Disclaimer: I do not own .hack/ or any of the characters from the animes, games, or books or 'The World'. I DO claim Jo Velez & her family, Astral, and these stories. Also, I'll be slipping some descriptions in from the books at times. Those will be denoted by single quotes ', italics, and the source of the description in parenthesees( ).

FORBIDDEN

Jo was sitting alone in her room, leaned back in her computer chair. The time was fast approaching when this 'Helba' had said she was going to come to her. Ten minutes left. Taking deep breaths, the girl begins looking around her room, wondering if she should or should not meet the woman, taking in the sights of her all-too-familiar room. The walls were a nice tanned color, not striking out at her like a brighter color would, but not as hurting as a darker one either. The bed had similar sheets and blanket, save for a couple shades darker than the walls, an almost muddy brown color on the blanket. Jo would spend the remaining time she had left absorbing in her room, liking it. Her head snaps towards the alarm clock at the head of her bed when it's music started playing. Two minutes left. Collecting her thoughts, Jo logs into The World and pulls her FMD over her eyes, wondering exactly what she was doing.

As Astral's avatar materializes into the root town, she notices something very strange. "This... is not Mac Anu..." she whispers, slowly walking around the distorted town. The buildings looked to her to be just dropped there, alleyways leading off but soon became narrow. The ground itself looked to be distorted, dank and moldy. Slowly she moves into the strange area, her hands on her sword in case any monster was going to appear. Instead, once Astral came to the central area of the town, a woman gated in. The woman was a Wavemaster clad in a white dress, purple triangular marks upon it. A large helmet-like structure was upon her head, colored and designed as the woman's clothes, hiding the eyes behind a red visor trimmed in gold.

"You stand in Net Slum, Astral." the woman speaks.

"Net... Slum? Hey! How did you know my name, and how did you get my email adress?" Astral demands after shaking off the initial shock of the Wavemaster's appearance. She remained silent at the question, instead she turns and raises her staff, a mostly slim white-colored weapon with a hovering ring at the top, a large black orb below it, and two additional rings below the orb.

"You have heard of the Epitaph?" she asks, drawing a slow nod from Astral. "Things are coming to pass that could become dangerous. Do you think that you can handle yourself at your current state?"

"It... it depends." she says shakily. Watching where the Wavemaster's staff was pointed, a deep red cloak was pulled down towards them.

"On?" the cloak falls into the other woman's hand as she turns back to Astral.

"I don't know if I am strong enough to do anything." she looks from the cloak up to the woman's face, recognizing it now as the pic that had been sent to her with the email from Helba. "But I will become stronger, Helba." Nodding, Helba takes something from her inventory and presents it and the cloak to Astral. The cloak she immediately equips, her hands holding the other item in them. "What is this? I found something in my inventory when I logged in the other day like this. What's 'ecifircas.cyl'? And why is there a file extention?"

"You ask too much of one that can not answer. All will be revealed. There are other items like that in The World. Find them. You will have your answers then. Do not say anything of this place." Helba says, waving her staff towards Astral, causing the girl to be removed from Net Slum and to Mac Anu.

As Astral was returned to the Root Town, she paces over towards one of the corners near the Chaos Gate. She hadn't noticed quite yet, but her avatar had changed. The black coat had become red, the white stars and slashes were now mingled with black ones, and the cloak hung over them as well. A form soon approaches her and, as she looks up, smiles. "Astral now clad in blood?" the voice of Orca the blademaster, Descendant of Fianna, asks.

"Blood? What do you mean?" she asks, getting up, switching her view from first person to third, a soft gasp coming through her mic as she finds the changes done to her image. "Woah... that's wierd... Oh, hey, Orca!" Astral smiles up towards her friend, remembering the words of Helba. "You solved the One Sin! Congradulations!" Chuckling, Orca nods his thanks.

"It was a hard battle. It took some thought, but Balmung and I finally realized the strategy to winning." he says.

"I'll bet. Huh? Aww man... My mom's calling me for lunch, I'll try to get on again when I can, alright?"

"Of course. Enjoy your meal, Astral." Nodding, she waves and logs out, her mind dwelling on the strange items as well as the meeting with Helba.

Laying her FMD onto her desk, Jo rubs her fingers over her eyes. She'd never thought that it was able to change your character's appearance, much less in-game. And then there were those two wierd items that Helba told her to keep secret. What were they, and why were they supposed to be secret? She descided to think on them later. For now, her parents were yelling at her to get downstairs and into the car so they can go out to eat.
kulaguy2- So sorry about the naming thing. I had been talking with a friend about the Dot Hack series a couple hours prior to posting the story, and she calls Twilight Dusk. Yes, the little glitches about Lyco are part of the storyline. As for the bit about W. B. Yates/Yeats, I took it from the book AI Buster itself. Maybe Hokuto translated it herself, huh?