Totsu recoiled a bit at the sound that the stunt she just pulled could lead her into a hole she couldn't climb her way out of again, biting her lip and nodding her head timidly, "I... I understand" she said before packing away her quest item into her bag and started to head out, listening attentively to her travel companion.

"Well I don't know much about programming other than like simple stuff I've read on forums. I went to school for economics and business management..." She responded after his explanation before adding "Not like I had a choice" before sighing and looking up at the larger of their duo, "You're too hard on yourself, things will work out, they always do in some way. Maybe the cynicism is setting in with your gray hair" she smirked teasingly, making their way back to the tent that served as a sort of operations base, or at least that is where they had picked up the quests for far. She turned in the item to the facsimile of a bishop they had met earlier and with that got the message flashing on their screen that was familiar to her by now.







She looked down at her skill bar and saw her new skill grayed out, "Huh... Why is it grayed out... I can't use it?" she mused to herself out-loud before inspecting the skill, opening a dialogue window for it. <Requires Crystals> served as her explanation, being reminded of the last skill she acquired which generated something of that ilk. She looked up at Beardo and smiled a bit, "I'm sorry I can't really help you on the concept stage too much, maybe I can like... uh.. playtest? Play the part of the impartial bystander that isn't ingrained in the community and culture? The view of a new player as it were?" she offered before thinking, "I don't know how else I could help you, I don't think classes of economic theory that were drilled into me would be of much use..."

She pulled up the next quest on the line, helpfully marked [3], by the description looking like it took place on the practice grounds, accepting it before looking towards the exit of the tent, "Care to lead the way to the next objective while we talk?"

From the way she spoke, it didn’t appear as though Totsurugi was quite fond of her educational choices- or lack thereof. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the sort of thing one could resolve by bringing it up. What was done was done after all, but that wasn’t of much comfort for the remorseful, and asking why probably wouldn’t do much for either (though from Totsu’s previous mention of her family owning a company, I could somewhat guess what might have happened). It was probably better that I let go of that conversation, so I just left the silence alone until Totsurugi was done fetching the new quest.

“You can’t use your skill? Greyed out? Maybe it’s on cooldown, or maybe there’s some requirement you don’t meet for using it?” Totsurugi seemed to find her answer shortly after, and moved the topic back to my game. Her proposal brought back a grin to my face, and I went to pat her back. “Well, of course I’d love that! What are you even talking about “how else you could help me”, just being willing to do that much is already quite plenty! Having someone there willing to test drive it without making my wallet emptier than SelfTime. Hahahaha! Really though, are you really ok with doing that for me? Cause if you are… man, thank you so much!”

I went for a couple more backpats before giving her some rest from it. We would obviously have to figure out how to set it all up and all, but the picture of it was already forming in my mind… along with that typical dread of showcasing what you’ve come up with. It reminded me of school group projects back when I was young. I always thought of something I could propose, but just thinking of how it would get shut down and everyone would think poorly of me for it… Well, in the end they did anyway because they thought I didn’t contribute (and I never really responded back either), and ended up dropping their work on me too for “compensation”.

I was suddenly snapped out of my thoughts when Totsurugi declared it was time to move on to the next quest after fiddling with her menu for a bit.

“Oh, right, the next objective. Which one is it?” I tilted my head slightly in her direction.

“It says here it’s called…” Totsurugi looked at their menu again. “The Practice Grounds.”

“Ah, yes, that one. Man that guy’s insufferable. Don’t attack him outside what the quest asks though, or he’ll end up killing you. He is one of those NPCs that’s just way stronger than his level would suggest you know? And even if you did manage to kill him, he takes forever to respawn cause he isn’t supposed to be killed at all, and you can’t do the quest if he isn’t alive.”

With that warning spoken, we departed towards the training grounds. It wasn’t that long a “journey”, maybe five minutes walking, but even so that awkward silence was something that built up quickly. I had to say something, if nothing else than just to break that tension.

“So, uh, do you have any siblings Totsurugi?”

She didn’t respond immediately, instead made a fate guise of looking away thoughtfully, while ever so slightly biting her lower lip. I opted not to comment on it.

“Yeah, I’ve got a younger brother. I bet you’d love him. He always does what he’s told. My parents sure do.”

Crap. I probably hit a sore spot, her voice was a much harder pressed than usual. I looked ahead, we were pretty close but not quite there yet. I forced a chuckle.

“Well, I bet he’d just boss me around like the rest of the folks that were supposedly under me.” I gave Totsu a grin.

“Yeah. I still got dibs on bossing you around first though.” She rubbed an elbow on me teasingly. “Sorry if I got all moody, sometimes I just think they forget there is an older si-”

The sound of the next quest objective interrupted her, popping the message in front of her as we arrived at our destination.

Practice Grounds
-Enter the Training Grounds and listen to Laíg’s explanation 0/1

The training grounds. They had an admittedly different feel from the rest of town: Circular steps of stone descending onto a sand field around the size of a soccer field, with a wooden fence around it and some random objects in it. More wood formed pillars at the top of the stairs, holding up ruined banners at the top, and with iron rods closer to the ground, with baskets hanging from them. In the sand there was a looping animation of man repeatedly striking a set of training dummies with his refined silvery rapier, and occasionally doing some variation move like a spin or a jump before striking. He wore a polished onyx-black armor with some elaborate markings over it, in contrast with his windblown orange hair. While his neck and face were visibly thinner than the armor he was wearing would suggest, he still kept his fencing form rather perfect, and had a permanent smug smile stuck to him. As soon as we entered the training grounds,however, the looping animation would cease, and in a single imperceivable strike (read: a lot of flashy lights and little actual movement animated), took down all the dummies. Then the man would turn to us and his smile would drop after a scoff.

“I knew we were a little short handed, but this is what they send me?” As if emerging from the shadows, a small crowd of toy-merged-people in various shapes and sizes gathered on the stone steps of the training grounds. The messy hair dude looked through the crowd, then sighed. “Well, whatever. My name is Sir Laíg, and today you’ll have the honor of competing for the role of my official squire. I will test your mettle with three challenges to see if you are worthy.”

He raised three fingers as he spoke.

“You need only complete these trials with results that impress me. I doubt you can do that much though, so I’ll be generous and lower the bar to “coming close to impress me”. Fail to do so in a single trial and you are disqualified, even if that means none of you will get the position. When the trials are over, the remaining will have duels, PROPER duels, for the honor of becoming my squire. Now I shall move to explain the trials....”

He proceeded to sheathe his sword and search his bag for something, and took out what seemed like an unlit torch. He slowly walking to various points in the sand, and place a torch which was immediately replaced in his hand, but the one left on the ground lit with a different colored flame each time.

“A good squire ought to be able to act quickly, with grace and obediently. For your first trial, you will be given several patterns of colors, and you must go from one torch to the next in the specified order. If I say yellow red green, then you will go from the yellow torch, to the red torch to the green torch. If you fail to follow the order or stray too far from a straight line, you will fail the trial. Furthermore, this trial can only be completed while carrying one of the lances stashed back there.”

Next, he used some sort of spell to create a short hexagonal pillar of stone, about half his height. He then placed a perfectly spherical sapphire on top of it.

“For your second trial, you must demonstrate the manners adequate to a squire. I will ask you three questions. Should you fail to answer them properly you fail the trial as well. Success will allow you to reach the second part, in which you will touch this orb which will project an illusion inside your mind. Within that illusion, showcase the proper manners and you will pass the trial.”

Finally, he unsheathed his sword again and pointed it at the crowd.

“And third, my squire ought to be strong. Normally of course, a knight’s squire ought to be competent at swordsmanship at least, but given the circumstances I will offer even greater generosity this time and permit that anyone who can at least put me on my toes has the right to be my squire. Fear not, I recognize how impossible of a task this is, so I will be giving myself a handicap.”

Practice Grounds
-Enter the Training Grounds and listen to Laíg’s explanation 1/1
-Complete the Three Trials 0/1

---

@blueyellow

Beardo's words rang clear in Totsu's mind as the windbag went on and on with his spiel, the more drivel oozed out of his tongue-flaps the more she started to understand just how true his sentence was, and why he talked like he tried to kill him before. What arose even greater suspicion about his first trial is just how inanely simple it sounded, sure he sounded annoying but nothing that would bring one to bring up arms against him, maybe it was a running joke or something she missed.

It was time to get this over with, Totsu put her staff on her back and walked to the weapon rack before lofting one of the spears and taking it to a position in front of the torches, waiting for the command to start the first trial.

"Start!" the haughty knight commanded, soon after giving his commands. "Green! Red! Yellow!" the first set was easy enough, run to the first, then the second, then the third, nothing glamorous or even that much fun but probably needed to take the next quest on. "Red Green Yellow!" came the second one a bit faster, again rather easy and completely post-haste. "YellowRedGreen!" even faster still. Totsu again ran to the designated torches but by the look on Beardo's face she had only just begun.

"Yellow! Green!" a slow pace but only two this time, raising an eyebrow and running to the first two destinations, stopping at the yellow one before she heart a disdainful scoff coming from the asshole working to earn his certification in general cuntery. "Another brain-dead squire who can only follow orders and not think logically for themselves, typical. What will you do in a field of battle when communications with your commander is cut off? Sit on your ass an invite death? Get out of my sight and call someone worthwhile"





Looking back at Beardo with an incredulous expression, he just shrugged with a look upon his face which meant "Told you so" in every language known to man and beast. She just inhaled deeply and groaned, using her menu indicator to confirm the "Yes" button. There was a brief animation in front of her, akin to common visualizations of traveling through wormholes before she appeared back at the gate and much to her horror, there stood a man in Onyx armor, battling some training dummies until she approached just a foot before letting out his rather flashy attack and destroying it. He repeated his entire spiel, verbatim, the condescending tone, the three trials so seemingly simple but made Herculian by this glorified middle manager with standards set unreasonably high.

The raised the pillar again, he placed down the queer gem, put the torches into place... But for some mercy the order of the torches wasn't randomized so following them this time was even easier. "Yellow! Green!" The command came again, this time she managed to do it properly, running to the Yellow, then the Green and by the magic of inference and logical deduction, running to the Red next.

"YellowRedGreenRedGreenYellowGreenRedYellowRedGreen"

Totsurugi blinked a few times before starting to run, Yellow, Red, Green... ah Red and Green again. By some miracle or will of the gods she didn't make a single mistake during that part. She dropped the lance and groaned, "What a b-I suppose that is adequate" she was cut off, "Communications over great distance is not always possible, as such a squire should always be able to remember a long list of commands should they not be able to receive them once their mission starts".

The petite elf stood up again and shook her head, "Please tell me there is a like a save point or whatever in this..." she muttered before she heard a voice behind her "Don't worry, there is a checkpoint after each section... after enough protests from the players" her head snapped by at that with her eyes wide, Beardo just shrugged, "Didn't make it any better that he took so long to respawn after... I... uh. Well I am glad they fixed it for the new players"

"Good. You pass this section." Sir Laig commented before walking over before snapping his fingers, the light on each torch going on before they 'dissolved' and despawned. "Now, to pass this next step you will have to answer me my three questions. There is no one correct answer but you will be judged on your ability to respond reasonably" after the explanation he held up finger and his voice took a turn towards the dramatic

"What. Does it mean to be a knight"

Totsu blinked a a few times as she made it back to her feet after her short bout of rest and thought, chances are it was something dramatic and overly vague like one would read about in a cheesy novel, "Uh... To act with honor, duty and a sense of justice" she tried and hoped that the correct answer wasn't horribly specific one would need a series of logical jumps to understand. The man in front of her stayed silent for a few seconds before holding up a second finger; the look of relief plain to see on the elf-girl's face.

"What. Does it means to be a squire"

Since the first one had worked then it likely had something to do with anything similar to her last answer, trying her hand at a blind, vague jump once more, "To serve a knight faithfully to the best of one's ability" and to that question the third finger was raised, making Totsurugi question for a moment whether she had gotten lucky or if the answer was really just that easy, though the logic of how one could check for such an answer in the videogame flew right above her head.

"What." Laig stopped for dramatic effect for a few seconds, looking directly at Totsu, "Is the meaning of Justice"

This time she was stumped however, thinking it over for a moment but feeling compelled to answer, feeling like she was on a timer even though there was none visible. "To... uh..." she raced to form some sentence in her mind, "To set wrongs right and give victims a sense of closure" she pulled practically out of her ass. The time it took him to parse was likely not more than a few seconds but Totsu looked visibly uncomfortable doing it, not exactly relishing the thought of having to re-do this part of it with some new answers even though these questions barely made sense to her to begin with.

"Well at least maggots haven't rotted your brain already, you may pass to the next stage. Place your hand on the gem" Laig responded, stretching out his hand in a gesturing motion for her to come forward and complete the last task of the second portion.

Totsu looked behind herself towards Beardo, this one challenge was a completely black box as far as she was concerned, he didn't give much of a reaction to indicate it was something excessively hard so she strode towards the gem and closing her eyes as she placed her hand upon the gem, almost soon she felt her sense shift subtly, the smell hanging in the air changed from damp to one of lacquered wood and the aroma of food and the air went from slightly chilly to rather quite warm. She opened her eyes and gasped a bit, she was stood inside of a large and lavish room, dressed in a formal dress that reached down to her ankles, looking fit to attend a royal banquet by the looks of the room and her clothes.

"You have proven you won't embarrass me in the field, now demonstrate proper etiquette to not sully my honor in front of honored guests" a familiar voice came from her side; Sir Laig, dressed in his evening finest. He headed towards the door and opened it, standing by the side and motioning her to walk first. The next room away from the one they were in was was even larger still, with a long table filled with a myriad of foods. Plates, cutlery and glasses lined the table each next to a chair, it seemed like seating arrangements were a part of the plan too.

Totsu walked to the chair on the side, the one nearest to the end and pulled it back and waited there as Laig stood next to it, slow but heavy-set footfalls were heard as a rather fat man walked down the hall, dressed in whites, purples and gold accents, signifying his rank of royalty, followed by a servant who, too, pulled the chair out and allowed the regal gentleman to sit before pushing the chair in, followed by Laig sitting down and Totsu repeating the process the other servant had done, pushing Laig's chair in before taking a seat herself, first sitting on her dress before looking down and standing up half way and brushing the dress from under it so it didn't bundle up under her.

The two men started to talk, about something that Totsurugi honestly just zoned out on for a while before she heard the low voice of the man sitting at the end of the table say "What about you, squire. What is your opinion on Sir Laig?"

Totsu bit her teeth together and rolled her eyes before mouthing "not here too..." silently before inhaling and speaking up, "I think he's a Knight of great honor and a man admiration, it is a privilege to serve under him" to which the royal smiled and nodded, she was sure he said something next but it went in through one ear and out the other. From there it didn't take long for Totsu to open her eyes and inhale sharply, "User... Can we just please kill this little sh-The gem glows green, the enchantment is satisfied with your performance. Only one trial remains before you may be qualified by call yourself my squire."

Only twice? It seemed Totsu was a really fast learner, picking up on the patterns of the first trial so quickly, not to mention that running, her stats were pretty balanced so it was around the expected for the developers, but still, I think I might’ve clapped if I didn’t fear it would distract her. Part of me was a little anxious about when I’d get to show her my actual character (and what her reaction would be at the time), but at this rate it might not take nearly as long as I thought for her to reach enough of a level that I wouldn’t need to use Beardo. By the end of it, she seemed exasperated, so I walked up to her to give some words of comfort.

"Don't worry, there is a checkpoint after each section... after enough protests from the players" I shrugged. "Didn't make it any better that he took so long to respawn after... I... uh…."



“Huff, huff, huff…” I panted as I attempted to reach that last torch, until one hoot hit my leg and next thing I knew I spread on the floor with my face covered in dust and dirt which soon disappeared as if by magic (well, it was video game magic in a way). My character was supposed to be a runner, they had low agility precisely because their classes would stay in place a lot! I was even dressed in a black hoodie with pictographic flames that a guildmate had given to me for roleplay reasons (well, it was better than what I had previously anyway) and it really didn’t help me go any faster towards those torches! Who designed a system like this, so unfair, so annoying, weren’t games supposed to be for fun, weren’t-

“Slacking off, are you?” Are you kidding? This was my fourth time already you know? My head turned slowly, and glanced at the offuscating reflecting of the sunlight on onyx armor. He whipped my back with his rapier, then scoffed. “Another brain-dead squire who can only follow orders and not think logically for themselves, typical. What will you do in a field of battle when communications with your commander is cut off? Sit on your ass an invite death? Get out of my sight and call someone worthwhile."

“No...no…”

The screen appeared in front of me, asking if I wanted to repeat the quest.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

Since I didn’t properly reset the quest, it ended up taking even longer just to do that…

“Grrrr….” I clenched both my teeth and my fists, bent down over the steps of the training grounds. Ah, fine! I couldn’t take it anymore. They needed someone to be the guinea pig for that revenge plan, right? Well, here it was folks! I opened my friend’s list, and pressed Karz name. “Come. Let’s get this done and over with.”

(................)

As I finally managed to get out of that humiliating second trial, I witnessed as the orange-haired man drew his blade, and as his colors changed to indicate he had become an enemy now.

“For your final trial, you must prove yourself worthy of drawing a blade by my side. Or, well, at least try to do the bare minimum and keep up with me. I’ll be sure to give you myself an appropriate handicap.” When he smirked, so did I.

“Finally…finally I reached this point. You turned to enemy status. Which means… IT’S TIME EVERYONE!”

Players of every race and many of the classes lept out onto the training grounds, some already there before, others using skills or glitches to get in, and we all stroke at the self-professed knight together.

We should have probably realized it though: the jerk actually scaled with how many people were nearby...



“...Well I am glad they fixed it for the new players." So many losses that day… And sometimes people brought it up just to tease us. Even just thinking about it was reddening the tips of my cheeks a little. Fortunately for me, the knight interrupted us to insist on continuing the trials. I made sure to give Totsu a little push of encouragement and sent her on her way.

Honestly, I couldn’t help but just blink a couple of times at how quickly Totsu answered sir Laig’s questions. It was as if she read a cheater’s manual or something, coming up with that kind of answer right off the bat.

“She’s way better at this than I ever was, isn’t she?” I made a mental note to make double and triple sure to get her into our guild before any other managed to scoop her up. Then again, I would have to be subtle about it, after the incident with the jerks earlier today she might not feel so great about people trying to get her to join their guilds. Possibly even me. For now I’d just continue to keep an eye on her. Whether she became a guildmate or not, she was already a friend. Yes indeed!

I nodded to myself, then opened my menu, and selected an option that projected an image of Totsu’s ongoing trial after she touched the orb. Now that I looked at it, Totsurugi was a very well-made character aesthetically. Before with her robe and the way her hair dropped just a bit in front of her face but mostly straight on her back, it gave that really foresty-elven look, but now that her hair looked more well-cared for all straight, combined with a long dress so thin and delicate it waved from the breeze of the opening door.

“Are you kidding me, that looks so much comfier that it made me wear.” I growled again without thinking.


“There are just… so many layers… I’m sitting over.” The pillow, the dress, and the enormous amount of frills in between. Maybe it was because my avatar was younger, but this formal dress was really puffy everywhere. Well, I just had to be polite and eat dinner or something right? I reached out to grab a spoon for the soup and -

“How disgraceful! You mean you do not know even the proper order of silverware? Shoo you incompetent bafoon shoo!”



I waved at Totsurugi as she returned from the second trial, not feeling any less of a blush, or any less impressed at her performance than before. Honestly, it was over pretty quick for her, but she already looked pretty pissed. Not that I couldn’t very well picture why.

“Come on, don’t have such a grumpy face, you did spectacular out there! It’s like you’ve done this before or something.”

“Y-you saw that?” Totsu’s voice squeaked a bit. She was taken to an entirely different place, so she probably didn’t realize I could watch her. I shrugged.

“Yeah, there’s an option on the menu that lets you take a look at your party. It’s really useful for visualizing, though it does only work if they are close enough and in relative line of sight. If you’d like, I can show it to you after you’re done with your last trial. Speaking of which, I think it’s here.”

After seeming to gather himself (or load the last part of the trial data), the orange-hair knight slowly turned to Totsurugi and drew his blade at her, much like he once did with me:

“For your final trial, you must prove yourself worthy of drawing a blade by my side. Or, well, at least try to do the bare minimum and keep up with me. I’ll be sure to give you myself an appropriate handicap.” He smirked. Totsurugi looked at Sir Laig, then back at me.

“Now I have to fight him too? Seriously?” I grinned while giving her a thumbs up.

“Don’t worry, you can do this. Even if you ended up failing, it’s not like you wouldn’t be in good company. Go get ‘im Totsu!”

She nodded, and descended down the stairs, readying her staff against the knight’s neverending grin. It felt like the would-be-grains on the stairs were getting louder with every step my friend went down, seeming to glance around a lot. She took a short breath before the last one, and pointed her staff somewhere even as she was still going down. It wasn’t against the knight, however, but against the ground next to her.

“Essence absorb!” I heard what seemed like a squeak or a deflating balloon noise. Meanwhile the knight didn’t move an inch. Then, Totsu pointed at him instead. “Adaptive bolt!”

A bolt of grey energy shot out at the knight, who took it head on. His feet just slightly a little back.

“Hoh? Maybe there’s some bite to your kind after all. I shall be the judge of it in the end, of course. Dash Dance!” For a second, he seemed to run straight at Totsu, but then he suddenly turned a few degrees to the side and seemed to vanish, reappearing as he lept sideways behind Totsu and kicked her in the back, pushing her to the center of the ring. He then pointed his sword at the sky. “Heaven Joust!”

Several spiritual jousting lances with stripe patterns appeared above the training grounds, and rained down on the sand part near the center where Totsu had been kicked into. From there on out, Sir Laig would simply continue his unfair barrage of attacks. Dance Dash could move the opponent around, and interrupt long spellcasting without proper set up (though it had a cooldown some players had exploited before). Heaven Joust was an AOE strike he often used when he got his opponent on the center of the training grounds. Fight Properly! was an attack where he stabbed his sword into the ground, and it created quicksand that pulled escaping opponents back into the center. And finally there was the crosssilk spider name, and having to say it as an attack was the only reason to explain why he always spoke so fast: After all, it was an instant, melee, high damage attack with his sword. If he didn’t have so many ways to move you, it probably wouldn’t be so hard to dodge, but as it stood it was a real threat. Still, knowing his advantage was based on you being in the center could make a potential answer obvious. Especially if you also knew there was a barrier dealing damage for any who tried escaping the duel. Fear-effect spam had made the developers give this guy an immunity to it for a reason.

Until then though, he would simply continue to smuggly yell out stuff like “you require more training”, “please tell me these aren’t your serious skills” and “I am not even trying yet- how can you be so lowly?”.

Yeah, this guy was a real pain in the ass.

---

@blueyellow

Kick - Pull - Slash - Lunge. The problem wasn't the attacks so much but it was the order of which they came, initially they didn't seem to have any rhyme or reason towards them. It took a fair bit of time to realize that Totsu was getting pulled back to the middle every time and he seemed to fight better while he was in the middle. Though getting any time to charge up an attack while stood off to the side of the arena proved a rather frustrating challenge. The best she could manage was to whittle down his health and chug one of the health potions she got in a totally fair and just manner for full price.

It took her longer than anticipated considering her stellar performance in her last trials, her attention never holding for long and having to readjust herself to her surroundings which caused a lot of interrupted spells and moving around but finally. Finally the smarmy butthole lay defeated.

Laig, not deserving of the honor of being called Ser if you'd ask some, fell down to one knee finally, "Huzzah! A Worthy Squire!" he continued speaking but it all just went in one ear and out of the other. She slumped down onto the ground and leaned back, looking towards the sky. "I'll be on later today... I'm going to rest for a moment" she spoke up before bringing up her menu and pressing "Log Out", her character soon disappearing.

Lifting the gear off of his head, a young man lay there with messy hair that hadn't been trimmed in a while. Resting in an inclined bed wearing a blue buttoned up shirt, his bottom half under the covers. He blinked a few times and rubbed his eyes even though the lighting within the room was remarkably soft, groaning a bit before reaching for two things on his nightstand; a pair of glasses and a tablet that was charging. He slid his glasses on and opened his messenger app, tapping on "Usernames" before sending, "Sorry for logging off so abruptly. That guy was really getting on my nerves. Plus I have to be somewhere in twenty minutes, I'll likely be on after dinner"

Closing it before moving to another app, tapping the cover image of a book he had been reading, letting out a sigh as he started to relax for the moment he could afford. The serene silence was finally broken by a series of knocks at the door, "Enter" he spoke. A man somewhat older than him, late twenties maybe entered and smiled, "Good Afternoon Shun" the older man said as he closed the door behind him.

"Finally done with the 'Sir'?"

"Well you have stated your dislike for it. Even though i don't agree with you"

"See. It's not so hard." The bedridden boy smiled, "I jest. Thank you Jessy"

Jessy nodded his head, taking a wheelchair from the against the wall and pushing it up against the bed, engaging it's breaks, "How'd you like the Impulse? It was your first time yeah?"

"Yeah. A friend of mine is heavy into Dissonant Steel i think the name was. He was helping me through it" he responded with a nod, pulling the covers off her lower section, his pants matching this top, pajamas or the like most likely. He pushed himself with his hands a bit forward on the bed a bit before raising his hands in the other's direction, placing his hands on his shoulders as he was lifted up and placed down into the chair, grabbing his legs and lifting them to fit properly on the leg rest.

"Oh yeah? I don't think I've played that one. I've heard about it a bit though, it's like an MMO, yeah? Would you recommend it?" he asked after helping him in, unlatching the breaks and starting to push him out of the room.

Shun looked behind himself, raising an eyebrow "You have a system like this? Oh... and thanks for fitting it in here, I know how much trouble you had to go through. Otherwise, yeah, it's fine the few hours i played of it, some of the non-player characters i guess you could call them can be real annoying but. The game is fun so far"

"Oh, no not currently, it's a bit over my budget but, one can always save up yeah? And don't worry about it, your.... er... yeah, don't worry about it" he said, walking down the hall, various people making their way hither and thither, most dressed in long white coats or scrubs.

Shun blew out his nose in amusement, "Smooth Jessy. Real smooth" before shortly hearing behind himself, "Well maybe i should schedule you for a therapist judging by the disdain you hold every time i mention your father.. Shun looked behind himself and frowned, "That's not funny"

The pair arrived at an elevator, Jessy pushed the call button while waiting in front of the door, "I'm not joking. All I know of him is what he's put into the media and knowing people like him, people have a vested interest in speaking favorably. And yes, that includes myself".

"Scared of costing your job that donation are you" he blew out of his nose again, "It's whatever. What's for dinner?"

Jessy smiled and walked the pair into the elevator, pressing the button for the fourth floor, "And you're calling me smooth with a topic change like that huh? The kitchen is making Indian Curry and Tomato Soup as the alternative" The boy sitting in front of him nodded just slowly and kept silent for the rest of the journey, being pushed out of the elevator and into a large open room with shiny, waxed floors, mattresses strewn about, some pushed up against the wall, with various racks of sports equipment laying around.

"Remind me again why i have to do this. I never did well in P.E. and never felt like i should have" Shun said, taking the weights handed to him.

"Because your legs are built for getting you around, not your hands. You don't want to get dead tired after pushing your chair for five minutes do you? You're going to be using your hands for most things for the time being at least. You'd have to be independent sometime."

Shun sighed and nodded in acknowledgement to that, "Fair" he said slowly, starting the exercise routine as laid out.

---

A few hours passed without incident, dinner was finished and the day's obligations had passed. Shun was back in the bed, starting the machine again.

Blinking a few times and looking over their elfish form, taking a few steps forward and backwards, looking around, leaving the area now that the objective had been completed. Opening the messaging system before sending sending [Usernames] a message "I'm back until bedtime. I'll be around the area" before looking about, something catching their eye. Something that had somehow escaped their notice before; even here in this dead land there was still growth, the most hardy ones to be sure but still growth, mushrooms and fungal growth could be found on the ground or some buildings, moss creeping up the walls.

Totsurugi walked towards one of the walls, placing her hand on the moss and speaking [Probe]. She nodded her head twice before taking out her notebook and scribbling into it, "Deadlands = Necrotic and Poison effect. Local monsters likely immune given lack of blood for poison and lack of 'life' to turn necrotic" before closing it and setting out to test that hypothesis. [Absorb]. The moss beneath her palm fading away. It didn't take long to find one of the hunchback skeletons Beardo has so quickly cleaved down before before taking aim at one of them, chanting [Adaptive Bolt] and firing off a dark green bolt of energy, only for two numbers to pop up, one in the normal, plain text notifying the damage from the bolt, and a sickly green [Immune] confirming her suspicions. She flung off several more bolts until the skeleton fell down dead... or whatever the term was called when the dead re-died.

"That reminds me..." Totsu mumbled to herself, looking up her spell list and hovering over her new one, grayed out. She read the tooltip again before nodding and kneeling down when she got to a small patch of mushrooms, holding her hand over it before chanting [Parasite], a glint of light shone under it, the effect looking similar to that of her signature skill except instead of flowing into her hand, it all flowed towards a central point, the glint of light that started to grow steadily, once it had absorbed it's target all that was left was a near-translucent crystal. Gathering a few more she finally found another skeleton that was isolated enough before holding her staff in front of her and chanting [Nature's Reclamation]!

As she cast the skill she felt an alien feeling, at once feeling five separate and distinct examples of strength, yet somehow she understood it how powerful she wanted her spell to be based on how many crystals she was ready to consume. Mentally focusing on the first level, there was a short flash of light from her bag before roots started to grow from the wood of her staff, crawling up her hands, down her body and down her feet, rooting her in place as the roots spread in all directions, with the one Skeleton being the one living thing in range the roots found it and started to climb up it's form, rooting it's legs down to the ground before starting to syphon the magical life form out of it. What felt like an eternity to Totsurugi's mind was probably no more than ten seconds before the skeleton crumbled and a pulse of energy traveled across the root-like vines, back to Totsu and filling out a portion of her Temporary MP bar.

She continued on experimenting little by little, collecting various growth she could find, seeing what she could absorb and what not, jutting down in her book when something felt off and killing the occasion skeleton here and there, mostly just passing time until Beardo came back.

“Alright, we’ll talk later!” I waved Totsumi goodbye while grinning. It would have been nice if we could have just kept playing, but one can’t just do it on an empty stomach! Perhaps I should go grab a snack myself while I waited? They might still take a bit. I reached a hand out in front and opened the menu again. “Hmm… It’s a little early, but this seems like a good time to pick her up, now that I think about it. I’ll just have to pray I don’t get stuck in traffic or anything...Damn just saying it out loud is making me worry more. Should I send some preemptive apologies? No, that would just seem like I was trying to ditch her. Argh, this is hard! I’ll just do it!”

I pressed the button to log out as well. There was nothing but black in my vision for a moment as the machine disconnected from my brain and gradually my sensory input was my own body’s again. I blinked as I stared at the ceiling and its decaying paint job and that old lamp corked inside the bowl-shaped hole at the center. The rather neutral scent of my room was mixed with ashen one from the neighbours in the apartment above ours, and my lips felt dry due to how long I had been immersed in the game. Osmosis-based-nutrition might keep one alive, after all, but it sure didn’t signal to the body that you didn’t need to eat or drink, or rather not enough to correct little symptoms like dry lips.

I felt something ruffling my left arm, and groggily turned my head towards it, head still ‘attached’ to the pillow: I spotted a number of papers, from simple sheets to post-its, reading “remember!”, others with a time written on them. I blinked a little more, and looked around the room, spotting even more of those messages spread around or sticking to a wall, and I couldn’t help chuckling.

“I guess maybe I went too far.” I commented as I left the machine and slowly stood up proper again. “Heck, I even ended up being earl-”

Outside that room, I heard the sound of a key turning the door lock. I nearly stumbled and fell as I rushed out of the room, then nearly hit my foot on that small wooden table and ended up skipping a bit going around it, before making it out of the living and onto the corridor with the front door. My daughter was just over the threshold, one arm leaning on it while she adjusted her shoe. Her black sailor uniform was a little loose, partly due to being a little bigger than maybe it should, and partially because she just didn’t care to adjust it, unlike the dark brown hair she kept pulling back behind her ear, not far from the pony tail.



“H-hey… you’re a bit early.” I forced a little nervous smile.

“Uh?” Her greyish blue eyes glanced for a moment, then her attention returned to her shoe. “Oh, yeah.”

Silence fell between us. I wasn’t quite sure what to say, until she eventually graced me with another brief glance when she was done with her shoe, and sighed.

“I just didn’t have as many classes today.”

“Ah, is that so? They kind of seem to change every time..:” I let out a skittish chuckle while she closed the door behind her.

“Yeah, well, that’s how things are and all. School. Now, mind if I pass? Just walked all the way here, I’d like to get my things down at least.” She advanced towards me, so I just moved out of the way, pressing my back against the corridor wall while she passed under the doorless frame. if she walked all the way from school, it was normal for her to be tired and just want to get rid of the weight those school bags had to be, even if she never seemed to carry all of the books for the day. I found myself looking down at my feet. I guess picking her up would not be necessary after all. Honestly it was a little disappointing. There were days when she came home so much later, and then there were days like this. Well, at the very least, if she was already home we could have dinner together, no?

I headed over to her room and knocked on the door, then opened it ever so slightly, and slowly.

“Heeeey dear, what would you like for dinner?”

She fiddled with her phone a little more, alone in that dark except for the little creak escaping from the open door and the light of the device, before sighing again and looking at me.

“I’ll just heat something up.”

“W-well, I was hoping we could maybe have dinner together. It’s been a while, and-” I was interrupted by a phone ringing. It wasn’t hers.

“See? I’ll just heat something up.”

When she turned back to her phone I knew the conversation was over, and slowly closed the door, then picked up the phone. It was my boss, as expected. I better head to my room, it was best if she didn’t hear it even by accident. Plus, she was probably hungry. I didn’t want to make her wait too much before she could sneak out of her room to heat her dinner while I was on my phonecall.

“Hope you had a good day at school… Lily.” I whispered, before walking away from the door. I pressed the green button and brought the phone to my ear.

“Hello? Yes. Yes, I’m sorry. I’m very sorry Sir…”



By the time I re-logged into DSO, Totsurugi was already back inside. I hoped she hadn’t been waiting too long. Damn it, why the heck did I have to get a scolding over Josh being a lazy… No, no, forget about that. Besides, the scolding I could handle, but why did he have to sick extra work on me at that hour…

I shook my head. Relax, relax. Just get your head into the silver lining. You’ll be fine.

Hopefully.

“Oi Totsu!” I waved at her again, with a big bright grin on my face. “Sorry to keep you waiting! Woosh, I see you’ve been making a skeleton collection over here.”

---

@blueyellow

Totsu picked up a bone from a skeleton and looked towards Beardo, "Kinda weird how we see all of these weapons and things that the monster that obviously drops but the game doesn't let us use." and if by will, the bone disappeared from her hand with the rest of the corpse (if a skeleton dies does it make a corpse or a re-corpse? Anyways), "Yeah i was just testing my skills and what i can do in this game properly to fight, haven't had much of a chance to just do random stuff to figure it out, thought now was as good a time as any."

Beardo scratched his beard a bit and nodded, "Yeah, i can see why, programming it into the game would take a lot of effort, that same time could be used to make something more significant that adds more impact, like more quests or storylines or bug fixes." Totsu nodded her head slowly and walked closer to him, "Yeah, like do one big thing or twenty small things? That makes sense, i mean this is a videogame so it's whatever."

"Speaking of." Beardo went into his inventory and scrolled down on the panel, selecting an item and spawning it in his hand; a small-ish crystal, sparkling with electricity. "Here. Try this one."

Totsu received the crystal looking towards a nearby pack of skeletons, absorbing the crystal before charging up her attack and flinging a light purplish bolt towards one of the monsters, on impact it scattered and shot out a lightning bolt from the skeleton, chaining between nearby targets and stunning them for a few seconds, though not killing them so after the stun all of the monsters hit came running at once.

Beardo raised an eyebrow, seemingly expecting the crystal to kill the skeletons outright, he took a few steps in front of Totsu before lifting his axe"[/color] "[Monstrous Cleave]!" Beardo swung his axe in a wide horizontal arc, taking all of the monsters down in front of them once they reached the pair. "Sorry for that, i thought that would kill them... We might need to upgrade your gear, you're still wearing just what you started with, right?" to which Totsu nodded, answering in the affirmative, "We might take care of that back in the city when we get there, silly that these quests don't give you more gear, given the XP they give."

Totsu just smiled, "Thank you. Your gear like affects like all of the numbers associated right? I'm assuming that's how you get more health or defense or damage and all that, right?" seeing Beardo confirm she nodded back, "So, shall we continue on with the quests? I think that's.... Three out of five done? Two left?"

Beardo nodded slowly and pointed towards a direction, "I think so, the tent should be over there some place" Totsu nodded and started to walk back with him, leaning her head back and thinking while they slowly made their way over to the next quest. They made it back to the tent in relative silence.

"Tea Party District. Sounds like they had it good here before whatever happened took place" She grinned as she accepted the new quest, "There was also talk on some sort of magic spell, do you think it is something that I could learn?".

“Actually, I’ll waiting out here. There’s something I wanna quickly check on my menu. Is that ok?”

Testurugi left to get the quest without me, and as soon as she was out of sight, I opened the menu again, and scrolled through that friends list until I found the name I was looking for, (name). Wood armor seemed perfectly fitting for her class, so I figured a woodworker might just have the right tips.

Huh? What do you mean a new player? And you haven’t come introduce them yet?! I’m disappointed :P

Come on, I just didn’t want to get so much attention on her. Someone would tattle tale, plus you know annoying it can be.

True, but I still wanna! Why do you have to be so stingy even when you’re asking for a favor?

Is it really so difficult to just make some low-level wood armor? All I’m asking for.

But I can’t give her new clothes without measurements, you know?

It’s a game, of course you can!

Oh no! bzzzzt It seems we are getting intet-killjoy-fierence. I might bzzzt cut bzzzt off any moment.

I looked at that written message for a few moments, before sighing when I began to hear footsteps.

Fine. I’ll take her to meet you later. Gotta go now, it seems she’s coming now.

I’ll anxiously await! ;)

Totsurugi returned with a grin, having just gotten the new quest. She commented about this new spell, seemingly referring to the one from the quest. I didn’t even need to think about it before I shook my head. Sometimes it was easy to forget, but Totsurugi wasn’t used to these kinds of games yet, it was her first time in one.

“The spell? No way, no way. It’s just one of those spells the NPCs get for the plot, you know? It’s not like you’re gonna learn the Frost King’s [Eternal Blizzard] or [Wave of Undeath] that Kul-Kadam… ah crap, almost spoiled it. Well, the point is that it’s really not a thing for players, just for story. Even if it was for players, the odds that it would be fit for your class would be low at best, you know? Since these are quests everyone can do. You can still get equipment, gold and experience at least though. All of those things help you get stronger, not just the equipment. You were right when you said equipment improves your stats, but experience points help you level up! You can get new abilities and skills from leveling up. Even entirely new classes or races if you’re at the right levels for it and you’ve managed to unlock them. Even gold can be useful, as you could spend it getting better equipment or improving the one you already have, or you could spend it getting important items like potions or spell scrolls, or you could even use it for more.... ‘strategic’ purposes. Oh, and there are some guards that are actually programmed to take bribes if they are large enough. I even heard that the top guild even used that system to disable a lot of the guards, lowering the city’s defenses and allowing them to infiltrate the city despite being hostiles. It’s really an impressive thing, taking over an entire city like that! Did you know that- Ah, we’re here!”

It seemed we had arrived at what appeared to be a sewer hole cover with an NPC standing next to it. He was a crooked and very thin man, really skin and bones, but seemed to be practically wearing this puppet stage like a vest, with the red curtains covering his chest. Several different kinds of puppets hung from him, attached by strings to his eyebrows, nose, fingers and arms. The man’s boots were elongated and wooden, and ended in a pair of wheels each. He waved slightly at us when he saw us, barely lifting his arm and showing a mostly-toothed smile, before bending down and picking up the lid of the sewer entrance.

“Go inside, we took the liberty of painting some signs you can follow. It may be something of a risk, but I’m a foot in the coffin anyway, am I right? Then again if live’s a stage, then I suppose I might live for a long time! Hahahaha!” the man laughed rather laudly, all the while holding the sewer hole cover. “Well, enough wasting time. Go on, hurry! We can only last so long with the bishop lady occupied at the Tea Party District. We should have come up with a better chain of command...”

Following these words, the man regained his composure, and gestured more towards the sewer hole. Totsurugi leaned a bit over it, and quickly pulled back from the stench with a hand pressing on her nose.

“Uh… Beardo, do we really have to go in there? Do you not know a way around it perhaps? I’m fine with going the long way around when the quick path is...this.”

I shook my head in response.

“Unfortunately, there is no path other than this one. You follow the path in the sewers, and that leads to the ritual room for the memory spell. The room inside the sewers, and there are only a few entrances to the sewers, to my knowledge this is the closest one to the room though, since it’s the one you’re supposed to use for the quest.”

Totsu looked back into the sewer hole.

“If I really have no choice, I guess I have to do it. That’s how my life usually goes…”

I raised an eyebrow at the comment, but seeing her hesitating, putting a feet forward and immediately pulling it back again, I realized she needed a little push. Literally. With a grin, I advanced and gave her a strong pat on the back, causing her to nearly loose her balance, and to leap into the sewer by instinct.

“Hey!” She protested among my chuckles.

“Watch out now!” I leapt into the sewers behind her, some dirty water splashing around me as I landed. Fortunately at least there were no mobs right at the entrance of the sewer like in some poorly designed areas. Still, a few of them were already visible. I squinted my eyes, counting them by hand in the poor lighting.

“One, two, three, four...five. Sorry Totsu, those are too many to let you do it.” With a swift motion of my axe, I called out the skill’s name to send a wave of force from my axe towards those toy slimes (now made enormous [about child sized] and with various other kinds of toys “floating” inside them). They promptly burst open and dissolved on the ground. It was a little gross, but there was a worse part. “There’s a bug, you see, with these slimes. Sometimes if you kill them at melee range they’ll stick in your armor and weapon. I’m not talking about a little stain either, I mean the entirely slime will just become stuck frozen in you or your equipment. It doesn’t happen that often, but it’s a pretty big deal when it does. We’ll have to stick to ranged attacks as much as we can.”

---

@blueyellow

Totsurugi looked around after having landed in the sewer, spotting the slimes and taking out her staff to get ready for battle before being promptly stopped by her adventuring partner. Something about his tone didn't sit right with her, she gritted her teeth and looked forwards and back from Beardo to the slimes a few times before letting out a frustrated sigh at the explanation with a "Fine...". As they ventured forth with Beardo dispatching any gelatinous enemy with a ranged attacked, something didn't sit right with Totsu, she caught herself several times reaching her staff forth in preparations for casting a spell before retracting again and letting Beardo continue on.

The signs were more than a help; a godsend really, with the amount of turns, offshoots, dead-ends and and turns Totsu could see on their path with likely exponentially more had they followed any one of these paths they would have gotten lost within a minute of having steppe foot inside of this maze of mazes, a necessity to connect all of the various houses. "Hey.. um... what is that?" Totsu stopped and pointing down one of the hallways, a massive blob was moving through the passageways several feet away, going only a few centimeters per second but it looked much, much larger than anything they had encountered before, taking up the entirety of the hallway, "Oh. The Tsar Slime." Beardo replied, "He's a much higher level than anything else in this place, mostly just to force you to think out your path carefully if you aren't following the main quest line in here, he's slow and doesn't have any ranged attacks so he's not really a threat just, kinda makes you think before taking a path. He does drop some pretty good potion ingredients but the threat of the glitch keeps most players away from farming him anyways" He pointed towards the next guiding arrow, far from the large blob, "Thankfully he keeps away from the main quest path, we don't need to worry about him".

Totsu nodded slowly at the explanation and continued on behind her armored friend. Eventually they turned down one of the paths, only the single straight sewer leading from it. As the path continued there were some sounds that could be heard as an echo, clarifying into syllables as they got closer and then then faint aspects of a voice, sounding like someone was chanting. Totsu slowly inhaled and followed along, looking around nervously even despite being flanked by walls on both sides. "This whole places gives me the creeps, seriously" she muttered, mostly to herself. The forward path ended some distance away, a corner coming into view the closer they got, turning it, a large chamber came into view with what could only be assumed to be the Bishop standing there, chanting something over god knows what.

Totsu gasped and quickly took out her staff, the Bishop didn't react much other than just growing a broad smile as magic started to flood from it's body, the spell ready.

The bishop nodded her head at the request, beginning to drag her staff across the ground, following lines seemingly drawn in chalk that connected the various shelves and instruments in that basement room. The lines began to glow from where the staff had touched them, but it quickly spread even beyond where there was contact, until the full pattern, even right under Totsurugi’s and my feet. Then the screen flashed white, and it all went black for a few moments (while the game loaded the event).

---

@blueyellow