FEBRUARY 20th, 2022
The crowd dispersed. I was still on the ground out of sheer shock at what had happened. My eyes were darting back and forth. I don't know how long has passed. Klein stood off to the side, leaning against the town fountain, spouting its water as if it were normal.
"Hey Dex, I…I don't know what to say, man, I'm not good with this emotional shit, but we can't sit here. We just can't…or we'll end up like…" Klein stalled off, not knowing how to finish, and offered his hand to me. I didn't even notice it before, but his face hadn't really changed at all. This was his real face. His hair was no longer a vibrant red, but a sort of reddish-brown. His changes were more subtle. He still had his armor and headband equipped. I nodded and took his arm in mine and he yanked me up. "There you go. Up and at 'em." He said.
"We...we killed those people," I said. I started to hyperventilate. "We...we we killed..."
"Hey, Dex." Klein grabbed me with both of his arms and shook me. "Hey come on man! I know!" He broke out. "I know...shit wasn't supposed to go down like this." He was shaking. "I died plenty of times in beta. I logged out several times! I cut those guys down like it was all normal! This shit is so fucked. I know that! But man I've been on the dark sides of the internet. I was fourteen, about a year before all this shit with the government went down. I saw all kinds of fucked up shit—things I can't even think back on now because I repressed them. I'm not trying to say that feeling it like this—it's much much more...but what I do to process that kind of bullshit is I keep on moving. If I stop—if I sit and process every single iota of everything I. Break. Down. It would kill me." he said.
"What do you suppose we do then?" I asked, trying to keep my heart still. I could feel my voice growing hoarse.
Klein looked around for a few moments and then finally back at me, "I say we go look for the way to the second floor. Somebody around here has got to know where it is. And if we can somehow catch up to some of the other players maybe we can join up with them? Strength in numbers, right?"
I took a deep breath and realized that he was right. We needed to beat this game to get back to our real world, our real lives. Images of my Mom and Jen flashed up in my mind, my hand shook.
"Let's go."
"That's the spirit," Klein smiled back. "I say we should head to the information center. That seems like the best course of action," Klein remarks.
"The Information Center? How is that going to help? Shouldn't we go where everyone else went?"
"The one thing you learn about exploring places you have never been to, Dex…" Klein began, wagging his finger at me, "…is you always find a map as soon as you can. Those people are going to be kicking themselves in the leg when they end up in a dead end and have no clue where to go," he said.
I nodded in agreement and we walked the way.
"You have anybody waiting for you on the other side?" His tone was quiet and somewhat pitiable.
"Yeah, my mom and my sister," I said. "They must be terrified right now..." I thought.
Klein stopped walking. I too, stopped and turned around to look at him. He was looking down at the ground, holding his arms behind his back. "Maybe after this is all over you could introduce me?" He said in a hushed but hopeful tone. He then turned to face me, his toothy grin showing.
I stared at him back, "Is this really the time? No." I continued walking.
Klein ran around and "C'mon! Bros are supposed to do things like this!" His hands were clasped firmly together. I could start to see tears welling up in his eyes, I have yet to tell if he is this desperate or if they were just fake.
"We're done talking about families," I said. I continued walking until he pulled me back by the collar. "—Hey I told you—!" Before I could finish I fell to the ground ahead of him. He let me go and I fell to the ground, gasping for air.
"I don't recall you remembering where we're going, so why are you leading, again?" He asked, his question laced with sarcasm.
A poison oh so familiar to me, and I know what he's doing. He's using humor to take my mind off of…well, that.
"I know we're looking for the Information Center, which should clearly be labeled by a sign."
"Oh, you think?" He retorted, crossing his arms and smirking. He walked alongside, his head turned towards me.
"Yeah, in fact, I'll be able to lead you there and to then along the way we can talk about how you were asking me if you could fuck my underage sister," I chide.
"Dude, that happened so long ago, I can't believe you keep bringing that up! I don't even recall if it even happened as you said it, I think you might have been hitting on my sister!" He said, elbowing me in the side, chuckling.
"You don't have a sister," I said, smirking alongside him.
"And how exactly do you know that?" he asked, turning to face me again.
"Because, you would've mentioned something about your little code there about bros, and don't even say that you were worried she was underage, because that line was crossed long ago, my friend." I said, pointing at him.
"Well, geez. Okay Mr. Lawyer-Man, I plead guilty. Fuck, remind me never to borrow any money from you," he said, laughing.
I shrugged my shoulders, "I was co-captain of the debate team at my school, what can I say?"
"Oh, you are such a nerd, why not captain?" Klein sneered.
"I would've been, but the guys who started it were upperclassmen. They had charm and charisma that I didn't. They're graduated now, I didn't really have their drive to keep the group going, so it kind of dissolved. And really, you're about as much of a nerd as I am."
"I'm a geek, thank you very much. There's a very clear difference," he puffed out his chest.
"No there isn't!" I said.
"Sure there is! A nerd is someone who gets shoved in his locker because he can't shut up about chemistry. A geek is someone who takes pride in…you know! Geeky stuff!"
"Dude, you are so full of it," I said.
"Oh, we're here," Klein said.
"Oh, of course we are, just in time for you to avoid explaining-" I'm cut off by him walking ahead. I could see a large white-stone building to our right up a few, so far it is the largest building I've seen in this town. It's about three stories high, compared to the normal two or one. I jogged up to catch up to him, he knocked on the door, bringing up a prompt in front of him.
Following his lead, I did the same. The scenery changed and I was inside a somewhat large room. It was almost completely filled with other players, others who decided it was smart to come here as Klein had. I notice they were all in high level-looking armor, so they must have been beta testers and known that a map would be helpful. I found Klein speaking to a woman behind the counter in the corner of the room. I shook my head and let out a small chuckle as I weaved my way through the other players to get to him.
"C'mon, wouldn't you say this armor is a sweet piece? You have to admit that." Klein finished with a wave of his hair and leans on the counter. The woman looked over to me, her long brown hair falling over her shoulder-piece.
"Are you with him?" She pointed to Klein.
I nodded my head tersely, she sighed. "Just as well. She opened her menu.
"I'll give you the beginners' manual for free if you take him away from here, he's quite annoying."
My menu opened automatically with a request for a trade.
"Uh, okay."
Klein looked visibly hurt for a moment, but only for a moment. His goofy grin returned like a boomerang tossed aside. I pressed the accept button and now in my inventory was 'Beginner Guide to Elysium".
"Thank you so much ma'am. Now Klein, let's get going."
I grabbed him by the arm and he didn't even put up any resistance, his feet dragged across the floor like a sad dog, but his face looked like it was about to burst into laughter.
"C'mon, that's all I want, Dex! Just give me the ladies and I'll be set for life!"
"You're out of your mind."
I could feel his fingers twitching in my grasp, I almost lost my grip as we headed out. I open up the command prompt and drag him beside me.
"We have to go, stick whatever fantasies you have in your pants for now," I said, pressing "Yes" on the question to leave.
Once we were outside of the information center I reopened my inventory. I select the guide and Klein looked over my shoulder as I open it up.
"Go to the table of contents, we don't have any time to waste actually reading through this thing, the map should be in the back," Klein said, about ready to rip the guide out of my hands.
I flashed him a look of annoyance, but ultimately comply. There is one section on dungeon crawling that could help, so I flip to that first.
"Dex…" Klein begins.
"Wait, I'm looking," I said, reading. "Hey look at this. It seems that there are recruitments going down to scour the higher floors." I read out to him.
"Yeah? Do you even know how many floors there are? Is there a map like I asked you to find?"
"I don't know about the map, it doesn't say in here, it mentions a mysterious amount of floors within the Castle Elysium," I read off the page.
"Okay then, where are they being held? The recruitments, I mean." He asked, crossing his arms.
"It said…Glory Park."
Klein looked around, "They changed a few things about this town since the beta, but this town layout is basically the same. I don't know where everything is, but last time I was here, Glory Park was just a bit south from the information center," he explained, his hand stroking his chin.
"Well okay then. We'll start looking south," I said, closing the guide. It dissipated into pixels and flowed into me.
"That…I don't think I'll get used to that," I said.
Klein nodded his head in agreement, "Yeah, it's weird. I dunno what the devs were thinking, if it were me in charge of this game I would've just made it straight up blood," he said, grinning.
"I wouldn't expect anything else," I said, chuckling.
"What does that mean? Why is that funny?"
"Thinking of you in charge of a game, that's actual responsibility," I laughed.
"Hurtful," He said.
We walked to the south. The sun in this world had almost set. It was about two in the morning according to the clock in my menu. We found our way to the park. There was a crowd, a little smaller than the one at the town center. There was also a bit more that were wearing the default plainclothes like I was. Although I also did see a few players in long trench coats and others in barely anything at all. I wonder why the developers decided to censor the blood when they chose to add in some of these more…revealing outfits. Some of them I wonder if it is even practical to fight in.
"This park was unchanged," Klein muttered
"So, about those changes…is that why you don't know where the ways to the other floors are?" I asked. Klein nodded his head. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go sign up." I said. We joined ourselves in with the crowd. There looked to be a grand meeting with someone speaking to all the rest—I took a peek and noticed that there was an armored player standing on a podium. His hair was dark black—just about as black as mine. He was wearing a heavy set of a deep blue armor—it looked to even be bigger than Klein's. He looked to be about a year or two older than me. "I propose that we all form parties and make our way to end this game!" He unsheathed a shimmering golden sword and raised it skyward. The crowd cheered.
I whispered over to Klein, "You know this guy?"
He nodded a short look, "He was in the beta. His username is Eldon. I heard he was the highest level beta tester. He's got quite the street cred here." I looked back toward Eldon. I tuned everything else out as I stared at his deep blue eyes.
"We've uncovered the entrance to the second floor and our reconnaissance teams have discovered it is a dungeon. That means that at the end of the dungeon is a boss. If any of you wish to participate in the scouring of this dungeon, then form a party of at least three players and meet back here before the break of dawn," he pauses. "I sincerely hope you all can make it along with us, because we're going to beat this boss down together!"
Time began to slow to a halt. I could feel my heartbeat pound in my chest—there was a new voice screaming inside of my head. I couldn't understand what it was saying. I tuned out everything around me except for Eldon's faintest movements...and then it stopped. Everything was moving along like normal—I was staring and I couldn't stop. What the hell happened? The crowd shifted as they looked for players to join their raid parties. A window popped up in front of me pulling me out of myself. It was from Klein. I looked over at him confused.
"Might as well get it out of the way early, huh?" He laughed. "Go ahead, accept it, it just means we'll travel together through the dungeon."
I'm still confused about everything slowing down there, but I shook it off, "Okay." I responded and hit the accept button.
"There, now we need just one more party member. Let's split up and find one. I mean, there's no harm if we both find one, right? Four's better than two anyhow," Klein suggested.
"Right," I agreed.
He walked away, but then walks back, "Oh, and do try to get a chick that, oh, I don't know, might be interested if you tell her I have this really sick armor, okay?" He asked, practically begged.
"You are desperate," I said, shaking my head.
"Desperate for lovin' baby!" He sang horribly off key.
"You're so weird. I think if I told anybody that they'd have you arrested." I said.
"Weird for-"
"Okay, please don't do that again," I said.
He laughed, "Remember, sexy chick who loves dudes in armor!" He yelled as he ran off.
I made my way through the hectic crowd, weaving my way out of the congestion. Where to begin? I picked a direction at random and started walking. It wasn't like I knew my way around this place, so getting lost wasn't really a problem. I couldn't be any more lost than I already was.
I turned a corner on one of the side roads beside the park and saw a large building made out of a smooth marble down the way, the sign on the front read "Artist's Guild."
I'm not a connoisseur of the arts myself. There was something about how people explain themselves through art which was a little…well, bullshit to be frank. Oh, I made this square blue because it demonstrates the human fight for survival. Please, you made that square blue because you ran out of purple on the triangle.
Even if I didn't understand it, maybe I could find someone here that would want to join in our raid, I mean, stranger things have happened.
The building was taller than I thought from far away. It was about three times the size of the information center in both height and length. Inside there were statues and busts that rested on podiums and stands in front of me. The whole place emanated a calming vibe. I saw a sole player behind one of the statues—she stood tall with her hands behind her back as she looked up at a painting hanging on the wall.
"It's quite a show, isn't it?" She said without turning.
"You mean out there? Yeah, I guess you could call it that," I said, walking closer.
"Stop."
I did.
She turned slowly, her figure was lean, her auburn hair fit snug on her skull. Her face was a little rough, but there seemed to be something else about her eyes,. They were calculating. They analyzed everything around her—stripping everything down with a glance before moving on. Now they were set straight on me.
"You're not here to join the Artist's Guild. You're much too antsy, too little focus." I moved to speak, but she continued. "If you aren't here for art, maybe you're here because you're lost? That could be it, your clothes paint you as a newbie, probably fresh into the game, maybe an hour or two? You look sweaty, maybe it's the big announcement that's got you so worked up?"
"Listen, I came here to see-"
"To see if I would maybe partake in some sort of adventure, to go higher in this castle? No thank you, I'm quite busy here," she said.
"How did you know I was going to ask that?" I asked.
She looked me up and down once more, "You're practically dripping with it. Plus, you're not the first. I don't do fighting anyway, it's not all that this game has to offer,``she said.
I paced around the room, "So, you just do this?" I ask, looking at the statues of different people.
"No, these were here when the game began, developers coded them in, there's no way I could have created them all in this short time. No, but I am planning on adding onto it."
"How do you plan to do that?" I ask.
"This game isn't all about the fighting like I said. There's a huge library of things to work with in the arts here. The devs thought I was doing good with their materials, and so they made me head of the Art Guild."
"I don't really see anybody else here," I said.
"People are too upset with the current circumstances, art isn't the thing that is on their mind right now," She sighed.
"And what about you, how are you handling this situation?" I asked.
She shrugged her shoulders, "I was planning on staying in this town anyway, if people go out then they deserve whatever happens to them."
"That's…horrible. People are dead, dying, even right now in fact," I said.
She clapped her hands together and shuffled around the room, "People die all the time. It'd be no different if they were traveling through no-man's land during a time of war. People live and people die. The ones who live simply chose not to interact with the obviously deadly," She said.
I felt like I was arguing with a wall. I wasn't going to be convincing her of anything anytime soon. She was obviously wrong. There was a need for us to continue playing this game. I was not going to let everybody die here, I want to save as many as I can.
Without another word I turned to walk out, but right before I can leave I felt her grab my arm. "You know…you could stop." I was silent. "You could stop now and say that you'd join up here—join the guild. If you go up to try and beat this thing it is going to kill you."
"I couldn't stay here. I'm much too antsy for stuff like this, it's as you said. This whole thing isn't right, and so I want to fix it," I said.
She looked at me and lets go of my arm. She nodded her head slowly. I don't know what I'm going to do now, just keep on walking and see if I can find somewhere else. Somewhere like a guild set up for combat or something. Maybe I can find-
My thoughts were interrupted as I tripped over something hard. I fell before I even knew it. I tripped over someone's foot as I turned a corner. I hit the ground—my vision went a little hazy.
"Ow! Watch where you're going-" A somewhat high pitched voice yelled at me.
I looked up and there was a girl standing right above me giving me a dirty look. She was wearing what looked to be some sort of swordsman's garb. It was like a one-piece suit that coat that parted near the bottom. It was white with red trim. She had shoulder length dark hair and serene blue eyes. Even with her staring holes into my head I could think of no other word.
"What? Are you going to just sit there?" She asked, stepping back.
"Wh-What?" I asked, snapping out of my trance.
"What me? What you! What are you staring at?!" She barked.
I stood up, "I-I'm sorry. I was just walking and-"
"And you just so happen to trip over me," she interrupted.
I started to go red in the face, "N-No! I seriously didn't mean anything of it!"
"Uh-huh, I saw you over there back with the large crowd. You just so happen to trip accidentally," she said.
"What? N-No, that isn't it at all, I…why were you watching me?" I ask, my own humility starting to fade.
She looked at me for a second, and then noticed her mistake, "Watching you? I didn't say that," she said.
There was something…something in her voice, a sort of discord.
"You just said that you were watching me, I'm not deaf, nor am I dumb…but there is one thing I am," I began. It's time I take control of the conversation.
"W-What is that?" She asked.
"I'm curious," I said, letting my confidence build back up, "…if you'd be interested in accompanying my friend and I to the second floor? We were looking for a way out of this game."
"Are…are you trying to ask me out?" She asked, her face hardened.
"I asked what I asked, and what I asked is rather simple, actually. We need a third person to go with us, can I assume that you don't want to be trapped in here?"
She took me in, not sure of what to say, "You don't seem to be a beta tester, or even a player that looks like they have any skill. You look fresh out of the oven and yet you think you're going to win this game? What's so special about you?" She asked.
I leaned against the side of a building, and I threw on a smirk, "I'd like to think I can be pretty special. I'm going to be getting out of this game, no matter what. That isn't the issue at hand," I began. "I'm giving you an option to speed up that process."
She gave off a sarcastic laugh and walked by me, turning around, "I don't think attitude is going to be enough to win it, I'm sorry."
I took a moment to think about everything I was working for, everything I need to get back to. "You have family out there?" I asked.
This caught her off guard, "Y-Yeah."
"I do too. And so does everyone else in here, and do you know what? There are some families that have lost people they love tonight. I'm not letting my family find me croaking in my bed. I'm not staying in this game for much longer, fuck that."
"Fine. I'll join you," She said as a matter-of-fact. She opened up the window and sent the invite. "But don't be mistaken, I've got my own reasons for getting ahead in this game. This is just for this one floor," She added.
I accepted her invitation and let loose a grin, "In that case, I guess it'll be a pleasure to work with you. I'm Dex," I extended my hand.
"Athena," She said, leaving my hand in the air. her arms folded.
"Like the Greek goddess?" I asked, letting it drop slowly. I'm met with a stare that seems to say "What else would it be of?"
"You still have your default sword," she said, looking around me to my sheath. "Passion and attitude can only get you so far. You're going to need to go outfit yourself at the armory. There's one in this town, just follow the road down from here and go passed the pub. I don't want you dying on me right when we start because of a default sword."
"Where and when should we meet up after?" I asked.
"I have some errands to run myself. You know the big fountain in the park? It should've been near where you were," she said.
"So…you were watching me," I said, a grin plastered on my face.
"Not now." She shook her head, "I'll be there in a few hours, I'll only stay until seven. If you're not there, I'm gone, got it?" She had her hands on her hips, looking me dead in the eyes.
"I can do that."
"Good, now hurry up, I'll get what I need done and I expect you to do the same," she said and then walked off.
I watched her coattails trail behind her. She turned a corner and then she was gone. I waited another ten seconds and then I could feel my whole body go limp. The adrenaline was still rushing through my veins. I'm pretty sure it was the only thing keeping me talking.
"Athena…" I said quietly to myself. It's just the adrenaline from this whole ordeal, nothing more, nothing less. It's going to be just as she said, we're going to team up for this next floor and then part ways, no attachments.
A notification popped open in front of me, alerting me I have a message. It was from Klein, "OMG, DUDE, I DIDN'T THINK YOU'D ACTUALLY GET US A CHICK, I GOT THE NOTIFICATION THAT 'ATHENA' JOINED OUR PARTY. IS SHE HOT? :)"
I took a look at the sky and laughed, letting the humility and insecurity return and the adrenaline fade.
Yes.