"The World"

Kuroda swung his scythe in the flurry of battle, hitting multiple enemies, sending them in to a berserk rage, leading them to attack one another. Soon, only one was left and it turned back on Kuroda and attempted to destroy him. Swinging its undead arms wildly, failing to realize it was weakened in the previous battle. Kuroda dodged it for a while, but grew bored and as a result, delivered the final blow. With all the enemies vanquished, a chest appeared which Kuroda wasted no time opening. Taking out a key, he turned and left the great hall. A few minutes later, Kuroda reunited with his temporary party in the first room of the dungeon. There, they all used a key they found to unlock the most ornate door in the entire dungeon. Behind it, the great, cliché stairway to the top of a tower where a terrible enemy, of near omnipotent proportions waited. It was some time before the party reached the top, but they wanted to conserve their energy for the battle. At long last, they reached the top and leaped into battle with the grand evil. A Steam Gunner shot countless volleys of bullets, a shadow warlock called down spells like the apocalypse; Kuroda, a Lord Partizan, and a Edge Punisher all ran into close combat, severing, sundering, and rending the malevolent wizard. The battle was long and hard and probably would’ve been lost if not for a harvest cleric and macabre dancer aiding in the fight. With victory in their grasp, the party claimed the spoils and returned to the Magnificent city of Ironhaven.



Loaded down with the spoils of victory, Kuroda went to the market to manage it. What he wanted, he stored, what he didn’t he sold, what PC’s didn’t want, he sold to NPC’s, in the end he made a decent sum of money. With his load now lightened, Kuroda made his way to The Descendants of Cernunnos’ guild hall. It was truly in an inconvenient place, but it was one of a kind. It was “built” by the founder of the guild, a programmer for the C.C. Corp. who had long been inactive. The guild hall itself was hidden in a labyrinth of alleyways that made even the most experience player get disoriented. Fortunately the guild members had a map, anyone else to find it was a lucky accident. Once one found the guild hall, they would enter a main room, just as Kuroda did. From there, one would get bored and leave, or they would find the secret passage ways deeper into the hall. Connected to those secret passages was a myriad of rooms, one of which held a chaos gate that could lead to many Lost Grounds. Deeper in was a unique and challenging dungeon, making anyone from level 1-150 have to work hard to get anywhere. Further exploration would reveal further curios, but for now, Kuroda limited himself to the main room, someone, a guild mate or not, was bound to come eventually. In the mean time, Daisuke removed the game gear and went to the kitchen for a quick snack, he had beaten his parents home as always, but he never minded it, they made up for it on weekends

It was, all in all, a pretty boring day. School had dragged on forever, feeling longer than usual today. The moment he walked in the door of his home, he went about his usual ritual: Take off his shoes, grab a snack and something to drink, and quickly heading to his room before his mom got home, not knowing what she would be mad at today. He quickly put on his headset, picking up the controller and logging into The World, the one place where people cared about him.

Riku materialized at the Chaos Gate within the Ω server. He looked around, breathing in deeply and feeling right at home. It was a world he had come to love. He had read articles about a young girl back in The World R:1 whom had been sucked inside of the game, her real body falling into a coma. The girl had reported feeling as if she existed only in the game, actually feeling pain and everything. If only Satoshi could be this lucky. If only Riku could become the real Satoshi. The only Satoshi.

He brought up his friends list, checking who was online. "Kuroda!" He smiled, saying his name out loud ecstatically. Despite not knowing Kuroda in the real world, he considered Kuroda his best friend. Then again, that wasn't that odd when a person pushed away everyone in the real world. He headed off towards the Descendants of Cernunnos @home, or guild house, eager to meet up with his friend. As usual, he was greeted by a few players calling out his name and waving. He had become quite popular, often called "The Balmung of The World R:2.5". His wings fluttered behind him in the wind, black feathers falling off here and there, leaving a magnificent trail behind him. He reached the @home quickly, opening one of the secret passages and finding his friend AFK in the main room. He sat down on a bench, waiting for his friend to return.

"Geez..they don't call you the Ice Bane for nothing, huh?" Muttered a Steam Gunner from the newbie party Kor had stumbled upon that day. She had just finished off a boss the party was having trouble with, and had done it using a weaker ice-based attack as to not overdo the already impressive spectacle she was providing the 'little ones' as Kor liked to call them. "Ya! Your great! Your the whole reason I'm playing this Macabre Dancer!" Giggled another from the party, who then began jumping in place not far from the Gunner, the speaker being a very common girly-looking Dancer. Kor looked the two over, "It wasn't that impressive, besides if you train hard to level up, you will be able to pull off this, and many other dungeons with ease. Now let's get back to town I'm sure you both could use a breather,and of course, tally up that loot."

Kor walked away from the continually busy market, and more importantly, silently away from the two little ones she had helped today. The two bad been one room away from the dungeon boss, but had gotten themselves in a rut, the Macabre couldn't heal anymore and both were low on health. Kor came across them after warning away an ill prepared party that had no business tackling the area, but these two had business in the dungeon, they were in the right level range, however, lacking experience. So with a sigh and squeal of delight from an obvious fan, Kor gave them a hand.

Now it was time to cool off from the lower levels, and return to the guild, the Descendants of Cerunnous, to see if anyone had returned, or logged in. Kor went down an alleyway, and with a left, right, another right, a few more turns, and grunt of annoyance Kor finally pushed open the guild hall doors and looked around for any familiar faces.

Daisuke ran back to his room, snacks in hand, and found that he had been joined by his friend Riku. Quickly, Daisuke put on the gear and re-assumed the facade of Kuroda. As soon as he was sure he was back in, Kuroda said, "What's up? Sorry to make you wait, I went to get some snacks. I didn't make you wait long did I?" Kuroda didn't like making people wait, because Daisuke didn't like making people wait and that was because people got irritable the longer they waited. Just about that time, Kuroda also noticed another member of the guild, to whom he turned and said, "Hey, how are you?" Looking between the two, before they had time to reply, Kuroda said, "What would you guys like to do?"