(2) The King.
…
What I can say… it wasn’t what we expected.
A player having sympathy for us? I can’t remember the last time.
In fact, I do remember the first time I met a player. He was looking for a strength amulet, but I didn’t have one. So he beat me up, and took my entire stock.
Another time was when a player was terrorizing the Riverville citizens. The Magic Council was busy fending off attacks on the Silent Tower, and the best they could send was a scout and a couple commissioners. The player quickly disposed of them, leaving me to defend the village.
I managed to beat the player, but they were shouting obscenities at me, like:
“Hacker, how do you have that title?”
“Autoaim!”
“Recorded, trash can.”
I didn’t really know what he was saying, but at least he left the place alone. What separates players from NPCs is the fact that they can come back to life, over and over again. You cannot kill them for good. Thats how many of our powerful leaders fell, due to players coming back over and over, and fatiguing them.
And it’s not like players are “weak”, either. I’ve seen players destroy 15 Magic Council soldiers, including commissioners, and 6 Magic Council Captains, without dying once. Some of them are so powerful they choose to discard their magic, their gift from Vetex himself, and use weapons instead. And the horrifying thing about that is… some of them are powerful, formidable, even without magic.
You can probably tell where this is going.
We didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to do. Only some of our young and elderly survived the chaos. We hid in the Mayor’s house, and buried the dead mayors body somewhere in his garden.
I don’t know how long we were in there.
Knock knock.
I took out my sword, wearily. You never know who could be out there. I opened the door, and prepared a magic attack… but I was surprised to see a player. To be specific, a player with pale white skin, pale white hair, dark blue eyes, and galant clothing. He looked… almost like a King.
“Hello. I’ve come looking for survivors, and it seems I found some. My name is Cryonical, and I am a King.”, said the man, whose name is Cryonical.
I was confused.
“Why are you looking for survivors?”, I said.
“Hey, I told you my name. It’s only fair you tell me yours, in return. I have gathered 500 survivors, and I have hidden them somewhere in Mount Seawatch. Would you like to come with? We have much to share.”, replied Cryonical.
I didn’t understand. He was definitely a player. Why was he holding such… compassion for us? Tears rolled down my eyes, and in an act of desperation, I bowed down to him.
This King.
I was surprised to see that there were many bandits around. However, most of them ran away, seeing we were with a player. Their behavior was odd, as normally bandits will attempt to take your life with no remorse, and with absolute determination.
One of our elderly died.
The children cried for the rest of the trip, and the other elder was silent. The King couldn’t do anything about it, as the elders are all above the age of 80. It was bound to happen.
We arrived at Mount Seawatch… and I was surprised to see many survivors at the top of the mountain. They greeted us… and all of them were NPCs. Why was he collecting survivors?
You may be wondering why I’m so weary. Even “heroic” players carry out their deeds not for the wellbeing of us NPCs, but for the income. If there is no reason to be a hero, they will turn to villainy as if taking off a mask. Almost every “heroic” player I’ve met is a sociopathic psycho(like most players), who takes joy in murdering others. As long as they seem like a bad person, they will kill them no matter the cost.
The King had an abundance of food. We sat and ate, filling our stomachs for the first time. It was good.
I heard something stirring somewhere on the bottom of the mountain. Two players killing each other, as usual.
The King promised us that he would protect us, no matter what.
Months passed. The King stayed true to his word. Curious players attempted to cause trouble among the survivors, but he froze them into a cube, and shattered them to pieces in almost half a second.
Eventually we started a self defense program. Since I was among the few NPCs that could use magic and knew how to use a sword and throw a spear, I started teaching the young and the able how to throw daggers, swing a sword, use a bow-and arrow.
The times were good.
Eventually, the months changed to years. I was 34 years old, at this point. The children had turned to adults. Some of them even got married, and had their own children.
How foolish. How foolish of us, to trust this No-Life King. No Life, in the sense that we would all experience horror once more, in his light.
Vetex appeared once more.
