VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne

A few hours later, the flying Brick was gently touching down on the Guild Island’s landing pad, before its door popped open and Valerie slid out with a touch of difficulty.

Jason was already approaching the landing pad, a childish grin on his face as he mimed taking her picture with a Retro ’Digital Camera’ before laughing to himself.

"The amazing celebrity graces us poor, miserable peasants with her presence. I can’t decide if I should swoon from amazement, or beg for an autograph."

"So, I take it you saw the news..." Valerie said with a heavy sigh, already imagining all the other jabs and jokes he had prepared. He was definitely not going to let her live this down for the next few days.

"Of course. It’s on all the world-wide channels. Lifestyle streamers won’t shut up about you and about seventy different people have already tried to claim it was them in the video. At least half of them had actually decent costumes to go with it.

Really though, Who would have ever thought that something like that would appear in the- Is that a couch?" Jason’s amusement was slapped away with a sudden bout of confusion, as his eyes trailed away from Valerie and over to the Brick.

"Yeah... Lucy said she just had to have it. That it would bring the room together." Valerie said with a resigned sigh, as she turned to look at the spectacle alongside her brother.

They both watched with varying expressions as Lucy clambered on top of the Brick and untied the 5 cushioned corner couch that was stacked up on top of the flying vehicle, doing absolutely no favours for its speed or manoeuvrability in the air.

Once it was untied, Lucy hooked her arm under the couch, which was split into three pieces and stacked on top of each other, as well as the mountain of shopping bags further stacked on top of the couch, before she simply lifted it all with barely a hint of effort.

She smiled brightly as she sauntered past them, carrying on one arm a load that would usually require half a dozen men, without a care in the world. She even had time to pull Jason down so she could give him a peck on the cheek before continuing up to the house.

At the same moment, a massive figure disembarked the Brick.

Smith cast the supernaturally strong girl an incredulous look, unable to believe what he was seeing, and that was before he allowed himself to take in the sight of the garden surrounding him. He had never seen so much green in his entire life.

It left him completely stunned, gazing around him like a wide eyed child as he struggled to process so much wonder and strangeness.

"What’s with the Newbie?" Jason whispered to Valerie, nudging his head in Smith’s direction.

"That’s our newest member. No magic. But he does have a natural true sight, and has amazing skills when it comes to Blacksmithing. Should solve our equipment problem and maybe even help us make some improvements too.

But that’s not the best part of this little trip. I think I found what is causing the breaches." Valerie said with a wide, ever so slightly manic smile.

***

"Warlocks... Why didn’t I think of Warlocks..." Ren muttered in misery, as he planted his head in his hands.

The party, excluding their newest member who was currently settling in, was gathered on Lucy’s new couch whilst Valerie was giving her presentation on what she had learned.

On the Holoscreen behind her there were multiple angles of a young man with a hood up to cover his face. But what could be seen of him was a wicked, black lipped smile and the evil glint in his purple eyes as he watched the chaos unfold.

These images were less than legally acquired by Bai Yin, through hacking into the various security cameras around the city.

"So uh... What’s a Warlock?" Trivian, their Druid, asked. It was always nice having him in these meetings, to bluntly and unashamably ask all the questions everyone else was too embarassed to ask.

"Warlocks," Ren explained as he brushed his hair out of his sunken and pale face, "Are players that sold a part of themselves to Outer Gods in exchange for power."

"Like a Cleric?" Jason asked.

"Sort of, but not quite. A Cleric offers their faith to the God of the world, and gains power in exchange. Gods always like servants, and they reward you with power depending on how good you are.

But both parties can leave at any time, in exchange for losing their power. If you stopped being devout to the ways of the Beast God, you would lose your power and that is that.

Warlocks are similar. They get power in exchange for service. But they are more transactional, requiring more than just service. Memories, Blood Sacrifices, the Power of others, even your very soul. These are the type of things they can ask for in exchange for power.

They are quick and easy power, at a heavy cost. Unsurprisingly, the entities offering these pacts are evil beings. Beings known as the Outer Gods."

Ren stood up from the couch and strode over to Valerie, ushering her out of the way and swiping her pictures to the side, so that he could use the Holoscreen like a whiteboard.

On it, he wrote a list of incredibly strange titles.

’That Which Haunts the Mind, He who Dwells in the Dark, The Whisper of Secrets Never to be Heard, The Eyes that Stalk in the Night, The One that Can Never be Seen, The Thing that Birthed Fear.’

These were just a few of the eery examples he wrote down, before turning to face the group again.

"These are the Outer Gods that I am aware of, but there are definitely more. But this list... these names, that’s it. That’s all we know. All we ever dared to learn.

Plenty in my time tried to learn more but well... They went insane."

"I think the obvious question is, If you were aware of these Warlocks and their ’Outer Gods’, then why didn’t you suspect them?" Valerie asked, her eyes scanning the list of what could hardly be called names.

"Put simply, I didn’t think any had it in them. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve fought them, But the sheer level of magic required to do what is happening is... far beyond what anyone achieved even in my time, nevermind now. Not just skill, but raw power.

This is close to Tier Eight, maybe even Tier Nine spells. The highest I ever saw was a Tier Six.." Ren explained, briefly glancing towards Jason before continuing with his speech.

"In my mind, it had to be something else. Some natural phenomena that the Outer Gods were simply exploiting, after all none of our magic comes from the Outer Gods. So it couldn’t entirely be them.

But clearly I was wrong. Even still... For someone to gain the level of power needed to carry out this type of world breaking magic I can’t imagine how much they sacrificed or what kind of twisted mindset they had to give that much up in the first place, all for a little bit of power."

Ren turned towards the pictures of the man in question. His eyes narrowing as untold hate and disgust boiled behind them.

"So, the important question is, can we find this man?" Jason asked as he leaned forwards and steepled his fingers.

"Based on my skill level and the available images we have, yes." Bai Yin answered as she stepped forwards,

"However it will not be fast. My skills are limited and security is tight. It could take anywhere from days to weeks, but he will eventually be found."

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