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Marie Rose
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I've actually wanted to do this for a while. It'll be the last one I make up on the spot.
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TMEDCE: Chapter 22 – Really Pointless Gaming
It was two days after Awesome’s party, and Ivy was at the mall, buying sweets as usual and eating them as she sat on a bench by a fountain. While she did so, Ruby approached her, there was a period of silence, and then Ivy got up and turned to her. “What is it, foolish angel? I’m not doing anything evil today, plus I’m eating right now.”
Ruby simply handed her a leaflet, still seeming as frustrated as she was at the party. “Try this MMORPG, it’s about some fantasy land where you can beat up creatures, acquire tons of weapons, level up, and even beat up other online users. Plus, defeating the final boss allows you to become an evil overlord. It’s called Land of Leisure, LoL for short.”
Ivy took the leaflet and looked over it, clearly intrigued. “Very well, I appreciate the information. I assume you have an account, right?”
“Why else would I tell you? Here’s my number, call me when you defeat the final boss. We’ll plan our battle ahead of time.” Ruby said, handing her a note.
“Excellent. When I’m through with this final boss, then we will settle the score.”
“Just name the place.” Ruby said, squinting at her.
Ivy moved within inches of her face and poked her as she replied, “Us only. No weapons. Final destination.”
“That place doesn’t exist.” Ruby remarked.
“We’ll see, Rabi.”
“Ruby.” She corrected her, clearly annoyed. “Whatever, I’m going now.” She said as she left.
Later that morning, Ivy made it home and went straight to her computer in the basement to sign up. In the middle of the registration process, Poison slid down the banister leading to the basement and walked towards her. “Morning. Y’know, for someone who wants to conquer the world, you don’t seem to be serious about it.”
“Quiet, I’m making an account on an online RPG.” Ivy replied as she continued typing.
“My point exactly.” Poison sighed. “What game is it anyway?”
“It’s called Land of Leisure, that foolish angel told me about it.”
Poison smiled as he heard the name. “Hey, I’ve got an account on there too. I could help you out with some of missions and such.”
“Really? Then I grant you permission to use my laptop upstairs.”
“I use it even without your permission...” Poison said quietly.
As Poison left the basement and switched on the laptop on the table nearby, Ruby was watching through the bushes outside and smirked as he did so. “So it begins...”
“And what devious scheme are you planning right now, foolish angel.” Willard asked, who happened to be standing a few feet away.
“You’ll see soon enough, and it’ll be good enough to Nicholson at.”
“I should hope so.” Willard suddenly vanished.
After a short while of filling out necessary information and designing her character, who was basically an older looking version of her, she started the game in the middle of a bright and peaceful forest. She walked around and spotted a chicken, so she kicked it several times until it eventually called for backup, whereupon dozens suddenly showed up and zerg rushed her, killing her immediately, but since she had no items and was already at the start, no harm was done. She put on her headset after being brought back to life. “Poison, you on?”
“I’ll be there in a sec.” He replied.
“Hurry up, I don’t get this!”
“You don’t get a lot of things.”
“Do you have a comment for pretty much everything I say?”
“No, just about 80% of them.”
A few minutes later, Poison was instructing Ivy where to go to meet him through directions. They soon met by a hut near a mountain, and Poison’s avatar looked the same but wore black leather armor with a neon green ‘X’ going across it, and a black cape. “Hey, I see you’re using that avatar. I guess that means there won’t be any loli jokes this time.”
“They’re getting old anyway. So what now?”
“You gotta start grinding, because the final boss is in the high 50’s, and you’re level 1. Even though I’m level 15, I also have quite a while to go too.” Poison paused and turned to some bushes further away. “Oh, and Ruby, you can join us if you want.” After a few moments of silence they simply moved on.
So began the montage, without music, just because, which involved Ivy buying a scythe, beating up level 1-5 goblins for an hour, and stalking higher levelled players until they eventually get killed and steal their stuff. Soon enough, Ivy had reached level 15 while Poison was now level 20. Just then, they met up with Gary whose avatar also looked a little older and was level 27. “Hey guys, so I heard you need a lot of experience.”
“Yeah.” Poison replied. “Thanks for coming, man.” Poison said, high fiving him.
“No problem, we’re cool now, so just ask if you need anything.”
Ivy then spoke up. “By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask, you’re the prince, right?” Gary nodded. “Does that mean your dad is G-”
“My dad isn’t important.” He quickly interrupted.
“Is it J-”
“Stop asking!”
“My dad was a douche, so after becoming an exceptional fighter, I fought him to the death. Not that big a deal though.” Poison said, handwaving the comment.
“That’s going to become a big deal later, isn’t it...” Gary replied.
“So where’s this spot?” Ivy asked.
“Ahh, there’s this cave a few minutes from here where these scorpions offer a lot of experience. Oh, watch out for grues though, they tend to appear out of nowhere and eat you when you least suspect it.”
“Excellent! Let’s go!” She grabbed his hand and ran on ahead. As Gary was on the verge of depleting his HP due to happiness, Poison reminded him that, “This is online, dude, and it’s not virtual reality either.”
After a little more training, and running from grues, Ivy managed to reach level 20 just from grinding all day, while Poison got to 23, and Gary reached 28. “I think you should start doing some of the quests to get more experience now.”
“There’s no time for that!” Ivy exclaimed. “I must defeat this fool who dares to call himself an overlord!”
“IIRC, you can’t do the quest about defeating the overlord until you do at least 15 quests.” Poison pointed out.
“What?!? How many are there?”
“20 for free members, dozens more for those who pay.”
“We should log on tomorrow and get through a bunch of them.” Gary suggested. “With us three it’ll be much faster.” They all waved goodbye and logged off, as it was getting pretty late.
The next morning, Ivy was still somewhat furious about the necessary components needed to achieve her goal, so she did what most impatient gamers do: Decided to go to her local games store to buy a guide. Upon entered the large store, SA2, who stood behind the counter, stopped his friendly conversation with a customer and turned to her, putting on his serious face. Ivy marched down the path towards the counter and glared at SA2. “I wish to buy the Land of Leisure guide.”
“I know. I’ve been expecting you ever since you signed up. You were destined to come here. Very few are worthy of reading from the sacred book, so do you feel you’re worthy?”
“Of course! The book would be perfect for me!”
“Alright, let me just-” SA2 turned around to get the book off the shelf, but then he immediately attacked Ivy who blocked his hand and squinted at him. SA2 jumped over the counter and did a hurricane kick, which Ivy evaded by somersaulting backwards, and then they continued to move back, with them blocking each other’s punches until SA2 ducked under one and kicked her towards a shelf. She touched it with her feet and leaped on top of it just as SA2 punched through the shelf. She fired beams of energy, which SA2 easily dodged before kicking down the shelf.
She jumped onto another, but was immediately knocked off as SA2 back flipped and kicked her in midair. SA2 leaped off and prepared to pound her into the ground but missed as Ivy rolled out the way and jumped back as she covered herself in a glowing red aura. They charged at each other and as their punches connected, the building exploded. Moments later, they stood in silence for at least 20 seconds before SA2 handed her the book. “You are now worthy. Improve your skills; you have much yet to learn.”
“Thank you, sensei.” Ivy bowed as the scene slowly faded to black.
Later that morning, she made it back and saw Poison sitting on the couch, switching over channels until he reached one where he and Ivy were on the screen. After staring at the screen in silence, Ivy eventually said, “Pfft, look at those losers.”
“Yeah, they’re so lame.” Poison added.
“C’mon, let’s log on and get started. I have a plan, and it can’t fail!” Ivy said before leaving to log on as fast as possible. Over the next 5 hours, Ivy did as many quests as quickly as she could using her guide that Poison and Gary were amazed at her progress when she met them later at a hut, now in the high 40’s along with Poison and Gary.
“How are you able to do all this so flawlessly?” Poison asked.
“It’s all in the guide.” Ivy replied.
“Ahh, of course.”
Just then, they heard a girl scream, and noticed it was coming from a field further down below the mountain they were walking across. Ivy spotted Cherry down below, wearing iron chainmail with a sword, surrounded by metallic lions. “Hey, it’s that Cherry girl, and some lions are gonna kill her. Oh well, we’d better get mo-” Before she could finish, Poison rushed by her and leaped into the air, covering the sun as he entered the fray and roundhouse kicked one lion across the field before landing. Gary followed suit while Ivy simply sighed before also going in, with them slowly witling down their HP until the lions eventually died.
“Poison!” Cherry ran up to him and they hugged, shortly before he lifted her into the air and spun round in circles. Gary seemed quite confused while Ivy was annoyed.
“So what are you doing here?” Cherry asked, seeming to be level 23.
“We were on our way to beating the evil overlord mission. We just started it, and although we’re less than its predicted total level, together we should have the strength to beat him.”
“Ahh, well I would come along, but I’m sure I’d just be a distraction.”
“Of course you wouldn’t, silly.” Poison said cheerfully.
“Yes she would.” Ivy and Gary retorted.
A minute later, they waved goodbye to Cherry as they carried on, and eventually came to a pig barn. Ivy turned to the other two and asked, “We can ride pigs in this game, can’t we?” Poison turned to Gary, also hoping for an answer. “Well let’s give it a shot.” He shrugged.
They jumped onto a pig and smacked it, at which point it took off, ran through the gate and down a clear path, dodging several other players travelling down the same road. They soon arrived at a castle, with storm clouds covering the sky. Sitting by the entrance was a three headed hybrid of a T-Rex and a red dragon, which was level 50. Just then Spring and Floyd showed up, and Spring moved ahead of the others. “I’ll take care of this, you guys go on ahead.”
“Thanks for the backup, man.” Poison said as they did so, eventually hearing a giant explosion outside as they kept going.
When they reached an intersection, they stopped and Floyd nodded to the right. “That path should lead to the final boss. Be careful, I’ve heard he’s level 60.”
“60?” Ivy responded. “I heard he was only in the 50’s!”
“Is Spring gonna catch up with us?” Poison asked.
“I’m afraid he’s most likely dead. He did indeed sacrifice himself to make sure you guys made it to the final boss with full HP. A group of ninja grizzly bears will show up soon enough, and that is where I shall take my leave.” And just as he said, bears appeared from secret passageways in the walls and from underground. Floyd and Poison bumped fists before they took off, at which point Floyd adjusted his shades as they advanced on him.
Ivy, Poison and Gary reached a giant steel door with a skull on it and a steel wheel near the door. Zombies appeared, which Gary quickly began to dispose of while Ivy waited impatiently as Poison slowly turned the wheel. “Poison, hurry up with that wheel, or I’m going to sexually assault you.”
“I’m going as fast as I can.”
“Too slow! Prepare to be violated!” As Ivy charged at him, he quickly hit her with the back of his fist, slid behind her and quickly suplexed her, leading Gary to comment, “I didn’t know you could do that online...”
A minute later, Poison had opened the door, and they entered, with Ivy still rubbing her forehead. There was one bright light shining on a throne further ahead. As they arrived, a mysterious figure who couldn’t be clearly seen flipped and landed on a pogo stick. Spring stepped forward and said, “It’s an evil space hopper.”
Poison turned to Spring and replied, “Weren’t you supposed to be dead just a few minutes ago?”
They stared at each other for several moments; Poison turned away after a while then turned back to him. “Was the gif really necessary?”
“Yes.”
At that moment, Floyd arrived as he said, “Sorry I’m late, I see you made it here safely.”
“Enough talk!” Ivy exclaimed. “Let’s finish this! We’ll bum rush the boss!”
And they did. Cut to a few minutes later, where Gary had died, Ivy and Poison both had low HP, but Spring and Floyd had not been touched. Ivy immediately logged off and phoned up Ruby. “Hey, foolish angel, I beat the final boss. What do you think of that, huh? You jealous? You mad? But that’s not important; we shall now settle our conflict! Prepare yourself!”
“Indeed we shall, Ivy, but first of all, could you step outside your house? Along with Poison if you’d please.”
Ivy was confused by her reply. “Huh? O-okay, I guess...” A minute after following Ruby’s instructions, they were standing on a hill half a mile from the house, at which point Ruby chuckled slightly. “Thanks for co-operating, now watch the fireworks.” Seconds after she stopped speaking, Ivy’s house suddenly exploded, blowing it to bits. Ivy was in shock; Poison was left slightly confused as Ruby continued. “Consider us even. Bye for now.” She hung up.
Ivy gasped before speaking. “I see now! She told me about the game because she knew I would do all in my power to beat it as fast as possible! She must have used the bombs I left in that building inhabited by angels, and then waited until I was impatient enough to go buy a guide. She assumed I would have to fight to obtain it, giving her enough time to plant the bombs in hidden spots without me noticing. That’s ingenious!”
“Yet you didn’t notice until just now.” Poison remarked. “Then again, I should have been more suspicious earlier this morning, but don’t you think you’re giving Ruby too much credit?”
Ivy turned to him, with a look of seriousness on her face. “Am I, Poison? Am I really?”
Very far away, Ruby was watching them with binoculars through a window with Willard standing beside her.
“So did everything fall into place?” Willard asked.
Ruby smirked as she spoke. “Yes, I guess you could say everything was...” She put on a pair of shade. “Just as planned.”
Ivy dropped to her knees and screamed, “Noooooooooooooo!” as it cut to a view of the city from high above.
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