Arc of Arlandia -- excerpt 5

Part 5 of raw & unedited 2009 NaNoWriMo....
blah blah...

===================================================

The screen finally loaded and immediately showed my character appearing in its “empty room” white room again with a single table sitting next to the ‘door’ and a notebook like object sitting on top of the table. Now that I was able to see my character again in 3D (outside of the character info page that we were looking at earlier on the members-only site), I was almost DEFINITELY certain something was different with my character…however I still wasn’t able to figure out what exactly it was. For a second there I tried to wonder why my character would’ve appeared different…For one, the class and element that were affected by the recent ‘changes due to technical difficulties….cleric & sorcerer classes and metal elemental…my character didn’t have either class nor element…but why…? I then recalled that the announcement had mentioned something about other changes being done to the game and while these changes were in-process some people might notice something different. But was this what I was sensing? Was this what I was feeling? Even if the answer was ‘yes’…what was triggering it…?

“Hey look Izuka! It’s a replica of your apartment!” Himura joked, and in the process interrupting my thoughts. I rolled my eyes. There was a popup that appeared in the middle of the screen that read “Welcome back Ikano!” Himura laughed and commented on it as well. “Ha, that’s cute. Like a lame attempt to make this ‘room’ of yours homey. Now if they could only make it a female lady’s voice then we’d be set!” I rolled my eyes again then shook my head while placing my head on my forehead…

“Alright then…let’s try and figure this out…” he exclaimed as he starting playing around with the keyboard and mouse trying to figure out the basic commands such as movement, changing the view/camera, etc. I had to admit he was either a really fast learner or he had played soo many of these sorts of these games so many times that he visually had a list in his mind of the most common ways games had their controls set. After a few minutes of messing around with the keyboard and controls Himura seemed to become an expert at using them and stated to me. “Eh. See? I made that look easy didn’t I? Come on! Admit it! You’re amazed.”

“Well I guess…” I answered back rather nonchalantly. “They’re just basic navigation controls. I’d be more amazed if you figured out how to survive in the field without needing to look up the help menu…but…” Himura suddenly interrupted me mid-sentence. “HA! I thought you’d never ask. I’LL CONSIDER THAT A CHALLENGE!!” He exclaimed loudly. After doing so though I felt as though I had started something I shouldn’t have and all I could do was stare at him using my character & leading him into impending doom while nervously drinking my juice…

He led my character to exit its room with ease and started wandering around town…First finding the general shop and buying a few potions then checking out the weapon and armor shop. “Hmm…I guess there isn’t a lot I could get at this time…we’ll I’ll be changing that” He spoke aloud as he starting leading my character to the “warp portal” in town--which was located in the most northernmost area of town according to the town map.

Once we got there Himura moved the camera quickly around so to take a quick glance at the surroundings. This northernmost area almost appeared to be a wide open circular area for players to gather. The center had a floating shining rock-like object and had a blue light encircling a small area around it…One could probably guess that this was the warp portal…

This little ‘enclosed area’ –by the way—also happened to be (in relation to the map) opposite of the area I had been to the other night, which was also designed to appear like a big open circular area. The main difference between this “northern town circle” and the “southern town circle” was that the northern one was indoors while the other was “outdoors” AND…the southern one had a large fountain in the middle of it—while this one had the “warp portal” that could warp you to other dungeons.

“Alrighty then!” Himura stated. “Let’s get this started.” He commanded my character to step up to the floating rock and selected the rock. There was a brief glow and a separate window appeared. There were basically three boxes in the window. The first box –which was located on the upper left hand corner (and spanned as wide as half the window) had a list of names. The first one was highlighted by default and Himura pressed up and down on the keyboard to see if the highlighted selection would move—it did. Next, a second box located on the upper right hand side of the window (which again, spanned the whole right half of the window width-wise) seemed to describe the locations of the—I’m guessing—field dungeons names that was currently being highlighted on the left side and even included a image showing part of that field’s landscape (As the description & image changed while Himura had moved the selection up and down earlier…). The last “box” on the window covered the lower half of the window and spanned the whole width of the window as well. It was an important system message probably left there by the developers or whatever…It read:

]“Welcome to Arlandia’s warp portal! Unfortunately since this game is still under development a complete ‘warp portal’ version has not yet been released. However we have created and hand-picked several different fields so that characters can go ahead and try out a variety of fields. We hope to be able to give people more freedom in generating their own fields and dungeons to travel to once the game is completed for release. Again thank you for your patience and help with evaluating Arc of Arlandia Beta.”

“Well that figures.” Himura scoffed. “It’s the ‘we’re still in Beta so everything isn’t working like it should and stuff is not looking like they actually will appear in the final version—but you all are trying out this game for free so you can’t complain anyway!—excuse.” I merely shrugged.

“Well ok whatever…let’s go ahead and peek into one of these places anyway. And he already scrolled through the list of pre-made/created fields/dungeons that the developers had already started. Funny enough several of them were a play-on the MGO acronym. Stuff like Magnificent Green Obelisk, or Mystical Gasping Ocean. They even had ‘Masterful Guised Observations’ on their list and it shocked me so much before it dawned on me to tell Himura to check out that world. But instead he had opted on picking a field/area titled Melodic Green Ocean. He even commented, “Well this sounds soothing” Right before he went ahead and clicked the warp button.

A blue light from the floating stone wrapped around my character Ikano and slowly seemed to make my character disappear into thin air. After which a loading screen appeared on the screen – a little different than the loading screen that appeared when loading the game. No, this one was all black except for an icon of the “warp portal rock” floating up and down in the lower corner of the screen. There seemed to be a spotlight around the ‘floating rock” and the rock occasionally glowed blue. Below the little animated icon there was a flashing “Now loading” message typed with blocky pixel font but glowed letter by letter as if there seemed to be a light behind the letters that kept “shining” back and forth from the beginning of the text, to the end, then back to the beginning, etc.

Himura and I waited anxiously as the little Now Loading animation continued to run (or rather animate) itself…

Finally the screen changed to a beach looking environment and the name for the area “Mystical Gasping Ocean” appeared really large in the center of the screen while the camera –appearing as a monitor behind the words—zoomed around the landscape as if surveying the land. A rather soothing beach-fitting tune started to play in the background. The camera finally focused on my character Ikano as he finished warping into the area. “Ikano goes to the beach!” Himura said, laughing out loud.

Himura started to move my character around the area but then stopped and started pushing some other keys on the keyboard. He managed to open up the menu and started looking through them. “Eh…so let’s see what sort of skills this Rogue of yours has…” He looked through the various menus and windows and finally found the skill screen but seemingly enough—it was empty. “What?? No skills??”

“Well he is only level 1” I reminded him. “Well I figured there would be some sort of skill tree or list of skills you could unlock later in here. Dang…I guess this is one of these games that you have to buy all your skills from someone in town…that’s rather annoying!” Himura voiced in annoyance. I merely shrugged. Though if you ask me….if skills had to be ‘purchased’ perhaps they would not be so ‘set in stone’ compared to how if they had to be set out on our character’s menu—where it would definitely need to be set and followed strictly. I contemplated on telling Hjmura my thinking about the ‘learning skill’ difference between learning in-town versus learning via status menu-- but figured it would be better off not to start an argument over it.

While I had been thinking that however—Himura had opened the map and started walking around a little more then stopped and frowned. “According to the map….this is a rather small area without any entrances to another dungeon or something…” He then shrugged. “Ah well I guess that makes you less nervous than huh Izuka? Less of a chance for me to kill off your character if there are less monsters on this field.” He laughed again at his own joke while all I could do was just shake my head at him…

We wandered around a bit more until the background music seemed to pick up in pace. “Oh…that’s interesting…” as Himura started to comment when he turned the camera around a bit as if to survey the area. He noticed something in one of the directions and controlled my character to head toward it. As he…I mean my character… approached the unfamiliar shape in the distance the music in the now fast paced background music started to slowly get louder and louder until we were finally literally standing within 7 paces of the unfamiliar shape. The screen started to flash slightly along the edges almost rhythmically to the now fast-paced background music. The flash however was not so much distracting however that I could not focus on what was happening on screen.

“Alright then! Let’s try this!” Himura exclaimed excitedly as he pushed a few keys and commanded my character Ikano to attack the monster which—upon closer inspection looked almost like a humanoid-looking starfish that was walking around on two of its “legs.” I also noticed that it was named ‘Starfie’ when Himura selected it in order to input the attack command.

I watched in interest as Ikano pulled out two daggers from out of nowhere—holding one in each hand— and attacked the monster named ‘Starfie’ with attacks at a regular pace. The monster itself was rather weak and did not attempt to hit back as often as my character hit it and even when it did, it missed, 9 times out of 10. It was not long before the monster was defeated. Some numbers appeared above my character Ikano’s head when the monster’s dead body slowly broke up and faded away into nothing –most likely to show how much exp and gold he had received from defeating the monster. There was also a small jingle that sounded after the monster was defeated (it sounded like it was either a bell or a jingling of coins—I’m assuming it was meant to be the latter) and the background music returned to it’s soothing pace.

Himura turned back towards me with a frown on his face. “You know what…” Himura started to say. “This game would be so much better if it was compatible with a USB controller.” He voiced. “USB controller?” I asked. “Yeah…one of those controllers that are shaped similarly to the default style of controller that are shaped like this and have buttons on top so that you an hold em like this.” He explained as he used his two hands to form the shape of this controller he was describing and pretended to hit the buttons on it. “It’s like a video game controller but for PC games. And you plug em in the USB port—hence why they’re called USB controllers.”

“Wait…I think I know what you’re talking about…” I exclaimed to him. “You should.” Himura stated very bluntly. “I’m pretty sure you’ve seen me use it before.” I avoided reacting as his obviously argument provoking statement and continued, “This game is compatible with those controllers…at least, that’s what the tutorial mentioned…” Himura now looked at me wide-eyed. “Whaaat?! And why did you fail to mention this earlier? I would’ve brought over a USB controller for you to use!”

“Well first of all…you unexpectedly called me early in the morning.” Himura interrupted me with a “Actually it wasn’t that early.” I annoying snapped back, “Well the point is I was still sleeping before you called so to me your call was early!” Himura stayed quiet after my burst of anger and I continued, “ANYWAY…and then after that you UNEXPECTEDLY dragged me out to eat a ‘formal’ lunch with these two rich ladies.”

“Well…just to make it fair…the fact that I had to accompany them out to lunch was unexpectedly forced onto me as well…” Himura added. “OOOOk…fine. Fair enough.” I added then continued, “But anyway, after that you again UNEXPECTEDLY decided to come over—and I mean immediately. Where admist these series of events was there a chance for me to mention to you that this game was compatible with a USB controller?” I finally finished voicing and took a series of deep breaths to calm myself down a little.

Himura started back at me in silence for a bit before he finally said “Ok…you got me…But you could’ve mentioned it before we started…Now I don’t feel like trying this out anymore.” He replied back with a rather nonchalant tone. “It’s close to dinner time already anyway.” Himura pointed out as he motioned towards the clock. I looked up towards the clock in the room to check myself and found that it was around 7:40 pm. I turned back around and saw Himura had turned his attention back to the screen back to moving my character around.

“Well…let’s see where the exit is…or how to log out for that matter.” He thought aloud to himself. “It’s probably that floating rock over there.” I exclaimed as I pointed to an almost familiar shaped rock floatin in midair over in the distance. “Hmm…you’re probably right.” Himura replied as he commanded my character to walk over to the rock. We were apparently correct as Himura selected the rock a window popped up asking if we wanted to return to town and Himura selected “Yes.”

As the ‘Now Loading’ sign appeared once again and we waited for it the game to bring my character Ikano back to town Himura turned to me and asked. “So…what’s for dinner?” I sighed and shook my head at how silly he sounded.

“No really. You have any plans for dinner?” Himura repeated again with a slightly more serious look on his face. “I could treat you to something just for today as an apology for having to come with me to accompany the two ladies.” An apology for being dragged out to accompany two ladies to a high-class expensive restaurant for lunch? I seriously hoped deep down that he didn’t see that as the ONLY inconvenience he had caused for me today…

“Well…” I started to say. “Miss Kim actually gave me a lot of food yesterday when she found out I injured my arm.” Himura looked at me disbelievingly again. “Oh yeah right…injured arm. Excuse me for asking, but exactly how did you injure it again?” I contemplated on trying to think up the best way to explain it but figured it might be easier if I showed him so I motioned towards my living room and said “It would probably be easier if I showed you.”

“More like more believable you mean?” Himura added sarcastically. Before he stood up though, he motioned toward my computer screen. “What about this?” He asked. The screen was still showing the black now loading screen for an abnormally long time. I shrugged. “Maybe it froze?” Himura stared at it scratching his head. “You want to hard reset the computer or something?” I shook my head and answered, “Eh nah forget it. Just leave it on and if it’s not unfrozen itself when I’m done showing you this than I’ll hard reset the computer then.” Himura nodded and both of us stood up. “Oh…Himura..if you’re done with your drink could you bring the glass out to the kitchen too? Thanks.” Himura seemed to roll his eyes as if doing an impersonation of a little kid being told by their parents to clean the room and he grabbed his glass and we both headed into the living room. First to the kitchen of course so that Himura could drop his glass off and I could throw away my empty juice box.

“Alright Izuka. Let’s see how well you can do re-enactments!” Himura joked as we headed into the living room towards the couch. I rolled my eyes in response then laid myself onto the couch in what I remembered to be the position I was sleeping in. “Alright pay attention Himura.” I exclaimed to him partially wondering if he was really serious about knowing how I hurt myself or not. “I was sleeping like this…and when I woke up…I was like…this…” I moved myself slowly towards the position I had remembered awaking in.

“So you gashed your arm against the edge of this table?” Himura replied still with a doubtful tone. “Yeah so do you see?” I answered back while moving myself back to fully lying on the couch in ‘starting’ position so-to-speak. –Not wanting to stay too long in the ‘end’ position otherwise I’d hurt myself again. Or worse yet, reopen the wound. “This ‘fall’ doesn’t seem like it would end up creating a cut though…much less a large gash in your arm….” Himura replied…he then went quiet for a bit as if to think about what to say next before he continued, “You know…I actually haven’t seen this quote gash unquote you keep referring it as. Just how sloppily you wrapped it.” I rolled my eyes again. “I know I know I know. You did it all by yourself with just one free hand.” Himura added when he –apparently- sensed my annoyance. “But is it still bleeding or something? I’ll help you rewrap it if it still hasn’t healed…let’s see the damage!”

“Fine.” I finally said giving in to his ‘request’ and slowly unwrapped the bandages I had so randomly, chaotically, and almost haphazardly wrapped around my lower left arm the day before. When it was finally off I found that the gash had pretty much healed completely over but in its place a long scar ran down the length of my lower arm. I have to admit, Even though I thought the ‘injury’ was pretty bad I never imagined it would leave a scar that long… “Himura was apparently shocked as well since he bent down on his knees and approached rather closely to my held out arm and started at it rather wide –eyed. He even raised out his finger at one point and poked it. “DANG man….” He finally said when he finally seemed to recover from his shock and amazement. “And that was just from falling off the couch and banging your arm against that table?! Are you sure you weren’t sleep-walking??” I frowned. “As far as I know Himura…I don’t sleep walk….” Himura stood up and scratched his head. “I wouldn’t be this surprised if you do sleep walk and you injured your arm like that because of sleep walking.” I glared at him trying to get it through his head what I had just said… ‘As far as I know I don’t sleep walk.’ I’m not sure if he noticed but he continued. “Seriously man. That looks more like some battle scar…or burn scar…heck you might even get away by saying it was from a car accident.” I looked at him curiously as he appeared to –for a few moments- lose himself in what I figured might be evil mischievous thoughts…

“Ahem” He cleared his throat when he finally noticed I was staring at his with such an intense glare. “But really man…did you really get that from falling off the couch and hitting the table?? It’s rather unbelievable.” I shrugged. “I didn’t have it before I went to sleep but when I woke up it was hurtin and blood was falling everywhere…so I can only assume it was from sleeping… unless again I was sleep walking.” I glared straight into Himura’s gaze and quickly added. “And I’m CERTAIN I did NOT sleepwalk.” Before he could make another comment about my possibly sleepwalking.

“Alright alright you didn’t sleepwalk.” Himura gave in. “But still man…what in the world were you dreaming to have gashed it so much…were you swinging your arms around in your sleep or something?” As Himura finished voicing his question I pondered whether or not I should share the dream with him, but figured since it was so odd he would either dismiss it or make fun of my having such a weird dream…so instead I merely answered. “Eh…I was falling in the darkness towards the end of it…and I do recall kind of try to reach out to try to grab a hold of something… so I probably was swinging my arms around madly…”

“Well I guess that explains it.” Himura exclaimed proudly as if he had solved an unsolvable murder mystery all by himself. “Kids, the lesson of the day is: No sleeping on the couch like Mr. Izuka here did! Not only will you risk falling off it very easily, but you might even mess up your back!” Himura grinned as he appeared to be addressing an imaginary hidden video camera. “So tell us again Mr. Izuka! What did you learn from this experience?” He said almost too cheerfully as he moved his fist close to my mouth as if he was mimicking holding an invisible microphone in his hand. I was starting to grow tired of his joking/playing around but I went along with it and said “Yeah…don’t sleep on the couch if you can help it.” imura frowned a bit –probably not expecting me to say the ‘if you can help it’ bit but he did not voice an objection and instead changed the subject all together by answering with, “Alllrighty then…Do you need help re-wrapping that arm back up then?”

“Nah…forget it…It’s not like it is still bleeding and it’s Autumn-time anyway so I can wear long sleeved shirts to hide the scar anyhow…” I bluntly replied. “Alright then, if you say so…don’t say later that I didn’t offer to help.” Himura answered back as I raised myself up from the couch and gathered up the used bandages to throw out.

“Soooo…” Himura started to say. “Was that a no for dinner with a buddy?” he asked again. “As fun as it would be…I’m afraid I’ll have to turn you down man…” I tried to say as kindly as I could. “Like I mentioned earlier, Miss Kim gave me some food yesterday in one of her really huge box things…you know? Those stackable Bento boxes or whatever? And I really should try to finish it up and get the thing back to her as soon as possible…” Himura seemed to glance back and forth from my face towards my kitchen, then to my front door a few times before he seemed to understand the situation (at least I hope he did considering how many time he kept glancing back and forth). “Riiight…” He finally answered. “Well as much as I would like to accompany you…I’d rather go out and eat some ‘normal’ food for a change…you know…after that weird lunch. So I’m going to have to take my leave.”
FINALLY. My inner voice in my head rejoiced in glee while my face stayed expressionless. “Alright then Himura. Then I guess I’ll see you another time?” Himura nodded. As he walked toward the front door and I followed behind him.
“OH WAIT!” He suddenly exclaimed right as I was about to reach out to open my door for him. “I promised you a trade of info right?” I bent my head over to one side as I was clueless about what he was talking about. “Wow you forgot?” Himura said again with a more surprised tone. “Maybe I should….ahhhhhhhh nah it would make me feel bad, besides I prepared it for you and all already anyway.” And with that he reached in his pocket and pulled out a semi-thick wad of folded up sheets of paper. I looked at his still clueless about what it was.
“Man did you honestly forget? Didn’t I say I was gonna compile all the info I had about Princess Arlandia for you? You seemed like you were seriously interested in her the other day…for some reason.” I finally remembered what Himura was talking about and replied, “OHHH that. I didn’t expect you would find…let along give me any info.” Himura shrugged. “Eh, I wanted to compile all the info I heard on here anyway. You just gave me more of a reason to do it sooner. Some of it is kinda interesting if you ask me. Read through it when you get a chance you know?”
And with that he opened up my door –rather than wait for me to open it- and peeked out into the hallway (I guess to see if Miss Kim was there…). All was quiet and turned back and waved to me to let me know he was heading out now…and he quietly stepped out the hallway and walked down to stairs. I quietly closed the door when I saw him turn the first turn in the stairwell and could no longer see him.
Locking the door behind me I walked slowly back into my living room and paused for a second in front of the couch/table to stare at the paper in my hand that Himura had handed me…contemplating if I should try looking through it now or not…

My stomach made a low growl thus answering my question for me. “I guess I’ll have to eat first then” I spoke aloud to myself and put the folded sheet down on the table and headed towards the kitchen. I opened the fridge and pulled out the box the box that Miss Kim had lent me and scooped some of the carious dishes out into another smaller bowl so I could re-heat it. At the same time I wondered why ever since this morning Miss Kim did not seem like she was home at all… I pushed the thought out of my mind and proceeded to warm my ‘dinner’ when I finally remembered my computer was still logged into Arc of Arlandia. Or at least it would be if it wasn’t stuck on the ‘Now Loading’ screen.

I literally dashed back to my bedroom and walked over to my desk/computer to shake the computer mouse to waken it from screensaver mode to check what it was doing. Surprisingly enough, it had ‘unfrozen’ itself from being stuck on the ‘Now Loading’ screen and I now saw my character back in the northern town circle (the room where the warp portal rock thing was located). Funny enough, my character was leaning against the side of the wall with his arms crossed and staring off into the floor. It was almost as if he was waiting for something. I turned the camera around the room slightly to see if anyone was else in the area and there were. And similarly like my character Ikano, some of them were leaning against the wall in a similar pose to my character while some others who weren’t against a wall were alternating between crossing their arms and shifting their weight around between two legs.

“Haha….that’s a rather nice touch” I said aloud to no one in particular. I guess those were the default afk (away from keyboard) poses your character would fall into if you left him idle in one place for too long. I contemplated on logging out my character but instead decided that I would keep him logged in as my curiosity about that certain area/field was still bugging me from earlier and I wanted to check it out sooner rather than later. So I decided to move him towards the southern “town circle” and let him “rest on a bench” while I went to eat dinner. As funny as it was to leave my character leaning against the wall like it was currently doing—I felt a little strange for leaving him like that while I myself went to eat dinner…

I commanded him to move toward the north town circle exit and he finally straightened up (in a kind of “finally I can move” kind of way) and headed out. I moved him south into the southern town circle, which took a while since the town was rather big, and found an empty bench spot to put him in. I commanded him to sit on the bench then headed back to the kitchen to check up on my dinner…

With it all warmed up I took the bowl to my living room couch and started eating it... contemplating if I should watch some tv or not. I decided not to since Ikano was waiting for me to return and instead flipped open the little piece of paper Himura had handed me and glanced through it…

]“Notes on Princess Artemesia” It read on the top of the page. I then looked toward the next paragraph.

“Said to be related to the goddess Artemis however it is unknown what the exact relation was. One theory states she is nothing but a mere mortal whom upon birth, was said to appear so pure white in innocence that the name, Artemesia, was then given upon her believing that she was a human reincarnate of the goddess Artemis. However as the girl grew people began to doubt their initial thoughts and beliefs and grew to think that Artemesia instead was a harbringer of the ‘darkness’…with her pure white innocent look and her remarkable similarity to the goddess Artemis. She was actually and agent to trick and entrap people who had given her all their trust. On the night of her 13th birthday, fearing for the safety of themselves and their loved ones, not wanting to wait anymore for her master’s plot to unfold… they somehow tricked Artemesia to stay in an enclosed tower and they locked her in there. To this day she is supposedly still in that tower…but no one was sure what had become of her fate.”

I scratched my head in confusion upon finishing reading the first entry.  It sounded too much like someone trying to make up a story around here but for some reason fell short of creativity near the end. All the same though, it was somewhat interesting and the association with the goddess Artemis was rather… well… fun to say the least, but I hoped the other “theories” (if this was what this sheet was only filled with) made slightly more sense and un-vague compared to this first one. I went on and read the second paragraph/entry on the page…

“Artemesia is the twin sister of a boy named Arlandia.” I paused reading a bit surprised. Arc of Arlandia was the name of a game after all. This background info would be interesting in itself only for that fact –again if this wasn’t made up by some random rumor-maker. I read on…

“They were considered magical guardians of a certain castle from where they were born. It has also been said that the two did not age. And forever played with each other within the confines of the castle, their laughter could be heard sometimes on especially cold nights.” I paused again as I recalled something in my dream earlier…the one that caused the huge scar that was now covering my lower left arm…I recall I had heard laughter towards the end of the dream when I was falling through the darkness…but I could not recall exactly… I pushed aside the thought and continued reading…

“One cold night a stranger came upon their castle and was forced to take shelter in their castle. Though wary at first, the twins warmed up to them and played with the stranger all through the winter. They grew into a nice little family… But one day when the snow finally cleared and all melted away and spring had come again… the stranger had to reluctantly leave the castle where two children had lived and played with him all through winter… On the day he left he had left a note saying that he would one day return and bring the twins along with him on his journey. Many winters passed and the twins never saw any sign of the stranger ever returning. Even though they had each other, without the stranger they felt like they were growing lonelier and lonelier. Artemesia especially yearned more and more for a day when the stranger would return… Arlandia however grew a sense of envy and hatred towards the stranger thinking if the stranger had never come from the world outside their castle, the world he and his sister shared would still be everlasting joy and happiness. The feeling of hate and envy aimed towards the stranger one day evolved into hate and envy towards all of the world that laid outside of their castle.

‘My dear sister Artemesia. I must destroy the source of our pain and sorrow. I will warp and destroy the outside world with my power, my being, my existence. And though it make take numerous cycles, I promise you it will return to how it was.’

‘Dear brother Arlandia. Why must you do such a thing? He might return to us very soon. And all will be back to how it was.’
‘Sister you do not understand. You can stay here if you wish and wait for him. And if he is to return, you may call me back. But do not keep your hopes up. He was only a mere human, he did not return long ago and he will never return ever again.’

And despite Artemesia urging him to stay, Arlandia left. What she did not know was that right before Arlandia left he had cast a spell of traps, illusion, and protection around the castle making it impossible to be found by a mere human. So, if the stranger did even try to return, he would most likely be driven back because of all the spells. By the time Artemesia realized this, her cries could no longer reach her brother’s ears as through his own power, his existence spread out upon the world like an intangible haze of hatred and darkness.
Her own powers had grown weak because of her years of loneliness and even then her existence was growing ever more unstable—perhaps because Artemesia and Arlandia complimented each other and they needed each other to keep their powers & existences stable.
Yet to this day she continues to wait in their castle crying out in vain to call her brother back…or to call out for the stranger that had yet to return…

All I could do after reading that was blink in awe… This little ‘story’ of the background behind Artemesia and Arlandia was too good to be true. Yet deep down inside he felt as though this story was true. It was genuine. It was not made-up, this was the true story behind Artemesia and Arlandia. There was even a strange sense of familiarity or nostalgia deep down in my... however I did not know why it was so. I did not remember reading any such similar story in another book, or game, or anything else.

I also still didn’t quite understand why the game was called Arc of Arlandia instead of the name of their castle or something of the like…. Or perhaps the castle had no name to begin with. My head started to hurt so much thinking about it though that I decided to push the thought to the back of my head and continued reading the rest of the sheet…

The rest of the ‘info’ on the sheet were more ridiculous than the first explanation I had read and not as detailed as the second. Strange and baseless things like “Artemesia is merely the name of a long-lost country named Arlandia” or “Artemesia is a kind of butterfly that originated from the moon.” (What in the world?!)  Honestly, nothing else I read convinced me otherwise that the second ‘story’ was not the more ‘accurate’ of them all… and so I unconsciously dismissed almost everything else written on the page...

“BAH!” I hollered out in annoyance. The thought was just bothering me and I couldn’t figure out why… I put the sheet down and focused the best I could what I needed to get done… I hurriedly finished eating my dinner and, when I finally emptied my bowl, brought my dishes to the kitchen and quickly washed em and made sure I had put everything back where they should be… I than walked back towards the living room and snatched the paper from the living room table and marched back to my room stopping in front of the shelf next to my computer/desk. I stood there hesitantly staring at the paper –trying to decide where to put it-- when that kind of naggy feeling started creeping back into my mind…

“GAH! Why do I keep thinking about it so?” I exclaimed aloud to no one in particular as I walked backwards and fell (backwards) onto my bed. I stared at the ceiling blankly for a good minute or two before I again raised my hand (that was holding the paper) and stared at it again…

Artemesia…. Arlandia….. it’s just a story… why am I getting worked up over it…? I thought to myself again…then closed my eyes for a bit and took a few deep breaths…
My mind finally cleared up after awhile and remembering that Ikano was still logged in I popped back up onto my feet and got into my chair and straightened myself & stretched myself out before I prepared to wake it up front sleep mode.

“Alright then…” I spoke aloud to myself. “Time to check out that world…what was it again…? Masterful Guised Observations?” I reminded myself, as I shook my mouse and prepared for some action…….