Chapter 1: The end?

Drakus POV

I look up at the golden statue of my player character with eyes full of amazement. Even though I walked by it millions of time already, it was only now that I fully recognize the detail.

*Huhh, I’m really going to miss this, all of this.*

I stood staring at the statue that looked exactly like my player character. My player character was a draconian, half dragon and half human. Although the gold statue was large, it still captured my characters height of 6’4. Even the chisel feature and the body was clearly shown. Because it was gold it wasn’t able to show off my red eyes but perfectly complement my short blonde hair. I wore an armor made of dragon scale with skin that exposes some of my reals scales and spikes sticking out of my lower jaw and temple. In my left arm it holds an ornate shield while the right held out a sword carved out of a dragon’s bone (Search up ornate shield if you don’t know what it is.)

I simply stood there and admire the statue as it would be the last time I ever see it again. After 15 years of running, Eternia was finally shutting down. Players started to log off and quit one by one as the date drew closer and closer.

“And today’s the day.”

I said with a low sigh.

“Feels like only yesterday that I was able to buy this game and explore world. Those were some good times.”

While I was reminiscing the past, a voice snapped me out of it. A small screen popped up in front of me, requesting to talk.

XXX: “Hey Drak, where are you?” “The rest of the guys are here, come on!”

I message him back “Alright, I’m on my way.”

Currently I was in the Grand Sanctuary, our guilds stronghold located in the Kaoth Continent. The outside appearance is similar to that of a museum combined with a mausoleum. The building extends way deeper and has a total of 10 floors. The first 8 floors are referred to as sanctum, and each one of them have different over-world.

Guilds can be expanded upon by paying real money to add in new feature. We all pitched in to help pay for what the guild building would be today, however one of the guild member was quite rich and paid for the remaining 2/3 of the total cost. Because he paid for most of it, we allowed him the liberty of choosing the layout of the guild building.

During that time, he was captivated by a novel from the 21th century, a novel called ‘Overlord’. As such he model the Grand Sanctuary after the stronghold in the book. A structure with a main building at the top and subsequent floors downward. A couple of the members voiced their concern at the layout but ultimately conceded when we reminded them it was his choice.

Beginning at the top was the Earth Sanctum. The floor is filled mountain ranges and a replica of the Grand Canyon but only bigger. 2nd is the Ocean Sanctum, a huge area filled with water. There were islands here and there but as the name applied, it was a vast ocean. 3rd is the Frozen Sanctum. The area is covered in thick snow and heavy snowstorms. 4th is Inferno Sanctum, the area is populated with volcanoes and molten ashes. 5th holds the Sky Sanctum, a world completely composed of clouds. There are floating building with design that is based off the romans architecture. 6th is the Night Sanctum, an area that is constantly dark and a giant moon overhead. The area has a dense forest and a giant castle in the middle. 7th is the Dragon Sanctum. An area filled with large mountain spires and a clear blue sky. Finally there’s the 8th sanctum, the Galaxy Sanctum. The area is filled with stars and planets rotating around. The platforms are flat asteroids and every hour a comet will soar over the area. The 9th and 10th floors are referred to as the outer and inner sanctum. This was where the guild members resign, sleep and where we can meet up and chat.

One of the biggest feature to a guild building is being able to populate your halls with NPC monster. This feature is heavy prominent in guild raids. You can assign any monster in the game into your guild hall depending on what they are and their assign level. Each one of our over-world holds tons of different variety of monster that fit with each world nicely. It even takes one step further, by having you design and program your own NPC. From designing what they look like to their class and equipment’s. Depending on the guild and how big it is, the max you can have is around 50 created NPCs.

There are limitation to the system to keep it fair. The total level of all created NPC can’t exceed 4350. This is to limit players from making all the NPC level 100. Unlike the player characters, you only have a certain amount of points to put into your NPC specs. This again is to limit players from making extremely powerful NPCs.

You can earn the rights to create a free NPC when your guild reaches a certain amount of members. If your guild has around 200 members then you get your first NPC. You would need around 450 for another, 800 for the next and so on. There’s a threshold and after that you have to pay real money to create another NPC. Crimson Strife was one of 250 guilds that was able to have 50 created NPC.

I activated the guild ring and teleported to the 9th floor, the outer sanctum and made my way forward. Guild rings are rings that allow one to quickly transport to anywhere within the guild building. The only way to get it is to be a member, and the only way to become a member is to be approve by 4 of the founding members.

I walked down the onyx and gold hallway until I soon reach our guilds flag located just outside the Inner Sanctum. Before any guild is finalize, they must first created their design/logo to distinguish themselves. Ours was simple, we had a sword, staff, and a bow crossing each other. The flag not only symbolize the guild but it literally represent the Guild. In guild raids the only way to win is either make the enemy surrender or destroy their flag. Their second most important function are in dungeon raids. At the end of every dungeon you would plant a copy of your flag to show that you defeated the raid. On it, it would etched all the players’ name that participated in the raid. This is more for the community to see who was able to beat the dungeon.

While I was remembering all the past raids that I’ve participated in, I heard a voice call out to me.

XXX: So this is where you are.

I turn around and saw him walk towards me.

The person was around 5’8, a decent build, and had a kind look on his face where if you were to meet him randomly and strike a conversation, you would become friends with this guy instantly. The guy's look on the other hand was a different matter. In short he looks like your typical anime hero protagonist. He wore a robe that looks of a leather duster and arctic long coat mixed. On his hand he has light gauntlets that have magic symbols on them. He had on a long black pants with several belt buckles attach here and there. Going back to his face, it was like a generic anime face minus the large spikey hair. His hair was more flat and combed. Most of his hair was white except for some part of it being black near the top. His eyes are heterochromia, with his left eye has a black pupil with a brown iris. While his right eye has a magenta pupil with a golden blue iris. This was due to him choosing the race, Alvians. Alvians were one of the chosen creature that you could play as. They have huge mana pools but have low health and weak to physical attacks. Very few people actually choose them as a starting species as it very hard to master. He also has a bag slouched over one his sides which gave his character a scholarly feeling.

This person was one of my oldest friends in the game and one of the founding members, Nu-Ru.

“Hey. Sorry that I took so long, I kept on getting distracted on my way here.”

I see him start to look at our flag as he walks towards me.

Nu-Ru: “I know what you mean. When they announce the shutdown I started to notice the building in a different light. Now I’m looking at every nook and cranny with bewilderment. I’m really going to miss all of this.”

I couldn’t help but smile inward. He was one of my first friend when I started to play the game. We had so many thing in common that we could have been brothers from different families. While I was thinking this, another thought occurred in my mind

“Hey, how did you find me anyway?”

He looked at me and pointed his thumb behind him.

Behind him stood a tall beauty. Around 6 feet to 6’1 in height. Her skin was tan, not to dark but more of a deep tan, while her hair was rose red. Her face was beautiful, as if every feature was sculpted by the most delicate of hands. Even if you threw dirt at her face, it still wouldn’t lose any of its luster. Her eyes had an almond color. She wore a military uniform that was colored primarily red. There were golden designs on the sleeves and collar. A small white mini cape draped over her right shoulder. The uniform looked to prioritize mobility over defense. Its design also manage to show off her voluminous breast and ample bottom. She had 2 weapons holstered on her hips, a pair of bayonets. The blade resemble those that were used by the British during the 1700’s. The hilt of the weapons were a mix of gold and black with design of roses on them. She had an aura of power and respect but was also able to show her feminine side as well. Her entire demeanor and posture seems to derive back from British or the English back then. She was a created NPC and her name is Altina, the grand Guardian.

Nu-Ru: “I had her use her Overseer ability.”

*Oh yeah, the Overseer class has that kind of ability*

[Overseer] was one of the 200 subclasses that one could pick. It was a class mostly for dungeon raids. With the [Overseer] class, it allows the person to have a command point of view. He/she is able to locate their teammates almost anywhere so long as they’re in the party and also have the ability to look at each player character status. (They can see how much health, mana they have, equipment equip, buffs activated, etc…) It was a class that required tons of skill to fully master it.

“You know if we were to play hide and seek, she would probably win all the time”

I said trying to crack a random joke. To my surprise he gave a small chuckle at my rather horrible joke.

Nu-Ru: “Yeah her ability is quite useful in certain situations. Anyway come on, there’s only like 14 minutes left before the game shuts down and the others are still waiting for you”

“You’re right, let’s go!”

With that all 3 of us walked to the inner sanctum and towards the council room.

While walking Nu-Ru said “Hey I’ve always been wondering this, but why does she follow you everywhere when you’re in the guild building?”

“I’ve never really thought much about it. But yeah I did notice that she did do that a lot.”

Nu-Ru: "You never tried to check or change her settings?"

Created NPC were still programs that needed commands and inputs to function. Players would put in traits or certain feature and the computer would do its best to follow that command.

*Having her following me around when I’m here means that someone must have a put a command in her settings.*

I moved my hand over to her and opened up her up her settings. A small rectangular box appeared and a mass flood of text and information flashed through the screen. I scrolled down the walls of text until I got into the specific inputs. I scrolled until I reached the bottom.

There were only 2 commands that stood out the most. The first was “Undying loyalty to the guild and guild master.” The second was “Completely in love with guild master, Drakus.”

*Considering the 2 commands kind of overlap each other and the nature of them, her following me makes much more sense now.*

“I think I found out found our mystery.”

Nu-Ru: “What was it then?”

“She has 2 commands, Undying loyalty to me and the guild and is completely in love with me.”

Nu-Ru: “Hmm, that’s interesting, wonder who put those commands in her. So you going to get rid of the completely in love command?”

“No, and I have 2 reasons for that. The first being that I have no right to change the settings. They were made by our guild members that poured in their time and money to create her.”

Before Altina, we had 49 created NPC. We were so close to having 50 NPC that almost the entire guild chipped in and funded together to make her.

“The other members have just as much rights to her as I do, what kind person would I be if got rid of something without their consent. The 2nd reason is that the game is shutting down anyway. Doesn’t matter if I got rid of it now, it’ll be gone eventually.”

Nu-Ru: “You’re right, guess it doesn’t really matter does it?”

After walking for about another minute, we reached our destination.

We stopped at large metal double door that was decorated with multiple golden designs and was made out of black obsidian.

Behind it was the council room, this was where many of the higher tier guild members and founding members go to talk and plan for events.

I pushed open the door and went in. A large creaking sound accompanied it as we walked in I looked around and notice 6 people about and talking.

XXX: “So you’ve finally decided to show up, nyaa? Here I thought we might had to say our goodbyes without you, nyaa.”

I looked to my left to see another one of my friends and one of the first female founding members, Kaetzchen. (German for kittycat)

She was around 5’8 and she’s a Katiñ, essentially a race of cat like people.

Her outfit, or lack of it consist of what seem like Bikini combined with a lingerie with was sleeveless. They covered her rather large breast and lower region and seemed to emphasize them. A small black cape was attach to behind her clothes. She wore light armored leggings up till her knees. On her left hand holds a gauntlet with spiked finger, while the right hand held a black gauntlet with 3 5inch blades extended from the knuckle region. The only place that wasn’t clothes were her stomach, part of her legs, her arm and her tail. They were covered with golden yellow and bright orange fur. Her face was similar to a cat as well. Her hair was sharply cut with edges with 2 cat ears sticking out of her head. Her facial feature included whiskers, little bit of fur from her neck to her lower jaw. Her eyes looked exactly like a cat as well.

“Sorry, I kept getting distracted while I was on my way.”

XXX: “It’s cool man, but next time check in and tell us. Kitty here was worried that you might miss all of us saying goodbye.”

Kaetzchen: “I was not, nyaa!” she said with a pouting face.

The man standing next to her was her best friend, Trion Jazz. He was a little bit shorter than me, around 6’2 or 6’1. He had a fit build similar to mine. He wore a skintight black suit that seems similar to a jumpsuit and looked to be part of his skin. It also had a neon-blue outline that spread throughout his entire body that started from his chest. He has a neon visor that covered his eyes. He had long black and brown dread locks that reached to his neck. A total of 4 small sound speakers were attached to his outfit. 1 on each shoulder and 2 on his waist belt. Along with small circular neon disc that covered part of his arms and leg, constantly spinning.

While they were playfully fighting I walked over to 3 people who were talking near the table.

“Hey, sorry for the hold up.”

XXX: “About time you showed up, what kind of person plans an event but doesn’t get there in time? Seriously waiting for someone is f*cking annoying.”

The man who answered was a talking skeleton, Manom. His character is a lich. His clothes were completely black, black robes, boots, pants, gauntlet, etc… His black robes was adorned with many purple flourish designs. The only thing that wasn’t covered was his face, which was composed of a deer skull without the horns. In the eye sockets there were red orbs that serves as the eye. In his left hand holds a staff completely made out of bones with magical orbs aligned on it.

XXX: “Manom is right, we were about to leave if you didn’t came.”

Next to Manom was his brother, Arsenal. He was around 6’6, a lean and muscular body. His character is an Ogre. His entire is black with red and blue tattoos etched over the body. He wore an open brown leather duster that showed off his chest. He wore what seems like a jean and a black leathery pants. His entire left arm was covered with magical symbols and incantations. The right arm has a gauntlet just like Kaetzchen, spiked fingers and small curve blades sticking out on the top. Unlike the regularly generic ugly orc, ogre were more human like in appearance and hard sharper teeth’s then a regular human. He has quite a handsome and had sharp look to him. He has long disheveled hair which was grey. A long scar was located on his left eye. On his back he has a crystal red spear and a Zweihänder. On his belt he holds 2 other weapons. A claymore on the left while a katana on his right side, holstered.

They were brothers and they had a sibling rivalry. They hate each other guts, they would make everything into a competition in order to one up the other. This also shows in their characters. Arsenal has always been fighter, preferring to jump into the enemy and fight them head on. Manom is a careful fighter, attacking when they’re vulnerable or sending summons to attack and picking off enemies.

XXX: “Arsenal, Manom you don’t need to be rude, no one’s perfect, so lay off.”

The one who defended me was the 2nd female founding member, Reptillia.

Her character is an argoanian, basically lizard people. Her height is around 5’7 and she had a tail sticking out. She wore essentially a ninja outfit. Completely black with some blue outlines with reinforce armor pieces along the chest, shoulder and knees. A brown scarf hanged from her neck with strange marking on it. Her gauntlets housed 2 hidden blades. On her belt there was a bunch of weapons attached. Shurikens, kunais, smoke bombs, daggers, poison, etc… Her face was if a lizard and a crocodile mixed together. Her scale skin was completely green and hints of black with several spiked skin sticking out. Namely 2 semi large spikes just above her eyebrows.

“Reptillia, thanks for covering me but they’re right. I’m the one at fault here.”

I made my way to the last of the founding members and the last female member, Shae.Alpha.

I made my way to the table and stood next to her

“Sorry for making you wait.”

“It’s cool, got nothing to do anyway so I wasn’t affected by you being late.”

She had the typical tomboy look. Short cut rough hair, a tall build around 6’1 and fairly modest breast. The only thing different about her was that she was an android. This was one the new character class that you could pick from the Future Cybernetics expansion. Her character is a synthetic while the armor looked to be extensions of her body then separate pieces of clothing. On the back there’s a cog gear that took up most of her back. Her shoulder guard were rectangular and had mechanical parts in them. The same can be said about her arms and legs. There were gaps where you could see the cogs and wires about. Her gantlets were big and bulky with a crystal at the end of the palm. She wore a long white pant that added to her mechanical look. Her face was like a doll but you could still tell that it wasn’t human. Her features were perfect the only thing that gave it away was her eyes. The eyes were somewhat lifeless and were a light blue with black pupil. (Sorry if you can’t fully imagine what she looks, trying to find the right words to describe her was difficult. you should still get some idea as what I was trying to describe.)

Floating next to her head was a small mechanical ball. It was completely mechanical just like her and constantly spinning. It looks almost identical to the Globus cruciger minus the cross. It was entirely silver with gold and red along the ridges. This was her orbitor, a special weapon that follows her commands due to her [android commander] class.

After talking with them I made my way to my seat. The others started to take their seat while Altina stood a distance behind my seat.

I leaned back and took in the view of the counsel room in it’s entirely. The table that we sat in was circular with a hole in the middle. It was made of fine wood and decorated with beautiful carvings. The chairs were made of the same materials with a red cushion for the seats. The back part of the seat is tall and firm and gave a sense of royalty to it. The surrounding area was also filled with the same chairs, around 150 or so.

Manom: “So did you actually plan something or are we just here sucking on our thumbs until the game shutdown?”

“I thought it would be nice if we all met one last time before this is all over. You know like a captain going down with his ship.”

Arsenal: “That’s it? Man, if I had known I wouldn’t have decided to log on. I could have catch some f*cking sleep.”

Shae.Alpha: “No one said you had to join us. Why don’t you leave right now if it’s bothering you so much?”

Kaetzchen: “Now, now kittens shouldn’t fight amongst each other, nyaa.”

Reptillia: “She’s right, let’s enjoy what little time we have left.”

While they talking to each other, I looked to my right and noticed Nu-Ru in deep thought. He had both of his hands on his chin and was looking downward. A signature trait when he’s in deep thought.

“Hey what are you thinking about?”

Nu-Ru: “I just find this whole situation strange.”

The other stopped their conversations and started to focus on us.

Trion Jazz: “What do you mean?”

Nu-Ru: “Why would they suddenly shutdown Eternia? No matter how I look at it, it doesn’t make any sense.”

Shae.Alpha: “It’s a game, so it shutting down isn’t all that surprising.”

Nu-Ru: “Under normal circumstances I would agree, but this is different. Eternia is a one of a kind game. No other games have been able to create or improve on what this game has done. So it makes no sense as to why they would shut it down if millions upon millions of players log on every day.”

Reptillia: “Maybe they’re preparing a sequel?”

Nu-Ru: “If so, then how come we haven’t heard anything about it? We’re talking the biggest company in the gaming industry.”

Manom: “He got a point, if there were news about a sequel, practically half of the earth would know about in less than an hour.”

Nu-Ru: “No matter how hard I wrap my head around it, I can’t seem to find a plausible answer.”

Arsenal: “Doesn’t matter now, the game’s going to shut down in like 3 minutes. Nothing we can do about it now.”

Nu-Ru: “Sigh. You’re right but still it doesn’t feel right.”

At that point the mood became sour and depressed.

*There’s no way we can end all of this on a depressing note. Come on, think! What’s a memorable experience that we all shared?*

“Hey remember the first dungeon raid we did?”

I looked around, hopping my sudden announcement would bring up any memories. I saw Nu-Ru cracked a small smile.

Nu-Ru: “You mean the raid that took us literally 23 tries before we beat it?”

“That’s the one!”

Nu-Ru: “I specifically remember when Manom tried to resurrect that golem and got himself killed by another one.”

Manom: “Hey! I was just curious and that was the first time I got that spell.”

Trion jazz: “Whatever dude.”

Manom: “Alright fine, but what about that time where you literally ran into the attack of the golem swing?”

Arsenal: “I remembered that, I was rolling on the ground laughing my ass off!”

Kaetzchen: “Says the guy that thought it was a good idea to agro 13 skeletons to our position, nyaa.”

Shae.Alpha: “If I remembered correctly, you were the first one to die because you wanted to kill them all. You were such a knuckle brain back then and still are”

Arsenal: “Oh if we’re going to find faults then what about the time where we were at the boss and you cast a speed buff on us rather than a defense buff?”

Shae.Alpha: “Ahhh, don’t bring that up! Seriously I made one mistake alright! Besides we still beat it.”

Nu-Ru: “The rest of you beat it, me and Arsenal both died because of that mistake.”

Even now when we’re talking and bickering with one another, it was fun. All the memories, fights, raids, quests, and friends.

We all started around the same time, around when the game was release for about 8 years. Hard to believe it’s been that long.

“I’m really going to miss all of you.”

Those words rang true. This was game is my only interaction between them. We all live across the world from one another. Even if we were to someone meet up, it would be awkward especially with our age difference. The youngest of us being Shae and Nu-Ru at 18 and 19. The oldest is Kaetzchen at 33, while I’m around 27.

They all looked at me and nodded. No doubt thinking the same thing. I check the virtual clock and it reads 12:59:43

*17 seconds until shutdown.*

I watched the time until there was only 10 seconds left. I closed my eyes and counted.

“10 ……… 9 …….. 8 ……..7”

Soon I started to hear the others start to count down. I opened one of my eyes and saw them do the same thing. They closed their eye“5”s and waited for the end.

“4” *After this I need to hit the bed, got a big day tomorrow.*

“3” *Wonder what I’m going to do from now on?*

“2” *Maybe I should take this chance and find a girlfriend? How long has it been since I had one, 3 years, 5?*

“1” *Whatever, I’m sure I’ll think of something to pass the time.*

“0”

………………………….

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Hope you enjoyed the bonus chapter. The next one will be uploaded in 3 days or if I finish writing another chapter before then.