[Shockingly enough, Shinon is not in a dungeon or field for once! Rather, she's sitting for a break in the Warp Gate room in Mac Anu, her beloved Hécate II propped up beside her. She's also... incredibly zoned out. To the point where she probably won't notice other characters unless they actually come up to her and call out to get her attention. By the looks of it, she's fairly worn out despite it only being the afternoon.

The people most close to her (particularly guildmates) are free to note that not only has she not been around the @Home much lately, but she also seems to have lost a level somehow.

Somebody's been pushing herself a tad too much as of late...]

( action ¤ field )

[ If you're out and about on the fields today, it's quite plausible that you'll encounter both Kirito and Celica partying up and level grinding together. While they do look like they're doing pretty well, on closer inspection it should be rather obvious that they were both new to the game. Regardless, nearing the end of the day, their movements should be a little smoother than before -- that is, if fatigue hadn't taken them yet.

In any case, they do spend most of their day leveling -- however, that isn't to say they won't be taking any breaks. Every so often they can be found by the river resting up. Catch them sometime in the evening, and you may even find Kirito dozing off. ]

( Joint post with elucidator! Order will go you → Kirito → Celica. Feel free to catch them when they're on their multitudes of breaks, or when they're defeating mobs to give them advice or to join up. )

[Shinon is up to her usual level grinding! But this time she's armed with a new weapon. To fully test it out within the restraints of The World, she can be found in a couple of different situations.]

[Field]

[Maybe you just spotted that group of monsters and were about to go in for the kill. Or maybe you were just enjoying the scenery - it is a lovely day out in this area, after all.

Either way, that group of monsters? The biggest of them just got a large hole blown into its head, even though there doesn't seem to be anybody nearby to make the attack. Before long, the remaining two follow suit.

Those who are observant may be able to trace the shots to a small figure on a different island, armed with a sniper rifle nearly as long as she is tall. Want to go investigate?]

[Dungeon]

[While she's still carrying that same weapon along with her, she seems to have paused in an empty area for the moment. It's hard to say whether she's just resting, thinking, or both. Now would be a great time to catch her for the curious or talkative, though!]

[SPLASH!!

Anyone who might be in the square today may find the unusual sight of Tsubaki by the fountain, arms dipped inside as he tried to search for something. His makeshift tent was situated nearby, one he had been staying in due to the lack of an inn. Why he chose to camp right in the middle of the city, no one knows. Still, that was hardly the dilemma.

Nope, him blindly reaching through the cold waters was the dilemma. Anyone who knows him may also notice he is squinting badly, and he can't seem to focus at all on what he's looking for.]

Just where did it go?

[ Some days start out kind of bizarre, some days stay kind of normal

needless to say that bizarre is pretty much the default here, but it can always be upped a bit, right? Not that there is need to worry, the extra weird today is mostly harmless!

When you walk around the town you'll see different posters pinned to buildings, walls, trees? maybe even trees. Also: to people's backs, because someone has no shame.

They look like regular wanted posters really, or as regular as it gets here. There is a text ('Tulip Killer, not all that dangerous! Needs to be caught as soon as possible' or 'Lost Puppy, not properly house-trained yet. Would be happy to have him returned to us!'), a probably unfamiliar member address as well as a self-drawn picture above that. Amusingly enough, both types of posters show the same thing: a pretty boy with smooth features and light-shaded hair.

The likeness is easily good enough to recognise one (1) Hope Estheim for those who know him.

So, what will you do? Ping that number? catch Oz while he is pinning a poster to something/someone/you? ask him how he keeps those things to actually stay stuck?

or be sane and walk away from this nonsense ]

[Up for leveling up in a grassy field? So was Asad, especially since training hard is also a requirement for a soldier even if he was stuck here.

Though he couldn't quite say the same about dancing, which is what he was attempting now. Dancing. In the middle of a field. It was sad how he keeps messing up before he could actually finish a spell against the monster though.

It takes him two more tries before he finally gets it though, just narrowly avoiding getting attacked by his target.] Gan Bolg!

[Not that it was much help. He lets out a frustrated sound at that and proceeds to just hit him with his fan, folding it close and whacking it until it disappears.

Right, that was yet another embarrassing experience.]

All right. Let's try this again! Perhaps I should start with my left this time.

[Hopefully, no one witnessed his less than impressive moves.]

[Yuuta's sitting on the edge of the fountain beside Takeshi. The two of them have their heads put together and it seems like they're studying something that Takeshi is holding. If anyone were to walk by, they might overhear the two of them talking amongst themselves.]

See, here, it was different for me. I went home after this point and stayed there for awhile before turning up here again.

[Takeshi frowns, puzzled.] Really? I wonder why that didn’t happen to me. I’d like to have gone home, too. I’m worried about Sumire-chan...

[He trails off for a moment, then points at the one of the notes he’d been taking on his Relic. It might be nonsense to some, but it would definitely make sense to people who’ve been in The World before.] Oh, you find this weird too, right? This is the last place I remember going, but I can’t seem to access Lumina Cloth anymore!

Yeah, I noticed that too! [Yuuta taps his chin as he thinks.] I wonder what made the World change like that so suddenly. The BBS disappeared too. I kinda miss that.

I miss it too. It was way easier to contact people with the BBS for parties and dungeon crawling and events... [Takeshi sighs and his shoulders slump down, looking like he’d been dumped by the girl he loved the most (which he’d really rather not happen, actually).]

I talked to one of the GMs, though. Kain. He said there was something like budget cuts and company... things that happened. Couldn’t get more than that from him, though.

[Yuuta frowns. He guesses that would make sense although the timing is still bugging him a little.] By the way, did your levels get cut too or was that just me because I went home?

Mine got cut too! I was almost 10 the last time, but then it got cut in half. [He notes this down. The list just keeps getting longer and... messier; Takeshi wasn’t very organized and his notes on the difference between the first version and this one was all over the place.] At least it’s pretty easy to get them back. I’m almost 20 this time.

[The state of the notes is actually getting on Yuuta’s nerves. He’s naturally neat and organized so it’s easy to see why but despite his giant want to fix them, he tries to ignore it.] I guess ‘cause we’re used to it by now. If you think about it, we’ve been here ages.

Ugh, don’t remind me! I already feel like a grandpa, and I’m just 20!