Gold Raid Arc 1 Chapter 3

(Hack and Slash)

            Luke

            When I got home, I dropped my bag at the front door and raced up the stairs to my computer rig. I booted it up, and log into EDO as fast as I could. I was dying of anxiety, wondering if she really was telling the truth. The home page popped up on my screen, I typed in my username and password faster than human eye could see. The loading screen popped up and I waited to enter one of the servers. Finally I spawned in the middle of town to find a small surprise on at the bottom of my HUD.

            There was a small blinking icon on my mailbox, It was from an admin. I wondered what the contents of the message would hold; for some reason I had an unpleasant feeling about this.

            “Dear Luke

            I am very sorry to have to bare you this unpleasant news. At 9:24 AM 20/04/20XX your account was hacked by an anonymous party. We tried all in our power to stop this crime, but in the end we could not even track them down. Because we are unaware of the contents stolen and legal issues we are unable to compensate for any stolen possessions. We are truly sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

            -Admin K”

            I was in a state of disbelief. I tried to rush the through the seven stages of grief to try, and cheat the system of depression after a loss but that didn't work. I hadn't checked my items; anything could be missing. I opened up my inventory and scanned over my equipment. Everything thing was there. I checked my bag and found nothing missing, in fact I found my things were more  organized. It just didn't make any sense. What did they do to my account. I checked everything I had on me and then I realized what they took, wasn't on me.

            I ran into the town bank and opened up my bank account. And sure enough, nothing. There was nothing in my bank account. I went from 100,000,000 to nothing in the blink of an eye. I was finally so close to starting up that guild I always wanted. Never have I experienced so much pain. I've been saving all that gold for at least a year now. And now I would have to start all over again. I just couldn't accept that. The thought of becoming a hacker crossed my mind, but left quickly when I thought of how it would sound to found a guild off of stolen money. I just couldn't overcome the moral obstacle. I was already out of ideas. And just when I thought things couldn't get much worse, a small blinking icon on my HUD.

            It was from Kim. She invited me to a private chat room. This was the moment of truth, to see if Kim really was the same girl.

            “Hey Luke, it's Kim from school. I bet you didn't believe me, did you?” My mind couldn't handle all this chaos at once. I didn't want to think right now.

            “What's wrong? Are you stunned by my very existence on DRO?” she asked.

            “You're a lot different online, than in real life. You seem more energetic now." I stated, as I observed this strange change of character

            "Yea, not many people get to see this side of me. so I guess consider yourself lucky."

            "Hey, you're good with numbers right? do you have any ideas on how I could pull together, some like, one-hundred-million gold pieces?" I said trying my best not to sound insane.

            "What happened to the gold you had in your account?"

            "I got hacked."

            "Wow that fucking sucks. it's going to take you like another year to get that much."

            "I know." I said depressingly.

            “But if you really want to raise up that much money again then why don't why duo Cthulhu? just you and me. just hear me.” she said. First I laughed, then I laughed even harder. Then I questioned if she was just stupid or that was a really bad joke. I waited for a response like “ha jokes, I got you” or “LOL just kidding” but nothing.

            “Are you serious?” I asked.

            “Trust me we can do it” she responded.

            “ARE YOU CRAZY! I WOULDN'T LAST TEN SECONDS IN THAT DUNGEON LET ALONE TAKE ON THE BOSS HIMSELF!” I typed in all caps to sent to her the message that the very thought was absurd. "only one party ever finished that boss, and they were a group of twenty-four!"

            "Well, just hear me out. if we go together just the two of us. then we won't have to split the loot across dozens of people, it'll just be us two, therefore we can get way more gold. It's be just like yesterday, remember how much more gold you got from that raid?” she explained. she raised a good point, but still the very thought of fighting the hardest raid boss with only two people was an absurd idea.

            “Okay fine lets go, just give me a few seconds to do some prep work” I said. I when to my skill tree and changed all my buffs and heals into attack skill; we would need them if we were to take down Cthulhu. I knew she dealt a lot of damage, but I didn’t trust the idea of her doing all the damage alone.

            “Okay! LETS GO!” She said as she ran into the dungeon before I could even take a step. And before I knew it she was out of my sight. The sound of her rapid footsteps were abruptly replaced with a loud shriek. I ran in after her to find her already surrounded by a swarm of enlarged vampire bats. I ran close to the swarm and casted “Divine Intervention” to cut down the swarm. Holy spears rained down from out of nowhere and pierced almost all of the bats, and anything still living was shot down by Kim and the small mech drone that followed her around. I considered running in and protecting her with a shield but I invested all my points into offence so putting a shield would have been useless. We both worked together and worked out way to the final bosses room.

            Kim

            We made it all the way to the bosses room, but something didn’t feel quite right. Luke wasn't supporting me at all, instead he was just dealing damage with his holy skills. This wasn't the teamwork I felt back in our first raid, and this left me feeling unsettled as we were about to duo the hardest boss in the entire game.

            “Okay were here” I said. “let's just be awesome like we were last time and we can definitely do this. And once were done you'll have enough to buy that guild.”

            “Okay. Sounds like a good plan.” He said confidently but his body spoke otherwise. his legs were shaking and his body looked stiff. When I noticed this I walked up to him, and put my hand on his shoulder.

            “Are you nervous?” I ask.

            With a trembling voice he responded “Yes. If we die here our death timers will last for a week. I won't be able to play for a week, I can't afford to miss all that time” He said.

            “Don't worry, we can do this I believe in us.” I said.

            “This is insane. I better get something good out of this” He said.

            “Tell you what, if we pull this off I'll split the loot ninety to ten.” You'll get ninety percent of the loot, that should more than enough to buy your guild right?” I said.

            “alright , I'll do it.” He said.                                   

            And with that we stepped through the giant doors leading into the boss room. We were lead onto what appeared to be an old abandoned ship wreck grave yard. Drift wood and skeletons floating everywhere in the deep green/blue waters. The doors closed behind us; there was no turning back. On the ship we were on, there was a steering wheel with the encryption, “Let calm seas, meet raging storms. With bloody keys, Cthulhu forms.” I picked up a rusty nail off the floor and pricked myself, and with the puncture, I smeared the blood across the wheel and the words began to glow. The clouds above began to swirl and the waters started to form into violent waves. In the distance I could see a tsunami rushing at us. And with this, we knew the Raid had begun.