My Maple Life (based on my true Maple experience)

[austinpenguin]

-----Prologue-----
Lights of several colors swirled and twisted around me as I awoke to the feel of an uncertain pull from the bottom of the lights. I was being generated….created into this…this new world...with strange powers that I felt, but could not comprehend. Then, without any warning, I was sucked into the lights and landed onto a wooden, sun drenched deck.




-----Chapter 1------
I looked up at the sun, which was shining bright, and full of hope and energy. I stared up at the cloudless sky and wondered what my purpose in life was. As the crisp breeze blew through my long hair, I looked at my surroundings. A festive, giant banner hung from the trunk of a giant tree shouted “Training Camp” to my right. As I peered at my left, I saw that the deck had broke. On closer examination, several of the wooden beams supporting the deck had snapped, and the wooden planks had gave way.

Suddenly, a person stepped from the shadows. I stared at her. She ignored my straight, placid face, and smiled sweetly. She introduced herself as Sera, the founder of the Maple Training Camp. I told her my name was Austin. She explained to me that Maple Story was our community’s way of growing up. All adults were inside of this “new” world. That helped me understand why I rarely saw an adult before I came to this camp. In fact, the only adults I had ever seen was the one that came to my house three months ago.

[Flashback] Three months ago, my life changed. Three male adults dressed completely in black gave me a stack of papers and demanded that I go to this “place”. They left as soon as they came. I read the papers, each one, but each was more confusing than the next. They started in English, but as I read further and further, they were written in a strange language with curvy lines and oblong circles and strange runes. Seeing as I would never understand the papers, I threw them on my table. Immediately after, I went to bed.

When I woke, the majority of the papers were gone, with the exception of one. It was in plain English. “Don’t touch this paper, and be at the spot of this paper in exactly 92 days.”

92 days later, I touched the paper. [End of Flashback]




-----Chapter 2------
And here I am. Stuck in this “Training Camp” that’s supposedly where I have to spend the rest of my life. At least they could have made the place more interesting. All I could see was a flashy banner on top of a big hole in the middle of a gigantic tree. Suddenly, Sera spoke, and shattered my remaining thoughts of the past.

She asked if I would follow her. I didn’t say anything, but slightly nodded and turned to follow. We walked into the hole, and reappeared in a huge damp cavern. Sera motioned at a pile of clothes that I was to wear throughout my tour, and told me to change into them in the bathroom. When I emerged from the bathroom two minutes later, I felt stupid.

My long bangs were completely hidden inside my tight spandex jumpsuit. My head was covered by a green apple. The suit hardly fit me. I asked Sera if I had to wear it. She sighed and pushed me along. As we walked through the musty cavern, we passed videos of “adults” in their new jobs. Sera explained each one to me carefully.

We first passed by a large TV screen with a sign that said “Henesys”. I was confused, but Sera quickly cleared up the situation. She explained to me that there were 4 different jobs that I could choose once I finished my training course. The first one was the archer job. Sera explained that each job had its own city, and the bowman job was located in Henesys. The video showed a female archer shooting several large mushrooms with a skill arrow blow.

The next TV screen that we passed by displayed a female magician at Ellinia casting “magic claw” on large balls of slimes. How strange. The slimes and the mushrooms had happy faces on them. Apparently, Ellinia was built on trees, just like the training camp was. Yet the training camp carried a distinct similarity to what looked like the happiness and joy of Henesys.

Sera and I continued through the training camp. We passed by Perion’s totems and warriors. The video showed a warrior using power strike against axe stumps. Was it just me, or was everything alive here? After Perion was the shady city of Kerning. It looked as if Kerning was a former gangster town that had recently been raided by the police. Oil barrels with holes laid everywhere. There was nearly nothing that I could find that wasn’t vandalized with graffiti. The video on the big screen showed a thief throwing two stars at an octopus with three eyes. Sera explained to me that the thief was an assassin using lucky seven, a job skill. After the four cities that jobs in it, we came upon Sleepywood.

Sleepywood was a place of extremely strong monsters that required teamwork and great concentration to kill. Or so Sera claimed. I hardly believed a word that she said, but I listened nevertheless. It was an interesting story so far. In the Sleepywood video, I saw an archer, assassin, magician, and warrior fighting something that Sera called a golem. It was actually very interesting. It inspired me to do great deeds, train hard, and become one of the elites. Sera’s face showed that she thought that I was crazy, but she just smiled and continued on.

At the end of the damp cavern, we reached a shining blue light. It was nearly identical to the one that sucked me into the world of Maple Story. Sera explained to me that this was a portal. To use the portal, I simply had to relax and allow myself to go through. She demonstrated by going through the portal and coming back. She beckoned for me to try. I stepped into the shining blue light and attempted to do what she said. I closed my eyes and prepared myself to be sucked in. Nothing happened. I stared deep into the shimmering blue light.

As I stepped out of the portal, Sera said that I had done it all wrong. I needed to release my body, and simply allow the portal to take me through. I stepped back into the blue light and winced at its renewed intensity. This time, I blocked all thoughts and thought of nothing. Then, the pull came. It wasn’t as surprising this time, because I had already gone through the process once. The pull sucked my upper torso through first, and then my lower half. I slowly materialized on the other side.

Moments later, Sera came through and congratulated me at my ability to learn quickly. For the first time in 3 months, I smiled back.




------------------Chapter 3------------------
After Sera congratulated me for passing through the portal, she informed me that she would have to take her leave and go introduced other newcomers to the Maple Training Camp. She pointed at several adults standing in the larger chamber that I had come to, through the portal. “Those are your guides that will help you succeed in the training camp. I must go now. Listen to your guides, and listen well”, she said.

Sera walked back into the blue light and allowed herself to be sucked in. A moment later, she was gone. Feeling very alone, but still feeling at home, I walked over the first adult that Sera had pointed to. I tread slowly with my head pointed to the ground, still feeling quite silly about this whole “Maple Story adult life” and my stupid spandex jumpsuit. As I neared the guide, he looked up from his book and smiled cheerfully.

The guide’s name turned out to be Roger. After we got to know each other, he began telling me about “quests” in my adult life that would help me become stronger and rise in social status. I nodded my head and said that I understood. Then, Roger assigned me my first quest. It was to learn how to use potions. Suddenly, he hit my stomach hard and sent me sprawling. I jumped up quickly and screamed at him. He calmed me down after several minutes and told me that it was all part of the quest. Then, he handed me an apple. He said that attacks like the one that he just hit me with would lower my HP. If my HP got to 0, then I would die. In some cases, I would revive, but there was always a change that a person would never recover from his or her death.

I took the apple from Roger. He instructed me to eat it. As I ate it, I felt a tingly warmness spread throughout my body. The cuts and scrapes that were on my elbow from my fall faded. My entire body felt new, as if I was being reborn. It was great. Roger broke into a huge smile and clapped me on my back. He told me that I had completed my first quest.

As a prize for completing this quest, Roger gave me 2 experience points, 3 red potions, and 3 blue potions. He said that I would usually get a prize from a quest, but sometimes, the quest would be for my own good. As I walked along, I jumped onto a moving conveyor belt and surveyed more scenery from the outside world that I was soon to inhabit.

While I passed through Orbis, a young lady dressed in red called out to me. I quickly walked over to talk to her. She told me her name was Nina, and she needed my help to ask her little brother Sen what he wanted to eat. I agreed to help her. I continued to walk, looking for Sen. Several minutes later, I caught sight of him looking at a giant purple fish in the Aquarium of Aqua Road. When I walked up behind him, he heard me and asked me if I had anything to eat. I asked him if his name was Sen. He said yes. I told him to follow me. As we walked back to Nina, he told me about his love for fishing. He explained that Aqua Road was a long way from here, but it was his dream, to go there one day and work on Tae Gong’s ferry and fish for Poopas.

When we reached Nina, she was talking to another newcomer to the Maple World. We waited patiently until she had finished talking to him. Then, Sen told her that he wanted mushroom soup. Nina quickly made the soup and shooed Sen away. He drank his soup while sitting on multicolor bricks of Orbis’ docks.

Nina thanked me and gave me 3 experience points. I left Orbis and said my good-bye’s to Sen as I passed. As I continued to walk down the long cavern, I saw a sign that said “Ludibrium”. It appeared like the place was a toy castle. When I entered the door made of plastic blocks, puppets that were shaped as pandas, teddy bears, and pink teddy bears popped up all around me. Then a booming voice cried out. A large humanoid of plastic origins loomed in front of me. It trembled once, then asked for my name. I trembled in fear and backed away slowly as I told the Lego giant that my name was Austin.

Then, without notice, the giant fell to the ground. Its long arms crashed down upon me, like a toddler banging its list on a table, its cylindrical head toppled to the ground and rolled around until it smash into a wall, punching a hole through it, and the giant’s legs feel onto its knees, as if were begging for mercy, then fell. After the dust cleared, a dark shadow appeared. He looked frightened and apologized for nearly killing me. He introduced himself as Todd, the hunting master.

Then he chuckled to himself. He told me never to be scared while fighting, or else I’d lose. This was extremely hard to believe, seeing that he himself was frightened by the mysterious falling of the giant. Then, he showed me three weapons that I was to use to defend myself. An axe, a sword, and a club. He explained that I would eventually be able to find and buy better weapons, but these were the weapons that everyone in MapleStory started with. He demonstrated how to equip the weapon and use it. Then, he assigned me my third quest.

The quest was to eliminate one Leatty and one Drum Bunny, then get one Drum Bunny’s drum and one Leatty’s hairball. As I walked in the Ludibrium training ground, I saw the ground littered with small rabbits beating their tiny drums. I gripped the club that I had taken from Todd tightly. I maneuvered around the closest Drum Bunny and waited for it to come closer. My hands were sweating as I swung my club. As I swung the club at the bunny’s head, I hesitated. I faltered for a fraction of a second, feeling pity for the poor animal. In that fraction of a second, the bunny crashed into my leg, and my grip on the club slipped. It came flying through the air and hit me in the face. I fell on my back against the hard plastic floor. On instinct I closed my eyes. Even through my closed eyes, I could feel the bunnies circling me. I tried to get up, but I was dizzy, and my vision was blurred. As I stumbled through the crowd, I saw nothing but blurry pink blobs. I tripped on bunny and fell again.

This time, I had fallen on my face. Blood dripped from a small cut on my face as I attempted to get up sit up. My vision was still blurred, but I could see Todd swinging his sword through the ranks of the Drum Bunnies. They ran as fast as they could out of the way, but he killed at least ten of them. He came over to me and checked me for injuries. Thank goodness that I had no major injuries. After I drank the red potion that Roger had gave me, I felt good all over again. Potions did wonders to my body.

After I got back up, I walked over to the spot where Todd had killed a Drum Bunny. I lifted a drum that it had dropped and placed it in my backpack. As I walked back to Todd, he began lecturing me how to fight without hesitation. “Pity for a lowly creature is not what one should feel. In the beginning it will be hard, but once you fight a Crimson Balrog, you’ll feel no pity for any creature, save a human being. Now, go on to the Leatties.”

I listened carefully to what he had to say, and carefully crossed a small bridge that led from the Ludibrium training grounds to the cold, icy fields of El Nath. I looked up at the top of the simulation and saw a broken lamp and a snow machine. I chuckled at the poor design, but my smile disappeared when I saw Leatties floating around the end of the bridge. I stepped forward without hesitation and swung my club. Although the club didn’t go flying this time, I missed my target. Behind me, I could hear Todd shouting cheerful encouragement. I squinted my eyes, bent my knees and swung with all my strength on the Leatty’s head. The second I saw it go flying, I felt great remorse, but the sadness quickly went away when the group of Leatty’s frowned and charged at me, as if they were trying to avenge the death of their fellow comrade. I grinned mischievously and charged forward. I went into a fighting frenzy. My club was everywhere. Leatty’s hairballs went flying everywhere. A minute later, I bent over to pick up a hairball and walked back to Todd, panting heavily all the while.

When I returned to Todd to ask him for further instruction, his mouth hung open and his eyes were wide circles. He stammered “g-g-go, go t-t-o, to, to Pe-peeter……”

I stared at him as if he was paralyzed or had a disease and made my way to one of the last guides. When I spoke to Peter, he too was shocked. “You’ll become a great bandit someday….,” he said thoughtfully. Deep in thought, he took my items, tapped my shoulders and transferred 10 experience points.

Suddenly, a bright blue ring of light swirled around me and collided above my head. After the strange event, I was no longer exhausted and felt stronger than before. I stared at Peter, whom was oblivious to the event, for advice, but was interrupted by a strange laugh that seemed to echo from the end of the cavern. I ran to the source of the laughter. In front of the window sat a young girl. Still laughing, she told me her name was Heena. Her laughter calmed after a moment and then she explained to me what the lights were. It was a signaling to myself that I had achieved a new level, and therefore, I was stronger. At the moment, Heena said that I was lv. 2. Not strong at all, but at least I was stronger than before. “You are at the end of our training camp. Beyond here are monsters that you can kill, but monsters that even all the guides here working together could not kill. It is your duty to help the other adults of Maple to vanquish these monsters. Now, go on the new world!”

Without a moment to ponder the strange things that Heena said, she pushed me into the light.




------------------Chapter 4------------------
And for the third time that day, I flew through the shining blue lights. This time, it was different than the other two. This time the light enveloped me in a cocoon and my skin began absorbing it. It was like the first time that I went to the training camp, but this time, I could feel strength, agility, wisdom, and luck added to my body. The experience was not at all painful, in fact it was enjoyable. My skin was tickled as the light continued pouring into my body, supplying me with an endless energy. While the light did its job of strengthening me, I closed my eyes. My eyebrows furrowed, deep in thought about what my future brought.

In the past 8 hours, my life had been thrown in reverse. It turned out that the world that I was living in was a fake one, and one for children only. And now that I’ve turned 13, I’m in the adult world. One in which I must fight for my life and stop the monsters of the adult realm from destroying the adult world. If that happened, the delicate balance between the two worlds would be thrown in turmoil, and if the monsters found out how to return to the world of children, all would be lost. The human race as we know it today would end.

The soft, melodious background music in the portal suddenly went faster and faster. The sharp change brought me to my senses. The music grew harsher and more dissonant, and then……

…

I looked around.

…

Puffy clouds drifted lazily through the sky.

…

A perfectly clipped lawn shone, basking in the heat of the late afternoon sun.

…

Trees lined erupted from the earth in great patches of bark.

…

Green snails crawled along the well beaten dirt path.

…

Was this the adult world that I was to become familiar with? When I looked to my left, I saw a wooden post with two arrows pointing…east? I walked for several minutes along the patch carved out before me by wanderers long past. Up ahead of me loomed a distant shadow. I walked closer to the figure before me, but the light of the sun blocked my vision, and I could only see a shadow.

“Yoohoo!” the strange figured cried out.

“Hello?” I started nervously.

The mysterious figure chuckled. “First day here, huh?”

“Ya…could you point the way to Victoria Island? During the time I spent with Sera, I learned lots of things, including the names of different continents. Victoria Island was where I made my job advancement, so naturally, I inquired about this location first.

“Ahahahahaha….hahahahahaha” he laughed heartily. “My name’s Robin, and if there’s one thing that I can help you with, it’s that you’ll need all the guide’s help on Maple Island to get to Victoria. You’ll need to become stronger, MUCH stronger, if you want to live up to the expectation of any of the job masters on Victoria Island. I’ll teach you everything you need to master Maple Island, but some things you’ll have to figure out by yourself. Are you willing to commit yourself to learning all of this?”

“It’s not like I have a choice, so, ya, I suppose.” I mumbled.

“Okay, I’m glad that you’re willing to learn,” Robin said. “Some lessons you already learned in the training camp, so I won’t go into detail, but I’ll brush over it.”

“Sure, whatever…” I said boringly.

“Well, you’ve already learned to attack monsters, right? For now, you only know a simple attack, but it time, you’ll know cool moves like Assaulter, Panic, Explosion, or Strafe, depending on which job you chose. To chose a job, you have to go to Victoria Island and pass the job master’s test; you already know that. You also know what happens when you die; be careful, as sometimes, in a blue moon, you won’t recover from your death. Furthermore, deaths on Maple Island are okay; the guides are constantly watching and will come rescue you immediately. However, on Victoria Island and the land abroad, there are less guides, and you will have to rescue yourself. You will lose experience points after each death too.

“To become a warrior, you must have 35 strength and Dances with Balrog in Perion must approve of your physical condition. You’ll learn close combat skills to kill monsters. You’ll also have extremely high defense, but seeing as you’ll be wearing lots of armor, you’ll move extremely slow compared to other classes. To become a magician, strength is not needed, but intelligence and a little bit of luck is. At lv. 8, you’ll need to go talk to Grendel the Really Old in Ellinia, once you have 13 luck, and at least 20 intelligence. Magicians need to be wise, as they use spell based attacks. Unfortunately, magicians have extremely low stamina and defense. To become an archer, you’ll need some strength and lots of dexterity. With 25 dex at lv. 10, go talk to Athena Pierce in Henesys, and she’ll judge you if you’re capable of becoming an archer. Archers have extremely high accuracy and shoot arrows to attack. If you want to become a thief, you’ll need lots of luck; at lv. 10, you talk to the Dark Lord in Kerning City. Thieves base all their attacks on luck. There are claw thieves, assassins, whom throw stars, and dagger thieves, bandits, who use daggers to strike their enemies. All these classes are extremely powerful when you get to your 3rd job advancement and master all your skills. Currently, you are a beginner, but you’ll get there.”

I blinked at Robin after his long speech. Huh?

“So, any idea of what you want to become?” Robin asked.

“Uhhh….a thief looks like fun. I guess. I like how you can throw stars, but I prefer close combat still.” I replied.

“In that case, I’d suggest that you become a sindit, a combination of both an assassin and bandit,” Robin suggested. “However, this class is often frowned upon, as many people think they are weak. However, in my opinion, a sindit is much stronger than a regular bandit, or a regular assassin.”

“Okay, a sindit it is then,” I said.

“In that case, be prepared for criticism and rejection,” Robin warned. “Now, to continue your lesson; all items have stats, you can tell stats by how the item looks. For example, finer cloth would mean more defense, sharper blades would mean more attack, and religious symbols would mean more magic attack. Some items and or weapons require you to be a certain level and have certain stats before you can equip it. Since you’re going to be a sindit, you’ll find that a Shinkita, a dagger, requires you to be lv. 50 and have 90 dexterity, or dex, and 150 luck.”

“Level 50, huh? That seems a long way off….” I commented.

“Of course, but you’ll get there eventually. The more effort that you put into training, the faster you’ll get there,” Robin told me. “To buy weapons or armor, you’ll need mesos. Mesos are MapleStory’s form of currency.”

“Oh great, I don’t have any money…” I groaned.

“Currently, you don’t have any money, but once you get higher leveled, you’ll receive lots of mesos from selling items and monsters’ drops. To earn a few mesos now, all you have to do is kill a couple of the snails over there.” Robin pointed to the snails that’s were crawling along the hillside. “For now, that’s all I can teach you. Try talking to Sam, he’ll help you out too. Bye!”

“You make everything sound so easy,” groaned again, as I walked down the hill.




Chapter 5 is being written, I hope to have it finished by Wednesday. Sorry for taking so long to write this...>.>;;





Disclaimer: Nexon owns Maple Story and all it's parts, including but not limited to the maps and NPCs that I have described below. I do not own this game in anyway, nor do I make money from it. However the storyline and personal names I have created, or have been based on true facts from the past.

Copyright 2007, lulz


Thanks for reading! :D

[XxKiraYamatoxX]

Interesting. This fanfic has good potential!

[austinpenguin]

Or so you hope....this is my first one....now off to bed!

Btw...I'm only updating on first page.



Added the next chapter because I was bored, lol.

[DarkRanger]

Lol... it's good all right... but I think you need to upload them sloowly... like you said on YIM.

[austinpenguin]

T_T"
The prologue itself was too short, but you're right. I shoud've added more suspense. Don't worry, chapter 2 is really boring.

[maple123is123cool]

not bad but maybe put a little more in chapter one than the flashback lol

[XxKiraYamatoxX]

No dialogue = less elaborations.

Try using examples of dialogue from my fanfic.

[austinpenguin]

I don't like dialogue. T_T" But I'll look into it. I suck at writing, sorry....>.>

[austinpenguin]

Chapter 2 is out. I'm currently editing Chapter 3 and beginning on Chapter 4. I'll post a new a chapter at least twice a week, I got a lot done because it was the weekend. Comments plz! Thanks for reading! :D

[DarkRanger]

That's good. Thanks for the preview on YIM.