Life After the Apocalypse

Raquel had looked around the village with quiet bemusement during the initial approach. Once the group meets Grace and Piphany, she introduces herself. "You can call me Raquel. I would like to know exactly how this happened to us as well, and if there's a way to reverse it. I'm all for heading to Mound City in the morning."

She blushes a bit when she sees Grace's pretty smile for the first time. Odd feelings begin to fill her new body, and she does her best to try to suppress them and focus on the task at hand.

When Varduhn says a kind word would get this Aegelby to prepare a bath and a meal, she says, "Well at the very least, a ‘please’ and a ‘thank you’ to you and Aegelby."

As Raquel introduces herself, Grace notices the blushing and that all-too-familiar look. Not a look she’s gotten in recent years, but—

"It’s a pleasure to meet you, Raquel."

—she doesn’t stammer or make her attraction completely obvious, like she did after that Northampton gig twenty-three years ago. "That’s an interesting choice of words: ‘if.’

"I’d like to think that because entering this world is possible, exiting is. But, full disclosure, I like being twenty-three again. I like knowing that this twenty-three-year-old me won’t fall in love with the bottle, the bong, the drummer."

Now, Grace is definitely blushing.

—and stammering, "W-what I m-mean is, I might like this predicament. But I’m still in on the mission to find the way out."

I played drums on ‘Rock Band.’ Does that count? Raquel wants to say, but she bites her tongue. Instead, she simply nods. "Right. Well, we can, eh, make the best of this unusual situation as we journey on."

It occurs to her that all the new people came to town, it seems, because of the healing potions. (Or maybe not, but) Grace realizes that she is not just new to this game, but online gaming in general.

She asks Raquel, "What exactly is our situation. I mean… not the Earth stuff. The Elderscrollsville stuff.

"I mean, yeah, I used that human-self-insert feature to play Me, or the Me on my 2001 album cover, Stereolith." She cringes a little at the debut album’s name.

"Buuuuut… my oversized lute called a Baroque Theorbo is technically a custom weapon. So, when you were out and about, did you have to… y’know?" She doesn’t want to say ‘kill.’ Or ‘monsters.’

"Well, yeah. We're adventurers now," Raquel says. "Fighting monsters is part and parcel of the whole deal." She pats the hilt of her katana with a gloved hand. "It was actually more thrilling than scary, though. My body just kind of took over and I knew what to do, how to fight. And the monsters just go 'poof' when they die, no blood and guts or anything. You're a bard, so you've probably got support magic you can use if you don't want to mix it up in melee combat."

Grace’s eyes linger of the hilt, flicker to Piphany’s scythe, then… her hands.

"Well… that doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Maybe I could start up the healing song, which keeps all of you relatively safe, then if there are un-poofed monsters, I might have to engage in fisticuffs, or do the El Kabong thing."

From Raquel’s words, she feels a little better about the prospect of combat. Poof, like in that super-cute Super NES game she and O’Keys and O’Drum played as teenagers.

Taylor doesn't really know anything about music, outside of his father's disdain for most rock stars.

"I don't really have any place to go back to, but at least it was a world that I was sort of familiar with."

"Also this sort of thing just doesn't happen, and I don't want to be part of another person's grand plan."

>>>"Here you go." Varduhn fetched a relatively clean metal cup and handed it over to Fren after filling it with tea from the earthenware pitcher. "Let me know how you like it. I can't say I've ever served Cicada Tea to a Fox Tail before." Inwardly, he was eager to watch how Fren navigated drinking from a cup.
>>>His eyes not leaving Fren, he backed towards the door and called out to his granddaughter, "Adana, Child. Would you and Jean Louis run to the town square and deliver my note to Missus Aegelby?"

>>> "Is it a Quest!?" the little girl called out from the tree.

>>>'Yes. Of a sort..." he called back, somewhat embarrassed to be yelling in front of his esteemed guests. "Come, child. Take this and help where you can. I...We...will all be along shortly."
>>>The girl and her Catfolk friend descended from the tree, retrieved Varduhn's hastily scrawled note and were off in a flash. The energy of youth and promise of adventure fueling their pell-mell flight towards town.

>>> 'Wait. You play a broke torpedo?" Arga butted in as Varduhn conversed with his grandkid. He clearly misunderstood or mis-heard Grace. "No wonder that thing is huge..."

>>> "Yeah. I think we'd all like to find out what happened and how. And especially find out whether we can get back to Earth or not." BradL33 interjected. "Best place yo find answers is definitely gotta be where there should be more of us players... Adventurers, right? I'm guessing that's gotta be Mound City." He looked at the others gathered in the small villa, maybe trying to figure tout their various feelings about the situation. "We're all bound to feel different ways about whatever it was that happened. For some of us, I guess it was like the end of the world. Like some kinda Apocalypse, or something. For some if us, maybe not. Maybe its like a new beginning..." he looked directly at Atalanta for maybe a bit longer than he meant to. "Either way, we're stuck here and we need to start learning how things work. How to live in this world now that it's not just a game anymore." He looked at Grace and Piphany, "I don't know if fighting is just gonna be a part of this new experience or not but I don't see us avoiding it for now. We'll do what we have to, though."

Grace smiles sweetly at the children. "Thank you, Adana, Jean-Louis."

She giggles at the torpedo comment (in part because the instrument was the butt of the joke, and not her terrible playing!)…

When Brad says fighting is inevitable, she replies, "All the more reason I won’t opt out of it. Raquel’s description makes me feel a little better about it.

"I just hope I’m better at hitting people with my instrument than I am at playing it."

Fren tries the tea and find it delicious. He does not pay attention to Varduhn, either he does not notices his puzzelment or he doesn't care. He holds the cup as a normal human and drinks with his snout a bit inside the cup. His whiskers get a bit wet and finds the way that a snouted (is there such a word? he thinks) person drinks is a bit funny.

"So are non-humans common here?" he asks Valduhn, after he sees the wolf boy. "How their existence affects the locals?" He knows that in the real world people are very petty when someone has even a different skin colour, let alone being a completely different species.

>>> "I don't wanna downplay it..." BradL33 countered. "It was terrifying not knowing what was going on or how to even defend yourself. I got jumped the moment I landed here and ran into these guys and that helped even the odds a lot." He gestured to the others that he arrived to the villa with. "Seems like we've got abilities like we had in the game but there's a whole world, in this case literally, of difference between knowing that fact and being able to use that knowledge effectively. We're still all learning how everything works here." The thought struck him as he talked with Grace, "Oh, hey. There's probably stuff we found out that we should share with you guys in case you haven't found out about it yet. Stuff like the User Interface. We only found out about it by accident..."

>>> "Do you think this is a good place to Level Up? " Arga asked before BradL33 could start explaining the UI to Grace and Piphany. "I didn't want to be distracted looking at my options while we were travelling in case something jumped us."
>>> "Yeah, I guess so..." he thought about it for a moment. "The Info Box on the town said 'Monsters' were allowed here but it seems safe..." He looked towards Varduhn questioningly.

>>>"Oh, eh?" the old Apothecary seemed a bit confused as to the question but muddled an answer. "There have been monsters sighted near here on occasion but none have attacked in years. Nothing really to draw them here, I guess. No Gold, no valuable supplies. For that we should be thankful. We have a small militia to deter such things but we've no guards like the big cities."

>>>"So, I'm gonna be over in the corner figuring out what I should take while you teach Grace and Piff the stuff we found out. Poke me if when we're gonna leave." Arga moved from the doorway and found a space to sit down on the floor with his staff across his lap and zoned out. His fingers made odd motions in the air at things perhaps only he could see.

>>>The goth assassin bristled at the nickname Arga suddenly saddled her with; her dark fingernails etched marks in the wooden tabletop. As much as she'd like to go punch him in his face, she felt like whatever BradL33 was going to teach them was at least marginally more important and thus sat still.

>>>"I'm pleased you like the Cicada Tea." Varduhn moved closer to Fren as BradL33 monopolized the conversation at the other side of the room. "There are a few Beastfolk around the village. My granddaughter's playmate, Jean Louis is Catfolk you see. Fox Tails and Catfolk are an unusual sight but not terribly uncommon, though there are fewer FoxTails than others, by far." He drew in closer to Fren in order to speak quietly, "Wolf Fangs are only seen amongst you Adventurers in these parts in modern days. And only tolerated because it is understood that they were not part of the Gateway War."

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>>>Meanwhile, something stirs in the forests out beyond thd fields of AleBalm as the field hands return to the village after a day's hard labor...

Grace will gladly take lessons from Brad. "I managed to study a man, and I knew his full name despite not having a proper introduction.

"Leveling… that reminds me. My Custom Weapon is 5 levels above me, I think. So I’m what… level 1 since I never made that go… up? And what’s the significance of my weapon being a higher number?"

She thinks this lesson could take a while, but Raquel was quite chatty so she doesn’t want to ignore her. "Oh, Raquel… I was thinking of checking out the bath house, so long as the monsters don’t come along and disturb the peace. Would you care to join me?"

Raquel’s eyes widen and her face goes white. "Oh, th-the bathhouse?" she stammers. She looks away and pretends to adjust her glasses as her imagination momentarily goes wild. She takes a deep breath to steady herself. She hasn’t been a woman for even an entire day yet... But she doesn’t want to blow a potential chance with Grace for... For what, exactly, she’s not sure yet.

She turns back to Grace and manages a wan smile. "Uh, sure, I’ll go with you," she manages to say.

"A bath sounds amazing right now!" Clara's ears perk up, completely oblivious to the changes in Raquel's demeanour. She always loves a relaxing hot bath after a long day IRL, forgetting the fact that she is no longer a human in this world. "Can I join you guys?"

Seeing that the others are busying themselves, Isbjorn on a whim tries to follow Adana & Jean-Louis outside. Even though they probably wouldn't be staying for long, he wants to know the village layout better. What's more, the mention of monster attacks worries him—He's not sure if a large group of Adventurers like themselves will attract monsters or not, so it's better to keep a look out in any case.

He tells everybody that he's stepping out, and invites anybody who wants to come with him explore the village.

Grace replies to the cat-girl, "You’re certainly welcome to, Clara."

Raquel seems relieved by Clara's interjection. "Sure, the more the merrier," she says, happy to have a bit of a buffer between herself and Grace, for the moment.

>>>BradL33’s quick guide to the Elder Tales UI doesn't take all that long since mainly it just involves kind of showing Grace and Piphany what to look for and where stuff was then letting them do their own exploring when they had a chance.
>>>Isbjorn wandered away while everyone was distracted, following the two kids as they headed for the main part of town. He watched them play as they headed towards the rows of houses (all similarly styled as Varduhn's) that ran along a wide boulevard. The white stucco and terra cotta roofed village was quaint and relatively quiet. The kind of place someone might come for a vacation getaway...under radically different circumstances. The kids disappeared into a low, detached building off the boulevard that had a picture of a wooden-staved washtub hanging from the door. The warm wind picked up into a pleasant breeze as the sun sat low in the sky. The returning field workers and other villagers were polite to the large wizard but tended to take a wide berth around him.

>>> "Woah! Hey, hey!" an armored man called out across the boulevard at Isbjorn. "You're from Earth, right?!" He seemed a bit overjoyed, patting his smaller elven companion on the back hard. Jogging across the street made his armor clank together loudly, his companion in tow behind him. "I'm Guy and this is Tina..." he seemed almost giddy with relief to (presumably) see someone else not native to this new world.
>>>"Ease up, G. Let the guy answer..." she put a hand on his chest to slow down the enthusiastic knight. "You are from our world, right? Earth? 21st Century?" she tried to clarify in case anything else weird was going on besides being transported to a game world.



>>> Varduhn urged the Adventurers to follow him to the village square to visit his shop and allow the girls first chance at the Bath House while a proper evening meal is prepared for everyone.
>>>The village 'square' was really just a wide boulevard with shops and homes (often the same building) that lined the only cobblestone street in the village. Varduhn gave a very brief, yet through, tour as he pointed out the Bath House, the Merchant Quarters where everyone would be staying, his Apothecary Shop and the other fixtures of the small village. The ringing hammers of the Blacksmith's caught Fren's attention from it's location behind and away from the other buildings; perhaps located there to be safely away from the more flammable shops.

>>>"You are free to do as you please." Varduhn announced. "We'll be having an evening meal at sunset so you'll have time to peruse my shop or any of the others in the square, Aegelby probably has heated enough water for baths for those so inclined.
The bell will ring when the meal is ready." The old Apothecary tried to make Belle sound as appealing as he could, despite the way glances from the villagers. It really seemed like a bucolic and peaceful place, despite the weird circumstances that brought everyone here.

Isbjorn sighs when he notices how the villagers seem to be wary of him. He doesn't really blame them, but it's dampening his mood quite a bit. Luckily, the sudden shout and clanking of metal approaching surprised him out of his torpor.

"Ah, yes, hello. My name's Isbjorn," he says while offering a smile and a handshake to the strangers with similar circumstances. "If you two were also playing Elder Tales before getting magically transported in here, unfortunately we're in the same boat," he adds with a wry chuckle. "I came to this village with a few other... Adventurers, so if you wanna meet the others I would be happy to introduce you two."

Speak of the devil, Isbjorn turns around when he hears footsteps behind him and notices Varduhn leading the others towards the village square.

Fren will visit the Blacksmith and sees what he can find there. He enters the door and greets the blacksmith joyfully. His eyes sparkle from the hearth's fire. "Well, hello there!"

After, if there is still time, he will visit the baths.