[F1-PP] To end eternity

[Raidou 1]

I can hear you sweet dreamer, allow me to wake you from this nightmare. To end your suffering, to end eternity.

Another standard walk through the castles largest disk, to which all manner of player had continued unending to greet mornings all the same. A nigh uncountable drove of them running to and from spots within the fields, breaking from the beaten dirt pathways that ran astray from large stone walls. A network of roads that broke up fields of emerald green, the serenity intermingled with yelling and laughter as low level players cashed in on even lower level monsters. A local legend nearly as old as the game itself, a nomad in red that found himself on every floor and traveling every road. A constant, a rumor and an omen for things to come. On his back stood stark a blade of black, on his nose a pair of rounded polished lenses that greeted the sunlight in a shined reflection. He'd walk on, a sharp contrast to the green in his crimson flag. All the while his minimap screams in repeated blue rings, a sonar painting all living things within his proximity on a wide birth. A varied smattering of greens and yellows, reds and blues all found themselves discovered and printed in dots on his map.

Such a simple day, met with the scratching of a pen across a small black book. A record, a map, and a compendium of all he surveyed. Minutes, to hours and it orchestrates the sun slowly setting as he moves. With nightfall, players begin to break apart and disband parties. Using the roads as veins to bring them back into the town of beginnings. All normal, as antiquated as it had always been. But alas, a normal day this was not despite its appearances. What follows the norm but breaks its mold, another hit of <<Detection>> as it rings true. One unnoticed as the pen continues to move. Finishing the section the nomad stirs, aiming to retire himself. But a wayward glance sees that dot green, locked dead without movement like the others. Still, almost deathly so. The pen clicks and is slid into the spine of his book, before it disappears beneath his robe. Raidou watches that mark, as if pleading it to start motion. But it doesn't, it lingers lifeless on the outer most rim of Aincrad. Footsteps gain tempo becoming more desperate. Assumptions being what they were assuming a player was about to leap from the side of the floating castle, and he wanted to prevent it.

What follows is not as expected, honing in on it like a bloodhound he finds himself in the middle of an open field. Empty, restless. His instincts have him look down at the earth beneath him. It wasn't unheard of, and that mark didn't tell no fairy tale. Another wave of a skill sees the area mapped in 3D, and he pivots and turns the digital reconstruction around to find the culprit. The small lines denote an entryway, akin to that of an ant hill. Tapping his finger on that pale blue reconstruction, he sets a nav point and heads for the mouth to the depths below. Finding a hole not unlike others he's seen, the man is struck fast by a jet of cool air.

---

The damp cavern breathes back at him in a whisper, howling softly as wind travels across the cool gray and rough stone. The dim twilight of sunset allows very little light to cause it to bloom. From the mans pocket a globule of light, a pillar fragment that worked as his endless light source. "Hello?" The man beckons holding it aloft, as his eyes become rich in emerald with <<Night Vision>> becoming active. The light being for the lost, not for him. Instead what stares back at him are beady black eyes that spoke to familiarity. The very same that had claimed others prior. The prior nest had been torn down by the red wanderer, and he was almost killed during the cave in. But that was a long time ago, he was much weaker then he was now. A clench of his teeth and a roar of red smoke, his presence causing the thing to shriek as he walks past it.

*kakakaka-*

That thick red miasma draining the life from it, proving despite its strength by comparison to those above it stood no match to Raidou as he was now. It shrivels and dies, and its cries in agony bring forth countless more. Like a wave of hunger the man moves, siphoning them all as he moves turning them to ash. His target?

"There you are...." The man quips toward a tarnished an ragged looking face, covered in filth and breathing low in a thick web barely visible. Underneath so much that it spoke to how long she'd been here. A lift of that light, and a careful inspection of her eyes showed them lifeless and doll like. Not an ounce of a response, in an endless stupor. Just like Ruri. The Ill Omen in Red, again stumbling upon trouble and yet there were some that would come to appreciate such luck. The black vanguard is ripped from its sheathe, and with one broad red stroke of light that almost metallic wire is cut and unfolds. Falling and caught in the wanderer's arms, a small thing skinny and drained. Likely used like a battery like those before her. Light enough to carry, the man kneels and sheathes his sword. "I've got you, its over..." He murmurs gently, remembering that Ruri could hear him despite being able to reply. To his neck the man cradles her, and whispers softly "Floor 4, Forest of Wavering Mist." and the gateway amulet fires ripping them both up to his workshop. An isolated place, where he had the supplies he needed store to remove her disease.

---

Active:
Guild Rank 5: +5% Final EXP Reward, +5% Final Col Reward
CS: Ill Omen in Red
CSA: [x1] Grand Mass Parry

---

Raidou | HP: 1360/1360 | EN: 174/174 | DMG: 24 | MIT:92 | ACC:4 | AA  | F-SPIRIT | EVA:3 | BH:75 | VAMP-D: 150 | LD:6

Spoiler

 

Name: Raidou, The Red Wanderer
True Tier: 21
Level: 35
Paragon Level: 166
HP: 1360/1360
EN: 174/174

Stats:
Damage: 24
Mitigation: 92
Accuracy: 4
Evasion: 3
Battle Healing: 75
Loot Die: 6
AA VAMP-D: 150
Equipped Gear:
Weapon/Armor/Trinket: 
  - Auric Sunlight - Finality of Faith [T4/Demonic/2HSS] +3 Damage, AA
Armor/Trinket: 
  - Red Wanderer's Resolve - Sympathy [T1/Demonic/Cloth] 2 Evasion, 2 Vampiric Defensive
Shield/Armor/Trinket: 
  - Tactician's Gaze - Ogma [T1/Perfect/Trinket]: +3 Accuracy

Combat Mastery:
  - Combat Mastery: Mitigation R3

Combat Shift:
  - TECH Shift

Familiar Skill:
  - 

Custom Skill:
  - Ill Omen in Red

Skills:
  - Battle Healing R5
  - Charge
  - Cloth Armor R5
  - Energist
  - Extended Mod Limit
  - Fighting Spirit
  - Howl
  - Quick Change
  - Searching R5
  - Straight Sword R5

Extra Skills:
  - Survival
  - Parry
  - Forgotten King's Authority
  - Concentration
  - 
  - 
  - 

Inactive Extra Skills:
PhotosynthesizeBrawlerFrozen Hide
Addons:
  - Ferocity
  - Focused Howl
  - Nimble
  - Precision
  - Reveal
  - Stamina

Mods:
  - Athletics
  - Detect
  - Justified Riposte
  - Night Vision
  - Tracking
  - Vengeful Riposte

Inactive Mods:

Battle Ready Inventory:
  - Crippling Composition - Lullaby [Tierless/Rare/Debuff/Instant] Hypnosis 2 | [224055] x1
  - Ebon Star - Vanguard Revenant [T4/Demonic/Straight Sword]: V.O 2, Taunt, Blight 1 x1
  - Flash of Rejuvenation [T1/Perfect/Crystal] Mass Heal [200869-1][200876][200877][200878][200879] x5
  - Teleport Crystal x5
  - Vocal Augmentation - Resonation [Tierless/Perfect/Support/Instant] +15% HP [160898][161641][161642][162018][162529] x

Housing Buffs:
  - Basic Kitchen: Increase the effectiveness of a single food item consumed in a thread by +1 T1 slot. This can exceed normal Cook enhancement caps. Ex: A perfect T2 MIT food gives 35 MIT instead of 30.
  - Storage Closet: +1 Battle Ready Inventory Slot
  - Living Room: Increases out of combatHP regen by (5 * Tier HP) and decreases full energy regen to 2 Out of Combat Posts.
  - Attic (Storage): +5% bonus col from monster kills and treasure chests
  - Basement: Gain +1 to LD, Stealth Rating, Stealth Detection, or Prosperity to one post in a thread. Can be applied after a roll
  - Guest Room: Players can have one «Amenity» in a «Guest Room» and the «Amenity» cannot be recovered. Players are allowed to change which «Amenity» is in the «Guest Room». Multiple instances of the same «Amenity» do not stack. This buff affects the player and their choice of up to two party members.
  - Master Bedroom: -1 energy cost for the first three expenditures of each combat
  - Master Bathroom: The first time you would suffer DoT damage in a thread, reduce damage taken from DoT each turn by 25% (rounded down)
  - Extended Workshop: +2 Crafting EXP per crafting attempt and +1 crafting attempt per day
  - Greenhouse: +2 Gathering EXP per Attempt and additional +1 LD & CD to gathering attempts.
  - Dining Hall: Turn 3 identical food items (same quality, tier, & enhancements) into a Feast. A Feast contains 6 portions of the food items sacrificed. Feasts created this way cannot be used outside of the thread they are created. Limit 1 item created per thread.
  - Mega Slime Farm: +10% EXP to a thread. Limit one use per month. Must be used on a player's first post in a thread. Cooldown begins counting down when used in a post.

Guild Hall Buffs:
  - Trading Hall: Reduce LD needed for Salvage by 5 (10+ for Alchemist crystals, 6+ for everything else). +2 EXP per craft. Rank 9 crafters and Rank 4 merchants/performers receive +1 crafting/identification attempt per day. Rank 10 crafters and Rank 5 merchants/performers receive +2 crafting/identification attempts per day.
  - Treasury: +5% bonus col from last-hit monster kills and +10% bonus col from treasure chests.

Scents of the Wild Totem:
  - Kumatetsu
Wedding Ring:
  - -
Crafting Profession:

Gathering Profession:

 

 

[Aeva 0]

 

Death was a funny thing. Most people feared it, going to great lengths to try and delay their meeting with the abyss, yet most people never truly understood it. Finality was just another part of life. With the endless silence, the eternal void seemed almost comforting. The great nothingness that came after was at least a more welcome eternity than this.

What remained of the light was nothing but a foggy memory within the girl’s mind. She had been here for… How long? Hours? Days? She couldn’t be sure. She couldn’t know anything. Her head ached with a screaming pain but her body refused to move. Here in the darkness she lay, nearly cocooned by an ancient web. The skittering. That damn skittering. Why wouldn’t it stop? Why was she down here? Who was she…? Images. Pictures of memories? Her memories? A castle in the sky… Endless green fields. And the cave. Had she imagined it? Was the light just a figment of her mind? The skittering wouldn’t stop. The pounding in her mind only grew heavier, but heavier was the invisible force keeping her still. Pain in a dream? It seemed so. A migraine unlike any she could remember feeling, yet her mouth remained shut. A prisoner not of the webs but of her own body. The pain only grew worse, the skittering grew louder… The echoes in the darkness melded in shadows, and all she wanted to do was scream, but she remained as silent as a corpse. Unable to move… Unable to die. 

And then there was another noise. Not skittering but… A voice? Whose voice? Another dreamer? No… More noises soon came after, ending the eternal nothingness of her living tomb. It got loud. Too loud. The skittering grew more intense, and the pounding rose with mirrored violence to the battle unfolding just before her. Yet as soon as the noise began, it stopped, along with the skittering. The voice spoke out again, but the words were distant. Faded. Had it stopped the noise? Had it come to an end her once and for all? Not quite. 

Light was certainly not a fiction she dreamed up, as something touched her face and for the first time in who knew how long, she saw something other than darkness, but it was bright. Too bright. Was this even real? The darkness had been replaced by a blinding flash followed by a sensation of falling before something or someone stopped her abruptly. She had moved? Could she move? No, that wasn’t right… Her legs had barely any feeling. The voice said something else, this time a little clearer. It was over? The nightmare was finally over? She would have said something, yet she remained frozen in time. The long night may finally be over and the girl only wished she had the strength to mutter her gratitude. Hallucination or not, she felt hope, before slipping into the shadows once more…

Time had little meaning, yet even the girl knew some had passed. More light passed over her blank eyes as the man carried her. Despite her lifeless expression, she was internally overjoyed by the myriad of messy colours melding together in her vision. Nothing was clear; she had no idea what she was looking at, but anything was a welcome change from the endless black. Yet even though the light hurt her eyes, she wanted to smile. 

The noises slowly started to become different as well. The girl could barely understand what was happening, but had she heard birdsong? The sound of running water? Did she feel the wind on her husk of a body? She couldn’t be sure. She wanted to believe, but yet something prevented her from understanding. Why couldn’t she wake up? Why was this dream so strange…

As Raidou moved with the girl, more images began to trickle in. Something beyond the castle in the sky. The dimness of an old warehouse. Like the cave. The cold feeling of metal on her back as she lay across the floor with the NerveGear on her head, not unlike the frozen stone she lay cocooned against. Then something else… The castle! A town! A big town! But it was empty…? She found herself standing in the middle of the town’s largest plaza, looking around at the haunting emptiness of the streets. Had she imagined it all? She had been the only one there, so it could have just been part of this waking dream. However, the other dreamer spoke up once more, and soon time slipped away again. Who was the dreamer? The voice sounded somewhat masculine, but she could not know. It was jumbled, and the words hurt to think about. He had brought her out of the shadows, that much she could understand even in her stupor. How long she had been with him, she did not know, but time had no meaning in dreams. Unfamiliar scents and sounds flickered into the girl’s consciousness, and new lights danced across her vision, yet she welcomed every second of it. If this was her fate, she knew it could have been far worse than this…

 

Aeva | HP: 20/20 | EN: 20/20 | DMG: 1

[Raidou 1]

A burner springs to life with the turn of a dial, causing the water within the retort above it to begin to boil. Another spun as steam begins to gather, all the while the faintest of breaths are squeezed out of nigh deadened blackened lips. It dances on his skin as it does, like a heartbeat its made known and kept track of. A shove of glass ware from a table sees it shatter across the floor, as papers skitter through the air falling like leaves. A twist of his foot shoves a chair out from underneath it, and grabbing a leg its pulled in a squeal across the wooden floor. Those glass shards crunch as he motions over them, setting the woman down and checking her vitals. "Stay with me." The man mutters against the nigh silent night, the only voice among the trees that stood vigil over the shops small windows. A huff of steam and the shrill whistle that follows it calls for his expertise. To the shelving he starts to pour himself over them, grabbing vial and jar, bottle and bag into a fair pile across a countertop. Grinding plant and part, thick liquids in carefully planned drops from droppers. All into a vat to create something extremely potent, meticulously made to combat this down to the smallest grain. Inside the retort it changes shades, green to blue to purple to orange. No expense wasted no matter who it was. A master craftsman even under such duress, stealing every moment he could to check @Aeva again. To affirm she was still breathing.

Minutes quickly convert into an hour, and the first of many are made. Raidou would carry himself through a tireless and sleepless night, as the first of this horrid tasting cobalt blue mixture is imbibed by him. The girls head is raised, checking the heat against his wrist before he pulls open her lips and feeds it through. Her long white hair flows off the edge of the table, as he checks her pupils again. A wet rag is used to wash her down and a swap of her clothes into something less ragged, although made much more difficult to protect her modesty as best as he could. Four hours under a constant watchful eye, brewing up more batches of the cure to her plight. A fortune condensed into small vials, that most could not afford.

8 Hours: her heart racing causing him to adjust the dose. A small fever is met with a cool cloth pressed to her forehead. The profuse sweat beckons for another change of clothing, as Raidou's eyes burn with exhaustion staved off through necessity. Proving just how much the man cared for life, and to what lengths he'd go to preserve what he could.

12 Hours: the man snaps to attention to the girl gagging and coughing despite being unable to move she could not breathe. Hoisting her up from the table, he rips out "I'm sorry, this is going to sting..." He rips a glass vial from the shelf, slamming it into the side of a window seal to break off the end. He jams it through her throat, a makeshift tracheostomy in but an instant. Her digital flesh tears in a bright red light, but eventually her suffocation ends. A sigh of relief is met with dreary eyes and a thousand yard stare.

16 Hours: another dosage and a change of clothing. Her pulse having come down, her pupils slowly regaining reactions as light is shined in them. Raidou knew that somewhere deep down, she could hear every motion and every word he spoke. "I know this must be hard for you, but you will get through this. I will not leave here until you do." He sets the next few alarms and prepares another vial, keeping it close by.

The first day was the most difficult, and despite any life threatening down turns Raidou manages to halt them. Her vitals slowly climb, and at day break she springs to life. But only her eyes are free to dart around the room, dazed and confused. "Rest, give yourself time. There's no telling how long you've been out." Raidou expresses kindly, gently brushing her bangs from her view. He makes a motion to take a box and a chair, using it as a high rise to give her something to look at: the small cobbled window. The forest of wavering mist, as fauna pass by unknowing to a woman unable to move at all. Little by little, every dose revives her ability to move or to talk although little of it is understandable. Three days roll past in an instant, as the man continues to push her to remove her atrophy. A kind warden to her recovery, his sleepless nights proving to bear fruit.

This flower was finally blooming, out of the cold winter and ready to see the sun.

[Aeva 0]

The colours began to change with her surroundings, but the other dreamer seemed to be a constant. Until eventually another memory came back to her as the man placed her upon the table. The feeling of wood? It wasn’t the cave that was for sure. The dreamer had made it to his destination and had taken her with him. Yet as the haunting darkness was left behind, she could still sense the panic of the dreamer. He seemed determined to save her. Did he not realize? Did he not know? He had saved her. The dreamer had liberated her from the faded horrors of the deep. The dreamer had given her the chance to feel the fresh air and witness the blend of shadows as dusk set upon the castle in the sky. What more could he do? Except allow her to wake up? Was the other dreamer once like her? Was he even real? As the dreamer’s urgency rose, the girl’s vision began to darken once more. Yet even as the newfound light began to dim, a voice cut through her senses like a sharp wind.

“Stay with me.”

The hours passed in a frenzied blur, yet even on the edge of the void, the girl hung to life. The dreamer didn’t appear to give up on her, so she wouldn’t give in either. The feeling of numbness that had covered her entire body for the last eternity made it difficult to notice the medicine being tirelessly applied to her wasting body. That was until the coughing began. Her breathing stopped, though his voice was no longer distant, only muffled. Yet she had heard enough in his tone to know something was coming. As he had warned, a hot, stinging pain ripped through her throat! As before, screaming wasn’t an option within this prison of digital flesh. Though the dreamer’s actions worked, and she felt the crisp air of the floor in her lungs once more. The dreamer expressed his sympathy, telling her she’d get through this. She needed to believe he was right. She needed to wake up.

She was brought forward, the distant smell of pines hitting her nose as the light of day made its way across the fourth floor, rays of the artificial sun bouncing off the snow that covered every inch of the place. Had it not been night a moment ago? The dreamer had moved, though that soon became common. Yet something completely unexpected soon happened. Her vision slowly began to sharpen, the light bouncing off her gaze, and her pupils finally began to move on their own. Blur turned into a focused image, and the girl finally began to regain her awareness! This.. This wasn’t a dream? She looked around quickly, feeling her heartbeat rise as she slowly blinked, the only motion allowed to her paralyzed body. Slowly, her mind began to rearrange the pieces, memories of her life in the outside world returning. The sound of a raven caught her attention, bringing her weary gaze to the window to witness the white expanse beyond. That castle… This was it. It was a game! That game she tried at the warehouse! The gears in her mind began to turn before the familiar voice of the dreamer returned. Only it was no dreamer at all, but a fully awake and self-aware player. At least she thought so. The voice… It was his! She still couldn’t move… She couldn’t speak. She was so.. So tired… Yet her eyes still gave off an expression of sombre thanks before he shifts her view to the window, overlooking the winter-covered forests. They seemed… Familiar. 

The days had blinked passed and soon the girl found herself back in the room with the player, her motor functions slowly coming back to life. The cold numbness was finally beginning to fade as she felt her lips begin to quiver and her fingers twitch ever so slightly. She began to make out icons in her vision. A map, a health and energy bar, and a name… Aeva. The name she had chosen for herself when logging into Aincrad for the first time. Had she been in the warehouse this whole time, stuck to the nerve gear? Forgotten in the dark, both in this world and the real one? The fact that she was still alive told her she hadn’t starved to death, so little time must have passed, right? She still had no idea where she was exactly or who had saved her. Perhaps another like herself who had scored an early copy through circumstance? Whatever the case, she couldn’t log out until she regained some kind of control over the rest of her body. Thankfully, this other player was generous enough to assist her. Even with most of her memories coming back, Aeva still wasn’t quite sure what happened inside that cave. It was too much of a blur, but that overwhelming feeling of hopeless dread would haunt her dreams forever. Still, she had just enough control to move her mouth. 

“Thank.. you.” Aeva muttered weakly, still staring out the window with tired eyes. It was the first clear words she had spoken since she descended into the darkness of that cave years prior. The man’s methods were unknown to her, but she could feel them slowly working. “W- Where are.. We?” She would say again. Last thing she remembered she had been on Floor 1, arriving on the game earlier than most. Nobody would have cleared the first dungeon in that time, so where could she possibly be? Was there some part of the first floor completely covered in snowy pine forests? More questions began to formulate in her mind even as she regained her memories, and her eyes attempted to look back at Raidou with exhausted confusion.  

 

Aeva | HP: 20/20 | EN: 20/20 | DMG: 1

 

 

Edited 11 hours ago by Aeva

[Raidou 1]

A weary morning droned on to the tune of birds beyond the window pane. Cold air caused the candles to flicker and dance with its call, as papers moved lightly to match. The bubbling tools of an alchemist continued to speak against flames of their own, as even more supplies had been made and bottled. A drooping head of a man pushed to the edge of exhaustion, across a week of very brief and spotty sleep. A record on a clip board sat clutched between two hands, limply sitting in his lap. On the floor with his legs folded, shoulders pressed against the side of his counter. His head of brown hair drooping out cold, until a single phrase broke that meditation and carried with it a storm far beyond the likes the floor had seen in quite some time.

“Thank.. you.”

Raidou stirs awake, assuming it another hallucination in the fine line between dreams and reality. But as he tilts his head up, he is caught staring into a pair of eyes with a gaze far more cognizant. A soul finally returned to its vessel, as if born again with a smile to show it. The man raises to his feet planting his hand on the floor for support, wobbling before he affirms his footing. Adjusting the glasses on his nose, he looks to the medical record once before setting it down. Clambering from his own shoulders his robe, he pulls the window closed to cut some of that biting chill. Pressing the crimson robe onto the girl, he tucks it in to keep her stable. A jar of salve is coated on his fingers, a white paste that is spread across the closing wound on her neck causing the flesh to stitch itself together visibly each time its applied. "Don't mention it." The man offers her a smile. "Most people wouldn't believe you anyway." Taking a closer inspection of her laceration with a pair of amber eyes that were fixated despite his fatigue, it would heal on the hour at this rate. "Floor 4, about a half an hour from Snowfrost." The man remarks plainly looking up to search her expression for signs or acknowledgement. When that falls flat, it has him follow-up with a deeper reserve of tact turning back to the wound on her throat. "Aincrad, its a game. I found you on the first floor." There were plenty of questions, observations and understandings to be had but not in the state she was in and was likely just as addled. "You will be fine now, Aeva." The man offered her name having discovered it during his own digging through her HUD. A sudden ringing grabs his attention, and he taps an icon in the air to dismiss the alarm. Leaning to the table in front of them both, he uncorks a vial and helps it into her hand. "Every 4 hours on the dot, only 24 bottles to go. Bottoms up."

[Aeva 0]

Aeva had hoped that when her senses returned, she would feel a sense of peace. That the nightmare would end and she’d be free to keep on living her life, but the words coming from this man made no sense. He applied something to her neck, the girl feeling a slight tingle as the wound rapidly fixed itself, thanks to whatever it was her mysterious saviour had used. She hadn’t really thought about it until now, but how was he so skilled? She was no expert on this game by any means, but even she remembered that different skills like healing and medicine took time and work to level up. To bring her back from the brink like he did, just how high were his healing stats? When he mentioned the floor number, Aeva’s eyes grew visibly perplexed, even if she still couldn’t move most of her body. No, that couldn’t be right… Only the first floor had been accessible. Maybe some tryhard players power levelled enough to clear the first dungeon early, but to reach all the way to the fourth floor was insane! 

When he mentioned her name, she looked back at him. Searching his face for answers. “H- How did the other floors get cleared so..q- quickly..?” She would sputter again, hoping to get to the heart of the matter. “C- Can you help me log.. Out? I.. I need to check on my.. D- Dad.” She would follow up with alarm bells going off in her mind. If she were out for any extended period of time, then the mob would be livid with her! If she missed the drop-off time because of this stupid game, they might just kill her dad to make a point! She wasn't sure if she could communicate that to the stranger or not but she prayed he could see the desperation in her eyes. She wanted to stay and thank him for all he had done for her, perhaps even add him to her friend's list, yet all that would need to wait until she could get the NerveGear off and find out what had happened in the real world. 

The alarm Raidou had set went off, sharpening her anxiety as he explained how he had set a timer for her medicine. Every four hours? She couldn’t play the game for that long; who would? Genuine worry began to return to her expression. “I-I can’t stay, I’m sorry… I need to..” Raidou’s warnings were right, as the girl struggled to even say her words and struggled even more to lift her hand, as if she were trying to open her menu. Yet to no avail… She still felt so exhausted, but why? It wasn’t like she just woke out of a coma; it was just a few hours, right?

… Right? 
 

[Raidou 1]

"Quickly?" The man could start to get the sense of underlying panic. "Aeva, breathe." Raidou reaches out and takes her hand firmly in his own, enough to cut through the lack of feeling in it. "I'm afraid you are trapped in here, like we all are. The game was a trap, the log out button in your HUD does not work." A sharp level of truth matched with an affirmation of concern. "Drink, otherwise you'll end back up under." Spoken with a resolute reality but can tell that she is struggling to understand. "There is no escape yet, but there are a number of players trying to push toward an exit. The game must be cleared to leave." Raidou spoke in recount to the announcement, the one that Aeva had clearly not heard. It spoke to just how long she had been down there and Raidou deduced that she may have been there a very long time, likely before that information was given. Knowing full well that such answers would not be easy to palette, he would give in to demands to provide the proof she sought as to allow actions to reach where words could not. Ushering behind her, he'd help guide her hand through the gestures to navigate her menu. A press against the last button on the list:

Log Out? -> Are you sure? -> ERROR: ACTION FORBIDDEN UNTIL CRITERIA MET

The man sighs heavily as he feels a tremor shake from Aeva's core, coming down to look up into her ruby shaded eyes. A connection to allow him to be the mouthpiece of the truth and for the wounds it would carve open. "I wish I could give you the escape you want, but this is all I have to give you." He spins the bottle between two hands, and helps as best he can to keep her upright through any level of hysteria. Beating fists however languished, wiping tears as they flow from eyes that struggled to remain open. Opening a cork. "Please, Aeva. At least give yourself a chance."