[ti]story[/ti]Story Quest: Silent Night

After pulling a small piece of paper aside from the hole he was making and sticking it into his pocket for now, Nero paused for a moment, setting his pickax down and leaning on it. The stupid tag thing had interrupted his rhythm, but he did appreciate the break from the laborious work... Which was odd now that he thought about it. Sure, in the real world he wouldn't be able to do something like this for long (or at all...) but he'd never felt exhausted by physical activity in UNOVR so far. He'd turned all those settings down to minimum so he could make the most of the physical freedom he had in here. So why all of a sudden was he feeling exhausted here?

One would think his surroundings would clue him in a bit more, but nah - it was just a game after all.

His Electrike seemed to be in the same predicament, sitting down and panting beside him as he rested, despite usually having so much more energy than this. Weird. Maybe the event had messed with everyone's settings to make it harder or something?

While he was thinking, a voice calling his name had him looking up, and he caught sight of Josh Devlin nearby shouting a greeting towards him. The polite thing to do would be to smile and wave back and give a cheerful encouragement towards this ex battle partner - so obviously Nero did none of those things. Instead, he turned very pointedly away from him, lifting up the pickax once more and preparing to launch back into action. Josh had seen him resting so he probably thought he was weak now. Stupid pickax, stupid game, stupid Josh.

Another voice caught him entirely off guard, too distracted by his own internal grumblings to apparently even notice a massive Onix approaching him. His Electrike barked at the thing, unsure if it was friend or foe and waiting for confirmation while Nero turned to look towards who the monstrosity belonged to.

Oh, Laguna .

Oh that was okay actually.

"Sure, yeah," he replied, quick to get back to his own digging so that she didn't see him looking weak like Josh did. She'd seen more than enough of that already after all. In fact, he made a point of doubling down on his efforts now so that she could see just how strong and in control he actually was. He would just ignore the growing ache to his muscles and the way his electric partner was digging a little more slowly now. That was probably all in his imagination anyway.

Electrike: 300/400 | Found so far: Spell Tag
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Someone was running up to her. Goodness gracious, she looked like some kind of Hollywood ninja, the type you'd see in John Wick or somesuch. Emery had a cousin who was neck-deep in martial arts movies, Eastern and Western, and she used to watch him watch them in the dead of night, standing at his bedroom door.

"So you are! And so they are," repeated Emery, tilting to the side. Those were definitely insect wings alright. "Do you feel them in real life? What does it feel like? Needles stuck in your back, tape plastered onto the skin? Is that mask you have for medical or aesthetic purposes? Ha, who am I kidding! It's not like any medical condition you'd have in real life would transfer here, would it? You've a little monkey with you I see. He seems very agile. I'm Emery, by the way. Care to parlay?"

She held out a hand for the ninja lady to shake. As always, Emery ignored the nametag floating on top (Jade Jager ) and insisted on a 'traditional' approach. 

"This seal on my head is Idol."

"Hello, hello!" Idol slapped both flippers over Emery's ears, causing a mini shockwave in her cochlea. "You're very interesting! You fit the bill to a T! Well, I mean I hope so, I don't know how good my judgement is, but Viv told me to use it, so I'm using it as liberally as I can!"

He snorted as if to clear his nostrils. 

Emery was about to say something when another person, some man she supposed, came over. He addressed her brief-as-you-please and immediately directed his attention to Idol, who seemed absolutely chuffed. 

"Oh. Oh! Oh, it's going swell, big guy! Eck, except for all this" - Idol waved a flipper at the general state of the landscape - "smog and whatnot. Can't take two breaths without a tickle down my throat, and a real bad one at that! I don't think I can do very much, but I'll give it a sporting try, Mr Bee!"

"You don't have to use mister with him, I'm sure," remarked Emery with some cheek in her tone. 

"Okay then, Bee!"

"What he said." Emery grinned at this Bee character, took in his appearance. For once, she allowed herself to acknowledge his nametag, but only for a very specific reason. "I'm Emery, despite what Idol up there says, since we're all using fake names here, aren't we? Especially yours, 'Big Bee ' - compensating for something?" She laughed quickly and then shook her head as if to say I'm only messin' with ya. "None of my business, that. People can be whatever they like here! Look, this lady's gone and merged herself with some sort of dragonfly, even. Well, I'd shake yours too, but both of my hands are a bit occupied now, so you'll have to settle with something a bit more wet. Idol?"

The seal yipped and held out a flipper.

There were a ton of people milling about now, and with them brought great puffs of utter shit. Emery hoped it wasn't actual shit; she'd settle for long-preserved excrement if that was the only other option. She actually felt like she caught a glimpse of Jian somewhere, but that black hair was gone within microseconds amidst all the crud floating around. Archaeology had been too deep a niche for her parents to throw her into, but it couldn't be that bad. From the looks of things, the background music served as a strange beat for impaxing (impact + pickaxe + ing). A very odd work song, this was. It kind of reminded her of music from a tinny department store speaker system, one of those tracks the staff were forced to listen to Clockwork Orange style - except with ears - every holiday season. 

Privately, she kept time, and swung. The bad doctor Bunya was yammering some gibberish as usual, and from this distance it was a bit harder to parse than usual. 

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Eugh, what the hell is this?

She'd definitely not dug through dirt. Dirt did not congeal like that and it certainly did not sift away to reveal what looked like the Earth's own viscera. Emery didn't care for it and tried to not look for too long. A something rolled out at one point, tapping against her foot, which she drew up out of sheer instinct. On her head, Idol didn't seem to notice; he'd gone eerily quiet. Emery crouched down and picked the object up. Dripping with sticky, honey-like mud, it remained solid enough under a few tentative squeezes, so she kept it, even though she couldn't tell what it was.

It was while she was close to the ground and examining whatever it was she'd found that the whole souls conversation drifted around her head. What this kind of topic was doing here was beyond her, but Emery wasn't about to pass up a debate, even if it was a philosophical one she was poorly armed for.

"That's an equally good counter. Proof of having a soul doesn't lie in the drive to create, because then a little over half the Earth's population would be soulless." Emery stayed in her crouch and looked up at the both of them. Each word came approximately out of her ass, but it was full of on-the-spot consideration. The question had never entered within a million kilometers of her mind throughout her entire life. "You said it yourself - that's just pride. Pride in your own accomplishments, in how they make others feel good about you, or you about yourself. It makes you feel like you're worth something in the guise of passion. There's nothing wrong with that: everyone needs a little something to help them along. You're fulfilling a need, the return of which is whatever you choose to interpret it as. A soul is..."

She looked over in the general area of Professor Pussy (not that meaning). "Not that. That's manmade. Being able to think is as close as you'll get to knowing you have a soul. Beyond that, what sits in our driver's seat" - she tapped her temple - "doesn't even know it exists sometimes, doesn't even know how it itself works. It came up with a whole discipline to study itself, don't you think that's funny? Anyway, I feel like that's a tangent. But is it really important, knowing or not knowing that souls exist? Does it make life easier? Does it somehow justify this or that? I said just now that half of everyone would be soulless. Is that really such a bad thing, if it were true? Don't people smile and laugh and live and die no matter what?"

Emery finally straightened up, brushing some grit off her calves. She stared into the false eyes of those who stood nearby and really tried to imagine the people behind them. 

"Do you have a soul? Right now I mean. The you here, in this world. Does your avatar, whom you made in your image, whatever that is, with a persona of its own that's different from yours, a backstory that you conjured up, quirks and tells and flourishes all different from yours, have a soul of its own?"

On her head, Idol swayed.

IDOL/POPPLIO :: 100/150 HP

Lucille blinked as her pickaxe struck through the layers of charred biological material, unearthing a piece of fossilized bone from some kind of Pokémon that she didn't recognize in the slightest, It was an odd greenish blue color with a large set of jaws with a dome shaped head engraved into the surface, and what looked like fins? It was an odd-looking thing and looked pretty incomplete as one would have put it. The ashen-haired woman began dusting off the remainder of the fossil before taking it into her hands and looking at her archeology partner ❝Look familiar to you, Byleth?❞ Luci asked, her demeanor Stoic and calming down from her earlier unease somewhat. Byleth took a moment to glance at her trainer, shaking her large triangular head and settling back into her digging activity, scraping through the charred matter with her noodle-armed appendages. Intent on looking for more treasures, some potentially for her private stash. The motherly dragon even getting her little Dreepy missiles to help in her endeavor, the floating little noodle-dragons squealing and scooping up small amounts of matter with their stubby arms and carrying it into an ever building pile.

Lucille shrugged her shoulders at her Dragapult and moved to set the fossil down beside the ghostly creature. Figuring it was better to keep whatever they dug up in a pile where they could pick out what they wanted at a later point in their excursion. Once that was done, the jacket-clad woman returned to swinging her pickaxe, the sounds of sleigh bells and clanking metal ever present in her mind.

Byleth || 400/500 HP

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Lucille's pickaxe made a resounding clang as it struck through the charcoal-colored matter below, lowering herself down as she set her gaze upon what looked to be a chunk of solidified amber, a strand of bone dead in its center perfectly preserved. The composed woman quirked an eyebrow as she swiped her gloved hands across the dirt, clearing off debris and smaller chunks of human remains to try and uncover more of her findings. Her UI brought up the name OLD AMBER for the fossilized amber resting in her palms, nodding her head, Lucille pocketed the item just in time for the blackened floor below to dissipate from under her. She opened her mouth to scream, but her voice would die in her throat before ever reaching the ears of the fellow players around her.

They had fallen a good few feet now. Her landing wasn't as bad as it could've been, thanks to her Dragapult grasping a hold of her hands to steady her fall to a gentle glide down to the floor ❝Once again saving my bacon, Byleth. Thank you.❞ Short and sweet, exactly how she preferred things usually. Pale-blue irises flitted about to study her surroundings, the ground was more pristine than the previous layers of earth, or rather Mistra. There wasn't even a moment to dust off her jacket and clothes before an annoying jingle pierced her ears and a pop-up darted across her UI. Eyes scanned the description of the gift. A bead of sweat forming across her brow as she lifted her arm to wipe it against the fabric of her sleeve. Ok, she had to palm this off on someone otherwise she would end up one some kind of... naughty list?

Her head swiveled from side to side as she looked over the players scattered around the excavation site. Great, who would she even give this to? An unamused hum left the woman's throat as she stared at the gift that had materialized within her hands. Perhaps Big Bee would be somewhat easier for her to approach, having already gone into battle together with many others. They were at least somewhat acquaintances, right? They hadn't exactly interacted very much but still. Big Bee was approachable and a friendly face if anything, and Lucille, bless her anxious soul, could stand to get out of her own shell a little more.

With a nod and her mind made up, she began her approach. Fingers fumbling idly with the ribbon that sat against the cardboard surface of the gift box as the sound of dull footsteps seemed to die out in the empty space. What was a few brief moments felt like an eternity as she closed the distance between herself and Big Bee, leaving her Dragapult, Byleth to her own digging devices. The treasure below the surface calling to the ghostly-being.

❝Big Bee, hello.❞ Lucille finally greeted, without another word she awkwardly jutted the gift towards the man, her eyes looking everywhere else but the trainer standing before her.

Byleth || 350 / 500HP

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Orion tore his gaze from his first piece of loot as he watched both Bee and Blue split up to go socialize a bit more.  He opened his mouth to say something back, it probably would have been totally cool and nonchalant, but suddenly Bunya was up in his business looking at his find with squinted eyes.  His jaw clenched a bit as she just...ambled about like she owned the place, like it wasn't supposed to be Ashe leading this sort of thing (Not that she'd have trekked them into this shitshow to begin with.)  Still, he had a job to do and a cover to keep, so spy he would.  

"You want me to keep an eye on Blue?"  Achilles would ask after Bunya had bailed.
"Nah, she's more than capable of taking care of herself, but Nero."  He said motioning to the player next to her.  "He's new, keep him covered eh?"
"Got it boss."  

With that the lions would stride over and join Nero, giving him a furry thumbs up and a nod before posting up like a bodyguard, arms cross and ready to crack some skulls (the living ones not the paleontological finds). 

Orion on the other hand would look for fresher pay dirt, striding over to join Tuesday and Rose Garden

"Merry Christmas you two!  Having a good time digging over here?"  He'd ask both Armorer and Amateur Archeologist alike.  He would watch Kazuki throw something...a present?  At another player he didn't recognize.  Was this part of the event?  Was that a find?  He had no way of knowing, and suddenly he was back to being on edge.  

"Yall mind if I dig with you for a bit?  They say that you never find two pieces of loot in the same hole."

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