Rat Cellars and Aftermath Socializing

So when it came time to hunt down more rats in the city, it turned out that the turnout for the termination of rats was less party sized, and more raid sized, so when the group was split in half, and this one grouping with the self-proclaimed Explorer's Guide to ETO, the redhead Salamander Elementalist Nevarri.

In this group, this group, Nevarri seems cheerful enough, greeting the other party members, "Alright everyone, so you heard Mizuki moments ago. Some of us have already been down into these store cellars before, and there was a mastermind behind it all... All in all, it's kind of weird that people would keep this up... Still, it's a paying job. So, shall we go? Sound off your name and class!"

    Naotsugu stood and posed, even in his low level gear. It wasn't level 1 anymore... but it was still rather newbie in any case. "If you don't know who I am by now, you haven't been paying attention! I'm Naotsugu, a Crusader/Heavy Blade! I live for the front lines and for panties!" He holds up a book...! Looking at it, the book's info tag lists it as a 'Panties Notebook'.

    He readied himself for the oncoming fight. "I'm ready to destroy some stupid rats! And command some of the more smarter ones from killing us, of course."

    The enchanter nods along as he returns to the merchant's shop once more to prepare for a second night of tunnel investigating. His glasses perched securely as he checks all his equipment once more. "Definitely does seem like a full party. Guess it's definitely an interesting quest to see it having alternate routes, that probably contributes to the intrigue. Plus I'm sure just in general people are trying to get equipment and experience like Mizuki said before."

    Watching Naotsugu give his rather grandiose greeting, Shiroe just gives a light wave in comparison. "Eh, my name's Shiroe. I'm an Enchanter slash Sorcerer that focuses on support magic. I've also done this quest once before already. As a heads up, watch for the cobwebs and praise for some bad smells at the end. Anyway, it definitely was no joke about the large groups." While he was sure a decent amount were trying to prep for events to come, another part of him couldn't help but wonder if this was part of the population density issue he had thought of before as well. "Anyway, I'm ready to go when you all are."

Cynwrig keeps himself as a simple man. He looks like a PL Gnome. But trying to get things going from the sidelines only goes so far, since he has to actually level his gear up. So, he is here. Killing rats is... ugh, this is so basic, there is hardly any story to be had here. No fear, no skill, no stakes. Just rats. Sigh.

"Hello, I'm Cynwrig," he gives a merry salute of his cane, "I'm..." he gestures vaguely, not really into giving his whole spiel here, "Support."

    The light-armored wolfgirl with the thin sword waits to hear what Alice the Weaver has to say, nodding along, before she follows up after the others, even when people start their way down. "Hm, hm, yeah, I see."

    Catching up, she responds to 'sound off' with a snappy (if incorrectly angled) salute. "Hi! I'm Kyo Kirin. Kyo, or Kyou, or Kyorin are all fine." She half-relaxes out of that. "I've been down here before, but it wasn't for either Alice or... who did he say? It wasn't for Barton, either. My class is 'Commander.'"

    She tilts her head at Naotsugu, then nods, understandingly. "You're an enemy of all women. Got it."

    She checks her equipment, though that's apparently needless. "There was a player at the end of the quest, last time, though we didn't realize that at the time. That's weird, isn't it?"

Gwen had fallen into her bed in the inn face first after last nights run-in with Gnolls. She was just wiped if not physically? Mentally she was still a mere mortal like anyone else. She looks to Nevarri for a moment nodding.

"Though the guy who did it fell into one of his cages and was well eaten, by his minions."

Gwen seems amused at Naotsugu.

"Going to rebuild your book from nothing?"

She now checks her gear, she's not in newbie spawn gear anymore but it's still very noob as well from the looks of it.

"Gwen Pendragon and I am a Holy Knight. Good to meet you Kyo!"

She pauses for a moment.

"Cynwrig? A Welsh character name? Nice!"

She looks back to Shiroe and to Neva she seems ready to go at this point.

"I'm ready."

Nevarri nods to each player in turn, some she'd met before and others she hadn't, getting their names and classes all in order, mostly because it never hurt to have intel on their side. "Alright, and I'm Nevarri, I'm an Elementalist, and I'll be your Explorer's Guide to ET---To Yamato!"

One might have seen one of her exploration guides, maybe.

"I'm going to let that slide of course, Naotsugu, since you seem like a fun guy. Let's go!"

With that, she turns to lead the bunch down the stairs into the cellar where it's just dark... "So maybe it's procedurally generated... I had a dark cellar the first time I ran this..."

    Naotsugu pulls out a torch and, using a tinderbox, lights it easily. He's now holding the torch in his sword hand for now, shield out in front. "Yeah, keep your eyes open. Gwen and I will stay ahead a little bit to intercept any nasty surprises." And he'd give Gwen a nod before starting to move forward slowly, using the torchlight coupled with his polished shield to sort of... make a lantern-kinda effect. It wasn't exactly the best effect... but it was better than nothing.

    "Oh, a Holy Knight, huh? You know Light magic, then?" Kyo says to Gwen before reciting off some rapid-fire syllabels for a couple seconds, ending with a floating bit of light ascending from her open, left hand. "It's already a little different from before. Just a little, but that was a different building, too. Instead of getting attacked right away, it's just... dark? Maybe they'll run off from the light if we keep this up, do you think?"

    With a flick, she sends her Light magic down the tunnel ahead of everyone, and draws her thrusting blade with a casual air, moving in a bit after Naotsugu.

Cynwrig tips his cane again to Gwen, "A good language for fantasy names, I love it."

As the group gets up to a stairwell, Cynwrig brings out a torch, struggling to get it to light. "Damn, blasted, I never remember the button combination to light it, the tinderbox never works..."

    "Naotsugu, I got it." Just as he sees the Crusader try to perform some make shift lights, The bespectacled Enchanter raises his staff and small little orbs of light begin to disperse amongst the party members, each helping to provide a second support of light for the group amongst Kyo's magic. Speaking of Kyo, he turns her way as he speaks up.

    "I'd doubt it. The last time we did the run of this tunnel when we used magic that disrupted the area it got their attention. The only time I suspect we'll end having that situation occur is if there's something bigger in the food chain down here. So just keep your eyes open if anything."

Gwen replies. "Aye we don't know if things will be the same, the Gnoll ambush last night was a little different from the one I did before it."

SHe notes back as she takes point alongside Naotsugu. She calls back to Kyo "Yes I do."

She'll end up using some very basic fire magic to light the way for herself as she heads forward. She needs to pick up that spell which makes the smiling light globe.

"It is, you should hear songs with it."

She keeps moving ahead.

"There were spider webs here the last time I was here."

"It's nothing we can't handle as a group..." Nevarri raises her staff and whispers some words, before the head gets engulfed in flames, to help with all the lighting. "But my question though..." She looks to Kyo in a quizical manner, "You said there was a PLAYER? Like, another adventurer, at the end of this chain? Are you sure?"

As they continue down the cellar, it opens up into a long passageway with a door at the far end, walls made of crafted stone, which Nevarri can't help but blink a little at. "Hang on... There's usually a whole bunch of tunnel splits at this section... This is different..."

    Naotsugu looked at the others a bit behind him, completely oblivious to his surroundings... as per the usual... "Don't sweat it so much, Shiroe. I'm sure whatever we deal with down here, we'll crush it like the badasses we are!" And... his sentence structuring needs work...

    He looks at Nevarri. He's not paying any attention to the front at all. "What do you mean? It's actually changing physically? I've never heard of a dungeon doing that at all..." While he was walking... his senses were still at work. While everyone would think Naotsugu was just slacking off, Shiroe would realize Naotsugu's tactic... he looks at everything, even things that others would miss as he steps over them. He seems to have some weird knack for avoiding trouble physically when he wasn't even thinking about it!

Cynwrig pulls out a small device. He seems rather certain that it will work as it shines with a red light. "It is a game world, no reason it can't work like a game." He frowns, jabbing the device on the back of his hand, "Though I'm beginning to suspect this world is more game than I realized. Very little is acting as if it isn't."

    "I didn't notice right away, but... when a man--someone in my party--killed her, it seemed suspicious. And then I heard of her reappearing in the church." Kyo confirms, or as much as she's able to confirm, that it was, indeed, a PC they'd encountered. "We could have talked to her. Hopefully, she's not doing that again." It's a worrying thought. Not that Kyo is planning on letting her get killed again, if she is at the end of this.

    "All of this is different, so far..." To Naotsugu, "No, it's not like it's the same dungeon just because the quest sounds the same, right? It was a different shopkeeper last time."

    She stops, suddenly. "Woah-woah, traps here!" And then she leaps, lightly landing past one trigger, pauses again, steps carefully around, leaps, and continues along in the same manner. It's not extremely difficult, but it doesn't look nearly as effortless as whatever it is their forward tank is doing right now. "Follow along like that, okay?" As long as someone notices every problem, then it won't be as bad for those following behind.

    "Don't think changing physically would be the best way to put it. Could just be that everytime the quest is accepted the routes are changed a bit. Feel like that'd make the most sense, though it'd definitely make ever trying to map these tunnels a nigtmare." He continues on without too much concern with Naotsugu still in the front. It was true that he did look particularly...Odd with the way he was moving about, Shiroe's able to make notice of the occasional trap here and there because of it and makes it a point to try and keep with Naotsugu's steps.

    As they keep stepping and moving and talking along Kyo brings up an interesting tidbit. "Wait, it was someone in your group that was the one that ended up getting killed? So...Guess it wasn't a rumor then after all. Still another player? Did you happen to see his name? His weapon? If we could figure that out it'd probably help get a notice out to other players to watch out for him."

Gwen says "There were some dungeons in few games before Pluto's kiss that randomized things a bit for there' dungeons but nothing like this. You know a different boss, some different groups of mobs. Nothing like this at all... wait what? Who was the person that did that?"

She looks to Kyo for a moment.

"If she is lets try to talk her down and not be some kind of murder hobo about it?"

SHe turns her attention back to the problem at hand this time she doesn't fare so well against the traps, no she ends up stepping in the wrong place getting several darts in her, she doesn't seem happy it clearly hurt.

"It doesn't hurt as much as it should..."

She notes as she pulls them out of her body, dropping them to the ground.

"Watch your step"

Shiroe brings up more interesing points and questions.

"Yeah, I'll PVP well I would before hand? Now I feel uneasy about it."

"Wait, an actual PK?" Nevarri is somewhat interested in that. "I mean, your party member did it by accident right? Or just didn't know that is was another player." She shakes her head a little bit, "I guess if it wasn't intentional, they don't have to worry too much, but that doesn't mean there aren't people who will resort to PKing on the regular, now that it's gotten out that we can't REALLY die he--"

CLICK...

"---EEAAAR!"

The floor beneath Nevarri drops out from beneath her feet after a mistep. With a quick enough hand, one of her party members can grab and catch her before she falls too deep into the pit.

Ahead of the party, the rat warrens writhe and skitter, and once Nevarri's situation is sorted, this is a new one for the party to deal with, since the only way to progress now is to move past, and it's very likely all the rats will attack en mass.

    "She was..." Kyo answers Shiroe after a pause, "a spriggan, and she sounded pretty young, but I only saw her for a few moments, so I don't remember much more than that. She didn't have a weapon out, and I didn't get a chance to inspect her. She was at fault for the rats, but..." Kyo gives Gwen a nod. "PKing someone just because they're confused--even if they respawn, isn't that too cruel?"

    She hesitates on giving Gwen a name on who did the deed. "He didn't know it wasn't a boss fight, so I'm not going to blame him for it, okay? But if you have some other reason to know, I'll tell you, later."

    Kyo nods to Nevarri. "Right--oi!" Already looking at her, Kyo's reactions are quick. Feet hit the ground hard, just to either side of the passed-over trap triggers, launching her forward into a slide across the floor, finally ending when she slams her sword point-first into the earth to anchor, and stretches her other hand out over the edge and into the pit. "Grab hold!"

    Naotsugu sees the trap easily, and avoids stepping on it. However, Nevarri wasn't so lucky and Naotsugu was too far away to reach her! "Aw crap! Nevarri!"

    As if that weren't bad enough, suddenly the sound of squeaking vermin was nearby! "Aw crap! Get her out of the trap! I got these things!" Stepping forward, Naotsugu swung his shield in a wide arc! "GET SOME, YOU FILTHY RODENTS! CONCUSSIVE BLOW!"

    A wide swath of rats were pummelled to the wayside as he provided himself as barricade to the group!

    Wait, you're saying that the player was actually the one behind the rats? That's...Odd. The last time we ran this it ended up being another merchant that was at fault. Still, that's definitely an odd situation... I wonder if she was coerc- Watch out!" Shiroe calls out in the darkness only to see Nevari's descent. Though it's Kyo who's quick on the pick up that ends up handling the situation.

    With the sound of rodents on the way though it didn't exactly give Nevarri and Kyo the time to focus on a mob attack. "Kiyo, focus on getting her out. Naotsugu'll be fine holding them for the time being." And just if that wasn't enough to stall....

    "Thorn Bind Hostage."

    Vines would come from the ground and begin to ensnare several of the group all the once making it all the easier for Naotsugu and those who wished to handle them all at once without having to worry about the skidaddling away.

Gwen screws up in her mind Neva nearly gets hurt, pretty bad, thankfully Kyo acts and rescues Nevarri from a very nasty situation. She is about to go help but then comes the horde of rats, there are no black and white rats this time. Just a horde of them as she moves ahead chants a spell and cries out.

"EARTH PILLAR!"

Causing them to slam through the hordes of rats. She gets a call in the middle of the fight and says back. "Little Busy but yes! Notes Later!"

She will go back to thining out the rats with blade and shield. Also she will stomp, she'll stomp them good.

For those brief seconds where she was getting acquanted with gravity above the pit, Nevarri was flailing for something to catch as she drops. Fortunately, Kyo's hand catches her and there's that brief YANK into the pit as she hangs there, "Oh god! Oh crap! Help me up! Eeeeee!" Genuine moment of freaking the hell out, before she's drawn back onto solid earth.

The redhead breathees heavily, just frantically crawling up, "Thankyouthankyouthankyou! Oh god!" Before her attention is drawn back to the warrens, and she grabs her dropped staff, and slams it into the earth, "TREMOR!!!"

The ground rumbles, cracks in the earth opening to swallow up the rats. The combined effort of the lot of them sending the rats scattering.

Nevarri takes a breath, before shaking her head, "Sorry... Sorry about that... I didn't pay attention..."

The gradual moving onto the next room would reveal the big, armored rat, covered in plate and possibly as Tanky as Naotsugu. It hisses, and proceeds to charge at the group!

    "There, there, I've got you." With her anchor in place, Kyo helps Nevarri back out of the pit and pats her back, though she isn't in time to do much about the rats, herself. She must not have had the right spells ready, and her sword doesn't exactly have that reach. "It's alright. Looks like everyone handled it." She gives the room a hard look.

    "Okay, *that* part was the same... I think. It's hard to see anything under all the rats, isn't it? And then the next part is... yeah. A giant, armored rat." That's a little worrying. "Will the last room be the same, too...?" Kyo shakes her head to clear it.

    "I had to tank it last time, but... you can get its attention, right, pant--" ... "Right, Naotsugu?" Kyo swishes her sword through the air a few times. Seems like it's fine, despite the abuse she'd just heaped onto it. She holds the hilt close to her chest, and starts stalking around in a circle, waiting for her chance to leap forward and stab in through the gaps in the boss's armor. "Careful! Once it starts, it won't let up."

    Naotsugu paired with Gwen, using their Anchor Howl and his Protect to keep her relatively healthy and protected from this thing's offensive charge! "You can't break this wall, ugly-ass filth thing!" And he'd also start beating on it with Gwen providing Tank duties.

Tanks they have a certain way of thinking and that shows up now as Gwen joins Naotsugu in the assault but she will make use of keeping the rat's attention on her.

"ANCHOR HOWL! Do you think you are going to get through us?! We have done this dance before Rat!"

She seems pretty focused on making the rat pay if goes after anyone else.

A sigh of relief is given as the group handles the rats and is able to handle getting Nevarri out of the trap. He looks her way checking her over once, "Pfew. Seriously, that could have been messy. Anyway, I think we dealt with those so if we're going by the same route as before the next thing we'll end up seeing is..."

    It's a statement he doesn't follow up on and rather just waits to see if the certain rat does reappear. Only to see that it does...Which was unfortunate. "Ah, it's the armored rat again...Naotsu-" Before he can even say anything it looks like he's already taking up the tanking roll as expected. It puts a smile on the enchanter's face. Especially seeing how well that he and Gwen handle taking it. The most he ends up doing is providing a couple of attack and defensive buffs. Otherwise he doesn't end up doing much this time in the encounter. "Definitely better to have a group bigger than three for these things I guess..."

Nevarri ends up also providing support in the form of protective debuffs, but between the tanks and everything else, the Armored rat is slowly worn down, the armor is torn off, and soon enough a killing blow is struck. The armored Rat screeches and rattles, before finally coming to a collapse.

The elementalist sighs a moment in releif as that calms down, "I really mean it, you know... Thank you guys for being here. Traps like that are why I stopped exploring while solo."

The tunnels are winding and mazy, but there is an exit at last... Into a weird circular room, which is different from the stairs back up to another merchant cellar that Nevarri had previously seen.

In the center of the room, in a circle drawn in... Blood? A strange man with a roden't face and a thick robe, chanting and summong rats from a pair of red and black portals...

    Naotsugu huffs after beating that rat easily. "No problems!"

    Of course... just as he says that and travelling forward some more... suddenly, there was a weird... blood... circle thingy!? And a guy in the middle of it! Of course... Naotsugu being the non-magical guy, he rushed forward and began to charge the guy to deal with him!

    It went about as well as you'd expect... the circle bounced him backwards and onto his ass! Groaning, he pushed himself up. "I'm okay...!"

    Kyo's blade flashes, and with two others tanking, there's plenty of openings for her to find and exploit, even before stripping that armor off. There's not as much blood as maybe there should be, from all these stabbing wounds. It's 'game-like' in that respect. And she's used to the smell of mangy fur by now. At least, she tries to pretend she is. Her nose wrinkles, but she doesn't say anything about it. When the (? mini-)boss rat finally collapses, she admits, "I could do without the Five Senses realism, I think. Mm, yeah."

    Flicking her blade from the wrist, she nods to Nevarri, hazarding a small smile. "Of course. No problem."

    Moving on, they find... "Oh. That's a relief." What's so relieving about a rat summoner? She doesn't say. "Enchanter--Shiroe! Can you follow a tune? I'll try doing something I saw before." The blade is sheathed, and she pulls out an ocarina. She starts to play, mimicking a tune she'd heard before, one played by an unusual instrument that could control any rats who heard it.

    Unfortunately... this isn't that instrument. It doesn't have the same power. But /something/ happens to disrupt the rats as she plays.

Gwen says "Yeah exploring solo is generally not the best idea."

She notes to her friend as they head deeper, no player messing around this time, no rival merchant. It's some sort of caster she just looks at the guy as he's chanting. She will then start changing a spell launching a burst of light at the unknown mage trying to disrupt the casting ti doesn't go so well and she's now moving to call out.

"Take out the portals!"

    The moment Naotsugu's bounced Shiroe's already helping him back to his feet. "Guess we know what your weak suit is. Let me take a swing at this one, if the rats get uppity though..." He knows Naotsugu will have him covered. He's looking over the magical circle a bit and well...Yeah he's not well versed in magic circles to know what it does. He just knows that given the background of this quest they should probably stop this nonsense.

    His attention gets pulled quickly when Kyo calls out to him. At first he's not sure what she means about following a tune, but when he sees her aggro'ing the rats a smirk comes on his face. "Nice. Naotsugu, keep an eye on Kiyo just in case. I'll handle the caster. Flame Darts!"

    His staff is pushed out and from it mutiple fire projectiles are launched at the caster. They probably weren't the most lethal but still packed enough of a punch to knock back the caster from...Whatever he was doing.

"FLAME DART!!" Nevarri likewise casts the flame spell to pound on the enemy enchanter, and the combind effort disrupts further casting and knocks the man out of the circle and off his feet.

"So what's the deal with this guy? Is he another player?"

And then the man confesses about summoningfats for the food market. "What..."

She shakes her head, "That's dumb.."

    Injuries and side bits aside... there were a TON of rats... it was harrowing to keep them off of the others, especially with no dedicated healer in the group... but as annoying as it was, the group managed it. It was just... difficult, to say the least. After everything had died down and the circle was finally cut and kept from summoning more rats, Naotsugu just collapsed onto his back, breathing heavily. "Remind me... to... kill any rat... we see... from now on... hoo boy..."

    It didn't work like she was hoping, and Kyo has to put away the Ocarina to get her blade out again. Working alongside Naotsugu and Gwen, they get the job done, though a lot less efficiently than maybe would have been hoped. It's a good thing they'd had so few, comparatively speaking, troubles leading up to now, or the boss might have finished them off. As it is, it's a more tiring victory than would have been hoped for.

    "That's... that was not a player. A lander?" She shakes her head. "I guess we can leave him. No use talking to him... probably." She sighs, then sniffs. "Why does this smell... good? So weird. It's so weird, right?"

Gwen is beat up but she's looking pleased. "I don't think it was a player, was it?" She checks "He's not dead."

SHe notes looking to Naotsugu for a moment "Tell me about it, freaking Rats."

She will take her loot and shakes her head a bit.

"It could be a lot worse right? Welcome to Elder Tale. Though if a Lander was trying to do that..."

As the group finishes up he lets out a sigh of relief, though the remarks of the Ritual user makes him a little unnerved. As well as the remarks by some that think the semll of the rat meat smells...Good? "I'd highly encourage you not to eat that...I've seen where some of these rats come from and I'm pretty sure they would /NOT/ meet sanitation regulations." The thought of the last run he was a part of still leaving a foul stench in his nostrils as he shakes himself out.

    "That said, it looks like we managed to get another route end from this one. But not sure if we'd consider this a rare drop route though. Guess we'd need to investigate more inorder to see how they triggered more thoroughly. Regardless though, think we all did a good job."

    Kyo does not eat the meat. Why would she eat the meat? It's raw rat meat, no matter how tasty it smells. She is a wolfgirl for character marketability purposes, not for animalistic tendencies. She adds it to her inventory, to hopefully be useful later, and checks on everyone else in the party being fine (or as fine as they can be), before leading the way back up and out of here and to meet their quest-giver, Alice the Weaver.

    "Job's done." She's good at pretending not to be exhausted. "One wererat defeated." She doesn't say anything about killing it. That wasn't part of the quest, and she's pretty sure it would just happen again, anyway.

    She looks about for anyone else who would have made it up ahead of her.

    Eventually, Mizuki finds her way to the other group to check in. The fur on the underside of her muzzle is stained with red. "Hey, there you guys are! So how did it go? We got this rat-man who was summoning dire rats, instead of the rival merchant who was breeding them. Do you think the game procedurally generates a new reason every time?"

    She sniffs. "...Did your boss drop meat too?"

    "Yyyeah," Kyo says to Mizuki, "it was summoning rats as food. That's probably why it dropped edible rat meat." She tilts her head. "Rival merchant? Last time I went hunting rats, we had the same swarm of rats, right? And the same giant armored rat, right? But then there was a player at the end, at a sewer entrance."

Reika appears a few steps behind Mizuki... honestly she was just following because she didn't pay attention to the way in, so she figures she'll be out soon enough.

Except Mizuki wasn't heading out immediately... so she just awkwardly ends up joining in the other group for now. The Nero Idol is sitll getting her bearings in this game, not to mention her death. And still keepng a tiny bit of hope that they can get back home sooner than later.

She bows her head in greetings to those present though, although she doesn't know any of them yet. Everyone is kinda stuck in the same situation.

    "'Edible?' You tried it? Oh thank goodness I'm not the only one!" Mizuki looks releived! "It's so good to taste something better than the rest of the food in here, but it feels kind of undignified to eat raw meat like an animal..."

    She tilts her head to one side. "There was a /player/ at the end last time for you? Like, they somehow got ahead of you and ninja'd the boss?"

Gwen says "Totally got the same thing Mizuki. Had other differences but that's about how it ended."

She looks to Kyo for a moment "Didn't get the white vs black rats this time or the spider webs."

She thinks for a moment. "Look I have cooking I can give it a try right also inspect it, right? I don't know it could have been a player dicking around with the landers, right?"

    "Oh, hey, it's Reika. Hi." Kyo immediately recognizes her, despite not noticing her on the way in, in the larger crowd. She's more or less kept up with the appearance of every other Nero Idol, even the ones whose styles weren't much at all like hers.

    She gives Mizuki a look. "Wha...? No, I didn't /try/ it. I just said, that's what the were-rat was doing down there. It couldn't be summoning rats as food if they weren't edible, right?" Obviously.

    She makes an even worse face at Gwen. "It'll just turn into something that tastes like soggy mush."

    Kyo says she /didn't/ eat it. Mizuki's ears splay and tail droop as she realizes she's now admitted to it and noone else did. "Oh..."

    Like Kyo though, she looks alarmed at the idea of ruining the rat meat by /cooking/ it. "Yeah, at least it has flavor now..."

    "What do you mean a player dicking around with the landers? That wouldn't generate a /quest/ though."

Reika smiles to Kyo as a greeting in return. She knows of the other Idols as well, keeping up with what other Idols do, mostly as part of the business. At least when she was out of the game. Right now... it's harder to keep track. She's not surprised other Idols are here though, especially since Kyo was very much playing the game before she was.

Meanwhile... she wasn't really playing the game at all, just using it for PR.

"I'm also not really... keen on trying it raw, mind you." She's with Kyo on that side. She's been enduring the soggy crackers for now... because of necessity.

Gwen says "Are we even /in/ a game anymore? Our gear nuked itself. I'm getting feeling sensation and control from my wings and ears."

She shrugs a bit and she looks to Reika. "Yeah, you'd likely get sick or something akin to it. If we were not worrying about rescuing people from Ezzo, I'd be damn wearing an apron and in the kitchen trying to make some food with taste. I'd take burnt food at this point."

    "You think so? Ehh. Hmm. It did, though," is Kyo's response to Mizuki, "and we got the normal sort of reward for it. I don't think she was summoning rats knowing that it bothered anyone. I don't think she understood much of anything that was going on, in fact. She spoke like a little kid." She just... lets the bloody eating thing slide.

    She's going to be the only one who ate the meat... Mizuki doesn't feel so great about herself for that...

    At least there's other things to discuss. "How could we not be in a game? We've still got menus and levels and an inventory. If all that stuff was gone maybe I'd believe we're trapped in another world... but come on, a real world wouldn't work that way."

    She flicks her tail. "You remember what that engineer who worked with the tech said? Fulldive has full access to our brains; it can even provide sensations like understanding foreign languages. So if feeling like you have a tail is possible... then the NerveGear can provide that feeling."

    "...If the game actually made a new quest based on player actions... does that mean the devs are /watching/ us??"

    "Maybe we're stuck in a game that's pretending to be another world, or maybe we're stuck in another world." Kyo shrugs. "Maybe the devs are watching us, or maybe Landers can make their own quests. If you can't see the other side, you can't know which it is."

    With a cloth, she wipes down her blade, before sheathing it again. "We'll find out that the world outside is still touching this one when something happens that can't be explained from the inside. You know what I mean?"

Gwen looks to Mizuki for a moment thinking. "Things are just strange with this all-around we could be something in the middle. I'll think harder on it once my father is safely out of Ezzo. You presume it's the devs, the amount of computing power to do this... if it is a game? They'd have to have some system overseeing no way a human or group of humans could manage the sheer amount of data? Would need something or somethings overseeing it they model every hair on every /thing/. Think about how much data crunching that would take."

Reika considers the conversation "Well one thing is sure, when you die in the real world, there's no coming back." She knows that part by experience. Keenly.

"It's amazing how realistic things are though... maybe too much even." Beside the game mechanics... every feels very real after all. Taste, sounds, smells... and pain.

    "'In the middle' between another world and a game?" Mizuki echoes, skeptically. Though she nods at Kyo's assessment that eventually they'll find out... hopefully.

    "The octopus guy said it's possible for the NerveGear, just that the servers would need to be incredibly powerful. But compare the PCs we have now to the ones back in the 90's... or the ones from then to the stuff they used when we went to the moon. Maybe CC Corp made some kind of breakthrough... maybe they secretly made the first quantum computer or something? Although I confess I have no idea why, if you had that much computing power, you'd choose to spend it on making a bunch of gamers' time in the prison you've trapped them in 'more realistic'."

    "That!" Kyo raises a finger. "That right there! Why make people think they can count the grains of sand on a beach if you're just trying to, I dunno, rob them while they can't call 110? That makes no sense! So it can't just be that, right? And if some things are super realistic, why not everything? Ahh, it makes no sense! I just can't believe it." Huffing in impotent irritation, she visibly calms herself again.

    "Ahh, but there's nothing we can do about that, now. Even trying to climb the tower might not mean anything. We'll know in... you know, about like... ten days from the Apocalypse. That's the average it takes. So I think we'll either see something happen then, or we won't see anything, and still won't know anything."

    She shrugs again. "'Good run,' I guess! This is Kyo Kirin, mission complete, signing off... but instead of signing off, I'm going to find some fruit to eat."

    "110? Oh, right, I guess that's Japanese Emergency Services? What do you think will happen in ten days? Why would it take the people outside that long to do something?"

    Mizuki adds, "As for getting sick from the meat... It's not like that's an intrinsic property of raw meat. People eat sashimi and steak tartar... the problem is microbes and parasites that may be in the meat... the same microbes that make it rot and stuff. If this meat doesn't change in a day of being unrefridgerated, then clearly that stuff's not simulated..."

    Her ears splay again. "And I really should have thought to wait and see that before eating it... but it just smelled so good!"

    Kyo blinks at Mizuki. "You don't know? Ten days is how long it takes to... uhm... how long it takes..." In the middle of leaving, she walks back over and whispers into the catgirl's ear, "...for someone who's stopped drinking to die."

    She steps back. Cheerfully, "Okay!" She claps her hands. "That's enough of that. See you guys later!" She waves.

    Exeunt.

Reika uhms "Well yeah, dehydration, usually gets really bad well before you die though, like headaches." She shrugs though, and waves to Kyo leaving. "Everyone is pretty tired..." It's weighing on everyone differently.

    Mizuki looks appropriately freaked at that revalation.

    ...But only for a couple of seconds. "Wait, they can just give us saline intravenously! I-if they can't just disconnect us from the nervegear for some reason... nutrition, too." She rubs her wrist.

Gwen thinks about this idea for a moment. "It's a mess that's what it is Kyo and going to get fruit sounds like a wonderful idea to me." She notes as she put her weapons away. "Or the fact we can umm you know function normally like we would out of the game..."

Reika thinks about that, a hand under her chin pensively "We don't even know if the time outside is the same as the time inside the game. Maybe it takes several days in game to see an hour go by." She frowns "I would hope that they find us and keep us alive though." If they are still hooked up to machines. There's no way to know right now.

    "'Function'? Oh. One hundred percent of our brain, Gwen! If we can feel it, the NerveGear can simulate us feeling it! Although that's ALSO a weird thing for them to add to a game they've trapped people in."

    Her eyes widen when Reika says that time might be different. "...Is that possible?! I've gotta find Octopus Guy and ask him!"

Gwen pauses "If we haven't been digitized fully already." Gwen notes for a moment it's a crazy. "That's also true we could be operating at a speed normally not obtaiable to us back on Earth, right? Maybe it's still not sunrise yet on new years..."

    "Digitized fully? How? You think every NerveGear had one of those scanner things from TRON inside it?" Mizuki scoffs, then looks a bit more apologetic. "Sorry. This is... I don't know how to feel about all this." She also shivers at the thought they they could live their entire lives in here in such a short time that noone has a chance to find them...

It's 2013! Do you know where your Sea-Witch is?

Adventurers have to eat and with everyone working so hard, not everyone has the time to figure out their meals plans. That's why Jazz is delvering lovely, cracker-tasting fish to some of the adventuers in Aine who look hungry on their return from various jaunts and journeys. She's nearly out, of course, but she still has a few strung together and over her shoulder. Seems she figured out she's not ha;f-bad at acquiring fish from the sea and menu-cooking them. In fact, she looks a midge pleased with herself.

Reika hmms "Well nothing is impossible I suppose. I mean by that, without information, we don't know for sure. There's a saying that a higher technological level than yours is essentially perceived as magic. Maybe that's what is going on, it's magic for us."

Gwen says "I don't want to go further down that line of thought." Another thought popped into Gwen's mind and she pushes it away for the moment. She does not want to go there and if that did turn out to be true? This was home and there's no going back. She thinks about the idea of apples. "More information is required in the end."

    Mizuki scoffs a bit more softly at the invocation of Clarke's third law to explain what's happening, but doesn't say anything against it.

    With the arrival of Jazuhanzu, Mizuki takes the offered fish wordlessly, and looks at it sadly. She sniffs it, takes a bite, and then opens her mouth and lets the bite fall to the ground. "I can't do it. Now that I've tasted anything else, I can't go back to this..." Tears well up in her eyes...

    ...And then they fill with hope, as she turns to Jazuhanzu. "Wait! Where did you get these fish? Did you catch them and THEN cook them? Could you get more /raw/ fish?"

"... uh."

Jazz sort of stares blanky at Mizuki's sudden proximity. "Of course I cooked them. I could probably get more raw fish." She's taken aback by the suddenness of it all, holding onto the rope tie of fish she's been handing out. People gotta eat, after all, no matter how bad it tastes. She looks down at the fish bit that was dropped. What a waste! Her voice, of course, is soft. Soft and annoyingly cutesy. At least to her own ears, given the way their pointed tips twitch and slightly droop in dismay at hearing it once again.

    "That would be great!" Mizuki's expression looks like Jazz just told someone who wasn't sure that yes, there will be food again tomorrow.

    Only after a moment does she realize that maybe it was an odd request. "I, uh... a monster dropped raw meat today. It's the first thing I've /tasted/ in days. So maybe... raw fish would taste good too. It'll be like sashimi!"

Reika shrugs her shoulders "So she says at least, maybe it has taste but not sure if it's healthy." The idol rather not touch it for now... Soggy crackers are not very appetizing though, she admits.

Gwen says "I'll take whatever for food at this point so far as appearance right now? It's a wrapper for soggy crackers. God, I'd take lifeboat rations right now...over this." She shakes her head a bit and the very towering purpled haired Sylph.

"Not much we can do about it, though I'd be hesitant on non properly prepared raw fish, could get some nasty debuffs."

One of the fish is held out to Gwen wordlessly for a moment by Jazz. She's peering at Mizuki, though. "It's weird, though, right? With all the weird fidelity, right down to needing to go to the bathroom, they couldn't model taste? It feels, I dunno, weird." She gives a sympathetic look at Mizuki, as her words register. "Wait, raw meat had flavor?" she asks. "I guess raw fish could do if that was true." She seems a bit bemused by this. "What the hell?" she asks, a hand going up to adjust her pointy witch's hat. Gwen gets recognized from the other day, "Hey, shield-boss," she tells her.

Reika has been running on fumes for a little bit now, no sleep since her respawning, so she figures it's as good time as any to retire back to town at this point. "Uhm, I'll leave you two to figuring things out. I'm... beat right now." She sighs and slumps her shoulders a bit. "I'll be around if you need me for anything for th rescue." She starts to walk back to town tiredly.

Gwen takes the offered food and will eat, it she just wolfs it down trying to get it over with. "Thanks at least I won't be hungry." She does seem to mean it and she looks over to Mizuki for a moment. "Or the wave did something to it."

She note before she looks back to Jaz and grins.

"That's a new nick name I'll have to not forget that one. No worries Reika you take care of yourself. So Jazuhhhanzu right? How are you fairing?"

    Mizuki's ears splay at 'so she says'. "My health is just numbers and status effects now, and they all read fine." She's making the gestures to check her status, anyway. "Could we, though? Are microbes and parasites simulated?"

    She nods at Jazz's question of raw meat having flavor. "A lot of things about this world are weird if we assume they're conscious choices on the part of either the dev team or whoever trapped us in here... maybe Gwen's theory is kind of right. I don't think this could be another world... but maybe whoever's responsible only had partial control over how the world turned out."

"I mean, we've all played games where meats suddenly go 'rotten' if left unattended for long enough. Unlike reality, it's usually a switch that's flipped moving from one status to another wholesale as opposed to anything else."

Mizuki gets a blank look from Jazz at that. She clearly doesn't know what to make of it. "I got no idea," she tells them. Then to Gwen: "... to be honest, not so great, but I suspect that's the answer a lot of us would give. I'm clawing at the metaphorical walls to get out of here." A glance after Reika and a pause to acknowledge her departure before she turns back to Gwen. "And call me, Jazz, please." She grumbles. Apparently, she's not overly fond of her in-game name.

    Mizuki nods, "Exactly! So if it wasn't rotten... I don't know. You're right, we simply don't know. Maybe SOME items are okay and others aren't. I just feel... like I've made a bit of an idiot of myself trying it. And maybe if other people start doing it too, then I won't be a weirdo..."

    She sighs, then smiles, "Hey... we're alive, we don't have to worry about jobs, we're healthy... probably, for most of us, in better shape than in real life. The food thing sucks, though, and I suppose eating raw meat would in most cases be seen as a sign that something is wrong with someone..." Another sigh.

Gwen says "Sure thing I ahve, I can think of a few games like that. I'm not sure how it's going to go we might want to experiment and fiurre out the rules of our curren reality and well I'd not be the one try it I'm araid though are either of you in need of anything? Clothing? cloth armour?"

A glance down at the dress she's been wearing since she got here, Jazz lets out a sigh. "Y-yeah. I could use clothes," she admits, "But I have to make some kind of living arrangements first. LIke, the inns are all full and I don't like the idea ofd displacing landers from their beds like some players are bound to start doing." She wrinkles her nose. "Yeah, we're alive," she agrees, "so far. It's been, creeping towards a week now? It all feels stretched out." Trauma does that.

    Mizuki looks back to Gwen. "Yeah, that's why I redid the dungeon, to learn about how things work. Better armor is always good, but do we have the mats to make anything better than this? I heard that something happened to the crafting system so most crafted gear turns out bad, and it's never better than uncommon." She'll re-equip her town armor and pass Gwen the pirate armor so she can check the stats -- it's two incremental steps better than the starting armor in the cloth category.

    The catgirl looks back to Jazuhanzu. "Affording some low-tier armor shouldn't be too hard with your loot from adventuring. Heck, someone could probably craft Haggar's pelt into something for you."

    Jazuhanzu mentions the bed thing, and she looks down at the ground. "Ah, right. I finally got to try a bed in the inn earlier today. Kind of a disappointment honestly, they're all lumpy. I've mostly been finding out of the way spots on top of buildings and curling up there. One advantage to fur and being a cat, I guess -- I hadn't thought about how much it sucks for everyone else. Sorry... I'm gonna be in trouble too when it rains though."

    She looks back up at Jazz. Well, down at Jazz, but she was looking at the ground before. "Is that why you're clawing at the walls of this place? You just can't take another day without a nice soft bed?" She smiles as she says it, so she's probably not fully serious. "I feel that. This morning I was really looking forward to feeling soft sheets against my skin, y'know? It was a real letdown."

"Funny," remarks Jazz to Mizuki.

"I donated most of what I got to the rescue effort. Those people in Ezzo need more help than I need a comfortable bed, to be honest," she remarks, "and even the 'comfortable' beds aren't all that comfortable from what I understand. I keep expecting to wake up in a hospital bed or something and have this ridiculous nightmare be over with. It still hardly feels read. It's like being trapped in a dream that you know you can't wake up from." She brings her hands up in front of her, tentacles and eartips twitching.

"I'm veryt tired," she adds. Then she takes a chunk of fish and tosses it into her mouth with a sigh. Crackers.

Gwen says "I'll see what I can do but it's going to he noob gear just better noob gear. As for that I'm just camping where I can at this point, we're alive. Hell I ahte to say this? First damn time I felt actually useful outside of helping family." She looks to mean it too. "Well we're just so overwhelemed. Everyone stuck in a different body, species and more."

She notes for a moment. "I'm still working I got a batch of sails to work on later today."

Gwen frowns a bit.

"I don't think I could wholy call this a nightmare, for some people? Think about it lot of people got jacked up by Deadly Flash and other virus right? This might be the first time in years they had a working body."

*YAAWN* "That's what I've been saying whole time." Comes from Nevarri, who had fallen asleep where she had sat a few hours earlier, and was now rubbing her eyes away as she stirred up. "Mff.. Sorry, didn't realize how exhausted I'd gotten. Four days.... Can you believe it's only been four days?"

    Mizuki looks away again. SHE hasn't donated all her money to the rescue effort... Then again, it's not like she's been hoarding anything -- just trying to get good enough gear to actually fight her way to the port and back, and she used the merchant sigil to help... She feels weird about the gnoll pelt, though. That thing nearly killed her... and at the time she thought she'd die.

    She looks down at her furry hand, opening and closing it a few times. Then extending and retracting her claws. Softly, she says, "Dreams aren't like this." She feels like the character of Mizuki would give Jazz a comforting hug, but doesn't go for it.

    "Man, it'd kinda suck. We'll be weak, and need rehab if this goes on long enough. Our lives will have been disrupted... we've all probably had all sorts of plans messed up. School, work... fuck, some people were probably about to get married, statistically. An' if we're just disconnected, we wouldn't even feel like we /achieved/ anything."

    She closes her eyes and takes a breath, then reopens them. "...But, people's lives are more important than that. Well. We can respawn now, so I guess THAT's not a concern anymore, but still -- losing a few days or even weeks or months and being unsatisfied would probably be better for most than taking... I dunno, years to beat Aincrad, assuming that even /works/."

    She looks to Jazz. "The rescue effort's important, but... Once we get the players out of Ezzo? Take some rest. Whatever we're doing after... it'll keep if you take a day off."

    She looks to Gwen. "You don't need to waste mats on my account, then. Save it for when we figure out whatever is up with the crafting system."

    She smiles a bit. "Yeah, it is nice to feel so helpful, huh? And not 'helpful because YOU actually read error messages and experimented instead of throwing up your hands and going 'magic glowy box no worky'', helpful because we're like, saving people's lives and stuff! Like the stories we all grew up reading, like the games we've been playing all these years..."

    There's the talk of those disabled in real life, and speak of the devil, Neva shows up before Mizuki can comment. "It's been an action-packed four days. One problem we don't have in here: Accidentally goofing off and reading BBSes for the entire day..."

Or genders," she adds to Gwen, dryly, "Look, I'm not saying there's no perks. People being able to move freely when they were disabled? Pretty cool, right? See clearly?" A glances towards Nevarri, "Yeah, that's pretty cool too. While those things mean a lot to those people and I'm not trying to take it away from them, we're all still away from the people we love. Unless you're a NEET, anyway, you probably have someone who misses you, a responsibility, you know? I assume that we're all still here because we're being cared for. I mean, if I wasn't here, my best friend *would* be, and I'm glad for that much. Then again, he maybe he's logged in somewhere. Maybe he's in Ezzo? I don't know." She shakes her head.

Then her attention swings to Mizuki as she talks, listening for a moment, then her nose wrinkles at her description of what's likely happening to them in the real world, and Aincrad as well.

"I think I missed exactly where we all got the idea that climbing Aincrad was going to matter. Someone said something, and now people are throwing themselves at it? And we can respawn?" She asks, that's news to her, but it's obvious that it's one that's met with relief for her.

Gwen looks over to Nevarri "It's not easy as it seemed before isn't it?"

She looks at Mizuki. "I'm not going to test dying myself if I can help it. You shouldn't either who knows what kind of effects it could have on us long term. Yeah, I intend to rest for a bit after we're out of Ezzo. I'm darn well taking a break."

Gwen shrugs for a moment. "Going to be honest I don't miss the media circus either myself. Feels like Earth was a lifetime ago honestly."

"True that Jazuhanzu."

Gwen doesn't seem intent to ask any deeper on that.

"I recall that yeah but I think the context might be different. You presume people could do something like this.

"There's also the possiblity the tower's now a trap to keep people busy too."

    Oh.

    Oh.

    Ohhhhhhhhhh.

    Mizuki's ears perk up at Jazz's quiet comment. Gwen doesn't comment, though, so... maybe it'll be better to comisserate with Jazz about such things another time. For right now, there are direct questions with direct answers to give!

    "Remember when this all started? The giant holographic dude in the sky said some stuff about how someone was using his invention for evil, and there was a Twilight Kuh-something at the top of the tower. It's not much, and I guess it could be the people who trapped us in here fucking with us, but it's the only lead we've got. Besides, it's not like we're gonna put ALL our faith in that. I'm sure we'll be looking for other ways out of the game too, some glitch that gets us an admin console or something."

    Mizuki blinks. "You didn't know players could respawn? That is /literally/ why we rushed here in the middle of the night with Reika. She'd just respawned, and we wanted to get the news here ASAP. Did we, uh, forget to mention that? Wow, we did, didn't we? My bad."

"I remember the holographic guy in the sky but I was a bit overwhelmed at that point. I'd been logged in for like... less than an hour when things went down. I still don't understand half of what's going on," she admits.

"And no. No, no one told me about the respawning. That went entirely unspoken. It's good to know, though. One less things on my mind." Her tentacles twitch their agreement and she adjusts her long-coat.

"But even that doesn't necessarily mean all that much when we know exactly jack and shit about what's really going on." She lets out a breath, glancing down towards the ground with her eyes narrowed. "All those people talkiing about rushing into the tower just felt like people trying to solve a problem by doing what they already know how to do because there isn't an alternative that isn't terirfying."

    Mizuki gives Gwen another skeptical look. "If not people, what? Animals? Trees? /Rocks/? Do you think that /aliens/ are invading Earth and their opening move was to trap a bunch of gamers in a virtual world because they thought The Last Starfighter was a documentary?!" The sarcasm slider steadily goes from around 20 to 100 as she speaks.

    Then she gasps and claps her hands over her muzzle. "I'm sorry! I, my mouth kinda runs when I... I... this... this situation has upsides and downsides but ultimately one or more people I don't even KNOW have shown that they have more control over my life than anyone else ever has, let alone myself. And whatever's going on, this probably isn't even /about/ us, we're a bunch of /gamers/, not people who were ever gonna be a serious challenge to some criminal mastermind. We're like, an afterthought, or inconvenient witnesses who needed to be silenced or something. And that..."

    She furrows her brow and clenches her fists. "Talking about that aspect of our situation gets me kinda... I can't fix it so I gotta channel that rage SOMEWHERE, ya know?"

    She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, then lets it out.

    "I think to some degree you're right. We're a bunch of gamers, and Aincrad's a nice, clear quest objective. And it gives people hope. And maybe, just maybe, holographic sky man really WAS on our side and slipped something past whoever trapped us here. Man, there's so much we don't know. Although if he's helping us why not just give us the Twilight Whatever instead of hiding it inside the game's hardest dungeon?"

    After a few moments, Mizuki adds, "The octopus guy said he recognized sky man's face. Not someone he knew well enough to know the name of, but like, a colleague of his boss or something. So, someone with some connection to FullDive technological research."

Gwen gets a very sympathetic look on her face. "So fist hour in the game and then this? Yeah that's a hell of a ride, isn't it? Sorry, it hit you like this. Some of the ideas I floated with some other people I talked to on this? Kinda are...yeah. As for the respawn I don't want to test it but damn at least it's not like some of the novels or shows I have watched. Where cast would die for real if they got killed in the game. Yeah I wanted to ask him more but he's been stressed out as it is."

Nevarri folds her arms across her chest as she listens to the others, not able to really add much new to the conversation, though she hrmms, "Why are we taking Mr. Man in the Sky's word for it, anyway?" She rolls her eyes, "'Oh, my coworker's have trapped you in the game, the exit is in Aincrad Tower, just make sure you place the Fish Key on the Boat Statue.' It's too sketchy to me."

She then glances about to the world around them, "Maybe there's an answer elsewhere... Somewhere in Yamato."

"I don't know. It just feels a bit weird to me. Like, it's there to keep people busy until they figure something out," remarks Jazz.

"...but we haven't heard anything yet, if we ever will before we get woken up out of this. But then, it all feels a little... different too, like we've all said. I don't know. Thinking about these things only does so much for us." She holds her hands out in front of her, turning them over and inspecting them again.

"We'll know when we know, I guess." There's a frustrated resignation in her tone. "Focus should be on helping each other stay sane. If that means some folks wanna storm the tower, I guess they've got to do that. I liken us to miners trapped in a mineshaft. We have to assume rescue is coming, but if its not, we've gotta do what we can for each other in the mean time."

    Keep people busy? "MAN." Mizuki speaks up. "I think that might be the most depressing possibility of all! Sky man's on our side, believes there's NOTHING we can do, and gives us busywork so we don't go mad from the revelation of our impotence??" She holds her hands to her head. "Holy shit, you think DARK, lady!"

    "Oookay, the miner analogy is a particularly depressing way to put it. How about we think of it like a boss that's invincible for the first part of its pattern, but we just gotta keep dodging its attacks until it gets to the part where we can finally hit it? And then we make it PAY for trapping us in here, save the princess, save the world, roll credits, thank you for playing, we go home and live happily -- well, normally, ever after?"

    She'd been sitting on an empty crate outside the shop, but now stands up to pace back and forth a bit. "Except, I guess that's not QUITE the analogy. Like Nevarri said, there might be another way. So we're not just ANY player facing the final boss, we're a speedrunner. Looking for that glitch, the hitbox that doesn't line up, the corner-case interaction programmers never planned for, that lets us skip the wait and finish even faster."

    She holds her hand to her head. "Sorry, that went on kinda long. I feel like we're kinda running out of things to say about how we just don't know about our situation. I'm sure we'll come up with lots of ways to investigate after we rescue the players from Ezzo."

"How come they didn't get transported to Alne like the rest of us, though?" Nevarri raising a question that had been lingering. "Isn't it weird that players from all the other regions, including Outcasts, got teleported to Alne, but Ezzo got stuck in whatever horrible mess is happening over there?"

    Mizuki strokes her chin. "Hmmm. That IS strange... maybe it has to do with whatever happened to Ezzo? We were all teleported to our root towns, and then the black wave appeared... but it started in Ezzo, and corrupted THEIR root town. Maybe that corruption interfered with whatever teleported everyone to Alne? Doesn't explain why that corruption is happening in the first place, though..."

"I mean, I'm just considering what's more likely: that they want us to have something to do, or that actually playing the video game we're trapped in might result in some kind of breakthroiugh. I know what I consider more *likely*, but that doesn't mean I'm right, and I won't begrudge anyone for chasing that down. I'll even help," remarks Jazz to Mizuki, thoughtfully, nose wrinkling cutely.

"I got a look through my spyglass at what was going on in Ezzo the day it all started. Things were coming out of nowhere. Buildings rising and falling all fractal and what not. It was... hard on the eyes. I don't like to think about the chances of anyone caught up in that. So, yeah. That's why I'm eager to help get over there." She pinches the bridge of her nose.

Gwen says "Something broke there in Ezzo, broke hard. We have some first-hand reports of it now. As for the wave? It was like some kind of bomb going off, and the shockwave coming out from Ezzo. We'll have to worry about it later when we get people out."

Gwen gets a bit more serious now and seems older for a moment.

"Look we're having to manage some serious logics here and most people have no experience with it or little. So we are doing pretty good so far. Still even with all this when the rescue op is over? Try to enjoy the situation a bit huh?"

She notes to Jaz

"You can go diving without needing an air tank I bet. I just wish I could...fly myself."

"Another possibility, and I'm sure a lot of people will be thrilled to hear this particular theory..." The salamander mage begins, as she pushes her glasses up her nose and causes them to glint menacingly. "Maybe Mr. Man in the Sky wants us get through Aincrad and unlock something worse. It could be bait and we'd all be biting onto it."

She looks up, "It's not exactly optimistic, I know, but there's a chance he's not on our side, and that's a possibility worth taking seriously."

    Mizuki looks back at Jazuhanzu. "You know, I'm not so sure we have enough information to know what's probable and improbable. I mean, okay, I don't really think it's /aliens/ or anything, but a lot of what's going on here just doesn't make /sense/. And it does kinda seem like whoever trapped us doesn't have /complete/ control. Why the more realistic stuff, mixed in with the longer respawn timer and crafting problems and food that all tastes like... well, better than shit, I guess. And the hygeine system and stuff. And of course, getting rid of the chaos gates and adding the leviathans to interfere with travel. It's just all this weird mix... And again, there's Ezzo, a glitch, and the big guy in the sky."

    "Whatever's happening, it doesn't seem like any one party has /complete/ control, even if we players have the least control of all. We've talked to a FullDive developer who said he knew SOME of this was theoretically possible -- like everything feeling way more real and the translation effect -- but who, despite being somebody who worked with this stuff in more depth than any of us, just didn't know how some of this stuff was possible. So if HE doesn't know... how much do the people who trapped us here know about what they're doing? And how much does Sky Guy know?"

    "Could he really be so sure that we're helpless? I mean, maybe he could FEEL sure, but how sure can WE be that he's right?"

    She smiles and pumps a fist in front of her. "That's right! Nobody knows! We shouldn't count our peco pecos before we've even found any eggs!" Her tail twitches. "And no videogame is perfect! People who have /actual lives/, responsibilities like jobs or families or even going shopping for groceries and taking care of basic hygeine, THEY've had enough time to find glitches in every game when it's just for funsies and bragging rights!"

    She spreads her arms apart, smiling wide. "We're IN the videogame! We don't HAVE a life to distract us! We're playing this game 24/7! Someone'll figure out a way to break us out in NO TIME!"

"Oh, we definitely don't have enough information to lean any way. The most we can do is speculate and prepare ourselves for probabilities, no matter how cynuical or unlikely," remarks Jaz. Gwebn's words get her to look at her, though, and she reaches her hand up to touch the slits of her gills on her neck, with a strange look on her face.

"I know they're supposed to work but I haven't been able to bring myself to try," she admits. "I haven't really wanted to try out swiming. Underwater stuff in most games kinda blows, if we're honest." She does nod, though, "/Lots/ of something is broken. I haven't heard any first hand accounts, but someone else has? Have you? What's up with that?" she asks, curious and wanting to be better prepared. Then she turns towards Nevarri, taking note of her thoughts but not seeming entirely convinced byu them at the moment. "We don't have any idea who he was, though, right? LIke... any at all?" She asks, and now finally to Mizuki. "LOgner respawn timers?" She asks, "Hygene... system?" Okay, Jazz is making gestures now. She'd simply been washing herself off with water the old fashioned way. "Oh hey /there/ you are. That's cool." She's got that far off look of someone paying attention to menus. "We can definitely play the game," she adds. "Oh yeah. Just what I wanted, to be trapped by video game logic... Well, better me than Benji, I suppose."

Gwen says "We'll figure it out but I need to get going. I have catch up with some people I have a batch of Sails to help finish up for one of the ships. Also I'm going to get some apples, or something, just anything with taste. Take care and I will be back with clothes for you both at sometime."

There's this gleam in her eyes which might worry all three of the casters. She then heads off waving as she goes.

    "You don't have to for me! Until they work around the crafting issue, it sounds like it's a waste of time, I've already got this armor... thanks for the thought, though! Seeya around, Gwen!" She waves cheerfully!

    Mizuki has to nod at the assessment of water stuff in most games as 'kinda broken'. What developer thought adding leviathans was a good idea?

    She rubs the back of her own neck, oddly suddenly nervous. "I wasn't exactly... athletic in real life. But it's not that I hated... moving around, and doing stuff. It's just that games were more interesting. Also sometimes outside was too hot or too cold or too buggy and I didn't have a lot of friends to play sports with growing up. But with this body..." She runs out into the street, weaving between passing landers with ease (they look rather miffed) and making her way to an alley where she wall jumps up to a roof, then parkours from rooftop to rooftop until she's on the roof of the weaver's shop. "I'm not even winded! I'm a freakin' parkour ninja and that was SUPER RAD!" She bends down, clawed hands gripping the edge of the roof, tail twitching in the air. "I can do stuff like that ALL THE TIME now! It feels great! I hope swimming's the same for you."

    Beat. "So. Who's Benji?" She drops off the roof, right next to Jazz, and asks softly, "Or is there anything else you want someone to talk about with, /dude/?"

Nevarri ehs, "I think I've got my own glamours in mind, thank you..."

Still, she sighs and mumbles, "Again with the eagerness to smash our to smash faces into Aincrad..." She looks back up to Mizuki, "Once again, you're thinking of trying too hard to get through Aincrad too quickly. I keep saying there's no sense in trying to rush it. We're in this for the long haul, so we may as well take our time in getting levels and so people don't die after taking a few steps in. I'm sure with some investigation we can find some clues in the game world outside the Tower."

She stands up, "There's bound to be hidden secrets somewhere that could clue us in, and we've got a whole world to explore to its fullest!"

With regards to in game body, Nevarri just points at her bright blue eyes, which are normally hidden behind her glasses. "I honestly just grabbed the first avatar that seemed interesting and changed the colors to high saturation. Bright blue eyes, bright red hair. Things for my brain to pick up on and remember." She glances to herself, "I didn't really consider that I'd look..." She lingers on that. "Sexy...?"

Her attention drawn back to Jaz, "Yeah, who is Benji? You mentioned him a few times to me, but you never got too in depth, except that you're on his account."

"Benji's my best buddy. I was gonna stay with him until I got my residency in Japan sorted out," replies Jazz, putting her hands up. "He told me he'd set up a charcter for me and to enjoy expansion night. I logged in, that was the last I saw of him because," she raises her hands up on either side of her head, fingers wiggling as she indicates, 'well, here now!'.

"Things happened. If it wasn't me, it'd have been him, so when I get out of here I'm gonna ring his scrawny neck and then tell him how glad I am to see him, right?" She smiles. There is the kind of warmth and fondness for her friend in her voice that can not in any way be faked. She deosn't commetn on Nevarri's body but instead simply looks down at her own in distaste.

    Mizuki jumps when Neva speaks up. She thought she'd left! This makes that last question... awkward.

    "...I wasn't talking about Aincrad that time. I meant like, a glitch that helps us escape the game."

    "Ah." She glances over Neva, still a bit... conversationally off-balance. "The girl avatars are always more eye-catching, huh? Are you saying all three of us are...?"

    Right, yes, Benji, the subject of. "You were playing on your friend's account? Yikes."

    Benji /chose this avatar for Jazz-player?/ "Double yikes. Well, I mean, it's not like he knew you'd be..." she gestures vaguely.

    Her ears splay again. "Yeah, I hear that. I've been trying not to think about my family and friends back in America, but..."

    There's a sadness in her eyes as she sees the way Jazz is looking at herself. "Hey. ...Okay, I don't actually have an encouraging rejoinder for your... physical situation, but..." She shakes her head. "No, I wouldn't want you to feel like you should hide your pain. I asked you to open up, so... mm. At least know that you don't have to fake around us."

    "I hate... /having/ to fake who you are, although I'm gonna sound like a hypocrite in a moment." She holds her hands out to her side and then paces around the little group. "It's only fair that I share too, although I don't really have a sad story."

    "I never really learned how to roleplay. Like, a /character/. I love playing these games, and tabletop too, but it's... you know, the fantasy that a few geeks will do something that matters. Save some peoples' lives, save the world, through your own practiced reflexes and clever strategy and tactics. My 'characters' were always just avatars for me to act through. I /tried/ having a gimmick sometimes, in D&D games during the dark ages, but by the end of session one I was in the same old rut."

    She keeps circling. "And that's fine on its own, right? Long as you're having fun and not bringing down anybody else at the table, or in the party. But... somewhere along the way, I lost it. The better I got at games, the harder the challenges I sought. Till I was hungering for tournament games and GMs who'd give me combat encounters that I can only win by the skin of my teeth--" she clenches a fist, "--if I take /every possible advantage/."

    She takes a breath, and drops the arm back by her side, and resumes circling. "And that's fine, from time to time. But I couldn't turn it off. Public games and trivial challenges, I start coming across like this shell-shocked war veteran. ETO comes out and even when I'm helping with a milk run for the guild, I've gotta make sure we do the most optimal thing. I correct guildmates on their mistakes, even when it didn't really MATTER that they used a slightly inefficient skill."

    "It's not making me a lot of friends, but a few months back I realized I wasn't having as much fun as I remembered before the dark age, and a few weeks ago I did all this self-reflection and realized I was ruining it for myself. So when I got this job in japan, I figured I'd do something different."

    She stops, and turns to face them, and lifts her hands close to her face in a kitty paw posture, and beams happily. "I made a cute kitty girl that's always happy and full of energy and slips nya into her sentences! Who can say the stupid happy speech like an anime protagonist! Who didn't have to take everything so seriously! Because it's just a game, after all!"

    She sighs. "And you know what? It was working. I was having /fun/. And then I got stuck here, like this. So that's my story."

"All three of us are what? In avatars that don't represent our physical bodies? I mean, that's obvious. I was blind, and Jaz is in her friends account for her, and you were not very physical. That seems pretty straight forward, I would have thought."

A pause...

"Why? Are you radically different?"

She does listen to Mizuki's story, and hmms, before pounding a fist into her palm, "Ahh, you were what they called a Try-Hard. I see."

"I think he's asking if all three of us are boys in real life," says Jazz. "I plainly am and I don't see any reason to hide it." There's a low roll of her shoulders as that, relaxed and easy. That detail being known doesn't bother her, even if she's not exactly comfortable in her current circumstance. "It's going to be relatively common, with plenty of girls stuck on male bodied characters. It's not gonna be easy for those of us stuck cross-gender but there's nothing to be done for it at the moment." She combs her fingers through her (very long) purple hair but it's clear from her expression that something else Mizuki touched a nerve. There's a flash of anger in her expression when they got around to 'not bringing down the group', but she stifles it.

"Benji never did anything by half and he knew this character would have me kind of rolling my eyes and telling him to fuck off. Dude's a massive troll and he pulled some epic pranks in his day. This was just one more, you know?" Nevarri gets a shrug.

"/I'm/ radically different."

    Are you radically different? Mizuki just points at an ear with one hand and her tail with the other.

    The word 'Try-Hard' gets a reaction though. "What?! That, it, dguh... Ugh, there's an image I wanna show you that summarizes this neatly but I have no internet! Okay, you know that image that makes the round on BBSes with the two guys playing tic-tac-toe and one... wait, no, you're blind, right. A-anyway..." She folds her arms, "People who seriously use the word 'try-hard' are those who don't even try to play, they don't even engage other players in good faith. It's one thing to make your own fun trying to play with some gimmick, like seeing how many times you can reflect a projectile with Ness's bat, but people who say 'try-hard' are the ones who just jump off the stage...! And, I'm, making references to videogames you wouldn't have seen, right..." She holds a hand to her face.

    She looks between Neva and Jazz. "I'm sorry. I dunno why I thought talking would make things better. I guess some of Mizuki's boundless optimism was rubbing off on me."

    She walks back towards the crate she was sitting on before. "I guess I should focus on helping people with stuff I'm good at like stabbing monsters."

Nevarri nods slowly at the pair, taking her time to absorb the information. "I see... Sorry about the misunderstanding."

There is a beat, before she goes wide eyed, "Wait, am I the only girl then?"

Jazz gives a slight roll of her eyes as Mizuki sits her self down.

"NBo one said anything like that," she remarks, "If you wanna keep people's spirits up, that's a valuable and important task. God knows folks are gonna need it or it's gonna get *messy* out here. Thinking of people played games in the States, well ... I don't even want to think about how bad it's gonna get over /there/. I am not the easiest set of spirits to lift, okay?" She squints after Mizuki and then turns towards Nevarri, irritation fading into wryness.

"Of the three of us talking right now? Yeah. I mean, my avatar's a girl, but I'm definitely not a woman."

    "I'm sure you're not the only girl in the game." Mizuki replies to Neva, then looks to Jazuhanzu. "I kept in touch with my brother by e-mail, he said he was gonna let me know what the patch added America-side. Not that he'd have wanted to miss it anyway! So I'm sure he's keeping people organized, just like any of the people who came together and formed the Alliances did here." She smiles earnestly at that.

    She nods at Jazz's assertion that she's a bit of a sourpuss. "Okay. We're all just under a lot of stress..."

    She looks between them. "I thought about it, on the second day, after I realized this wasn't just some glitch the admins would solve in a few hours, getting some binding. With a beast head people might have trouble telling for sure... But Gwen's group, which just kept getting bigger as we katamari'd across the game picking up adventurers to help with Ezzo, all already saw me... plus there's that stupid 'leather pants' armor that I guess woulda revealed it."

"Well, obviously we're all under a lot of stress. But that's why I keep looking for the silver lining in all of this. my being able to see, others having the chance to explore themselves in a new way, or explore the world. if we end up getting out, great, but if we can't, then there is no sense being negative about it."

"Oh, definitely not the oinly girl in the game. Pretty sure there are a bunch of other women out there, some of whom are probably behind big, burly male avatars to deter creepers."

A beat.

"...at least that's how it was in America." She glances towards Mizuki, briefly, sensing a kindred spirit here in that sense. Then to Nevarri she adds, "Welp. I get the impulse, trust me I do. I mean, hey! I can breathe under water, right? Except that's kind of freaky and weird to think about! And this hair, right? Oh my god." She does a little spin. "It's so god damn long!"

    "See, that's the kind of positive attitude I made Mizuki to try and emulate!" ^n.n^

    She then turns to Jazuhanzu: "Oh man, that's gonna be rough. ...Wait, are we gonna have to deal with creepers? Ugggh..."

    Freakiness. "Yeah, I just ate raw meat a little while ago because I figured maybe as a were fang I could get away with it!"

    Hair. "I know, right?" Mizuki stands up and spins around. "I always thought long hair looked cool, but man, once I found out we /get dirty/, I tried to wash it, and there's just /always more/ and it takes forever to dry! And forget trying to make it look neat! Thank goodness for the washing button in the menu. Fortunately what with the whole were fang thing I think I can kinda sell the wild, unkempt look as intentional and not just poor grooming!"

"You know what's the funny thing about the wash button function..." Nevarri raises a hand to speak up and point out, "Sure, it's a quick and easy way to stay clean, but it always feels... Default, I guess is the way to put it... It's kinda unsatisfying."

She pointedly flicks her fingers to the menu and pops up the 'Bath' function. "It's like the way food is. It's functional, but no satisfaction..." She presses the button, and there's a magic POOF, before Nevarri's somewhat unkemptness is sort of reset to a clean state. "It doesn't make me feel any more relaxed like a nice warm bath should."

"Well, it's not like running water is a thing either," points out Jazz, giving Mizuki a shrug. She tugs on a lock of hair with a sigh. "I thought about hacking it off but who knows if I even could change my avatar like that? I guess we'll find out if our hair grows, or fingernails for that matter, soon enoiugh." she offers a tired smile at Nevarri.

    "I guess, but our new world is one where a hot shower is just not anymore in the cards than a non-lumpy bed with a decent thread count." Mizuki opines. "I'll just have to make up for it by curling up in a sunbeam oh geeze am I getting too into the whole cat thing? Ooh, super awesome beast person physical prowess, sleep anywhere like a cat, I just ate /raw meat/ I totally am."

    "I really hope licking my fur clean doesn't start to sound like a good idea later. If I start rubbing up against people trying to get them to pet me, knock some sense into me, okay?" She sounds like she's trying to joke but is worried there's a grain of truth in it.

    "I'm keeping the hair long for now. I still think it looks cool." She shakes her head, then raises a hand and pops her claws. "Yeah. Fingernails. You know, I don't actually know. Are these like, bone? No, I think cats have to sharpen them. Do /I/ need to sharpen them? I guess that means they grow like nails. I think some people need to clip their cats' claws, but like, they're /animals/ so obviously they do okay on their own in the wild..."

    She shakes her head. "Sorry, I'm rambling. Stress."

Nevarri yawns and lays herself back down against the surface she had passed out on much earlier. "Sleep will do you good then... I'm going to try to get back to it..."

"'Our new world'," replies Jazz, a note of discontent in her tone as she repeats Mizuki's words. It's clear she doesn't seem to find that entirely believable, even if her response is to mostly shrug her shoulders and look vaguely amused at the suggestion of fur-licking.

"Hairballs," she replies to that. Now she turns to Nevarri and adds, "Yeah, take care. Find a safe place," she tells her.

    Hairballs. "Blaaaagh!" Mizuki sticks out her tongue. "Yeah, that'd suck." More softly, she adds, "Being petted sounds kinda nice but no way does it not get weird." She stands up from the crate and stretches. "You wanna head to the inn or something? Ah, you'll be fine. I guess I'll just go find a good spot on a roof somewhere." She crouches. "...It was good to have /someone/ to tell all that to. I, uh, I hope life gets better somehow, Jazz. I hope you find your silver lining. Keep in touch, girls." She leaps up to a second-story windowsill and then from there to the roof.

    Then jumps back down to make sure she's friended both of them. THEN back to the roof.