“Say ahh”

“Ahh”

“Good” The nurse shines her light inside, glancing up and down before turning the light of with a small sigh of satisfaction “It looks like you will be fine. Your teeth are all still intact Yulia.

“Ah, sorry to be annoying like this Clara” Yulia rubs the back of her head shamefully

“Nonsense, this is my job you know” She lightly clips her on the forehead before rolling her chair to her desk and begins writing a prescription “Now I want you to take two of these every night for a week. That should reduce the nightmares somewhat”

Taking the prescription paper off the nurse, she thanks her and leaves the room, crumpling the paper once out of sight.

She doesn’t need pills, they don’t work.

No matter what she takes the nightmares still return, still haunt her dreams every so often.

Even though it has been six weeks since he left, the traumatizing images still haunt her. The metallic smell of blood mixed with the putrid stench of piss and shit as well as the acrid smell of vomit had engraved itself deeply in her memory, and it lingers ever in her nostrils.

It has been six weeks in real life, six months and five days to be exact in game, since she had seen him disappear, since her life as an acolyte became normal…calm.

She did not mind the calmness; her days were spent doing chores and talking with people of the church. They are calm days full of light and warmth and she loved them.

While she thinks about her days in the church, she enters her flat, immediately pounced upon by a certain Marcus.

“Yulia! I almost thought you were dead! Haven’t seen you in forever and ever” He bear hugs her, lifting her off the floor and swinging her round happily, which she does not enjoy.

“Put me down Marcus, now” She growls

He quickly puts her down after some ‘gentle’ persuasion by her fingers on his clavicle.

“Ow that hurt” fake tears form on his eyes “As compensation you should tell me about your past six weeks in LEO” He wiggles his eyebrows excitedly

She could say no, but then again he has been signing her off in lectures for the past six weeks. The least she owes him is a small chat.

Sighing, she walks over to her room and motions for him to follow, which he does.

Entering her room, she collapses onto her bed and he takes the seat at her desk.

“So, what do you want to know?”

“Everything”

*Groan*

“Talk about unspecific”

“Well I do need to learn as much as I can, since I’m going to be joining you soon”

“…Eh?” she sits up cleaning out her ears as she’s not sure she heard him correctly

“What have you been doing all this time? Have you not heard any of the news?” He exclaims in wonder

She shakes her head.

He twirls round on the chair and begins furiously typing on her laptop.

Bringing up a video, he presses play and moves out of the way for her to see.

[ “Welcome everyone to Xcursion. I am Madelyn Macane and I’ll be your host for this evening.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m assuming you’ve heard of LEO by now?”

*crowd cheers*

“Haha, perfect. Well that means we can cut straight to the chase. Today we have a very special guest for you all. This man is officially the first mage in LEO.

Yes, you heard correctly; someone has finally passed the apprentice level and has been given the class of mage. This man is coming here to tell us all about it, so I introduce to you Kale”

*crowd cheers as a tall, spangled youth walks onto stage looking quite underfed and tired. He sits down, ruffling his messy brown hair till his slightly spotted face is in better view*

“Why hello there Kale, would you like to tell everyone about yourself?”

“I’m just your average teenager, nothing special about me really. Except for the fact that I am the only user to be able to use magic of course”

“Yes, we are so excited to hear the news. So tell us, how did you do it?”

“Well, I began by reading books, lots of them, hundreds of them. That took around seven months in game to complete”

“Wow, how did you not bore yourself?”

“Simple, the books were all quite interesting reads and I enjoy my books. Also the game gave me the fast reader skill, helping quicken the process. Anyways, after those seven months I took the exam, which was simply a display of knowledge. The next three months was putting that knowledge into practice and harnessing my first magic type to my will”

“Magic type? Forgive me but I’m not knowledgeable in magic as you are”

“There are multiple magic types in LEO. The classic ones such as fire and water and more un-classic such as chaos. I had an affinity for water it seemed so I ended up learning water magic”

“Ooh. But with affinity do you mean you don’t have a choice?”

“No, rather when you harness your mana the type will come naturally”

“Very interesting. So I assume to pass your apprentice level you had to show them your power”

“Naturally, and as we all know I succeeded”

“Of course you did. A question though, why did you choose mage, not continue to the next level?”

“Well you see-”]

Yulia stops the video.

“I don’t see what the point of this video is”

“Oh, well I thought you’d like to watch this important moment for LEO, well whatever I’ll just skip to the good part” He takes control of the laptop once more and moves the video to the last few minutes

[“There have been announcements of the next release of capsules for LEO which will be happening in around a month’s time, what are your thoughts on having newcomers?”

“Well, in all honesty I probably won’t be seeing them within the first half year at least so I will not mind them in the least. Rather I would like to support them in becoming magic users too”]

He turns off the video, grinning towards Yulia.

“Why didn’t you just tell me? It wouldn’t have wasted my time”

“Well it’s an important video, since you should know the guy who’s the first mage of course”

‘Just because he’s first doesn’t mean he is the best”

“True. So anyways, how far are you. I thought you’d be up there on Xcursion since you seem to live in that capsule” he points to the capsule taking up most of the room.

“I’m still on trainee level” She mutters uncomfortably

“Really? But it’s been ten months in game, how have you not gotten to the next level?” He exclaims incredulously

“Well I need to go through a ceremony which happens once a year….and it’s six months away”

He shakes his head pitifully “Such a shame, means I should be able to catch up to you then”

She groans inwardly. Seems like she won’t be able to escape him in LEO either.

“Alright, you can go back to LEO, I’ve got lectures to attend…since I’m a respectable student” He nods his head mockingly, dodging the pillow she chucks at him half-angrily “Tooodles” He disappears out the door.

Her slight anger subsides quickly when he leaves, leaving her rather empty.

She tolerates him simply because he doesn’t seem to care about the way she treats him, and the fact that he is one of the few people who will talk to her, even after the incident when she threw up on Ramira.

Shrugging the memory off, she eats a few breadsticks and hummus, her body only reacting slightly to the

disconcerting sound of crunching.

Finishing her meal, she strips and steps into her capsule

…

The dawn rises on the City of Darton illuminating the early risers milling about in their morning activities.

No one really looks up at the sizzling sun except one man; naked as the day he was born but not hiding in shame.

He sits upon the forty second stair of the Cathedral, his eyes burning the memory of a beautiful orange sunrise.

The heavy door opens behind him and out comes a woman, her long brunette hair curling down her shoulders.

He stands up and she hands him a broom, her crystal blue eyes fixated to his, before she takes seat on the stairs a lesser distance from where she sat a month ago.

“Six months and five days” she says wistfully to the man as he sweeps the stairs

“Yeah, it’s been a while” He comments thoughtfully as he sweeps.

“Will he ever come back?”

“I trust that he will” he stops sweeping for a second, looking up at the sun and smiling ever so slightly.

“Hm, well I hope he gets here later than sooner; I’m actually able to eat again and I don't mind the peace” She smiles too but for a different purpose.

She sits while he sweeps and they maintain this peaceful silence for a short while, letting the sun bask them in its light.

However the sun soon rises and she stands up to leave.

Stopping at the doorway, she looks back at Moren.

“Hey, could you tell me what you said to him that day?”

“Well it wouldn’t be a secret if I told you now would it?” He responds with a devilish grin

“Tsch” she walks away to go begin her morning duties.

Moren continues sweeping for a short while before stopping suddenly, whipping his head to the right.

A small smile creeps on his face finally taking the form of a full beaming smile.

“Welcome back into the light of Helia, friend”

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Author's Corner: IT IS BEGINNING ONCE AGAIN!

Well this 'Chapter' (since it'll have parts) will be a sort of mini-arc so enjoy

And thank you to whoever gave me a review, always welcome :*

-TRUE NORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRD