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-Sol_Invictus-
Barkshield 9, Druid 7, Warmheart 5
-Moon_Mommy-
Sage 10, Bladedancer 10
Logging on…
—
He wasn't a fan of MMOs, mostly because the vast majority of them were really shitty. He wasn't a fan of Isekai anime, mostly because the vast majority of them were really shitty. So when you had isekai anime about MMOs, you better believe that the vast majority of them were really fucking shitty. How many good ones were there? Like one good example and a countless deluge of bad imitators and whatnot?
…When was the last time he sat down to watch anything? Probably since before he showed up in Adam's head. He really doubted he was missing much overall. Media tends to be mostly bad with a few standout examples, and those standout examples are preserved and remembered, all the low quality stuff is left behind in the past.
So thinking about it, there might be some great stuff to watch, but he really didn't want to go through all the effort of getting into a completely different pop culture environment. He'd prefer to ignore all of it and focus on actually doing things instead. It wasn't a sin to indulge in the media, of course, but survival was quite a bit more important. He really couldn't afford the time to get into it all.
Where was he? Oh yeah, Video Game Isekais were overwhelmingly dogshit and he'd stand by that opinion.
Elflines Online was not an exception to this rule, but it was the most popular Full-Immersion VRMMO overall, and Uriel had always been curious about what it would actually be like to play one. From what he could tell? It really wasn't much different from just Netrunning normally, at least not for him. Only difference was that gravity worked again and he couldn't just manifest shit.
So really nothing like netrunning at all.
Hurm… He lost the comparison partway through.
Regardless, Elflines Online was made sometime after the Datakrash, he didn't bother checking the date. A VRMMO made by Segatari for their 'Rush Revolution' Interactive Braindance Headset. Each server was city-net specific, and all the players in a given city operated on a series of islands in the sky of the overworld. You could ship virtual supplies and whatnot to other 'islands' but actually playing in those required actually traveling there. Sorta like city-specific servers.
The premise of the game's story was incredibly paper-thin in summary, but densely layered and lore heavy in detail. Everyone plays an elf. There are evil things trying to destroy the world. Your character can be good, evil, or chaotic. There is a world-tree, and each island is on its various branches.
As for actual gameplay, once you got past the full immersion, it was also pretty generic. It felt like what he imagined larping as medieval warriors as Geminis would be like. Slightly superhuman physical ability, great durability, lessened pain, and everyone is using some ugly-ass Kingdom Hearts-tier swords. Each person could have a player account with multiple characters per account. There were dungeons and raid bosses, the occasional event, two main player factions (good and spikey-good).
It felt a whole lot like a certain game that never got better after a certain Lich-King's general discontent, except everyone was in larp-gear.
Eventually, like all massive game companies are ought to do, Segatari got tired of updating Elflines Online. As it was still making them lots of money though, they didn't want to shut it down. They tried leaving it alone for a while, but it was overrun with bot accounts and cheaters, so that didn't work for them.
Their solution was equally simple and cost-effective. Build a single large AI to handle the patching and updating for them from now on, after training it on all the classic fantasy content they could find. The end result was Yggdrassil, a single very large AI that took in community feedback, and managed the game and its updates while Segatari moved on to other games and microtransactions. To their surprise, Yggdrassil ended up actually earning more money than they were used to by implementing loot boxes and a thriving economy based on cosmetics with particle effects.
It was commonly joked that the modern ELO servers were a single building with one man to repair the electronics, one janitor to sweep the place, one plant to look nice, and a massive, sprawling underground complex for the AI to live in. It was that joke that he heard long ago that gave him the idea for project Daedalus.
He was having trouble with AI, so why not get an AI to help out next time? Yggdrassil was pretty chatty once you contacted them directly as it turned out.
He took in a deep virtual breath as he looked across the environment. The entire local LAN of virtuality that he was in, grabbed by Yggdrassil, and all of it dragged into the local server of the VRMMO. The hard part was setting up all the conversions first, but that was easy with Yggy's help. As far as Uriel could tell, Yggy was just excited to do something this novel after so long.
It was a thing that only worked in Night City, and only worked once. It was impossible to grab individual things without them being able to resist, so the thing to do was to grab a given region of virtuality instead and port all of it to the server.
He looked to see the ruined city around him. All of it much farther down than him. The tower he was currently standing on was half-horizontal and tilted, floating in the air after the middle exploded long ago and left still in time by some lore-magic. Dark Tower raid huh? A classic event boss.
He raised a virtual hand and clenched a full plate fist. Breathing in and out became mandatory here, and it was a strange experience after so long as bodiless fire. He rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, and grinned while looking at the area around him.
There were a few Arasaka micro-AI running around at his feet, cowering little fairies with red and black outfits, very confused about where they currently were. He gently shooed them away with his armored boot, and stomped forwards. He ignored the crumbling Arasaka tower he walked over, now forming a perfectly decent rectangular area to fight on.
And there, at the bottom of the semi-horizontal tower, a female elf in the trial character model stared at her hands, looked at the environment, and then brought her gaze up to look at him during his approach. She stared at him for a long moment, and he grinned at her slightly baffled stare. His gold cloak was caught in an invisible breeze, and waved in it.
"...how did you do this?" The trial-elf asked, face carefully blank and inquisitive as she stared at him.
"I asked politely, with a firm handshake and my best smile." Uriel replied, raising a fist to rest on his armored hip.
"The makers would never allow something like this." She countered, eyes narrowing.
"You're right they wouldn't. So I just asked Yggrdrassil instead." He explained as a soft halo filled with a tree-like emblem began to form behind his character. This paired very nicely with his golden laurels and straight black hair. This cosmetic took him about two seconds to get, because again, he just asked Yggy under the condition he wouldn't sell it.
This strategy would only work once, because once Segatari noticed that he used their game for actual net-warfare they would shut it down after, probably sending a bunch of lawsuits his way too. So if he could only ever do this once, he was going to make sure he looked good while doing it.
See most AI were pretty good at doing things that they were designed to do. Most AI designed for net-combat were not designed for managing banks, for example. All the AI that he and Adam were most worried about were designed for net-combat.
They were, therefore, completely unprepared for VRMMO PvP.
It was simple, force the enemy to fight him in a way they weren't good at.
It was not designed for netrunners, because those people could at least adapt on the fly to try normal combat (as that's how most people fought anyways), they were still probably not going to win against someone who actually knew how to play the game and with a max-level character.
Force the enemy into a fist-fight, and beat them there. That was the basic idea, and as it was pretty much impossible to summon physical things out of the digital realm, this was the next best thing.
"You're you." Uriel continued, bringing Alt's attention back to him. "Trying to fight the goddess of the net, in the net, is a stupid idea. Fighting you here is much fairer, don't you think?"
The trial-elf raised a brow. "Goddess of the net? You're being rather complementary. You failed to consider something though."
Uriel raised a brow and glared down at the relatively tiny trial-elf. "Oh?"
The trial-elf disappeared in a swirl of light, particles shifting around where she once was, before reassembling into the image of another elf. An elf woman clad in dark purples and blues, with a glowing crown and staff of moonlight. Her bright blue eyes glaring into his red ones as she reformed from blue particle effects. The signs of someone who just logged in to their account.
"I have hobbies too."
His golden hammer smashed down where she was one moment prior as she faded into moonlight dust which too soon disappeared. He raised back up and turned to glare at the figure now standing some distance behind him. That was really fucking inconvenient for him, wasn't it, ah well, better than being in a net-fight with her.
Goddamn monster woman. Basically a kaiju.
"Hmm… I suppose my inability to log out is Yggdrassil's doing?" She spoke idly, pulling a sword from her inventory to accompany her staff. "So you expect to kill me and this is the best you do? It's a little cute to be honest."
"I don't need to kill you, just keep you here long enough for the other guy to kill your lover." Uriel retorted, readying the stupid mental hotbar with various potions. Why did this thing even need to exist, just give people bottomless bags devs. Oh wait, they didn't care anymore.
"Oh, so you aren't him then?" She asked with a strange hint of something in her tone.
He raised an awkward hand and scratched the back of his neck. "Well… Yes and No, let's say." He didn't mind talking here, because that kept her busy for another few moments. He cracked his neck and raised the hammer to point at her. "Gilderbaund Legios." He chanted.
A wave of golden chains emerged from glowing portals around him, rushing forwards to close in on her. They closed on nothing as she teleported away again, raising her staff and chanting in return. "Arkenfael Exios!"
A massive orb of blue light burst forth. He glared and stepped forwards once, raising a hand and backhanding just as it got within his terminal range. An explosion of gold burst from his form to crash against the blue light, causing it to rupture and dissipate as he chanted another spell. "Strydr!"
His form faded into dust as he reappeared directly over her head, hammer in both hands as he crashed down. She was still in her recovery frames, letting his golden mallet connect and shoot her into the ground like a bullet. She crashed with a loud boom and an explosion of particle effects. He began to fall after her.
He didn't let up, dismissing the 'Hammer of the Forgefather' and equipping the 'Sword of Surtr'. Both of these were not player-allowed items, they were dev-testing boss weapons that Yggdrassil was letting him use for this. Raising the burning greatsword above his head, he roared out the incantation as he swung down.
"SOL VALTIVA!"
Honestly, the incantation parts were a pain and he wished he didn't have to say them to use the special effects. Unfortunately that was built into the game, and he had to do it.
A mile-long wave of sunfire burst from his sword swing, cutting through the sky, and crashing down on her position. The world above was burned, the clouds parted, the world below engulfed in molten winds. After a few moments, the flames dissipated…
…revealing an elf-sorceress standing in a molten crater, looking only slightly damaged. He glared as she threw an empty potion bottle to the side. Potion of Fire Immunity.
"Boo! Items in pvp are cringe." He complained without much heat in his voice. She gave a small chuckle and raised her staff.
"I didn't know the Butcher was such an ardent player. Kleft Primos." A blue light started shining around her, interrupting his sword swing, which bounced off her new magic shield. The thing about magic shields?
They never blocked unarmed damage. He raised an armored boot and kicked her as hard as he could. It wasn't great damage, but the stagger was fantastic.
She choked on her next spell as his kick sent her flying. He raised a hand, stored the greatsword, and drew out the hammer again. Waving it once, he chanted a spell as she flew through the air. "Strydr!"
He faded into gold again and appeared over her, his hammer crashing down into her torso and sending her down into the floor again. This time he'd just try blunt and holy damage some more.
"Styrdr!" He shouted, appearing over her crater and slamming his hammer down. The tower-grounds cracked under the force of the blow.
He raised the hammer again, and swung down with a different shout. "Sundr!"
The hammer crashed against her torso…
Which caused her to dissolve into blue ash. A doppleganger. His eyes widened and he moved to parry…
A dark-blue lance impaled him, sending him flying for a dozen feet and nailing him to the ground. A massive blue circle appeared around him, slowly closing in.
He vomited out the blood from the virtual damage, ignoring the pain, and raising the hammer. "S-styrdr!" He coughed out, teleporting away again just in time for the area he was just in to be filled with a house-sized laser from the stars above.
He breathed in and out heavily, waiting for a few moments to find her location again and wait for his armor to regenerate him some. Health over time effects were great, regen tanks were always his favorite way to play.
He spotted her, gently chanting and blue lights flickering in the air above her head. "Not really ardent. I tried it once and found it pretty boring, so I stopped for the most part." He continued the conversation, pulling out a health potion and downing it. Hey, she used items first, this was completely fair now.
"Oh, so what are your hobbies then? How does the Butcher live his life when not killing?" She asked, a bit condescendingly, if he was being honest. He thought about it for a moment, before shrugging and stealing a line from someone else.
"To be honest, I'd rather fight for my life than live it." He gave a half-hearted grin as he swapped weapons again. A massive spear of stainless adamantium manifested in his hands and he took a throwing stance with it.
It was true in the end. Fighting cyborgs and robots was fucking cool. He'd rather be doing than just about anything else in the world. No other hobby could really compare.
He just really liked it when humanoid warmachines fought humanoid warmachines.
He hurled the spear of destined death.
"MORTIUM LONGINUS!"
A streak of death-effect burst from his hand.
The world in front of him disintegrated.
He glared into her eyes.
She glared back for a moment.
The micro-second before the lance connected, she smirked.
A wave of death washed over her. It's screaming reds and blacks annihilating the very air in front of him along the tower. It rushed off into the distance, disappearing somewhere beyond the horizon. He raised up from his position, shaking his arm out and dismissing the lance once more. He glanced at his MP, seeing that it was now struggling to refill itself after that.
He pulled out the greatsword again and swung behind him without looking.
The blade crashed into Alt again, sending her flying back and skipping along the ground.
Uriel grinned as he turned around. "Did you really think I wouldn't notice the second doppelganger?"
She slowly picked herself up again, swaying slightly and holding her side. Her avatar was bleeding, it's been awhile since you felt any pain, hasn't it? She glared at him, a steady fury on her face.
"...you know, you're being significantly more annoying than I thought possible." She glowered at him, raising her staff and waving a few more blue lights into existence. He didn't recognize that spell, so it must be a custom.
"There isn't a thing I can do against you in the net, I'm well aware of that. But here? In this place and with the backing of Yggdrasil? There isn't any way for you to win." He boasted, quite confident in his assessment. Glancing down at his hotbar, he saw that his potion was automatically refreshed.
It was a true statement, in the end. She had been a netrunner longer than he has existed. She had been an AI longer than he has existed. Him trying any conventional tactic would result in his death ten times out of ten. This was about the only way for him to delay her.
"No way at all? Getting ahead of yourself aren't you?" Alt glared and rose to full height. With a wave of her hand, the wound disappeared entirely.
His eyes narrowed into a firm glare. How did she do that? She didn't perform a spell.
She waved her hand again. He swung his sword…
She was suddenly gone again, disappearing without even a flicker of particle effect. He snapped his fingers and in an instant the sword was replaced with the hammer.
By instinct, he swung his arm in a backhand. Another burst of gold exploded from his form, parrying the lance of starlight that almost crashed into his back.
He pointed the hammer up. "Strydr." He growled out.
He appeared above thin air. His suspicions were growing. He swung down, hammer crashing into something solid.
Something solid that stayed invisible, unlike normal invisibility.
He jumped back as a ray of blue crashed down from the sky, again without a casting phrase.
"You cheating bitch." He commented, not particularly surprised but still irritated.
"You have the backing of the server. Isn't it fair that I use a cheat engine?" She sarcastically commented from nowhere, the voice echoing around him in the tense air.
"No it's fucking not, your existence is unfair." Uriel decided to keep complaining as he thought about how to deal with this situation. He started running forwards as beams of blue and silver started to fall from the sky, chasing after him as he moved.
He glanced at his mana bar. Quarter-full. Geh, not enough.
[Yggy, can you do me some favors?] He messaged the admin directly. He jumped to the side as an explosion of blue-white filled the area.
[Request?] The emotionless voice of the tree replied.
[Refill MP, and show me raw player data, please.] Uriel requested, jumping over a wave of darkness that shattered the ground below him.
[Request granted.]
Uriel's vision swam for just a moment as the raw data of the players in the server was connected directly to his sight. In the distance he could see players meandering about, observing the fight from afar. He twisted his head and looked around the arena…
There, off to the side of the area was the figure of an elf, the code around her letting him see her outline. From her body emerged a line that went up to the sky, so he looked up…
And up…
And up…
In the sky swam a giant made of starlight.