Avilien: Tutorial islands

Wrong

Plates arriving at the table booth Luke smiled with a nervous expression at Cissy and Nagori who sat across from him and Split. Cissy and Nagori thanked the female waiter with black cat ears and a furry tail and then resumed staring at their plates. Both girls had chosen the cheapest food items on the menu. Belma bean soup. But it was not the soup that came. Luke deleted their order and instead ordered a rack of Gruntusk ribs in caramelised barbeque sauce, a mountain of chips that angered Nebs.And a stack of giant onion rings. The feast cost Luke fifty copper and then an extra twelve copper for food for all of the game guides.

Trinity was brought a small bowl of fire gems, yellow and blue they looked like marbles with little fires raging inside of them. Quinn received another white plate with a seasoned steak. Nebs got more spuds, except Luke was determined to put him on rations so placed five in Nebs' inventory. Targoon had a plastic container filled with yellow jumping crickets. No one wanted to see them get loose. Last but not least Granite received polished pebbles.

"This is too much," gasped Cissy as she retracted her hand from the giant stack of ribs in the centre of the table.

For Nagori, this would be the second meal in years that would taste amazing.

"Don't go disrespecting his highness by not eating his offerings," stated Split as he broke off two giant ribs and grabbed a handful of chips to pile up his empty white plate.

"No offence to Luke, but he isn't a king." Cissy glared at Split who smiled back at her with a mouth full of chips.

"When he conquers all of Avilien he will be," mumbled Split through a mouthful of food. Hammering his chest as he gulped it down he continued, "besides he's my king and I will be his faithful mage. I can always be your mage too with how beautiful you are my pretty... angry lady" split stopped talking as Cissy folded her arms and scowled at him.

"Kings end up dying young," quoted Nagori as she broke off a rib for herself. "Eat up Cissy. I know you haven't eaten a good meal in months. This is the second for me." Nagori piled her plate high and started to dig in getting barbeque sauce over her pink painted nails.

"I... I can't. I feel bad. Sorry, Luke but I can't take the food you're offering." Cissy rested her back against the wooden booth and exhaled. "Not without doing something in return. Makes it worse that you're not in our guild either."

"I'll join your guild," shouted Split.

"You can get deleted!" raged Cissy as Nagori pinged Split a guild invite and sniggered.

Split hit accept with greasy fingers as Cissy, mouth wide open looked at her smiling friend.

"He's super nice and any friend of Lukes is welcome. We can trust him, Cissy," explained Nagori.

"He's more pig than the Gruntusk," fumed Cissy. Any cheer she had within her had vanished. To Luke, it was like looking at another Anna. Cissy was always the nerdy one of the group but at the same time a staunch defender.

"Well, I need a favour off of you, Cissy. That should make us square and allow you to eat," quipped Luke as he started to eat a few chips.

Nebs sat next to Luke kept opening his bag of spuds and closing them up. He hoped they would multiply as he struggled to breathe and come to the realisation that Luke had shoved him on rations. He couldn't wrap his mind around it.

"This about those Terrors you want to go and fight? You said you would explain when the food arrived. I'm not up for fighting them as they have deleted thousands of players. Only elite guilds and pro guilds hunt them down. I guess with you here I'd feel more comfortable facing them," explained Cissy as she started to relax and let down her arms.

"If you can be our tank then we will be able to handle them. I doubt you went tanky with Lance being a tank and all. But you can change a few skills, stats, and abilities around," explained Luke as he wiped his face with a napkin. Luke had more decent eating habits than Split who had a face covered in all sorts of grease and sauce.

"Lance wanted me to go off-tank when we realised how hard Avilien is. So I put points into damage, health, and defence. Made survival easier, but getting the hang of the game mechanics and the limits of my abilities are much harder than using a generated character in another game. I'll tank for you, but can you check my character build for me?" Cissy gave Luke no chance to reply as she removed her holo watch and threw it at him.

"Mine too!" shouted Nagori as she too ripped off her watch and threw it at Luke.

"And mine sire!" Luke caught Cissy's and Nagori's and then looked at the barbeque sauce drenched holo watch Split had in his hand before taking it and wiping it clean.

Intrigued by what everyone had done with their stats, abilities, and skills Luke pushed his plate to one side. Upon opening Cissy's and Nagori's he started to sweat. For average gamers, they had unusual choices.

"Erm... Nagori, why do you need strength as a healer?" Luke pulled at his shirt collar. He didn't want to ask and his nerves were kicking in.

"Makes it easier to lift things, move things and slap things," Nagori tilted her head and smiled.

Both girls had wrong stats and there were far better abilities and skills suited to their nature they could have chosen than the ones they picked. In deep thought, as he glared at three character pages Luke could see nothing wrong with Splits, but it then dawned on him. He needed to pick abilities and skills that fitted their playstyle and not his. Everyone played differently. So a useless skill to him could be game-breaking to them.

"For now stick with what you all have and what you know. We will fight some Terrorsand then I'll be able to better understand your style. Split is a carbon copy of what I'd go with if this was Forest of Winter. From my point of view, it's fine, but he used to be a healer. It'd be best if he did your character abilities, skills, and stats, Nagori. I'll try and find a better build path for you also Split." Happy with Luke's assessment as he handed each person back their watches Cissy finally helped herself to several ribs and started to eat like a ravenous lion.