THE MOMENT
"... still a boring human?!?" Albert hadn't bothered to say hello before complaining about Francine's choice. Albert was a magical and powerful elven werewolf looking down on his human friend as he whined in a deep gravelly voice. They were new to the AlterNet and met up for the first time in the game to meet their characters and set off on an adventure; but, he'd decided to be disappointed first.
"Are you actually mad?" Francine tilted her head as she looked up to meet his eyes. "Why?" She genuinely couldn't tell. His gruff voice sounded like perpetual frustration and the real-world version of him was easier to anger than most. Francine found it mildly amusing to push his buttons sometimes, and they slowly became friends over the years. But, she didn't expect his reaction on their first outing.
"Noooo," he sighed. His powerful shoulders dropped, but he still towered over her. "Kind of..., I thought we were going to make completely new identities! You look the same, just with blonde hair...," he shook his head. "You look more normal here than in the real world!" In reality, she liked to dye her hair in bright colors and she'd made a deliberate choice to not include any tattoos on her character.
"Well, yeah," Francine nodded with a smirk. "I wanted to be something different than the fun freak I am in the outside world. I'm playing a different role," she said.
"But WHY a human!?? There are 30 races and 40 souls to choose from, you could've been normal as an elf at least!? You didn't change anything."
"It's really weird that you're bothered by this...," Francine decided. "Did you actually look at the races?"
"What? Of course, I did!" Albert huffed.
"Why'd you pick an elf werewolf?" She asked. It was actually two choices that he'd made, and so did she. Creating a character allowed them to pick a race body and a race soul. She chose 'Human' for both, and that was why Albert insisted she was being boring.
"I like elves and I like werewolves, and unlike you, I chose to be something extraordinary."
"So, you didn't even look at their racial skills, did you?" Francine shook her head. She wasn't surprised, but she felt the same kind of disappointment he had about her character choice. Albert visibly recoiled as he tilted his head at her. It was the same gesture she'd done a moment ago; but, with his golden-brown fury and wolf snout, he almost looked like a confused golden retriever.
"They have racial skills?" he asked. The AlterNet had arrived less than a week ago, so it wasn't like he had months to read through everything. But, as gung-ho as he was about meeting up and starting to adventure together she assumed he'd at least taken a proper look at everything. Although, she couldn't remember why she assumed that. It might've been because the technology was so new and transformative to their world. To be fair, he'd never demonstrated an interest in any sort of minutia. He lived in the moment and only sought enough information to get him to the next step.
"Every race has a pool of racial skills you can pick up," she nodded. "Humans can level skills higher than most other races, so I'll be more powerful than you in the late game," she smirked. Then, she decided to push back further by bringing up his complaint again.
"In this world you can be any creature you can dream of, and wield whatever you chose!" she laughed. "It's a game world made by humans, why the fuck would humans be a boring race to play?"