For the villagers of Redondo Village, a small settlement of at most twenty or so families, they knew better than anyone the value of the Forbidden Forest of Eks'eed.
Located at the southern edge of the known continent of Mehnlund, parallel to the Wehbeig Ocean, the Forbidden Forest of Eks'eed is a vast, mystical mountain range rumored to have once been an unhospitable place. The elders of the village claim that before the great petrification of the enlightened ones, death and chaotic magic was rampant across the land.
But now, there is only a vibrant forest teeming in magic and life, with mystical beasts roaming all across it. Some of the elders even suggest that these beasts come from the great spire, the mysterious large white structure that pierces the sky. There was no other explainable reason for their existence, and why they continue to stay in the forest.
But, thankfully, it's due to these mystical beasts claiming the forest as their territory that has prevented invaders from coming near Redondo Village, providing it absolute sanctuary as it hugs the border of the forest.
The reason why the villagers of Redondo continue to live here even with the risk of mystical beasts nearby, is due to their unique existence as cursed folk.
Half-human, Half-Elven, the Redondo villagers are Halfbreeds with the average life expectancy of humans but with the magical sensitivity of Elves, they looked mostly Human but had the long-pointed ears of Elves. They had escaped prejudice from their shared homelands and formed a community here to live in peace.
It's been now more than ninety years since they had formed this village.
The village was primarily an agricultural one, with hunting being largely discouraged due to no viable grounds for hunting to be done due to the proximity of the forest.
Families live in small, wooden shacks, the wood being harvested by the younger trees that sprout away from the forest proper as they're considered the safest to harvest.
As to how they get their water, a small river stream flows from the forest and through a rocky alcove that dips into an underground reservoir nearby. But due to origin of the water, and the unknown magical potential of the forest, the water had to be filtered through magic distillation, otherwise villagers would suffer from mana sickness from ingesting it due to their magic sensitivity as Half-Breeds.
Only a handful of villagers in Redondo are capable of casting magic, as magic was considered largely unstable for Half-Breeds such as them to use.
One such villager, an eighteen-year-old girl named Silkie Ileka, was capable of casting magic without it affecting her negatively and hence has been chosen out of two other magic-attuned casters to work in diluting the water for the village. The two others, elders of the village, had taught her how to dilute the water through a spell crafted by them through the perversion of an old Elven spell; it was considered more country bumpkin hoodoo than actual magic, but it did the job.
But she wasn't just responsible for diluting water, rather, because of her special ability to be able to read the ancient scripture of the enlightened ones, she's been chosen to become the village's champion.
As for the villagers of Redondo, every ten years or so, experience a terrible event that assails their village.
It was called the Undead Call, an event of which the sky turns blood-red, and a storm falls onto the forbidden forest. From this storm, deathless monsters come from the magic sludge that pools from the forest floor, attacking anything living within their radius.
Ten years ago, her own mother had sacrificed herself to be the village's champion, saving them from the horde of deathless as she too was magic-attuned.
Silkie was sitting alone in her room, unlike the other village shacks which consisted usually of just one big common room for its family, her shack had two rooms and a common room.
This was because the village knowing of her fate, had decided to help build her own quarters.
They had also gifted her with a good bounty of food, well-crafted dresses, first pick of the rare bit of meat they would butcher from their handful of livestock, and lastly, their most prized possession--
A small, ancient, tattered leather-bound book.
It had been passed down from champion to champion since the founding of the village.
Originally graciously gifted to one of the ancestors of the village before the great petrification, it was a book full of enlightened one scripture; virtually unreadable to anyone who couldn't instinctually understand it.
Silkie's own mother couldn't read it, she was simply magic-attuned and the only one viable at the time to defend the village.
But Silkie could, and it's how she's been able to learn a truly powerful spell.
A spell she had been practicing in earnest, every day, every night, for the last ten years of her life.
"Come hither, heat, sulfur, ash of the fallen, spark of the earth--"
Silkie was focusing as she converged her hands together, forming a cup between them as she interlaced her fingers delicately together at her fingertips.
Sweat trailed down her face as she couldn't for one second lose concentration, every letter, every vowel that escaped her lips had to be said with pure, utter earnestness.
"Lay the wicked beneath thine feat, conquer--"
Silkie winced as she began to feel something begin to form in her hands. A glimmer, a small light was beginning to shine as a singular orb of flame hovered in the open space between her palms.
"...those who trespass thine domain--"
The orb began to grow, and grow it did, until it was the size of a grape.
This was the farthest she had ever gotten with this spell, the anticipation of completing it was steeling her resolve.
I must cast it; I must master it!
They're coming within a week's time, I cannot fail!
A power swelled from Silkie's chest as she felt the final verse come from deep within herself. Her hands felt as though they had been set on fire, but she willed herself through the pain.
"I summon thee, o' flame', I cast thee, FIREBA--"
"Silkie!" A middle-aged man with a grey beard and no hair barged into her room.
The spell failed as the glowing orb cracked and became ash in her hands.
"F-Father! You ruined my spell!" Silkie shouted, furious over being disrupted. This was the closest she had ever gotten to casting it.
But this anger of hers faded as she saw the grave nature of her father's furrowed face, he looked shaken-- it was the same face he had made when he had heard her mother had died during the last Undead Call.
"What is it? Has someone gotten hurt?" She got up from her mat on the floor and approached him.
"T-They're... they're here!" He managed to just barely spit out, his face was contorting into a nervous spasm.
"What do you mean they're..."
Wait, it can't be! Silkie ran past her mute father as she opened the shack's door and saw the grim reality of the sky above them.
A dark cloud was forming above their edge of the forest, it looked far smaller than the one she had witnessed years ago, but it was evident that the storm had begun to manifest.
"No! This is impossible! It's a week too soon!" She cried; there were other villagers running in panic around her in the square.
"Run! Run for your lives!"
"Grab the children, run for the hills!"
Silkie ran back into the shack and found her father clutching his chest by the frame of her doorway.
"Father, please, where is the armor? Where is the conduit sword!"
The armor and conduit sword she was speaking of were the other two treasures of the village, a breastplate of high-grade white steel armor that their ancestors had stowed away and a crafted blade of magic-conducting silver that enhanced the magic of whoever would wield it. These two items were worth more than the entire village combined and were saved both for the champion to use during the Undead Call and to act as possible bargaining chips if they were dealing with an invading force.
Her father, Argunel Ikela, was the Chieftan of the village, and therefore was the only one who knew of the location of these relics. He had a glaze over his eyes as he struggled to look at her, but he managed to say what he needed to say.
"Here..." He yanked a tied key to his neck from his chest, placing it onto her palm.
"They're hidden in your mother's grave, go and dig it up."
Silkie winced as she heard him tell her where he had hid the relics, but she knew better than to wait any further. She left him as she made a mad dash for the small hill found behind their shack.
I just need a little more time, just a little more and I can protect you all!
Silkie arrived to the small hill where her mother's gravestone was. It was a simple, but delicately crafted piece of stone that read her name in bold and the following text beneath it, 'Jilel Ikela-- Champion, Wife, Mother'.
Silkie said nothing as she began at the tough ground with her bare hands, tearing at the rocky soil as she did so with complete laser-focus.
Even as her fingers bled, she continued to dig, until she felt something solid hit her fingertips.
Just below, instead of the remains of a corpse, there was instead a small, wooden box.
She grabbed it and proceeded to open it. Inside were the two relics, they were wrapped in cloth as she undid their bindings.
"Now to put it on--"
Drop.
A singular, raindrop fell on her cheek as she began to latch the breastplate of white steel onto herself.
Then another came, and another.
The storm had ultimately, begun.
---
As Ben approached the smoke in the distance, he began to take count of what does match in the game so far.
There was most of the information presented to him through his profile and inventory, what he was wearing was identical to what he had worn in the final moments before the main sever shutdown.
There was also the inclusion of fireworks in his inventory, data that exists within his person and not outside. For someone to provide him with this data, they should have had access to the game's innerworkings to know it.
Hm, that guy, Hero2Zero, he said his 'private terminal' was more of a capsule than a functioning version of the game. I would've figured I'd be spawned into my default spawn location if it had booted normally.
It makes sense that the server would know what I'd be wearing as its existing data that's visible to the game, but include the items I had in my inventory in a private terminal? That shouldn't be possible.
So what-- does that mean this really is the game proper?
Well, so far, I can't really be so sure, as there's discrepancies-- such as this zone I've never seen before.
And the fact that everything is so life-like in first-person like this, I can't tell it apart.
There's nothing like this in other VRMMO's, everything is just far too real and vivid.
But there's the fact that impossible things such as me even being able to fly and use magic is a given. I just feel more and more disoriented trying to make sense of it.
Maybe I should just call this 'Grand Recordia 2', it's not the original Grand Recordia, but a continuation of it.
As for if I'm really in the game or not... I guess time will tell. I could very well wake up in a couple of hours from now, still in bed.
Or I won't.
I'll leave it at that, I don't want to give myself a panic attack thinking about either outcome, really.
But for now, it's Grand Recordia 2. I'll treat it as such, like a game.
Yes, I'll do that, for my mental health.
Ben nodded to himself as he found his resolve, it even helped him not be as afraid as flying as he managed to finally look down again.
It's just so beautiful, even though it's scary being so high up like this, everything is just so detailed.
I can feel the wind whooshing past me, the breeze, the sunlight, the gentle sea air--
I suppose I'll enjoy this while I can, I have work tomorrow anyway. Those slavedrivers are really having me come in and do a shift in the morning on Christmas Eve of all things. Just because I don't have a family or a social life, doesn't mean you can just make me work on a Holiday!...
Well, it's not as though they made me, they asked me, but well...
T-That's enough work talk, back to the matter at hand.
All of this self-reflection led to Ben coming up to the smoke sooner than he had realized.
But as he arrived, he saw that what he had mistook to be smoke from afar, turned out to actually be a dark cloud.
Weird, it looked so ashy from far away, I could've sworn it was smoke.
The dark cloud had formed over at the edge of the forest zone; it was quite large in size as it overshadowed the bit of land it was atop of.
I wonder what's causing it to form like this?
Hmm, what if I do this...
"Origin" Ben said as he hovered a distance away from the cloud, he had his hand stretched out toward it as if he was beckoning it.
A white screen appeared before him, the following text read as follows:
[Death Storm:
An event caused by the mixture of excessive mana and lingering remains of death. The dead will rise underneath where the rain falls and will only dissipate if given time. often occurs naturally in untended ancient battlefields.
Danger Tier: D --> C
Caution: Due to the nature of the surrounding area's extraordinary mana, this Death Storm has been forcibly mutated to an C tier rating, causing significantly more powerful undead to rise.
Suggested Level: 15+]