Game Time

Tai and Lee hopped on the tram as it pulled in at the stop in front of them. They quickly made their way around some folks and grabbed a seat in the back.

"Well, aside from the creepiness associated with all of this, I'm really excited to see what kind of game this is!" Lee said to Tai as he nudged him.

Tai was lost in thought staring out the window at the sign on the building they were pulling away from.

"Tai! What classes do you think Dynasty has? Man I hope there's a decent tank!" Tai was snapped out of his thoughts by Lee who was going on and on about possible classes in the game they were going to try out.

"I'm not sure to be honest, I don't think the trailer gave away any class details, I'm really excited to find out though!" Tai said with a smile as he turned to Lee. Tai would shrug off all negative feelings and doubts he was having. After all, he is a gamer and is excited to get a chance to dive into a new game first.

Not long after boarding the tram, it had pulled into the stop nearest Tai's house. Lee and Tai got off the tram and made their way passed a few local shops before making it up the stairs to Tai's front door. Tai rummaged through his pockets to find his keys, unlocked the door and let Lee go inside first. Once inside Tai closed the door and they both made their way into the kitchen.

"Man that food was as delicious as I remember but I'm so thirsty" Lee said as he slyly made his way towards the fridge.

"Help yourself! Just make sure you grab me one too." Tai shouted as he made his way upstairs to his room, excited to dive into this new game for the first time. Tai walked into his room and quickly cleaned up making it more presentable before sitting down in his gaming chair. Sat in front of his monitor Tai started up his computer, grabbing his headset and tossing it on before fishing the game card out of his pocket. Turning on the monitor to display a background of different characters from another MMO and several game launchers, Tai swiped the game card through the card reader on his desk. Several seconds later a window popped up on his screen, a text box that read "Welcome to Dynasty Empire, Tai!".

"Dude he even programmed the account card specifically for you!" Lee said, startling Tai who was unaware Lee had crept up behind him.

"Man! Don't do that to me! I forgot you were even here!" Tai yelled as he turned in his chair to see Les holding a bunch of snacks and a jug of lemonade.

"Where'd that stuff come from?" Tai asked not remembering having any of those things downstairs.

"Oh, I ran to the store across the street real quick and grabbed us gaming snacks and lemonade!" Lee said with a smile as he sat everything down on the bed. Beef jerky, chips, gummy snacks and even pizza. Lee went all out and it reminded Tai of when a new game would come out. Lee and him used to go to one house with snacks and try to make their way through the newest game as quick as they could together, staying up odd hours just to push themselves that little bit further. Tai smiled thinking about those days.

"What's up smiley?" Lee asked catching Tai smile.

"Just remembering when we used to do this on weekends when new games released. Those were good times!" Tai replied.

"Hey now! You say that like one of us is dead or something man, we still have plenty of time to game like we used to!" Lee replied as he jumped to his feet and held a fist high in a triumphant manner.

"Yea, yea, sit down and let's see what this is about ya?" Tai asked looking back at his computer screen. Whipping his mouse around the text box Tai quickly clicked "Launch" and the text box disappeared and a new window launched in full screen.

Brilliant flashes of light would shoot across the screen from side to side, the glistening trails would slowly start to come to life as cranes would start to appear almost magically from the areas the balls of light stopped at. Wings would cover the screen until the majestic birds seamlessly seemed to disappear giving way to a golden statue of what appeared to be an Emperor from China. As the camera panned to the statue gold and red lettering would pop into place.

"Welcome to Dynasty Empire"

The official title screen for the mysterious game that Tai and Lee were so curious about getting to see.

"Huh...nice animations at least?" Lee looked at Tai with his head turned slightly and a confounded look upon his face. As he turned back to the screen he noticed Tai had already been prompted to select a server to embark his adventure on. "Guess you only have the one choice bud, Alpha-1 it is man!" Lee said with a giddy tone to his voice.

"You aren't wrong, time to see what this whole cloak and dagger type approach has been all about. You ready my guy?" Tai had already clicked the server select button by the time he turned to Lee with a smile and an energy drink in hand.

"Okay so..." as Tai began to read the dialogue prompts the premise of the game slowly came into picture. "You are a warrior descendant to the very first Emperor but as time has passed the land has given way to corruption of void and dark magic. The races of Shungtae have come together to reclaim their land and fight off the Wights and Dark Sorcerers that have begun a siege on the land itself" Tai had taken a second to gulp down some of his drink before he continued.

"Your first choice is to decide what race of Shuntaen you will become. Keep in mind that some races give access to certain classes, where some classes are race locked and require you play a mandatory race in order to unlock them" at that Tai slid the mouse to the side and looked over at Lee.

"Race locked classes, damn that's a first. Guess we need to decide what classes we want to play before locking in a race otherwise we need to start a brand new character and that would be a bit of wasted time" a raised brow as Tai started to ponder what class he would want to main in this new mmorpg.

"Well I'm a healer or tank in most things we play so gimme a look at what races I can be!" Lee shouted as he was already prepared, he always enjoyed being the main tank or a healer to support his team so this game would be no different for him. Quickly grabbing the mouse and scrolling through the class list quickly sliding the cursor around as he skipped the ones that didn't matter to him.

"Ho ho ho! Found you beautiful!" Lee erupted as the cursor stopped moving and an armored figure appear on the screen. The class title read: "Holy Knight" with the description, "A Holy Knight from the Emperor's personal guard. Healing abilities with Prescence pulling attacks and High overall Health and Defensive stats make the Holy Knight the perfect ally to hold the attention of your enemies while protecting the squad that he is part of"

"BRO!!! This is perfect! A paladin of sorts with healing abilities and aggro control?! I'm down!" Lee was ecstatic he had found the perfect character for himself.

"Alright well as you scrolled through I saw what I wanted to be and already have my name set up" Tai had made up his mind and was already in the character creation menu. The class title "Archer" of the Elven Race. Lee glanced down and saw the name field had already been populated while Tai was working on the archer's appearance.

HeavenSplitter.