The Glitch IV - Inversion (Ch. 1)

[LadyTevar]

"Un-less... Un-less..." Thog clearly had a thought, but it had escaped the confines of Thog's head and ran free for a few seconds, leaving him with a slack-jawed look until he recaptured it. Then he spoke. "Un-less you used bad-guys! You get dem to make you Bar-non!" Thog nodded. This made perfect sense. "I gonna go find Bar-non, den you in trouble!"

Leandra's jaw dropped, just like Leah's IRL. That was just... just... "no......"

[Charon]

"Un-less... Un-less..." Thog clearly had a thought, but it had escaped the confines of Thog's head and ran free for a few seconds, leaving him with a slack-jawed look until he recaptured it. Then he spoke. "Un-less you used bad-guys! You get dem to make you Bar-non!" Thog nodded. This made perfect sense. "I gonna go find Bar-non, den you in trouble!"

Ottoman stepped down from the pedestal, walking up to the half-giant the room itself almost seemed to darken for a moment. Everybody got the idea that saying that had been a bad idea.

"And why, my good Thog, would I do such a thing? I will not deny that I wished to be Baron one day. But I would never use such, creatures, to kill the Baron. You were not here, you do not know the complete and total rot of evil that came from these creatures." Ottoman turned away from Thog. "Besides, as I said before, both Decimus and I were outclassed by this creature, why would something so powerful bow to my whims?"

[SirNitram]

Thog furrowed his brows again. "Thog not know." He admitted. "But Thog not know lotsa tings. So Thog gonna do what Thog said: He gonna find Bar-non, and he gonna find out why! And den he come back." Thog nodded to himself. This was smart. Find the Baron. He knew stuff. Like how to count to 21 without getting tossed out of a bar for public lewdness.

[Dark Silver]

And while Thog made his statement, the warning message appeared before all the players, in semitranslucent glowing letters.

"All Destiny Servers are shutting down for emergency maintence. We are sorry for the disruption in service. - Destiny Support Team, Fortuna Game Studio"

--------

"What the hell happened Bill?"

Richard Henman scrambled through the code, trying to locate the problem, his teammate William Cranston working just as feverently.

"Fuck if I know, never got readings like that, it's almost as if every server just overloaded for a minute.

"Everything's in diagnostic mode now, we'll run them till the morning, see if it happens again."

"Think we should call the boss?"

"Nope, if we don't have a answer in the next couple hours, we'll update the site...."

------

To players all over the world, Zion seemed to fade, slowly at first, then more quickly as the HDD's lost thier connection with the game server. Holograms began to disperse, then disappear.

Things happened to quickly for anyone to properly log out, they could only hope a revert wasn't in order.

But Leah and Albert saw a strange thing before the holograms disappeared, a black cloaked figure, the cowl pulled back, revealing the face of a friend.

His lips were moving, though no words came out, if they could lip-read, they could make out the words "...dangerous, be careful..."

[Cynical Cat]

"Motherfucker!" Jason shouted. "I barely get in and it crashes fuuuuuuuuuck!" He took off the VR gear and slumped in front of the TV. What a shitty day.

[LadyTevar]

Leah continued to stare at where the cloaked figure of Darek had appeared and mouthed a warning to her. First the weird attack, then the Baron's death... then the server breaks... and now this? What the devil was happening with Zion? What happened to Darek?

She removed the HDD, setting it down on the table, then took the four paces to her daybed and laid down. This was... creepy. It was like that one horror movie series... what was it? Nightmare on Oak Street? Nah... that wasn't it.

[SirNitram]

"Well, that's just dramatic timing." Albert shook his head. He needed to get off anyways; there was a lab to run tomorrow. But that.. That near the end.. Was creepy. "I wonder what that was.. Well, it was him, clearly. But.." He mumbled to himself a bit more, and shrugged. He clicked on his instant messaging and pulled out a pen to start working.

[Comrade Tortoise]

Justin left the room, sweat still pouring from his brow. ANd stalked over to his roommate's room.

"Ok man, we both watch plenty of bad sci-fi, and I think we may need to evaluate whether or not this may be a Twilight Zone Scenario. We need to talk and figure out what the fuck is going on. So, what do we know.? We know that Leandra's friend Darek Steele went evil and became WAY more powerful than he already was. He is not responding to her calls in real life, andmissed an 'appointment' with her. We know that the ghost of the Baron is gone. And if he could, he would have stayed to be raised, so there is either something wrong with him, or something wrong with the server. But there were other ghosts so the chance of a server problem is low. And... I know this may sound wierd. But when I was casting, and when I got magic locked, I felt...different. I cant place it, but when I got magic-locked, I could feel something go... missing... and not in a game stat sense. So, what do you think?"

[Rukia]

"What the bloody hell?" Rory looked around at the fading images. "First they all leave me, then the fucking bullshit servers break. I didn't even get to save. I pay too much money for this shit." She took off her gear and all but threw it. "Fuck me sideways!" She left the room and walked into her living room and sat on the couch. hewr brow furrowed as she thought. This was really weird. She looked at her ar, where the swoard had caught her in game and saw the slightest rimnants of a cut. "What the---" She reached over and grabbed the phone, hopefully he'd still be up. As the phone was rining she remembered something Le had said. -Darek Sliver... what does that name sound so fam- Just then the other line clicked, "What do you want?"

"Dont give me that tone mister. Where you playing zion tonight?"
"No I'm sick why?"
"You'll never believe what's happening..."

[Shark Bait]

Justin left the room, sweat still pouring from his brow. ANd stalked over to his roommate's room.

"Ok man, we both watch plenty of bad sci-fi, and I think we may need to evaluate whether or not this may be a Twilight Zone Scenario. We need to talk and figure out what the fuck is going on. So, what do we know.? We know that Leandra's friend Darek Steele went evil and became WAY more powerful than he already was. He is not responding to her calls in real life, andmissed an 'appointment' with her. We know that the ghost of the Baron is gone. And if he could, he would have stayed to be raised, so there is either something wrong with him, or something wrong with the server. But there were other ghosts so the chance of a server problem is low. And... I know this may sound wierd. But when I was casting, and when I got magic locked, I felt...different. I cant place it, but when I got magic-locked, I could feel something go... missing... and not in a game stat sense. So, what do you think?"

Ted walked out of his room right past Justin and picked up the remnants of the drink he had left on the kitchen table after a few swallows he scratched his chest and winced. “What the hell he said looking down at a large red welt about the diameter of a soda can. When the hell did I do this to myself?â€

[Comrade Tortoise]

"Woudnt you remember bumping your chest enough to cause a welt? Seeing as you did it a moment ago? Still. We are going to have to talk to the others and see if something affected them in real life. I dont have Leandras number, I will have to get that from her tomorrow..." Justin trailed off

"Still, I would start keeping a careful taly of instances where something from the game bleeds through,if it happens. I will check the boards tomorrow when the server comes back up. I mean, When we get hit by a spell, the attack registers as heat, or force for example, but not as pain. That actually felt like a I hadent eaten for 4 days, you know how your stomach shrinks and you feel somewhat hollow and weak kneed? It felt like that. And that is something that no curse I have ever been afflicted by did. Even the ones that lower ever attribute"

"As for seeing things, As much as I love ya man, not like that...You arent my type, now that guy in Biometry..."

With that, Justin grabbed a piece of bread, some cheese, lean ham and some lettuce and made himself an open faced sandwitch.

[Shark Bait]

“Hard enough to cause a red mark, eh I might not remember itâ€

[Comrade Tortoise]

"Yeah, you may be right" Justin said, filing away his thoughts of a Twilight Zone scenario for the time being.

He went back to his computer and looked through the normal screen and files he had stored and finally came to Albert's number

He picked up his hard line phone and dialed the number.

[Agent Fisher]

Jack shook his head.

"Goddamn it."

He walked out of his game room and into the rest of his apartment. His school year was over, they let out real early.

He walked over to the fridge and opened. Nothing to eat.

He grabbed his jacket and headed out to his car to go get some food.

[SirNitram]

Albert looked up as he picke up his phone, cradling it to his shoulder as he peered over what, in theory, was a polisci paper. "Talk to me." He said. "That you, Justin?"

[LadyTevar]

After a moment, Leah turned and flipped her phone open over to "InstantMessage". While Leandra was a slut, Leah never gave out her phone number... only a screenname to IM her through.

Amusingly enough, Thog was one of the few people who knew her number and her primary screenname. After 15 levels of adventuring together, he was the only one she considered a friend. Pity he lived so far away.


Open IM:PoliSciSucks
LadyArchivist54: Hey. Did anything weird happen when the server shut down?

[Comrade Tortoise]

Albert looked up as he picke up his phone, cradling it to his shoulder as he peered over what, in theory, was a polisci paper. "Talk to me." He said. "That you, Justin?"

"Yeah man, it is. Heh, sorry about your house, I couldnt resist you see... At any rate... Today. Was. Fucking. Wierd. Anything odd happen to you physically? Because I felt like my soul had been ripped out when I got magic-locked and Ted has a huge red spot where that death spell hit him that he is trying to pass off a psychosomatic"

[SirNitram]

"Yeah man, it is. Heh, sorry about your house, I couldnt resist you see... At any rate... Today. Was. Fucking. Wierd. Anything odd happen to you physically? Because I felt like my soul had been ripped out when I got magic-locked and Ted has a huge red spot where that death spell hit him that he is trying to pass off a psychosomatic"

"Not that I've noticed.. Though I feel hungry, but that's because I've been grading papers since around eleven AM and only just got some time off. Always fucking goes down for an update when I get time, eh?" Al chuckled, spotting the IM. Ah, juggling attention.

PoliSciSucks: I saw... Well, I thought I saw Darek. In a cloak and cowl, creepy-villain-style. I think he was saying be careful of something?

[LadyTevar]

Al chuckled, spotting the IM. Ah, juggling attention.

PoliSciSucks: I saw... Well, I thought I saw Darek. In a cloak and cowl, creepy-villain-style. I think he was saying be careful of something?

Leah got chills all over again.

LadyArchivist54: I was hoping I'd been mistaken. At least you saw it too, so I wasn't going crazy. WTF is going on? Why did just the Baron go offline when that asshat Decimus didn't?

[Comrade Tortoise]

"Alright, it must have just been my mind playing tricks on me. But I hear you. I just got on when those guys teleported into my stretch of woods. I was in the lab all day going over data from my last little field excursion. Note for the future: Never EVER capture and tag alligator hatchlings when mother is around" Him and Al had been talking over IM and on various messageboards for a long, long time.

[SirNitram]

"Gee, I coulda told you that. They're gators. They eat meat, IE, people." Albert shook his head. Sometimes, hearing Justin made the follies of his students seem sensible. He continued to juggle his attention between the phone and the IM.

PoliSciSucks: Don't know. Elwyn is talking about some kind of psycho-somatic reaction; apparently he felt something physically beyond what he should have. Wierd stuff. Maybe the HDD is acting up. As for the Baron? No clue. I think I'll drop by the bookshop later and see what's up with him.

[LadyTevar]

PoliSciSucks: Don't know. Elwyn is talking about some kind of psycho-somatic reaction; apparently he felt something physically beyond what he should have. Wierd stuff. Maybe the HDD is acting up. As for the Baron? No clue. I think I'll drop by the bookshop later and see what's up with him.

LadyArchivist54: Oh. I keep forgetting you know him that well. Let me know what's up, ok? It's worrying me, for some reason. Tell Elwyn he's sexy, and I'll dream of him tonight ;-) I'm going to go ahead and get to bed.

LadyArchivist54: And please. Be careful.

[Comrade Tortoise]

"Yeah, and if I could avoid it, I would. But for my dissertation I have to track the little suckers and how their feeding behavior changes as they age. You know, to see if how they stalk a grasshopper differs from how they would stalk a dog, or if it is just a matter of scale. I also have to track how their size affects their thermoregulatory behavior. I pretty much have to write a book about them..." he of course trailed off for a moment, rememberinghe was talking to someone who probably had little interest in his dissertation.

"at any rate, have fun grading papers. ANd yes, Thog can stay in my grove. .. why you let me trick him into that is beyond me..."

[SirNitram]

"It was hilarious, why else? Hey, count yourself lucky. I'm doing my dissertation on the post-Bush II Republican Party. You read any of that stuff? Like watching civilization crawl back out of a dark age." Albert chuckled. "Oh. And Leandra says you're sexy." He added, smirking.

PoliSciSucks: 'Night. And keep out of trouble.

[Comrade Tortoise]

"She would... if only she knew what I really look like. A slightly pudgy four-eyed biologist who alternates between khakhis, a lab coat, and a wetsuit." he chuckled good naturedly. SHe really wasa very nice woman when she wasnt trying to get him in bed. Of course, the fact that he was gay was not ost upon her, and she probably did it more in gest now than in seriousness

"As for your dissertation... good god... I am just in mortal danger for my research. You are in danger of losing your soul, reading that stuff is like reading tomes of ancient evil bound in skin and scribed in the blood of virgins."