A.R.
Some people have their nine to five’s, I have mine. It’s the same routine every day, some would say that I’m in a rut but if this is a rut I don’t mind it at all. Wake up, take a shower, eat, game, eat, sleep this is my daily grind in the RPG that is life. Some of those things are succumbed to change except one GAME! Leaving my house is minimal thanks to Amazonian.com delivering to my third floor apartment and for money, that’s easy I make with sponsors and winning prize pools in various game tournaments, my game of choice Battle scar, a Real Time Strategy game (RTS) that has a prize pool large enough to keep my bills paid and me and my dog tank feed. Although I may be pale and lacking vitamin E I love what I do and wouldn’t change it for anything. I am a gamer, one of the best some call me a legend but you can call me sasqwerty.
Waking up has to be simultaneously the worst but the best thing I do in a day. I don’t slumber a lot so my body tends to try and keep me down but gaming comes first always after I feed my dog, it’s fine if I don’t eat or don’t take the best care of myself but he has nothing to do with it, so only the best for him. Pouring his food whilst he sits and waits in anticipation I can only wonder if he knows or even cares how much I love him, the thought lingers and passes as I hail him to his plate, I grab a protein shake for breakfast and sit on the couch to indulge in a little mini monster on my pocket console. Playing this game first thing in the morning is both for fun and as a little warm up for the most intense games that are to come, it’s lighthearted and easy to play in quick sitings so I like that. As I get to a squad leader my door bell goes, “ugh” why now. I pause the game and look at the time and notice its nine thirty I hadn’t realized how long I was playing and forgot that tanks walker was coming. I scream “ONE SECOND!” hoping that she heard me as I get tank’s leash and collar, when I do I place it on his happy tail wagging body and open the door and greet heather, “Hey, sorry about that.” she smiles at and laughs as she say “oh, don’t worry about it I know how you can be.” what the fuck did she mean by that. She notices my face reacting to what she said and replies stumbling over her words “sorry, I didn’t mean it in a bad way it’s just sometimes you get lost and lose things, I’m sorry again.” looking at her stumble over her words took all the anger out of me in one fell swoop and I say “oh, don’t worry about it I know what you mean”. I don’t know why but she looked ravishing today, she wore a black sundress and dog collar with a skull on it, her long black hair was shining in the sun in a way that it made it look almost purple or blue and before long she coughed to break the silence,*cough* and now I’m stumbling over my words saying “I guess you would like to tank take now, I meant take tank… now?”
“Yeah, well take a trip around central park today, there is a dog presentation going on or something”
“Oh Yeah, wow sounds cool”
“I mean I don’t usually say this but you could come if you want” is there more to her inviting me or is she just asking on common courtesy knowing that I’m going to no? I replied “it sounds super fun really but I have things I need to do.”
“I get it”
“Sorry”
“No its, okay.” As she walked away I say a goodbye to me to beloveds (although only one know my true feelings). I can never imagine dating heather, she not interested in me at the slightest so I will suffice with platonic love.
Now that tank is being taken care of, it’s time to get down to my dedicated five hours of worldwide phenomenon MMORPG Kasai no kyōfū or Fire Gale online for us westerners. This MMORPG became so popular due to its almost endless amount of character creation, everything spanning from appearance to professions to beyond this game worked without NPC’s and completely relied on a human-driven barter system and level progression. Some players are merchants and nothing else, they logging every day to run a virtual store for no other reason than human interaction and that’s their definition of fun, I personally don’t get it but if it doesn’t hurt me then that means it helps me. I personally prefer to glide through the lands and complete assassinations as my assassin character (almost number 1!) and sometimes it’s a rough job, I swear the creators of this game are just using it like some massive social experiment, like those fake ones on MyTub. Logging on to Fire Gale is the best, they have this orchestral into music like you’re at the Oscars and your time is up, I load up my character sasqwerty(I use that name for all my games) and wait for the game to load. Sasqwerty is skinny long brown hair and brown eyes, I always make my characters look like me, except for the Neko ears and tail they’re just too cute to leave out. The game loads and sasqwerty is right where I left him in the main hall of sabaneta, this town is the video game equivalent of La Isla Tortuga, just overflowing with bandits, prostitutes (not good ones) and assassins. I only come here to get new missions from the local tavern. I used to come here often when I was a level 15 because it was expensive to travel from town to town but now not so much because like the rest of this world its full PvP and though the rest of the world is PvP, the rest of the world isn’t filled with thieves trying to make a quick buck. I choose to take the rooftops because there will be less traffic up there, but I run the extra risk of a bandit catching me off guard and dropping to the crowd below. I trust in my level to not let that happen. As I get closer I’m deciding what mission I’m going to take, then I recall that my computer needs a new graphics card, a very expensive graphics card, so I need real money and I can either do a random player assassination or go for the number one player not only going for his spot but also winning $1000 death pool; The death pool seems like the best option.
The tavern owner’s name is john, I know Him IRL( in real life) kind of, we chat on Vype and call each other but we only hang out in game, he is an extremely cool dude though. John sits tavern handing people their slips for the job that they’ll do. He notices me at the door and beckons me over like a wild hyena laughing and flailing his head. I walk up to and say “hey old buddy old pal, what’s brewing” John doesn’t like puns so he cringed before he replied “wasting the day away living the dream my friend How about you”
“Same old same old John, but something is different my friend, or at least it will be, soon I will rank number 1 on the leaderboards”
“You’re going for the pool again, this the fourth time in a month what is this going to be a weekly visit”
“I don’t know bud I feel that I got it this time”
“Sas, he beat you to a pulp last time member? “
“Yeah well that was last time, todays different today I fell like things are gonna change, they have to change…”
“Isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting the same results”
“Fuck you John and just give me my slip before I beat you over and over expecting different results” John gets up from his chair and bangs loudly on the table gets close to my face and whispers “Try me and see what happens” the whole tavern goes silent for what seemed like ages, but the silence was broken by the sound of John and I laughing and hugging as he hands me my slip. I leave the tavern with new found purpose.
This player is known for never logging off, he does missions as a mercenary paladin, usually around the town of grundle, and he uses the forest as cover for his magic and then homes in for a powerful attack. This always gets me since me being an assassin tend to stay in the shadows. The silence before the storm is always talked about but never has this been so true, in fact it had rein so true that I barely heard the knocks on my door (it must be heather). I open the door and there she is, really every time I see her it feels like the first time. I speak to greet her “hey how was the trip” she looks like she struggling to speak like she’s nervous but she managed a “it was pretty basic no trouble at all, tank even got a little bag of doggie treats at the park” as she said this I was taking off tanks leash and herding him into my apartment, she’s still holding his leash pretty tightly. Rising to meet her I see that she is looking down and blushing extremely the out of nowhere she exclaims “ LISTEN, SO I WAS WONDERING IF YOUD LIKE TO GET SOME COFFE OR SOMETHING OF THE NATURE, SINCE YOURE ALWAYS ALONE I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT LIKE TO GET OUT NOT THAT YOU NEED IT OR ANYTHING I JUST THOUGHT HEY HE’S SINGLE AND IM SINGLE MAYBE WE COULD YOU KNOW…” I was at a loss for words and before I came to my senses she said “sorry that was a stupid idea, I didn’t mean to” I somehow manage not to implode from pure joy and keep as little of cool that I have (and that isn’t much) and I say “ yeah, uh… how about tonight is that good”. Her reaction to these words was one that I have a person before, I’ve made her laugh and seen her smile but this was different this was joy, like that one kid getting his first Wingman 64 on Christmas, “ um, yeah sounds awesome… you have my number” as she said this she bit her lip, turned and headed down the hallway of my apartment, but before she left I scream “HEY WAIT MY DOGS LEASH!” she smiles looks down at her hands and meets me in the middle and hands me the leash and scurries of again. I’m not a man to check a girl out but this time I did and I’m glad I did because she was too.
Waiting at the entrance of trundle forest I have a feeling that the tides will change. I look at my map to see his exact location and it looked like he’s grinding on some minions gaining some much needed XP. I activate Shadow stalk which allows me to sneak around the trees without being seen and making minimal noise, this move is key to my success maybe I can even get a clean kill. My strategy is simple: get as close as possible without being detected and the finish. He’s in my field of view and I can almost taste victory, I’m close enough to notice that the minions he was fighting where bandit trolls, they don’t give out much XP but they do give items and money but he’s a level 95 he has no need for weapons and being number one player he definitely has no need for money so I wonder why he’s even wasting his time. These are trivial thought and only cloud my mind for the task ahead, activating a damage bonus on my class B daggers will ensure a swift fight.
Moving silently and stalking my prey using the shadows makes me feel like a panther ready to pounce. As soon as he turns his back to me I leap from the trees into the meadow clearing thrusting my left blade forward and initiating Dark Strike, a duel wield exclusive that allows swift recovery after an attack eliminating chance for a counter attack… I missed, how!? I recover immediately and back into the trees. As I take a moment to gather my bearings and analyze how I could have possibly missed that closely interrupting my thought, through the trees came a Level 30 Fire ball straight at me, it’s so big ; the only way I’ll be able to dodge this is One With Darkness class skill that allows me to turn into shadow. Man I really wanted to save this skill for later because it takes five minutes to charge again but no better time than now. As I melt into the shadows I locate my opponent, a task that wasn’t hard; he hasn’t moved at all he’s just turning his body and head but not his position. Quickly I move with the shadows all the way towards him and am able to place myself behind him. Slowly making my way out from the shadows I prepare for an attack but just then he swings a mighty silver and gold sword at me, I make haste and it misses with an empty *swoosh* again to the trees I evacuate.
I got a good look at his sword and now things are falling together. He doesn’t just grind in grundel he was searching for the ultra-rare class 1 weapon, this weapon is called The Silver Lining and it’s a very heavy weapon (which explains why he’s not moving) but the silver lining is that it’s a one hundred percent chance, one hit kill, this also explains why he was fighting the trolls and not any other minion; the trolls would have the higher drop rate/chance for this weapon. He having that weapon means that this became way more difficult than before, and now I’m really excited.
I jump straight at him knowing that my stealth isn’t working but my speed id faster than his so a flurry of attacks should work if I play it right. Going in I start duel slashing and he would parry and counter and I would dodge and counter and so on it went, I got a couple of hits but since I’m focusing on quick blows and jabs I’m not doing too much to his health, slowly but surely. Then I parry an overhead attack and find an opening on his abdomen to land a heavy attack and finish this. As I go in before my blade hits, his Silver Lining starts to drop and he disappears, I have auto weapon pick up so I snag this A class weapon just as he appears behind me with a *whoosh*. He must have used a teleportation spell but those have weight limits that’s why he dropped the sword, I quickly push *shift* and *3* to equip The Silver Lining (Which had settled into my inventory), turned and landed a solid hit to his arm, I watch as both his blade strikes my chest and his health go to zero in an instant. His avatar slowly fades as he becomes translucent changing my view from him to the forest behind where he used to be. I look at my health which was at FIFTEEN PERCENT, FREAKING FIFTEEN PERCENT! I almost lost, I only one by luck, he was able to take eighty five percent of my health in one hit.
After the dust settled and I had gotten back to sabaneta I hand my slip to john and he says “failed again bro, its ok you’ll get him eventually” I said nothing and wait for him to look at my slip, he looks at it and slowly looks up at me and screams “OH, MY GOSH YOU FUCKING DID IT!” and I let out an “ I know, I know I’m the best bow to your king and whilst you’re on your knees how about you give me a quick blowie”
“I would if I could bro, you deserve it right now”
“Ok just pay me my money I’ve got things to do”
“Fuck yeah man gladly, but ugh hey how about we celebrate tonight at like a bar IRL”
“Sorry bro I got a hot date tonight, maybe some other time?”
“Oh I see how it is, you slaying sum puss tonight”
“No, no nothing like that, just dinner and a movie”
“I just joshing man you have a good time at your date ok”
“Ok.” I teleport to my home in the town sabaneta, homes are a safe place free of PVP. Although I really have a date tonight I feel bad for john, I Probably would have rejected him regardless, and it will feel weird.
I check the time and see that I should start getting ready for my date, so I head into the shower and watch some Philip DeFranco to get my daily fix of the world news. I come out dry myself of and I get a call from john “ yo, Sas turn on the EGN(it’s a 24 hour gaming news channel on MyTub) so I turn it on and there talking about me saying “ Sasqwery has now become the #1 best player in Fire Gale Online After he Defeated the previous title owner ArinSexBang Will he was live streaming to thousands of his loyal followers” as they said this a lot of flashy decals appear on screen for emphasis on certain words, then the next anchor speaks and says “ we just got a statement from Mr.SexBang and he seemed outrageous can we cut to a clip”, this is very exciting, it’s now stating to sink in the feat that I just accomplished, I beat the best player in front of an audience that consisted of mostly his dedicated fan base, I am ecstatic. They cut to a voice clip of him and picture of his stupid avatar face with its wizard beard and hat taking about 90% of his face, he said “ uh, yeah so I’m just chilling trying to keep my fans entertained while I’m farming for this legendary weapon and I see this scrub on my map, thought he was just a fan looking to get on the live stream but no he blindsided me and stole the weapon that I was going to sell to give the money to charity. Whoever you are, I will find you and you will pay” the screen cuts back to the news reporter and she says “although ArinSexBang claims for it to be one sided, various videos prove that statement to me not so true *click* I turned off the video it was too much, that dude is a total tool. I paid no mind and finished getting ready for my date with Heather, maybe my life will change from now on.