Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Chapter One: Cringe Usernames

“Saga of Heroes?” Phainon lounges back in his desk chair as he scrolls on his phone, “The graphics look pretty solid for an MMORPG.” He presses on the mobile ad with rapidly growing curiosity which brings him to a website filled with gameplay footage and in-game screenshots. Critically-acclaimed is slapped onto every paragraph that talks about the game, a phrase that Phainon feels has been overused nowadays, but he can’t help but feel like this game may live up to it.

He places his phone down to sandwich himself in between his desk and his chair to boot up his computer. The fans whirr to life before sputtering a bit and Phainon mentally notes to himself to clean out the dust trapped within them later. After he logs in, he pulls up the website again and scrolls down to the installer, which won’t let him download the game without making an account first.

“You have to buy every expansion separately and pay a monthly sub?” He mutters, but he still ends up entering his debit card information with a frown. He thinks he’ll regret it later considering he’s already blown eighty bucks in the span of ten minutes without spending a single second in the game, but MMORPGs are a dying breed nowadays and he just really wants to try socializing with people again. It had been almost a year since the last game he enjoyed got hit with an EOS notice and his guildmates vanished along with it. Unfortunately, there was no such thing as SkyCord back then, so he had no way of contacting them or finding out if they moved onto another game. Maybe he’d get lucky and find they jumped ship here too.

His computer dings, symbolizing the successful installation of the game. The wheels of Phainon’s chair squeak as he rolls himself closer to his mouse and keyboard. He slides on his headphones and a beautiful leitmotif rings out as the title screen animates in. The words Saga of Heroes is gilded in gold atop a clear blue sky, light rays piercing through each letter. Phainon chuckles to himself. Opening the title screen at night would be a horrible flashbang, but at least it was pretty.

Phainon settles on Amphoreus. It was the first one on the list and he wasn’t too picky.

Phainon mulls over it for a bit before just settling on his old gamer tag Deliverer. He’s had it since he was eight years old playing MapleTale because he thought it sounded cool. Sixteen years later, his attachment to the name Deliverer stems from nostalgia which heavily outweighs the cringe he feels when someone calls him by it.

After spending an inordinate amount of time on the character creator, he is satisfied with his human Paladin. Short white hair mirroring his own, golden eyes, slightly pointed ears, and a gilded, white chestplate with matching metal breeches.

He loads into one of the starting towns and his screen is immediately bombarded with beginner tutorials. He’s played this genre of game before, so he quickly closes all of the windows and decides he’ll just wing it. If it gets too hard without help, he’ll just look up a guide or the game’s wiki page.

He declines, he assumes they probably request every un-guilded noob they see since they didn't have the courtesy to message him first. But it does make him think he should join a guild, so he walks up to the bulletin board in the town square to peruse the different guilds available.

Absolutely not. Phainon thinks.

He wasn’t huge on roleplaying either.

“Isn’t advertising trading in a guild header against the rules?” He wasn’t a stickler for rules but he did find it cringe when people did this. It clogged up the search menu.

Guilds that advertised themselves as drama-free were normally quite the opposite.

“This one seems good enough and the guild tag isn't bad.” He says aloud as he settles back into his seat. Phainon sends in a guild application with a simple, ‘I’d like to join’ message. To his surprise, he’s accepted in minutes.

[Welcome Message]: Sorry, the guild storage is locked to the GM and Guild Officers for the time being. Blame Nyan.

Deliverer: Hello everyone, thank you for having me.

3B: Welcome in! I’m 3B, one of the guild officers. Sorry for the welcome message, we don't get new members often.

Deliverer: Oh, it's okay.

xNetherwing: Welcome in!

Deliverer: Thank you!

He opens up the guild menu.

The guild is max level, and everyone online has max level characters too. He sticks out like a sore thumb, but grinding has always been his forte, so he isn’t too worried about catching up. Plus, this guild has every EXP buff imaginable active. After scoping out the guild menu, he decides to go level a bit in one of the tutorial areas so he can queue for the first dungeon later.

Lush green foliage comes into view as Phainon loads into the map labeled [Faerie Hearth]. There are already a few people grinding in parties, so he settles on a small patch where a few slimes have spawned. He looks at his hotbars. Only one skill—Justice Blade—is slotted in due to him being level one. He doesn’t expect to have his whole kit already, but one skill feels a little lackluster. Nevertheless, he raises his weathered broadblade and plunges it into the back of an unsuspecting slime, its viscous skin sticking to the blade like strawberry jelly.

[All] SunRender: CC Noob!

Phainon ignores the shout message and fells another poor slime.

[All] SunRender: I said CC we were here first.

[All] Deliverer: What a wonderful welcoming committee. I feel right at home already.

[All] SunRender: **** OFF NOOB! LEECHING IS CRINGE.

Phainon continues slicing down slimes oblivious to the player turning red in the face trying to get him to change channels. Suddenly out of the corner of his eye, he sees a Game Master with a red name tag spawn in. The player, SunRender, blips out of existence along with the GM, leaving the rest of his party members in stunned silence.

Lol. Lmao even.

Despite the initial hiccup, Phainon reaches level 5 and gets an instant queue for the first dungeon.

“Woah, this game is pretty active,” He says, “Back in GunZ the queue time was abysmal. It took nearly twenty minutes to find a party.”

He loads into the instance joined by three other new players all with beginner badges next to their names.

[Party][LikeNSub]: o/

[Party][AltFarmer]: Tank stance?

[Party][FarmersFlower]: They’re probably new.

[Party][Deliverer]: Sorry, it's my first time playing. What’s tank stance?

[Party][FarmersFlower]: You're a PLD? The yellow icon. It gives you increased enemy aggro. Always have it on when you’re in a party. It keeps enemies off of us.

He finds the yellow icon named Iron Oath and binds it to his hotbar. His character lights up with a bright aura and immediately every enemy in the room zeroes in on him; the curved red lines of enmity blink in his line of sight.

[Party][Deliverer] Thank you!

[Party][FarmersFlower] Np! I remember my noob days.

The rest of the dungeon run goes relatively smoothly. Flower keeps feeding him advice whenever he messes up or fails to draw all enemy aggro while Farmer and Sub stay mostly silent.

[Party][FarmersFlower]: Tyfp! If you need any more advice feel free to message me, I’ll add you.

[Party][Deliverer]: Tyfp and thank you for your help! If it's not too much of a bother, I’d like that.

[Party][LikeNSub]: tyfp o/

[Whisper][from: AltFarmer]: Hop off my gf, dude.

[Whisper][to: AltFarmer]: I'm not interested. She was just helping me unlike you.

[Party][FarmersFlower]: Babe, I’m literally playing right next to you. Sorry about that Deliverer, he’s a bit intense, but he means well!

[Party][Deliverer]: No problem. I’ll catch you later.

Phainon leaves the party and accepts Flower’s request, but he thinks he’ll refrain from messaging her any further seeing how her partner reacted.

[xXNyanXx] Time is money. ƪ(˘⌣˘)ʃ

xNetherwing: Welcome back, Nyan.

3B: Welcome back!

Deliverer: Wb!

xXNyanXx: thnx

xXNyanXx: oh. new guy. sick name.

Deliverer: Thanks, yours is cool too.

xXNyanXx: you don't have to lie, but i appreciate the flattery. ☆〜（ゝ。∂）

xXNyanXx: it was a cringe gamer tag i made when i was younger but now it's just stuck.

Deliverer: Same, lol.

xXNyanXx: speaking of cringe gamer tags.

xNetherwing: Welcome back, Prince.

Phainon laughs, but he doesn't type his response. He doesn't want to seem too comfortable when he’s only been in the guild for less than an hour, but he does find the name Prince quite amusing. Normally arrogant types have names like that, King, Sovereign, etc, but he guesses he can't be one to talk either with a name like Deliverer.

Prince: Yeah, yeah laugh it up. Good luck getting a carry in A2 later. Thanks Nether, by the way.

xXNyanXx: LOL. ica is carrying me. i don't need your help. plus you're a dps, our queue time would be mega ***.

Deliverer: Oh my queue time was fast.

xXNyanXx: yeah bc you're a tank.

Prince: And you were saying my name is cringe. Deliverer? lol.

Deliverer: Hey, I didn't say it was, it was Nyan.

xXNyanXx: deliverer, how could you?

Deliverer: Sorry.

Prince: You're also low level. Queues are faster for noobs.

Deliverer: I’ve played mmos before, I’m not a noob.

Prince: You’re a noob until you do your first raid.

Deliverer: When can you do raids in this game?

3B: You'll have to complete the MSQ to do raids.

Deliverer: MSQ?

Prince: Get a load of this noob, he doesn't even know what MSQ means.

Deliverer: You could just explain it to me instead of being a smart***.

Deliverer: Wait, can we not curse in this game?

Prince: lol.

xNetherwing: Please don't pick on the new person Prince. You’ll have to uncheck the profanity filter in the settings, Deliverer.

Deliverer: Thanks xNetherwing!

xNetherwing: No problem. ♪(๑ᴖ◡ᴖ๑)♪

3B: MSQ means main story quest. And don't mind Prince, he’s just grouchy since he’s been farming for a low drop rate item and hasn't gotten it yet.

Prince: Oh come on.

xXNyanXx: LMFAO

Deliverer: LOL. I’m guessing that’s the item?

xXNyanXx: yeah, little prince wants that useless cosmetic.

Prince: It's not useless. The red aura looks cool.

xXNyanXx: instead of suffering why not just buy it off the market board lol?

Prince: I don't want to hear that from you of all people. You leveled all your crafters and gatherers out of spite because you didn't want to pay 5 balance coins for an hp pot.

xXNyanXx: fair. anyway, when’s ica coming on? she’s supposed to carry me in A2.

[LittleIca]: Dispel the gloom~ ٩(๑❛ᴗ❛๑)۶

LittleIca: Sorry for logging in so late! I had to take Ica for a walk. Nyan, are you ready for A2?

xXNyanXx: finally, i won't have to wait for one hour in the dps queue. meet me at the guild house.

3B: I have to log out for the night. Welcome again, Deliverer. I hope you enjoy the game. Good night everyone!

Deliverer: Thank you! Good night.

LittleIca: Good night!

xXNyanXx: night little red.

Prince: Night.

xNetherwing: Oh no, I was in a dungeon. I’ll message them goodnight on the Cord.

Deliverer: Oh yeah, I saw that there was a skycord.

xNetherwing: Yeah, I can send it here if you want to join. Don't feel pressured to join though, we mostly only use it for movie nights or raiding, it's not required.

Deliverer: Oh, I’d like to, if that's okay.

xNetherwing: skycord.gg/ChrysosHeirs

Deliverer: Thanks.

Phainon clicks on the link. The SkyCord is small, only a few more members that he hadn't talked to were in the offline list. His eyes land on Prince’s icon, a fluffy, orange cat bathing in sunlight, such a contrast to his abrasive messages. He shakes his head, there’s no need to already assign personalities to people he barely knows, and regardless of him bumping heads with a member, everyone else seemed pretty nice and welcoming. He sees in the announcement channel that there’s a watch party on Saturday night, tomorrow, so he clicks the notification bell to get pinged for the event. He tabs back into the game.

xXNyanXx: ica, do you have any spare pots? i’m out.

LittleIca: Already? I do have some though. One second.

Prince: ?

xXNyanXx: hey, i’ll reimburse you too little prince.

Prince: I’m not buying it. You said that last time I let you borrow some. Also, Ica, don’t give her any, she can craft them herself.

xXNyanXx: don’t you have a cosmetic to farm (and not get btw).

LittleIca: It’s okay if you can’t pay me back Nyan, but you should give Prince his pots back.

xXNyanXx: what, why?

Prince: It’s fine, I’ve already come to terms with the fact that ‘lending’ something to Nyan means giving.

xXNyanXx: oh come on, i’ve definitely paid you back before.

Prince: You mean when you played a prank on me and made me trade my entire stash of balance coins by accident and then “graciously” gifted it back?

xXNyanXx: yeah, exactly. you have such a good memory little prince!

Deliverer: LOL

Prince: Nyan, is this one of your friends?

xXNyanXx: no, little red added him.

Deliverer: You could just ask me. I’m right here.

Prince: Sorry. You’re right.

Oh.

He didn’t expect an apology.

Prince: I’ve been a bit rude to you since earlier. I just thought you were making fun of my name when I first logged in.

Deliverer: Oh, it’s okay. you don’t have to apologize. Nyan and I were just talking about how our gamer tags were cringe when you logged on.

Prince: Oh, so it was Nyan’s fault.

xXNyanXx: [Sound Effect 11]

Deliverer: LOL?

Prince: I hope you can’t clear A2 in a single lockout.

xXNyanXx: fuck u. also how could you say that when ica’s carrying me?

Prince: She’s already gotten her clear. I feel bad for her back, carrying all your dead weight.

xXNyanXx: i hope that if you ever get that cosmetic that they do a system rollback and you lose it.

Phainon nearly tumbles over from the sheer laughter that erupts from his gut. Tears well in his eyes as he leans over his keyboard to type his next message.

Deliverer: Well, let’s hope the servers don’t rollback.

Prince: LOL.

Phainon’s lips quirk into a smile. He feels a little smug now that he got the seemingly stoic man to laugh.

xXNyanXx: enjoy your little victory. you’re gonna eat your words when i get this A2 clear.

Prince: Anyway, Deliverer. If you need help with any content, just send me a message.

Deliverer: You don’t care that I’m a noob anymore?

Prince: No that still stands.

xXNyanXx: LMFAO. see what happens when you burn our alliance deliverer?

Deliverer: You’re right, let’s form a truce Nyan.

xXNyanXx: you have betrayed me twice in the past hour. i’ll need some collateral.

Prince: Extorting a noob is low, even for you.

xXNyanXx: [Sound Effect 11] anyway can’t talk. we’re starting the countdown.

Deliverer: I appreciate the offer, Prince, but I think this noob can handle a little leveling.

Prince: If you say so.

Deliverer: You don’t sound so sure.

Prince: It’s just that you’ll probably level sub-optimally, but as you’ve said you can handle it.

Deliverer: I bet I could hit level 100 by the end of next week.

Prince: LOL. I’d like to see you try.

Deliverer: It’s on then.