My name is Jack Kendrick, username J97. And I am the leader of [Lion's Parade], currently the top rank guild in Darkmoon Adventure VR. Formerly the 3rd ranked guild in the PC version.
I joined the game today, welcomed by the view of a great, giant, open plains with a buttloads of beginner quests and monsters. Birds flew overhead and NPCs opened their shops. Somewhere in the distance, someone blew a trumpet for no reason.
We chose a spot far away from spawn, so that there were minimal competition.
I stood in the middle of it all, arms crossed, watching twenty men and women stood around the farming spot under my supervision.
"Group two! Don't cluster like that, those wolves have aoE. Mages, please only cast after the tank has tanker the attack and had distance from the enemy, if you don't have a shield yet, go gather some wood and give it to Jared, he needs Crafting level up anyways. I want every group up by at least one level before the hour's up. Let's go, go, go!"
I got a chorus of "Yes, sir!" and "Aye, Captain!", a few sarcastic, and a few serious.
"J97," someone called out for me from behind, It was Sarah.
Her username was DreamDream, I've known her since the PC version when she used to go by CoffeeCoffeeCoffee (Both Coffee and CoffeeCoffee was taken, somehow) and refused to heal anyone that didn't say please. These days she ran the merchant class and helped managing guild's economy, sourcing items and distributing them, and running the guild's online scheduling spreadsheet, taking into consideration everyone's timezone.
"Hey," I said aloud, watching a rookie Paladin fall into a pond. "Is the buckler I need on sale this market rotation?"
"Sadly not," Sarah replied, her voice was soft but a little smug. "It has gone up actually,"
It felt weird, in a good way. The guild, the teamwork, the coordination, everything. It reminded me of the early days. Not the sweaty top-ten leaderboard grind, but the long nights of pizza and dungeon wipes, of helping noobs with wooden swords take down monsters and ultimately recruiting them into long-term players, and sending wedding gifts across the continents, attending online baby showers.
I glanced over to the larger team of seven that went into the forest, around this time, a few wild bears should've spawned for them. Those things had a level recommendation of 8, but they'll easily take it down being level 4s with seven of them coordinating correctly.
"So," Sarah said, voice breaking my thoughts, "you thinking dungeon tonight?"
"Yeah," I replied, checking the party status screen. Half the guild was level 4 now, the other half close. "Eastwood Caverns, decent loot table. Should be fine if we rotate healers and babysit JeffTheMogger carefully when he tanks."
"Still mad about the Tesla incident? That was like 2 years ago."
"He ran towards the backline with Electrocuted debuff and the healers gotta switch priorities to heal themselves first, and one of our tank dies. So yeah, of course."
She snorted.
I walked toward the outer edge of the farm zone, where some of the quieter guildmates were handling cleanup mobs. Boars, Rats, the occasional Bandit that thought it was main character material.
"This group's solid," I said. "If we keep this up, we'll be dungeon-ready before sunset."
"You really care about this, don't you?" She said.
I turned towards her, eyebrows raised. "What do you mean?"
"Being a guild leader, you've been at this for half a decade already. Practically in the top 10 most recognizable figure of Darkmoon Adventure legacy. Oh, and my mom says hi."
Did I ever mentioned we found out we're really far distant cousins? Like five families away, it was a miracle that we even found each other online.
"I mean…" I scratched my neck, a little embarrassed. "I still have a nine to five, I still look after myself and can pay off my mortgage with good spending money every month, so yeah?"
The truth was: I was good at it. Managing people, seeing the big picture, helping everyone grow. I wasn't the flashiest DPS or the richest market scalper. But I had balls (at least my team said so), and that counted for something in Darkmoon Adventure, where most people like to have someone to show them the way.
"You're good at it," she said, like she read my mind. "Just don't burn yourself out again."
"I won't," I lied a little.
A few party members cheered as they hit level 5.
It would have been a great day… If he, or she, hadn't come.
CJS69 murdered us all.