Some background

During the fight with that huge monster, Goldenblade got splattered with gore from the wound. So, afterward she slipped off when she could, having seen a stream nearby where she could wash up. The mail coat is pulled over her head and dumped by the edge of the nearby stream, where she kneels, using a cloth from her pack to was her face. With a water source closeby, it's a simple matter to menu wash, both her and the mail coat, but she's doing it all manually. Taking her boots and socks off, she wades in, then leans over to dunk her head. When she rises, she seems to be pretty much cleaned up. So she grabs the mail coat from the shore and drags it through the water. Hopefully before the gore has gotten sticky.

    Water's good for a lot of things. Cleaning is among them, and after being swarmed by insects nonstop and hacking the lot of them up with her blade, Amalthea's armor could use a bit of a washing too.
    "You're up early." It's an idle comment as the old Paladin makes her way to the water's edge. Dressed in a long, dark, tunic, it looks like she's already changed into something cleaner than her armor as she plunks her messy plating by the loamy earth at the edge of the stream.

Goldenblade wasn't so much worried about the bats and bugs, but the gore and such was pretty nasty and she says so. "But it's not my gore, so I can't complain too much, right?" She chuckles about being up early, and says, "That's a habit I can't easily break. Retirement didn't break it, why should this?" She offers a shrug, her own padded gambeson is slightly stained but not awful. It'll be fine until she can get to a town. "Though I'm still kind of baffled with what happened at the end of the fight, and after. Everyone seemed to understand, and no one would explain. But this is my first game, and I don't understand all the things the kids seem to take for granted. I wsa hoping you could explain it all. In small words." Senior solidarity.

    "Tell me about it." Amalthea says, scootching down to her knees as she pulls out the padding that goes under her armor for a good soak. "But you know what they say. Any battle you can walk away from..."
    While that's soaking, she starts taking an oiled rag to her armor plating to wipe that down.
    "It's my first game, too." She admits. "Mostly started logging in to keep in contact with my family, but it was pretty fun so I explored a little bit." She says. "Now here we are, stuck in a world that isn't our own, eh?" Mused as she purses her lips.
    "As for what happened last night, I only caught a little inkling." She admits. "Your best bet to find out more would be to ask Gwen, she seemed to have a better grasp of it. But it looked like one of the fundamental laws of the world was broken, from what she said."

Goldenblade's armor has no plating. It's barely armor. Very light, to compliment her fighting style, which relies more on not being in the way of attacks. She's not tough enough to just take the blow and laugh it off. She nods about logging in to keep in touch with the family. "My son said it'd be cheaper than train fare and they wouldn't have to sit for two hours each way to come visit. He was going to come on next weekend, but said I should jump in and familiarize myself with how it all worked before he got in. Now this..." She shrugs. "Well, he must have come to my house after ... I assume someone noticed that no one who logged in was logging out, and if I'm still here talking to you, that means he's not in the game, he's got me to a hospital or something, I guess, so that's two plusses there."

She nods about a little inkling about last night. "That's a little more than me," she quips. She nods about asking Gwen, and says, "All right, I'll ask her. She's given up on trying to dress me up, I think." She nods about fundamental laws of the world, and wonders, "If they broke it, it couldn't be as fundamental as all that, could it?"

    It's a contrast compared to Amalthea's armor. Heavy plating and chain. And then there's that wall that she likes to call a shield. Amalthea may not look like she's built to take hits out of her armor, but the old tank's at least picked up on how to do her job properly. Nevertheless she nods.
    "It made things easier. We still liked to visit each other a lot out of the game, but it made the day-to-day distance more tolerable."
    Nevertheless she continues polishing down an armor plate.
    "It felt... Wrong." She says after a beat. "I'm not that well versed in the lore of the game world. But I think an equivalent example would be if something bent the theory of gravity over a knee." She considers. "It's like I just felt it in my gut that something was very Not Right, you know?"

Goldenblade has managed to get her armor cleaned mostly up, and didn't even need the wire brush. Good to get it before it sets. She nods about the game being easier to communicate. "Yeah, that was our plan, too," she says, agreeing about the distance. She sighs, pours water over her head and slaps her cheeks. "Well, I'm here now, and it's, if nothing else, easier to get around. No cane, no stopping after a block to catch my breath."

As far as it feeling wrong, she can only look on, perplexed. "I didn't feel anything, myself. Not that I could identify. Not that I could tell from the sensation of being covered in that monster's blood." She winces about gravity being off, and sighs, "I mean, I've been on roller coasters, I know about high G's and such. That'd be a big, noticable difference, I think."

    Now that gets a chuckle. "Tell me about it. No more bad back or reading glasses, right?" Amalthea says, lips curling into a lazy smirk. "I feel like I'm back in my prime again." But then she shakes her head.
    "It's... It's not the same." She manages after a moment, smirk turning into a deep frown. "I've been on roller coasters too and it's nothing like experiencing G-forces." Murmured as she pauses in the act of oiling down her armor. "It was like." There's a momentary struggle to put her thoughts to words. "Like something about it was just antithetical to what is 'right'." Hm.
    "It was just a gut feeling though." Added after a beat as the old Odysseia Knight shakes her head. "This isn't much of a game anymore. We're stuck in this new world and have to live by its rules. And I wouldn't be surprised if there was some kind of crazy magic out there that could break those rules like we experienced last night."

Goldenblade grins despite herself. "Ah, my back hasn't bothered me once since I've been here," she agrees. "Haven't tried to read anything, so that hasn't come up," she goes on, then amends, "Oh wait, I guess I have, the plans for the academy site. Yeah, so no glasses needed. Though I think I've seen others with glasses." Now she has to think about it. She'll come back ashore and get her armor kit from her pack and dry and oil the mail as she hrms about the not-right feeling.

"That's the problem with games and magic," she says. "It sets its own rules, and there's no rhyme or reason." She nods about being stuck, but says, "If there is some crazy magic, one of these kids will pick it up. The first one that does will kill himself with it, but another one will work out what to do. But in the meantime, I can treat it as real and get things done. That much works." And she's from the pre-TV generation that prefers to remain busy, so getting things done is quite literal.

    "I think you're not giving these kids the credit they deserve." Amalthea says, chuckling. "Already they're formed three tight knit factions, have rebuilt cities, and are working on climbing that tower of terror." She says, referring to Aincrad.
    "I'm certain someone already has picked up on a little bit of the workings of this world and is working on figuring it out by now. It's something we're all working on together, isn't it?"
    But she nods understandingly. "I, unfortunately, made the mistake of picking one of the 'brute force' classes, so I'm stuck with that and the best I can do is help work up the tower or throw myself into a fight where I'm needed, when it comes to getting things done. But protecting others is its own benefit I suppose." Pause. "That and keeping Gwen from starving herself to death."

Goldenblade shrugs about giving kids credit. "Oh, I imagine they'll figure things out, but there's always someone, one rash one who charges in without looking." She smirks as she oils her armor, nodding about the factions. "I'm not entirely sure I understand about them, mind you. Crescent Moon helped me out when I was foundering, though, so that much is good." As far as working it out together, she says, "I'm afraid the best I can do is hope someone else works it out and explains it to me. Whenever I think I have anything here figured out, it turns out wrong. Just different expectations, I think."

She chuckles about being stuck with a class, and says, "I think you and I might've somehow swapped classes. I thought I was going to be the anchorman and tough out the hardest blows, but it turns out, class-wise, I'm the scout and artful dodger. But yeah, I've been all about doing the tower crawl and I heard that we'll get out when it's completed. So, hopefully that'll be sooner rather than later."

    "That's what we've all heard. Something's at the top that'll change the world, or so they say." Amalthea says thoughtfully about Aincrad. But then she clicks her teeth. "Oh yes there are always those. But that's what us old timers are around for; to rein them in when they need it, right?" She says with a wink.
    "The Odysseia Knights have been good to me." She says at length. "It's mostly a group of crazy solo players, but when we get together, we can at least play well in a team." Chuckled as she puts her armor rag away, holding up the plate to get a good look at it in the sun, before she decides she's done.
    "Well that about does it for me. I'd best start making my way back to Alne, soon. What about you, where are you headed next?"

Goldenblade has finished oiling her mail coat and slips it over her head, popping out the top and tugging her ponytail out. Yeah, she didn't think that through in chargen. After disentangling the strands, she says, "Yeah, I'm good, too. I'm probably headed back to Alne also, I've got a bunch of things I'm working on, I don't want to spend too much time away. If you don't mind, can I go with you back to the port? I can't figure out where things are, is the problem."

    With her armor handled, Amalthea begins putting it away piece by piece. "I don't mind." She says mildly. "I have some things on my plate as well, to deal with, but I don't mind at all. I'll show you the way."