Saga of the Last Valkyrie (On Hold)

Chapter 1: Valhalla

"Sena, it isn't time to get up yet..." Alicia mumbled while half asleep, not liking how her eldest sister liked to wake her up by turning the lights on first thing in the morning. But after several minutes of silence, Alicia started to become confused as normally Helen, the second eldest of her sisters, should have shouted at her to 'get up already' by now.

"Sena, are you there?" Alicia asked again in her sleepy tone as she attempted to open her eyes, though that was difficult as the light beyond her eyelids seemed to be almost blinding. "Helen? Luna? Tanya?"

Suddenly remembering that all of her sisters had moved out of her house some time ago, Alicia became awake enough to realize that she was sitting down in a chair rather than her laying down in her bed before she moved her fingers to her eyelids and forced them open, flinching as the light actually did blind her at first until her eyes adjusted. But once they were open, she realized that she was in a familiar place, that place being Valhalla. And even if it was a complete rip-off of Norse Mythology, Alicia didn't think that the gods would mind as the surroundings fitted the name perfectly.

Floating in a sky full of clouds that gathered the afternoon's orange light inside of them, the island was lush with both vegetation as well as monuments that had fit Sena's expectations when she'd created it. With golden stone bricks used for every structure, the entire lower half of the island was filled with a city full of NPCs before single stairway traveled up the mountain to Valhalla's main temple, which was where Alicia was now. She was sitting on one of the five thrones that resided at the peak of the temple, though the other thrones that made a circle along with hers which all faced inward were empty.

"Oh man, Helen's going to kill me if she finds out I slept in-game!" Alicia suddenly started panicking before she opened her interface by poking the open air in front of her. And once the light-blue screen opened in front of her eyes, she saw that everything was listed there from her inventory and character settings to her skills and mounts. But strangely, a single important tab was missing, and that was the options menu.

"Erm..." Alicia hummed slightly to herself while beginning to open all of the other tabs as she looked for the options while thinking that there may have been a patch while she'd been sleeping that had moved it. "Where did they move it?"

After spending several minutes attempting to find the missing tab, Alicia finally gave up on it with a sigh before she stood up from her throne and walked down the stairs until finally reaching the ground. Because even with the option menu seeming to be gone, there were still a few ways for her to log out of the game, though she didn't want to phase into her throne again due to a bug in the system that had gotten her before... It had taken Luna over an hour to get her out last time seeing as they didn't want to break throne itself as it was a part of the 'Five Piece Set' which the others were apart of... Stupid Sena...

"System! Log out!" Alicia called out, her voice seeming to be solitary as a slight wind picked up and howled slightly through the columns surrounding the thrones.

"System! Log out!" Alicia called out again, now wondering just what was happening as she was still logged into the game. However, the wind had thankfully confirmed the fact that the game had updated since there had never been wind in Valhalla before. And now, Alicia started grumbling to herself as the only other way that she knew how to log out was the dimension's administrator, which was an NPC down in the city. However, even if going to the NPC was an inconvenience, she looked at the bright side as she didn't have to walk at least.

"Grant me wings." Alicia put her hands together and chanted as if saying prayer before her skill activated and she felt lighter. At the sides of her vision, two long wings made of golden light appeared before she concentrated on her back muscles and the wings started beating like they always did. And even though she was having difficulty logging out, Alicia couldn't help but smile as she flew up into the air, thinking that the newly added wind felt like a great addition to the always pleasant feeling of flying. However, she soon lost her smile as she looked down at the city below her to see that something was wrong.

Rather than the clean and majestic city that Sera always maintained, the vegetation of the island seemed to have completely overtaken the city with over a quarter of the buildings having been shattered as massive trees grew through them. And even the parts that hadn't been completely destroyed by the trees were completely overrun by vines that had grown through the stone bricks. Though why the update had done this, she didn't know seeing as it hadn't been like this before.

Upon seeing the city in this condition, Alicia wondered just what she could do to help it. Because while she didn't want Sera to see her precious city in this condition, Alicia had absolutely no control over it as Sera was the only one among the five of them with administrator rights to Valhalla. And while the dimension's administrator would normally only answer to Sera, Alicia was thankfully one of the four vice masters of the guild, so it would allow her to log out. Though again she was discouraged as she landed and there didn't seem to be an NPC in sight.

Walking through the overgrown streets, only the birds seemed to be alive as every slight sound echoed between the buildings. And that especially seemed to be the case for Alicia's true silver boots as she thought that she was making enough noise to even wake the dead. However, even the dead didn't seem to be around as Alicia started checking each building individually, wondering just where all of the NPCs had gone before she started to panic all over again. Because if the administrator wasn't here, then she really would be stuck in the game unless she traveled back to Everath to find another player or someone pulled her out of the Ever-Fantasy system, which wasn't likely since she'd lived alone ever since Tanya had moved out and their parents were on an expedition in Egypt.

Running from building to building now, Alicia was about ready to leave the dimension entirely in order to find another player to help her before she found that her dimensional key, the device which allowed her to enter and exit Valhalla, wasn't working either. And seeing as she still wasn't finding anyone, Alicia was starting to think that all of the NPCs had perhaps been deleted by the new update until she finally checked her last building, which was a giant chapel in the center of the city.

Attempting to enter through the double doors, Alicia struggled to get the doors open before the rotted wood and rusty metal hinges ended up crumbling away all at once, revealing a scene inside that made her catch her breath. The chapel was large enough to fit the entire city's population inside of it, and that's exactly where everyone was... or at least, where they once were.

Covering her mouth subconsciously, Alicia looked around the chapel while thinking that she was perhaps in a horror game now as thousands of skeletons littered the floor. For some reason, all of the benches that had been inside had been stacked at the doors almost as if to barricade them, though they didn't last long as Alicia drew her sword and cut the barrier apart with ease.

"Who would do such a thing?" Alicia asked to herself, looking around while thinking that someone had managed to get into their dimension and done this to their NPCs. Though the way in which the skeletons laid was odd to say the least. Most just simply laid on the floor as if they'd died there save for the few that had been holding the barriers. However, those furthest to the back of the chapel and closest to the five statues of Alicia and her sisters at the far wall seemed to have died on their knees while kneeling down. All of them had been positioned to seem as if they had been praying to the statues and, when she saw them, the bad feeling that she'd got from before when she was unable to log out returned and hit her with double the force. She was trapped in the game, and now she knew that it was possibly with someone that enjoyed playing terrible mind games such as this.