The world swam before his eyes, as Atrimis logged back into the world. He had just completed his first solo quest, and logged for a break. Upon returning to the game, he paused at the BBS, or bulletin board system, to pa-ruse the posts. His eyes traveled over a post by one Haru, a heavyblade in search of a party. Heavy blades were similar to blademasters, except their weapon of choice was a massive two- handed sword, most used in a chopping or cleaving attack. As he read the request, a second post, by Kyin, a wavemaster, offered to lend his assistance. Wavemasters were spell casters, preferring to stay back, and unleash elemental attacks upon their foes.

While Atrimis was typing up his offer to join as well, a third person, Vivek, another wavemaster, joined. Atrimis finished his post, offering to be the fourth person in their party. With two close range, heavy hitting, characters, set up to take a lot of damage, and two ranged spell casters, Atrimis knew this was going to be a well-formed party.

He looked around the town, this time having arrived near the item shop. His eyes were drawn to several scrolls, similar to the one he found in the chest at the end of his first quest. He looked them over, seeing several spells common to other games; fire, water, and earth. He noticed that a couple of them had a few variances, but he wasn't ready to learn the more complicated aspects of the game. His focus was on learning more about the world in general. His eyes crossed over the other items on the tables; various flute-like devices, and bottles he could only assume were potions. He turned away from the table, preferring to get his potions as rewards from the field. Maybe one day he'd need some.

He passed by the weapon shops as well, noticed the twin dagger sets, and remembered the twin-blade he had herd a story about. Something that was supposed to be sort of legendary. He shrugged since it wasn't anything he was involved in. Not that he was that self absorbed; but this was just a game; he wanted to experience everything, and if it was a limited opportunity... His eyes passed over the blade he had just squired, its twin sitting on the counter.

”Hey mack, how does that blade look to ya?” the merchant asked.

“Much like the one I just got from a chest. Let me ask you, though, what's special about this blade?” Atrimis asked, indicating his Rondo sword.

”Well the Rondo has the special attack, Revolver; it's a spinning attack, used to hit multiple enemies at once. In addition, it can cast Ap torma, a spell that will increase your casting power. Blademasters like yourself aren't the most eficent when it comes to casting spells, so the Rondo is a nice weapon. But since you have one, get away from my booth, you're taking up space that paying customers could occupy!”

Atrimis chuckled to himself as he continued down the pathway. Once he passed over the bridge, he arrived at the spinning golden rings, that he knew now was called the Chaos Gate. His fingers brushed the scrolling keywords that opened the portal to different worlds. He was a level three himself, but his future team-mates were levels 1 and 2. He decided on a level 2 world that would be a nice balance for the group.

After a while, he came across “Nameless Solitary Alter” which was a level 2 forest field. It was a stormy area, with a nocturnal time frame, with large rooms (just small enough that it wasn't another level's worth) and a nice opportunity for items. He nodded to himself, then opened his mail system to send out invites to the other people in the group.

It had been a few minutes or so since posting in the BBS. Or at least Jessica hoped that it had been so since time tends to pass rather quickly during dinner. Having to listen to James Wordsworth, her father, talk was something like deciphering a dead language. Though today things were a bit different. An apparent long-lost friend was visiting for the week. Miss Woodsworth already could tell that she wasn't related through blood to this beautiful woman across the table from her.

From listening to the two converse about the old days, to having to eat the strange idea of food that her father had. The day was going as it usually would with visitors. Until the pair began speaking in a secret code, to keep the young woman out of the conversation entirely. Even trying to read their body language wasn't effective in understanding what was up, but for once her father had a look she had never seen on his face before. The man expression was rather serious as he spouted babble.

Jess caught a few bits of the subject, what sounded like names from another part of Earth's landscape entirely. Before long after those names were said the lass got told to go to her room. Something serious had to have happened for Mister Woodsworth to have such a dark tone to his usual overly cheerful one.

Getting up from the table, Jessica made her way to the sink to clean up her plate. And quickly stored it in its proper place in the dishwasher. From there she began her somewhat stunned march to her room. After closing the door behind her, she made her way to the computer and booted it up.

While waiting for everything to load and get ready, Jessica took a look around her room. Some of the parts from the alarm clock that had an unfortunate accident that morning were still in a pile on the wooden section of the floor. Her bed was neatly made with a large-sized plush of Naraku from Inuyasha sitting atop the blankets. It had the pupils colored black from a child that sold it to her father four years ago. There was other damages but Jessica had fixed it up almost as good as new. Across the room from the large plush was a poster of Hellsing's Alucard.

Under the wall decoration was a small counter made of redwood that had been darkened with a polish. On it was an incense burner in the shape of a dragon laying on its back. The stick of incense stuck inside the mouth, burning little by little which let out a soft refreshing scent of a forest with blooming flowers.

Next to these items was the door to the closet which housed nothing but clothes. The door was shut so instead of seeing into a large dark room, one would only see a painted white surface that had pencil sketchings on it. A black carpet flowed out from the closet into the room reaching close to the bed in the corner closest to a lone window. Her computer was located on the other side of the room in a patch that had the wooden flooring that came from the hallway.

Then the computer proclaimed that it was at last ready to be used. Jessica spun the chair she sat in around to face the monitor. On the desktop was a picture of another male character with the same eye and hair colors that seemed to be a theme in the young woman's room. Her right hand rested gently on the mouse for only a brief second. Then it slid across the pad which in turn caused the cursor on the monitor to move towards the icon for her new game. She clicked it twice and placed the goggles on her head. Closing her eyes she took a deep sigh of relief. Once calmed down, she finally logged into "The World" to quickly find she had mail.

After reading over it a few times to think things through the cursor led the player into the game itself. Before now, all Jessica had experienced was the BBS area. So being forced to close her eyes while experiencing no gravity was something new. A bit too new for this player's liking. With eyes still closed due to a slight panic from finally feeling the ground, the male avatar darted forward. And bumped into something... warm.

Crimson Vivek at once opened his eyes to see something his player never yet saw so realistically before. A man's chest. Bare. It was all too shocking for the smaller being, whose face was now beat red. Even worse was the fact that the wavemaster stumbled backwards enough to fall onto his bottom.

With a still glowing face the two yellow eyes lifted themselves from this man's chest to look at his face. Such was the proper area to look at, after all. This person also had black hair but his eyes were a piercing red with such blackened pupils... It took a bit before Vivek noticed that he had gotten lost in those eyes.

Without getting up he rubbed the back of his head and smiled. At last through a veil of embarrassment he spoke, "So uh... Hi. You wouldn't be part of my team... would you? Otherwise I have to go find Atrimis, Flynn, and Kyin. Oh! Sorry about bumping into you. I'm... new... to all this."

*creak*

Kyu coughed, dust scattering through the air, as he entered the attic. How convenient that the old food processor they needed would be found in the one room of the house that hadn't been cleaned since they obtained the keys to the building, nine years ago. They didn't make it easy to find this, the boy thought as he gasped for breath. The stagnant air was so choked up with the pollutant that caused this reaction that the teenager had to retreat twice for clean air and a break before he could clear out enough of the mess to retrieve his prize. Poking his head down into fresh air, he called out to his parents.

"You wanted the one we received from Grandfather, right?"

"Yes, Kyu. Just bring it to the kitchen and we'll see what we can do," came the reply.

Nodding to himself, the boy carried the ancient piece of machinery down two flights of steps, first the ones out of the attic, then the one leading to the main floor. He was lucky in that they weren't in one of the biggest houses on the block, so the kitchen was built (due to space restrictions) as an add-on between the den and the entrance. The boy hefted the device onto the countertop, careful not to jar the glass of the blender itself. "Thank you, son..."his father said, looking up from the newspaper in his hands at the sound of Kyu's difficulty breathing. "Are you all right? Your eyes are all red and watery, and I haven't heard you cough this much since your thirteenth birthday."

The teenager waved his father's worries off with a hand, which flew to his mouth, covering his cough. "I'm fine, Father. Don't worry, it will subside soon." His parents didn't want to let on about it, but they were strapped for money, and the young man didn't want to bring any more stress to the situation. "I just need some water and some time."

Leaving the room, the boy headed back up the stairs. Avoiding the still-opened access to the attic, he entered his bedroom and shut the door quietly. Rei-chan was taking a quick nap before her performance at the school recital, and he didn't want her to awaken. Kyu rubbed his eyes, brushing the tears away and turned the computer on, seating himself and preparing the apparatus needed to play The World.

Username: Kyin
Password: ***************

Logging in...verifying information...

Welcome to The World, Kyin!

The Wavemaster warped in to the sight of a beautiful golden afternoon. It was the same atmosphere he found on his prior couple of trips to The World. Those times, he had gotten caught up in something a bit bigger than anticipated. Now, however, he had time to just...enjoy the sights and sounds.

Until he remembered that he was due for a quest with three other players. Flynn, Vivek and Atrimis. Vivek was, from what he could gather, a Wavemaster like himself, while Atrimis and Flynn were each one of the sword classes. Heavy Blade? Twin Blade? There were too many to remember. The boy didn't even know where he was supposed to meet these three others. Kyin guessed that, wandering the city, he would eventually find them. The boy started his search by the shops, specifically the weapons vendor. When he had no luck there, he headed over to the bridge. Kyin read a couple of posts on the boards that had people meeting up under the bridge. No luck there, either.

A Flashmail notice startled the boy. Reading it, he decided to try back by the Chaos Gate. Not having any idea of what the others looked like (an avatar on a board was hardly a good reference to the avatar in-game), he figured he might as well ask a few other players if they were who he was looking for. There was naivety in believing that it would work, of course, but he couldn't think of a better option. Returning to the Gate, the blue-robed Wavemaster happened to overhear something interesting. Turning around, the Wavemaster found himself looking at two peculiar players. One, a raven-haired, red-eyed man stood over the other, a man dressed in copious amounts of red. The one on the ground even had light red paint on his face...wait, no, it looked more like blood. Lots of red, I feel out of place. Approaching the two, Kyin slowly offered the red warrior on the ground a hand up with the bulbed end of his Cypress Wand. The soft blue metal fixture would be pulled to assist the man in rising if it was accepted. ”You’re looking for Kyin, Atrimis and Flynn? I would say you’ve found Kyin,” he said happily, chuckling momentarily. ”Would you be...Vivek, by any chance?”

Atrimis returned to the game view, coming back from his e-mail. He smiled at the small wavemaster sitting down in front of him, apparently having bumped into Atrimis himself. He then noticed a second wavemaster, holding a wand, helping the first up. His eyes switched back and forth between the two, and he smiled to himself, as he helped the small one up.

His mind quickly recounted what he just herd, and where the sounds came from, "So then," looking to the taller wavemaster, "you must be Kyin." He held out his hand to shake that of the wavemaster's own. The he turned to the smaller one, "And you have to be Vivek, because I am Atrimis, and I just got mail from Flynn saying that he will not be able to join us." He smiled, looking the small spell-caster up and down. Something struck him as a bit strange about this guy, but he was not sure what it was.

After introductions were done, Atrimis explained what his research had found out; how keywords described what kind of world they entered. He explained how his choice was a level two world, granted it would be a bit of a challenge for Vivek, and a bit easy for himself, but he figured that the three of them could balance one another out, and accomplish everything that was needed to succeed. Once everyone seamed to understand what he was explaining, Atrimis turned to the Chaos gate, and called out the keywords, "Nameless Solitary Alter" and was teleported to the forest area.

The zone had low light, as if it was dawn, or maybe dusk. A light rain fell from the sky, the tiny droplets clinging to his clothes, and refracting the light in a myriad of colors. He started to look around the area, taking in the sights of the forest. Several of the glowing golden portals were located within the labyrinth of trees, giving him an idea of which way they should go, in order to hit all the enemies.

He looked back for his team-mates, when suddenly a blow struck him from behind. Atrimis fell forward, ducking his head down, to roll away from his assaulter. His hand went to his sword, the new Rondo had a slightly different heft than his old Basic sword. With a flick of his wrist, he gained an understanding of the blade, and waited for his attacker to near.

It was a bug-creature, one Atrimis was unfamiliar with; he never was into entomology. All he knew was that the creature was moving towards him, shifting its weight to look larger, probably in an attempt to intimidate Atrimis. The blademaster shifted his weight back, preparing to rush at the creature, his sword held sideways at his waist. With a flash of steel, he leapt at his assailant, and stuck relentlessly, his blade swishing back and forth quickly, in an attempt to take down this lone foe.

Crimson Vivek nodded in reply as he was being helped back to his feet. Only to get a small lesson from the same character he had not only bumped into but had accidentally been gazing at. Soon enough they left to go adventuring.

A bunch of trees welcomed them. A bunch of realistic trees. Matched with rain. It was beautiful, yes, but it was also a bit too much for someone that lived in a world that was mostly paved over. While busily looking at the scenery much like a lost child would, Vivek didn't notice what was happening until he heard something from behind. He quickly whirled back around to see a battle in progress.

"Oh my gosh... it's so ugly!" Exclaimed the small wavemaster after seeing the large insect.

It had gone from a nice peaceful area to a scene from a bad horror movie. Minus the thunder and lightning, and the small fact that there was some light still in the sky. But even so, Vivek wasn't expecting his first monster encounter to wind up being a huge murderous bug. Truthfully, he had been expecting something smaller. Perhaps even cuter, like a rat or something.

Eventually after a bit of thinking he cheered on their only fighter. All the while readying to heal Atrimis should he need it.

{Sorry about this being small, only thing that came into my head after all this time.}

The creature dissolved into bits of data, and Atrimis dropped his blade, turning to look at his team-mates, "Well that was rather interesting." He smiled at the mage, while sheathing his weapon. Turning around to survey the area more; the bug creature having taken his attention before. The forest area was only a secluded part of the zone; the rest of this world was a grassy field.

A few steps forward lead him out of this forest area; his feet carried him across the lush meadow. Although a few enemies were off in the distance, Atrimis never researched if experience was shared among the group, or if each play got their own in a group. Figuring that they'd get more if they made the kill, and eager to inspect the rest of the domain, the Blademaster proceeded forward. Soon he came upon a cavernous opening, earthen like as if dug straight into the ground. Excitement built up inside him, as one foot followed the other, down the steps into the dungeon.

The walls were sedimentary, and mostly comprised of a clay-like material. Atrimis had just began his trip into the dungeon when all of a sudden he was back in his room, only a dim glow from his battery-powered alarm clock lighting up the room. With a heavy sigh, he removed his headset, "Crap, it must be a power outage."

~~Atrimis is disconnected from the server.~~
~~The rest of the party is M.I.A. and this can now be closed and graded.~~

I am so, so sorry! I thought I did this ages ago.

Artimis: +350 EXP, +Lightning Bolt