THE MOMENT
"That's for helping so many people cheat me!" The angry woman stormed away, and the group moved on. She assaulted their Healer as soon as they arrived at the outdoor market, and no one seemed the least bit interested in the scene that might've happened. She was trying not to show it, but Holly was very much curious. She was new to the group and so far had gotten along well with them. She hoped she'd be able to join them for adventures regularly, and she was interested in getting to know them.
"Someone you know?" Holly moved closer to Rodney the Healer to ask. The whole group chuckled, and he shook his head.
"Nope, just some random woman," he said. "Watch," he pulled out a black Traversal card and dropped it on the dusty market path. The group spread out to make room, and the flow of shoppers expanded around them while still gliding past the wooden stalls. The card expanded to a large oblong portal, and Rodney stepped on it, encouraging Holly to join him. "C'mon, this'll explain it faster," he said.
"Okay," Holly shrugged and stepped onto the black spot. It was solid ground that began descending under them as they sank into the hole, then the portal closed once they were below its threshold. They emerged in another market on a different server, and Holly didn't know what to make of it.
"What are we doing here...?" she asked, but Rodney nodded to the side. She whirled around to see an unfamiliar woman in a black robe walking straight toward them. She reached Rodney and slapped him with absolutely no wind-up nor hesitation.
"That's for helping so many people cheat me!" she said it as she walked away.
"So.. she's an NPC?" Holly asked.
"Yeah, kind of my own personal one," Rodney nodded while rubbing his cheek with one hand, and dropping a black card on the ground with his other. "When I made my character, I thought it'd be fun to add flaws. I started to add a mysterious past and a wealthy woman I basically cheated out of a fortune. I planned to flesh it out more, but the AlterNet being the AlterNet..," he shrugged with a smile as he stepped onto the portal again and Holly joined him. "... it took what little I had and ran with it." He continued to explain even more as they sank into the portal and Traversed realities to emerge back on the market server with the rest of the party.
"... and now..., any time I visit a safe zone, she comes out and slaps me," he said. They hadn't been there for very long when a totally different random woman in a black robe approached the group.
“That’s for helping so many people cheat me!”
"Why don't you finish it, or turn it off..?" Holly asked as the group laughed.
"Eh, worked out pretty well," Rodney shrugged. "She was supposed to be kind of evil...," he gestured at the market around them. "As far as other NPCs are concerned, I'm on their side. Her slap gives me a pretty handy Charisma boost when I'm shopping, and it's so effortless now, I don't want to accidentally make it more complicated by changing anything."