[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/4A0dYYL.png[/img][/center]

[quote=Volsaimmias, Codices on the Multiversal Arts of Battle, Tome IV]"In the fifty-first cycle of my travels I came to the world of the songbird monks, practitioners of what they call the [i]Skua Ree Cawta[/i], or Way of Beak and Claw. I found them a peculiar but amicable civilization, and the mountain peaks of their great aeries a beautiful retreat from the busy worlds of the inner rim, and so I stayed to record their martial art in my chronicle, humbly unexpectant of a species whose bodies are so light, hollow-boned.  

I asked one of the monks if I could observe their training and they obliged me, and on the morn I watched the monk perform ritual dances and squawking songs before a great stone in the shape of an egg. Awed was I when with a strike of the monk's tiny fist the stone crumbled to dust. So begins my tale of the Way of Beak and Claw..."[/quote]

One minute she was Xx_haia-the-ill701_xX, clad in the full glory of her SSS gacha tier legendary loot, leading her guildmates into the Lunar Rift megadungeon with her fearsome battlecry [i]Kokekokko![/i] The next she was Haialark, eyes dilated from a cocktail of stimulants and raw catecholamines flooding every synapse, looking around herself and blinking in confusion, senses invaded by the utter disconnect. Wet cityscape and chilling fog assailed her eyes, the smell of asphalt in rain, faraway sounds of waves crashing against the shore punctuated by the deep, slow ringing of a bell. Funeral toll?

She tried to ping the guild channel but couldn't connect. For a millisecond Haialark was stunlocked, resisting the rising urge to incarnate the proverbial chicken with her head cut off, a hundred thoughts cramming themselves through her brain at once. The first were anger and confusion. The devs? Did the fucking server stutter or did she lag out for a second or what kind of shitty bug was--

Overhead she saw the chipped face of a hungy moon leering down at them and the adrenaline started to bubble back up inside her. She was supposed to be [i]there[/i] with her guildmates, but that wasn't the megadungeon she remembered. She did not know those stars or constellations, couldn't fathom the prophecies they augured for her tonight. Then realization dawned on Haialark like the truth of battle to Phanskwa in the Scriptures of the Talon. Without taking her eyes off the crowd she peripherally noticed advancing towards them, her recessed little avian eyes swept over her new party, purple sparks of phosphorescence in the mist. 

The glowing mammal and the shining geometrical synth were so-- so [i]smooth[/i], awakening an atavistic compulsion to collect them and fly off to put them in her nest, but in a stunning feat of self-control Haialark tore her gaze away from them. The soreness helped. She was getting insanely on point haptic feedback, like her gaming chamber's nutritubes and vitapumps had been undelicately yanked from her orifices as opposed to tastefully retracted. How had they imported her physical specs to sub in for her EO avatar? Brain-to-machine interfaces were supposed to be strictly one-way, making this highly illegal. 

Haialark loved it. No UI was a nice touch.

Claw rising to her back, the tattered damp robes of a songbird monk hanging from her scrawny limbs, a beatific calm settled over her. As the elders said, everything made sense once the Yolk settled. Of course this was merely a tutorial. Any newb fresh out of character creation that wandered into an Empyrea Online PK zone quickly learned the handle [i]haia-the-ill[/i] (numbers and edgelord aesthetics notwithstanding, as anyway these varied from alt to alt) and to keep a finger on the logout button when her tag popped into draw distance on the UI. 

If the devs wanted her to fear the fodder, they wouldn't have left her the Featherblade.

[b][color=8882be]"Alright, DLC dropped, we just got drafted for the beta test. Get ready for some unbalanced PVE,"[/color][/b] she squawked. [b][color=8882be]"Mid range add in front, if this goes violent, someone CC him and see if his loot's worth farming. If it comes down to it I'll go sicko on the trash mobs."[/color][/b]

That was all the demented avian creature offered as far as a signal to her companions that may or may not understand the hoots and crows of the violet vulture alien beside them before, with a single steadying breath, she unsheathed the Featherblade and cawed a first and only warning, [b][color=8882be]"Come no closer unless you want me to camp you for twenty respawn cycles, little lootboxes. Identify your faction and fetch quest, and be quick about it!"[/color][/b]