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Bast picked up Mel one-handed, as easily as one might a bag of groceries. The berserker once again flung him over his shoulder, though he was kind enough to at least face him forward this time.
"Hang on, little Mel!"
The berserker left no room for response, this time taking a mighty leap toward the lowest branch of the world tree. Meliadol felt as if he was suspended in the air; time itself seemed to slow down. For a split second, gravity ceased to exist.
Wham!
Bast hit the branch, legs flexing as he jumped again; the impact sending out a small shockwave that sent splinters flying. Response was immediate, shrieking cries coming from all around. Winged creatures, serpentine with thin leathery wings and glowing red eyes appeared from the shadows, arching in toward them.
"AGGGGGGGGGGGGGGRGGGHHHHHHHHH!!" Bast didn't back down, letting loose a mighty roar that had Meliadol's ears ringing.
The berserker's skin began to harden, taking in a dull gray tone. Bast leapt into the incoming attacking creatures, surprising everyone. The beasts didn't have time to alter their path, and he used the first one as platform. With a mighty push, he flew up to a branch above while sending the unfortunate beast spiraling below. The others shrieked, twisting midair in a surprising display of agility.
Teeth and claw flashed as one dove in, but the berserker was already turning. The beast ran directly into Bast's open hand, stopping as if he had hit a wall. The hand became a fist, closing around the thin neck. Sparks flew as the monster tried in vain to bite and slash the arm holding him, but whatever ability Bast had used made his skin like metal.
Crack!
Bast's head came down, connecting directly with the beast's face. The creature went limp, stunned yet still alive, and the berserker dropped it unceremoniously. Meliadol's fingers tightened on Bast's leather armor. In those scant seconds, the amount of flying dragon-like creatures surrounding them had doubled, seemingly appearing as if from thin air.
"And now comes the hard part." Meliadol almost didn't hear the berserker's words, so low was his voice. "Fucking whelplings."
The berserker spun in place, twisting in a turning arc as a pair of whelplings dove in, their mouths open, displaying rows of jagged teeth. Bast's actions just barely managed to slip between the two, a thread through a needle, and the berserker continued without pause, jumping to the next branch.
Higher and higher the pair went, Bast doing his best to avoid the whelplings, dodging where he could, fighting where he must. Though skilled, there was just too many, and by the time they neared the upper crest of the tree, Bast was streaked with blood. Even his ability that hardened his skin couldn't protect him totally. Yet, despite it all, Meliadol never took damage, nor did he fall. Everytime an attack was headed his way, the berserker either took the blow or managed to slip him out of the way. Every time he began to fall, that strong grip came up to hold him in place.
Bast was good. Even someone inexperienced like Meliadol could see this.
Despite the best wishes of the guardians, they reached the uppermost branches, right below where the world tree broke through the canopy. It was here that Bast came to an abrupt stop, despite the whelplings on their heels.
"What are you–" Meliadol began, but his question died in his throat the moment he saw something flicker into life. It was blocking their path into the skybreak, like a translucent bubble.
He instantly knew what it was. Often programmers of games used such unintuitive mechanics to block players from getting into areas that they weren't meant to. This was most likely the case, and the thought that this was all for naught made his heart fall. They were stuck here!
"Okay, you're up, little Mel!" Bast yelled, surprising Meliadol as the strong fingers picked him up by the waist of his pants. As he did so, Bast's blood soaked skin began to turn grey, taking on the texture and hue of metal once again.
"Wait!" Meliadol screamed, but it was too late, the berserker punched the barrier with his free hand, sending sparks of electrical energy reverberating through the landscape. In the midst of this, with the wind whipping into a frenzy from the released energy, Bast tossed him to the nearest branch beyond the barrier.
He braced himself for impact, but instead of hitting the barrier, it was as if he was sucked into the hole created by Bast. The energy crackled around him, but all he felt was a slight resistance before he passed through with a burst of light and a pop. He continued on, flying with alarming speed toward the branch.
"Shit shit shit shit shit shi–"
He hit it face first, but purely on instinct, he managed to wrap his hands around the branch, his fingers digging furrows into the bark as he scrambled up. Meliadol barely had time to find purchase before the rope around his waist pulled against him. Glancing back, he saw Bast straining his way through the barrier. It was as if the the rope held the hole open behind his passage.
The whelplings slashed and struck at the berserker's back, blood splattering with each attack, but eventually Bast broke through the barrier and the monsters were left to rage against the invisible wall. Hand over hand, Bast pulled himself up as Meliadol hung on for dear life as a glorified anchor.
"Good shit, little Mel." Bast said with a long huff the moment he finished climbing, joining Meliadol who was sitting with his back to the trunk. The berserker slid down, leaving a streak of blood against the bark. "Was sketchy there for a moment, but you pulled through!"
"What was that?" Meliadol asked, pointing down, beyond the barrier. The whelplings, unable to penetrate the barrier, had reset back to their spawn points."What happened back there?"
"Oh, that. Basically, we exploited our way through an invisible wall placed here by the devs." Bast looked pleased with himself, "Long time ago, I found out the wall here is different than in other zones. They tried to make it part of the lore, so it has slightly different rules than a normal invisible wall. This one attacks back. I have a brawler skill, Iron Skin, that gives me hyper armor…"
"…hyper armor?"
"Temporary buff that reduces damage and makes you immune to being knocked back." Bast answered succinctly, "Anyway, there's a cooldown between the wall counterattacks, and if another player is thrown in-between said cooldown, it sorta lets them glitch a hole through it. Pretty neat, huh?"
Meliadol shrugged. He was impressed with the how the berserker found the glitch, and no doubt the method of performing it, but he still had not a clue as to why he was brought to this place.
The berserker gestured toward the horizon from their vantage point atop the world tree. "Quite the view."
It was an understatement.
Red mixed with orange and yellow to ignite the sky as the sun began to retreat. A thin layer of clouds covered the area below, only allowing an occasional peek of the green forest canopy to show as they drifted lazily along. Mist leaked out from the forest, catching the flickering of color from the sun, furthering the illusion of a horizon set aflame.
"It is." Meliadol appreciated the sight, but… "Is this why you brought me here? How does this help me get better at this game?"
"Funny thing about perspective…" Bast continued, as if he hadn't heard Meliadol's question, "Even the most mundane thing can be beautiful, depending on the angle. Falsehoods can become truth. Failure can be success. Everything is different if one just considers perspective."
"…okay?" Meliadol didn't know where the berserker was going with this.
Bast sighed, "Little Mel, what you're doing now is seeking answers without knowing the actual question. The answer was actually given to you. Darlia, bless her simple heart, told you it directly."
"All she did was state the obvious!" Meliadol was getting irritated by the berserker's roundabout way of talking, "'This is a game'! What the hell does that even mean? Why does everything have to be so vague with you two? Shit, I'm new to this, so just fucking tell me! Jesus Christ!"
"I'm sorry," Bast said, looking slightly taken aback. Meliadol took some satisfaction that this was the first time he had seen the berserker unsure of himself, and that he had caused it. "You just reminded me of someone I used to know. This person hated being helped directly. Was the kind of guy that needed the right questions and the freedom to seek his own answers…figured you might be the same."
Meliadol didn't know what to say to that. Someone he had used to know? Was he a former friend? Lover? It felt awkward asking the berserker directly, so instead he watched the sun gradually sink into the ground. The pair didn't say anything, but the silence became unbearable.
"It's okay." Meliadol was the first to break the silence, "I'm not faultless. I jumped into this game without doing any research. Didn't want to ruin the experience. Wanted to discover stuff for myself. How could I know how complicated and huge this game would be?"
"Is this your first SYNAPS game?"
"It is." Meliadol confirmed, "I know its a bit weird, considering how popular it became, but my dad was a hardcore retrogamer. I grew up on consoles."
Bast gave a grunt of understanding. It was indeed a bit of an oddity. Comparing legacy consoles to the SYNAPS was like comparing a puddle to the ocean. For the first time, developers could create entire worlds full of tactile sensations, with full immersion. It expanded what was possible a thousand-fold, immediately burying the era of consoles and ushering in the dominance of integrated reality.
"Well, that makes sense then." Bast nodded, leaning back, as if basking in the setting sun.
"Was it that obvious?"
"Indeed. Darlia is quite smart. She saw it long before I did."
"Care to share with the rest of the class?" Meliadol's earlier outburst got a lot of anger and irritation out of his system, so he felt more patient, more willing to play along.
"Well, like she said, you haven't learned to look at this as a game yet. To you, even if you outwardly know that this is the truth, subconsciously, all you see is an actual sun setting in the distance, the wind cooling your skin in the summer." Bast glanced at Meliadol out of the corner of his eye, "Let me show you. Answer this question: tell me, step-by-step, what happened at the base of the world tree?"
Meliadol thought for a moment, intrigued by Bast's words, "Um, well…let's see…you threw me over your shoulder, turned your skin into metal or something, then jumped from branch to branch?"
Bast shot him a wry smile, "This just goes to prove my point. After I picked you up using Grab, a low level Brawler ability, I used my skill Defiant Roar to draw attention to me. After that, I used Iron Skin for hyper armor so their hits wouldn't stop me from moving, so they couldn't knock me down, not to mention it gives damage reduction. Then used my skill Leap combined with Champion's Fall to jump accurately. When I had to fight, a combination of Grab and Toss was used to keep them crowd controlled long enough for me to get away."
"I see…" From the berserker's words, it was obvious that his game knowledge was lacking severely. He had a gist of what Bast meant, but only vaguely.
"No, I don't think you do." Bast said, a serious look in his face, "Because you still haven't considered the opposite side of it all. You haven't changed your perspective."
"There's more?"
"Indeed. Have you considered the abilities of your enemy? The guardians that attacked us had several. Aerial Boom is something that they use to increase their movement speed in the air, also increasing the damage of their next move. Screech is a self-buff that increases their accuracy. Beyond that, they have a bite that initiates a grapple, and basic claw attacks on short cooldown. When grappling, they can turn the barbs on their tails into an extra attack with a chance to poison."
Meliadol's head swam at the implications. Bast was right. He hadn't considered the game perspective in terms of how he fought his enemy. Abilities had cooldowns, periods of downtime in which it couldn't be used again. Usually cooldown length corresponded to the relative strength, but there were always variations to that rule.
The pieces began to fall in place.
"If I know what abilities they used, and the cooldown to those abilities…" Meliadol began, speaking slowly half to himself.
"…you can predict what abilities will come next!" Bast finished, eyes crinkling with happiness, "Of course, this is different if you fight players, because of the DFS, but for NPC monsters, this is almost always true. Of course, sometimes the devs throw in a wrench with random use abilities, but for low level monsters like those skeletons, this obviously won't be the case!"
So that's how Darlia did it! How she always knew where to be at the right time! Meliadol had been treating this like real life, using his senses to react to attacks. But he had forgotten such a simple rule: this was a game!
It too had rules to follow.
The DFS, or Dynamic Flurry System, was a revolutionary engine created by a genius developer specifically for Endless Nevergarden. It was what made the game stand out from all the other SYNAPS games that still followed traditional hardcoding programming methods. It allowed players to string and combo abilities and actions together in dynamic ways that the system then interpreted on the spot.
In other words, if it was feasible to do, you could probably do it. Things such as using spells and abilities in ways they weren't intended, interacting with the environment, or even variations of application and power, could all be done.
Wanted to use an ice spell to freeze the feet of someone standing in a puddle? You could do it. Use a weakened fly spell to increase the distance of your jumps? You could do it. Sword skill to slice down a tree to impede the escape route of an enemy? Again, you could do it. Make someone trip by extending your scabbard? Yep, that too.
You were limited by feasibility and imagination only.
But the DFS, for all its power and flexibility, only applied to players. True artificial intelligence was needed to make NPCs that could use the system effectively, and that still yet eluded Nevergarden's programmers, though they gave a valiant attempt. Their NPCs were very realistic, but didn't stand up to scrutiny.
Therefore, while the game was dynamic for the players, the NPCs and monsters were stuck in the Stone Age, forced to use the archaic methods of the past. They had attack patterns, cooldowns, and very linear ways to use them, all hardcoded by the developers.
Meliadol hadn't thought about it until just now. The simplicity of it made him red in the face. His impasse was solved by simply a shift of perspective? It was too absurd, really. Darlia, as much as he hated to admit, was right. Even now, his mind swam in the possibilities that opened up for him.
He stood up in excitement, reaching for his Necklace of Recall, but Bast's massive hand stopped him. "I know you're anxious to apply this new information, but I brought you here for a reason, remember?"
He stared at Bast dumbly, for his mind was elsewhere, but the berserker just nodded, gesturing toward sky. Meliadol followed his motion, and went limp with awe. The setting sun had fully retreated, exposing a scintillating canvass of stars that twinkled in time to a music all their own. Gentle waves of subtle white clouds drifted along, adding a surreal flavor to the visual meal before them. The moon burned high above, as if watching over the land.
In the presence of the sight before him, Meliadol felt so very small, as if the universe itself had turned it's omnipotent gaze to him. The weight of the stars was over his head.
"Just think," Bast said quietly, "Of all the people that play this game, less than a handful have seen the sight you're looking at now. Granted, many might see something like this from on the crater wall, but, from this spot, this view is truly unique. Truly a matter of perspective!"
Perspective, huh?
He felt as if all the energy had drained from his limbs.
Meliadol sat back down.
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