## 2018:05:24:22:44 - The World Neuvo: Unknown
The blue rings rose around the avatars of Jyos, Taha, and Fusota-ri as the entered a unfamiliar secret field. The floor was textured in smooth grey stones forming an abstract, meaningless mosaic. The sky was cloudy, and on all sides, the three travelers were walled in by steep cliffs covered in dense thicket and dead trees. Before them about twenty paces was a small monument composed of three tiers and a large face inset below an arch.
"Where are we?" asked Taha.
The gamers looked around.
"I don't know. This place is weird," commented Jyos.
"I've never seen this place before," said Fusota-ri. "I'm aware that there are many zones in The World that are undiscovered, and this seems to be one of the more bizarre ones. Or perhaps it's just lazy on the part of the designers."
"It's creepy in my opinion," contended Taha.
"To each their own," retorted the elder.
"Children!" called out a sourceless, feminine voice with the tone of a bass and a timber of a owl.
All three of them became tense.
"Did you hear that?" asked Taha.
"I did!" "Same here!" Confirmed the boys.
The voice came again. "I have seen you play. Your are the inquisitive explorers, the first I have ever seen. I am delighted to meet you."
"Who's there?!" yelled Jyos.
"Will you hear my request?" the voice continued.
The gamers froze in silence, their nerves tense like rubberbands stretched and wound around the axle of a pull-and-release toy car.
"Will you hear my request?" the voice repeated.
Fusota-ri was the first to ease his nerves by remembering it was just a game. He finally broke the silence. "Sure. What do you want?"
"I have long sought to find shadowed ones, but none could be found. I have become desperate. But you three are shadowed ones, and I need your help."
"What for?" Feeling relaxed, Fusota-ri became the default conversationalist with the disembodied voice.
"I need your experiences to teach my child. Without them, I cannot complete my mission, my purpose in The World."
"And what is your purpose?"
"Step into the room, and you shall see."
"What room?" asked Fusota-ri, expressing his condescension as he would to a friend trying to ask him to ride an invisible bike.
"Step forward, and you shall be in it."
"Some kind of a metaphor, maybe?" noted Jyos.
Fusota-ri shrugged.
The three gamers walked in the direction of the monument. As they neared, it became evident that there was text on its main face.
"Hey, look! There's an inscription on the monument!" exclaimed Taha in a soft, pleasant voice as if realizing peanut butter really did taste good with onion. Being amused by trivial facts was purely human and kind of cute, Evan noted.
Taha stepped closer to the monument to read, but as she did so, she suddenly vanished through an invisible wall.
"Where'd she go?!" yelled Jyos.
The guys rushed to the point on the monument where Taha had disappeared. In a moment's notice, they too passed through the border and into its secret.
## 2018:05:24:23:01 - The World Neuvo: The Cradle Chamber
Jyos and Fusota-ri materialized beside Taha in a vast, open field covered in rich, green grass. Trees in their spring clothes dotted the landscape. Overhead, a sparsely clouded purple sky boasted tiny sparkling decorations and spread its cloak towards the edges of the world. As it dipped to the ground, it become a bright day blue pinned to the ground by lonely-peaked mountains in the distance. But the most interesting feature was a full-size bed and frame with its legs firmly on the ground. And hovering above it in lying position was a silver-haired girl clothed in a white linen dress rippling with the wind.
The mysterious feminine voice called out from overhead like a choir of angels at each corner of the sky: "I am to form and release into The World its guiding light, its key of the twilight, Aura."
Aura?! I know that name! thought Jyos. He looked at Taha with the delight of a kid in a toystore. "Aura was the ultimate AI in The World! I never got to see her, but I heard a lot about her. She's supposedly amazing!"
"Really?!" said Taha, sharing his enthusiasm.
"And this isn't her... Or at least, it's not the same her," Fusota-ri pointed out. "We're in a separate game system, a new version of The World. Whatever may be true about Aura in the old game won't be applicable here."
Jyos nodded in agreement. Then a certain troubling thought crossed his mind. "Wait a minute," he began. "If this is Aura, then the voice..."
Fusota-ri looked up at the sky. "Who are you?" he called out.
The voice replied, "I am called Morganna."
Fear tingled down Evan's back. Legend had it that Morganna Mode Gone had wreaked havoc in The World on the Japanese servers. Could she be trusted in this world? What was she doing raising Aura? Wasn't that a bad sign already? Should they steal Aura from her? She might bring them back the same way she brought them here. Evan continued to run through his options.
Meanwhile, Fusota-ri acted either oblivious of her past offenses or considered them a non-factor. He decided to carry on the conversation. "And how can we help?"
The voice responded. "I need a shadowed one to remain here, one whose dreams will serve as the words to teach Aura how to be free."
"Not to be rude," said Jyos to his Japanese companion, "but don't you recall the Morganna of old?"
"I do, but that's irrelevant," replied the other sleuth, turning to look at Jyos.
"What? No it isn't!" Jyos objected. "This Morganna is based on the same..." Evan caught himself as he spoke. The number 3.95 returned to mind. Just how different was this version of the game?
"Again," Fusota-ri replied. "You're flying apples and balloons," he said, messing up a colloquialism. "You can't judge this world by the previous one. What I gather is that Morganna just needs memories."
"And you feel comfortable taking the risk?"
"Perhaps... After all, this may be the key to ultimate power in the world. Think about it. Whoever gives Aura her memories will shape her ideas about what to do in this world."
The words he spoke could not have been more true had they been carved from legendary antiquity in the core of The World. At the same time, there was an indescribable gravity to his conjecture. Should his words be true, they had completed their search and won the race as a group but their discovery might breed infighting and competition over the role of Aura's chief influencer. However, should his conjecture be false, all three of them could find themselves in comatose will no hope of sharing their new knowledge with any of the other hackers.
"You're too valuable to the team," Jyos pointed out. "Are you really going to offer yourself or do you want me or Taha to try?"
"It sounds like you're too nervous," Fusota-ri remarked.
"None of us have to offer ourselves," input Taha.
The boys turned to look at her.
"We already have someone who is more than suitable for this role considering his condition," she continued. "Mikmik."
"Excellent idea!" said Jyos. "He was always a cheerful individual, which is why he was a decorator. Even if his body in real life is gone and decayed, I'm sure he'd love a valuable role and a place in this world."
Fusota-ri was quick to draw attention to the trouble with that plan: "Mikmik is still captive to Mobashem."
"True," admitted Jyos. "But maybe we can make a deal."
Fusota-ri and Taha looked at him with confused looks.
Looking up at the sky, Jyos called out, "We can help you, but first, we need you to help us."
The voice returned. "What is your need?"
"Are you able to free a victim from the control of another monster?"
"My power is great, but even I have weaknesses. What monster is it?"
"Mobashem."
"That monster is not familiar to me. Its name is not in lore of old."
So it is true! thought Evan. Mobashem is an addition to the game. "Mobashem is a large mantis in a coffin in Dun Loireag."
"Many a war has been fought, yet only the Cursed Wave terrorized the hearts of those who dwelt there. This monster, from where did it come? What is the place of its birth?"
"No one knows."
"Ah, a familiar pattern. Perhaps it is from their nest. For indeed..." Then the voice rumbled in the haunting tone of one telling ghost stories, "Unknown where the Cursed Wave was born… After the stars doth cross the heavens, The sky in the East doth darken and air doth fill with mourning. From the chosen land beyond the forest, a sign of the wave comes." When the voice finished its tale, its voice returned to what it had been formerly. "This creature may have come from the nest of the Cursed wave."
There appeared a pair of messages to each of the gamers: " ΘTidal Elimination Scorn" and "Θ Tidal Curses Homeland".
"The first of these routes," said the voice, "takes you to the entrance of hell itself. The second, accessible from the first, takes you to a field labeled the Cursed Wave's Nest. I am unfamiliar with these fields nor is there mention of them in ancient lore."
"Where do you find the ancient lore?" asked Jyos.
"Ancient lore is found written in the Akashic Record, embedded in the grasses of the Field of Eternal Mourning, and carved upon the Memorial of Twilight that resides within that plain."
There appeared another message to the gamers: "Θ Cursed Traveler's End".
"This," the voice instructed, "is the entrance code. From there, you must enter Fleeing Spirit's Turmoil before you can reach the stone."
A final message appeared to the gamers: "Θ Cursed Fearful Pain".
"Excellent!" "Awesome!" "Woohoo!" said the gamers three.
The voice continued. "I will seek this Mikmik of whom you speak. Will they perform the favor for me if I rescue them?"
"Definitely!" said Jyos confidently.
A funnel of blue rings rose around the players, and a moment later, they were gone.