AN: Okay, I'm not usually one to ask for reviews, but wow… I've had one review on here since I published the story a couple of months or so back. Is the story really that good/bad/boring that nobody else has any sort of comment on the past few chapters?

Secondly, just so everyone is aware, the next few chapters (up to Ch10) are going to be a bit of a break mini-arc before things fully kick in on training and for reference, holy heck does writing an LP purely from the players' side grind. I can see why most of the other ones I've seen are split so people write the game as a seperate story-within-a-story, it's an easier write.

Chapter 6: Game Time

Hikaru shifted slightly in front of her computer as she contemplated her latest possible stream. The computer and recording set up she had in her studio, as powerful as they were, could probably play and record any game on the market currently, while running the game at sixty or more frames per second, British made.

Of course, there was still the question of what she was going to play for the stream today. A lot of people wanted her to do one of the Five Nights at Freddy's series, though with her being natural born she knew that game series, popular and scary, most notably for the jump scares when one of the damned animatronics made it into the office or the weird ass supernatural crud, perfect for the Jones twins, not so good for her. Maybe she could save that one for Hallowe'en.

She took a deep breath, swallowed hard and started the install before blinking at seeing messages from Sally and Rika, no Kaylie, though it was probably too early or late for her. Opening Discord, she gave the pair a watery smile. "Hey," Hikaru said in English, before blinking at seeing Megan and Robyn as well. "Uh, wasn't expecting all three of you girls. Something going on?" she asked.

"Not really," Sally replied. "Robyn's got her own computer now so we were helping her get used to Discord and the like. Better to do the set up stuff while we've actually got a bit of time than while we're half unconscious from trying to get everything done," she continued, shrugging.

"Is it still that bad, Sally-chan?" Rika asked.

All three British girls nodded. "We've still got school five days a week for most of the day, plus the four hours of exercises we usually do, then there's sorting things out and practicing basically everything," Megan said. "It doesn't help that the only people able to partner Minotaur and Devonport are the three of us, Lyrene or our aunt." She shrugged helplessly. "Given Lyrene and Aunt Lauren usually teach, that leaves us partnering," she sighed.

"Commander Glenn also has us trying to train ocean manoeuvring, speed runs, gunnery and night combat along with half our evenings that aren't eaten by that or homework being tactical games to learn how to fight in ship terms," Robyn added tiredly.

"One more week," Sally added. "At least for us, then we can break from school. The rest will probably be stepped up though."

The two Japanese girls looked over at Megan. "What about you, Megan-chan?" Hikaru asked. "Are you doing things while your sisters are?"

Megan nodded. "Things to do with being a Rhyfelwr," she said. "Meaning weapons skills, abilities like phase shifting or stepping outside the normal flow of time, controlling weapons that I'm not holding, going over everything we can get on supernatural and the like." She stretched with a grimace. "I haven't even gotten started on some of the things I'm supposed to be able to pull just because of their difficulty." Frowning as a thought occurred to her, she looked between the two Japanese girls. "Oh, while I think about it, you two hear about the mess Rei's landed in?"

"That thing about Sailor Moon being real?" asked Rika, arching an eyebrow. "We heard," she continued when Megan nodded. "Honestly I don't think that rates on the weirdness scale for our group, I mean you two are plenty weird on your own."

Hikaru frowned for a moment before nodding. "Hai, that list of things we're not supposed to do or get involved in hasn't gotten any shorter since we showed you, Cara-chan and Ronja-chan, Sally-chan."

Megan looked over at her sister. "What list is this?" she asked.

Sally shrugged. "There's a list of things that happened involving shipgirls in some way that… well, at least a few would count as 'noodle incidents', like don't get me or Robyn any sugar-free gummy bears, seriously, don't." Seeing her sister's arched eyebrow she shook her head. "Apparently something in them is a laxative for shipgirls, one that apparently eating even a few results 'clearing the back passage' to be polite."

"A few hundred yen for a bag of them resulted in several hundred thousand or million in repairs and upgrades when the carriers got hold of some Haribo sugar-free gummy bears," Rika explained briefly. "It's hardly the only thing in there. I think there's a link for where the incident reports are as well so it might be possible to see what happened for each incident."

"Huh, might have to have a look at that later," Megan commented. "What's going on with you though, Hikaru?" she asked. "You looked a bit worried and weak kneed when we linked up earlier."

"Yeah… mostly worried about what I'm letting myself in for," Hikaru replied.

The other four looked between each other. "Why are you worried about that, Hikaru?" Rika asked finally.

Hikaru grimaced before sending a link to her channel. "Most of my viewers want me to play Five Nights at Freddy's," she explained, nodding as three of the four girls grimaced. "Yeah, that's my reaction. Of course me being 'happy, bouncy, idol of the fleet Naka-chan', I can't exactly show that and to borrow one of Kaylie's phrases, dollars to donuts most of the viewers want me to play it just to see me freak out when Freddy or Foxy gets into the office or something."

"Why's that so bad?" Robyn asked, arching an eyebrow. She had never played the game, or really heard anything about it, so she had no idea what was going on or why people would dislike it.

"Because," Sally started, "it's an indie horror game where the main horror is the animatronics you're supposed to be guarding. Killer robots are nasty enough, killer robots that look like crapping out theme park ride or fast food joint mascots tend to be worse because they're supposed to be friendly."

Megan nodded before shifting a little in her seat. "FNAF and its sequels have you as a lone guard trying to avoid getting mauled by a bunch of animatronics… you have no way to fight, no way to run and very little power to block them out in the first game, they get worse," she explained grimly. "Sally and I have played them, and… well, they tested our nerves a lot when we've had blood thirsty robots attack us in broad daylight before."

Sally snorted, shaking her head. "Granddad had to kill one that attacked our primary school and actually managed to grab us. It was closer than I would have liked and I don't know about Meg, but I ended up sneaking some of dad's booze after." She shook her head again, hair whipping her face. "That thing was creepy as fuck."

"So that's why you took so long to wake up the next morning," Megan muttered, snapping her fingers. "Honestly, I don't think dad even noticed the booze missing, or if he did he wrote it off as Granddad giving it to us, though, yeah, I had some. Closest thing to brain bleach we had." She grimaced. "Tasted like crap though."

Sally arched an eyebrow at her sister. "To be fair even without granddad being a Rhyfelwr, we managed to piss the thing off." She smirked a little as her sister rolled her eyes. "I remember someone punching the ugly bastard in the balls hard enough that she crippled a mechanical demon through about an inch of tank grade armour and that's without the other damage, nor my own contributions to that damage."

"Didn't you pull something similar off with a light cruiser demon before you Awoke?" Rika asked, getting a nod from Megan. "I'd love to know how you manage that. A ten year old girl, trained or not, shouldn't be able to do that sort of damage, nor should a fourteen year old be able to shatter a light cruiser's drive shaft."

Robyn blinked, shaking her head at the twins' comments. "I still don't get how you're so calm about being attacked like that."

The pair shared a look and shrugged. "We're inured, not calm," Sally said after a moment. "We know it's liable to happen so we don't get worked up talking about it, but when it does we're still running off adrenaline and fear."

Megan nodded. "Kind of wish it wasn't a thing, but we've been attacked often enough that we're a bit too used to the likelihood of things going south on us," she said. Running a hand through her hair, she shook her head and sighed. "It's not going to be better from here though. I've got supernatural threats that are likely to seek me out and you two are shipgirls, you're going to have to get used to being under threat, Robyn, because the war's still here."

"Which is part of why I've got my stream, desu," Hikaru commented. "Though admittedly I'm not too thrilled about playing FNAF… and you two haven't helped in that regard either," she continued mock glaring at the twins. Glancing at her Steam download window she grimaced. "I wonder if Jun'you has any sake or something stronger."

Sally shifted slightly. "Well, here's an idea, it's Saturday and there's nothing doing here, I could play Shivers, since that's still installed and I got widescreen working on it, give you a chance to prep, make it a long stream."

"That… is actually a good idea, you okay with that though, Sally? It means you're going to have to be in the stream," Hikaru asked.

"Go for it," Sally said.

Megan frowned a little, popping her own game library to take a look through what she had available. "You know… we could make it a bit of a round robin. I mean, I'm not sure what Robyn or Rika have available in their Steam libraries – or any other game provider – but there's probably a few we could play."

She frowned at her game library, scrolling through them. "There's a few multiplayer games as well, though most of the ones I know we have are max four players leaving us someone extra, though there's supposed to be some that have four 'heroes' and a 'monster' all playable."

Frowning, Rika shifted, pulling her own Steam library up. "We should probably stick to a theme and play games we can get through relatively quickly," she pointed out. "After all, even if it is a weekend we don't know there won't be a sortie for anyone or something else comes up." She got nods from the others. "We probably ought to decide who is when before starting the stream as well."

"Well if Sally wants first with Shivers, I can take second or third with Realms of the Haunting unless someone else wants them," Megan suggested.

"I'm fine with going last," Hikaru jumped in. "Particularly given what I know about FNAF."

Robyn shifted slightly in her spot. "I'll… sit this out if you don't mind. The orphanage I was in didn't really have the money to get many video games and most were consoles."

Rika nodded, frowning. "Um… I'll take second just to break things up a bit and I've got a game somewhere…" she trailed off, muttering as she scrolled through her game list. "Ah ha!" she exclaimed. "I thought I'd got Ghost Master somewhere. I can play a few levels of that; it won't matter if we don't finish it because we can do more of it later."

"Sounds good," Hikaru said before taking a breath and holding up a hand to tell the others to be quiet. Muting the chat, she switched to another program and invited the others in before starting the recording.

"Hey, hey, everyone, Idol of the Fleet, Naka-chan here, desu!" she started the stream. "I asked, and you all answered, so today, I will be playing Five Nights at Freddy's, the original one, though before we do that, I'd like to introduce you to my fellow streamers today. First, one of my colleagues here at Fleet Naval Activities, Yokosuka, JMSDF Fubuki, formerly IJN Fubuki, and from Plymouth, you might remember the British crew with me, they're HMS Zephyr and HMS Zenith of HMNB Devonport along with the Devonport Crow."

"Hey there," Sally started once Hikaru was finished with her introduction. "HMS Zephyr here, Naka invited me along to this a few minutes ago after we heard you were pushing her to playing Five Nights at Freddy's." She gave her webcam a look. "Yes we are aware of the supernatural; it is a real life thing. Crow's job involves handling it and as for Zenith and I, we've had our encounters."

She smirked at the camera. "You wanted supernatural games, well, there's a few oldies but goodies around, some you may have heard of, some you may not have. Today, I'm going to give Shivers a go. For those not aware, it's an old point and click first person adventure, similar vein to The 7th Guest."

"Hi, JMSDF Fubuki here, hopefully, to keep these girls from getting in over their heads," Rika introduced herself. "I'm also going to be playing some levels of Ghost Master to scare the pants off all the mortals." She gave a rather evil sounding laugh.

Megan rolled her eyes at her friend. "Now you've got it out of your system, Fubuki," she drawled. "Devonport Crow here, I'm currently attaché to the kanmusu fleet based out of HMNB Devonport, mostly due to the fact that supernatural runs in my family."

She smirked as Hikaru shared the chat stream with the four of them and she spotted quite a few people commenting on her inclusion. "Yes, as Zephyr said, supernatural is a thing. Heck, I've actually fought demons that aren't abyssals and encountered spooks while summering over in the US."

Sally gave an amused snort at that. "One of our cousins works with the Ghost Lab team and we did spend a bit of time on Hornet while they were checking to see what spirits were still on her hull." She clarified with a shrug. "Anyway, since we're doing a gaming stream I was planning on adding another older game to the mix, Realms of the Haunting."

Robyn swallowed. "Hi, HMS Zenith of HMNB Devonport, I was just hanging out with Zephyr and Crow before they jumped on here so please excuse me if I stay quiet. I wasn't expecting to get pulled into something like this."

"And that's the intros, desu," Hikaru said, moving to tap a few things on her keyboard to set up warnings. "And as of now, this stream is for eighteen plus or heavy cruisers and up. I've heard more than a few things about the game you all want me to play, desu, and let me tell you, everyone who voted for that game, I hate you."

"Why'd you even have it on the list?" Rika asked.

"Well, I'm all about giving my viewers what they want, desu."

Sally snorted in amusement. "Maybe a little less whatever they want and a little more what you're comfortable with would help there, Naka," she commented dryly. "Anyway, if everyone's set, let's go ghost hunting in an abandoned museum."

With that, she switched the stream so it recorded her screen and started the game, smiling slightly at the old Sierra logo. "I do have a bit of a confession to make regarding this though; it's not actually the original. Some friends of mine needed a project for their game design course so I suggested remaking an older game so it worked properly on today's systems. I'm not completely sure how much is the same and how much is different, yet."

"The titles look almost the same, just remastered to 1080p or better," Megan commented. "The original was done during the changeover from 240 to 480 in most countries. Yeah, it's that old folks. Sierra's been pretty dead for the past decade or so, though some of their games have been rereleased as collectors' packs on Steam or on Good Old Games."

"Says here that the original was released back in 1995, so around twenty years old," Rika commented. "Along with a lot of other games, including a sequel, a game based on the Rama books. Sierra didn't exactly keep on top of the tech trend from the UK… though that said the UK was running flash drives while most countries had literally floppy discs." She frowned as she read through the game information. "Okay, so in the original you're playing a teenager locked in an abandoned museum as a dare."

"Pretty sure that was the military, though Britain and thus the Commonwealth did get a bit of a boost on computer tech prior to the War," Sally commented, motioning for the others to be quiet for a few minutes while she let the intro run showing a group of teenagers locking someone behind a fancy gate in the gathering gloom of early evening.

Once it was over, she frowned slightly. "Well, looks like they got some new people involved for the cut-scene and looks like they modelled the place rather than painted it," she commented, moving her mouse around the screen before checking the keyboard and finding that the game moved on FPS style controls.

Making her way up towards the entrance to the museum, Sally frowned slightly at the game screen. "Got to say, the guys did a good job remastering the music, though I'm not sure on the control scheme yet, the original was a point and click and most of the modern ones are 'hidden object' style." She shrugged slightly as she frowned.

"Right, so, teenager, dare, abandoned museum…" Rika cut off for a moment, checking the web site. "Apparently there was a pair of disappearances from the local town quite a while before you ventured in, a pair of teenagers followed by the owner. The running theory was that the museum owner—"

"Killed the teens and either vanished or killed himself after, yeah; the first cut scene pretty much says that." Sally pointed out dryly, as her character checked the door to the museum before checking out a symbol over it and making a note of it off screen. "The actual killer wasn't the professor, though he is dead, we'll probably meet one soon enough."

She frowned slightly. "You know, I think the FPS controls make things a lot quicker than the screen shifts from most point and click adventures of the era. It was probably easier to model and texture everything once than paint a dozen scenes per area as well."

"I think Darkling Room does similar," Megan chimed in, watching her sister playing on the screen in front of her. "Though I think they stuck with the point and click route in most of theirs. Still… one model with one set of high res textures, a bump map and a light source against at least two separate versions of a scene, for every scene going around the character, likely more where you can look at things close up, got to be a bit easier." She hummed for a moment, watching her sister checking the area around the path to the museum entrance for the symbols they knew were there.

A quick trip back to the entrance, which was much smoother with the free roam as opposed to the scene transitions of the original, and checking the dragon head mailbox for a letter and a number. "Right, now that's done. For those of you confused, it'll become clear in a minute, but I need that number for the bridge and those symbols for the entrance I need to use, which is why I was checking them."

Robyn gave her sister ship a confused look. "Why is that?" she asked.

Megan smirked while Sally moved her character around the garden towards the back of the museum. "One of the things Sierra was known for back when they were producing games was point-and-click adventure games, most of which had puzzles in them to lock your progression," she explained.

"I think I remember this one from one time I was over in England," Hikaru commented, frowning slightly at her screen. "Doesn't Zephyr need to use the number from the mail box to unlock the bridge control then unlock the bridge and use those symbols around the place to get through a henge on an island into an underground passage?"

"Yup," Sally replied. "Front door to the Professor Windlenot's Museum of the Strange and Unusual is locked tight, so we're going through the back." Moving her character to the bridge control, she entered the number from the dragon mailbox causing it to open before flipping the gears around so they were on the right colour pegs.

"Meaning these puzzles are our first ones. The museum exterior is pretty much the tutorial area, teaching you without prompts how to move, examine things and solve puzzles, because once we're in… things get interesting." That said; she made her way across the risen bridge, opening the henge airlock by matching symbols to colours and dropping down to turn on the power.

A quick trip through the small maze brought her out to the underground lake. After checking the mummified corpse of Professor Windlenot on the shore and grabbing the book, which could actually be grabbed in this version of the game, Sally had her character enter the boat, unlock it and start towards the opposite shore. About half way across, she stopped. "Okay folks, key point about this game, if you can hear it, there's some sort of bubbling sound from the water right now along with a music change. That's one of the attack indicators."

She had her character turn the boat wheel once more and suddenly the screen was filled with a monstrosity made of water that actually did slash her character fairly badly, tearing into it. "Well…" Sally blinked as shrieks from four people died down, the thing disappearing into the water again taking some green mist with it. "They really went all out on the ixupi."

"W-w-what w-w-was that, poi?" asked a female voice that Sally hadn't heard before. A quick look at Rika's video feed revealed another pair of girls, one blonde, and one brunette with Rika.

"Hey, 'Buki, that one of your roommates?" asked Sally as she moved the boat into the opposite shore.

Rika nodded, swallowing hard. "Y-yeah… that's Yuudachi." She swallowed again, shaking herself off. "I second her question though, kami, but that made me jump."

"Dess, made me jump as well, Fubuki-chan," Hikaru added.

"That… was the water ixupi, and yeah, that jump scare is unavoidable in the original game, though they really changed things up." Sally explained.

Megan gave her sister an amused look. "Considering the original version looks like a bad cartoon and they did make this for you, which, you know, is a thing itself…" she commented. "I mean we've both sat through some pretty nasty horror movies and been more amused than scared by them, horror movies that had most of our contemporaries cowering and whimpering in their seats."

"There's also how many encounters for us Zulus?" Robyn asked. "I mean HMS Eurydice for both of us as one example and Myngs tag teamed with Z9 Wolfgang Zenker to fight the Flying Dutchman. Sunk the rot wood hulk as well," she added. "We're not haunted to my knowledge, but that doesn't mean we haven't had a lot of supernatural encounters."

"Point, and true, I think they've got the stats on line somewhere, but certainly more from being spooked by the supernatural than battle damage." Sally nodded, getting ready to continue the game before a thought struck her, "Hey, Meg? What do you think? Would the guys have set things up so we'll sometimes get warning tracks when the ixupi aren't in the location or have them able to roam some?"

"Probably," Megan replied dryly as Sally moved on to talk to Professor Windlenot's ghost. "They had to move some anyway, otherwise why would they have the Professor's corpse be on one bank of the lake while the pot containing his ghost is on the other and how did they scatter the pots and talismans? They've probably got a range limit from their spawn, but it's likely we'll have some new tricks to deal with. In the original you just had to be aware of them potentially bouncing from one hiding spot to another."

"Hope we've got some new puzzles as well, I've got most of the ones in the original roughly down." Sally commented dryly as she headed into the museum.

Rika shifted slightly in her seat, grunting slightly as Mutsuki decided to drop her arms onto her shoulders. "What are the ixupi and why are they in this museum anyway? I don't think you explained it and while it's likely in the wiki, you know how easy they are to muck with."

"Long story short, they're pretty much demons," Sally replied, frowning a little as she moved around Professor Windlenot's office in the game. "There's a book on the in-game lore in the library I need to get anyway, but they were sent by some Native American god who was peeved over a lack of sacrifices and captured after the tribe's chief sacrificed himself for his people."

"That gives the tribe the knowledge of how to capture the thirteen known ixupi," Megan continued her sister's thought. "Each one in a vessel with a particular 'element' within, topped by a talisman. There is water – which we saw in the lake – ash is usually in the fireplace and first capture, then you have wood, wax, crystal, burning water – oil or tar basically – followed by sand, metal, cloth, and finally electricity that's the last capture."

"Yeah," Sally said, pausing for a moment. "In the original there's something that means you can only carry either a pot, a talisman or the matched pair until you cap the ixupi it's supposed to hold, then that one becomes static and you can go get another, and with the pots and lids only being swapped in places they're hidden you have to remember where the things are." She shifted slightly, frowning at the screen.

Robyn frowned. "Wouldn't that make the game longer than it needed to be?"

Sally nodded to her sister-ship. "It can, though at the same time there's a limited number and you can look at things to get an idea of a matched set so you start running combinations down and things get easier as time goes on, it's just the travel that takes the time."

Megan nodded along with her sister before returning to her previous thought. "In addition to the ones I mentioned, there's another three ixupi that have already escaped into the world, stone, fire and jade, along with three corpses we know are in the museum."

"Oh I know where that's going," Hikaru muttered, blinking when Sally ran into an ixupi in a wooden statue and had to beat a hasty retreat as it attacked her. "Those three are the ones that killed the people…"

Megan nodded grimly. "Three dead people, though we've only seen one body, we know about the other two from the intro cut scene and the tape recorder… in fact, Zeph, you played that this run?" She asked.

"Gimme a minute, I'd actually forgotten it," Sally replied, doubling back to the office and finding the tape recorder on the desk. "That's actually kind of a problem for let's plays, either things are missed due to distractions or – if it's not a blind run – the players know the game well enough they skip things that they remember like I just did. Thinking about it, I need to check some other things as well." She frowned as she rewound the tape and started it playing.

Waiting until they had gotten past Windlenot's last message, she continued. "Windlenot's corpse is on the shore of the underground lake, with the pot for the ixupi that killed him, which contained his ghost on the opposite side and if they didn't change it, Merrick's corpse should be in the burials room while Beth's should be near the emergency generator next to electro-boy their ghosts should be trapped in the pots of the ixupi that killed them, with Beth in the clock tower and Merrick… I think he's in the same room as the fortune teller machine that starts the last puzzle set."

She frowned slightly, taking the time to work through the obelisk puzzle opposite the faux sphinx in the burials room that let her grab a new pot before heading to the museum library to snag all the lore books there. "If I remember right, Windlenot got stoned, Beth got flamed and Merrick was eaten by jade. Buggers are nastier in this though, but I guess FPS controls mean more leeway on things."

Stopping for a moment in the main hall of the museum, she moved to the fountain in one corner of the room. "Okay, while I'm here, this is where you get the water ixupi since we can't get back to the lake. That said; I'm not going to trigger the fountain yet since I want to get the vessel for the bugger first." Frowning, she started another search for vessels for the ixupi, only to find several in pieces, necessitating a hunt for a way to repair them before they could be used.

"That's new," Megan commented. "Though it means some new mechanics and lets you gather everything in one run instead of having to bounce around to match things up."

Sally nodded while pulling up her inventory and starting to piece some of the vessels together. "Makes for a different challenge as well since you need to repair and match things."

The conversation continued as Sally played her way through the game, finding and capturing more and more of the ixupi, spooking the other girls several times, along with finding the corpses of the missing teenagers before eventually making her way to the game room and bouncing around with the 'mastermind' puzzle there.

"I hate this damn puzzle," Sally muttered. "Random pattern choose a set of symbols and try to match whatever is hidden. It's probably the worst in the game bar, maybe the Chinese Checkers puzzle." She sighed, starting it up and quickly running through several variations of the possible code before finding the right one, "Right, electro-boy, your turn." She gave a savage grin as she sent her character down the slide to grab the talisman she was missing and finishing the game in the power room.

"Okay, I think with that done, we should take a break, desu. I'm sure at least some of us need to visit the toilet, and I could do with a drink myself, dess." Hikaru said after Sally shut her game down. "Once we come back, it'll be Fubuki-chan playing a few levels of Ghost Master and I'll say it again for those who weren't here earlier, it is a game for at least older teens, so light cruiser and larger, dess. I'm not sure about Realms of the Haunting, though knowing Crow-chan that should probably be set for adults and heavy cruisers or larger, as should Five Nights at Freddy's."