Rebirth Online World

Chapter 1: The end?

Drakus POV

I look up at the golden statue of my character with eyes full of amazement. Even though I walked by it so many times, it was only then that I fully recognized the detail.

‘I’m really going to miss this, all of this.’ I thought to myself while making the most of the time left.

My character was a draconian, half dragon and half human. Although the gold statue was large, it still captured my characters height of around two meters. Even the chisel feature and the body were clearly shown.

Despite being a golden statue, it was able to capture features such as my red eyes and my short blonde hair. I wore an armor made of dragon scale with skin that exposes some of my character real scales and spikes sticking out of my lower jaw and temple. My left arm holds an ornate shield while my right holds a weapon made of a carved dragon bone.

I simply stood there and admired the statue as it would be the last time I ever see it again. After fifteen years of running, Eternia was finally shutting down. Players started to log off and quit one by one as the date drew closer and closer.

“And today’s the day.” I said with a heavy sigh. It was almost too real for me to take in. It feels like only yesterday that I bought the game and was able to explore the world. Now they were all but memories.

While reminiscing the past, a voice snapped me out of it. A small screen popped up in front of me, requesting to talk. “Hey Drakus, where are you? The rest of the guys are here, come on!” Accepting the message I answered back and raced towards my destination.

Currently I was in the Grand Sanctuary, our guild’s stronghold located in the Kaoth Continent. The outside appearance is similar to that of a museum. The building itself extends way deeper and has a total of ten floors. The first eight floors are referred to as sanctums in theme of what we called our base; The Grand Sanctuary. And each sanctum holds a different over-world.

Guilds can be expanded by paying real money to add in new feature. During the initial rise of the Guild, every member donated some money to help construct the building that now serves as our main hub. However one of the guild members was quite rich and paid for the remaining 2/3 of the total cost. Because he paid for most of it, we allowed him the liberty of choosing the layout of the guild building.

During that time, he was captivated by a novel from the 21th century, a novel called ‘Overlord’. As such, he modeled the Grand Sanctuary after the stronghold in the book. A structure with a main building at the top and subsequent floors downward. A couple of the members voiced their concern at the layout but ultimately conceded when we reminded them it was his choice.

Beginning from the top was the Earthen Sanctum. The floor was filled mountain ranges and a replica of the Grand Canyon only bigger. An area of dry and arid land with a gleaming sun overhead.

In the 2nd lies the Ocean Sanctum, a huge area filled with water. There were islands here and there but as the name implied, it was a vast ocean. The only means of transportation were boat or flying.

3rd was the Frozen Sanctum. The area was covered in thick snow and heavy snowstorms. A frozen deserted wasteland.

The Inferno Sanctum dominated the 4th floor. The area was populated with volcanoes and molten ashes. Similar to the Frozen Sanctum, it too was a wasteland.

5th holds the Sky Sanctum, a world completely composed of clouds. There were floating building with designs that was based on Roman architecture. A city of clouds as a friend once described it.

The Night Sanctum resided on the 6th floor, an area that is constantly dark and has a giant moon overhead. A dense forest surrounded the area with a castle within the middle.

The Dragon Sanctum was the 7th floor. An area filled with large mountain spires and a clear blue sky. The biggest feature there was the massive arch trees that littered that area.

Finally there was the 8th sanctum, the Galaxy Sanctum. The area was filled with stars and planets rotating around. The platforms were flat asteroids and every hour a comet will soar over the area. Similar to a planetarium.

The 9th and 10th floors were referred to as the Outer and Inner sanctum. This was where the guild members reside, sleep and where we can meet up and chat.

Most of the different sanctums were worked on by several different groups of members. Hence the reason why they’re random. The inconsistency was quite apparent. A dragon theme area before a space theme area. The poor mismatch was like a children coloring book quality.

But everyone loved it nonetheless. Part of it due to it being it being a creation that everyone worked on. It was like creating a painting. No matter what flaw you see in it, you can’t help but love and appreciate it.

One of the biggest features to a guild building was being able to populate your halls with NPC monster. This feature is heavily prominent in guild raids. You could choose what type of monster to spawn within your own personal over world.

If a guild had multiple over worlds, for example ours. We could assign NPC’s as Sanctum bosses and mini bosses similar to that of in game bosses. Guild raids were considered a second form of Dungeon raids due to this feature.

Eternia even takes it one step further, by having you design and program your own NPC. From designing what they look like to their class and equipment’s. Depending on the guild and how big it is, the max you can have is around 50 created NPCs.

There were limitations to the system to keep it fair. The total level of all created NPC couldn’t exceed 4350. This is to limit players from making all the NPC level 100. Unlike the Players, you only have a certain amount of points to put into your NPC specs. This again is to limit players from making extremely powerful NPCs.

You can earn the rights to create a free NPC when your guild reaches a certain amount of members. If your guild has around 200 members then you get your first NPC. You would need around 450 for another, 800 for the next and so on. There was a threshold and after that you have to pay real money to create another NPC. Crimson Strife was one of 250 guilds that was able to have 50 created NPC.

After running and seeing that it was getting me nowhere. I finally activated my guild ring and selected my teleportation spot. Guild rings were rings that allow one to quickly transport to anywhere within the guild building. The only way to get it was to be a member, and the only way to become a member was to be approve by four of the founding members.

Teleporting to the 9th sanctum, the inner sanctum; I continued on my way. Running down the onyx and golden hallway, I stopped before our guilds flag located just outside the Inner Sanctum. Before any guild is finalized, they must first created their logo to distinguish themselves. Ours was simple, we had a sword, staff, and a bow crossing each other. The flag not only symbolizes the guild but it literally represents the Guild.

In guild raids the only way to win is either make the enemy surrender or destroy their flag. Their second most important function are in dungeon raids. At the end of every dungeon you would plant a copy of your flag to show that you defeated the raid. On it, it would etch all the players’ name that participated in the raid. This is more for the community to see who was able to beat the dungeon.

Once more I was caught up in my own mind. While reminiscing of the past adventure of the raids I participated in; a voice called out to me.

“So this is where you are.” Hearing the voice I turned to see someone walking towards me.

The person was around a meter and a half tall. A decent build with kind look on his face where if you were to meet him randomly and strike a conversation, you would become friends with this guy instantly.

His attire consisted of a robe that looked like a leather duster and arctic long coat mixed together. A pair of light gauntlets with strange magic symbols bore his hands. His pants was by far the most interesting as it looked to be long and baggy with plenty of different pockets. He also has a bag slouched over one his sides which gave his him a scholarly feeling.

Going back to his face. His hair was short and curvy. Most of his hair was white except for some part of it being black near the top. His eyes were heterochromatic. With his left eye having a black pupil with a brown iris, while his right eye has a magenta pupil with a golden blue iris. This was due to him choosing the race, Alvians.

Alvians were one of the chosen creature that you could play as. They have huge mana pools but have low health and weak to physical attacks. Very few people actually choose them as a starting species as it is very hard to master.

This person was one of my oldest friends in the game and one of the founding members, Nu-Ru. Smiling at his arrival I greeted him. “Hey. Sorry I took so long, I kept on getting distracted on my way here.” My eyes followed back to the flag. Following my line of sight a small smile formed on Nu-Ru’s face.

“I know what you mean. When they announced the shutdown I started to notice the building in a different light. Now I’m looking at every nook and cranny with bewilderment. I’m really going to miss all of this.”

I couldn’t help but smile on the inside. He was one of my first friend when I started to play the game. Slowly I started to reminiscence on when we first met but quickly stopped myself.

“Hey, how did you find me anyway?” Silently answering me, Nu-Ru pointed his thumb behind him. Confused I looked behind him to see another individual behind him.

Behind him stood a tall beauty. Around my height, only a few centimeter smaller than me. Her skin was a caramel tan while her lips and hair were red like a warm flame. Her face was beautiful, as if every feature was sculpted by the most delicate of hands. Even if you threw dirt at her face, it still wouldn’t lose any of its luster. Her eyes had an almond color that only added to her beauty.

She wore a military uniform that was colored primarily red. Golden designs decorated the sleeves and collar of the uniform. A small white mini cape draped over her right shoulder. The uniform looked to prioritize mobility over defense. Its design also manage to show off her voluminous breast and ample bottom.

On her waist was a pair of bayonets. The hilt of the weapons were a mix of gold and black with design of roses on them. She had an aura of power and respect, but was also able to show her feminine side as well. Her entire demeanor and posture reflected this.

She was a created NPC and her name was Altina, the assigned Grand Guardian of our guild.

“I had her use her [Overseer] ability.” Taking a moment to ponder, Nu-Ru referred to one of her subclasses.

[Overseer] was one of the 200 subclasses that one could pick. It was a class mostly for dungeon raids. With the [Overseer] class, it allows the person to have a command point of view. He/she is able to locate their teammates almost anywhere so long as they’re in the party and also have the ability to look at each character status. Such as allies’ health, mana, equipment equip, active buffs, debuffs, and so forth. It was a class that required tons of skill to fully master it.

“You know if we were to play hide and seek, she would probably win all the time.” Cracking a random joke. To my surprise he gave a small chuckle at my rather horrible attempt at a joke.

“Yeah her ability is quite useful in certain situations. Anyway come on, there’s only like fourteen minutes left before the game shuts down and the others are still waiting for you.”

“You’re right, let’s go!” Reminding myself of my original intent we were finally underway towards the Inner Sanctum where the other were waiting.

While walking, Nu-Ru and I decided to start some small talk to pass the time. Eventually we reached a topic regarding to Altina and how she seemingly followed me everywhere.

“You never noticed? Every time you’re in the building she’s always somewhere in the vicinity.”

“I’ve never really thought much about it. But yeah I did notice that she did do that a lot.”

“You never tried to check or change her settings?” questioned Nu-Ru

Created NPC were still programs that needed commands and inputs to function. Players would put in traits or certain feature and the computer would do its best to follow that command.

-“If she was following me; then that would mean a command on some kind was in her coding.”- That was the first thought that came to mind.

I moved my hand over to her and opened up her up her settings. A small rectangular box appeared and a mass flood of text and information flashed through the screen. I scrolled down the walls of text until I got into the specific inputs. Reading all the way to the bottom I found my answer.

There were only 2 commands that stood out the most. The first was “Undying loyalty to the guild and guild master.” The second was “Completely in love with guild master, Drakus.”

-“Considering the two commands kind of overlap each other and the nature of them, her following me makes much more sense now.”- That was the conclusion I came to when I located them.

“I think I found out found our mystery.”

“What was it then?”

“She has two commands, Undying loyalty to me and the guild and is completely in love with me.”

“Hmm, that’s interesting, wonder who put those commands in her? Are you going to get rid of the completely in love command? Someone must have thought it was funny to put that command in.”

The most obvious answer would have been yes. But I didn’t or rather I didn’t want to. “No. I have don’t have the right to delete them. Even if it was a joke by our friends, it’s their choice. What kind of friend would I be if I did so without their permission? Besides the server is shutting down anyway. The data will be erased either way.”

Before Altina, we had 49 created NPC. We were so close to having 50 NPC that almost the entire guild chipped in to make her. I had no right to change it, despite being Guild Master.

“You’re right, guess it doesn’t really matter does it?” Seeing my line of action Nu-Ru dropped the matter.

Quickening our pace, we finally reached our designation. We stopped at large metal double doors that were decorated with multiple golden designs and made out of black obsidian. Behind it was the council room, this was where many of the higher tier guild members and founding members go to talk and plan for events.

Contrary to its appearance, the door was weightless as I effortlessly opened them. A large creaking sound accompanied it as we walked in. Inside the room six individuals were standing about and talking. Walking up to them all, I greeted them.

“So you’ve finally decided to show up, nyaa? Here I thought we might have to say our goodbyes without you, nyaa.” Hearing a shrill voice calling out; I looked to my left to see another one of my friends and one of the first female founding members, Kaetzchen. (German for kittycat)

She was just over a meter and a half tall, around the same height at Nu-Ru. She’s a Katiñ, essentially a race of cat like people.

Her outfit, or lack of it, consist of what seems like Bikini combined with lingerie with was sleeveless. They covered her rather large breast and lower region and seemed to emphasize them. One would wonder the attires defensive capabilities. A small black cape was attached behind her clothes. Her legs were guarded by light armor leggings.  For her hands, her left hand holds a gauntlet with spiked finger, while the right hand held a black gauntlet with three, five inch blades extending from the knuckle region.

The only places that wasn’t clothed were her stomach, part of her legs, her arm and her tail. They were covered with golden yellow and bright orange fur. Her face was similar to a cat as well. Hair that looked to be sharply cut with edges and her car ears sticking out of her head. Her facial feature included whiskers, little bit of fur from her neck to her lower jaw. Her eyes looked exactly like a cat as well.

“Sorry, I kept getting distracted while I was on my way.” Instinctively, I apologize as she was right about my tardiness.

“It’s cool man, but next time check in and tell us. Kitty here was worried that you might miss all of us saying goodbye.”

“I was not, nyaa!” she said with a pouting face.

Interrupting was the man next to her, Trion Jazz. He was a little bit shorter than me. He wore a skintight black suit that seems similar to a jumpsuit and looked to be part of his skin. It also had a neon-blue outline that spread throughout his entire body that started from his chest.

A neon visor covered his eyes. He had long black and brown dread locks that reached to his neck. A total of four small sound speakers were attached to his outfit. One on each shoulder and two on his waist belt. They had a feature that allow the user could play downloadable music. Along with small circular neon disc that covered part of his arms and leg, constantly spinning.

While they were playfully fighting I walked over to three people who were talking near the table.

“Hey, sorry for the hold up.” The first thing I did was apologize to them as well.

“About time you showed up, what kind of person plans an event but doesn’t get there in time? Seriously waiting for someone is fucking annoying.” The first one to reply a tall individual, even taller than myself. Arsenal

He stood around half a head taller than me, around 2 meters and one-third. His body was lean and muscular due to this character being an Ogre. Arsenal’s entire body was black with red and blue tattoos etched over the body. He wore an open brown leather duster that showed off his chest. His choice of pants was a leather baggy pants similar to Nu-Ru. On his left arm were tattoos and odd symbols. The right arm held a gauntlet just like Kaetzchen.

Unlike the generic ugly orc, ogres were more human like in appearance. Despite his monstrous look, he had a sharp handsomeness to him. With his long grey disheveled hair and fierce look.

What was most impressive was his array of weapons. On his back he carried a crystal red spear and a Zweihänder. On his belt he holds two other weapons. A claymore on the left while a katana is on his right side. Some hidden weapons could be spotted here and there.

“I have to agree with him Drakus. We were about to leave.” The man who answered was a talking skeleton, Manom.

Manom character was a lich. His clothes were completely black, black robe, boots, and arm guard. The black robe was adorned with many purple flourish designs and covered his entire body.The only thing that wasn’t covered was his face, which was composed of a deer skull without the horns. His eye sockets were devoid of life except for two red orbs that served as eyes. In his left hand holds a staff completely made out of bones with magical orbs aligned on it.

They were brothers with a sibling rivalry between one another. They hated each other’s guts and would make everything into a competition in order to one up the other. This also shows in their characters. Arsenal has always been fighter, preferring to jump into the enemy and fight them head on. Manom was a careful fighter, attacking when they’re vulnerable or sending summons to attack and picking off enemies.

“Arsenal, Manom you don’t need to be rude, no one’s perfect, so lay off.” Interrupting the two and bailing me out. She then scolded the two. The one who defended me was the 2nd female founding member, Reptillia.

Her character was an argoanian, basically lizard people. She was among the shortest one out of all of us. Standing a few centimeters shorter than Nu-Ru. Reptilia wore a ninja style attire. Completely black with some blue outlines with reinforced armor pieces along the chest, shoulder and knees. A brown scarf hanged from her neck with strange marking on it.

Her gauntlets housed two hidden blades. On her belt there was a bunch of weapons attached. From Shurikens, kunais to smoke bombs, and explosives. She had just about anything at her disposable. Her face was comparable to lizard. Yet there was an odd beauty in her scaly appearance. Her scale skin was completely green and hints of black with several spiked skin sticking out. Namely two semi large spikes just above her eyebrows.

“Reptillia, thanks for covering me but they’re right. I’m the one at fault here.” Reprimanding them, I made my way to the last of the founding members and the last female member, Shae.Alpha.

“Sorry for making you wait.”

“It’s cool, I got nothing to do anyway so I wasn’t affected by you being late.” Casually answered Shae.Alpha or simply Shae.

Shae was a tall figure, around my height. The biggest difference about her was that she was an android. This was one the new character class that you could pick from the Future Cybernetics expansion.

Her character had a synthetic body while the armor looked to be extensions of her body than separate pieces of clothing. On the back was a cog gear that took up most of her back. Her shoulder guards were rectangular in shape. Shae’s entire looks has a theme of machines. There were gaps where you could see the cogs and wires about. Primarily along her arms and legs.

Her gantlets were big and bulky with a crystal at the end of the palm. Shae’s face was similar to a dolls, something inanimate about her. Everything from her pale white skin to perfect features looked lifeless. Because of this, her character rarely shows any emotions.

Also, every time she would speak, it would come out as robotic. Despite the rather monotone look she was very loud and tomboyish. Shae was the most vocal among us; often getting into arguments and speaking her mind whenever she wants.

Floating next to her head was a small mechanical ball. It was completely mechanical just like her and constantly spinning. It looks almost identical to the Globus Cruciger minus the cross. It was entirely silver with gold and red along the ridges. This was her orbitor, a special weapon that follows her commands due to her [Android Commander] class.

Finally greeting all of them I made my way to a seat. The other followed suit and we sat around the main round table within the council room. Altina was still with us and stood behind my seat. I wasn’t too bothered by it as it was time for shut down.

I leaned back and took in the view of the counsel room in its entirety. The table that we sat in was circular with a hole in the middle. It was made of fine wood and decorated with beautiful carvings. The chairs were made of the same materials with a red cushion for the seats. The back part of the seat is tall and firm and gave a sense of royalty to it.

The room served as a hub for us to plan and discuss important matter of future event. It was also the main point of control for the entire guild building.

“So what did you have in mind for our final get together?” asked Manom who was speaking for everyone there.

“I thought it would be nice if we all met one last time before this is all over. You know like a captain going down with his ship.”

“That’s it? Man, if I had known I wouldn’t have decided to log on. I could have caught some fucking sleep.” Complained Arsenal.

“No one said you had to join us. Why don’t you leave right now if it’s bothering you so much?” Speaking up, Shae and Arsenal were getting ready to fight it out before Kaetzchen quelled them down.

“Now, now kittens shouldn’t fight amongst each other, nyaa.”

“She’s right, let’s enjoy what little time we have left.” Reptillia joined in to smooth over the conversation.

While they were talking to each other, I looked to my right and noticed Nu-Ru thinking. He had both of his hands on his chin and was looking downward. A signature trait when he’s in deep thought.

“Hey what are you thinking about?” I asked in a worried tone.

“Huh? Nothing…it’s just that…I just find this whole situation strange.” Speaking in an unease voice. The other stopped and joined into the discussion.

“What do you mean? What seems wrong?” questioned Trion Jazz

“Why would they suddenly shutdown Eternia? No matter how I look at it, it doesn’t make any sense.” Finally revealing the issue, we gave our own thoughts on the matter.

“It’s a game, so it shutting down isn’t all that surprising.”

“Under normal circumstances I would agree Shae, but this is different. Eternia is a one of a kind game. No other games have been able to create or improve on what this game has done. So it makes no sense as to why they would shut it down if millions upon millions of players log on every day.”

“Maybe they’re preparing a sequel?” Next was Reptilia who provided a reasonable explanation.

“If so, then how come we haven’t heard anything about it? We’re about a revolutionary game in the gaming industry.” Countered Nu-Ru.

“He’s got a point, if there were news about a sequel, practically half of the earth would know about in less than an hour.” Siding with him was Manom and Arsenal who nodded their heads in agreement.

“No matter how hard I wrap my head around it, I can’t seem to find a plausible answer.”

“It doesn’t matter now, the game’s going to shut down in like three minutes. Nothing we can do about it now.”

“You’re right but still it doesn’t feel right.” After hearing Arsenal blunt answer Nu-Ru heaved a heavy sigh and the conversation dropped.

The entire mood turned sour afterwards -“There’s no way we can end all of this on a depressing note.”- I said to myself while trying to lightening the mood up. Happy memories, those were what I was going for.

“Hey remember the first dungeon raid we did?” Choosing an early memory. I hoped that it would spark something to lighten up the mood. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Nu-Ru show a faint smile.

Catching on he pitched in. “You mean the raid that took us literally 23 tries before we beat it?”

“That’s the one!”

“I specifically remember when Manom tried to resurrect that golem and got himself killed by another one.” Said Nu-Ru with a small snicker.

“Hey! I was just curious and that was the first time I got that spell.”

“Whatever dude.” Said Trion Jazz who joined in on the laughing.

“Alright fine, but what about that time where you literally ran into the attack of the golem swing?”

“I remembered that, I was rolling on the ground laughing my ass off!” This time Arsenal burst out laughing.

“Says the guy that thought it was a good idea to aggro 13 skeletons to our position, nyaa.” Kaetzchen pitched in with her own story of our failures.

“If I remember correctly, you were the first one to die because you wanted to kill them all. You were such a knuckle brain back then and still are” Backing her up was Shae who shared the laugh with Kaetzchen

“Oh if we’re going to find faults then what about the time where we were at the boss and you cast a speed buff on us rather than a defense buff?” argued back Arsenal.

“Ahhh, don’t bring that up! Seriously I made one mistake alright! Besides we still beat it.” Arguing back, Shae tried to justify her claim.

“The rest of you beat it, me and Arsenal both died because of that mistake.” Joining in, everyone started to talk all at once. Even now while we’re talking and bickering with one another, it was fun. All the memories, fights, raids, quests, and friends.

Everything, they were all precious memories of mine. We all started playing late in the game’s life time. Eight years, eight years has passed since we all started playing. Hard to believe it’s been that long.

“I’m really going to miss all of you.” I spoke in a whisper as so no one heard me.

Those words rang true. Eternia was my only interaction between them. We all live across the world from each other. Even if we were to meet up it would be awkward, especially with our age difference. The youngest of us being Shae and Nu-Ru at 19 and 20 years old. The oldest was Kaetzchen at 33 years, while I’m around 25 years old.

Needless to say, meeting up was not really such a good idea. And even then, what would we do? In Eternia we could do anything and everything. The sky was the limit and we enjoyed it to our hearts content. But with everything shutting down. What would happen next?

While thinking next I’m reminded of my life. A white collar job at some company for six days a week every week. I’m an adult now, I have responsibility. Eternia was the only respite I had in the game called Life. And in a few seconds, it would disappear.

“I wish…I wish we can keep on going. Just a bit more.” The words came out almost like a prayer. I knew it was futile. A selfish wish but I felt like saying it nonetheless.

Checking the time I decided to say my goodbye and log off early. Part of it was to escape the impending pain. But before I could hit the button a screen popped up.

“Huh?”

There was no title, it was a simple notification. It reads as follow. “Hello. With the end slowly creeping up. You must be wondering, is this it? Is this the end? Well that will depend on your next opinion. I have but one question to ask you. Do you wish to continue?”

Perplexed by the message I looked up to see everyone else with the same notification letter.

“What’s this?”

“Looks to be some notification. Doesn’t say who though?”

“The message is strange too. Wonder if it’s from the creators?”

“Could be. I’m more interested in this message. What do they mean by continue?”

“Perhaps this is some survey. I often heard they do this to gain feedback or something.”

“Soo what do we chose then?”

“Hmm, why don’t we let him decide?”

Directing the questions to me, they all patiently waited for my answer. “Me? Why me?” I was never good at being in the spotlight.

“Well as guild master you’re the one in charge after all. It’s your choice. Think of it as your last act as guild master of Crimson Strife.” Looking all around, the others showed the same expression as Nu-Ru. Contempt. They were waiting for me to make the big decision.

As I stared back the notification, I took the message into consideration. To continue….To continue playing. To continue having fun and exploring. To continue…to being with my friends.

“…I accept.” After several seconds of deep contemplation, I made my answer. Hovering my finger over the accept opinion I looked up to see the others doing the same. Simultaneously, we pressed the same button.

“…… Selection confirmed. Congratulation!”

With that the message disappeared and in the next second my body was enveloped in pain. A powerful shock electrocuted my body. It was so strong that I felt that I was having a seizure and a migraine at the same time. Slowly I couldn’t take it anymore and I fell on top of the desk.

My consciousness slowly slipping away. As my eyelids grew heavy, I barely made out the figure of my friends who looked to be experiencing the same thing. My vision slowly faded away into darkness. The last thing I ever heard was the familiar ping sound of the notification and then…nothing.