Chapter 2 – Party and a Big Black Ball

The girl wobbled and fell on her knees on the sand, grabbing onto Darya with all her might with her thin arms as she bawled her eyes out.

Darya didn’t know what to do or say. She was never comfortable in situations where people hugged her. She had actually gotten a lot of tearful hugs during the last month when everyone finally got to know about her diagnosis, but she hadn’t found solace in any of them. If anything, she felt smothered.

The old man arrived panting after the girl. He fell on the sand just like the girl did, reaching feebly at Darya’s feet like a thirsty traveler at the edge of a desert oasis.

They kept sobbing for an uncomfortably long duration. Darya kept staring at them with a blank expression while they were furiously wiping tears and snot on every piece of fabric.

She was thinking about how to have emergent NPC behaviors of this impossible fidelity back in version six. The only viable way she could think of was a gigantic behavior tree with an intricate set of motion-captured animations. Even then, it would’ve been a patchwork of half measures to work convincingly, or this one interaction sequence alone would’ve eaten resources of a non-VR game.

Looking at these two and thinking about NPCs, she felt a delayed jolt of empathy for their situation. Their princess, whom they thought was dead, had been resurrected. It was only natural for them to react this strongly.

Snap out of it. These are not NPCs if they can bleed as I do. I should say something.

This thought occurred to her somewhat too late. She felt too awkward to speak any words now. Mouth half open in uncertainty, she continued staring at them.

Eventually, the girl emerged from a fit of sobs. She let go of Darya and leaned back, blowing her nose on her dirt-stained cape. The old man was hunched next to her, hugging himself as if he were cold. It seemed he was just as out of words as Darya.

She examined these party members more closely as they were calming themselves down. She didn’t like people, but she was uncomfortable being rude to strangers.

The old man was definitely older than forty but younger than sixty. He had greying hair with only the roots retaining the former jet black. He was balding at a rather fortunate rate, although he was getting close to a Norwood already. His eyes were a pale shade of brown with faint green rims around the irises. Combined with his sharp eyebrows, he had the demeanor of someone a lot meaner than his current behavior suggested.

He wore a lightly armored leather poncho-half cape thing with blue pants and strapped tall boots. Two sword hilts poked out from a harness on the left side of his hip. They looked like Katanas, but without a long sheath beyond the hilt.

Manablades. I remember we were balance testing those in version six.

One could easily mistake this man for a swordsman based on his appearance, but Darya knew this was a mage, or more fittingly, a warlock. He may have been a swordsman at some point, but the hilts on his waist were a unique set of Manacers, just like her Warblade staff.

She was just about to use Inspect on him to check his name and stats when the girl did something unexpectedly distracting.

She loosened the knot of her cape and took it off while fanning herself.

Darya barely managed to hide the gasp of surprise.

The girl was an elf. The head covering she wore had been hiding everything under its shade. Her pointed ears sprang to the sides as it came off, revealing a copper-haired elf girl with a hypnotizing pair of vibrantly hazel irises. Two sparkling green gems hung from her ears, perfectly complementing her beautiful eyes.

An actual elf in the blood! They’re supposed to be pretty, but god damn this one is a doll!

Darya extended her hand for the young elf girl like a chivalrous gentleman. She had a thing for pretty elves in any piece of fiction she ever consumed. It was also the only kind of character that she cosplayed alone in her room when she got into that hobby for a phase. She had such pale skin back then—

Her eyes narrowed. She had pale skin back when? She had a perfect tan now. She tried to remember what she looked like, but suddenly, the image she had in her head flickered into a tanned girl with brown hair.

Huh? Why did I think I was cosplaying as a pale-skinned elf then?

[Soul Merge Conflict: Resolve Identity]

A strange command flashed in the back of her head. She didn’t know what it was about, but something had happened. Something that made her feel slightly more comfortable. Perhaps Verse was calibrating itself under the hood still.

Darya focused back on the pretty elf girl who was now grabbing her hand with reverence as if it was special. The rest of her dirty cape fell off as she got onto her feet.

She had enviably perfect pale rose colored skin with no blemishes. She looked about as battered and beaten as her dirt-stained cape, but her dress had once been a nice golden yellow with intricately embroidered floral patterns. The neckline was rather deep. They had that in common. Dresses in Vainfall depended on role, culture, and climate. It was only natural to wear lighter outfits in hot environments.

Actually, there was nothing preventing players from wearing a string bikini to a snowy mountain, even if they were playing as a stocky male dwarf. Vainfall was intended for a mature audience.

Keyword: mature.

Regardless, the elf girl’s outfit and her overall presentation were a clear indication that she was a mage. Perhaps a support role like a healer by the aesthetics, but elves as a race were quite versatile in Vainfall. The game designers correctly anticipated it to be one of the popular player choices. She wondered what that meant for RLP if the races were still maximizing player satisfaction.

Taking her greedy eyes off the attractive elf, Darya cleared her throat to speak with them for the first time. “I uh, don’t want to be rude, but I don’t remember who you two are.”

She wanted to lay that out right away because she already predicted a hundred more awkward situations if she pretended nothing was wrong. She couldn’t be the Darya Altazark these people knew.

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The elf girl let out a gasp at these words, tears welling in her pretty eyes again. The old man shuddered where he was, gazing at her with bated breath.

“Oh no, my princess!” the elf girl whispered in a soft voice. “You lost your memories?! How horrible! Th-the resurrection stone wasn’t supposed to do that, maybe we can—”

“No matter, I’d like to hear your names now.”

“I’m Seris, princess! Please tell me you remember us growing up together in Karossa?”

“Unfortunately, I don’t.”

Darya regretted blurting it out because Seris, the unfathomably pretty elf girl, looked heartbroken. She felt bad, as if she accidentally stepped on a kitten’s tail.

Slowly clearing her throat, she turned to the old man, beaming at him as pleasantly as she could. “And you?”

“I’m Fominel, princess. Fom for short. You also call me Fomi. It feels wrong to introduce myself. I’ve been your palace guard since you were six years old…” the old man said. He was also clearly upset and hurt. Hearing his trembling voice somehow felt worse than seeing the elf girl shrink.

Well, what do I do? It’s not my fault that their princess went ahead and got herself killed.

It was more cruel to lie to them.

“Hm, I still don’t remember anything,” she said bluntly.

She used the command to inspect them both at once while they were coming to terms with this new situation.

[Party]

Fominel Erigan
Warlock Ascendant III
Level 58
HP: 1,718
MP: 6,792

Seris III
Mage Supreme
Level: 62
HP: 5,239
MP: 16,461

Emil Volfarro
Status unknown
Member out of range.

Rossarie Lacanis
Status unknown
Member out of range.

Fominel and Seris were exactly what she thought they would be. It seemed they had health and mana pools comparable to hers, and in the case of Seris, far exceeding hers in terms of mana. Darya had a guess why that could be.