Art class for dummies (Cocktail)

[Stryke]

One of the fundamental aspects of every mmorpg deserving that name is without a doubt the crafting system. In many games the crafting part is mostly confined to the making of weapons , armors and accessories, few games steer away from this common design choice and they don't add much more aside for a few aesthetics crafts.

Elder Tale was one of those games prior to the apocalypse, while there were dozens of crafting classes the system wasn't really different from any other mmorpg out there, it just had some more choices and versatility.

Once the game became a reality, though, crafters all around the server soon found out that the limits of the system were completely broken. Recipes became a mere utility rather than a law for crafting, with the right crafting class and a high enough level you could potentially make real life objects and stuffs that previously weren't in the game.

"This is by far the ugliest thing ever created by the entire mankind...."

Leo watched in disgust his own first creation, a carved stone with the appearance of the ugliest dog he had ever led his eyes upon. Back when Leo first created his character he had chosen for him the subclass Artisan, he didn't particularly care since the crafting aspects of mmorpgs weren't his cup of tea, he just enjoyed more the combat. Once this game became a reality, however, Leo became increasingly interested in it, especially since it could keep him occupied once whenever he didn't have anything to do, and with the city in this condition there wasn't really anything else to do beside grinding and questing.

Leo half closed his eyes and gave his little creation a blank stare before throwing it in the nearest bin case of the workshop without the slightest regret. The workshop was actually a really nice place, adventurers of every crafting class could come here and craft in peace for a small amount of gold.

Leo sighed and took another stone out of his inventory, it was no wonder that his first creation sucked greatly, he was still at level 1 on his crafting class and he didn't have prior real life experiences in stone carving.

The aspiring artisan sit and started to carve the next stone, he wanted to at least make a somewhat acceptable dog figure out stone before the day ended. Aside from the annoyance of wasting one of his materials ,the more time that passed and the more Leo finally understood why people liked to craft, it was really relaxing and it cleared his mind from all the questions he still had on this world. In that moment there were only him and his ugly dog sculptures, it actually reminded him of how he felt practicing with his guitar in the real world.

After some time Leo finished carving his stone, the result looked more like a cow than a dog,

"Wow, impressive...you're even uglier than the other one"

Leo said while looking his dog/cow deadly in its stone eyes, then he threw the sculpture with a basketball style shoot to the waste bin, making the shoot in on his first try. At least he was still good at this sort of things.


WC:540

[Cocktail]

do it like a brother, do it like a dude,

Cocktail was bored. She had managed to have one of her hair things break, and that had left her in the awkward position of having nothing to shift her hair back from her face, or worse, where it could get in the way when she was crafting. She remembered the poor bloke who had gotten his hair caught on fire back in chemistry: And while she didn't deny that she may very well have had something to do with that, she had no intention of repeating the feat herself. She rather liked her hair nice and long, and even if it wasn't her natural color, she knew that she'd be furious if any of it got singed, something that not even her Heatsink ability would be able to protect her from. That was why, rather than trying to wrestle it all into one ponytail, she decided that it would be much more worth her while to sit down and actually make something to handle the problem. She hummed to herself, her hair swirling around her as if she had reached up and plucked out the lightest shades of blue from a river and then let it fall down her shoulders. She had some bits of metal left over from her various forays into crafting the chains and the nails, along with the other things she'd worked on, so she decided that she might as well try. What was the worst thing that could happen, failure? It wasn't as if she wasn't used to something like that anyway - her experience in the forge with her brother had been more than enough to teach her the experience of failure. She found a slightly more crowded area for her to work, something that she was more than willing to drop a little extra gold for in exchange for the opportunity to antagonize someone else, and after she pushed in her first two pieces of metal to a furnace that was still blazing away, obviously having only recently been in use, she waited patiently, arms crossed and back leaning against the side of the furnace so that she couldn't catch any of her hair on fire. Tilting her head back, she sighed, wishing that her brother was still around. He probably would've crafted something for her, no questions asked. Instead, he was... wherever he was. She knew he was in Unfounded Kingdom somewhere, it was just a matter of when she found him. The Swashbuckler was broken from her thoughts by the sound of a loud clung nearby her, and she jumped, surprised, her hand automatically dropping to the hilt of the rapier at her hip before she relaxed a little, discerning that the sound was no threat. Instead, she sauntered over, nudging the wastebasket with her foot and picking out the item. Ew, that was... bad. She made a face before dropping it back into the basket, pausing to check on her metal before she padded over to the man who she determined was responsible for throwing the sculpture, kicking his chair with a single foot. "Oi. Don't throw things, you could have hit me!" she demanded, huffing. She wasn’t going to take something like that lying down! That could have killed her!

100% 100% Words;; 541 Tags;; Stryke Notes;; Sorry for the delay, almost all of this was written last night, then I got distracted. Also ignore Cocktail being her narrow-minded self here. She doesn't mean it insultingly, that's just how she is orz Lyrics;; "Do it Like a Dude" by Jesse J Template by Kuroya

grab my crotch, wear my hat low like you!

[Stryke]

Leo returned to his stone carving while humming a random tune to concentrate better,

"Well, Third time's the charm they say"

Leo thought and hoped this time he wouldn't create an abomination like his other two earlier attempts. A sound of a waste bin falling to ground echoed through the workshop, Leo didn't even bother to look that way, even if it meant to only raise and tilt his head sideways, he was completely drowned in his (crappy) artistic vibe to even care.

Leo looked determined to make that third stone something wouldn't repulse you at first sight, this time he carefully carved the stone while trying to focus his mind on a real dog's physiology and posture.

"Careful...Careful...Care-"

BAM

Suddenly something hit his chair with just enough force for him to completely cut off his dog's head out of surprise with the blade he used for carving.

"Oi. Don't throw things, you could have hit me!"

Leo didn't listen to that voice, he just stared at his poor dog sculpture which had just been decapitated with his eyes half closed in annoyance. Leo got up and tossed his chair sideways with enough force to make it fall produce a loud sound, his wolf ears and tail appeared out of anger and his face looked more like a wild beast's than a man's in that particular moment.

"Alright buddy, if you're looking for troubles you've just found them"

Leo thought and then turned around to see face to face the one who dared to give him a kick. He kept his head up in pride and when he turned around he saw...nothing, he then lowered his head a bit to see a short girl with blue hair standing before him. His wild expression was quickly changed with one of utter surprise, even his wolf ears raised up from the sheer surprise. If he wasn't so blinded and deaf from his rage he would have found out she was a girl long before he actually saw her with his eyes.

Leo stared at the girl with a confused look for a lengthy second, if she was a guy he wouldn't have had the slightest problem of kicking his butt but with a girl it was all too different, and the fact that he was extremely awkward with girls in general didn't really help him to stand on his ground.

Leo put a palm on his face and sighed, then he raised his chair and sit on it again, giving his shoulders to the girl and taking out another stone to carve,

"Yeah, whatever...You shouldn't go around kicking people either, blue berry hair"

Leo didn't really think the words he said, he was just running in automatic after that little incident, his nervousness was really apparent just by looking at his tail and ears, they were tense and twitched occasionally, it was also incredibly fortunate that she couldn't see his face in that moment, because it was as red as an apple.



WC:500

[Cocktail]

do it like a brother, do it like a dude,

When Cocktail saw that she had just caused the man to completely cut the dog's head off on the statue he was working on, you could almost hear her cackling maniacally in her head. The grin that spread across her face telegraphed her intent well enough, and she turned to saunter back to the furnace, figuring that her work there was well enough done. The crash from behind her didn't startle her, the girl more than used to her brother being unpredictable, but she turned her head with a nonplussed expression, pushing the long waterfall of hair out of the way. She wasn't even put off by the ears and tail, merely raising an eyebrow. "What? Weren't expecting me to have boobs? Well guess what, I do, pup, so get used to it." Hmphing, she turned back to the furnace, taking out her first bit of metal and starting to mold it directly with the tongs, wanting to get it into a better shape than if she had just used the hammer. She hummed to herself, a soft little song, and once she had most of the first part formed, she took the second piece, working with it too. Or at least, that was the plan. Then she heard him say the words 'blue berry hair'. It was all over from there. She wheeled about on her heel, glaring balefully. "Don't tell me what to do!" she huffed, stamping one foot against the ground. She put her hands on her hips, glaring at him balefully. "I do what I want, and if you throw things at me, I'll kick you." She huffed, pushing some of her hair back behind her shoulder. "And don't treat me like I'm weak just because I'm some girl! I can kick your butt if I wanted to!" She then crossed her arms, hmphing. "The only reason I haven't yet is because I'm working on something! No other reason!"

100% 100% Words;; 323 Tags;; Stryke Notes;; Sorry about the wait, I've been slowly dying under posts. OTL Also I think I love that because I've been sitting on my butt for so long, he's now a lot stronger than her :'D Lyrics;; "Do it Like a Dude" by Jesse J Template by Kuroya

grab my crotch, wear my hat low like you!

[Stryke]

OOC: Sorry for the incredibly late post :( 

Leo tried to get back to his crafting attempts, but the girl with blue hair seemingly wanted to continue her dispute. Leo tried to ignore her at first but she continued and continued without stopping. Her way of talking and her posture reminded Leo a lot those of feminist groups that wouldn't think twice about kicking a male's ass at the slightest provocation. To be honest Leo preferred to face a hundred pittered boars alone than to start an argument with a girl like that, mainly because he had absolutely no chances of victory against a fully angered woman that knew how to stand on her ground.

Still, that girl was getting on his nerves with all her ranting about kicking his ass whenever she wanted, strangely enough his nervousness completely faded away too, maybe because she reminded him of his sisters, who probably were the most hot blooded persons in the whole world for him, 2 angels that could transform into complete demons whenever the situation required.

Leo tried to carve his stone for the whole duration of the rant, the girl furiously stomped her foot on the ground while staring at him in a an anime like pose of a an angered girl. Leo tried to remain calm but eventually he came to a point where he couldn't just continue ignoring her. He scoffed and then purposely ruined even this carving stone with a careless cut, he then threw the stone again in the bin container, purposely missing the shot and making the stone fall on the ground near the angry girl with blue hair.

After the stone fell on the ground Leo whistled innocently a tune while crossing his arm on the back of his head,

"Whoops, I must have slipped"

Leo said obviously lying while turning around to face the girl with a wide sarcastic smile on his face.

In that moment a voice from the deepest part of his mind emerged saying faint words, a voice not biased by anger or annoyance, a voice representing rationality and foresight:

"Whelp, that's it, you're dead"

Leo never had a good temper, especially when he was around a person with a character similar to his. The possibilities of crossing the line at that point were extremely high, Leo barely realized that by keeping that attitude he was slowly signing his death sentence.

He didn't know why, but he felt more amused at the situation than annoyed, that girl reminded him of all the wars he had with his sisters, it was like relieving some parts of his childhood (and sometimes adulthood).

In that moment Leo 's thoughts shifted to his family, he was so caught up in this whole mess that he didn't even spared a thought for them during the days of the apocalypse. Did they get to know that he was sucked inside another world? It had been some years since Leo transferred to London to continue his studies, it was highly possible that they didn't even got the news of what happened to him.


WC:509