More than just a Game

[marorda]

In reality, Lucielle was just a plain, boring, average girl. But online, in Allusia Legends, she could be so much more than that. Whether she had wanted to be a warrior, a powerful mage, a cleric of whichever deity she chose, it mattered not. Whatever she had wanted to be, she could make it her character. And she had chosen to be a bit of a mix between a bard and a ranger. The game was her escape from the real world, a place where she felt like she could be herself.


She had chosen to play in Loria, one of the many realms within Allusia Legends. A realm more focused on roleplay rather than hack and slash or PvP. Yet both did occur here too. Before the release of the game she had checked the features, the looks of the realms players could choose from. The widespread lands of Loria had quickly caught her interest. Large forests, seemingly endless meadows, rivers peacefully streaming through the landscape. Across the oceans there were likely deserts and jungles. Every landscape imaginable had to be found somewhere in this world. Some cities were large and prosperous, others were filled with the worst crime and secretly ruled by the mafia. Most villages were rural, quiet and peaceful. Sunrises and sunsets, a nice breeze, the sounds of clattering water. It was all so realistic. It would almost make you forget this was just a game, and nothing more than that.


Though most players would stay near or in the big cities most of the time, Saira, as she was called in game, stuck to the roleplaying part, preferring a nice and quiet village near the forests above the crowded cities. She played an half elf, born and raised outside. And even though she couldn't escape going to the cities once in a while, being surrounded by stone made her feel a bit claustrophobic. Well, as long as she could see the sky, she would be okay, but she still preferred being near nature.


This would make her character sound a lot like a druid, or a tree hugger at least. And while the tree hugger part was fairly true (elves and half-elves, eh?), a druid was far from what she had chosen as a class. She hadn't spend enough points in wisdom to properly cast, and the rules and restrictions bored her. She wanted freedom, and what class could possibly be more free than a bard? Armed with a lute, a broad rimmed hat with a feather, and a list of spells and songs, she wandered the lands until she found that being just a bard would not be enough to survive in a world filled with monsters and dangers for very long.


After struggling to level up, she had chosen to multiclass to something that would make her a little better in combat too. Rangers could stay on a safe distance and they used bows. This had made her choose the combination of classes and style she played in now.


((I like listening to music when I write. Now I was lucky enough to listen to a bunch of songs I think fit what I was writing


Songs I listened to while rolling up description: Anima, The Nightingale, Awakening (Part II) The Final Chapter, The White Forest, Wildland, Francesca. The artist, if you're curious, is BrunuhVille. It's truly beautiful music.


I won't always write this down, really. Just when I think it fits perfectly, like now ))

 

[SilentTempest]

In a small village just a few miles away from a towering forest in the lands of Loria, lived Alice a normal young woman who spent her existence in the marketplace of her home sitting behind a large wooden counter in the square of her little village. She sold eggs and cheese and bought whatever it was the character in the game should want to sell her. Alice's hair was long and dark and her eyes were a sort of green. She wore simple clothing, and if you asked her, she would tell you that she lived on a farm with her father. Alice spoke almost the exact same way to every character that stopped at her stall, with the exception being if the character was a bard. If any character classed as a bard spoke to her, she told them that she loved music and loved to hear a good song above all else, and the first time they sang for her she always gave them a gold necklace. There was always a simple golden necklace in her pocket, all she had to do was reach into it, and pass the article over to the bard who had sung for her.


With the exception of her particular interaction with bards, Alice's life was the same every day. Anytime a character passed her booth in the market, she never failed to wish her a good day, or perhaps offer to sell eggs to them. If her days were anything at all, they most like some kind of fixed dream. Alice said only a small selections of words and phrases depending on who stopped at her stall. If she could have dreamed, she would have, but she did not. Even when she spoke about her father's farm she could not quite picture it in her head, but she did not try to. Nothing really bothered her, there was only today and her wares to sell, her gift to bestow, and her phrases to say.


Alice saw very little difference between male and female characters, and she never though to falling in love or going home to sleep, or of her father's face. As far as she was concerned Alice had lived in the small, peaceful village for her entire existence, sitting in the square every day. Loria was a big place, but this was her very small portion of it. She was not happy, and she was not sad. Perhaps it could be said that she was content, but she could not stop to wonder about that either.


If anything could be said about the smile young woman it was that she was mildly pleasant, she loved music above all, and she was evidently hard working that she was always in the market. There was a certain air of curiosity in her questions, though, when addressed to a bard. There was something very like longing in her voice, if that were possible.

 

[marorda]

((I discovered a song that eerily much fits this RP... Large parts of the texts fit... near perfectly... Just look: http://kerrigan-lowdermilk.com/songs/my-heart-is-split (I listened to the version with Vienna Teng, because I love her music: [media]



[/media]))
((It's actually about going to college But I still think it fits. What do you think?))


Saira, or actually, Lucielle playing Saira, liked the forests. They looked prettier than the real forests, she thought. The smells were different, the air was different. It was nice and quiet there, and she could focus on playing her music. In the real world, she wasn't exceptionally good at anything, but here, in Allusia Legends, she was. Though she was not the best bard in the game world, she did belong amongst the better ones. Mostly because she loved experimenting with different styles and techniques, discovering new things of her own, things she could use in her roleplaying. It were her secrets, things she did not share with other players.


Now that she was done with her near-daily practice in the woods, she wandered to the nearby village. That village was probably her favorite place in the game. It was a small village, near a river. The watermill always seemed to slowly and peacefully turn in the ever-rippling stream. She had been to the village many times before, but she always kept coming back.


She liked the atmosphere in the village, and every time she discovered something new. A detail she had missed. Though perhaps that was because she was never paying enough attention to everything. She didn't even "know" half the NPC's there.


Saira walked back into the village, happily humming a tune, and headed to the square.


((Shorter than I wanted... But college work drained all my inspiration for today... I study journalism (had I told that already? I know I told someone by I forgot who), and I still need to finish one article, and to the layout for three...))

 

[SilentTempest]

The sunlight filled the square, and so Alice sat at her stall greeting passersby and offering them cheese and eggs. A hooded figure stopped before her stall, examining her before offering to sell her a magical ring. She accepted the ring, and paid him promptly. The magician walked into the potions store across the square from her stall. There are moment when everything changes all at once, where unsuspecting that the familiar is about to be gone forever, everything is taken for granted. 
A wave of magical power emanated from the shop, causing some of the people standing in the marketplace to fall to their feet. It was an invisible phenomena, only obvious from the reaction of the people it rippled through. Some of the people in the marketplace seemed not even to notice the change, and other seemed frightened and confused. As the ripple of power swept through Alice she stood up abruptly and looked around. Alice has the strangest feeling, one that she could not name. Extending her arms, she looked at her hands. They were the same hand she had always had, but suddenly she found herself scrutinizing them. Looking down at her dress she found herself wondering why she had decided to wear this particular dress, and now knowing why.


The last few moment flashed through her mind and she thought about the hooded figure that had just sold her a ring. She opened up her back and took the ring out, and placed it on her ring finger on her right hand. The figure had been tall and broad-shouldered, a man dressed in a black material that was intricately woven with magical symbols, that you could only see on closer examination. Alice shuddered, and felt suddenly out of place for the first time. What was happening? She wrapped her arms around her midsection and wondered at how some people in the square seemed as disturbed as she seemed to be. There was an warrior with tears of confusion running down his face, and a lovely elven woman laughing hysterically, a rogue stood by a richly dressed lady looking deeply into each other's eyes as if they had just seen each other for the for the first time. At the same time this was happening the merchant who sold clothing in the stall next to hers continued to greets his customers with the same words, buying and selling wares as if he was unaware of the commotion.


Looking about the square it seemed only a handful of the people she could see seemed to be in a state of confusion or upset, the other seemed as blithe and concerned as ever they were in such a peaceful villages, going about the business of their day. Alice could think of nothing to say, and did not know what to do, so she simply watched, her heart troubled and at the same time exhilarated with the wonder and strangeness of it all.

 

[marorda]

Saira felt the strange wave of energy as she got back to the village. It almost felt like a small earthquake making her lose her balance.


"What the...?!" she exclaimed. She looked around the square, trying to see if anyone else had noticed what she just felt. But at first sight, Saira didn't notice any odd changes. Maybe it was just the start of an event of some sort? It would be something for the developers of the game to do, a random event appearing out of nowhere. Or maybe it was just a bug? There certainly seemed to be some players who noticed something in the air. But there were no visible changes. No announcement, no new NPC or whatever standing in the square shouting about some new event. It was all just very... odd.


Saira simply shrugged it off and shook her head as she continued her way onto the square, but she couldn't help mumbling about how weird it was what just had happened. What she did find odd, however, was that upon closer inspection she saw some of the NPC's looking around too, with the same kind of confusion on their faces as she seemed to feel. And that was most strange. Since when did the NPC's seem to be conscious about what was going on around them?

 

[SilentTempest]

Alice's feeling of strangeness and confusion heightened until she started to feel a little dizzy. Getting up from her seat behind her stall she took a few stumbling steps forward. She looked around at the other people in the market, and felt as if the world was spinning a little. She thought about all the days and the hours she had spent in her stall buying and selling. It seemed to her that she always asked the same questions and gave the same responses. She saw some of the merchants in the stalls around her continuing to nod and smile, and she wondered how she could never have noticed how odd it all was. She looked up at the sky and felt suddenly very strange. Her knees buckled and she fell to the ground, overwhelmed by chaos and the confusion in her mind.


Alice's long dark hair splayed out in the dust and her simple dress billowed around her. A few people looked down at the strange sight, but most stepped around her, as all of the characters who were effected by the magic force seemed to be drifting out of the town or into taverns. The hooded magician black left the potions shop and strided out of the square, either unaware of the chaos he had caused, or unaffected by it.