Soooo, I know it's past midnight here, but hey, I did not really expect to be ready before midnight anyway. Besides it's still Erinversary in the US
So here's my birthday gift for all of you. It's the prologue to a new fic, that I'll be writing after I'm done with the Brooding Series (which, for a reminder, I should finish in July during Camp Nanowrimo).
Before we start, I feel like I should explain where it comes from. Basically, I originally wanted to make a straightforward medieval-fantasy AU of Brewdening Love. But… well I had no motivation to do so, simply put. But earlier this week I started reading Homestuck, and it sort of inspired me. So instead of a medieval-fantasy AU, this is a story where Erin and her friends are playing a medieval-fantasy MMORPG. With a twist, of course. Rest assured, however, that while Homestuck inspired me to do this, it's not a Homestuck crossover. Because 1) I hate using other people's canons, 2) I already have tons of ideas for my own canon anyway and 3) well that would be mean to the non-Homestucks among you. There shouldn't even be that much similarities. Well, except that it starts on the protagonist's birthday, but it
Erinversary, after all.
Also, if anyone has a title idea, you're welcome to suggest.
{MMO AU, Prologue}
"Happy birthday, sweetie!"
Her dad was greeting her cheerfully. As if he really cared that it was her birthday. Erin was not stupid nor blind; she knew he didn't. Not
really. Still, it would be good of her to be nice.
"Thanks, dad!" she said, trying her best to look enthusiastic. She had to, at least for a little while. "Say, did we get any mail?"
"Sure did. Your friends all sent you presents. Although I still don't get why they couldn't bring them over themselves. Wouldn't you have like to see them?"
"Sure," she said, reaching for the gathered packages on the kitchen tables, "but we have… other plans." She quickly looked through them, and was relieved to find the one in particular that she had been hoping to find. "Okay, I'm going back to my room!" she said, carrying the heavy pile of boxes away to the stairs.
"But I wanted to make you lunch!" She wondered why he would make her lunch right after she got out of bed, only to remind herself that it was already one in the afternoon, after all. She had slept in much more than planned. Her friends would probably be waiting for her.
"I'm not hungry! Just bring me some sandwiches later, okay?" She did not wait for an answer and locked herself in her room, unboxing the small package she had identified earlier.
Out of the eight presents, one came from each of her six best friends, and two from her dad; the first, he had chosen himself, while she had asked for the second. That latter was the one she had been most anxious about, as her dad had ordered it online, and Erin had not been sure it would arrive today. Obviously, her fears had been for nothing.
Shredding the wraps into pieces, she revealed it: a box, the kind used to pack DVDs, or, in this case, video games. Its cover was shockingly sober, plain black with the colorful logo at the center.
Forks. The latest MMORPG, and the most anticipated of them. When Erin had heard it would release on her very birthday, she had become nearly ecstatic.
Her computer was already on, since she had booted it up before leaving her room in preparation. As she inserted the game disc, readying for installation, she also started her vocal chat client.
Surprisingly enough, only three of her friends were there: Jennifer, Rebecca and Tim. Maybe the others were too engrossed in the game and had forgotten to log in? Regardless, Jenny immediately started a call, so Erin frantically searched for her headset, plugged it in, and answered.
"Happy birthday Erin!" her best friend said immediately.
"Thanks Jen-Jen," Erin replied. "I'm installing the game right now."
"You have it? Sweet!"
"Are you playing?"
"Not yet; I got it an hour ago, but I was a little distracted by the character creation," Jenny said with a nervous laugh. "It's kind of crazy all the things you can do for your appearance, and then there's this personality test to determine what your character will be."
"Huh? That's weird," Erin said. She did not know much about video games, but it sounded like the kind of things that should be in the player's control.
"I don't know, it sounds pretty neat so far. It's not like these stupid tests you can take on Facebook, it looks like they really thought things through." She paused, then added, "Oh, there, I'm done."
"What did you get?"
"I got the Adventurous Shaman," she said. "It says my character 'makes the path safer for others to lead the way to treasures'."
"That's… kinda vague," Erin said.
"Tell me about it. I got a sword, but it doesn't sound like I'm a regular fighter. I guess I'll figure it out soon enough, though. Anyway, I'm gonna watch the opening cutscene. I'll open a common chatroom so we can all talk together after that."
"You do that. I'll say hi to Becca and Tim while the game finishes installing."
"All right! Talk to you soon."
The conversation ended, and Erin called Rebecca next, to no avail. Moments later, the girl sent her a text message, saying 'at the store w/ dan, buying the game. cya soon'. Well then, that explains Dan's absence from the chat client too. On the other hand, it left Erin with one last option. She took a deep breath, then called Tim.
"Hi Erin, didn't notice you were online! Happy birthday!"
Erin paused. She felt shocked that he had remembered, even though the present behind her was an obvious evidence that he had. "Th— thanks Tim. How're you doing?"
"I'm fine, duh. I've been waiting for you guys for hours now. At this rate I'll be so over-leveled I'll be able to take you all in a fight."
"Yeah, yeah, sorry. I'm only installing it now, but Jen just finished making her character."
"Did she tell you how it worked?"
"Yeah, it sounded strange, but she was excited about it."
Tim chuckled. "She would. It installs pretty fast, so you should be starting soon too. I'll even wait for you in town. One of us should better develop all these crafting options anyway, and I think I'm gonna have to do that."
He laughed again, and Erin laughed along, shyly. As she did, she checked on the game, and realized that, as Tim said, it had already finished installing. "Okay, I'm booting the game," she told him. "Is it okay if I ask you for help?"
"Sure," Tim said, casually, "but I don't think you'll need any. It's pretty straightforward."
He was right: all she had to do was enter the identifier she wanted to use and a password, and the game immediately opened the character creation interface — a message explained to her that the game disc contained all the required authentication information.
Forks took place in a medieval setting, as most fantasy MMORPGs did, but players did not have any mythical races to choose from, instead forcing them to play as humans. That was not a problem to Joan, who found most of the other creatures to be too blasphemous to her taste; as such, she had spent the best part of the week picturing what her avatar would look like.
Her ultimate decision had been a very simplistic one: her avatar would be her, only better. She selected the same fluffy texture and brown color for the hair, but made them much longer, reaching to her lower back. She gave her character green eyes instead of her natural blue, and a skinnier figure, yet more curvy in the right places. There was nothing wrong with being beautiful, after all, as long as one did not use that beauty for bad things. She gave her character the same smooth features she had inherited from her dad, and made her slightly smaller, as she found that cute.
"Say," Tim's voice disrupted her thoughts, "um, did you get my present?"
"Oh? Uh, yeah, they're all right here." She was getting to the questions Jennifer had been talking about, and started answering as she spoke.
"So what did you think?"
"I haven't opened them yet," Erin said, absent-minded. "I kinda rushed to the game." The first few questions were straightforward: what were her favorite food, music, color — to which she answered indigo, because it was the color of her mom's eyes. Erin was nearly disappointed.
"Oh. Okay. When you do, let me know what you think!"
"Of course!" The questions she was answering now were more complicated to answer: they were hypothetical situations, where game asked Erin what she would do, offering seven possible choices. Most of them got Erin to really think about what she would answer, strangely enough, and she soon tuned out Tim's voice. There had to be at least a hundred of those questions, Erin was
sure of it.
It was simply preposterous, and she was close to quitting this game altogether, when a satisfying message appeared.
'We are now processing your information; please wait for a moment while we determine the optimal class for your character.'
"Hey, I'm done!" she said.
"Huh?" Tim's voice came, a little late. "Oh, really? What did you get?"
"It's telling me to wait." A knock on her door interrupted her. "Wait a sec, it's my dad." Erin left her computer to open the door, and, unsurprisingly, find her dad on the other side. "What is it?"
"Um, you asked me to bring you sandwiches 'later', sweetie."
"Yeah?"
"That was an hour ago, so here they are." He was indeed holding a plate with a couple sandwiches on it.
"Has it already?" Erin had not noticed the passage of time. "Um, thanks dad!" She was about to close the door, but her dad held it open.
"Have fun with your new game. And try to find some time to come downstairs for dinner, okay? I made you cake."
"Yeah, sure, thanks dad, but I'm busy." She closed her door again, encountering no resistance this time, and went back to her computer. The message on the screen had changed, and instead, her character was standing in all her glory, now wearing an elegant indigo dress and silver ornery. In her hand, she held a long, elegant lance. "Wow, this is so cool," she said in her microphone.
"So what did you get?" Tim asked.
"The Highborn Knight," Erin read. The description stated 'Fights to bring justice to the common folk'.
"Sounds like a true heroine, if you ask me." Tim said, his smile reaching even through the vocal conversation.
"Of course I am! What did you expect?"
Tim chuckled again. "Anyway, I'll let you enjoy the opening cutscene. Join me and Jenny in the common chat when it's done, okay? That way we can find each other and start playing together."
"Okay!" Erin said, and just like that, Tim was gone. The conversation had gone much better than Erin had feared, but her heart was still racing. As it always did recently, when she was speaking to Tim. "Well," Erin said to herself, "time to give you your name."
She had planned that as well, even asked the priest of their local church, Father James Holden, for some help about the symbolism of it. She entered it, then pressed the 'enter' key, feeling as if her fate was sealed as her avatar's creation was completed.
On the screen, the last message flashed briefly before banishing.
'You are the Highborn Knight,
Joan St Sanctuary Louisa.'
A/N: So, if you want to know who the protagonists are — well, it's very simple. Using the wonderful tool that is the S.S. Snark Wiki, I found out that there are exactly seven teenage "real" people we know of. Namely, Erin, and a total of six friends mentioned in the AN. Of course, there's Jenny and Becca, but four more. So you can look that up if you want to find out who the protagonists will be
I'm going for a very similar Erin to Joan from the Broodingverse. However, since she is nineteen, I figured she would be slightly less bible-thumping? I mean, she is still a fundamentalist, but she's not always bringing it back to her religion anymore.
As for the choice of those protagonists… Well, the thing is, there is seven of them. And seven is a nuber that has loads and loads of symbolism around it. Which is perfect for my plans
Anyway. You know the drill. Tell moi what you think! And I hope you're looking forward for more. Even if I'm not completely done with Broodingverse at the end of July, I'll probably start working on this in August.