A Tale of Fire and Icecream

The weather is uncharacteristically cold outside for a mid-August evening, and it appears as though snow is beginning to fall. Still, given that the temperature not 3 days ago was 75 degrees Farenheight, each flake melts instantly upon touching the ground.

Of course, it's nice and warm by the campfire at the 'Hostess of Fertility', a well-known in for newbie adventurers and hunters in the grand city of Alne. The multi-racial, all-female staff go from table to table tending to the customers: and there are a lot of them.

One adventurer gives a waitress's bottom a slap, and she lets out a surprised gasp. Not two seconds later, the adventure is sent directly out the door by a solid punch from a Pooka in Blue: proprietor Mia Grand. The adventurers and hunters all laugh at the stupidity of their brother-in-arms, and that adventurer's party leader buys a round as apology. The night moves on.

DosBox, who somehow managed to get the pole position by the fireplace all to himself, and on this sub-zero day, he is enjoying some ice cream like a fool.

It's been a while since Ameia visited the city of Alne. In general, there are a lot of large towns in Yamato that she hasn't been to yet, or has only passed through on her way somewhere else. With a light snow shower falling on the city, she's been using her parasol to block the drifting flakes. Really, she needs to get inside where there would hopefully be a fire, or something to quench the chilly feeling.

So, the magus finds herself in a pub, shaking the ice from her parasol at the entrance before entering. Ameia doesn't notice Dos at first, probably because a large adventurer is sitting in between them. So she could really only see the edge of his face at most. But it's pretty difficult to miss Ameia, dressed in her trademark gothic lolita outfit.

She takes a seat not far away from the fireplace, and props her elbows up on the wooden table. Her gaze though, is elsewhere as she tries to figure out how to get service.

Dosbox does, in fact, take notice of Ameia, a familiar face in a sea of unfamiliar ones. He attempts to call out to Ameia, but the Rock Gnome's voice is lost in the cacophony of cheers and conversations.

A young grey-haired waitress in the customary green dress with apron delivers to DosBox the drink alotted to him from the earlier round, and in a moment of brilliance, he asks the waitress to deliver an ice cream to the lady in the lolita dress. The waitress smiles knowingly and gives DosBox a pat on the head, which causes him to blush, and she goes on her way.

A moment later, the waitress delivers the ice cream to Ameia, gesturing over by the fire and, making sure that DosBox doesn't see, the waitress gives Ameia a wink. What did she mean by that?

Ameia sees a waitress approach and is about to say something along the lines of 'hey, can I get some food?' when she's handed an ice cream. Then, the waitress gives her a wink and gestures somewhere to the side, well, to the fireplace where there's a familiar looking gnome. Wait, an ice cream?

"Um, I don't think I ordered-" she starts to say. But it seems to be too late as the grey-haired girl moves on from her table. So, Ameia's left with an ice cream and a mild amount of confusion. She turns her attention to Dosbox.

"Oh, hey Dos." It should've been surprising for her to see him in a place like this, but at the same time... Yamato really was a small world, huh? "I see you got an ice cream too. Is that like, a free thing they do here? That's pretty cool."

Ameia licks her ice cream, wholly unaware of her own pun.

Dosbox gives a soft chuckle at the pun, "Well, if I saw you and didn't greet you, I feel like I would be giving you... The COLD SHOULDER? EH? EH?" DosBox gives his standard eyebrow waggles at his own pun. "I have a tab running, and I asked her to get your attention. It's... Ah... Loud in here." Almost as if on cue, there is a loud cheer as yet another adventurer is thrown out of the bar, this one, it seems, is a less liked individual.

"So, ah, what brings you to Alne?" And then, as if to answer the question she might ask him in response before she has to even ask, "I came here to see a tailor, and now I'm waiting for my clothes to be finished."

She takes a small bite of the ice cream. Well, it looks small, except it seems like a pretty large chunk of the cream disappeared. Does she have some way of eating like a glutton while maintaining her outward appearance? "I suppose you're right, but I wouldn't hold it against you," she says.

"Ah, so that's what the waitress was trying to say." Another bite. Actually, considering how cold she was just a moment ago, she's really making short w- oh, there goes the ice cream. Ameia's finger touches her lip, sending the last piece of cone and sweet dairy down into her stomach.

"Well, I'm currently tracking a book," she says. "It passed hands a lot of times since the start of ETO, and it may not even be in Alne. But, hopefully a person who once owned it is."

She shrugs. "Boring stuff, I know. What's this about a tailor? You getting a suit, or something?" That's an amusing mental image.

Dosbox shakes his head, "Not a suit so much as... Well... More than one person thought I needed an image change. One person felt so strongly about it that she threw me into her cart and trekked across the continent to take me here in order to get new clothing." He gives a shrug, eating his own ice cream slowly.

For every bite he sees her take, the speed of his eating slows, as if his efforts of NOT eating ice cream could help prevent the oncoming ice cream headache. "Do ice cream headaches even exist if we are all pixels?" He asks absently, before shaking his head to pull himself back from space.

"Ah, anyway, I am getting one set for crafting and one for adventuring. That's about it. Ah... That book quest seemed pretty interesting, though. What's it called? Maybe I could help?"

Ameia considers for a moment that only having one set of clothes at any given time probably makes laundry difficult. Then she remembers that laundry is not nearly as much of a chore in ETO as it was in the real world.

"Ice cream headaches? Well, normal headaches exist here, so I don't see why not," she comments. And regarding the pixels thing, well, considering they're in VR it's questionable if there is actually any pixellation going on, or if everything is just being beamed into their brains, she muses to herself.

"The book is called 'Spelunking Guide'. It's something like an atlas of Yamato's cave systems. I suppose as a gnome, you might know of similar books?"

Dosbox considers for a moment the number of books that he has seen in total since logging into the game. Apart from the one quest that was basically all books, he could count the number of times he had seen a book on one hand. He won't say that out loud, though.

"Well, I'm not REALLY a gnome, you know? That would be useful right now if I was because I might have knowledge about the cave systems themselves. Still, I might be able to ask some lander Gnomes, and they might be more willing to talk to me because of my character model, you know?" DosBox seems uncomfortable saying this part, as if he is afraid that Ameia is a hardcore roleplayer, and he might be breaking her immersion.

Fortunately for Dos, that probably couldn't be further from the truth. "Yeah, you're right. I don't know what I was expecting," she says.

"Landers are probably no good either, since it was written by a player. I just have to follow the chain of ownership 'til I get it, or give up, I guess." She hopes it doesn't come to that. Exploring a cave without a map? Seems like a death wish. Yet, there are definitely things worth finding down there... for example, more books.

Dosbox doesn't respond at first; he lets the conversation just settle on that thought for a moment before doing an abrupt topic shift, "Ah, well, I suppose it is good that I ran into you here because, you know... I ah... I wanted to talk to you. About you know. Something." DosBox is being SUPER descript here. Is he stalling? Is he stalling for the topic that he himself just derailed the whole conversation to bring up?

"You wanted to talk to me about something?" Ameia asked. She couldn't really imagine what. Well, it could be something to do with their guild. Or maybe, there was something he wanted to learn? Perhaps it was some kind of riddle, or cryptic puzzle. Or, he was inviting her to a birthday party. That did happen sometimes.

"Well, what is it?"

Dosbox takes his last bite of ice cream, making sure to take a REALLY LONG time to swallow. He sighs before continuing, "I... Wanted to thank you. For being there for me. I know when I was back with... uh... those guys... You kept tabs on me a lot. You made sure I didn't just... disappear. You made sure I kept up on my guild duties..."

"You... Did a lot for me, and you did it all in a way to make sure that I... Didn't notice that much." DosBox starts to fidget with his hands, "I looked at my quest logs, as sort of a refresher on how I have been doing... and I saw just how many times you were there for me. And it was... a lot. More than anyone else. And, I wanted to say... Thank you." He sighs a big sigh of relief, as if he had just ripped a bandaid off, and now he doesn't have to worry about taking it off anymore, even if it stung to do it.

Ameia blinks, and inhales slightly. That was definitely an interesting turn of events. "I see," she says. Then, exhaling, she puts on a smile. It's an unusual sight, for a girl who is normally smirking, or grinning, or perhaps giggling, but not often, well... smiling.

"To be honest, I didn't think you would notice. But you said you were reading your logs, right? I guess that kind of gives it away." She blushes. "Um... I mean, you're welcome, yeah. I did check up on you more than most... I guess I thought you needed it, that's all. But seriously, don't interpret this weirdly or something, you know? I'm just looking out for my guild."

She coughs into her hand, and that smile and blush both somehow vanish in an instant. "Honestly, what were you thinking? You formatted that like a confession. Way too serious for just a thank you." She smirks and leans back in her chair, hands behind her head. "What were you in real life, a heartbreaker? That sounded practiced. Sheesh, Dos."

Dosbox goes beet red at the mention of a confession, and he begins stammering, "W-w-wha... Me? I don't- I never confessed to anyone in my life! I mean, once someone confessed to me but..." He winces as if he just got slapped in the face, "Well, that was just... She lost at a penalty game, so... She had to, you know?"

The somewhat sobering memory helps Dossy calm down a little, "I mean, I really do appreciate what you have done for me, you know? And I wasn't trying to... Interpret it weirdly or anything. I recognize that I'm not..." He makes a sour face before shaking his head, "I wouldn't try to interpret it as anything but you being a good person. I understand you were looking out for me as a guildie, but I still appreciate it."

"I just... until recently, I haven't really been in a place EMOTIONALLY where I can actually... show the people who are important to me that I care about them. It's still unfamiliar territory, and I am not used to it, but..." He shrugs, blushing a little, "I did practice, you know. In the mirror."