Chapter 4: | A Job Delivered Itself to Me
As usual, the notification box invades the darkness of the transport from the True Servers to Catastrophic Realms Online's server. Synz waits patiently for the change to settle in. The refreshing yet artificial feel of the True Servers changes into the realistic feeling of musty air and warm sunshine. The darkness recedes as spots of yellow-orange sunlight cuts through his virtual eyelids.
Realm Night opens his eyes to sees the familiar wooden ceiling of his room. The wood is dark brown and seems to be made to look smooth and easier on the eyes. Blinking a few times, Night tries to sit up, get used to the too-long limbs of his character and adjust to his unfamiliar yet comfortable perfect eyesight, again. It wasn't hard and doesn't take any longer than simply waking up after a weird dream. His armour-clad fingers made a gesture and a pair of glasses appears from thin air. After sitting up and sliding the glasses on his face, he looks around before huffing out a sigh at the sight of a man leisurely sitting on his windowsill and reading through some papers. Occasionally, the man would jot something down on the papers or scratch something out.
The man has hooded eyes and a lazy grin seemingly etched permanently to his face. One could even think he was a drunkard if not for the lack of the signature flush on his face. Although he wasn't particularly stunning or ugly, the mysterious aura and demeanour that he ceaselessly emits makes people's gazes linger. If they notice him anyways. His sea-green hair contrasts the dark brown undershirt he wears with a pair of short pants. The clothes he wears are casual to the point that one may thought he was in his own room doing his business. He's even bare feet!
"Two-Edged Spear I swear to everything holy in the realms, why are you in here again?" Realm Night doesn't bother trying to hide the exasperation leaking through every letter and space in his words as he threw a throwing knife he conjured out of nowhere, "I thought I sealed[1] my door, with multiple seals even. Just because you're the guild master and can have relatively easy access to any member's rooms doesn't mean you can relax and do your thing in mine."
"Oh! You're online early, Realm Night!" The man, Two-Edged Spear, puts his papers down and bats the throwing knife away with a wave of his hand, "Though of course I have expected my newest Elite to be online as soon as he reads the announcement, I told you that you don't need to come so early for every war and guild conflicts."
"Because aces must be kept up the sleeve, is that so?" Realm Night can't help the sarcastic tone in his voice even as the hand he used to throw the knife tugs on something almost invisible and the knife flies back towards him, "I'm still not sure why you're so keen on hiding me when literally everyone in Yggdrasil knows my SN[2], Spear."
"That doesn't mean they know about your talents, Night. It'd be a thrilling fight if I have you as my ace instead of charging valiantly in the vanguard," Spear stands up from the windowsill and walks to the other with a lopsided smile on his face as a sharp gleam passes through his dark eyes, "the same could be said to you too. What's the point of trying to beat me again? Stop fighting and conserve your energy for something better."
Despite Spear's words, the hint of a glow and a subtle swoosh in the air says differently as Realm Night tilts his head to avoid the invisible energy piercing the wooden wall behind him. Although invisible, its density makes the sparse sunlight refract off of it differently. The light made Night's glasses flash with a dangerous look even as his purple eyes darkens to a deep onyx. The knife he is holding in his hand seems to double to two then triple into six throwing knives before a wide and shark-like grin spreads across his usually emotionless face. His answer is laced with an amused tone even as he bites on an invisible string to pull it.
"Why, it is because I beat you when you were holding back and on a short supply of Life Stones. Unless it's a life and death battle, I can't measure out if I'm vastly stronger or slightly stronger than my opponents after all."
A few of CR Online's unique features are their spawn and revival mechanisms[3]. As all games do, CR Online has those as well albeit working in a very different way with different requirements and consequences. When a character dies, the player will spawn in their "room"[4] instead of a spawn point which makes traveling back a hassle. The penalty for death is also different. Instead of losing anything, all equipments that aren't soul-bound[5] and all materials that was in their inventory are stored in the Revival Inventory for ten in-game hours and can only be retrieved via the nearest Life Formation Keeper for one Life Stone. There are also the coins and other valuables too. Basically, anything that would 'physically' stay with the dead body will be kept in the revival inventory to keep the "realistic fantasy system" that CR Online boasts.
New players are given three Life Stones each in-game day until they reach level 10 or somehow receives an Elite-Grade equipment. After that, every players are only given one Life Stone every 24 in-game hours[6] that they're online. As if to pour salt on a wound, these Life Stones are soul-bound, untradeable, isn't for sale even for real money[7] and expires in 96 in-game hours including the time when the players aren't online. Some players could play and never keep a Life Stone in any one time. Indeed the lack of Life Stones would certainly make anyone, especially someone like a guild master hesitate to do any kind of Deathmatch[8].
"We both know that was never any problem," Spear chuckles mysteriously even as the hands in his pockets glow a dim azure color, "you just wanted to get your ass whooped for once, don't you? Damn why don't you just GG and log out now? Just go back while you're in your room and I'll contact you if your help is necessary. You have all night to play after all unlike poor old me who needs to sleep before curfew."
Accordingly, there are some differences with the log-out mechanism[9] to one that's usually implemented. A player can only log out in their own room or in an inn. It is never easy to return to one's own room unless they belong to a guild but inns costs a fixed amount of (considerable) silver coins[10] for every hour real-time. It may not look like much but it can stack up. The worst? You can't leave the inn until you pay off your "debt" if you overstayed your visit. Meanwhile a guild has the capability of making branch offices which can provide their members with their own temporary rooms. A member, typically Known-Grade and above can transfer their personal rooms to the guild's Main Headquarters. This is another reason why territories are necessary for a guild's growth. Fortunately, the system takes this into account and protects claimed territories.
Feeling slightly irked, Realm Night scowls a bit before hiding the scowl under a calm facade. Spear always seems to push his buttons whether voluntarily or not. Considering the man's personality, the latter seems more probable. Instead of running amok as his heart wishes to deep inside, Night lets the string in between his teeth fall slack and a knife clatters to the ground. The throwing knives in his hands also lost its luster and disappears into his inventory[11] before he stands up and walks to the door.
"Rather than that, shouldn't you organize your guild for the war? Hellion Rune-Ashes and Reality's Dice are there too, right? A strategy meeting is in order this time, don't decide everything yourself," Night scoffs at the whining behind him even as he opens his door while muttering under his breath, "and this is not over, we just need to deal with other things first. We can get fight another time when we're not in the guild or anywhere close to my room. That one time was enough."
Spear laughs at the barely audible last remark but hurries to collect his papers and inserts them in his inventory before reluctantly leaving Realm Night's room. Night could only roll his eyes and glare at the man to move out of his room quickly. Realm Night followed soon behind Spear although he didn't forget setting up his seals back in place. With a few taps on something unseen to anybody but Night, the little mess created by their little scuffle returns to its clean and orderly state and the dimming magic circle fades completely along with the knife that had clattered to the ground. Several other patterns fills the air and locks on to certain places and position before fading away with the soft click of the door's lock. Realm Night taps an armoured finger to his door as more pattern swirls on it before fading into nothing.
"Why do you lock everything up so tight? Even I took nearly two hours just getting the first seal out," Spear mutters a complaint despite walking away down the hall anyways.
"Unlike someone, I value my privacy and safety. I'd prefer it if my guild master could also keep off my room," Night looks pointedly at the slightly shorter guild master, "and I remember something about conserving energy for a better thing?"
Spear goes back to his happy-go-lucky look as he beamed to Night, "yeah well, ya got some personal mail[12] that's not a challenge letter for once."
"I never gave you permission to open my public mailbox[13]."
"You didn't have to, I'm your guild master."
"No, you're just shameless."
"No, it was actually a notification I got."
"No, there's no way my mailbox is connected to your notifications."
"No, it really said 'Elite-Grade members and above in your guild has been sent a personal mail quest[14] from an anonymous requester.' in my notification while I was undoing the third seal of your door."
"No, there's no—wait, did you just admit to breaking into my room?" Night can't help the fake startled tone in his voice. He was trying to incite the guild master by focusing on the wrong things.
"Not the point."
Night smirks and pats Spear's shoulder before returning to topic, "so it was a broadcast mail quest for elite guild members?"
Spear's smile widens as the cunning man added in a whisper, "and they have a BIG gold coin reward—a few thousand dollars if exchanged in the current gold coin to dollars rate."
Realm Night blankly stares at the grinning man in front of him. Did the man just insinuate that a job delivered itself to him?
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Lots of these will explain gamer terms and their definition. If you already know these terms, you can skip most of them. This is mainly for the readers who doesn't really know/understand them. Some of these are important though so at least skim them or look for it in the auxiliary chapter.
[1] By sealing his door, he means locking said-door with additional (magical?) seals other than the usual system-maintained locks.
[2] SN = Server Name (similar to a username for use in a server)
[3] Role-playing games (RPGs) often involves battles which in turn involves deaths. Unlike real deaths, players can revive their characters in games, usually with a set of predetermined penalties. It's usually done at the same place where you "spawn" or appear into after logging in (and also signing up, usually). These are the mechanisms that were being defined.
[4] Rooms here will be defined in a future chapter (or the auxiliary chapter if I decided against defining the rooms in a future chapter).
[5] There are usually equipments (NOT reusable nor one-time use materials) that can be soul-bound (or character-bound depending on the games' terms) in RPGs. It means the equipment cannot be traded, dropped or sold, nor can it be given away since it is bound to the character.
[6] Most VR Games have evolved to adopt time-alteration techniques to further encourage players to play. Time difference are limited to less than 1:10 for the sake of players' mental health. CR Online specifically uses a 1:2 ratio (1 minute is 2 minutes in-game, 1 hour is 2 hours in-game, a day in real life is two days in-game, etc.)
[7] There are things in games that can be bought with real money currencies instead of in-game currencies. Games these days use terms like "premium" or "VIP" users. CR Online does not use any specific terms officially.
[8] Deathmatch = An unofficial Player vs Player (PVP) where the characters must fight till the other dies. {Official PVPs have zero death penalties. Since a deathmatch is unofficial, death penalties are given as per usual to the characters.}
[9] As in the previous mechanisms, a game has its own mechanism in logging out or going offline. Usually consists of where, how, when, etc.
[10] ~US$ 10 = 1 gold coin = 10 silver coins = 100 copper coins = 1000 iron coins
[11] Since physically carrying items are a hassle (and inconvenient especially for past games), an inventory is a space to store items, materials or extra equipment. Usually has a limited space.
[12] Multiplayer games tend to have messaging features. One generally has to be friends (not in real life friends, more like tagged as a friend in the game) before being able to send private messages. CR Online does as well through their virtual interface. In the case where a player has turned off their friend-request functions, a personal mail is one way to send a message to a player that aren't friends with you. It only requires said-player's server name.
[13] The public mailbox is the place where a player can retrieve their personal mail unlike the private messaging function that transmits messages directly through the system's interface.
[14] There are all kinds of quests in CR Online, mail quests being one of them. Read more about it in the auxiliary chapter.
NOTE: There's a bunch of new things so adding them to the auxiliary chapter will take some time. I will separate between CR Online (and thus, this story's) specific notes and notes meant as an explanation of general gaming terms in the auxiliary chapters.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
MystenNoire
MystenNoire I swear I've been trying to reduce the information dumps. There'll be less in the future. The plot's currently very slow but things will soon pick up. Look forward to Synz's adventures :D
P.S. This chapter is almost double the usual. Whew. It's compensation for missing the deadline I set myself. Sorry guys. I can try to stay on schedule but it's exam month. I'll be a lot more free in the upcoming months but February and March is just hell awaiting me so I'll likely miss deadlines this month.
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