After reading TG fiction for many years, I’ve decided to go ahead and give it a shot myself, or rather post some of what I have written. I’ve had a lot of fun doing it so far when I have the free time, so I figured I may as well contribute a little and see what people think. Any comments are much appreciated!

-Tas

Ilos

By: Tas

Prologue: Ilos, Day -100

A figure stood on the edge of the island, looking out over the expanse of the land as the light of the sun flickered into existence. High in the air, above the clouds, a myriad of dissimilar islands floated, and at the top there stood a man. He was dressed in grey, his robes, his hat, his hair and beard, all grey and worn. Creases covered his face from long years of effort as he kept his vigil over the land and over the people who looked to him for guidance, but his strength was coming to an end. Long had the islands been lost, the Gates closed, and only the mainland far below still flourished.

Soon. Xynus thought to himself. The time draws close that I will not be able to maintain the Great Sleep. But bringing in the number of champions needed at once will shatter my power, and they will be overwhelmed. Stroking his long flowing beard, his long eyebrows drew down over his eyes in thought. Perhaps if I only use the silver first, let them establish themselves, they can survive when the Great Sleep breaks.

Time passed as the sun’s first light drew light hues of pink and orange across the clouds below the man, and he pondered like he had done every day for some long forgotten length of years. The changes had been slow at first, a villager vanishing here, some livestock there, but as time passed, it was no longer a single person vanishing, but entire towns sometimes. Then the Gates were taken and locked, guarded by powerful beasts. His immortal enemy was finally on the edge of victory, the prison where he wove his machinations almost undone, and the man no longer had the power to oppose him directly. Now what were once the strongest bastions of humanity were reduced to mere pittances of their former glory, the ruins overgrown and forgotten, simple myths to the people that lived there.

Monsters freely roamed the wilderness where one could once travel the length and width of the land without fear, and there were so few of the people left. Xynus gave a heavy sigh, part relief and part despair. This was to be his final move, his last gambit, and if it failed, two worlds would fall.

Slowly he moved to the center of the island, and raising his staff to the sky, he began to chant in a gravelly voice.

Far below, in the center of humanity’s greatest city, with walls tall and never breached, a great light bloomed, blotting out the sun.

Chapter 1: Earth, Day 0

Nervous excitement bubbled in my gut as I sprinted down my school’s halls, my backpack bouncing wildly behind me as I moved to beat the kids now streaming out of the rooms along the hallway. Their stares followed me as the whisper of my shoes on the tile floor took me beyond the increasing crowds and towards freedom. It was the last day of school for the week, a Thursday, and I had plans for the four day weekend that loomed ahead of me. Or maybe the rest of the year… I thought as I contemplated skipping school for the remainder of the semester.

Today was the day I had been looking forward to for close on a month, the day I once again would have the opportunity to live in Ilos. The thick segmented white-metal necklace that hung around my neck was my Key to that wondrous virtual world, almost indistinguishable from the real one.

All I had to do was place it around my forehead and will myself to enter in order to escape from this annoying reality. Well, once the servers opened anyway. That time was a mere hour away, and I had things to prepare for my upcoming journey.

I was one of ten thousand to receive one of the silver headbands, allowing access to the ‘beta’ version of the game, if that is what it could be called. Ilos was whole and complete from the first second of the ‘beta’, and none of the other players I had talked to had found any sort of bug or odd occurrence that a beta was supposed to fix. Even more than that, the game was not advertised in any way. No commercials. No signs. No marketing whatsoever. And it didn’t matter one whit. News of the game spread through the internet and the world like a lightning bolt, and there wasn’t a person with internet access that didn’t know about it. Websites were established immediately, forums erupting with news as the beta players began to post what they had experienced. People bought and sold the Keys for unbelievable prices, hundreds of millions of currency crossing the internet in the first day as those with the funds bribed people without to let them use the mysterious devices.

Sure, I could have sold mine and spent the rest of my life in comfort, never having to work, never wanting for anything, but that would have deprived me of the thing I wanted even more: escape. I hated reality, the monotonous predictability of life in 2018. I knew exactly where I would have been going had I not gotten the headband. I would have completed school, then moved on to a graduate degree, then worked an almost meaningless job with idiots that I probably wouldn’t like for forty or so years, then I would retire, probably still unmarried, and indulge myself in whatever ways I could until I died. It was a stupid existence with no purpose, and the headband was my way out. No longer would I have to be a 6’ 1” mildly athletic twenty one year old guy with thick glasses and messy hair, but a warrior, able to beat the strongest foes with my strength, wits, or speed.

The ‘beta’ lasted for a solid two months, beginning right after the holiday break started, and I had spent every hour possible in Ilos, training, exploring, doing things that actually helped people, regardless of if they were computer controlled NPCs or actual players. The real world became just a shadow that I irregularly visited to hurriedly shower and shove food down my throat before jumping back to Ilos. I had skipped school when it had started up again, continuing my schedule and spending even more time as the beta drew to a close.

My body wasted away in my bed, and when I was forced back to the real world I was in terrible condition. I had dropped a good twenty pounds off my already slender frame, and was as weak as a newborn kitten until I began to eat regularly again and move around. I got back into my classes reluctantly, working long hours to catch up to my peers (and to assure my parents continued support for college). The normal distractions I had had before seemed pale and pointless compared to Ilos, the videogames I had so loved boring and pointless, my books of great adventures dull and lifeless. All I knew was that I had to wait a full month before I could again adventure in Ilos, and that all I had accomplished there would vanish as they reset the servers. The thought that all I had done would be gone was crushing, as if I had lost a part of myself.

After a few days I couldn’t care less. I just wanted back in.

Without the time wasting activities I was accustomed to, I found it easy to concentrate on what I needed to do in order to be ready when the game officially released. All of my energies went into this one goal, and I planned and schemed to get as much time as possible in Ilos when I was finally able to. My grades went from zeroes to high Bs and then As as I aced every quiz and every test in every class. I asked my parents for more money, bolstering my bank account and I began buying foodstuffs that would last a significant amount of time before I had to get more, probably several months depending on how much I ate. I was thoroughly obsessed, and I couldn’t care less. Everything was in readiness now; I just had some final preparations to make at my apartment.

Without any other work I would pass every class and end the semester with a 2.75 GPA, my apartment was paid for in advance until the beginning of the next school year, and I even had a service that would deliver the more perishable foodstuffs to my apartment. I had squared everything with my parents, lying about some unpaid internship that I had made up that would require me to stay the whole summer.

My reverie was broken by three rather large men stepping out in front of me. I knew these idiots; these were Bill, Ted, and Joe, all of whom had discovered what my ‘silver necklace’ actually was and what kind of value it had. Each was a muscle bound cretin that could snap me in half without trying if he got a good hold on me, which was never going to happen. They had all tried to get it from me, first by threats and then attacks, but they had never succeeded. They were the ones responsible for five separate attempted break-ins to my apartment trying to get the thing, enough that I had to get upgrades to the locks and windows so they couldn’t get in without at least making a hell of a lot of noise. The only reason they hadn’t beaten me to a pulp yet is that I could out run them easily and I was quiet when I moved, almost silent, so they had little warning when I was approaching and couldn’t follow when they lost sight of me.

Unfortunately, they had me good this time. They always kept the doors in this part of the building locked, and I heard the doors I just came through click shut behind me. I skidded to a stop and looked for a way around, but even one of them standing in the entrance would be enough to stop me from getting past. Their smiles widened as they saw I couldn't run away, their eyes already lighting up with greed for the circlet around my neck.

“You aint gettin’ away this time Applesauce.” Bill smiled nastily, flexing his massive muscles and gesturing with a long smooth stick he was carrying, “Why don’t you just hand over that little trinket and you won’t have to spend the rest of the year in the hospital?”

Yep, that would be me he was talking to. David Joseph Appleton, the nerdy videogamer sophomore kid who did free running as a hobby, enjoyed brown eyes that didn’t work without thick glass in front of them, short but unkempt brown hair, and the complete inability to grow any sort of facial scruff whatsoever. Oh, and at a slender 6’1” and 155 pounds, was totally outweighed by each of the almost 300 pound bullies.

My eyes widened as Ted pulled out a long knife and Joe showed me a revolver inside his jacket. Damn they were serious this time! They knew it was their last chance to get me before the release today, and they were willing to risk jail to get something that would set them for life. I would have been screwed if Bill hadn’t brought that piece of wood, something I knew exactly how to use.

I set myself and gestured to Bill to come forwards, bringing my other hand to my ‘necklace’. “Alright, just don’t shoot me okay?”

He stepped forwards, believing the whiny scared tone that had taken me so much effort to produce. Surprise marred his stupid face as I grabbed the makeshift quarterstaff in his hand, twirling it as I torqued his wrist enough to make him let go. I spun, cracking Ted’s hand and sending the knife flying as I slipped into the trance like battle state that I had been so famous for in Ilos, known widely as the Stillness. Every movement was in perfect balance and I used the resistance to spin my weapon the other way, clipping Bill’s knee as he turned and sending him to the floor. Sharp cracks punctuated my swings as I broke Joe’s hand as he reached for his pistol, shattered Ted’s knee, fractured Bill’s skull as he fell, cracked one of Joe’s ribs, clipped Ted behind the ear as he stumbled to the ground, and then hit Joe’s temple as he keeled over clutching his rib.

I had flipped the quarterstaff to my back where I had a holder for it in Ilos, hiting my backpack before I caught myself and grounded one end on the tile floor instead. Bill, Ted, and Joe were sprawled around me; all unconscious, mere seconds after Bill had stepped forwards. I smiled and dropped the quarterstaff as I hopped over them, glad to see I still had the instincts my weapons training in Ilos had brought along with the silent way I moved. Maybe I should have felt sorry for them, but I really really wasn’t. They had had a right beating coming to them, and I was completely unopposed to having given it to them. I wasn’t worried about police either, the three were well known bullies and petty criminals, and the idea that some nerd gamer kid half their size and six inches shorter beat the hell out of all three of them was ridiculous.

Putting it from my mind, I ran back towards my apartment at a nice easy ground eating lope. I considered what I would do at the very start of the adventure I was about to embark upon. Exactly 990000 regular metallic headbands had been sold across the world for the upcoming release, bringing the total players to exactly one million, and that was a little bit of a problem.

Having that many people all appearing in Ilos at close to the same time could crowd everything up, and I really didn’t like crowds. I figured I could skip the beginning intro quests that forced players to run around the starting city and get familiar with it before sending them out to kill things and just get to the next town and do the quests there. It’d be harder, but absolutely faster and much more interesting.

I arrived at my apartment with just under a half hour to get everything ready. I made some sandwiches without mayo so they wouldn’t get soggy; made sure the fridge was well stocked with water at the front and next to the bed, and even made sure the new shampoo and soap were in their places in the shower for fast scrubbing. Finally, I sat down in front of my computer and opened Skype, then called the two people that were my closest friends and the ones I would be spending most of my time with in-game.

Nick answered first, his curly reddish hair and bluish eyes shimmering with an excitement that matched the smile splitting his face. He too wore glasses, but weren’t nearly as thick and were more for when he was about to do some serious gaming, otherwise preferring contacts. Nicholas Finn Charleston was my rather enthusiastic partner in crime, if slightly less of a geek, and was partly responsible for me having a social life whatsoever. He chose a different college than I did (much to my unvoiced disappointment) and was an absolute whiz at anything economics or business related. He was already wearing his black headband and was fidgeting excitedly, obviously feeling the same bubbling feeling in him that I was. “Dude! Are you ready?!”

“Am I ready? Am I ready?! I’m set for freaking months dude!No no, the question is are you ready?”

“Hell yeah I'm ready! Do you know how jealous I've been of you?! The only person I know to get a silver key? Forced to listen you talk about how amazing Ilos is for the past month? You’ve got me so jacked to try this game!” Nick waved his hands wildly, trying to get across just how ‘jacked’ he was.

“Hey now! Who was it who begged me for details about Ilos? Oh yes, you! And I know exactly how jealous you are, because you’ve told me practically every time you’ve talked to me!” I laughed.

“Well duh, how could I not! I mean, you got to-“

“Yes yes, he got to play in the beta, and had a wonderful time in Ilos, and you’re entirely envious, and he’s so lucky. We know already Nick.”

“Good to see you too Jess.” Nick laughed, “Are you ready?”

She sighed, but was still smiling. “Sure. I’m still not sure how the hell you managed to convince me to try this game Brother, but it better be damn good to be worth the effort I've put in to clear my schedule for the entire week!”

My smile stretched wider, if that was possible, when Jess’ face popped up next to Nick’s. Jessica Abigail Baker, a beautiful girl with light blue-hazel eyes and soft blonde hair, was the second on my list of close friends, bringing the total to two. Her creamy and lightly tanned skin seemed to glow softly in the light of her computer, and I found myself once again staring into her dazzling and utterly unique eyes. The brilliant blue of her irises was broken by a splash of rich brown radiating out from her pupils, a configuration I had never seen anywhere else, and it for some reason mesmerized me whenever I saw them.

“-llo. Hello! Snap out of it Brother.” Jess was practically shouting into her mic.

I blinked, then shook my head, “Right, umm, what was I saying Sis?”

Nick, unable to hold himself anymore, bust out laughing while Jess sported a wry smile, fully aware she was the cause of my antics. All three of us knew I had a crush on Jess and that she didn’t return the sentiment, but for some reason it wasn’t awkward in the slightest. To be honest I was (secretly) a little hurt that she didn’t have the same feelings for me that I did for her, but at the same time she was the sister I never had in many ways, and I was loath to lose that. Both of us had a strong Christian upbringing, and ever since she found out that she was named after Abigail in the Bible (who was David’s sister) she had called me Brother (and nothing else), and after a year or so I started to do it too until we almost never used each other’s names. She was one person I really admired and was everything I was not. Where I had a hard time with strangers and social situations, she was a natural born leader and speaker, and I fully believed she could talk a boulder into following her up a hill.

“You called us to discuss where we were going to meet when the server opens if I remember correctly.” She hesitated for a moment, “Okay Nick, shut up now.”

I chuckled as Nick’s laughter renewed itself, then continued on to the business at hand. “Right. When you first get into Ilos you can customize the slightly randomized appearance based on your physical body that they give you. I would suggest you stick to close if not exactly what they generate for you as it will feel familiar. If you do that we should all look enough the same that we will be able to recognize each other even with the little changes they will put in. All you need to do is head north to the gate because we will all appear in different places. The starting city is a huge circle, so if you just head generally north you will be able to follow the wall until you get to the gate. I should be there before you, but if I’m not for some reason just wait a few minutes. After we all get there we’ll head north along the road the leads out of the city past the first village and into the following town of Riskmarl. The quests there are surprisingly easy and we will be free to complete them quickly without having to compete with the other million people for hunting spots or items. We will have to be careful though, because other players can kill you and probably will if they see you heavily injured, and it’s a long walk from the plaza in the city that you’re revived at and where we’ll be questing. With the three of us it shouldn’t be hard to do because all of the quests at that level are made for people alone, though we will have to get three times the creature drops to complete them. Nick, if I’m busy doing something or other, try to explain things to Jess, you know how these games work." I ran through my mental checklist of important information. "I think that’s about it.”

They both nodded, Nick having corralled his laughter by this point and was grinning excitedly again. Nick checked his watch again, “We still have eight minutes till launch, any last minute advice David?”

I thought for a moment, “Oh, before you meet me at the gate pick up whatever weapons seem interesting to you from the store by the gate, you should have enough money left over to pick up some health potions as well, so spend all the rest you don’t use on weapons on those. You will want as many as you can and you’ll go through them faster than you think you will. At the beginning it’s the only way to heal yourself quickly, and you will get hit a lot while you learn how to use your weapons. Keep in mind that there are no ‘skills’ like in other games, it’s all you, though you will have some assistance from the game while learning. Other than that we just need to level as fast as we can at the beginning and be ahead of as many people as possible to reduce the chances of getting robbed by other players.” I checked my computer’s clock, “Four minutes. See you guys at the north gate.”

“See you there Brother.”

“AHHHHH I CAN’T WAIT!! Let’s DO this!”

I saluted my friends, then hit the ‘end call’ button and shut down my computer. I slipped my Key from around my neck for the first time since the ‘beta’ ended and placed it around my forehead, unable to contain my wide grin as I laid down on the bed and waited. My eyes closed, and I waited for the feeling that would tell me I could again enter Ilos at will. Seconds seemed like hours as I readied myself to be the first person in, to watch as the multitudes began to emerge from areas of shimmering space, to breathe the sweet air and see the countless sparking stars unclouded by pollution, to see the islands in the sky that stretched out of sight, to once again walk the lush grass and explore the blooming forests of Ilos.

I felt it, and within the second shifted just like countless times before, the familiar light of the transition taking me to the world of my dreams.