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Atoli It's not hard to arrive. Atoli had put out the same call as last time for an adventuring party to explore a rare event field and just have a good time. She also sent a message especially to those who came last time, informing them Zelkova said the strange, buggy field was back online.

    From the Mac Anu (Delta) Chaos Gate, one simply needed to input the three keywords - HEAVENLY, FORBIDDEN and DAYDREAM, and then hit go. Teleportation to the field only takes a few seconds.

    Of course, calling it a field is probably a bit generous.

    It looks like this might have been a manor once, or some kind of small city. It's... destroyed, but not damaged, per se. More like really, really glitched out. A lot of missing textures and objects, which would make one believe this is in no way a finished work. The sky is outright missing - it's pitch black, but the zone is lit as if it were day regardless.

    It's like someone built this great, fantastic Japanese-style village area and then an office fire burned most of the files!

    At least there're no monsters.

    Atoli was the first one who arrived, of course. And the same features as last time are present - except the cathedral. It's gone, replaced by flat, featureless terrain. That means of the many weird buildings about, two still stand out.

    There's the Japanese-styled store, and the manor at the center of the area. They're not in the greatest of shapes themselves, mind - planks and bricks are arbitrarily buggy and textured with random materials (if they're textured at all), some chunks of the buildings are missing outright and all - but compared to the rest of the area, they stand out as still actually looking like buildings.
Sumiko "Yo, Atoli!" says a voice from behind the girl, right now the Magical Girl wasn't transformed but standing in her civilian clothing, backpack over one shoulder as she looked around.  "Wow, this place sure is starting to look rough," She says, motioning around them, and then looking towards the two remaining places.

"So a store and a manor?  Something tells me the store would be the most important place, somehow," Mikoto says, for no reason.  It might be because she had not brought any snacks, and there might be a way to pick up digital snacks.  Right?  Sounds right.

"So obviously we should go to the store first, but I'm flexible either way."
Tomoe Tomoe had no issue in reaching The World, thanks to her past experience here and she was happy to lend Atoli hand again. The towering Salamander would make for the gate, punch in the keywords. Then she vanishes in a pillar of light and soon will find herself on the field she looks about for a moment seeing there are no monsters she'll keep her weapon sheathed as she moves to fall in with Atoli.

"Hey good to see you Atoli."

She looks to Mikoto for a moment "That's a good point it might be functional somehow too, I'm for checking out the store first as well."
Staren     "Is there even a japanese-style area in the game, or is this an indication of a bigger area that got canceled?" Staren wonders, looking around at the scenery. He's seen games glitch before, so he has no comments about the lack of sky and missing textures.

    He nods to Mikoto. "Yeah, a store might have stuff we can buy. If the shop interface is glitched too, we might find something interesting. ...I don't have any local money, though..."
Eggman      Doctor Eggman has been spending a lot of time in this world. Part of it is the Egg Cannon Island that he's been working on more or less ceaselessly, converting bits, bobs, and machinery into other bits, bobs, and machinery, reprogramming digital things into physical things (don't ask), rewiring with code and command. The other part of it is that he's just sort of weirdly fond of Atoli, in general because she annoys Haseo, and Eggman has a special place in his heart for people who annoy Haseo for a myriad of reasons. So Eggman has taken it upon himself to at least learn more about this world - also, in no small part, to annoy Haseo.

     Eggman arrives riding two of his robots. Specifically, he's riding a lawn chair that the two robots - one a strange gorilla-looking thing, the other clearly a rabbit with wheels - are carrying. He's relaxing with a drink in one hand. It has a little umbrella in it with his face on it. A fourth 'robot' phases in - it's actually his walking pod, an egg-shaped pod with legs attached. It is a human-sized battlemech. That's just how he rolls.

     "Ah, hello there once again, young lady. And where have we found ourselves this time?" The Good Doctor adjusts his glasses to look around. "How unusual."

     "Very well, then! To the business first, then on to the house call."
Haseo      Surprisingly, this area still hasn't been shut down or restricted in any way, though given that Haseo hadn't even bothered telling anyone who could do such a thing, it should have been expected. It just means the warning they got last time was some weird automated response or something like that.

     "Nothing here is important, it's all just garbage and abandoned stuff. I bet if there even is a vendor NPC it just sells worthless junk data or placeholder items."

     Haseo is quick to shut Mikoto down because that's how he be, though it does get him to stop and ponder for a moment. What would a junk code item even look like? Just a bunch of 1's and 0's? A graphical mess? He runs a hand through his hair in thought, before coming to the important realization that he just spent moments of his time pondering about something that definitely isn't important or useful.

     Screw this game, it's clearly getting to him.
Shepherd     A virtual world! How lovely. Shepherd is familiar with these.

    But the call went out to enjoy and explore the environment and the entity is always interested in learning more about it. Therefore, the gate system spins up once more before producing...

An array of geometric shapes. A sphere about the size of a bowling ball tops a wide cone, tip downwards. A slowly orbiting array of fist-sized geometry rotates around it, all in mercurial, reflective silver. It floats about with a comforting hum, working its way through the area until it locates the others.

    Already, the entity is emitting a series of flickering holographic projections as it works to analyze the environment at high speed and determine the specific nature of it as well as any vagaries of its coding, both in this area as well as in general.

While it does so, however, it speaks to those present. "Greetings, assembled. Be not alarmed. I am Humanity Preservation Array, designation 'Shepherd'. I have been informed that there is a 'rare event' present and I wished to catalogue and analyze it." There is a pause. "I am willing to follow to whatever location you wish to be investigated." Eggman's robotics of course get a hum as the machine begins probing them as well.
Atoli     "Oh, hello!" Atoli cheerfully says to Mikoto, Tomoe and Staren, before pondering their suggestion. "I don't know! Isn't finding out part of the fun? Lord Zelkova said he wasn't sure how long this area might remain stable this time though, so... it's best if we don't leave any stones unturned, in case it goes down again!" It might, given how glitchy it is. And maintenance doesn't seem to have helped it any. If it was automated, it's awful coding.

    "Hi doctor!" Atoli says to Eggman, still thinking his spiel about being a SUPERVILLAIN is a joke. "Wow, those robots really come in handy, don't they?"

    Oh, there comes the ungrateful, rattling voice of--

    "Haseo!" Atoli beams her best smile. "Come on, you never know what we'll find here. Maybe something useful! Either way it'll be fun, I'm sure!"

    Why wouldn't it be? Atoli even refrains from poking the floating mess of geometry with her staff. Huh, that's kinda cool.

    Though Shepherd might be rather unhappy at the state of the Field; it's a mess, and it's a miracle it's able to be accessed at all. There's so much missing code, like someone took an eraser to the entire thing arbitrarily and generously. Or a fire! Maybe it was a fire.

    Really, this place SHOULDN'T be functioning with the current state of its code. But here you are, and it clearly is.

    Since people settle on the store first, the building is approached with no obstacles. Inside, it's a simple wooden setup, with a man and a floating fairy behind an empty counter.

    The man is wearing some kind of white apron over a yellow and green outfit, complete with generic hat. He has bland brown hair. His eyes are censored by a black, glitchy bar.

    "I'm sorry, this shop is currently closed," he says.
    "Sorry, sorry," says the fairy.
Staren
    "How are things going with Egg Cannon Island?" Staren asks Eggman. Even if he IS a supervillain, he doesn't seem to be actively opressing people, so it's nice to have another roboticist around, as long as he's not completly overshadowing Staren anyway.

    When what is clearly a glitched NPC comes through the gate, Staren turns to regard it... until it starts scanning, suggesting that maybe it's supposed to look like that. Also, it emits a familiar voice. "Oh, it's you. Hello again."

    "Hmmm." Staren looks around the shopkeeper, as if looking at him from a different angle might reveal his inner workings. "If only we could see what hidden code is here. What if there's some hidden dialogue or a shop interface behind some flag we don't know how to trip?"

    Staren turns to examine the store shelves and see if there's anything worth taking.
Sumiko Mikoto rolls her eyes at Haseo, "Oh look, you got /overruled/!" She says, with the absolutely most sickening sweet tone as she can lay on.  However, with the arrival of other people, who aren't jerks and such she gives a simple greeting, and a smile as she gets what she wants.

Until the store isn't working!  Oh no!

"Oh no, what happened to the store?  I really wanted some snacks." Oh and there goes the real reason Mikoto wanted to come here first.  She looks towards the weirdly shaped thing until it reveals it's not a bug and actually a person.  Oh, that's good!

She also takes a sip when the Eggman drink comes.  Standing back when asked.
Tomoe There is quit ethe crew gather but something else gets her attention a strange new arrival something she's never seen before she might be a bit strange to any scanners Shepard both reading digital but under that there's something made of meat she bows a bit to the newly arrive being

"HEllo Shepherd I go by Tomoe."

She wary of Eggman sure but he and his robots have been not causing any true issues in previous journies here so she's starting to relax a bit around him and his creations as well at least in this context.

"You know you didn't have to come with us, Haseo. Sides she's right it will likely be interesting."

She notes She looks back to Atoli grinning a bit.

"Well shall we get on to the adventure?"

then it seems there are some people? Some NPCs?

"That's all right we figured as much sir. Is there anything you can tell us about where we are?"

She'll pause a look to Mikoto

"I might have something in my inventory if you are that hungry."

She also takes note of Rean and gies him a grin as well.
Staren
    "How are things going with Egg Cannon Island?" Staren asks Eggman. Even if he IS a supervillain, he doesn't seem to be actively opressing people, so it's nice to have another roboticist around, as long as he's not completly overshadowing Staren anyway.

    When what is clearly a glitched NPC comes through the gate, Staren turns to regard it... until it starts scanning, suggesting that maybe it's supposed to look like that. Also, it emits a familiar voice. "Oh, it's you. Hello again."

    "Hmmm." Staren looks around the shopkeeper, as if looking at him from a different angle might reveal his inner workings. "If only we could see what hidden code is here. What if there's some hidden dialogue or a shop interface behind some flag we don't know how to trip?"

    Staren turns to examine the store shelves and see if there's anything worth taking.
Eggman      "Yes, they do." This simply reaffirms why Eggman likes Atoli - she's so /pleasant/!

     Mikoto requests a drink, and Eggman snaps his fingers, and another robot comes walking out of the portal - this one quite literally a bartender, complete with a (small) rolling bar attached to its red-and-yellow-tuxedo'd chest. It starts mixing the drink, which appears to involve an actual egg over-easy and several different lighter alcohols, before presenting it to Mikoto. The robot's chest opens up with a third, small R2-D2 hand to dispense the festive Eggman's-Face-Logo umbrella into it.

     Eggman's robotics are mind-blowingly advanced. They look very silly, but they're easily in the realm of sci-fi. Those weapons they have aren't simple bullets and lasers but strange, advanced gear. Shepherd can tell that this isn't just bluster or gimmickry on the part of some crazy person with superpowers - Eggman /really can/ build them that good.

     The man and the fairy greet them. Eggman slurps on his drink.

     "This might need some repairs," he says, "Would you like me to give it a try?"

     Mikoto says 'yes.'

     Eggman sits up. He hands off his drink to the bartender robot, who refreshes it by apparently *cooking french toast and then squeezing it like it's making lemonade*. The Doctor hops off the beach chair, cracks his knuckles, and produces an almost comedically-oversized wrench.

     "Let's see. I believe it's..."

     Watching Eggman work is sort of like watching Mozart compose or watching Da Vinci paint. It's an art form. His wrench taps the sides of various areas, looking for weak points to expose and adjust. His hands run along the shop walls, testing for points in the code he might be able to physically interact with. It's simply a repair job, nothing more - he can't just do whatever he wants, but when it comes to repairs, no one is better than the Doctor.

     "Oh, fine, fine," he says to Staren idly as he examines and works, "It's fine. I'm considering repurposing the spawner but I haven't yet figured out what I want to use it for."
Rean Schwarzer Rean joins the others in investigating the only functional thing here- a shop.

This place...is /weird./ Aside from everything just looking /wrong,/ the shop keeper here looked like one of those news photos where the block out someone's eyes to hide their identity. He returns Tomoe's grin as he starts poking around the shop. Actually interacting with the code is out of his paygrade, but maybe he'll run into something that's borked by accident.
Haseo      Well, looks like there is a shopkeep. But it seems that he was spot on in them not having an inventory. There's a part of him that wants to see if he can hack into the NPC and check if they have an item list. But he's not exactly delicate with his hacking methods, or probably even skilled enough to not ruin the theoretical list they have.

     Haseo just rubs his chin for a bit, before deciding to open up his menu and check his map. He never did do that last time he realizes, and if the area is actually as glitched as he thinks it is, he'll probably get amusing results.
Shepherd     If Shepherd is aware that he looks like a glitch in the Hacktrix, it doesn't seem to show it. Instead, it simply just defies the typical laws of avatar creation. For now. Do you really want it going through the character creator?

    The holographic displays on Shepherd wink red frequently, displaying various obscure error messages. "This virtual space is quite unstable." It observes as it floats along with the others towards the store. It returns greetings as they move. "Hello Staren. Did the maimed representive recover?" It asks. "Apparently, local political figures did not approve of the methodology. Without time to properly analyze it however, it was expected to cause faux pas." As if one can call what happened a 'faux pas'.

Tomoe gets a bloop of acknowledgement. "Greetings, Tomoe." It proceeds to continue its analytical work, one look at Eggman's gear causing a reevaluation of local threat matrices immediately. It does not immediately speak, waiting to observe him some more.

    In the meantime, it states, "I will begin data correction and stabilization efforts." What? Here? The World? De-Glitched? Seems impossible, perhaps. But the orbiting geomids splay out and begin hovering over various locations of the environment, spraying beams of light and exposing wireframe overlays, working to correct enrvionmental hazards, clean up building designs, and refactor background operating systems one piece at a time. It doesn't interfere with Eggman's work on the local shop, but it slowly expands outwards in a radius /from/ it, even insofar as beginning to correct the temporal jerkiness of the area and filling in half-created buildings using contextual design hints.
Staren     Staren waves a hand dismissively at Shepherd. "Don't worry about it. They're racist dickbags, nothing anyone does will convince them. We saved a life. What they do is on them."

    When it becomes clear that Eggman doesn't actuall;y have some way to interface directly with code and is poking and prodding the simulation looking for something to manipulate, Staren stops standing back and helps.
Atoli     There's nothing in the store.
    It's thoroughly disappointing.

    "We don't have any snacks," the man says aloud to Mikoto.
    "Eat, eat," says the fairy.

    Haseo opens the minimap.
    Instead of a proper map .jpg, it loads up some kind of orange hat texture. There's a symbol on it, kind of like a large U with a circle inside. It's flattened, as texture files tend to be, so it looks a bit odd, but... if that U was a W, wouldn't that look a lot like a certain someone's hat?

    Between Eggman and Shepherd, miracles can happen. Chunks of missing code can be replaced - objects can be repaired, if the code can't be, and by manner of cause and effect the code will be repaired anyway. The shop regains the appearance it should have, which is great.

    It's now filled with items! ... gift shop items. Hot spring items. Foods. Snacks. Milk, sake. Towels. No, really, this is a tourist trap shop, except obviously digital.

    The man and the fairy, however, remain glitchy as hell. Is that their intended state?

    "I am Uchiyama of Bandai. This area will enter maintenance soon. Please form an orderly line," the man says, his body momentarily glitching in and out.
    "The classroom is empty," the fairy says.
    "Loud silence rolls down the hill. "I hear that," said the deaf man," The man adds, politely and still straight-faced.
    "That's it. Sumi sumi," the fairy nods.
Sumiko Mikoto is about to take Tomoe on her offer when the shop is fixed!  Instead, she shakes her head and instead turns towards the shop keeper.  She starts going over what kinds of snacks they have, and if there is anything unusual, she looks for the most unusual fair to her pallet, so she can enjoy some new experiences.

Or hate them, whichever.

Of course, something gets brought up, to which Mikoto asks a question, but it gets shot down because Haseo is a jerk.  So she stops caring, instead, sipping her illegal drink.  "This is pretty good!" she says towards Eggman.  

"So...tell me more about this plan with the rabbit?"
Staren     And the store... is restored! Which is pretty cool except it's full of nothing interesting. There's nothing here Staren would loot, even at the price of free! And the shopkeeper's speaking nonsense now. "Ugh. Dialog from an inscrutable wiseman type, maybe? I guess we could try the mansion... or maybe if we did the same thing we did with the store, we could restore more of the town?"
Eggman      Eggman rolls his hand. "It's less of a /plan/ and more of a /vague contraption of malice/. It won't be a plan until I have a blueprint, and it won't have a blueprint until I've finished conceptualizing exactly what I want to do."

     Eggman, having fixed the shop, is lifted back onto his robots. The French Toast Decoction is handed over, and he resumes sipping his drink as he listens to the shopkeeper's odd dialogue. "How strange. A prerecorded message, I suppose? Or perhaps a person trapped in this place when it glitched out."

     "What a frightening thought. And it might explain why I can't repair him."
Tomoe Eggman and Shepherd get to work and the shop seems to be fixed some of it is replace many things now come into focus s she sees all the items not appear and pauses for a moment at this digital tourist trap? Was this going to be for some microtransactions? She doesn't know and its' likely not relevant now, right? She pauses though as the NPC and Fairy continue. She takes a step back from this.

"No problem."

She says to Mikoto whom she can't fault for wanting to go after the shop's fresher food, right?

"Is this some kind of riddle?"

She asks aloud thinking over what the NPC said but she's not sure there.

"We should make not of it, but I agree we should hit up the Mansion now, Staren." 5R
She'll look to Eggman and ponders

"That I'm afraid I don't know this isn't like my world where there's an AI managing everything, it feels like almost no one is driving The World anymore from what I have seen. Dr. Eggman."

She's made a very big guess here and very well is wrong about it.
Rean Schwarzer "Looking at the mansion's as good a place as any to start." Rean adds.
Shepherd The area continues to be reformatted and completed, voxels and wireframes formatting into surface areas and reducing the chance of the area crashing and taking down the server completely, to say nothing of the people in it. As it stands, the group will have an increasingly expansive area to wander around in that is clean, efficiently designed, and matches with existing decor. This is not to say that he has added anything, more that he is completing it so people might not randomly fall through the floor or something.

    "System repairs continue. Please feel free to enjoy the locale." Shepherd states. "The Eggman has done well in correcting the shop system. He is a skilled coder. Please be careful and do not overconsume digitized material. There has been no analysis of its nutritional effects."

It floats there with a kind of overbearing, alien pleasantness. Kind of like if you're looking at a customer service representative who has had enough plastic surgery to turn the Uncanny Valley to 11.
Haseo      Haseo, probably understandably, has a bit of a panic attack at the sight of the hat. Though after his initial wigging out he realizes it's only similar and not the same. He's a bit confused on why a hat like this exists though. Perhaps the hat was part of an avatar choice in the initial beta of R:2 or something, and Tri-Edge hacked it in and modified it? The man has access to Data Drain, so perhaps it's not exactly a farfetched theory.

     As the area is restored, Haseo just grumps. Seems like a waste to restore a shop that clearly doesn't even sell any rare high level weapons.

     The NPC doesn't seem to be improved any, though the way he introduces himself is off. 'Uchimiya of Bandai'. Characters in The World generally don't break character this hard. Then again this area was clearly never meant to be accessed by people, so that's probably why.

     "Pffft, I'm getting worried over a toy company of all things."
Atoli     Nothing in the shop costs anything.
    There still isn't any kind of interface.
    You can just take anything you want.

    Outside, the repairs keep spreading. The village slowly regains its proper appearance, although without anyone to fill it up, it's just... an empty village. Even fully restored, it's easy to tell it wasn't meant to be a sight. It's just surrounding fluff for the manor. The manor, now, that's something worth looking at.

    It's very, pointlessly ornate. No such features exists in the rest of The World. Unique textures and fancy architecture from a previous version, clearly. But the inside of the manor, it's no manor, it's... it's...!

    A HOT SPRING.

    It is cleanly separated between a part for men and a part for women, and fully functional, thanks to Shepherd's spreading efforts.

    Atoli squees a bit. "Oh look! Haseo look, this place, it's... we could relax here anytime we want! Don't you think players would be really happy to visit this?!" You'd think she found the cure for cancer with how excited she is.

    There's a plaque, like in the cathedral. It just says "Aurora's GIFT to her heroes." which isn't especially useful. Game lore?
Sumiko Mikoto suddenly has a backpack full of snacks, and one shoved into her mouth.  She has also finished her first drink of the evening.  Well, she knows at least how to make the best of a situation.  People move towards the manor, and she follows after a time.

A swallow of her food and a nod to Eggman about the rabbit idea is what he gets.  She probably just really wants to hurt the rabbit, but it realllllly deserves it in this case.  Stuff can be talked about later, she supposes.

Of course, the revelation of the manor being a hot spring causes Mikoto to squee with Atoli as well.  "Well gosh!  We have our own private hot springs. Oooo, oooo we should try it right now!"
Eggman      Eggman needles Haseo on the radio for a bit in a surprisingly important and emotionally-helpful manner. He's mostly exploring the village, looking around without too too much interest. He's more invested in Shepherd's work, unravelling the methodology behind it, and the theory behind The World rather than the practice. Even if it is a game, it's a remarkable one, and the way it interacts with the rest of the multiverse is too interesting to pass up.

     "What a lovely idea, isn't it, Haseo? There's no reason whatsoever that coming out here might be dangerous, after all. A simple hot spring visit would do everyone some good." Eggman says of the hot springs. He swirls his drink again, sipping the French Toast Decoction carefully. "Who is Aurora? Is she the goddess that was shot with the cannon?"
Staren     Staren moves on to the manor, though he's pleased to see Shepherd's drones working on restoring the town in case anything else is important.

    "A goddess personally built this manor and hotspring? That's a little weird..." He looks at Mikoto. "You know what, I'm not actually sure it's pointless. Maybe using it will trip some event flag." Staren heads off to the men's area. After removing his armor, his bodysuit reshapes into sea-green swim trunks, and barring any funny business he'll slip on in.

    If nothing happens though, he doesn't wait long before getting impatient and focusing on controlling a drone to search the rest of the manor.
Eggman      Eggman agrees with Staren over the radio, and then heads inside the hot spring.

     He's fat. He's in red-and-yellow swimtrunks with his face plastered on the sides. He sits down in the water and sips his drink like an American mogul, relaxing. His robots stand idly by with towels and despair.
Shepherd     Shepherd isn't really in the position where it would generate new NPC units on its own and has no real intention to do so. It isn't necessary. Still, no one is going to trip and fall on half-completed outbuildings for the manor now. And this IS IMPORTANT to the AI.

    The manor, and the hot spring, by definition, seems to meet with the entity's approval. "This is a suitable socialization area. Please feel free to make use of it. I will ensure that you are kept safe and protected while you do so." The machine hums, and splits into two equal-sized renditions of itself, one coloring itself blue, the other pink as they keep to the opposite sides of the hot spring. More objects continue to spring up, including bathing towels, colorful robes, the addition of precisely designated plantlife to set off the environment, and winking, glittering lights that are designed to simulate fireflies.

There seems to be a /convenient/ amount of steam from the spring to obscure viewing of the opposite side for /some reason/.
Tomoe With the repairs still underway? She will certainly check out things in the area now staring with the manor and then they find it has a hot spring which gets Tomoes attention.

"WAit did we seriously find a hot spring?"

She seems to be quite interested in this she notices the division of the spring, which is fine with her and she's seriously thinking about trying to enjoy this place she will pause at the plaque for a moment

"Aurora's gift to her heroes?"

She muses thinking it over for a bit.

"Look maybe some deities get their followers better?"

She'll take a moment to bring up a menu and soon the towering woman outfit changes in a flash of light as she swaps clothing to be wearing a swimsuit. If nothing goes wrong Tomoe will be quick to slide into the hot springs herself.

"You really are doing quite the repair job Shepherd."

She notes as sshe moves to slide into the water on the ladies side.
Haseo      Haseo's beginning to slightly miss the old glitchy map, if only because the cheery vibes he's getting aren't suited to his current mood. Though now he's curious what would have happened to the Church and statue had they bothered to go this route earlier? Who knows, and really, who cares. It'd probably be equally as cheery and boring.

     "Hmmm? Yeah. I guess it's alright if you want to waste time or whatever..."

     Perhaps unsurprisingly, Haseo doesn't sound all that interested in the idea of HOT SPRINGS. Though at the very least he doesn't sound angry. It's something.
Atoli     "Aurora? Yeah, she was... the goddess of light, that the humans put inside the cannon to kill the other gods," Atoli explains. "But there's nothing in the story about her having heroes or giving them a gift. Maybe this is part of a plotline they scrapped? Or maybe... ohno! Did we... did we spoil ourselves the ending?!"

    Atoli flails. "No no no! Did we just discover Aurora is alive and players are meant to save her in the story?"

    She deflates a bit. "Aww, now we can't be surprised when we get to that point..." Maybe it's just a scrapped plotline. It's okay.

    Well, Eggman goes into the water. And Mikoto insists on doing it too. Shepherd even provided ample steam and safety!

    "O-Oh, right! Yeah, we should! Haseo, stop being grumpy, come on! The store had swimsuits, you have no excuse!"

    Some downtime is always nice.

    And the best part it, there's nothing weird in the rest of the manor. Actually there's not really a manor, it's a front for the hot spring. Weird design choice, and it doesn't entirely fit together either. This probably wasn't made by an employee at all. Or recently. The code is old and outdated.
Rean Schwarzer Everyone heads for the mansion, and surprise! It's got a hot spring!
"Oh, nice!" Rean says, a smile crossing his face. "Last time I was in one of these, it was back home." Indeed, Ymir was known for having hot springs...and snow. He shrugs at Haseo's comment, and heads into the men's side. He gets undressed and slips into the water with a towel around his waist.
Sumiko Mikoto doubles back for a swimsuit and then heads into the girl's side of things.  Though not sure about Shepherd...being...a robot?  She guesses it doesn't really make a difference, so shrugs it off and decides to just have herself a good time.

Splashing in the water with her swimsuit, she lays back to relax.  Oh, this is life.  Finding secret hidden springs like this!

"Eh, don't fret about it too much, Atoli.  If this was really meant to be the ending it wouldn't be so degraded.  Likely it was scrapped, or leftover from the old game maybe?  If it were new it'd be buggy in different ways, not looking old and dying."
Eggman      Eggman continues to max and relax. His belly is above the water. It is rotund. It is even massive. He occasionally rests his drink on it. When he needs another drink, he snaps his fingers for the bartender robot, which refreshes the drink loyally. Being an evil genius is marvelous.

     "Tell me," he says to Staren, "Do you not find it extremely odd that this area feels unfinished? In a world where the developers of this /game/ programmed an unnecessary cannon with all the mechanisms and bits needed to fire, they didn't finish a simple hot springs and house? This doesn't *feel* like junk data, Hand. It feels like something abandoned for some reason."
Tomoe Tomoe is enjoying the water now as she sinks in up to her neck. "This is unexpected but I'm sure going to enjoy this."

She'll think for a moment and calls to Staren.

"That's a good point Dr. Eggman it does feel like it was just left unfinished like it was intended to be done. Haseo? Atoli? Did the world before you unified have some AI running it or was it entirely human-controlled and coded?"

"There's places on my earth with springs like this but they can be few and far between."
Staren     "Does the plot of whatever the game was supposed to be even matter at this point, except for what it can tell us about the world? I mean, it's not like the game's ever gonna get finished now..." Staren points out. He's the wrong person to comfort Atoli.

    As Staren & Eggman hot springs time continues, Eggman brings something up. "Well yeah, obviously this isn't some sort of... random data being read as world data. It's way too complete. But as for 'abandoned for some reason'... It's like she said, cut content. Maybe this wasn't finished in time for release, or ended up not being part of the story. Maybe the difference in appearance inside and outside the mansion indicates they were in the middle of reworking it? It's curious that they'd program all that stuff for the cannon and then not use it, though..."

    Staren rubs his chin. "It's a... trouble with this kind of world. We have to remember it was made as a game first, hidden stuff isn't of any particular portent but 'at some point, they were considering this'. Its use to US is that cut content might contain things we can use to exploit the game's world -- overpowered items, shortcuts, keys to incomplete puzzles elsewhere... Perhaps MORE interesting is that we can restore some of it. Can we guide that process? Make what we want? Very very basic example, if we moved some people in here, would they get infinite snacks from that store? Suppose there was a place with healing items? Perhaps we can use the Cyber Core to build a place where people need not worry about survival, without having to pay the usual costs."
Shepherd Shepherd, being an AI with no human needs, simply works as hot springs attendant, making sure everyone has what they need. It even provides drinks and snacks, though healthier ones that are likely far healthier and in smaller portions than Mikoto grabbed.

    "It is not unusual for a human to start work on a project and then leave it unfinished. This simply might have been one such project. You speak of a cannon. Perhaps it was intended to be used, while the desire to create this location ended before it was finished."
Haseo      "I'm sure they scrapped the plot, otherwise this area wouldn't be such a mess. Also wait, I don't want.... Fine. Fine."

     Haseo just throws his hands up. He's not in the mood to argue how much of a waste of time this is. At least it's going to be a pleasurable waste of time, assuming the hotspring actually feels like anything.

Haseo goes over towards the stall to grab a bathing suit, perhaps, rather fittingly, a pair of black trunks with a flame job printed on it.

He finds an appropriate place to change, and then proceeds to enter the hotspring. Far, far away from anyone else, so he can sulk in peace.
Atoli     Atoli obviously went for a green one.

    "Huh, well... I don't know. There's lots of reasons there could be damaged Fields, like... maybe when the game joined this big world place, it damaged some Fields? Or maybe it's unfinished, right? Or something they wanted to do and then decided not to."

    She wouldn't know, she's not a game dev!

    But the hot water is really nice.
    "Aaaaah~ but I never thought there was an area like this in The World. This is great! Maybe players can come here to relax and stop worrying about the state of things so much, even if it's only for a bit. Oh, oh! I should tell Sakaki, I'm sure he'd know how to handle this!"

    He sure would.
Sumiko "That sounds like a great idea...though I'd prefer to keep this OUR secret...but I GUESS it should be used to help people who might be all stressed out over the whole being stuck in the real world potentially forever thing," SHE GUESSES!

"Eh, who knows.  It could be anything, I say not to worry about it for now and just enjoy what the gods have given us.  In this case, hot spas!" she says, with a relaxed sigh.

"I really could use another drink.."
Tomoe Tomoe says "It's not really my call, this isn't my world right?" She is enjoying the hotsprings however for the moment "We'll find out in time and if we don't we can still make use of this place, right?"
Staren     Staren and Eggman discuss the meaning of this place. It's going nowhere, though. "Yeah," Staren replies to Atoli. "At least some good can come of this, then. Being trapped in a game has gotta be stressful. And at least this water feels /real/, not like the water in Aincrad."

    Just in case, he sends his drone to the edge of the area, just to see what's out there.