Brent Roth - The Dragon's Wrath: A Virtual Dream (3 page)

My vision had turned black for but a moment before the world in front of me started to turn various shades of gray and blue. The outlines of the trees surrounding me were blurry and waved from side to side, inducing an eerie and uncomfortable feeling deep in the pit of my stomach.

Looking up towards the sky, I could only see various dark shades of gray and blue flowing like intersecting currents. To my sides in the distance there was nothing more than a light gray haze with a slight light blue underlying hue.

I could only see so far.

Looking down at the floor, there was a solid black and gray mass in the shape of a body, where it laid motionless in the winter snow.

I had died.

A system message had popped up in the middle of my visual field:

[Do you wish to Release?]

[Yes / No]

I quickly selected [Yes].

Once I had selected my answer, I soon felt as if I was getting crushed but without the pain, condensing into a small ball as I was covered with swirling gray smoke and then just as suddenly the air cleared and I had found myself at the center of the town square.

Still in the death state, I could not see or interact with the living.

Even though I was unsure of where my corpse was, I at least was given some sort of spiritual compass that wasn't actually obvious at first.

The intersecting rivers of dark grays and dark blues that seemed to be flowing randomly had actually been flowing in one specific direction. When I ran in the wrong direction the river in the sky bent and curved while flowing in the correct direction.

All one had to do was follow the flow.

Arriving at the black and gray mass that was my body, I was prompted with another system message:

[Do you wish to Resurrect?]

[Yes / No]

And I again selected the obvious.

With a slight pause I was soon getting sucked into my body as the gray haze that had surrounded me soon blurred into straight lines. I felt as if I was traveling at an incredible speed as I flew through some sort of indescribable space until my vision went black once again.

Light slowly started to fill my vision as the images in front of me became clear.

I was laying on my back, staring up at the canopy of the trees that surrounded me, snow falling once again on my face.

Letting out a sigh, I stood up and looked around at the scene before me.

My bow, knife and arrows had returned to my inventory when I died, which simply meant they appeared on the floor in front of me since I had no bag. That was something I would have to remedy sooner rather than later.

To the right, lying in a small puddle of blood was the wolf I had recently killed, but the fox that I had killed earlier was nowhere to be seen.

I couldn't help but laugh as I shook my head and said out loud, "Clever girl."

The wolf that had met my gaze behind the tree got what it wanted at the expense of the other wolf that had crept up behind me.

Their plan worked for one of them.

That wolf would live to fight another day.

Picking up all of my items and tucking them away, I then grabbed the dead wolf and slung it over my shoulders.

A wolf was worth way more than a fox anyway.

I wasn't going to complain.

Chapter 2: First Quest

(Friday, January 1st Game Day / Friday, January 1st Real Day)

After a fifteen minute trek through the thick snow I had finally arrived back at the northernmost village of all the villages in Dragon's Wrath.

It was a tiny place, with only twenty-five or so non-player characters inhabiting the village at any given time. In fact, it was so tiny that it didn't have its own name, simply being the northernmost of the Triangle Villages.

A poor desolate place, with small huts and cabins made entirely of wood littered around in a loose circle of sorts. Thatch roofing seemed to be the popular choice, but they seemed shoddily put together.

I couldn't help but wonder if they were even warm.

Walking over to the village center where a large bonfire was burning, I plopped myself down and dropped the wolf in front of me. Setting down the [Old Hunting Bow] and the [Crude Wooden Arrow x10] that was provided to me by the village elder, I then took out the [Crude Stone Knife] that was also a gift.

These were my prized possessions, my proud weapons of war from my senior and benefactor in the North.

They were also utter trash.

But, beggars can't be choosers, so I was grateful I was even given a weapon seeing as I was basically naked already. It could be worse… as unfathomable as that idea was.

Taking the [Crude Stone Knife] in hand, I slowly started to carve away at the wolf in front of me, using what rudimentary knowledge I had of skinning to separate the hide from the meat below.

The process took some time as I was quite inexperienced but it eventually started to come together. It wasn't quite the same as cutting up meat or poultry for cooking, but if you've worked with a knife long enough it wasn't that hard.

While in the middle of my work one of the NPCs came up to start a conversation, it was the village elder. He nodded his head towards me as he relaxed by the fire, watching the work being carried out before him.

A few minutes had gone by in silence and I had just about forgotten his existence when he finally decided to speak, "Young adventurer, I see you are a capable hunter. We expected this much from The First of the North."

Ah, yeah.

One of those benefits of starting in the North was a title that I received, [First of the North] for literally being the first player to spawn in the Northwestern human territory. There was also a Northeast elven territory but they weren't quite as far north, so generally speaking The North referenced the area I now inhabited by my lonesome.

That title was worth a rather sizeable +250 bonus Reputation points.

Typically, if you helped or earned favor with Non-Player Characters and their opinion of you became favorable, reaching a suitable level of Loyalty towards you, you would gain +1 Reputation from that NPC. If the NPC was a noble or someone special, you could gain more as well.

Needless to say, having 250 starting Reputation points was a big deal. The higher your reputation, the better quests you could get, the better rewards you could receive, and the better prices you could get from the NPCs when trading or doing other forms of business.

It was an essential stat to have, and I had plenty of it.

The old man had taken a few minutes to gather his thoughts before speaking up once more, "I have a task for you, young one. I would like you to bring back ten rabbits for the village, as the winter is proving quite harsh this year and we are short on food. Will you accept this quest?"

Without hesitation I nodded my head, "Yes, of course."

I didn't know what the reward would be, but navigating the Menu and opening my [Quest Log] I could see that it was considered an easy quest and had a simple tracker: [Rabbits collected: 0/10].

It was a basic quest that I would have done on my own anyhow, even if he hadn't asked.

Having finished separating the pelt from the meat, I quickly sold the meat to the local trader for a lousy sum of twelve copper coins. The pelt was worth thirty-six copper coins despite the multiple puncture wounds since it was of a decent enough quality. From what I could gather, unless it was way below standard or way above, it was a flat rate of thirty-six copper.

Not much, but certainly better than nothing.

A rabbit pelt was only worth two copper, with the meat worth one.

On the other hand, a fox pelt was worth nine copper, with the meat worth three.

Walking back out into the cold winter air, I found the tanner and the blacksmith next door as he was pulling double duty in this unpopulated village by working both jobs. With smoke billowing from his outdoor workplace and a multitude of furs and hides stretched out on a rack, he was hard to miss.

After a brief discussion, I walked away three tanned fox pelts richer and one wolf pelt lighter. I lost nine copper on the deal but I wouldn’t have to wait two days to tan nor another day for the leatherworker to finish what I wanted.

It was a good trade for me.

Time was money.

Making my way over to the leatherworker and tailor of the village, another person who was pulling double duty, I soon found myself at the small hut of a middle-aged widow and her two children. As I was invited into the small hut I couldn't help but feel bad for the conditions of squalor she and her children were living in.

She may have been an NPC but the game designers had given every Non-Player Character their own limited Artificial Intelligence. They were supposedly quite realistic, but no one really had much experience with them yet to quantify those statements.

After a short discussion she agreed to fashion a pair of boots out of the fox furs and a light cap as well. She would need at least two days to finish the boots but could have the cap ready tomorrow, and all in all it would cost me twenty-four copper for the work.

I, of course, only had twelve copper on hand.

Working out a second deal, she took the twelve copper as down payment and would require the rest on pick-up. A fair deal, yet again …so far, I liked these AIs quite a bit.

They were quite reasonable.

Looking up at the night sky above me, free from the light pollution of modern cities, the vast array of countless stars and planets littered my view. The moon was shining with a bright blue hue while its own little satellite shined a bright white.

I didn't understand the science behind it, but you didn't need science to appreciate beauty.

Even if it was an artificial nature, it was still a beautiful nature.

Soon, this virtual world would become quite popular and I wondered how long I would be able to enjoy this scenery by my lonesome. This was only the first day of the game's release after all. Actually, it was only the first four hours and twenty-three minutes of the game's release, as it was now just ticking over to 4:24 AM local time.

Thankfully for me, local time was also server time as the headquarters and main servers were all located in California. That little bonus allowed me the ability to be amongst the first players to log into the game immediately upon release.

But now it was time for bed.

With a little less than three hours before the sun would rise in the real world, and a little less than four for the game world's sun to show up… I figured now was a good time to call it quits.

I had no plans to be an addict who skipped meals and sleep just to play. Well, I would at least try my best not to be one.

I made no promises.

I don't make promises I can't keep.

Logging out of the game, I quickly made my way to the restroom to relieve my bladder before heading to bed. I had a bad habit of drinking a lot of water before going to bed and often found myself waking up at least once or twice a night.

It was a good way to ruin a night's sleep.

Chapter 3: Level Up

(Saturday, January 2nd Game Day / January 1st Real Day)

The clock had just ticked over to 7:45 AM as I woke up without an alarm or assistance. I had an excellent internal clock that I somehow developed as a child to watch cartoons in the early mornings without a clock in my room. I often found myself nearly jumping out of bed from how immediately I would wake up, at exactly 6:59 on certain days. Giving me the necessary minute it took to run out of my room and into the living room to catch the cartoons that were shown at 7:00.              

On other days I would wake up between 5:55 and 5:59 to catch the 6:00 AM cartoons. I couldn't explain it. My internal clock was never off by more than a few minutes, and it was never late. The best part was I eventually learned how to more or less set it mentally days before.

All I had to do was think about the time I wanted to wake up and then go to sleep, the rest was automatic. The only caveat was how exhausted I was, if I was too tired and got to bed at an extremely late time, I was bound to oversleep a little.

Dragging myself out of bed, slightly groggy from the short amount of sleep I had just received; I made my way to the bathroom to take a quick shower.

Once clean, I drank a glass of water and logged right back into the game.

I wasn't an addict yet… I had just slept late the day before so my sleep schedule more closely matched the game's 8-hour day cycle.

Yeah, not addicted at all; I had some restraint left after all. 

Awaking to the sunrise in-game wasn't such a bad thing really.

In some ways the sun in-game was more interesting than the one in real life. You could look at this one slightly without burning your eyes out and it was a slightly different hue, a more reddish orange than the one I was familiar with.

Subtle differences to remind you that you weren't in the real world, I suppose.

Before continuing any further, I noticed a small exclamation point flashing in the corner of my vision. The apprehensive part of me feared that there might be some bad news coming my way but I clicked on it anyways. I didn't have the time to waste as daylight was already burning away.

Opening up the system message, I was suddenly relieved: [You have Attribute Points to Distribute].

It took a few seconds to click, but once I opened my Character Window I saw that I was already level two.

Thinking to myself, it finally occurred to me: "Ah, the wolf."

I had managed to kill a wolf before dying and must have missed the system message while preoccupied with the fight. I was almost level 1 from killing the [Northern White Fox], so once I killed the [Young Northern Tundra Wolf] it gave me enough experience to hit level 1 and level 2. Looking at the Experience Bar I was already 74% into level 2.

That wolf gave a lot of experience.

As happenstance, in Dragon's Wrath a player starts at level 0 with base attributes starting at +10 across the board. All of the basic attribute stats were reflected in the character window: Strength, Vitality, Endurance, Dexterity, Agility, Intelligence, Wisdom, Willpower, and Luck. But there are exceptions, as there always are.

For there were users like me who had considerable attribute bonuses beyond the normal scope. Those of us who opted for the Ultra-Realism option could have up to +100 in every category, at level 0 no less. All we had to do was go through thorough physical and mental examinations to the tune of $750 USD, thankfully broken up into installments.

A costly endeavor, really.

Those bonuses were worth it though, as they provided one with an uncanny ability to hunt creatures and monsters of a much higher level than normal, and at a much faster rate as well. At this point in the game most players would be chasing around rabbits and squirrels but I had already moved on to foxes… no, I started on foxes and would soon move on to wolves. 

Though it did seem a little broken when you thought about it but, I like to think of it as separating the casuals from the hardcore. Some might call this pay-to-win but in truth nothing was guaranteed and the possibility of ending up with zeros in multiple categories existed.

After spending all that money and time, to end up with worse stats or barely above par compared to the standard character, well… it's not a risk everyone is willing to take. But it was one I felt confident enough to take and was rewarded handsomely for it.

It was a worthy investment.

Not everything was really so rosy though.

Every positive had its negative here.

Those of us who opted into the Ultra-Realism program would also face a much harder game as well. Simply put, our character needed to eat more often, required more rest, had an increase in sensations-explicitly pain-which meant we would suffer more realistically, especially from adverse weather conditions as well, and to top it all off we received little to no system-assistance in combat.

That last one is probably the real catch for the majority of the population that lacked hand-eye coordination. Hell, it's even hard to deal with for me, even though I'm a decent hunter and versed in many weapons, it's not like I'm some expert MMA fighter or entirely familiar with real sword fights.              

I would think most people aren't.

Being good with a gun doesn't really help when there are no guns.

Speaking honestly, by opting into the UR program we essentially skipped the Beginner, Normal, and Advanced level of difficulty for the game and went straight into the Extreme mode. And we were stuck in Extreme so long as we kept the character, the one that just cost you a few weeks of the average player's salary.

So, yeah, pay-to-win does not really apply here.

That and the increase in pain alone nearly had me back out of the program as well, but maybe I'm a bit of a masochist.

Looking at my Stat distribution, I was somewhat overpowered for my level:

Yeah, I was pretty confident with my scores.

Though there was one glaring weakness, and that was my Agility.

Truth of the matter is… I have a poor record of physical health.

When I went through the Ultra-Realism Program, I had just gotten back on my feet and my legs were essentially shot. I couldn't run or squat or do anything leg-related so I automatically failed every Agility examination that was taken.

I couldn't help that.

Regardless, I was still quite competent with the rest of my body as I had never truly given up on maintaining my fitness level. Where I surprised myself was in the mental examinations.

There were multiple categories that were unfamiliar to me, but I was happy to discover that the tests weren't simply a measure of who could compute the most difficult of mathematical problems. Through the extensive testing I was able to actually showcase my talents and knowledge as a bit of Renaissance man.

A jack of all trades, a Red Mage in gaming terms, or simply put a guy with a lot of varied interests. That was me in a nutshell. That guy who reads too much, watches too many documentaries, and has too many hobbies to be good for him.

I loved knowledge. I craved knowledge. I picked up five different languages even though I completely sucked at foreign languages simply because I wanted to be somewhat familiar with them. I doubt I will ever be fluent in Spanish, German, Japanese, Chinese, or Thai but I at least knew enough in passing conversations.

The game also seemed to be catered to my playstyle as there were no conventional classes. There wasn't a class, period. Players were free to pick up anything they wanted and everything was based around proficiency.

Gone were the days where a player would be forced to spend his entire gaming career as a Warrior or an Archer or a Priest. Now, if you had the time and talent you could be an Axe-wielding Archer that backed as a Healer.

Anything was possible.

Dropping the 10 Attribute Points that I had into my Agility Stat, I was now ready to continue on with my day. The sun was up and was calling my name to that little forest to the east. Fluffy bunnies were prostrating in the distance waiting for me to collect their furs.

I could just feel it.

Heading out of the village and walking barefoot in the cold snow, I couldn't help but reminisce about the past.