[center][h2]Chapter 0: Prologue
~ A Glorious End, A Confusing Beginning ~[/h2][/center]
[hr]
[hider=The Last Thing I Do Before I Die...]"This sucks... Really sucks. Like, c'mon guys! Not a single one of you logged on? Not one? It's the last day! You couldn't take time off from work or pry yourselves away from your [i]families[/i] to hang out one last time?"

A bitter, lonely player sat in the great, empty room of a certain guild hall. Before her was a large, round table made out of polished black stone, with many empty seats - each looking extravagant with red cushions and gilded wooden frames - sitting around it. All except one, where a voluptuous young sorceress sat, drumming her fingers in an irritated fashion against the surface of the large table infront of her. Bringing up the 'Who's Online?' holo-window, she again and again checked if any members of her guild, Starfall, showed up as being online. But, it had been over one a half hour now, and nobody had showed, not one. Incidentally, just looking at the overall population on the server, less than a 100 people were logged on, and most were signing off one after another at a steady pace.

It was understandable, of course, the devs had said there wouldn't be anything special or interesting going on in-game; After all, why waste time coding and adding in stuff when you were just going to shut everything down anyway? It was actually remarkable that they'd kept the server running for this long with so few people actually bothering to log in anymore. Still, it all felt a bit... Anti-climatic, somehow. The scowl on the sorceress otherwise cute face made this very apparent if nothing else.

"Jeez, I get it, I get it... You've all got lives to live and stuff to do, this is just a game after all." She let out a sigh. "Still, we all put so much time and effort int o... Couldn't you at least pop in, even for just a few minutes, and chat a bit before it all goes away?" More grumbling.

These were the rumblings of the player; Serafaye, otherwise known in the real world as Douglas Corway - a customer support clerk. Over the course of Oubliette Online's 14 years of running, he had been an avid and active player, clearing all the content the game had to offer, gathering all the highest tier rewards and clearing all events and special scenarios that the game's devs had thrown at their players... And now, in a few minutes, all of that was going to be lost forever. Gone, deleted, vanishing into thin air like dust in a void. ALl those hours, days, months and years, just thrown away like a wet rag... How vexing.

The sorceress gritted her virtual teeth and stood up, slamming both hands hard against the stone surface of the table, a low pounding echo rolled through the vacant guild hall as she did so.

"Fine! I'm not just gonna sit here and let all this just go to waste. If I'm gonna lost all of it anyway, I might as well go out epically!" She shouted - to nobody but herself - while clenching fists and staring off into the ceiling, eyes filled with virtual determination!

[i]... 12 Minutes Later...[/i]

Having visited the bank in the hub-city of Torrtais, Serafaye now ran through the holo-screen displaying her items and equipment. Everything that was of any particular use or value she had withdrawn from her storage, shoving it into her inventory and even using some Cash Shop-enhancements to either stack it all or extend her available room. Still, she was now packing every last relic, rare, unique, useful crafting material, spare equipment, vanity items, gimmick trinkets and all the money she had saved up over the course of her career. She was stacked to the max. If the game had still been active, anyone who saw someone standing at a bank for the amount of time she had would've been targeted by PK's as soon as they left the town. Luckily, with basically only herself and less than a dozen other players - across the entire in-game world - still online, this wasn't a real concern.

"Alright, I've got ally my stuff! Equipped all my gear and set up all the skills, it's time to do this shit!" She again yelled, to nobody in particular, before pulling out a small, brown water-melon sized egg with white spots - seemingly from the ether. With a virtual tap, the egg glowed, and then exploded into a bright light, before vanishing. There, next to Serafaye now, stood a very large and very majestic white-headed and white-winged royal griffin - a flying mount of Oubliette Online. The creature gently ruffled its neck feathers before letting out a loud cry and flaring its wings.

"Time to get going! Don't wanna run outta time." With that said, the sorceress got onto the big eagle-lion's back, and with a light tap, the creature's wings start flapping and - in no time at all - took off, into the skies! It was a rather bizarre, and somewhat sad, sight to behold though. The landscape below as void of player avatars, empty streets, roads, forests, plains... All the monster spawns were at full population and all the gathering and resource-nodes were respawned and sitting idly and untouched.. Such a waste.

Still, now wasn't the time to look at the colorful and vibrant virtual world's textures and geography, nor its flora and fauna. Serafaye had a mission, and time was running out! The little timer in the corner of her eye, which said in bold letters: [b]Server Shut-down:[/b] was constantly ticking down the numbers,a nd she had to get to the [i]Herculon Gorge[/i] before it hit zero, and less than an hour remained.

[i]... 36 Minutes of uneventful in-game flight later...[/i]

As the griffin's feet touched down on the sandy ground, it let out another cry. Serafaye gently slid off its back, petted its head and then tapped it again. At once, the great beast glowed bright and then shrank, until it was once more the melon-sized brown egg with white flecks. Returning her creature to the inventory, the girl turned around and took in the surroundings of the Herculon Gorge once more.

It was a rather plain area in all fairness, certainly not one of the more interesting or appealing locations in the game. A large circular patch of yellow sand, surrounded by a wall of sheer rock cliffs, forming a natural barrier around the area. No vegetation apart from a few short, lone cacti and no structures of any kind, except for maybe one or two large boulders. But in all fairness, the gorge wasn't meant to be pretty - it was meant to be an arena, a colosseum. For in the very center of the sandy pit sat one, singular piece of interest - a large, dark blue crystal that was surrounded by a black smog-like miasma which constantly billowed upwards like a candle's flame.

Approaching the crystalline obelisk, Serafaye gazed upon the dark object - that was clearly very, very bad. An almost forlorn smile came across her face, as she remembered the time she and the others of Starfall had come here for the first time and fought against the beast contained within. An epic, heart-pounding battle that was one of the greatest moments in her entire in-game life. Of course that new guys, [i]Jazz[/i], had to go and ruin it all at the end by b itching about how to divvy up the drops... But other than his loud mouth, it was truly a great and special memory. Shaking her head though, the girl snapped herself out of the little stroll down memory lane, and putting on her game-face.

"Time to do this!"

... Well, that's what she said, but really, the next few minutes were spent casting buffs and using potions and items to increase her stats, resistances, offense and defense, magic, critical ratings, dodge and evasion, speed, you know, the typical pre-boss buff routine. Each spell cast from the hotbar brought Serafaye closer and closer to the real deal though, and when her mana dipped too low, a Mana Potion was chugged from the inventory. All the special trinkets that helped with movement and annoying crowd-control were equipped and hot-keyed... It was almost time. Looking at the countdown in the corner of her HUD, there was only a few minutes left now... But still enough time to do one last awesome (and moronic) thing!

"Alright... [b]BRING IT ON, YOU OVERGROWN SNEKK-FUCK![/b]"

And with that vulgar outburst, Serafaye unceremoniously punched the crystal in its proverbial face, causing a white crack to appear... Which grew. And grew. And grew. And grew, until it had spread all across the crystalline construct's surface, and violet rays of light began to seep through, followed by more of the black, billowing curse-fog. A moment of silence and anticipation, then the object cracked and shattered with the sound of glass... And then, for a moment, there was nothing.

No in-game music, no ambient sounds, not enviromental noise... Until the earthquake-like rumbling started.

"Here we go!"

The ground, and indeed the entire canyon, began to shake. Slowly, from the sandy floor upon which the sorceress stood, a figure began to rise. Sand flowing off of it, like water, as it rose and grew in size, second by second becoming larger and larger... Until it finally stopped, and towered above the little Draockin like a titanic behemoth. With a body like that of a lizard, with scales of jade, six legs each with a three-clawed appendage and nine serpentine necks with the same number of heads heads with yellow undersides that gliestened like gold, eighteen eyes glowing red like hot coals and rows upon rows of teeth that looked to be the length of greatswords. Behold [u][b]Severanoxis[/b][/u], The Abominable Siege Hydra, and one of Oubliette Online's toughest and most powerful World Bosses! A Level 120 Elite Boss Mob, with each head of the hydra being able to act and attack independently of each other, while also each having their own elemental breath attack.  Surprisingly fast and mobile and with its tail sweeping back and forth preventing backstab or flank-attacks, this truly was a monster among monsters, easily able to defeat entire Raid Groups that didn't know what they were up against, or those who didn't prepare properly.

... Luckily, Serafaye knew what she was doing! -  You know, except for the whole part about goign up against the game's strongest boss all on her own...

The creature let out a deafening roar with all nine heads, signalling the beginning of the fight. At once, the unmistakable [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjagObe8-RY]theme song[/url] kicked in, causing Serafaye's blood to pump in tune with the sick music. Wasting no time, the barrage of spells began to fly.

Thick bolts of lightnign from the sky, a barrage of smoldering fireballs that caused a carpet of explosions which sent sand and shards of stone flying everywhere. A hail of ice shards, large as spears rained down diagonally from the the magic circles hovering in the sky above while serpent-like spines of jagged rock surged from across the sand towards the towering colossus. In response, the beast unleashed jet upon jet of its own attacks, condensed rays of flame, freezing water, crackling yellow lightning and even a flood of skin-peeling high-velocity sand-grains. Running, jumping, sliding all the while firing off spells from the hotbar and spellbook holo-screen, the lone girl and the giant multi-headed snake blasted one another with magics and spells that would put even the most chuunibyou anime fight-scene to shame.

Of course, Serafaye was at a temendous disadvantage, and the stock of healing potions, scrolls and other consumables at her disposal were popped and used like junior mints. As she leapt behind one of the large boulders, the few places of cover available in the valley of death, she quickly reorganized and began adding new things to the HUD and hotbar, quickly and skillfully sorting and setting up for her next round with the boss. Once done, she leapt back out from the rock and prepared to- Waaaaiiiiiiiit a second...:!

"Wh-What the fu-!? [b]HE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT YET![/b]"

The Siege Hydra was rearing all nine heads backwards, each with its maw open and energy fomring infront of each open mouth, like a multitude of floating spheres in a rainbow-pattern! Except horrifying! This was the ultimate attack of Severanoxis, the Combined Multi-Elemental Breath-attack, [i]Omnistorm![/i] Not only did it destroy any enviromental cover in the arena, but it was also classified as a non-elemental attack, meaning that resistances were completely useless against it. However, the World Boss was only supposed to use this when its HP dropped to around 50%, and Serafaye had come nowehre close to that yet! Thus, staring like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, the little sorceress could do little but stare in stupified horror as her imminent demise drew closer second by second.

"Wel, shit!"

[i][b]FFFLLLEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOORGHHHHH~!![/b][/i][/hider]
[hider=I'll See You On The Other Side]
And so, as another peaceful, starlit night came to rest over the world of Oublioth, something in the far above suddenly disturbed the tranqui, soft night. At first it was thought nothing of, barely more than any other star in the far beyond... But with time, it grew and grew, unitl eventually it surpassed the moon in both size and luminosity. Fallling from the skies, like a falling star of immense proportions, glittering green and gold, it raced towards the ground with frightening speed and foce. Until finally, with a loud and powerful crash, it struck down upon the earth, causing a blast of blinding white light to surge acrsso the land like a dome... Before fading quietly, and returning the night to the stars and moon, as if it had never come and stolen it momentarily.

But it was not gone, nor had it gone unnoticed - something like that was hard to miss after all, especially when it made night as bright as day. It had fallen to the north, in the old Forgotten Ruins located in the empty grasslands that, to this day, lay unclaimed by any nation or power. At one point, these ruins had been the seat of some long-since ancient civilization, but had since centuries past been looted, ransacked and then looted again. Now nothing more than burnt-out stone ruins and rubble, not even bandits or fledgeling adventurers went there, as the place had been picked bone-dry since long ago.

It was here, in a place where nobody went anymore, that the fallen star of shining green and gold had crashed, and it was here it now rested, gently glowing as it id at the very center of the ruins, next to the remains of what had once been a palace perhaps.

But this was unimportant in the grand scheme of things. What [i]was[/i] important, were the actions and decisions taken by those who saw the starfall, nations, royalty, nobles, cultists, travellers, traders and even lowly peasants and monsters... What would each do when faced with a phenomenon like this? The answer varied, but one thing was for sure no matter who you asked or where you looked. A new chapter in the world of Oublioth had just begun.[/hider]
[hider=By Order of His Majesty]
"So, Chancellor... Can we confirm what it is yet?"
"I'm afraid not, my liege... I haven't heard anything from the scouts i sent to investigate the area."
"Is it possible they were intercepted by our [i]esteemed[/i] neighbours?"
"That is... A reasonable possibility... I wouldn't be surprised if all the realms nearby are scrambling to be the first to find whatever [i]it[/i] is."

An elderly man, clad in blue and gold, with a fur-lined red cloak, sat at a table with a rolled-out piece of parchment, depicting a map of the local region of the continent. The golden crown with a set ruby at the front clearly denoted him as the king of this country. Across from him, on the other side of the table, stood an even older man, this one wrinkled and bald, clad in brown robes with a silver chain hanging around his neck and  a quill-shaped badge fastened to the left side of his torso. These men were King Bjorich and Chancellor Edwan Morne respectively, thw two most influential men in all the kingdom of Palagria.

Currently, they were discussing the events of one wek ago, when a falling star descended from the skies and crashed into the wild, untamed lands just north of their borders. The incident had caused quite a stir among the populace, from things like doomsayers and end-of-the-world cults popping up, to opportunistic clergy calling it the wrath of whatever god or goddes they served, urging the people to become more faithful. Some thought it the battle between angels and demons, or other powerful creatures like dragons or phoenix, while others believed it to have been some kind of magic or spell gone awry. Reagardless, most people couldn't agree, except for that everyone was afraid and confused. And a kingdom of confused and scared people was never a good thing, as it had the undesirable side-efrect of causing riots, wide-spread panic, scapegoat-hunting and a rapid rise in lawlessness.

To this end, King Bjorich and Chancellor Edwan were hard at work, trying to figure out just how to handle the situation. They had already sent scouts to try and locate the source of the commotiun, but as none had returned, either the other neighbouring nations had a similar idea and all the scouts clashed... Or, something else had claimed them entirely.

"Shoudl we not mobilize the army then, your highness?"
"Hm, no. If we do so, the other countries might see it as an open act of aggression. The last thing we need is to start a pointless war over something we do not even know what it is yet." The king furrowed his bushy eyebrows. "Also, I do not wish to leave our borders unguarded at a time like this. Moving our forces could invite a surprise attack from one of our less honorable foreign friends."
"I suppose, but we cannot leave things as they are. The people are growing restless and I fear the longer we remain in the dark about whatever this [i]thing[/i] was... The more unstabile our country's morale will become."
"Agreed. Something needs to be done."

As the two old men muttered, coughed and rubbed their necks, trying to wrack their brains about what to do next, the door to the chamber suddenly flew up. In stepped a younger man, about his mid thirties, wearing a suit of fine, flawless plate mail. He gave the two elders a respectful bow before speaking.

"Your highness, Chancellor. I, Torred Ilsing, General of his Majesty's Army, have arrived."
"Ah, General. Excellent timing." The king said, turning away from the map and walking over to meet his loyal servant. "Me and the chancellor were just debating how to best deal with the fallen star, without relying upon the army to investigate the ruins up north."
"Is that so?" The General said, looking surprised, but quickly composing himself. Walking over the table and looking at the parchment-map, he stroked his chin before speaking again. "Then, why not recruit the help of adventurers? Or mercenaries? Not only would that mean we needn't use our own soldiers, but if they come into contact with something or someone dangerous, it's of no great loss to our nation's security."
"oh! As one would eaxpcet of our General Ilsing!" The chancellor applauded. "A very ruthless but undeniably accurate plan!"
"Indeed. We may have to cancel the Midsummer's Public Faire, but I am certain our subjects would rather feel safe than drink cheap ale and eat stale bread for a single day across the year." The king asid, almost chuckling.
"Then, your orders sire?" The general asked.
"Mm. Go, inform the Adventurers' Guild and post notices for mercenary companies. Tell them to travel to the Forgotten ruins in the north wilderness, and locate whatever the fallen star is... And, if it's a treasure, bring it back. If not, well.. Deal with it appropriately."
"By your command, my liege!" The general almost shouted, pounding his chest with his gauntled-clad fist.

[i]Later the same day...[/i]

Notices, messages, scrolls and plaques, all were set and posted along bulletin boards and public gahering spots, in taverns and at the docks. The capital of Syrdenon was abuzz with gossip and talk about the newly posted request by the king. A call for brave souls to travel to the northern unclaimed territories, in search of the fallen light, promising a reward of 250 gold coins to whoever brought whatever the fallen thing was, or  at least proof and news of it, back to the castle.

Of course, this was just one of many ways in which how the commotion was handled. Different kingdoms and empires dealt with things in their own ways, and even those who were just out travelling, or living in the vicinity, had to make up their minds on what to do about this whole ordeal.

At this very point in time, just outside the ruins surrounded by the high, but crumbling, stone walls, were now a mottley crew of various people. Tents and campgrounds had been set up, but each group or lone traveller, keeping mostly to themselves. The grassy fields stretched on for seemingly miles in every direction, and only the sparse spruce tree or small shrub brought any distinction to the land around the grey ruins. To get inside, one had to pass through one of the four gates, unless you wanted to squeeze or crawl through one of the cracks or crumbled tunnels in the city walls. The buildings inside were little more than stone husks, no glass windows or wooden shutters, no doors, just stone. Ruined, ueven and weatherworn cobblestone streets, piles of rubble and debris, yet despite all this, many of the structures still stood, most of which were quite tall at four or five storeys, though most were nothing more than one or two at this point.

And it's outside these crumpling skeletal remains of a city, that our story truly begins.[/hider]