Short Story: [Emberfate] Pirate Beach

Hey everyone!

Here's another short story in the series of 'In Game Dates' with each of the Emberfate love interests. This time, it's Nathan's turn!

As with the last one, this short story is mostly written by my friend Anna 'Lavinnia' Kończak and edited by me. This one should make up for the missing short story from Dec 2023.

I hope you all enjoy this story!

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“Is this place… really your favorite location in Emberfate?” You rotate your camera, sweeping around the area as you try — and fail — to notice anything special about the place. “It's... nice. A lot of… sand,” you mumble, trying not to make your confusion and disappointment apparent.

‘A lot of nothing’ is what you really mean. Whoever did the design of the beach area was probably severely underpaid. A generic, elongated sand texture stretches across the surface beneath your character's feet. The animated waves crash against the shore with a repetitive sound effect. The skybox shows the setting sun, which could have actually made the atmosphere romantic — if not for the pirate trash mobs repeating the same line over and over again as a level 26 noob kills them one by one. 

Oh, he just killed the elite Pirate Captain. At least that annoying sound will be gone for a while, thank god.

How could Nathan possibly think this area is the prettiest location in Emberfate?

“Aha-hah...” The laugh that you hear through your headphones tells you Nathan is nervous. “I-It is my favorite area. B-But if you don’t like it, I won’t take it personally. Just… first let me show you why exactly I love this place so much.”

“Okay,” you agree, your curiosity now piqued. “Is there more to this place than what I can see right now? Some sort of easter egg?”

“Bingo!” Nathan exclaims, the excitement of a child bubbling up in his tone. “You know how much I love music?”

You make a humming sound in agreement.

“So,” Nathan continues, and you can clearly imagine him waving his hands around as he’s talking even though his character stands still beside you. “You know my opinion on the Emberfate soundtrack — that it’s nothing to write home about.”

Nathan moves his character slightly forward and then back, and a small smile appears on your face. He is so excited that he can’t contain his emotions. How cute.

He continues in an animated voice. “The main soundtrack really is quite boring, especially after hearing it for so many hours while leveling. Honestly, I turned off the music around level 40 and just listened to my own playlists instead. Which was kind of disappointing, because I'd heard that the Emberfate devs had hired a famous, guest composer to create a couple of tracks, but I couldn't find any sign of them in game at all."

"This area might be one of the worst offenders — maybe the team was overworked and didn’t have time to compose anything for this area, but still. There's nothing playing. Zero, zip, zilch. Can you imagine?”

“Well, I'm not surprised. It sure looks like they didn’t care much about this place, judging by the visuals alone,” you mumble under your breath. You turn your camera around again, taking in the sight of the vast empty area.

“It’s not only what you see that matters,” your boyfriend’s tone turns serious. “The sound design is just as important to the gameplay experience as graphics. I could have forgiven this area's lackluster design if it had good BGM, but it didn't.”

You can't help but chuckle at the way he sounds like he's about to whip out a whole set of presentation slides to illustrate his point. When he makes a confused sound in response to your reaction, you can't help but tease him.

“I agree completely. In fact, I think that sentiment applies to our relationship too,” you say flirtatiously. “We may not see each other a lot, considering the distance between us, but I sure love the sound of your voice.”

“I, uh…” Nathan lags for a moment. “Does that mean you don’t like my looks?”

“I didn’t say that. The graphics and the sound matter equally, isn’t that what you said?” You chuckle again. “I love both the way you look and the way you sound.”

There’s a pause, and then a sharp intake of breath from your boyfriend. “That’s… cute…” Another pause. “And surprisingly deep too,” Nathan finally says when he recollects himself.

“I am capable of some thoughtful remarks from time to time,” you say with a grin. “Anyway, I'm sorry for derailing you, but you were about to show me why you love this area so much?”

“Right. Uh... So. Move your character to that rock over there,” Nathan positions his character so that he’s looking straight ahead at an unassuming gray rock a few paces away from us. “And prepare to get your mind blown."

“Oh? Alright then,” you say, controlling your character to run a circle around his. “Let’s run to the mysterious trigger rock together in 3… 2… 1…”

You both dash towards the boulder. As soon as your character's little feet steps on the rock, the silence is broken by a wondrous melody, and you have to bite back a gasp. The song captures the feeling of your adventures in Emberfate perfectly — a bit chaotic, with many ups and downs, but magical and wholly satisfying.

Silence falls between Nathan and you, and for a moment, it’s just the music, your boyfriend and yourself.

“Wow,” you finally speak after a minute when you feel like the music has looped back to the start. “How did I miss this track when I was leveling? Is that one of the guest composer tracks you mentioned?"

“Yes, it is! It's such a shame, because I think most people missed this just like you did. You see, when you run up to the pirate mobs, the music changes to the standard battle melody instead,” Nathan explains. "I would have too, if I didn't come back to this area one time because I was being cheeky — my sister wanted me to go to the beach with her, but I wasn't really in the mood to, so I came here on this character to take a screenshot of 'me' on the beach to send to her and say I don't need to go because I'm already at the beach. "

You snort. "Did your sister punch you for your smart aleckness?"

"Maybe. I got dragged to the beach in the end still, so my strat did not work." He gives a dramatic sigh, and you move your character closer to Nathan, target his character and press the ‘kiss’ emote.

“Ah…” Nathan yelps in surprise when the emote plays out, then gives a shy but delighted chuckle. "You're going to have to come over and do that in person if you want to cheer me up."

“Soon,” you promise. “I think I can visit you again next month. Maybe we can go to the beach in real life then — where there'd be hopefully less annoying pirates in the way."

You can hear him perk up immediately. "I'd love that. I can't wait to be with you again."

"Me too, Nathan. Me too." You quickly push away the flash of sadness at the reminder of the distance between you two, despite the fact that you're both doing your best to close the gap. "But at least we always have Emberfate for us to hang out together."

"Very true. And I'm very grateful to the devs for that — even with their mostly unimpressive soundtrack and all."