Skylair Online

Episode 9

The evening came and Leo found himself putting on the headset again. He navigated through the isles of dating sims to find Skylair Online, its golden-winged logo looking very out of place amongst the shelves.

He pressed the play button underneath it. It turned red then, a few seconds later, it turned green and he was transported to the large, circular lobby of Skylair online.

Facing one of the walls and pushing buttons that were invisible to Leo, was Ben.

“Hey Ben,” Leo said as he approached.

Ben turned around and smiled at him

“Hey buddy, have you seen the new content pack that just came out?” Ben replied excitedly.

“No…”

“Go over to your screen and watch the video, it looks so cool.”

Leo walked over to the screen on the wall and found it had a new button on it showing a man in full plate armour flying with a pair of angel wings and wielding a glowing gold sword. He touched the button and his screen faded to black.

The winged man appeared in the centre of the screen, his wings slowly flapping, causing him to bob up and down. Then the background faded in, showing him flying over the battlefield with the Titan’s mountain behind him.

“Welcome, hero,” a male voice said from the screen, “to the preview for the Angel of Destruction content pack. This new pack is based on the legendary avenging angel Samuel. Samuel is the leader of the grand knights of Anastasia and leads them as they fight against the undead hordes of Reniax. With this legendary pack you will be able to use Samuel’s signature abilities in your battles for the Skylair.”

The screen then cut to a default character wearing blue leather armour.

“The first ability is called Luminosity,” the narrator continued as the character held his hands aloft, summoning a cloud of golden swords above his head before casting them forward, “With this ability you summon the swords of Anastasia to strike down enemies. After a brief delay, the swords shoot forward, dealing damage in an area.”

After the swords disappeared the character touched the steel sword at his side and it jumped into his hand. He raised it above its head, causing it to glow gold then he brought it down in a slice, leaving a gold trail of light where it had passed.

“The second ability is called Divine Judgement. This ability bestows your equipped melee weapon with the might of Anastasia, causing your next melee attack to hit all enemies in range and dealing a small amount of bonus damage.”

The character sheathed his sword and then started glowing gold, illuminating an area around him.

“The third ability is called Serene Grace. This ability creates an aura of protection around you, giving yourself and nearby allies a boost to their defences as well as reducing the duration of all negative effects applied by enemies.”

The golden light faded and the character drew his sword again. He flashed with a golden light and golden armour and a shining sword appeared on him, as well as a pair of white, feathered wings and a golden halo.  After a few seconds the golden light faded but the wings, armour and sword remained.

“The last ability is called Radiant Avenger and is what makes this a legendary pack. This ability grants the user the full powers of Samuel. Upon casting the ability, Samuel’s  sword, armour and wings are automatically equipped, allowing you to fly above the battlefield. You cannot equip other weapons during this time, however, the bonus damage from Samuel’s sword will more than make up for it. Samuel’s armour increases the wearer’s defence for the duration. For the first few seconds after using this ability, you cannot take damage and cannot be affected by any negative effects from enemy abilities, turning you into an unstoppable bastion of justice. Walls, curses and crowd control effects cannot stop the truly righteous, after all.”

The screen faded to black and was then replaced by the image of Samuel from the start, this time to his right was two options, one said unlock for 2,000 gold, the other said unlock for 450 crystal.

Leo turned back to Ben to see him glowing gold, sporting a pair of angelic wings and grinning like an i***t.

“This is awesome!” Ben said and flew up into the air, did a flip and landed back down.

“You bought it already?” Leo asked.

“Yeah, I get all the new content as it comes out. I play so much that I never really run out of gold.”

Leo shrugged and turned back to his screen, “How do I close this?”

“You just bring your hands together while touching the screen, like your clapping.”

Leo made a clapping motion and the screen returned to its normal main screen.

“Hmm, I like it, but…” Ben mused, having drawn his golden sword and waving it about experimentally, “I don’t really think it’s my look, you know?”

With that he switched back to his usual appearance.

“The grand knights are cool and all, but you just can’t beat the magocracy look. Capes and runes are just too cool.”

Leo pressed another button on his screen ladled ‘Glamour Packs’, bringing up a massive list of packs, each with a price in crystal ranging from 850 to 2000.

“What’s crystal?” Leo asked.

“That’s the in game currency you can only get by spending real life money. Don’t worry, only glamour packs have to be bought with crystal and they don’t affect the gameplay, only how you look. All the content packs have gold costs.”

Leo nodded. On the side of the screen was a list of filters. He clicked on the Magocracy button and immediately saw the outfit Ben was wearing listed at 2000 crystal. He rolled his eyes and closed the shop.

“So,” Ben asked, “What content pack did you get?”

“Er, I didn’t…” Leo replied.

Ben sighed.

“Well, click on the content packs button and then hit the legendary filter.”

Leo complied and pulled open the content packs screen. His screen filled with packs, each with beautifully drawn art advertising them. On the side of his screen was two boxes with filter options. He could filter by rank or by faction. He set rank to legendary and looked through the hundred or so options left.

“You might also want to set the faction to Darsee Hunters. I think they have the best scout abilities.”

Leo nodded, set the filter and began looking through.

He scrolled through all kinds of abilities until he came across a content pack called Guardian of the Elderwoods, with a picture of a young elf sat in a tree with what looked like a saber-tooth tiger lurking at the bottom of it. He pressed on it and a preview of 4 abilities popped up. These were apparently the abilities of  a Darsee Hunter names Arashion, a forest spirit and guardian of the Elderwoods. The first ability was simply called Elderwood Tracker and allowed the player to track enemies, causing all enemies to leave footprints that lasted 3 minutes and were visible only to the user.

The second ability was called Twiggles, Arashion’s smilodon companion, the saber-tooth tiger was the loyal companion of Arashion and acted as his mount, allowing for exceptionally fast travel around the map.

The third ability was actually two, you could chose Elderwood Groves which created 20 Elderwood trees at set locations around the map, the user could use these to instantly teleport themselves (and  Twiggles) between that tree and any other Elderwood tree or you could chose Elderwood Paths, which did the same think except it allowed you to take all nearby allies with you.

The final ability was called Elderwood Informants, once activated it revealed the location of all enemies on the entire battlefield for 10 seconds. If they were invisible they would become visible for the duration. It had a five minute cooldown, however.

Leo thought Twiggles looked cool, so he unlocked the pack. There was a brief animation and then it showed the content pack added to his profile.

“What did you get?” Ben asked, seeing Leo finish.

“Guardian of the Elderwoods.”

Ben had to think for a second then beamed, exclaiming “TWIGGLES!”

They both laughed.

“Now that’s sorted, let’s get into another game.”