Feeble Bodies Don't Count Here [ Quest / Levi ]

Gran looked at the adventurer long and hard. Red hair. Eye patch. An insufferable air about him. Something told Gran that this kid needed to make friends with everyone, and that a lot of people hated that. She laughed. She was going to get along great with this kid. She hopped up deftly off the bench, almost a little too smoothly for what it looked like she could do. She shot an almost evil grin at the red head, "Granny is a bit long, you little punk. Just call me Gran."

She stretched her arms above her head and smiled a little less impishly this time, "What's that? You think I can't climb these trees? You're adorable, you know that? I could probably climb these trees better than you."

"Oh, this?" Gran touched her eyepatch tenderly, smiling, "I like to appreciate its functionality more than how stylish it is. Although it is very stylish. Now then, young man. Join my party and let's get this shit over with."

She worked through the menu like only a veteran gamer could, almost instantly sending the kid an invite. She looked up at him and squinted, a dark scowl forming on her face. A scowl that made children wet themselves. A shadow of doom, looming over her body as if ready to destroy whomever she dared to look at, "You haven't told me your name yet."

Gran cocked her head and smiled at Levi, terrifying shadow on her face dispelled. She still had it. She punched him lightly in the arm and chortled to herself. It had been a good long while since she'd been able to scare some noobs with her face like that. She was pleased. With a tilt of her head, she popped her neck and stretched a bit. Nodding to herself she pointed to the tree that was next to her bench. She raised a eyebrow at Levi coyly, "I'll betcha 20 col that a kite will materialise in that tree the moment we accept this quest properly."

She smiled. She knew a lot about games, surprisingly. It was customary for a fetch quest to have the first item spawn near the quest giver, so that little idiots would know what to look for. She casually strolled over to the little girl and activated her dialogue. Gran stood patiently with her hands crossed, a kind smile on her face as she listened to the little NPC prattle on about her friends constantly losing kites. Gran nodded along, as if the NPC cared how she reacted. She smiled and agreed to the quest and shot a look to the tree. She squinted maliciously at it, willing a kite to materialise. She sighed as it didn't.

She was about to turn back to the kid when a kite floated down from the sky and settled in the tree. She grinned maliciously and turned her head to Levi, "Well, it didn't materialise, so I won't make you pay up."

Gran snickered at the kid. Broke, huh? Well then, this quest would be good for him. She shrugged and started walking as he grabbed the kite down from the tree, "Well, if it's that easy for you to get all the kites, maybe I won't have to strain myself."

"Can you believe your the first kid to actually stop and help me?" she sniggered and shook her head in disdain, "Must be something about grandma playing video games. Little shits don't know that I'd wreck their asses in combat, though."

She almost trotted forward with the amount of pep she had in her step. She hadn't moved around too much in the game yet, but she was excited to see if everything worked again. She saw a kite string dangling from a stack of boxes and grinned, darting over to the make shift staircase that lead up to the kite. She hopped box after box deftly, reaching the top of the stack in seconds. She smiled warmly at the solid blue kite before grabbing it and stuffing it into her inventory.

"Back in my day," she jested at Levi as she climbed back down to the ground, "Starter quests were a lot more difficult."

Gran snickered at the kid and waved her hand in front of her face, as if shooing a fly, "Gamer Gran? No, dearie, I was never very good at playing games. This is just how I use to move in the real world. I guess it translated over nicely, huh?"

She neglected to mention that she hadn't been able to move like this in about 20 years, and decided to keep it that way. Kids like this one wouldn't understand what it meant to lose pieces of yourself in war. She brought her eye to look at his eyepatch and she frowned. She wondered exactly how he'd lost his eye. Suddenly, her eyepatch felt a lot heavier and she was then wondering if he was using his to help casually bring a missing eye back into focus. It had been an issue when she first joined, that her right eye couldn't quite focus because she hadn't used it in so long. She had bought an eye patch and was currently forcing herself to take it off for certain periods of the day. She was almost certain that it was all in her head that her eye couldn't take in light properly yet, but then she remembered that basically this entire game was in her head.

"Alright," Gran glared at Levi for a moment before softening her expression into a calm smile, "Tell me, dearie, how did you lose your vision? If you tell me, I might tell you. I know you're curious."

She continued walking and looking around for a kite. There might've been one that she missed because she was so short, but she wasn't ready to admit this as a factor.

Gran smiled much more warmly than she had before when he told her. She could see it by the look in his eye. He definitely had a lot more behind that story. She only nodded and shrugged a bit, "An accident, huh? Yeah, those tend to be brutal."

She raised her eyebrow at him in thought as he asked her about her own eye. She paused for a moment as he jumped to retrieve another kite. How would she go about telling her story this time? She recalled the event with a scowl on her face. She shook her head and looked up to Levi as he walked back to her. She gave him an evil smile. She knew exactly how to tell him now.

"I lost it in the war," she started matter-of-factly, face showing her emotions at recalling the tragedy, "More specifically, I was on a mission to assassinate a crooked ambassador. Russian, I think, but those details are unimportant. I was posted up in a building down the street from where his convoy was supposed to be rolling through. Commander had given me a brand new rifle, and this mission was going to be its first."

She hummed a bit and started walking again, letting him look for the last kite. She continued on her story as they walked, "Well, apparently, someone had managed to leak info on the op. Even knew where my post was. I was looking at his car pulling into a street corner. I got lazy, I suppose. As soon as I went to gauge my shot, BAM! Suddenly, there was a knife in my eye!"

She pointed to her eye patch in a show of flare. She was leaving out a few details, of course. She considered telling the rest of the story, but decided against it. It was, after all, how she'd lost her eye. She chortled a bit.

Gran sniggered at the kid, pointing her finger at him, "When did you hear me say anything about someone throwing a knife?"

She recalled the incident much more than she had before, but she had stopped walking entirely, finger moving from pointing at Levi to point at her eye, "Bitch came into the room with me. Stabbed me, as it were. Snuck up behind me. Pricked me good! She wasn't too fast, though, that sly shit. The moment I saw that shadow in front of me, I tried to move real quick. But, well . . ."

She moved her finger to touch the side of her head, tilting her head for Levi to get a good look at. To the right of her eyepatch, on the skin between cheekbone and mouth, there was a slightly disfiguring scar. It wasn't that prominent, but it certainly looked devastating when you could see it.  She snarled a bit, "Knife went in sideways and came out there. If I'd moved a split second later, damn thing would've gone in my brain instead."

She was telling the truth. Mostly. She had known the assailant was there, but hadn't expect her best friend to actually do something. With a sigh, Gran shrugged at Levi. It was a story that she'd told a million times, and after a while she'd lost some of the more important details to time.