[break][attr="class","noufont"]"Well, this ain't dad's house anymore, that's for sure."

So there's good news, and there's bad news, she thought to herself. The bad news: well, she's not in a house stuck in the middle of the Tampa suburbs anymore, and there's no air conditioning. No computer, nothing else that's recognizable. Well, shit. The good news? She finds a full packet of cigarettes in an inside jacket pocket along with a lighter, it looks like—very nice. And the can of beer she was holding was inexplicably still cold, and still unopened. But there'd be no raiding tonight, nor any silly things to watch online.

Maybe it's not the best time to drink that beer, though, after that message she got. The world's got something like a HUD, it seems, doesn't it? She can see a little box that reads [TUTORIAL: WHERE MONSTERS BELONG!] in her periphery, and when she turns her head, it follows. Ooh, so like an MMORPG. She's pretty familiar with those. What else? Well, if it's an MMORPG, and she was given a class... there's gotta be some other things like your Character sheet, right?

And as she thinks it, it blinks into existence. She stows that beer can into her jacket pocket and folds her arms under her chest, tucking her slightly shaky hands away and smiling as she looks up, reading the text against the dreary, late-day backdrop of this dark spot in Gothica. She hasn't played many different games, of course—just the one. But she's picked that one apart in every which way, and she understands the depth and conceits they tend to hide. But what she was most interested in was that Class the notification was talking about. She wanted to see it.

And sure as hell, as she thought about it, the details began to fill her periphery... just as two small, long, spike-shaped drones slip out of the back of her coat and float up to either side of her head, pointed and aimed forwards. Her eyes open wide and light up behind her round glasses as a manic grin spread across her face... and she begins to direct them out, using quiet mental commands, testing the limits of their range and having them flit about. She looks towards a tree and some of the falling leaves, willing them in that direction and having them tag some of the falling leaves out of the air, burning them with small, weak blasts from the tips, before the flit back to her.

A smile. And another thing she noticed... an additional display, somewhat under the center of her vision, that reads [DRONES: 2/4 | 25%], with the percentage slowly climbing up. So she can wield up to four, then. "Well, Earth-chan, seems like you got off to a rough start with the world, but you're alright in my book," said with an ever-widening grin. She takes a big, big stretch, before she looks over back at the pathway and pops the message that was waiting for her back up.

[TUTORIAL: WHERE MONSTERS BELONG!]
OBJECTIVES:

- Take the route to the mansion! (In progress...)
- Enter the mansion!
- Solve the puzzles contained therein! (LOCKED)

You might meet some interesting people on the way...

Locked, is it? "Hmm hmm hmm... probably gonna learn more when we get there," she figures. "Alright alright alright~♪ Weeeell, I'm not very fast and I ain't real tough, so it's time to find someone who'll fight when it gets rough!" But who would she even look for? It's not like there was much going on here. She takes out a little pocket mirror that she uses to apply makeup—the few times she ever bothers, anyways—and makes a quick assessment of herself.

She was wearing a plain black dress that ends slightly above her knees, with her long, light brown coat draped over that. Her brown hair falls in bushy bangs over the front of her head, parted just enough to allow her dark eyes to peer out, sitting behind round, black-rimmed glasses. Her hair is tied at the back up into what looks like a short bun, though it's more that it's the only way that it can be tied up at all given that it's just not very long—so much so that she has to leave two heavy side bangs to fall down the sides of her face to frame it. She still has her gloves that she mostly used on the computer—they stopped her hands from feeling icky, and in her head they made them shake a little less—but other than that, she looks... well, like herself.

So off and onto the path she goes, having come off of it briefly for her little experimentation with her brand-new drones. And it probably puts her right in Kia's path, with the woman already having reached into her jacket to pull the packet of cigarettes to see exactly how many of them she might have left.

[attr="class","noufont"][break]The woman turns around, a slightly surprised expression on her face, but smiles all the same. She tucks the cigarettes back into her jacket as the drones at her shoulders spread out ever so slightly, their tips suddenly aimed at the newcomer. "Well, depends on who's askin'—" said just before "Valerie" introduces themselves. "Ah! Well~♪ I guess that answers that, doesn't it?" She doesn't much react to being called ma'am—reacting more instead to the person's fast introduction.

Marisa has much less time—and ability—to take stock of them than viceversa. Still, no reason for Marisa to not offer the closest thing she's got to a friendly smile. Her eyes do have a slightly foxy shape to them, the slight curl of a grin to them at all times. It helps make her smiles naturally seem a touch more genuine, whether they actually are or not. Something she had always been thankful for, as it made her seem... less threatening.

The woman idly uses a finger to scratch at the side of her cheek. The smile perseveres. "Honestly didn't even notice the skirt until you pointed it out," the odd woman cooed with a bit of a smirk, "but it's pretty cute all the same. How are you adjusting to this new game we seem to be stuck in? You look pretty prepared. Which is more than I can say for myself, honestly. Name's Marisa, but call me Mar," she offers. She takes the still-cold beer can from her jacket and pulls the tab back, cracking it open with a satisfying fzzz *POP* as she brings the can to her lips and takes a long sip. After a few moments, a deep sigh and a nod, she lowers the can to her side, fingers over the top and holding it gingerly, perhaps to keep it cooler for longer. "Nice to meetcha, Valerie. Mind if I call you Val?"

"Anyways, yes. The quest says we've got to head to the spooky mansion. Doesn't say it can't be done in a party. I wonder if Earth-chan created a party finder, too? Ooh~♪ That'd be useful! I wonder if we're instanced. Do you think we'll meet other people as well? You look like you've been here a bit longer," the woman says with a smile, "but I don't know if they'd stick you with someone like me if that's the case."

She may not have the preternatural senses of the person across from her, but she did not get as far as she did on applications of skill and hard work alone. The way they deftly pre-empted the conversation by introducing themselves has left her a bit curious. Unlike in an actual MMO, she didn't just get to see their name at all times. Was the offered name an alias? Well, either way, they haven't made any overt attempt at aggression. Who knows if this area even has PvP enabled? She didn't think to check. But she did work out that the fact that the area was locked down, just like a Duty, meant that the chances anyone would show up were low, if not impossible. It was a tutorial. So the person across from her was also new, right? Maybe she knew less than she did. Maybe she knew more. Maybe they were her equal, here.

This was a good way to figure that out.

"If you want to group up, maybe that'd be for the best. We can do even loot splits. And I'd say I'm pretty decent at puzzles. What say we walk and talk?" The entire time, she has not broken that singular smile, which even with the assistance from her eyes, begins to become slightly unsettling from the fact that it has hardly shifted in its expression for hours.