Chapter 32: Avalon underground prison.

Welcome Marcus Trevor to Downfall of the champions, in order to play you must first create an avatar, then select your name, race and appearance. After all steps are done the system will guide you through your first gameplay.

“System command, enter character creation screen.”

Select your name.

“Kortef.” I use my favorite nick.

Select your race.

“Select? If you say that you have to give me at least some options…” I see as there are 7 different races with multiple sub races, but all of them are locked. There’s only one race and one sub race available. “Race selection: Human, sub race: Heroic bloodline.”

Select your appearance.

“Hmmm…” I start playing with the avatar generator. There are a lot of details that can be customized, just in the face you can chose between 30 different options. “This will not do, I better go with a classic selection. If my mind doesn’t fail me… I think I could use that one…” I pause a moment and start focusing in something, “System command, load gaming avatar stored in [email protected], authentication key 32325858.”

Loading…

…

Authentication successful. Loading 3D digitalization of Marcus Trevor.

…

Avatar loaded.

“Haha, this is just great, this is me back then!” I say joyously. Just now I loaded an avatar that is a digitalization of me when I was 12 years old, when I played my first Virtual Reality RPG. In other words, my avatar has the appearance of a 12 years old brat. “Let’s see… let’s play a little with the voice modulation.” After loading the image of a 12 years old kid, I can’t just speak with my deep tone. I adjust my voice until it is child-like. “Perfect.” I say with confidence.

“Character created successfully. Welcome to Downfall of the Champions.”

As my body adopts the form of my childish avatar, everything starts turning dark. A couple of seconds later I regain control of myself. “Uh? No fancy intro videos?” I say to myself as I try to stand up. Just like that, after creating the character I'm immediately in control of my avatar without any introduction of something.. I’m surrounded by absolute darkness, I only can see a very dim vertical light crack far away from my position.

“Full Dive mode activated.”

“I guess it wasn’t an exaggeration, this is the real deal…” I say softly and I instantly feel a rush of sensations, I almost had to kneel in order to get used to it. After a while, I shake my head and continue walking towards the tiny dim light.

I have no idea if it is because the high level of the VRD or because of the game itself, but I could hear with great detail the echo of each of my steps and the beating of my heart. It was something really fascinating but terrifying at the same time. I stumble a couple of times while walking towards the source of the dim light, I cannot see clearly where I am stepping.

*Step, step, step.*

After walking for a bit more I finally arrive at the light source. Extending my hand I feel the sensation of touching cold steel. “So this is a door.” I say while a lean my body to the door and try to push it.

*Creaaaaaaaaack.*

*THUD.*

After an initial push the door opens widely by itself. “It need a bit of grease.” I say while laughing and then I step out of the door. After getting used to the light, I could see a large corridor. Dozens and dozens of rooms as the one which I stepped out are neatly organized to the left and to the right. I start walking alongside the corridor lit by some sort of white glowing stones. “Nice, the graphic quality is really high, and there are a lot of details.” I say while touching the stone wall with the tip of my fingers.

The corridor seems to extend endlessly but soon an idea comes to my mind, “If I’m not mistaken, there should be 1000 rooms, so it’s not as if this corridor is endless.” I say and then I start jogging. Leaving behind innumerable open rooms, soon I find myself in front of a monumental giant door. The door emits an eerie aura, and has a lot of runes and carvings in it. “For a virtual reality this feelings are quite impressive.” I say while examining the giant door. “Whatever, let’s try le old push.”

I put my hands in each side of the door and then I try pushing it. Right at the moment that I touch the door, it starts glowing with a blinding light and as if accepting being pushed by me, it starts opening with a rumbling noise.

I take two steps forward pursuing the blinding light with my eyes closed and then I feel as everything around me starts to change. The rumbling noise ceases and the light diminishes. Slowly opening my eyes again, I see as the ambience around me changed drastically. I’m no longer in a corridor, but inside a cave, a gigantic cave. A really gigantic cave. The ceiling of the cave is at least 300 meters high, and I couldn’t even see how far the inner walls are from me. I hurriedly look back and notice that the door is actually some sort of portal that I crossed.

Whistling while admiring the spectacular scenery, my gaze slowly descends and comes to rest in the figure of a woman standing in front of me. In fact, calling her a woman is a bit disrespectful, she is truly a goddess. Dressed in a white tunic with an angelical face, a bewitching body, golden hair, and golden eyes, I slowly approach to her. Seeing her dress I couldn’t help but inspect myself, I notice that I’m wearing some sort of old leather armor, it gives the look as if I participated in a hard battle long ago and this armor should belong to a museum.

“Greetings young hero.” The goddess says while bowing respectfully.

“Greetings…” I say but then I pause feeling a bit awkward. ‘Is she an important NPC? How should I treat NPC’s first than all?’ I think to myself. I haven’t played any RPG in a while and I have no idea how much the games have advanced in this topics.

*Chukle.*

The goddess covers her mouth with the back of her delicate white hands, revealing a blissful smile. “Are you thinking about how to treat me or any other NPC?” The goddess says with a sweet voice.

I frown deeply. “Indeed, are you aware of being a NPC?” I ask with curiosity

“Of course,” She says uncovering her mouth and lowering her body to talk to my face, after all, my height now is of a 12 years old kid. “Each NPC is an independent AI. We all have different rolls and different levels of knowledge, but each of us are aware that this is a game, we are the NPCs, and you are the players. We are programmed to have positive reactions if the players treats us well. Likewise, if you don’t, we can be aggressive.”

“That’s indeed impressive, giving self-awareness to god knows how may NPCs must have been a very tiresome work.” I say while nodding vigorously. Giving self-awareness to a NPC while giving such NPC a task to execute can cause massive drawbacks because some lines of programming can contradict themselves.

If it’s like the goddess is saying, then the whole crew of NPCs are like a game master in a card board game, they know the whole plot of the game but they will just reveal the necessary information to the players and they must advance and become stronger.

“Right, then what can you tell me? What I have to do?” I ask the goddess.

“Young hero, you just awoke from a deep slumber. Forgive my impoliteness.” The goddess says while closing the eyes and putting one hand in her heart as a sign of apologies. “My name is Sile, guardian of the Avalon Prison. As for why were all of you imprisoned, that’s a question you will have to gain the knowledge by yourselves. Right now I can only serve you as guide to regain your freedom.”

“In order for you and the rest of the heroic bloodline to return to your home world, you must gain the knowledge of the 10 King Seals, and use them in order to open your own path to the land you once called home. This King Seals are held by the stronger kind of mana apparitions located in different areas.” Sile finishes speaking and then a warm smile appears in her angelic face again.

“What’s a mana apparition?” I ask curiously.

“This whole prison is fueled by an inexhaustible mana source in order to maintain the heroic bloodline locked. Mana takes the form of vicious monsters that will be aggressive towards your kind, but in each transition, or you could call it gate, the mana usually gathers, generating a mana aberration, which you call it a boss.” She explains with patience and then returns to her normal posture, smiling again.

“Wait, wait, wait, are you telling me that there are 10 more of this areas?!” I ask surprised. Just this area seems endless and very detailed, if there are 10 King Seals held by 10 bosses at some sort of gates, that means that there are 10 of this areas, just how big is this game?

“There are a total of 60 levels in the Avalon Underground Prison.” Sile says calmly.

“Holy sh…” My mouth widens hearing that number, however, a notification interrupts my surprise.

System notification: You have a UVID buddy request.

“Uh? A request? Oh, it must be that.” I scratch my head for a moment but then I remember giving Jasmine my Universal Virtual ID.

“System command: Accept.” Since this is a friend of Jasmine I have no reason to reject.

Player Crissha has requested a voice chat with you.

“Hmmm… that is pretty fast.” I say softly while accepting the voice chat.

“Hello? Are you the friend of Jasmine?” A girly voice enters my ears. It’s a bit high pitched but strangely enough is pleasant to hear.

“Yes is me, Jasmine asked me my UVID but I just started playing a couple of minutes ago.” I say coolly.

“Hmmm, going to the initial area will be a bit expensive but don’t worry, can you wait for me at the central plaza?” Chissha says hurriedly.

“Sure, I’ll just ask where it is.” I say and she immediately closes the voice chat. 'Expensive? So you can move freely from are to area?' I take a mental note of each detail for more tiny that it seems.

After asking Sile for directions I make my way towards the plaza. The more I walk the more amazed I am, this underground prison is really huge, in any other game this would be a capital city and there are 59 more zone like this one, then an outside world. No wonder why 1000 elite players haven’t cleared this prelaunch event in eight months.

“Oh right… I haven’t check the status… System command: Display Character Status Window.” I say with curiosity, the stat window is the most important part of a RPG, knowing how the system works is what divides casual players and hardcore players.

“Hmmm, it seems that the system is not so simple, I’ll have to study it a bit.” I say and then with a wave of my hand I dismiss the Status Window. Just by seeing that there's a division between primary stats and secondary stats I have the feeling that I have to make a deep research in order to understand how things work.

Not long after I dismiss the window I get to the plaza and I see a woman figure in a shiny battle armor waiting quietly. She notices me and with hurried steps comes towards me.

“Oh, you are such a cutie boy, Jasmine told me that you are handsome, I didn’t thought that you were such a cute little kid. *Chuckle.*” Crissha says hastily and then pinches my cheeks as if I’m a doll.

‘Damn… I didn't thought I would achieve a reaction like this... should I pop the bubble or not?’ I say to myself seeing the weird reaction of Crissha. 'And Jasmine said I am handsome?' I raise and eyebrow and once again I take mental note.

END OF CHAPTER 32.

The scheme color of the status windows is in subject to change, so don't feel surprised if in the future you see a totally different status window (but with the same things).

Hope you have enjoyed the chapter!