Adventures in Lunightia Singleplayer

It only took a short while for her to spot torchlight in the distance. And, judging by the building style, she wasn’t approaching another Player’s base- she’d lucked out and stumbled onto a village. She could easily wait out the night here, with the ample lighting and iron golem lurking around to take care of monsters.

Her plans were quickly dashed, though, when she hauled herself out of the water only to come face-to-face with a disgruntled-looking cowlin who was sitting astride a spotted horse and pointing a bow at her.

Whoops. This is why spatial awareness is important, some unphased member of chat piped up. Faith wished she could swipe at them and actually have it do something, but the little annoyances were all incorporeal. She simply elected to ignore the comment instead.

“Uh,” Faith winced, looking up at the stranger, “I was just-”

“I know it might be fun, kid,” the stranger interjected, having put away the bow when she started speaking, “but you shouldn’t go for a midnight swim. You’ll catch a cold and give us all a heart attack back home!”

Oh! Said a gray-and-gold speckled axolotl from above her left earfin, She thinks you’re a child villager! 

Faith didn’t appreciate how much restrained amusement she could hear in that sentence.

The stranger wasn’t done talking, though. Faith tuned back in to the little spiel. “There’ve also been zombies lurkin’ in that river as of late,” she was saying. Faith found this immensely unfair.

“Aw, what?” she whined, “It’s only my first night!” We have more important things to worry about, a yellow axolotl reminded her. Oh, right. This person thought she lived here. Better remedy that before it got out of hand.

“And- I do appreciate your concern, but I’ll be fine, really. I–” she began, ready to launch into a full-on explanation of how Players don’t die, not really- but she was interrupted once again by the stranger.

“Oh, I won’t hear a word of that!” She exclaimed, sliding down off her horse to hoist Faith out of the shallows where she’d been sitting, “I don’t wanna hear whatever sorry excuse you’re plannin’ on cookin’ up for me, you gotta get some rest in a warm bed. Come on.”

She hooked her arm around Faith’s shoulders and began guiding her towards the village, leading the horse behind them. “Wait, what?” Faith managed to ask over the roar of Chat in her ears. She didn’t get an answer, just more questions tossed her way.

“What’s your name, kid?” Oh, well, that one was easy.

“Faith?” She said, although it came out more unsure than she’d intended. The stranger made a face at her.

“Are you askin’ me or tellin’ me?”

“Telling,” Faith said, “but, well, what do you want to know for?”

The stranger stopped and turned to face her as she said, “gotta get’cha back home! You can swim durin’ the daytime.” They started walking again as she asked, “What’s your parents’ names?”

Hmm. Well, that one would be a bit harder. “Ah,” she began, “I don’t really have parents.” It was true- if she’d ever had them, she didn’t remember them, but she was pretty sure Players just sort of… Came into existence fully formed, most of the time. Or, well, mostly fully formed. She had a vague notion of once being younger, but it was fuzzy. Maybe she’d get older sometime, too! But she digressed.

Oh, that had drawn a real reaction. Whoopsie! “No parents-?” Came the strangled reply, and oh, dear, she sounded really upset by that. “Alright, well, who’ve you been stayin’ with, then?”

Faith could pick up on the palpable I will restrain myself from asking questions that was beginning to emanate from the cow moblin, but she could only find it in herself to be amused, rather than trying to explain that it wasn’t the end of the world.

“Nobody,” she finally answered after her long moment of silence, “I just-”

“NOBODY?” The cowlin burst out, unable to contain any longer her visible distress about Faith’s presumed living conditions. “Alright, no, I’ve heard enough.”

The declaration was accompanied by Faith being shepherded closer to the cow moblin, who was still talking, good gravy, how anyone had this many words to say Faith would never know.

“come with me,” she said. “You can stay at my place for the night, at least.” Oh, that was kind of her. Still, “it’s fine, you don’t need to…”

“Faith. Kid. Do you have anywhere else to stay?”

“Well, no, but…” Yikes, that did sound pretty bad. But she was a Player! Building their own homes is what Players did! Not that friendly miss cowlin here seemed to be able to tell that…

“Well then,” said cowlin declared, “don’t think I won’t carry you if need be!”

She was getting really worked up about this. You can just tell her you’re a Player tomorrow morning, some Chatter helpfully pointed out. Faith supposed she could do that. It would certainly save her from the hassle of having this conversation in the middle of the night.

“Fine, fine.” Faith finally relented, “if you insist.”