Chapter 1
Jacinda stopped as the trees thinned to
a clearing. She knew her quarry lurked in the plains ahead. The
dragon had been terrorizing the area for far too long, and the mage
remained determined to put an end to it. It would be easier if the
rest of her group had survived with her; one by one, they succumbed
to wounds. The serpent had allies, enough to toss at her and her
friends to slow them down. With a determined look on her face,
Jacinda stepped out into the open. The beast would pay for its
ravages.
A lone man came running from the
distance. "Flee! It's unstoppable!"
Jacinda stopped. The wind teased her
long golden hair and her light robes. The foul creature had found a
new victim. Jacinda vowed that the man running would not fall to the
dragon. "Over here!" she called.
The sprinting man changed course and
ran towards the fair magician. "Get out of here! Run while you
still can!" Behind him lumbered an impossibly tall creature
Jacinda had never seen before. "Go!"
Jacinda stood her ground. She held her
hands in front of her, elbows bent outward, fingers taut. A wisp of
flame appeared between her hands. The fire grew in size and
intensity, but never burning the magician's hands. She released the
flame. The fireball blazed overhead and struck the creature true in
the chest. The beast kept moving, unaffected by the inferno that had
hit him.
"It's immune," the man panted
as he reached Jacinda. "I tried the same thing."
"We can't outrun it."
Jacinda held her arms straight out, her palms facing the ground. The
ground rumbled. Bits of earth erupted from the ground to form a
human-like mass. Jacinda pointed at the approaching creature.
"Delay that!" The elemental trod towards its target.
"That can stop it?"
"Hell no. It's buying us time."
The magician held her left arm straight over her head. A green glow
appeared, surrounding her hand. A similar glow enveloped the monster
as the elemental neared it. "Do you have any spells that can
help?"
"Everything I have is fire-based."
Jacinda eyed the fight. Her elemental
traded blow for blow, but looked more battered than the creature.
"Right." She brought her hands together in front of her.
A pattern of energy zipped around her interlocked fingers before
streaking at the beast. The whirling energy changed from fire to
lightning to ice to raw magic, clawing at the monster. As the
maelstrom ravaged the beast, Jacinda cast another spell. Blades fell
from the sky, piercing the monster's hide. "It's weakening!
Get it before the spells end!"
The man produced a shining sword and
leapt at the creature. He swung his sword in a wide arc. The blade
cut deep into the monster's chest. The elemental kept pounding its
rocky fists on the creature's leg. Still away from the melee,
Jacinda cast another spell, one that sent a stream of swords into the
creature, stunning it. Unable to defend itself, the monster fell and
lay unmoving.
-**-
I push the keyboard away. So much for
the dragon. Damned newbies going around a new area and aggravating
new monsters. I should have dropped an area effect spell on both the
monster and the newb. Why I thought this game would relax me is
beyond me right now. I should have played the Sims – no, wait, I
wanted to keep track of time.
On screen, my magician, Jacinda, stood
waiting for me to do something. There's times where I think she's
annoyed with me for being so slow. Of course, those are also the
times when I've had too much to drink. I probably should just shut
down the game and return to my assignment.
A flash on my monitor catches my eye.
I look closer; someone in the game wants to chat with me. What's
surprising is that the gamer is using proper English. What the heck,
why not see what he wants. If he wants to cyber,
I'll just shut down anyway.
Are you still online?
Okay, not much to judge grammar by, but
he did type out "you" in full. I type back that I am.
Sorry for dragging you into my mess.
I should have been able to handle it without dragging anyone else
in.
That's different. No one's ever been
sorry for screwing up another player's plans before. I type back, That's okay. I was probably going to be killed tonight anyway.
The way you handled yourself? Most
players I've seen would have kept using their most powerful spell and
hope that it's enough.
He's got me there. Thanks.
Let me make it up to you. I've got an
invite for a new game in development and they're looking for beta
testers. I think you'd give the game a challenge. Interested? I
can send the links by email.
Beta test? Oh, why not? Who knows,
maybe I can get a job with the company when I finally get my Computer
Science degree. I type in my throwaway Hotmail address. So who
should I be expecting in my inbox?
Lance179. And thanks again for saving
my bacon. And with that, he leaves the game. Not a bad idea,
really. I quit as well. I stifle a yawn. Must be later than I
thought. Before I can check the time, I hear the front door unlock.
Probably my roommate, but I better check.
Padding on bare feet out of my room, I
see my roommate, Tricia Halliwell, pulling her key out of the lock.
I have no idea how she's remaining steady on her stiletto
heels and not show her ass in that barely-there skirt of hers. Her
cheeks are flushed rosy. "Did it turn cold out?" I ask.
Trish looks over to me, staggering a
little, causing her red curls to bounce a little. She titters at her
misqueue. "Jacqueline Hart, what are you doing home? I thought
you were going to meet us at the bar." Her eyes are unfocused
as she stares at me.
"What are you doing home so
early?"
"What early?" Trish giggles.
"It's past three." As I glance at the clock and see she's
right, she continues, "You weren't playing online again, were
you?" She shakes her head at me, then adds an admonishment.
"Geez, Jackie."
I feel my cheeks grow warm. "I
was going to, but my assignment took longer than I expected. Have a
good time?"
Trish's laughter trilled. "Would
have been better if you were there. You should have seen some of the
guys there. Mmm. Oh, wait." She stepped out for a moment,
then dragged a sandy haired guy into our apartment. "Jackie,
this is Simon. Simon, my roommate Jackie."
Simon gives me a half-wave. "Hi."
I try to smile. "Hi." So
much for getting to sleep right away. Trish is, how can I put it,
enthusiastic in bed. Ear-piercing levels of enthusiastic. I head to
the kitchen. "Anyone else want tea?"
"No, thanks." Trish still
has a hold on Simon. It looks like they're trying to merge into one.
Simon's hand disappears behind Trish, eliciting more giggles from
her. I turn away so I can roll my eyes. "Don't be that way,
Jackie," Trish admonishes.
I make a show of getting out a mug and
a teabag. "What way, Trish? I just want a tea before I go to
bed." I hope that Simon won't last longer than it takes me to
finish drinking. Without turning to see either Trish or her boy toy,
I fill the kettle and put it on to boil.
"We'll talk tomorrow, Jackie."
I hear Trish's bedroom door slam shut.
My shoulders relax a little. Maybe she's drunk enough that she won't
remember wanting the talk. A shriek of laughter erupts from the
bedroom. Simon isn't wasting anytime. By the time the kettle boils,
Trish is already moaning in rhythm.
All right, I'm being hard on her.
Naturally curly hair, good figure, legs that won't quit, and
constantly being hit on by men. The only thing I have on her is
height and cup size, and she even manages to beat me out on the
latter by being perkier. If Trish wasn't my best friend since
kindergarten, I'd probably hate her.
Trish's moans have climbed up an octave
and have grown louder. I give up on focusing on my tea. There's no
way I can pretend I don't hear the chorus coming out of her bedroom.
With any luck, Simon won't be able for another go. I pray that he
won't be. I just want to go to bed. Trish reaches her loudest, then
stops.
I finish the last few drops of my tea
and trudge back to my own room. At last, quiet enough so I can get
to dreamland. Trish starts her moaning again; this time I can hear
her louder and clearer through the thin wall between our rooms. I
groan. Fine, Trish can get her groove on all night. I've got
something else I can do. Lance179's email. I can grab his link,
download the play test files, and see if the game is decent. In the
meantime, I set my iPod to shuffle and try to isolate myself with
music.
The earphones don't completely muffle
Trish's cries. Please, Simon, do give her more so I can get to sleep
sometime before the sun rises. I refrain from hammering the wall.
Never has helped before. As the download completes, I stare outside.
Fat snowflakes float like autumn leaves, settle on the window, and
melt. Odd, since the forecast called for clear and well above
freezing. I bring up Environment Canada's webpage and check the
conditions. The forecast hasn't changed, but the current weather
does say light snow. Not to mention that Trish didn't complain about
the cold, especially in her outfit. Weird. Global warming, go fig.
The download finishes and I start the
installation. Nice and smooth, no glitches, no odd questions,
registration is painless, and five minutes later, the game is
running. Graphics are impressive, but that's a given these days.
The title screen calls the game "Valor Quest: The Test of Lord
Tottenheim". A nice intro movie explaining the world starts; I
watch it to see if anything inspires me. The back story could use
some work. Right now, it's a Tolkien rip-off, with a great evil
threatening to spread throughout the world. I suppose it's good
enough for now, but I'd be disappointed by it if I had, you know,
paid money for this.
I'm jarred out of the game when Trish
climaxes. She should have gone into musical theatre; wouldn't even
need a microphone. I turn down the volume on my iPod and wait to see
if there's another encore from next door. With no sounds of love
making coming after a minute or two, I leave the iPod's volume down
and let a out a sigh.
Back to the game, I check what options
I have. Looks like the usual: warrior, wizard, rogue, priest, and
variants of each. I'll try my favourite character type, the
sorceress, like Jacinda, to see how well she can be done.
Navigation is nice; the choices are
easy to find and easy to click. I have several choices of wizard;
generalist, summoner (here, Spot!), necromancer (ew, no), invoker
(hmmm), and illusionist (maybe if I was fully awake). Jacinda has
always been a generalist, using all sorts of spells, so that's what
I'll try. I can modify her appearance, but the selection of hair
styles and robe colours isn't that big. That's something that the
developers can change, though. It could be that they're trying to
test game play and will worry about details later. Still, something
to bring up. I get Jacinda version nine done. Yeah, I've played her
in many games, including The Sims; she was a little vixen there and
now has far too many grandchildren to keep track of in Veronaville.
Off to the virtual world I go! Jacinda
Nine materializes in the middle of a city near an ornate fountain
with streams of water coming out of a trio of dolphins. Nice touch,
that. I'm not overly happy with her grey robe and the plain staff in
her hand I get Jacinda to walk around the the market to see what's
there and to see how well she moved. Her hips have a bit of a wiggle
to them. The boys will enjoy that touch. Me, not so much, but I've
seen worse. Walking and running animations are flawless, though,
wiggling notwithstanding. Time to see if she can talk to the locals
and spend some of the gold in her belt pouches.
As I start to click on a local
merchant, my finger slips somehow and an options menu appears on
screen. I read through the list of changeable attributes, looking
for something that won't cause a fatal crash before I've saved
anything. Colour looks to be the safest. I try entering a number in
the field then apply it. Jacinda's bland robe turns pink. She is so
not a pink. I change the number again, trying to remember my colour
codes. My memory isn't so good at this hour. Whatever this hour is.
I check the time on my alarm clock. The glowing numbers are trying
to tell me it's 4:07. Or the secret of the universe. Way past
bedtime, at least. I type in what I hope is the correct code for
light blue and apply the change. Jacinda's robe is now a deep blue.
Close enough. I close the attribute screen and think about sending
an email to the development team. Of course, what could I say?
"This screen popped up and I changed my character's outfit
colours but I can't say how I did it?" Tomorrow, I'll try
getting the pop up again and make note of how I did it. For now,
though, I exit the game and turn off the monitor. Without changing,
I drop on to my bed.
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