Earlier That Day

Davoth stepped out through the gates of Kordas under the giant grey stone archway with the afternoon sun shining bright in the sky, leaving behind him the vast capital city of Kalmoore. Giant towers and magnificent buildings of varying colored roofs lined his backdrop. In front of him was the road back towards Orm, with a few farmsteads dotting the landscape around the outskirts of the large stone walls that wrapped around the city. He double checked his equipment to make sure he had everything he’d wanted from Kordas, a nice new longbow on his back with a set of leather armor, and all of his beginner Archer class skills.

He opened up his friends messaging interface to see Winter was still online, he had sent a few messages to Winter letting him know he had finished his last quest in Kordas and would be coming soon, but Winter hadn’t checked the messages yet to initiate voice communications.

“I wonder what that guy is doing…” Davoth whispered to himself curiously as he began walking forward.

“Davoth? You’re Derrick, right?” A female voice shouted to him from behind. He turned to see Silentwire rushing through the gates, but not towards him - she was running to a large stables that sat on the side of the road just outside the gate where several other players were loitering about.

“Y-yeah. Oh hey, Silentwire! Selena? How’s it going? You heading back to Orm now too?” Davoth asked excitedly.

“We gotta hurry, Keldan’s going after Winter again.” She shouted with urgency.

“Heh?” Davoth asked, confused. He pulled up his Simbox menu to open the livestream viewer. He typed in Keldan into the search bar, but nothing came up. Then he typed in Winter - still nothing. “How do you know? Did Winter say something? Keldan’s not even streaming…” Davoth replied while walking to follow behind her. He watched as Silentwire began bartering with the stablemaster about borrowing a horse.

“He’s streaming. For some reason the Virtual Gaming Network is suppressing him from search results, but I had a direct link. Here-” Silentwire sent a party invitation to Davoth, who quickly accepted. When the party interface appeared, Davoth saw that not only was Silentwire in his party, but Winter.

“He’s in your group?”

“Yeah, he’s not paying attention to any of the messages, so don’t bother trying. Look.” Silentwire shared a stream ID with Davoth. He clicked it to see Keldan’s stream pop up. It showed him walking around Orm forest with his companions, talking to his chat about how they’ll be camping out and waiting for Winter to leave so that they could ‘play’ with him.

“Man that guy’s annoying.” Davoth groaned.

“You coming?” Silentwire asked. In the time Davoth was looking at Keldan’s stream, she had gone into the stables and retrieved two borrowed horses, and was now leading them out onto the road, both already geared up for riding.

“Y-yeah. Of course… but, I don’t know how to ride a horse.”

“It’s easy, just hop on and you’ll get the beginner skill within a few minutes.” Silentwire smiled as she hopped on her own horse. Davoth approached the horse awkwardly, trying his best to mimic Silentwire. He fumbled off a few times before finally getting on the saddle and settling his feet in the stirrups, awkwardly grabbing the reins.

“You ready? We gotta go fast if we want to get back by nightfall. Just have to hope Winter doesn’t leave Orm until then.” Silentwire said, but she didn’t wait for Davoth to reply. “Hyah!” She whipped the reins and her horse took off running along the road.

“Uh.. Hyah..” Davoth tried copying her, and the horse took off as well, nearly sending him flying off its back. “Aaaaah I don’t like this!!” He screamed while grabbing on for dear life.

-------

The sun had set by the time their horses passed over the stone bridge leading into Orm from the east. Silentwire pulled her horse to a stop just outside the Orm stables sitting on the edge of the village. She gracefully hopped off the horse and led it into the stables, and as she was talking to the Stablemaster about her borrowing fee, Davoth’s horse trotted up to the stables as well.

Davoth’s face was pale, his cheeks sunken in. He looked as though he had nearly died multiple times, but his stamina and health were perfectly fine.

“D-did you get the Horseback Riding skill?” Silentwire asked him while looking at him with guilt.

“I don’t want it. I don’t want to ever ride a horse again. Humans invented cars for a reason.” Davoth replied as he tumbled off the horse. “That thing, it’s evil.” He pointed at the horse aggressively. Silentwire laughed awkwardly as she led his horse to the stables as well, getting gold back from the borrowing fee for returning the horses unharmed.

“We made it though, Keldan hasn’t found Winter yet, so he’s probably still somewhere in Orm. Let’s split up and find him.” Silentwire suggested.

“I’ll check the Craftsman Guildhall first.” Davoth replied. The two began walking around Orm, quickly asking guards and other players if they had seen Winter around. A few players mentioned seeing him around the Craftsman Guildhall, but not recently. Herilon, who was keeping watch of the town square, overheard Davoth as he asked a Kalmoore guard about him, piquing his interest as he saw the sense of urgency from Davoth. Just as Herilon was about to approach and ask him what was happening, Silentwire ran up from Davoth from the surrounding crowds.

“A bunch of priests and other players headed north a bit ago to do a quest. Someone said they saw Winter with them. Lets go before it's too late!” Silentwire tugged Davoth’s shoulder before breaking into a sprint northward. Davoth didn’t hesitate to follow her.

“Hm.” Herilon squinted at them curiously as they got further and further away.

The two of them ran as fast as they could through the forest to the north, but it was dark and there was little to no sense of direction, atleast until there was a sudden bright flash of red flame that lit up the sky straight ahead a good distance away.

“That’s gotta be them, come on let’s hurry!” Silentwire shouted to Davoth, at which point she took off at an incredible speed, leaving Davoth in the dust.

“W-wait… I’ll be there… in a second…”

Present

“I can’t pull up my pants, it’s the ultimate weapon.” Winter rejected Davoth’s suggestion, he remained standing in the clearing while putting his finger back on the filter button.

“Tell that girl to give me back my wand.” Keldan shouted at Winter. Winter shuffled around to face Keldan again.

“No.”

“These guys are just making fools of us.” Rocknight shook his head in disbelief as he walked away from the center of the clearing to rejoin his companions.

“Let’s just forget it, eh Keldan?” Swiftstar suggested, also walking towards Keldan. Winter saw them begin to argue amongst themselves in a huddle, and took the time to notice Silentwire was still too embarrassed to look at him. He relented, pulling up his pants, and enabled party voice chat.

“How’d you guys find me?”

“He’s streaming.” Davoth replied while pointing at Keldan.

“Oh, yeah, right. Thanks for the save Silentwire.” He smiled, and she gave a nod back, slowly warming up to looking at him again.

“I think you demoralized them, looks like they’re leaving.” Davoth motioned to them with a nod, watching them bicker. Winter turned to face them as well and thought for a moment.

“Do you guys mind dying with me?” Winter said in a serious tone, turning back to look at his friends. Both of them saw that, despite all of his antics up until this point with Keldan, he looked pissed off.

“I’m almost out of time on the Simbox today anyway.” Davoth shrugged.

“What do you have in mind?” Silentwire smiled. Winter turned from them and walked back towards Keldan, seeing them preparing to leave while still arguing with each other.

“Oi, where the hell do you think you guys are going? Now that it's three against four, you’re leaving?” Winter shouted at them from across the clearing, causing them to all stop and turn.

“No, we’re leaving because you’re not taking anything seriously, pulling down your pants and whatever.” Keldan retorted in frustration, the others nodding.

“Heeeeh?” Winter snarled at them aggressively. “Aren’t you the one not taking this seriously? You threaten me with that wand and with killing me, and I did everything in my power to stop you.”

“Yeah, whatever, you win, good job. I underestimated your pervertedness, next time I’ll have the filter on.” Keldan said dismissively.

“There won’t be a next time. I’m tired of you showing up, getting in my way because you’re trying to live off of Makaroth’s fame. Let’s settle this right now. Fight us, and if we win, you’ll leave us alone for good.”

“Is he serious?” Keldan said jokingly to his companions, Vriflow shrugged while Rocknight chuckled, but Swiftstar took him at face value and glared back.

“I’m dead serious. Unlike you, I’m not interested in living off of someone at the top. I’m aiming to be at the top. And you’re in my way.” Winter spoke coldly, his words seemed to hit a soft spot for all of them, the laughing and mocking stopped.

“Isn’t that just a lose-lose situation for us? For beating three low levels, no one’s going to care.” Swiftstar interjected.

“If you beat us, we’ll give you the wand back.” Winter motioned to it still being twirled in Silentwire’s hands.

“Fine. You’ve really got such a big ego that you think three level 10’s can beat four level 30’s? Basic dueling rules, then. First party to lose a member loses the fight.” Keldan replied confidently. Winter switched to party communications. He looked in his party interface to see that Davoth was now the class Archer.

“Do you have the skill Redirect?” Winter asked him.

“Yeah, why?” Davoth asked.

“Can you use it on any arrow you’ve shot, or just the last one?”

“Any, I guess...”

“How many times?”

“It’s pretty low mana, I guess 35.” Davoth did some quick math in his head while looking at his maximum mana. Winter pulled out the mana potion from his inventory and tossed it to Davoth who caught it, looking at it closely. “50 with this.” Davoth replied. The three turned to see that Keldan and the others had drawn their weapons and began to spread out, Keldan giving a speech to his 6000 viewers now, which they ignored.

“Okay, Silentwire, keep their attention on Vriflow. She’s a priest so they’ll expect it. You’ll swap targets when I call it out. Davoth, hide in the shadow of the trees and let me know once you’ve fired all 50 arrows, and I’ll call out the target.”

“W-what, wait, huh?” Davoth replied confused. “What am I shooting at?”

“The moon. Make sure to shoot as high as you can so they stay airbourne for as long as possible.” Winter replied. Davoth looked at him confused for a few more seconds until he figured out what Winter was planning and nodded.

“We don’t have an official timer, so how about I count down?” Keldan shouted across the clearing. “Three…” Winter and Silentwire both turned to face them, walking a few steps forward as Davoth stepped back towards the trees. “Two…” Silentwire put the wand in her inventory and drew her dagges out. “One…”

“Remember, just survive, only make them think you’re trying to kill them.” Winter gave his final instruction to Silentwire who nodded obediently.

"Duel start!" Keldan shouted with excitement.