Bentos after Rats

Kauchemar takes a seat on the edge of the fountain and rummages the bento box out of her inventory. "Ah, to think such a simple thing is a luxury these days." She eagerly unwraps it and digs in. Mmm, proper tasting food.

Don't be fooled by the mostly equestrian appearance. Nightmares are a bit more omnivorous than normal horses, she's going to eat what's there regardless if it's meat vegetable or otherwise.

    Hifumi smiles "I'm glad I can keep cookin for people and that they'll apreciate it." he says taking out chopsticks. Today's bento is grilled eel in sauce, rice with what tastes like pickled pear on top, and salad made from some kind of green leaf with a peppery taste and an oil and sour wine based dressing.

Chopsticks. Heh. Kauchemar remembers having to learn how to use them when her family first moved back to Tokyo. That was something. Seems so long ago now. And literally an entire world away.

It still takes a try or too before she successful plucks a piece of grilled eel from the sauce and plops it in her mouth. "You'll have Adventurers coming from all over Yamato once you're facilities are up." Mmmm. Proper food with proper taste.

    Miyako nods briefly as she settles into a seat and flips the bento out of inventory. "Kau's right, you've got a good thing going." She hums softly. "Mmm. I love grilled eel. Good choice." She grins and plucks some up with some rice to nom nom nom happily.

    Hifumi nods "Well, my intent was always to run a player shop." he says with a chuckle "That I get to just keep cooking proper food and people will actually enjoy it, rather than just me messing about with running a place for players to chat makes me that much happier." he says. He eats with his left hand taking bites from the bento that he has sitting on the edge of the fountain. His right hand is busy just stroking rough patches of stone. Almost like he needs to keep reminding himself the world is solid or has texture or something.

Kauchemar pinches some of the salad between the chopsticks. "Comforting food is good for morale," she muses, before nomming it down. "Good combination of flavors. I could almost write a song about it, if my mouth wasn't constantly full of it."

    Miyako nods. "I have to say it, after weeks of soggy crackers, real food of -any- sort was a godsend. Lots of players are more upbeat and happy now that it's getting around, you can see it anywhere you go." She smiles lightly and eats some more of the bento, enjoying the taste.

    Hifumi nods and keeps eating his own, his fingers of his right hand stroking along the rough patch he's found. "I do really find that it makes people happier... I wonder how many who were so intent on shattering this crystal moment... will waver now that they aren't being punished simply for existing." he says with a quiet questioning in his voice.

Kauchemar snorts, nostrils flaring briefly. "There will always be those that can't see the treasure they have because they fixate on what they do not. Don't let them ruin your desire to do good for others." She muses while eating, then asks "Will your inn have a place for performing?"

    "Oooh, that's a good thought," Miyako says, brightening at the thought. "Most of the taverns around here don't, not really, so I end up just grabbing a seat and dragging it out by the fire or sommat." She grins wider. "Please have a proper stage? Or at least -something-?"

"Don't I know it. The acoustics are terrible when you're stuck in a corner." Kauchemar agrees with the sentiment.

    Miyako nods firmly. "They -are-. Especially when most of the 'audience' decides that your music is -weird- and ignores you, or just talks over you."

    Hifumi chuckles "I do plan on having a space for music. My establishment is intended to be a safe and enjoyable place for all Landers and Adventurers alike." he says

"Good, good! Makes it much easier on us wandering bards," Kauchemar replies, and works on finishing off the rest of her meal.

    Miyako has to agree with Kauchemar. "Good is right! We should make it a trend, get all the Lander pubs to do it too."

    Hifumi nods "Yah, I'm doing some market research right now." he says "Actually.. I should probably get started again." he finishes the last of his bento, and a small hibatchi comes out of his inventory. Man inventory is great. He makes the rune gestures and says "Snapdragon come." the little flower drake appearing on his shoulder ina cascade of fire magic. "I'm actually trying to see how Landers feel about hand crafted vs menu crafted food. I know that menu crafted food tastes well.. tasteless to us so... how does our food taste to Landers?" he asks as he starts setting up the grill and brings out skewers of cluck-cluck meat, including skewers of heart, and some of veggies. "I'm starting them off with different kinds of Yaki so I can see if it's worth working up to a Lander based pallet as well as an Adventurer pallet in my shop." he nods "Or if I should just have menu crafted foods for them."

Kauchemar scoots a little farther along the side of the fountain so Hifumi has room to get out his apparatus and work. "Interesting notion. Not sure why they would notice though, if a difference wasn't in their coding... Though with all the other odd little changes after what happened." She shrugs a bit. "Well either way, Landers eating and paying is still business."

    "Mmm, it's something to think about, I suppose. But... well. /Before/, the food tasted normally to us, so... I think it's some sort of artifact of the transition, of what makes the menu work in this world." Miyako shrugs. "I haven't heard of any revolts or the like over it, so who knows? Something to ask about, yeah."

    Smiles and shakes his head "Look at them, have a chat..." he says as he keeps setting up to do some market research with Yaki. "It isn't like it was before... the menu's work. I can summon my buddies." he says "But the Landers... are people." he says "Talk to enough of them... go try talking to one of the merchant princes... or speak with a noble from one of the kingdoms." he shrugs and smiles "So... it's more than just if they were coded to care before... it's about who they are now."

"Their range of actions do seem to be a bit more... robust." Kauchemar concedes. She's not so sure about the Landers being alive rather than imitating it though. In the end, it probably doesn't really matter. They have their uses, one way or the other. "And you do have a point on the higher up in importance they are, the more.. variable they are." She shrugs and rises from the fountainside. "I should get back to the whole 'wandering bard' deal. Never know what useful tidbit of information I'll come across."

    Hifumi is sitting on the edge of a fountain with a little dragon made of flower petals, leaves, and twigs. he's setting up a hibatchi and loading in some charcoal. Beside him on the fountain edge are some plates of raw cluckcluck on skewers, another set of skewers with cluckcluck innards, and a third of veggies. He nods to Kauchemar "Thanks for the help with the old man's rat problem." he says.

"I wouldn't call it 'robust' so much as 'realistic'. They act and react just the same as I expect of /people/, not of computer programs. No prescripted dialogue, they understand jokes and puns and such..." Miyako finishes off the bento and sets it down with a soft sigh. "It's pretty much impossible for that kind of thing to be reprogrammed overnight. We're talking /decades/ of programming advancement to do that."

    Hifumi nods "Yah.. even ETOffline was never able to keep track of nearly enough stuff and the NPCs were clearly NPCs.. Landers." he shrugs "They're just Landers, can't really call them NPCs anymore." He says and sips water from a flask. His right hand twitching fingers to tap tap tap against his knee.

    "Yeah," Miyako agrees. "And those dumpy old fools will just have to accept it. One way or another... they're a part of our lives, now. Our neighbors, our countrymen..."

    nods his head "Well at least someone gets it... people keep wondering why I'm worried about clearing out the rats and spiders.. but they're hurting the liveliehoods of my neighbors.. what would I do if an elderly neighbor in the old world needed help? I'd help... well... I respawn so why shouldn't I be the one to go into danger?"

    "Exactly," Miyako says, nodding. "It's the biggest export commodity we have, and right now we're at a serious import deficit. We need to strike a balance."

    Hifumi relaxes as Snapdragon hops down, the little flowerdrake breathing fire into the hibatchi until the charcoal catches. He is sitting on the edge of a fountain in a quiet market square. The scent of flowers and fresh burning charcoal starts to fill the air. "I just want to be left to live and make the best of things. That means doing things for my neighbors they can't do themselves." he smiles.

    "Just to live... to be... yeah." Miyako kicks her feet, swinging them back and forth as she sits there, looking up at the sky. "For some of us that's more importnat than anything else. Even the chance to go home."

    Hifumi laughs softly "You have ... well maybe you do have an idea, maybe you're as selfish as I am." he says snapping his fingers on his right hand and calling the drake up into his lap. He pets the dragon with that hand, adjusting the skewers on their tray with his left.

    "Hmmm. Yeah." Miyako nods. "I guess you could call it that." She shrugs and leans back to look up at the sky again. "There's a lot of stuff I miss... but there's some big ones I don't miss." She pauses for a moment, then adds, "Do you know how long it's been, since I was able to just look up at the sky like this?"

    Hifumi shakes his head "Duno..." he says "But I can cook here." he says and sighs the fingers of his right hand stroking at the dragon in his lap. "And I can stand on my own." he sighs and looks up at the stars. "And no one has to help me change my bag or wash my legs or a million things I can do on my own now." he says with soft conviction "That I can do on my own..." no more nurse, no more chair, no more any of it... just a chance to open his resturant and serve people good food.

    "Mmm. I have.. had.. my other body has? We need to really think about the linguistics of this - three fused vertebrae in the neck. I haven't been able to so much as look straight ahead without leaning back for years." Miyako leans her head back to look straight up, enjoying the simple fact that she /can/. "Do you know how difficult that made life? Never able to look up for anything? Changing light bulbs, getting things off top shelves, stargazing, so much that I just... could not do."

    Hifumi snorts a bit "I can imagine..." he says "I... well." he shakes his head "Lets just say I was punished for being stupid and the punishment was harsh." he clicks his tongue. "T12 spinal seperation... and everything below my right elbow." he says and keeps petting his imaginary dragon with his imaginary hand, his dream hand. "Can't exactly run a kitchen from a wheelchair using just your off hand." he says "Now... now I'm building it here and I'm going to hold onto this dream... I'm going to grip it with this hand I dream I have and hold on for all I'm worth."

    Miyako straightens with a fervent wince. "Ok... damn. Yeah, you win the 'my life sucked, goodbye to it' competition. So far." She stretches out, arms above her head, and then hops to her feet. A quick swipe of her fingers across the menu, and her guitar hangs over her shoulder once again. "I'mma go find someplace that'll let me sing for a bit. Clear my head. Catch you later, cookie."

    Hifumi nods "Hifumi is fine." he says with a teasing tone at being called cookie. "You enjoy yourself. Should only take a couple days till we're done enough I can start actually taking customers."