Tyler had watched a huge plume of fire coming down from the sky, but couldn't do anything while pinned against the wall. As soon as the alley exploded, his captor was pressed against him, making him a wall and adventurer sandwich, losing 11 HP, bringing him to a total of 74 HP from his grand total of 95 HP. While losing some more HP, being crushed was a blessing in disguise, as he was shielded against the initial burst of flames.

As his captor melted away, going for a walk, Tyler knew the worst was yet to come. The flames washed over him, and he immediately fell to the ground, screaming and rolling back and forth. He waited, and then noticed the damage received, 1 HP dropped, and when the first point of damage crossed his vision, he realized he wasn't in that much pain. Sure, it felt like he was inside a deep steam room, it wasn't even close to what he expected to be bathed in flames to feel like. That was when he heard the deep singing from the rooftop again.

"Cover him in healing rain, bring away the pain!" Repeating over and over again, he would lose 1 HP, then gain 1 HP, and the worst of the damage was mitigated by a glowing blue mist surrounding Tyler. Letting out a breath, feeling a bit foolish rolling around on the ground, he looked up to the rooftop of the alley, finally catching a glance of his Titan employee. Smiling, he gave a thumbs up, only to drop his smile, as a green dragon swooped down, and grabbed TitanicVoice by the head and lifted him into the air.

He watched in horror as his supporting employee was dropped from the sky, and quickly lost line of site. He opened his employee section on his wrist, and saw that TitanicVoice was grayed out, indicating that he had died from the encounter. Not knowing what else to expect, he got back to running up the alley, understanding the direction he was heading in. He was heading to the city center, almost directly to the city hall, and a whole new set of problems entered his mind. That's where the adventurers were fighting each other in hopes of finding Property Deed #1. Tyler hoped that with the Dragons back at the city, and actually dropping fire on the streets, there was a chance that the deed could be forgotten, and the opportunity to fight a Dragon could stop the witch hunt.

As Tyler ran, he knew that there were still at least three people actively hunting him, and who knows how many more that he didn't know about. Tippin' Top Hats had hundreds of members, and JackAttack being a high rank adventurer, could easily rally the entire guild into hunting him. Once again, Tyler had to hope that his low level would stop JackAttack from recruiting too many guild members, possibly embarrassing his guild even further, needing so many high level guild members to hunt a fresh noob. He couldn't help but feel despair, being hunted by high level adventurers, and leaving so much to hope, and one of his employees was off for a walk, and the other could be anywhere at this point, but had yet to be grayed out on his employee list.

As Tyler continued to jog up the alley, breathing heavily, dragons popping in and out of sight between the rooftops, dropping fire across the city. He took a right at an intersection, mostly because the direction he was heading was blocked by building rubble, and secondly, it was heading straight to the City Hall square. Tyler slowed his pace, out of breath, and dragons aside, it was quiet and seemed like a good time to think things through.

Above him, something slammed into the top of the wall of the alley, and the mass bounced, then landed a few feet in front him. JarsForJars lay in a heap, breathing heavily, but not moving. He approached, and her eyes snapped open, but showing no signs of being able to move, indicating she was down to 1 HP, likely due to a survivability skill. Wheezing, she looked up at Tyler, "I got two of them, but then another group showed up. I can go for a walk, and as long as you get out of the city, the quest is clear."

"What quest? I don't even know what you are talking about."

"There is no time to give you a long version, all you need to know is that Titanic and I got a quest notice where you getting out of the city. If you get out, we get 6 skill points to our trade skills, and 6% bonus reputation gain for 6 days."

Tyler sighed, putting two and two together, knowing exactly where the quest came from. JarsForJars and TitanicVoice having no reason to think the chaotic prime AI was involved, but Tyler knew better. This was a very chaotic way to get Tyler away from Myneria with the property deed in hand. Heading towards the city square being in chaos, it only made sense that he was on track to the center of the city, rather than a straight line to the city gates. Well, if a prime AI had direction for him, why not follow it, thinking that the path he was on was too straight forward to be considered a chaotic way to go for a walk.

"Pylioth, you need to get move, I need those trade skill points." She winced, "head for the gate, and just get out of the city." As soon as she finished her sentence, a small dagger flew over Tyler's shoulder, and landed in her arm. She exploded in a blast of light, giving a respawn animation from a minor wound. Tyler looked over his shoulder, not knowing what he expected, he saw and empty alley, telling him a rogue was around.

Thinking quickly, the rogue was clearly playing it safe, Tyler knowing that it was no secret that he was low leveled and a non-combat class. He looked upwards, and yelled out "There is a rogue around, get ready to throw out flares and see if we can't make a target for you up there." Hoping that behaving this way will encourage the rogue to keep the distance. After calling out, he stood, and ran up the alley, while he was now heading to the city square, he didn't have any alternative. He felt a noose closing around him, and he was being driven to run straight into hanging himself.

For whatever reason, him calling up to a non-existent member of his party, or the dragons doing everything they could to level the capital city, the rest of his run through the alleys was quiet. Tyler didn't doubt for a second that the rogue was shadowing him, but there was nothing he could do about that, the best he could do is act like he had nothing to worry about.

Tyler's brain was a maelstrom of thoughts, everything up until he recently logged in still fresh in his mind, dragons were attacking Myneria, he was being pursued by not just a high level raiding guild, but potentially every single adventurer in the Tower after his property deed. Almost tripping over his own feet, he realized that he had the ultimate leverage, the greed over the property deed. He was able to hire people, he had a payment that he could pretty much convince anybody to come work for him.

Before Tyler could even think about implementing a plan on hiring an entire guild, the end of the alley came into sight, right at the perimeter of the central square outside the City Hall. As he approached the end of the alley, the noise confirmed what he thought what the part of the city would be, complete chaos. He could hear pinging of metal, the fires coming down from the sky, people screaming, either in fear, surprise or in pain. Reaching the end, the sound he heard could not do any form of justice of what he saw, adventurers rolling on the ground frantically trying to extinguish the fire that covered them, random battles between adventurers, the chaos created by VI still going strong, making it clear how desperately anybody and everybody wanted the property deed. There was rubble all over the square, the dragons covering the entire city in destruction, and spells flying up towards the dragons, either missing completely, or just washing over the dragons with no effect.

Stolen story; please report.

If the spells were doing no damage to the dragons, they either outleveled all the adventurers in the city by a significant amount, or more likely, they were covered by an event shield, meaning a certain event needed to finish before adventurers could start circulating the story of the dragon attack, and generating quests, ultimately leading to a world boss event. Tylers plan to hire high leveled adventurers had been dashed, many of them ignoring the dragons knowing that what came after was important, and they wouldn't involve themselves in anything that could take their attention away from potential gains of a new achievements and rewards.

Before Tyler could stop and try to think of a new plan, he heard footsteps behind him. Turning around, he was face to face with a full party facing him with varying degrees of smiles. Some malicious, some a slight grin, but all telling the same story, they finally cornered their pray. "Listen up noob, you can come with us willingly, or we can lift you off your feet, and drag you with us. You won't last a second out there, a dragon will burn you away, or you'll get taken down by a stray ability. Do the right thing, and just come with us, JackAttack only wants to vent a little frustration, and if you make it harder than you already have, it won't just end with one meeting."

Tyler knew where he was, he was between the rock and the hard place, one situation knowing that he would be taken away, and be at the mercy of the Barbarian known as JackAttack. The other being complete chaos, with people aiming to take him down for the sole reason of being in the wrong place, and for all the wrong reasons. He knew that the property deed wouldn't drop on his death, it would just vanish and lost again not knowing when the deed would appear again.

Tyler made his decision, feeling an idea form in his head, while going with the small group of adventurers would completely eliminate any opportunity of him escaping, a new idea was telling him to try and use the chaos in the square. Sure, a dragon could easily spew flames all over him, but that would be the same result in going off with the party, but if he played his cards properly here, he might be able to open a window for his escape.

He smiled at the group, he brought his right fist across his chest while slapping his left hand into the crook of his right elbow, "good luck with that, I'll take my chances with the crowd". He turned and ran into the city square, and was greeted immediately by a sudden explosion of heat, with a dragon dropping fire right beside him. He lost 10 health, but he paid it no mind, and continued running.

He ran directly at an adventurer dressed up in completely black plate, his knowledge of equipment telling him that odds are the adventurer was a Dark Knight, and a high leveled one at that.

Tyler widened his eyes, waving his arms frantically, trying to look as frantic as possible. "They know who has the deed!" Tyler screamed, and pointed back towards the alley. "It's their guild! Their guild controls the deed right now!"

As soon as Tyler finished, it seemed like everything in the square stopped, even the dragons seemed to move away from the square itself. He could feel the eyes of everybody in the square on him, he got the attention he needed.

The Dark Knight looked towards the alley, and Tyler's former pursuers were just exiting the alley. They walked in slowly, looking around at the sudden stoppage of combat. "What are you even talking about, if they controlled it, how did you hear about it?"

Tyler took a breath, he felt like the eye of a storm, one wrong turn will throw him back into destruction, with him being the focal point. "I heard them talking, and their leader, JackAttack was the one to receive it. Remember when he was arrested for threatening me?" He hoped that the news of the arrest was widespread. "Well, turns out that he managed to achieve a secret requirement, and was given the deed. They were talking in the alley trying to figure out a way to buy JackAttack time to get into the City Hall and lay claim to the property."

"Bull, you didn't hear us talking about that, we want you because you got JackAttack arrested!" One of the party members screamed across the square.

"Yea, and you are going to admit that your guild controls that property deed. I'm sure you are eager to admit to all these PvPers around here that you have what they have been fighting over all this time!" Tyler pointed at the group. "Why would anybody believe a guild that has no issue with bullying noobs around because of the poor behavior of your leader! JackAttack wanted to send me off for a walk, all because I entered the city at the wrong time. ME! A noob, just finishing my tutorial quest, deserved to be sent off for a walk because your guild leader wanted to throw his weight around, and try to lay claim to anything related to those!" Tyler was in a grove, he pointed to the sky, and almost immediately, a dragon flew overhead.

"You can't listen to this noob, he's just scared of having to face JackAttack because of his arrest. He didn't gain anything from being arrested, he lost reputation with the city guard." The same person screamed out, looking around at everybody in the square.

The Death Knight clearly had heard enough as he turned towards the small group still at the entrance to the alley. "In case you haven't noticed, people have been killing each other over and over here for just the possibility of that deed to drop. Now, we have someone giving us information that your guild has it, and sure, he could be telling a lie right now, but it's a much better reason to target someone than what we have been doing up until now." He drove his large two handed sword into the ground. "I proclaim on behalf of the PvP guild Deep Sea Fishies, we will hunt down every single member of Tippin' Top Hats and send off each member of the guild for respawn."

As the Dark Knight made his proclamation, Tyler edged himself purposely away from City Hall, now wasn't the time to try and make a claim. His hope was that if people saw him trying to navigate away from the large building, he might be able to make it. As he shuffled his feet, his hopes were raised, as adventurers across the square either looked off into the distance, or looking at their wrist, receiving quests to turn in proof of sending Tippin' Top Hats memebers off for a walk.

The Dark Knight turned back to Tyler. "I recognize you from the video of JackAttack being arrested, and I know you are a new character. I don't need to kill a noob to prove my strength, so I won't attack you now, but I can't speak for anybody else. Keep moving in that direction, but who knows...." Before the Dark Knight could finish what he was saying, the dragons above swept over the square, and began to carpet the entire area with fire streaming from their jaws.

Tyler found himself running once again, he was struggling to breath, his stamina running on empty, only able to continue running thanks to his will power. After just a few steps, he found himself stumbling, heading away from the incoming line of dragons. He heard people calling out defensive skills behind him, many of the high level adventurers relying on their abilities to survive, while others called out directions to run for cover. Stumbling towards and open door, Tyler kept pushing himself forward, knowing that his property deed was gone if he were to be sent for a walk. Just as Tyler reached out for the door, the flames washed over Tyler, he immediately dropped to the ground as he felt the heat rolling up his body.

Tyler began to see flames entering his peripheral vision, he was being surrounded by flames, when all of a sudden, water washed all over him, completely putting out the flames around him. He looked up, and a water tower on top of the building had fallen over, and all the bathing water intended for the inn that Tyler was trying to find shelter ended up saving Tyler. As he was looking up, text scrolled by 'Dodge successful!', and Tyler slumped in relief.

Tyler turned back to the square, and all that met his eyes was destruction. Adventurers were disappearing, other lay on the ground, there were shadows on the walls and ground, ashes were floating on the air. The thing that stood out for Tyler was how quiet everything sounded, the loudest thing around him was the wind. As his eyes swept across the destruction, Tyler knew that the rest of the city received the same treatment, the city felt dead.

Tyler smiled, he turned away from the square, and walked towards the exit of the capital city. His entire goal since logging into HYTOMA for the first time was to open his shop. Not only did it look like he had a clear path out of the Capital itself, the dragons that came and destroyed Myneria had created demand in items and gear. Sure, Tippin' Top Hats would be back, but once he left the city, there was no real way for the guild to find him unless they were lucky. Tyler pulled up his companion UI, and navigated to his document that listed all of the items he had stored away. As he walked towards the exit of the city reading through the list, he began to laugh out loud, completely ignoring the destruction around him. It was finally time to make some real profit.