Scene #7886: The Unskippable Tutorial Zone

Owner	Pose
Chains Knight	The assembly point is actually not at the boundaries of Reshuffled, but the warpgate in the next region over - in the warpgate plaza of an unrelated, peaceful greenpunk world. "Do not," cautions Chains Knight, "let on that you are here on my behalf. I will start on my task a few minutes after you've arrived - taking a different warpgate into the world and proceeding straight to retrieve my <key item> , hopefully before I am noticed." "How you proceed is up to you beyond that." He folds his arms. "The Church of the Main Thread controls most of the world at the present time - including the area in which the <key item> is hidden, and the starting area. This means that much of the world is dull and predictable, so I apologize for the poor quality of questing you may be forced to undertake." "... I would say 'good luck', but this is the Threads we are dealing with, so luck is not a factor," he says. --- "Welcome to Startsville!" Startsville is a bustling-looking generic fantasy village, with various villagers bustling about on whatever business they have, going in and out and around the generic fantasy village buildings. It's not so crowded that people can't get around easily, and the noise level is best described as 'background'. "Hey! If you're new, you might want to go sign up at the Adventurer's Guild!" says the Town Guard, a lance-wielding girl who's posted up next to the warpgate. "It's right over there!" She points with her lance at one of the buildings bordering the warpgate plaza here, which is very clearly labeled as 'Adventurer's Guild' with several signs, and that the very architecture of the plaza draws the eye and attention towards. She returns her lance to the neutral position. "Hey, if you wanna know where anything else is, you can just ask me! Or look for anyone else wearing a uniform like this, we're the Town Guards and we'll give you directions towards whatever you need! Like, the item shop! Or the weapon shop!" While the Adventurer's Guild beckons, off in another direction there's a conspicuous looking old woman, standing next to an alleyway, with a large yellow ! floating above her head. She and the Town Guard and a few other people here seem to... stand out, more than others.
Staren	STAREN WIREMU, SCIENCE CATGIRL ADVENTURER travels the Multiverse, righting wrongs with big guns, computer-linked drones and sensors, defensive-and-mobility-enhancing gadgets, and the desire to figure out how things work! She wears a scarf she believes is COOL AND HEROIC, a labcoat of SCIENCE adorned with belts and runes that suggest a basic level of defense, with gadgets built into her vambraces, boots and flipphone for ready access, as well as her trusty holstered laser pistol and matter manipulator at her sides and sheathed vibro-swords and rocket launcher on her back, and her ever-present blue messenger bag at her side for ready access to everything else! A pair of camera drones, hovering coconut-sized spheres with an obvious lens and radio antenna, float after her, ready to scout, spot, and scan! And a pair of glasses with round, black frames show that she is both cute and smart! Staren arrives at Startsville by flying broom, landing at the town's edge and tucking the broom away in her bigger-on-the-inside bag. She looks around for who to talk to to ask if anything of interest is happening here, approaching the nearest NPC and opening her mouth before the Town Guard speaks up. She looks at the guard, and then where she's pointing. "Well, I guess I can't argue with that!" The catgirl strides into the Adventurer's Guild, seeking out the clerk/receptionist/information desk to ask: "I'm Staren Wiremu, from the Free City of Lazlo, and I'm here to help! So, what is troubling the fair town of Startsville today?"
Featherman Neo	Featherman Neo is here. He doesn't, truly, care about Chains Knight's plan. A video game world? Cool. A guy looking for a <key item>? Suspicious, might need to be stopped, will handle it by ear for now. Checking in on communicator to learn who the movers and shakers around here are, he has two options. And Staren's taking one of them, and he wants to avoid her if possible, so... Featherman approaches to the side of the alley. He's in his full superhero armor, knife and pistol at his side, as he salutes once. "Greetings, ma'am! Featherman Neo, future adventurer. I was on my way to the guild, when I noticed it seemed you needed help!" Featherman absolutely knows what a yellow mark above the head means. "How may I assist you, if so?"
Persephone Kore	Phony's presence in the 'peaceful greenpunk world' is felt before she's seen: that soothing pull towards peace and happiness, that aura of warmth and ominously vast gentleness. The perturbations and eddies in that vast gravity well carry a message. Hello, little light. Haha, you're really exactly as bright as I thought you'd be! I'm so glad we're getting to meet in person. The radio doesn't compare to getting to feel someone's heart at all. Don't you feel the same way? I don't want to just hear. I want to touch and be touched! Persephone arrives in person a full couple of minutes after. "Questing, huh? I've never gotten to be the hero before," is the first thing she says properly in words. She doesn't seem self-conscious about that fact. "It's always seemed really fun, to get to play that part. But it doesn't come naturally. I hope they'll be patient with me!" In a spare moment, she finds time to playfully mess up Staren's hair and convey a little private message. See? Those glasses do look really cute on you! Ahahaha. Not that me and Seilatiya would ever steer you wrong. ---- "See you, Staren!" Phony says with a little wave, before turning back to the helpful guard. "Actually, I was wondering where to go to buy equipment? If I'm going to be a hero this time, I've really got to look the part." Persephone is specifically looking for gear appropriate to a healer or supporting class, having totally failed to find her way out of the 'mysterious space girlfriend' niche despite declared intent. No, see, it's important to give everyone else a chance to shine! Isn't that the heroic thing to do?? But it's possible that something else interesting might snag her eye first. Passively, she's also making an assessment of the townfolk and the 'feel' of their hearts. Chains Knight seems to be a fully actualized person with his own goals; how do the NPCs here stack up in terms of identity and feeling? Is there anyone else noteworthy who does feel like a 'full person'?
Vantablitz Remnants	Ahn and Lotus arrive separately, because this is supposed to be a friendly time, and also apparently they have just had an argument (over something probably pretty stupid). One can tell (and who lost the argument) by the fact that Lotus is using Ahn's shape again, but moves at a sullen, wilty slouch, making no attempt to accurately imitate the precise swivels of hard joints in her arms and legs, and passively emitting the quiet sound of a grumbling geiger counter. Ahn looks as if she's set for backpacking out in the early spring wilds, with an olive drab knitted sweater and khaki all-terrains and heavy dark boots that look-- are those military? Stolen? Either way, they match the canvas backpack and gear straps, and are at odds with the woman actually wearing them, both having run out of haircut executive function decades ago and just leaned on the giant ponytail from then on, and having found (or cultivated?) a fresh lotus flowers with 'UV black' petals for it, probably attached to a pin. "H-hey, Knight Chains, wait! What about our quest?! What's this about a key item?! We still get a reward, right?!" ". . . Heyyyy, Ahn~ This looks just like--" "No no no no" "It does. It is!" "nonononono" "Ahahahaha! It totally is!" "Goddddssss" "Hey, you're already my party member right~?" "Huh?! I was here before you! That makes you mine!" "Yeah whatever; so you have to come with me to the guild-- no wait, we need to gear up first!" This is two worlds back to back and Lotus is utterly insufferable about it. "The whole reason we're here is that we don't have any money, remember?!" "Oh right, they'd probably want gold coins or something. Not that stack of bills you got out of the lock--" "Yes! So the gear we have is fine! Actually, why do you even want gear?" "What? Why not?" "You already never wear anything. And you won't even use chopsticks. Are you really telling me you're going to put on a chainmail jerkin and swing a copper sword?" ". . . It's kayfabe." "You learned that word two days ago. Stop." "Make me~" Ahn is out of argumentative energy. She won the last one, and now has to begrudgingly go along with this one now that Lotus is filled with argument rubberbanding mechanical power, doubly spiteful about getting her petty way. And by that, it is meant that the argument is resolved by literally attempting to drag her by a tendril for a little while before Ahn cries uncle for it being too embarrassing. Weapons and armour it is.
Staren	> Phony: Exists Staren blushes at the compliment, smiling. 'See you' makes her pause and start to turn back. "Ooh, if you want gear, I can--" She pauses. Ah, I get it. You don't get the full experience if I just hand you your starting gear! Unless I'm a wise, cryptic old man... And I'm definitely not any of those things! "See you around! Perhaps we'll cross paths on our adventures!" And I would like to see how it goes, if that's alright! If Phony's cool with it, Staren sends a drone after her and pulls another one out of her bag to float by her side before walking into the Adventurer's Guild, in an even more chipper mood from seeing Phony and knowing her friend will surely get to have a fun adventure! So sure that she'll even turn off the drone's live feed until it's directly addressed to avoid being a backseat driver.
Chains Knight	"Patience isn't always the Threads' strongest suit," says Chains, in response to Persephone. "But you should manage." "Ah - yes. As I had promised," says Chains to Ahn. He waves his hand in the air, as if navigating through some menu only he can see... Letters reading <PARTY INVITE - AHN> and <PARTY INVITE - LOTUS> appear in front of each, respectively, followed by <START GAME?> prompts. Accepting verbally or even just thinking hard about accepting both seem to work. "Your concern is warranted - the reward is as much a part of the quest as the rest of it is," he says. --- "Oh - you look like you're much too high level to be worrying about little ol' me," says the old woman, after giving Featherman Neo an appraising look. "But if you insist..." She clears her throat. "Help! A giant rat stole my purse! I think it went down this alleyway!" The yellow ! changes into a silver ?, accompanied by Required Items: Old Woman's Purse 0/1 "Make sure that you have your weapon equipped and that you swing the pointy end in the right direction!" Indeed, down the alleyway, there's a very large rat, which is just sort of chilling conspicuously in the middle. The adventurer's guild is considerably less crowded than the streets outside - indeed, it's entirely bereft of people besides the young man at the counter with a much more important looking {!} above his head. "Hello, Lady Wiremu of Lazlo! Well met!" "There is darkness building in the Darkness Cave outside of town, past the Goblin Fields! You should go out the West Gate and look for someone to help show you the way from there!" Persephone gets directions from the Town Guard, who looks pleased as pie to be giving those directions out. The healer equipment here is low level, staffs of 'cure cuts and bruises' and scrolls of 'summon band aid', but it all seems to work - albeit only work within the bounds of the world, if Persephone cares to test that out later. The healer 'armor', though, looks... utilitarian. Undyed cloth or leather, mostly, without frills and without enchantments.
Chains Knight	The weapons and armor shop equipment is similarly 'level 1 garbage' stuff. Cooking pot helmets, with the pot lids as shields, wood-material swords and spears, and so on.
Featherman Neo	Featherman really wants to read this woman's mind to learn more about Chains Knight, but it's easiest if they're having a conversation. And so, he needs the purse to have the lead-up. "Thank you for the information, ma'am! I will return your purse immediately." He also, really, just wants to help her out, too. Heading down the street, he draws his knife and pistol, taking a stance. As soon as the rat fight 'begins', he waits for his action. If it's more like an action-RPG, then... He swings first, moving to slash a knife into its neck, and then fire the gun into its head, several times. He imagines it doesn't care about vitals, but may care about critical hit zones.
Vantablitz Remnants	Five Minutes later: ". . . Hey Ahn." "Mm? Yes? Lotus?" ". . . This gear kind of sucks, doesn't it?" "Oh, whyever would you say that? And here I agreed to pay for it with my hard-earned money too. "You know what--" "Please, go on. I've resolved to make this sacrifice on your behalf, so appreciate it." "Ghhhh" "Put the pot on your head, Lotus." One Minute Later: Lotus knows she has lost this one, and has to deal with the ridiculous pot helmet and wooden sword while Ahn takes pictures from her 'well-loved' smartphone. No amount of apologizing about trying to leash her in public is going to get her out of that part, even if Ahn is basically banking on the 'unfinished' state of this place accepting wadded up dðng bills.
Chains Knight	"SQUEAK" The rat dissolves after taking enough damage - which is in this context 'any damage at all'. It drops an Old Woman's Purse. As in when it disappears, the purse pops into existence in a spot next to where the rat was previously. The purse doesn't look like anything special, but it's clearly an Old Woman's Purse. Assuming that Featherman then walks the five meters back to hand the old woman her purse: "Thank you!" QUEST REWARDS: 10 COINS Featherman's wallet feels a little bit heavier. "You should go put those to good use at the equipment shop... is what I'd normally say, but you're pretty well kitted out already, aren't you? You should probably head to the Adventurer's Guild, I hear that there's a problem they need some help with." "It's right over there," the old woman adds, pointing in that direction. Across the warpgate plaza, towards the clearly labeled Adventurer's Guild, which is still very much in line of sight from here.
Staren	There is darkness in the Darkness Cave! "Don't I need to sign up?" Since they are, evidently, trying to distract the GMs, she'll take a couple of minutes to fill out paperwork if offered to stall for time. Then: "Thanks! Don't worry, I can probably handle this! Although I won't mind having a party if you want to send other folks after to join me." To the west! Assuming she knows which way that is (she'll ask the guard if it's unclear,) Staren skates there at a relaxed pace, tiny hoverjets in her boots making them behave like rollerblades. Barring any particularly unusual, investigation-worthy sight on the way there. she-- wait. Right, stalling for time. Staren stops when near the gate, and asks the nearest random person "What's happening in this town?" and "What do you do here?" and honestly she probably gets tired of that after two or three, she continues on out the gate to lay on her shpiel for the first person she sees: "Hello! Well met! I am an adventurer on the way to take care of the darkness that grows in the Darkness Cave! Can you show me the way the-- oh no is this going to be an escort quest, please no." She takes a breath and returns to her previous way of speaking, "Can you show me the way there?"
Featherman Neo	As Featherman gets the money, and during the woman's dialogue to tell him to go to the Adventurer's Guild, he begins to read her mind. Opening up for a full thought dive for a specific keyword within the seconds he has. 'Who is Chains Knight?' After he gets his mind-reading info, if any, he moves to approach to the Adventurer's Guild with a wave goodbye, feeling out his wallet as he does. He expects it to have money in it.
Persephone Kore	Ahahaha. You get it, Staren!! But don't sell yourself short. I'm sure if you really tried, you could be cryptic someday. Persephone accepts Staren's camera drone! She pats the top of it gently as if it were a living thing, then sets off towards the equipment store with a backwards wave and a "Thank you!" to the helpful guard. Of course she's slower to get there than Lotus and Ahn are; she cups her face in both hands to watch the pot-wearing spectacle with awe. "Awwww! See, you're getting there, Lotus! It's embarrassing now, but I'm sure you'll be a daring fighter in no time! You've never had a romantic swordfight before, have you? The crossed blades, the locked gazes, the sparks..." For some reason, her eyes drift to Ahn partway through that sentence before turning back. She taps the wooden sword with a fingernail appraisingly. "Well, we'll get to the sparks, haha~" She winks to the camera drone when Ahn snaps her picture. "Take one too! Might get a better angle." The relatively lackluster equipment on display makes her purse her lips in vaguely dissatisfied thought. "None of it really suits me, you know? First I'm not sure if it's in my sizes. Second, it's definitely not in my colors." After deep consideration, she buys a simple healing staff and a white robe, but rather than donning the robe, she ties it around her waist by the sleeves in that Distinctly Gay Way. Even without knowing her, it is extremely easy to get the vibe that she cons way too high for this stuff. But I wanna immerse myself! It's important to the experience. "Now, we'll all have to party up if we're going to share the Darkness Cave rewards, right?" Her primary attention is on Lotus and Ahn, but she glances back at the camera drone too. "Since you two can't agree who should be leader, it should obviously be me, right? That's just the sensible neutral choice~"
Chains Knight	"Oh right, forms- yes ma'am, I've got forms right here." There's a few forms that get pulled out and offered to Staren. The tone given is not one of 'oh I almost forgot to get you to sign these mandatory forms', but instead 'oh you want forms I have some forms for you right here, will these forms suffice', like the forms are presented for Staren's benefit and not the Adventurers' Guild. Wadded up bills of any denomination seem to be accepted here just fine. Persephone gets a small ping on her mental defenses when the transaction is made, actually - the shop seems to function on what the buyer (or seller) thinks is money and 'how much' money it is, regardless of its actual value. As Featherman leaves, the old woman waits a moment till she thinks he's not paying attention to her, and then throws something into the alleyway. Her ! lights back up again. For everyone who heads out west: The west gate immediately leads to a U-bend in the road... curving south, then west, then north and then west again. The geography here seems to be designed so that past a certain distance, you entirely lose line of sight to Startsville. ... Wait, designed? What a strange thought. Geography isn't designed, obviously. This is just a natural U bend in the road. Ahead, the Goblin Fields beckon, along with a guide with another {!} who directs people to kill five goblins "To make sure you got the cobwebs out" before proceeding forward into the Cave of Darkness, with an optional ! quest for finding and killing the Goblin Boss. The goblins actually fight back (unlike the rats) but perish and dissolve from basically anything more than 'a mean look', dropping mostly more level 1 garbage equipment on death/dissolution.
Vantablitz Remnants	Persephone entering the store gets the attention of both Ahn and Lotus immediately. After all, how could they fail to notice being so close to the center of that well of interpersonal-stellar gravity? Ahn blushes the second Persephone glances her way, fiddling with the black lotus in her hair. She doesn't even need to be a mind reader to get it, but the deep abiding appreciation for romantic martial arts drama, eastern and western, is pretty apparent. The instant she's given permission to photograph, she stutters a "R-really? Well, okay!" and starts free snapping anyways, using the rolling shutter feature to get the best results. Lotus does something stranger, the 'woven solar panel fibre' of her body visible between the slender white plates strangely vibrating like a pulsed ferrofluid, her posture straightening and expanding slightly to get back the few petulantly lost inches of height. Her eye-dots briefly flash asynchronously. "I'm already a daring fighter!" she whines, in a literal sense, her tone carrying the elements of a dying microphone just under the feminine purr. She throws the pot off her head, and with a weird, liquid flick of her arm, a three foot long black carbide sword blade extends from the forearm down, faint green bioluminescence tracing its spine like creeping vines. She fingers the edge restlessly. "Ahn! Show her yours!" "What? N-no!" It's a little harder to piece together her thoughts. They're a little wistful and lost, all the time, but happy to be here with Ahn, despite being a menace. A shifting sea of impressions and disjointed knowledge, synthesized into roots of comprehension, a stem of wisdom, and a blossom of expression. She's pretty sure that being treated like a rookie is against that last part; she has to impress Phony almost instinctively. "You know, if you don't like them, I can get you new ones~ Can you draw what you want? Or just describe it really well?" "Hey how come you're suddenly really compliant when it's with her?" "Well, she's the leader right?" "When did we decide that?!" "Do you . . . disagree?" "Well, not really . . ." "And I'm getting bored of standing around here. There's a whole field out there! A dungeon! Let's speed up! Let's go really fast!" Ahn insists on introducing the two properly then; oddly, she won't give any other name but her first, despite the impression that it's normal and important in that culture to give the family name. She also offers to pay Phony's meagre equipment cost, and has to be politely refused several times.
Staren	Staren wonders if this is originally a technical limitation. Was this world originally a game for computers that only had so much graphical power? When the field NPC demands she kill some goblins, Staren remembers Persephone saying some of the 'NPCs' here are people, and looks out at the distant, milling-just-outside-aggro-distance goblins thoughtfully. Wordlessly, while keeping eye contact with the NPC, she draws her laser pistol and shoots a nearby tree with a dual-barreled blast (the camera drones turn to look at the tree, letting her aim with her implants.) If that doesn't convince them to move the quest along, Staren approaches the goblins. "Hey! Look, I don't actually wanna hurt anyone here. Is there any particular reason you're out here, do you need something...?" If the goblin engages her in conversation she'll talk with them, but if they just aggro and keep attacking her she eventually ends up 'killing' it by hitting and pushing it, or whacking it with a vibroblade without even turning the power on. Then she holsters the laser, pulls a regular pistol from her bag, and approaches the next goblin, and tries to talk to it, this time going straight to shoot if it attacks. Loot is sucked into the matter manipulator (if not directly deposited inside or something) because why even bother picking it up. "Can we go now?" Staren asks the NPC.
Vantablitz Remnants	Regardless of how the interaction with Persephone finishes up, obviously the two are going to head out along the main quest route. Ahn's reward depends on it! And Lotus has played too many videogames; sometimes several at once. They are Very Fast, but will naturally offer to take Phony along even should she decline Lotus' offer; after all, she's the party healer! That's very important! (Lotus designates Ahn 'the monk', whereupon Ahn argues with her that she's totally 'the engineer', and Lotus designates herself 'the dervish', whereupon Ahn argues that isn't a real class) Once they're out in the field, the two take the quest separately, but complete it in fewer seconds as goblins. Ahn does something complicated with her hands, covers her wrist, and a bird-chirping-bell-clapping sound atomizes five goblins with a harsh strobe pulse of spiking iridescent light. Lotus flexes 'her entire body' and then shoots blue-white fire from little 'blossoms' from her joints like vectored thrusters, flash-rushing five goblins and cutting them in half with her blade-- and then going on to about twenty five more until Ahn starts yelling at her to come back. This is, of course, a clever ploy to get the reward from the NPC twice. And then they keep going west, because they want to see the Darkness Cave. At this point, Ahn 'dons' Lotus with that slightly unwholesomely fluid and toothy 'henshin' process, and then the two say "We'll meet you there!" "First~!" in perfect synchronicity, before taking off at hyperspeed to get dibs.
Persephone Kore	Phony is, fortunately, really easy to impress, but in such a gushingly sincere way that it's hard not to feel really gratified regardless of how low her standards are. She mouths a silent 'wow...' over Lotus's blade, delicately touching its flat with her fingertips and then trailing her hand along it to get a feel for the texture. "Just like that... and the way it glows, too! I love your colors, ahaha. To think someone as soft as you would have something so hard inside her~" Coyly, as she removes her hand: "I've known a lot of really daring fighters, you know. But somehow, I still believe you're special enough to make the cut. You'll prove me right, won't you? I know your imouto will love to see it too!" It is obvious, for a moment, that she's patiently waiting for Ahn to provide a last name. But Ahn does not. Recognition flickers behind Phony's eyes- She thought she'd never see another person, right? Of course she'd drop her family name. It doesn't matter then.- and she cuts the awkward pause short. "It's wonderful to meet you, Ahn! I'm Persephone~ You can call me 'Phony', but any other way of shortening it is completely and utterly forbidden, okay?" As she exits the store, Phony keeps the conversation running- judging by her unhurried pace, she is definitely a 'journey, not the destination' person. "You could really get me something new? Awww, you're too precious! So helpful, so eager to please," she drawls sweetly. Phony knows exactly what she's doing. "Here, maybe I can sketch up..." A piece of paper floats over to her as if on the breeze; a pen materializes in her hand as if from nowhere in particular. Sorry! I'll give it back, I promise. The pen levitates up and swishes back and forth over the paper; it is not the way any human would draw, but like the row-by-row action of an inkjet printer. The output is blurry and a little dreamlike, but technically sound, without amateurish mistakes of perspective or proportion. It illustrates a flowing white dress with a plunging neckline and an asymmetrical side-slit that shows off a significant amount of thigh, ending in embroidered edges below the knee. Accompanying it is some sort of halo-tiara, elegant crystal dangle earrings, and a moderately excessive number of jeweled bracelets that look like they'd clack and jingle as she moved. It is moderately "Greek goddess", come to think of it. When they set off in earnest, Phony accepts Lotus's request to bring her along- "Speed isn't one of my strong suits, haha! You'll have to be a little patient!"- and waves cheerfully to Staren on arrival. "You're doing great!" She takes the quest, but occupies herself mostly with applauding everyone else's performances and periodically zapping them with wholly unnecessary, but nice, healing magic. She eventually takes out five of the goblins, but only because they'll periodically wander over to her and try to attack, and she'll tap them with her wand and turn them into sparkles on the far horizon.
Chains Knight	The goblins do not converse. They seem entirely incapable of conversing. They just aggro, attack, die, and drop loot. "Yep, quest fulfilled," says the quest guide. "Now go on ahead up to the cave." QUEST REWARDS: 15 COINS pops up in midair. ... And then a curious thing happens. Everyone gets a bit richer, just a moment after that pops up. If people have physical wallets or other places they keep money on their person, there's now 15 coins (literally small metal discs engraved with '1 COIN' on either side) in them - or if they don't but they do have digital bank accounts or other ways of keeping money, those now have an incoming transaction credit of '15 COINS'. If anyone takes a shot at the Goblin Boss (which also goes down very easily), they get an extra 10 coins on top of that, plus a level two wooden sword... which is just a normal wooden sword but sharpened instead of blunt. Also - despite having killed a good number of goblins (between the mandatory quest ones and any that aggro on the group as they pass through) the field doesn't seem to have diminished any after they're done passing through it. There's still plenty of goblins. The path veers north, then east - and the path splits, with one direction veering northeast, marked by a nearby sign as 'To Startsville', and the other path leading directly into the Cavern of Darkness. WIth Ahn and Lotus getting there first, they get to scope things out: It's a cult ritual. It has all the marking of a cult ritual - people wearing brightly colored red robes, sitting in a circle chanting around a many-pointed arcane symbol drawn on the ground, the symbol itself glowing. "Darkness, darkness, darknes..." most of the cultists are chanting, in mostly-unison. "Oh Darkness - devour this undeserving world," says what appears to be the lead cultist. "Set alight the foolish people of Startsville - who in their hubris do not worship you, the awe-inspiring Darkness..."
Staren	Staren's stopped by the goblin field to talk on the radio, giving Persephone time to catch up. "You made it!" She runs up and hugs her, then steps back and watches uncertainly as Phony fights her first goblin. "I wonder if flinging them out of the area even counts...?" When coins are awarded she checks her bag, or possibly the matter manipulator's interface, wondering if these are indeed real gold... she'll check that later. She asks the NPC a bit cheekily, "Weren't you supposed to guide us there?" but will head off anyway once Phony does, apparently having decided they are now A Party. It sure is a cult ritual. "Anything interesting?" she asks the Healer, trying to stop the part of her brain plotting to just explode the whole group with a rocket from range. She is Going To Check if they can be talked with first, dammit, on her own without asking Phony.
Persephone Kore	"Counts for what?" Phony asks Staren innocently. She's been so dazzled by Lotus's performance that she's forgotten entirely about the quest. Nevertheless, her DORADO BLACK card does register the fifteen coins sooner or later. Someone else can fight the Goblin King if they want. She just waves goodbye to it cheerfully. Assuming Lotus and Ahn haven't completely dealt with the cultists by the time Phony and Staren arrive, the thought about a rocket launcher makes her cover her mouth and raise her eyebrows in surprise. "Oh, no, you shouldn't just blow them up! That'd be terrible!" Instead, she beams warmly as she hands Staren a wooden sword from the goblin field. "It's important to immerse yourself in the experience, right? Try using this instead! It'll be a lot more fun!" Phony was just putting mobs into low Earth orbit with the help of her powers, but sure, whatever.
Vantablitz Remnants	Back at the Item Shop: Lotus makes a strange buzzing chittery rustle noise when Phony goes fiddling with her sword, but it seems to be a pleased one. "Thank you, I chose them myself~" She glances Ahnward, who stares obliviously back at her. "Isn't that how it's supposed to go~? My favourite thing is feeling hard things inside of soft people~" Ahn blinks. "That's true. She really likes crunching the bones." Lotus vibrates with a corrupted vocoder cackle. "What? What's so funny?" When Phony starts drawing, Ahn gasps in soft amazement at the process itself. When the actual design is finished, she blushes just slightly, and says "Hot . . ." As if she weren't already a little red from the rest. Lotus nods, in the way of someone who remembers you're supposed to express more without an articulated face, upon seeing it. "Very nice~ Coming right up~" Fluid black tendrils seep out of the joins around her neck and back and waist, reaching forward-- and then pause as she remembers what Ahn said about touching other people. Instead, they curl in and the tips come together like the legs of a net-weaving spider, though many more at once are involved, and between them stretch thin filaments of semi-liquid black material. They're woven together in a frenzy of motion expanding outwards as if built up by a 3d printer more than being done traditionally, and eventually form dense but thin fabric of incredibly high thread count, spilling out at length Lotus has to keep turning it over to prevent it from brushing on the floor. At first, it's just sort of a heap of shiny black pseudo-silk, with some '3d printed' vantablack placeholder model primitives. A wave of colour, like the blowing of a flower field in the wind, passes through it after, and turns it all the crisp whites and glittering golds desired. It also seems to lose a lot of its weight as water content is drawn back in. It's technically organic, but not alive, and the jewels are actually a kind of pseudo-diamond to make them as jingly as possible, even if they look gold. Lotus thrusts it out to Persephone with immense pride, and then sort of stares. Ahn has to interrupt "Lotus she's not going to change in front of you." "Oh, right~" At the Cave: When they get to the cave, the two of them look at each other, and just silently nod. Phony can hear the way they 'think at' each other. She picks up the term <<infect>> and the simultaneous thought that translates to <<embrace>> A split second later, Lotus extends her arm forward, bonelessly twists and clenches her hand, and a few dozen tiny, nearly imperceptible vantablack 'bullets' are shot into the circle, impacting the cultists harmlessly, and in fact seeming to vanish where they strike. Immediately, strong psychic tethers are forged between all of them to Lotus and Ahn. "Hey, Staren, what was the quest specifically? We don't have to kill them, do we?"
Chains Knight	The cultists continue chanting, in the absence of anyone running into the cave to fight them, with a wooden sword or otherwise. They don't aggro on the weird mind bullets.
Staren	>Counts for what? Staren looks up at Phony and opens her mouth to respond, then remembers that Phony can read her mind and would have gotten what she meant. She closes her mouth and continues observing. >In the cave Phony's reaction to thoughts about the rocket launcher makes her wince -- she can't read back, and takes the statement as moral judgement... "Ah, I didn't get some kind of quest journal or the like, but what they actually said was--" Staren pauses. "...They didn't actually give an objective. They just said there is darkness building in the darkness cave. I do feel like if it was a game it would be assumed that we kill them. But I am curious to see what happens if we decide on another objective, if you are." And then Phony holds a sword out, and she blinks. She flicks the safety on and puts the pistol away, and takes the sword, a mild irritation registering that she should have two light blades, not a sword -- and Phony Thinks it into a pair of wooden daggers as Staren looks on, wide-eyed. Well, okay! She takes the offered weapons, feeling the heft and balance. They're missing the reach she should have, but she can deal. Staren looks at the cultists, and takes a deep breath. She imagines charging them, then decides it's better to turn into a cat and sneak, changing back behind a cultist and uncertainly trying to 'Stealth Kill' it by pressing the point of wood to its chest. With the fight begun, Phony can see her mind switch modes like it did in the piece of fallen heaven. Against these enemies, she expects she can just rush each opponent quickly and strike, although if they get off a swing at her before she fully closes, she takes full advantage of having two weapons to parry and attack. If they mob her she uses cat form to dive past legs and reposition. Staren is, however, holding the objective of sparing the leader (if identified) in her mind for Ahn to deal with as she pleases.
Persephone Kore	"She's not going to change in front of you," Ahn had said. Phony, who watched the whole uncanny weaving process with abject sparkly-eyed adoration, holds the dress and jewelry in both arms and shakes her head. "No, no! It's fine, really! Here." For a brief and terrifying moment, what she means by 'it's fine' isn't entirely clear. There's a little puff of wind from harrowingly forceful-and-precise telekinetic movement that's sufficient to ruffle hair and clothes. It does make Phony's white dress poof out for a moment, because that's what she's now wearing, and her old earrings and clothes are bundled up in her arms. The intervening steps are only observable for a few microseconds. "There," she says warmly, and then immediately starts fawning over the outfit. "Oh, it's so soft, isn't it? I expected it to be heavier and less breathable. You really are amazing, Lotus! And you even got the clacky jingly noises right! Haha, you're sort of a genius, aren't you? Or do you already do this for all of Ahn's clothes? Now I'm really jealous~"
Chains Knight	Staren charges in with the daggers, and does indeed get a 'stealth kill' - not actually impaling one of the cultists, but scratching up the robes enough for it to count. The cultist keels over, and then dissolves. The other cultists aggro on Staren, visibly, although the leader just pauses and stares for a moment. And then he shakes his head, and makes a hand motion, and the behavior of the cultists shift subtly - not something Staren can see, in the thick of it, but Persephone and Ahn and Lotus can tell that the cultists have gone from 'mob up on Staren' behavior to 'Fight Staren one at a time, inverse ninja law style' behavior. ... They still have very real daggers on them, though, and while swung inexpertly Staren's going to take a few little cuts while working out how to dagger fight. The cultists go down one by one, leaving just the leader, who hasn't moved from the spot, staring at Staren as she fights. Finally he blinks, and seems to shake off his thoughts and come back into the moment. "Hah! You fools - you're too late! While you were busy disrupting our ritual, the Darkness we've already summoned into the world was more than enough to set Startsville ablaze! I think I can hear the screams from here!" "And we're not alone - all throughout the world, the Cult of Darkness has spread! Wherever you go, whatever you do, you'll have to contend with our agents - fearsome foes, loathesome locales, tricky traps, and all manner of foul evils! Do you really think you have what it takes to stop us!" And then he draws his own dagger and rushes at Staren!
Staren	"Ow!" Staren is stunned and knocked back to a normal mental state when they manage to jab a part of her not covered by the coat when she messes up an attempt to parry, possibly taking a second hit; it seems she underestimated these foes! Their offense and defense is still weak, though. So Staren bumps her defense up, pushing a little pulse of magic into her gear, the outline of invisible plate armor glowing and fading around her body. Iron daggers aren't getting through that. When the leader speaks, she just cocks her head and stares at him like someone waiting for something. When he finally rushes her, she focuses on fighting defensively, dropping the daggers and trying to smack his arms aside with her hands and counting on Armor of Ithan to block the blade when she messes up. After a few seconds of this, she draws the matter manipulator and starts deploying person-height concrete walls to box the leader in. THEN something else processes. "Wait, did he say he set Startsville on FIRE?!" She runs for the entrance at that point, pulling her broom from her bag and straddling it, hesitating for a split-second by Phony if Phony (or a quick-moving Ahn and Lotus) want to hop on as well, and then speeding off!
Persephone Kore	Phony's contribution to the fight itself is fairly small: whenever Staren gets nicked or bruised, she's right there to zap her with healing magic and... well, at least make it sting a little less. It's not terribly potent healing, even in Phony's hands. I wonder if I'd have a high magic stat, actually? Haha, I've never thought about that before. She's just about to dispense some gushing praise as Staren walls up the cult leader, but then she's acting so concerned suddenly? Phony floats elegantly up onto the broom, sitting side-saddle with her legs crossed. "I'm not sure it's all that much to be worried about," she says thoughtfully. "We might as well try to put the fires out, but this is just how the story's supposed to go, I think. Everyone would know it by now, and they didn't seem too upset." Her new dress flutters dramatically in flight. It's a 'sometimes' kind of outfit, but you really can't get that fluttering with a sweater, you know?
Staren	Staren thinks back to another town much like Startsville, before and after being ruined. That was only a year ago, for her! She nods to Persephone, "You're probably right, but..." She looks at her hand where Persephone healed a cut. "I..." A thought struggles to be turned into words. "...I guess I'm just waiting for the twist." Like someone's going to pull back the curtain and shout, 'Ha! Fooled you! Now it's for REAL!' ...I wonder why I'm expecting that? Is that... weird?
Vantablitz Remnants	Haha, you're sort of a genius, aren't you? Or do you already do this for all of Ahn's clothes? Now I'm really jealous~" "Hmmm, no. I've tried to get her to wear things I know she likes, but she won't. It's something about how it doesn't count? Or hasn't earned it or something? And how she'd forget being human if she didn't do all the little things, wearing human-made clothes and eating human-made food. I don't really get it, but I think it's sort of like the time she explained funerals to me. Like . . . a vigil?" Cave: "Huh." "You felt it too?" "Of course I did. We feel it at the same time." "Yeah . . . even the level one boss is taking pity on Miss Staren's attempt." "Hahaha~" However, when the lead cultist rushes at Staren, Ahn suddenly prickles up in alarm. "Wait, stop! You're actually going to get hurt if you try that! For real!" <<Miss Staren is pretty stupid and might just shoot you!>> <<Yes, I need you to stop, my new friend~>> Right then, the nearly weightless black 'bullets' soaked into the leader, having had plenty of time to flow through the natural channels of his body and find whatever constitutes a nervous system, release a simple but very powerful electrochemical-psychic impetus of stopping. Calm. Complacency. Anti-crisis. Task complete. Standing by. "That sounds like a critical plot progress flag, right?" "What?" "I think we're supposed to go back now. That's why there wasn't a quest objective." "Huh?" "The starting town always gets destroyed in these really old and hokey games. When was the last time you actually played them?" ". . . Pardon?" In lieu of any objection, though, they will actually just go back.
Chains Knight	Soon enough, the cultist leader gets boxed in. "Bah! You think these walls can hold me?" tink goes the dagger on the concrete wall. "..." He's attempting to climb out when the group takes off. The group takes off - the fastest route on land would be doubling back to the path split, then heading northeast and curving southeast to reach the north gate of Startsville - with a brief stop at a picturesque cliff overlooking the town's north side. Via flight, Staren and accompanying riders can just head straight east, heading over the treeline and other bits of geography. And the flight group and the land route group each get very different views. For Ahn and Lotus... Startsville is ablaze. As soon as they emerge from the forest, it becomes apparent - from the cliff overlooking the town, they can see the extent of the damage. Blazing fires. Collapsed buildings. So many corpses, littering the streets, with the survivors struggling to put out the flames or crying over lost loved ones. "This is - terrible, the Darkness..." says a {!}-ed person next to the front gate, as soon as they close within a certain distance. "You two!" "All of this fire has riled up some fire sprites, and they're interfering with the fire fighting efforts! Kill six of them so the rest of us can try to put this fire out! Please!" --- From the sky, however... is a different view. For Staren and Persephone, Startsville is ablaze! ... Part of Startsville is ablaze! ... Part of Startsville looks like it's ablaze? The north part of town is on fire. Sort of. There's a lot of hidden furnaces, flame-emitting nozzles, smoke machines, and other contrivances that are more visible from the air than they would be from ground level. Not much is actually on fire, it just gives a very strong suggestion that it is, using tricks of perspective and practical effects, especially if viewed from the north side - particularly if viewed from the picturesque cliff that's midway from the road leading from the Cave of Darkness. The south part of town, the part with the warpgate plaza, is entirely untouched, for example. It doesn't actually look like you can get to the north part of town from the south part, even - the roads and alleyways don't connect.
Vantablitz Remnants	<J-IC-Scene> Chains Knight says, "I've acquired my <key item>." <J-IC-Scene> Chains Knight says, "And I'm making my exit now."<J-IC-Scene> Vantablitz Remnants \|Lotus says, "Eh?" Ahn says, "Oh right, we were doing that weren't we." Hersrriving at the town, Ahn is shocked! Dismayed! Really confused! Between the sights of terrible carnage, there are people with floating exclamation marks, giving quests to kill more trivial enemies over the dead bodies(?!) of their loves ones (??). She stops, stares, stammers, "I--! Don't know how to feel about this!" "It's really confusing, right? It takes you out of the whole thing. This is all navigationism for those games you said used to be 'massively multiplayer', but this is normally the point where an NPC runs up to you and gives you an important thing you have to fight towards." "You don't-- ah, right, obviously this wouldn't have the same impact on you . . ." "???" Ahn sighs. Now that nobody is with her or looking (as far as she knows), she twists something in her wrist and a part of her forearm bloodlessly splits apart, extending sleekly shrouded carbon black rods and apertures. "Well, I'd feel bad leaving it on fire forever, so . . ." Her pupils expand, her irises glow with little marks, swivel and contract; the air in front of her face looks like it's compressing, but it's the light within it being bent into a nauseating glassy marble, which, from her perspective alone, allows her to see in weaving paths around buildings and through wreckage, establishing wibbly wobbly line of sight. Where she sees a 'fire sprite', she points upwards over the buildings and fires something from her arm with a sharply electric flicker-crack. A whistling smart projectile arcs back down and pierces each of them through the middle, until it seems like she's cleared enough for firefighting to resume. Lotus, meanwhile, cracks her white mask face down the bottom third, separating like a jagged, stylized pair of jaws, and 'breath weapons' a pressurized stream of some extremely cyan gelatinous fluid that clings to the fires. Rather than being, strictly, a suppressant, it absorbs the surrounding heat, snuffing out the combustion reaction, and uses the heat to rapidly multiply, freezing the surfaces it surges over. It should overtake the fire pretty quickly, with this much of it. "Okay, I'm bored." "Yes . . . let's go home."
Chains Knight	The wave of fire suppressant spreads. Soon enough, there's no fire left... but people are still running around or acting like the town is on fire here. "... Um..." The person who'd just gave them that quest is approaching, looking a bit upset. "Hey, um..." When she notices that they're leaving, she doesn't bother finishing that thought, and looks like she's just glad for them to leave.
Staren	Up in the sky... All this world really is a stage. Radio conversations ensue. Staren is kind of tempted to see what happens if she blows through the game with her actual gear. It helps that it will piss of Chains Knight's enemies. Will it match challenge or will she just get to the end? It'll get boring if it's easy for long, though... Persephone finds the scenery pretty. Staren can kind of understand this urge too, to look and see at what's out there, just to see it. It... It's the kind of thing she's imagined taking someone special to do, come to think of it. ...But who knows if this world actually has that much interesting to see? It might be a letdown. While she and Persephone mull that over, Vantablitz Remnants puts out the fire. Okay, watching to see what happens now should be interesting... Oh hey, a person! Staren just lands the broom right in front of her. "Hey um what?" she asks, vaguely positively.
Chains Knight	"... I... gotta ask you to, um, not actually try to put out the fire," says the questgiver. She glances up at the sky where Staren just came from. Then she looks at Staren. Mind reading is not required to tell that she's considering how much kayfabe to break here - and then she makes a visible decision to try soldiering on regardless of the obvious. "Because we've got the firefighting part covered, you just need to take care of the fire sprites," she says, and then while managing to put a bit of urgency in her voice: "And you need to hurry! Taking care of the fire sprites is something only you can do!"
Staren	Staren looks disappointed at the NPC going back to being an NPC. But she dismounts the broom and, keeping her gaze on the questgiver's face, holds out a hand, warping a double-barreled shotgun with bits of wire and blue gems stuck on it into said hand, and then repeating the 'aim without looking' trick to blast fire sprites, pulsing more magic into the gun after every two shots until the quest is done. "...I appreciate all the effort you're going to, but... this story isn't very interesting. You didn't give me characters to care about. There's nothing for me to find out by exploring. It's all just go and do next thing, like a movie broken up by combat practice. But a movie's not just great vistas and dramatic lines. How am I supposed to feel like a hero in a world that doesn't make me care about it?"
Chains Knight	"..." "..." "... We're doing the best we can," she says, shoulders sagging a bit. "We're the starting area. The tutorial zone. We don't get the huge setpieces - we had to push to get the burning town props, even. And everyone else is more concerned about players getting combat knowledge or story knowledge so they're prepped for their parts of the game while what the tutorial zone crew wants to do is - nobody cares, right?" She digs in a pocket, pulling out a notecard and writing down a number. "Look - you aren't telling me anything I haven't heard before. Call our boss up, tell her that the tutorial area needs more resources, alright? More resources, more story characters, a bigger portion of the total adventuring time, pretty much anything and everything."
Staren	Awwwww. Staren tries to give her a hug. (Hugs while holding a gun today count: 2) "What does the Tutorial Zone Crew want to do?" She does take the card, look at it, and then pocket it.
Chains Knight	"Be an actual part of the gameplay loop. Be..." She waves her hands vaguely. "I get that we need to acclimatize all the newbies with gameplay concepts and introduce the story but we've managed to do that and to actually have like, a whole area of interesting things to do, that were still teaching gameplay and story concepts, through things like implied storytelling and interesting encounter design, and..." She rubs her face. "... To be part of the real 'game', and not just a formality. In short."
Staren	Staren nods understandingly. And then... Gets a slightly mischievous and very thinking-herself-clever look. "Hey, do your resources have to come from the bosses, or can someone else spot you some stuff to give you a chance to show what you can really do?"
Chains Knight	"..." She looks a bit shifty eyed. "... Sponsorships aren't really... all that kosher."
Staren	Staren strokes her chin. "I understand. They're worried you'd show favoritism to the donor. But what if it's... anonymous?"
Chains Knight	"... That... should be fine?" she says. "What do you have?"
Staren	"Hmmmmmmmm." Staren thinks for a moment, and gets the value of 400,000 credits in gold coins calculated, putting the shotgun away, writing the number on the back of the card and showing it. "How's that for a start, and then... well, I'm not promising more, but if my suppliers go for it maybe there will be. Can you do much with that? Can you show us a much better version of your vision?"
Chains Knight	She looks at the number. "... It's... nice?" "We've got money already though - I mean, we have to have money, to run the shops and give out quest rewards, that's never been the problem - but it'll help, I mean!" she says, trying to strike a tone between 'not turning that down' and 'fishing for more'.
Staren	Staren blinks. "Oh. What is the problem, then?" She pockets the card again. "What do you need to achieve your creative vision?"
Chains Knight	"Better tools? Some sort of..." She tilts her head to the side, listening to something on a private radio. "You made a concrete wall pop up from out of nowhere, apparently?"
Staren	Staren blinks. "Oh shit, does that guy need help getting out? Sorry, I was... I was worried this might suddenly turn out to be real, so I rushed back here to put out the fire." But she strokes her chin again, seeing what the questgiver is getting at. "I may be able to lend you some stuff for awhile. Easy moving of material. Extradimensional spaces... you don't have inventories here already, though? And what else?"