Archblade of Eon, Chapter 1: The Beginning

Teru has finally gotten his hands on the game he has been longing for, but will it turn out the way he wishes or has he brought some horrible fate down upon himself.

“Welcome to Eiron, Are you Ready?” A computerised female voice announced as I entered my username and password, a slight shiver of excitement ran down my spine, I had finally got a copy of ‘Wings of Eon.’; the brand new game that had gamers all over the world curious. It had taken me three months to get my hands on it, there were always people camping outside the store in my town whenever more copies were brought in. The blogs on it didn’t tell one much, beside that it was addictive and absolutely awesome to play, for some reason no one had been able to take video footage of the actual game nor had they been able to take screen shots, but that had just left me more keen than ever.

On my screen the words “WINGS OF EON” appeared, I couldn’t help but admire the flowing font style surrounded by animated feathers they had used for the title, it was quite spectacular just for an opening title, in the background winged beings soared left and right and were occupied by mid-air combat. Sitting in my darkened room, playing on my 41 inch TV made me all the more excited, the words are you ready appeared below the tittle, I immediately clicked yes, almost unable to contain my excitement.

Suddenly it felt as if a bolt of electricity had gone through my body, I gasped as my vision went black then flashed white. I closed my eyes fearing that I would see the world from the sky as my body felt as if it were falling endlessly into empty space. It sounded as if a computer were being booted up, but not your average computer, more like the sounds of a super computer being booted up or a starship starting up on a movie. 
“Welcome to Wings of Eon, Arch-Blade Initiated.” The voice announced, though now it didn’t sound as if it were coming from the headphones of my headset, actually it didn’t feel as if I were wearing my headset at all. Wait, what does it mean by Arch-Blade? I eased my eyes open, finding myself standing in an endless room that faded far into the distance, I was standing on a circular translucent platform, veined with pulsating blue lines that flickered beneath me then faded and re-appeared elsewhere. I swallowed, feeling as if I wasn’t frozen in exhilarated fear, that I would yell out in excitement. Is this part of the game?

“Please create your Avatar.” The voice stated, a large rectangular mirror appearing before me, reflected was myself, but not really myself, it was a plain looking male character model. His face was plastered with a permanent smile, brown eyes and flat looking brown hair. He also wore a dirtied looking white shirt and plain grey pants that looked as if they had been worn for a very long time by a person who worked a hard job. Something gleamed by my hand, curiously I reached forward to touch it and the small shining square split into four separate arrows, pointing up, down, left and right. I looked up again and noticed a small glowing line around my hairstyle, this must be part of the avatar creator. I tapped the arrow pointing to my right and my hairstyle changed to a shaved cut, I quickly changed it again, feeling that that definitely didn’t suit me at all, I wanted a cool looking character, somewhat of a hero. I continued to flick through the options till I found one that I thought suited me then proceeded to play with the other options for my character.

After playing with the appearance of my character for a while I decided that I was satisfied, my character had become a tall, ruggedly handsome looking guy with fairly long but spiked black hair and a forever shady looking expression on his face. I felt a slight bit of disappointment at the fact that I couldn’t change the style or colour of my clothes as it ruined the sort of dark, handsome character that I was trying to build for myself, though I would probably find some really awesome looking armour while playing the game for sure. I noticed for some reason I wasn’t able to select a class, the four classes where greyed out and I couldn’t get the pointer on them, it was more that there wasn’t a pointer at all. Another strange point seemed to be that I couldn’t pick my own character name, it was set on Kaiylorin.

“Are you done?” A masculine voice announced, startling me.
“Uhh… Yeah.”  I mumbled in response, not seeing any yes or no buttons anywhere.
“Then we shall begin.”  The voice laughed and the space around me began to shimmer, the darkness fading into a wide open sky, and I found myself standing in the middle of a field filled with long grass and the occasional ferocious looking animal. 
“Well, what do I do now?” I asked, though not really knowing if the voice was still there. No reply came.

I found myself standing still for a long time, not really knowing what to do and just contemplating whether I was in the right area, shouldn’t there be like an npc with a quest or a tutorial or something? 
“Hey, Newbie! What are you doing all the way out here?” Another voice called, sounding as if it belonged to someone around the age of 12. I looked behind me and sighed in relief that the voice was coming from an actual person this time, well their avatar anyway. The name above the avatar was ROFLOL123, the character itself was fairly short, had short bright yellow hair and blue eyes. He wore a plain grey cloak with a simple hood, sticking out behind his character were small grey wings. From his outfit I could tell that he must be a Ranger, one of the four Classes available in the game, the other three are: Knight, Cleric and Rogue. 
“Hello.” I said meekly.
“So, I just saw you appear out of nowhere, what are you doing here, did you do some exploring before you last logged off or something, I mean that gear definitely sucks. Lol.” He spoke the word LoL instead of actually laughing, it was kind of weird. “I mean, you should be at the Training area, which is where everyone starts, I hope your not one of those people who think they can just go around and do whatever they like.” He continued, actually laughing this time. “Oh, hey where are your wings?” 
“I don’t know, I haven’t even been uh, playing, for more than 2minutes.” I shrugged.
“Hey, how do you make your avatar move like that? I mean like, when I speak the mouth doesn’t move, no-ones does, but for some reason yours is?” It was then I noticed that his character’s mouth wasn’t moving and that there was a little Volume symbol next to him as he spoke. Does this kid ever shut up? I thought slightly irritated.
“Since you’re the expert here, tell me what I’m doing? What’s this about wings?” I asked.
“Just join my party! I’ll take you to where you need to be, but you should equip your wings otherwise its going to be a long walk, I mean why would you un-equip them anyway, we all started with them on…” It was then I started to realise, maybe there’s just a little something weird about my character, about this game.

A rectangle appeared in front of me, asking if I wished to accept a party invite from ROFLOL123, I tapped yes. ROFLOL123’s health bar and a little picture of his characters portrait appeared in the lower left of my vision, below was a green bar that I supposed to be my health bar and a longer bar which was empty, probably experience. 
“Lets go, Kay… Kaiy… Kaiylorin? Is that how you say it? Weird name.” He commented.
“Says the guy with a name like ROFLOL123.” I replied, feeling slightly offended even though I wasn’t even the one who picked the name in the first place. He didn’t reply as I followed him a short distance, we avoided the dangerous looking lion creature hanging by a tree, then continued to a thin mossy brick path. 
“So, ummm, Guy, what class are you playing, for some reason it won’t show me your class or level.”  ROFLOL123 said awkwardly. 
“Oh im uhh.” I stopped to think for a moment, looking to the empty bar and supposing that I was level 1. “I’m a cleric, level 1.” I was lying, though it didn’t really matter.
“How come you aren’t wearing the cleric robes? How weird are you, un-equipping the wings and the level 1 starting items. Anyway, what spell did you start with?” I had no idea how to answer that question, there was no spell bar nor did I have any option to pick a spell from the start. Though I had heard that when you created a character you got to pick a spell path, one of three for each class, which could be changed later if you didn’t like it, for a price. 
Don’t let him know, you don’t want to face the consequences do you? The masculine voice from earlier spoke, I shuddered, What consequences… I noticed that ROFLOL123 obviously hadn’t heard the voice and was still waiting expectantly for me to answer his question. Holy blade. The voice said.
“Oh, umm I picked Holy Blade.” I said, feeling unsure if it was even a spell.
“Ah, your going to play as a melee cleric? Apparently they are really bad though, especially for beginners.” He hummed after finishing his sentence.

“Teru, HEY TERU! WAKE UP YOU SLACKER!” A distant voice called, it sounded faintly like my mother, but as if she was standing really far away. 
“Guy, why are you just standing there, lets go, I don’t want to waste too much time.” ROFLOL123 asked, sounding childish and impatient. 
“Oh, sorry.” I continued to follow him, trying to ignore the distant shouts of wake up; wait, am I dreaming, this feels so realistic… I heard a phone ringing, it sounded as if it were coming from ROFLOL.
“Oh, sorry I need to get the phone.” He said, then it sounded as if he had put a headset down, then his avatar stood still. 
This is your chance. I felt the urge to place my hand at my hip, and to my surprise there was a small dagger in a hilt attached to a belt, which hadn’t been there earlier. I glanced at ROFLOL, slightly confused. Chance for what? Walk up behind him, stand very close. The voice whispered. I followed it’s instructions, not really sure why I was doing so.

I was now standing directly behind ROFLOL, my mouth began to burn, as if there was something I needed to say, as if there was something I needed to shout. 
“Seitsuri!” I yelled, the word coming out of nowhere, my hand flew to the dagger and withdrew it, my avatar moving without my consent. I watched in horror as the dagger was brought to ROFLOL’s throat, then drawn across swiftly, in the corner of my eye I saw most of ROFLOL’s health bar disappear, leaving about a fifth of what had been present before. The bar which had been green was now flashing red and I could see the small amount slowly going down.
“Ha ha ha, nice try, you cant kill players. There’s no friendly fire or PvP in this game.” ROFLOL said, having finished speaking on the phone. “Woah.” He gasped. “You hacking or what?” I stepped back, now having control over my avatar again, dropping the dagger to the floor. “HEY, THIS ISNT FUNNY, I LOOSE EXPERIENCE YOU KNOW.” He yelled, probably having noticed that his health bar was getting lower. “OH MY, HOLY…” He started gasping for air, it sounded as if he were trying to throw up, then he went silent. RFOLOL’s avatar fell to its knee’s then feel forward, his health bar had vanished and it seemed that I was no longer in a party with him. Small sparkles drifted up from his body, as if offering loot. Huh, weird. 
Good Job; Arch Blade. The voice laughed, I ignored it and curiously touched ROFLOL’s body, a square with smaller icons and writing next to them appeared. It seemed ROFLOL had dropped some items, those being Simple Grey Hunters Cloak, Black Leather Belt, Simple Long Bow and Ranger’s Worn Trousers. As I touched each icon they disappeared and once I had touched them all the box disappeared and I realised with horror that ROFLOL’s avatar was now stripped to its underwear.

Author's Note

I would love to know if you found this interesting, even more so what I need to improve, I feel though, as a first chapter, that maybe this isn't gripping enough.
Though I guess it's ok, because this whole story was inspired by a dream.