Dragon's Bane II: Prologue

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Game over.

Thank you for playing Dragon's Bane II.

“Dammit man! I nearly got a new high score!”

James unhooked the controls from his hands, and removed his helmet. As he got up from the chair that he had been sitting on to play the game he noticed a girl standing by the skill-tester machines.

She had straight brown hair that went just past her shoulders and a few freckles dashed across her cheeks, in her nose there was a small stud piercing and she had a small tattoo of a blue flower on her neck. She was wearing denim jeans and a black tank top, a number of chains hung from her necks and similar styled bracelets were worn on her wrists.

She was watching a man in a suit manoeuvre the claw to attempt to grasp a stuffed unicorn toy. James figured she must be in her early twenties like him, he had just finished his Bachelor of Arts majoring in history, he walked towards her figuring he’d try to talk to her, not the biggest selection of girls at the arcade. As he got closer he noticed that her eyes were a shade of green, if James had to guess he’d say jade.

He approached and began to attempt a friendly greeting, “Hi there, my name’s James. How are-” he was cut off by two other men in suits, they had each hooked under one of his arms and lifted him up and carried him away from the girl. She gave a coy smirk that said, I’m better than you and you know it.

“Put me down guys, I’ll call the cops! Wait, are you cops? Are you allowed to do-”

James cut himself off, “No, don’t do that, grab it from the other side.” He had noticed the man at the skill-tester trying to grab the unicorn, but knew he wouldn’t win it, the way the man was using the claw was all wrong.

“Wait, bring him back,” said the girl, “Do you know how to get the unicorn?”

The suits put James back down, he walked over to the machine and confidently yet cautiously nudged the man out of the way.

He grabbed hold of the controls for the claw, wiggled them around a bit, carefully aiming the metal claw that hung from the top of the toy filled box. He turned around and faced the girl.

“So as I was saying, I’m James. Now… What's your name Princess?” he smirked as he watched her eyes flare with anger.

“How dare you! Do you have any idea who I am?”

“Well… no. Hence why I asked you your name.”

“Get me the unicorn, and I’ll tell you.” She said, giving away the faintest hint of a smile.

Without turning back around to look, James reached around with his arm, hit the GRAB button on the machine, and then just stared at the girl, smiling while behind him the claw lowered, pinched together around the horn of the unicorn and lifted it up, it wobbled a little as it moved to the collection area, dropping the unicorn into the empty area for won items.

James reached down and put his hand through the flap, pulled out the unicorn and handed it to the girl, she grabbed it, but he didn’t let go immediately.

“Amelia,” She said, finally smiling at him, “My name is Amelia.”

“Lovely to meet you Amelia, glad I could be of assistance.”

“How did you do that? These guys have been trying for about an hour and couldn’t manage it.”

“Dunno, just heaps of practice I guess. You must have really wanted that unicorn to spend so long on it.”

Amelia laughed as she looked at the suits around her, they were on edge, keeping a constant eye on James as he talked to Amelia.

“Not really, my dad’s making me wait here while he has a meeting over there,” said Amelia as she pointed to the office building across the road, “Just trying to kill time while I wait, which as you can imagine is heaps of fun with these guys around.”

As she spoke, James looked at the office building sign, Moon Rose Inc. James knew it was a big corporation that owned a few newspapers and restaurant chains. In one of the high windows he saw a few bright flashes, then a whole stream of flashes. He kept looking but whatever it was it seemed to have stopped now.

“What are you looking at?” Asked Amelia, who had noticed James’ interest in the building.

“What? Um, nothing…” He said, returning his attention to Amelia, “So, you said that you want to kill time?”

“Yeah, but nothing in here can waste that much time, I have no idea how long dad will be in his meeting.” Answered Amelia, looking at her watch.

“Come with me.” said James, reaching for her hand.

He was stopped by one of the suits who now had a firm grip of James’ wrist. Amelia gave the suit a death stare until he let go, she then offered her hand out to James, “Where are we going?” she said through a curious smile. James took her hand and then gently led her towards the game machine he had been on before.

Her smile faded.

“Dragon’s Bane? Are you serious? I don’t want to play this stupid game, I don’t care how much time you think it will waste. I’ll just go get a smoothie.”

“Princess, this is Dragon’s Bane II! And you will not find a better way to waste time in this whole city, I guarantee. It’s a fully immersive game experience, the newest technology makes you see and feel everything that happens in game… of course with the bonus that you don’t actually get hurt or die.”

Amelia frowned, but then moved to the side panel of the machine to read the game’s description.

Greetings brave adventurer!

Do you have the skills, knowledge and bravery to master the land of Threll?

Dragons plague the people of Threll, destroying their crops and livelihood, the people need a hero to rise up and defeat the Dragons.

The King has requested volunteers to form an elite group of warriors called The Dragons Bane, to defeat the evil beasts. You must become one of these warriors and rise to the challenge, fight a variety of monsters and enemies on your adventure.

Adventure your own way with a choice of Warriors including, Fighters, Mages, Rangers, Paladins, Dwarfs and new to Dragons Bane II, Amazons and Warrior Princesses. All with custom looks, skill sets and features.

Will you answer the call and become part of the Dragons Bane?

“I can be a Princess… and fight dragons?” Asked Amelia as she finished reading.

“Sure can,” said James as he climbed into the now empty machine, he reached down to Amelia and offered her his hand to help climb up into the machine, “So, what do you say Princess? Do you want to keep killing time with skill-testers and suits for company, or do you want to kill some dragons with me?”

Amelia smiled up at James, took his hand and got into the machine, with his help she got the helmet on and took hold of the controls. He did the same, and the game began.

They first had to select character types, Amelia chose Princess but swapped out the skill set and replaced it with that of the Amazon class, James chose the Ranger and left the skill set relatively as it was, but just tweaked a few skills a bit.

“You’ve clearly played this before haven’t you Jam- Sir… Orin?” said Amelia, noticing James had just finished entering a name, “Ooh, How do I make a name?” She asked. James guided her through the process and she named her character Eva.

They tweaked the look of their characters to look a bit more like themselves.

James’ Sir Orin looked a bit like Robin Hood but with armour on his arms and legs, he had a quiver with arrows and a longbow in one hand, in a sheath on his belt there was a rapier. He made the face look like his own and gave it the scruffy goatee and moustache he had with a bit of stubble over the rest of the face. Blue eyes and messy brown hair finished off the look for Sir Orin.

Amelia gave Eva the same facial features and hair colour has her, but made the hair a ponytail, she customised the outfit using parts from the Amazon character model and some of the others as well so it looked as if Maid Marion had had enough of waiting to be rescued by Robin and took matters into her own hands. She chose to have a sword and shield combo, with a crossbow strapped to her back.

“Nice.” Said James, really appreciating how cool this girl was.

“Right well I’m ready to go if you are now.”

“Sword locked, and ready to rock m’lady, one more thing. Remember to address each other by our character names once it starts, the game only registers entered names and the names of the NPC’s”

“NPC’s?”

“Non-Playable Characters, like townsfolk and other adventurers. Oh, one more thing. We might not start in the same area, so what’s a note or a message we can leave at the taverns and towns to help us find each other in-game. It’s a pretty huge landscape, and there’ll be other players in there too. We might meet at the castle for the King's decree, but if we don’t, what is the message to leave?”

“Um… `The blood moon rises’, what about that?”

“Holy crap, where’d you come up with that?”

“I saw it scrawled on a wall in graffiti.”

“It’ll work fine. Let’s begin.”

Start Game

Yes? No?

They hit the start button and the game began it’s opening cinematic.

“Welcome travellers to the land of Threll, a once peaceful land now plagued by Dragons! You have been requested by the King to join a group of warriors.” Announced the game.

In a first-person perspective, the screen shows the POV enter a grand hall of a castle, there is an assembled group of warriors standing around a table, the King waves them over. The POV joins as they look at a map of the land.

“This group of elite warriors will travel far and wide throughout the lands to find and slay the Dragons that menace the people, you will have to use all your skill and bravery for this quest… the quest to become… The Dragon’s Bane!” Exclaims the King, as the game truly begins.

The screen zooms into a map of the world, which transitions into a fierce battle with warriors scattered on a battle field, fighting dragons all around, the POV becomes cornered against a cliff face by a dragon. The dragon roars and spits fire as it does, the POV raises a shield. The fire dies out and the shield drops, charging at the beast with a sword, slashing, the screen moves to the shield now laying on the ground smouldering, as blood sprays across the shield from off screen and a dragon’s howl of pain is heard. Words begin to form from the scorched metal of the shield…

Dragon’s Bane II