Private Eastern Brisshal Seeking Help: Little Pay

[Selene]

Hammering nails through a piece of paper and into a wooden board with the hilt of her sword wasn't exactly how Selene had been expecting to spend her free time, but well, here she was, doing exactly that. With a rolled up stack of posters in one hand a distinct feeling of regret for having forgotten to purchase a hammer, she was left with little more to do but use the hilt of her blade as a mallet, whacking away at the nail over and over again. It probably wasn't even the correct nail to use, or the correct kind of board to be hanging up posters or advertisements on, but really, Selene hadn't even really stopped to have even a single thought before she'd gone through with this. There was no price that wasn't worth paying to get stronger safely. Except money. She'd spent all of that having the posters made and buying the nails.

Wiping her brow, she grinned at the sight of the poster hanging from the sign board, bearing on it the print that she'd paid good money for from that damn conniving, greedy shopkeeper who had insisted that it was far harder to produce things like that than a 'Traveler' would know. Of course, she'd figured that was the case, considering she had no clue how stuff like ink or paper was prepared in an age before machines had been made that were capable of refining these things for people. Still, she had her posters and now, all that was left to do was to run around and put a few dozen more up.

By the end of the day, the entire area would be so plastered with Selene's posters, that they'd be impossible to miss. Any passerby would easily see them, easily read the words printed onto them.

---

Attention Travelers


Selene graciously requests any magic specialists for assistance in learning how the hell to guard against magic and stuff!

Looking for any magic user to fire spells at or around me! Users must be capable enough to pull their punches, or at least know how to aim away from a pretty lady! Murderers need not apply!

To accept this quest, look for the pink haired Elf with the short skirt and big boobs!

Rewards to be negotiated! More likely to consider non-monetary means of reward!​

 

[Akiva]

The posters were absolutely everywhere.

The first few were easy enough to ignore. Akiva blew past them without a second glance, eyes on his prize. After trekking all day through the forest, he was hungry and on a mission. There was this food stand he'd eaten at the other day that was incredible — had the best damn skewers in town — but he'd forgotten both the name and the location. And he had a hankering.

But as the flyers multiplied and spread like rabbits, he couldn't help but look. At first glance, only the two large words stood out — Attention Travelers. Ok, so just a boring attempt to grab his attention (couldn't they have started with a joke or something? Make it interesting, come on.)

With his food stand dreams slowly dissolving like cotton candy in water — maybe it was in the next town over? — he gave up. It was too much of a hassle to log out and google it, and maybe he could have used the in-game map (there probably was one, but he wasn't quite sure) but it was more fun playing the game without one.

With a loud groan, he ripped a flyer off the wall to use as a distraction from his hunger. Skimming the paper — something something blah blah magic — bright green eyes landed on the word reward. Reward! Non-monetary? Food! Food, counted right? A grin spread across his face (free food was the best food!), and a new search began.

The pink lady with big boobs was somehow much easier to find than a stationary skewer food cart. "Hey," he called out. One hand cupped his mouth to sound louder, the other held the paper up high. Akiva waved it to catch her attention. "This yours?"

@Selene

 

[Tristaria]

Tristaria often frequented Eastern Brisshal to recharge by the power stones. They were a nice, convenient source of powerful magic that boosted her energy faster than most other options, and felt a whole lot comfier as a result. As she landed, however, something was different about the clearing: namely, the wall of posters she couldn‘t miss if she tried.

What on Terrasphere are all these…?

She wandered off to the nearest one, as her summon, a very similar-looking magia girl, suddenly winked into existence beside her.

Hey Summoner Tristaria! What’re we doing in this forest ag—

—Are you going to ask every time?

Maaaybe~ Oo, what’s this!?

The two gathered around the poster. It seemed like a simple request to help train magic, but the last few parts were the most questionable…

Hey Summoner Tristaria… what kind of "non-monetary" rewards do you think she’s offering?

Isn’t it obvious? Why do you think she mentions her physical features like that?

Oooohhhh! I see!

Tristaria didn’t look the slightest bit interested (which, to be fair, was just her normal face), and returned to charging up by the rock. Meanwhile, her summon patrolled the clearing by wandering in circles, looking out for potential threats. Before long, however, a voice called out from farther up the path, and Una was quick to investigate.

Summoner Tristaria, look! It’s the prostitute from the poster! She’s with a hot guy who looks hungry!

Tris didn’t feel shame quite as strongly as most people (including her real-world self), but this was just too much. Raising her hand to her head, she rubbed it down the side of her face in disbelief, before leaving the clearing to join the two in apology. She smacked her loudmouth summon on the side of the head.

Sorry about her. If it’s okay with you two, let’s pretend that didn’t just happen.

@Selene @Akiva

 

[Selene]

Selene's eyes lit up as she heard the sound of a voice, a male voice, loud and confident, call out. She was assuming the call was for her and, of course, a look revealed that he was holding one of her posters! A grin crept across her face as she suppressed the urge to pump her fist. She'd just KNOWN that getting so many of those things would pay off! There'd been no chance that anybody could have missed them! This was perfect, a brilliant opportunity to get some work done on her skills and maybe get better at this whole 'stealing spells' thing that Guard Arts could supposedly do.

"Ha! Yeah, that's mine! Good to see that somebody finally saw one of those things! I spent a long time putting them up, but I wasn't sure if anybody would see them..." She kicked at the floor, pretending to be bashful and uncertain, as if she hadn't put up so many of the paper menaces that it would've been impossible to miss them. It was easy to play coy and unsure though, just to see if it threw the guy off course, maybe made him a bit more likely to take pity and not ask for too high of a price.

And that was when another voice caught her attention, this one spouting words that, if she were honest, did not fill Selene with happiness or excitement at all. Instead, her head seemed to practically snap in the direction that the voice had come from, seeing two practically identical white-haired girls, one of whom seemed to have her face in her hand.

"I'm sorry, what did your twin there just call me?" She cocked her head to one side, a strangely pleasant smile on her face that definitely clashed with the angry, nigh-murderous aura that seemed to emanate off of her, at least for the moment it was there before it vanished, leaving her with just a smile. "Well, I can't say the name isn't deserved, though for the record I'm not like that and THAT kind of reward is strictly off the table, so if you're here for that I'm sorry."

Though, actually, that did raise a good point. She laced her fingers together behind her back, regarding the two responders to her message. "So, anyway, I'm Selene as you may have guessed. I'm looking to learn how to guard against magic with Guard Arts, since I saw it could do stuff like stealing spells." She rocked back and forth on her heels, shooting them both a lazy grin.

"You two are magic users, right?"

@Akiva @Tristaria

 

[Akiva]

He chuckled and waved the flyer in the air again, the paper crinkling loudly from the force. It was supposed to be a reassuring gesture, but probably just came off as exaggerated excitement. "Oh! Don't worry — there were so many that even though I, uh, maaaaybe did ignore the first few that I eventually got curious and read one."

The smile on his lips widens for a split second before they duck down again. "You know, if you maybe used, like, something more—"

He was interrupted as a new white-haired person spoke up. His mouth unhinges and slowly hangs open.

Oh god.

He quickly read through the wanted ad again. Non-monetary. Big boobs.

Oh god. How had he not made the connection earlier?

"Uh—" He started, holding up a finger and shaking his head. "I—"

Thankfully, Selene, said-person-who-put-up-the-fliers, jutted in, as the twin to the girl rounded the corner to apologize.

He clapped his hands together, making a prayer gesture, and aimed it at Selene. Making eye contact, he blinked at her with wide eyes.

"Thank you. Thank you. I did not—" Akiva cleared his throat. "—that is not in any way what I want as a reward, I hope you know, Selene. I come with sparkling clean intentions."

He took a deep breath through his mouth and puffed out his cheeks to release it. "Okay, so, I'm Akiva. And yup, wouldn't have taken the job if I didn't know a bit of magic. Here, I'll show ya."

He extended an arm, the body of the blue-inked dragon visible. The head of the dragon peels off his shoulder and yawns, long whiskers trembling, the ends still attached to his skin. With a white dissipating glow that slowly descends down its body, it turns 3D, a translucent teal with dark mahogany spines. It slithers out a few feet, shakes like a dog, and turns its blood-red eyes at Selene.

"Cool, huh?" Akiva said, tilting his head towards the dragon. "He doesn't go too far away from me yet, but it's a start."

With a shake of his arm, the dragon disappeared, materializing back on his body as if it had never moved. Akiva smiled again and pointed to his own chest with a thumb. "But you were saying something about Guard Arts? I've got Guard Arts too!"

He turned towards the other girl, addressing her. "You hungry?"

Without waiting for an answer, he looks at Selene again. "Can we get our reward first? Eat and maybe talk about that a little bit? Pleeeease?"

He did a very convincing puppy eyes.

@Selene @Tristaria
Sorry for all the dialogue. Akiva is super talkative. Please let me know if you want me to change anything!

 

[Tristaria]

Tristaria felt a certain dread as the elf girl from the poster "smiled" at her. She gulped.

No, we absolutely are NOT here for that!

Tris smacked her summon over the head once again for good measure.

Ouch! Summoner Tristaria, she called us twins~! Isn't that fun!?

Ignoring the comment, Tris slowly put her hand over her summon's mouth to allow the others to speak uninterrupted for a while. More than speak, the tattooed man showed off a really cool ability, leaving Tris (and Una) in quiet awe as she tried imagining what masteries he used to pull that off.

Oh. He really was hungry.

Well, I'm Tristaria, and this here is my summon, Una. I probably should've boosted her intelligence a bit more, but she's pretty capable otherwise.

Nice to meet you, Selene and Akiva! Twin Tristaria is also very happy to meet you, she just doesn't show it!

Tris did indeed look disinterested in the introductions. In everything. She raised two fingers and fired a weak lightning bolt up at a tree branch, which snapped off and fell to the ground behind her.

I just shock things, usually, but you can practice guarding against it if you want.

Most likely, Tris wouldn't have even offered, if not as a subtle apology for the awkward moment Una had caused. Honestly, Una was taller than she was, and yet had the social awareness of a 7-year-old!

Food would be fine as payment. You can just buy me a bag of cheap animal feed. It all tastes the same anyway.

@Selene @Akiva

 

[Selene]

Wait, somebody had actually been ignoring her posters? Had everybody been ignoring her posters aside from these two? Had she screwed up somewhere in the design process? It had sounded like the guy was about to give her some kind of advice about that, at least before the white haired girl and her summoned twin had showed up and called her a prostitute, which had a bit of a tendency to derail things. Especially when it caused the guy to start praying at her, or something? What the hell was going on with that? Maybe he was super religious in reality or something?

Still, he showed off some kind of awesome tattoo animation ability that had Selene staring in awe, watching the 3D dragon as it returned to his body, before clapping in appreciation. It was always good to applaud a show, after all. It'd probably be pretty decent for defending against, even if it wasn't the most direct means of spellcasting that there was. "That's pretty cool, Akiva! How are you doing that? Are you a summoner too?" Had she somehow attracted multiple summoners at once or something? Was that like, a special ability she had or something?

And then the girl shot lightning at a tree, snapping a branch off of it. Selene gave an applause for that too, nodding, satisfied at the interest she'd managed to drum up. "Both seem like they'd be good for helping me guard against magic. I especially wanna see if I can figure out this spell-stealing thing." And with their help, well, she just might actually manage to succeed. It sure as hell wasn't the kind of skill that could just be used without practice, but she really did want to make it a staple of her fighting style. Nobody would see it coming. Nobody ever saw her Guard Arts coming, considering that she dressed light, wore no armor and didn't carry a shield.

The suggestion of food for payment was, admittedly, probably going to be a little costly, but hopefully one meal would be enough to buy a session or two of practice. Especially if Tristaria was going to be so cheap to buy, though hopefully Akiva wouldn't offset that by eating like an anime character or something.

God she hoped not...

"Sure, I can get you some food as a payment for your services, if that's what the two of you want?" Though, Tristaria wanting animal feed was odd. Even if she couldn't taste in the real world, it should have been fine in this game, at least as far as she knew. Still, Selene pumped her fist. "Since I'm new here and didn't really look around whilst setting up all my posters, is there anywhere you'd recommend? I'll follow you, so just lead the way!" He did seem to have something in mind, after all.

@Akiva @Tristaria

 

[Akiva]

The difference between there and here always startled him. The way people behaved, that they could act in ways that Natalie would think were strange in real life, but nobody here would bat an eye.

(Of course, it allowed him to be him too, so he wasn't complaining.)

Sometimes he had to stop and re-gather himself, to remember where he was — who he was.

"It's a spirit, actually, I think." Akiva explained. He looked down at his hand and the tail of the dragon twitched on his palm. "I'm honestly not, like, a hundred percent sure about any of the mechanics because there weren't any tutorials and I only, like, skimmed the guides online."

He chuckled. His hand lifted to rest on the back of his neck, feeling a bit silly as he said his next words, "Thought it would be more fun to fumble around, you know. Learn the ropes the real way."

Akiva joined in on the clapping as Tristaria used lightning to shoot a branch of a tree. He picked up the now fallen branch and spun it between the fingers, in awe of the char marks on the end (and the smell, half ozone, half campfire — this game was so good).

The easy agreement for food made him grin again, the upward turn of his lips plastered there for the rest of the night. "Great, awesome," he said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. He paused for a few moments to consider. "Alright, alright, I know just the place."

"We'll get you something better than animal feed. I'll show you the delicious world of food," he continued as he took the lead of the three of them, herding them towards a restaurant, all but forgetting the skewers he'd been hankering for just moments ago.

"Pizza!" he shouts as he opens the door with a grandiose sweep of his arms. It's bustling inside, but Akiva manages to find enough space to fit the four of them at the bar. "I highly recommend the marg and mushroom. The slices are hu-uuuuge, so just get one or two. Skip the, uh, one with pineapple — it don't belong on pizza."

@Tristaria @Selene

 

[Tristaria]

Tris wasn’t expecting the applause, but she was happy enough to receive it. At least happy in her way of showing it, which was to say: not at all. Her summon on the other hand…

Thank you, thank you~! And just wait! That’s only the beginning of what Summoner Tristaria can do!

Must you always be embarrassing…?

It seemed to be a deal: food for practice sessions. Calling them lessons might’ve been a bit questionable since Tris hadn’t the slightest clue how spell-stealing worked. She was more like the fantasy equivalent of a batting machine. Well, it was a pretty easy way to acquire free food, so why not.

Erm…

---

Tris took her seat at the bar and glanced over the menu. All the options were… more expensive than animal feed. Shockingly.

I’ll have whatever provides the most beneficial hunger replenishment per cost ratio.

Una had been dismissed a while ago to save on energy, leaving only Tris and her painful lack of enthusiasm for everything to keep the two company. For as unenthusiastic as she was, however, she was especially unenthusiastic about food.

Really, it might be best just to buy me a bag of feed from one of the farmers. Magia don’t taste food either way. I'll just pretend it's a pizza.

@Selene @Akiva

 

[Selene]

"Wait, that's Spirit magic? That's so cool! I can't do anything like that with my Spirit Magic, so you must be pretty skilled with it. And you're not alone, I didn't even know there were guides online so I've been running blind this whole time." Of course, it would probably help if Selene wasn't so determined to use spirits as little more than energy and ammunition for the other things that she wanted to do, but she'd already long since decided on her fighting style, even to the detriment of having no idea what other skills or masteries she should pick up in the future to attempt to expand upon it. Those were problems for future Selene though. Instead, for now, it seemed like it was time to follow the male.

She hadn't expected to follow him to a restaurant that apparently served pizza, she learned as she sat down at the bar with Akiva and Tristaria. It was probably a good place, if she was taking into account how busy it was. Crappy restaurants rarely were this crammed full of customers, so they'd been fortunate to manage to nab enough seats for themselves, with Akiva making his recommendations. Seemed he was the type to be against pineapple on pizza. It kind've made her want to get pineapple just to see what his reaction would be.

Tristaria's reaction, however, did suddenly put a lot of what she'd said into perspective.

"Ah, is that a racial thing, then? Magia are like, the magical android race, if I remember correctly. I thought of picking that but figured my avatar looked better with just the pointy elven ears." Her eyes flicked through the menu, picking out a few options that stood out to her, mentally weeping as she thought of the coin she'd managed to save up. What little she had left after spending so much on posters, anyway. "If you're sure you're okay with that, then I can get you a feed bag." Still, it sounded kind've sad to be locked out of experiencing taste due to a race selection. She wondered what benefits Magia got as compensation?

"So, on the topic of my request, I figure it's quite a simple job to fulfil. I really just need you to stand around and sling offensive spells at or around me." She paused, a finger on her chin. "Actually, I think casting any spell at all would be fine, so it can be buffs or debuffs too. I'm just trying to get better at spell stealing, since I want to make it a pillar of my fighting style."

A man approached to take their orders and Selene put in an order for their smallest slice of margerita pizza, turning to look at Akiva to see what he'd get, subtly glancing down at the menu to check the price of whatever he happened to order.

@Akiva @Tristaria

 

[Akiva]

It was hard to hear the other two over the din of the restaurant, and he was silently glad that Una had been dismissed to give them a little more space. Akiva hunched to be more eye level with his two shorter companions, as he listened to the conversation.

"You can't taste anything?" he asked nonplussed. Akiva made a face. Here, you could eat anything and not gain weight, and while pixel food cost gold, it was easy enough to earn by beating up a couple of monsters for like half an hour. "Dude, that's a dealbreaker for me. I live to eat."

The only reason he was broke? Food. And lots of it.

He leaned over towards the barkeep, signaling. Soon enough, a middle-aged elf was looking at him politely. "I'll have the marg, the mushroom, and the pizza du jour."

He wiggled his torso, almost drooling at the prospect of food. "I chose human because I didn't, like, want to read the stuff for the other races — just wanted to jump into the game — but I almost went with beastfolk." He gave the two a lopsided grin. "Think I'd look good with a pair of cat ears?"

He wiggled his very human ears and laughed at his own joke. "Do beastfolk have two pairs of ears? An animal set and a human set?"

He listened to Selene describe the request. That many posters for something this easy? He tapped the table with a fingernail. "That's so cool — the spell stealing thing. What're you gonna do with the spells? Like, fling them back at their owner?"

He grinned and tapped his bare shoulder. "It'd be kinda fun to get a taste of Mr. Dragon here myself."

@Selene @Tristaria

 

[Tristaria]

Tris stared unblinking at Selene as she questioned her about the race she’d chosen. In fact, if one thought about, Tris never blinked, or at least not that anyone had seen yet. Unnerving.

Yes to all of that.

There was something about calling it a ‘feed bag’ that was kinda disturbing and… well… maybe the term dehumanizing was kinda appropriate for obvious reasons. Still, it invoked imaginary images of people with food muzzles stuffed to their faces. Not exactly a flattering picture.

Not to offend or anything, but I’d rather have quantity over quality if it’s all the same… and for me, it is.

There was something horribly awkward about sitting in a restaurant and not ordering food though, and she felt it most clearly as the barkeeper took a look at her, expecting something. She just shook her head and focused on the conversation, figuring he could take the hint.

Cat ears…? You might actually. Maybe. Anyway, I’ve found some do have both and others don’t. It depends.

The conversation turned toward the main task at hand. Tris nodded. Right to business. Holding out her hand, she conjured a small gust of wind blowing up toward Selene’s face and shiftung her hair around a bit. It actually felt kind of nice in the stuffy, crowded environment.

I see no need to wait. See if you can interrupt the spell while we wait for the food.

Hopefully one could do that without moving around a bunch.

@Selene @Akiva

 

[Selene]

Well, that had been informative. Selene felt her eyes narrowing, looking at Tristaria. The android really didn't have a whole lot to say, did she? That was fine, though, because Akiva was super talkative and could probably do enough talking for the both of them, if the pink haired elf was being honest. Not that she would let him, she could be plenty talkative herself when she wanted to be, after all. And of course, the fact that he lived to eat suddenly made a lot of sense, considering what he'd wanted fo receive for his reward for even bothering with all of this.

Though she couldn't help but sink into her seat as Akiva ordered, mentally grieving her coin purse as it slowly died. Maybe she could seduce the owner of the restaurant for a discount or something? Though that really would only work when she was here alone. She turned her eyes to Akiva, sighing. It was fine. It was her own fault anyway for spending so much on posters.

"Eh, maybe a five out of ten for the whole cat ears thing. I think a different kind of beastfolk would suit you better, like a fox or a wolf or maybe like, a lizard. A lizard would be super fitting since you have the whole spirit dragon thing going on." And it would be more thematic than anything she'd selected, though she hadn't really put too much thought into her choices. She'd thought that a common skill like Slashing Weapons would be super easy to level up, but it seemed like all masteries grew at the same rate.

Turning to Akiva at his question, she shook her head. "Not quite so directly, no. I also have Spirit Magic, so I plan to steal spells and bind those spells to spirits and use them kind of like storage. Then I think I'll probably apply those spells to my sword, myself or an ally." Really, she wanted to be able to set her sword on fire without needing to be a Pyromancer herself.

And then Guard Arts warned her that a spell was being cast in her direction, turning to face Tristaria just in time to receive a facefull of soft breeze, making her blink. Why had Guard Arts even bothered to warn her? Still, she scrambled to pull her blade out of its sheath, placing the blade flat against the bar, before she gripped the sheath and focused. The wind began to curve, being sucked into the sheath, rather than directly at Selene.

It took, embarrassingly, a lot longer than she'd thought it would.

"Well, this is why I need practice. If that was a lightning bolt, it'd have hit me before I could steal it."

@Akiva @Tristaria