Vol.1//Rise_Of_Cernunnos
Chapter 1: The self-aware final boss
The year is 2022. Four years after The World R:2 suddenly ceased its services, The World had finally opened its doors to the public again with a new version release, The World R:Fusion, which featured elements from both the first and second revisions. Not three months after the release, an outbreak of disturbing rumors began to flood The World forums all over the net.
It first started one day with the appearance of an oddly-styled npc, whom veteran players of the previous version quickly recognized as one of The World's final bosses, casually roaming the streets of the root town Mac Anu. Since then, rumors of strange, frightening things began to circulate around The World forums like wildfire: Wormholes popping out of random treasure chests, bottomless fissures suddenly breaking through area turfs, NPC monsters actually wandering around root towns. Some players even claimed to have experienced pain when they were attacked or caught by one of these anomalies.
The thought of real pain planted fear in the minds of many players, despite CC Corp's furious attempts to dissuade the masses of the impossibility of such rumors with their updated, ever-careful administrations. But the hackers knew better as they quickly recognized the signs of very potentially dangerous system failures. However, will they do something about it? What can they do? Will you, as a player, confront the pain and seek the truth behind these anomalies? Fleeing has always been the safer choice after all. Or perhaps you will simply ignore all the mumbo-jumbo and keep on playing The World as if nothing's happening. But the question is: Will you be able to?
Click on spoilers to view previous chapters
Chapter 2: Aether The Hermit
The God of Death, Cernunnos, has escaped from Hades. Nothing but the thought of recuperating what once was his fuels his every movement. Anu has already been sacrificed in order to achieve his goal, but what exactly is he so fervently after?
Nevertheless, his appearance has wrought the first signs of a New Wave to creep into The World servers like a toxic miasma. The main force of this new wave? AIs. NPCs all over The World have suddenly begun to achieve self-awareness, baffling the players that encounter them. Some have remained true to their pre-determined personas, but others have become vicious, resentful, and even vindictive.
A lone figure rises as a part of the mass npc awakenings. Simply known as The Hermit, he begins the search for the Lost Gods.
It's no longer an easy thing to simply ignore the mass rumors.
Chapter 3: A God's Item should be Godly!A different sort of news surges into The World forums, quickly becoming the hottest topic around.
The frozen wasteland, an area long haunted by rumors of it being the grounds for an Expert-level hidden event ever since it emerged and which had never been cleared, has finally been conquered by a group of daring adventurers. The event was of such difficulty that it was constantly referred to as “The One Sin of R:Fusion”. The excitement is enough to override the maelstrom of debates on The World abnormalities.
So what exactly was it that has been lying in the middle of the storming wasteland that was so hard to get to? The players quickly begin to question this, but the “Heroes” of the event seem to refuse to talk about it. Regardless, their accomplishment brings about signs of the Twilight Dragon.
Meanwhile, Aether has become unable to leave New Fort Ouph. What will he do now about the Search for the Lost Gods with his forced residence at New Fort Ouph crippling him? What’s more, the sensor, Tazu, is in the hands of the enemy.
With such powerful opposing forces, the race to find the Lost Gods has become exceedingly difficult.
Chapter 4: Next stage...The past!
Twilight and Sheraton's attempt to send their rescuers back into the past to collect more Gods has gone horribly wrong!
Something seems to have interfered with the Dragons' magic upon casting, causing Twilight's power to go out of control and expand until overloading the system, shutting down all computers and devices connected to The World all across the world.
What's more, he has inadvertently sucked in more players than what they had originally planned into their messed up time-travel business!
For the first time ever, CC Corp has announced The World down for repairs. Over at the main offices, Rukishi Hiro seems to have an idea of who is the actual culprit behind this wide-spread system failure. Meaning...it's not just the NPCs in the game causing this? Could there be someone outside the game pulling some strings?
Chapter 5: World of MemoriesA week has gone by since the fantastical events that occurred at the [Twilight Server]. Following the disappearance of this mysterious server, [The World] came back online and all systems have been restored to normalcy. Local news stations attempted to escalate the incident, in which systems from around the world connected to the main servers had similarly been shut down or thrown into a brief state of disrepair, but CC Corp skillfully managed to avert the media and claim innocence.
A strange wave of silence and peace ushered in for players across all servers.
But just as the [Twilight Server]’s disappearance put closure to the events within [The World]’s lore, several other entities seem to be taking advantage of the lull to make their own moves.
The Hermit, Aether, having been freed from his constraints at [New Fort Ouph], has set out to rescue Tazu from Cernunno’s clutches. But no one has seen this elusive final boss since his last appearance at [Delta Server]'s Mac Anu, so how does he plan to find him? What's more - how is it that [Theta Server] is suddenly showing two root towns from its gate?
Rukishi Hiro has tracked down the abnormality known as Sid during his investigations of all the recent system failures. This bizarre AI's creator is actually...?
A Beastgot Statue has appeared in one of [The World]’s iconic places, The [Morrigu Barrow Wall]! Furthermore, it even talks! Could CC Corp have thrown a hidden event to compensate the players afflicted by the shut down fiasco?
You can catch up with summaries of how we cleared past episodes here:
Chapters