Calm Down and Wander [Open]

[Ario]

Another ruined building, another destroyed car, and another player complained about this situation...

Usually this irritated a lot of people, but not Allen Keen as he only sighed in dismay at this. One minute, he was in his bedroom who just opened the new MMORPG that was released today in the UK, Elder Tale. The next, he was suddenly in this new world that looked similar not only to London, but also to Elder Tale's UK equivalent, Londinium. He just saw screenshots of it in the forums, he was excited to see it with his own eyes, but this was not he had in mind. Although he was worried about his family, his worries was dissolved not just because he wanted to leave that new reality, but his family has high hopes that he will be back. They believed his promise that he will always come back and he fulfilled it every time he was in school or in his favorite hangout spots. However, his only worries was his father might put out a missing person's report on him and that the fact on how he might get out.

"Well, seeing everyone panic might not help anybody... Looks like the main exits are sealed off, somehow..."

He tried to use the log out button, but unfortunately didn't allow him to do so. Regardless, he accepted the fact that he was trapped along with these people. However, he didn't complain or panic like those people. Instead, he treated this world as another city of some sort as he wandered around what he thought to be Londinium with his thoughts of calming down some of the panic ones.

WORDS: 276

TAG: Open to everyone!

GOALS: To check out Londinium and try to calm as many players as he can.

NOTES: I usually start my characters' journey with a solo thread, but I want to try something new for Ario. Open to everyone to talk to my new Swashbuckler Adventurer, Ario, but please lower your level to 1 since it took place during the start of the Catastrophe!

[sorano]

The female seemed rather calm, despite the situation that she had been thrown into. Standing close to the exit to this city, Sorano was thinking of how such a feat would be possible, how could so many people be transported to the world of a game? Of course, it didn’t take her very long to come to the conclusion that she couldn’t think of some form of answer to that question, oh well.


Turning around on the spot, facing the city, she began to try and figure out how to open the menu, shouting random commands in attempts to open it, earning her a few bizarre looks from a few bystanders, wondering what the heck this nutcase was shouting about. After a few attempts, she succeeded after seemingly poking the air with a finger.


Once opened, Sorano began to explore the menu, checking her stats and equipment. She made a mental note to change her equipment as soon as she could, then again, she could be so busy levelling up within the world, that she may end up forgetting about doing so. Of course, she wasn’t in a rush to change it, she’ll most likely only do so when she needs to.


Waving the menu away, she looked around to see how panicked many other people were. While she was taking things incredibly better than the majority of the players, she felt a little saddened to see the other players so distraught, or most of them at least. Squinting a little, she spotted someone wandering around, someone who seemed to be unaffected by this incident. She raised an eyebrow slightly, she thought it was good that someone else was just as calm about what happened as she was, panicking about it wouldn’t solve anything.



[Word count: 294 words.
Player level within this RP: Level 1.]

[Firabar]

Firabar's heart beat faster and faster, and his eyes met with the horror of what had become his friends list.

Only one of them was online, and it was Jeanne. That would normally have been absolutely no problem, of course... but she was in Yamato, and he was on this bloody British server, trapped in a weak level 1 body.

He made a frustrated noise, and tapped on her name again, selecting a voice call.

Nothing.

He was alone in Londinium.

Despite this, he remained among the calmer players. He had actually had a few dreams about this kind of scenario before, and had speculated about what it would be like with his friends. He had once even hashed together a rough bucket list of things to do in-game, purely for fun.

But not once had he imagined he would be doing it with that beautiful girl.

Ugh. No, I'm sorry, this is bloody stupid. She was fine. She was absolutely fine. Jeanne's character on the Yamato server was a level 90 Samurai, and even without her top-tier guardian counterpart, that skillset alone with more than formidable. She was in no trouble at all, and he could be sure she was in Yamato, too, because they always, always log on together in the mornings, and she'd said she just had to get onto Yamato quickly to '... finish a few things up real quick.'

And he had absolute faith in her. He just didn't know when - or if - he was going to see her again.

Damn it.


Looking up from where he was sat, with his head in his hands, he saw perhaps two people who were even remotely calm.

Logically speaking, he was going to need some new friends - a whole new party, even. MMOs are not games you can seriously play alone, not really. You do occasionally find good solo players, and rarely, you get reknowned ones, players who get so good at operating on their own that guild end up inviting them before they apply of their own volition, but Firabar was not one of those players.

Firabar was a tank.

And tanks need healers. Or, support, at least.

He stood up, clicked his neck, clicked his fingers, his wrists, and at least one shoulder, and shouted over.

"Hey! You two! You two calm people! Hello!"


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Word Count: 392

Character level: 1

[Ario]

Ario couldn't believe the number of people panicking. Most of them are angry at their sudden entrapment, some who were 10 to 12 years old as well as teens, mostly the girls, cried out for their parents, and some who were scared and distraught at the new reality around them. He felt saddened at these players and wondered how will he able to cheer them up until then. However, his thoughts were broke when saw a young pink-haired woman somehow waved her hand to any directions as if she was using an invisible tablet. He didn't knew what she was doing, but his curiosity got the better of him as he approached the woman with a smile.

"Uh, why are you waving your hands like crazy?" He didn't thought of the woman in front of him to be crazy, but he thought that she was very calm even during this chaos. "But on the serious note, at least you're not losing your cool like everyone else." He also didn't lose his cool as well, which he learned from his parents that panicking won't solve everything. But she also taking this very well as he continued to talk to the woman. "As for me, I'm trying my best to keep everyone from doing anything crazy just because we're trapped. But in any case, at least we didn't do any panicking on our end, I think." He knew that even this was the new world and this was his first time meeting this woman, he still need to use his in-game name as he thought that this was still Elder Tale. "My name's Ario, by the way. What's yo-?"

However, his sentence was interrupted when someone called out to them, calling them calm people. "He didn't even need to shout." He thought as his face showed irritation as he turned around and saw a man who was 21 years old of some sort. But to his surprise, his appearance was somehow... unique. Nevertheless, he decided to talk the new guy as well. "You know, we can hear you just fine. Besides, you almost made my ears explode."

WORDS: 355

TAG: sorano, Firabar

GOALS: To check out Londinium and try to calm as many players as he can.

[Firabar]

"Ah. Sorry, pal. I've always had a loud voice, just don't always realise it. But hey, at least if I did make your ears explode, it wouldn't be permanent, right?"

Firabar came over to them, and gave them a grin. They seemed decent enough, and they were DPS classes. That could work well. Swashbucklers were an odd one, for sure, usually taken only by veteran (or overconfident) players, for their ability to dish out the damage at higher levels, and lower enemies' stats per hit, so this guy had probably played MMOs before - specifically, he'd probably played Elder Tales before.

The assassin... well. She was just an assassin. It requires you to be pretty clever, but the class isn't hugely unique, because it's a pretty stock one that you find in any and all MMOs. Still, she looked like she knew what she was doing.

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Word Count: 146 or somesuch

Character level: 1

((How do you do the tag thing?))

[sorano]

Upon hearing someone speak to her, she seemed to jump in surprise. If she didn’t stop herself beforehand, she probably would have shouted.

“W-Wha- I’m not- Why- Ah, um…” Sorano stuttered, briefly panicking. Despite her small moment of panic, she was able to calm down soon after, clearing her throat.

“W-Well, I assumed that since we were pretty much in the world of Elder Tale and all, I wanted to see if the menu can be accessed, which I proved was possible.” After she finished her explanation, she opened her menu once again, before closing it a moment later. She wasn’t sure if the other could see it- which was unlikely- she repeated the action anyway.
Before she spoke again, someone’s sudden shouting seemed to strike a nerve with her, I mean, whoever the heck this person was seemed to be a good three steps away from where she stood. Hell, this place was relatively quiet until he shouted.

“Y’know, shouting’s a little unnecessary…” Sorano hissed, slightly glaring at the other for a moment. The duo, a Swashbuckler and a Guardian, were both similar to her own class, all three being more combat based. Although similar, they had different playstyles and skills… From memory, of course. Although she previously played on the Yamato server, it had been so long that she really only recalled the basics of each class, in terms of which had more attack or defense stats and so on, not much else.

[Word count: 245 words.
Tags: Ario Firabar
Notes: Button with a little person and 'at' symbol on it, whatever the name for it is, click that and you can add user tags.]

[Firabar]

"Ah, uh. Sorry. I have a loud voice. I don't usually realise how loud I'm speaking until I've spoken, either. Sorry." He apologised, scratching embarassedly at his burn scar. "I really didn't know I was shouting that loudly."

"But while what you said about the menu is true enough. We can access it - but we can't log out. Makes me wonder, actually, if this entire thing was designed by the devs anyway."

He took a moment to take in the world around him. He lived in London in the real world, so, even though it was overgrown, and ruined, now, it was a familiar sight to him. In fact, he recognised the street they were on.

"Hey, guys. I think this is Regent Street. Yeah, yeah it is. Oxford Circus is up there, and Picadilly is just down there." He took a moment to breathe it in. The air was cleaner than he was used to, for London. "I used to hang around down there with some other bookish med students. There's a Waterstones and everything. Bunch of cool theatres up near Leicester Square too. Man. We're in the West End, guys."

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193 Words

Character level: 1

[Ario]

He laughed a little when the girl was startled when he talked to her. He wasn't supposed to scare her, but he couldn't helped it but laugh. However after he did, the woman explained why that since that she thought that this was the Elder Tale world, she thought that the menu from the game might even worked in here. At first, Ario was disbelieved at what she just explained. But his skepticism soon disappeared as he tried it out by himself by waving his hand like the girl's, which caused the said menu to appear in his sight. The very said menu that he tried to log out with. "Oh, I didn't realized that sooner. But it looks like we can't even see each other's menus then."

After the man apologized about his shouting, he then looked his surroundings and told them about where he used to hang out from the real world before he explained that they were in the West End of the city, Ario was not surprised. The forums did said that the game's world was the apocalyptic version of their world thanks to the Half-Gaia Project and Londinium was actually based off the real London. "Well, the devs did said that Elder Tale's world is based off real locations due to their Half-Gaia Project of theirs. But this is not how I celebrate this game's UK server, though." It was actually the first time he played Elder Tale as he didn't play it in other servers, but he did learned about classes and basic features of the game plus the fact that he played a lot of MMORPG before. But speaking of features, he wondered something. If they are in the world of Elder Tale, did that mean that death was real if his HP hits zero? He can't make out that theory right now, but all he can deduced for now was that they can access the main menus as holographic interfaces in their eyes.

WORDS: 331

TAG: sorano, Firabar

GOALS: To check out Londinium and try to calm as many players as he can.

[Firabar]

"Nah, man. It's just that I know I'm gonna get all nostalgic about this if we don't get back to the real world. I mean, I love London." He sighed.

It was true. London was just about his favourite city, apart from maybe Cambridge, or Oxford. It was close between the three. Cambridge had a perpetually holiday-ish attitude, because of the high population of students compared to any and all else. London was big, and full of life, neon, and good pubs. Oxford was, for some reason, very sunny. Firabar had nary a memory of Oxford on which it was not impossibly sunny, or, in the winter, wonderfully snowy. Oxford was just beautiful.

"And yeah. I should have expected it more from the old Half Gaia thing. Still. I did not expect to be looking at post-apocalyptic London from inside the game. God knows I'm never gonna call it by the name Londinium either. This place is London to me."

_______________________________

160 Words

Level 1 Character

[sorano]

“Regent Street?” Sorano repeats. She then commenced to look around her surroundings, while she never lived in London before, she had been there enough times to, hopefully, remember a few familiar things. However, nothing seemed to be jumping out at her, perhaps her memory of London wasn’t as good as she thought it was.

“Who knows, this place looks too real for a game. I mean, I played before in the Japanese server ages ago- of course there are differences between servers in terms of setting, but that’s not my point. My point is, this seems more apocalyptic, while the other seemed more video game like... I honestly don't know.” It was pretty strange indeed, how in the world could the developers manage to transport thousands of players to this place?

“This makes no sense…” She huffed, crossing her arms over her chest, glancing down at her feet. Sorano was still trying to piece together what happened, particularly with how the heck such an incident occurred, would there even be a way out of here too? Who knew…

[Word count: 178 words.

Ario Firabar ]

[Firabar]

"No. You're entirely right, I'm afraid. There's no sense to be made from this - not now, at least. And certainly not by ourselves. I don't even know how much like the game this really is." He looked down at his armour and sword. "Although it does seem that my equipment is a damn lot lighter than it should be, I'll give the game that."

"And actually, yeah. Now that I think about it, Britain - or the unfounded kingdom or whatever - has a distinctly more gritty and dystopian feeling, and trust me on that, I used to write dystopia." He mumbled as he looked around. It was true. The Japan server had brighter colours and a more Japanese Fantasy feeling. In fact you could find that in most Asian games, with a much more idyllic setting, and a more dreamlike quality to the art (although it was also true that the art was usually just plain better, too) whereas in Britain specifically, you found darker tones, and darker themes.

Much darker themes.

It was the same of Sci-Fi, actually. You could always tell the difference between American and British science fiction, because when the Americans wrote it, they put in all of the glittery idealism and utopia they were so fond of, and came out with a Utopian Fic. Now, Utopian fiction was by no means bad, or inferior - in fact it served well to point out how extreme thinking governments can be, and how there can be so much wrong with a world, even when all you see seems perfect.

But dystopia, full of the terrifying pessimism of the British...

Dystopia was a reminder of what chaos was. Dystopia showed how the world might end - ignoring entirely the shadows working behind governments, at least partly because the British are rarely so easily fooled by patriotism as the Americans - and what monsters of men and women might arise after it.

When Firabar looked about, and realised that he might actually be in a dystopian story instead of a utopic fantasy, like he had been back on the Yamato server, he grew uneasy.

This world was beautiful, of course. The sunlight hit the leaves in that perfect way, and the leaves were everywhere, covering London, suddenly. He began to wonder what had happened to the museums, in fact, and how they'd fared.

He wondered if there was any technology in there that might be worth taking a look at. To his knowledge, the world of Elder Tales had no railway, no engines, only those Fairy Rings and Worldgate things. A steam engine might be a good idea to look into. Steamships would be, if nothing else, cool as hell.

An image of a steam powered airship flittered past him in his mind.

Steampunk was super cool.

Still, though. Dystopia? Cool, but not when you're a part of it. No. That was just scary.

"Alright, ok. What do you guys want to do about this, then? I mean, you two seem pretty decent, so I wouldn't mind stickin' around with you, but it's up to you guys."

__________________________________

520 Words


sorano


Ario

[Ario]

He had to admit, he was surprised that the creators picked a dystopian setting for a sword and sorcery MMORPG. Yet he wondered, was the game's lore took place years after the modern times or after the apocalyptic event? However, Ario only thought of this world as medieval rather than dystopia. But the girl has a point. The world they are in was all too real for them. Which was enough to felt that they were really sent into another world rather a virtual reality world. It was his theory for now, so he can't be very sure.

Then when Firabar asked what will they do now, Ario knew what to do next. "Let's make sure if this world is really the world of Elder Tale." Sorano's use of the interface still made him curious. Yet he was still not so sure about the death and revive feature still in play. He heard from fantasy and sci-fi novels like this that if they die in the game, they die for real. "I have a feeling that even if this was still an MMO, I'm still concerned about the revive feature being incorporated in this world. Every time we die, we get revive in some kind of save point in here. In this case, we're sent to the Cathedral according to the game's manual, right?"

As for the other players or Adventurers the game liked to call them, he knew that sticking together might be a good idea. He didn't know what was going to happen next, but being together means they have a high chances of survival. "And I don't mind being with you two for a while. Beats fighting in a party rather than being solo. What do you think?" He asked to the girl with them.

WORDS: 298

TAG: sorano, Firabar

GOALS: To check out Londinium and try to calm as many players as he can along with checking the features retained from the game.

[Firabar]

"I have precisely zero problems with hanging out with you two, and besides..." He looked around briefly. "I was a medical student before all this, so I've been in trauma wards, dealt with all sorts of crap, and I know how screwed up humanity can be. Now that we're in a game, there are naturally gonna be people who want to take advantage of all the new combat abilities they have. Without a doubt, it's safer to stick together."

There weren't really that many people around, of course, but thinking back, he could remember his class having to deal with victims of stabbings, even in their pre-clinical years, because of some massive knife-crime heatwaves back in the day. It was more than gruesome, and there were so many afflicted that the doctors could only do their best, and there weren't enough nurses to keep everyone alive while they were waiting for treatment.

Fortunately, medical students are taught compulsory First Aid on a yearly basis, going into some pretty advanced stuff. It had been his job to make sure people didn't quite die while the proper doctors were elsewhere. He'd been good at it, but he'd also wished he could do more.

Was that how it was gonna be in this world, then? Were people still going to bleed when they were hit? In Elder Tales, people had always just looked roughed up, even when they were at critical health, with maybe a nosebleed or something.

If people were going to be able to bleed out...

Well, at least he had some experience in stopping that kind of thing.

[sorano]

“I wouldn’t mind teaming up with you guys, I’d rather not start fighting solo until I get a bit more experience fighting in this world and all. Can’t say I’ve actually held a katana before,” Sorano explained. She never needed to fight with a weapon in the real world, so she was going to have to practice that first. Then again, she had a feeling it wouldn’t be too hard to figure out.


“A medical student, huh? Impressive. I’m still in High School…” She didn’t mention the fact that she still struggled with English, due to originating from Japan, there was always a small language barrier. However, thanks to the game’s translator- and the fact that she had no problem with speaking English- she had little problem talking with the duo.


“As for death and revival in this game… I guess the only way we can find out what happens if someone ends up dying, I’d rather not go to such measures though, but someone’s probably reckless enough to go outside London to train, it’ll probably happen, sadly enough… However, I do think that play- Adventurers will end up in the Cathedral if they lose their HP, since it was an element of the game before all this happened, on the other servers I assume, it’s most likely the method of revival. I guess we won’t know until it happens.” Sorano explained. She greatly hoped such a thing wouldn’t happen, but she couldn’t prevent it if it did.


[Word count: 248 words.
Tags: Ario Firabar ]

[Ario]

Ario never knew that Firabar was a medical student. Like Sorano, he was still in high school and that was unfortunate for him as he still wanted to finish it before this happened, but he had to accept the facts. All he had to do for now was to adapt to his new surroundings and find a way out of this world when everybody managed to calm down. But with the number of players are still freaked out by this, Ario doubt they can calm them down by themselves. As for death and revival, Sorano told them that the only way to find out was to wait for someone to die. He didn't like that idea, but he didn't have a choice. He even Firabar and Sorano are not dumb enough to try something like that. However, Ario wanted to try something else about another part of the gameplay.

"We can't get out there and kill ourselves to prove that theory, but we can get out for a while and fight some low-leveled monsters to see if the battle gameplay of Elder Tale still might work in this world." He wondered about it ever since he found out about the interface from Sorano as he saw the skill menu for the first time on the menu. "I also don't want to fight solo as well so I might figure out what we're dealing with in this world. Not only that, we have to check outside London to see if someone tried to fight alone. They might be strong against low-leveled, but not to high-leveled monsters." Ario then pulled out his friend and party list and sent some friend and party requests to Firabar and Sorano. If he wanted to be serious about having allies and friends in this world, he needed some way to communicate and get to know them better.

"I sent out my requests to you, guys. Also, we have to confirm our own classes so we can work together well." He said to the two Adventurers in front of him. "I'm a Swashbuckler, but since I chose only one sword, I can't use any dual wielding skills. However, I can make up for it with not only my Fencer Style passive skill, but also my Gunslinger subclass as well."

WORDS: 382

TAG: sorano, Firabar

GOALS: To check out Londinium and try to calm as many players as he can along with checking the features retained from the game.

[Firabar]

"Got it." Firabar grinned, accepting the requests by tapping at the air in front of him - ahem, I mean, tapping at his interface. Because it totally felt real, not just like air or anything.

"So where do you reckon would merit some scouting? I mean, I've heard that the Windsor Greatwood was gonna be a good place for low-level leveling, you know?" Firabar glanced between them, waiting for their reply.

Before the apocalypse, there had been a great deal of infodump from the devs on The Unfounded Kingdom server. As with every individual server, it would have its own map, of course, and so the devs had painstakingly outlined the beginner areas for the players on their forums. They'd not had the chance to put information regarding higher level areas up before the apocalypse, it had seemed, but Firabar supposed it simply meant that they'd have to explore them themselves.

Regardless, The Windsor Greatwood had been labeled as one of - if not the very best - the best areas for low level and beginner players. It seemed a natural choice.

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182 Words

[Ario]

If he recalled from the forums, Windsor Greatwood was the first monster-filled area the players will visit when they left Londinium and as Firabar said, a great place for low-leveled players to level up. However, after what happened, he felt that things might change for the worst in that said area. "Well, it is a great place to train as you said, but after this chaos, I have a feeling it might be unsafe as well. Even if we find some docile monsters on the way, we have to fight them to earn some experience. That's what I learned from playing MMOs for 2 years." As for where they should go, Ario felt that shouldn't stray off from the city so they can retreat easily when the sky darken or they find a strong monster they can't beat.

"Also, we have to stay near the entrance as well, meaning we can't walk too far from it since we would have a hard time searching it. I know we have mini-maps, but it never hurts to be too careful." Then curious at Firabar's fighting style, he decided to learn more from him. "By the way, Firabar, what's you class and subclasses? Like I said, we need to know each other so we can fight efficiently. I already told mine earlier, so..."

WORDS: 220

TAG: sorano, Firabar

GOALS: To check out Londinium and try to calm as many players as he can along with checking the features retained from the game.

NOTES: I'm aware you're busy with the finals, Firabar, so take your time.