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[ShinobiEX3]

"Niflheim huh" ShinobiEX3 gets up slowly feeling heavy pain all over him. Looking around, he see many dead growth of tree's and the sky seemed darkened with think purple clouds.

 

"I was soo close. So so close" Shaking his head he notices the rest of the players stare at him in confusion. "What do you mean by so so close huh? You trying to ambush us with more  dead branches in Glast Heim." A sharp gaze shot directly to him by ZeroTigress. Jolting back and placing his hands over his chest, " Nnno.. no not at all. I just meant that i was close to change my class. And now this happens. Aww man I want to see my dragon."

 

"Hey quit your crying" Talvis said out loud as he looks around for any danger. "What now Zero?"

ZeroTigress looks around and examines the surrounding places before she spots a inn. "Lets go there for now"

Edited by ShinobiEX3, 18 May 2014 - 08:44 PM.

[ZeroTigress]

The party and ShinobiEX3 soon found themselves in the creepy inn of Niflheim town.

"Hey, Zero," spoke up Aizenath. "What about him?"

The female Assassin Cross turns to see the Royal Guard point his thumb over to ShinobiEX3.

"What about him?" sneers ZeroTigress.

"Well, he did help us out back at Mt. Mjolnir," notes Talvis, completely unaware of the Lord Knight's unsavory history. "Why not add him to the party?"

ShinobiEX3's eyes began to glimmer with hope upon hearing that. He pouts his lips and clasps his hands together pleadingly. ZeroTigress glares at him fiercely before turning around and sighing.

"FINE," she scowls, sending the male Lord Knight a party invite. "But make ONE wrong move and I'll send you flying into the dark abyss of the Valley of Gjoll."

"Clear as crystal," ShinobiEX3 salutes with one hand.

ZeroTigress then turns her attention to the rest of the party.

"So, who here has already done the Piano Keys quest so we can warp outta here?" she asks aloud.

"Uh, I am an Acolyte class, you know," Tkwan speaks up.

ZeroTigress looks at him blankly. "Oh yeah..."

"Could've warped us back there..." mumbles Tkwan as he casts Warp Portal. But when he looks at his list of memo points, his eyes widen in horror.

"I don't like the looks of that," responds Aizenath worriedly.

"M-my warp points!" exclaims the Archbishop. "They've been all changed to Niflheim!! How could this happen??"

ZeroTigress has her suspicions but remains silent on the matter as Talvis doesn't know about the hacker theory yet.

"So, I guess we're back to the Piano Keys option," she says.

"Well, I haven't really gotten around to..." speaks up ShinobiEX3, poking his index fingers at each other.

Suddenly, a sinister grin overcomes ZeroTigress' face. A bead of sweat slides down the side of ShinobiEX3's head as he slowly backs away from her.

"Hey... what's that smile for...?" he wonders nervously.

The female Assassin Cross walks past him, grabs his cape, and roughly drags him out the door of the inn. The rest of the party follow after in stride, well-aware of what awaited those who had not started the Piano Keys quest yet.

"WAIT! HEY! WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME??" ShinobiEX3 shouts frantically as ZeroTigress drags him along.

"Zero's just taking you to the first NPC in the quest," Tkwan answers nonchalantly.

"An NPC?" exclaims ShinobiEX3. "Why does she seem so eager to take me to it?"

"...You haven't read the iRO Wiki page about the Piano Keys quest?" adds Talvis.

"I... glanced at it once..." pouts ShinobiEX3.

"This is going to be interesting then," Aizenath smiles.

Edited by ZeroTigress, 18 May 2014 - 09:43 PM.

[ZeroTigress]

A bit extra long to make up for not updating the last 2 weeks or so. >,< Apparently all the RPers and I were hit with writer's block.

----------------------------------------------------------

Some time later...

"YOU ARE HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE PEOPLE!" ShinobiEX3 cries out angrily as he held his left hand over his right arm.

"Oh, c'mon, that wasn't so bad," says Talvis, trying to hold back a grin as he pats the blonde Lord Knight on the back. "And the only horrible person here is Zero, really."

ZeroTigress simply ignores the ranting as she leads the party up the floating stepping stones that lead up to the witch Kirkena's house to help ShinobiEX3 finish up the Piano Keys quest.

"To be fair, it's not Zero's fault that the first NPC chomps on you," notes Aizenath, his gryphon G nodding in agreement. "Blame GRAVITY for that."

ShinobiEX3 frowns in indignation as he follows along with the rest of the party.

"Kind of glad GRAVITY at least had the mind to modify these steps," Tkwan speaks up, noticing the formerly large floating stones have been shrunken to create a suitable path up to the witch's house. "I don't think I can hop from rock to rock Mario-style."

The Archbishop looks up to see that ZeroTigress had stopped upon one of the farther stepping stones.

"Do you guys... hear something?" the female Assassin Cross inquires intently, turning her head.

The group falls quiet. A meek whistling could be heard and it seemed to be getting louder. As ZeroTigress, Tkwan, Talvis, ShinobiEX3 and Aizenath look around to find the source of the noise, one of them suddenly yells out.

"LOOK OUT!"

ZeroTigress knocks Tkwan out of the way as a giant white lance pierces through the stepping stone he had been standing on. The female Assassin Cross was unable to get a footing on the stone that she pushed Tkwan onto and pulls out a Grimtooth to latch onto the rock's smooth surface. She tries to pull herself up, but her body weight was too much for one arm to bear.

"ZERO!" Tkwan cries out as he rushes over to grab her arm. "Hold on! Don't let go!!"

"I'm... trying..." groans ZeroTigress as she tries to grip onto Tkwan's arms.

The rest of the party scrambles to find out where the lance came from before they got attacked again. Aizenath was busy trying to calm down his spooked gryphon to aid Tkwan.

"Tkwan..." groans ZeroTigress, unable to grab the Archbishop's arms with her other hand. "You guys... gotta get out of here... or else..."

"No, you can make it!" Tkwan responds fiercely. He was starting to lose his grip on the Assassin Cross' arm. "Zero!"

"Regroup... in town..." says ZeroTigress, her hand slipping out of Tkwan's arms.

"ZEROOOOOOO!" yells Tkwan as he reaches out to her.

The female Assassin Cross begins falling towards the cold hard ground meters below. Quickly reaching into her inventory, she manages to take out a Fly Wing and frantically waves it in the air. In moments, her body was engulfed in a blue light before being whisked away right before it could hit the ground.

ZeroTigress opens her eyes to find that she had been teleported northwest of the town square.

Dang it, that was my last wing, she thought.

No point in wasting time, she starts walking her way to the town square where hopefully the rest of the party would be.

"Mountain sunset to the west... Where the purple dusk falls... Surrounded by beautiful melody... You become the key that ignores its master."

ZeroTigress quickly spins around to stab the source of the voice with Grimtooth when a strong hand catches hers.

"You!" she exclaims, immediately recognizing her stalker.

"You were too careless," says Eremes Guile.

The female Assassin Cross quickly Back Slides away from the Eremes player. She whips out her second Grimtooth and holds both daggers at the ready.

"Are you following me or something?" she demands, creasing her eyes.

"Of course," responds Eremes matter-of-factly. "I have to keep an eye on my investment."

"Investment? Is that what I am now??" ZeroTigress responds angrily. "Who do you think you are???"

"Hak Kyu Kim," answers Eremes.

An awkward silence suddenly falls between the two of them as the revelation sank in.

"No way..." breathes ZeroTigress, her eyes widen in surprise. "Impossible. Hak Kyu Kim left GRAVITY a long time ago. Why would he come back to a game he abandoned?"

"I abandoned GRAVITY, not RO," Eremes responds sharply.

"Okay, okay, no need to bite my head off," asserts ZeroTigress. She lowers her daggers. "So what you doing back here? Are you trying to get RO back?"

"Actually, I want to see GRAVITY fall," says Eremes. "Getting RO back would be a nice bonus, though."

The female Assassin Cross was taken aback by the reply. "So... you're trying to destroy RO?"

"Not quite," clarifies Eremes. "I'm only here to observe, not intervene."

"Then why are you here?" wonders ZeroTigress. "And where do I fit in to all of this?"

"I can't tell you that," says Eremes, smiling a little. "I'll just say it's all for the greater good."

ZeroTigress angrily lunges at the male Assassin Cross. "STOP TOYING WITH ME!"

Eremes manages to avoid her daggers as she unleashes Double Attack on him. He jumps backward onto a tree and looks down at the furious player.

"I do believe you have bigger things to worry about than me," he yells to her.

Suddenly, a sharp pain rips through ZeroTigress's chest as the tip of a white lance appears through her body. She feels the lance slide out her back and she doubles over in pain. Enduring the excruciating pain, she dashes forward to avoid another strike from the monster behind her. When she looks up at the tree Eremes was in, she saw nothing.

"Damn it!" she yells out as she struggles to run towards the town square. Her health was already at 20% with that one strike and another one would surely kill her. Dying would cause her to respawn back at her save point and abandon Tkwan and the others. She couldn't let that happen.

She could hear the Lord of the Dead galloping after her as she dashes between trees and buildings in hopes of slowing it down. She began panting hard as the pain in her chest throbbed.

Please be there, guys, ZeroTigress silently prays as she ran.

Edited by ZeroTigress, 09 June 2014 - 12:08 AM.

[Talvis]

Back down in Nifflheim the group stood on the steps nervously looking around for the monster.  "He must have teleported with ZeroTigress," TKwan said.  "Let's do like she said and get out of here.

ShinobiEX3 replied in a annoyed voice, "I just want to get out of here."  He quickly started walking towards the witch's house.  The others followed quickly behind with Talvis nervously looking around to make sure the monster wasn't still hiding someplace.

Once entering the house, ShinobiEX3 was the first to find the witch and teleport away.  Soon after Talvis, TKwan, and Aizenath quickly followed.  Upon being teleported, a confused ShinobiEX3 looked around and asked, "um, where was that supposed to bring us anyway?"

Confused at his question, Talvis quickly looked around and realized that they were standing on a sharp rock in the middle of a wasteland.  In front of them was a green ball of light.  "Well, I don't think this is where we were supposed to be taken."  "We're at the portal to the New World."

"So, this is what this looks like up close," Aizenath said looking at the sphere of light.  "But, I don't really feel like going there today."

"We need to catch up to ZeroTigress," TKwan said.  They slowly walked towards Morroc fending off many Mobsters along the way.  Unfortunately, they soon realized that there was something quickly running up to them.  A horrid looking creature that looked like a possessed girl doing a crab walk.

"Let's get out of here!" Talvis yelled.  "Those things look even more creepy up close."  However, before they were able to reach the exit to Morroc the creature caught up to them.

Aizenath and ShinobiEX3 got in between the rest of the party and drew their weapons.  TKwan quickly buffed the group up.  Aizenath lunged his spear at the creature while his griffon screeched.  Talvis quickly grabbed his Hurricane Fury and swung at the monster.  The monster lunged at ShinobiEX3 and bit his arm and held on.  Talvis threw his axe at the monsters head causing it to let go ow ShinobiEX3.  Aizenath thrust-ed his spear into the monster killing it.

"Dammit that hurts!" ShinobiEX3 said holding onto his arm.  "Does anyone plan on helping me?"  He glared at TKwan.

TKwan sighed, "I suppose I could."  He proceeded to heal him and ShinobiEX3's arm cleared up.

The group started walking on before another Incarnation could catch up to them.  They soon reached the destroyed city of Morroc.  They quickly headed for the Kafra and teleported to Prontera hoping that ZeroTigress would be waiting for them.

[ZeroTigress]

ZeroTigress reaches the square of Niflheim town to find that none of the others were there waiting for her. Hearing the gallops of Lord of the Dead coming up quickly behind her, she rushes into the tool shop portal just as the gargantuan monster launches its lance at her.

Once through the portal, the female Assassin Cross collapses on the floor of the tool shop. Reaching into her inventory, she manages to dig up what few herbs she had managed to collect and shoves them into her mouth. She watches as her health bar goes up a little before resigning herself to lying on the floor.

Tkwan and the others were supposed to meet me in town, she thought as she looks up at the ceiling. Unless he misinterpreted me and got warped by the witch...

The possibility seemed very likely. She didn't really have time to specify what she meant before she slipped through the Archbishop's hands. And the fact that they weren't there to meet her in the town square supported her theory.

Guess I'm on my own for now, she thought. If Tkwan's warps got changed to Niflheim, there's a chance my Butterfly Wings are going to warp me to Niflheim, too.

Her only surefire chance to escape the realm of the dead was to get to the witch's house to warp out. Unfortunately the Lord of the Dead and his spawns were her biggest obstacles at the moment and the lack of healing items didn't help. Even though she was beyond level 99 now, the fact that Lord of the Dead was able to do so much damage to her in one strike was disconcerting.

After regenerating all of her HP, ZeroTigress goes through the tool shop's portal to see if the monster was still out there. Hearing nothing, she casts Cloak on herself and carefully makes her way to the witch's house and warps out of Niflheim.

ZeroTigress blinks blankly as she looks around her. She seems to have been warped into the bustling Rune-Midgarts town of Prontera instead of Umbala like she should have.

These anomalies are going to drive me bonkers at this rate... she frowns deeply.

[Talvis]

*Writer note:  I got confused what town ZeroTigress was talking about, but she rolled with it and the story continues*

 

Talvis, TKWan, Aizenath, and ShinobiEX3 arrived in Prontera and started making their way through the crowd of people and vendors.  They found their way to Prontera's town square, but after looking around for a while they couldn't find ZeroTigress.

"It looks like she didn't make it," TKwan said in a depressed voice while sitting down on a bench.  "Given all the weird glitches and hacking going on, she may be anywhere."  Talvis and Aizenath joined him on the bench.  ShinobiEX3 sat down on the ground nearby.

Talvis was about ready to say something when they heard a familiar voice yelling; "You guys left me behind!"  ZeroTigress came angerly running up to them and proceeded to punch ShinobiEX3 in the head.

"Ouch!" ShinobiEX3 yelled, "I wasn't the only one who left you."  He rubbed his face while the others chuckled.  "That actually hurt a lot, I swear it took away some hp."

"Zero's rage even hurts when there is no pvp," Talvis said jokingly.  ZeroTigress gave him a death stare and grabbed a dagger.  "Sorry," Talvis said.

ZeroTigress put away her dagger and sat down by Aizenath's Griffon.  "Sorry, I'm just tired and confused."  "What happened anyway?"

"I think we just got confused on where to go," TKwan replied, "But in retrospect we probably should have figured out you meant Nifflheim town since everyone's save point had been switched to there."  He looked towards ShinobiEX3, "and, he went to the witch first."

"Oh crap!" Talvis exclaimed, "it's way too easy to loose track of time in this thing, I need to get to bed."

"Goodnight," TKwan said.

"We'll see what we can figure out and we'll update you next time you're on," ZeroTigress said.

Talvis stood up and logged off in a familiar blue light.  The others continued sitting around the square.

"What should we do next?" ZeroTigress asked.  "There's something wrong happening and it's gonna cause a lot of issues."

TKwan stood up,  "We need to find someplace quiet to sit down and talk, it's too noisy here in town."  "Aren't there some secluded benches just west of town we can sit around at."

"We can also see Glast Heim from there," ZeroTigress said,  "I'm pretty sure that something is going on there."  She proceeded to walk towards the Western gate and the others soon followed with ShinobiEX3 following behind.

They eventually found their way to the benches in the West Prontera field.  "Let's try putting together what we know," Aizenath said.  "It's clear that someone is able to spawn and manipulate monsters."  "They can even make them teleport people."

"The hackers are able to manipulate player's save and memo points," TKwan added.  "And they seem to be able to affect other scripted things."

ZeroTigress was listening to what the others were saying when she noticed the Talvis had logged back in on the party list.  "That's weird, Talvis logged back in, maybe he's just checking something."  Before she could message him, his name disappeared from the party list.  She had a confused expression but brushed it aside assuming that it was something unimportant.

"What's wrong?" ShinobiEX3 asked ZeroTigress.

"Oh nothing," she replied, "Talvis logged back in but he left party."  "It's probably nothing..."  Before she could finish her sentence she saw Talvis walking towards the group.  "Oh hey Talvis, what are you doing back on the late?"

Talvis showed an evil grin and replied in a unfamiliar voice; "Talvis is not here right now, we're using him now!"  Suddenly he tossed his Hurricane Fury at ZeroTigress that she just barely jumped out of the way of.  However, as the axe flew back towards Talvis it hit a unprepared TKwan, knocking him back hard.

Aizenath and ShinobiEX3 quickly stood up and grabbed for their weapons.

[ZeroTigress]

Sorry for another long read! :U

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Tkwan!" ZeroTigress exclaims as the Archbishop slammed into the tree behind him.

Aizenath and ShinobiEX3 rush at hacked Talvis and attempt to strike him when their weapons hit an invisible barrier.

"Kyrie Eleison?" exclaims Aizenath with wide eyes.

Hacked Talvis swings his axe at the two players, knocking off huge chunks of HP from their health bars. The two of them fall back, groaning from the resulting pain. When hacked Talvis throws his Hurricane Fury at them, ZeroTigress intervenes and manages to catch the gargantuan axe with both arms. Hacked Talvis looks on curiously as the female Assassin Cross drops the axe to the ground with a loud THUD.

Taking out a Grimtooth, ZeroTigress raises the dagger at the hacked Mechanic. "Release my guildie's character."

Hacked Talvis manages a smirk. "And if I don't?"

In the blink of an eye, ZeroTigress was face-to-face with the hacked Mechanic. Before the hacker could react, the Assassin Cross unleashes a barrage of martial arts strikes upon the man.

"What the..." exclaims ShinobiEX3, groaning as the blonde Lord Knight slowly regenerates his health. "How can Zero use Monk and Taekwon skills as an Assassin Cross?"

"Oh, you didn't know?" Tkwan begins as he finished healing Aizenath. "Zero knows kung fu in real life."

"I'm guessing the game doesn't restrict you from using skills you know from outside the game," theorizes Aizenath. "If that's the case, I'm glad Zero's on our side."

ShinobiEX3 cringes as ZeroTigress lands a rather painful-looking blow upon hacked Talvis. "Same here."

Before the female Assassin Cross could finish off the hacker, a blue light surrounds hacked Talvis and he disappears. Not long after, the blue light reappears and the Mechanic was lying on the grass groaning in pain.

"Owwww, what the heck!" groans Talvis, rolling onto his side to curl up into a fetal position. "I forgot something and tried to log back in and couldn't. Kept trying and I finally got in only to be in excruciating pain!"

"Help is on the way," exclaims Tkwan as he hurries over to heal up Talvis.

"Your character got hacked," explains ZeroTigress. "I was letting the hacker know what happens when he messes with a guildie."

"Geez, did you have to be so hard on my character?" wonders the Mechanic as he rubs his shoulder. "And what's all this business about a hacker?"

The rest of the party fills Talvis in on what's been going on. After the explanation was done, Talvis could only blink his eyes blankly.

"Wow, that's a lot to take in," he sighs. "So, does this mean they can hack any offline character?"

"This is really troubling," notes ZeroTigress. "It's bad enough the hacker can mess around with the environment codes, but players, too?"

Suddenly, a giant announcement in yellow booms through the sky.

[ALL PLAYERS! PLEASE GATHER IN PRONTERA AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION!!]

"I have a bad feeling about this," frowns Tkwan, looking back at the Prontera gate.

---

"Why can't I log out?"

"I have to go to bed!"

"Oda why that"

"FIX THE LOGOUT PROBLEM!!"

"I wanna log out NOW!!"

"I've got work in the morning, lemme go!!"

A significantly large crowd had formed around the Odin fountain in the middle of Prontera. Standing atop the fountain were CMs Oda and Campitor trying to quell the rising rage.

"Okay, okay, our technicians are currently working on the problem," assure Oda, a bead of sweat running down the side of his head. "Please be patient with us."

"Oda, I can't log out, either," whispers Campitor nervously, wearing a Brown Paper Bag Hat along with his GM robe.

"Me neither, but we can't let the players know that," Oda whispers back. "If they find out we're stuck as well..."

"W-we're stuck in here?" Campitor whispers back. "What do we do??"

"C'mon Camp, we can't have you freaking out now," Oda whispers back. "We gotta be strong for the players."

Meanwhile, ZeroTigress, Tkwan, Talvis, ShinobiEX3 and Aizenath have all gathered around the fountain along with the other players.

"People can't log out?" says Aizenath. "That doesn't sound good."

Talvis has already begun sweating nervously. "I can't log out anymore..."

Everyone in the party check their system menu to find the same has occurred for each of them.

"Well then," exclaims ZeroTigress rather nonchalantly.

Suddenly, a warp portal appears south of the Odin fountain, causing many players to move back in alarm. A white figure forms in the midst of the portal and the light dissipates to reveal a smiling Kiehl.

"Greetings," says Kiehl, smiling sinisterly. "I hope you enjoyed your time here in RO because you're going to be spending a lot more."

He turns around and summons his floating monster heads to strike down Oda and Campitor. The crowd of players erupt into an uproar upon seeing the CMs being attacked.

"Don't bother trying to stop me," grins Kiehl, moving his glasses up. "I'm a hacker and very well capable of making your pathetic lives even worse than now."

Just then, he spots a figure jumping towards him and sends a monster head flying towards it. ZeroTigress was struck hard as the monster head slams right into her, sending her flying back into the streets. Landing flat on her back, she groans as she slowly gets up with her Grimtooths still in her hands.

"What the?" exclaims Talvis. "When did ZeroTigress move away from us?"

"Damn it, Zero," chastises Tkwan. "What the heck are you trying to do?"

"You..." sneers Kiehl, summoning his other monster head to his side. "I'll make an example of you after what happened in the Prontera field."

"So it was you," chuckles ZeroTigress, getting up to her feet. "Bring it on, ass wipe. I'm not afraid of you."

Rage fills Kiehl's eyes as he sends both of his monster heads flying at the female Assassin Cross. ZeroTigress manages to fend off one of the monster heads, but the other one slams her into the streets again. As the monster head attempts to finish off the rest of her HP, another Assassin Cross appears before it and slices it in half with a katar.

ZeroTigress sighs as she slowly gets up despite the aching pain stinging her entire body. "Took you long enough."

Toxn turns to frown at the female Assassin Cross. "Stupid idiot."

Edited by ZeroTigress, 17 June 2014 - 11:32 PM.

[Aizenath]

Meanwhile in real life...

 

Aizenath yells: THIS IS RIDICULOUS, IT'S BEEN WEEKS AND I STILL CAN'T  LOG ON and support is not replying to my tickets!!

 

I thought those people in the black vans were fixing something but they just made it worse.

I hope the guys don't think I quit RO, he thinks to himself.

As Aizenath looks for info on the forums about any problems with the servers, he hears a knock on the door.

 

Aizenath slowly opens the door.

 

Hello there, says a man wearing blue overalls with a G on the left side of its chest.

Hi, replies Aizenath suspiciously.

The man says: we are working very hard so you can play RO again my dear RG.

Aizenath eyes widened and just as he was wondering how the suspicious man knew he played RO and was a RG, he saw everything fading to black.  

The last thing he heard was: I have plans for you and your party BWHAHAHHAAHAHAHA.

 

When Aizenath opens his eyes, he has a massive headache, he is in Prontera,  there is chaos everywhere and Kiehl is attacking his party.  

Am I supposed to have a headache in-game??? he wonders to himself.

He suddenly remembers they guy in blue overalls and tries to log out, unsuccessfully.  He tries to pm his party members and write on the party chat but is unable to do so.

I'll have to apologize later for not being around the last few weeks, he mutters to himself.  

I don't know what is going on but at least I can still fight, he exclaims with an equal measure of confusion and frustration in his voice.  

 

Aizenath puts his Shield of Royal Guard on and casts sacrifice on Toxn and Zero as Kiehl charges again... 

Edited by Aizenath, 17 June 2014 - 10:57 PM.

[ZeroTigress]

Kiehl grits his teeth as ZeroTigress and Toxn both take down his remaining monster head.

"Resistance, huh?" he says as he curls his hands into fists. He lowers his head and slowly begins to cackle. "So be it! Just know that by resisting me, you just made it that much worse for your fellow players here!"

The crowd of players turn their heads toward the two Assassin Crosses and Royal Guard. The three of them grip their weapons tensely as the situation shifted to their disadvantage.

Kiehl grins manically as he summons another two monster heads to his sides. "I'll enjoy tearing you apart."

With that, the hacker disappears, leaving the three players at the mercy of their peers.

"Look at what you've done!"

"Not only are we stuck in here, we're stuck with a hacker that can do anything he wants to us!!"

"Why'd you have to be stupid??"

The crowd was throwing both insults and trash items alike until Tkwan intervened.

"Listen to yourselves!" the Archbishop shouts angrily, taking his place in front of the trio. "The enemy is not us, it's the hacker! He's the reason we're all stuck in RO!"

"If we give in to the hacker's demands, he won't hurt us and let us go!" shouts another voice in the crowd.

"There's no guarantee of that!" Toxn shouts back. "Will you really allow yourselves to be at the mercy of one troll?"

"I just want to log out!" yells out another player.

Some Empty Bottles fly out from the crowd towards the group, but Aizenath was quick to block them away with his shield.

"Cowards!" the Royal Guard yells out at them. "All of you!"

Before things could get worse, Tkwan quickly uses a Giant Flywing to teleport the party out of the crowd. The next thing they knew, they were behind the Prontera church.

Talvis lets out a sigh of relief as he collapses onto the soft grass. "Geez, things were getting bad back there."

"I wasn't expecting the hacker to turn the server on us," says ShinobiEX3, taking a seat on the ground. "We're screwed."

"Wait a second," speaks up Aizenath. "I thought Zero was the party leader. How'd Tkwan use a Gwing on us?"

Tkwan, Toxn, Talvis, Aizenath, and ShinobiEX3 all look at each other.

"... Where's Zero?" Toxn finally asks.

The guys look around them to find that the female Assassin Cross was gone.

"She left the party and made me party leader!" exclaims Tkwan with wide eyes. "I'm usually the party leader when we level so I didn't notice she had changed our party setup."

"That stupid idiot!" Toxn exclaims angrily. "Where'd she go??"

---

ZeroTigress quickly ran across the Sograt Desert. Since the hacker has made himself known, Kafra warps couldn't be trusted. Traveling to Morroc on foot was tedious, but it was better than relying on Kafra teleportation. As she ran, she killed anything and everything that crossed her path, leaving the loot behind as she went.

When she comes upon a palm tree, she withdraws her daggers and punches through the tree's trunk with so much force, it uprooted the plant in addition to splitting it in half. With her in-game strength, her fist felt no pain as it made contact with the tree.

"Damn it!" she yells out at the sky. Collapsing to her knees, she slumps her shoulders. "Damn it..."

Edited by ZeroTigress, 21 June 2014 - 10:03 PM.

[ZeroTigress]

Tkwan, Toxn, Talvis, Aizenath, and ShinobiEX3 all settled into a room in the Alberta inn as the Prontera and Payon inns were all full up with vengeful players. (And the Alberta inn is one of the lesser known inns in the game.) The night cycle of the game's environment was in full activation as the full moon shone over the now sleepy port town.

"I wonder if Zero's okay," says ShinobiEX3, piling up his Lord Knight armor next to his bed.

Toxn scoffs as he sat down on his bed. "This is so typical of her."

"Yeah, well, things are different now," says Talvis, taking off his helmet. "This isn't the RO we're used to anymore. I think we should go out there and find her."

"And start where?" responds Tkwan. "I only know hunting maps when it comes to the world of RO. Zero's the type to explore every nook and cranny she lays her eyes on. She's likely hiding out someplace people overlook all the time."

Upon hearing that, Toxn's eyes lit up.

"Think of something, Toxn?" wonders Aizenath, leaning on his gryphon G.

The Assassin Cross sits in silence for a few moments before finally speaking. "It's a long shot, though. She might not even be there." He leans his head on his hands. "Even if she was, she'd be Cloaking."

"Uh, hello," Tkwan waves his hand. "I have Ruwach."

"Then let's go check it out," Talvis says eagerly. "I can't rest knowing my fellow guildie is out there somewhere."

"No, you guys stay put," declares Toxn, standing up. "Keep the room or else someone will take it. No point in all of us going on a wild goose chase. Tkwan and I are more than enough."

"Good luck, guys" Aizenath bodes to the two.

Tkwan and Toxn exit the Alberta inn into the world of night outside. The streets were slightly illuminated by the street lamps that stood scattered about the port town. Towards the northwest part of town was the gate that led into Payon Forest.

"So, are your warps still borked?" Toxn asks the Archbishop.

"Well, they don't say Niflheim on them anymore, but now they're all in gibberish," frowns Tkwan. "I don't think I want to tempt the RNG fates and I doubt we'll have better luck with Kafra warps."

"Guess we're going on foot then," notes the Asssassin Cross. "Not too big of a problem. The place I'm thinking of isn't that far from here."

"What do you have in mind?" asks Tkwan.

Toxn scratches his head. "One of the Morroc inns."

---

ZeroTigress was lying in bed looking up at the tiled ceiling of the inn as she thought of the party she had left. She lets out a resigned sigh and turns onto her side.

They're probably mad at me, she thought. I don't blame them. I screwed up pretty badly. They're better off without me.

The female Assassin Cross closes her eyes and allows the stillness of the night lull her to sleep.

[ZeroTigress]

The next morning, ZeroTigress awakens droopily in the inn bed. The Morroc sun was shining through the inn window and beaming on her face, preventing her from sleeping any longer. Yawning widely, she turns over to stretch out her back cat-style when two voices sound out.

"Aww, she stretches like a kitty cat. How cute."

"Kitty."

ZeroTigress's eyes blaze wide open as she turns to see a familiar Archbishop and Assassin Cross sitting on the beds across from hers. Both Tkwan and Toxn were smiling blankly at her with the most smug expressions ever.

"... How long have you guys been here?" growls the female Assassin Cross.

"Long enough to see you act like a kitty," Tkwan grins.

The two men could tell that ZeroTigress was starting to get angrier that she was caught in a rather embarrassing act.

"... It was Tkwan's idea," Toxn quickly interjects with a duck-faced expression.

Before Tkwan could say anything, ZeroTigress lunges at the both of them with Grimtooth daggers drawn.

"AHHH! WAIT! IT WASN'T MY IDEA, I SWEAR!!"

"THAT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BEND THAT WA--AHHHHH!!!"

"MY BOYS! NOT MY BOYS, ZERO!!! PLEA--AAIIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!!"

---

With daggers sheathed, ZeroTigress sits cross-legged on her bed as Tkwan and Toxn lay in a broken pile on the floor.

"So, how'd you guys find me?" she demands calmly.

Tkwan groans as he tries to speak through the immense pain he was feeling in his nether regions. "W... we were all won... wondering where you... disappeared to..." The Archbishop cries out a little.

"T-tkwan mentioned that you'd hide out... in someplace that people typically... overlook..." winces Toxn. "And then I... I thought about the... PVP inn in Morroc..."

"So you guys found me by dumb luck," sighs ZeroTigress disappointedly. "And here I thought I found a good place to stay for a bit."

Tkwan manages to climb up onto a bed and rolls onto his stomach to face the female Assassin Cross. "Why'd you leave us?"

ZeroTigress sat quietly as she stares at the two of them before letting out a sigh. "It's not obvious?"

"Uh, no?" responds Toxn, leaning his back on Tkwan's bed as he sat on the floor.

"You guys really think I'm going to room in an inn with 5 dudes?" says ZeroTigress deadpanned.

Tkwan and Toxn both stare at her dumbfounded.

"Wait," speaks up Tkwan. "You... you left because you didn't want to sleep with us in the same room?"

"Duh," responds ZeroTigress. "I left the party so you guys couldn't track me down and force me to room with you guys."

Tkwan looks down at Toxn and frowns. "See, Toxn. She left for a practical reason, not to emo out."

"Well, I did need some time alone to emo out," admits ZeroTigress, averting her eyes. "I mean, it is my fault the server's turned on us. I underestimated the hacker."

Toxn looks up at Tkwan. "Told ya."

The Archbishop rolls his eyes. "I still think you should rejoin us, Zero. We should really stick together, especially since it looks like the hacker has it out for you."

"Psh, I'll be fine," scoffs the female Assassin Cross. "I'm not scared of some troll of a hacker."

"Zero, don't push your luck," warns Toxn. "We don't know what this guy is capable of. We don't want to see anything bad happen to you."

"I can take anything he throws at me," asserts ZeroTigress, crossing her arms. "If it's a fight he wants from me, he'll get it."

"Zero, stop being selfish," frowns Toxn. "Just because you can handle everything that comes your way, that doesn't mean the rest of the server can. Think about what the hacker can do to them. If you agitate the hacker farther, other players are going to suffer because of you."

"I know that," sighs ZeroTigress. "That's why I'm planning to face him alone. So no one else has to deal with him."

"You are so not fighting him alone," Tkwan speaks up firmly. "We're all in this together. Enough of the lone wolf mentality already."

The female Asssassin Cross lowers here eyes. "... Fine."

Once Tkwan and Toxn fully recovered from ZeroTigress's onslaught, the three of them head out the Morroc inn to return to the rest of the party in Alberta.

[HopeSama]

Firstly i apologize that this is going to be ridiculously long. I didn't intend to make this intro soooo long but the story went along so far that i kind of had to add a whole bunch more to it so it could fit lol. Bear with me xD
Anyways, i tried to tie it in to what the last post was so that would explain why its so long.
Hopefully it makes sense lol.. Enjoy.

 

Edit:: alright, now that i have a better idea of what is going on here, i cleaned it up a bit to sound a little more consistent. @.@
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

 

It had been a few days since Hope was last able to escape her imprisonment in Lighthalzen, It seemed so nice to finally be able to play the game that once seemed nostalgic and fun to her but now seemed like a nightmare.

 

She was lost and confused and really had no where to go, she had been trapped in Lighthalzen due to errors not allowing her to change maps and the monsters were just insanely hard so it was impossible to walk to any other town.
She still had all of her equipment and still had access to everything she needed, but all of her characters were set to save at Lighthalzen so that didn't do any good for her at all. And to make matters worse, it seemed as though any form of contact was broken on her end. The most she could even do was talk in public chat, but whispers or even mail always called back errors every time she tried. Lighthalzen was litterally a ghost town, no one ever tried coming. Not one person crossed her path. The only company she had was from the local NPC's, and even that proved to be a bit disheartening after a while.

 

"I have all my good equipment and yet i Still cant get past that first field map, i fear to even know what the breezes are like" She cringes at the thought.

 

"Ehh.. i just wish my chat options were functioning the way they should be, i haven't been able to even try to find out if anyone i know is on. Heck i don't even know if they have the same character names anymore!"

 

Every few hours she tried to make her escape from a town she once thought was so beautiful but now is just a prison.
But... each attempt lead to failure as one thing would go wrong as she tried. From a monster nearly killing her and forcing her to resort to using a Butterfly Wing, to portals not even warping. When the portals did warp it always lead to a map failure which sent her back to her save point anyways.
There was no one to contact, her friends-list was emptied and she never crossed paths with any other player let alone a GM in that entire time. Being alone proved to begin to get rather depressing.

 

She sighs heavily saying, "These monsters are NOT supposed to be this difficult, it makes me feel like such a pushover. Im a lvl 150 Warlock for crying out loud!"

 

Just as Hope was going to give up and just go for retreat yet another night to the Lighthalzen inn and log off, she notices a certain option missing from her menu. Sighing from the over abundance of crazy glitches and bugs she has encountered thus far, she thinks to herself, "Geez when am i going to catch a break, now the log out feature is missing... These glitches are getting out of hand! I cant even contact a GM about this nonsense..."

 

Just then she overheard something that made her eyes shine with a new hope. There just so happened to be a couple of people that came off of the airship talking.

 

"Geez what was that stuff in Prontera all about?"
"I don't know... but I'm getting really worried now..."
"We haven't been able to log out for a while now.... I hope this problem gets fixed soon.. I have things i need to do."
"Same here..."

 

Shortly after they got off they left in a warp portal before she could even run to ask questions.

 

Hope thought to herself, "I guess that explains why i have had issues logging out, i just wish there were people i could interact with aside from the NPC's around here. I mean if the field monsters were that scary i do NOT want to see what the bio labs is like.. -sigh- and i remember being able to kill those things too..."

 

When those two people left she quickly pondered on wandering onto the airship in hopes that it would finally take her somewhere and not give her a map failure just to send her back to her save point in Lighthalzen. As she thought about leaving Lighthalzen, or at least trying to, the light was quickly growing dimmer and soon night took over. The street lights in Lighthalzen automatically turning on as stars in the sky began twinkling and moving as a big bright moon appeared in the distance.

 

 

"Mmm... maybe i should retreat for now, it is much to dark to even see anything and who knows what kind of things are around in this night. I dare not venture far to find out..."

 

 

After saying that she wandered to the Lighthalzen inn and layed down on a bed. Fiddling around with her menu, hoping that maybe her log out option would reappear, she slowly fell asleep.

When the morning came around she stretched and yawned as she looked hazily out the nearby window.

 

 

"Oh... its morning already, this is so weird sleeping in a game.. but i suppose it cant be helped. At least now that there's light outside i can finally try to leave!"

 

 

Hope quickly gets up and walks out of the inn, walking toward the airship port. With her spirits high and still nervous, she makes her way into the hub that may deliver her from her prison.

 

 

"I really hope this works... i was hoping i would be able to surprise my friends and sneak up to meet them but i guess that didn't really turn out how i imagined."

 

 

As the few days of being trapped in Lighthalzen proved to her, it was that she could do more than what she remembered. There were clearly limitations on things back then but surely now she noticed that was not the case anymore.

During those days she was surprised to find out that she could practice cooking the way she does in real life. It turned out she could actually use her real life skills in game. That proved to be exciting at first but then quickly, with no friends around to enjoy anything, it became depressing. Her emotions were wavering wondering when she would be able to see a familiar face, so this risk was worth taking.

 

 

Double checking and making sure she had all her equipment on her and things necessary in her inventory, she took a deep breath and set off onwards hoping the airship will take her to someone familiar.

 

 

"Please.. let this work" She cried.

 

 

Talking to the NPC's leading her to the airship, feeling nervous, she managed to get onto the airship with no issue. Finally a light shined in the distance for her and she regained some confidence. She finally could try and find any familiar face.

 

 

"Wow... the airship looks so.... so different in this new look. I have been deprived of so much aside from seeing Lighthalzen i feel sort of amazed at even this."

 

 

She takes a breath of the fresh air surrounding her as the simple small breeze blows on from the airship flying from Lighthalzen to Juno.

 

 

"The clouds look so real, you can even see the towns and fields passing by as we fly! This is so different, i can even see Juno in the distance and we're coming to it so fast."

 

 

With a bit of excitement she slowly walks towards the exit, waiting for the portal to appear as the announcements say the destination.

 

 

"We are arriving in Juno shortly! Please be patient as the portals open."

 

 

Once the portal appears she quickly steps on it and gets enveloped in that familiar blue light then appears in the Juno airship dock.
Feeling nervous she slowly steps forward into this new town and walks toward the loading station so she can quickly switch to the second airship toward Izlude.

 

 

"I cant believe i made it this far, I'm so excited. Once i get to Prontera I'm sure to find someone i know! Then maybe someone can explain to me what the heck is going on." She says as she sighs

 

 

The Juno airship dock NPC's once again flawlessly let her on board for the Izlude bound airship and she quickly walks over towards the edge to watch the towns and fields pass her by in a quick but visible blur. She could see Payon and Alberta in the far distance but that gap was quickly closing in.

 

 

"This is so much more fun than the old days, i really enjoy this view."

 

 

Just as she gets lost in a daze watching the scenery change before her eyes there is another airship announcement. She was expecting it to say the next destination she was anticipating but what she actually heard sent a chill down her spine.

 

 

 

"We are now heading to  Iz-iz-iz-iz lude-lude-lude.........
.................
A̢̟̩̱̖͙̙͂̑̉̔-̢̪͖̙̃̌͗a͐̎ͯͧ҉͓̖̳̫̝̥ͅ-̜͕â̙̯͕ͣͥ-͌̀̓͒̆҉͓̭͚a̴̒͆̎-̶̠̯̲ͥ̓̿̅͒͊a̅̀͛҉̜͔̳̼̟̦c̢͕̩̟̟͂̃͆̐̿ͫ̓c̡̱ͣ̈́ẹ͕̦̮͎̓̋͜s̪̣̟̅͠s̲̦͍̪̋̄̀̐́ͅ ̻̭̤̙ͯͣ͋̈̚ ̥̰͉ͪͥ̓͠-̲͚ͦͤ̑ͪ̀ͨ͒c͈̳̭͕͔ͬ̓ͩ̋͛c̓́̿e̗̠ͮs̪͕͕̋͒ͦͧ͊̀s̗̘̭̪̫͒ͤ͋̄ ̛̙̩̳̮̜̥̞̌̄ͧD̹͈͚e̷͖ͣ͆-̯̠̠̜̪̍́͆d̩̬͍̮̺̲̙ĕ̓ͩͧ̍-̵̬̩̲͉̄d͈͖̹̤͖͕̬ͧ͜e͚͕̻͕̪ͅň̺͖͇̱͎̳͈ͮͬ̒i̦̳͙̺̠ͣe̼̺̰̼͚͋́ͅd̝͔͍̤̻͔́̔̊ͅ-̖̜̗͚̹͓̞̽ͮ̈̈̚͞d̬̦̅̃̉̐ͮ̋̚-̭̟d̬͍̟̲̣ͮ̓̍͒̏̈.̹̣̣̳͖̲͓͊͜.͉͕̟͎̘ͫ͛.̼̲̟̑̌ͨ.̶̦̖̬̘ͥ̄ͧ "

 

 

 

 

 

Thinking to herself, she found it quite odd that happened.

 

"Maybe... lag caused that to happen..? Either way that was really odd.."

 

Suddenly the airship felt like it was going to stop mid transit, it was rumbling and shaking violently from these so-called unknown commands that were shouted during the glitched announcement.

 

"Ahhh w-whats going o-on..." She screams, clinging her hands onto the side of the airship

 

The airship controls were going all out of whack and the ship started rotating. She begins moving closer and closer to edge of the ship, noticing that the map bounds are not keeping her from moving outside. Her eyes begin to widen as she clings with all her life to the side of the ship railing.

 

"Eeeyyaaahhh... It's not supposed to move this way!!! I... I'm gonna fall!! Someone help me!!"

 

As the Airship turns nearly sideways, gravity starts pulling her body down, the airflow interrupting her grip she is forced to let go and fall off the ship.
Panicing she notices shes falling toward a foresty area, she quickly tries opening her inventory to use a fly wing or anything to get out of this predicament.

 

[You cannot use this item here]
[You cannot use this item here]
[You cannot use this item here]
[Unavailable Area to Teleport]
[This skill cannot be used within this area.]

 

Nothing was usable in this space, its like as if falling through the map itself was restricted from anything,  Her eyes were narrowing at the doom that was drawing closer. She had no idea what would happen when she made impact on the ground. Would it cause damage? Would she die instantly and get sent back to her save point? She worried because she was still saved in Lighthalzen. She had no idea what she was going to do.

 

The impact was inevitable, she slowly started to accept that this fall was not going to stop. In the middle of the crisis her clothes and her gear start catching wind from the fall. She glances sadly at her clothes and notice that one particular gear of hers was catching more wind than the others, her garment, the Fallen Angel Wings. As she turned her body in the air the wings somehow caught that wind and cause her to glide in any particular directly wildly.

 

"Eh?! but... its just an armor, it was purely for aesthetics and stats.. clothes and gear never were functional like you would imagine.."

 

This idea made her curious, after all it was now or never and she was so close to hitting the ground now that she really had nothing to lose. She began trying to move the wings with her mind. After all, the Wings have no real bone to bone connection, it was all magically connected since its just an equipment. Equipment is removable and exchangeable so It made no sense for gear to act like what we would imagine it would be in real life.
Somehow this theory worked, she was able to make the wings move ever so slightly but she had no idea how to control it.

Freaking out about this causes the wings to send her into a spin dive toward the ground. This so called non-functional gear is seemingly more realistic than it leads on. At least now in this new version of Ragnarok.

 

"Eeeyaaah how is this possible?! its just an equipment, how am i able to control it!? Its not even connected to my body! It just has some weird aura to keep it on my back.."

 

In her panic as she spins she manages to open the wings much wider and that catches a lot more wind causing her to glide and break her fall enough for her to tumble through a few trees and bushes to the ground, landing somewhat safely.
Her heart beats rapidly as she tries to comprehend what just happened, taking a few minutes to catch her breath. Once she gathers her composure again she quickly opens her menu and searches her inventory for animal ears to test her theory.
She finds her Wickebine's Black Cat Ears and quickly puts them on.

 

"I hope this works"

 

She sighs and begins thinking of moving the cat ears around. As she thinks the ears respond to her every thought, every emotion.

 

 

"This is so unreal... Gear that has an organic origin like animal ears and like these wings respond to our thoughts and emotions as if they were connected to us. They can be used outside of just being gear!"

 

 

She begins rummaging through her inventory again and finds a Heroic Backpack and equips it.
When she equips it she notices it feels real light and empty, she grabs it and tries to open it revealing that it also has a hidden compartment for storing items.

 

"Everything is so functional..."

 

She quickly puts everything back in her inventory and storage and re-equips her main gears. As she stands up she sighs heavily and says, "This is just so much more than i imagined, its a little bit much to take in...."

 

As she sighs her Fallen Angel Wings respond to her emotion by drooping a bit.
"I don't know if i can get used to this but.. maybe i should try. After all it might prove to be a useful asset in the near future."

 

Looking around she notices that its mid day now, she set off early morning from Lighthalzen and finally made it to... Well.. wherever this place is.

 

"Wait a minute, where am i anyways? Hmm.. I remember seeing Payon and Alberta in the distance when i was on the airship so maybe I'm in Payon forest? Eh.. this is kind of far from where i was wanting to go..."

 

Looking around she checks her map and sure enough she just so happens to be in the Alberta zone. Two maps away from Alberta town as a matter of fact.
Seeing Wormtails, Boas, and Spores pass her by she feels slightly threatened only remembering her first experience with the monsters around Lighthalzen harassing her. She takes it slowly and is extra cautious hoping these low leveled mobs wont harass her too.
As she sees the portal in the distance to the map directly next to Alberta she smiles lightly and picks up her pace. Not paying attention to the spore that was in front of her, she trips over it.

 

"Squeeeeeee!"
"Eeh!" -thump-

 

She falls to the ground next to the spore, turning towards it as she gets up it looks rather agitated. Somehow tripping over the monster engaged a battle with this passive mushroom.

 

"Aw.. i didn't want to have to fight anything yet. I haven't had a chance to practice in this new system. Thanks to Lighthalzen being so ridiculous" She hesitantly calls out a skill from her skill list. "F-fire Wall!"

 

-Boom-

 

Flames swirl up in front of her in the shape of a wall blocking the path between her and the spore. But the spore charges onward into the flames, squeaking as it gets burned.

 

"Hehe... its kind of funny to see monsters act dumb like that. Reminds me of the old days." She giggles and watches as the spore continues to run into the flames and get burned. Just then other spores in the area begin watching and glaring.

 

Getting nervous she quickly stands up and casts another fire wall.

 

"Wait... spores are not assist... but they don't look too friendly.... maybe i should cast another one.... F-fire Wall!"

 

Another set of flames swirl around into the form of a wall and the surrounding spores charge, spores who were in front of the wall proceed to ram into the flames getting burned and taking damage while spores who were not in the path of the wall begin attacking her. A single spore getting agitated quickly turned into twenty aggressively attacking.

 

"Ow ow!!!"

 

The spores kept tackling her trying to beat her down in numbers, her hp dropped 20 points from this onslaught of spores that just never ended.

 

"S-storm Gust!" she yelled.

 

The air surrounding her and the spores suddenly got chilly and a cloud formation began appearing in the area around her, suddenly ice crystals began forming and shards spun rapidly in the vortex forming. A realistic looking storm was conjured and damaged all the spores attacking her, killing them all in one shot.
As the clouds cleared there were strawberries littered all over the place along with mushroom spores. She quickly picked up the items and looked around her noticing the coast was clear.

 

 

Taking a deep breath she sighed once more saying,"This day just gets more eventful by the minute, but i really should go to Alberta to at least save just in case.."

 

That said she quickly walks toward the portal and gets teleported to the next map. Upon entering the next map she can see the gate that was the entrance to Alberta town. Carefully walking onward, making sure to not trip over anymore monsters, Hope goes to her refuge.

Walking up to the gate she notices there's no one there, feeling slightly disheartened at the lack of players she continues on.

 

"Hello welcome to Alberta, the harbor town. I am a Kafra Employee, how may i serve you?"
"Oh, um save please!"
"Of course. Your save point has now been set to Alberta. May i do anything else for you?"
"N-no that's quite fine, thank you very much"
"No problem at all, please come to me again if you need assistance."

 

After changing Hope's save point, the Kafra bows politely and smiles.
Feeling a bit more relieved now that her save point has been secured in a more reasonable location, Hope walks onward toward the docks passing by the many buildings in Alberta.

 

"If i go to the docks i can warp to Izlude from the boat there and then i can make my way to Prontera. I just hope that i can find someone before night falls. I am not liking having to retreat to local inns alone.. It gets pretty lonesome, especially since i haven't been able to interact with anyone for a few days.."

 

Halfway walking to the docks she sees someone in the distance, as she closes the gap she notices a female assassin cross.

 

"Finally! a person i can talk to!"

She begins to walk faster toward the person when she realizes who she sees. As her vision clears up she notices that this particular assassin looks very familiar. Tears begin to well up in her eyes as she rushes to the assassin.

 

"Z-zero?! waah!"

Crying from relief, frustration from her ordeal, and happiness she staggers along the way and her wings catch flight. Not thinking of anything more than glad to see her friend she glides her way to Zero as she glomps her.

 

Zero widens her eyes in slight disbelief and shock.
"Urgg.. Hope??"

 

Hope nods slowly as the tears begin falling rapidly.
"Uh-huh... Oh am i so glad to see you. I had been trapped for quite a while... and now i can't even log out anymore! i thought i would never see anyone again... "

 

Sitting on the floor Zero reassures her friend that it will be alright.
"I am more confused at how you ended up here, and did i just see you Fly? How in the world did you do that? ..I just arrived here with Tkwan and Toxn. We were heading to the Inn to meet up with the others."

 

Hope sniffles a bit and looks around her saying, "..The others?"

 

"Yes. We are all in a party as a matter of fact, we had some uh.. interesting things to discuss. But now that you are here, well this is rather surprising." Zero says as she begins to stand up.

 

"So how did you get here anyways? You didn't take a Kafra warp did you? And uh about that Flying thing..."

 

 

Looking confused Hope replies, "Huh? um well no, i got here by the airship... but well that sort of didn't work out for me.. As a matter of fact it was because of the airship that i discovered that gear can be functional.  I swear that airship was out to get me, i felt like it wanted to kill me..." She sighs heavily and looks to the ground.

 

Zero looks at her with concern and questions, "The airship? Why what happened? I am glad you are alright though. What do you mean by that anyways?"

 

Hope begins explaining to Zero what she discovered about certain gears functioning the way they would in real life. Following that she explains that she thinks it has something to do with how we can use life skills in the game as well. As they talk Hope tells Zero her story of how she was stuck for 3 days in Lighthalzen with no contact with people aside from NPC's, how she could not walk or warp out and had many map failures, how all of her characters were saved in Lighthalzen, that the monsters in the field literally made it impossible to pass by and killed her sending her back to Lighthalzen, and she explains that is how she discovered she could hone her cooking skills in game and use them the same way she does in real life all during that time of isolation. It wasn't until today that she was able to finally escape by the airship.

 

Zero says with more concern,"I see. That sounds really rough, but at least you are here now. Unfortunately this is not really the time to get comfortable because there seems to be a lot more to this game than we all really think."

 

Hope looks at Zero slightly confused again but understands, considering all the hell she went through just to get to Alberta, she could only imagine what Zero and the others might have gotten into.

 

"Come on, lets go meet the others. I told Tkwan and Toxn to go regroup with the rest of the party in the inn. I'm sure they will be surprised to see you too. We can discuss everything that happened when we get there." Zero says with a ever so slight smile as she leads the way.

 

Hope quickly gets up and wanders close behind Zero saying, "Oh.. okay. I am so glad i ran into you. I'm glad that i'll be able to see everyone again" Cheering up a bit she smiles and walks on happily awaiting to meet her comrades.

Edited by HopeSama, 03 July 2014 - 12:57 AM.

[ZeroTigress]

Welcome to the RP, Hope! :U
 
------------------------------------------------------------------
 
HopeSama sits on one of the inn beds with a rather dumbfounded expression on her face. Tkwan had invited both her and ZeroTigress into the party and the rest of the group explained everything that had been going on since GRAVITY launched the Headgear system 3 days ago.

"Wow..." was all the female Warlock could say.

Just then, a white-haired female Lord Knight enters the room looking quite frantic.

"Sis!" she shouts at ZeroTigress. "You're okay!"

"Uh, yeah," responds the female Assassin Cross, looking a little confused. "Wait a second, are you locked into the game, too??"

"No, that's what I came here to tell you," begins Inuko23. "Only 647 players have actually gotten locked into the game. Everyone else can log in and log out just fine, including me."

"What?" exclaims Tkwan, almost knocking his glasses off. "How...? I don't get it."

"Maybe..." says Toxn in thought. "Maybe the hacker was only able to lock the players that were on when he attacked Prontera. Everyone else that weren't on at that time are free from his lock-in."

"That would actually be bad for us," notes ZeroTigress. "The hacker can gain control over any character that's offline. Just like what happened to Talvis' character when we were near Prontera."

"I still remember the pain I was in when I logged on," winces Talvis, rubbing his stomach.

"That's over 2,000 characters he has access to at any time as long as they're offline," asserts Aizenath. "What if he can access a bunch of them at once? That's a whole army we can be fighting against!"

"Calm down, Aizenath," responds Toxn. "Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. We need to take things one step at a time."

"Well, what can we do?" asks ShinobiEX3. "The hacker managed to turn the server against us so we can't rely on other players to not want to kill us. And he has the ability to change anything in the game. Our chances of victory against him are pretty tiny."

"I find your lack of faith disturbing, Shinobi," frowns ZeroTigress. "The hacker may have the upper hand in terms of the game world programming, but you seem to have missed something when I was fighting Talvis' hacked character."

"Eh?" exclaims the blonde Lord Knight with a blank look.

The female Assassin Cross brings up her fist. "He can't counter my kung fu. His fighting abilities are bound by the game's programming."

"Meaning he's not a fighter in real-life," concludes Toxn. The male Assassin Cross chuckles as he takes off his hat and runs a hand through his hair. "He's pissed off that he got beat up by a girl."

"I think ZeroTigress would give even a street fighter a run for his money," says HopeSama with a grin.

"Okay, I'm not that good," ZeroTigress says as she expresses a sweat-drop emote. "Good grief."

HopeSama giggles in response.

[Talvis]

"Now that we're finally all back together, what should our next move be?" Talvis asked.  "Unfortunately I don't think we can stay here too long before someone finds us."  Talvis looks around seeing if anyone has any suggestions.

 

"Maybe if we turn our selves in the hackers will be nice,"  ShinobiEX3 replied.  ZeroTigress smacked him in the head.  "I was just thinking since we're the ones they're after maybe they'll release the rest of the server."  "Once inside we might be able to do something."

 

TKwan replied back, "There's no guarantee of that."  TKwan thought silently for a bit then said, "We need to get on the offense and try to stop them before they can cause anymore trouble."

 

"The question is, how do we get around anywhere?"  HopeSama asked.  "I know from personal experience that most forms of transportation are not working properly."

 

"We walk!" ZeroTigress replied enthusiastically while jamming one of her daggers into the table.  "And I think I know where we can go to plan better in secret."  ZeroTigress stood up.  "We should be able to hide out at Pharos Lighthouse." 

 

"That should work,"  Talvis replied, "but we should probably wait until night to leave."

 

Once it started getting dark the party cautiously left the Alberta inn and headed back into the Payon Forest.  Thankfully they didn't run into any unusual monsters, just the usual stuff from the area.

 

"I'm starting to get hungry," Aizenath said holding his stomach.  "And so is my Gryphon."

 

"Unfortunately I ran out of Steamed Crab Nippers a while ago," ZeroTigress replied.  "You're gonna have to find something to eat here."  "You'll have to hunt some wolves."

 

The group finally made it to the area where Payon Forest transitioned to Morroc Desert. They started crossing over the bridge when inuko23 made an observation; "How are we going to get to the lighthouse from here, the desert is impassable from here due to Satan Morroc?"  However, before anyone could answer a bunch of Wanderers started coming out of the desert.

 

Aizenath grabbed his spear while his gryphon squawked.  TKwan started buffing everyone assuming there would be a battle.  One of the Wanderers lunged at TKwan but ShinobiEX3 stopped it.  The others started attacking the Wanderers while TKwan supported and HopeSama started using various AoEs to attack.  Just as inuko23 jabbed at a Wanderer it managed to dodge it and grabbed her snatching her away.  Shortly after that Wanderers snatched away Talvis and Toxn.

 

"Dammit!" ZeroTigress yelled while finishing off one of the Wanderers.  She quickly lunged after another that had gotten through to TKwan.

 

They managed to kill the remaining Wanderers quickly.  "Where do you think they were snatched to?"  HopeSama said looking around.  "They should be somewhere nearby, snatch only takes you to a random place on the same map."

 

ZeroTigress looked at the party window, "All things considered, I wouldn't count on that."  She growled, "They're not on this map."

 

 

Meanwhile, Talvis, Toxn, and inuko23 found themselves in a prison cell.  Before they could attack the Wanderers that brought them there they disappeared. 

 

Talvis punched a wall; "Damn, they separated us and brought us to some random prison."  "This isn't that GM prison, is it?"

 

"Nope," inuko23 said while looking out of the cell.  "This looks like Glast Heim."

 

Toxn grabbed a Butterfly wing, "Well, I'm not staying here!"  He waved it in the air only to be teleported right back in the cell.

 

Unknown to them they were being watched from the shadows.

 

Edited by Talvis, 04 July 2014 - 10:42 AM.

[Talvis]

Standing around near the boarder of the Sograt Desert, ZeroTigress, Tkwan, HopeSama, Aizenath, and ShinobiEX3 tried to make sense of what just happened.  "Well, at least we know where they are," HopeSama said relieved.  She leaned up against a tree.

"It looks like we have no choice but to head towards a city,"  ShinobiEX3 replied.  "We'll have to go near Geffen but we should still be okay.  He started walking North along the path.

"Get your ass back here!" ZeroTigress yelled at ShinobiEX3.  She sat down on a log and started thinking.  "They're expecting us to go there, they're baiting us."  "Last time we tried to go there we got teleported to Niflheim."

Suddenly they heard the noise of a person walking out of the trees causing Aizenath's Gryphon to squawk.  ZeroTigress jumped up and readied her daggers.

The person coming out of the trees turned out to be a random female Acolyte.  "I can get you right to the entrance of Glast Heim," the Acolyte said shyly.

ShinobiEX3 walked up to her pointing his weapon right at her.  "Why should we trust you?"

"I know it's not your fault we're trapped here," The Acolyte replied.  "You seem to know the most about what's going on here and I know you can stop it."

Tkwan walked toward her and pushed ShinobiEX3's weapon out of the way.  "Even if you are willing to help us, you wont be able to, they have messed with the warp portal memos."

"I just tried it out," she replied, "I know my memos are still good."  "I know it may be hard to trust me, but trust me, I want to help."  "I'm stuck in here just like you and I have kids to take care of."  She proceeded to grab for a blue gem.

"I don't like this," ZeroTigress said.  Before she could finish her statement a loud noise came out of Payon Forest and the all too familiar Face Worm starts charging at them.

The Acolyte produced a warp portal and motioned for them to get in it.  "Hurry up, I can get you out of here!"  "I'll follow you once you're all in."

ZeroTigress nervously looked at the Face Worm then back at the Acolyte's warp portal.  "Arg, FINE!" she said in a frustrated voice.  She motioned for the the party to get into the portal and ran into it herself.

Once the party was through the party the Face Worm disappeared and the Acolyte let the warp portal disappear.  Kiehl appeared right beside her.  "Did you send them where I told you to?"

"Yes I did," the Acolyte replied in a exhausted voice.  "Now, can you please let me log out of this damn game?"

"A deal is a deal and I don't need you anymore," Kiehl replied.  Soon a blue light engulfed the Acolyte and she logged off.

[ZeroTigress]

Click here to comment on the RP or ask questions!

Anyhow, back to the RP.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

ZeroTigress, ShinobiEX3, Aizenath, Tkwan, and HopeSama all found themselves in the hazy and polluted town of Einbroch as soon as they stepped through the warp portal.

"I knew it!" ZeroTigress yells angrily, punching out a nearby NPC.

"This place smells horrible," comments HopeSama, covering up her nose and mouth.

"Yeah, I think they went a little overboard with the sulfur," coughs Tkwan, putting his Archbishop sash over his face.

"Well, they wanted it to be authentic," notes Aizenath, turning up his nose along with his gryphon G.

Luckily, the five of them ended up near the hotel and weapon shop area, which wasn't too far from the southern gate of the city. They quickly made their way out the southern gate into the more refreshing air of the fields outside.

"You're making things too easy for me."

ZeroTigress turns to Kiehl unleashing Crowd Control Shot on her, sending her flying back into a wall of rock. The rest of the group jump back upon seeing the hacker suddenly appear in their midst.

"Zero!" cries out HopeSama, rushing over with a potion bottle in hand.

"Stay back!" the female Assassin Cross yells out, stopping HopeSama in her tracks. She groans as she steadily stands to her feet.

"Don't even think about trying anything," warns Kiehl, laying his shotgun over his shoulder. He snaps his fingers and, in an instant, Toxn, Talvis, and Inuko23 all appear behind him in Stone status.

"It's them!" exclaims ShinobiEX3. "They're allright!"

ZeroTigress frowns deeply. "What do you want?"

Kiehl cackles loudly in response. "Can't do 5h1t while your friends are in trouble, can you?"

"What do you want, you coward?" the female Assassin Cross demands again.

"My, my, such rudeness," notes Kiehl. "You should learn some manners, especially since I have your friends here in the palm of my hands."

The hacker approaches ZeroTigress smugly. "I know you've been visited by a certain someone. Someone using Eremes Guile as his sprite."

ZeroTigress continues to stare at him, not showing any change in emotion upon hearing that.

"He's given something to you," continues Kiehl. "Something that is of interest to me. I want to know what it is."

"I don't know what you're talking about," ZeroTigress answers nonchalantly.

Immediately, Kiehl casts an NPC skill on Toxn, ripping open his arm and causing him to bleed painfully. The male Assassin Cross yells out and grimaces from his wound.

"You jerk!" exclaims HopeSama angrily.

ZeroTigress clenches her fists tightly. "Stop it!"

"Tell me what he's given to you or I'll move on to your next friend," threatens Kiehl.

"It's a script!" the female Assassin Cross responds quickly. "That's all he told me! I don't know what it is!"

"A script, is it?" Kiehls curiosity was piqued. "Give it to me."

"I would if I could," growls ZeroTigress. "He embedded it into my sprite."

"Well that's just highly inconvenient," comments Kiehl.

He quickly grabs ZeroTigress's neck and rams her body into the rock behind her. He then summons a one-handed sword and stabs it deeply into her chest, causing her to scream out in pain.

"Zero!" yells Tkwan, rushing forward.

Before he knew what happened, he and the others were trapped by automatically casted Manholes. Everyone could only watch on in horror as the hacker slowly cuts through ZeroTigress's body.

Suddenly, a flash of light engulfs the area and Eremes warps all but Kiehl out of the vicinity. Being momentarily blinded, Kiehl couldn't counter and lost sight of ZeroTigress and the other players. When the light finally dissipated, he was left all alone in the fields of Einbroch.

--

ZeroTigress, Inuko23, Toxn, ShinobiEX3, Aizenath, Tkwan, Talvis, and HopeSama all found themselves in the tavern of the Lighthalzen Hotel. ZeroTigress was laid on the couch by Eremes who then steps away to face the others.

"Zero!" Tkwan hurries over to heal up the massive wound on the female Assassin Cross's chest.

ZeroTigress groans as she feels the wound force itself close.

"I am so confused right now," comments Talvis. He turns to Eremes. "Who are you?"

"That is a very good question," agrees Toxn, frowning at the blue-haired Assassin Cross as he held his wounded arm. "What did you do to Zero?"

"Already forgotten that I'd just save all of your lives?" notes Eremes, crossing his arms. "iRO players truly are spoiled."

"You're one to judge," responds Tkwan, healing up Toxn's arm after he was done with ZeroTigress. "You seem to have GM powers being able to warp us all like that. Abusing your powers much?"

"Hak... Kyu... Kim..." groans ZeroTigress as she sits up on the couch. "Eremes is Hak Kyu Kim."

"Zero, please take it easy," pleads HopeSama.

"You are not Hak Kyu Kim," says Toxn. "What business would he have with a game he left behind?"

"I'm just waiting for GRAVITY to fall under," responds Eremes. "When that happens, RO will be mine again."

"So you really hate GRAVITY that much," comments Aizenath. "Why'd you leave in the first place?"

"That's really none of your business," Eremes replies sharply.

"Okay, don't bite my head off," the Royal Guard backs off. "Just curious, that's all."

"In any case, my business with your friend here is between us," continues Eremes. "I only saved the rest of you so she can fulfill my plans, so don't go thinking we're all friends now."

With that, Eremes warps out of the tavern, leaving the group of players wondering what to do next.

[Aizenath]

Ummm guys, says Aizenath in a low voice, I know we are stuck here and that maniac is trying to kills most of us but to be quite honest, I'm more worried about our real bodies.

 

Everyone in the room is quiet now, you can feel hopelessness in the air, ZeroTigress groans and checks her chest, there is a slight scar where the wound was, she looks worried for a second, quickly covers it up and then yells: SNAP OUT OF IT!!!

 

Everyone looks at her but no one says a word.  Look, I am worried about my real body too but we can't do anything about it until we find a way to log out, we all together again so that's good.

 

Aizenath was going to ask about the scar but he felt Toxn's staring at him, when he looks at the Assassin Cross, Toxn only shakes his head.  

 

HopeSama, sharing Aizenath's concern, started to move to heal Zero's chest again but Toxn gently and discreetly stopped her, shaking his head again.

 

Tkwan was quietly observing Toxn, HopeSama and Aizenath and before ZeroTigress noticed them too he said: so you said he embedded the script into your sprite, know anyone in game that could help us?

 

Inuko23, Toxn, ShinobiEX3, Aizenath, Tkwan, Talvis, and HopeSama look at ZeroTigress expectantly...

 

[ZeroTigress]

"I've got no answer for that. It's not like I volunteered for this," grumbles ZeroTigress, crossing her arms over her chest. "And stop worrying, I'm fine now."

"A hacker just tried to perform open heart surgery on you and all you can say is 'don't worry'?" articulates Talvis, raising an eyebrow.

The female Assassin Cross twitches. "No point in dwelling on it. What's done is done."

The group stood in silence for a while until Inuko23 speaks up.

"Well, since I'm the only one who can log out, I can relay what's going on in the outside world," affirms the female Lord Knight. "I didn't get a chance to explain more while we were in Alberta, but everyone who's been locked into the game have been moved to hospitals." She turns to her sister. "Including you."

"Guess that means we're all hooked up to more machines," asserts Tkwan. "Fun times. We'll be skeletons by the time we get out."

"All the more reason we should hurry up and defeat the hacker," says ShinobiEX3 anxiously.

"You act like it'll be easy," responds Toxn. "You've seen what Kiehl can do. He has full GM powers just like Eremes. Maybe even more with his hacker knowledge."

"Hak Kyu Kim," corrects ZeroTigress.

"I'll believe it when I see it," says Toxn.

"Well, what's our next move?" wonders HopeSama. "Does the script tell you anything, Zero?"

"It's an inactive script," answers ZeroTigress. "Mr. Ki-Eremes said it won't do anything. I'm guessing it's probably an AI script."

"An AI script?" repeats Aizenath curiously. "What good would that do?"

"I dunno," the female Assassin Cross shrugs her shoulders. "Just a theory."

HopeSama sighs. "I wasn't expecting to be back in Lighthalzen this soon. But as long as I'm not alone, it's not so bad."

"In any case, Lighthalzen is too stupidly close to Einbroch," declares Tkwan. "We need to move out. NOW."

"Well, we can't trust the warps so no Cool Event Corp. or airships," says Talvis. "No way we can walk back to Rune-Midgarts since chances are we'll run into Kiehl. So I guess the logical choice is to go west, to Rachel."

"There's houses out on the Rachel fields so if anything we can hide out in those instead of Rachel to keep Kiehl from finding us," notes Toxn. "Especially Zero."

ZeroTigress rolls her eyes. "I'll be fine."

"Well I don't want to see you getting cleaved open like that again," responds Toxn, frowning deeply at the female Assassin Cross. He motions to the others, who still looked disturbed by the whole thing. "And neither do the rest of us."

ZeroTigress averts her eyes and heads for the door of the tavern. "Let's go."

[Talvis]

The group headed towards Lighthalzen's North exit as they left for the desert town of Rachel.  They wandered though the field trying to keep up with ZeroTigress occasionally stopping to kill the hordes of Rafflesia.  Unfortunately, once the reached the gateway between the two countries they realized that the gates were closed.

"What the hell?!" ZeroTigress yelled while grabbing the gate.  "This isn't supposed to be closed, I can usually walk through here."  Before she could say anything else an arrow zipped right near her head.

ShinobiEX3, who was at the rear of the party, quickly turned around and readied his weapon.  "Kobolds!" he yelled.  A group of Kobold Archers appeared on top of the surrounding cliffs and other Kobolds started approaching them.

Tkwan quickly put up pneumas and buffed the party.  "We need to get rid of these guys quickly."

HopeSama started using spells and Talvis used Axe Boomerang to attack the archers while the others started attacking the melee Kobolds.  Toxn and ZeroTigress ran towards some of the Kobolds  While Aizenath  ShinobiEX3, and Inuko23 fought the ones that were approaching the rest of the party.

"Ouch!" HopeSama yelled, "What's attacking me?"  She began swatting at whatever was bugging her.

"Stupid Anopheles," Aizenath said while running over to help HopeSama.  He swung at them but wasn't able to hit them.  "Damn, these things are impossible to hit."

With Aizenath distracting the Anopheles HopeSama was able to attack them with a spell.  "Thanks for distracting them."

"Any time," Aizenath replied back covered with small sores from the bugs.

"I think I can help you with that," Tkwan said while healing him which caused the sores to disappear.  "There's a ton of these damn monsters," he said as he turned his attention back to the rest of the party.

After a lengthy battle the party managed to kill off the last of the Kobolds.  "Finally," Toxn exclaimed sitting down exhausted.  "I wonder if this ambush was planned or just a coincidence?"

The rest of the party joined him all exhausted from the battle.  "I don't know what to think," Tkwan said breathing heavily, "we can't stay around here for too long because there might be more on the way."

"What are we supposed to do though,"  ZeroTigress said, "the gates are closed."  She looked around to see if there was any other way.

Talvis was wiping off the blade of his axe when he commented; "just because we can't climb in most places in the game, it doesn't mean we can't now."  "Remember, ZeroTigress was able to use fighting fighting skills she knows in real life, so we should be able to do other things that aren't necessarily part of the game."  Just as he finished talking he turned around and noticed that ZeroTigress was already climbing up one of the walls surrounding the gates.

Aizenath got on his Gryphon; "I'm surprised I haven't though about this before, my Gryphon can fly!"  He grabbed the reins and got his Gryphon to take off and he flew over the gate.

The rest of the party started started climbing over the walls, but they forgot one thing.  "Hey!" Inuko23 yelled, "I don't think Pecos can fly."  However though, before she could say anything else her Peco walked back as far as he could and charged at the gate and jumped a low part of the wall.  "Well, it looks like that wont be an issue," she said surprised.

The party party finished resting up after everyone got past the gate that was at the checkpoint.  Toxn noticed that ZeroTigress had started walking on towards Rachel.  "We better get going."  The rest of the party stood up and quickly caught up to ZeroTigress and continued their journey.

[ZeroTigress]

The group manages to find their way to the Plain of Ida, in an area where several houses lay scattered about. They settle into one of the bigger ones just as the night cycle fell upon the region.

"Well, not much else to do than sleep," says Tkwan. "Think we'll need to have someone stand watch?"

"If Kiehl knows where we are, he'd be here by now," suggests Aizenath, sitting down near his gryphon. "We were able to sleep the other night without issue."

"Even I was able to sleep in Morroc without Kiehl finding me," asserts ZeroTigress. "Besides, since Eremes warped us out of there, Kiehl wouldn't know the first place to look for us. He may be a hacker, but even he's not omniscient."

"I guess you're right," admits Tkwan. He begins to yawn.

HopeSama and ShinobiEX3 have already fallen asleep on the various coats and jackets they had laid out on the ground. Soon, everyone else was fast asleep.

Some time later, Toxn awakens to find that the spot where ZeroTigress once laid was empty. He quietly gets up and makes his way to the door, careful not to disturb the others and the mounts. Outside, he finds the female Assassin Cross standing and staring into the distance. Thinking she was sleepwalking, he carefully approaches her.

"I'm conscious, don't worry," says ZeroTigress, hearing footsteps behind her.

"Can't sleep?" wonders Toxn, standing next to her.

The female Assassin Cross was silent for a bit. "... I can feel him."

"Who? Kiehl?" asks Toxn with a puzzled look on his face.

"No, someone else," clarifies ZeroTigress. "Someone... familiar, yet isn't..."

She looks over at her friend and notices that there wasn't even a scratch on his arm. She turns back to her chest which she could see a noticeable scar.

"Hacker left a mark?" asks Toxn curiously.

"Yeah," responds ZeroTigress, placing a hand over her chest. "We're both healed fully, yet you don't have a scar while I do."

"Eremes' script?" suggests Toxn. "Maybe it's doing something to you after all."

"Maybe..." says ZeroTigress. She felt as if she was connected to someone, but wonders why she didn't feel it until now.

Eonni...

---

Deep within the Ice Cave, Eremes stood before a giant chunk of ice laid upon a glyphic platform that was chained to four icy pillars. He lays a hand upon the cold surface of the ice chunk and stares at the being inside.

"It's almost time to wake up," he says quietly. "Will you choose salvation or destruction for RO?"

[Aizenath]

Ktullanux opened its eyes while still in its ice prision, it stared defiantly at Eremes while he casted a spell to undo the magical chains restraining the MVP.

 

Eremes heard a deep voice inside his own head, "you know once I'm out, you nor anyone else will be able to contain me, I WON'T BE CHAINED EVER AGAIN!!!" 

 

Eremes replied cooly: why would I set you free if I plan to chain you again?

 

Ktullanux, eyes on Eremes at all time, moved away slowly as soon as the magical chains fell to the darkness under them.  When it was off the icy platform, it spoke again: So why are you setting me free then? the monster spat out, distrust in its tone.

 

Isn't enough to be free? asked Eremes, but if you need to know, he added, you are here to set RO free... one way or another...

 

[ShinobiEX3]

Waking up a bit noticing zero getting off her bed to leave, I breathe deeply (sigh) then roll over a bit and close my eyes once more. Moments later I'm awoken again by toxn stepping out of the room.

 

"Sigh arent assassin's supposed to be stealthy. I give soft chuckle looking at my hands. This body... im still not used to this. When can i stop this charade? Sigh"

 

Closing my eyes I try to sleep but the restlessness in my thoughts kept me awake. Sitting up i place my legs folded together and look around. Seeing as how i see the others sleeping soundly brought little peace to mind. The thought of two hackers seemingly going at odds with each other seems disterbing.  "What kind of war have we gotten our selves into? Damn! This is crazy, Eremes vs Keil? This is too much.

 

I get up slowly and walk towards the out side but stand by the wall once i heard Zero and Toxn Speak. I could barely hear them, but i didnt want to eavesdrop either, So i went by the window to feel the night breeze.

"If zero even thought of me trying to spy on her... that women is trouble hehe"

 

"Creeeeeeeeek.."

Hearing the door open slowly I grab my Violet Fear and waited till te door open just enough waiting for someone to step in. Once i saw a hand by the door I grabed it and pulled that person to the wall.

 

"Speak very softly! Who are you?"

"I..I... im just a Messenger"

"From who?"

"I dont know he appeared out of no where and said find a group of misfits and give this note to the women who looks suspicious!"

"Give me the letter!"

The young man hands over the letter then struggles from my grasp and runs out the room in a panic.

"Its probably for Zero."

 

Placing the sword down i walk to zero and toxn. "Ahem...! For you Zero"

 

 

 

[Talvis]

A little bewildered, ZeroTigress walks over to ShinobiEX3 and grabs the letter.  "I wonder what this is about," ZeroTigress wondered out loud.  However, as she begins reading the group starts hearing the sounds of something big coming up.

"What is that noise?" Toxn said looking around.  He looked out one of the windows but unfortunately couldn't see anything.

The sounds of something large walking got closer along with the sound of many smaller things.  Soon though, the walking stopped and a loud voice boomed out; "Knock Knock, time to wake up!"  Soon the air started feeling statticy causing Toxn and ShinobiEX3 to stand still not sure what was going on.  Soon everyone else in the house started waking up due to the build up of static.

ZeroTigress quickly folded up the letter she had been intently ready as the static started building up.  "I know this feeling," she said with a nervous look on her face.  "This is the same feeling I felt when we where fighting the High Wizard up in the mountains when she was casting Lord of Vermillion."

The others in the quickly stood up when they heard ZeroTigress bring up the impending Lord of Vermillion.

"GET OUT OF HERE NOW!"  Tkwan yelled.  However, before anyone could run the Lord of Vermillion struck knocking everyone back and blowing apart the building they were in.  The attack eventually stopped, leaving a wake of destruction.

The party laid severely injured in the rubble of the building.  Tkwan slowly struggled to get up so he could start healing everyone before whatever cast the Lord of Vermillion decided to attack again.  However, before he could get fully up he saw a large shadowy figure in the distance swing the weapon it was holding.  Tkwan quickly recognized the weapon as a scythe and he knew who the monster was, Baphomet.

When Baphomet swung his scythe it emitted a energy wave that paralyzed everyone in the party, including Tkwan.

"No.." Talvis exclaimed unable to move, only able to stare at the demon.

Baphomet watched as a bunch of other creatures came out of the darkness.  The creatures, which turned out to be Baphomet Juniors, walked up to all the members of the party.  "It's time, let's go," Baphomet ordered.  The Baphomet Juniors grabbed on to the paralyzed party members and proceeded to teleport them away.

The party materialized in a dark prison, split up between different cells.  Talvis, realizing he could now move, walked to the bars of the cell he was sharing with Aizenath.  "So, I'm in prison, again,  but which one?" Out of the darkness a couple zombies walked over followed by a cloak wearing, skull faced creature.  "The Cursed Monastery, Glast Heim prison seems pretty nice right about now."

Edited by Talvis, 11 August 2014 - 04:21 PM.

[ZeroTigress]

"I can't believe you managed to find them and not me!" Kiehl yells angrily as he stepped off a boat onto the shores of Nameless Island.

"I have a bad feeling about this," asserts Baphomet as he followed behind his hacker colleague. "Something's not right about this group of players."

"Of course not, they dared to resist me!" retorts Kiehl. "But I'll let them know what happens when they mess with this hacker!"

"Kiehl, stop!" Baphomet steps between Kiehl and the door into the Cursed Monastery. "Listen to me! You should not approach these players!"

"Protecting them?" sneers Kiehl. "Are you betraying us?"

"I'm not protecting them, I'm protecting our cause," snorts Baphomet. "You're going to make things harder for us if you try to mess with these players again."

Kiehl simply shoves past Baphomet. "We'll see about that."

"Kiehl!" Baphomet roars after his colleague.

---

"How's everyone doing?" wonders Tkwan from an adjacent cell, which he was sharing with HopeSama and Inuko23.

"Not so well," responds ShinobiEX3 from another adjacent cell.

"What do you mean?" exclaims HopeSama anxiously.

In the same cell as ShinobiEX3 and Toxn, ZeroTigress was curled up on the floor and gripping her chest. Her face was contorted as if in extreme pain. Toxn was already kneeled down next to her to try to ease whatever was ailing her.

"Something's wrong with Zero," Toxn responds back.

"What?" exclaims Tkwan worriedly. "What's going on?"

"I don't know, she just collapsed as soon as we warped into the cell," explains Toxn. "Zero, c'mon. Talk to us."

The female Assassin Cross simply groans in response. It looked like she was too much in pain to speak.

As if things couldn't get any worse, the group hears furious footsteps and were soon greeted with the angry face of Kiehl. Smiling sinisterly, the hacker opens up ShinobiEX3, Toxn, and ZeroTigress' cell and steps in.

"I'm going to make you all pay," he sneers at them. He casts Stone Curse upon ShinobiEX3 and Toxn and goes over to grab ZeroTigress by the neck to shove her into the wall. The female Assassin Cross was too much in pain to fight back at this point.

"NO!" screams Tkwan, gripping the bars of his cell tightly. "LEAVE THEM ALONE!"

Kiehl slowly starts to choke ZeroTigress as ShinobiEX3 and Toxn look on in horror, unable to do anything to save her. Suddenly, ZeroTigress' eyes light up with bright blue light and a mysterious power forces Kiehl back away from her and out the cell.

"What the heck?" exclaims ShinobiEX3 with wide eyes.

"What's going on?" yells out Talvis.

ZeroTigress' body begins to glow with a bright blue light, which suddenly engulfs the entire area. Kiehl shields his eyes as the light covered everything. Moments later, the light disappates and Kiehl uncovers his eyes to find that the players were gone, but the cells they once occupied were covered in thick spikes of ice. Baphomet arrives in time to see the aftermath.

"What the hell?" exclaims the horned beast.

[ZeroTigress]

Extra long, sorry!

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"AH-CHOO!"

ShinobiEX3 sniffles as he rubs his nose miserably. He and the others have been mysteriously warped to the deepest depths of the Ice Cave and were slowly starting to freeze to death.

"Okay, the realism here is a bit much," sniffs Tkwan, shivering as he hugs himself to keep warm. "Did the developers had to make it so cold?"

"Ugh, this outfit is not meant for this weather," moans HopeSama, covering up the bare parts of her Warlock outfit with her arms. "Stupid sexist developers!"

Aizenath takes off his chest plate and puts it on HopeSama, who immediately falls to the icy ground due to the armor's heaviness.

"Oh geez, I'm sorry!" exclaims the Royal Guard with an shocked face. He goes over to take it off of her. "Didn't know Crusader-type armor is that heavy."

HopeSama dizzily gets up off the ground. "I... was going to... take out my... Coat..."

Meanwhile Tkwan, Toxn, Inuko23, and Talvis were looking at ZeroTigress and wondering what had just transpired.

"I really don't remember what happened after Kiehl grabbed me," the female Assassin Cross asserts firmly. "I just remember my chest suddenly feel like it's being crushed."

"Your eyes glowed like the Avatar," says Toxn, looking all duckfaced. "Thought you were going to airbend or something."

"That's just silly; why would I do something like that?" pouts ZeroTigress.

"What happens now?" asks Inuko23, shivering under her armor.

"Well, I didn't bring my Frozen Powders with me," notes Tkwan, sniffling. "Otherwise we could try to bring out Ktullanux to sic on Kiehl."

"I have mine," responds ZeroTigress, taking out the pouch from her inventory. "I got it when we were in Prontera a few days ago. I dunno why I took them out of storage. Just felt like the thing to do."

"Speaking of which, what was on that note you got from Shinobi?" wonders Toxn.

"Ironically, it just said 'Ice Cave'," answers ZeroTigress, taking out the note and showing it to the others. "I'm guessing it was probably from Eremes."

"What would Eremes want you to come here for?" Talvis speaks up.

Suddenly, the Ice Cave began to shake and crackle violently all around the party. Breaking through a crystalline stalagmite was the dreaded ice salamander, Ktullanux!

"ROOOOAAARRRRR!!!"

The group screamed aloud as they begin to run towards the center of the cave to get away from Ktullanux. HopeSama manages to cast a Fire Ball at the beast's face, which temporarily blinds him. The party uses this opportunity to get some distance from the monster in order to come up with a battle plan.

"C'mon guys!" exclaims ShinobiEX3 as he ran. "Ktullanux is only level 98! We're much stronger than him now!"

"We don't know that for sure!" responds Toxn. "If we got buffed, who's to say Ktullanux didn't get buffed similarly?"

Ktullanux's massive tail crashes down upon the party, sending the players flying into the central area of the dungeon. He casts Break Armor upon Inuko23, rendering her completely vulnerable to attack. Before the ice salamander could follow-up on the female Lord Knight, Aizenath jumps in front of her and blocks Ktullanux's attack with his shield. Toxn and ShinobiEX3 have begun hacking away at the monster's hard body while Talvis sends an Axe Boomerang towards the monster.

Ktullanux begins casting Wide Freeze, causing Tkwan to warn the others to fall back in order to avoid it. HopeSama barely manages to fly out of range of the debilitating attack.

"THAT'S IT, I'VE HAD IT WITH YOU JERKS!!!" screams HopeSama angrily.

The female Warlock casts a summoning glyph on the ground which spins around her. In mere moments, the entire area was lit up by flaming rocks falling violently. Somehow HopeSama manages to direct them all at Ktullanux, who is completely devastated by the overpowered attack. When all was said and done, Ktullanux was nothing more than a pile of partially-melted ice chunks.

Everyone began to hover cautiously away from HopeSama after seeing what she had done.

"Well then," was all ZeroTigress could say about it.

Once HopeSama calmed down, ZeroTigress goes over to a chained platform where a particular chunk of ice stood.

"We finally meet," the female Assassin Cross says to the little boy sleeping inside. "Loomin."

She lifts up her right hand to lay it on the ice when suddenly the whole ground began shaking violently. Everyone tries to stay on their feet as the quake went on for about a minute. Then the ground beneath ZeroTigress explodes, sending her flying back. Before she could do anything, a robotic hand bursts through her back, exposing her beating heart outside of her body. The female Assassin Cross coughs up blood as Kiehl literally tears her heart out.

"Goodbye, troublemaker," he sneers as he tosses her now lifeless body to the side.

"ZERO!" Toxn shouts loudly. He rushes in and angrily swipes his katars at Kiehl.

"NO!" screams HopeSama, bringing her hands to her face.

Aizenath, ShinobiEX3, Talvis, and Inuko23 all join in on the attack, equally eager to avenge their fallen friend. Meanwhile, Tkwan hurriedly runs over to ZeroTigress's body to cast Resurrection on her. HopeSama begins attacking with the others and turns to look over where the Archbishop was. Seeing that he looked distraught, she goes over to ask what was wrong.

"She's... she's not getting up..." exclaims Tkwan as a bead of sweat ran down the side of his head. "She's not respawning either. My Resurrection spell..." He turns to look at HopeSama. "I... I can't revive her."