawling. I peak over the battlemage's body and see him inching towards me with a dagger drawn. I threw all of my weapons and used all my arrows, plus I won't be able to move much more than him. I let him come. He exaggerates the stabbing motion as he raises his hand upon me, I grab him at the forearm and wrestle the knife to the ground. As soon as it's out of his hand I strike him with a head butt. I use my fist, my elbow, my head, whatever I can throw next. Hand to hand is doing close to no damage, but it's still doing damage.
The archer and I are about equal on remaining health, but my bleed is more severe. He begins to strike at me, but only with his right fist. We trade blows, my visor is flashing red around the edges, it's almost over for me, I can see his bleed is almost over and he is going to manage to outlast me and kill me. I roll him and plant my hand on the knife, he sees me and rolls back over. He brings his hands up together to finish me off and I rush the knife between us. He lands on the dagger before he can make contact with me for a final time. I twist it and push in, just to make sure he is dead this time. I like to imagine he can feel this. His avatar goes limp and falls, exhaling in my face.
I pushed his ugly avatar off of me and open my inventory. My bleed is ticking constantly and I'm losing color in my visor. I find the bandages that I always keep on me and use eight of them just to stop the bleed. I search some more and pull out a roasted turkey leg with one hand and a Superior Healing Solve with the other. I can't use them both at the same time, I still attempted to do so. Eventually, I sat up to eat and regain the remaining deficit of my health points. Lucky for me this world was full loot PVP. That means anything they had on their persons I could take if it would fit in my inventory. As I rummaged through the carcasses like a vulture looking for any kind of clue to explain that whole incident, I thought in retrospect, I should've tried to ask some questions. I collected what I found to be valuable and sold the rest off to an NPC vendor and then headed back to a capital world. During my flight I saw a blinking notification on my interface. He accepted my friend request and sent me a message.
From: ZealousOrca
To: Xaos
Subject: An Offer You Can't Refuse
We need to meet. See attachment.
