Complete Private Eastern Brisshal Two Weeks After Helping Save the World From a Giant Bug Boosted on Demon Juice Several People's Imouto Finally Logs in to Terrasphere Again

[Celestine]

"O-oh…" Celestine blinked a few time, realizing after the correction what Aroda had actually wanted from her. She looked visibly disappointed. No one ever asked about her backstory, and it seemed that trend would have to continue for now. Maybe someday though…

She smiled at Azzy’s little joke. It wasn’t enough to chuckle, but at least it lightened her mood somewhat. Even so… "Wait, you cannot do a smell either? Can you at least do the hear?” In hindsight, that was a pretty dumb question, and that fact hit Cel almost immediately after it left her mouth. "Uhm… well, never mind."

Picking up the fresh breads that were placed on the counter, Cel stepped forward to hand each girl her order, then started tearing into her own sausage roll. "Oh, Aroda! If you cannot do a taste normally, let me do a thing the try…"

She pointed one finger toward her sausage roll, and the other towards Aroda, the both of them glowing with illusion magic. In theory, Aroda should have felt the taste of the buttery sweet sausage roll explode into her mouth, but whether it would override the magia‘s inability to taste was a mystery to all of them.

"Is there any of the flavors now?"


@Aroda @Azykia

 

[Azykia]

Aroda's descriptions were such an enjoyable sort of snarky that the girl couldn't help but to giggle again albeit softly. "American? What a coincidence. This star, too, is American." She commented playfully in line with Aroda.

At Aroda's next question, she couldn't help but to sigh a bit, though that smile had yet to fully falter. "You know... I actually believe that it's going to happen." She gave an even bigger smile, just a touch, but it carried a lot more sadness with it. "I had the pleasure of speaking to a man named Haru, who hypothesized the same thing." She shook her head. "It's... honestly a bit terrifying to think about."

Azykia seized the opportunity while she had the chance, and as Celestine tried to pull back her question, with a mischievous grin she blinked twice. "What?"

Having improved her mood just a bit by fulfilling her 'mess with siblings' quota for the time being, she giggled, then moved to focus on the food she had to wait for someone to point out to her somehow.

She wasn't positive which of the two options she had grabbed, but it would just be a wonderful 'welcome back' surprise for her to dig into. She held it up to her mouth, took a big eager bite of it, and eventually swallowed. While nothing seemed to be able to remove the smile from the blind one's face, she had ten times the thousand-yard stare as usual as her pupil-less eyes practically burned a hole in whatever was in front of her.

@Aroda @Celestine

 

[Aroda]

Aroda nods at the Azykia as she mentions also being in a state of existence most commonly referred to as 'American'.

"I kinda figured. Though I think I'd probably guess anyone without a foreign accent or broken English is American? I've only met like, one person who had a noticeable, not-American accent so far, though. Before Celestine, anyways. And I'm still not even sure if that's what Celestine has going on or not..."

She admits with a glance sideways at the Celestine, before returning to a more important topic with Azykia.

"Ah, but, it's at least good to know now that you're apparently losing your other senses. I can know ahead of time that I might need to make...a magic hearing aid! Or something. ...Not that I even know how I'd do that. Still good to have on the drawing board, I guess."

As Aroda takes another bite of the most boring food imaginable, she looks over, quirking her head at Celestine's sudden outburst, and the invoking of magic.

"Wait, huh?"

She murmurs, looking over at the girl.

Celestine, whaａａａａａａａａａ-"

The completion of Celestine's spell is in sync with a bizarre sight - Aroda's head suddenly twitches a bit, her eyes start to...flicker? And as she was about to say 'what', the word just...hangs, the 'a' sound repeating rapidly on a loop. This continues, somewhat concerningly, for a few seconds, before the outlandish sound stops, and her eyes change further, as she simply...sits there, motionless.

...ARODA has encountered an unexpected error.
...Sorry for the inconvenience.
...Please wait...

@Azykia @Celestine

 

[Celestine]

"Mmph, so many of the Americas," Celestine mumbled through her roll. She spent some time munching and listening to the conversation, before something more concerning came up. "Wait, you will the hearing a loss!? How is that doing the working...?" She'd never really looked into those racial trait thingies much, but supposedly there were ways to pick them up by just playing, so it was at least believable.

As Celestine cast her benign magic spell to bless Aroda with the gift of flavor, both of her gal pals suddenly appeared to break out of nowhere! Azzy, staring ahead like she'd caught sight of an alien invasion in the distance, and Aroda... well... she didn't even have words to describe that!

"A-Aroda!" Celestine cried out in shock, hands to her lips in horror. Celestine suddenly dropped her strange speech, "What's wrong? A-are you alright?"

The crowds in the bakery appeared to separate almost perfectly between the NPCs (known as Landers) and the players (known as Starcalled). Players seemed considerably less worried about the creepy robot malfunctioning, knowing full well Magia was a race option in the menu. However, those local to Terrasphere found the entire race to be new and unfamiliar. Was this strange behavior dangerous? Would she suddenly begin attacking people with those soulless eyes!?

"Uhm... do you have a reset button somewhere or something? Azykia, do you know how Magia work...?"


@Azykia @Aroda

 

[Azykia]

Celestine's vocalized shock and worry snapped Azykia out of her own meltdown and back into the reality present, where apparently something was wrong with Aroda. From the sounds of it, she was absolutely determined to pronounce the perfect letter a. The blind girl had to think for a moment or two. After all, while she knew Aroda better than Celestine knew Aroda, she didn't actually know her all too well.

She couldn't pull anything cutesy or sentimental to snap her out of it since the two had a history built on pretty earnest friendship. At the same time, she wasn't a close enough friend to know what she could say to snap her out of it. So obviously, she needed to do something, and if she didn't know Aroda well enough to know how to fix her, Azzy needed to think on a wider scale. If that happened to me, what would it take to snap me out of it?

She put her free hand out palm down and manifested her ar-cane in her grasp. Then, she flipped it upside-down, holding it by the point.

SMACK.

Azykia swung blind (since she couldn't really swing any other way) and whacked the magia in the abdomen. "Aroda!"

@Aroda @Celestine

 

[Aroda]

Aroda, for her part, continues to sit there, blue circles slowly spinning in her eyes, as clearly something has gone wrong...as the two others correctly surmised. The silence of her staring quietly forward with a facsimile of a buffering icon displaying in her eyes, is occasionally broken by the 'ａ' coming through for a few milliseconds while Aroda is...loading? Crashing? Rebooting? Who honestly knows. Certainly not the good landers of the town who surely are going to love Aroda, the weird creepy malfunctioning robot, a whole lot going forward.

Near the tail end of Celestine's totally intentional public assassination of Aroda's character in front of the townsfolk, Azykia tries the most well tested and proven method of making any machine start working again. Percussive maintenance. Also known as just hit it until it works. While Aroda doesn't exactly...literally have a wire loose, or anything, the 'damage' of an impact causes her to leak out a few more 'ａ's, before the buffering icons disappear, her eyes going completely blank for a few moments, and...

"ａａt are- huh?!"

Her statement finally continues, though she quickly cuts herself off, looking around, uncertain.

"What the...wha?! What happened?"

She asks hurriedly, obviously quite confused.

@Azykia @Celestine

 

[Celestine]

Celestine was hoping that, given how Azzy seemed to be kinda high-class, she might have some incredible wisdom about machine code and circuitry and… tech stuff. Instead, Cel’s eyes narrowed to dots in shock as the timid girl summoned a magical stick and whacked Aroda full force.

"O-oh…!" Somehow, it actually worked! Either that, or she was already repairing herself and the whack had really good timing. Either way, that was clearly something to not do again.

… But then Aroda had… questions…

Cel whistled for a few seconds.

"Hm? Oh. Azzy did you the whacking," she answered with an innocent smile, conveniently brushing aside the more obvious part of the question she was asking. "It is good that she did do you a whack, too! You were doing yourself a strangeness!"

Celestine returned to her sausage roll, hoping that by calmly continuing to eat, she could move on from the ordeal. Sadly, the rest of the people in the bakery weren’t on board, and began whispering about Celestine’s "dark magic," continuing to keep their distance as they hastily grabbed their food and ran out the door.


@Azykia @Aroda

 

[Azykia]

Azykia let out an audible sigh of relief, then looked up at the general area between the two women in her company. "Celesis, you need to stop being shifty for a minute. Whatever you did scared me half to death..." She reached out and grabbed Aroda's hand. While she wasn't necessarily the biggest fan of holding random people's hands, Aroda had led her all over the place by her hand at this point, so there wasn't much hesitation beyond just trying to find where it was.

"Aroda, you're okay, right? I'm sorry for hitting you like that." With another sigh, she moved to take another bite of her food, freezing in place as it touched her lips. A couple seconds later, she frowned and moved the snack away again. While it seemed as though she was having her own issues and thoughts at the moment, her words betrayed that sentiment just a little bit.

"... Are you two not getting along?" She blinked a couple times and glanced down. "I really like having friends in this world, but I don't want to impose on either of you like this."

@Aroda @Celestine

 

[Aroda]

Aroda looks between the two as they answer in their own ways, saying different things, and also not really absolving any of her confusion at all. Growing even more concerned as this happens and Azykia takes her hand, she asks, a bit worried,

"Whacked...I got hit? I was...being strange? ...Was I not okay? Seriously, what happened? Celestine was talking...and then there were all these noises... Phew...

She gives a sharp exhale, taking her free hand to try and fan herself a bit.

"God, my face feels...really hot. My whole head does, actually..."

The robot holds a hand to her temple, and immediately her eyes widen.

"...My head is really hot. What the..."

A look back to Azykia. Her confusion, truly, knows no bounds.

"Not...not getting along? I...what? Did I do something? I really...what happened? I...look, sorry if I caused trouble or...whatever, but really, what's going on?"

If the robot was confused before, following her recovery from her bit of an episode, she was now so confused she could hardly think straight, her eyes flicking between the other two in search of any salvation.

@Celestine @Azykia

 

[Celestine]

"W-well it did me the scare too!" Celestine pouted, crossing her arms indignantly. "…And I am not doing myself a shifty…" she added quietly, letting Azzy and Aroda speak. Azzy’s question was awfully strange as well, and it seemed to catch Aroda off-guard even more than it did Cel.

… Which made sense, given how Aroda was out of it in general.

"We are doing the getting alongs fine," Celestine shrugged, patting Aroda on the head (with some difficulty, given how she was quite a bit taller than her). "You should have done me the telling that magics do you an allergy of the dead eyes, though."

On that note, she should probably drop the other illusion as well, for safety’s sake. Waving her hand in the air to dismiss the spell, Cel watched as the two went from looking (and feeling) perfectly dry, to sopping wet, as if someone had dumped a bucket straight over their heads.

"As you may be telling, I am having many of the magics~! The illusion magics, the star magics, the holy magics, the fire magics, and the sound magics! The illusion magics are being my favorites though. But: I will do the remembering to avoid doing it the use on you!"


@Azykia @Aroda

 

[Azykia]

"S-Sorry." Azykia wasn't usually the sort to sound so lacking confidence when she spoke, but the situation was perhaps more confusing for her than anybody else, considering how it played out for her.

She heard Celestine say she was going to do something for Aroda, vaguely caught peripheral sight of whatever she did as she bit into her own food, heard Aroda get stuck on one syllable, heard Celestine panic, panic a bit herself and hit Aroda with her walking stick, heard Celestine deny she did anything, and all the way at the end of it all she was just left confused by everything she was hearing ambiently.

"You didn't cause any trouble. I'm just scared that I had." She squeezed Aroda's hand a bit tighter, even pulling at her arm to make sure she could tell given that she was mostly made of metal. "I'm glad everyone is okay." She forced a smile back onto her face, and listened to the grandiose explanation given by Celestine with little to say.

@Aroda @Celestine

 

[Aroda]

Aroda's flabbergastment is yet gain, unabated. She looks more directly at Celestine now, since she's clearly the only one who could even explain what might have happened, but all she gets is...

"What happened that was scary? I'm allergic to magic? Dead eyes? What does that even mean?"

The case wasn't improving, as Celestine's covering up of whatever happened was only leading Aroda to grow more confused, and more concerned, over something that didn't really warrant it. Her utter confusery easily apparent in her voice as she tries to ask, she's totally unfazed as Celestine goes for a pat on the head. As Aroda had said, her head is...actually pretty hot. Like the case of a PC that had been working a little to intensely. It was hot enough to be unpleasant to the touch of a soft, normal hand, but not painful.

"Could you please just explain-"

And then Celestine went and added another layer to the situation, turning off the old illusion spell and suddenly making it apparent the Aroda and Azykia were soaked. Dripping wet all over...all over the floor, and their chairs, and their table, and the food on the table...!

On this realization, Aroda gasps and jerks her hands up to her sides in pretty apparent shock, looking down at herself and her soaked clothes. Then looks to Azykia, in a similar situation, though the girl didn't seem to care about the wetness all that much. As she processed what Celestine had said about the sudden wetness, the talk of the illusion magic, and her own incredible confusion about that time Celestine was talking and then there was a gap in her memory...

"You...are you screwing with me?"

She rises from her seat, hands still held up at her sides as she flicks water from her hands, looking down at the small illusionist with irritation finally creeping into her expression.

"So is this why she asked if we're getting along? 'Cause you've been screwing around, casting magic to have fun at my expense? Laughing while you...do whatever you did that I can't remember?"

The now-frustrated robot looks over at Azykia again, the now-soaked blind girl, and grows a bit less calm.

"You even did it to Azykia! She talked like you two were close, but is this how you treat her, too? What is your deal?"

She cracks out that final question, staring down at Celestine with a stern glare, awaiting an answer - though she was also visibly tense, now wary of Celestine casting more magic at her. Clearly this would be a pretty important answer.

@Celestine @Azykia

 

[Celestine]

Celestine smiled at Azzy as she continued to be precious, but her smile quickly faded. She might’ve just been crazy for thinking this, but Aroda might’ve maybe looked a tad bit… mad? Hm.

"What are you meaning with the ‘doing you the screw…?’" she answered, crossing her arms as she continued to accuse Celestine of… well, she wasn’t entirely wrong to say she’d been messing with people for the fun of it, but she was hardly to blame for a mindbreak!

"Well so-rry if I did you both the illusion of the dryness! Some people like to be having themselves a comfort and not just feeling the wet all of the time!" Cel puffed some air into her cheek. "And I did not do your mind a break! I did you an illusion of the flavors so you could have an enjoy of the noms!" Granted, maybe those two were one and the same, but it was the thought that counted, right?


@Azykia @Aroda

 

[Aroda]

"Sure, that's all you did - I'm supposed to trust that, how? You haven't exactly been truthful so far!"

With a groan, Aroda starts to try and wring more water off her clothes while she continues.

"Oh, of course, you're just helping out, letting people think they're dry, for comfort. Gotta make sure you don't tell 'em what you did though, that way you can turn it off when they're trying to eat and laugh it up, huh? While you got that going on, just go ahead and hope they forget that you're the reason they're soaked, because you ran up and continuously sprayed rainwater all over them! Seriously, we'd just met, so I tried being polite, friendly, and you really think this is how you..."

She cuts herself off with a scoff, shaking her head as she concerns herself with her wetness. As she's moving some of her wet hair out of her face and notices that nearer to the scalp her hair is already dry...and a bit frizzy. Her head is still quite hot.

"Ugh...I don't even know if I want to ask what you actually did that messed my head up so bad...just don't do it again."

Giving a final huff, she looks over at Azykia and extends a hand, lightly resting it on her soaked shoulder.

"Hey, Azykia, I think I'm going to head back to the inn...try and dry off, change, and such. Wanna come with? I have umbrellas."

She says that last bit sharply, but still directing most of her current attention at the Azykia.

@Azykia @Celestine

 

[Celestine]

Cel narrowed her eyes indignantly. What incredibly unfair treatment! She’d spent all that effort to illusion the two of them to feel all dry and comfy and this was the thanks she got for all her troubles!? And to think that she was going to offer to use a bit of her magic to help dry her off!

"You are doing such a kill of the funs!" Cel shouted back, her hands balled into fists, and her eyes shut in irritated stress. "I cannot do a stand of the peoples like you, who do everything the making such of the serious!" The very fact she was still talking weird through the argument was a testament to just how dedicated she was making things silly. Absolute! Dedication!

"Do a relax and be having yourself more of the funs!" she concluded with a pout.

Unfortunately, her words didn’t seem to do much convincing. And so, Celestine did what she always did in Terrasphere when situations were no longer fun for her…

Run away!

She raised a hand to Aroda and cast the spell again.

"I will maybe do you a seeing later, sis’!" Cel addressed Azzy, already halfway out the door. "Do your robot friend a good care."

And with that, she ran off into the rain.


@Azykia @Aroda

 

[Azykia]

Azykia wasn't the kind of person who had friends outside of Terrasphere, nor siblings, nor casual acquaintances of any kind. To argue in such an emotional back-and-forth was simply uncouth, she had always been told. So now that she was in the middle of two women arguing inside of what even sounded like a small store with people looking onward, she had absolutely no idea how to react.

Kaya herself would be able to shut down any sort of intellectual squabble before it went anywhere drastic, or worst case she had guards around to prevent physical altercations. Azykia wasn't Kaya, though. She could barely even look at Celestine directly without having to squint in pain, and Aroda was very much less in her sights to begin with. A fierce, emotional sun and a stern, logical moon had been yelling on either side of her, and she could do nothing but listen. Not because that was reality, but because she was apprehensive.

She could have stopped Celestine from running off, but she didn't. Even before that, she could have kept the argument from hurting anybody's feelings, but she didn't. She couldn't say she knew for certain that the two both had the other's best interests and happiness in mind; that was why she asked if they were getting along. Perhaps she already knew that things were bound to fall apart. Whose fault was it? Was Aroda being too serious and misinterpreting the entire situation? No, surely it was Celestine for splashing water all over Aroda and Azzy and hiding her Illusory Magic from the former. No, she proposed a bath in order to get everyone out of the rain.

The girl's head tilted down as she considered everything in silence for a while. Her polite event-attending face just wouldn't come to rise, so she had to eventually answer Aroda with a dull, half-monotonous tone.

"... My apologies, Aroda. I shouldn't have been out in the rain, it seems." She felt at the treat in her hand with one entire bite missing and considered just stuffing the whole thing in her mouth to avoid having to talk.

"Thank you for having lunch with me. It's been nice."

@Aroda @Celestine

 

[Aroda]

Aroda rolls her eyes, which work now after Celestine's earlier terrorist attack, as Celestine 'defends' herself.

"Uh huh...? Well I don't have strong, generalized opinions about any sort of people who act a certain way...but if I had to think of a type I couldn't stand, I think 'maniac that's openly hostile to me for no reason' fits the bill."

She huffs as she mutters to herself.

"Seriously, what'd I even do?"

Of course, Celestine's sudden plan catches Aroda's attention, since she was quite wary of Celestine casting more magic. She starts to reach a hand out, and...

"Youｕｕｕｕｕ－

She does stop and start twitching, repeating some of her strange behavior from earlier...but it seems like this time, Aroda's 'systems' are more prepared for whatever this alien filetype is, and dismiss the errors much more quickly. She's only unresponsive for as long as it takes for Celestine to be walking out.

Her sustained vowel stops as she just registers that Celestine has run away, before she groans loudly.

"...What a f..."

The robot cuts herself off, and after a few moments, takes a deep breath.

"...What a piece of work."

And then! Azykia starts to speak again! She turns toward her, finally moving past anger to concern for the poor crippled girl.

"Azykia...you didn't cause anything. That girl just came at us wanting to cause trouble, apparently. Sorry I let her keep it up so long - I thought she was maybe just kinda odd, not a bad actor."

With a sigh, she roughly sits back down in her chair, not exactly pleased that she, it, and all of her surroundings are still wet, but...dealing with it. Either way, she gets a better talking position, leaning forward toward Azykia.

"Is that girl like that with you, too? If she's just amusing herself by messing with you, you should probably steer clear. At the very least, make sure she knows you're not just something that's here for her to laugh at."

@Celestine @Azykia

 

[Azykia]

As Celestine's integrity was called into question, Azykia had to stop and think about what had even made her befriend that girl in the first place.

Her tone fell neutral. Flat, dull, and lifeless were several words that came to mind when hearing it. "... She's certainly a goofball, but she-" Even before now, she had been connecting a lot of dots, mostly because she couldn't actually see what had been happening right in front of her. "Celesis wasn't trying to mess with you, Aroda. I could practically smell what she was trying to make you taste." She frowned a bit. "And while I don't... know why she didn't want to be transparent about how she was using Illusion Magic from the beginning, I've seen enough of the non-illusory parts of her that I can vouch for her... At the very, very least, she cares about people's happiness and safety."

She still didn't feel like trying to find a place to sit, so she took another flavorless nibble of her lunch. "Thank you for being concerned about me, though." Her voice at least had regained a little bit of Azzy's friendliness, but it was still quite soft. "I'll not let anything else spoil our reunion. Tell me, what else would you like to do today, Aroda? It's still raining, after all." She said, punctuating her statement with her mere existence as she dripped water all about.

@Aroda

 

[Aroda]

Aroda squints a bit at Azykia's description that seemed slightly at odds with what she had just witnessed, and experienced, and felt. And was currently feeling actually, now that her head had heated up once more.

"...I'm not sure I buy that my happiness was part of her concern here. Maybe she wasn't hostile, but at the least, she didn't care much what we thought about anything she did. Just...keep an- ...Be careful, around her."

She sighs once more. Looking around, she starts to rise out of her seat again, staying near Azykia.

"So...should we get somewhere we can dry off, first of all? That's probably a good first step. Not sure what else we can do around here, but...on the off chance you can catch a chill here, I'd rather avoid it. Not that I even know if robots can get sick..."

She ponders it a moment, then shrugs.

"Anyhow, shall we?"

Aroda offers her hand to Azykia, lightly touching her arm with it so she can like, actually find it. It's very cold metal, something Aroda didn't really consider when doing this.

@Azykia

 

[Azykia]

After a quiet hum, the girl nodded and reached over to grab Aroda's hand. "I'll take your concerns to heart, Aroda. Thank you."

After holding the android's hand for a few seconds, she let her grip loosen. "Is... this your hand? It's difficult to tell..." She felt at the distorted mess of cold metal with her yet more acute sense of touch for a few seconds. It wasn't quite the hand she was familiar with, except that it was. Just that thanks to the cold, it felt different. For someone who used only two senses now to navigate the world around her, this was important to note.

Speaking of two senses, she took another bite of her food now that Celestine was gone. There was no illusion to it--in fact, it was even less flavorful now--this treat had literally no flavor.

"While we're walking..." She paused to think her words over. "Well, I didn't want to bring it up before, since you and Celesis were preoccupied, but my... sense of taste seems to have disappeared since I've last logged in." She tried to say it as matter-of-factly as possible, but there was a light lace of concern through her words.

With a chuckle, she quietly offered a joke to keep things less serious, given the lingering atmosphere of the prior argument. "I suppose that makes us closer to sisters than before, doesn't it?"

@Aroda