Black Dawn

[Arke]

Wading through a small sea of bodies you enter your local game store, curious as to what the commotion is. Immediately, your eyes are seized by a wall of boxes slightly bigger than the average game case. Printed in large letters across the top is 'Black Dawn', the picture behind it of a destroyed city. Flipping over the case, you read the back cover. "Black Dawn puts players in a massive 3D world ravaged by war, and leaves it up to them. With the exclusive Mindgames 'Head-case' controller, players can literally do anything!" Set above this is a picture of a headband of some sort, placed at a dramatic angle. Below is a picture of a small group of people fighting some sort of lizard monster, the caption reading "Be anything! Use the 'Head-case' controller to sculpt your character, and guarentee a unique identity!" Turning to the checkout, you notice a small box of cards on the table. Grabbing one, you find spaces marked Name, Age, and Alias. Turning it over, you see that this is an advertisement for some kind of promotional stunt. "Sign up at select venues when you purchase your copy of 'Black Dawn' and you are automatically guaranteed a slot in Mindgames 'Black Dawn, blue seas' event, an all expenses paid two week vacation to the brand new cyber-resort 'The Kingdom of the Night', owned by Mindgames studios! Hurry, only 2000 slots available!" There are only a few cards left, so you decide to fill this one out. Outside, a bus waits to take you to the airport.

Dave walks down the tree shaded path toward The Kingdom of the Night, an imposing black structure that looked as if it had been pulled straight from the game, which it had. A pair of 'Guards' stood at the doors, dressed in a suit of blood red armor he had seen while glancing through the manual on the plane and holding what looked like assault rifles. The building itself, on the inside, seemed like a combination of a medieval fortress and a high-tech lab. It almost gave him DOOM flashbacks. Eventually the group he found himself in was ushered in to what was either a dining hall or a conference room, with another worker in an outrageous costume standing at the head of the long table. "Greetings, honored guests of the Crimson King. You are here because you have chosen to join us here at our fortress, to aid us in our fight to bring order to the world than has so long missed it. You will each be supplied with weapons and armor of your choice from the Kings personal armories, a private room within the fortress, and all the sustenance you could possibly desire. The Crimson King also grants you free reign of the grounds, and access to any one of our countless amenities. Once more I welcome you to the Kingdom, and I bid you good luck in your travels." The meeting over, Dave heads to his room. It was really more like a small apartment, complete with a kitchen and dining area, all set in the games style.

[XXxMaximuMXXx]

she looked at the game, certainly intrigued. she checked her purse and decided that she could buy it. after buying it she ran to her friends house and tried it out.

[knightfighter]

V one of the higher ranked people in the gamin community of course was quite excited with the official release of Black Dawn, he had done some of the Beta testing and could not think of anything else since then, especially given the fact for being part of the Beta test he was chosen to be able to start off with a higher ranked class then most players would, the advanced knight class Paladin. V who had preordered the game went over to the clerk who checked to make sure his name was on the list, while doing so V filled out one of the slips to be part of the special event. After V was doing that the clerk handed V the game and he left the store, this was of course something that happened a few days ago. V was now at the Kingdom of the Night, and had to admit it was a gamer's paradise! everything was detailed perfectly to match the game world, which gave V a chill down his spine seeing how reality and the virtual world blend so well together. After the meeting and such was over V went to his room to login to the game. V turned on the consule, and loaded the game, and a screen came up requesting his voice recognition, something V him self programmed in to prevent other hacking into his account. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall stand strong and fear no evil, amen." The screen then shown the login process underway, then the words on the screen came saying welcome Paladin Ace, you are being logged into the Paladin's hall, please report to the head Paladin for your mission overview. V then saw his character Ace on the screen, and soon the game world appeared around him. V spun his character around to see the belt of daggers, that were designed to look like small crosses, the long sword sheathed on the character's back making it seem that Ace was in fact carrying a cross on his back, and finally the gray fully automatic handgun, with blessed, mercury tipped bullets. Ace then walked to where the head Paladin was to receive his first quest.

[Arke]

The introduction in the game world, once Dave had created Arke, his scout alias, was a mirror image of the one given in the conference chamber. He was currently outfitted in the armor the guards had been wearing, a cross between light plate mail and olive drab tank plating. Of course the armor had been stripped of its pauldrons, upper leg protection, and the gloves were fingerless. His helmet was reduced to little more than an eyepiece, and the armor repainted black. As if that weren't enough to set him apart, the character that had been generated for him by the headband controller was a coyote hybrid, much unlike the dozen or so humans. Leaving the second introduction he turned to the main gate, the guards waiting to meet him and assign him his first quest. "Ah, a scout, perfect! Come here, we've got a task for you. A group of knights are making a salvage run to the airship Amistad, one of the Sects frigates. We shot it down a few days ago, and it crashed out in the wastes. Scavengers have probably gotten everything they can carry off, but we're after one of their cannons. The Amistad was outfitted with a new type of cannon, and we want a look at it. And more importantly, we want you to give the knights all the cover they need with that sniper you've got. We hear they've got a Paladin with 'em, so you'd better get his plan on the assault. He'll probably be in the hangar." The entire order was given entirely in voice, not text, and in real time, and every word was mouthed by the guard with entirely flawless lip synching. And what Dave would have been amazed to know is that the Paladins presence was not a normal part of the quest, but part of the AI systems hive-mind awareness.

[knightfighter]

Ace's first order given to him by the head Paladin was to escort a group of knights that are being sent to an airship known as the Amistad, that had been shot down only a few days ago. Befor ethe knights can salvage what they need Ace is required to vanquish a group of monsters that had home among the wreckage. Once that objective is clear Ace then is to remain and keep guard until the knights achieved their task. The group of knights are in the hangar and await Ace's arrival before taking off. So with acting in haste Ace heads to the hangar where sees the group of knights waiting for him, but also it seems they are waiting for one or more other people as well, most likely other players.

[XXxMaximuMXXx]

she waited for the game to load, the stuck in her name, she choose to call herself X-ray...for a bit anyway then clicked ok and went to experience the fun. she looked around, she was in some sort of town, running into a office she awaited instructions for her next move

[Arke]

The scout finds the hangar on his third attempt, his first two putting him in a laboratory of some sort, and somewhere outside. The knights had gathered along with a handful of medic class players, a dozen or so heavily armed 'tank' classes, and a group of engineers to fly the drop ships. One of the knights stood out so he assumed this was the Paladin, since he was not in the standard equipment. Arke salutes, his sniper rifle in hand. "Is this the Amistad salvage team?" Behind him a higher ranking engineer, his class title identifying him as a Manipulator, was lecturing the new players on the monsters they would be fighting. Wasteland raiders were likely to be present as well as giant insects of all varieties, a nasty type of lizard mutant called a 'reaver', and possibly surviving Sect infantry. He continues to explain the Sect to the new players, identifying them as the long-time enemies of the Crimson King.

[knightfighter]

Ace stood there as the other players began to gather around the group of knights the last of which was a scout carrying a sniper rifle. The lead engineer also known as the Manipulator then began to lecture all the players on the kinds of foes they would be facing, Ace found it interesting when coming to the Sect how vague the information was given compared to what Ace was told by the head Paladin, apparently each different player or class rank was given information the others were not, a very realistic feature Ace was not use to and to say the least found to be a bit on the creepy side, none the less it was a feature that would make the game more of a challenge something Ace found to be a bit amusing, but being a Paladin it was not his position to question such an action, thus for the time being he would keep such thoughts to himself. After the lecture came to its end the other players began to board the drop ships.

[Arke]

The drop ships were all Vertical Take-Off and Landing designs, or VTOLs, meaning they could take off like a helicopter and fly like a plane. Two were basic transports, one marked with a red cross identifying it as a medical ship, and the other two were troop carrying gunships. One, with the Manipulator at the helm, carried the Paladin and scout across the wasteland. There were windows, allowing the players and the NPC's used to fill the few empty slots a birds eye view of a massive scale battle going on beneath them. Door gunners fired, mainly machine guns although one of the transports had some sort of grenade launcher, at the unidentifiable troops below. This was because the only soldiers down there were wasteland raiders and Sect infantry. They passed the battle zone with negligible damage and sped onward, the wreckage of the Amistad coming into view. As one of the transports erupted into flame and shrapnel, luckily not the medical ship, it became obvious one of the airships cannons was still functional.

[knightfighter]

((sorry for the delay been busy lately))
Ace watched from one of the windows as ship, undoubtedly an npc one created for cinematic purposes was destroyed by one of the functional cannons of the ruined airship. As the ship carrying Ace, and some of the other players including the scout that he saw earlier was beginning to land Ace walked up to the scout, and sent him the following private message. "What we are going to encounter are creatures far more frightful then one of your ranking could imagine. To be honest I am surprised for a beginning quest they would put us up to such a high challenge, for this going far beyond any beginners quest I have ever seen. That is why I am contacting you like this, because I am going to need you to cover my back, find a good place where you can be in range with your rifle where you will be out of harms way,leave the rest to me."

[XXxMaximuMXXx]

((msy i ask but am i still in this))

[knightfighter]

((I would assume so, yes, but Arke is the one you need to ask))

[XXxMaximuMXXx]

she stood up and looked across the sea, she leaning on the railings from the ship, letting the wind play with her hair. she lifted the gun higher up her back then sighed, waiting for the ship to get to their destination

[Arke]

((Max, be sure to put your character details in the companion thread, k?))

The scout nods, an action carried out by Dave making a similar gesture, running to a nearby hill the instant the dropship lands. The other players begin their short but treacherous journey through the ditch and debris left by the Amistad as it went down, while sets up his rifle. Set up on its bipod the rifle was far more accurate, allowing Arke to provide much more effective coverfire. His first priority was to sight in on the Paladin, and then he set his sights on any nearby enemies. There were plenty of those; giant mutated creatures of all shapes, sizes, and realms of terror fought with wasteland raiders and the surviving Sect crew, dressed in white armor that was outwardly much more streamlined than whatever armor the new players wore.

[knightfighter]

Ace stood at the pathway of the remains of the airship, much of the main haul remained and almost looked like a pitch black hallway. Ace simply starred into the emptiness, or what seemed to be emptiness anyways, but Ace knew all too well of what horrible creatures lurked within the remains of the once mighty Amistad, a slight since of pity came over Ace knowing how ignorant the other players were to the danger they were about to walk straight into, but with any luck Ace might be able to slay all of them before most them wound up dead. "All ye heathen creatures, head well my warning I am the paladin Ace sent by his majesty the Crimson King, and here to claim what rightfully to his majesty. Leave willingly, and I shall cleanse ye of your sins, remain and I shall send thee back the bottomless pit in which thee came from!" Then an eerie silence filled the haul, a low clicking sound could be heard coming towards Ace, and the others, and Ace grabbed to daggers preparing himself for the battle that was about to begin. "Thou I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall stand strong and fear no evil. Amen!" Ace then held up his two daggers identical to the way V's favorite anime character Alexander Anderson does. not too much longer after doing so one of the giant mutated monsters charged at Ace, and he sliced of the creature's head, then the haul became visible as the entire place was shown to be completely covered with similar monsters. Ace saw one of the other players begin to hesitate as one of the monsters came towards him, and the player opened fire, but all too late he was already dead, or would have been if not for the blessed dagger Ace threw into its body. The other players then released a storm of gunfire at the creatures, some might live others would die, but Acedid not care any more. He was given a job, and was not going to stop for anything till it was complete.