Sasha passed through the main entrance of Septemberes into the busy interior. She glanced around, noticing the stares of the shoppers on her. Even in her casual attire, Sasha's flowing blonde locks and striking foreign features attracted a lot of attention. She wished she had remembered to wear her hoodie. The girl had never relished nor shunned such popularity, but it was hardly wise to stand out when she was getting into a potentially dangerous situation. Deciding it wasn't worth worrying about, she continued to search the mall for any clues.

Her wanderings eventually brought her to the inner courtyard, a wide open-air area within the mall. It was lined with shops on each side. She was about to head towards the center when the lights abruptly went out. Sasha jumped and looked around frantically. What chilled her wasn't the power outage, but the oppressive silence that suddenly surrounded her. There was not a single soul around her, except for four figures standing in the middle of the courtyard. Their appearance didn't appear human in the least.

"Okay. What the hell are those?" Sasha muttered under her breath. She took several wary steps back. The only reason she had not turned and bolted was the fact that the creatures hadn't noticed her and she was too curious for her own good. Remembering she had stored a can of pepper spray in case of an emergency, Sasha carefully called the menu up and retrieved it. The small plastic can gave her a small sense of security.

A few tense moments passed in absolute silence. Nothing happened. The creatures milled about idly, as if they were having a gathering within the courtyard. Above their heads were the text "Imp LV4". That meant that this phenomenon was undoubtedly related to the gamer mystery. The gamer in Sasha was immediately excited at the prospect of combat, but her rational side held her back. There were four of them, and they were higher leveled to boot. She had literally no info on how this "game" worked, and if she "died"… Sasha shook the morbid thought out of her head. It was very sensible to be careful in this situation.

She caught movement on the edge of her vision. On the store to her right, there were several people. Sasha squinted at their names, and grinned. At least two of them had the title <The Gamer>. So the forum reply wasn't a lie after all.

All of a sudden, she was moving before she knew it. To hell with sensibilities and rationality: this was a game presented to her, and she wasn't about to abandon it. Carefully she approached one of the Imps until she caught its attention, then assumed a defensive pose. She didn't know much about combat in real life, but she figured what she learned from gaming shouldn't be too far off. The first thing she needed was information. What were these creatures?

"Good afternoon!" she hailed, grip tightening on the pepper spray.