[u][b][Pawn] + Rook[/b][/u]

He never liked visiting the city.

It was always crowded with people, something he wasn't very comfortable with. He'd never been much of a social fellow but with the guild still in the back of his mind he wore his worries like he wore his backpack.

"Say, Rook, You wouldn't happen to see anything up there?" He asked his significantly taller magically automated companion.

"\\: Negative. Multiple entities ahead. Structures ahead." Rook answered back in it's typical stiffly robotic manner.

As they walked up [Pawn] was able to confirm what it had just said as he approached the town of Bell. A rustic town with a fair degree of attention paid to detail. They approached from the south, passing alongside the stream of travelers as one of many as they entered through the large open wooden gate. The theme of this town struck him as an old western frontier town on the prairies, something which clashed with the theme park-esque glut of players all buzzing here to there and so forth like a big hive of land bound bees.

As [Pawn] walked he kept his head low and stuck close to Rook, more behind it than anything since it's rather sizeable frame served as an effective plow, the crowded streets parting to allow this mass of stone through. They continued on, passing old timey buildings surrounded by curious players. He suspected he had yet to reach the market district which was good. He had no plans for shopping, especially not now. He had all the gear he needed for at least a solid couple of weeks of adventuring before he'd need to restock. His gear while not the best had served him rather fine thus far, being upper tier equipment for the earlier zones. There was little need for him to be on the cutting edge of equipment and as for potions he barely needed anything of the sort. He rarely sought combat and often let Rook tank the odd mob here and there, patching it up afterwards with his magic. As he was able to recover his mana between battles he hardly needed any mana potions, especially given the fact that his types of magic had very little in the way of mana heavy spells. He was mostly a summoner who's spells were largely to benefit his creations while they fought for him. At least that's how that was in combat. He tended to favor magic that could yield as much if not more out of combat use over in combat use. As for healing potions Rook couldn't use them and [Pawn] certainly never wanted to be put in the position where he'd need them.

_
The two of them eventually reached the city center where their purpose for visiting the city sat. A massive blue crystal enshrined in a finely runed device or as most people know them the Home Crystal. People were quite able to quick travel to any town with one of these lovery azure chunks set in them so long as they have visited it at least once. Seeing as this area just came out a lot of people were coming to seize the opportunity to have instant access to the new maps recently put out. Even if they had little reason to come or had other pursuits most would come if only to unlock this town's Home Crystal for future use.

As [Pawn] set his hand against the stone a bluish energy filled the air around him, blue motes of energy bubbling up from the ground and ascending around him in a spiral. A little translucent window opened in front of him. [u]Home Crystal registered.[/u] With a thought he closed the message screen and continued on his way. All he needed to do now was leave the town, hopefully unrecognized, and he'd be scot-free. Free to roam the lands and explore the rich natural scenery of this graphically dense update. Just as they were beginning to walk towards the north gate however there was a low rumble in the distance followed by smoke and most notably the sounds of panic.

"What the heck was that?" As though listening the message screen atop the water tower lit up, brightly advertising a list of players under the tagline [u]Hunt[/u]. In tandem a quest was suddenly added to his questlog, as indicated by the blinking [u]Unread Quest[/u] icon at the top right corner of his quest tab. At a mere thought he opened the tab and brought up the new quest which told him in full the nature of this PVP event he was unwittingly volunteered for.

Before he could really even act the news along with the events down in the market place had stirred the thick crowds of people into a panic. He watched as the once busy crowd that surrounded him turned into a panicked mob, pushing and shoving each other as they ran for the many exits. Quite frankly he would of been among them in trying to leave but given his less than impressive stature he felt quite at risk of being trampled. Also there was little way for him to have Rook follow him at any reasonably quick pace as, given his size and strength, he'd probably trample a fair number of people which would be quite unpleasant and something that [Pawn] was morally opposed to making Rook do.

"Quickly Rook! Hoist me up on your shoulder!" He commanded, a sizeable stone hand gripping him around his torso upon his command. He was lifted up and sat upon the ridge of it's body, just beside it's head. Now that he was above the crowd he could see the situation a fair bit better. It seems there was a fair amount of fire starting to consume the market sector and there were certain players attacking others, the aggressors all belonging to the notorious guild [u]Our World[/u]. He looked down and while there was no longer any risk of getting caught off guard by melee attacks he was still in plenty of danger. Unwilling to drive Rook forward at the risk of hurting others he did the only thing he could really do in this situation.

"Of the Crystal Rite, I summon forth the Seed. Basic Turret, activate!" He read forth the spell's incantation. Shuddering forth from the fabric of reality a strange floating sigil wrought from a deep bluish purple evanescent force manifested, strings of mana flowing from [Pawn]'s fingertips and pouring inside the construct's form like water filling a strangely shaped glass. Above the sigil was a small orb of congealed mana which shifted and churned with the motes it was comprised of. Beneath the sigil was a softly glowing circle of neon blue light which indicated the turret's position, a small triangular point affixed to the side of the circle denoting which direction it was going to fire. This was the Basic Turret, the very first spell in the Tower Defense bracket. Pulling up the screen name list presented by the message board he tagged each aggressor as a target, thus allowing for his turret to lock onto them should one of them step into it's sight radius.

With that he and Rook slowly started to make their way towards the north exit, taking great care not to step on anyone while he waited for his turret spell to recharge.