Between Sixth and Broadway

The block was devoid of activity.

What was once a lively commerce area has been completely pillaged. Anything that had been not a part of the buildings or street stolen by rogues.

A faint humming could be heard, as someone steps out from a two-story building's entrance door. The frame banged slightly from the overexerted push, followed by the crinkle-crankle of metal greaves.

A diminutive, ginger haired girl settled down and sat on the pavement, lining her full body shield to the wall. She yawned as she rubber the back of her head, the two hair buns wobbling slightly from the tilt. Hazel eyes blinked before she rubbed away at the crusts. The blushing making her peach complexion radiant.

Her armor was engraved with various seals and emblems, each individual piece becoming a part of another. The mosaic patterns almost hypnotizing to look at. The gauntlets and greaves shared the style, most likely an armor set. At her hip was a gourd, corked at its mouth.

The shield at her side was made into the shape of an ogre's face, a serpent resting between its fangs and encircling the left side of its cheek.

Her head tilted back in another yawn before drooping forward and nodding off.

"What on Earth am I thinking." Heh, a bemused simper stretched across the strolling man's lips. Earth. They weren't on Earth anymore, he reminded himself. Still, the point stood. Just what was Cliff doing? In his quest for action, danger, and excitement, the Bard forgot he'd never been in combat since the Apocalypse, nor did he think he'd need to be. The Royal Guard, defenders of Big Apple, were still active. But, gold inflation settled in a few days after the citywide panic attack, making monster hunting quickly become too inefficient. Worse yet, whispers of "player-killers" preying on those hunters swept through the streets. Then his subclass fell through.

There he was, a level 90 character, not knowing the basics of using a skill or swinging a sword in this new world. Pity for himself welled up within. Fear followed.

Sixth Avenue snuck up on Cliff faster than expected. He didn't remember New York City being this small. Perhaps, while lost in thought, he also lost track of time. Turning South, Cliff continued his tour of the desolate town. He alone walked through the streets, but he was not alone. Pockets of Adventurers huddled in the alleys, hunger glaring him down. Chills shivered up his spine. Spring's warm winds did little to ease the tension.

The walk towards Broadway felt much longer. Gradually, the hostiles thinned, until barely a soul remained. Looking ahead, only one person was left in the avenue, resting herself on the sidewalk across the road. Falling asleep? Here? She must be awfully confident, thought Cliff. Or careless, but he doubted that. The little knight's equipment looked rather advanced; she could definitely hold her own in a scuffle.

A scuffle... The Bard's problem persisted. He still didn't know how to fight. On the other hand, he still didn't have food. Finally, though it was painful to admit, he didn't know where Sixth and Broadway intersected. He stood between West 35th and 36th. Someone else had to come along, right? Someone else must've read the flyer.

Cliff decided to rest and wait. Another player would be in a similar situation as him. If things got hectic, he could watch them fight and learn from it. Lastly, he could keep an eye on the girl, make sure nobody tried something funny. He leaned against a wall and tipped his hat forward, hiding his eyes.

The woman shuffled in her sleep, grimacing as the wind blew through.

On it carried something foul, almost as if it had-

She opened an eye and spotted the source.

Oh.

Then the one near the shambling pile must've been a Necromancer, judging by the Summoner equipment.

Movement caught her attention as she looked towards the second occupant of the area.

She stifled a snort. At least the cowboy role-play carried a bit of novelty.

Nevertheless, there was a job to do and hungry mouths to feed.

Cupping her mouth, she shouted, "Hey! Y'all hungry or what?"

Cliff lifted his head and called back, "You betcha!" He made a warm smile. At least, he hoped it was a warm smile. He glanced to the Summoner and waved a greeting.

Left, right, left. The Bard turned his head out of habit before crossing the street. His left hand rested on the pommel of his saber as his right held onto the Stetson in case of a gust. Eager for food, the gap closed quickly between him and the armored miss.

Once within a few feet, he extended his right hand, trying his best to be genuine despite the hardships of reality around them. "Howdy, I'm Cliff. It's a pleasure to meet you."

She stood up and grappled onto the extended hand with a vice-like grip, shaking it firmly. "Likewise, cowboy. I'm Mjol."

A HUD flickered into life besides the woman.

"Adventurer Name: Mjol
Race: Dwarf
Class: Guardian
Level: 90"

"Huh", Mjol leans close and narrows her eyes. "Haven't seen ya around these parts and I'm pretty good with faces. Ya new 'round here?"

"Within the past few months, yeah. I'm originally from Pueblo, in the Midwest. Haven't had much chance to meet many players, but the People of the Land sure are friendly." He nodded, holding the handshake and keeping eye contact.

His own HUD slid into view next to him.

"Adventurer Name: Cliff
Race: Human
Class: Bard
Level: 90"

"I take it you're related to the famed soup kitchen of Big Apple?"

Roy stood back up from his break and continued moving forward. He took out his knife aims it at the sky, having a small dim light shine what various things that he pass. As so, he heard more rumors that have grown to be quite common at the time. Ineffective Monster Hunting and those who hunter the monster hunters. He put his knife away for the sake of convenience and stared at a sign. Though it was rusted and barely readable, he managed to read it as 33.

He continued to walk on as something rotten caught his nose. Whatever it was, it must have been grimacing event. "A dead NPC?" He said to himself quietly. He turned his walk into a slow run, his armor clinking and clanking until he caught a glimpse of a necromancer and her undead minion. She was average and height and had her hair too long in his opinion. Though that did catch his eye, what did was the scythe on her back and the Person of the Land that was being the source of the smell.

Mjol snorted softly. "Yeah, you could say that."

She reached down to sling the shield onto her back, the hollow thunk rang from the impact. "Still, wow. A real life cowboy. Well, as real as this place gets, anyways."

Turning to the Necromancer, the armor-clad dwarf shouted to her. "Hey, c'mon! Ya hungry or what?"

"It's fine", Mjol shrugged.

The death wound was something large and blunt, leaving this Roval unlikely to be the murderer.

"Say, hope ya don't mind waitin' just a bit longer." She said sheepishly. "Can't letcha to tha' food till more shows up. Or another ten minutes of waitin'. That's tha' rules."

Necruta wandered aimlessly though the city, it was unfamiliar territory for him. While he had spend some time in the virtual version, he never quite bothered to learn the lay-out of the city and thus he had to rely on his minimap a lot. He wished he made his account on a different server where he at least knew the overall lay-out of the cities better, but it's too late to think about such things.

In the last 2 weeks the guilds started to hoard all the items and mobs for themselfs, due to his schedule of waking up, or staying up until the EXP pots were distributed he sometime had the luck of finding a window of time where one of the surrounding area's wasn't occupied by the guilds or PKers. In order to increase his chances to find such a spot or a lost mob, he always kept a skeleton summoned and made it walk in the opposite direction he was walking towards. If it was attacked and wasn't taken out or lost a quarter of it's HP in one attack, he would use castling to switch places with it to face the mob it found and canceled the summoned skeleton and replaced it with a phantom so he could juggle aggro so he could take out monsters with relative ease. While he currently had a Servant limit of 2, it was enough for now.

He considered himself lucky that his weapon was a staff, it was a weapon he was used to, or at least had some experience how it reacted when you swung it. However due to his strategy was one that allowed him to get gold or ingredient from time to time, it was far from enough to keep him from going hungry most of the time and there were days like these were the guilds were occupying the zones around the Town all day long,  making his strategy worthless. Then there were also the PKers, he didn't stand a chance against those. Especially if he used castling to get to a weak mob recently and he had no escape. Most of the time, if he completely emptied his inventory and gold pouch they would let him go. His low level was a protection of some sorts for people who did it to relieve their boredom, however there were some who still killed him after he did that. Due to that the cathedral wasn't a rare sight for him, like today he was killed because a guild found him intruding on their hunting ground and so he decided to take a stroll around this unfamiliar city making sure to find landmarks so he could navigate easier through the city.

When he was walking through the city he noticed the flyer and decided it'd be a good goal for today to find the place without relying on his mini map or other people to get more used to the city. So here he was 5 hours later, wandering though this unknown city with a goal but having no idea where to look to find his goal. Eventually he gave up and decided to ask people for directions, while most saw him as a nuisance there were some who were friendly enough or pitied him and gave him directions.


After  following the directions he came to a large intersection where he saw a few people near the entrance of a building and walked towards them. "Is this were the soup kitchen is?" As he spoke it was clear that even though his English was fluid he didn't grow up in an English speaking country.

Mjol turned to the newcomer, nodding and waved him over.

He didn't appear to be wearing much, save that staff.

Beginner player? Possibly.

Royoko looked over and saw a armored dwarf, the necromancer and another figure that he couldn't figure out. He begins to walk towards them and when he believes that he is close enough he puts up his HUD.

Adventurer Name: Royoko
Race: Human
Class: Guardian
Level: 90

"And that makes four."

Mjol looks at each of the players gathered, appraising them momentarily.

"Sorry for tha' wait, just a little longer. In the meanwhile, I'll try ta' answer any questions ya got. Go ahead, fire away."

Cliff decided he'd be first to ask. It was better to question and look like a fool for now than to never question and be a fool forever.

"Where, ah, exactly do Sixth and Broadway meet? The mini map doesn't exactly show an intersection. Broadway kinda just stops for a bit and starts up again on the other side of Sixth." He scratched the back of his head and laughed a bit at himself.

"Well," Mjol scratched at her chin sheepishly. "That's part of it. There's a bit of a precaution, but I'll tell ya more once we're ready to go."

"Got anythin' else to ask?"

Roy shakes his head.

"Any questions I have is already been answered. But, I think I just thought up as one. Were they any other people with any one of you before you walked here?"

"Me?" Mjol pointed towards herself. "Not really, I'm just supposed ta' watch out for y'all and bring ya to the grub."

"Sorry, Royoko. I traveled here alone."

The Bard's face remained friendly as he drank the words in. Precaution? Ready to go? Watch out and bring us there?

"I suppose I have some more questions." Cliff's tone held. "How much was this goodwill event advertised, and to whom do we owe our thanks to?"

He didn't want to speak about the elephant in the room, but he was starting to feel like his original suspicion wasn't too far off. You don't hand out flyers and then hide information related to said flyers.

Roy is getting slightly annoyed but continues to ask a question to pass the time slightly.

"Then when can we enter to eat? If not, then tell us a name. To comfirm that someone is actually cooking in there.

"Ah, sorry." Mjol ducked away at the request. "I dun' really know tha' cooking staff personally, I'm just tha' muscle."

"But for your other question, I can't let y'all in until we've reached a certain time or number of people. Again, sorry for tha' inconvenience."

Roy's eyes grew suspicion, he wasn't happy with that answer and joins the others with the growing suspicion that something is wrong. He looks away from the dwarf and stares at the Lander.