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dhap53 · 2 months ago

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Ouroboros: Chapter 37

“What is this tournament?” Maksim asked me, scratching at his VR headset. I grounded my teeth. I was hesitant to bring him as my second because Maksim was slow at the computer; he was better at looking at the bank, going through the auction house, and moving inventory. Not taking part in the faster pace of the game required methodical thinking, the type of deliberate thinking that if a mistake were made, a tournament was lost. Money was sunk down the drain, out into the ocean.

“Something the admins came up with,” I told him, and I was rattling my feet, going through our guild list. No one appeared to be a PvPer, casual people who logged in here and there, doing their dailies and chatting it up. We had a social guild, people who did their dailies, their weeklies for their gear, and I needed a team. The type of team that would bring me to the top.

I spammed the chat, searching, looking for my next teammates. I also needed to train myself up. I would need to practice my muscle memory, make certain my moves were down because if I mismanaged anything, I would tumble on the ground, a wild mess, and losing my money to enter the tourney.

I needed to keep my mind busy. The world was a dangerous place right now, its fangs burying themselves into my sides like a viper, grabbing and dragging me down into a bottomless pit. I would scream in the chasm, wanting to hear my echoes, but I know I’d hear nothing but the stark reminder I was all alone, a shocking revelation that the fringes of reality were melding and collapsing in on itself.

I teleported to an instanced area where I could practice my techniques, refine my combos. I spawned in NPCs to come against me. One by one, they came, I feinted their attacks, falling backwards, their fists going past me, but all of their attacks were expected. This was no different from leveling. My fingers were going across the keyboard smoothly, predictably, but I knew I would fumble against players. I needed hard practice against players. Where people were moving all over the place, unable to hold still, and maintain a predictable pathway coming towards you. But it had to be low stakes. If I were going to take part in a tournament, I needed to duel random players to sharpen my skills. I kept spamming chat, looking for more players for my team.

Gladvlad: hey

I answered back.

Stormhunter: hiya looking for partner?

Gladvlad: you betcha

And I invited him to a group, wanting to request a duel. He was a warrior which was all fine. A warrior complemented a stalker just dandy, it was one of those classes that did as much damage as a stalker but lost against the spell cleaves. It was fine.

When he appeared next to me, he was wearing a full set of Twintaker armor. My armor was behind a couple of slots, the chest, the weapons, and the helm needing to be replaced. He said nothing, but I knew I had to grind for reputation in my dailies, going out the newly implemented Humar zone and killing mobs mindlessly until a bar was filled up. People estimated it would take three and a half weeks to do, an endeavor that kept people coming back to the game, subscribed. I was an original playtester for the game. I enjoyed the game, involved in its creation from the bottom up. It was a shame the new implementation of things were turning into this, but business decisions had to be made. People had to put food on the table and continue to provide for their families. A fact of life.

Gladvlad took one look at me, lifting his visor of his helm. His body was built like a barrel with his forearms bulging out of his armor. Twintaker was something that required patience to get, playing the game every day, and getting lucky with the weekly drops.

“I vant to suck your blood!” he threw his arms out. I was weirded out. Who was this guy? Some sort of live action roleplayer? “I’m into vampires if you can’t tell.”

“Uh huh.” I nodded, pretending to care. I didn’t. People could be into whatever they wanted to be into, but I myself wasn’t the type to be that person. I also wasn’t that person to knock someone else’s hobbies. It was their hobby, anyhow.

“What, you don’t like vampires?” He actually sounded hurt, and I had half a mind to disband the group there, go on with my day, but I was the person to see how far I could carry myself in conversation, to see the vampire talking go.

“Vampires are Western, no?” and I initiated a duel, taking several steps away from him. “I would like to think you embolden your Japanese heritage more. Something you take pride of.”

And he shook his head, raising his double axe at me, its heft loud as it rose. “While the land of the rising sun has its folklore, the Westerners are far more interesting. Dracula! Dracula is where it’s at.”

I twisted my lips into a smile. “Right, right.” I raised my silver knuckles up to my chest, ready to go. The countdown for the duel initiated.

And I didn’t expect it, but that axe came flying at me, its blade revolving through the air, hitting me square in the face. Gladvlad pitched his entire weapon at me. I landed backwards on my ass, falling backwards, and staring upwards at the sky, unable to fully comprehend what had happened. My health bar was beeping—a near fatal death, ringing inside my ears in real life, but I was still alive. A sliver of life coursing through my veins, but my character was in a daze. Stunned.

Gladvlad came over to me, peering over me with those visors. I was certain he was going to finish me off, end the duel there. But instead, he offered a hand. I didn’t know what to think, other than take the hand and lift myself up.

“You gotta watch out for attacks like that, Storm, you can’t just let yourself be open like that.” And he was dusting me off. He was right. I couldn’t leave myself open like that, allowing an all-in attack get me. It was a dumb thing to lose to.

I was pulling out bread and beer from my inventory to heal up. “Let’s go again.”

And Glad was nodding. “Yeah, ��kay.”

I was bouncing on my feet, fists in front of me, opposite to him after I healed up. Glad wielded his axe over his shoulder, its bulk scaling down his back. This would be a real duel and not some silly YOLO weapon toss.

Once the countdown passed, I was throwing a hard punch underneath his chin, his jaw clenching hard against the impact. Teeth crunched. His axe swung against empty air, missing me completely. Glad kicked me back with his thick tree trunk thighs, but I kept the distance between us short. I dodged against his free fist coming at me from the bottom and rolled against his back, kicking the back of his leg hard and making him drop down. He crumbled like a piece of paper to the ground.

Glad growled, frustrated, and both of his arms were worming his ways around his body. I headbutted against him. I drove both of my daggers into his body, drawing down lines and dealing a significant amount of damage. Glad was dazed. It was to be expected, the guy couldn’t keep his opener and lost all his advantage. Facedown, the warrior was bleeding out on the ground and a mess. The opposite of the last duel. I still didn’t think I was prepared for this tournament. I mean, of course, I wasn’t. This was pure luck.

I offered him a hand, getting him up and off the ground. “We need to go again.”

His gaze was unfocused, his brain rattled and disoriented, but he gained his senses, breaking a health gem in his fist. Red essence dripped through his fingers and down his arm, pouring over his legs. We went again.

#indie #indie writer #ouroboros

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