The group got back and all got a room, tired from the long quest and wishing to rest up, while Meekle had his mind set on one thing, changing his class. As they all sat around in the room, contemplating what their next moves would be, if they wanted to fight forward and move through the story line. Soon Meekle walked in wearing dark purple puffed out pants, a shirt with a jacket that was tight fit and sat above his abs and a hooded cloak that cut off just below his hips.
"Guys, I am a curse mage now." He said with his arms out in a higher pitch voice than he usually had. He spun around in circles so that they could see his outfit, an interesting design that looked like a dragon made of smoke lined the cloak, a death skull crest centered in the middle and he had small bags strapped to his thigh and around his waist as well. "She said I basically can buff my allies and de-buff enemies in some way. I didn't really understand it all but she showed me how we can access our move sets to see what skills we have." He showed them how, though it took some time for him to remember just how to get to it in his menu, in fact it was Fenix who figured it out after some clues from Meekle.
"Ah yes, I get it know, it seems as though our interface will show us just how to do the skills, as well as when we get knew skills. I was so interested in the settings before I must have over looked this as we had no skill sets at the time or rather, I didn't have any." He played with his messy hair as he looked through his new skills, as did everyone else except Vixen who was lost in thought. She was trying to think ten steps ahead.
"Guys, maybe we have more important things to worry about, I am happy for you Meekle but do we really want to go back out there. Sorry Art, but we could have died out there, then what would have happened?" The mood died in the room as they all wondered the same thing.
"But we had fun didn't we? You can't say you didn't feel that excitement when we took down that boss." He posed in fighting stances and looked at them all, they did agree but it still seemed careless to go back out there. "Either way, we can't just live here forever without working and the only way we can gather coin is by going out and doing quests, even little ones."
"Not true, we could also grind for them." Fenix chimed in, "If you had yet to notice, we get small amounts of coin each time we defeated a monster or enemy. Which means we could go out and fight monsters on the daily saving up everything we could, we would get a fair amount of money between the six of us."
"I agree with Fenix. We need to be safe and at least we can gain some levels. Look we aren't saying we can't ever do the story but maybe we should put it off for now." Vixen tried to make Art understand, it was dangerous out there, for him it was no worse than being in their world, at least here he felt like he stood a chance, he could fight and had power to do something about it. His head fell and he sluggishly moved to his bed and got under the covers. It didn't seem like anyone was going to take his side on this one. He thought after that first quest everyone would be on board but it made them worry more about what could happen.
The next day they set out, going to the edge of the forest to the south of them, they had seen it on their way to the castle and wanted to check out the area for monsters to hunt and gain some coin. They stayed on the edge of the forest, picking off what came out for them and gaining very little, other than Tophuu who got a slime pet that was as green as his hair and eyes that had golden star shapes in the center of the cold black eyes. Everyone still found it a bit odd but had to admit it was quite cute. They brought in a good hall, staying out for half the day gaining coin and small items that dropped from the monsters that they could sell.
They realized how much stronger they had become, making much easier work of the slimes and HopChomps than they did before. Art still having hope that this may change their mind. He didn't much want to be out but he also didn't want to be left behind in levels, so he sucked it up, though he spent most of the day picking off solo monsters and keeping pretty quiet, which was so unlike him that everyone noticed but hoped he would get over it in time. The others even talked about doing smaller quests to help him feel better.
For the next few days this was their life, they fought monsters and gained as much money as they could, adding to the amount they got from the boss battle, though it took them quite some time to make even half of what they did on the quest. Small monsters just weren't worth much, but it still made up what they needed to live simple lives in the city.
Then one day they were approached heading out on to their normal route at the edge of the forest, when they were stopped at the city gates by the royal guard. They were surrounded on all sides as one of the men approached, he was dressed in nicer armor than the rest.
"You six, you are the heroes that we have been hearing about, are you not?" They all looked at each other, unsure of what the man meant. "Are you not the ones who took down the bandit king and have been clearing out monsters from the near by forest?"
"Yeah, that was us?" Meekle said and then the Knight signaled with his hand to the rest of the guards to take them away.
"Hey whats going on here." Vixen stepped forward before being pushed back, falling into Meekle. They were then grabbed by the guards, and though they struggled there were to many of them and they didn't actually want to fight or hurt them, worried it could get them banned from the city.
They were all dragged off towards the castle, rather than being taken inside they were taken around to another entrance that led into a dungeon underneath the castle itself and got tossed into prison cells, two to each one. Having no idea what was going on or why they were taken like this, all of them started going over the past few days, wondering if they had broken some law or were illegally hunting monsters. No answers came to mind though, it was baffling for all of them as they sat waiting, Vixen screamed at the bars wanting an explanation for what was going on.
"Hey, can someone tell us what is going on." She said shaking at the bar before she gave it a kick and walked towards the back of the cell. Her back met the wall and she slid down, her knees now up to her chest and her arms crossed, letting her head rest there.
A full day passed with them there, not knowing what was happening and never seeing a single guard. Their stomachs were empty and mouths dry as they wondered how long they would have to wait for someone to come. Mid day the Knight that had them taken away finally come through, his helmet sat between his arm and body and his hair was a silver color, his eyes matching with a hint of a dark charcoal color to them.
"Now, you six have been in the city for a while now, from what I heard, at least a week. And I just can't imagine you not hearing the call for help in all that time, so I did some digging to figure out more about you all. Really there isn't much to tell, you all showed up, did one quest and have been doing small hunts ever sense." His eyes were dull and not a twitch of a smile crossed his face as he spoke. He sat his helmet to the ground and bent down, sitting on it, the metal scrapping against the stone. "That leads me to two conclusions, either you are cowards who refuse to help fight for this land or you are Legion spies, sent to gather information from the city and its people, relaying it out on your little hunts near the woods. Sense I can't prove that, I will just have to leave you here. Unless you would like to confess or join the fight." He stood back up and pushed his head to each side, hearing light popping noises from his neck before he slid his helmet back on. "Its your choice, either fight or stay here forever. However I am not a cruel man, I will have food brought to you by the end of the day."
With that he was gone, giving them no time to try and explain, their words fell on deaf ears, ignoring them as he spoke. They all looked around to each other wondering just what could have made this happen.
"Is this normal?" Vixen asked.
"I mean, there are a lot of jail break quests in games but it isn't like this." Art replied
"No, I can't imagine it being that, we haven't done any quests or furthered the story line so it can't just throw us into one randomly can it?" Meekle joined in the discussion.
"What if it was time based?" Razah spoke up.
"I agree, this could have just been a time based thing." Tophuu agreed.
"No, more than likely this is another update from the AI, it has notice that we aren't progressing and is now finding a way to force the story onto us." Fenix explained.
"Wait, why would it force the story on us? It doesn't make sense." Vixen's voice agitated from the idea.
"Well, we did want a more realistic game, so with that we get characters with their own personalities, like Ana being light and bubbly, the guards are also playing their role. Not to mention the game doesn't understand why we aren't progressing, it doesn't actually have human emotion, it can imitate it for the cpu system but to it, we are in the game and not playing."
"But I still don't understand, why is it doing this? Why wont it just leave us alone." Vixen continued.
Fenix ran his hand through his hair, trying to think of a better way to explain it, "The best way I can say it is, we are in the game, so the AI assumes we want to play, if we didn't want to play it would expect us to leave. It doesn't understand anything beyond its world, just that we are here and so it is trying to help us along." The group sat there, thinking about what they should do, this dungeon wasn't comfortable, in fact it was just as bad as the real world was. They thought about just escaping and running away but where would they go, would it just happen all over again, not to mention they would be considered wanted criminals for breaking out of a prison like this.
"Why don't we just do it? It looks like the game gives us time, so we can start the story line and rest sometimes when it gets to be to much?" Art was trying so hard to convince them, a true adventure awaited them all. Vixen and Tophuu both tried breaking the bars and attacking the walls but it didn't work, something about the cell blocked their powers and made them as weak as they really were. This went on for days, and each day the Knight would come back and give them the same offer, as well as a small portion of food, stale bread and a bit of water.
On the fourth day things changed, the King showed up, dressed in beautiful clothes, a wonderful black button up shirt and matching cotton pants, two belts strapped to him, one holding his pants and the other holding his sword as well as sets of keys. He had a long red cloak draped on, dragging behind him and a lovely iron crown over his head, making his hair fray back and forth.
"I am sorry for the inconvenience, but we are having to go to some extreme measures. You see, the Legion is many and powerful, without warriors like yourself the world will fall to them." This didn't make sense to them, they kept thinking of it like a game, not moving forward meant no changes, but with the system coming more to life that had changed.
"So you are saying that if we don't help you that the world will fall? The city and all the people in it as well?" Fenix was quick on the uptake and wanted more answers, he was the one in the group who could understand just what would happen, having thought a lot about the AI.
"That is correct Sir Beast. You six have a lot of power, all with very strong job classes and skills that could truly aid the world, so you can see why we would be perplexed at you turning a blind eye to what is happening." He shuffled to the cage and leaned over to Vixen, "Oh my, she is an angry one isn't she." A laugh burst forth from him as he eyed the rest, "I understand it is a lot to ask, really but it will be much better than sitting in the dungeon, don't you think?"
The group didn't know how to feel about him, seeing him act so smug about it ticked them all off but at the same time, the way Fenix made it sound was as if it were real and none of them wanted to relive the downfall of another world. Art of course was interested but with the way everyone acted when he would bring it up he didn't want to speak for them and simply left it to the others to decide. His mind screamed at him to jump at it, much like it did when he found the portal to this world, he wanted to protect it, to see it and to enjoy every bit of it with his friends but still, he sat in silence waiting.
"Okay, we will do it." Meekle got to his feet and walked towards the bars, Arts made eye contact with him as though he was asking if he was serious, Meekle nodded.
"I guess we have no other choice, do we." Vixen banged her fist against the bars, signing to them to open them up. The others were all in agreement, standing at the doors to their cell. Art was shaking with excitement as he leaped to his feet, he knew that it was really only so they didn't have to relive it, but he knew in time they would find a way to enjoy themselves. The King stepped aside and gestured to the Knight to open their cells up, though the King seemed like a jerk, he was the only one who came and actually explained things to them.
Soon they were upstairs in the castle throne room, all standing before the King, he took the time to explain that the Legion was once a fierce group, with a King that could not be rivaled and for the last thousand years they have been quiet, but in the last month they had gotten reports of people wearing the symbol of the Legion were attacking towns and villages with no reasoning. After the Knights and King did some digging they found that there was a way to bring back the Legion King, Bahamut. He was sealed in an alternate plane of existence and trapped there for all time. But if the pieces of this seal are gathered under the blood moon they could bring him back.
"Of course they would have to know the spell to bring him back and the only ones to know that are long sense dead. However, we can't have this cult running around hurting people looking for those seals. We need them stopped, the best way to do that is to gather the seals ourselves and destroy them. You will more than likely come across this Legion on your travels but we have faith that you can withstand them." The King didn't waist any time getting straight to the point of the matter and getting them set for the first quest. Which was a dungeon to the far west, past the village we first came to, located in the middle of a small forest. As much as they knew what was on the line they couldn't help but think about food as all they had in days was stale bread once a day.
They were offered their weapons and items back as well as given some gold pieces and heal potions to start them off on their journey.
"You will have the day to prep but by tomorrow we hope that you are off, we need to get moving on this." The King then waved them away, saying they were free to go about their day now.
They headed back to the guild hall, all of them tired and starving as they went to order food, ordering hamburgers and fries and as it was brought out to them it seemed to almost sparkle, the meat patties large and dripping with cheese, each fry lightly coated in salt. Their mouths started to water, as if the food was made of pure magic, they all gave a moment and bowed their head, this was something they had always done back home and so they continued the tradition in this world. They then dug into the food, it seemed heavenly as they filled themselves, it wasn't that they had never gone hungry before but a week of eating well only to have it taken away for four days made it seem even better than before. They ate till they were content and headed back to their room.
"So are we really going through with this?" Vixen looked around at them all, "We could just run away."
"But then the world would be destroyed, then what was the point of coming here." Razah stood firm on her choice and wasn't going to turn back now, everyone else seemed to agree, as much as they wanted to just live simple lives, it didn't seem like it would be that way, at least not until after they beat the game. They tried to keep their focus on that, this was their new goal, their new mission.
They all gathered together in a big group hug, promising that they would watch each others backs as they always have, that they would protect one another and always be there for them. That is how their day ended, the next morning they all ran through town, getting all they could, items for healing their health and magic. They got ingredients for meals that they could eat on the road and tents so they could sleep as well as magic flint to start fires, it worked the same as normal flint but it didn't run out. They also grabbed some teleport cubes in case they had to make a quick escape, letting them leave a dungeon if they used them and water skins that they could fill. It seemed like they were all ready, checking to make sure they got everything on their check list before heading out.
"Let's go team." Art's voice getting loud as he pointed forward, this time they let him have his moment.