Ember Wind: Online

Remembering the Night

 December 1, 2042

Some time has passed since I wrote in here. I didn't forget, I just misplaced the book. After the Halloween events, I brought it back to the guild hall and it vanished. It looks like I have some news for the real world to catch up on. Very little progress was made in the hunt for the zone boss. The guild hasn't been able to get far enough into the abyss to make a sort of accurate predictions for where this boss is. Dailin also recruited the help of the German guild, Flügel der Freiheit. Their leader, Tr33n (pronounced Treen), agreed to aid us in the hunt. Instead of the usual four or five combat groups, we now have ten to twelve. That's two hundred and forty people involved in combat.

According to some of the return reports that they write up, it's just wave after wave of feral vampires which the game has so fortunately recognized as ghouls. These ghouls are, according to the locals of Uskor and the other cities, former citizens that went missing over the course of the past few years. What exactly causes these ghouls is unknown as well as how they went missing in the first place. So far, despite our best efforts, this ghoul problem in the abyss is killing two or three soldiers daily. If we can't push through and kill the boss, we may never leave this zone...

On the other hand, however, most people, the remaining five million, give or take a handful, have adapted to life within this fictional world. People are taking up medieval tasks. This game enables us to be crafters and harvest resources. Word is that Empora, the starting zone, is home to farmers and fishermen. It is the only zone, that we have access to, with coastal access. It is also easy to kill the low-level meat sources there that provisioners and cooks use to provide food to ease the phantom feelings and taste buds.

In the second zone of Reaper's March, people there are hunting for bone. Bone is this game is different from most others. Most games recognize bone as a merchant sell item only, meaning it can be only sold for a few coins. Bone-in here can be used to make armor. Bone armor is unusually strong in comparison to others and serves as a medium armor type. Bone provides more protection than standard thick or studded leather armor but still gives the same effects as medium armor.

Uskor is slowly becoming a combat zone. With grade two roamers being discovered and beaten down almost daily, Uskor is not a place to live, not for most players. Uskor, the city, is home to the raid guilds. Guardians of the Collapsed, Flügel der Freiheit, Remnants of Rome and the Liberation Party have all taken up to purchasing the larger guildhalls here. Remnants of Rome and the Liberation Party are two groups, much smaller but independents of GotC and RoR. According to Dailin, they just want to grind XP. However, she's told me of her plans of trying to recruit them to the effort of clearing out the abyss and in the next boss fight.

Other than the usual efforts of freeing ourselves, not a whole lot has been going on. After the Halloween celebration, Night came to talk to me and we've hit it off quite well. Naturally, I questioned her about her absence from the event but I don't remember the details, something about getting lost again.

Anyways, I've been abandoning the group for some alone time with her and the little adventures we'd go on was always fun. It could be considered dating but in the near-perfect situation. Uskor's southern area has a nice forest when it isn't haunted by fog and mysterious shadowy figures with scythes. We're close to winter in the real world and much like it, it's getting colder in here. The leaves have just about completely fallen off the trees and even some snow has fallen. It's mostly just a dusting, a little bit of powder on top of a yellow field of dead grass.

We'd go down to this hibernating forest and just walk. Back in the real world, I did this on occasion, but often by myself. In my little area of New Jersey, I had access to a large nature reserve behind my house. When winter came, I'd always go out and just walk and admire nature. I'm a nature lover but if you saw what I saw, how could you not be. There was always something about the woods that has just always stuck with me.