The First Respawn

It hasn't been long since the Apocalypse, although it might not be referred as such just yet. But it's been at least a day since another event happened, once that was probably unknown on this side of the world.

It was quiet around the Church at that time of day, with the Adventurers trying to make sense of what happened, and the Landers keeping at their occupations as if nothing happened. But then out of the blue, a bolt of light seems to hit the church, easily seen outside, and through the windows that same light shines through, and gradually fades out.

For those that get curious and join in, they will see the floating body of an adventurer, a girl, dressed of a short yukata and an chain mail underneath, and a set of double swords crossed in the small of her back. Something that seems similar to the looks of ninjas. She has amazingly long hair that seems to float down like tendrils, along with her body until she's resting on top of the altar. She's unmoving, but looking unhurt, and unstirring for the moment.

It has been a busy couple of days in the aftermath of the patch drop. Yet, even now there are more questions than answers. Though she has no personal connection to those in Ezzo, she had joined in support of those who were trying to get the trapped players out. It is just by happenstance that she is nearby when that flash of light forms over the church. So, the Guardian heads in that direction, her pet lynx trailing afterwards.

Her instinctive response to the sight in the church is to hang back slightly and observe. Pulling the edge of her cloak down slightly, the Were Fang just tries to get a clear view of the unmoving girl. "Definitely a player." She murmurs to herself.

Gwen has been curious about the church, she's had chance to take a break from all the work on rescue of the operation. She'd gone to check out the Rhuch she was just as the bolt of light strikes? She will be very interested and head inside she will find the body of someone floating there.

"What in the..."

She looks shocked at this and she's watching the girl for a moment and will try to inspect them to see if they are player or not but Mikage is one on her.

"How did she...end up here does this mean...?"

    Mizuki is in church.

    Well. She's in the church, anyway. It's a convenient place to rest when you want to be inside rather than up on a roof, and there's no room at the inn. A lot of adventurers are basically living like homeless people, if homeless people could get money, but not houses, by beating up wildlife in the park.

    The feline were-fang is just getting up from a cat nap on a pew, and starting to nibble on dinner retrieved from her inventory. It's some kind of food ration, but that really doesn't matter. Everything tastes the same, after all.

    And then... blue light blinds her, as she raises an arm in front of her face, pupils narrowing to slits. But once the light fades, it's... a girl? Mizuki checks the inspect function. An adventurer!

    And that means...

    Mizuki's memories briefly go back to laying on the ground with a glowing gash across her belly and a giant gnoll hefting its axe to finish the job...

    She shakes her head, and hurries up to the altar. "Are you alright?!"

Well if there was one way to draw attention admist all the other crazy things going on, weird energy flashes around a church was going to be the way to do it.

Despite the personal resolution to be who she was to thrive in this world, Shiruba wasn't going to stray far from the one other person she really knew yet. So it wasn't a big surprise that the admittably curious wolven Cait Sith was following Gwen. This could be something that bears investigating!

Does little to explain the sight of the girl laying on the alter when they get inside though. "... Not any I reconize from being around the town. Why are they lying here?"

Kaydon had been working at the port since last night. He needed a break. The Town of Beginings was not close to the port, so he had set out a few hours prior in order to make it here because he knew that A) It had a decent newbie shop where he should be able to aquire more materials to help with the construction at the marina and B) Maybe the food here didn't suck.

He was wrong about B, so far, but the massive shining light did get his attention while he was shopping for materials. He arrives not long after the glow fades, finding Gwen already looking over the body. "That's a weird place to sleep."

    As a shining pillar of light either erupts from or beams down to the cathedral, it definitely draws the eyes of onlookers. Except, apparently, the People of the Land. Standing in the street, the long blonde ponytail of a lady knight blows in the breeze as her head tracks towards the spectacle. With the clanking of her rattling armor trailing her, she begins making her way steadily towards the church.

    This might bear investigation. It could yield some clues to what's going on in this chaotic situation.

The girl stirs, and flutters her eyes open, and back close almost immediately. "I had such weird dreams, a whole town getting destroyed by green glitches, attacked by ratkins, cleaved in half by a golem laser..."

She blinks and suddenly shoots right up sitting "WAIT A SECOND!!!" She looks at herself, and pats her chest, from her shoulder to her waist "That wasn't a dream was it? But I'm still alive..." She looks to those gathered around her "... oh right, this is still a game right? There's no way you would actually die in a game..." She hehs, and rubs the back of her head "So did we win? Can we log out now?"

She's potentially bringing more questions than answers right now. She doesn't know anyone here either. She tilts her head "Hmm... where is this by the way?"

    The feline werefang looks confused as the mysterious girl speaks of dreams. And then she winces and hangs her head at the question of whether they can log out. She shakes her head, and replies in a sad whisper, "The church at the town of beginnings."

    ...

    She lifts her head again. "Wait, a town destroyed by glitches and a golem laser? Noone's reported any golems around here..."

Shiruba's ears tilt attentively at what the girl is rambling about. "There's no golems here... and no, there's still no logging out." She leans a bit closer. "Are you sure it wasn't a dream within being a game? Nothing like that going on here."

It isn't so much that Mikage had used any commands, more that she is making some educated assumptions based on the girl's attire. It isn't exactly normal for Landers to be decked out that way, especially outside of instanced dungeons. Looking to Gwen, she inclines her head ever so slightly. "We did hear rumors the other day about someone showing up here. That bard girl." No one had been able to pin her down for questioning though.

With Mizuki rushing forward, Mikage makes a more cautious approach, "It sounds like you've been through a lot." She says, voice soft. "Are you feeling okay?" There is no telling exactly where she came from, not at first, anyways. "I think it's more important we know where you just came from?"

She hesitates, "Are you from somewhere else in the game, or the outside world?"

Kaydon lurks near the back for the moment, listening in for the time being, though he does finally speak up after Mikage, "This isn't the starting point for folks when they first log in.." He thinks for a moment, "You said golems and lasers. Were you fighting a monster? What's the last thing you remember before waking up and getting bombarded by questions?"

Gwen looks to Kaydon and Shiruba for a moment "Not sleeping, there hasn't been any sign of the Royal Guard being active so no fighting in the town. So far as I know."

Then the girl wakes up and she pauses for a moment. She pauses for a moment. 5R
"Wait golem? Where were were what zone? where you in?"

    Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.

    Up the stairs come the sounds of bootfalls. Eventually, a towering figure blackens the doorway as her silhouette blocks the light from outdoors.

    Then, raising her voice, the knight speaks. "What's this... About golems able to destroy a town?" She takes several strides deeper into the church, until she becomes illuminated by the holy light that shines from above the altar. "Can you tell me where you were when you encountered them?" She pauses and then tacks on. "My apologies for my lack of manners. I should first offer my name. I am Darkness, a Crusader. If these heinously powerful monsters are on the loose, then I must face them at once! T-t-to prevent anyone else from being killed, of course."

The resurrected girls sighs at that "Really, I thought they would have managed to clear this event after I died, I don't know how long that's been." She slides her legs down the side of the altar to sit more properly "I guess I'll start from the beginning." She eyes some of the people that... more or less are making their own interpretation of what she said up to now. "When the fireworks started, we were in Ezzo. Suddenly there was some really defeaning sound, and the place started getting destroyed. I mean, building crumbling downs, and new ones appearing out of the ground to replace them, along with green glitches that seemed to make everything indestructible."

She shakes her head "On top of that, it seemed like it was affecting monsters too, and even level 1 monsters were near indestructible. Some man they named the Bandit King came running and told us to flee with the Landers, so we ran away to the Southern Mountains, where there was a shrine. The Bandit King used a crystal on it, and a monster he called a Guardian appeared. He also glitched out midfight, and used a laser that cut me in half." She slides a finger from her shoulder, to the opposite waist below.

"After that... I don't know anything. I just appeared here. I thought they said our spawn point was in Ezzo, that's why we needed to stay alive, because... you know, Ezzo is kinda dangerous right now."

Some people more observant might recognize the girl after a moment. She's one of the Nero Idols, rising in popularity over the last few months between her song running on the radio, being part of advertisements, PR within this game, and other works she's been part of such as calendar and magazines. She's a familiar face to many.

'We were in Ezzo.'

That's the keywords they needed to hear. Shiruba puts her hands over her mouth as she gasps. "Oh my goddesses, you were over there?! At the epicenter of that black shockwave thing?" The glitch comment also makes sense too now.

But that she's here now doesn't. Shiruba scratchs the side of her head. "That's a very good question. Why would you respawn here? Not that it's a bad thing that you did, but... uh..." Yeah now she's just kind of confused.

    Reika says she thought they could clear it. "It's not that simple..." Mizuki objects.

    And then Reika says 'Ezzo' and her eyes widen and ears perk up.

    Mizuki listens to the story, then grabs at Reika's shoulders and shakes her. "You're from /Ezzo/?!" And then she realizes what she just did and lets go, stepping back. "Err... sorry. We've been preparing a rescue operation since the start of this, but we have so little communication that... I-I guess it doesn't really help, since it's not like you have any special connection with the others..."

    Mizuki blinks. "The chimlink! Does the Ezzo regional chimlink work?! You could let the others know... that you're alive, and when the boats are coming!"

While Mikage keeps a polite distance, the Were Fang's animal companion has no such qualms about running right up to where Reika is, sniffing at her as if she were a curious thing. "Rama, get back here." She whispers, as if embarassed by the little beast's actions. Moving forward, she scoops him up, the lynx dangling down from her arms.

Still, despite the antics, she seems to be listening to the girl's strange tale. "That seems to match up with what I saw with the spyglass." She explains, "Buildings spawning out of buildings and a giant cannon." She catches her lower lip between her teeth briefly, as if thinking, and then decides to fill the girl on the rest of the world.

"A blast came from the direction of Ezzo. Leveled us all down and we got teleported to Alne. Some floating guy who we think might have been a dev of some sort warned us that someone had messed with the system. That we needed to find a 'Twilight' something or other, and we had to beat the tower." That is pretty much the jist of it. "Then we started hearing about Ezzo and a bunch of us have been focused on trying to help get people out." She glances around, eyes meeting with a number of he others.

"I'm just confused on why you're here. Shouldn't you have respawned at the Ezzo root city?"

Ezzo. They were trying to get there, and then one of them respawned here, "I wonder." Kaydon muses, "If you died, and respawned, that means that the theory that if you die in the game you stay dead is pretty much confirmed false." He glances at Gwen for a second, because he knows she's not going to like his next idea.

"Maybe with Ezzo's root city destroyed by this glitch, it defaulted them all out to here. It wouldn't work for the Landers but any adventurer could probably just you know, die and show up here."

    At Kaydon't suggestion that the Ezzo adventurers use suicide as transport, Mizuki holds a hand to her stomach and says softly, "I don't think they should have to go through that." Shaking her head.

    "Hm. I see." Darkness says as she listens to the full story. "So you're saying that there are unkillable foes terrorizing Adventurers in Ezzo, and that there may still be survivors. If you are the first to appear here, the others might still be alive. If Ezzo is in the dire straits you say, it might be that there is nowhere there to revive at."

    The Crusader hmms thoughtfully. "You have my deepest condolences for your terrifying experience. I'm glad you don't appear to have suffered any permanent injury. However, I, Darkness, will go forth to rescue the others trapped in or near Ezzo." She bows to Reika. Come to think of it, Reika might be a little bit familiar. Hmm... Well, she'll figure that out later.

    Straightening up. "Thank you for shedding light on the situation. Even if I must sacrifice my body to these immortal monsters, I will ensure that everyone gets to safety!"

Gwen looks at the girl over for a moment.

"Ezzo?! Were you with someone called Uther Pendragon or Att Syne?"

She looks concerned for a moment but also is listening as Reika tells them the horror story.

"This lines up with my contacts there. "Something kicked you out of the faction which would make you default spawn point here."

She thinks for a moment then speaks again.

"You sound like you need to rest but there are people who are going to need to talk to you. We're part of an operation to pull people out of Ezzo, well most of us."

She looks to Darkness and nods a little bit.

"Everyone honestly my reports have Landers are fleeing with them."

Shiruba jabs her elbow lightly into Kaydon's side. It probably doesn't do much since he's bigger and hardier than she is, but it's the gesture in itself that counts. "We don't know if that is true, or this gal just got lucky."

Reika gahs at being shaken, but she understands somewhere that it's important information, the way she reacts anyway. Reika shrugs her shoulders some of the questions pertaining the spawn point "I don't know either, but I'm here." She hms, crossing her arms under her chest "Sadly, no, I didn't make any communication..." She furrows her eyebrows a bit "Wait, I did make a party with Wynfei, is there a way to talk with party members?" She doesn't know anything about communications. "He should still be on that side."

She looks up at her UI for a moment, which is always a little odd from the outside, like staring at nothing for anyone else "Well he seems to be full HP at least, so that's a good sign."

She shakes her head at Gwen "I don't feel like I need to rest, more like I just woke up from a long sleep actually." She hops on her feet. "If there's anything I can do to assist, let me know." She still thinks that clearing the event might open the way home after all, the situation is too absurb to even believe it yet.

Kaydon at least feigns being hurt by Shiruba, rubbing the side where she elbowed him, "That's fair. I guess it was just an idle thought." He says, as he considers, "Well we're making decent progress on getting everything together to go rescue the folks in Ezzo. So they just need to hold out for a few more days."

Once more, it almost seems like they got more questions than answers. "If things are that bad in Ezzo, why aren't we seeing more people come through to respawn here?" It's the question that is lingering in Mikage's mind. So far, there were only rumors of two emerging from the church. There should, theoretically, be many players who called the Ezzo region their home territory.

"I mean, shouldn't we have at least seen a handful by now if things are that bad over there?" Her brows knit in confusion. Then, she glances over towards Darkness. They seem like one of those super serious players. "I think we're all trying our best to get ships over to Ezzo, but we've run into more than our fair share of delays."

"I'm Mikage, by the way." Since Darkness had offered their name, she offers her own. It probably is a good idea to offer Reika some manner of introduction.

    Mizuki looks sidewise at Darkness. "What the hell is wrong with you? Do you have a death wish?!" She holds a clawed hand to her head. "Sorry, sorry. It's... still sinking in that maybe death won't kill us after all. You uh... you do you."

    She looks back to Reika. "If your faction was reset, did you lose the chimlink? Um, if you touch your ear, it should come up. And yeah, you can uh... you can talk to Wynfei and help coordinate between the rescue and Ezzo, and help out here if you want. We already looked into how to reach Ezzo safely, so... right now we're trying to gather enough resources to buy a fleet of boats, but we don't even know how many boats we need. Oh, um..."

    Mizuki sends Reiko a friend request. "Direct messaging using our friends lists is how most of us are staying in contact, right now."

    Mikage introducing herself reminds Mizuki that /she/ hasn't. Awkward! "I'm Mizuki, by the way!" She offers a slightly embarassed smile and a furry hand to shake.

Reika hadn't introduced herself yet either, although some might recognize her even without it. She pulls up her UI and accepted the friend request from Mizuki. No reason not to right now. Soon the name "Reika" pops up on Mizuki's list "I'm Kamiya Reika, or just Reika here I suppose." She doesn't talk about her idol work though, for some reason. "I believe I was with someone called Att Syne in Ezzo, yes. There was, uhm... someone called Haseo as well. Proteus and Polaris too." She probably forgot one or two others. Polaris though was loud enough to never forget.

She follows the instructions though, and puts a finger to her ear, calling out "Wynfei?" Wynfei might have noticed, if he was paying attention, he'll notice that Reika's party icon has light back up, and showing full HP. It's been around 24 hours since her death by the guardian, so her voice might be a surprise to him. Especially since they had to abandon the tombstone in the destruction as they fled.

    "You used your real name? Eh, don't worry about it..."

    "Att Syne, yes!" Her tail twitches with interest. "Gwen knows him, too!" The other names get no reaction from her... although her ears splay slightly at noticing that Uther Pendragon was not mentioned, knowing they're someone Gwen is also looking for.

The gnoll were fang muses to himself. There sure are a lot of people who either use their real name or some variant of it when playing these games. Maybe it's because he's an older user from the days of 'don't talk to strangers on the internet' but he'd never even consider doing that.

"Sounds like you guys were all too busy fighting for your lives to figure out what's going on." He was hoping for more intel once they made contact with the Ezzo folks, but it seems unlikely.

Shiruba scratchs the side of her head again. "I feel like I should reconize that name..." Like it's something she overheard at the cafe she worked at or such. But isn't up on popular culture to put two and two together on her own.

So in the end she just shrugs. "My name is Shiruba," she chips in, but doesn't want introductions to override the information that's starting to come through so keeps it at that.

Reika doesn't mention Uther but Gwen's been talking to him over Chimlink so it's all good. Hopefully. "Yeah, they've got it a lot harsher than we do here."

Gwen looks at Reika as she talks a bit more.

"If you are still in your party, I think so."

She seems to be thinking a lot but she mention she doesn't need to rest.

"Then yes there are some people you need to speak to if we get a chance. Shiroe and Kite most notably. They have been doing a lot of Organization rescue operations though other groups are getting in on it as well."

"Ah so you with Att Syne's group? I'll let him know on our next check-in."

She makes notes of the other names mentioned

"As I said Att is a big customer for appearance items, well back when I had the skills for making them level capped."

She looks to Shiruba.

"Which name Shir? Yeah Kayson it sounds like they were dropped into digital Normedy from the sounds of it."

The comment about using real names causes a twitch at the corner of Mikage's mouth, but nothing more. She sets down her pet, who finally seems done with trying to get up into the newly arrived girl's personal space. "If nothing else, I think we've confirmed that at least dying in the game isn't permanent, but... how do you feel?"

She walks over to one of the pews and sits down, leaning forward slightly to keep everyone else in view. "From where we were, it looked like some kind of proceedural turrain generation had gone haywire. Take your story into account, and it certainly sounds like something is very broken with the code, there."

    Having been helping down at the Marina, there were quite a few refugees that came from Ezzo that needed to be helped, which is why he hadn't left yet. Adventurers and Landers together had time to talk and get to know one another. Having taken a moment to sit down and rest, this Exhasution system is not fun, feels like outside the game. Shaking his head, he is scrolling this his UI when he notices Reika's icon is alight.

    He presses her icon, "Reika?" he asks through their party chat. "Is that you? Are you alive?" he asks hoping that she is. He saw what happened to her, he saw her get cut down by the green laser.

    "N-no of course not!" Darkness replies to the accusation of having a death wish. "I'm just willing to do whatever it takes to guarantee that innocent people are returned safely, without having to go through what Reika-san has." She goes quiet as Reika seems to be in communication with her party member. Critical information might be about to surface.

Reika nods as she hears the reply, although the others don't "Yes, I'm alive. I got... respawned I guess, in the Town of Beginnings." That what she was told earlier. "Are you all sitll in Ezzo?" Last news she got, they were still working on the rescue after all.

Reika nods to Mizuki, holding a hand to her ear but not pressing in as she talks out of it "I'll... explain later, I guess." She hints she got some reason at least. "We were busy fighting for SOMETHING anyway." She's still pretty unclear on what's going on. Just that... it got pretty scary, and painful. "I'm hoping that I can get in my bed after we clear this event, I never heard of a game that traps the players in until they are done." She means the lack of the log out button, she didn't see it explode, but even if she did, she could still assume it was part of the show.

At the question from Mikage, she thinks about it too "Uhm, it's hard to describe... but it was really painful. But dull at the same time. I don't know how being cut by a laser should really feel, but it felt like a really big paper cut. Across my whole body. And it's still feels like it's *there* right now even if I don't see it." She shivers a bit, recalling it. She didn't even get to feel what happens when you lose HP, she just went from full to dead in a second after all. "After that, it's like everything went white, and then I woke up here."

Shiruba gives a dismissive wave of her hand. "Not important right now Gwen."

Instead the wolf cait walks a circle around the alter Reika has been sitting on. "She looks to be in one piece." She stops once she's back at her previous spot, tail twiching a few times thoughtfully. The thing is a lot more expressive now that it's a 'real' part of her. "But I think I still don't want to really risk the dying thing unless I absolutely have to. Besides, I'd probably respawn back in the Ninetails Kingdom and be away from everyone else that's actually doing anything."

"Yeah and imagine how long it would take you to get back here if you did." Kaydon notes, "I mean if I die I'll respawn right here, but eventually that'll be a bad thing when we're out in other locations. We're not just going to hang out in the Town of Beginnings forever."

    Mizuki looks sad again when Reika opines the desire for bed. Then again, after the story of what she went through someone might give her one. But not /hers/, of course.

    The catgirl speaks, somberly. "...You still think we're getting out of here soon, even after waking up on Sunday? ...I don't know how long it's going to take, but it's probably going to be awhile. The game's been out for a year and we're only a tenth of the way through Aincrad. Even if we cleared a floor every day, that'd be three months."

    Then she forces a smile and looks at Reika again. "But hey, it's not so bad! We get to have adventures until then, and who knows? Maybe the people outside will find a way to save us long before then!"

    "But first, we have to save the others from Ezzo! How about we head back to Alne and meet up with the people there, see what other new developments there have been since last night?" She looks at a window. "It IS getting late, but you said you're well-rested and I just had a nap and can see in the dark, so..."

The description of Reika's experience is enough to make Mikage look vaguely uncomfortable. It's a hard thing to imagine, especially without actually experiencing it. "I'm sorry for bringing it up. I think we're all just trying to feel our way through things and figure things out." Then, the thought strikes her, "You don't happen to know around what time it was when you died?" It sounds like such an odd question.

"My respawn is off in Eastal, which would be problematic for our current tasks. It would likely take weeks to get back here without a mount, and with the Leviathans causing problems on the seas." She agrees with Shiruba.

There is an uncertain look as she glances at Mizuki, "No one ever beat even floor ten of the tower. So right now, we're operating on the assumption that they've fixed the tower to be even remotely fair." Which no one is really sure about.

"Even if some have gotten out, there's still a lot of people still stuck there. Including Landers. So I'm not sure this changes anything for our plans." This time, she looks to Gwen, perhaps seeing her as the de-facto leader of those operations.

"I've got a somewhat important question." Kaydon says, finally speaking up again. He looks at Reika with a serious look on his face, "Did you eat anything when you were over in Ezzo? And if you did, did it taste like utter garbage or did it actually have flavor?"

Gwen quiet doen as Reika gets on the horn with her party. She waits and listens for a moment she talks and then awnswer other questions. "One heck of an experiance, Reika. We'll need to keep to our kingdoms if we spread out we can get more ground covered by working for the various Lander factions."

Darkness gets a smile out of Gwen.

"Another good sword arm will be weclome, we may very well have to help get people on the boats while we're under attack."

Gwen is lost in thought for a moment.

"I don't want to play death express myself. Just how many Landers are we talking about anyway? We have been aware of the Landers just not their numbers."

Then Kaydon asks a very imporant question, about food.

Shiruba rolls her eyes. "You people worry too much about how bad the food tastes."

    A smile crosses his face as he sees the chat. "I'm glad to hear it." he tells her. "I will let the others know you're alright, and we will come to the Town of Beginnings to see you. I think you may show up on my map now that we are partied up. Right now we are helping with the Landers from Ezzo, so it may be a while before I can get up there, I'm not sure about the others."

Reika seems... deflated a bit as she learns that "Oh..." She hrms "... I guess that's even more of a reason to not sit around and do nothing then, right?" She already had made up her mind about that. At first she was just tagging along and hoping others win the game, but then she realized that it'll go faster if she helps out. "Yeah, I feel fully rested right now, and not feeling like lying down at all. It feels like I was sleeping forever. I think I should learn how to fight properly though... I was kinda useless." She didn't play the game seriously after all.

She looks to Mikage's question "Uhm... I guess it was around this time of day." But she doesn't even know how many days it's been right now. "It's the time I remember last from looking at my UI before we fought that Guardian."

She tilts her head at Kaydon's question "Uhm, no, I didn't eat anything. I am kinda hungry." That doesn't really answer the question, but she doesn't know what he means either. She looks to Gwen next "There was a few hundreds Landers tagging along with us, I don't have a precise headcount either..." She had other things in her mind.

She holds her ear for Wynfei's reply as well, and relays what she just hears "Looks like they were part of those that got rescued, he's at the Marina." She looks a little relieved at that at least. She talks back to Wynfei "Glad you're all safe then. Uhm, sorry for worrying everyone. I'll learn to fight better for next time. I'll tell you, it's highly unpleasant to die, even if you don't really die. Please avoid it." Everyone can hear that last part.

    How to fight properly? "What's your class?" Around this time of day? Hmmm... Mizuki breaks her food item in two and offers half to Reika; it looks like a block of... something edible? "It'll help with hunger, but that's all that can be said for it. All food is like this now."

    A few hundred? She mouths the words. "Are we planning to rescue the Landers too? We're gonna need a lot of boats... wait, rescued? What?!"

"Well there's no reason to leave the Landers behind if the place is falling apart," Shiruba replies. "They might be useful! Or have information! Or all the other things Landers are there for." She hmms. "That is going to take more pairs of twos though. Oh, well, there's other people that are working out logistics, they can figure that part out."

Mikage is doing some mental math in her head, her expression clearly showing that she's trying to calculate time. "So, you were killed in Ezzo while with your friend. And that friend is now here?" Her brows furrow. "The time to get from here to Ezzo is maybe a bit less than a day's travel assuming our Cartographer was right from before."

She pauses a second, then explains, "The respawn timer has been extended. It isn't ten minutes anymore. It sounds like it's closer to a day." Which may explain that sleep-like feeling that Reika was talking about. She literally hadn't existed in the game world for hours.

This seems to absorb her thoughts, until hearing others talking about the Landers, which snaps her attention back to reality.

"If we die we're out of action for a whole day? Geeze. Rez spells are going to be more important than ever now." Kaydon takes a note. Being out for a whole day is no good, especially with how much stuff there is to be done.

    At some point during the proceedings, Darkness appears to have vamoosed. Probably to go rescue people. Can't let Landers stand around being menaced by terrible monsters when she could be out there being a meat shield!

    Listening to Reika, he nods his head, "I don't plan on dying so hopefully we can keep doing a good." he says though a sigh can be heard from them. "Don't apologize, you had us all worried. We don't know how this new world work, I'm just happy to hear your voice again Reika." he tells her. "Ok, I'm on my way." he calls out distantly. "If you're in the Town, I will bring the others there to see ya, just let me know where you will be staying and we will come meet up with you."

Reika takes half of the 'food' she's offered, and takes a bite out of it. She blehs after a second, her eyes windening "Is that... why you asked the question?" She looks at the 'thing'. Well, food is food for now... but taste needs some work for sure. She bites more out of it, trying to ignore the taste as best as possible.

She nods to Mikage "I don't even know what day it is. So you mean it's been 24 hours? It could have been a week I wouldn't know the difference right now." She lspet. But it doesn't seem like you feel the time's passage during it, but you also don't wake up thinking that only a few seconds went by. It's a weird feeling.

She listens to Wynfei again, and answers him "I don't know about that, I might end up heading toward you guys, we still have more to rescue right? So keep doing what you're on, keep in contact, and let the others know." She answers honestly. "I don't want to be sitting on my hands."

As for the question on her class, she answers "Enchanter/Twin Blade. I... didn't really play this game you see, so I don't know what to do. I only opened the menu to... log out really." She says sheepishly. People might make their own ideas on how that happened, it's another story on its own after all.

    "A whole day..." Mizuki considers this. "Well, it's still way better than being dead /forever/. We'll just have to not die before we get this ezzo mess sorted out! Enchanter?" Fortunately she has a LOT of experience working alongside one of those! "...You debuff things until they either die to dots or I kill them; use your twin blade skills to dodge or finish off anything that gets by the rest of the party; you can use the water skill to move enemies around and try to push them into your own damaging zones, too."

    Mizuki starts to turn away, but hesitates. "Um... anyone else want to head to Alne, too...?"

Shiruba pats Reika on the shoulder with one hand. "That's okay! You're hardly the first first-time newbie that just happened to pick the wrong night to start." That... was an attempt to be reassuring? Maybe. Shiruba still doesn't have a lot of experience herself with talking to people other than the few friends she had before this mess started. Then hmms to herself. "Enchanter and Twin Blade. So if I'm remembering right that's primarily debuffs and quick augmentive strikes." Sounds like Mizuki is on top of the topic too."

At the mention of heading back Shiruba grins, and turns to walk out of the church. "Others may want to stay here and keep working on the boats, but I can help lead you guys back to the town if that's where you want to go."

"At least a day." Mikage confirms with a nod. "Not like anyone is going to want to volunteer to die so we can count the respawn timer." Well, there probably would be at least someone willing to do so, now that death not being permanent has been confirmed, but she is certainly not going to ask anyone. "It's important to know. So we should probably spread the word on that, at least."

She pushes to her feet then, seemingly not willing to sit still for very long. The lynx begins to weave around her legs, as if picking up her mood. "There are a lot of people who are new. So don't be afraid to lean on others to help learn how to get around." Mikage gives a shy, but supportive sort of smile.

"I should get back to working on the boats. I'm pretty good at getting up and down the rigging." She flexes her fingers. " Just try to avoid the forests as you go. The gnoll quest spawns sometimes and you probably don't want to get caught up in that."

"I really do need to get back to the port." Kaydon says, "I only came down here to get supplies. I wasn't expecting somebody to respawn while I was shopping." He offers a bow of his head to Reika, "Welcome back, at the very least." And with that he heads back out, intent on putting his blacksmithing to good use.

Gwen gets this look in her eyes that Shiruba knows well. "So what you are saying is we need winter coats?"

Then there's talk about the Timer which does distract the Crusader a little bit. "Look let's be happy it's not like one of those stories. Where you die in the game you die for real." Darkness has departed likely to go take care of some business. Gwen will shoot Reika a friend invite while she's thinking about it. "Don't go out alone either. A solo is just going to get wrecked. I have work I have to get back to soon as well."

    Merek eventually makes a way into the Church to look about, having been trying to come to the place for what he heard about. He is wearing the tattered bit of cloak along with a scarf, the white-black attire which the male wears is about him. There's an incline while he takes a place to the side in thought.

Reika nods as she listens to the explanations "I was told about that, but... not sure what you mean by debuffs." She likely needs to build a better ability set right now. There's the embarassing 'discount magical girl' thing she did in Ezzo while fighting, but she really didn't know better at the time either. That's also a story of its own.

She finishes eating the 'thing', and nods as she slides off the altar finally "I'm following. I'll be in your care." She bows elegantly, meaning that she has much to learn right now. She takes the friend requests as they come, information and contacts are important after all.

"If I ever get out of here though, I'm giving my manager an earful, I hope he didn't know about this when he told me to log in that night."

Shiruba rolls her eyes a bit at Gwen's remark. She doesn't need to see her to know the look in her eyes. "Great, you got her started. We won't hear the end of if the entire time we're travelling," she mock complains.

    I'm not sure what you mean about debuffs.

    Mizuki's ears splay. Oh no. Oh nooooooo.

    She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and then her ears perk up again. "It's alright!" A spring injects into her step. "Mizuki will teach you! And any monsters on the road will be no match for us!"

    Before actually leaving the church, though, she begins explaining. "A buff is when a spell or other effect makes someone better at stuff. Protect is a common buff spell that reduces the physical damage the targets take. A debuff is the reverse -- the Twin Blade skill Gouge, for instance, inflicts a bleeding effect that weakens the enemy as well as doing damage. Dot is short for 'damage over time', spells like poison that do bits of damage every few seconds rather than all at once. Now, part of the trick of an enchanter-type mage is looking for opportunities to chain things together. Create a zone that damages everything in it over time, then cast a spell on the enemy that slows it down so it takes longer to escape the zone, and you've got a combo more effective than either spell alone!" She gives similar examples of various enchanter spells, but I don't OOCly know what all the cards are.