"So, you know how I said I don't like VR horror? Well, fuck me,I guess, because I'm in a mood, and the mood is "I'm not sleeping tonight"," Ornery announced upon Gating In, expecting Noblesse to get in alongside him - after all, that's what he was there for, to do this quest alongside his future husband.

Mutually experienced horror made for some good bonding.

Ornery had only picked up the quest at the Weapon Shop after having had already scouted scenic travel locations for this particular field trip, and he made sure to pick the one that looked the least like a boring forest, and the most like it could cause him anxiety. It took him a little while to man up and actually get to fulfilling his questly obligations - with all the recent events, it was no wonder he couldn't muster up the juice to unnerve himself even more - but he'd finally reached the point where he wanted to do this and get it over with.

Mostly because he wouldn't have been sleeping that night, regardless. He'd had an Encounter and he would not be able to sleep in a reasonable timeframe.

(The encounter was with drain hair and his last pair of rubber gloves ripped so he had to raw dog it with his bare hands. That was the reason he wouldn't be sleeping.)

"Oh, it's fine. I know I could've just popped by a konbini to grab another pair, but guess who can't be arsed? Me! That's right! You win absolutely nothing for guessing!" Ornery cheerfully responded. "So it's all my fault. The moist touch of clumps of drain hair right on my fingertips is all my own fault. And I'm still not sleeping tonight. So, yeah. Anyway, let's clear the place before we---hey, what the fuck is that?"

As soon as Ornery saw the t-posing figure, he cartwheeled towards it in a wheel of blades - kind of like if an angel, a chakram, and a giant lizard had a baby, and the baby had a terrible temper. Granted, he did have Berserk lodged firmly up his ass (or down his mouth, probably more down his mouth), and he quite literally couldn't help heading directly for enemies even if he really wanted to.

But also, the T-posing entity needed to have its ass kicked real bad, so he wasn't fussed about it.

"Sorry, but I think the ony meat that's gonna need shielding is the monsters in here!"



The T-posing monster struck back at Noblesse without a single actual animation - it had simply levitated off the ground and rotated to smack him with one of its rigid arms, like a T-posing mannequin, or, more accurately, like a character model that nobody quite bothered rigging and animating properly

"Yeah, I know who tops! Both of us! 1v1 me IRL, Nooblesse!" He shook his blade at his T-posing fiance, laughing. Ornery was far from offended - 'twas but a harmless jab, a joke, a jest, and he knew that better than anybody else because [details redacted for viewer benefit], but he felt the need to respond regardless.

He'd already taken a screenshot of rigid Noblesse as is, but his attention was mightily piqued when Noblesse asked him to get ready - so Ornery got in position to snap a pic. He was expecting just about anything to happen from then on, but his imagination was still not enough for what actually happened.

"Oh my fucking---Nobs, are you trying to do what I think you're trying to do?!" Ornery laughed hysterically at Noblesse's model phased on top of the monster, stacking together like---well, like objects jittering helplessly into each other's hitboxes, the physics engine trying desperately to resolve whatever the fuck was going on.

He did screenshot it. Several times, at that, and also recorded it as a gif, before the jittering eventually displaced Noblesse off the Renderman back to his previous position. He was paralyzed, after all, and wouldn't move any more than his skills had temporarily made him displace himself in order to execute them.

He was rooted to that spot.

"Oh, man, that was HILARIOUS! Now, let's finish this sordid affair..." Ornery lunged at the Renderman, tearing the monster apart into little shreds with his blades in a furious Sparrow Counter. The bits of shadowed code dissipated into the air, and Ornery looked around to find that the nearest enemy...

... Well, he couldn't see any, actually. They'd have to seek monsters elsewhere.

After Noblesse would un-paralyse.

"Uh. I guess I'll wait for your status to expire."

"Okay, but if I try to push you around, you might fall on your face and then stay that way until the status wears off," Ornery reasonably fired back, still taking pictures of Noblesse's T-posing model from different angles while waiting for him to spring back to... animated life. Which he did, eventually. Ornery nodded in satisfaction at his newly re-articulated fiance, and turned to scan the horizon for other enemies.

"Right, right. Thanks for the reminder - I keep meaning to turn my screenshot folder into a shared folder for you, but I keep forgetting. I'll remember this time! I'll write it down!"

Yemon did briefly tab out to write it down, and then returned to the game, scanning his surroundings for anything that looked killable.

As luck would have it, there was something red in the distance - too far for his Berserk status to actually recognize it as an enemy to chase, but close enough for Ornery to recognize that it wasn't a piece of background scenery, and it wasn't alone. Actually, there were---one, two... three! That's three red shapes in the distance!

"Hey! Now that you've regained your limb flexibility and aren't experiencing the aftereffects of viral T-poseitis, let's go take a look at what the hell that is over there." Ornery pointed at the vague shapes in the distance, and SPRINTED towards them in his usual velociraptor run, almost on all fours. As the shapes came into view, they screamed and tried to run away from Ornery, albeit they were ever so slightly slower than a player.

"YOU ARE TERRIBLE AND SHOULD FEEL BAD!" The Surrenderman? cried out, torn into little tender data chunks by Noblesse's claws, the temple key falling to the ground. The other Surrendermen (sans questionmark) were momentarily torn into tiny little shreds by Ornery, who had finally gained on them enough to launch into a Chaotic Strike. No longer under the thrall of the Berserk status for time being, Ornery looked around, allowing Noblesse the dubious honor of picking up the key formerly lodged into the Surrenderbutt.

"... Well! That was that. Shall we continue onwards, then? I'm sure there's more mobs waiting around. I'd like a clearer battlefield for our encounter with our inevitable doppelgangers, personally. Still. You know how it is."

Ornery shrugged widely, and looked around a little more, squinting into the dim darkness around. The bushes rustled, but he couldn't tell if it was the wind, or something else. A branch cracked somewhere, but that could've been his imagination.

"Or... have we cleared it enough already? I can't tell. Maybe we could settle in and wait for our copies to show up, at this point. To be honest, this place's so creepy, I already feel like I'm going to get ambushed any minute now."