[ti]open[/ti][002] inverted keybind horror stories

This was just to get rid of the prompt, Adrien told himself as he finally gave in and tapped on the objectives blinking in the corner of his eye. It was just to get rid of the prompt so he didn't have to keep staring at it so he could get on with his life. Simple. Easy. Nothing. To worry about.

"Delifur this to my assistant out in the field, nya?"

And it was with those words that Adrien was bodily ejected from the lab, his Totodile popping out of his Pokeball again to linger behind him, head tipped to the side as he watched his Trainer blink from the ground he'd found himself sitting on before pulling himself up with a wince. "Oooookay. We are not doing thi-" he began only to pause, ears sinking down into his hair while his tail slunk between his legs. Locked. His UI was locked. Until he finished...

"Oh come on!" he cried, stomping his foot like a petulant child, but it was no use. The objective had locked him out of the ability to warp and to change out his party from the Totodile that was now lingering at his side until he actually delivered... whatever it was that Dr. Bunya had shoved into his arms before the game had forced him out of the lab. Grumbling with his ears flicking back, he turned on his heel and started trudging in the opposite direction. He'd deliver the package, but he wouldn't be thrilled about it.

(He was going to end up bumping right into what was obviously another player, and it would only be his own fault.)

Altair

"Stupid package and stupid party restrictions and stupid tutorials and stupid quest," Adrien muttered darkly to himself, scowling with his tail lashing behind him visibly, the piercing at the end jingling loudly with each sharp flick of his tail. If he could figure out how to drop the dang tutorial, he absolutely would, absolutely no hesitati-

"Oof!" The Trainer collided right with a smaller body, grunting as the innate protections hardwired into the game - primarily to prevent actual physical fighting, alongside all of the existential horror of phasing right through someone's avatar - put up an invisible wall between himself and the person he'd bumped right into, which he collided right into and stumbled backwards a few steps, nearly tripping right over his Totodile.

<Dile!> Exochomper protested, hurrying out of the way with a sharp glare at the long pink tail he'd been eyeing up - he'd get it one day - before he rubbed at his snout with his little paws, wincing a little.

"I... oh. Sorry about that," he apologized, ears flattening in his hair when he saw how the force seemed to have gone both ways, nearly bowling the smaller Trainer over in turn. "I, ah... sorry."

His ears shot up though at the mention of the package, surprise flashing across his features. "It's not an instanced thing?" he asked, brain having leapt about five steps forward. That... didn't make a lot of sense, from a gameplay perspective, but he supposed Nintendo hadn't really done much of anything like this before. They wouldn't necessarily know exactly how much griefing they could be opening up, if they hadn't put in enough protections in other areas. "Huh."

He wasn't all that concerned about himself, what with the experience he'd put on Exochomper before he'd doubled back, but... but he supposed it would be bad form, leaving the other player on their own with just a timid Froakie. "Yeah. Deliver the package to the Professor's assistant?" He nodded his head to the side, one ear twitching to a jingle of gold. "Wanna come with then? Might make it a bit more interesting than the usual fetch quest."

Altair

"Eh?" One ear twitched to a little jingle of gold. "Nah. Heard it's pretty good, but I'm picky about games in my free time, so I don't really have the time to pick it up." He waved a hand then, as though to waft away the fuss of the words. "Some stuff is just universal across games. Or at least, it's common enough usage to catch on."

Adrien's ears did prick up at that, and he snickered, the hand coming up to cover his mouth a little bit while his tail swayed with mirth. "Oh, trust me kid, I think that's something pretty much all gamers can agree on. Fetch quests are the worst and any NPC who moves faster than my walking speed but slower than my running speed needs to be permanently deleted from the game for committing a war crime." It might not have been a game he'd been able to play on-stream, but Eugene would forever live in his heart as the NPC who understood his purpose - to absolutely book it across the map with you running at-speed behind him.

"Cheshired. Like the cat," he offered in return, a pleased little purr escaping him - hopefully this time he'd be recognized, or at least, he'd stand half a chance of it. "And this is Exochomper here."

<Dile!> the little crocodile offered in reply, bouncing up on his flippers before pausing, catching sight of the jingling gold piercing at the end of his Trainer's tail again and starting to inch his way towards it, eyes firmly locked on his new target prize.

"C'mon then. I'm sure it has to be around here somewhere. That first delivery stint is always pretty fast."

Altair

The Surge Steppes, as it turned out, were not a good place to practice riding Raiden, his Zebstrika. The electric equine was simply too fast for him to control in the field's perpetually stormy weather. He needed an intermediate ground between Raiden in a storm and Granmarg at full gallop if he wanted to get used to having that much wind in his face. A helmet with a visor might not be a bad investment, but cosmetics were really expensive. He learned that the hard way when he tried to step into the Identity Parlor in Briarbane.

Checking to see what his friends were up to, Altair appeared into be in the tutorial zone again, making deliveries for Dr. Bunya. "That ground's mostly flat with a few bumps," the young man said to himself. "Probably a good place for it. What say you, Raiden?" With a whinny, the Zebstrika agreed, Josh riding toward his friend at a modest pace.

Even so, the trip was still long; it would take him some time to reach his friend's location. The only hint he would get of his friend's proximity would be the sound of two distinct sets of hooves clacking against the pavement. Were he to look in their direction, he would see a saddled Mudsdale and Zebstrika, Josh at the reins of the latter. "Heeeey!" he called out to Altair. "What's cookin'?"

Josh had missed out on some of the tutorial quests, as well, but not this one. He had already completed this one, though he had reason to come back. "Oh, like the stars in your profile?" the scout asked. "If everyone sees those, then that's great! Great incentive to finish these off. For me, it's different, though. This is some of the flattest ground anywhere in UNOVR."

Josh waved toward the small bird, Raiden and Granmarg giving interested nods. "The real reason I'm here is Raiden is too fast for me to control at the Surge Steppes, where I wanted to practice with him. Fell off him, tumbled, and tripped my pain thresholds to the point where I blacked out and wound up at Briarbane again." He wasn't doing that again until he was much more skilled as a rider. Perhaps he was a bit ambitious wanting to saddle electric Pokémon while he was still learning the finer arts of riding horseback.

"As they say, with great speed comes great responsibility."

"That's the thing," Josh insisted, "I have it turned down already. As it turns out, falling off a mount faster than any real-world horse, and by a long shot at that, kinda... hurts." Far as he knew, pain thresholds were a binary setting: "realistic" or "reduced". There were no in-betweens. He chuckled at the Pidove's reaction to getting too close to the electric equine, though it was not an unexpected one.

"I'm just not ready for Zebstrika out there yet," he mused as he gently moved his hands along Raiden's reins, the horse's stripes flashing yellow. "Without the speed boost from the storm, it seems more manageable. Raiden won't be doing any redlining here, that's for sure." Compared to some of the other Pokémon available in-game, Zebstrika was a tame, relatively slow mount. His dream was to ride on a Raikou. Would he ever get a rude awakening the first time he tried to sit on a big cat Pokémon, let alone one that could gallop faster than a race car.

Altair 's question snapped Josh out of a trance. "Oh, right! Have you look at your mini-map? There should be a destination marker. It's clear across town, though. Want a ride?" he offered, though he didn't expect the bird enthusiast to saddle up anything that couldn't fly.

Josh had chalked it up to be part of the immersion. Maybe there was a setting somewhere that he had missed. "Might need to look into it when I get the chance to saddle a legendary Pokémon," he replied, well aware of how fast and how wild they could be. As much as Raikou was his favorite, Chien-Pao was a very close second. If he was right about the snow cat, they were a species that could make painfully fast turns.

With the two on the way, Josh forced to keep his horse at walking speed thanks to Altair's insistence to hoof it, the topic of flight came up. From the brief time he had dabbled in other MMOs, this seemed to be common practice. "Hardware limitations, I imagine," the scout speculated. "I wouldn't be surprised if we got a free-flight zone soon. Perhaps Mistra once that place gets cleaned up."

Josh's face turned glum for a different reason; if his companion wanted to hoof it, he couldn't truly practice with Raiden.