A system message let Rayne know that she had acquired some experience points for bypassing the encounter. That was new - previously before the patch, XP was only awarded if the monster was defeated.<br/><br/>The rest of Rayne's journey to Melangwi Outpost was uneventful, save for another Sending message she received from Starstrike along the way. "Monsters and players raping everywhere. Safeword not working. Special event happening, high level mobs entering Lannis. Stay away unless you can handle it. Sysops missing." The bottom of the scroll was stained with a dried liquid that smelled suspiciously like ejaculate.<br/><br/>Melangwi was little more than a palisade fort on the bank of the Melangwi River with a few watch towers and some merchant NPCs, a place for players to gather their party and purchase last-minute consumables. It was small and not popular as a hangout for socializing, Port Lannis being the favoured town for that. As a result the outpost saw few people even during peak hours, and could be entirely empty of players during off hours. As Rayne passed within the boundaries of the fort, she felt the game rules locking down her offensive equipment and skills, preventing her from engaging mobs or players in combat, and at the same time protecting her from any accidental or deliberate bypass of those same rules on the part of other players.<br/><br/>A quick trip over to the Teleporter in the middle of the outpost showed that it was inert and non-functional. The other way to get to Port Lannis was the canonical way, by riverboat along the Melangwi River down to the river's mouth at the sea, where the port was located. Indeed, the journey by riverboat in the opposite direction was one of the game quests, to unlock Melangwi Outpost and its Teleporter for those players who were travelling there for the first time. Most people who weren't hardcore roleplayers used the Teleporter ever after, and didn't bother with the trip downstream.<br/><br/>There was one other player in town: a short, slender woman, waifish in stature, who was dressed only in the game's default undergarments - a white, almost unneeded bra and a pair of matching white panties - and a single accessory: a black leather collar tied snugly around her neck. While the underwear was nothing special (and could be exchanged for customized lingerie at the cash shop), Rayne had never seen this type of collar before, so it was possibly a new item introduced by the patch. The woman was short, the minimum height setting available for a human character, which overlapped with the maximum height for small-sized races like halflings and gnomes, but the shape of her body which was scaled down proportionally to her height and her ears suggested that she was human.<br/><br/>She was staring longingly at one of the food vendor stalls, which was selling delicious-looking kebabs for a mere five coppers per stick. Just looking at, and smelling the aroma of, the grilled meat made Rayne's stomach rumble as well. Usually it was a signal that her body had needs in the real world, and in most games including this one food tasted good but didn't satisfy hunger, so as not to encourage players to ignore their real needs. But she couldn't log out now, so...