World of Duty

My guild is under attack, we PvP all the time, but this is our ultimate test. If we die here, we will not be able to log back in, it will be as if our characters died. The interface is close to the pinnacle of full immersion. Our bodies control our characters flawlessly, and the only way I can tell that it is a video game and not real life is the cartoony environment, otherwise it stimulates my senses flawlessly. The cartoonish environment creates a sharp juxtaposition with the fierce modern warfare battles that take place on it. It's cold and raining, night is unforgiving in our PvP campaign. We check to make sure our guns are fully loaded and that we are set up in the most defensible position. Most of us are set up under a large over hang. The rocky banks of a swift flowing river extend right up to the edge of the evergreen forest. Ages ago the river ate away the bottom of the gigantic bolder that now shelters us, or that's what would have happened if it was an actual river and not a virtual one.

Enemy commandos are advancing on our position. I can't see or hear them but I know they are close. The rain clears and the moonlight gives us a clear view of the tree line across the river. We watch as the enemy spring from the darkness and rush for the river. We turn on our laser sights and fire wildly. This is different from our usual calm and precise combat operations. Everyone is nervous now that everything is on the table. My heart is racing and I'm trying to pick off the people closest to our position. A lone guild mate has taken cover behind a small bolder outside of the cave at my 10 o'clock. I'm desperately trying to keep their forces off of him. He seems oblivious to his danger, three times snipers prevent his inevitable demise.

The rain starts again and the moon no longer guides our bullets, flashes of lightning are our only sources of information. We've repelled the fist wave of enemy forces successfully but the second wave is more highly trained. Tiny red dots in the distance mark the coming of the second wave, aiming towards their laser sights we fire frantically. I dash out of the overhang and scramble up to the top of the bolder. 10 o'clock is still there, but there are red dots all around his position. I fire blindly, then aided by lightning, but he's already dead. Maybe I killed him, maybe I helped as much as I could. I'm crushed that he's gone, but we've survived the second wave, we bunk down for the night.

In the morning we have to travel all the was across the map. We could use flight points, and some of us have horses, and a couple want to catch the zeppelins, but we decide to hike instead. We banter lightly as we hike away from river, down the rocky slopes to Thunderbluff. The ground here is split up into steep rectangular sections, as if a poorly made checkerboard was elevated a small amount with every new row, with slight variations within the row, so that the first row was ground level and the last row, our current position, was 300 feet higher. Snow still covered the ground so we slid and jumped from level to level, quickly reaching dangerous speeds with no way to stop. Flying down the slope with the cold air stinging my eyes, I struggled to keep my balance. Adrenaline pulsed through my body at every near miss and I thought my heart would burst, but then I was at the bottom catching my breath. I made a mental note to return here to do that again someday. Our unit split up here as we each made our own way to Orgrimmar. I sauntered over to the Flight Master and savored our victory for the first time. The sunrise, now early morning sun, warmed my face as my mount leveled off and turn toward home.