Megathread - Link Start: Maithe Woodlands | Page 2

She seemed to materialize from thin air - looking very much like a random bright light at first. But as the particles came together, it had become clear that this light was actually just a very pale woman.

In the warm greenery, her white figure stood out.

Luna lifted a hand to her face, staring in fascination at the flesh there. The sunlight peeked through her fingers, warming her face where it landed. It felt real. She looked around at her surroundings, to the young man throwing fire at another guy, then to a pair of a girl and boy. Recalling the numerous vids she'd watched beforehand as research, Luna made some vague motions with her hands. Even though she'd kind of expected it, the descriptions they'd used in the vid were nothing compared to the odd sensation of holographic UI beaming from her palm. Intrigued, Luna sat down on the grass, marveling at the soil she sunk into. She was satisfied with exploring the UI for now, trying different motions and opening various parts of the interface, swiping through prompts with graceful fingers. Investigation mode. Her needs bars. The map. Communications. Somehow, they made it all feel like a part of the world.

Narrowing her eyes on the bunny steadily approaching her, Luna let it come within a reasonable distance before lifting her hand. The creature startled, but it was too late. She chose her spell and watched, entranced, as her voice spoke the incantation, hand moving against her will to launch the blade of wind at the small rabbit. It died, instantly decapitated by the sharp gust.

"Fascinating."

 

Aceline had already been logged in for a little while, puttering around a bit, getting a good sense of the basics of the game and her new, virtual body. She had already done a little combat, met a handful of people, all that sort of fun basic stuff. Still, it was about time she actually made some progress through the starter area, meeting up with more than the random strangers wandering the woods. Which meant, of course, that it was now her turn to be the stranger wandering the woods. For the extra challenge she went without a map, allowing herself the luxury of just simply exploring the area without being drawn by a marker or some other bauble on the map distracting her. The real effect, of course, was that soon Aveline was just simply lost in the wood.

Stumbling through a clearing, she arrived just in time to see a woman decapitate a bunny rabbit with magic wind. One the one hand, that was awesome from a game perspective. Still, decapitating a bunny rabbit was pretty high on the “evil deeds” list, so seeing it so viscerally was a little disorienting, especially with the woman’s rather

”Er, congratulations on the successful ‘hunt’, madam,” she said, arriving in and giving the woman a polite bow. ”I am Aceline de la Fontaine. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

@Luna

 

“Woah woah woah! Watch the fireball!” Kirito exclaimed as he jumped back after nearly being hit with a stray fireball. He’s certainly had eaten a fair share of friendly fire attacks from games like Gun Gale Online, but he didn’t realize all North American MMO players were so irresponsible. However, after he took some time to think about it, he was in a newbie area, so it wouldn’t be fair to stereotype all Americans as crazy guns-totting renegades in and out of the virtual world.

As much as Kirito wanted to walk up to the red-headed mage and perhaps give him some pointers on how to use magic (despite not knowing how to use or having magic himself), he froze up a bit. Kirito was bad at socializing with strangers, which when he looked at the red-headed man, he saw the blond girl from earlier as well. It was a two against one scenario, one he doesn’t deal well with, thus, he shouted at Rawlin, “Hey! Try letting the auto aim help you a bit? Maybe you guys should find something to practice combat on, it always helps me!”

After he dropped a pro-tip, the raven-haired youth quickly slipped out of view, avoiding further attention.

[Exit thread]

@Rawlin
@Corvella

 

The man who was like a shadow at first disappeared as quickly as he appeared, Ozwin waved at the departing figure with a bit of a confused gaze. He tilted his head to the side before looking at the other two, "Yes I suppose that was a bit dangerous wasn't it... Still, he seemed... nice I guess? Still he said there was an auto aim?" Ozwin looked at his very short spell list and aimed his hand at a slightly distant slime out of curiosity while reading the incantation for... "Stun!" Ozwin shouted using the Aeromancy spell. He felt a bit of tiredness creep when his hand suddenly sparked up and screamed like a tazer... then nothing happened...

"Ah... it was a close combat spell..." He looked at the other two who were with him with his best attempt at a straight face, which was going poorly with as red as he was... "Uhhh, *ahem* it is your turn next anyway Corvella."

 

Upon entering the game, Capernaum did the first thing many players tried to do; or, at least, many players in the PC방; PC bangs, or PC rooms; tried to do in her homeland. That is, break the game in amusing ways. She didn't quite care for clipping through the world or finding invisible walls, but she did wish to test the limits of her own abilities.

Watching the commotion below from her seat on a tree branch, Capernaum gave an amused noise... and then cast her fishing line. Into the open air. In the forest. An experiment, but a display in insanity, if it didn't go right. That was fine. This is what you did to video games to find a little fun, after all. Watching the bait (which was directly on the forest floor underneath her), she--

reeled in a chicken.

The overly aggressive poultry started attacking her once she pulled it in, her hook still in it's mouth. Out of instinct (and due to the game's autoattack system), she immediately gored it with the long end of her fishing pole, the virtual corpse of a dead chicken now lying on the ground. ...Critical hit? Hm.

Jumping down, Capernaum begun harvesting her kill. Hold it down by the neck, get your blade in your other hand. Keeping a strong hold on it's body, cut the artery-- ah, that was a lot of blood-- Let it spill onto the ground as it died out. And then feather it...

 

"Oh, right." Corvella selected the first and the only spell in her list, the Fear spell. Suddenly a light emits from her left index and middle finger and against her will, the two fingers automatically draws in the air what looked like an incantation symbol or some sort of the spell. The writing stays in mid air and as soon she finished drawing, she quickly turned to this one slime that won't just stops moving. She made an open hand gesture and the writing glows, stopping the slime in their place as they looked terrified. Actually this auto-aim the weird black-haired guy told us is very useful, she thought.

She grabbed the stick that was used by Ozwin earlier and try to make a move to attack the terrified slime, trembling in terror. It was only a few meters ahead but she takes a running start, hoping to get a powerful inertial swing. Two steps into the attack, her lower body strength feels like it just dissipates. Side effect of using magics, maybe? Since there wasn't mana bar or anything like the sort, she concludes that energy must be the cost of casting (the actually low-leveled) magic. In an attempt to not fall and keeping her balance, she brakes using her right leg and as a result, her right-handed swing attempt is executed pitifully; wounding the poor slime in the process. But luckily, the slime is still locked in place, so she took the opportunity to ready up a wide swing and put the slime out of their misery as it bursts into gels; just like a PG-13 gore.

"That wasn't bad, was it?" she walked back with the gel remains of the slime. Corvella doesn't know how the loot system works yet, still there is a chance the monster remains is still a sellable loot. "We finishing up yet?"

 

"I don't see why not miss Corvella," Ozwin replied as he stared at his spell list, in particular at a spell that would grant the blessing of the winds to his movement? From the sound of it, the spell would increase his movement speed and jumping power for a short time. He didn't use it though considering he was still tired from the last spell and the conversion of stamina to extra mobility seemed... well really bad, at least while his skill level was so low.

"Rather I am hoping that at the end of this trail I can get my hands on... a well crafted stick I guess would be the thing most likely to be in a beginner's price range, perhaps a quarterstaff or even a spear if I am lucky." To be fair he would take a quarterstaff over a sword any day of the week, but that wasn't a popular opinion. They were simply far more useful in his opinion. "Luckier still it shall be to continue being in your company... Or finding a tutorial somewhere I suppose." There would be little complaint from Ozwin regardless of where he happened to be with pretty people, especially a pretty young woman. He was fully aware that he was a simple fool for this and accepted it... He really did hope there was a tutorial somewhere down the road though.

Ozwin looked directly at Rawlin, curious to know if he was ready to move on or if he wanted to stay and give monster killing another shot.

 

She glanced up from her UI, where she'd inspected the XP meter and was going through the rabbit's loot, to the blonde woman who'd stumbled upon the clearing she'd tucked herself into. "Thank you," she said, nodding and clearing her throat. Where most would offer a polite smile, Luna just stared. "My name is Luna."

Dusting off her bottoms, Luna rose to her full height and looked down at @Aceline De La Fontaine – more specifically, at the sheathed sword at Aceline's side. Some sort of bladed weapon. Perhaps a shortsword? An arming sword? A rapier? "Are you good with the blade?" she asked, head jutting to nod at the weapon. The best way to find out what kind of sword it was to ask, or to see it in combat instead of sheathed at an awkward angle.

Luna had not received any starter weapons when she'd loaded into the games, probably because she'd chosen to spec into magic. Part of her wondered if she could still use a blade, but ultimately decided to bother her in-game friend with those kind of questions later. If Aceline was in this area, it was most likely because she'd first spawned here as well.

 

So fishing for monsters did work, if only to comedic effect. This was probably less due to any inherent ability to really 'fish' for monsters, and more of the aggro programming built into them. Still, it was something to consider. Hauling her raw chicken into a knapsack, Capernaum slung her fishing rod and her dinner over her shoulder.

Ah, there was one other thing to do, then. Clenching her fist and opening it, Capernaum opened up her UI, and looked over everyone in the general vicinity. It was usually best to have people to compare oneself to, in MMORPGs; where you should be, if you followed a fairly standard schedule. This would allow her to do that.

Tapping a few options, a friend request went out to everyone in seeing distance. The message itself had a picture of her face, as well as her in-game name; otherwise, it was the simple 'hello, i'm x, would you like to be friends?' message.

@Luna @Corvella @Ozwin Ahab @Aceline De La Fontaine

 

A UI prompt popped up in the corner of her field-of-vision, just slightly out of focus. Out of instinct, Luna made a sweeping motion with her hand, visibly brightening when the prompt moved in front of her.

She considered the message. There was nothing wrong with making in-game friends, especially if there were a lot of co-op quests. But why had they chosen her, and how had they found her? Luna looked around the clearing, trying to spot the face that had been included with the message. Not that it mattered. She accepted the friend request, mentally storing away @Capernaum's name for later. Maybe they'd be of use.

 

Armand was never a gamer type of guy. In fact, his complete focus on his studies let him ignore any kind of games that most people are playing. Not to mention that he heard of the SAO incident from the news, so he knew that this e-mail was bad news. Yet for some reason, a part of him made him feel that he should try this strange game. He doesn't know the consequences if he did, but it might be a good way to relieve him from the stress of his work for a while.

Although a few minutes after he logged in, he found himself facing off against a group of chickens. Okay, he is starting to learn that this game has a combat system, but he began to question why the chickens appear as enemies. Unfortunately, he doesn't have time to answer as he pulls out his sword and tries to swing it to the chickens, which most of them were dodged or completely missed.

"Ugh... Why am I even playing this game in the first place?! Should it have a game manual for this kind of games?" He shouted as he continued to dodge and attack the chickens without any success.

 

Some kind of annoying notification tune rings inside her head, and a little notice icon appeared almost in the corner of her field of vision. It seems that someone sent a message to her, an actual feature that she just noticed by now.

She opened her palm menu, with now she is used to it, and found that there is one friend request. Inspecting closer the request was sent with a character picture and a generic friend request text. But who? She didn't seem to see anyone like the one in the picture in the vicinity. Might be broadcasted friend request to entire area, though. Without hesitating, she accepted the friend request. Might come in handy if one time she actually meet @Capernaum. While she's at it, she went into the settings menu to see if the notification can be turned entirely off or not.

 

The guy in black looked somewhat familiar but he had no clue from where but he seemed rather upset at Rawlin for accidentally shooting a fireball in his direction. But despite his tone of voice which was understandable he had offered some advice about a thing called 'auto-aim' which Rawlin had not known about despite reading through the manual. "Oh sorry about that I guess I missed that part in the manual." Rawlin said as he rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment only to see the guy in black walk off before Rawlin could apologize properly. Rawlin looked to @Corvella and @Ozwin Ahab then nodded as he spoke to them again. "Yeah that guy's advice was helpful but he seemed a little upset. Anyways let's head out of this forest and see if we can find a starter town or something." Rawlin said as he then noticed that he got a friend request from an unknown source. Usually he wouldn't mind friend requests in a game but it seemed a little too generic to be a person as it could have been a ad program trying to get his attention. Rawlin declined but sent a message asking a basic math question to the sender to prove if they were actually a person then said to answer it in a PM. Rawlin didn't usually do this but he only was doing so to be careful so as he walked alongside the others to town he asked them about it. "Did any of you get a strange friend request? I assumed it was spam so i declined it what about you all?"
Rawlin said as he waited on the others to respond.

[Exiting thread]
[Onward to the village!]

 

As they started walking along Ozwin heard a ding, saw the friend request and couldn't see the person who sent it. It didn't take him a moment to decide to dismiss the request. He was a bit surprised when @Rawlin asked about it though. "Yeah I received one, but it didn't even cross my mind to accept a friend request from someone who hasn't shown me their face." Ozwin was now wondering if he was breaking some sort of gamer common sense since this was the first video game he had played since he was a preteen.

"I still can't get my way around this menu thing that well... Anyway let's get going. I am actually hoping we find a proper tutorial up ahead." Osu said smiling lightly at Rawlin and a bit more @Corvella before walking down the path.

[Exiting thread]
[Onward to the village!]

 

"No, I actually accepted it." she said as she walked behind them on their way into the town. It never slipped her pure mind that someone would be up to no good by sending a friend request. She's just being her, after all.

Before they passed through a post sign that indicates that they are leaving the woodlands, she stopped and looked back for a while to appreciate the beauty this game is. The beautiful landscape coupled with the sun that is setting. It perfectly capture a fantasy she always wanted, being a princess in a magnificent world, free to do as she wills. It looks like she will be here longer than she planned. She then catches up to @Rawlin and @Ozwin Ahab as they approach the city. In her heart she glad she made friends.

[Thread Exit]