The Dreams of Heroes

[Tazered]

The Dream

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At a certain point in time there existed a technology company that was undergoing a massive crisis. XXXXX Corp which held more than a hundred thousand employees in myriad divisions around the world was struggling due to a string of bad luck relating to two miracle devices that had a ton of money invested into their creation. The first was a device called POLSS. Originally designed as a means to ensure survival under minimal expenditure of valuable resources, X-Corp had thoroughly courted bureaucrats belonging to a certain nation's space program.


The Personal Organic Life Support System was a pod like structure with the ability to drastically slow down a person's metabolism and maintain them in that state for a year or more before recovering them without issue. It was a truly miraculous device with its inventor proclaiming on national networks that it would sustain astronauts in hibernation as they travelled on multi-year missions to other planets.


In this case disaster came in the form of political shifts, causing a lack of funding for this certain nation's space program and a depressed inventor committing suicide via the very device that he created!


If it were just that things would have still been salvageable. After all, X-Corp was an up and coming business with multiple contracts and patents. Further, there was still interest from the medical community in POLSS and what it could mean for treating trauma victims and those with terminal illnesses. The CEO and primary shareholder of X-Corp merely needed to maintain investor confidence while those negotiations went on.


Sadly, there came a second disaster. This one relating to a device developed for S Nation's military. Called SyNaps, it was an augmented reality mind-machine interface device that linked to a person's senses and allowed one to not only interact with and control compatible machinery as an extension of their own body, but also think and react several times faster than naturally possible. Slated for integration into S Nation's next generation aerospace superiority fighter, it was a contract worth tens of billions of dollars.


For reasons unknown, in the middle of a test flight witnessed by enough generals to form a constellation, the ace female pilot suddenly lost consciousness and crashed the vehicle. Somehow, the advanced system whose major selling point was the ability to have a superior awareness of an attached mechanical device bordering on proprioception, failed.


Suspiciously X-Corp's main rival had immediately stepped in with both an alternative control system and the offer to make the poor test pilot better, stronger and faster than she was before. No matter how they cried foul play, the general in charge of appropriations merely gave the X-Corp reps a cold look as if he'd like nothing better than for them to just curl up and die. They later were told that the unfortunate test pilot had been that general's only beloved child.


In spite of these setbacks. The X-Corp CEO still held on to hope. He could do so because he was a man with a plan. He had two products with massive potential that he needed to make profitable fast. On one hand he had a tool that could sustain a body for extended periods of time with little more than an hour of sunlight and a gallon of water. On the other he had a device that could manipulate sensory inputs to the point that a person could handle a jet fighter as if it were their own body. The idea when he explained it caused hope and trepidation to swell in the hearts of everyone that heard it. The CEO was going to give the world something no one knew it needed.


He told those who asked, that he was going to build… the last bed people would ever want to sleep on.


It sounded better in his head, that's why he had a PR Department.


The CEO had a very cunning plan. The POLSS device was incredibly inexpensive to produce and maintain with a three to four year service life. Further the version of the SyNaps system that he was using was based on a test rig designed to immerse a subjects mind and five senses in a virtual world wherein certain scenarios could be presented. He put these together and marketed the resulting device as PODs, the finest relaxation tool money could buy at a price even a person living hand to mouth could afford. At the shrewd CEO's behest X-Corp spent a year beforehand demoing the device at trade shows and giving away limited edition pre-production models to certain celebrities.


A-man, a popular former sports star who suffered from arthritis sung praises on his reality show about having the first night of rest in years without pain. Further, the SyNaps patented dreamscript program allowed him to spend part of the night exploring a coral reef on an alien planet! People were entranced and many important personages jockeyed for the opportunity to have one of these limited edition models just to say they could.


International superstar, the famous Mrs. C, who would later become Mr. C after secretly undergoing sexual reassignment surgery, would describe in her bestselling autobiography how the dreamscript program would inspire him to take the plunge after experiencing one of his movies from the perspective of the male lead.


These testaments by famous individuals combined by a media blitz showcasing various luminaries of the medical community, all extolling the virtues of the PODs led to a massive up swelling of interest. For basic models it was no more expensive than an ordinary twin bed. You could have lucid dreams or experience other exotic scenarios while connected to it. Its casing was stylishly designed by the artist formerly known as V. It worked far better than ordinary, clunky VR equipment. They were going to open an online store to sell dream scenarios and even more complex programs down the road. Customer loyalty would be rewarded with free service up to full replacement of damaged units while under warranty, no questions asked.


The hits kept coming.


Was it then, any surprise that X-Corp's entire three month stock of PODs were sold out on the first day? People who had been camping outside stores in the rain for up to a week prior, bought one for themselves and another to auction online, making up to five hundred percent profit.


But it didn't end there, new models came out every six months. X-Corp had based their product on something intended to be shipped into space. Light, ultra-compact, stylish messenger bag PODs for those who wanted to take their devices on the road or go camping. Large sets for those who wanted a shared experience while physically close. Child sets with parental controls. Luxury sets that gave one a massage, waxing and a tan. Discerning gentlemen sets that were a more macho luxury set in black and silver trim. Pink and white princess debutante sets, gothic sets, faux wood hippie sets, standing, horizontal, adjustable, collapsible, inflatable…


The X-Corp CEO was making money hand over fist and had built not just a brand but entirely new industries. The PODs by nature didn't take up much space and the people in them required no special care. Passenger aircraft could pack people like sardines and have everyone enjoy the flight. You could own an apartment literally no bigger than a closet and as long as you could fit a Pods in there it was the same thing as living in a mansion on an uninhabited Pacific island. The device was a runaway success in C Nation where the government subsidized production and sales in order to keep their people fat and happy.


Obscenely rich by this point and on a first name basis with the leaders of several countries the X-Corp CEO had one last card to play in his mad quest for world domin-er… Financial solvency.


The MMORPG.


They called it, The Dream.

 

[Tazered]

The Hero

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The Dream differed from most MMORPGs in scope. It was not just one game in a persistent world, but a multiverse of them exploring every genre. Like the earlier Dream scenarios a person from any walk in life could come to live out a previously unimagined setting through The Dream, the main difference being that you could encounter other people while climbing Mt. Everest or raising an army to drive back Dark Lord Avulon and His Forces of PERDITION. You could neither truly harm nor cause true harm to others in The Dream though the degree of feedback varied depending on the system and settings.


It was a world on the border of reality and imagination, bridging the two in a way that was perhaps not entirely safe. Over the years there were tales of people going catatonic while in The Dream, though no solid evidence pointed to a cause. Stranger still, were tales of people disappearing entirely as if they had been whisked away by some mysterious force. Few people took such tales seriously as they were all random, rare occurrences. Surprising but of little note. In other words no one important had gone missing and the police merely filed the data away in a lonely little database where such factoids went to die.


Morbid though it might be this story relates to one of those mysterious occurrences, random and rare; of little note to the world at large. Perhaps what happened was a hallucination, or the death dream of one who had yet to realize that their time had come. Perhaps it was something stranger still. Or perhaps, nothing at all.


This is a tale of a Magic Knight and what happened when he crossed the borders between dreams and reality.


The Dream of the Dragon-Slaying Hero

--

His name was Jack Harker and to the world at large he was just an ordinary salary man, one of the hundreds of thousands employed by X-Corp around the world. In truth he was not anything special even within the boundless world of The Dream. Born with a weak body that caused doctors to shrug helplessly. He had spent most of his life with one foot in the grave. If there was anything special to be said about him, it was that he had the tenacity of a cockroach.


In his early teens the doctors had tactfully informed his parents that he was unlikely to live past twenty. He had a weak heart and an abnormality in his lungs, on top of that there was another congenital defect that affected his bone marrow, often leaving him weak and violently ill at the merest physical exertion. His mother had collapsed at the news while his father stared ahead stoically. In the end his parents could only give him a piece of advice that he held close to his heart.


"Son, how long that you live is not important. Live well."


And so he did.


This salary man was a researcher for X-Corp and through putting in a truly heroic amount of effort had earned a position that let him work from home. Through an even more herculean amount of struggle he had even managed to survive to the ripe old age of thirty-one. Living more than ten years past his official expiry date, a cockroach indeed!


Even though just the act of getting out of his PODs and arranging breakfast took more effort than running the Iron Man twice in a row. Jack was pleased with his life. It was in his opinion, a life lived well. Some of his contentment came from the fact that he lived the majority of his life in The Dream. It only made sense after all. In The Dream what was happening to one's physical body mattered little. He could be telepresent with his colleagues using his PODs since his condition was well known and he worked in a position where his mind was more important than his body. Most of all, on his off-hours he could enjoy time within the dream having a body that was unchained by the limits imposed by his actual flesh.


He spent his first time in the fantasy world of The Dream simply running about and hollering like a madman. In real life either of the two actions would have left him curled up on the floor like a dead spider. He spent his vacation days chatting up ladies on pristine beaches, free-climbing in the Grand Canyon, driving race cars competitively and just enjoying his virtual life to the fullest. In doing so he had happened across a certain high fantasy game where players were given basic adventurers equipment and told to go make a name for themselves. Not knowing or caring about the game itself Jack had simply spent his time enjoying the novelty of riding a horse and swinging a sword. Eventually, he got pretty good at it.


As a matter of fact, without bothering to read any sort of tutorial Jack had managed to make his way up through the ranks until he was a mighty Level 97 Platinum Rank Adventurer. Despite having gone about things in the most ass-backwards manner possible, he had somehow ascended through six hundred and ninety-seven levels and seven ranks until he was nearly at the summit of talent deemed unreachable by most players in this particular game!


And he did it without ever once upgrading or buying new equipment, purchasing bundles from the in-game store or teaming up with a guild. It was an achievement that would have had most other players clamoring to learn his secret. The answer would have had most of said players scoffing in disbelief. Nonetheless; the undeniable truth was thus, over the course of five years, the amount of time that Jack had been playing that one game amounted to more than twenty thousand hours. That is to say, aside from work, sleep, hygiene and PODs maintenance all of Jack's time was spent in game; half his life for the last five years. This was about ten to twenty times what a casual gamer would devote in terms of time spent playing, even a professional gamer would have had to sweat a little at hearing that number.


Yet somehow, Jack had toddled along, ignorant of such concerns. A cockroach indeed!


The beginner equipment given to adventurers within this particular fantasy game was as to be expected, not particularly special. It consisted of a level one horse of indeterminate pedigree, level one armor in a range of styles, and a single set of level one weaponry of which Jack had chosen a sword and shield. If anything could be said of this ordinary level one equipment, it was that it never broke or took damage and that as long as it was used, it would slowly over time gain levels and become stronger. The draw backs of this were many.


To start with there was the horse of indeterminate pedigree, a popular joke among players was that this mysterious pedigree included more than a little ass. The level one horse was the most mean-spirited, stubborn and contrary animal to ever be depicted in a game and most players got rid of it at the first opportunity in exchange for a pegasus. The armor wasn't bad at lower levels but in terms of both looks and the additional buffs to be gained from things like the 'Level 25 Grim Guard Armor +20Pts STR +10Pts DEF +3Pts DEX', anyone could agree that an armor like 'Level 1 Beginners Armor +1% DEF' sounded pretty lame. In terms of looks and ability Beginner weaponry was much the same.


Of course if someone was to spend the time upgrading their equipment it would probably get pretty beastly, but the only way one was allowed to do that was through constant grinding. It was the one thing the game designers did as a nod toward a balanced playing field. In practice it was better just to save up and buy a good blade with more than one buff stat to upgrade and go from there. Who had time to do things the long way?

 

[Ridiculously Average Guy]

If anything could be said of this ordinary level one equipment, it was that it never broke or took damage and that as long as it was used, it would slowly over time gain levels and become stronger. The draw backs of this were many.

Click to shrink...

Just for this literally every professional team would have at least one guy leveling the lv 1 gear. Assuming it can be traded.

Even if it can't, then professionals will still use the lv 1 gear when they can, since it gives them an unbreakable backup weapon and since at some point in the game (generally the highest levels) it will be easier to simply grind that up than get a better weapon.

 

[Tazered]

Just for this literally every professional team would have at least one guy leveling the lv 1 gear. Assuming it can be traded.

Even if it can't, then professionals will still use the lv 1 gear when they can, since it gives them an unbreakable backup weapon and since at some point in the game (generally the highest levels) it will be easier to simply grind that up than get a better weapon.

Click to shrink...

The gear can't be traded and requires active use throughout a battle over several battles to be upgraded. Basically doing a Let's Play with only that gear.

 

[Tazered]

The Evil Plan

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The PODs revolution swept across the world, leaving almost no facet of life untouched. Further, there were many new trends and memes added to society that found their origin within the Dream. People argued back and forth over the wisdom of utilizing PODs for early childcare. The famous actor Preston Ketchum became the first person to gain a million followers on his Let's Play Dream feed. Even the recent president of S Nation, the honorable Mr. Adama cashed in on the craze by becoming the undisputed heavyweight champion of the Celebrity Dream MMA Federation. Though for a time he was better known as the guy that got mauled by that crazy Russian with the bear, his tag team matchup with the Suit and Tie Connexion inspired young adults throughout the country to vote for a leader willing to teabag his defeated foes.


Still, in true MMORPG style, there were many traditional fixtures. In this High Fantasy game hosted in the Dream one particular institution of note was the existence of player guilds. While players weren't required to form guilds, the nature of MMORPGs heavily encouraged such social organizations. Many new players joined non-player character armies as an easy way to meet people, farm experience and gain higher levelled equipment.


The types of guilds also varied greatly. There were bandit groups of ten to thirty players who lived in hill forts. Some formed mage's circles and lived within floating temples. Great beasts pulled building-sized carriages for hunter troupes patrolling monster spawning grounds. Mercenary companies of a hundred or more members spread out across towns in the frontier working as caravan guards for rich merchants. It was even possible for players to become so highly placed within a nation's army that they could receive special dispensation to field a base with thousands of players and npc soldiers!


On the Western Dragon Continent within this game, there were two hugely successful guilds that were founded by professional players using this last method. The guild called BigDBrahs was a popular guild with many players and received corporate sponsorship from McDonnel's Artificial Meat Corp. Its founder and leader was a Level 45 Gold Rank player who called himself Mighty D. Hailed as one of the most powerful players in the game. He used his positon as a general in the Rosen Kingdom's military forces to recruit players regardless of level. The second guild comprised the Mighty Wedd Empire's elite first army and possessed a small number of high level players of the middle to high Silver Rank, all pro gamers with the backing of the tech giant G@rgle. They called their guild YoloSw@g and at their head was the Level 45 Gold Rank player Yolo Swami.


As the leaders of their own guilds Yolo Swami and Mighty D often found themselves competing for sponsors and had met before as rivals within various Dream Tournaments. The personalities of these two could be described as 'bombastic' and often led to them being at odds with each other. Things between them had gotten to the point that if one said 'left' the other would inevitably say 'right'. Their contentious attitude and charismatic personalities often lead to highly watched competitions. Further, their equal levels and comparable status within rival nations of the game all but assured that the two and their guilds would come into conflict time and again.


Eventually, things came to a head in a way that neither Yolo Swami nor Mighty D had expected. When running special missions to protect trade moving between the two nations, a minor fight broke out between adventurers belonging to their guilds that ended up razing a trading town. Unexpectedly, the administrators from X-Corp used this fight to have the npc leaders of the two rival nations declare war! The Third Draconic War was declared by the npc rulers of the Wedd Empire and Rosen Kingdom. It was publicized by X-Corp as a no holds barred, winner take everything fight for dominion over the Western Dragon Continent!


With that one act, viewership shot through the roof! Sales of PODs doubled as people rushed to witness the battle in person. People took out loans to go to the bookmaker to place bets. Representatives to the League of Nations rescheduled important meetings. In a certain Middle Eastern country a ceasefire was declared for a period of time that, surprisingly enough, coincided with the very week of the X-Corp event.


'Kukukuku, Mwahahaha! Hahahahaha!'

In his luxurious office suite, overlooking a certain white house in his building's shadow, the X-Corp CEO could only laugh as his net worth increased by more than half in the span of an hour.


'Hahahahaha!'

 

[Tazered]

Geography of the Western Dragon Continent

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The Western Dragon Continent is shaped like a western dragon as viewed from above. There are two widespread wings with rivers for veins. They contain the majority of the lands inhabited by the mortal races of men, elves, dwarves, beastmen and halflings. The Rosen Kingdom and Mighty Wedd Empire claim most of the coastal areas to the east and west with many of the other nations on the continent bordering either side of the Spine, a vast mountain range overrun with monsters that extends from the frozen northern territories down to the Spurgrass Sea.


The Spurgrass Sea is a flat grassland broken only by a massive island mountain in its centre called the Dragon's Horn. South of the grasslands lie a heavily forested delta that holds the last of the independent elven territories. The area is commonly called the Dragon's Maw, no one is quite sure what the elves call their home.

Due to the heavily monster infested mountains, and the elves who absolutely murdered any attempts to move an army through their lands, the great war to be held by the rival kingdoms could only occur at the Spurgrass Sea where the Rosen Kingdom and Mighty Wedd Empire each held a border and control over trade throughout the continent.

The Spurgrass Sea is generally treated as a neutral zone, due to it's importance to land-based trade. This is partially as a result of the relatively low incidence of monster encounters and the fact that the alternatives are trekking across a mountain range inhabited by legendary monsters or braving a forest full of paranoid, pointy-eared, wyrm-riding Liberace impersonators whose native language contained a thousand homophones that mean 'Agonizing Death' but sound like, 'No monsters over there', 'Hello friends' or 'Yes, that's edible, you can eat it'.

While there have historically been repeated attempts by one nation or another to colonize the plains, these efforts have often resulted in failure. The prevailing opinion among NPCs is that something ate them. An admittedly, not too far-fetched a conjecture.