Magnolia awoke to the rustle of her tent flap opening. She saw the light peek in from the sun rising and the wisps of hair that belonged to Cassidy. “Is it time to wake up?” She murmured and stretched up from her bedroll.
“The sun is already coasting above the ocean, give or take, I’m guessing nine-thirty to ten.” Cassidy started to pick up her belongings, and put them neatly away in her satchel. Magnolia started to do the same, making sure to fold everything neatly so it would all fit together with no problem.
Once the girl’s had packed away their two person tent, they went to check on the two others in their group. Their tent was pitched similarly like theirs, facing the west side. The fire had been put out long before they fell asleep. But the burnt wood was a good indication of how long ago it burned.
Magnolia peeked her head into the tent with a bright smile. “Good morning sunshines!”
Laying in the sleeping bag was Alex, curled in the futile position. Eugene was also sleeping, but was sleeping on his front side. The sleeping bag had been pulled off him as if he got too hot in the middle of the night.
The tent was also a two person tent, where the bed rolls laid fairly next to one another. And the top of the tent was just tall enough to fit an average size human.
She waited a moment for them to rouse, but they had not moved so much of an inch.
“Well, how are they?” Cassidy came up behind her. Magnolia moved to close the tent flap. “I think they’re tired. Not surprised.”
“I don’t want to waste the day away, and they should be able to take care of themselves. Just in case I’ll spray some monster repellent and hope for the best. Let’s go check out the main town. We should be able to find it if we keep to the path.” Magnolia looked back to the tent with slumbering duo.
“Okie! We’ll call it our reconnaissance mission.” She scrambled to get her stuff together, “I’m all ready to go!”
Magnolia and Cassidy arrived to the Main Dock with little to no resistance. They battled small crab monsters, these kelpie-like sea weed creatures, and one of the floating sharks that popped up from the sea during their travel. The area level ranged around level 12-15. Nothing too big or scary for two players running around. Cassidy peered down at her wrist console, securing their items and objects out of sight.
“Anything change on the mission directory?” Magnolia asked her as they walked through the pier entry. There were four guards standing by checking all personnel entering the area.
“Nothing from what I glimpsed.” She replied and they soon were ushered to the first available guard.
“Welcome to Bellcester Shore, can I see your identification?” The guard replied and Magnolia blinked in confusion.
“Identification?”
Cassidy also gave them a puzzled look, not knowing what type of identification they may need.
“Do you or do you not have identification?” The guard, who seemed amicable at first, turned aggressive just as quickly as the lull of the waves.
Before the two could respond, a feminine voice perked up by Magnolia’s side. The half elf felt her arm lift up as her wrist console was shown to the guards. “Here’s her identification sir, she’s a bit slow.”
Cassidy’s eyes widened as she saw the familiar username Curlz4Ev. She had chosen the human race, and looked impeccably lavish, adorned in what they all knew was renaissance-dancer attire. The fashionable coin belts jingled with each movement she made. Her dark skin shown radiantly against her clothing, her jewelry sparkling in the sunlight. If the gold wasn’t eye-catching enough, her dimpled smile that held an ever going smile, and bright hazel eyes greeted them with warmth. The girls gaped in utter shock.
“Violet?!” Both of them yelled in unison as the guard looked at her wrist console. A small ID popped up on the screen as the officer made his notes. He then pulled out a purple wrist colored strap and handed it to her.
“This is your entry to and from, don’t lose this.” He explained to her, slowly enough that it made Magnolia feel dumb. “Keep moving, we have more individuals to check in.”
Cassidy and Magnolia were ushered forward once they were given their straps, and then turned immediately onto the new girl in their entourage.
“Violet! Holy cow there is so much going on, where do I begin!” Magnolia almost started to monologue about everything that happened, until Cassidy shoved a hand over her mouth.
“It’s good to see you Vi, can you tell us what happened since you logged on?” Cassidy took a more eloquent approach, but Magnolia shoved her friend’s hand away from her mouth.
“Are you alright? Did you run into any trouble? Can you logout? What can you gather from everything? How’s your game data? What is your opinion of our God of Time Chronos? What do you know about the Goddess of Creation Lumina? What is going on?!” During her tirade of questioning, Magnolia broke free from Cassidy’s reach to start shaking Violet by the shoulder. The girl in question had her hair pulled up into an intricate up-do with beaded coins, jewels, and fabric and braided tightly into a beautiful fishtail to the side. Cassidy had to step in to prevent Magnolia from causing more of a ruckus in the open.
When Cassidy managed to get Magnolia away from her, Violet grimaced. “What on Earth are you talking about, isn’t this the first level for everyone? And Chronos the God of Time is for the Purple group. Remember, I’m green. Our group is supporting Feronia, Goddess of Abundance. Oh! I literally just saw Fynn with his new group of friends. They finished the main story quest and left like ten minutes ago. They were waiting for you guys.”
When Magnolia and Cassidy absorbed the information, Violet sighed. She waved her manicured hand in a circle. “And where have you been? The other two purple groups have already come and gone. Your group is literally the last party to arrive in Bellcester Shore.”
Both Magnolia and Cassidy scrutinized this new information.
“Violet,” Cassidy crossed her arms over her chest. She was still a head taller than them. Peering down, she said “You said this is the first level? How long have you been logged in?”
Violet in all her dancer-clad glory stood with confidence. The wrap around skirt on her waist matched the color of her vibrant red hair. “Nick and I arrived with our party just this morning from the Land of Time tutorial. The levels are nice too, just ranging between 3 and 8.”
Cassidy and Magnolia stared at each other. That didn’t seem to match the level of monsters they went up against on the beach. And it seemed apparent that Violet didn’t realize they had been logged into the game for almost a week. Nor all the problems that cropped up. Furthermore, the color cards signifying different Gods and Goddesses to worship and pledge loyalty toward was mildly new information. “It’s only been a day?”
Violet laughed at the ludicrous comment. “Hardly, more like two hours at most.”
Magnolia felt her stomach drop. “Okay, I know this sounds weird, but have you tried to log out?”
“Why? I literally just got here. As beta testers, we’re supposed to test the game out. Not chicken out. Why are you being so weird?”
The druid started to shout: “Because we’ve been here for almost a week now!”, but Cassidy stopped her by wrapping her arm tightly around her face.
“How many groups have already progressed forward?” Cassidy asked Violet with a quick smile. She hoped to get off that topic so that Magnolia could cool her jets about the problem at hand.
“How many?” She saw the exasperated sigh escape through Violet’s lips as she crossed her arms. “Four of the five color groups have come and gone, save your group from purple and our party from green.” Violet counted off in her head, as if confirming the groups mentally. “Purple, Blue, Green, and Orange. The last group that has yet to arrive is Red.”
Tired from standing in front of the entry point of Bellcester Shore, Violet yanked on Magnolia’s arm. “Anyway,” Freeing her from Cassidy’s grasp, they stumbled over to the busy roads of Bellcester. The dock bustled with plenty of tourist activity, with plenty of souvenir shops and street vendors. Just like Mydalr, there were symbols decorated on the cobble walls of each storefront to signify which store dealt which type of goods.
Violet pulled them into a small shop that had an item bag on the front of the wall, where they were greeted by the shop clerk. Also standing in the corner of the store happened to be three others whom Magnolia and Cassidy had not met. Above each of their heads had the names TiramisuBaker, ChemiC12H22O11, and R4DM4N.
“Hey guys! Meet my two friends from the purple squad!”
The only other humanoid with bubbly sky blue hair with the username TiramisuBaker bounced forward to grasp Magnolia’s hands. Almost like the tirade of questions Magnolia bombarded Violet with, the young girl gushed about her Twitch play on her favorite Otome game.
“Violet told me that she knew RelicPetals in real life! That’s really exciting! I’m Rebecca Ryder, or TiramisuBaker! I follow all your Otome gameplays! Which Otome is your all-time favorite? Mine happens to be Legendary Messenger! Didn’t you play that one a while back? They added a whole bunch of new patches and—” Rebecca continued to talk. There was a gnome girl with white hair that stepped in-between the two.
“Becca, you’re overwhelming her.” ChemiC12H22O11 reproached her with a small smile. “Please excuse her, she’s just excited to finally meet you. I’m Chiharu Shimizu, or Chemi. The compound in my username is known for sugar! Sweet, huh?” She smiled once more, and Magnolia could only bob her head in fast succession.
“Oh, I’m Magnolia Burchett, but you can call me Mags! It’s nice to meet you!”
Cassidy approached by the laidback monk of the group. He took the Half-Orc race. His hands were wrapped in knuckle bandages. His tourist outfit looked painfully awkward for his avatar. Very similarly to Eugene’s. “Nice to meet you. Rohan Burman.”
“Pleasure. Cassidy Etheridge.”
Once introductions commenced Violet touched her chin in thought. “Where on earth is Nick and Ricky? Those two better not be running amok.”
Rohan scratched the back of his scaled, dark black head. “Nick said something about fighting the giant rare crab west of here. Ricky went with him to find more valuables.”
“Oh.” Cassidy interrupted, chuckling nervously. “We may have destroyed it last night.”
Almost in awe, Rohan congratulated them. “Good job.” He looked between her and Magnolia. “That must have been tough with only two DPS classes.”
Violet narrowed her eyes to the two of them, but didn’t say a word about what they said. She placed a hand on her hip and silently watched them.
“Oh, no, we weren’t alone. Eugene and Alex were with us as well.” Magnolia explained. She decided to not mention the high level that crab happened to be compared to them.
Chiharu sighed, shaking her head. “Why did we even bother partying up with them, they are too playful.” She looked at her wrist console and she pulled up the quest mission.
“Did you talk with the shop keeper already?” Rebecca asked with a bright smile. Her bubbly mood was almost contagious.
Magnolia and Cassidy blanked out once more. “Shopkeeper?”
Rebecca nodded, “Yeah, they introduce all of the shop information and what each place specializes in” and to prove her point she open her tutorial page on the wrist console to show her their recent help page guide. Magnolia watched, but she noticed their tutorials were lacking in content to theirs. The druid had to scroll through at least two-three pages of tutorial help page points compared to their measly five help points.
Cassidy chuckled, grasping her wrist console to hide their progress. “Oh, yeah we’ll get started once Eugene and Alex join us.”
Before the group could continue their banter, the door to the shop slammed open with an irritated red dragonborn and brown haired elf storming in. Behind them buzzed two new avatars happily chirping around them.
“Who knew we’d run into Eugene and Alex sleeping! Utterly defenseless! If it weren’t for Ricky and I, the great Nick, they’d be swallowed whole by the vicious rare crab!” Dramatically Nick, the Elven fighter looked almost identical to himself back home, save for his own long pointy ears, and beach attire, recounted excitedly.
Ricky ran circles around the two irritated characters, being too quick for either one to catch. His halfling form circled numerous times in figure eights between the two annoyed party members.
“Uh—I’d stop if I were you.” Magnolia started but it was too late. Eugene reached a hand out and gripped the head of Nick. The dark aura rose around him as he uttered tensely.
“If you don’t want to lose your progress, I highly suggest you stop.”
Alex also on the same page glared openly. If Magnolia had to gander a guess on what happened, it probably wound up being a rude awakening and endless chatter.
“If it isn’t Eugene and Alexander!” Violet welcomed with her manicured hand. “Please don’t damage my party members, we literally just began!”
Alex looked displeased, “Can we drop the formalities?”
Rebecca and Chiharu looked back to the shop clerk who seemed more nervous than usual. Perhaps they were creating too much of a bother. “For a game, it’s pretty sentient. Should we head outside?”
Cassidy agreed, stepping forward to the door.
Eugene let go of Nick before walking over to Magnolia's side. He looked tired still, maybe even groggy.
"You doing alright?" Magnolia asked him.
Eugene looked down to her and what seemed to be soft fluffy hair. He dropped his head sideways onto hers and yawned. "Still Tired." He sleepily replied and remained by her side. If anyone nearby had seen the exchange, they would have been completely thrown off.
"Ehhhhhhh?!" Rebecca cried as she just realized it was none other than Engine_Loaded standing before her.
"Don't...Don't tell me..." She muttered as if she had been struck with arrows to the chest. Chiharu seemed to comfort her friend which confused Magnolia more. Out of everyone in that shop, she should have been the most flustered and confused. Eugene never used her as a pillow. Ever.
Nick gasped as he hid behind Violet. "I knew it! They are an item!"
Magnolia all but yelped, desperately pulling the tired dragonborn from the shop. "No, We are not an item!"
