[h2][center]Melia[/center][/h2]
The transition felt so quick that it felt as if nothing had changed. But, as Airi could quite clearly see, everything had. No longer was she sitting in her computer chair, anticipating the loading screen to reach the end, when suddenly...

"...You know, I might be more surprised if Michael didn't force me to read those older series..." she trailed off, glancing at her outfit before bringing her hair closer to her face. A light blonde. Okay. She got the idea of what just happened to her, and though she wasn't panicking, a small sweat drop seemed to form at the side of her forehead.

"...But I still can't help but freak out just a little."

Biting her lip to prevent herself from letting out any sort of noise, Airi--no, Melia--took a deep breath to calm herself.

Okay. She was her character now. Last she checked, she was in Araldyne, relaxing in the town square on a small bench before the maintenance hit as she was busy discussing with people online about what Lucent Co. Ltd., would be adding the next morning. To be fair, she should have seen it coming, but the possibility of it all happening was so far-fetched that she hadn't even considered the possibility. But even then--!

"AAAAAAH!"

Melia immediately jumped backwards, an instinctive reaction if anything else, when the scream broke out. She (and many others; some NPCs, some not) turned to the source to find a female character crouched over in a fetal position. Well. That took a lot less time than she expected.

"...Well. That didn't take very long." Melia mused to herself as more and more people seemed to be popping up by the second. "I should... Probably leave before this place gets loud enough to summon a demon looking for some fresh souls or something. Though, given the amount of people, it shouldn't be too hard to take out..."

With that in mind, Melia gripped the scabbard of her katana firmly in her left hand as she left the town square, the grin seeming to stay constant as she moved further and further away.

[hr]

It didn't take long for her to leave the center of the town, and thankfully enough the people on the outskirts of town seemed to be taking the news with a bit more dignity, and even a few with glee. Melia's mental state was shaken, yes, but not to the point of temporary mental instability. Maybe it had something to do with her Willpower skill; she assumed that was the case, else she might be just as much of a mess as that first girl.

"Okay, first and foremost..." Melia trailed off, testing around randomly for something that might give her information. Waving her right hand around in seemingly random directions, she managed to catch something to pull up a sort of... Interface from the bottom right corner of her field of view. So it was like those conceptual VR games before they were a thing...?

Scanning through all the menus (stats, skills, inventory, friends list, and map) in front of her, Melia let out a sigh of relief; at least something here was somewhat familiar. She was always used to viewing the city from above, after all; a map would come very much in handy from here on out. With the map to guide her, Melia followed the streets towards the city's western gates. Her destination, of course, was easy to pinpoint; Rolu Mountain. After all, it had been inaccessible before the patch went live; it didn't hurt to check what was actually up there... Assuming she could, of course.

[hr]
The outskirts of the city were, as expected, barren of players. It was likely that the panic in Araldyne was engulfing the city at the moment, but as she was right now, Melia would likely be unable to quell the chaos on her own. Even if other players weren't as crazed as those were, calming the entire city as more and more people jumped in would easily consume the next few days.

That wasn't good. They needed information about the world right now; what threats there were, the state of the world, how similar it was to UE... And the only way to do that was to be proactive.
...
So why was she here, bisecting the wild wolves that were prowling around the outskirts of the town? She could just as easily avoid them, but at the same time...

"...It just feels so... natural using this. What the heck? I've never even held a baseball bat in my hand, much less a sword!" she cried out in confusion as another wolf fell victim to her blade. "Not to mention... WHERE ARE ALL THESE WOLVES COMING FROM?! The spawn rate here was miserably low after this place got upgraded from a trading post!"