The Start

Doom is nigh. Prepare yourselves while you can. Join Fusion Survival now. Survival is 1st; everything else doesn't matter. Beta is closing soon. The update will be deadly.

All the billboards on the corners were displaying these ads. You could even see them on the LED trucks and mobile billboards on the cars in downtown Atlanta traffic.

Fusion Survival (FS) is a survival game set in a fantasy world where multiple planets are fused into one. Players can join territories, fight monsters, go on dungeon raids, and explore the planets while trying to survive. The purpose of the game is to survive; everything else is secondary.

Sarah had already started playing FS since it came out a year ago. This was the 1st time she heard of promoting public beta testing worldwide. It was also the 1st time the promotion for a game was so crazy. Everyone remembers the date 2-02-2022. When all over the world, advertising showed up on any electronic device. It played on the radio, showed up on tv, phones, and computers, printed from printers and fax machines, sent texts, and left messages on the voice mail. Anywhere it could be, it was seen around the world.

*Doom is coming. Join us to Prepare now!

Today was the last day of the beta testing, so the competition was being held. FS was calling it Doom is Nigh. The match was today, so Sarah grabbed all the food she could to binge and play until the end. Once the beta testing ended, there would be three months until the update, where the final game would be uploaded.

Rewards for the top 10 survivors of the beta testing would be like no other. Everyone tried to find the rewards, but the game developers gave no hints or clues. Even the PR accounts weren't leaking what the prizes were. PR accounts are accounts paid to release news about anything and everything. Sometimes the information could be trustworthy, and sometimes the report could be made up. As long as someone pays, they post.

Everyone was convinced new Legendary equipment and update sneak peeks would be the rewards. In FS, the equipment had levels from Normal(Yellow), Extra-Ordinary(Silver), Premium(Orange ), Rare(Blue), and Legendary(Purple). Every player wanted to be equipped entirely with Purple equipment sets.

The countdown to the update had already begun. Like others, Sarah was trying to get the winnings, anything to help beat this game.

When Sarah 1st signed up, she, like everyone else, didn't know that survival meant survival. If your character dies in FS, then your account is dead. Many forums were bashing the game, but more was needed to stop the buzz. The consensus is that the game will get easier after the updates. So veteran gamers were flocking to the beta testing to be the best at this significantly challenging game before the update.

Sarah wasn't a true gamer but loved getting obsessed with new things. She would be surprised if there is a trend she has yet to try. She started the game because it was being promoted everywhere. Her character died within two days. The game has allowed anyone to join or re-join the Doom is Nigh competition. So Sarah signed back into her old account and is determined to survive the competition.

The beta closing competition is the same as the game; survival is vital. The Top 10 survivors in the next 24hrs will get rewards and 1st access to the update. The ranks are calculated by the player's stats at the end of the game and experience points gained during the competition. Experience points are accumulated by completing a task or mission, killing monsters or players, and learning new skills.

For the typical gamers, it is the bragging rights they want. For the noobs is to beat the game developers. For the regulars, it is to see if they could sell off the reward. For people like Sarah, it is to join the bandwagon, and if they could get bragging rights, that would be great too.

After gathering all her food and preparing her room, Sarah stretches her wrists, getting ready for the competition to start. FS has many ways you can play. You can play on a computer, phone, game console, VR headset, VR Helmet, and even gaming pods. Sarah uses the desktop with her newly bought modified keyboard and mouse.

She pulls up the website and logins in. Now, she waits as the countdown for the start of the competition runs. With 5 minutes left, it is time to make sure there is no need for the bathroom and that she is in an area she knows in the game. Chatting can only be done after the game starts. Chatting is messaging done in the game through the messengering board. You can send chats across the server, to parties of people, or just to one friend. Sarah wanted to see what people were saying, but no one could send anything.

Ten seconds left, and more characters are showing up in her area. Sarah is re-thinking if she should have chosen this area, but it is too late to move now.

Five seconds left, Sarahs roars to push the nervousness away. And the game begins.

Maeve is a veteran gamer. She loves to play any game until she has beaten it or won all of the challenges a game has. Maeve has been playing FS since the beginning and is still using the same account. So it is no surprise to her when she sees mass amounts of fledglings being killed out of the game. Between the monsters and other players, they usually don't have a chance.

Maeve decides to take the Boss for herself when she sees a fledgling running from it in the last 10 minutes of the competition. In FS, there are levels to the monsters indicating the difficulty level the monsters are set. The Low, Mid, High, Boss, and Title levels. You rarely see a fledgling able to last this long in a competition, and the Boss is an Orc with the XP Maeve wanted.

An Orc is a monster made from slimes, earth death magic, and boars. When a boar and slime die near the earth as death magic is near, Orcs are formed. Depending on the type of death magic and slime, different varieties are Orcs formed. All Orcs have a weakness in fire magic due to death magic being a part of their creation.

Maeve has hoarded a lot of fire-based skills, and the Boss Orc was not a unique Boss; it did have XP that could push her further up the ranking boards guaranteeing a spot in the Top 10. It was an easy decision for Maeve to fight the Boss Orc, unknowingly saving Sarah.

Maeve didn't know Sarah had been hiding for most of the game. Sarah discovered early in the competition she didn't have the skills to survive and wanted to know how anyone could survive this game; it was ridiculous. Sarah just happened to come out of her hiding spot because the end of the competition was close when she attracted Boss Orc's attention.

Sarah was grateful and guilty for leading the Boss Orc straight to Maeve. Maeve begins her attack with fire arrows to draw the Orc towards her as she runs away from Sarah. Rocks engulfed in flames rain down on the Orc when Maeve activates her Meteor Shower skill. There are many skills players can earn, learn, or steal in FS. The combat skills can include magic, fighter-based, weapon based, and more. Ranks of combat skills can be in levels C, B, A, X, S, and SS. SS level is beyond the value of Purple equipment. The Meteor Shower is an S-level combat skill that combines Fire, Earth, and Summoning magic and the Archer abilities Maeve has.

Maeve keeps attacking the Boss Orc with every fire-based skill she has.

While the countdown has gone from 10 minutes to 5 minutes. 11 Players across the globe are left. Most gamers read the competition announcement and saw the last ten players who survived, not the top 10. So the competition began with a bloodbath between players before the actual game got to them, which is why Sarah started the game hiding. She was in the worst place to start a survival game with over 100,000 players in her area alone. Sarah was frozen where she was as she watched Maeve destroy the Boss Orc.

Through the fire, Sarah could see Maeve constantly throwing skills while recovering from any damage the Boss Orc could throw. Damage can be shown when the player takes the impact and lowers the Hit Points (HP) stats. However, Maeve's HP barely took a dip before regenerating after the Boss Orc skills were thrown.

The countdown finally stopped, and the game sent a worldwide notice:

[Out of 10 million beta players, 11 survived. Congratulations on surviving.]

Sarah couldn't believe it. She made it. Unlike Sarah, Maeve was calm as she already knew she would survive. Now it was time to get the rewards.