"And that's what happened." Conseil finished his story, which only had really happened maybe a couple of hours before, a riveting tale of his first hour being logged into the game. The tale was being told to another player whom he seemed to be familiar with, at least familiar enough to have a very long storytime with. The temple they sat at was a pretty little thing; small, with small steps, and a priest NPC sweeping out the entry way. It had a view of the small starter town that looked incredible in the light of the sunset, and even with Conseil's harrowing experience before, the view filled him with satisfaction. Far better than the view of the sunsets he got in the real world. He didn't even care that it was artificial. Earth was so messed up these days that it was hard to find a truly natural, beautiful sight like this. The two players sat on the steps of the temple in Honeyhome, Conseil leaning against the banister of the steps. The air was crisp and fresh, and after the running about and the exhaustion that Conseil had felt earlier, incredibly refreshing. He usually kept his blue eyes closed as he told his tale, refusing to look at the other player for his reactions, and it was probably a very good thing. He knew what he had done was moronic. The minute he had gotten away from Madison Freebird, he had ducked into town and hid for a little bit among the crowds. Then, his buddy had messaged him, saying that he was logged in. The names were ones that they had agreed to go by when they had first created the characters, but hadn't logged in yet. So, he had met Ciél at the temple steps, because that was one of the biggest landmarks in town, and there they were, recounting his story. Conseil ran his fingers through his short red hair, and finally opened his eyes to look at his friend. "Yeah, I know, I'm a dumbass." Conseil murmured, and he tried to laugh it off. "... I learned a lot though! It was a very educational experience." Conseil winced as he looked at his friend's face. Now came the lecture. He knew it. ---- @Ciél Chevalier
Ciél had been logged in for all of five minutes before he started rapid-fire messaging Conseil, and organized a little get-together with his friend at the temple they were sitting at now. There was the exchange of greetings, including a near-bone crushing hug courtesy of the white-haired male to his fiery-headed compatriot, and then Conseil had started to regale Ciél with the tale of his first adventure here in Terrasphere. Every so often, he took a second to respond to his friend's story when appropriate, but for the most part, he just nodded and sipped from a cup of water he found on his way over here. It was nearing the end of the tale, though, and he was finding it harder and harder to keep his expression straight. Ciél tore his gaze away from looking out over the town and turned it on Conseil, looking up at the short red-head from where he was sitting on the steps of the temple. He tilted his head, evoking the image of glowering exasperatedly at Conseil over the rim of a pair of non-existent glasses, and he took a sip from his cup before he spoke, letting his friend flagellate himself just a little bit longer. "... Yeah. That was a dumbass thing to do." He dryly commented, raising an eyebrow at Conseil and taking another sip before setting his cup down. "Seriously, you just waltz into this dark forest, following this obviously-evil woman - who sounds like she looks like she took cues on her lifestyle and fashion sense from freakin' Morrigan, by the way - and get caught up in all of this magic business with a Dryad, and then - then - shit goes really South?" Ciél sighed, shaking his head and lowering his gaze away from Conseil in an obvious show of disapproval. He brought a hand to his forehead, mildly irate at hearing about his friend catching himself up in such a mess. Not to mention, torturing a nature spirit like that! Even if it was just a game, that kind of thing was messed up! "I gotta tell ya, Shortcake," he tossed out the affectionate nickname as he looked back at Conseil, still irate, but with a softer expression than before, "you sure do know how to pick 'em." ------ @Conseil
Conseil started to protest by spluttering and stammering, then he reset himself by sighing and closing his eyes. He raised a hand and started to count on his fingers dramatically to counter Ciél's points, one by one. "First of all!" He snarked, tapping the first finger. "I wasn't going to treat someone by their appearance; maybe they were just a grimdark nerd who thought that they looked cool. Second of all!" The second finger emerged up, the middle finger paired with the index, and Conseil gave a pointed smirk before he continued. "It's the starter newbie forest; how was I supposed to know there would be some seriously powerful things in it? And thirdly." His cheeks flushed a little bit and he lowered his hand. He made a point to look away from Ciél as he spoke. "You make it sound bad. How was I supposed to know that she was a psychopath? I mean--" He looked more flustered. To make matters worse, what he had just said was definitely not what he had meant to say, and he had fumbled for the correct phrase. His save wasn't exactly the smoothest either. "Goes back to my first point to not judge people by appearance! If it happened to be someone playing a cute little girl or whatever, and they lead me into a forest, would you blame me then?" He folded his arms and looked back, trying desperately to smile, but his brow still remained furrowed. "I thought it was going to be an experience from a veteran player that I could learn from... and I learned!" He waved his hand. "I want to eventually go find that dryad someday and apologize to it though. It was all so intense... really real. I don't know how people could treat this place like it's just a game. It's practically like a second world, or something." He stood to his feet and brushed off his tunic. "Speaking of which, my Energy is replenished now, we should probably try out said world, hmm?" He tapped his lip and looked out over the town. "Although, it's getting to be close to dark, and I don't know if more aggressive monsters spawn in the night cycle or not." He looked around at the shops. "Shopping for weapons would be nice, even if we can't quite equip them yet." He pondered for a moment, and then glanced up at Ciél with a sudden glower. "... hey wait a minute. You called me Shortcake-- I'm small in game but I'm not THAT small." He growled and glanced to the side. "... it was one of the best races for magic. You can't blame me." ---- @Ciél Chevalier
Ciél tried to maintain his stern demeanor - after all, he was supposed to be admonishing Conseil for his foolish actions, wasn't he? But it was just too damn hard to keep to the plan when the shorter redhead was getting so flustered and stammering the way that he was, Ciél couldn't help but smirk. "That's a bit of a contradiction, ain't it?" He put a hand to his cheek. "The newbie forest doesn't appear to be that dangerous... Even if I'm followin' this Evil-lookin' woman into it, but I shouldn't judge her based on appearance, just the forest." He removed his hand from his own cheek and raised a pair of fingers of his own, mirroring Conseil's gesture. "Second off, you bet I'd blame you if it was a cute little girl you followed in there. In fact, I'd be doubling the blame-game right now if that was the case, cute little girl trumps Evil witch on the scale of 'obvious trap'..." He had half a mind to draw up a graph for the redhead, but that required certain things, like paper, and pencils. And the ability to draw a straight line consistently- He picked up his cup, holding it in both hands before him. He gave it another sip as he contemplated what Conseil was saying. He'd cooled off by now and wasn't as deadset on chastising his friend, even if it did get some fun reactions out of him. Speaking of... Ciél looked at Conseil, who glowered at him before glancing away, drawing an admittedly pleased little half-smirk from the white-haired snarker. "Oh?... I'm pretty sure I can blame you for that too. Can 'n will, Shortcake." He lent a teasing, lilting tone to the nickname this time, then laughed and made to stand up from his spot on the stairs, stretching his arms out over his head. He winced as a myriad of small popping noises arose from his joints when he stood; What Conseil was saying about this game being so real and vivid was more true than he initially thought. He looked at where Conseil was looking a moment ago, golden eyes peering out over the town. While going out and fighting monsters at night sounded like the perfect thing to do to get the ball rolling on this game, he knew for a fact that neither of them had taken anything that would let them fight effectively without weapons - at least, without involving magic, anyway. While Conseil took some magic to start off with, and his energy might've been restored by now, Ciél wasn't nearly so capable. He glanced at one of his hands, and felt a longing for a sword to swing it with. "I'd be all for a night on the town fightin' some monsters, but I'm not so sure we could tackle that without some equipment. So this is one of the few times where I'll say," he looked at Conseil, and nodded stoically. "Shopping sounds like the better option, personally." His expression then brightened considerably. "Besides, gives us more time to catch up and plan out this eventual reunion with the Dryad - 'cause you're not thinkin' 'bout going to see them again without some backup, right, buddy?" ----- @Conseil
Conseil gave up by simply throwing his hands in the air. He wasn't going to argue too much about it. It didn't really matter in the long run. Instead he just simply sighed and started down the steps. He smirked and rolled his eyes at recalling one little detail that the taller man said, and he scratched idly behind one of his pointed ears. "Well, I mean, I didn't actually go into the forest alone, you see. I don't have Nature Magic, and you need to mix the magic." He glanced at the ground as he practically jogged down the steps; a little habit that he had around stairs, and then he looked up at Ciél. "And you don't have Nature Magic, so... I don't need to get you tied into my personal issues." He grinned. "Besides. I did technically let the dryad go after I realized what was happening. I might be able to reason with it. Now..." He glanced in the direction that they needed to go, and pointed. "I think that general store over there sells some basic weapons and armor." He pulled up his interface with a swipe and scrolled through the Mastery menu. "I-- whoa." He blinked a few times, and then looked up at Ciél again. "Huh. That excursion out into the forest got me some decent amounts of Mastery Points. I'd better actually spend them or something. Hmm." He flicked his finger through the air a couple of times, his UI invisible to everyone but himself. He raised an eyebrow. "Jeez. So many things, and this game doesn't even give a tutorial or anything... Guess they're really trying to go for the 'authentic experience', huh?" He chuckled shortly. "Wonder if there's some kind of 'mastery school' set up by the players or something. I should probably spend some time reading up on tutorials." There were occasions that the tiny Faerin would get like this. Normally he could keep his monologues in his head, but when he was comfortable around someone, like he was around Ciél, he tended to mutter his thoughts out loud. It gave Ciél the opportunity to be involved, even if he had started to not necessarily talk to him so much as at him. ---- @Ciél Chevalier
