VarionusNW — Roleplayer Guild

Johanna Stryfe

Johanna Stryfe was a mess. Her hair fell across her face in a haphazard manner, and she felt in dire need of a bath. She had stayed cooped up in her small room for days, rarely taking a step out of it unless it was necessary. The girl had been rather ill for the last week and a half, and only now was her illness beginning to let up. Her miserable condition prevented her from going to school as well as playing Deep Ground Online, meaning that she was unable to do either of the only two things that her parents wanted her to succeed in. Her parents committed her to bed rest for the whole of the time she was sick, and she wasn't allowed to do any extraneous activities until she was better. Though, it's not as if she was ever allowed to do such things.

Hanna sat in a cheep, feeble wooden chair at a desk of equal quality, staring at the small pile of papers that sat before her in the dim light of her bedroom. A number of hours prior, after school had let out for the day, one of Hanna's classmates had delivered to her the homework she had missed that day. It had been like this since the first day of Hanna's absence, but only now had she found the energy to sift through the litany of worksheets and practice problems that had piled up on the small table, threatening to break the object that seemed barely able to hold its own weight. With Johanna's parents having a deep concern for her use of time, they set her time limits for everything, including completing homework. She was supposed to have this endless pile completed in the next 45 minutes, but the minutes seemed to flow faster than the girl could work.

Though, somehow, she was managing. She had already finished most of the monstrous workload that, logically, would take one a week and a half to complete. Through some miraculous burst of speed, Hanna had worked through her ever fading illness, and drained the workload to a single piece of paper. Moving aside the rest of the work, Hanna picked the last paper out of the pile, adjusting her thin-rimmed reading glasses on her sickly face as she did so. She had expected some gloriously difficult series of equations that would delay her actions for another half hour, but was instead delighted to find a card addressed to her from a good portion of her friends. A thousand signatures surrounded a large, colorful "Get Well Soon!" While it was a kind gesture, it failed to warm the girl's heart, as she was unable to recognize the names of those who signed the card, save for a few good friends.

Hanna quickly stretched her arms and breathed a sigh of relief as she realized she had finished the work with half an hour to spare. Noting that she felt as if her skin had been replaced by a million layers of dry sweat, she decided to use that time to take a bath. She stood from the well worn chair, shutting off her small desk lamp as she did so, and made her way out of her room, her stride weak and tired. Johanna slowly walked through the small living room of her family's apartment, which was at least of average size. Hanna found her mother standing over a pot of boiling water in the kitchen. Her mother turned as she noticed Hanna hobbling to the kitchen.

"Oh, Johanna, how are you feeling? Dinner will be ready in a bit. How is your homework coming?" Her mother's words fell like a torrent of consciousness, unwilling to give the sick girl a moment to process a question without throwing another thought on top of it.

"I'm fine, mother. I just finished all of the homework. I was thinking of taking a bath in the half hour I have left. By the way, were is dad?" Though her words came at a much slower, thoughtful pace, her stream of words seemed to borrow much from the speech of her mother.

"That sounds alright. Oh, your father is out with Mr. Bartelby. He's working his magic, trying to get a promotion at the company and all. You know how convincing your father can be." The old woman spoke with such a nostalgic sentiment, her voice keying her daughter into the cheerful reminiscence of it all without a single word of the memories being spoken. She let her thoughts mingle for a few moments before returning her attention to her daughter. "Anyway, when your done, come eat, and  then get right on the game, alright?"

"Yes Ma'am." Johanna took her leave, and made her way back across the living room, and towards the bathroom.

The bath had refreshed the young girl. She had felt the sweat and her troubles fade away, even if it was only momentary. Her weakness was fading more noticeably, and she was confident that she would be able to return to school on the next day. Johanna followed her bath with dinner, sitting down with her mother to enjoy a plate of pasta. Even though they didn't have the money to afford the best of ingredients, her mother could certainly cook, allowing the experience of bland pasta to be much more palatable than it should be.

Eventually, Johanna knew that she had to log on to Deep Ground, which she had barely been on for the past week. Of course, she kept getting on for at least 10 minutes each day, but this wasn't very much, considering that she was usually on for several hours a day, an amount of time she wouldn't be reaching while she was still sick. And so, submitting to the inevitable, Johanna made her way back to her room, stumbled through the darkness, eventually falling onto her bed, and logging into the game.

Abyss Walker

The brute stretched her familiar clawed fingers, remembering the weight of the character which she had missed out on for much of the week. She made sure to shove the thoughts of Johanna Stryfe to the side. For the moment, Deep Ground Online was her reality, and her name was Abyss Walker.

Abyss Walker found herself standing in an alleyway in one of the many areas controlled by the Ivory Masks. She made little movement while she observed her surroundings, which seemed empty, which was strange for Ivory Masks territory. Then again, she was standing in an alley. Abyss Walker's tall, wiry frame seemed out of place in the landscape, with its metallic body that flowed and moved like muscle, and with no face, but a face-plate backed by nothing. Abyss Walker had qualities that seemed human, but in an eerie, corrupted sense, that bastardizes those elements into something wholly inhuman.

Abyss Walker slowly stepped from her place in the shadows, moving towards the streets which seemed busier and busier and she approached. Before she moved into the flood of players, Abyss Walker remembered that she had yet to check her messages in the past week, and found it vital to do so before any business opportunities were passed up. And so, she stepped back into the alleyway, and checked her messages.
VarionusNW Member

Nobody In Particular

Status

Recent Statuses

Bio

Most Recent Posts
