Heroes of Veritas: Crafting Bonus (Book 1)

It had been three years since Elise Morrisey started living her double life. By day, she was a competent if bland administrative assistant, quietly tending to files and efficiency-boosting spreadsheets that the sales people in her office took credit for. But in the evenings, she adventured through the thrilling and dangerous fantasy realm of Veritas, helping her guild slay various virtual villains. At least, that’s what she thought she would be doing when she first started playing the massively multiplayer online RPG called Veritas. In her mind, she had pictured herself coming home from a long day under the critical eye of her boss, a gruff near-alcoholic former salesman-turned-‘manager’ who probably should have retired already, to a whimsical world where she could slay vicious beasts with an impossibly large axe while wearing a cute, coordinated armor set. Instead, what she came home to most nights were Harmony messages like the one that flashed on her screen now – “WHERE ARE YOU? YOU GOT OFF WORK AN HOUR AGO, RIGHT? YOU LET US RUN OUT OF FOOD AGAIN. RAID’S STARTING.” She wasn’t even part of the night’s raid; her guild commander, Astredian, had made it very clear to her that she was not skilled enough at combat to contribute to any of the regular raid groups. The messages she regularly got from the vice guild commander, written annoyingly in all caps, were far less polite. He stopped short of telling her she was only adopted into the guild as a token friendly girl mascot, but she'd overheard snippets of what was said sometimes during raids. A few of the raid members liked to stream, and she’d sometimes watch their progress on her second screen while hunting down crafting components. You see, that’s what her role in the Dire Beaver guild was – craftsperson. She had spent most of her time in game creating foods that buffed, specialty armors, and weapons of magnificent power – all for other people. In three years, the only time she’d seen action was when she needed components that the raid members required for new gear. So, for the first few weeks of a new patch or expansion she would get to feel like real player, fighting her way through dungeons and defeating bosses with guild members who seemed barely able to suppress their resentment at having to carry her under-geared, under-leveled rump so that she could acquire the rare components needed to craft their upgrades. Then, once the upgrades were complete, she would be relegated once again to the background of guild society. That’s not to say she didn’t have some friends in the guild; she had a light party she roamed with regularly. She was probably closer with her party members – Echo, Strawberry, and Merc – than the co-worker’s she’d spent nearly a third of her life working with, or under, at her day job. Even though the party wasn’t large enough for raids, they could do most of the regular difficulty dungeons. They shared their in-game victories and losses, as well as some of their real-life ones. When they discovered that Elise, whose handle was also Elise - she wasn’t feeling particularly creative when naming her toon - hadn’t even completed her personal story quest, the party held an intervention and insisted that she let them help her finish it. The last few nights they’d worked their way from the middle section of the quest line, where it had been sitting for almost three years, to the last entry – a dungeon that she’d never been able to play through before, because it required personal quest completion to unlock. They had been planning to celebrate after beating the dungeon with drinks; they all lived in different parts of the world, but managed to find the same kind of cider – the only alcoholic drink that Elise liked – so it would feel like they were drinking together. As she sat at the computer desk in her dimly lit office, Elise ground her teeth at the message flashing on her screen. She was not the only crafter in the guild; she wasn’t even an officer – so why was it her fault that the raid ran out of food, exactly? Elise tapped her WASD keys, vaguely shifting her character around, while she thought about the message that remained up on her second screen.  Her character was a ranger with a color coordinated full set of crafted gear; red leather pants, laced boots up to her knees, bracers, a white shirt with dark red vest and long bright red velvet riding jacket over the top of it. The digital ranger’s curling brown hair framed her tanned round face and pointed chin, with bangs coming down just above her faintly glowing green eyes. She looked like the real Elise, but more rugged and faintly magical; the real Elise was soft from too much time sitting at a desk and too little time at the gym she paid a membership for. Digital Elise even had a confident idling stance that made her look like she could pull the bow from her shoulder and let loose an arrow at any moment. Elise wished she could loose an arrow at vice-commander Moltar’s face. A ping sounded in Elise’s left ear as a new message flashed on her second screen. It was Strawberry, letting her know the rest of the party was in-game and ready when she was; she could see them hopping into one of the guild’s previously unoccupied Party II voice channel. Elise let go of the breath she had been holding in, turning it into a long, irritated sigh. She was not going to let Moltar ruin her night; and it was her night. If the raid wanted food, they could make it themselves. She drifted her mouse over to her second screen and hovered over Moltar’s Harmony icon. She found the mute options, and spent a minute convincing herself to mute him for just the night instead of forever, before hopping into the party’s voice channel. “Hey Elle! Ready to rumble?” Strawberry said cheerfully, the bass vibrato in his voice belying his energetic tone and the adorable wave that his petite, cat-eared female character model performed to accompany the vocal greeting. Strawberry was their healer, and also their party leader. He was also a member of the guild’s top raiding group, and Elise was deeply grateful for both his friendship and his skill – although his ability to find her no matter where she was wandering in the game was slightly disconcerting. He had a habit of popping up in front of her, waving both hands erratically in her toon’s face. Maybe she was just really predictable? “Hey guys,” Elise replied, quickly accepting the party invite that popped up on her main screen. “Let’s get this party started.” “Now that’s what I like to hear,” Merc said, her voice a soft, even alto – the sound of a can opening in the background as she spoke. “I hope you’ve all got your drinks at the ready.” “That’s the kind of ready check I can get behind,” Echo agreed, his lithe dark-Elvish rogue character dancing in the starting zone of the dungeon as Ellie’s screen loaded her in. Merc, or Mercenades, their tanky barbarian was idling behind him, her half-giant toon juggling two axes that sparked along their edges with blue flame. “Easy now, guys.” Strawberry chuckled, “This is a pretty easy dungeon for us. Even Ellie is over leveled for it, but that doesn’t mean we want to go in drunk on overconfidence and have to run it more than once.” “So, that’s a ‘no’ to drunk, but an implied ‘yes’ to tipsy. Got it.” Merc said, taking an exaggerated gulp into her headset mic before belching with gusto. Everyone laughed. Elise always thought Merc would make a better bard than Barbarian. Maybe a bard-barian? There wasn’t any cross classing in Veritas, but if they ever decided to incorporate cross classing in the future she might have to mention it. Not that bard performances were a common thing in the game. They were on a roleplay server, and she had seen a few bards do performances in the larger cities - she’d even considered joining in. She grew up playing guitar and piano, but hadn’t had much time for music recently.  As a raid focused guild they rarely took part in that aspect of their server; they just liked atmosphere. Strawberry had a theory that roleplay servers attracted more dedicated players who logged in more consistently, and that was why after hopping servers a few times they landed on the Morgoth server. Even the name of the server had the feel of drama. Once the party settled back down, Mercenades took the lead, charging through rooms of trash mobs and mini bosses with an air of practiced ease. Merc was not a member of the guild’s top raid group, but Elise thought she would make her way up the ranks as other players finally got bored and moved on to newer games. After finishing off the last of a group of fiery imps that they’d taunted into a corner for easy AOE kills, the group paused in the entryway of the boss room. Elise’s personal story quest followed one of a handful of ‘personal’ quest lines available for human ranger characters. She had chosen to play the daughter of a ranger and arcanist who grew up in one of the larger cities, in a middle class suburb, but who had taken up hunting after her father died while defending the city from a dragon attack. Looking back on it now, she thought playing a ranger suited her role as a craft person well; it allowed her to more efficiently hunt and locate resources needed in her crafting. Perhaps she hadn’t intended on being a craft person, but she couldn’t deny that she enjoyed crafting – she just wished her efforts were better appreciated. In this last dungeon of her character’s story quest, she was supposed to be clearing out winding caverns of dangerous hell beasts that were causing corruption in the sovereign’s protected woods above – the famously White Wood that had been slowly turning black with veins of ashy creep during the course of her quest line. To the real Elise, it felt like she was battling her way through the difficulties of both her day job, and the guild job that she’d been unwittingly saddled with. Her character’s reward upon quest completion would be a title of nobility and a license allowing her to hunt or capture beasts in the White Wood, but Elise couldn’t help but think that she would end up with more of a punishment than a reward – probably a mix of angry allcaps messages from Moltar for ignoring him all night, and a mild hangover in the morning from drinking too much cider and not enough water. At least it was Saturday and she didn’t have to go to work tomorrow. Elise eyed the dungeon boss, a tall, thin demonic entity with beady solid red eyes, stark white skin, ash blackened hands, and a bow that burst into blue-black flames as soon as all the party members entered the room. The room was a dimly lit cavern with hides on the floor, and racks of curing animal meat suspended from the ceiling.  Sconces of purple-black flame sputtered to life as an obsidian gate smashed down into place, closing off the door they came in through, as Strawberry explained, “The main thing to watch out for is corrupted wasps; they are assholes and can down you in one. During the second add phase, the wasps get two attacks. But otherwise, just don’t stand in the red, press your buttons, and it should be an easy fight.” “All right, then….3…2….1…” Mercenades said, before stepping up to the boss. “These are our caves, and the wood is our wood now, fleshlings!” the boss entoned, before dodging the first of Merc’s axe swings. It launched itself backwards, at the same time pulling its bowstring taught. The fearless tank leapt forward in pursuit, her second axe coming around and landing a solid hit against it. The demonic entity, which had been aiming toward Echo, who had not only flung his daggers into the creature's back, but poisoned it as well, turned right back toward Merc and loosed its flame-tipped arrow directly into her face. Merc stumbled backward, but Strawberry was right behind her with a heal. As a support DPS, Elise was on the flank, harrying from a distance with arrows of my own. The first exchange, though brief, was a little odd – normally arrows hit harder the farther you are from a target, but Merc’s health had dropped pretty hard from just that first hit. Elise assumed the boss was similar to a ranger, like herself, from the set up of the room and use of the bow, but maybe they were built more like a rogue who dealt better damage when in melee range? Players might not be able to cross class in the game, but bosses often had non-standard abilities. That was part of their challenge, but many players also thought of boss characters as previews of what might become standard abilities for player characters in future expansions. Just as Elise’s toon was reaching her hand out toward the boss to cast hunter’s mark, the boss reached out in the same way toward Strawberry, whose huge heal had drawn just enough agro to pull its attention. A swirling purple circle appeared under Strawberry’s feet, ringed in red, just like the one that appeared under the boss’s feet. That’s when the first wave of wasps came. While marked, Strawberry would take a great deal more damage from the enemy wasp sting – it probably wouldn’t just down him, but kill him outright. There were only three, but they were small and difficult to target with the mouse; Elise tabbed quickly to the wasp nearest Strawberry and shot it with electrically charged arrows. Bolts of lightning jumped from one wasp to another before finally striking the boss and dealing a tiny amount of damage. The wasps weren’t dead, but the wasp closest to Strawberry had also been shunted backwards, keeping its treacherous stinger from incapacitating the party’s main source of heals. While Merc regained the boss’s attention with vicious blows and Echo rounded behind the boss for the additional blanking backstab damage that made rogues so deadly, Elise ran toward Strawberry – and luckily away from the wasp that had been floating up behind her for a final sting. Her dodge might not have been entirely intentional, but she decided not to focus on that – and instead did what she had intended to do, which was throw down a trap for the wasp that she’d pushed away from Strawberry. As her character tossed a small pouch toward the buzzing wasp, an outline of a white circle appeared around it. From the center of the circle a vine emerged, grasped the wasp, and then slammed it bodily to the ground. Over the next few seconds, the wasp took additional crushing damage, then finally expired – exploding into a puff of ash. The vine stayed up, wiggling slightly back and forth in its area of effect for a few more seconds before fading to mist and disappearing itself. Before the vine had even disappeared, Elise was already taking aim at the wasp that had been trying to sting her. Due to the ministrations of her powerful barbarian and rogue friends, the boss was nearing half health. She had the feeling half health would be when the second wave of wasps would come, and Elise thought it would probably be better to kill them off before more of them could spawn and overwhelm them. Before she could let her arrow fly, Elise saw a shell of purple-black energy form around the demonic boss. Mercenades’ axes bounced off the energy shell, and with each blow an alert popped up – Immune. “s**t!” Merc groaned, just as the remaining two wasps exploded in a shower of black bile and muddy ash, causing splash damage to both the barbarian and the rogue. More worrying was the lasting poisoned effect that washed over Merc, whose skin took on a pallid, greenish tone. The boss chuckled darkly, “You surface dwellers, so piteously …weak.” Strawberry skirted around the remains of the wasps, which pulsed with ominous green light. The cleric raised his scepter, the top of which spun and glowed with multicolored power – much like a disco ball – and cast cleanse on the party. The boss’s immunity finally fell off, the pulsing remains of the wasps’ remains fading with it, before a second wave of wasps appeared. These had the gold glow of armor to them, which would make them considerably more difficult to kill then the previous group. The boss cried out as both Merc and Echo landed hits against him, and with that cry two small blackened vines erupted from the ground, grabbing at Merc and Elise. As the tank, Merc expected to have most attacks directed at her – but Elise was caught off guard and executed her dodge roll too late. The tendril wrapped around her character’s ankle, and thrashed her backward, slamming her against the dungeon wall. She could still attack, but had no movement until the vine was defeated. Elise groaned, but didn’t trigger her push to talk; she didn’t want to distract the others, since a new area of effect had appeared in red outline. It emanated from the front of the boss in a cone-shape as he drew his bow. Elise was outside the area of effect, but cringed as she saw the squishy rogue, Echo, take a full volley of 6 arrows to the chest.  His health plummeted, low enough for his health bar to start blinking. The boss was nearly dead, and only needed a few more hits to finish him off. Despite seeing her own health bar sink with each crush of the tendril that was wrapping further up her body, Elise quickly shot shunting arrows at two of the three wasps, trusting that her team could distract the third, before hitting her special. She held her bow steady, charging it for three seconds with electrical power, hoping that three charges would be enough. Before the boss could trigger its immunity once again, Elise’s arrow zipped forward. For a second of anxiously held breath, while the three charges surged into the boss, Elise wasn’t sure it was going to work. Then, the boss groaned, fell forward, and drifted apart into a cloud of ash. With the boss defeated, the wasps also dropped to the ground and turned to ash. There was a flash of light, and the “Dungeon Cleared” dialogue played across the screen with a swell of victory music. When the room came back into view there was a huge golden chest sitting beside a portal that would take them out of the instance. The party cheered, and Elise relaxed. It wasn’t the prettiest clear she’d ever seen, but for a first run through with enemies that could one-hit kill you, it was pretty good; no one had even been downed – though Echo had been pretty close. “Good job guys.” Strawberry said, finally cracking into his own can of cider. “Let’s have a drink to that!” Elise took a deep draft of her now luke-warm cider, mixed berry Vunderkling, the same that Elise, Echo, and Mercenades had. She leaned back into her chair, basking in the adrenaline high of the kill and the joy of having shared it with her friends. That emotional high sputtered out when Elise saw a new message flashing on her second screen. She had muted Moltar, but she hadn’t shut down Harmony completely. The new message was from their guild commander, Astredian. Elise’s lips pressed into a tight line as she navigated her mouse to the second screen and clicked on Astredian’s icon. “Hey Elise, just wanted to check in. Moltar told me you were working on some new food for tonight’s raid, but when the raid members checked the guild bank food tabs there were empty.” “Right, Ellie?” Strawberry’s deep voice interrupted my increasingly irritated train of thought. “Righ-wha?” I sputtered in response. “Sorry, I missed that. I was reading a message from Astredian.” Mercedes snorted into her headset mic, voice touched with a hint of tipsiness, “Lemme guess, he just wants to know your work schedule next week so he can micromanage your post-work crafting schedule?” “Worse,” Elise sighed, rubbing her sore eyes with the back of her curled knuckles. “He wants to know why the food tab in the guild bank wasn’t filled back up before the raid tonight. God forbid anyone else in the guild do some crafting for once.” “Just ignore him,” Echo said, his lilting French accent giving his speech pattern a musical cadence, “It’s nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow. Let’s enjoy tonight, ma petite choupinette.” “No, I think I’d better deal with it now – he can see that I’m online and in game. He’ll just be more annoyed if I keep ignoring him and message me in game once I’m out of this dungeon.” Elise thought he would have messaged her in game already if you could send messages to someone in an instance. The rest of the party continued bantering as Elise considered her response. She tapped her keyboard vaguely, then sent the following message, “I don’t believe I told Moltar I’d be doing any crafting for the raid tonight, since I already had plans with my dungeon party.” She was not going to apologize, even though that had been her first instinct. Perhaps the cider was making her behave a bit more boldly than usual, but she wasn’t drunk; she just knew that she hadn’t done anything wrong. If anything, Moltar owed her an apology. “Well,” Astredian responded, “We really could have used your help. Raid was a struggle tonight.” It was a measured response compared with the one she probably would have gotten from Moltar, but it caused something in Elise to snap; her fingers flew across the keys as she tapped out, “Was there no one else with crafting leveled up, or are you just trying to guilt trip me for wanting to enjoy actually playing the game instead of spending every moment of my precious little spare time making s**t so that YOU can enjoy playing the game? Do me a favor, Astredian, and mute me until tomorrow morning, because I’m not sure you want to read anything else I have to say.” After she hit enter, she felt a twinge of regret. Astredian was a hardass, and he took gaming seriously, but he wasn’t a dickbag. She minimized her Harmony window so that she wouldn’t have to see any more messages, and looked back to her main screen. Her party members had already left the instance, but were still in voice chat, discussing which dungeon they wanted to tackle next. Elise made noises of assent when appropriate; she was happy to go along with whatever dungeon the party decided on. While they were bickering about the finer points of one boss or another, Elise opened up her chest. It was full of boosters and high level materials that would have made perfect sense to give a player at the end of their first main story quest several years ago. She was far beyond needing them now, but they were still useful to have. She collected the loot, then shifted her toon over to the portal. She paused then, reading the prompt that came up when she clicked on the portal. “Return to the Beginning?” it read. That phrasing felt off – that wasn’t what a return portal prompt normally said, was it? She leaned back further in her chair; too far. She could feel her chair creaking ominously, then heard something pop and tinkle to the floor. A screw maybe? Elise felt the sensation of falling, then a loud crack as her vision went black. The prompt floated hazily in front of her, filling the entirety of her field of vision. “Return to the beginning?” Elise whispered, “Sure. Why not.”