Apocalypse I-a - Apocalypse Now

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To most, the teleportation back to their Kingdom is a bit jarring, but not entirely unexpected, though that unique tone will remain at the back of peoples' heads for a while. Only those musically inclined, or those who have experienced certain dangerous elements of Fragment, would so vividly recognize A in C Major.

People knew that the game was going to come with a lot of changes. The expansion promised much. Some even trying to finish a boss just in time, or tried to cross the finish line before the clock in Japan would strike midnight. Compared to other systems, the transition is almost seemless. Various Landers are stepping out to see what caused so many Adventurers to suddenly teleport into their respective Kingdoms. Out in the streets, in the big squares, and some even just outside of town.

Elder Tale Online is a popular game. And it is perhaps mindblowing to see so many people packed in such an area. There is no doubt that there just isn't enough room in the Kingdoms for all of these Adventurers to provide them lodging. But then, before this, that has never been something to worry about.

The sun above their heads is largely down. There is a time difference between Japan and the world, even if it's just a few hours. But right now, it's Twilight Hour. A beautiful red and orange is cast across the lands. The various trees in the streets stand out against that beautiful shimmer, and the orange colors have various Undines peek their heads up within the waters of Mac Anu. In Dun Loireag, the mists make the orange glow look particularly fantastic. Even Lia Fail fails to withstand the strange beauty brought on by this light.

Fireworks launch into the air, further spreading joy, right before there are gasps of confusion. A gasp, people pointing towards the direction of the Ezzo Empire, to the North-East of the Yamato region. A radial black wave rushing forwards. Like a massive black fog, it burst forth with the force of an explosion's shockwave! The ground shakes at the force of what approaches, windows shake, and there's a loud horn-loud bellow that seems to lead the wave approaching the city!

    You've got to be social sometimes.

    Sinon is here hanging out at the back of the crowds with a drink someone passed her; she wouldn't have taken one otherwise. What is this, alcohol? It tastes like water, anyway. Not that she'd know the difference. The aspiring sniper who has made some time to be in Elder Tale Online along with acquaintance Kyoji Shinkawa has gone here today to attempt to be social and maybe make a name for herself as that cool girl sat at the back of the room when all of a sudden, everything is not fun and games and evidently all hell breaks loose.


    Immediately, she thumbs over her menus to put in a call to Kyoji, only to find nothing staring back at her.

It's a full court press for Tetra tonight, a live patch launch for the game she is best known for. Presently, she is parked under a tree with a great picnic blanket spread out under it and several baskets in various states of exhaustion spaced around to help deliniate space.

And because this is the internet and she is not a conventional Idol, a little red saucer is perched between her thumb and forefinger. "So, I'm still not sure what the over-under is on this patch exploding and we all get dumped offline in the middle of this. Because the home cities are going to be zoos," she remarks for her recording software. "I'm sure that when we go back over this later the color commentary tracks are going to be great."

She pauses. "Editor! That was NOT tempting fate!" She tips the saucer back and sighs in contentment at the countdown. "And here comes the part where things get a little bit weird."

Huh. A in C Major? That's not quite what she was expecting to hear.

     The Turning of a new era, the start of something new. Though, Elrune had only been in Elder Tale less than hour-or that's what it felt like. It was amazingly beautiful. The orange colors and the world itself played with her senses. "Moriko," she breathed the name, flipping through the menu. "May I add you as a friend?" she asked, quietly. She had been curious about the person who had so warmly welcomed her into the world, and reached out a hand in friendship.

The Tone was chilling, vibrating her bones and down to her core. What an erie and yet powerful sound. A in C Major... an upbeat key, but a somehow offputting sound.

Emiko had not tried to do some last minute questing, that would have been stress. She was here to destress after all. So as she had logged in earlier in the evening she had spent hours just walking through the highland around teh city of twilight. One moment she stretches... the next she blinks and covers those large ears of hers at the sound ringing the air, the teleportation bringing her to the city square. Teleportation wasn't something she was particularily keen on, twisting her guts, but seems like to allow the update it was needed.

A moment she looks around confused, trying to sort where she was, but then she saw the fireworks starting to go off, looking up to the sky. "Wow, so late already? I should have went home some hour ago, but now I think I can stay just long enough to watch the fireworks..." It's more a comment to herself...

Seeing the end of the year in-game felt like the right thing for Mikage. The Guardian had secured herself spot atop one of the rooftops of Fort Ouph. Everything seemed hopeful. That is, until that sound began to ring in her ears. Blinking, she looks around, surprised to see the streets filling with people, teleported from all over the kingdom. She peeks down from the rooftop, a relatively large Lynx following her motion. "Look at all the people." She comments, then waves, trying to catch the attention of anyone who might happen to be looking skyward.

That is when the fireworks begin, and her own attention shifts upwards, a animal-skin hood falling back from her face as it is illuminated by the colorful lights. She might have just given in to the awe of the moment, if it were not for that darkness in the distance in the direction of Ezzo and that jarring tone that still lingers in her ears.

Kaleido logs in just in time - their player having gotten a quick pre-expansion nap in so that they can binge the new content. Schedules are clear, snacks and drinks are assembled next to their desk, the phone is set to go straight to the answering machine - all the elements are assembled.

It's time to game.

The teleport to the Ninetails region hits them just a second after they finish logging in. "Alright, who else we got on in the guild - nobody? Just me for the launch? Slackers... I'm gonna have to hold another meeting later..."

The menu UI is brought up, with the intention of poking around at the new options - but that soon gets forgotten about as the dark wave appears on the horizon. "That's... quite the impressive looking launch event," the avian were fang says, focusing on that.

Twilight comes to the Highland city of Twilight. Although she was expecting it, the sudden and aggressively loud sound of A in C Major is not the most pleasant thing to experience. Her raw nerves are soothed by the spread of fireworks exploding in the air outside her guildhall window.

Nureha stays at the window staring out at the world, and her vantage point in the tower high up in her guild hall gives her a clear view as the world celebrates the new year. "Happy new year.." she says again to herself.

She rubs one ear gingerly, leaning against the window to watch.

    Merek is teleported back to the home city in Westlande, while he looks on to the horizon, having been cheering with people for the new patch. The man draws both blades from the back of his longcoat when he notices the wave coming to them. "That wasn't," he muses, not sure if the admins began a new event that would welcome people. For him, he was always a bit interested in theatre.
    He knows that noise, that note, although he doesn't know what it means. The tester was too focused upon looking forward while he waited to see what would begin to come from that dark wave. "Stand fast people!" Always one to keep being In-Character in Elder Tale Online.

You know, he'd been having a nice conversation with a couple of new friends, having a drink and discussing the raid they had just cleared. It was a pretty normal post-mission cool down.

Then suddenly a tone he doesn't recognize, and he's standing in the Town of Beginings, looking up at Aincrad, "The hell?"

He pulls up his menu to try to re-orient himself, looking around as others pop up around him, most seeming just as confused as he is. He sure as hell didn't trigger a recall, so why it sent him here, he doesn't know. Figuring he should report that bug, he begins to swipe through menus, only to be caught off guard by the wave coming from the Ezzo area, "What the shit? I knew we were getting a patch drop but I didn't think they'd do a major launch event like that.." It would explain the forced recall, though.

    Welcome to Elder Tale Online!

    It's been a while since Naotsugu logged into ETO. Job was stressful... and it wasn't easy to find a break he could exploit. So when many of the staff were given some leave to take, Naotsugu immediately took his leave around the days of the new ETO expansion! He got it patched as fast as he could and hopped in a little bit before it was meant to go live. Get some early practice in after being away for a little bit.

    All in the wrist, though! Naotsugu was doing exceptionally well with his practice. He was getting better every time he hopped into the game, same as with every other MMO he was in! And finally... after grinding mobs and waiting it out a bit... Japanese Midnight.

    "... huh? What the heck was that sound? Ah well. HAPPY NEW YEAR, ELDER TALE!"

There's a sweet little laugh at the question, and Moriko nods, her hair bouncing with the movement. "Of course!" She seems about to say something else when the Tone starts up. She blinks, and looks around. "Okay, that's new ..."

She obviously doesn't know what to make of it, and is looking around to see what everyone else is doing. When in doubt, look for guidance, right?

    MOMENTS AGO
    Mizuki was in one of the Ninetails Dominion towns, enjoying the new year's eve celebrations. Well, 'enjoying'. An attack of shyness has left her alone, wandering the periphery of the crowd, still decked out in Christmas event clothes. She overhears a nearby cait sith woman in a maid outfit looking at the crowd disdainfully, muttering: "Celebrating in here instead of real life... You're all pathetic." Mizuki looks at her. "You're here, too." The cait sith nods, "Yeah." and takes a sip of her drink with as much surliness as is possible for a catgirl maid.

    "TEN!"

    Mizuki turns towards the cheering crowd...

NOW
    Mizuki doesn't recognize the note, but she'll probably be able to repeat it for the rest of her life. This is... Dun Loreag? And he beauty of that glow is striking. She stares at it, just... taking in the beauty, almost forgetting to try and take a screenshot.

    And then there's an approaching shockwave. "What the hell?" Other players can take care of themselves -- Mizuki scrambles for cover, and her claws try to dig into the street as the shockwave blows past!

    The teleportation has the large man known as Giganpor falling to one knee. It was jarring for him as he stands up slowly. The large man practically is at least a head or three taller than most. And he's looking around. Then there's the howl. The big black wave. The man starts to push his way through the crowd to get a better look as his form shifts to the impressive Were Fang Lion form as his keen senses look out towards the black wave. "What is that? A new event?" He asks in a deep rumble.

The Home Recall was kinda expected.
For an explorer such as Nevarri, getting shunted back to the hometown wasn't completely out of the ordinary, it happened now and again when the game decided to have a hiccup and they hotfixed things. It was normal! Seemed normal... But why was she all the way back in Westeland...? It should have put her in the last city she had set Home to...

    There was something else niggling in her head, but she couldn't put her fingers on it. It began with the A in C major sound... She mumbled a little as she went about looking at her maps and menus once more. "Well, I suppose if there's a new expansion, an has to start from from the beginning..."

She then hears a ruckus coming from the direction of Ezzo, and turns her head, "What the heck...?"

The teleport back to her 'native' kingdom in itself wasn't so much jarring as it was annoying, because she had still been with her friends after their final dungeon run of the old content, and hadn't completely said goodbye yet. And a little disorienting, truth be told. Enough it took a moment for the lupine Cait Sith to get her bearings back in order. Putting all the players back in easily organized places to make the update go more smoothly does make sense.

Shiruba wasn't sure why that musical chime that played was making her proverbial hackles stand on end, but it did.

But just as readily there was fireworks and such to be a distraction as well. She finds a convenient barrel or other prop to sit on and watch. She'll catch back up with her friends later, when they're ready to hit the new content...

... A few moments later she squints. Is that part of the show? That can't be right, they'd just waited a little longer if they wanted actual darkness...

Under the moon, Cynwrig jogs. Midnight openings are never his favorite, but he is having writer's block anyways. Killing yourself against the same wall only works for so long, he was up anyways. Might as well see what the hub-bub is about.

A notebook at his desk in another world, Cynwrig continues at a stately walk cycle, oblivious and pleased as lore files open and the first bits of the new story are pulled in and read, to be digested bite for bite. A simple way to enjoy the night.

    A slender sohei with the player name Esclados hardly seemed to be paying attention when the teleportation brought him to the squire. The change of scene doesn't cease his running to and fro. He admires the ninetails dominion, but more importantly he had legs. Pounding his thighs he gives a look of joy.
    But it wasn't the Ninetails anymore. "Uh, hey! What happened?" His running stops with a ratatat of his single-tooth geta and he looks about confused. "What is going on? I didn't do this?" The odd tone turns his head up and he sees the crowd getting ever larger. "Fireworks? Oh, they look so real."

Suddenly warped while in the middle of finishing off a mob Zorin looks around at the crowds somewhat baffled. Attaching his shield to his back he mutters to himself, "Was it really this late already?" Moving off to the side of the crowd he gestures to open a menu to check his friends list. "Really, they didn't make? Such a shame to miss out on this." Sighing he decides he might as well see what all this is about.

The fireworks start to go off and Zorin leans back against the wall he is at to enjoy the spectacle, only to hear gasps and cries. Looking around in confusion he notices several people running up to the roofs and wall to look over to the east. Following suit he is shocked when he sees a dark way quickly approaching. Horns bellow out, and Zorin makes a snap decision to jump back down to behind a wall. "This really doesn't look like part of the celebration.." he mutters.

     "... And right up there, the New Years' celebrations are already underway. How exciting." The antler helmeted Cait Sith barely sounds enthused at all even with the brief upwards lilt in her voice as she stares upwards at the fireworks going off. She's keeping her movements measured and careful, almost as though she has a camera mounted right on her head while she turns at a steady, non-motion sickness inducing pace. "They definitely didn't spare any expense on the FX budget on this, though, so let's just enjoy it and see if they have anything planned."

     She starts to hum a pleasant little tune softly, probably not to herself based on the way she's talking. She doesn't keep it up for long, though, as the black wave directs her attention in the vague direction of the Ezzo Empire when people start pointing that way. "Well well, folks. It does look like something's been planned. Let's hope it isn't a level-gated event, eh?" Humming lightly once more, she barely even flinches as she keeps her eyes focused right on that wave coming towards her. It's not until it actually hits her that she staggers back a few steps, reaching up to hold her helmet in place while getting on one knee to steady herself.

    "Could this be... A global combat event? Oh my. Let's hope they have good rewards even for newbies~"

For Taggart Wallace, the only difference to the start of the day and the end of it was which stool he was sitting in. He'd started by the door and through the course of the day had migrated to the counter top just as the teleport came in. Left on his backside, mug of ale in one hand and his currently woozy head in the other.

Speaking from personal experience, the sensation of tipsy teleportation was not a status effect he would ever get used too. This looming wall of darkness however? That was a bit of a sobering sight. A bit mind you. "Ah, hell... I gonna get reported for that. I didn't pay for the last glass."

    One moment, Misa Takayama was standing in front of several dozen people. Fellow guild members. Beside her, their guild leader was making a toast to the expansion and the new content they were soon going to be enjoying. Normally Misa wouldn't be up this late, but this is a special occasion. Besides, she's on holiday right now. She can afford to be just a little free with her schedule.

    The next moment, Misa finds herself moving a hand to hold her head as the scenery around her changes. Shaking her head a little, she glances around at the familiar surroundings of Carmina Gadelica. It's been a while since she was last here. It's unfortunate that this event seems to have split everyone up, but Misa is certain that everyone in the guild will all be able to rejoin each other again soon enough. It's just a quick trip through a Chaos Gate after all.

    Misa makes her way through the crowds of Adventurers, many of them celebrating the expansion and new year. Misa doesn't join them really, instead simply looking to see if she recognises any from her guild. Surely there would be a few who were part of the same kingdom as her...

    Misa's attention is drawn in the direction of the Ezzo Empire when those surprised calls begin to gather in frequency. Seeing that black could, Misa narrows her eyes. An event? It makes sense for an expansion release... But what more can they expect from it?

     That tone again.

     Always that tone.

     It's a quiet bell carrying on in the dead of night, when all good folk should be asleep. It's a pin dropping into a still lake, ripples out in all directions. That tone cuts through the world as if it was not there. It is a disturbance that makes a void of all the things of life - of laughter, of footsteps, of fireworks and festival. In the brief moment of that tone there is nothing but silence.

     Silence.

     A dead and dismal silence. A silence from which there is no end and no escape.

     In its aftermath the world continues on. The festival does not stop simply because of the tone. It carries on, lively, around the man walking briskly through the streets. Armored feet clang against cobbled streets. The sound of metal against stone is swallowed up by the bursting of fireworks. The urgent, angry look on his face is drowned in the flashing of the sky. Beautiful white hair and angelic white wings are painted in the glow of the Twilight Hour.

     The drawn sword in his hand glitters against the lights of the town.

     He is Balmung of the Azure Sky. He is the man who slew the One Sin, the legendary beast of Fragment that no other could take down. He is the Descendant of Fianna, partner of the long-vanished Orca of the Azure Sea, marked by the vast feathered wings even now stirring on his back.

     Balmung moves with purpose through the streets of the Town of Beginnings. Players and People of the Land alike are ignored in his march. People of both varieties mutter curiously about what could have that man so angry, what could have that hero so determined, on such a beautiful day.

     He's already heading for the Chaos Gate.

     The other shoe drops.

     The darkness. The great black fog.

     The Wave.

     Balmung breaks into a run. He shoves aside members of the crowd. Speculation fills his ears - a new event? A global combat mission? An expansion celebration? Metaplot? Loot?

     No.

     No, he knows. The ironclad look on his sharp and beautiful face could cleave through a wall. He knows full well what this is. Even if he does not know the details, all he needed to hear was the tone.

     Clang, clang, clang. Metal footsteps echo heartbeat. The Chaos Gate. Get to the Chaos Gate. Go. Every fiber of his being is screaming. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go.

     It's a clue.

     It's an answer.

     It's direction.

Gwen was on the way back from a dungeon run0 She's with Kaydon, Shir and the rest of their party one moment heading back to town to join in the party.

The next thing she knows she's separated from her party and teleported back to her home down. What he bloody heck? They are going to have to gate hop to get back together and get back into party time. Still, the A tone is heard then she's ported back to the Free Leauge and she'll boot up party chat.

<<Shir? Kaydon? Morrie? Uther? What the heck happened? Either way, we should link up once we get the bread crumb quest and tackle some of the new content tonight.>>

She looks up at the fireworks as she waits for a reply. <<Also did any of you hear an odd sound?">>

The tall pointy eared and purple haired woman had no idea what was up.

L'Anya, for her part, had actually been embroiled in her studies, initially heedless not only of the celebration, but also the expansion that was slated to begin. Elder Tale Online had from the very beginning been nothing more than a helpful means to expand her horizons, and she had been doing precisely that, roaming through a helpful Lander's house with a clipboard in hand, her eyes running along the walls and interior with careful interest even as she scratch-scratch-scratched out half-legible notes on the paper. "And this is the dining room?" she asked with a casual gesture... only for the Lander, the house, and everything in it to be replaced by something entirely different the moment after.

Where once there had been walls of stone and wood, there were now walls of people -- more people than she could count, or ever want to. There's a bit of panic at first, the fur on her body bristling slightly with decided lack of understanding for what was going on... until it clicks, along with the song in the back of her mind. Game update? It was jarring indeed, but her panic subsides to something more rueful, her eyes flickering back and forth among the crowd before she pushes her way towards a slightly-less packed vantage point -- stopped only by the sudden sound and appearance of fireworks to herald in something of a celebration she thought she'd skipped tonight.

        A in C Major

All too briefly, he felt seven years younger, a shadow creeping over his mind as Kite finds himself back where he began the game, in the Holy Kingdom Westelande. Slowly, he blinks.

It was amazing in many ways how far VRMMO's had come since back then. Fragments had utilized a kind of placebo effect with its VR, using voice commands and visuals to play the game; Elder Tale Online, comparatively was like a true virtual experience.

For Kite, every breath he took -- it was like he was taking a real one in the game. Every flex of his muscle, the warmth of the sun or the cold of the snow, it all felt real.

The fireworks blooming in the sky caught his attention. They were very pretty and helped soothe his unease. Hearing that jingle again ... but ... more importantly.

His character data shocked him. His old inventory was back, something he begins realizing now, reeling and trying to keep up with his thoughts. How was this possible? What was the connection?

There had to be one. He wouldn't have been told to come into this game otherwise. "The environment's so pretty, too. Even godrays don't look this good."

This real. Bringing a hand up to his head, he frazzled his own hair before releasing a sigh and opening his bright, bluegreen eyes. "Alright. I'll just keep all that at the front of my mind .. at least until I can get some more clues."

For now, he'd just enjoy the New Year's Ceremony. At least, that was the plan, until something deep and dark consumed the Empire of Ezzo. Kite moves, one foot in the front of the other. That couldn't be a coincidence. No, he felt it, deep in his gut.

At Moriko's response she nods, quickly adding a friend to the list, at least initating the action. "Thanks, for showing me around. This is definately a good start, to a new game, and a new year..." says Elrune slowly., as the black wave falls. Her voice shakes, as the wave seems to change the color scheme in an instant.

    The MOMENT he said that, Naotsugu suddenly had a very hard lurching feeling and suddenly teleported! "GAH! What the hell!? Mind giving a little warning next time!?" He was just shouting into the air at this.

    He turned around and looked around. "Wait. The Watchtower? Geez. Haven't been here in a while..."

    Somewhere among the crowd, there's a very tall blonde woman in armor. She stands out, particularly due to her head being quite a bit over the heads of most others, even the men. She looks about in amazement at the huge number of people, ponytail flipping this way and that, as she takes in all of the Adventurers surrounding her. She is checking for familiar faces, of course, but given the crowd here in the Town of Beginnings, there's a likelihood that anyone she knows may get lost in the hustle and bustle.

    Is this part of the new expansion? She doesn't know. But if she sees anyone looking lost or confused, then as a Crusader, it's her duty to approach them and offer aid.

Okay, she was expecting to land in Dun Loireag if there was some reason that she was going to get her location data messed up. It's happened before. There is more than enough precedent for that. But there are some little odd quirks that are telling Tetra that there's something not quite right.

How did her doctor once put it? 'Don't be afraid to listen to that feeling of impending doom. It's there for a reason.' Yeah. That's right.

"Editor. Pay careful attention to whatever is happening here. I'm going to want a second set of eyes on this later."

Everything is normal. Nothing is amiss. Keep calm and continue forward.

Moriko seems very confused, quite too distracted to actually finish friending Elrune. This isn't where they were a moment ago, and everyone else seems really confused, too. "What just happened?" She's asking the newbie. Not that she's not pretty much a newbie, herself, but, still.

Shiruba continues to squint, trying to make out just what that darkness is. The Chimlink does it's little beep that there's a message. Shiruba is just about to respond ... and that's when there's a crash. Not from the shockwaves but from the -big- Were Fang hitting the ground, then getting up and wading through the crowd. He's kind of hard to miss, being huge and armored at all.

Shiruba stands up on the scenery she was using as a seat. "No idea!" she shouts back to the lion.

She pings that she saw the message over Chimlink, but things are getting a bit weird for her to pose a response back to Gwen directly just yet.

    Scratching the mane on his head, the Were Fang Lion looks to other adventurers around and tilts his head, "So... anyone hear about some event for the Expansion? 'Cause if not, I'd love to know what's oging on over there." He points towards the Ezzio Empire.

    Hopefully someone nearby can tell him what's going on, because he certainly didn't read about an event or anything! Like seriously!

    His cloak might help to convey the confusion, as it gives off what looks like a bit of a rainbow of colorings. Dun Loireag is where he is at. And he tries to do the sensible thing as he brings up his menu. "I'm gonna log out and check the BBS. See what's going on."

As soon as the chimlink arrived, Nureha was already moving. Her purple layered dress, making her look like a languishing princess, trailed behind her as she moved out of the bedroom. She moved through the corridors, down the stairs. Everytime she saw someone in the guildhall looking out a window, she counted in her head and moved past.

She made a guild-wide announcement.

It was a Happy New Year announcement, full of good cheer and she ran down a few inconsequential guild matters before she pointed out. "Oh yes. It seems a new event is triggering in the Ezzo Empire, but it seems to be having difficulties and I don't want to risk anyone getting in over their head. We'll examine this new event at a later time. Meanwhile, enjoy the festivities."

After the guild announcement, she contacts those out in the field and starts trying to piece together some information.

    What is that, a new event?

    "It's gotta be!" Mizuki shouts back to the other dire feline were fang. "Really? You wanna LEAVE? We're already here, the event's already starting, whatever it is. If you log out now, you're gonna miss it!"

With the confusion that seems to be going through the group, Mikage shifts into a crouch, balancing briefly on the edge of the roof before hopping down to join the crowds of people now teleported together. "Stay up there, Rama. I'll be back." She waves at the Lynx, and then starts moving through the crowd. So many people feels a little uncomfortable, so she pulls her cloak up slightly.

After a moment, she spots someone who seemingly is talking on a chimlink. Gwen isn't someone familiar to her, but so are a good number of these faces. "Hey." She offers out, reaching out a hand for the other woman's shoulder. "Do you have any idea what is going on? My guild isn't around so I can't check in with them." Mikage looks a bit anxious, perhaps because of the press of bodies or the uncertainty of the moment. "Do your people know anything?"

    Esclados turns about, a hand ruffling his long hair around his temple. "What is going on?" He calls at those running by to better see the gloom shrouding the Ezzo Empire.

    Clack. Clack. Clack.

    His Geta sound the ground beneath his feat, and he stops by a large lionish Were Fang. "Do you know what is going on?" The iron Khakkhara he holds jingles lyrically. "I, um... have no clue what this kind of thing means."

    The Town of Beginnings! Megumin hasn't been back here since she was level 1! And... here she is, back in her old avatar as well!? She paid a lot of gold for that rare appearance-changing potion. She was ripped off! It must have been a duped item! Fuming, the very small Arch-Wizard grasps her magic staff, frowns heavily, and goes hunting for the one who sold it to her.

    Though in >this< crowd, that might take awhile. What kind of event is this, anyway? She looks up at the fireworks in the sky blandly. The multi-colored spectacle is quite a sight.

    "A paltry display compared to Explosion." she scoffs before returning to her search.

It dawned on Kaydon just how few people actually picked Outcast as their starting kingdom. He picked it because it seemed cool. Though it's hard to miss the determined looking Balmung storming through the streets with his weapon drawn.

He has definitely heard of that guy, how could you have not heard of him if you've followed the community at any length. He hops up to his feet and weaves his way through the crowd until he gets close enough to him.

"Hey!" He calls out, trying to grab Balmung's attention, "You seem to know what's going on, at least way more than anybody else around here does." He's trying to keep pace with him and figure out where he's going.

    Giganpor looks considerate, then shakes his head, "You're right. Might as well see what they say afterwards." He closes his menu, not even having gotten close to logout or anything. He does, however, open his chimlink. "Fellow Grandeur people, what you guys got on this event?"

Gwen is still trying to get an answer from her party. She would pause at Mikgage's actions She looks down Mikage for a moment she smiles a bit looking at her.
"I thought this was part of the opening eventing, my party was on it's way back from a dungeon and we all got hearthed back to our kingdoms. We're trying to reorganize but if ... you want"

She throws them an invite. "I can try to help you a bit if you are new. At least you can join us for the new years event! Oh I'm Gwen, Gwen Pendragon!"

     Kaydon runs after him.

     Balmung asks five words: "Did you hear that tone?" His eyes are hard and sharp. Those aren't the eyes of someone gunning for rare loot or some kind of special event or posting 'first' on a message board.

     Those are the eyes of someone in a life-and-death situation.

     Those are the eyes of a war veteran.

     "If you heard that tone, then your life is in danger."

     "We need to find a Twin Blade named Kite. He'll be at the center of this." The gauntlet tightens around the blade.

     "If you didn't hear the tone," he says, "Then go on and enjoy yourself."

     And like that he's off again.

    Merek looks between the people in Westeland celebration, that's a lot of people, though this brings the man to Zorin and Nevarri, not to mention the name of Kite and Tetra, along he travels looking for folk. He's with that group of people, and it is with them perhaps that the new adventure would begin. "Merek," he offers as an introduction, "I think admins are working a new kind of event," he mentions, then he spins those twin blades about which match along with a shift of the hip, with a look to people.

"Yeah I heard it." Kaydon replies, "It's still ringing in my ears."

When Balmung mentions his life being in danger, and needing to find someone named Kite, Kaydon starts to take this a bit seriously. This guy isn't just role playing. He knows SOMETHING and now he's got Kaydon worried.

"I'll come with you to find this guy." He says, "Just in case you need some backup. If we're really in danger, it'll pay to stick together."

So much for celebrating the New Year.

    This... was a rather large amount of people in Fort Ouph. "Whoa. Special event thing for the new year and new expansion? I guess that'd make sense, considering it's dropping at that point anyway." Naotsugu was more curious about this event, so he stepped towards a couple of other Adventurers, Gwen and Mikage, who both happened to be absolute hotties, with a wide smile as he approached. "Well hey there, ladies! Any idea what's going on right now? I just logged back in half an hour ago, and suddenly I'm here. Did I miss some announcement?"

    Actually Mizuki is still in christmas event gear. The floppy santa hat no doubt flutters dramatically in the wind of the shockwave. She eyes Lion Man talking into his chimlink -- she's seen others do that. "You're in a guild? Ah, of course you are, most people probably do." She peers around the building she's hiding behind. "You know, if CC Corp WANTED us to know about this event, it would've been on the official BBS or something. This has gotta be some kind of surprise. I'm gonna go up for a better look." With that, she starts wall jumping up the alleyway to get on top of a building. Damn, being able to do that is cool! It really makes you feel like some kinda fantasy beast-person ninja.

"An A in C Major. Huh. I had thought the musical expansion component had been delayed indefinitely..." Tetra remarks both aloud and over Chimlink as she looks around. "But I got a funny feeling." She pauses and smirks faintly. Maybe a touch nervously? "Womens' intutition?"

She glances towards a few of the other new returners to their home town.

Nureha hums tunelessly under her breath as she pours some tea for herself. It's never about the tea itself, but the ritual of making it. There are a precise number of steps involved. They are all things she has practiced and refined a thousand, thousand times. Each step is precise. Each hand movement is calculated.

She takes a few calming breaths, her toes curling in her boots and fingers tingling as her cheeks flush, a ear twitching to the side as she gives the empty air a lazy, contented smile.

But for all the comfort of normalcy, there was always the unknown. The unfathomed. The unpredictable.

She tasted her guildmate's concern and panic, taking a sip of bland nothingness that steamed like the real thing. There was something new here. Something she did not expect or have the ability to explain. Lost levels? Lost gear? Explainable. Tragic, but explainable. But a loss of base system functions? No event had dared so much without so much as a warning.

How intriguing.

"I did, too." Mikage replies, tugging at the hood of her cloak. Her Were Fang tattoo is just barely visible where the fur lining brushes against her neck. Her gear looks to be just slightly below high-end, made from leathers and animal skins which identify her class as being something in the druidic realm. "But I saw this dark shadow over in the North, towards Ezzo. It didn't look like fireworks to me."

She scrolls her fingers in the air, as if trying to bring up a menu. "I have a guildmate who has a root town there, but he isn't logged in." Mikage frowns and dismisses the menu. It's at that moment when Naotsugu approaches and she looks up, blinking, "Oh, hello. I was just asking Gwen the same thing. Did you see the dark cloud to the North? I spotted it from up on the rooftops."

Only then does she realize that Gwen introduced herself, but she hadn't offered the same. "I'm Mikage. Mikage Yurei, and that's Rama." She points upwards, towards a white Lynx who is looking down at them from the roof. "And you, sir?" She asks of Naotsugu.

By that point Shiruba has hopped down from her spot and making her way through the crowd gawking at the skies above. Eventually the wolfgirl pops up closer to Giganpor's armored form and others. "Does anyone have any idea what's up with that?" she asks in general of the gathering within the larger crowd. At least the lion is an easy reference point with his height.

Sinon pauses uncomfortably. Was she just teleported?

    She's momentarily struck by confusion, which is a poor case to be in when you're a person like her. And she heard a musical note. That feels strangely ominous.

    Yes, she's definitely been teleported, that much is certain. Does she still have the glass in her hand? Unsure. Wasn't much of a drink anyway.

    She looks around trying to ascertain where she is (aside from 'Dun Loireag') and who is nearby.

Over in Westeland, Nevarri squints a little as the event going down in Ezzo is happening up there, before she shrugs a big and considers how to to get about organizing her next exploration expedition. She peers at her stats, her gear, her everything......"

To Merek, who wanders over out of nowhere, she smiles and waves, "Oh hello! Yeah, I kinda figured the devs were doing something. Anywho, don't mind me, I'm planning my next outting. Didn't expect to be ported back to Westeland."

She then grins beings her fingers to her eyes and then points at Merek, "I'm Nevarri, your explorer's guide to ETO!"

    Giganpor looks down at those around him, "I don't know. I was in the middle of exploring a dungeon, and wham. Back to Dun Loireage by teleport, I guess. It was supposed to have some good gear I was going to hand out to some of the new players if I saw 'em around the Town of Beginnings, too!"

    The were fang lion shrugs, then looks back towards the black wave. "So... I don't think it's really got a shape to it... maybe something else going on?"

     "Then stay close," Balmung replies, "Keep pace with me. Else I may not be able to protect you."

     That knightly tone is something else. It's straight out of a storybook. A fairy-tale hero come to life. It'd be ridiculous if not for the deadly seriousness of his eyes and his tone, if not for the urgent pace with which he's running. From anyone else it would sound like overdramatic roleplay, and, fair enough, it probably was before whatever happened to give Balmung those eyes happened. But here, and now, it's real. It's the kind of thing people wish for - a heroic angel to come from the sky to save them, a pure knight in shining armor to rescue them from the darkness.

     And here he is.

     And that just makes the urgency all the more pressing. He stands out so much against the festival. An unreal thing that shouldn't exist charging at darkness that shouldn't exist, either. It is the feeling of stepping into a legend, not a story from a forum but a lay of legend where great darkness rises, where evil threatens the land.

     Where somebody dies.

     Where somebody sacrifices themself.

     Where somebody's story ends.

Kite pauses, his eye caught on a fellow Twinblade, talking to himself, or perhaps, just leaving an open-ended comment. But, both himself and Nevarri were having something of an interesting conversation. "Excuse me."

Politely, he waves them down, his unique red outfit a carryover from something else. There just wasn't anything precisely like it in Elder Tale. "My name is Kite, it's good to meet you! You were having a good conversation, so I thought I'd introduce myself. You two ... wouldn't happen to know much about the update, would you?"

Actually, she'd mentioned being something of a guide .. ah, she must've written that preliminary guide he read when he was installing the game. What a coincidence.

With shield half unslung he overhears Merek comment with confidence that this probably is actually part of the expansion experience. After reattaching he shield securely he wanders a bit closer and hears Nevarri's into. "Oh, you're Nevarri?" he questions befor continuing, "I used a guide or two of yours. It was helpful at the time." Then he glances back and forth between Merek and Nevarri, "Oh, I'm Zorin. I just overheard you guys talking that this may be part of the expansion? Was wondering if you could fill me in on what's going on?"

    Naotsugu looked confused at the mention of a black cloud. "Hmm? Black cloud? No... then again, I wasn't paying much attention to anything else other than the mobs I was kicking around."

    At the question, Naotsugu clears his throat and gives a charismatic smile. "The name's Naotsugu! Crusader extraordinaire! Maybe you've heard of my many exploits around Elder Tale! The Unbreakable Tank?"

    "I'm not sure, to be honest. I'm a tester, I'm just here to assist in debugging, celebrate with people," Merek mentions, nodding a bit to Zorin and to Nevarri. He then looks to Kite, "Well, the team didn't tell a lot about it, I just know that I'm excited to be here. I... Wish she could be here with me too," he says, smiling a bit. Then he sighs, "Pleasure to meet all of you, I'm excited to see what new crafting will be available." There's a look to Kite's attire, though there is a lot of custom in the game, it doesn't seem too curious.

The wave arrives. It bears right through houses. No cave, no house, nothing halts the purple-black fog-like wave from bearing over the people within various kingdoms. It hits like a current. Balmung almost touches the Chaos Gate... right as it seems to rust before his very eyes. The wave blasts across the peoples' bodies. Their armor ripped off of them, tarnished, or leveled down. Peoples' levels rapidly going down from their current level all the way to one. Their money disappearing! Those who happened to be in their menu, see the 'Log Out' button shatter spectacularly before their very eyes. It's like standing in the midst of a hurricane, the force pushing people back, until finally...

Black.

The world goes black, and the entirety of Elder Tale Online's Yamato players appear amidst Alne amidst a second wave of teleportation against their will. The massive ghost-city at the base of the Aincrad Tower. A city large enough to handle the enormous playerbase. People are amidst random roads. Small alleys. Inside of houses that are empty, yet furnitured, as Aincrad Tower, the ivory tree-like structure seems light light up.

Ripples of light descend, like squares being filled up along the sides of the Aincrad Tower. Spreading like branches, a loud tone playing as it slowly forms into shapes.

A chair. A singular, simple, wooden rocking chair, yet the image is massive enough that all who can see the Aincrad Tower, can see this image. And sitting upon it, is a singular man. Largely grayed brown hair crest his head, and his small eyes slowly look down towards the Adventurers below. His clothing is utterly plain. Brown corduroy pants, a gray pullover that doesn't quite fit him right, and a disheveled shirt's collar poking out at the top.

"If you are seeing this, then it means the worst has occurred. Unfortunately, it seems my invention has been taken into the hands of someone who means ill." He begins with a voice that seems softspoken. Yet he is loud enough that all within Alne can hear him amidst the quiet skies, and the potential shouts of fear. No doubt, nobody has noticed quite yet that the people of Ezzo are missing. But perhaps those Direct Messages coming through will set that straight quite soon.

Tetra was about to open her mouth to insert herself into the conversation with the others in her root town when suddenly the horrible feeling she had nagging in the back of her mind only gets worse. Instead the only thing that comes out of her mouth when she feels the rod she keeps in a holster at her belt shatter is, "HAX!" and then things get complicated.

She does not land gracefully.

    Just as he was about to score another point in the Panties Notebook, suddenly a purple wave sweeping the town! As a point of reaction, he himself moved in front of the two women he was speaking to, propping up his shield to block the wave, whatever it was! However... as it hit, it instead absolutely crusted over his shield, his armor, even his sword! "WHAT THE HELL?!" And suddenly, his levels plummeted! He wasn't anywhere near cap, but... "MY LEVELS!" And that was all he could say before suddenly...

    Black. Black again. Like the headset was turned off... he instinctually reached up to pull it off, but nothing. He couldn't move... stifled in blackness for what felt like agonizing hours! And then...

    Suddenly, Naotsugu finds himself falling through the air into the middle of Alne... facedown in the dirt of the main square just as the explanation and large hologram was starting up...

    And now she's teleported again. Being transported somewhere once against her will can be forgiven socially. Having it happen twice is just /rude/.

    It just so happens that Sinon; naturally paranoid Sinon, naturally too cautious- was thumbing her 'logout' button when she saw that cursed wave approach, sensing something not quite Right about it, and thus she is treated to the sign of the pertinent button being shattered into pixels before her eyes before a second wave of teleportation- this one a disturbing black- catches her up--

    And there she is in Alne, coincidentally near where Balmung and his friends have found themselves.

    Looking immediately like she has been hit by a wave of adrenaline, Sinon digistructs a bow into her hands- only to find herself holding onto a weapon considerably smaller and more basic than what she was expecting to find. She looks around at the people next to her, then up at the sky, then back to the people, then the sky.

Gwen looks to Mikage for a moment and looks the Werefang over for a moment. "Yeah, I did Mikage Yuri..." Gwen is speaking perfect Japanese though her accent is really strange. She looks over to Naotsugu for a moment and tilts her head a bit. "Hey there, I thought it was an event but that dark wave? I have no idea. No, you didn't miss anything and did you hear a strange musical note just a moment ago big man? It's a bit surprising to run into you. Look I don't know what's up but I suggest you join my party for the moment."

She will toss Naotsugu a party invite.

"From the Tea Party right?"

Then something else happens, first off Gwen sees her log out button shatter, then she sees her money going down, her gear explodes in some places, in others? It just becomes dingy and more worn out, the coin pendant she just picked up oddly is left intact but her levels are going down.

"What the HELL?!"

is all she can get out before the world goes black. She comes too at the Ghost City.

"My gear, my levels wait for the Log Out button... She's falling now and she'll end up landing face down on Naotsugu.

The cup clatters to the ground, shattering into light shards as it hits the floor. The Black Wave takes the Twilight City unprepared. There is screaming, but it is too late for screams. It is too late for running.

The Fireworks give way to the black wave and then to blackness itself.

Nureha stands because she is long, long familiar with the sensation of being powerless. Her dress turns to rags and peels away to reveal a plain, shapeshift grey blouse and skirt. Battered old shoes. The starter gear everyone has in the beginning.

In the beginning....

Nureha reaches over and digs her fingers into her arm as the panic reaches a crescendo in her brain. There was a time for that.

That time was not now.

She starts looking for her guildmates. The man in the chair can wait. The message will stay in her direct communications. Right now, she needed her guild around her. She needed to know it wasn't all gone.

That she wasn't alone.

Kite crosses his arms with a nod, smiling, but there's something worried about it. Like the look of someone nervous, about something.

That something appears like a tsunami, or perhaps a hurricane, the strikes every single person in Westelande.

It's a sensation that was hard to descibe, but he'd imagine that it was what it felt like to be caught in a riptide, or a raging, roaring stream that sends you shooting down its path only to wash up, battered, bruised, and just happy to be alive on some distant shore.

Kite wobbles on his feet. "W..what...?"

One moment he was speaking to Merek and Nevarri, and the next he was .. here. Where was 'here', anyway?

"There's way more people than before .. it probably wasn't a choice few who'd been teleported, everyone was taken back to their root town, I think .. in that case, everyone in the game's been teleported here by that wave.."

That's the conclusion he comes to after thinking about it for several moments. Opening his menu, Kite checks himself for an abnormal status, only to receive a terrifying sight. "What?! Is..is this some kind of bug...?!"

His inventory had been all but wiped, his gold was gone, and according to his status screen, while he didn't have any abnormal effects persisting, he'd been reset to Level 1. "L-level one ... "

The image of a shaggy brown man appears and begins to speak, capturing Kite's attention.

    The black wave hits, and Giganpor takes it all in. The wave didn't alt... it didn't stop for nothing. And then... Giganpor goes to open his menu to get a screen shot, only to see the Log Out shatter.

    Then his levels drop, and his gear's levels drop. The Were Fang looks shocked by it. "What the hell--" The second teleportation stops him from saying more.

    Giganpor, unfortunately, ends up in a random street. Only long days of VR training have him not ending up on his back side as he lands on all fours instead, raising up afterwards. He quickly inspects his gear to make sure he wasn't seeing things. Then he looks up at the sight before him. An old man in a chair, something being stolen? He starts looking around for others and looking for his chimlink and Guild listings to see if it was just him hit by this.

Just as Naotsugu is questioning her about the black cloud she had spotted, it seems to reach them. The hood of her cloak blows back, seemingly disintegrating into dust. It leaves her face bare, pale hair and a strange Were Fang tattoo visibile. Her gear seems to change along with it, reverting back to what looks like starting Druid gear. Simple leather armor with a few fur accents, but nowhere near the level of equipment she'd had previously. "What the heck?"

Even before she has time to take stock of what happened, it becomes clear that she isn't the only one going through the same experience. "They never said there was going to be a progress wipe." And then black.

The feeling is unsettling. Like holding your breath, waiting to see if the world returns.

Then, she finds herself teleported, landing hard on the ground still seemingly close to Gwen and Naotsugu, but in a very, very different place. The girl lands hard, wincing as her knees scrape against stone. "Owowowow." Trying to push up, she stares at Gwen, "Did you say something about the Log Out button?" Her hand swipes in the air, opening a menu, and then... she just stares. It is in silence, a feeling like stones dropping into her stomach, that she looks up at the figure presented so large above them.

The wave crashes. Kaleido stares, slack-jawed, as it washes over everything. This is quite the start to the expansion.

But then it turns out to be more than just a fancy visual effect. "Hey... hey wait!"

Gear, experience, stats, money, inventory, everything getting stripped away. It's surreal.

And then the logout button gets shattered right in front of Kaleido's face. "What the-"

Kaleido does not have time to worry or ponder about this, because the were fang gets teleported a *second* time, something quite excessive.

"Wait... this is... Alne? The Aincrad Tower? That's..."

Kaleido looks around. "What was the point of teleporting everyone back to their root town, if they're going to then bring us to here?"

"... Wait, why is Alne so... *dead*?"

There's some event message playing. Kaleido only half listens to it as the were fang starts making their way around, trying to scope out the situation.

The sudden and strange teleport.

Blackness, blackness like a she'd closed her eyes. Or had the headset lost power. This was brand new, it was not going to just die, like that. Then the world lightened.

     THe altered Landscape.

Elrune hadn't imagined what a game could be like when all of your senses were hooked up. But this was a spectacular first event.

    And then came the chair- the rocking chair- and the man who sat in it. What had failed, what was being used for ill? She turned to look around. Where was everyone else. She could see this from a window, the man in the chair framed by the glass panes. But this was a house and she'd landed upon the floor of a well finished kitchen.

     This was not where she had been moments ago. "Moriko?" she yelled. She struggled to her knees, trying to correct her orientation.

"Moriko?" she calls again. She reaches hesistantly for her menu- invite Moriko to the Party. Send----

Where was Log Out?

    Mizuki leaps on top of a building to see: The cloud about to wash over her.

    She is NOT prepared. She claws desperately at the roof tiles but is blown off, not even registering her gear changing as she falls to the ground. Not being an ACTUAL cat, she lacks the reflex to land on her feet, barely having time to think about how this is gonna hurt... But before she hits the ground, everything goes black. That's... that's not how death is supposed to work, right? Wait, no way was the fall damage from that height enough to oneshot this character...

    That's as far as Mizuki's thoughts get before she arrives in Alne. Okay, what the hell, one teleport makes sense, but two? If they all needed to see the distant explosion, couldn't that have been a cutscene? Maybe those are too disorienting in VR, though...

    There's a giant sky hologram dumping exposition. Okay, this is a weird event, but it's an unannounced, surprise event. There may not be clear information on this later, so she's going to *pay freaking attention*. Her ears rotate forward, her tail twitches with interest as she focuses on the sky.

    After a few seconds, it occurs to her that RECORDING this would be a good idea, so she goes to hit the button for that... ah, her HUD is glitched. She digs through the menu and it's not there either. Okay, that's weird...

    All the more reason to listen closely, though.

    Merek looks like he's about to continue the discussion with friends, the man is pulled into the ether of the wave. When he comes back into that world, it is with a look about him, probably placed next to the people he was with. Then he looks to his attire, which is leveled back to its base, a basic longcoat along with what looks like basic attire. Even those weapons are level one, though they keep an aesthetic to being black, then they are both sheathed back along. A look to the man that's speaking while he looks at his menu, and to everything. "What? That can't be right," he says.

    Suddenly there was a large OOF and pain as suddenly there was someone landing on top of him! "OWWW! The hell! That hurt! ... wait... that hurt...!" Naotsugu immediately stood up, possibly accidentally pushing Gwen off of his back as he examined himself!

    "HEY! What the hell!? What the hell happened to my Meteoros Shield!? My Knight Castle Armor!?" He patted himself down a bit and gasped! "MY PANTIES NOTEBOOK IS GONE!!!" That last part was shouted quite loudly...

The wave was close. Too close. Kaydon had managed to keep up with Balmung, but the gate rusted and broke away before their eyes. He watched as his gear, his levels, and everything else vanished. His money, his newly won sword, all of it gone, and then blackness surrounding him.

He hits the ground with a hefty thud, grunting and slowly pushing himself up to his feet, "What the actual hell.." He swipes at his menu, but the log out button is gone, reduced to pixelated ash like his weapons and equipment and money. Eventually getting to his feet, he rubs his head a little bit, looking at the huge man from the tower, "What the.."

    MY PANTIES NOTEBOOK IS GONE!!!

    Mizuki's ear twitches as someone shouts a nonsensical phrase. Damn, she doesn't understand Japanese ETO memes at all.

Just as Zorin opens his mouth for a response to Merek the wave hits. It's a moment of pandemonium and wooden walls shatter, stone walls crack and turn to dust, and screams can be heard all around. The wave throws Zorin against the wall he just walked from and the shield he spent so much time saving for shatters just as the wall itself crumbles. Spitting out dust he looks at his hands only to see his gauntlets fading and rusting. "What in the abyss is goin.." and then he is suddenly teleported again.

He lands face first in the dirt, mouth still open. Sputtering and spitting he quickly gets to his feet looking around. Confused he curses "What in the utter abyssal blazes is going on!" It seems that pretty much everyone else is in a similar state of confusion. Continuing to look around he mutters, "Where am I now? Is this Alne?"

Suddenly the image of the man appears and starts to speak. Zorin complains under his breath, "This isn't anything like the celebration I was thinking of.. well I guess it is memorable..?" He continues to gaze up as the image continues to speak.

"Nice to meet all of you! Well I haven't been told anything, I like to learn it all for myself as we----"

WOOSH...

"Go...? Wait, what, whe---?" Nevarri blinks as she looks around. At first to the menu's and then to the people around her, and then to the crowd around her, before reaching up and pulling the glasses off her face, on instinct and rubbing her eyes and trying to make sense of it all.

    "I... Wait... I can see... I can SEE, with my EYES. HERE. I can ACTUALLY see HERE! Like IN HERE!" Tears welling up in her eyes as to all observers, she is behaving like it's the first time she's ever used her eyes.

Then that giant image message happens, her eyes drawn to it. "Wait, what? What is he talking about..?"

     "What a strange even this has been already. Shockwaves, spawn teleports, weird noises... Well, folks. Let's put this to a vote." The lady with the antler-adorned helmet claps her hands once as she keeps addressing the viewers at home, raising an eyebrow when she notices people starting to freak out around her. Having literally just started the game less than an hour ago, there's not enough familiarity with anything for her to notice that anything's disappeared yet.

     All she notices is the blackness. The second teleportation. The sudden mass of people in yet another unfamiliar region while she stands precariously atop the railing of a balcony.

     The man in the rocking chair. He speaks, and the lady waits until he finishes before clapping her hands once again. "... Well! This is getting pretty meta real fast, but I'm feeling it. I'm feeling it. Feeling good. In. The. Hood." She chuckles pleasantly, wincing just a bit as she sees several people landing ungracefully not too far away. "... Six! Four. Seven!" She calls out to Tetra, Naotsugu, Gwen, and several others with that unenthusiastic enthusiasm, high enough to sound amused while mellow enough to sound like she's barely excited at all.

Kaleido's head turns towards the exclamation of someone's <Panties Notebook> being gone.

"The... heck is with you?" the bird asks Naotsugu.

Emiko hadn't noticed the wave at once, and only too late. She had reached for the console to try to log out as it stared to race over the marketplace... and then the button, as it was forming shattered. WHAT? Her face went pale as she is thrown around by the black wave. There wasn't much to level down on her gear though, not many levels to get lost. So much so good for being a low level player.

The reappearance on the place of Alne disorients her again, the ears of the fennec type Cait Sith swiveling to try to get some sort of orientation. "Where... why... I thought I was about to go home..." she mutters, blinking, looking left and right. "Who's that? What's he meaning?!"

The first was expected. Cynwrig hardly noticed the black wave. It was more of a distraction for him to suddenly be pushed and thrown. Cynwrig suddenly stops his walk cycle as he finds himself back in a single spot, head moving around steadily to pick up where others might be. Everyone is suddenly gathered together in one spot. Some kind of cinematic? Why would they have to teleport everyone together.

"Really, they couldn't make a new threat interesting without taking all of our levels and equipment first? Shoddy worksmanship. They really just don't know how to work with the gradual scaling up of a threat." Cynwrig mutters as he goes through menus to take stock of the new status quo. "What is this, some American game?"

The turning of Cynwrig's shaggy head stops as he finds the tower, watching the chair suddenly form. The clothing isn't right for the setting.

"How... annoyingly meta, but it could be interesting."

People are shouting. He sighs. Rabble.

The first thing Taggart noticed? The distinct lack of weight on his back. The second would be the fact that the majority of his gear, which he had painstakingly built a majority of for himself was now about as useful as a paper boat in a ocean or the english in a fight. Either way the rather large bellow that utters from his chest left the ears of those surrounding him with no doubt about his thoughts on the matter.

The string of words that followed, while not in Japanese certainly drove the point home.

"...and you can whistle for it you... absolute...gob shi..." his tirade of words pattering off as the need for air saw fit to inducing a rather viscous coughing fit. Still shaking a clenched first with mug in the general direction of the not at all ominous looking man in the chair.

Everything goes dark, and it feels like her world is spinning. And then, they'e somewhere else again, and there's a guy in a chair saying scary things, and someone is calling her name -- her character's name, anyway. Moriko makes a small whining sound and rubs at her eyes as she tries to figure out what's going on. Nothing makes sense...

Her name again. Oh, right -- Elrune. Elrune is here, too! Okay, okay, that's something. Moriko reaches out to her new friend, trying to take her hand. "I'm here, nya ..." No! This character doesn't 'nya!' She shakes her head, and, if Elrune lets her, she'll take both of her hands, then look back toward the man in the chair.

    Naotsugu pays the other people no mind at the present time and instead turns to look at the gigantic hologram, as if that'd do anything. "HEY! START EXPLAINING RIGHT NOW! WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MY GEAR?! MY LEVELS!? WHAT A WAY TO WELCOME BACK A NEW PLAYER, ASSHOLE!"

If her hackles hadn't already been on end, they'd be doing so stiff enough to be used and needles now. "I think it's clear this is not part of the show!" She's only come across most of these people (its a big game!) but instinctively she grabs onto the largest thing next to her, which is a towering lion-man.

It doesn't do any good, when the wave of darkness hits like a hurricane, knocking the normally surefooted Cait Sith off her feet and losing her brief grip. She barely gets a chance to register her gear degrading, and with several of the arcane arrows representing higher rank Wave Artes disappear from her quiver. Already somewhat wild hair flares violently behind her as the headpiece she'd collected disappears in the deleveling. Until she finally loses his footing completely and falls.

... and lands on her back with a growling grunt on some very uncomfortable ground. That stung, even with the pain dampening. "Oooow," she half growls, half whines as she rubs her head, and looks up to see the tower looming above them. And some kind of hologram(?) forming, speaking. Someone else screaming about panties notes. Ugh, she's Japanese and still doesn't get why some fans obsess over that sort of thing.

"I don't think this is part of the celebration any more..." Too random and elaborate to be the tie-in to the new content isn't it? She fumbles a moment before finding her bow, grabbing it and using it to brace herself as she gets onto her feet.... The noticed it to has degraded back to one of the early starting weapon designs. "... Aaaw."

    Giganpor calls out, "Quiet down! Everyone head for the square!" He starts to head for the main square himself, "Adventurers, head for the main square! My name is Giganpor! Head for the square, let us figure this out!"

    The Were Fang assumes his lion-like form again, calling out the same thing over and over as he goes. Trying to get people to the square at least. Hopefully his cloak still works as that light effect could be helpful right now! The darn thing will allow him to attract people as he goes.

L'Anya hadn't seen it at first. She had been focusing on the fireworks and just finding a spot that wasn't so densely packed, and so when everyone else began looking somewhere else or chattering or what-have-you, she just chalked it up as the people being just as disoriented as she had initially been. All it took was one spare glance, however, one idle moment of curiosity before she became aware of that fog of black. It was too late, of course -- far too late to actually do anything about it -- and yet her fur still bristled with a mild bout of panic before she begins to flee towards the corner of the square with far greater intensity. She had focused her time on her studies rather than seeking out any dangers, and so when the dangers sought *her* out instead, the digital nature of this experience is momentarily forgotten for the sake of pure fight or flight, the latter forced upon her immediately.

She's rather quick on her feet, but careful of jostling too much or pushing others who might find themselves in her path, slowing her progress. Although it might not have done her any service, she doesn't even make it to shelter before that wave blasts over her and she finds herself just... *flung*. She didn't exactly have much to show for her time in the game, but that was the farthest thing from her mind right now, the relative VR-newbie utterly caught in the moment as though her life was truly at stake.

And then... another locale. Another place. It's only here that she remembers that this was fantasy, though such knowledge comes too late to stop the hammering of her pulse or the bristle of her fur. She's left trembling on her knees, not quite able to rise to her feet from the wash and sudden crash of adrenaline, fingers curling slightly into the dirt as she reflexively latches on to *something*. Only once the voice begins does she raise her head and realize she is in another locale, one she faintly recognizes from the architecture as unfamiliar to her, though those eyes are quickly drawn to those projected lights. This was... one hell of a way to start an event; if this was what she had to worry about each time she logged in, she'd have to have a talk with her professor about a different method of study....

    Misa stands her ground as that black cloud approaches. As it grows closer, getting larger, the navy-blue haired woman frowns just a little. This event seems odd. It doesn't fit with the atmosphere of the celebrations. Maybe... Maybe she should see how the others are doing. Misa swipes her finger, bringing up her menu along with her equipment status. However, before she has a chance to open her friends list, the cloud reaches Carmina Gadelica.

    Misa raises a hand to protect her face as the wave of dark hits her. Misa struggles against it, teeth gritted. The armor plating attachments on her clothes shatter. Through squinted eyes she can see her equipment levels, her stats, her currency, all quickly diving. Finally, shortly before everything goes dark, Misa sees the 'Log Out' button simply destroyed.

    Misa is still standing in that pose, hand raised, when she finally opens her eyes once more. She slowly relaxes as she recognises the town of Alne. Another teleport? Misa looks around for several moments, before returning her attention to her status screen... All level one. This is definitely unusual. There was no word of a character wipe for the update. And such a thing would result in a massive backlash from the playerbase if they attempted it intentionally. A bug?

    No. Misa looks up as the message from the old man appears. It's not very helpful. Except that it just goes to prove that this was not a planned event. The shouting begins, players all around Misa getting angry at the sudden impact to their levels and equipment. But Misa herself seems mostly unaffected. That is until she starts weaving her way through the crowds, head quickly turning left and right. Her eyes dart over all the faces she can see as she moves quickly. This looks like it could be the entire playerbase... They HAVE to be here!

"You have a panties notebook?" Mikage asks, one eyebrow raised, looking a bit perplexed at the shouting.

In the next instant, there is a dawning realization as she looks around, "Rama..." Then, she calls out a bit louder, "Rama!" But there is no sign of the animal companion that she had with her previously. Perhaps he was simply lost in the level down, or hadn't been teleported with her. Regardless, her face falls.

"Something is really bugged out." She rubs at her skinned knees as she gets to her feet, "Are you two okay? I mean, other than the lack of questionable notebooks?" She asks of Gwen and Naotsugu. Looking up, she joins some of the shouts of others, "Out with it already. What the hell!" Her brows draw inward in frustration.

     The plaza.

     The Chaos Gate plaza. People walking to and fro. Players laughing, talking. New features. New classes? New monsters? New areas? The expansion had been so under wraps. So secretive. So many rumors to talk about with friends.

     Balmung barrels past them all. He shoulder checks past players, knocking people to the ground. They'll talk about it later with their friends - did you see that? That was the Descendant of Fianna! He shoved me! Holy shit! How awesome is that? They'll post it on the forums - did you see the Azure Sky? He was bailing through the plaza on his way to some event. How cool would it be to party up with him?

     Don't bother. That guy doesn't party up with anybody.

     Whum. Whum. Whum. The Chaos Gate spins slowly in the air amidst the countless moving faces, the countless empty faces, the countless people who can't imagine what's about to happen. The sound of it is a comforting thrum. A comforting hum. Music through a fan. Whum. Whum. Whum.

     Armored fingers outstretch towards the familiar whirling portal.

     The portal tilts away.

                                 L O G O U T                                

                             SELECT NEW KEYWORD                            

                                   HIDDEN                                  
                                 FORBIDDEN                                  
                                  --------                                  
                            ERROR! ERROR! ERROR!                            

     "NO!"

                                L O G O U T                                

     One second sooner. One second sooner, and perhaps-

     Perhaps he would not now be falling from the sky. Perhaps the Descendant of Fianna would not now be falling, falling, falling from the heavens, an angel in every sense of the word. The tone, the tone, the damnable tone, it rings, it sings, it accompanies every ripple of light as they take the shape of a man, of an old man, of an old man sitting on a rocking chair.

     Direction.

     Answers.

     Balmung's armor is gone, his blade is gone, but his beautiful white wings remain. The wings flare. They rain feathers down on the area below. They cast a shadow of hope across the ground below him as he falls, falls, falls, his eyes locked on the old man's.

     The worst has occurred.

     The worst had already occurred!

     The worst occurred seven years ago!

     He wanted to scream. He wanted to roar. Every fiber of his being shook. Orca. It's happening again. It's happening again!

     To everyone.

     The beautiful angel descends from Heaven, touching down amidst Aincrad like a vision of hope.

     His voice echoes out across the crowd. It's clear and powerful.

     "Keep calm!"

     "You must keep calm. Whatever else you do, you must remain calm. This is not an event. This is not supposed to happen. You are not supposed to be here."

     Balmung takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.

     The first duty of a hero is to protect the people.

     His eyes open.

     The second duty of a knight is to stop evil.

     And what do you know. There's Kite.

     Balmung draws whatever weapon he's been given. It's a shabby old sword, a Level 1 sword, but he doesn't care. He leaps up from the crowd, white wings flaring once again to carry him over players like a sight from a comic book.

     "KITE!"?

Gwen is on top of Naotsugu now it's taking a moment as she climbs off her fellow tank turning a bit red then something hits her, she looks to him as he freaks out she checks and opens her menu. "I was throwing them an invite when... the Log Out Button exploded." Gwen one looks very red, two she takes a moment. "Everything's gone, The Crusaders Beast Plate, all of my gear is gone or ... levelled down save ... One thing."

The new drop she got tonight, the coin pendant is all she has left and she paused while she's wearing armour she pauses she shifts the weigh og it feels /right/ like she was suited up for a tournament.

"... Wait why is everything feeling ... right? My armour, clothes..."

She reaches out to touch her ears which feel right she gets full on feedback from then.

"What in God's name is going on..."

While Gwen wouldn't notice Naotsugu would notice Gwen's Japanese is suddenly flawless.

"Naotsugu ... worry about your panties later. Everything ... feels real..."

If Shir overhears her friend she would notice her Japanese is now perfect as well.

Dragging herself to her feet and dusting herself off, Tetra scowls a little bit as she works to get her bearings. "A surprise gear reset, now this..." she murmurs. Then she pauses, looking a touch shocked. It only lasts a moment before she puts on her game face and rubs a little at her shoulder.

...On with the show...

She takes a quick stock of her current situation, quietly alarmed at the state of her inventory. Her town gear is in good shape, at least. It's all cosmetic stuff.

"Not my best patch day..." she says through a carefully composed smile. She visibly reacts to the presence of Balmung with a look of recognition.

     It looks like people are headed for the square! Or at least, someone's trying to herd them that way by calling out specifically to the other players. "Hm.. Might as well. Going with the swarm should be easier than trying to deal with rougher boss mechanics on our own." And with that, Tadaya follows the man-turned-lion, leaping off her balcony perch to jog behind a whole bunch of people she doesn't quite recognize. There's a winged man calling out to everyone that catches her attention as well, and her eyes actually widen when he draws his starter weapon while calling out to a...

     She's pretty sure Kite's a player's name and not just an object here.

    Being near the big lion seemed to be the best place to be. Esclados doesn't shout, but instead between each of Giganpor's shouts for people to collect, he stamps his Khakkhara on the ground. Its many rings clattering. Fortunately that was all the thing could do before, so no real loss in ability.
    He waves the staff in the direction the lion was pointing at, acting the hype man to his stage front.

    Clang. Clang. Clang.

    Despite his actions a look of confusion remains on Esclados' face. The spriggan is obviously scared and uncertain of what is going on, but still he clangs and waves.

    You must keep calm. This is not an event. You are not supposed to be here.

    Oh boy, now there's TWO exposition NPCs contradicting eachother. This is getting good.

    She smiles. If only she had popcorn.

There is the faint buzzing of a broken light fixture. She can't get it out of her head as she stares around. An angry, distracted, unsettling, anxious, fearful crowd. A seething mass of faces and names and people all in starter gear. All victims to the same event.

This doesn't make her feel any better. She told herself she would never have to feel like this again. At the beginning, where everything went wrong. Now, without even the possibility of escape.

Feeling crushed by a sudden stab of Agoraphobia, she hears Giganpor call out to draw people to the main square. It's what she should be doing. Getting control of the situation, but she can't draw attention to herself. Not like this. Not now.

She slinks along, nodding in gratitude to the lion-like Were fang as she passes but not making eye contact, and something brushes her cheek.

A stray feather. She looks up, tracking Balmung's descent. His words.

Her eyes narrow, her arms clutched to her sides as though barely holding herself together.

He knows. This is something he knows. She followed after him, even though she couldn't keep up. It was purpose. It was reason.

That was good enough for now.

Someone shouts the log out button is gone. Cynwrig's head goes slightly down and to the right. "What? That's silly. This is silly! You don't have to edit the program trying to keep immersion."

Some man in armor starts going nuts, Cynwrig's eyes widening. He stands back to watch the knight carry himself across the crowd. He watches in appreciation as Balmung goes, then frowns at the username. "Could have sworn I heard of that man before." Instead of following Giganpor, THAT seems like the story he is more interested in. He pushes against the crowd to watch the knight as he sails towards his destination, the focus of his life's battle. That is the face of a man who craves a single goal in life.

That is the story he wants to see.

    KEEP CALM.

    That voice! That was a familiar voice! It couldn't be! Looking around, then finally up, he finally noticed him! Balmung! And suddenly... a shout of a name and suddenly the flaring of his assault! He rushed up as fast as he could in an attempt to put himself in Balmung's path, battered level 1 shield and a Wax Sword, wearing what looks to be ragged padded leather armor, as he readied himself to go defensive! "BALMUNG! What the hell are you doing?!"

With or without glowing cloaks Giganpor is the easiest visible form to follow. Plus he's got the right idea, get everyone together and calmed down, then figure out what the floating image is talking about. The old fashioned low level bow is tucked into place as Shiruba picks up the pace to follow.

But gets distracted when she hears another familiar voice in the gathering crowds. Or mostly familiar sounding. "Gwen?.. Gwen!"

In a few moments of scampering around people the elf would have a wolfish cait latching onto her with a hug. "There you are! Are you okay? Did anything... huh."

Shiruba stops in her ramble, and leans back a little, ears flicking up as she tilts her head to the side. "How come I can understand you perfectly now?"

    Frowning as he doesn't see anyone responding to him, Giganpor raises his voice. The Were Fang form has a nice set of lungs on it as he raises his voice, "Adventurers! Comrades! Come to the main square! Belly ache over your gear later! We are unable to log out and I request assistance in figuring this out! Rise up and come to the square!"

    The large Were Fang Lion continues to bellow again and again, making his way to the square. It's hard not to notice his character avatar's size either. It's huge, even with the down-levelled armor he has on.

    "This may be a bug! There is no log out button! Come to the square as we seek the answers!"

    Giganpor's not giving up on at least trying to figure this out. And to get people together. This almost seems like a raid to him, but then why the down level? Level locks? Still, his yells continue as he tries to attract people to the square to try to figure it out together.

    Danger. Danger? Danger.

    Balmung speaks and Sinon listens. There is something Wrong here, something Dangerous. Something that she has honed herself to protect herself against. Asada Shino needs to step away from the keyboard and allow calmer hands to take the reins right now. And so Sinon tightens her hands on an unfamiliar weapon and looks at the gathering people- Naotsugu, Balmung and Kite.

    And the giant floating electronic old man.

    "Answers," she says succintly, "I want them."

The hands clinging to her own settled her, a bit.

"Ok well we're not seperated." she said pointed to the window and the man in the sky beyond it. "So... who's that? He's not a figure from the game.. he's talking about the game right? Right?"

The calling lion-man-lion again is at least something. It's better than nothing and at least then they're not alone anymore. Grasping her friend's hand. "Let's at least go to the square..."

She's quiet, but as she rights herself she pauses, the wood beneath her fingers feels smooth, but not as smooth as modern treated wood. She could feel the individual grains as she pushed off. As she reached the doorway of the house. She stopped.

The sea of colors and armor- had been reduced to... basic gear, she supposed. She turned back to Moriko and delicately offered it ,hesistant but hopeful. The lion's call rattling in her brain. "Come on, Mori." she said firmly.

Cynwrig puts his fingers up to his face, rubbing at the bridge of his nose, a habit from real life, "Can't people just sit back and observe. This is why I don't PUG."

It takes Gwen talking about the change in sensation for Mikage to even really process it. The game had always felt more real to her than her own reality, for any number of reasons, but now... It is easy to read her expression, she looks down at her legs, picks one up, then the other, then flexes her fingers. It is almost as if she were re-discovering her own body in a way that is entirely new.

"Did they upgrade the haptic system? I wonder..." She seems to go down a trail of thought, but then quickly snaps back to reality. She opens her mouth as if to ask Gwen another question when all of a sudden a Cait Sith is latched onto the woman. There were too many people around, too many new faces and no cloak to hide in anymore. So, Mikage just shifts anxiously on her feet.

"Hi, there." She offer to the new arrival, then glances in the direction of all the shouting. "Someone will always step in to lead when there is confusion. The question is, do they know any better than we do." Still, she offers a faint, nervous look towards Gwen and Shiruba, "You seem to have a lot of friends."

        KITE!!!

The blue-haired human in question is frowning. Balmung had done a good job at capturing attention, though his prescence here was disconcerting in as many ways as it was relieving. It'd been seven years, but, even still that man's words stung him to his core. To some extent, even Kite believed them.

That's why it had to be him who rescued Orca. "Balmung...!"

The Twinblade draws his base level weaponry, two simple and unadorned, unassuming dirks. He didn't want to fight, but he had the feeling that the other player wouldn't give him a choice.

Thankfully, as if a stroke of luck, a giant of a man intercepts Balmung with his shield.

Kite speaks for himself, quickly and passionately, "Whatever's happening, I didn't do it."

    Merek would find both Balmung and Kite again, as well as people from the group he was with, not to mention new faces, taking the time to look at the folk, nodding a bit, "You seem to know something?" he asks, lifting a brow at the way Kite states that to the man.

"Um, o-okay." Moriko keeps hold of one of Elrune's hand, afraid of getting swept away to somewhere else yet again. She bites a little at her lip, then takes a deep breath and shows her new friend one of her bright smiles. "Let's go see what's going on!" She laughs again, as if everything isn't strange and scary and off. There's a nervous hint to the laugh, but it still sounds natural enough. She doesn't seem nearly as frightened, anymore.

     Blade meets sword. Steel meets steel. A ringing sound across a crowded room. The sound of conflict. The sound of battle.

     Balmung skids back from the block. Great white wings widen to stop his slide. To keep him up. People give him plenty of space. A wide arena.

     "Naotsugu."

     Balmung's voice is quiet. His eyes are hard and sharp. The fingers not clutched on his sword tremble. He straightens, flicking his blade down and to the side. No longer in an attack stance. He wields that thing like it's old hat. Like he's actually used a sword before in real life. Sure, it's a broadsword, and he's holding it like a kendo stick, but that's not an amateur's stance.

     "Naotsugu, get out of the way."

     Balmung starts advancing, slowly. One foot in front of the other. He's not moving aggressively yet. The charge towards Kite has been stalled by an iron wall that Balmung has seen more than once. Raids upon raids, he's seen Naotsugu stand as a juggernaut, steel and meat and miracle all at once. He can't fight around Naotsugu before Kite gets away.

     But Kite. He's right there.

     He's right there!

     The sword trembles. "I need you to get out of the way, Naotsugu."

     The repetition is shaky. His voice is shaking. "I need you to get out of the way."

     Kite says he didn't do it.

     Balmung's voice drops to a low whisper. "Do you expect me to believe that?" It carries through the crowd. His voice rises. "Do you expect me to believe it, Kite?!"

     "At the chapel! With Orca! You're always there, Kite! Every time that sound echoes, every time the chime rings, you're there! You're always there!"

     Balmung swings the blade up towards Naotsugu. "He's the center of it."

     "Kite is the center of all of this."

     "Move aside, Naotsugu. So I can deal with him."

     "Everyone's life is at risk because of him."

     The words are spoken with conviction. Certainty. Again, that faerie-tale knight stepped forth from a legend doesn't feel like some complex roleplay but a true hero who came forth to vanquish a great evil and probably die in the process. The look in his eyes certainly says he's willing to.

     "We're trapped in the game."

Ragna seems to be looking around at the moment, rubbing the back of his neck as he looks at his suddenly super low-level....everything. "What?" He narrows his eyes as he seems a tad alarmed. "Well....looks like I get the fun of starting over again. Was there a malfunction?" He starts moving around, noticing everyone else having the same problem. However, he notices Balmung, Naotsugu, and Kite 'fore his eyes widen.

"Trapped." He says with a large frown as he moves to get involved.

"Please, we have to stay calm or the situation will get worse."

It seems just as the image appears and starts to relay its message panic is already starting to grip people. Shouts can be heard that the game is bugged - that the log out button is gone. Others seem to be running through the crowd pushing people over. Distractedly Zorin gestures to open his menu, and indeed there is no log out button. Getting frustrated he closes the menu and with his mouth drawn into a line and eyes squinting slightly he glares back up at the image.

    "That," Sinon says, voice as calm as a lake, "Would explain why my LOGOUT button just disappeared."

    To Balmung and Kite, "Who are you? Who is /he/? What's going on here?"

"Wait, what?"

Kaleido is standing to the side, watching all this play out... They don't really know how to react to Balmung of all people trying to PVP in a root town. It's like something out of a parody, on top of everything else.

"... Wait, trapped?"

Kaleido frantically brings up the UI menu again, and searches for the log-out button... which really is gone, that wasn't just a cutscene effect.

"TRAPPED? IN THESE BODIES?"

The were fang starts to hyperventilate.

    The second plot NPC, after delivering exposition, shouts 'KITE!' and then charges at someone. Mizuki runs after him to see where this is going. Kite and Naotsugu come into view, and that's when she realizes both them AND Balmung are indicating as Players. Wait, what?

    She hesitates to speak up. What do you even say to someone so deep into roleplay that they're spewing nonsense about the event?

    That would explain why my LOGOUT button just disappeared.

    Mizuki looks at Sinon. "Oh, don't be silly." She brings up the menu and.

    ...That must be a glitch. Mizuki closes and reopens the menu.

    And again.

    ...

    "Geeze." Mizuki mutters. "The Japanese server is crazy. That's a cool effect and all, but what if someone actually has an emergency before they turn it back on?"

Nevarri is still in a state of simmering excitement/panic/existential crisis over her ability to once again, and when she makes an effor to reorients herself, she having lost track of people, her attention is drawn to the loudest of noises, which are specifically Balmung and Kite.

    She blinks a moment as listens to Balmungs rant, and looks down at her hands, before looking back up and setting the glasses back on her face, and taking a breath, before calling back at Balmung, "How? How could this be real? That shouldn't... I'm legally blind in RL but I feel like my eyes are working perfectly!"

    She points at Kite, "How could he have done that?"

    Naotsugu kept himself between Balmung and this... Kite... kid? This was one of the first times Naotsugu's ever had a serious face on! "Not until you calm the fuck down, dude! You don't go killing other people for little reason!"

    And then Balmung said the reason... 'We're trapped in the game. Everyone's life is at risk because of him.' "What the hell are you going on about, Balmung!? How could a kid do something like this to all of us!? It's not like this kid's some magic admin hacker or something! Now calm your head, or I'll start doing it for you!" He took up a defensive stance.

    He turned his head a little bit towards Kite. "Hey. Don't sweat it. We'll figure out what's going on, CALMLY." He emphasized that word as if to point it more towards Balmung.

Cynwrig's right hand moves, as if he might be doing something with it. Writing, most certainly, moving steadily downward, then coming up again.

Then Cynwrig groans to himself as Balmung speaks, "Not one of these. These are never done well. This is the lowest form of story writing, basic at least. Maybe they'll make it interesting on the Pee Ell side, but this is terrible. I was almost starting to enjoy myself."

"Still, the knight's dialogue is pretty good, if hammy, pretty good for some famous player," he mutters, looking around at the tower again. When will this END. He definitely wants to get back to something more interesting.

A thick, heavy lump is swallowed in Kite's throat. He knows that -- he's always there. Is it a coincidence? Not entirely, he does seek these things out. The only time it was truly and entirely up to chance was the first time. The day Skeith attacked. The day he received the Book of Twilight.

His bright, bluegreen eyes move between Balmung and the various player staring at them, such as Merek and Sinon. Some of them begin to panic, breathing in and out deeply. Many are simply shellshocked.

Kite purses his lips, "It's happening again.."

After murmuring, Kite addresses Balmung again, "I don't really know what to say..." he admits, " ... maybe it is my fault. I don't know. But I'm not going to let anything stop me this time, Balmung, not even you."

He'd rescue Orca, and he wouldn't die even if it killed him, not until he was sure his friend would wake up.

He appreciates Naotsugu's demeanor, and nods his head. "I don't want to fight anyone", he adds.

One fellow wasn't in the celebratory square. No, he wasn't a part of celebrations either in the real world, nor online.. He didn't play the game to socialize, well, not to socialize with anybody except his fellow coworkers.

Initially, he didn't see anything strange. The darkness of the forest, and killing more squirrels. Something that his coworkers told him was 'grinding,' something he could appreciate since it was like the grind of work.

And then..

Confusion..
Towers.

People shouting about events..

Unlike the others, he never figured out the logout command. He tries to manually disengage the interface, and discovers that he's just taken his helmet off..

He steps forward towards the swords clashing.. And the group gathered around.

He frowns.

His eyes skim over the group, trying to find the one amongst this crowd of clown-people who seems calmer and less ridiculous..

"Wait, the log out command isn't working?"

He tries to bring up his menu, and fiddles around, "We should file something with the administrators.. Also. I don't seem to be able to take this...stupid...game thing off. I have to work tomorrow, does anyone know how I can just hard shut it down? Control alt delete? Alt plus F4?"

He sighs, a long drawn out sigh, "It figures nobody's around when this goes down.."

He rubs his eyes, trying to make sense out of the menus, "..."

"All of my squirrel pelts are gone. Is that normal?"

"I swear, I should have read the manual for this game.. So many interface windows.. It's a game, why does it need to be this complicated?"

Tetra's eyes narrow fractionally at the statment 'trapped in the game.' It isn't a look of disbelief. But her eyes then go over towards Kite and the fact that he, like everyone else, has also been apparently dunked on in obvious fashion. "Just as an observation.. he looks like he's in pretty much the same boat as us right now..."

She's accustomed to keeping her cool in bad situations. Particularly when said mortal peril can happen randomly.

Keep calm? Wait that voice is that Balmung?!

"Wait? Balmung here?"

she's about to say more when Shir arrives talking about ho she can perfectly understand her.

"What do you mean I am speaking Japanese perfectly?"

She looks very confused and at this point Mori the party's MIA healer has shown up and is trying to form bu but no sign or sound from Uther.

"Where's Uther he's not responding to my messages..."

Mori notes with concern.

Gwen looks back to Balmung.

Then Balmung is trying to do a thing as Naotsugu has made a call she does too. She falls in with her far lessen fear it's strange it looks like Gwen has some idea of how to use her gear, it's rather odd.

"Hey what the hell are you babbling about?! Trapped in a game?! Are you insane Balmung?!"

The good news is if this breaks into a fight Naotsugu has some backup.

"You are the one who needs to calm down, Balmung. Also if this turns in to a fight the Royal Guard will step in! If our lives are indanger and you start a fight they will kill us!"

    Wait, that's Balmung. But the interestingness of that thought has to get in line behind things like the guy in the sky, the broken logout button, and--

    "What do you mean /again/?" Mizuki asks, after Kite's sort-of-admission.

The old gentleman on the chair continues to speak, amidst Adventurer reactions. "My fellows seem to truly be fools, loving power so greatly. They have not learned from the mistakes I made."

There is a long pause, but it's clear he's not truly looking at any player in particular. His expression turns to anguish as he continues for a moment, before it turns to one of intense respect.

"I will instead put my faith into you. And let you, those trapped, decide what to do with both this Gift, and this Curse I left in the hands of my Children."

"Hidden within this World, I've placed the Twilight K~" The image flickers in and out, the voice distorting. Almost as if something were fighting this image's presence.

"Chase the gift that my Wife left you if you wish to change. Climb the tower. And trust in my Chil~~~"

Red numbers rush over the man's appearance. They cut at the man. Rip the image of this man on that simple chair to pieces. Slowly encroaching in on him, making his image smaller and smaller. Until, moments later, his existance is cut. Leaving only the evening. The eerie quiet of Alne. The enormous stature of the Aincrad Tower.

And its Adventurers.

    A deathly calm overtakes the atmosphere as the figure speaks.

    Sinon is at a loss. And she still can't contact Kyoji. So, naturally, she discards the thread. No sense in worrying. More pertinent things to concern herself with. The Twilight what?

    She glances again back and forth at faces in the madding crowd. She waits to see how they will react. A little privately, she looks at her small, measley bow with disappointment. She liked that bow.

    Inside, a part of her is screaming in terror.

     Bamung's breathing is slow and calm as Naotsugu speaks. There's a sense of deep, deep unease radiating from the faerie-tale knight, from the angel. He can't let Kite escape. He *can't*. He can't allow it! Too long! Too far! Too much has happened, too-

     "Orca of the Azure Sea."

     Balmung's words are another pin-drop. There's actual pain in his voice. Again, not the feigned play of someone joking around, but a glimpse of what had kept him on the outskirts for so long. He never partied with anyone after Orca of the Azure Sea...quit? After the other Descendant of Fianna disappeared?

     He looks past Naotsugu. At Kite.

     "Tell them."

     The sword scrapes along the ground. "TELL THEM, KITE!"

     "TELL THEM WHAT HAPPENED TO ORCA! TELL THEM WHAT'S HAPPENED TO THEM! TELL THEM ABOUT THE COMAS! ABOUT THE CHIME!"

     "TELL THEM HOW YOU'RE ALWAYS THERE, KITE! HOW EVERY TIME, YOU'VE BEEN THERE!"

     Nevarri asks him a question. Balmung's about to answer when the man in the rocking chair does it for him.

     Balmung closes his eyes. His beautiful angel wings close. His lips twist into anger.

     "I warned you," he says, his voice quiet, "I warned you."

     "Your lives are in danger. *Our* lives are in danger."

     "We're trapped in the game and once again Kite is here at its center."

     Balmung sheathes his blade. "No matter how ridiculous you think it is, how ludicrous, how nonsensical, how insane you believe it to be, I promise you that it is true. We are trapped in the game. Whether it's your fault, Kite, or you're to blame, or something you've done by accident, I don't know. But I know that the answers are with you and I will have them."

     Balmung's wings rise. "I will save Orca. Whatever it takes."

    Reaching the main square pretty quickly, Giganpor pushes his way forward. Seeing who it is, Giganpor raises his voice again, "Hold your actions, Balmung!"

    Giganpor is a very large character, as noted, and he looks around at what is there. "I have been conferring with others in the chimlink for Ninetails Dominion. We do not know for sure what is happening."

    Looking up at the image, the lion frowns a little, then looks to Balmung. "You are a popular player, Balmung. The people seeing you like this will cause mass panic."

    Turning, Giganpor looks around as he raises his voice, "Adventurers! I am Giganpor of Grandeur! Some of you may know me, some may not! Like you, I am confused as well! The only thing we do know is that we are stuck here! Spread the message to your Guilds! Whatever happened came from Ezzio! Find out what is happening there and we may have answers!"

    Turning as he lowers his voice again, Giganpor looks at Kite. "Were you near the Ezzio Empire when this started?"

It's impossible not to notice the chaos going on around the two figures nearby. Balmung and Kite. One name she has heard of, but neither are likely names she'll remember after tonight. If for no other reason than the accussations being thrown around. Could it really be this character's fault that things have gone so abruptly sideways?

The word 'trapped' seems to flow like a whisper through the crowd. Though her eyes widen ever so slightly, the Were Fang seems more anxious about the close press of other people around her than about the prospect of being stuck logged into the game. "It's probably just a bug. Some glitch of the patch software." She murmurs, trying to be reasonable about it, though she doesn't know any better than anyone else.

Her assumption is proven quite wrong as the NPC continues his monologue. A feeling like cold flickers over her body, a realization that there is likely all too much reason to panic. "This... can't be real, right?" It has to be a publicity stunt, or some special event, or... or things have gone really, really wrong.

She is left to stare between Balmung and Kite, and then... Giganpor. She takes a few steps closer, trying to stay in earshot. Knowledge is important and they seem to know more about what is happening than the others.

    Merek looks about a bit, then he nods, while he seems to think about it, "He's what, Balmung?" the man asks, looking to Kite, then to the person speaking to all of them. There's a point where he begins to look at the fact they don't have a logout button, then he tries to fix it by clicking into his menu. "I don't know what to think about it all." He thinks that they're right, still he doesn't know what way to be about it all.

"Twilight K... K what?! Twilight Spirit? Twilight Scribe? Twilight Machine? Or... Door? Or is he meaning a Twilight Prince? Maybe the Twilight House or flower... or.... It could have been a longer word! ARG! What did the guy mean?!" Emiko exclaims, ears franticly swiveling as she tries to figure out what was happening... and focussing on the one incomplete word, digging up all the short words that would be written with one of the K sillybles as a reading.

Nureha makes little gestures with her fingers as though sorting through notecards, she hums tunelessly as she flips them over, one by one, writing notes for herself and updating them as new information becomes available.

First note: The Black Wave. Emotions leak around the edges and she pushes them away like an annoying noise while studying.

Second Note: Balmung, the world famous player who seems to have some knowledge of this phenomenon.

Third: The message. Power was the only thing to make people act this way. Power sleeping under the surface of Elder Tale Online and the systems that built it.

She gets in touch with what guildmembers who respond and stays nearby to Giganpor, Kite, Balmung and the others. She watches but does not interact immediately, listening with a hand to her ear to someone else.

She looks over and then up at the tower.

Kaydon had lost sight of Balmung in the chaos, though from what he finally manages to hear, he found that Kite guy he was looking for.

The were fang has been paying attention to the big guy hologram talking, seeming to be fighting...Something. Kaydon's not sure what, but somebody or something clearly doesn't want him giving out this message.

When the signal is disrupted, one word sticks out in Kaydon's head. 'Trapped'. Trapped? That explains the lack of a log out button...But that can't be possible, can it? You can't just lock people inside a game. Surely they can just take off the helmet or disconnect it from the internet or something and it'll drop them back into the real world.

All the yelling from Balmung and Giganpor snaps his attention back into things. He turns around and pushes past a couple of people so he can see them, "Hey!" He yells, "What the fuck do they mean by 'trapped'?!"

The day had been going so... swimmingly, too, for the Undine-playing newbie. .

Jazuhanzu had been in a newbie zone, alongside many others who had logged into the game for the first time for the release of the expansion. It had taken her a considerable amount of time just to get used to the basic mechanics, between her player's newness to VR gaming and dive gear in general. In fact, she had just been remarking to another one of the new players how real it all seemed when it all got so, /so/ much realer.

And then she's near the Aincrad tower, admist a rising panic, admist all the havoc and confusion and people suddenly unable to log out. She gives it the old college try herself, disbelief obvious in her features. So she keeps trying, and trying, and trying, as if she's going to get a different result this time from it than she would the several other times she tried.

She has that 'deer in headlights' look that a lot of other newbies have -- except it's probably cuter.

    Esclados looks up at the image of the old man, and then down at himself, and then to the world around himself. "We're stuck?" The information doesn't quite seem to click in his head.

    Clang. "Can't log out?" Clang. "Stuck?" Clang.

    The sohei squats down, balanced precariously on the teeth of his geta. The very motion of doing so seems to remind him of something. Patting his legs and face vigorously a broad smile turns up his lips. "Ms. Manager, I will never be able to tell you. But."
    Launching up into the air, Esclados lets out a joyous whoop. "I CAN RUN!"
    An odd reaction to what seems to be dire news, but there you have it.

"Well whatever it is I can understand you just fine."

The reunion is short-lived though, between the talking image, and the other things going on.... and then the image having some sort of error and dissolving in red code or something.

Shiruba takes a deep breath. Forces herself to compose. "It's not any less insane sounding than whatever that message was saying." Then pouts a little. "And none of that explained why everything reset to beginning levels either!"

With the image of the gentleman in the chair shattered Zorin curses again, "The blazes is happening?" and re-evaluates his surroundings. Some people look dazed or startled, just staring up where the image of the old man was. Others are starting to run towards ever increasing shouting that is coming from one section of the town. Many are standing and gesturing as they look through their menus for a way out.

Whatever else can be said, Zorin understands things could get very ugly very quickly. Gritting his teeth, he begins to look for a higher vantage from which to look and evaluate the situation. Spotting a tall building looking out over the main square he proceeds to move in that direction.

Kaleido tries to get their breathing back under control.

It's hard. Breathe in, breathe out - okay.

Going into a panic is not going to do anything constructive.

Bitching, however, will. Bitching about it will help them feel better.

"This. Is bullshit. Being stuck here. Being stuck in this body - I'm not dealing with that again."

"I will break this world in two before I go through that again."

They seize on something that the event NPC said. "About... the tower? Climbing the tower?"

"..." The were fang looks up.

"... Fine. Listen!" They add their voices to the yelling cacaphony. "Whatever caused this, whoever's to blame - doesn't really matter right now! That guy, whoever that was! He said... if we want to change this, if we want a way out..."

The were fang points up at Aincrad Tower. "The guy said climb the Tower! That's our way out!"

Karoshi blinks, "Trust in his Chill? So wait, the old man is a surfer? ...that explains a lot."

"Twilight K? Is that product placement for that new convenience store?"

He holds his helmet under his arm, and tries to lift up the interface helmet again, but it just results in him rubbing the side of his head..

Karoshi continues to look around, as people in rocking chairs disappear, and then people in armor shoot up with giant wings on, and everyone's talking like an anime

"..."

He kind of wants to log out and go lay down. He had to get those squirrels though, so he'd qualify for the next dungeon the rest of his coworkers were going through..but..

He actually wonders if there's a way to actually see how much xp you have. Probably a status screen or something..

When Kaleido speaks up, he turns his head, "The tower?"

He looks up at the tower, "That's the way out? Then we should all head up there immediately. I have work tomorrow. I'm the only guy coming in."

"..."

"I know it's not as important right now, but it's bullshit that they're making you work on New Years Day."

"That's late stage capitalism for you," Cynwrig mutters out of the corner of his mouth.

     A fight! And some strange player drama that the antler-helmeted girl doesn't quite seem to the understand, but she does draw some sort of entertainment from it all the same. She doesn't speak over what she sees or commentate, content to listen first and observe the man in the chair being carved apart. It's not until things calm down for a few moments that she finally speaks in a stage-whisper.

    "Two plotlines to this event. That's pretty ambitious for a New Year's event, isn't it? I guess I'll just have to blow through the tutorials later, but..." She opens her menu as she hears more people clamoring about the missing logout button, squinting slightly at the notably missing button.

     "... How strange. But it is getting rather late, so let's say this stream will end once I figure out how to... Get this headset off, I guess. Until then, what say we keep watching the adventures of Balmung and..." She gestures towards Naotsugu and Kite. keeping her gaze focused on them once more.

The slow realization, Elrune fell quiet. As the world seemed to slow and stop, she stood there dumbfound. What was going on?

     Twillight K?

Her eyes- mismatched as they were, blinked twice.

What is this world coming to?

Trapped.

     She took a shakey and awkward step and staggered.

What was a Twillight K?

"Mori, how are you doing?"

Elrune asked the question curious, but she exhaled slowly. What did any of that mean.

    Naotsugu looks at Balmung... at the mention of Orca, he looked confused. "The hell? Who the hell is Orca?"

    He turned his head towards Kite. "What's up with this? Why's my friend want to possibly tear your arms off?"

Cynwrig pulls his hand up to his head, searching around his brow and face. He frowns, then does several other minor motions, trying to get the own fail safes to work. "This is silly, this is boring, I'm going to go do something else." He pulls again, trying to pry around his head. Nothing. He pulls around his ears. "Damn feedback. I'm going to complain loudly about this." His complaints about total immersion coming back to bite him go past him as he watches the tale unfold between Balmung and Kite. Those have to be pre-recorded lines, because damn that intensity. Or a professional actor.

"This would be better if they didn't skimp on the models." He makes his way over to a tree. "Look, this tree is just-"

Cynwrig stands in front of a tree. He puts his hand against it. He walks slowly around it, drawing his fingers along the cracks in the tree, forming his fingers through the bark, looking for seams. Or where the pattern repeats. Or any sort of procedural generation.

"Oh fuck." Cynwrig whispers.

    Misa continues to push her way through people, searching. She can hear the old man in the chair continuing to talk. 'Trapped'? Then the Log Out button...

    Misa stops immediately as an alert flashes up in her view. She's getting a call. The chimlinks, of course! Misa raises her hand to her ear and replies, "Yes?" ... "Yes." She looks around for a moment, then says, "I appear to be on the other side of Alne." ... "Yes. I'll begin assigning team leaders. We can designate meeting locations. I'll also coordinate with those who I can over the kingdom links to see if they have any further information." ... "Understood. What about-" ... "... That's good. I think you're closer to her than I." ... "Very well."

    Misa lowers her hand and looks around. She's still confused by what's going on. The old man's words are vague and not very helpful. But it's pretty clear by what's happened and the reactions of all the players around here... This situation is serious. If they are indeed trapped in this game... Her job. The children. They're so innocent... They won't be able to understand. And who knows who will be chosen to take her place. They definitely won't be able to do as well as her.

    But what can they do? All they have are a few keywords... And the tower...

    Misa turns her head to look up at the great Aincrad Tower.

    "Listen folk, I'm sure there is a simple explanation for all of this, there has to be an exploit to get the logout button to work again, probably a bug. I'll send a link to the admins, they're sure to get back to us," Merek offers, then nods a bit to people, even if this might be true, you need to calm the people. He does not know what to say, "This is not the testing I was thinking about when they asked me into work today."

Ragna looks up at the figure as he speaks, narrowing his eyes. "Twilight K?" Then, before he can formulate a plan, Giganpor is already rallying the troops, so to speak. Then he looks to Balmung. "He's right. We need to formulate a plan so we can try to get out of here. Likelyhood, we have to solve the riddle the image was talking about." His eyes shifting to Tower Aincrad.

He sighs.

"The last thing we need right now is a panic. Its not the time for who did it or why, now we need to figure out how we escape."

Moriko seems to be strangely okay with everything, now. She gives a small shrug, then lets go of Elrune's hand. "Seems like something big happened, huh? I don't think I can do anything about it, so ..." Another smile, as she looks around at all the upset, panicy people. "So, I'm just going to not add to the chaos. Someone will figure things out, and then we'll know more." She nods, then looks for somewhere out of the way to sit down.

"I'm going to go over there, so nobody trips over me or anything. Want to come?" She's not going to drag Elrune along -- if she wants to go with the people who might know what they're doing, it wouldn't be right to keep her from doing so.

     "Taking the helmet off, I imagine. Ah..." That's a bit of a conundrum for Tadaya, isn't it? She can't exactly dox herself, but... "If anyone at home is watching and has somebody playing this right now, maybe you could try taking the headset off?" She suggests. Surely nothing could go wrong with that idea.

"We can't just 'go up the tower'." Kaydon says, as he looks at Kaleido, "It's...I mean nobody's ever made it past the tenth floor, we have NO idea what's waiting for us up there. But we're all level one right now, so whatever IS up there is way more powerful than us."

"I mean it's...I guess it's the right idea, but it's not a practical one right now. We'll just all get slaughtered like rookies."

As the old man fades into the aether & Taggart gulps down air like a desperate man and whats left in his mug to sooth his throat. He wipes the remnants away with a hand, as the ongoing commotion between what looks like a large wall of iron and a winged pretty boy. &r&r "Must have been stronger then I thought." Flopping on his back Taggart stared into the sky as if it had some answer to the growing feeling of dread entering his system. This alerts him to the new object attached to him. In place of his once beautiful claymore is now a large blade of excellent make. Except it's made of wood.

Kaleido stares at Kaydon blankly.

They motion to open up their menu UI again, start poking through it...

"Okay, character status..."

"..."

"FUCK."

It takes a few moments, but L'Anya does eventually begin to calm down, bit by bit. The lights serve as a reminder that this is all virtual, and the aged gentleman providing the speech helps to center her, providing an anchor of reason and explanation to help her own logic overcome the initial reflexive response. The noise and the chatter are filtered out -- even the man's words are filtered out, treated as nothing more than the prelude to an event she most definitely didn't want to take part in -- until she finally manages to get her nerves back under control. "Right. Right. This kind of thing is normal in games," she mutters under her breath with just a bit of frustration now, heaving a heavy sigh shortly after. There's some more mild curses -- some audible, a far more not -- before she goes through the motions of bringing up the menu --

-- and doesn't see a Log Out button. That, at least, manages to catch her attention, her mind blanking completely for a few moments before she starts rummaging through a few other menus. Had she forgotten where the Log Out button was supposed to be? Perhaps she'd gone to the wrong menu in her panic? But no matter where in the menus she goes, she can't find it. The hammering of her heart freezes altogether as her blood runs cold. She hadn't been paying attention to the commotion around her, but small bits and pieces had been picked up here and there; hadn't someone else already shouted out something about the Log Out button?

Gwen is on backup to Naotsugu, this is Balmung he's one of the most well-known players and skilled. Memories of hearing about the One Sin Even comes back to her. She tense wondering if he's going to attack and bring the Guard down upon them all. He says some crazy thing she tenses the only thing that isn't strange with Balmung seeming to back down? She's able to reply to Shir.

"We can talk about it later..."

    Is Balmung serious?

    It doesn't add up though. This kind of thing doesn't happen in real life.

    The word Trapped echoes through the crowd. Trapped in the game. Trapped in these bodies.

    Mizuki looks at her furred hands, and down at her feet, the interface with the missing logout button hanging in front of her.

    She takes a step back, and toggles the transformation. As a human she seems slightly smaller, mainly from the reduced height of human feet, A slightly slim, oval face. She loses balance from transforming and falls on her butt, staring at her hands.

    Okay.

    Okay.

    The developers have certainly gone too far. She could tell Balmung she's from the Black Cloud, he might have actually heard of it. They will all calmly figure out how to escape this glitched event, and then things will go back to normal. If the admins don't fix the logout button in the next few minutes, anyway.

    But if she does that... is that really an experience she'll want to look back on? To treat a glitch in the game with full seriousness, solve it like a problem at work...

    Why even come to games if you're going to act that way?

    Mizuki transforms back to beast mode, then kips up. The bird girl is yelling. Sam can... no, /Mizuki/ can work with that. She points a hand at Kaleido. "That's right. This is bullshit!" She sounds oddly cheerful, all of a sudden. And then points the other hand at Balmung. "But we have the great hero Balmung with us!"

    She turns to him. "You nyaow what's going on! So tell us, how do we escape? Nyi'll follow your lead!"

    She smiles that smile, the smile of every genki girl anime protagonist. Well, as best as she can with a muzzle, anyway.

Like many others around her, Sinon turns up to look at the tower. She hisses. She hadn't planned on clearing the tower, but now she's going to have to think about it.

    A thought more pertinent immediately hits her forebrain: Yuuki. Her Guildmaster. Leader of the Sleeping Knights, and one of the only people who Sinon respects enough to not be an ice queen around.

    Sinon knows Yuuki's story. She KNOWS.

    The creeping pain of caring for another person spider dances through her being, wondering what's happened to her. What's going to happen to her. So, immediately, she tries to hail her in a similar way to that which she hailed Kyouji. She's unsure what's going to happen if she tries.

    And there is still the problem in front of her.

    "Nobody's killing anybody right here and now..." she says, flinty.

Elrune considered the idea, and she paused. She turned towards the square. "Moriko, I am gonna head towards the square, at least a little bit." she stated walking to slowly. "I want to see what's going on."

"Slaughtered like rookies? Who cares. Some of us have places to be."

He motions towards the tower with his sword, "We're in a video game. Who cares if we die over and over again? There's enough of us here, we can just make our way up there."

He frowns at the tower, and then looks at Kaydon and Kaleido.

"Also, can any of you figure out how to contact an admin? I never figured out the channel-talk system."

He does follow the tower all of the way up, "Wait? Nobody ever got to anything above level 10? How many levels are there?"

He just stands there, mouth agape, "How much time do people waste on this game?!"

It seems that Zorin was not the only one with an idea to find a better vantage, as he can see several individuals already have scaled up to the top of buildings. With a determined grunt he reaches what he determined was one of the better builds to get a view from and begins climbing.

Did his muscles always burn so much from exertion in the game?

Finally reaching the top he surveys the scene below him. It looked like some had already full on panicked with people of different races run or yelling. There seemed to be a rather large group surrounding a few individuals...&r&rWas that Balmung there?

There are several things that Tetra has to deal with in quick succession. There are a lot of people shouting. There are some extremely angry, adjutated people. There are some very odd things happening all around her. People are blaming other people for things that have maybe something to do with what is going on right now. Maybe not. It was hardly easy to miss the mysterious giant man talking to the assembled people all around.

Some move to defend the accused. Others deny. The predictable wave of panic begins to cross through.

Tetra does what any good healer does when things start to go south: She looks for her exit options, she's going to need one shortly. Maybe more than one.

She asides to Karoshi, "Waste? People pay me to play this."

"Alright. Good luck!" Moriko flashes another bright smile and waves, then heads over to a bench out of the way where no body seems to be congregating. She didn't actually wait for Elrune to say goodbye, but once she sits down, she does make sure she finishes the friend accept process.

That done, Moriko leans back a bit, watching everyone. So much chaos ... There's a tiny sigh, and then pulls her feet up onto the edge of the bench, hugging her knees. Her smile softens, then falters into a neutral expression as she lets her mind wander, processing as much as she can.

"A hundred." Kaydon replies, simply. "There's a hundred floors, each one is progressively harder. The boss on ten was bugged, or mathematically impossible to beat. So nobody got past it."

He shakes his head a little bit, "Is the answer is at the top of the tower, there's no telling how long it'll take for people to get there.." He still remembers hearing about how the tower bested one of the greatest raid groups this game had ever known. And if it could beat them, it would chew up and spit out your average player.

No, the chances of them beating the tower were slim to none. And not in one night.

Nureha needs to sit down. She needs it desperately, even in the midst of processing information. She looks around and sees someone with their feet up on the bench, hugging their knees. She walks over, not imposing. She just sits down a reasonable distance from Moriko and offers her a smile if they look in her direction. She sits quietly otherwise, letting them have their space but being there just the same. Just one stranger to another in a mad chaos.

As the others start to come to grips with the prospect ahead of them. Mikage just opens her menu and seems to stare at it for a long time. All five players of her guild are grayed out, offline. She swollows the lump in her throat at that, then mutters a quiet, "Fuck."

In this sea of people, she suddenly feels all too alone. "If you want to plow head first into the tower without preparations, you can enjoy respawning a few hundred times." Reaching to her side, she pulls out what looks to be a starting scimitar, scowling at it. "We won't get past level one with this gear."

She looks around, spotting Zorin having taken a higher vantage point. He seems to have the right idea of it. So, she starts to push her way through the crowd. In an instant, she shifts, her Were Fang form becoming a white gargoyle within the crowd as she uses her claws to scale up the side one of the buildings. The distance is a relief, but her eyes keep a watch on those below. Still listening with pointed ears aimed at those louder voices.

"That'll take a while... to get strong enough to clear it... Yeah, I really don't want to spend the first... days, weeks? Of 2013 stuck here in this body."

Kaleido steels themselves. "Right. Well."

"Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

The avian were fang takes a deep breath.

"Ahem..."

"HYMNIST 1 LFG - POWER LEVELING NEAR AINE - NEED DPS TANK!!!"

Shiruba ... just... plants both palms to her face when someone starts already broadcasting for a group.

Nevarri just finds herself taking a step back, eyes welling up with tears as she tries to make sense of the world that she is apparently now trapped in.

She was stuck here. She never paid attention to the story, she barely grinded to level up beyond the ability to get a mount. She couldn't stay here forever...

And then something clicks in her head.

"I... Is being trapped here really a bad thing?"

The accusations are flung his way. It hurts, and he tries hard not to let it. But it shows on his face, twisting with a sorrow so deep that shouldn't belong on such a young looking face. Kite's grip on his dirks, before having been loose but ready had now tightened, as if they were stress relievers.

Of course Balmung blamed him. He always had and he always would. Each damning word was like a strike upon his own body, almost.

Quietly, the only thing Kite says is, "Orca's my friend too."

His best friend. They grew up together, at least, until the incident seven years ago. The demands for answers overwhelms him, and Kite shrinks back momentarily before considering how to answer.

Balmung rears back and declares his own intent. Guilt salves his anger, for being frustrated at such a proclomation in the first place. They both just wanted to help their friend.

"Seven years ago, there was a game called 'Fragments' .. there were several incidents in which players would fall into comas while playing the game."

Kite tears his eyes away from the people, and looks up into the sky. "The game was shut down and the players affected by it remain hospitalized to this day."

Provided the families didn't want to pull the plug. Yasuhiko's hadn't.

Zorin turns to see the white gargoyle form of Mikage climb up the building, but at a glance he didn't immediately recognize her or notice the nametag amongst all the chaos. Nevertheless he moves to make sure the new arrival has some room, and continues to observe as it seems people are already recruiting to charge for the tower.

Karoshi looks at Tetra. He hmms, "They pay you for it? Then this is like work for you. You at least are doing well, in this, I guess."

He then just looks at Kaydon.

"One.. One HUNDRED?!"

He rolls his head around on his shoulders, "..we'd better get started then.."

He hefts his 'Rusty Sword.'

"If the administrators aren't going to fix this, we're obliged to fix it. I've only ever missed three days of work. I am not going to miss my overtime tomorrow without trying to do something about it."

He looks at Kaleido as he begins to talk in nonsense.

He then begins to walk towards the tower, and only stops as Nevarri speaks up.

"Some of us have work and responsibilities. If our way out is at the top of that tower, then we have to get there and get out of here."

He pauses for a moment, "...wait a second, don't I have a shield?"

He begins working the system menu..

His fishing rod appears.

"...damnit.. I know I have one in here somewhere.."

    Sinon finally gets a reply back from Kyoji... and Yuuki too, thank goodness. She also turns up her nose as she finds a strange Gear in her inventory- her otherwise bare inventory- which wasn't there before.

    She listens to Kite.

    She says nothing else to Kite.

    She begins to slowly, surely, think about what this means. Like a sleeper unaware of her body, she can't reach out to remove the headset attached to her... if it still even is. The fact that it may be is ... disturbing. She lives alone and mother doesn't often call.

    Yes, let's not think about this for the time being.

    Surely in less than a week everything will be back to normal.

    Inside, the girl screams more.

     'Orca's my friend too.'

     'We have the great hero Balmung with us.'

     Mizuki asks him what they do. Balmung takes a long, sharp breath at the two. People are relying on him. That's fine. He's been relying on himself long enough. People know they can rely on him, and they won't get in his way. Kite's words are a long blade drawn across the skin. Teeth grit. White hair falls in front of eyes. His head sinks slightly.

     "What we do is stay calm."

     "Charging into Aincrad will simply get you killed. We never made it past floor ten."

     "We have no way of knowing what will happen if we die here. The coma victims...didn't show back up in the game. Orca never reappeared. As far as I know, neither did anyone else."

     His voice is still strong, still powerful. He's pushing aside pain to take charge of the situation because it's what people need right now. They want answers. They want to go up the tower. They want to climb and escape, or they want to be stuck here. The question drops from Nevarri.

     'Is it really so bad to be stuck here?'

     Balmung takes a deep breath.

     "At the moment, it's our only option. Whatever happened to us exists in this world. We're going to have to get used to living in it. Rushing headlong for an escape will just put people in more danger."

     Balmung turns away from Kite and Naotsugu. "Aincrad is for later. Maybe..."

     Maybe for never.

     Because part of him admits that he doesn't want to leave.

     He *can't* leave yet, can he? If he walks away from this - if he just lets people run away and solve the problem - then he'll never find out. He'll never find out what happened to Orca. To Yasuhiko. What happened. Why it happened. Who was responsible.

     Well.

     Kite was responsible. Not directly. But something KIte did kicked it off. Obviously.

     Balmung takes another deep breath.

     "For now, no one goes into Aincrad."

     Balmung sweeps his hand to the side. His blade rings against the ground. "We can't risk it. We cannot risk what might happen."

     "For all we know, it's entirely possible that if you die in the game, you'll die in real life."

     The words are ridiculous. But the tone is entirely, dangerously serious.

     "Are you willing to be the one who finds out?"

Shiruba shifts a bit closer to Gwen as other people either yell about groups or start actually gathering where they might try to go into the tower. "These people are insane, even for gamers. There's no telling what's in the tower now, and no one got past floor ten. To rush unplanned and unprepared is a foolish endeavour."

She pauses, glancing around. "There has to be a more practical way to go about this... And what about all the other confused and lost people here?"

Cynwrig is moving around the tree, looking down at the roots. The stout gnome looks back up along the tree, standing back up. Touch and vision go a long way. He brings a leaf branch down and brings it up as close to his eye as possible. No shifting. No lost frames. He pulls it back. He brings it up to his eye again.

Then Cynwrig's eye drifts. Slowly turning across the field. Over Nevarri, then over to Kaleido. Then back across to Balmung. Cynwrig lets the leaf fall to the ground as he takes stock. Cynwrig makes his...

Cynwrig makes his...

"God dammit, where is the fucking menu, how do they expect me!"

Cynwrig makes a STICK appear again. "There are too many steps to get what I need. What am I, a simulationist tabletop player?"

    Naotsugu looks at Kite... then back at Balmung. Then back at Kite. "Wait. That's why Fragment was shut down!? I thought those were just some horror stories drummed up by the news by some other company to shut down Fragment! You're telling me that actually happened?!"

    He looked a little distant at that... "So... it's actually true... and that's..." He looked at Balmung! "That's neither here nor there! What matters right now is figuring out what the hell's going on, how we rectify it, and-" And his face suddenly goes into shock! "WAIT! If we're stuck here...!" He gasps! "NURI! WHO'S GONNA FEED NURI!?" He actively starts panicking. Whatever defensive posture he'd put between Kite and Balmung was now gone. The only one left there was Gwen!

There's a moment of consideration from Kaleido.

"..."

"Yeah. I am," they tell Balmung.

"Let's not put that to the test, but yes, if that risk is what it takes to get out..."

The were fang squares up their shoulders.

Nevarri turns and pulls her glasses off her face once more, first to Karoshi, "Some of us don't have ANYTHING to look forward to in RL! I am legally blind! I don't have any prospects in my future! I can't chase my dreams anymore, all I can do is sit at home, completely helpless about the things that happens in the world And here I am in the game, and my vision is restored! My eyes WORK again!"

And then turning to Balmung her eyes glare, "I have nothing better to live for in real life! If I'm going to die, then I'm going to die in a place where I can live out my dreams!"

     Unfortunately for Tadaya, no respite comes in the form of her own helmet being removed. Sighing once, she lets her gaze (and streaming view, if that's even still on) pan around slowly to get a better look at all the players still around.

    Those freaking out. Those looking to pull all-nighters with or without parties. Those panicking without any clear idea of how long this event could keep them stuck here.

     Kite speaks of what happened with something called Fragments. "... Well. People at home, don't take those helmets off." She lets out a purposely, yet also rather genuinely awkward chuckle. Swallowing once, she takes a deep breath to steady her nerves, then turns her attention to those that look like they might be freaking out. "S.. So! Since we're here, let's do a bit of socializing. It's a massively monline rultiplayer... Thing, after all."

    After brushing her hands off on her dress, the antler-helmeted woman starts going around at a relaxed strolling pace. There's a lot of people, and someone needs to try and perk them up at least a little bit!

     She stops by Moriko, looking towards the tower briefly before turning to Moriko properly. "Don't think too hard about it. Just a weird little hiccup, but it's an MMO launch." That bit of humor delivered, she approaches Nureha next and hunches over. "It'll be alright. We'll figure this out sooner or later." Next, she goes to Shiruba and gives her a gentle pat on the shoulder. "You know speedrunners. They'll figure out how to bust this all open, so we'll be okay." Finally, she heads towards Cynwrig. "Why not grab something to eat? That always helps me clear my head."

Gwen keeps tabs on her party, Shir is here, Mori's been located, Mikage is here but up on a roof and in party or not? Naotsugu is here. The question is where are Kaydon and Uther? She's getting more than a bit worried but now Fragment is mentioned. The word coma comes up between Kite and Balmung. She narrows her eyes those were just rumours, right? To Karoshi she notes

"Didn't you see the PowerPoint presentation about how bugged that boss was?!"

Then someone brings up is it so bad being here.

"What the hell do most of us have to lose here? What do most of us have to go back to?"
% She pauses looking to Naotsugu she seems distracted.

"Your pet...?"
D She tries to put a hand on Naotsugu's shoulder.

"Hey someone will come looking for you, right and find Nuri."

For the first time in a long time she's glad she doesn't have a pet at the moment.

    Misa has her hand pressed to her ear once more, "Confirmed. Meet beyond the tower entrance." Button press. "Team three, status?" ... "Understood. Team four will be arriving soon." ... "Agreed."

    As she continues to listen to her chimlink, Misa idly browses through her inventory. The majority of it is gone. The rest deleveled. But one item catches her attention and for the second time tonight, Misa feels at least a little relief. She equips the item.

    The massive scythe, Calamity Hurts, appears beside her with a clunk as it falls to the ground. Misa grabs the shaft of the imposing weapon, its size equaling her own height. She examines it for a moment... A small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

    Hefting the large weapon over her shoulder, Misa begins walking with purpose towards the the tower looming over them all. She finishes her current chimlink call, "I'm making my way there now." Misa glances at a group as she passes by them. She recognises one of them. Balmung... She continues walking, turning her focus to the tower.

With so much panic and confusion Zorin grimly gazes down upon the crowds. Muttering he says, "I can't believe this. Where are the GM? Where are the messages to calm the crowds?" He just shakes his head and takes a large breath before yelling out.

"ATTENTION! I am Ryusei Ito, please remain calm! ETO Personnel are currently investigating. The best thing everyone can do is remain calm and keep themselves safe!"

He didn't strictly know what was being done, but having managed a team during two of the major viruses gave him some insight that it is better to let people hear what they need, and surely there was something being done? With an addition thought he continued.

"Technical experts from the real world are requested to gather in the clearing in front of the southern fountain!"

Hopefully getting a few of the experts together could help answer some questions. Regardless, he repeated this message several more times so those didn't hear it before could.

Already, the gears are starting to turn again.

There would be things they need, starter gear was little shield against even the weakest mobs. They would need potions, buff foods, new spells, thankfully they all retained their experience and memory of higher levels. They simply needed to regain those mechanically. It was not like before.

It was not.

When Tadaya comes through with her awkward socializing, it charms her out of her overloaded fugue. She gives her a genuine smile, though a small one. "Thank you." she inclines her head gracefully and gets up. She turns towards the tower.

She does not run to catch up with Misa, but gradually matches pace as she straightens her shoulders and comes up beside them. "Shall we?" she says with a smile that does not match the calamity of the situation, her eyes sparkling with an odd excitement.

    Fingers rub along the narrow spriggan chin that is now apparently permanent. Esclados' moment of joyous outburst ends as he notice those around him did not seem to be as excited about the turn of events as himself.

    "Um... do we stay here, or go back to the starting place?"

    His question wasn't to anyone in particular, but he had been remaining close to the giant lion man. The cries of others ring out, though one does strike a chord within earshot. Someone else that found this world a blessing.

    "No need to panic. Complaining gets us no where. This may not be as bad as it seems, and people are already making decisions." He gazes up at the tower and its promise of escape, and decides easily that escape was not an option. "Goodbye, Ms. Manager," he mumbles to himself.

Karoshi frowns at Balmung, "Comas?! What kind of chemtrail nonsense is that?"

He glowers at the tower..

"This is ridiculous. This is abjectly ridiculous!"

When Nevarri speaks up, he looks at her..

"I can appreciate why you might want to be in a situation where you can get away from that. It never pays to run away from your responsibilities."

He motions to Kaleido with his thumb, and then points at Balmung, "We can't stand by and do nothing waiting for those admin. People have to go to work. Feed children. Look after pets."

He crosses his arms, still holding his fishing pole, "The bird man is right. We have to get to the top of that tower as soon as possible. If we're all in comas, that's an even better reason to do it. Maybe one of us can tell everyone what's going on!"

He points the fishing rod at Balmung, "Responsibility is the foundation of Japanese society!!"

Kaleido's countenance falters a moment at being called a 'bird man', but only for a moment.

The rather normal looking gnome looks over to Tadaya. He nods, "Yes, I think that is a good idea." He breathes in slowly, then out, tasting it, looking up at the tower again. "I think a good meal should suffice." He holds up the stick, swirling it in the air.

People trapped.

A knight with a promised foe he must continually tilt against.

Freedoms, fears, hopes and dreams.

A smile slides up his face.

"This... this has to be some kind of joke, right?"

Assuredly, the sentiment Jazz is expressing right now is one that she is hardly alone in. Too much has happened, too quickly, for her to actively process what's going on. She's near enough and amongst the masses that she's able to pick up on a fair amount of what's going on. Storm the tower, get to the top, and get free? Her mouth works. Her face scrunches with unfortunate cuteness. She places a hand to her forehead, then stops. It feels oddly real. Her look goes from confused to discomfited within scant seconds.

She takes off her witch's hat stares at it for a moment, then places it back properly atop her purple-haired head. When she speaks, her Japanese has an accent, if a moderate one. American, probably, from the sound of it. "I'm sorry -- but what in the hell? Are we seriously..." She trails off. Even the sound of her voice, as twee and anime as it sounds to her own ears, grates.

"... I'm going to kill you, Benji," she mutters.

    Kite drops exposition about Fragment putting people into comas. It's a very strange story to make up, and it kind of sounds real. Also, it's hard to say anything cheerful about it. Mizuki looks back to Balmung expectently. Her ears flatten a bit when he suggests dying in the game may mean dying for real. That's not a very fun story to play along with!

    Are you willing to be the one to find out?

    "Ah, mou..." Mizuki rubs the back of her head. It turns out the great hero and the other guy seem to actually be more serious, Sam-type people when it comes to solving these problems. So is bird girl, it sounds like.

    And someone else is shouting about how the game is better than real life. Being stuck here would be a dream come true.

    Mizuki's posture slumps further. When this is fixed that girl is going to be crushed.

    Mizuki softly speaks, "...Is that really it?" She mutters to herself, "We sit here and wait, that's what we do in a goddamn GAME..."

    She looks in the direction of Zorin, shouting about technical experts. Does IT Guy count? Well, that gathering will probably keep.

    She looks back to Kite, Balmung, Naotsugu, and Kaleido. "C-come on now... I mean nyaow." The facade is cracking already. "Isn't there anything we can do besides spend our time... stuck here... sitting around and waiting?"

Mikage does appear on Gwen's party list, still highlighted to show that she hasn't left the general area. As Zorin seems to be starting to martial the troops, she slinks back into the shadows a bit, changing back into her human form and looking out over the turrain. With the sun going down and the vast distances in Elder Tale, she can't really get a good view on Ezzo from here.

<< Hey. Gwen. >> She pings the party chat. << Anyone in your party have any sort of vision enhancer? A spyglass, some binoculars, something? I can't get a good view on Ezzo from here, even with the height advantage. >> There is a pause, and then she adds, << Do you have any friends over there you could ping? >>

Right now, she is all but a stranger to the various people in Gwen's party, but it is better to stick with someone than to go entirely alone. Mikage squints into the darkness, but it is of no use. << I'm on the roofs. I don't like crowds. >> She explains.

    Giganpor listens. Most will differ to Balmung. And really, they don't know enough about what is going on here. "Well said, Balmung."

    Then he turns to look at Karoshi, "Are you willing to risk it? If so, go outside of town. You're effected like the rest of us. We are all level one characters."

    Turning to look at Balmung, he gives a nod. "Thank you."

    After saying that, he shrinks back down to the more human form and walks away. Raising a hand up to use the chimlink, he says, "Grandeur, I am on the way to the Guild Hall. I want to see if that wave wiped out the storehouses or anything else. Let alone if we still have a Guild Hall. After that..."

    He pauses, looking over his shoulder, then looks like he might say something before he shakes his head and continues on through the crowd.

    Merek looks then to where Zorin is, while he begins to move to the clearing in front of the castle, while he nods a bit to the man. "You can call me Black. I'm a tester for ETO, and work with the team. I don't know a lot about the situation, I will assist in any way I am able to assist." The man then nods a bit to people while he thinks about it.

Kite looks at Naotsugu apologetically, before putting his dirks away. His grip had finally relaxed, a little bit, though it left his knuckles feeling sore. Of course, he didn't tell the whole story, because what has been told already sounded insane. It was difficult enough of a pill for normal people to swallow.

The truth of the matter was that it had something to do with the programs that existed within Fragments. That had been the only thing he had been able to truly discern in regards to the coma incidents ... post-shutdown. At first, he'd believed that Skeith was solely to blame.

But Skeith was merely part of the system. His destruction, ultimately, had done nothing.

And Fragments had shut down before he could figure out what it all meant. Now he was here, and it was all seemingly happening again. Why?

"It all happened, it really did." Kite confirms.

He held his tongue, not wanting to explain the circumstances of Aura and why she had been chased by Skeith. About the Book of Twilight.

Not yet, and not to everyone who would listen. He had his own thoughts about the 'Twilight K' mentioned by the man who'd been cut off.

Rubbing the back of his head in frustration, Kite rolls his head to the side before looking to Giganpor, "No..uhm, I was in Westelande. Ezzo seems to be where that "wave" came from, though."

Not as severe as being blind... but Nevarri isn't the only one that feels like they don't have much to go back to.

Not to mention now Shiruba doesn't feel so bad that her brother wasn't able to join in tonight.

"Hey, Gwen?" Shiruba nudges her friend with her elbow. "I heard Kaydon over there, arguing with the people about going into the tower or not. I saw Morri, but where's Uther? This whole getting suddenly split up and then back together is confusing."

Someone else muttering off to the side gets her attention. She tilts her head, watching the admittably cute Undine fuss with her hat for a moment. "Hey, you! You okay?... I mean.. general state of affairs. Not..." She vagely waves a hand at the tower. "All this."

    It had all happened so fast...

    The blue-haired, glasses wearing pooka avatar could have been found stagnant on a path somewhere. The reason had been simple. The person behind it had been doing some last minute reviewing. He had been looking over the the recent BBS posting. Anything that might pertain to the new expansion. Had there been possible leaks? Items to watch out for? As far as he saw there was nothing of the sort. Though just as he finds himself perusing them he realizes. "Ah...That's right the fireworks..."

    The teleportation back to the hometown catches him off guard slightly. Not because of the darkness that overcame his sight, or the odd sound that had come along with it. It was just rare to see him not be completely aware of the situation. A rare occurrence, though given that it meant the patch was about to launch it would have made sense for Shiroe to have been more eager for it. Not that he wasn't, it's just...The way he saw it, he had plenty of things to prepare for in this New Year. Though finding himself back in the town square amongst the other players wasn't too bad if not a bit...Crowded. It had looked as though nearly every player that had set the place as their home had been brought back.

    All at once from the transportation to the sounds of explosions in the air as fireworks illuminated the night, everything had honestly seemed peaceful. A pleasant way to start the new year and the new expansion.The sounds of fireworks get cut off though explosive noise. The sound of a horn in the distance catching the attention, and with it the sound of the crowd can be heard picking up as they take note of the shaking of the city and the black wave that was rushing towards it.

    Shiroe can hear amongst the players those asking if it's part of the event? Others getting a little freaked out, some shouting in excitement that it must be some sort of unknown event that was triggering. The enchanter said nothing, showed nothing as it unfolded though continuing to watch as everything began to unfold. As the wave gets closer more people start to get a bit more worried. Perhaps it was just the size of the wave, or just how ominous it looked as it was finally at their doorstep. When it finally hits though...Nothing. At least that's how it seemed at first. He could hear people cackling thinking it was a good scare until there's one thing catches his attention. His head turns in one direction as he hears people shouting something about one of the nearby Chaos Gates. One look is all he needs to tell something's wrong as it looked as though someone was trying to get to it in the distance. Just as he's about to make out their presence something else comes to his attention as more people scream. For some it's about their level, for some it's their equipment, other their items. That's when it happened to him.

    "What the-" He'd watch as all his gear was starting to tear apart at the seams. Most of this stuff was top quality raid gear and to see it disperse was weird in more than one way. He starts pulling up his menu and sees that it's not just his equipment but his items as well. Everything he had been storing for the new expansion was disappearing. Then it was money on his person...And then his level. All of this could have been part of the new expansion. It could have been a bad design choice but a choice none the less, though when he sees the last thing on his menu shatter...He could feel tightness in his chest. He watches. 'Log Out', it wasn't a piece of equipment or a game mechanic, it was button and a rather important one at that which he watched shatter just as the rest of his things did. There was so much confusion at this point. Was this a joke? Was this part of the launch? In the moment he felt like he was about to be overwhelmed in the commotion just like the rest of the crowd that was experiencing this with him was until...Black...The wave takes him and once again he realizes he's being teleported.

    As his eyes open again he looks around to see a city he was familiar with. A city with a tower he was all too familiar with, "Aincrad?" He finds more and more questions piling up until the image of the man ends up replacing what would be their fire-work filled sky. While some of the words he spoke felt like they really could have been part of this game...His tone, his mannerisms it all seemed a little to real to just be an NPC throwing together lines. And then there was the way he had cut out as well...It was all so unnerving. Especially with the loss of the 'Log Out' Button.

    He takes a breath as the crowds start to panic and moves through the crowds. He re-opens his menu window and starts looking at what's still there. "No way to log out...No way to contact a GM. No system notifications on the issue." He keeps his eye on the time. How many minutes had passes since this happened? He imagined the moment that this had happened there'd be someone trying to put in a fix, in the worst case scenario someone would have been able to manually disconnect people, right?

    "So why aren't they?"

    It was a simple question that should have had a simple answer. Yet minutes go by and panic still continues. No notifications, no disconnecting...It was a bad sign if there was one. If that was the case though...Shiroe continues to go through his menu till he sees the friend list. Two names immediately show up. Two names that he hadn't seen in a long while. "Does the message system still work...?"

Calling...Naotsugu, Calling...Balmung

    <<Balmung? Naotsugu? Can you both hear me alright? Are you okay?>>

    As he tries making contact he continues to walk the streets till he notices one building in his path that catches his eyes. As one hand keeps to his ear to filter out the noise of the crowd he starts entering into the building. Even if he was trying to contact those two there was something else he was curious about.

     Balmung closes his eyes.

     It's happening again.

     "You see, Kite? Once again, you're at the center."

     "Once again, people are going to die."

     They weren't going to take it seriously. They weren't going to believe it. It's too ridiculous to believe. People were already talking as if ETO executives were looking for the answer. As if they thought this would be solved by a few technical experts. As if this was a thing that could be fixed by lines of code.

     Balmung takes another deep breath as Naotsugu freaks out. He's never been...*good* with people. He's always been focused on other things - grades, kendo. He's always ignored confessions, ignored handshakes, ignored all those things.

     "Yes. That's why it was shut down, Naotsugu. That's why Fragment closed. That's what happened. Orca...my friend Orca was one of the victims."

     "And now it's happening again."

     Balmung takes another long breath. "There isn't," he says to Mizuki, "We tried to solve it for years. I looked for an answer for a full seven years of my life, trying to find out what happened to Orca and why. Any misstep now could cause real casualties. There's..."

     He hesitates.

     He goes silent.

     There is a distant nod at Giganpor as he thanks Balmung. He doesn't know what to say. He *can't* say anything. People are already sinking into denial.

     That's ridiculous.

     ETO executives will look into it.

     CCCorp will solve it.

     We'll find a way out.

     No you won't.

     Balmung shakes his head, takes another breath, and goes back eyes-up. "The best answer we have isn't to look for a solution immediately."

     Karoshi shouts at him about Japanese responsibility. Balmung just raises an eyebrow. "If you want to commit seppuku you are free to turn your sword on yourself at any time and see if you escape."

     "You won't. You might die."

     "But it'll be faster than Ainc-"

     Shiroe's voice.

     Balmung puts his hand to his ear.

     <<Shiroe.>>

     Another sharp breath.

     <<We're trapped in the game.>>

     <<If you heard the chime, if you heard the tone, then you're trapped.>>

     <<Your life may be in danger.>>

     Balmung closes his eyes again. <<Now you're up to speed.>>

    Yeah, this is going in a very serious direction. Sam's starting to wonder if maybe he should really approach it differently. There is that gathering over there...

    But, there's one thing he wants to know -- both as a player, and a character.

    Mizuki's ears perk back up, her stance perks back up, as she asks Balmung, "If this happened before... how'd you survive the first time?"

"I mean - I said what we should do."

"We party up, nuke a bunch of squirrels outside town, get some new gear, get strong enough, knock over the tower."

In the back of Kaleido's head, though, they're remembering that they took the week off work and have the apartment's phone on silent.

... If they're in a coma right now, how long till someone comes looking for them?

    Ezzo, huh...

    Sinon notices that nobody is really talking to her and she doesn't feel like talking to anyone else, so she slips away from the current conversation. It sounds as if Balmung is going to try and take control of the situation and, more power to him really. Sinon is not exactly a follower, though, except in Yuuki's case and even then..., so she is going to step away from this for now. She will return to the only person she trusts under the circumstances, her guild leader- and her Patron, she supposes, although it always has been somewhat strange placing her trust (easier, perhaps) in an artificial intelligence. Maybe miracles will have happened and she'll suddenly be a Real Girl.

    Then, somewhat later on, she will let the little girl out to panic.

Things are starting to rapidly spin out of control. Kaydon rubs his chin faintly, leaning back against a post in order to give it some thought. He did Aincrad, back in SAO. He never made it past the seventh floor. And back then, there wasn't the risk of dying in real life if you died in the game. People have floated that idea already.

He swipes open his menu, frowning at the lack of stuff. Only basic gear and weapons, no gold. Nothing. He sighs heavily, and then rises up from where he's leaning, "Look, the fact of the matter is that right now, we don't know anything other than that we can't get out of here. Maybe our salvation is in the tower, maybe we're being lied to by a giant dude in the sky. Did you ever consider that option? Maybe he wants us to rush into the tower and get slaughtered so that we all die in the real world as some kind of massive Heaven's Gate type of thing. I mean hell for all we know maybe we're already dead and this is some kind of weird mass halucination as our brains shut down." Really cheerful, that one.

He hears Shiruba nearby, and he transforms into his were fang form in order to get a better look for her, "Hey! Over here!" He's trying his best not to think about the fact that he lives alone and has no idea when someone will come looking for him.

     Tadaya lets out a relieved sigh when Nureha seems to get it together, smiling gently in return. Cynwrig, too, gets that same relieved look when he calms down and settles on eating instead of raging.

    That's all Tadaya can do for now. She knows she lacks the knowledge, the experience, and the raw NUMBER to do much here just yet. It'll take time for her to figure out all that stuff out, but it'll work out sooner or later.

    ... Right? Right. "That's how socializing works. Depending on how long this takes, though, I might need to cancel tomorrow's stream. We'll see how it all goes, though." She chuckles, once again addressing nobody actually visible while she looks towards Zorin when he offers his own reassurances. "What say everyone take this night to just take a load off? Eat something good at the inns, maybe do a bit of crafting before bed, and feel what it's like to sleep on a digital bed? It could be fun!" She calls out in that usual mellow tone, smiling broadly all the while.

    Something's gnawing at Tadaya's chest even after hearing that, but her face doesn't show it.

Moriko almost didn't notice someone talking to her. By the time she looked up and smiled, whoever it was had wandered off. But everything is still so chaotic, and she doesn't really understand any of it. It's all just too much. "Right." She shakes her head again, stretches, then stands up. There's too much going on here. She decides to head somewhere quieter. And so, without another word to anyone, she wanders off.

Tetra is internally a lot more frantic than she lets on, and going through her inventory to see if anything is actually working. Well. There is at least one thing that's useful that survived. But if she lets herself get caught up in the panic things aren't going to turn out well. She goes quiet and just watches for a few, long moments with a thoughtful expression.

She responds to Karoshi's statement with a faint nod.

"The tenth floor boss was a notorious bugmachine. So we're going to have to sort that out. But for now.. yeah.. we're going to need to prep."

She finds an old rod that isn't busted that she kept for comedic purposes and pulls it out. The head vaguely resembles a microphone. Vaguely. She spins the whole thing around in one hand for a few moments, gripping it in a reverse grip for a moment before dropping it home into her belt.

In her head she's going over what she can get away with. The area around this tower is about to get farmed to DEATH.

     "I wasn't one of the victims."

     Balmung shakes his head. "I was trying to save one. Orca of the Azure Sea was my best friend."

     Only friend, Balmung.

     "He was trapped by a monster, a glitch entity of some kind."

     With the same power as Kite, Balmung.

     "I tried to save him."

     You were powerless.

     "I was powerless."

     "Like I said. Seven years of searching gave me nothing. No answers. No hope. Seven years of chasing that monster turned up nothing."

     "These people..." His blade points outwards at the folks gathering for Aincrad. "...they don't know what's going on. They think this is a glitch, a joke, a bad comedy. They think I'm roleplaying. That this is some elaborate game. Those who believe me think they'll solve the problem by running up the stairs and getting killed on the tenth floor, or by levelling up until they can deal with the monster that the highest-level players on the server could never defeat. They're looking for a way out."

     "We're stuck."

     "We're going to have to make the most of it for now."

     Maybe forever.

    Misa turns her head as she is addressed. She looks at Nureha. She's heard of the guild, Plant Hwyaden. And its leader, of course. Though the two have not really interacted much in the past. Misa nods to Nureha, "Of course."

    As the two continue towards the tower, more people begin to step into line behind them. The nods they give to Misa suggest they're part of the same guild as she. Though their numbers are only a fraction of what had gathered earlier at their hall. And none of them have particularly famous names, so probably fall into the lower ranks of the guild.

    Misa softly taps her finger against the shaft of her scythe as she walks. Looking up at the tower as it grows larger. Part of her wonders what they're going to find at the top of it. While most of her hopes that whatever it is, it'll do what they've been led to believe it will.

    Provide a means of escape.

    "Hmmmmh." Mizuki sighs and stares at the ground.

    "Wait." She looks back up at Balmung. "If you weren't one of the victims last time... then maybe there are people who aren't the victims THIS time! Maybe they can get the word out! I'm hearing a lot of stuff" she taps her ear "about noone in the Ezzo region responding, maybe they didn't get the same event we did!"

The man of default, stands there, and listens as Giganpor speaks.

He looks back to Aincrad, and then seems to be weighing his options on success versus failure..

Karoshi frowns at Balmung, "I'm a salaryman, not a samurai. I don't volunteer to die. I volunteer to work."

At Kaleido and Tetra's comments he nods, "Prepare. Right. We will do this 'grinding.' And then when we are fully ground, we will climb the tower and get out of this place."

He realizes if he's in a coma, they'll find him on Monday. His coworkers always look out for each other.. Its why he has to get back.

He looks at Kaydon, "If I was going to hallucinate something while dying, it wouldn't be a stupid game where I'm wearing armor and killing squirrels while surrounded by people with hair like teenagers from Shibuya and outfits like you'd expect to see in a boy's magazine."

He nods at Kaleido, "We have to do something. Not just stand idly by."

After some time Zorin could feel his throat growing hoarse from his shouting. Should that be happening in the game? Looking out at the crowds it seemed like few people were still paying attention to him. Mostly it looked like people had decided on some course of action, and hopefully this effort prevented some people from doing something reckless. It seemed a few others like Tadaya had also picked up the call to try keep people calm and safe.

Finally quieting down he looked around once more, again noticing Mikage as it seemed they were in the process of contacting some friends. Shaking his head he only wished he was so lucky, but hopefully whatever is going on will end up being resolved soon enough. Quietly muttering, "Thanks the gods at least a few people out there are trying to help keep everyone safe." and finally starts to slowly climb back down so he can move over to the clearing in front of the southern fountain himself to discuss with anyone who showed up.

"I've never been one for the crafting system in this game, but I guess I'll have more time." Cynwrig pops up the stick into his hand. He listens quietly with a nod, "Maybe your stream is still going. Think of all the adventures people could be watching you have. It'll be like nothing else.

Elrune worked her way back to Moriko. "So... I still don't know what is going on. But..." she looked around. "But we've got each others, right?"

Merek nods a bit to Zorin, "Well, not a lot that I'm able to do for folk really," he admits, while he looks to people, then sighs, "This is... Crazy," the man looks then to the tower. "It even makes ya wonder, are you on da right planet? Well, I think until we know if things are safe, we shouln't look to see what happens if the player's killed in the game." A nod a bit.

     Balmung's head lowers. A dark shadow falls over his eyes.

     "If you heard the chime, if you heard the tone, then there is no doubt that you're trapped."

     "It's the only consistent thing in every case. The tone preceded every victim."

     "And I was there when Orca was struck down. The tone accompanied the attack that..."

     That took his life.

     That stole his life.

     That made him a boy waiting to die.

     It stole his middle school. His high school. It stole Yasuhiko's birthday parties, his scraped knees. It stole from Yasuhiko even the chance to introduce Kite to Balmung, though Balmung could never know that.

     Maybe they could've been friends in the world where that never happened.

     But that's not the world they live in, is it?

     "The attack that put him under," Balmung says finally.

     "The black wave carried the tone. It hit all of us. It swallowed everyone. If there's anyone here who wasn't in the Wave, then..."

     "Maybe."

     "It's a thin thread of hope to hold onto. So I won't begrudge you holding onto it."

    Everyone speaking all at once. It was all overwhelming. Then through the roar of the crowd... a voice. A very familiar voice! Shiroe!

    Putting a hand to his hear, he starts speaking to what basically looks like noone in particular. "Shiroe! Thank God you're here! Things are going to shit! Where are you!?"

    He looked a little better after just having been freaking out over his dog... was it this Shiroe person keeping him cool?

Having arrived in front of the southern fountain Zorin notices a small group already discussing amongst themselves. As he arrives several of them take notice and turn towards him, among them it seems to be Merek who he had briefly talked with in Westelande before the wave hit. Merek approached and commented as Zorin stops. Replying he says "This really is crazy. How much have you learned from your direct team so far?"

     "Right? It'll be an adventure for anyone that doesn't know how this game works. Or how much it simulates of things like eating and sleeping and..." Although Tadaya keeps her tone lighthearted and easygoing as she replies to Zorin, there's a distinct shift in her smile that lets more discomfort show.

     How's she going to go to the bathroom with everyone watching? Did they even include that in this game? Are the developers of ETO that weird? How's she going to get around her viewers seeing everything?

     Are her viewers even still there?

Kite misses his friends. He misses BlackRose, he misses Mistral, he misses Piros and Aura. And he misses Orca.

Kite finally interjects moments later, "Balmung is right, that we need to be careful. Elder Tale is much more 'real' than Fragments was; it's ... very possible that you'll be much worse off than a coma if something happens to you in here."

Frowning, he looks between Balmung and Naotsugu again before turning to Nevarri. She'd been blind in real life, she said -- of course, for some people, being stuck here wouldn't be the worst thing. Part of him, almost resentfully, noted that Balmung probably wouldn't mind it, deep down.

That's just the kind of person he was, he felt.

Kite's chest ached with a tiredness beyond his years. He could still remember the last birthday Yasuhiko ever had -- they'd gone to the beach with both of their families, and the other boy had wound up getting a cold because it started raining while they were in the water.

He could still remember the day that Orca protected him from Skeith and paid the ultimate price for it. Determination blazes within his eyes, as he sucks in a deep breath. He wouldn't fail again.

Come hell or high water, he'd save his friend. This newest expansion had something to do with the incident seven years ago, he could feel it in his gut. "Ezzo .. I think that's where I'm going to go. I don't care about leaving the game right now. Somehow, this game is connected to what happened in Fragments .. and that 'connection' begins where that wave did."

"And how it stimulates fighting. Adventures. Stories. You aren't going to just be fighting in raids now, right? You have to live, and fight, and earn. And there are more than just quests out there. You aren't just someone producing numbers for people on screen anymore."

    Merek nods a bit to Zorin, "Not a lot that anyone knows, not a lot to find, it looks like all contact away from the place is limited a little."

     "So... This stream just turned into reality TV, kind of." Tadaya nods slowly as she taps a finger to her chin, then straightens out her antler-adorned helmet. "Minus an editing team, anyway. It'll certainly be a one-of-a-kind stream, if nothing else." Another reserved giggle, and then she glances around slowly before turning to Cynwrig once more. "You don't happen to know if there's anyone else streaming this, do you?"

Shiruba's keen hearing picks up where Kaydon is too, she seems to be a bit better off. Mori is hovering around and seems to be poking herself, from her wings to her ears. She also looking worried with the fight seeming to not come to blows at least yet. More things are spoken of is Balmung RPing? Or is this legit everything feels right, she knows what actual armour feels like to wear she also feels stronger than she ever has n her life. Then she gets a call her tone of voice gets intense. She then moves up to Balmung

"I just got a call from a friend in Ezzo, Att Syne. A GM's seemingly taken over the Bandit King and is organizing an evac it looks like the Root Town is wiped out of existence if anyone dies even if we do come back somehow. They need boats, we need to get ships to Lia Fail Port to get people out. If what you say is true then a lot of people could die and my Father's there!"

Gwen is all serious business now if a little paniced.

    The chimlink is going on about boats and scouting. Someone will probably do that but it will keep.

    Mizuki's not sure what else to say to Balmung. Kite proposes a plan of action. They're both veterans of this craziness if it really IS permanent. Sam is just Some Guy. But if there's something loads of RPGs have prepared him for, it's suddenly buddying up to a diverse bunch of fellow heroes that all have backstories and personalities you discover over time through cinematics.

    "But even facing death, you're willing to go halfway across the world." Mizuki folds her hands behind her back, and her tail swishes back and forth.

    "How are we gonna get there? Are there any high-level areas between here and there we need to worry about?"

Cynwrig lifts his shoulders in a bare hint of a shrug, "Law of large numbers. I'm sure a couple people are. Not many will have large audiences..."

Beat.

"What kind of adventure will you give them? What kind of hero will you be for them?"

Huh. "Well," Tetra says, "That explains some of the missing faces..." her voice turns a touch wistful. Her eyes are sweeping the crowd in general, picking out things, certain habits of players. Certain looks. "We ARE missing about an entire Root Town's worth of people who would've been logged on at a time like this."

     Balmung shakes his head.

     "The Chaos Gates are dead."

     The angel sheathes his blade. "I'm certain. I was running to one when the darkness appeared over Ezzo. I was going to..."

     He looks at Kite. "Put in a set of keywords." His voice is harsh. Kite knows the Keywords. There's no question Kite doesn't know those keywords.

     "It rusted over in the middle of my input. I only got two keywords in before it died. Then..."

     His wings spread to indicate the rest of Aincrad Town. "Then this happened."

     "There's a port to the east, Carmina Gadelica Marina. It's not in the Town of Beginnings; that's in the west. The Marina's a small town that gets used for shipping to the east. Most players don't use it because of the Chaos Gates." The words flow off his tongue with the practiced ease of someone who is way, way, *way* too into the lore of this game, because anybody who *wasn't* a titanic lore nerd would stumble over that shit instantly. It's exactly the kind of name a GM makes for their setting expecting players to memorize it along with the other thirty names they wrote that sound the exact same for verisimilitude.

     Balmung is *that player*.

     Balmung memorized *all* the names.

Nevarri is very admittedly still kinda overwhelmed by all of this chaos, her head lowering and she drops down to the ground to curl up around her legs. As much as she just advocated that living in the game would not be so bad, the dying part would certainly be a bad thing.

She's going to curl up and take a breather.

    Because OF COURSE Balmung memorized all the names! That was him, alright... "You know... you're still as big a nerd as when I saw you last..."

    And now it was Gwen's turn to be panicking. And Naotsugu's turn to TRY and help them calm down. "Hey, hey! Uhh... Gwin, right?" He obviously didn't pay attention to the party invite, having chosen to had just accepted it without thinking about it at the time. "We need to calm down. Things are going to be okay, alright? I don't know how... but I know there's some people out there who have the head for this kind of thing and they'll help and figure all this out!"

    The first to respond back is Balmung and his response is...Ominous. If it was any other player that told him this info Shiroe might have doubted it at first. Brushed it off as being caught up in the hysteria. Though he knows Balmung well enough. Not because the two had spent the most time together...But simply because he knew just how serious as a player Balmung was. He didn't bother saying things unless they meant something and he didn't say things without having some backing to them....Which meant...

    <<So that is the case then...>>

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A long exasperated sigh can be heard escaping his lips as he enters into the building in question and starts interacting with the NPCs. His eyes continue to scan the menu that pops up as he looks around but..."Nothing..." His attention goes back to Balmung on the message system. And honestly he could fel himself slowly sinking into the rhythm of the moment till...Naotsugu's voice rings as well. Another more relaxed sigh escapes his lips

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<<Naotsugu... Yeah, it's good to hear you're here too...Both of you. As for where I'm at...>>

>
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    <<I'm at the nearby Guild Hall. When everything started getting crazy I wanted to see if at leasts things stored had ended up being protected, but it looks like that's not the case.>>
>
>

    <<Balmung...For now I want to try and meet up with you both and figure out what we do and don't know, we can figure out the rest from that point. If what you're saying really is true we can't afford to make one misstep. I'm assuming you both got dragged to Alne as well?>>

"Well, come on then." Kaydon says to Gwen, as he makes his way towards her.

"You heard the man, there's a port east of here. We should be able to find a ship and.." He frowns, "Not have any money to rent it. Damnit. Maybe if we kill some stuff on the way there.."

Kite nods fiercely. It was easy for someone to say that they were fine facing death, to reassure themselves that it would be alright. Kite was afraid of dying, and he was afraid of failing. But that fear wasn't going to stop him, it didn't back then, and it wouldn't now.

A bitter wince crosses his features as Balmung interjects, supplying both a jab and helpful information. It wasn't rocket science for Kite to pick up on the implications.

None the less, it was a start, "The Town of Beginnings, huh ... well, erm. To tell you the truth." he says sheepishly, looking to Mizuki.

"I'm not too well versed in this game yet ... I haven't played something like this in years. I only just got into 'high level play' the other day, but if it's anything like it was back then, crossing "zones" on foot is dangerous. Very dangerous, even for high levelled players."

Kite rubs the back of his head awkwardly before giving Balmung's information some more thought.

"I think sailing is probably the best bet. I don't think even Balmung can fly there on his wings .. so to get to Ezzo will take a lot of gold."

For equipment. For a boat. For supplies; potions would be at a premium.

     "It came in handy while I was looking for Orca."

     That's probably true but he is almost assuredly also lying about the reasoning.

     Shiroe messages him. Balmung responds. <<We're in the town square. I'll be there momentarily.>>

     And with that, without another word, Balmung turns and heads off.

Gwen would reply back over <<I'm afraid I don't and I don't think anyone else does but Shir? Kaydon? Do either of you have it? I'm on another call with a friend over there right now he's from PLANT. It's getting bad there, as I said, the root town is gone, if anyone dies they will end up back in that and I don't know what will happen. My father Uther is there ... as well. Keep me posted if you notice anything else.>>

None of this makes any sense.

That this is what she's thinking is written all over Jazuhanzu's face. None of this makes any sense. How can they just be /trapped/? It's just a game. It can't be THAT hard to unplug, no matter how weird things feel, no matter how real this body seems to be.

"I think I need to sit down," says Jazz, her voice barely above a whisper. One easily lost amongst the confused throngs of gameplayers who's evenings have been interrupted. Too much data, not enough parsing. "how can we just be /trapped/?" Her eyes unfocus. She's looking at the menu again, where the logout button has visibly dinstegrated earlier. She raises a hand as if to try to push it, as unnecessary as that is.

And sit she does. Right there against a building, back to it, with a whole lotta confusion written all over her face. There's just... too much going on and too many people and too many strange feelings. Overwhelmed newbie is overwhelmed.

"Okay then." Shiruba turns her attention back to Gwen, and pats her friend on the shoulder. "You and Morri help get things organized." She doesn't even comment on the 'Father' remark, now isn't the time for it. "I'm going to go help scout the place out."

Then turns her attention as Balmung brings up the small port area. "Yeah, make sense people would forget it using the quick travel." Which is now not working. So they needed boats.

She pulls her bow, simple and low level as it is, from her back. "Let's go make sure the route is clear before we try to move a large amount of people.... And I'd honestly rather be doing something more interesting than sit here worrying about what we're going to do." Shrugs a little to Kaydon. "We'll worry about that when we get there. Maybe there's a fishing mini-game or something."

     "Oh, right. There's gotta be some big name Nero idols out here, too..." Somehow, Tadaya actually sounds genuinely relieved after hearing that from Cynwrig. The latter question has her pausing for a moment, though, before answering.

     "... I don't know if I'll really be a hero, but... Open worlds means plenty of room for exploration. Someone's going to need to map out all the new areas in this expansion, right? Might as well be someone starting from scratch to get that real new player experience~"

    Once again, she's got that unenthusiastic enthusiasm in her voice. "... After I figure out the controls and things first."

    Naotsugu holds his hand to his head again. That Shiroe person again. "Yeah, we're both here in Alne. We're on our way." And with that, he looked at Gwen with a sorrowful smile. "Sorry to dash, but one of those people who could figure all this out contacted me. Gotta find out more, and he's the main man to listen to!" And with that, he'd quickly leave Gwen's party and immediately send an invite to Balmung just before he rushed off! And he'd start running as well! At least his movement speed was better since he was in starter gear.

Grimly nods to Merek, "I was afraid you might say that." Looking to the others who have gathered he poses the same question, but mostly there are just shakes of the head or comments to the same effect. Zorin nodding at the replies continues, "Clearly this is a bad situation, but every problem has a solution, and even before that steps that can be taken to minimize damage."

"Probably this is the best on hand team we have here. Thanks for showing up. It looks like there are too many of us to do individual introductions, but I believe we need to triage the situation and determine what the next safe step is. Any ideas?"

A soft smile crosses Cynwrig's face.

A whole new world. So many new things.

Naotsugu'a words doe somewhat get to her in turn she settle a bit there are big names showing up too here there's a hope maybe they cna figure this out. With Balmung bringing up Carmina Gadelica Marina? There are likely boats there or they can cobble something together, crafting should hopefully work still right?

"So we got the base of a plan then Naotsugu... and it's Gwen."

    Gwen steps in and drops a familiar name, filling the group in on what's happening in Ezzo.

    They have A QUEST.

    But crossing on foot is dangerous. Mizuki scratches the back of her neck nervously again. "Gold. I'm sure the field areas around here are crawling with porings, but... man, if only the Landers cared about humanitarian aid... Buying a fleet of boats sounds like it's gonna take a LOT of porings..."

     There is a moment of deep hesitation as Naotsugu's party invite arrives. Balmung's eye hovers over it for a long moment as Naotsugu bolts past him.

     He hovers over the accept button. It's not like there's any reason to deny it. No reason to turn him away. To rebuff him. To just shove him aside. They're going to the same place. It's purely convenience, right? It's purely convenience.

     So why is he hesitating?

     He knows why. He knows exactly why.

     In the end, he just leaves the invite hanging, running behind Naotsugu. He doesn't accept. He doesn't deny.

     That's so tremendously Balmung.

Mikage gives a sideways glance towards Zorin beore he descends, offering a nod. At least he was doing something, which is better than those who are frozen in place amongst the crowds below. When she hears the information back from Gwen, the girl walks to the edge of the rooftop, looking down once more.

Cupping her hands around her mouth, she shouts loud enough to try and amplify her voice, "Anyone have a spyglass or binoculars?" She waves an arm, trying to get attention, "I want to get a look at Ezzo before the sun goes down!"

She perches there, crouched at the edge of the roof.

"Ah ... yeah. It's going to be tough, even if everyone here went out to field to kill Porings." Kite says, moving to plant himself on the ground, cross-legged. Balmung's departure was hardly surprising, but, Kite did hope he, Naotsugu and whoever they were going to meet had good luck in their endeavor.

    Balmung and Naotsugu run off. Mizuki wonders about what, but... This seems more important. She sends Gwen and Kite friend requests. "If we found some players who know how to sail, could we just... TAKE some boats? If this isn't a story the GMs set up... then there'd be no enemies in the way to stop us, right?"

    "I don't know, I think there is an answer to it all, for now, we need to look into protecting people, I mean... I'm a member of the team, isn't it our duty to make sure the game is fun and pretty safe for everyone? I'll give it everything," Merek nods, a little bit. "I am going to offer some support for those... Not in the best mental state with all of this." Then he offers a salute to Zorin.

Kite blinks as a new friend request pops up on his menu and smiles, the tension in his body slowly dissipating. He taps the 'accept' icon.

"Maybe? I think it might be possible, but, there are still 'rules' ... rules can be bent, but not entirely broken. The consequences for stealing a boat might not be worth it."

They wouldn't know unless they tried, and to begin with, the idea of just stealing one left a bad taste in his mouth. "I think it'd be a good idea to ask around with the Landers. They might have Quests available for gold and EXP. It's possible, too, that there might be a Lander at the docks who'd give out a boat ride as a reward, maybe."

'Anyone have a spylass' reaches the Undine's ears and Jazz looks down. Sure enough, she has one in the satchel she's come into the game with. She reaches into it and produces golden spyglass, all shiny and intricate looking. She turns it over in her hands and then rises to her feet. That, at least, is a thing to directly focus on. She may not know what to do right now but at least she's got that much going for her.

"Yeah, right here," she calls up. "It's kinda fancy!"

    As the two make their way to the guild hall, it takes time for Shiroe to spot the two amongst the panicking crowds. Though hopefully not for them. He had planted himself right at the entrance of the guild hall in the least crowded portion in hopes to get him to stand out if only just a bit more than he would usually. Truly a difficult task. Yet once they spotted him, besides the starter gear that adorned his figure he was the same person they could remember. That messy blue-hair, that slender frame of a body, and sanpaku-eyes shielded by his glasses. There was no else it could be but the Villain in Glasses.

    Though as he spots the two former DTP members there's nothing villainous about his expression, it's relief. "You both made it...I really was hoping our first meeting after since so long would have been under better conditions...For now though we should stay focused..." The way he spoke prior, and knowing the reputation that Balmung had it would make sense that if for some reason something this crazy had happened before he might have had some experience. It was the only reason he trusted his words on the situation so far. So of course the first thing Shiroe wanted to do was ask the specifics yet... "...For now, both of you tell where you've been so far. Just in the town center? If so we should start looking around the city and see what the situation is and pick up as much information about what's going on as we can." Just as he says that another message passes to Balmung.

>
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    <<I really want to ask you everything you know, but for the time being we should prioritize making sure that there's no issues with staying in town. When things settle if you could tell me more of what you know, even if just a little it'd help immensely.>>

    Shiroe knew Balmung well enough, he wasn't the talkative type as it is, so possibly a private message would have been better than to ask him all that, especially with so many random people running about. He did feel a bit awkward not saying it for Naotsugu, but he knew it was probably something that'd make him more comfortable.

    Mizuki made a friend! "The consequences of getting the boats to Ezzo?" she says, seriously, then shakes her head. "Sorry. You're right, we don't even know 'till we get there! there might be quests."

    She scratches at her hair. "Ah, but neither of us know just what's between here and the port and what kind of trouble we'll run into... wait! We can ask on the regional chimlinks!" She holds a finger to her ear.

"You seem like you have a good head on your shoulder's, Merek." Zorin nods back, admittedly not sure how to respond to the salute since he was never in the military nor much of an roleplayer. Looking over the group that has gathered he continues. "If we don't have a clear resolution to solve this immediately, I guess we need to gather as much information as we can."

Looking down at his rusted equipment he sighs deeply, "I can't believe I also lost all my gear. But hopefully we are able to get this all resolved in a couple hours." Looking back up at the group he suggests, "Lets go to collect what information we can around town here and meet back in 30 minutes, I suggest sticking to at least groups of two or three until we get a better idea."

Zorin turns back to Merek, "How about we team up? Want to take a look around and test a few things to see what really has changed?"

    <<"So uh, between here and the ports... how dangerous are those zones for a level 1 player?">>

    Mizuki groans seconds later. "Of course, noone knows because of the update."

It takes a moment to spot the small, adorable form of Jazuhanzu among the crowd. When she does, her eyes lock on and she motions the Undine over. "Yes! Come here, I'll give you a hand up!" She holds out her hand down towards her, ready to pull the girl up onto the roof.

She doesn't need to raise her voice quite so much now that she has an answer, so she explains in a quieter voice. "Seems like there is a whole lot of trouble in Ezzo, at least from what people in my party are reporting." It's curious how she says 'the people in her party', not 'her friends'. "I was hoping we might be able to see something. The more knowledge we have, the better."

    "Ya, let's go see if those we came in with look to be alright," Merek mentions to Zorin, then he looks to Nevarri, and Kite, waving to the two, "Hey guys, you doing alright? It's a lot to process, I was wondering if you'd like to come with us. We don't have to fight, but I can't imagine the crowd's great for anyone at the moment."

After travelling for a minute and finding Nevarri and Kite, Merek is quick to check in on them. As Zorin looks at the crumpled form of Nevarri he comments in concern, "Merek, I think she is in shock."

"Don't worry about it," Kite says, waving it off like water under off a duck's back. While she gets on the chimlink, he puts a hand to his chin in thought, before Merek catches up to them. "Huh? Oh, it's you again .. I'm not sure! Ah, don't take that the wrong way ... well, it's not that I mind, we're just trying to figure out the best way to get to Ezzo."

It was a feeling that sank deep into his marrow. That he was going to confront something very important there.

"Oi," is what Jazuhanzu says.

Mikage is eyed speculatively before she makes her way over to join her, having now identified her as the source of the request. There's a pause, but then she's clambering up with some help. "I don't even know what an Ezzo is," she tells Mikage. Oh no. She's that new. "I didn't even know what an Aincrad was." Her gaze sweeps up the tower, up and up. She extends her hand towards Mikage with the spyglass, then, allowing her to take it. "It's weird," she warns, "You won't see people wiht it. Just the landscapes."

She'd found that out earlier, herself, in her newbie exploring before she got yoinked into this whole giant mess, having walked herself into a spot of trouble. Fortunately she came out the end none the worse for wear. Things were a litle kinder at the time, after all.

    Mizuki blinks. Oh hey, it's the techies! "Do you still think there's a chance that those with technical knowledge can help? In real life I'm an IT g......person. But it also sounds like the people in Ezzo are in trouble and we need to... get there. With boats. If this... goes on for long."

     Shiroe.

     Balmung slows to a walk when Shiroe picks them out of the crowd. He heads over to the Villain in Glasses with a sort of purposeful stride rather than an anxious one, the image of a knight in shining armor behind Naotsugu's wild wall of meat. Sure, the armor's gone - replaced by nothing but a grey tunic of the Outcasts, from which the Wings of Fianna spread, broad and feathered - but you never really lose that walk. That gait. That knightly bearing. The sword in his hand is just a Rusted Blade, but in his hand it looks for all the world like a sword of a hero, something rusted not from disuse but from glorious battle. It just *fits* in his hand. You can take the knight out of the shining armor, but you can't take the shining armor out of the knight.

     He stops in front of Shiroe.

     His finger opens to move Naotsugu's invite into the trash - it wasn't really necessary now - and brushes across the friends list. His mouth opens to greet the other man.

     There's three names on it.

     The look on Balmung's face says the world.

                                   SHIROE                                  
                                  KANAMIX                                  
                                0|201100011@                                

     Shiroe's question is unheard. Balmung's finger hovers over the name. A finger reaches out to touch it. Another reaches up to touch his ear.

     Static. Shrieking static. Balmung recoils as if struck, his hand over his ear. He swears.

     Neither Shiroe nor Naotsugu have ever heard Balmung swear.

     It takes him a few moments to calm himself, to regain his demeanor. A few moments to recenter. He shakes his head.

     "I'll tell you what I know later," he says aloud. He's already spoken most of it with Kite and Naotsugu present. Saying it out loud just let Naotsugu know what Shiroe had asked, and that Naotsugu knew most of it. "You're right."

     As usual.

     "..."

     "...Orca is logged in."

     "So is Kanami. I can't message Kanami. And when I try to message Orca..."

     Balmung shakes his head.

     "You're right. We have a lot to do. I'll..."

     Another hesitation. Memories flooding back. Debauchery Tea Party post-raid. Nyanta trying to get him to eat with them, even if it was just roleplaying. Everyone laughing. Balmung, sitting at the edge of the fire.

     "...count on you to organize everyone."

    Merek looks then to Kite, and nods, "I will be with Zorin then, we're going to assist new players. I'll add you all as friends, we can keep in contact if we need." A little shift of the hip while he moves to follow Zorin, "Alright, I'm prepared when you all are ready."

"Hmm..?" Nevarri looks up for the first time in several minutes when Merek and Zorin come by to check on her, her eyes red from crying, as she sniffles, "Oh... Yeah... Sorry, I..." She takes a breath and pushes herself up to her feet. "Just a whole lot of mixed feelings, I guess... A lot to Process."

She glances to Kite, "I mean... On the one hand we're suddenly all here, and you've got Bishonen over there blaming Kite for everyone being trapped here... Everyone's freaking out, and I dunno what to do..."

Her lips curl and she looks up, "But at the same time... I can see again... It's a miracle..."

"Ezzo is the kingdom that is Northeast of here." Mikage explains, not seeming to mind the lack of game knowledge. "Did you just start in the game?" She asks, but then seems to focus on the task at hand. "Aincrad is the big dungeon tower. A hundred floors filled with every manner of death you can imagine." Her tone is kept light though, a laugh at the edge of her lips.

How can she be amused at a moment like this?

Accepting the spyglass, Mikage turns it towards the direction of Ezzo, then spends a very, very long time staring through it. The way her expression shifts suggests that she just saw something... that she was not expecting. "Shit..." Lowering the spyglass, she hands it back towards Jazuhanzu. "Thanks for that. I... think I need to report this. To... someone?" She seems a little lost as to who she should even talk to. Gwen? Balmung? Zorin? The loud Were-Fang fellow? Who exactly /is/ in charge?

    Merek nods a bit to Nevarri, "I'll check on you sometime, you be well," he says.

"R-...report what?" says Jazz. She's got no idea what Mikage just saw. She raises the spyglass to her own eye to look in the same direction she did, clearly not expecting to see much from this vantage point, even with a spyglass, as to what could be going on far from ehre. She squints into the spylgass, doing that before she tries to add anything further. Her face being scrunched up like this just enhances how stupidly adorable her avatar is, or technically, how adorable *she* is right now.

Kite accepts the incoming friend requests with a smile and a nod, before the topic of Balmung is brought up again.

Another pang of sorrow his him in the chest. No matter how hard he tried, from the moment he recieved the Book of Twilight, Balmung had hated him. Of course, there were still things today that he'd never told him about, but even if he did, he doubted it would change his perception of Kite.

It was something only marginally easier to accept as an eighteen year old than it had been as a child.

        " ... hm?"

Scrolling through his friends list, Kite realizes that it had a couple of display errors. Things that shouldn't be there. If he had to guess, it was maybe...a third longer than it should be, in total.

And pretty much all of the bugged 'names' were showing as online. What did it mean?

Gwen has taken a moment to breathe and try to calm down and she would move to Kite and Mizuki, she is followed by a Sprigan Woman clad in cleric robes of some sort. "So your Kite? Name's Gwen, I played Fragment when I was younger. I thought all that coma stuff was considered tinfoil hat bait. I guess I was wrong. So we need to get ships. My father, and Att along with who knows how many other people are in need of evacuation. What can I do to help I lost most of my gear and money, I still have something left and it's at this project's disposal The name is Gwen, Gwen Prendragon."

The healer behind her pauses "I'm known as Morri and as Gwen said I'm at your disposal as well."

He watches as Nevarri seems to revive and discuss things once again. He sighs a bit glad that she is seeming to do a bit better. On hearing Mikage he moves a little closer looking interested. "We are currently gathering information and will be reporting back shortly to the larger group. What did you find?" He glances at Mikage and then at Jazz who is currently looking through the spyglass?

    Gwen speaks up! "I'm Mizuki, umm... I didn't make up a surname for this alt. I'm on a mailing list with Att." She holds out a furry hand to shake. "We need to reach the port, not die on the way, and then figure out how to get boats as low-level characters. Because if we have to kill enough porings to pay for a boat we'll die of old age. Hopefully there will be a quest or something we can do to get the Landers to help us."

Nevarri nods slowly, "Right... It might help to friend up anyway..." Her fingers move to her friends menu and she scrolls down the list, "It doesn't look like too many of my friends logged in for the expansion... Most of them were just exploration contacts, I didn't really keep up with them much outside of that..." She sighs a bit, "But I guess making new friends is what this is all about..."

With that, she scans about the other players nearby, and starts adding Zorin, Merek, and Kite. "There we go... This should be a basis for something, I guess."

    Merek looks at a hand while he begins to check it, then he holds up his fingers, while light begins to shimmer along in an arc. "W-What... I didn't put any light magic on the spec'ing," he says while he blinks a bit. Then he looks to Nevarri, and nods a bit, "You be safe," he then offers a look to Mizuki, "I don't know. We might be able to exploit it this side, perhaps those in the... Well would it really be a 'real' world. People in the world we came from, they can possibly fix it as well. There's no way of knowing, until we try."

"Report... that." She uses her hand to make sure that the Undine is looking in the right direction. "I've never seen anything like it. Trust me, that is /not/ normal for Elder Tale." She figures that much might need explaining for someone who is new to the game.

As Zorin approaches, she looks at him with a concerned expression, "There's some sort of giant cannon. It might be the biggest structure I've seen other than the Tower, itself. And... the mountains seem to be spawning buildings, and buildings from buildings. Toppling over and re-spawning over again. Like some procedural generation has gone completely crazy." She motions to Jazuhanzu and her spyglass.

Jazz lowers the spyglass for a moment. There is a look of consternation and confusion written all over her face. She raises the spyglass again and has another look and then lowers it again. Perhaps a third look will actually allow her to underwstand what she's looking at?

One more raise, then a lowering.

"What in the world? That looks... buggy, to put it mildy. Like some kind of bizarre, broken procedural generation system.'

She gives her head a shake, as if it bothered her eyes to see it given the way she rubs at them with her knuckles. "And there's people trapped in there? They didn't get brought here like the rest of us?" She's clarifying because the amount of overload of information that's been hitting her is considerable. She did, after all, explain what she's seeing, to an extent.

Kite looks up, closing his menu out. "Uh, yeah! My name is Kite .. Balmung and I used to play Fragments, too." he says, before realizing it was redundant to say so.

Screwing his head on tighter, as the proverb goes, he starts over. "Ahem .. thanks. Well, most of my inventory and gold is gone, too .. I'd already mentioned it to Mizuki, but our best bet is probably to find some quests to do. The way to the Town of Beginnings, I think, should be pretty easy to cross on foot ... " compared to going to the port first, went unsaid.

"We can get some gold and EXP there and then scout out the way to the port safely."

The Town of Beginnings, as its name implied, had everything you needed to start your journey. Or, that's what Kite assumed.

Kite chimes his two cents in on Mizuki's question, as well, "Not from this side, probably .. if at all. I know it sounds crazy, but CC Corp knew. They knew what was going on and suppressed information about it as long as they could. The only reason Fragments shut down was because the number of cases got too big for them to keep a lid on."

He could still remember his BBS posts being deleted, all so long ago.

Turning to Mizuki he smiles warmly, "Someone in IT! That could be useful. It would be great if you could come along with us, we are gathering talent to try resolve a few things and the more the better."

He also glances to Gwen with a nod, "But I also understand if you have other plans. I'm not sure about the full situation in Ezzo, but I don't know if rushing there without a solid plan is what I would advise personally."

Zorin then looks out and see there are a number of individuals seeming to organize to move out.

At Jazz's comment Zorin turns to her. "Buggy? Really?" Look back and forth from Mikage to Jazz he asks, "Could I take a quick looks?"

    Mizuki's ears splay as she looks at Kite. "You're saying the people running the servers we're now trapped in /know this can happen and have covered it up before/?! Mouuu, why can't I go back to thinking you're making this up...."

    She holds her hands to the sides of her head and shakes her head.

    Zorin responds, and she gives him a slightly sad look. "I would, but... if this is gonna be solved that way, then people on the outside will have us free in a few hours, tops." She moves between Gwen and Kite and puts an arm over each of their shoulders. "But if we're stuck here longer like the hero Balmung says, then that's a few hours the people in Ezzo can't spare, and we've gotta save 'em!" She pumps a fist in the air. "This is a quest! It may be life and death, but we've prepared our whole lives for this moment! How could I turn that down?"

Mikage nods her head, her hands reaching up as if she were trying to adjust a cloak... that isn't there. She lets her hands come back down and rest at her sides. "Seems like it. The cloud of darkness seemed to come from that direction and I don't think anyone from that Kingdom found there way here." She explains.

"I'm not in IT directly, but I know a little bit about the Dive System." She adds to Zorin, "Though my study was mostly to do with brain interactions." For a moment, she sounds very much like a complete nerd. It doesn't suit the Adventurer that she is running. She looks past the others, towards Gwen. "Though, I don't have any more idea about what happened tonight than anyone else." She waggles her fingers, "I am fascinated by the haptic update, though. Wouldn't they have at least warned my department about /that/?"

Gwen shakes it. "I party with him sometime and he's a very good glamour customer. As for that, we might need to grin we should be able to get to level a bit and get some of the cash. We might be able to hire a lander operated ship to get over there." At this point, she will send out friend invites to anyone who seems to be helping on the project. She then pauses at Neva looking her over.

"Wait you are Nevarri! Your guides are great! Do you have any of your mapping skills or navigation skills intact?"

    "Think a moment, what if people can still dive in to look for folk, or if they can't. We'll learn in the future, it's important to note," Merek mentions, while he nods a bit to people.

    Mizuki's ears splay and she groans when Gwen says the word 'grind'. But then Gwen says something else to pique her interest. "Guides? She writes guides?" Mizuki leans in Navarri's direction. "Do you know of any quests we can get boats with?"

Neva blinks a little bit when she hears someone else recognizing her, and turns to face Gwen, blinking, "Huh? Oh yeah! Sorry, I've been sort of trying to process all of this, that I didn't really check my skills."

With that, she opens up her skill tree and hrmmms, "I do have Cartography yeah. Why do you ask? Where are you headed?"

Zorin nods to Mizuki and Kite with just the faintest hint of a frown. "I hope that things work out for you. Trying to help those people is a noble goal. Just be careful." Then after a moment of consideration and a few guestures, "I've added you both to my friends list. Let me know if anything comes up, and we will pass on information as we learn it."

He then turns to Mikage, "I think what we need right now is information, and those skills may be helpful." Then gratefully accepting the spyglass from Jazz he holds it up to his eye to look out toward Ezzo.

In disbelief he lowers the the spyglass, "That structure is absolutely huge! I don't remember anything like that before." He absentmindedly passes the spyglass over to Merek as well.

Kite smiles and laughs a little after the handshake, Mizuki leaning down on his and her shoulders. He transitioned his hand into giving a thumbs up, "Right. It's up to us to get it done."

Of course, he saw it for what it was. Something like this was hard for anyone to swallow, and as Balmung mentioned, it could be dangerous not to take it seriously. But .. he felt like letting her go with the flow and try to make the best out of her situation was a good thing.

If the worst came to worse, he still had that. Although it was a mystery as to why he'd regained it, he'd use it to protect his new friends, no matter what. "Right, I can't believe I forgot .. I read her starter guide when I started playing the game."

Nodding, Kite makes an affimrative noise to Zorin, "I'll try and keep in touch."

    Kite reminds Sam of something else.

    "Say, uh...." Mizuki looks over the assembled group. "You all speak really good English! Where are you all from?"

    "America," Merek answers. Because he actually can speak English. He chuckles a little bit.

"Sure," says Jazz to Zorin upon his approach. She holds out the spyglass to him thereafter, her eyes still looking that-a-way. She's pointing. "It definitely looks messed up," she agrees, her eyes crossing with confusion, a little ripple of pale, violet bioluminescene playing along the scales and spotting on the Undine's body, perhaps a show of emotion. Either way, she seems blithely unaware of the glow.

"So how do we even get people out of there? I heard something about folks losing their levels and stuff?" It was a mess. A lot of people seemed pretty upset about it, but then, she's new enough that it doesn't matter much to her, herself. "And yeah, I started today. Picked a hell of a day to stop drinking and take up gaming instead." Sarcasm, they name is Jazz.

This smaller group seems to be more comfortable for Mikage than the larger expanses of characters that had mobbed the square earlier. She gives a nod towards Nevarri and Mizuki, her expression a faint bit shy. "I can't say that I've ever seen your guides, but having that kind of information is probably going to be helpful."

Her eyes sweep to Merek, head tilting towards him, "It wouldn't surprise me if they could send someone in, but who would volunteer to go into a game you can't log out from?"

She rubs anxiously at one arm, shifting her weight slightly. "I'm Japanese. From Tokyo." Mikage's expression is slightly confused. "If anyone wants to get my friend code, go ahead." A shadow passes over her features, "No one from my guild logged in so... it would be nice not to be stuck here alone."

    "Also America. I just moved here." Mizuki answers, and looks over at Jazz. "We're gonna go to the starter town, then from there to the port. We're gonna get boats! By quests or by stealing, whatever it takes!" She points a hand in the air. "Then we're gonna go to Ezzo and ferry everyone out of there!" She points in Ezzo's general direction, then scratches her chin. "...We're gonna need a lot of players who know how to sail a boat. Can any of you sail?"

Zorin gestures to open his menu to look at the time and grimaces, "Time really flies." He looks at the gathered people and apologizes, "I really need to get back to the group, we should all be meeting again to share information. Hopefully a few of the others gained some more details."

He turns to Merek, "I'm going to head back now so we can meet up once you're done here." After that he again turns to Mizuki and Kite, "Please let us know as you find out what is going on in Ezzo. We will try organize things here and pass on what we learn."

Finally with a last word that he hopes to see the others soon he waves and starts to head back to the gathering point.

Gwen looks to Jaz for a moment humms "The port town for Ezzo is intact for the moment the survivors of the root town are making for it. We get in with as many ships as we cna to get people out. If we can level up a bit and get some gear? We should deal with some of the monsters better." She looks to Neva. "We're Carmina Glenta Marina, trying to organize ships for the rescue effort. With one of your skills you might be able to help us cut the transit time."

    Nevarri hmmms a moment, "Well, It's been a while since I've been to Ezzo, but if there's trouble happening over there, I guess I should try to help however I can."

She takes a breath before she pushes her glasses up up her nose, light reflecting off the lenses. "I have to live up to my title, after all. Explorer's Guide to ETO, you know."

Kite nods, placing his chin in his hand and propping it up on his knee. "If we can rescue as many people as we can, that'd be great. Should we form a party?"

    Abso-LUTELY!" Miozuki points at the sky, then brings up the menu, offering to party with the others gathered here.

As the situation finally seem to hit home to Taggart, he hauls himself to his feet. His low level blade dragging behind him and defaults to his second best skill, just after Gratuitous Violence.

Finding alcohol,

So with this purpose in mind, he followed his nose to the nearest source, ignoring anything and everything in his personal quest. Till he passes thought a set of door, spying a familiar looking counter top with a series of bottle behind it. With a practice ease the large blade is placed beside a stool and Taggart jumps the counter top.

Grabbing the first set he pops the top and starts to pour a finger into a glass. Back in his new seat Taggart sets in for the long haul.

    Kite grins toothily, springing up from his sitting position straight to his feet, "Right on!"

    Kite Has Joined Your Party

Gwen says "That would be the best idea, so we can coordinate better." She has everyone in her party friended already and gives notices to join up with this. "With as many people as we may be getting, we might want to convert it to a raid."

"I'll give you a glass, if you don't say my name." Sliding a second one over Taggart sips his own. "Taste is crap by the way."

"I guess some of my powers could be useful to help there," muses Jazz, glancing portwards. "I've got some wind-and-sea things going for me." She looks down towards her hands.

"Ugh. This feels *weird*. I was kind of... numb before and now it's... not?" She pinches her fingers together, rubbing them. "Yaugh."

    Mizuki smiles. She has a goal and a quest. For a time, she can just act like a normal RPG gamer, and in a few hours tops this will all be over.

    If it's NOT over... well, let's not think about that.

    "Hey, that's right, you're an Undine! Do you get, like, automatic sailing skill? Or maybe you could swim to Ezzo ahead of us, if there aren't monsters in the water..."