24The creek ran right on the edge of town. The bridge to go across seemed ominous, being made of rope. A rope bridge with two wooden beams holding it up on both ends, a web of it weaved in between for footholds.
"At least it isn't like we're crossing over a giant waterfall or something," Lyre didn't hesitate to grab hold and began her wobbling across.
Highly doubt this is the only bridge. Rain glanced down the creek in both directions one last time, but both sides veered off, and too many trees prevented him from seeing very far.
Regretfully, he took hold and followed his sister across.
"Oh look! A real bridge!" Lyre pointed.
Knew it. Rain stepped off the rope bridge, not caring for where Lyre was pointing, he tried to locate a spot an old hag might live.
Amongst the trees were rather large looking turtles and a few beavers slowly wandering around. One climbed up from the creek and started gnawing away at a tree.
"Turtles and beavers are the next monsters? If anything we should try the tur- Sora?"
"Over here!"
He followed her voice and found her with a sword drawn, squaring off with one of the overgrown rodents. Rain quickly drew an arrow, flipped it onto his bow, but the rodent charged her too quickly.
"Ka!" Lyre darted forward faster with a swipe that rendered the beaver motionless, she spun around and sliced it again before it had a chance to recover.
The beaver vanished and a pop-up displayed in front of Rain, saying that he was now level two.
"Got a beaver pelt, worth a few gold," Lyre joined him. "What's it say now?"
"I'm level two," Rain, still holding his arrow, clicked the next button and a pop-up displayed five different stats he could add to, all currently sitting at zero. He had four stat points remaining.
"Five different stats?"
"Yup, we will basically only be able to add stats to the five basic ones, plus one more as soon as we officially choose our classes. Everything else is defaulted as we level up." Lyre said. "I assume you know the basics as to what they all are."
Ya, Strength is obvious, Dexterity is going to be the one I add to most of the time, Intelligence probably has something to do with magic, vitality is heath and... "Luck?"
"Oh, that is specifically for monster drops and better chances at catching a good fish. I wouldn't bother till we are really up there and lacking good equipment. Oh, and it is luck in general, so the higher the chance you have in getting a good item, will also increase the chance in getting a cursed item."
Rain nodded and added all four points into Dexterity. No other pop-ups displayed.
"Need to find another beaver, he was fun to kill," Lyre started searching for another one.
"Hold on! We don't even know how much they do!" Rain followed.
"We don't need to know if they're never going to hit us."
"That-" Rain thought about it, remembering the move his sister did. The beaver didn't stand a chance! "Where did you learn that move anyway? Is that a skill?"
Lyre spun right around and faced him, looked him right in the eyes and smiled. "Was it cool?"
Ya, it kinda was. "Is it a skill?" He repeated.
"Nope, it had nothing to do with the game," she spun back around. "A beaver!"
Baffled, Rain could only stand and watch as Lyre squared off with another beaver. Just as the rodent jumped at her, she reacted and sliced through it once, twice, then proceeded to finish it off with a fluid third blow. She actually knows how to use a sword.
Why did it take him this long to figure it out? They were training together! She could move pretty fast when an arrow was flying in her direction... then again he was trying to focus on recovering from the amount of times she struck him. Then attempting to aim and hit her right after.
Sora knows how to use a real sword.
"Are you coming? Help me out this time!"
Rain nodded, still trying to convince himself.
Another beaver vanished.
"Second beaver pelt, and I leveled up finally," she called in her pop-up. "Everything into vitality. Need that stamina. Hey, after you have a good amount of Dex, you should put some into Intelligence."
"Why?"
"Because if we're going to be a team of two we need to be able to adapt. You are a good candidate for being half-mage, while I am a better choice for being tanky, when we need to be."
"Or we can-"
"We are not letting anyone join us," Lyre said. "I thought you were good at soloing!"
Rain met her glare before taking a look around as a gesture. "Not in a game like this."
She was about to ask what was so different between this game and any other RPG, but she already knew the answer. It was the same reason she begged her parents to find her a teacher in swordplay. The same reason she thought she could change Riku back to who he was before.
The experience was vastly different. It wasn't the same as mashing a button three million times, this was holding the blade and performing the dance yourself. Your not simply laying in bed doing nothing, talking to no-one. This was interaction with real people, and having an adventure that should be nonexistent.
This game wasn't linear either, it didn't put you on any specific mission that you absolutely had to complete. You could fail a mission, and proceed to do something else entirely; and this was probably the one thing Riku was good at. The one reason he was called a master of hand-held gaming was because he didn't stop until he beat it.
He is useless in this game.
"Lyre, there's a shack over here."
Rain had wandered off, Lyre followed him, climbed a small hill into a sudden clearing that overlooked some of the trees.
"Wow."
Lyre's eyes opened wide when she climbed a bit higher.
Behind the shack was a huge cliff overlooking a huge valley. A castle stood tall and strong in the distance, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, a large river ran from one side of the valley, to the castle and out the other side.
"Beautiful," Lyre eyed her brother and found him lost in wonder.
Rain's big eyes were enough to make her forget the game. The biggest reason she wanted to play with him was so she could have her older brother back. Teamwork would have to become their foundation, followed by a balance in strengths.
He needs a lot more practice with the bow and arrow. Lyre held up her wood sword. I need experience fighting bigger monsters. And we need to learn how to work together properly.
"Hey, you there-a."
Lyre jumped and spun around.
Some sort of ugly pink humanoid monster stood not even an arm span away.
"You here-a to see the-a Madam?"
"What the heck are you supposed to be?" Rain sounded a little freaked out.
Lyre smirked. She knew he was an imp, but she didn't know imps came in pink. She also knew there was a hunting ground where you could kill them all you want, this one, however, was not a threat. By the looks of it, and based on their quest, she'd have to guess this poor guy was a victim of Pink Slime Disease.
"He's an imp, here to lead us to his master?" She asked that last part.
"Follow me-a," the imp stated.
"He's pink," Rain whispered.
"And you will soon turn blue," Lyre replied.
"Oh."
He finally realised.