Heralds- The Proving Grounds

  Contents

  Proving Grounds: Heralds

  Copyright

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

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  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

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  28

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  34

  35

  Back Matter

  The Proving Grounds:

  Heralds

  Wade Adrian

  Copyright © 2016 Wade Adrian

  Cover design © 2016 Wade Adrian

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means - except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews - without written permission from its publisher.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright © 2016 Wade Adrian

  All rights reserved.

  k12

  1

  “I think it’s still downloading.” Jen stared at the screen. The progress bar was visibly full, but the game had yet to start.

  “Maybe it’s locked up.” Sam leaned in close to look over Jen’s shoulder. “Hit Alt F4.” The young woman wasn’t known for her patience… or her adherence to human hair coloring. It was purple at the moment but it had been blue the week before. It was… distracting.

  Then again a lot of things about Sam were distracting. She seemed to engineer her appearance that way. The shining stud in her nose still made Jen’s nose itch every time she noticed it. The feeling had not declined the slightest in the month since it appeared.

  “No. I don’t want to have to start the download again because I stopped it while it was still working.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not.”

  “I’m sorry, do you speak computerese?”

  “I do.” Sam nodded. “And it’s asking for a merciful death. Hit Alt F4.” She stretched her arms over Jen’s shoulder, her fingers nearly striking the keys.

  Jen brushed Sam’s arms away and wiggled her hands to drive the young woman back. “Get away from my keyboard.”

  Sam rolled her eyes as she backed away and held up her hands in mock surrender. “Fine. But I’m telling you it’s locked up. It did that a lot in the beta.”

  Jen turned back to the screen. “Ah yes, the voice of experience. Please regale me once more with your tales of access since early alpha. Such a special snowflake.”

  “How rude.” Sam wandered a few steps away and made a show of inspecting the virtual reality gear again. The helmet thing was sitting on Jen’s nightstand beside a pair of gloves with sensors all over them. They had also drug up a vest to make movement easier. Some people on the forums swore the sensors they had placed about the room could see the thing. It was the kind of vest construction crews wore for visibility. “Shiny” seemed to get the job done. Relying on the helmet and gloves to denote how much the player was leaning to move about had gotten better over time, but was still kind of imprecise.

  There was supposed to be an official “real” vest in the works but they weren’t publicly available yet, so Jen didn’t own one.

  And finally, the piece de resistance beneath all the rest… a silly toy sword from the book store. It was helpful to hold something to orient your in game weapons, what with the gloves and all.

  In truth, she didn’t own any of it. Well, not the VR stuff. It was her computer and she had her own Proving Grounds account, but the helmet, gloves, and sensors were… borrowed. It was totally her sword, though.

  Sam set the helmet on her head and glanced around before nodding. “Still reading green.”

  “Kind of impressive, given the lack of space… and the abundant use of duck tape.”

  Sam shrugged. “It’s not like it cares where your feet are, so it’s okay the sensors can’t see them over the bed. Head, hands, and super stylish vest.” She picked up the shiny orange affair. Sam had used something similar toward the end of the beta and swore by it. “And I heard that tone, by the way. It’s all good. Kevin wasn’t going to use it.” She shook her head a bit. “Teach him to bail…”

  There was a bit of a sore spot there, but less so than her own.

  Jen frowned at the monitor. She didn’t want to think about it. The summer had just begun and most everyone was out of town over the break before the summer semester started up.

  Well, except for her.

  And Sam. But Sam’s family lived nearby, so she saw them all the time even though she lived in the dorm.

  Kevin was Sam’s brother. He had decided to skip town for most of the summer on short notice, including the summer semester. Sam hadn’t yet forgiven him for taking off without warning. Summer had always been a family time for them. Several birthdays, holidays, and all.

  It was a bit odd that Sam was here, considering Jen was why Kevin had left in the first place. Their split had been… somewhat less than amicable. She had nowhere to go, so he had found somewhere else to be. His uncle lived a few states over out in the sticks.

  Jen had a bag packed, ready to follow him. Sometimes the mood struck her… other times she wanted to burn all his pictures. The bag was tucked under her bed. She didn’t want Sam to see it. Jen was supposed to be more resolved than this…

  And yet despite the falling out, Sam sat on the bed in Jen’s cramped dorm room making various hand gestures in front of the headset on her head. She had the gloves on. Many of them were rather crude. A few downright obscene.

  Sam had never been very good at making friends. She’d latched onto Jen because she was around Kevin, and it was still a bit odd for her to be here when he wasn’t… but right now Jen was grateful. The campus was a ghost town this time of year. Company, even mildly disconcerting company, was preferable.

  “Besides,” Sam waved her hands in front of the mask, “you were in the beta, too.”

  “The last wave. And that was right before finals. I got maybe an hour or two a day in for a week before they shut it down.” She clicked the mouse on the game’s launcher. Maybe button still worked… “I think they were forwarding your mail in there.”

  Sam shrugged and removed the helmet. “My grades didn’t drop, so who cares?”

  This wasn’t a new issue, and that was her standard argument. At the moment, with her grades being the singular reason for her existence, it was difficult to argue. Her parents argued it, though. A lot.

  “My one true regret…” Sam sighed. “Is that my head count was left behind. Very soon now we begin again. And yet… I am unknown. I am no one.”

  Sam had been playing the game as a rogue designed specifically to kill other players. She prided herself on it. She took contracts on people others had trouble killing.

  “You’re kinda sick in the head, you know that?”

  Sam smiled. “Aww, don’t be scared. You have nothing to fear… unless the money is good.”

  Jen rolled her eyes. “Uh-huh.”

  “Perhaps my name being forgotten is for the best. So many new ‘friends’ to let me in close… and then I can stab them.”

  “If you plan to use the same name, I’m sure some people will remember it.”

  “Ooo. You’re probably right.
I’ll be infamous.”

  “You know most people don’t exactly strive for that, right?”

  Sam shrugged. “Most people are also forgotten by time. But you’ve heard of Genghis Khan and Jack the Ripper.”

  “Some people get remembered for doing good things too. Like Gandhi.”

  “Yeah, but that’s much more work.”

  Jen shook her head. “You’re crazy.”

  A dramatic series of drums boomed from the computer’s speakers.

  Sam’s head whipped around. “Awesome.” She hopped up. “Time for you to suit up.”

  Jen stood and stretched her arms up over her head. She was still in her pajamas. There wasn’t much reason to get dressed today… so far. “Shouldn’t you be heading out, then?”

  “Nah, you’re still a bit green around the edges. Besides, if it’s just going to crash a few minutes in, I’d be coming back over anyway.” Sam flopped into the office chair and spun around a few times.

  “Suit yourself.” Jen put on the oh-so-stylish vest before pulling on the gloves and gently lifting the helmet. Her hair was a mess and this thing wasn’t going to help.

  Oh well, nothing for it.

  She lowered the helmet. It snagged on her ears a bit, but fit well enough after she shifted it about.

  “Alright.” Sam waved a hand in front of her face. “All good?”

  “Seems like it. Also I can still see you.”

  “Of course. Camera mode won’t turn off until you start the thing.”

  Jen reached out and touched the loading bar that hung in the open air before her. It rolled over to reveal the game’s logo as more drums sounded, leading into the main score.

  The world was washed away in black.

  “Okay, now I can’t see you.”

  “What’s it say?”

  “That it’s connecting.”

  “Yeah, I see that too. Shouldn’t take long… well, I mean, it’s super likely everyone is trying to hop on at once, so… it might take awhile, actually.”

  The connecting message blinked out of existence as a red square appeared before Jen’s eyes. A line moved down across the box and she tried not to blink. She’d messed up the retinal scan setup the first time.

  “Your eyeball looks funky close up.” Sam’s voice was off to Jen’s right.

  “Yes, thank you. Connecting to World Server.”

  “That one might take a bit.”

  Sam wasn’t wrong. A series of dots after the word “server” appeared in sequence and disappeared.

  Repeatedly.

  “Yeeeeaaah…” Sam sighed. “Glad I stayed. I could be sitting in my own endless queue and not even have anyone to talk to.”

  “It is kind of… dark in here.”

  Connected.

  “Woot.”

  The darkness before her eyes faded to light as a bright beam of luminance struck the ground in the middle of a forest, dark trees and green canopy stretching off in every direction.

  A list appeared off to her right. It was where her characters would be, if she had any. She swung her right hand at the list and the top spot lit up.

  She had played with character creation some in the beta. Different classes really didn’t get many distinct customization options, though some like wizards and mages got access to more “older” features than the average class. Everybody going wizard probably wanted to be Gandalf after all, while the long beard would not only look silly on more agile types, but actively get in the way.

  The default character that greeted her was a bard this time. Big hat. Feather plume. Striped pants. She laughed a bit in spite of herself.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I can’t play an instrument. I can’t even sing. And I mean I can’t sing badly. In a choir, where no one would even hear me.”

  “You do kind of have that goose thing going on when you laugh really hard.”

  Jen couldn’t see Sam anymore… but she could still face her based on her voice, and the fact that Jen hadn’t moved. She knew exactly where she was. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

  “Good, good. Give into that feeling. We could stab people together. Charge a group rate. The secrets I can show you. And if things go bad there’s this bug where we can appear offline, kind of a bad idea but…”

  Jen ignored Sam. The character standing before her looked a lot like her. That was how the default character always showed up. The sensors about the room and the ones in the helmet could see well enough to make an approximation from the various available parts, and a survey had shown a lot of people preferred representative avatars.

  There were countless options for everyone else. The scan just set the default for a given player by choosing the closest thing from those options. And there was a button marked “random” for the super lazy, though that tended to spit out unholy abominations.

  No, bard wouldn’t do. On the other hand, being a rogue like Sam wasn’t really her cup of tea either. She had run around as a warlock and a ranger in the beta. Both had grown a bit stale, even with her limited time. She needed something different…

  She scrolled all the way to the top.

  Barbarian? Ugh, no. The class was in a bad place in the beta. Besides, she looked silly in the furs.

  Bard. Still no.

  Blackguard? Hmm. The character’s skin turned a shade paler when she scrolled to the option. The eyes were more sunken and sullen. The hair swapped to white from her natural brown. The blackguard looked okay right now, but she’d seen some high level ones in the beta. Their armor was all skulls and spikes. She did like that hair, though…

  Cleric. Bleh. Healing. The whack-a-mole aspect of MMO healing had never been appealing to her, despite the stereotype of women playing clerics.

  Druid? Hmm. Not a bad option, but she wasn’t entirely familiar with the class. Maybe later.

  Mage. Ehh… She’d run a warlock before, which had nearly convinced her that casting wasn’t for her. Besides, she still had trouble understanding where a mage ended and a sorcerer or wizard began.

  Monk? The martial arts outfit was neat, but she had heard bad things in the beta. Maybe after a few patches.

  Necromancer. Hmm. It was a priest class in this game. Not the most offensive one, that fell to Druids, but it did come with pets. Always handy. Still, she didn’t feel like wiggling her fingers at things at the moment.

  Paladin. Huh. She liked the look of it. The character wore plain clothing with only a breastplate for armor, but it shined. She wore a sword and shield on her back as she stood in the circle of light, her stance wide and her chin held high. Heroic. Hmm.

  Ranger was old hat. Not a bad hat, mind you, just an old one. She wanted to try something different. And they were incredibly popular. She didn’t have special snowflake syndrome, but she would prefer to not be just another of the bow wielding legion. The class also had a rather negative connotation at the moment. It was easy to play, safe while fighting from a distance, and had versatility in allowing melee weapons. Popular + good = reputation for being bad. She didn’t need any of that right now. She wasn’t in the mood to weather it.

  Rogue. Pfft.

  Shaman? Hmm. In a better place than a few other classes. A melee combat based priest class, capable of some offensive magic, too. It sounded more complicated than she would want to jump into without reading up on it.

  Sorcerer. Well at least the robes were a different color than the mage ones.

  Warlock. Hello old friend. Goodbye old friend.

  Warrior? Nice and simple. See a thing, beat it to a pulp. It had a certain appeal and was definitely better off than barbarian at this point. Ponder, ponder.

  Wizard. Yeah, no. Lady Gandalf just wasn’t happening.

  She scrolled back up and down the list a few times, ruling more out with each pass.

  “Oh. My. God. Pick something.” Sam’s voice appeared from the darkness.

  “Working on it.”

  “I can see what you’re doing, you know. Theres four of each
kind: fighters, priests, hybrids, and casters. You’ve been through them all. There’s no more surprises for you.”

  “I did tell you to go log in yourself.”

  “I actually ran and started the login while you were busy. I’m in the queue.”

  Jen frowned a bit. She hadn’t realized she had been alone. The VR headset blocked things out. She lifted up the headset a bit. “Next time you go, be sure to lock the door.”

  Sam tilted her head. “There’s nobody here. At least, not very many. I closed the door when I left.”

  “Just do it, okay? And yours too. Don’t need people robbing us blind while we stand in the same room.”

  Sam waved dismissively. “Yeah, yeah.” She pointed at the headset and moved her hand down in front of her eyes. “Pick something so I can go watch my own screen not do anything while the queue counts down.”

  Jen lowered the headset. Yeah, she’d figured it out.

  She scrolled the list a bit until she landed on paladin again. The version of herself resumed the heroic stance. A champion of truth, justice, and all things good and wholesome.

  It was pretty much the exact antithesis of Sam’s rogue. Granted, the blackguard was the in game antithesis of the paladin, but it was still a heavy armor tanky type, which was pretty similar.

  Jen smirked a bit as she moved onto customizing the character.

  “What? Paladin? Why?” Sam didn’t sound happy.

  “Oh, you know, I did casting and shooting in the beta. Thought I’d smack things around some.” She moved to the hair options. Something longer. She didn’t have much patience for long hair herself, but she wouldn’t have to blow dry her character’s hair.

  “There are better options for that.” Sam’s voice was dripping with scorn.

  Which only made Jen all the more sure about her choice. She swapped the hair to white to see how it would look. Hmm. Yep, she still liked it.

  “And now you’re an old lady paladin. Yeesh.”

  “Not a wrinkle on her.” Jen shrugged as she moved through the other options. She tweaked the nose a bit… something she wished she could do so easily in reality.

  “Ugh.”

  She checked a few more options before she realized she’d be at this all day. She hit the “Continue” button and moved on to naming.