What a day. All day all he had done was walked around this endless field of green. Janne was getting no where fast. After spawning into a town with no guide NPCs or Tutorial menus Janne figured he could just buy a weapon and get to having some fun. He would soon find out his wallet had little more than moths and dust inside it. With no armor and no weapons he just started walking around. He had seen other players fighting mobs then fighting each other for the loot left over. Its a dog eat dog world it would seem. Janne wasn't about to go up to other players and ask for help after witnessing that. After all this walking he noticed the sun starting to go down. With no compass to navigate back to the town he spawned in and no shelter all it would seem he could do is climb into a near by tree and hope any monsters that stroll by leave him alone, and hope he did that was until three wolves strolled by and noticed him sitting up there. Somehow or another they must have figured out that he would have climb down at some point. As they then took up a temporary residence near the tree.
Shoo Shoo get the fuck out of here you little bastards ! Janne yelled as he picked acorns off the tree and began throwing them at the wolves, who seemingly did not care.
It would seem he would be up here for a while.

 

Ash grinned as she returned back to Brisshal after a while of exploring. The other regions were nice, but she did confess that the plains and quiet forests of the starting region appealed to her a lot more.

Unfortunately, however, it seemed as if the forests were not so quiet today. The growling of wolves caught her attention, and Ash's eyes widened as she snuck around to catch a better glimpse. Looked like there was someone stuck up a tree, and all three wolves were prowling around the base.

Well, she couldn't leave him stuck up there. She didn't fancy her chances against three wolves alone, but there had to be something she could do...

Ah! Right. Opening her spell menu, Ash quickly found her vine growth spell. It came in handy really often, so she had set it as one of her favorite spells. Choosing to let the incantation draw itself in the air to avoid giving away her position, Ash felt the energy leave her as vines burst out from the ground. Within a second they wrapped around the wolves' paws, keeping them pinned for at least a moment.

Ooh boy. That was quite a lot of magic. Her vision wavered for a while as the empty feeling set into her body. But, no time to crash now; those vines wouldn't last forever.

"Hey!" she called out to the man, waving a hand in the air as the wolves were snared. "Come on, quick, while they're bound!"

 

Janne wasted no time jumping out of the tree, only stopping a second to mock the now bound wolves by making a nasty face at them. Before running towards the woman, and running right past her hoping she would follow. I wouldn't linger around ! Janne yelled to the woman as he stopped for a moment to wait up for her. It would kinda be a dick move to let her get eaten by wolves after helping his sorry ass out.

Janne ran a good bit with the woman before deeming that the wolves couldn't possibly have followed him this far. He still by instinct climbed onto a near by rock just in case they decided to come back or this woman decided to PK him.
Thanks for the assistance. Janne said with a friendly wave. Before squinting at the woman intensely. You aint gonna kill me now right? He asked intently. Hell even if she lied and tried to kill him he couldn't really do anything about it

 

Ash panted and had to rest her hands on her knees for a moment after they stopped running. Well, regardless of how fit she her character was at creation, at least she was definitely getting a workout just by going about business as usual in this world.

She looked up in time to see the man hop up onto a nearby rock. Probably a good idea to prevent monsters from attacking him again. And at least it wasn't as isolated as a tree branch so he could get away if any unsavory creatures decided to surround him again.

But his next words made her jaw drop. She sputtered, "What?! No! I won't kill you!"

Look, even if she wanted to she was pretty much worthless in a fight. The staff at her back was basically for show--a couple of the other players with some expertise in weaponsmithing had commented on the fact that if she swung too hard at something, the wood would splinter like a pair of those cheap disposable chopsticks. 'Trash-tier' was about the right level of description for their starting equipment. And her own combat abilities, for that matter.

"You are new to Terrasphere, right?" she asked, craning her neck a bit to look up at him. "If you're worried about getting killed, how about I show you to a no PvP zone? You can probably manage to find a weapon along the way, but it won't be a very good one. The one I have now is basically worthless," she added, gesturing to the staff.

 

Yeah im new, sorry about the accusation. Just saw some people murdering each other and the stray passerby is all. Janne said as he kicked his feet off of the rocked. swinging them back and forth as he spoke to the woman. A weapon would be great.
I learned the hard way that unarmed fighting isnt worth anything. Janne remembered her comment about her own weapon being worthless and spoke up. Wait are you new as well? He asked as he jumped down from the rock. And what was up with that spooky ass email to download the client? Wait you got the email as well yeah? He asked as he Looked the woman head to toe. Names Janne by the way. He said as he held out his hand to shake. Nice to meet ya

 

Ash nodded and shook his hand as Janne dropped down. "Well, glad you haven't managed to run into any bigger problems. It can get pretty overhwleming at the start."

"My name's Ashiore, but you can call me Ash. I'm not that much more experienced, I've only been here for maybe a week? And yeah, I got that email too. Creepy, but I mean, this is just a game right?"

Ash began to chat more about what she knew of the game system as they walked. She vaguely headed in Stokbon's direction, remembering that there was a stretch of Brisshal nearby that was safer than usual. And going to a big city would provide some resources to help Janne get started.

"About fighting and weapons, it can be pretty rough at the beginning. Some people start with a weapon but I didn't, so I guess we both missed some sort of option during character creation. But this is the starting region so they'll have a couple starter weapons lying about in some thematically appropriate areas. Just keep your eyes open and we should stumble on one."

 

Nice to meet you too Ash.
Janne said with a smile on his face.
He proceeded to follow ash as she led him, talking about the systems of the game, most of that important information going in one ear and out the other. Janne was more of a doer type of learner. He was sure he would get the hang of the game eventually.
Janne popped back into the conversation when ash started mentioning weapons.
Well keep an eye out for any kind of knife or bow. I chose ranged weapons at the beginning. Maybe knifes will do as well? Darts maybe? Im going for a Archer type class once i get my bearings. Speaking of classes what are you aiming for? Also how did you stop those wolves from moving? Janne asked as he looked up at the afternoon sky.
Also another quick question. Where are we going and will we get there before the sun goes down and the big beasties come out to play? He asked as frankly he had no idea where he was walking.

 

"Bow or knife or any kind of ranged weapon, got it," Ash confirmed with a nod. "That'll come in handy. It's probably safer too, hanging back rather than getting right up in a monster's face." She gave a small self-deprecating laugh. "I thought it would be kind of cool myself, but my aim would probably be horrible. Well, this is a game so I guess it wouldn't matter. Anyway, magic is pretty awesome so that's what I'm going for! Like, nature and plant-ish kind of druid magic."

In demonstration, Ash muttered the incantation to one of her smaller cantrips and let a small bunch of wildflowers sprout all over her hand. "It's not flashy like controlling fire or doing those crazy martial arts that some people seem to go for, but it comes in handy. Like just now with the wolves, I grew vines out of the ground to tie them down. It's one of my bigger spells right now so I can't do it often, but it's saved my hide more than once!"

At the question of where they were going, Ash blinked in surprise and sighed as she realized she hadn't fully explained it. "Oh, whoops. My bad. We're headed towards Stokbon, which the biggest city in the region. PvP is banned in a lot of places there to keep things civil, and there are tons of shops and little quests around so you can build up some experience and get better gear. The areas around it are also pretty safe, no big monsters show up."

...Usually. Well, she's never actually been out in the wild after dusk. But even so, there shouldn't be anything too dangerous in Brisshal, right? After all, complete newbies could get scattered across the entire region at any time of day. Wouldn't do to have someone get eaten before they'd spent even two minutes in game.

 

Ahh gotcha. Janne said to ash. Well at least he knew where he was walking now. He wasn't much better off than before but it was all he had so he kept trucking.
See i chose the ranged stuff for a simple reason, if i miss a shot i can blame the bow or the arrow , the wind or any other amount of variables, but with magic your party will blame you for a miscast. See this way i can keep up a Guise of being useful. Janne said Jokingly. Nah but really that was a cool trick you did with the wolves back there. Ill have to pay you back someday when i have somthing to give. He said as he continued to walk forward. Wonder if i could do some flashy stuff with ranged, Maybe jump off of tree. Sling 10 arrows. Janne said as he did the motioned to these things while walking.
Well first i have to get a dammed bow, was it like this when you first joined Ash?
Janne asked as he put his arms over and behind his head.

 

Ash chuckled at Janne's descriptions of the stunts he could pull off. "Well, actually, you might. The game sort of directs your body when you're attacking or casting spells, so I think it might be able to help you do backflips or stuff like that too. Maybe. I wouldn't recommend trying it out yet. Oh, and speaking of party.."

She trailed off and started fiddling about with her menu. She'd accepted party invites before so the option definitely had to be in here somewhere... Aha!

Invite

Ashiore Evretto has invited you to their party. Accept?

"Just so we can keep track of each other," she said. "Not that I think we're going to get split up, but better safe than sorry, right?"

They had crossed quite the distance already and Ash was starting to get a bit tired. The sun wasn't that close to the horizon just yet, so it seemed like they still had a couple of hours of daylight to reach Stokbon. The trees had slowly begun growing thinner and thinner, and Ash spotted the occasional structure or two. Those were probably the mini 'dungeons' scattered across Brisshal to give new players a little taste of dungeon-delving. They hadn't gotten that close, mostly because there were visible creatures patrolling the radius around them.

But it looked like there was one up ahead that was unguarded. No monsters or animals around. It looked like the perfect place to find a starter weapon for Janne.

 

Janne blinked as the menu popped up in his face.
Uh yeah. Janne said as he clicked the green circle on the prompt. As he did so he noticed his heads up display change as Ash's HP and EN where now present, along with a little marker indicating where she was. Whistling away as he and his new ally walked along to his city of sorts. Walking like this may be a drag to all the other players but for Janne this was great. Everything was so life like he could hardly believe it. It made the Two Gs he dropped on this headset worth it. Walking along Janne would notice one of the many structures on either side of him, he then preceded to ignore them.
After all he did chose rouge as one of his three mastery. He could end up nicking one from an NPC or a shop, or find one on a corpse, yeah that sounded more rouge-ish.
He thought as he continued following Ash.

 

Janne seemed content to follow along without making any detours into the dungeons, so Ash moved on as well. They would be able to get to Stokbon soon at this rate, if she was right. Late afternoon was fast approaching, but that just meant it was easier to keep track of east and west, so Ash managed to roughly keep them on the right path.

Ah, looked like that was the slums of Stokbon in the distance. Oops. It wasn't quite the best first impression of the city to give to a newcomer. And to be honest, Ash hadn't really explored this part of the city before either; either she strayed further south than she intended, or she misremembered where they started from.

But, well, they were within sight of the city! That was good news at least. "Oh! We made it. So, up ahead is Stokbon! It's not really the nicest part of the city, but we should be able to get to the center of town soon enough."

She pointed out one of the guard towers that circled the city. "So the guards are NPCs for the most part, they do regular patrols around the area. So it's usually safer near the city if you want to try and go exploring and stuff. And there's lots of opportunities to find quests to do if you ask around."

 

Ahh there the city was. Brown and dreary. The perfect place for a rouge to be.
Janne wondered if she knew he was gonna dump all of his points into Rouge.
She looked the type to read people like that.
Janne dismissed her claims about the slums not being the nicest part of the city.
Well i do plan on being a bow toting Lockpicking, Hands in your coat pockets rouge so this is best place to start as any. Janne said with renewed enthusiasm.
His ears perked up again when he heard guards. If he where to be a rouge then he should be careful of them. You think they would do less patrols in the slums right?
Also what should one do if i dunno a guard aggros you and you cant fight back?
As they walked Janne kept a mental image of the NPC beggars that littered the streets.
At least one of them would have to have a quest that would need done sooner or later.

 

Well, Janne seemed interested in looking around this area of Stokbon. So at least she hadn't turned him off the game entirely. "I'm not exactly sure of the guards and their patrols here. I haven't been to Stokbon much before, especially not this part of the city. But it's probably a good idea to be careful if you plan on, you know, pickpocketing people. And watch out for other pickpockets too."

She looked around. "Well, I think this is it for me. I'm going to look for a few things in the shops in back at the commercial district. So, it was nice meeting you, Janne! Best of luck! You should be able to find plenty of quests here, and lots of opportunities for nicking things if you keep your eyes open."

With that, Ash waved goodbye, left the party, and started heading towards the center of town. She was looking forward to browsing the shops there and hopefully picking out some new things to wear; these ones had gotten a bit ratty from the adventuring and all.

Janne seemed nice enough, and it would definitely be a welcome surprise if they crossed paths again in the future.

(OoC: I'm leaving this thread. If you want to continue it, someone else can jump in.)