Everybody Was Pillow Fighting [OPEN]

[DiCi]

“Consider me your team's carry.”

Those words, perhaps lame and awkward in the place he was now, were DiCi's resolution. It was always like this; get knocked down, mope for a while, then start being awesome instead. He just wished he could skip the moping part. Thankfully, he'd gotten out of that phase and back on track. This world would let people slowly sink away in pitiful hopelessness. He'd been quite done with that junk in the real world, and he was quite done with it in this world too.

After scouting around, and interacting with some friendlier players, he found a good spot to head out to for his surrogate tutorial. Out of the east side, a road leading into a forest. He could skirt the edge of the forest for clear visibility, and easily run back to the road should he need to retreat. Sadly, he had no tower to provide covering fire. But he had a race that was agile, so most enemies could be outran. In other words, he'd be just fine with careful play.

He'd gotten the gist of basic combat from other failed attempts at leveling. The menu was pointless, and he could cast his skills through voice command, or even through physical motion and intent. Perhaps it was about conviction and willpower. After all, they were in the game now. If only he had a magical ranged basic attack. Apparently he'd gotten set up with a sub-optimal character. Cloth armor and no ranged poke made him squishy. Of the basic enemies in the area, rabbits could run, leaving him out of favorable position, boars often were near higher level boars, and slimes resisted physical damage more so than magical damage.

Despite that, the slimes were his best bet. Many adventurers used physical damage, so the low-level slime resistance wouldn't be terrible. It'd just make for some longer fights. It'd be safe if he kept up his damage shield. Just very slow. Creeps were dangerous at low levels, so he should have expected as much when he didn't get put into a tutorial zone.

Spotting his first target, a green jiggling blob, he checked it out to find it was a level 2 creature with normal rank, and no other hostiles in range. Though he wasn't sure what the creature's aggro radius would be, he figured his damage shield lasted long enough to recast twice before fading away entirely. Tapping the bottom of his staff on the ground, spectral blue kanji rose around him, wavering as the energy of his Damage Interception surrounded his body for a personal shield.

Charging in while the shield was still fresh, and could absorb the most hits, he held his staff above his head and brought the heavy head down upon the slime. The initiative was his, and the slam produced a sickening squelch and a splatter of gooey green. And yet despite the satisfying impact, he saw the HP bar move only a little bit. It'd take a dozen hits for him to whittle down the creature's HP bar.

So when the blob surged back up to slam against him, he was rather surprised to see his shield pulse with faint blue light, absorbing the entire thing. His own shield meter hardly moved at all either. It was an all-out, pillow-fisted, slap-fight. While he brought up his weapon and again saw fit to strike down on the blob, it felt free to bash its body against his shield. It was thirty whole seconds of the most pathetic, repetitive, silly-looking fighting one might imagine. The only variation was a simple recast of the Damage Interception skill.

But once it ended, the werecat was standing the victor, almost slightly proud as he triumphed over the puddle of green goo that now was splattered about like some avant garde artist went crazy and missed the canvas. He hung his head a little, sighing. ”This is gonna be a long day...”

tagged for OPEN, word count 661, an also “That's what you get for not taking an offensive spell.”

[Daenes]

Where do I begin

The choices are endless

His steps were heavy. He had been walking around for a bit, trying to get used to the heavy plate, and more so, the dual shields he had acquired. He still hadn't found Rue; that was a good thing, but also bad. Had Rue really managed to enter the game? Gabriel didn't want to doubt that, but a part of him surely hoped so. If Gabe was alone in this, he would be able to survive with next to no damage to himself. After all, the male had taken a lot more in, such as his life had brought him. Dealing with different types of mafia had made him tough; the abuse he had suffered made him unable to cave to trauma. When.. no. He didn't dare think of that. His breath eased itself out.

The male had noted that he was in some area; he wasn't quite sure where, but he noticed that someone was near by. Sitting behind a tree, he let himself watch the other, as they began to slowly assault a slime. What kind of mistake was that? Then again, he could see that person's name and class, and it made sense. Shaman.. didn't really have offensive capabilities. Gabriel knew that from when he played on the old server; the new method of attack as well, was strange, but he had learned early not to rely on the menu. He had been the first to die, so he had been the first to end up with his life almost cut short.

Thank god this wasn't a sort of life or death game without magic, because that would make this so entirely depressing. The male waited until the slime was defeated, when his steps brought him out towards the obvious new guy. What was the point? Gabe could use that level one skill; with his current armor, he could easily tank slimes at these lower levels. Of course, the skill that this Shaman held would make him stand up to a greater number, and even aid him in a lot of ways. That's why he wanted to approach this Shaman; to use what he had in his own designs, to propel him further. Gabriel was merciless when it came to such things, much like a dangerous rat of some sort.

Rather, he wanted to survive, so flawlessly, he raised his hand and waved. ''Hey. Seem like you need help with some of these, want a hand?'' he said, perfectly natural. To Gabriel? This was easy. He wanted to help this guy, sure; and it would help him in the process, as the male's extraordinarily long black hair was like a scarf around his neck. Of course the male felt relatively comfortable about the situation, the easy smile to his lips letting him relax to a point. His red eyes searched the shaman in front of him, discerning those were-cat like traits easily, knowing what he was looking for in a way helped. After all, he had played the game before, as the cleric shuffled, waiting to see if the male would accept his offer.

After all, who knew with people in this world right? Exactly. Dammit he wanted ice cream.

[/b] DiCi
•Words; 0534
•Music; I'm Alive :: Disturbed
•Notes; Gonna jump in with Gabe here <3 Hope you're fine with the post ;D [#8f8f8f]
•Credit; PerfectFallacy of Gangnam Style![/div][/ul][/div][/div][/div][/div]

[zekial]

"Not quite so long if you don't mind partying up!" Zeke slowly approached closer to the werecat. He had been about a dozen yards away and had shouted out to the player as soon as he was done with fighting the slime. The American player had switched to the U.K. server when the new update, and found himself locked away from old allies. So it was time to make some new ones. He had set out that morning just to get a general feel of the area he had started in. Had Zeke known that he would be trapped in the new to him game region, he would have looked at maps and area info. But should've, would've, could ah. There had been no way to known that the tens of thousands of players, if not more, would be getting transported into the game and locked there. It was something out of a manga or anime. Zeke still wasn't sure he wasn't just the data and code of a character that had gained sentience. Then again, every one had their memories of Old World. Either way, Zeke wanted to survive and thrive, and that meant leveling up.

It had been easy to get directions to a close low level hunting grounds. Journey to there on foot not a problem either. The only probably was playing it solo. Short on gold meant short on healing items. Which means he would have needed to take longer breaks between easier fights. Not a great way to power level. Having an ally, a healer no less. Would mean the difference in getting a few levels, and making serious headway. Most people where already in small groups of three or four, and clearing the area of boars that sat on the edge of the grooves woods. The person that caught the wolf-tail's attention was a lone cloth wearing Shaman whacked away at one of the plethora of slimes hiding in the tall grass. Time to make a mutually beneficial friendship.

There was another player approaching into the field as well. Perhaps being closer would have been better after all. "Your a Shaman, and you don't look to much like an attacker either" Zeke stated as he walked up to the staff carrying shaman, and he wasn't sure about the other player's class; but with two shields he wouldn't be making any attacks soon. He kept his hands open wide, hoping to show that he wasn't going to hurt or attack the other players. "If you two do not already have a party, why don't we work together." Zeke opened up his menus, and quickly scrolled through the pop up displays till her reached the party menu's. Looking back at DiCi, he hit the confirmation button to send the player the party invite. "We will get through this day a lot faster if we team up." Zeke said with a small shrug of the shoulders.

[DiCi]

Instead of a victorious fanfare, his reward for victory was far less. Silence. But silence was quick to break when not one, but two other new players joined up with him in the area. A quick scan revealed an elven cleric and a wolfhair monk. Both in his level group, and both from different directions. Since he'd been given directions to the area, he should have assumed plenty of other low-level players would be here as well.

And both were quick to offer help as well, as DiCi got a notification for a party invite. He'd been told he'd be best off soloing, since experience got split among party members. But they'd also be able to handle more. In effect, they'd have to cover a larger hunting ground. But if each were soloing, they'd still have to have a similarly totaled up area. So maybe it was more a matter of pride that people soloed their first few levels? And it'd probably be as beneficial to his kill speed as it would be for the cleric, a fellow support class. The monk, as a tank class, would probably be just fine solo. Safety in numbers had a nice appeal though. Between the Cleric's heal and his own Barrier, the monk could become the tankiest of tanks as well.

”Well, we could get a lot done as a small party. Maybe even take on boar groups. If only we had some AoE.” He hit accept on the party request, and sent another to the cleric so they could all go as one.

While that was going on, he tipped the brim of his hat down low, two fingers on his right hand raised toward the sky as another kanji appeared before where his face would be. This one in shadowy black. His eyes would gain a similar rising smoke effect as he completed his cast. There was a slime respawn coming in just twenty-three seconds just to the right of where he was standing. It was a nice, reassuring skill to have, making it harder for creeps to ambush him. ”I'll have to hang back a bit. But I have my shield. These low level mobs don't deal enough to break it. I'll keep watch to make sure we don't get outflanked. It might still be a bit grindy though, since the two of us are support.” He mentioned, meaning he and the elf.

As he saw the respawn timer going down, he picked up his staff in two hands again, holding the very bottom like it was a baseball bat. Walking to where he saw would be the backside of the target, DiCi took a few practice swings. Maybe a back strike would grant him a bit of bonus damage. Not that he was an assassin class or anything. ”Nine... Eight...”

tagged for Daenes and zekial, word count 471, an also “Swing batter, batter, batter! SWING!”

[zekial]

Four, three, two. Another monster was about to spawn in front of them. Recreation of a monster happened when the same rainbow cache of orbs that dispersed and gave an adventurer their experience came back together. It would be beautiful if it as did not mean the chance of death. Though finally having allies to help him was nice. Even if they might be temporary. An American in the real world, he had switched to the U.K. server with the newest expansion of the game. The plan was to make new friends; now he had to make new allies. Though he normally played strikers, he had decided to make a change with the servers. The hardest part of any of it was the combat. Zeke had had more then a few close calls. Pulling up move and action menus proved to be impractical when the game became real life.

One. The slime rebuilt itself, its strange body shaking and jiggling as it came back into existence

Eventually word got out about the new way of fighting. Voice and motion prompts that launched your skills for you. Zeke's own was for Dragon Aura Punch. He drew back his right hand and dropped his stance. Already he could feel his new body preparing for the strike. His MP drained, and he now had a glow in his fingers that would whistle the short distance at the Slime. It was an expensive MP attack for now, draining 10% with each use. For a tank it did something invaluable. He could shut it off every three seconds, and incur all of the monsters agro. In other words, the tanks job.