A gray mist swirled around him as he walked forward, each step a blind motion to keep going forward. The acrid scent of smoke filled the air as he walked, but all he could do was focus on the house in the distance. With the houses around him crumbling to rubble and flame, he stared in horror as monsters in armor lurched out of the entrance. Even as they approached him, he kept looking past them at his mother lying lifeless on the floor…
Alcydes gasped as he awoke, sweat beading on his brow. With thick droplets rolling down his scalp, he stared up at the ceiling for several seconds before he realized something was off. When had he even been brought inside? Fearing the world, his hand immediately jumped to the dagger strapped to his leg. He let out a slow breath at the comfort, but still felt unsure about where he had been brought to.
Only moving his head, Alcydes looked around in all directions to assess the scenario. With no ornaments to the room outside of the bed he was on, the room had a sterile uniformity to it. The flat blues of the walls only supported it, like it was formed from molded stone rather than a constructed building. Maybe it was molded from magic?
Between the sterile surfaces and the bleak light from the windows, Alcydes eventually hissed at the conclusion that it had to be a dungeon or prison cell. But if it was, it was poorly guarded. A glance at the door only confirmed that, as the wooden door was visibly cracked open.
After waiting for any patrolling guards, Alcydes slipped out of the bed and quietly crept to the door. He pushed it open with an open palm and glanced past it. All he found was another door across from him, and stairs leading down on his right. At the sound of something clanking downstairs, he carefully crept downstairs with one hand on the hilt of his hidden weapon.
Silent steps led him down the steps, the scent of a stew wafting into his nose. With a quick glance around the room, he turns to the clatter of wood on metals and crept up to the entrance.
----------------------------------------
Troy hummed to himself as he scraped the sauteed onions and peppers from one pan into the other, giving a new fragrance to the hash browns. While he had forgotten to move the cold items from the cooler to the fridge last night due to… certain events, he was happy they were still good for cooking when he had woken up this morning.
With the main dish nearly done, he flipped the bacon onto a paper towel to soak up the grease. As the timer counted down, he took a long sip of coffee and hissed through his teeth. “Hurts so good,” he groaned, feeling the black brew settle in his stomach. He didn’t know how he had gotten addicted to caffeine, but god damn was it a great way to wake up through the morning slumber and pain.
As Troy took another sip, a faint creak made him look up. While he saw nothing at eye height, he looked down to find sapphire-blue eyes peering from the living room. His mind froze for a few seconds, then he raised the mug in greeting. “Hey, kid. You’re finally awake,” he said to the kid, a faint smirk forming as he added, “You gave me quite the scare when you passed out. Couldn’t help but try to get the final blow?”
Despite paraphrasing Todd Howard’s dreaded greeting, the only response was the kid’s eyes narrowing in suspicion. Troy waited for several seconds for anything to be said, only to eventually shake his head and turn back to the stove. With a few flips of the spatula, he served two heaping portions of hash browns up. Troy pushed the pan off the burner to save the rest for later, then draped four slices of bacon over the top, like shingles made of meat.
He nodded in satisfaction and turned the stove off before gently setting the plates on the table. With utensils and cold water already set up, Troy glanced at the kid before he waved a hand over the table. “If you want to keep up the silent act, feel free,” he said as he sat down to eat, “But you should probably eat up before the food gets cold.” With nothing else to say, he picked up his fork and began to eat.
The kid watched him warily for several seconds, like he was about to attack him. When it was clear he wasn’t about to attack, the boy cautiously crept up to the table and took his plate. He sniffed the plate tentatively, and pulled a wooden, three-pronged fork from his cloak. The first bite was small, but the boy’s eyes lit up as he chewed. As soon as he swallowed, the mood turned one-eighty as the kid began to devour his food in a wild yet tidy manner.
Troy stared in fascination as the kid devoured his meal in less than a minute, not a single scrap of food being wasted. Once the last bits were cleaned from his plate, the kid stared at it for several seconds before he finally lifted the plate up.
“Lun?” he asked in that foreign tongue, eyes aimed straight at Troy. Troy’s brow furrowed at the enigmatic question, the word not even being Greek to him. But when the boy persistently pushed his plate towards him, a lightbulb finally went off in his head.
“Oh, you want another serving!” he realized, and nodded to the kid as he took the plate. He felt the intense gaze follow him to the stove, but his experience in retail allowed him to push it off as he served the leftover leftovers. When he returned to the table, the kid happily took the plate back.
“Grat’ull,” the boy flatly chimed, and continued eating at a more sedate pace.
The rest of breakfast went rather peacefully, with the boy being especially interested with his mug and cold water. Troy set his fork down after the last mouthful of food, and grabbed an orange before peeling it open. However, as he peeled the fruit open, he felt an increasingly familiar gaze settle on him and looked up from his peeling. Seeing the kid look amazed at the orange, he pointed at the fruit in hand and asked, “Did you want some of this?” When the boy gave a slow nod, Troy removed the rest of the peel and slid it over to him.
The boy picked up the orange, and looked it over with curiosity. He took a small sniff of the fruit, and then pushed a finger into the open crevice. His eyes widened as it split into several natural slices, each packed with juice. With a faint tug, the elven kid pulled one away with his free hand, and popped it in his mouth.
While the child showed no visible reaction at first, Troy felt a smile form at how the pointed tips wiggled up and down. Troy chuckled as the elf began to pop one slice after another, and grabbed his own orange to nibble on. Between the two of them, the bowl of oranges were quickly decimated, the peels spread roughshod across the surface.
As breakfast ended, the carnage of their fruit snacking scattered between them, Troy stood up and started to work on cleaning it all up. The boy was quick to reclaim his fork, but Troy simply brushed the rest of the peels up. While he would prefer to have it cleaned, the last thing he needed was to start a fight with the kid. Any scenario he could think of would see Troy be bisected like that boar had been yesterday. (That, and he didn’t know if a wooden fork could be safely cleaned in the dishwasher.)
With both arms full of the meal’s mess, Troy dumped the scraps into the trash and finally put the plates in the sink. As water began to pour over the plates though, he fell into the cycle of washing dishes: Dunk, scrub, rinse, set. Dunk, scrub, rinse, set. With the pattern helping cut down on time, the plates quickly piled up, the utensils and knives set in front of them.
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As he moved to grab the pan though, a sharp tug made him fall out of his rhythm. Troy glanced down to find the boy looking up at him, one arm still holding his jeans. Now that his attention was on him, the boy pulled out his pendant and held it up. “Kapsil. Kapsil,” the boy said repeatedly, intently pointing it at Troy.
While Troy didn’t understand a single word he said, he just shrugged and grabbed the offered pendant with three fingers. Before he could take it though, the kid’s hands snapped out, grabbing him tightly.
“[Cru’ro - Vruit],” the boy stated, firmly holding Troy’s hand against the pendant. As the pendant began to glow a bright baby blue, Troy’s eyes went wide in shock. Was he planning to store him with the boar? However, rather than his body turning into light, a faint pulse of blue rippled from the pendant over his body. The light permeated over him, before it seeped into his body.
Troy started at the sensation, as the action made his whole body feel like it had been mildly shocked. Ignoring the sound of the pan clattering on the floor, Troy pulled his hand away and checked himself for any irregularities. “What on earth did you do to me?” he asked aloud, his hands and eyes looking over every inch of his body.
“Sorry about that,” a small, flat voice chimed. While he didn’t recognize the voice at first, Troy looked down to find the boy clutching his pendant like a lifeline. The boy balked at being stared at directly, but glanced to the ground as he said, “I couldn’t understand you. So I added you to my Party.”
“Okaaay, and why did that help?” Troy asked, his body slowly relaxing as he realized the blue glow wasn’t a malicious attack.
Rather than immediately answer, the boy grew pensive. As Troy waved his hand in encouragement though, he held up his pendant for both to see. “Party mechanics. Ensures that all folks in a party can understand each other,” the boy told Troy as he looked it over, finding the white-silver metal to be rather interesting.
“Oh, so it shares our mental knowledge with each other after I was added. Neat,” Troy commented, looking at the prismatic gem in curiosity. As he thought those words over though, he paused as a thought hit him. “Wait, how does it work with text, or font? Do the words simply change visually to be readable to the other? Or does the user simply understand what the words say regardless? Does it even detect puns or intentional words?”
“Dunno. Never had to use it before,” the boy responded, and put the pendant away.
Troy nodded along with the answer, and leaned back against the counter. However, as he thought over the scenario, he frowned at how the boy had described it. While the words the kid had said earlier were incomprehensible to him, he was disturbed at how the kid was so wary of him after waking up. And between that, and how he had persistently fought on his own until Troy had intervened…
“Hey, kid,” Troy suddenly asked, causing the boy to freeze at how intently he was staring at him, “I need to know, but are you unfamiliar with it because you speak the same language as others? Or because you never worked with others?” When the boy never answered, Troy continued to ponder. “Because I know that any responsible adult wouldn’t let a kid like you run solo. And with an animal like that supersized serving of ham, any other folk would help. So, why didn’t you-?”
“Please. Stop asking,” the boy suddenly cut in.
Troy paused at the comment, unsure why he was asking that. But as he looked at the boy, he stilled at how the boy seemed to tremble, his hands clenched like he was about to fall into a panic…
Troy sighed, and theatrically looked away to stare out the window. “I guess in that case, it’ll be a mystery for the ages,” he commented, bringing a hand up to his brow. While he still looked away from the kid, he felt satisfaction as the reflection showed the kid calming down. Once the tension was mostly gone, he turned back to the boy and asked, “So, does that pendant of yours have any other features? Or does it mainly work as fancy jewelry?”
The boy let out a snort at that, and shook his head. “Not jewelry. Guild icon,” he stated, and pulled out the pendant again, “Acts as personal storage, identification for guilds and quests, and keeps track of health and Stable Traits.”
“Stable Traits?” Troy parroted, unfamiliar with the term. It sounded familiar, but what it actually was was completely lost to him.
The kid gave him a simple look, and shook his head in disappointment. “Let me show you how to view yours,” he stated, and pressed down on the gem in the pendant.
Troy could only watch as the kid lifted his hand up to create a green platform in front of him. While he tried to read the text that formed, the boy was quick to move through it with well-accustomed precision. After several screens flickered in and out of sight, the show eventually stopped on a single, multi-paneled screen.
“Here you go,” the boy said, and flipped the screen around for Troy to see. Troy leaned in closer, and as he started to stare at it, it began to form familiar words:
Troy Ericsen
LVL: 3
BODY
STR: 4 | AGI: 7 | END: 11
HP: 101/115
MP: 145/145
MIND
KNO: 17 | WIT: 15 | CHA: 8
SP: 24
SPIRIT
LCK: 13 | INS: 9 | PRE: 6
“Oh, you meant stats!” Troy said as realization struck and began to look them over more closely. While it had been a while since he had played an RPG, at least most of the stats seemed easy to figure out: HP stands for health, STR is Strength, and CHA is Charisma. But what on earth could INS or SP be?
“No, Stable Traits,” the kid corrected, and shook his head before he pointed at the KNO, “Each one covers the limits you can do something related to that stat. The higher it is, the more you can do with it. But it isn’t the least you put into it, either.”
Troy nodded along, processing it internally. But as he looked the stats over, he paused when he noticed how low his STR was. He knew he wasn’t the strongest, but a four…
“Hey, how bad is a STR of 4?” he asked the kid, pointing at the stat.
The kid leaned over to look at that, only to wince at the listed number. “Let’s just say that any fit kid would be able to out-lift you,” he stated, earning concern from Troy.
“You mean a young adventurer like you, right?” Troy questioned, hope tangible in his voice. Maybe he would only have to spend a few points to catch up. However, when the boy remained quiet, Troy hissed through his teeth. “Yeah, I’m just gonna…” Troy raised a hand up to the panel and tried to upgrade it.
While it took a few attempts, he finally managed to raise it by tapping the abbreviation, and swiftly increased it to a solid 10. And of course, it wouldn’t hurt to raise the other low stats to 10. Maybe even raise the ‘END’ to try raising health. After his drastic upgrades, Troy finally left the remaining four SP for later and looked himself over. He didn’t look any different after the upgrades. Yet at the same time, his body surely felt slightly different. Was it less visible?
He shook his head, shelving the questions for later, and gave the boy a thankful nod. “Thanks a bunch, kiddo,” Troy said, and ruffled the kid’s hair. When the boy flinched at the contact, Troy’s eyes locked on him. He forced down a surge of rage at how the kid reacted, but simply gave the kid a small smile.
“You know, I wouldn’t have been able to take that boar down without your help, let alone figure out how to upgrade my stats,” he told the kid. As he held his hand out to the kid, he looked down at the kid and said, “How about we make the party something more long-term?” The kid looked hesitant, but eventually steeled his look and put his fork away.
“Alcydes,” the kid said, and shook the offered limb by the wrist. When Troy looked confused, he clarified, “My name is Alcydes.”
Troy smiled when the now-named kid accepted his offer and nodded in response. “Nice to meet you, Alcydes. I’m Troy. I look forward to working with you.” As he looked out the window, a thought crossed his mind, and he turned back to Alcydes. “Anyways, if we’re working together, how about we work on some strategies together?” When the kid brightened up, Troy chuckled and went for his extra paper to help draw it out.