Avalon Rebirth

T
his is a work of fiction
. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 by Xiphos Press

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

H
e couldn't believe it
. Neither could the crowd, judging by their stunned reaction. Even the announcers were silent for a few moments before they found their voices.

“And there you have it. A stunning upset in the second round of the tournament! The number one ranked team, Silver Star, falls to Lionheart!”

Darin looked around at his teammates, trying to find something, anything, that would tell them why they had lost. He knew never to underestimate an opponent, but…

But their plan had been perfect and had gone off without a hitch. He had eliminated one enemy within the first few minutes of the match and had bottled up the other two. That only left a two-on-one matchup with the final opponent, and that meant Lionheart was as good as finished. Yet he had somehow managed to destroy their pillar and claim victory for his team.

Leah had a stunned look on her face as well. As his gaze shifted over to Jon and Leo something went off in his head. They looked plenty guilty, but he didn't see any surprise in their expressions. Why?

“What's going on?” he demanded.

“What?” Leo asked.

“Don't what me. You had a two-on-one, and he somehow got through and destroyed the pillar. Do you honestly expect me to believe that's a coincidence?”

“It happened.”

“That's all you have to say?
It happened
?” Darin replied, feeling himself becoming angrier and angrier by the second. “What about our rank?”

“It doesn't matter,” Jon said quietly.

“What?”

“It doesn't matter,” he repeated. “It doesn't matter because it's over.”

“What?”

“It's over. Silver Star is over.”

Darin froze for a moment, not quite comprehending the words. “What's that supposed to-”

“I'm quitting,” Jon told him, walking away. Leo hesitated a moment, then followed behind.

“You too?” Leah asked quietly. “Your both leaving?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He heard Jon sigh. “Because I don't want to be a part of this team anymore.”

“What kind of answer is that?” Darin demanded, his mind racing. What would that mean for them? Not only were they out of the tournament, but losing the other two would mean having their team disbanded, losing their ranking and all the perks that came with it.

He started to chase after them, but Leah grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back.

“Don't bother. They're not going to change their mind,” she said.

“You're just going to let them go? Let this all just collapse around us?”

“What's the point in chasing after them? What are you going to do if you catch them? Make them stay?” she said. “We're finished. And we've got more things to worry about than that. The commission will probably end up sanctioning us for throwing a match.”

Those words made him feel even worse. Avalon Online had turned into a major business, an e-sports league with regular events, sponsors and millions of dollars at stake. With that came the problems of gambling, match fixing, and exploits, and the commission treated them all seriously. Fines, suspensions and other forms of punishment were not uncommon.

And Silver Star stood to lose the most out of anyone in Avalon Online. They were the top-ranked team, with plenty of sponsors and capable of taking the top pots in tournament on a regular basis. The commission would probably make an example out of them to send a message to the rest of the competitors.

“How… how could they do this?” Darin muttered to himself, still not quite believing that this was happening.

He heard Leah sigh. “I don't know. I doubt we're ever going to get a straight answer out of them either. I guess we're just going to have to deal with what's coming our way. But this really sucks.”

Darin didn't say anything else. What else could he say at this point? They were finished, and their reputation along with it.

* * *

A
s expected
, they received a stiff punishment. What he didn't expect was just how harsh it would be.

Darin read through the message, still stunned at how hard the commission had come down on them. Not only had Silver Star been disbanded, not only had they forfeited their winnings from the tournament, not only had they lost all of their sponsors, but in addition all of them had been reduced from A-rank to D-rank.

That last punishment hurt the most. Silver Star was dead anyhow, and they could have probably found other sponsors when they formed a new team, but losing their A-rank status meant they would have to start from the bottom, with all of their previous advantages gone.

And that left them with little to do but pick up the pieces. Darin met Leah in one of the central hub's lounges to figure out their next steps.

“It's not fair,” he grumbled. “We didn't have anything to do with this.”

“They have no way of knowing that,” Leah answered him. “And Jon and Leo weren't exactly leaping to our defense either, so...”

“So that leaves us high and dry in the D-ranks. That leaves them in the D-ranks too. What were they thinking?”

“Maybe they're planning on fighting their way back up the ranks?”

“They just threw away all the experience that we gained. We're going to have to go back out into the MMO world to get it all back,” Darin groaned.

Tournaments and challenges took place in the central hub's arena, but outside of that there was a sprawling world containing millions of virtual acres to explore. Most of Avalon Online's player base was focused in those areas, leaving the tournaments to the professionals.

It turned the game into two worlds that complimented each other. The tournaments brought attention to the MMO, and the MMO gave players a place to train, explore and socialize.

Avalon Online also had the advantage of being a full-immersion game, where the players were fully interfaced with the world and felt like they were actually inside. Everything about this felt real, even though they were actually sitting in a chair in the real world, connected to the equipment that made this all possible.

“It's not so bad,” Leah said, running a hand through her avatar's ice-blue hair.

“You really want to start from the bottom and grind our way up again? You remember how little the lower rank tournaments pay out compared to A-rank, right? And how much time it takes to get enough experience to get back to that level?”

“Look, I'm trying to find some sort of silver lining in all of this, OK? We're not going to run out of money anytime soon, unless you were spending it all on hookers and blow.”

Darin frowned. “That's not funny.”

“Well, we're you?”

“Of course not. But I don't like the idea that we just lost our ranking like that. It's embarrassing.”

“Well, look at it this way. No one could actually take us down. It took an inside job to beat us.”

“Not helping.”

“Well, silver lining. The other silver lining is that we haven't been permanently banned. So what are you going to do about it? Are you just going to quit?”

Darin frowned. “No, of course not. What else would I do? Go flip burgers?”

“Hey, don't knock it. Someone has to do it. I've done it.”

“Yeah, but you moved on when you had something else presented to you,” Darin said. “So why would I give up on this?”

“Because you keep complaining about it?”

He blew out a breath. “I'm just frustrated, that's all. How else should I feel? Two of our partners just stabbed us in the back, and I have no idea why they did it. We're back at the bottom too. Why aren't you frustrated?”

She shrugged. “I am. But just wallowing in self-pity isn't going to do anything to help us, so why waste time doing it? I want to get back on top of the mountain as badly as you do.”

“I don't even know where to start.”

“Getting a full team together might be the best way. Or were you planning on just grinding out the experience and then figuring out our team later?”

“What do you think?”

“What do I think? I think we should start by getting another two members on our team, then go from there.”

“OK. Why, though? Why not go with the other option?”

“Are you just being a contrarian?”

Darin shook his head. “I don't have a problem with it at all, but I'd like to know why you prefer one option over the other. Neither is really wrong.”

“Ah, but I think that my way has more advantages. If we start out by building our levels back up we might not be able to get the team we want. And we need to be able to work together as an effective team, of course.”

“What about it? We can always train later. Even if we're technically stronger than D-rank the level cap will bring us down to to the proper amount.”

“Right, and that's not wrong either. I just feel like it's better for us to try to get a team together and train together. It feels like less wasted effort.”

He frowned. “Does getting a team together mean anything if we rush through it and end up with the wrong members?”

“Well, we have to start somewhere. We don't have to hurry, but we should keep our eyes open. That's what I'm going for. And like I said, it's not like we're going to run out of money anytime soon.”

Darin leaned back in his chair, thinking. Leah's logic was sound, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to go in that direction. He wanted to get back on top as quickly as possible, and being grouped with lower ranked players might not be the best way to do that. Would they be able to keep up? He doubted it.

Even without their levels and experience points, he and Leah possessed a considerable amount of knowledge and savvy from their time as the top-ranked team. It wasn't just about how strong a team's members were, or how high their levels might be, but how they were utilized and how they worked together. Most of the A ranked teams were evenly matched on paper, but it was in the execution that the differences became apparent.

That was what made Silver Star so successful. They were able to work as a unit greater than the sum of their parts, using cunning and improvisation as much as brute force and skill. Many tried to copy them, but no one could quite match their abilities. Would anyone in the lower levels be any different?

He still had plenty of reservations about it, but this was probably the only way forward for them. Darin didn't want to lose his last teammate to another dispute, not when the others had just abandoned him.

“So we need to start recruiting. How do you want to go about that?”

“Asking about it?”

“I mean, how are we going to do that so we don't end up wasting our time with a bunch of useless applicants?”

She snickered. “You're so mean.”

“Be fair, do you really want to sift through a bunch of people who have no idea what they're doing? I realize that we're not going to be able to get back up on top immediately, but I'd like to get people who are somewhat competent.”

“Well, we could go exploring.”

“What good is that going to do?”

“We might be able to find players that know what they're doing if we go to certain locations. Badrock Falls or the Crystal Pillar would be good ones.”

“Most people go in raid teams.”

“Right. But there's ones that go solo too. And it's no too high level, so we'll be able to get people that can compete in the D-rank tournaments.”

“Level doesn't matter.”

“No, but pretty much all of the good ones have been scooped up by other teams. So we're going to have to find less experienced players. We can train them up, but we just need to find people with good skills.”

Darin sighed. “Starting from the bottom again. Feels like we just got thrown off Olympus.”

“What, so you think that you were a god of some kind? Isn't that really arrogant?”

“I know I'm not really important in the grand scheme of things. But yeah, I guess you could say that we were gods, so to speak, at least in this world. And now that's all gone.”

“We have a way to fight our way back up through the ranks. That's not so bad. And who knows, maybe that's a good thing. Maybe this is the new start we need.”

“Did we really need a new start?”

Leah nodded. “I'm not sure if you noticed, but the other teams were starting to creep up on us. A lot of player and team builds are becoming standardized, and we were starting to stagnate. We still had our lead, but…”

“But someone was going to catch up with us eventually,” he said. “So maybe it's a good thing we have the opportunity to change, is that what you're saying?”

“Well, at the very least it's going to be interesting. And who knows? Maybe we can come up with something else. Maybe we should come up with new ways to approach this. It's what got us on top in the first place.”

He smiled. “Always positive. I'm glad it wasn't you that stabbed the team in the back.”

“Maybe they felt that way too and felt trapped,” Leah shrugged. “Would you have been willing to take risks and lose our sponsors if we failed?”

Darin didn't answer, but he saw her greater point. Silver Star had made their name in Avalon Online's tournaments by using innovative, sometimes risky tactics. It won them a lot of fans, but they gradually settled into a routine. Once they reached the top they focused on staying there, and that meant not taking risk.