Old1Eye, or just Eye, as his friends called him, groaned as he lifted the VR headset off his face. He and a handful of his friends had been gearing up for a massive boss fight for over a week, and they had just been wiped out by it. A week spent gather materiel and EXP, training their skills, and min-maxing their stats all gone down the drain. In a way, he kind of expected it. The servers for the DMMORPG were all the way in Japan, and regardless of the fact that high-speed internet was free almost world-wide, Yggdrasil never did run well outside of the country without a beefy connection. He didn't like blaming his own mistakes on lag, but with him being located on the East coast of the US? He didn't feel too bad about cursing his internet.
He looked at the clock at sighed, seeing the all too familiar time of 11:03 pm "... damn it, have to get up at five in the morning too." he muttered to himself.
Getting up from his desk chair, he walked a few feet from where he was to his bed, where he promptly fell face-first onto it. He pulled his phone out of his pants pocket and made sure his alarm was on before he placed it on his nightstand and tried to get some sleep. If all went well, he'd be able to get up in the morning, go to work, then get home and hop back in-game. If he was lucky, the other guys would have a plan to get more gear to take on the boss again.
[-]
Getting up for work had been hard, driving to work without choking to death had been harder, but once he'd gotten to work? It wasn't so bad. A 6:00 AM to 4:00 PM shift was all that bad, especially considering he actually got weekends off. Plus, it paid pretty well.
But really and truly, it was when he got off work that his life got fun.
"See you tomorrow Sam?" one of his coworkers asked.
Sam shook his head, "Nope, it's Friday remember? I get weekends off."
His coworker smacked their forehead, "Because of course, you do… lucky bastard."
Sam chuckled before he drove home. Once he did, he unloaded his car, took a shower, changed clothes, and got ready to hop back in-game. Once his gear was on, he immediately launched Yggdrasil, sat back, and got ready to enjoy himself.
…
"Eye! You're back!" one of his friends, Kualo, cheered.
Eye chuckled, though his avatar's expression remained neutral, "Yeah, yeah, I'm back. I've had the same schedule for four years, and yet you still seem to not understand that I get on when I can."
Kualo scoffed, "Dude, you need a better job. They're working you to death over there!"
"And how am I supposed to get something better all the way out here in Georgia?" He asked, "And before you say it, no, I am not moving to New Atlanta, that place is a death-trap."
"I'm serious! You could get such a good job with four years' experience! Hell, you could better job with one year over there!"
Eye sighed and shook his avatar's head, "Sorry, dude, not happening."
Once the two of them moved on from their conversation, Eye asked what had happened while he was at work. Apparently, one of the Japanese players that they played with was making a guild and had asked them to join. Joining a guild had its benefits, that couldn't be denied, but Eye was… skeptical, at best. Joining a guild was easy, but leaving one came with harsh downsides, and while the boons to joining one would be good in the short term, he wasn't sure he wanted to commit to a guild long term.
"Who else is supposed to be joining the guild?" Eye asked.
At this, Kualo scratched the back of his head and chuckled nervously, "Well… everyone who was at the boss fight's invited, but… well, he also invited a bunch of other people."
Eye glared, "Kualo, how many."
If expressions were a thing in Yggdrasil, Eye was sure Kualo would have winced, "Well… just… a couple hundred."
Eye sighed, "Dude, you know those are the exact types of guilds I avoid, right? They are specifically designed to lure you in, drain you of resources before the guild leader steals everything of value before closing the guild!" he all but yelled.
"Ok! Ok! Fine! Just… fine! It was just an idea…"
"Just… look, I appreciate the offer, but I really don't like the idea of joining a guild like that. Plus, you do realize I play a heteromorphic right? I know you don't care, but I'm pretty sure a lot of other players would vote me out if they realized that." I explained.
True enough, I did play a heteromorphic, specifically a Vampire Demon. In my lesser for, I could pass for a freakishly pale human or elf, but once I let loose? I was a full-on monster with bat-like wings, needle-like teeth, and chalk-white leathery skin. I was… not pretty, honestly. Though I rarely did that honestly, controlling that form was a bit… weird.
"I know, I know, I just… thought it might be a good idea to try and get you to work as part of a team. You're not very good at it."
"Yeah, well, comes with the territory of playing a heteromorphic, no one want's to play with you."
Kualo shook his head, "You really should have picked a humanoid, you know that, right?"
Eye just laughed, "Yeah, probably, but hey, playing a heteromorphic is fun. And seriously, one of these days I'm going to get to level 90 and start being an actual threat."
"What are you talking about? I looked through your stat block, you're not exactly the best planned out character. I mean, I get Warlock and Assassin, they were basically tailor-made for your race, but you basically have no defense! Seriously, why'd you even get the Alchemist class? A warlock can basically do the same thing but with magic." He questioned.
"Dude, level 90 I unlock the Soul Eater ability for my race. You know what that does right?" Eye asked, only for Kualo to shake his head, "Ok, so, if I kill and consume a player - cause being a vampire lets me do that - I capture their very soul, allowing me to revive upon death at no cost! Now, it consumes the soul to do that, but that gives me a ton of breathing room to start with. Now, with my Warlock class, that's pretty self-explanatory; life-steal, aura drain, etc. But combine that with Alchemist, and I can take the Soul Capture spell from Warlock and combine it with Alchemist's Aura Potion, basically letting me store endless numbers of souls inside the potion. Now, I don't know if this was intended by the devs or not, but by activating Soul Eater and drinking the Aura Potion, instead of only storing one soul, I can store however many were in that potion."
Once Eye had finished his long-winded explanation, Kualo's silence lasted for about a minute before he finally broke it, "Holy crap dude! That's so freaking broken!"
"Exactly! And because of all that, I basically have no reason to spec into defense. If I actually do die, then I'll just come back right on the spot." He explained.
"Now, hold on, you said it relies on souls, right? As in, player souls?" Kualo asked, and Eye nodded, "Wouldn't that mean that you'd have to actually do a lot of PVP to make that worth it?"
"Technically, yes. And really and truly, I do need to do a lot of PVP, but fortunately, I already have!" At the end of his sentence, Eye pulled a potion out of his inventory, "Tada! You know all those weekend tourneys I go to? Well, since most of them revive you right away, I don't have to worry about losing levels, and since I'm allowed to use spells, I always try to use Soul Capture. Most players are kinda meh about me doing that, but the mods don't really care as long as it doesn't do any permanent damage."
Kualo shook his head, "How many souls do you even have in that?" he asked.
Eye wished his avatar could grin at that moment, "Over two hundred, buddy, over two hundred souls ready for me to eat once I hit level 90. Considering I'm level 88 now, it should only be a couple more days until I can hit it, and only a few more weeks until I get to a hundred."
Once that was all said and done, the two of them went out to grind. Kualo needed Volcanic bear pelt for one of his cosmetics, while Eye just needed more EXP in general, and so the two agreed to farm it. They played and chatted, talked and slaughtered before it was eventually time for Kualo to get off.
"Hey, tell you what, you're off work tomorrow right?" he asked.
Eye nodded, "Yeah, unless something goes horribly wrong at work, which it shouldn't."
"Ok, well, supposedly there's going to be a raid with a bunch of players involved. Nothing like the guild thing, but there's a dungeon in the swamps area, Nazarik, I think, that a bunch of players have been trying to crack for years. You wanna see if we can get in on the action?" he asked.
Eye shrugged, "Long as I don't have to risk my level's doing it."
Kualo chuckled before saying his final goodbye and logging off, leaving Eye alone in the volcanic wasteland. Humming to himself, Eye wondered about what Kualo had said.
"It might be a good idea to try and get you to work as part of a team."
Eye frowned. It was true that he had been a primarily solo player for most of his Yggdrasil career, but there was a reason for that. Even in real life, he never really got close to anyone, with the main exceptions being perhaps his parents and siblings, but he lived on the opposite side of the country from them, so he couldn't even say he was close to them. Kualo was probably one of his only really friends, and when he thought about it… that was kinda sad.
"I should really get out more…" he muttered to himself.
Shaking his head, he teleported out of the area and back to the main city hub, where he further traveled to one of his favorite grinding spots; Helheim. Of the nine realms Yggdrasil had to offer, with the possible exception of Jotunheim, Helheim was probably the most hostile. Mountains and crags spread out as far as the eye could see, with no plant life or animals dotting the landscape. A common phrase about Helheim was 'if it moves, it probably wants to kill you.' And truth be told, nine times out of ten it held up.
Eye dashed forward into the wastes, trying to find anything that would dare try to attack him. In his humanoid form, he was fast, but not exactly durable. Truthfully he was probably one of the squishiest races in the game while in his humanoid form, with his Adamantite armor providing only enough protection to keep him alive for three or four hits, depending on what he ran into. Fortunately, his dodge speed was leveled up to ridiculousness to compensate.
When an undead warrior or a greater undead tried to attack him, he would just dodge to the side, avoiding the attack outright. Massive undead wolves, death knights, there were all sorts of creatures that tried and failed to kill him. Because of his speed, he was able to kill them quickly, and since he had taken the time to memorize… most of the enemies in the area and their attack patterns, he very rarely even got hit.
Until he did.
"Damn it!" he cursed as he felt the sword of a death knight cut into his leg. He'd gotten sloppy and had paid for it. The life-draining effects of the death knights blade took hold almost immediately, Eye's health draining quickly. The effect wore off quickly enough, but he couldn't take more than one more hit before it killed him. He began moving away from the death knight, trying to get some distance so he could recover some more health before a wrench was thrown in his plan.
A Greater Undead Wyrm burst up from the ground in front of him, sending him flying backward. Eye all but panicked, realizing that he was in a very dangerous position. The death knight wasn't that much of a problem, the creatures themselves only being in the mid to high sixties, but a greater undead wyrm? The thing would be level 85 at the lowest and was probably in the low nineties. Had he been given time to prepare and set up, Eye was sure that he would have been able to kill the Wyrm, though it wouldn't have been easy. But with him being low on health, and a death knight coming up behind him? There was no way he would be able to kill the thing.
[Lesser Teleportation]!" he yelled out, trying to teleport out of the beast's aggro range. He didn't have the mana to use any other teleport spell, having spent it on other more combat-focused spells in order to kill some of the tougher enemies he'd fought.
If he could get out of his current predicament, then he would be happy. He was only a few hundred EXP from level 90, and the death knight would have been enough to push him over the edge, but he wasn't going to risk death by wyrm to get a little EXP.
Fortunately, the teleport landed him a dozen meters away from the Wyrm, giving him enough space to start running. He drank a healing potion as he started running, the effect slowly healing him as he ran. In a few seconds, he would be back to full health and he would be able to go back to hunting death knights, but for now, he had to get away from the Wyrm. just when he thought he might have left the aggro range, the monster burst up from the ground beside him, its trajectory sending it right toward him. He stopped awkwardly, jumping high into the air as the beast slammed into the ground where he had been standing.
As soon as he landed, he started off running again. The monster was persistent, repeating the attack from different angles and even coming up beneath him a couple of times, forcing him to back pedal to avoid getting caught in its maw. It was getting frustrating, and he was running out of tricks to pull. If he could find a spot to stay still so that he could transform into his True Form, then he could just fly away, but the Wyrm wasn't letting have any more than one or two seconds, and he needed four to transform.
"Need a little help?" A voice called out in the broadcast chat, catching his attention. He looked over to where the voice had come from and saw a figure running toward him. He tried to get a better look but was distracted when the Wyrm attacked again.
He dodged the attack, and as he flew backward, he saw the figure coming into view in the corner of his eye, the player in question using a large sword to catch a corner of the wyrm's mouth. When he landed, Eye looked to the player assisting him and saw a silver-plated warrior deflecting the monster's attack. Taking advantage of the few precious seconds the player had bought him, Eye used his transformation ability. With luck, he could get himself and the other player out of there.
His armor vanished, and with a snapping, tearing sound, Eye's back burst open, a pair of leathery wings sprouting forth. His face and head mutated, with skin growing over his eyes, his nostrils elongating and his teeth forming into razor-sharp needles. His limbs doubled in length, his previously human-like hands forming large talons. His legs bent backward like a raptor, and when all was said and done, his current for was far different from the one before.
"Woah! Didn't realize you were a heteromorphic too! Awesome!" the other player cheered.
Eye was slightly amused that the other player thought it was cool that he was heteromorphic, but he focused himself back on the task at hand. Spreading his wings, he flew upward out of the reach of the wyrm. With that done, he turned to the silver knight.
"Hey, you want a lift out of here? That thing isn't going to be easy to kill once it loses aggro on me." Eye said as the creature rumbled the ground beneath where he was hovering.
The silver knight looked over at him with his head tilted to the side slightly, "You don't want to kill this thing?" he asked.
"Ah, no, I'm high enough level to kill that thing. It's like… what, low nineties? I'm only level 89." Eye explained.
That seemed to make the player pause, "Huh, well, how about this, I do a bunch of damage to it and let you get the kill? I'm maxed out, so I don't exactly need the EXP."
The proposition made Eye hum in thought. The EXP he would gain from killing the Wyrm would be… a lot, to say the least, more than enough to push him over to level 90.
"What exactly do you get out of it?" Eye asked.
The knight shrugged, "Not much, honestly, it's just the heroic thing to do."
"Well… if you're sure."
And with that, the knight attacked. His blade struck the Wyrm hard, dealing massive amounts of damage. After half a dozen hits, the knight backed off, his attacks having drawn the beasts aggro away from Eye. Another two strikes and it was low enough health that Eye could probably kill it with one or two hits.
"All right, you're up!" the knight called out. Taking advantage of the opening provided, Eye dove forward, his claws driving down and slamming into the Wyrm's side, and with a roar, the beast died.
As its body began to dissolve, Eye felt the EXP flow into his avatar, and when he opened up the menu, he saw just how much EXP he gained and what items the creature had dropped. He watched the bar climb, and he cheered as it crossed the line… and he blinked when he realized that it didn't stop. It crossed the line again, leveling him up again past 90 and onto 91 before stopping roughly a third of the way through the bar.
"No way… what level was that thing!?" Eye exclaimed, looking back at the stats of the creature.
Greater Undead Wyrm [Level 94] slain.
"Holy crap! Level 94!"
He heard a whistle come from his left, and he looked to see the knight that had helped him looking at him and nodding his head, "Not bad! Should help you out, killing another one of those should get you to level 92, but after that, it'll start taking more than one. By the time you hit 95 you'll be killing a dozen of them before you can level up." he explained.
"Thank you so much! Seriously, I've been trying to get to level 90 for so long now! What's your name?" Eye asked.
The player chuckled, "I'm called Touch Me, Leader of the Clan Nine's Own Goal!"
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AN: Some of you reading this my know my other works, others may be reading this for the first time. To those of you who are new here, hi! This story is mostly going to be a side project that I keep here on FF, since a lot of my work has been on Spacebattles recently.
I hope you guys will enjoy!