Status: Extra-mighty!<br/>HP 80 of 82 (https://elliquiy.com/forums/dicebot.php?r=58211) Woo-hoo, talk about lucky rolls!<br/>Spells remaining: 5 of 7 1st, 4 of 4 2nd<br/><hr/>Rayne admired her name on the tablet for a bit... was this perhaps the 7th age of the game, the 7th server reboot, so to speak?  She didn't know, but she rather liked the idea of being the first to usher in the prestige class, whether it was true or not.<br/><br/>Then that glorious, uplifting music, the shining blue light - now she could breathe easy, now her level was secure!  Back in the real world a huge grin could be seen on Rae-lynne's features, as Rayne waited immobile through the loading screen.  A short gap, and she was back where she'd started the session.  She pulled a waterskin seemingly out of thin air, drank deep, then returned it to her virtual, invisible haversack.  The grooming kit followed, as she gave her hair a quick comb - she wasn't returning to town looking scruffy, not as the first Arcane Archer of the 7th Age!<br/><br/>She scrolled through her options, seeing them in her mind's eye, sort of floating before her.  Gaining a level was so very fun, especially with a system like this, where there was almost always something new to choose, some perhaps minor but fun enhancement to play with.  She chose skills mainly to gain her class skill bonuses.  The new Feat for her 9th level was the hardest to choose - she wanted a combat feat, might as well leverage her bow abilities, but there were so many interesting choices.  But oh... oh, point-blank mastery would be wonderful.  But she didn't have the prerequisite, so she had to choose weapon specialization for now - which was excellent in itself.<br/><br/>And throwing the virtual die for HP, a glowing ten-sided object bouncing in her mind, was an amusing throwback to an earlier gaming age... when it came up 9, she couldn't help herself, she shouted and spun about again, prompting her horse to raise its head for almost three seconds before returning to grazing.<br/><br/>(OOC: will update her Character Sheet in the 2nd post, almost immediately)<br/><br/>Now then... she was ready for anything.  It hadn't been a long quest, but a quick check: 'System: time'.<br/><br/>Nothing happened... Rayne looked confused, and concentrated on the command more carefully.  'System: time.'  Still nothing! This had never happened before - one had to be able to check one's real-world time, or one could really get lost in here.  'System: time.'<br/><br/>She looked at her horse, which looked back.  "Ohh... that upgrade must have renamed some of the commands.  But... that was a pretty basic one."  She looked into the sky, as if expecting to see the edge of this world touching the real one.  No need to panic, though.  Maybe Teagan knew something... though Rae-lynne preferred to keep OOC communications out of the game, and use the in-game opportunities for chat, it wouldn't hurt to have her friend do a quick check.  'System: Send, Starstrike. "Hey Teagan, sorry to bug you, are you on?  Can you check the time?"'<br/><br/>Rae-lynne waited for a response... there was no acknowledgement the message has gone, but no bounce, either.  That... was weird.  She took another drink - inventory worked fine, obviously.  "Oh, man... if this means they have to roll back our progress... I will be so pissed off!"<br/><br/>They had better not!  She hopped onto Horse - she hadn't grown attached enough to change its default name - and cursed.  "No way are they rolling this back."<br/><br/>'System: Help'    'System: Help'!  How could that be broken?  Not good... time to call an admin to sort this out, and to verify she had her new level!  'System: sysop'    'System: sysop'<br/><br/>Not even a hint the messages were going out.  She tried speaking the commands instead of the usual thinking them, with no more effect other than to frighten the birds.  "Damn it"  'System: Logout.'<br/><br/>...<br/><br/>...<br/><br/>'System: Logout.  Logout!'  'System: Quit.'  'System: bye.'<br/><br/>In a quite reasonable panic now, Rae-lynne went through every sort of shutdown option she could think of, then tried any other sort of system command, from the complex to the simple ones, tried changing her appearance, jumping forward in time, fastmoving, even tried the EHO built-in store to buy upgrades or just to dye her armour a new colour.  She was totally locked out... or, totally locked in!<br/><br/>"OK, ok... deep breaths... you just started your session today, you'll be fine.  You're glitched, but you just need to find someone who can contact a sysop."  And she knew there was some sort of automatic logout after some large number of RL hours, to keep players from forgetting basic functions, but she'd never pushed that far.  Still... one way or another, this would be sorted out.  And someone would be in a lot of trouble - probably something to do with the new patch.  But then... others might be affected too.  She'd soon see.  Sort of soon.<br/><br/>"I guess we're going to have to hoof it... umm, literally.  OK, Horse, back to town."  She turned her mount around and began following the forest path, still very troubled, but at least not panicky anymore.  Or not yet.<br/>