Everlast Online

Piper sat at her desk, her holophone device focused on the front of her class despite paying little to no attention.

For a normal student in a normal lesson this could severely affect their understanding of the topic being covered, but luckily neither of these were the case. Piper was an exemplary student, one of the best in the history of Basilicus save the president herself. Secondly it was the last day of school and no work was actually being done.

With so little to care for, Piper didn't bother paying attention and instead became engrossed in her own fantasy. She and her 2 best friends had been given headsets to play ELO, the single most important game currently active; but of course this was not what the little girl cared about - she was instead fantasising about the time she would spend with her beloved older sister.

With Elizabeth forced into a position where she must provide for the pair of them, the girls had begun to drift apart. Their love for one another was no less of course, but they had little to no contact in order to express that love for one another; but with ELO she believed that would change. She couldn't wait to go on adventures and play with her sister just like she had when they were little before their shitbag parents had fucked off to god knows where.

"-And that'll be everything, you're all free to leave and we'll see each other next year." The teacher said with a smile, allowing her students to leave and enjoy their break. Piper did not waste even a moment as she sent a message to her friends.

[Melody: straight into ELO when u get back :D!]

[Melody: i'll ask sis about best starting characters]

[Jessy: absolutely!!!!!!!!]

[Bel: k]

(A/N: These are just the names they use on whatever futuristic texting app they have; maybe 'Instagram Plus Max')

With her message sent Piper shut down her holophone and stood from her desk, feeling less out of breath than she would normally have been before moving. She had been hiding it from Liz, but her CLS had been getting worse before they moved out of the slums; she knew she shouldn't have but she felt there was no choice. If Liz had known she would have worked herself to death trying to protect her.

But with her sister making far more money than she had ever before on ELO Piper felt that things were taking a turn for the better; even the change in environment had slowed her degrading lungs with help from her medicine.

Piper left her room and headed to the kitchen to get something to drink only to find her sister sat at the table; Bailey's mother was likely out buying groceries.

"Hi, sister." She said with a genuine smile before taking a drink from the fridge and sitting at the table across from Liz who was showing an equally happy smile.

Even with her increased income Liz did not have a lot of time to just sit and spend time with Piper; she knew full well that her lead in ELO wasn't something she could passively maintain and taking excessively long breaks would allow for her influence to slip between her fingers.

"Hey, Pip. How was school?" She asked.

"Great. We just finished for the year so now the girls and I are gonna play ELO." Piper said with enthusiasm. Liz was quite shocked that Piper was already done with school, it didn't feel as though enough time had elapsed for the year to come to an end, but that was just due to her spending far too much time playing games, "We can probably meet up and play. Where are you right now?"

Liz looked into Piper's innocent and expectant eyes; dreading what she was going to have to say.

"... Sorry, but we probably won't be able to play for a while." Liz could literally see the disappointment in her sister's eyes as she spoke, "It's not that I don't want to! I'm just in the middle of a quest meant for higher level players. If you tried to join it would only make your characters lose stats as they keep dying."

(A/N: I've skipped over the week of waiting for the next part of the quest, next chapter will be about starting that)

"Aah. Okay. That's fine." Piper was incredibly disappointed, but there was nothing she could do about it and so dropped it, "Well, is there any advice?"

"Hmm, choosing a random race is definitely the better choice in character creation." Liz said matter-of-factly, "And dungeons would be the best place to level up quickly."

"Understood! We'll level up quickly so we won't be a burden to you!" Piper said with a smile. She had believed that the random race choice was risky and was going to play as a beastman, but if her sister said random was better then she would definitely choose that path.

Liz felt a little sad that Piper saw herself as a burden, but said nothing. This was something that Piper had clearly felt for a long time, Liz doubted she even realised that she had just said it now.

The 2 girls chatted for a bit longer before Liz had to return to the game, her friend was waiting for her. This made Piper slightly jealous that someone was playing with her sister while she couldn't, but it quickly passed.

(A/N: Just gonna put this in for any of the creeps reading this: Piper has 0 romantic feelings for her sister. She's excessively protective and clingy as a trauma response after being abandoned. Incest plot-lines are weird and gross)

It didn't take long for Jess and Bailey to get back home.

When they did Piper told them about what Liz had recommended and reminded them of the friend function she had looked into. ELO had a feature that allowed players to spawn in the same area as their friends by adding them as friends during character creation.

(A/N: 2 ways to add friends: player name and headset serial number)

Once everything was settled the 3 girls went into Piper's room together and put on their headsets - Piper's bed being more than big enough for the trio. While holding hands they all entered ELO for the very first time, smiles coating all of their faces.

Piper looked at the scenery of the ELO waiting room; a starry abyss overlooking the world of Galdrash. But none of this interested Piper as something else had attracted her full attention.

Tears began to fall from Piper's face as she floated in the ELO character creation menu. It was a feeling she had not felt in years: Clean air.

There was no labour in each of her breaths as there had been for so many years; there was no taste of metal and dust deep inside her chest. It was as though her body was a million times lighter than it had been since she was a young child.

"I'm not sick..." Piper said through her tears.

"Hahaha..." Piper spun as she heard a gentle laughter behind her, but there was nothing wrong. The sound was almost angelic with no hints of mockery; a truely joyful laughter. Piper looked around, trying to find the source of the laughter for a while before giving up and wiping her virtual eyes to begin the character creation process.

Piper chose yes in an instant, though who wouldn't?

Then opened 2 more screens:

Again Piper didn't hesitate for a moment before picking random. Her sister had said it was the better of the 2 options and why would she lie about it.

This decision took more time than the previous 2. She had also asked her sister which class was best, but her sister said that each had their benefits and that choosing the best was hard; finishing that it was best for Piper to decide how she wanted to play ELO.

How do I want to play? Piper thought, the answer was clear for her: I want to spend time with my sister.

Piper knew that Liz had some kind of advanced mage class, meaning that the [Warrior] class would have the best synergy with Liz. Once again the thought of her sister had made Piper's decisions much easier.

Liz had said that the next part would be choosing an alias, so Piper was quite shocked when another screen appeared:

This screen was only actually available to the [Warrior] class in the character creation as each of the other classes only had a single starting skill whereas the warrior could choose from any number of weapons.

There were a lot of skills available for warriors to choose from, each opening to a description that basically summed up to the same thing with a few words changed. Each skill would allow the player to use the titular weapon with some correction and damage bonus. Piper didn't give the screen much thought after realising what had happened, choosing a sword since it was cool, even if it was the most basic of the choices.

After selecting [Swordsmanship] Piper finally reached the last screen.

This was another quick one for Piper as she simply used the name she had been using online for years: [Melody]. With her alias chosen she added both Jess and Bailey as her friends before finally descending into Galdrash to begin another life in a fantastical world of monsters and magic.

"... 'Sweetie'?" Piper questioned, only for her pondering to be interrupted.

"Hahahahaha." Once again she heard the angelic giggle echoing around her; only this time she located the source: An exceptionally beautiful woman with green hair and leaves for clothes. Piper watched with wide eyes as the woman watched her fall to Galdrash with a smile and a wave.

Who was that...? Piper thought, not having been told about Gaia by Liz.

When Piper's eyes widened she found herself in a forest with black trees and purple leaves. However, as she looked around she found a scantily clad girl and a monster right next to her. On instinct she activated her inspection ability and was shocked by the result:

[Del (1) (PC)]

[Van (1) (PC)]

The fact that the PC part of the info was green meant they were friends; these 2 were Jess and Bailey.

Looking closer the strange girl called Del really did look a lot like Jess did; other than her claws, sharp teeth and deep blue skin the girl did look a lot like Jess. Van on the other hand in no way resembled Bailey, or any human for that matter. The only part of her body that could be seen were her face and hands - both of which were reduced to bones. Her body was hidden beneath a dirty black robe and she was floating ever so slightly above the ground; phantasmal green lights glowing beneath her and from within her cloak.

"Jess! Bailey!" Piper called out with a smile, Jess looked equally pleased to see her friends, but Bailey had no face to make expressions with so it was hard to tell; at least until she spoke:

"AAH! Why do I look like this." Her voice sounded slightly weird, but still clearly feminine and caused Jess to burst out laughing at her due to her reaction.

"Hahahaha!"

"It's fine, my sister said we can evolve. Maybe after evolving a bit you'll look normal again." While Jess laughed, Piper tried to ease her friend - stifling her own laugh at how poorly Bailey seemed to be reacting to her new body. 

It took a while, but the 3 of them got past their initial confusions and disappointments; deciding to show one another their status'.

====

Name: [Melody]

Race: [Dhampir] (Attributes)↓

Class: [Warrior (1)]

Title: <N/A>

[Reputation: 0] [Gold: 0]

Stats: [STR: 5] [END: 9] [AGI: 6] [INT: 11]

Race Skills: [Blood Control (0%) (B+)]

Class Skills: [Swordsmanship (0%) (F)]

Other Skills: <N/A>

[Inventory]↓ [Equipment Menu]↓

[Player Auction]↓ [Currency Conversion]↓

====

====

Name: [Del]

Race: [Predator Ghoul] (Attributes)↓

Class: [Warrior (1)]

Title: <N/A>

[Reputation: 0] [Gold: 0]

Stats: [STR: 6] [END: 13] [AGI: 5] [INT: 1]

Race Skills: [Bone Exoskeleton (1) (C-)

Class Skills: [CQC (0%) (F)]

Other Skills: <N/A>

[Inventory]↓ [Equipment Menu]↓

[Player Auction]↓ [Currency Conversion]↓

====

====

Name: [Van]

Race: [Boatsman] (Attributes)↓

Class: [Mage (1)]

Title: <N/A>

[Reputation: 0] [Gold: 0]

Stats: [STR: 1] [END: 3] [AGI: 4] [INT: 17]

Race Skills: [Chilling Soul (D)]

Class Skills: [Mana Bolt] (1) (F)]

Other Skills: <N/A>

[Inventory]↓ [Equipment Menu]↓

[Player Auction]↓ [Currency Conversion]↓

====

"What the hell is that stat distribution!?" Jess blurted out as she looked over Bailey's stats; her INT was off the charts but she was less than useless in everything else - it was honestly hard to look at for someone like Jess who enjoyed a more even playstyle.

Bailey moaned, unaware that she had the highest ranked race of the 3 of them and that her min-maxed character would likely help them greatly in the future.

"Whatever, let's just see how good our racial skills are." Piper said, expanding her screen along with Jess and Bailey.

[Blood Control (0%) (B+): Allows user to control their own blood inside and outside of the user's body. Pulling blood out of the user's body drains HP. Mana drain and control scale with INT and skill proficiency]

[Bone Exoskeleton (1) (C-): Grow an exoskeleton of bones over the user's flesh. Increase END and STR by 50% for 1 minute. Cooldown - 5 minutes]

[Chilling Soul (D+): Your soul lacks the warmth of the living. Strength of all water and ice type magics increase by 15%. Increases chance of inflicting [Freeze] status effect when using ice type magic]

Each of these skills were rather amazing.

Piper's skill was one that had clear advantages; allowing her to transform her fighting style from close range using only her sword, to close-mid range using blood attacks - and this was only the surface of what the skill could do. Piper's 1st thought was the long range capabilities of the skill, but the words inside and outside did not escape her attention either; implying that there was some kind of benefit to controlling her blood internally despite seeing little use in this.

Jess on the other hand had a very straight forward view of her skill. She saw it for what it was and understood that her [CQC] skill synergised quite excellently with it, but thought little of any further development going forward.

Despite feeling incredibly down about having the lowest ranked skill of the trio, Bailey had arguably the best skill of the 3 of them. Static passive skills were already quite rare, but for Bailey to acquire one that gave an increase to her affinity to certain types of magic was even rarer. Should she follow the path that her skill suggested (in terms of magic attacks) she would become significantly more powerful than any other mage at the same level since she had a 15% increase in power over them.

Simply put, each of their skills perfectly matched their needs and the styles they were going to use in the future - though Bailey did want to try and multi-class as a healer even if she chose to play as a mage.

"What now then?" Bailey asked, looking around in the forest they had spawned in. She felt uncomfortable in such a spooky environment, despite being the most scary looking creature in the immediate vicinity.

"Liz said we should increase our levels and that the best way to do that would be to find a dungeon." Piper responded, once again not doubting her sister in any way.

Unfortunately, this was one aspect in which Liz had misled her sister. Comparatively, dungeons were harder for new players to increase their level due to the amount of monsters that hid within them; compared with fields that also had monsters, the risk of death was much higher in dungeons. Liz's judgement had simply been clouded after finding a mythic quest hidden in the very first dungeon she had found.

"Great! Let's get going then!" Jess called out, before spinning on her heel confidently, "I've got a good feeling about this direction!"

With that the 3 girls marched deeper into the [Lilac Dread Forest]; in doing this they happened to miss a dungeon that was a little less than 10 metres away from them, behind one of the trees nearby.

And so began the adventure of the 3 undead girls.