He considered selling the food but then thought otherwise because restoratives given by NPCs in MMOs tend to be worthless. Perhaps if he killed some extra Nekhs he could get enough money to buy something good.

The lack of a weapon continued to float in his thoughts as he traced his way back to the stream. All he had was rocks and he wasn't entirely sure they'd be the most efficient thing to take things out with. Still if it's some low level critter it should be doable but not terribly efficient. He picked up more rocks until his inventory was complete full. Only then he would venture to where the Nehks are.

Like of the gladiator games, Smack, gave a thumbs up on the play of their names, Luna-Smack...sounded good in his head even though the smile she gave him made him raise an eyebrow as if she had mischief behind that grin. Either way, as long as they get to kick some ass on the way, he was down with whatever.

He perked up when he heard she went bother ways "Yes! threesome!" He stopped for a moment with widened eyes "I mean..um...oh okay, that's cool...nothing wrong with that." not being able to hold his tongue when finding out he had that spark she was talking about. "Well if you're talking about flames, I'm seeking to be an inferno. Hope you don't mind me being the fly to your shit- no...that didn't sound right at all...ummm.....the fish to your water? I'll work on that but you're an interesting one as well." He chuckled nervously feeling stupid now.

Listening to Luna being a hypocrite at that moment talking expecting him to listen even though she probably wouldn't other than if it's important but then again, something could mean more importance to one more than another. Smack simply nodded "Well...it could be ridiculous but what if the meme had some real significance....like a riddle or some shit? then what?" trying to reason as they made it to the naked lady.

Watching Luna's attempts, and given a chance to try, Smack shrugged "Maybe you need to talk dirty or something." stepping forward and clearing his throat "Excuse me, sexy naked lady with the nice back door....mind if we speak to your perfect ass?" he said looking back at Luna expecting either an answer or possibly a scolding but he wanted some sort of reaction.

@Jin

"Mail them? We just sue them into giving us, me, lots of money!" Surely that would work out just fine. Not to mention all the stuff she could buy it with! Oh, and surely Ja would be able to make the greatest of all Bratwurst and Sauerkraut dishes with the most expensive ingredients too. Nice, simple and easy.

Regardless, the blonde now checked out her menu and stuff as Nein suggested, quickly realizing she couldn't log out anymore! "The hell?" This isn't a very 'funny' bug." Did the maintenance screw something up? Hopefully, they would fix it in time... . Whatever the case, there wasn't too much use in breaking her head over this. Instead, Schwertleite decided to just make the best out of this, even if she was all low-level again. Urgh.

"Yeah, I'll take that knife. Thank you." Taking the pathethic dagger and the last broomstick that could have been used, in conjunction with the knife, to create a makeshift spear, she continued. "Alright! I doubt we should waste away here any longer." Taking a good look around the grassy-plains-that-were-totally-not-a-forest all Schwertleite could see was more beautiful scenery of the same stuff. Surely, if she were to be in a movie or something, this was about the time they would waste everybody's time through padding by showing off how pretty and not-relevent it was!

Anyways, it was time to show how great of a great leader Schwertleite really was! Putting her stick to use, she simply put it up vertical before it fell into a certain direction - most likely wherever the wind was blowing towards. "Let's walk there!" Making sure to take her trusty directional tool with her, the soon-to-be-Hero started to, well, walk.

Well with both of their choices made the only thing that remained was a flintstone. Nein glanced at it for a moment, his one remaining inventory space, and tossed it at Ja with a, “Heads up Ja.” Standing up afterwards, he brushed a bit of dirt from his pants as he stood. A look at the fallen stick before back at Schwert and then he shrugged.

Ja was automatically on his sister’s side, the damn sis-con, so he was already outnumbered. As silly as her methodology was, it wasn’t like this was the first time they’d simply followed her whims either. Granted they hadn’t been trapped inside the game at those times either, but… With a quiet sigh, he shrugged and jogged shortly to catch up with the shorter girl.

“Wow,” Ja exclaimed, clapping his free hand against the broomstick, “Schwertleite, that’s pretty impressive!” Leave it up to his sister to start doing item synthesis this early on, somehow managing to affix a knife onto a stick without using any sort of glue or rope to tie it in place! Her creativity and improvisation skill in this virtual world will definitely come in handy in her future career, regardless of whether or not this could be directly applied. Turning to Nein to judge the reaction of the blond heir, the raven-haired warrior was slightly disappointed in how all he did was throw a flintstone at Jaeger.

Catching it with his open hand and then pocketing it, the raven-haired youth hefted his broomstick onto his shoulder, pumped his fist in the air, and said, “Let’s go then! I’ll lead the way, sister dearest, so you and Nein can just take it easy and chat, yeah?”
Without asking for any more confirmation, Jaeger, bird shit now hardening on the top of his head, strode off in the direction Schwertleite recommended. He picked up his pace, and maintained a large enough distance that he could be ‘scouting’, instead of ‘leading’ the party. After all, the Hero was the leader, wasn’t she? He was just there for support.

_{I N T H E F O R E S T}

As Jaeger, Nein and Schwerleite ventured deeper into - or outwards - the forest, calm breeze brushed by their hair and faces; it was a serene, sunny weather.

Minutes after walking, they would notice a rustle behind some foliage. An overgrown bush that, from afar, looked like the canopy of a tree that sprouted from the earth on its own. It shuddered again. Then, a growl emitted from behind it.

They could choose to ignore it and hope for the beast - or whatever it was - to leave the company of three alone. Best pray it didn't want a chunk of their asses from behind. Beasts don't discriminate on genders when it comes to succulent butts.

Or they could pry and investigate the suspicious bush.

As if that wasn't stressing enough, there was a bell chime that sounded like a housecat with a bell collar skipped by. Automatically, the inventory opened itself, even though each player's content was visible only to himself (or herself).

At least the ??? bush monster heard nothing. Or it probably didn't care - you're going to have to figure that out as you roll.

---

---

_{Jaeger now has a broomstick, a flintstone, and a Vial of Health.
Schwerleite now has a spear, a Candy, and a Vial of Mana.
Nein now has a broomstick, a rope (long), net (medium), sheet, and a Vial of Experience.}

Ah, solitude, his old friend. Staying a few dozen meters in front of Nein and Schwerleite, the intrepid, valiant warrior strode through the sunlit forest, staff in hand. Though more comfortable with steel than hardened wood, it was still a worthy weapon to defend his loved ones with, and his hawk-sharp eyes flickered from one place to the other, attentive and alert. A soft breeze rustled the strands of his onyx hair, and he stopped for a moment, breathing in the smells of the forest.

Oh, right, he hadn’t formed an actual party with the two of them yet. With some nonsensical gestures, Jaeger tossed a party invite towards the two blondes, auto-setting Schwerleite as the leader, before continuing on with the journey…only to freeze.

His survival instinct was triggered, and he could sense the presence of another individual. Adjusting the grip on his broomstick, Jaeger motioned the others to stop, before pointing out the shivering bush. It looked like their stalker had also noticed his timely detection, as a deep growl sounded from within. A monster? Or just an animal? Either way...

“Schwerleite, Nein,” he said, excited tension edging in his voice, “Get ready.”

There were no thoughts of escape, no thoughts of avoiding this being. All his instincts as a MMO player screamed at him to strike, and that, if he were to even suggest running now, he would be lower than inedible, unrecyclable garbage in the sky-blue eyes of his little sister. Ja took a deep breath, held his ‘sword’ in two hands, and then slowly approached the bush.

First, he will confirm his tanking stats.

“Interface.”
Instead, a bell chimed and his inventory popped up, blowing up in his face right as he posed to thrust a stick in the giant moving bush.

Fucking game developers and their bugs.

Unsurprisingly, Ja was quick to run off ahead and leave him alone with Schwert. He took a few moments to admire the world the three of them were apparently stuck in for who knew how long, and then wondered if there were any others who had been swept up in this situation. Still, he didn’t let his thoughts linger on other people for too long when he had two to care about with him right now. Things didn’t seem to have set in for Schwert yet, unsurprisingly, and if Jaeger was actually apprehensive well there was no damn way he’d show it in front of his sister.

So like Jaeger had suggested, he turned to Schwert and patted her head, knowing full well it wasn’t something the shorter girl could ignore. “So where do you plan to drag us off to this time? Think we should check if the quests around Midgard also resetted for us?” At the same time he pulled the net from his inventory and tossed it a few times experimentally. Satisfied, he then hurled it outwards, watched as it opened wide nicely, and hit the ground with a quiet thwump. He turned to Schwert with a grin and said, “I think we can catch some ni-”

Whatever he wanted to say was interrupted by the appearance of a notification, not that Nein minded as he grinned at the sight of the party’s name. Naturally he accepted before he walked over to retrieve the thrown net, and he only reached into his inventory to retrieve the broomstick at Ja’s warning. Net in one hand and stick in the other, he was rather thankful for the Wild Card's ability at the moment.

Now Nein really wished he knew where they were in the world. It could have been a boar that beginners were meant to fight lurking within the bush, or a daughter of Fenrir that would leave them dead before they even knew what happened. Not that they could really do anything about the latter even by walking away, so hopefully it was not that.

Wait a minute… he hadn’t even tried!

“Map.”

If the map appeared, it was hard to tell over his inventory’s sudden and unasked-for appearance. It seemed he had obtained a Vial out of the blue. Worth a smile, but items appearing out of the blue was somewhat annoying. Now he had to constantly keep some slots free or the thought of losing these random boons would definitely nag him.

@Zombehs
The only reaction he received was ignorance. Nice, that's one interface confirmed useless here.

A map! Calling forth the map option would have surely been the first and sanest thing any industrious german person would have done, alas, considering Schwertleite was clearly convinced that this was some sort of special event and/or a bug, the girl did not even bother to check - after all, having mapless event areas wouldn't be the first time. Maybe she was afraid of the result or maybe it was just more fun that way, but Schwert did not bother checking at all.

Regardless, Schwertleite was caught completely off-guard upon the sudden sexual assault of Nein. Her face blushing, the girl pointed forwards. "U-U...Urm..." Goddamnit, just what was up with her? This was so unlike the legendary Hero she was supposed to be! If Ja would see her being as pathetic as she was right now she would surely not be able to abuse him anymore! Shaking her head, and Nein's hand off, she now pointed towards the thick leaves over them towards the sky. "We're shooting for number one!" Yeah, she had absolutely
no clue where they headed. Though, finding some sort of NPC Civilization for some kind of hints was probably the best course of action.

Having calmed down now a bit she added. "'Reset' What do you mean by 'reset'?" She yelled to get her bothers attention. "Hey, did you hear that? Your best friend is implying we lost all our progress! Really funny, isn't it?!" She sighed. "Don't you understand? We're in some super special event! So special in fact, we aren't even allowed to log out...yet!" Maybe they would automatically log out upon killing themselves? Not like Schwertleite intended to give up on their current endeavour though.

As she continued on, her older brother was actually thinking one step ahead as a party invitation popped up before her. Quickly accepting it, she was soon the party leader. "Ho...bo...stron..k?" She murmured confused to herself, was this some dumb boys joke she did not understand? Whatever.

Thinking about changing the party-name, Schwert quickly got interrupted as finally some action happened! Apart from being rewarded with sweet sweet candy for whatever reason, the soon-to-be-hero readied her spear. "Alright, time for some freexp!" She said surprisingly calm. "Be careful though, we don't know what we're up against yet." Surely, it couldn't be too bad now, could it? Then again however, a challenge was nice too!

_{B Y T H E R I V E R}

The nude woman turned her head to the holler of the lecherous duo just as the peaceful sound of lapping water was spliced with an obnoxious bell chime.

---

---

_{Smackahoe now has a Fresh Bun.
Luna now has a Fresh Bun, and a Weird Egg.}

---

---

Right after the two closed their force-opened Inventory, the lady effortlessly glided across the water as if she were on land and charged at them!

For a split second, the word "Nekh" flashed above her head. But she got too close for either to study now that she had her hand on Smackahoe's shin, tugging at him with surprising force - like the pull of a sea tide.

_{B Y T H E R I V E R}

As MisterListerTheSisterFister merrily made his way along the streamside, picking up yet another lump of nature bullet, he would see a body of a man in tattered, dark robes and black dreadlocks, dark skin, and a very traumatised expression floating towards him. Well, I did mention the direction of the river was counter-norm.

His eyes, bulged, looked into Lister's accusingly as his body snagged to the edge of the river, a cattail bush in the way.

Above the dead man's forehead was a glowing tag that read: FusionC. Looks like someone didn't make it very far.

---

---

_{@JerkchickenMisterListerTheSisterFister now has a rugged rock (3), and a smooth rock (2).}

Well…150 HP…

Jaeger scratched his head as he pulled the Inventory screen out of his face. He had a health pot, which was nice, and he still had his skills as a once-high-level player which was also nice, but…ugh, 150 HP. It felt so bad. Closing his Interface with a tap on the ‘x’, he gave a look at the rest of the members of Hobostronk, before readying his stick once more.

One hand stretched out, his fingers counting down from three.

Two.

One.

With a swing directed at pretty much nothing, Jaeger swung his big stick into the rustling brush, making a prayer that he didn’t just smack a dragon in the face.

“That was preeetty bad.” Still, Luna gave him a thumbs up. Truly, he was a pea from her pod. Her face dropped at the sound of a pealing bell, her inventory opening suddenly in her face, stopping her short. Satisfied she hadn’t gone deaf, she looked at it, scowled, and dismissed it with her hand. “What a weird gli… tch…”

What happened next came in slow motion.

Smack was there, and then he wasn’t. The woman was a hostile mob, and particularly vicious at that. She surged forward, the water parting easily, hand closing around his knee in a vice grip. Luna seized, stunned; but she had to move, right now. She shot forward, catching Smack by the wrist. “Hold—shit!” She tumbled face first, water forced into her mouth and throat. She surfaced with a gasp, doubled over, coughing. Vision momentarily clouded, she felt, for the first in a long time, fear; but the thought of her old guild, taunting her for being beaten by a low-level mob, pushed it from her mind.

She couldn’t lose.

Scrubbing her face, she stood, thoroughly soaked, the wind biting at her skin. “Let go of my man, y-you waste of space!” Of course, her plan only went as far as a heroic one-liner. She knew she had no weapon or offensive skill; she didn’t even have a rock to throw. She blinked. But she did have—!

Grabbing the brim of her hat between her index and middle finger, she threw it as hard as she could. It wasn’t particularly aerodynamic, but it did the job, hitting the mob square in the face.

“Move your ass!” Luna screeched. “That’s not gonna distract it for long!”

-
@King Tai

Hm… Nein supposed he could see why Ja dotted over his sister sometimes as she shook his hand off. He grinned slightly at her agitation, and even her naivete couldn’t dampen it, or he just didn’t want her to see. Yeah, he supposed it was possible that Schwert was right and he was just a silly fool, but it didn’t hurt to think of worst case scenarios. Well maybe his pride if there was a broadcast of the poor schmucks, aka them, that had gotten caught up in this.

What would the title be anyways? Maintenance Time Mayhem? Why you get the fuck off five minutes prior to maintenance like you’re warned to?

Random thoughts aside, the fact that the map refused to show up was slightly disheartening. It wasn’t exactly a nail to the event theory, but Nein like his pessimism. In the right amounts of course, and no map was the perfect dash for the moment. “Not quite free, but hopefully not too much work,” he murmured quietly back to Schwert as Ja counted down silently with his fingers.

Nein's stance shifted slightly to throw the net forward better as his grip on the broomstick also tightened in preparation.