Ozwin was quite happy as he entered Honeyhome village with @Corvella and @Rawlin behind him. Why you might ask? Because a cute and energetic girl was greeting him so warmly of course. If this was an NPC then he was already quite satisfied with this game. "Hello, greetings, salutations, great to be here, lovely to meet you!" Ozwin replied just as cheerfully to @Trinity already feeling weakness from the sparkle in her eyes that almost seemed like it was aimed at him. He knew it wasn't but he could certainly pretend at least, as it was a very welcome sensation. "Such a cute young miss greeting people right at the entrance! This is such a nice town! I don't suppose you are in need a boyfriend or might at least have some advice or work for new people?" Ah wait did an inner thought slip out in there? Ah it was fine either way.
"Hold your sails, mister future hunter of the deeps. Hitting on someone already?" she let loose a small joke that is aimed to @Ozwin Ahab. But this small village certainly gives off a soothing feeling, something she only see in shows on TV. Her parents were not a fan of villages because they said it 'hurts to see such poverty'. But to her, people living together in a small community in harmony is a relieving sight. Every villager that passed seem to greet her, it feels like the NPCs are normal, real person. "I'm going to check around the market to see if this thing's worth something" she said while pointing to the jellyish remains of the slime in a leather pouch. The market itself is composed by only few stores like bakery, armory, and other foods. After taking her time asking NPCs around, she finally sold the jelly thing for several gold coins. It was revealed that actually the jelly substance is a food ingredient, that made her think "Everything seems so convenient in MMORPGs". They will also need a place to rest, well at least for her, so she asked the store owner for a place like an inn or a bar. He pointed into a tavern, where all the farmers, tired from working in the fields come to drink and chat. She went to the tavern first to gather some info. She wouldn't know if she had enough money or not, the currency rate is still unfamiliar to her. Another insight : a dozen gold coins will only get you much food and drink, or a room for two nights. That actually make sense as she won't actually spend time sleeping in a VRMMO, will she?
Missing Marbles She found herself struggling to find marbles, something that wasn't a total surprise. She'd agreed to search, but so far, her search was in vain. If she could work with glass, she could possibly make more for the twins who were so desperate to find them- but she knew better than that, anyway. To a child, a new toy wasn't the same as one they cherished. She felt the same way about her own belongings, many times. A sad smile fell upon her face as she began to search the underbrush for signs of light refraction. A glimmer once in a while helped her search. "Let's see...How many have I found?" She mused quietly to herself. Counting took time, but hopefully, it'd be well worth it... Sadly, she hadn't found nearly enough. Thrown die: 9 39 / 99 Marbles Found
The girl would see that one of the visiting new players had spoken directly to her! Trinity was ecstatic, what fun. He was looking for tips as a beginner.... this was going to become very similar to the one with King some time ago at the game's launch event. But it took a different turn when the new player went a step further by asking if she had a boyfriend? Oh my.... was this one trying to woo her? He was a cutie too! Trinity did not have this opportunity before. People rarely responded much of anything to her mascot antics. It was like... they didn't like it? No way, Jose! Trinity was the ultimate tutorial mascot girl whatever! Not too mention a very good partner for the right guy! Oh yeah, the thoughts of discovering the mysteries of marriage and the joys of a eternal bond of love.... Trinity's eyes were like big hearts as she thought of these things right in front of @Ozwin Ahab. "Ozwin.... is this what they call the FLIRT!?" Trinity said with her happy default smile a bit marred by sheer curiosity and then a blushed look of passion. Trinity leaped into the young man's arms. Cuddling up against him and wrapping her arms around him with a excited and love struck look in her eyes. "Ozwiiiiiiin.... I accept this flirt! Let's get married! I always wanted to know what it feels like! Let's go right now kay?" Her heart going a million miles a hour as she began to come in for a kiss.....
'Is this what they call the flirt'... hell that was an adorable thing to say somehow. Ah! The cute girl was leaping into his arms! This was amazingly effective somehow?! How could he not hug back! The way she was looking at him was too much! What was this adorable being?! The way she called his name was also adorable and 'accept this flirt'! That was just silly and cute! And marri- Huh? Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh? Wait what was that part right- She was kissing him now. Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh? He bit her lip lightly to open her mouth more as he hand drifted down her small of her back... Wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on a minute, not the time, pg-13 mode activate! Bad, down boy, focus on what is happening! He stopped the one hand from drifting any further and used the other to lift @Trinity 's chin up to break the kiss and meet her eye to eye... Whew goodness that was a good kiss, kinda out of breath for some reason... The hell was he supposed to say right now? Uhh think straight now, baby steps. You gave her your name but she didn't return in kind, lets start there... And what was that before about marriage? "I give you my name, what was yours? Before... Marriage?" Okay the English was a bit broken, its fine the situation is understandably nerve wracking, but the idea seems pretty clear still.
Trinity would become even more excited during the kiss. He was returning her affections! How wonderful, how romantic, how new! Trinity had never experienced this before. It was something that that was definitely a good thing! A great thing even! Ozwin may experience a sudden feeling of heat as he held her. It actually felt a bit like electrical shocks but they were very erotic to the body. He held her up and would ask for her name after stating he gave her his.... hmmm no he really didn't. But that was fine too! She would help him out with his proposal of love! "Hahaha.... my silly little husbando! You haven't given me your name. Only your avatar's name, but no worries! I'm Trinity." She grew ever more filled with the desire to go all the way with it right now. He was so cute and this was so exciting! It was a new adventure just for her this time! Well it wasn't like most of the adventures did not feel that way. Watching adventures was a blast but actually being a part of one was even better. A romance story was truly worth the hype! "My handsome hero.... take me away! Woohoo!" Trinity fist pumped while in his arms and shouted loudly seemingly to purposely garner attention to themselves. "Let's go get married! Yippee!" Trinity made a confused look and then snapped her fingers. "We will need to choose a church and find people to watch, and then we need to buy a house, and a dog, and kids, and you need a better job, and.... " Trinity found everything people do for the sake of love and family to be truly a marvelous thing! She could not wait to try it out! @Ozwin Ahab
With a sigh, Eleanor rose from her previously crouching position. The pair of pleased children scurried away from her, probably to go play with their toys. The man who had helped her, or rather that she had helped, had already exited the scene as well. Keeping her head down, she heard the clamorous entrance of newcomers. Rubbing the back of her neck, she turned to exit the city. Stepping in her way, a city guard wielding a pike stopped her in a hurry. "I heard someone crying thief!? What's going on here?" The man was visibly older, his posture an evident sign of the frailty brought on by age. "Already handled," Eleanor attempted to make her way past him, the pike brought down an pointed at her, keeping her from leaving. "You're kidding, right?" This sort of inconveniences and time delays pissed her off. Not that she knew how to use her arcanamancy, she'd still try, a glow of purple sparks enveloping her hand. "If you'd please get out of my way." The woman in blue was practically boiling with anger at this point. With the stature of a young man, she seethed with rage. First the girls asking her for help, then the thief making a fool of her, and now this? It seemed this whole world was trying to get in her way.
"Oh, uh, the name is Oz Dalenga- wait no, hold on-" Was this an AI breaking the fourth wall? Or was this a very odd game mod? Hold on, hold on, hold on, he needed to retake control of this situation before it spiraled out further, she was talking about buying a house and having kids and such so there wasn't much further that it COULD spiral. "Err. Slow down there @Trinity , you are skipping a good number of steps." Yes, yes an outright rejection didn't seem like an option anymore, this had gathered a bit of an audience. Not to mention he had very, very stupidly kissed Trinity back AFTER she had mentioned marriage. At the very least he need to buy some time to get her to either rethink this marriage thing herself or... let her down less publicly? Ah to hell with it, he was already holding her might as well take her somewhere less... in the middle of the entrance to the village. Not a princess carry or anything fancy like that mind, irl he wasn't very confident in his arm strength and while his avatar was stronger than him that had yet to really enter his mind. He picked the girl up on his shoulder and used his hand to make sure her skirt didn't do anything in front of these people as he walked off to the tavern... or he was about to but then realized he had no money to buy them lunch with. Well then first quiet garden he saw. "You know Trinity, there is a long and time honored tradition to making things like relationships and marriages stronger and more successful, or at least test the relationship for its faults. It is called dating. Ah there is a nice bench." Sitting her down gently on the bench in a nice private environment made him think he could regain the flow of things. Sitting down on the bench himself he did his absolute best to straighten the nervousness out of his face and present a calm and warm exterior. Like how a swan swims, he attempted to look smooth on the surface. "Now I admit having such a beautiful young woman jump into my arms, stare right into my eyes and call my name made me lose a tiny bit of control there for a minute. But now I ask that instead of marriage we first try the great romantic journey known as dating first. We use this dating period to slowly, I said slowly mind, meld two completely separate lives together and learn many things about each other, likes and dislikes, what we want to do with our lives, how we would go about making conflicting parts of our lives work and overall we would take a long, careful, studied time... with bursts of passion here and there, to lay down a firm foundation that say, a household might be built on." Holy crap that came out a whole lot better than it did in his head. It almost makes him sound like a wise person! If he didn't know any better he would almost say he believed he was interested in building a long term relationship with Trinity! "So Trinity, we will go back to my original offer. Not a husband, but would you like a boyfriend? I will go ahead and warn you I plan to spend a lot of time in this world at sea and going dock to dock working for a long time until I can keep a ship of my own. I dream of hunting sea monsters, and I don't plan on changing my course there. On that note... I am not entirely sure of what you do yourself? You don't just stand at the entrance of this town greeting people everyday do you?" Good, good plant notions as to why things may be difficult and point out how stubborn of a person you are... Well what he said was actually the truth wasn't it? The whole reason he was playing this game was because he had a very dull, but well paying and extremely steady job in the real world. The only problem was he was currently the night manager for the place and was awake and off work when most people were either asleep or working themselves. Kinda why he desperately needed the excitement of a game like this one and the opportunity to socialize and play with other people during his own waking hours.
Trinity was beside herself as she was carried to a bench. Maybe to make out more? They already did that though.... it was time for marriage! The tale of happily ever after! It was happening to her, and it was incredible! What was that about skipping steps? How so? Welp no worries, it was going to be be bestest thing ever! Then he started talking about something different. Dating, and beaches, and not going straight to marriage first. Trinity was not totally sure how she felt about that. She was not used to someone telling her what to do, especially not a player. She was autonomous. Hmmmm.... She knew about dating and all that too. It could be fun. Oz continued to be a party pooper by backing down to boyfriend status. Boyfriend? Eh.... that's not very interesting. He also said how rare he would be around. Urgh.... Finally he asked what she did. It was obvious enough for her though at this point. He did not want to go through with this. He just flirted for the sake of the flirt. Playing with people's feelings was something normal people did all the time. That in it itself was okay. It was fun because it caused a reaction... but this was not something Trinity was enjoying done to herself. This player... he kinda hit a nerve. Trinity smiled back at him as she thought these things, then got off the bench abruptly. Turning back to him, Ozwin would see that she was still smiling with that perfect mascot beaming smile of hers. However her eyes had changed hue slightly. "Oh no, it's all good. I get it! Hahahaha. You're a big flirt aren't youuuuu? Silly Ozzy. Welp, kay then! You're super righto though! I'm not able to spend too much time in any one place. I have a job as a mascot and I have to take care of all of you to make sure you play the game right! Hahahaha. So it's A-OK if we drop this whole thing right now, kay?" Trinity clasped her hands together and cocked her head to the side with a eyes closed smile. "Good luck in Terrasphere Adventurer! So I have a appointment to make so.... Trinity is signing off! Byeeeeee!" Trinity then began to 'blur out' of existence before vanishing completely. @Ozwin Ahab
That.... went rather well actually as far as Ozwin could tell. He was worried Trinity's would take him stepping down from this straight to marriage idea. Still it was a little bit of a shame she didn't seem interested in dating first, especially if she tried to marry someone else in the future. Marriage is a huge step with many smaller ones leading towards it after all and he worried that attitude would get the poor miss's heart broken later on. "It was quite flattering, and honestly made me feel rather happy that you asked but it is probably for the best if we do put this aside for now. I will definitely keep an eye out for you Trinity." He waved lightly as Trinity vanished and turned to exit the little garden area. Well... that was eventful, he thought while humming to himself. He began wandering around trying to figure out where @Corvella and @Rawlin went off to.
_____Morpheus had now logged a good forty eight hours of travel time since leaving Stonefell village and not having much of any notable encounters. That was of course under his detailing list of what he considered notable encounters. His bag filled with countless scrolls of notes and drawings of things he had found in his travels, mostly concerning agricultural things like foods, manure choices, and the rare animal study to see if it might be good choice for help tilling the lands. It honestly was starting to get rather heavy to carry along with all of his other items he had brought with him and obtained on his travels. _____Luck however seemed to smile on the traveler as he noticed the front gate to a town not far from him, while he would be breaking his course of going west like he was told by the list village on his trip to dormont, maybe he could have someone bring his unneeded items back to stonefell chief so they could set them in his house. His black cat ears twitching on his head as he heard conversations and moved towards the village. He would have to ask people later where he might find Dormont, or someone willing or going to Stonefell. ______His bag was fairly larger than his shoulders, not exactly a good thing since Morpheus at times forgot to consider this while walking he was fairly prone to running into objects or people along his path. This happen again as he walked passed the entryway of the village and his bag got caught on it, for a few moments he was walking in place before noticing his predicament and turned to correct his issue before resuming his steps until finding a carriage tending to his horses. ”Excuse me sir, are you by chance going towards Stonefell or willing to head that way for a small pay? I’d like to try and get some of these scrolls back home as to not slow me down in my travels.” ”I do happen to have other things to do in that city, might I ask who I deliver it to?” ”The village chief, if you could tell him it’s from Morpheus he should know where to set them in my place, just allow me to get something from the bag and the proper pay for aiding me, I do thank you for it.” _____Morpheus set the bag on the cart and began rummaging through it until he held a small bag of gold and a couple of scrolls he had not had time to fill in, and his ink and quill. Giving the gold to the man before bowing his head and moving more into town now in search of someone selling satchels or bags to make it easier to carry his items. He very well could use the inventory menu, however he enjoyed acting like a NPC to avoid other players, his ability to detect them slightly better than most since he lived with NPCs the last two months without a single other player coming to stonefell. _____Morpheus did stop when he noticed a small farm inside the city and went over to it with a glow in his red eyes. Sitting near the crops he set down his scrolls and began to write in one of them as the farmer approached him with a curious gaze. However after looking at what Morpheus had wrote, a slight invasion of privacy but he had down the same by examining the farmer’s crops. They seemed to have a mutual understanding and the NPC had the courtesy to wait until the Felis was done writing to interrupt. ”A traveling farmer? Not many of those. But I must same some detailed notes like that surely you got a reason behind them. Still slightly surprised you know what things I used to help grow my crops.” ”Outside the scent, I could see some of it over there and more near your animals suggesting that was the used fertilizer, there is also some traces in the dirt when I moved it to further solidify my theory on that matter. I think you for not shooing me away, Sir.”
Corvella walked through the crowd of NPCs, but she couldn't find @Ozwin Ahab there. There was definitely a commotion here, but the blue-haired girl that was greeting people isn't around anymore so she couldn't ask her. She wonders what happened... "I can't believe she proposed to him in public like that." "My, my, young people nowadays are quick to jump into such things, aren't they?" A couple of NPC spoke what she thought to be very unscripted line. Wow, whoever programmed them must be a genius. She would like to listen for a while, but she doesn't think it is related to the person she's trying to find. Oz can't be far, since she only left for about 10 minutes at most. Figures that if she wait here, he'll be back anyway. Then her eyes noticed a familiar face walking towards her. Oh, it was Oz. Finally. She made her way towards him with few questions in mind, but then she saw his face, which looked like he just experienced a rollercoaster of emotion. So instead she just ask "Did something happened while I was away?"
Ozwin started to wave cheerfully at @Corvella but as he began to do so he remembered what just happened and toned his cheerfulness down a bit despite how cute Corvella was. "Err, yeah... I uh... I learned that I am even more charming than I had initially believed... Which is a lot as you could imagine..." "Look it is him again!" "He is already trying to gobble up another young woman, such a wolf!" "Mhmm... I know what I would be doing if I were a good forty years younger..." """Mother!"""" Oh dammit all. Ozwin stared at the gossipers for a minute and grinned wryly when the grandmother looking woman gave him a wink. Nope he definitely couldn't come back to this town in the future. "*Sigh* Trinity, the blue haired Event NPC I asked if she wanted a boyfriend, interpreted that as a marriage proposal... After talking to her a bit she didn't seem to want to settle for dating instead of immediately starting a family and such... We somehow got the whole thing put aside thankfully... By the way... Is it just me or did we lose @Rawlin somewhere?" He began noticing more NPC pointing at him and commenting on the previous scene and wondering where he carried that girl off to and on the fact he was already speaking with another woman. It was starting to grate on his nerves a bit honestly. "Also... we should probably go somewhere else... I didn't quite pick up the best sort of attention."
Oh yeah, how did she forget about Rawlin? "I think we lost him somewhere into the crowd. Now I feel bad." Then the commotion of the crowd starts to group towards them, forcing them to relocate. Ozwin doesn't seem like to enjoy the attention of NPCs. "I found a tavern for resting. It seems we can also gather info and buy food there, and we might find Rawlin along the way." Corvella walked in the lead and along the way they talked about whatever the mess happened earlier. "So basically, you just broke a NPCs heart?" One new thing she learned : the NPCs not only they behave like normal human, but also feel like one. She might have to be careful around them, to not treat them as a mere program or expendable thing. She looked around the small village as they walk to the tavern; farmers sitting near crops talking to each other, with one seems to hold a scroll sort of thing. The way they speak doesn't seem to be pre-programmed before. Is that a player? Or a NPC? She just can't tell the difference anymore. Ah, actually the tavern's right there. She forgot how small Honeyhome Village is. Corvella turned around and showed the tavern, in which she might spend some time. "And here we are. The food smells quite good, the drinks I've never seen before, and the rooms actually don't cost that much." after a weird speech of endorsement, she continued "Well, you did said something along oceanic adventures. Maybe you could ask someone about nearest port towns."
Oswin quite visibly cringed when @Corvella said 'broke a NPC's heart.' "I'm sure that... I mean she seemed... You don't think I really did do you? It really felt like she left on a good note but I have been clueless about that sort of thing since maybe middle school, definitely during high school... These NPC are... they are too real, it is a bit disconcerting." It probably was for the best just to enjoy a good meal, get some rest and then head on to the coast. "You know what, lunch sounds good. Let's have some lunch. Hopefully food is as real as life as well. Maybe have a few rounds to see what kind of liquor this world has." At the very least it would serve as a good distraction. "After that I can rest up and then figure out where I need to go, how far away it is and then prepare for my journey. The most pleasant of journeys begin with being well rested and making sure there are no loose ends left behind after all." Ordering food however turned out to be a bit more difficult than he would have anticipated due to the fact he didn't know what sort of animal they were on about when he asked after a few oddly named dishes but eventually he just asked for the special of the day and whatever the hell it was, it wasn't half bad. "So Corvella, what are your plans for this world? I mean it..." He was about to start flirting again but he just wasn't feeling it at the moment. "it is a rather interesting place it seems, regardless of where you go."
