Severance paced before the statue. His feet carried him back and forth while his mind pondered the mystery that was Awesome Dude.

The guy had finally gotten back to him and now they were supposed to meet up. That part wasn't anything out of the ordinary. It was the message that Awesome Dude had sent. That was the problem. It was short and to the point, which was very unlike the energetic weirdo that Severance had come to know.

Sorry. Online now. Reply back if your on and we can meet in Tomorrow's Edge.

Was the guy sick or something? Severance huffed. It was probably nothing, yet he couldn't help but wonder.

He paused before the statue, letting his gaze trail up its shiny blue form. It was of some lady in a robe, and the sunlight falling on her crystal face made it glow blue. Now he was no expert in statues or anything, but this one was rather stunning. She looked heroic, with that fierce set of her jaw and determined eyes.

"Got yourself a new girlfriend?"

The voice came from beside him. Severance nearly jumped out of his skin. He whirled, and found none other than Awesome Dude there.

The Shade flashed a grin, that silly gold tooth sparkling brightly. "Hey, Sev."

"Hey." Severance returned the smile. "Where've you been?"

Awesome Dude's grin faded slightly, before it returned full bore. But even Severance could tell it was forced. "What? I've only been gone for a day. Did you miss me?"

Rolling his eyes, Severance retorted, "No."

"Uh huh. Sure." Folding his arms across his chest, Awesome Dude kicked at a stone on the ground. It flew before bouncing off the base of the statue. Then he lifted his head, taking a quick look about them as if searching for something. It wasn't clear whether he found it or not, for he stilled and returned his attention back to Severance.

"Look," the Shade said, "Can I ask you something?"

A little taken by surprise, Severance nodded instantly. "Yeah, sure. What is it?"

"Your Gift." Awesome Dude's eyes went to Severance's upper arm. It was covered by a sleeve right now, but both of them knew of the marking that lay beneath it. "When you got it, what was it like?"

Oh. Severance stiffened, his heart sinking into a pool of dread. He found himself unable to meet his friend's eyes. The very fact that the Dude was asking this could only mean one thing.

"Sev?"

Reluctantly, he peeked at the Shade. Awesome Dude really did not look good with that scrunched up expression. It made him look like an old man. Severance winced eternally, suddenly feeling like an old man himself.

He couldn't do it. He couldn't lie to his only friend.

"Something happened to you, didn't it?"

Awesome Dude's eyes widened. He hesitated, then nodded mutely.

Severance took in a deep breath. "Okay. When Maun gave me the first one, it hurt. A lot. And it booted me from the game. When I woke up in the real world, I was really sick. Like puking my guts up everywhere sick. I even passed out."

Just remembering it made Severance grimace. Those were not fun times. Awesome Dude, he noticed, was looking even more freaked out now.

The Shade exhaled a long whoosh of air. "Wow. Okay. Um, mine wasn't that bad. It just hurt, like you said, but it didn't log me out of the game or anything. I was fine in real life, too. Maybe just a bit tired. But I wasn't sick or anything."

"Really?" Then maybe that part was just him reacting badly to whatever had happened. People were different, after all. There were enough similarities to their experiences, however, that gave Severance a bad feeling. "Have you talked to anyone else? See if the same thing happened to them?"

Awesome Dude nodded, the muscles in his jawline tightening. "Yeah. I did some asking around after that. Not many wanted to talk about it, but I did find a couple who said they felt the same thing. They just figured it was an error. New game, new tech. There's gonna be bugs to work out."

Despite the casual statement at the end, Severance could tell that Awesome Dude was disturbed. It bothered him.

"At least it's not happening to everyone," he finally said. It felt lame even to his own ears.

Awesome Dude scoffed. "But it's happened to us. And you—you had it even worse! No one's ever been kicked out of the game. That's not fair, why do we have to get the errors?"

To that, Severance had nothing to say. He couldn't tell his friend what the Veiled had told him, that their Gifts were old and powerful, so much so that the Veiled weren't even surprised when Severance had been affected so strongly. They'd even expected it.

Could that even be considered an error?

Was it a fault of the technology, or was it something more?

It's just a game, he told himself, but even that thought felt oddly hollow.

Awesome Dude pressed his hands against his face and let out an annoyed growl. "Ugh! I'm totally gonna report this. They need to fix up their game! Anyway, Sev. Take a look at this."

He hooked a finger in the collar of his dark clothing and tugged it down. There at the base of his neck, on the side, was a black mark, very much like Severance's. Only his was much paler.

Severance took a step closer so he could get a better look. It was a simple outline of what looked like a wolf's head, which he immediately recognized as the symbol of the Eternal Champions.

"What does it do?" he asked curiously.

His friend looked at him. And suddenly, he grinned, his gold tooth coming out to play once again. "Heh. It's almost as good as yours! I get an extra four points in Vitality. Is that cool or what?"

"It's cool." The sudden shift made Severance feel dizzy. There was also a sense of relief, because this was how Awesome Dude was supposed to be. The serious and grim behaviour from before just didn't fit the Shade.

Awesome Dude preened. "Isn't it? I had to do a million quests, but because I did such an awesome job, they were super impressed and gave me four points. A lot of people got like, two. And there was a girl that only got one. But they totally slacked off, so they deserve it. Hehe!"

"Good job," Severance said. Seeing how his friend was growing smugger by the minute, he couldn't help it. "I also got a Gift, too, you know."

The Shade's head swung around. "Huh? You got another one? What the heck, dude!"

Severance shrugged. "Yep. It gave me a new skill."

He purposefully said nothing else, and waited. Just as expected, Awesome Dude scrunched up his face comically and whined.

"What kind of skill? Come on, tell me!"

"Well..." Severance looked up at the statue, pretending to be busy admiring the impressive piece of art that it was. He got a rather hard punch to the arm, courtesy of an irritated Shade.

"C'mon, Sev. Don't be like that. Tell me!"

Unable to carry on, Severance cracked a smile. "Okay, fine. It's called Precaution, and it lets me store a skill to be used later with no cost. And it's instant cast."

"Oh," Awesome Dude's eyes went comically wide. "That sounds really useful!"

"It is," Severance agreed. "I already used it once to Revive myself when uh..." He hesitated a second, then lowered his voice to add, "when I got killed by some Free Traders."

"You Revived yourself?" Awesome Dude stared at him, jaw dropping. "Wait, Free Traders killed you?! When did this happen?"

"Yesterday. I'm not sure if they're targeting me because of what my clan did, or because of that stupid Ervante guy, or maybe this is just a random thing."

Severance shrugged. It wasn't the most shocking thing he'd experienced in Eliona, so it wasn't that big of a deal. He hadn't even told his clan about that incident. They had enough things to worry about right now.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Awesome Dude waved his hands. "Hold on a sec! Your clan did something? What happened? And who's this Ervante dude? The heck, man! I leave for one day, and—"

Someone coughed.

Awesome Dude cut himself off. The sound had come from very close by. Both he and Severance turned, looking around the area.

At first they didn't see anything, then a tall figure stepped out from behind the statue. Limp black hair fell into blood-red eyes, framing a handsome face that was perfectly expressionless.

The first thing that crossed Severance's mind was whoa. The second was a bucket load of wariness, because this newcomer looked like a bloodthirsty killer.

Everything about this player, from his eerie red eyes right down to the spiked heel spurs on his boots screamed of pure lethality. He was tall and lean with close-fitting dark metal armor plates fastened over deep red leather. The armor plates were designed for intimidation style points as well as functionality, because there were spikes coming out of the elbows, heels, and even the shoulder blades.

"Valentin! What are you doing here?" Awesome Dude clearly recognized the guy, at least. That reassured Severance further, because this intimidating player was a friend. Probably.

"Looking for Rosaria," came the quiet, monotone response. "You see her?"

Awesome Dude's forehead scrunched, as if it took effort to think about it. Then he shook his head. "No. I don't think she even logged in today."

"Hn." There was no change in Valentin's features. With a faint clank of his armor, he turned to leave.

"Wait!" His friend's sudden shout startled Severance. He watched as Valentin halted in his tracks, back still turned to them. Awesome Dude, rather than talk to Valentin's back, walked right up to the tall player, trotted around him, and looked right up into Valentin's face. "Were you planning to go to the Ruins today?"

Severance really wished, at that moment, that he could have seen Valentin's expression. Not many people were immune to Awesome Dude's bold personality, and he was curious as to what kind of reaction his friend could evoke in a stoic guy like Valentin.

"Hn." There was no change in Valentin's tone. "Without Rosaria..."

From where he stood, Severance could see a huge grin break out on Awesome Dude's face. It created a spark of fear in his heart, because Awesome Dude only grinned like that when he had a terrible idea.

"Ha! Don't worry, dude. I got ya covered!" Awesome Dude gave Valentin a friendly punch to the arm, but that turned out to be an obvious mistake. He immediately grimaced and shook his hand, regret all over his face.

Severance rolled his eyes. Did you forget the guy's wearing armor? Doofus.

Then the words he never wanted to hear came from Awesome Dude's mouth. "Hey, Sev! C'mere for a second."

Reluctantly, Severance went over, though he narrowed his eyes and hoped Awesome Dude got the picture that whatever he was about to do, don't do it.

Sadly, his friend remained blind to the hint. "Sev, this is Valentin. He's in the Eternal Champions, too. Valentin, this is Sev. He's the cool healer I told you about."

"Dude," Severance narrowed his eyes further in warning.

At the same time, Valentin went "hn," somehow making the one syllable sound threatening.

With an easy laugh, Awesome Dude ignored them both. "C'mon, it's perfect! Valentin, you need a replacement for Rosaria. And Sev, you've got nothing to do anyway, so why not?"

"I don't even know-" Severance tried, but he was interrupted. Not by Awesome Dude, surprisingly, but by Valentine, who turned and met his gaze. It turned out they were roughly the same height, a fact that surprised Severance. He'd somehow thought Valentin would be taller.

"The Ruins," Valentin stated, as if that explained everything. Which it didn't.

"Never heard of them." Severance blinked once, still managing to maintain eye contact. He surprised himself, actually. There was a tiny streak of rebelliousness within him that refused to give in to the urge to flinch away. He tried to understand where it had come from.

It's cos Awesome Dude said you were cool, a small voice told him. What a lie. You're not even close to being cool, stupid.

Shut up, he silently growled at the inner voice. What did it know, anyway? He could be cool if he wanted to.

"It's the level 35 dungeon," Awesome Dude helpfully put in. "You haven't been to it, yet?"

Severance finally looked away from Valentin just so he could give Awesome Dude a look. "No, because I'm only level 31."

"Psht." His friend waved that off. "That doesn't matter much. Valentin's like, 38, so it evens out."

"40," Valentin corrected. He was still watching Severance. "You want to run it?"

Severance didn't particularly feel like stepping foot in an unknown dungeon with a group of unknown people. He'd tried that before and it hadn't gone well.

He opened his mouth to refuse, but somewhere between meeting those red eyes again, and Awesome Dude's hearty clap on the back, his words changed to, "Okay."

Wait, what?

"Good."

"Ha! Awesome! You'll love it, Sev. The Ruins are fun!"

Annoyed, Severance glared at his friend. "Yeah? You're coming with me, then."

He didn't think it was hilarious at all, but with how the Shade burst into uncontrollable laughter, to the point where he was nearly bent double, it might have been the world's funniest joke.

"Don't be dumb, Sev. Of course, I'm coming with you!"

"You even leveled enough?" Having one person below the recommended level was one thing, but to have another? That would only make things difficult.

"Well yeah! I've already been in them."

Severance sourly looked away. He folded his arms. How had the Shade gotten more levels on him? Just how many quests did his clan make him do?

They were probably epic quests, too. On the other hand, all the Veiled had him do was hunt sheep and run errands. That wasn't fair at all. Now he had to do some serious catching up.

He ignored Awesome Dude and addressed Valentin. "Where are these Ruins?"

Forget lame errands. He was ready to run a dungeon.