Chapter Text
Gavin was beyond stoked.
He was absolutely tippy-toppers and not even the 'B-' on his English midterm could bring him down.
Today, all Nydealle servers had the double experience feature running and most of the premium items were half off (not that neither him nor Ray were looking to buy any).
God, Gavin couldn't stop jittering his leg. The double experience had already started sometime that morning and it was going to end at midnight on the dot.
Ray, Gavin’s best friend, and himself had both been thinking up a plan since the event popped up on the official forum. Their plan involved grinding high level mobs and then speed-running a dungeon or two. Hopefully by the time they were at the dungeon, they had both leveled up considerably. While Gavin's level 56 elven archer was nothing to bat an eyelash at, his tactics sucked major dicks.
One, he rushed enemies first and utilized his range-orientated class never. No matter how many times Ray shouted something like 'dammit Gavin, fucking stay behind me' at him over Skype, the message never got through the processors in Gavin's brain.
Two, he always forgot to stock up on health and mana potions before raids. They would be ten minutes in, going strong, then Gavin's character would suddenly end up being knocked out and Ray would get an earful of vaguely British, half-bird, and half-velociraptor screeches in his headphones as Gavin realized he had forgotten to visit the merchant on their way to the raid.
Ray was the real brawn in their duo. He could mow down mobs with his level 57 faunus rogue in ways that left Gavin stunned most of the time. However, Ray couldn't whip up an action montage quite like Gavin could, but he more often than not got to pick out the music for it.
"Stop bouncing your leg," hissed the girl sitting in the desk next to him, interrupting his train of thought. "The bell rings in literally ten seconds, I think you can wait a little longer."
Gavin wordlessly stilled his leg and true to her word, the bell rung only a few moments later. Gavin grabbed his things and bounced up onto his feet excitedly. It was lunchtime now (pizza Thursday to be exact) and everyone was buzzing with elation at the thought of snagging a few greasy slices.
Gavin followed the stream of students out of the classroom and into the hallway. Now, if he could navigate through the hallway without dropping anything, it'd be a miracle. Gavin had high hopes; he was on Cloud Nine and he didn't think anything could ruin it now.
It did, however, put a damper on his spirits when he tripped over his feet just as he got to his locker. His books slipped out of his arms and papers cascaded out from folders and plastic pockets in all directions. Gavin groaned, his head tilting back. He leaned down and began snatching papers off of the ground before they could be stepped on or stolen. He ignored the raucous laughter coming from the students around him as he shoved the papers back into one of his books, collected everything into his arms again, and stood back up.
"I'm seriously convinced that there has never been a day in your entire life where you haven't tripped over yourself," Ray's voice sounded from behind him, a hint of laughter in his words.
"Shut up, you mingepot, I'm not that clumsy," Gavin replied with a grin, balancing his books in one arm as he fumbled with the lock on his locker with the other.
"Sure, Gavin, whatever you say," he snickered. As he dodged Gavin's foot as he tried to kick him, Gavin messed up on his combination a second time.
"Bollocks!" he squawked in indignation.
"Dude, hurry up! These damn vultures are stealing my pizza!" Ray groused, folding his arms.
“Then go to lunch, pissbaby,” Gavin snorted.
“Fine, I’ll save you a seat then, British prick.” Ray laughed, giving him a quick shove just as Gavin swung open his locker before he raced off towards the cafeteria. Gavin turned to retaliate just in time to see Ray barely manage to dodge another kid before he disappeared into the crowd. He snickered and piled his books into his locker. Gavin spun the lock a few times before he turned and he too slipped into the stream of students heading for the cafeteria.
He arrived there quickly, practically elbowing a kid out of the way before Gavin was accidentally thrown out of the line. Pizza Thursday was serious business and no one tolerated any line-cutting, considering the pizza ran out at one point or another.
Gavin grabbed a tray and handed it to one of the lunch ladies. She chattered happily as she slapped two pieces of pizza and a little plastic cup of slimy fruit cocktail onto the tray. He didn't hear a word she said but when he grabbed his tray from her, he replied with a grin.
"Cheers!"
The lunch lady gave him a wide smile and waddled back to grab another student's tray. He took slow steps away from the lunch line and glanced around the cafeteria, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. Gavin spotted Ray almost instantly. The Puerto Rican was standing up on his chair, waving his arms wildly.
Gavin began making his way through the crowd, dodging and ducking around the students. As he got closer, a thin pathway appeared as a group of students separated. Gavin grinned widely and hurried through it.
Or at least, tried to hurry through it. Another student, a boy a bit shorter than him with unruly brown curls, stood up and stepped into the pathway. He was wearing a letterman, indicating that he played on the varsity football team. A few names drifted through Gavin's head.
Matthew? Mitch? Michael?
Michael, the one with the infamous temper.
As he thought about it, Gavin had attempted to move out of the way, but his foot caught on another's ankle. He tumbled forwards with a shriek, his tray flying out of his hands directly towards Michael. Gavin whimpered as his knees slammed against the concrete flooring but the noise was quickly swallowed by furious shouting.
"Are you fucking kidding me?!"
Gavin looked up to see Michael wiping cheese, pizza sauce, and fruit cocktail off of his letterman. They caught each others eyes for a quick moment, and Gavin swore he had never seen so much anger in one person.
"L-look, mate..." Gavin stammered.
"Look, mate!" Michael mocked harshly. "Look here, asshole, you better watch where you're fucking going. If you ruined my letterman, I'll come back and ruin you. Christ, how fucking dumb can you be? Couldn't see past that gigantic fuckin' nose of yours? Goddamn, dude."
Michael turned and stormed out of the cafeteria, leaving Gavin trembling on the floor with his ruined lunch. The Brit quickly pulled himself up onto his feet and hurried to Ray. He kept his head down as he did. The chatter in the cafeteria, which had quieted while Michael had been yelling at him, resumed at its obnoxious volume.
Gavin slid into the seat next to Ray and slumped down, his cheeks flushed a deep red.
"So, that was a thing," Ray said carefully, glancing over at Gavin.
"What a twat," Gavin muttered. His appetite had unsurprisingly become quite minuscule.
"Yeah, I know."
"I didn't even mean to trip and he just bloody exploded," he snorted.
"Well, Creeper King," Ray murmured with a sly smile, "Just take it out on the hordes of monsters we'll be slaying tonight, as long as you remember to actually buy some health potions."
"That was one time!"
"Seven times, in the last two weeks."
"Ray of Roses, cheeky cat boy."
"For the last time, I'm a rabbit!"
Gavin laughed. He might've tripped and fallen off of Cloud Nine, but at least he still had Ray and the night of double experience.
Or at least, he had the night of double experience. Gavin had barely began setting up his laptop after he had gotten home from school when his phone had started to ring. He had almost ignored it but when he looked over, he saw Ray's name on the screen. Gavin picked up immediately, giddiness in his voice as he greeted him.
"Ray! You excited for tonight?"
"Damn, buy me dinner first," Ray joked weakly.
"Shut up," Gavin groaned. "So, what's going on?"
"I have some... bad news."
Gavin remained silent for a few moments before cautiously saying,
"What kind of bad news?"
"The kind of bad news that involves my mom confiscating my laptop and making me spend the night with my brother so we can 'bond'," Ray grumbled quietly.
"What?!" Gavin practically shouted, his eyes growing wide.
"I know, I know!" he sighed.
"Bollocks, what am I supposed to do now?" the Brit whined.
"You have to go through with the plan! Grind some mobs, fuck up some dungeons. You have to do it for the both of us now," Ray replied, an almost confident tone in his voice.
"Ray, do you know who you're talking to?" Gavin asked dubiously.
"Yeah, well... I have to go now. Seriously though, go through with the plan. I'll see you tomorrow."
"Cheers, Ray," Gavin grumbled before hanging up. He tossed his phone onto his bed and stared at his laptop. Now what the hell was he supposed to do?
On one hand, he could just go through with the plan and stop whining about it. Sounded easy enough, right? Except Gavin would be going into battle without the one thing that usually kept him alive. He wanted to spend the night racking up experience points, not player deaths.
On the other hand, he could pull up Netflix instead and marathon Pokémon. Singing along to the theme song always put him in a good mood.
Gavin sighed, knowing that he had to go through with the plan. Double experience nights were rare and he wasn't going to throw it away just because Ray was gone. He finished setting up his laptop, plugged in his headphones, and slid into his office chair.
He hummed quietly as he clicked on the familiar shortcut on his desktop. The icon itself was simply of a golden shield with an 'N' carved into it. As dorky as it sounded, to both Ray and Gavin, the gold shield was much more than just a desktop shortcut. It was a place where they could go when nowhere else was an option.
When Gavin's parents fought for what seemed like hours, the Brit could sign on to Champions of Nydealle: The Dark Wars and ignore the sound of their yelling in favor of vigorous questing.
When Ray couldn't quite smother the gaping holes of loneliness caused by a long-gone dad, a hard working mother, and a commonly absent brother, he could just go and join in with a few of his online friends to go raiding.
The login window for Nydealle distracted him from his somber train of thought as soon as it popped up. He quickly typed in his username and password, a bubble of giddiness forming just below his sternum. It quickly grew as the game replaced the login window, the obnoxiously loud sound of swords clashing and demons hissing followed close behind. Gavin grimaced, he always forgot to take off his headphones just before the game opened up.
CreeperKing, or as his friends called him (to Gavin’s dismay), Creep, stood valiantly on a platform on Gavin’s screen. The tall, tanned elf resembled Gavin quite closely, not counting the long, pointed ears, lack of a huge nose, and the considerably less clumsy nature. Gavin waited a few moments, just until the elf’s idle animation was triggered. CreeperKing pulled his bow from off of his back and looked over it with an expression of interest, as if the character had never seen it before. The bow itself, as defined in the weapon description, was carved from the trunk of a golden tree and blessed by an angel of the great goddess of virtues, Citia. Gavin wasn’t sure what that meant, considering he didn’t exactly pay attention to the history of the game, but he did know that it gave him a huge advantage of two times damage against spirits and demons.
Gavin selected the character with a grin. When CreeperKing spawned in the town of Belil, the tight ball of excitement bloomed and plucked at his ribs. Prior to anything else, he stopped by a merchant, sparing no expense on potions.
Before he pulled up the map, he checked his friends list. While many of them were on, most likely reaping the benefits of double experience, one specific player was not. When Gavin typed 'RayOfRoses' into the search bar, his status came up as offline.
He refreshed it once. Offline.
Again. Still offline
Gavin sighed in defeat. He had been hoping that by some miracle, Ray would be on. Gavin's eagerness deflated slightly but it didn't deter him. He switched over to the map and fast-traveled to the Forest of the Oracles. The Nydealle woodland was nearby an isolated, high-level dungeon. Gavin wasn't sure how many players were already pillaging the dungeon but his guess was small. He had picked the server with the lowest amount of traffic. Despite the gibberish messages that kept popping up in the World Chat, the server was treating him well.
The forest, on the other hand, was not. It wasn't that monsters weren't appearing, the mobs of spirits, corrupted psychics, and devoted necromancers were plentiful and spawning on a regular basis. It was the fact that Gavin wasn't doing that well at handling them. The first few fights went well and the enemies had fallen victim to his virtual arrows one by one. He had watched in glee as his experience bar increased rhythmically with each deceased foe.
His night might have continued on like that if the mobs didn't keep coming, always faster than the last. Gavin kept up as best as he could, spamming the keyboard shortcuts for his potions. Damn cooldown timers. Gavin quickly found himself on the verge of death more times than he was comfortable with.
Gavin began leveling up, albeit slowly. More than just a few times, he had to respawn in Belil and teleport Creep back to the forest. The small fast-travel fee was beginning to worry him as he imagined how many times he would die in the dungeon. He hoped it wouldn't take too much of a toll of his gold, the potion hoarding having already done that for him.
The mobs kept coming and Gavin kept grinding, squawking like a prehistoric bird when his health bar fell too low for comfort.
The last straw came just an hour after dinner time, when Gavin had managed to scrape his way to level 60. He had heard it before he had seen it. A loud, low-pitched roar rumbled in his headphones. CreeperKing turned just in time to watch a behemoth of a rather demonic, skeletal bull come charging towards him, a masked necromancer following close behind on foot. Gavin's face paled at the sight of the beast. It was just his luck that a rare, and powerful, enemy had come stomping through the forest while he was alone. If Ray had been there, the two would've been ecstatic. Rare enemies dropped top loot and gave the players who killed it high levels of experience.
However, Gavin was alone, and facing a reanimated bull with an all-powerful necromancer was more intimidating than he remembered. CreeperKing dove out of the way before the bull could ram him but he didn't miss the bolt of lighting sent his way by the necromancer. It knocked a quarter of his health down and Gavin choked out a shrill shout.
If he could kill the necromancer, the bull would die with them, but if he focused his attacks on the necromancer the bull was left open the charge Creep. Then, he would have to dodge both the necromancer's and the bull's attacks all at once. Gavin groaned; grinding was much easier when there were at least two players fighting.
CreeperKing fired off arrow after arrow at the necromancer, slowly chipping away their health. The bull proved to be quite a problem though, bashing its bare skull into Creep when it had the chance and fuck, it packed a wallop. It easily snuffed out half of his health with critical hits.
The number of health potions in his inventory steadily decreased at a worrying pace as the battle continued. Despite this, victory looked like it was in Gavin's favor. With each successful attack against them, excitement bubbled up in his stomach. He couldn't wait to tell Ray about this since he'd most definitely be amazed.
Or he'd just laugh his ass off if Gavin couldn't pull it off. The necromancer's health drained to just a quarter and the number of Gavin's health potions turned into seven.
Seven turned into six. Quarter turned to twenty percent.
Six turned into five. The bull charged Creep. Five turned to four.
Four became three. Twenty percent ebbed slowly. The bull continued to be a brute. Three became two.
Gavin's excitement soon morphed into alarm and a distressed whine crawled out of his throat. Creep raised his bow, pulled an arrow from his quiver, and aimed for the necromancer carefully.
A sudden alert from his private messages caught Gavin's attention. He ignored it in favor of focusing on defeating the necromancer. Just as CreeperKing shot another arrow at the necromancer, another player burst out from the trees behind Creep. A warrior, decked from head to toe in shining silver armor, sprinted for the necromancer. They evaded the bull easily and slashed their sword towards the necromancer.
With the combined forces of CreeperKing and the new player, the necromancer's health hit zero and they dissolved into dust. The bull perished just a moment afterwards, giving one last roar before it disappeared into oblivion. Gavin whooped as his character leveled up twice, going from level 60 to level 62. He didn't even mind that the other player had already started sifting through the remaining loot.
Oh, right, the other player! Gavin quickly hovered his cursor over the warrior. The player name and a quick overlook of their stats popped up.
Mogar, bloody top name for a warrior.
As Gavin pondered over how the other managed to snag the name before someone else did, an alert came from his private messages again. He glanced at Mogar, who had taken to just standing next to him, before pulling up the chat.
[Mogar]: ill save you princess!
[Mogar]: you too stunned by your rescuer to look at this loot?
Gavin grinned and rolled his eyes before replying.
[CreeperKing]: i had that battle under control, you bloody mong
[Mogar]: what the hell is a mong
[Mogar]: also thats a lie
[Mogar]: you were fighting that thing for like fuckin 30 minutes
[CreeperKing]: ...were you watching
[Mogar]: i figured you were going to run out of health pots at some point
[CreeperKing]: creepy wanker
[Mogar]: hey! i just saved your ass, you ungrateful lil shit
[CreeperKing]: pfft you were just waiting until the last second to swoop in and steal yourself a bit of exp
[Mogar]: nah
[Mogar]: give me a lil credit, im a knight of that city chick
[CreeperKing]: ...citia?
[Mogar]: yeah!
[CreeperKing]: smegpot liar
[Mogar]: stop making up fuckin words jesus christ
[Mogar]: and okay, half of that was sorta true??
[Mogar]: i mean, i was supposed to wait for you
[Mogar]: but mostly i was just waiting for you to eat shit and die
[Mogar]: and then i was going to swoop in for some exp
[CreeperKing]: i met you about 1 minute ago
[CreeperKing]: in 1 minute i have concluded that you are a prick
[Mogar]: 1, im the prick who saved your fuckin precious little elven ass
[Mogar]: 2, i guess you don’t want this bow the asshole dropped
[CreeperKing]: WHAT
[CreeperKing]: don’t you dare take that with you
[Mogar]: i don’t know, i think i could find a use for it
[CreeperKing]: moGAR
Before Gavin could even shout at his computer screen, a trade request popped up. He laughed and settled back in his office chair before accepting the offer. Two small windows replaced the invite, one to show Gavin’s side of the trade and another to show Michael’s. When a small bow-like icon showed up in one of the slots on Michael’s side of the trade, Gavin clicked on it to see the description. He skimmed over the name and the description. There was a big theme of dwarves, angels, and the “forges deep within Nydealle” but Gavin was more interested in the stats.
“Increases agility by a few points, gives holder a twenty five percent defense against any fire attack, and…” Gavin’s muttering trailed off and his eyes widened.
“Two point five times damage against any soldier of the fallen goddess, Velene? Bugger my arse, that’s like every enemy in the game!” he shouted as he shoved himself away from his desk, elated at the prospect of having such a good weapon. Gavin suddenly fell silent, staring at the computer screen.
“Shit, I have to give them something back…” he muttered to himself as he wheeled himself back to his laptop. Gavin searched through his inventory almost frantically. There had to be something in there that he wouldn’t need in the future that he could give to Mogar. A few moments later, he finally settled a few permanent stat boosters. There were two charms, one increased strength and the other increased vitality (both of which Gavin imagined he had no use for) and a rose-like flower that increased defense. He had been meaning to give it to Ray, mostly because it looked like a rose, but he figured he owed Mogar.
He dragged all three boosters into his trade slots hastily and pressed ‘accept’, eager to get Creep’s hands on the bow.
[Mogar]: did you just give me a flower
[CreeperKing]: shut up, it increases your bloody defense stat or something
[Mogar]: you gave me a fuckin flower
[Mogar]: are you trying to court me, asshole?
[CreeperKing]: what? no!
[Mogar]: ahaha fuck
[CreeperKing]: damn wanker
Another window popped up in the middle of Gavin’s screen. This time it was a friend request from Mogar. Gavin accepted it without a second thought.
[Mogar]: okay um shit
[Mogar]: the laptop is about to be ripped from my hands
[Mogar]: i guess ill talk to you tomorrow? maybe?
[Mogar]: idk whatever, see ya
[CreeperKing]: cheers, wanker
[CreeperKing]: ill talk to you tomorrow
[Mogar] has gone offline.
Gavin leaned back in his chair, a grin on his face. It took a few moments to process what had happened. His new friend was quite the twat but admittedly, most of his friends acted the same exact way. He logged out a second later. With no Ray, no Mogar, and two health potions left, Gavin decided to skip the dungeons all together. Before the game closed, he caught a flash of a message in his chat.
[CreeperKing] has gone offline.