They made their way up the giant trees, climbing up vine ladders and through many oversized oak bridges. Eventually, they made their way back to Shining Forest Path.
"Woah, shiny!" Lena looked around at the landscape. "So shinyyyy~ Why is the path shiny? Is this part of a quest?"
"Yes?" Lumi responded, a bit surprised. "How did you know?" While quests weren't real due to the world being real, there were certain chains of events that the system would proactively recognize as a quest and issue it.
She explained her reasoning. "Well, it's shining here, unlike the path before! And if you look all around, it's not shining in the distance. Meaning it's specifically this path here. That's unusual, so it may be part of a quest." She then grinned a bit, nudging Lumi with her elbow. "Now, how did you know it's part of a quest?"
Realizing he didn't even need to give a proper answer when dealing with her, he simply replied, "Yes."
"Indeed." Lena nodded sage-like. She then suddenly realized something, "Hey wait, Lumi you creature, what exactly am I gonna do at town? You told me to act normal but not how to get my class."
"Oh!" Lumi didn't even think of it. He was just going to bring her to the magician instructor, Merath, and talk to them but this made him remember an issue.
I'm so deep in the mindset that I have to do everything, that I was going to just silently grab her along with me and talk to Merath on her behalf. Which makes no sense at all.
Therefore Lumi explained to her, "There's a huge library near the middle of Elenora. You can tell where the middle is because it's composed of the absolute most humongous tree, and you go inside. It's the private library of the Great Merath. You will tell the gatekeeper your intention is to learn magic from Merath, you will be let inside, and ask Merath if you may learn from him."
"Oh okay." Lena nodded.
Lumi paused for a bit, and took a look over at Lena. Her eyes… Lena was very fun to be with. But as it may, he couldn't spend all his time with her.
"I'm going to get my class elsewhere, so we will have to separate for now."
"What?" Lena stopped, looking at him with her mouth wide open. "Hey! Didn't you say you were going to be a mage!?"
"I am!" Lumi put his hands up to placate her. "I am! I am! Just, a different mage than what they offer in Elenora."
Lena trembled with both her body and voice. "...and you aren't going to unfriend me and ghost me?"
"I…" It was only now Lumi truly understood just how troubled Lena was. "You will always be my friend. And we can go on more adventures if you are willing to follow me."
"You sure?" Lena asked, nearly making puppy eyes.
Lumi lightly hugged her side. "Yes, I'm sure. If you want, we can exchange Nitro tags. Mine is LumiVega. You?"
"Aaah! Lemme write that down!" Lena quickly began noting it down somewhere somehow. "Okay okay, got it. L U M I V E G A, right?"
"Yep." Lumi nodded.
She nodded rapidly. "Okay yeppers, mine is gonna be LenaMist. That's gonna be spelled, L E N A M I S T."
Before long, the path curled upwards into a large opening where the treehouses of Elenora rose into view, built into and around the trees themselves. They spiraled around the trunks, connected by wooden bridges and countless roots and branches. Many of the buildings shimmered faintly, evidently enchanted in some way or another.
As they entered, the first inhabitants they saw were the fairies. They were small like children, yet with adult proportioned bodies. These creatures had translucent wings that effortlessly kept them flying, despite the wings seeming small and fragile.
Also present are humans, just as common if not more. The humans could roughly be separated into two types, magicians and non-magicians. The magicians were extremely distinct given what they wore, most notably the presence of a casting aid. Whether it be a wand, staff, or orb, they all held one in some capacity.
The non-magicians mostly consisted of those conducting business, whether they be merchants, herbalists, alchemists, and so forth.
Despite all being in the same town, there was a clear divide between humans and fairies. Humans travelled with humans, fairies travelled with fairies. The two would purposely distance themselves from each other, even glaring at each other with suspicion.
This thing… The mistrust between humans and fairies. One of the many things I'll have to fix. The events that will bridge the gap between them have already been set in motion, so this is relatively easy to accelerate.
It would also be a pretty easy and safe path to level from about thirty to forty.
Overhead, way above in the clouds, is the Sky Ferry. A great, floating vessel tethered high in the air.
"Ah, I truly love this place." Lumi sighed with a soft smile. He looked over to Lena. "I suppose we part ways here?"
"Wait no." Lena stopped him.
"Hm?"
Lena looked around, and asked, "And you said they are realistic?"
"Yep." Lumi nodded. "And telling them they are realistic won't go down the greatest."
"Okay, help." Lena stated plainly, and only now did Lumi notice she was trembling. "Hey, I don't do good with people."
"Hey, hey…" Lumi got closer to her, speaking in a comforting tone, "You were fine with me, no?"
"Yeah but you were a stranger online and now you're a good friend." Lena spoke swiftly without properly enunciating her words. "It's like, we're both playing, we know how it is. But if the NPCs, it's like they are a person for real, and if they are a person for real and not like someone trolling behind an avatar online then I don't know what to do and-"
Lumi took the initiative to hold Lena's hand. Her breath lightly hitched.
"Hey." Lumi said softly, looking her in the eyes. "It's okay. Deep breath. You don't have to rush."
Lena was still for a moment, then followed his lead, drawing in a slow breath through her nose and letting it out through her mouth. Then her breathing continued and she let out a long, shaky exhale. "Sorry," she mumbled, eyes down. "I just, I didn't expect it. All of it. I thought I could do it."
She shivered for a moment, and looked up and continued, "I mean, I went into this thinking I could just troll around. Like I do with you or other players. But now it's like… like… I know they are NPCs, but you said it's so super realistic and they'll judge me. And they'll judge me for real, because they won't know I'm messing around, like how players do with each other. What if I say the wrong thing and they hate me or ignore me or… worse, they don't take me seriously and I never get magic and I suck forever."
Lumi squeezed her hand just a little tighter. "Lena," he said quietly, "You're not going to screw this up."
"You don't know that."
"I kind of do," he replied, offering a small smile. "Even if there's mean people, the magician instructor certainly isn't. He's more of a saint. What strange people hasn't he seen? I don't think you could screw it up if you tried. Just try your best."
She didn't answer at first. Then, slowly, she nodded. "Okay. I can try. Just like in real life. I can try."
She then looked up at him, and after staring for a moment, drew back a bit, seeming sheepish. "You know what it's like, chat? It's like I have no idea why I told you all that."
"Chat?" Lumi focused on, to purposely draw her attention away from her nervousness.
"Oh sorry." She quickly spoke, faintly giggling. "Just used to that."
Lmi began to ponder for a moment.
For my class… my secret class, I have no need to see Merath, the Magician Instructor in Elenora. That being said, I still need to see him. I suppose it's not a big deal whether I see him now or later.
"Hey," Lumi offered, "I can walk with you. I can stay here with you, I can take care of this with you. Want me to do that?"
Lena fell silent for a bit. After a while, she finally responded, "Wouldn't that take up too much of your time? You wanted to split for a reason, right? I thought it was because I was too annoying."
"No, no!" Lumi denied instantly. "You aren't annoying at all. You are a lot of fun. I mean it. I'm just trying to make as much progress as possible. It's important to me. But, you know, this wouldn't take that long. At most, like twenty minutes? I seriously doubt it'll be that. And you know, I realized I kinda need to see this guy anyways."
"You sure?" Lena asked for reassurance.
Lumi nodded. "Here, just walk with me"
Lena softly nodded. "Yea…"
Lena walked closely beside Lumi, her eyes darted around. They were already receiving glares, almost all of them from fairies. "They…" She started, but then went silent.
She remembered the key line.
They react like real people.
Those glares were exactly what she was used to.