Gamer

I was part of a raid, and controlling two characters.

The first character was of the melee type, he dealt out ma.s.sive damage and had a large health pool.

Someone in the raid was a.s.signed to draw aggro away from my healer as to leave him free to cast spells.

With a bellow and a shout, the giant finally toppled and the way lay clear.

We"ve killed every other monster in the game, the bosses falling before us. Toppled as if they were trees.

Don"t get me wrong. We weren"t all powerful or strong. We were actually one of the weaker groups.

You are permitted to use macros in the game, the problem was that those macros often fail to predict something a human can see coming a mile away.

It wasn"t perfect, and tons of other teams had something similar or better.

But the one advantage we did have, was the leader of the raid. NuckleBeard.

The Orc King likes to pick up his mace and slam it down unpredictably, his damage dealing almost a KO? Organise healers to chant a ma.s.sive healing spell each.

You were never more than a few seconds away from a full heal.

During that time, if one of our argo takers took damage. It was used on them.

We practically slaughtered the Orc King.

Basic tactics you may say, but you have no idea how hard it is to control a single character.

But granted. We did use macro"s to help us.

So standing before the entrance, the lair of the final boss.

Landing a attack on one of the green hydra"s heads would increase its regeneration by 500% for a minute.

The damage was severe and dealt a huge debuff to defence.

The purple hydra however, countless teams had challenged it and lost. Shortly after you organise a new attack, it learned and countered it.

Any attempts to attack the crystal would have the hydra defend it and send it into a murderous rage which tripled its power.

However only a few people have ever tried to destroy the crystal. After all, the goal of this dungeon was to claim the crystal.

There was three special things that made this game exciting.

The website of the game was simple enough, it had a giant glowing crystal with the purple hydra guarding it set as the background.

Another row of text under it states simply. "Only the last 1000 users to join may play"

And yet. It ran with no problems.

And lastly, we could have our access cut off.

That"s right. Only the last thousand users to sign up can play it. Not accounts. Users. It knew somehow who was behind each account.

Posting it in a private community, a few of us came to check it out. We were amazed as well.

Really strange if you think about it. You"d expect someone to leak the game and the world to pounce on it.

For to share it, we would lose our access. None of us wanted that.

The original guy who found the game started a guild, Green Vines.

They didn"t fit in. We eventually found our perfect number with 5 users and 12 accounts.

But the issue with it was that unlike the rest of the game.

The last time we attacked, we lost 4 accounts before being forced to retreat.

We stood before the entrance of the final boss, the hydra lying on the ground, head resting on claws. Golden gaze fixed on us.

Speaking earnestly, he started talking.

His voice grew solemn.

We roared as one "NO!"

"WHO CARES!" We yelled back at him.

"WHO CARES!" we howled.

"DUNNO!" we roared back.

I loved our group name.

Hyped and our adrenaline roaring, the leader outlined the plan.

The hydra roared, standing and challenging us it lead with a wave of poison.

We took that chance to make the first strike.

At the crystal.

You"d think this has been done before, and it has.

The hydra frantically used its body to cover as much of the crystal as it could.

A single arrow slipped by.

But our melee attackers. .h.i.t then, knocking the hydra as it was distracted by the arrow.

The hydra noticed the movement and attempted to swipe me, however the other 2 melee"rs took the blow. Saving me from being swept away.

With a earsplitting crack, my speakers blew.

Rolling off my chair, I lay on the ground covering my ears groaning and crying in pain.

My mother ran in, scared by the sudden noises and smoke from my bedroom.

I heard the phone dimly ringing, but I couldn"t muster the sense to answer it.

My computer was history.

Slowly my hearing recovered and my fear died down.

Standing up on shaking legs, I walked to the phone and called my friend. Eventually after a few rings, he picked up.

"What are you talking about?"

"Wow.." He didn"t say anything for a few seconds.

He had been talking to the other members of our group.

Was it because it was my attack?

He told me what happened after the crystal exploded.

When attacking it, it didn"t fight back. It just lay on the ground.

After ten minutes. The game grew slower and slower. It took longer to move around, longer to turn the screen view around.

Files were corrupting.

The site"s install b.u.t.ton was grayed out.

Why did the crystal have this effect?

Should we have even tried to smash it?

I spoke with him for several hours more as he kept me up to date.

Lying on my bed. I looked upwards. Grief heavy in my heart.

Would we ever play on Balizen again?

Closing my eyes. I drifted to sleep.

We shouldn"t have done it. We really shouldn"t have done it. The thought that kept pounding through my mind as I slept.

Then I heard a sound.

*Tring*

Blearily opening my eyes from my restless sleep. In front of me floated a silver blue text box.

For crushing the source of Balizen"s power

- You have gained the t.i.tle Gamer
- You have learnt the skill Gamer

Reaching out for the box, it felt solid under my hands. And yet my fingers easily slipped through. It was a weird feeling.

I fell back asleep, but instead of the nightmares of before, I now dreamt of fights fought and won.