[PT] [PP-F29] all the lonely people <<on the house>>

[Arabelle 0]

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a souvenir shop owner parked at the sixteenth's plaza tells her with a gentle shake of their head that a rowdy group of players dressed in party attire had teleported back that day and made an entire fiasco, grabbing every person they could find and hysterically recounting the event they had lived through, as if they themselves could hardly believe it had happened now that they were back on safe ground. a clerk at a local guild claims that none of them are foolish enough to punch above their level, but if she is hiring, perhaps she would consider that group of mercenaries who has already seen floor 29 with their own eyes? they seem to have recovered. at the same time, a local resident is dismayed that a noise complaint that had resolved itself one day has suddenly returned.

margaret narrows it all down to a single meaningful face.

it's two hours past noon, and she sits herself at their outside table uninvited. a man, lightly armored with a pair of sunglasses perched atop his head, looks at her past his menu, thick brows dipping into the beginnings of a confused frown.

"water, please," she tells the waiter, "and i will pay for everything he orders. hello," she turns to the man once the waiter had made their swift exit.

his expression instantly turns into a scowl. he recognized the voice, not the face unshrouded and in the light of day. his elbows pull back from the table, sitting straight so that he can look down at from his greater height. "ah, you. come to recount those casualties?"

"did you know any of them?" he doesn't. "i came first to ask a favor but before that... i have to say i am sorry! i am so, deeply sorry for what i said back on floor 29...!" margaret shifts in her chair, her knees knock together beneath the table, and her shoulders pull inward, the pose of a bashful penitent. she is above gestures but when she is falling back into pure and simple sincerity, the habit does manage to sneak in with the rest of the package. "i, and the frontlines, had just come from the boss fight expecting reprieve, but we found ourselves immediately faced with the pressure to get every non-frontliner out of the floor before anything disastrous could happen. and it did. regardless of it all, i should not have spoken so harshly." i really would have just left you to die.

"didn't even know what you were talking about, you mean. just because we aren't fighting with your frontlines doesn't make us all weak. so that was uncool--"

imposter's play, imposter's problem. "yes! i'm sorry! it was very 'uncool!'"

the man's scowl strains, suddenly unsure where to point his ire without quarreling publicly with a woman who does nothing but agree. another word from him and margaret will just pour more water on the fire. speaking of, the waiter's back. "fine. guess you've learned your lesson," he says, deflated. "leave after your favor."

margaret smiles. 

"what i need is..." and if her new comrades start questioning her, she'll say, it's the strange dreams, it's the ivory-handled dagger sibyl shouldn't have that they keep telling her to wound them with, let me pour you a drink. claret red, it's the corkscrew opener that ends up on her bedside no matter how far she throws it the next day, and how everything is following her like a lovesick ghost, across floors, across the weeks since floor 29 opened. token insanity, friends. how could their lessers possibly handle it? "...everything you and your friends took out of your inventories on floor 29. i have reason to believe that such items have been influenced by the floor's malevolent energy and thusly now pose a risk to their owners.

"may i give you an example?"

it's an hour past midnight, and she enters her shop on floor 10. the mercenary man had not been the first or the last, and not all of them had said yes. margaret moves her curios out of the way and empties sack after sack of surrendered items and starts sifting through the piles. weapons and armor and accessories, useless. she sells them on the spot after glancing through their names and descriptions at least once. she compensated everyone, of course, plus extra for any possible sentiment attached. it would be a while before she makes up for the crater she blew into her personal finances.

there is only one item she is searching for and she isn't sure if it exists. she refuses to tell anyone of its possibility or that there had even been a problem. 

this one is hers alone.

she finds the square glass buried in jewelry. heart in her throat, margaret picks it up and studies the playback menu. the reel consists of hours of footage, and in its final minutes, the preview darkens to a near black. she sets the cursor, points it at a blank wall, and presses 'play.'

--of course it was fei who found it. before sword art online was turned into a death trap, a beta tester had encountered a glitch so disastrous that three of their five senses were shut out of their player body and they struggled to log out. the tester sat in a state akin to sleep paralysis until the nervegear's battery drained. in a patch following, recalibration options were quickly added into sword art online's system. half of its functionality would vanish with the loss of the log out button, but fei had rigged it then: a bright holographic window, split into five circles held at the fingertips, communicated information through pulses--

--in the blurry feed, the camera tilted to a dizzying angle, the frontliners scatter from the plaza and she stays. bodies pass. she moves too early, a gust flaring the side of her cloak upwards, and at that moment, she glances down at her hidden left hand--

--at the flashing, white--

the feed is interrupted, the crystal topples off the counter, as margaret's fist slams into the wall.

 

 

margaret sleeps.

she wakes up, and the bar is empty. she slips behind the counter. in her eyes, everything is tinted yellow. not the soft yellow-brown of old pictures, but searing and sick, like if sunlight looked radioactive, and there are cracks in the image, neon colors surrounding the black like a bruise. she picks up the ivory-handled blade. the door swings open and she sees herself pause stunned at the threshold, her red eyes dark and bottomless and the only thing in the world that does not have a drop of yellow. sit down, she doesn't say. she turns the blade downwards and sinks it deep into the wood.

screams pour out of the cracks. she sits of her own accord.

"will you pour me a drink?"

she wakes up, and the fire in her lantern is dead. with trembling fingers, margaret relights it and fixes her hair and clothes.

the lost sheep have a phrase: drink yourself to oblivion, drink all your worries away. the men of her family would have a glass or two, everyone careful not to overindulge, but the bottle would be moved politely out of her reach when she asked for it. margaret tried anyway, alone at her floor one residence with fei two years later, and after a sip, she poured the rest of her drink into fei's cup and told her she didn't understand. she hadn't faltered. it didn't count because sword art online does not simulate inebriation.

now she's parched like a pseudo-alcoholic, and in pseudo-reality, she's unfolding her umbrella and making her way over to h.p.'s tavern in the middle of the night. she's carelessly leaving a trail, one dead shambler after another, and when she enters the tavern, margaret is not surprised that it's exactly as she saw in her dreams. she finds the note tucked beneath the lantern like it had been waiting for her.

| xxxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxxxxxx
| 00. have you drunk intoxicating liquor to the point that you lost control of your senses?

margaret's hand stills, her resolve waning.

 

it's your favorite magical girl! ♡

Spoiler LEVEL 43 (BASE 34; PARAGON 9): HP: 680/680 | EN: 106/106 | DMG: 23 | MIT: 20 | ACC: 3 | EVA: 1 | FLN: 8 (6-8) | BLI: 32 (9-10); -20 MIT | BLD: 48 (9-10) | RSK: 8 | BH: 5% | VD: 10% | HB: 4% | LD: 5 | WELL-RESTED: 3/3 | SQUEAKY CLEAN: 1/1 | MULTIPURPOSE: 1/1 skills Spoiler | skills mod count: 2/5 SCYTHE (AXE) | RANK 5/5 [BASE: Proficiency] +7 DMG [ADDON: Ferocity] +2 DMG [ADDON: Precision] +1 ACC [ADDON: Stamina] Reduce EN of all attacks by 2. [SHIFT: AOE Specialist] +4 to multipliers and +2 to EN cost; AoE-I, AoE-II. CLOTH ARMOR | RANK 5/5 [BASE: Proficiency] +20 MIT [MOD: Athletics] +1 DMG [ADDON: Nimble] +1 EVA, +1 LD COMBAT MASTERY: DMG | RANK 3/3 [BASE: Proficiency] +12 DMG BATTLE HEALING | RANK 5/5 [BASE: Proficiency] Restore 5% HP per turn. [MOD: Emergency Recovery] | Passive (10 EN) | Once per thread, when HP falls below 25%, recover 10% of maximum HP. ENERGIST [BASE: Proficiency] +20 EN SEARCHING | RANK 4/5 [BASE: Proficiency] +4 LD; +4 SD | expenditure Spoiler Total SP: 170 | Spent: 169 | Unspent: 1 SKILL: Axe (30) ADDON: Stamina (4) ADDON: Precision (2) ADDON: Ferocity (4) SHIFT: AOE Specialist (10) SKILL: Cloth Armor (30) MOD: Athletics (4) ADDON: Nimble (6) SKILL: Combat Mastery (13) SKILL: Battle Healing (30) MOD: Emergency Recovery (6) SKILL: Energist (8) SKILL: Searching (22)  equipment Spoiler amaterasu CURSED, FALLEN, BLIGHT, BLEED TIER 4 DEMONIC AXE | [state]: fused description_not_found. saint-germain RISKY II, VAMPIRIC (DEFENSIVE) II TIER 4 DEMONIC CLOTH ARMOR | [state]: fused a silk wrist cuff upon which a corsage of pure white roses is pinned. fleeting words ACCURACY II, HOLY BLESSING II TIERLESS DEMONIC TRINKET | [state]: fused a weightless spread of large white feathers cast in plaster and set upon a lapel pin. inventory Spoiler | dimensional backpack (4) Teleport Crystal | [>>] (5) cookie | +16 EN | [>>] (3) Congealing Ale | ANTIDOTE III | [>>] 23613, 236140, 236141 (5) Rumbling Rum Party Favor | 10% INSTANT MASS HEAL | [>>] 234141, 234142, 234143, 234144, 234145 (5) Rumbling Rum Party Favor | 10% INSTANT MASS HEAL | [>>] 234105-2, 234105-3, 234108, 234112-1, 234112-2 sword arts Spoiler st [x12] ST-I (10 EN) [x15] ST-II (13 EN) | Only available for use when ST-I was used and successfully struck an enemy the previous turn or if ST-II had been used and had missed the previous turn. [x20] ST-B (18 EN) | Can only be used if the sword art used the previous turn is not ST-B and had rolled a natural CD9+. When performing an AoE attack, use only the first roll. aoe [x15] AOE-I (11 + [2 * targets] EN) [x18] AOE-II (14 + [2 * targets] EN) | Only available for use when AOE-I was used and successfully struck an enemy the previous turn or if AOE-II had been used and had missed all intended targets the previous turn. tech [x12] TECH-A (11 EN) | STUN [x12] TECH-B (10 EN) | DELAY | [Delay] is a debuff that reduces the enemy’s ACC by 1 for one turn. buffs Spoiler -- | paragon LAUREL WREATH | Earn Col equivalent to 15% of player’s EXP earned in thread. | house WELL-RESTED | -1 energy cost for the first three expenditures of each combat. SQUEAKY CLEAN | The first time you would suffer DoT damage in a thread, reduce damage taken from DoT each turn by 25% (rounded down). MULTIPURPOSE | Gain +1 to LD, Stealth Rating, Stealth Detection, or Prosperity to one post in a thread. Can be applied after a roll. FILLING | Increase the effectiveness of a single food item consumed in a thread by +1 T1 slot. This can exceed normal Cook enhancement caps. ITEM STASH | +1 Battle Ready Inventory slot. RELAXED | Increases out of combat HP regen by 20 HP and decreases full energy regen to 2 Out of Combat Posts. COL STASH | +5% bonus col from monster kills and treasure chests. DECOR: DIWALI DIYA | Upon thread closing, obtain an additional +3 * loot minimum mob HP Col for every 5 authored posts. HARD WORKING | +2 Crafting EXP per crafting attempt and +1 crafting attempt per day. ADVANCED TRAINING | +10% EXP to a thread. Limit one use per month. Must be used on a player's first post in a thread. Cooldown begins counting down when used in a post.

Edited 4 hours ago by Arabelle