Open - The Begining of Something Good

Seras brushed off her simple starter outfit, the game was good, even the custoization of the clothing was very easy, The player had Decided on A Faerin Female, Because this preset Seemed the most appealing Visualy She Struck him as someone Cute and Adventurous, Which was the feeling she was feeling now She smiled and laughed out in a Trilling giggle, it was wonderous, the forest she had spawned in was nice, there were verious people around but only a few and She was too busy trying to open her menu to care, As instructed she closed her fist and opened it rapidly. The menu popped up. "Good, Everythings working" Her voice was clear, and soft like spun glass with a Melodic tint to it. A Voice anyone would be pleasant at she chuckled, This was going to be fun.

Swiping her hand to the left she saw her list of available spells a lot of spells, Only a few good ones for hunting creatures some would be useful right now, Dragging a few spells to the bar to the right of her. "The interface is really good.

Unbeknownst to her there was another player nearby as she was digging through her menu noisily talking about game mechanics. An NPC that overheard her would be Crazy But for a player it would probably just ruin their Immersion.

 

Iván dusted himself off, flicking off leaves and bits of shrubbery that had attached themselves to his coat. Opting to cover himself from head to toe was a great idea in theory, as it pretty much concealed most information from prying eyes, allowing him to control what everyone gets to know about him, especially the NPCs. The Players all have different ways of getting more information on him than they needed but most of those ways Iván would have no control over. He could only do and hide so much.

His methodical dusting was interrupted by a voice. Someone close was talking about the game, its mechanics, obviously a Player, unless the game’s AI was really that advanced. Would the NPCs be that tricky? Did the developers go to such a length to keep the game dynamic and surprising? That was possible, and if it were true, mightily impressive.

Iván decided to engage the Player, carefully coming out of the foliage. Great. More leaves and green stuff rained all over his clothes. He dusted himself once more, shaking to get the pesky things off of him, before taking a good look at the Faerin before him. She seemed pretty young for a Faerin. Then again, what is age to these creatures? The Faerin were always interesting to Iván, especially the way they were associated with magic. He wondered what kind of magic this one knew and if it’s mostly elemental. The Faerin were stereotypically associated with elemental magic after all. At least, as far as Iván knew.

“Hello.”

 

The menus were in front of her head as she heard a noise behind her. smiling as she turned to face what was presumably a First creature encounter she turned to face the nose andws greeted by a man, Cloaked in all green attire, his eyes covered with glasses, She smiled at him, Her face lighting up Like a glimmer of thunder, Glad she wasnt intterupted by a monster while perusing her skill she cancelled ot of her menu with a small waving away gesture.

"Hello there" she gave a wide smile and waved in a childlike manner, "Who're you" She examined the man curiously and wondered if this was another Player or an NPC "M'names Seras Its nice too meetcha Stranger"


Her posture was inviting and non agressive although she did take a nimble stride towards the man to get a better look at him, unused to the speed she may have gotten a bit too close and took a step back. "Heh, Sorry bout that" She chuckled softly. "Havent met anyone yet around these parts"

 

"Hmm," Iván found it quite interesting that Seras exhibited the same qualities he stereotypically considered when it came to the Faerin. Eli had been reading into too much of the Faerin, what was there to read from where he could, though he mostly just assumed they would be the game's version of the fairy archetype. All that he knew was mostly based on that idea. The smile and the way Seras waved at him, both of these reminded Iván of fairy qualities. She could just be an NPC, though that would make the game's AI incomprehensibly advanced. "I'm Iván. Iván Carl."

Her sudden and unexpected correction of her own movement struck Iván completely human, however. Unless the AI was both advanced and prone to glitches at the same time. He disregarded it and continued to make conversation. NPC or not, she could help him figure some things out. Might as well keep her close.

"It's all right," he replied dryly before looking around them. "I can say the same. Where are you heading?"

 

Her face lit up when the man responded to her by name. that showed that the game developers were either very concerned about immersion and spent a long time on name Calculation, Or that this was another player and she had just so happened to spawn near him.

"A Pleasure to meet you Mr. Carl" Seras did a small flip backward and performed an elaborate bow Crossing her arms over her shoulder's almost instinctively. Strange, perhaps a feature of the programming making the mannerism's more lifelike.

"I'm rather new around these part's, I've wandered Far and wide but I've not been here before. I Was Actually looking for a nearby town of sorts, would you happen to know where one is located ?" She gave a toothy grin. "Unless there anything interesting around aside from A town that you could show me ?"

 

Iván raised an eyebrow from under his hood. The Faerin just flipped backward and bowed in a rather peculiar way. Maybe she was an NPC, after all. This part of the game is as confusing as it is immersive. Iván shook his head. Was it even important? Did he even need to figure out if this NPC was actually a Player? How would that affect him, anyway? He's here to play the game, not to play with people, although that was an unavoidable complication.

"I'm new as well," Iván admitted. He kept his eyes on her, noting what he could of her appearance. "I don't know much of this place, this particular area. Let me just..."

Iván places his index and middle fingers against his temple, activating Investigation Mode. He quickly consumes the available information before placing his index and middle fingers against his temple, deactivating Investigation Mode. He turns to Seras, sighing, "This place is mostly woodland. There's a small road to a nearby village called Honeyhome, but if you'd like, we can practice the battle system. Whether against each other or together, that's up to you."

 

"A Small VIllage down the road, Good to know" Learning the games world was a good idea, "Glad to see another Face around here, and due tot he fact that you haventdrawn a weapon yet, id assume there is no good reason we should fight, But, Perhaps we could try out hunting some monsters," she repeated the same gesture, Raising her index and middle fingers together, but she did this too both hands and closed her eyes. Listening she could hear something, tearing heavy breathing and the smell of blood...Gruesome Sounds of animal on animal Combat.

"There, is some kind of creature hunting, Aproximately A short walk to the northeast If you listen you can hear the sound" She perched herself on a small rock and stood on a single foot, "Mr Carl, Would you like to join in my hunt ?" She smiled a wide smile and offered her small hand in the manner of a handshake to the man, It was always good to have a party early on as it was in most games.

 

Iván smiled, noting how courteous this NPC was. He’d be more surprised if he found out it was a Player. Courtesy was usually more present in programming than actual human interaction these days. This world was beautiful, astounding, well-developed. The outside world? It was way uglier and less tolerable. People made that so, Eli sighed. Without them, if you take away humanity, the outside world would perhaps be just as beautiful and amazing as this one.

“It would be my honor and pleasure,” Iván responded in his usual dry tone, though deep inside he was very interested in his virtual companion. She seemed like a really good tutorial NPC. They said that it would be hard to distinguish between them and Players, but Iván was one step ahead of them. At least that’s what he thought. For the most part, anyway. “Lead the way, Seras.”

 

"Alright follow me!" Seras Chanted a soft incantation of a passive spell to boost her agility. "Wind Carry me Swiftly let my body Float like a feather and away I go!" Finishing the incantation she leaped into a nearby tree rather easily and flipped off of it into another nearby tree running along the branches light as a feather she ran until they reached their destination, Occasionaly smirking as she showed off her agility to the Man.

upon reaching the clearing she stood on the tree and repeated the motion of investigation mode, their were two large creatures nearby, a Dire Fox and a Silver wolf With the reaminsof a large chicken in the fangs of the wolf, she could smell the blood and it looked like the fox was interfering in the wolf's hunt. Relaying the information she looked down at Ivan. "What do you Think, Shall we get involved"

 

Despite his calm, collected, indifferent demeanor, Iván was actually pretty impressed with Seras' speed. As soon as she darted off, he couldn't help but admire how quick she was, agile, and with pretty great balance, too. Her acrobatics from tree branch to tree branch made him smile. At the very least, this starter mission wouldn't be too boring.

Iván kept his eyes on her as he followed, not as fast as her but he made do. He arrived a bit later than Seras at the clearing, standing close to the tree she decided to perch on. From where he stood, he could see a fox and a wolf in a standoff. The shapes of their bodies gave way to their identities, though Iván could not make out what was leaking in the wolf's mouth. Was its mouth bleeding? It could be, but there seemed to be something in it. Maybe this was a hunt that went wrong. Did the wolf take out the fox's companion?

"Interesting," Iván murmured to himself before Seras asked her a question. He simply turned to her and smirked under his hood, walking towards the two beasts. "I take the wolf, you take the fox."

As soon as Iván got close enough, the two beasts both turned to him. None of them did anything else. They just turned to his direction, where he was, seemingly confused. Iván swiped his hand in one direction and a panel of his available spells appeared. He did not take long to choose which one he wanted to use, deciding on the wolf as his target. Out of nowhere, the wolf jerked back, letting go of what appeared to be large chicken, its corpse anyway, that had been nesting in its mouth. The wolf swung its head side to side before it began howling.

It was a disruption spell. Iván took out the wolf's concentration with his magic, bombarding its mind, its eyes, with confusing images. The wolf was trying to fight it, to make sense of it, at least as a wolf could, but Iván knew panic was setting in, creeping in the beast's head. That is, it it hadn't already. In a span of minutes, maybe even lesser than Iván was anticipating, this simple-minded beast would run out of mental energy, stamina, and fall unconscious. That is, if things went according to plan.

 

First Time for Everything

Aalin Snow tossed her satchel on the bed with a sigh as she half-heartedly closed the door behind herself. Even though her one-room apartment was dimly lit, Aalin could still tell it was the same dingy mess she had left it this morning before going off to class, and then to work. The neon lights from the nearby night club was aided by fluorescent flickering as Aalin opened her fridge and surveyed its meager contents. Out of it she plucked a bottle of some smoothie mixture. As its cool contents went down her throat, the young woman tried to not think about its nasty flavor or its expired state. It was a toss up whether she would pay that penalty in a few hours.


Aalin tossed the bottle on the pile that was quickly overflowing from her small trashbin, wiping her mouth clean with the back of her other arm. That would satisfy her hunger for a few hours. Aalin slipped out of her button up white blouse and gave it a sniff before deciding it was clean enough to wear another day. She tossed it and her black skirt across the desk that took up the battered wall between the door and her wall-window. The garment were right at home on top of the layer of papers spread across the duress pseudo-pine surface. Over her bare body Aalin pulled a grubby but cozy pink sweater that was just a size too big. Her fingers reached out from the over sized sleeve and plucked her VR headset from her nightstand table. This was the one thing that looked out of place in the entire apartment. While the rest of the furniture and clothing looked like they were on their last leg, the VR headset looked brand new, as did the stack of chips that lay neatly stacked next to their host. In contrast to the messy, dismal apartment, the VR tech promised something that only the richer folk could afford. They were all courtesy of James Snow, her father, without his knowledge. But what he didn’t know wouldn’t kill him.


She adjusted the comfortable headset on her person and gave the double blink to activate its system. A soft hum emanated before a menu appeared. With simple flicks of her dark blue eyes, Aalin moved through the menu options of her downloaded games. Her eyes alighted on the most recent, she had shrugged and said “why not” when she saw it, despite the warnings that she had heard. The graphics were supposed to be exceptional, and if worst came to worst, she could just log out or whatever.


“What’s the worst that can happen?” she murmured.

In Game

The body synthesized around Aalin and she felt the familiar feeling of weightlessness as the game loaded disappear. She looked at her own hands, inspecting her alabaster palms and fingers.


“Neat,” she said to herself before looking further out.


She was in some idyllic field, with green grass and rolling hills as far as the eye could see. The patches of clover were intermittent with flowers of gorgeous color amid the lush foliage. Grand trees with sweeping branches and rustling leaves stood against the cyan sky. Titanic puffed white clouds made easy sojourns across the sea of blue, bathed in pure light by the golden orb they dared not conceal. A gentle breeze caressed her face as Aalin took it all in.

​

“Not bad,” she admitted.


Her leather-boot clad feet crossed the grassy fields and Aalin could feel herself becoming more at ease. She extended her hand, clutching her forefinger down. There was a soft ding and she saw her palm menu appear. Her lips curved up in a pleased smile. Her character name, Eryl Justice, had transferred over and saved successfully. She closed her menu and continued her journey. Her eyes took in all that there was to see with this breathtaking journey. Eryl couldn’t help but admire the coding of this game. The graphics were amazing. She truly felt transported to another world entirely, another life.


Her ears caught the sounds of combat not far away. She quickened her steps to follow it, her free hand gripped the longsword by her side. As she crested the nearest knoll Eryl saw two of the other humanoids engaging animals. They were probably other players, grinding and by the looks of their fellow low-level garb, they were probably recent arrivals to the game too.


She stood back, watching their effort before greeting them.


“Hey,” she said with a wave, “Eryl Justice. You two have room for one more?”

@Iván Carl @Seras Vilaria