(Just for safety reasons, this is going to be the last chapter I post on YWS. It's not that I don't trust anyone on YWS to not copyright my idea, but someone from outside the site might come in a steal my story and publish it as their own. Hopefully you'll all get to read the whole story once it gets published. Anyway, I hope this is the last time anyone will see .Hack// influence in my story. The main character does get sent to some dark place after he dies, but unlike the manga instead of meeting a girl and getting a strange item, he hears a voice and receives a mark on his palm. Once you guys read that part you'll see how it'll turn into an original story instead of what you've seen so far.)
Chapter 3:
When Dynamo opened his eyes he was laying in a dark place. The ground was covered with grass that was soft to the touch. When he looked around there was nothing to see, pure darkness everywhere he looked. A ray of light was shining down on him like a spotlight, but when he looked up there was nothing to see, just more darkness. He also noticed his name and HP bar weren’t floating over his head.
Where am I? he thought. He sat up and decided to check his map on the PSD. But when he opened the map menu the sphere that was supposed to represent the world appeared as a fuzzy image that in no way resembled a sphere. The word ‘Error’ in flashing red text appeared in front of the hologram.
This is weird, even the PSD doesn’t know where I am. He retraced his thoughts to see if he could remember how he got here. All he remembered, though, was fighting those stray dogs and levelling up. Then a dragon came and it attacked him. Everything went dark after that.
Wait, if everything went dark after that dragon attacked me, does that mean my character is dead? Even though his HP bar wasn’t showing over his character, there was another way to check his health. He opened his character’s status menu and looked at his HP count. Sure enough, it said zero. If my character is dead, then shouldn’t I be back at the main menu or something? Nothing like this ever happened in the demo…
Dynamo got to his feet to move around. The ray of light moved with him, lighting only the grass at his feet. After a few steps he called out into the darkness, “Hey! Is anybody here?”
“Welcome, young warrior.”
Dynamo jumped when he heard the voice. It spoke in a genderless tone and seemed to be coming from everywhere, and nowhere. “Who said that?”
“We are the Server Guardians, we protect the balance of law and order in the land of Drakonia.”
“Balance of order…? Are you part of Epicom?” Dynamo asked.
“We do not answer to Epicom, we reside within the code of Drakonia. We protect this world from those who would bend the laws of the game for their own selfish ends.”
“You mean, like, hackers?” Dynamo asked. This was all so strange, he had read lots of internet forums with his sister about Drakonia Online before they bought the game and none of them ever mentioned anything about Server Guardians.
“That is what you call these people, yes. It is also our duty to insure that all users are treated fairly and are never subjected to injustice.”
“Okay, that’s cool and all, but why am I here? Is my character dead?”
“It has been almost a year since Drakonia was forged, every day more and more people enter this wonderful world. Thus, the number of those who wish to bend the laws increases, as well as the amount of injustice the innocent must endure. We cannot enter Drakonia, thus we cannot address this problem directly. This is why you and eleven others have been chosen to act as our blades against this dilemma. You will fight for us to protect this world from the rising injustice and law breakers.”
Dynamo’s left palm suddenly caught on fire. He flung his arm in a blind panic, trying to shake out the flames as they ate through his glove. He finally settled for smothering the flames by rubbing his hand on the grass. He let out a relieved sigh when the fire was out, but when he turned his hand to see the damage that had been done and found a mark on his palm. It was in the shape of a fish. “What the heck is this?” he asked.
“This mark is a link to our power, and proof of your allegiance to us. When you are faced with great adversity, raise your hand and let the light of justice shine. Good luck, Pisces…”
The surrounding darkness suddenly changed to blinding light in a blink of an eye. A few seconds later Dynamo was back in Sunset Fields. His HP bar had returned to its spot over his head as full green. His character had been brought back to life. What just happened? he thought.
A scream tore Dynamo from his thoughts as he realized Amber was still in trouble. The dragon had her cornered against a tree. She screamed again as it lifted its claw and lashed out. She moved in time to dodge the hit as the dragon’s claw tore the tree asunder.
Dynamo called out to his sister, “Amber!”
Amber looked at him with wide eyes. “Dynamo?” The dragon turned to face Amber as it reared its head back, just like it had before it bathed Dynamo’s body in flames.
He remembered what the voice had told him. “When you are faced with great adversity, raise your hand and let the light of justice shine.” With the words still fresh in his mind he ran toward the dragon with his hand outstretched. His palm let out a beam of light that struck the monster, stopping it in its tracks. Its body jerked and spasmed as the word ‘Paralysed’ in bold yellow text appeared over its head.
“What just happened?” Amber asked.
Dynamo ran up to his sister and grabbed her arm. “There’s no time, let’s get out of here!” He knew that paralysis was only a temporary status effect, if they didn’t hurry the dragon would shake it off and come after them again. They fled to the safety of Horizon City’s gates.
Amber and Dynamo were completely out of breath when they reached Horizon City, but at least they were safe from the dragon. The game’s code makes it impossible for monsters to enter cities or towns. Amber was the first to say, “What happened out there? First that level twenty dragon shows up in a place it’s not supposed to and then you come back from the dead!” She turned to face her brother. He had collapsed on the ground in a panting heap. “How did you get that power, anyway?”
“Well…” Dynamo explained everything to his sister. He told her about the dark place with grass, the Server Guardians, and finally the mark on his hand. He finished by explaining, “Their exact words were, When you are faced with great adversity, raise your hand and let the light of justice shine.” He sighed, “I don’t know what’s going on, either. None of the forums we read said anything about this…”
“Maybe it’s a secret quest,” Amber suggested.
Dynamo gave her an odd look. “…What?”
“You know, a special quest that only opens for people in certain circumstances. Maybe if we find the eleven other people with marks on their palms we’ll get a rare item, or a super powerful weapon!”
“I don’t know, Amber…”
“Check your quest tracker,” she told him, “see if any new entries have been made.” Dynamo did what she told him and opened up the quest tracker on his PSD. A window labelled ‘Quest Tracker’ appeared in front of Dynamo. No new entries had been added. “That’s weird, maybe it’s a secret quest that doesn’t get added to the quest tracker?” Amber suggested.
“Well, whatever it is there’s nothing we can do about it now,” Dynamo said. “But one thing’s for sure, that dragon was way too strong to be in such a low level area. We need to contact a server admin and tell him about it so Epicom can fix the problem.” It took them a while, but they were able to find an admin inside Horizon City and report the issue of the dragon in Sunset Fields. He assured them that Epicom would fix the problem with the utmost haste, until then he cautioned them to be careful until then. They neglected to tell him about the mark on Dynamo’s hand, though…
Amber and Dynamo played the game for a few more hours, levelling up in Sunset Fields. They made sure they stayed near the gates of Horizon City just in case the dragon showed up again. That way the NPCs guarding the gates can fight it off while the two of them run to safety. They both reached level five before they had to log off and eat lunch. Afterward they went with their mom and dad to visit their grandparents. By the time they got home it was time for bed. Ryan couldn’t stop thinking about what happened with the Server Guardians and the mark on Dynamo’s hand. He couldn’t go to sleep right away because of it, so he decided to do something on his computer. He went to an unofficial forum site for Drakonia Online and created a new topic called ‘Server Guardians.’ In it he explained the experience he had in hopes that one of the eleven others the voice had mentioned would see it and contact him.
Now he had to play the waiting game…
(The interesting thing about the mark on his hand is, unlike in the manga where it always does the same attack, this thing's attacks will be random until he figures out how to control it. This time it induced the paralyze status effect, but next time it may be poison, or sleep, or it may even heal the enemy's wounds, or it just might not do anything at all. I remembered what kitty15 told me about giving the main character super powers and how she was happy I didn't do it. This way, instead of making him stronger this new power will be like playing Russian roulette. )
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