[center][b]Cloudhaven's Market District[/b][/center]

[i]It's been two days now. I'm lucky to still be alive.[/i]
A woman stood a little bit away from the massive crowd roaring in the busy market-place, leaning against the wall of a nearby building and staring blankly up at the sky. No clouds. They were above them, after all. The most beautiful shade of azure, almost unnaturally so. It was a crisp, clean sky with a warming sun that painted the very tips of her hair brightly and made the blonde strands strewn about in the short, wet mess glow with life. Everything about this body seemed so perfect. And it was.
It was wise to have gotten up early and found a secluded area to bathe whilst most other players would have been sleeping and trying to rest up for the events that would follow. The two days prior were spent mapping out her surroundings in a mental-map and acquiring as many resources as possible, after the initial shock that drove her to near-insanity when she found out she couldn't leave. A little flashback of herself on the first day invaded her thoughts, to see herself cowering on the floor with her hands in her hair, frothing at the mouth and screaming for it to not be true after repeatedly trying to press every single possible button on the pull-up holographic menu. She lived a good life back home. Not a great life, per se, but as good a life as she'd lived it. She'd never see any of them ever again though, unless they'd chosen to get the game themselves. Her friends. Her family, and moreso her elder brother, who she wished she could hold tightly to and weep when she was frightened. The flashback was quickly dismissed, and she shook her head with a little shrug, green eyes twinkling as a smile with a double-meaning crossed her lips.
[i]It's funny what a sense of desperation can do to a person.[/i]
And it was true, though she was always the kind to fall to the out-of-sight, out-of-mind mould, it was most strongly manifested here. This new body, the new abilities the game granted her were not used for naught. And coupled with a bookish intelligence from the real world that could finally be put into play here, it was a fitting class indeed. She pulled up the holographic menu with a wave of her hand and looked over little things intently. The name she gave herself. Lovissa Everglade. The class she was given.
[i]Thief.
And don't you forget it, game. Heh.[/i]

Looking at the inventory list, she was satisfied and had gotten what she wanted, and took the menu down again . In fact, in such a crowd, especially since today was the day that everything would start, the streets were filled with procrastinating players, who went out and bought things they could afford in a last-minute scramble to hope to survive the coming world. Initially if was difficult to tell who was real and who was not and who was an NPC, but eventually she got used to it. And as someone who had an affinity for technology back in the real world (which is the reason she'd begged to go out and get this particular game), she had to commend the developers for the gorgeous AI. She had to know who she could rob from without much threat and who would come out to get her later, of course. NPCs weren't the kind to leave their positions or their town if they had to. However, real-life players were. Especially if it was important.
For now, she had secured a regular old sword for herself, though she found it hefty and clumsy to swing around, and paid for a dagger-made-by-order from a local smithy. She needed to protect herself and placed the order late in the evening on the very first day. It was nothing special, the blade, but the dark hilt was worked and cut in acid. The design was a wild floral one, covered in beautiful metallic morning glories. Her namesake, from one of her favourite books. [i]Lovissa. The black morning glory.[/i]
The other things she had managed to haggle for, trade for, or steal for the most part since she didn't have all the resources to do the real trading, were three tiny vials of healing potions, a loaf of bread and two apples and a sturdy casket. Her next goal was to fill it with water. The canal nearby looked promising, and so she thought she'd make her way there. Past all the crowds of disoriented players. Past the empty, beautiful lots in which you could live, and own your own house, though nobody had the money yet indeed, and past the buildings with signs out. Guilds, they called themselves. Always recruiting. Always wanting. Ever receiving. A steady supply of new meat poured into each door, which made her sigh a little. So many eager faces, younger than her own seventeen years, older, just looking for some help and some support. A makeshift family.
Things everyone needed in this world. Lovissa had hardly been an exception.
And then there were the frustrated ones. Peculiarly, a young man who had gone and tried to kick a building not very far from where she had leant against hers prior. Frustration ran rampant. She could almost sympathise with the man, but dared not go near, or back, for being recognised would be the worst should anyone have had the chance to actually see her swipe something.

On her way to the canal bank, where people had seemed to just set up camp, or lay given up, she passed a peculiarly dressed young man with a little audience already. He played the harp and sang of their situation. The irony of it made her laugh a little as she drew her hood, not to let herself be seen as the crowds thinned out. However, aimed correctly, she tossed a coin into the bend of the man's pirate-hat, and made sure to leave him a single word as she passed, as unrecognised and undetected as a shadow as she moved fluidly through the gathered people. His song was humorous to her. It was a little reminder that everything was falling, and to keep your head up because everything was falling no matter how you reacted.
"Touché." crawled a little whisper in the air, and by notice of his cat ears, she was sure he'd heard it. Not an admiration. Not an insult. Not anything more but a little challenge. An agreement to his thoughts on the situation, almost. But she was gone, into the wind, the hood pulled back to let her hair free as she approached the canal and knelt by its edge to fill the casket she received with the sparkling clear water that flowed.

[i]I should get myself one of these guilds. Strength in numbers, they say. As long as they don't get me killed.[/i]