Chapter VI: The Conjurer

Animus Online

After your last class of the day, you make your way through the lab building. A biology professor greets you politely as you walk past them. Your campus had designated a specific building for the SET undergraduate students to assist professors with research, so you often ran into familiar faces while you made your way to the laboratory stock room.

You glance down at your phone to scroll through the front page of your Reddit app, pausing as one post catches your eye. “Animus Online Developer ‘Synapsis’ Announces Special Event for Release Date,” read the headline title. You select the post and scan through the comments.

“Great, we finally get a proper event and the casuals will be there to crash it.”

“Why’s it so late in the day on a Sunday night? Is Synapsis okay?? Oh well, what is school anyways…”

After reading through the comments, you sigh with annoyance. You had barely gotten the chance to get ahead in the game and now the rest of the country was about to surpass you. Not to mention that you already knew you would be worn out on Monday morning thanks to whatever special event had been planned for the old and new players.

As you walk down the hall with your eyes glued to your phone’s screen, the sound of unfamiliar hip-hop music catches your attention. You turn your head to face the next lab room, where you spot Min Yoongi bobbing his head to a beat playing from his headphones as he scribbles on a notebook. A variety of metallic and plastic parts surround him on his workbench, beside a robot that was approximately six inches tall. Namjoon is typing away on his computer when he notices your movement in the hall. He turns his head and makes eye contact with you, recognizing you instantaneously.

“[Y/N]-ah! Come look at our robot!”

You maintain a passive face while you groan inwardly. Running into Namjoon was never your favorite part of wandering the SET building. Stopping in front of the door, you shift awkwardly on your feet when you notice Yoongi has looked up from his writing to examine you casually. While you were not the biggest fan of Namjoon, you had to admit the company he kept was intriguing. The peach-haired male was a senior engineering student whom you often walked by on your way to classes. After attending a symposium for engineering students out of curiosity, Min Yoongi had impressed you with his ability to design and craft useful robots. You also couldn’t deny the curiosity you had about his personal life. It was difficult to not be drawn to his laid-back and intelligent persona.

You rip your eyes from his passive expression and reluctantly turn your focus to Namjoon. “I wouldn’t want to interrupt you two while you’re hard at work,” you protest awkwardly, your teeth tugging on your bottom lip hard out of frustration.

“Nonsense. Check out our hard work,” Namjoon urges, waving you over as he stands up from his stool.

“Well, alright then,” you mumble quietly, your heart beat hiking slightly as you step into the lab. Namjoon lifts the small robot from the table.

The sudden movement disturbs Yoongi from his writing. As he noticed Namjoon lifting the robot, his eyes widen. “Hey, wait a second, Joon,” he protests, standing from his seat while he removes his headphones. “Give me that. I don’t want to go through what happened last time again.”

Namjoon freezes in place, looking sheepish. You sense a story behind Yoongi’s words and raise your eyebrow at the blonde boy, unable to help the sly grin on your face. “What’s Yoongi-sunbae talking about, Joon?”

He coughs awkwardly in response. “Nothing, nothing. Yoongi-hyung is just a joker.”

“What did you just call me?” Yoongi asks pointedly while snatching the robot from Namjoon’s hands. Namjoon’s face pales as his arms stay in the same position, holding an invisible weight. Yoongi rolls his eyes and turns to you, his left eye twitching slightly. “I’m sure word has reached every end of campus about our resident God of Destruction.”

You bark out a laugh in response to the nickname. How could you ever forget the guy’s tendency to break everything he could get his hands on? One year during middle school, when the two of you had still been close friends, you had decided to gift him a bag of packing peanuts for one of his birthdays. You had of course given him a real present after that, but it had been amusing to watch his pouting face.

“I constantly have to fix whatever this guy breaks,” Yoongi grumbles as he steps around the work bench to the center of the room. You follow him to find a modestly large maze made of thick, wooden planks.

“Nice,” you whistle appreciatively as Yoongi places the small robot beside the entrance. “Is it a labyrinth-navigating robot then?”

“Not just that, but it can also evade obstacles,” the older male explains as he flips a switch on the robot’s side. A small red light begins to blink as a soft whirring fills the silence in the lab.

You turn, noticing Namjoon walking up to the maze with a box of matches and a small candle. With a quiet squeak of surprise, you rush away from him.

He scoffs in disbelief. “Seriously, [Y/N]-ah?”

“You’re a dangerous man wielding dangerous weapons,” you reply simply, crossing your arms. “Why should I risk my life today?”

“It’s a damn candle,” he whines, waving the unlit candle in front of you. In response, you stand back, raising an eyebrow to prompt him to proceed now that you were safely out of the way. For all you know, he could trip after lighting the match and end up setting you on fire. It was best not to tempt fate when the God of Destruction was involved.

Namjoon sighs in defeat and the snickers beside you alert you to Yoongi’s muffled laughter. You grin about having made the quiet boy laugh at Namjoon’s expense. After glaring at the pair of you, Namjoon lights the small candle with a match and places it in the middle of a path.

“Start,” Namjoon states loudly. The robot’s red light flashes green as its wheels began to turn, cautiously guiding it into the maze’s entrance. You watch with interest as the robot maneuvers itself tentatively throughout the maze. Whenever it encounters a dead end, it manages to utilize the limited space to turn around and head back. After a minute or so, it finally approaches the small lit candle. Once it is within a foot’s distance, it stops in place and flashes red. It begins to backtrack, deeming the pathway too obstructed to cross through.

“Why didn’t it just circle around the candle? It would probably fit through the path just fine,” you ask out loud as your eyes follow the robot attempting to find a new path.

“That’s been one of our issues so far. We want the robot to be able to use its sensors to detect unsafe obstacles, but it seems to be a little too sensitive,” Namjoon replies.

“How are you sure it detected the candle as a temperature obstacle rather than a physical obstacle like a wall?” you inquire thoughtfully. “Was that why the light flashed red?”

“Oh good, you noticed that. That’s exactly what the red light meant,” said Yoongi. He steps forward and calls out. “Stop!”

He steps into the maze, carefully avoiding the wooden walls in order to reach forward and lift the robot out of the maze.

Namjoon begins to speak, diverting your attention from Yoongi’s nimble escape from the labyrinth. “I’ve been trying to program the robot to evade obstacles, but it always seems to get stuck at that point. Another thing we’ve been trying to do is have the robot complete the maze within the same time range even when we change the labyrinth.”

You hum with interest. Although you weren’t as fond of Namjoon as when you were both younger, it interested you to know what kind of projects he was working on. Namjoon and Yoongi were the perfect duo – the former was currently a Computer Science major while the latter was an Engineering major. The pair had found particular resonance in the field of robotics and had competed in several robotics competitions, even in high school.

Yoongi coughs awkwardly, distracting you from your thoughts. “As you can see, it is still a work in progress.”

You smile encouragingly at him before shooting Namjoon a sheepish glance. “Well, I’m sure if anybody can figure it out, it would be you two.”

Namjoon’s face brightens as if Christmas had come early. “[Y/N]! Thanks for your encouragement! Why, now I feel…. recharged!”

Beside you, Yoongi smacks a free hand into his face and emits a pained groan. You sigh and struggle not to roll your eyes. For a genius, that guy seemed to have a knack for disgusting everyone in the room with his cheesy dialogue.


Jin: We’re ready! Meet you in front of the Proelium gates.

“Well, Eunhye, looks like I gotta go,” you turn to face Eunhye, who is furiously sharpening her axe on the blacksmith’s grindstone. She had already botched a few attempts due to her novice skill in Smithing, and her patience was running thin.

The noise of grinding stops as Eunhye lifts her weapon. “Oh no, [Y/N]. You are not running off with these random guys alone again. Last time I let you run off with one of them, you contacted an STD! And not to mention you completely ditched me while doing it.”

“What?!” you exclaim in indignation. “What STD, you crazy woman? And I already apologized for leaving you the other day, but you know how you get when we go to the market. I knew I wouldn’t see you for at least another hour until you were finished examining all the axes in the city.”

“You heard me! You let some pretty boy vampire sink his fangs into you and now you have to run around looking for a cure. Sounds like an STD to me. At least tell me something – was it worth it?” Eunhye gestured salaciously as she pointed her obscenely large two-handed axe at you.

You growl at her, blushing furiously. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Sure, keep your saucy secrets from your best friend,” she sighs in resignation. “Either way, I’m gonna tag along, okay? Just to make sure you don’t contract some more diseases. And to find some heads to bash.”

Sighing exasperatedly, you nod slowly. “Just as long as you keep the inappropriate commentary to a minimum.”

“No promises, love.”


“[Y/N]! Duck!” Suga shouts from across the dungeon chamber.

Without a second thought, you obey and duck, feeling a rush of relief as you hear the whiz of a fireball pass over your body. You curse yourself for having almost been struck and straighten up as you quickly step backwards out of the line of fire. Your palms crackle with electricity as you face your attacker, an NPC necromancer. As dark magic surrounds the necromancer’s outstretched palms, you fling an amplified chain of lightning at him. The attack manages to slough off additional HP from the necromancer, but does not manage to stop him from conjuring an undead skeleton between you.

You growl in frustration and pitch a fireball at the skeleton, knocking it backwards onto the caster. Stepping sideways to circle around the necromancer, you aim another chain of lightning at him, ignoring the creature regaining its balance.

While fighting necromancers was an annoyance due to their ability to distract you with their physical conjurations, they had one inherent weakness. Their defenses were weak and their conjurations would cease to be once the casters were killed. Lightning magic, while not as destructive as fire, was perfect against mana users. You were sincerely lucky that the AI had not yet managed to adapt to the player’s play-style, or you would have run out of mana long ago.

You lob another lightning strike at the necromancer, watching as he withdrew a small dagger from the sheath on his hip. Good, he was getting reckless.

You avoid a strike from the approaching skeleton, kicking it aside and shuffling sideways away from it. The necromancer rushes forward, wielding the dagger in the air. Your palm turns frigid as you wait for him to close in on the space between you. You push the arm wielding the dagger to the side and release and ice spike into his chest.

The resistance against your arm loosens as the NPC freezes and goes limp, falling to the stone floor. The clatter of bones alerts you to the disintegration of his conjuration. As you scan the room for additional threats, you notice the bones burning away in black flames through your peripheral vision.

You watch as Suga stabs another necromancer in the stomach with a ghostly purple dagger and his spectral wolf familiar lunges and delivers the final blow. In an opposite corner of the chamber, Jin circles around a female necromancer, shooting bolts into her body with his crossbow as quickly as he can load them. His arms and chest are impaled with icy spikes. The NPC brings her palms together as they glow a pale blue.

You sigh with exasperation, but before you can fling a fireball at the necromancer to deliver the final blow, Eunhye rushes in with a war cry and cuts her down with her axe.

“Hey!” Jin shouts as he watches the female NPC buckle under the heavy blow. “I had that!”

Eunhye scoffs, placing a hand on her hip. “It sure didn’t look like it. To me it seemed like she was trying to make a vampire kebab.”

“She has a point,” Suga drawls with amusement. “I know you can use a short blade. Why don’t you?”

“I’m trying to branch out,” Jin replies, crossing his arms stubbornly. “I’m not that great at close combat and nobody else uses a crossbow in our guild.”

Suga sighs. “We don’t need more long-range fighters, hyung. Especially since it’s just us four today.”

“It’s fun, but I can’t be the only one bashing heads,” Eunhye pouts, resting her large, bloodied axe across her shoulders. You watch in momentary fascination as the red pigment on the blade begins to dissipate.

You shift your focus and snort at Eunhye’s single-mindedness about fighting. However, the comment rouses a thought to your mind. “Aren’t vampires usually close-range fighters?” you wonder aloud.

“I-I’m unique like that,” Jin stuttered, deliberately turning his face away from you.

“Don’t listen to him. He just doesn’t like how his vampiric form looks,” Suga says dismissively, as he crouches over the nearest necromancer to take their loot.

“Y-yah!” Jin exclaims, his tone indignant. “Paper white is not a good skin complexion.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” you deadpan. “You put yourself at risk over something superficial like looks.”

“It’s more for the irony of being a vampire and using a crossbow,” he mumbles unconvincingly, visibly shrinking under your scrutinizing gaze. After a few seconds, he twitches. “Aish! Fine, I’ll do close-combat.”

Thank you,” Suga replies emphatically. “We’ve been trying to get him to return to melee combat for weeks, but he insists on trying a new weapon every few days. It’s really jarring for our group dynamic.”

“Hush!” Jin protests. “You’re making me look bad in front of the ladies.”

“You do that to yourself, hyung.”

“Ya!”

“Well, I’m glad everything is settled then,” you interrupt the quarrel with amusement as you pat down the necromancer and engage their inventory menu. Your eyes widen when you select a specific scroll in their possession. “Oh? Suga, I think this scroll’s for you.”

The scroll manifests in your grip as you hold it out toward Suga. He looks at it curiously as he walks up to you and takes it from your hand. His eyebrows raise a fraction as he notices its name. “Scroll of Conjuration: Hellhound? Nice.”

“Definitely a step above a spectral wolf,” you nod approvingly.

“Likely a bigger drain on my mana, though,” Suga sighs, as he reads the scroll to activate it and add the conjuration spell to his arsenal.

“Ugh,” Eunhye rolls her eyes. “You nerds and your fake magic fighting.”

“Why are you so blood-thirsty?” Jin asks her, looking affronted despite the irony.

“Why aren’t you? Oh, wait,” Eunhye pauses and glances meaningfully at you.

Both you and Jin blush furiously before Jin sputters, “For the last time, I was not in control when that happened! I was set up!”

“Let it go, hyung,” Suga pats his back consolingly before Eunhye’s smirk can set him off again. “I think we should press onward.”

“Good idea!” your best friend exclaims as she lifts her axe from atop her shoulders and rushes into the next room of the necromancer crypt.

“She has way too much energy,” Suga drawls, trudging after her at a snail’s pace. You grin wryly and follow after her.


“Gah!” Eunhye screams gutturally as she attempts to slice through the spectral direwolf dungeon boss without much success.

“Eunhye! Stop wasting your stamina! You need a silver weapon in order to hit it. Or magic!” you exclaim as you fling a fireball at the wolf once you get a clear shot.

Eunhye ignores your advice and continues to attempt to hack away at the specter, ignoring the very physical swipe of its claws as they rake across her iron armor.

“_ , you need to get her out of there or she’ll die,” Suga states beside you as he summons his spectral hellhound with a dark black fire to fight alongside Eunhye.

You grit your teeth as you glance at Jin, who is playing his lute furiously in an attempt to fortify Eunhye’s health points. You loved your best friend with every shred of your being, but she could get extremely reckless during video games. Must be a stress thing.

Either way, you had no choice but to rush in and pull her away, considering that Yoongi was not a close-range fighter and was trying his best to direct his summons against the boss and Jin was too busy using his support skills to do any fighting.

You took a quick breath to steel yourself before running toward the specter and Eunhye. A quick look at her health point bar told you that she was dangerously close to falling victim to the wolf despite Jin’s hard work. One more power attack and she would be done.

While shifting your focus to the wolf, you notice in despair that it has begun the movements that signify the beginning of a power attack. You make a split-second decision and shove Eunhye away from the direwolf, taking the brunt of its powerful claws on your chest. Your eyes widen helplessly as your health bar decreases in the fastest speed it has ever decreased. Before you can shift to back off, the direwolf specter lunges at you, sinking its fangs into your neck.

As your health bar depletes entirely, you hear the gasps and panicked shouts of your friends. You fall onto the ground, unable to move at all as you watch Eunhye step forward and use a fire spell you hadn’t seen her perform since your first day of playing Animus Online, before she had sworn off of using any type of long-range attacks. From another angle, bolts from Jin’s crossbow are pelted relentlessly at the direwolf and the hellhound continues to attack the direwolf.

You muse in amazement about the continued fire assault from Eunhye, running footsteps approach your position on the ground. Your eyes turn to catch sight of Suga’s mint blue hair and his milky white face as he bends over you, opening his inventory menu hastily. His hellhound continues to fight without his directive as he retrieves a shockingly red feather tinged with orange, flaming edges. He places the phoenix feather over your body hastily, and jumps to his feet to avoid proximity with the direwolf.

You watch in amazement as your entire body begins to appear as if it has caught on fire. For a split second, you fear being consumed in it, but quickly realize that it is painless. Rather than agony, you feel the flames quickly invigorate you. You jump to your feet as soon as you feel the resistance keeping you glued in position dissipate. As you rush backwards to place some distance between you, you see your health bar filling up fully while the flames dissipate from your vision.

Eager to not waste any time, you charge your palms with mana, the ice magic a stark contrast to the warmth of the phoenix feather flames. You fling an icy spear at the direwolf as it finally manages to take down Suga’s hellhound summon. The spear sends it barreling backwards, and you don’t give it time to recover, throwing another spear at its ghostly flank.

The specter makes no noise as it falls to the ground and bursts into a ghostly fire that rages for a few drawn out seconds before dissipating, leaving a luminescent blue liquid in its place. Your shoulders slump as you allow your palms to drop to your sides.

Your party looks exhausted, but satisfied about the outcome. Eunhye perks up from the victory and quickly runs toward the dropped item. You walk over to Suga, who has taken a seat on the hard concrete. When you reach his side, you sit down with your knees pressed against your chest and your hands locked under your knees. He continues to stare off into space, appearing not to notice or mind your presence.

“Thank you for using your revival item on me,” you say in a low voice.

A few seconds pass before he turns his head slightly, just enough to lock eyes with you.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says in a steady, low voice.

You clutch your wrists harder. “Are you sure? You didn’t need to use that on me. You guys could have handled it.”

Suga snorts in response. “We were a mess even with your help. We would have gotten ourselves destroyed if I hadn’t revived you,” he states in a matter-of-fact tone, raising his eyebrow as if to challenge you to object.

You stare at your knees briefly, pouting slightly as you consider his words. “Well, thank you. I’ll work harder in the future.”

He grunts and gives you a small nod before shifting his attention back to Jin and Eunhye, who are walking around the room to examine the goods that had been left by the necromancer NPCs.

“Here it is!” Jin exclaims from a corner, lifting a small sack in the air for all of you to see. “Here’s the vampire dust we came for.”

You perk up at his words and stand quickly to jog over to his location next to an Alchemist’s station. Seokjin passes the sack to you for you to peruse its contents. You lift the edge of the leather sack, watching the fine particles of ash gray dust cascade as your hand shifts under it.

“And I have the nasty glowing goop we came for,” Eunhye chimes in as she joins your side. She holds up a glass jar filled with the luminescent liquid residue from the specter.

“Is that it, then?” you ask Jin nervously. The past few days had been full of trials. Just for a few days, you would rather prefer to enjoy peaceful experience and skill grinding rather than face murderous NPCs and players.

Jin nods in response, his eyes crinkling into a smile reassuringly. “Yes, I chose this location knowing there was a high chance we could find these two things at the same time.”

He gestures for you and Eunhye to place your items on an individual alchemical rune symbol on the Alchemist’s station. You both watch with anticipation as the Moon Flower you had retrieved yesterday materializes into his open palm with an ethereal glow.

The sound of soft scraping against the ground coming from behind you rouses your attention. You turn around to face Suga, who approaches your group looking slightly lethargic.

“Are the ingredients ready, hyung?” he yawns, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. Jin nods in response, stepping aside to allow the shorter male access to the alchemy table.

You grasp Eunhye’s hand affectionately as you both step aside to give him space. Eunhye squeezes your hand in response, turning to glance at you with a warm smile.

The soft glow of the Alchemy table causes you to shift your attention back to Yoongi, who stands above it with his palms over a glass alembic. You purse your lips in disappointment as the alchemical instrument is filled with glowing, dark blue liquid. Somehow, you had expected the potion-making aspect of the game to be more involved, like cooking. Perhaps they would update this aspect for the final release this weekend.

After bottling the dark, gleaming potion, Suga passes you the glass bottle wordlessly.

“Thank you,” you nod, taking the bottle. Staring at it for a moment, you nervously wonder whether potions could fail to work in this game. Or whether the potion would taste like something you would find between a ghost’s toes. Oh well, best not think about it. You press the rim of the bottle against your bottom lip. “Well, bottoms up, I suppose.”

Angling the potion, you gulp down its contents quickly, unable to attribute its taste to anything in particular. A holographic marquee appears in your field of vision, notifying you, “Your affliction has been cured.” The glass bottle disintegrates into pixelsbefore disappearing entirely.

You glance toward Jin excitedly. “It worked!”

Jin claps delightedly in response, before patting Suga’s shoulders. The mint blue-haired male merely nods with a small, confident smirk. Eunhye bounces on her feet while cheering.

“I was worried it would taste terrible,” you joke, eyeing the slight male with amusement.

“We’re lucky that the potions don’t really taste like anything. Don’t give the game programmers any ideas,” Suga replies with wry smile.

“Don’t think that you’re off the hook, Dracula,” Eunhye cuts in, prodding Jin’s large shoulder firmly. “Next time I hear you infect my dear friend, you’re getting the stake. And not the bloody kind.”

The blond man grimaces guiltily, but before he can say anything, you shake your head. “Ah, don’t worry about it. It wasn’t that serious and we had fun. Didn’t we?”

“Ahh,” Suga drawls thoughtfully. “I think I would have preferred working on my alchemy skills in the comfort of our guild home.”

“Don’t say that, Yoo – err, Suga,” Jin protests, tugging on Suga’s robe.

Before you can wonder what Jin’s slip was, the mint blue-haired male shrugs his hand away. “Come on, hyung, you owe us some lamb skewers since you got us into this mess in the first place.”

“Yes! Let’s go!” Eunhye chimes in agreement, quickly abandoning her aggressive stance.

Jin looks at you with a flustered expression as he scratches his neck. You give the older male a warm smile.

“That sounds great. Let’s have some more adventures.”

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lirimaer
5/6/16: Finally! I sat my down to write this all. I finished classes, so you can definitely expect frequent updates! Sorry for the wait...Hope you enjoy!

Comments

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baekluvyachan
#1
I can't wait to read this.
Aruchis11
#2
Chapter 6: i’m looooving the story!! gameau stories are so good, and the narration in this one is no joke, I feel like I’m in the game as well. It’s so sad you haven’t updated in a while thou :((((
Aruchis11
#3
Chapter 6: i’m looooving the story!! gameau stories are so good, and the narration in this one is no joke, I feel like I’m in the game as well. It’s so sad you haven’t updated in a while thou :((((
Tarako #4
Chapter 6: what a great read!! this story is so cool!!! please keep updating, can't wait for more intriguing adventures, hehe ❤
Anneme #5
Chapter 6: Gosh, I was so excited to see this story update! It's funny to see how differently (Y/N) reacts to the real world Yoongi and game Suga and cool to see that she previously had a history with Namjoon and it didnt end badly. Looking forward to the rest of the story!
hikari0415
#6
Chapter 5: It hurts to see the previous button only :(
starliet
#7
ah, i miss this so much : ((
bbyjeongguk
#8
Chapter 5: Oh my god, I've been obsessed with this story, I keep reading this (I've reread each chapter loads) even if it's only like five chapters. I hope you do continue, I understand if you're busy or not want to continue anymore. I hope you do! :) It's really good.
uroppa #9
THis was a greatttt read so far:'))) its ur choice really but i hope u continue this!!:-) hwaiting!
adeeada
#10
It's so good, I hope you will continue this amazing story :D