Finally, a Hot Bath! or, a Bunny, a Cat, and a Jellyfish Walk into an Onsen...

    After the nighttime mission to kill Haggar the Gnoll Barbarian in yet another attempt to make the road safe for newbies foolishly travelling at night, the party finally has a reason to return to the Town of Beginnings, Carmina Gadelica. Which wouldn't really be particularly noteworthy, unless someone respawns in the church that night shouting critical information, that is, but for a piece of information shared by Mikage on one of the first runs through the Spider dungeon: There are hot springs here.

    Which, were this a D&D campaign, or a JRPG, might seem insignificant unless it's time for the obligatory Hot Springs Episode, but the truth is that the lack of access to hot baths is beginning to wear on /some/ adventurers who were, after all, used to hot showers on demand and who have never had to go on a month-long camping trip.

    It's something Mizuki didn't think she'd care about at first but she's changed her tune after three weeks and only a couple of (cold) bathing attempts.

    Mikage didn't say exactly where it was, so they have to search the town and ask around, but eventually they find the hot springs, and Mizuki's happy to pay any reasonable fee ... and this is the Town of Beginnings, after all, so nothing is too expensive.

    Wisteria is in human form, the young albino woman tall for a girl with her broad shoulders, really does seem to be more 'girly' when she's a bun. "I am so looking forward to soaking... I can stay clean, and all my muscle aches heal automatically... but I STILL want to soak after a hard work out." she says almost sounding like she might become petulant but she just walks along with Mizuki and Jaz.

Jazz looks distinctly uncomfortable. It's not that she doesn't want a hot bath, it's what she has to confront to take one.

"Mmn," she adds, noncommittal.

    Mizuki's remaining in were fang form for the moment. "I can get by with the washing button, sleeping anywhere, and eating meat drops, but I'm kinda starting to miss some of the comforts of home..."

    She notices Jazz's expression, and stops to regard her sympathetically. "Look... it'll be a chance to try the underwater breathing when it's not freezing cold, and that's not helping is it. ...We may be stuck here for years, Jazz, do you really want to not get a hot bath all that time?"

    She glances over to Wisteria, then back to Jazz. "We can... avoid looking at eachother, if it'd help... We're all mature adults here."

    Wisteria "Do you think they do laundry? So I don't have to wash it all myself." she says with a sigh. "Please tell me they do laundry." she says. "It's just an osen." she says like it isn't a big thing "Did you not go to public baths back home?" she asks tipping her head. The girl genuinely confused.

"Just use the hygiene tab," replies Jazz to Wisteria, "It works for keeping your thigns clean even if it doesn't give you all the comforts of home life." She lets out a sigh.

"I'm not interested in looking, Mizuki. I'm not interested in seeing *me*."

    "I just use the button for clothes." Mizuki asides. "And I'm from America, so actually no." At Jazz's words, she winces. "Oh." She looks away, one arm gripping the other awkwardly. There's a long, awkward pause. "...Would you prefer to just sit at the edge and talk with us?"

    Wisteria sticks her tongue out "Menu cleaning... it isn't the same, washed clothes are better. I will probably just use the clean button to skip having to scrub myself cold, and then get in the furo or osen I duno what kind of baths they have here... but it's soaking that is important... I wonder if they have any herb baths or anything."

"Yeah, that's fine," says Jazz. She'll wash her feet. She lets them do as they will, but onlyu her shoes are coming off and that's it.

She doesn't lok terribly happy with things. This isn't exactly surprising, though.

    Mizuki still looks like she feels bad for Jazz, but they can proceed now. "I doubt they have anything too fancy."

    Eventually there is a spring; Mizuki follows Wis's lead on proper etiquette for what to do with clothes and towels, muttering 'with fur you can't really see anything anyway...' When it's finally time to sink into hot water, she sighs happily, just taking in the feeling for a moment. She submerges entirely, then pops back up with just her head above water.

    "...I do have a little bit of news, although it's bad news, so maybe another time would be better. Well, I also have some good news... I successfully used Appraisal a few times! I haven't found anything that secret though, the items I examined mostly it's kinda obvious what they can be used for."

    Walks Mizuki through the proper way to do things but the first part is push the 'get clean' button rather than actual washing. Then Wist wraps herself up in a towel and takes another smaller one. "Normaly I'd just go in naked but... Jaz seems uhm... uncomforetable with it." she says and slips in with her towel like she would at some places that have more emphasis on modesty than is really ubiquitous. She settles down into the hot water with a sigh, sinking until her chin is touching. "Well might as well share bad news. I figured out how to Enchant things and I think that's awesome.. dunno how long enchanting will last on things yet cause everything I enchanted disolved."

"Do what you will, I won't look," replies Jazz to Wisteria. She gets settled, puits her feet in, and then says. She squints at Mizuki, "Wait, what?" She asks, then she waves her hand at Mizuki as if to say 'go ahead'.

"You can't just say 'I have bad news' and then leave it to hang, kiddo."

    "The enchanted gear always breaks immediately? Doesn't that kind of mean it's /not/ working?" Mizuki's trying to keep a supportive tone but yeah...

    She nods towards Jazz to indicate the Undine, "Well, apparently Uta has decided to try and make you use cuteness on the waiters in a restaurant because she believes it'll get you both a free meal. I tried to dissuade her but I don't think she cared..."

    Wisteria "No like see the enchanting worked just fine, but I didn't have a catalyst to make it stick and once the enchantment breaks the item breaks." she says "It's pretty cool, it's one of the reasons I want to go to Ninetails cause they have all the things for sale so I should be able to find the right stuff so that the enchanment doesn't burn up the item's durability and make it break." she grins, her teeth not all razors and terriblness.

From one enchanter time another, what Wisteria is talking about is truly important. It is something she should be thinking very hard about, asking questions about, working on...

But, you see, Mizuki is talking about Uta.
"I'm sorry but WHAT?"

    Mizuki nods at Wisteria. "So Enchanting requires something to bind the enchantment in place... interesting."

    She blinks at Jazz. "Well now you've been warned! I figured it'd help you to know so maybe we can get her to... /not/ do that."

    Wisteria nods her head "Yah, and I'm thinking that alchemy might be similar... like I'll need something to mix with the magic to make it into a potion or something." she says. Still sunk down to her neck. "I'm wondering if I can make magic maps... or like scrolls too.. scrolls are a thing right?" she is SO bad at this fantasy stuff.

"H-how?! What the fuck?!" Jazz flails. "How the... what the..." More flailing. "What do you even mean?!"

    "Hmm, I haven't appraised anything with the [Enchantment] tag yet. The Glowing Blue Stone from the bandits quest has [Magic] though, so I suppose you could try that? The Silken Thread and the Tasty Rat Meat might work for Alchemy. And... there's a Scripture craft skill, you can get the basic mats to practice it in town, but I'm not sure what can be done with it now..."

    She blinks at Jazz. "I dunno! But now she can't catch you off guard, so you could just say no? Or avoid her? Or have a talk with her about boundaries?"

    Wisteria smiles "Well I'll have to try it all out, if I can figure out how to make stuff to take on boss fights and stuff in the tower then that'll help us all move forward."

Grabbing at the ends of her hair, Jazz just quietly fumes a moment. What else can she do?

    Mizuki sighs, sinking in a little more so it comes out as bubbles. She tries toggling off were fang; it doesn't really matter when submerged.

    She lifts her mouth above the water again. "I also got a description of the serial PKer, Tri-Edge. Proteus says he can kill people for real, didn't get deleveled like the rest of us, and can erase people's memories."

    She stares into the distance for a moment. "...Also, he looks a lot like Kite."

    "...Kite doesn't /seem/ like a murderer, but I wonder if he might know something about any doppelgangers."

    Wist blinks "That... sounds like an urban legend... do we get those even here?" she asks. "You okay Jaz?" she asks tipping her head.

"Yeah, I heard about that," remarks Jazz to Mizuki. "It seems hard to believe but.. we'll just have to be careful," she lets out a breath. That's rich. The girl who walks home alone at night telling them to be careful.

    An urban legend? "You... didn't hear about him leaving a mark on the gravestone of someone that was PK'd in Alne a couple weeks ago?" Mizuki asks, concerned.

    She sighs again and sinks into the water, then resurfaces. "We'll just have to keep learning more about this world. That weird cliffside in Ezzo... a player who didn't get deleveled... people who experienced weird stuff in Fragment... there's a lot of fishy things going on, and eventually we'll add them all up to... something.

    Wisteria "What No I mean that he didn't get deleveled or that he can really kill people.. or steal their memories." she says "I saw that someone was Player killed." she says

"None of this makes sense," acknowledges Jazz, "and we may never get the answers we want. Let's be real about it. We just have to live through it," She looks down at her toes. She has dainty feet.

    "Well... I don't know how much I can really trust Proteus. Maybe after talking to Kite I'll see what I can do to independently verify these claims."

    "No!" Mizuki makes a fist at water level and looks at Jazz. "We're not background characters! And if we are, then we need to get involved in the plot and /make/ ourselves protagonists! Or at least secondary characters!"

    "I went to Ezzo! I saw a wall that had to be covering a secret passage, that someone had used recently, which was disconnected from the physics engine! It had the 'immortal object' indicator just like stuff in Elder Tale Offline! We can /get involved/ in this stuff!"

    Wisteria on the other hand has broad shoulders and is tall for a girl especially in Japan. Then again she's a kendoka so perhaps it isn't so strange. "Yah, we'll work it out. Like when the kendo team ran out of tape... that was bad." tape.. being out of tape was bad enough for her compair it to being trapped in a video game where someone might kill them or they might be trapped forever... weird girl.

"Do you suppose all the people who died of the plague got to find out it was spread by rats, Mizuki? Events happen. We don't always get to find out why. Nothing to do with being the 'central cast'." She snorts, splashing water with her toes.

    Mizuki stands up... then squats back down, switches to beast form, and stands up again. Wet fur preserves modesty! (And now they can see the stripes on her arms that are usually covered.)

    She points at Jazz. "They didn't 'cuz they died! As long as we're alive, we have a chance! Come on, I get why you're sad you're stuck in that avatar, but you don't have to be grumpy about everything else too!"

    She balls up both fists in front of her chest in a determined gesture. "I'm not even roleplaying here, just to feel better, I really think we can DO something!"

    She looks away, dropping one arm to her side and clutching the upper arm with her other arm. "Okay, so, I've gotten discouraged before. And I probably will again. Our trials and tribulations are only just beginning, and we're gonna be stuck in weird bodies the whole time."

    She holds hands in front of her, palms up, in a 'well???' gesture. "But we're GAMERS! We don't sit on the first screen and wait for stuff to happen! We /move forward/, and we run into enemies and die, and fall down pits and die, and hit spikes or lava and die, and sometimes we pause and take a break, but each time, we get a little bit further, and as we learn how to play we mess up less and less! We get to the final boss, and if we don't beat it we keep coming back until we do!"

    She makes a sweeping gesture at the world around them. "Something incredible is happening all around us! This is a historic incident, we're gonna tell future generations we were part of this, it's gonna go down in the history books! And you wanna just /wait until it's over?/"

    She quiets down slightly, and scratches the back of her head. "I mean, okay, fair, if this were like, a war back in the real world, where we were likely to /die/ if we got involved, that'd be one thing. But we respawn! And even if Tri-Edge CAN kill us, you don't know whether he targets movers and shakers, or people cowering in the shadows."

    Wisteria pats the top of Jaz's foot. "Don't be like that Jaz, it's not so bad being an Undine." she says. Then Mizuki-chi is ranting when she finishes she looks "Mizuki-chi.. I'm not a gamer, and I don't care about being historic in here... I want to be the greatest Kendoka... and that means getting home." she nods "And getting home will mean taking risks but that doesn't mean we dive into trouble without looking."

"You misunderstand," says Jazz, softly, to Mizuki. She's disappointed, it seems.

"Where did I say 'do nothing'? Where did I imply 'give up'? I did no suc thing. What I did say was that we may never get the answers as to /why/. That does not mean 'don't try'. You may simply *never know why it happened*. That doesn't mean you don't live through it or to do things. Don't presume," she chides, "to lecture me about what I need to do or don't do. Our ability to *see* is what I'm talking about." She obviously doesn't mean literally.

    "You can be the greatest kendoka in here until we get home! And I wasn't saying not to look..." Mizuki deflates somewhat. "I'm sorry I misunderstood, then. I guess it's true that we could wake up tomorrow back in our bodies and then the whole thing gets covered up and we never find out what really happened. But I don't get the point of harping on that..." She sinks back into the water.