Synopsis
Let me tell you of an unlikely team-up of two gamers and their undertaking of an MMO's most notorious and grindy questlines: Becoming Friends. Arcstar Online is played by many, but as far as Tactical Toaster and her freshly formed one-member clan are concerned, she might as well be the only one playing the game, that is until she encounters the Sherpa, a once internet famous pro-gamer and streamer. He is less than thrilled to meet one of his old fans but despite his best efforts to avoid the Noob, she finds favor with his secret cycle of friends and earns a spot on his clandestine clan, SmurfsAnonymous. And here she not only finds XP boots, better loot, new quest, and challenges, but also a means to what she wants more than anything else... if she can keep herself from being kicked by her new clan leader.
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"Why do we play? Because in every gamer there is a desire to win. That desire is intertwined in our every attempt, and in no one was it more apparent than the noob."
-Streamer Ronald Rogers
BREAKING META
The Noob and the Sherpa
Chapter 01.00.000
Arcstar Online's title hovered in the foreground and behind it churned an expanding codex of time, space and matter, and alongside its celestial orbit sailed the age-old ambition to bind them all together.
The main menu faded away into the darkness and a reverberating ping sounded alongside a visual notification.
Welcome T@ctic@lToster!4
Tactical materialized, quite out of place, in a dark corridor and fell toward the floor, landing with her head down in a heroic pose. She looked up. Three Nwor warriors charged down the corridor guns blazing. She pulled out her newly forged energy rifle and released a stream of scarlet energy. The enemies' attacks reached her first. Their ballistic rounds ate into her shields, sending sparks like blue shavings of light bouncing off the walls of the dark corridor. But her shield bar barely budged. She far out-leveled them. The incoming fire slowed and then halted as the Nwor warriors buckled and melted under the heat of her weapon. The corridor was silent. Only blue and red debris moved. Like snowflakes on an early winter morning, they settled to the floor. Confident the coast was clear, Tactical opened the overheat valve of her weapon and sprinted forward.
The door ahead was open, and beyond that was an open balcony. A chieftain stepped in the way, brandishing his battle axe. Swapping to her melee weapon she slashed him aside and with no reservations burst over the threshold of the door and sprang off the balcony in one a leaping bound. She streaked through the dark air of the labyrinth that was the raid boss's chamber. Every minion took notice of her entrance. They roared with rage. The raid boss reared up from his resting position and prepared to smite her from the air. None of their responses mattered. Still clutching her sword, she pulled out the wings of triumph, a formidable sidearm forged in the fires of Eidulon and imbued with the heart of Junn, the fallen lord of Ode, and pulled back the hammer. A single shot echoed through the chamber and all fell silent. The boss was defeated. Shimmering loot cascaded from his tumbling corpse and settled upon the floor in a glorious bundle of arcanes and epics; and atop it, like the crown upon a pile of diamonds, shined a much sought after legendary (drop). Tactical landed on the floor of the chamber and slid, attempting to scoop it all up in one go. The loot lurched away from her. She stood, thinking she must have miss calculated the distance somehow and come up short, and sprinted toward them; but they moved again. Awkwardly she lept for them with her arms spread wide, but she only landed painfully with no reward. The faster she moved the faster they fled from her.
The ground began to incline steadily, prompting her to scamper up the increasing grade on her hands and knees while panic spread through her stomach. As the floor rotated to a ninety-degree angle, her feet slipped off the steel surface, and for a split second her gut rose up into her throat, bringing with it her panic, and now fear, before it all dropped back into her stomach as she spun head over heels into the darkness below. She frantically looked about and grasped at the air hoping to catch hold of anything. But the only thing she glimpsed was the loot repeatedly rotating in and out of view, each time getting farther and farther away as she descended until, with a jolt, she was ripped from the avatar of her dreams.
The one named Tactical rolled onto her side and opened her eyes. A very cold, real, breeze blew on her as she lay still on her bed. She blinked and breathed deeply.
To be continued...
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