Is it archeology when it's new?

    In the center of Tolbana, a non-Scale Emblem non Spriggan... but still survivor of Ezzo is looking at the Light of Hope. She's a middle aged Japanese woman who... probably scanned? Who makes a late thirties early fourties avatar who's short, frumpy and just a bit soft around the middle? The woman is dressed in barbarian princess finery, a scale bikini, sandals and a large fur cloak, like she decided to cosplay Red Sonja or escaped from a renfaire. She's currently knee deep in the fountain with her sandals laying on the street beside it and her cloak in a pile. June is it seems checking all over the boats and laviathan statues for something.

    A comotion can be heard for a moment coming from the temple of the burning goddess as a spriggan priest seems to be trying to kick someone out. Moment's latter Setsuna is shoved out followed by a Skeleton Knight that is at least half a head taller then it's owner. With a few choice phrases that any holy one would not take well , Setsuna turns and waves a hand heading towards the tavern. At least he could worship at the bar. Nothing will detour him until someone in the city is not like the others. Stopping near June he gets as close as he thinks he is safe to without spooking June and then speaks up trying to match the tone of someone also inspecting such fine art, " Hmmm I see yes. "

    Mizuki is laying on a rooftop, as one does, looking at the statue. Specifically the lights. She didn't think about it before, but... those aren't electric lights. They're MAGIC lights, and someone figured out how to MAKE them. Magic...

    Outside, Mizuki's player did IT work. Mostly, it was something he was good at, that was easy for him, for good pay, but he DID enjoy solving problems, and the satisfaction of knowing that when he returned to his desk he'd made it so that someone else could continue their work when before, they could not have.

    There aren't computers here... but what sort of 'technology' is magic like? She really needs to find out...

    Mizuki glances down, and sees... someone actually wearing bikini armor. Huh. You don't see that quite as often these days as you did before... and there's something else that strikes her as odd, when June stands to move over to look at a different part of the bottom of the statue. It's a frumpy middle-aged woman? Not that there's anything wrong with that, but wouldn't someone who wanted to go for the barbarian princess look use the randomizer instead of body scan?

    Then again, maybe she changed her mind on that over time. People can change their mind! Mizuki's been thinking about trying a cuter outfit but doesn't feel ready to tell, say, Gwen, who might get worryingly excited at the thought.

    And then she does a doubletake at the SKELETON IN THE CITY oh wait there's Setsuna it's just his undead pet. Mizuki pats down the fur that just rose on the back of her neck and her tail.

    And then she casually drops from the roof of the building to the ground, as one does, and walks up to the statue to join the growing gathering. She gives Setsuna a friendly nod, "How's the, uh, leg working out?" And to June she asks, "Hi, I don't think I've seen you around here before! Watcha lookin' for?"

    June splashes a bit when she turns at the sound of Setsuna's voice "Ooh hi, hey there again." she says "Did you know that some people have been getting inspired by the system? I didn't think the system had any real creative features, or at least it didn't before the patch, and I didn't really think the patch was going to go that way. But people have been, and they've been making impressive stuff. I'm trying to figure out however if that has lead to any of the linguistics or script from things like relics or chaos gates getting mixed in." she says

    Then there's Mizuki "KITTY!" the woman announces to the entire tower floor and the werefang finds that this middle aged woman is still an adventurer... and a werefang... with the speed and strength to match as she jumps out of the water to hug Mizuki and start petting her head.

    Mizuki hmms, ears focused on June as she explains, tail swishing slowly. "So you're a linguist? What makes you think that script might be connected to--" And then her eyes go wide as June announces KITTY -- ah, so this is how Florence Ambrose feels every time she meets a robot -- and... hugs and pets her?

    She stands there blinking for a moment. It's uh. Not a reaction she's gotten much. But honestly, isn't it weirder that it doesn't happen more often??

    And maybe... isn't it kind of nice to have someone react to her appearance with affection instead of indifference, or far worse, derision? Sam chose this avatar to have fun playing the part of something cute, only to end up ignoring that when someone looked down on her for acting like a cat.

    But this person reacted positively even WITHOUT her going out of her way to be cute. Why not embrace it, at least this time?

    Mizuki's surprised expression softens into a smile, her tail twitches, and she hugs June. "Yes, kitty."

    Setsuna steps back to give June back her personal bubble before he nods his head in greeting, " Hello again to you as well. " Before he can even attempt at small talk June is already diving into the why of her visit. It wasn't exactly a bad visit either. Then the exclamatio of a cat comes and Setsuna spins to see Mizuki. " Greetings Mizuki, the leg is well, it's bone dry. Chafes like a bitch, what can you do though." As if emhasize his question he sticks his left leg out, the leg made of bone obviously stolen from a skeleton monster. Looking back up over at June and adds, " You mean the strange moods, and well out of the other bits I'd say you are seeking information on Alves."

    June pets Mizuki and hugs her, the small middle aged woman looking happy to have a kitty to pet "Ooh yes, well, I am hunting for any linguistics from the various races but anything from pre Scrapped Princess is likely to be the most useful. I am hoping that I can find out if this is simply giberish, something generated by a game company with little or no linguist input, a true conlang with proper evolution, or a true language in it's own right. This will give me much more insight into how this works, and if we are simply stuck in the same simulation we began in, or if we're in an evolving construct or perhaps something else... such as a world who's existance inspired the game we joined in on originally." she says and stops "Ooh sorry I'm June." she says to Mizuki "A pleasure to meet you." she gives a bow, hands on thighs like a junior at an office introducing themselves. "I wouldn't suppose that either of you has a relic you wouldn't mind me inspecting for any of this script?" she smiles widely like she isn't asking to poke around with a valuable resource most people keep secret.

    Setsuna listens and considers for a moment Junes answer for a moment as he watches Mizuki get pets and hugs. It was a interesting sight, perhaps a little uncommon. "Language, well let see..." He trails off fora moment and thinks. He then quickly fetches a notebook and begins to scribble down some notes as if he was taking notes on something he had just discovered and didn't want to forget. A few more flips of pages he reads something and adds, " Well the peop le who scribbled down weird symbols from the telescope incident I think is Estelle, Kita, Proteus and Prophylaxis. They may have some symbols of language that is definately pre war. " Flipping through more pages he is still looking for something though, " And I have weird words somewhere that the floor boss said at one point. If I can find it..." The mention of the relicgoes unanswered now as he seems to be trying to answer the first question.

    "Why do you suspect it's related to the Alves...?" Mizuki wonders. "A world that inspired the game? That's a theory I haven't heard much before... but that wouldn't explain why we still have game mechanics like the menu..." At the question about whether she has anything to read, Mizuki shifts to human form and lifts her chin, showing something besides the normal were fang tattoo around her neck... although after a moment, she says, "Wait, better idea than trying to read my neck..." She transforms back to KITTY, and rezzes a couple pieces of paper. "You can make copies? This one's the runes on my neck, and this one was from a magic lute someone had. I noted down the Alne chaos gate's too, but I assume you already looked at it, right?"

produces a notebook and starts to copy over Mizuki's notes just sitting on the street without thinking about it. "Wouldn't suppose you have a copy of the symbols from the telescope incident?" she asks as she keeps copying, her hand is precise almost to a machine like quality, matching Mizuki's handwriting of the runes quite well. "Weird wording would be good... better if I had a recording so I could properly capture the phonemes properly but if you can do your best to actually sound it out rather than reading what you wrote it would be helpful."

    June's language changes as well as how she's pitching the words it gives some indication she's speaking to herself. Someone familiar would recognize it as Sindarin, even as the translator makes intent and content clear to everyone. "See there are many other instances of writings, you just have to fine them Junie then you can work out if this is a real language. Even if it's just a good conlang that will give you some clues won't it? You will just have to keep going on and get things done." her language changes again to Japanese "I've heard there's a chaos gate further up the tower? Did you see any writings in other places? Engravings in boss rooms that kind of thing?"

    Setsuna contemplates for a moment before he looks at Mizuki and seems intrigued, " Are you a language hunter too Mizuki? " To be fair he knew little about the feline WereFang and was happy to hear about interest. Looking over at Juna he licks his lips and stares at the words in his journal. " Ok um let see, just best attempt here. L-OH-zen, Ender-pawk-rye-phen" It was his best attempt to mimic the words of the sixth floor boss when he spoke, 'Lösen: Enderpokryphen' . It was his best attempt. Then as he untwist his mouth and moves his jaw a little he adds, "Sadly I don't have any drawing onf the symbols. You'd have to seek out the others. " He considers for another source of possible writing, " Hmm ancient writing and runes. I ...can't remember."

    Mizuki uhhs, and rezzes hurriedly-taken notes of the telescope incident runes as well for June to copy. "I guess since you're a linguist... just, promise to share what you find with the Scales, alright?" She rubs the back of her neck. "Yeah, there's a gate farther up, but I didn't copy it down..." She looks to Setsuna and shakes her head. "No, I just looked at those three things trying to see if there seemed to be a particular pattern to the runes, like if it was a code or cipher... if it's actually a language, though, then no wonder I couldn't make sense of it..."

    She looks at Setsuna. "That sounds like the--" and then she hesitates. Isn't this valuable intel? But... the other Alliances must already know...

    She turns to June. "There's a... battle android from ancient times, on an island in the northwest corner of the map. Her name is Spatjahr. Well, we named her that. She speaks... a kind of German-sounding language? Maybe it's German, I don't know. I've never seen what it looks like in written form, but maybe she'd know more about languages... if she feels like talking about them, anyway."

    Mizuki looks down at the ground. "...We need to ask her about what we saw at the Telescope, anyway..."

    June hmmms and writes down the transliteration as well as information on Spatjahr. "I'll be heading up the tower to the other chaos gate at least then, that'll get me more information. I'll have to speak with more old Landers and those who interact with ancient tech and sites." she taps her lips with her pen leaving a black line in the middle of her lower lip. "I think.. hmmm... okay so with this and this..." she hrrrrrms she goes silent as she starts organizing data while she's working on things. Moving from page to page back and forth the whole time talking to herself in Sindarin but so quiet one would have to actively try to listen in on her internal monologue.

    Setsuna just stares dumb founded at the mention of the battle android from ancient times. He simply stares for a moment , and the only sign of life is his blinking and fact that his chest keeps moving from breathing. Suddenly his fingers are flipping pages roughly again and looks at a line. "No that wasn't the name mentioned. " He himself considers everything for a moment as he looks at June, " You wanted strange mood information right? Seek out Uta, the one who runs the slime lab. She is the most knowledgable in that field, that I know of."

    "Actually, she might be from the future? Or an alternate timeline? There may be timey-wimey stuff going on, that's why we've got to talk to her about it. She seems confused about whether she's from the past or the future, and I think the telescope's cinematics might be connected to why."

    Mizuki hmms. "Oh, also it was weird because the stuff she said in that language didn't translate, but I definately heard some numbers in there and someone who knew a bit more German was able to translate part of it." She hmms again. "I don't actually know that much German. <One. Two. Three. Good day. Good night.> That's pretty much it..."

    June doesn't stop the work she's doing almost like a fae mood of her own but it's just June being June. "Ooh less interested in the strange moods, what I need to know is if they incoporate any writing, linguistics, symbols, or if they hear or see anything like that while under the influence... I'll probably have to try inducing one in myself at some point if I want a truely straight answer. Did either of you have a relic? Do you know if you have writing on it?" she pulls out a small disk made of rings laid flat. Shelooks over it spinning the rings and flipping them around an axis. There is much writing on it but that doesn't look like writing so much as the strange symbols used in many of the cryptography puzzles in dungeons. She fiddles and fidgets with it as she keeps writing.

    Mizuki makes sure to collect her notes once June's done copying them. When asked if she has a relic she just blank stares. "I just showed it to you. A few days before the apocalypse I did a music puzzle that was hidden out of the way behind a platforming puzzle and got that as a reward." Beat. "The lute though... I think that was a reward someone got in a dungeon? Maybe from that girl who used to be in the rat dungeon?" She shrugs. "I don't know..."

    Setsuna contemplates for a moment before he shakes his head, " Nah. The only thing I remember from mine is a tune, rather annoying one with that." It really was all he could remember from when he was in his strange mood. With a stomach grumble interupting him he smiles. " Alas my stomach calls. However to answer your question my relic has no writing on it." With a bow to them both he calls his pet to follow him, towards the tavern. Screams would likely be heard moments later.

    June nods her head "Good good, yes thank you." she may or may not have really heard half of things as she's working on her notes. She gets those all put together and finds Setsuna gone. "Ahh well I guess he had something to do." she says and smiles closing her book "Thank you for your information it will hopefully help my research. I'll have to get up to the floor with the chaos gate and get it's markings... the temple didn't have anything." she makes a small mou with her mouth and looks to the side... "I wonder, well I suppose it's the chaos gate and then on to the city of beginings... haven't been there in forever... then I guess up to Ninetails... I hear they had a calamity recently maybe they found something."