Chapter 3

The three super-guilds, the Devastators, Heaven’s Dawn and Blood Rage had put bounties up for the locations or deaths of the draugr, Mr. Skeletal, and the Elven hunter, Lone Arrow.

Unlike the previous bounty on Dave, this one had a staggering monetary reward.

One million USD, cold hard IRL cash.

All three of the bounty papers included clauses that stated if Mr. Skeletal surrendered himself to the guild he would be given the reward amount and a premium membership in the guild.

But if Dave surrendered to one of the guilds, he would just be someone else’s subordinate. Working for the ‘man’, or ‘Guild’.

Solo gaming is hard, lonely and filled with danger. But when the player reaches his goal, the sense of satisfaction they get is incomparable and addictive.Dave didn’t want to give that up for a ‘desk’ job in some guild, to be nagged at all day.

“We are wanted! I’d love to see anyone try to get us!”

“The guildies will hunt us down now, you should be careful.’

‘Thanks for worrying, but I know what I am doing’

“I got some stuff to do in-game, cya,” said Dave

“Ok, I will have to do some edits on the video, see ya Davy.”

Lone hummed along to Bohemian Rhapsody as she sat at her computer endlessly refreshing her email. Finally a new message appeared. She clicked on it, bouncing in the chair with excitement. It was the video file from Dave she’d been waiting for.

“Time to work some magic,” she said under her breath.

Curious, she played the last few minutes of the footage and saw the fight between Dave and Warlord.

Lone Arrow’s eyes widened

Dave tangled with Warlord one-on-one for the zone-flag?!

The video showed Warlord yelling “SKELETAL! You are going to die here!” Followed by fast chaotic movement. Glimpses of the Devastators guildmaster chasing, mowing through Undead minions blocking his way. Then Warlord was telling Dave there was “Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.”

A running duel between the two Player characters ensued. Their vastly unequal levels were evident as the draugr used a Skill to counter every one of Warlord’s relentless attacks. But Dave was only delaying the inevitable. He had a limited repertoire of Skills and his opponent was an unmatched expert and longtime veteran of the game.

Growing impatient, Warlord launched his nuclear-option, the awesome Legacy Skill [God’s Fist]. Unable to avoid or negate the attack, Mr. Skeletal went out in true blaze-of-glory fashion. The video image turned gray and the system death-notification appeared.

Lone sagged in her seat, profound sadness swept through her. She felt like her favorite team just lost a world championship. She knew there was no way Dave could possibly defeat a Player more than 300 levels higher. But it still sucked. Not just because Dave was her friend. He was the ‘little guy,’ the underdog, and everyone wants the underdog to win. It gave people hope.

Her analytical side poked at her and she focused on the video again. The raid-zone flag was visible, there was nothing to stop Warlord from taking it before the last few seconds on the quest timer ran out.

But the Undead faction had won, they still controlled the raid-zone. And where was the system message for completing the bonus quest to kill the draugr?

Wait! The video was still going, Dave was still inside of the temple, looking at Warlord in grayscale.

Warlord turned toward the flag.

Color returned to the image. The point of view moved.

Mr. Skeletal was moving! He was back!

Silently the draugr moved up on Warlord, getting closer. He made a mystical gesture and an enormous demonic head appeared directly behind Warlord, tilting back as it opened its jaws. Warlord started to turn and was engulfed with a deafening roar quickly followed by awful wet crunching and tearing sounds.

“Holy sh…!” Lone barely caught herself just in time. Her father didn’t like his little girl using bad words. He’d started a Family Rule a few months ago. Whenever she said a bad word the house computer recorded it and she had to put a C-note in the Cuss Jar. The money came straight out of her allowance, and boy did it add up. She hadn’t gone on a shopping spree in weeks.

But. ‘HOLY FUCKING SHIT!’ Lone screamed silently to herself, ‘Dave pwned Warlord!’

Mr. Skeletal, level 100 draugr, killed WARLORD, level 432, number one player in the game, Legacy holder and guildmaster of the Devastators!

‘And I have the video showing it all!’

She scrambled, setting up and editing the content for smoothness and flow. She tweaked the lighting and color, threw in a dash of sound effects and added low background music.

Lone did the fine cut on the scene to make it even more dramatic than it already was. Now it really POPPED!

Crossing her fingers she uploaded and published it. She knew her other videos would go viral hot, but THIS one was going to crash the servers.

Lone’s phone rang as she received a text message

‘Chek out the video at time 11:32, it’s a good show.’

‘Alright,’ Lone typed back searched for the part.

The shot was of Dave taunting Wan Yi to his death.

‘Duuuude!! You took out TWO of the Big Three guildmasters!!!’

‘Yea. I’m going to finish a big quest, so I will be off the radar for awhile.”

‘Same here, I need to grind out my Legacy quest, and level up.’

‘Okay. L8rs.’ typed Dave.

Lone’s eyes perked when a notification popped in her screen, “The video’s up!”

Dave slept deeply and woke up feeling refreshed. He started some eggs for breakfast and sipped his morning coffee while they cooked.

Dave looked at the forums and enjoyed the comments. Many low level players were actually dissing the Haters from the three super guilds who were insulting and downgrading Mr.Skeletal’s achievements.

This lightened Dave’s mood to the new day. Refreshed, Dave finished his breakfast and logged back into the game, appearing back in the first Raid-zone, The Undead Frontier now.

Notifications filled his vision.

The system has calculated the Contribution Point awards for the deaths accrued during the Event.

As the only Player in the Undead Legion faction you are entitled to 100% of the Points.

You have been awarded 1,500,000 Contribution Points

You also receive 5000 Contribution Points for each day the First Raid-Zone is controlled by the Undead Faction.

“Whoaaa!”