Open Eastern Brisshal Stars Crossed

[Pollux]

"Well... I suppose that'll do."

Dana stepped back from the body that she would soon inhabit in this game. Before her sat the slender figure of a girl, naked except for some plain black underthings. The girl's hair was immediately the most eye-catching part of her, it almost glowed with a brilliantly vibrant magenta hue.

"It's crazy that they let me turn those sliders up that high..."

What Dana was most surprised by was how much she could adjust the eyes. The irises were black but with a bright teal ring through their middle, and she changed the pupils to match the magenta/pink of the hair, as well as a cyan star in the center.

Dana had already decided the name of the character she would play: Pollux; one of the two stars of the Gemini constellation, Dana's birth sign. All that was left now was to push the "name" button. After that, there wasn't really any going back, TerraSphere was and is still an illegal game after all, but the way Dana's old roommate described it... it was just too tempting.

---

The next thing Dan- no, Pollux felt was cool water flowing and smooth pebbles between her toes. Opening her eyes, Pollux was suddenly blinded by the bright light of the sun. Startled, Pollux briefly lost her footing on the slippery stones beneath her feet and promptly wound up sitting - instead of standing - in the clear waters.

...

Pollux had expected that to have hurt more, the stones may have been smooth but they were still hard rocks. Instead, there was just a brief dull throb that soon disappeared. Shaking her head with a sigh, Pollux looked around at her new surroundings. She appeared to be on the banks of a fairly sizable river, flanked on both sides by forest.

Suddenly, text appeared before Pollux on her HUD:

WELCOME TO TERRASPHERE, [POLLUX]
Your Location: Blue Rapid River, Eastern Brisshal​

Pollux stood up from the river and moved to the side before she noticed something at her feet. She knelt down to inspect what appeared to be a strand of fine red silken thread. Now that she had figured out what it was, she could make out the thread leading off into the forest.

"Now where does this lead...?"

 

[Alonso Thorlion]

Regaining his sense of space turned out to be a much needed exercise. The past couple of jobs involving specific instructions to turn the damn power switch on and off to solve computer issues had been left on deaf ears. For almost twenty minutes each. They almost made him blank out from the sheer stupidity of the matter!

No, no, he played games to relax no matter how realistic. The Felis was certain thinking about his job was going to increase his blood pressure both here and in the real world. He reached a large hand up to his neck and craned his head side to side, hearing a few crack. Bare feet pressed into the ground and crunched up resting sticks, leaves, and other parts that had fallen from the surrounding trees. The man winced a couple times, but ignored the sensation. He was used to it all that time ago, and it was better gain that habit back.

Ears twitched as he heard the soft rushing of Blue Rapid. A good source of land marking if, for some reason, he ended up getting lost. "I really need to check if the UI came with a proper map," he said to himself. Head turned to look back from where he can, squinting to see his footprints in the dirt. Well, they were not all too visible, but it was a start whenever he needed to go back to the main path.

Veering his gaze back the man froze up and grew defensive as he notice a shape nearing his position. Civilian? Enemy? Unknown? Various parts were dangerous, the rather barbaric looking player crouching down and raising his fists up ... adjusting his sight to something more humanoid. Observing the strange figure more, it turned out there was no real hostility coming his direction. Alonso sighed, dropping his arms to his hands.

Walking closer he perked a brow. Was this woman before him ... looking at dirt? The large man cleared his throat and folded his arms. "Uuuh, you alright there? It's just dirt. And grass."

@Pollux

 

[Pollux]

Pollux had been focused on the string of red thread, wondering to herself where it came from and why she had spawned next to it. Was it mere coincidence? had she just happened to appear where someone's clothes had started to fray? maybe they were in trouble, should she try and follow it to see?

She didn't notice the large stranger's approach until they cleared their throat. The sudden loud sound shook Pollux from her focus and startled her, leaving her once again on the ground. At least this time it was less wet. Turning to the source of the noise, Pollux took in the sight of the large man before her. His large frame and height certainly made him quite imposing, but he didn't appear outwardly hostile in his words or demeanor.

"O-oh, me? I just spawned in a few minutes ago..."

Gesturing to where she had been kneeling a moment ago, Pollux continues.

"I was looking around and noticed that piece of red st-"

It was gone. Somehow in the mere seconds between her looking away then back, it had looked away and the whole thread had up and vanished. There wasn't even any evidence that I had been there in the first place, no rustled grass or loose fibers. Pollux looked frantically between the ground where the thread had been and the beastman standing before her."

"I-It just... W-Where did it go? I swear there was a red thread here on the ground, and it was leading off into the forest that way."

Pollux points toward the treeline before getting up from where she was st on the ground. She began to move toward the forest following the path of the thread as best she could remember until she reached the edge and stopped to lean against a tree and sigh.

"I promise you I'm not crazy."

@Alonso Thorlion

 

[Alonso Thorlion]

That was some timing. "Er, sorry. Didn't meant to spook ya," the large Felis replied. Listening to the stranger's explanation, he looked back towards the ground and towards the forest where she claimed a red thread was heading towards.

Alonso crouched down and touched the spot in particular where the thread supposedly was. "Well there isn't anything here." Maybe she just got too excited and saw something before becoming adjusted to the game's world? He assumed since was a player, since he doubted any natural resident of Terrasphere was going to use the term 'spawned in'. Or they did and Alonso was just ignorant.

Standing back up to his full height, he observed the stranger once more. There was no trick to this and she just seemed distraught. He sighed and continued, "You know, can't say you're lying right away or even telling the truth, but considering how little I know about this place in the long run I won't criticize your claim." Alonso's gaze moved about both the river and the forest, making sure nothing else was around. He did not want some weird monster to jump out and cause trouble.

It was also a terrifying prospect if a random mob grew so intelligent they started tricking players in a relatively calm zone.

The man veered his attention back to the stranger. "I'm Alonso by the way. Let's just say if that thread you saw was the real thing it might not have been the best thing to follow by yourself."

@Pollux

 

[Pollux]

As the large beast man spoke Pollux peered into the trees, trying to catch another glimpse of whatever it had been that she thought she saw. Had she just seen some sort of visual artifact the game hadn't intended to create? No, it couldn't be that. It wasn't that she didn't think a game of this complexity could have bugs, but she had felt that string in her hands when she held it.

Turning back to the beast man who had just introduced himself, Pollux replied in turn.

"You can call me Pollux, like the star. You sound like you speak from experience, have you had encounters with similar red strings?"

This game had a menu right? Although she hadn't played this specific game before, Dana wasn't exactly a newbie when it came to VR games. Typically what they had you do was close and open your hand and...There it was! A number of options appeared to emit from Pollux's hand, the first of which being Status.

Opening the status menu, Pollux could see all the info she could need about her current condition. It looked like she had taken a single point of damage at this point, probably from when she fell on her ass in the river. That would probably heal naturally soon.

 

[Alonso Thorlion]

Rolling his eyes, the man responded, "The only red strings I've dealt with are the ones from old shirts. But if it's not ripped apart I don't find a need to go out and buy more despite some people naggin' at me." It was more of a side comment by his tone than anything.

Gazing back at Pollux, he observed the usual hand motions for opening the menu. Ah. That confirmed she was a player judging by how she was looking. Any words that came out of the man's mouth related to the game aspect might not be met with utter confusion. "How uh, actually, you new around here? As in fresh off the creation menu new? Don't want to make too many assumptions, but I have to be sure since there's an influx of both older and new players," he said. An unfortunate amount at that, but Alonso was one of them. By now he had zero right to act innocent.

Shaking his head the man cleared his throat. "Regardless, I can lead you back to the main path if you're lost. Might be easier to get your thoughts straight at a safe town rather than out here," he added. Having nothing better to do, he figured getting Pollux somewhere without potential attackers was a good idea. The safer the better, even if it was never a full guarantee seeing as how attitudes and relationships changed within the game world.

With that, he made a mental note to check on a merchant from four years ago that had some nice bread. Unfortunately they were likely not going to be around here. Damnit. He got distracted again. "Just be prepared for a walk since ... that's really how to get around for the most part."

@Pollux

 

[Pollux]

"Uh yes, extremely new, as in just a few moments ago. Not exactly new to VR games though, and I have certainly heard of this game before, given its reputation."

Pollux continued to read her status menu until she reached a section entitled "Traits". In plain text was the term "Fate Thread", and underneath was described pretty much what Pollux had seen earlier, a red thread leading to some place of significance. It also stated that the thread didn't tend to stay around for long, which seemed accurate to her experience.

Speaking to herself "Huh, well that explains that then."

Pollux brought her attention back to Alonso, realizing he had asked her a question.

"You want to take me to town? Oh actually that would be great, thank you. As you can imagine I have no idea where I am right now. Wouldnt want to get mauled by a bear right off the bat, right?"

Surely if Pollux had followed the river she would have found some sort of crossing with the main path eventually, but as it stood now she didn't know how to fend off any sort of attackers. Traveling with Alonso -at least for a little bit- would help.

"So traveling by in real-time is the only way to get around? That seems inconvenient, surely there's some sort of fast travel system in this game, right?"

@Alonso Thorlion

 

[Alonso Thorlion]

Despite the unwillingness to talk about Terrasphere's reputation, it was bound to come up in conversation at some point. At least Pollux had some form of awareness regarding VR games, especially one with an air of intense danger. If anything the luck factor of meeting a veteran right away, and one with an actual moral compass, only served as a boon. Granted, Alonso was not sure if that made him more of a bodyguard, but the notion was swiftly cast away from his mind.

"I don't think you want to get mauled by anything right off the bat. If you don't know what you're doing in this game it's a lot easier to get killed even by lower level mobs," he replied. Motioning his head to follow, the man cleared his throat, "Let's get going. We'll talk as we go."

Turning on his foot, he began to head off. Assuming Pollux did follow, he continued, "Fast travel? Do you know how many players will kill for that kind of feature? Of all the things that exist here, that's not one of them, and yes even as a veteran it pisses me off to no end sometimes. I got things to do and it's a pain wasting most of my log in time walking." Shaking his head the giant Felis got his thoughts together. His rant might just scare his companion off.

People had a different levels of sensitivity in conversation, and with how many individuals there are he did not want to make a rash decision in his tone.

Right, he should at least give more of a rundown. "Anyways, if you take a look at your settings one of the things to worry about is the pain limiter. Not in the sense it makes you take less damage, but more actually feeling it. The other is if your combat is on auto-assist, and want to play freely. It helps if you're new though."

@Pollux