DISCLAIMER: The characters in this ROLEPLAY are fictitious and any resemblance and/or references to reality or to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

It was one of those days where everyone in the orphanage was on the 'edge of their seat' over the new orpahn that was supposed to come in that day. They were thinking of how great it would be to have a new playmate, but beneath it all he knew that they were just looking for someone to pick on once again. It had been himself for a while, but Tsun was weak and didn't react to their cajoling and in the end they got bored of him. Tsun didn't really care about the new orphans though, they all ended up lost and lonely like every other orphan in this damned place. They come here with a look in their eyes like they've already seen the worst of the world and this was the same as the streets, the streets the same as the dumps, and the dumps the same as the jungle.

There were 21 kids in the run-down orphanage that was provided by the village. It had 6 rooms, 2 bathrooms, a small cafeteria, and a classroom. It had a small playground which was filled everyday after art class. They spent the majority of their time, learning history, math, english, and general sciences. After, they would have the time to go work on a job somewhere to earn money to buy themselves new things or time to learn a martial arts or apprentinceship.

Around this time Tsun was painting one of the landscapes in the oils he was given when a small astute boy arrived in an oversized shirt and raggedy pants. He wore glasses like himself and had the same lost look on his face as all the other children. Since he was the newest orphan he was placed in the same room as him, the last orphan to arrive, and given the worst seat in the classroom, the place by the window where the sun blazed down all 365 days a year, Tsun's old seat. Tsun saw him sit down and said Your shoe is untied. and asked him if he could switch seats with him so that he could continue his painting.

Hatsumei was pretty nervous coming to the orphanage. As a new orphan, he figured he would be the 'center of attention' for a while, though not exactly formed with that thought process; He was 11, see. As he walked into the building, lead by a pair of gentlemen. He heard that while the orphanage had a number of good classes, they didn't have any libraries. Since they're were no libraries, he would have to find a way to pay for the books of his obsession; He only hoped he didn't have to resort to theft.

As his minders went to tend to all of the paperwork, Hatsumei wandered through one of the doors, finding himself in a classroom, if you could call it that. It looked more like an asylum. There was only a few tables, along with chairs- Some of the children's chairs were broken, and he saw that they were nearer to the windows while the newer ones were more near the center, away from the windows. Aye, there were many windows in that room, most of which were in a state of disrepair...

As the instructor waved him to find a seat, he saw that most of the children were staring at him quite oddly- possessively, almost. This unnerved him. He then noticed an anomaly in this pattern, a boy sitting in the corner, on a broken stool, next to a broken window. This isn't what caused his eyes to wander in that direction, though- This was the only boy not staring at him. Hatsumei saw that he was intensively concentrating on some kind of painting, with oils sprawled out in front of him on the desk. It was then that he decided to sit there.

My name is Tsun he said as he finished drawing his painting. He was thinking of how boring it was to draw the same landscape every day but was amazed to see how the new kid stared at his painting with such unbridled entusiasm. Tsun felt a little embarrassed because most people laughed at him because he spent all his free time drawing stupid trivialities while others werte off making money doing one odd job or another. But this guy, what did he say his name was? Oh yeah, Hatsumei... He found the name oddly fitting, but he didn't really understand what it meant since he had no background in Oriental history. Huh? Oh yeah, after this we have free time for the rest of the day. Just err... Here, have some of my paper you can use my oils as well, we have about half an hour of class left. He scrounged around in his rucksack, he felt a little too talkative today but either way he pulled out an apple and gave it to Hatsumei Here, you missed lunch so your probably hungry. Tsun, then continued to look out the window as if he were waiting for something to change in the scenery so he could draw it again.

Hatsumei heard the student speak to him, as he sat down. Commenting on his untied shoe. Great. Make a fool of yourself on the first day- "Oh, I don't know how to tie my shoes..." He mumbled. And then, as an afterthought: "And yes, that's fine". He quickly switched with this person, while asking "So- What's your name?"

As this...Tsun person said his name, he took a look at the painting he was so focused on. It was a landscape, however... It seemed familiar, in some way. He couldn't quite place it though. Then, Tsun did something completely unexpected, he gave him his oils. "Oh wow... thank you... Tsun." Hatsumei meekly expressed his gratitude with. As he began setting up his workplace, he noticed Tsun searching in his bag. He was reminded of his hunger, when he saw the object of the search. Instead of eating this in front of him, however, he performed another feat of surprise; He handed the apple to Hatsumei. "Your right about that" He responded.
"I noticed you were drawing something." "What is it?" He asked, timidly.

He looked back from the window at the person sitting next to him. It's the forest just outside the orphanage if you look just outside this window... He pointed to the are surrounding the outside of the classroom, where a few evergreens were surrounded by small bushes and ferns. And with that he checked to see if his painting was dry, which it was, and went to go turn it in to the teacher. When he came back to sit down he made a point to comment on the time and asked Hatsumei what he planned on doing during their free time. Tsun thought it would be a good time to go look around the city or do something else, like head into the forest, but he didn't know how the boy would react and so waited for him to answer.

As he refocused his attention on the mysterious boy, he contemplated his answer. He was ever so curious about the aforementioned forest, but he was never one for physical activities, preferring the quiet solace of a well-written book. While the city was probably more practical, as he would eventually be forced to find a way to acquire books, which he doubted he would find in the forest, he decided on thus, so he finalized his decision verbally. "How does exploring the forest with me sound?" he asked, embaressedly. Before he gave time for the boy sitting across from him to answer though, he got up and trashed his painting, a badly formed tesselation (Although he didn't realize what this was at the time) walked out right out of the room.

Over the next few months the two of them became good friends. They enjoyed discussing any topic that they could read about in the books that Hatsumei obsessed over, loved to paint in their free time, and went into the forest to practice their own abilities that they learned from the books. But it was not all fun and games for the pair, they were accused of stealing fromn the Orphange's head more than once, books of theirs were stolen or thrown away, their paintings slashed or painted over, and their belongings even hidden once or twice. They had even been arrested by the police once, but their alibi held through in the end and the accusers were slightly reprimanded. The two had grown accustomed to being outsiders because... wel l they WERE outsiders. And they enjoyed their time together until the one day that changed their lives. It was the day that Tsun killed Hatsumei.

"So I was thinking, in this new book I read, I saw a mental disease that actually causes people to believe fantasy. It had this guy who actually believed in magic, Imagine that!" Both Hatsumei and Tsun were in the Cafeteria, with a low drone of hushed tones and whispers, supplemented with the yells and cries around them, blending into a motley of noise that would rip a lesser man's ears asunder. "How effective do you think electroshock therapy would be on these individuals?"

Bahaha! Magic, who'd ever believe in that primitive stuff!You mean like hocus pocus and tarot cards? It's almost as realistic as using an electricity-based cicuit run worldwide to power a system where millions of people at the press of a button could connect to an arbitrary system where others could almost instantly participate in otherworldy events through a server processor that used binary coding as the basis to create a processing site where they'd discuss this hocus pocus mumbo jumbo and actually enjoy it! The two of them laughed at the very idea of it. If you ever caught me doing that, electro-shock me away!

Hatsumei makes a bristling motion. "You know I'm no good at that higher-level math, Tsun. It makes me uncomfortable." -He said, as the Cafeteria started to lose it's current quantity of children. "How about we head over to the bookstore? I heard a new shipment of books came in today." They clean their table, and exit the orphanage, heading into town.

They enter the bookstore, and browse the new selections. "See? They have "101 Ways to Fantasize Fantasy" and "DND - Beginner's Edition". And they're a steal as well!" Then Tsun postulated: "How about we head out into our clearing?... It's a nice day outside."

Hatsumei consented and they entered the nearby forest, navigating their way to the clearing they found, one perfect for reading, as well as painting, due to the lush greenery and the trickling stream nearby. Hatsumei, as he came upon it, was again astounded at the sheer solacity of the place.

Tsun had wanted to head over to the clearing since the beginning of the day. He consented the travel to the bookstore because he knew that the new books would've made Hatsumei happy and give him something to do as he painted, but he never thought that they would be as interesting as the book they got on Julius Caesar, they would read part of it every day and roleplay as the characters in the scene in the fields behind the orphanage. The other kids would laugh and point at the so-called 'role players' and the Head master decided that such obscene acts such as pretending to be someone your not is considered immoral, and from that day banned from the orphanage grounds. For that reason they had to continue their secret pleasure hidden in the forest, away from those who would judge them.

They were in the clearing for a few hours, trying to learn the new game as swiftly as possible, Tsun using his logic to work out the game, Hatsumei using his ingenuity to come up with loopholes so he always won. It was nearing dusk when they realized that Crap! We're going to be late for curfew! We need to hurry! So they rushed off towards the orphanage with the new books in hand, and were sorely reprimanded for their late arrival. They went to their room with no supper but neither of them cared, they wanted to continue reading their new books and so they decided that they would light a candle and spend the night reading them.

What are your magikarp thoughts on the idea of Recursion? I thought it was the epitome of irony... Tsun said as he rolled an 18 with a +3 bonus due to his Status as Dungeon Keep.

"Damn...!" "A plus three bonus this early in the game?" Hatsumei frowned, as he rolled a dice, which yielded a three, causing the trap in front of him to initiate itself. "Recursion, you say? I remember reading a book that said mathematical recursion could be solved with a certain algorithm..." This tangent continued on for a hour, in which time they were forced to light a candle, as they referenced the book at times, and as they continued on. Eventually, however, after the inevitable win of Tsun, due to his uncanny rationale at DnD, they stopped playing, instead deciding to retire to the candlelight with their treasure that was books. Eventually, they started feeling drowsy.

Tsun actually wasn't really that good at the game, although it did require a certain skill and logic to play, he simply learn how to roll an 18 every time it was his turn. Of course, Hatsumei caught on after a while and they argued about it for a bit before they started feeling drowsy. They were enjoying themselves greatly and as they were falling asleep Tsun decidedly picked up the candle and went to get something to eat in the cafeteria. He asked Hatsumei if he was hungry but at that time he was already asleep, and so he snuck out and closed the door behind him.

He reached the kitchen behind the cafeteria walls and put the candle down, accidently tipping it over without noticing. After opening a bag of licorice he stuck one in his mouth, sucked hard and went back on his way forgetting to pick up the candle that was now aflame. On his way to his room something odd happened... His drowsiness overcame him and he fell face first to the ground and blacked out.

He woke up to the smell of sulfur and ash and the screams of far off people. He didn't understand what was going on, but he looked around and began to put two-and-two together... Shit! I left the candle in the cafeteria! He ran back the way he came and opened the door to the cafeteria only to be knocked off his feet by a torrent of flames. The smoke was filling up the hallway and his visibility was reaching critical level since it could only have been 15 minutes since he blacked out. He ran back to his room to wake up Hatsumei and collect their things But as he opened the door to their room, the fire had already reached the end of the hallway. Hatsumei! Wake up! There's a fire we need to get out! He looked around getting no response. Hatsumei!? He looked around but he was not in the room. He thought about it logically, and of all the people Hatsumei would've recognized the danger and left. So Tsun picked up his things, searched the room one more time, and jumped out the window to avoid heading through the hallway. He saw the other orphans standing with their belongings outside the orphanage huddled together and oddly enough... Hatsumei wasn't there. He checked around nearby and yet still he was nowhere to be found. In a last act of desperation he ran to the clearing where they always went to after classes had ended. Only to find the die he had been using in DnD... HATSUMEI!!!! He yelled out one more time before falling to the ground with Hatsumei nowhere in sight.

Hatsumei suddenly woke up, accidentally knocking his glasses to the floor. His mind wanted to go back to sleep, however... He had an innate urge to venture outside, these contrasts causing disorientation in and of himself. He got up, blind, without his glasses, and exited his room. He distantly saw Tsun sprawled out on the floor, but he completely ignored the fact.

As he walked toward the forest, he started to feel a compressed feeling, generally increasing as he continued walking- It reached a critical point as he finally stepped into the forest, and he popped out of existence, causing scorch marks at the point of his change in planes.

That morning, officials found a boy blacked out on the floor of a library in Bosporous.

Tsun spent the rest of the year in a state of paranoia, believing that any minute now the authorities would come to arrest him for killing his best friend Hatsumei, the other orphans had to have known he caused the fire. They looked at him with laughter in their eyes as if they were mocking him. Tsun no longer laughed at jokes, he no longer enjoyed the books he used to read with Hatsumei, it almost came to the point where he was devoid of all emotion, except for a sense of guilt and excessive amounts of paranoia. Tsun felt even more so than ever like an outsider, a murder, a mis-fit, and a traitor. He should've searched for Hatsumei more, he should've paid closer attention. His anxiety and paranoias built up to the point that he ran away from the new orphanage that he was residing in and spent more than two weeks lost in a forest... eventually being found by the old tax collector, Viron.

[Up for grading I guess.]

Both : 1SP 1MP 200 000