◎ Act 1

[greaterspeed]

[in the room where the Chaos Gate is situated crouches a young, blue Twin Blade. He's far enough to one side to be out of the way, but not enough to be easily ignored. See, Sonic liked to be at the center of attention, it feeds that ego of his and well... He just liked to be social whenever fancy struck him.

What he didn't like was the idea of not being able to defend himself.

The fact that he was still a low level Twin Blade certainly did not help with the whole 'independent' thing. Which has led him to the boy crouching by himself moaning about the indignity of it all]

AAAAAAAUGH! I'm not made for RPGs! I can't do this level thing, got knocked out by a goblin. A MOOK! How does that even happen?? I've taken down giant death robots, angry water Gods, gigantic lasers, more killer robots and even more angry Gods and what happens?

[he throws his hands up in the air in exasperation. A few NPCs take this as a cue to exit the stage] A stupid Goblin knocks me out for an hour!

[silence.

...

...

Then Sonic just covers his face with his hands with a whine, ears folded against his head in embarrassment. In a small, muffled voice;]

I'm sorry, I promise to never do this RPG thing again now can I please go back to being able to beat things up just by jumping on them?

Comments

[greatcleavage]

Tell me about it. I went from mid-high-level fighter capable of taking down my weight in level-appropriate encounters to a level one whatever-I-am just because someone decided to scrap the old campaign and change editions.

[greaterspeed]

Never had to deal with this level thing at all!! [he seems to have adjusted to just about everything else well enough though] Course, I used to have spines and jumping solved everything BUT STILL!

[pause... then he points to Roy with one hand while his other rests on his hip] So would you be a middle-weight or a light-weight? Inquiring minds wish to know.

[greatcleavage]

I'm a PC, that means I've got more than enough weight to throw around.

Assuming you're not talking literally.

[greaterspeed]

PC as in 'Personal Computer' or 'Player Character'? I kinda lost track of what all these adjectives stand for a while back. [lopsided smile]

[greatcleavage]

Player Character. It pretty much goes with the territory of "last hope of the world" and all.

[greaterspeed]

[stares... Then he crosses a hand in front of his chest to support his other hand, which he is now resting his chin on]

Man, I've heard a lot of strange things while running around worlds, storybooks and space but that's something I haven't heard before. [he looks up a moment before smiling at Roy]

In that setting, at least. So, guess that means you're the hero of your world then?

[greatcleavage]

One of them. I lead an adventuring party. We were the main group standing opposed to the evil lich Xykon, and sundry others that mostly existed as filler and sidequests.

[greaterspeed]

Man, I tried the sidequests thing once. [it was so... so... slow] No idea how you guys stand it.

So you here on your own or did you get lucky and get here with friends? Because if you did, I jelly.

[because he's worried about Tails, even if he's not showing it]

[greatcleavage]

No. I haven't seen any of my friends since the conversion. [Thanks. He'd been trying not to think about that.] I guess they're off in some other game, or they've been given a retirement somewhere.

[greaterspeed]

'Conversion'? Getting used to the lingo in different genres, okay okay.

If they are off somewhere else, hope their in one that doesn't have a broken level system. [he shrugs and shakes his head, all exasperated] Or at least somewhere more interesting than this. Being stuck on low level fields is so not cool.

[greatcleavage]

Changing editions. Believe me, I know where you're coming from. Flower gathering and egg hunting is the sort of thing I'd put behind me a long time ago in the old campaign.

[greaterspeed]

... Egg hunting... [he looks like he's having a horrific flashback, if the 'I want to die' expression on his face is any indication. Sonic shakes it off though and continues as if it never happened. 8| ]

Dunno 'bout the flower gathering though. I have a friend - she's like, what? 6? - who happens to enjoy making flower crowns. [he scratches an ear] Time and place for everything, yea?

[greatcleavage]

Flower crowns almost would have been nice. THESE flowers contained an unnecessarily large variety of puzzle pieces that had to be laboriously assembled into a map.

[greaterspeed]

[deadpan;] Puzzle flowers.

I guess every game needs at least one ridiculous puzzle... Maybe it would have gone by faster if you had a pretty awesome top hat?

[greatcleavage]

[Roy lifts a finger to respond to that...]

...

[And he's got nothing.]

There was a time when I could argue that suggestion on any number of grounds, and I miss it.

[greaterspeed]

S'okay man, we've all got our bad days. I'm sure it'll come to you.

[this may very well be the cheekiest grin you've ever seen on a person's face. Utterly shameless]

[greatcleavage]

[Roy just lets out a depressed sigh.]

Still, I have no illusions that we'll be at peace forever.

[greaterspeed]

What's with the sudden change in mood? Nothing's bad happened so far and there's enough people here to make sure that nothing bad does happen.

[c'mon Roy, Hero Mode activate! oAo9 ]

[greatcleavage]

Just remembering those fond days back when I could approach the world logically and rationally. It might have been ultimately wrong, but it was a lot more comforting.

[greaterspeed]

Logic and rationality should be saved for special occasions! Y'know... Like the ones where you're not in a foreign world.

[greatcleavage]

This isn't a foreign world, just a new one. Past memories aside, it's certainly where we are all now.

[greaterspeed]

Same idea, different dimension. [grin] But honestly? Couldn't have said it better myself.

So you got a name, dude? [because you're pretty cool, Roy]

[greatcleavage]

Roy Greenhilt.

[He offers a hand, politely.]

[greaterspeed]

I'm Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog! [wink and thumbs up-

Before he laughs and just shakes Roy's hand]

Though I guess that introduction doesn't work well here, huh?

[greatcleavage]

I really hope you're about to tell me that's just a colorful nickname, like "the Lion" or "Slayer of Thousands".