Swords and Staffs

If she was stuck in this game did it mean she had a soul or did it mean that God really did not exist? Why was it only her and no one else? And most of all, how could everyone conveniently forget the Halloween special event?

Ushimo contemplated this ever since he had met the young Fedora. Currently he was contemplating it on a bench in the town of Crisium. He probably should be doing something useful while in the game, but it was rather empty today.

Or maybe no one ever came on that server.

It did not matter in the long run of things. It was his time and his money wasted.

He sighed and leaned back on the bench. It was going to be one of those unproductive days.

"Hey Ushi-chan!"

"Oh... no."

"Oh yes!" A happy girlish voice said from behind him. It was a very small thief who had attached herself to Ushi. She was one of the many annoying people in Role Playing who should be shot.

Then again that's how she played it. She was nothing like that in real life.

"Just go away Ri3." Stupid name. Stupid girl. He would rather fight with Fedora than be subjected to this.

The girl decided to sit next to her superior. "You're worried about all those rumors about the Fedora, aren't you?"

Maybe she was smarter than she appeared. "Yes." He leaned forward without opening his eyes. "You know how scholarly I get."

"I guess what they say about all mages is wrong."

"What... do they say?"

"All you like to do is set people on fire and act like you own the world."

"No... that sounds right."

Ri3 nearly fell of the bench. That was just one of those things a normal person would never admit.

"Are you getting anywhere with this Ri3?"

"Of  course." The thief sighed. "It's pretty bad that you're contemplating the existence of a soul in a game. If you need to get your mind off of things you could just look me up, and we can use the game for what it's really for."

"Do we have a goal in this game?"

Ri3 was taken aback. "What?"

"You heard me."

"There is none."

"Then...why is it called what it is when... no one can be a hero?"

It could have been Ushi's imagination, but he swore he could feel the biting winds in this cold town. In fact he was probably one of the few people who was not wearing a parka on the field.

Why did she have to meet him here of all places? So what if few people came to this place, it was a hassle to walk.

Ushi flopped into a lodge covered in white fluffy snow. "It just has to be my imagination or the window's open..."

"You talk to yourself a lot?" The famous knight said from a bar stool.

"Yeah. Why did you call me?"

She shifted her weight nervously. No one else, with the exception of the computer player, was in the room so she had no real reason to hold back. Still... she hated to depend on someone. "Sit down, please."

"Isn't laying on the floor enough?"

"Just... shut up and come over here."

"Chivalrous aren't we?" The wizard said as he made his way over the the stools. When he sat down he was promptly smacked, and he promptly yelled, because it HURT.

"Geesh! It's not like you can feel it," Fedora said as she watched the wizard cringe in pain.

"It huuuurts...." He was to the point of tears in real life. Unless something had conveniently bonked him in the head in real life Fedora had just physically hurt him.

"But that's impossible." She said as she grabbed a potion from her canvas bag. "Use this."

With a quick motion the wizard poured the liquid on his head. "Much better...." Simply put the mixture was the gaming equivalent of Icy-Hot.

"Do I guess correctly," Ushi-chan did his best not to whimper, " If I say that you asked me here because of the strange things happening when you play the game?"

She nodded.

"It's only been a few days since we last spoke," Ushi-chan stated. "It's only the beginning of November and the BBS stopped talking about the Halloween Incident." He omitted the fact that many people thought that Fedora had managed to get a life and stopped MMORPGing.

"Also, I was wondering if you could do some research of your own. You know, like travel around the game and ask if people know who came up with the concept for this game, creator secrets or stuff like that. Even government conspiracies will do."

Fedora perked up a bit. It was nice being useful, and she had not felt ever since she got stuck in the stupid game. It reminded her of an anime she had watched when she was younger.

The conversation was suddenly interrupted by the opening of the lodge door. A group of three tumbled in and made it to the closet table.

Fedora looked to Ushi, "Should we?"

"Wait," he mouthed. Then he ordered ale.

A red head dressed as some sort of pirate captain with an eye patch took off her hat. "That was murder out there! Why do they even have a field like this?"

A girl with midnight black hair dressed in merchant attired patted the other girl. "Indy, it could be a lot worse. At least you have a decent weapons class, all I can carry is a giant ax."

"I don't know, Jules, an ax might bet a broad sword." Indy, the red head, looked towards a young man sitting across from them. "What do you think of this game, Lilu?"

"I'm surprised my computer hasn't crashed yet. The graphics in this game are amazing." Lilu was apparently a dark acolyte according to the dark robes and holy book grasped in one hand. "So when are the others coming?"

"Kari should have been here... I mean she set up the meeting place and gave us the game in the first place." Indy looked down to a watch on her wrist, that was not really there in the game.

"Did you guys hear about what happened during Halloween? I heard that they were having a big party and then..." Jules trailed off when she realized that other people, besides her min- party, were there. "We've been rude."

The one named Lilu blinked, "Huh?"

"Behind you."

The acolyte craned his neck to see the Knight and the Mage. "Ohhh... Hey do you two want to have a drink with us while we're waiting?"

Fedora hesitated, but nodded and made her way to the table, promptly followed by her wizard friend.

"Now," Jules continued, "As I was saying--"

Suddenly the door flung open and two young men flopped in. The first was short, had black spiky hair, and bright green eyes. He was dressed in the style of a historian or someone with ADD.

The second man had silver hair, carried a holy book, and wore all black robes.

"Mouse?" Lilu inquired. He knew one of them was the person she wanted to talk to.

The man with the black hair waved, "Bunni!"

The silver man seemed to edge back towards the now closed door. "So... I'm Z if any of you don't know... where's Kari?"

Everyone, with the exceptions of Fedora, Mouse, and Ushi-chan shrugged.

"But she's never late."

"She may have had computer problems." Indy said into a drink.

Fedora coughed, "Um... you were talking about the Halloween incident Miss Jules?"

"Ha! Just call me Jules. Yes, about that--"

Two more people piled into the room. This time a young blonde archer and a light acolyte with dark blue-black hair. Both looked like they were nearly frozen to death.

"The blonde one's R-chan and the acolyte is Quis," Indy the great captain said without even turning around.

Both the ladies waved.

Fedora blinked, this was a very large party. Why on earth would a party like that meet here?

"Why did Kari set up a meeting place like this?" Quis asked while she was handed a steaming cup of tea to save herself from frostbite.

"She said no one would be here." Jules stated. "If I talk about the Halloween issues I heard about will anyone interrupt?"

Everyone gave her a "No."

"Okay then. As I was saying, the whole big party was going on and a small private server crashed. Three administrators tried to set the server up again during party hours, but it crashed once they had fixed it."

"What's the big deal about that?" Fedora asked.

"Well... you see those three administrators were dead when found in real life. They were still at their computers and everything." Jules almost struck a victory pose for getting through her miniature speech without real interruptions.

"Why would we care? We don't even come from the same di--"

"SHUT UP MOUSE!" Lilu nearly jumped on the young man.

"What? What's so wrong with saying the truth."

R-chan pointed it out rather clearly. "See those two people you don't know?"

"The knight and the wizard...."

"Do the math, Mouse, do the math."

The historian smacked himself in the head. "Ooooh that was really a good one Mouse."

'That was strange. What were they babbling about... another dimension? That would be impossible!' Ushi-chan sipped his ale. 'How would they get their hands on a copy of our game in the first place... maybe I should ask them?'

"So, Where'd you hear about the game?" Ushi-chan said with a smug tilt of his head. 

Everyone unanimously said, "Kari."

"Oh...kay."

"Well, that's not completely true." Z said as he grabbed a bar stool. "I was looking around the net for something to do and I came by a review for Heroes of Far, but I could never find a copy. Kari managed to find quite a few copies."

"This Kari seems to be a very knowledgeable person."

"Not really." Lilu grinned, "She just pretends to be."

"Bunni! That's an awful thing to say!" Quis said brandishing her mace.

"It's true."

With that the door flew open once again. This time it produced a young man with white hair down to his feet, and in a bright red kimono or sorts.

"Inuyasha?" Mouse said blinking.

"No... Kari." The young man's eye twitched. He brought out a staff from his amazingly large shirt sleeve. "Shall we get going?"

"Waiiiiit! What took you so long, you're almost never late?" Quis bounced out of her seat.

"Quis has a point," Indy said after the short silence.

Kari sighed. "Didn't you guys hear? The server I use to get to this one crashed... I had to use three other servers to connect, all of you must have just missed it."

"But that's impossible! A public server's never completely crashed before!" Ushi-chan was standing up by now.

"Well then. It appears something big is going down then," Kari said as she turned to the wooden door. "Let's have a little bit of fun while we still can."