The Red Hand

Side Story 1 – The Band of Misfit Adventurers.

If you asked those players who survived through to the end of FWO what the scariest period was, most would point to the terror of the Black Gauntlet. Just whispering their name was enough to cause people to pale, and it was considered bad luck even to speak of them. The infamous PKer guild had racked up quite a large number of kills over the first year of the game and showed no signs of slowing down. Their tendency to prey on weaker or low-level players caused panic and fear to spread if even rumors of one of their members being sighted cropped up.

Low-level or non-combat-focused players hid within cities or other safe areas, while others fled to places far away from their operational area. The Great Forest of Silka was one such outlying place and was home to a wide variety of magical plants and other nature-related creatures. It even boasted its own dungeon that ran deep underground, so deep in fact that no one had ever reached the final boss and cleared it.

Local villages that bordered the forest spoke of a dryad that made the forest its home and told tales of other powerful individuals who'd moved in as of late. Rumors and tales spread as traveling merchants carried information about a strange group of people, known as players, who'd begun appearing. Many began to question just who and what these 'players' were and why they'd suddenly appeared. Compared to the other inhabitants of Altarus, players were much stronger, could freely change their race, and advanced at a pace so rapid that it left one's head spinning. There had been sightings of such strange people coming in and out of the forest and trading with local merchants and villagers, and soon people began to wonder if some of these 'players' had taken up residence within the Great Forest.

Travel into the forest was perilous in the best case and suicidal at worst. Thus, contacting these strange people was neither easy nor desired. If they meant no harm to the villagers, then they decided to simply leave these strangers alone, rather than stir up trouble. A few people had come to trade with them occasionally and always seemed to get generous deals, thus many welcomed these new faces.

Deep within the forest, far deeper than any sane person would or could go, was a cabin. One that was quite a bit larger than your average home and surrounded by all manners of magical plants. Inside, four different voices could be heard arguing about what to have for dinner. Though one sounded especially odd.

"Nyi nyalready told nyu nyi want mewnat meow~!"

[I already told you I want meat!] A black-haired cat girl spoke in a very hard-to-understand accent. Her giant floppy ears twitched around as she spoke and her massive tail flicked behind her.

Translation for Ara will be done below her speech in brackets.

"Yes! We need meat in our diet! Unlike you two, Ara and I can't exist solely off vegetables! We demand meat!" Another dark-skinned catkin with a single horn spoke up in agreement.

"Meat nyis nyecessary for nyour diet meow~! nyu might have tamewnd nye rat nyinto nyeating nyonly those yucky greens, but mewot mewn meow~!"

[Meat is necessary for our diet! You might have tamed the rat into eating only those yucky greens, but not me!] Ara exclaimed. She'd gotten sick of eating only vegetables grown by Shiru the dryad for the past month.

"Don't call me a rat! I'm just short! Do you see whiskers or a tail on me?" Alveron was only a one-foot-tall fairy, and due to his small size and tendency to prank people, many players began calling him a rat. It was kind of endearing at this point, not that he liked it. "Come on Shiru, back me up here!" He looked to the dryad, who was tending to one of the plants on a windowsill.

"I don't know. You're about as small as the critters I find in my vegetable patches." Shiru giggled. "And I think mice are cute, so it's fine. Besides, Ara is only playing."

"You guys...." Alveron hung his head. "Why must you be like this? If you don't cut it out, one day I'm going to assemble a rat army just to spite you!"

"I'd like to see you try! We've got two cats here! That's more than enough to destroy your rat army!" Avahn had a smug face.

"Yeah meow~! nye mice shall perish meow~!"

[Yeah! The mice shall perish!] Ara hissed in agreement.

"Perhaps the kitties are right, though. When Daikael returns from her run to Elso, we should discuss acquiring some meat, lest our carnivores here go crazy and start digging up my plants. Again..." Shiru gave a wry smile, Ara may or may not have destroyed the carrots the other day.

"Well, you don't have to wait long." A voice came from the front hallway, and a moment later, a kitsune woman in a brown and gold kimono appeared in the kitchen. "I'm back, and boy, have I got some info for you all."

"Welcome back Daikael. Did you find the ingredient you were looking for to finish your weapon?" Shiru poured her some tea and offered her a seat in the kitchen.

"Yupper! I've got everything together for my master plan! Those fools condemned firearms to be a useless gimmick, but I'll show them!" Daikael's eyes shined with excitement. She was an artificer who excelled at crafting magical and mundane gear, but unlike dedicated crafters, she could also fight exceptionally well with her devices. Though she had the unfortunate habit of being quite eccentric and might have a tendency to get a bit crazy with her creations.

"Meowhat did nyu want to tell us nya~?"

[What did you want to tell us?] Ara asked as she used her telekinesis skill to flip and flop her own hair around.

"Yeah, we don't get much outside info here. And it's been hard enough laying low and keeping away from Black Gauntlet these past months." Avahn had her own bad history with Pkers and had come to hate them from the bottom of her heart. She met up with the others when she fled into the forest to escape a group of Black Gauntlet's guild members who was hunting her. Avahn had slightly angered the group by bumping off one of its more well known members in an ambush. In retaliation, his friends chased after her seeking revenge. While Avahn was quite the powerful player and had experience in handling other Pkers, she was not quite strong enough to handle a 5v1 and come out victorious, yet.

{If I ever get my hands on those bastards, they're all dead! I just need to get stronger first, and then I'll make them, and all those disgusting Pkers pay!} (Avahn)

"Yeah, well about that. We don't need to worry about them anymore, hurrah!" Daikael said with a wry smile.

"What?" (Shiru, Avahn, Ara and Alveron.}

"Yeah. Apparently, someone wiped them out a few days back. I got info from someone in town about it. It was big news and spread around crazy fast. Every last one of them too, no survivors. It was a complete obliteration of the organization, whoever did it was through." Daikael explained. "So it looks like it will be much safer to leave the forest now, which will be great for us."

"Well, that's good!" Alveron smiled. "We can finally hit up some quests and dungeons to improve our skills without worrying about being attacked by other players." He was quite powerful with his space magic, but fighting other players wasn't an easier or desirable task.

"Who killed them nya~? was nyit nye nyassault team nya~? nyor was nyit shining blade nya~?"

[Who killed them? Was it the assault Team? Or was it Shining Blade?] Ara asked who did it since there weren't that many potential suspects. Shining Blade was the second largest group of players in the game after Assault Team and the largest non-crafting guild. Their respective leaders didn't get along so it was unlikely to be a joint operation.

"No idea," Daikael shook her head. "No one I spoke to could pinpoint the one who took them out, and neither Hishya nor Eris claimed the kill. Which is actually quite surprising since I know both wanted Gauntlet dead." There had been pressure for the two groups to work together to deal with the Black Gauntlet, but neither group's leader seemed willing to handle it at the moment.

"Then, if it wasn't them. Who could it be?" Shiru asked. "Black Gauntlet had almost twenty members if I recall. I don't think any small group of players or NPCs could handle them."

{I don't think many players could do something like that.} (Shiru)

"There is one..." Avahn's face went dark. "Someone who could definitely do it." She bit her lip in irritation causing Ara to pat her on the shoulder.

"You don't mean to tell me you believe that rumor about a single player acting as an assassin?" Alveron hopped on the table with his tea. "I mean, it's crazy to think that one single person could take down that many people. So I kinda doubt it, even if such a person exists they'd never be able to pull that off."

"It's mewot just nya rumor though meow~!"

[It's not just a rumor, though!] Ara disagreed.

"Nyakagi nyis very real meow~! nyi've nyeven mewnt her nyonce when she killed somewn nyoble meow~! nyi don't know nyif she was nyinvolved, but she's much more than just nya rumor meow~!"

[Akagi is very real! I've even met her once when she killed some noble! I don't know if she was involved, but she's much more than just a rumor!] Ara knew a bit about Akagi and what little she did know made her sure she was dangerous.

"Ara is right. I actually came across her once before. She actually made her way through this forest once before any of you arrived." Shiru gave a nervous laugh. "She put her blade to my neck and told me not to bother her. It was fun..."

"Really?" Alveron had never heard anything about this.

"Yeah, it was a while ago and I honestly forgot about it until now. She wasn't really mean or anything, but I think she was being chased by someone and wanted to move through the forest sneakily." Shiru explained.

"Yeah, that assassin could probably do it. I even heard that she's killed members of the Assault Team." Avahn growled. She hated Pkers, but if Akagi took care of Black Gauntlet, that would improve her opinion of the assassin a bit.

"So then, if Gauntlet is gone. We should start preparing to do some dungeon clearing! The one in the forest is still too hard for us now, so we need to get more powerful to actually get down past floor six." Alveron continued. They'd tried to tackle the dungeon a few times, but the mid-boss was always too much. "My space magic makes for a good tool, but it's not strong enough now. The system says that there are more skills down the tree that would help, so I'd like to start taking quests again."

"Let's go meow~! nyi wannya nyimprove my fans meow~! nyand we nyan nyeven try to find somewn nyexploits meow~!"

[Let's go! I wanna improve my fans! And we can even try to find some exploits!] As a streamer, Ara loved hunting bugs and finding exploits. Her current weapons, which were basically just paper fans, were something she found by accident while messing around. While they didn't do much damage themselves, they could stack a modifier on enemies, and when it hit a certain amount, the next attack would do massive damage. It stacked well with Daikael's weapons due to their high damage and long range.

However, before they could discuss any concrete plans for leveling up.

*GROWL~~~~* Daikael's stomach growled loudly.

"Sorry... I ran pretty fast and depleted all my stamina." She was a bit embarrassed. "Can we eat first?"

"We must hunt nye mewnat meow~! nyi nyeed nyit meow~!"

[We must hunt the meat! I need it!] Ara exclaimed.

"Yes, meat is required first! Then we can plan!" Avahn said as her stomach also growled in agreement.

"You guys and your meat cravings. You really have turned into cats, huh?" Alveron rolled his eyes but smiled. He found the two kitties to be cute and funny, though Shiru still took his number one spot on the cute chart for him.

"Good thing I got THIS!" Daikael reached into her magic pouch and pulled out a massive boar that slammed onto the floor.

"Oh my!" Shiru covered her mouth as she gasped. "That is a big friend."

"MEAT!" (Avahn x Ara)

The two cat girls started drooling the second the boar dropped out.

"Think this will be enough?" Daikael asked. "It's a Hyper Ram Boar, quite a juicy fellow if I do say."

"YES! MEAT!" (Avahn x Ara)

Shiru giggled. "I'll prepare some sides for you two. If you're going to eat all that meat, you need to have some vegetables to go with it." She turned and walked over to the counter as Alveron floated up onto her shoulder.

"Let me help! I want to try making some vegetable stir-fry!" Alveron said excitedly. He'd been trying to learn more about cooking since he'd met the dryad.

"Sure, but just be careful not to fall into the pot this time while I'm cooking. I'd rather not find a rat in my stew." Shiru smirked.

"NOT YOU TOO!" Alveron said, defeated, as everyone laughed.

{With the Black Gauntlet gone, things are probably going to get a lot more hectic now. The Assault Team has already taken down two World Bosses and I think they're going after Slurga next. At this rate, who knows how long until we get out of here?} Daikael thought to herself as everyone prepared for dinner.