While Scott and Sonja went about their business of interrogation and colonial expansionism, an unseen shadow slipped through the wreckage and ruin within the confines of the Archers department store. This shadow revealed itself to be a perky redhaired ninja girl when it stopped for a moment to check out a shattered jewelry case.

“There’s a lot of stuff missing, but there would not have been much looting given the militia activities and monsters in the area.” Shara frowned prettily. The likelihood that the so-called militia had been the ones who looted the place was high. Even now a few of their members were roaming around inside the building and a small contingent were stationed outside.

The power was out to the store. A lot of the merchandise had been ruined during the fighting. After Ashton was taken away, Shara had returned to the store as the emergency response team were adamant that she could not go with them without being taken in for interrogation. What sort of friend of justice would allow such a thing?

During that time, she had been forced to watch them pick up the drop loot that they had not earned. She managed to snag a few items, nothing of any real merit, but her desire not to get into a confrontation with what she had deemed to be local law enforcement had held her back. As the morning sun rose, she discovered the truth.

“These people… The more I see of them, the less of them I wish to see.” Shara shook her head. They were supposed to be defending the public trust. If anything, they were acting like an occupying army that lacked the discipline not to rob the local populace blind.

“I should pay a trip to their headquarters, wherever it is, and try to find Ashton.” Shara turned from the nearly empty display case and looked over the store. Tire tracks, and piles of dust were everywhere.

She blinked slowly then snorted. “I am so not cleaning this up.”

As she moved toward the exit, she was surprised by the sudden arrival of a message window. “I thought I turned those off?”

Update Notice

Greetings Administrator.

You are being contacted as part of a staff wide system message.

The long-awaited update, Status One, has officially been scheduled for release in thirty-two days. Please plan accordingly.

In preparation for this occasion, a minor patch will be released in a few hours. This patch will mainly influence the minds of the world populace so that they can begin to act more normally once more. Certain amounts of destruction will be repaired, while geographical locations will begin their updates.

Once Status One occurs, everyone on the planet will have their base level and stats from the dream world. After some deliberation, we feel that the skill system additions for Earth warrant release as well. Please note, that certain skills such as ‘Synergy’ have been voted on and deemed to be too broken to be allowed free usage on Earth. As such, only items deemed fair use or as personal belongings may be used by a synergist.

This ruling was not made lightly, and in fact it received a tie vote. The board director was forced to weigh in and make the call.

Other matters were addressed as well. The party system (closed beta) will roll out with the update. Those individuals capable of transferring material and personnel from one world to another will automatically become part of the beta due to the limited user base. During the beta phase this party system will no longer require currency exchange. The transportation of materials and items will increase significantly in cost over the current amounts. This cost will now be normalized, however. There will be no more market fluctuation involved in the cost of transporting materials.

Additional items of note:

- After Status One is uploaded to the world server, homeowners will be able to purchase their home from the system. This will not affect those who already have property designated to them by the system. However, it will allow people to create protected areas where monsters cannot spawn. No other upgrades for standard locals will be allowed at this time as the structure upgrade system is still in development.

- In order to cull the extreme influx of monsters, many locations across the world have been designated as spawn points. This will funnel the monster spawns into specific areas of note. The release of these monsters will be regulated with greater scrutiny as many reports of monsters outside of their supposed level designations have appeared recently.

- Individuals who died during the last patch will be allowed to return to Earth for free. Those individuals who died during the day one event will also be allowed to return for free.

Shara looked over the message, her red brows scrunched together. “Why were synergy and transport costs singled out?”

Transport costs were already ludicrously high. If anything, they should be done away with entirely given the supposed purpose of the updates to the world. The administration was supposed to be acting as emergency relief to help humanity become strong enough to survive the inevitable fall of civilization that will happen over the course of the year. Adding a price tag to the ability to bring stuff over from the dream world already a bitter pill to swallow in the face of such a reality.

Her eyes narrowed and then she sighed. It had to be that tool bag, Sax. Some of the changes were deliberately designed to nerf Scott. It was obvious.

Shara filed a complaint about the cost of world transportation, then dismissed the message screens. Time was marching on. Given what she had just learned, a lot of the current mess would be swept under the rug with what would amount to a memory reboot. A lot of the damage would be repaired, but she doubted anyone who died would be returning to Earth for free. There would be some sort of cost involved in the process no matter what was said.