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The cultural city Carmina Galedica was, as always, awash in it's mystical light from it's neverending night. All around the arena, shops bustled with players, new and experienced, as they perused the NPC's and PC's stalls alike for items of interest. Players also loitered about, chatting with their friends, planning strategies for both the arena (in which more were lining up to enter and watch both), and in the realms outside the chaos gate.


None of the normality in which the players went about their buisness would convey the dire situation that the world was in, having lost all but one of its servers to the hacker threat. The firewalls erected by CC corp of the purposes of the arena kept the hackers out of Carmina Galedica, and a good deal of them out of the fields and dungeons in the server, though few still lurked about in the shadows and alleys of the fields and dungeons, preying upon adventurers hungrily.

The air had a gloominess of depression about it. People knew sooner or later the firewall would be broken, their last defense breached, and Carmina Galedica overrun, turning the world into a useless program where cheating the system reigned.

The only positive reinforcement about this was that the hackers so far encountered only corrupted character data, leaving the computer largely untouched. Whether this was ineptitude on their behalf or mercy so they did not staunch the flow of victims, none could be certain.


Thinking about this issue, trapped in the Hall of Guardians behind a desk of paperwork, though admittedly none of it paper, Daedroth sat, pondering. He had been a moderator for CC corp ever since the release of R.2, and had quickly gained influence for his dislike of hackers and general things that broke into or bended the system to the benefit of anyone other than originally intended. But this new hacker problem, due to his earlier successes, landed largely upon his shoulders to solve, and so far he had not made any headway other than barricading the administrative forces in one sever, like lambs waiting to be slaughtered. He knew that they might have to resort to wiping the entire database -- maps, towns, monsters, players, everything -- if this last citadel of their power was overrun. And he knew he would lose his job, should that occur.


Pushing thoughts of the probable aside, he focused more on what he should do now instead as he got up and made his way to the arena. There was a tournament tonight being held in honor of what CC corp was accomplishing, if anything, and most of the staff would be there. There were three levels to the competition, to be fair to all the players it would not be PvP but the scoring system was based on how many hits they took, with the lowest score winning. The lower leveled section of the tournament was for players level 1-10, middle for 11-29, and the more expert players had a 30-50 circuit for them.

Billy returned home from work, seeing that there was a new message for him on his answering machine. He pushed the button, the machine spouting its usual crap about "You have x messages. Message 1" He sighed, waiting for his message. "Hello Billy. This is Frank. I have manage to un-ban your IP address. Enjoy your time playing in The World." The message stopped, Billy grew excited, having been separated from his video game for far too long.

He booted up his computer, getting his controller ready. It felt like it'd been forever since he'd heard that all to familiar start up sound. "Welcome to The World. Please select your class, so that you may begin building your character." As the words appeared on the screen, Billy grew frustrated. "...What? I have to recreate my character? ...DAMN IT!!!" He quickly picked Flick Reaper, and typed in his character name, "Caedo". "Great... I have to start over at level 1. Been a while since I've been to those areas. It will be good to see all those weak enemies again..." He quickly recreated his old character, not wanting to wait any longer.

He appeared at the chaos gate in Carmina Galedica, his favorite root town. He looked around, seeing lots of PCs. "Glad to see some people are still here." He decided to recreate his contact list as well. He punched in the addresses, sending a simple "I'm back." message. He heard either generic "Hey Billy." or "Gotcha." or nothing at all. Until he got to his boss' address. "Hey Will. Glad to see you back! Let's go to a field. I'll meet you at the Chaos Gate." Billy sighed. While it would be much easier to adventure in a party, it still had to be his boss.

A character warped in, Billy's boss had come for their adventure. A Shadow Worlock walked up to Caedo. "Welcome back to The World Will! Come on, I found this great area that I need your help with..." he trailed off, noticing some difference in Caedo. "What happened to your high-level armor. Why you in the generic level 1 stuff?"

"...My PC got hacked... I have to start over at level 1. Still want an adventure?" he asked, hoping that the answer would be "no".

"Of course Billy! I need you back into shape as soon as possible! Well, off to a level 1 area! Or would you rather find some other people and have some fun?" Billy's boss asked. Billy was flabbergasted.

'YES!!! I can be rid of him for a while! I just need to find some other characters at my level. I'm sure they won't mind.' "I'm sorry boss, but I would like to have some fun while regaining my level. One of use won't be having any fun. Sorry." Billy was slightly happy, being rid of his boss for a little while.

"Fine Will. I'll leave you to your gaming. Call me when you manage to get up in level! See ya at work tomorrow!" he shouted, logging out. Billy sighed.

"Now to go get some better armor, and replace this crap they load you up with..." Billy said, walking in towards town. "Oh yeah... I don't have any money and I can't equip half the stuff they sell anyway... DAMN IT!!!" Caedo began to flail about for a second. He just stood there, waiting for someone close to his level to walk by so he could go adventure a bit.

World_Nemesis.exe placed a black piece on one of the positions. The computer program placed a white piece. They put down another peice, then another, then another, moving faster than any two human players could. World_Nemesis had learned through practice, while the program's AI had been handed absolutely everything it might need to know.They both knew this game better than almost anything else. Soon the final piece was placed, and the program began to tally the score.
I win, he thought to himself. Mere seconds later a message popped up, saying that, just as he suspected, he had won. World_Nemesis closed the program, just as a clock inside his mind reached zero.

Unlike the go game's AI, he was designed to play a different game, called "The World R:2". World_Nemesis booted up the game and logged in.

In this game he had hair, eyes, clothes, the name "Judas" and sensations he was still getting used to. He stood not much higher than an average teenager. Looking around the city he saw the stars in the sky, the streetlights, the people. All where still new to him. Looking around, he saw something he should have noticed earlier. A PvP tournament was being held with three tiers for players, and the risk of death had been removed. World_Nemesis consulted his programming about it, and found that it did not give him an accurate guide on how to deal with this tournament. He was still level one with no Xp, so it recomended him to avoid PvP, but this couldn't really be called PvP, could it? "Judas" walked paced in a small circle, fraught with worry to nearly the breaking point.

Until he ran into someone. Looking back to see who they where before going back to pacing, Judas saw that the character was a level one flick reaper, easily identifiable by his sythe. Judas's programming was very clear what he should do now. Judas walked up to the man, apologized breifly, and said,
"Hello, Flick Reaper! would you like to join a party with me so we can level, gain money, etc.?", saying "e-t-c" instead of "et cetera".

Matt leaned back in his chair looking at his brand new security patches. "Sometimes I even amaze myself." He launched them, the programs lit up on his desktop relaying vital information to his older programs to update and come online. Matt laughed to himself as seven hacker attempts were all fought off automatically right before his eyes as his 'Silver Spline' attack net went to work throwing up isolation walls and blockades around the some vulnerable spots in his network and sending cripple class viruses to the hackers computers. "These guys have no idea who they are messing with." Four more hacker alerts came up "Agh, they're like cockroaches, where do they come from!" The hackers were quickly fought off. "Hmph as if I didn't know, that game is a breeding ground for those dam hackers. Ah, might as well get to work then. Hopefully the info I got from the CODE 9 channel is correct"

He swiveled around in his chair and started up another one of his five computers. Taking up his special keyboard Macroed for the game he logged in. Quickly making up his character he popped up into the world. "Ugh why do they give you the tackiest sets of clothing they can think of."

Looking around he spotted two other characters, "Hey over there, I'm new and cant bother with the tutorials right now. I kinda need some quick intro to the whole thing."

Billy was amazed. "Wow. I attracted a party quickly. Well, I'm just starting over, so I'll give you guys a crash course. If you guys need it." He began to walk off to the town. "This is called a root town. Everything you need is here, from shops, guilds, or the save stations, they are all here. I suggest you save regularly." He walked towards where everyone come into and out of the game.

"This is a Chaos Gate. You go to the fields and dungeons through here. Just push confirm button..." Circles appeared around him. He canceled out, realizing that they had yet to join together in a party. "Here," he said, Caedo giving them an item. "That is my member's address. Send me a message asking to join my party so that I can get yours..." They complied, he received two messages. "Okay, we are now a party. Now we go to the Chaos Gate..." Three yellow circles appeared around his character. "You select 3 key words, making a field. Make sure your levels match up well enough... And confirm."

All of their characters disappeared, being transported to the field. They appeared once more in a sunny grassland, enemies and land stretching out in front of them. "This is a field. Let's get onto battles, shall we?" He approached a group of them, motioning the two with him to follow. "See that cursor? That tells you you are close enough to start battle. Right now, the enemy hasn't spotted us yet, but be careful, if they do, battle could start before you're ready. Hit the attack button for a surprise attack."

Suddenly, Caedo launched forward, slicing an enemy, knocking it backwards. "Come on, join in. You can do a basic combo by pressing the attack button, and depending on the weapon you have equipped," he said, unleashing one of these combos on a nearby enemy, holding his scythe back for a second, after his second swipe. He unleashed a shock wave from the end, hitting the enemy in front and another a small ways away. "Feel free to attack!"

Soon, most of the enemies were slain. "There is one last thing... To use skills, there are 2 ways. The slow way, and the skill trigger. You have to assign skills to the skill trigger in the menu, but in battle, they are much faster, observe." Once more, Caedo launched at an enemy, his scythe slicing through the enemy, forming a circle, striking twice. The enemy fell, and the battle ended. "That's it for a crash course in battle. You will have to set your skill triggers yourself. And if you unleash an skill trigger attack at the right time, you can preform a critical type attack, doing more damage."

"That's it for a crash course in fighting. Now onto the field objective. You just want to get to the Beast Statue. How you do that varies. In this field, you just want to collect 3 pieces of a Judge Symbol. You can see the objective if you go to the map screen. There are in chests guarded by monsters. Other objectives are to defeat a boss, and some times you are just in a dungeon, and have to find your way to the bottom." He gave them thumbs up. "Get all that?"

((Since this is an RP in the game world, you can skip the button presses, and all the terms that overly reveal it to be a game. I'm just telling you in this way because it makes more sence. It is still a game after all. Hope I did a good enough job.))

Julian tossed his backpack in the hall outside his room as he kicked his shoes off. He booted his computer up and went to the kitchen to grab a snack. He found his way back to his room with a half-slice of toast hanging out of his mouth. Damn. This thing takes forever to boot. He'd long finished his snack by the time R:2 was up and running and had used the time to create an elaborate throne of cushions and pillows.

He spent a good hour, at least, creating his character, agonizing over the name for a while before settling on "Dom," a twin blade. Newly born, Dom came into existence next to the chaos gate in Carmina Galedica, looking around in wonder. "Hmm, no wonder everyone likes this place. It's pretty cool. He wandered around for a while, checking the prices on various items so he'd know how much he would need.

He spotted a small grouping nearby, level ones all, and decided it'd be easier to learn the game in a group than on his own. "A flick reaper, eh?" he muttered to himself as he approached, "Such an impractical weapon choice. Oh well, gotta start somewhere." He rolled his wrists, making small circles with his plain blades.

Before he reached them though, they disappeared into the chaos gate. "Ah, well. I'll wait for a different group, or these guys will come back eventually. Either way. He began patrolling between the vendors, deciding what to shoot for when he got the chance. Time spent now is time saved later; might as well have a plan.

"Thanks for the course, I probably would have been lost without it."
Judas thought about what to say next for a little bit.
"Though this does seems awfully familiar." he said, drawing his sword from his side and slicing though an enemy quickly in a single stroke, killing it.
"Say, what happens when we get to a beast statue? Do we level up or something?"
I wonder how these guys would react if they found out about me. Best keep my mouth shut for now.

Daedroth patrolled the streets of the last bastion of light against the darkness of the threat in the world until the time for the tournament was almost upon him. He passed several low level and newbies in the streets, and smiled to himself. He always felt a surge of passion for what he was fighting for when he was walking amongst them: a free society in which newbies could enter a new world of gameplay without fear of being PK'ed, hacked, or god knows what else. Though, he sadly reflected, he would feel like he was doing a bit more "fighting" if he was actually confronting the hackers, not hiding behind a desk reviewing reports from field agents.


In due time, small screens, floating unnoticed and dark against the night sky above the crowd, flitted to life with advertisements for goods (here he smiled -- those guilds had actually paid money to CC corp for the advertising rights) and -- more importantly -- stating the arena tournament was to begin in ten minutes. He made his way through the gathering throng, and they parted for him -- His reputation as a mod preceded him (another thing he hated about it -- how was he expected to delve into the hacker ranks with such attention short of making a new character? and that was out of the question -- he was too ladenm with work from this one) as he made his way to the arena.


((Aside from there not needing to be any save points in a real MMORPG since it saves every time you log off, it's fine. And the post I just made is non-specific in time: feel free to notice it whenever.))

"Seems easy enough, so far." He had slung off a few spells as practice kill more enemies than he had intended. "Hu? it says im outta magic points, how do I regain those?" Matt was fuddling through a pile of books attempting to find the manual to the game which he had carelessly discarded. "And on a side note where do we get the rewards after we complete the areas objective." Hox was walking around trying to stay with the other two as not to be killed in his first hour of gaming.

"Oh. I forgot to tell you about that. The Beast Statue is basically just a treasure chest with a rarer than normal item in it. You level up simply from defeating monsters." He jumped aside as some of the magic cast by Matt's PC whizzed by him. "Watch where you're aiming those. Your SP will replenish slowly as we walk around. If you just stand there, they should replenish quicker. Don't worry about it."

He approached a chest that the newly defeated monsters were defending, and opened it. "Judge Symbol. Just as I suspected. Just 2 more and we're done." Suddenly, a little jingle came from Billy's speakers. "Excuse me for a minute." His PC froze, Billy was replying to an PM.

"Will! How's it going!?" Billy facepalmed. "I've managed to find a group of newbies, and I'm teaching them how to play. I'll get back to you later."

Caedo suddenly sprang to life again. "Sorry about that, one of my... buddies was bugging me." His PC rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. "Ready to return to our adventure?" He ran off after the next group of enemies.

Jack entered the club room, only Joey was already sitting there. "Heya Joe, everything set up?" Joey adjusted his glasses as he nodded and pointed at three other computers beside his own. "Everything's set up. You wanna start already?" Jack nodded as he took the pc. next to Joey.


"Character generation..ok..white hair..red eyes..Flick Reaper..name..Konrad ..create.." Jack created Konrad step by step as told in the manual. "Okay I'm logged in."

Jack looked through Konrad's eyes and was amazed, a beautiful city all lit up. Virtual reality at it's best, but no time to be amazed, he had to find Joey's character. Suddenly he saw he was messaged. Jack took the liberty to read the manual before starting and thus knew what to push to view messages and such. "Ahh it's a greeting message of CC Corp." he suddenly heard Joey's voice. "Yo! Over here!"

Konrad turned and saw a steam gunner with blue hair and light grey eyes.
"It's me, Joey. My character's named Alkazar." Jack had konrad make a bow to his friend. "Glad to see you read the manual, now let's go levelling, if we want to discover any secrets we will need to acces high level places."
Konrad nodded as they both stepped towards the Chaos Gate. "I'm going to level at my spot, but you're a little weak to go with me." Alkazar rubbed the back of his head. "So wait and party up with someone, the rest of the gang is going to be late anyways."

"Okay then." Konrad said as Alkazar teleported away. He sighed as he remembered a field with low level monsters. He descided to find atleast one party member before heading out to level.

(Sable, think Julian might wanna join this one? Anti-social or not, party leveling is gewd :P )

Judas ran over to some enemies, dispatching them one by one with ease.
Hey, maybe these guys can help me with my problem.
"So, what do you guys think of the PvP tournament in town?" he said, slicing through another generic enemy as he talked with his katana.

"Well just starting out I really hadn't planned on going PvP for a while." Hox was looking around the whole area trying not to get ambushed by anything, "Hey is there anyway I can make the spell I cast stronger, like linking them together in some way? I played an RPG a few months ago that would let you do stuff like that." He had yet to find the manual for the game and was still in the process of looking for it among the piles and piles of computer books and CODE 9 magazines.

Where is that f'en thing, I know I put it around here somewhere He looked back up to the pc as his character was about to be attacked by three guys at once, "Guys a bit of help." Hox was leaping and dogging all around the three enemies like a pro, Matts hands were working lighting fast on his keyboard to keep up with the attacks.

Dom saw another level one talking to a steam gunner near the gate. What's with all the flick reapers? He approached slowly and waved a hand over his head to get the reaper's attention. He's got a high-level friend if we get in a bind; a better choice to party with than most, I guess.

"Oi," he called as he got close, "you need a party, mate? 'Cause I'm free." He gave the reaper a blank stare for a moment then laughed at himself, a hand on the back of his neck, "Sorry; I've never been good at my manners. My name's Dom. Nice to meet you." Dom extended a hand to the reaper in a friendly greeting.

((Julian's asocial, not antisocial; he doesn't avoid people, but he doesn't usually seek them out either))

Party member under attack-responding...
Judas ran back to where Hox was and killed one enemy with a single slice, then killed the next with a vertical slice, then cut and stabbed the last one in a combo move.

Response complete.
Judas walked back off and started attacking the group of monsters again.
"How will we split the loot?"