[ENTRANCE TO THE WORLD EVENT WILL BECOME ACTIVE IN
2 Hours 23 Minutes and 15 Seconds]
We were gathered out in front of the door. There were a lot more of us as people had found out this event was happening and had come as fast as they could.
“Hey Rose.”
“What’s up?”
“What happens if your allotted time runs out while you are in the Event? Does the system kick you?”
“No. It won’t let you in if you don’t have close to the correct amount of time available. Though I have heard that they will let you in if it’s close. But I don’t think anyone on our team was willing to risk it.”
I surveyed the mass of people standing around.
I heard the sound of someone pop in behind me and spun around to find the GM.
“Oh, good, there you are. I figured you would be by the door.” They were saying to Rose, “Is our mysterious player around?”
Rose pointed at me. I must look like an odd space in the crowd.
The GM turned to face my general direction and spoke directly at my boobs. “I don’t have a lot of news for you. I reported your situation to my boss. She said she’d handle it, but I noticed nothing much had happened in the logs. Which is a bit odd as the World Event is usually a ‘clear the tickets in the area at all costs’ time. Whatever is going on must be complicated. But I thought I would come give you an update. And to let you know we haven’t forgotten you.”
“Thanks!” I said, and I meant it.
“She says thank you.” Rose relayed.
“Also,” the GM said, typing in the air. “I have an idea. I can’t see your friend directly, so I can’t go in and fix their chat function. However, I can do an area update. This will push the fix through to everyone in this area’s HUD.” They bit their lip and typed a bit more. “There we go.”
Their last words were paired with a blinking sensation in my brain. I pulled up my HUD and saw a new area. I had notifications saying I had chat requests pending.
“Let them know that worked.” I said excitedly. This could be a game changer. Pun not intended.
The GM left after wishing everyone good luck in the dungeon.
In my HUD, I clicked the notifications. Each time I had joined a group, a chat had been formed. There had been one with the NPCs in the Dungeon. There were no messages in it; the one for my regular party was equally bereft of messages. I wonder why the group never used the party chat?
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The squad chat though, it was active! People were typing in it right now.
{Barry} - Has anyone seen Vichy?
{Vichy} - Here, sorry my mom was late picking up my little one. I am here and ready to go!
{Hashnel} -Finally. Hey are we doing to make a plan before we get in?
{Barry} - Yup, I’m just taking a headcount now.
I tried typing the same way I clicked ‘Y’ or ‘N’ It was slower than speaking, but it worked ok.
{System Error} - Hi guys!
{Hashnel} -WTF who is System Error? That’s sick. XD
{System Error} - Of course I am.
{System Error} - It’s Elizabeth
{Barry} - Ha, of course, that is you. Glad to see you can get in here. It will make coordination in the dungeon a lot easier.
{Barry} - Your party members aren’t responding. Can you get them to join?
{System Error} - Ok.
I closed the HUD and went looking for Ayerelia and Copperbeard. I guess now I did have a ‘gamer’ name. I am System Error. That was only marginally better than the leet speak edgelord. Though it was very fitting.
“Hey Copperbeard. Have you seen Ayerelia?” It is hard to find a dwarf in a crowd despite towering over everyone.
“She said she’d be here shortly.”
“That’s good. Our party leader, Barry, said you guys need to get in the squad chat.”
He made a bit of a face but opened up his HUD.
“Why did you guys not use the party chat before?” I asked as we waited for the elf.
“We had a group chat outside the game,” he shrugged. “We used it because we used it outside of the game, and when we were in game, we were always together.”
So they hadn’t been using it to exclude me, just that I wasn’t relevant to their scheduling. Because I was always in the game and available, all they had to do was find me.
Ayerelia arrived and rolled her eyes at having to use something as plebeian as the game chat. “The in game chat’s user-interface is so ugly,” she complained, but did as requested.
{Barry} Now that everyone is in here, let’s all gather to the north of the door. We are going to organize with the other teams from there.
We made our way over; everyone was buzzing with excitement. Dekka was picking up on it and was barking and jumping on people. I told her to stop it, but she ignored me like she always had. In the past, I would have yelled sternly at her. Now, that seemed wrong somehow. My dog was becoming her own person, so to speak.
“Hey Team KickAss!” Barry was standing on a large rock so everyone could see him, and his yell was met with loud cheering. I moved to the edge of the crowd, conscious of my height.
“Our squad is full.” This was met with another cheer. “And in other good news, we have six squads with a total of 86 people. That is less than the recommended 100 but a lot closer than we thought we were going to be.” He paused for another ‘woot’ from the group. “The other squad leaders are Raze, MageAgainsttheMachine, Prolly Satan, Freya, and Toast.
“We are going to work in three parties within our squad. We have three healers now, and more than three tanks, so this should work. If you notice in the Squad chat, I have grouped you into Party A, B and C.”
“We will go through the dungeon as a squad. But when we meet a boss, I and the other squad leaders have a leader chat so we can all work together. We are going to try to clear the floors and go through simultaneously.”
He held looked over at Raze, one of the other squad leaders, who held up his thumb. Barry turned to us. “ARE YOU READY?”
“Yes!”
“I CAN’T HEAR YOU! ARE YOU READY?”
“YES” we screamed back. Dekka howled her agreement.
Other teams were yelling or chanting.
The time ran out.
WELCOME TO THE WORLD EVENT!
The doors cracked open with a sound that echoed around the hills, sharper and louder than any thunder I had ever heard. My heart began to pound, and it was like I could feel the blood racing through my veins.
“LET’S GOOOO!” Barry said and hopped down off the rock and jogged toward the door. Enthusiastically, we charged after him.
