The heavy blade let his lapel drop from his fisted grip. The night air splashed his face with a chill. A flier danced under the weight of his boot in the wind. He picked it up and held the familiar portrait to eye level, scratching his head. Crap...I'm the spitting image of that handsome devil on the left... He looked over his right shoulder. Nobody. Annnnd - He turned his head again. Nobody. Okay, coast is clear. His leather gloves gripped the middle of his back and pulled the brown leather coat over his head until his hand rested directly above his skull. "OOOoooohhhooooo! I ehm ayy MONSTARRR..." Lets see the Knights of War catch me in THIS! He grinned a devious grin under the shade of the coat and ran off down the alley directly ahead with his arms flailing.

His hip caught the edge of a dumpster causing him to turn painfully. "Owwwwwch...ouch!" The flailing idiot's peripheral vision barely existed. The small of his back caught the lip of another dumpster. His heels flung into the air as his head and leather coat tumbled into yesterday's lunch.

The leather ghoul emerged covered with banana peels and an extraordinary amount of fruit salad bits. He looked more like a clown than ever as he pushed his head through the top of the jacket, where it belonged, and revealed a nose full of strawberry. Cross-eyed, Stane glanced at the red before wearing a stupid frown. His voice dripped of sarcasm nearly as much as his cloths dripped of colored muck. "Oh gaaame..." he teased. His gray eyes rolled in his head as he gave his red nose a sarcastic HONK, spewing red gloppy mush into his eyes. "For crying out loud!" he hollered at the still night, rubbing his red eyes like a baby fresh from a tantrum.

With one foot on the lip of the contraption, he hoisted himself halfway up before his heel gave. DONG! Stane's face grimaced so hard it looked chiseled. With his body taut, he fell the rest of the way off the skinniest horsey ride he'd ever want to go on. The tender heavy blade hit the ground with a thud. Either The World got a cartoony sound-effects patch, or it's 1 am – says the clock tower. He grabbed his 'nads and assumed the position. I think Imma...I think Imma lay here a bit...a bit longer...ahh...mommy...

He slowly got to his feet, shaking nervously like it was his first time standing on his own. "Okay..okay," he crooned himself, now bending over like an old lady, "I won't let a little thing like - " he winced, not daring to say it, " – THAT stop me from a night full of prowling." The words were meant to be heroic, but his hurt tone only left them sounding like someone's first time with a motivational tape.

Prowling... That brought his mind back to where it was going more and more these days. He wished Uruvei was here. SHE would certainly like to prowl with him! Especially in her new super-awesome costume. Stane made a mental note to ask her where she got all that cool gear. Maybe it was time for an upgrade of his own. His eyes looked down to his battered cloths – victims of a klutz. His right sleeve was missing, his white t-shirt had more holes than not, a chicken leg still stuck out of his black denim pants pocket (he wished that was fresh from the nearest dumpster, but he knew it was from a past event...a VERY past event), and his hat was – wait. Where was his hat?

Stane shuffled his feet to dive back into the dumpster, but stopped dead. "Ohhhhhh no-you-don't," he jeered at the metal rectangular opening of pain and anguish. "I've become wise to your ways and have brought! - " He riped the gigantic sword from his back. " – A fishing pole!...err...hmmm."

He gazed up at the tip of his blade, six feet above. Needs...shoelaces... He looked at his feet, lifting a pant leg to reveal a shiny river of laces continuing nearly a third of the way to his knee. When did I have girl shoes??? It was true, he'd never seen his entire shoe...what ELSE could be lurking underneath his outer shell of cloths?? Without thinking, he undid his belt and dropped trou. To his relief, white boxers with little red hearts hung loosely around his waist.

Clop...clop...clop... Someone was coming! Stane looked down frantically at his pants around his ankles and then at the previously exited dumpster. Then back to his boxers. Then back to the dumpster.

Dropping his sword like a forgotten limb, he jumped head-first into the trash heap – his lower half dangling over the lip. Girly leather boots and bunched up jeans flapped away, kicking the side of the contraption and making a racket. His arms fished for the hat frantically when the steps stopped. He froze, aware of the eyes on him, and then redoubled his efforts. His hand clasped something soft, so he yanked it out and retreated backwards, out of the trash.

Whatever it was (he hoped to God it was his hat) shook in his hand, covering his boxers. His knees stuck together like glue and the expression on his face looked like it couldn't decide between fear, embarrassment, or hilarity – so it picked them all.

A laugh prised between his lips. "HaHA! Uh - " he could feel the sweat on his forehead yelling, 'abandon ship!' "This is noooot what it looks like." A split-second decision told him that honesty was usually the best way out of situations like this. "I was just curious?" But not this time.

EDIT: holy crap, I just read over my post and found an error at the beginning I corrected in my first proofread ><. That can only mean that what you guys read before was unedited and probably CRAAAP *embarrassed* sorry x.x Took me a week to realize...

Oh God, she thought, her arms crossed in front of her as she stared down the alley. She usually played this game to get away from the drunk, dumpster-diving, homeless jack-offs that constantly plagued her place of employ. Granted, she could just change intersections, but that in and of itself had risks. Other cross-streets and traffic lights weren’t used to the ladies and their wares, and so the risk of police was just that much more real. The police also would likely patrol through other intersections more frequently, making the chances of being caught and arrested even higher. So the intersection where she usually made her offers was prime realty, so to speak. Maybe it said something that her ideal working conditions regularly exposed her to drunk, dumpster-diving, homeless jack-offs; or that if they could afford it, they’d be diving into her.

A brief pang of regret twitched across her form, and she watched the bum pull himself out of the dumpster holding an old moldy hamburger wrapper between his hands. For a game devoid of alcohol, the man certainly did have the face of a drunkard; like a drunkard who’d been pulled over for driving like a drunkard. Just the same, it put V in a very awkward spot. Usually she tried to avoid these types, but the man was almost too pathetic to let alone. His speech only made it worse: not as slurred as a drunk’s usually was, but it definitely made the same amount of sense.

“This is noooot what it looks like,” he began, his eyes darting nervously back to the dumpster he’d pulled himself from, “I was just curious?”

She let out a long, frustrated sigh.

“Why is it I’m always the one picking up after drunk idiots like you?” Venus stepped forward quickly, being sure not to let him gawk over her relative clotheslessness, and certainly not letting him object as she bent down and refastened his pants to his waist. She’d had enough practice removing a guy’s pants before, so putting them back on was nothing new. It was interesting, though, the amount of detail that they’d put into just the clothing engine of this game.

It was only when she heard someone behind her clearing their throat that she realized the compromising nature of her position: stooped over in front of this player she hardly knew, her hands fastening his belt. Just what I needed, she thought, a quiet groan escaping her lips as she turned to face the newcomer, more bad press.

“I’d tell you it’s not what it looks like,” she started, “but I doubt you’d believe me.”

The blademaster walked through the city of Mac Anu, fairly lost. It was quite strange to be trying to find a building he'd never quite been to before. Ever since the Inferno event, that he'd been summoned for and thrust into, Damek hadn't really had anything to do with his clan. It was only today that he'd decided to actually try and find the headquarters, and that left him here. Supposedly searching with a friend, but at the moment it seemed like he was searching for her and the clan.

He had no semblance of a map, just a general description of the location, that it was down an alleyway, and that... well he didn't even know who ran the clan. This was all just set up for failure, but still he walked on, looking down alleyways for a building that resembled what he was looking for.

First, Damek looked into this particular alleyway, and immediately jumped out of the way of the opening, as if he'd seen something he shouldn't have. Still, the brief picture he'd gotten of the building... he had no choice. He had to do a double take. After a moment of observation, involving the scantily-clad woman doing up the man's pants, he figured that he'd probably just missed what some may call... "the good part", and managed up the courage to clear his throat.

"I’d tell you it’s not what it looks like, but I doubt you’d believe me." In response to this, Damek only gave a weary nod. This game was just getting stranger and stranger. People coming into the game to escape the real world, fair. Making friends in the game, okay. But... exchanging... having... well the whole ordeal just didn't make any sense.

"I'll believe it, but just because I don't... want to think about what I think... it... is," he stumbled over the last few words, trying hard to phrase what he'd wanted to say delicately. In this whole confusion, he'd even forgotten what he was supposed to be doing, and then remembered. He was supposed to be meeting Fayre to look for the place. Well, they'd both agreed to go look together, but apparently he'd gotten here first. Reluctantly, he decided to stay in his present company.

"His present company" being of course, a seemingly crazy homeless man, and a horribly scantily clad female. "A fine threesome we have here..." he muttered, perhaps a little too embarrassed to be where he was. "And I don't know what you were doing but... please... don't continue." he held up his hands, as if trying to defend himself from witnessing any further offense.

"Please."

((OOC: Sorry if I fail. Writing's a little rusty, and I just really don't know what to do with you two <3))

Fayre was wandering the streets of Mac Anu for the first time in what felt like ages. In reality, it had only been a couple of weeks, but Darleen needed her video game fix. Only work-related issues could usually keep her away. In this case, the only other waffle cook at her workplace had up and quit—something about finding a “real” job, pshaw—leaving Darleen to cover for all of her shifts. Considering it was an all-day breakfast joint, that meant quite a few. People need their delicious waffles.

But hey. It meant she had more moolah now. Pretty soon she’d be able to upgrade her gaming equipment. For now, though, she was focusing on easing herself back into the “The World." The wavemistress wasn’t eager to delve right into a field; she was still low-level, after all, and knew it would be bad to wander around alone considering her weak defence stats. Unsure of what to do, Fayre began to skim her inventory and status to refresh her memory. Her eyebrows quirked as she read the name of her clan. Oh right, them! Inferno. That had been…interesting. That jogged another memory. Damek! He had joined the Advent Dynasty along with her. What a funny fellow he was. Always so quiet. Either way, Fayre knew he was a good companion—or at least they hadn’t died together. Not yet, anyway.

A frown tugged on Fayre’s lips as she struggled to remember how exactly one went about contacting other players. Something about…streaking mail? No, flashing. It had to do with flashing. Like with a camera? No, probably not. Either way, she couldn’t recall. Since she no longer had the excuse of being a newbie, she also refused to look it up in her instruction manual. So it was settled. She would just wander around until she found him again. That could work, right?

Off Fayre went. First stop: the bridge. It was easy to find, easy to get to, and offered a nice vantage point of the main areas of the city. She skimmed the masses around her…nope, no sign of good ol’ Mekky. That meant she’d have to start searching in the more obscure regions of the town. Of course, she realized the blademaster might be off adventuring in a field—or, y’know, off in the real world. But there was nothing better for the wavemistress to do and, oddly enough, people-watching was just as enjoyable in virtual reality as it was in plain reality.

She toddled along towards the first alley she laid eyes on. Unfortunately, it did not happen to be the one containing her clan’s headquarters, though it did contain a sight just as strange. Less garbage, more bawdiness. A twinblade and a long arm appeared to be making out in the darkest corner of the tiny street. More surprised than anything, Fayre simply stared at the pair, who appeared not to notice her. This went on for a number of seconds. Fayre continued to stare, they continued to more-or-less suck at each other’s faces. Fayre took a few steps forward. They still took no notice. She inched a bit closer. Nothing. Finally, she boldly poked the scantily-clad female, the twinblade, with her chipped Water Wand. Now they noticed her. The two sprang apart and scowled at the portly third wheel. Before either of them could conjure up any indignant responses, Fayre set about scolding the young couple.

“Now, really! Y'know we all like games here, 'specially this one 'cause it's so realistic, but come on. Swappin' virtual spit? That's just plain strange. Don't give a bad name to all of us gamers, eh? Young people these days, my goodness. No respect for anythin'. They shouldn’t have called this game ‘The World,’ 'cause people like you think it means that literally. Believe me, you should not try to replicate everything you do in the world. 'course, if you’re mackin' in a fake world, chances are you’re not gettin' any in the real one.”

Fayre continued to mutter such complaints as she backed out of the alley. She kept her gaze firmly locked on the two, lest they try any funny business, but eventually she had to turn her back on them and be on her way. Of course, as soon as she left the raunchy young couple alone, they went right back at it. Strange, strange people.

That was one alley checked out. The next few went by uneventfully. Chances were on her side, though; there were only a finite number of streets in Mac Anu, after all. Her twelfth try was the lucky one. She recognized her pal first, before noticing any of the other oddities of the scene.

“MEKKY!”

That was the only warning Damek received before Fayre bolted across the alley towards him and literally jumped at the poor blademaster’s body. It was likely meant to be a hug, but an outside observer could easily mistake it for a surprise attack. Fayre’s heavyset body ensured the two of them fell to the ground with a large THUMP. Her poor, abused Water Wand went clattering away, ensuring it gained a few more scratches to its once glossy-black stone surface. It went ignored, though, as Fayre was busy choking—that is, fiercely hugging—Damek’s neck.

“It’s been too long, buddy! Whatcha been doin'? Fightin'? Lootin'? Pillagin'?”

Only after her onslaught of questions did she notice there were two others in the street, one of whom was covered in trash. Smelly trash, to be exact.

“Oy, what happened to you? Lookin' for goodies in the garbage or somethin'? I’m real good at scavengin' like that. It’s amazing what some people will throw away! I found a great end table the other day. Well, it was missin' a table leg…and had a few chips in it…but c’mon! Could still hold stuff. Am I right? I'm Fayre, by the way. An' it looks we’re all in the same clan-thingy. That’s what they’re called, right? Clans?”

So the rambling began.

The night was dark and the air seemed crisp and clear. It made for a nice evening stroll for the brown haired heavy blade. Truthfully, she hadn’t really done a lot yet in the way of field adventures, having only participated in the one event that was a spur of the moment decision on her part. It ended well she thought because not only had they done well in the event; she now had a couple of new friends within the game.

Her friend Corey had told her she needed to get out more and experience life. She was quite sure he didn’t mean within a game, but for the moment it was the only thing she was able to do, all things considered. So the purpose of this evenings stroll was to try and confirm the existence of a club she had heard one of her event teammates mention.

It was said to be in one of the back alleys and run by one of the clans, but she questioned why a club would be so secluded. If they wanted business, you’d think they’d try to be a little closer to the main part of town. Unfortunately, it was always her questioning things that kept her from having fun. Well, that and her serious lack of free time from work which now she had an overabundance of. So, for tonight she decided to throw caution to the wind.

Coming upon an alley, Rowan heard a voice. She peered down just in time to see another heavy blade have the worst luck while dumpster diving for something. His pants were down around his ankles although she laughed when she saw the heart boxers. He was half in and half out and if the right sort of person should have passed by, the woman thought perhaps he would have lost the boxers too! How embarrassing that would have been.

To the poor boys luck, another player walked up before he had a chance to remove himself from the dumpster. The female heavy blade simply took a hidden spot behind some crates not sure if she should interfere or let things play out. After a moment, she chose the ‘play out’ option but was ready should stepping in be necessary.

The girl that had approached was, to be polite, not dressed properly for a night stroll. It was possible though that since Rowan had never actually been to a club, she just didn’t understand the dress code. For all she knew, it was the ‘in’ way to look. In or not, it wasn’t for her and she wondered… Did that make her a prude?

She was just about to leave when it looked like the girl was going to be a bit more helpful to the boy than the heavy blade needed to see. After all, a peeping tom was one thing that she wasn’t. To the surprise of her icy blue eyes, the scantly dressed female only reached for his jeans and helped him regain some dignity.

The boys’ bad luck held true though and before the assist was complete, another player happened upon the pair at the exact wrong moment to understand what had or was transpiring. Almost giving away her hiding place behind the crates with laughter, the girl was practically bursting at the seams in laughter at this poor soul’s expense. This was almost better than watching a comedy on television. And the reaction of the unknowing Blademaster that had walked in on them was even more priceless.

When a robust female Wavemistress walked in on the odd group and tackled the quiet and much smaller Blademaster to the ground, she lost it. She tipped back on the crate she had fashioned for a seat and lost what precious balance she had. The pile of crates went flailing as her feet went up and a startled yelp escaped as the Heavy Blade went crashing to the ground rather non-gracefully. Her laughter however didn’t stop. Instead, it got louder. Never had she allowed herself to be put in this situation and of course it would backfire on her; her stealthy position being revealed by sure stupidity. There was no sense it getting upset so she just simply allowed the laughter to consume her. For several seconds she couldn’t stop laughing. Once she did, she righted herself and stood up, brushing herself off and adjusting the blade on her back. She addressed the small group with still a bit of laughter in her tone and a smile.

”Heh. Good Evening to you all. I was actually looking for a club that was supposed to be around here somewhere when I ah, tripped. Might any of you know where I could find the entrance?

Stane's eyes stuck to the skanky player like magnets, not because of her dress, but because of her frightening efficiency. If he had had time to think, he wouldn't have been able to think of one reason for ANYONE pursuing him in a situation like this, much less – Cold air sucked into his mouth between his teeth as the hired companion reached her mitts around his ankles and pulled up with a few tugs. Her touch was like ice – a doctor's stethoscope in the hands of the sexiest nurse you've ever seen. Are you ready for your examination?

He flinched at this charade instinctively before following his gaze from the top of her head to his hands. My hat got DIRTY! He turned his upper body to the side (as to not disturb his hips, and the operation going on down tharrr), and brushed off what was left of the moldy hamburger. Stane imagined it crying out for mercy. “Oh no creepy naked goii~! Dx You can't trowe mee back in thereee!!! Dx.” Stane tipped his forehead where his not-hat was and gave it a cowboy's grin. Just 'ad to be done, mah-boy...just had to be done...

Speaking of “done,” how long had Stane been daydreaming? It couldn't have been long because missus nurse lady was still down bellow when a new set of footsteps clip-clopped up to the rodeo. Stane looked down at serenge-zilla then back up at the silhouette in front of him. His mind began to grasp the new situation. Stane was batting 0-2. He closed his eyes and prayed. Please don't be Uruvei, please don't be Uruvei.

The deep tenor of a male echoed around the alleyway. NOT URUVEI! He had never been so happy to not see that purple kitty in his life! He hopped up and down, away from madam le nurse, around the alley waving his hamburger paper like a flag. "Hello NOOOOOOOT Uruvei!" He hopped over to the silhouette apparently in the middle of scolding late-night pants helpers. Stane paid no attention and proceeded to dance around him in circles. "How are you today and how is your tail – WAIT – NO TAIL CAUSE YOU ARE NOT URUVEI!" The goofball proceeded to sing a version of “row your boat” with the lyrics “not Uruvei,” hopping around on alternating feet with jazz hands. He was happy to not be a third-time loser.

As he swung the mold-burger's foil triumphantly atop his head with a squish, the silhouette disappeared from his side and was replaced with a wall of rambling even Stane had to shield himself against. His elbows covered his face and his hands swiped shallowly at the words like flies, freshly snipped from the speech of some poor sap that needed a bathroom a good three hours ago.

Stane peeked out an eyeball from between his forearms. Apparently Silhouette had gotten glomped right as the song ended. Preeefect timing. Oooh! I should hire a team of Glompers! We can go around and sing songs to people and then GLOMP THEM! YEAH! We'll call ourselves...GLOMP!! The last exclamation point is part of the title...yes...yes...I can see it nowww. Lights! Cameras! ADHD almost up! Wait, what?...oh.

“ - An' it looks we’re all in the same clan-thingy. That’s what they’re called, right? Clans?” Stane caught the tail end of the latest section of hyperactive rant. They were in the same clan-thingy now that he looked. And then he saw it.

LAUGHING MONSTARRR!!! Stane dove, fell short, and dove again towards a pile of hysterical laughter that had just emptied from behind the dumpster. He grabbed the cackling girl's shoulders and shook, looking behind himself at the group. "MAN DOWN! LAUGHING MONSTER ON THE LOOSE! I'LL STABILIZE THE VICTIM YOU GUYS GO FOR HELP OR LOOK FOR IT! IT CAN'T BE FAR CMON HURRY!" He concentrated back on the bobbing head in front of him, still on the verge of tears and chuckling, but managing to be slowing down. "Are you alright, ma'am? It's almost over, don't worry. Almost over." He brought her up to her feet and brushed her shoulders off, only making them more dirty. She seemed to be stabilizing.

“Heh. Good Evening to you all. I was actually looking for a club that was supposed to be around here somewhere when I ah, tripped. Might any of you know where I could find the entrance?” Stane knew this one. Oooh! Oooh! Pick me!

Stane's eye's went wide with purpose. "You mean Club Spazzzzz??" He elongated the 'z' sound, feeling the vibrations on his tongue and sounding them out afterward out of curiosity. "ZZZzzz....ZzzzZZZZzzzz...zzzzzz..." He snapped out of it. "Of course you mean Club Spazz! Haha. My clan runs it! It's right back tharr." He pointed with a fruity finger back out of the alley, straight to a quaint two-story shack with not-so-quaint strobe lights flickering through the front glass window.

As his eyes followed from the lights back to his finger, the path reminded him of the original reason for him being out here. Prowling! "Ooooh! Orrrr instead of partying there all night, you can come out prowwwling with me! You know – like a cat!" He jumped backwards and landed behind skin-for-cloths, resting his gross mittens on her shoulders and peering his head just into her peripheral vision. "Unseen! Unheard! Sneaky sneaky like a...sneaky snake...sneaky snake yes." He darted his head over behind her other shoulder. "I will show you all the ropes. I am what they call 'a pro' at these sort of things." The moldy hamburger paper finally unglued its mucky self from his zebra stripped hair and fell down to rest on his nose. "My hat is a little funkier than usual..." he mumbled through the tin foil before sliding it back into place.

"ANYWAY!" A lull in the excitement ensued as Stane cautiously closed the dumpster and tested its strength with his hand (*cricket cricket*), eyeballing it suspiciously before nodding. He jumped atop the closed dumpster with a heroic pose and flipped his hair back with a shake of his head revealing a crazed smirk. "All aboard the Stane-train for a night of fun and freedom! Huzzah!" He leaped off, slipping into a few crates previously used as a hiding spot by the laughing monster. Did he really just lose HP inside a town? Charles Darwin rolled around in his grave.

It took a moment for the events to all register. Everything was just happening so fast. Damek felt as if he was having a nightmare, everything just seemed to blur together…

“Mekky!”

There was a more than slight thud as he hit the ground, and for a moment, his eyes relayed only darkness, leaving him even more confused than when he started. As the little “Not Uruvei” song ended, Fayre’s ranting ensued. Well at least he knew who was on top of him. And why it was so damn hard to get up. His sight began to register again, and he realized his position, practically pinned under the pudgy wavemistress. ‘What have I ever done…’ “…Looks like we’re all in the same clan-thingy. That’s what they’re called, right? Clans?”

If that hadn’t been enough to shock him back into the game, then the loud crash that followed did. ‘I’m surrounded by crazies,’ Damek managed to get the wavemistress off of him (with a mighty heave) and got to his feet as Stane ran over to the girl who had fallen, who was laughing uncontrollably. It was then that he looked at all of the names of the players around him. Each coloured the same, including his own. Fayre’s words came back to him. ‘Same clan-thingy? So then Satan really was the one who brought me here,’ his vague remembrance of the Inferno event left him with no idea how he’d gotten there in the first place.

The blademaster gradually began to realize that this was exactly the kind of situation that someone would avoid in real life. Hell, in real life, you’d be running by now. It was then that the craziest of them all climbed atop a dumpster, ready to make an announcement to all of them. Damek tried to tune him out, but by the end of his speech, there was no use. “All aboard the Stane-train for a night of fun and freedom! Huzzah!” Damek paused, and gave a weary look to Fayre. What in the world had he gotten himself into? Why did he come online today?

Why did everyone around him always have to be crazy?

At a loss for words, Damek simply looked around him. Still, he had to admit, the idea of going on an adventure with this rag-tag team did seem a little... appealing. Maybe he belonged here after all. Instead of the skeptical remark that he’d been cooking up to shoot at Fayre, he just looked at her and shrugged. “What do you think of... all this?” Even if he was crazy, he wasn’t going into this alone. Though Fayre seemed like she’d fit in here a little better than he would, Damek was happy to at least have one person he knew by his side. This was just too much to handle on his own.

Despite being shoved off of Damek, Fayre’s mood didn’t dampen in the least. Maybe she was too busy flipping through all of her clanmate’s profiles to really take notice, which was probably convenient for Mekky. Once she got the run-down on all her compatriots’ names, classes, and levels, her attention returned to actual avatars of the group. She’d been distracted during Rowan’s initial outburst of laughter, but she did notice that the Heavyblade had toppled over. Fayre blinked a few times, amazed that Rowan was able to speak so eloquently after taking a tumble off her crate. The wavemistress had no helpful answers for the girl, though.

“Mac Anu has clubs? Huh. Didn’t know that. It’d be real weird if they had, like, strip clubs. I hope they don’t.” Though the macking spectacle she witnessed earlier implied that there would be an audience for such a venue. Eckh.

She stopped her aimless ranting once Stane piped up with the actual answer to Rowan’s question. Not that his response was particularly to-the-point; there certainly were a lot of z’s in there. Then again, that was quite fitting, considering the name of the club was Spazz. Figures a member of it would spazz out. Fayre was getting a sneaking suspicion that most of the clan folks were prone to such outbursts. She really would fit right in. She she seemed (almost) sane in comparison.

For a moment, Fayre wondered why the heck everyone was so much taller than her. Of course, other avatars usually towered over the short and stocky wavemistress anyway, but it seemed to be more noticeable than usual. Oh, that’s right. She was still lying on the ground where Damek had dumped her. Well, there was an easy remedy for that: Fayre rocked back and forth a few times and used the momentum to hop back up onto her feet.

Now that she had enough height to properly see, her gaze followed Stane’s gesture back towards the club. The strobe lights were particularly eye-catching and had the easily-distracted Fayre mesmerized for a few seconds. Even when Stane made the bold move to clamber up on top of the dumpster, the wavemistress' mind only vaguely registered it. Shiny, flashing lights can be quite entertaining.

His interesting choice of words (“Stane-train,” particularly) brought Fayre back to attention. “Huh? The World has public transportation, now? What, is there a gold fare or something?” A toothy grin broke across her face. “Hey, fare! That sounds just like my name, don’t it? Funny coincidence. But how’d the train get named after you, then? I woulda thought the Chaos Gate covered all our transport needs anyhow."

Once Fayre spluttered all that nonsense out, she returned Damek’s look. Her broad smile suggested she was a tad more excited about the whole situation than the poor, quiet Blademaster. “Dunno. Think we should get to know our other clan pals, eh? 'cause we all worked solo in the Inferno event. Wasn’t too great for team building. Oy! Maybe we should do trust building exercises! Y’know, like fall into each other's arms?”

Fayre promptly let her body go limp and roughly directed her fall towards Damek.

(OOC: The references to the "making out" characters in my posts are not referring to anyone in particular. They are random people that she ran into in a completely different area before coming to the Club Spazz alley; nothing at all to do with Venus or Stane. Since this is a clan quest, I assumed all of the characters would have some form of AD title ICly. My bad on that one. Just trying to have fun, here.)

(OOC: Two things, Fayre, ‘cause I’m a stickler for details and you’re messing them up left and right. First, Venus and Stane weren’t “making out” or anything to that effect. You left it vague enough to where it’s not a huge deal, though if there’s another scantily clad woman in white making out with a pantsless drunk by a dumpster in another alley, I’d say the moderation of The World will be out of a job soon. Second, and this is the big one, Venus isn’t in the clan yet IC, and I don’t think any of the other recruits are, either. At this point she’s just trying to help the drunk slob recover his dignity. I’d appreciate in the future if you’d pay better attention to such details, as it improves roleplay across the board)

Things went downhill fast. After the embarrassment on the first player’s face had faded, another much more eccentric player had shown up. Apparently they knew each other, though from the way the guy acted it was more the clingy-not-really-but-why-not-girlfriend type of relationship than a mutual friendship. The result was an eccentric woman dropped to the cobbles…as another woman burst out in laughter from behind the dumpster. Crates fell around her thinner form with a crash, and her non-stop giggling continued for a straight minute. Well that’s good, Venus thought, at least someone’s enjoying this mockery.

There was something more, though. As every player had made their appearance, even for the briefest moments they took to analyze the fiasco they were seeing, she could feel the chill of their judgmental stares as cold on her exposed skin as was the chilled night air. Maybe it was something in the way that she carried herself that set her apart for such judgments, but more than likely it had to do with the garb she’d chosen to wrap around herself when she first made the game. Considering her usual nightly garments consisted of nothing more than another human being, the bands of white fabric that securely covered her form were actually rather conservative. After all, didn’t the game’s welcome screen portray a large-breasted woman in bikini-style armor wielding a large sword in a pose that screamed, “do me?”

Her mind was practically made up to slip the head of her spear under the thick white material and pull outward. The remainder of the toga would give way to gravity, and she would be fully exposed to these newcomers. With their attentions secured, she’d go on a tirade about how she plays the game to get away from the perversion that is her life, and to escape from the nightly invasions that she submitted herself to. While the shock factor of such a thing would be priceless, and it would certainly teach them a thing or two about who they should and shouldn’t judge, it wasn’t worth the effort. More than likely another newcomer would walk past and wind up reporting her for public indecency. Yeah, explaining that to the administrators would certainly be fun.

So instead, V just sighed, standing upright with her arms folded, eyes closed, and teeth involuntarily clenched. Even though she’d never known it to happen to her, she’d have to just forget the offense (for now) and let things play out. If she was calm and rational abou-

“Unseen! Unheard! Sneaky-sneaky like a…sneaky snake…sneaky snake yes.” Her eyes opened, and the drunk man was standing beside her, a hand resting on her shoulder. There was some kind of insanity in his eyes that didn’t quite sit right with the girl, but before she could remove the offending palm, he’d darted behind her and was resting his head there instead. “I will show you all the ropes. I am what they call a ‘pro’ at these sort of things.”

“At bouncing around like an idiot, or at wearing moldy garbage?” she muttered through steel-clenched teeth, resisting the strong temptation to drive her elbow straight into the man’s stomach. She was a professional as well, though their fields of expertise were slightly removed one from the other. It was then that the aforementioned garbage fell from the man’s now-stained hair to fall unnaturally quickly to the grimy cobbles in front of the dumpster.

The dumpster which the spectacle of a man was trying to climb on top of. Why me? she thought, rolling her eyes and letting out another elongated sigh. He hoisted himself up, and after spouting some nonsense about a “stain-train” (she could only presume he’d taken notice of and was trying to play down the grease and old cheese left in his hair), jumped down to land in a way that would have sprained his ankle in the real life on the shattered pieces of one of the crates from Gigglefit’s graceful entrance. Once again the drunkard was in a gloriously undignified position, but V had learned her lesson the last time. There would be no helping him.

She turned, resolute to walk out the alley before the scene developed into any more of a fiasco, only to find herself blocked by intruders Primus and Secundus. Primus, the male of the duo, was frantically trying to support the weight of the portly Secundus, who’d let her controls go limp in an attempt at a trust fall. It would have been an acceptably eccentric thing for her to do—perfectly in character with the insanity she’d witnessed before—and she wouldn’t have minded but for one fact: the couple was completely blocking her exit path.

“You can’t be serious,” she said, loud enough for the girl to hear, “I mean, at least leave the path open so I can get away from the dumpster and that deranged lunatic…”

Once the Heavy Blade had regained some of her composure, especially after the victimized assist by the crazy and unlucky dumpster diver, she took a look around at the group that had assembled. Did they really assemble? No, it was more of a chance gathering she thought. At least it was for her she knew for sure.

When she heard the name of the club and then saw it was just yards away from them, she briefly considered just saying ‘Thanks’ and getting away from the crazy lot while she had the chance. There was something about them though that kept her from moving. The Wavemistress had mentioned they were all in the same clan which meant they were all part of the clan that ran the club. So perhaps it wasn’t a chance gathering for the rest of them.

Clans. Something the Heavy Blade hadn’t given much thought to; most likely since originally, she hadn’t planned on staying with the game that long but she was starting to get drawn to it. Corey was right, she needed to have some fun and this group was definitely not lacking in the humor department at least. Perhaps she should join them on an evening prowl, as Mr. Hamburger wrapper for a hat put it and see what a group dynamic thing felt like.

Speaking of his hat, the girl having a bit of a height advantage over the edge of the dumpster, peered in and thought she saw something that resembled the outline of a hat sitting in the corner. She was just about to stack some crates to investigate her theory when the lid slammed down and Stane plopped himself on top if it making her stumble over her words as she pointed a finger at the dumpster.

”But. I thought I…”

He was a character that was for sure. Was that even possible…to be a character, within a character? What she didn’t know was, if this was how he was all the time or just because it fit the current situation? After all, humor and craziness was always a decent back fall to extreme embarrassment.

The one who got tackled to the ground seemed a bit apprehensive about the whole thing and the one that tackled him was the exact opposite and boy did she like to ramble. The whole thing brought another soft chuckle to the surface, but this time she covered her mouth trying to keep it to herself not wanting to offend anyone if they weren’t trying to be funny.

The striped haired boy jumped down from his temporary pedestal only to land in the pile of crates that had gotten tossed around when she fell earlier. Apparently the game forgot to program in charm school techniques into The World when it came to falling, or for that matter jumping off of things, since neither she nor the male Heavy Blade managed anything close to being graceful. The scantly dressed female that had originally helped Stane get recovered, now seemed a bit put off by the whole ordeal and made no effort to assist him again once he had landed on his backside once more. Rowan wondered what caused the sudden mood swing of sorts but didn’t want to read too far into anything so she turned her attentions back to the so called crazed lunatic.

”A pro huh? Must be my lucky night. Prowling sounds like fun.”

She reached over and offered a hand to the Wavemistress before her poor friend lost her to gravity’s pull and looked at the quiet Blademaster with a raised eyebrow and smile.

”So…what do ya say? Throw caution to the wind for one fun filled night of prowling? I promise, I’m saner than I look even for a…what did he call me? The laughing monster that you saw before. Hehe”

The Heavy Blade really needed to work on her ice breaking techniques. This was a tough crowd once you got past all the rambling, crazed lunatics and laughter. Sheesh.

...At least they'll be ready when I do something really stupid, Stane thought at the ground. His face and nose were bloody from the fall into splintering crates and stone floor. Zane could feel the warmth from the blood through the neural sensors on his helmet that probed his brain, feeding all of the wanted and unwanted sensations the game bestowed upon him. Usually the latter.

He had caught himself with his knees and elbows, leaving himself in a somewhat fetal position with his butt highest in the air. His arms and shins rested flatly on the ground and his back slanted downwards toward his head, buried in the rubble like an ostrich hiding in the sand. He pushed up with one hand attempting to raise himself up, only to yield a loud snap. Stane's face instantly cringed, pushing out a few of the splinters from the constriction of his expression. Oh crap.

He backed out of the pile of crates like a crab in reverse – his rear still ridding high – into the center of the ally. His movement consisted of quick jerks from his ankles and forearms that gave the illusion of hovering, like an insect with very short and frequent strides. He backed up until he hit something fleshy, then extended an arm behind and upwards, wondering who it was. They really need to install a rear-view mirror in these things. Whoever it was, he hoped they were quick to aid because he could feel his vertebrae getting more and more comfortable with their new unnatural position. "'Lil help?"

A blunt answer echoed from between his legs. “No. Help yourself.”

He wasn't expecting that. "What? C'mon – pleeeeease~~," he groaned, opening and closing his fist. He looked like a two-year-old.

"What reputation I had is still trying to recover from the last time I helped you." She swatted his convulsing hand away. "I won't say it again: help yourself."

He answered her demand by poking her thigh with his butt, crabbing two inches back and two inches forward with the speed and agility of a half-squished cockroach. A few inches of his white and red-heart boxers peeped out.

What looked like the handle of a mop blinked into Stane's peripheral vision on the side of his outstretched arm. Yes, I am just too cute to resist, his triumphant thoughts sung. He grabbed the 'mop' halfway to its far tip and yanked himself upwards with a pop that sounded like someone with a jawbreaker in their mouth had gotten kicked in the chin. Blood rushed towards his lower extremities. Sweet sweet nirvana, he thought as a groan, nearly as loud and as satisfying as the previous vertebrae shift, escaped from his mouth.

He turned to the janitor and extended his arms in a huge hug. "Yu saved me!" he exclaimed through a huge smile that seemed to include every muscle of his face.

She met his euphoric stare with agitated confusion. “What, you want a hug?”

Stane craned his head to the side slightly. "Noooo..." his face seemed to drop a few intensities, "I want to give you one!"

Venus let her hand talk for her, outstretched and flat. Whoa...a talking hand. She must be some kinda ventriloquist! The janitor would have to show him how to do that later. "People usually pay to hold me in their arms," she replied, turning her face away, "and I doubt you could give me anything worth the trouble."

Pay? He lifted one arm and scratched his head. Then, filling back to the brim with emotion, his flexed arms flared out and upwards , extending the hug's radius. "Oh, but I'm a professional! I give hugs allllll day - and for free! Well, almost." He thought about his boss, frozen in some sort of chamber for years. Mister Walt Disney certainly was a little cuckoo. Well you'd have to be to create some of that stuff. Alice in Wonderland came to mind.

When he really thought about it, the job was so perfect and ironic it made him laugh. Goofy. He had landed the job of Goofy. Ever since his escape nearly two years ago, he had to keep a low profile, away from his mother, away from the press. But now, he was viewed by thousands a day entertaining, greeting, and signing every kid's autograph book displayed before him. And none of them had any idea!

On the day of his interview, Zane had successfully knocked over two pieces of furniture and landed in the interviewee's seat backwards while attempting to travel through the door. The interviewer was so impressed by his 'slapstick,' he accepted him on the spot. Zane replied: “Gorsh...”

His interviewer hadn't even seen his face, and he doubted his boss ever would. Zane considered himself close to the luckiest man alive as far as careers went. It was a job where his constantly tangling legs and miscalculation of distance were perfectly in-character and entertaining to everyone around him.

"I'm a professional as well," Venus returned dryly, "though I doubt our lines of work would ever cross." She turned, and began to walk away from Stane's hug.

WHOA! MAYBE SHE'S A CHARACTER TOO! Hmm...maybe one of those chicks at MGM. He spied her golden-brown hair. Or maybe one of the princesses... All of the girls that played the 'princesses' – Snow White, Cinderella, Belle, etc – formed a very cliquey group even without their loads of makeup and wigs. Although, he thought, she probably looks completely different in real life.

Venus continued to walk away, but stopped with a sigh as her way out continued to be blocked by the laughing monster and a large, trusting wavemistress. Stane knew when he had been denied, but it didn't feel any better after realizing. He dropped his arms with a confused look and pipped up questioningly with a hint of sadness. "Well, what do you want?" He was far too used to satisfying everyone with one of three things: a hug, a picture, or an autograph – which did a number on his ability to read others' feelings.

"I don't-!" she began to shout. Her hands and arms clamped to her sides as her wrists bent outwards in a sign of severe distress. Her posture and sealed eyelids sobered Stane a considerable amount. She breathed in once, and then more calmly replied, "I don't know." Her slight vulnerability turned Stane on in a place where her dress couldn't: his heart. He had always had a soft spot for damsels in distress. His instinct was to raise his arms and go to her, wrapping his safe embrace around the girl like an innkeeper wrapping a warm blanket around a cold and wet stranger in need of refuge, caught in a storm.

He stopped his arms before they could raise ten degrees.

Stane stepped over next to her, shoulder to shoulder, and bent inwards to create the illusion that they were all alone – not the center of attention he was so used to being and she obviously wanted no part of.

He leaned over, staring off in the direction of Club Spazz and spoke so only she could hear, strengthening the illusion of being alone, together. "You know, me and my buds," he gestured backwards towards no one, referring to people he had met less than two minutes prior, "had some fun planned for tonight...you know, fun?" Stane felt the need to explain the meaning of the word. He could see a flicker of a person under there, underneath all those layers of numbness and apathy. She's not just one of those serious people, he thought. She wasn't always like this...I can see it. He stared at her for a few more seconds. Respect stopped him from pursuing the girl further.

The heavy blade pulled away with a quick turn. Raising his arms, he addressed the group. "Alright, annnyway - since I don't have anywhere in mind, does anyone have vendettas to fill or little brothers to spy on?" His eyes lit up and a devious grin spread across his lips. He was back to his normal, hyper self. "If so, leeead on. By the way, I'm Stane." He pointed to himself by tapping the top of his head and sticking out his tongue like an invisible button had been pressed.

He bit his tongue as his searching hands cruised around his fruity mop of hair. Where's my hat?? he panicked. I just had it on me – where'd it- He spied the pile of broken crates. You. "Crap! I lost my hat! Go on without me – I'll catch up!" He dove. Moron.

OOC: Man, sorry that took days to complete ><. I'll be better in the future I pwhomise :P. Remember, I'm not leading this quest in the way you guys might think. I'm merely the mediator for deadlines. Feel free to change the story around however you deem. Aliens, shiny vampires, you name it xP. Okay, the aliens is a little farfetched, but you get the point. Don't feel like you can't be creative because someone else is feeding ideas. We're all here to have fun! Good luck and the next post deadline is midnight on next Wednesday the 22nd :).

Damek had already tuned out Fayre’s ramblings by the time she’d stopped talking, as he was paying attention to the spectacle in front of him. As a direct result, Fayre ended up on the floor, again. Rowan’s offered hand had warned him of the danger that was going to befall him and he managed to step away from her in the knick of time. He simply sighed. “I don’t know what you were thinking there, but… next time you should make sure that I’m paying attention.” he offered her a hand up. “Uh.. thanks,” Damek switched his gaze to Rowan’s hand, and then to the girl herself. Now he could see her as a more normal player, one who wasn’t just on the ground laughing. She seemed much more normal now. Quickly, he offered his other hand to her, putting him in a strange, hand-over-hand position between Fayre and Rowan. She spoke, and Damek only managed a smile. “Some fun could be good. Damek,” he offered his name unnecessarily, to go with his handshake.

Between the strangely positioned triangle of players and the fallen crates, there was indeed no escape for the player Venus, who seemed to not quite be up for this adventure. Well if she was coming, she would certainly have to hurry up. Damek looked over at Stane, attempting to take the invitation of somewhere to go. “A field would be good,” he shrugged, and looked at the people around him. A dungeon was, of course, what was normally done in this game. He’d never been on a quest with so many people before. It could be fun, so long as he wasn’t left alone with the crazy one.

The blademaster looked over at Venus, as Stane jumped right back into the dumpster. ‘Figures…’ “Well miss, what do you say?” his gaze was met with a look of utter defeat. Perhaps at the fact that she hadn’t been able to escape while she had the chance. Not that any of them were forcing her to stay. It seemed she’d have to make a decision, though, if the group was to go off to a field.

((OOC: Talked to Fayre about taking the hand, Rowan. We decided she simply ignored it, lol. Man. Post was a little rushed. Sorry if anything’s confusing))

((EDIT: kay, maybe I sound a little less stupid now. Thanks, Stane.))

The hand she thought she was going to latch onto simply wasn’t there but the fact that the man stepped aside and let the trusting woman free fall to the ground took up her attention so much that she never retracted it; wincing when the portly girl hit the pavement. Just after, the player tagged as Damek offered the fallan lass another hand which this time she accepted. Rowan was just about to pull her hand back when it was grabbed in a hand shake motion by the Blademaster while introducing himself. She grinned and nodded in acknowledgement noting that the way he had to cross over his arms to do so looked kind of awkward.

”Rowan, and fun is always good, or so I’ve heard.”

Her eyebrows raised slightly with her smile in one of those innocent type of grins when people say something they’ve heard second hand. Hopefully the pair in front of her would simply think it was part of her personality; something of which was taking a different direction than her real world self at the moment. The weird part was, she was enjoying it and willing to let things roll for now and be a completely different person than usual.

The interestingly striped haired man was trying to convince the other girl to join the group and not having much luck at it. She was a hard shell to crack, that one was. It sounded like maybe she was of a higher social standing or something in the real world which, if that was the case, what was she doing playing a game like this? Whoever she was, Rowan didn’t mind if she cared to join in the fun. Her father had made sure that she was brought up looking at everyone without judgment of character. The old don’t judge a book by it’s cover attitude and she had stuck with it.

Speaking of which, the so called crazed lunatic was asking for suggestions, introduced himself and then almost without a good proper warning, went diving back into the crates looking for a lost hat. Completely disbarring the question at hand as to where to go, or at least for the moment, she laughed a little at him and then looked at Damek and the Wavemistress.

”Excuse me for a moment. I think our umm, fearless companion here could use some help. Hehe”

She turned just in time to duck and avoid a flying partial piece of crate whiz by.

”Everyone! Beware of flying debris,” the woman yelled back over her shoulder as if they were all under attack by crate chucking monsters.

Protectively placing her hands out in front of her so as to avoid any flailing appendages or getting splinters from exploding wood crates, Rowan attempted to tap the man on the shoulder and continued to speak in a loud manner as if they were on a battlefield with explosions all around.

”Excuse me but, would you like some help there soldier? What does this hat of yours look like?”

Above the odd group, brooding down on them with fierce eyes, knelt a cloaked man. He watched them from a perch on the lip of a building. Night shrouded his face, but could not block out cold, milky eyes that appeared to be staring at everything and nothing – lacking retina of a different hue. A close look at these set of eyes would reveal frustrated veins of a bright red, matching the furrow of his brow. He was watching them very intently. His jaw clenched.

The shroud's cloak was a jet black, shiny leather trench coat gathered in folds near the bottom, resting around his feet. The garment's collar wrapped around the sides and back of his head – more like wings than extensions of his wear. The moon highlighted his features like a spotlight after leaving a dark cloud's wake. His face was weathered and lined. Age was the only thing keeping his skin darker than his directionless eyes. Cerated blades shimmered at his belt. The only sign of wear on these deadly instruments was the curving, parallel scratches along the blades' arch. Sharpened often. Cleaned often. Used often. He was a man that brought chills to the spine before he brought death. Your last sensation is fear.

He watched them. Squatted upon the edge of action, hatred and frustration pumped through his temples. He's touching her...he's touching her. A black glove sifted through sweat-drenched, shoulder-length brown hair. He brought his head back with the motion and licked his lips like a snake smelling the air before feeling instinct take over, pouncing, unleashing hell and then finally!...squeezing until the creature feels fear...hopelessness...and finally...peace. The three phases were like primary colors. They exist in all visible death. Death was a universal understanding. None of them had begged after that one last flinch...that one last hope. If they had, he wouldn't have picked them. It would have made them cowards. Kindlevex did not hunt cowards.

The muscles in his brow twitched at each stumble of that writhing oaf – each fall – each sign of stupidity. He doesn't deserve to be hunted...he deserves to be slaughtered – not given the gift of a peaceful exposition, but given mystery and confusion. Sudden and swift.

When that trash-covered lunatic put his arm around her and pretended to coax that fallen angel into coming along on their little “adventure,” the shadow of a vein divided his forehead in two and split the concrete in his fist into more. He couldn't stand it any longer.

~~

The pile of crates Stane had leaped on disappeared and reappeared behind him after much flinging and tossing aside. It wasn't there. My haaaaattt....myu. He stood up and turned around, defeated. His forlorn face must have given something away because he heard a query to his hat's appearance. He mumbled out a response and dropped his eyes, feeling naked without his head ornament.

"Welll...it's brown and awesome and leather and awesome...has a little lip in the front to store extra awesome and...I think my mojo lives in it too." He wasn't sure how his mojo could be categorized in the hat's appearance, but they could find it inside-out... Justified.

The party seemed to have stayed put after his shout that he'd catch up. It was probably because he had said it hatless. He turned his head to the dumpster again: his bane. It could be in there, I mean...I did fall backwards head-first into it... He turned his body with a lazy swing to the left and lifted the lid, peering into the moonlit pile of muck and trash. His free hand sifted through the surface gently as a tap...tap...tap no louder than a drop of water hitting pavement danced around the walls above.

~~

Kindlevex felt the night air filling the clumped strands of his hair, letting it breath again from its sweat as he leaped between the two buildings' walls. His leather coat followed him like a shadow, feeling the effects of gravity late and wind resistance amplified. He ripped a single blade from his belt with the care of a surgeon and the speed of an experienced fighter along his descent, with the butt pointing out, and the deadly blade protruding beneath.

His last grip on a wall preceded a vicious lunge at the heavy blade character below. The shroud landed on the character's back, blade-first, drilling the shaft deep underneath the top of his shoulder-blade. Flexible leather scandals bent around the curve of Stane's back as they lunged yet again – this time in the direction of the fallen angel at waist-level.

The acrobat inverted in the air, ignoring gravity until he flew feet-first, just off to the right of his target. His knees bent smoothly on impact with the adjacent, standing character. He planted his scandals firmly and pressed, changing his momentum upwards, this time with his prize: his very own fallen angel. A few more taps and he was gone, out of sight and over the lip of vision above.

~~

Stane knew what that taste was. It was blood. Blood and...fruit salad. His head was a good two inches into the muck along with both arms. The only thing holding up the dumpster's lid was the assassin's knife, protruding from his back and sinking with each ounce of the lid's weight. His lung had collapsed and movement was unbearable. He needed help. He needed a hug.

Fayre was incredibly devoted to her attempt at a trust exercise, as she even clenched her eyes shut as she let herself go limp. As such, she missed Rowan’s noble attempt to save her from her fall. Her eyes snapped back open as her pudgy body made contact with the hard ground of the alley. They quickly narrowed into a glare, but seeing as she was face down on the stone, it wasn’t directed at anyone in particular. The wavemistress rolled onto her back, allowing her to direct her glower towards Damek. “Hmph! So much for trust then, eh?”

But the offered hands seemed to cheer her right back up. “Well, I guess I can forgive ya. Seein’ as I didn’t give ya any warnin’, after all.” A very good point. She sat up, clasped both hands, and pulled herself back up to her feet with a bit of effort. "Thanks much." She twisted around slightly, attempting to check out her back and survey any damage. She pondered aloud as she began to shake the dust off her once-pristine white robes, “Think people bruise in ‘The World’? Hmm. Guess it don’t matter too much, since I have no plans to get naked, so no derriere bruises will get a chance to show themselves.”

“Rowan, eh? That’s a real pretty name. I like it.” It has Fayre’s official stamp of approval! Her eyebrows suddenly furrowed as the wavemistress began an internal debate. Had she already introduced herself to these new people? She seemed to recall saying her name out loud, but it was very possible that the only person who heard was the only one who already knew it—Damek. But what if the others indeed had heard her? If she repeated herself, she might sound stupid, which was the one thing she truly hated. Her expression abruptly calmed when Fayre realized that everyone’s name was hovering above their bodies anyway, so no real introduction was necessary. Problem solved!

Her pensive expression did not last long. Flying knives have a tendency to ruin a person’s mood, after all. Just before the unexpected attack, Fayre had moved towards the dumpster to help Rowan with Stane and the dumpster. She wasn’t exactly looking forward to sifting around garbage searching for their leader’s hat, but that would admittedly have been a nicer alternative to the new situation. Everything moved too fast for the wavemistress to process much, but she did realize something was going terribly wrong. Accordingly, she yelped like a wounded puppy and dropped to the ground, covering her head with her hands.

Fayre’s heart pounded for a few tense seconds before she had the courage to tilt her head upwards and check out how things were going. It didn’t look like there was anyone in their alleyway that shouldn’t be, now. However, there did seem to be a rather sharp object left behind…in Stane’s back. The sight of a knife sticking out of her group leader's back forced Fayre to bark once again in surprise, but now she had enough sense to stay on her feet. Her hands shot out to lift up the lid of the dumpster, easing some of the weight pushing down on the weapon.

“Ohmygoodness! Are you okay, Staney-boy? Where all did he get ya? Was it a he? I didn’t see anything. Who would want to hurt you? Was it a who? I guess it could be a what…”

The young man turned in defeat of his bout with the crates. The look he gave was surprising considering how full of life he’d just been moments ago. The description at least that of color and cloth, pretty much verified what Rowan had thought she saw earlier inside the back corner of the dumpster. Before the woman could say anything though, Stane had lofted himself part way over the edge of the big metal box; once again leaving his backside to hang out in the breeze. Rowan just shook her head and grinned while she began stacking some crates on the end of the dumpster, towards the back side where she remembered seeing the hat.

Picking up the last crate, the female Heavy Blade caught a glimpse of something dark. Was it another player come to join them? She looked up, her gaze met with shock head on noting the dagger sticking out of Stane’s back just before the lid crashed down on him. Mere seconds had passed and the player tagged as Venus was swept away. The dark clad figure scaled the walls to the roof tops like Spiderman or something leaving a furrowed brow and wonderment on the woman’s face.

Thanks to her real world instinct and ability to quickly assess a situation, Rowan knew Venus was lost for now and that they needed to concentrate on the injured before formulating a rescue plan. She called to Damek and Fayre for help. Both of them quickly sprung into action, Fayre grabbed the lid and immediately went into a rambling of questions and comments. Damek grabbed one side of the Heavy Blade while Rowan grabbed the other and they lowered him down off of the dumpster and sat him upright on a stack of crates.

Figuring it was for the best, Rowan put one hand on the boy’s shoulders and pulled the dagger out of his back with the other without warning. His health dropped even further upon removal of the blade so she cast a quick Repth on him, not even blinking an eye that it depleted her entire SP count. It was worth it in her book.
Once the glowing light of the Repth dissipated, she knelt down in front of Stane.

”There, that should help a bit. It would appear we now have a direction for our quest. We are now on a rescue mission. Anyone get a good look at that dark figure.”

While she listened for any responses from the group, the Heavy Blade walked back over to the dumpster, climbed the stack of crates she had created and retrieved the man’s hat. With a grin, she walked back over and set it on his head hoping it would provide whatever it was he needed from having it to jump into the rescue full force and clear headed. She had learned over the years that no matter how silly something might seem to one person could literally mean everything to someone else and that those kinds of things needed to be respected.

After Damek has received his proper greeting from Rowan, and had finished helping Fayre up, his hands returned to his sides, free from his previous, uncomfortable position. Quite quickly, Rowan took off to help Stane, the group’s pseudo-leader, find his hat. Damek sighed. His description was decidedly ridiculous, but what did it matter anyway? He was clearly with a group of eccentrics here. “I don’t think you’d bruise here anyway,” he responded lazily to Fayre’s ramblings as he turned his head to the sky. It was then, something caught his eye.

The world on the ground faded away as Damek tried to decipher a glimpse of… something above, silhouetted by the moon. “Fayre,” Damek’s voice was soft, and seemed to be lost as Fayre waddled over to help Rowan look for the hat in the dumpster. By then, it was too late.

The blademaster was watching the event unfold, and there was nothing he could do. From the moment the assassin leapt from the building, he was rendered speechless. The player was leaping effortlessly from one building to another, and eventually Damek saw him rapidly getting closer. He made an effort to yell, to call out to the players at the dumpster, but he couldn’t be quick enough. The blade made a dull impact into Stane, and before the attack had registered, Venus had been carried off. There was no way to tell which way the villain had gone, but there was a situation at hand now, and as Damek was called to help, he ran over to help with Stane.

As Fayre tested Stane’s ability to answer questions, Damek tried to lift him out of his garbage prison. He wrapped his arms around the other player’s chest from behind and pulled him up. The blademaster’s mind, however, was in a different place. Why didn’t he say anything? In the least, why couldn’t he have remembered he had a weapon? Maybe, at least, he could have saved Venus, or delayed her capture. But that was no matter now.

”There, that should help a bit. It would appear we now have a direction for our quest. We are now on a rescue mission. Anyone get a good look at that dark figure.”

Repth. Why hadn’t he thought of it? The idea wasn’t all that ingenious. The only explaination Damek could find was that he’d forgotten. It seemed to him that he’d forgotten, in these moments, that this was just a game. He stood Stane up, now that his body had a little more life, and released him from the awkward embrace.

“I got… a look. I...” Damek paused, he didn’t want to say that he’d seen the beast coming. Instead, maybe it would just be better to leave it as it was. “Yeah, I think I could recognize him.”

((OOC: Kinda quick, so sorry if any minor details are off. Hopefully I didn't mess anything up.))

Darkness raced towards the center of Stane's vision as he was picked up and sat down on a few of the surviving crates. One of his new friends firmly gripped his shoulder and yanked the giant splinter from his back. His left arm raised involuntarily as his shoulder blade bent and snapped, loose in his back. The darkness marching in his vision seemed twice as dark and fast, rushing towards the center. Zane moved his eyes to the side and realized that the spot of vision moved with it. It was his eyes, not the game. The pain was unbearable and his body was reacting. Any second now and he'd be passed out. His brain spent and unconscious.

Sweet nectar like rays of sunshine flowed from his chest and accelerated outwards to his limbs. His neck craned to the sky in ecstasy as his vision crashed like waves of white noise, overflowing and limitless. His shoulder blade realigned itself and snapped back in place like a stubborn LEGO block.

His mind was too overloaded with sensation to think. After the climax of feeling passed, primitive emotions like happiness and confusion washed over him with each one of his heart beats. After his deductive reasoning kicked back in, he realized what was happening to him. I'm being healed...

Normal vision eventually returned to him after vacantly staring at the ground and then looking around at the few people huddled staring at him with expressions of worry, apathy, and sureness. Something squishy and familiar lay upon his scalp. He reached up and knew his hat instantly, putting on a big smile and giving the peering heads an uncomfortable bear hug around their necks, causing them all to bend over uncomfortably and nearly trip into him.

He observed their chatter about what had happened without a word. He had been AWOL throughout what apparently was a Nightcrawler loony bent on stealing nearly naked ladies. He picked up the knife extracted from his back on the floor next to him. It had been tossed aside, possibly their only clue.

Stane looked over the instrument. It was obviously very well-maintained. The tip was sharp along with one of its edges. Scratches from compulsive sharpening glittered in streaks shining from tip to hilt as he turned it in the moonlight. He likes this blade, Stane thought.

The fruit-coated character tapped his hat for good luck before pushing off of his seat and addressing the group again with newfound confidence and vigor. "I have made a discovery," he announced triumphantly. "This blade," he held the instrument up to the group, "is taken very good care of. So much so, that I think he'll want it back. Maybe he named it? Oooh, we should name it!" A playful smile danced across his face. He tapped his chin idly for a few very important seconds, then seemed to come to a conclusion, much to the anticipation of the dumbfounded faces staring at him. "Sally! All in favor??" He raised his hand and counted a whole one hand. "One to zero? I win! Sally it is." Never mind that 'all opposed' hadn't been asked for.

"Anyway, I digress. Is anyone around here a Twin Blade perchance?" He spied around the alley and noticed each individual's choice of weapons – none of them shorter than an arm. "Hmm, I guess not. Well, I see two choices." He sat back down on his crate and stared into the ground marking the center of their little circle they had formed to brainstorm.

"We can go after this fool knowing very little about his whereabouts and activities, or we can sit here and wait for him to come back for Sally – after he's done to that girl whatever he set out to do...My vote is for the first one, but I can't do this on my own. Plus, my mom always said I was impatient, so my vote is biased." An invisible twang of sadness touched Stane at the mention of his mother. He opened the floor up to discussion.

OOC: Since we never seem to be on IM at the same time, I'm going to open a thread in the AD section for our characters to have a conversation about this. In your posts here, feel free to find clues and discoveries . *wink wink create them wink wink* Anyway, have fun and check that thread I'm gonna open, often :3. Whoever posts next can use as much of the dialogue generated from the thread as they want. Also, if the thread is used heavily, we can just do that for this week and then use it for the week after. :)

It was frustrating to say the least, and she was having the hardest time resisting the urge to bash this idiot’s head in. There was some kind of charming innocence about him that, on other occasions and in other people would have probably attracted her to him. But this one was different. Evidently, the “stain” was the man’s name, and when that innocence coupled itself with bold, shameless eccentricity, it led to the type of playful, annoying characters that she typically tried desperately to avoid. Being trapped in an alley with this man, though, was going to drive her insane. With his persistence and constant queries as to what she wanted (which was, of course, to be anywhere but here), she was almost glad when the random interloping leaper dropped in to relieve her of the company she had been keeping. For Venus, the intervention was a relief.

She had to admire the man’s acrobatic skill. Somehow he was able to not only carry her slender figure around under one arm, but also scale tall buildings in what felt like single bounds. Well maybe. She could feel the bumps of smaller steps between the initial leaps, so he wasn’t flying in the superheroest sense of the word. More like he was one of the characters out of the old film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

“So…” she said, her speech bouncing with the rhythm of her carrier’s footsteps, “I guess I owe you one?” While it was strange to be carried under one arm on the man’s waist, what bothered V more was the inability to turn her neck the right way to face the man who’d rescued her.

He didn’t respond. The only thing she felt was the tightening of his grip on her waist, pulling her exposed flank against his elaborate leather garments. It was a bit uncomfortable, which was the closest thing that her HypnoHelmet would give to pain. If this kept up too long, it would likely lead to chaffing, which could leave the whole of her side raw and bleeding. While all she would feel was numbness, it wasn’t something she would very much enjoy.

“Would you mind maybe putting me down?” She suggested as the man’s foot pushed off another rooftop, sending them through the air once again. After they landed, the man kept his light-footed run, and neglected to respond again. “Or maybe tell me where we’re going? Or your name?” He leapt again, seeming to ignore her questions or even anything about her, besides the fact that his vice-grip hadn’t loosed itself even a little bit.

“Hello?!” she asked, beginning to squirm in his grasp in some attempt to wiggle free from his hands. He slowed his steps to a stop, though only so he could look at her with a detached look of curiosity. Finally fed up with the weird company she was having the misfortune of dealing with tonight, V drove her elbow into one of the pressure points she’d picked up from her profession on the man’s hip. Thankfully, the game was faithful enough to reality to turn this gesture into a crippling blow, and the man dropped the girl onto the rooftop, letting out a cry as the pain set in. For the first time, she was able to catch a glimpse of the man who’d kidnapped her from the alley. He wore black from top to bottom, which was contrasted by skin that screamed, ‘vampire!’ It was as though every dark-themed, vampire character from every third-rate anime ever had been merged into this man’s character design. For someone trying to play the villain, it was pretty typical.

“So what,” she replied, “are you supposed to be some kind of dark, mysterious, obsessive stalker-types that my parents always warned me about?” The man merely tilted his head to one side, confusion washing over his intentionally, incorrectly wrinkled face as he tried to figure out what was going on. “Not that that’s a problem,” she followed with a sigh after he remained silent for the third time, “they kicked me out when I was seventeen, and I’ve kept the company of worse men than the ones my mom tried to warn me about.” His eyes stared relentlessly at her, not holding any of the emotion that was etched in the lines of his complexion.

“The angel is fallen farther than I’d thought,” he muttered, looking away and slowly drawing the blades from his side. While she was glad to be away from the dumpster-diving drunkard, it was likely that she’d just traded him for a lunatic. “But we can fix that,” he said, a wicked smile weaving across his lips as he peered over his shoulder at V, “yes, we certainly can.”
__________

It was over quickly. A hit to his angel’s stomach had the girl unconscious—easier to carry, and easier to hide. Without another word said, her delicate, white-clad form was hoisted over his shoulder. Not one eye saw them until they fell upon the square of the Chaos Gate, and even then only one or two would hear the keywords he spoke to whisk his fallen angel away: Delta: Voluptuous Paralleled Overflow. Gating in left Kindlevex on a solitary island, floating in a field of stars, and on this island was a single tower, stretching into the endless darkness, the absence of stars the only showing that there was a tower there. Black stones built its outermost walls, and a large, thick wooden door blockaded the entrance. With a single hand, he pulled it open and entered the dungeon tower with one goal in mind: restoring this heavenly host to her rightful place.
__________

Waking up in-game was a new experience for Venus. While her yet-to-advance level meant that she had a lot of first experiences ahead of her, this wasn’t one that had been on her list of things to try. The air was notably cool and damp, though what sheets lay on the bed under her reflected the warmth of her virtual body. Goosebumps shivered across her whole form, causing her to shift slightly as her eyes slowly opened. It was only when her arms didn’t move as planned that she realized the shackles that bound her ankles and wrists. Oh great, she thought, another bondage-obsessed freak.

“I apologize for the restraints,” the man’s voice said, “but you are so far fallen, I had to take certain precautions.”

“I’m sorry,” she began, trying her arm again to find the iron fetter just as firmly attached as it had been before, “but I generally charge extra for bondage.” Fortunately her clothes were still on—as much as ‘on’ could be used to describe her attire.

“Charge? What do you mean, ‘charge?’” the same confused curiosity lined the man’s curiously confusing face as he leaned in closer to her in the dank, stonewalled room, “just how far has the angel fallen?”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” she replied, tilting her head to one side, “I’m no angel: I’m just a common whore.” Well no, she was a damn good whore, but the point stood. What was strange, though, was the man’s reaction. Tears welled up in his stolid eyes, distress wracking his face as he cried out in agony, clutching at his skull as he dropped to his knees.

“YOU WILL LEARN!” he screamed, pointing a finger at her. “YOU WILL BE MY ANGEL!” With that, he disappeared into the darkness, a door slamming shut behind him.
__________
(OOC: Yeah, Stane gave me control over Kindlevex so I could come back into the quest later on. Not to mention a damsel in distress plot is pretty unique around these parts, especially when someone gets to play said damsel. You have the keywords: there’s no monsters in the field until you hit the dungeon, and the only thing that really matters about that is that V’s somewhere near the top of the 5-floor building—which I expect shouldn’t be too bad. ^_^)

Separate thread used to script

A member address query popped up in the bottom right of Stane's screen. Good idea. He sent his to all of them and replied to Rowan's idea. "Yeah, I suppose splitting up makes the most sense, although I don't think any of us could take him on alone...well. At least I know I can't scale any buildings..." It was true that he didn't know their levels, but they seemed to view the stunt the stranger had pulled with awe. It was a worthy assumption.

"Alright, I'll head to the Chaos Gate. One of you can come with and everyone else can go whichever way. Send a flashmail should you see him. Oh, and...don't flag down any administrators..." Stane darted out of the alleyway before they could ask.

As Stane ran to the Chaos Gate, he slipped the one dagger into his inventory. It disappeared from his pumping hand. The gravel beneath his boots shifted with a hushing sound like a librarian enforcing silence. Shh shhh shh...

His boots stopped with a 'clump' as he relaxed the muscles in his legs. He looked around, but caught no sight of the damsel or her distress. A gruff voice sounding like the veteran of two packs a day for 20 years rumbled from a pillar to Stane's left. “Yur lookin' fer someone? Ehhhh??”

Stane whirled in the direction, startled. A pile of cardboard and ripped cloths with an unshaven face in the center shined in the moonlight. The face smiled like it was used to scaring people, but it wasn't its intention. Stane made no attempt to compose himself (why bother, he was covered in food anyway). He looked the man up and down. "Who the hell are you?"

“I am the watchman,” the bum said. “I watch people all day – coming and going, leaving and arriving. I'm good at reading people, and you sir...you're looking for someone.” It wasn't a question.

Stane laid a judgmental stare on the man. Either he's true to his word, or he just got done seeing something verrrry interesting pass through here... Stane crossed his arms. "Yes, actually." The watchmen nodded, more to himself than to the heavy blade before him. "I'm looking for a..." Stane fished for the words, "shady couple, probably passing through here in a hurry. One was a girl dressed...unmodestly. Maybe being carried under a man's arm?" Stane couldn't recall if the man's description had been given to him or not. He should listen harder for the description of a man he's trying to find next time.

The watchman chuckled an annoying soft cackle. One that indicates nothing, only drives the asker mad trying to decipher its meaning.

"Well?" Stane pipped.

What kind of a player sets himself up with a bunch of trash and cardboard in a game where anything is possible and players can be whatever they like? Who's choice would be a bum? He wasn't a bum in real life – oh no. Unless he was one of those con-artists paying for college with a costume straight out of GoodWill. He couldn't pay for internet if he was a bum!

The watchman liked to control information. This perch was one of many set around the root towns of the game. He wasn't a 'spy' per say, but ventures of eavesdropping and espionage weren't foreign. It was surprising how much people would pay for the right kind of information. Some players got rich playing the market, beating the economy and robbing the wallets of his or her peers. Not the watchman, oh no. Unlike his usual appearance, the watchman was quite a force of economic wealth. All of his weapons were fully upgraded. All his armor was paid for until end-game. The man got to the top, but the journey was so addicting, he didn't stop once he reached the pinacle. A slave to information-trafficking, and a very strong chess piece to have at disposal. Power obtained a different way than most, but obtained nonetheless.

As Stane stood there with his arms crossed, waiting for an answer, a large piece of watermelon slopped onto the slate floor of the plaza, previously resting on his shoulder. That piece of filth reminded him. The poor guy must be hungry! "Ooooh." He reached into the inside-pocket of his leather jacket. "Do I have a treat for youuu." A drumstick whipped into view. It looked surprisingly deliciously considering it had been collecting leather bunnies for God-knows how long. The moonlight glittered off its surface as he turned it in the air with his mouth chiseled into a small 'o' shape. "It's like a lollipop only...chicken." He licked his lips and started to walk over to the pile of cardboard without removing his eyes from the delectable morsel. He bent down. "Here, you can have it."

The stranger's chuckle had been his own calling card. It meant: “I got something in my throat that a tall glass of money might be able to wash down.” This guy is crazy if he thinks I'm just going to tell him what he wants to know. The nerve. What a nincompoop. What an moron. What a...is that a...oh my lord it is.

The bum's arm reached out for it in time with a lick of his lips. The roleplaying had always been fun, and what more alluring to a homeless person than that...did he just pull out barbecue sauce? No. No, you're imagining things, pull yourself together and...GET THAT CHICKEN!

The watchman lunged at the leg with his upper-body, his mouth open and drooling, and his eyes wide. Stane pulled it away just an inch before and held it out of reach. "Ah – ah – ahhh!" The boy teased. "You tell me first before I eat mister chicken leg meself."

The musty cardboard ached under the strange tension bending it as the bum reached his arm until he was sure it would snap. Under normal circumstances, he would have just told the potential customer to beat it. Free information was worthless. But the chicken was too tempting. He lips burst and spit everywhere as he shook his head and let loose the info.

“They went to Voluptuous Paralleled Overflow – now gimme the meat!” He was practically begging now. Imagine, a begging bum.

"Now that wasn't so hard." He hovered the chicken leg over the man's head and dropped it with two fingers. "Thank you sir."

Stane turned away from the feasting tramp and sent off a flashmail lickety-split.

Stane waited a few minutes, flagging down the members as they arrived with a party invite. After the last of them had been invited into the party, Stane breathed the magic words and they were off in a flash of spinning light.

~

"Spooky." Stane's humorous voice bounced off walls. He had never been transported indoors by the Chaos Gate before.

A warehouse. It seemed a little out of place in the fantasy-like environments the game usually rendered for him. He looked around the aluminum walls and saw a few scattered windows – but not many – letting in rays from a static sunset. Reds and oranges bled through and made long shadows of aisles and aisles of shelves nearly thirty feet high. The ceilings were just as high, serving as the roof of the top shelf, and sported the same tempered aluminum mix the walls did.

All sorts of techno-crap and broken knick-knacks rested on the gigantic shelves. It was a collection of the past with traces of the future. Old TV's and watches, guitars and CDs adorned the structures with slight, superfluous modifications. A fashion guru would name every item under one adjective: Steampunk.

A shiny leaked into the corner of Stane's vision as he surveyed the room. A red orb nearly white in the center and fading to maroon on the outsides pulsated in the space surrounded by the four of them. It shared the Chaos Gate's spinning rings and ominous presence, but didn't seem to serve the same purpose. How could it? There was only one Chaos Gate...right?

OOC: Only thing I left out is that logging out has been disabled on this 'field.' Our characters can find that out for themselves. Other than that, you all are free to do whatever you want with this. Surprise me! :)

Fayre breathed a long sigh of relief as Rowan took care of the icky task of yanking the blade out of Stane’s back. She winced as the shiny blade was ripped free of his flesh and was so distracted by the unpleasant sight that she forgot all about her handy dandy healing powers. Good thing Rowan had the good sense to take care of that, too. What a handy, level-headed companion. She even fetched Stane’s hat! “Dang missy, y’think of everything, don’tcha?” Fayre flashed Rowan a toothy smile as she complimented the Heavy Blade. Her grin only widened when the member address message popped up, confirming her assertion of Rowan’s foresight.

After a few clicks, Fayre managed to figure out how to send her own member address back to everyone around her. “Huh. If only we had that Venus chick’s address, eh? Then we could just send her a flash mail, or whatever. Would be mighty convenient, ‘cause then we’d be able to track her down in a sec.” She shrugged, letting that train of thought die out. They didn’t have any way of directly contacting their former group mate, so there was no point mulling over it.

Fayre eyed Rowan, Damek, and Stane as each offered up their ideas for their new search-and-rescue mission. The wavemistress was oddly quiet for at least a few minutes, as she had no particularly great ideas herself. Her quick scan of the alley confirmed to her that the assassin hadn’t left any other clues behind. But even if he had abandoned, say, a scrap of his black clothing, it probably wouldn’t have given the group much information—unless, of course, the kidnapper had decided to scribble down his intended destination on it, which was unlikely to say the least.

She nodded approvingly when it was suggested that they split up to cover more ground. “Aye, I think that’ll make the detective work go faster. Plus, it’s not like we’re in a horror film, y’know? I mean, even if we all die, it ain’t so bad, ‘cause we’ll just resurrect eventually.” That was strangely sensible, coming from Fayre.

What seemed less sensible to her was Stane’s suggestion that they not request any help from administrators. He was gone before she could ask for his reasoning, but she wondered aloud anyway, in case any of her other new pals had the answer. “Wait, why’s that? Couldn’t they use their uber spiffy admin powers to like…beam to wherever she is and snatch her on back? And punish the mean dude? It’s not like we did anythin’ wrong. I know I’m an honest player.” The wavemistress frowned as she tried to make sense of the order. “I guess it’s more of an adventure this way…and we’ll get combat and trackin’ experience?”

That must have been enough of a reason for Fayre, or she just decided it was time to get moving before the trail got cold. Either way, she sprung into action. “Mail me if ya find anythin’!” That was shouted over her shoulder towards Damek and Rowan, as the wavemistress had already sprinted off towards the main section of Mac Anu to start her investigation. For a moment, Fayre half-wished she had a neat detective outfit instead of her ankle-length white gown. A little detective hat, a giant magnifying glass, and a tweed jacket would have really set the mood for her. That split second desire floated out of her head as Fayre realized she should be taking this kidnapping matter a tad more seriously.

Since Stane seemed to have the Chaos Gate region of the city covered, Fayre headed to the area beneath the bridge to start poking around, just in case the kidnapper had decided to hide out somewhere down there. She started off by knocking a few crates aside with her wand to check out if there were any suspicious figures ducked behind them. The wavemistress poked at the empty ground with the butt end of her staff, disappointed when they revealed nothing. Just to be absolutely certain, she roughly smacked the crates, smashing them to splinters. To Fayre’s surprise, the crates actually were housing a few occupants, just not the ones she was searching for.

About five giant brown rats burst out of the remains of the crate, screeching loudly as they shot towards Fayre. Their screeches were nothing compared to Fayre’s, though. The wavemistress let out her usual, high-pitched yelp and scrambled back up the ramp, away from the river and the cargo crates. Not only did she sound like the rats, she looked like them too, since she dropped to all fours to better climb the steep incline up to Mac Anu’s bridge. Her odd posture certainly earned her a few stares once she got there, but for once Fayre didn’t really care. Anything was better than a run-in with icky, probably diseased, rodents. She couldn’t help but wonder now if splitting off from the group had been such a great idea.

Fayre slowly righted herself, examining the bustling crowd on the bridge as she did so. Should she just start to randomly pull people aside and interrogate them? What would she ask, anyway? And how would she describe the two? A player dressed all in black with another player dressed in a skimpy outfit wasn’t really all that unusual, at least in an MMO. Judging by the way she was getting periodically pushed and shoved by people rushing to their various destinations, no one would be too interested in chatting with her anyway, even if she did come up with some decent questions.

She handily received a flash mail that resolved her dilemma. It was so helpful when someone else did the necessary footwork! She skimmed Stane’s message and set off for the Chaos Gate, a grin on her face. That grin flickered somewhat when she reread the message on her way over. Homeless people? What was that about? People could be homeless in this game? Wait, didn’t that make her a homeless player? She certainly didn’t own a house in “The World.” She didn’t even know if that was possible in this particular MMO. Her grin turned into a pout as she realized how little she still knew about her virtual surroundings; Fayre never considered ignorance to be bliss. She’d have to ask about this whole home business later, when there wasn’t a more pressing matter to attend to.

Once Stane was in sight, Fayre smoothed away her pout and put on a decidedly neutral expression instead—she couldn’t really tell if she was supposed to look happy, since they now had a good lead to follow, or sad, because they still had no idea what Venus’ status was. Either way, she waved to the Heavy Blade with her left hand while clicking with her right to accept his party invitation. “We’re really all in this together now, eh? Official like, I mean. Let’s not get killed, kay?” She continued to make such inane small talk until it was time to be whooshed off to their target field.

Her chestnut eyes automatically fluttered closed as the Chaos Gate ported them off. When they reopened, they immediately shut again in a series of rapid blinks. Fayre hadn’t been expecting an old warehouse infested with slightly outdated technology. She smirked, realizing it was kind of funny that in the virtual world, a warehouse was more out of place than a wide open field with swirling monster portals. Her back was to that mysterious glowing orb, and it stayed that way as the wavemistress curiously began to examine the shelves in front of her.

((OOC: Bleh, I'm still recovering from getting my wisdom teeth out, so tell me if I've made any mistakes plzkthx. <3))

Unfortunately, after his comment was made, the conversation had begun moving too quickly for Damek to fully grasp the situation. He'd suggested they go, and then had gotten lost in Fayre's speech. While he'd been trying to figure it out, apparently Rowan had had a flash of brilliance. While he was tripping over words, the party disbanded. Fayre ran off with a cheerful wave, and Damek looked up just in time to catch a glimpse of her running off around the corner. His eyes widened slightly, and he ignored the member addresses popping up on his screen, and the conversation he'd been trying to figure out to try and catch her. He didn't really want to be alone. For some reason, this whole situation had him unsettled, and he wanted to have his friend around.

When he turned the corner, Damek ran a few more steps before slowing to a halt. She was gone. Why? Where did she go? Damek tried to piece together what he remembered from the conversation, translating it as he went along. '...split up ... cover more ground ... field ... meet up at the gate ...' Damek stopped at that, realizing what he'd missed. They were looking for clues still, then. And with the member addresses, they could contact each other.

After this small revelation, Damek searched for the tool to send his member address. It was a fairly arduous task, but he'd finally managed to accept all the invitations and send out one of his own. In his brief moment of newbish pride, he paused, hearing a strange noise. Apparently the situation was moving much more quickly than himself. A flashmail had appeared from one of his recently added "friends". Hastily, he opened it to see what it said.

Though the first part of the 'mail had confused him greatly (he'd decided that his definition of 'homeless' must have been pretty off, if there was someone in the game like that), the last bit stood out in the clear. He was to meet the others at the Chaos Gate. The blademaster looked down the alleyway, which led into the main streets of Mac Anu. He had a way to go.

Damek ran through the alley, which wasn't too hard until he emerged onto the crowded streets of Mac Anu. Now it was more of a challenge to keep himself moving forward. He didn't like to shove his way past people, even in the digital world, so he found himself tiptoeing around other players with a boxer's agility. A little forward, a little to the side, dodging people, but he was managing to advance the whole way. It wasn't until the bridge that he met with a real problem.

He'd caught a glimpse of Fayre on the other side of the bridge, high-tailing it to the Chaos Gate, just as he should have been. The only problem was, there seemed to be a blockage on the bridge. He waited a moment before turning to another player. "What's going on?" the player shrugged, and Damek tried to look over the shoulders in front of him. All of a sudden, a longarm burst through the crowd, hurdling backwards. With no time to dodge, Damek was caught beneath the other player. He couldn't help but feel like this was wasting a lot of time. What if the others were already gone once he got to the field? At least there was no way for him to be the first player there, alone with some videogame psycho.

Damek righted himself, and said his standard apologies to the low-leveled longarm. Then he decided to quit pussyfooting around and get down to business. He prepared to dash and then took off, dodging players for the most part, but getting ready to burst through the crowd on the bridge if need be. It turned out that it was needed, and as he pushed through a heavyblade and a heavy axeman, Damek stopped abruptly. One of the players had grabbed his arm, and held him in one place. Without thinking, Damek turned and snapped. "I need to go!"

"Who needs to do anything in this game?" the players let him go and threw him back a little, obviously they were just hanging around the bridge picking fights. "I'll tell you what you need to do. You need to -- hey!"

Sure, it was a cowardly move, but he hadn't been lying! He had somewhere to be. As such, he'd thrown another player to the mercy of the two giant oafs and ran. As he wove in and out of the crowds, Damek could hear people being pushed aside behind him. Why now? Why did these players have to be looking for a fight now? Whatever. He was approaching the area of the Chaos Gate. To his complete relief, Stane was at the Gate to greet them, and he was added to the party. Hopefully he was the last one. "Go! ...please?" the blademaster panted as he accepted the party invite. The heavy armor of the two made them slow, but they were still making a beeline for the blademaster. "I didn't do anything. I promise." his statement came out a little awkwardly, but he hoped that this drama wouldn't last long. To his relief, the party began to dissipate. He just hoped these guys weren't desperate enough to try and follow them.

------

"Spooky."

Though Stane's voice might have been humorous to some, to Damek it just spelled out his thoughts. This field was strange. The giant warehouse seemed so out of place in a world of vast fields and monsters. There was not much exploration to be done, only compartments of the run-down workplace to be visited. Absently, Damek backed up, only to be scared out of his wits by a pipe harshly letting off some steam behind him. He jumped, drawing his blade to the hissing pipe, only to have it be deflected by the sheer width of the brass. "Sorry.." he breathed, after the deafening noise of metal-on-metal echoed throughout the building.

Come to think of it, he'd probably alerted their opponent to their whereabouts. At this, his face paled slightly, and he edged closer to Fayre. Despite their failed trust game earlier, Damek was certain that the wavemistress would keep him safe, despite the levels he had on her, and the fact that she had little to no physical defense. "Maybe we should go," he whispered. It took a moment before he remembered that he was in a game right now, but it didn't do much for his nerves. His nerves were shot, and this place sounded way too creepy. Still, he managed to regain some of his composure and straightened himself up off of the portly wavemistress. Following up on his request, Damek brought up the field information window, and went to log out. Not only did the window not provide the information he seeked, it also held another unpleasant surprise.

"We can't leave."

Having the hat back on the Heavy Blade’s head seemed to improve his outlook and demeanor once again. The Wavemistresses comment about her ability to think of everything was nice, but also made Rowan wonder of she should back away a little and let others have a go at coming up with things. She was just so used to running the show in real life that it seemed second nature. Not exactly how she wanted to be looked at here in the game. She was here to experience the joys of having fun and not having to be the leader type for awhile. Still, it was nice of Fayre and she smiled back at the girl.

Her idea to split up was taken quickly by all but not exactly in the manner she herself had been thinking. Fayre was the first to start the flurry of member address responses while everyone offered up their ideas and/or agreements as to what the group should do. The trusting girl once again was talking aloud, voicing her thoughts and they why’s and wherefore’s. Her voiced thoughts were certainly similar to everyone else in the group, even if they chose to remain silent. Rowan continued her smile and nodded slightly while she listened to the Wavemistress in agreement of everything she’d said. Truly, it all made pretty good sense. It was too bad that they hadn’t traded addresses sooner. In the end though it was a mute point and they needed to get moving.

It was Stane though, who was the first to bound off quickly towards the Chaos Gate not really giving anyone time to respond to his off the wall remark about the Admins. Rowan wondered but wrote it off to the adventure of the hunt…for now. Flagging the Admins down might end the hunt too quickly. It seemed a little far fetched of a reason, but it settled her curiosity for the moment.

Fayre was next which surprised the female Heavy Blade considering it seemed that she would have partnered up with Damek, who in turn seemed just as shocked by her quick exit. Rowan was about to offer him the opportunity to join her on the rooftops but he followed quickly behind his friend appearing to try and catch up to her. The woman just shrugged and set off to find a way up and wishing all characters came with the Spiderman abilities that were portrayed by the now villain of her first adventure.

After finding a ladder that led to the roof, Rowan found herself on top of The World. The view was spectacular and would make a great past time to do some relaxing people watching she thought. Something she had also noticed dowsed her ideas of following foot prints along the roof tops. The game was digital, therefore leaving no dust in which to leave foot prints.

”Damn! So much for that idea.”

With a slight grimace, Rowan jogged along the top of the long building. Looking up, she could see the clock tower of the main plaza and just barely the stairs leading up to the Chaos Gate. That’s when she thought she saw the dark character quickly approaching the stairs. Her eyes narrowed in on him, her adrenaline pumping behind the visor when the player turned around. It was a girl smiling and then waved at another player motioning them to hurry up.

”Ack! No fair!,” she yelled out softly. ”Why must everyone have the same wannabe dark ranger in mind when they make their characters?”

This was getting discouraging quickly but she wouldn’t give up the hunt. Who knew what horrible things some sick character might try on one dressed such as Venus was. The mind games they might attempt to play on her, not that they would succeed with those considering how tough the girl’s exterior appeared. Even knowing that still made the woman shuddered at the thoughts. She despised people who teased or tried to take advantage of others.

Approaching the edge of the long roof knowing she’d probably spent way too much time on it already, she looked down and then over at the next roof top. It actually wasn’t too far across and she could probably jump it. She backed up to get a running start, took a couple of really good steps and came to a screeching halt right at the edge; her arms flailing in every direction trying to keep her balance and her feet firmly planted. Flashback images streaked across her mind of her recent fall that landed her in the hospital and in a weird roundabout sort of way, right where she was currently standing.

I don’t need a repeat of that just yet. Best find a different way down and head for the gate.

The sound of the flashmail that arrived rather timely as her feet hit the ground made her smile. Hopefully someone had found them. Reading through it however pointed out that the only thing found was the name of a field. Nodding, the Heavy Blade knew it was better than the absolute nothing she had turned up so far. Taking off at a full run towards the gate, her thoughts centered on Stane and what a great job of sleuthing he did to get that info from…

Wait, did he say homeless people?

It didn’t take her long to reach the plaza since she’d gotten a bird’s eye view of all the shortcuts earlier. The others were already there; Rowan arriving practically on Damek’s heels. She was added to the party and away they went, whisked through the realms of The World’s transportation system.

Stane was obviously still in his humorous mood regardless of how interesting the environment was they had been sent too. Taking a quick visual inventory of the items that littered the rows of shelving, the brown leather clad woman was instantly confused. Why would there be TV’s, watches and musical instruments inside of a game? What purpose would they possibly serve when they seemed so mundane in comparison to the magical items and weapons that gave the game its appeal? People came here to get away from reality, not to re-live it.

Other than what looked like a collector’s dream of a warehouse, the orb they stood around somehow seemed out of place. Rowan looked on it for quite some time wondering just how the game mechanics worked. This was really her first time through the Chaos Gate, but she had imagined that there would be an exact copy of one on the other side. This didn’t quite fit the bill of an exact copy. Better leave those things to the ones who’d been here longer. She was more useful looking around.

Momentarily startled by the exasperated sound of Damek challenging a hissing pipe to a duel, Rowan simple smiled at him and walked down one of the rows until she came to the outside wall and looked both ways. There was a door at the farthest end that appeared to lead outside unless the windows were misleading. At the other end was a set of stairs the led up to a small room. Maybe an overseer’s office she thought. She approached the stairs and began to ascend, clomping a little as she went.

The room was small but not really an office. It had a long table in it surround by old style metal chairs with padded seats like you’d see in some old military movie. A few wooden cupboards lined the far wall and upon opening them, she found cups, plates and bowls. Another small door was on the far wall. Opening the door, the Heavy Blade found herself in a bathroom, complete with a half used roll of toilet paper hanging from the rack. Now she was getting a little creeped out. Digital characters didn’t use bathrooms so… A few moments of thinking about it and it all started to make sense to her. Odd sense, but sense nonetheless. There was a bunch of old real world stuff down there in a warehouse and what warehouse would be complete without an old time employee lunch room.

On her way out she stepped on something that crackled a bit. She knelt down and picked it up. It was a food wrapper similar to the ones that were in the dumpster back by the club. Just like the one that Stane used for a temporary hat.

”Hmm…but does it mean anything?”

Her whispered voice turned into a semi-loud holler as she exited the room and headed back down the stairs.

”I think they were here at least, which means we are at least in the right field. That or the club’s food is more popular for take out than I thought.”

She chuckled a little. Her odd sense of humor showing once again while she held out the wrapper for all to see.

”I also found a door that I think leads outside at the other end of the warehouse. I haven’t been to it yet so that’s where I’m headed next. Anyone figured out what the glowy thing is for? I’m afraid I haven’t been around enough yet to understand that kind of stuff.”

(OOC: Warning, the post contains nudity. Those with vivid imaginations and strong consciences are encouraged to instead ask me what happens.)

Why am I here? The thought echoed through her head for what felt like the fifteenth time since her captor had left. Arguably, this game was her escape, the thing she used to pass the boredom between clients. But here she was, trapped within her escape. The logout function was disabled—it was one of the first things she’d tried after the weirdo had left. Following a dozen more tugs at the chains at her wrists and ankles, the thought had occurred to her to just remove her helmet and restart the computer. It would be disorienting: one of her clients had removed the helmet without shutting it down right, and nearly didn’t make it to the bathroom before spilling what remained of his cheap Italian dinner into the toilet. But it couldn’t be worse than a bad drug trip, right?

Of course this had brought to mind the one and only time she’d let a client talk her into doing acid and tripping while they did their business. The dull, numb pain that she could usually feel lingering in the back of her mind had been amplified into one of the most horrifying and scarring experiences she’d ever endured. Needless to say she took every penny the man had after the trip ended. It was not an experience she’d like to repeat. But then, which was worse; being chained hand and foot to a bed with a creep convinced you were his angel, or feeling sickeningly discombobulated after the helmet’s trance was rudely broken? It was entirely possible that her former client’s nausea was brought on solely by his meal, and that forcing the helmet to disconnect wouldn’t have any really horrible side effects. But then, when was the last time that she had been able to lie in a bed without a stranger lying next to her? Even if this was fake, as she mulled it over in her mind there was a strange peace to it—peace enough to make her not loathe staying in game versus the slue of negative side effects that were sure to ensue from ripping the helmet off.

So she continued to lie still, every now and again testing the reach of her fetters to see if she could shift any. The mattress was hard, but she’d grown comfortable lying on her back with her arms and legs spread slightly apart. Another in a long line of sighs escaped her lips, and she rolled her head on the pillow to peer into the darkness on the other side of the bed. Where the light came from was anybody’s guess, but it seemed to be illuminating her in the same way one would seek to illuminate a trophy. The question was whether being chained to a bed by a lunatic was worse than the discomfort of ripping her helmet off. This was silly, the answer to that question was obvious. So then why am I still here?

A creak from her left pulled Venus’ gaze to the darkness. The door opened slowly, a small waxing crack of faint, pale blue light betraying it to her eyes. A silhouette stood within its frame, the lack of distinguishable legs betraying the man’s identity as the same one who’d kidnapped her. Footsteps echoed loudly off the floor and unseen wall as he began walking toward her, and as the golden light that lit her form began to reflect off him, V could see that he was carrying something: a white gown, and what looked like angel wings.

“Get up,” he demanded, stopping next to the bed. A craze lined the whites of his eyes, which shone abnormally bright in the dim light of the room. When she failed to comply, his posture shifted, and the garments he’d brought in were cast to the floor as he raised a fist, about to strike. “I SAID GET UP!”

“Hey, relax!” Venus replied, raising her hands in surrender as best she could, concern showing through her voice, “I’d love to oblige, but I’m kinda strapped down here.” A tug on the chains proved her point, and the man tilted his head to one side, a whole wide range of emotions flashing across his face before he lowered his fist and turned away from her. This was confusing as hell. She’d met her share of lunatics, one or two of them in bed, but this nut-job outdid them all. It was only when he turned around with knife in hand, though, that she felt her heart start to pound. “Hey, I don’t know your deal or anything, but come on!” Once again she tugged at the chains, finding them having no release. The thought crossed her mind that he was only going to cut them off, but something in his body language spoke differently. A smile parted his lips, his jagged teeth glimmering in the light as tears streamed down his cheeks. His breathing was tense, and he bent over her, the blade in his hand meeting her abdomen. She winced her eyes shut, but when the numbness that usually accompanied a wound was absent, she could only look down.

Against the pale of her skin in the light, the well-crafted and well-preserved blade slid, not rending flesh from flesh, but instead meeting the folds of fabric that maintained what little decency she had left. With a quick pull, the wool and linen of her toga gave, and her decency halved. The knife-bearer shrieked, his face filled with horror at the sight of his captive’s now exposed breasts. Well, either she had a crappy rack (which she knew not to be the case), the man had never seen breasts before (which wasn’t likely), or he was gripped by the guilt of what he’d just done. But when his cold hand slid up her form, she subconsciously began to writhe under his touch. Something about this guy just screamed that it wasn’t right, especially not in a game. Beneath her helmet, she could feel tears streaking down her cheeks, which reflected in-game as she watched the man.

Before he reached her bosom, though, he stopped, his hand resting on the ribs just above her stomach. His own tears dripped down onto the exposed skin, and with a cry, he pulled himself back, stumbling over the dress he’d brought in and towards the door. Venus’ eyes stayed on him the whole time, her body shaking as the adrenaline began to be dissolved and processed. As the sliver of blue disappeared into the darkness, she let her head fall back onto the pillow that was there, closing her eyes and clenching her teeth to try and get over what just happened. Why hadn’t she just logged out? Why hadn’t she left when she’d had the chance? Why…had she been kicked out? Why was she even remembering that right now? These events were completely unrelated! Despite how awkward it was, she tilted the visor of her headset up, and buried her face in her hands, weeping on the couch of her favorite client while her character lay still.
__________

“Kindle,” the man said, looking up from behind the in-game computer he’d set up to help monitor stuff while without the hassle of logging out. It hadn’t been difficult to set up an external access to the desktop of his Altimit machine, and as he watched his…‘friend’ walk into the room again. While Jimo didn’t exactly agree with everything the man was doing, and couldn’t figure out what he was talking about half the time, he did pay well. “A small group of players logged into one of the decoy fields I set up- are you okay?” In all of their experience, the hacker had never seen his eccentric employer this upset.

“I can’t-” he said, collapsing against the doorframe, “she won’t-” His face was buried into one of his hands as his body visibly shook against the doorframe. Jimo rose, moving towards the one who’d hired him for his services to try and calm the man down. Even he was afraid of what this yahoo would do, given the right motivation.

“Kindle, what happened in there?”

“I couldn’t hold myself back!” he shrieked, the knife instinctively slashing towards the one who was trying to console him and taking off less than a hit point from the hacked character. “I undressed her, but I started to…” his voice trailed off before the phrase finished. Jimo merely raised an eyebrow. Next time he was bored, he’d definitely have to screen his clients before getting into binding contracts with them.

“So…I take it she’s not wearing the dress?” he asked. Kindlevex looked up from his hands, a curiously expectant look marking his features. Did he really think that he’d…!

“YOU DO IT!” he shouted, causing the hacker to recoil a bit.

“…what?” Jimo responded, pausing a moment to consider the possibilities, “you mean you want me to put it on her?” His employer furiously nodded, grabbing the man by his shirt collar and nearly throwing him down the hallway. He turned, but Kindle had closed the door behind him, and a clicking thud told him that it was locked. “Son of a bitch!” he yelled, turning about and drudging down the hallway. Of all the bastards on the internet, he had to get stuck with this guy. Great.
__________

OOC:
The plot thickens! Kindlevex is psychotic, and he’s got a hired hacker, Jimo, who he just sent to put a dress on Venus. Oh, and in case you didn’t pick up on it, you guys are in a decoy field. What exactly that means, I’ll leave up to you, but I don’t expect anyone’ll pick up on it IC too quickly.

It seemed that Stane wasn't the only one caught a little off-guard by the layout and appearance of the map. Everyone seemed a little jumpy – especially a certain blademaster that managed to alert the whole world of his existence. Stane wasn't mad. God knew if someone else didn't do it first, he would have. The blademaster attempted to log out after getting cold feet and losing all courage and bravery that might have previously been directed at finding their captive damsel. His cowardice uncovered another uncanny fact about the field. No logging out. It hadn't been on Stane's mind, but the constant back door out of any situation comforted his subconscious, and without that cushion, he felt like each step down the hallway was a step he couldn't take back.

His head turned from left to right, eyeballing over the rows and rows of antique and futuristic contraptions. The hallway cut right through the center of the shelves, exactly perpendicular, but the breaks between the shelves was narrow enough that Stane had to grip the hilt of his gigantic sword and angle it straight up and down to avoid catching it on the edges of the shelves. Stane contemplated un-equipping his cumbersome blade, but decided against it. The splinter in the back of his mind placed there along with the inability to log out forced his hand.

He had been on the alert for monster portals, but wasn't surprised when none were found. This field was unlike any he'd seen, and everywhere but the expansive area they had arrived in was so narrow, characters could barely walk. He reached the last row of objects and turned around, looking down the narrow passageway he had come and spied on the red orb, directly in his line of sight. It was pulsing now, and a little too big for the fifty feet Stane had traveled. It should have looked much smaller at that distance.

Metallic clattering echoed around the concrete walls and rows of steel shelves like an earthquake had hit. Cups, guns, helmets, and chains hit the floor and accelerated towards the orb-side of the room like a gigantic magnet had activated. Stane crouched a bit and spread out his hands to steady himself. The tremors running through his feet didn't come from the earth, but from the shaking of every single object on every shelf.

Heavier objects fell from their steel housing and dented the shelf ahead of them as they made their way towards the orb like a gushing ocean. Lightning began to dance around the orb in huge, thick bolts as the orb floated upwards. Steampunk apparel gathered around the floor underneath, then spun upward, meeting the red, electrical orb like a geyser. Tornado arms sprouted from the orb's source, filled with more gear and widgets that emptied out onto the ground when they met the tip.

The sound was deafening. A constant stream of metallic objects pulled towards the orb, along with the objects hitting the floor after reaching the arms. Electric yellow eyes, slanted inwards, formed on the face of the orb pointed at Stane. He couldn't see the rest of what was going on, but his narrow vision caught that.

Purpose. Stane ripped his blade from the leather belt strapped to his back and turned his body sideways as he shuffled back between the rows of shelves and towards the monster. Eventually, he stopped bumping into things and kept his feet planted on two saucers that pulled him towards the monster, despite his extreme weight.

Halfway back to the spot the party had landed, the tornado monster left Stane's vision. It hurled a mighty arm at a few of the stagnant party members, slamming against the wall. The entire volume of the creature's arm hit the wall and fell straight to the ground, being gobbled back up by the vortex spinning around the creature's base. Within a few seconds, the orb-monster's arm was replenished and swinging again like a caveman.


OOC: A thread for Battle plans!

"Right, first I find my way out of this stupid room, then I stop playing hero for women I don't know. Who puts a box maze in a warehouse, anyway? This guy has no organization skills at all!"

Was this right place? He thought he got the right words when he was standing at the gate. The Axe man had spent about an hour playing with the thing before just to make sure he understood it, too. His chances of screwing that part up should be fairly low now. At least the experience was giving him time to get a feel for the weapon mechanics here. Nothing like having a few spare minutes to swing the hefty beast of an Axe around to work the kinks out, right? Wait, was that talking? It sounded pretty far away, but maybe if he followed the noises...

Now, here he was, behind a row of crates, and all he wanted was out. There was a big racket now, almost like someone was beating a sack full of pots and pans around the room. Well, there was only one thing to do for it. Caraba took a few short steps backwards, raised his Axe like he was about to split a big log, and charged forward, his heavy iron banded boots resounding his offensive throughout the room as he close distance on the massive wooden crate!

*CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG*

"HYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"

*CRASH!*

Standing there in the cloud of dust and splinters, he looked like the silhouette of some hulking beast, and the devastating size of the axe couldn't have hurt matters. No time to admire himself yet, though, even as he took a second to shake off a few broken boards like an animal. There was a fight to be had and it was waiting just outside this cloud! Lumbering into the light, the heavy axe looked past the shelves and saw the beast.

It was an odd monster, but then, he hadn't seen any others yet, so maybe this was just a little guy compared to the others. Still, it was his first real fight, and he'd been practicing! Driving through the shelves and into the open, he steeled himself for battle, trying to look like he knew what he was doing. Then he noticed the rest of the players and began to seriously rethink his plan.

"Oh, come on, there's a whole gang of you people? ...Right, give the girl up and I'll let you punks off easy, got it!?"

Damek watched the happenings in slow motion. People were talking, and the noise from the steam was drowning them out some. He tried to step forward, but the moment his foot hit the ground, something peculiar started to happen. First, there was a dull roar, a hit of movement in the floor, and soon it was almost an earthquake. Objects were hitting the floor, some narrowly missing members of the group as they hurdled towards the red orb. He was starting to get a seriously bad feeling about this. Over the noise of the objects, he could hear something behind him, and turned around just in time to see the pipe he’d sliced come hurdling towards him. It hit him straight in the face. The force knocked him down, and sliced his face open. He was sure that it would leave a poignant reminder of the quest later.

The blademaster managed to roll onto his stomach and look up at the monster they were going to face. The thing looked fierce, and Damek decided the last thing he wanted was to be lying down on the floor when the thing could hurdle a train in his general direction. ‘I have to get up,’ he thought desperately. He was a sitting duck, and though he was the only one who’d really been hit, it looked like the monster was still gathering items. It’s not like it was going to start attacking them.

Apparently that was wishful thinking.

Damek was halfway to his feet when the monster made its first real attack. A new player brandished their sword, but the introduction was too late for the blademaster to question. Various objects, but most notably a train, threw Damek against the wall, along with anyone else who hadn’t been quick enough to duck. When they hit the wall it began to crumble, a few bricks falling out of place though the building stood strong. Beams of light came through from the outside. The train began to roll back towards the monster, its pace rapidly increasing as it neared the orb to rejoin into the body. When it moved away from the wall, however, the players that had been hit weren’t there.

-----

Dmitri ripped the VR headset off of his head violently, and realized he was panting. He hadn’t realized what had happened for a moment or two, and it had all been so real. ‘The World’ had disappeared, right before his eyes. He knew that this wasn’t what a ‘Game Over’ looked like. He’d seen one of those before. You were just supposed to become a ghost. Instead, he’d felt ripped away from the game. The screen had gone black, and the sounds of the world replaced with a dull ‘ring’ that reminded him of temporarily losing his hearing. He didn’t know if he’d really passed out, or how long it had been since the game had ended, but something just wasn’t right about that field. He leaned over to shut off his computer, which was obviously frozen, since there was no login screen to exit the game from.

As the computer began to reboot, Dmitri shook his head. There was no way he was going back. He was too weak, too... unprepared for this. For a moment, he wondered if anyone who’d been present would worry, but discarded it. After all, regardless of how disorienting it had been to be cut off from the game, that’s what it was. A game, and nothing more.

((OOC: I’d not recommend getting hit by the train, seeing as it seems to kill in one hit, and also, being killed on this field auto-disconnects you with no warning. It's our final input (well, we thought it was neat). Fayre’s going to be in on this too, we’ll post some further explanation later. Best wishes on the quest everyone, hope to RP with you sometime. PM me up ;) ))

Fayre began to pluck up a few of the items cluttering the shelves, inspecting each one carefully. A little gold pocket watch, complete with a snazzy dangling chain, particularly caught her eye. She undid the clasp holding down the cover and flicked it open, revealing the watch’s digital time display. “Huh, check this out. The outside is old, but the inside is new. Funky. And the numbers are all weird, y’see?” And that would be because she was holding the watch upside down, making the 7, 4, and 5 look all wonky.

The wavemistress realized that with a frown and spun it around 180 degrees, allowing her to read the glaringly bright, indigo set of numbers. After reading the four of them, she flipped up her VR goggles for a moment to read her own clock. They didn’t match up. They weren’t an hour or a half an hour off, either, so it couldn’t just be a matter of different time zones. With a frown, she flicked her goggles back down. “Something ain’t quite right about this place.” As if that needed saying.

While her watch find was interesting, it wasn’t exactly useful; not like Rowan’s. Fayre’s eyes lit up when she saw the food wrapper the heavyblade was holding. “It all means somethin’.” Real helpful, that one was. Speaking of helpful people, Fayre jumped and nearly fell over when Damek’s blade met metal and made a screeching noise worse than fingernails on chalk. She resisted the urge to shove the blademaster away from herself, instead putting on her best comforting, motherly tone (which was somewhat ruined by the pipe’s loud steam, as she was forced to shout), “It’s alright, buddy. We can take on whatever might have heard that God awful noise. Promise!” She swung her arm around his shoulders and gave him a tight squeeze, as if to confirm her statement.

Of course, the wavemistress had no idea what was in store for them. If she did, she wouldn’t have made any binding promises.

She almost let out a girlish scream as everything metal near her began to shoot by, a few frighteningly close to her face. Fayre managed to contain herself, but only because she was too distracted hanging onto her wand. Luckily it was mostly made of stone, making it easier to keep in her hands, but the orb that crowned its top contained rich strips of metal that kept trying to tug Fayre closer to whatever magnetic thing was nearby. When Damek got nailed in the face, though, she lost it—literally. She let go of her weapon, which went sailing off, and dropped down to a kneeling position beside Damek. While it was probably too late to prevent any scarring, Fayre shouted “Repth!” and watched closely as the spell refilled some of his health bar.

As he began to get to his feet, Fayre stood too...just in time to get wailed into a wall with a train. Who would’ve thought? As the bricks behind her and Damek began to crumble, so too did the image on her screen until it was pitch black. No game over screen...did that mean the game was still going?

Darleen yanked off her VR goggles, confirming that the game was indeed over, even if blindingly bright red letters hadn’t told her so. She frowned deeply and tapped the side of her head, trying to get rid of the ringing noise that still lingered there. The middle-aged woman decided to leave the computer off, for now. Give everything a chance to...sort itself out.

All she could do now was worry about Damek and the rest of her team.

((OOC: Trains hurt! XD Thanks for the adventure. If anyone ever wants to quest with me, PM or AIM and we'll figure something out. :D))

Alright, what Caraba needed right now was a second to understand what had just happened. There was a monster, or at least, he thought that had to be a monster. Then there were the other people, and he was pretty sure they were other players. Then there was a train. And that hit him, hard, sending him sprawling through a wall. So, that would explain why he was covered in brick and dust, and outside, and on his back, and why his head hurt. The axe man had an especially fond memory of the noise his armor made when he got hit, too. Kind of like being shoved inside a bell and having someone whack it with a big hammer. Still, as novel as this was, it was time to take the fight back to the monster.

*beep beep*

What was that? Health bar? 1 point!? Oh, this fight was so over once he got healed.

"How'd that go again... Rupth!...No, no...REPTH!"

Healing, and blowing all of his sp in the process, Caraba stood tall and shook the rubble away.

"Alright, it's my turn to put YOU through a wall!"

With a challenging smile, he pushed his helmet down and ran, clomping all the way, up to the hole in the wall. Thankfully, the other arm hadn't quite reformed in it's entirety, not that he understood whether or not that was important yet. Hopping up, he continued his charge. Not willing to stand there and be hit, the creature swung the second arm. Caraba, of course, had no intention of getting cracked like that again, either. This arm didn't have a train in it, but there was still a lot of harm if he took this one. Problem was, he couldn't dodge if he wanted to. Instead, he did the only thing he thought could work. Bringing his axe way back over his shoulder, he swung down, hard. The crate had nearly exploded when he hit that, maybe he could shatter this.

His plan...almost worked. The good news was that he didn't die outright. The bad news was that even though he can copied his favorite technique for splitting a stump, it was all he could manage to keep the arm from clobbering him and breaking the stance. Sparks flew from the soles of his iron banded boots as the force of the blow drove him backwards and up. Ultimately, instead of splitting the arm, he was enjoying the scenic view of the ceiling as his massive form slammed into the wall, leaving a cartoonish imprint and knocking off some residual health. Maybe he might have to fight the other guys some other day, when they didn't bring something like this to the field...

Why should she have expected any different? The psychopath who had left her half naked in chains on this bed reeked of creepiness from the get-go. You’d think that the fact that their entire trip to this dungeon was spent in silence would have tipped her off to his less than wholesome intentions. Venus had dealt with her fair share of creeps before, and in the end they all wanted the same thing from her: her nightly wares. How strange to think that something like love and affection could be turned into a business.

Of course she didn’t deserve any better than this. She was a prostitute; she was lucky to wake up next to the same man twice. Almost every night was the same. Sure, some men were fatter than others, some had nicer apartments, and some smelled better, but with the lights off there wasn’t any real difference. V sold them one night of love in exchange for paying the bills. It was her lot in life, and was she really so surprised that some internet pervert saw fit to continue the cruel hand that fate had played her? There were no tears to be shed at this: most men would only be able to look at her and see something they could fuck with no consequences. That’s all she was.

So when the door opened again, she didn’t even flinch. If the inevitable test of the game’s anatomical accuracy was coming, what could she do?

“Hey, you alive in there?” His voice was different. Was it the same…it didn’t matter. She turned her head to the door, her face devoid of emotion.

“Oh good,” the man continued, boots echoing off the floor as he walked in and shut the door behind him, “you being alive makes my job easier.” He stopped just outside the light, “Wouldn’t want to have to put the dress on a dead girl.” Was that even possible in this game?

“Who are you?” Venus asked, squinting to try and see into the shadows. When the man stepped forward, it was very evident that he was not the one who’d captured her. He wore simple clothing: jeans, a dark t-shirt, an unzipped black sweat jacket with an abstract swirling design that never seemed to remain at rest, and light brown boots. His face was plain, though bore the marks of a man who hadn’t shaved that morning, and a mop of brown hair to top it all off. Very ordinary.

“The name’s Jim-o,” he said, looking her over from head to toe before letting out a sigh, “man, does Kindle know how to pick ‘em.”

“So what, are you going to rape me instead?”

“Rape?” he asked, looking to her face, and then off to some indeterminate point in consideration, “I hadn’t thought of that.” He laughed and then sighed, shaking his head. “No, I’ve just gotta get you into that dress that my employer left on the floor.” At that, he reached for the brooch below her stomach. Instinct caused her to flinch slightly, and he stopped.

“Relax,” he said, looking to her face, “I’ve seen my share of naked women, and while you probably rate somewhere near the top, trust me when I say that you’re not my type.” He unclipped the amber clasp, and with a gentle pull the fabric that had been so ruthlessly cut was removed, leaving her nude on the bed. “Huh, didn’t think the character models were that accurate,” he commented, and she half sat up, looking down to confirm. Meanwhile, he gripped the iron anklet around her right leg, tapped it twice, and it snapped open—along with all of the other ones. She was…free?

“Aren’t you supposed to put the dress on me?” she commented, sitting up on the bed and cracking her neck from side to side. It would never cease to amaze her how realistic this game’s controls were.

“I figure you’re capable of that yourself,” he said with a smile, “besides which, you have a really hot character model, and I’ve honestly never seen how accurate they are.” If she were anyone other than herself, she would have slapped the man. Hell, she probably would have broken down in a pool of her own tears if she thought herself to be worth that much. Instead, she could only concede his point as he picked the dress up off the floor and handed it to her.

“It should fit perfectly,” he said as she rose and stepped into the delicate garment, “unless that idiot did something to the code I wrote into it.” She didn’t respond, only slid the form-fitting garment up and over her virtual body. It was a different getup, to be sure. Sheer fabric wove over itself around her form, not giving her a lot of leg room, but definitely serving to show off her better curves. V turned her back to Jimo and asked two words.

“Zip me?” He seemed very professional at it, slowly bringing the fabric comfortably taught across her stomach and chest as the zipper did its job. As it finished, something else hit that struck her as very odd. Her back began to itch, and as she reached back to scratch, she felt something that should never have been there. Feathers…?! And why did everything suddenly seem that much brighter?

“Oh, that’s a side effect of putting the dress on,” Jimo commented, putting his hand on her shoulder and turning her around to face a mirror that hadn’t been there moments before, “you get wings and a halo. I wouldn’t trust them for flying, though, ‘cause they probably won’t work.” He took up position next to her.

“Are they permanent?” she asked, still trying to decide whether she liked them or not.

“They’ll disappear if you take the dress off,” he replied, “though either way I think you look fantastic.” For the first time she was able to give the man the withering glance he’d been begging for through the whole exchange, and he could only smile in return.

“So now what?”

“Now I’ve gotta lock you onto the bed again,” he replied, “and go let Kindlevex know that you’re ready.”

“For what?” V asked matter-of-factly.

“Who knows?” He led her back to the bed and she lay down, willingly submitting to the fetters again. “By the way, what should I call you?”

“Call me V,” she replied, letting out a sigh and closing her eyes. There was a lot she didn’t understand about this whole situation, but she’d just have to do as she always did and live with it. A door’s opening and closing again greeted her ears, and the man was gone.
__________

Jimo let out another sigh as the door closed. Perpetuating this lunacy was beginning to take its toll. He turned to face the heavy wooden door that had locked him out of his control center. As eccentric as Kindlevex was, he was the man with all the cash. Three knocks rang against the frame, and from within the man replied in some bastardized crossbreed of excitement, confusion, and frustration.

“Is it done?!”

“Yes, Kindle, she’s wearing the dress. Can you let me in now?” There was a fit of laughter, and then a click as the lock slid open. The hacker pushed, and the door begrudgingly swung open. The leather-clad man was reclining in the more comfortable arm chair in the room, smiling and laughing at nothing in particular. Jimo slid by, sinking into the console he’d created for himself in the digital world.

“Excellent work,” Kindlevex said, twisting his head to face the hacker hidden behind a computer monitor, “now we can move onto phase 3!”

“Forgive my ignorance, but ‘phase 3?’” He didn’t look away from the screen, instead watching as his orb monster obliterated two of the intruders. They were low enough in level that it didn’t really matter, but a fight was always entertaining to watch.

“We discussed this, Jimo!” the man screamed, rising to his feet and plunging his dagger through the monitor like it was hot butter. “Or don’t you remember my plans to rebuild paradise?!” Sparks erupted out of the gash as the blade was withdrawn, and the display went black. Well that was just great.

“Let’s say I don’t,” he replied, forcing his anger to stay inside, “what’s the next step?” Kindle only laughed with all the more insanity as he put the blade back into its holster.

“We preserve her and make her last forever!” Wait, he couldn’t mean—!

“Kindlevex, you are one sick bastard,” he said, stepping around the desk and walking towards the doorway, “our contract is over.” With a firm tug, the wood swung open, and the hacker stepped forward. A ping from behind told him of the knife that had just been embedded in his back, and he clenched his hands into fists. One solid punch was delivered to the jaw of the stalking employer, sending him sprawling back into the control room. It took a good deal of restraint to not follow it up with more punches and kicks, but enough was enough. Three gold rings descended down his form, and he was gone.
__________

When he reappeared, Jimo was in the midst of a hurricane in a warehouse. From out of nowhere a train slammed down onto his head, being instantly crushed in the force of its own attack. The hacker rose with a sigh and walked towards the center of his creation that towered over him. It really was a shame that it didn’t recognize him. There were only three players left in the field, and as it stood none of them would be able to defeat the thing, let alone figure out how to get to the dungeon tower where their target was.

One red eye focused on him, and all at once the junk that comprised it was honed into a single menacing blade. Before anyone could move, it was brought down onto the newcomer. In a twist of fate, though, the blow resonated throughout the monster, and it shattered into its dozens of pieces, each of them falling to the ground in a loud crash. A whistle of awe came from behind him, and the Jimo turned.

“It isn’t dead yet,” he said in reply, turning to face the red orb as it floated into the air again and pulled the decidedly steampunk contents of the warehouse to itself, rebuilding itself quickly from what had seemed like a devastating blow. “The way to beat it is to make it overheat,” he began again, leaping high into the air and batting away the few pieces that managed to get within striking distance. “This chimney acts as a heat sink, ventilating the thing and keeping it cool in the midst of its junk. Clog this and the vents, and it goes down. PhaVak Kruz!”

All at once, four massive burning embers formed in the air about the smokestack and slammed in on it, compounding on one another the weight of their blows. By the time the spell faded, there was no smokestack left, only a molten steel cap where it had been. “Hotfoot!” One after another, the skill’s fiery kicks sealed the grates on the side of the thing, sealing its doom with them.

“Now, come and get me!” Once again, the monster began to erect a massive blade over its ‘head,’ only this time around it seemed to be having a lot more trouble doing so. Different pieces began to fall away as the centerpiece of the whole thing began to burn red hot. It was almost over. Steam and smoke burst out of the riveted seams, and then a massive crack echoed throughout the whole building as the monster ceased to move. The ominous red glow in the furnace at the center had ceased, and the thing lingered in its stance a moment longer before collapsing in on itself, decaying into little more than a pile of junk.

“So,” the newcomer began after another whistle echoed through the warehouse, brushing some of the dust off his character as he stepped towards the pile and dug a bit for the furnace, “my guess is that you came here after Kindlevex in some attempt to rescue the girl he kidnapped. I can’t help you any further than I have, but I will say that what you’re looking for is on the fifth floor.” His hand reached into the furnace, and at once a brilliant white light enveloped them, blinding everyone until it faded to reveal them on the edge of an impossibly high cliff. Opposite that was a tower that stretched into the star-speckled sky, appearing much taller than it actually was.

“My name is Jimo. This is the field you were trying to get to: you were in one of my decoys. The front door should be open, but I would hurry and get inside. The longer you wait, the greater your chances of being sent to another decoy, and I ain’t gonna help you out again. You can also log out from here if you want—I disabled it on my way out before. Good luck, I’m out.” Before anyone could respond, the plainly dressed fist-fighting hacker was gone in a wash of golden rings, gating back to Mac Anu and away from the mess that he’d created.
__________
(OOC:
- Venus is wearing the angel dress now
- Jimo left Kindlevex
- Jimo beat the steampunk boss for y’all
- You’re in this field:

- I’d get inside quickly, ‘cause you just might be teleported to another decoy field, and who knows what might happen there.)

Not long after Rowan came down the stairs with her prize wrapper for show and tell, the ground started to shudder and the objects on the shelving around them went ballistic. The small reddish orb wasn’t so small any more and a tornado had begun to form around it, pulling in all the objects. The Heavy Blade found it very interesting while at the same time very unnerving. Something bad was about to happen. She pulled her sword just in time to duck beneath a rather large arm of….things?

She watched as the part of the arm literally fell apart to the floor after hitting the wall with a loud thumpish clang right before it remade itself.

Crap! It reforms broken limbs. Which means we need to go for something more substantial or more sensitive perhaps.

The wheels were turning in the Heavy Blade’s head as to how to bring such a foe down. All the while, Fayre and Damek had jumped in with both feet attempting to do any and everything they could to drop the metal beasts health. Nothing seemed to work. It was a very formidable creature against the young in level group. Both were hit with the arm that of all things had a piece of a train in it. Once hit and sent flying to the wall, they…vanished.

Hands reached up to rub virtual eyes in disbelief that they were gone instead of ghosted. She had heard Damek say they couldn’t leave, so was getting hit their ticket out? Did they want to get out? Wasn’t this field where they needed to be to save their friend? Rowan quickly composed a flashmail to the pair while watching the rest of the events of this battle unfold rather expeditiously.

Would they be back? They could really use the help but it was just a game after all. No time to think about lost comrades as another player warrior cried his way into the battle just before her friends had vanished. Where did he come from? He too jumped in after saying some line from an old cop show or something making the woman frown a bit. This was no time for such things, although it did make her wonder. Was he referring to an actual person that he lost or was he referring to Venus? If it was Venus, then how does he know her and know what happened? If not, then who was he referring too? Ack! So many questions and so few answers and no time to find out.

He too got hit by the train but whether it was his class, his armor or just plain dumb luck, he was still there, although probably quite a bit shaken from the impact. She had to give him credit as it didn’t keep him down for long; the Heavy Axe clomping his way back into the fray of things with an edge of an attitude that brought a slight smile to the woman’s face.

She charged in right behind him for some hopeful teamwork. Hefting her blade, she targeted the neck hoping that severing it wouldn’t find them a rebuilt head. Sadly, her blade simply clanged and bounced off but not before gaining the beasts’ attention. Her eyes went big as she ducked under yet another arm swing. Unfortunately, the newest addition to their battle party wasn’t so lucky; his character was seen streaming across the air until he met with the wall once more.

Thoughts now centered on the orb. If they could get a lucky shot in and stab it dead on or perhaps maybe a blast of lightning might short circuit the darn thing. The Heavy Blade preferred the latter option since it didn’t require close courters combat but wasn’t honestly sure if she had that spell in her inventory. Trying to quickly sift through her menus to find out another figure appeared out of nowhere.

There was no time to say anything like the proverbial ‘get out of the way’; the junk monster had already swung its train down upon the newcomers’ head. Then it brought a large blade down on him as well. Rowan just stood there in awe when instead of the new guy ghosting, the blade seemed to reverse in its effect and the monster began to fall apart. Who was this guy? She began looking at him with a glare that intensified after he started talking. He had either beaten this thing before or new where it came from. Could he have been the one that designed it?

The room lit up as did the foe in front of them as a fire spell was let loose. Loud steam, cracks and pieces of metal began falling to the floor, some being shot out over the room from the internal force of the steam that was erupting. With one final thunderous crack there was no longer any movement from the beast except for the quickly piling of its parts.

As he sifted through the debris he spoke of a mans name and of their friend. A sword was immediately pulled ready to be threatening, but before she could place it anywhere near him, a blinding light filled the room.

The foursome found themselves atop a huge cliff across from a tower that looked like it reached the literal edge of The World. The woman hoped it was all just illusion or the angle at which she saw it. It didn’t really matter since according to this Jimo person, that’s where they needed to go. He disappeared as quickly as he had arrived and made it clear they wouldn’t see him again. She placed her sword back in its holder and looked at the others.

”Well, no time to waste it sounds like. Let’s get going”

The steampunk monster had gone nuts between Stane sliding on the saucers towards the opening in the room and him finally arriving. When he came through the passageway and into the arena, there was a piping-mad monster knocking down entire walls with a train about the size of a roller-coaster cart. It whirled and spun about the room, knocking two players so hard that their character models disappeared! Unlike Uruvei, who had reappeared as a ghost in his first outing, these players seized to exist. They either pulled the plug right at the smash or something about this map is wonky.

Stane had never been a coward. He usually didn't have enough foresight to lay out a situation to the point of being afraid and deciding against it. This “boss” was another story. Even an oaf as clueless and gutsy as Stane knew that this thing was dangerous. Even having no experience to lose by dying, those two players disappearing put a muzzle on Stane's anticipated reckless charge. They had been tight, right? Those two didn't seemed to be the rage-quitters that would manually disconnect at the first sign of a hitch...Although, this was a pretty big hitch.

Stane had been pushing his luck with the saucer-surfing. His inner-klutz was WAY overdue, and his subconscious practically tripped him itself. An old-fashioned metal gas can sailed into the back of his knees and careened his upper body backwards, slathering gassy goo all over his back and legs.

He looked into the battle to see a newcomer get pummeled. Stane cringed. Another one bites the dust. The stranger reappeared unharmed after the junk and metal cleared. Pretty soon there were four huge embers above the monster which was now gathering itself back up for another strike, Stane assumed. Two and two made four, and Stane got up in a hurry and ran the heck away from the floating embers of fire and death. Gas plus fire equals fiery death. Stane didn't feel like testing his neuro-helmet's sensors any farther than he all ready had, and high-tailed it to the corner of the room to the right, tripping over lamps, guns, and instruments all the way there.

His leather gloves braced against the wall and shelf as Stane observed the embers melting the steampunk monster until it overheated and eventually exploded. He made a low whistle and listened to everything the man said. What he got for paying attention was a flashbang to the face and an even more disorienting field switch.
_______

He blinked at the white noise covering his vision. His hands and knees braced against the ground as he clenched his eyes, lifting one hand to rub the top of his nose, below his forehead. It was dark here. After the swimming white dots were free from his eyes, Stane viewed what he would describe as the edge of the earth. His braced hand curled over the side of the cliff, revealing a negative incline, bending towards the center of this floating mass instead of straight down or outwards.

Stane sniffed his nose at the strong smell of gasoline on his back, now dripping onto his neck, over the lip of his shallow collar. Gasoline dressing for his fruit salad attire.

Zane had never been afraid of heights – heights just didn't like him. He could barely handle flat ground! Stane inched away from the edge of the world after calculating his chance of survival being that close to the edge. He stood up slowly, still a little dizzy from shock, and looked around.

There wasn't much to see. It was basically a big pancake of earth, to Stane, until he looked up at the sky and noticed an odd moon. The moon didn't wane like that. A chord was cut out of the moon's left side, instead of the usual curved slice. After closer inspection, Stane realized that right at the line that had been cut from the moon like a knife, the stars appeared. To the left, no stars – to the right, the rest of the moon and stars abound! So many stars. There wasn't a light on in the whole place except -

Their savior logged off in a blinding swirl of circles after yapping something about “hurrying up” to get inside. Ah-HA! The scenario clicked. There's a building there!...or a tower of some sort.

He marched right towards the absence of stars and watched the moon slowly disappear as his angle deemed more and more of the moon hidden.

Suddenly, all of the stars disappeared. Stane stopped in his tracks and leaned his head back a few feet like a cartoon character peeking around a corner. Stars. He stood back upright. No stars. Stane's subconscious slapped him in the face. He said the door was open you moron! You're inside!

Well Geez, Lighten up would you!...it's freaking dark in here.

Stane brought his hands together in time. "CLAP-ON!" Torches lit up the perimeter of the large room serving as the foundation to the entire castle. Gasoline-boy yelped in fright, but managed to stay standing, holding his twitching hands out for balance. "I swear that only works in the movies."

Supporting pillars were spread around the room evenly in a grid pattern no less than ten yards from the closest adjacent. Everything in the room was made of a dark, mossy stone. In the center of the room, the pillars gave reprieve to a large, spiral staircase with each step made for a giant of a human-being, giving “climbing a flight of stairs” a whole new literal twist.

After the last member of the party slipped through the hidden door Stane had been lucky enough to stumble through, the invisible mass slammed shut. The flames of the torches danced, then stilled.

Outside was a thunderous boom. The ground under Stane's feet lurched downwards and then back up like an elevator with a fickle operator. Stane's stomach did a somersault as the foundation to the island detached from the tower like a space shuttle leaving behind its rockets. Stane couldn't shake the feeling that he was under a few more G's than normal. He felt heavier, and didn't know why.
________
((OOC: Sorry to take so long. Since its just the four of us now, I propose that we blitz this quest and have a lot of fun. I always have more fun on fast-moving quests, at least. Also, to clarify – we still have a floor, just no island. There's really no way to know this for sure since there aren't any windows in the room (for our characters of course).))

Stane had the same idea after slowly standing, looking a little dizzy and began moving away from the edge towards what looked like absolute nothingness. Traveling along behind him, Rowan noticed he looked a little glossy and wondered what other wonderful substance he’d run into somewhere in the warehouse field that would add such a glow to his dumpster diving look. The whole thought made her laugh, covering her mouth as she did so in hopes of not attracting attention.

As they moved on, the Heavy Blade was trying to find something of the picture in front of her that would give her a notion as to why they were walking towards…nothing. Stane seemed to be doing this peek-a-boo thing which made no sense, but then again so far had he really made much sense? Watching the boy further though proved to be that there was indeed something up there between the ears even if his approach was a little off beat at times. A clap, a yelp and a whole bunch of lit torches later and Rowan walked up behind him. She raised her hand to pat him on the back but then she caught a flicker of his shiny glow and thought better of it, slowly letting her hand fall back to her side.

”You found the light switch. Nice job!”

The room looked like an old outdoor banquet hall or something with all of its stone pillars and moss. The stairs looked a bit challenging and vastly oversized but when the invisible door behind the group slammed shut and the ground began to rumble after what sounded like the beginnings to a thunder storm outside, up looked to be their only option. Rowan moved toward the giant sized staircase a little slower than she thought she should be going, especially for a full out run.

Reaching the first stair she jumped, catching the lip of the next stair with her fingertips. Climbing was nothing new to the woman who spent most of her working days maneuvering around construction scaffolding all day long. Although she had to admit the scaffolding was easier to climb than this was going to be. She pulled herself up to the next stair and then knelt down at the edge holding her hand down and out for whoever wanted some help.

”Come on! Time to get our groove on and boogie up these stairs.”

She couldn’t help with the disco reference. It just seemed appropriate with Stane’s clan running a dance club.

((OOC: So very short, but I didn’t want to hold things up any longer and I really do appreciate everyone’s patience while I got through my little family emergency. Whether some of you knew about it or not is beside the point. =D))

I really need to toughen this guy up...

That's what Caraba was thinking as his character met the wall for the second time. He was also wondering the woman who talked him into this game had any idea how time consuming it was. Now that he thought about it, where did she hear about this, anyway? This really called for some looking into. Fumbling on the desk next to his keyboard, he found his miniature hat rack and felt around for the fedora he liked to wear. It made him feel like a character from an old detective movie. Overbalancing, he felt a brief moment of weightlessness as the chair gently drifted out from underneath him, then a sharp thump when his backside met the floor. Damn him and his hardwood floors, damn them to hell! Only one thing to do, and that was to get back to the game and pretend it never happened, like a sensible adult... right after he put his hat on.

In the game, the monster had been destroyed, and hopefully, nobody noticed his character mimicking his real life actions, yelping and attempting to rub the pain out of his back side. Fortunately, a sudden field change helped him mask the event. At least that's what he told himself. Now they were inside the tower, and all was well, until the tower gave him the old heave ho and knocked him right back over. His new vantage point did give him a fine appreciation for the architecture of the ceiling, though. Anyway, time to get back up and do the right thing. Looking at the junk yard warrior out of the corner of his eye, he cleared his throat.

"Right, then, I guess that means you didn't kidnap the girl. Sorry for the mix up. To be honest, I wasn't enjoying the idea of fighting you people, anyway. Caraba here, and I suppose I should at least help you up those stairs."

With an clomp clomp here and a clang clang there, the heavy axe made his way to the great steps, making a point of doffing his helm to Rowan.

"No offense, miss, but I don't think you'll be hauling me up there yourself. Hold on a second."

Beckoning Stane over, he crouched and cupped his hands together, holding them at ground level. He wasn't sure how heavy the guy was, but the sword alone should be a little hefty. Boosting him up, he realized he might not weigh as much as he guessed. Instead of pushing him up to the first step, Stane sailed past it and landed on the second. Putting both hands on the ledge and pushing, they all eventually ascended the stairs.

The room didn't looks too different from the other one, except for the ugly stone face on the other side near the stairs. Somthing about it seemed odd, but who knew what would happen. Only thing to do was move forward and see. That thought in mind, Caraba boldly strode forward and...fell through the floor as a small section crumbled under his weight, then repaired itself. He, on the other hand, landed one floor down, making a wonderfully loud CLANG-THUD noise. The face, unable to contain itself, laughed hysterically, revealing a mouth full of strung arrows

Propping himself up on his elbows, the axe man looked at the floor in confusion, then defiance. Standing tall and clambering noisily up the stairs, he shouted a challenge.

"Alright, I've had about enough of that! You and me, floor, one of us is going down today!"

((OOC: I think you can work this out easy enough, have fun!))

"Weeeeeee!" Stane cheered as the large heavy axe player chucked him up two huge steps of the stairway. He peered his head over the edge of the last stair and viewed the next floor. It looked fairly ordinary save for totem things lining the far wall.

The aforementioned heavy axe stepped into the room causing the ground to crumble beneath his weight. Wind whizzed by Stane's head causing the visible parts of his hair to blow back. His eyes widened. He turned his head around, still only looking over the lip of the floor, and saw a line of arrows stuck against the wall behind the party. A hundred of them. He slowly lowered his head and folded his hands, saying a silent prayer as the fallen axe made his way back up the large set up steps.

Leather gloves found their courage and gripped the edge of the 2nd floor. The space around the lip felt sturdy enough, and it had been a few steps until Caraba had fallen. Maybe they only had one arrow in them? Hoping for a party of one to come through...It was a good thing Caraba had fallen in time. Those things stuck to stone! That gave him an idea. He reached back for his blade and stuck it up, past the level the arrows had flown from. TING. Three or four met the metal of the blade. Inertia caused his flexed arm to give, but he managed to keep ahold of the sword. They were only arrows after all. Low mass.

He then tested how often they could fire, sticking the blade up, and keeping it there with both hands. It ended up being one 'ting' every five seconds. Alright. Destination. He spied around the room, his eyes just over the edge like a groundhog getting ready to pronounce spring in front of all those news cameras.

Facing the totem faced wall, to the right wall, one of the stones forming the wall had strange markings on it. Gashes at regular intervals with a slightly different shade started at the base of the mysterious stone and ended at the ceiling. Stane sidestepped a bit to give the others room when he pointed this out, but to his surprise, every gash shifted slightly, along with him. He scooted back over. They moved too! Very strange...oh! Something was invisible there, just like the door had been. Whoever had hacked this field (Stane was convinced it was not standard by now) had figured out how to have models with no color at all: clear. They could be steps. Stane looked around once more, convinced that this was either a dead end, or that was the only way. He explained this to the group before raising his sword up once more, waiting for the TING, then high-tailed it out there. One. Two. Three. Four. He hit the dirt after only three careful steps on the grid. "Someone raise up their weapon and attract the arrows while I try for the invisible stairs!"

Cooperation? The ground would have none of that. It broke as Stane finished his sentence, sending the heavy blade down to the previous floor. In flight, Stane equipped his cheapest item, an antidote, and threw it straight upwards as hard as he could. The ground materialized just as the antidote was about to break the surface, allowing it to rest on the unsafe square, acting as a marker to all who passed: danger. The marker was about halfway to the stairs.

EDIT: hit 'submit' instead of 'preview post' ><

OOC: Posted on the wrong character by mistake. This never happened, got it? :zap:

If it was cooperation he wanted, it was cooperation he got. Made more sense than trying to stomp his way over alone. Probably wouldn't hurt half as much, either. Well, until he came up with an amazing plan, he would provide cover like he was asked. Good thing these axes we so big, or that might be a problem. Maybe that was the answer to his problem right there! Deflecting an arrow, he slammed the axe on the floor sideways. Unfortunately, the damage was almost minimal, only knocking out sections that the axe itself connected with. Looked like they were doing this the hard...

*thunk*

"Yow!"

Not a good time to admire his handiwork, what with the arrow sticking out his shoulder and all.

"Alright, we do this your way, I've got you covered! Go!"

The process was simple. Caraba, using his axe as a sort of shield, moved as far as he thought was safe, attracting more attention from the arrow firing mask on the other side. Then, getting in the proper position, he groaned in resignation and ran, leaping as far as possible and spreading out his arms, legs, and axe for the ultimate belly flop. His luck, however, was to land with a solid section rish as his stomach. The rest of the stone broke away just in time, taking away the balance as an arrow pinged off his helm and flipped into the air while the axe man took the plunge again. Luckily, the arrow had managed to land where the good stone was. Grumbling every step of the way, Caraba rolled to his feet and ascended. maybe the next floor would be easy. This falling stuff was starting to hurt.

Stane took a mental picture of the safe squares his bulky partner had identified. The fallen ones materialized within a few seconds. Stane took a quick breath and jumped onto the floor after an arrow twanged off his raised blade. He hopped onto the square with his antidote, then a few marked as safe from his mental picture. The last step was a guess. As Stane took the leap of faith, the line of arrows stuck in his calf, tripping him sideways. His torso landed on a safe square, but his feet did not. The weight of them caused the ground to crack away, leaving his feet waving. He sat up and limped onto the invisible stairs until he was above arrow-level.

He looked back to his party. Rowan hadn't moved in a good five minutes. Her idle character looked to be observing, but the vacant expression was common among the 'afk' and active alike. “Rowan! You okay?” No response. His party was dropping like flies...and elephants in Caraba's case.

Stane threw out a few cheap items, antidotes, potions, etc, onto the squares he thought had been safe. His view was turned around now and his picture was a minute old.

Stane cast a Repth on himself as he waited for his last pal to come bounding over. The two arrows in his calf popped out like a cyst as green light irradiated from his skin. Healing always felt like heaven.

Stane looked over the ledge of the invisible staircase into darkness. It turned out to be quite a steep ledge. There was no floor. The heavy blade peeped over the edge of the top stair. His eyes widened. Stars cut through the darkness in all directions, illuminating the area enough to see an object akin to a cheese grater below. One hundred feet downwards lay a white grid of thick steel bars. Each square's side was only four feet wide, some of the bars stained with blood. One bar balanced the remnant of a person, their hips resting on a bar, dividing a contorted upper and lower body. Below the trap was deep water, held in by white concrete, and pool lights decorated around the winding boxy-cylinder like jewels. The tunnel of water turned forward, blocking Stane from seeing what lay ahead.

Leap of faith.

Stane: Two Levels
Venus: One Level, Relief Lance, Mage's Soul
Fayre: One Level
Damek: Noble Cloak, Grunty's Sword, Mage's Soul


If anyone else is getting rewards for this, please IM/PM me. I'll take care of it right away.

[Edited to include Damek's rewards]