Did Someone Say Burgr?

Crescent Burger. The burger joint that doubles as the Headquarters for Cresvent Moon. There's advantages to it, like all of the members get some damn good food at least, having a restaurant on the first floor.

One of those members is the idol that fell out of grace, somewhat anyway. She's still working to recover from the ordeal. She knows it's not all her fault, but ever since she learned she was being played, she's put double duty in becoming a better player and redeeming herself.

So what is she doing right now? Serving tables. In a cute maid dress. Someone (Gwen) said it would look cute if she did. And she's used to cosplaying, so why not, if it makes people happy. So there she is, serving the counter and cleaning the tables, since there's no real table service in a non-fancy place like this.

"Welcome to Crescent Burger~" she merrily chimes when someone enters.

Goldenblade comes in to Crescent Burger because there's real food, and it's worth doing a ton of rinkydink quests to get some real food once in a while. Being part of Crescent Moon, she's been in with the Guild from the initial construction, so she's a semi-regular sight here. On the other hand, she lived for months on menu-food, so real food is a nice break rather than a need.

She beams as Reika welcomes her, coming up to the counter and ordering a burger and fries. "With gravy on the fries." That's a thing where she's from. When she was from there. She's used to the weird looks she gets nowadays for it. But they're fried potatoes, right? Nothing -that- weird about gravy on potatoes...

    And as it happens, there's a Salamander walking in through the door afterwards. Atif doesn't have a whole lot of variety with his clothes yet (despite some attempts from certain people) -- so it's still the same overly simple sleeveless shirt and the black shorts. With the more unusual addition of a long, golden, flowing scarf, but nevermind that.

    "Hellooooo!" The red-haired and -scaled Salamander chimes out in cheerful greeting once he's through the door -- though he pauses briefly when he sees the outfit Reika has. Alright, fine, he knew Gwen did some... interesting things with clothes, but he's still taken aback abit by the maid uniform he sees here.

    "Oh, um--" He stammers briefly, hanging back for a moment before even considering finding a seat. "First time for me here. What's, uh...?"

Reika is well known in the real world to be a pretty girl, a model. Since her model is pretty much copied on her real life looks, for brand-recognition, she would also be considered pretty here for most standards, the biggest difference being as a Spriggan. So a cute teen in a maid costume with a big smile is probably a good draw, if the burgers weren't enough.

She slips behind the counter to get Goldenblade's order first, smiling "Of course~" She speaks as if it was the natural thing to ask for. Everyone has their own thing after all. She writes it down and leaves it on the counter for the cooks to work it up, while she turns to the next one in line, the tall lizard. She doesn't seem to bat an eye though, that is part of the oddity of living in a game world knowingly after all, there shouldn't be too much surprises. "We serve Burgers of course, you can find eastern cuisine all over Yamato, but only here you can get the western dishes. Burgers, onion rings, fries and hot dogs. It's snot fancy but it's unique."

Goldenblade looks over as Atif comes in after her, calls, "Hello!" in greeting. She's a collaborator in attempting to get him a new wardrobe, because it was amusing to see him cringe at the attention, but there's no ill will there. "How's it going?" she asks him. "Come in for some supper?"

She smiles as Reika takes her order. She's met Reika, too, and feels a bit guilty about not knowing anything about the scene that she's part of. She never really ever saw any of the marketing, this was supposed to be a cheap version of video chat, and a way to get out of the house and active without needing a cane. The fact that she's stuck here with everyone is just part of the larger irony.

    "Oh, uh..." Atif scratches one scaly finger along the olive-toned cheek of his much more human face. Is he briefly hesitating just out of the presence of a cute maid girl? That would be a firm *maybe*. "I don't really know... I'll take whatever you recommend?"

    Spotting Goldenblade, he wiggles his fingers briefly with a roll of one shoulder. "Yeah. Something like that. Felt like it was about time I come try the place out." Murmuring all that distracts him enough to let him actually move on, finally, and find a spot to seat himself on.

Shiruba strolls into Crescent Burger. The wolfgirl was a semi-regular sight here, since it was one of the best places near the beginning areas to get real food. There's more than just stuffing her own face on her agenda tonight, but we'll get to that when we get to that.

She almost immeadiately spots Reika working and waves to her. "Hi! Looks like you've made yourself quite the spot since switching over to a real guild."

Reika is still waiting on Goldenblade's food to be prepared while taking the next orders, while wearing a maid dress. Noone questioned, most seems to enjoy it even, and Reika herself doesn't seem to mind at all, making the bottom of the dress flit up a bit with twirls. She waves to Shiruba "I'm still getting settled, between raids and finding out what I really want to do in this place, this works, and is fun." Far better than anything that happened before with Hamelin at least.

She smiles, and twirls back to Atif. "Then I'll serve you a burger, fries and drink combo, nothing fancy, and you can put the condiments you want in it yourself." She writes it down on the paper and sets it down for the chef, picking up Goldenblade's plate on the way back "Yours is ready~" She sets it down at Golden's table.

Goldenblade nods to Atif about checking out the Crescent Burger finally. "About time," she says with a smirk. "I'll tell you, discovering that we can cook real food has just made this place a thousand percent more livable. For me, anyhow. I still want to get out, but for as long as we're stuck here, the food being real makes it .... not nearly as awful, you know?"

She smiles to Shiruba, "Hey!" and moves aside from the counter to make room for someone else to order, she'll take a seat with Atif, no reason to take up more tables, and sge grins as Reika comes by with her order. "Thanks!" She swirls a fry around in the gravy and mmmns beatifically as she eats it. "You folks who put ketchup on fries don't know what you're missing," she says.

    "Y-...yeah, that sounds good," Atif says with a brisk nod in response to Reika's suggestion-- right before breaking off to settling into the seat.

    Goldenblade's food brought over gets him a good look at waht he's going to be getting, and he... kind of squints at the gravy on it, and GB's own declaration. "Uh... What's wrong with ketchup...?" He asks with a tilt of his head, before he hears another familiar voice.

    Green eyes drift over towards Shiruba, then, and he perks up a little, waving a hand towards her. "Heeeey! Shiruba, hello!"

"Hey Goldenblade, Atif." Though Shiruba pauses a moment at what was said about fries and gravy instead of ketchup. She's not had that combination before and the thought tickles her foodie urges. She points at Golden as she turns to Reika. "That. What she said about fries and gravy, I want to try that... I mean, with a proper meal of course. Not just the fries."

Reika flits about, grinning at Shiruba "Hey, just a large portion of fries can be a meal too, but I guess you want a burger too." She nods, writing it down from the counter "Burger and gravy fries, a drink with that?" She smiles, putting the order with the cook in the back. She picks up the tray for Atif's order and brings it to the table "Here's the meal, and the condiments, and a little bowl of gravy if you want to try it too, since you're not familiar with it, maybe you'll like it hm?"

She smiles, turning back to the counter, making the maid costume lift again at the bottom. She seems to be in far better spirits than her episode at Hamelin at least, more energized. "So what's been going on around the place? I must admit that I was blindsided by anything not guild related for a while."

Goldenblade smirks at Atif and his question about ketchup. "Nothing's /wrong/ with it, not as such. But it's a /distant/ second best. You may as well ask why you want ice cream when there's perfectly good mud around." She laughs, scoops up gravy on a fry, offers it to Atif. "It's just a much ... fuller flavor. Ketchup is one-dimensional, gravy is like a rainbow next to a black-and-white pencil sketch." She peers at Shiruba and grins, giving her a big thumb's up.

She admits to Reika, "I've done a bit of adventuring, but I've kind of been a bit out of touch, too. Doing some of the quests around town, but you've got to do so many of them to make enough money for real food." Because they're totally starter quests and don't pay much. But she's kind of clueless about the whole quest organization thing.

    "... I don't know if we have had the same ketchup..." Murmurs Atif with a suspicious squint sent over to GOldenblade's way. "But wahtever you say..."

    When Reika brings over his order, his eyes light up, and he's immediately dipping a fry into the provided gravy. "I'll give it a try! THank youuuu."

    While he chomps off a whole fry, dripping with gravy, he considers Reika's question for a moment before shrugging. "I would say I'm keeping busy... But, uh... I am one of the few people who missed the tournament and the race and... you know..."

Shiruba thumbs up. "Sounds good!" She wanders over to join Goldenblade and Atif at the table. No reason in going off to sit by herself. "Take it at your own pace, Golden, it's the best way to avoid being overwhelmed... but you will find quests with better rewards when you do start moving away from the starting areas."

Reika thinks about that "Oh yeah, I heard there was a tournament, but I don't think I belong there." She's not that much into fighting, she feels no need to measure her power to others, plus she's a backrow ninja after all. Best she can do is annoy others, not strike fear in them.

She smiles, leaning on the counter on her elbows as she listens to the chatting "I also needed some time to myself, after all that happened. I'm just glad to put this behind me now." She had to play the role of villain to help out the newbies after all. Lying and deceit is not weapons she's proud of using.

Goldenblade eats her own gravy-fry since Atif's got his own, and sighs as the conversation comes around to the tournament. "Yeah," she sighs. "I was in that. I got beat in the first round. I thought I'd done well in the last boss fight, so I was hoping to, y'know, do a bit better. But it turns out I'm not very good after all." Heavysigh.

She ohs at Shiruba about quests with better rewards. "What? Why, that doesn't make any sense. Who lives out in the wildnerness to give you quests?" Because she totally does not understand MMOs at all. She says to Reika, "I don't know that front or back rankers did better, to be honest. It's a bit confusing how it all works, I think." -She's- confused anyway. Maybe it's just her?

    "I wasn't really planning on participating in the first place," admits Atif with a slow shrug. "I'm not... really into fighting other people unless I have to." He says this with arms and legs that were clearly built with martial harm in mind, but nevermind that. "But I didn't even get to watch because I'm a doofus."

    His gaze wanders over to Reika, though, over soemthing she said. "After all that happened...?" He repeats in a low murmur, crimson brows knitting together in a faint sign of concern.

"Me either," Shiruba replies to Atif. "PvP has it's place in a MMO, but it's place isn't mine. I'd rather be out exploring and hunting monsters and stuff."

"Not quite like that Golden. More like getting quests that go farther away and face bigger challenges, or tougher monsters," she patiently explains to the newer player.

Reika smiles to Goldenblade "Don't worry about that losing, you learned things, right? Plus it could have been a bad matchup, or luck wasn't on your side. If you feel you lost because of your skill alone, then you should strive to improve what you lacked, that's true for anything you do." She points at herself "You don't think an idol got everything done easy on the first try either, do you? Compared to other celebrities, I'm not much at all."

She nods to Atif "You might not have heard about it, but I was part of Hamelin, and played a role in their disbanding. It wasn't pretty." She sighs. She looks over her shoulder, and scurries over to get Shiruba's plate over to her table "All done~"

Goldenblade shrugs about participating in the tournament. "It wasn't really about fighting people out of spite. I just wanted to see how I stack up against other people. Turns out I don't stack up very well. I guess that's fair, but I was hoping to do better than I did. The guy I fought pretty much took everything I could put out and I couldn't take what he had going on. I was outmatched, but I'm still a bit mad at myself. I thought I had a better grip on things in this world than I guess I do."

She ohs as Shiruba explains about quests and challenges, and says, "I guess I'll have to learn how to do those. When they've offered me quests where I don't know where they want me to do, I've just been declining them."

She nods to Reika, and says, "I've learned a bit, I guess. The matchup wasn't very good because he was a lot better than me," she says with a wry smirk. "I could have /totally/ beaten someone that wasn't very good. But yeah, I'm trying to learn as much as I can."

    Atif purses his lips slightly at Reika, before tipping his head silghtly. "... I didn't hear a great deal abotu that," he admits. "But... for whatever it's worth, I'm sorry. I'm glad to see you're doing well enough in spite of everything, too."

Shiruba taps a hand to her chest. "Don't be afraid to ask more experienced people to help you find places to go. That's one of the advantages of belonging to a Guild and having access to those resources, along with your own friends."

And then Reika brings her food. "Thank you~" Immeadiately she goes for snatching up several fries, sloshing them in the gravy, and chomping down. "Mmmm~.. That's a good idea, Golden. It's a bit richer for flavor." She munches the rest of the fries after another dunk, and grabs the burge. "Oh, Reika. Can I get a meal to go, too? Kaydon's been super focused on his blacksmithing lately, I should make sure he remembers to eat something appropriately to keep his strength up."

Reika nods to Shiruba "Of course~" She writes it down on her notepad again "Let us know when you're ready to go, we'll have it ready just before you leave to it stays warm and fresh." She grins.

She nods to Atif "It's appreciated, but nothing to be sorry about. It was in good part my fault, fur trusting the wrong people. It's for my redeeming I'm here. I've always loved making people smile, that didn't change. But it was a situation that noone smiled, so I did my best to resolve it. I'm just looking for new ways of bringing smiles now." She pinches the sides of her dress and curtsies like a maid should "Even if it means wearing costumes and playing waitress. It's infinitely better than what Hamelin did to them."

Goldenblade huhs as Atif mentions not know ing about Hamelin to Reika, and she says, "I don't know anything about that, either, I guess. There's so much in this game I don't know about, I don't even know where to start asking, I guess." She nods to Shiruba, "Yeah, I guess I should. It's .... I'd never even really planned to stay in the game to play, it was just a cheap way to meet people that lived far away, and a bit better than phonecalls. Being able to see them and all. Never planned on getting stranded, obviously... I've got no real idea what I'm doing here, I just follow along where I can."

She grins as Shiruba praises the gravy on fries, "I know, right?" At the mention of Kaydon, she says, "You know anything about his new project? I was helping him with the steel, and then silence. I was hoping to learn a bit so I could make stuff for myself, too." She boggles at Reika, and ohs. "It was that bad? Ugh, maybe I'm better off clueless?"

    Whatever concern might have been left in Atif's features, fades away pretty quickly by the time Reika has finished saying her piece, ending with the cute curtsy. "...Yeah," the Red Salamander breathes out, with a smile stretching out over his lips that might be much smaller than his usual one -- but all the mroe sincere and warmer for it. "As long as there is a true smile, right? I'm glad for people like you."

    Beat.

    "Ernh... Because of what you want to do, not because of the--" He waves his hand in front of his face briefly and looks away. "...Nevermind."

Shiruba shrugs her shoulders. "I don't know, I'm guessing the success with the steel really inspired something. It is a little weird he'd focus so hard on that, though. I'm not a crafter beyond drawing up maps so..." The wolfgirl shakes her head and resumes munching on her burger.

Reika giggles softly "No offense taken. This is just for fun as well. Next time I might be dressed as something else. I had to do things like this for modeling and commercials, it's not that special for me, but it's fun for the others. Gwen is working on swimsuits too, I'll likely be modeling those too eventually. When the weather gets warmer anyway."

She smiles to Goldenblade "It just wasn't pretty, no. The higher ranks were using the newbies as stepping stones to farm their Experience Points, and abusing of the crafters to fill the coffers. It's more detailed than that, but we don't need to think about it too much, just a reminder left for other guilds on what they shouldn't do. They got severe retribution after all."

Goldenblade peers sidelong at Atif as she eats her burger and fries with gravy. She's lost track of what the conversation's about now. To Shiruba, she says, "He mentioned there being more he needed to research before he could make anything -with- the special steel we managed to create, and I wanted to help with it, but ... that's all I know, either. I'm a bricklayer by trade, not a weaponsmith. Ask me about building things, I can maybe help."

She erks as Reika explains about the situation, and nods slowly. "That does sound like a bad situation," she agrees. "It's good you're out of it, in any event. Everything I've seen from here has been pretty ... well, decent, well-organized, and civil. But I haven't seen the bad parts, really."

"Fortunately, other than the deal with Hamelin, the 'bad parts' seem to be small and less organized." Pause. "Well other than the whole whatever got us here in the first place." Shiruba shrugs a little and resumes eating her meal. She's accepted this as home for the time being, so she doesn't really refer to it as being 'stuck' any more. "May as well make the best of the time we spend here, right? May not of been planned, but we've got a whole world to explore. People to meet. Stuff like that."

    Atif gives a little akward laugh on his own part, akwardly rubbing at his neck. "Well... As long as you enjoy it too, right?" He rumbles, face briefly flushed over before he focuses on his food, finally. The burger's taken in two hands - in the kind of grip that speaks a lot of his own inexperience with the particular dish - and he takes a BIG old chomp of it. ... ANd thanks to the particular way he's holding it, the patty damn near goes flying out the backside of it. "--Ah!"

Reika nods at that "Of course, it's all about having fun... it might have become reality, but it's still a game. We'll have to live here, want it or not, it doesn't need to be all doom and gloom. We just gotta play with the cards we're dealt."

As the patty slips away, she brings some napkins to clean up, not wanting to touch someone's food but making sure they can clean it up well enough.

"I'm trying to make the best of my time here myself. I made some mistakes, but I pick myself up and keep trying. Better than the alternative of sitting down and waiting for things to happen. Take your destiny in your own hands, you could say, whatever may happen."

Goldenblade nods at what Shiruba says. "That's right. We're stuck with this situation for the moment, all we can do is make the best of our current situation." She smirks at Atif's inexperience with burgers, and advises him, "Hold the back, pinch just a bit to keep it from spilling out that way, then you can eat more of your meal than you wear."

She echoes Reika's words about making the best of our situation. "That's pretty much it," she agrees. "I mean, I know zilch, and I think I'm not doing -too- badly, all things considered."

    "...Sorry abotu that," Atif mumbles when Reika brings the napkin over, and sheepishly takes it to clean things up. And at least makes a token effort in getting things back together for... you know, actually eating.

    "...Well, it's not like I wasn't spending a lot of time here to begin with," the Salamander confesses then. "But either way. THe sun comes up again eventually, doesn't it? We just gotta try to be as bright as we can, ourselves, in the meantime."

Shiruba winces when Atif almost ruins his burger by letting it slip away from him. "Hold a little closer to the bottom with one hand, it'll keep it pinched together and not slip loose."

Reika smoothes the maid dress a bit, smiling "That's it, keep positive." Everyone has different situations, comparing their real lives to this game might be very different for them after all. For Reika it's almost the same, except for the bad things that happened of course.

"Meanwhile I'm helping where I can. Whether it's the restaurant or the raids. Even if it's only a little contribution, I feel it's important that I am part of it. Part of this world." She lets Shiruba do the teaching. Everyone has to work hwo their bodies work in this world.

Goldenblade grins at Atif, and says, "You're doing fine. My kids had trouble with their first hamburgers, too." She sounds amused, grinning as Shiruba adds more advice. She nods at what Reika says about doing what she can. "The same with me. I'm helping where and as I can. It's what we can do to benefit everyone."

"Yep, that's the kind of spirit we need." Shiruba works on the rest of her fries, glopping them with plenty of gravy. "This may be more than just a game now, but the only way to lose is to give up." Then nom nom fries. And picks up her drink. "You can get that to go order ready Reika. I'll head out shortly so I'm not on the road longer than necessary."

    "This isn't the kinda food I'm used to eating..." Murmurs Atif, still soudning sheepish, though he smiles a bit with the advice and encouragement given, at least.

    "That's how it should be, shouldn't it?" He poitns out to Reika, after another (much more successful!) bite taken out of the burger. "People doing things for the people aroudn them. Helping out. ... Making sure everyone can smile."

Reika nods to Shiruga "Yup, give us a few minutes to get it done~" Nothing like hot food after all, don't want it to have too much time to cool off. She passes the word to the cook so he gets started, turning back toward the counter as the others talk.

"Making people smile sounds easy, but we were in a tough situation at first. It's mentaly straining to have your world suddenly change. SOme people adapt more quickly, but eventually everyone will be up to speed that this is the reality we have to work with. The game doesn't even allow us to simply give up and die either. You gotta live with it."

Goldenblade nods at what Shiruba says. "You only lose when you stop trying. Everything else is a temporary setback." She smiles to Atif, agrees, "That's definitely how it should be." She quirks a brow at the type of food, and wonders to Atif, "What do you normally eat?" She agrees with Reika, "It was complicated and unsettled at first, but it feels now things are actually ... well, not working out for the best, but as well as we're able, given the circumstances."

Shiruba sits back with her drink while waiting. There are people in her Alliance that would probably start a speech about how they have to accept this world to survive in it, that's not Shiruba's style. She'd lived with overbearing views for far too long to try and impose in any way on others. "We all find our own ways to do what needs to be done," is all she has to say instead. Nods to Reika. "No rush, better it be done proper than be done fast."

    "I know," Atif allows with a quiet sigh. "But it's the best we can try for either way, right? It might be small things, or it might be big things... but as far as I'm concerned, it's a worthwhile endeavour nonethless." He gives a big, cheerful smile with that... even though the effect of it might be lessened a bit by the fact that there's some sauce dripping down his chin. Burgers make for messy eating.

It doesn't take too long for Kaydon's meal to be ready to go, she brings it in a bag for Shiruba to carry out "Tell him to get out of his work and come see me too sometimes. All work and no play makes for a dull warrior after all." She has to thank him for his help saving her that time too. He was at the forefront of the fight.

"And if you have ideas for dresses to wear to serve up here, I'll consider them." She grins palyfully.

Goldenblade nods vehemently to Shiruba. "That's a very good point. Better to do a thing right the first time than to do it over." She says to Atif, "The best you can do is to do your best, that's always the case. I think people are really trying, though. We've pulled together pretty well, I think, from what I've seen. I was with the group that fought the second floor boss. Everyone pulled together as far as I could tell." She adds in to Reika's comment, "Let him know there's other crafters that want in on the steel projects, too."

Shiruba laughs a bit, and nods. "Will do." She takes out the coin to pay for the meals, and picks up the to-go order. "I'll see the rest of you later." She waves briefly as she makes her way out.

Goldenblade yawns as mention of a to-go bag is made. "And I need to sleep, I think. It was nice talking with everyone else again." She rises, bows, and departs.