The advent of deep dive VR brought about hundreds of terrible games. The new technology wasn't simple, but everyone around the world was waiting in anticipation, chasing a dream shared by gamers all over the world. A massive multiplayer online role playing game that they could practically live in. Every year something new came out that was just a little better than the last. That was until the announcement for Age Of The Godless appeared.
The hype built and built, even when it got delayed two years in a row people kept hope. Then it released and it was...ok? That was the general sentiment. Unlike other MMO's there was no grand story to push the player base, there was nothing handed to the player. They create their character, spawn into an area at random, all with the same stats. Everything had to be earnt, and maybe that felt too much like real life to the majority of people. It wasn't until two events happened that exploded it in popularity.
The first was when the player base finally figured out how to access magic. It was such a mystery when it had been shown in the trailers, but a group figured it out and it was a chain reaction of people putting more effort and unlocking more and more classes, accessing more and more of the fantasy of the world.
The second was the holy war. Two factions had formed in the early days. In a game that had godless in the title, there wasn't a lack of deity-like powers at work in the world. One was the Church of Saintess Maribel, which was the first church utilized to unlock both the cleric and paladin classes. The other was the Cult Of Varko, a hidden cult that a small group of players found which enabled them to unlock multiple different magic types like blood magic, ritual magic, primal magic etc.
Multiple skirmishes built up to one big battle, on the plains of the western continent outside the city of Praize, the two forces clashed. In a stroke of genius by the developers Xetatech they live streamed it. For six hours the battle raged on, and Noel Carter watched every second of it on the edge of his seat, and it ignited a fire within him that he couldn't cool and wouldn't fade.
Two years passed from that moment, Noel begged his parents, scrounged up every bit of money from his allowance and odd jobs, and on his sixteenth birthday finally the legal age to use and own a deep dive VR machine. He begged his mother to go to the store as soon as he got out of school, still in his uniform they drove down, drained his account and he finally got it.
In those two years he researched every class, noted every unfinished flag found, followed the top players as they delved deep into the many secrets that remained. Especially ever since at the last Godcon a lead Xetatech designer claimed that the players had barely discovered four percent of what they had put into the game. Noel made it his goal to find something new. Now summer break had just begun, and he was going to use the time wisely.
"Yo, you getting on?" A text came through as he was changing out of his school uniform.
His best friend Henry, he turned sixteen first so he was already a few months deep into the game and loved to hold how much he helped Noel in those early days.
"Yeah just got home, just got to fuel up," Noel replied.
He barely took a breath between bites of the frozen burrito he had heated up, the bag of chips, or the full sized energy drink. There was nothing worse than hitting the wall while grinding because you were hungry or thirsty. That led to his first in game death where a giant Bogodon that should have been an easy hunt was able to grab him after he started to pass out in the real world from not eating for thirteen or so hours.
The moment when the solid white helmet came down, the eyes and ears completely covered, the ambient noise cuts out. A moment of silence, it made Noel think of what it would feel like to step through a portal. That moment where you were not in either space, limbo. His finger ran across the smooth plastic, to the top of the visor, where there was just a simple push button.
The silence breaks as the whir of the internal electronics spark to life. The darkness parts to the sudden lights flashing in sequence. The buzz of the low frequency white noise from the speakers. Then numbness. Noel's body feels weightless, the feeling of static under his skins ran from his feet to his brain.
Then the wash of light into the sky covered void of loading. It took a moment for the brain to settle. There were some early games that gave people amnesia or shock because they assumed the human brain could just accept not being themselves.
Noel's wiry frame grew, into the muscled build of his avatar, his thick curly dirty blonde hair that could never grow evenly bloomed into the thick black mane of hair that made him feel like a anime protagonist. Then his gear wrapped around him it wasn't like he was a super high level so it was very simple, functional, just like the longsword on his hip. Now Noel was no more, he was Astra.
The stomach tightened every time. As the ground appeared beneath his feet, the wind enveloped around his exposed skin, and then the first breath. Like you had been holding your breath underwater for too long and that first gulp of air fills your lungs like it was attacking you.
Stood in the middle of the street of Hal'Jor one of the smaller cities on the Eastern continent, Astra took note of the increased foot traffic. Even at this usual after school time there were more players in Hal'Jor than there had been in recent weeks.
"Oh hey its Graveyard Astra," a voice from the crown exclaimed.
Sat outside a cafe, with a small porcelain cup grasped between his fingers. EverNight. A cleric of the Church of the Nightsong, and a player Astra had interacted a lot with lately.
"It would be a cool nickname, if it wasn't usually followed by you telling people its because I like to take dates to the graveyard," Astra replied.
EverNight chuckled, his smile the only thing visible under the black head covering and veil that came down from the thick gold touched masquerade mask.
"It's good I ran into you. I've been asked to retrieve more cursed bones, I assume you have a plentiful stock for me to dip into," EverNight remarked.
"How many do you need?" Astra sighed.
The trade UI popped up before Astra's eyes. With a swipe of his fingers the cursed bones were sent over and a in return a hefty infusion of Runemarks, the currency of the Eastern continent under the control of the Arcane Charter.
"Are you still on this hopeless mission, think if you kill enough undead you will suddenly be able to manifest necrotic magic?" EverNight's mouth curled into a smirk.
"I swear I am close I can feel it. I-"
A hand clasped down onto Astra's shoulder.
"Seriously Astra, I can't get you into Zoohouse if you don't just just pick your energy type. You should have killed enough to have access to sword ki right?"
Raido, Henry's avatar, stood behind him with his new red tinted samurai style armor. It wasn't anything new, but thanks to his older brother he was able to unlock the samurai class pretty quickly and got him into one of the rising guilds on the server, Zoohouse, those extra resources helped Raido build up his level pretty quickly.
"Screw you guys, im heading out," Astra stated.
"Let me guess, the graveyard?" The two called out. Garnering only a showing of Astra's middle finger as he walked off.
The common reason why Astra, and the head congregation of the Church of the Nightsong were in Hal'Jor, was the largest graveyard in the world was situated on the mountain that overlooked the city. Tombstones stuck out like a field of buried blades pierced across the mountain like a the needles of a hedgehog.
This also meant it was crawling with undead. In Age Of the Godless to unlock a magical element is slightly different across every type, but they all require the same thing. Understanding. Some types are easier to understand and learn like fire. There were more fire magic users than you could imagine, but the standard magic types that you could think of had mostly been discovered.
The other part was something only discovered last year. You could only pick and use one energy source. So either one magic element, or one of the warrior specialized energy source. Rage, fury, ki, energy. This also meant that if someone focusing on more warrior skills, could delay their choice to learn a magic element and use that instead. This created hybrids, more commonly considered magic swordsman. It just required some extra effort to do.
It was this discovery that gave Astra an idea, he kept an eye on it, he waited in anticipation to see if anyone would do it before he could even get his headset. A warrior who utilized necrotic energy. There were players who had unlocked necromancy, but it wasn't them using a necrotic magic element. It was a twisted use of life magic element.
So once Astra had levelled up his combat skills, and got some reasonable gear he begged Raido to help get him to Hal'Jor. The roads can be dangerous for lower levels especially for ones without a source, minors the player base liked to call them. Headed out to the graveyard, and for the past five months he had been killing all the types of undead that roamed the graveyard, researching everything he could about them. Which led to him meeting EverNight as they began to trade knowledge, materials that dropped from the undead Astra killed, and of course money. Yet nothing. Within the skill section of his user interface he could select a handful of sources but not the one he was looking for.
He had practically memorized the attack patterns of the approaching swarm of draugr, his blade danced through the air with no unnecessary movement as he cut them down. He had at least had enough variance in mobs for him to not go completely crazy. But he had slowly been losing faith in his theory. He had lost count how many undead he had killed, it must have passed the hundred thousands at this point. Day in, day out, he was here.
The overcast grey began to be swallowed by the darkness of night, the moon just about hidden by the clouds as the last vestiges of sunlight began to disappear behind the mountain range.
"Come on!" Astra's voice echoed. "Why isn't this working? I know more about the undead than most. What does it take to understand death?"
Lightning struck through his brain as the realization rocked through like an earthquake tremor. He had died in game, sure. But to understand death Astra would need to willingly die. With his long sword in his grasp, the tip rested against his chest. He knew this was a game, but in this moment he still felt fear, his brain fought with him.
Pain. Usually there wasn't actual pain, but just a dull sense of pressure to inform the player they had been hit. Some people had modded their system to translate pain more accurately but that would usually drive people a little crazy. But when his sword plunged into his chest a wave of heat flared up, his body tensed, and throbs of pain screamed into his brain. But instead of the respawn countdown a different window popped up.
"You have unlocked: Magic Source - Necrotic"
Then a second window.
"Congratulations, you are the first to discover Necrotic magic element. You have unlocked the Unique Class. Reaper."