Invader

"With pleasure," Invader muttered as he scrambled to his feet and stared daggers at the mob. At this point, his cheeks were flushed with embarrassment, and the grin he'd worn only moments before had given way to a menacing scowl. To the casual onlooker, it was probably quite the humorous sight - a grown man sneering at a pig while it blankly stared back at him with passive indignance. The fact that it wasn't dead yet was almost enough to send Invader over the edge. Almost.

It was time to get serious. Whatever that meant.

"Alright, Porky..." he started as he took a few careful steps forward, his movements slow and measured so as not to spook the tepid creature and send it sprinting across the field. One painstaking inch closer after another through tiptoeing that probably seemed reminiscent of a Scooby Doo cartoon, Invader bided his time, patiently waiting for the right moment to strike. Then, at least it presented itself.

"YEEHAW!" the blunette bellowed as he leapt onto the creature's back, bear hugging it with all of his might as it shrieked and flailed its bulbous body about. Invader smashed his forehead into the skull of the creature, delivering what final bit of damage was necessary to put it out of its misery once and for all. In a burst of prismatic azure, it evaporated, leaving behind Invader and a screen that presented a list of his spoils.

"See? I told you, it's all in the- wait a second..." He scrolled through the list for a moment. "Not enough materials. Damn. Wait a sec, why did I get ore from a pig anyways? Was it eating the shit?" Then, another line caught his eye. He tapped on it and, in a ribbon of light, a basic shield was produced and placed in his hands. "Uhhh... the hell's this? Boars usually drop shields, you think?"

Though embarrassed, Invader stood tall and planted his closed fists against his hips and puffed out his chest in defiant bravado. His pride had taken a greater blow than his health meter, but with a bit of acting and plausible deniability, he could still bounce back. "Of course I meant to do that," he lied. "Check it out."

A single index finger protruded from his fast as he rose his arm toward the pissed off pig. The health gauge that encircled it had been shredded to near nothingness, adopting a desperate crimson to contrast the vibrant verdant it had possessed only moments before. "It's on the brink now. Should be able to take it out no problem. Thanks to these handy-dandy shades, I've got Thorns damage now. One prick from these bad boys, and the HP comes tumbling down. Quite a bit handier than missing with that sword of yours, eh?"

He snickered to himself a bit. It was the perfect storm of visual aid and bullshittery; just believable enough to not make him look quite as stupid as he had a moment prior. Now, all he had to do was not fuck it up.

Might be difficult, considering he was absolutely going to try to headbutt it to death just to spite Gideon. He'd already lied about his slip up and sunglasses. They didn't have Thorns. Of course they didn't have Thorns. But he'd be damned if he backed down after all that shit he just talked. 

But when he lunged forward with his skull trained on the mob and missed, again, he came to realize that doubling down had just undid all of the "progress" he'd made saving face and more than likely dug himself a deeper hole.

Invader couldn't help but burst into barely mitigated laughter as he witnessed Gideon's blunder. "It didn't even care!" he squeaked amid the giggles, feigning wiping a tear from his eye. "Aren't you supposed to be the DPS of the party? Guess I might need to look around for someone with a little more experience," he taunted, only realizing after he'd let the words slip that he may have gone a tad too far. 

Not the one to admit his mistake, however, he decided to double down on his insult. "Watch and learn, little lady. You went too slow is the problem. If you'd just rushed at it, like this..." He blasted forth, running as quickly as his legs would carry him toward the boar. It was around halfway through his jaunt that he realized he didn't have a weapon of his own, and didn't exactly know what he was doing. What was he supposed to do? Just take a swing at the thing.

Yeah. That's exactly what he was going to do.

But somewhere along the line, between realizing the folly of his weaponless condition, running too quickly to slow down with any reasonable utility, and awkwardly readying his fist, Invader seemed to lose the grace with which he'd started out the endeavor. His boot slipped against the loamy soil and sent his upper body pitching forward, fist landing in the grass a few feet from its target. Invader raised his jaw upward, mouth full of dirt and grass, casting his eyes on the creature just in time to witness it plowing forward and burying its tusks directly into his forehead.

"Mounts huh?" Invader grumbled as he began to slouch where he stood, rapidly losing steam as the monumental distance to their goal seemed to spread ever wider and wider before his eyes. "Can think of a few names I might give one," he thought aloud, before, "'Stunt Double.' 'Feta' for a goat. 'Necessities' for a bear. 'Your mom.' The possibilities are endless."

Clearly Invader was proud of his little nickname tirade, and that pride would have been evident in his eyes had the sunlight's gleam against his sunglasses not hidden them. But beyond the glossy zeal, they had become transfixed against a shiny object hidden in the grass nearby. If he hadn't known any better, he'd have sworn Gideon flicked it there just moments before. And while she found it useless, Invader felt compelled to pick it up and take a look himself. He took a few steps forward, scooped up the mineral remnant, and examined its properties. 

"<<Ore>>," he announced flatly, casting an accusing glare toward Gideon. Had she intentionally discarded it just to spite him?

"The fuck?" she shot back. "No it isn't."

So he meandered closer to her and popped whatever personal space bubble she may have had, positioning himself in such a way that she could take a gander herself. "<<Ore>>," he reiterated.

Invader rolled his eyes as Gideon raised her nose at the concept of being a lowly blacksmith, but otherwise maintained his intrigued grin as he reaffixed his eyes to 'Cerdic.' "Don't mind her," he reassured the NPC, who, judging by the blank expression worn across his face, wasn't the least bit perturbed by his companion's abrasiveness. "I would like to become a blacksmith, because I think that's pretty neat. Banging metal with hammers and stuff, am I right?" So he pressed "Accept" on the quest inquiry that had populated before him, and that was that.

"Splendid!" Cerdic responded instantly. "I'll be waiting for you to return with the ore!" With that, the NPC hastily jerked back into its standard routine, almost as though forgetting the pair was present within his business. Invader widened his grin as he shot a glance toward Gideon, sauntering past her and back out into the alley from whence they came.

"Kind of a boring quest," he admitted once they were outside. "I'll understand if you don't actually want to do a job like this once we're done." Though he carried a cheery tone, it was clear he was trying to get out of his end of the bargain Gideon had imposed. It was all fun and games to get a job of his own, but helping someone else do it? That sounded even more boring than what he was already doing.

Not that he didn't expect Gideon to tag along, anyways.

Once the pair had made their way out of the southern Town of Beginnings, Invader took a moment to gather his bearings and make sure they were headed the right direction. He blinked as he looked over the seemingly endless rolling plains, trying to discern if the information Cerdic had given him was accurate. "That can't be it, right?" he asked Gideon as he pointed toward the horizon, where a small grouping of trees and unfathomable distance away waited for them. "Dude said past the southern forest. So you're telling me we gotta walk all the way over there, then get through the forest, then find five of these ores?" A brief pause as he let his hand fall back to his side. "Unreal."

As Invader took in Gideon's expression, awash with infectious excitement and enthusiasm, his features relaxed and a cocky grin of his own stretched unevenly toward his right ear. Apprehension to allow his own excitement to be shown evaporated like the sweat from his slick skin, and he mimicked her in lacing his own fingers together against the back of his head. He leaned back against the door, flicked his head forward, and allowed the cheesy sunglasses he'd purchased earlier to fall from their resting place atop his head to the bridge of his nose. They landed crookedly, and low, but masked his eyes nonetheless.

"Damn, we're fucked up," he thought aloud. "Both worlds on fire, and all we wanna do is play." Despite the acknowledgement of their situation, and their unorthodox reaction to it, Invader couldn't bring himself to feel guilty, or even feign disappointment in his tone. "Guess these shades weren't the smartest purchase. If I would have known death was permanent, I may have prioritized safety over fashion." The goofy grin expanded a little further, before, "Probably not, though."

"Suppose you're right, though. As much as I hate the idea of doing 'work' at the start of our extended vacation, we could use the c-" Cut short by a sudden tilt and surge of vertigo, Invader unceremoniously fell backward as the door gave way behind him. "Shit!" he bellowed instinctively as his skull cracked against the hard concrete, though he didn't feel the pain he expected. Numbness instead permeated the point of impact, distracting him from the rather large man that now hovered above him. When his eyes finally found their focus against the rough visage of the NPC, he only blinked.

"A blacksmith, eh? Well, you've come to the right place!" the man announced.

"What," came Invader's blunt response.

"May not be the easiest or prettiest lifestyle, but the ole' anvil won't let you down when you need some sturdy weapons and armors."

"... What."

The man then strode back into his shop, secured a red-hot sword, and began hammering away. Invader cast a puzzled look toward Gideon, grinned, then cocked his head indoors before scrambling to his feet and following the NPC inside. "Tell you what. Go scrounge up five pieces of ore and I'll show you how to use 'em along with a hammer of your own. There should be plenty in the caves past the southern forest--heck, you may even find some layin' around half-buried in the dirt! Just bring 'em here and we'll make you into a proper blacksmith."

Just what had they stumbled upon? Frenzied clamoring and muffled sobbing could still be heard outside the shop, but here was "Cerdic Leighton," hammering away in his shop without a care in the world. Wait a second... Cerdic? Really? Was that a typo? On launch day. Nice one, Kayaba.

Putting aside the laziness of the devs, Invader shifted his attention back to his companion and shrugged. "You said we should look for a job. This sounds like one. Up for the task?"

"Players, I wish you the best of luck."

"O-Okay..." Invader mumbled, blinking as the reality of their situation began to settle in. The Game Master degraded into crimson ooze, shlorped out of view through the cracks in the bright red warning panel cocoon that had enveloped the town square. Then, quicker than it had materialized, the barrier vanished, leaving behind a confused and terrified populace that had no idea what to do. The weather, NPCs, and bustle of the Town of Beginnings carried on as though uninterrupted, save for once distinct difference; the Players were silent.

Invader turned to Gideon and started to speak, only for the sudden outburst of mass delirium to govern precedence over his voice. All around them, Players swirled about as though riding a carousel of hysteria, shrieking and shouting and running into one another. Some were angry, others sad, others petrified. Amid the maelstrom of negativity, Invader couldn't keep the crooked grin from crawling across his face. The situation was absolutely fucked, and he didn't blame anyone else for reacting in the way that they did. But, on that same note, Invader saw a glimmer of opportunity.

"Come on!" he shouted above the racket as he grasped her arm, unsure if she would even be able to hear him. "We gotta get out of this sea of jackasses before they trample us! This way!"

He tugged on her arm and began leading her from the storm, shoving past the frenzied lunatics as best he could on his way to a narrow alleyway that splintered off from the square proper. When they'd finally made it, he released Gideon and grabbed hold of some crates stacked against a nearby brick wall, hoisting them into the entrance to the alley in an attempt to dissuade the other Players from taking it amid their panic. To his surprise, it worked, and the drones began filtering other directions to make their escape. 

They continued down the shaded alley until they'd reached a point where they could hear their own thoughts again. Invader took a seat on some stairs that led to a back door of sorts, exhaling steadily as he did what he could to quell the surges of adrenaline that coursed through his veins. His gaze shifted up and transfixed to Gideon's, heavy breaths the only utterance share between them for a moment.

"Wow," he finally chortled, sitting up straight and stretching his torso. "That was... unexpected."

There was silence for a moment.

"What do you wanna do?"

- Starter Healing Potions (3)
- - - Heals 50 HP

Level: 1
HP: 20
EN: 2
DMG: 1
MIT: 17
THNS: 9

⍟ Heavy Armor [Rank 1]
⭒ +8 MIT

♝ Crimson Cape [T1 - Rare]
♦ +9 MIT
♦ +9 THNS