Open - Just Tinkering Around

Not a lot of time this week. That was the mindset Cheslea had going into her plans with Terrasphere. Thanks to her aunt, her life and the academy. Her life was not her own anymore. Worse was that the little time she did have for herself she spent investigating her parents death, Nexus or Terrasphere. No matter what she believed there was a connection somewhere. Her admittingly sparse social life has become utterly devoid of interaction.

Now here she was spending precious free time.

A tent was set up. The parts were pretty cheap to make and while primitive it worked fine enough. Around her were various odds and ends. Junk basically. Nothing she would ever consider looking at or working with in real life. Her face showed little of how she felt, in front of her was a small bowl of some sort of soup. She got it from a nearby village and it was a traveling meal that was made much like instant ramen. As she ate it she looked over the pile of junk she had dragged here. Thankfully the inventory systems allowed her to just make them appear and disappear. Actual hauling of this stuff would be terribly frustrating.

"Most of this isn't going to help at all. I have to use innovation here. My weapon was too weak. That's why I lost that simple quest. I need to be strong enough to not need help or support. This game is mirroring my real life more than I thought."

Putting the bowl down she looked at the knife firing contraption she made for her wrist on the fly. It was below average. There was no blueprint, no real thought, just a quick weapon to shoot gobins with. The blades were nothing more than throwing daggers with extra propulsion. She had to continuously pull the switch to turn the next blade into ready to fire position.

Offense alone was not the problem though. Her defense was horrible. Like really bad. She remembered the other members of her party in that battle. They all fended for themselves rather than for eachother. Especially the supposed tank. How ridiculous was that? At least Chelsea could agree with them on that. Teamwork was not as important as individual effectiveness. The Lady N would need to grind up some equipment for better potential with these tools.

"I'm stuck with second hand for now... boo."

She put down the old dagger shooter and returned to her soup. Her mind lost in thought. She had enough ego to not simply accept failure in anything she did. That included a waste of time like VR games.

 

Majolica had been out exploring and gathering mushrooms. This was her basic day-to-day. Honestly, she was sort of hoping for a bit more adventure, but apperently this was just kind of a downtime. A war had just ended, which Majolica was supremely annoyed that she had missed, and now everyone was trying to build things back up or recover. Majolica didn't care about recovery, so self-preservation it was. This meant that most of Majolica's days were walking around and exploring, practicing magic on random things, and mushroom hunting. The Grand Witch was just on her way back, and only marginally paying attention to where she was walking, when she happened to trip over some junk in her way.

"Ah! Damnit! Ooohhh... I stubbed my toe..."

It had been a long day for Majolica and the last thing she wanted to deal with was some dummy leaving all their crap in her path. As she rubbed her booboo to make it feel better, she smelled soup cooking. Getting up, she walked towards the fire holding her basket of mushrooms.

"Hey dummy! Don't leave all your junk lying around, you idiot! I tripped and now look at me! I'm all dirty and have a bump! What is that? Soup? Gimme! You owe me!"

 

Cheslea stopped her soup eating with noodles hanging from her mouth. She quickly slurped them up and hoped no one saw that awkward moment of noodle dangling. Her eyes went straight to the source of the sound. Not that the source was keeping very secretive. A girl in some sort of silly witches getup... yeesh. Wasn't Halloween over now? Not to mention the girl had knocked over some of her stuff. If any of it broke, moreso than a lot of it was already, it would make her work harder.

"Excuse me? ... A dummy trips on things in a wide open area like this. Go, around."

Chelsea spoke coldly and made no attempt to hide her desire to be left alone. She was not someone who said a ton of words if she did not need to. This girl was immediately annoying in just a few seconds of knowing her. Chelsea really needed some alone time at this moment. Well, she always was alone anyway so why not now when she needed it? This was a important moment for her. Thought was needed to find inspiration and to create. Well, thought and a lot of highly detailed blueprints! Then came demands for soup? What? Entitled wasn't she? The fact Chelsea was also prone to such entitlement was not important of course!

"Hmph! You should carry your own travel meals. My soup is mine. Many villages sell them for travelers, even if they look like silly witches."

She was already off track now as she leaned back a little and could not help but glance at her piles of admittingly total junk again. This stuff did not make her look too good did it? Sigh...

"...T-this stuff isn't junk. It's important equipment... for your information. Great things will be made from every single one of them. Yep."

She had to be sure to set that straight!

@Grand Witch Majolica

 

"NO! What if there's a root! Roots are hard to see under the leaves and grass, and very easy to trip on! Even in wide open spaces! And I DO NOT LIKE SILLY! I AM THE GRAND WITCH MAJOLICA! GREATEST WITCH IN ALL THE LAND!"

Majolica suddenly stopped being flustered, calmed herself and devilishly smiled while chuckling.

"... but I guess you wouldn't know about roughing it in the outdoors. Life is pretty easy when you don't have to wander around the woods looking for food. Fufufu, but I guess I can't fault you for not being a strong outdoorsman like I am! hehehe. And who cares about your stupid old soup anyway?! It's probably rat soup made of rats! Who wants rat soup! Not me! I have these delicious mushrooms anyway. I'm going to cook them over your stupid fire that you probably didn't even make!"

Walking towards the fire, Majolica banged her foot against a metal something or other.

"OWW! Oooooh! If this equipment is so important, why don't you use it to make a trashcan. THAT WAY IT CAN ALL THROW ITSELF AWAY, BECAUSE IT WAS ALL JUNK IN THE FIRST PLACE!"

Majolica stormed off towards the fire and started skewing her mushrooms on a stick to grill them.

 

Greatest witch in the land?

Chelsea simply would stare and look at the witch girl without emotion.

Rat soup?

She made a split second shift of her pupils down at her bowl before immediately setting them back on the witch.

Trash cans... junk?

A slight shadow fell across Chelsea's eyes as she twitched a eyebrow slightly.

"....."

Then the witch girl went right ahead and started to roast her mushrooms. Fine, it seemed Chelsea had no choice but to respond to this person. Otherwise she would never leave! Yeesh.

"....mmm."

She got off the log she had been sitting on and leaned over the fire looking at the girl directly in the face. Her dark look not changing in the slightest. Looking more dramatic in the fire coming up right below her face giving it a reddish yellow hue.

"Please Lady N let me use your fire. I missed that.... You must have been brought up by barbarians...no... cavemen! That's the only reasoning I can think of. In fact, I thin-"

The smell of the mushrooms reached her nose... they sure did smell good didn't they? Damnit, they were ruining her focus! Chelsea shifted her eyes again at them before looking back at the smart mouthed witch .Since she had never offered her soup, which was now likely cold from this rude interruption. Chelsea was sure she would not get any mushrooms.... and that worked fine! Hmph!

"I did make this fire and it's most certainly not yours. I was trained to survive in the mountains by my father. We would go hiking many times and...nevermind."

Chelsea was unsure how to remove this girl without using force. However at the same time, she had not chosen to play Lady N as a villainous or dangerous sort. Rather a mysterious figure who had great power and even greater responsibility! Boo.. this is why games sucked. They were fantasy. She needed to get her real life straight fast so she could just toss this thing in the trashcan entirely. Maybe she would benefit from the girls presence? The likelihood of that? It's negative numbers so don't even ask....

"....Hmph."

She sure was *hmphing* a lot but this girl warranted it! Grabbing a small metal plate that she was using to hold her bowl earlier. Chelsea started to get back to thinking about her possibilities with the stuff she had gathered. Grabbing some pieces of steel and seeing if anything might fit if fused with anything else. It really was time to make a blueprint or two wasn't it? Chelsea had unwanted company now though. She could just log off and leave this pest in the middle of the plains with no more camp! If that was how it worked she wasn't sure.

Pulling out a piece of paper she started to draw on it some things. Doing her best to ignore the mushroom roasting trespasser. Majolica or whatever should be honored that she was even letting her stay!

@Grand Witch Majolica

 

"At least Cavemen are strong and cool! People wouldn't even exist without Cavemen! Apologize to cavemen you junk goblin!"

As the junk goblin girl sat down and started working on... something, Majolica sighed, picked up a clean looking piece of metal, put a cooked mushroom on it, and slit it over.

"Grand Witch Majolica always pays her debts. I still have my doubts about you making the fire, but it's been a long day and I'm too tired to care."

Then the Grand Witch remembered that junk goblin girl hadn't even shared a little soup with her.

"And, You should be appreciative! And you didn't even share any soup! See how nice I am even though I'm an evil witch?! I'm a much better person than you! One day, I'm going to rule the whole world, and you're going to be crying in a peasant shack! Crying really loud like, 'Boo-hoo, Queen Grand Witch Majolica is such a great ruler and I'm an idiot for not even giving her some soup!' So you and your junk should be super grateful! And, if I hear from someone that a junk goblin dressed like a girl bad-mouthed my mushrooms, I'll find you, and throw all your socks in the river! All. Of. Them. And besides, I don't want you coming over and crying later that, 'OhH nOo, MAjoLiCa hURt mY JUnk's FEElings BEcaUSE ShE diDN't GivE mE ANy MuSHroOms, and NOw I CanT--'"

Majolica stopped her extremely irritating impression of @Lady N .

"Why do you even have all of this anyway? You know, blacksmiths are supposed to keep their stuff in a workshop, right? Even I know that. Did you forget? Are you a very forgetful little junk goblin?"

 

Yeesh... this girl was going to keep on keeping on wasn't she? Chelsea tried, she really did try to just let her be and keep a suitable distance between herself and this pest. However she obviously wanted to pick a fight and even though most of the malarkey she spewed was comical at best. She was interfering with Chelsea's focus and she said a very touchy thing for her. At least right now it was. It was certainly in the top three things one could get under the raven haired girls skin with.

"...Goblin... really."

Chelsea clenched her paper with a slight frustration. It caused cracks that made drawing on it more difficult now. She bit her lip but refused to turn her gaze back to the witch.

"I never asked for mushrooms idiot... Stop making things up as you go along. My ju...equipment is going to be the prototype for... uh..."

Chelsea was not really sure what for yet. She needed more money. That was such a ironic thing considering her real life status even without her parents around. In this world she was so... average. Average did not fit a Nexon. Average was not suitable for a Nexon. She had to uphold her families legacy in any situation, it was the only way she could make up for the loss of them. "Always at the forefront"... always. Goblins... stupid little green bastards. She had vengeance to met out even if they were some stupid AI program. It made a fool of her, skull faced monstrosity. Now to be called such a disgusting thing by this sarcastic magic using fairy tale wizard... no Chelsea! You will not become emotional over this!

"I shall create the future. I shall create it and your magic will be a forgotten memory. Lady N will be the one you seek the aid from when your magic runs dry. Hmph!"

Chelsea gave a stern last look at the witch before folding up her 10% done blueprint and pocketing it. She opened her UI with her palm as she began to rapidly press different screens.

"I have had enough of your... yeesh, well whatever you are saying. I wasn't paying attention."

Each pile of junk began to disappear into her inventory. Quickly causing the area to become empty. Finally her tent also vanished. Chelsea threw a small bucket of water over the fire she had made. Not caring whether or not the mushrooms were being roasted or not.

"Enjoy your meal."

With a twirl away from her and a snobby look of disgust. Chelsea headed on her way. Likely to log out. She had other things to do than mess around with some goof ball like this!

Hmph!

 

As @Lady N put out the fire and walked away, Majolica stood up and shouted after her.

"Hey! I was using that fire, ya jerk! Good! Leave! I hope that crappy junk machine thing you were trying to make blows up right in your stupid face! You hear me Junk Goblin! You and your rat soup can blow yourselves up for all I care! Just let me know when it happens so I can laugh at you! Hahaha! I'm laughing at the thought of it! If you're building the future, then I hope someone else is building a bomb because that future is better off a wasteland! The mushrooms were already done anyway!"

Majolica shoved a few mushrooms in her mouth, then in an embellished motion rubbed her tummy while shouting after Lady N.

"MMMMM! So good! You're really missing out! You would have to be a real idiot to not eat one of these when a nice person was trying to give you one for free! Come back here so I can curse each one of your pieces of junk individually, you stupid, stinky, Junk Goblin! Gah!"

Majolica kicked up some dirt, packed up her skewer stick, and stomped off in the exact opposite of Lady N. She continued shouting, calling names, and praying to whatever god was listening to strike down the junk goblin with fire, lightning, and whatever other horrible poxes they could conjure up. She continued shouting until she was so far away she could only be heard.

-EXIT THREAD-