“Hunter. This one really does not know us.” The one called Fours behind Shade said. This just seemed to set off a new series of snickers from the group.

“We should set this fish loose Amelia.” The one called Aidan said at last.

“No.” Amelia’s eyes sparkled. Now the brown haired woman had a name. “Come along Shade. Let’s hear it.”

“How do you know my name?” He frowned. He had his privacy pane activated.

“Story. Story. Story.” Amelia began chanting, widening her eyes and beginning to grin at him.

Left with little other choice, with the imposing man behind him and this insane bunch of murderers in front of him, Shade recounted his tale of leveling up in the Brack Kingdom in order to travel to Elysium. He was meeting his friend Sen, someone he knew in the real world, so they could travel together. She was a level 55 Shaman and was in Blutonsi. He didn’t leave anything out, simply because he didn’t feel all that ashamed to admit he’d died several times on the journey.

Amelia, the woman in the blue robe, paused and hesitated once when he mentioned getting killed outside of Sleipnir. The dark haired warrior who had been introduced as Raven snickered loudly, mentioning without a care that he could hear that he must be ‘totally weak’ before being shushed.

He told them about the voyage on the pirate ship, eliciting strange looks once more and the Silf woman actually nudged Raven. Shade almost paled, wondering if she could be the dread Raven that even pirates feared talking about. Surely not. Right?

Shade continued his story not omitting his strange encounter and useless attempt to find a girl outside of one of Vienne’s Cathedrals.

“I see. Go on.” Amelia didn’t seem satisfied with his story until he recounted hearing pitched battle ahead and had just decided to avoid it when he realized he was already caught by the muscle man behind him. Forsythe didn’t look abashed. He simply shrugged.

“I didn’t think he was part of ‘that’ group so I just waited.” He smiled again, making Shade shrink back.

“Why is your friend in Elysium?” Amelia interrupted at last. “Isn’t the Southern Kingdom a better starting place?”

“Well, yeah, but she is a huge fan of this game. Two years ago there was some pretty famous footage apparently and she was hoping to find her own grand quest.” Shade admitted sheepishly. “She hasn’t been excited about much lately so I thought…” He trailed off, obviously irritated at the sudden smirks that were meeting his explanation. Knowing looks that just plain angered him for some reason.

“So you journeyed, alone, all the way here and only died a few times? I think you’re pretty lucky.” Aidan said admiringly. Shade was starting to relax when the man grinned evilly at him. “I mean if we believed you. You look like tasty bait to me. A reasonably good looking young man all alone, that’s just recipe for disaster. Think of it as a favor, kid. Grit your teeth…”

“Now Aidan. We just returned ourselves. Let’s enlist this poor young man and accept his escort request.” Amelia said sagely. She closed her book and it seemed to latch at her waist effortlessly through some means.

“...Escort request?” Shade, when his voice came, sounded tired.

“Well, yes. Those were murderers we just dispatched. Transients that prey upon the road. I hear they are becoming quite troublesome and earning a reputation around here.” Amelia nodded. “One of them told me so right before Raven cut him in half. Just after he began telling us we’d be better off giving him all our valuables.”

“Then why are your names red? I’m new, I mean, but I didn’t think you get red names for killing murderers?” Shade asked tentatively.

“Some of their number were just standing around as shields. Apparently they don’t actually participate in the killing, just stand nearby partied to the murderers.” Amelia explained. “Most Transients won’t attack carelessly with blue named players standing nearby. No one wants a red name.” Amelia grinned, as if that sort of logic didn’t apply to her or her group.

“Where are you going?” Shade asked with resignation.

“I like that face.” Aidan announced after seeing the look of hopelessness on Shade’s face. “Let’s do that.”

“Why, Blutonsi!” Amelia said as if it were obvious. “We’ll go together and you can introduce us to the friend you travelled between continents to see.”

“Oh,” Shade said, feeling worry tighten his face. Just what he needed. A group of murderers walking into a capital city with him. If he was with them it was likely even he would be cut down in their wake as soon as they encountered the guards. There were exceptions to the no combat rules in major cities and keeping the murderers out was one of them. He’d have to start probably in that Cathedral on the beach again.

“How did you make the trip so quickly?” The girl still half-hiding behind Fours peeked out at him.

“What do you mean?” He squinted.

“It’s a couple days…” She said helpfully, tilting her head in question.

“The ship I was on was really fast?” Shade didn’t know what she meant. It had taken quite a long time but the boat had practically flown over the water. Boat? Well, he supposed it was a ship actually.

“Hahaha. I really like that face.” Aidan grinned. They surrounded him and began walking leisurely on the road toward Blutonsi, small figures under darkened swaying pines.

Amelia smirked, casting a look at Shade once while they were walking. She had known immediately that he wasn’t part of the group that had tried to waylay them for their items. There was no way the others had made the mistake either. The general mood she got from the group that had attacked them on their way to Blutonsi was one of disorganized chaos. They would take their stuff and then kill them, or kill them and take their stuff. Amelia, Aidan, Raven, War, Elisha, Hunter, and Forsythe all had their names hidden with the new privacy feature.

It was also impossible to determine a player’s level with the feature enabled. Impossible unless you were the Empress of Elysium. The band of bandits had been largely a level 300 group. A sneeze from any of the returning members of Shadow Fall, Amelia’s guild, would have dealt them lethal damage. It had almost been pitiable and that was simply because the average level of her party exceeded 500. Still, Amelia was a little irked that there were murderer guilds haunting the roads right outside what she loosely considered her city. Two years was a long time, it seemed, and no one had recognized them by sight alone. E-fame sure was a fleeting thing.

“So we’re bringing him along under duress because?” Aidan prompted her quietly.

“It’s fun. Besides, it’s good to see what the new players think of the game. We’re basically new at this point too, aren’t we?” Amelia raised an eyebrow. Aidan smirked and shook his head.

“In a manner of speaking, I suppose. We started our world travel adventures two years ago and haven’t been back. Calling us new is a bit of a stretch.” Aidan shook his head again.

“They still tell horror stories about you Raven.” Elisha quipped all of a sudden. Forsythe snickered loudly from the rear of the group even while Raven smirked.

“I’m famous.” She replied loftily. Seeing Shade’s stricken look, Raven tossed him an eerie and frightening grin. She moved closer to him, delighting that it made him uncomfortable. Amelia decided that Raven liked Shade too, even if it was because his reaction to her was hilarious from her point of view.

“You know the guards…” Shade said slowly, getting ready to point out the fact that murderers would likely be cut down.

“Won’t be a problem.” Amelia replied easily. “Tell your friend to meet us by Keristrazly’s dragon statue. Will she know where that is?”

From his pained expression Amelia guessed that he did indeed recognize the location. He admitted that she had already suggested it as a rendezvous point.

“Lucky.” Raven whispered.

“Yeah.” Amelia was starting to think Shade was an odd duck. Most new people having made the journey he had alone would have gotten discouraged numerous times even without the dying. He had made the trip in pretty good time, alone, and was a new player. There were starter areas near Elysium and plenty of beginner quests, but it was still a wild land full of high-level creatures and areas that an unwary beginner might wander into unknowingly.

“I hope you’re right about the guard thing.” Shade muttered.

He nodded, gaining Amelia’s attention briefly before she looked ahead to see what he had indicated. A patrol of human knights was walking down the road casually. Their livery, shockingly, had a depiction of the Queen of the Half Hall. They saw them immediately but simply raised their hands and waved. Shade seemed completely baffled that these guards were entirely okay with walking around their group. In fact, it seemed like the knights were even being a bit defferential. They moved off the road while their party carried on and only resumed their journey in the opposite direction an appropriately polite time later.

“Do you want to tell your friend you have company?” Amelia prompted gently. The young man startled, and after a moment and the way his expression narrowed she guessed he was doing just that in a friend message.

“Can we stop by Hendrick’s shop on the way?” Hunter asked. She grinned, loping ahead of the group slightly. “I want to see if he can price me out a new bow.”

Amelia shrugged indicating it was fine with her and no one else seemed to have a problem either. They made their way to the outskirts of the city. “You’re the boss, you know.”

“So people keep trying to tell me. I kinda think they mean that other thing.” Hunter smiled lopsidedly at Amelia. For some reason Amelia always ended up making the decisions even though Hunter was, in Amelia’s humble opinion, the truly famous and outstanding leader that had led Shadow Fall to countless victories. Hunter would always be Amelia’s hero, and no quantity of others could convince her otherwise.

The strangeness continued. Shade and the members of Shadow Fall, as yet unidentified to him, passed one guard and then another. Everyone greeted them amiably as if this were an every day occurrence.

Except, perhaps, for the fact that they were drawing a crowd. Residents stopped their peddling and their walking and gathered in their wake like lost lambs. Almost as if they were drawn by some invisible force that pulled them loosely to the current location of the group.

Slowly but surely, a wave of Residents and then curious Transients began following them. A mob was slowly forming, giving them a respectful distance. The strangeness was once again present because they didn’t seem hostile. If anything, they seemed reverant.

Amelia had put her hood up at one point when the crowd started to get too big and many of them lost interest. Still, the throng that followed them was growing at an alarming rate.

“Here I think.” Hunter frowned at a large building they had stopped in front of, and the inscription on the building said Light and Shadow Imports. “Bigger then I woulda guessed.”

“Wow. That building sure is huge. Do you think Hendrick is a super famous merchant now? Do you think he’d be really mad if I tipped over some vases?” Raven wondered aloud. Her pronunciation of vases seemed to make the tall one, Forsythe, cringe. Raven noticed immediately and repeated the word over and over until Forsythe failed to react.

Shade walked in with them, feeling like he was trapped. With the speed with which he had been caught the first time he didn’t think he could get away. While he didn’t feel like he was in any danger he also felt like the one called Raven and maybe the one called Forsythe would just lope off after him, grab and retrieve him, and return him to Amelia like faithful hounds if he decided to make a run for it. As long as they were very gentle he wasn’t sure that the city combat restrictions would even activate. Visions of being carried gently over a shoulder like precious cargo flooded through his mind, almost making him sick.

A man was behind the store counter near the back, the first person they saw. They had already passed racks of equipment and odds and ends. It was worlds apart the most expensive item shop Shade had been inside in his short tenure in the game. The man, a Transient named Helcare, looked up with a smile as he heard them approach. The smile immediately vanished upon seeing their red names.

“Hey. Is Hendrick here?” Hunter moved to the front, leaning on the counter and staring at the man with easy charm. Helcare turned slightly to a guard that lounged half-dozing in a chair in the back nearby. The Resident cracked an eye open once, then closed it. He had no problem with the murderer labeled Transients in the shop. Helcare licked his lips.

“Uhh. He’s in the back but I can probably help you with whatever you need?” He said tentatively. “In fact it would be my pleasure to assist you in any way possible.” His tone, while helpful and filled with compassion also made Shade feel like he was willing to do anything to get them out of the store before they caused him trouble.

“Nah.” Hunter leaned forward, flashing an easy grin at him. “C’mon. Get him.”

“Uhh…” Helcare was starting to stutter, glancing around at the heavily armed red paned people in front of him. “I’m not sure that…”

“Helcare why is there a crowd forming in front of our-.” Hendrick paused, his dark eyes tightening as he looked the members of Shadow Fall and Shade over. “No. No. Absolutely not. Get out.”

“Get out?” Amelia spoke up, sounding shocked. Shade couldn’t help but notice she only seemed to be feigning shock.

“Yes! You people?! In my store? This building is going to be hit by a meteor any minute.” Hendrick exclaimed, shocking his employee into moving out of his way as he moved up opposite Hunter behind the counter. “With those names! Good grief! Two years and you come back with red names and come into my shop? RAVEN I SEE YOU DON’T TOUCH THOSE.” Hendrick suddenly shouted. “Please, please what do you want?” He seemed to be pleading.