Magnetism (SG)

[SongofWindchimes]

Bianca managed to keep any 'I really don't know a thing about this' expression hidden behind a smile, listening to Alaric talk. Strategy games were some of the few things she'd dipped into with mild success, if he was referring to those empire-building games she mostly kept in a box and every once and a while pulled out and reminded herself of how badly she sucked at them. Shooters and hack-and-slash found themselves plunked into the mental 'no' category rather quickly, though she'd at least look at them if he thought she may like them.

Of course, then Alaric had to say the words 'role-playing' and, other than the initial mental scramble to not send her thought process to places it really shouldn't go, she realized what he meant and chuckled. "I take it that's the kind of game this character I have to see comes from?" she asked, before shrugging a little and admitting, "I do like something with a story to it, but I haven't really played enough games to have a favourite type."

Bianca was a reader, after all. She liked stories. She liked plots and characters and romantic entanglements and all that other good stuff. Which was probably why being dumped into gameplay and told to go do whatever didn't work, besides the fact that the AI regularly wiped the floor with her in anything that didn't involve pokemon or made-up creatures similar to them.

[Admiral Striker General]

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[ Alaric ]

Well that was it then~ She just hadn't played enough games to find out she was actually a gamer. Very few people could start on an MMO or the like and manage to enjoy it much. Yes.. Gateways indeed<3 "Well they're just some of my favorite games too. But yeah actually. One of the best RP's really, or I think so." He grinned a bit and shrugged. "I may just be a bit pulled in by the whole epic fantasy dragon-slaying bit, but eh~ BioWare does do a great job with all their games. I haven't found a whole lot that rivals them in terms of options and consequences of actions. Like all the games have multiple routes and endings and varying details in the epilogues depending on how you've played them and will even affect the sequels to a point and I'm completely rambling aren't I? Sorry." He laughed sheepishly and blushed a little as he rubbed the back of his neck.

About the time he was starting to apologize, they'd stopped before a door. Alaric opened it now to reveal a fairly large room with an almost ridiculously large tv mounted on the wall. A wide assortment of different types of chairs- different sized beanbags, various saucer chairs, a large cushiony chair, and two different models of computer chair- were pushed to the opposite side of the room save for one large beanbag sitting in front of said tv. An entertainment center held literally ten different consoles, as well as a laptop, a computer tower, and what appeared to be a wireless mouse and keyboard. The assortment of wires and adapters to keep all of them hooked up and plugged in was an utter nightmare behind it. Bookshelves lined most of two walls, with various games filling almost half of them and books loosely filling the rest. Upon closer inspection, one would find one of the bookshelves was actually filled with strategy guides, game manuals, and two stacks of a magazine called Game Informer. Another was filled with comics, but the rest were mostly normal and often enough pretty thick books. Only upon actually looking directly at it did Alaric realize this may seem a little much. ...Ah well.

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[SongofWindchimes]

Bianca tried to follow all of that. She really did. But all she managed to get out of it was 'Epic fantasy dragon-slaying' 'consequences of actions' and 'epilogues' with something in there about sequals. It conjured a bit of an image of an interactive movie, or a more sophisiticated version of a choose-your-own-adventure book, and Bianca just hoped she wasn't wildly off, because that actually sounded cool.

When Alaric opened the door, Bianca froze in place and stared. She had expected something along these lines but damn. She thought she recognized what a few of those consoles were...and was that a computer tower? Sweet Mew. Bianca realized her mouth was hanging open and shut it. "Holy..."

Then, hit by an impulse she couldn't ignore, Bianca let go of Alaric's hand and raced into the room. She hopped onto the large beanbag chair, giggling and grinning while leaving room for Alaric to sit next to her. Okay, so she probably couldn't appreciate the full majesty of this when she wasn't a gamer...but it was a giant entertainment centre with tons of tech and beanbag chairs. Nerdy or not, she was obligated to be in awe.

[Admiral Striker General]

[atrb=style,width:475px;color:goldenrod;border:3px goldenrod ridge;][atrb=bgcolor,#94701A]

[ Alaric ]

And somehow in this Alaric managed to briefly be the one looking utterly dumbstruck while Bianca was giggling. After a moment, however, he gave a half-snort that broke off into a full laugh as he followed her in, mumbling to 'himself' in a teasing tone, "Note to self: fill small pool with beanbags."

He somewhat notice how she'd shifted to one side of the chair, but even though large the beanbag wasn't that big. Or it could have held them both, sure, but not comfortably, at least by his taste. The whole point of one that size was to sink in, and with the weight and dispersion of two of them it would just be too stiff. Rather, he pulled over the largest saucer chair- one of the really huge wicker types with an actual thick cushions set inside as opposed to the more common variant of fabric hanging on a metal ring- before messing with the entertainment center.

He went to one section on a game shelf and quickly found a game, turning on a larger black system- reading Playstation 3 in squarish letters if Bianca could have seen from there- replacing the disc with the one he'd just gotten, then simply half-tossing the case with the older disc aside on the entertainment center. Honestly, if left to his own devices, this place would be filled with stacks of unorganized games in the wrong or no cases and it would take a good half hour to find anything. As it was, he would just have a random maid organize them alphabetically and by system at the end of each day he was home. After grabbing two remotes and a game controller, he more or less fell back into his chair, bringing his legs up to cross within it. One remote cycled through tv settings and the other through options on one adapter to bring the game's menu- actually more an entertainment HUB from the looks- to the large screen.

"This character is actually in the sequel a lot more than this game," he explained as the game was selected. "I happen to have a save file right before her introduction here though." That, and it got straight to the point with her character. After loading Save (24)- and that wasn't even the highest number on the list- a rather realistic if very brown world came into view, along with a handful of characters, one of whom looked vaguely like Alaric, though with different and lighter hair, armor, and a significantly less prominent nose. What no the character customization hadn't been a combination of laziness and wish fulfillment. The campsite the characters were in was exited, bringing up a map screen. After a few selections and a travel sequence of sorts, the characters entered a place called The Pearl. "Here we go."

A fight quickly broke out between three men and a woman, the woman promptly kicking all their asses and causing them to flee in terror. However, Alaric gave a very clearly upset, "Aww!" He grew slightly pouty. "I forgot they revamped her appearance so much between games. The current model is so much better, I swear. Like better done and just better-looking. She even has a bandanna," he would have teased if it wasn't so scarily accurate. Granted, Bianca's was much... more fun than plain blue, but yeah. Once the men had left, rather than approaching the woman in question, he went to another woman running the apparently-brothel and entered a dialogue menu in which he would select the course of conversation through varying options, inquiring about the impressive woman. The owner/manager/whatever informed them that she was Captain Isabela and some various praise.

Afterward, his character approached the captain herself (who promptly recognized his apparent class and tried recruiting him to her crew), complimenting and inquiring upon her impressive battle skills. When he asked if she could teach him her specialization, however, she laughed, insisting it would take him years to master it, though she could teach him basics. She did wish to know who she was teaching, though, proposing a game to test his worth. Alaric, however, asked if they could get to know each other any other way? The conversation quickly turned rather flirty, and the source of his see-your-ship euphemism was revealed and all but confirmed as the way Bianca had taken it.

However, a dark-haired woman in... well, scanty was an understatement.. clothing traveling with Alaric's character quickly became absolutely enraged at the idea, adamantly shutting down any chance of something happening (something about the woman smelling of salt and tar and how if he went went her she'd never touch him again), and causing Alaric to giggle a bit to himself. As Isabela apologized, backing down and claiming she had enemies enough without making more, Alaric commented, "God Morri is fun to piss off<3" As he turned down the captain's repeated offer for a drink and game, he chuckled a bit. He swore, Morrigan was the only woman since his ex he'd really loved. Honey excluded, of course; she came first anyway. And even the fucking fictional character left his ass in the end. Heh.. Ah well, she was still great. "Anyway.. The effect is better with more of her character, but I doubt you wanna spend days watching me play the sequel to see that."

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[SongofWindchimes]

Bianca heard Alaric's mutter just fine, as she knew was intended, and she partially composed herself and shot him a look that would have been right at home with a stuck-out tongue, though she didn't actually stick it out. She had had a big beanbag chair in her first apartment; part of her enthusiasm was nostalgia, though admittedly not all of it.

She shifted more into the centre of beanbag when Alaric pulled up his own chair, and she watched as he went about setting up the game. The game itself caught her interest rather quickly, trying to get a quick look at the camp before he left it (was that a mastiff over there?). Where he went, however, made her raise an eyebrow. 'The Pearl?' That made it sound like a...

...It was a brothel? Not that that revelation distracted her too much, not when Alaric was mentioning the character's model in the second game having a bandanna, and she heard the words Captain Isabela.

The conversation with the apparent pirate captain just amused Bianca more and more, though it was a little weird seeing Isabela's invitation to Alaric's character to join her crew. Bianca hadn't made any references to strong hands, but otherwise it sounded a lot like what she'd said, using the word 'entice' and everything. And then he said...Oh Sweet Mew. 'Below deck?' Bianca started shaking, holding back the fountain of laughter threatening to burst out; Alaric had used a pirate-based pick up line on her from a video game.

The intervention of the other other character made her settle down a little and perk up to watch. Bianca wasn't really one to find anything but the genuine article appealing, but she still noticed the general lack of clothing the dark-haired woman had on, and her voice was immediately attention-grabbing. Not to mention that 'Morri' sounded a whole lot like she was Alaric's character's girlfriend.

Bianca chuckled. "Days? No, probably not days." Leaning back a little more into the wonderful softness of the beanbag chair, she added, "I wouldn't mind seeing what she looks like in the sequel, though, if you've got a save file at a good point." He'd piqued her curiosity at the word 'bandanna,' and she wanted to see just how much better the current model was.

[Admiral Striker General]

[atrb=style,width:475px;color:goldenrod;border:3px goldenrod ridge;][atrb=bgcolor,#94701A]

[ Alaric ]

Alaric laughed a bit. "That much I'm sure I could manage." He quit the game and set the controller aside then. As he stood up and moved toward the bookshelf to look for Dragon Age II, however, the game-book shelf caught his eye. "Oh hey, or this would work." Rather than another game to load and go through looking for a good close-up, he just pulled a walkthrough guide from the shelf and thumbed through it until he found a good picture of the pirate. "There we go," he murmured with a light smirk as he handed her the open book.

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[SongofWindchimes]

Bianca blinked at the picture. That was Isabela? "You weren't kidding," she mumbled. Bianca really wasn't sure what to focus on, her eyes moving from the blue bandanna (her own hair was straighter than Isabela's, but the way she wore it was so close it was scary), to the massive gold necklace (what she wouldn't give to have something like that, but silver with amethysts), to the rather impressive display of cleavage. She could only imagine as to the rest of Isabela's outfit, but if it followed the trend of this top part, she was pretty sure it would be drool-worthy on a real woman.

Bianca glanced up, quirking a brow ever-so-slightly. A female pirate captain in a video game who wore her hair like Bianca. Suddenly Alaric not being surprised by her describing herself as a pirate queen made sense. "Well, I like her taste in clothes," she commented with a chuckle. Between her and that girl who had been tearing Alaric's character a new one over flirting with Isabela, it seemed like someone was having a lot fun with clothing design.

"Am I going to totally spoil the story for myself if I try looking for the other characters in here?" she asked, chuckling again. It was her way of saying he'd gotten her interested. Even if these games weren't The Epic Tales of Isabela on the High Seas, she was seeing some potential here. More potential than in what she was normally showed, at any rate.

[Admiral Striker General]

[atrb=style,width:475px;color:goldenrod;border:3px goldenrod ridge;][atrb=bgcolor,#94701A]

[ Alaric ]

Alaric raised an eyebrow a bit at mention of the clothing. Her shirt was already pretty revealing, but he couldn't help but wonder just how Bianca usually dressed. Of course, the fact that Alaric knew how revealing Isabela's full outfit was may have been affecting that, even if he consciously knew she could only see part of it. He had to laugh a bit himself when she asked about spoilers, honestly a little excited that his plot may have succeeded so easily. "You would. Though with a game like this, some people want to."

He shot her a sly grinning glance as he reached out for the guide to take back. "Or..." he murred. "The game is already in you know." He shrugged. "You could just.. like.. play~? Starting at the beginning? ..With working your way up to Isabela as some incentive?" Yeah part of him was aware of how odd this was. This was more or less kind of a date. Yet he wasn't trying to get in her pants, or anything of the sort. No, he was trying desperately to get her to play video games. Not even with him (yet), but single player. "It's got an Easy mode." He did his best to sound tantalizing. Technically it was 'Casual', but everyone knew that was just so gamers didn't feel as bad selecting it. "I can be your interactive walkthrough even."

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[SongofWindchimes]

If Bianca had seen Isabela's full outfit, her comment would have been no different, except for maybe a 'really' in front of the word 'like.' After all, Isabela had awesome boots, but Bianca, unfortunately, didn't know that yet.

When Alaric suggested she try playing, she looked at the controller and chuckled a little, letting him take the guide from her. She was completely unfamiliar with the buttons, but she supposed a little trial and error wouldn't make the console explode. Hopefully.

"Easy mode huh?" she repeated, smirking, "Well, I guess I don't have any excuses, then, do I?" She was pretty sure she was still going to get her pixelated ass handed to her, but whatever. If all else failed, she was sure she could just hand the controller over in a particularly difficult area and take it back later.

[Admiral Striker General]

[atrb=style,width:475px;color:goldenrod;border:3px goldenrod ridge;][atrb=bgcolor,#94701A]

[ Alaric ]

For a small fraction of a second when she agree, an odd high-pitched sound escaped the young man. Whatever it had been, it certainly wasn't what tiny bit he couldn't suppress of a squee, because that would have been totally immasculine. Pretending it hadn't happened, he took the controller from her for a few moments, creating a new account on the system (notably, there were only four before, indicating this wasn't something that happened often) and set her up to start the game before handing it back. "First you'll have to decide what your character is," he explained.

As he moved back to his own chair, he went on, "Your race doesn't matter much aside from looks and what else you can be- and don't worry about the character you see there; you can customize the looks in a minute. For class, Warriors can either dish out heavy but slow physical damage or be a meat shield." No that term didn't strike him as potentially odd in the slightest. "Rogues can be all stabbity- that's Isabela's specialty too, and my main character- or go for archery. And mages-... Well." He grinned a little and held back a snicker. By this time she'd seen the title screen with the name written out, so he informed her, "Some fans just call the game Dragon Mage: Origins. You'd start really squishy, but you can do crazy damage and crowd control, learn to heal, and if you specialize it right even become a meat shield too."

What no he totally wasn't rambling this time. Because this time it was relevant and she could actually see the different options he was explaining. He was instructional, not just spaztastical. "Depending on your race and class you have different options for where your character comes from- Origins, in other words. That'll effect your entire game opening and then various factors throughout. Like normally these one elves are hostile but welcome you warmly if you're from one of their sister clans and stuff."

He had to admit, aside from his whole gateway thing, he was extremely interested in just watching how she'd play. How well, too, yes. See if she was exaggerating her inexperience or if she could just pick up on something of this sort or really was just adorably and/or painfully terribad. But more than that, he was curious to see what sort of character she'd play. Her in-character reactions to different NPCs wouldn't necessarily line up with whatever she'd do in real life, but they and her actual reactions to situations and options should give him a fair idea of her general mindset toward different things and her sense of humor and such. He certainly did like what he'd seen thus far, and if he could dig deeper, hopefully liking what he found, and make a gamer of her? "Oh hey," he suddenly added as she was still looking through the basic info options. "Also you should sit with me~" Chairs like this, when large enough, were great to snuggle in, and she did look so snuggleable.

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[SongofWindchimes]

Bianca looked at the screen in front of her, trying to simultaneously absorb what Alaric was saying and figure out which one of these buttons was the equivalent of a computer mouse click. She hoped he was too busy explaining things to notice her fumbling with the controller until she figured it out and started looking through options, reading the descriptions for everything. She switched from the default male to female, smiling at the image of the human woman who appeared on the screen.

She'd been turned loose on an MMORPG before, so classes certainly weren't a foreign concept, and part of Bianca was mildly relieved that there were only three. The word 'stabbity' made her giggle a little. She supposed her own style in a fight was something similar, substituting quick punches and kicks for the stabbing. She selected rogue, and found her character immediately wearing armor and an Origin already selected: Human Noble.

That was around the moment Alaric invited her to sit with him, and she looked down at the beanbag chair she was in for a moment. Unfortunately for the beanbag, it just couldn't compete with an offer like that, and she gave it an apologetic pat before getting up and walking over, controller in hand, to sit in the chair with Alaric. Once she'd made herself comfortable (and to Bianca, 'comfortable' was synonymous with 'snuggled up') she looked at back at the screen.

A human rogue from a noble family. Even though she knew she could change the appearance of the character looking back at her, something didn't quite look right, and she went back to race to switch to an elf. Thinking about what Alaric had said about a clan of elves, she flicked to the 'Dalish' origin after looking at the two potentials, and an elven woman in midriff-baring armor and a bow looked back at her. A wild elven rogue leaving the forest on an epic adventure.

Then, with a small, "Hmmm," Bianca went back to race again and selected dwarf out of curiosity. The short, curvy woman with a round face that appeared made her giggle. "Aww," she cooed, "She's adorable." That settled that, in her mind, but the idea of a dwarf sneaking around a battlefield, or shooting a bow, just seemed odd. Mage was greyed out for dwarves, so she selected warrior; dwarves were supposed to wear heavy armor and swing around big battleaxes, right?

Two potential origins again, and she flicked between the noble, who was wearing an awesome set of armor, and the commoner, who was wearing much less armor and had a little tattoo on her cheek. As much as the words 'dwarven princess' made her want to giggle, she was such a sucker for a rags-to-riches story, and that tattoo interested her. Dwarven Commoner it was.

Bianca didn't do too much with appearance-tweaking, sticking to the default she liked so much but getting rid of any makeup, changing her hair to a black ponytail, making her eyes green, and changing the tattoo style a little so that there was a dark stripe that covered her eye as well. After selecting a 'cocky' voice (she'd went for 'sultry' first, but found she liked the other one better), she hit 'next.'

Numbers. Crap. Bianca stared blankly at the 'Attributes' screen for a couple of seconds, then blinked and looked at Alaric. "I want strength, right?" she asked. It made sense; wearing armor and swinging something heavy at monsters would require being strong.

[Admiral Striker General]

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[ Alaric ]

Alaric had wasted no time in wrapping his arms around his beautiful pirate, which to his delight she seemed not to mind at all, or perhaps even enjoy. He watched the selections, not noticing her having fumbled at all or even considered this might be a possibility. So she said she wasn't a gamer, but other people had had her play games. And Playstations had been around for, like, ever, with the only change in controller being the addition of analog sticks (and of course lesser things like being wireless and rumbling, but meh). Of course she would have played one before.

Her comment on the dwarf struck him the slightest bit oddly, particularly with the whole thing with his sisters, but he quickly told himself it was meant in the same way that Tyson was adorable and brushed it aside. At her question, he grinned and chuckled slightly. "Now lookie there. You're a natural~" he half-teased. "Yeah, strength and maybe some constitution. That gives you more health. It's more important if you're going to tank than DP- er.. high-damage." Thinking to inform her in case it affected her class choice too, he added, "Though your first party member is a Warrior too, and he's pretty well made to tank too."

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[SongofWindchimes]

There was no 'perhaps' about enjoying Alaric's arms around her. Bianca had been hoping for exactly that when she'd moved to sit with him in the first place. The tease made her roll her eyes, just a little, and chuckle, but she listened to the explanation. The term 'tank' was fairly self-explanitory, and she had heard it before, so she didn't ask him to clarify on that.

"Guess I'll go high-damage then," she said as she put all of her five available points into strength. No point in making a character who'd be redundant. Then, thinking she may want to give herself a fighting chance to actually survive, she quickly pulled one of the points back and put it in constitution instead. She didn't know how much a single point was really worth, but it made her feel better anyway.

Then she hit next and found herself starting at a screen labeled 'Skills' that said she had one point to spend. Her little Natia (she'd kept the default name, mostly because she had no idea what was an appropriate name for a dwarven woman in this universe) had two skills already, called 'Stealing' and 'Combat Training.' Another six skills had their own icons, and, if she was reading correctly, she could spend points on skills she already had to make them better.

Bianca looked at Alaric again, completely lost. "Uh...I probably don't need to mess around with making traps and potions and poisons on Easy, right?" That eliminated three skills, at least. Frankly, she didn't want to mess around with Stealing, either, but it seemed like she couldn't get rid of that default point in it.

[Admiral Striker General]

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[ Alaric ]

Was Bianca ever in for a surprise when she found out her cute little dwarf's whole back story, then. Not that Alaric knew to say anything. "Nah. That's more Rogue-y stuff anyway. I'd be sure to get at least a point of Coercion though." He chuckled lightly as he added, "Much as I can't stand lying, it helps in-game at times." He cracked a wry grin then and shrugged, mostly with the shoulder she wasn't against. "Of course, in-game all I need to do is hit a few buttons to not be terrible at it, but eh." Not that he would often, but it was probably a good thing in the long run he was discouraged from trying the few times he might want to. Not that he never lied or it never worked, but the first was still pretty rare and the second rarer, and he essentially had to keep some grain of truth to it to have a chance at all.

"Ah but right, it helps with just persuasion too." Here a large but gentle hand trailed from its resting place around her waist up to her neck, playing with her hair just a little. "Though.." he half-purred deeply. Shifting a bit, he kissed the top of her head softly. "I think I do okay at that one." C'mon, really. Sure plenty of guys could talk a girl into bed pretty quickly. Alaric was pretty sure he could too if he'd wanted to, but he really didn't want to. Not that soon anyway. But how many guys could get a random girl they met in the middle of nowhere to come to their family's homes and play Dragon Age with them? And keep up some level of romantic air? Yeah, he was just awesome like that.

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[SongofWindchimes]

Bianca smiled when Alaric's hand wandered to her hair. "Coercion it is, then," she replied with a chuckle, snuggling a little closer. Call it him being just that awesome, or call it Bianca being too adventurous for her good; either way, this was certainly one of stranger series of events she'd been through, and she certainly wasn't complaining.

That taken care of, she hit next and--Sweet Mew, there was another screen with icons and two points to spend, this one labeled 'Talents.' At least the button said 'play,' now, which probably meant this was the last one, and the page was a bit easier to understand, being organized into general 'warrior' talents and ones by weapon style.

"So..." she said, half to herself and half to Alaric, "I want to use a two-handed weapon..." The character actually already had a talent in dual-weapons, but she'd probably ignore that just like the point in Stealing. Efficient she was not. "Pommel strike, maybe?" It knocked opponents to the ground, and she imagined she'd need that.

[Admiral Striker General]

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[ Alaric ]

Alaric gave an indifferent hum as he shifted his attention back and forth between her and the game. "For combat, I could give you advice, but it is Easy mode for a reason. And console easy is even easier than PC easy. There are only a handful of fights that should be that difficult even for a beginner." Realizing how likely that was to utterly crush her in the event she did fail, he quickly added, "Once you get the hang of it, of course." He smiled, nuzzling her a little. "But yeah. just read the descriptions and test out whatever catches your attention. You should be able to play around and see what you like without much penalty." Again he kissed her lightly.

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[SongofWindchimes]

Alaric was making it increasingly harder for Bianca to focus on the screen, not that she minded in the slightest. She chuckled softly at the addition of her needing to 'get the hang of it' first. Nice save. Bianca would have just laughed the first time her little warrior got the stuffing kicked out of her, but it was nice of Alaric to try to protect her feelings like that. "I'll probably be 'getting the hang of it' for a while," she commented with a smile, before planting a small kiss on his cheek.

Back to the game. She went for the Pommel Strike talent, then looked at the rest of the two-handed talents she could access. Then she remembered the warrior talents and found one called Powerful that made it easier to wear armor and increased health, and, if she was reading right, would be always in effect without her having to do anything. She took it without hesitation.

Thus, the play button was pressed, and Natia's adventure began. She was treated to an introduction, a narrator's voice talking about the last underground dwarven city, Orzammar, as the camera made its way through a slum filled with dwarves with similar tattoos to her own character's. The narrator told her she was casteless, the 'dirty secret' of their society, and that she and her sister (Bianca perked up slightly at the word 'sister') had sold their services to the crime lord, Beraht.

The image on screen was then her own character, the apparent crimelord, and a red-haired dwarven woman in a dress. It was quickly confirmed that that was Natia's sister, Rica, and Beraht was talking about 'gambling' on her to find a man. Bianca way not have known exactly what was going on (though she could certainly guess), but she immediately snapped into 'protective sister' mode anyway, making Natia snarl back not to talk to Rica that way, leading to an argument that shedded a bit more light on the situation.

That was then followed by a conversation with Rica, trying to reassure not to hide things and musing about Natia maybe someday becoming a 'Paragon' (she hoped there was a book somewhere that could explain some of these things, much as the conversation tried to) and how much that would surprise their 'bitter old drunk' of a mother.

Then Bianca was free to actually move her character, and she quickly went outside to meet Natia's friend, Leske. Leske immediately made a lewd comment about Rica, and Natia went protective again, telling him not to talk that way about her. Leske then claimed she wanted his 'majesty' all for herself. Bianca let out a snort of laughter when she saw one of the responses, and she couldn't resist selecting it.

When I saw your "majesty," the septer was a little... soft. Leske's embarassed response that he'd hoped she hadn't remembered that was what sent Bianca over the edge into a giggling fit. "That's...that's just..." She shook her head, still giggling a little. "Okay, I officially like the writing."

[Admiral Striker General]

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[ Alaric ]

Alaric had watched Bianca's choices intently, backing off with the affections for the most part for the moment (though not entirely). Innocent in nature as her kiss had seemed, she should know not to egg him on at all if she wanted him to stop, so of course he assumed she didn't. With her here in his arms, he could feel her tensing slightly at the sister comments. Combined with her responses and her comment earlier about a sister, Alaric concluded she must be very fond of her own indeed. This was nice to know: another thing they seemed to have in common.

When that line came up, however, Alaric actually had to snort a bit himself, grateful the sound of her own laughter quickly followed it. Trying not to laugh too much himself, he noted a little dryly, "I haven't played a female dwarf commoner, for the record..." Not that that sort of remark particularly surprised him out of a game that featured cut scenes of actual sex, even if very vague and at times humorously badly done ones, but that was still just.. "That.. Woooowww.." He fought back another bit of laughter. "You are terrible!" Despite the wording and context, the final word practically dripped affection, accompanied by a brief squeezing hug in case the tone alone wasn't clear enough.

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[SongofWindchimes]

Alaric's comment just earned more giggling, and Bianca stuck her tongue out playfully for a second. "What? I'd never say something like that," she said mock-innocently, gesturing at the screen, "But you heard Beraht. Natia has a smart mouth." Besides, the other options had been either threatening or bland; it was like the writers were shouting at her to pick that one.

However, there was more of the conversation, and it seemed like after that comment Leske was in a rush to get down to business about what Beraht wanted them to do. Bianca, now more settled into her role thanks to that, had far too much fun having Natia show disappointment and comment that she'd hoped her mission was making fun of him, and later, when Leske explained they were to 'discipline' a smuggler holding out on their boss, say that she liked him already for stealing from Beraht (Leske saying that theirs would be a 'short and tragic' relationship in response earned a chuckle). A rebellious, smart-mouthed duster who'd bust your head for messing with her sister; that was Bianca's character in a nutshell so far.

The conversation ended with Natia expressing far more interest in finding out about what the smuggler was doing than harming him, and it seemed like it was time to move again, this time with Leske in tow. After looking around to get her bearings, Bianca sent Natia walking out of the 'Dust Town' slum and into a nicer part of town. She ended up stopping occasionally to look at the scenery or listen to the people nearby (who were mostly guards snarling at them to get back to where they belong, but hey), until she found a tavern and, with the thought of 'where else would a dwarf with money to spend be hanging out?' went in.

Low and behold, there was the guy, and the conversation started with Natia standing across from him and Leske standing behind him. Keeping to questions rather than threats (and using one option marked 'Persuade' to convince him that lying wouldn't work), they found out he had a deal with miners for lyrium ore and he insisted he was going to give Beraht his cut if it worked out.

Of course, Bianca had no idea what lyrium was, but she got a better idea when she asked who he was selling to. Apparently mages could use it for spells and it could be used to enchant things. That kind of helped. Then he suggested a deal to get them off his back. One nugget of lyrium to sell (which Natia quickly agreed to split the profits from fifty-fifty with Leske) and the smuggler was free as long as he went to the surface and didn't come back. After the smuggler blessed her and claimed she was 'as kind as she was beautiful,' he ran off.

Bianca glanced at Alaric, just a little confused. "Um...So lyrium's magical and valuable stuff, basically?" Not that she was overly bothered, since it was clear all the characters present knew what it was and that explaining in dialogue would be awkward, but knowing details would probably help with the 'interactive' aspect of this story.

[Admiral Striker General]

[atrb=style,width:475px;color:goldenrod;border:3px goldenrod ridge;][atrb=bgcolor,#94701A]

[ Alaric ]

Alaric chuckled deeply at Bianca's 'defensive' comment, a little at her pronunciation of Natia (though he couldn't have said which was actually right, being more just amused at the difference), but mostly at her justification. "Oh, of course 'she' is. How silly of me," he teased, laughing a bit more and hugging her tight again and kissing her temple. At this point, his attention had shifted quite a bit from the game, glancing up only during dialogues to see how she'd play this smart-mouthed little dwarf. Otherwise, he knew the storyline for this part, having played through it, just as a guy.

For the parts he wasn't watching conversation, he was watching her, mostly out of the corners of his eyes. He watched her face carefully for reactions to various overworld comments or battling he could hear, and he just studied her features, doing his best to take in every little detail without becoming too obvious. For some reason, a lot of girls got really unnerved when he just stared for too long. As if it was strange he could be content just to admire or something. The more he studied it now, the more he realized just how very much he loved her hair- particularly that color, so very close to his second-favorite- resisting the urge to play with it more. Upon closer inspection, he realized she actually had rather distinct freckles, just extremely subtle against her rich olive skin. Being Alaric, he half-wished she'd have been a bit paler, but he supposed that would have detracted a bit from the Isabella fun.

In its own way, everything about her seemed to have its own appeal. What wasn't breath-takingly stunning was simply adorable. He wasn't even really 'checking her out' so much as debating attempting a sonnet, or even a ballad. Not that he'd actually sing the latter, but reading was good too. And of course, she had to keep luring him with such a personality. All right. So maybe she actually thought the way her dwarf seemed to; maybe not. Either way didn't really matter. She was enjoying it. Whether or not she was a heavy or only casual snark herself, she found it amusing, which seemed to say so much to him.

It was really all he could do to keep from leeching onto her neck or more. However, he did still want her playing, and told himself he could certainly wait at least until the origin story was over. Probably Ostagar. ... Maybe Ostagar. ... Part of Ostagar. He was actually a little grateful to realize she'd asked a question, brining his thoughts back to the present for now. "Mm? Ah. Yeah," he replied, though it was obvious he was still a little spaced. "It's what gives mages their magic." Thinking he may as well try to explain a little more- and half-realizing he'd ranted so much on other issues it may seem suspicious if he was quiet now, he offered, "And that's why dwarves can't be mages. After centuries of mining the ore they're immune to it in that regard." Though there was that incident with- eh, that was next game anyway. This sparked a more legitimate geek chord as he recalled a little more, though. "Though too much exposure can drive anyone mad. It's like... dwarf-crack, except all you have to do is sit close to it," he laughed. "And people can get addicted to it, like-- Ah you'll see." Didn't want to spoil.

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