Chapter 2: A Cry for Help

"You know, you seem really popular for such a young player, Azato" Samari remarked as they were walking through the Guild Building.

"That's because I have been playing since I was eight years old" Azato replied.

"Ehhh? Seriously? You must have been one smart kid. I bet your parents always told you never to play too much though".

Actually, it was their idea for me to play this game. Mom is a surgeon who is working almost all the time, and Dad is always away overseas on a business trip. I learned how to cook and use the oven when I was six because my babysitter never showed up. Apparently got caught up in a car accident and was sent to the hospital. So I had to make my own food for a few days, and decided I didn't want to eat cold food all the time...

"Anyways, here we are..." he mentioned, stopping at a door labeled "Happy Quartz Alliance". As the name suggests, its a more casual and friendly guild that is more like a family. Rather then being hardcore warriors or crafters, they support each other. Its not uncommon for guilds like this to get requests for adventuring party formations to take on quests and raids, when they themselves lack the people available to go after it.

Azato had worked with them on a number of occasions himself. He actually was requested to help train some of their members back when it was just a game, and he also went on raids with the leader, who wanted to get some Artifact or even Phantasmal Class Gear herself so that when her Guildmates were high enough to do a raid themselves, she could help her guild better.

Either way, they were quickly brought in, and invited into the meeting room so they could begin. Zats and Samari sat on one side, while Aleria and Wisera sat on the other. As for Azato...he was sitting on Aleria's lap, being pet.

I forgot...she had these sort of motherly instincts as well...

Zats just looked relieved it was not him, while Samari looked confused, while the meeting went on like everything was normal.

"Thanks for coming, Azato dear".

"Well, you said it was important. So did your voice. So, what is going on?"

"Tell me...what do you know about the situation between the cities, and the transport gates?"

"As far as I am aware, the Inter-City Transport Gates are down for some reason, and its hard to get anywere, right?"

"Indeed...which is why, I have a favor to ask of you. From what I know, you were always capable of getting around the game really quickly, probably a summon you have, so...I was wondering if you could help rescue one of our members".

"Rescue?"

"Do you know the situation about the Adventurer City, Northpoint?"

In the Elder Tales world, the game creaters ambitiously made the world a one half model of the earth. The North American Server, which is mainly the USA and Canada, is known as North Wen. Now, due to the sheer size of North Wen, and the population of the United States and Canada that played the game, it has a massive amount of Adventurer Cities. Over a dozen at least. Northpoint was a player City up in the north, based on some major Canadian City. However, it was fairly isolated as a result of all the cold and mountains in the way.

Normally, a guild might not go to others for help like this. However, the Happy Quartz Alliance has had most of their members interact with, and be taught by, Azato at some point or another. Although he never formally joined, he was always greeted with cheer and respect, and no one would ever object including him on private guild matters even.

And on that note...

"Also...with the climate of everything that is going on, not to mention the...downsides...of this world. I was wondering if maybe you would reconsider joining the Guild officially?"

"...im just not sure yet" he said, feeling uncertain. "But, I will help you get your guildmember back. Who is it?"

"Its a cu...its a boy, a bit younger then you. Really sweet, a bit timid, but really smart. He is an Enchanter, with the subclass of Knight I believe. His name is Alabam".

"Eh? Is he trying to go for a Knight Enchanter Build?"

"Indeed. Anyways, there is a big guild there, apparently its oppressing everyone and keeping them under a leash, trying to control the whole city. That's why its so urgent. We have members of our guild in other cities as well, but all of those cities are stable and safe. Northpoint is the only one that seems to be under a lot of chaos right now, and for some reason, the Guildmaster of this Guild...of Blackstone, is forcibly making everyone serve him, or he finds a way to toss them out of town, and send them to the Cathedral".

"What level is he?"

"Alabam is only 19, while the Guildmaster is a Level 90 Pirate. He doesn't stand a chance of escaping on his own, and even if he did manage, he would never be able to make the whole trip solo".

"Huh...so he started early too towards an idea build. Smart. He will be a great help in raids one day. But I can see the issue at hand right now".

"So then, you will help?"

"Sure. Let them know I am coming".

"I will. I hope you and your friends luck, and I hope you can find all of your other friends as well".

"Thanks" he said. "But...you know I cant leave until you stop petting me and let me go, right?"

"...ah, right".

As the meeting was concluded, once they entered the hall, they saw all the other guildmembers there, leaning against the wall, listening in. Once they saw them leave though, they cameo over with packages.

"Here! Some fresh fruit! Its still tasty!"

"And here, have these mana portions!"

"I hope these health potions will help you!"

They were showed with gifts and support.

"Wait, wait, hold on" Azato said, opening up his menu. "Normally, to avoid clutter, I only had a few of your veterans on my friendlist. But given the apocalypse, and all the potential what ifs, lets all add each other right now okay?"

He said that with a smile, and a lot of the girls squeeled while the boys looked happy and inspired by the friendship. That was the sort of guild this was. A lot of friendly people who loved adoring, positivity, and cuteness, as well as working together, playing together, even bathing together.

So when they finally left, Azato still felt good. "That was a great thing to experience".

"What, you mean, getting help and praise?"

"No, positivity" he said, thinking about some things. "You might be surprised, but she is actually coping rather well given her situation".

"Her situation?"

"There is a reason I endured that embarrassing display...she is a mother, whose children died in a horrible accident. Filled with grief and stress, she tried various things to get over it, but all failed...until Elder Tails. Here, she was able to help out new players, children, look after them, take care of them. But because it was online, it was not like she had replaced her own children. That level of disconnect helped her get over her grief and move on, because she had that purpose. She was better even before the Apocalypse, but her understanding of loss, and knowing how helpful it is to give them something to do. She helps people, spreads positivity, she doesn't lie to them, or give them false hope. She just has them take advantage of their situation for the best possible outcome.

He started looking around at all the depressed people outside. "Its guilds like that who are probably going to end up saving this city from itself. Look at everyone, they are so depressed, so down. Not doing anything. But did you notice? At Happy Quarts, everyone was positive. They already were writing down plans, things like training camps, hot springs visits, fun public events. They are a small guild, but their positivity is absolutely infectious. And certainly, they are better then some...like that one guild".

"You mean that Mafia styled Guild, The Family? The ones who were already rumored to have a bad reputation, bullying and extorting people, but just within the limits to where the admins could not get involved?"

"Exactly. When we get back...we should make sure that public order starts to get better".

"...but...you do know that will be in like a month or two, right? I mean, Northpoint is really far away. It will take us weeks to get there".

"Don't worry, I know a shortcut" he said, as he took out a summoning flute and summoned some horses for them to ride on.

"...a summoner using a summoning flute...that seems wrong".

"A summoning flute does not count against the max number of monsters I can summon. It means using and maintaining an item, but...its handy like that. Right, Akamaru?"

"Thats right!"

"...how long does that summon last?"

"I will have you know, I have an infinite duration!"

"Hold on, hold on...seriously?"

"Akamaru has several abilities and is very high ranked. Even though I can manage monitoring everyone on my own, Akamaru reduces stress on me and provides me alerts. He also helps manage what I can and cannot do...speaking of which, once we get out of the city, I want to try something".

And on that note, they quickly mounted the horses and rode out of the city. Heading north, even on horses, it would admittedly still take way too long. So that was why, after awhile, they stopped to rest.

"So wait...how are we going to do this? Wait, do you have some sort of special summoning flute? Wait, I heard a legend that this one group the Tea Party, had these epic level summoning flutes that could summon Griffons! Are you going to summon a Griffon?!"

"Nope" Zats said. "He is going to do something else. You are using that Spell right? The Skill you got as a reward for completing the Liberty's Fall Raid?"

"That's right".

"Wait...the Liberty's Fall Raid? I never heard you could get a special spell or such as a reward!"

"You can, but admittedly even if you do the raid normally, it wouldn't be enough. You see, there is a secret locked reward list. You can only access that by completing the Epic Level Quest, Dragon God's Return, the one that gets issued repeatedly every six months, and then within a weak of starting it, you have to beat it, and then start the raid. YOu then have to beat that raid in a weeks time from when you start, and if you do and you get to the end, you get access to the list. Including a ridiculous amount of treasure, but also among random drops, it lets you choose one thing of your choice".

Suddenly, he bent his knees and pointed his open palm at the ground under him. A large spell circle surrounded him, and his mana started to drop like crazy. "Summon Follower: Temptest Dragon!"

Tempest Dragon. It was a Summon that had a few prerequisites to summon. YOu had to be above level 87. You had to have enough open space and surface space to form the summoning circle. It cost A LOT of mana. And the cast time was twenty seconds. As for the recast time...you could cast it only once a day. And yet, there was a major upside to it. Its duration was one hour. Its stats were powerful. And it had the ability to fly extremely quickly. And of course, Azato had the skill which let him ride his summons.

"So...everyone ready?"

"Amazing...the first Tempest Dragon I saw summoned in person, not on a screen..."

"...incredible..."

And so, with that, they boarded the Tempest Dragon, and flew off towards their location.

Meanwhile, in Northpoint...

Alabam was running down an alley, scared for his life. The Guild, Blackstone, was really going after him now. He just had to keep running, as fast and as far as he could, and avoid getting captured and being sent back to the Cathedral.

Unfortunately, that was when Blackstone thugs surrounded him on all points. They had higher stats then them and outnumbered him. And since they were still in a public city area, PvP was disabled. The only thing that he could have used to get out of this, his skills, were unavailable in the idea he could use it on them. He took a step back, being forced into a corner...when suddenly, he felt himself suddenly whisked into the air. By...a Werecat? (Okay, so, in the Anime, from what I know and remember they are called Catfolk or Cat people, but it seems their official race name is Werecats).

"I hear you needed a bit of help, Nya".

"Uhhh...thanks?"

The Werecat rushed up and down, away from the adventurers pursueing them, as he headed towards a private zone. And with that, maybe from running around all day and night, Alabam was hit by a wave of drowsiness and fell asleep now that he could rest. Still, despite everything, they had not evaded one person's gaze.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

"Yeah, whatcha up to?"

Samari and Zats asked him that as he took his eyes off the sky for a moment, and was checking his friends list.

"Ah, I was just seeing if everyone was online or not" Azato mentioned, looking at the list. A lot of people are offline, but a bunch of us are online. Yet no one has made contact yet...two of them are set to Do not Disturb, so none of my messages are getting through. Its possible they were in the middle of a raid when the Apocalypse happened. Or a Dungeon. In that case, they probably set themselves to Do Not Disturb. As for the other one, he is set to Hidden. He might be in a situation where he cant make contact. As for the final one...he is online, but he wont respond to any of my messages. At all. I hope he is okay...

"You know...I would feel better if we had some famous group or guild with us" Samari mentioned with a sigh. "I know we are great and all, but it would be nice if we had The Minutemen, Heroic Heart, or Steelblade Chroniclers to help. Or maybe one of those legendary groups. Party of Chaos, Jantos Six, The First Exploration, or even that legendary group I heard about from another server, the something Tea Party...oi! Keep your eyes on the sky!"

"Wha...oh!" Azato said, barely getting them out of the way before they crashed into a mountain. "Sorry sorry, I will check the rest later. Anyways, we are almost out of time, so I think we will land soon, take a rest, then take horses the rest of the way".

"Horses?"

"Yeah. I want Tempest to cooldown. The moment we make the rescue, they will probably come after us with force. We should make a quick escape, and not take any risks".

And at that point, their stomachs growled.

"...plus, we need to cook some food".

The group of them landed, and while Samari started to set up camp, Azato and Zats started cooking their dinner.

"Huh...your not using the command menu?"

"Force of habit. I am used to cooking for myself".

"And as a world class maid, I can not let my skills rust just because there is some ultra convienent option! Besides, its more rewarding this way, and I can choose the amount of ingredients I use!"

"Huh...alright then".

A short time later, and eventually they managed to finish camp and their dinner.

"Smells so good..."

"And the ingredients that Happy Quartz gave us also helped out".

"We had to use our own meat though. They pretty much only gave us ingredient items and potions".

"I dont know why people were complaining though" Samari mentioned, a bit puzzled.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, in the city, I heard their food was coming out kinda...bland".

"Those people probably lacked a cooking skill...or were just bad cooks. Everyone thinks that just because the menu tells you what to combine together, what amount of ingredients, they know how to cook. But those ingrient usage and pricings were only from a game balancing perspective. Seriously, one of the cake recipes asks you to use an entire bucket of butter, just for a cake! Of all the nerves!"

"Yeah...by the way, I know you love the roleplay Zats…" he said, looking over at Zats who was dressed as a maid again. "But, please keep your combat gear on while camping. After all, a real maid would never allow himself or herself to be vulnerable and a liability to the ones they are serving".

"Ah...good point! I will go change!"

Zats ran off again.

"...does he know he doesn't need to wear the maid uniform to use maid skills?"

"I mean, we told him once as a joke he had to...and none of us have had the heart to correct him since..."

"...you just also find it a bit amusing. Or maybe...you like him".

"I do not! We are just great friends, with some things in common".

"Huuh".

"Dont look at me like that!"

"Either way...I feel like there might be a lot of weirdos out here".

"Well, there are plenty of normal gamers who just want to have fun and have a good time, but others...others come into MMOs because people in the real world dont understand them, and they find others like them or end up going out on their beliefs. Because of that, you get weirdos who want to dominate and kill new players like the guys from last night, we get those who oppress everyone and want to own everything, like Blackstone, and then you have the especially weird people on the Fringes. And those are the people who you will want to look out for the most...and sometimes, the hardest to spot.

Alabam found himself waking up with some aches and pains. It felt like he had fallen asleep upright...which, as he was waking up, he had. But that was not the biggest shock. The biggest shock might have just been that he was completely naked, and that his arms were chained behind his back and attached to the ceiling.

"What the!?"

"Ah good, you are awake. You should have known, nothing in this world is free" he mentioned with an evil grin.

"...no way...no no no!"

"Oh yes, you are mine now..." he mentioned, approaching the boy. The boy moved his leg to cover up what he could, maybe as some sort of act as defiance, but the man in front of him was clearly far stronger then him given he escaped so easily. Rather, compared to him, Blackstone would probably be an improvement. "You know, I originally joined this game for stress relief, and to hunt...but this is a rather nice change".

He was standing just a foot away, when he heard sounds of fighting outside, and a young voice cry out in pain.

"...oh? Hold on a moment" he said, as he over to the door. He heard footsteps, running away from the area, and waited until they were gone. He wondered what had occurred...so he looked outside, and saw a Wolffang boy who was bloody and beat up. There were lots of foorprints leading away from the area, left in the snow, and the Royal Guard were nowhere to be seen. "I guess they launched some attacks, and left the boy here as they ran from the Royal Guard. Lucky me".

He then dragged the second boy in. He was not even wearing armor. Just casual clothes. A pair of shorts, a T shirt. He was not even wearing any boots and was barefoot, not that it mattered much in a game. He did have a blade on him, a curved sword.

"No! Wake up! You have to escape...uhg, why cant I use any skills?!"

"I disabled Combat Skills for you" he said, bringing up his menu to do the same for him as well. He went down and started to pull the boy's shorts down...but the moment he did that, the boy suddenly woke up, drew his sword, and struck him with an attack.

"Lanius Capture!"

Lanius Capture. It was a skill that allowed someone to mute their opponents for fifteen seconds, preventing them from issueing any abilities, commands, or spells, or speaking even. This would also interfere with his ability to use the command menu.

The moment he used that ability, rather then rushing at him, he rushed over to Alabam who was chained up, and cut the chains and shackles off, also wrapping him in a blanket that he pulled out. Three seconds had passed at that point, and the Wolffang boy pulled him forward while coming at the pervert with another attack. He attacked him outright, and with him silenced, he just backed up...which left the singular escape route, the door, wide open, and he dragged him through it.

"Wait wait, what about my clothes and stuff?"

"I have some spare stuff you can wear! Just follow me!"

At that point, the crazy pervert guy ran out the door. Duration on Lanius Capture was almost over. However, he was already really far away.

"Cool sword! Who are you?"

"Aha. My name is Runzo, I am a Samurai" he mentioned.

"Samurai? I thought that was exclusive for the Japan server? Isn't ours Pirate?"

"Yeah, but I transferred my character over from the Japan server when I moved. ANd since its basically the same, rather then making me a pirate, it let me stay as a Samurai. Now, hold on! We need to get somewhere safe before Blackstone spots us!"

"Un, right!"

And so as the rescue forces made their way closer, one rescue had already been completed.