Endilix didn't really put much thought into the fact that he had started this game during winter. Either that, or he hadn't expected the game to mirror the real life seasons. Clearly he had thought wrong. The man wandered the forest, shivering uncontrollably in his thin metal armor. Despite the fact that he had clothes beneath the metal, he could feel the chill radiating from the shell surrounding his body. Endilix needed to find some warmth and soon. But as he wandered the forest, nothing seemed to yield to warmth, and Endilix wasn't entirely sure why he had expected it to. This was a game, sure, but it was the most realistic simulation of the real world he had ever experienced. He was about to give up and just try to knock a tree down with his hammer when he felt an odd warmth radiating from a nearby cave. There were a lot of things it could have been, but of course the curious Endilix didn't care about anything that could go wrong. He wanted to be warm. And so he wandered into the nearby cave, and was even more shocked to find nothing more than a few pools of water that almost radiated heat and steam into the frigid air. Endilix's mouth hung open for a second, before he let out a cheer and he quickly opened up his inventory to strip everything off except for his boxers, and had to control himself not to just dive head first into the warmth. Taking it a bit more carefully, Endilix walked to the edge and dipped his feet into the water. It was hot, and it would take some easing in. But after a good ten minutes, Endilix had his entire body up to his neck submerged, completely enjoying the warmth against his skin. A small part of him worried about the fact that he would have to eventually get out and face the cold again. But those thoughts were for later. For now he was warm. @Celestine
Crunch crunch crunch~ The quiet sound of Celestine’s footsteps packing down the snow resounded through the woods of Brisshal. She shivered as she pressed on, pulling her blue scarf back up to her lips. It was a stupidly frigid day to be wandering around outside in the forest alone, but she was on a mission: find the warm spot! At least, assuming the random guy with the missing front tooth was a reliable source of hidden hot spring locations. It was debatable. “Master, I’m detecting a powerful heat signature to your left,” the sweet, metallic voice rang out from a - similarly metallic - talking ball floating alongside Celestine. The glowing channels of magic gave off a pleasant, yellow glow. “Are you sure that it is not just the me that is giving off the heats?” “Of course I’m sure! Stop trying to sound clever! It doesn’t work for you,” the ball chided, bonking her on the head a few times. “Oww… OWW! Okay, okay, I am doing us a turn…” “That’s too far! Can’t you follow simple instru— ugh, you know what? Just follow me. Closely,” the ball specified, flying ahead of her. “Knowing you, I’d have to turn you around every five seconds otherwise.” Cel sighed. The magicy ball was so darn snarky, but it really did do an incredible job at making up for her hilariously bad sense of direction. The perfect traveling companion, in that regard! “We should be there soon…” the ball called back after a few minutes. “By the way, have you thought of a name for me yet?” Celestine noticed the ball’s magic energy channels turn a bright shade of pink and took a moment to appreciate the fact that her emotions weren’t quite so public. “I’m only asking because… you know… it’d be a lot easier with a name. But there’s no rush or anything. I don’t really need one,” the ball hinted, slowly returning to a nice yellow. “Anyway, it looks like the heat’s coming from this cave here. I can wait out here and warn you if anyone shows up… if you’d like.” “Finally! Sure, that is the good idea. Do a stay and a keeping of the watch, then,” Cel agreed with a nod. Wow, she felt a bit of the warmth even from here. Not wasting a second, she ran full-tilt into the cave. … “E-e-emerath!?” Celestine clamped her eyes shut with her hand as she caught sight of a man with that familiar, bright-red hair, laying in a warm pool of water. That was a whole lot of exposed skin… was he NAKED!? She really didn't want to find out. A bright red blush spread across her cheeks. She could normally appreciate a good, awkward moment, but this was just too much. “What are you doing in this place of the warms? I-I mean that is the silly question, because it is obvious what you are doing, but...” she trailed off. She’d heard talk of Emerath wanting to stay and rebuild the inn, so she assumed he’d be in Honeyhome. At the same time, she obviously had no intention of bringing that up. Definitely the elephant in the room, so to speak. “I will just do myself a leave then. I can be doing a come back another of the times.”
Endilix had been relaxing. It had been nice and quiet. So quiet that he had almost started to doze off in the warm water, even though that is absolutely the worst thing one should be doing in a hot spring. So he slapped his cheeks and moved around in the water a bit to get his blood flowing and his heart rate up. That was about when he heard footsteps in the cave. Aw hell, someone else had found the hot springs. He sighed as the girl rounded the corner into the basin area that housed the warm pools of water, and her face seemed to lose all color almost immediately. He certainly hadn't expected that. Normally a girl would freak out, bu- wait, had she said Emerath? Endilix frowned and cocked his head. It seemed that either his brother had used his standard username, or that Emerath was becoming more common of a name than he could've ever thought. Endilix figured it was the former, and that, just like Endilix, he had kept their signature red hair. But just as quickly as she had shown up, she was backpedaling back out of the cave. "Woah, woah!" Endilix shouted, trying to catch her as he stood up in the spring, his upper half breaking the surface of the water. He immediately regretted this, as some of the chill of the air clamped onto his skin, making him involuntarily shiver. But he continued on: "You've got it all wrong, girl! I'm not Emerath. I'm his brother!" He hoped that might be enough to at least make her second guess running off immediately. He was interested in having met someone that knew his brother. Given that they used the same VR headset, such things wouldn't be all too common. "Look, these hot springs are great, and I could use some company. I keep almost dozing off, and that's dangerous. You wouldn't leave a man to drown in a hot spring would you?" Endilix smirked, hoping his urging could pull her back.
Celestine slowly and carefully separated her fingers ‘just so,’ so that she could catch sight of the man’s head, and - more importantly - nothing below that. He could’ve been wearing swimming trunks or something. He also could be… not doing that. She wouldn’t take the chance of catching a sight he wouldn’t be able to unsee later. That being said… He wasn’t Emerath. At least… she didn’t seem like him? He looked so astonishingly similar, but there was just a whole combination of little things. The really big give away was his speech. It sounded less… formal, perhaps? ‘Casual.’ Yes, this man was more casual. “Oooohhhh, you are the brother! Yes, that is making the sense then,” she agreed, nodding with her hand still clamped mostly over her eyes. “Well, if you are the brother of the Emerath, then I probably do not have to be doing the worries. But umm...” she resisted that powerful urge to look down. “You are doing the wearing of the cloths, right? I am having the young innocence to be doing a protection of, after all.” Still, she was hooked on the idea the moment she’d entered the cave and felt that warmth radiating off of the pool. Just to emphasize her point, she pointed her free index finger up and released a little spark into the air. “Just remember, I am having the powers of the zap. So remember to be doing a keeping to yourself.” With that said, she shuffled off to the corner of the cave and - without any sort of prompting or screen, dropped her thick, winter clothes to the ground, alongside her boots. Underneath was a simple shirt-and-tights combo. Unlike most swimwear, which left little to the imagination, this pretty much required all the imagination one could muster. Even so, she made it pretty clear that was as much as she’d show, as she promptly dipped down into the blissful warmth. “Waaaaaarm,” she hummed joyfully, raising her hand to her eyes again to take another look-see at the ‘not Emerath.’ “So, if you are not the Emerath, then what are you?”
Endilix raised an eyebrow at the girl as she tried her best to hide her sight from his body. It was cute, in a way. She looked young, and Endilix never had been one for one as petite as Celestine, so as far as any sort of attraction went it was pretty nonexistent. Instead, he simply gave a chuckle as she ensured that he was wearing clothes, and he would have otherwise showed the girl his boxers, but she seemed to care little for the sight. So instead he simply said, "Yeah, got boxers on. Wasn't sure who planned on sneaking up on me, and there wasn't exactly a bunch of towels lying around waiting to be used, so I figured it best to keep at least a little decency." Endilix kept his eye on the girl as she moved to her own pool, and stripped down to some bare necessities that didn't seem all that bare, and sank into the water. Endilix did the same, the air starting to return the chill to his skin as the water there dried. He turned his back to the girl, not really sensing any real need for distress in this situation despite her threat to zap him. "I'm Endilix. I'm the athletic and sexy one of the two of us. I get all the ladies, and I have the most fun. Emerath tends to be too stuffy for me," Endilix explained, unabashedly laying thick on his own positive traits. He didn't know how this girl knew Emerath, but certainly he wanted to make himself look better while he hopefully still had the chance. "So did you get lost in the woods too?" Endilix asked, as he closed his eyes and leaned back on the hard stone of the cave, hot water washing over his body.
