Nido: Apocalypse

Sitting on a bus bench is a young man on his phone. He's wearing jeans and a hood, headphones are covering his ears pressed on top of his black-haired head. This is Daren Winters. He had just got off of work and was excited latest to go back home to play the latest update to Nido: Apocalypse. An extremely popular MMO RPG with a huge focus on the player and the world they affect, along with an intensely deep customization feature. The newest update Apocalypse; the last update before the end of the game. This update was supposed to signal the end of days and the end of the game. Many players were looking forward to the end of the days. They've spent many years playing and leveling their character to max level, 90, and couldn't wait to play the update to start to level up to 120. Daren was listening to music while he started to open Discord. He goes to his guilds channel and sees PowerPlays and SwiftCodex are chatting away. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ PowerPlays: Everyone logged off in game in St. Amant right Swift? SwiftCodex: Yup! Lazy and I were the last to log off. Not long after you logged, Nitro did also. Hopefully Grim actually gets the game. PowerPlays: Yeah. He's been talking about getting it for a while now, since we play Nido so often. Plan still to just help him along and take the path we did before? [ LazyLockHeart has Joined the Fight. Salut!] PowerPlays: Hey Lazy! Ready for tonight? LazyLockHeart: You know it! I got all my s**t ready for Grimm. SwiftCodex: You better have. It took us forever to get everything we needed. Hours spent saving money to hire BrickBright to build armor and weapons for us and Grim. He's still going to be our healer, right? I'm tired of spending money on potions and s**t. LazyLockHeart: He will. He texted me earlier saying he'll be our healer. PowerPlays: That's good. Anyone know when Nitro is going to join chat? SwiftCodex: I stopped by his work and he was still there. So, no idea. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Around Daren, the sounds of cars passed by, distracting him from the chatroom. He had mixed emotions. He was happy to be off work and ready to play, but the weather didn't agree. It was a very dreary day. His work was slow, the sun was mainly blocked by the clouds but it wasn't cloudy enough to rain. Even if he was excited to play the game he knew the game would end. All the years and time he spent with friends coming to a close. He looked back at his phone letting the rest know he'll get on voice chat as soon as he got home. He then slid his phone into his pocket waiting for the bus to show. After a couple of minutes, he watched the bus come over the hill. He stood up and waited at the bus stop. He looked around, seeing other cars drive by, people working the office buildings around leaving and heading to their cars. He started to feel the surrealness of life sink into him as the bus slowly pulled up next to him. The doors slowly opened. The driver gave a small nod as Daren stepped on. He scanned his pass before taking a seat. The bus doors closed and started to drive off. There were only a couple of people on the bus with more then enough room for him to have a row to himself. Sitting down next to the window, he stared out as the bus drove on. He was only a couple of bus stops away from his apartment. Out of all the places Daren has lived, Denver was his favorite. Just something about it he just loved, certain devil's lettuce. He could never place what it was. After 40 minutes of riding the bus, he was approaching his stop. He pulled at the stop line and waited. The bus started to slow down and make its way to the bus stop near his apartment. As the bus was stopping, he got up and made his way to the front. The bus stopped and opened the doors for him. He thanked the driver and wished them a nice day before getting off. The doors closed behind him as the bus drove away. His apartment complex wasn't the worst, but it certainly wasn't the best either. It is a series of 2-story buildings stretching hundreds of feet. Each building had 8 two-bedroom apartments on each floor. They were all spaced enough for a parking lot in between each of the buildings. Daren headed up the stairs to his apartment. His keys giggled as he pulled them out of his pocket to unlock his door. He walked inside the dim room and flicked on the lights. It was empty. Only having a couch and a TV on a stand. He took off his shoes and looked through his phone to see what his friends were talking about. He read through the chat and saw that Nitro would be another hour till he was ready to play. Thankfully, the games update isn't for another two hours. He decided to make some food and take a shower. Going through his kitchen, it was mainly empty besides some ramen and left over grilled chicken. He quickly took a shower before he made some food. He boiled water for the ramen, turned the stove on to warm up the chicken and propped his phone up to watch some videos about the upcoming update. Despite Nido being a popular MMO RPG, there was no information about the next update. Not even the developers commented on the next update. Only stating that it would be the greatest update yet. While his food cooked, Daren scrolled through video after video about theories regarding the next update. They were mainly speculations about the game. Some said that it was going to be the end of the world, maybe it was going to be a huge fleet of aliens, and others thought it would be the end of this world but secretly be the birth of a new game the developers were secretly working on. No one truly knew anything. After scrolling through videos while he ate, he got a notification that Nitro was nearly home and another one saying Grimm was also ready for everyone. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [LazyLockHeart has come home!] LazyLockHeart: Is everyone ready? GrimmHeart: Nah. We are still waiting on Nitro. SwiftCodex: That slow a*s is always last one. PowerPlays: lol GrimmHeart: I’m excited to play with everyone. What class are there and what should I be? PowerPlays: We’ll Lazy, Swift and myself were debating starting new characters or not. SwiftCodex: I’m thinking it would be fun to restart. Lazy you still have other friends planning to join us? LazyLockHeart: Yup. Although, I don’t think they are starting new characters. 2 people, Asura and MetalChef, are in Denver and my buddy SleepyMistfit is in KC. I have a couple of other people on my friends list but they are scattered around the world. PowerPlays: Grimm you can be whatever class you want. I think Nitro is going to restart with us. So we will fill other roles. GrimmHeart: Awesome. So what classes are there? I normally play healer or support. SwiftCodex: Lazy you want to explain. You’ve done more research then us. PowerPlays: I agree. LazyLockHeart: Um sure. Give me a second to type all this out. LazyLockHeart: There are 5 main classes. Pugilist, Mage, Craftsman, Esper and Mentalist. I won’t go into the specializations of each class because there is so many of them. I’ll just give a small detail of what they do and could do at max level. Which is being increased to 120 in this new update. There is speculation about what you can do past Lv 100 so I won’t go into detail on that either. First is Pugilist, which is what I think Swift and Nitro have been talking about doing. This class uses the Aura of one’s spirit to enhance their attack. This can work with nearly every weapon, from swords and guns, but not with vehicles. Although most people go for abilities that would resemble some from DBZ. Mage is pretty self-explanatory. You use magic to heal, attack and anything in between. Granted, they have a lot of specializations and are fun to play. Craftsman was my first class I played. It was kinda your guy that would build equipment for other classes or have something like an Ironman suit. Fun class but definitely a high skill cap for planning and knowing the game. I’ve never played a Mentalist or an Esper but know a lot about them. Mentalist is your psychic type class. Moving things with your mind or debuffing enemies with mental attacks. Kinda basic but used a lot in the Pro arena. Now Espers, on the other hand, are super complicated. They are somehow the most broken and weakest class. This class is kinda a catch all. You have no specializations but each person has their own power, unless it’s a basic elemental one. Powers range from controlling fire and ice to something as OP as matter manipulation or energy manipulation. It was so strong that in the Pro community they would buy accounts with these, Black Listed, powers for thousands of dollars. They are called Black Listed Espers because the company ended up banning these powers from competitive play. Players ended up calling them Black Listed. PowerPlays: Holy f**k I had no idea about all that. That’s crazy!! SwiftCodex: Yeah, a buddy of mine ended up selling a Plant Manipulation account. He had no idea how to play it and sold it for a couple hundred dollars to some dude. That guy ended up mastering that class and became super rich with it. Apparently, he grew special plants that created in-game drugs for your character. It got so popular, Pro players were buying their drugs with real world money. Class is crazy man. GrimmHeart: Wow. That’s insane! I think I’m going to stick with something I know and go Mage. If I can heal and support, I’ll do that. [ NitroWarrior has entered heaven!] SwiftCodex: Finally here, slow poke?! NitroWarrior: Shut up. I was stuck behind this person who was going like 10 under the speed limit. Hated it. PowerPlays: Sounds like a skill issue dude [ Shrug Emoji ] NitroWarrior: Bite me. So what are you all talking about? LazyLockHeart: Class for restating characters. Grimm said he’ll be a mage. You decide yet? NitroWarrior: I’m thinking Pugilist. Want to use ranged weapons this time. Big f**k You Canon! PowerPlays: Lmao SwiftCodex: Man f**k you. I plan to do that also. I guess I’ll do melee Pugilist then. NitroWarrior: Ha ha loser. LazyLockHeart: Power? What you going with? PowerPlays: I’m not sure. My Main was Mage and I made a second account to try Craftsman. It’s complicated but I was having fun. Might do that again. Now that I have a better understanding that is. You? LazyLockHeart: Well I mained Craftsman and dabbled with Mage and Pugilist. All fun but wanna try something new. I think I’ll pick Esper. Maybe I’ll get a Black Listed. PowerPlays: It wouldn’t surprise me. You have crazy good luck. LazyLockHeart: What can I say but Lady Luck loves me. SwiftCodex: Hey guys just got a notification that the update is finished. We all ready? LazyLockHeart: Yup see you all there! ———————————————————— As the group started to log in, the screen blinded them. They couldn't see, but could feel intense wind blowing across their faces. They slowly started to blink and realize where they were. They weren't in Kansas anymore.