The Kingdom of Eonis

[Apollymi]

It seemed this quest was much easier to complete with both of them doing their fair share of the work. By the time she killed the last of the warthogs she could see, the only one remaining was one the lad rode up to her on. Soon after arriving he killed the last of them and chose to greet her. 'Huh? I wonder if dialogue will be closer to normal compared to how it is in game?' she wondered only to have the lad before her greet her in a rather relaxed manner. She shot a look his way a bit more directly and tried for a more amiable appearance than she was regularly capable of. "No, thank you for the distraction. It would have taken me a really long time to get through a group that large without someone to draw aggro," she said her normal speech pattern slipping into this world without much of a problem. "I noticed you when I was coming here but... I don't usually approach people directly," she said truly appreciating this lad's help in the matter. "I did come for the reward, but you did do half the work. Do you want to collect it together? We can split it... then and both get something out of this work," she offered, figuring one didn't take adventures like this if they didn't need the money.

[Bloodedge]

The first statement he heard from this woman was one which took him aback briefly. Specifically, the fact that she used a phrase like 'draw aggro' was strange to hear from a video game character. 'That's weird. Is it just some sort of translation thing that makes it relatable to me?' he wondered, taking a moment to view the blonde in a way which showed her Class and stats the same way he'd previously seen his own. 'Huh... Same level as me, so she must be a companion that levels with me. This is a weird way to start her quest-line, but I guess it could be one of those random spawns. Yeah... like sacrifice half of your earnings from this random quest you're on to unlock a special companion. I hope this one has romance dialogue though; it'd suck to have to settle for other NPCs, and the princess is fuckin' tough.' Eventually, he realized he'd been standing there staring at the blonde for far too long while mulling over his own thoughts. She'd given him an offer, and he was to respond. "Yeah, let's form a Party. My name is Kou," he said while offering his right hand, though he seemed to have a weird reaction to the sharing of his own name. He hadn't intended to introduce himself as Kou - he specifically meant to say his real name. Alas, something about this world was forcing him to speak the name of the character he had the appearance of presently. 'Wait... What is my real name?'

[Apollymi]

'I don't really mind giving up half my earnings, but I wonder if this guy has a quest or something he's out for? It'd be nice if he was one of those trying to slay a dragon... it would guarantee companionship as long as his level isn't too much higher than mine.' there was a long silence following this thought after she'd made the offer to split the earnings with the lad, but she figured he just needed time to think it over. She also took a moment to view the lad's stats in the same way she saw her own. She now knew he was the same level and found it strange but she'd read about some pretty interesting companions that could be found in the world. 'Hm, I wonder if this is one of those intuitive companions. They usually come with romance options... at the very least he isn't stupid or anything so it should be fine to keep him around for a while,' she thought to herself. Soon enough the lad was extending his hand to her and introducing himself by the name Kou. She looked at him with that same forced smile upon her face. "Thank goodness. It would have been really awkward to have my first party invitation not work out..." said the girl exhaling a sigh of relief, and extending her own hand to meet his. "I'm Miki. It's nice to meet you, Kou." she said. It wasn't as hard a sell for this young woman to give the name of the avatar she was using. Such a thing was common for her in online games, to avoid people trying to call her by name.

[Bloodedge]

Luckily, nothing was said regarding the amount of time it took 'Kou' to respond. Such a thing only contributed to the idea that this was an in-game character he was interacting with. And yet, the fact that he couldn't remember his own name - specifically when trying to think of it - was bothersome. With that as an aside for the moment, the pair shook hands and created a Party, which showed its information in a digital manner through Kou's vision. "Great! Looking forward to working with you, Miki. Let's go find the farmer!" he said while moving toward the farm, though he stopped abruptly and looked toward the collection of warthog carcasses they'd left. "Oh, wait! We should loot these guys, right? We'll both make more money that way."

[Apollymi]

As strange as Kou might have thought it was for Miki not to question how long it took him to reply. She was also thinking similar things about him, of course, due to her own thoughts about this game world's realness, she just figured there was something like lag applied to his answer as calculations were made. She also got the notification within her vision about the forming of their party. It was a screen she'd never seen before herself, but she understood it well enough to continue without much thought. As they were about to head off towards the farmer though, the boy suggested that they stop and loot all the warthogs they'd killed previously. She looked at them too and sighed, it would take a bit of doing, but it was well worth it since they were splitting the rewards for the most part. 'Huh, I wonder if he's the kind of companion that comes with tool tips. That's a pretty good catch,' she thought to herself, as she was constantly forgetting about loot unless she was looking for something in particular. But that little fact made a lot of sense considering the type of lifestyle she was used to, "Oh? That's a good idea. Looting always slips my mind..." she said aloud. Her own first adventure in this game world did let her know what was good from these already. "Only the tusks and skins are really worth anything. The rarer pig-spawns are worth a good deal for their whole heads though..." she said, again her language choice would likely seem out of place, but she had a great deal of experience dealing with the pig types from this world, as they were most frequently spawned in the areas she frequented. With this in mind she stopped and looked out at all the corpses. She began working on the nearest ones, removing their tusks to pocket them in the pack beneath her cloak.

[Bloodedge]

Yet another thing spoken by Miki was very, very strange. It wasn't so odd to hear most of this conversation from an NPC, but her reference of rare spawns in such an immersive game as Age of Eternity was far from normal. As such, Kou's path toward the collectibles held by the warthogs was halted, as he truly couldn't wrap his head around this interaction. "Huh. That's pretty meta," he said without much thought. He had many other things to be concerned with though, so he too began collecting from the warthogs. In the meantime, the farmer they would have otherwise been looking for approached the new Party. He was an elderly man with a thick white mustache and glasses, using a garden hoe as a walking stick. "Finally, some young Adventurers came to help me! The Knights and Guards wouldn't bat an eye, even though I've been providing for the kingdom for decades! Thanks to you young'uns, I can finally leave the house and get back to work!"

[Apollymi]

"Meta?" she questioned at a near mumble. "Since when do companions know words like that... I know they are supposed to be intuitive but that's ridiculous..." she spoke to herself about this situation. She was in shock that the lad even knew such a word, and wondered if like the game the world adapted to her presence here. 'That'd be pretty crazy. I wonder if the guy at the game shop would play if he knew he'd get sucked in this hard? Ah well, it isn't like there is much to care about back there anyways...' the girl mused to herself. Her thoughts on this matter were strange but she considered this to be a rather fun way to experience her life. Even if she was already privy to how this story could potentially go. Whatever the case, she couldn't really think on it further as they were soon approached by the person who'd put up the quest. An old man with a mustache using a hoe as a cane. "Hai hai, it isn't a problem, Ojii-san. It's a shame about the Knights and Guards though... do you know why the warthogs were here though?" she asked, wondering if this would be one of those small bounties which could potentially lead to a quest-line. These sorts of things were at least good for money and base level loot, which would be good for them considering they were now sharing money and experience. 'Ugh, I sound like a helpful NPC...' Miki thought to herself, not knowing such a thing was likely how she was being taken.

[Bloodedge]

Kou was happy to continue looting warthogs during the elder's approach, considering it to be something of a discussion going on between NPCs while he wasn't locked behind a cutscene. "It's not so much a shame as it is a pity, young Adventurer. You'd think those who serve the kingdom would actually do some servin', but I'm too old to be heard. Those damn pigs have been roamin' these parts for years now, and they finally went and took down the fence I had to keep 'em outta my farm. I'll make sure it takes twice as long for them to get rid o' the next one!" the old man announced, taking further steps forward to offer a coin pouch to the girl who actually managed to address him directly. "Here's your pay for the job well done! It's only 150 copper pieces for each of you, but it's all I can afford if I want to keep my farm safe once you're gone."

During this time, Kou managed to finish looting as much as he could carry back into the kingdom. He joined Miki and the farmer with a few words to share with the old man. "That's fine. I just need to be able to sleep somewhere tonight without starving by tomorrow," he said. At that very moment, Kou received something akin to revitalization from deep within himself as a glow emanated from his person. Having completed a quest in a way, he felt the surge of power representative of an experience gain, boosting him to level 5 while his eyes widened from the sudden occurrence. "Woah, level five, huh? Starter quests are great!"

[Apollymi]

Being called 'Young Adventurer' was a bit surreal for Miki. Before she'd been transported to this world, she'd experienced this game in VR so it wasn't very different aside from actually having to do things for herself. Some of the speech though just seemed sort of scripted aside from the conversations she had with Kou. Still this old man's speech had some spunk left in it, and it made Miki smile. "Nice to see you still got some fire in you, Ojii-san," she commented while admiring him for his speech and his ability to bounce back from such an infestation. Of course, the amount of money they had to split was a mere 300 coppers total, but given they were also still looting warthogs this was hardly worth thinking about. Before she was able to speak on this though, Kou did, claiming he only needed enough money to move into the next day and not starve. "I was going to say the same thing... Arigatou Gozaimasu~" she mentioned finding it strange for someone from this world to have such a reaction. Obviously level one players were like this in general, but if he'd lived in this world his whole life it was kind of weird.

Beyond this after receiving their pay, Miki got to experience a strange feeling of gaining experience. This caused the widening of her own eyes, and like Kou she had a similar happy reaction to the occurance. "Yosh! Halfway to Alpha Skill!~" she chimed seemingly happy about it, in the same way she'd been when she'd done something similar in game. 'Hm, I am going to need to grind up some more cash... I am going to need a better weapon by the time I get my first lancer skill,' she pondered this point but soon after returned to looting corpses. There were no quests to offshoot from this one, but that was fine as well. At the increase to level five they could together take on something a little more difficult and thus more rewarding.

[Bloodedge]

"They're never gonna be able to put that out, I tell ya'!" the old man said with a rather comical shake of his fist. Kou took a moment to view his own stats again and recall the way he intended to distribute his upgrades over the next 45 levels. It was going to be an arduous task, but there was also something incredibly exciting about being within this world himself. The only downside he could think of was the potential of dying in the game, and meeting the same fate in life. As he stood there thinking this through, he came to a few conclusions regarding how this world should be approached to avoid that potential eventuality. "We should avoid going any farther West. Any more quests we take should be from the lower end of the kingdom, maybe the slums. Gearing up should be a quick priority as well," he said with a decent bit of thought going toward survival. "I don't like being partied up early, but you seem good enough to make the share system not annoying to deal with. We should be able to double our quest completion rate and balance everything out, and even take harder quests sooner. That's new," he continued, seeming to have fallen into blurting out thoughts he would normally share through his microphone when considering his future with other players of a game.

[Apollymi]

Miki also knew how she wanted to distribute future stats, in order to make sure she reached the prime form of her skill level. Of course, she had no idea why this was something she just knew, but that was fine as well. As she continued to make quick work of the corpses, it seemed that Kou had something to say about their future endeavors. His plan was for them to level up quickly, using the lower end of the Kingdom. This was a good plan considering that help was always needed in the places least looked. He also mentioned not liking to be partied up so early and Miki could agree. "Yeah, that sounds like a pretty good plan. I don't think I would have partied up so early either. It was just my plan to get enough money for gear and shelter. And instead of looking for people I was going to get a companion mount," the girl mentioned. "But I don't mind sharing with you... you're pretty capable. And I can't deny the damage you do will come in handy when we get into taking harder quests," she summarized the situation calmly. Though she didn't normally speak over mic this was about the sentences she would have typed in messages to people she spoke to, "I am alright with taking the lower tier quests to level quickly. I'd prefer not to take the Goblin ones though... Orcs are easier to kill and less likely to...ahem... present me problems directly," she mentioned, once again having her knowledge of the game from her previous life leak into her character's decision making. Beyond this she finally worked her way through a great number of the dead warthogs claiming a pack full of tusks and skins for sale.

[Bloodedge]

"I was gonna do the same thing. A nice mount would still be pretty useful though. I'll need to put money toward raising a Chocob-..." Kou paused, realizing he was about to refer to a certain creature by a name he jokingly called it in his home world, as it bore a striking resemblance to something in another game series. "... Filolial. I know how to make one as fast as it can possibly be, and it'll seat two people. It's one of the most effective travel mounts we can get until going Dragon hunting, and Filolials are also good against Dragons." Following Kou's explanation, he took pause. Miki said something very interesting about Goblin-related quests, sounding the way many girls in the human world did about such things since the appearance of a rather controversial series. Strange though this was, Kou responded in kind. "Yeah, I get it. Goblins are an easy grind for me, but I've seen way too many of those things lately. Besides, I've got this," he said, revealing the very same mask fragment he'd obtained from defeating the Goblin Lord when playing Age of Eternity normally. He wasn't sure why he had this fragment when he'd spawned as his character at level 1, but he couldn't rightly complain about it. "Orcs are fine by me, but isn't the path to their forest pretty dangerous?"

[Apollymi]

'That was pretty meta... I wonder if this game read other game activity on the system it was played on?' the girl thought only to nod her understanding of this lad's plan. He apparently wanted a Filolial and knew how to raise it to be the fastest it could be. He went on to explain that it could also seat two people making it good for the pair of them in the party together. He also mentioned they were good against dragons which was true, but him saying this only made her laugh a little. "I knew you'd be one interested in dragons. This really is a good start..." Miki mentioned, only to have the lad reveal a piece of material which was legendary in its own right, though only partly one. "Whoa, that's a pretty awesome find, isn't that an artifact? As a companion animal I want a Winged Dire Wolf. Though they don't actually fly, they change size pretty easily, are useful in direct combat with most creatures including dragons..." she said. In her own previous play through she'd basically used hers as a hunting dog. It intimidated weak foes, and was useful for tracking more illusive targets. Besides that since they weren't afraid of anything she raised hers to have several magical abilities which would be useful against dragons, because she had intended to take one on after getting to max level. "Oh I have an artifact too..." she said removing from inside her cloak a chain of gold with a skull like charm on it. From that charm could attach several long bones to make up a spine. Technically speaking this had been the loot drop from her kill of the Orc Lord when she'd been playing her game, but at present she couldn't really place why she had it, nor what it was used for.

[Bloodedge]

Apparently, Miki was also at least somewhat interested in Dragons. Her own choice in mount was one which was also highly-recommended for dealing with Dragons later in the game. More interesting yet though, was her knowledge of the artifact he held, even though it was nothing more than a fragment. She even had an artifact of her own, which was certainly not something that should be in the hands of a low-level character, and certainly not in the hands of an NPC this early in the game. "But... that's the Bones of Rathma. You shouldn't have that, unless..." He paused, shaking his head while thinking the only reasonable explanation for her possession of this artifact was that she, too, was a player. He couldn't just outright say anything without risking a very strange interaction if he happened to be wrong, but he had to say something to find out if he was right. A few moments to think was all he needed before he produced something he figured would be useful. Just the same, if he was wrong, he'd likely be able to initiate this NPC's romance quest-line. "Oi, do you know of a good romantic spot in the kingdom? I've got some ideas."

[Apollymi]

"You know what this is?" the girl's eyes widened as she realized. She didn't expect an NPC to have the sort of knowledge which would make it obvious that it was this. She'd been thinking that the system of this world was just overly intuitive and based on her previous experiences. But the fact that he actually knew what the object around her neck was, when she'd barely had time to know, let her know all she needed to, 'He had to have come here through the game... it's the only way it makes sense for him to have that artifact!' she thought this and while she did her expression soured, though this had nothing to do with anyone else. Though it was about to change a bit of surprise was in order. Rather suddenly, she was prompted to engage in such a way that would have been standard for a romantic quest line. "Ah!? Nani? Romantic? That's crazy..." she mentioned with all necessary surprise. 'He doesn't think I'm an NPC does he? I know I don't really look like one, and one shouldn't have an artifact... actually...' her face relaxed as she had a thought and she burst into laughter. "Hahahahaha!~ You could have tried something a little less drastic to figure out what you wanted to know... Kou." she said moving a little closer so she could mention something important. "I'm not from here either... but I figured this would be a fun life to live," she stated. It was surprisingly good luck or perhaps bad, that she and another player had been put into this game at the same time. It was as good a place as any to start a reasonable friendship.