It appeared in Dragon Riders of Malm first. Right in the starter town, just where your character lands on its dragon for the first time. Before they gained 'control' of the situation, new players were being sucked down into the entrance of the data-eating dungeon. It was merely a black square. Fine and without detail, but it had this sense of [i]gravity[/i] that made you want to touch it. They said it couldn't have been much higher than your head and about as wide. More like a featureless, black outhouse or a large void stone. Everyone of Dragon Riders of Malm thought it was an event. Malm was known for having forceful events. And since contact with the brick resulted in teleportation to a dungeon which proved to be impassible very quickly, it drew more and more people.

Then people started dying.
Or worse; falling into comas. 

The GM's of Malm were able to move the starting location for the game. The player deaths and real deaths slowed considerably. But there was no clear way of stopping this data eating [i]thing.[/i] Dragon Riders of Malm was the first to fall. It was as if all data regarding the game was gone. It couldn't be accessed from outside servers. Characters within the game during its disappearance reported their immersive devices, such as NerveGear and the new MindPortal, simply shut off. When they tried to log back in, they were transported to another game; Pale Forests Awakened. And just like Dragon Riders of Malm, Pale Forests Awakened befell the same fate. Two more entire worlds have been destroyed since then; Magiqua, a mages-only game and FloraxFuana, an MMO where characters take the shapes of various animals and plants. Webs of the strange data-eating monsters permeate throughout several worlds. Though death by one of these data-eaters is not imminent death, it is still risky. Few characters risk fighting them and those that do, they almost always return with data corruption. The tower has been missing ever since the death of Flora&Fauna, which reported over one-hundred fifty deaths. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[b][u][i]Der Monde; Fileds of l'Ahntia [/i][/u][/b]

Isaac, better known as Palanayukei in this world, stood on top of a large hill. Violet mountains cascaded behind him and red grass glittered across the vast fields below. Wylia, or his Wind Nymph, sat on his shoulder, a green aura emitted from her body as the sun dipped below the horizon. Far off in the distance, data-eaters, or [i]DE's[/i] as he called them, roamed over a hill. The data-eating tower has yet to be seen since the death of Flora&Fauna and many fear that it may be in one of the larger games as Der Monde, Blood Moons, or even Sword Art Online. The search has been on for several months. 

Palanayukei headed down the hill, watching his map closely as he encroached on the DE's to ensure nothing attacked him from the flank. Golden words appeared across his visor "Der Monde; Fields of l'Ahntia" it read. The starter area for many Der Monde players. There's no better place to destroy these things than in the starter areas, he was trying to rationalize the risk he was about to take [i]again[/i]. Closer to the beasts now, he hid behind one of the bulbous trees dotted along the field, he drew two crystal wands. One black as night, the other radiated white light.

"Beim ehren meida, Beim ehren meidi," [i]I wish one, I wish two[/i] "gonn deim Ehrt" [i]from the earth.[/i] "Alu ehren foia" [i]And one from flame.[/i]

Two large stony golemns grew out of the ground. Grass donned on their forearms and shoulders. Out of the air, a small child made entirely of flame appeared. He showered each of them with another spell [i]Thu Eyla[/i], for protection. Though the Data Eaters [i]did [/i]eat data, they fell just as any other monster did, with a few hard knocks.

"God, I shouldn't do this," he mumbled to himself as he rounded the tree and his three summons headed for the closest data eater. . . 

[i]|Next person should help me kill the Data Eater/DE to help get the story rolling! ;) |[/i]