★ 𝙰𝚕𝚕𝚜𝚎𝚎𝚛𝚜 ★

★ 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 3 ★

"Oh, come on, Astor. Let's just be civil for once, for the Watchful One's sake. Just come to the town with me." Codey pleaded; it was a slow day, there wasn't anything to do and for once he didn't want to go to the void. "I want to go out with everyone, I know you don't like me but it'll get you out of the treehouse at least."

"For the last time, I am not going out with you." Astor retorted in an annoyed tone, rolling his eye and crossing his arms. Codey let out a frustrated sigh at this.

"...Walter's coming with me?" The glitchy eye demon said as a last resort, which caused Astor to perk up slightly, looking at Codey and replying, "Well, fine. But only because Walter is coming."

As if on cue, Walter walked into the room and looked to the two taller players. "Hey, you two. Codey, did you convince Astor to come with us?" He questioned, tilting his eye. Codey nodded in response to this. "Yeah, you ready?" Codey asked, getting a thumbs up from Walter but a glower from Astor.

"Well, I'm far from ready. I'm hardly in the right attire to be seen in public, I need to get changed!" Astor told him rather matter-of-factly, despite being fully dressed already. He then rushed off before Codey could even say anything.

He took quite a while to get changed, but came back around 20 minutes later in strangely formal attire.

"Uh.. Astor, why are you wearing that? Don't you want to put something more relaxed on? We're only going to the town." Walter suggested to Astor, who just shook his eye and chuckled. "No, no, I'll be fine in this. Plus, I want to look good, especially if I'm gonna be seen walking around with him." He assured, shooting a mean glare at Codey who just sighed in response, not really bothered enough to give a jab back at him. Instead, Codey just walked over to the treehouse door and held it open, looking to the two other players.

"Right, come on, lets go." He called. Walter exited the treehouse, thanking Codey as Astor followed behind him wordlessly. Codey then walked out, shutting the door behind him with a click.

It was fairly nice outside, not too hot but sunny and fairly warm. A nice day to go out. The three walked to the town nearby, Astor talking to Walter happily as Codey just walked behind them silently, looking around and watching the usual NPCs who just aimlessly wandered in and out of buildings, occasionally turning to the trio and giving them the classic NPC wave before going about their scripted day.

That's when Codey noticed something strange; a new character. They seemed to act like an NPC would, walking around the town silently; maybe a new NPC was added recently, but Codey hadn't heard about anything of the sort happening.

The character had a box over their head with a messy smile drawn on it in black crayon, they had small black horns atop their head and a couple grey triangles by the box on both sides of their face as well as little black wings. They were plus-sized, and their outfit consisted of a striped jumper with a few shades of grey, dark grey overalls, long white socks and converse. The strange NPC also had a black demon tail, and if Codey was honest, they looked suspiciously like a player to him rather than a new character that had been added to the game.

The glitchy demon couldn't help but feel suspicious of this seemingly new 'NPC', so he decides to approach them. Since they were rather short compared to him, he had to look down at them and crouch slightly just to look them in the drawn-on eyes.

"Huh. Watchful One add a new character without letting us know or something? Never seen you around." Codey stated, looking at them. He couldn't help but notice their unusually human-like mannerisms, like their uncomfortable shuffle and the way their hands fidgeted with the material at the ends of their sleeves. That's when his suspicions were confirmed; this wasn't an NPC at all, this was a player. "Ohhhh, wait..!" He then gasped upon fully realising, and if his mouth was visible he would be smiling broadly, "You're a player, aren't you?"

The player fidgeted with their sleeves more as they responded. "How could you tell so easily?.." Her voice was quiet and mellifluous.

"Well first off, NPCs are usually more... Stiff, if you know what I mean? Limited movement. And second, we're usually told if a new NPC is added to the game, and we have not been told about a new NPC recently, so yeah." Codey explained thoroughly, suddenly realising that this player seemed to be avoiding eye contact with him, which caused him to tilt his 'head' slightly.

He looked away, figuring that he was probably being a bit intimidating right now. I mean, this player was probably acting as an NPC for a reason, right? She likely wasn't expecting to be approached.

"Oh.. Right, that makes sense.." They said quietly, looking down at the ground before something in their sleeve began to move and a little head poked out. Codey recognised that creature very well- it was one of those ferrets that he saw in the out of bounds area sometimes! "Oh, Void, not right now, you can come out later-.." She then ushered nervously, trying to gently get the ferret back into her sleeve but to no avail, causing her to let out a defeated sigh as Void climbed up her arm onto her shoulder.

Codey looked at her with a surprised expression before letting out a little chuckle. "A ferret from out of bounds? I don't even wanna know how you managed to tame one of those, but that's so cool. His name's Void, huh?" Codey queried. If his mouth was visible, it would be grinning widely right now. This person seemed cool.

She gave a small nod and a nervous giggle. "Yeah, he was pretty hard to tame.." She responded, picking up the ferret from her shoulder and holding him out, "Do you want to hold him, maybe..? He's friendly, I promise."

The taller demon nodded enthusiastically and carefully took the ferret, holding him and stroking his fur. "He's so sweet.. What's your name by the way? You seem nice."

"My name's Vivian.." They responded, and they seemed a bit more comfortable around Codey. "What's yours?"

"Codey! Here's your ferret back, by the way." He then placed Void on Vivian's box covering her eye and nodded to her.

The shorter player nodded back as Void lay on the box calmly. "It's nice to meet you, Codey." She chorused before pointing behind him. "Do you know that player over there? I think he's calling you.."

Codey turned around, and to his dismay he saw Astor shouting at him. He let out a groan as he saw him gesture him over with an angry look, and he turned to Vivian. "Yeah. I gotta go, sorry.. But we should totally schedule to meet up out of bounds at some point." He then turned and began to go back over to Astor and Walter, calling out behind him as he left. "Bye, Viv!"

Vivian gave a small wave that was reciprocated before Codey made it back to the small group.

"And what were you doing?" Astor interrogated, putting his hands on his hips, "Talking to NPCs now, Codey?"

The glitchy player just shook his head. He was in a good mood, he didn't want to let Astor ruin that. "At least I'm actually socialising with other people.." He muttered, walking in front of Astor and Walter. Astor just rolled his eyes as Walter gave a worried glance to the two, and eventually the other two followed Codey back to the treehouse.

𝙰/𝙽:
𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚔𝚜 𝚝𝚘 Cyn_SolverDrone for writing this!