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[indent][indent][indent][color=gray][sub][right][color=#98A9B1][b]Location:[/b][/color]The Riverside- The City of Thorinn, Aetheria[/right][/sub][/color]
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Benkei waved at the girl as she left, and mulled over Alja’s words. 

[i]Not gonna ask if you're okay, 'cause that's dumb. You're clearly not.[/i] Of course he wasn’t okay. None of them were. They were all stuck in this stupid game, they could die, and they were in the hands of game engineers. Their doom was practically certain. 

[i]If you want to talk, I'm always here.[/i] He didn’t want to talk. He wanted to jump into the river and just end it all now. But there was also the truth, bubbling up in his chest. All that self-loathing and anger, all exacerbated by the constant fighting and drama. 

[color=#98A9B1]“You know what sucks? You call me boss, people call me a leader. But I’m not one. Hell, I’m not cut out for any of this. I’m a high-school kid. I’m barely making it through exams. I don’t deserve to be called boss, or leader, or anything like that. Everyone I know has some useful skill they can bring to the table. The only skill I ever had was playing this game, the kicker is, none of the controls work anymore. It’s all just physical feedback. What’s worse, is that if all of this ends, and we go back, I have to deal with the fact that I watched others die, then I go back to being treated like trash in my own house. If I stay here, I get killed by a goblin or a bat or a stupid stone golem.”[/color] Benkei groaned. There was no good choice. There was no escape from any of this. 

[color=#98A9B1]”I thought for just one second, that maybe we could make this place better. That we could stick together and build a world for ourselves here. But then the moment I turn around everyone’s fighting, and then [i]I[/i] start fighting too. It’s hopeless if this is how it’s going to be."[/color] 

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