[hider=Prologue]
It had been a few hours already Faith was online. As a matter of fact, she rarely was offline for the most part, only when she needed to sleep. Being a full-time gamer with a streaming channel as main source of income, she had to keep her followers pleased. It’s not like she wasn’t liking any of it. In fact, being paid for playing video games and showing her achievements (and occasional failures) sounded way better than working all day long at retail and dealing with idiots.

After a successful game of VR Rocket League, Faith switch to streaming her temple raiding adventures in World’s End Online. Sure, a lot of her followers didn’t really like when she logged onto that game, but there was just something she loved about the game that others couldn’t quite understand. While she wasn’t offering anything particularly eye-catching to her viewers, the gamer girl thought playing a Thief pilfering dungeons would feel like showcasing a movie of Tomb Raider, or something like that. No battles, only dungeon running.

There was something she wanted to do as Fayt today. During his offline-stream moment yesterday, the Thief orc avatar was hanging out at the tavern in the game’s beginning city, Prontera. He had talked to a few players, and heard an interesting rumor. Apparently, there was a raid boss dungeon whom, instead of dropping loot upon death, guarded its rewards in a chest behind the throne in the boss room. And most importantly, if one character was agile enough, they could skip the entire boss fight to reach for the chest, assuming they got the key to open it.

[hr]

So there Fayt was, at this present moment, perched in the corner of the boss room. The journey to Sunken Hydra Temple had been quite eventful, and the adventure inside of it even more. Jumping across shark-filled water pits, escaping drowning chambers, dodging aqua-based encounters, clearly this dungeon was created for a raiding party. With enough care and preparation, Fayt was able to get through it solo, but it took way longer than the time it would’ve taken for a bigger party.

He could see the boss, standing in the middle of the throne room. A wizard, by the looks of it, riding a giant snake-like creature. [color=c4df9b]“Lord of the Serpent Riders”[/color] the info screen showed along with many [color=c4df9b]“???”[/color]s for unknown information. One of these days, he would get a [color=c4df9b]“Scan”[/color] skill, Fayt thought.

Using height for advantage and the Thief’s sneaking class features, Fayt discreetly moved around the room, climbing and rappelling onto the walls and the ceiling of the room. So far so good, the Serpent Rider didn’t see him coming. Throughout the encounter, Fayt was holding his breath, the excitement nearly choking him. It would be disaster if the boss would see him. Probably one-shot kill the solo orc Thief even. 

Finally, he made it past the boss and behind the throne. And color him impressed, the chest was actually there! With key in hand (gotten from a trap-filled room somewhere else in the dungeon), the unarmored avatar began descending the rope from the ceiling. Oh jeez, this was too much. Fayt’s heart was racing. A raid boss’ loot drop, given to a single player. He would sure hit it big. The Thief was bound to get rich real fast.

With barely contained excitement, Fayt placed the key in its belonging lock. The faint but blissful click of the lock opening made Fayt’s heart skip a beat. As the chest began opening, a glow started shining out from the cracks of the chest. And there it was, the long awaited mome-

Brrrrzzzzttt

Everything around Fayt distorted, along the dungeon’s eerie music turning into static. 

[color=red]"What the hell?"[/color]

Even the chest! It was like, fading away from existence, along everything else but the orcish avatar.

[color=red]“NO!”[/color]

Then here he stood, in a vast sea of darkness, with only what looked like a… portal? It looked very out of place for the game’s design. Was it one of those anime event again? Urgh, those were the worst…

Fayt didn’t get to think too much about it, as Faith herself was booted out from the game.

[color=red]“Maintenance? Seriously?”[/color]

She must’ve ignored all the previous warnings, being so immersed into navigating the raid dungeon by herself. Her viewers were also caught off-guard by the sudden maintenance. Most were also hyped and sitting on the edge of their seats. IT came out as a huge disappointment, in the end.

With a frustrated groan, Faith apologized for the huge let-down, promising she would run the dungeon again tomorrow, and see what this new event is about. It was late enough though. The punk-styled gamer could use some sleep.

But she couldn’t sleep that night. Her mind was occupied by what just happened.
[/hider]

Upon waking up, Faith barely got time to wake up properly, she logged on immediately on WEO. She didn’t bother streaming right now. Save her the embarrassment of coming back empty-handed. Maybe, just maybe, the boss’ loot was in her inventory before she got kicked out from the glitch.

And indeed, it was there! Or… it should be? There was something in Fayt’s inventory. It looked like an orb, but it was difficult to see because it looked… glitchy? Selecting the item, it had only [color=c4df9b]“???”[/color] for information. But there was the option to equip it nonetheless.

Curious as to what it could do, Fayt equipped the glitchy-looking orb. And there it was again. The world seemed to lag apart, with the distorted soundtrack. He was back to the same room he had been yesterday. Only this time, the scenery was endless white. And there were a few players here already, circling around a definitely anime-looking maid in front of the portal. Was this what the maintenance was all about? There had been no announcement about it, and there were way too few players here for a new event, even though WEO wasn’t a very popular game.

Hearing over what the game’s event organizer had to say, Fayt was already excited about all this. When the EULA agreement popped in, he didn’t even read the thing, quickly scrolling over the whole deal and agreeing to the contract. Man, if he could be one of the first to get new items and materials, those sure could be sold at ridiculous high prices before everyone started flooding the new area. There was money to be made here and…

oh crap, she forgot to turn her streaming program on…