Gauntlet

College was a bore..and a bitch. Every week was the same; two classes on Mondays and Wednesdays, and three classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Each class was filled with unexciting professors. At this point, I didn't think they really cared much about their own material. It was a bother, but I was still here slaving over papers and projects day in and day out just to make sure I got the paper degree.

I had no friends on campus either. My social anxiety wouldn't let me. I did my work and kept to myself. I went straight to class, and straight back to my dorm every day; occasionally picking up groceries and/or food in between.

The only thing that managed to bring excitement to my life was my gaming console. It sounds sad, but it's true. There I had friends. There I had something interesting to do and something interesting to play. There I was able to forget about college for a couple of hours.

Today was like every other mundane day. Get up, shower, eat, go to lectures, eat, do homework, eat again. But now it was nighttime, and I had finished everything I needed to do, so I immersed myself into one of my favorite games.

"Wait, what time does the raid start?"

"Dude, I told you yesterday like ten times," I mumbled, a little too focused on the side mission I was completing. I was tasked by an elderly man to find his favorite cane. Apparently, it had magic powers. I had found the cane but was stuck beating up little inkling creatures; little balls of darkness and smoke that launched themselves at you whenever they detected your presence. They were small, but they packed a mean punch.

"Duh, but what time today?" I didn't answer, too busy fighting ten inklings at once. "C'mon man! I don't want to be late and miss out on all of the loot."

"10 PM." In a matter of seconds, the inklings were dead and dissolved into tiny little pixels on my screen. "You do realize that it's on the menu screen, right? There is even a countdown," I stated sarcastically as I collected my loot.

"....oh." His voice rang through my headset, causing a chuckle to escape me.

"Use your eyes, dumbass."

"Yeah, yeah. Have you heard from Widow and Kingsley yet?" My friend, known as C, asked. His gamer tag was CreamsicleMe, but I called him C for short for obvious reasons. As close as the three of us were, I didn't know all of their real names, but that didn't make us any less close.

We all met online in the game, Gauntlet. It is an MMORPG where you can create your own character, pick a weapon class, and explore a massive open world whilst fighting monsters and mystical beasts to complete storylines for rewards. It's what I looked forward to at the end of every day.

"Not yet. Yesterday they said they'd be here though. It's only 9:30. They have time."

"I guess so." C sighed obnoxiously loud in my headset, causing me to quickly turn the volume down on reflex.

Because I had 30 minutes to spare and my side mission was completed, I decided to roam one of the Gauntlet safe areas. The one I teleported to was a nice, quaint village that had many different types of helpful shops. The most important shop of them all, in my opinion, was the regular ole' common shop. It had all of the essentials: hp potions, magic potions, stamina potions, food for boosts, and minor bonuses. The best part was that I didn't have to spend real money in that store. Other stores required money to get the good stuff, which sucked, but I was still ranked #3 in the ranks, regardless of my lack of money, so it didn't matter that much.

It's not like I could spare the money anyway. Being a broke college student was stress enough.

I guided my character, Xavr, short for Xavier, to the common store for a quick stock up on health potions. The dungeon raid my friends and I were going to was a fairly new one, so I ended up buying as much as my inventory would carry just in case.

Upon exiting the dialogue menu from the shop NPC(non-player character), I saw a really expensive-looking online player. From his head to his toes, everything was clad in pristine iridescent combat armor. I caught a glimpse of the character's face. The eyes were a golden yellow, that juxtaposed the black hair and stubble on his face. He didn't have on a hat or any sort of face armor like most people, but he did have a golden crown that rested upon his short fluffy hair. The character turned to face another store, and I saw that on his back were a pair of pitch black katanas. We were in the same weapon class. I remember those specific katanas, too. They came out as a special edition set a couple of months ago.

My character wasn't so bad himself. He was quite attractive for a game character. He had playful, spikey, white hair, two different colored eyes; one white with no iris and the other gold. His face was sculpted and he also had cute freckles scattered across his nose and cheeks. I gave my character an eyebrow piercing as well, trying to find somewhat of a balance between edgy, badass, and cute. The clothes my character wore were as high quality as they could be, being that I never bought anything; instead, always opting to do difficult quests for special items. I looked pretty nice. I just wasn't....shiny.

I finally looked at his name; CtheKing.

CtheKing huh? I see the king alright.

"Dude has..hella money," I mumbled to myself.

"What man?" I nearly jumped out of my chair, hitting my elbow against my desk in the process. I forgot that I was in a party chat with C.

"Fuck!"

"You okay Xav?"

"Uh..yeah I just injured myself lowkey."

"You're literally a liability to yourself you know." C let out a long, dramatic sigh. "What are we going to do with you?"

"What are we going to do with who?" Widow's voice jumped into the conversation. Her Australian accent slid into my ears.

"Xav. He just injured himself."

"Again!?" She exclaimed exasperatedly. "It happens like twice every day!"

"Alright, alright. I get it. It's okay. Just get me some bubble wrap for Christmas and I'll handle it from there."

"Bet," C answered.

When I had gotten done rubbing the life out of my poor elbow, I noticed that the expensive guy was gone. Maybe he was getting the new Katanas that came out. They were lime-green with a black hilt, and they had beautiful green flames radiating from them. They were beautiful, and I truthfully really wanted them.

"Dude, where is Kingsley, we have like five minutes left." I shrugged at Widow's question but rolled my eyes once I remembered that they couldn't actually see me.

"Let's just head there for now and he'll join when he gets here." I opened my map and teleported to Esther, the location where the dungeon raid was taking place. After about a minute I was standing in front of C, whose idle character was looking around and bouncing on his heels.

"Wait. This raid is recommended for five people. We are four. Well...three and a half." Window stated matter of factly.

My face contorted in confusion. "Half?"

"Four!" Kingsley piped in, his character soon appearing next to the rest of us. "Sorry, my little sister needed my help getting gum out of her hair."

"Were you able to get it out?" C asked, his character coming out of its idle state as he ran around.

"Nope! Made it worse." We all snickered.

I smirked a little to myself. "Nice going hotshot. Your mom is gonna be pissed."

As soon as I finished the sentence I received a notification on my screen.

CtheKing requested to join your party.

That's the guy from earlier. Huh. Perfect timing I guess.

"I just got a party request. I'm going to add them since we need the fifth." I accepted the request as soon as I said it, not waiting on a reply.

"Alright, Xav. Go for it. Let's just hope it's not an annoying kid." I pulled my lips into a straight line at Kingsley's words and nodded, forgetting again that they can't see me.

"Remember that one tim-"

"Hello? Thanks for letting me join in." I instantly perked up, sitting up in my seat like I just found out the best news in years. Whoever was on the other side of that mic had a voice so smooth, so sultry, and so raw that I had to catch my breath. And soon his character appeared, confirming that it was, in fact, the guy from before.

"Yeah, no problem mate. We needed a fifth. Our asses might have gotten handed to us." Kingsley said as his character ran around in circles.

"Not really. Xav is ranked what..like third now overall?" C retorted, sounding like he was simultaneously smacking on chips. I grimaced at the sound.

"Well yeah, but it's a raid. Even the number one needs a team." It was Widow speaking up this time.

"Valid, valid. Ayo Xav, why aren't you saying anything."

"Hmm? Oh." I cleared my throat. "Sorry. Yeah uh..it's a pleasure to have you."

Dumbass. 'It's a pleasure to have you?' What is this a family dinner?

"The pleasure is all mine, Xav" His reply made me anxious in a good way. A good way. The kind of good that had my mind in the gutter.

I almost felt the need to take my headset off for a few seconds. It was getting hot in my tiny dorm and the air was definitely on. This man has shared no more than two and a half sentences with us and my body was feeling it.

"You guys ready? The doors opened like yesterday." C announced, running over to the big ominous gates by himself.

"Oh shush, it's only been like thirty seconds." Kingsley followed shortly after as he replied.

"Same thing."

"Don't forget to buff. I forget sometimes." King piped in.

"Fuck. I need to do that." C said. I also scrambled to my inventory to use the strength and health buffs that I needed. I was so distracted.

Without another word, the rest of us made our way to the gate and we all entered the dungeon. As soon as the loading screen disappeared, we were met with a dark, creepy hallway. I could just barely make out what the walls looked like. They were made out of a battered, dusty grey cobblestone brick that match the floors. Vines were weaved the cracks of the stone and reached from the floor to the ceiling. The faint sound of water and wind howling in the empty cave hallway gave away the direction of our objective. The only prominent light was coming from King's outfit.

"Not me being terrified right now," Willow mumbled, turning on her flashlight. I did the same, getting it out of my inventory so that my character could hold it as a secondary item. I quickly equipped my trusty dual katanas; nothing fancy, but they did what needed to be done. I also put a few hp potions in another quick inventory slot.

"Same lowkey, but let's go," I confessed, taking the lead.

Soon, all five of our characters were traversing the unknown; running through murky caves and fighting inklings and other creepy crawlers along the way. The first few hordes of enemies were easy. I ended up taking most of them out fairly quickly; my character breezing through dark fairies and ghouls with his trusty katanas.

"Xav, save some for the rest of us, man." I'm pretty sure if Kingsley were in the dorm room with me, he'd slap the back of my head for being a show off.

I muttered a quick 'sorry' and decided to back off a little until we reached the bigger monsters.

The next two rooms we entered were more difficult. Bigger, harder, monsters came at us from every direction. Roaring and hissing at us like we stole their lunch money one too many times. It was a good thing that we got King as a fifth, or we would have really struggled, no matter how good all of us were.

"You know, King. Glad you joined man. Your armor is helping my poor eyes in this dark ass hallway." C broke the silence we were in after we had tackled a horde of beasts.

Widow scoffed. "You have a flashlight you know."

"Oh yeah."

A melodious chuckle filled my ears. God this man's voice. I couldn't help but smile. "I've got you whenever you need me to light your way, my friend."

Light my way too,

I thought.

What I thought to be just another room full of monsters, was actually the room where the boss battle was going to be. I pushed all thoughts aside and got my game face on, even sitting up in my chair so that I could concentrate better.

"Okay, don't forget, Widow, be ready to heal when needed. Kingsley and C, I suggest you guys go at it from the front, and King and I will keep it busy from the back. Sound good?" A chorus of agreements followed just before a cutscene began.

My fingers were tingling. I had done what research I could do on this particular boss in the short time that the dungeon was released, and I wasn't as confident in my ability to not die.

A thin, sickly looking old man limped his way out into the middle of the room on my screen, lingering there for a few moments until the ground began to rumble. Rocks and dust fell from the walls as the room shook, and in a matter of seconds, the old man began to transform into this devilish creature. Its eyes were like black holes and its skin was as dark and murky as the cave walls. It stretched its claws and grew its horns, before baring its teeth. Then menacingly, it took a step forward, letting out a devastating roar that shook the room even more than before. With that, the cutscene ended, and the boss battle, began.