[Alma]

Rome was said to host a large arena back in ancient times where gladiators get to fight and buff people like Arnold would be walking around in hardly anything at all but leather harnesses. All that was what the old films wanted to portray the old golden days of the Mediterranean empire. Present day it was been through lots of invasions, thefts, fire, and heavy artillery shelling where for the most part the building stood as grand and broken as ever. Alma thought of this through Clair's memories of what such a building would be envisioned to be. For Romalia though, old Rome has seen better days. It's been some weeks now where the surrealism has started to shed away bit by bit. There was no way of going back and no one knew exactly how to. It made for a good brainstorm of a conversation with other players stuck here till the sort of sour feelings set in.

'I should probably go do something nicer for a change. Treat myself to good food or nap somewhere but it's kinda lonely. I guess that's what we get as a culture so disorganized than other places.'

As gamers, shut ins, and diverse peoples, there was no such thing as a relief tent for shelter or food donations. Imposing on the good people that naturally live here wouldn't work. Becoming looked down on as any homeless person on the street just didn't feel right. The whole experience became like a forced level of growing independence no one really asked for. You could tell at a glance who were the mature people, the people who embraced this change with gusto and took what budding or brimming knowledge they had. It made people like Alma feel pathetic in comparison to easily wallow through the mud of self pity.

'It's hard not to think it but it's always there. Distracting myself a few days with chores helps some but it feels like I have this same conversation with myself every day like a bad habit. I can't stop myself. I talked myself to leaving that storage room, finding these odd tasks for money and talk to people. Hell, I even left the city for once! It wasn't so bad after all yet here I am with just me.'

The woman looked at her hands and flexed them slowly to recognize these were still hers for how they mimicked her mind's will. A solid truth that this body was her's and that her name is now Alma. A strange owl lady helped discover that reading off the names that hung over people's heads in her field of vision wasn't some strange visual trick. They can be seen to know a person and identify them. Still it was rude to go act familiar with someone you just met but it was good knowing who are people to interact with. It's funny that after all this time of gaming, you can get attached to NPCs like real people. Forming bonds and even marrying them for that wonderful ending you wanted. Now that they're real it's just not possible. Real people are as difficult as they can be with their own thoughts and goals. Treating them like some visual novel can help clue in one some aspects but it's not fool proof.

'Look around you though, Alma! Head upright! If you get locked away in your head then you'll forget why you came here.'

Exactly that. Her mental conversations have advanced enough to a second personality to talk back. Sometimes they'll give a pep talk but it's mostly a soft reset from walking through a trail of mud. Thanks to some tips from the locals, Alma made her way to what was supposed to be the Roman Coliseum. The whole city had this state of distant future. Cars didn't seem to run anymore and it was back to the days of a mules and wagons. There was magic but you don't see any flying carpets in the sky. As she arrived at the broken building would she see that the coliseum continued to see better days. This time, however, there was more overgrowth to it than before. Wild ivy vines and moss laid claim to it like most of the abandoned buildings not taken by any civilian residence. The deer woman stood there before the entrance and ran her nails through her stressed head at the quiet sight of it.

"Who was I kidding," she sighed and looked about. Not many people really came this way to the point where the structure was just another large and uninteresting sight in the city that happened to take up a lot of space. No one was fooled to think this location would be of use for anything but Alma sure felt like one. She's seen some guards but never a place where the guards would do their training regimes and the like. So logically she thought a place where old fights were held would have been the location for training. Instead it was a giant, plant taken ruin as most would have.

'You'd think they would use a place like this but doesn't appear anyone wanted to for years. I... I think I see a tree trying to grow in there.'

Seeing as Alma was by herself before a monument of cultural treasure, this did mean she could take a peek around the place not locked behind tourist barriers. Feeling that sense of wanderlust inside the city's safe zone of monsters, mostly because it was a safe zone from monsters, the deer headed inside for a more intimate look at the interior. Inside was shaped similarly as one would construct a sporting arena or rather how such arenas got their inspiration from. Grown shrubs turned to tree like figures along the walls to support the stone work.


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[Alma]

Following the looming archway halls of stone work had an open feel to it despite the crawling aftermath of overgrowth. Nothing around the area looked like items Alma had harvested before. Basic grass and odd flowers and tree bark didn't have that look about them that could be made into crafting work. Like picking up weeds and holding them in a bundle to sell at a shop, it just won't work out. From what she could observe that this lay out would be more like a backdrop. Still, as she knew down and poked at the silky petals of a purple petaled plant, this wasn't a bad view.

Her sandals clacked on each stone as she entered to immediately be dwarfed even more by the grand scale. Six feet and some antlers barely dented it for the scale of the ceiling. As if the room was made for giants than people. Rome sure had its period of being grand. Oddly enough did the size of the hallways and entry ways made Alma feel more at home; less conscientious about her extra height. There was still the matter of finding the way to the center area. Can't be too hard really. She came across a broken section of wall and found a glimpse of what she was after. As if someone rudely cut a wedge of cheese from above and downwards than from the side, a large section of collapsed stone gave way to a clear route to the center. Alma took this cheat in stride and started climbing over the limestone and concrete rather bravely due to the nature of cities being safe zones.

It took some effort on her part but hardly left the woman breathless as the view before her of the center. At some point or another did a new platform stage was build with the center opened up in a collection of rain water over time or something more. The surrounding stands were littered with foliage and flora of what trees managed to escape the arena's catacombs to sunlight. They have yet to grow very tall but their canopy did spread over a few sections for shade. Weeds and moss took up what spaces they could find while more hearty shrubs had their untamed limbs as though crawling out of the center opening. She noted this greenery of a back drop as she strolled out into the clearing as any lone deer would. Something about this place looked more closer to a garden but the stage she walked upon had to have use before. The city folk mentioned that at one time events would be done here but didn't say any more than that.

Still, from what her red eyes could scan, this location wasn't in use. A private place to maybe try some training. That was what Alma had in mind. Originally she hoped for a monk trainer in town but it looks like one wasn't here or they were off training elsewhere. Probably under some waterfall under meditation. Alma didn't know much of being a monk than outside of movies from Clare's memory and even then it wasn't the more reliable. She also heard that attacking other players is very frowned upon in the city so there's that too. Attacking wildlife wasn't something she was emotionally prepared to do either so this left her for a more practical task. A review of what all her skills did and go from there. The minor blurp about Monk did have something interesting about it that made her want to try; the art of chaining skills together. For now she saw down cross legged and started to try meditating to review her skills.

As far as she could tell, the current abilities didn't rely much on fists. Or did they? Her mind moved the cursor to hover over each tooltip to learn what she could to apply these skills. She's been doing all these odd jobs and gaining money and experience through manual labor so all of that has to be going somewhere. One by one she went over in quiet meditation.

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[Alma]

During meditation would Alma visualize what she thought she couldn't and shouldn't be seeing. Back home she was just a lackluster girl who would rather stay home curled up in bed. Now forced to do things in this world, Clair had to drag herself into doing things. Her first impressions of the combative Monk class was just to punch and kick things all Bruce Lee like. In her mind, maybe by the amount of chi or chakra inside this stronger body would Alma be able to sense more of her surroundings coupled with these animal features. She could smell the oddest scent and pick out a few herbs and flowers nearby. She could pick out the flutter of a bird's feathers in the stands. The very waters that near quietly lapped against the stone in the small pool at the center of the arena. All of that could be visualized which in turn helps to even out her breathing. Nothing seemed all that chaotic in this place. Gathering her thoughts she opened her eyes and got up to stretch.

After a moment of stretching the deer woman started into some steps and punching the air. Magic may be easier said by a castor who could read and channel spells but a physical class needed more muscle training. A punch here, a knee raise, following a palm strike. Alma wasn't used to her body moving this way yet there was sort of... 'this makes sense' kind of flow to it. Her steps circled and began to move about the central pond area. Reading the menu of her mind said monks were a mobile fighter. Therefore, she couldn't just be standing there in front of the enemy. They would be moving and so she'll need to do the same. No training dummies were around to provide a more solid target so this practice had the deer oddly pacing around the pond following her steps to traced punches and elbows that began to flow into kicks. A sweeping low kick, using her hands to pivot her hips and turn for a mid one before pushing off the ground for an elbow strike. How random feeling at first but not so straining. Maybe, she began to slowly think while rounding the central pond area for the fifth time, maybe this isn't so bad. If she could do this in practice then handling monsters may not be bad and hurtful. Scary...well, monsters will still be scary.

As she made strange circles around the pond, Alma wouldn't be able to notice some stray kids making their way from the entrance of the arena and to the stands. There were lots of places to climb and there were no monsters around so there was little fear to explore within the city. Their small band would make note of the strange fighter who fought alone in the arena. Thinking the deer woman to be crazy though, they left her alone and her crazy methods, and continued to climb as they saw fit on the sun-bleached rock.

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