Alright, I got my client up and working. It seems that as long as the Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic filtering are turned down to 0 it runs fine. The other settings have little effect on the client, although it DOES tend to run better with the two graphics settings set to Medium.

Xifer, you and I have exactly the same idea. Seriously. I mean, the methods are different, stories different (my story is unfinished and may go unfinished since I've known from the start the character shouldn't exist the way he is), but... we should talk a bit. I'm happy to see a darker story here as well.

I'd love to talk, especially since you've now got me curious on what your character is o.o xD But seriously, we should talk.

@Mrokii -- Thanks, I'll look into it

The next night, Seriim stood outside the Research Center dressed in his old leathers. Simple, gray leather armor with a metal shoulder pad on his left arm and three potions on its strap. He bore no weapons other than two daggers sheathed on each of his thighs. On his back was a small backpack.

When the twelfth bell sounded the hour across town, Seriim knew it was time to move. He quickly casted a spell on himself and his eyes began to slowly see. On the fifth level of Yliakum, night was very dark, almost pitch, but thanks to this spell, Seriim could see almost as well as an Enkidukai. He ran from the bushes to the back wall of the Center and touched the crystal on the back door. With a whispered word, it opened quietly; this door was locked with only magic. He quietly slipped inside.

The door led into the break room, where the scholars and magi took their lunch and dinners. The lights were off and the room was void of life. Perfectly acceptable, Seriim thought to himself as he ran quietly across the floor towards the Archives. Down the hall, to the left, right down the stairs, and straight ahead; there were no guards to be seen.

As he rounded the last corner,  Seriim noticed them. There were guards on either side of the Archive's door—there was no way around them. The Ylian crouched behind the corner and locked his eyes on the torch-lit guards. His hand loosened the glyph sack at his waist and he casted a spell to make the guards sleep—its effect took immediately. As soon as the guards were down and asleep, Seriim ran down to the gate and took a small device out of his backpack: a gauntlet of leather and metal with an azure-colored crystal imbedded in the forearm piece.

As he slipped the device onto his arm, Seriim began to feel it thrum with magic. The enchantment had activated. He grabbed hold of the crystal handle in the Archive's gate and concentrated on the identity of one of the high magi. Both the crystal on the gauntlet and the crystal in the door glowed white for a moment and then the gate opened.

Seriim removed the gauntlet and replaced it in his bag before sneering at the still-sleeping guards. “You're a heavy-sleeping lot, aren't you?” he taunted as he entered the Archives.

Unlike the Depository, the Archive Gates didn't shut on him. This annoyed Seriim; he'd have to work fast. The Ylian quietly searched for the Shadowtap in the dimly lit Archives and found it rather quickly; after all, it was the newest artifact to be submitted.

It was unlike anything the Ylian mage had ever seen before; a beautiful thing, really. It was a sphere about the size of his fist, made of pure obsidian. It was sectioned off into quadrants by lines of black marble, which met at an onyx sphere in the artifact's front. Circuits of moving, black energy ran throughout the obsidian body of the sphere, with traces of purple showing up throughout them.

Seriim picked up the sphere carefully, unable to contain a euphoric grin. He was extremely careful on where his fingers and hands touched the sphere, avoiding the strange black-and-purple circuits that ran through the obsidian. He attempted a divination on the sphere, but its power simply absorbed the spell; this surprised Seriim, so he took a mental note of it.

Once again, he ran over the object's mysterious origin in his head. It was created by a Dark Way master around two to three hundred years prior. It's exact purpose was unknown, but its creator was an infamously powerful being. The creator had claimed in his journals that the Shadowtap could be used to create a being whose soul was linked directly to the Dark Way, thus more powerful than even he. Seriim was skeptical about this, but its creation was more interesting and likely to be true.

The Shadowtap was created from obsidian, black marble, onyx, and the Dark Way, but its core is said to be fragment of the Dark Crystal in the Death Realm. If this was true, then that meant that the Dark Crystal could be destroyed, which is valuable information for some.

After sifting through the information he had already gathered, Seriim looked closely at the onyx sphere in the center of the object; it looked like a button of some sort... He allowed one of this fingers to touch the circuit running across the sphere's body; shadows danced across his finger tips, caressing them with a cold sensation. It was almost...comforting.

Seriim noted this and turned the sphere around, looking for any other interesting areas; there were none other than the onyx sphere. So after several moments thought, he turned it back to face him and pressed on the smaller sphere lightly. It sank in much more than the mage had thought it would. As the onyx  button disappeared into the depths of the the sphere, the air suddenly grew colder and the room darker.

Seriim knew then he'd made a grave mistake; not even his magically augmented eyes could see through the darkness that now surrounded him. He looked at his hands and shrieked; the circuits that had surrounded the artifact had now wrapped around his hands, boring into his skin. Slowly, his skin paled and more shadows began to bleed from his skin, sheathing his arms and body. The Ylian dropped to his knees, wincing in pain as the sphere stole his humanity and replaced it with shadows. After ten excruciatingly long minutes, the button of onyx rolled back into place and Seriim collapsed. The sphere no longer had any of the shadowstuff circuits surrounding it.

Seriim stood up a few moments later, still rather groggy. He put the artifact into his backpack without a second thought and then looked down at his hands: they were abnormally pale and sheathed in shadows which bled from his skin. Unknown to him, his eyes were completely black with a glowing yellow iris. It was then he noticed that he could see through the unnatural darkness with ease. A grin formed on his face, which was also bleeding shadows. Somehow, he knew that he was no longer a Ylian. He was something so much more (or less, depending on who you ask). To him, he was now powerful and to symbolize his new form and power, he adopted a new name:

“I am Vrael Shadowborne, First of the Darkness.”

Make your own level! with blackjack! and hookers!

Fun read, thrice damned bitch is a fun line.

Thank you! I thought it up and was like  Must use... XD

Emo-menki.  I really love this story.  I love the emotion.

Thanks a lot, I actually worked quite hard on it. ^.^

Unfortunately, I emptied out the root folder before installation. I've also tried a completely different install folder name, which yielded the same results... I know my drivers are up-to-date, so I'm still back at square one. I don't want to stop playing, but I don't really have a choice if my client won't run on my system.

...or I could try the client on my linux when I get it up and running later on. This is me, being optimistic xP

Sabriel sits alone on a roof, his feet dangling off the edge. The dim light of the Crystal bathing everything in a slightly dimmer twilight, reminding him that he's not on the first level. He's nowhere near the House. Nowhere near his father, or the few people he actually considers friends. Nowhere near the painful memories or the woman who crushed his heart and ruined his life. He wasn't home.

The menki pushed the thoughts away for a moment, contemplating, grieving, brooding, or whatever you like to call it. Sabriel's ears droop as he came to the realization that he had nothing left. Well, nothing aside from his son. Kerrz was the only thing that could make him smile anymore. That is, when he wasn't asking about his mother.

Sabriel's tail slips into the satchel on the roof behind him, wrapping around the hilt of a dagger and bringing it to his paws. Is this really how my tale is going to end?  he asked himself. In no way did he want it to end this way; his mind simply told him that his time was up. It's not like I expected to be in the bard's tales or anything... I just expected to have a life worth living. This... this is just madness.

Having the knife in paw, his tail brought something else; a vial full of dark, viscous liquid. Sabriel took it in his other paw and popped the cork from the top. It stank horribly, making him wonder if this perma-death poison could possibly taste worse than it stunk.

"On the knife, then into the heart. With such sweet sorrow do we part..." His words seemed to excite the poison as he poured it onto the grooved knife... and waited. He stared at his reflection in the liquid, seeing nothing but a plain face he no longer recognized. This made him chuckle, cold and emptily; plain was never a word he had heard used to describe himself before.

"So, she not only took my home, two of my children and my heart, but she also took my charming personality and good looks. What a bitch." he shook his head and spit in disgust off the roof... only to hurriedly looked down to see if he had hit anyone. 

Sabriel watched as the dagger began to smoke, a sign that the poison had finally stuck to it. He pulled up off his shirt and got ready to sheathe the dagger into his chest. All at once, a thousand thoughts flooded through his head. Why should he die for her? She didn't deserve that honor. She didn't deserve him; hell, she didn't deserve to find happiness ever again.

Sabriel took the dagger and stabbed it into the roof. He grabbed his shirt and satchel with a smirk on his face. The menki then proceeds to punt the empty vial across the roofs of the town. "Well, looks like I'm not dying today." he takes the ring she had given back to him and tosses it across the roofs after the vial "You win, you thrice-damned bitch. I'm not dying. But, you'll never take anything from me again. Especially not my son."

Mishka got a letter from Sabriel saying it was over. She's now with Enonel and still misses Sabriel. End of story.

FIN

You see, I was led to believe that she had completely gotten over Sabriel. Interesting. Even Sabriel thinks she hates him XDD