Chapter 004

Chapter 004: "Reality and Fiction, Pt. I: The Ambush in the Forest"

Hearing the repetitive and rhythmic beeping sound loudly blasting in his ear, Brand forced his eyes to open and his arm to reach for the snooze button on his old, yet digital alarm clock on his bedside. Brand's bedroom was as basic at it could get; all that was there was a closet to store his clothing, a table holding his computer, posters on his wall showing off franchises that he liked, and lastly, of course, the bed that he was laying on.

Brand, or now in the real world, Brandon, immediately got out of his bed and rushed downstairs and headed straight out of the door. After only around 5 minutes, he made it to the restaurant. When we entered, he saw Luci(Soluna) sitting at a table by her lonesome. Thankfully, after around only 10 more minutes before two people sat down next to them, being Violet and Claude.

Violet, with the real name of Veronica, was an extremely tall yet fairly slim woman with fairly short hair that surrounded her head like an astronaut helmet without a bottom. Unlike the fittingly titled violet shade of her hair within the world of Fabula, Veronica had hair darker than the night sky. Obviously, her personality was identical to the one she dawned in the virtual world, changing between extremely stern and comedic in a moment's notice.

Sitting next to Veronica was an average sized man known as Flint, also known as Claude in Fabula. While his height was fairly average, if not a small bit shorter than a man of his age, he was still much smaller than his fiancé. His hair was the polar opposite of Veronica's; he wore it up in the form of a untrimmed mess that roughly resembled an afro of some sorts. Just like his hair, his fashion sense was also very different than Veronica's; while Veronica was sharply dressed in a short, black leather jacket which barely covered a simple yet fancy blue dress made of a silk-like material, Flint wore a coffee-stained tank top and ripped jeans, which most likely not intended to be as torn as it currently was.

"Why so dressed up?" Brand asked Veronica after gazing at her attire that was not meant to be brought to a casual establishment that the fast food place she was in. After my question, Flint laughed extremely hard.

"Oh please," he began to speak, "She's dressed like this all the time. Even when she just sits around at home browsing web pages." Just as Flint finished his joking remark, he was jabbed in the chest by Veronica's elbow, causing him to make sound like a pouting dog.

"Flint Vincent, shut your trap this instant." she replied in her stern, motherly tone before quickly changing her facial expression to a friendly smile as she turned back to face Luci and Brandon on the other side of the cramped booth, "I figured that I should dress well for what may be a one in a lifetime occasion" she said is a much more upbeat tone than before, "It's not every day that you can meet in-game friends in the real world."

"I suppose that's true," said Brandon in a strangely sorrowful tone while stirring the straw of his drink, "I just wish we could've invited Christall here too..."

"I feel the same way but there's honestly nothing we can do about it. Since he lives nowhere near us, he wasn't able to come. It's as simple as that." bluntly explained Flint. After which, Brandon finally took his first sip out of his drink before beginning to speak again.

"Yeah, I guess you're right. It- it's just..." he began to stutter, "It's just that I wish things were different. Y'know?" After Brandon finished speaking, the group around him simultaneously nodded their heads in agreement. After a few more seconds of silence, Brand began to speak. "I guess we should talk more about Fabula." he said, most likely just attempting to change the subject. Even though his awkwardness appeared clearly to the others, they all once again nodded their heads.

Right on queue, Veronica reached into a large bag and pulled out a tablet. After he pressed on the power button, the tablet revealed a transparent display featuring a website that seemed to be solely focused on FQ. After Veronica swiped on the screen a few times, it began to display a map of the world, or at least continent, of Fabula. She pointed at a red star-shaped icon near the very center of the land mass and began to speak.

"This star right here is the place we first started out in; Silimon Fields. That's the place where the farmer, I believe his name was Paul, requested the player to defeat some slimes." She then moved her hand upwards and slightly to the right until she reached another star-shaped icon, this time it was a very vibrant shade of yellow. She then continued to speak again, "This right here is the capital city of West Fabula; Sarait, which is governed by the pretty infamous Mayor Tarias. It's by far the biggest city you'll find in this region of the continent and it's also where we were just at, but I'm guessing you all can remember that." She finished her explanation with a slightly snarky tone, seeming like she would consider them dumb if they weren't able to remember the name of the city that they were just in.

As to why she described the mayor, apparently known as Mayor Tarias, as infamous was very obvious, since his personality was very unique to say the least, but Brand was puzzled by the name of West Fabula. Were their multiple countries or kingdoms within the larger land mass of Fabula? He figured that the only way to find out was to ask her for himself.

"You said 'West Fabula' or something like that. Does that mean there's other places such as North Fabula, or East Fabula, et cetera?"

"Yes, but also no," replied Veronica as she made a movement that was somewhere in between a nod and a sign of disagreement, "While there are other kingdoms within Fabula, they go by other names. The eastern most kingdom is the frozen over lands of Bligelu, and underneath both kingdoms is a third mountain-covered kingdom going by the name of Terrasius."

"Ah, I see..." replied Brandon while attempting to remember all of the names being thrown upon him all at once. "So each kingdom within the continent has its own capital, and... Sarait is the capital of West Fabula, correct?"

Veronica nodded in confirmation. "Any more information about the two other regions isn't really necessary, as they're both apparently late-game locations." She quickly glanced at her tablet once more and instantly forced her head upwards to face the others before speaking again, "Oh gosh, we got off topic again. Sorry about that." she apologized in a sincere tone before continuing to speak again, this time remaining focused on the topic at hand.

She moved her hand up to tablet once again, but this time, it took her several seconds to reach the location she was looking for, which was marked with a large crown-bearing skull icon. "Right here is what seems to be the final objective of the game: King Arthur's castle. But, judging by other similar games, there'll probably be quite a few locations that we'll be required to visit before we can fight King Arthur himself."

She then retraced the path previously laid out by her finger, leading her back to Sarait. After hesitating for a bit, most likely searching for the location she was trying to point out next, she moved her finger northeast until she reached yet another location. "Although it's far off the path to the castle, I recommend stopping in this place to the east of Sarait. If what I've heard is true, there's a dungeon there that has a lot of good loot."

After discussing their course of action for a few more minutes, they finalized their plan: they would head off-course to the eastern village of Ariddon to prepare themselves for the main journey ahead. After that they would travel through a few villages before finally reaching King Arthur's castle. As to what lied in between the beginning and end of their journey, it was completely unknown, as nobody had gotten far enough to complete the game, as the game had only been around for less than two whole days.

After running back home from the restaurant/meeting area, Brandon began to slip off his shoes on the entryway rug before being quickly interrupted by his sister, Kira. From a bystander's point of view, it would be very hard to tell that the two were siblings; while Brandon's hair was almost completely unkept, Kira's hair was neatly brushed every morning and afternoon. This morning she also had a single braid in her hair, although on some days, she randomly decided to braid two, but it was most likely due to nothing but pure laziness.

"Where've you been for so long?" Kira asked with a puzzled look on her face.

"Hanging out with friends."

"Everyone knows that you don't have any friends. After all, you spend 24/7 in your room." she said, cracking herself up.

"Well, I actually met them through one of my games." Brandon replied proudly, trying to one-up Kira's insult.

"If that virtual reality thing can do something as crazy as giving you friends, I might have to try it for myself." laughed Kira before walking away, most likely upstairs to her bedroom. Brandon followed directly behind her, as their bedrooms were right across from each other. Once he entered his bedroom, he immediately laid down on his bed and put on his virtual reality headset.

Suddenly his vision went completely black before a mass of light flashed into his eyes. After adjusting to the light, he saw that he was standing in the middle of the streets of Sarait. In front of him stood his four friends in the world of Fabula who seemed to be almost asleep.

"Kept us waiting, huh?" asked Soluna, most likely joking, but Brand was unable to tell for sure. She immediately turned around and faced the gates of the city. "Alrighty, let's go to this Ariddon place."

The group began to walk eastward before Brand attempted to speak, "So, what kind of loot does this dungeon place have?"

"Not sure." bluntly replied Violet.

"Well do you at least know what the dungeon's like?"

"Not sure."

"What about the village?"

"Nope."

While she didn't seem visibly upset or annoyed, Violet's straight-to-the-point replies showed that she truly didn't know anything about where they were going. This realization brought an onslaught of fear onto Brand since Violet seemed to be the only person who knew any information about Fabula. The group were nearly silent for about half an hour before Claude suddenly stopped in his tracks.

"What's wrong-" Christall attempted to ask before being rudely cut off by Claude, who held his arm out, which Christall had accidentally ran into, causing him to fall onto the ground with a loud 'thump

"Quiet." He simply demanded before cupping his hand around his ear for an unknown reason. Before anyone had time to ask why they couldn't talk, Claude drew an arrow into his bow and shot seemingly blind into the canopy of the trees surrounding them from every direction. The arrow, leaving behind a gust of wind seemed to hit a living creature which let out a large cry. The scream was quickly followed by a green shape falling downwards before crashing into the ground, leaving a sound akin to the one left behind by Christall's fall, except multiplied at least three-fold.

The sudden chain reaction caused by Claude alarmed the group, causing them to jump back before looking towards to ground, seeing that the strange green shape was actually a humanoid creature, most likely a goblin. The creature resembled more of an average sized elf than the traditional goblins in fiction, which tended to be fairly small compared to most creatures. Beside the elf-like body lay a bag overflowing with gold and a crossbow on the other side. The loud collisions of the gold coins were most likely what alerted Claude to its very well hidden position.

In front of the goblin, yet another one approached, this time wielding a club. And to the left and right sides, more came. As the guild members turned back and forth, they realized that instead of being surrounded by the dark brown columns of trees, they were now surrounded by blood-thirsty goblins. As soon as the corpse disappeared into shared, almost acting like a green light of sorts, the storm of green began to draw closer to them.

Seconds before the group would make contact with deadly weapons of all kinds, Brand shouted something; "Duck!" he said. With nothing else to do, the guild members followed his command and crouched onto the hard, grass-covered dirt floor of the forest milliseconds before a blade spun above their heads. Like fruit being tossed into an active blender, Brand's blade had diced up the nearby enemies into shards, just like the now non-existent goblin in the trees.

Due to the immense power of the large attack known as Lethal Cyclone, the game's programming caused Brand to be temporarily paralyzed in order to not allow him to simply follow up with the same attack once more. In the meantime, Claude and Soluna took the now open space to shoot arrows and small flaming missiles at the goblins respectively, causing an even greater opening in the battleground.

"Where did Violet go?" asked Soluna as she began to charge a large missile. She only managed to glance over at one side of her before being quickly clubbed by one of the goblins. The force of the impact caused her to fly backward into a large nearby tree. Unable to move, Soluna had no other choice besides idly sitting back and watch the others fight, that is, if there weren't goblins also attempting to attack her, as she would be the easiest to kill.

Her vision quickly flashed green; it was Christall's major healing spell which managed to restore nearly all of her life. She gave him a very quick thumbs up before jumping into the air with her hands facing downwards, pointed directly at the storm of monsters below her. After only a brief second of what looked like a flame brewing atop her hand, a barrage of flaming missiles rained down from above onto the villainous horde.

Gravity suddenly took back control over Soluna's body and sent her plummeting back down to earth. Luckily, she was only around 5 meters in the air, which meant that she wouldn't suffer any severe damage as a result of crashing into the ground.

While she expected to be greeted by even more clubs being hurled her way, the battlefield was now completely silent aside from chirping birds and the gust flowing through the trees. It took her quite a while to notice that she had exterminated each and every one of the foes with her powerful spell. When she looked over to the other fighters, she noticed that Violet had returned.

"Hey, where the hell were you?" yelled Soluna as aggressively as she possibly could. It was then that she noticed that Violet were a very upset frown on her face.

"Well I WAS planning on doing a sneak attack from the shadows. but that special spell of yours happened to take them all out." she muttered. "Anyways, I guess I should actually thank you for how quickly you managed to get rid of the goblins."

"Oh please, I was just fighting for my life." laughed Soluna. Hearing the distinct sound of close by footsteps, both Soluna and Violet looked over their shoulders to see Brand approaching them, dripping in sweat but still managing to form a massive smile.

"Who know role-playing games could ever be taken this seriously?" he laughed back at the group. The others agreed that he had a point. In a normal game, things would be perceived as what they are; nothing but a simple video game. However, in an environment such as a full-dive virtual reality game, it allows the player to access an artificial replication of their five senses, one of the defining differences between reality and fiction. Because of the overlap between reality and fiction brought to the user via full-dive technology, almost all players played much more like how they would act if they were truly thrust into another world than if they were simply acting with a polygonal environment determined by factors that could be boiled down to simple 1s and 0s.

While he originally brought up this question as a joke to lighten the mood after a stressful battle, Brand began to think deeper into it. If the only true factor that distinguished fiction between reality was the simple fact that it was controlled by 1s and 0s, couldn't life be consider fiction in and of itself? After all, the charges of protons and electrons, the negative and positive outputs of a simple piece of a larger picture, functioned almost exactly the same as binary programming; the positive and negative charges of electricity flowing through a machine. And atoms could be thought of as the polygons and pixels of the real world; the building block of everything visible to the eyes of the beholder, either a human being or an avatar representing such a human being.

At that moment, Brand was taken out of his absurd train of thought by a stout man in an outfit that looked fit to either explore a jungle or to go fishing in. Either way, it would be strange to wear on any normal occasion, so either this was another player or a special NPC that'll teach them a special job skill.

"Why hello there, travelers!" began the stout man in a cheerful tone, "Are you headed eastward to Ariddon?" Both the voice and the accent seemed familiar to the members of the group. Although they were not sure how, the travelers were certain that they met the man before.

"Why yes we are." replied Brand in the most sophisticated voice he could muster. Brand's reply made the man jump with glee for some unexplained reason. Once he had finished jumping up and down over and over again, he finally explained why.

"You're exactly the people I'm looking for! My home is on the Naga River that borders Ariddon, after all, where else would a fisherman get his fish?" It turns out that Brand was partially right; it was a fisherman's attire after all. "Anyhow, the reason I come to this forest from afar is because of a gargantuan creature I've found in the waters."

"So... you want us to catch a fish for you?" murmured Christall, sounding mildly offended to be requested to do some a simple task. The fisherman quickly began to shake his head.

"Oh no, you've got this all wrong! This is not a simple fish that will gnaw at a rod if you put enough bait on it. No, this is an aquatic monster." He seemed far more offended than Christall was, as he put his fists in the air and his face was blood red from anger.

The group then agreed to take part in the quest as there was no visible reason not to. Delighted that they had agreed to assist him, the fishermen took them all the way inside of Ariddon into his house on the shores of the Naga River. It was there that they discovered the giant serpent making the water its home.

[To be continued in "Reality and Fiction, Pt. 2: The Monster in the River"...]