Midnight

The last epilogue for Catalyst

It was midnight when Ling finally put down her book. That author, Yu Wo, was simply great. She had to be, if her books made all the way in time to the 2100's. But after reading such an incredible novel, the last thing Ling wanted was to sleep.

Thoughtfully, she looked at her gaming helmet – the old, normal one. Perhaps tonight was the night she was going back into playing Second Life. Maybe it was a good thing that Second Life Co. had though fairer if all the players were to start anew, because she did feel like creating a new character.

She put the gaming helmet and darkness descended upon her, followed by a bright light, then she was in the void space were an NPC helped players to create their characters. After numerous complaints of female players all around the world, players now could choose if the wanted a male or female NPC to guide them in the creation of their characters. She chose the male NPC just to see if he was as gorgeous as the advertising campaign of Second Life 2.0 promised.

He was.

-\-|-/-

"Hello, handsome..." Ling muttered. The NPC, oblivious, started his standart speech.

"Hello, and welcome to Second Life. This is your first time playing, so please give us a moment to scan your body and record your vocal frequency. That way, you will be able to immediately enter the game once you put the game helmet on." A pause for scanning. "Right, now you may begin to create your character. Before you proceed, I must remind you that you will only have one chance to create a character. Once created, your race, name, and appearance cannot be changed."

Ling nodded. She wished the game had the option 'skip the tutorials'.

"I want to see myself as a human and as an elf."

The two figures appeared immediately before her. Ling studied them.

"I want to make myself 5 centimeters (about 2 inches) taller."

She dismissed her human version.

"I want to see myself as a demon."

When the demon version appeared, Ling gasped.

"Now the demon race has a tail! Can the player from the demon race control his tail at will?"

"Control of the tail comes with level and training." The NPC answered dutifully, and Ling didn't have any doubt about which version she was going to pick.

"I'll keep the demon version. Make my hair longer. Longer. Longer. There. And the color of the eyes... yellow. And the skin a little darker. There..." She eyed her new avatar appraisingly. Now she just needed a name.

Looking at her avatar's yellow eyes, especially when they were against that long, dark hair, she couldn't help but to think of the moon in a starless night.

"The name will be Midnight."

"Do you still want to make any changes to your character?"

"No."

"Very well. So, before you start playing, I must inform you of some changes that have occurred in the gameplay of Second Life. All characters now star in a Race Village – in your case the Demon Village – from which you can't leave before level ten. After that the player is sent to the closest Beginner City, and can only depart to explore the rest of the continent after level twenty. Do you have any questions?"

"No..." This system was a surprise for her, and her mind was already racing with the possibilities. Perhaps the Demon Village would have clues to quests and skills that could only be achieved by a player from the demon race? Would the Demon Village be underground? Would there be a library?

"Now, I will explain to you the achievement system..." the NPC started, but Ling interrupted him.

"I already know about the achievement system." Of course she would, she had helped to make it work. She didn't know all possible achievements or combinations of achievements, but the system was pretty easy to understand.

If you trained enough with a sword, you would get the achievement 'Beginner Swordsmanship'. If you had 'Beginner Swordsmanship' a master NPC would accept your request to engage training and you could receive the achievement 'Medium Swordsmanship', and so on. There were, of course, weirder things, like 'Berry Picking' being a pre-requisite to both 'Master of Poisons' and 'Master Cook', and the fun of it was discovering which achievements would give you the skills you needed and mastery in the class you had chosen.

Another new feature was that the players could now choose a sub-class. If you were, say, a warrior with sub-class mage, you would never have spells as powerful as those of someone who had mage as main class, but you would still have a broader range of skills and it could come in handy in a number of situations.

Wondering if the wanderer class was still available, Ling merged with her avatar and Midnight was sent to live her first adventures in the Demon Village.

-\-|-/-

Second Life, some months later

Flying Dagger – thief, sub-class priestess – and Furious Storm – warrior, sub-class archer – were feeling very satisfied with themselves. They had talked to the weirdest NPC and fulfilled the strangest requirements, following the trail of rumors that led them to the Archangel's Armor Quest – a legendary armor that, besides being one of the strongest of the whole game, weighted nothing and even boosted the user's speed.

Now, they had finally defeated the boss who guarded the chest where the armor was kept. It was a spectacular feat, considering they were only a duo and the boss had been designed to fight a whole party of six.

"Next time will be even easier." Flying Dagger mused. She was referring to the fact that only one set of armor would be found in the chest, and they would have to come back after three months, when the armor had respawned. This first set would be hers, because Storm had lost in rock-paper-scissors.

She opened the chest, and the armor was everything she expected. It was silvery, light, and pretty. Storm could say what he wanted – she wanted to wear a pretty armor. But something in the chest lid caught her eye, an inscription, saying:

Midnight has been here.

And a symbol with a crescent moon and three stars.

"Damn you!" She cursed.

"What is the matter?" Furious Stor asked.

"Midnight."

"Damn him!" He cursed as well. They usually didn't make much of a fuss about being the first players to finish a quest, but Midnight – whoever that guy was – was another matter altogether. It was exactly the fifth time they went after items most players didn't even believe existed, only to find out Midnight had already been there.

The last time had been the worst. The human duo had taken great pains to invade the underground fortress of the dark elves, almost dying a hundred times in the process, only to find out that the temple of the Spider Queen was empty, because someone had just recently completed the quest 'The Fury of Lloth'. And, behind a column, the inscription:

Midnight has been here – with The Kenpo Priests

The Kenpo Priests were a team that now was considerably famous. They considered themselves followers of legendary Ugly Wolf, from Odd Squad, and all of them had class priest and sub-class fighter. Dagger and Storm had never met them, so they had never had the chance to ask about this mysterious Midnight person. The only other time Midnight's name had been together with someone else's, it was a single player's name: Jewels. They had never heard anything about this Jewels, so they couldn't ask him either.

-\-|-/-

Somewhere far away, Jewels – class archer, sub-class priestess – sneezed and wondered if someone had been talking about her. Then she concentrated again and shot an arrow straight in the eye of a mountain troll that was approaching Nimbus from behind. Nimbus was a thief and necromancer, and Jewels' partner.

Both girls used to have a solo career, but the progress was slow. Besides, after partnering with Midnight for a while, Jewels had discovered having a partner could be lots of fun. Sometimes she wished Midnight hadn't insisted in going separate ways. Nimbus would like her. Or perhaps not. Nimbus was sort of a goth and didn't seem to particularly like nobody.

Jewels sighed and notched another arrow.

-\-|-/-

In another corner of the continent, a team prepared to take the ferry who would take them to the island. The island was a scary thing, with jagged peaks and heavy thunderclouds. Willow – the team's mage and priestess – thought that in the island the sky must seem pitch black.

"What did you say the island was called?" She asked to the NPC who owned the ferry.

"It's called 'Midnight Island', miss."

"Does it have something to do with those horrendous thunderclouds?"

The NPC tilted his head and looked at her in confusion.

"No... It was named after the first hero to complete the 'Mysterious Island' Quest..."

All the team members were dumb folded and looked again towards their destination. Now they were closer, they could see an eerie fortress looming over the island, and in the highest tower, a midnight blue banner with a crescent moon and three stars.

-\-|-/-

In her adventure diary, the player Midnight – class adventurer, sub-class warrior – wrote.

"It's been one week since I left the Island Fortress, and I still feel very glad I'm called Midnight. Can you imagine, that freakish scary island being named after a player called 'Candy Fairy' or 'Pink Butterfly' or 'Super-hero Fred'? It would be such a shame..."

Then, noticing her diary had only one page left, she smiled with a wicked idea on her mind.

She sent a copy of the book to her own email – it was new feature created exactly for players who wanted to keep travel diaries – and then added a new scription.

"This book you have in hands is the travel diary of adventurer Midnight, Spider Vanquisher, Lady of the Midnight Island and Ambassador of the Demon Race among Elves, Orcs and Dwarves. This book tells of my deeds and adventures, and only a worth player will be able to follow my steps – if you are not worth, may you loose all your items in the labirynthic Hell Dungeons and be eaten by a Giant Dioneia in the Tropical Junggle.

If you are worth, may the Temple Fellowship receive you in their knightly ranks and your bosses drop incredible loot.

And if you ever come across the former members of Odd Squad, give Prince a smack in the head and send my regards."

Then she closed the book, painted her symbol in the book spine and hid it in the library of the city where she had started her journeys after level 20. That bit about smacking Prince in the head was childish, she knew, but who cares? It was unlikely someone would read the book, and even more unlikely the person would be able to recognize Prince. She then looked in her pocket for a crumpled piece of paper.

Interesting Stuff

[x] Archangel's Armor

[x] Priestess Hairpin (does it exist?)

[] Disguise Quest → mandatory for Travel to Celestial Continent

[x] Assassin's Guild

[x] Temple Fellowship

[] NPC Rhosghobel, desert (sequence quest?)

[] Mystery Island

[x] Ruins of Infinite City

[]Looney Techniques

Ticking "Mystery Island", she looked at her map and turned east, towards the first step of the Disguise Quest, because demons and dark elves needed a disguise before going to the Celestial Continent, the same way elves and angels had to disguise before visiting the Hell Dungeons.

Looking how few items remained in her list, Midnight sighed and promised to stop Questing for a while to gain some levels, so she could start on that three-paged list entitled "High Level Interesting Stuff".

-\-|-/-

Void Server

Kenshin and Sunshine looked at each other through stacks of books and notes and sighed.

"Did you get a higher score in this last test?" The later asked hopefully. Kenshin shook his head and Sunshine got up and stretched. "I think I'm done for today. You should rest as well."

Kenshin nodded, but as Sunshine disappeared into his room, probably to call Fairsky, he kept eyeing the unsolved problems in the sheet. He had reached the limit of what he could do for himself, so it was time for him to accept Ling's offer of help "in anything that has to do with numbers" as she had said. But it was too late to call her (it was easy to pull all nighters and exchange night by day when you lived in a virtual reality) and he had absolutely nothing to do.

He was done with re-reading his file, after so much studying he didn't want anything to do with reading, and he wasn't in the mood for watching anime or surfing idly on the Internet. When the boredom was reaching critical levels, Kenshin had an idea.

He sat by the computer desk and opened the decoration software. He typed the words 'gaming helmet', wondering if it was going to work. And it did.

Now, he reasoned, theoretically he was already inside Second Life, because Ling had made this place out of Second Life's servers in the first place. So perhaps there wouldn't be need to purchase the game. But his main worry was if he would be able to log out, and how. He could only hope to come back to the void server, instead of being stuck in the game forever or disappearing into thin air.

He put the helmet.

-\-|-/-

Second Life

"Hello, and welcome to Second Life. This is your first time playing, so please give us a moment to scan your body and record your vocal frequency. That way, you will be able to immediately enter the game once you put the game helmet on." A pause for scanning. "Right, now you may begin to create your character. Before you proceed, I must remind you that you will only have one chance to create a character. Once created, your race, name, and appearance cannot be changed."

Kenshin stared silently as a beauty delivered him the automatized welcoming speech. When she started giving him the race options, he was stunned by the ridiculous amount of variety. Should his character be just like himself? He discarded the idea. A beastman of some sort, then? An orc? He didn't like those, either. In the end, he choose from something familiar.

"I wish to be an elf". Prince had been an elf and, despite the elven race being weaker than the human, he was a just fine swordsman. The rest of the appearance he didn't change much, except for the hair color.

"Make my hair..." He looked around, in search for ideas. Actually, anything short of red would be fine. "Green." Because it was Thursday. And since he was running very, very short of creativity, he choose the name accordingly. "Screen name will be Green Leaves".

The NPC then explained the gaming system and Kenshin was sent to the Elf Village.

-\-|-/-

Void Server

"Kenshin!" Sunshine jumped as if he was about to have a heart attack, but his voice was full of relief. The other looked at him inquiringly.

"You had disappeared..." Sunshine explained, then, noticing the gaming helmet Kenshin still held. "What is this?"

"A gaming helmet. I was playing Second Life."

Sunshine could only stare, and after some time Kenshin started feeling uncomfortable under his gaze.

"What?"

Sunshine shook his head.

"Nevermind. Here, let me have a try."

Silently Kenshin handed him the helmet, and as soon as he put it Sunshine simply disappeared. Long minutes passed before he was back as suddenly as he had gone. Now Kenshin understood why Sunshine had seemed freaked out.

"Pff... Why does it take so long to only create your character?" Sunshine complained. "Now, don't go and get addicted to Second Life, we need to study."

So, in the following days, they established a routine. They studied like crazy during the day, and when they were so tired they couldn't make sense of they were reading, they logged into Second Life for a couple of hours. Their progress in the game was slow, but they didn't care. It wasn't as if they were in a hurry to be among the strongest players again.

"When will you leave the Human Village?" Kenshin asked one night, after logging off. "I finally left the Elf Village, perhaps will be able to meet in one of the Beginner Cities."

Sunshine didn't reply immediately. In fact, he seemed completely lost in thought.

"Sunshine?"

"Long Dian called while you were away. He said he is ready to start, and wanted to discuss a few details. He asked if he could come over." He paused and Kenshin gave him one of his meaningful stares. Sunshine continued. "I couldn't quite refuse, besides, it seems important, so he'll be here tomorrow."

When Long Dian appeared the following day, Kenshin and Sunshine couldn't help but be surprised yet again at how identical he was to the Dictator of Life. Of course, now he had dispensed the flamboyant clothes used in game, and his hair was shorter, but still, they were so alike that it was unsettling. The fact that this very man had tried and almost succeeded in killing millions of people with a nuclear weapon didn't help in the least.

Except for the slightly mad glint he had permanently in his eyes, Long Dian was fairly decent. They discussed about the appearances Kenshin and Sunshine would have, the names to go in their false ID's, and the place where they would wake up. Long Dian even presented each of them with a bank account that would help with the living expenses for a good three months while they looked for jobs.

"And there is one more thing." The guest said as he got up with intention of leaving. "You already know that you can log in Second Life's main server from here. When I'm about to start the transference, I'll ask both of you to log in the game and stay there until it's done. Then, when you log out, you'll be really out."

And as soon they nodded their acquiescence, Long Dian disappeared, and except for the call he gave them the day the transference started, that was the last of him that all the characters in this story have ever seen.

-\-|-/-

Second Life

It was a shame he and Sunshine hadn't managed to meet in the Beginner City, Green Leaves thought as he walked the streets of Crystal City. It would have saved both of them a couple of deaths if they had each other's support in the journey to Crystal City. Suddenly he received a PM.

"Kenshin? I was killed back to level 19... I'm stuck in the Beginner City again. So this time I'll stick here until I'm level 30, so the journey will be safer. You enjoy your time exploring the city and finding good hunting grounds, ok? Just don't be killed."

"Right." He answered, and was silent again.

Green Leaves wandered the city, talking to all NPC's in hopes of starting a quest, and finally he ended up at the library. He pulled books randomly from the shelves and thumbed through them absentmindedly, stopping every time he came across an interesting picture. There were indeed lots of useful things in the books: interesting tales that were backgrounds to quests, tips for defeating mobs, world maps and... Green Leaves looked again at the open book he had in hands. It was a dungeon map, and it seemed hand-drawn. He flipped a few pages back and started reading.

I finally got out of the Beginner City, and I already have a handful of ideas to go in search of Quests, but with my current level I don't even know if I will made it to Crystal City alive...

It is in times like these I really appreciate the flexibility of my real life job: around Crystal City there is a dungeon that is just great for people around level 20, but at night it's always crowded. I'll stay there until I get level 40, because if I know myself, it will be quite a while before I bother to stop questing to raise my level again.

The book was the travel diary of a player, and it had just the tips Green Leaves needed, such as a good hunting place. He put the book in his backpack and headed straight to the aforementioned dungeon.

"Hey, newbie! Where do you think you're going?" Three arrogant looked players stopped Green Leaves in his way to the dungeon.

"Dungeon." He answered, in his usual monosyllabic way.

"And have you paid the fee for dungeon use?" Inquired the one who seemed like the leader of the trio.

"Fee?" Green Leaves raised his eyebrow. This wasn't mentioned in Midnight's memories.

"Of course! The surroundings of Crystal City are territory of our guild, the Bloody Dragons. You have to pay a three hundred gold coins fee to use our dungeons."

Great, Green Leaves thought. Abusing players. But they wouldn't have their way with him.

"The dungeons aren't yours. Everyone has access to them."

"Well, not on my turn. Boys." The leader signaled, and his two companions seized Green Leaves. "Now let us see what the newbie carries in his newbie backpack..."

Green Leaves tried to fight, but he was barely level 20, and these three seemed to by around level 50, perhaps 60. Setting his mouth in a tight line, Leaves thought grimly that with his old status he could easily have taught them a lesson.

"... he is really a newbie! There is nothing worthy here, he doesn't even have any money! Look at this! Only crappy items and... a book? Common... you don't have that much capacity in your inventory, and you waste it with a book?" The higher level player teased, and flapped a little through the pages. His expression began to change. He then took a look at the symbol painted in the spine and cursed.

"It's that wretched, cartwheeling demoness' diary!"

The other two gaped.

"The one who defeated the Boss?"

Whoever this Midnight was, Green Leaves felt his admiration for her increasing tenfold. Anyone who defied these guys deserved some degree of praise.

"And it looks like she has been Questing... Our guild could profit greatly from this..." The chief bully now had a greedy look in his eyes.

Realizing what was the chief bully's purpose, Green Leaves took advantage of his captor's distraction to break free and lunge for the book. But given their levels, even these strength-based brutes were faster than his speed-based status, and he felt fingers starting to close in the back of his neck, when suddenly...

"CRICKET THROW!"

In a blur of movement, someone carrying a polo hammer just came out of the thickets and in a fluid motion sent Green Leaves' two pursuers flying. She – it was a girl – held the polo hammer deftly and put her hand in Leaves' shoulder, motioning for him to stay behind.

Even feeling uncomfortable about being protected by a girl, he had to comply, for she indeed had the better stats.

"Cartoon Strike!" She shouted, going for the remaining player. From the brute force of the blow, Green Leaves half expected the bully's HP to be reduced by half, but surprisingly the hammer stopped fractions of inches from his head, and a magic circle spreaded a shockwave around him.

The chief bully was paralyzed, in the not very dignified position of wincing and raising his arms to prevent a blow. Weirder still, little yellow birds circled his head, chirping happily.

"Now, Roar, your guild does have a reputation of only having jerks, but taxing newbies in the use of dungeons and trying to steal their books? And I had thought the Bloody Dragons had some sort of pride..." The only part of the male player – was his name Roar? - that could move were his eyes, and they looked impossibly angry. "By the way, do you like my new technique? It's been my trump card for fighting bosses – at least the ones who don't summon minions. Because I've been using it so often, it has turned a quite high level, so, with your current status, you will be paralyzed for about five minutes before the last bird disappears and you can move again."

She turned to leave, and motioned for Green Leaves to follow her. As soon as Roar was out of sight, she started muttering.

"What a bother... just as I was in my way to Crystal City... why these Bloody guilds have to be so bothersome? Bloody Dragons, Bloody Tigers, Bloody Conquerors..." She continued for a good while, having apparently forgotten all about Green Leaves.

"Er... excuse me, but..." He called, "are you the adventurer Midnight?"

"Actually, I am." The girl seemed rather surprised.

"But you travel diary says you're a demoness."

"Oh, this." She looked around and took off a ring she had been using. Immediately her features changed from human to demon. "Magical disguise from Disguise Quest. Demons can't enter the Celestial Continent without a good disguise. But now, tell me about you. It seems you have my travel diary?"

Green Leaves looked away, seeming embarassed.

"I found it. In the library."

"That's okay. The book was meant to be found. Is it being useful?"

"Yes, I was just going to that dungeon you've mentioned..." He trailed off, and frowned. Then, sounding slightly incredulous, he said. "It's time to log out."

"Already? Okay, then. It was good to talk with you...?"

"Green Leaves." He gave his name. Then, almost excitedly, he said. "It was nice to meet you, you are a legend, but I have to go."

And then he just disappeared, leaving Midnight slightly dumb folded. After all, what kind of player was so happy about logging out?

THE END

-\-|-/-

Sigh... that was it.

After that, Kenshin entered XXX University to study programming, while Sunshine went to law school in a neighboring city. The faces of the Odd Squad members when they first met the duo in real life was priceless.

Ling's character, Midnight, became one of the top 10 characters in Second Life. She began dating Wei Jun and eventually got over Gui, and became good friends with Feng Lan.

Deciding to take a break from Gui and Lan, Zhuo Lin Bin started playing Second Life 2.0 as a solo player, and finally met a nice girl. At the same time, encouraged by Ling (who didn't have any means to know the gravity of what she was proposing), Ming Huang tried asking Doll out, and when he discovered she was a princess, his face, too, was priceless.

Ling's other friends – Vampire Garlic, Spring Nymph, Lovely Wei and Joydrop – also became high leveled players in Second Life, and were of great help when Odd Squad regrouped and set themselves to the task of rebuilding Infinity City.

Perhaps, one day, I'll write about all of this in detail, as a sequel to Catalyst, but for now, you'll have to take my word that "in the end, everyone lived happily ever after."

I hope you enjoyed it, reviews are welcome.

Thanks for sparing some of your time for reading this first work of mine!