Cursed Island

Primus gulped as Elder Yelena's peaceful aura permeated the entire Stalwart Wonderer. It was if they had never even been attacked in the first place, the only things authenticating the incident were the broken ship and the neatly severed halves of the beast's body.

Elder Yelena held out her smooth, slender arm and offered it to Primus. He dared not decline her offer and immediately lifted himself up from the deck with her hand.

"Thank you, Elder." Primus bowed.

"Don't thank me, I was just doing my job." She smiled.

Since the ship was wrecked and no longer functional, Primus wondered how they were going to arrive at the Northern Enclave before another horror from the depths attacked them when they were at their weakest state. In the Devil's Maw, it wasn't a question of if monsters were going to attack you, but of when they were going to do so... It was only a matter of time.

In Cosmic Retaliation, there was no such thing as health points, the producers intended for the virtual game to be as realistic possible, so if a player got killed, they would be transported back to the field of whiteness where they would lose a single level. All of their player stats would also be reduced by one after each death. These measures prevented players from being too reckless and brash.

There was only one way to escape death zones such as the Devil's Maw which was to exit the game. Players couldn't exit the game while engaged in an active mission or quest without deleting their accounts, but it was an entirely different story when they were attacked outside of a mission or quest.

Primus and Avdan gave their V-anchors to Elder Yelena so that when she arrived at the nearest island to the shipwreck, they would be alerted and return to the game. The V-anchors served as emergence points for players. A player appeared directly within a 1 cm radius of their V-anchor, they could also have more than one anchor so as to choose where they spawned, but it was extremely expensive.

If a V-anchor was destroyed, the player would lose their ability to choose where they spawned and would only appear at the V-anchor's place of destruction which was most times dangerous. It was equally expensive to purchase a new V-anchor.

Primus bid Avdan farewell and opened the game interface.

[Exit game?]

[Yes]/[No]

He exited the game and returned to reality. The dull blue light vanished and the lid parted for Primus to exit the V-pod.

The horizontal positioning of the V-pod soon became vertical and Primus stepped out of it. His body ached all over and he had to do a few stretches to readjust his posture. Another disadvantage or benefit, depending people's perspective, of CR was that when a player was kept in stasis for too long, no matter how high-quality the V-pod was, their bodies began aching them, so they had to perform various exercises to sooth body aches, especially for the hardcore players.

Primus' body was lean and muscular, he had a toned physique and was extremely fit. His short black hair fell across his face, highlighting his handsome sharp features.

He strode to the kitchen and poured himself some cranberry juice, then browsed his mobile communicator.

Primus sat on a spinning chair and sent Samane a message. He didn't have to wait for too long for her to respond.

"Hey, Ghost."

He smiled and they were soon locked in a long encrypted conversation that took up most of Primus' time - he didn't mind.

He ended the conversation with an elated smile plastered across his face. His chat with Samane was basically slice of life and nothing more.

Primus left his house with his Fulldive suit neatly folded into a backpack and went to the Cosmic Retaliation Customer Service Provider to get an upgrade and purchase other goods.

He met a few of his friends in the store and purchased many gadgets he was in dire need of. Primus also performed a Credit transfer. The exact sum was about a hundred thousand RLC to CRS with a five percent service deduction fee.

He upgraded the Fulldive suit to match the configuration of the new CR update and ease the sore feeling he had whenever he was kept in stasis for too long. Primus knew he was most likely going to spend a long time playing CR since he couldn't exit the game while performing a mission or quest.

The difference between missions and quests was that the the latter was more lengthy and time consuming than the former, and Primus had a feeling he was going to go on a quest since he looked up the digital geographic layout of the Devil's Maw and knew that Cursed Island was the nearest to the shipwreck site.

When Primus returned to his house that was located downtown of Æden, Sybrin, he immediately went to his room, dropped on his cozy bed, and fell asleep.

***

Dawn broke and Primus had a quick shower then ran to the basement, even forgetting to drink his daily cup of sugarless coffee.

He wore the upgraded Fulldive suit and slotted himself into the premium V-pod that stood lonely at a corner of his rundown basement.

Primus found himself in an all-encompassing field of whiteness and equipped his avatar.

[Spawn locations: <V-anchor 1>/<V-anchor 2>]

He was transported from white to a neverending shade of green. There were trees everywhere and a sandy shore with a reef around its edges. Huge boulders and granite pebbles were littered across the ground randomly. At what Primus suspected was the center of the Cursed Island was a gigantic obelisk that pierced the sky and made it bleed raindrops.

"What is that?" He muttered to himself.

A voice suddenly came from behind him, "Welcome to Cursed Island, Primus."

It was Elder Yelena...