the intricacy...

Chapter Five: The Mall

It was the following morning as Itzumi had woken up, gone to class, and had returned to the dorm room. It was raining outside, as the persuasion to remain indoors was very convincing. Itzumi returned to the dorm room fortunately with no signs of raindrops due to the black portable umbrella that she carried everywhere with her due to its miniature size. One of the girls, Hisano, was sitting on the couch while reading a magazine. Itzumi sauntered by towards the kitchen without saying anything as a voice interrupted her steps.

"Welcome back, Itzumi," Hisano muttered. Itzumi turned away from the kitchen, and walked over into the main room. She stood in front of the couch and nodded while giving off an expression of exhaustion.

"Hey. What are you doing?" Itzumi inquired. She relaxed her arms by her sides, and stared down at the taller roommate. Hisano closed the magazine, and returned it to the top of the table that was obverse of her.

"Not much." The female student stood up while placing her right hand onto her hip. "Want to play for a bit? The weather is rather dreadful. The mall has wonderful angles during this time of day." Itzumi had learned about the time of day affecting the scenery in the game of "Intricacy" meaning that around the afternoon hours some of the NPC's may be busier in certain locations compared to the morning hours just like in real life.

"Sure." Itzumi nodded her head as Hisano widely grinned, and stood up before sauntering toward the bedroom. Itzumi was close behind the green haired lass as they entered into the separate room, in which the taller one shut the door behind them for privacy. The roommate wandered over to the familiar table, and opened up the bottom drawer before removing the emerald and sapphire colored glasses. She handed Itzumi the blue pair with her left hand as her right hand slipped the other pair over her curious eyes. Hisano lay across the left bed as Itzumi was on the right bed with both of the students hooked up with cords to the laptop that was between them both.

Itzumi watched the screen as the surroundings immediately changed to the title screen of "Intricacy," in which Hisano was the party leader with the settings of random and putting them directly at the mall location. Once they emerged within the realms of the game Itzumi felt like she was at a realistic mall during the afternoon hours. The sun was illuminating through the glass windows up above with soft tones of orange, or signs that sunset was a few hours away from then. There were many stores all around them with glass display windows, in which the walls and floors were white, but the floors were made of reflective marble. There were several floors to this mall as they were on the first floor.

"The cool thing about this mall is that there are apparently different monsters on each floor," she explained with her arms folded. The both of them were wearing school uniforms, and standing about a foot apart. There were no other people around them since it was the private setting, but there were random NPC's wandering about as if they were shopping on their own with distant laughter and conversation.

There were petite booths in the center of the walkways as glass frames went along each side railing of each separate walkway. There was an elevator that went to each floor, in which it was in the center of the building. The two girls were standing near it as the floor beside them had an elegant fountain in cobalt tiled pool that reached as high as twenty feet into the air. The floors aloft spiraled about as if in a circle, or looking up only exposed the view of the glass ceiling way up above. Itzumi could smell the familiar mall foods like soft pretzels, cinnamon rolls, burgers and more as if she was really there in person.

"So where are we heading to?" Itzumi asked. She wondered how the stores worked in the game since everything was pixels rather than actual edible or touchable material goods. Hisano stood in the direction of the department store that was up ahead as Itzumi could see shop titles over each entrance, in which they were all unique or made up names. They both walked forward as Hisano finally opened up her mouth to speak while relaxing her arms by her sides.