Bravery's Foolishness' dumbest cousin

Valora tensed up, Teyo and Courage were okay but still visibly hurt. She looked over at Reilly whom also gritted her teeth at the idea to leave. The two ladies locked eyes to one another briefly and nodded.

" Bless! "

Reilly cast bless and a moment later the burst of glitter like light fell over everyone, including the goblin. The hand of Valora and the goblin began to heal slightly. Valora squeezed her hand, she still felt pain but it was mobile. The boys both immediately charged.

Teyo was out front, using the length of the spear he stabbed out high from his waist. The spear danced out towards the goblins head, The goblin put his hands up and jumped back. Valora stepped forward and slammed into the goblin shield first. It lost it's balance and tumbled forward where Courage was rushing in to stab. Quickly the goblin threw out both of his fists in rapid punches. Courage slid low and sliced into the side of it's calf before rolling passed to the rear where the girls were. The goblin caught it's footing and twirled putting it's back to the fire.

The human sized goblin stood with it's back to the flames and roared at the group. Everyone now in front of it stood closer together.

"Reilly and Valora why didn't you go?" Courage asked

" Yeah right dumbass, think we can take level two alone? " Valora replied. She began to side step a bit, and then bent down grabbing the goblins cleaver. Teyo gave her a side eye, then spoke.

" We gotta end this now, you guys hear that?" Teyo stared at the goblin but in the distance behind them they could hear the pitter patter of foot on stone and an exited pack of goblin's yelling in tow. Teyo knew that the remaining 4 goblins and this guy were going to be to much for the group. Reilly out of mana, everyone else had no cards to play. It was either stay fight and likely die, or gamble that the door to level 2 was open

Teyo stepped forward and stood in front of the large goblin who was now smiling deviously and cracking his knuckles.

" You three just go! I'll meet in two days on level two! Go NOW!" Teyo tossed his spear to Reilly who caught it wobbly, Courage back peddled a sec with the girls behind him, pushing them towards the door. Teyo held out his axe taunting the Goblin in front of him. A moment later the sound of grinding stone could be heard as the group opened the heavy wooden door to level two, the dark miasmic aether ebbing just beyond it's birth. Teyo had been deliberately stepping backwards towards the sound of the goblins coming down to long hall, inticing the big one to try and pinch him between the group and himself. Luckily it worked, Teyo knew the goblin wouldn't be able to resist that tactic.

Just as everyone made it through Teyo quickly bent down in the doorway to grab Valora's mace, and then he quickly rolled as away as the goblin stepped in to close him off. He was unlucky enough to be too far from the door to level 2 to make it unscathed. The large goblin continued blocking his path. Instead Teyo opted to run to his right, where another passage was to another section of the cave. He juked the goblin with a feint left then right and ran full speed ahead.

Forced to retreat Teyo looked back at the fire one last time. The bat on the rotisserie was now a ball of flames and the door beyond left a dark sillouette, the alignment of the two left a image that Teyo would find hard to forget. " I will have that rotisserie, and I will kill these goblins." Teyo scarred the thought into his brain. He ran with the goblins in chase and just continued until he lost them in the he darkness of the cave. The timer ran out and he was brought back to the Specter main menu.

He met with Spex and she once again had a montage for him to watch. He opted out of watching it and stood there in thought. " This game is strange. I need to dig online and figure out about difficulties something isn't adding up. It should've been easier right?"

" Teyo would you mind please closing your eyes and taking a deep breath, the shut down sequence is initiated." Spex said touching Teyo on the shoulder. She smiled and for a second everything seemed to slow down, Teyo's peripheral vision began to gray until everything blurred and then became a dark black. He inhaled and opened his eyes to find himself in his bed once again.

Teyo sat up taking off his helmet. He stretched and put his hands on his face and neck. Feeling his skin once again he swallowed his spit, the dry feeling in his throat went away and he sighed a bit of relief. " Fuck.. I'm cursed. And what's the deal.. I play one time and people recognize me? Same clothes and a pan.. kind of stupid of me. Courage and Valora.. He's good. I wonder what her class will be when she takes her next attempt. It's one restart right? Normal mode alt, I would have at least done Normal+. Damn there's just so much to unpack.. " Teyo held his hands on his temples against his bed. He wanted to sleep but he could stop thinking. So much flashed back to him, choices, the fighting, technique, the secrets, the siblings, Reilly. The weight of the game's reality made Teyo wonder who tailored the life he lived now. Comparison of the two made him view them as peace and war. All the money and rewards were still so far. "199 levels. I wonder how many will even make it to 100. Wherein does the difficulty scale? Is it better to do alone?" Teyo's mind flashed between the first group he was apart of, and then the last attempt. He couldn't help but feel that the cohesive nature of the siblings and Reilly, felt.. natural. Their strong suits differed but at least they were a team. Jack, Dorian, and Sadura all had something else in their agenda. "Perhaps it's just the two sides of the coin. This is a game, a contest. Some people will focus on that and just be better. Natural talent or determination, which is the victor?.... huh."

Teyo sat up and moved to his computer the overactive thoughts wouldn't let him sleep. Teyo began a transfer of his footage and then checked on his social media. The first thing he noticed was that sometime earlier some new clips had been posted to Viewtube. Many people had began their streak of popularity. Some had even put out in game tutorials although watching them Teyo quickly laughed it off. The so called tutorials were basic how to hold a weapons, knowing your role, surviving the darkness, etc. The most fundamental survival and equipment based tutorials had begun to plague most of the categories. Many people just wanted to provide some level of input to stay relevant.

A lot of the Specter console games began to grow wildly over the viewing sites. Honor and Duty kept a large fan base and had a new surge of military personnel ranting and raving about it's effective training. Many other puzzles and even streaming services began to make apps and shake deals with Odnetnin. Teyo found links to knew movie studio's intent on making immersive movies exclusive to the platform, the digital editing and software development ads could be found on most ads that were seen. Teyo looked at the prices of the consoles and noticed that they had tripled in value, Odnetnin had put out a statement saying that new iterations and waves of consoles would be available soon. The amount of console scalpers and scammers seemed to be a huge problem. The unfortunate gatekeeping of the consoles hurt the majority of the low income families looking to get one.

Teyo became a bit more proud that he had pre-ordered the console and beat the craze. Somehow the console had come to explode in popularity after it's release taking the world by storm. Teyo chalked it up to just naysayers whom held the notion of it's claim to be as imersive as reality false. Perhaps the technology seemed beyond the capabilities to most.

Teyo sifted through the buzz and hype of all the new games and news about progressive ideas regarding the console. He began to search Bluezit's blackhead

/bzWishLegacy. Many people had began to narrow down the types of details that could be shared. The most informative threads followed a more show and tell style function. With zero detail to the threads up votes became a source for more information, the videos shared seemed to be the new methods of sharing. Some videos shown simply skipped over some sections while showing and overall cause and reaction miming. People began to show themselves fighting bats, spiders, goblins, and slimes and slowing down certain moments as it to show weaknesses. Teyo chuckled, the hilarity of some individuals showing off the mundane tactics and easy kills had him wishing for the worst in some videos. He realized he was being rather cynical but the novice style many posters had made himself begin to feel a rather inflated ego, he quickly humbled himself.

After searching for awhile he stumbled upon a post that caught his attention. It was a post declaring that the poster and a group of his friends had made their way to level 4 and all but one died losing their first attempts. It was very vague but the poster simply stated that the level close to the city was more difficult than it seemed. Teyo committed it to memory. He then continued to watch combat videos most of which were rather boring to him. Eventually his gameplay finished transferring.

Teyo began to break down most of his moments in the game, he Wondered if he should include Courage and Valora, there were many moments piled together with the group. The amount of time he had played allowed for him to have a few different ideas for videos. He found that it was a good choice to separate the solo content from the group. The tavern quest seemed like a good idea to spark a new buzz, clicking through the timeline and watching him exert himself kiting the goblins around the mazes of stone gave him a good direction for the video. Eventually he cut it up showing off the kills, and using the previous encounter of the two goblins he killed on his first run as a proof of concept in the end of the video. He titled it "Nature's an Ally" in a way he knew that if he released the video it would push the fact that the Appraise skill could likely be seen as a boon for those who prepared and made methodical kills. He hoped people would see it as a good rather than bad, but the flipside of it being used on player's was also his silent warning for those who attempted to follow his footsteps.

Using the footage of the groups encounters with the Bats and the Goblin's and the Troll, Teyo pieced together a pretty comprehensive video. He didn't include anyone's voice or face. He clearly wanted to better hide himself in these videos but felt that doing a sense of justice by showcasing everyone in their contributions to the fights was a good enough nod to his new friends. Courage ended up becoming a rather star of his video even in Teyo's eyes. The part were he lost him arm to the Troll sunk Teyo back into the feeling of dread, and watching himself carelessly throwing himself in harm's way for Courage made Teyo shake his head. " Damnit I gotta stop myself from doing that, I'm gonna get myself killed" He gave himself a pat on the back for the way he ended up finishing off the Troll. By adding in some cool metal music and adding good timing Teyo made his rise with the broken arm and subsequent ending of the fight much more cool than it should have been. The gorey aspect was sure to get him demonized if he put the entirety of it in so he just left it at the point where he stabbed it in the eye. He put a quick flash of him hammering in the spear with his pan as the final second to the video as a nod to their victory.

" Phew, okay what do I call this..." Teyo couldn't discredit the obvious badassery that Courage's prowess, Reilly's spotlight of healing, and Valora's battlefield control contributed to the video. It also showcased how the group grew to each other's strong suits. He kept the last large goblin fight out. One it showed too many trump cards, Courage's hat and skills, and the defeat therein, by the group splitting and Teyo running away. He pondered hard for a few minutes for a name. " Bravely Trolling, and getting Riled up. That's not to on the head right? It should be fine."