If you've been reading any of my other works, you'll know this one has a very different setting. My other stories here are historical fantasy, and this is clearly not. I hope you enjoy it anyway.
Regarding my two other unfinished stories... I'll finish them eventually, but there's a lot going on for me right now. I've been very sick for seven months and am only just now returning to normal. I was in a car crash. I'm changing jobs. Life has been kicking me in the balls.
I've chosen to work on this story as something a bit different to do.
“Have you downloaded it yet?”
“Yep, all done. I'm kind of excited for it!”
“When does it officially open?”
“Midnight! Let's stay up and log in straight away!”
“Fuck, calm down, everyone.”
“I'm too old for this shit...”
“Look! I brought snacks! Just have a couple of the canned coffees, you'll be fine!”
We were all sprawled out in the living room of Poppy’s apartment, since she had the largest living space. Through the window, the city night was alive with light and sound, cars and buses scrambling through the streets below. Horns honked, engines growled, and the neon signs of hole-in-the-wall restaurants and the traffic lights glowed.
By contrast, the six of us were pretty lifeless. Poppy was still in her expensive work suit, practically passed out on her rug. Rohan, built like a noodle, had cracked open two cans of Japanese canned coffee and was dual-wielding them in an effort to stay awake. Calvin mindlessly scrolled on his phone, as he stood propped against the side of the sofa. Tommy was on his phone too, headphones on, absorbed by something on the screen. I had been lying on my back on the sofa, my head resting on Tommy’s knee, watching the game slowly download on my phone until I lost my grip and the device smacked me in the face. I dropped my hands to my stomach and let the phone lie where it had fallen. Closing my eyes, I remembered I was still wearing contacts as my eyelids stuck. I left my phone behind and crawled to the tiny bathroom to remove them and put on my glasses.
When I returned to my position on the sofa, only Wai Meng was eagerly digging into the bags of groceries he had brought, producing a mountain of snacks and drinks. “Come on, aren't you all excited?”
“Fuck off, Lee Wai Meng.”
“Why are you using my full name?”
“Because you deserve it.”
“What did I do?”
I fumbled blindly around until my hand found a cushion, which I immediately lobbed in Wai Meng's direction.
“Ouch! Mik Tsaam!”
“Can you just stop babbling for one second?”
“It's part of my charm.” Wai Meng fluttered his eyelashes. A rain of cushions pelted him from different directions.
“Stop! Stop! There's only five minutes left until midnight. Come on, you've got the codes I sent you, right? Calvin! Stop looking at videos and open the game!”
“People are crazy,” Calvin said, ignoring him. “Check this out.” He had stopped on a video of a young woman mountain-biking down steep forest trails. Her bike had two narrow tyres at the front and a fat tyre at the back, and she was partially reclined, her legs immobile as she tore along the tracks, wrestling the steering like it was a bull. “The description says she's a paraplegic. Isn't that wild? Imagine living like that.”
“Amazing,” Tommy said, staring at the video as it looped.
“Technology really is amazing,” Wai Meng observed, forgetting about the game momentarily and staring avidly at the bike. “Is that an e-bike? How's it powered?”
“Don't know. Don't really care.”
“Speaking of technology,” I interrupted, “this game takes a retina scan, you know? I get they want to stop people from making multiple accounts, but doesn't that worry anyone?”
“We’re already being watched all the time by companies and the government,” Calvin sighed deeply, scrolling quickly past the next video, a snip from a news report about a protest several suburbs away, and an advert for whitening toothpaste, before settling on a recording of a kitten falling asleep in a coffee mug. Tommy twisted to watch too, his face scrunching at the cute sight.
“What classes are you all picking?” Poppy asked groggily, finally pulling off her fashionable neck scarf. She was always sleekly dressed and made-up. Sometimes I wondered what her credit card debt looked like, but I probably really didn’t want to know. Her dedication to her appearance was truly impressive.
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We all hunched over our phones.
“Fighter class!” Wai Meng yelled. “Did you see the fifth level evolutions? The-”
“Guardian,” everyone droned in unison.
“How did you know?”
“YOU ALWAYS PLAY AS A HEAVY ARMOURED CLASS!”
“Oh. Yeah, I guess.”
“Like Mik Tsaam. She always plays some kind of priest.”
“Oh yeah, Priestess Maria.”
“Are you going to be a priest again, Maria?”
“Of course.”
“Right.”
“What'll you pick, Poppy?”
Poppy rubbed her eyes, smudging her mascara. “I was thinking of following the cleric class tree. Ack! My makeup!”
“Seriously? You work in an office in real life and you want to do it in a game too?”
“Shut up. It means I'll be good at it.” She fished a mirror and a makeup wipe from her handbag and began to blot under her eyes. “It’s not like I game like you guys.”
“Hey, we should all pick a different class tree, right?”
“There’s six of us,” Rohan pointed out scornfully, “and five base classes.” He offered canned coffee around and we all took one, except Tommy.
“No thanks.”
“Tommy only drinks yuen yeung, the weirdo.”
“I just don’t think coffee on its own tastes good,” he muttered, trying and failing to sink into the sofa out of sight. He was a big guy.
Calvin stared at Wai Meng, deadpan. “I want to pick Fighter too. Magic Swordsman is a good character type to play.”
“You can get there through the Mage route though!” Wai Meng yapped excitedly, shoving his phone in Calvin's face. “See? At Level Three you can choose to hybridise your class. Picking a base class is all about determining your strongest skills...”
I finally opened the game app. Following all the developer logos, the loading screen for M?rchen: Tales of Magic finally appeared, then the Main Menu. Below the stylised logo text, five characters posed heroically, each representing one of the base classes. The priest was male, with golden hair and blue eyes, and I pulled a face. I had never particularly liked pale eyes.
“Okay, let’s see who can break this game the fastest,” said Wai Meng, flexing his bony fingers. “I bet a bucket of crispy skin chicken that Maria will find a bug first.”
“Can you really say that about the game your own company made?”
“Then I’ll bet Tommy will be first,” said Calvin, finally lowering his phone. He massaged his neck with a sigh.
“Me?” Tommy was a big, chubby guy with a scruffy beard, but his voice came out in a squeak of surprise. He coughed, embarrassed, as everyone laughed.
“You’ve got good attention to detail,” Calvin explained. “You’re always able to point out the girls on the street with the counterfeit bags.”
“That’s just… That’s just a hobby…”
“Anyone else want to weigh in?” Wai Meng asked. “No? Okay, let’s get ready. Everyone got the game open?”
We all rearranged ourselves into more comfortable positions. I sat up on the sofa, pushing my glasses up my nose, to let Calvin sit down on the other side of me. Tidying her hair, Poppy crawled up from the floor into a beanbag. Rohan remained cross-legged on the floor, scowling and opening a third can of coffee, his hand shaking slightly. Only Wai Meng remained on his feet, excitedly watching us all.
“Have you all got the code I sent you?”
“Is everyone ready?”
“Wait! Wait! I'm almost done!”
“Hurry up!”
This group of idiots, gathered together after work on a Friday night, almost midnight, to test out a mobile game like a group of high schoolers. I couldn’t help but smile secretly. These friends of mine, we really hadn’t changed since we were kids.
Tommy nudged me with his elbow. I leaned against his comforting shoulder, and he dropped his head on top of mine, both of us looking at the Main Menu on our phones as Wai Meng led us like a package group tour guide.
“Okay! One! Two! Three!”
I typed in the code Wai Meng had sent me into the landing screen of the game and hit ENTER.
We all lifted our phones.
A white light flashed in my eye.
And then, I saw nothing at all.
M?rchen: Tales of Magic was a mobile RPG that had been in development by the company that Lee Wai Meng worked for. Not that he had been involved in the development of the actual game; Wai Meng was a member of the Marketing Team, but it was his first major role, so he was even more excited about it than he usually was.
He had the six of us all sacrifice our Friday night to come and help test it out, and as usual, we all agreed, although we pretended to put up some resistance for a while so that he wouldn’t think we were pushovers.
The premise was simple. Build a character, and take on several scenarios of increasing difficulty, each based on a different fairy or folk tale from around the world. The character designs were colourful and fun, and the choice of scenarios was a little unusual, not being just the obvious tales like Snow White, but also stories like Tatterhood and The Story of Badr Basim, which I had never heard of until I read the game summary.
In short, it seemed like a fun game for us to all play together, gathering in a way that we hadn’t since we left our student days behind. Of us, I probably played mobile games the most. I liked games with a storyline, with quests and achievement bonuses. I wasn’t concerned about being the highest on a scoreboard or having the fastest playthrough. What I wanted was the little phrase:
I had to do everything, find everything, thoroughly scour the game from start to finish until I had found every little secret. If I got to the end of a game without seeing that <100% Completion Rate>, then I would start again from the beginning until I did.
Somehow, it made me somewhat infamous on game forums, in a minor sort of way. I blamed Wai Meng. He was always talking smack on the forums.
100% Maria. The nickname stuck. Whenever I could, I would play the priest class and use some derivation of the name Maria for my character and/or username. I’m not sure why. I wasn’t raised in a religious household, and I don’t think I believe in God. But there was something soothing about opening any game and having my little priestess Maria, with her golden hair and white robes, waiting for me.
Besides, Priest Class is always a good counter for demons, and there are a hell of a lot of demons in mobile RPGs.
And so, I opened M?rchen: Tales of Magic BETA fully intending to play, as always, as the priestess Maria.
It seems so stupid now.