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Lilian Rook     Begin Journey

    A lovely immersive term for 'game start', but it has the same function. After the 'party' is made ready (which seems as if it really shouldn't be a thing in a tutorial orientation; party mechanics weren't even explained), a burst of light washes over all those assembled, creating the illusion of speeding through a tunnel of soft, sci-fi white albedo, and then with a final flash of colour, depositing you in a sky-down streak of voxelized iridescence in brand new territory.

    The starting area is certainly no tutorial town. No newbie village. There's no quaint thatch huts here for your alleged community to try and endear themselves to you in the thirty minutes before the archvillain burns it all down. The Holy City of Clef is enormous, as far as videogames go. If anyone really intended to play over a sane amount of spare afternoon time, they'd find it intolerably time-consuming to walk around, and no doubt wonder at the amount of set dressing surrounding the important amenities. Yet, in the context of 'an area that must receive an influx of a million trapped souls', it's just barely not comedically too small.

    The city is built on an east-west slope, inclining in that direction you're dropped nearish to its eastern edge, if the six-pointed rays of the vaguely prismatic sun are the be believed, and it takes but moments to feel the simulated heat of the solar wastes on your back; from your slightly higher ground, you can see the city roll away into a vast horizon of inhospitable badlands, not so much a desert, for any lack of rain, but simply burnt down to the bones by the sun. Stars are visible even in the midday sky in that direction, perhaps relevant to some kind of environmental lore. From the west, past the rise of the city, a temperate and humid breeze counteracts the creeping heat, rolling down from the sole, mile wide gap between enormous north-to-south bluffs that the city seems to spill into and clog, where wild green grass, red lilies, and yellow-gold-leaved trees spill out from an oasis surrounding a green-blue river.

    The dead center of the city is set right between the two halves of the bluffs, such that their shadow only alternates between the east and west halves and never touches its prime locus. More or less hexagonal from what you can see --which is a lot, as the gradient makes it possible to view much of the city from any point-- it resembles a fictitious romanticization of an ancient Roman city mixed with an equally romantic one from the Golden Age of Islam, all clean streets, white granite and tawny sandstone, red slate and mosiac glass, fluted pillars and intricate aqueducts, inscrutable statues and ogee arches.

    There are walls to the west, but nothing to the east, simply allowing its border to be exposed to the waste. At its center, in the midpoint between what appear to be three separately vast temples, amidst a scattering of four storey mansions and great halls, is what could sort of be described as a palace, if you had a gun to your head. But not really. The massive building looks as if it were partially razed, stripped, rebuilt, and stripped again, each tier a different cobble of styles than the one below it, tapering off into a forever unfinished tower of Babel lookalike at its center past the few modest domes it has. There is no meaningful scaffolding in place, nor any sounds of construction.
Lilian Rook     Instead, there are a lot of people. Everywhere. Even being gigantic for a videogame, realistically speaking, Clef is not big enough for a million players. It might be, if they were organized into family units, most of whom stay indoors, or at permanent jobs, but that isn't the case. The streets are overrun with individuals in various states of rookie garb and culturally mishmashed jankcore armament, overflowing down side paths and round-routes that go nowhere important just so people have places to stand.

    It's loud as hell. Nobody seems to want to go inside, and the streets of inns and stores are already full to bursting. Street vendors have idle crowds around them, and the spaces between them are packed with human players trying to hawk something to the others. Even then, it'd hard to tell the difference between who is a PC and who is an NPC, if it weren't for the impromptu uniform of tutorial equipment and the fact that people are waiting in line to speak to the colourful vendor characters and probable quest givers. People are yelling for market space, yelling for parties, yelling to try and get guild recruitment going, yelling for pooling funds to afford a house, yelling for guides, and just plain yelling in various grades of bitterness and simmering panic.

    It's a hustling bustling shitshow. People are loitering in the streets trying to socialize in boredom, or trying to cram in food, (if one focuses hard enough to see their name and status, floating translucent beside their heads, they can see a lot of them are simply waiting for bars to recover), people are arguing in line for basic amenities, people are frantically discussing plans to go outside into the first game zones, people with better equipment have gathered audiences to give out what appears to be mapping scrolls and loudly proclaim what they've discovered out east, people jump and clamber stand on things for no reason at all and hang out on rooftops.

    It's going to be practically impossible to even meaningfully locate a vital NPC or main plot guidance like this. The fact that at lwest half of the people on the street are still level 1 bodes ill. There's some solace to be taken in the fact that most who aren't have had their avatars fudged or altered in some minor to moderate esoteric ways, just like you, at lwest.
Surge and Kit     Surge spends some time wide-eyed. This is the nicest place she's been since... since her memory starts, really. Very fancy and fantasy. Definitely the feel she was looking for playing one of these games.

    Lots of people lining up for vendors, hard to tell who's who, no clear indications or quest markers.

    Now everyone's talking about how hard it's gonna be to get info.

    Surge stomps on ahead, reaching for one of the random level 1 players standing in a line to grab their collar and pull their head down to her own head level. Crackling electricity in her eyes and sharp teeth certainly won't help her here, but maybe those high PER/COG/LCK stats will pay off.

    "Hey punk! You able to use your log out button or not?"
Forte Forte's been mentally compiling information. Since this is a video game that they are exploring, compiling all of it into a wiki seemed appropriate.

https://bladecraft-connect.fandom.com/wiki/Bladecraft:_Connect_Wiki

It's... a work in progress. There's a lot of unknowns, given that they've only just got past the tutorial area, and other pages are based on guesses, and some pages are just drafts that were published just to get a start on them (the page on Clarity simply reads "Clarity is a mechanic").

Anyway... BEGIN JOURNEY!

Immediately, Forte feels claustrophobic.

"Too many people here..." he mutters. There's shouting and noise and crowds, and lines for practically everything useful, and anything said out loud is likely to be overheard - and he's worried about causing a mob when people realize that outside help has managed to make it in.

Thoughts of having a million players all at once try to get messages to or from the outside doesn't sound like an efficient use of time for anyone.

After looking around some, Forte decides to leave talking to the stranded players and town NPC's to someone else (or possibly he just can't be bothered) and starts heading east towards presumably a leveling area of some sort, skimming across the ground as usual. Maybe getting in a level or two would be useful before anything else.

Or, more likely, getting away from the crowds is more preferable than anything else.
Lilian Rook     Surge grabs a briefly terrified . . . young man? Probably? Actually, it might just be not worth bothering to consider. Assuming everyone here had full avatar customization rights, like most of the Elite group, and didn't use their real name, there's really no way to know anything about the player. They'll be stuck like this for a while anyways; might as well take it in stride.

    Anyways, he stares at her in mildly uncomprehending, bug-eyed shock, flinching away a little at the electrical crackle; he can likely smell the perfectly simulated ozone as well as her. Surge is immediately subject to two chic-minimalist semitranslucent white toolbars sliding into and out of her vision. One tells her Reminder: LuCK has no effect on the reactions of player characters! and PERception (Moderate Success): Markivelian is distracted by your Traits and listening poorly.

    "What? Huh? Who are you?? Wait what-- no! Obviously! Nobody can? What, does yours?" PER (Minor Success): Markivelian is hopeful. "Hey, though, seriously, can I see your status? You're already like, crazy jacked up with good stuff. At level 1! You must have been in on the closed test right? You know where all the good stuff is. Can you tell me? I won't spread it to anyone else! I'll pay you! I'll be your party member! Whatever! I just need to get out of this hole!"
Ishirou Ishirou decides that maybe they should start a party.

Of course, this is after he looks at /everything/. Because of this, his scanners are scanning for everything, and POD has been deployed. Right now, both POD and Ishirou have a glowing eye indicator, as he seems to focus on everything around him. Right now he's just looking at the design of the city, how it's laid out, and where NPCs are.

Then it turns into trying to figure out if people are in homes, and who are in those homes. Is it just NPCs? Are there any PCs there?

Minor questions aside, Ishirou then heads towards people who were successful or semi-successful in exploring the first area. He's more focusing on those who managed to get maps and asked what they thought about things first. Mostly just small talk while also trying to copy the information on the maps.

Through the usage of scanning. He'll also ask about what they think of the combat system, of the monsters, of the challenges...anything to look out for, and all that.

He's completely forgotten to start the party.
Friz Dirt: Hey boss, got some new info for you.
Savvy: Lay it on me.
Dirt: That guy's panicking. That guy wants a group. That guy wants a guild. He's panicking. She's stressed. She's annoyed with vendors. He thinks that other guy was an asshole. She's trying to stop someone cutting in line...
Moxie: Oh Christ.
Savvy: Okay, no, quiet!
Dirt: Huh?
Grit: They have not left. They don't want to stay. There is danger.
Savvy: Okay. We aren't... this crowd is too big.
Moxie: We really, REALLY need space.
Savvy: Take us east. There's over a million people in here.
Grit: So someone has to be trying to leave.
Savvy: We can try to do some interviews there.

    Friz is overwhelmed. This is more people and more population density than she's ever experienced in literally her entire life as a frontier citizen. It's completely overwhelming. Even specific spaces of gathering aren't as crowded as this *fucking street*. She has to move. So she moves east. She tries to adjust glasses that are no longer there, self-consciously shifts her jacket, and starts power-walking east.

    She's going to try to settle down near the edge of where people are gathering. What's the note-taking system in this game? Can she find a table and some chairs, maybe use starter funds to buy a nodebook, and look quest-giver-like? If she can get a good spot like that, she can just start calling out, specifically picking individuals based on Rogers' intuitive pointing-out rather than shouting generally. "Hey, are you headed east? Do you have time for an interview?" She'll have to build a list of interview questions while she does this, and administer a sequence of interviews, to get a really comprehensive idea of what's going on.

    A voice whispers in her ear. "They're screaming. Crying. They want someone to listen. Someone to hear what's happening. The streets flood with tears and the gutters clog with blood. That's the worst fact about a transformative experience, kid. Most people can only do it at rock bottom. If they're not there yet, they fall instead."
KNK     "Go and ask them if they know anything about 'Constructed Consensus' or 'Collaborative-Argumentative," Rose says to Friz, after the mention of interviewing people. "We don't know if that's related, yet."

    The two now-clockwork ninjas are walking along, in the city's direction, though Violet looks like she's running on automatic, just following behind Rose. They've both acquired some variety of leather armor, though it's very obviously more fantasy leather than actual. The point is merely to provide some protection to vitals while doing little to slow them down, which is especially necessary in Violet's case. They don't show it as an obvious, outward thing, their steps still uncannily precise, but Rose is having an easier time moving around, everything made lighter by that level-1-boosted STR.

    "Can we get up there?" Violet points up the northern face of the bluffs, still easily visible before they get close enough for buildings to be in the way.

    Rose shakes her head. "No point, probably. If players aren't supposed to reach it, there won't be anything to see."

    "But, what if it's just supposed to be hard?"

    "Hmm. Maybe? Okay, let's give that a try."

    And so, rather than deal with anyone in the city, the pair continue on through, to go check whether their present bodies will still let them scale the walls. They're missing their gear, obviously, but have been long accustomed to heights and cliffs being not the least bit scary. Growing up in a vertically stacked city (and, later, having a deadened sense of pain) had that sort of effect.
Rita Ma      "This is... it's beautiful, isn't it?" Rita says, following a soft gasp of amazement. "I didn't think the game world would be so big." After another moment, she abruptly realizes something: "Oh! Give me just a second, okay? I'll be right back!"

     Rita is probably the one least bothered by the incredible concentration of people. To those who recall the Union Busan, that's no mystery: the claustrophobia of this place is 'only' about twice as bad as the city-ship's dense bazaars. Thus, she slips through the crowd around a food vendor with remarkable ease.

     She emerges with a delicious-looking beef kebab. And yet, somehow, she seems tense about it. Rita brings it up to her lips a few times, chickening out on each approach and finding a new angle to approach it from. Is it really that unfamiliar? Is it too hot? She seemed excited a moment ago.

     "Most people are low-level because they don't want to leave the starting town, right?" she says on rejoining the bulk of the party. That gives her something to think about that isn't the forbidden treasure in her hand. "That's why this place is so overcrowded, too. Nobody wants to be in danger, and this is the safest place."

     On an anxious lark, Rita tries opening a door more or less at random. Why aren't people going indoors?
Rubi-Kan Vagrants      Standing on the eastern edge, Phreak and Bercilak are met with a familiar sight. A city just barely sized for its population, with barren wastes outside its limits. Phreak heaves a sigh, after inspecting his clockwork prosthetic. Looking out at the badlands, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." It's not quite the same--the result of incredible solar abuse, rather than saturation bombing. But it's familiar enough.

     Bercilak takes a breath, stretching his armored arms. "Check that out," Says the Green Knight, pointing a clawed gauntlet in the same direction. His eerily glowing red eyes are no longer hidden by his helmet, thanks to Lilian's indication of the cosmetic option to hide it. He's looking at the stars dotting the sky, as if they hadn't gotten the memo that it was daytime.

     Phreak scratches his head, still getting used to his longer hair. "Yeah. Jesus, though. I can barely hear myself think. Look at all of 'em." He says, turning around with a worried frown to sweep his intact hand across the teeming, often panicked or bitter throng of humanity. "I know this has been a clusterfuck, but..." How can they help this many people? What if they fail? Concern begins to gnaw at him as he anxiously clutches the leggings of his newbie rogue armor. It hits him, then--that maybe someone in all of that mess is themselves a Watch operative. Phreak splits off from Bercilak with a determined look on his face and a purposeful stride, searching for any of the usual way-markers. There's one question on his mind, no matter if he finds one contact or several--what's the first thing new players should do, to make sure they'll be safe going out? If these people are going to be helped at all, it won't do them any help to get his ass blown off by the first encounter.

     Bercilak, meanwhile, accompanies Surge, standing behind her menacingly. Not because he means to, just because he's still jacked and over seven feet tall. "Easy, sib," says the Green Knight, gently attempting to temper Surge's approach. "Remember, a lot of these guys are scared. You know what they say about flies and vinnegar." He assumes that she does, in fact, know. Then, he pats her on the shoulder and clomps off to speak to one of the players hanging out on the rooftops. A very important question comes to mind, as he does--where the hell is his bike? "Hey, sib," says Bercilak to the first rooftop chiller he can find. "Talk to me. What's on your mind?" It occurs to him that he's never just... asked someone that question.
Surge and Kit     "I'm just making sure," Surge says, letting the adventurer go as she distractedly glances at her UI. "Neat, this thing says you're distracted by my Traits and listening poorly. You agree with that?" If he's distracted, he probably won't even answer! Surge is just musing the usefulness of this kind of hud. Making social interactions less of a pain sounds like a neat feature. If slightly invasive.

    "I got bad news for you on all those fronts, we ain't got any more of a clue how to get out of here than you do." She vaguely jerks a thumb back at the others, at least, the ones who haven't wandered off already. "We're investigating."

    Bercilak asks her to chill and she grunts, then sighs. "Fine, fine. I'll baby 'em around. Dunno what to tell you, I just look like me. Game just gave me all this stuff when I logged in. You didn't get anything fancy?"

    She attempts to look at the adventurer's status screen, to see why he's reacting so oddly. Far as she knows getting this much stuff is normal, might as well establish a baseline.
Kirishima Standing atop one of those seemingly insurmountable rooftops is one red-haired 'Nanahara', clad in her vaguely office-ish rogue attire with the logo-clad mask and inconveniently uncloseable shoulder bag. She's observing the bustle of rookies clamoring below from a safe enough distance that she can almost hear herself think properly. Mingling among the throng of people proved to be a little too claustrophobic for her, and even the rooftop isn't giving her much room with so many people still managing to get up there and sprint by to try and climb even higher.

At least they're just far enough over there that she has room to see the grand structures around the palace/temple formation. "The palace-tower might be worth checking out later. If this functions more like an MMO than a conventional RPG, then it likely won't be until after the first set of quests at least." She relays to her fellow Elites, pausing to watch the player seemingly pleading with Surge to get him out of this situation while Bercilak goes from where she is to the rooftops.

"This is tricky.. If we reveal that we're here to help them, it might help calm them down. If everyone knows who we are, though, then they could end up interfering with our efforts at best and actively hampering us at worst." There's too many variables to keep tack of. So many people, so many possibilities. She struggles to come up with some way to aid in the investigation, cursing her own lack of...

Wait. She did bring up the castle-palace-thing surrounded by the temples earlier. If nothing else, it couldn't hurt to actually look in and around the place. She heads for the palace-tower and, guessing that simply going inside won't get her far, starts trying to scale the side of the palace (or at least somewhere away from the main entrances) to search for an alternative entrance or high windows that might give her a better view of where the important-looking NPCs and quest-givers would be inside. With any luck, she might even be able to get inside and try to dig for some info and quests that way!
Lilian Rook     Trying a lot of doors finds most of them locked. Many ostensibly belong to colour NPCs, probably for immersion purposes, as the popups dictate, but about two thirds of them prompt him to pay large sums to either rent or buy the property. Ishirou has no way of knowing how onerous a tax it is; it's far outside the means of a player with starting cash at least. The crowding would be reduced if anyone could afford these. Or move to other towns further into the game. Or if lots of people died.

    Ishirou lighting up his scanning abilities might also be surprised to find that they . . . work fine, after a sort. His field of view becomes cluttered with detailed status and build indicators of various players, along with what looks like brainwave patterns, psych profiles, physical health, and real life physical health. It's actually sort of incredibly invasive, in a way that starts to feel sort of skeevy once he can go right down to some random stranger's deep biometrics, though those with higher Clarity scores appear to give him less information. Notably, he can find almost no other players with Clarity scores over 300, while the Elite party averages double to triple that much.

    His asks are met with usefully useless answers. The majority of people here are genuinely too scared to try out the combat, many even about leaving the town. They know broadly that the game is designed to be difficult, and especially that low levels with no traits and poor gear are especially risky. Most are simply waiting for better gear and information to trickle back into town for them to hedge their bets, as equip limits appear to be very generous

    Friz's additional interviews paint a holistic picture. Many players are trying to earn odd change in the meantime to stockpile supplies, or grind up useful non-combat skills to prepare for the future and make themselves useful or valuable, even fighting over the materials being brought back by 'adventurers'. Many are bored out of their skulls and finding out what they can do. A lot of people have already decided they simply won't leave Clef, which they claim is a safe zone. Pushing on the topic elucidates her to the fact that everywhere beyond is PvP allowed, and there are rumours of people being killed by fellow players to get an edge already, though unconfirmed. A major issue appears to be the bottleneck of so many players all trying to progress at the same time, massively overwhelming the rate that the environment can refresh, and collectively slowing down everyone's gains. Pushing far away from the crowd and into less-trod territory is extremely dangerous; ordinary players start with no traits, and thus are no match for areas that presume having them.

    Most importantly, her interviewees believe they have been here for six days.
Eryl Fairfax     Eryl had heard of the chaos that is MMO launch day from old magazines he archived, but seeing it in person is something else. But this is his element; a massive crowd, scared, desperate, seeking help and salvation.

    He walks over to where some players are jumping around and joins them, getting as high as he can. Taking a deep breath, he opens his character menu and glances at those traits. 'Augmented Diplomat' sits at the top. He's not yet sure if traits work on other players, but he needs to cut through this chaos one way or another.

    "EVERYONE!" he booms, pushing his voice as far as it will go. In the real world, he can project it quite far, but in a VRMMO, there's things like area boundaries that might cut him off from others. "This avatar is being controlled by Eryl Fairfax, Grandmaster of the Paladins! A contingent of Elites has entered the game to solve the issue as to why you are unable to log off! We ask for your collaboration and patience as we endeavour to understand the situation!"

    He gives them a second for that to sink in before continuing. "In the spirit of ensuring that we can resolve the situation as neatly as possible, we ask that you exercise caution! Do not leave safe zones unless you are supremely confident in your skills as a gamer! Do so only in large parties, and make sure you keep the tower in sight so you can find your way back!"

    Another pause. Telling gamers not to play the game isn't going to work for a subset of them, but it must be said. "Again, we ask that you co-operate with our investigation. This is for your benefit and safety as well as ours. Here, we are limited by the rules of the game, the same as you. Bladecraft was designed so that players would have to collaborate to work out its secrets, and that is now more important than ever. Hold nothing back, not even the smallest detail. We also ask that you all spread the word of our arrival as much as you can. There are approximately one million people online right now."

    Now, he drops from his high place to stand among the crowds and look them in the eyes. "I will remain here to answer any questions you all might have. Let me reassure you that the Paladins will get you out of here."
Forte Forte endeavours to look as much like he's not with Eryl as possible.

And also generally leave that general area faster.
Lilian Rook     Rita finds the food on sale from NPCs is tolerable on her starting wallet, seeing a - Þ20 pop up, but if she wanted to simply sit around doing nothing, she'd run out in a month or two. It is currently unknown if people can actually die of starvation, but food doesn't appear to be a strong economic concern; more of an 'adventure packing' thing. However, if there is death by starvation, it'd certainly be an ample motivation to 'simply not play the game' for months. The food available is, appropriately, about what one would expect from rustic mediterranean or middle eastern fare.

    The kebab is juicy and spicy and delicious. It's actually really hard to tell the difference from the real thing. Rita can see a food-related gauge slightly overfill under her vitals tab, and gain a minor bonus to stamina and health regeneration.

    Lilian, hovering in a tensely overstressed way around her, arms folded around her own midriff, answers "Well, they're presumably aware they'll be killed if their HP reaches zero. It's sensible to not take any risks. And it's probably crowded as hell out in the easy areas too."
Ishirou Ishirou gets...a /lot/ of information.

In fact, way too much...this lets him get the information he otherwise shouldn't be able to get. He also listens to people go on about what's been happening and the like, a feeling that people are afraid to push out there...which is reasonable. Half a year ago, he'd have been one of these people, waiting for Lilian, or Go, or...

So they don't want to try combat so...

"What do you /want/ to do?" he asks when Eryl is done. "I can understand not wanting to risk your life when you thought it was a game. Right now we're in a situation where working together is for everyone's benefit."

"People need items to adventure, crafters need raw materials, and people who can gather the raw materials need safety. Then we can work on getting people settled in residences and getting things rolling.." he thinks about this. He looks to see if there are any NPCs that sell basic raw materials.

Then he looks to see if there is a secondary or complete item that can be sold at a profit. He tries to analyze what the best conversion would be and how to start making a profit.

With the goal to share this.
Lilian Rook     Forebodingly, Phreak actually finds a single Watch marker, left in a fucked corner of an abandoned alley. There is no individual around it. It seems to have been left in simple hopes that there'd be Watch sympathizers or some low level grassroots cell allies somewhere in the game. It's not exactly as if even zero point zero one percent of the Multiverse is in the Watch. It's left with mapping data to a specific location a good hike to the east.

    What's nice is that people appear to be dispensing journal data back to town for a small fee. It's eminently affordable to buy copies of wisdom that adventurous players have written down in batch. Friz finds that she can bind her starting paper into a rough book with a minimum level of an Administration skill, and record data in it by draining durability from her starting charcoal. No doubt those players are using some of the profit to buy large amounts, grinding up the skill for whatever it's worth at the same time as bolstering their funds via distributing life-saving tips. It's a useful strategy to consider, given she actually has quite high information-gathering and recording abilities, and started with the skill.

    The knowledge is very scattershot and incomplete, and it takes buying several booklets to get a more complete picture, but the overlapping information is relatively clear. Get decent armour. Stockpile supplies up to half inventory space. Be paranoid about healing and status items. Rest frequently. Don't fight more than a few enemies at a time. Try to engage in survivalism rather than simply constantly running back to town; persisting in nature is known to sometimes trigger the availability of Traits related to health, resistance, vitals, and spotting. It also lists several anecdotal procedures that people have already gotten useful Traits from, without much replicability.

    Bercilak asking some roofgoers gets a simple, sober answer. "Home. How long this is going to take. It's been almost a week and people have barely gone anywhere. I thought the game is cool, but nothing is worth risking my life. I'm just going to wait until everyone moves on or dies."
Lilian Rook     Sadly, nobody knows anything about either of the terms Rose asks about. They've enver even heard them. Somewhat better armour is available from NPC vendors, but it costs them most of their starting budget; a whopping Þ3500 that demolishes their ability to buy up ample food and healing or a better weapon.

    Heading out east isn't difficult for her or Forte. The main gate doesn't give them a warning, loading wait, or anything at all, but does prompt them to form a party for their first time leaving.

    Putting the city walls behind them immediately deposits them in a sort of well-trodden wilderness. A frontier area. Almost like a 'landing zone' of sorts. Instantly, the volume of the city fades behind them, and they're left in the deafening semi-quiet of their natural surroundings. Green and gold wildgrass alternates with paths of tawny dirt, breaking around scattered groves of yellow and pink trees and pools of ocean-bluegreen freshwater. A faintly eerie breeze rustles through the area in soft waves, interrupted only by the very odd chirp of a fictional bird or insect. To Rose with her PER scores, her Observer trait fires, and draws her attention to ample faint footprints in the packed earth, and glow-points where the surrounding flora has been harvested clean of anything useful, alongside designated fishing holes and cracks in the bluff, though it's revealed to her that the sandy beach surrounding the river that splits the path ahead and trickles an offshoot into town is actually totally untapped; likely nobody realizes they can pan sand for anything.

    More than just that, though, the surreally picturesque zone (which comes up as Beach Head - Overture) doesn't seem to be completely unsettled. Wandering around, Forte quickly runs across the crumbling bones of ancient buildings, choked in ivy and swimming in water. Not just stone either, but old corroded metal hulks as well, and what looks suspiciously like concrete (for which he apparently lacks a salvage skill. Entrances to modest ruins, possibly already picked clean, litter the area, though still too far apart to be enjoyably walkable for a real MMO.

    More problematic is that he finds zero enemies and zero resources. Continuing to go further eventually causes him to run across small groups of players, waiting around with weapons in hand, making little lean-to camps or simply staking out presumptive spawn areas, all of whom glare at him with suspicion and hostility. On past that, he can hear the sounds of players in active play.

    Rose and Violet find scaling the bluff surprisingly difficult; Violet moreso for her lower STRength and DEXterity. The Shadow trait is what carries them, though they're forced to frequently break to recover Stamina, as it is rapidly drained the more steep and inaccessible the climb is, possibly as an important gating measure. Arriving at the top gives them an incredible view of the trackless wastes, and the multicoloured river groves below; even the tiny dots of players. The emptiness at the top, combined with the quiet and view, even rendering Clef itself kind of a white blotch of civilization, amplifies the eerie liminality of it all to a way that feels strangely impactful. The temptation to simply contemplate it in silence is intense, like one might happen upon some greater enlightenment by doing so.

    Violet alone is prompted with Trait Discovered: Untethered ~ Unlock Progress: 0%.
Friz Grit: Ground them. Center them.

"What would you like noted as your name?"
"In one or two sentences, describe how you feel to me."
"When did you log in to Blade Craft: Connect?"
"When and how did you learn about the current death-game situation?"

Moxie: Accept their panic. They wanna move...

"What are some of the most dangerous threats you've heard about?"
"How do you feel about your fellow players?"
"What do you plan to do to survive this situation?"
"Do you have anyone to support you right now?"

Dirt: We need that info, though.

"Were you able to log out at any time before this disaster?"
"What are your immediate needs to survive what's happening?"
"Do you perceive any players as leaders or guides in all this?"
"Are there any organizations you feel trust towards?"

Savvy: And we need to understand the mystery behind this.

"Did you or anyone you know experience any anomalies during character creation?"
"Do you know of any particularly well-advantaged players?"
"Have you or anyone you know experienced PvP violence?"
"What are some locations you think should are best cleared and looted for the benefit of everyone staying in Clef?"
"Have you heard about 'Constructed Consensus' and 'Collaborative-Argumentative' mode? In your own words, what do those mean?"

"And for god's sakes, kid, make them feel safer."

"I'm looking for ways to help people. If you'd like a 'friend' connection, just give your account name and I'll get you connected."
"Is there anything you'd like put to record, that you just wish people knew?"
"If you could say something to the people outside this game, what would it be?"
"What are your plans to support your friends, and to ask for support from them?"

    She's been noting the curosry answers. Desperation to be useful. Desperation to have a role. To not wind up as some kind of refugee. To center around the bold adventurers. The time distortions. It's a lot. She scribbles it all down in a notebook window, or else a notebook object she bought. She keeps calm, composed, reassuring, but if asked why she's doing this, she always claims she's with something called "BVD", or the "Bladecraft Volunteers Department". Better to stay low for now -- and to hopefully build foundations of legitimacy for later.
Lilian Rook     Kirishima attempting to access the palace doesn't really find it hard, but she also finds it rather pointless. Her map registers it as Clef - Tower of Gilded Folly, and nothing else. It appears to be primarily NPCs in the area, but none have exclamation marks hanging above their heads, or anything so helpfully gauche. Talking to them begins to explain some of the game world's lore to her.

    Namely that Clef is a 'holy city' for being built by pilgrims from the outlands, who have come from all different nations across the liminal wastes to this singular geographic point, variously called The Origin, The Holy Land, and The Clear Realms, though players have already started calling the game world 'Origin' and this area 'the Realm', or more cynically, 'the Zone'. Apparently in Clef's history, some far-flung king or emperor made the mistake of trying to march armies across the wastes, take over Clef, impose their regional culture and religion over the pilgrim city, and was immediately undone by both mass insurrection by the pilgrims and anomalous disasters, the five-times renovated palace left to stand as a testament to the powerlessness that imperialism has over the free city.

    Apparently, all PCs take the role of these pilgrims, who have sought the game area on one of four paths, or creeds of belief. Not for any specific religious reason, but because the 'Clear Realm' is said to be closer to the truth of the world than any other, and the reflection of this is that tremendous personal change is made possible and manifest here, moreso than anywhere else in the world. It's even rumoured that God exists, slumbering, somewhere at its heart.
Rita Ma      Rita finally, very tentatively, bites into the cooked kebab. She chews hesitantly. Then a little less hesitantly. Then her face lights up, and she can barely contain her glee. "Ms. Rook! It's really, really good!! It's just like I remember it! Here, you try!"

     It's pretty tasty, but not quite enough to merit that level of enthusiasm from anyone else. It's not hard to guess why it's made Rita so happy, though: here, there's cooked meat that she can actually stomach.

     "Hey, Ms. Rook," she says hesitantly, after the kebab has been finished one way or another. "Have you tried 'stopping time' here yet? I know you were thinking about whether or not it'd work, when we were in the tutorial zone. It 'shouldn't', but you did have some really weird traits, right?"
Rubi-Kan Vagrants ROOFTOP:

     "Yeah," says Bercilak, whose username displays as Sir_Grabahan. He really loves that joke. The large armored man sits down beside the player on the rooftop. "All those people out there are thinking about the same thing." Without his helmet on, it's plain to see the concern on his face, and its shift to a smile that's meant to be reassuring, if somewhat dimmed by his ominous glowing eyes and clawed gauntlets.

     One of those gauntlets rests on the other player's shoulder. His voice slightly lowered, "Can I tell you a secret? I'm actually a Watchman." A giant green guy, in heavy armor--who could that possibly be? "I came here because I heard about all the people like you, and I didn't think it was right that you guys got trapped here just for wanting to try... something new. Being somebody new. I didn't come here alone. So even if you don't want to go out there, even if you're scared, try to remember that there are people fighting for you out there."

     He stands up, then, stretching, looking out over the city. "My buddy just found a lead. But before I go..." He turns, to face the player again. "Don't ever let the world make you think that your only choices are risking your life, or letting it pass you by. Not this one, and not the one out there." The rooftop idler gets a pat on the head, before Bercilak clambers back down to meet up with Phreak.

     CITY LIMITS

     The two men spent some of their money on whatever adventuring supplies weren't included in the standard welcome package, and, if any was available, better armor than the starting gear.

     Pulling up their stat windows invites a brief pause. Bercilak looks at Chord: Cavalry on his--while Phreak observes Notes: Courier. Do either of these confer mounts available somewhere in their menus? Is Phreak's Courier ability able to give the both of them some means of fast travel to the map data Phreak discovered at the Watch marker?
Lilian Rook     Eryl getting up on a rooftop can barely shout over all the people present at once. The longer he keeps talking, though, the more that people notice that others are being quiet and looking up, and the more attention he can monopolize.

    It has mixed results. Some in the crowd sigh and whimper with relief, or even cheer for the arrival of their heroes and begin excitedly shilling 'we're gonna be okay!' sentiments with their friends. Most are more reserved, having no idea whether to believe this or not, and not wanting to speak out when most of the herd is quiet. Some outright reject him, calling out that 'anyone can make an avatar and name it Eryl Fairfax; everyone knows that guy', and accusing him of being a 'roleplayer', and various rude words for girls who consume too much of a particular type of literature featuring pretty men. They don't really catch much groundswell, nor influence the crowd all that much, but it kind of tells him what he has to work with. Many are hesitant to believe that the Paladins would 'bother with a videogame', or go 'why aren't you arresting the bad guy instead of playing then?' as suspicious gotchas, or even moping with 'what good is that going to do if you're level one like the rest of us?'

    At the very least, most seem to find his confident advice about how to stay alive variously reassuring of what they've been hearing by rumour.
Lilian Rook     Surge's captive dumbass blinks at her for a while as he cycles through failed comprehension checks, then turns a little red and says "Wh- I guess? I mean, look at you! The wildest I've seen so far was like, a dude who somehow got weird tattoos and gills from some water area past Overture. You're full on anthro dude! And electricity powers! Is that like, a Trait, or is that Composition? Did they let you import your beta character and they just set you level one?"

    His own status is largely censored, apparently due to Surge lacking some kind of skill that would let her further analyze other players' capabilities. She does see that he has far more modest stats than her, and considerably less Clarity for no discernible reason. He has only a couple of Inherent traits marked 1 or 2 points, mostly declaring specific skill aptitudes.
Forte Forte takes the party prompt as a good idea, and sends a party invite to Rose. (He still hasn't responded to anyone's friend requests, though.)

The plan is simple, at least in his mind. Find a monster. See if he can try modulating his Clarity and Tuning, and get to grips with the various other systems in play here on something more interactive than a training dummy or tutorial mob. Gain experience, and see how it can be applied. Overall, become familiar with these systems - knowing how they work is step one on the road of knowing how to break them.

This plan gets kneecapped pretty quickly by the realization that the immediate areas are farmed dry, and are subject to the same overcongestion as the town. (Why wouldn't they be?)

He considers, briefly, heading out further east. Further out the world has to open up more than the relatively narrow band around the town would suggest, and have more places for enemies and resources. But that would take him further away from the town, and while he isn't fond of the crowds, it still is an important site to not stray too far from too fast.

Fortunately, there's a solution. Forte retreads his ground a bit, seeking out one of the groups camping a spawn spot - ideally one that has someone who:

<RADIO> Rose says, "...looks like enough of an asshole to try swinging first just because you stood too close."

... Though personally, Forte's not too picky about which group or individual they pick.

"Move," he says, floating right on up to their face(s). "You're in our spot."

He makes sure he's really clear about that.
Lilian Rook     Ishirou's questions are largely met with shuffling. He's talking to random gamers, probably with boring jobs or school; not exactly the aspirational sort. Some sort of mumble that they'd prefer to just hang out with their friends and take it like a vacation, but there's not a lot to do in town. Otherwise indicate that they'd like to explore, once they can load themselves up to make it very safe, or others 'once the pack moves on'. A lot really just want to have a private space and a bed and a bath.

    Though there are many NPCs that sell various kinds of low level wood, herbs, ore, minerals, salvage, and organs, it requires skill levels to actually turn them into things, which he does not have, and the NPC rate appears to be intentionally abysmal. Selling product is alright, but the materials are incredibly expensive.

    His intuition tells him that someone must really have put exhaustive effort to make 'hanging around in town forever' very difficult and unrewarding to achieve, on purpose. No doubt if a lot of people stay here, eventually some amount of wealth will flow in, but they'll eventually wind up as an exploited labour force for the powerful, high-level players.
KNK     "You sure? I can... no, I guess it's fine. You're right."

    After the long trek up, Rose spotting for Violet and helping her overcome that stat difference (thankfully being already aware it would become an issue), the two have a short conversation at the start, as Violet sits down. It looks perfectly safe up here. Like nothing at all can reach them.

    "Yeah. Don't worry. There's 'nothing' up here, but maybe that's the point?" Violet isn't looking at 'nothing' so much as she's looking at all the very distant 'somethings,' but either way, she's decided to try yielding to that impulse to meditate. Maybe that isn't really like her, but if it's something new... why not? "I feel like I can find something, here."

    Rose leaves her be, accepting Forte's party request -- adding the three of them together. She makes her way back down, expecting the descent to be a lot easier than the first trip up, so long as she keeps in mind the paths she'd found along the cliff face.

    Once she's most of the way down, she orients to look around for Forte, only thinking about checking the UI for an indicator a moment later. Heading that way, she checks over her weapons again, rests a hand on the hilt of her sword, and adopts that particular 'I belong here, you do not, I will break pieces of you until you agree' swagger as she moves to join.

    'I don't think much is going to come of it,' Rose says to Forte, 'but sure, let's try stirring some shit and see what happens.'
Surge and Kit     "No? This is just how I look. Ain't played this game before. Telling you, we just logged on and got all sorts of stuff. Pretty sure this game like, reads your mind and replicates you or something. Except the pet." She motions for the glowing blue fennec, which hops onto her shoulder. "I have one of these but it's bigger, whines more, and doesn't glow. I guess the electricity powers are a Trait though." She's only half sure. But given how the Traits work that's a safe bet. She glances at her sheet to be sure, and turns back to the adventurer.

    "Anyway, hang on, you say a player just got some gills by going to a water area? Is it really that easy, you just go places and get... new body parts to fit in? Or did he have to beat up some monster for them? Also... what's a Composition?"
Lilian Rook     Most of Friz's interviewees give her their real names, but many actually just choose their handles. Most are stressed, bored, fearful, nervous, restless, and thinking too much about death. They've all logged in on day one, few remember the actual time. All of them report a mysterious system announcement, in a voice they don't recognize, that spoke to them on day one, telling them of the current situation, and elucidating that the only way out for them is to 'fulfill the purpose of the game' and 'reach me at the end'. They were also all told about 'story characters' that would be promoted from within their ranks, to create an 'enriching narrative' that would 'guide them'.

    Mostly, everyone is afraid of being PKed, but nobody can name anyone who has been. It's tense rat race society zombie movie watching brainrot. Most plan to simply figure out a way to make money in town, or get to the point they can easily handle the early areas and never leave those, expanding their range just enough to be comfortable. A good portion have friends they entered with as a group, and are the more mentally healthy ones. Others are afraid and alone, and awaiting someone unlocking the guild functionality. Most of the threats they've heard about are Ruin Bosses and something they call Dissonances by game lore, and Anomalies by tongue in cheek playerspeak.

    There are a couple of popular guide-writer names out there, but not exactly any folk idols yet. Nobody actually tried logging out in the first hour it took for everything to go wrong. A minority did experience anomalous options in creation, but were eager to play and assumed it was 'brain stuff, so the VR isn't weird or nauseating'. Mostly they all want the aggressively progression-fixated players to fuck off and leave them alone to mill about the starting areas so they can stop feeling so trapped. They want the population to break up. They're aware of some kind of player homesteading and land-stewarding mechanic later in the game, and hope to simply rely on that, or that enough of an economy will form in Clef that they can just work boring jobs. They're a little worried about the survival gauges and all, but nobody is about to starve just yet; Clef does't seem to be very scarcity driven.

    She's well-received though. Her friends list gets very full very fast. Those who leave her with records mostly just leave her with messages in the event they die, or various fuck-yous to the creator, and pass along heartfelt sentiments to friends and family. Those with friend groups in the game intend to pool money for housing and means of production, or to form a large posse to safely progress at a slow and steady pace, leaving no one behind. People really look for confident, competent leader-figures, who don't seem reckless and stupid, but can navigate the game world easily and aren't afraid.
Ishirou Ishirou wonders, if this was so designed to be like this, where is the encouragement for these people to go out..? If it was created by alternatives to who they think it is...

Ishirou isn't sure about that, he's trying to lock down the logic in his mind, but at the end of the day...

He tries something. He looks at the NPCs selling various items. He decides to start with the NPC selling various parts over the top at too much price. Then he starts to try and hack the NPC. Attempting to lower the prices of the items as low as he can get them.

This seems especially useful if the monsters outside of town are too dangerous to kill. This means he can hopefully help those who DO have skills to make items, to make said items. Hopefully, giving these people a chance to start something.

Assuming it works.
Eryl Fairfax     The jeers are expected of course, as are the slurs. Original Face catalogues some of those ones as new entries in the list of unique insults Eryl has been called in his life (it's long and covers multiple languages). "Believe me or not, it's fine. As long as you heed the rest of my words, I'm happy if you think I'm just a roleplayer," he says to the doubters.

    Another flavour of jeer is as to why the Paladins are here, and not 'arresting the bad guy.' Naturally, investigations are being launched in the real world to figure things out. But 'the investigation is ongoing' is the most deeply unsatisfying thing in the world to hear. So Eryl answers different. It's not even a lie.

    "Because you all matter too. Even more so than punishing the criminal."

    Another measured pause before he continues. "Justice is not just retributive. It is not solely about condemning the guilty. It is also about supporting the victims. And all of you trapped here are victims. You deserve reassurance, support, safety nets. What was meant to be a tool of leisure is now a life-or-death situation. And it's terribly unfair that you will need to work within it for a period. But you must all come together to safeguard each other until this cruel present can become the unpleasant past. And we're going to help you do that."

    He nods to Ishirou as he asks the played what they want, and claps his hands twice, projecting his voice a little harder. "I am lead to believe the game has hunger systems, limited money, and no free access to food. Subsistence is the most immediate concern. I ask those who have scouted the area to mark enemy spawns and resource gathering points. We will assemble teams to go out and forage from these points, as well as combat teams to defend them and farm mobs. We'll also need to find sources of fresh water and arable land. Ideally, cultivating food can support foraging it. We will need seeds of course, and farmers. We'll also need crafters to turn resources into food and equipment."

    He smiles and scratches his glowing head sheepishly. "I'll admit, I'm far from a pro at these games. And as some have said I am level 1, same as you all. But I am a quick study, and I hope all of you will teach me. My plan is broad, and there will be little details you'll need to explain for me. But gamers love a challenge right?"

    It's unabashedly cheesy, a fine scattering of cringe to cut through the nerves.
Kirishima With extra lore details abound, Kirishima takes some time to get it all written down in whatever notepad equivalent she has in this MMO world. She's not sure when it might come up, but it does give her some context to work with should the relevant NPCs start coming up with...

Wait. None of them had garish quest markers. That might make things a little trickier, but it's still information nonetheless. With that squared away, she moves on to doing something that might help her help everyone else try to actually get further in resolving the more dangerous aspects of this death game:

Actually getting stronger. Although she's confident in her ability to punch the shit out of things, she hasn't quite gotten accustomed to her utterly average statline beyond having comparably high LCK, CON, and WIL. She heads out EASTWARDS towards the wastes, roughly in the same direction that she had vaguely seen Forte (and possibly Rose) heading in.

Instead of moving to mess with any players claiming specific spots, though, she just goes with the tried and true solo player method of just going after whatever mobs start spawning closest to her. She's at least careful not to go after things that already have other people conspicuously nearby, at least. She also keeps the lore of the former king/emperor trying to come into this city as well, keeping an eye out for anything that might look like remnants of a past army conveniently sticking out of the ground.
Lilian Rook     The players that Bercilak confides in personally seem more inclined to believe him than Eryl. Partly because they loosely know anyone can be a Watchman, or claim to be in the organization for doing little. It's like someone saying 'I'm in the IRA' during the Troubles. They're not really sure how to take the information, but it puts them at ease. Some half-seriously suggest that the Watch should form a local cell in the game, like it's a real place, to fight the tyrant that informed them of being locked in. They seem to be in better spirits when he leaves them.

    Phreak and Bercilak examining their status find that their Traits immediately enable them to secure a mount, tamed or salvaged, without the elaborate and expensive and risky process to do so, but they do not immediately start with one. This might be very exploitable, if they can find (or salvage???), some very useful creature or device.

    Phreak is fortunate that Courier does something. However, the map data hits him with Location Undiscovered. It seems that fast travel is restricted to specific, expensive items, and his Trait allows him to access the same recall function at a small amount of money directly out of his wallet and a little bit of XP, instead of carrying around a single recall item for an arm and a leg to only use in emergencies. There's not a ton they can do to skip 'leaving the city and actually looking around' just yet, but it seems they're very well prepared to trailblaze the map in short order. It's almost as if that certain concessions have been made to force them to explore, and then repaid with things they wouldn't normally get, as if there were some bespoke, auter designer idea of fairness going on.
Lilian Rook     It's not hard for Forte to figure out how to send party requests. They pop up in a simple way that Rose and Violet can simply touch to accept. Oddly, there doesn't seem to be a maximum size limit, however, once the corner HUD updates to start showing the HP, CLR, Stam, and Status of each player, a figure at the top begins to diminish. Each additional Elite reduces an EXP and money multiplier by a small but notable margin, with three Elites adding up to roughly 0.85x. However, a 'Discovery' multiplier increases to a rather steep 2.2x. There is at least a compass waypoint in each status bar to orient each other, with a fade-fill colour to indicate distance. If Rose thinks strongly about scanning for Forte, she can see a blue indicator pop up in the distance, and his player status (unreadable from the bluff).

    Forte finds a group of six, two with short gladius-esque swords and iron-framed wooden roundshields, one with a significantly cleaner and nicer-looking spear, two with brand new-looking longbows and one with a suitably jankcore gas rifle. They bristle up together when he approaches, and then even moreso when Rose starts to arrive.

    "Fuck off." "We've been here for four days, we know you're lying." "What the fuck is with all those Traits?" "Cheater?" "Probably tester, look. Level 1." "Yeah, there's six of us and two of you! And we're higher level!"

    It is true. These goofballs monopolizing one spot have achieved a whopping average level of four. Albeit that does make it twenty four levels to two, combined. There's no real way of knowing how much a level matters in this game, and how much that kind of power stacks up to the largely faithful recreation of Elite abilities, never mind skill and combat experience.

    "Look man I don't want to hurt you." "Yeah, it's not that hard to accidentally kill someone." "Just go into one of the other areas." "Oh, hey lady, do you want to join our party?" "Shut up! Are you kidding?!" "There's nothing to do back here, I can tell you. There's already people at level ten further out. As long as you can stay in the lead, you get a huge advantage. You get to hog all the rewards and XP, find all the Traits first and bully other people out. Even if I'm not that brave, I have to get at least a little stronger. I refuse to be some level one at the mercy of everyone who ever left town."
Forte Forte listens, floating in place, not moving away. "Mmm."

"That is an understandable desire. However, we are in the same boat, and we're not going to ..."

"..."

Something else occurs to him. "You said there are already people at level ten."

It's like an itch.

"Direct me to one of them, and I will leave you alone."

It's like an itch, and he can't not scratch at it.
Lilian Rook     This is the second time Lilian has hovered around Rita like this in a densely crowded public space. In general, and in the last couple of weeks. She seems relieved to have the distraction of Rita handing her the kebab. "Well, it's not like we can gain weight here, right? Might as well." Chomping into it, she makes a sound that indicates she has been experiencing a little too much of Tamamo's (or Satsuki's) culture, and agrees "Wow. I really wasn't expecting the game to be this authentic. Who in god's name spends that budget on getting complex flavour profiles down?" Lilian suddenly frowns.

    "They really intended this to be a death game from the start, didn't they?"

    The two of them hanging out gets quite a few stares. Not just for the fact that Rita seems to be a tiny ordinary rookie and Lilian an experienced older player, but for the fact that they're two girls hanging out together in public, and the game is, frankly, not exactly representative of real world demographics. Lilian is glad to try. "Yes. Yes, let's . . . That would be prudent to analyze now." She closes her eyes; it's never been necessary, so it must be solely to emotionally prepare herself for--

                -----[stop]-----
    Lilian blinks her eyes open in the Aegis Astray medical ward. She looks left, and sees Paladins. She looks right, and sees more Paladins. Her fingers reach up to her head, and still find the device in place. She sees her own brainwaves, frozen and static, on the monitor. "I see." she mutters to herself. "Well, it's not as if anything could kill me for logging out. At least we know it isn't an acausal or retrocausal phenomenon. But this sort of isn't helpful." She settles herself back down, and closes her eyes again.
                -----[start]-----

    --nothing much, actually. Her scar visually 'heats up', faintly glinting in a pseudo-red colour, almost like a little 'boss attack' tell, but she opens her eyes again a moment later.

    Lost in the din of the crowd, only Rita is close enough to hear that softly menacing androgynous system voice speak up from Lilian's display Anomalous Trait parameters partially analyzed. Downloading acausal physical simulation. Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused by our delay. Simulation functionality will be upgraded as more data becomes available. Followed by a window pop-up that says Player Role changed to ICONIC CHARACTER. Subtly, Lilian's name is indented by an iconic G-clef, followed by a double slash symbol.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants      Well, says Bercilak, running a clawed gauntlet through his undercut mohawk, as the hot sun bears down on him. I guess we're hoofing it, dude. Can I get a GSF?

     The space elf squints, golden eyes looking Bercilak up and down. "Let me make sure I heard you--can you get a near-total grid phreak, which relies on quantum entanglement for mass digitization," he says, jerking a thumb to the very clearly not-high-tech city behind them, "...not to mention a nanodeck and a physical body?" His non-prosthetic hand sweeps up and down his own figure.

     Bercilak sighs, hands on his hips. With a resigned expression, "Yeah... yeah, okay. Well, if you've got a runspeed buff in there, see if you can't get it going anyway. Then let's head east."

     Whether Phreak's Chord: Scoundrel allows a runspeed buff or not, the two do indeed hoof it eastwards, in search of the location marked on Phreak's map. As a matter of deterrence, both men travel with their preferred weapons out; Phreak's cumbersome projectile weapon integrated into his clockwork arm, and Bercilak's axe.

     "So this place was scribbled down near that Watch marker, huh... wonder if there's a cell there, or if it's some kind of place we can get traits from."
Lilian Rook     'Markivelian' doesn't really seem like he believes Surge. "Uh-huh. Okay lady." he says, then mutters something that sounds like 'chuuni' under his breath. "I don't know how he did! People are reporting all kinds of weird ways! It seems like it's different for a lot of people! Plus there's Path, Template, Luck, Discovery, all kinds of stuff! Maybe he fought a giant fish boss! Maybe he specifically had to beat it underwater and holding his breath! Maybe he found a weird potion left by the Priors that mutated him! Who knows!"

    He has to contemplate the last question for a bit. "Composition is like, I guess, the game's magic system? But there's no magic bar or anything. They're like, mostly support abilities I guess? Or really expensive and inconvenient. I hear they were pretty popular in beta, since they don't take up Trait space and count like Skills instead, but the problem is that they burn through your Clarity to use, so people don't really wanna fuck around with that. If you bottom our your Clarity you take like, hyper realistic damage from everything. You spend that all on a Composition and then suddenly get shot, it'll hurt like a bitch and might even just kill you."

    "Plus, nobody knows what kinds are all in the game. You have to learn them from like, specific Faction NPCs and sheets out in the game world. I think there's a couple of NPCs who can teach them in Clef if you do a quest line, but they're like, not meta. Healing and buffs and stuff aren't really worth it."
Friz     It takes a while. But it's worth it.

Savvy: I'm gassed out. Need coffee.
Moxie: Does that exist in this?
Savvy: No clue. I'm not doing more of this until I get some, though.
Dirt: I'll keep an eye out, boss.
Grit: We know what there is to know without risk.

Savvy: Well I'm not putting more into my memory right now.
Grit: Then I will speak.
Grit: They understand that this is a 'death game'.
Grit: They refuse to understand what they fear.
Moxie: Wish I knew what that meant, since I'm supposed to act on fear.

    Friz closes up the notebook, taking a deep breath. Alright, BVD groundwork laid. Information gathered. Nothing yet on the modes or consensus... she'll learn that later. Quest givers, shop keepers... everything's so crowded. "Alright, kid. Go easy on yourself. Did all the interviews you got room for. Let's see what comes next. Got those attributes to learn about what's coming up."

    "Yeah. Alright... let's go see, then." Friz stands, putting away her notes and straightening out her jacket. Next... she has to go head out towards those attribute-assumed zones. She shouldn't operate solo in them, but with the lack of tangible evidence of PvP, and with her perception and cognition... she's gonna head out, overwhelm NPC clarity as much as she can, and start gathering information. She's going to start trying to travel a bit. With her DETECTIVE Trait, she hopes she can use, I don't know, a Stakeout skill and examine information relevant to an area and its materials -- and scour around for places with materials that offer a lot of crafting opportunities. She needs to get materials into the hands of people in the city to give them something that isn't boring second-job type shit, something to draw them out, to show them that they can do something here. Otherwise...

Grit: Otherwise there'll be no progress. You can't just keep them alive.
Grit: They must be changed.
Grit: Or they will die.
Grit: Know this:
Grit: If the pilgrims do not continue their pilgrimage, the wastes will open up, and they will swallow Clef whole.
Grit: And all its players will die, never having lived.
Lilian Rook     Ishirou's hacking seems to work thus.

    Enhanced Info Gathering activates, and the buff bearded dude at the front desk of some type of warehouse office, the back yard teeming with NPC workers offloading cargo from a boat on the river offshoot that runs into town, visibly pixel-glitches. "Well, for you friend, I'll offer at cost! Haha!" goes the suddenly revised NPC dialogue, which Ishirou did not set. All the prices drop into a . . . tolerable range. He could probably make a decent sort of wage like this, if he had any crafting skills.

    The problem is that this doesn't seem to have altered the NPC prices overall. The people crowding the NPC look at him all weird, asking him suspiciously 'how he did that' and 'if he found an exploit', saying 'the prices are the same for them'. In a sense, Ishirou has #-1 FUNCTION (ANSI) EXPECTS 2 ARGUMENTS BUT GOT 1.

    Of course, it seems obvious in retrospect, that the designer wouldn't actually load his avatar up with the ability to hack the game server. That'd be bewilderingly stupid on far too many levels for someone who has orchestrated something so complex and covered their tracks in so many ways. Rather it seems his biohacking has been simulated within the game world.

    A warning appears in his HUD that his constitutes a minor offense which players may report to the city garrison. There's apparently some sort of crime system in place. Fucking disabled tutorials.
Surge and Kit     "Ugh, figures. So let me guess, the people who actually know what they're doing ain't telling the newbies how it's done, so you guys are just scrambling around trying to find the invisible unicorn that'll let you survive this mess. Only the unicorn's already been found and some asshat with gills and tattoos is stealing the show."

    Surge does not pause to consider how that analogy lost itself halfway through, and instead opts to confidently ask like that was exactly what she meant to say.

    "So high-risk spells except most of them are pretty bad and not worth it. Great. Faction NPCs huh? Is there any of those we can join in the city or they come later?"

    Surge side-eyes her pet.

    "... are YOU my faction NPC?"

    Squint. Long stare. Reveal your secrets, glowing blue fox. Or, more likely, just stay there and look adorable. "Tch, not that it matters, the game locked me into a Faction when I logged in. I don't even know where or what it is." Reading tutorials IS for losers but maybe that's one bit she wouldn't have minded pointers on.

    "So how long you been in here? And what's so important you're having to wait in line to get from that vendor?"
KNK     Six. Versus two. Three ranged, but two are bows. The others -- throwing weapons? Hidden? Nothing in evidence. No way of knowing what the system might be hiding. Only things it says should show will show, unless she gets creative. And Rose is not about to trust her own hacking ability, in here. There are too many ways for that to get screwed with, playing by someone else's rules.

    And she knows she is. She's reminded every time she moves, and even when she doesn't, there's still that tick-tock where her heart should be.

    That rifle is where her attention focuses. It's not like it matters. It's just another prop, playing by someone else's rules. Someone else wrote the script.

    It's easier when you don't know someone's world. If you can just pretend they'll be fine, no matter what you do to them. Better off than you. Or if they had it coming. Yet here she is, playing the role of the one throwing her weight around on someone else's turf, and it's not even turf she cares about. Just some grinding job to collect the scraps that the stronger one didn't care about. That much is a familiar tune.

    Forte wants to move on, and Rose might as well, but she can't get out of range of Violet's sight. Reflexively, she glances at the faded compass, then in the direction it points, instinctivly telescoping artificial eyes to try and make out the figure meditating on top of the bluffs. How weird that Violet would actually want to sit still, on top of everything else weird that's happened in a matter of hours.

    "Yeah," comes through a sound like the most vintage voicebox she could have stuck down her throat, "I hear you. Law of the jungle and all that shit. Nobody wants to give up what's theirs without a fight."

    Her posture seems to half-relax, without actually doing so. Her hand drifts away from the hilt. The targeting reticles over her eyes drift from her pupils. And yet, she's wound and tense, one foot behind the other, seeming to look at nothing, but actually paying careful attention to their eyes -- she has them -- and their hands. Hunters are attracted to motion, and that includes humans.

    Which she is.

    "So, since I'm here--"

    Melody.

    She's not even a blur. She's nothing and nowhere, a Shadow, a misdirection, a quickened thought that resolves itself back into the leather-clad, dark-eyed, clockwork girl now on the opposite side of the group, her blade drawn one-handed, held with the edge the rifleman's neck, her other hand free to grab his hair. Pushing herself like this has no regard for movement speed -- the ground kicks up dust seemingly only after she's passed, from where she'd forced her limits higher by treating the ground as a thing to be climbed, rather than run across. 'Down' only exists when you give it time to matter. Otherwise, it's all just 'surface.'

    "Let's see how much those levels matter!"

    Then she spins, releasing him in the same motion as giving a hard kick of a kind clearly practiced.

    "Nah, just kidding. I don't care." She only half turns, keeping them all in sight while holding up her sheathe in one hand, and slowly sliding the blade back into it with the other. "Have fun trying to grind your points up, or whatever. Not that it'll give you a chance against someone ready to kill."

    She target-locks her one eye on each in turn, still watching hands. Ready for a twitchy finger, a slip-up, a reason to keep the fight going. "If you were here to play games, then you aren't ready for that jungle law, and you're a sucker if you think otherwise. See you never."

    Outside of a practical lesson, she has no wisdom to leave them with, but simply leaves them. She can at least keep up with Forte as long as the cliff's in sight. After that, she'll have to check up on Violet.
Lilian Rook     Eryl's 'you all matter' and following speech has a sobering effect on the crowd. Even those who still don't believe him largely shut up and look guilty. Some draw their own conclusions about some rando trying to create a comforting fiction for the mental health and morale of those trapped, and hold their tongues.

    Quietly, his sidebar scrolls rapidly with a flood of silently sent friend requests.

    People are reserved about the idea of '''The Paladins''' monopolizing spawns, but some are starting to get the crafty idea that organized 'Elites', or at least some kind of dedicated and fearless LARP team roleplaying them, might drive the squatters away, and start sending him trade requests to hand over handmade documentation. The crowd is starting to disperse though, having sent him everything they intended to.

    If Friz cares to check, the city does, in fact, contain vendors for what are blatantly arabica beans by another name. They're a bit pricey. Finished coffee, bought directly, without a player with a Brewing World Skill involved, is really pricey. It is, at least, very strong, and jacks her up with a stamina cost reduction buff and COG-related skills buff, with a pending debuff set for hours after.
Ishirou Ishirou thinks for a moment, realizing that his biohacking was kicking in...and treating the NPC like a biological entity. It might count as an attack, which COULD get him reported...buuuut...

He looks to others who ask him a question, "Didn't you hear the Paladin Grandmaster? He said there are Paladins out here, and I'm one. Hi, I'm Ishirou. and I have an idea."

"So the way things are, things aren't going to go well for you...if you leave, you risk your own lives and I'm being told stuff out there is already going away fast. I have no idea when or IF things will respawn..."

"Then when the higher-level players come back they'll be likely to exploit you for crafting stuff...meaning the quality of life for you while you are in here won't change and will be bad. So I propose that we organize. I'll start by getting as many of you who want to join up with me on the at-cost mats as I can...as I don't know if these have a limit. Meaning, I'll buy them for you, if you pay me for them the cost and let's say...plus ten percent. Which is still FAR below what they are right now."

"The extra isn't profit, but rather investing back into this system. It'll let us get an advantage in the market, and provide you all a chance to control the market so the adventurers won't be able to turn you into litteral wage slaves."

"We have to work together to get you all out of here safe and sound. I know there are others here too without crafting skills, but don't want to go out without better gear...if we can gear them out and work towards getting small groups who can get supplies then you'll have a bargaining position with the better players...and the better equipment you can make.."

"The goal here isn't capitalism, but investing into an agreement where everyone works together to get out. The choice is up to you all."

Ishirou ALSO looks up one of the in-game menus for his hacking ability. What is it used on if he can't hack with it?
Rita Ma      "It does sort of make sense, doesn't it, Ms. Rook? If the point of all this really was just to make people experience being other things, and then lock them inside... they'd want to make it as real as possible, right? Otherwise, the experiences wouldn't be worth much."

     Rita holds her breath (pointlessly) when Lilian shuts her eyes, which leaves her as a soft little "ah-!" of amazement when the Boss Tell fires.

     "What happened, Ms. Rook? What was it-" And then the androgynous voice leaves her briefly speechless, hands over her mouth.

     "Analyzed... they're figuring out how to put it in the game? Isn't that really scary?? I don't wanna have 'that' be analyzed, Ms. Rook..."

     A brief pause. Then her eyebrows shoot up even further as she inspects Lilian's name. This change, at least, is less anxiety-inducing. "Iconic character... do you feel any different? Did your stats change? That's so strange. They knew you were a 'prime user' from the start, but they didn't give you that until you used your powers?"
Lilian Rook     The gaggle of defensive players startle far too late by the way Rose perceives them. Even at level 1, her Verse of Shadow overwhelmingly outclasses them in terms of speed, and her personal resolve overwhelmingly outclasses them in terms of instantly initiating violence. Her captive ends up quaking in terror under her blade, his pulse doubling in an instant. The others aim ranged weapons at her, shaking too much to really aim well, and yelling at her to let him go. The three melee-weapon users sluggishly think to try surrounding her so that someone can hit her from the back, but they're far too slow at thinking on their feet in combat terms.

    They're dumb kids. They all rush to their companion when she drops him, asking him about a billion times if he's okay. It's obviously the scariest situation they've ever been in. Armed or not, they're nothing to a hardened killer.

    Assault constitutes a minor offense. Players may report this to the city garrison!

    Completely cowed, the terrified players stutteringly direct Forte further east, and north, to where there's apparently some kind of bridge over the river, and beyond that, the ruins of some kind of structure that toppled off a cliff and occupy a pass; a properly sized 'dungeon' that several bleeding edge players are tryharding right now, and apparently the border of the 'Beach Head' part of Overture.
Friz Savvy: Never mind, I'm dedicating most of the forebrain to figuring out how to get a steady supply of decent fucking coffee in this place.
Moxie: That's going to be kind of a problem...
Savvy: Sucks to suck, I'm in charge of the prefrontal cortex.
Dirt: Not your best call, boss.
Grit: We'll make do with the distractions while we look for our next objective.

    Friz is now perpetually distracted with an essential need for STIMULANT BUFFS. She will remain in this state until the party can establish a line of supply for coffee or other similarly refreshing beverages.
Eryl Fairfax     Eryl smiles, and offers a general bow as the friend requests start pouring in. A general bow, not to anyone in specific as the crowd begins to disperse. And then it's time to get buried in menus.

    First of all, accepting those requests. And then contacting them. Thanking them for taking his words to heart. And then into the nitty-gritty. Asking them what Traits they already have, and if they've figured out what they do. And also asking them how they like to play MMOs, and why they chose to play this one.

    The rest of the time, he's listening to the stream of data he's receiving from the other Elites. The game and the systems seemingly encourage 'standing out' and 'novel experiences.' Doing the same thing over and over only diminishes returns. It's a strange game design for something in this genre, and it makes his whole 'create a stable position for everyone' idea harder.

    Pouring over the donated journals of game information, he gets a sense of the surrounding lands, and begins DMing instructions. First of all, creating teams. Each team is four players and each team has an assigned role. Combat teams for fighting mobs and protecting the other teams. Foraging teams for finding and gathering from resource points. Crafting teams who will receive those items and turn them into something useful. And Training teams, who will provide instructions to players on how game systems work.

    Generally, he tries to put people on teams that relate to the thing they were hoping to get out of this game. He also tries to get a sense of the person behind the avatar, and group them based on compatible personalities. A group of four should hopefully be large enough to handle whatever comes up, but small enough that everyone's contribution stands out, and by putting compatible people together, positive regard should flow.

    Finally, a schedule. Combat and foraging teams will rotate between points of interest, gather what they can, and take the chance to explore the area before heading back. Anything they find gets handed off to the crafting teams, and anything they learn gets passed on to the training teams. At times, he'll have those teams join the field teams to broaden horizons, or have everyone work with the training teams to develop their skills further.

    Eryl will be joining them of course. He wasn't lying when he said he didn't have a lot of game sense himself. He'll need the help.
Lilian Rook     Those next entering the eerie liminal space of Overture's Beach Head are beset by two feelings at once. One is the strangely fulfilling sense of calm, surrounded by temperature breezes and trickling water and vividly off-colour vegetation, the scent of flowers and river clay and sun-baked dirt. The other is a sense of surreal isolation, as if they were sort of floating along in a dream, the sense of some vague potential threat just tickling the edges of their intuition; just enough that no matter how relaxing it is, they'd never consider just taking a nap in some scenic spot somewhere. Even in the places that aren't strewn with ruins, the quietness and patchwork terrain feels somehow . . . abandoned. Scarred, in some deep intuition way.

    Phreak and Bercilak are, in fact, pretty damn fast on the roads. They draw a lot of attention from the players staked out. The River Overture is unfortunately quite swift and deep and perilous for anyone in armour to cross, but they can see a bridge to the north, of a sort. Up close, it looks to be made of antiquated concrete; perhaps more the Roman type than the modern kind, but there are rusted metal railings to each side, giving it a sort of uncomfortably atemporal post-apocalyptic vibe in this spookily gorgeous valley. The coordinates are in the next area, past a certain pass that Forte and Rose are headed to.

    Kirishima runs into the same issues with mobs; everyone is camping every spawning point. Scrounging around for remains of any of the past empires that came here (are those the Priors? Or something else?) leaves her work cut out for her. There are at least three different entirely mutually exclusive architectural styles and compositions of ruins, and nothing that looks like a major battlefield.

    Along the way, she does see what appears to be a lump of scenery, that involves a rusted, climber-covered sword, jammed into the ground, next to a broken spear. She can hear, just barely, on the edge of her auditory capacity, a sound sort of like a tuning fork, and a slight vibration of the air there.
KNK     As she said she would, Rose walks along with Forte up until she runs the risk of being out of sight of Violet.
Lilian Rook     Friz rabidly perusing the manual finds out that coffee-equivalent trees grow along the river, however, only significantly upstream of the bluffs, into the allegedly more tropical region beyond; a higher level area than the starting zone to be sure. Theoretically it could also be farmed, if one settled.

    If she doesn't want to funnel adventuring money into stacks of vendor coffee, or learn cultivate her own Brewing skill there are other stimulants, made from monsters or herbs, mostly, but they're . . .

    Questionable.

    Given the amount of player traffic in Beach Head, Friz is almost overloaded with information. Overlays upon overlays of footprints, tracking info, forensic signs of combat and harvesting. Digital blood splatters appear in gridline glow alongside impact marks and reconstructed capsites. Countless local plants, largely picked clean, are highlighted as being components in food, components in drink, components used to make low level cloth items, glues, dyes, and potions. Six types of wood with moderately different properties are harvestable. There are a handful of crags in the bluff that yield pitiful amounts of realistically mingled ore, involving trace amounts of iron, copper, aluminium, salt, magnesium and limestone calcium, as well as a couple of fictional metals in even smaller quantities.

    The sands can apparently be harvested for clays nobody knows are useful, and panned for gold, bones, and scrap. The water itself contains algae and kelp that can apparently be eventually developed into some kind of fuel, as well as various edible fish and molluscs, picked clean for now. The red lilies that at first appear to be part of the merely decorative flowers are actually useful for both a tier of healing potion and a tier of anticoagulant poison nobody has unlocked yet, as well as a material for some branch of Composition. The ruins are actually harvestable with the right grade of tools for various worked metals and randomized salvage.

    She also stumbles across two incidences of things she might have otherwise walked into. A single glowing point in the middle of the road, faintly humming and flickering in a slightly gratingly discordant way, and along the riverbank, a slowly swirling cloud of what looks like might be small bugs, but appear to twinkle and glow up close. Both strike her detective's intuition as extremely dangerous. This must be the Dissonances from the handbook. One of them is simply a mean trap for people to stumble into by not paying attention. The other is actually on top of a useful harvesting spot.
Lilian Rook     Surge staring at her pet, and putting two and two together, feels as if something suddenly clicks for her in her head.

    COGnition (Strong Success): Emergent Skill: Composition ~ River Styx Discovered!

    "Same as everyone else. Almost a week now." her hapless interrogatee answers. "I guess we must be in hospital care on IVs or something, or we'd all be fucking dead. Or maybe we're already dead and all our brains got uploaded to the server or something. I don't know." He makes a noise. "They're not bad. They just won't help you breeze through the game. There's a ton of stuff to do, but in the end it's all feeding back into the core game loop, right? It's in service of like, exploring and fighting and surviving. You can't just learn a Composition that blows enemies away just like that, right? That'd just be better than using the combat system. There's probably some meta builds using them, but like, people are just scared of dropping their defenses to use magic that doesn't win the game, you know?" He looks at the vendor. "All the health potion stuff is sold out everywhere, so I'm looking to get some of the camping and life skills stuff that gives regen. No regen Traits and I was dumb enough to dump CON, so my regen is like, one HP per . . . fifty five seconds? Can't really grind like that."
Lilian Rook     Eryl is immediately flooded in disastrous amounts of paperwork via instant messages that are not meant to be referenced all at once. Seeing as he has to record the info in the paper he actually has, as a physical item, and the message windows have to be closed and opened one at a time, he is functionally attempting to run a guild without any guild resources, as the only admininistrative member. It's going to take him a while.

    The information he's getting is, in fact, useful though. There is a surprising number of people who are more okay with the idea of combat if they're going to be funded, equipped, and organized into at least nominally trustworthy and supervised teams. The issue is going to be getting them a few levels and material for outfitting them all, with thousands --perhaps tens of thousands-- of wildly uncooperative players occupying the entirety of the vast starting area, jealously clinging to their gains. Sending even teams of four into areas meant for people of decent level with new gear and a few Notes to their name, maybe even their first Verse, is extremely risky. The notes indicate that the monsters and dissonances there can easily kill a rookie very very fast if they slip up or panic.

    He can put this all together, given quite a lot of time, but he'll definitely want to start a guild for this. Which costs a small fortune and requires completing quests to earn the recognition of the Ubiquity of Clef, apparently, according to closed testers compiling more substantial guides.
Kirishima Although Kirishima was expecting the competition to be rather fierce, she wasn't expecting the sheer number of people camping out these spots. It's just a bit too much to really try and steal something out from someone's nose, but at least the constant walking leads her to various ruins.

<J-IC-Scene> Kirishima says, "The architecture out in the wastes is... Different. Fitting for the name of this area, even if it doesn't look like there was much fighting where I am."

And then she spots... A sword? And a broken spear. As she draws closer, she hears that strange vibration, and her curiosity gets the better of her. Rather than heeding the warning signs, she approaches the pair of former weapons, closing her eyes momentarily to see if that'll help her actually hear the source of the vibrations and tuning noise more easily.

It probably doesn't, but it makes her feel better anyway.

<J-IC-Scene> Kirishima says, "... Ahah. I've found a sword and a spear.. Er. Broken spear. There's a strange sound coming from them, though. I'm going to investigate."
<J-IC-Scene> Ishirou says, "Maybe you should wait for someone to be with you????  This game has music themes, right?"
<J-IC-Scene> Ishirou says, "That tells me that's a baaaaad idea."
<J-IC-Scene> Kirishima says, "Oh, it probably is. I can't just leave it, though, as someone might come by and set it off themselves. I'll be alright, but here are my coordinates in case..."
+J :vague noise
<J-IC-Scene> Kirishima vague noise

After relaying her plan to the rest of the Elites out in this place, Kirishima gets to work! She flicks a rock at the sword first to see if it explodes or something first. If it doesn't, then she gets to work trying to extract the sword from ground, glancing around every now and then to see if anyone or anything is coming.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants      The duo come to a stop at the bank of the river, albeit for different reasons. Bercilak seems content to enjoy the scenery for a moment--and to reflect thoughtfully on some conversation that occurred on the way here. Thoughts about stories occupy his mind--and how all of them come to an end. This one will, too--Rita will go back to being sick, and he'll go back to being...

     "...stupid, to try and cross it, even for me." Phreak crosses his arms. "Good thing there's a bridge over there, though. ...Berc? You good?"

     Bercilak forces a smile. "Me? Hah... yeah, man, I'm good. Just... thinking, a little. Let's keep going." He motions for Phreak to take the lead. As they pass by, his frown is distorted in the reflection of the rushing river.

     The two of them cross the bridge, into the next area.
Lilian Rook     People seem pretty reluctant to believe that Ishirou is a Paladin just because he says so. People were variously reluctant to believe Eryl could be such a famous figure; it's not as if people don't take names and gimmicks from their favourite streamers, celebrities, and influencers all the time, after all.

    They do, however, see the logic in what he's saying, and begin to shift and mutter uncomfortably. Some immediately excuse themselves in half-suppressed Prepper Panic, running off to find friends and scour stores and make preparations to either get out of here or try and be on top when that happens.

    The NPC does appear to have limited inventory, and it is deliberately designed to not be instanced, in support of realism and social engineering and in defiance of fun and casual game design; rather, it's pretty clearly a hardass measure to prevent people sharing around funds to each buy up to the daily limit of everything and flood the market with people simply being paid to shop.

    The amount is quite generous, and appears to refresh daily at least. People are willing to pay Ishirou back for his cut rates, but there are a limited number of people around with a pittance of starting funds. It simply isn't an infinite chain loop; there was only ever 5000 --reading the shop menu denotes the currency as 'Cune'-- times one million players to inject into the economy, and all one million are not in this shop. It's enough to get him a hefty pile of raw metals (separated but not fashioned), cut woods, bulk food components, and--

    Oh. That's way, way more than he can carry. It all takes up space. Weight? Oh no.

    His Traits tell him that his hacking is good for influencing NPC attitudes, monster aggression and behaviour, certain world events, certain puzzles, certain dissonances, Prior Records, Prior Sheets, Prior Defenses, Prior Links, mechanical traps, codes and ciphers, and ???
Lilian Rook     Violet's quiet meditation atop the Bluff doesn't give her much, but some intuition passes to her via a LuCK (Strong Success).

    You refuse to be bound by the constraints of logical motion. Beyond curiosity or defiance, you move from here to there without thinking of whether you could or should. Here in the Origin, all things are transient, and all things bow to human will. Why should mere obstacles be any different? Why should the most fearsome monsters be temporary setbacks to be conquered, but an inauspicious wall of earth be an immutable fact? A permutation of matter in another, irrelevant shape. Continue on your way, and consider not such things. Go the roads that your spirit feels where your eyes do not see.

    Her unlock progress increments by 20%, and then stops.
Lilian Rook     Kirishima is wise to fling a rock at the distortion. The whining ring turns into a loud, percussive thump, like the beat of a timpany, and then expels the pebble at tremendous speed. It shatters against a nearby tree, its durability instantly zero'd out, and deals considerable damage to the trunk. The distortion collapses.
Lilian Rook     "Yes. I'm beginning to sense a pattern." Lilian says to Rita, absently occupied with a lot of radio chatter, mainly about the intricately holistic way the game is designed to force people to move, to stand out, to interact, to notice one another, to try things, experiment, and not be allowed to fall into any safe, comfortable, anonymous, repetitive, profitable behaviour.

    Lilian herself looks slightly shaken by the sudden announcement, but swipes to dismiss the window. "Calm down. Obviously there was a significant gap in my brainwave activity being monitored by the device. It must have monitored what that registered as and slaved the Trait activation trigger to it. Since there's no way for an outside observer to know for certain how it works and feels and looks, there's probably a working model behind the scenes, if I was intentionally invited like you."

    "It might have already been, Rita." she says. "I don't know."

    She has to check her own status window to verify what Rita is saying. "Treble and . . . a cæsura? That's . . ." Lilian's lip twitches. Right. She's a Piano Kid. "No, I didn't see anything change-- no, I suppose 'Eigenslayer' is now listed at S+ - S+? I suppose . . . I think it's . . ."

    "Like a mantle. To accept or deny. Heroes always have a step where they refuse the call, right? I had the opportunity to not use it. To be like everyone else. Experience the game like a normal human being; just an overpowered swordfighter. But I went and tested that, like you said. I used something that a human shouldn't have; that a human can't yet be. And so I accepted by role. That's what my intuition says."

    "I think someone invited us --invited other people too-- to have a guaranteed stable of people who'd . . . enable their narrative. People they could count on to stand out. Draw everyone's interest. Reliable heroes. Maybe villains. Maybe that's what an iconic character is? A plot-enabler. Narrative enrichment maybe. The other players were saying that it was part of the system notification. That they might be 'promoted'."

    The name change is, however, starting to draw attetion as Rita audibly fusses. People are looking, tapping shoulders, pointing. Asking questions. 'Did you get a message?' 'Did the admin do that?' 'Was it the system?' 'How did you unlock it?' 'Who are you?' 'Are you working with the bastard?!' 'Who the fuck would join a death game for that, dumbass?' 'Remember the system message?' 'Did you get a powerup?' 'Secret story prompt?' 'Hey you're not thinking of betraying us right?' 'You're not a villain right?' 'Hey. Hey answer me!' 'Hey!' 'Hey listen to me!' 'Tell us right now!'
Lilian Rook     Lilian, already deeply uncomfortable with this crowd, hoists Rita up, and says "Hold on." without allowing complaint. Her scar glints from end to end, like a sword being drawn in the sun, and--

                -----[stop]-----
    Lilian sighs in relief. She'd focused on trying to stop the game, rather than just stop, and the intent had been clear enough, whilst her desire to stop 'real life' was non-existent, and thus below the actualization threshold. Or so she supposes. "First time I've done this in parallel realities." she mutters.

    A red gauge appears at the top of her HUD, decreasing at a glacial trickle. As she begins to move, the rate of loss speeds up dramatically. Testing it, simply moving her hands is a minor speed-up, walking is a lot, and starting to sprint bottoms it out in under ten seconds. Then it starts eating through her Clarity. Dropping back down to a brisk walk, she reaches city limits before her bar is totally bottomed out. "Less time than I'm used to. I'm sure it'll burn HP next. But I suppose I can't complain. I'm getting it 'for free'. Shallow pool, swift recharge. My real body is resting, so it won't take any out of my real life time. That means playing this fucking game is a rest period for my schedule. Alright. I can work with that."
                -----[start]-----

    --Rita appears out in the serene, surreal, liminal wilderness, not far from the walls. Unlike Lilian's usual 'cut film' blipping, there's a visible spark and thin, faint, scarlet trail that tapers out a short distance away. It also kind of feels like a split second actually passed for her. Too quick to really perceive, but like a frames of emptiness inserted just for the audience's benefit. Or for the benefit of the system trying to handle it. An instant of lag as it computes its best approximation of something impossible.

    ". . . It'll be fine." Lilian says to Rita, setting her down. "Let's join the others, okay?"