Duty Session 116: Bun-Bun Festival

    Everything is ready for the traditional celebratory banquet just outside town: the farm area looks a bit like a quaint old village with thatch roof houses; a long stretch of tables set in a circular shape, covered with white cloth; the circle does not quite close, with barrels of (almost certainly fermented) beverage placed at the gap in the "O". In the middle of the circle, someone has set up a spit for roasting something that looks a lot like boar. A short distance away, Landers are hoisting the traditional gagged and tied bard onto the branch of a nearby tree.

    Nobody is quite sure of how this tradition started, but hey. It's tradition now.

    Uta approaches the table, already rubbing her hands and licking her lips. "This was a /ridiculously/ long day, but man! It's finally over and I /do not want/ to think about it anymore." She shudders. "Anyway! Time to stop thinking of monsters in bunny hats, and why monsters would wear bunny hats in the first place, and focus on happy thoughts instead." She sniffs in. A long, drawn sniff, followed by a satisfie exhale. "Oooh, yah. It smells like the food is being cooked /properly/! Oh, yes. This is going to be /good/."

Jazz does not want to beq here. In fact, she's already been through the festival rigamarole once before and sheq didn't much like it then, either. She's twitchy and unhappy, but then, when isn't she unhappy? Has anyone ever seen Jazz smile? Much? At all?

In any event, she's hear because Uta asked her to be here, and thus, she's along for the ride, staring at the food.

"No, it won't," she muters under her breath in opposite to UTa's delight.

    "Helllooooooooooooo!"

    The familiar, cheerful voice resounds from just behind Uta and JAzz both, before a red blur moves up right past them. Ending up on the opposing side of Uta from Jazz, there's suddenly one (1) Atif leaning over forward, halfway above the table of the FEAST to give a bright-smiled peek at both of them. "I thought I heard your voices here! I'm glad there's someone I already know here, too! I was worried I was the only person in my circle who came here."

    "Oh, c'mon, Jazz! When was the last time you engaged in what you thought it was a perfectly harmless and enjoyable activity and it actually turned into a jet of sewage hurled at terminal velocity towards a rotational ventilation devices? Never, that's when. Because such things never happen!"

    "Atif!", Uta beams. "Fancy meeting you here. Look, Jazz, it's Atif! See? More friends. Now that there's three of us, we can-"

    "This way!", a Lander calls out. "We need to plant these herbs as quickly as we can. The smell of them summons the bun-buns!"

    "...engage in a game of... speed agriculture?" Uta wonders, with a puzzled frown. "...Is this one of those 'Farmville Invites' I keep hearing about from my computer-using friends?"

    Uta, nonetheless, gets up, flicks her menu open, materializes her staff in a shimmer of light, takes the herbs as offered, and sets into a circular folk tune, whose melody resonates with the staff, causing its gem to light in different colors with the notes, and different points of the handle to do likewise, in different positions depending on the pitch.

    Stab Earth with magical staff, drop herb, wait until hole magically re-closes around herb, repeat. All while walking and singing.

"...not long ago, you realize," replies Jazz to Uta with a disappointed and somewhat annoyed sigh. Her own magic makes the planting fairly easy for her, but the ground is a bit harder than it was the last time she was here and thus requires more of her agitated concentration.

Still, she managqes, coaxing the herbs to hbe absorbed into the earth and planted appropriately for the bun-bun-hordes yet to come.

"Just ... go with it, Uta. Just go with it."

    "What are the chances that's going to happen *again* though?" Asks Atif with a wide, cheerful smile. Nevermind that the chances are... actually pretty decent, considering the game itself. "We're here to have fun either way. It'll be great! We'll get food after!"

    Always so positive. So cheerful.

    Even if he does send a visibly bemused look at Uta over a particular thing she's said. "Farmvi-... N-no, it's just a different kind of activity," he explains, reaching over to give an encouraging pat of his hand to her shoulder. "Just follow the instructions, it'll be fiiiine~."

    And he certainly gets well enough into it. He *clearly* doesn't have any experience in working with plants, in real life or in the game, but that doesn't damper his mood at all. He makes up for lack of experience with his eagerness instead, using those scaled hands to dig up holes for the plantings. Even getting his hands dirtied up doesn't seem to bother him!

    The collective efforts of the participants, and elemental Earth contribution of our three adventurers in particular, ensure a proper olfactory experience.

    And then, they appear.

    One twitching nose. Two twitching noses. Eight round, beady eyes. Fifteen little forehead horns.

    Not all of them on a single bun-bun, of course! It's just that more and more of them approach the herbs: still, sniffing, hopping closer, sniffing again...

    "Alright, that's our signal!", the Leader calls out, pointing at a seet of wooden cages and pens made of wire and wood, prepared in advance. "Let's round them up as many as we can!"

    "They're about one hundred billion, give or take!", exclaims Uta. And after a moment of puzzled silence and disbelieving stares from the nearby Landers, she offers an embarrassed, "...oh, not 'round them up' in that sense..."

    "If I have to do all this singing, might as well hydrate." She grabs a cup of whatever's on the table, chugs it down, and gets ready to rock. "...why the game bothers giving us sore throats is beyond me, but, hey, it's not like I get a choice."

    Eyes closed, straight stance, focused expression. She intones a magical melody, the kind of song one would expect Sirens to sing to lead Odysseus and his crew to their doom, if Odysseus and his crew were adorable bunny-like creatures. Hey, might be worth writing that one in for Circe's Suggestion Box!

Once again, Jazz finds herself busily snatching up buns. She's actually not terribly capable at this ,but it helps when you're capable of generating kelpy vines from the earqth to snatch buns and deliver the to you.

...which is what she does, more or less, while pacing back and forth and apparently not paying as much attention as she really ought to.

    "Oh my god..." Atif breathes out, when the HORDE comes rumbling through. It almost looks like he's shocked at the sight of it all, holding out a hand to the front of his mouth for a moment.

    But, inevitably, his eyes sparkle.

    "...They are so *cute*."

    And soon enough, the Salamander is eagerly jumping in, rolling through the ground and catching one bunny into his hands.

    "OH MY GOD LOOK AT YOU!" He coos out, ending up sitting on his butt on the ground with a bunbun held up in his hands just in front of him.

    "You're so SOFT!"

    It does not take long for Uta to give in to her playful instincts and impersonate the Pied Piper of Hamelin, leading whole groups of bun-buns to cages. She sometimes even takes her staff to her mouth, to mimic a flute. Jazz is similarly effective, even if in a more methodical and goal-oriented fashion.

    And then... and then there's Atif.

    "They /are/!", exclaims Uta, in agreement. "See, Jazz? Behold it. The Might of Cuteness. The power to liquify brains, to melt down defenses, to turn people into jibbering messes of nonsense! If only you could see it... realize it... let it flow through you..."

    All the buns are eventually placed in their appropriate containers, and the announcement comes. "Time to hunt some eggs!"

    Uta looks around. While most of them are not immediately visible, a few of them are visible: rounded masses, colorful, with strange, exotic patterns on them.

    "Uuuuuh....", Uta begins. "...unless this game does something really /weird/, with bun-buns, er... the round things rabbits leave behind are /not/ eggs."

Jazuhanzu just gives Uta a flat look.

A very flat look.

"Why, Uta. I'm sure I have no idea at all what you're implying there, because if I did, I might ve compelled to douse you in a whole lotta water outta nowhere at some inconvenient moment." She twitches slightly, looking around in a somewhat overly frantice effort to find eggs with the children.

It isn't really working all that well for her at the moment, you see. She's just too irritably distracted this go around.

    Atif is actually distracted for a good moment in just... playing with the bunbuns. Sure, he does do a good work of helping with herding them, but... occasionally he just gets caught up in revelling in the CUTENESS! of the bunbuns. And sometimes even hugging some right up to himself and nuzzling them.

    "So soooooooooooooooooooooft!"

    Yeah, he's a lost cause.

    But there's eggs. Eggs! ...He doesn't actually appear all that surprised though, in comparison to Uta.

    "It's a western thing, Uta," he offers in explanation. "You know, the whole story with like a mythical rabbit that carries chocolate eggs around and hides them for people to hunt down! So get huntiiiing! Here, I'll help--"

    His hand comes up, and light starts to glow along it. "I'll make them easier to se--" Unfortunately for him, the light suddenly FLASHES overwhelmingly brightly, and he YELPS from the sudden sear to his retinas, other hand coming up to press to his eyes. "OW OW OW OW THAT DIDN'T WORK!"

    ...He needs more practice with that stuff clearly.

Jazuhanzu just sort of looks at Atif for a long moment. That is not an ipressed look. It is the kind of look someone gets when someone else just let one rip loudly. In a church. When the pope is talking.

Her impatience is ... high at the moment, as is her restless pacing.

    Uta stares at Atif'. "...Suuuuuuure. /Chocolate/. Call it that way. I'm still not touching- ATIF!"

    Uta goes into full healer mode. She forgets about the egg hunt completely, flicks her menu open, materializes a bottle with a shimmer of light, and offers it to Atif. "Here. Try this potion of minor healing," she says, while she navigates to a different section of her menu to inspect her fren. "Let's see what you've got... and what kind of healing song is more appropriate for your aliment. Oh, before I proceed, though, I'll need you to fill out a form. Sorry, it's procedure."

    She materializes said 'form', which turns out to be hand-written on parchment. It's a questionnaire with entries like:

    * Are you allergic to specific musical genres or chord progressions? [ ] yes [ ] no
        If yes, which: ________

    * Have you undergone symphony in the last six months? [ ] yes [ ] no.

    * How many times a week do you:
        Shred hot guitar riffs ____
        Drop the bass ____
        Get down on the dance floor ____

    It finishes with the usual disclaimer, lines for date/place/signature, et cetera.

    "If you can't read, I can do it for you!", and in case Atif accepts the offer, she'll even proceed to do so.

    Once the egg hunt is over (and our heroes have performed rather poorly), a Lander's voice booms out, "Alright, you lot. Any of you a deft hand with a knife?"

    Those wild boar-like creatures apparently need to be treated, stuffed, spiced, cooked... and now it's up to the Adventurers again. Need a message delivered? Call the Adventurers. Is a burglar at your door? Call the Adventurers. Process your food? Adventurers! Need to wash the dishes? Adventurers! Do laundry? Adventurers!

    "...We have to do /that/ as well? I am starting to feel like I'm a household appliance for the landers. Kind of like of those dinosaurs in that American cartoon with the cavemen."

    Nevertheless, she'll do her best.

Jazz pinches the bridge of her nose and then turns to look at Uta, about to say something when the call for assistance to cook goes up. She dispenses liberally with the lightning blasts to help fry things faster. She doesn't hit anyone extra. Thankfully. She must be more precise than she looks with it in that case, since it *is* doing the trick.

She takes a moment, looks down at the ground. At her boots. At her very very, very worn boots. "...didn't GWen just fix these for me?" she asks, muttering more to herself than anything else.

    ATif looks bleary. And he has to squint his eyes ot be able to see much after accidentally nearly blinding himself.

    ...But apparently he is not so far gone as to not be giving a long, bemused stare at the parchment she's given him. Well, at least her hand-writing is better than that of most doctors'.

    "Um... I don't think this is necessary, I'm... I'm okay, honest..." Well, he is. Mostly. This entire series of events was just immensely embarrassing regardless.

    Oh, and the healing potion is happily downed, too.

    Well. With all of this, there's not going to be much eggs caught, is there? Perhaps it's just as well for Uta's sake. Atif probably figures he's never going to be able to convince her of them being chocolate.

    Either way! There's more cooking to be done! And the boars do need to be brought along for the actual cooking too, right?

    "Hey, we are here to help, right?" HE points out to Uta then, with a light nudge of his foot to her side. "Besides. Imagine how good it will be when they have *us* roast them. It won't be soggy cardboard! I'LL GET THE BOAR!"

    And without any further wanring, he's launched off into the woods. Salamander's off to hunting. And though it might take a little bit, he does eventaully emerge again, with a boar hoisted up over his shoulders.

    ...With his clothes torn here and there, dirt and bruises both smeared over his face and arms.

    "...Okay so it didn't go as smooth as I hoped." What HAPPENED there?! "But I brought the meat!"

    It's like a well-oiled assembly line. Atif manages to wrangle one of those boar-like creatures (probably already prepared for being roasted, because, game mechanic?), receiving Uta's compliments and inquiry about just /what happend/ out there. Jazz proceeds to zap it, or rather, since this is Jazz we're talking about, "electro-cute" it. As for Uta, she has relocated at the exact opposite side of the table, making tea.

    "...Ok, Uta. Don't panic. It's easy. It's just /tea/. It's nothing difficult. Pour ground leaves into bowl. Cover with boiling water. Wait. Piece of cake."

    Uta begins by tilting the teapot ever so slightly, so that just a few drops touch the ground leaves...

    Yes, you guessed right. There is an explosion, and a column of water /on fire/ shoots up in the air, far more water than the few drops that touched the herbs, heck, far more water that was collectively contained in all the teapots at the banquet!

    Uta simply stays there, staring, drenched in tea, flashing red to represent physical damage, as are the landers all around her. "...Nevermind guys, I guess back to healing I go. Oh, but before I do that, I'll need you to fill out a form. Sorry, it's procedure."

    "Papa, what is it?", a child asks, pointing at... /it/.

    The landers freeze, and all turn at the same time. "Oh no! It's the Were-Rabbit! Run!" Most of them do not even look at the humongous creature with large, floppy ears, fluffy fur, and pointy teeth. Oh, and a twitching button nose, of course. It's a must.

    Children are gathered, belongings dropped, the banquet abandoned as-is. Everyone with a hint of sanity ran for their lives.

    But our adventurers remained steadfast in place!

    Or, at least, Uta did. She had just healed the last Lander, when everyone fled the scene. "Wait, where are you go-"

    She turns. "...oh, /of course/. Something I am actually qualified to deal with, and it tries to murder me." A sigh. "What you now call failure, tomorrow you will call experience," declares Uta, eyes closed, chin tilted slightly upwards, index finger pointing up.

    And then she clutches her staff and starts running. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!", Uta screams. Even before reaching the monster, she starts slashing the staff in the air.

    Slash one, she hits a small can sitting on a table, and sends it flying towards the monster.

    Slash two, the staff catches onto a teapot's handle, now making it a teapot-staff combination.

    Step, step, step, leap! She flies in the air, turns, and using the teapot end of the staff, she SMASHES the can, which she has reached in the meantime, and whose lid had cracked open, spilling a few ground herbs.

    Ground tea hearbs.

    A burst of scalding hot brew explodes both ways, SLAMS an Uta who now glows full red to the ground, and keps her pinned there with a neverending stream of flaiming, boiling liquid. The jet headed the other way, however, proves more useful: hit right in the face, the Were-Rabbit staggers back, clawed paws scrambling to protect its not-as-adorable muzzle, but to little avail.

    "Quick, there's an opening! Hit it!", Uta would yell to her fellow adventurers if she could A) see B) speak and, most importantly, C) think.

    Instead, she just keeps flashing red and going "PBLLGLGLPBL..."

Jazz was prepared.

The last time she fought the were-rabbit, the damn thing about punted her to the moon. She's prepared this time, having had an inkling that it might show up again.

This content is sort of repetitive, after all! It's an MMO! That's how these things work! So she sneaks towards it, aiming to blast it from the back with a full gout of scalding water, only for Uta to blast it and distract it, at which point it starts flailing wildly like an angry beast and it's all she can do, as she sees its fist swinging towards her, is to throw up a bubble and ...

... get punted.

Her defense shield slows the impact enough to dplete its momentum, but you know, she still gets sent rolling end over end, crashing into a table and sliding to a ahlt in the dirt with an 'ow'. Oh well.

    Of course there has to be a were-rabbit. A wererabbit that is definitely not Wisteria.

    But for some reason, even Atif is left peering at this sight, with a long, bemused blink.

    "...Okay but why though."

    His bemusement on this distracts him long enough for Jazz and Uta both to wade in before him -- and thus, he's treated to the horror of Uta being reduced to flashing red and screaming incoherently, and Jazz getting sent flying into the tables.

    "AH! FRIENDS! NO!"

    The panioc doesn't persist in him for very long, thankfully. Even if Uta didn't manage to get her intended message through, he does still realize the presence of the opening there. The Salamander lowers himself into a stance like a wound-up spring, and locks his eyes onto the were-rabbit. ANd then POUCNES! With an explosion of fire at his feet that sends him flying forward, flames trailing behind him while all the more flames coat one upraised fist like an enormous fireball onto itself.

    "FEEL THE HEAT!"

    The fist collides with the Were-Rabbit's head, and the fire explodes into a storm of flames!

    ...Flames that end up licking the ground below, and embers that get scattered all across further. Fire catching onto grass, tables.. just everywhere.

    So much for the banquet they just spent hours preparing for the Landers.

    Flames roar, the banquet grounds turned into a roaring inferno. The place is a scorched mess, destruction and chaos reign in what is now a charred wasteland. The stream of burning tea has just stopped flowing, leaving Uta lying face-up, smelling herbal, drenched, and on fire.

    Don't ask.

    As far as the monster, well, it turns out that despite the unsettling appearance, it was actually a pretty easy one. HP chips away easily, stops often at egg gathering points... it even tossed up its paws and made a comical squeak of protest upon being defeated, before shattering into nothingness.

    Whoops, it seems like this was the kind of "easy mode" monster that could have been comfortably defeated by a newbie as well.

    The Landers crawl out of their hiding places, and look around. There is silence.

    "I, Mayor Leader," the authoritative lander from earlier finally says, "thank you Adventurers for your great service!" He makes a beckoning gesture towards his aides and they bring small wooden boxes which are delivered to each of the adventurers, no matter what uncomfortable position they might happen to find themselves in at the moment. In each box there is a set of bun-bun droppings, which would make fine materials for crafting projects.

    All other Landers, in the meantime, move back to the same place they were sitting at earlier, despite the whole table having been irreversibly damaged by the fire, as if nothing had happened. Either this is a buggy scripted event, or the Landers are being very, /very/ polite and giving the adventurers a chance to leave before anyone points out the obvious.