Everlast Online

As soon as it reached midnight, Liz entered ELO. The waiting room around her faded into nothing, but was soon replaced by a starry sky overlooking a vibrant planet covered in a myriad of colourful biomes; and even some not so colourful ones.

The world of Gladrash spun before Liz as she just watched, it was truly a sight to behold.

However, it was interrupted quite quickly.

[Welcome To Everlast Online]

[Begin your journey?]

[<Y/N>]

Liz quickly decided on yes, opening a set of 2 screens, offering a choice between 2 options.

[Custom Character] [Randomised Character]

Being confused, Liz wanted more information about her choices and the system quickly complied. Firstly, this choice had nothing to do with a player's class, only their race, easing some of Liz’s worries. The 2 options gave a choice between choosing and customising a set option of races; a randomised character however, simply picked the players race at random.

Both choices came with benefits. Choosing yourself would allow you to see how each race’s stats are distributed, you would be able to see all of the race's attributes and weigh up the pros and cons, and would also gain much more control over the appearance. ELO used the player's IRL appearance as the base of their characters to prevent anyone using a different face to anonymously commit some crime, but some customisation was possible, if using a custom character.

On the other hand, a randomised character was simply chosen for the user. The stats were not visible until you were in the game, the attributes would be a surprise and the appearance would mostly be based on the player.

If this was all, it would seem that using a randomised character was a waste of time, but this option had its own benefits. It gave the chance of playing as a race that custom characters could not choose, though this was rare. What this meant was completely new attributes and stat distribution; but more than that, the race skill.

In ELO, every player started with 2 skills: A race skill and a class skill. Everyone who chooses a class gets the same skill based on their class, mages get [Mana Bolt], Warriors are allowed to choose from a list of weapon passive skills, hunters get [Archery] and healers get [Heal]. After that classes could be levelled to get more skills and eventually evolved to open a limitless potential of the skills with thousands of different classes based on how the players choose to play; as discovered by the beta testers.

However, players also got another skill. The race skill; it was completely random and based on the player’s race. Getting more race skills was based on lucky encounters or items so every race skill was very important; choosing a random race opened the door to the possibility of a completely new and unknown race skill.

"Might as well." Liz muttered, not having seen much about ELO due to always being swamped with work.

[Random Character Selected]

[Random Race Skill Being Generated]

[Please Choose A Class]

[Warrior] [Hunter] [Mage] [Healer]

Liz took much less time to decide on her class. She had always loved fantasy stories, but most especially the tales involving magic and mysticism; tales of sorcery and wizards.

"Mage class, please." She said, speaking to no one.

After her class was the final part of character creation:

[Please Choose An Alias]

"Hmmm..." Liz contemplated for a while, before deciding to keep it simple, "Smokey"

The name was simple, based on the ashen colour of Elizabeth's hair, a trait shared by the entire Gray family, and quite a peculiarity in the modern era. It was the nickname her friends had called her in school before she left

[Welcome To Everlast Online]

[Please Enjoy Your Stay In Gladrash]

Liz began to descend, noticing that the robotic voice of the system had been replaced by the sultry voice of a mature and seductive woman. As Liz fell she saw a beautiful and almost naked woman smiling at her.

The woman had long green hair that looked more like vines than real hair, her eyes were a striking gold and her body was perfectly proportioned. Her entire body was on display, except her private parts, which had been covered by leaves like the old tales of Eve from the bible.

"Gaia..." Liz mumbled, realising who the woman was and feeling her heartbeat increase at the sight of her.

Liz soon found her consciousness slipping, and blackness enveloped her sight. When she woke up again Liz found herself surrounded by gnarled and twisted trees, a forest full of thick mist.

"What the hell..." She muttered, bringing herself to her feet, noticing her body felt abnormal, "I thought I would start in a beginner village?" 

Liz was mostly shocked about her starting point, but a moment later she remembered to check her status, deciding that it may help her understand not only why she was here but why her body felt so abnormal.

[Warning: Player has selected a <Monster> Race]

[Player will start in native environment]

[You have entered <Spooky Forest (F-Rank)>]

"So, my race resulted in a weird starting point then." Liz said, reading the message, "At least it's the lowest rank. Should be mostly safe."

"Guess I should look at my status then."

====

Name: [Smokey]

Race: [Abandoned Doll] (Attributes)↓

Class: [Mage (1)]

Title: <None>

Reputation: 0

Stats: [STR: 3] [END: 2] [AGI: 8] [INT: 12]

Skills: [Voodooist (S)] [Mana Bolt (1) (F)]

[Inventory]↓ [Equipment Menu]↓

[Player Auction]↓ [Currency Conversion]↓

====

Liz found her stats to be pretty imbalanced, and she had not heard of an 'abandoned doll' race.

Maybe I'm the first. She thought, Though I know very little to begin with

Liz decided to see what the attributes of her race were before anything else.

[Undead: Possessed Item]: <+Light Element Weakness> <+Dark Element Resistance> <+Dark Element Affinity> <+Undead Affinity>

[Dress-Up Doll]: <Armour/Vanity items will apply to character model directly> <All stat boosts remain the same> <Some exceptions>

[Doll Anatomy]: <Body has no joints> <Body has no vital points>

Liz saw her attributes as positive, obviously the light weakness was annoying for her, but besides that it looked incredibly good.

But besides that, both her defence and attack powers, when related to dark-element attacks, were increased by 50%. That alone was a significant benefit that mostly overshadowed her light weakness, which meant she took 50% more damage and dealt 50% less damage with light-element attacks. Undead affinity supposedly made it easier to gain reputation in undead communities, it also gave her an improved regeneration (if only slightly).

The second attribute seemed mostly cosmetic, so she didn't really consider it. She did ignore the strategic advantage of your opponent not being able to properly see your equipment, but she would learn soon enough the advantage it gave her.

The final attribute was the one that Liz was the most excited about. In ELO, you had a health bar, but if you were to lose, say your head, your total health would be irrelevant as you would die instantly. Now however, she lacks any vital points meaning her total health determines when she dies, this was a great benefit. Furthermore, although less useful, her lack of joints could open up an unpredictable fighting style that is harder to defend against or attack.

Liz was happy with her race, all that was left now were her skills. Seeing what they did would be important for how she proceeds, especially the random racial skill.

[Mana Bolt (1) (F): Launch a single bolt of pure mana at a target. Damage scales with level and INT stat]

"Pretty simple, about what I expected." She muttered, understanding that the initial class skill would obviously be pretty underwhelming. The next skill was much different.

This was the first time she had looked at her racial skill, the first time she had noticed it was S-rank, the highest rank one could normally get.

"I've probably used a lifetime of luck getting this skill..." Liz muttered, before opening the description of the skill.

[Voodooist (S): 1- Any damage taken by the player will be transferred to subordinated NPC(s), some exceptions apply (passive). 2- Player may allow subordinate NPC(s) to use compatible skills owned by player for increased skill cost from the player(active)]

"Damage... Transfer..." Liz muttered, the potential of a skill like this was amazing. The only thing was,

But summoning type skills are the worst kind. She thought.

On occasion, Liz had seen discussions from the beta testers about ELO, simply because even though she would never normally get to play it, Liz loved fantasy and ELO was truly groundbreaking. Subordinate-type classes came up frequently; they were an advanced class type that allowed the player to fight using subordinates instead of themselves, the only problem was they sucked.

All the skills had incredibly low limits for max summons, and often they were quite weak, needing their own resources to gain power. Overall, it was almost never worth the effort. 

There was one example, a beta-tester going by the name Annie, simple really, who unlocked the [Spirit Summoner] class. Like other summoning classes it was quite weak, she had to spend most of the time in the beta strengthening her summons, but eventually she did become one of the stronger players within the beta, though she only had a week left by that point.

"Something to aim for I guess." Liz laughed, Annie released the details of the class and it would be difficult to get it but with the [Voodooist] skill, Liz could nullify one of the subordinate-type classes greatest weaknesses: Aim for the summoner.

Even by this point Liz didn't know how lucky she had been.

To get the [Abandoned Doll] race alone, was a 1 in 10 thousand chance.

On top of that, to get an S-rank racial skill, the odds were 1 in a million. And for the [Voodooist], one of the [Abandoned Doll]'s best S-rank skills, the odds of her getting this were 1 in 10 million. 

She had quite literally defied the odds in regards to her racial skill, it could be said she was the luckiest player in the game at the moment.

Liz worried her prolonged inspection would result in a monster approaching, but found that the clearing she was in acted as a safe zone until she left, so she kept on inspecting herself.

In her inventory was a single item:

[Beginner Mage Staff (F)]

[Staff for beginner mages. Increases magic damage by 1%]

"Pretty sucky." Liz mumbled, but she had already heard about the beginner equipment. It offered very little if any bonuses and was given to every player at the start. 

Warriors  and hunters at least got damaging items, but for mages, whose damage came entirely from spells, their starting item did basically nothing.

There was nothing else in her inventory so she quickly shut it after equipping the staff and seeing it appear in her hand.

The final tab she opened was the [Equipment] tab. When she did, for the first time, she saw her own character model in front of her.

The image in front of her was rather crude. Black buttons where the eyes should be and a black line of stitching forming a permanent smile as her mouth. Her skin and body looked like potato sacks sewn together, and for hair she had grey rags running down until her lower back. For fingers, it was less a hand, but rather the long strip of stuffed fabric ended and 5 smaller parts extended from it, the feet did not even get this, and the leg fabric simply ended in a slight curve.

Truthfully, Liz felt she more closely resembled a scarecrow than a children's doll.

She really did look like an enlarged children's toy for a peasant child, a ragdoll made from the most basic of materials. 

"Creepy... I like it." Liz mumbled to herself. Watching in morbid delight as the stitching opened and closed with her speaking, revealing an empty blackness for her mouth.

The equipment menu showed a set of boxes on either side of the character image, along with some in other places. 5 boxes for armour: Hat, chest, pants, shoes and gloves. There were 5 more on the other side for vanity. Any items placed into here would lose the bonuses they granted and simply just be for appearances. Other than that there were 2 weapon slots: Main and off-hand, the main being occupied by the [Beginner Mage Staff]. Then the last 4 boxes were for accessories, with 4 more for vanity again: 2 rings, 1 necklace and a pair of earrings.

It was rather convoluted and only the 5 basic armour slots and weapon slot were occupied with the all-but-useless beginner items that provided very little bonus ability.

"Well, that's everything then." Liz said, closing her menus and exiting the safe zone she had spawned in. 

The fog quickly covering her, she began making her way through the forest doing what most did when they began an RPG game: Killing mobs.

At first she found it quite hard to move, falling over a few times as her new jointless body was not the easiest to walk with; even with her visor only granting the lowest immersion of any VR capable device.

She soon regained her bearings and could walk normally, staff in hand and made her way through the forest, looking for monsters to hunt.

It took a while before she found any monsters to hunt in the first place, when she did it was a zombie walking slowly through the trees. She quickly used [Mana Bolt] and saw a chunk of its HP bar shrink, her mana bar shrinking at the same time. When she hit the zombie it staggered and turned to face her with a snarl, she had gained its 'aggro'.

It only took 2 more [Mana Bolt]s before she had killed the monster.

"Yay!" Liz cheered, almost forgetting why she said she was playing in the first place due to the amount of fun she was having, "Though, this is my first enemy in almost 2 hours. Others are probably already ahead. I need to speed up."

Liz was always a believer in 'The early bird catches the worm' and knew that if she fell behind she would end up as a pawn in this game, where it could never be profitable for her to keep playing.

So, one by one she killed every monster she came across. Ignoring the ones she could not hope to challenge, like the treants and wolves she would occasionally come across. Instead she killed just the zombies and skeletons who were weak enough for her to kill in just 2-3 [Mana Bolt]s.

By the time the 3rd hour rolled around Liz had reached level 3, and gained 6 stat points to use as she wished. (A/N: 3 per level)

Ultimately she decided to focus on her INT and AGI as the stats she already had bonuses in. coming out with 11 AGI and 15 INT.

As she was walking through the fog she noticed it seemed to thin, so she walked towards it.

Is this the exit to the spooky forest? She thought, making her way towards where she could see better.

When she got there, it certainly wasn't the end of the forest. What was in front of her was a clearing where a set of stairs descended below the ground, guarded by 2 skeletons.

The 2 monsters noticed her and began shambling towards their enemy, thankfully Liz had been prepared for anything and quickly fired off some bolts and made quick work of the 2 would be guards. With no more clear dangers Liz got closer to the stairs, finding a system message popped up as she did.

[Forgotten Tomb (Uncleared)]

[F-rank Dungeon]

"A dungeon!" Liz exclaimed, obviously knowing she had found something incredibly useful, even if it was only F-rank, "This will help me catch up! And maybe I can get some treasure to sell for Piper."

Currency conversion worked both ways, so if she found a rare item and put it up on the auction she could get a hefty sum. Especially now, when players were desperate to gain an advantage over one another.

"Off to adventure!" Liz cheered, descending into the dungeon, hopeful, not knowing she would soon receive another blessing of luck, striking gold and beginning her ascent into stardom within Gladrash.