Dystopian Tales Online

There are a total of five races in Dystopian Tales Online : The Elven, Beasts, Humanoid, Half-Lings, and the Undead. And under these races are the so-called Archetypes. Archetypes are like sub-classes, or sometimes referred to as "work classes" that is commonly present under a certain race. This setting is common among the world of RPGs.

Leon-36 is from the Elven Race with a main archetype Necromancer, which is an archetype from the Undead Race. His magic is mainly focused in black magic and summoning magic, with energy mostly fed with negative energy to charge. This setting is way more different from Leon wanted but he has no choice but to follow the script.

Actually, Leon is not the one who chose his race. No, not only him, but all Virtual Reality players didn't choose their own races. That is due to the fact that the characters they have now are given by the computer with their test scores and ability as the basis. The settings in which the possibility of honing their full potential is a possibility.

"We're here," Aud-10 announced.

Floor number 125 is one of the neutral floors in the dungeon, meaning, that the number of monsters appearing are less than the other floors. It is a rule within the dungeon that in every 25th floor appears a safe haven where most of the players camp out. In these floors, the monsters are slightly weaker than what they supposed to be giving a chance to the low level players to win and gain EXP.

That is why when a player wanted to move on the next floor, they will choose the floors 25th from the last 25th than to go directly to the next proceeding floor. Floor 100 is a neutral ground that is why it is easy to finish the floor. When Leon-36 and Aud-10 found out that Floor 100 is occupied, Leon-36 suggested the 25th floor because floor 101 has a lot of mazes on it they might take time to finish.

"Let's go inside," Leon-36 said.

In common games, dungeons are underground passages created with mazes and traps. Each passage contain a single or two monsters waiting for the players, or if lucky, a dead end will be found with a treasure c.h.e.s.t left by someone. Some dungeon required a scroll or a key for players to access, sometimes, a certain level should be attained to enter.

But the dungeons in DTO is different. One of its famous dungeon is the Underground Dungeon that has an estimated of one thousand floors deep. Each floor has a large door as entrance and exit with no required level to activate it. Three main bosses will be held in each floor, with the subordinate monsters roaming around. For a boss to appear, there are requirements to be fulfilled like killing one hundred goblins or catching ten ghost spears.

Each floor has its own unique form. One floor has a garden setting while the other is forest. Floors 50 and down mostly have a common setting of a jungle and forest. There are also swamps and rivers, but these places are usual. Floors 50 and above, that is where weird scenarios appear.

One of this weird scenario is the floor 60 where large mushrooms of different kinds filled the whole floor while puffing out smoke poison. Insects larger than them infested the place, which is known for their longer life span due to their body composition. It almost took some time before this floor was cleared due to the fumes that losses the player's ability to see the surroundings clear, the fumes that directly affects the health of the players, and the hard shell life of the monsters.

Though, Neutral floors then again deviates it. Maybe as they go down, the only floors that will remain pleasant are these floors. And one of these pleasant floors are floors 125 and 150 with the setting of the crystal Forrest.

Leon moved the mouse and clicked, moving Leon-36 around 360 to see the view. Crystal Forrest, known for huge blocks of crystals growing everywhere from the grasses tips up to the leaves of the trees, is quite a heavenly view for an Elf. These Crystals are full of mana sending out Spirit magic everywhere overloading his mana input. It is in these fields that his race can use excessively use magic without losing life.

Aud-10 is walking in front of him, though, looking indifferent than usual. Unlike Leon-36, Aud-10 is of a different race that can never feel the spirit magic. Or rather, Leon-36 never recognized this player's race at all. One of the features of DTO and VR is the player's [FREE WILL] allowing them to hide their personal information and choose whatever they want show from it.

Leon-36 has his common setting in public, letting people see his name and race. He kept his archetype and spell information in private so the only thing the people can see on him is his name and level. With Aud-10, it is only his name and status bar. There's no way that a Status Bar can be hidden. It's the other way of people knowing if your already out of health and needed a heal or a potion.

Now that he is thinking at it now, there's only a few things that he knows in this person. Maybe they are friends for like seven years but it doesn't mean that they know each other that well. He only knows Aud-10 as Aud-10 and not his real name. He didn't even know his exact age or if whether he is still in school or working. Leon can't just casually ask about it.

Yes, nobody can just actually ask anyone on their private lives.

In role-playing games, talking about private lives is somewhat rude to an extent. Some people play RPGs to forget their problems by acting as [someone] or by [ROLE-PLAYING] a character that is not them. It is the time for fun and games, not for discussion about work and school. Telling these people about how you feel bad at work or you failed a test will only affect their mood.

Gamers are not cold-blooded. They are just placing walls by separating their real life problems to gaming.

Aud-10 noticed Leon-36 suddenly became quiet.

"What? Are you still there?" Aud-10 asked, adding a question mark emoticon.

"I'm still here," Leon-36 said.

"Get ready, we are entering the aggro field."

"O-okay!"

Aud-10 equipped his only weapon out, a battle lance, swirling and twirling it around expertly in his hands. His lance is two and a half meters long, the end with one large red arrow with four smaller arrows attached on the base. The tips are made up of red crystals, the weakest among the mana output but with the highest durability of all. Because of its red color, it only needs a small amount of MP which is pretty much efficient for a non-magic user like him.

He didn't wasted his time and Aud-10 headed towards the aggro. The Aggro field is the range where monsters will appear whenever a player reaches a certain distance. It would be bad if the monsters suddenly starts attacking the moment a door is being opened so safe distances are created. However, once a player enters the aggro field, the safe distance will no longer work.

The monsters residing inside the Crystal Forrest are called Frost giants. They are not actually made up of ice but their image is close to that. They are made up of white and black crystal stones, the one that absorbs mana but only drains it down. Three Frost Giants dwell around this floor with names of Small Frost, Aberrant Frost, and the floor's Boss.

Underlings such as fast moving crystal golems leaped out in the sky at once, five of them focusing their attack to a certain player running towards the field. Sharpening the edges of their arms, five to six-arrow crystals was thrown to his direction. Aud-10 glanced up with a glint of his eyes, raising his lance up spinning it round and round, blocking the crystals. The golems landed on the ground surrounding the player.

Maneuvering the optics around is hard for a DTO player but the skilled Aud-10 controlled the view as if he is really looking sideways. Fishing his lance on his side with a swish, his eyes estimated the distance of his enemies. By just the look, he can tell the difference between these underlings. Of them is a distance archer, the other is holding a club, and the remaining three are battle warriors.

The distance archer aimed the crystal arrows to Aud-10 with the player stepping back twirling his lance again for defense when two other golems attacked in both sides of him. Changing action at this time is difficult but Aud-10 stooped down, bending his knees until it touched the ground, and used his hop and jump skill to leap higher than a normal jump, quickly playing the lance around him to stab and jab each golem.

One end, he lightly stabbed it causing the golem's c.h.e.s.t to crack and fall, while on the other is a deeper stab that the tip of the lance passed through its body. More golems arrived to attack him again. Using the stabbed golem as a fulcrum, Aud-10 activated another skill on his legs this time, running around to step on the golems pushing them way down. After turning around for four times, the first round golem who attacked him are now on the ground with their health status reduced to half.

Another group appeared.

The other player who is only a distance away from him can't help but to sing praises towards the player. Leon-10 is never a combat class so just by seeing this scene makes his heart clench with excitement. As an Elven-Necromancer, all he can do is range attacks and summon that are both time consuming. Close combat will be dangerous to him, not that he can't do tackle and kick, but in that way his real purpose as a magician will be thrown away.

I actually wanted a Tank Class, he once thought. Tanks can move around more freely than him.

"Can you bless me a favor and start attacking already?"

Leon almost laughed when he saw the message from Aud. Doing those combination performance constituted a lot of different commands that should be typed in. To be able to send him a message in a full sentence only means that Aud's APM control must be more than 250. His keyboard must be in flames now due to fast typing.

He started typing commands he memorized by heart to the board. Leon-36 started running towards Aud-10's direction but abruptly stops in a distance. A wooden staff appeared on his hand, above is a round top crystal of higher mana colors piled in a crown like arrangement, emitting a glow of colorful lights around. Stomping the lower end of the staff down to the ground activated a magic circle, spreading a complicated transmugation circle with symbols and circles around him.

See? he though. I remembered drawing this self made transmugation. Now, it looks better and much stronger!

Aud-10 caught a light from the end of his sight and saw Leon-36 chanting an attack spell. The air around the Elf swirled, sending gusts of air around. Aud-10 knows this move and decided to finish stabbing the last round of monsters before jumping out from the scene and anchored himself to the closer crystal trees. Leon-36 saw the order and fired his spell towards the confused crystal golems.

This is an easy job. Too easy for them who are high-level players playing in a neutral ground.

Leon-36 erased the golems in one fire, leaving only pieces of crystals from the golems. Looking at his MP output, that is such a huge loss. But the negative charge from the golems filled it up quickly. He looked around and found Aud-10 holding in a tree branch like a monkey. He only gave him a nod, and as if reading each other's mind, proceeded on entering the dungeon.

The requirement for the first boss to appear is to kill twenty distance archer crystal golems. So far, they have only met ten, they have to look for more. Continuing the process, Aud-10 managed to hook in some more crystal golems, carrying his lance with no problem. Leon-36 also did it with no mistake, firing unusually strong spells to repel the monsters.

It took them some round before they completed the requirement of killing twenty distance crystal archers. The time the twentieth archer was killed, the ground suddenly shook, creating vibrations through the whole floor.

White visible smoke gushes out from the sides forming a fog around the trees. Like in any boss battle, effects as fog smoking, earth quaking, and some fire burning, will just appear so quite to warn players the incoming danger. It is as if the 'suspense' trait that they want the players to feel. However, for these two players, these effects are just nothing but a decoration.

Before the first boss could appear, Aud-10 advanced forward while twirling his lance. He activated a spell midway making it glow with magic. Though, he is not a magic user, using magic spells using the system is still possible. It was just based on theory that he once calculated. Besides, what is the use of having an MP bar if magic is only valid to the Elven race?

Leon-36 prepared for another spell. Earlier, doing the high level spells is just for fun. If ever those action are not needed, Aud-10 could have possibly intercepted and warned him from using it again. But the player let him act recklessly meaning he can be as unrestrained by pulling any tricks he got under his sleeve. But now, he mellowed down.

As mentioned, the crystal forest's bosses are Frost giants in the colors of white and black crsytals that absorbs spirit magic. By just attacking it, the player is actually feeding it with mana giving the boss more HP than before. That's how bosses works above the 100th floor. If you make a simple calculation mistake, it can give the boss more life or otherwise.

The advantage of overflowing mana in floor 125 gave the Elven the pedestal, but also, gave them the highest inferiority.

However, Leon-36 is not the least scared. Knowing this beforehand gave him the upper hand and be cautious around the bosses. Aud-10 is also beside him so there's no way that he will die while dungeoning. In situations like this, he can just use his skills other than spending his MP more.

Just as well before the boss appeared, Aud-10 used his hop skill again and leaped up in the sky. Leon-36 can't actually see numbers inside the game but he can tell that the place where Aud-10 is aiming will be the first boss' entrance. In a quick rotation of the lance, it slashed through the air, earning a painful howl from the distance.

A cascading sound followed the howl added the shaking of the ground. By just it, Leon-36 can tell that the boss fell down. Aud-10 glanced at him, giving him the signal to follow. They both erupted from their places with a high paced speed going toward the first boss.

First bosses are actually weaker than the two so defeating it will only need a few slashes and tackles. It has no special attacks, nor any brain to create one. By just having Aud-10 stab it in a string of stab and jab, the Frost Giant crumbled to pieces, returning the state of the floor back to the beginning. The player didn't waste anytime to continue while Leon-36 summoned a familiar to pick the droppings of the boss.