C'mon....c'mon clock. Tick faster. I want to go home already. Aoi thought impatiently as she tapped her pencil lightly against her notebook, which was covered in what she called her 'boredom doodles'. It consisted of a few characters that she and her childhood friend, Zarek, had thought of when they were a bit younger. However, she hadn't thought of bringing the characters to life until after he moved from that home that he had practically grown up in. Now, all she had was these doodles and memories to remember him by, along with the occasional phone call, but that was hardly enough for Aoi.

The professor, who was still wearing that same, boring expression from when he started class finally turned around and told the students to have a nice spring break, much to Aoi's relief. She didn't know why she'd even come to class, knowing that they weren't going to do much but that didn't matter now that she was able up go home and stay there for the next few weeks without having to show up a school on time. Quietly, the black haired girl gathered her things before swiftly leaving the room. Aoi weaved through the growing crowd easily and dodged bodies left and right as she made a bee line towards the lobby area of the building. She watched friends happily greet other friends before joyously exciting the building together and Aoi felt a pang of envy.

If only I could be like that...no, no. I have plenty of friends in Solarie Online. she quickly reassured herself before she could fall into that dark mood again. Shaking all those thoughts away, she focused on placing one foot in front of the other. The further she got away from the school, the more relaxed Aoi became and she was able to enjoy the scenery around her. She was usually in such a rush to get to school that she never got to really look at beauty that surrounded her. All around, tall trees loomed over her head and shaded her from the afternoon sun that seemed determined to boil her blood. For a spring day, it was actually pretty hot and Aoi found herself slipping out of her sweater to avoid over heating. After doing so, she noticed a bush filled with blooming flowers and immediately walked over to it, silently wishing that she had a camera to take a picture of it. She, instead, leaned over and gently cupped a flower with her hand and inhaled deeply, smiling a bit as she did so. This smells great... No matter how much she wanted to stay, though, she needed to get home before she was late for the guild meeting.
~~~~~

With that thought in mind, it didn't take Aoi long to make it back to her small apartment, located about 30 minutes (on foot) away from the school. She climbed up the steps to the second floor before stopping in front of room 205 and pulling out her key. Once the door was unlocked, the girl hurried inside the door and locked it; Aoi then discarded her book bag off to the side before immediately heading to what she referred to as her Relaxing Room, which was the second bedroom of the apartment that she didn't have much use for since she lived alone. Inside was a desk where she kept her computer and all the games and accessories that went along with it. Next to the desk was a worn but comfortable blue couch that her parents gave to her as a house warming gift.

Across the room sat a tv that was surrounded by various gaming consoles but Aoi seemed to ignore them and headed straight for the computer. It only took the computer a few seconds to boot up and an even shorter time for Aoi to log in. She immediately moved her mouse over to Solarie Online's icon and double clicked. A picture of an animated female dressed in priestly clothing popped onto the screen, telling the user to wait while the game loads. 20%....35%.....52%...could this thing possibly go even slower? Aoi thought as she drummed her fingers impatiently against the desk. Sighing a bit, she glanced over at her phone, wondering if she should let Zarek know what she was out on break now. Maybe they could finally schedule to meet up-- Aoi's thoughts were interrupted as the words: 'Please Connect to Your Head Gear' flashed onto the screen. "I'll just text him when I log out." Aoi mumbled to herself as she reached for her head gear. She placed it onto her head and felt the little sensors connect to her temples before closing her eyes, only to wake up in Solarie Online as Aoina.

Flowers. Flowers of every shape, size and colors filled Aoi's vision as she opened her eyes. Glancing around, she noticed that she was in a meadow, one that was being overrun with plants. Flowers and weeds stood nearly as tall as she and little clumps of trees were scattered here and there but the path that winded through the meadow managed to stay free from the plants. She reluctantly forced herself to look away from the flowers and up at the very realistic but animated sky. Judging by the amount of light coming from the setting sun, it was nearly evening time in Solarie Online and Aoi swore softly to herself. I'm late...!
~~~~

"You're late, Aoina." A deep voice announced as the green haired mage tried to sneak into the room unnoticed. Aoi's cheeks flushed as twenty pairs of eyes turned to look at her and the girl smiled sheepishly. "Uhm, sorry about that. I just got home from school..." She explained and the guild leader (a level 65 ranger) waved away her explanation with his hand. "It's fine. Just sit down so that I can finish up." Nodding, Aoi did as she was told and took a seat around the large conference table that the guild had rented out for today. Unfortunately, Aoi unconsciously tuned the guild leader out almost as soon as he began speaking. She got the main gest of what he wanted to say, though:

"Do better in your fights against other guilds."

"Make sure you donate so we can get enough to buy our own building for our guild."

"Level up as much as you can."

Aoi is only level 35 now, since she had to take a break from Solarie Online because school was taking up most of her time, but she was ready to make up for all that lost time. Even if it took all night, she would get to level 40 so she could get a job change from a Mage to the next highest job choice. The girl was so engrossed in her fantasy that she almost missed it when the guild leader announced that the meeting was over and Aoi was up and out of the door in a matter of seconds. She did have somewhere to be, after all.
~~~~

Aoi had to travel through three different maps and walk through half of the terrain of the Land of Time to get to where she needed to go. Eventually, she made it to a little NPC based town located in the middle of the map. She'd used up quite a bit of her health potions while on the way here to avoid dying but, now, she needed to refill. As she was about to walk over to the Potion Specialist NPC, she spotted a familiar symbol out the corner of her eye and when she turned to get a better look at it, she realized that it was, in fact, someone from one of her guild's 'enemies'. The words of her guild leader echoed in her mind as she walked over to the guy, whose name was Ragnarok_Red, and spoke to him.

"Hey, wanna duel?" She tried to ask it casually and without much emotion. Just because her guild didn't like his did not mean that she had to be rude to the guy.

The tall, muscular Warrior character appeared to be unresponsive for a number of seconds. Was he ignoring her? Was he simply AFK? There were a few things in Solarie Online that would prompt this sort of action, yet it was difficult for other players to notice unless they were in the same guild. Seconds later, the red-schemed man turned his head away from the idle NPC and toward the face of the mage before him. "I would love the twenty XP," he stated in a surprisingly bland, non-arrogant manner.

Rewind this scenario a few hours, and you get this;
Zarek was working his way up the stairs of the Mens' Dorms at his university, carrying his bag over his shoulder. A rather pointless day, non-surprisingly, he reflected to himself about class today. Zarek yawned as he entered the hallway leading to his room. The hallway was surprisingly bleak, even for college dorm room standards, only to be spiced up with motivational posters dotted around. You know. The pictures of scenes from nature with a black border around them, captioned with a word of value which has no relation to the picture whatsoever. Ignoring the picture of a waterfall captioned "Patience", Zarek arrived at his dorm room. There were a couple notes on the bulletin board attached to his door. "Enjoy your Spring Break!" the first note read, signed by the Dean of Students. Shifting his eyes to the next one, Zarek noticed this one was from his roommate. "Gonna be gone all break, enjoy yourself," the second one read. It was fine with him; the whole dormitory was going to be empty, more or less. This way, Zarek could perfectly do what he did best without fear of interruption.

Sleep.

Zarek stepped inside and shut the door. After sliding off his bag and neatly hanging it up on the door, he kicked off his shoes and went to his alarm clock. "2:34 PM", the clock red. At first, Zarek set it for 3:34 PM and laid down into his bed, but he figured he'd want an extra hour of dreamland. He lazily reached over, gave the alarm an extra hour, and near-instantly dozed off while his arm slumped to the floor.

/////////

It was a long, narrow, dark, and damp alleyway. The pouring rain didn't help much as Zarek carefully stepped through the puddles of mud along his way. Eventually, he got to a muscular man with red hair standing beside a door, lit with nothing but a small lamp hanging down. "You got the goods?" the man roughly interrogated. Zarek passively handed him a small cloth bag as he opened the door himself, not waiting for the man to unlock it for him. He shut the door and hung his black trenchcoat.
"Excuse the mess, please," Zarek said, now walking towards a chair opposite a desk. A much fancier, black leather chair was turned around on the other side. Zarek took his seat in the much less impressive chair and rested his elbows on the desk. "The weather is unforgiving today."
"It's quite alright," a woman's voice assured from the black chair. She turned around, revealing herself to be none other than a good friend of his. Aoi, that is. "I'm just glad you're okay. Tell me, how did the job go?"
Before Zarek could speak, they were interrupted by an outrageous pop song. "Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down..." With that, the entire scenario disappeared, like a bubble that had just been popped.

/////////

Zarek found himself back in his bed, loathing the decision to ever let Rick Astley wake him up. He hurriedly got out of his bed and hit the "off" button to his alarm clock. Giving off a groggy yawn, he lazily walked over to his computer setup and moved the mouse some. He rarely ever turned it off, due to the regular inflow of messages he had to read. One in particular caught his attention;

4:31 PM [Tempest_Green02] "Dude, get your behind out of bed already. Today's when we decided to teach you 'bout killin' Royal Reds"

There were several subsequent messages by him that followed, but Zarek chose to ignore them, having got the jist. Tempest was always fast-paced, while Zarek took things more slowly. An ironic testament to their characters' playstyles in Solarie Online. Naturally, he was talking about slaying Royal Red Dragons. Zarek let out a massive yawn as he glanced at his phone. No point in telling Aoi, a friend from early high school he'd been keeping slight contact with, about his dream. Nothing else interesting happened that day either, so he decided to immediately sit down.

4:37 PM [Ragnarok_Red] "Hold your horses, dude, I'm up."
4:38 PM [Tempest_Green02] "'Bout damn time, hurry up and get on! Typing is XP waste."

After the brief exchange, Zarek clicked on the Solarie Online icon on his desktop, equipping himself with the headgear once prompted. Zarek was patient and wasn't much bothered with the long loading times.

/////////

Night-time already. Ragnarok really did miss out today. He was standing in front of an NPC, from when he last logged out after completing the quest prerequisite to access the Royal Red Dragon Dungeon. Almost immediately, Tempest_Green dragged him into a custom voice messaging group, one of their guild's satellite rooms. "Hurry up and get to the rondevous," Tempest ordered, "Your sister and I have been waiting ages."
"More him than I," Celestial_Silver interjected. Her real name was Sadie, but her and Zarek had an agreement to call each other by their in-game names while in-game. It only made sense.
"If he whines again, Celes, you can bash him a few times with your staff," suggested Ragna.
"Quit your dawdling," Tempest interjected before going silent. Zarek was just about ready to assume control of Ragna, when a lower-leveled mage casually walked up to him.
"Hey, wanna duel?" she casually asked.
"Hold the phone, guys," Zarek said in the private chat, "This woman wants to duel with me."
"Christ, Ragna," Tempest complained.
"Is she at least level 40?" Celes inquired, "It'll be a wipeout otherwise."
"Only 35," Ragna stated, followed by a laugh-grunt from Tempest. "She's a mage, though."
"Whatever," Tempest gave up, obviously not pleased. "Take your time, by all means." Zarek muted the private chat and switched vocal input to the public chat, apathetic of Tempest's outbursts. Ragna merely needed concentration. He turned his head towards the mage, eager to see if she could prove a match against his rising-Champion character.
"I would love the twenty XP," he stated in a bland, non-arrogant manner.

Aoi blinked a bit in surprise. She was sure that he would have responded in a more aggressive tone but maybe he had the same mind set as she did. Nodding a bit, she pulled up her game menu and requested to have a duel with the guy. The girl then waited patiently for him to accept the invite. As he did so, an animated voice sounded in the air around them. The duel between Aoina and Ragnarok_Red will begin in 10...9...8... The 'referee' began to count down and Aoi did a quick heal on herself until her HP was at one hundred percent once more; it would not have been smart to start a duel without a full bill of health. 5....4....3.... A mage did not necessarily need to be close to her target to defeat them, so Aoi took those last few seconds to move back a few feet away from her opponent. At that same moment, the voice said: The duel between Aoina and Ragnarok_Red will began now.

However, Aoi didn't move from her spot. Instead, she pulled her staff out in front of her and muttered a few words beneath her breath. Red flames with orange highlights licked up her legs, up her torso and eventually down her arms to where her hands were clutching her staff comfortably but firmly, causing a ball of fire to grow steadily in front of her; her casting speed was not as fast as she would have liked, but the girl figured that it would improve as she got up in her leveling. Eventually, the small ball of fire grew into one that was nearly the size of a basketball and Aoi could feel the heat radiating from it. Once she felt as though the fireball was at a reasonable size, she shoved it towards the guy, jumping to the size as she did so. She figured that he would attack the spot where the fireball came for...but honestly she just hoped that her assumptions were right.

As the virtual "referee" counted down, Ragna prepared himself by drawing his customized twin blades. The amount of precaution his opponent had taken would've been laughable to someone like Tempest, but Zarek had to be more perceptive of how she moved. Even at her level, she could possibly defeat him if he wasn't careful. As she moved back, he cracked his neck by tilting his head side to side. ... The duel between Aoina and Ragnarok_Red will begin now.

"I at least hope she knows what she's doing," Celes pleaded, being a High Mage herself. If a member of a private chat entered a duel, other members in the chat could opt to watch it remotely. It was the more entertaining option versus standing around watching tumbleweeds pass by. "Listen to yourself," Tempest said, "Look at how slow she casts, even a tank like Ragnarok would be able to wipe her out before she'd even finish."
Yet, even after taking a few steps, Ragnarok simply stood there, waiting for the green-haired woman to finish casting. It left Tempest speechless, earning a giggle from Celes. Perceptive, like her brother, she could see where this was going. When Aoina fired her fireball, Ragna inhaled a deep breath and swiftly brought up both of his sword in an X-shape out in front of his torso. He simply let the fireball hit him like that, causing smoke to cloud their entire movement range. Tempest remained speechless. Ragnarok's ability to tank damage wasn't close to that of a Sentinel class, but he could block Aoi's fireballs without suffering fatal damage. While the smoke still fogged the movement area, Zarek took this opportunity to charge forward to where he assumed Aoi would be. She'd at least have somewhat of a cooldown time before she could greatly move. However, just to make sure...
"Flurry," muttered Ragnarok, unleashing a rapid, almost majestic dance of his blades. Slashes and stabs all over. Even if she did move, something was bound to hit. Anything to keep her from running quickly or the like; he wouldn't let her cast another spell.

Aoina watched carefully as the area around her filled with smoke from her fireball. She hadn’t expected him to take the hit directly nor did she expect him to make the fireball disperse like so. I at least hoped that he would have taken a bit of burn damaged from that. I guess I’ll have to take another approach, then. The mage thought to herself as she looked back and forth carefully, expecting to receive some sort of attack from the guy. She didn’t have to wait long. Soon a gust of slashes and stabs came her way and she attempted to avoid the attack but it was nearly impossible, especially with the slower casting times that she had for her skills.

When the smoke and dust finally cleared, Aoi could be seen standing but her body was coved in various gashes and cuts. As she glanced up, she noticed that it had nearly wiped out ¼ of her health, leaving her with only 3/4 of the original amount and Aoi grimaced slightly. If he did another attack that was similar to that one, the he could potential end the duel before it ever really started. However, the mage was determined to keep that from happening. So she soon began to mutter another chant but this time, clumps of stone began to pry itself from the ground and wrap itself around her opponent’s legs. As soon as it touched him, the stone hardened, making it really difficult to move.

The casting time for this skill was longer than the first, but she did not have to wait for the casting to be over to see the final results of her skill: by the time she made it to the middle of her casting, she stone would be up to his thighs, keeping him rooted to the spot. Just imagine where it would stop if she had not run out of MP. Cursing silently to herself, Aoi shuffled as quickly as she could until she was standing behind the guy and rummaged through her bag for a MP potion. Of course, her spell was incomplete, but the effects were still there. Aoi just hoped that it would last until she was ready to strike again.

"God damn it!" Tempest yelled. "Quit toying with her and finish her off!"
"Hmm... A most peculiar spell," Celes thought to herself, ignoring the outrages of Tempest. "She's already lost, though," she bluntly put as Aoi began to shuffle through her bag.

At first, Ragnarok was shocked that the spell had an effect before the entire casting time passed. However, as Zarek did best, he quickly regained his cool-headedness and tried to find a way out of this. He didn't want to waste precious stamina trying to break free, but it appeared that he had no choice. With a great effort, Ragna broke one leg out of his stone prison, then swiftly slammed the the hilt of his right blade onto his other petrified leg, setting that one free as well.

Now. The ideal move for Zarek would've been Frenzy, a powerful yet swift combo attack, but he hardly had enough stamina to cover the cost for it. He had to resort to more... barbaric methods. With a swift hand motion, he swung his right blade around and held it in reverse. Then, he hastily pulled his arm back and pivoted around to where Aoina was. This would require some stupid luck, but Zarek was confident that he'd be able to finish her off right then and there. He... threw it at her with great force, much like a spear, before she could realize what was going on.

Aoi was still trying to get the MP out of her bag while her opponent managed to get free of her little 'trap'. C'mon....c'mon.... She thought impatiently to herself and, finally, she felt her fingers brush against the potion bottle. Pulling it out with a yelp of triumph, her expression soon took on a look of surprise as the blade of the guy's sword embedded itself deep into her shoulder, making her drop her MP potion, which shattered into pieces. Aoi was too busy staring at the dropped bottle that she didn't noticed that her health had dropped down to zero in a matter of seconds, causing her to fall over in a momentary state of unconsciousness. The sound of a trumpet blowing sounded in the air and the animated voice returned once more to announce the obvious winner. Ragnarok_Red has won in the battle between Ragnarok_Red and Aoina. The voice said cheerfully before disabling the dueling mode.

Aoina instantly went from being on the ground to standing on her feet. Her wounds were gone but her health and mana were only at 50%. "You....you made me drop my MP potion...." She mumbled to Ragnarok_Red as she stared intently at the spot where her MP had been. "I only have enough money to buy HP potions and that was supposed to last me till I got more money." The girl said more to herself than to him before she lifted her head, glaring at him slightly as she did so. "Thanks a lot." Was all that Aoi said before walking away, not bothering to go to the Potion Specialist NPC of the town...which is something she would eventually regret after nearly getting killed by monsters in the map.

Not expecting the woman to act so aggressively to her loss, Ragna took a sigh as he picked up his fallen blade. It wasn't as if duelling had been updated recently, she should have known full and well to be more cautious. More specifically, not to even use items in a duel. Was it pride? The guild Ragna was in, Skyward Legendaries, was gaining popularity, but had also gained several rivals. Not that Zarek cared much for guild relations, as he mainly went monster hunting with Tempest and Celes. At the very least, he could relate to losing an item of some value back in his newbie days. Now that his stamina was up to 76%, he decided to run over to the Potion Specialist of the town. Because of his habitual monster hunting, he could afford to purchase things which lower-levels struggle with. He bought two MP potions, then began to run in the direction Aoina was headed. Hopefully, she hadn't gone too far from the village.

"Hey," Ragna called once Aoina was in earshot. When he got close, he took a deep breath. He didn't possess the incredible endurance that Tempest held, so running long distances was a bit of an issue. When he regained his breath at 15% stamina, he pulled out the MP potions. "I didn't mean to make you drop your potions," he calmly explained, "I hope this is ample compensation."

Aoi had managed to scale a tree to avoid getting K.O. by any monsters. After a while, they seemed to forget that she was there but, as soon as she was about to relax, a familiar voice called from below. Glancing down, she noticed that it was the guy that she had battled only a few minutes before and he came bearing gifts! In his hand were a few MP potions, much to the girl's surprise. Expertly, she hopped down from her spot in the tree and landed a few feet in front of him with a confused yet grateful look on her face.

"You're really giving those to me?" Aoi asked the guy curiously. Most gamers would have not cared if she dropped her potions. Some would have even made her drop more of her potions (if she had any left), but Aoi could clearly see that Ragnarok_Red was no like other gamers. He was actually rather, kind. I can't just accept these potions without giving him something back. She thought as she rummaged through her backpack and, eventually pulled out a few coins. Holding them out to him, Aoi smiled. "Here, we'll trade, okay?" She hoped that he would agree, since Aoi was too stubborn to take the potions without giving something in return.

"He's STILL not in the ROOM," Tempest impatiently stated the obvious as he bombarded Zarek with PM's.
"Hm. Even I'm getting a little impatient," Celes mused to herself, but refrained from taking Tempest's approach. The video feed was cut off when the duel ended, so they couldn't see what was going on anymore. "Knowing him, though, he's probably replacing that MP Potion she dropped at the end," she explained.
"That's CHUMP change!" Tempest angrily yelled. "Even a level 35 should be able to buy ONE." Celes sighed.
"Someone's forgotten what it's like to be a noob," she retorted, "and Magic is becoming a more popular practice, so prices are skyrocketing." She clutched her MP canteen, a well-earned and money-saving quest reward that slowly replenished itself of MP potion over time. "Even someone like me has trouble buying them in bulk."
"Whatever," back-lashed Tempest. "Message me when he decides to tag along, I need to calm down," he said before unclipping and logging off.

Ignoring Tempest's PM's, Zarek accepted the trade. He wanted to avoid getting into a you-don't-have-to-pay-me argument and risk running even more late. "I didn't expect anything in return, but thank you nonetheless," he made clear. It became a little more obvious to Zarek on what she was upset about. He cringed at the thought of having to buy more than eight MP potions at once, he could imagine how much trouble she could have had. "Anyway, you can add me if you want. Some friends are waiting on me, so I have to get going." Ragna explained, then turned around and began to walk after waving to her.