I saw the wooden walls of the guild hall and closed my eyes right away. For added measure, I blocked my eyes with my hands. Veyra had told me the guild hall was off limits. This was her safe space. And even though we were much closer now, I didn’t want to snoop around without permission.
“Sorry, I chose this as a mistake,” I said. “I picked the first teleport location in a hurry. It was this one. I didn’t look.”
Veyra stayed silent. I heard her soft footsteps, as if socks hit floorboards, followed by the sound of leather crunching of an old couch being sat on. “It’s fine,” Veyra said. “I think we’ve known for long enough now. Feel free to look around.”
I lowered my hands, then hesitantly opened my eyes.
Veyra’s guild hall was not a grand castle or palace, like one could expect from a top guild. There was no gold, no riches, no potion refill machines or anything of the short. Nothing indicated that we were in Wonderwind at all.
We were in a cramped wooden apartment. There was a couch and a television, paintings on the walls, and a computer setup with an old monitor in the corner, and a shelf full of CDs for games. I spotted the original Starcraft, World Of Warcraft, Diablo, Doom, Age Of Empires, and a lot of old games I had never heard of. In the opposite corner, making the living room even more cramped, was a small terrarium with a frog sitting on a leaf.
Veyra poured a glass of juice from a pitcher on the table in front of the couch. She sat comfortably and took a sip.
“Is this… your house?” I asked.
“My childhood home,” Veyra said. “I used to live here with my mom.”
I admired cautiously, afraid that I’d knock something over if I moved a limb. The place looked lived in, as if a family still actively lived here, even though we were in VR.
“It’s not an exact replica, but I made it as close as I could,” Veyra said. “If you want juice, there are glasses in that cabin over the sink.”
“Thanks.” I walked over slowly and grabbed a glass, then sat next to her on the couch. She poured me a cup.
I took a sip, and we were silent for a bit, until Veyra said, “You look like you’re wondering who the hell builds their childhood home as their guild hall.”
“I am curious,” I said. “But you said this is your safe space. I won’t judge. And it feels rude to ask.”
“You’re free to ask,” Veyra said. “You said you want to get to know me better, right?”
“Sounds like you have a reason. You didn’t build this on a whim.”
“This is my guild hall for the same reason I’m trying to gather a hundred thousand gold.”
“Yeah, I haven’t found the right moment to ask,” I said. “You also have a reason for needing money, right? Outside of Wonderwind.”
She held her glass of juice with both hands. “It’s because of my mom. She got into a bad motorcycle accident last year. So I need money for a lung transplant.”
“Oh,” I said. “That’s… I’m sorry.”
“She’s been in a coma for almost a year now,” Veyra said. “Which I didn’t even know was possible. Her lungs collapsed in the accident, and she was put on life support for a few weeks, until she partially recovered. She didn’t wake up and has been on a ventilator ever since.”
“And the transplant was too expensive?”
Veyra snorted. “Yeah. I was already earning more than Mom with Wonderwind, but not enough to pay for a surgery. Mom’s family had disowned her, so no help there. No partner either. Her boyfriend dipped her the moment she got pregnant.”
I was about to open my mouth, until she spoke over me. “No, don’t try to comfort me. I’m just laying the facts for you. Shut up and listen.”
I did as asked and waited.
“Mom wanted to become a professional gamer in the late nineties,” Verya said. “She couch surfed a lot and went from tournament to tournament, earning just enough to survive, until the early two thousands, when she got pregnant.
“I don’t know how she took care of me as a single mom with no money. Especially with my illness and… condition. She worked a lot and kept competing in online tournaments, while somehow still having time for me. Really, she’s the only person who has supported me for my whole life.”
“No wonder you’re so amazing,” I said, “if you’re raised by a mom like that.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
She gave an awkward laugh and leaned back. “Yeah… Now it’s my turn to help her, I guess. The hospital finally has a transplant ready, and they agreed to proceed with half of the upfront payment. They picked a date for November second.” She kept staring at her juice, eyes out of focus. “So to go back to the guild hall thing, I guess I built this just to keep focused and to remind myself why I need to keep playing, even if I don’t want to.”
“You’re both amazing,” I said. “Seriously.”
“Meh, I’m just a game addict,” she said, shifting her position. “I finally don’t need to stress about trying to get the hospital forward with the surgery. The date is picked, and it will happen. I just need to hope it goes well, and I need to pay for the second half of the operation by December. That shouldn’t be a problem either now.”
She summoned the spellbook from her inventory. Her earlier excited grin was replaced by just sheer disbelief, like she couldn’t believe she was holding something so valuable.
“I’ll use my Worlds winnings for the remaining half,” Veyra said. “If we win, that is. If we lose, I’ll sell this book. I don’t think it’s that good, but it’s a mythic item. It should sell for a lot. Take a look.”
She shared the item details.
Astral Defiance (Mythic Spellbook)
Description: The final creation of Portal Mage Tielan, created with his final months of sanity. Not much is known about the tragic story of his masterpiece.
Cost: 10,000 Mana
Cooldown: 300 seconds
Spell Affinities: Time (80%), Frost (20%)
Effect: Imbue a target with Astral Defiance for ten seconds. Targets imbued with Astral Defiance deal 50% bonus Time Damage with all attacks. If the target dies during Astral Defiance, they are brought back to life with 30% of their maximum health, and Astral Defiance evolves to Astral Rage.
Astral Rage: Deal 100% increased Time Damage with all attacks for ten seconds. Time attacks heal 30% of the damage dealt.
I stared at the stats. I blinked, then grinned, turning to her. “Isn’t this completely broken? Whoever receives this is immune to death for ten seconds.”
“Not really,” Veyra said. “They’ll survive one killing blow, and they’ll be healed. But the target can just be burst down right after. It doesn’t seem like there are invincibility frames.”
“The double time damage from all attacks for ten seconds is crazy, though,” I said. “Potentially fight-winning.”
“It’s very good,” Veyra said. “But it’s not really a destructive skill like I was hoping for. I suppose it will help you.”
It won’t just help, I thought. I could already imagine myself in a fight with the effect. Double damage and one moment of invincibility will make me impossible to deal with.
“Let’s not forget I’m also getting loot from the Ray Dragon fight,” I said. “Maybe I'll get a cool spell or robe for you.”
She gave me a look. “You are not giving me any mythic items. And I can’t afford to buy any.”
“If I get something you can use, I’ll let you borrow it for Worlds,” I said. “The dragon fight should be ongoing right now.”
Veyra grabbed the TV remote, turning on the cute little screen from fifteen or so years ago. It wasn’t quite a box TV, but it was a lot chonkier and smaller than modern ones. Though since we were in virtual reality, it operated without lag and had Wonderwind’s menus inside. Veyra navigated it and opened up the official livestream, showing the event fight.
The livestream had over eight million viewers. It showcased a bird’s eye view of a large arena atop a mountain with Ray Dragon Embridge in the middle, her health bar at 8.4%. All of the world’s top players were present, with FireBrand’s magic filling a third of the livestream with quick-casted fiery infernos.
The tank players teamed together to form a defence wall against Embridge’s melee attacks. [Zenith Protocol] GodWall, the top 1 paladin player and top 6 on the global leaderboard, held a shield with both hands and took the dragon’s claw-swipe head-on. He blew back by multiple feet, but stayed standing, and his shield glowed, releasing the damage he’d taken as energy back to the boss.
The fight was honestly difficult to follow with so many spells flying all over. The visual particle effects had been reduced for the livestream, but even then, everything was overwhelming to watch. For a more clear experience, it was better to watch a PoV livestream from one of the players involved, which was what a lot of viewers did.
This stream channel was popular mostly for its live statistics. Mainly, the contribution damage graph in the top left of the screen.
The graph read:
Assassin - 10%
Dragrath - 3.94%
FireBrand - 2.31%
Laffeil - 1.89%
Annath - 1.85%
I saw a wide, amused grin on Veyra’s face as she read the livestream messages. We had to pause the chat to read the messages as they flew past.
“Assassin???”
“That’s a bug”
“Fucking Assassin A, what the fuck is he doing there?”
“Lmao, nice job Wind Virtual, great event, 10% contribution damage nice”
We kept watching, anticipating the boss’s death and the loot drops that the global quest offered. Even though it was at eight percent already, finishing it off took over ten minutes. At the end of it, Veyra was touching shoulders with me, and we leaned against each other.
Ray Dragon Embridge finally received a dramatic death, her head thumping on the line of tanks. A system notification came to us.
[Global Quest - Slay Ray Dragon Embridge has been Completed!]
[Distributing 5 mythic items, 21 legendary items, 66 epic items, 2347 miscellaneous items by contribution…]
[Distributing experience…]
[You Leveled Up!]
[You Leveled Up!]
[You Leveled Up!]
[You Leveled Up!]
[Congratulations! You have received loot. Please check your quest inbox to receive your items!]
[You have received: Scale Of A Goddess x5 (Legendary Crafting Material), Soul Particle Of Embridge x27 (Epic Ingredient), Dragon Mace (Epic Mace), Raycaster (Epic Staff), Fire Rift Band (Epic Unique Ring), The Godripper (Mythic Sword), Emerald Aurora (Mythic Robe)]
20 chapters ahead on !
