“You gonna move or am I gonna have to move you punk?” Warned a mountain of a man covered in what looked to be high level leather gear with streaks of red dragon scales sewn into the fabric along the arms and legs.

It was a common practice to enhance one’s own armor with dragon scales. They could add magical properties and also represented who someone is affiliated with based on the color and placement.

I had been drunkenly staring at a beer mug, trying desperately to move it, even half an inch. For some reason the door knob had been a lot easier, but the damn mug? I would have had an easier time moving the big guy that easily could and would end my life if I didn’t do as he said.

But then again, I was pissed off and drank the entire bottle of rum. The one thing that the game menus don’t tell you about drinks in the game world is how strong they are. That one bottle would have been enough for a few nights back in the real world, even if I was drinking a lot.

I stood up and… Okay, you got me. I really don’t know what happened. All I know is that the next day I woke up outside of bar in a pile of trash with about a dozen notifications and of course, Billy.

“Hello there Ky. You feeling alright?” He was perched weirdly on a barrel with both hands holding his sack of endless junk. I sat up and then wretched all over my legs and shoes. The old man took one hand and plugged his nose, sending off one of his kookie smiles.

“Well that doesn’t seem too good. Maybe you’ll feel a bit better after I give you a cure for what I assume is a nasty hangover and then hand you your stuff.”

I looked up at the man as my entire body wanted to give up and fall back to the ground and continue on as just another bag of trash. I groaned and then tried to let out some words but they came out muffled and quiet.

“What was that sunny? I couldn’t quite hear yah.” The man seemed to get even happier at my misery.

“Go away. I don’t need your handouts,” I managed to spit out.

“Oh, no, you do for sure my young friend; look at you.I know I might have messed with you a little bit too much, I just couldn’t help myself, here get up. The man put down his bag, and grabbed my wrists with his hands so I could stand up. I staggered a bit, but then I was up.

The man grabbed his bag with one hand and helped me to a bench with the other. He seemed rather strong for an old man with how forcefully he was pushing me along, but I didn’t question it with the thunder and lightning living in my head and a piercing dagger stuck in my stomach.

We sat down on the bench and then Billy pulled a small tin cup, a jug of water, and a vial of white powder out of his bag. He filled the cup with water, dropped in the powder, and then mixed it all up. Afterwards, he handed it to me and simply said, “Drink up. You need it.”

I began to drink it and half expected him to tell me it was something disgusting and that he was messing with me again, but he didn’t say a word. We sat like that for about ten minutes as I slowly drank the tasteless concoction.

“Feeling any better yet?” Billy asked me in a seemingly innocent tone.

I gave him back the empty cup and realized that I was actually feeling a bit better. My head no longer blocked all incoming thoughts and every muscle and bone in my body didn’t feel like they were made of leftover chicken wings anymore.

“Thank you a lot. I appreciate it. But why are you helping me?”

“That’s actually why I came to talk to you laddie. I know that I was really hard on you, but I had to see a few things about you, while also teaching you a lesson.” I looked up at the man, completely confused.

“What could you have possibly been trying to see and or teach me?” I questioned doubtfully. “You gave me an impossible quest and then laughed as everything got screwed up because of me. I thought about getting up and running away again, but I knew I had to at least listen.

“The world you are used to friend, it isn’t exactly the world you see here now is it?” The Adventures Guide’s words seemed serious and all-knowing for the first time since I had met him.

“No, no it isn’t. But what does that have to do with-”

“Listen,” Billy said as he raised a finger to his lips. “The point of the quest was to show you that not all things here are going to be as straight forward as you are used to. It was better that I show you that than someone else who might’ve tried to cause you great harm.”

I sat, silently absorbing the man's words. My nerves began to calm and my hangover resided even more. If only we had this damn stuff in the real world, I thought. Everyone would probably be less grumpy. I then nodded for him to continue.

“You see Kyle,” Billy said, emphasizing my name. Wait, how does he know my name? “There’s a lot going on that you don’t know and I think it’s about time I at least open your eyes to some of it. The man put his hands up to my head and instantly everything went black. I was really getting used to the feeling to be honest.

When my vision came to, I was watching over what appeared to be a battle scene. A man clad in DragonSlayer Plate Armour and wielding GDS #6 was fighting a large black dragon. The man had every piece of armor on besides a helmet. No way… I thought as I looked closer at the man.

I had to squint a bit, but that was Billy. It wasn’t just Billy, but Sir Alfred Skycane. This can’t be, I thought. I watched as the man activated various abilities from the GDS. Puddles of water fell to the dragon's feet and then turned to ice, balls of fire erupted out of the sword and splashed against the platemail. Walls of earth sprang from the ground and smashed into the mighty beast.

The beast shot beams of darkness at the man, but the sword seemed to simply absorb them. The man shot of a few more attacks and then the vision jumped to the man unleashing a powerful, large beam of light towards the dragon. The darkness that was the creature got sucked into the beam of light and sank all the way into the sword. Skycane turned around and then focused his vision on me, like he knew I was watching.

The vision cut out again and this time it was of the sword and armor. They sat in a locked display case in what seemed like the basement of an old building based on the dirt floors and crumbling walls.

A man in long, dark robes made his way to the case, raised his hand up to it and then poof, it sprung open. The man grabbed the armour and sword, shoved it into a bag similar to the one that Billy carried. He then turned around and I could see his face. Something was familiar about the broad shoulders, angular face, and laugh lines. It was… Sal?

I was confused at first, but then I remembered the weird instance at the magic shop and how he didn’t seem like himself at all? Was he being controlled? Or, Was he a villain all alongl?

The vision subsided and I was again sitting besides the old man, only this time I had a much deepened respect for the man, as well as about a million questions.

Billy, or I mean Skycane looked at me expectantly but the words just wouldn’t come out of my mouth. I sat for another minute and then finally got out a single word. “You?”

***

The man corroborated that he was the man who stopped the dragons. He also told me how he had received an extended life for his accomplishments and everything that came with it: the friends dying out, protecting the sword, losing it, the whole nine yards. He told me how the sword was stolen and then given to an adventurer. He said he had feared the end of the world, but that adventurer hadn’t had the opportunity to finish the quest that would bring about the end of Dragaria.

“Wait… So you're telling me that an adventure was unable to complete a quest, which required a sword, your sword, that would have caused the end of the world?” The man nodded and I didn’t hesitate to continue.

“So… He needed the sword and then lost it?” The man I then knew was the most powerful knight to ever walk the planet nodded. “What happened to the sword then?” I asked without a second thought.

Billy looked at me and just said, “I think you know the answer to that yourself.” It then clicked and I remembered Billy telling me to remember how I had gotten the sword in the first place. At the time, I thought that he must have heard the usual story from the other players that I took out the owner with nothing but a bronze shortsword and some salty words.

I hadn’t thought much about it because the story was false, but when considering how I actually managed to get the sword, the rest of the story made sense. It was still pretty early on in my hardcore career actually and I was trying to find a serious way to come up in the ranks. I sat and recalled what had actually happened as Billy just watched with a smile on his face.

***

I was a Spell-Shield, so I was great at not taking damage and exploding on my enemies, but I really didn’t do that much damage when it came down to a fair fight. I had heard of a player with the first one of a kind weapon and set of armor, so my interests were peaked.

I spent a week planning a way to get that sword and did everything in my power to make it work. I spent the last of my gold, and quite a few days training, to make it work. I had extended the number of pieces I could charm as well as how long those charms would last. I then spent a few days browsing the black market.

You see, the developers of the game wanted it to be as realistic and fun as possible, so various professions and options were included that you wouldn’t see in most games. Players had the capability to either find or craft almost exact replicas of high level gear. They would look and even read as the original, but their value and stats weren’t usually even close to the original.

I managed to get my hands on some and then charmed all of them. I tracked down a certain player and set up a trap with the armor. The guy had become the most powerful player ever and soared to the top of the leaderboards, so I wasn’t scared of much. He saw the trove of armor and walked straight into my trap.

Every single piece of armor exploded, sending his health points almost to zero; his overpowered gear didn’t matter in that instant. You see, the great deal of money I spent also had to do with a new effect, Chain Reaction. The ability read: When one of your charm explodes, there is a 25% chance that it will attach to another piece of nearby gear. He really was screwed.

Considering there were maybe ten sets of gear in the pile, Chain Reaction made sure that not only every piece of gear lit up, but that the player’s entire set of armor and even the GDS #6 exploded as well.

When I made my way out from behind a wall and stood before him, the player was almost completely dead; a short blinking health bar told me that he had some sort of safety net in place.

That was when I took out my bronze shortsword, did one last enchantment and stabbed it into his chest, causing his heart to explode into a million little pieces. Then a message appeared on the chatboard.

The_G0liath rank one has fallen due to a final blow from Kyogos’s bronze shortsword.

***

I sat in shock as I realized who I defeated and how I fit into everything. I looked up at Sir and realized he was waiting for me to say something. “I saved the world?” I asked reluctantly even though the truth sat in my brain and in front of my eyes.

Sir gave a long deep sigh as if molecules of laughing gas were finally pouring out of his very being. He then looked up at the sky and said, “Yup and hopefully you’re gonna do it again.”