Anna Lime didn't want to open her eyes. The roaring of incoming meteoroids had vanished the instant she had burst that cruxite dragonfly on the ground, but the heat and bright light still burned her skin and glowed through her eyelids. The images of what had occurred after installing Sburb flashed through her mind while she stood frozen and silent in her bedroom, unable to bring herself to open her eyes.
Lia and Anna had worked together in initiating the game, while Lia assured her the other two members of their team were doing that same. This game by all means confusing and tedious, and Anna had started doubting they could even call it a 'game' when very real fireballs started to light her forest home on fire. Heat and bright yellow light lit her way as she sped to prototype her sprite and enter the Medium. Where was her sprite in the first place? And her parents? She had no clue. They had just left for the store when she installed the Beta. In a kind of surreal acceptance, she assumed they had to be dead, killed by falling space rock as it fell to Earth.
Where was she, anyway? Anna couldn't have still been at home; she would have been obliterated by meteors. It was this curious notion that finally made the blonde girl open her eyes and immediately squint against harsh sunlight that instantly reminded her of times spent in the Montana heat excavating fossils.
The girl hesitantly went to her window and peered out to see a landscape much like Montana as well, with strange sandstone spires rising in the distance. Crevasses threatened to swallow whomever fell into them and jagged cliffs rose to her right. The sandstone was injected with strange colors of blue and purple and pink and yellow, and...was that music she heard through the open sill? Anna paused to listen and couldn't hear a thing. It must have been her imagination.
Was this where the game would take place? Where were Lia and the others? Despite herself, Anna found her mind wondering if that Dextyn guy was somewhere around here. She hadn't spoke to him since that morning before installing the game, but Lia had told Anna he was a bit strange in a way unlike her own partner, Scylla was. She just hoped he was capable of helping her. This whole situation was thoroughly confusing her, what with clients and servers and partners and the strange terms associated with the game. Anna had been reluctant at first to accept words like cruxite and alchemiter and grist, but soon found herself using them naturally.
Speaking of her friends, Anna turned away from the window to her computer, where she tried to contact Lia.
paleoParadox [PP] began pestering loudOracle [LO].
LO: same here. you okay? you look a little shaken from what I can see.
PP: Oh yeah, forgot about the whole 'you can see me and I can see you' thing. I'm fine I guess. A bit confused, but when am I not? Do you know what we're supposed to do, anyway?
LO: yeah! talk to your sprite! they'll explain it all a lot better than I can.
PP: About that...I have no idea where my sprite is.
LO: by the way, CB will be coming to your planet as soon as he reached his gate, so be prepared.
PP: Wonderful. You paired up the two lunatics. Sorry that I just can't get over what a good idea that was!
LO: anna. you're not a lunatic. you've just got some problems. we all do. put them aside so we can figure out this game.
PP: You...Inconsiderate fuck. You really amaze me. My best friend. Telling me to get over rape and death in the same year. Wow. What a good friend I have here.
LO: you know what I meant. you think you have all these god damn issues that you let control your life, but you're letting them get the best of you! you haven't tried one time to get better. it's been a year since your sister died and a year and a half since He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. I've been here for you the whole time and you haven't done a thing to change.
LO: now is the time to put that shit behind you, Anna. you're on a new planet, we've destroyed Earth, and it's time to kick ass.
LO: Just talk to CB or find your sprite or something. Do some alchemizations. Like weapons and stuff. I'll see you later.
PP: Yeah, bye. I'll talk to you when that asshole gets here.
paleoParadox [PP] ceased pestering loudOracle [LO].
paleoParadox [PP] began pestering curiousBedlamite [CB].
PP: Okay, I'm here. Apparently you have to get to some gate or something to team up with me here.
