He opens the window and looks up. Spanning over buildings at a mad speed, a mighty crimson dragon impacts into

Eizerith’s great castle. Amidst the screams, Hero focuses in with his magically-enhanced sight. Without ceremony or word, the dragon takes hold of the young woman on the castle, and lifts off as quickly as it had come, flying back in

Hero’s direction. Hero takes hold of his scythe as he watches the dragon spew forth a torrent of fire through block after block of the city, he has one shot…

“Out!” Kell shouts, slamming through the door and rushing to Hero.

“I got this, don’t wo-”

“Get out!” Kell exclaims again as he rams Hero through the window the moment before the fire sweeps across everything around them for a one hundred meter radius. In the last moments, Kell pulls out a book, Hero cannot quite see what it is, however. He suddenly feels light just as the hellfires touch them, as if he were transforming in mid-air.There’s a shadow, and a blink, the sound of pages turning from within a book, and the next moment, Hero sees himself at the city gates from whence they entered just twenty minutes ago.

“Why?! I could’ve-” Hero stops himself as he looks over the city block they had just transported from. It’s positively molten with flames, players running out from all directions to escape the flames.

Hero watches them scream and writhe in the fire before they one by one fall upon the bricks and expire in agony. No healers are present that can heal the [demonic fire] damage over time debuff fast enough before it kills everyone struck.

“Looks painful, doesn’t it?” Kell asks. “I guarantee you, you couldn’t have made that jump up to him.”

Hero peers on to the suffering masses, some still fighting back the immense damage ticking hundreds over their head every second. “Now what?”

“What do you mean?” Kell asks, “We just go to Exeranoth and finish this.” The rouge analyst pulls that flimsy, pliable book from his cloak, and opens it. “…Damn,” he says under his breath.

“What?” Hero asks as the fires finally die out.

Kell shakes his head. “The event narrative has begun.”

“…Which is?”

Kell puts away the book. “I can no longer integrate us into the spot, because now there’s a quest chain in place that we have to get past in order to enter the final boss instance.”

Thanks to all the stat boosting, Hero’s become a fairly bright lad, but this is still well past him. “What does this mean?”

Kell sighs as Bright-Solemn taps Kell’s head in an attempt to comfort him. “Well… well there’s nothing to do about it but follow the quest line. It’s probably going to be a physical journey across the leveling zones and defeating each boss there. That’s my guess.” Kell looks to the castle, partially ruined by the dragon’s brief visit.

“Well, how do we get the new quest the-”

“HEAR YE, HEAR YE!” A crook-nosed crier calls over the panicked crowds “The daughter of his Royal Majesty, Hienrokkus Alphilion Exemus the Fourth, Princess Celine, has been kidnapped by the dastardly dragon. To recover her and be gone with this savage beast, the king will be holding a gathering of warriors within the main keep in the interest of forming retinues and parties to go to Mount St. Hellwithins and slay this evil foe, rescue the beautiful princess, and return the kingdom to its right status as a realm of peace and prosperity for all, everyone but dragons. The reward for this, is to become the next heir to the throne, by Princess Celine’s hand in marriage.”

At this utterance, the droves rise up in excitement, nearly half of them beelining it for the keep immediately. After all, who wouldn’t want a virtual girlfriend? Warriors and mages and archers and rogues, both of the male and female sort, march off merrily to the castle as consider between each other just what this event could mean, and just how it will effect the game.

“And off they go,” Kell says wistfully. “I suppose we should join them and find a party.”

“You don’t think we could do it ourselves?”

“We should play it safe,” Kell says. “There might be a player requirement for some of the dungeons.” At that Kell nods his head forward. “You coming?”

“…So we’re actually doing it, an actual epic quest?”

“…Yup, suppose so,” Kell says, “isn’t that wonderful.”

The two step on for the keep as Bright-Solemn eyes over the crowds in suspicion. Something bigger than a dragon feels near, perhaps only through magic.