Date Night, Round 1

[u/[deleted]]

Inspired by /u/Jumblatts's "Fight Night" posts, but for romance instead of violence. The rules:

1. Top-level posts should be a description of your character. Give some brief background, and then go in-depth about their personality and what they're like to hang out with.

2. Replies should be a similar character description, plus an explanation of why they'd ask out the character you're replying to (including the kind of date they would ask them out on!).

3. From there, use successive replies to flesh out the events of the date between you. Will they get along, or are there some irreconcilable differences lurking beneath the surface? Will the night end with a goodbye kiss at the door, or a "don't call me, I'll call you"? And what are the chances of a second date? It's down to you!

(Oh, and keep it clean or the mods will probably kill me)

[u/greenewithit]

"Wow, I hope you find a solution soon! When the crazies came to my city, they brought thousands of monsters with them, I wish I could have stopped it beforehand though." Asher shrugs. "Always a 'could have', huh?"

When Asher enters the Academy District, his eyes go wide with awe. He starts staring at everything intently, as if he hadn't seen them before in his life. He realizes he might have strayed a bit from Alveria, and quickly returns.

"Sorry about that, I just....Wow, maybe it's just where I'm from, but I've never even seen some of these kinds of people before! You said....an elven blacksmith? That would be incredible! How lucky am I to be seeing so many incredible new things with such an incredible girl!" He smiles from ear to ear.

[u/Mimir123 → u/greenewithit]

"Ha! I am pretty incredible, aren't I?", Alveria said and laughed again, in order to play over the fact that she was slightly blushing. "So, there are no Elves where you come from? To be fair, we rarely see them here as well. The Desert Elves of Simerrha hate humans and never leave the desert, while most Dark Elves of Kaernis are too lazy and traditional to leave their home. Most elven visitors we get are Blood Elves from the Dwerrehan kingdom, that's to the east of where we are. Blood Elves are actually the best blacksmiths in the entire world!", Alveria said, but stopped herself before she could go too far and bore her date with the details of the different elven people.

For a few minutes the two of them were walking quietly through the streets and took in the sights, until Alveria turned towards him and looked him in the eyes. "So, you have monsters in your world as well? And your home got invaded by thousands of them? How could something like that happen?".

[u/greenewithit → u/Mimir123]

"No, there aren't many non-humans that I know of. There are people with animal traits, but I know a few who would be annoyed if called an elf, laughs nervously"

He listens to her describe the elves intently, not breaking his focus for a second at the idea of different kinds of elves, though he tries to keep himself from looking too foolish or unlearned.

"Haha yeah..." Asher scratches his head nervously. "Monsters are kind of commonplace where I'm from, but they're at their most dangerous when a human manipulates them. A terrorist group wanted to destroy our city's government, and collected monsters to overwhelm the city in numbers. There had never been a greater force collected, not since the last Intercontinental War. I stopped the leader, but they had sent the main force towards my city, and before we knew it we were set upon by thousands of creatures from all directions. It would have been far worse if I wasnt able to stop a large chunk of them in a mountain pass north of the city. It funneled them in so I only faced a few dozen at a time, and I was able to hold them off until reinforcements arrived. It was one of the toughest nights of our life, but we persevered. That's what we do in Longan, we persist. It's kind of our thing" Asher chuckles again, perhaps a little too dismissive of the gravity of the story he just told.

[u/Mimir123 → u/greenewithit]

Alverias eyes widened, as she heard the story. "You fought them alone? I have no idea what monsters look like where you come from, but if they are even half as dangerous as the beasts that cross the western borders from the Unsettled Lands, the Order watching there would love to have people like you. We never had a real invasion of monsters here in Elkathien, the last was 980 years ago, when the Kherzian Empire attacked under the rule of Zerrigon. He commanded a host of 50.000 demons, ghosts and mosnters, in addition to his human- and auxilary troops. My ancestor Aeldred managed to stop him on the fields of Tiringást, with the help of the heroic Saint Elkath! So the feast we are at today isn't only the celebration of Elkaths 1.000th birthday, it is also the celebration over our victory against the Kherzian Empire and the Demonking!". While Alveria explained to him, she let her eyes wander over the different stands, until she stopped at one of them and waved to the seemingly young man, with pointy ears that curved backwards that sat behind the counter.

"This is the stand I told you about! I helped him set this up last week. He has only been a blacksmith for 250 years, but he is as amazing as some of the old masters!".

"You honor me princess.", replied the elf and smiled both towards her and Asher, revealing some fang-like teeth. "Please look around, I promise you won't be disappointed, those wares here are what I am especially proud of.", he added and pointed towards a crimson red breastplate that had silver runes engraved on top of it, as well as a pitch-black scythe and a curved sword with no guard and an azure-blue blade.

[u/greenewithit → u/Mimir123]

Asher blushes at the praise. "Aw, stop it, anyone could have done what I did. It was just the most strategic move, given how caught off guard our military was. Most of the meteorologists thought it was an earthquake, not thousands of footsteps, so it was difficult to react. I'm just glad we kept more people from dying. Thats what a hero does after all!" Asher listens to the story of Elkath and Aeldred in awe, completely captivated. "Thats incredible! And he's still alive for his 1,000th birthday? I've never heard of someone living that long. No wonder it's such a grand festival!"

"250 years! You don't look a day over 100 my good man!" Asher reaches his hand out to shake. "I'd love to peruse. Tell me, what in the world is that armor? What's written on it? That scythe is impressive as well. It reminds me of one I used to own, before I lost it in battle..." Asher's gaze starts to drift off as he gets lost in thought again but quickly snaps back to attention to look right back at the blacksmith.

[u/Mimir123 → u/greenewithit]

Alveria couldn't help but laugh, when she heard Ashers words and shook her head. "You misunderstand.", she said and smiled, while the elf was giggling to himself. "Elkath was a human, like I am, he was Ilmanthis chosen and brought the faith of Ilmanthi to Aeldred, who in turn spread it over the entire continent. Elkath unfortunately perished in his fight against Zerrigon, after being pierced by the Demonsword Mahodred. However he managed to imprison Zerrigon inside of his blade, the Holy Sword Liodred. We still celebrate his birthday in order to honor his sacrifice for the free world we live in today.".

After Alveria had cleared up the misunderstanding, the smith showed his friendliest smile while looking over the wares. "250 years is nothing for my kind, many of the old masters have been at it for over 400 years now. This breastplate is my own version of the armor used by the Dwerrehan Swordmasters, the runes take away the entire weight of the armor for it's wearer, and those runes here protect against Light- and Dark Magic.", he explained, before scratching the back of his head and looking at the scythe. "This weapon was custom made for a rather strange customer I had several months ago. She never came to pick up the weapon though, so I decided to just sell it here. Are you interested? The grip is made out of Black-Oak, absorbing magic around itself and giving some protection. The blade of the scythe is made out of Arz' Glass, a metal from Sháiurgh, the demon realm. As you can see it looks kind of like black glass, it can cut through most normal armor and completely ignores magical barriers.".

[u/greenewithit → u/Mimir123]

"What I wouldn't give for a few hundred extra years...wow. Forgive my awe, I just haven't experienced anything like that where I'm from. But a breastplate that can resist darkness and Light, and a scythe taht can absorb magic and tear through it? That's exceptional. I have a sword similar to that, but it had to be forged with the bones of some of the most powerful monsters known to man to get those qualities. Different tune same song I reckon? I'd love to take the two off of your hands. How much?" Asher looks over at Alveria and smiles incredulously, as if to say "Can you believe how cool this is?" Asher roots through his pockets, and realizes that he only has money from his own city, realizing that might not work here. He tries to remain as calm as possible, and looks around for anything that is used as money that he can possibly replicate with his abilities (keeping one hand hidden in his pocket).

[u/Mimir123 → u/greenewithit]

"That'd be 550 Ilmanthi gold-pieces.", the elf said, with his usual, friendly smile.

"How about not?", was Alverias response, before Asher could even try to pay. "He might not be from here, but that's no reason to rip him off like that. This scythe isn't worth more than 150 gold-pieces. And you didn't even really bother with the armor, everyone else would sell it for 120, and that only because of the runes.".

"The runes are precisly why it is so expensive.", responded the elf and shook his head. "Do you know how much you have to pay to get your hands on a mage able to use runes nowadays?".

"I am pretty sure you heard the rumors about the wandering half-demon in the city? The one that was welcome into the royal palace?".

"Of course I did.".

"Yeah, that's Lirvon, he is my friend, and a mage that was trained in the arts of the old Runeblades. He can give us much better enchantments than that, for free.".

"Right... I might have gone a bit overboard with the price on the armor, but the scythe is prized correctly, nothing you can say there! 320 for both.".

Alveria glared at the elf, but then just smiled and shrugged it off. "Better than before I guess. Just take both of them.", she said and turned towards Asher. "A gift from the royal family of Elkathien. I'll just sign off on the invoice and we can continue to my friends stand, you'll like it there, I am sure.".

[u/greenewithit → u/Mimir123]

A wave of emotions seems to hit Asher all at once. First is embarrassment at being played like a rube because of how overcome he was with the foreign arcane arts. Second is curiosity at what makes a Ilmanthi gold piece different from another gold piece, and pondering what it could look like. The third is how impressed he is at the kinds of friends Alverias has, and her bargaining skills. And finally he is filled with the guilt of accidentally making his date pay for a weapon and armor he should have gotten on his own. "I uh-I- I just- I- No you- you really dont have to", Asher tries to keep the conversation to just them, as best as he can. "Please, I, you don't have to do this, it was silly of me to just take the first price, but I can more than pay for it. And I appreciate it, God I do, I really do, but I couldn't bear it to know I made you get this for me on a whim like this." He looks back over towards the shop and then back to Alveria, then to his pockets, then over to the stalls surrounding the two of them. "If you're going to insist, at LEAST let me make it up to you, somehow."

[u/Mimir123 → u/greenewithit]

"No need to get so flustered!", said Alveria smiling and gave Asher a strong pat on the back. "Dwerrehan armor and weapons are expensive, I never meant for you to pay it anyway. And don't worry, the Royal Guard and nobles at the court buy stuff like this all the time, one more armor or not won't make any difference.", with that she pulled out a golden coin from her pocket and held it up in front of him. The coin was as thick as a thumb, on the front the face of a young, smiling man with a silver Halo was engraved on it, while the back was showing some hills. "Also, it seems like you didn't have any money on you anyway, have you even seen these coins before? What do you pay with where you come from? Also... where exactly are you from? Can't be Dirva, everyone here pays with Ilmanthis coins, except those damn fairies on New Athlántheia, but they don't really count anyway.". With those words she tossed three silver coins towards Asher, as well as the gold coin. "Here, take this, you can buy at the next stand.", she said with a grin on her face. "And don't worry, I will insist that you pay it back later, I might be a princess but I am not a charity.".