Full Immersion [for what it's worth]

>So, right now it seems like going to the Florian city might be simultaneously your best and most dangerous option. You'll possibly/probably meet up with another player, have access to somebody that can actually heal your wings, and gain some renown for going in and warning them of more dragons. On the other hand, dragons. At least if somebody has to jump inside one of their mouths you already had your turn.
Besides the player in the city above there are also two currently planning on gong to Laerta from Haestros, and the other one is on a mission from Queen Tipota at the capital. He made friends with a mad scientist!

Share info on your interfaces and split up. Wing one and green elf go to the Florian city. Orc, make your way to a town called Haestros in search of a cat man.

> Dance the dance of the bloodsnorters.

The winged woman appears to think for a moment or so. "...Right. One of them is in the city above, which would be a convenient place for me to go at least to get my wings fixed, and maybe warn them about the possibility of more dragons. But it's sort of dangerous, what with the dragons. And...two of them are on their way here? This place is called Laerta, right?"
Anansi nods.
"And, they said one of the other players is actually working for the queen? Something about a mad scientist..."
"That seems like it may be a problem," signs Neyla.
"Not perhaps," says the elf, "My understanding of the locations is that capital is a long distance east from this city. She may actually trust that player by when we are able to reach them, and if they could be persuaded to help us it would be good."
"Hmm.

"...Do you think we should split up? I mean, to get the two people heading here in the loop, and make sure we catch the player up in the Florian city before they go somewhere else as well."
The orc signs, "It is a good plan, but we need a place to meet afterward, assuming there is not some way to use the game menu's message system to contact each other."
"It is not intended to that," says Anansi, "being largely for ship-to-crew messages in case of a need during a long space travel. But I think the version for the test has an, ahh, a provision to use your civilization's persistent-data electronic messaging system to contact those you know outside. This means it should have an address for that system assigned to each of us, so that the messaging system could be indirectly used to contact itself, but I do not know what any of them are."
"You mean like, e-mail?" says Auleoris, scratching her head. "I guess I could send one to my parents or something, and ask them to send back a reply saying what address the email came from, but it could be a while before they check it and answer back."
"We should probably both do that for future use. But in the interest of time, we should just set a meeting place for now," signs Neyla in conclusion. "In front of the large temple there seems conspicuous enough," she adds, pointing at Laerta's temple of La Lune.

"And...since there's no telling how long it'll take to do what we need to at the Florian city, we should plan on just going there around noon every day until everyone's together at once," says Auleoris. "So who's going up there and who's staying here? I need to go up to get my wings healed."
"I should stay here," says Anansi. "If I remember the mapping rightly, it should be that one of the players who began near Haestros has met before me, so we would recognize."
"I think you are more likely to need my help than he is," signs the orc, "especially if the F-L-O...winged people are not kind enough to carry you up and we must climb."
"Okay. And we just try to be in front of that temple around noon any day we're in the city."

Auleoris offers Anansi a hand to shake, and says, "See you in a few days. And, thanks for helping us out."
He shakes her hand, evidently familiar with the custom. "No trouble. I believe you humans are worthy, and I am willing to help prove it."
Neyla signs "Goodbye," and shakes Anansi's hand as well, and then they head out, leaving the green-elf-alien in Laerta for the time being.

Near the exit of the cave that is Laerta, the two women pause for a brief rest. "By the way, where are you from?" asks Auleoris.
"South Africa."
"Oh yeah, Nelson Mandela and all that. Cool." Neyla folds her arms and glares a little bit. "Yyyeah I actually have no idea what I'm talking about. Sorry. I'm from Canada. No one ever makes a movie about Canada."
"That may be a good thing."

---

[<|<|]

Jin "Link" Grayheart stands several meters from the cliff's edge, using what is best described as a low-tech hand telescope to look off in the distance. "Yeah, that...sure is a dragon, all right," he says. It reminds him of Smaug from the movies: Very "stereotypical red fire-breathing dragon", but also much bigger than one can have a proper appreciation for without either seeing a human next to it for scale or, say, being physically in the same world as it.
"Right," says an armored Florian woman nearby (lieutenant, sargeant...something like that? He's sort of forgotten). "We'll be trying to hit its wings and force it to the ground. You watch its mouth and try to get its attention by hitting close to the eyes when it looks like it's going to spew fire. The idea is to get the fire going down toward you, but be careful not to actually get hit by it."
"So wait, you want me to get it to burn the trees and grass around here?" he asks.
"Better them than our soldiers. If we're successful landing it, the next goal is to drive it off the cliff. It's a long way down and there's no civilization down there to worry about. At that point your part will be done. Our plan is to keep hitting it any time it starts climbing, hopefully give it the idea that attacking our city is far more trouble than it's worth."
"You're not gonna try to kill it?"

She stifles a laugh. "Sorry...right, Janus mentioned you don't know much about dragons. Listen, we'll be trying to kill it the whole time, but this thing's taken far worse hits than our bows are capable of dishing out, and far more of them than we've got arrows."
"But surely someone's tried to ground it before, and it's still flying. How do you know you'll be able to injure its wings enough to matter?"
"Dragon wings are vulnerable, but they heal notoriously fast and well. Would that our wings had whatever theirs do."
"Scales?" She gives him an 'are-you-serious' look. "I'm kidding, I know what you mean."
"So you understand what you need to do, then?"
"Yeah, no problem."
"Good. I need to get in formation." She runs and jumps off the cliff, flapping her way up into the air.

The three-tailed fox-boy takes a deep breath. He is playing an unimaginably advanced game and his current quest is to occasionally distract a dragon. This should be interesting.

>