After waking up, doing her workout, eating breakfast and taking a shower, Scarlett was ready to get back on the game.
*ring*ring*
Her ringtone suddenly began blaring and she pucked her phone up and answered it thinking it would be her father.
"Good Morning, Scarlett." It was not her father.
"Aunty?" It was Grace Valentine. 'Wonder she would be calling her for?'
"It makes me sad that you forgot about the arrangements." Suddenly, it hit her. She had immediately got on the game the other day and completely forgot about it. "But worry not, child. Nothing was ready yet but now everything is ready, how long do you think it will be until you are ready?" Grace asked her and Scarlett thought for a little while before saying, "Give me 40 minutes."
"Alright, I'll be there in 45." She hung up after saying this and Scarlett looked at everyone looking at her oddly.
"What's your aunt picking you up for?" Feng Yue asked as everyone perked their ears up.
"Filming a tralier for the game." After saying so, she ignored their shocked looks and said, "She's coming in 45 minutes so I need to get ready." She turned away and went to her room and grabbed her best casual wear before doing her hair. When she was satisfied, she smiled for a bit before returning to her neutral face.
She then applied light makeup on her face before finishing up and leaving the bathroom. As soon as she left the bathroom, she said goodbye to everyone but didn't notice them saying it back because she would soon see Grace pull up at the side of the road.
Her friends followed her outside still in shock but then almost had a heart attack wheb they saw the supposed 'Aunt' was the one and only Grace Valentine. Their jaws hit the floor as they watched Scarlett get in her car and the car drive off into the distance.
Waking out of their stupor first was surprisingly Feng Yue. She looked at her brother who was slowly coming back to reality. "Hey? How many times do you think we will be shocked by Scarlett before we get used to it?" She asked the question and everyone came out of their stupors.
"I am going to be stressed out if I have to keep my guard for surprised like that..." Scott said as he looked at the road again before going back inside. Everyone followed him afterwards
—————————————————————————————
Around 30 minutes later, Scarlett found herself in some sort of studio where it wasn't like she had expected. It was a VR Cabin but with a lot more going on. There were a whole bunch of cords plugged into a section of the cabin she didn't even know existed. The cabin was also a lot bigger. There must have been a person inside of it because their gameplay was being captured by something and projected on a huge screen on the side of the studio.
"Amazing, right?" Scarlett nodded. She was very impressed and also intrigued. She wanted to know if she could do something similar but was interrupted by the appearance of a new face. A woman who was around 3 or 4 years older than her came up to Grace with the a few other people behind her. Even Grace arched her eyebrows at the site.
"CEO Valentine... can we..." The woman seemed to be very nervous as she kept curling her hair around her finger. "Can we get a photo with you?" Grace nodded with a smile and the woman squealed excitedly. The other girls all did the same.
After the little photo sessuon they finally noticed Scarlett there. The woman from earlier stuck her hand out towards her. "My name is Evangeline but everyone calls me Angel. Angel also happens to be my in game name."
"Scarlett. My in game name is Bloodmoon. It's nice to meet you." The woman froze as Scarlett shook her hand.
"Your Bloodmoon?" The girls that came up to Grace overheard them as asked. Scarlett nodded her head with the slightest resemblance of a smile on her face.
"Did you know there is a huge bounty on your head right now?" It was Scarlett's turn to freeze.
"No... I have been questing for the past few days so I haven't heard yet." She really had no idea.
"We heard that you killed one of the top players from the Indian Region, Skanda, in one hit and supposedly..." Angel got up close to her and continued,"...a lot of people don't believe it. Our region has had an influx of foreign players rushing in due to this and conflicts have already rose up. I just wanna let you know that we are almost going to war because of this." Angel backed up as she said the last sentence and Scarlett processed the newly found information before nodding
"That's it?" Angel was shocked by Scarlett's nonchalantly attitude towards the whole ordeal.
"That's what? If they want to die, they can always tell me and I will be glad to oblige. I am always out and about so if they can find me I can send them back to a safe zone for free if they really need to go back." Scarlett's attitude of "Come and die' wowed not only the girls but also Grace who was standing nearby.
"Did I hear 'War'? Is our games first war almost underway?" She said excitedly.
Angel did not have the excitement of her idol. Instead, she wanted to go back to her clan leader and tell them that the war might even happen sooner than anyone thought. For very *ahem* non-consumer friendly reasons.
She nodded with a bitter smile and Grace became very excited.
"This is great to know before hand. While it would be great to support our home region, we can only be the spectators during times of war. I can trust all of you to do your part so we don't look back, right?" Grace said and everyone nodded solemnly. "Good. Scarlett, right now, there is a swordsman inside of the VR cabin right. His name is Jiang Wushuang. Quite fitting considering that, after you, he has the best record in the Divine Arena. He is a bit arrogant because his background is significantly better than ours. Do you mind if you take him down... a peg or two?" Grace looked annoyed as she spoke about him and when she heard that they finished his scene, she looked even worse.
"Show him how it's done." Grace said as she went away and left her with the film crew. This 'Jiang Wushuang' came out of the vr cabin and had a specialized suit on. It was skin tight but he wasn't walking awkwardly or anything so she could tell that it was quite flexible. His figure was lean enough. He wasn't insanely muscular but he was around... average. He had the face of someone with a chip on their shoulder. There was something about hime that just screamed arrogance.
"Oh, the next person is here!" Jiang Wushuang spotted Scarlett as he got out and couldn't help but be taken aback by her looks. He looked at her for a second, inspecting her up and down before smiling at her and nodding. "What's your in game name and class? Maybe we can do some quests sometime."
"Bloodmoon, Thief. Not interested." Jiang Wushuang's face froze as if he wasn't expecting to be rejected.
"Really?" He said as he 'put on his charm'. He walked up closer to her. "What if I told you that... I liked you and that I would take you out for a nice candle lit dinner." He gave her body a quick glance and looked back into her eyes, quickly hiding the lust in his gaze. But who is Scarlett? How wouldn't she spot his weird gaze.
Her eyes turned ice cold, making Jiang Wushuang stop in his tracks. "If you take one more step..." Her hand went to her hip where she carried a very sharp dagger on her person, "...I will make you regret it." Her tone was full of threat and killing intent.
Angel who was right beside her, saw the hilt of the dagger on her side and gulped. 'How was she allowed to bring a dagger in this place! They don't even allow pepper spray but she can bring a dagger!' Her mond was screaming for her to get as far away as possible but she wanted to know where this would end up going.
"Regret?" Jiang Wushuang said with a malicious laugh. "I never..." He was cut off by a sudden cold sensation on his neck followed by a prick and the flowing of a warm liquid down his neck.
"You never what?" Scarlett's eyes were now in front of his. Only... not in the way imagined it would happen. She stared him down like a predator locking on to it's prey. Her cold, dealtached eyes gave him chills down his spine as he was now regretting coming onto this crazy girl like that
"You... do you know who I am?" He asked with a trembling voice.
"For all I care, you could be the King of England. Leering at me or my aunt will call the reaper to take your life. If you know what's good for you, then you will look the other way anytime myself or CEO Valentine cross your path. Do...You...Understand?" Scarlett pushed the bladed a little deeper, making him wince in pain and shout, "Okay! I understand! Let me off!"
Scarlett's blade left his neck and Jiang Wushuang's legs began to shake before falling down.
When he finally regained his senses, he was furious. "You don't know who you are messing with! The Jiang Group is not to be trifled with. Mark my words!" He said this before storming out while thinking of the most horrible ways he could use to deal with Scarlett.
Scarlett cleaned her blade before putting it back in her holster.
She looked back at Angel and the others before saying, "You guys alright?" A bright smile that would look very beautiful any other day of the week was now terrifying to them. They all hastily nodded. Scarlett was going to keep talking with them when the director showed up with Grace following closely.
"You must be the Bloodmoon I've been hearing about." The director said as he reach his hand over. She grabbed and shook his hand.
"In the flesh, sir." She said and the director laughed.
"Alright, Grace darling, can you take Scarlett to the dressing room?" He then turned to Scarlett and said, "You are required to wear a specialized suit while inside the vr cabin. The suit is for monitoring heart rates, pulses and other things. It's for your safety." Scarlett nodded and followed Grace to the changing room.
Once inside the dressing room, she saw the suit had already be fitted for her. When she put it on she felt that it fit perfectly. It felt refreshingly cool on her skin. She walked out of the dressing room and back to the director.
"Oh! You look magnificent! Now... for your scene, you will be robbing a kingdom's vault in the middle of the night. You probably don't need any guidance but just in case, try and get it done in 1 shot as your scene is rather lengthy." Scarlett nodded.
"Alright, get in the cabin." Scarlett smiled and walked into the cabin. "Alright, people! We need as many angles online as possible. We are starting in 20 seconds!"
These 20 seconds went by rather quickly and the director shouted "Action!" as Scarlett was sucked into the game world.
She found herself outside beside a campfire. She was surprised to see that she was using her own character as she wasn't aware of it from the beginning but quickly got her bearings together.
She checked her inventory to make sure she wasn't missing anything vital and was relieved to see everything she needed was there.
"Testing... can you hear me?" She heard a voice but while she was startled, she never showed it. She nodded.
"Good, to your left is where you will find a heavily guarded palace. You will need to go inside of the palace and steal the keys to the vault. You will gain a key from assassinating your specified targets. In total, there will be 4 keys. One on the king, one on his queen and one on the princess and prince respectively. There's no time limit but try to be a little punctual and aim for an hour, two at most." Scarlett process all of the information before nodding
She the went to her left, running through a thick forest on top of the tree branches, her bow and quiver on her back. She usually doesn't use her arrows anymore but the flame arrows could probably be detected by any competent mage. She wouldn't take the chance in any case.
She began to alow down as more light peaked through the leaves of the trees until she reached the edge and immediately went into stealth. What she didn't know was that her stealth was no longer the same as before. The camera men completely lost her position. Even the director lost her.
"Go to the third person fly over." He said and everyone did as he said. They were now following a phantom as her footsteps made the grass around her feet shuffle. She was smart and used the wind to her advantage, moving the grass towards whichever way the wind went took the other tall grass.
Eventually, she reached the walls of the palace. At the wall, she could see a total of 8 people, 2 at the entrance, 2 walking across the top of the wall, and 4 in watch towers 2 watching both sides in each of them. Scarlett slowly formulated a plan as she went through the new skill set she had gained from that hidden quest she did the night before.
[Shadesteps] Teleport into the shadow of your target. Multiplies damage by 2x if not seen before hand.
[Aether Shroud] - Silences your breathing and footsteps. Mana usage cannot be detected. Lasts 30 seconds. If you kill a target before it ends, the timer resets.
[Purification] - Can be used to fight the enemies of the darkness or to heal any dark energy poisoning.
[Corrosive Touch] - Extremely poisonous towards mages. Touching a person will send a surge of yin energy through their body, harming them from the inside out. Every five steps the enemy takes will take away 1% of their health. Effect is multiplied exponentially on magic classes.
'How powerful!' She thought to herself as she activated [Shadesteps] and [Aether Shroud] at the same time and teleported behind one of the two people at the open entrance but didn't kill anyone yet. Instead, she went through the open gatewhere she saw patrols coming from the left and right. She went into stealth one more time and began walking along the edge of the palace.
Everyone in the studio was very impressed by her technical skills as well as her abilities. They had never seen abilities like that before. As they admired Scarlett's skill, Scarlett took out a black orb. This orb was a mana bomb. Angel and the director gasped as they looked at it in her transparent hands.
Scarlett felt that a diversion would be necessary as there were simply too many guards in the palace. Instead of fighting till she was the last man, she wanted to go the easier route.
She began humming an old song that her dad used to litsen to all the time. At the same time, she starting playing air guitar. Only a few people knew the song off the top of their head but everyone could tell that Scarlett was having a lot of fun all by her lonesome.
'See me ride out of sunset
On your coloured TV screen
Im for all that I can get
If you know what I mean,
Women to the left on me
And women to the right
Ain't got no gun
and got no knife
Don't you start no fight
She walked along the side of the walls and placed another bomb down.
'Cause I'm TNT!
The 1st mana bomb exploded right at this point!The explosion awakened the entire palace. As the sounds of chaos erupted, she looked down and saw that the explosion killed someone as her timer that was about to run out jumped back up to 0:29.59.
'I'm dynamite!
TNT!
And I'll win that fight!
TNT!
I'm a powerload!
TNT!
watch me explode!
The second bomb exploded creating even more chaos as she walked through the palace grounds while playing her air guitar. She was really making light of the situation as hundreds of guards were completely zeroed in on the explosion. This made things simpler as she walked right through the front door of the side palace building.
Inside of the palace, Scarlett saw maidservants running for their lives as they were in full panic mode. She took one that was running by her and dragged her off to the other room where she knocked her out.
"Block the feed or I will take all of your eyes." Scarlett suddenly said. Her tone said that she would take no for an answer as her threat was met with agreement. The feed was black out and for a minute, Scarlett spent her time, placing the maid's clothes on herself.
She exited the door and told the directors to turn the feed back on.
"What are you doing in there?" A panicking voice shouted at her from behind. She turned and saw a person dressed in a nightgown that sparkled like stars. "You must be one of the new maids. Anyway, we need to go to the safe room. You will be serving me until everything blows over." This must be the princess, thought Scarlett as the princess dragged her until they met up with a few guards.
"Princess, you finally made it!" A night made it up to her and looked up at Scarlett.
"Reginald!" The princess made it to him and gave him a tight embrace.
"Princess, the king, queen and your brother have already made it to the escape route. They are only waiting for you at the moment." Reginald said as he kept eyeing Scarlett who had her head down at the side. It was only now the the princess noticed his gaze.
"I just picked this maid to serve me while we are in the safe house. Now, let's make our way over." Reginald gave Scarlett another glance before nodding. Scarlett noticed residual lust in his eyes but thought nothing of it. Still, she kept her guard up around him as she and the princess followed him to the escape route that was in the main palace. When they got to the main palace, a eunuch was waiting for them.
"Princess, the king and queen are waiting." The princess nodded and walked by him. A big door opened as they got closer to it, revealing a middle aged couple and a tall and muscular young man in front of them who was at least taller than 7 feet. Scarlett was shocked but kept her composure.
"Hestia! We need to go!" Her father said as they began to open the locked door in front of them with a magic circle. Scarlett arched her eyebrows as she saw the door open, not revealing a tunnel like she expected but a teleportation pad. "Reginald, activate the pad. Everyone, come on." Reginald had an uneasy feeling as he began to create a space chanel with a magic circle.
However, just as he began, he felt a brush on his skin. He ignored it thinking that it was just his imagination and kept on making the magic circle.
Scarlett suddenly dissappear from beside the princess and appeared behind the prince in an instant with a dagger in her hand. This dagger was Moon God's Wrath. She activated the [Duality] ability, making another dagger in her hand as she plunged them into the neck of the prince. Everyone only noticed his death when there was a thud on the ground. By the time they noticed however, Scarlett was already in front of the king, she utilized gale steps as she saw in the corner of her eye that the knight, Reginald, was aiming something with his left hand.
A flame shot out of his hand without a chant, surprising Scarlett but still, it was futile. Scarlett let the flame hit her as her resistance was already very high. She took no damage and wasn't pushe back but instead, she advanced even faster and eventually, her dagger reached the king.
*Clang*
A bubble appeared around the king, saving his life just in time. The queen had just made a defense bubble on him when she saw a flash of light and then darkness. A throwing knife lodged deep within her forehead as everyone stared at her in horror.
"Damned assassin!" Reginald rushed at her and Scarlett sneered as she dodged his blow and circled around the king who had just brought out a greatsword. Scarlett wanted to see if something would work and with her dagger in hand, her arm moved so fast that the only visible parts of her motion was her gripping her dagger hilt and her placing it back in its holster.
A split appeared in the air right over the king but then closed up rather quickly.
Reginald abd the princess widened their eyes as the looked at the king's protection bubble suddenly split in half and fell to sides, shattering on impact. The king then began to bleed from the middle of his forhead all the way down to his neck before... splitting in half.
"Ahhhhhhhh!" The princess screamed as she watched the scene with horror and dread imprinted in her heart. Suddenly, her vision went black as she too saw a flash of light before hand.
"You MONSTER!!!!!" Reginald had lost full composure at this moment. He began using a skill but then realized that his vision was going dark. He grunted and then threw up black bile as he crumpled to his knees and keeled over.
Scarlett sighed in relief as she once again was stunned by the realism of the game. She then began seaching the bodies for the keeys, eventually finding all 4.
She then went over to the teleportation pad and began to chanel the space chanel herself using her mana. Just as she finished, a bunch of guards came running in only to see a blood covered Bloodmoon smiling and waving at them before she ultimately disappeared.
When the bright light was still in her vision, she immediately stabbed both of her daggers into the teleportation pad on her side, rendering it useless. She then walked off of it and noticed that she was in a hallway at the end of it was a large bank vault style door but it had 4 keyholes, one for each respective key.
She used her gale steps and instant strike abilities to make travel a bit faster and was at the end of the hallway in 3 seconds. She then equipped the keys one by one and then, the hallway rumbled as the door opened up.
"And... Cut! Great job everyone!" Everyone gave a round of applause to Scarlett for her exciting version of the Thief/Assassin class. Most of the stuff that Scarlett used were things that they didn't think were possible in the game but also made them realize that there was still more of the game that they hadn't seen yet.
In the future, this statement wouldn't be any less true as a lot of the game would still be new territory for even veterans of the game.
"I haven't seen any thieves use any of those skills before. Can you tell us how you got them?"
"Hidden class. The rest is a secret." Scarlett said as she walked over to the Director and Grace who were side by side.
"Wonderful! You made me even wanna be a thief but I can tell that you are anything but a normal thief. You used a lot of skills that thieves wouldn't be able to use. We might have to do it again but you would be restricted to only using thief abilitys and weapons If you don'tmind that is." Scarlett was hit with a stun and didn't expect that but she more or less understood. She nodded and did pretty much the same thing but slower in 45 minutes but that was still a lot faster than anyone expected. When she came back out, she was satisfied with her performance this time around. Her senses were a lot more refined now and hmshe could sense something as if there was a guide for her arrows. It wasn't really there but she could feel it. It was pretty awesome for her.
"How is your accuracy so good with the bow? Everyone inside of the studio was excited and rushed over to ask her questions about how to get better with their techincal skills. All Scarlett could say was that real life practice will your character but you in reality as well. Everyone acted as if they had an epiphany and kinda wanted to go back home and try this real life practice as well.
"This is possible for mage classes as well. You can practice fighting techniques with their staffs giving you another way of defending yourself when your opponent closes in on you. Of course, you are still a glass cannon so you should never want to try to outhit an assassin or swordsman at close range." Scarlett added at the end, giving Angel a few ideas as to how she could be helpful and live longer in a pvp environment.
Scarlett thought that these words were just common sense but she didn't know that when people choose their classes, they tend to think about the role of the name versus what can be done in a moment. Her words would change this however. Usually, if a mage detects an assassin nearby, they will try to dodge, only for their efforts to be futile. If the mage could at the bery least use their staff and reduce damage, they could by enough time to blink away and deal damage to their opponent.
The healer, Angel, seemed to hit it off with her and offered her phone number. Scarlett accepted it and Angel told her that if she needed help, she would call her. Scarlett reminded herself that she need to add Angel to her friends lists later before Grace took her back to the Moonlight Mercenaries HQ.
It was now 2:35 in the afternoon and Scarlett was itching to get into the game. She started the cabin and hopped in after she took a nice shower.