((OOC: As a discrepancy, for future reference, and because it is luckily not enforced, this quest will take place in a time period before the start of the first of my One Last Final quests, to preserve the continuity of the series itself and material therein. This is based roughly three days after Precipitation and Effect, shortly after Ali moved into the neighborhood and before summer started – not that any of the readers of this quest would know anything about either of those events. This is just for posterity.))

It was raining, and it was cold. Colder than it usually was this time of year, Ian thought, meandering down his long cul-de-sac sidewalk, not too entirely eager or unwilling to get home. Thoughts of the party before lolled through his mind, pleasantly obscuring the biting sting of the rain on his skin, thoughts of expectation, satisfaction, and not a small bit of lust. He and Sam had always connected on a consensually physical level, but never as openly or as second-naturedly as they had of recent. Of all the things they had in common, one certainly had not been the knowledge of mutual attraction, both physically and emotionally, between them. It seemed, under the influence of dark living rooms and heavy music, that they had discovered this attraction and found it to be pleasant in all aspects of appeal, and had ran its course through playful humor and just a little sincerity. He had taken her aside before he left and had kissed her, with as much passion as a sixteen-year-old could have gathered in his years, and had felt her rise from herself into his embrace, consumed on all mortal levels of human fervor by the moment. And then he had left, walking out into the rain, looking back only once into her eyes as he turned the corner onto his street and had begun walking home, drenched by the cold but warm nonetheless under his layers of excitement and rising anticipation.

His parent’s cars were gone, as they usually were, gone to seal some obscure business contract off in some obscure location for an obscure amount of time. He let himself into his unlocked front door and threw his sopping coat and shoes into a corner, where they would dry and stay wrinkled for the next few days. He relieved himself, despite the tension of longing teenage loins, and got himself a drink from the fridge before heading upstairs.

His room was dark, a square of light outlining the random nothings on his floor by the light of the hallway, and he turned on his desktop lamp and PC, flopping down on his bed. He rested while his Altimit booted up, hands linked under his head and legs crossed, staring up at the ceiling, thinking pleasant thoughts and unintentionally drifting off into slumber. He was thinking those non-thoughts that you think in the time before sleep fully takes hold, when a quiet, but recognizable bell sounded from his computer, alerting him to new FlashMail from The World. He got up, not thinking anything in particular, sipped on a glass of milk, and sat down to his computer. He opened up his FlashMail and read the few new messages, one from Ali about the quest a few days back, one from G-I about some event going on in Lambda, and another from the general administration about a patch to be downloaded. Since he set his to update automatically, he didn’t really have anything to do but respond to his mails, and he did so with the sluggish enthusiasm of a teen in his situation – tired, but still perfectly intelligible. After he had finished, he was pretty much fully awake again, and decided to hang around and do a little something in The World. He wasn’t really sure what… just something to pass time.

He appropriated his VR helmet from a renegade pile of something or other on the desk next to him and set the goggles on his head, flipping the visor down, grabbing his controller from a similar pile in the cubby to his upper left. He typed in his information and returned his input, waiting for the response. The screen shuddered for a moment, then faded into the familiar cascading blue that was The World.

~

Exangelus warped into Theta’s Dun Loreag root town, and breathed in the fresh air of… well, it wasn't all that fresh, truly. Really, what he smelt instead of fresh air was fresh grunty doodoo, festering kindly along the sides of the narrow cliff tops crisscrossing through the town, sweaty grunties prancing idly around as they like, talking in their funny little accents, offering not-so-potent advice to unsuspecting newbies still entranced by the ‘pigs’. Exangelus had never really liked the town, one for the grunty aspect, and two for the inescapable, resolute airiness of the town. Height wasn’t so much the problem as was the thinner air… Exangelus liked his warm, twenty-one percent oxygen air, not this cold, negative-and-a-half percent oxygen stuff he breathed up here. But, it was a good alternative to Mac Anu, and one of the only servers his level would allow him to access. So, while he did not frequent the place, per se, he found it a convenient archway from his low-to-mid level status into a gate to higher levels. It was a business relationship, and little more.

He checked his relatively short list of friends, none of whom were on, save for some of the random ones that get tacked on during party quests. There were, however, four of his clan mates on, two of whom were idle and the other two who were available, Rude and Crimson Rose. It occurred to Exangelus that, down the long road of his membership in the Radical Dreamers, he had never really talked with either of them. Rude, a Long Arm and a Brit, and Rose, a… woman… both seemed to have the potential to be very interesting individuals, but personal conversation had never gone on much between him and either of them. A shame, he thought, as he brought up his FlashMail and began to type up a party request, a shame indeed.

He hoped with a certain sincerity that they would come, enthralled with the idea or not, and he leaned against a stone support, stuffing his hands in his pockets, eyeing the grunties cautiously as they frolicked by.

…Elsewhere, amongst the hustle and bustle of the village in the sky, there was a building used as The Recorder’s place. It was a small simple little stone hut-like thing, falling apart yes, but still sturdy enough to survive the high winds that Dun Loireag had to offer it. Throughout the entire day, players would run about the town to shop and meet up with friends, then stop in to have their information recorded before leaving by way of the Chaos Gate which was placed well within walking distance. They came and went, and only a few ever really seemed to notice that there was a player on the roof asleep. His story is long and tangible, and explains why he chooses to sleep amongst empty fields and high above in root towns, where he will avoid detection, but in this moment he is too exhausted to even consider mentioning his torrid past. All that matters now is the current, the past is gone, and the future may never come, live for the moment, live for living’s sake. That was some lame phrase he used to hear from old friends whenever he’d get to feeling down. It was sad and torturous to listen to, what with it basically meaning, “What’s happened has happened, and you might die in like twenty seconds, so think only about the next two.” Sort of morbid if you think about it, but it’s what some people use as inspiration, and that seems a little counterproductive. Death is bad, but if you want to use it to inspire you, then you should go right on ahead. I can’t stop you. I’ll stick to whatever it is I do. I’m rambling, I know, but it’s important to the story. Alright, it’s really not, but later on you’ll be glad I did ramble, because there’s not really much I can say at the moment, and this is mostly filler.

But of course, back to the story at hand. Nobody noticed, but there was a player atop the recording station, and he was sleeping. If it could somehow be found out whether or not people across the world were moving or idle, he would have definitely been idle for some time. Sleep is hard to come by these days, there was one time when he was sleeping in this field when a noob twinblader came screaming by him, running from a monster. He was left with the option of watching it kill her, or going to kill it. It was a tough decision for sure, but he realized eventually that letting it kill her would mean he’d hear her scream some more. Knowing this, he quickly dispatched of the level 1 monster; he then left the field to try and go sleep in Mac Anu. The rest is some other story, I’m trying to tell you this one so don’t get me sidetracked. So back to the sleeping guy, he was a heavyblader, and he was really cool… Wow, I can’t believe somebody actually wrote that. They’re not paying me enough to narrate this story and lie about that guy; he’s really not that great. What? Alright fine, he was a really cool guy. He was a heavyblader, and cool, and went by the name Lakely. He was dressed pretty plainly: black pants, white t-shirt, some cool boots, and this black jacket thingy.

Not one of those black leather jackets that lame people, and complete tools wear when they want to look cool, no this was more of a laid back casual black jacket thing. I’m told it was very comfortable and went along well with his hair. Oh yeah, his hair was silver and sort of long, reaching down past his shoulders and often covered his face from time to time. Speaking of his face, he had these odd golden eyes that glowed weirdly if the light hit them just right, or if it was really dark. Maybe he could see well in the dark, or somebody put little flashlights behind his eyeballs, the world may never know. Let’s not forget the necklace he wore. He didn’t remember where it was from, or what purpose it served, but he knows he has one, and nobody else does. The necklace itself is a bunch of different little stones, all offset by this big green stone set in the middle. I’m rambling again aren’t I? Well, back to the story then. This guy was asleep on the recording station for a while, quite peacefully in fact, that was until a nearby grunty, one of those annoying ‘Mon Ami’ ones, went galloping through the sky away from some noob who had tried for the fourth time to raise a different grunty and only ended up with one of the ‘Noble’ persuasion. The horse/pig thing was galloping through the air and started over the recording station, then dipped a little too low and stepped right on the sleeping swordsman’s chest, causing him to let out a loud bellow, followed by several words of bad taste sent in the direction of the trotting beast.

Now that he had been so rudely awoken he figured it would be best to go find something to do. Lakely stood and walked toward the edge of the roof and looked down upon the town. Maybe if he looked long enough, he thought, he’d find somebody interesting to go do something with, or he’d find some noob, who accidentally found their way into Dun Loireag, and would no doubt run off to a field and get slain mercilessly by a bug of some sort. That’s my idea of fun, I don’t know about you. Who knows what adventures await this guy. Who really knows?

There Rose was... The petite girl was standing right smack in the middle of one of the many bridges that made up the complicated little town of Dun Loireag. Yes, don't ask why the wave mistress was even in the Theta Server, for she particularly didn't know the answer to that question herself. It was quite random for the normally hyperactive level eighteen player to be in this server, quite... how should I say it? ...unlike her. The mage frowned at the seemingly floating village of high-leveled players before her, sniffing the air to both of her sides. The teen had never really liked full-grown grunties, and this digital town seemed to be flourishing with the disgusting smell of aging pigs. Crimson Rose didn't like this stench. It was putrid! Moreover, all the smelly little 'pets' as you'd call them, were walking around her, as if it was tag along with Rose day. To say the least, the purple clad character wasn't pleased at all. However, she stood rooted to the same spot, her two feet seemingly bolted down quite securely in the bridge beneath them.

To put it simply, the frightened player was still standing only a few feet where she had warped into the town. Why you may ask? It may sound absurd, but the female magic user had never realized that Dun Loireag was a highly elevated town until shortly after she had arrived. After warping in at the gate with the pretty swirling golden rings, the girl had excitedly ran from the safety of the place that had allowed her to appear, only realizing that she was hundreds if more feet above solid ground, when she was standing stupidly in the middle of the bridge. Upon realizing this potentially frightening little bit of information, Rose had dropped down to her knees like a little school girl, on the bridge-like strip of concrete she was standing on, and simply looked down at the swirling clouds, lazily floating under the town and around it. Crimson Rose certainly wasn't proud of her fear of heights and in fact hid the one embarrassing characteristic about herself quite well in the real world outside of the game.

Jenny grumbled softly to herself as she wondered how her one major fear had somehow transferred to her character in the game she was playing. Weren't you supposed to be able to make characters everything you're not if you wanted to? Wasn't Rose supposed to be the girl who didn't have a fear in the world, someone that was brave and could face anything? According to the stupid game manual to The World, the answers to her questions were supposed to be yes. So why in the hell was the brunette's creation, shaking from head to toe like a scaredy cat? No matter how hard Jenny tried to stop the senseless trembling of her wave mistress character, her efforts seemed to be futile.

"DAMN IT!! WHY IS IT SO HIGH UP HERE? WHOSE BRILLIANT IDEA WAS IT TO MAKE A TOWN THAT FLOATS IN THE AIR? WHAT THE HELL!?!" Rose's high-pitched girl voice cut through the air like a knife, shattering the silence that was set before her. You see, back in Mac Anu, it was normally pretty loud and random, for it was where you'd find most newbs. In Dun Loireag, however, most of the players seemed a tad bit more serious about their endeavors that they were about to partake in. Instead of running around senselessly and hitting each other like stupid people, they appeared to quietly make plans with each other for their little adventures and stock up on supplies and then warp out to their chosen field. Yes, quite different then in Mac Anu. In Mac Anu, most players were so new to the game that they'd accidentally warp to fields without buying items first. That's newbs for you though... Always doing crazy things.

But yes, back to the wave mistress' frightened bit of ranting. Her voice frankly managed to catch everyone's attention in the surrounding area. Several players looked at her coldly and made themselves scarce. To them, Rose was yet another newb that had accidentally gated into the wrong town. The only good thing the magic user had gotten out of randomly screaming at the top of her lungs would have been scaring the many grunties away from the immediate area. The fat animals were now nowhere to be seen. Sadly, their pig stench still hung in the thin air around the distraught girl, making it harder to catch her breath.

"Damn... Must... Make... It... back... to... the... gate..." Trying to fight her bodie’s trembling as best she could, the violet mage began to crawl, yes, crawl, back down the bridge to the golden rings that she had first appeared from. It seemed like it took hours, and it may have, but the wave mistress finally did reach the levitating platform that the gate was on, looking quite pale to say the least. Most of Rose's silky black hair had somehow managed to come out of her bun, giving her a disheveled look. The female mage took a few minutes to try to regain her composure, her breathing calming down ever so slowly. With every ounce of strength that she had left, Crimson Rose, slowly got up to her feet and wiped her forehead, which was covered in cold sweat, with the sleeve of her cloak. Never again would the sorceress come to Dun Loireag. At least not until the idiots made the village less ...floaty.

BING!

"Wha!?" Rose stumbled back a few steps in surprise at the arrival of a flash mail and almost succeeded in stepping right off the platform and falling into the abyss below. "Ahhhh!" The terrified girl did an odd leap to the side and thrashed her arms in the air wildly, shortly later landing with a hard thump right on the edge of the platform.

Truly crest fallen, Rose glanced at the chaos gate which was still a good ways away but seeable nonetheless. Why did she always have to do something embarrassing before meeting important people? She immediately sprung up to her feet and dusted off her amethyst robe, trying her best to make herself look presentable, and walked quickly over to the gate to meet this fellow clan mate of hers. Yeah, the girl still hadn't even become acquainted with all of her fellow Radical Dreamers and wasn't about to miss an opportunity like this.

Upon reaching the gate, Rose's eyes immediately fell on the guy who was dressed in dark attire from head to toe. "Yo, I'm Rose. I'd like to partake on this little ...adventure."

Like I was saying earlier, we can never be too sure what a day may hold for us. What may be a boring and uneventful day for one person could be the one day that changes your life forever because it was so great, or it could be the worst day of your life. Either way, you wake up the same way as you do most days. Once the events start to transpire, that’s the first sign you get about what kind of day you’ll have. This day was no different than most days it seemed, for that one heavyblader. He awoke to a cold and windy world, and he was just about on the edge of the roof, one twitch away from falling off and down to his pretty much certain doom. He had seen someone fall from Dun Loireag before, but he couldn’t tell you that. It was one of the many memories he lost after the incident with a certain group; they called themselves ‘The Protectorate’, or some dumb name like that. Regardless of name, they were all jerks. This all seemed like a long time ago for Lakely, but it would be impossible for him to tell just how long. I’m the only one who remembers, and I’ve totally been paid to keep my mouth shut. It was a whole lot of money. So don’t even think about asking. I’ve got morals; don’t think I’ll break them for you.

Ha, morals. What a joke. Either way I’m not telling you because they’re not paying me to read that. I follow the script when I narrate, I’m not Morgan Freeman...he’s such an ass. Am I rambling again? You’ve really got to let me know when I start to do that. Keep me in check, that’s the only way we’ll get anywhere in this story damn it. Learn some responsibility.

There, you let me do it again didn’t you? I swear.

If you don’t mind, I’d like to tell the story…

Right, so! … Oh yeah, so the heavyblader Lakely was standing on the edge of the roof of the recording station looking for something to happen. It was cold and windy in the town, more so than it had been in the past for some reason. ‘People Watching’, that’s what the protagonist of this story liked to call what he was doing there as he stood looking down on the world. From his vantage point, he could see everyone in the town that wasn’t on the other side of all the buildings. A female longarm was standing on an empty section of land between two bridges. She could have been sending a flashmail, browsing through her items, or just be standing there, the heavyblader just couldn’t know. That was the beauty of watching them, in my opinion. You could watch them live out their lives without having to feel their concerns. A blademaster standing below Lakely was talking about how he kept getting followed around the field by a monster, and it would always kill him, no matter how many times he went back to fight it. It was this situation that made you think about things and feel people’s problems. The ones who you couldn’t hear, they left the most open for you to imagine. I tend to think up my own situations that they might possibly be in.

A male heavyaxe and a twinblader on one of the far sets of land stood deep in conversation. In my mind they’re talking about their latest escapades at local cheese tasting parties that they like to crash. Go in and pretend to be someone, eat some cheese, you’re set for the evening. Deep down, they’re good people. They just like cheese and they can’t get their own fancy stuff. Only way to get a fix, is to steal it. It’s somewhat of a victimless crime. Everyone knows the cheese tasting party hosts always take their left over cheese and throw it out the window at passersby, those guys are saving innocent bystanders from the humiliation of getting a little block of provolone in their hair, or some bleu cheese going down their shirt for them to find only after they threw it in the dryer to get the wrinkles out. These guys are selling a service for free, a service you don’t know you need until you stop them from being able to do what they do best. Let them live their lives, they’re saving you trouble. It’s a thankless job; please learn to cut them a little bit of slack why don’t you? Back in Dun Loireag though, they’re just two friends carrying on a conversation, one that’s cut short by a high pitched, very shrilly, yell that shears through the air. The words all seemed to run together, but they didn’t sound very nice.

A wavemistress standing near the edge, looking down over the edge of the land she was on seemed to be the source of the shriek. I couldn’t tell you myself what she was mumbling to herself, but it didn’t seem too pleasant. She was flailing around like she was having an intense argument with someone nobody else could see. She was moving around so much in fact that her long raven hair and her purple outfit was….wait…purple outfit…black hair...wavemistress? Finally, the heavyblader had found something interesting. The petit mage yelling words and phrases that seemed to be straight from ‘da block’, she appeared to be someone he knew. None other than….hold on…is she crawling? Yes, she definitely threw herself to the ground and started crawling her way back toward the Chaos Gate. Clearly something petrified her beyond belief, what it was remains unknown. The one and only ‘Crimson Rose’ was walking on hands and knees to her only escape route.

A forever and a half later, she found her way back to the pedestal she was pursuing. As she stood up, she immediately jumped aside for some unseen reason. It was at this point that she almost tripped and fell backwards down into the bottomless nothing that is the underworld of Dun Loireag. Perhaps she received a flashmail, or she was just really jumpy. I’m not sure which, but this was definitely an opportunity for our hero to make his way to her. He stepped off the edge of the roof, landing right on his feet next to an unsuspecting female mage who crumbled to the ground. She seemed just as jumpy as Rose for some reason. Is it National Be-A-Scaredy-Mage day and nobody told me about it? I really need to find that Odd Holiday flipbook calendar. Man that thing was useful. It helped me remember all about National Eat Ice Cream Upside Down Day. Best…Day…EVER!!

Alright, the heavyblader, now actually on the grounds of the town, slowly made his walk towards the unsuspecting spellcaster. He wasn’t sure what to say to her, should he ask about her odd little scene? Or just be all cryptic and speak in few words? If he could hear me, I’d tell him to immediately ask her what brought out her inner toddler, or what nearly caused her to fall to her immediate death. What was she doing there anyhow? Again, I know but I can’t tell you because I love money, and I love making it quickly and easily by not telling secrets. It’s a great way to make a living. He approached the little wavemistress and laughed lightly, “Well that was quite a show you put on there… Will there be an encore any time soon?”

The sun shone and the birds sang making it a perfect day for a romantic picnic. Shaun sat on a tartan blanket with his bare feet flicking the grass blades around them. An army of ants marched next to the blanket picking the crumbs that Shaun dropped from his tasty and rather meaty sandwich. Shaun faced his girlfriend and smiled at the sight of her cheeky smile and gorgeous blue eyes. Shaun could stare at her eyes for hours; they were hypnotic and drew you in. Shaun unlaced his fingers from his girlfriend’s hand and ran them across her face while moving his face closer to hers. The kiss that followed was full of passion from the young lovers. The hot glare from the sun and the electricity from the kiss made Shaun feel a little light headed and he had to shake his head a little to focus once more.

A puzzled glance shone on Shaun’s face as his girlfriend rummaged through her bag and pulled out a neatly wrapped present, full of ribbons and bows. A ladybird gently landed on the present, walked a couple of steps and took off in flight, satisfied that the green packaging was not the food it thought. Shaun’s girlfriend held the gift out in front of her and smiled happily, the love flowing through her perfectly crafted face.

“So what have I done to deserve this?” Shaun asked, taking the present from his girlfriend’s soft hand.

“I wanted to spoil you for a change and I know how much you love your computer games so I think you will enjoy this one. It is a little old now but I’ve heard good things about it” his girlfriend answered, leaning forward and kissing Shaun lightly on the cheek.

Shaun tried not to laugh. His girlfriend didn’t know much about computer games and the fact that she has heard ‘good things’ about the game amused Shaun greatly. Like a kid at Christmas, Shaun wasted no time in ripping the delicate wrapping paper to shreds. Looking at the title of the game stopped time for Shaun. The game was ‘The World’ and it sent memories tearing through Shaun’s head as seconds turned to minutes…

It had been at least a year, if not longer, when Shaun had smashed his copy of ‘The World’ into tiny pieces and left a world of sorrow behind him. Of course his girlfriend would never have known about Shaun’s antics in ‘The World’ and thought the gift was perfect for him. How wrong she had been. The world had moved on for Shaun after the game was gone from his life. University was over for now as Shaun was starting a new one-year course in Conservation Biology, in only a few weeks time. He was happy and in love with an incredible girl and focused fully on his future. ‘The World’ had been nothing more than a nightmare for Shaun. At first it was fun, until Cloud’s strange death and disappearance in the real world. Then losing the girl he had such strong feelings for because of a hacker named Blake that scared her into leaving the game as well as University. Later, Blake would come after Shaun’s character Rude by using a hired assassin named Malice. His close housemate Shujin had come and gone from ‘The World’ after a paired quest gone bad. Now Shujin was back in Japan and Shaun rarely spoke to him. The last quest drove Shaun from the game. He had joined a quest with a random player and still Blake and Malice had come after him. It was too much and escape was the only route. Now life had moved on and for the better. Shaun still kept in slight touch with a few RD clan mates through msn and email but the less he was reminded about ‘The World’ the better.

… Shaun brushed his awful memories away and looked up at his girlfriend. He had washed the horror from his eyes and smiled pleasantly before speaking, “Thank you for my present. Now it’s time for yours.”


Hours later Shaun found himself at his desk, flicking through pictures on his computer. He could not help but glance at ‘The World’ sitting wrapped in its’ cellophane wrapper on the edge of his desk. It distracted him and he knew he could not throw it away because his girlfriend would expect him to have it. He secretly preyed that she would not want him to show her it.

After a couple more hours, Shaun could cope no longer. The cellophane wrapper found its way into the bin and the game was in his computer. Whilst the game installed, Shaun rummaged through his wardrobe to find the VR goggles that were acuminating dust. Why he had never sold them on ebay, seeing as they were an expensive bit of kit, he would never know. With the game installed and the homepage up, Shaun placed on the goggles and his heart began to race. Typing in his username and password he felt a cold shiver run down his back.

“Someone has just walked over my grave” Shaun quietly said to himself.

Logging onto the game had never felt so scary. The blackness of being transported into the game felt distant and not familiar. A sign that Shaun had moved on and maybe should have stayed away. However, temptation always seems to win and how bad could things still be after a year or so?

Mac Anu

The golden rings disappeared and Rude could hear the swirling Chaos Gate behind him. The next sensation was the high level of noise that came from players chatting and doing general shopping in the town. Rude was taken aback. He had forgotten how real ‘The World’ felt. Rude found it strange being back in his avatar. It had not changed in the slightest and Rude ran his hand over his left eye to feel the scar. Momentarily he felt the pain that the sword dealt when causing the anomaly. He had changed so much in the real world and found it a little strange that everything stayed the same in ‘The World’. Heading into the heart of Mac Anu, Rude noted that nothing in the slightest had changed. He swiftly moved over the bridge, which was where he always sat, looking at the gondolas as they floated down the river. Rude thought about going to the RD clan house but decided against it. Rude knew that new members had joined and though he was still a member he felt very distant from them. As Rude walked further, he could not stop himself from looking over his shoulder and staring at the other players. He was still paranoid, expecting at any moment to see Malice or Blake. Had the both of them forgotten about him and moved on? Rude hoped they had, especially since a year had passed.

Rude ended up in the Grunty Farm. He doubted that his Grunty called Sho would still be alive, as he had not been fed for ages. Of course being just a game, Rude found his little friend who looked at him with excited eyes. It was like Rude had only been gone a day not a year. Sho jumped up at Rude and licked him, covering his hands in wet saliva. Rude caught a glimpse of the Grunty Farm owner clearing out some straw and decided to make a quick exit. Rude and the owner did not see eye-to-eye and Rude was not up for confrontation on his first day back in ‘The World’.

Rude headed towards the Mac Anu main bridge, wondering where his new relaxing spot should be. Rude felt that if it was going to work to be in the game again he had to have a fresh start. Rude wondered whether a fresh start would mean leaving the Radical Dreamers. The answer was made for him as a shrilling ‘bing’ sound was heard, making him jump out of fright and grip the ledge of the bridge. The sound was Rude receiving a Flash Mail and Rude had never enjoyed the deafening and irritating high pitch of the sound.

The message was from Exangelus and read:

Rude thought it was a little weird to get a message from a fellow clan member so soon on his return to the game. Rude believed in caution and wondered whether it was Blake playing games. Rude had never been to the Theta server root town called Dun Loreag. He had quested with Exangelus once before on a clan quest, however, he did not have time to get to know the guy. Crimson Rose was a clan member that had joined the clan just before Rude left the game and so he had missed the chance to get to know her. It was a good opportunity to get to know the two of them, that’s if the message really came from Exangelus. Rude could see know better way of getting back into the game than questing and he really had to push his paranoia out of his system. It also would be a great change to experience another server and get off his dreaded level 13 status.

Rude unleashed his Beserk Spear from the holster across his back, being out of practice in the game, Rude circled his spear and nearly took a male Wavemaster’s eye out as he passed by. Rude apologised and received a string of curse words from the player, including being called a ‘noob’. Rude had to giggle at that comment as he could bet he had been through more in ‘The World’ than the Wavemaster could ever have imagined. Rude held tightly onto his spear and made his way to the Chaos Gate.

Dun Loreag

Air… Rude gasped for air as the rings left his body. A slight head rush made Rude feel dizzy and he blinked and breathed rapidly to adjust to the altitude. The first thing Rude noticed was the huge balloons that sailed in the air. They looked like massive stitched quilts or mini hot air balloons. It was only a few seconds later that he realised he was high up in the air on a floating island. “No wonder there were balloons attached to the town,” Rude said out aloud.

Rude heard a player cough ‘noob’ behind him as the player entered the Chaos Gate. Twice in a matter of minutes made Rude believe that maybe he was a ‘noob’ once more. He certainly did not know how he would cope questing on a field that was levels higher than himself, having not fought in such a long time. Rude turned full circle on the spot and noticed Exangelus standing not too far away. The Twinblade wore a full length, leather coat and even from the distance between him and Rude, Rude could see the silver glint to his eyes. Approaching Exangelus was a female Wavemistress. She was very petite with a purple cloak that swept along the floor as she walked. Rude believed her to be Rose but could not quite remember how she had looked when he had last met her. It was good to see that the message was not a devilish hoax from Blake and Rude began to relax. Before Rose reached Exangelus she was interrupted by a male Heavy Blade that Rude did not recognise.

“Here goes nothing,” said Rude as he rolled his shoulders and clicked his neck to the left and right. Rude made his way over to Exangelus and placed a hand on his shoulder, “Long time no see”…

He was standing there, waiting, still watching the pig-things, when a high, trill voice cried out somewhere not-so-nearby, screaming at the top of her apparently female lungs about something dealing with high people and damning them to hell… or, maybe it was something about the Wright brother’s brilliance about getting a hunk of aero-plane to float, or… something. It was high-pitched, anyway, and sounded faintly familiar. Whether the familiarity was between Ex and the woman or Ex and the sound of screaming women, he didn’t know, but there was definitely something. He didn’t really let it register, and what’s more, even if he had, the mammoth creature bounding up to him with excited grunts like a dying moose would have torn him from his concentration.

A grunty staggered up to him, stump of a tail wagging madly, eyes growing large, mouth beginning to fill with drool. Its balding head was cocked to one side, and the beast was twitching all over. It stood there for a long time, and Exangelus never let his gaze falter from the man-bear-pig Every now and then it would begin a mad dash forward, then check itself, and pull back, as if it had forgotten exactly why it had begun to charge in the first place. At these false starts, Exangelus would instantly steady himself to dodge the horrible swine, startling nearby players and accelerating his heart rate. He watched it vigilantly, eyeing it with a cocked eyebrow and no trust whatsoever.

“Mon ami?”

“Mon, my ass, pig.”

“… mon ami?”

“…”

The muscle under Ex’s eye twitched. God help him, if the grunty ever approached him, he’d throw it off the side of that cliff, no question. But it never came, and Exangelus was never forced to fork up the cash he would have had to pay to the poor owner would inadvertently be standing right next to him when he threw it, and nothing ensued. Eventually, it walked away, distracted by some sound or another, and did not come back. Exangelus felt relieved and allowed himself to breathe fully, letting his anticipation float away with the Noble Grunty.

He was beginning to become accustomed to being in the Highland City, but only slightly more than he was when he had entered. A good deal of the higher-leveled players would pass him odd glances, as if to ask, ‘What is he doing here?’ or, ‘why is he staring at that grunty?’, but it didn’t bother him too much; really, truly, it was the unfamiliarity. He had only been to Theta once, and even then, he hadn’t entered a field, only seen the place and been accosted by the various townsfolk and grunties – somehow less numerous back then – and then left, back to the Water Capital. The shops crafted from heavy mountain granite, painted and adorned with oil paints and rougher textures, the players quieter and more methodic as apposed to spastic and inexperienced, the… grunties. It was all a little unnerving, but it didn’t take the fun out. It was still The World, and still had the same concepts.

As he stood there, a player warped into the town, with russet hair and a black cloak draped around his shoulders, who stepped forward and kind of stumbled, blinking, as if he had just smelt something wretched – quite possible, with all the grunties – and began to look into the sky of Dun Loreag, as if seeing it for the first time. He mumbled something to himself, and another player passing him coughed, very unprofessionally, the word ‘newb’ under his breath, and warped away. Exangelus, from his vantage point against the backmost stone column, watched this with a little curiosity, and a little more interest. He knew this man, straight hair and stance like a loner, from the Radical Dreamers clan house. He had seen him lope in there and grab a few beers before departing again many times before. Rude was his name, very hopefully unrelated to his demeanor, and he had responded to Exangelus’s message with surprising haste.

Approaching from his front were two other people, among others that didn’t really seem to be heading anywhere, which he recognized. One was Crimson Rose, whom he had seen various times around the clan house, and another, Lakely, whom he had seen less frequently. They approached the gate with obvious intention. Focused more squarely on the approaching members rather than the distracted one, Exangelus saw Rose begin to speak to him from a distance.

“Yo, I'm Rose. I'd like to partake on this little ...adventure,” she said, turning to Lakely as he approached her from behind, rotating gazes at the pause in her sentence. Lakely spoke to her, indiscernibly at Exangelus’s distance, laughing lightly. From Ex’s left, Rude approached, cracking his neck and muttering something to himself. The man came to Exangelus’s front, and reached out to set his hand on Ex’s shoulder.

“Long time, no see,” Rude said, gazing calmly behind his tattered shades. From another man, the hand on the shoulder would have seemed a bit out of place, a little too familiar with someone so unfamiliar. But, as Rude’s hand lay there, it was not affront that Exangelus felt; it was a comradery, a willingness to band and work together, a feeling Exangelus was all too fond of. He reached up and clasped his hand on Rude’s opposite shoulder.

“It’s good to see you.” He released his grasp and turned to Rose and Lakely. It was unexpected that he would have shown up, for he was inactive at the time of Exangelus’s invitation, and had not been informed, but it was a good surprise to see him there, apparently willing to join then on their quest. “Glad you found your way here, Lakely. It’s good that you guys could show up as well,” he said, looking between the two. “I’ve already selected a field, so if you’re all ready, as I’d assume you’d be – we Dreamers are ready for anything short of immigrant migration and total nuclear winter, ya? – we can head out.”

Ex turned to the Chaos Gate and input his keywords, and before he could remember how quickly he would be jerked from his senses, he was thusly jerked, and left without a base. He felt that he was falling through a long, windless hole, forever and ever, and when he found himself in the field, he allowed himself the first breath since selecting ‘warp’.

----------

~ Θ Hidden Haunted Paradise ~

Rain slammed down, oppressive and heavy, spraying over everything and everyone in sheets like cannon fire. The ground, darkened to a brown, carbonized crust, absorbed the rain like it was nothing, and no amount of water lingered for more than five seconds on the ground. The sky was dark and desolate, separating the layer of mid-evening sun from the surface of the Earth, belching out a seemingly endless amount of water. It was a strange rain, however – no lightning struck and no thunder could be heard. The rain was quiet, even as it hit the ground, creating a sense of serenity among them. A few rocks, that same rotting decay blackened to the sides of them, were scattered about the field. He could see from where he was a windmill, circa 1100 AD, tall and tattered and burned. Now that he thought about it, everything seemed burned around him; it was that black layer of carbon on everything. How this plane could have been burnt from sky to seed eluded Exangelus, but he didn’t feel he really needed to find out. He was in the field, nothing of a paradise, and located the dungeon. It lay East-South-East of them, a little less than halfway across the seamlessly repeating field. Ex turned and began to walk towards it, eager to get to the bottom and reap the rewards. He could only assume that his partners would follow – as far as he knew, they had no reasons not to. If conversations erupted, he did not hear them; he was focused on eliminating any fiend he would surely find on his way to the dungeon’s entrance.

Trotting briskly through the silent rain, he began to notice things floating lazily around the corners of his field of vision, little shapeless things that would enter and then immediately leave as he tried to look at them. Off in the distance, he would see figures moving, dark little bodies of men and mice, swaying to the non-existent wind and beat of a beatless song. The rain seemed to slow down and then speed up at random intervals as it fell, almost as if slowing and speeding time itself as it did. The whole place gave off a bad vibe. Silent and secret, it seemed, but it would work. Exangelus could do silent and secret.

As the bastion of the stone dungeon began to come into view, spire rising high into the air, he spotted a monster portal hovering conveniently right outside the stone double-doors to the entrance. Ironic, but befitting of the oddness within the field, Exangelus charged into the portal, Sirata Claws at the ready, allies at his back.

“Well that was quite a show you put on there… Will there be an encore any time soon?”

It seemed Crimson Rose's gangsta-like greeting, intended for Exangelus, had been interrupted to some extent. For the words inquiring about her odd performance earlier came from behind her. To be honest, the spell caster was scared to turn around and see who was speaking. Whomever it was, was either being sarcastic and making fun of her childish antics from a little while ago, or had actually found her actions amusing. To say the least, the mage didn't know what the lad was trying to say. She was horrible at interpreting the meaning of things. Haha... don't ask. Let's just say, the young wave mistress was having an off day or something.

The petite spell caster eventually turned around, her large amethyst eyes falling on no one other than a heavy blade with golden eyes. Rose stared at him in silence for a few seconds, watching silver wisps of his air move slightly in the breeze. Yes, it was Lakely. She was sure of it. The sorceress could never possibly forget the lad who had accompanied her on her past quest that involved confronting a mushroom queen with vanity issues. Yes, this person was the one who had fought the Michael Jackson impersonating aliens with her... This swordsman had witnessed Kumori's alien abduction first hand... Lakely was the one that had participated in her somewhat senseless adventure a few months prior... He was the one that hated nOObs... The one that was standing before was all of those things. Now what am I getting at you may ask? I don't know, just thought it'd be fun to do a little background history on Lakely and all of the senselessness that seemed to follow him in his character's very existence.

"Lakely!!!" Rose gleefully shouted out her friend's name, not caring if it broke the odd silence of the town. The ecstatic girl than proceeded to catch the probably surprised heavy blade in a tight bear hug, her shimmering raven hair coming out of her loose bun due to the quick spontaneity of her actions. The girl eventually did let go of Lakely, absolutely beaming. "You must join us on this quest!" Yes, the wave mistress was quite aware that it wasn't her quest and she had actually been invited by Ex to join his, but she didn't care.

While the teen had been greeting Lakely, Rude had apparently showed up too and by the time Crimson Rose had turned to look at Ex again, he had already been joined by the long arm. The now excited girl merely nodded at the twin blade's welcome and grinned. "Sounds like fun, Ex." It had been a good while since her last quest and this adventure should certainly be interesting. All four of them were a different class. Rose being the headstrong wave mistress out of the bunch, Exangelus being the twin blade, Rude being the long arm, and lastly, Lakely being the heavy blade. Now what could this possibly mean? Fun of course! Level wise, Lakely was by far the highest and Rude was the lowest. Just a little bit of information I thought you should know.

Seconds later, Rose found herself being lifted by the beautiful golden rings and spiraling out of control to say the least. The mage had never been fond of the odd sensation the rings inflicted on their victims as they warped you somewhere.

The fire-loving sorceress didn't have to wonder long at what Ex's field selection was going to be like. Her violet eyes didn't even have to open... Upon appearing at the field, raindrop after raindrop pelted her body repeatedly. Ok... I'll be more specific. It was like someone was dumping a bucket of ice cold water on her or something. Before Rose even had a chance to blink a few times, her character had already been successfully drenched from head to toe. The girl mumbled a few obscenities under her breath and frowned. Water was fire's worst enemy. Fire was her best friend. If fire didn't like water, neither would she. Hey, it was the first rules of being friends with something...

It didn't take the wave mistress too long to become accustomed to the field's watery climate though. She quickly realized how the ground seemed to have strange sponge-like attributes. Maybe it was a sponge... Or maybe there was only a few inches worth of dirt and a big yellow sponge was directly beneath the earth sucking up all the rain water. I mean, something had to be there. Why wasn't there any puddles? How could the ground be possibly so thirsty? It was too odd.

The mystery of the ground had to be solved... It was the only way. Completely oblivious to what her party members were doing and the strange blackened stones around her, the teen dropped to her knees on the ground and in one swift motion, took out her hair clip and began scraping the dark earth with it in complete silence, an aura of sheer determination and concentration around her all the while.

You’re in Ireland. Close your eyes. You’re in Ireland the summer after you left college, and you’re drinking at a pub near the castle where every day busloads of English and American tourists come to kiss the Blarney stone. You leave the pub in a stream of men, walking through the beaded wet car silence of streets where it’s just rained, or lightly snowed depending on how odd the weather is for you on the day before Easter, a holiday usually associated with spring-like temperatures. I mean it was 85 degrees three days ago, and it’s snowing? What the heck? Where was I? That’s right. It’s night. Until you get to the Blarney-stone castle. The floors in the castle are rotted away, and you climb the rock stairs with blackness getting deeper and deeper on every side with every step up. Everybody is quiet with the climb and the tradition of this little act of rebellion. This story is about WHAT? Eww, that’s gross. Let’s switch storybooks right quick.

Please, let’s take a moment of silence here. Just a little longer. We’ll end the moment when Rose starts to move. Almost... Almost… I can tell. She’s just about to pull out of it… Why is she staring like that? Do I have a piece of spinach stuck in my teeth? Hold on, I’ll see if I can get it out with my tongue so nobody notices. Alright, now the left side. Uh huh…Yeah, I got it I think. Right, now smile a little bit, a sort of awkward “Do you remember me?” type of smile, and see if she reacts. Still nothing, whoa there it is. Did her eyes really just light up like that? … Oh no …

“LAKELY!!!” The shout filled the entire town of Dun Loireag, which was interesting since it was a floating city in the sky, so there was a LOT of space to fill. As if stealing everyone in the ENTIRE town’s attention by yelling his name wasn’t enough, she basically jumped onto him and delivered the TIGHTEST bear hug he ever was unfortunate enough to receive. Lakely had no choice but to just stand there and take it. There was NO way he was going to be able to squeeze out of this one. It felt like an hour at least, at which point he decided it best to react. Maybe that’s what she was looking for. I would have reacted the same way he did, a light little chuckle, patting her back a little bit to sort of return the hug. “Hey, it’s good to see you too.” All the while, he was thinking about an awkward turtle. It wasn’t until then that he noticed her hair falling out of its restrictive bun. Her free-flowing raven hair was the same is it always was. I guess that’s what happens when nobody changes in these towns. It took her a while, but eventually the mage did let go of our hero, let’s not forget she had the beaming-est smile you’ll have ever seen. I know that’s not a word, I was reading the script and decided to do some improvisation.

“You must join us on this quest!” That was the next thing the girl standing in front of the swordsman said, in between smiles, and they were definitely words he didn’t want to hear. You could see it in his face as he thought it out. I REALLY don’t want to go do any sort of quest. It sounds dumb. Lakely stood there thinking for a while, probably too long and in the wrong place. While he thought to himself, the rest of the people gathered there were still moving. He had come to a decision on what to do, not to mention he wanted to look cool doing it. Carrying out this plan meant he would need to turn around right this second, which he did. He slowly stepped away and prepared to say “Actually, I think I’ll pass…”, but he definitely only got the chance to let out ‘uhh…’ before he felt something from behind him reach through his body and grab his chest, pulling him into a dark tunnel.

Falling for what seemed like forever and a half down a black tunnel with all sorts of lights and colors flying past him heading in the direction he came from. Damn, all this trying to be cool and I got sucked into the quest anyways…Nice. Well I guess I might as well make it fun, or try to. A few more lights passed by and he was thinking again. “Wait, did she say ‘us’? I didn’t see anyone else with her. I also wasn’t paying attention.” More lights continued to fly past the silver-haired protagonist, until one specific light. This light was a dim sort of light. It was almost a dark blue sort of color. As it approached from below Lakely’s feet, it grew larger and larger until it was all he could see. It was at that point that the pulling feeling he felt in his chest returned and he felt like he was falling toward an ever-approaching ground. Then the feeling was gone, and replaced with plain old cold and wetness. This place he was in now was dark, desolate, several different levels of moist, and above all – frigid. This un-fun weather would make things interesting. Most of the monsters would be of water type, or so it would seem, and their weakness should be fire. Lakely’s current equipment gave him a fire spell, a spell to make fire magic stronger, and a spell to make enemies more susceptible to fire. If level difference didn’t help, then his skills would make things a bit simpler, for sure. Speaking of level difference, the heavyblader didn’t really know what field he was in, much less what level it was. Whoever took advantage of his slow movements and managed to drag him along didn’t speak loud enough to break his concentration when that devious trickster called out the field keywords.

Wait, I still don’t know who did manage to pull me in. I guess I could look now. The grey-ish black clad warrior with the big sword, our hero of course, started to turn and look around to find who else was there. Before he could actually see anyone his attention was diverted to his wavemistress companion. She had dropped herself down to her knees and started digging at the ground with what looked like the hair clip that once held her flowing black hair in place. Mystified by what would immediately steal her attention from the party, Lakely decided to drop to one knee to take a look at her work. When it was clear that he couldn’t figure out what she was doing, he decided to do some investigating of his own. Without caring what anyone would say, he reached to his back pocket and pulled out a fairly good sized magnifying glass and started to inspect the ground. Sure, it was definitely odd that he had a magnifying glass in his pocket, I for one realize that. TRUST ME! It was what he would do after a bit of observation that was weirder. He continued examining the ground and couldn’t figure out what she was doing, and he knew he must find this mystery as soon as he could, or else it would bug him for weeks and weeks. Lakely extended his arm into his jacket and pulled something from his inside jacket pocket, then placed it on the ground. He decided to quickly steal some of the mud and grass that Rose was throwing to the side of her. With it in hand, he placed it gently between two thin pieces of glass, then placed this newly put together object into the apparatus he had just placed on the ground. As odd as it may seem, this object was definitely a microscope. I don’t think I’ll ever understand why he carried a magnifying glass, but like alluded to earlier, I’ll NEVER understand the reasoning behind keeping a microscope on you at all times.

After some observation, his findings were inconclusive. He had learned nothing that would help him understand Rose’s bizarre activity. He placed the microscope back into his inside jacket pocket, and looked at the determined girl sitting there before him. There was only one thing left for him to do, and it’s not something reasonable like what you may be thinking. No, asking her wouldn’t be the right move to make. He evidently had one last test to run. Nodding to himself, realizing what he must do, the heavyblader Lakely slowly grabbed a nearby rock and picked it up to look at it. He looked down at the ground, then back at the rock. And again. And one last time to make sure this was necessary. He definitely knew it was the only thing left to do. Without saying a word, or looking at Rose (who could very well be watching him this very instant), he placed the rock up to his open mouth, stretched out his tongue, and gave the rock a good…firm…lick...

Rude felt Exangelus firm grip on his shoulder and smiled. “It’s good to see you.” Exangelus said, before removing his hand from Rude’s shoulder. It felt good to Rude that he had been gone so long but was accepted by Exangelus like he had never left. Rude’s thoughts were interrupted as he felt pain in his ears from Crimson Rose yelling “Lakely!” at the top of her voice. Least it answered the question of who the silver haired, heavy blade that had approached Rose was. The guy looked full of confidence and had a friendly face and Rude remembered that Sydofh had mentioned him and that he was a member of the clan. It really was going to be a day of getting to know clan members and Rude felt excited about this.

Before Rude could introduce himself to Lakely and Rose he felt his body jerk from his soul. Someone had switched the lights out and Dun Loreag was gone from his sights. All Rude could see were bright, golden particles swirling around his body. His body felt as if he was falling but with no environment to focus on it was difficult to judge exactly what his body was doing. The particles made his body pulse as the data of his avatar was being transported elsewhere. Moments later all Rude could feel was the soaking wet rain.

--------

~ Θ Hidden Haunted Paradise ~

Rude looked as if he had fell into a lake or had a thousand water balloons thrown at him. He was soaked through and his bones felt cold. His long brown hair looked black and was plastered across his face in all directions. In fact, you couldn’t even see his face; he looked like Cousin It from The Addams Family. Where Rude had been transported to he had no idea because he couldn’t see through his wet hair. Rude raised his hand, that felt so heavy from being cold, and wiped his hair from his eyes. The field he was in didn’t have much in the way of scenery. It was like being back home in the countryside seeing endless green fields that continued into the distance. Rude wished he was in a lush field in the countryside, not some bleak field that was overcast with rain for miles upon miles. The air smelt of rain and strangely not of smoke as the rocks, ground and windmill in the distance all looked scarred from fire. The mud underneath Rude’s feet had a red-brown colour to it and felt spongy, not sloppy like mud usually felt like. Everything seemed just a little too quiet. No thunder or strong winds, which was surprising considering the amount of rainfall.

Rude spotted Exangelus walking off by himself and as Rude turned round to inspect what was behind him. He saw Rose and Lakely, 50 metres to his left and decided to introduce himself properly. They were both crouched close to the ground and Rude wondered what the hell they were up to. As Rude approached he saw Lakely put a microscope back into his pocket. Rude was puzzled as to why the guy would have a microscope on him and just how it exactly fitted into his pocket. Did he have legendary deep pockets like the famous George Stobbart from the Broken Sword games? He must have, and Rude wanted a jacket just like it. The next thing Lakely did was to pick up a blackened rock and cautiously lick it. Rude stopped in his stride, bewildered. Is this guy psycho? Lakely hadn’t spotted Rude and neither had Rose and Rude took a few steps back not wanting to disturb their strange antics. Rude turned and only just caught a glimpse of a shadow shaped like Exangelus in the distance. It was time to catch him up and Rude hoped the other two would soon follow.

Rude unleashed his spear and started jogging. His feet didn’t sink into the ground but rather bounced instead. It was very strange because usually in ‘The World’ the weather effects depicted real life. Rude picked up his pace, as the person ahead of him wasn’t getting any closer. Panic started to set in, as even after sprinting the person was still just a black shadow. Like magic the shadow disappeared from sight and Rude came to a halt. Rude couldn’t feel the rain splashing on his body and yet he could see it. A cold shiver went down his spine. Something wasn’t right; the field was playing tricks with his mind.

Rude circled on the spot and realised that Rose and Lakely hadn’t followed him and Exangelus was nowhere to be seen. Odd shadows seemed to flicker in the distance but after repeated blinking, they were gone. Rude found a large boulder and sat himself down and dropped his spear to the floor. He was lost and had no idea where the dungeon lay. The windmill that he saw earlier was not in sight and all he could see for miles was a charcoaled wall and singed trees. The fun quest that he was hoping for was disappearing fast and he felt like logging out and giving the game up again. The thought angered Rude. He wasn’t going to give up, though he did wish that he hadn’t left Rose and Lakely.

With his legs bent and pulled close to his chest and his face resting in his hands, Rude waited to see if he could spot his clan members. He didn’t like the thought of having to find his way to the dungeon and fight higher levelled monsters by himself… if the field had its’ way that is exactly what Rude would have to do…

The sky hung heavy above him, gray as settling smoke. His footsteps did not fly up to his ears as they normally would, nor did the sound of the splashing water or even the sound of his own breath. Everything was silent around him, like death suspended in its eternal motion.

The monster portal in front of him began to unfurl its otherworldly tenants, spinning wildly around on its little vertical axis, spewing golden light and specs of unrendered blackness. A black cape billowed in from nothingness, waving and contorting in the nonphysical wind created from the portal. It rippled in and spawned a set of what first looked like arms, sprouting from the sides and hanging parallel to the vertical front of the cape. But, as the central body began to form inside the swirl of darkness, the ‘arms’ began to thin and become sharp, jagged lengths of deadly steel, old and tempered with blood. The main body spilled out into existence, a gigantic purple pumpkin’s head with an ethereal radiance emanating from within the jack-o-lantern hollow behind its eyes. The flesh of the pumpkin was old and molded and rotten, its cape torn and ripped, its blades bloodied and thirsty. For a moment, it didn’t move, choosing to hover there, staring through into Exangelus’s eyes. Then, a black shape rose from the darkness behind it, folding the monster portal back onto itself. It stood a near ten feet tall, its head short and stocky, its arms thick with muscle and covered with decaying green skin. It stood for a moment, unmoving, mammoth in its own presence. Then it rose to its full height, drawing a sword from the final patch of spawning portal, a huge blade no less than five feet long, held in its right hand, and the severed head of some fallen foe in the other. The two enemies gazed down at him, and began to fan out.

Exangelus drew his blades, two sets of blackened claws, carbonized in battles long past, eager for the flesh of his enemies. He expected his allies would come along very soon, so he paid no heed to his flank, charging into the Phantom Specter.

It whirled around ad struck with its right blade, which Exangelus deflected into the ground to his right, sending drops of heavy rain splashing into the air against their weapons. He dove forward under another strike from the opposite blade, underneath the flapping cape, and struck at the underbelly of the creature, slicing through thick pumpkin skin and making it cry out. The Specter countered by throwing its weight forward into Exangelus, not doing any damage, but making him stagger backward towards the Headhunter. The Specter reared again and swung its left blade towards Ex, who barely dodged the strike by throwing himself even further off balance. He cursed indiscernibly under his breath as he fell to a knee in front of the Hunter, practically kneeling to the creature, as it raised its huge sword and brought it down upon him. Ex ducked and rolled, outside of the effective reach of both monsters, and stood back up, bringing his claws up defensively. Looking up towards the two behemoths, he started to wonder where exactly his allies were. Being far enough away from the enemies to take a glance around to gauge how much longer it would be before they arrived, he let his gaze slide to his right, over his shoulder, back towards where he had come from. He expected to see his clan mates charging in, weapons unsheathed and casting support spells from afar, but when the empty expanse of eradicated field replaced his whims of any kind of help, a valve unplugged somewhere inside him and his stomach sank. His gaze lingered for a fraction of a second too long, and when he returned it back to the monsters in front of him, he knew he had already been beaten.

The Headhunter came in with its full force, connecting a devastating blow straight into Exangelus’s chest, knocking him into the air and flying back no less than ten feet without the capacity to breathe. Ex fell to the hard, muddy floor neck-first and slammed down hard, body falling on top of him under the shock of the blow. A searing knife of pain ripped through his entire left side and into his lower back, where he collapsed on top of it, and crumpled sliding on the slick mud. The Specter, meanwhile, had been wording the makings of a spell, a purple aura issuing off of the beast in layers, eyes glowing bright and skinny arms drawn up in concentration. As Ex lay there, trying to recover from the pain, the Specter belched out a burble of unrecognizable magical words, and the ground beneath him began to grow hot. Staring into the sky, Ex saw wisps of black smoke rise up around him, rise into the bleeding sky and dissipate magically through some filter, so harmless as they were – like so many things in the history of innocence, the most undamaging and guiltless pieces of the puzzle were the ones that gave the one and only warning to the great pain that would ensue. The whole of the pumpkin suddenly glowed with intense purple light, and the smoke around Exangelus disappeared. The burning ground beneath him heaved up and sent thick black spikes shooting straight up, steaming their black steam and etched with red veins of pure pain. They shot through Exangelus as he watched, initially numb to them, all around him; he felt, somewhat detachedly, one penetrate the thick muscle between his femur and groin, and another slide up through the nook between his scalpula and spine on the right side, rising up and standing triumphantly over him. It took a moment for it to really hit him, the fact that his body should be convulsing blood out onto open soil, the fact that he should be screaming out in agony, and when it did, scream he did. It was a singular, penetrating, bark of a scream, expelling all the air in his lungs and rendering him practically without a life line. But, somehow, he found air to breath, and as his lungs expanded, his body rejected the action as the serrated black spire sliced further into the tissue in his back. Ex lay there for a second, in that half-scream where your eyes are sealed shut and your mouth hangs open, unable to speak or draw breath, in horrible pain and just beginning to regain control of bodily functions. But, as he was about to overcome the stagnant hang of nerves in his fingers, the claws receded back into the ground. They jerked at first, tearing the skin that has already begun sticking to it, and then descended slowly, slowly, ever so slowly back into the cracked earth.

Rain fell hard and into the open wounds, washing out the blood as it came, into the ground around him. Despite the pain in his chest and thigh, Exangelus’s subconscious still acted quickly to the advent of his new condition. He knew he wouldn’t survive another blow, and he knew he couldn’t get up in time in his condition. So, with the little muscle tension he could manage, Exangelus choked out a croak of a spell that he hoped would heal him enough so that he could at least stand ad defend. The faithful spell came difficultly from his lips, stumbling up a hill of trembling and pain.

“Rep… Repth…”

His chest illuminated itself in the magical blue aura, searing his wounds and enveloping him in a final burst of pain. Another bark of a cry escaped from his mouth, and he finally drew a breath and began to stand.

The rain pounded down, and with it the sight of further anguish. His time on the ground had been too long-spent, and now, he looked up, on one elbow, into the beady eyes of the Headhunter. It cocked what it had of a head to the side, almost comically, and then raised suddenly to its full height and slammed its mammoth sword down towards Exangelus. Panicking, he tried to roll to the side. He brought his hands up to his sides and covered the back of his neck like a child practicing stop-drop-and-roll, forcing all of his weight to his right. The blade came down, and Exangelus felt it dig into his flesh… but he was free and on his feet. The back of his shoulder was on fire, leather torn off from the shoulder, and he felt warm blood run down his back. He looked to the sword, dug into the ground, and saw blood on the blade. He didn’t want to imagine what exactly had happened to his back.

His whole body was sore, and his chest was still bleeding from the spike, but the hole had closed and now only tissue bled, as well as the one on his thigh. Tender and inflamed, but usable, just like he had intended. The Headhunter was recovering from its swing, and Exangelus tried to step in and defeat it before it could fully recover, but when he brandished his weapons, he was assaulted by the Phantom Specter, swirling its own blades around. He threw up his defense and managed to deflect one, but took a shallow gash on his chest from the other, and painfully, right over the still-healing wound he had been dealt before. It seemed to him that the two monsters, new to him in this Theta Server, actually had a lick of sense in them, unlike the dull-witted bludgeon-heads of Delta: against one opponent, they attacked in turns, leaving time for the other to recover while continuously wearing down the opponent. It was simple, but distracting enough to have worked long enough to have nearly killed Exangelus. For a moment, his mind lingered back into an almost vindictive view of his allies and why-the-hell they hadn’t followed him, or in any case, watched what he was doing – much less go off in some direction where he couldn’t even see them. But, he snapped his mind back into place to save him from a fate he had already suffered. The Phantom was already injured, so he decided to go after it first. Instead of charging it, he hung back and raised his claws to channel his magical energy.

“Rue Kruz.”

Exangelus focused his magic straight ahead, right towards the Phantom, and he released it, allowing the energy to leave him. But, as soon as he let his concentration slack from target to magic, the Headhunter rushed in front of the Specter and took on the full force of the spell, chunks of ice slamming down and grinding into its core, vibrating madly then exploding outwards, sending shards of ice flying in all directions. Ex’s eyes shot wide for a second, watching this act of both intelligence and sacrifice. The Headhunter knew it would be generally weaker without an ally, so it protected it with hopes of maintaining numerical advantage. Ex was beginning to get annoyed, if even only just mildly.

He rushed forward at it, wanting to finish at least one of them off. He struck forward and connected a hit, spinning and chaining another hit off a quick duck. He manage to get behind the weakened Headhunter and was about to strike, but was forced to dodge a dual-strike from the Phantom Specter. The Headhunter swung out with the bulk of its arm at Ex, and it landed, knocking a breath from him. As ex recovered, he had to deflect a sword attack from the Headhunter’s opposite arm, and it splashed down into the ground next to him. Finding an open chance, Ex rushed in under the Hunter’s sword arm, shoulder about two feet from the top of his head, and jammed the fist of his claws into the meat of its armpit, sliding the blades back out and rolling away. Incapacitated and near death, the Headhunter fell back and let the Phantom move up, but Exangelus wasn’t about to let it get away from him again. He ran in as fast as he could, past the Phantom and between the two. Drawing on a physical skill, he felt more of his magical energy leave him.

“Tiger Claws.”

His legs lost all of their weight, his arms became strong and quick and deadly, and his vision blurred, all in one mad flurry of slashes. The Headhunter fell, three bleeding gashes in its side brining it finally to an end. The Phantom took a hard blow as well, and gave just the necessary way to Exangelus for him to step in for a final blow. He lunged upwards and threw his blades through the soft underbelly of the pumpkin, ripping out innards that dissipated as soon as they hit air. It shrieked and fell backwards through the air, flailing and swinging its swords around in a last attempt to deal damage. Ex squatted and let it flail as it began to turn gray and filter away into the air, just as the Headhunter behind it. They blew away in the wind of nothing, and silence flooded back into the realm.

Exangelus knelt on one knee, letting himself catch his breath. He healed himself again, completely removing the injuries he had sustained. The eerie quiet of the field reigned again, and he was reminded again of his missing allies. He stood and looked around again, as if they would run up now as soon as he was done with the fighting and call exasperatedly to him, ‘Where’s the fight?’ But they were not to be found. In fact, the whole of the field seemed to be getting smaller, almost as if Ex’s line of vision were narrowing, or if there were a gray film of static across his radar of detection. Everything was duller and more meek. And throughout, the rain remained nearly silent.

The dungeon entrance, about fifty feet away, set a looming eye over him. It seemed to stare at him, and only him. It seemed to tell him, whisper in his ear, that he was alone; it mocked him.

Casting one last cursory glance behind him, Exangelus trotted into the dungeon, spires soaring high, hiding all that unfolded beneath it.

Exangelus entered through the high arched doors, drenched with rain and a little indignation. He had no idea where his comrades were – in fact, he had no idea now if they had even really attempted to follow him towards his previous battle. They had probably wandered off on some separate escapade, distracted by dirt and the marvels of modern devices like lungs and fingers. He shook off his contempt and threw off his soaking leather coat, sliced through the chest, back, and arm, into a corner. He didn’t need it on, and it would simply respawn back on him when he gated out; a handy feature, he found, within The World.

The first room was a standard entrance chamber, free on all walls of decoration or indication of presence. A door stood across the short hallway, made of heavy wood and adorned with a plain iron handle, and a small sconce hung on the ceiling, letting dull orange light drip down into the room. Exangelus approached the door, letting his hands come to rest on the hilts of his claws, letting his arms swing back with his hips as he walked. Before he got to it, however, he was distracted by a dark inscription on the wall to his left, written in what looked to be charcoal. The letters were elegant and curvaceous, presenting a message that was as cryptic as it was maddeningly uncooperative. How he had missed it upon entering the room was a mystery in itself, but he ignored it. He walked, hair sodden and dripping, to the wall and read the message.

Darkness flows like knowledge
The cologne of a corpse stands true
Hardly a sound to see
Locked like your belief
Fall

Exangelus read it and read it again, sifting through miscellaneous trivialities and texts that might have something to do with the words presented in carbon on the wall, but drew blank thought and stood there, eyes darting back and forth like a man without an answer. His eyes slid over the words, deciphering them without success, data without a return. Knowing better than to disregard such a message, he committed the verse to memory and turned from the wall, scratching his head, staring at the floor and walking towards the door.

As he came closer to it, however, he began to feel an increasingly disturbing sensation in the bottom of his stomach, the kind that you got when you see very macabre gore splayed out in front of you. For a moment, he ignored it, and upped his pace, as he seemed to be moving rather slowly. Over the course of the next few seconds, though, his mind slowly came to the realization that, no matter how much he stepped forward, the door never seemed to get closer. He looked up from the floor and gazed at the door. Every instinct and sensory organ in his body said that he was walking forward, approaching a door that stood no more than ten feet away, feet padding quietly in their leather boots, but no matter how much he tried to conceptualize it, he just would not get closer to the door. He stopped, bewildered, and stared. The door gazed indignantly back.

Exangelus furrowed his brow in concentration. He walked forward again, and felt his body moving onward, towards it, but his eyes betrayed his legs. He tried again, with a similar result. By now, he was getting frustrated with the non-result of his efforts. He turned around to view the inscription on the wall, thinking it may have had something to do with the anomaly, but stopped in his tracks when he realized he was now in a different room. The shape of the room was exactly the same as the room he thought he was still in, but his coat was not tossed lazily in the corner, there existed no inscription on the wall, no door leading outside, and for that matter, no indication that any of these things had ever existed. Gone. Exangelus looked about the room, stunned. Turning back to the only door that now remained in the room, he restrained himself from attempting again to walk towards it. He stood in thought, formulating his plan.

Closing his eyes, he began to wander forward, taking lazy steps in whatever direction his body would take him. If he couldn’t approach the door, there had to be something going on with the visuals in the room… they were fooling him in an attempt to phase—

He hit something solid, and his eyes jerked open, stumbling back. He stared at the door, still ten feet in front of him. Nothing solid existed in front of him. He waved his hands through the air before himself, as if in attempt to trip an invisible wire or reach to an invisible platform. He knew there was something; his head hurt where he had collided, and throbbed now under the pressure of both pain and confusion. He didn’t get it. But, if anything, he was resourceful. Once bewildered, try again. He closed his eyes.

The room went dark around him. Again, he began to walk forward, eyes seeing nothing but the dull orange-red glaze of his eyelids. He walked slowly, carefully, letting his right hand hover just a few inches in front of his hips, far enough to touch anything in front of him and stop himself from colliding with it. And touch something he did, very early on in his descent: the solid object he hit, wooden and adorned with a plain iron handle, by the feel, was, of course, exactly what he had seen before closing his eyes, only… he had actually been able to approach it. He let his left hand come up and grasp the handle, bewildered by the phenomena but willing to participate in its tricks, and pulled. It opened easily on its hinge, and, eyes still closed tight, Exangelus slid himself through the opening in the door. He suddenly found himself without a wall to touch, and stopped where he was. Still facing forward, he began to walk backward slowly, in an attempt to reconnect himself with the door; surely, there must be a wall attached to the frame. It would give him something to base his position on, give him some reference point to… why wasn’t he touching the door?

Exangelus felt nothing, more than enough steps backward to have come in contact with the door. He spun, not caring about his direction now, and flailed his arms out, trying to reestablish his position. Nothing came. He stumbled forward, a blind man in the dark, trying to feel for something wasn’t there. Eyes still closed, he decided to open his eyes, reset the puzzle like he had before, and try again. But, when he opened his eyes, he saw nothing. The thickest blackness, viscous enough to taste and touch and smell, was upon him, drowning him. Suddenly very panicked, Exangelus halted his movement. He squatted, to find the only contact he had left: the ground. He reached down with outstretched palms in front of him, and let his weight come down on—

… nothing.

He fell forward, as his he had fallen from a cliff face, and hit hard ground a split second after falling, hard on his side. Odder still than the fact that he couldn’t feel the ground he was previously standing on, was the fact that he had landed on something not too far away from the fall, that was slanted at a very steep angle away from the vertical drop he had just experienced. It was like standing perpendicular to a wall and letting yourself fall and catching yourself on your shoulder…. Except six feet down and sideways. His mind told him that he was about to slide somewhere, on this viscously slanted surface, and he attempted to spread his arms and legs out to attain grip, but his gravity was center. He was lying on flat ground. All of his senses did an erupted loop, and he found himself standing. Standing, again, on a surface that his senses just second ago would have told him was at an eighty degree angle from his old perch. So, his eyes blotted from vision, his center of gravity maintained like a barrel in calm water, Exangelus decided to stop trusting his senses.

They lied. The bastards.

A little shaken, but perfectly fine physically, Exangelus calmed his mind, letting his eyes shut. This must all have something to do with that inscription he had read. Darkness flows like knowledge chanted the wall in his mind. It certainly was dark. Hardly a sound to see. He certainly couldn’t hear or see anything. It’s a good thing he couldn’t see sound to begin with, because what he could see was already dark and blank enough. No sounds echoed through this place. Nothing would make a sound. Nothing could, it was an empty room, with… with…

“… sound.”

A spot of light flared in the distance. The only thing that could make sound in his room was him. He could. Duhhh.

“Sound.”

The same pinprick of light flashed far to his left. He began to walk toward it, confused by the happening but willing enough to cooperate.

“Tuna fish.”

It flashed a little.

“Allen wrench.”

It flashed a little more. He was getting closer, and the flash was getting brighter. Something was starting to stink.

“Douglas Adams.”

He picked up his pace, allured like a moth to a flame to this odd light at the end of his unseen tunnel. It was fading, but growing larger in diameter, almost as if the light was dispersing its concentration over a larger area as he approached. It was really starting to stink, for no reason he could tell. Smelt like rotten fish. When the light began to fade, Exangelus spoke again.

“The Labyrinth really was a good movie. David Bowie looks better with long hair.”

The prick of light was so very dim now, and he was nearly upon it. When his mind told him that he was directly in the center of the light, his eyes told him that no more light existed. He spoke aloud to try and summon it. Nothing came. But, seriously, it was really starting to reek. It smelled like someone had died, like…

… like the cologne of a corpse? Holding true?

Exangelus nodded to himself. When nothing around him made sense, and he had stopped trusting his senses, he became very accepting of circumstances. Very friendly. He had a kink of the munchies, too. But the inscription on the wall rung in his mind. It made a little sense now, in this pit of senselessness, and it dug at him. Why that, if not all of this? It must be powerful, ya ya. All-knowing. So, he recollected all of it’s power-embuing goodness in his mind.

Darkness flows like knowledge
The cologne of a corpse stands true
Hardly a sound to see
Locked like your belief
Fall

He could see the darkness around him. He smelled that rank, death-smell. He could no longer see the sound-light. It all seemed to fit. Except…

… locked like his belief?

… what belief? He didn’t have a belief. No. Silly. No belief here.

Fall?

… okay.

Exangelus rolled backwards on his heels, spreading his arms out like a skydiver. He let his balance turn, let his barrel roll, and he found himself falling. Falling. No floors, no sound, no air rushing by him, but he was falling. It was the feeling in his stomach. It was calm and engulfing, like falling quickly into sleep from a hard day.

When he opened his eyes, he was laying on the floor, staring at a stone ceiling.

All his senses back, Exangelus sat up. He felt a calm, his natural calm, his default state of mind come over him. He could see again. He could see and hear and smell and breathe freely. Everything in the dark room had passed from his thoughts. He didn’t really care to wonder how he had gotten here. He didn’t think it was that important.

He was back in the very first room he had entered. A tall wooden door arched over a gaping, salt clay-topped field, pouring rain. A beaten, shredded leather coat lay in the corner. A plain wooden door with an unadorned iron handle marked the opposite wall. There was no inscription on the wall. Exangelus stood, walked over the door, and opened it.

A spacious, planar room opened itself to him as he walked through, closing the door behind him. Wooden floors replaced the stone of the previous room, though by the sound of his footsteps, the wood was merely laid overtop of it. A lush red rug spread out to the corners of the room, with black tassels on every side, binding the material together. The pattern was black and spidery, rooting out to points beyond him. Two large staircases rose out from the floor, made of stone and decorated with ornate wrought iron banisters. Both spun symmetrically up into the ceiling, leading surely to the room above. There were a couple of lounge tables scattered tastefully about, giving the room a feel of casual elegance. Silverware plates, four on each circular table, lay with two forks and two knives on either side, with a glass goblet for each set and a single silver candlestick on each table. None of the plates had food on them, and none of the candles were lit, save for one in the very center. Exangelus wove through the tables, noting the detailed woodwork of all the heavy, red velvet-upholstered chairs, towards the table in the center. On this table, there were only two sets of silverware, and a corkscrew sat near an unopened bottle of nameless wine. Instead of a glazed pork hock on the plate closest to him, there was a piece of parchment, with words on it written in what looked to be a quill pen, curved and fancy like the ones he had found on the wall in the room before the his dark wandering. He picked it up, and read it to himself.

Four guests were invited
One guest will stay
One guest will eat
One guest will drink
One guest will leave
Dinner is served

Exangelus looked up from the letter, just about as confused as he was when he read the first carbon-inscribed message, casting quick glances around the room for no particular reason, and looked back down at the paper.

There were no words.

A bell sounded from somewhere around him; he could not tell from where. The sound echoed lightly on the stone walls and rang into nothingness. Then he heard a door open somewhere, forcefully, slamming against the stone wall near it. Then, silence. He set the paper down on the plate, and grew very silent and still. The only things that moved were his eyes, and even they moved slowly and with care.

Almost a minute passed. No more sounds came to him. He loosened his muscles a little, allowing himself to begin to walk around the room. He noted the doors on all sides of him: the one he had come through, two on either side of the room, and a door across the room behind the stairs. He had no intention of returning to the area from whence he had come, and the two side doors were too indirect for his tastes. He moved forward, slowly at first, towards the stairs in the middle of the room, so that he might ascend them to see if he could find the source of the sounds. The banister of the left staircase was cold under his fingers as he gripped it, drawing one of his claws from his hip with the other hand and ascending the carpet-embellished steps with careful silence. His eyes approached level with the next floor, and he felt a little odd, peering over the floor of a room with his eyes an inch above the floor. He rose, into the new room, and drew his other set of claws. He did not like this room.

It was smaller than the room below him, adorned with nothing but a red space rug, identical to the one below him in the sense that those black, spidery lines crisscrossed it and made an unexplainable pattern. It covered every inch of the room except for small gaps between the floor and wall, and around the rising staircases. There were no doors, and no indication that any sound like a door slamming could have been made to echo down into the room below. There was, however, a table. A single table, in the far corner, with two objects on it: a nameless bottle of wine, and a bell. It was small, no taller than four inches, made of clear crystal. There was nothing else in the room. Exangelus left the crux of the stairs and walked over to the table to examine its contents, sheathing his claws. The bottle of wine, identical to the bottle he had found downstairs next to the note, was constructed of vintage green glass, wrapped in a parchment-like paper. The edges were embroidered, and there was a thin red strip of ribbon that outlined the area between the middle of the parchment and the decorated edges. There was nothing in the center, no name, no year, no flavor or any endorsement. Just a blank bottle of wine. The dull tan foil wrapped around the cork was unbroken, wrapped nicely with the same red ribbon. Letting his gaze slide from the bottle, Exangelus picked up the bell and examined it, the small crystal clapper clinking softly to the side. It was mostly clear, but it had a pattern on it that he couldn’t quite make out. He rung it once, back and forth a couple of times, then sat it down. Turning back to the staircases, thinking of what this situation may have meant, he stopped in his tracks, distracted. Something suddenly seemed very different. The room was brighter. Something had changed. Exangelus drew his blades, unaware of the danger but sensing it in the back of his mind. He walked forward, searching around. A blackness had lifted, gone somewhere… and when his eyes fell to the floor in front of him, he suddenly knew. However, at that point, he felt that it was already too late to dodge the first attack.

He tried to turn, but he was struck in the side by something that felt like an iron pole, and he was flung to the side with a force to rival being hit by a mid-sized pickup. He fell to the floor and rolled, ribs screaming at him, and struck the wall, eyes still stuck involuntarily shut. He felt his mouth open and grimacing, and felt his hands drawing up to push himself to standing position, when his eyes opened just in time to alert him of the second attack, which he dove to avoid, rolling on his shoulder and flinging himself to standing position far enough away from the new adversary to find out exactly what he was fighting. What he had seen missing on the floor, the carpet, was exactly what he saw loping in front of him now. The black, spidery pattern that had adorned the carpet was now absent, instead floating in a web-like black mass that coiled and ran over through itself, snakes of black thread and organic material slithering together to form something resembling a basketball with roots hanging off of it. It’s had no eyes that he could see, and it’s ‘arms’ were made of long vines of the black, viscous, webby material, and one arm was now dug into the stone wall where he had just been laying, pointed and deadly. It rippled in the air and ripped the tentacle out of the wall, and floated there, oscillating in and out of itself. Exangelus had no clue as to what to do with this unfamiliar foe, and so he backed up and circled it, holding his injured ribcage back behind his defensive claws. That thing was really strong.

It all came into itself then, drawing in its vines and roots and forming itself all into one ball, sized roughly the same as a beach ball, and hovered silently. For a moment, Exangelus thought his ears were beginning to ring, but as he came to realize, the ball of black matter was actually humming very shrilly, and increasing in volume as it began to sway back and forth. Exangelus was confused and clueless as to how it was making noise, much less why it was made of that black gooey stuff, and even less why it had spawned from a pattern of thread in the middle of a carpet. He approached it, but no sooner had he taken just one step forward did he find himself regretting that he did it. The black ball of web exploded outwards in all directions, sending thick veins of web onto the ceiling and floor and walls, leaving small vines of the stuff to linger around it’s center, now reduced to a quivering knot of the material. It moved so fast, so unanswerably fast, that Exangelus barely had time to realize what was happening. The arms rushed forward, throwing themselves at points along the wall and floor surrounding Exangelus, and thrust its whole mass forward, striking out from all directions with its whip-like tentacles. A shocked grunt escaped his mouth and he threw up his claws in defense, but was overtaken almost immediately by the shear complexity of the web he was consumed by. One branch flew out and struck the back of his knees, weakening his posture for just a split second, and within that split second, another set of vines swooped in and thrust open his arms, splitting open his defenses like a coconut under a hatchet. A thick vine came and slammed against his midsection, knocking the air out of him, sending him stumbling backwards. He was stopped abruptly by a pair of restrictive vines, and right on cue, two more small ones dove in and struck him in the jaw and back, making his head fly back against the opposite force of his back, spinning in instinctual torsion to the pain, and he felt something in his neck pull. Before he was aware of it, his limbs were tied and he was being beaten from every angle by this black web. He endured the ferocious pounding for a good, long, painful ten seconds, trying to rip free of the attack. With his face already bloody and bruised and his body hardly able to withstand the it, he gathered up his strength and tried to strike back. He ripped his right arm from the preventive bracing of a vine, using every ounce of strength he could shove into the arm, and ripped his claws through the blockade of strings in front of him. He let his weight fall to the floor, sending his legs underneath and behind him, and struck with his free hand at the restraints on his left arm, severing them, and dove forward, wrestling through the lighting-fast reflexes of the vines, slicing and keeping his arms and legs moving the entire way. He was nearly out of the sphere of influence of the creature when he felt his left ankle come out from under him, and he was lifted into the air. Rolling quickly against the axis of the twisting vine around his ankle, he cast a spell in a frantic attempt to free himself.

“Rue Kruz!”

As if sensing his desperation, the spell blurred the air in front of him in its haste and struck the vine holding him, severing it and sending sharp shards of ice exploding outwards into various appendages of the black mass, and Exangelus hit the ground hard. He scrambled away, slicing vines as they came, and finally found himself thrown against the back wall, hard and painful under the excess of his own haste, and turned back to face the creature. He had no idea what kind of mess he had put himself into. It was just too fast and too encompassing to defeat on his own – it was just too much. He already felt like he had fallen off a cliff, every limb covered with bruises, lip split and bleeding, left eye swollen, and two places on the right of his ribcage dented with crushed bones. He could barely stand and barely think, much less defeat this monster. He was separated from the only exit by the monster and too much space to make any kind of attempt, and the only things on his side of the room were the table, the bell, and the bottle of wine. Just in case he got thirsty. Exangelus was trapped, and he knew it.

“Repth…”

He raised his blades and began the few seconds it would take to cast the spell, but not sooner had the words left his mouth did a vine come flying for him, faster than he could react, and latched to his arm. Exangelus felt an intensely painful serration as the vines wrapped around his arm, and realized that the surface of this particular vine had morphed to include tiny thorns, bigger than rose thorns but smaller than brambles, covered with fuzz-like spines.

Apparently, the fuzz really made the fucker hurt.

Exangelus let out a scream as his arm was pinned violently against the wall, and he rolled sideways against the wall, slamming all three blades of his claws into the trunk of the vine, digging them down and trying to pry the squirming roots out of his arm. He had never felt such an intense pain in one part of his body, and the fact that the black mass was using his arm as a latch point to pull itself forward towards him didn’t make his situation any better. It had withdrawn its other veins and was floating loftily through the air, pulling itself using Exangelus’s arm as the focal point. Exangelus suddenly recognized the course of action the swirling mass was going to take: it was withdrawing itself into a ball so that it could shoot outwards again, and this time, Exangelus was pinned to the wall, unable to move and defend. It rippled in itself and Exangelus knew he would have to stand up to another brutal thrashing. Finding himself backed into the corner near the table, he didn’t know what he could have done. If he tried to conjure a spell again, he would leave himself open to a direct attack, and he already had one arm taken by the vine. He felt warm blood drip out from under the gauntlet of thorns, and it was tightening by the second. The black creature stopped moving forward, and shivered in its space. It began to let out that same low-to-high shrill sound, and it started swaying in the air. Exangelus braced himself for the coming impact, and put up a defensive blade in front of his face. Between his fingers, he saw the swirling mass of black tentacles shoot out, exploding from its center in every direction, and tensed very muscle in response… but all he heard was the shattering of glass. The hit never came. The air around him blurred as the creature shrieked, higher and louder than Exangelus thought possible. If his hands weren’t locked in mortal defense, they would have been over his ears, blocking out the ungodly sound. In an instant, the tentacle in his arm ripped out, and truthfully, for the eternal second that followed, Exangelus thought that the creature had pulled the entire layer of skin off of his arm. But when he looked down, his skin was still there, and it was riddled all over with those black, fuzzy spines and long, thin gashes where the thorns looked like they were burrowing into his skin. He looked up just in time to see what the creature had stopped for: the bottle of wine on the table next to him had shattered, spilling its contents all over the wall and the tentacle that had broken it. Exangelus watched the creature as it rocketed backwards away from him, the vine that had hit the wine bottle writhing and letting off black smoke. It rounded the corner over the staircases, and disappeared underneath them, soundless after it disappeared.

Exangelus stood, bewildered, beaten, and barely able to wonder why the bottle of wine had made the creature flee.

Maybe it really preferred red wine?

He cast a batch of Repth spells on himself and watched as the bruises on his skin melted away, and as the gashes healed and the black spines fell out of his skin. The arm that the creature had engulfed with its thorny vine felt weak and barely usable, despite the spells. Tired and spent, he leaned on the wall for a few moments, letting his thoughts run liquid.

After a while, he walked over to the table with the shattered wine bottle and examined it. At first, he was afraid to touch the wine, but after dipping the tip of his finger into it, he dubbed it safe enough. At least, to humans. Not so much for giant black masses of thorny vines, apparently. He also noticed that the wrapper for the wine glass, now torn in two, had changed as well. Instead of blank parchment, it now had letters scrawled out on them, in distracted, jagged handwriting. It seemed to bleed out into the paper, blood red ink spelling out a word in front of him. “Ego.” Exangelus wasn’t exactly fluent in many languages, but the Latin was simple in its meaning. He didn’t know what the development meant. Whatever ego or it’s Latin equivalent had to do with him and this situation, he had no idea. But, he remembered the note on the table on the floor below him, and thought that it would be best to commit the word to memory as well. Whatever it meant, he was sure he would need it at one point or another.

Before leaving, Exangelus dipped the tip of his finger into the pool of wine on the table and tasted it.

It was very sweet.

Um...

...

*cough*

~end~

Exangelus --> +1 Level - +Tsumuji - +Chaos Spell - +Health Drink x2

Strato --> +1 Level - +Karin

Rose --> +Mage's Soul - +Fortune Wire x5

Rude --> +1 Level

If anyone got a grading that didn't deserve it (as in, was tied up in another quest when you wrote in this one), be honest and don't snatch up what I gave ya'. Otherwise, enjoy.