Private - Forging new bonds

Ashnor smiles as he leaves the tavern, after stopping in quick bite, his hunger and thirst were now replenished and he could focus on what he came here to do. Wherever here was of course. Ashnor had been wandering Brisshal going from town to town seeing what there as to see in this game. Now he was located in a decently sized town called... Leefedge... maybe, if he could recall correctly. Ashnor quickly opens up his palm menu's and taps through to the map... checking to see... and yes, clearly stated on the map is the town's name "Leefedge". Made sense he supposed, the town was right on the edge of one of the many forests it seemed Brisshal Contained.

But anyways, back to what he came here to do, he thought, let's get back on track. Ashnor had come to Leefedge to procure some Blacksmithing tools, so that he can start blacksmithing if needed to. It just so happened that Leefedge had a decent sized market, opposed to the surrounding villages that had like one or two stalls. Now, from asking the owner of the tavern, Ashnor was told that the market was to the... right? yeah, to the right when you exited the tavern. So, Ashnor turns right down the main road of the Town

Apparently Ashnor was a bit of the dumb, and had not noticed that the market was clearly visible from the entrance to the town. After giving himself a well deserved facepalm, Ashnor begins his search for tools among the stalls. Leefedge's market consisted of 3 rows with a stall on each side and a little path between the stalls so that the owners of said stall could get in and out. It seemed though, that whoever had designed the market, sort of just plopped down stalls next to each other, no rhyme or reason to it. It also didn't help that it was mid day and that it seemed like all of the NPCs in leefedge were in the market, purchasing food or whatever else they needed.

@Solaria

 

Leefedge was surely a busy place for shopping, but the busy crowds never seemed to bother the Yladian any. It was rare that she wandered the stalls to actually seek something, though- normally, she just browsed for fun and to check on some of the shopkeepers she helped heal once in a while from overwork.

Today, no one seemed to need her, though.

"Let's see...Where was it...?" There were three rows to go through to find what she sought. It was rare, but sometimes even Solaria had a need to get supplies. Normally she went other places, but considering she'd been there earlier that day anyhow, she found it logical to just find her supplies in the small town for a change.

Even if that hadn't been the reason, though, she'd likely have noticed the stranger. Sure, it wasn't easy to tell at first glance if someone was a player or not- but she knew a lot of the NPCs in town from working around the streets tending to the injured. This person wasn't one of them, for sure.

With swift steps, she made her way to him. He wasn't that different in height to her, his dark hair likely the first thing she noticed at the moment. Her hand was quick to catch his shoulder when she caught up, a slight pat as she tried to keep from lingering too long.

"Have you seen an herbologist's stall at all? I'm struggling to find one, and a fresh pair of eyes can be a great help."

 

Gosh this layout was the worst, Ashnor had probably been in the market for 10 minutes already and had only gotten though one of the rows of stalls, the bustling crowd making it a bit difficult. Ashnor sighed as he passed yet another stall with different styles of baskets for sale. Baskets! How many kinds of basket could a person need? Just as Ashnor was about to continue on to the next stall, Ashnor felt a someone pat his shoulder.

Startled, he spun around quickly to face this stranger, causing the NPCs around them to stare for a few seconds, before they returned to what the were doing previously. It seemed to Ashnor that the person who wanted his attention was a Yladian, the elven race of this game. After being asked about the herbologist stand, Ashnor racked his brain, but could not remember seeing one in the previous row. "I'm sorry, I don't remember seeing one, but if you need baskets, I've seen three stalls already, including this one." Ashnor says, pointing with his thumb at the stall just next to him. "I'd be happy to help you search for it though, miss...?"

 

Though she smiled just from getting an answer, she had to admit she was bummed to hear about the three basket stalls and not a single one noted with herbs just yet by the stranger. That meant that, somehow, the town had really made a mess of how they scattered their stalls. Why didn't they just change it up since then to make it easier? Surely the lot of villagers had found out about this problem from other travelers...

"Sadly, I don't really need a basket in my inventory. I need herbs and some other supplies for potion making, but a basket won't help all that much." A tepid chortle fell from her still smiling lips, which seemed far too at ease curled up on her face even when she was feeling distraught from her failed shopping trip.

Then, the man did something she hadn't quite expected. He offered to help her out, to look for one with her instead of just going on his way. "If you could help me, that'd be great. Ah- I'm Solaria. I've been having problems finding some of the ingredients I need at gathering points, so I was hoping to find something around town instead. What about you, sir? What're you looking for? Well, besides it obviously being not a basket. I saw one or two of those myself, I think."

 

Seeing as she was visibly bummed by his, Ashnor placed his hand on the girl's shoulder as a bit of consolation. He could't help but laugh though, as she mentioned all of the basket stalls this place contained. "But yeah, i'll help you, I've actually already looked through the northern most row of stalls. so that should cut down on how much we have to search. Oh, and i'm Ashnor, last name Ironth." He takes his hand off of her shoulder moves it to place here she could shake it instead.

"Me? I'm looking for metalworking tools, sorta need it for crafting in this game. Although, if we find that first, i'll keep helping you find your stuff, and try to remember where it was." Ashnor looks around for a few seconds, trying to figure out which way is the best way to approach this, splitting up probably wouldn't work, "sooo, what's the plan Stan? Personally, I don't think splitting up would work be the best idea, it'd made informing the other that you've found it a bit hard to do. So maybe one of us takes one side of the row, the other takes the opposite?" While saying this, Ashnor uses his hands to form legs that imitated going down the row.

 

She kept his name in mind, pondering why so many players had surnames in this world. Solaria hadn't even seen a reason to use one in her name, and had seen a mixture of people with or without it. Since the beginning, she often wondered if she'd made the right choice in doing the later.

With nothing to say on that matter, though, she waved her hands before her. "I'd help you either way too! It's part of being neighborly, isn't it? But I see, so you're a blacksmith then. That's good to know for many reasons as a swordsman, don't you think?" She giggled it away, not letting her thoughts stay where they were for long.

It'd been a while since she'd met a blacksmith. She really did wonder what she was going to do with her mass pile of swords in her inventory. Maybe this mad could make them better, in the future.

"Yeah, generally separating isn't good when you're looking for something. We could use the world channel but finding each other even if we find what we need wouldn't really be easy afterward. I didn't start from the beginning properly of any row, so at least knowing one row so far is down is a relief. Which side do you want to take? North or south? I'll take the one you don't choose, but we should try to keep a not too different pace. It'd be bad if one speeds off without the other, even if we go the same direction. Or... I think it might be."

 

"Ah, yeah I suppose that would be good for you" He says, his hand reaching back to scratch the rear side of his head, along with an awkward smile forming on his face, "Well, you might of guessed, but maybe not, I'm a pretty new player, and don't really have very much invested into my masters right now. So I probably wouldn't be able to do much with that big pile you have right now. Sorry." Ashnor hoped he hadn't gotten Solaria's own hopes up too much.

Ashnor wasn't quite sure what she meant by the "World Channel". Maybe it was like, the chat feature of this game. But anyways, seeing that she agreed with his idea, "Well, as long as we try to keep each other within sight, we shouldn't get to far away from each other. I think I'll take the north side, seeing as how I've already done the row on this side." Now that they seemed to be ready to commence the great market search, Ashnor waits for her to start before he himself starting.

 

She wasn't sure what to say about the fact that he was new. "To be honest, I wouldn't know just by looking at someone. People can play a game for a long time and still seem to be new to it, and newer players that get a lot of information from reading anything available would know more than someone that doesn't in general, you know?" A soft laugh left her as she made sure to add in a quick note regarding skill.

"I've been playing for months, doesn't mean I'm great at alchemy. The way skills work in this game is pretty different from most if you've played many to begin with. You have to put a lot of work and points into your masteries. I put in a lot with my swords and illumancy, but... I've been kinda lax with my alchemy until now. I'm planning to work harder on it from now on. That's kind of why I'm stocking up, I guess!"

Having blabbered enough, Solaria began from the same direction as Ashnor at the opposite facing side of the row of stalls they struggled to search. Likely unfortunate for him, the Yladian was regularly distracted in conversation with some of the villagers- apparently, most of them knew her face, though most of them were patients more than suppliers of anything she really bought.

For someone so impulsive, the girl was surprisingly frugal. Sure, here or there a linen salesman had gotten her to purchase some medium weight armor or something to practice on better. She'd gone to a ranged weapon seller because of her pet once or twice, too (though she doubted the men that sold her ammo understood why a blade-wielder would bother with them at all).

Finally, she stopped at one stall that seemed to have something useful- or at least, she was pretty sure raw ore might count as a sign that someone was selling supplies for a blacksmith's use. "Ash, over here!" She turned around to wave the man over. "This help at all? He's got a lot of ore, this fellow. It should at least be a good sign, right?"

 

"Eh, I don't really know what i was thinking, just a bit of a derp I suppose, anyways, let's get working on finding these stalls." Ashnor really didn't have any idea why he mentioned the part about being new in the first place, it just ended up making things awkward. Ashnor turns and starts his search after Solaria, making sure that he checks the see she's still on the other side. As he goes along, Ashnor logs in his head down the kinds of shops he goes past: the basket stand he was already at, bread, robes and cloaks, fresh produce, children's toys, plates and bow-

Wait. Ashnor stopped, did someone say his name, he thought so, they must have shortened it, to like, "ash" or something. He turned around and saw Solaria wave him over, and explained the situation to him. "Well, I mean, ore would be useful if I was creating something, but I still need tools first before I can do any of that. Maybe we can ask the stall owner if he knows where we can get some." Ashnor turns away from Solaria and faces the stall's clerk - a fairly average looking middle aged man - and puts an elbow on the stall's front stand with his hand under his chin. "Excuse me sir, me and my companion here were wondering if you could point us in the direction of some stalls her in the market, I'm in search of metalworking tools, and my friend here-" Ashnor brings his arm back to where Solaria is and grabs her hand, gently pulling her by it so that she is standing next to him, "-was looking for someone selling herbs and other plants used in alchemy, could you please tell where we could find those?"

 

She'd been rather confused and was left silently dumbfounded when her hand was yanked to make sure she was closer to the stall than she had been before. It wasn't exactly something she was used to- if anything, that was a move she'd pull, normally- so she kind of stood with a face of uncertainty, if only for a moment.

Across the stall, the man that was answering their questions gave fairly simplistic answers- answers that felt more like riddles than answers, but at least gave them a general gist of where to go. He made sure to use the names of the shops (or at least their keepers) that he thought would be helpful to them. She couldn't help wondering why he was selling just ore, but really... did it matter? At least they had a sign of where to go, now.

"It sounds like ours are run by people I've met before. I know where their houses are, so if we go to them, we'll find their stalls pretty easily I'd bet." She had moved her hands to her hips as she looked around, trying to eye which direction they had to go to get to the familiar homes. "Their houses face the third row we haven't been to, of course. So we'll have to go there instead."

 

Once Ashnor was done gently pulling Solaria over to the stall, he let go of her and listened to the stall keeper's explanation, if you could call it that, really. What was it with this town and being unclear and enigmatic with things. "Thank you sir, you've been quite helpful, I hope to be able to do business with you in the future." Ashnor smiled at the man, then leaned over and turned his head toward Solaria, whispering in her ear, "Lets get out of here." Breaking away from the from stall, Ashnor tuned back to Solaria to hear her explanation.

"You know it's always the last one that you check. I think the quickest way to get out of this row is to go...that way" Ashnor points in the direction the hadn't come from, and begins to move in that direction, hoping that solaria doesn't lose him in the crowd of people, but like, she shouldn't, he was just going to go to the end of the row, wait for her, then she would take over and direct them over to the stall keeper's homes or whatever, it wasn't all that complicated, really.

 

It was hard not to laugh when she felt a whisper against her ears- a Yladian's ears, she'd learned, were fairly sensitive. Perhaps that was why it tickled quite so much when air blew on them? She'd have to remember to adjust her hair to cover them more, if only to keep warm as winter approached.

Following the man as he led the way he thought would be quickest to exit the row of stalls, Solaria didn't hesitate to keep an eye out in case anything useful she hadn't thought of might catch her eye. Another basket stand made her feel a bead of sweat lightly touch her cheek, though it disappeared as quickly as it had arisen. Once on their way to the last row to look through, she pointed when she saw the familiar men with their wares that looked quite like they'd be helpful- firstly for the man himself.

"It's always the last place you look because you don't keep looking afterwards, right? But what matters is we found it, you know."

 

"Yuss, good find, Solaria" Ashnor fist-pumps downwards and makes himself look like a total idiot, but it's worth it, right? Ashnor quickly moves over to the stall, but then turns around to ask solaria something. "So, would you rather wait for me to buy this stuff then we find your stall or should we go find yours first?" Ashnor then turns around and realizes the utter ineptitude of this market's layout when he see's the next to the stall selling tools, is a stall that appeared to be stocking herbs, along with other assorted medicinal plants.

"Ok, I think I've officially had it with this market" Ashnor slowly shakes his head in disapproval as he stands next to Solaria. Turning to face her again, "OK, how about this? I do my shopping, you do yours, and then we both leave this "market", to go talk elsewhere, if you want to, of course." Ashnor even makes air quote as he says this. "Oh, and if you don't want to talk after, would you accept a request to be friends?" Opening his menu, Ashnor taps a few times, and a moment later, Solaria receives a notification of a friend request.

 

Solaria had a lot of questions now- mostly for whoever set this market up to begin with. Whoever had coded the game was amazing, but they still had some bugs to deal with. Maybe it was purposely made haphazard? Considering Brisshal was dangerous even as a spawn area, Solaria was just about ready to give up on making heads or tails of this world once more.

"Sounds like a good plan. I'd accept the request either way, by the way. Friends are always welcome! But so... You get your supplies, I get mine and...Where should we meet to find a better place to relax and chat? I mean, we can still stay in town- the inn here is nice and calm, at least..."

Before she got an answer, she moved to accept the request notification with ease. Her list was growing slow and steady, and she smiled every time it did. "I'll see you on the other side, so to speak? It'll be nice to chat and rest a while. Let the headache from this market go away and all that."

 

Even though he can't read her thoughts, Ashnor would definitely agree with Solaria's view on this market. This place needed some real restructuring to make it a bit easier for people unfamiliar with Leefedge to find what they wanted to. Ashnor nodded quickly, smiling as he received the confirmation alert in his menu. "Thanks, so yeah, we'll split up and get our supplies, then meet back at the Inn, maybe get some food, I know where that is at least" Ashnor turns away from Solaria and towards the stall, but then turns back, remembering something, "I'll probably want to get some other stuff that I saw while we were looking, so don't be worried if I'm not at the Inn super quickly."

Now turning back to the stall and actually going up to it, Ashnor begins to procure what he needs for doing some blacksmithing, mainly just an anvil though, as he figures if he needs one, he can just use the hammer he started out with, even if it's a bit ghetto. Along with the hammer, Ashnor also visits a stall selling armor and procures some hide boots and a hide harness to go under his jacket. after buying those 3 things, Ashnor decides to get himself a new, even bigger War Hammer from another stall that he had seen while looking around. Now, Ashnor was pretty low on the ole GP at that point and still wanted to be able to procure some food at the Inn while he talked with Solaria, so he left the god forsaken market, and returned to the Inn, where this had all started in the first place.