A large uproar begun in the virtual world, people were getting stuck in Allastar, unable to return to the "real" virtual world. This matter went as far as alarming even the empress as she found out that she could do nothing about it.

The souls of all the people in the capsule were locked by the system, if they tried taking the people out of their capsule they would simply fall into a comma, for which there was no cure.

Of course the reason why there was no cure, it was because humanity had long stagnated in all fields of science. Even the most brilliant of scientists found working boring and had went to some virtual world to play or live their life there, why bother healing the real body when it's almost 100% safe, in truth only some really strong psychics and high clearance people could kill a person, with was a rather small chance since only one in ten millions could fit the description.

Merry had a new headache at the moment, she trully didn't know what to do, she had some knowledge about the system and even had the system codes but someone had just changed the main code for Allastar, it was like changing the password for your PC.

There was only one thing she could do about it, find the person's real body and take him out of his capsule, but all of that would have to wait until after ending her new movie's shooting.

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Lidie's POV

Lidie with trouble got her head out of the sand, their carpet ride didn't last even a few hours before they were ambushed by a monster and shot out of the sky. I said a monster but all they had seen was a sand storm that covered the whole creature up.

Lidie of course knew that this was the creature known as Landlo, a strange centipede like creature that can swim through sand. It's as dangerous as a dragon and people mostly avoid it as it can be seen from miles away.

This was all Blue's fault, that idiot didn't even know how to drive the magic carpet, all she knew is how it turned left and right competely disregarding the up and down motion.

Not too far away Lidie could see two little legs protruding from the sand and not far away Galie's probably unconcious or dead body.

Blue was nowhere to be seen but Lidie didn't really care about her.

After pulling little brown out of the sand and giving Galie a few slaps, the three of them were once more on their feet, right in the middle of a sandstorm. It wasn't as wild as before but it still stung their eyes trying to see.

Little Brown was mad at the monster and she was asking for her father to come and give it a lesson but Galie reminded her that they were hiding from their father. Lidie at the moment felt awful, there was really nothing they could do other than put up a tent or something but with the wind it was really hard.

She then noticed something that made her somewhat angry, Galie was using her psychic forcefield to protect them from the sand but she didn't even think of coming to help her as she was trying to set up the tent.

It wasn't really sudden some time after the sandstorm calmed down, that Blue and her flying carpet approached them from the air.

The had stayed in place for arround an hour and even if Blue had died she would have long respawned in the nearby town, which they visited some time ago.

Galie and Brown at the moment hoped the too had respawned back in town since Blue was holding four rather appetizing bonnuts.

The rest of the day the spent setting up tents and having a picnic in the middle of the dessert and since Blue could fly to the town and back in almost no time they had nothing to worry about.

They of course had no idea that all around the world of Allastar people were going crazy as they were unable to log out of the game.

Some of the most unlucky ones were stranded in an unknown Island in the middle of the sea, dying of hunger.

Criminality by players was now rising day by day, while Blue and the others were having picnics and travelled all over Ashrad. Of course they didn't really know why the number of red named players had incresed but they had killed quite a few of them on their journey.

Of course with their speed of travelling it was only a matter of time before Darknym and Time caught up with them, Lidie was somewhat worried every time they saw mounts in the horizon as she remembered the agreement Galie and Darknym had made.

This game of tags had three rules, first rule was Darknym was not to use his powers to locate them, thus he was left following Time, second rule was that they couldn't use their powers to travel, meaning that they had to use mounts and any means of transportation the game provided, lastly if Brown calls for his help the game was officialy over.

Their days of travelling weren't too many since they would stay at huge cities for longer since finding someone in a large city was almost impossible and today they had arrived in the city of Stonehill.

This was one of the most majestic cities of Ashrad, mostly because of it's stone quarry, stone was the the most expensive luxury in the Ashrad dessert continent, only rich people had houses made of stone, or weapons made of metal, while armors were almost non existent in the dessert continent, both because you would simply sink in the sand with a heavy armor and because you would burn alive inside a metal armor, well there were always exceptions to this since many players did so to gain the heat resistance and fire resistance passive skills, dying dozens of times in the process.

Lidie and the girls were just entering the city when they saw behind them two approaching camels, or maybe mounts.

It was then that Galie begun rushing them towards the center of the town, they could of course simply fly away with their carpet but there was nothing to stop Darknym from shooting them down, which she had clearly foreseen.

Blue was somewhat surprised, mostly because they hadn't seen Darknym and her father for a whole year and a half, something that was rather normal since they had been travelling all the time, even bumping on them was nearly impossible since Galie could foresee the future to a pretty good extend, when of course she was into it.

Blue in truth was somewhat jealous of Galie and Brown, their father was something taken out of legends, something akin to a real monster while her dad was only able to foresee misfortunes all the time, every time she saw him, there was some new misfortune to befall her, he was like a messanger of misfortune and the worst thing was that he could and would do nothing to avert it, he had absolutely no power over fate, it was like you foreseeing that you would lose after already having tossed the dice.

As for care and Love, she was already too old for that, all she now wanted was to be free and have fun, but being the new empress was probably the only way to true freedom, she had seen how her mother did whatever she liked, caring little about everything else, she wanted to be just like her. Of course you could tell that there are other divas that did the same but they weren't exactly free to do whatever they liked, only w12(the virtual game) allowed them free use of their clearance status, in the other virtual worlds they had a rather limited status and that's because the Empress had decidedt hat W12 would be their battlefield for succession, the one who could conquer all the worlds would become the new Empress, it was not much different than the game of tags they were playing with Darknym as freedom was their reward for participating.

In this game of tags the only one who won nothing out of it was Lidie since for her freedom was only worth in the real world, for her this whole virtual reality was fake.

For those that lived all their lives in this virtual world, for her the real world was where true freedom awaited, inside the virtual world there was but a fake sense of freedom, not only because everything was controled by a system but also because they didn't even know if their close people were real or not.

In a world where everything was fake freedom didn't exist, but for her there was a small hint of hope, that hope was in the training of her psychic power, while she only had a hint of telepathy and telekinesis at the moment, she had found out that her psychic powers had become somewhat stronger as a whole, Galie helped her with using other psychic powers as well and even Blue was interested in the aspect of being able to use other sorts of psychic power, something that was thought unthinkable, because psychic powers were something they were born with, an inborn ability that rarely changed or mutated into something else, they mostly lived with a single power all their life, while some powerful psychics had more than one or a fusion of a few, but that was their limit.

In their one year of travel Lidie had entered multiple fields of psychic power but she could only touch them, she couldn't even get the corresponding skill to use them, the aftermath however was good, she was now somewhat stronger and if given the same clearance as the divas(100%), she would probably be their equal.

Why am I telling you all this, it's because the moment they saw Darknym and Time approach Lidie instantly opened a large portal ahead of themselves and dissapeared into the heart of the city.

It was not a breach since Darknym said nothing about Lidie's and Blue's powers, only Galie was baned from using her teleportation abilities, that was because she had a rather long range teleportation, making it impossible for anyone to reach them, even if they could forsee their movements.

Three days they spend hiding in their Inn room, a rather luxurious room to tell the truth, but it was getting stuffy and uncomfy staying in a room to avoid their persuers.

Those days the town or city as the npcs called it was chaotic, the npcs had begun a battle with the players as hundreds of red named player begun plundering cities and towns alike, villages were pillaged and chaos ruled all over Allastar, the reason of course was that people were stuck in Allastar and since there was no death penalty to be seen and they needed food and drinks to survive as dying of starvation was rather painful, Allastar replicated the many types of real death rather truthfully, even a sword wound hurt like hell and some people simply fell unconcious after being wounded for the first time but with time they gained dozens of resistances and passive skills by the system so that they could better enjoy the game, but in the current situation it was rather strange, well the players did enjoy themselves, in the worst way possible, even other players took the hit of this new trend, but that's something irrelevant to the big towns and cities, since security was better there and few red named players could escape punishment, being sent to jail for a weak without being able to log out turned to be a rather uncomfortable thing.(Normaly they logged out till their punishment was over, at least those that were sent to jail before)

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Brown's POV

Little brown didn't understand lots of things but playing around she did a lot, today while the others were still asleep in their room she snuck out and went to play as usual.

While walking for some time in the streets of the city she had the most fateful encounter of her life, it was probably the first time that she saw another child after a long time, the girl was rather plain with short blue hair but a rather modern looking outfit that made Brown even more interested in her, she was holding the hand of a red headed woman but didn't seem very happy.

Brown did what ever self respected child her age would think of doing, she grabbed the girl by her hand and begun running away, in her mind it was a rescue mission that she was willing to accomplish.

After all this whole world was her playground or so she was told by her father.

The two girls were running for some time until they reached a clearing somewhere in the town.

"You are free now"

Said Brown full of confidence and selfsatisfaction.

The girl however looked at her as if she was seeing an alien, she even made a round around her before looking at her pensively.

The girl then took out a few gold coins and gave them to her before walking away.

Brown didn't know that she practicaly looked like a beggar, her clothes were the novice outfit, mostly because she didn't attack monsters at all, gaining no experience, meaning she hadn't even reached level 100 yet so most good stuff were unavailable to her.

The girl on the other side was wearing a rather modern outfit, the latest fashion if you asked around, making the two contrast each other, truth was brown didn't really care what she was wearing, she was rather tomboish and liked wearing things that let her move more freely.

Brown was left dumbstruck looking at the gold coins, not really understanding why the girl had given her money, she had plenty herself, but before she came to herself the girl was gone.

Not long after, the girl returned with three other people, riding on a giant of a man, next to him was the redheaded woman and near them was a strange guy that looked somewhat funny.

"Is this the little beggar girl?"

Asked the big guy, but he begun laughing really loud because he saw that Brown had a name tag, meaning she was a player.

Of course to npcs that didn't make a difference, but to players that made a huge difference, since there were no children playing w12, mostly because children were meant to be at a closed educational network playing more childish games.

Who in his right mind would believe that Brown was a child, anyone in Allastar could make themself look like a child and Brown's clothes were nothing even close to a beggar, she had some rather expensive accessories for low level players, of course the girl was Progy and the others were Max and others.

"Girl, you really are lucky that we don't have time to play with you, trying to cheat little progy, isn't that a bit too mean of you"

Max said with a rather frightening smile on his face, of course he didn't mean any harm, but to someone who saw him for the first time it was rather frightening.

Brown of course as any child would do begun crying and then it was that all hell broke loose.

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Lidie's POV

Lidie was the first to wake up and the first to find that Brown was missing, there was an uproar in the room but it ended too soon as they heard knocks on the door.

Of course they thought it was Brown and in a hurry opened the door, only to find a group of people they were all too familliar with outside.

Brown was riding on Darknym's shoulders and looked at the others somewhat angrily, she still held some hostility towards Max, but the moment Lidie saw Max and the girl sitting on his broad shoulder, unknowingly to her a tear flowed from her eye.

It was a rather awkward moment as non of the two knew what to do, Max of course as a man was the first to approach but his move forward made Lidie cower backwards in return, she didn't know why she felt bad about leaving Progy behind, maybe she wasn't as hard as she made herself to be maybe she couldn't make herself believe that this world was a lie completely, she even felt somewhat bad about calling the npc child a program, after all she could do little to nothing as to differenciate who else might be a program, she was simply too adorable, or maybe Lidie was simply weak against children, the main target of running from Max was mostly running away from Progy, the small cute kid of back then, even now she was not much older but looked healthier than before.

Darknym of course didn't wait for them and took Galie with him to another room, telling her that they had some things to talk about, don't misunderstand, the reason behind it was much more personal.

The others also left the room, although Blue and Red were sneakily eavesdroping, but to Max and Lidie that was the least of their conserns right now.

It was about time when the person who broke the silence was Progy.

"Mom, why did you leave me behind, don't you like me anymore?"

Her voice was as naive as her question, but behind there was a complicated system, Lidie knew that, but even so she still couldn't answer this simple but nightmarish question.

"If you are not ready yet we won't force you to stay with us, but know that we will be waiting for you"

Max said as he was about to turn around and leave making Lidie feel somewhat conflicted inside.

Truth be told she wasn't sure what she felt for him, her past partner died a rather horrible death under the clunches of the guardians and she was very close to having the same fate.

(Truthfully speaking that was just their fantasy since the most probable punishment would be the sealing of their psychic powers in the virtual world and probably a ban from exiting the virtual world, well and some secret surveilance by the system but nothing life threatening, unless of course there was an "accident" during their apprehension, which was a rather low probability, but the rebelion's fear was that their mind would have been read so they just suicided whenever they were caught, not that it mattered anymore, since she had heard what the rebellion really was about, unless of course they had killed someone, which would earn them capital punishment).

"Stop!...please"

This unexpected sound came from Lidie herself, her mind was somewhat shaken, but her determination after remembering Axel she was even more sure about herself.

"Max, you are a sweet guy, but I don't think we can be together"

Her words were no longer swayed by emotions, this was cold reality, he was not exactly her type anyway.

To her words however she got a rather unexpected reaction.

"What did you just say!"

His words were full of anger and a sense of discontent, making Lidie mad, after all she didn't owe him anything.

This moment to her he was the personification of all that she hated, a person content with a fake world, a fake life and fake feelings.

"Just go back to your mommy! I'm sure you guardian scum have it perfectly fine since you can do whatever you like"

Lidie Shouted back, she was rather mad now, after the fight in the arena she of course understood full well that Max had some conection with the guardians, after all his armor was not something normal people could get their hands on.

Max's face fell, he of course had heard about the conflict between the guardians and the rebels, but he also knew the truth that all rebels were but recruits for the guardians.

He at the moment felt sorry for her, thinking that she was being deceived into thinking that the real world is something heavenly.

He of course had lived in the real world for most of his childhood and knew how painful and unforgiving it was, a simple scratch would stay on your body for days and there was little he could do but fulfill his most primitive needs, like eating, drinking and going to the bathroom, after all they didn't have to go to the toilet in the virtual world and they wouldn't shit themselves in most virtual games, mostly because it was humiliating and caused psychological disorders to occur, although some games did allow so, but it could be deselected in the features screen at the start of the game.

Lidie however did catch a glimse of pity on his face, becoming even more angry as a result.

In truth they had too little in common and progy was nothing than a bunch of data in Lidie's mind, if she wanted to she could have simply hacked into it and edit it, that was the truth that for some reason escaped Max's mind.

In truth children in Allastar and other virtual reality games or worlds were something abnormal, too few would spend their time raising a child, it was simply too hard and time consuming, especialy the baby phase was the worst.

A fleeting thought had passed through Lidie's mind only for a moment. 'What if Max wasn't a guardian, what if he didn't know anything about the real world situation, what if he was also a victim of the system like many others?'

Of course this thought passed the moment she saw expression on his face, she then understood that he knew too well what was going on and probably didn't care about it. He was probably content living in a fake world all his life' she thought as she rushed passed him and went looking for Darknym and Galie, after all the two of them were the only hope she had of helping humankind escape the system, leaving Max standing coldly behind her, he was simply too shaken at the moment, after all he had just learned that the girl he liked was part of the revolutionaries.