[center][b]Central Ruins, Palace Tower[/b][/center] [i]What's up with these guys?[/i] The purple-haired and horned girl stared in a mixture of confusion and bewildered annoyance at the trio before her... Who were soon made into a quintet by the addition of a lizardman popping his head up from the side of the open tower-wall, and the suddenly belly-flopping elf... Wait... How'd she done that? Summons couldn't pick players up and levitate them? Was there some sort of glitch? Did the game wonk out after shut-down and things just broke down? No, that didn't make any sense at all - stuff didn't just go off the rails just because you shut down a server, in fac, if the servers were shut down, shouldn't everything have just frozen? Or at least kicked them out the login screen? Also, what was with the way these guys talked? Calling people 'miss' and 'amiden'? Who did that? Well, those nerdy roleplayers might, but ... Oh, wait... [i]Of course[/i].... Of course the geeky types would be the last ones to stay online, to play out their silly little fantasy about the world's end or somehting. Great. They all seemed hardcore about it too, not even responding to the mention of the absent HUD or hotbar. Heck, maybe their settings had those things disabled so they could [i]immerse[/i] themselves in their delusions... So gross. Still, the sudden mention by the girl who was dressed considerably stylish than the rest of the mottley assembly had the horned girl confused. Bloodline-boosting? What was that? There wasn't any system like that in the game. Was it some kind of roleplay-centric term or something? And who or what were these Imperials? Furthemore, where exactly were they? Where'd the Herculon Gorge gone? So many questions and nobody willing to answer. Damnable kids and their make-believe-pretend games... "I've got no idea what you're on about, hoss." The girl said, sighing and shadking her head while also shrugging her shoulders. Moving her hand up to touch her temple, the young girl - who looked to be in her mid-teens - closed her lone, visible eye and spoke a strange sentence, at least strange to the locals. "Shift Communication, Help Channel, Call GM." She said, with a staright and serious-enough expression. "Hello? Did something happen to the server-shutdown? I can't access my menus or see my HUD, and I've clipped through to some... Strange.. Unfamiliar area..." A brief pause. "Hello? Anyone there?" Her eye opened again, as her mouth curled into a slgiht frown. "What gives? Not a single GM online?" She muttered in slight irritation. "Shift Communication, Customer Support Channel, Call Staff." She tried a different venue. "Hello? Anybody there? I've run into some issues here, can't access the main menu. Is the server still running?" Questions asked into the empty air, as if the girl expected some divine voice from above to speak from nowhere and everywhere and answer her inquiries. Obviously, no such reply came. Even more obvious was the apparent frustration this was bringing to the young lady as her slight frown turned into a scowl. "Seriously? No customer support staff either? You're not exactly pulling this whole thing off with any kind of class, guys. Jeez, if I'd known I get stuck in some buggy-ass limbo with unused assets and a buncha roleplaying chuunis I would've just logged off before the timer hit zero." She spoke, to nobody in particular, apparnetly not adverse to airing her inner thoughts to those around her. Moving forward from the spot she had been standing on since her awakening, the young lass took to striding towards the open wall-section of the tower, where the others had congregated. As she drew to the edge of the crumbled and collapsed brickwork though, her eye went wide and her jaw dropped like it was being pulled down by very localized Jupeterian gravity. As she stood there, staring out at the ruined royal plaza of the Forgotten Ruins, the others could hear a strange, unsettling noise... like the girl was gargling and breathing and had had her toes stepped on, all at once. Her eye twitched, blinked and she seemed to slightly shudder as she stood there, taking in the unfamiliar sight.. Until... "[b][i]WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!?!"[/i][/b] With the loud outurst echoing and bouncing off the surrounding structures, the girl didn't even stop to hear any explanations or anything. Instead, she stepped off the ledge of the platform, into thin air. Like one of those saturday-morning cartoon characters who didn't realize there was no more ground under their feet but kept going anyway... Only to then fall comically down as the revelation of their situation struck them. Fortunately, for the young lady, rather than plummet to her unceremonious death she instead slowly descended downwards, as if the wind had grabbed hold under her arms and was gently lowering her down onto the ground below. Oddly enough, this was happening without the girl having many any effort to cast a spell, or even make a motion to do so. She was slow-falling, effortlessly. Of course, even if she was going down at a slow and safe pace, the fact remained that she was still going [i]downwards[/i]... And with her get-up as it was, her large, drape-like cloaked fluttered and billowed majestically... But the very miniscule skirt-like part of her dress [i]also[/i] did this... And the girl didn't seem to aware of this issue herself, as the black-lace undergarments she was wearing was put on display for anyone watching her, or looking up from below, at the time of her descent. Touching down on the ground with a light clicking of her shoes, the horned one looked around. Her mouth was shaped like a cute little 'o' and her amethyst-like eye stared in wonder as well as disbelief at the scenery around her. This place... Was not Oubliette Online... There was no area or location in the great VRMMO that looked like this. She knew. She had been and explored every part of that in-game world. This place didn't exist. It didn't. ... ... .. But it did. "Ho... Wh... Whe... You... So..." Having trouble finding the words ... Or any words, for that matter, the girl kept saying syllables for a while, before turning around and realizing that there were others down here too. Another fancy-dressed lady, and a dude in... What was that? A Circus Vanity Set? Gilded Court Jester's Apparel? No, it wasn't either.. It was... weird. Was it hacked, or perhaps custom, designs? Wait! There was a third person! An elf, on the ground... With his eyes closed... Looking a bit banged up... Had he used the sleep-command or something? In the middle of an unknown area like this? The heck was going on here? So many questions and ponderings and mysteries, the young-looking girl couldn't begin to know where or what to wrap her head around... And it was giving her a migraine. Eventually though, she straightened her posture, took a deep breath, turned to face the two punks at the bottom of the tower, along with their horsey, and spoke. Arms folded infront of her stomach and her brow angled diagonally downwards in discontent. "Okay, look. I know you guys're way into this whole roleplaying your characters thing, but could you [i]please[/i] cut that out for a moment and just answer me?" She half-asked, half-demanded, half-requested. "Where are we? Does any of your systems or tabs work? And has there been any news or info dropped by the gamemasters, customer staff or devs?" She awaited a full response. [hr] [center][b]North-East section of the Forgotten Ruins.[/b][/center] "By the gods! What was that light?" "And... Why... Why did all the sounds of the world suddenly drown out, then return?" "Was it a spell?" "A curse?!" "Ws this the work of the fallen sky-treasure?" "You men! Stop squabbling like housewives! Keep pushing onwards! Once we secure the east gate, we'll march to the center of these ruins and find whatever force caused this ruckus!" "Yes sir!"