Marinette had wandered off on her own.

Not terribly far, she wasn't lost, but she had wandered off into hostile territory. The others hadn't needed her for leveling, Mari had been something of a solo grinder anyway, that, and Catty seemed upset by her presence, so that had tipped the scales for her in favor of leaving-- for a while at least. The other group had that Cherry girl-- who probably didn't want to be around her, not for a while at least-- besides, the only people outside who talked to Ness would be to busy freaking out to talk to on the phone anyway. 

So Mari was alone. That was unnerving, or more, the idea that an unexpected encounter gone wrong could result in death annoyed her, even made her, and Ness, feel a little fear. But only a little. Not nearly as much as it should have. She still wanted to fight dragons, despite the risk, she still just wanted to play the game and do impressive things in it.

Was it apathy? Depression? Over-confidence? Perhaps she... he.. [i]they[/i] were completely living in the moment? Perhaps Ness truly did lack ambition in the real world, and found more satisfaction living as Marinette?

Maybe even death made it more real... the risk? Or maybe just the idea that the avatar now possessed a mortality completely and absolutely linked to his own...

[i]Fuck.[/i]

Marinette shook the thoughts out of her head as she walked through the forest. Bandits. She was looking for bandits, Prince had mentioned bandits in the area-- they'd be easy EXP and easy money, which could buy better weapons, better items. Items could be game breaking if you were smart with them, even at low levels like her own, 99 cheap lvl.1 low yield bombs was still 99 bombs.

99 bombs you could deploy all at once...

...Or at least... in rapid succession?

Truth be told, Marinette had no idea how mass item usage like that worked. Still, she marched onward, her skill in stealth minimizing the crunch her boots made against the virtual leaves. She turned on her [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbkwELpUhmA]music[/url], if only to drown out her... mostly his, thoughts with organized noise. Thankfully it wouldn't give away her position, unlike real music, the noise was only present in her own perception-- usually.

She heard a crunch of leaves ahead of her and stopped, instantly ducking behind the nearest tree. She glanced ahead, spying the low leveled bandits milling about near their spawn point. Beyond them was a cave, the two bandits were guarding it, and there were probably a few more inside. She couldn't help but take a second to admire the AI of the game.

Equipping her crossbow, she approached the two bandits. She knew she couldn't reload the crossbow fast enough to get them both, but if she could get close enough to the one she wasn't going to shoot...

She fired the bolt. Perhaps it wasn't as fast as Hazard's bullets, but the lack of noise more than made up for it. The bolt soared through the air and tore into the low leveled enemies' throat, causing his form to disintegrate almost instantly, dropping only his meager loot.

[i]Christ, sneak attacks are broken...[/i]

Still, Marinette couldn't complain if it was to her advantage. Dropping the crossbow and unsheathing her poisoned dagger, she summoned all her speed and rushed the confused and alerted bandit from behind before he could investigate and look for her. In a swift motion, she brought the dagger to the bandit's throat and cut, the figure collapsed in the grass, clutching at his throat before disintegrating.

Marinette scoffed. Her time was down.

She crouched from her closer vantage point to the inside of the cave, it was always interesting to see if you could get the stealth bonuses on everyone in one of these situations...