[Azura Rayume]

((My posts are probably going to suck unless someone else comes in here. Not that I'm not trying, but he needs to get a bit higher before he has the brawn to back up his bragging mouth. Yes, he does talk about his stats. And he tends to swear a bit if he gets hit.))

What. A. Pain! He had spent all that time and effort making it to the top of the world, only to get himself reset to level one for his "reward." Ugh! Whoever was running the servers was one crazy bastard, he had to give them that. The stats layout here was a bit different that what he remembered as well, but that was to be expected. Supposedly, people would just respawn if they died in this world, so he supposed he had plenty of time to work on his skills. Besides, the stat rolls seemed to be in his favor; he had managed to keep two of his numbers in the double digits. The three in Precision bothered him though.

From what he understood of the level system, things ran fairly simply around here. You gained experience through interaction with the environment and things therein, and the area in which you acted determined the boost you were going to gain in a particular stat. "Easy," he said to himself, hand resting on the pommel of his blade. "Well, better get started."

[1/1]

[Azura Rayume]

His only problem was where to start exactly. His drop-in point was in the middle of what looked like a very large field with nothing but grass and the occasional tree to be seen in the expanse. He hoped that the entire world was not like this, but he had not been provided with a map. At this point, he was lucky he had kept his sword, though both his armor and the power of his sword seemed to have been reset along with his level.

Damn, this was obnoxious. He grumbled a bit to himself and started walking, not really paying attention to the direction at this point. He was left to assume that this place would have monsters, since most did, but what about people? He was the only one he knew of to ever escape, so this entire world might be as empty as the plains appeared to be. That would be one heck of a bummer. How was he supposed to survive anyway? Would everything come from drops, from weapon repairs to cooked food?

Whatever. He would figure it out for himself.

[2/1]

[Azura Rayume]

Ten minutes of walking brought him to a depression in the land, the bottom of which held a small pool. His body came to the recognition that he had not had anything to drink in quite some time, and he chose to ignore whatever inhibitions he might have usually had about drinking from a random pond in the middle of nowhere. As his feet carried him closer to the bank, one hand rummaged in the shoulder bag he had been given, seeing as how he couldn't access anything except his stats from the usual menu screen.

"Come on," he grumbled, eventually having to stop walking and actually search through the sack. "Basic adventuring equipment should include something like a... ah!" He beamed at the cantine as he pulled it from the bag. "Water bottle." At least whoever had been in charge of transporting him had made sure to include the basics.

He knelt on the bank to fill his bottle, then scooped some of the water up in his hands for a quick drink. Surprisingly, it wasn't bad, though that might have partly been because of his thirst. Maybe this place wouldn't be too bad after all, even if it was a bit empty for his liking.

[3/1]

[Azura Rayume]

The moment would have been relaxing, even quaint, there on the pond shore, if not for the growl that broke through the quiet of his surrounding. The noise was quickly joined by two more similarly voiced fellows, all three echoing dully from the opposite bank. After a moment or two, three large wolves crept from the grass, hackles raised and teeth bared.

He was obviously in their territory and had done something very wrong by touching the pond. Klein rose to his feet slowly, sword arm held ready to draw his blade. He felt fully capable of fighting them, even three on one (wolves were small, low-level wild animals, right?), but he wouldn't provoke them into attacking if it was avoidable.

As the creatures crept around the sides of the pond, however, he realized that a confrontation was going to happen whether he remained calm or not. "Well," he said to himself, drawing his sword and falling into a ready stance, "gotta start somewhere, right?"

[4/1]

[Azura Rayume]

Two animals circled around the left of the pond, the third to the longer trail on the right. A simple enough strategy, easily seen through: the pair would draw his attention while the individual snuck up and attacked from behind. That should be easy enough to deal with, provided the third wolf acted as expected.

Klein turned so that he could just see the single animal out of the corner of his eye while facing the other two and held his blade straight to the side. Time to see just what he could do in this world. Concentrating on what he wanted, he willed power into his sword, the blade responding by glowing an acidic green. Green? It was supposed to be blue!

A moment of dumb confusion shifted to action as one of the pair sprang at him, the beast's jaws wide and body aimed to ram his chest. His sword arm moved on its own, the glowing weapon brought up to meet the attack with an uppercut just as the wielder shifted footing to dodge. The strike left behind a sharp tang in the air, and the wolf landed behind him and staggered, fur trailing the same venomous scent. Its two companions lifter their noses to the smell and flinched, though whether in fear or pain he had no way of knowing, before turning tail and bolting for the grasses. The injured one slunk along behind, eventually disappearing into the plants.

[5/2 - Level]

[Azura Rayume]

Normally, the warrior would have at least watched the wolves go, if he hadn't gotten it in his head to chase after them, but he was too busy marveling at his sword to trouble himself with the animals. Every time before, his blade had glowed blue; the Twins of Heaven both possessed techniques only of that color. Why now did it turn green? And what was that smell from before?  "Okay, this is getting weird."

A flick of the wrist opened the menu screen, his statistics glowing up at him from the pale blue monitor. A quick glance over the main section showed that he had gained a level- which brought a bit of a grin to his face- and that his stats had shifted to reflect that. A plus three bonus to Speed? Sure, he'd take that. Now, onto what he was actually looking for. He scrolled down to the section for abilities, and immediately found the answer he was looking for: he had been granted a skill called "Toxic." Apparently attacks would have different colors based on their effects.

"Wow," he said to himself with a laugh. "I didn't think low levels were able to use poisons without assistance. Guess this world runs a lot differently, eh?" He started walking again, away from the pond and the wolves, screen still hovering in front of his face. He had better get acquainted with these new skills; he didn't want any more surprises the next time he had to fight something.

[6/2]

[Kyrit]

She hated it. There was always at least one day a week where her parents tended to lock her out of the house or fight tooth and nail to get somehow in order to keep her off the computer. In her opinion, she didn't need to go outside when her video games had anything and everything she could possibly want. In fact, it could give her much more than her normal life could. She could do anything there, while here she was just... a normal being. Nothing special and nothing interesting.

Today was one such day when Feith had been told to get out of the house and not come back for a few hours. Her house wasn't far, so she'd decided to visit the vast plains for the day. It was typically safe, so she didn't usually have to worry about trouble. Then again, the fact it was safe often meant that it was boring. There wasn't much else around that she could get out to though, so at least it was something.

There was an odd scent in the air today though, and she had come upon a small trail of blood. Perhaps by some chance a Lucain had been hunting in the area and had tried to take something down that could release a pungent smell in order to escape but had still suffered at least one blow.

The trail of blood led to something completely different though a she saw a man standing out in the middle of the grass... touching the air? He also had a sword in his hand, which she was fairly sure was what had caused the trail of blood. "Are you... some sort of crazy person?" she straight up asked, a puzzled look on her freckled face as she watched Klein.

[Azura Rayume]

Klein, absorbed in the information on his screen, failed to notice the approach of another. He was more concerned with figuring out what he would be able to do here and found that he seemed to be well-equipped to handle just about anything he could encounter that happened to be close to his level. He continued to mumble to himself, puzzling over the mechanics of this combat system. "So, if 'Blade' is a normal attack, 'Puncture' and 'Lunge' would be more advanced forms? And something like that 'Toxic' ability would be elemental, then? Never had much by way of elemental attacks before."

"...of crazy person?"

His brain finally caught up with what was going on around him, catching the end of her question. What? A voice? He spun around to face her, a smile creeping across his features. So there were people here after all! Even though there was always the possibility that she was a program instead of a real person, the fact that he didn't have to spend the rest of his time alone was good enough for him.

Unfortunately he wasn't entirely sure where to start with this, partly because he had no idea exactly what she was and partly because he had missed a majority of what she had said. "Eh, hello?" He sounded a bit more unsure of the greeting than he had hoped, but it was best just to keep going with it. "And who might you be exactly?"

[7/2]

[Kyrit]

As far as Feith could see, Klein was interacting with thin air. While he saw a screen with his stats, inventory, ect., she couldn't see a single thing. The sort of things that he seemed to be talking to himself about made absolutely no sense either. Blade? Puncture? Yeaaah. Maybe she shouldn't be talk to him. He really did seem like he might have been crazy or something.

When he finally turned to face her, Feith took a few steps back, arms reaching around and crossing behind her head. "I don't think I've ever seen you around here before." She seemed to completely ignore his question to her as she looked him up and down, eyes catching for a few moments on his blade once again. Go figured she'd come out here believing it was a safe place to adventure out and she'd run into someone with a damn sword of all things.

"You new around here? Why was there blood on the ground? What are you doing around here?"

Currently, she had no reason to fear him. Well, maybe most would say that she did considering there was blood on the ground, but perhaps he had been attacked by something and had simply been defending himself. No reason to jump to conclusions right away. Not to say that she wasn't ready to run in the case of needing to.

[Azura Rayume]

Klein was really starting to wonder about this girl. Though she acted enough like her own person, the fact that she had both ignored his question and continued on with a string of her own made him reconsider. Was she some sort of NPC who just babbled inquires until you answered? Anything was possible, since he had just figured out that there was any kind of being to interact with out here.

He gave his sword a quick flick to remove any blood that still clung to the steel, though the acid in the attack seemed to have burned most of it away, and sheathed the weapon in one swift movement before replying. "Yes, I'm 'new,'" he said, still puzzled by her. "The blood? Well, there were these wolves that attacked me. I managed to injure one, and they left." He closed the screen, figuring he should concentrate on one thing at a time. "Now, would you mind answering my question?" he asked before adding in his head, or are we just going to go in circles all day?

[8/2]

[Kyrit]

"Wolves?" her head tilted slightly, puzzled. She'd never heard of actual wolves roaming around, though it had been said that 'wolves' were the ancestors of Evelon's pack hunting Lucain. "You really must be new around here if you're calling 'em wolves. That or you hit your head or something. You've gotta be talking about Lucain. Or well, maybe Fenrefs I guess. I've been told Lucain and Fenrefs are both pretty common ancestors of 'wolves'. That's crazy that they attacked you! Guess I'm real lucky I didn't come through here sooner since I wouldn't have been able to defend myself..."

After rambling for a bit, she seemed to have finally realized that she'd completely ignored his earlier question or something. Her hands fell back down and instead crossed in front of her chest. "You should introduce yourself before asking a girl who she is. Surely you at least know that, or do you really have amnesia or something?"

Considering the way she jumped from one thing to another and just the general way of how she talked to him, it probably was easy for Klein to mistake her for being an NPC rather than a real human. For all he knew the current story for the world he was now in was to be found by an NPC that helps you learn about the world after thinking that you've forgotten everything. He might even consider it a reason for his sudden stat reset from earlier.

[Azura Rayume]

The more she spoke, the most she sounded like a computer program. Though it had been a long time ago, he vaguely recalled the NPCs on the base level who existed solely to remind you how to fight and not to die in the process. Some of them gave quests, but most would just ramble on about facts: 'The levels get harder as you go up;' 'concentrate hard to use a sword technique;' 'higher level equipment have better techniques.' Over time, those kinds of things became second nature, and you stopped having to ask them for reminders. They usually didn't just keep talking, and being minorly insulting, though.

He supposed it would be better to continue the conversation, since he still did not know where he was exactly. NPC or not, the girl definitely had some information about this world that could prove useful in the long run. The talk might seem trivial for now, but he would never know if the information would come in handy later; that's how these things tended to work as far as his own experience could say.

"Fine," he conceded, arms crossed over his chest, "if that's the way things work. I'm Klein, and I don't have amnesia or anything else for that matter. I'm just... very lost." Just because she could be useful didn't stop him from being borderline rude.

[9/2]

[Kyrit]

"Klein?" as she called out his name it wasn't due to misunderstanding but instead to help make sure she could say it and remember it. "That's a pretty weird name, y'know. I don't think I've ever heard one like that before. Well then, I guess I can let you know who I am then. My name's Feith. I live about an hour's walk away from here. Kinda got kicked out of the house for the day..."

Her amber eyes scanned the area around them, trying to piece together how exactly he'd become lost in a place like this. "I... guess I could see how you'd get lost out here. The plains do look really similar no matter where you are, so yeah. I could see that. You're pretty deep into the plains though, so how the heck did you get out here and get lost...?"

For someone with the chance to spend a lot of time in the area it wasn't hard to navigate across the plains, but she would be the first to admit she'd been lost out there a few times in her youngest years of being sent to go "play outside." She was still currently confused as to why Klein had called them wolves if he didn't have amnesia or something.

[Azura Rayume]

"Alright, then. Feith." He echoed her name, wondering how in the world she could consider his name weird with one like that. The fact that she lived nearby was good to hear; it meant their might be a settlement or at least shelter not too far away. Though she seemed like she knew her way around the place, he doubted she would be too far away from home in a place with predators roaming freely.

For her questions, Klein had to swallow a bit of pride and come up with something. "I don't really... know how I got here?" He sounded unsure, and what he said wasn't entirely true; he just didn't know how to explain exactly what had happened. With no way of knowing whether the connections between their worlds were one- or two-way, he had no way of knowing how this girl would react if he just said what had really happened. "I mean, I don't remember coming here. I just know that I'm here and don't know where 'here' is." Oh, he probably did sound like he had a problem! Great.

[10/3 - Level]

[Kyrit]

"No, no. I don't have amnesia~" As Feith picked on Klein she shook her hands in front of her slightly, adding to her mocking tone. Seriously though. This guy had said he didn't have amnesia, and then he goes and tells her that he didn't know how he got there? Or at least that he didn't remember coming there, but that was basically the same thing.

"Sure sounds like you're doing a lot of not remembering for someone without amnesia in all seriousness though, Klein. Not saying that you have complete amnesia, but seriously. If you can't remember how you got here something made you forget. As I said, right now you're in the Vast Plains. There's literally like... nothing around here for miles and miles on all sides as far as civilization goes. Even where I live isn't exactly in a huge city or anything. I could at least get you out of here if you'd like though."