17 Chapter 17 (1/2)
Chapter 17
”Was something supposed to happen?” The timer had gone off, the message had disappeared, but to James' eye, there were no adventurers. Where were they?
”Something did happen.” Rue had a grin on her face, as she flew higher into the air. ”Come with me.” James floated after her, heading higher into the sky. As he did, he was able to take in more of the terrain around the entrance to his dungeon. He had to admit, he liked the location. The forest it was near was massive, and the mountain range seemed to be exceptionally large and treacherous, the perfect place for a constantly growing dungeon.
”What are we-” James stopped speaking as Rue stopped, the pixie pointing in the distant. As James's mouth would have dropped open if he had one. At the very edge of his vision, it appeared the forest ended into an actual sea. Atop the sparkling waves, James could see a fleet of massive ships closing in, fast.
”Those ships are going to be transporting the adventurer's to this land.” The pixie spun in a circle, laughing. ”The developers had made it to where every character, every race, has to come from a different specific island, to the main continent, where you exist.”
”So, for the past 24 hours, they have been on ships, heading towards us?” James hated to imagine being stuck on a ship for 24 hours, but had to admit, that would be a crafty way for developers to make use of the 24 hour countdown.
”Eh, more like for the past eight hours.” Rue was practically buzzing with excitement, making her rather forthcoming with information.”
”For the first 16 hours, adventurers would go through character creation, choosing their race, selecting their features, and choosing their class.Once they finalized their character, they would be loaded onto the island that existed for their race. During that time, they would interact with NPCs, learn about the lore of not only their race, but also the world. They would learn of the rumors of a mysterious dungeon, promising treasure, adventure, and fame on the lost continent. They would then spend time preparing themselves, practicing with their class, learning to use the skills and abilities they received at level one.
”And then at the eight hour mark, they all loaded onto ships?” He tried to wrap his head around this fact. Just how many players were loaded into this instance? He knew that the instances were limited to cities, but he couldn't fathom that, especially understanding now that Dungeon Cores were players too. Sure, his town was one of the smaller ones, with a population of only 20,000, but there were others that had millions of people in them. Were all of those players going to all compete for a single dungeon?
”Hey Rue?” He needed to know.
”Yes Glyax?” She was glancing at him, and he could tell from her expression she was curious what he was going to ask. Especially as they watched an ever increasing number of ships appearing on the horizon, all moving towards the continent.
”How many players are in an instance?” Maybe the developers hadn't really meant cities?
”Hmmm, that really depends on the area. As you know, Dungeon Core Online is a massively multiplayer online game encompassing a single city area.” Yeah, I read the news about it.
”Yes, but-”
”But, as you know, each dungeon core is actually a player. Therefore, it would be difficult, in many of the larger cities, to expect a single player to manage that type of a flow of characters.”