Shards of Memory: Bound Fate

[UmbraSight]

“Hope your bath was relaxing, I know I feel ready to get going” Aki said with a smile as she flicked open her menu. A tap or two opened up her quests tab as she motioned Rugaki over to take a look. “I was able to pick up six of them, these three seem to be just be extermination missions, these two are item collection,” her thin finger tapped down a list of quests with names like ‘Danger! Infestation! and I need charcoal as she spoke, her finger pausing as she reached the bottom where the last last quest read A Strange Request. “This one is weird though, I got it from an NPC loitering around in one of the back alleys, and it wasn’t marked.”

A tap on the quest’s name brought up a description box:

“A hooded man approached you behind the Ember’s End and asked you to retrieve a lockbox he had left behind in a cave not too far from the north gate. He says you shouldn’t have much trouble, but why did he ask if you were any good in a fight?”

“It seems dangerous, but I think we should check it out.” Aki said looking up at Rugaki. “If you don’t want to go, I won’t force us to go.”

She dismissed her menu with a wave and nodded as he asked about her non-combat skills, “I have hiding, detection, and sewing.” She grinned and winked, “guess that makes me the team scout then, partner.”

[SuXeSoN]

Rugaki came over to look at the quest tab in front of her. The first 5 were indeed very basic quests even fresh newbies could do, but the one that has a lockbox in a cave. It was an unusual quest, Rugaki never picked it up before. It must be one of those secret quests he found a few times in the beta. But to think there was one this early in game. It might be dangerous. But these usually have bountiful rewards too, it was definitely worth a shot. "Let's work on those other quests first." He went for the obvious answer. "We'll get some EXP, maybe better gear too. It'll be safer that way." After all, our lives are on the line. He didn't say it out loud, but he definitely thought it. Maybe Aki would think so too.

"The quest areas are that way right?" Rugaki pointed towards the North Gate. "Let's go then." He led the way out. For the first time, they were going to leave the safe zone. Now that there's so much more than lost time at stake, Rugaki couldn't help but feel a little anxious. "It'll just be beginner's enemies, no challenge even for one person. With an experienced two-man party of us, we'll do just fine." Rugaki did his best to calm the both of them down. Saying it out loud definitely made him feel a little better, the enemies will have to be very simple. He'll just have to be used to having a lack of manuverability and abilities in the beginning.

After reaching the gate, just as they were about to leave the safe zone, the boy turned to ask Aki a question. "So how do we do this? Should we work together on the same quest or?.."

[UmbraSight]

“That sounds fine by me,” Aki said with an agreeing nod she fall into step to Rugaki’s right. As they walked she couldn’t help to have creeping doubts as to whether heading out like this was a good idea. The only way to escape has been to beat the game, but still wasn’t it far more likely that experts from outside would be able to find a way to extract them from the game before then? Aki also couldn’t help but feel that others shared this thought given how quickly the crowds thinned as they drew close to the main gate.

"It'll just be beginner's enemies, no challenge even for one person. With an experienced two-man party of us, we'll do just fine." Rugak said.

“Yeah, yeah.” Aki said, more in an attempt to convince herself than anything else. They slowed as they approached the gate, a grand archway of stone flanked by a pair of watchtowers.

"So how do we do this? Should we work together on the same quest or?.." Rugaki asked.

“Well, as long as we are in the same party our progress is shared,” Aki said with a frown. There was some merit to it, they would be able to breeze through the lesser quests quickly enough, and enemies would be weak this close to the city, but. “We don’t know what mobs are around the city, so we should probably stick close for now so we don’t get taken by surprise.”

If they were stuck in this game for the long haul, would it matter if they took it slow and safe on their first day?

She drew in a breath, held it for a moment, before blowing it out her lips. “Well, if we’re going to do this, let’s get going.” She said, taking a step towards the gate. A pair of NPC guards dressed in matching leather and chain armor perked up as the two approached.

“Good hunting, Travelers.” On said with a baritone ring and a tip of his head, a motion which Aki found herself matching unconsciously. The two guards settled back down into their posts once the duo past through the gate and the protection of the city’s safety zone.

Aki came to a sudden stop as she looked out at the scenery beyond. The land stretched outwards into slow rolling hills and gentle slopes, the land covered in long stocks of a silver grain which shifted and shivered with the push of a cool autumn wind. Here and there the silver of the land was broken up by sudden jagged splotches or black and ash gray as if the land had been brushed by fire. The stone path below her boots snaked out into the countryside, disappearing around the curve of a nearby hill before appearing again further on crawling up the slope of another.

Aki looked back to Rugaki and smiled, “it’s pretty,” She said, before flicking a thumb back over her shoulder pointing towards one the the burnt patches of land, “what do you think, check that out first? We needed to find charcoal for one quest.”

Overhead lightning streaked between two gray clouds, followed soon after by the low rumble of thunder.

[SuXeSoN]

Rugaki nodded at the notion that they should stick with each other. The boy was briefly reminded of the time he was ambushed by mobs while excessively mining out a cave alone, back when he was a beginner. It was terrifying. Having another experienced player watching his back would definitely be a load off his shoulders. Though, they definitely need more party members later on. They'll cross that bridge when they get to it.

As they passed the gate, the guards wished them good luck. They're leaving the safe zone now. Outside these gates, anything can happen. Readying himself for possible combat, Rugaki quickly went to his equipment screen to put on his <Archean Mask>. He noticed that Aki stopped moving, so he looked in the direction she was gazing at. Closing the menu screen, a beautiful, contrasting landscape of black and silver. Like a scene from a fairy tale.

"You know... Back when I first starting playing this. When I saw this scene, I knew then just how different the game is. How it gives you a certain sense of adventure and wonder no other MMO achieved before... The developers are really passionate. You can feel it in how this-... This just makes you want to wander and explore. At least... Back then it did." Rugaki's hopeful tone turned sombre. His expression became serious, but Aki wouldn't be able to see that. He took a deep breath. Before taking his first step forward into the wilderness. He turned back to face Aki.

"Let's go get that charcoal. But what about the other quests? Think we could do some of those as well?"

[UmbraSight]

“Yeah, it seemed so different in the alpha, like you really were there on an adventure,” Aki said, her gaze out on the view. Did the programmers know what they were working on when they created this field? Did they just want to give the player a sense of wonder as they stepped out into a new world, or were they a part of the much more sinister plot? The answer wasn’t anywhere in the gentle slope of the hills or the rich smell of earth in her lungs. The skin on the back of her neck prickled and she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. So much skill and talent spent to -- what, to be some sort of cruel joke? “Right, let’s get moving.” Aki agreed as she took a step forward, away from the relative protection of the city gates.

“The other quests? Yeah, we should be able to do some of them at the same time.” A flick of her wrist brought up her menu. “I think one of the item collection missions might be a drop from one of the monsters we have an extermination quest for, we’ll just have figure out where they spawn.” Aki dismissed the menu as she stepped off the path and into the field of grain. They tickled as the brushed against the bare skin of her legs. “We have to kill something called an ash larva, whatever that is, a scarred boar, and a pack of wolves.” Again, the skin at the back of her neck prickled, and Aki glanced to her left past Rugaki towards the hill they were walking towards. A flash of moment at the crest, one which she soon lost track of.

Aki’s hand fell to the hilt of her rapier as she looked to her masked partner. “We have trouble.” She said, as a lone howl filled the air. A wolf, its fur gray and matted appeared at the top of the hill, joined soon by two others.

[SuXeSoN]

"Ash Larva, Scarred Boar, and Wolves... Okay." Rugaki made a mental note of these enemies. He trudged through the grain, staring into the view. Wondering if the scene beyond those hills is the same compared to the Beta. He noticed a shadowy, dark figure on the top of one of them. At a glance, it seemed like another player, but upon closer inspection, this one has four legs. A chill crawled up Rugaki's spine.

"We have trouble.”

"I know..."

Rugaki reached for his dagger and katana. Unsheathing the former from his hip, and the latter from his back. Now that he has his katana in his right and the dagger in his left, something feels off. A feeling of unfamiliarity with these weapons. His skill level was low, and the game's mechanics were making him feel like a newbie. Despite the adrenaline flowing through him, he felt incompetent and vulnerable. If he was alone, maybe he would take flight. But no, Aki's beside him. They will fight. Fleeing with a girl beside him won't do for his reputation.

"Let's go Aki!.. YAAARRRGGGHH"

Rugaki let out a battle-cry, something he rarely did in Shards of Memories, except for boss battles. He charged towards the wolf pack as the wolves came downhill. Rugaki readied his first attack. His katana brought to his left hip, and his dagger a feet in front of his eyes for defence. As the first wolf came towards him. He slashed diagonally, twisting his hip for extra power.

[UmbraSight]

“Right,” Aki agreed as she darted forward alongside Rugaki. She drew her blade with a metallic rasp, a dull, uneven feeling as the blade came free of the scabbard. She flicked the blade out in front of herself, but she could feel that the weight was wrong on the sword. A problem with her skill level or was it due to the cheapness of the blade? Nothing she could do about it right now, the blade wasn’t perfect but it would serve, this was still a game after all so as long as she didn’t get hung up on how she expected the game to play, enemies in this area should be something they could overcome together.

Should be.

As Rugaki rushed forward to meet the lead wolf, Aki faded to the right, slipping past the creature as it busied itself with her partner and placing herself on the course to intercept the next wolf as it careened down the hill. Behind her Aki could hear the satisfying swoosh of air being cut followed by a pained howl of the blade striking true. A quick glance back over her shoulder showed Rugaki’s blade slicing through the side of the wolf’s body.

She looked back forward as her target lunged towards her her hip, fangs bared. She twisted in place, shifting her forward momentum into the twisting of her body as she drove her rapier forward towards the wolf’s head.

[SuXeSoN]

The feeling of blade slicing fur and flesh felt all so real. It's really easy to mistake this for real life if not for the UI. A glowing red health bar appeared above the wolf Rugaki just slashed. About 40% was chipped away. Good. He continued his assault on the wolf, a downwards strike through the neck of the wolf using the dagger. The sound effect the strike made as it landed sounded crisp and clean. Same goes for the feeling itself, barely any resistance.

He landed a critical hit.

The wolf got down on its knees. It's HP now too low to continue fighting. Rugaki was about to land the finishing blow when he noticed a fast blur of grey to his left. Alarmed, he turned around, a larger wolf was already pouncing towards him. There wasn't any time to react properly. Rugaki barely managed to bring up his dagger-arm to protect his own neck. The wolf knocked him onto the ground. His arm being mauled by the wolf's teeth so that it wouldn't go for his neck instead, "AAarrrgh!". The wolf's weight was pressing heavily on him. His health bar was decreasing steadily. He wasn't in danger of dying soon, but Rugaki definitely thought otherwise

"Aki!" He yelled for assistance. Struggling to keep the wolf away from his neck.

[UmbraSight]

The wolf attempted to pull up short at the flash of Aki’s blade, but the animal’s momentum was already too much. The blade passed neatly through the wolf’s left eye, and Aki retracted her arm quickly as the beast stumbled past, red fragmented polygons escaping from the wound in a facsimile of blood. Her eyes flicked quickly onto the wolf’s HP bar as a fourth of it dropped away, before returning to her target. The damage wasn’t as near as much as she hoped it would be, but there wasn’t much she could do about that, she just had to hit it three more times or hope for a critical.

Aki returned to her stance as the wolf spun to face her, a low snarl escaping from its maw. This time Aki didn’t give the wolf a chance to make its move, she lunges forward, the tip of her rapier scraping across the right side of the wolf’s head. The beast stepped backwards and Aki pressed her advantage, her blade up and -

“Aki!” Rugaki cried. She paused, her attention snapping quickly back to her partner. A large wolf had him pinned, but he was doing well at keeping the beast from biting him, for now at least. With a curse under her breath Aki spun on her heel and sprinted back down the hill to her partner. She thrust as she pulled near, her blade sliced through the air, sinking easily into the soft flesh behind the wolf’s foreleg. The wolf howled as it jerked back, tearing Aki’s grip free from her sword.

“Up! Up!” Aki cried as she stumbled backwards l, grabbing wildly for a throwing knife on her thigh.

[SuXeSoN]

"Thanks!" The relief Rugaki felt when Aki came to save him was tremendous, but he wasn't dumb enough to stay down. He rolled on his back to get up and took a quick assessment of the battle. All 3 wolves were still present. One was injured and harmless, they could leave that one alone. Effectively, there were only 2 left, good. As long as they kept fighting one on one with the wolves, there's no way they'll lose.

The wolf Aki was previously fighting started to charge towards Aki while her back was turned. "Oh no you won't!" Rugaki ran to slash at the wolf with his katana as it was going to pounce. It winced, hopping back from the blow before glaring at Rugaki with bared fangs. He was the wolf's target now. He took a brief glance at the wolf's health, a little less than half. Perhaps that explains the wolf's hesitance to charge blindly into him. Rugaki pressed the attack, he leapt up towards the wolf. Both of his weapons aimed down at it's head. "Double Fang!" He yelled. It wasn't actually an ability he could use yet. But he was only emulating the move he learned from his previous playthrough.

Both of the weapons struck down on the wolf's head, dealing more damage than just one. The wolf before him was now defeated. The sprite dissipated into voxels. It's items were dropped, and EXP was shared between the party. Only two more left to go.

Rugaki looked over to where Aki was, seeing that she was doing fine on her own, he walked over to the injured wolf he failed to finish off earlier. As he approached, the wolf attempted to bite his ankles. But it didn't have enough range when it lied down on it's side, unable to get up. Rugaki thought it actually looked pitiful in that helpless stance. He knows that the wolf was nothing more than a model with some seriously good animations and AI. Yet, he hesitated, before stomping on the wolf's head. It was crushed into voxels again. A reminder that they're most definitely in a game.

"Hey, you done yet? Did we get any drops from that?"