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Floating Sea
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When Temmie gave you and your bro two gifts, you both shared a grin. You wouldn’t have complained if whoever got you had only given one gift, but you wouldn’t deny being happy about each of you receiving your own. Phillip’s was bigger, but the Christmas Sweaters you received last year taught you that bigger boxes don’t always have the cooler gifts.
You tossed ‘em both under the tree, and counted down the days ‘til the holiday more eagerly. You could have just opened them right when you got them, but Phillip insisted on waiting.
But eventually the day finally comes, and you get to tear open all your gifts one by one! You do most of them with your mom and dad around, but for the Secret Santa gifts you decide to open them when they’re both out of the room, exchanging some private gifts of their own. No idea what that means, but their bedroom door is locked so you’ve got some privacy.
There are two things in the box you open. A Bracelet and a Note. You are immediately underwhelmed, so you take the note hoping it’ll change your opinion.
Dearest Lillian,
Hey so before you go thinking “woah my brother got a cool figurine custom generator and all I got was a dinky bracelet, so maybe I should beat him up” I would like you to consider the following:
This bracelet is cool and lucky and also is exactly a form that you find pleasing, isn’t that weird? Well maybe you should try practicing something you want to get good at while you wear it and something good will happen!
Just think of it as a LUCKY BRACELET that will help you be good at where your natural talents could use some polishing. You’ll soon excel I’m sure!
Oh and please don’t sell off the stuff you get, or do if you need the money, I’m not privy to your financial situation, either way, it’s mine and my dearest Nipha’s best wishes that you receive this well and enjoy it fully.
With all the affection he can muster,
Rudeus Blackwood III
...A LUCKY BRACELET (in all caps for some reason)? This letter used a lot of words to basically say “It’s good, trust me.”
So, giving it a chance, you decide to take a closer look at it. You realize quickly that it’s actually one of those cool Braided bracelets that you can unravel in a pinch to have a pretty long rope. And it was black too, that is pretty cool you guess.
You’re not sure if you really believe that it’ll make you good at “where your natural talents could use some polishing”, but who knows? Maybe it’d make you do better on tests. You could absolutely use some luck guessing the answers on those.
Phillip: “WHOA!”
Lillian: “Hm? What was in yours?”
Phillip: “Look at this!”
He shows you a book titled “AWAKENED ~RPG System~”. It’s got a pretty rad cover, bright red with cool designs and everything.
Phillip: “This thing is full of rules and systems for Tabletop Games! It has new races, new powers, new classes, the works!”
Phillip: “And it has this neat AWAKENING mechanic where every character gets an individualized special ability, with a bunch listed out that you can use and instructions on how to come up with your own.”
Phillip: “This sounds like so much fun- do you think Roger and Albert would want to-”
Lillian: “Dude, they would love this! I already want to play it right now!”
Lillian: “Does it have different rules for when you make rolls and stuff? No offense, but that’s the lamest part of our game rn.”
Phillip: “Yeah, my mechanics need more work, they’re too luck based. Let’s see...”
Phillip: “Oh! Yeah, it looks like they have a lot of rules for when you make rolls, and what you add or subtract from them. There are saves, checks, damage dice, hit di-”
Lillian: “Yeah cool stop listing them. Those words don’t mean anything to me yet.”
Phillip: “I-I’ll read through it more later today so that I understand it all better myself. Gotta prep myself so that I can explain it to everyone next Game Night.”
Lillian: “Sounds great.”
Phillip: “Oh, there are also these.”
He reaches back into the box and pulls out two small boxes, along with a few small Figures.
Lillian: “What are those for?”
Phillip: “I’m not really sure, but I think these rules expect us to have figures for our characters. I may need to make a physical map for some things too, again I haven’t really looked into it much yet.”
Phillip: “I got a note that explains it better. Here-”
He picks a piece of paper off the floor and shows it to you.
Sup nerd,
So like I wanted to give you a gift because picking a gift for someone with RAW ATHLETICISM is too easy for me, im way too cool and skilled for that. So I took it upon myself to challenge myself, but what’s this, I don’t know much about NERD SH-STUFF. So I thought, okay what’s the nerdiest thing I know, that’s right it’s role-playing. Well, I do it too, BUT THAT'S BESIDES THE POINT. I know real nerds love FIGURINES, so I got you these cool toys that you can slap on top of a description written in most languages, pop in an old figurine, and pop out one of your own designs. There’s enough here for you to do some cool stuff so have fun!
Oh and I also included a rule system if you don’t have those, I could explain what an RPG is if you don’t have those but just think of it as like a big game or something with little rules that let you pretend you have crazy cool superpowers, but I’m sure you know that already!
Anyway, my gift is vastly better then his to your sister, so you should rub it in her face, definitely, I guarantee you she won’t noogie you and be super jealous of your awesome gift from a rad catgirl.
Later!
Nipha Rondalphus
P.S. I don’t like bragging about this at home, but you’ll never see me so you can brag you got a gift from a princess, so it makes it 20x cooler. Also the figures that were already custom changed were me, rudy, and some friends. We TOTALLY look like that, definitely not an exaggeration or anything.
P.S.S. Oh right I should tell you not to show off the cool powers on these things but you’re kids so you probably will, just stay outta trouble, you only get one really cool gift like this in a lifetime!
Lillian: “Nipha? Oh, I get it. We were matched up with a pair since we’re a pair.”
Phillip: “Huh? Who gave your gift then?”
Lillian: “Some dweeb named Rudeus. Maybe they’re siblings like us.”
You both take a closer look at the figures already included. One was a Human Man in a robe, whereas the other was some kind of Animal Woman with a sword.
Lillian: “Okay probably not.”
Lillian: “Oh yeah, different last names, that seals it.”
Phillip: “...Why does she randomly capitalize words in this?”
Lillian: “I dunno, Rudy did it too though.”
Phillip: “Huh. Strange writing quirk.”
Lillian: “Absolutely.”
He looks at the item you’d been holding this whole time.
Phillip: “That’s a cool looking bracelet, was that your gift?”
Lillian: “Yeah, turns out Rudy’s super lame compared to Princess Nipha. It’s supposed to be a good luck charm or something though.”
Phillip: “Maybe it really is. I mean, if these boxes can really redesign figurines just by putting them on paper like she said, then nothing is impossible, right?”
Lillian: “Pfft, yeah, like that would work. That’s stupid, there’s nothing inside them.”
Phillip: “Yeah... Wanna try it anyways.”
Lillian: “I mean, obviously. We’d be idiots not to.”
You later decide to keep the bracelet, after creating a figure that looks exactly like Phillip out of one of the more boring looking figs packed in and a quickly written character sheet. You tuck the bracelet around your ankle, right under your sock, as that is the one place you feel confident you will never lose it (you’d already parted with a number of bracelets that slid off your arms while throwing balls around).
Both of you agreed not to redesign the figures of Nipha and Rudy. Nipha looked cool, and since they were a pair like you and Phillip it’d be weird not to keep them both. Thankfully, that still left you with 6 figs, more than enough for your entire Game Night group. (Though you almost lost one of the boxes to Albert’s curiosity. He was eventually sated with the explanation “Shut up, accept that it just works or I’m gonna hit you”.)
Overall, while you definitely got the lamer gift of the set, you still think you came out ahead since it gave you and your friends a whole new game system to play. Your new Orc Barbarian Brutus was way more fun to play than the magic-user you had last system. Hopefully you could decide on a power for him to AWAKEN soon...
Thanks to Nipha and Rudeus for the wonderful gifts! Lillian and Phillip definitely appreciate them.
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