Monarchy Of the Sun, Pt. 1
A day had passed, as Kane farmed quests in preparation for his journey to the human territories.
Kane (Lvl 19), had just spent the majority of his gold on new equipment and weaponry, he also went back to nab the Boar Hoof item. It was time.
Recovering his stats next to a pile of dead Thorn Lillies, he made his way over to the boss of the ravine.
Unfortunately, the Thorn Lillies were more like a trap than a mob, the only thing worth killing them for was their rare drop. No Xp could be gained from these suckers.
The craggy walls of the ravine began curving towards each other, eventually forming a tunnel whose ceiling gradually got lower the further in he went.
Purple ethereal torches lit up the space around him, weird distinct drawings could be made out along the wall.
They depicted a grand city, vast expanses of land with majestic lakes and large farms. Beautiful architecture and colonies of people scattered throughout, off to the very east of it all was a giant lake with a small island in its center.
Depictions of wealth, power, and prosperity covered the periphery of the drawings. Kane didn't know why, but the images were being directly translated into his mind.
Through the images there was a pleasant warmth, one that grew stronger the further he walked, he began hearing screams. Quiet at first, but growing louder as his mind began heating up, the images crumbling with a sudden flash of light.
The screams, imagery, heat, all of it disappeared as he entered the boss room.
The hallway spread out into a sparsely lit cave, in the middle of it stood a hulking golem-like creature, covered in green moss with cracks running down its aged humanoid face.
By its side was the corpse of an Ogre... the actual boss.
The golem began speaking in a decrepit voice.
"I have been waiting, Marked One."
Kane's mouth shot open in confusion, "You can talk? Are you an NPC, I can't see your stats anywhere."
Ignoring his questions, the mossy green tree trunk of a creature continued.
"There is a task for the Marked One, you will need to do this if you wish to be useful, to survive. Great treasure, and... knowledge, wait for you."
Kane stuck his tongue out, then turned around and slapped his ass, making fun of the NPC as it spoke.
"Trace my life story back. Unveil the darkness that has been lost to time, Marked One. Find my secrets well. If you cannot do this, you will not have the strength to survive the next one."
"The next what?" Kane replied, copying the strange creature's voice the best he could.
He could feel the strong presence of the NPC vanishing from the room.
"Bastard stole my kill." Kane laughed.
Walking back through the hall, he was hit with immense heat.
The carvings had changed, now depicting a rocky desert landscape under a massive sun.
Groups of withered humans on their knees chanting in prayer, with a single man at the forefront leading them from their jagged sandstone castle and out into the sands.
The massive rocky castle was in the middle of a giant crater, and underneath the castle was a green coffin on a stone slab.
Kane quickly left the craggy hall, feeling the intense heat dissipate as he made his way through.
Panting from the heat, Kane went through his memories of the game's map, thinking of where it could possibly be.
He didn't have to think long, as there were only two deserts in this game, and only one of them was rocky and abandoned. The Desert Wasteland.
The wastelands were only a bit northwest of the human capital, Lanport.
Kane let out a sigh, 'At least it won't be too big a detour.'
Of course, Kane could just simply not do the quest, but a mysterious desert treasure hunt was too cool to resist.
It would be a day's walk in-game, he decided to go buy a temperature-related item, seeing as he'd be in a desert.
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"Hello, I'm wondering if you have any temperature control items?"
"I recognize that voice..." The short red-haired blacksmith whipped around.
"You're that prick who called me a child laborer!!" She yelled angrily
Kane put his hands up and beamed, "Guilty as charged!"
She couldn't figure out how to react and just gave up on confronting the man.
"Temperature control? I think I have a few from that dwarf who passed by." She turned and began digging through a small container.
"Ah, I remember the dwarf, that guy was awesome! Not 3 days into the game's release and someone already came up with slurs for a fictional race, legendary!"
"Of course he likes the damn dwarf..." She muttered under her breath.
Kane decided to ignore that.
"A-ha, here it is! It can negate up to 40 degrees of hot or cold temperatures."
"Sounds like what I'm after, how much?"
"600 gold, I only have two of these after all." She declared confidently.
"I'm absolutely not spending 600 gold on a beginner-ranked item, I can do 450."
She pondered for a second, "Normally that'd be fine, but I only have two, I'll take it for 500 at the lowest."
"Deal!" I reached out to shake her hand, and she ignored the gesture.
"Ohhhh, rejected! That can't be a good business strategy." Kane said in his best 'salesman' voice.
"Want me to make it 700?" The girl raised an eyebrow.
She shook her head, "Alright, I'm activating the transaction function."
The sensation of an item and a number poured into his head, he had to pour enough gold into the system to meet the number set by the other person, once he'd done so, the item would appear in his inventory.
Kane had a different plan though, "I'm blind, so I can't see the number you set, how do I know you aren't going to scam me?"
She had an amused look on her face as she disabled the function, "You're blind huh? Sure doesn't seem like it."
Kane cringed as he prepared his next words, "I'm the silver demon..."
"Oh, now that you mention it, you do fit the description. Teleport and I'll believe you."
Kane used aport to snatch the item from her hand before teleporting out of sight.
She stared blankly at her empty doorframe, "Son of a-"
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Kane was sprinting off to the west, laughing his ass off. "Should've equipped it first kiddo!" He joked to himself.
With Kane's improved senses and fairly high stamina, he was sure to make good progress. He could easily avoid danger and make up extra time with teleportation too.
The map was designed to be small enough to allow players to walk wherever they needed without spending copious amounts of time doing so, while still being big enough to house multiple cities, dungeons, and biomes.
From what Kane knew, he'd have to cross through the entire western side of the Elven Forest, then through a large plain in the Human Territories, he'd also have to cross a river at some point.
Once he'd entered the mysterious wasteland, he'd have to walk through a small amount of desert to reach his destination.
After meeting that strange NPC and leaving the cave, Kane had logged out of the game to look up information on his destination.
Turns out there was a large crater right at its eastern border perfectly matching what he'd "seen," so he would only have to walk maybe a mile or two into the actual desert before he finds what he's looking for.
"Time to finally get out and explore." Kane laughed while bolting and teleporting over the multitude of small chasms and cliffs that littered the forest.
He probably should've looked for an actual road, but all the ones he knew of led way down south to Lanport. Going straight west would be faster.
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Two hours passed as Kane finally reached the border of the Elven Kingdom.
There was an extremely weird feature in this game that allowed to you auto-sprint. Your stamina would still be used up, and you could still feel your legs moving as they automatically sprint in a straight line.
As creepy as the sensation was, it was saving Kane a lot of effort. Though you'd typically do this on actual roads, since Kane could teleport, the wonky forest terrain wasn't a big issue.
He'd passed plenty of wild animals on his way through the forest, even stopping to hunt a few, reaching level 20.
The only monster he'd encountered so far was a surprisingly crafty Jag Sparrow that had flown off with his lunch.
While jogging across the border, he spotted a peculiar stone pillar off in the distance.
It was old and mossy, vines growing all over it. Next to the pillar was an ancient-looking wooden sign with an arrow pointing west.
"Empire of D'lor..." Kane had never heard of it, but considering the drawings in the cave, it made sense there used to be a city there.
Whatever trail this sign was mounted on had long since been grown over.
As he made his way towards the edge of the forest, he pondered over what he felt from the carvings, and what the strange NPC said.
What he's decided so far is this.
There was an ancient and prosperous civilization that was struck with some kind of natural disaster, wiping out their cities and drying up their lakes and rivers, turning the place into a desert. Generations pass by and someone decides to take charge, being worshipped by the people as a hero while leading them out of the desert.
He couldn't wait to see what treasures they'd left behind in that strange temple from the drawings.
As far as whatever that weird NPC was talking about, Kane could only assume it was trying to tell him the disaster would happen again, though he couldn't figure out what made him the "Marked One."
"Maybe the game's keeping an eye on me because of how awesome I am." He snickered.
A little over 3 hours after beginning his journey, Kane had reached the edge of the forest, a vast expanse of brilliant green field stretched out.
Sliding down a small hill, he took his first steps onto the great plains and let out a deep breath.
The wind felt great, and his run was certainly a lot easier without having to jump over a fallen tree or a giant hole in the ground every 100 feet.
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More time passed as Kane's willpower could no longer support his legs, using Black Hole, he cleared out a small area to set up camp.
The sun was starting to go down.
Kane laid his head down on a pile of grass and activated the game's sleep function.
What the sleep function did was kick your consciousness out of the game while keeping you logged in, forcing you into normal sleep. If your avatar took any damage you'd immediately wake up.
Thankfully, this time his dream wasn't painful. Slipping further into the abyss, Kane let himself go.
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Some time passed, Kane slipped back into the game and felt the warmth of the sun on his face.
Scattering the grass he'd torn up back over the cleared-out area, he nodded confidently at his terrible handiwork.
"Nobody will ever know I was here."
Kane turned and continued his sprint with renewed vigor. For once, he (probably) wouldn't be missing out on any cool sights when he arrived at his destination.
He could hear the sound of rushing water, as the air became cool and misty.
He anti-climatically teleported across the river and kept running. The might of Poseidon was no match for teleportation.
Eventually, Kane arrived at the border between the human territories and the wasteland.
Crossing the last bit of grassy field, he was immediately bombarded with extreme heat.
"Oh wow, this sucks, how did those guys survive here??" Kane complained whilst activating his temperature item.
The heat was still uncomfortable, but at least it was now bearable, he made the right choice spending all that... gold... on it.
Kane felt just a little bit of guilt as he chuckled uncomfortably.
The terrain quickly became rocky, with patches of sand scattered all over.
He had no way of knowing where the crater was until he got close enough to it, so Kane just continued west.
After a very uncomfortable walk through the sandy desert, Kane could hear a change in the wind, just off to his right was a large echo.
He carefully made his way over, his foot almost sliding off the sandy ledge as he reached the crater.
Using teleport, Kane safely made it to the ground.
The walls of the crater stretched high above, and there were small puddles of water on the ground under the shade.
"This must be the lake from the diagram, time to go castle raiding." Kane thought aloud.
He carefully stepped over small holes and jagged little spikes on the ground, making his way towards the menacing structure bit by bit.
It gave off an ancient, corrupted, evil energy that made Kane's determination falter.
Even though this was just a video game, Kane genuinely felt like his life was in danger.
He sat down to adjust to the menacing pressure, also regenerating his mana.
The moment he was able, Kane set up his first Anchor, feeling all of the energy drain from his body as a rift was opened in the space before him.
Who knows what he'd find in there, Kane didn't want his long walk to go to waste if this place was as innocent as it seemed.
He sighed as he realized he'd have to wait for his mana to regenerate again.
A few moments later, he was finally prepared.
He wanted to find out exactly what this strange quest had to offer.
As he walked up the worn stone stairs and passed through the gate, a single image flashed through his mind. There was no natural disaster.
The sun, the sun here was several times larger than normal...
And it didn't set.