Duty Session 114: Bun-Bun Festival

Outside of Alne - and thus, of interest to Plant Hwyaden - is a little set of tents and pavilions. Those who play many old-style MMOs know the type. Every so often they fire an event.

Whiskey Sour had some guesses as to the events - little dailies or tasks.

"Okay, everyone. Remember. We're going to do this until we get it, okay? It fires every time the sun goes down, so just... Do whatever they ask, okay?"

Down in the pavilion, the sun dips low, and activity booms. One of the Landers wearing a large hat claps towards the trio approaching. "Alright! This way!" He motions towards the gathered Adventurers. "We need to plant these herbs as quickly as we can. The smell of them summons the bun-buns!"

A few NPCs start interact-handing at the ground near some patches of dirt.

Whis, rolling up her sleeves, grabs a handful of herb bushels. "For a druid? This'll be easy. Herbology is my specialty."

Summoning a small gust of wind, Whis just throws all the plants into it and chops with her hand, sending the herbs into her full allowtment of plots. It's not clean - but it is very fast.

Count V is here because he was asked to be here-- he hadn't been paying attention to the event outside of Alne, for whatever reason. Perhaps he's just lethargic from how cold it got. Either way, he did require minimal prodding to get him out here in the first place.

A little bobbing ball of fire -- three, actually -- circle him at a reasonable distance, evidently arranged to keep him from getting too cold.

"As you wish." He replies to Whiskey, bowing theatrically.

The instructions of the Lander elicits raised eyebrows, but no objections.

"Um." He is not actually good at this.

Raising his staff, he points towards some of the herb bushels and calls, "Terra Farma?!"

That was /suspiciously/ more like a question th an an actual spell.

The herbs plant themselves quickly anyway, a little cleaner than Whiskey's but measurably slower. He probably gets about half as much done by comparison.

It just requires the laziest, smallest amount of effort he could muster.

He admits to Haseo and Whiskey, "I can't believe that actually worked."

"Rabbit farming? Pffft. Yeah, sure. Not like I've got anything better to do with my time."

Non combat quests for Haseo were always a chore. Partially because he was expected to pay attention to Lander dialogue, and secondly because he cannot use raw combat stats to make it a trivial matter. He needed skill monkey stats, and he's no skill monkey, he's a big strong boy who plays MMOs the way they were intended.

But he PROMISED he'd be a good boy, so he's just gonna grin and bear it... By worthlessly messing around with piles of dirt like some sort of lost toddler. Man, farming is /stupid/.

"You mean bun-buns, right, Haseo-kun?" Whis asks sweetly, having picked a different moniker for poor Haseo now that Ha~seo~sem~pai~ has been VERBOTEN. "See, Count V even knows magic spells for it, you're just kicking the piles with your foot and eating the herbs." She accuses, not having the opportnity to see the 'I cannot believe that worked' because of kohai booli'ing Haseo.

"You don't have anything better to do than help *me*, because *I* am working on a gigantic project in the workshop and I need materials that I heard this event drops. So... Kick the dirt better? Please?"

Little fuzzy balls of Deformed Rabbit joy, attracted to seasonal events and stupid herbs, start bouncing in. Sproing. Boing.

Most of them go for the packs of herbs in the ground set by the landers, Whis, and Count V, but since Haseo didn't do a great job -- they're mostly after him, who still has his passle of herbs.

"Herd them, Haseo! Into the cages!" Whis calls, chasing mutie rabbits with a reinforced butterfly net and a determined Minigame Look in her eyes.

Count V observes the bullying in silence, tempted to say something, but deciding to follow generations of school authority figure tradition and do absolutely nothing.

That is, until the bun-bun start to rush Haseo! Having no real ability with handling animals (as opposed to monsters, which are very different sorts of creatures), he instead elects to engage in-- some fancy magic! He turns his staff horizontally and strikes it with the opposite hand.

A ringing emanates into the surroundings for a moment, until a series of zigzagging lights manifest and produce a... piano? Yes, a piano constructed of light and shadow comes into being, darkness seeping out of V's eyes to fill in the flat and sharp keys and overall body of the structure.

The earth juts up slightly in a cylindrical form, offering V a seat. He sits down, and begins to play Fly Me To The Moon.

It's a pretty good performance!

"Yeah. Yeah. I'm TRYING."

This is so dumb. Virtual pet keeping is so god damn dumb! Whisky's right though, he should try harder. For the loot, because loot is always good.

Being directed to deal with the bun buns (rabbits), Haseo deals with the furry critters in the best possible manner. There's a lot of shouting and cursing, followed by vague threats of physical violence, but somehow, Haseo is able to corral a few back into their cages.

Corralling the Buns with threats of violence is fairly successful overall, because Haseo's phenomenal gorilla power can just force the issue with more than the power of his voice.

He can use the power of elbow grease to really get those rab-bits into their cages. It's only accellerated by the fact that Count V sets up like the Songstrel Spriggan of Alne, distant relative of the Pied Piper, and set the whole stage to a swaying tune. Bun-Bun's calm with the invocation of the moon, and are easily rolled by the Landers into cages while wearing content little sleeping faces.

The Lander Leader speaks up again, lifting his hat to reveal a large colorful egg. "It's E G G T I M E!" Kind of a spooky vibe actually. "Collect the eggs for prizes!" He continues. Lander children start diving in among the herb patches and the like and cheer when they find gifts.

It's down to this, Plant Hwyaden: You must conquer the children's hopes and dreams for your loot. Finish the quest, here and now! Bully children for drops!

Whis pulls the netting off the top of her staff and daps it into the earth. "I've got just the thing --" Sparkles of sunlight that look suspiciously like Interactable Item sparklies begin to hover over the eggs. "Haseo, grab them while I focus!"

As soon as the song ends, Count V seizes his staff and the rest of the magical construct disappears. He lays the focus across his lap, crossing his legs as he does so. He follows up on Whiskey Sour's strategy for the eggs, gesturing a hand towards Haseo, who feels a sudden gust of wind beginning to build at his back.

"I'm going to give you a boost of speed along an optimal route. Ready? Three... two... one..."

In the end, Count V uses a combination of buffs, Whiskey's already-present Interactable Sparklies, and laziness to make sure that, really, Haseo does all of this exhausting physical work.

"Hmm... this is awfully western, isn't it? I suppose that's nothing new in games, but still. They could at least make some of the eggs little moons, don't you think?" He complains, trivially.

Gorilla power saves the day when it comes to getting a bunch of dumb furry animals back to where they belong. And gorilla power will also save the day when it comes to... Finding eggs. So maybe it won't, but through complex mental gymnastics, one could say that looking real hard is just being a gorilla with your eyes.

Along with the support of both Whiskey and Count V. Haseo eventually returns with eggs. A lot of eggs. So many eggs, that the kids probably found next to none.

Good, screw those kids, these are their eggs.

"Piece of cake. Might as well be taking candy from a baby, which is fine by me."

"You literally took candy from babies, so, yes. I finally understand that saying now. Because that was incredibly easy." Whis agrees, luxuriating for a moment with her staff across her shoulder and her fingers laced behind her head, elbows butterflying out in a stretch.

"Between your thug instinct, my perfect plan, and V's support, we have dominated the children.

The Lander Leader calls the party over to the prep table for the banquet. "Now, you've been a big help, so, could you help finish the banquet? Any of you a deft hand with a knife?"

You can feel a set of progress bars. Or, more specifically, you can hear the 'dish burning in Overcooked' warning sound happening in six places across the outdoor prep pavilion.

Whis immediately dives in, but only because she's totally enraptured by a big bubbling tub of some hot cider-like drink.

"This smells great! Go, uh, fix the other stuff?"

She starts sampling and spooning spices in to kick up the cider, and remains indisposed for other help.

Count V is asked to do some cooking. He says, "Uhhh...."

Before being effectively pressganged into it anyway. This turns out to be a mistake, because he winds up getting bored and deciding that the stew has inadequate ingredients. Searching his inventory, he finds some mushrooms.

Into the stew they go, with a little pop and a puff of smoke as they emerge from his inventory.

Everyone who eats the stew later will come down with a mild case of food poisoning. It smells and tastes alright before that, though!

V does not eat the stew he helped with.

He wanders over to Whis after managing to ruin things forever. There is no pretense that he's helping, though...

"Trust me, it won't end well. I'm just here for a drink when you're done." He asides.

To the both of them, he adds on the subjects of stealing from babies, "I wouldn't be surprised if there was a secret objective to hand out eggs to those who didn't get any. This sort of thing is supposed to be more fun than competition, isn't it?"

Things are looking up for Haseo. The game is rewarding him for his brutish tendencies. How could things possibly go wrong? Him openly admitting he is fine with bullying lander children is probably the start. The second is that he needs to help with food prep.

The guy who mostly goes out to eat or makes extremely basic crap at his apartment in Tokyo. Great. Well, he's avoiding cooking outright, the last time he tried that some dogs nearly mauled him. So he'll just stick with hunting? How hard could that be? Just beat up some stupid virtual animals for meat....

...

It wasn't easy. It was painful. A lesson was learned that apparently, no, you cannot just charge an animal with a giant sword and expect to easily catch it. Not at his level, anyway.

Whis is capable of making a Decent Cider, having actually saved it from being Bland Hot Fruit Drink with a curated set of additions of spices to bring up the heat and warmth of the beverage. Peels and such sit at the bottom of the basin it's being heated in, for flavor, variants of apple primarily but with some citrus-analogues as well.

Whis starts adding a smoking line of inky-black powder that visibly fizzes a second after it spreads into the mixture, producing a purple smoke. Whis looks over the concoction eagerly.

Count V has a mug of it drawn by Whis, before she draws a mug herself, sipping at hers without a single iota of fear.

The flavor profile is as if hot mulled cider tasted a bit fermented, with a nasal haze of mildly stimulating purple marker smell. Refreshing, and more all, piping hot and insides-warming. The fact that it also eliminates fatigue and gives you a buff to acuitiy and a pleasant headfeel is pure extra.

The Landers pile in to finish preparing Pork vin Grugcalibur and ?Mystery? Stew, plating and serving a feast for everyone to dig in with of candy and delicious meats and rich salads with cheese. A winter banquet with a rather odd but enjoyable cider.

Unfortunately then everyone starts getting sick, stumbling around and puking in the holes because of a combination of chemical additives and violent food poisoning.

Whis continues to sip her mug near the prep area, watching with tired eyes. "Wonder when we get our loot?" She muses, continuing to drink deeply from her own creation. Until...

Thunk...
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
A kaiju roar: 'EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEGG'

A terrible lunar avatar with big swollen rabbit fists stoops under the festival overhang, muscled arms dragging heavy knuckles against the ground as barrel chest heaves with overactive breath. Beady black eyes peer into the colorful light of the festival grounds, warped nose sniffing.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEGG." It howls, rearing back on stunted digitgrade legs and roaring a challenge.

Whis turns towards the back area of the prep zone. "You two go ahead and blow that up, I'm going to find the rewards guy to get paid, okay? Lets fight-ting." She deadpans, pumping her mug-holding arm with a slosh to cheer the boys on.

Count V attempts to quietly signal to Haseo and Whis that they are Not To Consume The Stew, but he doesn't get loud enough about it to draw too much attention. Whether they see his mouthings or not, is nearly entirely chance.

He's standing near Whiskey, nursing a mug of her cider when the Were-Bun actually turns up. Blinking owlishly, he looks from his cider to the Were-Bun and back again. Unfortunately, people who are not drinking the cider are reacting to the thing, so it quickly becomes clear that it isn't a hallucination.

//You two go ahead and blow that up//

Before Whiskey is even done speaking, Count V uses his free hand to direct his staff with a pleasantly hazy, "Nightmare Sphere.", which promptly preps the EVENT BOSS to be savaged twice as hard by Haseo's ludicrous solo murder build.

Frowning, Count V tucks his staff under his arm and navigates to his BUFF DISPLAY.

"Oh."

He looks at the duration.

"I'm going to be awake for a while, huh?" He wonders to himself.

Hunting may not be solvable by raw violence, but were-rabbits can. Though, wait...

"Were-rabbit? Not a were-bun bun??? Whatever." Confusion aside, Haseo deals with this problem the same way he deals with everything.

A massive, plain looking sword is thrown with superhuman force towards the rabbits stomach, embedding itself deep inside the creature's virtual gut before Haseo runs up to grab it.

"Gut Ripper!" There's a chesire like grin as he firmly grasps the hilt with both hands, dragging the weapon through the monster's insides before pulling it out.

Some may call what they did extra, especially with two other party members to help, but that's part of the fun of playing a game on top of watching numbers go up.

Besides. It's not like the Landers are going to freak out about Haseo's BRUTAL MONSTER MURDER. They're just going to reward him. They better reward him.

"Well. If you can't sleep, loitering in town is always an option? Not my problem. Got my stuff."

Between the immense debuff of the Dark spell Nightmare Sphere twisting and trapping the Were-BunBun in a microsingularity, the roaring continues. It struggles against the shadowy bond and distortive force. It lunges, shoulders popping as it heaves its chest out into---

Haseo's Gut Ripper.

The world goes black, but for a cheshire grin, two amber eyes, and a puff of purple smoke. A 'gsssht' of sword-slash leaves a red V etched into the chest of the monster. When light resumes as the Nightmare Sphere ends, the Were-BunBun explodes in a fountain of gore...

And... candy?

Whis arrives, dragging a fistful of party favor bags behind her. "Already done? Cool. Let's get out of here. I grabbed some extra favor bags for the both of you. Nice fighting."

She signs half a heart over her chest, because she's using the other hand to carry bags. This is a half-heart quest.

But it's over, and successful.