Wasting my time (in a good way)

[fishstyx]

So I like to write every once in a while, but never have anywhere to put it. So I'd like to put it on here since there's a no-judgment rule. Anyway, I'd like to keep this strictly my writing, but I don't really mind if you have any comments or suggestions. I can't guarantee that I'll stick with one story for a good amount of time. I've been known to write one thing for two days and then totally drop it and start something else. Right now I'm super into the virtual reality idea, but other times I'm into parallel universes. And even your generic "I'm a teenage girl with too many problems" type things, with boys and glitter (not really) galore. So feel free to comment!

[fishstyx]

So this is my first post with actual writing! Anyway, this is from my virtual reality interest. Please forgive any misuse of technical terms. I'm working off my knowledge of Elder Scrolls, SAO, and 1/2 Prince. Also, spoiler! There's some swears in this, but not to the point that it's obscene.

Log-in failed.
The black words float in front of me. For the third time already. Shit.
Log-in failed.
I don’t have time for your shit, Log-In. Log-In and I have been in a long-term relationship lasting almost six years now. I want to break up. I’m tired of seeing her face after all this time. I mean, the first few times was cute because I got to hear the little girlish voice telling me kindly to try again. But once I hit the fifteenth time I was about ready to strangle her.
I guess it’s kind of weird for me to talk about a computer-generated voice like that. Make no mistake, Log-In really is just a body-less voice programmed to say those frustrating words that all other players hear. But I feel like our connection is so much more close than that.
Sorry. I just did it again.
Log-in failed.
Yes, I get it, bitch. Is this what it feels like to be in an actual relationship? Good thing I’ve never had to deal with that irl, or I’d probably be insane by now. My e-friends tell me that I already am, but I’m pretty sure they’re kidding. I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to tell over the Internet whether someone is being serious or not.
I take a deep breath. Re-try the log-in.
Welcome, Player.
Finally. Thank God.
The screen in front of me goes blank for a moment while the game loads, so I close my eyes and rest for a second. No doubt I’ll be up all night again in the dungeons with J-Pow and KLS-23 (K for short). When I open them, the welcome NPC is smiling at me with her pre-constructed welcoming smile. They should change that every now and then or it’ll get annoying, like my girlfriend, Log-In.
This welcome NPC wears her red hair in a long ponytail that trails down to presumably her buttocks, where it probably falls into perfect princess curls. Her eyes are huge and green and a person could probably get lost in them if she didn't have such luscious red lips like pillows resting atop the snowy perfection of her face. High cheekbones combined with her wonderfully small and straight nose all came together to make a vision of pure beauty.
Welcome back, Legend, the NPC breathes. This NPC doesn’t talk so much as she thinks thoughts aloud in beautiful, lyrical thoughts that captivate the audience and make you want to bathe in them. It’s almost unfair how perfect the game creators make some of the NPCs. There aren’t any real people that look that amazing or sound like a goddess!
New game or load game?
“Load, please.”
The ‘please’ was a little unnecessary. But I just can’t help being polite to the NPCs since they no doubt live very boring lives. And yes, I realize that NPCs aren’t real people that have feelings and such, but they still deserve a little respect, even if secretly I want to steal their nonexistent DNA and inject it into my chromosomes.
Please wait, she breathes, jerking me back to my senses. I nod to her (once again unnecessarily) and whistle to myself a bit. There’re so many players in PF that it’ll probably take a few minutes before I can be connected. While I wait, I think of the plan for tonight:
Step 1: Meet up with J-Pop and K.
Step 2: Say hello to J-Pop and K.
Step 3: Get yelled at by J-Pop and K for being late.
Step 4: Enter Khione’s Snow Palace.
Step 5: Be bad-ass and kick Greek goddess butt.
And that concludes today’s plan. It shouldn't actually take us the whole night (considering I could probably do it all by myself anyway), but we wanted to meet up extra early just to check all our gear and such. Plus, J-Pop’s been there since 2:00 (my time), and it’s time for us to relieve her of her boredom. K took the shift before that and I was there last night. We've been taking shifts since two months ago to keep our spot at the front of the lines to Snow Palace.
This competition has been months in the making. PF has been advertising it since last year and anyone who’s anyone in the PF world will be there. Even though Snow Palace isn’t exactly a difficult dungeon, there’ll be thousands, if not millions, of players there tonight that will be trying their best to kill us before we can beat it first. Imagine, teams and single-players from all over the world stopping their lives for this moment in history. I feel bad for any singles just because it’s probably boring just sitting in the game for months. But them’s the breaks, as they say.
Apparently, back in the day it was unthinkable to drop your life just to play video games. What a world, huh? Thankfully, we’ve advanced past that. Not that we don’t still have to go to school and such, but we can still take our time to enjoy ourselves. And I hear they’re about to come out with a new game that will teach you from the enjoyment of your room. Then again, that could backfire when all the teachers get together to torch the government for letting the video game companies take away their jobs.
Meh. Not my problem.
I’ve got to get my head in the game. Enjoy your stay in Pan’s Forest, the goddess-like NPC tells me in her honey-sweet voice. I can’t help it. I smile back. Then everything goes black and I feel the strange sensation of being flushed down a toilet. Every particle of my being is shrunk from the feet up, and then I feel myself rematerializing on the other end, feet, then legs, then torso, and finally head, once again intact.
Nothing like the rush of a load.
Blinking, I take in my surroundings. I’m standing in front of a red ribbon that ropes us off from a large ice cave. Snow is blowing all over the place, but I quickly conjure a low-level fire spell to melt the snow in my immediate area so I can see a little. I can hear the roar of a large crowd behind me, and here and there are voices I recognize from other events or just from random meetings. I’ve built up quite the network of friends.
The Snow Palace glitters in front of me, challenging me to enter and destroy if I can. C’mon, Legend, I imagine it saying. Come get me. I feel a smile trying to force its way to my lips, but I keep it held back. I want to save it for the right moment when I can once again feel the rush of battle as I hack at my challengers, in both the form of Khione’s minions and the other players.
“L,” a voice calls from my right. It sounds angry.
Turning to intercept her, I throw open my arms as J-Pop tackles me. We end up with me flat on my back and her lying on top of me, but I manage to retain no damage from my teammate. She’d probably been awaiting this moment so she could cause me pain, but her yell of fury kind of ruined any plan of sneaking up on me. Not that she could have done that even if she’d been silent as a mouse.
“J!” I cry. “How I’ve missed you!”
She blushes furiously as she desperately tries to crawl off me. I trap her in my arms and hug her tightly, causing her to turn almost purple as her blush turns ever deeper in its rosy hue. “Where have you been?” she whines once I let her go. She stands up with as much dignity as she can muster, ignoring me when I raise one arm in a gesture for help.
“Sorry,” I laugh. “I came as soon as I could.”
“Not good enough,” J-Pop growls. J-Pop is a cute fairy-type of no more than five feet, with blonde hair trailing down in pretty wisps. Her button nose was made for poking, and she has the whitest skin of any I’ve ever seen. Her eyes are wide and blue as the sea, and she has a pouty lip that most boys would die to kiss. Of course, irl she isn’t actually like that. I’ve seen a few of her pics that she’s emailed to me. She’s adorable, but quite obviously Japanese, unlike this fairy in front of me.
J made her character in the typical ecchi style, with big breasts and a face to-die-for. No doubt she has plenty of fans among the guy players in PF. In fact, a lot of the people I’ve come face-to-face with so far were her admirers. But for me, she’s not really my type.
That could possibly be because I’m a straight female, but it’s not like anyone knows that, so I guess to them I’m just some weirdo guy that doesn’t know what great luck he has to be teammates with a girl like her. It’s hilarious sometimes to watch the jealousy on their faces. Sorry, dudes! I’ll never appreciate her quite like you do!
I shouldn’t be surprised, though, considering that really there shouldn’t even be the possibility of my being a guy. When I first put PF in the console and turned on the headgear, I should have been assumed to be a female since my headgear knows my measurements and such. But for some reason, all my options were for men. I guess my game glitched or something.
That was four years ago when I was still young and naive and I had no idea what a real RPG could be like. By then, I’d already started going around with the handle “Legend,” but I’d only been playing games for about a year, and never anything like PF. All the games before this were your generic one-player shooting and magic games. You always had the choice of gender in those ones because they were never very intensive, and I chose male without much thought. I thought it’d be kind of hilarious living like the other half. Online, on the old computer games, I played as a male, too. I never played any of those stupid girly games like “Will You Be Mine?”, thank God. Really, how anyone can ever get into those games, I’ve no fucking clue.
But I don’t like talking about my newb days, since they were so long ago. And to be honest, they’re a little embarrassing. I really had no clue what I was doing in the beginning. Thankfully, I’m a fast learner, so I quickly taught myself when the best time to use a certain spell was. Soon, I branched out from one game and found myself suddenly playing three different kinds of games all at once. Not really at once, of course. That technology doesn’t exist. I just mean that I would find myself going from one game to another and then to another and then back again. That taught me how to play in any circumstance at any time.
When I first heard of PF, I didn’t think much of it. I was happy with the games I had and ignored the acclaim from the critics for the newest RPG. They said that the realism was the best they’d ever seen, but since my games seemed pretty realistic to me that never got me turned on to the game.
It wasn’t until my e-friends started to get into it that I decided to take a shot at the game. It took me a whole two months to save up enough allowance to buy the game. While my mom is willing to buy me a lot of things, a super expensive game is not one of them. Those two months are all a blur of chores, games, and school.
When I finally started the game, I could barely stop playing it. For two whole weeks I laid in bed and played furiously, until my mom came in and unplugged the headgear and shut me down for two days so I would eat and get ready for school in the fall again. Now I’m better than that and can go without playing until night, which is what any good student does.
Thus, “Legend” was born.
I’ve moved on from PF since then, although any time there’s a big event I come back. But I secretly changed the visible handle from “Legend” to “L.” Nobody actually knows who I am now, although word of my deeds still somehow seem to get around, even though I barely play under that handle anymore. The only time I bring out “Legend” is when I’m playing single instead of team.
So I’m here to win this competition, and then I’ll go back to playing something else again. I also come back sometimes just to be with J-Pop and K, since I only play this game with them. We email, but it’s not the same as a good in-person conversation.
I come back from my beautiful memories of my cherished youth in time to see K waving us over. J-Pop continues glaring at me, reluctantly choosing to not keep punching me as we make our way over to K. Maybe I’d be a bit more worried if she didn’t look so adorable with that frown on her face. As it is I just pinch her nose and run before she can react, almost toppling K over in my eagerness to survive.
“Whoa,” he says catching me. “Be careful there. We need you today.” K is pretty mellow, in looks and demeanor. He’s probably about my height in the real world, but about five inches shorter than me here (let me tell you how hard it is to adjust between five foot seven and an even six feet). He’s got messy brown hair that hangs limply down to his chin, and the kind of face that just begs for glasses to decorate it. Unfortunately, he doesn’t need them here, so his face looks uncompleted in a way. Not in a bad way, just in an I-obviously-wear-glasses kind of way, if you get what I mean. He’s about average build with grey-blue eyes that always look at you clearly and give the impression that he’s staring intently at something even if he’s just spacing out.
He’s pretty fast, but doesn’t have much strength, so we use him as a mage and a strategist. J-Pop is our speed-type, rushing around and taking out enemies with a dagger and a well-aimed reduce health spell. In PF I act mostly as a warrior. At least, when I’m with J-Pop and K. When I’m alone I’ll do whatever so I can level up. The problem is keeping my progress from my teammates so that they don’t get mad that I’ve never told them what level I’m really at. Plus, they still don’t know that I’m Legend and I’d like to keep it that way.
First of all, it’s frickin’ exhausting being Legend all the time. Everyone expects so much of him and when people see him they all stare and point and make a big deal. I guess this sounds kind of conceited, since I’m basically talking about how awesome other people find me. But believe me, it’s not like that. When I first started going by the handle Legend, my only thought was to question why no one hadn’t taken it before me. It seems like a pretty popular handle, but it wasn’t until I got popular that Legend started becoming a well-used base handle. Now everywhere I go I see Legend261 and Legend’s-bff. I kid you not. I’ve seen that handle before. And ones exactly like it with numbers tacked on to the end of them.
Now, years later, I’m tired of my name preceding me. It’s a lot of stress on me knowing that I have to be a peak performance at all times for the hordes of people that follow me around under the guise of disciples. Really, I think they’re just waiting for me to mess up. Who the heck would want to play under all that pressure?
So yeah, that’s why I go by L when I’m around K and J-Pop. It’s just not worth it to reveal my identity to them when I enjoy playing with them so much. It was surprisingly easy to conceal my original handle and level, and it kind of makes me wonder who else in PF is walking around with a fake name. I only bring out Legend when I know no one is around, just because I really do love my handle. It’s me. And even if sometimes it’s a burden, I wouldn’t give it up for anything. In private.
“L?”
I look up and notice that K has been staring at me for God knows how long. Shit. I really have to stop spacing out.
“Are you ready for this?” K asks. His eyebrows are furrowing; a sure sign that he’s beginning to doubt me. No matter how well I perform he always worries if I’ll be up to parr. It’s funny really how much he treats me like a newb. He’s kind of our by-proxy leader, which is just fine by me since it means I don’t have to think for once. Of course, there’s no way I would go out without my own secret game plan, but I’m fine with letting him run things with J-Pop. “L?”
Shit. Did it again.
“Yeah,” I respond. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just getting myself ready, you know?” He nods and I sigh inwardly in relief. “Let’s go over the plan one more time while we still have the time.” I look at K for permission, and he nods in approval. J-Pop frowns.
“We’ve already done that so many times. It seems pretty simple to me. We get out in front of them and K casts a barrier spell so that you have time to find Khione and kill her. I stay with K and kill anyone who gets through. See? Simple.”
I have to bite my lip to keep myself from pointing out the trouble with seeing this as something simple. Better to let K do it, which I know he will by the crimson frustration creeping over his cheeks.
It only takes him a moment to explode (when I say ‘explode’ it’s more like he can’t help the words rushing out of his mouth in an educational frenzy, not so much like yelling) and the storm of words pummels J and I.
“Simple? There’s nothing simple about this operation! First of all, I have to keep up a barrier spell for at least a good hour so that L can get in and out in peace, all while making sure you don’t killed by the people that get through. Then you have to patch up all the holes in my spell while repeatedly feeding me mana potions which, I might remind you, we’ve spent nine months saving money up to buy. And while we’re doing this we have to be aware of where L is so we can help him too! That means that if L calls you you have to go help him and that leaves me all alone against the mobs! Then I’ll have to call you and you’ll come running back and L will be left to die alone, which compromises the whole mission! And then, if we-”
“K,” I interrupt, clapping him on the shoulder. “It’s gonna be fine. Take a deep breath, dude.” His whole face is now a sad hue of terrified blue, like a ghost crawled up inside him and took host of his body and now his whole body is being frozen from the inside. It’s my job to unfreeze him in cases like this. “First of all, you’re the best mage probably in the entire game,” (total lie, I am), “so your barrier won’t be breached. J will be there just in case it is, but there won’t be enough people that get through for it to be a big problem.
“And I’m kind of embarrassed that you think so little of me that you don’t think I can do this by myself. How much have we been through together? You know better than anyone that we’ll win, so don’t freak yourself out.” I give him a strong smile and shake him a little, trying to dislodge the spirit in his soul. “And if nothing else we can toss J to the masses and let them have her. That’ll at least stop most of the guys, and maybe even some girls.”
“No!” J screams. I wink at her, causing her to blush. But I’ve accomplished my goal: K starts to smile a little. Just the hint of a twinkle in his intelligent eyes, but enough for me to know that he’ll be fine.
“Right,” I continue. “It’s what? 18:57? How about we take this time to reflect on our individual roles?” What’s funny is that although K is our fearless leader and comes up with all the strategies (with small, off-handed suggestions from me), he has the hardest time with following through with them. I’m always talking him up in real battles. When we face mobs he’s totally fine, but get him around other players and he chokes a little.
“Fine,” J growls. She’s still mad at me. How cute.
“Sounds like a good idea,” K agrees. “We’ll all take a couple seconds and then get ready for it to start.”
As soon as he finishes his sentence I turn around. I need to concentrate. This plan has too many flaws that K hasn’t thought about. First of all, he hasn’t taken the terrain into account. Although it should be nearly impossibly to climb the side of the cave, it is possible to get up to the top and poke a hole through the weakest part of the barrier spell and slip in. Also, there’s a secret entrance on the side of the cave, just behind a slab of ice. It takes a lot of strength to move it, but if you’re strong enough it brings you past the cave opening and directly into the interior of the cave without ever having to pass go and collect two-hundred (I’ve heard that’s an old board-game reference).
My first priority will be to collapse the wall by the secret entrance, which should keep any intruders out for a good ten minutes while they try to move the rubble. Of course, the strong ones could also bring mages with them, or there might even be well-rounded players with high enough strength and magic stats to move the rubble by themselves. It’d probably be better if I also erected my own barrier spell, or maybe even a conceal spell in the beginning to keep them away from the secret entrances for another fifteen minutes. I have enough belief in my own abilities to know that that should be enough time for me to at least get far enough inside the dungeon that I won’t have to worry about anyone beating me.
I already decided a few weeks ago that I would leave the entrance to J-Pop and K. Although I’d like to strengthen K’s spell, I just don’t have enough mana to do that and fight. And I especially knew I couldn’t afford to do that after discovering the secret entrance a few days ago. I was just poking around the area, since I couldn’t actually enter the location. The makers barred the interior to the public in dedication to this event, so the only reason I know what’s inside is because I managed to move the block of ice and get a glimpse of a part of the icy maze.
Meanwhile, I’ve got Dicon with me, along with Killa, my two most-trusted weapons in PF. And an assortment of other deadly maces and swords, even though I’m not really a mace person. I try to keep one of every kind of weapon with me at all times, in case a situation calls for a specific type. Although you will never find me with a staff, just because it saves more time to just cast a spell while holding another weapon that can do actually damage upon contact.
The only thing I can’t be sure of is what will await me inside the Snow Palace. No matter how much time I’ve spent searching the web for information on it, no spoilers have made their way to the public. It appears the creators are being extra careful after the last incident where word of an event was spread two days before the event was to happen. While it excites me that I have no idea what I’ll be up against, I’m also frustrated as all hell. Usually you’ll get at least something on the location, but the only info we received was the general area it was in. We all had to discover it individually so that we could be here today.
Hmm...Just taking a guess, I would assume that Khione’s followers will all be ice nymphs of about level twenty each. There will be some even stronger nymphs most likely around level thirty, but not enough that a good player couldn’t beat them one-on-one. It’ll suck that I’m fighting them all by myself, especially because I’ll have to downplay the difficulty level later so that L and J don’t get too suspicious. I want my Eden just a little longer without being discovered.
Khione could be any level, and that scares me. But I have at least fifty fire poisons with me at the moment that I will only use against Khione. For her nymphs, I’ll have to rely on my strength. Knowing this, my armor has already been improved to maximum efficiency, and I’ve even ingrained a fire spell into the metal itself (go smithing perk!) so that contact with my body will harm the ice-type nymphs. My weapons have also been improved to their best, since I won’t have a chance to sharpen them inside the dungeon. There’s just no time.
There. I’ve prepared the best that I can. The only thing to do now is follow through with it. And also, get out in front of the rest of the players so that we can cast the barrier as soon as possible. J will have to kill anyone that gets in before us. She should be fine doing that, considering her speed skill. Even I can’t outrace her in PF.
I check the time. 18:59. Less than a minute until the start of the event. I walk up to stand on K’s left. J is on his right and we’re flanking him until we get to the entrance. We can’t afford for him to die before we can even implement the first part of our plan. Actually, we can’t afford for him to die, period.
“Ready?” I ask them.
“Mmhmm,” K’s weak assurance comes from my right.
“Yep!” J’s peppy response outshines the depressing affirmative of K’s.
“Okay, then,” I say back, still trying to reign in my smile. Only a few more seconds until the bloodshed can begin. I just have to make sure to keep to the plan, and the prize is as good as ours.
Players, the Snow Palace event will begin in ten seconds. Enjoy your stay in Pan’s Forest. The male mod’s voice shuts off, replaced by a feminine mod counting down.
Eight.
Seven.
Six.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
I can’t help it. I smile.
One.

[styx]

Well I found out today there's an actual writing corner section where I can put my stuff. Awkward. But I like the idea of keeping this in the journal section because it's less pressure to actually continue the stories I start. I actually have kept going with the video game one. I had a little party for myself since I managed to go back to it on the second day. Unfortunately, I had too much homework to get all that I wanted of it done. The second section (chapter?) of it just feels incomplete and I couldn't bring myself to post the unfinished version. And then tomorrow will be even busier and I probably won't get to write at all, which makes me sad. Guess we'll see what happens. My finished product will probably be hilarious to read because it's just me trying to write battle scenes and I'm probably totally failing at conveying the character's ability to fight. Anybody who enjoys reading and watching and writing battle scenes, please forgive me for my novice skills in battle writing! Well, that's about it for today. Like I said, we'll see what tomorrow brings. Who knows? Maybe my lousy writing will be posted here tomorrow!

[fishstyx]

So I obviously didn't get the post up yesterday. There was way too much to do and it made my unhappy because most of it included running around like a hamster for a school event. But all's well that ends well, so I can't complain (much). I should be able to get the second part up by tonight, if any of you are tuning in. If you aren't, at least you came once!

[fishstyx]

First, I would like to apologize for the mass of text that is about to come. Believe me, I didn't plan for it to be this long. Not at all. I thought it would be about the same length as the other one, or a little longer. Not live two-and-a-half thousand words longer. So, sorry! Anyway, I finally finished it! Aside from the length, I'm pretty happy with it, if only because I actually did it. Hopefully it's entertaining to read. I especially like the end, but that's just me. There is some swearing in this one too, but not much. Hope you guys like it if you read it, and again feel free to leave comments!

J-Pop’s moving as soon as the horn sounded, flanking K’s right side. My legs are also moving, albeit slightly slower, to protect his left. If only it were as simple as being fast; but, unfortunately, this operation requires us to be both quick on our feet and quick with our hands. The first arrow barely misses K by a finger-breadth over his left shoulder, too close to the both of us for comfort. Usually I would turn and fire off an arrow back, but in order to run as fast as possible I’ve left my weapons undrawn.
Thankfully, J is fast enough that one little dagger won’t slow her down any. And she’s got plenty of them. One of them flies from her hand quicker than a dart, hitting its mark if the grunt of pain behind me is any indication. I gather a little magika in one hand and let it trail out behind me, creating a mist that the other players will be temporarily lost in.
Despite our speed, there are players who are out in front of us by a good ten yards; much further than we planned for. K’s breathing hiccups for a moment when he sees the situation, but before he can say so much as a word, a spear comes flying from beside J, hitting one of the lead players directly in the back. Not bad. Whoever that was is a pretty good shot.
I take this opportunity to slip out a dagger from my inventory. Even though it’s a normal steel dagger, my strength stat is high enough that one hit from my dagger is about twice as much as a normal person with a greatsword. Now armed, I can help J out if there are too many people behind us. The melee is our dust is slowly eradicating our competitors in front, although a couple players have managed to withstand the attacks. The only reason the three of us are still standing is because K conjured a defense spell that is impermeable for ten seconds. We estimated this should be long enough for us to get to the entrance.
Take note that this all happens within five seconds.
With three people in front of us and millions behind, we finally reach the cave just as K’s spell wears off. We shift so I stand in front of them, with J behind K, already entering the Palace while J follows her. I take the brunt of the damage directed at us, managing to keep most of the assailants at bay. However, I’m not infallible, and I still get pretty beat up. No problem.
I back into the Palace doors, which open to accommodate me. My first objective upon entering will be to make sure the players that were right behind me can’t follow any further. J-Pop and K will already be ready, so I have backup. They should have taken out the leaders of the pack by now, so I won’t have to worry about that. The screen goes black for a second while the interior of the Snow Palace loads. Newer games have been able to cut down the load time so much that it almost seems like the doors open naturally and you can just walk right through.
Then I’m running backward, warding off three players all at once. They all seem to be warriors, which works in my favor since I don’t have to worry about a spell coming at me. One of them rushed me on my left and I see a glint of silver from his right hand. He’s fast, for sure. At the same time, the one to my right opens his mouth in a battle cry (I hate players like that) while raising a battle axe above his head. I’m not worried about him since the player in the middle already seems to have a sword in hand, pointing to his unprotected side. And his armor has already been beaten up by the onslaught outside. There’s no way he’ll survive such a direct hit.
So with the middle player focused on the right player, I give my full attention to the left player. While his speed is admirable, he really had no shot to begin with. My smile catches him off guard, which makes him pause for just long enough for me to pull Killa out of my inventory. The sound of metal crashing rings through the air. With Killa in my left hand, I equip a lightning ruin in my right hand, which I send toward the middle player who will soon be done finishing off the right player. As soon as the sword goes into the right player’s side, the middle player is obliterated by a flash of lightning, a look of surprise painting their face.
“K! Do it now!”
K hears me and starts building the barrier charm, and I see a white dart flash past me with something winking in one hand. Looks like J will be just fine. So I turn back to the left player, whose eyes widen as he realizes that I’ve just done all of that in under point-five seconds.
Grasping the hilt of Killa with both hands, I break his stance with a well-placed kick to the knee. He manages to dodge by shifting his leg out. Smart. He widened his stance instead of instinctively shortening it. This guy has seen a lot of battles.
While I would love to fight him all day, I really don’t have time right now. I make a mental note to send him a message when the event is over inviting him for another battle. Right now, I take advantage of his shift to take a step back, moving my body into battle mode: My right leg behind my left, with my hands pointing Killa up to the ceiling in front of me, while my right heel comes off the ground so I can push off toward my opponent. I like to switch up my battle approaches, so it’s not as comfortable as my original I-don’t-give-a-shit stance in which I just kind of do whatever my feet and hands tell me to. Strategy is nice, but takes too much energy.
As it is, this latest stance seems to be the best possible stance against this opponent. He regains his balance and comes at me head-on, instead of from the side. Of course, he could be feignting. But only freakishly good players can snake-eye that shit well enough to work, and his eyes are set on my right shoulder, so I don’t see him being able to catch me off guard. I’m also a little sad that his goal is my right shoulder, which is so obvious. As long as you can move fast enough, in my current stance, an opponent has the chance to hit me on my unprotected shoulder, scoring a direct hit. However, you have to be careful to not run right into my sword and be skewered.
Just as I predict, the guy raises his arms ever so much to deal me a blow to my shoulder, not even attempting to feignt. Although he does try to slip to my right to have a clearer shot of it, which pleases me. Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t pay enough attention to his side in his haste to end my life, and so is completely unaware of how close he’s actually gotten to Killa. My hands move involuntarily to cut him down-
I see a glint in the air behind him to my left, and my eyes follow along the path to the hand of its thrower. Smiling, I dash to my side, making the guy fall through empty air. But not before the dagger hits him in the back of the neck.
As he lies there on the ground, waiting for his body to decompose and fade into oblivion, I look down at him. “Teamwork, dude,” I tell him. “Greatest thing in the world.” He disappears into mist and I move on.
Now that I’m freed up, thanks to J, I can focus on getting to the secret entrance. K’s got the barrier erected, and with J here taking care of the stragglers, there isn’t really a need for me stay.
“I’m taking off,” I shout. J hears me and responds with something that I assume was ‘Get your ass moving!’ and I turn and flee the antechamber. Behind me I can feel players dropping like flies under the onslaught of J’s daggers paired with her unbelievable speed. Well, not exactly ‘feel,’ per say. Not even I’m that good. But I can definitely hear the death that trails behind me, following me as I pass through an arch that leads further into the palace.
This is where I’ll have to estimate the area in which the secret entrance resides. Since I’m not privy to the interior of the palace, I can only go by what I say on the outside, which, unfortunately, can be pretty misleading. Make a list of what I know:
Secret entrance will be to my left.
It wasn’t far from the real entrance. A matter of possibly two-hundred yard.
It’s on the farthest wall I can possibly find.
Even though this isn’t much to go by, I should be able to find it soon. My feet carry me in a straight line forward and to the left, and my eyes scan the icy walls of the manor, looking for anything vaguely resembling a door. It’ll be relatively similar to the surrounding wall, so I have to study the wall hard as I pass each square inch of it. No light will be coming through since the boulder of ice on the outside will block it, so I won’t have stray sunlight as a guide. It seems like the walls have a pattern to them. Different shades of blue, with a small sprinkling a white near the ceiling and the floor in places equal distances from each other. That means I just have to look for something that breaks the pattern, even a little, since the entrance was definitely bigger than the gap between the pattern of white.
There. Not much of a difference, but just enough of an anomaly that I can tell there was either a glitch with the program (not likely) or something hidden there. I rush over and study the wall. The door had opened in and there’s no handle, which means I won’t be able to escape from it later. Only someone from the outside can use it, which makes it dangerous for me because there no possible benefit I can get from it. However, it should make it easier to cast the barrier spell since it’ll work from the inside, which means any intruder won’t be able to see the barrier until they run into it; and even then it’ll be hard to get past it since they won’t be able to find the borders of my spell.
Knowing that I don’t have much time to spend on this (I refrain from using the word ‘waste’ because this is definitely something worth doing), I build my barrier, check it for any defects, and promptly turn my back on it. Barrier spells aren’t really my specialty, but I’ve been practicing them like crazy ever since I found the secret entrance just for this moment. Hopefully it’ll last long enough to give me a head start. My best barrier spell endurance tapped out after twenty minutes, only ten minutes under K’s record.
Now I have to face the ice nymphs, whom I’ve never seen nor heard a word of. Even though I have to be super conscious of time, I always want to do this efficiently. My best bet would be to use Dicon, my bow, with the Hephaestus’s Emissaries. The fire spell in the arrows, combined with the force and strength of my bow, should be able to fell any nymph with at most two draws. But I don’t want to bet all the Emissaries on this assumption. The item only comes with fifty at a time, and I could only beat that quest line so many times before I wanted to kill myself. As it is, I only have about three-hundred and some odd of the arrows (testing them proved to be too much fun).
The best course of action would be to test one of the arrows on a nymph, followed by a blow from Killa on another so I can compare the effects of the two. However, then I have to calculate how the distance affects the damage Dicon deals. If I can get one shot in at each nymph in a room before facing them all with Killa I should stand a solid chance, unless they have crazy regenerative abilities. And even then my armor should be able to help me out, since they’ll get a taste of its heat upon coming within ten feet of it. To be honest, the only reason nobody got charred earlier in the melee outside was because I waited until I got past the antechamber to change my armor. Couldn’t really risk burning my teammates, could I?
Since I can’t think of another strategy, I’ll just go this one. I pull Dicon out of my inventory (the Emissaries are already equipped) and slip into a silent stance. My sneak stance has become second nature to me by now.
In the beginning, this was my least favorite thing to do. It’s really uncomfortable to walk around everywhere bent at the knees and slightly at the waist. But thanks to the ninety-percent realism of the game, muscle pain as well as pain upon injury don’t actually hurt you. Some people say that this is a good thing, while others think it makes the game “fake.” I’m among those that think that anyone who wants to experience perfect realism in a game with death is probably psychotic or masochistic, or both. You do occasionally see cases of serial killers mixed in with the players, but it’s not a problem since nobody can actually die by playing a video game (unless they starve to death). Plus, the security on these games is so ridiculously sick that there’s no chance of even the world’s greatest hacker getting into the player information.
We think. We try not to focus on that. There are games to play.
Anyway, I can start enacting my plan now. I’ve made my way a little further into the maze of the palace. I wasn’t sure what the layout was going to be, but now I see it’s in the traditional style of maze-like hallways with small chambers off to the side. Usually I would take my time in those chambers and loot the hell out of them, but since this mission requires speed, I’ll have to sneak past them so as to not disturb the nymphs within. Damn. I’ll come back later.
My current position is the far left of the room I’m in, which means the only place for me to go is right. Or rather, straight, since I turned away from the way. But that’s just semantics. There’s a hallways that looks to turn to the left at the end, and I count at least two doors, one on each side. Dicon is in my hands, ready to attack at any moment. With her at my side, I begin my trek down the corridor.
Serious praise to the gamemakers for this location. The detail that went into it is simply astounding. Imagine standing inside a giant igloo, but with light twinkling from some far, unseen place that guides you through the darker edges of the packed snow. The floor is a glistening pearly white, and it appears to have been made to detect intruders, if the hard feeling of it under my feet is anything to go by. This isn’t dirt where you can get away with wearing boots. I quickly change into a pair of shoes made of a soft leather that won’t make a sound when I walk. Most players won’t take the time to notice this, and will be killed by the nymphs that they inadvertently tip off with their noisy attire.
But back to the walls, which still capture me with their magnificence. Their texture looks smooth for the most part, except in places (once again in a pattern) where slight mats of snow still out of the surface. All of this almost takes my breath away when I think about how it’s only a video game. I swear, video games seem more real than real life sometimes. Even the light that reflects from some unknown source falls perfectly on the walls, coming obviously from one location, as opposed to the random light that you find in other places. Therefore, I can predict the shadows made the corners, which will be useful for slipping into when I see a nymph. However, that also means there could a nymph hidden herself, so I’ll have to be on the lookout.
I make it all the way to the end of this hallway before I catch a glimpse of my first nymph. PF has a standard nymph form that they use for all types of nymphs, and I’m a little disappointed to see they didn’t change that for this event. The ice nymphs have the characteristic tall, wispy stature of any creature of their kind. Don’t be fooled though; those tiny forms hold a lot of power, whether magical or physical. These ones have sparkling blue eyes that slant up at their tips, and small noses above tiny blue lips. Their skin is a pale aqua, and they have white hair that falls to their backs in braids.
There are three in the room I’m looking into: one of them wears a set of armor that looks pretty sturdy; the other two wear floor-length dresses that never actually touch the floor since they have the ability to hover. In typical nymph fashion, they’re milling about giggling. J made the mistake once of thinking that this made this inattentive. She couldn’t have been more wrong.
Nymphs are just so attuned to their domains that they don’t even have to concentrate in order to feel a disturbance. I was came across a wood nymph that detected me from fifty yards away because I wasn’t sneaking in the middle of a forest. Needless to say, I quickly found myself back at the start point. That was in my early days, when I barely had enough strength to kill a stray wolf.
Lifting Dicon slowly so as to not disturb the air, I draw one of my arrows and pull the string taught. I aim for the one in armor because I want to test the strength of it. While the other two will be faster since they’re free of the weight of metal plates, they’ll also be more susceptible to damage.
I take a deep breath and focus on the chink in the elbow of the armoured nymph. Once I hit it the name should show up on my screen so I can at least know what this enemy calls itself. After making sure its movements remain steady (there is nothing worse than loosing an arrow after ten seconds just as your target shifts) I let the projectile fly. It whistles through the air, and I see the exact moment when the nymphs feel it too. But it’s too late by then.
Hephaestus’s Emissary hits its target directly in the unprotected flesh of the nymph’s elbow. The words “Khione’s Guardian” flash on my screen. Not the most original, but it’s not a bad name. I can see the effects of the missile from here. Flames burst from the point of contact, raging for a good two seconds before the natural chill of the Guardian’s skin puts out its heat. I take those two seconds to send another arrow its way before directing my attacks to the two other nymphs.
I pick the one on the left since it’s closer to me by this point. An estimated twelve feet separate us, and I know that I’ll only get off one shot before the nymph is upon me. That means I have to pull out Killa as soon as the string relaxes and get into my stance fast enough to intercept the nymph when it attacks me. The arrow won’t stop it forever.
Neither of the nymphs carry a weapon, but the guardian does, as I noticed when I first saw it. A longsword with wicked blades flaming out of it and an icy haze surrounding it. That will do some major damage if it manages to touch me. If I had time to check my progress on the Guardian I would be able to tell how effective the Hephaestus’s Emissary was, but I’m kind of busy at the moment.
I let loose with the bow and then quickly put it away and draw out Killa. Had I had the time to actually aim at the nymph, maybe I could’ve gotten off a better shot. As it is, I manage to get her in the leg. Unfortunately, there’s that whole floaty thing they’ve got going on, so she can still move pretty well. Plus, we’re not the only ones that don’t feel pain in these games. You never see an enemy go down until the last second before its death.
Killa is already out and ready to destroy by the time the nymph finally reaches me. I get in one good swing before she’s on me, and then I’m forced to fall back down the hallways to give myself some room to fight. These nymphs have a high detection skill, so as soon as I attacked they knew where I was. Good to know.
The other nymph is presumably behind this one, so as soon as I kill this one I’ll have to deal with a completely unharmed nymph that’s out for blood. Fantastic. Actually, no. That’s pretty great; I haven’t had a good fight in a while.
As my sword slashes violently into the torso of the nymph, I hear clanging from the room from whence they came. That means the Guardian is still alive. Two shots from Dicon wasn’t enough, and I don’t have time right now to check how low its health is to see if it at least dealt a significant amount of damage. Shit. All I can do is focus on the nymph in front of me and cut her down so I can take care of the others.
Thankfully, these unadorned nymphs don’t seem to be all that strong, at least physically. After only three swipes of Killa, the nymph in front of me perishes in a poof of snow, leaving me with the impression of a small snowstorm that accidentally hiccuped. But I don’t have time to laugh at that image (because seriously, why the heck would that be the image that popped into my brain?) before the second nymph is upon me.
This one takes a different approach to our battle. She backs up first so I can’t touch her with my sword and holds out her hands. Awesome! She’s giving me my chance to see what kind of magic they wield and how powerful it is.
Light begins to envelop the nymph as she stares at me. The monsters in PF don’t have to chant their spells because they are attuned to a certain power and can just summon that power from almost anywhere. Players, on the other hand, have to chant because the whole point of the game is that we aren’t related to the gods and are trying to overthrow them, so we have to use “new magic” developed by mortals to combat the gods. At first I was confused as to how someone could just create magic themselves, but now I don’t really care. While your magic can certainly be a large part of your game if you’re a mage, or even a warrior, the how of it isn’t really as important as the how to use it.
What appears to be a blue ball of light forms in the nymph’s left hand, while the other hand starts to summon a spear of ice. Nothing I wasn’t expecting from an ice nymph. Most likely, the ball of light is some sort of charm that will freeze me momentarily so she can take me out with the frozen blade in her other hand. That means I can either try and dodge to avoid the charm and attack her directly, or, and this would be either very smart or very stupid, I could let the spell hit me since it won’t do much damage and let her slice me a little to discover the strength of her weapon. Even if her spell isn’t a freezing charm, I doubt a follower this low in the totem-pole will possess enough magic strength to seriously injure me with one attack. And it certainly won’t have enough mana to keep the affront lasting a sufficient amount of time.
Here’s where I have to make my choice. I have a window of about zero seconds to decide, so whatever I do I need to do it quickly, or risk being taken by surprise. But which choice is the right one?
What the hell? Let’s see what she’s got.
I make no attempt to avoid the spell and its effect shocks my skin. Since I don’t feel cold in the game, there’s no discomfort really except for the fact I suddenly can’t move my limbs. Just as I predicted, the spell hasn’t damaged me at all. Well, maybe I didn’t know that it wouldn’t hurt at all, but I’m still proud of my ability to discern another’s power. Now it’s time to face her blade, which comes stabbing toward me from straight ahead. Apparently, the thing about ice picks is they don’t do any real damage unless it’s the point that makes contact. Good to know, but the creators really couldn’t have let her conjure her own ice sword? Did it really have to be an ice pick?
As the pick finds its home in my stomach, I find myself surprised at the force the attack contains. But it still isn’t enough to worry me, since I don’t even see the tiniest fragment of my health bar disappear. The charm wears off after the attack; that bother me because now I don’t know whether it was the hit that broke the spell or if the charm’s effects only lasted that long. All reason would lead to assume the attack dissolved the spell because there’s no way a nymph could beat someone with that spell if the endurance time was so little. Only if the they attacked from a close distance would the charm be efficient. But in that case it would mean it works from afar, in which case it would be really helpful to know the endurance of the charm to know how far away is too far for a nymph to still get in an attack against me.
In other words, I want her to cast the charm again and then not hit me. Can that please happen? Please?
Now that I’m done talking to myself, I should probably take care of the enemy. I dispatch her easily and move back along the hallway to where the Guardian stands waiting to avenge her fallen sisters. Her health bar is about a third of the way drained, so the effect of Hephaestus’s Emissary did a good amount of damage, even if it wasn’t as much as I was hoping for. Keeping a tight grip on Killa, I charge the Guardian.
She, in turn, races toward me, her armor clanking as it bangs against itself. A look of murder takes hold of her visage and wow good job creators you’ve really got it down. I approve!
When we meet, our weapons clash heavily, sending the ringing sound of metal on metal down the hall. Her weapon is built for power, not speed, so I dart quickly to the side and power swing Killa into her side. More of her health drops and it seems that one more small blow will be able to do her in. I deliver it swiftly and efficiently.
Thus, I pass through the chamber without any trouble and turn right down another hallway, slipping back into a sneak. At the end of the hallway, which is quite long this time, I stop and listen closely for the sound of wind passes against bodies. A faint whisper comes from my left, but even if my enemy is that way it doesn’t mean my objective also lies to the left. Quickly, I check my map. The golden dot that signifies my goal glows far ahead of me, straight ahead. I guess the only thing I can do is step forward and check both sides with my eyes. Maybe that’ll give me something to go with.
Slipping out of my shelter, I immediately turn so my back faces the wall and I look down the hall I’ve just come out of. To my right, which was my left, I can just make out the outline of one of the unarmored nymphs. Oh right. I’m pretty sure that the normal nymph’s were just called “Khione’s Minion.” Pretty solid name. So the Minion to my right is gliding smoothly behind a wall.
To give you an understanding of my sight range, let me explain to you the outlay of the hallway I’m in. To my right there are a couple yards and then a wall that extends to the left about a foot. Then there’s more walking room that goes around that, keeping an even six feet throughout for about twelve feet before hitting another wall. I can see the walkway behind the foot-long jut of wall to my right. It’s through the gap made by the two outcrops of wall that I see the Minion disappear.
To my left, it’s just an open hallway that extends a good hundred feet before curving off to the right. If I go that way, I won’t have to worry about being attacked for at least that long. If I go right, I’ll have to face at least one nymph. But while I would want to take the easier route, that would make me think that the harder path with lead me to my goal. But, knowing that the creators probably anticipated this line of thinking, it could also be possible that the easier path actually is the right path. I could talk myself in circles all day.
Usually, in cases like these, both places will bring you to the same place. It just depends on how much longer it takes you. That means that either way I’ll get there, but if K and J can’t hold off the players for long enough, if I make the wrong choice we could possibly lose.
I hope J-Pop and K can hold their own.
I turn right.
I creep through the slightly off-kilter walkway, careful to not step too loudly. The Minion has only just disappeared, so it’s possible she could turn around and pop out suddenly. I don’t want that to happen. Since I never sheathed Killa, I decide to just leave him out because any attempt to replace him with Dicon would mean creating noise that the Minion could hear. Also, there could be more than one nymph, and in that case a sword is exactly what I want.
Popping my head around the wall, I search the room. Or rather, the hallway. It’s a very wide corridor in the same cold shades as the rest of the Palace, but the ceiling has dipped down in this area. In the other places the ceiling had soared high above me, but here it was low enough for it to bathe the hallway in darker tones. It turns out that the Minion I saw was the only nymph here, and she’s made her way down the hallway so that she’s about halfway down. Instead of taking this opportunity to switch out weapons for the grand total of one second, I just charge out of my hiding place. Better to just get this over with. Still, I don’t do any of that stupid battle crying stuff that tips the enemy off. I simply run at the Minion and swing as hard as I can at her body as I go flying through the air. There’s enough force behind my swing because of my original distance that when I go barreling into her sword-first she immediately perishes. She manages to throw one icy blast at me, but I didn’t even feel it. And not just in the I-don’t-feel-pain-in-this-game sort of don’t feel it. It was just weak.
Moving on, I passed through the rest of the low hallway and came to the end, where it curved to the left. Since the way back by the other hallway where I’d turned right had curved to the right, I know now that both ways lead to the same place for sure. Smiling, I tiptoe down the path and come to another large room, more of a hall, where three Guardians mill about, along with two Minions. This’ll be the hard room, but probably not the hardest. I’m sure I still have a long way to go. With an ever-growing smile, I pull out my bow to do some early damage.

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After much destruction and death and icy blueness, I finally come upon the final room, where Khione resides. Two formidable doors stand in front of me, daring me to burst through them and kill. I take a deep breath to calm myself. I can’t get too excited before the battle even begins, or I won’t be able to fully appreciate it. And since this is most likely the last time I’ll be playing PF for a while (the creators can’t create events at the snap of their fingers), I want to enjoy my final moments in it.
Only when I trust myself to be calm do I push open one of the doors and step into the large chamber. It’s what appears to be a dining hall, but with a large throne in the back of the room that seats a beautiful woman with long white hair who stares at me with icy blue eyes that hold no fear. Her colorless lips smile slightly with confidence. At her side sits a beautiful black sword with golden designs running along its blade. Its hilt is in the shape of a crescent moon and shimmers. A swelling power surrounds her, showing off her status as one of the gods. All around the room mill about fifteen nymphs in all, six Guardians and nine Minions. Shit, is she going to attack me at the same time as them? I don’t know if I can do that without exposing myself!
“J,” I whisper through the team chat. “How’re you guys holding up over there? Has anyone gotten through?”
It takes her a few seconds to respond, but apparently I don’t have to worry about the pause. My enemies stay within the room, which I still have not entered. Only Khione pays me any mind, but makes no attempt to stand. “We are fine. K, I think, will be running out of steam soon. It would be best if you finished quickly.”
“Yes, but has anyone gotten past?”
“Only five people have entered, but I stopped them from going any further than the entrance. Right now there is still a crowd forming around the entrance, but I think many of the players have begun killing others to give themselves more of a chance once they get in.” She giggles. “This is fun, L!”
I laugh with her before getting to the point. “I’m almost done. I just got to Khione.” I consider my next words very carefully. “It’s just her here, so it shouldn’t be too hard. Is it okay if I go single-player for a while? It might help me concentrate better?”
In actuality, it’ll help keep from K and J that there are way more enemies in here than any one person should be able to handle, so they won’t get suspicious of me when I come out on top in a room of sixteen hostile people. However, I’m not sure if K will agree to my idea simply because he always keeps group mentality in mind. And I’m usually his support, like I said earlier; so if he gets in trouble he’ll probably need me to help him get his senses back.
But just then, K’s voice cuts in. “Do whatever you need to do, L, but do it fast. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep this up? How long do you think it took you to get that far?”
“I don’t know. What time is it?”
“19:46,” J chirps.
“Then forty-six minutes, I suppose,” I answer.
“How long do you think it’ll take other people, who don’t have to fight nymphs now?”
“I would say about ten minutes at least, but not much over fifteen minutes unless they’re really slow. And I don’t think anyone that slow would still be around by this point. Are you going to ask me next how long I think it’ll take me to deal with Khione?”
“You read my mind,” K says with a laugh that sounds more like a heave. “I only want to keep this up as long as I have to.”
I consider his question. Now that I’ve told them only Khione is in the final room, I can’t very well give them a big number. I’ve said she looks easy, so taking twenty minutes for an easy opponent doesn’t make much sense. However, I can’t say a small number either because I need time to defeat the nymphs too. I decide to go in the middle. If it takes someone ten minutes to come through the maze, that would mean I would need at least ten more minutes from K. But I most likely can only ask for five more from him without making him suspicious. And that’s pushing it.
Oh well. Hopefully I can do this in fifteen minutes.
“Give me five more minutes and then you can drop it.”
“Thank God,” K sighs. “Good luck.”
“Don’t hurt yourself!” J puts in. “I won’t forgive you if you get hurt and screw this up for us!”
“You just want a chance to flirt with me, don’t you, J?” I can almost feel her furious blush and have to put my hand over my mouth to keep myself from laughing and causing her to become angrier. “Don’t worry,” I tell her once I’m under control. “You’ll see me in twenty minutes after I kick some ass.”
“Fine.”
“See ya soon, guys.”
I sign out of team mode and then reorganize myself. Using Killa alone won’t help me here, so I pull out a back-up blade. It has wicked sharp edges that gleam in the light of the distant glow of the wintery walls, and shimmers with the fire charm placed on it. Killa is much more versatile with his ability to directly suck away health points and return them to me. I waited for months before I named him just because I had to get to a skill to pay homage to his greatness. No way was I going to name some crappy weapon Killa just because I was a little impatient.
Now that I have two swords on my side, it’s time to enter the chamber. After adjusting to the slightly larger number of enemies, I now see that this really isn’t that difficult. Fifteen minutes will be more than enough to defeat them all and secure the prize. Especially since the nymphs have such low levels; and Khione is only level fifty, which is pretty low for a multi-player dungeon boss. All in all, I have no reason to be worried; I’m more than capable of this small feat.
Then, with a small puff of air through my nostrils, I raise my head proudly and step into the room to face the hordes of nymphs protecting their mistress.

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Attention, all players, the voice of a GM announces. The Snow Palace event has now ended. Thank you for playing, and we hope you return for more fun in Pan’s Forest. I smile and look down at the item I’d fought so much for. “Black Excalibur” rests in my hands, still glowing with golden pictures of then night. I hold it in one hand, feeling the strange design of the hilt against my skin, unlike any other sword I’ve ever held. I still prefer Killa, but this sword will do nicely for K when he needs it. And when he doesn’t it’ll make a wonderful wall adornment for our house. It sucks that I can’t keep it in my private manor, but since we got it as a team it had better stay in the team home. Otherwise someone might get suspicious as to why Legend suddenly had the famous item of the Snow Palace event when he wasn’t even rumored to show up.
Gently, I put Black Excalibur into my inventory and turn multi-chat back on. “Hey guys,” I say. “It’s all done.”
“I heard,” K responds with warm gusto. “Way to go, L!”
“Don’t have to act so surprise, K. It’s offensive. Anyway, did you already let down the barrier? Do I have to worry about people attacking me to get at the item?” That would just be awesome. Congratulations. You won. Now face the angry mob that hates your guts because you won. Good luck.
No thank you.
“You should be good. I did stop about two minutes ago, but people are usually pretty good about being beaten, so I wouldn’t worry about anyone. And if you do run into trouble, just let us know and me and J will be there quicker than a cheetah.”
“Bad reference, dude.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, actually. It just sounds weird.”
“Oh.”
“Boys?” J cuts in. “Are we celebrating, or what?” Leave it to J to get right to the point. I give an affirmative and make my way back through the maze. When I get about halfway back, I run into my first contestants. They gape as me as I walk solely through the hallway. There’s about ten of them: seven guys and three girls; five are warriors, one looks like a speed demon, and three are definitely mages. I assume the last one is a lackey who carries their equipment.
I nod at them as I pass and flash them a smile. God help me, but I love the feeling of respect and awe. It’s only human of me to want to seek out the approval of others, even if I really only get like this if people are giving it to me. But I should still probably fix that habit because it’s bound to carry over to my real life at some point, and my friends would probably get really confused if I just started acting like a dick all of a sudden. Whatever. I can worry about that later. I just want to bask in my glory for the moment.
The second group I meet also stare at me in shock, but this time the leader actually stops me to speak to me. I gladly stop to have a short conversation, simply because I have the time now. But I shouldn’t waste too much time if I want to keep surviving the night, as J will most definitely kiss my ass to oblivion if I make her wait very much longer.
“Can I see the prize?” are the first words out of her mouth. She stares hungrily at me, which makes me feel slightly awkward since I feel like her interest in me isn’t exactly confined to her desire to see the sword.
I pull out Black Excalibur and show it to her and her group. They ooh and aww appropriately before their leader speaks to me again. “Where’s your team, then? She speaks with an odd accent. I think she might be Russian, but I can’t be sure. Somewhere along the way, English kind of took up the world. So now basically everyone can speak English, and usually GMs set games so that players can only speak English in the game. This pisses a lot of people off. I don’t really care, but not because I’m a native English speaker. I’ve been speaking French, German, Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese since I was nine. My mom is a language teacher, and she has language teacher friends, so I’ve had a free education my whole life, as well as no real problem with knowing another language. It just kind of happened, I guess.
Anyway, I answer her in English since I don’t know any Russian. “They’re back at the entrance. You might’ve passed them.” Of course they passed them. Everyone who is currently in the palace has passed them. “They were the ones keeping everyone out.”
She nods in admiration. “Your mage is incredible. None of my team can keep a barrier going for that long. I thought he was going to pass out.” Some of her teammates nodded and smiled at the memory. “He was tough,” the leader added. “And so are you if you did all that,” here she gestures to the space behind her, “all by yourself.” She purses her lips at me and takes another good long look at me, making me feel rather like a specimen instead of a human being. “If you ever want to get together or team up, here’s my info.” I don’t miss that she said or and not and.
“Sure.” Her information pops up in front of me and I accept her request for communion. “I’d better get going though. Nice meeting you guys.” I wave at the rest of her team and bid her adeu.
I sprint back through the hallways after that and manage to make it back to the entrance in five minutes, albeit without much breath left. J looks absolutely murderous that I’ve made her wait this long, but there’s no way I could’ve gotten here any faster. And I already ignored so many people for her and K that the least she could do for me is smile and welcome me heartily. Thanks so much, J.
“Sorry,” I pant. “I sprinted the whole way here, I promise. We can get going now.” I walk over to K, who stands leaning against the wall near the entrance. J was pacing back and forth by the door before I approached them, and now she rounds on me and stalks over. She dives at me in usual J-Pop fashion, and I drop to the ground as she goes sailing above me. Quickly pulling myself up, I hustle over to K and hide behind him, watching his shoulder shake with silent amusement at my fear.
J gets up off the ground with as much dignity as she possibly can and walks calmly over to where we two boys stand. She smiles savagely at me and turns away, walking out the door without a second look.
K turns around to face me. “Why don’t you just ask her out already?”
What?! He thinks I have a crush on J!
“Umm… because I don’t like her like that…” This couldn’t be more awkward. Well, actually it could, but let’s hope it doesn’t. “Does it seem like I do?”
He nods with a knowing smile. Meh. He can think what he wants. As long as J doesn’t think I like her, we should be all good. Wouldn’t it suck if she really thought that, especially since I think she actually likes me? Maybe I should tell her I’m gay or something so she gives up. I like J as a friend, and I think she’s cute, so I don’t want to actually upset her. I just like joking around with her, but now I’m worried that I’m just coming off like an asshole.
“Anyway,” I move on. “Let’s go before she gets any madder.”
“Su-”
Hello, players. The Pan’s Forest team would like to congratulate the winners of the Snow Palace event at this time. That’s weird. Usually they either say it right after the event ends or they don’t do it at all. K and I look at each other. I shrug and gesture toward the door, and he nods. We walk through the doors just as the GM speaks again.
Congratulations to J-Pop, KLS-23, and Legend.
What? Legend? No!
We come out on the other side of the palace.

[fishstyx]

Ok thanks!

[fishstyx]

Hello all. I'm pretty busy today and probably won't be able to write. I got some stuff done yesterday, but then decided it sucked and pushed it down the drain. If anyone has any opinion on this next question, could you please just leave a comment with your answer? Here's the question: If your friends found out you lied about something (kind of a bigish lie), would you keep trying to hide it or would you immediately apologize? Thanks to anyone who reads and to all of you who answer!

[fishstyx]

Hey so there's another option for giving me your opinion. You can just PM me if you want instead of replying on here. If you see this please do because I'm using your guys's opinions on the next part. I think I know where I'm heading with this, but I also know that every opinion has value. You guys might help me see something I was completely unaware of. So if you see this, PM me! Jk you don't have to. I would love it if you did though.

[fishstyx]

So I started on the third part. I decided on what I would do, but I'll leave you guys in suspense. I always feel weird saying that because I have no idea who actually reads these posts, but I'll just act like I have an audience. Anyway, I only got a couple pages done today, and don't really have much time tomorrow either to write, it being my birthday and everything. And Wednesday's are always time constricted. I'm upset because I really want to do this third part because it's basically half a yelling match between characters and way too much emotion. I should be able to get it up by the end of the week. I'll try to post a little blurb like this every day, just to keep you guys in the loop. And so you guys can hear all about my amazing life. Haha. Ha. That's about it.

[fishstyx]

OMG SO BUSY TODAY!!! But I had a great birthday with Miles! Go Korean food! And Celine Dion! Anyway, I didn't get any writing done today unfortunately, and I'm going to be busy tomorrow too. But I'll have about a half-hour tomorrow to work and then Thursday I believe is a free day for me, so as long as my teachers don't give me too much homework I should be good. Assume the next part will be up by Friday. Honestly, I'm just glad I'm still interested in writing it! Hope everyone had a good day!

[fishstyx]

Ugh I'm so tired after these past couple days. But I get to go to sleep early for once tonight! Yaaaayyyyyyyy! I also get to write more, as long as my teachers aren't mean and actually assign me work. Sorry I didn't post yesterday, but I was too tired when I got home. That's all for now! Have a good day everyone!

[fishstyx]

Guys I got my first feedback! Thank you for letting me know about that one thing, Miles. From now on guys, I'm going to avoid impossible details. Please disregard any unrealistic time frames if you like. I'll try not to put them in anymore. Honestly, I'm thinking I might just skip over battle scenes as well, sticking to a rather general "I fought, I won/I fought, I lost" sort of thing. So anyway, I have all day to write today and almost all day tomorrow! I'll definitely get something up!

[fishstyx]

Finally! The long-awaited (jk) third part is finally done! Tbh, I rewrote the beginning of it three different times, and I'm still not sure if it's good. But the other two just seemed so forced. I hope this one doesn't sound forced too. Sorry if it does! Anyway, you get to see a little of the main character's home life. And no, I still haven't named her. Sorry! Oh, and I also changed to format just a little. I added spaces between paragraphs because it gets hard to tell where one ends and another begins.



K and I step out of the Palace into the evening. Since it’s now close to eight, it’s pretty dark, but I can still see the confused glare that J directs my way. No way am I looking at K to see what he’s doing.

What do I do in a situation like this? Should I lie or just tell the truth? Will they even ask me what’s going on, or will they just gloss over it? God, please let them gloss over it. What would my sister do? Erika would probably deny, deny, deny with a giant fake smile on her face that my mom can see through a mile away. She’s not exactly the best liar, even if she gets way more practice than the normal person. I probably shouldn’t model my situation with hers if I want to keep my friends.

J parts her mouth, intaking a large breath and puffing out her chest, and I can see all the horrible hate about to be spewed at me. Already, I’m taking a preemptive step back in order to better absorb the force of her verbal assault, fully prepared to die at her hands. While I do this I close my eyes to avoid their frosty gazes.

And then I hear a lilting, high-pitched giggle.

“Legend! They actually called you Legend! They have never done that before! And you look so scared!” J seems unable to control her laughter. “I have never seen someone that is this frightened before!” I pry one eye open to the amazing and stupefying scene of my friends bent double, gasping like two fishes out of water.

What?

“What?” I ask aloud. “Wait, why is my fear funny to you? And why would I be afraid in the first place?” Do they know? Or do they think it was a mistake? But then why would I look afraid? God, I wish they would just tell me and put me out of my misery!

K finally gets himself together and stand up straight, small fits of laughter still racking his body slightly; just enough for me to feel a little disoriented, as if there’s an earthquake. “What do you mean, ‘what?’ We’re laughing because you’re an idiot, L,” he informs me matter-of-factly, his discerning eyes sparkling. But his tone is somewhat ruined by the radiant smile on his face and the struggling form of J-Pop beside him. She looks like she’s about to die from lack of oxygen.

“J, calm down,” I advise her. “Okay, fill me in here on this ‘idiot’ business.”

Since J still can’t seem to stop dying, K takes it upon himself to explain. He, at least, has overcome his fits of mirth, and I find myself able to easily look into his eyes. That bodes as a good sign, right?

“We knew you were Legend,” he tells me with a huge grin. “Please, you think that there are that many players out there that can do what you do? We’ve always known how good you were, but we never said anything. At first, it was because we didn’t want you to take off on us, but now it’s just because it’d go right to your head and then we’d have to deal with you like that. We planned on eventually telling you that we knew, but it never happened. Honestly, we couldn’t have asked for a better circumstance than this.” He gestures in the air, presumably pointing out the event we just completed.

“Don’t tell me that you didn’t even think of the possibility that we might have figured it out by ourselves? That’s a little rude,” he chides me. Throughout his explanation he’s been unable to stop smiling. I have a feeling he’s been waiting to give me this running through for a while now, even though it doesn’t appear to be malicious. “Anyway, you just looked so scared that we found out that we couldn’t help laughing. Why are you so freaked out?”

I suddenly feel really stupid. Here I’ve been the whole time, thinking if I told them they’d just get mad and leave. And really, they’ve been conspiring together on the best way to make fun of me for it. A smile grows on my face as I begin to join in with J’s never-ending laughter. I really am an idiot.

After a solid two minutes of laughing, we finally regain our breath, J included, and walk over to a tree where we sit down and lean against the trunk. We often sit like this when we’re waiting, or if we want to cool off, or just if we feel like hanging out and not fighting. Then a question surfaces in my mind, bubbling out of my lips.

“Wait, if you always knew who I was why do you still get nervous at events?” I direct this at K, who’s face I can’t see anymore because of the lack of light. After all, it’s already past 18:45. But I’m pretty sure he blushes at this.

“Umm,” he says.

“Yeah, ‘umm’,” I joke with him, knocking him with my elbow. “You’re supposed to be the smart one!” It feels good being able to talk so easily like this, now that the weight of my secret has been lifted. Even the game grass smells sweeter with the air of truth whispering through it.

Oh gosh. I’m thinking in pretty phrases. Stop it.

“I just get really nervous! It’s something that us serfs feel every once and a while. I wouldn’t expect a lord like you to understand.” He keeps his tone light, so his statement doesn’t sting me. “I do try to not freak out, you know. I’m just...really bad at it.”

“It is okay,” J encourages on my other side. She leans over me, careful to let one of her breasts touch my arm. “We like our fearful leader just as he is.”

Just then, a sliver of moonlight hits where we sit, and I see K’s eyes focused entirely on the cleavage in front of him. Hopefully, J doesn’t also see the very boy-like look in his eyes. I nudge him slyly and give him a knowing look, to which he responds by going scarlet. Then the light moves on and we’re plunged by into the semi-darkness of dusk. J leans back against the tree again.

I lean over to whisper in K’s ear. “So. It’s me, then, that has a crush on her? Interesting.” In return for my kind words, I earn myself a punch. However, since he doesn’t want J to see, it’s too light to do anything to me, so I stick my tongue out at him in the dark and keep my grin to myself.

“You are not going to leave us?” J asks suddenly. I’m so surprised I snort. “Hey! You cannot leave us! I say no!”

“Who said he’s leaving us? You aren’t leaving us, are you? We’re your friends! You wouldn’t just take off!”

“Guys,” I say. “I’m not leaving. Unless you want me to?” I chuckle softly and then stand up. “Well, actually I am. But that’s just ‘cause I’m loggin’ off. I’ve got stuff to do at home.”

“What kind of stuff?” There’s genuine curiosity in J-Pop’s voice. It occurs to me I’ve never told them anything about myself. I never even told them my real handle, even if they figured it out by themselves. Some friend I am.

Since they haven’t abandoned me after having been lied to for the past three years, I assume I can trust them with some personal info. Although I obviously still can’t share my real name because they don’t know I’m a girl. What a disaster that would be!

“I’ve gotta feed my sister. My mom works super late, so there’s usually no one at home to make anything to eat.” It feels weird talking about Erika in a game, but nice at the same time. “Not that I’m an amazing cook or anything. It’ll probably be another instant meal.” Now I might be giving too much information. It’s always good to know when to quit.

“You have a sister?”

“Yeah,” I tell J. “She’s a little younger than me.”

“How old are you?” I really never told them?

Now K joins in. “What’s your name, anyway? You never did tell us. And also, what about your dad? Where’s he?”

Which question do I start with? Probably the only one I’ll actually answer. “I’m sixteen right now, but my birthday’s coming up soon. Anyway, I really do gotta go. My sis is probably ready to pull the headgear off and plunge me out.” We all wince at that thought. Not the greatest experience in the world, to be sure.

“Well, I guess we’ll see you later, then,” K sighs, standing up. “Will you be back tomorrow? Me and J are going to see if we can find any work to start saving up for the next event, whenever it comes out.”

“Nah. I’ve already got plans for tomorrow night. But I’ll email you guys and let you know when I’m coming back to PF.”

“Okay. We’ll be here,” K says with a wave, helping J up with his other hand. I see him make a conscious effort to not stare at her chest. “Just make sure to let us know. I want to have enough time to become better than you and kick your ass.”

“I’ll let you know,” I promise with a snort.

“Bye, L,” J bids me.

“Bye, J.”

I go to my settings and hit the log-off button.

Would you like to log off?

I click yes.

One moment.

While I wait for the log-off to begin, I take one last look at my two friends as they start trudging away in the direction of the closest town. Never in a million years did I think I would find friends that would just appreciate playing with me because I was me, and not Legend. If I’d known that’s how they’d react, I would have told them years ago.

Then the world goes black for a moment and when I can see again I’m once again staring at the beautiful NPC. Is it just me or does she look even prettier all of a sudden? Yeah, it’s probably just me and the mushy feelings my friends have brought up in me.

Log-off? she asks me another time.

“Yes, please.”

We hope you enjoyed your stay in Pan’s Forest, Legend.

“You know what? I really did.” With that, the world goes dark one last time.

_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_

When I open my eyes I’m staring at the black screen before me, the darkness of the inside of the helmet making me feel blind. I reach up with unseen hands and pull the device off my head, blinking into the light of my room. Luckily, I keep my room in drab colors so the disorientation isn’t so terrible. I set down the headset next to my bed and swing my legs out in front of me, off of the bed.

My bed in just a mattress that I pushed into the corner of my room because I didn’t want to have to deal with a bed frame. Only lately has my mom stopped calling me lazy for not caring to have an actual bed, but she still manages to chide me for never making my bed at every opportunity she gets. Of course, I don’t see her much, so it’s not like it matters. Meanwhile, I do have a desk next to my bed that I built with my own two hands. Well, those and the hands of one of my friends who had a passing interest in carpentry. Amazing quality for someone who studied it for all of three weeks. But it holds my computer and allows me to do schoolwork on it, so I can’t complain.

The closet is huge, but mostly filled with junk and my sister’s clothes. I only keep enough clothes so I can go out with my friends if I want; and two nice outfits to wear to business dinners with my mom or nice events at school. My school has a uniform, so I don’t have to worry about clothes that “look cool” to others. It’s too much work to try and put on makeup every day and dress professionally, so I thank my lucky stars every time I put on my uniform, unlike my friends and sister who all wish they could burns theirs.

Also, my room is not the most colorful. When we moved in the walls were a faded gray that we never bothered to paint over, and the floor is just beige carpet. My sheets are a mix of white and brown that I keep permanently in a ball whenever I’m not sleeping. When I am sleeping, it’s usually me in the ball.

After exiting my room, I make my way to the kitchen. Since we live in a small apartment to cut costs, we only have so much room, so you never have to walk very far to get anywhere in our house. Thankfully, there are three bedrooms, so I never have to worry about having to deal with my sister more than strictly necessary. She’s thirteen and tries to act eighteen. I swear, ever since they lowered the drinking age a couple years ago, she’s been obsessed with that number. Hopefully I won’t be around when she finally hits that age, because all hell will break loose with mom after that happens.

The kitchen is to my right when I leave my room, and I only have to walk about ten feet to reach it. We just have the standard oven/stove and a small island with some drawers and such. There’s a microwave/toaster as well on one of the counters. We tend to use ours more than other families, I’m sure.

As the years have gone by, games have improved, our way of life has improved (in some aspects), our communications have improved. One thing that hasn’t improved: My family’s cooking skills. We come from a notorious line of terrible chefs, and this trait has been inherited by my sister and I. So instead of taking out some tomatoes and onions from the fridge to put together with some meat along with spices, I instead turn toward the freezer and pull out two frozen lasagnas.

With the first lasagna warming itself up in the microwave, I take this time to go check my email. I make a point of checking it every morning and twice per night. Before I dived today, I checked my email once to make sure we had the same plans, and now I’ll check it again. I don’t usually check it after this, but sometimes I make exceptions, like in the case that a friend forewarned me that they couldn’t reach me until a certain time. Since that hasn’t happened today, I won’t go back on until tomorrow. I will, however, check the Pan’s Forest blog to see what announcements they’ve made after today’s event.

My computer turns on immediately and I quickly type my password onto the hover-screen. I keep the computer upright since I won’t need its hologram capacity for checking my email.

When I get to my inbox I see a new message from some game called Haven. Sounds like some sort of post-apocalyptic setting that won’t go anywhere. Then again, that’s what I thought about PF. I mark it as a note to go back and look later, since I only have so much time right now before I have to go and check the lasagna (just because I don’t cook it doesn’t mean that microwaving food doesn’t also take skill and attention). Once I see that none of my e-friends -- or real ones for that matter -- have sent me anything, I shut the computer and get up.

I make it to the kitchen just in time to pull the steaming noodle assortment out of the the microwave and juggle it back in forth in my burning hands. Heat is so much easier to deal with in games. I set it down on the counter and stick the other one in.

“Erika! Dinner!” My sister’s room is at the end of the hallway, left of mine. We share a bathroom on the opposite side of the hall from me, but it’s mostly her crap lying around everywhere and an itty bitty amount of space for me to keep the necessities (i.e. toothbrush, comb, tooth-paste, etc.). She tries way too hard for someone as young as her.

“I’m serious, Erika! Get your ass over here!”

“I’m coming,” she yells back. “You don’t have to be such a bitch, you know!”

“Language!”

I hear her door slam behind her and her stalking footsteps approaching me from down the hall. Then her milk-chocolate face comes into view, an expression of pure annoyance distorting her actually quite pretty features. We’re half-sisters, by the way. My mom divorced my dad when I was two because he refused to stop drinking, and then she married Erika’s dad, who cheated on her and now is also divorced. My mom was never the best judge of character, and is still naive to this day, even if she doesn’t usually act like it. I guess the best way of putting it is she’s still unable to see the bad in the world, but can act just as mother-like as any other pesky parent.

“It’s not fair,” I hear Erika grumble.

“What’s not fair?”

“Nothing,” she says with a sickly sweet smile. “Just the fact that you can swear and I can’t. No big deal other than the fact that it doesn’t make any sense.”

“I’m older and you’re younger. There. That’s why.”

“Still doesn’t make sense,” she mumbles.

“Well, I don’t make the rules. And neither do you, so shut up and eat your lasagna. It’s a special one tonight.” Actually, the only special thing is I got to the microwave in time to pull it out before it started to burn on the edges. “What have you got going on?”

“Mmph,” she says through a mouthful of pasta.

“Come again?”

Erika chews and swallows her food, coughing a little from the heat of it. She tends to forgot to blow on her food before shoving it in her mouth. “I said why.” Now that she’s done talking, she goes back to the dish, going at it with such ferocity that I know she hasn’t eaten since breakfast. She thinks she’ll get skinnier by skipping lunch, but she’s a already super skinny. One of the good things she got from her dad. I’m skinny too, and if it wasn’t for the fact that my mother is nowhere near thin, nor has she ever been, I would say it’s a trait passed down maternally.

“‘Cause I need to know,” I answer her. “Mom’s gonna be home late, so I’m taking care of you tonight.”

“You do that every night,” she reminds me, pointing the end of her fork at me. “Anyway, I’m going out with Claire and Amelia to the movies. The new Prince of Jupiter movie came out last Friday and oh my gosh he’s so totally perfect.” She makes a satisfied moan at the thought of her celebrity crush, Jordan Yulish. Personally, I find him really hot too, but I’d never tell her because it’d feel like she won something. Like I’m just conceding to her on her views of hotness.

“It’s already super late. Even if it’s Saturday, I don’t like the idea of you going out at this time. Is anybody else going?” This, coupled with my knowing look, is code for boys.

She sticks her tongue out at me in true childlike fashion. “No. It’s just the three of us. And if you’re really that worried, just come with. It’s not like you get out much,” she reminds me with a smug grin. “It’ll do you good to see the actual world, instead of dying all the time at the hands of weirdo people.”

“I don’t die.”

“Sure,” she says doubtfully. Erika knows about Legend’s existence, and has even drooled over him a couple of times because of how cool he is, but she refuses to believe that any other gamer is awesome. I obviously haven’t told her I’m Legend: half because I don’t think she’ll keep the secret and half because it’s funny to listen to her fangirl over me every once and a while. Anyway, she still thinks I’m lying about being a good player and always refers to how terrible I must be.

“Whatever. Just eat, brat.”

She listens to me with gusto, shoveling the lasagna fork-full by fork-full into her gaping maw. I feel like I’m watching a black hole sucking up bits of the universe. There’s no way my lasagna will be that good, so most likely she’s just too hungry to care. One perk of my sister thinking she needs to diet: I never hear complaints about my cooking. There really aren’t any other perks because the rest of the time I just worry about her.

My lasagna finishes cooking, and I pull it out of the microwave with just as much skill as I handled Erika’s. Which is to say, none. I quickly set it down on the counter and pull another fork out of the drawer. With our stone island, I don’t have to worry about ruining the countertop by not placing the lasagna on something that will block the heat. I seriously love how lazy my family is because we think of things like this so we don’t have to work too hard later.

As I take my first bite of noodly goodness (it actually came out alright), Erika sighs. Glancing over at her, I notice the pity in her eyes. I chew my food and swallow as fast as possible.

“What?” I ask irritably.

“I just feel so bad for you. You have no social life.”

“I have friends!”

“I didn’t say you have no friends,” she says pointedly. “But it’s not like you guys ever doing anything fun together. Usually, you just hang out at school and text or whatever. When’s the last time you’ve gone on a date?” Unfortunately, I’m nowhere near as cool irl as I am as Legend, and this brings a blush to my face.

The answer is never. I just don’t date. It wasn’t a conscious decision, just something that kind of happened. Often, I don’t even think of it. But there are times like this where the reminder bothers me.

“Exactly,” Erika remarks. “So you should come out with us today and actually do something for once. Plus, then I can go because you’ll be there watching me.”

“That’s what you wanted the whole time,” I acknowledge. “Just say that instead of telling me useless information about my social life. And keep your opinions to yourself! I don’t date because there’s nobody worth dating at my school. You wouldn’t know because you’re not in high school yet, so you never see the kind of ugly dudes that grace my hallways.”

She knows I’m bullshitting, but she at least has the decency this time to not call me on it. In honor of my appreciation of her shutting up, I decide I can cave to her.

“Fine,” I say. “I’ll go and watch you. But-” I interrupt her excited squeal, “you can’t talk to me about the movie afterward. I don’t care how hot your boyfriend is in it, I don’t care how much he loved her, and I certainly don’t care how cute a couple they make.” If I have to listen to one more gooey review of a Jordan Yulish movie, I’ll kill myself.

“Call!” she instantly agrees. I can’t really tell you how that term suddenly became popular, but once upon a time it was the Korean version of ‘agreed.’ I guess we adopted it at some point, but I’m not sure why we randomly decided the Korean word worked best. Whatever. It’s what we use now. The only reason I even bring this up is because it just cropped up a few years ago, even though it’s been in use in Korea for about one hundred.

And that’s how I find myself being dressed by my kid-sister for a night out with two other thirteen-year-olds. As Erika begs me to let her put my makeup on, all I can think is why the hell did I get myself into this?

[fishstyx]

I found a story I wrote in elementary school today that I felt was worth sharing. For preservation's sake, I'm going to keep all the words and sentence structure the same, even if they're misspelled or missing punctuation. Considering how young I was, I'm quite proud of this story.

"The Dragon"
Once upon a time there was a dragon family. One day there was a tornado. The tornado swept the baby dragon far away. About five years later it woke up with a very bad headache. When the dragon found out he wasn't with his family he went right to work finding them. The dragon's name is Toto. Toto couldn't find his family and knew he would have to find them while he tried to survive. Without saying a word he left. Meanwhile a boy named Daniel was walking on a mountain looking for a plant to cure his snake bite. Daniel saw Toto and screamed. Toto jumped and hid. A few moments later Toto came out from behind the tree and Daniel stopped screaming. Daniel said sorry for screaming, and just when Toto was about to say sorry for scaring him, he was trapped in a net. Daniel's father was a hunter and didn't understand that Toto was good. Daniel's dad put Toto in a cell, locked the cage, and walked out the door with the key. When Daniel's father was gone, Daniel slipped away after him (I'd just like to say how surprised I am that I knew how to use this word like this in elementary school). Daniel's father feel asleep and Daniel checked his pockets, just then Daniel's father woke up and found Daniel digging in his pockets. Daniel didn't notice, he was to busy with his mind on Toto. He didn't care if he got in trouble, Toto was counting on him. That was all he cared about. Daniel looked up and saw that his dad was fuirious. Daniel's dad took Daniel to his room and pushed him in and said "don't do that again!" and walked away. But Daniel wasn't going to give up on his friend, not now. Daniel crept out of his room very quietly. But instead of going to his dad's room he went to Toto's cage and told Toto to give him his nail. Toto obeyed and gave Daniel his finger. Daniel stuck Toto's nail in the lock and turned it. Suddenly the cage door opened. Toto was free! Toto and Daniel climed quickly through the window. All of a sudden sirring (Searing?) pain was sent to Daniel's leg. Daniel had forgot about his snake bite! Toto promised if Daniel helped him find his parents, he would help Daniel find a cure for his snake bite. Soon a team. They were the only friend they had. As Toto promised in the morning they left to find a cure. They saw a dandylion. They saw a rose. But none of them were what Daniel needed. Toto felt sorry for Daniel. It was that he said they would find a cure. When they were about to give up they saw a plant that had pointed sides. It was a snake plant! Toto quickly took the plant and rubbed it on Daniel's leg. Daniel's snake bite was curred! The next day there was no pain. Daniel felt very lucky to have Toto as a friend. He never had a friend that was nicer than (I knew the difference between 'then' and 'than' go me!) Toto. They always looked for food together. Daniel's mother died a few years ago and Daniel's father was never happy again. After Daniel told his friend Toto said he could live with him. Daniel and Toto set off back to Toto's house. Daniel thought it was cozy. They fell asleep almost the moment their heads touched the hay. When Toto woke up the next morning to find Daniel freezing. He forgot that humans couldn't make their own heat! Toto made a warm fire by Daniel. Daniel instintly felt warmer. After a while, Daniel got recovered. Daniel and Toto took of again. It felt good to have the wind blowing against Toto's face.

[fishstyx]

Ugh so my wifi went out FOR A WHOLE DAY and I couldn't get any connection. Anyway, I have a good start on the fourth part. It's looking like the fourth part will take place completely in the real world, so no video games! Sorry! But you do get to watch the narrator hurt herself in a movie theater! Also, I might actually give you guys the narrator's name! I mean first I have to decide what it is, just because I haven't really needed to think about it yet. I came up with one last night, but I'm not sure if it fits her personality. Although, that might be the best reason for giving her the name. We'll see, I guess. Hope everybody had a good day wifi connection yesterday!