*(italics = game messages/text messages from this chapter forth)*

"I literally hate him," I said to no one but myself.

82 notifications flashed across my screen, or well, flashed was a generous word. They kept appearing, stacking up into a pile that was so long they were starting to disappear off one monitor and appear on the next. All from the same person though. My best friend at that, Jazz, the annoying part of this was the fact that every one of these messages was pointless. Like, absolutely pointless, they ranged from "Dude, I'm bored!" to "aaaaaa" and even, "If you don't get up, I'm going to hack your computer, and install a virus." Sometimes, I couldn't tell which one of us was more of the child. It was supposed to be me, but Jazz was giving me a run for my money.

We have quite an interesting relationship, but I wouldn't trade it for the world, after all, he was my best friend, and frankly, my only real friend. It was funny though, considering the fact we'd never met before. I'd probably spent more time with Jazz than any other single person I did manage to know face to face.

I yawned, kicking back in my chair and looking out my window before the fall of a snowflake brought me back to the present. I was a senior this year, and I still hadn't managed to get accepted into college. Things weren't looking good for me, given that it was already the middle of December, and the majority of my classmates had already received emails or letters stating that they'd been accepted. I was still waiting for mine, waiting was an optimistic term though. I was still hoping for mine. I opened my email with my fingers crossed.

Nothing. I wasn't shocked though. I was stressed, yes, but I wasn't shocked. I mean, I wouldn't say I'm stupid, but I wasn't academically gifted. I never had the attention span to study, I was mid-pack as far as my GPA goes. I was just hoping that some college would take me in, for my mom's sake, she was starting to completely stress out, and ramble on and on about how I would end up on the side of the road begging for money if some college didn't accept me soon.

My phone buzzed, and a notification slid down. It was a text from Jazz, 'Got stuck at work, won't be on for a few hours'.

He did not just send me that after spamming me for hours about how he was waiting on me.

I bit my lip to stop myself from letting out a long strand of curses.

Whatever, whatever, I'll just work on leveling up to prove I'm better than him. I didn't need to prove I was better than him though, it was something we both already knew, and by both, I mean me.

I sat my phone down, and the screen went black not long after that. I had to get in the zone. I shook my mouse to wake my computer back up, it's few minutes of inactivity had put it into sleep mode. My multicolored background met my eyes, and I clicked the golden icon on the right corner of my screen. 'The Legend of Quale' flashed brightly, then my screen went black as the game started to load. I felt like recently all I had done was play this game, I mean, nothing bad about it, it was just consuming every part of my waking day at this point. It was the best game out there right now. It was a multiplayer VR game, it had limitless possibilities, and held many hours of endless fun and adventure. It did have an overall goal though, to climb the tower, and save the princess.

Very cliche...

The only catch was the princess was locked away up at the top, and you had to conquer 100 separate floors and kill 100 separate bosses to get to her, and there was rumored to be a huge boss at floor 100, but no player had ever made it that far. The game was very hard, plus it offered new challenges each and every time you played it.

And to further prove its difficulty, I would consider myself a pretty decent gamer, but I had never managed to make it past the 12th floor.

I grabbed my headset and waited for the game to finish loading, it didn't take long thankfully. I sat back in my chair and relaxed, I knew I wouldn't be moving for quite some time.

I was currently level 27, and a wood elf, playing with the name Vikton. I wasn't as good as Jazz, but that wasn't important right now. I needed to farm some low-level creatures, and complete missions to gain XP. I wanted to avoid the tower at all costs, and conflict at that, but before I knew it, time had slipped away and I had been playing for nearly two hours.

Vik was currently in pursuit of a deer, following it. quietly through many bushes. He watched his footing on the ground, carefully, looking to avoid the slightest bit of noise, whether it be a leaf or a branch, the crunch would be the end of him. The deer stopped, and Vik drew his bow from the quiver and pulled back the string preparing for the shot. Just as the arrow went to leave his hands, a shout distracted him from behind, and the arrow went straight over the deer lodging itself in a tree, and scraping away the bark.

"Bro, you're trash," a familiar voice said. Vik knew immediately who the voice was.

Vik sighed and slid his bow back into the carrier he was wearing on his back. "Jazz, you're a jerk," he mumbled, turning around to see Jazz casually sitting crisscrossed on the ground.

"What was that Vik?" Jazz asked with an innocent sparkle in his eyes.

"Just me saying how much I love and appreciate you Jazzy Wazzy," Vik said, rolling his eyes, extremely sarcastic.

"Ah, how sweet," Jazz said as he jumped up. "I know I'm extremely appreciated, you're hopeless at this game without me, and pretty much every other game, you're kinda bad bro."

"That's not true!" Vik said, defending himself.

"Oh, really?" Jazz asked, walking around Vik in a circle as if he was evaluating him. "How much did you manage to accomplish why I wasn't here?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"Believe it or not, I accomplished quite a bit actually, I learned some valuable tips," Vik said while he kicked a rock.

"Uh-huh, I'm choosing 'or not, you're just coming up with excuses because you don't want to admit you're wrong," Jazz said with a smirk.

Vik pulled out his sword and pointed it at Jazz, "Well you can choose to do whatever you want, but the facts are, I'm a higher level than you now, so I'll be carrying you, and we'll see who really is the better player," he said, turning around and walking off towards the tower.

Jazz followed after Vik, "We won't make it past 20, even with my healing spells," he said.

"Stop being such a pessimist, it's that attitude that won't get us past level 20, not our ability."

"My apologies," he said quickly, Jazz then stood up, and dusted the dirt from his robes before standing straight up, "I know we'll make it to the top! Even if I only have 200 hp!" he said over-enthusiastically.

"That's why Mage is single-handedly the worst class in the game, it's useless, and I fail to see why you even picked it," Vik said while cutting bushes ahead of them.

"Mage isn't useless," Jazz said angrily, "I do remember saving your ass at least 4 times last week alone." He stopped following Vik, "If you think you're so good without me, I'll just wait right here for you to respawn after you die on the 12th floor," Jazz crossed his arms and leaned against a tree.

"Oh, my deepest apologies, sir mage-god, I forgot about the mere 4 times you managed to be useful," Vik said, sarcastically, getting down on his knees. "My lord and savior Jazz, I humbly beg for you to forgive me and carry me through the super scary demon tower," he said while raising his arms up and down as if he was praising Jazz.

Instead of saying anything Jazz just kicked him in the face, and then pushed past him, knocking Vik from his knees to face planting him into the ground.

"Ow rude," Vik said, rubbing his face, and picking himself up slowly.

"It's a video game, you're not really hurt," Jazz said, rolling his eyes, "stop being a baby, let's go."

"My pride hurts," Vik said, jumping up, and following after him.

Vik wasn't paying attention, too busy thinking about other things, and when he looked up, the only thing he saw was himself running straight into Jazz's back.

"What the f-" Vik started, but he was cut off by Jazz's hands. Jazz had held one finger to his own lips, and then pointed at the guard in front of the tower.

Vik had a moment of realization thinking about a statement that Jazz had made earlier. Maybe he was really dependent on Jazz, and not that strong of a player on his own. "Thanks," he mumbled.

"SHhHhHhHhHhh" Jazz whisper-yelled back. "Thank me after I beat this guy." Jazz had already raised his staff and was mumbling like a maniac.

"Dude, what language even is that?" Vik asked jokingly.

All of a sudden the goblin that was standing outside the tower just simply fell over, and the victory music started playing. Jazz leveled up 5 times off of that one kill, the notifications kept showing up above his head. He smiled at Vik viciously.

"What the hell?" Vik asked, completely confused. He'd been playing for hours and only managed to gain 13 levels, it took Jazz less than 10 minutes and he'd already nearly halved Vik's progress. He threw his hands up in the air dramatically, "this game is classist," he scoffed.

"Get good bro," Jazz said with a grin so fierce his eyes were closed due to his elevated cheekbones.

The goblin guard was disintegrating into nothing as most of the mobs did in this game, although since it was a very low-level guard, it didn't drop any items. Sometimes if you were lucky, you could get legendary loot, but at this current moment in time, Vik was relieved to see it drop nothing. He didn't want Jazz to be able to flex on him any harder.

Both Vik and Jazz were on high alert as they left their place in the forest and started towards the entrance to the tower. They'd been here many times before, but they always seemed to make their way back to the front. Jazz was leading the two and he pushed open the two large wooden doors that stood at least seven feet tall; they made a horrible screeching sound as they opened, alerting any nearby mobs that they had visitors. The pair stepped into the darkness and prepared themselves for anything.

The inside of the tower was always Vik's least favorite part of the game. It was always dark and spooky, and Vik didn't have a high tolerance for that stuff, he was a bit of a crybaby. To make matters worse, the room was barely lit, and the only light was coming from tinted windows. It's what made the game truly difficult, you could never see where your enemies were lurking.

"Jazz, you got anything for the darkness?" Vik asked nervously.

"Are you scared Vik?" Jazz asked with a laugh. "You're a grown-ass man and you're afraid of the dark?!"

"In my defense, I'm not a man, and use your damn fireball spell, and shut up."

"That's not how you ask nicely," Jazz said, walking ahead faster, leaving Vik alone in the dark.

Vik stopped walking forward and stood in the darkness, hoping his friend would come back to him. "This isn't funny," he said, pausing for a moment, but when there was no response he spoke up again. "I'm not laughing Jazz, help me out here," he spoke shakily, even his voice was selling him out for his lack of courage.

"Yeah, sorry, I forgot I game with a child," Jazz said, throwing his hands up and then holding a small ball of fire in his left hand.    

"It's like 2 years, that doesn't make me a child, it just doesn't make me an adult, and I'll be 18 soon, so stop running your mouth," Vik said, grabbing a hold of Jazz's arm and dragging him around like a torch.

"What am I? Chopped Liver?" Jazz asked after trying to put up a fight but losing.

"Actually, you make a very nice flashlight," Vik responded while pulling Jazz up the stairs.

"Glad I could be of service."

Vik suddenly stopped dragging Jazz at the top of the stairs and let go. Jazz wasn't prepared, and fell straight onto the ground, his head banging against the floor. Before Jazz thought to complain about Vik's behavior he realized the reason behind the actions. They were on the first floor of the tower, they would have to fight the first boss which was moving somewhere. Jazz shook his hand, extinguishing the flame so they wouldn't catch any unwanted attention.

The boss of the first floor wouldn't exactly be a challenge, it wasn't supposed to be. The only thing that made this floor difficult was the extreme lack of light, it was by far one of the darkest floors the pair had managed to see together, or well, on that note, not see.

"What's the plan Jazz?" Vik asked, squatting so he could hover over Jazz's shoulder. Jazz was still on the ground, he was sitting crisscrossed, which was his thinking pose.

Jazz stood up, and wiped the dirt from his robes, before then fixing his hat. "The plan.." Jazz started but then stopped to fix his glasses, "is for you to kill this thing while I will be bait."

"I love the plan," Vik said with a relieved sigh, he stood there for a moment, watching Jazz, but after Jazz wasn't moving he piped up again, "so uhhh, you gonna get to it?"

Jazz sighed and pulled his hat further down over his face, he threw up one of his hands and relit the fireball before dropping it and kicking it across the room. "Look at me," Jazz yelled very unenthusiastic, "a nice delicious mage." He paused and then sat down on the floor. "It would be a shame if I came upon a big scary monster."

Jazz had managed to wander to the middle of the room, and he was now sitting there. Even while holding his fireball, the room was still poorly lit, so bad in fact, he couldn't even see Vik from where he was. He quickly scanned the room, he was on high alert, looking for any kind of movement. At first, he thought he hadn't been loud enough to wake up the sleeping floor boss, but movement out of the corner of his eye told him that his initial hypothesis was incorrect.

Now, in his situation, a normal person would be freaked out, or even preparing to fight the unknown creature that was circling him, and eyeing him like he was the turkey during Thanksgiving, but not Jazz. He did quite the opposite of being worried, and simply laid down flat on the cold concrete floor of the tower; completely unnerved. He had full faith that Vik would handle the boss, it was only level six.

"Oh no, help!" Jazz spoke in a monotone voice. "I'm a damsel in distress, I need a big ol' hunk to rescue me."

"You're out of luck!" Vik yelled back from the dark side of the room.

"Darn"

Vik did his best to focus on the task at hand, and not his "damsel in distress", he saw the small creature moving quickly across the room towards Jazz. Who on that note was surprisingly playing a great bait, he'd have to remember to compliment him later. The only thing that seemed to puzzle Vik was that the creature wasn't a demon or a goblin, it was too small, and a smaller body meant more accuracy with his shot. He lifted his bow from his back and drew an arrow from his quiver. Due to the fact, his character was an elf, the dark room wasn't exactly a big problem as he could see the creature's movement quite well. He drew the string back and got ready to shoot just a bit ahead of the creature so that the distance and speed factors wouldn't affect his shot. One of his skills as a level 40 elf was an ability called 'missile blow.' Its name kind of explained it all. It was a one-shot arrow ability that targeted whatever the shooter said before letting it fly. It was a good attack but it's damage wasn't that high, but for the low level they were fighting, it was plenty enough to kill it in one hit.

Vik took a deep breath, "Floor 1 Boss," then released the arrow, the air hissing, as the arrow flew by. Vik knew his shot had been a success when he heard the body fall with his advanced hearing, another elf perk. The victory music played and he gained xp.

"Where you at Jazz?" Vik called into the dark room. He could see the fireball in the center of the room, but he didn't see Jazz near it.

Jazz rolled over, stood up, calmly walked towards the fireball, picked it up, and extinguished it. Jazz wasn't concerned with the dark and knowing Vik's location, he had cast a tracking spell way before they even entered the tower, he always thought ahead. Vik shined very brightly on Jazz's map, so he just casually walked through the dark room before stopping directly in front of Vik, who in turn didn't see him, he could tell that by the fact that Vik still seemed to be looking in the distance for him.

"Right here you oaf, can we go now?" Jazz asked standing directly in front of Vik.

Vik stepped back, shocked a bit, he was slightly disappointed in himself for not sensing Jazz walking up, but he quickly got over it, and let out his withheld excitement about his successful ability usage. He had never managed to actually kill anything with it before, only slightly injuring his target, or missing it entirely. Sometimes he even forgot to give the arrow and command, causing it to catch flame midair, and burn up.

"You can't lie, that was awesome!" he said excitedly, jumping up and down. He looked as happy as a kid in a candy store.

"Congrats on actually hitting something this time," Jazz said. "Maybe you aren't that trash, just not as good as I am," he said while locking his hands behind his head egotistically, as he walked leading their way up to the next floor. He always took the lead as Vik was directionally challenged.

Jazz turned the corner and saw the next set of stairs, he took them, but before taking his first step he made sure to warn Vik that they were there, he knew if he didn't his elven friend would manage to trip into the staircase, and well, Jazz knew that the two of them needed all the health points they could manage.

"Stairs, don't fall."

"Thank you," Vik said as he took his first step onto the staircase following Jazz up, sticking close behind him, like a baby duck does to its mother.

As they stepped onto the second floor, they both realized how different the room was, in comparison to the first floor, this one was the sun. Its bright atmosphere was blinding them at first, but they didn't have time for that. As soon as they stepped onto the floor, the floor boss was charging directly at them. This floor's boss was a rather overweight goblin, he was running straight at them with a large wooden bat in tow.

Jazz stood still, not acting upon their incoming threat, but Vik wasted no time. He pulled his bow from his back and grabbed two arrows from his quiver placing them into his bow frantically. He grabbed the string, and pulled back, letting the arrows fly from his fingers fiercely, they hit the target and the large goblin fell to the ground and started to decimate.

"Seems like I'm doing all the work here Jazz," Vik stated while wiping the fake dirt from his hands off onto his pants.

"Well, what was I supposed to do genius?" Jazz asked hypothetically. "Beat it on the head with my staff? Die? I'm out of my league when we are attacked immediately, it takes time for me to use magic, stupid."

"And this, this is why mage is worthless."

"You're worthless," Jazz said as he in turn brought his staff down on Vik's head dealing 15 damage points.

"OW," Vik said as he checked his stats and saw the missing 15 health points. "If beating someone with the staff does that much damage, then yes, please hit our enemies with the wood."

"To be frank, I'd actually never tried that."

"Please, let your intrusive thoughts win if they are helpful in the field of battle," Vik said, rubbing his head as he walked off towards the stairs to the next floor. He didn't exactly need Jazz to lead him because he was able to see the stairs entirely. He also needed to give Jazz as much time as he could to prepare a spell for the next floor, another down perk of being a mage, it took a lot of time in between battles for them to be able to do anything again.

The two of them were climbing the next set of stairs when they heard yelling, so they rushed up the stairs to the next floor to see what was causing such commotion.

An angry warrior was screaming at a small ninja, who Vik and Jazz assumed to have been his partner. The two of them were arguing over who was to take the loot from the boss. Vik and Jazz exchanged looks, silently agreeing to try and sneak past the commotion, and take the free passage to the next floor.

"Hey! Wizard boy and Legolas, what do you think you're doing?" The warrior asked.

"Going to the next floor.?" Jazz said, trying to avoid a conflict.

"Got a problem with it, runt?" Vik said to the warrior, obviously not amused with being called Legolas.

"Actually I do, you seem like an asshole, and therefore I think I'm gonna take your loot," the warrior said.

"Come at me pipsqueak, I'd like to see you try," Vik said, fueling the warrior's anger. He threw up his hands in front of him mocking what it would look like if two kids were fighting in the hallway in middle school.

Jazz held back a laugh before walking in front of Vik, pushing his hands down. "Ladies, ladies, you're both pretty, shake hands and let's move on with our lives, I know you guys don't really wanna fight over these pointless insults."

"Shut up you stick shaker, what do you know about fighting, you're wearing a dress!" the small warrior screamed back.

Jazz put his arms down, and took a deep breath in before turning towards the warrior.

"Oh shit, you've done it now," Vik added, taking a few steps back, he'd seen his friend angry before, and frankly, it wasn't pleasant, but it was amusing. It was one of those times when you wished you had popcorn to watch the show unfold.

"Now listen here kiddo, first of all, the mage is a gift from the heavens. No one would make it anywhere without their trusty partners constantly saving their ass, just like your mommy saves yours. I reckon you insulted the wrong man, now you could have insulted my idiotic elf partner over there," he said pausing for a moment and pointing at Vik before continuing. "And we would have been fine, but then, then you had to insult me, and I don't take a liking to it, I strongly think you should apologize now, and we move on with our lives, and you don't have to go all the way back to level 1," he finished up his statement by rubbing his hands together, igniting them both.

"I ain't afraid of no cross-dresser, '' the warrior argued back.

Jazz picked up his staff and took a position in which his hands were closed around it. Vik knew it was a sign that he was about to cast some kind of spell, so he quickly moved to where he was in front of Jazz in order to protect him from incoming damage while he was preparing.

"This is gonna be good," Vik said, taking a stance, and pulling his bow higher up.

Jazz never entered a battle unprepared, the second the two had started up the steps, he realized they had opponents. He had cast a spell right then and there to allow himself to see their levels and inventory.

"Level 4 Ninja, & Level 15 Warrior," Jazz stated swiftly, "you stand no chance against me and my friend here."

"Hu-hu--how do you know that?" the small ninja asked curiously.

"A good magician never reveals his secrets." "

Vik couldn't help the smile that was creeping across his face. That was good. He'd have to tell Jazz later that his sense of humor was ten times better than his choice in classes.

"We should go," the tiny ninja said, stepping back and tugging on her warrior friend's sleeve. "This is a bad idea, Greg."

If Vik had to guess, he'd say she was a younger girl, she was very timid. He didn't want to end up fighting her, it seemed to be her first time playing.

"I ain't afraid of you being able to read," the warrior barked back, he raised his sword, "are you going to fight me or stand there like a wimp," he taunted.

Jazz didn't respond, he was already busy working on his attack, he was preparing a large fireball, it was larger than any fireball Vik had ever seen before.

"How much damage is that thing gonna do?" Vik whispered to Jazz.

"Currently? Uh, I'd say anywhere from 2-3 hundred, it's still going up though," a mischievous grin was fairly visible.

"Why so quiet?" the warrior asked demandingly.

Vik stepped forward towards the small angry man wielding a sword, "Greggy, listen to your little girlfriend here and leave," he said, giving a shooing motion as if he was trying to cool off a cake right after it came out of the oven.

"I'm tired of your shit, you're just an overconfident old man," the warrior said, approaching Vik with a raised sword. "I'm going to end your little gaming career right now, by the time I'm done with you, you're gonna wanna delete the game!"

"Is that all?" Vik asked amused, he couldn't help from laughing, the kid was just so un-intimidating.

The kid lost it, he charged at Vik with no prior warning and went straight for his legs. With no time to spare, Vik leaned backward on his left leg and grabbed an arrow from his quiver with his right hand. He gracefully placed it into his bow before pulling it back effortlessly, and letting the arrow whistle through the air, straight into the warrior's arm, his sword dropped to the ground with a clank.

"One shot isn't enough," the kid screamed back, he used his spare hand to break the arrow off, dropping the feathered tail to the floor, and he snatched his sword back up with his left, uninjured arm. The warrior, scratched but not down, was closing in on Vik, and in turn, he was starting to panic. He reached behind him to pull another arrow from his quiver.

"Forgetting something?" a feminine voice asked.

Vik froze.

Shit, shit, shit.

He'd forgotten about the ninja, and at some point, she had crept up behind him. He took a deep breath in, he didn't have time to panic right now. Vik took a deep breath and tried to reach for an arrow quickly. The ninja girl beat him to it though, she slashed at his fingers with her kunai blade leaving a deep cut across his joints.

"Shit," he cursed, his blood dripping to the floor, and he was losing continued health points. "That was poison," he said with a groan.

"Are you losing to children?" Jazz asked unamused.

"Get your damn fireball," Vik aggressively answered, with his slashed hand, he held his bow in his left hand and swung his arm back hitting the ninja in the face, and throwing her off of his back. Unfortunately, he wouldn't have a chance to breathe, by the time he had managed to turn back around the warrior was right in front of him, he turned back as fast as he could, putting his bow up to block the incoming blow. Wood shards hit the floor, the silver blade was slowly tearing through the wood, Vik would have to come up with a plan B, and fast at that.

Before he really had a chance to act, he was distracted.

"MOVE!" Jazz yelled turning and releasing the fireball from his hands, it had to be the size of a head.

It passed by Vik, and the warrior, and went straight to the center of the room, almost like a missile.

"What in the hell..?" Vik asked, confused. "You completely missed!"

Jazz had no time to answer Vik's snarky remark before the fireball did something unexpected, it completely blew up. The room started to shake, and it was almost like a nuclear bomb, the waves off of it started to slowly move towards the warrior, burning everything in its path.

The warrior stood in shock, not moving, or well, better yet, it was more of the fact he couldn't move, his shoes had melted to the floor due to the temperature of the room. The flaming wall passed the warrior, leaving nothing but a pile of scorched armor to clink down to the floor.

"That sucks bro," Vik said.

"Vik..." Jazz said trailing off.

"Yes?"

"Your shoes are stuck too."

"You're kidding me."

"I am not, and uh, the fireball isn't stopping," Jazz said pointing at the firewall which was practically on top of them now.

"I literally hate you," Vik said. All of a sudden, right before it reached the hairs of Vik's head, the firewall stopped moving. A relieved laugh suddenly came over him. "I take it back. How'd you stop it?"

"I didn't?" Jazz asked, confused.

"That's odd, a glitch I guess," Vik paused for a moment, "well, whatever, glitch or no glitch, I'm grateful, it saved us from losing hours of progress just because you decided to try out a nuclear fireball."

"I'm not apologizing for it, it was awesome," Jazz said with a wide smile across his face.

The firewall was not disappearing, and their shoes were still lodged, "I wonder why the game isn't resetting us yet?" Vik asked.

"Not sure."

And with that, the firewall blew up, the two of them instantly getting shot down to zero HP. The big red words, "Game Over," flashed.

"You're kidding me," I said angrily. I'm not going to lie, I started saying a lot of stuff I wasn't exactly proud of on our call, and I didn't exactly stop, and I wasn't going to until Jazz apologized for wasting 7 hours of both of our lives.

"I'm muted," I said out loud to myself before closing my eyes and leaning back in my chair.

That son of a bitch muted me.

I didn't plan on going anywhere, I was waiting until I got my apology, and I didn't care if I had to stay up all night to get it, Jazz would eventually have to come back.

That concludes the first chapter! Please let me know if you like this POV style more or less than the old version, I mean, personally, I seem to feel the story is more realistic and fun! I cannot wait to see where this journey takes us. <3