"Sir, we found traces of anticarcinogenic in her system." A guard in a red veil said to Sebastian. He gazed at the contestants laying in their cradles, all dressed in white overalls.
Guy stirred, his senses came back to him in a flash and he rebounded moaning and darting away from the intense light.
His fingers stretched and he looked down at his white overalls and glanced at Kane, who was heavily bruised with his head held upright up in a white band strapped around his forehead to the white cushion. He looked at Eve by his right, the cushion behind her head was bloodstained and she looked pale, her bare lips were cracked and dry.
He reached down to pinch the band and pushed out to his hand but the band refracted when he tried to jab at the glass, frantic, how did everything turn out to be this way?
Guy looked up at the black figures roving about a rod and could hear the cheering crowd, clenching his hand as he saw the huge monitor display the frontier of a new mythical forest and the golden caption 'Game of Legends'
He groaned when the white bands zipped him back into position, "Get me out of this fucking cradle!"
A latch came over his jaw, he bit it off and watched the blurry figure from a sandy face to the white collar and blue torso coming closer to him in an obscure motion, the spikes of his hair was pinnacled by the lights behind him.
He huffed and puffed in rage glaring at the blurry visual of Sebastian, given the bright lighting,
"Fuck you!"
The latch tightened when he pushed a button
"Now now, Thomson, you shouldn't be rude. Hear hear, I know what's on your mind, I didn't sign up for this, myah myah myah but indeed you sealed your bargain with us."
"From the AI, you set us up!" He blurted; I used to believe in this cunt. His hand clenched aching to hit him violently through the glass but his hand rebounded back to the cradle.
Sebastian grinned at the second champion and touched his chest "I did not, my friend, you five are the kind that doesn't skim the terms and conditions and fuss like p*ssies."
"I don't think anyone who doesn't make his intentions clear is liable enough to give terms and conditions. I used to think you were my hero."
"Anyway." He paced about in a light swagger and Guy clenched his teeth.
"I am introducing a whole new level of gaming and gambling, it may be uninspiring, but it's a new level,"
"To indulge your bloody ego, isn't it?" He barked.
Game of Legends was a failed game series because the larger audience in Phoenix preferred mechas and undead space aliens as in his other successful games. Many original games were unsuccessful anyway but not under Sebastian's watch; he would see to it that it succeeded one way or another.
Sebastian's hands behind his back clenched "Tsk tsk tsk, temper temper, you need to relax"
Guy was starting to feel hazy and if he didn't know better, his vision was starting to go out too regardless of how he tried to fight off the weighing blackouts as the cradle filled with an imperceptible gas and he keeled over.
"Fire away" Sebastian smiled breathing in and out; The characters must be heavily induced and there was no escaping.
The red guard held the tablet "But sir, all contestants must be healthy and maintain a certain_"
Sebastian tossed his tablet at him and he ducked. "I said...induce them and begin live streaming. This is going to be magic"
He said supervising the worker in charge of monitoring their vitals and tweaked the gas up a notch watching them submit to the impact, when their cradles fogged up, he grinned knowing they were ready.
"The bets are in sir," The next guard had a feminine voice as she watched the money bar accumulate on the digital display and tabs from Twitch
_Start already!
_I need to see some action.
"Let the games begin" He touched the red button and they jerked in spasms as their minds were being transported into the virtual worlds. Neurons after neurons lit up and their brain functions sparked in full display.
"They're responding," A scientist said as he went to the dark monitor room with sophisticated technology.
....
Regno Forst.
He screamed falling through a wave of golden light, "How do I stop this, how do I stop this!?" He crossed his hands over his face, it was like a bad dream, where the blue sky was visible and he saw a golden temple Southwest of his view amongst the trees, awed by its glamour under the sun,
He didn't realize when he maintained a safe landing on the soft verdant green grass and rolled down, he looked up at the branches that twisted and spiralled in an arc meshing with other branches over him leaving a hole that reflected the skylight.
He scoffed when he nearly recognized that branch arrangement and the darkness behind the thick stems, he was trapped in a hole, a chasm.
The leaves pulled apart as the breeze wafted in a circular motion and he looked down at his big hands from afar and pulled it closer to see that there was still no difference in his bad vision and then gazed at his polished metal sleeves, he felt at his well-defined rough chin and muscles protruding from his armour and his hair was longer.
His eyes skimmed the darker green lines on the grass and he stepped back to see the huge inscription unravel before him, that was when he knew.
A blue panel appeared before his eyes and he found Spectran_Oh, my god.
[ Zenith, fight your way out of the Chasm of Albero and prove yourself worthy of the Emerquoise jewel ]
"Fight?" He braced his hand and touched the mace at his waistband taking it, he swung it under and over, spinning it. I feel stronger.
"The jewel must be here, in the sacred...oh"
Zenith Tomley was a bandit who planned to extort the jewel from the Temple of Prosperity and sadly, he was transported to the Chasm of Albero, a secluded part of Regno Forst to suffer trial.
He lurched at the sound of a trumpet from above and the leaves rustled, and he wasn't sure what that meant but he understood that the judgement was left to the Forst.
He stopped to look around trying to decipher the location of the temple and his head buzzed, he was definitely in control and he loved it, he wandered over the icon to the trunk of the trees, they were all mangled and knit together, he couldn't find a way out.
The world was vivid but it was starting to get physical. He felt a pinch when a splinter pierced through his skin and pulled it out before it started to grow, he pushed his shoulder against the trunks and they weaved around each other.
He yanked out his mace to smash against the trees and the forest revolted with a blast of green energy.
He groaned and leaped off and touched down on the grass and rebounded, searching his belt if there were something useful, he pulled out a cable from his suit and threw it up and it whizzed spinning over a branch, he gripped it and kicked out bouncing over the top to land on the arc, standing up, he laughed at the view of the thick verdant canopies swishing in the wind with birds soaring in the sky, the spectacle was just like the one from the monitor, his eyes flashed at the memory of the lights and people cheering and touched his forehead.
This was too good to be true and too physical to be suppressed, was it real?
Guy (Zenith) had an odd sense of purpose.
Suddenly, he felt a drag on his cape and groaned when the branch whisked him into the chasm he fell back inside, he gulped when it closed into inescapable darkness. "No"
He slammed the barks and tapped his chest, the panel appeared with blue aesthetic spirals around the edges. Moving around, her voice broke out of the silence.
Name Zenith Tomley.
Age: 46
Homeland: Regno Forst.
Height: 6 ft 10
Weight:??
Skills: Moonlight requisition (Theft)
Weapons: Mace, adjustable grappling cables.
Achievements: 0
Level: 1
He rolled his eyes and ranted; "As if stealing the helmet of Uroghs the Silver, stealing the hearts of women from their suitors and battling the Wraiths of Monteberg isn't an achievement. Bollocks"
He needed to find a fail-safe, the darkness dispersed as he swivelled the light of the hologram around the thick chasm. His eyes narrowed on the rock tucked in a corner under an arc of open roots. He knelt and ran his hands over it. Limestone.
He gazed at the grass, it was so pristine that he didn't find a single piece of stone anywhere. He huffed and whispered "Okay, here it goes"