He was lost in his own thoughts when the first voice came to address him, snapping the wolf back to reality with now an... interesting looking human(?) came forth to check on him, the wings clearly being a major note of concern. Tailing after him was a Lei, who sported more in the scales department rather than fur, who was pretty chill about the possibility "getting wrecked" out on a Phi map. He knew he was normally outside the comfortable level range, which many would probably say would be a suicide run anyways.

A sigh escaped his lips before stating, "Its a bit hard to explain," feeling the lax feeling starting to wash over once more now that the tension was gone. "Let's see... How about... I was exploring a Lost Ground when a nasty dragon decided to wake up and wanted to snack on me? Well, I didn't get snack on, per se, but those claws were certainly not holding back." He looked back down at his pack's damage. Clearly, this was damage from out of the game's rules.

Pushing himself back up to his feet, he tucked the pack under his arm, asking them in a serious tone, "Do you believe [The World] is truly alive?" It was a question he normally asked others in a more lax tone. A casual chat that did could just be talked about in world building design and NPC dialogue trees. However, this time, his words had weight. Had meaning. Clearly, they looking at something not normal. The question then was simple: How much did they know, and were they safe diving further?

Ornery didn't need to be told to engage his CYA protocols. A very simple manipulation of his self-made UI for quick access to his hacking and cracking tools, and the range of their voices had suddenly lowered dramatically, and any logs their words had left were being scrambled.

This question was familiar to him, second-hand. He'd commented in a BBS thread related to a question exactly like this. So, this Douken was the player who asked this question while being wailed on by monsters?

Was he simply trying to gauge people's reactions by doing this, or was he a bit of an airhead? Regardless, it was something he was willing to pursue further.

If he's already involved in this...

"... It lives and breathes, its residents fearing and hating and loving and craving, its myths real and its hell well-populated," Ornery said, finally, his voice a fair bit quieter and lacking the usual bite. There was no need to put on airs if this was something like that - in this moment, he wasn't Ornery the awful, acrid lizard. In this moment, he was himself.

"I hope you know why you're asking two random people this question. You're lucky it's not anybody else. Before we go any further on this topic, do you want your wingpack fixed up? It shouldn't be too complicated."

A hacker and a game master... working together? Sure, getting assaulted by a dragon was wild enough, but this pair honestly seemed even more rare, and the fact they were in open communication with each other meant the latter wasn't keen on doing his job and putting the former behind digital bars. Well, its not like he was in a seat to debate it, and in the instance, it was easily more of a benefit. Still, it seemed all three had some interaction with The World's "outer systems" in some form or another, so maybe wouldn't sound AS insane trying to explain what happened.

Well, almost. Pretty sure saying he's a Reborn God would be pushing the bar as they waited for answers. "You're right, I need some aid with this. I guess you can say I got a 'quest' from this chaos that I needed to find Gwydion to help solve, with... something unique that triggered its awakening. However, its eons of rest as a stone statue was probably not good for its mental health and is acting out rashly akin to a berserker.

"During that time, a space started to open up beneath the bridge, past where it has crumbled, and it seems determined to not let me past, whether he saw me as a breath mint or not. I also fear what repercussions could occur if we were able to slay such a beast from myth... Still, it seemed to be following the rules of the game, so it did have stats: Level 80 with around a hundred million HP. What sucked even more was that when he went active, it activated a global debuff, reducing the defense of all beasts, and as much a I didn't want to see if it meant him, it clearly hit me. A single swipe of its claws took me out and caused the damage you see on my pack.

"So that's why tanking is going to be out of the question. What we need is high evasion and mobility to get around his attacks, and possibly ways to stun and distract to get us a window to that gate... I won't lie: if the window shows up and you can't reach it, I am more than willing to go ahead to deal with it without you." The details of the Reborn Gods was still fairly unknown to him, and he certainly didn't want others to dig too deep... for their safety.

Ornery, for time being, was blissfully oblivious to Noblesse's thought process - had he not been, he would've definitely fired back in some manner, but this was not one of those weirdly psychological anime about people with special esper powers, and he was not a telepath. Instead, he focused his attention back on the wingpack after receiving the appearance data.

With but a simple manipulation of the code, the wingpack mended itself in an instant, the gouges and gashes filling themselves with material, bent parts straightening out, parts that were meant to be bent bending themselves again.

After a second inspection, Ornery nodded his head in satisfaction, and handed the item back to Douken. It was a quick job when he had access to all the relevant data - it would have taken him only a couple minutes longer to run a search and locate what he needed, but it would've been kind of an awkward wait when he was holding a stranger's wing equipment.

"Here you go. Anyway, that's one weird quest, but, honestly, I'm not gonna ask too many questions 'bout the whats and the whys. I just want to know a couple things. First off, is there really not anyone else you'd rather ask for help? No friends? No one who's got big fat EXP numbers?" Ornery asked after the item handover.

"High evasion and mobility won't be an issue. I'm a Savage. Especially if we head to another map first, let me build up my speed first, and then break into Briona Gwydion. Which... we're going to have to do - last I heard, the field's in lockdown."

Ornery lifted a big finger, smiling wide. Despite the vast array of sharp teeth in his jaws, he looked almost cheerful and, for once, not at all unappealingly smug.

"But I have an idea! If we're going to do prep on another map, here's what we're gonna do. First off, I'm gonna build up speed and then just not use it up. But here's the kicker! I've got a Spirit of Sharing ring from that wintry special town, uh, place! Do you know what that means?"

He paused for dramatic effect.

"That means I can share my insane speed buff with you! That's right, you, too, can be fast as hell! That's one. Now, here's the second part of this idea. You seen the Golden Turtle being sold in the seasonal pop-up stalls? The one that summons the plushies that distract a mob for a while? That's the second part of my plan. We're gonna see if it works on Gwydion. If it does, we're not going to have to watch our defense at all - we can just fuckin' leg it past the flying lizard while he's busying himself with the turtle party. Maybe we could use a smokescreen too, eh? Ain't I smart? ... That's the other thing I wanted to know. Ain't I smart?"