Virtual Reality : Dystopian Tales Online

009.3 | Beta 02

[BETA TESTERS, WELCOME TO HAL'S GRAND DUNGEON. START YOUR ADVENTURE AND BECOME THE NEXT WARRIOR!]

White large words flicker in large pixilated font with golden outline and fire flaming background. The medieval default music of the game reverberated to the entire area. The players applauded in their places, ready to jump in, when suddenly the earth made a slight tremor. Everyone looks down at the ground and watches the small pebbles jumping with an incoming thump.

The intensity became clear as time went by, causing disorder. A powerful earthquake, surprising the players on the spot, suddenly shook the calm plaza. Some cast a balance spell while the others rode on their brooms, wondering why the earth suddenly moved. By just then, the small cave that represented the door of the dungeon crumbled, falling rocks covering the entrance.

The earthquake stopped. Players stared at the rubble, wondering what happened. The sudden silence caused an unknown uneasiness in their hearts, asking if it was an accident or a code failure. The players who have courage asked the top players for confirmation if this sudden earthquake is part of the plan. 

However, none of them answered. After all, the event did not start yet. Maybe this is just part of the introduction.

Those who hinted at that thought got the answer right when another earthquake came to overwhelm the players again. But this time none of them asked the reason for the earthquake. 

At the epicenter, a wide c***k appeared on the floor where the rubble is concentrated. From this c***k, hot red lava erupted that pushed the plates of the land on the side. After the lava came to a mountain of rock elevating from the ground to form a mound. The players watched as the door of the new dungeon was being formed.

The new entrance of the dungeon looks more intimidating. They carved the perfect copy of an ancient jungle cave in hard black and brownstone with vines creeping on the side. Water is also flowing from somewhere with large canopy trees almost covering the top layer of the mound. 

Old trees with random branches and sizes also come up in the way, keeping the entrance almost invisible. If one will not look closely, nobody will notice the entrance despite its large vertical opening.

Insects and animals are also around. Crawling centipedes come here and there, together with palm-sized spiders and flying dragonflies. Little spotted light of the fireflies also went on the background, creating a mild light to enhance the lighting of the ground. Ferns and shrubs hid the more dangerous insects that were sleeping deep in their caverns. They mixed the noises of the crickets in the air to give more of the feeling.

The players could not help but to give an SSS grade on this creation. The animation and graphics look very real that one can easily feel the breeze breathing from the cave. Since the time they entered the Beta Game, it was in this place where they felt like they are no longer in the virtual world. It is as if their eyes are looking on a real scenery than an image cropped up by a set of codes.

It displayed the signal that the cave is ready on their interface. Leon saw the countdown on the upper left corner of his translucent slate under his name and character profile. 

Since this is the start of the beta test, the gaming time is only limited to five hours. This is also because of the late players that attended on the eleventh hour. That being said, it left five hours before the maintenance will tap the exit alarm.

The players are not formally grouped but they tend to follow the one who gave them the nerve gear. Clover (I will call Aud as Clover starting now) handed the nerve gears on Sora, so normally the members will follow him. 

But aside from the six members, some individuals got the nerve gears when Clover tossed the remaining gears in a lottery. Since Frass has his own gear, they tossed only six gears in the die giving them four additional people.

Frass only took his share of the gear and handed the other nine to some people. It is also the same with Xav and Aries, giving all their nine free gears to people whom they believed are deserving enough to get into play. 

So now, Clover is leading a thirteen-member group he did not really plan to gather from the start. These people just decided to follow him without second thoughts.

The players dispersed from the entrance and entered the cave. Clover went over and headed towards the entrance of the cave. From the outside, one can see how dark the entrance is. This made most of the players prepare torches. But the moment they step in, blue and red glowing stalagmites and stalactites would come to illuminate the place.

Clover halted an inch before entering the entrance. The other noticed his hesitation and walked over to ask.

"There's a layer here," he said, his right palm facing the opening of the cave. "Can you see it?"

Frass was the person next to him and looked for the thing he was saying. "Mnnn. There is."

"What layer-" Xav came to question when he suddenly touched the said film, causing a myriad of colors to ripple.

The group looks up in surprise to see a film of mana covering the entrance of the cave. It looks invisible to the n***d eye, but one would notice its existence once touched. The players that came before them also watched with wide eyes as the random circular ripple made a majestic turbulent of mixed colors. Xavier headed excitedly, as the feeling of reality rushed into him.

Everyone followed. Frass came inside after Xav, and so the twins, the Shin who was exaggerating an emotion, and Lexa who wanted to take pictures as commemoration. Leon walked in next but remained standing beside Clover who seems to be enchanted with the effect of the film. Leon stared at the player, then at the film. The usual numbers that he can see appeared in a beautiful and calming manner.

"This place is almost the same as the real one," Leon said. "I can't see any difference."

"Is that a great thing or not?" Clover asked, his eyes still watching the film.

"What is great and what is not?" Leon chuckled. "You know what I mean. It almost absorbed you with it."

"If what you have told me is true, then..." Clover shifted his eyes to look at Leon. His face is still as plain as ever, but one can easily notice the light curve on his lips and the smile on his eyes. "... This place is really dangerous. We should be careful."

Leon nodded. He no longer slacked and entered the cave. Clover was about to follow when a person slipped his arms around his shoulders and entered together in one step. Aries leaned on the smaller player beside him and hummed. When Clover looks up at him, Aries lowered his face to get closer and made a playful smile.

"Since this is the new server and we are free from our duties from the guild, would this little young master allow this lowly servant to appear on the TV again?" Aries asked in an unhurried manner.

"Did I ban you from doing that?" Clover raised a brow. He did not remember any agreement of stopping Aries to gain fame.

"What I mean is..." Aries pulled the younger man closer as if wanting to hug, his lips leaning closer to the other person’s ears and whispered: "Let's have a showdown, I want to see you in actio-"

A sudden attack came from behind, making Aries turn his head around and stretched his one arm out to cast a shielding spell. A yellow translucent shield appeared before his palms covering his self and Clover who was still under his hold. 

The air blew around them, throwing rocks and dusts away as their hair swayed from the force. It surprised the players who are still around when they heard an explosion. They paused and turned around, seeing a part of the entrance covered with dust.

A fight erupted right just after the opening.

Aries is indeed a strong top player but the player attacking him is on a higher level so his defense is still weak. That was just a single normal attack, but it already created cracks in his formidable shield. The dust quickly subsided, revealing the attacker of the said fire. 

Aries made a custom smile to greet Frass, who still has his stance ready to attack. The other Sora members look at them with confused expressions. Why did he fire a group member?

"Let go," Frass said. His voice was as deep as ever but has a warning tone ready to kill.

The translucent shield vanished through the time limit. Aries slowly removed his arms from Clover and took a step to the side. Though, his expression is still so sly as ever. Aries is a few levels below Frass but it doesn't mean that he can be easily defeated. After all, he earned a spot in the top ten. That is not an easy feat for an artisan humanoid to achieve.

Though, both players will not start an actual fight. This is just the usual warning because the two hold a tacit understanding that none of them are their enemies. Since day one, the one who would always use his advances is Aries and Frass will be there to block him. Things only changed for a while when the guild was established and both of them became busy handling their affairs.

After that brief episode, the group continued to travel inside. 

Other players are having their own fight, recording the events in their books as they finished some enemies. The groups of low-leveled players would often go to small caves to loot while the stronger ones went to the boss' chambers to start the fight. 

The announcement of killing Hidden Bosses has been all over the TV, with most of them coming from the other guild leaders. But none went to the Floor's Main boss.

"Should we head out to the next floor?" Leon asked. 

He knows the capabilities of his group members, so beating around the bush is useless. To go to the next floor, they have to fight the supreme boss and open the door connecting the two. Clover glanced at him and nodded. He opened his own interface to see the map handed to them.

"The few floors comprise the dungeons of Terrare so the Bosses are the same. Heading to the next floor is the best choice." Clover flicked the screen using his fingers.

He made the map public so anyone can see the translucent, glowing plate appearing before them. Inside is the blueprint of Hal's Dungeon with the upper part visible. The lower third is covered with black lines, instilling that these places are still void of directions. One must travel through these places to create a map.

"What are we waiting for? Let's go!" 

The first one to eject is Aries, who has been idling around. He was indeed thirsty for adventure so he set the manners aside and headed towards the Main Boss to enter the aggro. The members watched him go.

"That kid, how long have you been restricting him?" Xav asked Clover.

"Like I said, did I ever ban him to play on his heart's content?" Clover was perplexed.

Even though he is not the type to flaunt his title, he was still the leader of the Cassaianne Guild. He did most of the works in the background. These people are only his pawns to use when the work needed interaction with the members. He never restricted them to play or something.

They somehow reached the entrance of the Boss's Room when suddenly a congratulatory tone played out in the system. The usual mechanical female voice announced another number of announcements on TV, but only one of them made it known. The TV god in the past, aside from Clover, has once again shown his wings as his name appeared on the TV as the only one who defeated the First Floor.

[CONGRATULATIONS! BEGINNER'S DUNGEON 1ST FLOOR MAIN BOSS CLEARED]

[ARI-05]

"Now, isn't that showy? He's totally asking everyone a showdown," Xavier sighed.

The always good and diligent worker of the Cassaianne, and one of the founding leaders, is indeed a sly animal once taken out to the wild. It was just because something caged him inside the guild that he mellowed out.

Frass is standing before the loot that he took, recording the information in his book. The twins, as kids as they were, opened the chest with wonder. Aries just let the kids see the treasures that are apparently only filled with gold coins and an elemental weapon. 

Humph, useless weapons for an artisan who has little mana to use.

"Everything is indeed the same. Even the combos needed to get a certain material had no difference," Aries told them. "As for this is the first boss, it needed no requirement to open up the aggro. Heading down is the best course."

"The fifth server reached almost a hundred floors below. So this will take a while huh," Leon muttered.

"En. Though, there might be a few additional features as we go down below. As the 25th floor is the neutral ground, some floors have extended changes on their maps." Clover opened up the map for the tenth floor. "Take this, for example. There is a blackened part on this map."

He showed the map up as a projector. He touched the part with black lines.

"For some unknown reasons, a few floors starting from the tenth has these unusual black marks. It means that this part is added. Or..."

"Or a place that should not be existing on the game," Leon said in a flat note. Clover nodded.

"The purpose of the Beta Test is to see if these black marks are still part of the game or a place that did not belong to our dimension. If shown that this is still part of the game, then we will record it as bugs in the future." Clover closed the map. "But if it is not, then we will have a conclusion that we reached the point of the summit."

"Isn't that a bit dangerous?" Shin commented. "Opening it up means discovering something that should not be discovered. There must be a reason both dimensions are separated, right?"

"True. That's why we should be really very careful in these parts. The management already has the say in this part and has given us some countermeasures. Once we triggered something, the system will immediately eject us out in the game," Clover said.

"We all know the risks," Xavier added.

The group has a decision to continue down. Groups appeared after them and found the second floor already open. The Boss will take an hour before it regenerates, so they were able to pass quickly. A series of events happened and the names appearing on TV are almost the same. Everyone happily played on their first night of the beta test until the time of the maintenance came and the people log out on their accounts to play for the next day.