Annath’s forum post included a short clip as “proof” that Veyra was cheating—a ten second video recording of the battle earlier. Specifically, it showed Annath facing Veyra one to one after blowing me to the side. Veyra cast [Chronorift], the ice wall, [Time Freeze], an icicle, and a portal all in just a few seconds.
Her casting was absolutely masterful. Annath had chosen one of the best examples of Veyra’s quick-casting I’d seen so far. Watching it in slow-motion was truly mesmerizing.
The comments were already what I’d feared…
By Pounder16, 10135 upvotes: “Oh, man, not Veyra and Assassin… That’s a shame. I was actually starting to look forward to their clips. I guess hindsight should tell us they were cheating.”
Reply By Ploughdin, 9442 upvotes: “Veyra is for sure cheating. That casting is just not possible.”
Reply By Lopen, 7699 upvotes: “Looks like the banhammer will be hitting her lol. Is Assassin cheating too? He’s been spotted with her a lot.”
Reply By Lowmansky, 1534 upvotes: “He’s unskilled compared to Veyra, I doubt it.”
Reply By Lopen, 3915 upvotes: “His Shadow Dashes have been insane, though. Not in this clip, but maybe previous clips can be investigated?”
I could only sigh at that.
By Dounin12, 4593 upvotes: “We know that Veyra is for sure cheating, but how do we know she’s SevenStrife’s alt?”
Reply by Pounder16, 6729 upvotes: “The similarities are there. Annath said Veyra herself confirmed it. I’d say Annath’s word is pretty damn credible. Wind Virtual can confirm it and then ban Veyra as well.”
I kept skimming through comments. Thousands of players were already agreeing that Veyra was definitely a cheater, with almost nobody defending us. I had to scroll for minutes just to find a single person disagreeing.
By Greenwitch, 12850 downvotes: “Wonderwind’s anticheat would have caught her already, would it have not? She’s a top player. If not for the automatic ban, the security team would have investigated her by now. Also, how come FireBrand is allowed to quick-cast fast, but not Veyra? Her gamesense and positioning are very good as well. Those can’t be cheated.”
Reply By Ploughdin, 22788 upvotes: “Lmao, looks like a fanboy can’t accept the truth. Wonderwind’s security team is fucking clueless, man. Relying on them is laughable. And why can FireBrand quick-cast spells? He literally spent a month alone on a mountain memorizing and imagining spell runes. There’s a reason he’s one of the five gods. Yet, Veyra is literally faster than him at casting in this clip. She’s cheating. Your stupid.”
Reply By Greenwitch, 34567 downvotes: “You’re*”
Reply By Dounin12, 10425 upvotes: “Bold of SevenStrife to come back with the exact same cheat she already got banned for lol. Quick ban for her again.”
Yeah, right, I thought, reading the last comment. As if Veyra would be that stupid.
She also memorized spell formations for even longer than FireBrand spent on that mountain. She memorized spells even before owning the game. Or so she said, at least, and I trusted that.
Regardless of what the truth was, Annath’s post convinced pretty much everyone that Veyra was a cheater. The uproar would also prompt Wind Virtual to check Veyra’s account to see if she was actually cheating. The developers know the truth easily enough.
Was I certain she wasn’t cheating? Well, I couldn’t be absolutely sure. Of course there was a chance I was being lied to. Veyra had admitted that she was SevenStrife, and it was confirmed that SevenStrife had been banned in the past.
Goddammit, the evidence really was damning…
But she also said SevenStrife wasn’t banned for cheating, but for another exploit, I thought. And she said SevenStrife got unbanned after a misunderstanding.
To me, Veyra didn’t seem like the type of person who would cheat. She genuinely loved the game, and that was one thing I found endearing about her. Cheaters tended to love their cheats far more than anything else. Veyra wasn’t like that.
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I slept on the uncomfortable rollable mattress. This time, exhaustion let me fall asleep faster. I woke up at 11pm, ate a hot dog with noodles, and logged back in.
***
[You have arrived in the Sky Island Sect]
[This is a safe zone. Player combat disabled.]
I woke up on a beach, facing a shore of what, at first glance, looked like a sea of bumpy snow. Those were the clouds, just extra thick. The sky island was at the exact height of the clouds.
No, swimming in the snowy clouds was not possible. I had tried, and I had fallen straight to a ravine below.
Behind me, the beach turned into a forest village. A well-developed one with comfy cottages and well cleaned wooden paths. A dark skinned Sect Cultivator (NPC, Level 274) woman watched over the beach from the doorstep of a cottage, smiling at me from a distance. I gave her a polite nod.
So, I died last time…
I was still wearing my cloak, I noted. That hadn’t dropped, at least. I opened my inventory to see what I’d lost, only to snort when I saw Obsidian Ring (Common) missing. That item was a piece of junk. For all of that effort, Annath had only gained a common item. I chuckled a little.
But I had much more important things to worry about than replacing a lost gear piece right now. I opened up my friend list to send Veyra a message. Except, I saw that she was currently offline. My lips drew a disappointed line.
Then I spotted something else. Our guild had another member listed as a recruit. SevenStrife.
SevenStrife: “Hey, it’s me. Where do we meet?”
The account was online. That confirmed it, then. SevenStrife had really been unbanned.
Assassin: “I’m at the Sky Island Sect.”
SevenStrife: “Oh, that’s a good spot. Coming.”
Ten seconds later, a figure teleported near me, onto the same teleportation zone I had used. The Sky Island Sect was an unknown secret location in the eastern end of the map. Only a few people who had completed a quest in an event five years ago, or wyvern owners who could fly, had access. These days, the location was mostly empty, since the top players had moved on, and low level players couldn’t enter.
Veyra fully materialized, now on her SevenStrife account, and I immediately found myself gaping at her gear.
SevenStrife was a fire mage, wearing a black and orange dress. Her wavy hair was pitch black with red streaks. She didn’t have a witch’s hat, but an obsidian crown tiara, and instead of a staff, she held a red casting orb. This was definitely Veyra. Her face was the same, though the white of her eyes was black.
“Ugh,” she said. “Such a childish character. What was I thinking when I created this account? And who the hell uses casting orbs these days?”
She unequipped the casting orb. All of the items she wore were from older events. A lot of them used to be best in slot fire mage gear from back in the day, though these days her character was probably underleveled due to not playing for so many years.
Unsurprisingly, she still looked absolutely gorgeous.
“So, what’s the occasion?” I asked. “Will you start playing on this account again?”
“No.” Veyra shrugged, looking up at the sky. “I said that this account was unbanned because I wasn’t actually cheating. A cheating ban is permanent with no chance of appeal. So I guess this should prove to you I wasn’t banned for that.”
“Yeah, that’s solid proof,” I said. “Although, I’m wondering, if you got unbanned, why did you choose to switch accounts?”
She let out a long sigh. The uncomfortable type. “There were cheating allegations even before the ban. I got targeted in game, and I pretty much became the enemy of every single guild. Funnily enough, Annath and the Celestial Order were the only ones defending me back then.”
“Until you got banned.”
“Yeah…” Veyra said. “Everyone took it as proof, including Annath, and they turned into my most hostile enemies overnight.” Another long sigh. “I kind of just gave up hope after the ban. Maybe I could have fought harder to prove myself, I guess. But, well, I was a seventeen year old girl. I kind of just cried in a corner all day and didn’t dare log back in, even after I was unbanned two months later.”
Seeing her eyes, I had the urge to give her another hug right there and then.
She shrugged and added, “Now the forum posts are going crazy again. It’ll be the same thing all over. People will start hunting me, and they’ll do their best to shun me. Oh well, I guess.”
She wasn’t smiling. Talking about this was clearly uncomfortable to her. Even if she tried to say that it didn’t bother her, her body showed the opposite.
“Thanks for telling me,” I said. “It must still hurt. Being betrayed by your guild like that.”
“Meh,” Veyra said. “I’m the Solo Mage.”
“I saw the forum posts as well,” I said. “People will be ignorant, as always. For the record, I don’t believe the allegations or care about them.”
“You really don’t know how bad it is to be hated by a whole community,” Veyra said. “It’s miserable. You can’t hunt where you want. You can’t even visit the auction house without getting insulted.”
“Will that matter though?” I asked with a smile. “If we’re hunting dungeons out in some level 350 area, who will be there to contest us? The haters can hate.”
She snorted, shaking her head with a vague smile. “You almost sound like you’re excited about this whole thing.”
“Excited isn’t the right word,” I said. “But I’m definitely looking forward to playing more with you. And in a way, I’m interested to see what comes out of this scandal.”
“Probably death threats,” she said.
“We won’t need to listen to death threats if we kill them first,” I said. “That’s what we’re good at. Fighting guilds.”
“We just got absolutely blasted by Annath, though,” Veyra said.
“I’d say it was closer than it looked,” I said. “We’re just underleveled. We need better gear to actually do damage. If I level up just a bit, enough that I don’t get blasted away every time I block, I can match her. We’ll hunt for gear, level up, and complete my set. Life should be simple enough then.”
She rolled her eyes. “So you said you had a date prepared?”
20 chapters ahead on !
