Undral Legacy

Chapter 3 - My First Combat Experience!

Many background noises and chattering filled the whole plaza that I have been teleported to. Some of them were acting a bit awkwardly, seemingly not aware that the movements could be done the same way as in the real world.

UL was the very first fully developed game that had been released for the newly invented ArgoSpace, so I guess that was only natural. In the middle of them all, there was me, who left the avatar looking the same as the real version of my body.

“This can't be happening...” I thought loudly, talking to myself.

I did not know what just happened -when I created my character- but it seemed like a bug or glitch in the game. Maybe some other people experienced the same thing. It was not that dramatic, though, since I could just start over with a new avatar once the opening ceremony was over.

The developers had deactivated the option to create multiple characters for now, because of the massive amount of people logging in. They would not want to risk a server crash in the first few minutes after the game had launched.

There was some time remaining, before a good friend of mine was able to join and all players would assemble for the event here at the plaza again, so I decided to look around the city.

Leaving the huge crowd of people behind me, I ran toward one of the four alleys leading out of the plaza. The place looked like a capital from a typical fantasy world, being build out of stone bricks, having smith shops as well as Inns at every street corner and many street-markets which were all operated by NPC's. The name of this giant starting city was «Laos».

I somehow managed to get through the roaming players in the side-alleys, only to find myself in front of a huge gate leading out into vast green plains. This had to be one of the many entrances of the city.

Although I promised to wait for my friend until he logged in, there was an urge luring me toward the new area. It was the kind you just could not resist. The more I caught myself staring at the beautiful world outside of this place, the harder it got to stay put.

“I mean, it should be alright to take a quick little look, right?”

Finally -giving in to my curiosity- I stepped over the capital border. As soon as I did, a small notification popped up in the upper-right corner of my vision, reading:

- You have left a Safety-Zone! You are no longer protected by the safety protocol -

I guess this meant that wild monsters could now appear and attack me.

Just as that thought had crossed my mind, a brown lizard appeared on the right side of the fields. It had a name tag above it, spelling «Snappy Lizard». A weak low-level monster, which did not pose any real threat.

Luck was on my side because I read the instructions of the game beforehand. Thanks to that, I knew a little bit about the combat system in UL. First off -as the game title had suggested it- the only form of combat here was with magic. This explained why there was no class to choose from in the character creation. Everyone in Undral was a mage.

The magic system itself, however, was rather complicated and seemingly infinite in its depths. You would start with magic that was not restricted to an element or certain attribute. For the first period, everyone was only able to use magic that was accessible to all mages.

You could, however, decide whether you wanted to spend your skill points on the offensive, defensive, or supportive spells and abilities. These 3 categories defined the options of Undrals mages. If you looked at the offensive skill tree alone, you realized that a single category had about 5 different spells to choose from since the very beginning. So even if you had 2 offensive-skilled mages, the abilities they had would be different.

In addition, the 5 choices at the start were only small options compared to what awaited next. Choosing a path in the skill tree would only cause the options afterward to split up further, granting almost endless possible combinations for the players.

It was also rumored, that there were chances of «Awakenings» in the later zones of Undral, giving mages the possibility to specialize in certain attributes and even granting magic, which was unique to the player. So -to compensate for the lack of other classes in Undral Legacy- the developers had ensured that every mage would be unique in their strengths and abilities.

“You are the perfect opponent, to test out what I can do!”

Before engaging in any form of combat with the lizard, I opened my menu by swiping horizontally through the air with my middle- and index finger and selected the skill tree. There, I checked what kind of basic spells I had started with.

Only providing me with 3 attacks, there was not much to choose from. I had gained 1 magic from each category: an offensive spell called «Spark», a defensive «Slick» and a supportive «Mend». All of them were laughably weak, but they were Level 1 skills -so it was not surprising.

“I guess, I’ll try it with «Spark» then... Take this!” I shouted as I stretched out my right hand in front of me.

Visualizing said spell in my head, a magic circle formed without any sort of incantation, and a small portion of my mana points depleted. Immediately afterward, a literal spark flew at the yet passive creature.

“-Zshhh!”

The lizard, being seemingly angry for hitting it, turned its attention toward me. At the same time, a Hit Point bar appeared above the enemy, showing me that its life force lost half of the maximum points. Now being interest in the combat, the Snappy Lizard dashed at me with its tongue slipping out.

“Finally, in the mood to play with me, huh?”

Taunting the monster with my words, I chanted the same spell again. However, because the skill had just been used, it was now on a short cooldown. This did not stop the lizard from attacking me, though.

“Ngh! In that case, I’ll use «Slick»!”

Casting another spell, I spend some mana points again, but I did not create a magic circle. Instead, my body began to move on its own, barely dodging the lizard to the side as it jumped at me.

Enough time had passed for the cooldown, which is why I started casting «Spark» once more. Without any mercy, the skill charged at my enemy before it could turn toward me.

“Zshaaa!”

Letting out a squeaky death cry, the remaining HP of the Snappy Lizard went to zero. This caused it to freeze in the exact position, as it slowly dissolved into red dust –sound-alike to falling sand.

Those digital particles flew upward in the air until they left no trace of their original body on the floor. The only thing that proved the existence of the monster was a small interface popping up afterward, showing me the experience points and items that I had gained from killing it.

“Alright, I did it! That was just as exhilarating as I expected it to be.” I said relieved while pressing the «Accept» button on the Loot interface. Together with the now-notorious bell sound, the transparent screen closed and stored the goods in my inventory.

“-It sure did look like that, you traitor.” An awfully familiar passive-aggressive voice interrupted the moment, causing me to flinch.

I turned around to confirm my suspicions and to no surprise, it was my friend that wanted me to wait for his arrival. An extremely disappointed look decorated the youthful face of his avatar. The name of the young boy was Zen; at least that was his username most of the time. He was the one that helped me and came up with my online alias Myst.

...Although, something had caught my eye when I examined his appearance.

“-Wait a moment! You look just like in real life, Zen!”

“You’re the one to talk! I thought you were going to create another one of those fantasy novel protagonists!”

We were both pointing at each other, irritated about our characters being identical to our real selves.

“So, you had the same issue as me in the character-creation?”

“I thought, I was the only one.” He sighed out of frustration.

There were mixed feelings within me now.

Ignoring the fact, that Zen was very mad at me for leaving on my own, it was a bit suspicious having multiple players experience the same kind of error. If this were a serious bug or glitch in the system, there would be many people complaining about it online, ruining the reputation of the newly developed game. Being forced to present your real appearance in the online world was violating security and anonymity policies.

“I heard that you are able to create a new character after the Opening Ceremony of the game. So, it is just a matter of time for us before we can start anew.” My voice tried to hide the concern in it, but Zen seemed to pick up on it quickly.

“That is true, but this also means any progress we make now, would be lost afterward.”

“Well, let’s look at it from a different perspective. We can test out many skill trees and don’t have to worry about wasting our points. When we reset our progress, it will be clear what kind of path we want to level up!”

“Ha-ha…This is the Myst, I know! You’re always having a plan to make the most out of your situation. Your great ideas have helped us out in many other games already.” He smiled at me, which meant that he was not angry with me anymore.

To be honest, it felt like I was talking to him in the real world. Zen looked exactly like in High-School with his brown bangs, average height, and athletic build. His charisma ensured him the position as one of the popular boys.

Though, he hid the fact that he was privately a gamer like me at home. I only happened to uncover his secret by chance, when I was reading an article about an upcoming MMORPG at school.

“Then this is our plan! Let’s not waste any more time and get to work.” I turned around and headed toward a nearby hunting ground for monsters.

“You’re always so much more energetic when it comes to games, Myst. Way to go, hardcore gamer!” He gave me a sarcastic thumbs-up, before following my lead.

“As if you are any different from me, Zen.”

“Can’t argue with that one. But this makes our relationship so amusing, doesn't it?”

“...Please don’t make it sound so weird.”

Thus, we had left the grassland nearby the city and searched for a better spot to kill monsters further outside.