Tiger and Bunny

    Mizuki is passing through one of the field areas near Carmina Gadelica Marina. Getting here was a frustratingly long journey, and night time has dramatically increased the monster spawn rate. Fortunately, this close to town the monsters aren't really a threat. Porings, lunatics, pickies, and the like; Besides, there are a few adventurers out here farming XP, so if some big monster DID show up it's not like she'd be without help.

    It's been a long journey and the town is within sight... but that doesn't mean there isn't still enjoyment to be had in fighting! Passing within aggro range of a bunch of low-level mobs, Mizuki spits a fireball at them then pounces between them, stabbing the rest of their health away. The XP isn't much, here, but she feels like a goddamn ninja.

    Because she is!

    Along the road comes a Bun Bun... a were fang Bun Bun by all indications. The girl has the white fur, the long ears, the large feet, the red eyes, the pink nose, and yes even the little hornstub in her forehead. She's dressed as an onna-bugeisha with a kitana at her hip as well.

    She doesn't seem to be specifically hunting anything in particular, however the occasional mob strays into what seems to be an arbitrary range of the Bun Bun woman. Then there is a flash of steel, or a small flash of electricity and down goes the trash mob. However she doesn't just leave them, instead going to gather even the most garbage of loot and looking it over intently.

    Hey, you don't just leave loot! Every coin counts, right now!

    Plus if you leave it lying around, one of the porings will hoover it up. Every once in awhile a poring defeated in an area adventurers haven't cleared recently explodes like a piñata of hoovered loot.

    Their respective monster hunts happen to bring the two women into close enough range that it would be awkward to ignore eachother. "Uh, hi!" Mizuki smiles. "Um... It's nice to see a friendly face after that long journey from Alne."

    Wisteria agrees on the loot front it seems gathering up anything that is dropped. "Hello there." she says her tone is light but a bit brusk, the kind of talk one might expect from a jock focusing. She blinks and then actually pays attention "Ooh hey." she offers in a much brighter tone. "You're in Odysseia too!" she says happily and smiles. Exposing ragged razor fangs like a shark. "Glad other folks are interested in getting home." she says.

    Her guarded nature drops away and she smiles with her lips closed making her appear much more 'cute' and less 'murder monster pretending to be a Bun Bun. "I'm Wisteria, nice to meet you." she says bowing with her hands clasped infront of her.

    Mizuki smiles a bit more earnestly at the comment, but wait, does that bunny have fangs? She wonders if an Eclipse has fangs... wait, no, she's got a horn too. Some other monster, probably inspired by the al'miraj... Well, it's not like she knows many of the Yamato region monsters that didn't appear in Ragnarok Online first.

    "I'm Mizuki! But I guess Inspect already told you that."

    She bows more briefly, then steps forward with a hand extended. "I didn't want to be in an army and I'm not much for politics. What about you?"

    Nods her head, her long ears swiveling to make sure nothing sneaks up on her, even here near the newb monsteres there's a chance of getting taken by surprise. "I just want to get home... I have friends, I have my kendo rankings, my mom and dad." she sighs and shakes her head "I'm not going to just sit here an let all my hard work waste away... I'm going to keep adventuring and diging and I'm going to find a way to get back." she nods with conviction shining in her red eyes.

    Mizuki's ears droop a bit as someone else just opens up with their pain like that. It's not that she doesn't want to break free, but... she hasn't been that intense about it. Could she be doing better?

    "...I admit... I've been so focused on the Ezzo thing... I haven't really spent much time thinking about just what comes next. We try to clear Aincrad and look for other ways out, obviously, but... I've been trying not to think too much about the people outside, since... It's gonna be awhile."

    "My brother's in here too, though, on the America server."

    "So you do kendo in real life, huh? I don't think many of us in here can say we've actually studied swordfighting for realsies!" She smiles. "It's not wasting away though! After all, your skills with the blade are going to help us get out of here, right?"

    Smiles a bit at that. "I'm sorry your brother is stuck in here, but I'm glad we might be able to get you to him or him to us if we don't find a way out as fast as I'd like." she says her pale pink tongue licking her lip. "I don't mean to be so intense about it sorry I just... I've always kind of charged at my goals." she says with a smile. "Zanshin." she says. The translator making it clear that it is the act of being ready with a strong defense even in the face of a defeated foe. Perhaps vigilance or readiness to continue would come through as well. "It's an important part of Kendo, and it's helped in here but I'm really a total Mukyu (rankless or newb in kedo speak) when it comes to DIVE gaming, I only even have this game to keep in touch with my friend in Kyoto while she starts university." she gives a little shrug.

    She takes a deep brath "We are going to get out of here, and we will get out that much faster the more of us are working towards it." she says taking your hand and giving a firm strong shake. "Thanks for taking care of me."

    The catgirl chuckles at Wisteria's concern for her brother. "Don't worry, he'll be /fine/."

    She listens. "I don't know if it's even possible to see the other servers, maybe everyone will be freed when-- wait, does that mean there's a challenge equivalent to Aincrad on the other servers? Or are they all depending on us? Or maybe this only happened to the Japanese server..." She shakes her head. "I guess we just don't know."

    She smiles. "That energy is good, even if the intensity is a little intimidating." She rubs the back of her head. "'Zanshin', huh... Always looking ahead and planning for the unexpected." She looks away. "I guess we're gonna need that, huh..." There's a hint of something in the way she says that. Tiredness? Resignation? "I see."

    She smiles again at the handshake. "Is your friend in here?"

    Wisteria shakes her head "No, we were gonna meet here for New Years since she was just getting her apartment setup in Kyoto." she sighs "But then everything happened and I haven't seen her so." she gives another smile that shows those ragged razor fangs "She's safe and I don't have to worry."

Mizuki regrets asking about the friend at first, but then Wisteria points out it's a good thing. "I guess there's that. Made any new friends in here yet?"

    Wisteria shrugs a bit "Not really but I haven't really been trying much." she says rubbing the back of her head a bit sheepishly. "Been too focused on trying to find something, a short cut, a uhm... glitch?" she doesn't seem to be sure of the word being much lesss familiar with gaming than with swords.

    Mizuki holds the hand she was shaking in both of her own, looking at Wisteria with concern in her eyes. "If you don't have any friends, you'll get lonely! Escaping is important, but you need to take care of your psychological needs too!"

    Wisteria laughs softly "I've never been surrounded much by friends, just clubmates and such." with the exception of her bestie who she doesn't have here, thought of which makes her ears wilt a little.

    The cat's ears mirror the bunny ears in that. "Well... I made most of my friends online, so... Hey, this is a chance to meet people! Yamato is kinda like a giant club! We all have the shared interest of getting out of here! Well... We all have the shared experience of getting trapped in here, anyway..."

    Wisteria nods her head and smiles "Yeah I guess there is that, and I mean I'll need folks to go into dungeons and stuff and that was always fun with a friend rather than just being work."

    Mizuki smiles. "That's right! Nyere we go!" Before anyone can say that was a bit of a stretch, she barrels on into "So, how have you been looking for glitches so far? I've played more games, but... myaybe the perspective of someone who's nyat used to them will provide some outside-the-box ideas?"

    The BunBun girl grins again, showing all those disturbing teeth that really don't fit a rabbit. "Well I've been checking the really low level dungeons and adventures cause I figured that if they're were lots and lots of those then maybe they're not as well made? Also just kind of wandering places that the roads don't go, or if there is like no reason to go somewhere, thats my reason to go there cause it's less likely someone has already checked it for somethign weird."

    Mizuki scratches her chin. "Hmmmmm. Interesting logic on the dungeons, but what if the devs did the low-level stuff last to make a better impression on new players and keep them playing? Still, good idea in general -- there's bound to be someplace where someone got sloppy."

    "Although, it's not gonna be anything too obvious or playtesters would've caught it... Certainly nothing you'd see in a normal playthrough of the dungeon. Poking at out of the way geometry, maybe... Although, I have to wonder if stuff like collision brushes is even part of this engine. It may be more what you see is what you get..."

    She squats down on the ground and rips up a bit of turf, then stands and lets it fall apart in her fingers. "Individual grains of dirt and blades of grass... Noone knows how they have the computing power to do this. Still, as long as we just don't KNOW, who knows?"

    "And on the outside chance that giant sky wheelchair man really is on our side... maybe he's not the only one. Maybe someone else has slipped something into the game to help us, too. Somewhere they don't think the people who trapped us here would see it..."

Wisteria chuckles a little "Well if it was easy or obvious we'd already be home." she has that zanshin look in her eyes again. "So instead we take everything apart. You're suppose to pull this lever to get further in the dungeon? What happens if instead." she stomps her foot and the ground shakes around them in a little ripple of an earthquake. Her ears twitch and swivel listening to the growl of the ground. "Someone you know, kicks it down, or digs under the door, or what if you do lift the switch but someone stays behind to lower it again after the rest of the team goes through. Or what if you don't kill the boss but trap him in some side room or or." she seems to have run out of examples she can think of or mabye she's run out of things she's tried in low level dungeons.

    Mizuki smiles. "Yes! That kind of thinking! A lot of it probably won't work, but we only have to find one thing that does!"

    She brushes the dirt off her hand. "So. Looking for a way out may be our 'job' after we deal with Ezzo, but we can't spend ALL our time working; this place is our whole life now, work AND play. What do you do for fun?"

    Wisteria licks her lips and shifts. The smallish albino woman with red eyes standing there says "I like to read books the people of the land give me... and well." she pats her sword "I practice... and now I've got other stuff to learn as well as I know kendo. Lots of other weapons and how to actually make weapons and armor instead of just caring for it... and learning how to read magic items and take them apart to make new stuff."

    Mizuki blinks. "They have BOOKS? Like actual, full BOOKS, not 'four lines of text per bookshelf' 'books'?! What kinda stuff is in 'em?!"

    The now human albino girl rubs the back of her pixie cut hair and laughs. "Uhm well like history and legends and stuff... like books. We use to go to the library all the time." she says without explaining 'we' "And so when I got stuck here I sorta just needed something and I took a book and hid in a hotel room curled up in a bed for a little bit."

    "Huh. That honestly didn't occur to me. Well, it's good to know that'll be a possible pastime after this Ezzo stuff and if I ever get bored of bein' a kickass cat ninja and wanna do something more sedentary."

    She frowns.

    "Wait, though. How many books have you read so far? I mean... no way would CC Corp have the dev time to spend filling Lander libraries... so where could the text have come from?"

    Wisteria shrugs "Just the one so far but there are shelves of books it's not like they'd just be blank paper why would you do that?" she asks not really getting it. She isn't really use to DIVE and thinks of it just like she does her normal real world life. Which is why she's focused on getting HOME more than getting 'out'.

    Mizuki blinks. "Because someone would have to write it... also, it'd be spending a LOT of time on something few players will ever see." Poor Mizuki, she doesn't know what story she's in. "This game is about fantasy adventuring, not reading books. It'd be like spending time making sure that if you plant seeds and care for them, they realistically grow into plants over the course of weeks. Noone playing this game is gonna do that!"

    "Well, they /weren't/, anyway. I'm sure some people trapped in here were hobby gardeners or something and will try it."

    Wisteria tips her head to the side. "Why wouldn't people see it? And what would the people of the Land do when they wanted to know something if they couldn't go to a library?" she asks innocently. "And why wouldn't you keep a plant? What if you wanted to make potions? Or just wanted a nice little flower for your desk?" She really doesn't get the whole 'gaming' thing all that clearly.

    Mizuki is a bit taken aback at someone this clueless. Of course, it will be ironic later... "The People of the Land? They're program code, just like the monsters. They say some lines and give us quests but that's just like... set dressing, for the gameplay. It's like asking what if your toaster wanted to know something; It doesn't, it was made for one thing and it does that thing."

    "And if you wanted to keep a plant, why not just get one of those little window garden boxes or something and do it in real life? I guess there's probably /someone/ who'd do it in VR, but... remember, every day a coder spends programming the plants or writing the books or whatever, is a day they didn't spend improving the parts of the game way more people are going to engage with."

    She looks up at the sky. "Although it seems like their work leaves a bit to be desired, since games aren't supposed to TRAP PEOPLE!"

    The albino girl tips her head the other way "You... haven't actually talked with the people of the land have you?" She asks with a quirk of her pale almost invisible eyebrow.

    The catgirl blinks. "What do you mean? I mean I have a bit to get quests, sure, 'Help, Adventurer! Rats are infesting my basement and ruining all my wares!' 'Thank you for dealing with those rats, adventurer!' Aside from that... I mean, it's important in old single-player RPGs more, because you often didn't have a quest log, and sometimes some randome dude in a town would have a clue for a puzzle or something..."

    She spreads her arms. "But this is a multiplayer game! I'm here to do stuff with other /players/, not see what every NPC says. If I get stuck, I can ask an actual person for advice and get back to playing together, instead of running around trying to find the one dude hidden like three towns away with the clue or whatever."

    The albino girl hmmms "Like sure they're kind of boring people, but if you hang about it's a lot more than just. Go do this thing." she says "Ask someone for their name I mean they have them and stuff, and it isn't like people made fun of how stupid people were in games. Just like ask someone how're they doing, or ask them a question about the rats they want you to kill." she says

    Mizuki holds a finger to her chin. "Although, now that you mention it... when I asked how they avoided leviathans attacking their boats, the dialogue did go a bit screwy sometimes..."

    "But... It's got to be canned dialogue, hasn't it?"

    She looks down at the little divot in the ground where she ripped up some turf.

    "...I talked to someone who worked on Dive development. He had no idea just how impossible a lot of what's going on is, but he did say that at least SOME of the things, like understanding all languages and how real everything feels, were theoretically possible with enough computing power. And if they could do that... perhaps they have an AI procedurally generating the Landers' lines? And writing the books, too..."

    Wisteria shrugs a little "They're just people, mostly boring like most people are mostly boring." she says "I mean if I can get sand in my eye, or eat a parfait, or stub my toe... why couldn't I read a book or talk to the guy who sells my tea?"

    Mizuki blinks. "...I mean, you could just talk to someone in real life-- okay no I can absolutely see being too shy to..."

    She looks in the direction of the town. "They can't, though, I mean... MAYBE there's an AI improvising lines somewhere, but... if they were people? How would that work? Who are they, /where/ are they? If they were people diving into the game like us /someone/ would have broken character by now."

    Wisteria shrugs "I duno they're just people, I don't think they're players or anything but I mean, you don't hear every guard saying the same line over and over or anything right? And like the guy who sells my tea is different than the guy in the Church who sells tea for people who die right?"

    Mizuki rubs between her eyes. "This is a /game/, a /virtual world/. If they're people, /where are they really/? This isn't a physical space they can exist in..."

    Although, a bit of doubt creeps in. "...Some players HAVE wondered if this is some kind of other world... But then how does the menu still work? It just doesn't make sense!"

    She sighs. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to drag you down some metaphysical rabbit hole. Maybe I'm just tired. It's been a really long journey from Alne."

    Wisteria shifts "Did you say rabbit hole?" she teases and flops her ears back and forth. "Yah I should get some food and drink and get a bath, my hunger and filth meters are like..." she holds her fingers apart "This close to status effects." she shifts back to human and nods towards the gate "Coming?" she asks as she heads for the town.

    "Pfft!" Mizuki chuckles when her unintentional pun is pointed out. "Yeah, sure." She follows.