Now wrapped in the cloak Bram had given him, Arthur felt pretty comfortable. The cold, biting wind wasn’t bothering him anymore.
The chill couldn’t touch him, but his hair still whipped around wildly, and he felt a small jolt of fear every time he looked down.
"Scared of heights?" Bram teased. "Relax, if you fall, you just respawn anyway. Wish I had that."
"It still hurts, though. I’d rather not fall if I can help it."
The moment he said that, Bram yanked the reins and sent the chameleon veering sideways. Arthur had to grab on tight to keep from sliding off.
"Man, you’re funny."
"Yeah, yeah, I know."
With nothing else to do while the chameleon flew, Arthur settled into watching the scenery pass below.
The floating dragon island sat far out over an ocean that stretched endlessly in every direction, nothing but water below. The island itself hovered high up, well above the clouds.
It was always drifting, but so slowly that it took ages to notice any real change in position. The island was massive too, which made any movement even harder to spot.
That was probably part of why no player had ever found it before the expansion officially launched. Getting there was next to impossible given the distance, and even if someone managed it, the level 100 monsters patrolling both the waters and the skies around the island would have wiped them out in seconds.
Arthur and Bram slipped past those monsters easily, the chameleon’s ability turning them invisible.
"Why haven’t I seen any dragons?" Arthur asked.
The question had been gnawing at him. When the expansion first launched, the dragon kingdom looked nothing like this.
The kingdom had been at war. Humans against dragons. Or really, humans and dragons against another faction of dragons.
A rebellion had broken out among the dragons. Most sided with the rebellion, and only a handful stood with the humans.
That rebellion was the whole backbone of the expansion’s main questline, helping either the humans or the rebel dragons. Players were the ones who’d end up deciding which side won, reshaping the kingdom for good.
But apparently the rebellion hadn’t started yet.
"Dragons love hibernating in caves. Barely any of them are active. There’s one in the city, underground. He’s the city’s guardian and he’s the one who crafted a bunch of the magic around here."
"How does a blacksmith know all that? Sounds like something pretty secret."
"Like I said, I’m not just any blacksmith. I’m a legendary one. You can start treating me with some respect. You’re my dear apprentice, sure, but nothing’s stopping me from smacking you around a bit, especially knowing you’ll just come back to life..." Bram shot him a wicked grin.
"...You’re insane..."
With nothing much to do until they reached the kingdom of Aldora, Arthur pulled up all the footage he’d recorded so far, clips from inside the shop, bits of the city, and now the flight on the chameleon, and posted it all to the game’s forum.
His nickname, both on the forum and in-game? Cinder. He thought it fit well.
In Chronos Online, players could hide their names from floating above their heads by wearing cloaks or certain special items. To avoid exposing their real name and tag, they could pick any nickname they wanted, and that was what showed up to other players and in the system logs.
Arthur would now be known as Cinder to everyone else.
His forum profile picture showed him wearing that stylish cloak Bram had given him, throwing up a thumbs up. The classic pose every guy defaulted to.
He’d snapped the photo looking into a mirror inside Bram’s shop.
The moment he posted the videos along with a short description, his post got flooded with comments and views.
Everyone wanted to know where Arthur was. Players scrambled to investigate, sending in photos of their own starting kingdoms, and in under an hour, Arthur had become the most talked-about mystery in the entire game.
Josh67: I went through the footage from every starting kingdom and he’s not in any of them. And he’s already flying, inside a city no less. How is that even possible? Is he exploiting a glitch, using cheats, or is he a Game Master?
That was just one of dozens of comments about him. Everyone wanted answers, and because of that, his first video crossed 10 million views in just three hours.
That was unheard of. Arthur checked how much money he’d made off the ad revenue, and the number came out to $6,300.
’Not bad at all for my very first video!’
Making that video hadn’t cost him any real effort either. All he’d done was record the cool stuff he’d already stumbled across. No fancy editing required.
Anyway, on the rest of the flight to Aldora, Arthur didn’t record anything else. The game capped filming at three minutes a day. Recording just anything wasn’t worth it. He needed to save it for moments that would actually spark curiosity and rack up clicks.
’My profile already has 300k followers. I’ve never had anything close to this in my life!’
Every eye in the game was on the mysterious player known as Cinder. Even the Game Masters were watching now.
"We’re getting close," Bram said, pointing toward the horizon. "See those frozen peaks?"
The Frozen Kingdom of Aldora. They were finally almost there.
They flew over forests, rivers, and mountain ranges, everything blanketed in snow, the cold growing more brutal by the mile.
"So where are these Chosen Ones like you?" Bram asked.
"Everyone spawned into this world at level 1, same as me. So they’d be stuck in the smaller villages where the monsters are weaker. We won’t run into any in the cities yet."
Bram knew the kingdom of Aldora well, and since they were heading toward one of the bigger cities, their path took them right past the starting villages where the players were.
From up in the sky, Bram watched players fighting monsters below. He saw a few die, their bodies vanishing and sending them back to the starting village, exactly like what had happened to Arthur.
"You really were telling the truth. And there’s a ton of them."
"I’d guess this kingdom probably has the fewest. The cold is brutal if you’re not ready for it. Every other kingdom’s probably packed with way more Chosen Ones than this one."
Bram was finally seeing it with his own eyes. The players were going to change the fate of every kingdom, every continent. He was sure of it now.
After that quick, distant survey, the two of them flew on toward the city of Snowpine.
They landed the chameleon a short distance from the city and walked the rest of the way to the gate.
The moment they arrived, guards rushed toward them, surrounding them with spears and swords raised.
"Halt!"