1

Humble Beginnings

The room was dark with curtains drawn in and fabric hung over the gaps the curtains couldn't reach. A small screen-crack phone was buzzing music deep inside, echoing its melody, a heavy bass guitar and rumbling drum stretching the poetic nature of the cello rock.

The person of the virtual persona 5231451768, aka Moon Head loomed at the edged of his bed. Today was another Sunday of nothing on his agenda. No work, no study, no chores. Ultimately he had only gotten up only to eat what little food he had conserved for himself from the previous days, rarely cooking it.

His neighborhood was quiet, the road and other houses as well, devoid of any youth playing outside well into the Autumn season. Who knows what virtual mainstream have been introduced through the web that'll cause such hype that the kids would not come out of their rooms? Was what it was like during his college years, now a majority of teens and kids would drown themselves in the Virtual Drives.

Moon Head had recently bought a drive for himself within this week but had yet to use it as he was full with work coming from his co-worker's side. His co-worker having a family already at a young age, obviously he was extremely straining himself and caught the sympathy from Moon Head. Thus while a friendly bond was formed the week after, Moon Head was able to earn the favor of young dad, introducing Moon Head to his daily troubles with his children's addiction to the V.Drives.

A eco-friendly box sat next to Moon Head, it was the container that encased the V.Drive that was supposedly cease his boredom but he didn't have time to set it up. But while it still laid within the box, there was another V.Drive, a much older generation of the product on the market. A silver visor with dry stains of blood on the stinging needle at its end.

The Silver Valkyrie Series. Proud yet daunting, the silver visor had lost everything since the infamous virtual space. It's reputation, its compatibility on platforms, users, and its place in the industrial law. Its revolutionary realism had open the eyes of the populace that even the virtual world could pose significant changes to the real world, yet ironically have been rejected. This gadget would definitely be something that would push humanity to higher heights but moral won over development this time, thus the end of realism virtual space(RVS).

Moon Head was feeling hunger creeping up from within and finally stood up from his bed for the second time, the first time for his plain breakfast. The house was small so the interior rooms were just a wall away, walking a short distance from his bedroom door and the fridge. Dinner from last night only covered a third of his plate, the milk stopped halfway in his glass, and there was no bread to speak of except a bag with crumbs left.

'I need to apply for full-time some time later.'

He still had a stash of saving hidden within his dark room, but that was for any emergencies he might come across thus left untouched but bulking up. Though, his new purchase for the Virtual Drive did rounded the stash a bit as well as the new generation hardware.

Moon Head carried his plate of food and drink past the dusty documents and medals hung on the wall. Old glorious gaming related news, tournament participation badges, titles, photographs, and wallpapers of vivid characters standing in an open fantasy world ready for battle. It was an epic scene of collections Moon Head would once boost about but now has left to dust, unwilling to disturb them.

The food was gently laid down on his drawers nearby his desk that displayed his Infinite-Hyper V core computer. The holoscreen crackled up and gaming news appeared bookmarked on his homepage, it then enlarged as he thrusted his hand into the holoscreen and pulled a virtual controller and laid his wrist back on the desk. The controller was made of light and one beam was lined to the screen yet it appeared to have mass under the grip of Moon Head.

Just as how news are, exaggerated fonts used to display what was currently happening with new and old games, whether they be opening their new game beta worlds for testing or special events happening in popular virtual platforms, every little info was posted. Games releasing merchandise, movies, new series and the like.

Scrolling down, bored, looking for something to catch his attention he had pasted 10 pages without a glimpse of notice. Unfortunately there was nothing on this big web that had anything interesting except tons of news on a very popular social friendly game that took the general public by a storm. Of course, the general public are normies in the deeper part of the gaming communities.

'Degrading... Again..'

The taste of genre was weakening into a more unrealistic approach on life. Toy like characters were becoming a thing, cringe stories are the most read, unbelievably ridiculous virtual world systems are the norm now. That was what Moon Head was facing and it was traumatizing. He was born in a time were raw moment was actually worth something and auto-play was looked down, but now raw moment is being disregarded? But this was from the general public gaming trend, and he could see that this trend was slowly leaking in the deeper gaming community as he was looking through other webs.

- Top Downloaded Games...

- Yearly Rank Games...

- Most Active Games...

Just under FPS, AAG and AMMORPGS was everyday life chores becoming 'Simulations' such as; Dish washing Simulator,etc. Rhythm genre entering top 20 of all time games, and even party games... ? Moon Head didn't even want to think about how such a genre ranked so high.

He shutted down his browser in disappointment and began to replenish himself with last night's dinner besides the desk. The techno music that was on the playlist in the background also revitalized his aged competitive spirit, though, while the music did resound across his room, the alerting noise from the computer in-front of him caught him in the amidst of his noddles. The mail icon had an addition feature on it, shaking as if it wanted to open.

He opened the program and there he read the mail he received from on of the least known gaming websites he had forgotten to visit from before. Within the mail was a quotation of an invitation, addressing me with my old virtual name.

Arugos Terrain: Archaic Records

Arugos Terrain: Archaic Records Has been release to the public!

The JstudioBox Team would like Grey Link to join in our world and try out our open class-less system MMORPG where you are not restricted to any role barriers you would typically find yourself in any other MMORPGs. Because of your great contribution in the Global Cross-Play Tournament in 2069 we would like to reward you in our new open world, we are sure to not disappoint you.

Arugos Terrain: Archaic Records

The Gods has abandoned the world of Arugos and now darkness lurk within every sentient being. The time for Heroes is now for the brink of the end is nearing and there is noone to stop the one behind it all. Be by sword, magic or your own fist, Titans are emerging from the ground to wreak havoc along side ancient beasts that wants to spread the Dark Lord's wishes to end the world. What lies in this world you find yourself entering? And will there be a way back?

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Arugos Terrain: Archaic Records © 2078 JstudioBox Team. All Rights Reserved. Published by MA.web J.B

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If it wasn't for the food and music replenishing his disappointment on society he would've been insulted reading his old alias, but those little bit of varibles affecting his state of mind turn him to a mediocre-like person, curiously wondering if this team had created a satifying game to play in. It made him feel prideful like the older times when reading that he was needed.

"Alright then, I'll do the honours." Moon Head proclaimed at his desk.

Finishing up his dinner and cleaned the dish, Moon Head started to set up the new V.Drive with the new generation hardware to his computer which all took in total half an hour to do. With more RAM, a more powerful processor,graphic card, etc. Despite the name of his computer, it was only the system feature version of it that has been updated but the device itself was one that far out ages the Silver Valkyrie V.Drive. The engine was brimming loudly at its start up and gently calmed down moments later. A light flashed and the holoscreen shot up showing the desktop.

Moon Head hesitated a bit when everything was finally downloaded and ready to be launched onto the V.Drive. Whether there was something else better to do or how would this benefit him in anyway. Would he continue or would be disappointed. Can he still adapt to the virtual reality or would he just pull out a minute later. But he already found himself inserting the V.Drive spikes into his temple plugins. The systemp wired up to his nerve Moon Head adjusted his seat to a resting position and finally slept into the device.

Registering New User...

Welcome to Arugos Terrain: Archaic Records

Skipping through formalities, instead of customizing an avatar he imported a model of his old avatar, a clerk with a moon for a head and stared at the starting options. While the game is a class-less one, one would still have to choose a path to start from before actually experiencing the freedom of the world. Just as how we have to go to school before actually working, what we choose to learn decides one future. The Arcane path; a mythical path full of mysteries and magic that would peer through reality if one would decide to do so. The Martial path; to rather perfect oneself above everything else and use the potential of oneself. But surprisingly there was only two paths presented.

'Is this something like developing the basics into something else entirely? Like martial to swordsman? Arcane to Elemental?'

Moon Head wasn't certain, maybe there was only two avaliable starts at the moment since it had only been released, or so said the mail.

The beginning, like any other RPG in general, it had a little story working both as a little taste and tutorial for new players, thus any further functions other then opening the menu and attacking wouldn't be shown and would have to figure it out by experience. It seems like the developer knew how to not dump a whole lot of unnecessary info that wouldn't do anything to later in the game right in the beginning. This was a small yet significant thing that Moon Head noticed, info dumps are common in virtual products and it was almost as if the thrilling art of secrecy was lost to modern society.

"You've gotten my interest Jbox team, better not disappoint me after giving me a good taste."

Moon Head spawned in the beginner's city. The game being fairly young, had an abundant amount of players still within this region doing their own missions and life quest. As expected, it seems beta players stood out surely with their prior knowledge of higher quality equipment and gifts from their beta-world testing effort. No doubt that would spike some envy and regrets of other players who had not joined in and are making up for it by working harder in their adventure.

There was an alarming ! icon at the ends of my sight, merely focusing my intent on it had popped up a screen gui, a quest log if you must, informing Moon Head his next instructions.

Explore the City

Fairly simple and beneficial as his radar map had absolutely nothing but an arrow pointing to the direction he was facing at the moment. It was the type to only reveal where one has been and obscure the uncharted areas.

The main road that crossed through the city was the only paved path, while avatars can get stained, it was sensationless but out of real life habits maturer players was trending the road unless they had to go into a shop of sorts. This was where Moon Head traveled first.

From Barber, tailor, armorer, blacksmith and even travens to guild plazas and the market, the city had everything one needed and even more with the fantasy backround such as archiac libraries with records of lore and all bits of interesting information that has yet to be recorded on a wiki since, from what Moon Head notice, was not here in the beta world.

So after finishing his quest, he was to met up with one of the city guards that then tasked him to regulate the number of monsters outside the city walls. From the tutorial, Moon Head learnt monsters, no matter the level, are difficult to deal with. For instance, this game favours something similar to what RVS had introduced. Percise Interaction. As such, blocking an attack from a monster was really blocking an attack from a monster! If the claw of the monster swept from under, simply doing a parrying action wouldn't parry the attack, like-wise doing an attack directed to a monster but not actually touching it.

The tutorial was brief and Moon Head had yet to learn the magic concept of this game, not even a spell or a recharge of mana! When he had received a task to kill a handful of monsters out of the city walls and struggle a life and death situation like all the other newbies out there at the moment, Moon Head decided to leisure and study in the librarium along side infomats.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Moon Head beginning out of the tutorial wasn't to face the horror of killing monsters but read a book of arcane origins far from danger!

'I guess this is a proper start to a MMORPG... right?'

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Reading, like all proper gentlemen, is a favorite past-time for Moon Head. While he would quietly read the scripts of papyrus and parchments, tomes and scrolls, the system would kick him out due to being inactive for a long period of time. Thus, before the 30 minute deadline Moon Head had stood up with the scrolls that he wanted to read later and headed towards the librarium's center.

He placed the scripts on the main desk intending to borrow them out but became hesitant when the npc in the center flashed an expression of confusion? Did bringing the scripts trigger something?

"Hello. I would like to borrow these books out."

"Books? Sorry, the Archive does not allow records to leave the librarium."

Moon Head went back to his seat and rubbed the rugged surface of the moon.as he rested on his palm. It seems like he was going to do this the longer way. Unraveling every scroll, unstacking the tablets and sheets of records Moon Head began screenshooting all of them individually making sure he had the best angle to read off from just a glance. Soon the newly created folder 'Librarium' didn't just have the records he intended to borrow but an unexpectedly large amount of images from many other subjects.

'... I can just call myself a class informat at this point.' Moon Head wondered at his sudden surge of greed for books.

The time he had spent photographing a whole screen for a page exceeded an hour but the secret excitment keep hunger and exhaustion at bay. He had opened the internet browser during his page theft and did some research on certain terms that had appeared along the pages, putted foot notes at such places and learnt a whole lot more than he did when he first started.

They say playing the game by the rules, trope, line is fun. Listen and do what was told immediately and grind to the highest point of the game is the purpose of action related games, yet to Moon Head, born in a time when effort of background development is near non-existent or just plain trash, he enjoyed his brief session of recording. Whether Moon Head does story writing or virtual model design didn't verify the reason he was so amused in a boring activity, rather than that, he loved how he could explore the world with his mind alone. 'The world all for his own', thing.

"Soon though, there would be more pages to record when a update comes." Moon Head spoke to himself.

Outside the Librarium the light was upon dusk. Indeed, the day of time within this world synthesise with the speed thing are going on through the global network. With the population coming into a stale-mate of 14 billion citizens on Earth, around 90% has access to the network. Why is that relevant? It just something Moon Head couldn't get out of his head and had to leak from his thoughts.

Finally Moon Head set out from the city gates to progress through the main quest.

Just a little taste from the RVS, the somewhat banned next processor of the Global Department Of Technology(GDOT), was the gui imbuement into every single thing within the VR. This gave every should be sentient object with a life-like intelligence. While there are still a mass of culture that denies the conscious of mechanical beings, they still exist, but that wasn't one of the aspects that RVS was legalized, it was the fact there was a case of cyber cerebro-hijack from an unknown source within the RVS. Symptoms; Patient suffers from mental disorder. Amnesia. Dissociation identity disorder and horror fantasies the patients believe in. While there were many more suspicious things happening within RVS, this incident would be the most well-known case.

Moon Head had noticed the similarity of the system has when he studied the mobs hidden around the plains, ambushing specifically lone newbies around but there where more groups present than lone players. Walking out further from the gates Moon Head saw the interactions of the players realizing the situation of the area. While there was loners on the field they were quickly recruited into the groups either to act as bait for the main players to lure the beasts or to help them entrap one.

"It's a fox-like hare. larger than a rabbit but as cunning as a fox. Thing is, they still live in droves like rabbits." Moon Head summarizing the most dominate beast within the field area. Though there was nothing like that in the records, that was how Moon Head was able to grasp it in Earth's term rather than the VR, and it was more accurate too as Moon Head was luckily enough to see a battle with a group.

There was a player screaming across the field without anything but a pitiful small stick in his hands, a small drove of the fox-hare, and the main group right behind the drove wielding an assortment of items as weapons. A cub that would've been a hastily or unskillfully grated small trunk to become shapened, a bent branch that had a faint glow, and other players with similar dual pitiful sticks as weapons. One can effortlessly assume their classes by that mash-up.

"Feel the heat! Ignite!" Someone yelled within the comedic chase.

A fart of flames light within the group causing a mass of sudden chaos within their chase, the group lost momentum, flailing out from all direction to avoid the candle flame that servery burnt one of their comrade's clothes. Nevertheless, as the victim and spell user dish each other out, the others wouldn't want to lose their opportunity to kill the hare.

"Fucking kid. This is how you do magic! Air Spirit! Heed my call. Haste!"

The chase was going more smoothly with competent players left in the group, but the spectacle struck his exhaustion and hunger and pushed him to log out for the day. Though he didn't do much in-game, he was sure in hell that he gained a lot of information just from that short event. Having enough saved records in his file to proclaim himself as an informat, Moon Head was able to differentiate most of the type of skills used.

It's been nearly 3 hours since Moon Head first dived in and now he was out again for a brief break and snack. While his body was conditioned to endure the stiffness and sudden conscious coming back to a hungry body he knew he would have receive the consequences of mistreating his body and forced himself to grudgingly stretch out from his extendable chair.

He rubbed his index finger and thumb together, gathering a bit of sweat on his dry pads and swiped a sheet of paper. A pen from within the draw underneath at the edge of his desk-

"-Ah, wrong pen."

Moon Head had picked up a micro-point fine-liner from his academy years, still new but unpacked.

He threw it back in and pulled out a cheap worn pencil and started recording what he could remember from Arugos, creating a mind-map of his knowledge as well as the information of quest and rewards, maps of the regions and countries, monsters and their whole wiki. Even if there wasn't much available, it was still a whole world in the end. Scanning the notes he wrote on the paper with a transferring pen, the computer downloaded the notes.

"Guess being a concept designer has some quirks that's useful in some aspects."

With a short conclusion on the information Moon Head had gathered as well as a bit of organisation on the computer, he made a review of the game and saved it into his draft, waiting to be finished after his next dive into the VR.

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Moon Head was standing in the middle of the plains outside of the fortified city. Unlike any other players, he had no stick to be called his weapon of sorts, from what he learnt, there is many skills within the game to make up for the classless system of this world, but of course they're categorized into some short of aspects. And he had yet to chose what spell or martial skill to unlock with his free skill point.

While the tutorial allowed him to try out all the path's aspects, from martial to arcane, Moon Head wondered whether he should unlock a spell first and make use of the Path of Arcane blessing's or get sturdier arms for a passive skill.

'Who am I kidding? I've already planned this before coming back here.'

Path of Martial; Monk

                                            Tempered Arms (Passive)                                   Level 1

All Class

User's arms has higher vitality and endurance for defence. Endurance +25% when this skill is activated.

PoA: Endurance -10%

PoM: Power +50, Boost on Critical Rate Buffs

The bonuses weren't beneficial since an extra 25% of 1 on 1 endurance and vitality made no difference at all and with his Path of Arcane, it would be 15% for him. While there were many other martial skills which focuses on attack, Moon Head had witness it first hand with the group battle half an hour ago how tiresome it was. With only sticks, branches and trunks available and beta testers avoiding the spread of cheap blades to monopolize later on, no martial skill would be worth investing this early in the game. This was something to report in the review he would send to the JstudioBox team.

Reality. Power. Element. Wizardry. Very vague but blunt PoA's aspect skills. This was the way it was currently set to be able to introduce all the typical fantasy classes under one category. Wizardry and Element are mainstream magic aspects and is very obvious to guess what type of power and rule they follow. Power would be typical red mages and battle-mages but reality was an interesting one based on illusionist on the real world...

... Some were party tricks.

Besides that, Moon Head had no magical equipment, tome or any spells to speak of which were needed for all of the PoA's. Wizardry heavily relied on these equipment's as well as some Element and Power but Reality being similar to the real world, the first spell relied on sleight of hand to make it work. This fitted well with PoM's rogue aspect, 'Swift'.

'I can work without it. Might get it later though.'

Path of Arcane; Illusionist

                                                          Drop Coin                                              Level 1

All Class

Vanish a coin-size space from reality into your inventory. Space-Size 2.7cm when this skill is activated.

*Won't work if inventory is full.

One-PoA: Cost Mp -10

PoM: Cost Mp -35 

This PoA aspect was quite controversial within the forums for it being to difficult, ridiculous, rarely any praises were shown on the board as it was overwhelm with downvotes.

"Peasants, soon you will see the true power of the Illusionist and you all would be begging for mercy! MUHAHAHHAHA!" Was the most infamous comment on the forum about it. And Moon Head agreed to it, after-all, there are many opportunities for space-time related magic to be used and discover.

Moon Head had already left the fields and ventured further out to the wild during his conclusion to seek a higher leveled creature to hunt. Level was but a number that determined one's own strength within the world, not ability. This is a bit Cap'in Obvious but many people do forget this and tend to trap themselves in their own level zone.

Skills. Attack sets. Habitat. Element. Resistances and Weakness, the beta testers were kind enough to release these information onto a fan-base info web since there was no official one, and might never be depending how secretive the developers are moving towards. From there Moon Head was able to find a suitable mob to test out his new spell.

The environment after a handful of miles was becoming drier and different types of beasts and monsters were appearing from the stalky grasses. It was deserted by newbies and only well-equiped players roamed around hunting packs that look much more furious than coyotes and wolves. Beta testers and their friends they shared their knowledge for sure, but Moon Head wasn't hunting these mobs, he was looking for the leopard tortoise, or so he would describe it. Rather than a geometric pattern on it's shell they were more flame-like and infectiousness like grass. But that wasn't the catch.

Who knows how long Moon Head had been traveling in the dark to reach the semi arid region but light was dawning from behind the line of the bumpy horizon. Watching the sun slowly peak out from the horizon, the bump in the middle of the line slightly stirred and rose higher than the rest. The players around stopped in their tracks as the bump tilted in a slope and a snake-like neck with a snappy tortoise head slithered into the chilly air.

"... Ehhhh~". A cough? A chirp? It sounded like it was out of breath despite breathing out so loudly.

There was sudden shouts within the groups that was following the lead of a beta player and began to cautiously back away from the direction the mountainous tortoise was and continued to hunt for their prey. Yet a small party of players saw this as a golden opportunity and went charging towards the colossus. The party consist of mainly mages with coloured stone embedded staffs and a short iron sword warrior as the vanguard, a power-house party

A stream of flame wide enough to cover up a modern house engulfed the back of the tortoise just before the warrior jumped in to strike at it's impressive neck span. Jagged earth spikes erupted beneath it, trapping it between the gaps of the spikes as they could not penetrate the shell beneath it. One of the mage hands started to glow as he wielded a large mana orb and began throwing it to deal damage. Two elemental and one power PoA users.

The dust cleared up from the spray of flame and the battle between the warrior and tortoise was unseen.

A pair of legs fell down from the air and flew past the tortoise, blood streaming its path downwards. A short iron blade dropped from the beak of the tortoise and it still had a hand tightly grasping the handle wraps of the sword. The thumps of the two things said everything about the battle and the gigantic tortoise head lazily tilted its head towards the mages.

The earth shook violently, tripping every unsteady feet a hundred meter radius around the tortoise and the earth spikes crumbled into oblivion.

Moon Head can already see the end of the battle, after-all, all tortoise are terrestrial with abnormally high resistances to temperature and earth. It was also a tank killer with its size, its tasting bite would penetrate normal armored players as if they're hazel nuts. With the taste of human blood drooling from his beak, the tortoise found its breakfast.

The offenders let their guard down because all they see was a giant leopard tortoise, a carefree animal that takes life easy and started to retreat back to the city intending to find another vanguard for their own needs.

Moon Head dipped into a patch of long grass, making sure there wasn't any snakes before he did so and waited for the terrifying moment that was bond to happen when a tortoise sees its food running away.

The group of mages were chatting side by side, even laughing while mocking their last vanguard charge. The Tortoise behind was slowly stalking up to them, but realizing they were only getting further away the tortoise than bow low.

Amongst the party of retreating mages, their chat was becoming quite lively despite their failure just a moment ago. In the middle of the group, an extravagantly dress and golden adored teenager was posing as he spoke.

"Ah~, I need a better staff. I'ma get some money from my mum and buy more gold."

He spat in disdain as he looked at this staff and saw how similar it looked to the one the other mage had besides him. But he twisted he staff around and saw a reflection of himself and couldn't help but adore his new look. The voice of the one beside him broke through his fantasy.

"Same, this grimore is so weak. I can't wait till I reach cap."

Following the Wizardry aspect, she had a wide brim cone hat and long flowing robes that seems to hover just above the ground. It was open around her curves but it was quite modest in giving her decent cover as well with lattice decoration and silk ribbons.

"Haha, did you see that idiot though? the fuck he was doing jumping right in front of it. If it was me I would easily dodge it."

And just like the two besides him, the third was handsome beyond compare like elves. But he had a roguish smirk that would charm any girl into their wet dreams. He started imitating the fight with the tortoise if he was the vanguard and did crude swings with his stone embedded staff.

"Yeah. I mean like, aren't turtles so slow? He must be a noob anyways. Kick him out already."

"Done."

The girl flicked her fingers, sending a bypassing mob off the ground as she kicked the vanguard out from their group. Somewhere inside the city, the warrior had lost all his equipment to the tortoise and his levels. It was then he received a notification of his kick and was left alone.

The ground slightly trembled but the trio didn't realized this till their ankles was shaking. they looked at each other confused what was happening.

"It ain't me, I ran out of mana after doing earth spike." The roguish teen said as he saw both pair of eyes on him.

A large shadow reach out from above and covered the three players. Frighten by the shadow they looked up but a massive beak shot down upon them and completely shredded the wizard girl and roguish elementalist arms apart as the tallest of them was obscured by the beak.

"GAHHHH!" The girl screaming on-top of her lungs in terror as pain struck their nerves. She fell to bottom but the roguish boy completely fell flat on his back, fainted from the sudden pain that seized him.

The beak descended again, pecking the fainted teenager from the ground and left shredded cloths and a snapped staff at the spot. The girl dragged her she away with all her might in her knees as she grasped her missing shoulder but it was all in vain, the tortoise watched in amusement and pecked her supple thighs off.

"Naaao! Somebody please!"

The other players just stared, the group that was lead by a beta tester that retreated was using the spectacle to show of his knowledge while they praised him saving their doom like the distressed girl. The kids were just enjoying the virtual world. The thrill and misfortune of others, the scene was strangely arousing for some while the darker ones were recording her cries.

"I guess this is were all the shit post on porn is coming from nowadays, huh?" Moon Head thought to himself as he remembered some trending tags on the adult websites.

The tortoise finally engulfed the party and started to slowly roam the semi arid region.