Greetings everyone. This is a complete rework of a fiction that I had started here about a year ago, but I took it down because I was not satisfied with the direction that it was heading. Playing G.U reminded me of my desire to rework the fiction and thus here it is. Reading this, keep this in mind: This is not just a retelling of the .hack//Infection series. I have a number of ideas in mind that I think will make the story interesting and unique.
Disclaimer:
I do not own the .hack series or the official characters associated with it. This storyline and any original characters that are a creation of my mind however are my own with the rights associated with them.
Prologue
Omega: Hidden Darkside Holy Ground
A party of three gates into the area. One is a level 90 blademaster. His body is covered in red armor adorned with dragon scales. His long white hair was blowing in the breeze of the field. His blue eyes survey the dark elemental areas wasteland as he waited for the rest of his party...he twirled the silver broadsword in his hand The next to appear was a shorter level 87 wavemaster. His face was covered in blue runes that glow slightly in the dimly lit field. He wore a blue robe that had gold bordering which gave it a bit of a regal appearance. In his hands was a golden decorated staff that had a blue crystal on the end. The crystal was covered in blue fire that burned perpetually. The two waited for the last to finish loading.
The wavemaster was the first to break the silence.
"So why are we here again Amoroth?"
"I heard this was an unusual dungeon, maybe there is a rare item here. Why, are you scared Andres?"
"Why would I be scared of binary code?"
"I don't know, just isn't like you to question a challenge."
"Well this area is eight levels above your level."
"So what...that's what makes it fun."
The third member finished loading in; it was a level 85 long arm. His attire appeared to be that of a monk more so than a spearman. He wore gray padded armor over his entire body. His hair was a short light tan and his eyes green. The hair was a relatively short spike styled. On his face golden markings can be seen against his slightly more tanned skin indicating that his character favored the thunder element. His spear was a black pole with a moderate sized gold blade on the end of it. One side is an edge and the other side is serrated. He twirled the spear in his hand as he walked a few steps forward surveying the area.
"A level 98 area and our highest member are 90...why do I have a bad feeling about this..."
"Renz, you and I have Phal Repth and enough SP items to chain it, this game is easy mode once you get Phal Repth."
Renz shrugs when he starts to look in attention. Out of the corner of his eye he sees an Astro King approaching quickly.
"Incoming!" Renz shouted as he charged forward and leapt into the air towards it. The Astro King began casting a spell.
"Reckless..." Andres sighed as he began running to the Astro King. Amoroth shrugged and followed the two. Shortly after Renz goes flying towards him backwards engulfed in fire after the Astro King finished casting Vulcan Pha. Amoroth sticks his hand out and catches Renz dropping him on the ground casually.
"This is why you don't charge level 98 monsters recklessly." Amoroth laughed. Andres had finished casting GiRue Rom as the beast became engulfed in a frozen tornado. Amoroth runs up to the frozen Astro King, leaps up to the beast's side, and jams the blade through the ice and into the beast falling with the blade cutting a wide gash into the beast."
"GiRai Don" Andres yelled as his staff glows and gathers energy. A second later the energy flies into the sky causing a large lightning bolt to crash into the beast. Renz leaps up into the air, throws his spear into the lightning charging it with energy, grabs the spear a second later when the lightning from Andres' spell fades, and falls straight down with the spear thrust forward jamming the spear into the Astro King. When the spear goes into the beast, the energy is released causing a small explosion which blows some of the creature's flesh straight off.
The Astro King in a rage goes berserk and lashes it's tentacles out furiously. Amoroth parries a blow but Andres is stricken as he gets knocked back a few feet. Renz thrusts his spear into the beast again and holds onto it as the beast tries to throw him off. Renz sticks one of his hands out and begins gathering his own energy.
"Don't tell me he is going to do that idiotic stunt..." Andres sighed.
"Yup...it looks so..." Amoroth says while rolling his eyes.
"What a showoff...if it weren't for us he would get killed fifty times a day...especially now that player killing has been put back in." Andres responds.
"I was thinking more of a hundred..." Amoroth laughs as he walks back from the Astro King.
Back on the Astro King Renz finishes casting. He yells out as a yellow arcane circle appears in the air.
"Lanceor!"
The spirit of thunder appears above the circle and releases a violent blast of lightning at Renz. Renz quickly raises his spear above him to act as a lightning rod, and thrusts it downwards again into the Astro King causing a large explosion of electricity which is immediately followed by the rest of the lightning from Lanceor electrocuting the beast from the inside out. The Astro King turns gray and disappears as Renz goes flying back from the excess of lightning energy. He lands on the ground with his character nearly dead.
"That was totally unnecessary you idiot..." Andres sneers.
"Give it a rest Andres..." Renz said as he stands up casting Pha Repth on himself.
"You know, if you used Lanceor on the Astro King directly it still would have died probably." Amoroth states.
"Yeah, but it looks cooler like that..."
"...Would you at least get off your butt and find a piece of mage gear to swap out that has a higher level Lanceor on it? I mean using the first level Lanceor spell kind of makes you look bad at level 85." Andres sighed as he begins to walk towards the dungeon entrance.
"Nag, nag, nag...I swear sometimes you act more like my mother than my best friend..." Renz says following Andres. Andres turns around and swats Renz in the head with his staff.
"Baka..." Andres says continuing on. Amoroth merely follows the two laughing. The three arrive at the entrance to the dungeon: a decayed head with fingers coming out of the ground wiggling in the air eerily. Upon seeing this, Andres sighed.
"I hate these dungeons..."
"Mm...meaty..." Renz quickly remarked.
"Come on you two" Amoroth said entering the dungeon. Andres and Renz soon followed.
Two hours later...
Renz, Amoroth, and Andres approach the room with the Gott statue inside of it.
"Man...who has ever heard of a 15 floor dungeon...?" Renz says walking with his arms behind his head
"I thought we were toast against that House Golem just now..." Amoroth remarks.
Andres rolls his eyes.
"Well if SOMEONE would stop acting like a clown..." Andres says turning to Renz...but Renz is back about twenty feet looking at the passageway they just came out of. "Uhh...what's going on?"
"I'll be right back...I thought I saw something." Renz says running to the doorway they just came out of. He goes back down the hallway and prepares to turn around a corner when he sees something fly by at a very high speed. Renz jumps back as a reaction.
"What the hell...it looks like that thing from that time before..." Renz thinks to himself.
"Renz! Hurry up!" Andres yells.
"Fine, fine..." Renz sighs trying to put what he saw out of his mind. He runs through the meaty hall back into the room where Andres and Amoroth are.
"Let's see what we have earned ourselves..." Amoroth says going into the Gott room. Andres and Renz follow. Amoroth bends over and tries to open the chest but it refuses to open.
"Well...that's odd...I've never seen a locked chest before."
"What are you...back off let me blast it..." Andres says as he gathers energy in his staff. "GiRueVak Kruz!"
A large explosion of blue fire explodes engulfing the chest. When it clears, the chest is unaffected. Andres has an agitated look on his face.
"Well that didn't work..." Amoroth said. Renz walks up to the chest.
"Why do I have a bad feeling about this...?" Renz thinks to himself. Renz kneels down and touches the chest when it opens itself. An intense green glow is seen coming out of the chest as Renz reaches into it and pulls out a small exotic looking stone. Renz looks at it as something pops up in his user interface.
"Item Acquired: Twilight Keystone"
Amoroth and Andres go over to Renz.
"That's it? An emerald?" Andres says disappointed.
"Maybe it's part of an event." Amoroth says while shrugging, "In any case, let's get out of here...since the chest opened for Renz, he should keep it."
Andres nods pulling a sprite ocarina out. He brings it to his lips and begins to play a tone but nothing happens.
"What the..."
The screen flickers.
Renz looks up from the stone.
"What's going on?"
Andres tries to use the ocarina again, but nothing happens.
"The sprite ocarina isn't working...
"Guess we're walking out..." Amoroth sighs as he walks towards the doorway...just as Amoroth reaches the doorway a force sends him flying back.
"Amoroth...are you ok?" Andres says. He begins to look rather nervously around.
"We're not alone..." Renz says pulling his spear forward.
"Player killers?" Amoroth says getting up and drawing his blade.
"...I don't know..." Renz says. The screen begins to flicker more and more until it is a constant stream of static.
"Is it just me, or is there a lot of fuzz in this area..." Andres says rotating around with his staff forward.
"No...I see it too..." Amoroth says while slowly walking towards the doorway again. The screen suddenly becomes nothing but static and then goes black briefly. Amoroth, Andres, and Renz soon find themselves in a different area. It is not a dungeon, nor a normal field...but rather an area about half the size of a field. The ground is brown and barren while various masses of land and ruined structures float in the air. The sky is a mass of various swirling colors...green to black to red and so on. Lightning can be seen piercing the sky.
"What in the..." Amoroth says looking around shocked.
Andres looks around warily expecting something.
"Is this some new event??"
Renz stands in the middle of the area looking at the sky.
"...I've been here before...there is an incredibly strong monster here...and you can't gate out. You either have to kill it, die and reload, or hard reset...I think."
"You think?" Amoroth says looking at Renz.
"...Well I am guessing...I ended up using a hard reset...I partied here with Kylia a few months ago...Kylia died and I hard reset because I knew I would die anyway. besides I was being called away to do something and didn't want to hassle with the log out procedure."
"Lazy bastard...honor is greater than laziness..." Andres halfway sneered, halfway laughed.
"It's just a game." Renz said shrugging. "Besides, I was like level 35 back then...we'll probably crush it if it shows up here."
Amoroth nodded then walks towards Renz.
"Whatever happened to Kylia anyway...I haven't seen her in forever."
Renz shrugged.
"Well she said she was starting college, I figured she quit the game...though I do think it was a bit weird that she didn't email me goodbye or even log back in after dying to that monster. I guess that's what happens with people online..."
"Then she was stuck-up then..." Andres laughed.
Renz turns to Andres and gives him a look of death.
"Well at least now you actually party with us, when you were hanging out with Kylia you always went to fields with her. Man you were so whipped..."
Renz turns to Andres with a bemused look on his face.
"I should PK you where you stand..."
"Try it and I'll send you on the blue flame expressway to hell."
Amoroth takes a combat stance.
"Something is appearing; get your act together you slackers!"
Renz and Andres turn to attention. The area began to flash and flicker as a mass of zeroes and ones appear in the air and begin to manifest. A humanoid figure begins to appear. Its legs are long pillars of stone that levitate underneath a torso of similar material. The torso has an eye with a yin-yang in the center and sticks out a fair deal. The arms of the beast are a system of three stone pieces. On each arm a round piece longer horizontally than vertical functions as a shoulder with another slightly smaller stone functioning as the upper arm. The forearms of the monster are relatively well formed with a symbol similar to that of the chest on each one. The hands are directly attached to the forearm and in its right hand it holds a long red staff. The end of the staff is a circle and within that symbol the main of the staff intersects with a horizontally running piece forming a cross in the circle. Attached to the torso is medium sized stone to function as the head. There are three holes in the head that glow red to function as eyes. Coming out of the sides of the head is a large ring giving the appearance of horns. When the thing finishes forming it seems to stretch itself out extending its levitating limbs out producing a rather creepy visage.
"I have never seen a monster like that before...it has to be a special event!" Andres said beginning to gather energy for a spell.
"Interesting...well let's destroy it." Amoroth says running towards it. Renz looks at the monster with a slightly shocked look on his face.
"It's the exact same as before..." Renz thinks to himself. "Well this time it's going down."
Renz begins to head towards the monster but the beast takes the pre-emptive and charges Renz bypassing Amoroth and Andres smashing him with his staff. Being caught so abruptly off guard, Renz goes flying a few feet back and is knocked down.
"Ugh...fast..." Renz says getting up.
"GiRueVak Kruz" Andres says causing the beast to explode in blue fire. Amoroth leaps behind it and tries to jam his blade into it but the beast's thick shell doesn't give way causing the thrust to slide off the monster. It turns around grabbing Amoroth with it's free hand and throws him across the field. The beast keeps its hand outstretched gathering blue energy and releases a bolt of ice at Amoroth. When the bolt hits Amoroth it explodes into a mass of ice freezing him temporarily in a cage of ice.
"No effect?!" Andres yells. He turns to Amoroth and begins casting Pha Repth when the monster appears behind him and smashes him with its staff. Andres flies clear across the field having no heavy armor to weigh him down. Renz leaps through the air and thrusts the blade into the back of the monster full force. The spear point barely even pokes into the monster causing minimal damage.
"What the...it's the same as before!" Renz yells grabbing his spear at the bottom and swinging it like an axe to try to knock the beast back. The monster holds it's free forearm up blocking the spear and then thrusting forward with the staff causing heavy damage. Renz's character becomes paralyzed as the monster approaches for another attack. Renz soon finds himself covered in blue light as Andres casts Pha Repth and then begins casting another spell. The monster turns to Andres and begins to rush it when Amoroth finally free of the ice charges the monster with his blade enflamed.
"GiVak Cutter!" Amoroth yells as he reaches the monster and begins to perform a cross slash into the beast. On the second strike an explosion occurs which forces the creature back but it doesn't look very damaged visibly. Agitated, the beast turns to Amoroth and hits him heavily three times which causes a blue shell to appear around Amoroth and then shatter.
"What the...what kind of effect is this..." Amoroth says as he raises his blade to swing at the monster again. Renz flies through the air and thrusts forward as the monster but is swatted away when he gets in range as if the monster knew what was going to happen. The monster quickly casts a spell causing paralysis to all three of the players.
"Damn it...not this again" Andres says agitated.
The monster throws its staff at Amoroth and then raises the staff in the air with Amoroth attached to it.
"What the...I've never seen an attack like this..." Amoroth says.
"It's the same attack it used to take out Kylia..." Renz thinks...he then yells to Amoroth. "Try to break free! It's an instant death attack!"
"I...can't!" Amoroth yells.
The monster sticks its hand out and several blue and green rings of long polygons appear around it. They begin to expand and then point outward while energy gathers in the center of the ring.
"Amoroth!" Andres yells as he tries to move his character despite the paralysis. Renz frantically issues commands to his character but they do not occur.
"...Looks like this is it..." Amoroth sighed. "I'll see you guys at the root town..."
The energy finishes gathering and a red polygon circle appears surrounding the entire complex of polygons that have already formed. A flash of light occurs and a barrage of tendrils fly out of the ring. The tendrils are made of various colors of zeroes and ones. They quickly close the gap between the beast and Amoroth and converge into Amoroth's chest. Amoroth lets out an inhuman scream as his character shatters into data which is absorbed by the tendrils. The tendrils retract into the monster's hand and the polygons disappear. The paralysis wears off.
"Great...we are a man down now..." Andres said gritting his teeth. Renz runs at the beast, vaults off the ground with his spear and flies through the air somersaulting slamming into the beast with his spear vertically and downwards when he is in range. The monster parries this with its staff and they are in gridlock temporarily while Andres gathers all of his energy into a spell.
"Merrows Pha!"
A blue arcane circle appears in the sky as the spirit of water manifests. It aims its head at the monster and releases a massive wave of ice engulfing the monster. Renz jumps back as the beast becomes frozen in ice.
"Hah...level four summons for the win..." Andres laughs.
"Not bad..." Renz says looking at the glacier encasing the monster.
The ice does not last long however. The monster emits a bright flash of energy and shatters the ice around it. Enraged, it charges Andres and crashes into him. As Andres is knocked off balance, the beast smashes Andres with its staff causing a blue shell to appear around him and then shatter. The beast then throws the staff behind Andres and it floats into the air carrying Andres with it.
"What the...ahh damn it!" Andres yells. Renz runs towards Andres and tries to pull him down from the staff, but as the staff begins to turn exposing Andres' side rather than his body, Renz is blasted back by a bolt of blue energy. The beast forms the rings of polygons again. A few moments later the tendrils fly at Andres.
"Screw this! I've got better things to do than get beaten by some monster..." Andres yells as the quickly jerks the visor off. Just as he does this, the tendrils pierce into his character's right arm and Andres' real player feels an intense pain in reality. With his left arm he pulls the cord out of the wall to his PC. Back in the game Andres' character blinks out as the connection cancels. The tendrils disappear and the monster turns to focus on Renz.
"Coward...and he was preaching to me about honor...it's just a damn game, what's the worst that can happen?" Renz says as he charges the monster and begins to attack relentlessly.
"I may lose, but I will give it my all and kill you if luck allows it!" Renz yells as he throws his spear full force into the monster's chest and then casts Lanceor. The spirit of thunder appears out of an arcane circle and unleashes violent lightning at the spear. The beast is electrocuted briefly but grabs the spear out of his chest immediately regenerating. It looks at the spear briefly and shortly after shatters it with its bare hand.
"Damn it all...now I need to get a new weapon" Renz says as he begins to cast another spell but the monster doesn't allow it. It charges Renz and smashes him with its staff sending him flying vertically smashing into one of the floating pieces of debris. Renz lands on the ground shortly nearly depleted of HP totally.
"What kind of monster...wait...that thing I found in the chest..."
Renz stands up and pulls out the Twilight Keystone. He holds it up trying to use it. It glows briefly but then does nothing else.
"Great...useless." Renz sighed putting the gem back into his inventory. The monster begins to float towards Renz. Renz seeing this sighs and runs up to the beast, leaps up, somersaults in mid-air, and tries to kick the beast with his feet downwards as he rotates. The beast merely moves backwards evading it and strikes Renz with its staff. The shell appears around him and then shatters. The beast throws its staff at Renz and holds its hand out as it forms the ring of polygons.
"Well, looks like we lose this event." Renz says looking at the imminent attack. The attack finishes charging and the tendrils fly at Renz. The beams hit his chest and Renz's player feels an intense pain in real life briefly, but a bright flash appears causing the pain to subside. The entire area freezes as the staff's effect wears off and Renz falls to the ground. His character has a number of holes in the data as patches of light can be seen all over where the polygons forming the character have disappeared.
"What happened...what was that pain...?" Renz says looking around. "That thing...is frozen? Did the administration stop it?"
A flash of light happens behind Renz. Renz slowly turns around to see a mysterious woman in a prismatic flowing robe behind him. Her blue eyes stare deeply at Renz seemingly gazing into his soul. Her flowing white hair makes her appearance as mysterious as it does beautiful. Renz faces the woman.
"Hi...did you do this? You must be a powerful wavemaster if you are able to cast a spell like that..."
The woman merely smiles a little and extends her hand to Renz.
"Come with me...there is much you need to know...and so little time...you cannot defeat Skeith in your current state or power..."
"Skeith? Is that what that thing is?"
The woman nods her head.
"There is no time...come with me. My power can only last but for so long...if that thing destroys you, all hope will be lost."
"Then let's kill it while it's frozen..."
"It's not that simple...there are many things that you need to know...and you must make a decision that will change that path that you take in this world...and possibly the world itself"
"This event NPC is starting to creep me out..." Renz thinks to himself. "Why am I thinking like this, it is just a game?"
The woman stands there waiting for Renz to respond. Renz walks to the woman and takes her outstretched hand.
"I will go with you...but tell me...who are you?"
The woman appears a little surprised at first but then closes her eyes and smiles gently.
"I...my name...it is Aura...thank you for choosing to come with me...let us leave quickly before Skeith reawakens"
"Aura...wait...haven't I heard rumors about a character named Aura..." Renz thinks to himself.
As Renz completes that thought, Aura glows brightly and the two disappear. The freeze effect wears off leaving Skeith alone in the field. It levitates momentarily as its data updates. It then fades away back to where it came from.
Don't forget to read Chapter 1 as well! Any constructive criticism is appreciated. Any mindless flaming is not so please do not waste your time.