[b]Happenstance ::: Floor 35[/b]

"What a [i]bitch[/i]." 

Clarence Moore scowled disgustedly at the player bearing the username [i]Dark Arrow Mora[/i] who had just slaughtered an unprovoked player in a safe-zone in what was obvious to everyone as an unfair, forced duel. He wasn't the kind of person to go getting himself involved in other people's affairs, but some things just weren't [i]right[/i]. Everyone was struggling to survive here, the objective was to beat the game, and he hated that so many players would be so selfish as to murder their comrades. It might be all fun and games if it were that, just a game, but people could really die here. You die here, you die in the real world too. Red players were no better than murderers, the scum of the earth. 

He spat on the ground as she stalked out the door pompously, but she either didn't notice or purposely ignored him. As he watched, a man rose and followed her out. Maybe he was an accomplice, maybe he was out to get her for what she'd just done. He hoped it was the latter. 

As his username suggested, Happenstance wasn't a particularly serious player. Well, he was serious about playing, MMO's were his forte, but he wasn't particularly goal-oriented. As good as he was, he knew there were probably better players out there. Even though one could not see others' levels, he was sure he wasn't very high-ranked among them, and though he'd helped with floor-clearing a handful of times, it just didn't particularly interest him anymore now that big shot guilds like the Knights of the Blood Oath made it their sole purpose in life to clear the game. All the most talented players were asked to join guilds like that, while he, well, he was just an aimless wanderer. 

It didn't take long for the atmosphere of the taproom to cheer up a little, though several players had either left or retired for the night. He ordered another ale at the bar and sulked for another half hour. A small voice in his head told him to go after that mercenary woman and make an end of her, that little voice of heroism and justice. He quickly squashed it with the logic that had helped him to survive up to this point: [i]keep your head down and don't go sniffing for trouble.[/i]

"Yeah," he smiled bitterly, "What a coward, poor bastard that I am. No wonder nobody's partying up with me." In fact, if you checked his profile it would tell you that he did belong to a guild, Dark Horses--he'd thought it was a clever name at the time--though being the sole member he guessed it wasn't much of anything, he just hadn't gotten around to dissolving it yet. 

After downing his ale he retreated to the rented room, he stretched out on the mattress and stared at the ceiling. Moonlight trickled in along with the faint sounds of crickets and wind in the eaves. If he was quite honest with himself he was probably depressed. His usual happy-go-lucky attitude somewhat dampened by tonight's events, among other things, like the fact he couldn't seem to keep people around. He made friends easily enough, they just never stayed, or maybe it was him that didn't stay. Probably they would move onto something else while he was set in his ways of performing menial quests on the same levels, or going back to lower levels to hunt out quests he'd missed before. He would check up on his favorite fellows once in a while, having them all saved in his friends list. Come to think of it, he could always rejoin them, but something happens when you part ways and come back together, usually one or both of you has changed, and then you wonder why it was you got off so well in the first place, or maybe remembered why you initially separated. 

He turned on his side and hugged the down pillow to his chest, knowing that the fact of the matter was simply that he was lonely. Six months of mostly solo-playing was wearing him down, and he was beginning to realize that his current lifestyle was pretty pointless. Heck forget floor clearing, he wasn't even contributing to the growing society of players who ran businesses, places like the one he was staying at now, or shops that crafted and sold things to others. He [i]could[/i] of course, if he wanted to, do the same. But somehow settling down like that just seemed altogether unappealing. He was tired of doing nothing, he needed some kind of purpose.

His thoughts returned to the murder, for it was surely a murder. Weren't there guilds out there that made it their job to take care of PKers? Probably, most likely. He wasn't quite sure how that would work but, in his experience, there was pretty much a guild for everything. He wasn't quite sure where he would find it though, so simply sighed, eyes closed, and let his thoughts drift to pleasanter things in the last few minutes before sleep overtook him.