.hack//GAIDEN
By: Dustin Perrault (Wakuseino)
XX/XX/2010
6 years after the Pluto's Kiss incident
INFECTION
Root Town: (Omega Server)
The Chaos Gate glowed its usual blue hue, slowly spinning around in a stationary circle. People continued buying equipment, purchasing spell scrolls, and of course dungeon crawling, searching for the next plotline. All seemed normal in The World. Of course, this was far from the truth, and he knew it. The character Meirkan stood and faced the Chaos Gate, as two golden rings appeared around him, and he teleported far away from the town he called his home.
Root Town: Mac Anu (Delta Server)
The character known as Misakichi appeared in the town of Mac Anu for the first time. She was so proud… Finally, she had managed to become a part of The World. Most people wouldn't know where her name came from, but indeed, she was one of the few people who could distinctly remember the "Twilight of the New Gods" almost 5 years ago.
A lot of the people that had computers these days were actually experiencing computers for the first time. However, a surprisingly few amount of people actually learned from the Pluto's Kiss virus, which had all but wiped out computer technology for years. Thus, The World still managed to hold quite a large fan-base, despite all that had happened.
She looked around the Root Town known as Mac Anu, amazed with the extent of the graphics, far beyond the now ancient graphics of 2003. She gaped in awe, as a boat floated across the river, led by the rowing of a Heavy Swordsman clothed in red, whose hair was a dark blue, held in an anime-style "spiked" hair-cut.
It would be a near impossible hairstyle to pull off in real life, but in a game like The World, it fit perfectly, much like everything else. However, that still didn't change one thing: She was a complete and total newbie here, trapped at Level 1 until she got some help. Thus, she shouted out, allowing everyone in the city to hear… though this also required a lot of effort on the part of the user, as well as hurting the ears of anyone unfortunate enough to have their speaker on. As such, she stepped into a corner before saying anything.
"Umm… does anyone know any good dungeons for a level 1 character? I'm really sorry about shouting like this but… the message board wasn't exactly helpful…" Upon hearing her, someone responded, quickly locating her and heading to her area.
It was a Long Arm who responded. Long Arms, known primarily for their ability with Javelins, Spears, and Archery, were the class that held the best range in The World. In terms of stats, they were actually about average, with a bit more of a focus on physical power than the Twin Blade.
This Long Arm in particular looked to be the resurrection of an ancient Valkyrie of legends, with armour as well as a spear disturbingly reminiscent of Freyja herself. The armour was primarily coloured green, with long, blonde hair tied up in a ponytail, seemingly to keep it out of the way during a battle. Her eyes matched the emerald green of her armour, making her a frightening sight to behold. Her eyes softened up after seeing the little female Wavemaster, obviously new to the game.
"You must be the one shouting, right? Nice to meet you. I might not look it, but I'm actually new here to… though I have come across a nice area for newbies… Oh, by the way, I'm Lenneth on here."
The Long Arm greeted, before handing the Wavemaster a business card.
"This is my member address. With this, we can actually join up in a party."
The Wavemaster nodded fearfully before responding.
"Where did you get that name from? …Lenneth, I mean."
Lenneth paused for a moment before telling her story.
"Actually, I found it on the internet. I did a net search on Valkyries, and the name Lenneth came up… I can't seem to be able to find it in any mythology book, but it's a good name, isn't it?"
"...So it's true that things on the 'net never completely disappear…" The Wavemaster spoke sadly. Lenneth took this opportunity to examine the young female Wavemaster.
As if led by some hidden instinct, most Wavemasters held either blue or silver hair. However, this Wavemaster was an exception, with short brown hair, she somehow managed to look quite ordinary, despite the fact that few other Wavemasters in The World held such a hair colour. She wore no hat, allowing one to see the hair, rather than simply the front part, with everything else covered by the hat.
She was quite small, even for the Wavemasters, who were less than half the height of the largest class in The World, the Heavy Axeman. In fact, the staff she wielded was taller than her, causing an effect that was hard to explain in words. Her clothing was unremarkable, and she held an aura that seemed to plead "just ignore me".
Lenneth shook her head slightly and laughed. It looked like that Wavemaster went down to the last detail, even adjusting the staff so it blended into the area. It was about then that Lenneth noticed that it had been almost a minute since there had been any conversation. Thus, she spoke up again.
"Hey! Anyone there?!" The Wavemaster practically jumped in surprise, then quickly spoke like a frightened rabbit.
"Ah! S-s-s-s-s-s…"
Lenneth sighed, annoyed. She knew little to nothing about this Wavemaster, other than the fact that this one's probably either someone who has trouble in social situations, is a really good role player, or just someone who likes to annoy people. Either way, that's still enough options to confound people, and if there's one thing that still existed on the Internet to this day, it was the amount of people who just seemed to go onto these things to annoy people. Mind you, they didn't tend to last very long on The World, due to a mixture of things.
First, the Crimson Knights, who had recently been disbanded, had usually held in check those who would do nothing but cause complete chaos in The World. However, their leader disbanded the group to go on the "Key of the Twilight" quest, which was, as far as anyone knew, still going.
Secondly, the system administrators themselves felt very close to The World, and would try to defend it against people who are only on to ruin it for others. This had always been the balance in The World, but just the same, there were always more people who came to annoy and frustrate people.
Just the same, Lenneth assumed that it was the first option, rather than the final one.
"Hey, calm down… I just thought you were doing it on purpose or something… anyways, what's your name?"
"Ahh… it didn't say on the message?" Upon hearing that, Lenneth laughed slightly.
"Oh, this isn't like the ancient systems, where it just displays it as text with a name beside it. You should know that yourself. After all, do I have 'Lenneth' next to my character whenever I speak?"
"…Actually, I thought nothing showing up was a bug…" There was a period of awkward silence as Lenneth froze up in surprise. There's no way anyone would actually think that, right? Last she heard, there hadn't been a system that gave things in text for years. In fact, the only time she'd ever seen such systems was in a pre-twilight electronics museum. Finally, Lenneth spoke up again.
"…Anyways, what's your name? You STILL haven't told me what it was."
"Umm… it's Misakichi…"
"Misakichi? That's an odd name… what is it, Japanese? Korean? Chinese? Some country around there…"
"…Japanese…"
"And would you stop pausing in conversations so much? It gets annoying after a while."
"Ah! Sorry!"
"Anyways… if you want to join my party for a while, just send me an invitation, know that you know my member address." It took Misakichi a moment before responding.
"You mean… like this?" Misakichi spoke, as an invitation message appeared on Lenneth's screen.
"Yeah, just like that and…" A moment later, the two had become one single party.
"Now we're a team! Now go over to the Chaos Gate and type 'Bursting Quiet Aqua Zone'. I know it sounds odd, but you'll probably get used to this after a while."
With that, Misakichi walked over to the Chaos Gate, raised her staff, and two rings surrounded her. A moment later, she disappeared. Lenneth smiled slightly, and followed suit, raising her own weapon to the skies before the Chaos Gate, and disappearing from the area.
Hidden Forbidden Nothingness (Theta Server)
His two "allies", as they called themselves smiled menacingly. Their weapons glinting in the little light there was. Of course, Meirkan knew they were idiots, trying to betray him of all people, but hey, it was their characters. This Twin Blade came here expecting them to, and he was going to have a lot of fun getting rid of them.
"Newbies, huh." He stated matter-of-factly. He of course knew that they had lied to him the second he saw their characters. Of course, they didn't even realize how blatantly obvious the truth was to anyone that was paying attention.
"Dead wrong! We're Player Killers, and YOU'VE fallen into our trap." The Heavy Axeman spoke, covered in menacing black armour. His partner in crime, a Twin Blade with Dark Green hair and Green eyes, had clearly been trying to go for the same look as the famous Player Killer Sora, but had in fact failed miserably. It was pathetic, really. Meirkan, on the other hand, had been around as long as Sora had, if not even longer.
Meirkan and Sora held an antipathy for each other, which constantly put them into battles. Of course, there was rarely ever any clear winner, much like the tales of ninja told in the past. He had killed Sora's character, and Sora had killed his character, an even 100 times by now.
Of course, as Meirkan knew, Sora was gone forever, so one less annoying bug was out of the way. After all, few recovered from the might of the one thing possibly more powerful than the One Sin event monster. But now wasn't the time for such thoughts, it was time to finish off the insects right in front of him.
"Well, then I guess you'll have to catch me first, wouldn't you?" With that, he took off running. To an inexperienced person such as these Player Killers, it would look just like a retreat. However, Meirkan had other plans. Both of the Player Killers took off after him, with the Twin Blade taking the lead of the group, being the faster of the two.
After about a minute, Meirkan found what he was looking for: a magic portal. He slowed down for a moment, just long enough for the Sora impersonator to catch him, and allowing the Heavy Axeman to almost catch up. He carefully dodged two strikes as the Twin Blade's Katar sped towards him like claws of a ravenous dinosaur, instilled with the speed of a diving hawk.
Noticing that the Heavy Axeman was almost in place, Meirkan decided it was time. He charged ahead, moving at an inexplicable speed towards the magic portal, then jumping towards and rebounding off of it before it completed opening, leaving him behind the Heavy Axeman, with several rather annoyed Mimics trotting out of the Magic Portal, preparing to use their accursed ability on the unsuspecting Sora impersonator.
The Twin Blade didn't have time to retreat before the Mimic had confused his character, sending him charging towards his ally, the Heavy Axeman.
The Heavy Axeman, not confused himself, and of course not being smart enough to stock up on curative items, was unable to do anything but run from his own ally turned nemesis. Of course, eventually one of them would die, and that's when Meirkan would strike.
"The system doesn't like you Player Killers." He laughed to himself. "The World hasn't liked a single Player Killer since Sora."
Upon finishing his speech, he noticed his knives glow an eerie green glow.
"So, Skeith is on the move again… Looks like I don't have time to have fun with these idiots…" With that, he stood up, and two golden rings surrounded him, as he disappeared out of the area.
Bursting Silent Aqua Zone (Delta Server)
Misakichi looked around the area, in awe about how it all looked.
"Wow! It's just like I'm there! This is great!" This was SO the kind of technology she was expecting to see: stuff that was so impressive that made the military want to take control of it. However, the CC Corporation was smart, and despite how high-tech it was, it had managed to stay out of the hands of any country. Their home base may have been in the United States, but the CC Corporation was a new age global company.
In fact, The World had originated in Germany and expanded from there into the first worldwide network game since the Twilight of the New Gods, from her understanding. It wasn't the quality of role-players or anything else that brought her here: It was The World's past, and its technology that incited her to join it.
"Uhh… you might want to watch out if you're going for First-Person mode… you won't be able to target anything outside your vision, you know." Lenneth called, prompting a nod from Misakichi.
"I know but… can't I keep it this way? I just want to feel the experience as much as I can…" Lenneth responded by laughing.
"I know how you feel, everyone's like that at the start... this place seems so overwhelming when you first come on, like the game itself is practically a world… In fact, quite a few people have gotten completely addicted to The World, and think of the characters on here as real people, rather than just characters being acted by other players… that's probably not very healthy though…"
"Shouldn't we start fighting monsters though? I mean, that's why we're here, right?" Misakichi interrupted, followed by a blink from Lenneth. It seemed to her that Misakichi was suddenly acting like a completely different person.
"Uhh… I guess we could, but are you sure you're really ready for a battle?" Before Lenneth even finished saying this, Misakichi had charged off towards a nearby Magic Circle, causing Lenneth to simply sigh and chase after her.
As Misakichi got close enough to the Magic Portal, it expanded for a moment before disappearing, revealing 10 goblins. Yes, they were wimpy creatures, but there enough of them to give any newbie party trouble. The goblins immediately began a charge of their own, aimed directly as the defenceless Wavemaster.
Misakichi lifted her staff into the air, and the goblins' movements slowed as a spell came into effect beneath them. Finally, the goblins' movements stopped as a burst of flames shot up from under their feet, inflicting the ethereal counter known as "Damage Check" upon them, sapping the life from their bodies.
However, as with all things magical, the spell eventually ended, and the goblins began their charge anew, burnt but alive – and because of that, very annoyed. Misakichi raised her staff again, but nothing happened. She blinked slightly. Before realizing what happened.
"What? I'm out of MP already?"
The goblins took heart in the fact transmitted to them by the wind, and with renewed vigour began their hunt for the head of the Wavemaster. Misakichi began backing off, but was knowledgeable enough to realize that there was no chance of her character being able to outrun them. She was prepared to accept death, and try to win next time – after she got a game over.
The goblins had finally caught up to her, and with the low survivability that accompanied Wavemasters, she would undoubted be dead within a few seconds. One goblin jumped into the air, and slashed its claw downwards towards Misakichi's head, when a spear plunged through its body, causing its body to seemingly turn to stone.
The remaining goblins turned to their new opponent, who was desperately trying to pull the dead body of a goblin off of her spear. Lenneth cursed slightly, and silently promised herself that from here on, she'd be more careful with her spear, before being surrounded by goblins. This would undoubtedly be her most embarrassing death ever – a level 5 Long Arm killed by a horde of Goblins… her friends would never let her forget this.
The goblins once again began to slow, and Lenneth quickly looked around to see what was going on, to see Misakichi raising her staff towards the sky, calling down another spell. Lenneth silently thanked MP regeneration, and charged through a gap that would have been unavailable to her if the Goblins weren't moving too slowly to do anything.
A burst of flames filled the area Lenneth had previously been in, this time finishing off the goblins once and for all. Lenneth took the opportunity to rest a bit, with the exercise showing an effect on her character. Misakichi too looked exhausted, probably from the exertion of using so many spells when she's barely capable of casting one.
"It's… amazing how much… using too much magic… can take out of a character." Misakichi gasped between breaths.
Lenneth, now having no enemies to deal with and having had an opportunity to catch her breath, went about the strenuous task of removing the one remaining goblin from her staff. It appeared to have connected to the spear so well, that it was actually staying on as an accessory until it was removed…
When Lenneth finally managed to dislodge the greyed-out golem, it dropped to the floor like a rag-doll, then began to dissipate into thousands of tiny grey dots. Originally, this was caused by a bug in the pixel-erasing program, but the people playing The World during the beta test thought the effect was pretty cool, thinking that it symbolized something like the monster's soul being reborn, so it remained.
As the miniature dots floated towards the skies, the monitor suddenly filled with static. The screen returned to normal a moment later, giving both characters opportunity to wonder what was going on. A moment later, the static returned, and their screens faded to black, leaving only a bright red message on their screen.
ERROR
A/N #1: There were originally appendicies, but seeing as how I figure anyone reading this version knows a bit about both the game .hack and .hack//SIGN, I've removed them.
A/N#2: I'm not sure about the dates, but I'm pretty sure that the game .hack takes place in the year 2010... If not, I've got my timeline really messed up. _
A/N#3: Yes, for some reason, I saw fit to add "exhaustion levels" to The World. No idea why, I just sort of felt like it. ^_^
By: Dustin Perrault (Wakuseino)
XX/XX/2010
6 years after the Pluto's Kiss incident
INFECTION
Root Town: (Omega Server)
The Chaos Gate glowed its usual blue hue, slowly spinning around in a stationary circle. People continued buying equipment, purchasing spell scrolls, and of course dungeon crawling, searching for the next plotline. All seemed normal in The World. Of course, this was far from the truth, and he knew it. The character Meirkan stood and faced the Chaos Gate, as two golden rings appeared around him, and he teleported far away from the town he called his home.
Root Town: Mac Anu (Delta Server)
The character known as Misakichi appeared in the town of Mac Anu for the first time. She was so proud… Finally, she had managed to become a part of The World. Most people wouldn't know where her name came from, but indeed, she was one of the few people who could distinctly remember the "Twilight of the New Gods" almost 5 years ago.
A lot of the people that had computers these days were actually experiencing computers for the first time. However, a surprisingly few amount of people actually learned from the Pluto's Kiss virus, which had all but wiped out computer technology for years. Thus, The World still managed to hold quite a large fan-base, despite all that had happened.
She looked around the Root Town known as Mac Anu, amazed with the extent of the graphics, far beyond the now ancient graphics of 2003. She gaped in awe, as a boat floated across the river, led by the rowing of a Heavy Swordsman clothed in red, whose hair was a dark blue, held in an anime-style "spiked" hair-cut.
It would be a near impossible hairstyle to pull off in real life, but in a game like The World, it fit perfectly, much like everything else. However, that still didn't change one thing: She was a complete and total newbie here, trapped at Level 1 until she got some help. Thus, she shouted out, allowing everyone in the city to hear… though this also required a lot of effort on the part of the user, as well as hurting the ears of anyone unfortunate enough to have their speaker on. As such, she stepped into a corner before saying anything.
"Umm… does anyone know any good dungeons for a level 1 character? I'm really sorry about shouting like this but… the message board wasn't exactly helpful…" Upon hearing her, someone responded, quickly locating her and heading to her area.
It was a Long Arm who responded. Long Arms, known primarily for their ability with Javelins, Spears, and Archery, were the class that held the best range in The World. In terms of stats, they were actually about average, with a bit more of a focus on physical power than the Twin Blade.
This Long Arm in particular looked to be the resurrection of an ancient Valkyrie of legends, with armour as well as a spear disturbingly reminiscent of Freyja herself. The armour was primarily coloured green, with long, blonde hair tied up in a ponytail, seemingly to keep it out of the way during a battle. Her eyes matched the emerald green of her armour, making her a frightening sight to behold. Her eyes softened up after seeing the little female Wavemaster, obviously new to the game.
"You must be the one shouting, right? Nice to meet you. I might not look it, but I'm actually new here to… though I have come across a nice area for newbies… Oh, by the way, I'm Lenneth on here."
The Long Arm greeted, before handing the Wavemaster a business card.
"This is my member address. With this, we can actually join up in a party."
The Wavemaster nodded fearfully before responding.
"Where did you get that name from? …Lenneth, I mean."
Lenneth paused for a moment before telling her story.
"Actually, I found it on the internet. I did a net search on Valkyries, and the name Lenneth came up… I can't seem to be able to find it in any mythology book, but it's a good name, isn't it?"
"...So it's true that things on the 'net never completely disappear…" The Wavemaster spoke sadly. Lenneth took this opportunity to examine the young female Wavemaster.
As if led by some hidden instinct, most Wavemasters held either blue or silver hair. However, this Wavemaster was an exception, with short brown hair, she somehow managed to look quite ordinary, despite the fact that few other Wavemasters in The World held such a hair colour. She wore no hat, allowing one to see the hair, rather than simply the front part, with everything else covered by the hat.
She was quite small, even for the Wavemasters, who were less than half the height of the largest class in The World, the Heavy Axeman. In fact, the staff she wielded was taller than her, causing an effect that was hard to explain in words. Her clothing was unremarkable, and she held an aura that seemed to plead "just ignore me".
Lenneth shook her head slightly and laughed. It looked like that Wavemaster went down to the last detail, even adjusting the staff so it blended into the area. It was about then that Lenneth noticed that it had been almost a minute since there had been any conversation. Thus, she spoke up again.
"Hey! Anyone there?!" The Wavemaster practically jumped in surprise, then quickly spoke like a frightened rabbit.
"Ah! S-s-s-s-s-s…"
Lenneth sighed, annoyed. She knew little to nothing about this Wavemaster, other than the fact that this one's probably either someone who has trouble in social situations, is a really good role player, or just someone who likes to annoy people. Either way, that's still enough options to confound people, and if there's one thing that still existed on the Internet to this day, it was the amount of people who just seemed to go onto these things to annoy people. Mind you, they didn't tend to last very long on The World, due to a mixture of things.
First, the Crimson Knights, who had recently been disbanded, had usually held in check those who would do nothing but cause complete chaos in The World. However, their leader disbanded the group to go on the "Key of the Twilight" quest, which was, as far as anyone knew, still going.
Secondly, the system administrators themselves felt very close to The World, and would try to defend it against people who are only on to ruin it for others. This had always been the balance in The World, but just the same, there were always more people who came to annoy and frustrate people.
Just the same, Lenneth assumed that it was the first option, rather than the final one.
"Hey, calm down… I just thought you were doing it on purpose or something… anyways, what's your name?"
"Ahh… it didn't say on the message?" Upon hearing that, Lenneth laughed slightly.
"Oh, this isn't like the ancient systems, where it just displays it as text with a name beside it. You should know that yourself. After all, do I have 'Lenneth' next to my character whenever I speak?"
"…Actually, I thought nothing showing up was a bug…" There was a period of awkward silence as Lenneth froze up in surprise. There's no way anyone would actually think that, right? Last she heard, there hadn't been a system that gave things in text for years. In fact, the only time she'd ever seen such systems was in a pre-twilight electronics museum. Finally, Lenneth spoke up again.
"…Anyways, what's your name? You STILL haven't told me what it was."
"Umm… it's Misakichi…"
"Misakichi? That's an odd name… what is it, Japanese? Korean? Chinese? Some country around there…"
"…Japanese…"
"And would you stop pausing in conversations so much? It gets annoying after a while."
"Ah! Sorry!"
"Anyways… if you want to join my party for a while, just send me an invitation, know that you know my member address." It took Misakichi a moment before responding.
"You mean… like this?" Misakichi spoke, as an invitation message appeared on Lenneth's screen.
"Yeah, just like that and…" A moment later, the two had become one single party.
"Now we're a team! Now go over to the Chaos Gate and type 'Bursting Quiet Aqua Zone'. I know it sounds odd, but you'll probably get used to this after a while."
With that, Misakichi walked over to the Chaos Gate, raised her staff, and two rings surrounded her. A moment later, she disappeared. Lenneth smiled slightly, and followed suit, raising her own weapon to the skies before the Chaos Gate, and disappearing from the area.
Hidden Forbidden Nothingness (Theta Server)
His two "allies", as they called themselves smiled menacingly. Their weapons glinting in the little light there was. Of course, Meirkan knew they were idiots, trying to betray him of all people, but hey, it was their characters. This Twin Blade came here expecting them to, and he was going to have a lot of fun getting rid of them.
"Newbies, huh." He stated matter-of-factly. He of course knew that they had lied to him the second he saw their characters. Of course, they didn't even realize how blatantly obvious the truth was to anyone that was paying attention.
"Dead wrong! We're Player Killers, and YOU'VE fallen into our trap." The Heavy Axeman spoke, covered in menacing black armour. His partner in crime, a Twin Blade with Dark Green hair and Green eyes, had clearly been trying to go for the same look as the famous Player Killer Sora, but had in fact failed miserably. It was pathetic, really. Meirkan, on the other hand, had been around as long as Sora had, if not even longer.
Meirkan and Sora held an antipathy for each other, which constantly put them into battles. Of course, there was rarely ever any clear winner, much like the tales of ninja told in the past. He had killed Sora's character, and Sora had killed his character, an even 100 times by now.
Of course, as Meirkan knew, Sora was gone forever, so one less annoying bug was out of the way. After all, few recovered from the might of the one thing possibly more powerful than the One Sin event monster. But now wasn't the time for such thoughts, it was time to finish off the insects right in front of him.
"Well, then I guess you'll have to catch me first, wouldn't you?" With that, he took off running. To an inexperienced person such as these Player Killers, it would look just like a retreat. However, Meirkan had other plans. Both of the Player Killers took off after him, with the Twin Blade taking the lead of the group, being the faster of the two.
After about a minute, Meirkan found what he was looking for: a magic portal. He slowed down for a moment, just long enough for the Sora impersonator to catch him, and allowing the Heavy Axeman to almost catch up. He carefully dodged two strikes as the Twin Blade's Katar sped towards him like claws of a ravenous dinosaur, instilled with the speed of a diving hawk.
Noticing that the Heavy Axeman was almost in place, Meirkan decided it was time. He charged ahead, moving at an inexplicable speed towards the magic portal, then jumping towards and rebounding off of it before it completed opening, leaving him behind the Heavy Axeman, with several rather annoyed Mimics trotting out of the Magic Portal, preparing to use their accursed ability on the unsuspecting Sora impersonator.
The Twin Blade didn't have time to retreat before the Mimic had confused his character, sending him charging towards his ally, the Heavy Axeman.
The Heavy Axeman, not confused himself, and of course not being smart enough to stock up on curative items, was unable to do anything but run from his own ally turned nemesis. Of course, eventually one of them would die, and that's when Meirkan would strike.
"The system doesn't like you Player Killers." He laughed to himself. "The World hasn't liked a single Player Killer since Sora."
Upon finishing his speech, he noticed his knives glow an eerie green glow.
"So, Skeith is on the move again… Looks like I don't have time to have fun with these idiots…" With that, he stood up, and two golden rings surrounded him, as he disappeared out of the area.
Bursting Silent Aqua Zone (Delta Server)
Misakichi looked around the area, in awe about how it all looked.
"Wow! It's just like I'm there! This is great!" This was SO the kind of technology she was expecting to see: stuff that was so impressive that made the military want to take control of it. However, the CC Corporation was smart, and despite how high-tech it was, it had managed to stay out of the hands of any country. Their home base may have been in the United States, but the CC Corporation was a new age global company.
In fact, The World had originated in Germany and expanded from there into the first worldwide network game since the Twilight of the New Gods, from her understanding. It wasn't the quality of role-players or anything else that brought her here: It was The World's past, and its technology that incited her to join it.
"Uhh… you might want to watch out if you're going for First-Person mode… you won't be able to target anything outside your vision, you know." Lenneth called, prompting a nod from Misakichi.
"I know but… can't I keep it this way? I just want to feel the experience as much as I can…" Lenneth responded by laughing.
"I know how you feel, everyone's like that at the start... this place seems so overwhelming when you first come on, like the game itself is practically a world… In fact, quite a few people have gotten completely addicted to The World, and think of the characters on here as real people, rather than just characters being acted by other players… that's probably not very healthy though…"
"Shouldn't we start fighting monsters though? I mean, that's why we're here, right?" Misakichi interrupted, followed by a blink from Lenneth. It seemed to her that Misakichi was suddenly acting like a completely different person.
"Uhh… I guess we could, but are you sure you're really ready for a battle?" Before Lenneth even finished saying this, Misakichi had charged off towards a nearby Magic Circle, causing Lenneth to simply sigh and chase after her.
As Misakichi got close enough to the Magic Portal, it expanded for a moment before disappearing, revealing 10 goblins. Yes, they were wimpy creatures, but there enough of them to give any newbie party trouble. The goblins immediately began a charge of their own, aimed directly as the defenceless Wavemaster.
Misakichi lifted her staff into the air, and the goblins' movements slowed as a spell came into effect beneath them. Finally, the goblins' movements stopped as a burst of flames shot up from under their feet, inflicting the ethereal counter known as "Damage Check" upon them, sapping the life from their bodies.
However, as with all things magical, the spell eventually ended, and the goblins began their charge anew, burnt but alive – and because of that, very annoyed. Misakichi raised her staff again, but nothing happened. She blinked slightly. Before realizing what happened.
"What? I'm out of MP already?"
The goblins took heart in the fact transmitted to them by the wind, and with renewed vigour began their hunt for the head of the Wavemaster. Misakichi began backing off, but was knowledgeable enough to realize that there was no chance of her character being able to outrun them. She was prepared to accept death, and try to win next time – after she got a game over.
The goblins had finally caught up to her, and with the low survivability that accompanied Wavemasters, she would undoubted be dead within a few seconds. One goblin jumped into the air, and slashed its claw downwards towards Misakichi's head, when a spear plunged through its body, causing its body to seemingly turn to stone.
The remaining goblins turned to their new opponent, who was desperately trying to pull the dead body of a goblin off of her spear. Lenneth cursed slightly, and silently promised herself that from here on, she'd be more careful with her spear, before being surrounded by goblins. This would undoubtedly be her most embarrassing death ever – a level 5 Long Arm killed by a horde of Goblins… her friends would never let her forget this.
The goblins once again began to slow, and Lenneth quickly looked around to see what was going on, to see Misakichi raising her staff towards the sky, calling down another spell. Lenneth silently thanked MP regeneration, and charged through a gap that would have been unavailable to her if the Goblins weren't moving too slowly to do anything.
A burst of flames filled the area Lenneth had previously been in, this time finishing off the goblins once and for all. Lenneth took the opportunity to rest a bit, with the exercise showing an effect on her character. Misakichi too looked exhausted, probably from the exertion of using so many spells when she's barely capable of casting one.
"It's… amazing how much… using too much magic… can take out of a character." Misakichi gasped between breaths.
Lenneth, now having no enemies to deal with and having had an opportunity to catch her breath, went about the strenuous task of removing the one remaining goblin from her staff. It appeared to have connected to the spear so well, that it was actually staying on as an accessory until it was removed…
When Lenneth finally managed to dislodge the greyed-out golem, it dropped to the floor like a rag-doll, then began to dissipate into thousands of tiny grey dots. Originally, this was caused by a bug in the pixel-erasing program, but the people playing The World during the beta test thought the effect was pretty cool, thinking that it symbolized something like the monster's soul being reborn, so it remained.
As the miniature dots floated towards the skies, the monitor suddenly filled with static. The screen returned to normal a moment later, giving both characters opportunity to wonder what was going on. A moment later, the static returned, and their screens faded to black, leaving only a bright red message on their screen.
ERROR
A/N #1: There were originally appendicies, but seeing as how I figure anyone reading this version knows a bit about both the game .hack and .hack//SIGN, I've removed them.
A/N#2: I'm not sure about the dates, but I'm pretty sure that the game .hack takes place in the year 2010... If not, I've got my timeline really messed up. _
A/N#3: Yes, for some reason, I saw fit to add "exhaustion levels" to The World. No idea why, I just sort of felt like it. ^_^