Enter the Fairy of the Crystal Forest! (Delilah + Menel)

The touch was so gentle she almost didn’t notice. She looked down at her hand, it throbs with pink sparkly hues and the skin was an angry red. “I do but someone else may need it more than I do.” She shrugged. “It’s okay this doesn’t hurt.” She held up her hand with a cheerful smile.

He also pulled her attention to her equipment that laid on the floor. Delilah gasped seeing the state of the staff. It snapped into three pieces. Thankfully the bells, the ribbons and the other decorations were not broken. She unties them and put them back in her inventory. The man was apologising again, she doesn’t quite know how to deal with that.

Delilah just shook her head. “It’s fine. I wasn’t really supposed to have a staff as an equipment. But I probably should fix this as soon as possible.” She sighed. Right now she was short on funds, so she can’t buy one and it will be difficult to go out into the wilderness without any weapons.

"If you want; I'll adventure with you a bit and help you get a new one."

Her eyes lit up. “Really? You would? It won’t be a bother to you?” She bounced on the spot gleefully. “Thank you so much. But I don’t really know how to fix it. Oh! How rude of me. My name is Delilah, what’s yours?”

She was so excited at his proposal that he couldn't help but grin at her and nod that it was indeed entirely acceptable to him. Really he felt that it was the least that he could do. Likely she would need the help to get her item fixed or replaced given that it would take her into dangerous territory where she might need to... he supposed flee from monsters. He wondered if he could convince her to let him fight them at least.

"My name is Menel. And I insist." He pulled a healing potion out of his bag, eyeing the contents. It seemed he could use the supplies for a few more of those as well. "I also insist that we heal those wounds of yours. Can't have you drawing in every blood-scenting animal in a ten mile radius."

He laughed at his own words and pressed the potion into her hands firmly. "Anyways. We should head into town and find out what we'll need. Do you have time now, or do you want to meet up some other time?" Menel didn't want to assume that she had the time to go off on an expansive quest right away after all.

“I have time.” She said immediately. Not even checking the clock, knowing full well that if she end up playing till four am someone in the house will definitely knock on her door and urge her to sleep. Besides she could sleep on the bus and that little corner in the library so there was no worry there.

Still Menel insisted on her healing her bloody hand, even taking out his own healing potion. She sighed, he did have a point. “Fine I will fix it. But that... You hold on to it.” She pushed the potion back and took out her own healing salve. It was contained in a small cute jar with a cartoonish bandaid drawn on top of it. A quick rub over her palms made those burns vanished instantly. Not even bandages were needed. One of the beauty of video game. “There! Now those critters won’t be attracted right?” She said cheerfully while wiping off the excess ointment and blood with her handkerchief.

“So do you know how I could fix this? I couldn’t really afford anything at the moment.”

Those things do sound simple. It probably will take some time in sorting through all the threads to find the one relevant to them, but otherwise she has a lot of options. The next part, not so much. “Ehhh? Do we really have to?” She pouted as she followed behind him. Even when he explained patiently how those were not real creatures and would not feel pain, she was not completely convinced.

“But they scream so loudly when hurt! And I don’t want to put you in danger as well.” She said, beginning to jog a little just to keep up with his long stride. “Besides I managed just fine from grabbing the stuff and then run for it. Well at least it used to.” Now she probably has to consider how to make tranquilizers potions or some kind of spells. Can her class even use those spells even? She chose her class to be the most useful, and also the preview images for the little critters were just too adorable to resist. At some point she needed to work out how to get them. For now, all the potions serve her just fine.

They finally arrived at the town. It was a quaint little thing, with only a handful of building and a single well in the middle. Delilah looked around the area for the mission board and perhaps a map of the town. She assumed that each town have one, no matter how small it is.

"I promise, they're not intelligent. No AI." He tapped his forehead to emphasize his words, and nodded once. "And if I didn't want to be in danger I wouldn't play the game. I like fighting things, and running around doing the different missions."

Menel's gaze was thoughtful and his voice warm as he spoke about the game that had become like a second home for him. Sometimes it was like it was his only home. He spent more time here than it felt like he did in any single place otherwise. Such was the cost of traveling so much for his work. "I'm surprised you've gotten as far as you have with just running away, it must have been very hard."

He had a lot of respect for the effort she must have put in to keep from hurting anything. She seemed like a very soft-hearted girl. "I'll take care of the monsters for you this time, but you should really try it. That way when you're not playing with someone you can do it for yourself." The swordsman led them both toward the message board. It had a small display on it to tell you where you were, and requests for assistance from various places. He looked them over and finally tapped a low-level mission that had a reward of an item that would easily replace what she'd been using.

"Okay here's a good one, looks like they don't have a repair shop though..." He sighed and shrugged. "Quest it is. The next village is a day's walk from here."

“I don’t like seeing people get hurt. Especially if it’s because of me.” Delilah mumbled. She remembered the scars on her cousins. It was a little thing, just above her eyebrow where the thrown rock hit her. She still remembered that more clearly, more than the utter rage her sis went into straight after. It was probably because of the blood. There was probably too much for a little girl to handle.

That memory soon taken a backseat as Menel commented on her methods. She bounced happily. It’s rare that she got praised for her method. At least she thinks that was a praise. “I want to work hard in finding ways to play this game as pacifist as possible. If I can, I just want to play this game to help everyone else.” Despite saying it, deep down she knew that was probably not possible. Especially after seeing the message board, almost all of the requests start with hunting. It was disheartening but she guess she has to keep in mind that those creatures were really all data. No matter how life like they are.

“Okay so does that means we have to head back in the forest again?” She stood on her tip toes trying to see which quest Menel chose. Due to the fact he was the one picking the quest the display end up at his eye level rather than hers.

I don’t like seeing people get hurt. Especially if it’s because of me. The words echoed in Menel's mind like an all-to familiar song. He knew just from the quiet half-ashamed way that she mumbled the words that she'd gotten someone hurt in the past. Something that she blamed herself for and couldn't take back now that it'd been done. He wanted to apologize to her somehow, to let her know that he understood, but he didn't want to open that pain up for her.

They were in a game, they were supposed to be having fun, and he hardly knew her. Even so...

Menel laid a hand on her shoulder and grinned brightly when she shifted from her thoughts to something else. Better to focus on hunting down this quest. Her words made him focus on the quest board again quickly, checking to find out where they would have to go. "Looks pretty straightforward. A woman has been losing chickens to a wolf at night, she wants it dealt with. In exchange she'll give us our choice of several items, one of which looks like its close to what you had before. Which means we'll probably have to track it into the forest we just came from, yea. Here, take a look and make sure it's something that'll work for you."

The swordsman pulled the quest down for her, they'd want to take it with them anyways. It'd make sure that others weren't chasing after the same quest as them, and the quest sheet would respawn here in a few hours if they didn't complete it.

“Thank you!” Delilah said as the window was dragged down to her level. Reading through it quickly, she immediately recognised some of the items that could fix her weapon. It also seemed that the quest needed them to go to a different part of the crystal forest, one that she has never been to before. She accept it and let it added it into her quest list. If Menel could see her quest list, he would have seen the insane amount of gathering and harvesting quest. Not even one was hunting, not until now.

“Okay it has the stuff I need. They also told us where we need to go...” Delilah makes a pouty face. “Do we have to kill the wolf? Can’t I just tame it so it would leave those chickens alone? I have lots of snacks in my inventory.” Not that she knows the requirement to tame any creatures, but she has seen her sis and bro just make friends with stray dogs in the park. How hard could that possibly be? And this is a video game so there bound to be some easy criteria to make a critter like you.

Still the quest already indicated where they have to investigate with a waypoint. They could argue about how to deal with the wolf on the way there.

Menel accepted the mission himself, then as she started talking he started heading in the direction where the quest was supposed to start. It was very clear from her words and her emphasis that she didn't want to kill anything. He was worried more than ever that she wouldn't be able to. It seemed to him that maybe this game wasn't for her at all. Quietly he shook his head to himself. Who was he to judge? He couldn't stand to let the players die himself, and weren't they also just bits of data?

"We might be able to, and I'm willing to try, but I'm not a beast master." He glanced over at her and grinned. "I'm pretty sure you're not either guessing by your gear. A beast master might be able to tame a wolf entirely, but as it is... If it's just a wolf we might be able to capture it rather than kill it, but if it's rabid..."

If the thing was rabid they would have to kill it, or it would kill them instead. He checked his gear as they walked, making sure that he had something in it that would allow him to capture the wolf. If he could injure it without upsetting her too much, he might be able to tie it up with his rope. Menel wasn't exactly equipped for capturing animals however.

Eventually the woman's house drew into sight, a little ranch home where chickens of every variation were wandering freely. It was interesting how many different kinds of chicken there were, not just little fat white ones, but some with striped feathers or brightly colored plumage. Seemed that this woman collected chickens as much as she raised them. The fact that there was more than one breed brought a smile to Menel's lips. There was so much detail in this game it was easy to forget that someone had to take the time to do all of this. Program a hundred different kinds of chickens.

They got directions from the woman to the edge of the forest that the wolf was coming from and Menel settled himself into high alert, wary for the wolf that might be hungry enough to try and eat a human rather than a chicken. "Okay, stay nice and quiet Delilah. From here on out we don't want to draw attention." He kept his voice quiet, but knew that it wasn't likely that they were going to stumble on the wolf quite this quickly.