"I see." Giant robots were thin on the ground around the Institute, this much was true. "Adaptability is a great asset. Perhaps I should cultivate it." She hadn't tried to do more than vary the exact parameters of what constituted needles, but it didn't mean she couldn't carry other things in her hands.

"I haven't been dead before, but I'd been anticipating it. Temporarily, I mean. It's part of how the game works." It wasn't supposed to leave her with a healing hole in her chest, from what little she'd gleaned in the haze of a dead-end dream. But they hadn't dared test the hypothesis, not with only two of them left. "That I'm awake again is the first sign I've seen that this is part of the plan, rather than some kind of malfunction."

PvP combat hadn't been mentioned in any of the reviews, but none of the reviews had actually understood what Sburb was, due to its reality-altering nature and the not-yet-immanent demise of the planet before the official launch. Combat between sessions seemed even less likely, but there had been something linking their own session with the trolls even before her arrival here. If it had, she might not have been as excited; it was the worldbuilding aspects she'd claimed interest in. Life, not death.