Chapter Text
Waverly looked at the banner of the side of her screen. There it was, the same advertisement that had been taunting her for weeks, practically screaming at her to play me, play me.
Waverly was in her final year of university. There was no way, absolutely no way that she would have the time to devote to video games like she used to. And Purgatory Online wasn’t just any video game - it was the video game. After coming out three months ago, already over twelve million players populated the servers. Waverly was dangerously at risk of making it twelve million and one.
She had read the reviews. She’d watched the countless streams of people playing it, sometimes clocking in over thirty-thousand concurrent viewers, the most popular YouTube videos reaching almost forty million. The game had taken the world by storm, and if it had come out two years ago, Waverly would be making her character right now and setting off into the world.
But she couldn’t. Her bachelor’s thesis was staring at her in the face, screaming even louder to finish me, you lazy dick. She only had four months left - four months, and then she could get a job in her field and video games could be her release again. So she ignored the ad and continued her research.
It wasn’t that she hated her degree - honestly, she loved it. Throughout her whole life, psychology was something that she’d always wanted to do. It was one of the only things that remained a constant. She’d studied hard in high school to get into UBC, but even then she could balance her studies and her gaming addiction. She just didn’t have much in the way of a social life. So no, she didn’t hate her degree. She just wished that she could be doing anything other than the research side of psych right now. Waverly wanted to work with people - actual people - and help them. For now, she had to get through this.
About an hour later, a message blipped in the corner of her scream. One of her old gaming buddies was messaging her on Discord.
fish: heya stranger
fish: what r u doing rn
Waverly wanted to ignore it and carry on with her work. She needed to. Any distractions, and she’d be sucked back in. But at some point in her life, Fish had been one of her closest friends, and she missed him. She missed having her network of online family who, despite the distance, still managed to meet up in Seattle when Waverly had turned eighteen. She hated that she hadn’t talked to them for so long.
Waverly: studying
Waverly: why?
She watched as three little bubbles popped up as Fish typed his message.
fish: i have something u might like :)
Curiosity got the better of her, and before Waverly could stop herself, she messaged him back.
Waverly: what?
She waited for a minute, and as soon as she clicked back to her Chrome page full of boring but necessary research, Fish messaged her back.
There was a single picture of what looked like a game code on the back of a box.
fish: levi bought PO for his birthday but i already bought it for him. we have a spare key and we miss u
Waverly struggled to think of a response. She wanted the key - after all, Purgatory Online did cost sixty dollars, and Waverly didn’t exactly have money to just throw around. Her mom helped her with rent and such. Waverly’s dad ignored her, and Waverly ignored him, except for when every so often a few hundred dollars would appear in her account. She knew that it was probably just her mom shouting at him over the phone to help her out and pushing him to do so, but a small part of Waverly liked to think that maybe, a part of her dad wanted to help her. Wanted to see her succeed like he did with Willa.
Waverly: can’t. :( sorry. maybe chrissy wants it
fish: she already has it lol, we’ve all been playing together for a while
fish: oh well, it’s always there if u want it
Waverly felt a pang of loneliness shoot through her heart, but closed the window anyway. She desperately missed her friends. The last time Waverly played with them was last Christmas, and it was already November. She remembered the days when they would talk every day, long into the night, until the sun had risen and red-rimmed eyes shut instantly as Waverly’s head hit her pillow, a lazy smile plastered on her face.
She read on and on, lines of text scrolling down her screen almost infinitely, her foot bouncing against the floor impatiently. Waverly wanted to play the game, wanted to get back into her old life, and now a door had been opened. She figured there would be no harm in downloading it - right? After all, she had saved and saved for this computer. It would be a shame to only use it for school. The large game file wouldn’t even make a dent in her hard drive - not even in her SSD.
It took her three hours, three hours full of deliberation and mulling over the pros and cons, of telling herself she could stop when she wanted to. How easy it would be to uninstall and quit, how she probably wouldn’t even like the game anyway. She convinced herself enough that she reopened Discord.
Waverly: fuck it
Waverly: what server are we playing on
fish: ayyyy, levi owes me 10 bucks lol
fish: i knew u’d cave eventually. u can take waverly out of the game but u can’t take the game out of waverly ;)
fish: we’re playing on outlaw btw
Without hesitating, Waverly opened the game that had only finished downloading around two minutes prior. She watched the opening cinematic, the familiar pump of excitement burning through her veins, twitching at her wrist. She missed this, missed the feeling of entering head first into a new game and starting something fresh. Waverly scrolled down the list of servers, finding US - Outlaw (PVP) after about a minute of searching. There were so many goddamn servers she couldn’t help but laugh.
She created her character slowly, relishing in the impressive amount of detail offered by the game. The graphics were gorgeous, and the game’s score was beautiful, but she knew it was the intuitive gameplay and the storyline that fueled the hype behind PO. Finally, she settled on her character - an elf cleric with long brown hair and a cute, pixie-ish face. She joined the Peacemaker faction, the good guys. The other faction was called the Revenants, which were either ugly hellish beings or evil looking variants of the Peacemaker races. She didn’t have to ask Fish to know which faction they’d joined - from the beginning of their friendship they’d always played as the good guys. She named her character Wavesly , a name she had used online for as long as she remembered, and was happy it hadn’t been taken yet.
fish: are u in yet? we’re going to sleep
It was only 8:30 PM for Waverly, but for her friends on the east coast, it was approaching midnight.
Waverly: yea i just finished making my character
Waverly: sleep tight :) see u tomorrow maybe. i’ll see
fish: i hope so, we all miss our mom friend :) sleep tight
Waverly smiled and watched as the intro cinematic played, the voice acting was crisp and clean and appropriate for the drama unfurling before her eyes, and instantly Waverly understood why so many people played this game. The storyline was compelling, the characters real and sympathizable, and the music - god, Waverly could feel goosebumps. She knew this was a bad idea, and the feeling only deepened with every level she gained, but she didn’t care. She deserved this.
About two hours later, Waverly had reached level ten, meaning she could go out into the open world and leave her starter village. She was excited to explore, having heard many things about how the game rewards you for going off the beaten path and finding things for yourself.
She set off in a direction and lasted about fifteen minutes before another player’s character, their name highlighted in red, popped out in front of her. They weren’t much higher of a level than she was, only level seventeen. Waverly had completely forgotten that the server she was playing on was a PvP server, meaning any character of the enemy faction could kill her if they choosed. She had also ignored the warnings that she was entering ‘enemy territory’, and only saw the warnings in her chat box now. Waverly tried running away, healing herself through every blow, and was close to dying before a much, much higher leveled character shot in and pretty much instantly decimated the dude.
There was a beat before Waverly could register what happened.
Her savior was a ginger human paladin who was clad in shiny armor from head to toe. Literally her knight in shining armor. She was much, much higher leveled, her level reading one hundred. What she was doing in a starting zone, she didn’t know, but Waverly was thankful regardless.
Wavesly: thank you!!!
Nicoladin: No problem. :)
Waverly watched as Nicoladin started to heal Waverly’s character, casting a few spells and buffing Waverly’s character with ease.
Nicoladin: Are you new? I can show you around.
Wavesly: that would be great, thank you :)
Nicoladin: Ok. Right click my character and select ‘follow’. I’ll take you to the Peacemaker capital.
They walked to the capital, Waverly knowing full well that Nicoladin could get on her mount and get there much quicker, instead opting to slow down for Waverly’s sake. Waverly thought it was sweet.
Wavesly: how long have you been playing?
Nicoladin: Since beta. I’ve been playing games ever since I was young, though.
Wavesly: same :)
Wavesly: well, not since beta obviously. but i used to play CoA pretty religiously
Nicoladin: Me too. I quit when PO came out. CoA is pretty outdated and the endgame kind of sucked.
Wavesly: i agree, they barely ever came out with raiding content and only focused on PvP :(
Nicoladin: You’ll like PO then.
After about twenty minutes, they reached a large fortress looking city, the turrets of the wall surrounding it peppered with blue flags flowing freely in the simulated wind.
The streets were busy with other players, the majority of them lower leveled like Waverly, and Waverly couldn’t help but notice the fact that there were barely any players at Nicoladin’s level, and certainly none of them had the same gear that she had. She heard a little ding and a notification in her private messages.
Nicoladin: Just curious. If you don’t like PvP, why are you on a PvP server?
She was thankful that Nicoladin had messaged her privately, otherwise her message would have been lost in the sheer amount of people talking in the public chat.
Wavesly: friends play on this server
Wavesly: my turn to be curious. are many people at the same level you are?
Nicoladin: No. I reached max level last week. I’ve gotten lucky with my gear so far, but I was one of the first on the server to hit max. It gets harder from level twenty or so, so be careful.
Nicoladin: My turn again.
Waverly could feel her lips curl up in a smile, excited by the prospect of making a new friend, and intrigued by Nicoladin’s expertise in the game.
Nicoladin: If your friends are playing on this server, why aren’t you levelling with them?
Wavesly: they went to bed, i live on the west coast, they live on the east.
Wavesly: i guess it’s my turn again
Waverly watched as Nicoladin led them to one of the shops lining the bustling streets of the city.
Nicoladin: I guess it is. This is the tailoring shop, by the way. You should probably pick up this profession seeing as you’re a cleric.
Wavesly: will do, thanks for letting me know
Wavesly: where do you live? east or west coast?
Nicoladin: Neither. My turn. What made you start playing PO only now? It’s been out for three months.
Wavesly: hold on, you didn’t answer my question
Waverly furrowed her brow in confusion as she went through the steps for assigning tailoring as her primary profession. Where could she live if not on the east or west coast?
Nicoladin: Yes, I did. You just assumed I live on a coast. Now, answer my question.
Wavesly: fine. I’ve been busy with university stuff, have been for the last year or so.
Wavesly: since you’re being pedantic, where exactly are you located in NA?
Waverly watched as Nicoladin took them to their next destination, navigating the winding streets like it was her hometown.
Nicoladin: Pedantic, huh? Harsh words, university girl.
Nicoladin: Chicago. My turn again. What do you study?
They reached a large cathedral. Waverly watched as they entered it, passing the pews neatly arranged in rows, enjoying the little details carved into the cathedral walls and stained-glass windows that must’ve been painstakingly crafted by the developers over the years. They rounded the corner into a small offshoot room tucked away into the corner. Had Nicoladin not taken her there, she probably never would’ve found it.
Wavesly: psychology, i’m in my final year
Wavesly: eventually i want to work with disabled veterans
Waverly knew that Nicoladin hadn’t asked for the details, but gave them anyway. She enjoyed talking to her, she found it easy, and she enjoyed the light teasing between the two.
Nicoladin: That’s really interesting. :)
Nicoladin: My dad is a therapist, actually. If you enjoy it as much as he does, you’ll live a rewarding life.
Waverly felt a smile tug at her lips as she read the words, aware that Nicoladin was sharing more than asked too.
Nicoladin: By the way, go here for materials for being a priest - you’ll need it in the future. I was kind of guessing that you’d go that route, since being a Paladin is a little more aggressive and I figured you weren’t the type.
Wavesly: hey, i can be aggressive >:(
Nicoladin : Alright, then. Tell me I’m wrong.
Wavesly : you’re not wrong.
Waverly watched as Nicoladin’s avatar laughed in game.
Wavesly : my turn
Wavesly : what’s your name irl
Nicoladin : It wasn’t obvious? Nicole.
Waverly poked her tongue out as she typed her response. She really should have guessed that, but Waverly had seen less creative uses of people’s names and still had been oblivious. Hell, Levi’s is Levijeans, and Waverly still thought Levi was just a nickname for the first year of knowing him.
Wavesly : i didn’t want to be rude and assume, like some people here
Nicole : Touche. And your name is?
Wavesly : it wasn’t obvious? Waverly
Nicole : Hahaha. Who’s rude now?
Waverly laughed under her breath, pleased that she had made Nicole laugh, happy that Nicole knew she was just teasing. Waverly was quickly enjoying their dynamic, more so than she had with anyone she had met in real life in the past year.
Wavesly : guilty
Wavesly : thank you for showing me around, btw
Nicoladin : It’s really no problem. I should sleep soon.
Nicoladin : Right click me and then select ‘add friend’. I’ve already added you.
Waverly did as she was told, surprised in part that it was already 11:30, but also surprised that Nicole had already added her.
Wavesly : ok, done
Nicoladin : You have one more question, just to let you know. Choose wisely :)
Waverly thought for a second about what her question would be before making her mind up embarrassingly quickly.
Wavesly : will I see you tomorrow?
Tapping her fingers against her desk, Waverly was kind of worried about Nicole’s response. She didn’t want to come off too desperately. After all, they had only really been friends for an hour - if they were even friends. Sure they were in the game sense, literal ‘friends’ on each other’s ‘friends list’, but that didn’t mean that Nicole wanted to spend more time with her.
Nicoladin : You can count on it.
Nicoladin : Good night, Waverly.
Wavesly : good night, nicole :)
Waverly watched as Nicole’s character faded out of the game, leaving Waverly alone in the cathedral that now seemed a lot larger than it had before. A steady trickle of players were darting in and out of the room, players that were much higher leveled than she was. She meandered around in the city, exploring the little alleyways and nooks and crannies that it had on offer, before opting to go out and continue the story.
She finished a few quests and leveled up a few times, but now she felt like something was missing. Before, she was perfectly content to play on her own, even though her friends were asleep. But now it felt like Waverly couldn’t focus if she didn’t have Nicole to distract her.
Waverly settled in a field and, after taking in the sight around her - yellow fields with mountain peaks peeking out in the distance - Waverly logged out.
She turned off her computer, settling into bed before it had fully turned off. The lights were off, and all that she could hear was the steady thrum of her computer before it clicked and stopped. Waverly closed her eyes, that same lazy smile from years ago once again taking its rightful place on Waverly’s face, and for the first time in a year, Waverly felt that same excitement again.
It scared the hell out of her.