Open - From Doll to Gamer

She wasn’t exactly the gamer type, never had been actually. Her cousins often took their consoles, VR’s and what not to their family meetings to avoid insanity. She knew her father had a few shooters whenever he felt unsynchronised with his inner child. But Catharina, she never played with games. She had watched handhelds from afar, played with a controller a few times and actually possessed a VR only because her father had no clue what to buy her for her latest birthday. ‘’This is what you kids like nowadays, right? Happy Birthday, don’t play too much.’’ Thank you very much, Dad, not like she had played the game until she got that SD card that one library night.


Due to her inexperience, she had to look up tutorials on the internet to see how her VR worked and how to install the damn game in itself. She had logged in and played enough to actually create her character. She kind of liked her purple hair and the ability to be herself but just a bit different. Different enough to not get instantly recognized at least. When she had popped into the beginner’s town, the whole sensation of VR had creeped her out. A number of people, noise and sensation had been too much. She had logged out and looked at VRMMO guides and videos for the whole night and day. It was a weekend.


Feeling a lot more mentally prepared, her father knock out from beer -wuss- and tomorrow off from school, it was time for a new start. Catharina braced herself, falling back into that foreign world that made her blood pump in weird ways. This time she had eaten and went for a toilet break too, the pro’s from the sites gave some interesting tips.


Sea, it smelled like the sea. She looked up at the blue sky, meeting the darker blue sea at the horizon. The breeze and silt were nice, it was kind of relaxing. Cat did an experimental jump, felt natural so far. Feeling a bit more adventurous, she started to run along the coast. The shitty clothes fluttering around her body. The sand felt real between her toes, it felt warm and cool whenever she sunk too deep down. The wind in her hair was refreshing and the sun warm. Were all games like this? This felt amazing! It felt so real! It was so beautiful. It felt free.


Giggling she let herself fall in the sand. With a dull oef, she fell butt first into the sand. Her toes wiggling against the water. Humming happily for what might have been a very long long time ago, she felt at peace. It was still a bit strange, but this was pleasant. This felt nice. She opened the menu and started to experiment with the HUD and several options and weird jargon gamer words she didn’t know anything about. While digging holes in the sand with her toes.

 

OOC: You don't have to write as much as I did, I may have gone a little over lol

It hadn't been long since he was teleported into Terrasphere and it was all still new to him although he still thought to himself why he joined this MMO when those weren't his thing, He was a gamer of sorts, not as big as his cousins in the stats but he did enjoy playing when not driving or racing. He was a sucker for a good RPG that required the might of a mind but absolutely loafed grinding in an MMO setting which made it extremely unrealistic. Deep down though, he always loved reading about the Warring States period of Japan and wondered what would happen if he was a warrior of a clan of the time. You could guess now he could relive that fascination now after one of his cousins told him of the beta and the launch of the Terrasphere, a new RPG VR like game in an online setting. Ryosuke at first wasn't interested when he saw the grinding but after seeing and playing the beta, it felt like the game wore him like a belt, the game was new, fresh, innovative, the world was huge and ever changing but most of all, it felt like it was real like real life.....except the game menu's of course. This would also take his mind off Satoya whom he thought about all the time, this game would be a good excuse for him to forget about her while he plays this. Still even playing the beta back then and starting his character on Terrasphere, he still wasn't completely used to this VR experience despite feeling at home on the game. He would mutter to himself when he couldn't get the game to run or when some error would happen, I mean he could rebuild a car from the scratch up and get to do it 180 MPH but he couldn't stop a game from giving him an error for not having optimized completely. Eventually, he did fix this issue but it still annoyed him to some small degree.

Seto had eventually found himself out some forest he woke up in and decided if he could get anything out of the commoners that lived here....and maybe have some fun along the way? fun is fun even with a NPC right? right? By this time Ryosuke as Seto had gotten to emotions of being in a VR for the most part but some things would take longer than others. It was a good thing he didn't have to work much because Seto had spent the last two days at the town, trying to Gather any information he could, unfortunately, the NPC's weren't exactly the most informative but at least they would provide without so much of questioning why which worked for him.
Seto was bit irritated he spawned with the shittiest gear possible, he knew he wasn't to get much, but come on, even a damn bastard sword or even a knife would have been nice but nope, of course not. Sitting in a chair in a NPC's house, Seto let out a sigh as the Woman looked at him curiously.
"Is there something you need Seto? you seemed troubled" The woman beamed at him as Seto slowly turned his head from the window towards her.
"Me? I am...fine...just a little irritated ma'am....do you know where's a place where I can cool down?...somewhere preferable away from the town?"

The NPC woman tilted her head with her right eyebrow raised looking like she had a bunch of questions to ask but instead, she stayed silent for a few moments. Eventually, she brought her attention back to Seto
"There is the beach...it's common for players to go there when they come to this area."
Seto raised his shoulders in confusion for a second before realizing he forgot about the beach the NPC man told him about, good thing he wrote a note in his gaming interface, it was one of the few good bits of information he received from the people in the town. The beach would be a good place to cool down since there weren't many players from what he saw from the last couple days and today was a work day so he could potentially have the beach to himself for awhile. "Oh why the hell not?" He thought to himself before standing up from the chair, he thanked the NPC woman before leaving, maybe he come back to have some fun later at this little cottage.

Seto spend a good thirty minutes walking along the path until eventually, he found the beach...it looked nice, a different piece of scenery for once other than god damn trees. It was humid but the wind was strong which made it felt great as the wind went through his hair. Maybe he could get used to it. Taking a seat at the shoreline, Seto laid back near the water and relaxed, washing the irritation from the last few days for a few minutes until he saw a pink haired woman a bit down the beach fall on her butt. He had thought of getting up to see if she was ok but she looked fine as brought up her interface menu after falling on her butt. He raised an eyebrow as she was giggling about something. Well whatever it was, it wasn't his business. Seto laid back down and stared at the ocean as the ocean breeze pushed against his body.

 

Alia had for the most part at least tried a full dive VR game before this one. But with everything that had happened with the VRMMORPGs seemed to be a little crazy. Granted by the time she had her own gear for actually gaming and all that. She had been sent an email from someone and she had found her way into Terrasphere. She actually rather liked the idea of this mysterious game. She wanted to do everything she could to create the game the way that she wanted too. She was still doing everything she needed to do but today was a day off from everything for her thankfully so she could be online for the entire day if she so choose. Her younger siblings had all gotten their breakfast had all gotten what they needed and she was sitting down getting ready to make a full dive into Terrasphere. Once inside the game she spawned onto the beach. She looked around at her end of the beach. She took a deep breath and looked at friends list.

It looked like Seto might be here by the minimap that showed her where her friends might be. She shrugged it off and walked towards the other end of the beach. The ocean air smelled lovely and she was happy that it was cool down here although humid as it was. She was rather happy with the cool ocean breeze. She went down to the edge of the water wondering if she was going to feel the water just like water was supposed to be. She smiled as one of the waves reached her feet and covered them with water. It was cool and refreshing. It was amazingly real. It felt just like water in the real world. She couldn't help but want to run into it but she didn't have a suit and really that would have been a bad idea in the clothing that she was in. it was just the normal stuff but still it wasn't the best of material to go into the water with. So she decided to walk down the waters edge and see if she couldn't find more people laying or playing around on the beach.

Alia let the water hit her. She looked up when she noticed someone fall and then she realized that not to far away. And person that looked alot like Seto. She smiled a little bit and after walked up somewhat inbetween the two. A sort of equal like distance. She sat down bringing her feet up so she was curled in a ball and smiled. This felt good. She didn't feel much like grinding or anything today. But she did want to hang out and she was cool with doing things like quests if need be but she just wanted to relax she's had a few trying days. And today was a holiday and she would take it as that.

@Catharina and @Seto Kurama

 

Seto had laid on his back for quite awhile as he stared at the ocean. It was hot out, obviously, Seto didn't move to due to the ocean breeze. Pushing against his abs, the breeze did feel nice after all but a certain part of his body didn't after awhile. Seto had laid down for a long time, now his behind was beginning to hurt like it was on fire and irritated at the same time. He didn't have a choice at this point, Using all his determination, he used his muscles to raise himself up even though they told him otherwise. Standing up, Seto stared at the ocean but now in deep thought. For some reason, he had thought of Satoya which only caused him to close his eyes in disapproval of himself. Her death still haunted him to this death, it affected his very soul so to say. It didn't affect him every day and usually, he didn't think of her but when he did, it was depressing to see or hear just a bit. after a few minutes, he wiped the tears from his eyes with his arm before opening his eyes only for the sun to nearly blind him. almost completely blinded now, without thinking Seto stepped back without thinking and of course with his luck, he stumbled back on a small rock and fell back, head first right into the sand. "Son of!" he muttered to himself as he laid in the sand with the sun beating on him. Seto quickly sat up. closed his eyes for a moment as he shook the sand out of hair before putting it to make sure he got the sand out. Opening his eyes again, he stood up and let his eyes readjust to the sunlight light off by the sun. After a few minutes, Seto was Seto again...that meant he was normal again. Putting his right hand on his neck, Seto cracked his neck to the left than to the right until he felt the pain go way. Seto was going to walk down the shoreline but after he noticed familiar redhead girl. He decided to see what she was upto. It wasn't that long since he saw her last, he imagined she was here for the same reason as him, to relax. Seto did raise an eyebrow when he saw her wrapped up like a ball, wondering if she was ok if something happened but after a few moments he shooed those thoughts away, he was overthinking things. Looking like his usual self, for the most part, Seto made his way to Alia and gently put his hand on her shoulder. Putting on a grin, Seto came out a little sarcastic, hopefully, she recognized he was just kidding a bit. "Hey now, I just saw you recently, I know you wanted to see me but this is ridiculous." Seto let out some laughter as he continued to grin for a couple of seconds before returning to his usual self. After that, he took a seat next to her and looked at her with a genuine smile and attitude. "So Alia how are you? Haven't heard from you in a little, you doing well out there in this crazy world? I had decided to come down here to the beach earlier today to relax, am guessing you're here to do the same uh? We pretty much have the entire beach to ourselves with the exception of that girl over there who's been giggling about something not that I care." Seto then changed his attitude to something more playful although he was sure Alia would know he was only joking since Seto usually made it pretty obvious when he was joking. Seto winked at her. "So you want to do some fun and relaxation with good ol Seto on the beach today?" Seto then laid down on his stomach next to Alia still before changing back to his serious attitude. "Might as well blow some steam off today since we probably be grinding, questing or exploring tomorrow."

@Alia

 

(OOC: Sorry for the late reply, RL held me up)

Catharina had closed her eyes, enjoying the feel of refreshing sea air grazing her skin. How long had it been since she had been at sea? It kind of reminded her of home. Actually home, France. It was strange, it had been years since she had been in France. Only a kid, naive and way too happy. Her fingers dug into the loose sand, deeper until she felt the cooler part of the sand against her warm fingertips. She could imagine it, right here. Sitting with her feet bathing in the salty water, her cut the watermelon and her father sneaking up on her. Picked up, thrown into the water and laughing as would be launched from his shoulders.

She startled when she heard a voice from not too far behind her. Her eyes flew open for a moment, the fleeting memory instantly lost on her. Yet the feeling of melancholy displayed in a small smile. The guy was talking with some redhead. She couldn’t really hear their conversation, only the tones of their voices carried with the wind. Should she say hi? Catharina chewed on the inside of her cheek, watching her toes poke holes in the wet sand. The two seemed to know each other, she might interrupt something.

A snort left her throat. This was a game, not real life. If they weren’t happy with her company she could simply move on. Do other things. She would have to interact with someone at some point in this game. The NPC’s here acted eerily human, Catharina could hardly tell the difference when she had roamed the city. Better get over the initial awkwardness. She took a deep breath and sighed, standing up from her spot. She patted the loose sand from her clothes and faced towards the two strangers.

Bracing herself with a friendly smile, she headed over cautiously. If they would look unfriendly or were obviously not searching for a third wheel, she was allowed to keep walking. She promised herself. The beach was big enough. Her fingers intertwined behind her back, slightly nervous for the first time talking with actual players. Without any gamer knowledge, she was the lowest of lowest in this game. No, can’t show any weakness. Smile, show confidence, nobody likes weaklings. She cheerfully waved towards the pair. ‘’Hello there!’’

@Seto Kurama @Alia

 

Alia sat there looking out at the sea curled in a ball. She could have uncurled but that was not something she felt like doing. She was comfortable with the ocean breeze on her and watching the water lapping happily at the shore line. The week and been trying that was all. She was fine but her parents had not been very happy about the fact that their daughter was doing those online games again. Those that attended to her younger siblings and did the stuff her parents couldn't do because they were here and there. Pretty much told her parents that it would be a good thing if she had a few hours to herself. And that she had perfect scores in everything she did a little fun from time to time wouldn't kill her. It seemed that her parents had conceded but not without lecturing her on the dangers of getting too involved and people not being who they said they were and all that. As if her parents cared. They did love their children she knew that but she was honestly only getting attention when bad things happened or she did thing out of the norm for her.

However, here on the beach it was perfect. She could actually remember a time when she was on one of the beaches at home and just thinking. Calming herself and being curled in a ball always helped her. So she was lost in thought and calming herself while listening to the waves crash on some cliffs off to her left. She nearly jumped out of her skin when Seto touched her shoulder and started to joke with her. she snapped into reality of the game real quick. "well you know i just couldn't stay away." She joked back with him at the moment and then she looked at him as he finally asked about why he hadn't heard from her or rather if she was doign well in the crazy world. It took her a few moments to answer him back.

"This game is awesome. Parents are a little urked I'm playing though." She said with a sigh and then uncurled a bit. "Relaxation was the goal today. and fun in the sun on the beach sounds like just the right thing to get me off the crazy of life. And yea question and grinding and exploring sound good for tomorrow." Once she was done with her words the other female on the beach came up to them. She gave her a small smile. "Hello? Care to join us on a quest of relaxation?" This was a little out of sorts for Alia but they were in a game being a little off from normal was the whole reason you were here right. Or maybe it was that Alia wanted to make another friend. She looked over at Seto to see what he was going to say.

@Seto Kurama and @Catharina

 

Seto stepped a few inches back when Alia jumped slightly, he didn't think he surprise her that bad considering she was similar to him in certain ways although he did find it funny when she responded to his joking. He had thought of saying something else to see how far he could go with her but he respected Alia too much to do that. Seto hadn't thought too much into their relationship, sure they were friends but he had never thought about it past that, He thought it could be possible perhaps one day something could happen between the two and Seto thought she was an amazing woman like his friend Katarina, who was also a redhead but he felt Alia had given him the vibe she wasn't interested in men...or dating in general, not that he cared of course. He knew she was like him, a bit serious to ever consider relationships as something important and besides, Seto had never been in a digital or VR relationship, would it even be the same? He doubted Alia had ever been in one herself since she had told him of her experiences with this type of thing.

Alia had shortly afterward explained her time in the game when she decided to play by herself when the two went their separate ways. Seto was thrilled his friend was enjoying herself but sighed with his eyes rolling to their edges when she told him her parents didn't like her playing the game, he couldn't tell if it was from the incident awhile back or if her parents were over protective. He couldn't say the same for his parents, his mother probably considering the incident but she knew he was a fully grown man and was allowed to do whatever he wanted within reason, his father was a different story, he was always distanced with Ryosuke with the only thing the two ever bonded over was driving, his father had taught him how to drive fast and drift down Mount.Fuji and other roads for delivery for his mother's business when he was only thirteen which by the time he was sixteen, he was already a veteran driver who could drive fast with the law to the amateur circuit. At least Alia's parents didn't stop her from playing the game at least or than he would have lost one of his friends and he didn't want to replace her, especially not with some immature teenager. "It's a different story with my parents but then again I don't live with them." Seto responded half jokingly as she had finished her last statement before she told him she wanted had just wanted to relax for the day, that was something he couldn't agree more with, Seto was tired from hiking everywhere anyway. Seto made another smirk on his face after she had finished, he felt like Alia was the only person he could joke around with that wouldn't take it seriously or get offended which was hilarious since she was a serious individual like him. "Then I guess it settled than my beautiful Alia, it's a date tomorrow, remember to bring that Katana because our date well be comprised of Goblins, Orcs, and spiders trying to eat us." Seto laughed again as he had put his hand again on her right shoulder. "I hope you don't take me too seriously at times like this, we gotta rewind once and while you know?" Alia didn't have time to respond right away when that giggling girl that Seto had noticed earlier before Alia arrived at the beach had come over to say hi with Alia wanting her to join them. More the merrier Seto thought in his brain, he wasn't ver interested in relationships, sex or sexuality in general but he couldn't deny he didn't want to spend an entire day at the beach with two other girls then at that point he wouldn't be a man and Seto couldn't even imagined himself as a woman or....something in between which thinking about hurt his head just a bit. "Don't worry we don't bite...much, me and my friend Alia are just hanging out for the day at the beach after some heavy grinding and blowing stuff up, you're more than welcome to join us...I guess I should introduce myself, am Seto Kurama of House Kurama." Seto laughed a little as he grinned at Alia.
"were going to have som fun today and maybe the beautiful Alia will get a tan in the process......oh don't mind me, I like to kick back and joke a bit when doing things like this, can't be serious all the time."

@Catharina