Resurgence: The Rise of Resurgence Book 1 by Joshua W. Nelson Read Free Book Online Page A

to just look around. It was night time so the forest wasn’t perfectly clear, despite my innate ability to see in the dark. However, I could see the trees in front of me and the realism was amazing. I could see the growth of the bark. I could see each individual leaf on the branches. The loamy smell was reminiscent of forests I visited as a child. I continued to walk around and tried to take in as many sensations as I could. I felt the roughness of the leaves, and the granularity of the grass. I let the pine needles that had accumulated at the base of one of the trees run through my fingers. A pine cone nestled by my foot had prickly ends, just like they would in the real world. It wasn’t that the game was making a fantasy world seem real. It was that the virtual world seemed almost indistinguishable from the real thing.
    Turning my attention away from the flora, I took a prolonged look in my area not recognizing any immediate threats. Which, to be honest, was the reason I should have been gauging my surroundings to begin with.
    I looked around some more and could see what appeared to be a different coloration in the night sky off to my right. At this point I didn’t know what was east or west, so I just headed in that direction. After several minutes of walking through the forest I heard someone yelling my name.
    “Alex! Hey, Alex! Stay there, we are coming to you.”
    Dan, Jason, and Wayne arrived a few minutes later. It was easy to figure out who was who based on their races. Dan was wearing a light colored tunic, had a bit of a bowl cut hair style, and had very pronounced pointy ears. Jason likewise had very pointy ears, but was much taller than Dan, who I could now see was the shortest of our group. Jason also had a light colored tunic on and had a regal look about him. High Elf fit him very well. The last of our party, Wayne, was so much taller than the rest of us. If this were real life, I would have put Wayne at just under seven feet tall. And while all of us seemed to be wearing a tunic of some sort, Wayne only had a loin cloth. And a mullet. I tried to focus on the mullet and not the other item of note.
    “Dude, how did you end up out here? We all popped online and started looking for you. After a bit it was Jason’s idea to come out to the forest and look for you. I guess my Class comes with a much better map and I was able to spot there was a character out here. I’m glad we guessed right and it was you,” Dan said.
    At this point Jason cleared his throat and looked pointedly at Dan.
    “Oh right, sorry, I mean to say that Allister, in all his High Elfiness, had that great idea.”
    It was at this time that I noticed over their heads were their names. None of them said Dan, Jason, or Wayne.
    “I like it. Allister suits you very well my friend. And Naugha seems like a fitting name for a Barbarian. And then there is Dan.”
    “Yeah man.”
    “Dan, Dan, Dan.”
    “I know man, wicked right?”
    “Dan, you are actually calling your character TheClaw?” I asked.
    “Dude, TheClaw is an awesome name! I will strike fear in the hearts of man and all will know TheClaw!” Dan yelled.
    A forehead slap seemed appropriate but I could tell Dan wouldn’t appreciate it. He was really proud of the name. Despite it being totally and completely ridiculous.
    “I’m calling you TC from now on. I’m not saying “TheClaw” every time I need to get your attention,” I said.
    “TheClaw doesn’t appreciate his name being shortened to just two letters bro,” Dan said while looking my way.
    “Jesus. He’s going to start talking in the third person. Please Alex, please, do something!” Jason said.
    I was laughing too much to really intervene, and I could see that Jason’s reaction was just what Dan was hoping for.
    “Don’t worry Alli, TheClaw totally has your back! No one is going to mess with our cleric as long as TheClaw is on the prowl.”
    “It’s Allist…you know what? Forget it. Let’s just get to the