dothackers.net

"Odin!!" Eria yelled as she watched him vanish and Deathscythe collapse into a corrupted mess. But she didn't have the luxury of worrying about others as the beast turned its attention on her now as she and Kali became the closest targets. She backed away with the girl, weighing her options as it swung for her. My quiet days are over once more... Her right hand came up, a blur of black forming a square before her, but it was too slow as the tentacle swatted both it and the two girls for some distance. She couldn't recover while holding Kali, opting to use herself a shield as the two hit the ground and slid to a stop, easily now the farthest from the creature. "Ow... Pain setting.... forgot..." Eria groaned as she push herself up. It wasn't until then that she noticed the fiery wave moving up her arm. She looked only to find cubes moving up her arm. It had already engulfed her gauntlet. "Crap. Just keeps getting better...!" she grunted as she held out the arm. Black data spiraled to her command as if forcibly sheared the gauntlet from her arm with cry of pain. The data beneath was damaged and her Box had translated that to feel as though chunks of her arm had been gouged out. The arm no longer moved, though her real arm was fine. "Kali! Hey, Kali!" she yelled, continuing to shake the girl, though she quickly remembered that her player probably feel the shaking much if they were unconscious.

Toshiro was in shock of the event unfolding before him. He watched mouth ajar as one PC fell after another. His eyes soon fell onto Aventha. His daze had worn off as he saw her still on the ground staring just as he had as each PC fell. "Aventha! This...did...." he fell silent for a second. " Did you know this would happen?! Why didn't you try to help?! You probably know more about this thing and these strange events than anyone!" He shouted at the girl angrilly. He yelled more because he was angry with himself for not moving or doing anything than for her lack of action. Why? Why didn't I move?! I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't allow anyone else to get hurt again! For no one to have to go through what he did! I was suppose to protect the weak from things like this, to protect those from becoming hurt by creatures like this!..... He stared at Aventha with hatred, not because he hated her but himself. "Awnser me Aventha!" He demanded stepping over to her picking her up by her clothing. "...." He relized how foolish he was being picking a fight in such a situation. He set Aventha back down and looked down at the ground gently. "I'm sorry....I was out of place....If you know anything about this creature that could be useful please tell me now. I don't want anyone else to get hurt....." He said in a soft apolagetic voice. He then looked up at her and smiled that same goofy smile. " You know, I think we could help each other alot. I think that this isn't the first time you have seen a creature like this one" He paused and leaned closer to wisper in her ear. " To tell the truth it isn't my first time seeing a creature like this one either. Actually I know a good bit about them as well, too well. If you tell me what you know and your experience with...abnormalties like this I think we could get closer to fixing things. I know before I wasn't trying to get you to tell me anything, but now I think its important that you do. We are both searching for the samething I believe. If we put our minds together we might have better luck at figuring it out." Toshiro finished pulling away looking expectently at her for an awnser while keeping an eye on the far away monster that had not yet remembered there presence in the area yet.

He started using his keyboard, then a little window appeared in his screen, he did something with it, then closed it, and started walking to Lveanth "Ani Cruz..." he said in a low tone, then as darkness covers the monster paralizing it momentarily, he revealed his twin blades "Light and Darkness..... Come forth...." "Odin....Eria...Kali....Avantha.... and you all...... Step back.... Because i'll clean up this mess..." He walked to Lveanth, his character was flashing, and one or another lag saved him from being covered with cubes, he then slashed through the monster with all his speed "Ani Cruz!" he said as darkness engulfed the monster and his right sword was covered by darkness and making a notable damage to the monster

(AK, I've been thinking about it, and I would prefer if you weren't a hacker. I was going to allow it somewhat, but now I'm just afraid you'll have too many abilities now to do certain things you really shouldn't be doing--just being able to get some information could really ruin the pace of this. I wanted to keep this a secret, but people will be given the ability to hack CERTAIN things later on in the story. The problem with hacking, is that it actually makes it a lot harder for me to give you some information and have things play out a certain way, because you're basically able to bypass some of the basic rules of the game and make something that is intended to be a threat seem trivial--like killing a corrupted monster or achieving information that shouldn't have been revealed just yet. Just please change your post.)

The engulfing cubes forced Lveathn's arm to swing out at Siege, throwing the player down. All status effects, good and bad, were removed from the player at once, almost as if his character data had been reverted back to what it was when he first warped into the field. The cube forced the monster to raise its arm...but it did not attack. Lveathn let out a loud roar and in one quick movement tore the large core cube off its head and threw it across the field. All the other smalls cubes which had been branching from the core disappeared at once. D-=Scythe's character dropped to the ground, almost dead but able to act again. The only person who appeared to still remain in critical condition was Kali, who was still unmoving.

Avantha was still and silent until the strange cube dropped to the ground, and then jumped up at once, as if finally remembering where she was. She pushed Toshiro out of the way, her mind not even fully registering what he had said yet, and charged right for the floating cube. "Leave him alone!" she yelled as it started to move towards Lveathn again. "Haven't you already done enough to him? He wouldn't be that monster if it wasn't for you!"

Avantha swung her dagger at the cube, and on contact a bright purple light flashed between the two. The cube didn't move at all from the attack, but its image began to flicker as if it was fading from existence.

"Vaccination detected," said the cube, its voice flickering jut as much as its image. "Terminating mission to update program and build immunity."

The last word in its sentence played again several times before the cube finally disappeared. Before Avantha could turn around a tentacle wrapped around her, but Lveathn did not attack. The beast raised her above its head, almost as if cheering her victory.

With the cubes gone James recovered his headset and controller. He looked around expecting to see Kali's stupid grin but she wasn't grinning. She just kept lying there. D-=Scythe hurried over to her. "Kali. Kali. Come on Kali, wake up." She tried shaking her a little. "Please wake up. Come on you stupid girl. Wake up. Always wandering into places you shouldn't. Wake up." She leaned forward, touching their foreheads together as a tear formed. She whispered, "I have no wish to come for you today. Hold on."

D-=Scythe, still badly injured and using her spear for support, approached Lveathn. "Velanth, that is you isn't it?" She glanced towards Avantha for confirmation before continuuing. "I realize you've already done a lot for us, and I appreciate that, but can you do anything for Kali." D-=Scythe turned to look at the injured Kali. "Please? She didn't know what she was getting into. I'll do anything you ask of me."[*]

((Filler paragraph. Also, immense text-hammer. Don't blame me though; I need to get this done before Odin can actively participate in the story))

Hilbert had been spending the past half-hour scanning through every single protected file that he could access, and had found absolutely nothing wrong with his character, or rather, if there was anything, it was so small that it had gone completely unnoticed. He wracked his brain, then decided to run a test of something; He put on his M2D, and attempted to open up The World. He made it to the login screen without any problems, but upon attempting to enter the game, he felt an immense pressure on his brain, then a feeling akin to one of being forced backwards by a barrier of sorts. Eventually, his screen went patchy, blocks of black and miscoloured areas overlayed by white noise and constantly becoming harder and harder to define. He then shook himself up, throwing the M2D off of his face. When he'd dived out, he was lying sprawled on the floor, breathing heavily. He looked up at the screen, seeing the same error message that he'd received earlier. Cursing loudly, he stood up, placed his head in his hands, still feeling as though his left arm was almost completely ruined. Evidently there was something blocking his character from entering the game, but he didn't understand what that could be. Clambering up into his chair, he decided to review the protected files.

After another hour of searching, he came across something he'd completely missed on his original search, a file named 'PC.dat'. Immediately springing onto the chance, he opened the file, then scanned through the information. It was a complete list of everything that compiled his PC; all of the data values, the programs related to it, even the way in which the character had an effect on his own personality. Everything seemed to be as Odin was expecting it, up until one small value at the base of his 'character data'. What should have usually been the standard compression ratio for the character had been multiplied tenfold, and was then followed by a stream of random numbers, letters and characters that reminded him of something completely different to what his character should have been; it was as if he was looking at the data values for an AI.

Hilbert's second discovery came when looking down at the bottom of the file. There was a bunch of code that extended off the bottom of the page, and it was even more randomly spread than the mock-AI coding that seemed to have latched onto his character data, and combined with the way in which it ordered itself, it almost looked bugged. Now completely sure that there was a critical error with his character data, he decided that it would be best to try and delete it, risk his weaponry within 'The World', then re-create the data. He then started the clean-up procedure, but was stopped mid-way by yet another error message;
After trying the same procedure another 5 times to confirm what was going on, Hilbert laughed softly to himself. Can't locate the data? unless it wasn't the actual data that he was staring at right in front of his face-which, after his hour and a half long trawl through the protected files affirmed to him that they were indeed the real files-then it could only mean one other thing; the data had already been integrated into the world's server; it had almost completely merged with his character to the point that removing it would only cause damage to the server itself. Estimating that the AI coding linked to his character was originally from an external source, he came to the logical conclusion that the reason why it had become so entrenched within the game was due to the damage done by the two 'abnormal monsters' that he'd encountered. One had done significant damage to his character's data-Lveathn-while the other had effectively destroyed a part of his arm and force-booted him from the world-Terrasect-so it was a given that something within them had affected his character data, though he had yet to find out was. Now working on nothing but assumptions, he was going to try and repair the character data by sealing the bug off, and then attempt to discern why an AI's coding had become mixed up with his PC data, and if at all possible try to speed up it's integration into his character data by forcefully developing it-thus eliminating any would be problems caused by a lack of finalization... [/color]

"Then it's done. Thank the Lady," Eria said to herself with relief as looked to Avantha and Lveathn, watching Lveathn seeming to cheer the girl. She's invisible to the system Admins... Her attacks can vaccinate viral creatures... Her friend is a powerful, illegal creature that also is invisible to the system... Just, who is this girl we called Avantha...? It was amazing to think about, but first, she needed to do something before the System Administrators got here. She looked to her damaged gauntlet on the ground near her as she rose to her feet. As much as it would look suspicious to everyone else she had no intention of trusting an Admin to repair her PC. Never again. She picked the gauntlet and slid it back on, black data repairing it and her arm to full functionality. "There."

Toshiro still stund on what had happend stared at the area where the cubed monster once was. Soon though the events processed in his head. He looked over at Avantha and Lveathn. He immediately looked down then back up laughing uncontrolably at the seen of Avantha and Lveathn. As soon as he was able to contain his laughter at the odd scene he rose from his possison on the bround and boldly, but cautiously aprouched Lveathn and Avantha in a cheerful friendly matter with his signature grin. "So I take it this another friend of yours?" He asked grinning up at the pair.

Lveathn looked over D-=Scythe to the unconscious Kali, but he made no noise. His eyes were wide and his mouth was sagged--it was almost as if he was struggling to understand what had been said to him.

"It...it doesn't work like that," said Avantha. She tapped Lveathn's arm, and when he looked up she pointed to the ground. She gave him a gentle pat on the arm after he had put her down, and stared at him with a sorrowful face. "When that virus turned him into this...this thing, it did something to his head," she said. "He doesn't understand things the same way he used to."

Avantha walked over to Kali and sat beside the girl. "But I don't think it will be a problem," she said. The girl...Kali I think...she hasn't turned into him, so the virus was probably stopped in time. She'll probably just wake up in a few minutes, just like I did when the virus attacked me last time. She'll have a terrible headache, but she'll be fine."

Avantha turned Kali's face towards her and stared at the sleeping face. She glanced up when Lveathn walked over to her, and had to force herself not to cry. "I shouldn't have said anything to any of you," she said. "This is all my fault for being to stupid to keep my mouth shut. You should just get out of here before things get worse."

Toshiro frownd. "I don't think any of can do that now..." Toshiro began, "We have already got in to deep... or at least thats how I feel." He finished looking at Avantha with a sympathetic knowing look. "Besides, don't you think it will get lonely if you have to handle everything on your own all of the time?" Toshiro asked smiling to the girl. He then walked over closer and nelt down beside her looking at Kali. "I hope she is ok... I don't think I could ever forgive myself if she were to not wake up from this....just like....."Toshiro trailed off staring at the girl. He brushed Kali's hair out of her face gently then pulled away looking back at Avantha. "Are you sure she will be ok?" He asked concerned.

"Oh we're in real deep. Probably waist deep for people like me," Eria said offhandedly with an ironic smile as looked over her hand and moved it around. Once she was satisfied that everything seemed to be back to normal, she walked over to Avantha and extended her hand, a friendly smile on her face. "I don't expect you to give your member address or anything, but I'd like to be friends with you. Who knows? Maybe I can even help you sometime, Avantha."

((Sorry for my long absence but I've been dealing with some family issues, and I should be able to start posting regularly again by Wednesday, so at this point, I'll let Hybrid or Kale take control of Gibken.))

(Nobody else gonna respond? Want something a little more to work with. )

((Apologies, I could have sworn I had already posted a recent response to this.))
"Well, that's comforting. Thank you, Avantha." She put a hand on Avantha's shoulder and smiled at her. She positioned herself so that Kali's head was resting in her lap. D-=Scythe began petting Kali's hair while the others talked. Finally, James cleared his throat. "Avantha, I don't know about the others, but I just happened to be here. I wasn't investigating anything, and I got involved in this event. If I had been somebody else, irreparable damage could have been done. I got out relatively unscathed because I at least had an idea as to what I was getting into. If I hadn't I would be where Kali is right now, or maybe I'd join Lveathn in Hell." She shrugged, "Face it, you might as well tell everyone the tragedy that started this, unless you want them to go into this without knowing exactly what they're up against and then it really will be your fault. But not for speaking, but because you said nothing."

Hybrid wrote:(Nobody else gonna respond? Want something a little more to work with. )

(sorry guys, but for now i can't RP, i'll do what i can..... school probs, also, bout' my previous post... ignore it, also, i'll post tomorrow )

Avantha turned away and closed her eyes, taking a few steps away from the others. She almost warped out without another word, but her gaze shifted down to Kali. She had no idea who this girl was and why the girl was following her, but she couldn't help but to feel a strong sense of sorrow when staring at the unconscious face. The sight of the girl only seemed to sharpen the blade of guilt already piercing her heart.

"You were right," said Avantha, turning to D-=Scythe. "That monster there...he's Velanth. He didn't always look like that. A week ago we were just running a normal dungeon and having fun when we encountered the strange virus. We didn't think it was that bad at first and decided to attack it, but it..."

Avantha hesitated and closed her eyes again, as if even thinking about the event was torturous. She took a deep breath before continuing. "The virus turned him into that," she said. "He's the Shawn Harris you heard about in the news who fell into a coma. I'm trying to help him, but half the time he doesn't remember who I am and runs away. I've been using...certain resources to find a way to cure him, but nothing has worked so far."

"Well," groaned Kali, "that would have been nice to know when we first saw the thing. If you told us that then we would have left at once."

Kali tried to sit up, but fell back down as her hands went to her head. "Damn it," she said. "My head feels like it is being ripped open. I've never had a headache this bad before."

Eria dropped her hand as she smiled unworriedly. Forgotten again, it seems... Oh well, this is what I wanted... I can't complain, she thought to her as she looked down to Kali, laying on the ground. "Headache or not, I'm glad to see you're okay, Kali. It would probably be a good idea to log out and rest for a bit. It would seem you had quite the close encounter," Eria commented. Her face turned thoughtful then. "Actually, we all should probably do that. Leave, I mean. That encounter just now had to have set off flags all across the System by now, right?"