Private - Refusal of the Call

When Gwainedhel opened the eyes, his hand was stretchened to the blue sky. Just in the exact spot he last disconnected, his figure stood somewhere between the Honeyhome Inn and the square. It was an idillic day for the forest - birds chirping on the branches, villagers and players kicking the bucket at the shops or merely running all over the place. Gwainedhel slowly descended the arm and stared himself for a while, his head between the bow’s wood and line and a few rabbits hanging around his waist. Bringing the reverse of the hand against his forehead, he decided he had too much to think, and went for a walk.

Because, what did he do again, when he first logged in? The memories of his first and last time playing the game ran through his head like scenes of a severed movie tape.The spawning among wolves, the red-hair boy, his goblin six-lance death, his companion’ irrational fear when they spotted those running children. Gwainedhel looked at the nearly-healed string marks around his still leafy and immaculate fingers. The more he thank about it, the more thrilling it grew on one part, but the duller its weight in another.

He sighted internally. Why feeling so edgy? It was just, this is what he always complained about other games, right? Not enough gut-punching moments, not enough blood, the controls were clunky and he needed more intensity to give his gamer life a meaning. He had been once in the eternal debate of more daring titles from the triple As. But now that he’d got it unexpectedly from an under-the-rug project (and in a VR enviroment), his forces grew chicken.

The forest stroll brung him to a wide stone bridge with an incredible abyss underneath. Gwainedhel leaned curiousity to check further and all he could see were pointy-sharpened rocks along the forest walls. He could barely see the bottom, so he searched and threw a rock, which hit a dry bottom after exactly fifteen seconds after disappearing. Right in a much clearer spot right above surface level, Gwainedhel discovered a tattered charcoal-traced sign that froze his blood: “Don't do it! You won't solve anything!"

Gwainedhel climbed up the edge and sat with his bare feet hanging over the abyss. If he didn’t feel everything so akin to his flesh, he would have kept fooling around and jumped without a second thought. How many people must have fallen into this mistake, he wondered. Or would this be the place to delete their chars if they didn’t want to play anymore?

 

Zori had been logging time in Terrasphere for several hours by this point. He might have been worried it was unhealthy for him but the virtual world's sun felt just like the real one at this point. Having no responsibilities at the moment and a previous lack of physical discipline was a dangerous combination. Probably. He was self-aware enough to know he needed to spend his time better. Taking long walks through the virtual forest, one as good as a real forest, was just what "better" was right now.

The man behind the wolf person was having the time of his life. He'd done more, advanced further as a person, now than in any of his previous summers. All thanks to the highly illegal game that Terrasphere was. The questionable influence of the addicting virtual reality didn't poison that fact. The company he'd started to keep might. At least she didn't sink her venomous teeth into his mind today. No, all he'd had was a nice walk down new trails while carefully avoiding all the dangerous critters, crawlers, and creeps that hung out where the new people began. It was an odd thing to get used to.

Zori was happy he had grown enough he could be used to it.

While not completely sure how long the knowledge would be useful, he was starting to learn the layout of the Maithe Woodlands while constantly wandering through it. If he was a boisterous sort he'd call himself an expert, but he wasn't boisterous so he'd just say he knew his way around. Which, ultimately, left him surprised when he stumbled on a chasm and an old stone bridge. From a distance, it was a mystifying sight. It further affirmed the impression Zori had been cultivating that the Terrasphere developers had tailor-made parts of their world.

As he got closer, he noticed someone along its edge. Sitting on the railing, as it'd be. He consciously made an effort to make loud footsteps instead of carry on with his usual sneaking around. Partially dreading the scenario he feared. That he'd need to somehow learn how to talk someone down from the ledge. Zori'd had a good life but he wasn't unfamiliar with the head space he could only imagine the pretty, knife-eared, stranger was in. Feeding on that well he drafted a script.

He paused, two arm's lengths away, and leaned on the rail. He spoke, a bit shakily, "So uh... You want to grab a coffee later?"

He was absolutely certain he'd already messed up.

 

Gwainedhel's brows collapsed in an awkward sense of unsettling animism. Thoughts, once again, orbitated in his mind like a confusion of leaves dancing in a gale. He had yet to put his messy mental universe in order. Or forget about it before too much thinking would screw his up.

At this, his knife-ears tilted, vigilant.

He had heard a noise. Or more like, he had heard another person's voice. It sounded nearby, shaky, like a shaking glass. His slanted eyes opened and he scouted the area.

"Kwaak!" he squeaked. Coconuts, why so much game when the guy was standing in plain sight?

The elven boy held a hand by the border to re-gain the nearly-lost balance. In a split of second his attention scanned the newly arrived visitor.

He had this funky look of a person, animal, furry ah... fur-like-person? Well, Gwainedhel never cared much to pin an exact name for them. These two wild hair tufts (tufts?) poked out of his short pink-like mane, seeming much like the people version of a bubbly puppy with pointy droppy ears. He was of an average build, neither the fat boy nor terribly lanky. His skin appeared quite fair because of the sunlight though, and these lushing green eyes showed Gwain the creeps of the uncanny valley.

Just before losing the grip of all situation, Gwainedhel made haste to pick up the conversation. The whole realisation of the dog-boy's sentence made him chuckle.

"A coffee? What in the earth?" he said, drawing an amused grin and resting his chin on his leg. "We're, like, in a make-believe Middle Age, buddy."

 

"Yeah... Guess I'm off by five hundred years or something. But this is a fantasy world." As if to emphasize his point, Zori flicked both ears and showed off his completely fictional self. "Who knows if there's some coffee out there. Waiting to be uh... drank?"

He scratched the back of his head. It didn't do anything to dislodge any smooth conversational tips or thoughts. He didn't really know who he was talking to or where he should take this conversation. While the possibility they were about to jump couldn't be ruled out (he saw him stop himself from falling but he might just be waiting for the right opportunity) that didn't seem to be where things were going. From what he could remember he needed to keep things light and concrete. Maybe play into their delusions. Was he mixing the situations up?

"Oh hey, you're from Earth?" He latched on to a topic a little too late for things to be considered smooth. "I didn't think you were a player. It would be pretty tacky for the developers to put a 'talk someone off the edge' random event. Right?"

Wait, should he have so callously referred to the scenario as the worst thing it could have been? Couldn't that set some kind of terrible chain reaction off that ruined everything? While he managed to pull a fairly calm face on the outside he wasn't able to keep his mind from racing at the possibility he'd messed up even harder. In a matter of femtoseconds he rapidly processed his error and blurted out the best solution he could come up with.

"N-not that there's anything wrong with that!"

 

Now, it turns out the uncanny valley isn't too uncanny. Who does naturally say something like "well maybe there's some coffee out there waiting to be, uhh, drank"? Not the thing itself but its way, with its tilting mumble in the pause and the wondering inflection at the end. It smelled the typical timid set up from a low-cost sitcom. Gwainedhel knew it very well because it was almost the same situation he was having there right now. "Holy shit, he's discovered my intentions. Jump off right now. Jump jump jump jump juuuump!"

Instead, he lifted an eyebrow and duplicated the evil nature of his smirk.

"Well, thank you very much for having me as an angsty ropeless boogey-jumper as your first prejudice!" he said. He glanced to the menacing sign and lifted his head up to him. "So let's play a guess game - what if I tell you're in fact super right and I'm thinking about squishing my little Legolas here into ketchup?"

He couldn't stop peeking at his fluffy ears. Boy, weren't they fancy.

 

Wow.

Wasn't that kind of the worst thing to hear when you didn't want to talk someone off a ledge. That it was a possibility. "Wait, it'd be worse if it was confirmed." Zori kept himself from diving into the mental breakdown deep end with that. His thought process was even telegraphed, with his ears flattening against his skull before perking up when he realized it all wasn't over. The five seconds he thought he was going to see someone die had to left behind.

"Hah hah. That's uh, I wouldn't recommend it. I'm really hoping I'm not right, really. Let's just not even consider it and call it a bad slip of the tongue. So I'm going with the wishful thinking and saying you don't want to..." He was left almost breathless from how he stumbled with the word soup coming out of his mouth. It was all normal speech just far too fast.

"I'm sorry, really." He spoke up again after getting a gulp of air down. Until he had said "sorry" he hadn't been able to look Gwainedhel in the eyes. Then he managed to. Since it was genuine, it was only half as awkward as everything else.

 

While he was implicidly enjoying the others' ear motions, Gwainedhel finally took a moment to catch the letters that floated above his head. <<Zori Crotox>>, huh? No puns, no spell crimes, no numbers. It was funny. Definitely something too pleasant and normal for some guy you meet across the Net.

"No, you've hit the nail in there. I totally want to kill myself."

Then the smirk disappeared without a trace. He put his gaze up to the sky and shoved two fingers on the wrinkle of his frown. It was clear he was trying to picture the future of his words. Or a possible outcome, at least.

"No, that's not right." He shook his head. Then, leaning to his partner, he stamped a palm on his own chest. "Like, yeah. I'm happy with my real life, but what I know it's to actually delete the char." Of course, he didn't wait for a response. "I've been a shit-ton of time all jumble-jumble through the menus by now, but it's all frigging messed up. No options, messy helpfiles, no clear guide..." He waved his hand on the air, his gaze drifted down to the pointy-rock abyss. "So I was like thinking if this was the only option. But it comes as pretty edgy when you get by, don't cha think?"

 

"Seriously?" He was a little dumbfounded. The idea he'd interpreted from Gwainedhel's explanation was a head-scratcher. "I've heard of addicting games, but you're telling me the Terrasphere developers are holding player slots hostage with pain of dying... Well, experiencing death. Gosh." He looked out over the chasm, not down towards the spikes. He carried a wistful expression, with ears sharply at attention.

It wasn't exactly a profound thought. Just a depressing one. He hadn't even considered deleting his character, probably because Zori reminded him of himself too much. It would feel like a gross vicarious suicide. "Yeah. Pretty edgy I'd say... I don't think there aren't other options." He tried to catch the Yladian's eyes, having to look up to account for the height difference. "You could try and make it work some more, if you don't mind seeming a little crazy. Whatever's making you want to delete... your virtual body... I'm sure there's a work around."

"If you couldn't figure out how to not want to die—delete yourself alone... Maybe I could help?" He cocked his head to the side, not realizing both of his ears would bend the way he tilted his head. Like some overgrown puppy. "I've been alright at that before."

 

Gross indeed, he thought. The worst is that it wasn't exactly that which made it as scary for Gwainedhel. By those years the market had already featured a whole myriad of videogames where dead played in the immersive experience (one would have to just think of the effects of VR Skyrim). But dark twist on Terrasphere's case, that damn pain feature...

Hearing Zori's making-up advice, Gwainedhel's gritted his teeth, his ears dropping as a defeated fairy.

"Agh, as if I had the power."

Then there was silence. He didn't say anything. Zori didn't say anything. Or not that Gwainedhel could percieve with the ear' cartilags close to the neck skin. He figured this moment on imaginating himself as the Lord of Ones and Zeros, surrounded by a Matrix-like green screen laughting like a madman. It would be a beautiful world if laws bent to his will, he considered. That would be a realistic way to go without eliminating the .exe.

Finally, as he caught up Zori's voice mid-sentence and he managed to figure out the meaning behind his words, his whole being perked up and stared at Zori in awe.

"Holy shit, don't tell me..." Gwainedhel scanned him from head to foot. He then fold his arms, his crooked know-it-all smirk twitching on sight. "Oh my god, that rocks so much. And how'd you do that? Gimme a nice fluffy cuddle 'til drought? Choke me to death with a huge heap of chicken treats?"

 

At first the caenis was clueless. His mind was having trouble putting the puzzle pieces of the elf's speech together. There was a disconnect from the response he expected, the other boy's body language, and the words coming out of his mouth. As if nothing was willing to mesh together. It left the shorter guy on that bridge a little angry.

More than a little but he wasn't good at being mad. Instead he had to be annoyed and flustered about the attitude that was being shoved at him. "Oh! You've got all these great ideas. I'm sorry I'd ever think you could use a little help." He looked out past the bridge again after letting the quick hot flash of emotion pass. The world around the pair was enough to draw his attention away from some annoying smirk or ridiculous mode of thinking.

His was a bit ridiculous too. Since in his mind he was attributing this whole "deletion" thing with more permanent action... It was a good second of introspection.

"I mean. If you think something as stupid as a lot of food is going to make you change your mind. I'm not going to stop you from doing that. Personally, I was thinking you'd want to try and explain what made you consider making..." He looked at Gwainedhel while calmly gesturing two open palms at the faerin body, "...that disappear."

"It'd be amateur therapy hour or whatever." Zori elaborated.