~Notes~
Surprise! The first two chapters of ToaLW will be released today. I will still be working on Surixin as well, so it seems I might be doing a little bit of simultaneous work. I am currently VERY busy with school and other commitments so I may not be able to write as much as I’d like.

Tales of a Lost World v.1.0 RIFT Productions
Part Two – Phoneme Series

DISCLAIMER: All characteristics in this work of fan-made fiction attributing to the online MMORPG known as MapleStory belong solely to Nexon Corporation and Wizet. In no way do I, AznRiceFan, as the author of this fan-made fiction claim any affiliation with Nexon, Wizet, and/or MapleStory except as a player. All characters, names, location, and/or characteristics and so forth found in this work of fiction that do not appear in the MMORPG MapleStory belong solely, and only, to me. Any form of distribution on or off the Internet is strictly forbidden without verbal and/or written consent from I, AznRiceFan, the author.

RATING: Rated PG 14+ for bloody violence, minor sexual references, and minor coarse language.

GENRE: Action/Adventure, Drama, Romance, Comedy

Tales of a Lost World – RIFT Productions

Part Two – Phoneme Series

Prologue

“Long ago, there were once four worlds that co-existed in peace. There was one that thrived in sunshine and peace, another that lay bathed in blood, a third that drowned in darkness and the last of which I dare not speak of for fear of angering that which resides in there.

“These four worlds were each ruled by one master, and their subjects were free to travel from world to world as they pleased, and it was this way for many hundreds of years.

“However, long, long before our great-grandfather’s great-grandfathers were born, there was a terrible beast born of the merciless fires of the dark abyss that roamed the earth. This great beast caused much destruction among the once peaceful four worlds, and the rulers were forced to take action to protect themselves as with the worlds as well.

“They sealed each world from one another so that no man may ever pass between worlds ever again, so as to prevent the beast from wreaking further havoc upon the land.

“Thus the world was saved from the far reach of this terrible leviathan, and the four adopted our world, known to them as Maple, as their homeland and founded that which we know today as Victoria.

“With such actions, the world was driven to peace once more by our four founders, however always existing and never relenting is the fear of the beast that still to this day lurks within the shadow of oblivion, and though we remain impervious to it, it waits, waiting for the day it shall be released and allowed to roam free and bring terror down upon the land once again.”

“Tell me more, Teacher Alcaster.”

“There will be no more tales told for today, young Kimura.”

Tales of a Lost World

Episode 1 – Epiphany of the Naraku

The moon shines in an awkward stillness high above, surrounded by a plinth of stars hovering and twinkling in the cool night air. Overhead, a quick, insubstantial breeze blows by, ruffling the tips of several evergreen trees grouped together around a clearing.

Before the plain resting under the night sky is a flowing river, winding through the clearing much like a cool, dark ribbon in the ground. The sound of running water peaks above the silence of the clearing, constantly churning its soft, delicate noise over the air.

All of a sudden, a great, bursting explosion of wind and dust ruffles through the silent valley, causing the trees and dead grass in the clearing to convulse in bewilderment.

A black, spiraling sphere of darkness erupts in the air, spitting three cloaked figures out of it. The figures land roughly on the soft grass, and stumble to their feet, glancing about in the night sky.

They glance at each other and with a nod each, pull down the hoods of their cloaks, revealing their sinister faces filled with foreboding.

The first peers around wordlessly at the tranquil surroundings that they’d arrived in. He reaches into the depths of his cloak and equips a Casters, withdrawing a couple of Tobis from the folds of the same cloak.

[Shuriken – approx. 9x Hermit]

Shuriken turns to the other two figures amongst him, who also begin to equip their weapons, peering about at the ambience around them.

The second of the three pulls out a Dark Arund, fitting several loose arrows into it. He sniffs the night air stiffly, as if searching for a sign. “So this is the Night World,” he mutters softly.

[Arayu – approx. 9x Ranger]

The last and third of the three struggles vainly to stand up straight, stooping under the dead weight of a large casket carved of dry wood. He pants heavily from the effort of maintaining the burden. “N-No kidding,” he grunts.

[Zack – approx. 9x Priest]

“You can put down the tomb,” Shuriken mutters to Zack. “Let Arayu carry it for a while. He is stronger. It is only a little while longer that we need to carry this around with us.”

Zack unloads the casket onto the ground with a loud thump, pushing it wearily towards Arayu, who bends over and takes the burden over his own shoulders.

“I can’t believe Lord Kimura’s making us carry this load around with us in the Night World…” Zack groans, patting himself over the shoulder. “My back’s aching.”

“We only need to carry it with us for a while. Soon enough, the thing inside will awaken thanks to Lord Kimura’s quick restorative potion. Then we shall be much stronger again,” Shuriken replies.

Zack yawns widely, stretching lazily with his arms. He sighs contentedly and glances up at the moon. “Heh, figures it would be night in the Night World. Shall we start the search for this Third Phoneme then?”

“Indeed,” Arayu replies. “Now it is more urgent then ever we find her, thanks to the hitch in Lord Kimura’s plan.”

“Ahh…right,” Zack replies, nodding slightly, “The Joukai guy and Kunai got away. Too bad Lord Kimura didn’t just kill them off. He just had to go around plotting to make Kunai his successor.”

Arayu’s grip tightens around the arrows strung in his bow. “Well, we’ve now been given the orders to kill them should we see them. Indeed, they are the only threat to us in succeeding at our mission.”

Shuriken, Arayu, and Zack turn at once at the sound of a loud rustling in the nearby evergreen trees, otherwise silent sentinels standing guard among them.

Shuriken rapidly creates an Avenger in his right arm, and Arayu clenches tightly on his bow, the two of them braced for an unanticipated battle.

A grinning mushroom with spikes atop its head suddenly emerges out of the trees, bouncing along the ground and singing to itself, ignoring the three humans staring at it.

“Heh, what do you know, there are monsters over here too,” Zack smirks.

“Hold on!” Arayu shouts out loud, causing Zack to turn in alarm. “Its eyes are yellow!”

Shuriken dashes forth, launching his Avenger into the air trailing after the horned mushroom. The Avenger embeds itself into the mushroom’s behind, before the horned mushroom suddenly sheds its skin, revealing a dark, sinewy matter beneath.

A flowing, horned beast composed of completely dark matter erupts from the corpse of the horned mushroom, soaring through the air after the three humans, fangs bared.

“Crap! A Paradox!” Zack exclaims.

“Not to worry,” Arayu mutters under his breath, planting four arrows straight through it in succession. Shuriken rushes forth and finishes the beast with another Avenger, planting it straight through the beast’s eye, and causing it to melt into nothingness with a loud, piercing shriek.

Zack whistles at the death of the Paradox. “What a shriek. I hope there aren’t any other humans around. Wouldn’t wanna run into any other guys at this moment.”

Far away, another four figures materialize in the air, much in the same way as Shuriken, Arayu, and Zack did. The four new figures plop down onto the ground heavily and wearily.

One of them sits up, dusting dirt off his clothes. He peers about at their surroundings: they’re standing on a short hill in the midst of a wide succession of downs, stretching far ahead into the land. Off in the distance lies a long, flowing river, much like a ribbon. And, further off on the very edge of the horizon, the faint outlines of a small town.

The red-haired figure sighs, swaying as a soft night breeze blows past him. His fingers close about the dirt on the hill around him, pulling out a tuft of grass.

[Uchida Ryuu – approx. 11x Elemental Mage / Crusader Hybrid]

Ryuu turns broodingly to a hermit lying on the ground next to him, panting loudly and clutching the wrist of a black haired girl not much younger than the hermit.

“Kunai. Are you awake?” Ryuu mutters in the still silence.

“Y-Yeah,” Kunai mutters in reply.

[Kunai – approx. 8x Hermit / Chief Bandit Hybrid]

Kunai struggles into a sitting position, still breathing very heavily. He stares about off into the distant horizon as well, though more gloomily than Ryuu. “Did…did we escape from Lord Kimura?”

“Yeah,” Ryuu replies with a grunt. “We did. But just barely. From the looks of it, Lord Kimura succeeded in stealing the Second Phoneme and used it to open up the portal to the Night World. Seems like that’s where we are now.”

“Ivy…” Kunai moans softly. “Ivy…what’s going to happen to her now?”

“To be honest, I have no idea,” Ryuu replies, as his eyes stray over to the fourth figure amongst them, a girl with long purple hair. “Ayame hasn’t woken up yet either.”

“This is bad…” Kunai mutters. “If Lord Kimura has opened up the portal into the Night World, then…”

“Then the race is on to find the Third Phoneme,” Ryuu replies. He casts the half-broken fragments of his sword aside, watching it plunge into the darkness of the hill cleft below him. “We’re really in a bad position now. My sword’s broken, Arai and Silver dead, and the two known Phonemes we have with us are gone.”

“What’s gonna happen now?” Kunai mutters to Ryuu.

Ryuu shrugs, shaking his head meditatively. “I’ve got no idea. But at any rate, sometime in the near future we’re gonna have to regroup ourselves and start fighting the Myougun all over again, because if we don’t, they’ll get the Third Phoneme, and we’re the only ones who can really stop them.”

“So…if the gate to the Night World’s been opened, what does that mean?” Kunai asks.

“Kunai, do you remember what I told you a long time ago back in Gamma Precinct?” Ryuu asks. “About the nature of traveling between worlds?”

“Yeah…” Kunai mutters slowly.

“Well, it’s the same thing. Since the gate to the Night World has been opened up, we are now free to travel back and forth through this world through the corresponding portals. This is the first time in which it’s been possible,” Ryuu replies.

“Before, the Night World was only able to be opened by the Four Masters of Victoria Island when they would send their pupils to complete the Third Job Advancement. When they died, it was no longer possible to travel into this world and back,” Ryuu continues.

“So then…the Night World’s just another world apart from ours, like the Rift World?” Kunai asks. “How many worlds are there?”

“There were once four,” Ryuu answers. “Each of the four worlds was ruled by one of the Four Masters of Victoria Island. Maple, Rift, Night, and the Underworld, they were known as, and once, long ago, there were no seals blocking access to the four worlds, and people were able to freely travel back and forth however as they pleased.

“Each of the Four claimed one world as their own, and did whatever they pleased in that world. For example, since Athena Pierce adored peaceful conditions, she chose Victoria Island as her own, and also because there were plenty of monsters for her to practice her marksmanship. Dances With Balrog chose the war-torn land known as Rift because of his adoration of war and battle. Grendel took control of the Night World because of his obsession with witchery and the sort. And lastly, the Dark Lord chose the Underworld as his own, because of his evil schemes.

“It was like that a long time ago, and each world lived happily the way it was. It wasn’t until a great powerful beast mentioned in legends appeared, and caused mass devastation in each world. The Four were forced to seal the portals leading into each world, and congregated on Victoria Island together, deciding that Maple World would be the world they would rule in together. The beast, meanwhile, was sealed in the Underworld, but to make sure it didn’t escape, each world was locked from the other.
“That was the way things were for centuries and centuries…until the Myougun arrived. Lord Kimura was once an apprentice of the Four, actually, and Alcaster himself taught Kimura a lot. I hate to say it, but Kimura was actually a top Joukai Elite member, my former comrade, even.

“But then Lord Kimura had all these farfetched political ideas, and disagreed a lot with the Four, until he finally broke away from the government the Four had set up and created his own party, known as the Myougun. Kimura then, as you know by now, proceeded to create the Paradoxes, which are actually only a pathetic imitation of the great powerful beast locked up in the Underworld.

“The Four greatly interfered with Lord Kimura’s work, fearing that he would create something irreversible. However, Kimura was stubborn, and refused to stop his work when the Four ordered him to. By that time, Kimura had grown insanely powerful, more so than the Four, even.

“He then somehow figured out how to break the seal locking the Rift World in place, and traveled into that world, locking it with his own magic and moving the domain of his empire into it. He filled the world with his vile Paradoxes, and that is how the Myougun-inhabited Rift World came to be.

“It seems Lord Kimura had a fascination with the other two worlds he could not access, and after a long time of researching the Phoneme legends, he figured out that the Third Phoneme had been locked away in the Night World by the Four as a safeguard from the Myougun.

“Kimura quickly gave up on this Phoneme inaccessible to him, and turned his sights on the First Phoneme, otherwise known as, Ayame. But he found out she was only a partial Phoneme, and could not obtain his powers. He then learned that the Second Phoneme was only a one-use Phoneme as well, so it seems that’s when he decided he had no choice but to pursue the Phoneme locked in the Night World.

“Kimura then began researching the history of the four worlds, and that’s when his plan to take the Second Phoneme and use it to get the Third came about.”

“I see,” Kunai replies. “But if the Night World is so big, how are we gonna find the Third Phoneme? It could be anybody! And there’s no way to tell if someone is a Phoneme or not either…”

“We don’t have to worry about that, Kunai,” Ryuu growls, “Nor does Lord Kimura.”

“And why not?” Kunai asks. “Do we have the knowledge of who the Third Phoneme is or something?”

“Kunai…” Ryuu mutters slowly, “There’s something that me, Arai, everyone has been withholding from you. It’s a very important piece of information concerning the Third Phoneme and you—”

Both Ryuu and Kunai turn as a pair of soft groans erupts in the air next to them. Kunai stares in surprise as Ivy and Ayame begin to stir.

“Heh, what do you know,” Ryuu mutters, “They’re awake after all.”

Next Time: Episode 2 The Search For The Third Phoneme

Ryuu: So you two have woken up at last.

Ayame: No kidding. You guys practically killed us both, you don’t expect us to wake up real quick and all, do you?

Ryuu: Heh.

Kunai: Ivy…welcome back!

Ivy: Yay! It’s great to be back.

Episode 2 The Search For The Third Phoneme coming soon!