Ellinia Times newspaper. (a locally owned and operated company)
[ LUDIBRIUM– This morning at 4:00, the portal gates in the Eos Tower Library were connected to the portal gates in the isolated Korean Folk Town (KFT) on an island in the Korean Lands coastal waters. The new opening concluded a five hour patch job by the Wizet/Nexon patch crew. Prior to the patch, GM’s had to herd out the 100+ excited Maplers who couldnt wait for the new opening. the GM’s managed to get the mob to leave Eos Tower so the patch crew could carry out their work and connect the portal to the one in KFT, which was being serviced by a patch crew from the Korean Lands.
KFT is remote and is by no means access to the Korean Lands, which are cut off by the political divide established in 1949.
This morning, GM’s allowed the Maplers back into Eos Tower to wait for the opening. An unidentified mage was arrested for summoning a Mushmom in the Library. Fortunately, the giant jumping mushroom was killed before it could do any serious harm or property damage. When the portal was opened, a witness says the patch crewmen had to literally dive out of the way as the people rushed into the portal, which had not been throughly tested. The boss of the patch crew said he was extremely grateful the equipment running the portal was accurately set up, and the travellers were spared transcription-related injuries.

HENESYS– The Henesys Town Council has been please to announce that the walking easter eggs have been drawn back by federal-hired summoners. Last month, the eggs were summoned for Easter and have been ‘quite an annoying hassle’ for Maplers everywhere.

SLEEPYWOOD– GM’s are planning to step up patrols and even hire people for vigilante work after numerous reports of hack activity deep in the Dungeon. Hackers have been hard at work in almost every cavern beyond the Drake Hunting gRound vacking and killing animals at fast rate.
The main concern is not the hackers, however, but is the legits in the area. Several legits flock to the Dungeon to seek hacker training, or to KS or KL (kill-leeching) hackers while they are botting. The Victoria GM detachment said these methods of training adopted by legit Maplers is extremely dangerous, and if a motion is passed in Orbis, illegal.
GM Diivon, who was in SLeepywood questioning returning Legits said in an interview “The guys go in there (Dungeon)
find a hacker, some times ask for training, ask to party, and if they can’t communicate to the hacker, they will find those who are botting in one spot. Those who do that are people who can do shortrange fast, high damaging attacks.
They will constantly be hitting Drakes and Cold Eyes as the hacker brings them close and steal vast amounts of EXP, regardless wether theyre in a party or not”
The GM’s patrolling the caves say what the legits are doing is making it difficult to find the hackers, who keep moving around, trying to escape leeching legits.
On the other hand, the locals of Sleepywood are not complaining- LEgits who engage in this dangerous ‘work’ purchase mass amounts of unagi, chocolate bars, and mana fuel bottles and return scrolls.
Every year, however 50-100 legits wind up dead and 2000 or more are injured.
If the federal government passes Bill H-35, it will become illegal to leech, loot KS or work with hackers in any way, and serious penalties will be applied.

LUDIBRIUM– The Abandoned Tower maintenance crew are threatening to shut down the PQ site at the top of Eos Tower. Their reason includes vandalism of property, abuse of employees and unrealistic hostility towards the bosses of the PQ, mostly Alishar and his twin brothers and sisters who constantly battle PQ teams to test their worth for the experience that second accompaniment offers. In a typical PQ, if the team has battled with Alishar and have hit him for the amount of time he allots, he will teleport back to the employees lounge.
Last month, Alishar himself was battling a 6-member level 50 PQ team who ‘unleashed a hell storm of fury’ on him. Alishar’s teleport failed as he was injured by the PQ team and even though he waved the white flag, they still continued to attack him, doing serious injury.
According to the manager of the Abandoned Tower, all people who enter the party quest here or in Kerning or Orbis must abid by a set of laws laid out- and that includes stopping combat if the boss raises the white flag. However, if that happens, the team will not recieve the experience.
Alishar was rushed to hospital for non life threatening injuries but had a stroke during the PQ. All members of the team were put on a 2 month suspension.
An inquiery has been launched into the matter.

ELLINIA–
Travellers are enraged at the fare hikes for the flight to Orbis. This week on Monday, the price was raised from the usual 5000 meso fare to 80K, while the service was reduced to every hour both ways. A fare hike for the Ludus air train from Orbis to Ludi is planned for next week- 20K from the usual 2-6k. The fare hike has alreayd stranded numerous curious low level Maplers in Orbis and Ludi.

ORBIS–
While the Korean Folk Town is enjoying immense Southern popularity, talks of air service to the city of Riprey are still in the air. the Korean Lands Territorial Authority is holding off negotiations, wanting to observe things with KFT.
The National Office has been asking that the KLTA permit flights to Riprey so that southern level 120’s would be able to go and take the 4th job advancement test. The KLTA spokesman has said in a press conference at 11:00 this morning Orbis time that so far they are not amused with all the excitement- At 4am, hundreds of excited southerners stormed through KFT, waking up nearly all the residents, who for the most part had no notice of the new portal connection and were unhappy with the sistuation.
Tourism Maple promised that things would die down eventually and the southerners would go back to Ludi eventually, and the northern maplers living in KFT woulld be granted full unquestioned access to all southern territories. This move is also not condoned by the KLTA, who since 1949 have not been wanting the maplers of the Korean Lands or the SEAlands to enter the south. The National Office argues they had no access anywhere in the north because the island is remote and there is no transit to anywhere.

ELLINIA– The Library part of the Ellinia Institue of Knowledge & Education has sent a team of adventure librarians to Korean Folk Town to research and exchange knowledge with the residents. The project is to last approx. 6 months.

KERNING CITY– City Council has voted against allowing the drivers in the town to drive beyond minicipal limits. The council men and women said in a press conference on Monday that while there is pollution in Kerning, the rest of Victoria is too beautiful and delicate of an envornment to be destroyed by cars and roads. The only vehicles that drive around Victoria are buses, taxis, essential services and GM’s.

EL NATH– A level 25 archer was VERY lucky to be alive on the weekend after he activated a Dead Mine scroll. The man had come to El Nath just to explore and had asked for a local return scroll from a high level in the region. The archer failed to notice it was a dead mine scroll and the other man didn’t even tell him.
After he found himself in Dead Mine, the archer was found by a cleric severely injured and hypothermic. He was healed and returned by the clerics to the clinic at El Nath.
The local GM said that foolish noobs venturing out here creates quite a hassle for everyone including those who have to rescue them. The archer was issued a 850K fine and a warning. The high level crook is yet to be found.

AQUARIUM– High level trainers are warning low levels to stay out of Aqua World until further notice. On the weekend powerful arowbombs and meso explosions blew out a giant chunk of rock that covers the Dangerous Sea area and keeps the high level squids, sharks and bone fish down below. The giant monsters immediately entered the Aqua Land area and already did mega damage to the sea life around. high level trainers have been hard at work cutting them down, but they say the task is far from finished. A relief effort set up in El Nath is asking for donations in mesos or teleport rocks for the 314 Maplers (lv 28-50) stranded in the Aquarium, which a glass dome is their only protection from the marine beasts outside. The Free MArket administration has refused to allow them access to Orbis or Nath through the FM portal gates. More reports are due upon changes in the situation.

ORBIS– The government is finally reviewing an inquest from November last year regarding GM inaction during a deadly kill-hack massacre that occured from November 14-15 over a 27 hour period. during that time the already over-worked and underpaid GM force took a 24 hour ‘absolute’ break from duty, while 200 kill hackers hacked and killed more than 1500 maplers in Victoria before they ended their 27 hour break and took them out.
The boss GM’s were fired the following week and are yet to answer charges related to their inaction. It is the seventh week into the trial of one of the kill hackers HackMaster5, who stands accused of killing more than 600 of the 1000 victims. HackMaster was arrested unde the guise of charges related to disturbing the peace at Henesys December 1st.

The government still denies any rumors of noob or magician slave markets that are said to run in the northern territories. The denial is considered ‘ironic’ by groups and the Ellinia Magicians’ Union despite the huge number of disappearances of magicians and perma-noobs.