The sun was beginning to hide behind the mountains in the east with the tall skyscrapers lying in opposite position of the mountains. Shoula was the capital of the Green Till Region one of the most mountainous regions on the planet of Shulita. The land that the city was built on was the largest area of flat ground in the entire region. This allowed for the quick, easy growth of the city becoming a major spaceport for the planet. Most of the business and heavy traffic was done on the west end of the city where there were the skyscrapers, ports, industries and major corporations. Along the west was the Green Shole River acting as the hub of travel for both space and land.

Along the mountain’s borders filling the gap between the main city and the rising earth was the residential districts of the city. A vast area of marginally divided cities all part of Shoula, the only distinct divisions was the lines found on a map. The residential parts of the city were slowly expanded as required with the growth of the city. Each district of the city built all at once almost to provide the increases in population. There were larger districts as several slowly merge together over the years and became one. They would usually feel separate like isolated community until those invisible barriers crumbled and the people integrated together as one. Now there were large districts too large to be considered districts anymore and took on names like they were individual cities simply mashed together.

Then there was the skyway transit system that connected the entire city to the main downtown city of Shoula. The skyway existed as a multi-tiered track system that heavily filled parts of the sky. Along with the transit system was the hyper-roadway elevated above the city often running parallel with the transit. Both served their purpose and in spite of all the technological advancements that gave the transit speed and reliability, there were still people that enjoyed traveling on their own. In fact there was a large part of the population that did own their own transportation, it made getting to the exact location that much easier. Even though there were laws in place that prevented the use of them in the deepest inner city where there was no room for such individual transports people still preferred to take themselves around the city where it was allowed.

Sarah however, really was not in the luxury of having her own transportation. She had too many expenses already that it would have been unreasonable to have one. Between college loans, rent on her small apartment, food and sundries, there was hardly anything left in her purse aside from hard candies. The transit was the only way that she could get around the city, it did mean walking the rest of the way, but it was worth it in the long run. Travel by transit was faster than any other method, so she did not mind the exercise, which was healthy for her.

She brushed her hair back behind her ear with her hand as she looked around the car. The entire length of the car was enough to fit sixty people sitting and even more standing if needed. It was usually lighter on passengers when she was returning home from college, the way she preferred. Most of the people that were rushing home were already gone an hour earlier with the normal work shifts ending. She usually stayed at the college’s library to avoid most of that trouble, but she could not avoid it all.

The car was slightly crowded with a few people standing around as the car smoothly slid on the tracks. There was a mother and a couple children across from her; the children were playing with each other not sitting down. The two of them had been looking at her off and on for the last minute, it left her a little uneasy though she was used to it by now. However, they began to stare at her now that she was looking at them for that brief second. It was her mistake that she looked up when they were looking at her and their eyes were locked on her now.

Their mother broke their concentration on her. “Stop staring at her,” the woman whispered to her children. The children however had less manners not being so discrete with their voice.

“She looks weird.”

“Yeah, what’s wrong with her eyes?”

Sarah turned away looking in another direction touching her finger to her glasses. She made the tint on them darker making it more difficult to see her eyes. It was something that she should be used to, though however thick skinned she might have been it still hurt from time to time.

“Is she sick?”

“Stop it now and be quiet,” the mother said.

“But…”

“You shouldn’t stare, especially at ones like her. Now come along, we reached our stop.”

The three got up and walked out of the car onto the platform along with others. Sarah caught faintly something from the children as they walked out. “Isn’t this the wrong stop?” She looked in their direction a little surprised, though more disgusted by the woman now than the children. The car left the station continuing its course further away from the main city.

The scene that the children had created made her more attention leaving her with an unsettled pain in her stomach. She now had more unwanted stares at her than she could handle. If it were not for the fact that she was too far away to walk home, she would have left the transit car immediately. She was going to have to endure the uneasy ride that she had, it was thankfully only a few more minutes. Though it was going to feel even longer now, she sank down in her seat looking down.

It was not long that she noticed someone sitting down next to her. She was tempted look to see who it was, but felt it was best to simply ignore whomever it was at this point.

“People have no manners these days,” said the person.

She looked up at the one sitting next to her a little surprised that someone was speaking to her. It was a young man, probably college age or possibly older. He was wearing rather plain clothes, so she could not really tell much about him by appearance. She did not really know what to say back to him, but she had to say something not to be rude to him. “Um…its okay, I’m used to it.” Sarah looked away from him trying not to meet with much eye contact; her hair fell in around her face.

“Well even so, you shouldn’t have to be. You’d think after everything and all these years people would be over something like this.”

She really did not know what the man was getting at with his words. It was not as though she did not disagree with him, but she was failing to see the point in him telling her these things that she already knew. It was unusual enough that someone was willing to sit down next to her without saying something about her heritage, but to have someone talking like this to her. Most of the English people did not like her or her family that much; it had been like that for as long as she could remember.

The English speaking parts of the galaxy were retreating into their shells over the last hundred years. From a historical standpoint, a lot of it began when they suffered a heavy defeat against a smaller force. The circumstances around it were left a mystery, but what did come out of it was that there was a betrayal within the military ranks. Back then the English Confederation was made up of numerous planets with more than just English. The betrayal was from another group that was part of the Confederation mostly Germen and French, though part of the group were Chinese with a few others that were unconfirmed. This led to a change in the war and a forced cease-fire that left the English home front demoralized.

Ever since they had been pushing towards isolationism removing people from their Confederation that were not English. It was all under the idea that they were trying to remove the threat of betrayal, but it created fear among the people. Now it was hard for Sarah because she was half Japanese and half English, making for even more hatred since she was in part one of them, but tainted now.

Sarah looked back at him, there did seem to be a genuine quality on his face. There was not the hint that he was making fun of her or trying to be cruel like so many people often did. He was a strange one it made her curious. “If I may ask, why did you sit down next to me?”

“Hmm? Well I saw those two staring at you. You must have beautiful eyes to have them so captivated.”

“Well, I…what sort of answer is that?” Sarah was taken off guard, it seemed like he was actually trying to flirt with her. She did not know what to do he seemed nice enough. Her own gut reaction had her wanting to run away off the car all the way home, but she was still too far away.

“I am sorry, I did not mean to offend you.”

“No, you didn’t, but…”

“Something wrong?”

“N-no.”

“Can you do me the honor of taking off your glasses?”

“Huh? Why?” She had too much attention already from the people that were on the car. If she did that, they would all begin to look at her again. The ride home was already unbearable for her thanks to those children and everyone trying to not be around her. Now there was this guy next to her that seemed to only want to make matter worse for her. She was feeling cornered and did not know where to go.

The car stopped at her stop, though she probably would have gotten out either way. She ran out of the car at the last second before the doors shut leaving a trail of tears in her wake. The man that had been talking to her had rushed after her only to get stopped by the doors. He had barely noticed the tears in the seconds before she was gone. The transit car left immediately in a burst creating a wake behind it that blew around Sarah.

She was feeling a little better now that she was away from them all, but her mind was still thinking about that man. It was hard to get him out of her thoughts as she walked home. In an effort to try to change the subject she turned on the news feed that rolled across her glasses. That did little to get her mind off of him, but it did provide something that would distract her every so often when something interesting came up. She did not know what it was about him that made such a strong impression on her. Those last few seconds were terrifying for her; she was scared of what was happening. He had been so close to her, inside her space that no one was allowed to enter. The thought was making her face red. Sarah shook her head to try to stop thinking about it.

There was a lot of news today; it was hard to keep all of it straight. Though when there was a galaxy out there and almost a trillion people living out there a lot can happen. It just made it even harder to decide what was important to report. The general galaxy news was running right now.

“The Chinese and Italian fleets continue their five day standoff in the neutral space of around planet M-9802. Ambassadors have begun talks to try to back down their military today, but there still remains no agreement at this time.”

“A terrorist attack on the planet Huron Kore has left ten thousand dead and thousands more injured. Military officials, government agents and local police are still investigating the scene. Right now it seems that there was an overload in a power grid that caused the Ghonmic Labs complex to blow up. It is suspected that the overload triggered the explosion of an experimental generator that caused the twenty block radius to be destroyed.”

“Unification talks continue in spite of the delays from several of the delegates. The ships carrying the remaining delegates will be arriving in two days at Phorene at which time the official summit will begin.”

“In Entertainment, Mythos Entertainment creators of the popular Fantasy Hour Online reports that they have now broke the 50 million mark making it into the top ten most played online games today.”

That last report made Sarah smile a little. “I remember when they were testing the beta and there were only half a million people playing. Hard to believe that it’s been six years since then.”

She finally made it back to her apartment, which was a small room in a ten-story complex. The building was in an older part of the city that had been renovated twenty years ago. However, Shorin Coral was far older than that with twenty other districts merged together, the area was built almost a hundred years ago. It was in what they sometimes referred to as the Eighth Ring of Shoula.

The city was expanded slowly away from the main city in a radial pattern creating a ring every few decades. The rings were normally five miles thick and ranged between twenty or fifty miles long. There were currently ten rings, the tenth being the newest and furthest from the main city. Much of it was still under construction and remained incomplete. It would another fifty years or more before there would be another ring. Though they were almost touching the mountains at this point, the city was running out of room to expand in.

Sarah dropped her things down on the floor nearby the door as she entered. The room was small for her, but it had enough for a bed, kitchen, her terminal, and a place to sit. It was nothing fancy, but as a college student she did not need much more than that anyway. It was all one room with a small divider for her bed in one corner and opposite that was the kitchen. Then the other side had the bathroom with a closet and her main living space.

She changed out of her school cloths getting into something a little more comfortable to be sitting around and lying around her room. After that she prepared her dinner and turned on her terminal to finish up the work that she had left over from classes today. Once all of that had been completed she pulled out her mind link device and laid down on the floor.

The initial start up of the game was beginning; she crossed her legs bouncing one up and down waiting on it to finish. There was another update today that needed to be grabbed before she could go into the world. Fantasy Hour usually made small changes to the game on a regular basis to keep everything stable and to continually grow the world so that it could maintain the large number of players. It was one of the few games that did not split up its population across numerous worlds. It had challenges with maintaining such a vast world, but it did make for a more enjoyable experience since it felt like a living world with so many people.

The update was now finished and she was brought to the main screen to select between her characters. She saw her two that she had created, Gnurin and Yerune. It had been a long time since she had even logged on with Gnurin, though his days were past her at this point. He had little use to her other than the fond memories of playing him. She logged in as Yerune the pink haired Heavy Sword. There was almost no reason for her to keep the pink hair at this point; it was a dare someone made with her. But she still kept it around; it made her stand out as being unique. There were few people with their hair still dyed. The event was over two years ago and it was popular for everyone to have their hair dyed then, but few people actually kept it.

She was dropped in the overcrowded metropolis of Belbois one of two in the world. Belbois was the older of the two and had been around since the beginning when there were only a few other cities to work from. It was part of the Kingdom of Berihelm and was a beautiful city with stone and marble work in all of the buildings throughout. There were large pillars everywhere supporting the upper city that raised above the small valley the city rested in.

Yerune walked through the under city, the massive arches supporting along with the pillars. The ceiling that felt like it could crush everything and everyone in an instant. The streets were crowded with people, the commoners of the world. The upper city required access to be in and while there were a large number that did have access, millions still did not have access. Belbois’ streets of the under city were commonly used for trading items, setting up shops for those that were ‘AFT’ (away from terminal), generally sleeping. Then there were others looking to group up with players and fight monsters to gain levels. It was the best place in the world to look for anything; however even with the wide streets there were thousands of people crowding out the path.

She missed the days when the streets were easy to navigate and when the city was smaller. The last time she ran through the city end to end, it took her half an hour to get through. It made her grateful that they were kind enough to place teleporting room throughout the city. Most people had to pay for the teleporting cost, but once you had finished a quest it was free from there after. It was one of the first quests she had done, that and the leyline teleporting quest to give her access to teleporting to the numerous locations in the world.

She brought herself out at the edge of the city, not really feeling like going up to the upper city tonight to look for something to do. There was something going on in Ferholm the other city that matched Belbois in size, but she was not too interested in the event. It was not a game event, but some little gathering to go hunt down some Great Beast that had just been added to the game. She had read about it appearing in the Jhurdis region to the east of the Kindgom of Hilmill, where Ferholm was located. It was supposed to be a new dragon, but no one knew how it spawned so everyone was getting together to come up with a plan. Yerune probably could have handled it with a party, but she had stopped taking part in that area of the game when she retired Gnurin.

It had been a while since she had been to the southern regions, so she picked at random a city to teleport to. The city was Torifin, part of the Melifois Empire that stretched through much of the southwestern lands. Torifin was located in the northern part of Melifois where there was warm climate and the beginning of the Loughin Desert. There were still green plains surrounding Torifin, though the desert was a short distance on mount.

She entered the city of Torifin, hundreds of people running about the rough stone streets. There were carts lining much of the outer part of the city where selling goods took place. Most of the city was small brick or wood houses that were slowly falling apart. Torifin was a forgotten part Melifois Empire and much of it was run down at this point. Near the center of the city was a large castle, the remains of the Torin Monarchy before it collapsed. The castle required access as well, but Yerune felt like roaming outside.

The plains were plagued with animals and monsters alike that felt like feeding on anyone that might be walking through. Yerune easily killed several of the aggressive ones that saw her as a threat in their territory. Though she was quickly becoming surrounded by a pack of Fire Tongue Wolves, normally easy for her to handle. However, their strength and overall stats are increased when they are together in a group making them far more deadly. She needed to end it quickly before her health was too low to recover from.

Yerune switched out her high-speed axe for the slower more deadly Deathtoll, a two handed sword. However before that she activated her transfer ability allowing the speed from the axe to be transferred for one attack along with all of her built up break, which normally would be lost in the changing of equipment. She then charged up her break into one attack the Cry of the Fallen, an area of effect attack only possible with the heavy two-handed swords.

She pierced the ground with the sword releasing the cry as streams of energy and magic pouring out from the sword. A wave of magic burst from the impact stalling all of the monsters and then the streams pierced everything around her felling all of the wolves that were attacking her. She pulled out the sword from ground panting from the attack stopping in motion upon hearing the sound of another wolf behind her. The attack had not killed all of them one remained barely alive. The wolf leapt up to attack her, her health already drained low from the requirements of the attack.

The wolf was about to land a killing blow on her when it was brought down in mid attack. She looked around to find out whom it was that had saved her. A figure walked towards her with the sun behind them making it difficult to see who it was that was approaching.