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Petra Soroka	For the past couple weeks, Petra has been engaged on a sidequest, more literally than the usual nonsense she gets up to. Attempting to get an 'in' to the company under the Concord's umbrella that manages the large scale infrastructure and development of the multiversal radio network, she's gone on a daisy chain of fetch quests to network from her college to the highest eschelons of multimedia power.     This isn't really about that though! Or, it is, but not in a way where you need the context of understanding it. All Petra requested, via a *job board posting*, is sets of willing hands to help search for an item, with 'variable' reward. It's not a suspiciously detail-less posting by any means: the item in question is a set of old records that got misplaced among a wealth of other items that are up for grabs, so the reward is effectively 'having someone with a key let you in', but it's unusually simple and transactional.     The destination that Petra's meeting you at is accessible directly by warpgate, for a refreshing change of pace. On the other side of it is what seems to be a small town made up of nothing but unremarkable corrugated iron warehouses, organized in a grid side by side and end to end, as far as you can see from the ground. Everything's just a little bit rusted, decrepit in the way of things industrial and out of the way, and there's no other living soul around besides Petra.     She's sheltering in the shade of one of the scant overhangs, scrolling her phone and smoking. Her shirt today, sleeves cut out to see the binder beneath, says 'MY MISTRESS'S WIFE IS HOTTER THAN YOU', and the mechanical Silver tail hangs low, thwacking restlessly against the wall with a sound like a miniature car crash every time.     "Oh, hey. This everyone?"     She drops the mostly-ashed cigarette, and walking by, her tail swipes to slice it in half. "Okay, so, the warehouse it's supposed to be in-- and I'm gonna say now, that the guy wasn't totally sure of even that-- is like, three blocks that way."     It's still a fifteen minute walk just past warehouses to get there, identical besides the stenciled 'C-3' or 'F-6' on their faces. Petra chatters just to fill the air. "Yeah, so, I managed to get in touch with this guy whose sister-in-law works with Pinnacle Broadcast Group, but he wanted this thing of Priscilla's-- the First, I mean-- from back in the old superfaction days. And this is a storage site for the trillion metric tons of garbage left over from the war and the collapse and everything, so it's totally disorganized, nobody wants any of it, and for all we know, it could be full of bombs or have an entire undocumented city moved in and no one checked. Thus asking for help."     She waves the little grey and gold keycard against the door, and it unlocks with a click. Pushing it open, it's unfortunately not an open concept type of warehouse, but instead a typical florescent-lit hallway extending in three directions. Hundreds, if not thousands, of overhead-opening doors mark all of the storage rooms, and the air is dusty, with one in five lights flickering or out.
Atoli	EARLIER     "So, you see... because there's no compensation... the poster might not have the means to afford it! Haseo do you understand what that means? It means we have to help! We have to! They might really really need it and they're desperate and without us nothing will happen..." NOW     Atoli is hard to miss, in the bright greens and whites of her dress, and the big flowery staff in her hands. But look at her, all :> and happy!     She got *Haseo* to accept going on a quest!     That's allegedly perhaps charity!     Or so Atoli pre-emptively decided. "And this is a storage site for the trillion metric tons of garbage left over from the war and the collapse and everything,"     "The war...?"     Atoli blinks, doing her best to recall details about THE WAR. She fails, and looks at Haseo, as if he'd know better. "and for all we know, it could be full of bombs"     "Oh no!! That's really dangerous! Haseo see? I knew we had to come! What if they all blew up? That'd be so bad!"     Well. Sure.     "So what's the item like? Did he give you a photo or..."
Riku Asakura	Riku is here because he knows about Petra's quest for the radio, and of course, thinks it's a good idea for her to pursue it.  Also, free junk!  That's a bonus; you never know when you'll find an old Don Shine piece of merchandise!  If not that, then maybe something else that is equally interesting.   The city itself is... well... not great.  It's empty, full of old, rusting metal and warehouses.  It makes it far lonelier and also very dangerous if you happen to cut yourself on the rusted metal.  He'll have to be careful about that.  Thankfully, since he was digging through piles of garbage, he brought work gloves.   He walks with the group to the warehouse in question, eyes on the prize as Petra goes over things... or rambles.  Whichever you consider her conversation to be.  "So we're looking for records that belong to Priscilla?  Hmm... I wonder if she even cares about the records then?" Hopefully this wouldn't make her angry.   That'd be bad for Petra, and potentially them too! With the door open, the dust causes Riku to hold a hand over his face, coughing a little.  He also looks towards Atoli. "She's talking about the war that happened in the Multiverse that stopped fifteen years ago.  The superfactions that were there sort of got blown up.  We, uh, met someone from that era last night."
Natsuki Nuki	Natsuki had heard 'a favor' and the premise of 'searching for something of The First's' and pretty much locked in on the spot, though upon arriving her level of effort was apparent. An Osakan woman wearing a black tank top over bell bottom white denim jeans, a big snakeskin belt with evil spade-head buckle, the tie of a cherryblossom pink hoodie around waist, and a Hanshin Tigers baseball cap on with her actual fuzzy tiger ears poking out of cleverly cut holes, Natsuki looks at Petra dropping her cigarette and putting it out with a chuff and a smirk. "What, so we don't have time to smoke?" she wonders openly, hands on hips and drumming fingers on denim, before looking around the warehouses. "Since nobody cares about this old war stuff in a~ddition to the quest you'll owe me, I'll be claiming all the cursed and suspect objects for myself." She declares with a toothy grin, dropping one arm as she falls into following Petra when she starts leading. 'The war...?' "There's always a war!" Natsuki laughs, birdsong and a flutter of 'huyu-huyu-hu~yu' chortling. "Which means there's always things to do. Incredible that you've found the warehouse dimension here, but other than feeling like being in a Super Defensor episode, there's nothing here. Which are we looking for?" When Riku shows up, though, Natsuki looks at Ultraman and squints. "Why do *you* want a favor from Petra?"
Regulus	"Old records!" Regulus shouted, standing up suddenly and knocking over the chessboard she had been playing pirate chess with APPLe with. Pirate chess is a version of chess where Regulus makes up the rules on the fly without telling APPLe but don't worry, he isn't cheating. APPLe still wins most of the games. She rushes out to the warpgate, leaving APPLe behind. "Captain, I believe it is Petra that wanted the records? And I am not sure they are...ahh, well, at least she'll have fun." SOON "Yoooo Petra! We are going record hunting are we? Well don't you worry, love, there's no vinyl that Regulus can't track down." A bead of sweat rolls down her cheek as Petra explains the situation, particularly at the 'full of bombs' part. "Ahah...well...Hopefully we do not have to disarm too many explosives!" She slides in after Petra. "Hoo boy... This is gonna be a long search. Maybe weeks... So which bands are on these records?"
Riku Asakura	'Why do *you* want a favor from Petra?' "Huh?  I don't really /want/ a favor from Petra, but I think her goal of making the radio better for those who don't have standard speech is a good one.  So I want to help her out with that!  Also, a nice chance to get some interesting items is a solid plus!" He pauses for a bit when she mentions dibs on the cursed items.  "Yeah, sure, you can have the cursed stuff."
Lustre Team	Putting job listings on an open board? Petra, you should know better! That's how you get all sorts of disreputable freaks and undesirable amateurs! Who knows who'll show up if you post such a mundane ad for such menial work with such ambiguous payment on an Elite bounty board!     Not to worry, though! Your job has been accepted by the illustrious LUSTRE TEAM of the BLUE MOON ADVENTURER'S GUILD! You're in safe hands now!     It definitely was an 'adventurer's guild' that accepted the job. The two showing up look pretty much straight out of a pastoral fantasy setting that got access to Multiversal imports either ten years ago or forty. The slightly shorter blonde really showed up to a dusty warehouse depot in the middle of nowhere wearing flowing white clothes, and the slightly taller brunette isn't going to do much better for having clearly spent a lot of time shining up her armour. It'd make a little more sense for them to be here if Petra was asking someone to kill one hundred rats, but even then they'd clearly be overgeared, since the staff, sword, and shield between them look pretty expensive.     They were arguing on the way in. You couldn't really hear it that well, because once they got to the distance anyone could hear Petra's tail smashing against the iron sideboards, both of them stopped to look, and the blonde came rushing at her as quickly as she could (without tripping and eating shit on her robes) (which she cut very steeply to be able to run, apparently) and--     'Oh, hey. This everyone?'     "Hi~! Oh gods, you're Petra Soroka?! Oh you didn't have to wait for us here, right? I can tell you're a total badass~"     Petra hardly gets the words in edgewise before a total stranger is toeing the very edge of her personal space, hands clasped together, hips wiggling restlessly, pale grey eyes sparkling at her t-shirt. She gasps at the little stunt with the cigarette, then starts giggling. "What could you need in such an ugly place? Whatever it is, I'll find it~"     Her (ostensible) adventuring partner catches up right after. Gauntleted fingers grab her by the hood, yanking her back all of four inches, because the blonde digs in her heels and jabs her staff into the dirt on instantaneous reflex to resist being pulled any further. Sighing, the taller woman brushes off a lock of wavy hair stuck to her cheek, and says "Nice to meet you. Rest assured, we'll have what you're looking for soon. It'll be a timely and professional procedure, and we'll be on our way after." Her eyes flick down to the t-shirt too, twice; longer the second time, like a double take. "Unless you want to talk more business! We don't have anything to do later!"     The armored brunette clears her throat. "We represent the Adventurer's Guild 'Blue Moon'. Rest assured, my partner and I have done this kind of thing before. I'm Rosalyn of House Rispada. My partner is Nimue, of--"     "Noooo! Come on! We were going to do our introduction!"     "We're-- Nimue we're not on the team clock. Come on. We're not doing that."     "But look how many people are here! We have to network! It's networking!!"     "N-no. Are you joking? Look at this place."     "I heard that the Multiverse is really nice! You just have to know where to go!"     "Well, wherever that is, this isn't it."     "Pleeeeaaase?"     "No!"
Lustre Team	'Huh? I don't really /want/ a favor from Petra'     "Your loss then." says Nimue, who hadn't even acknowledged Riku's existence beforehand. She shoots over her shoulder, "Even a total amateur could tell how much a favour would be worth by looking at her." Then her eyes shoot open wide. "Oh. Is a favour on the table? Is that okay? There's two of us so we each get something." "Gods."     'Yoooo Petra! We are going record hunting are we? Well don't you worry, love, there's no vinyl that Regulus can't track down.'     Nimue's eyes stay very, very wide. "Hi. Are you two friends? You seem pretty familiar." "Oh, look. There's another healer." Rosalyn elbows the woman next to her, who scoffs, heaves "We don't need more than--" and then perks right up at Atoli. "Hi! Oh wow! Samesies! Look!" She raises her own staff and swirls the point around.     'What, so we don't have time to smoke?'     "Hey, I don't mind~" She's already sidling up to Natsuki. She holds out her fingers as if expecting to casually bum a ciggy-wiggy off her, but sort of like she only heard about it secondhand. "I love what you did with your ears by the way."     'And this is a storage site for the trillion metric tons of garbage left over from the war and the collapse and everything, so it's totally disorganized, nobody wants any of it, and for all we know, it could be full of bombs or have an entire undocumented city moved in and no one checked. Thus asking for help.'     "So you don't even know if it's dangerous at all?" says Rosalyn, eyebrows up in surprise. It could just be that this makes the whole thing a stupidly easy paycheque. "Well, if either of those things happen, consider it handled. But are you . . . Are you really sure there's no registry at all? These buildings have glyphs on the side. That'd imply that there was an organization system in play here, used by the civilization that built them. Is it only that you haven't decoded them?"
Haseo	BEFORE     Can't afford it? Not his problem. Haseo just stares at Atoli with an annoyed expression. Who the hell does a quest without any reward? Does he look like an idiot to her? He's got half a mind to tell Atoli to just find one of her Moon Tree members to help her, but pauses when he realizes that'd probably mean she'd be with... Wait. Why the hell would he care??? Yeah. Whatever. Maybe he can extract some sort of IOU out of the person for his help later...      "Alright! Alright! Stop making up a sob story in your head for them already. I'll do it."      NOW      "YOU!? FAT CH- Wait..."      Haseo's already stanced to leave the moment he sees Petra, but pauses for a moment as he remembers what he thought about earlier. Getting a favor from her? The crazy girl? And isn't she Concord too, so she'd be more obligated maybe??? Yeah. That might be worth something. Yeah! Haseo's barely able to contain a nefarious grin as he pumps his fist.      "Sorry. What was it you needed us to do?" His usually harsh voice has completely evaporated as he puts on a customer service tone, something that becomes really hard when he notices Petra's shirt and has to fight back a confused laugh.      Petra's explanation during the walk just gets Haseo to nod and sigh, the fake cheeriness he displayed earlier is already fading. He hates item hunts. Couldn't they just be killing something instead? Well, it's too late to back out now.      "Oh no!! That's really dangerous! Haseo see? I knew we had to come! What if they all blew up? That'd be so bad!"      "Yeah, it sure would." Haseo says this with as little life as possible.
Regulus	"I mean why are you here if you don't wanna get paid." Regulus says, not that she disagrees with the assessment that helping Nika is its own reward but she wants to encourage people getting something in change for their labor. "You oughta value what you do for others, remember the whole deal with how everybody thought you were being sketchy before because you were being too nice ans free?" "Mhm!" Regulus agrees that she and Petra are friends because if someone said otherwiss, she forgot! Then zhe blinks, looks herself over, and then says, "I do?" Is this it? Does she have secret backstory? Lore so secret even she didn't know about it?? "Why do you think I'm a healer?" Regulus asks looking at her bag to see if it looks especially heal-y today before realizing. "Oh you mean Atoli." "We aren't gonna blow up." Regulus decides on the future. "Nothing worse than some moderate singes, okay?" She knows better than to try her luck for NO singes.
Ziluan	2emit Joining those aiding Petra in her quest to find the the mysterious records is... Some guy! He's decked out in black clothes with white trim and long red ribbon, all of it weathered and flapping in various places like it's all made of air more than actual cloth. It flows around him loosely as he rides along to approach the group gathering around the few, yet startling several familiar faces here, stopping his horse by a bike rack to drape the reins over it loosely before answering Petra's question with a nod and an affirming noise. He follows along and listens to Petra describing the job, then the air-filling chatter while adding more occasional grunts to make it clear that he's listening closely. Does he understand anything she's talking about, or recognize any of the names? Not in the slightest. Still, it's important to make those noises even when he doesn't have anything to say. It's also important that he brush his hands against random things on the way past the warehouses, whether it's rattling a dumpster cover or stepping on a plastic bag. "left over from the war" "We, uh, met someone from that era" "This war. It's been over for some time, then." He finally comments, loosening up just a little when Riku puts a year to the end of the war that the horse-riding wanderer seems rather interested in. He does, however, still seem a little troubled when someone from the time of the war is brought up. "How did they react to hearing that it ended?" "it could be full of bombs or have an entire undocumented city moved in" "What if they all blew up?" "Yeah, it sure would." "Hopefully we do not have to disarm too many explosives!" "An undocumented city full of bombs... Do scavengers often come through here? What do these bombs look like?" The man on the horse asks, glancing around at the warehouses behind him with a thoughtful frown and a slight furrowing of his brow. He lets out another affirming noise at Atoli's and Regulus' shared concern, genuinely meaning it despite sounding about as lifeless as Haseo does. After leaving his horse's reins draped over a parking post, he starts looking out a little more carefully for anything with a visible wick on it. That's the telltale sign of a bomb, right? "There's always a war!" Natsuki gets a slow nod from horse rider, and he pauses briefly when he hears that chortling of hers. THere's a flash of recognition in his eyes, and then his gaze goes back to being kind of distant. "Even here, in such a peaceful-looking place... Better that it's left to us, then." "We're not doing that." "It's networking!!" Rosalyn's and Nimue's introduction that feels more like a bit has the now-unhorsed man staring at them the entire time. He's focusing rather intently on the two, too, taking in every word like he's listening to the most important thing in the world. It is important, after all, since it sounds like an introduction, both to the pair in making their existences known, and in reminding him that he hasn't actually introduced himself yet. "... Ziluan. It's good to meet you all." He states plainly, just loud enough to be heard. He wants to say something else, but what would be fitting for a search for records among bombs and whatever or whoever else might be hiding here? It's a little awkward to let the thought hang there, but he'll have settle for that for now.
Petra Soroka	"Oh gods, you're Petra Soroka?! Oh you didn't have to wait for us here, right? I can tell you're a total badass~"     Scary!!!! Scary!!! Petra straightens up, eyes wide, cigarette and phone held together in her hand uncertainly like she's caught midway between trying to shield herself with them or *pose*. It's rare to be recognized??     "That's me." Confused as to which part to respond to, she latches onto, "... And let you get lost?" "Unless you want to talk more business! We don't have anything to do later!"     "Er, nice to meet you-- Nimue, Rosalyn? I'm pretty sure we're going to have all the time we want to talk while working, so I-- are you new to coming offworld?" Petra doesn't know what mistake she made, but she feels so strongly that one was made. She glances to Rosalyn to try and gauge her reaction for cues. "The war...?"     "Yeah, like, the superfaction one."     Petra met Haseo out of the game first, so the fact that he looked the same in game was ridiculous, but she'd already giggled herself out about it at the beach. Atoli, she's only met in person within The World, which-- wasn't Petra, to Atoli's knowledge! So she must only recognize her by voice, and not by her extremely funny hat!     "--Oh my god, you're Haseo's--" She pauses just enough to be pointedly noticeable, just enough that Haseo can mentally fill in any of her prior accusations in his own imagination. "Partner, aren't you? Yeah, okay, I mean a war that happened in the real world. You know. The Union." "So we're looking for records that belong to Priscilla?"     "Well, as far as I know, not *to* her. We're looking for a box of the Union's records about..." Petra taps on her phone to pull up the text exchange. "The Painting of Ariamis, which is hers. I figure if she was personally interested, she'd just have had someone get them by now, given that this whole site is Concord-owned." "Hoo boy... This is gonna be a long search. Maybe weeks... So which bands are on these records?"     Petra looks regretful for just a moment, and then decides that she doesn't ever need to feel sorry about tricking Regulus into doing work for her. "We're looking for paper documents with text on them. So do your best, Regulus! Thanks for the help~"     "But yeah, that's basically all the information. At best we can hope for, looking for a box full of paper records and dig through that, or a filing cabinet, maybe with the Union's symbol on it, and... probably a bunch of stuff has that."     Basically, all there is to do is to pull the doors up one at a time and search through whatever's behind them. Sometimes the storage rooms are mostly empty, sometimes just opening the door causes a cascade of old bullshit to dislodge from its unstable perch and fall on top of you. There's boxes, cartons full of weird alchemical concotions that have gotten much weirder over a decade after expiry, shoebox-sized solar-powered killbots that leap into action when the florescents shine on them, crates of medals for organizations and awards you've never heard of, and on and on and on. Petra uses her excess Silver as a third and fourth hand, moving aside decaying metal frames to get at shelves behind them.
Petra Soroka	"What, so we don't have time to smoke?"     Petra scoffs. "I think we've got literally the whole day. We're just, like, inside!" ". . . making the radio better for those who don't have standard speech is a good one."     "Well, it's sort of more--" Petra's mouth moves, but even lipreading, neither the number or content of syllables matches up with the meaning injected directly into Riku's mind, linguistically abstract but more semantically precise than any word in English or Japanese could be. "¶Better/Why Isn't There A Speech 2?¶, rather than because she can't talk normally. It's just way more convenient for her, and I want her to be comfortable talking more." "Even a total amateur could tell how much a favour would be worth by looking at her."     You know what? Actually, Petra can simply be cocky about this. Why should she be anything else! She's expertly navigating her Concord connections in order to get access to a vast trove of historical trash on her journey to improve the infrastructure of the sector, and she's also cool and hot and everyone likes her!     She has a cigarette again now. "No, hey-- you two are a team, the *team* gets one favor. Unless you need two worlds ended, I think that's gonna be enough for you."     One of the rooms is mostly taken up by a giant granite cube, and even with the Silver, Petra needs help lifting it to get it out of the way. Behind it is a jeweled egg made of corroded brass, tossed haphazardly in a nest of what used to be newspaper, but now has all of its ink half-melted into upsetting runic shapes.     "Oh, that looks evil. Natsuki? Natsukiiiii?" "So you don't even know if it's dangerous at all?"     "Everything the Union touched was dangerous. I mean, it's fifteen year old scrap salvaged off of apocalyptic battlefields, like, even the shit that dropped onto my world when I was a kid was dangerous." Not easy!!! There's rusty killer robots in here!     "And the, uh, bureaucratic upheaval of the years after the superfactions fell kind of killed most records. Especially for some unimportant overflow storage space like this one."
Petra Soroka	"An undocumented city full of bombs... Do scavengers often come through here?"     "--Ah!! A guy!"     Ziluan, having followed along before introducing himself, just faded into the background of Petra's perception like a piece of furniture. It's not until he speaks up-- after definitely looking *directly* at him multiple times-- that she notices him, startling and dropping a box of papers (irrelevant ones) on the ground.     "Uh-- Ziluan. Nice to meet you. I'm Petra, you might have noticed." Then, to answer his question, "It's totally possible we'll straight up find people hiding out here. There could also be some whole squatting gnome civilization, like-- Regulus, were you there for that? No, I don't think you were."     "The 'bombs' could be literally anything. I think, assume anything you don't recognize is going to be dangerous. Sort of like the Concord is now, the Union was just full of tons of Elites doing whatever with their own thing, as far as I know, but way less focused and way less managed than the Concord is."
Regulus	Regulus stares as Petra clarifies the assignment. She sinks down on her knees with a fwumph. "My records..." She laments the records that weren't hers, weren't being searched for for her, and also didn't actually exist in any way that she imagined it. She is in utterly unconsolable despair until the Regulus nature of making the best of a bad situation lights up in her skull. "...but there's a load of weird devices to check out!" She clambers up to her feet. "And I bet some of it isn't warmachines! Let's go, Regulus!" She immediately investigates egg, and then investigates newspaper. "Hey is this egg leaking..?" "A guy where??" She looks. "That's Haseo, you know Haseo." Then she looks some more. "Oh! NEW guy! Hey newbie, I'm Regulus!"
Atoli	"She's talking about the war that happened in the Multiverse that stopped fifteen years ago." "There's always a war!"     "Oh, I see..."     It's the kind of I See that says 'I don't, actually!' more loudly than she'd like (or likely realizes). "We represent the Adventurer's Guild 'Blue Moon'."     Oh! OH! Familiar language!!!     "Hello Rosalyn! Hello Nimue!"     Chipper, no beats missed. Atoli bows, both hands on her staff as it sits horizontal just a bit below her knees.     "I'm Atoli! I represent the guild 'Moon Tree'! But I'm also a member of the guild 'Canard', which...!"     Is Haseo introducing himself?     Properly? "YOU!? FAT CH- Wait..."     NO HE IS NOT!     "Which!! Our wonderful, wonderful guild leader is present here! This is Haseo," she says, introducing him to Nimue and Rosalyn with no hesitation.     "We help new--" Don't say newbies on a real quest with real people!! "--adventurers! We help new adventurers! It's really nice to meet you!" Nimue.     "Oh! I love your staff! And the charms all over your clothes! And those little pouches! I bet you always have the right item handy with those!" "--Oh my god, you're Haseo's--"     "That's right!" Atoli beams her best :>. "We partner for quests a bunch! And for the arena too, sometimes... w-well, it's off-season right now, so there's less need to though..." Do your best, Haseo. "The Painting of Ariamis, which is hers."     "Oh wow, a painting? It must be *really* special if you need all of us to find it!" She has no idea. "I'll keep my eyes open!" GOING IN.     "It's a bit sad to think all this stuff has lost its owners, isn't it? Like all the people out there who lost this?"     'Lost'. Not totally untrue.     Atoli slowly moves to pry open one of the storage doors with the end of her staff acting as a lever, and then glances inside at the crates. She reaches for a piece of paper and blinks, then the binder that's been left sitting on one of them.     "This one just has tons of crates of antidepressants and a procedure to safely contain and inject dangerous magical gir--"     Atoli decides to stop reading, puts the binder down, and closes the door back down with a bit more energy than she opened it with.     "Hey Haseo!! Find anything?"     Yep let's forget about this one RIGHT NOW.
Riku Asakura	'Your loss then.' Riku looks at Nimue, who has just now decided to acknowledge him after their introduction to Petra.  He tilts his head to the side and then shakes it.  "Again, I'm here for something more than just gain.  It's good to help people sometimes." 'You oughta value what you do for others, remember the whole deal with how everybody thought you were being sketchy before because you were being too nice ans free?' Riku has no idea about this, because he's never been called sketchy for being too nice or offering to do something for free.  "No?  I absolutely don't remember this. Are you sure you're not confusing me with someone else, Regulus?" Ziluan doesn't sneak up on him, because he has a horse, and that's a pretty uncommon method of transport!  Well, at least uncommon where he's from!  To his question, he shakes his head... "Not great, he went on this spiel about conflict being necessary for development.  I'm a little concerned for him, so I hope he can fit into this new era." 'The Painting of Ariamis, which is hers.' "There are records of her painting?  Why..?  Didn't the Union have better things to do than spy on others and their paintings?"  To him, this is really weird, but he also doesn't know about the painting in relation to Priscilla! 'So which bands are on these records?' "Um... Regulus, I don't know how to break this to you, but it's not that kind of record." Riku says apologetically! '¶Better/Why Isn't There A Speech 2?¶' "Yeah, that!  Thank you for explaining it better, Petra.  It's just so hard because words really fail to describe it.  Doesn't Hiromi talk like that too?  Or is it different?" Riku finds a room that is not occupied and opens the door.  He can't even enter it because the entire room is covered in boxes, literally stacked to the roof.  Staring at the room, he sighs and sags his shoulders lightly.  "Well, this isn't going to be easy..." he says before adding, "Well... standing around doing nothing never gets you anywhere!" he says, and pulls out a box from the large stack of them to look through it.
Lustre Team	'... And let you get lost?' Nimue giggles. "Oh you're so thoughtful too! I'm sure you could have totally handled this job on your own, right? Are you scouting~?" Rosalyn stares off into the distance, and goes oddly quiet.     'Er, nice to meet you-- Nimue, Rosalyn? I'm pretty sure we're going to have all the time we want to talk while working, so I-- are you new to coming offworld?'     "Oh. Likewise." Rosalyn says, blinking, having already forgotten she said that. "Only twice, a year ago." She doesn't seem motivated to elaborate. The way she watches Petra is a tiny bit like how someone watches a suspiciously motionless dog with its eyes fixed on Thanksgiving dinner.     '--Oh my god, you're Haseo's--'     Nimue breathes in all at once.     'Partner, aren't you?'     "Oh." She loses interest just as quickly, settling into her unfocused resting face.     'It's just way more convenient for her, and I want her to be comfortable talking more.'     It's back again! From the moment Petra does 'that'! But-- "Oh! You're doing this for a friend? That's so sweet! I knew this was below your pay grade! What's she like~?" Rosalyn grabs Nimue's hood before she can even get moving.     'No, hey-- you two are a team, the *team* gets one favor.'     "That's fine! Right Rosalyn?" "No." "We can just do another job after!" "This is why I don't like you negotiating with the Guildmistress." "This is different! This is so easy! And it's networking!" "We're not doing two jobs." Something about the weirdly prickly edge of Rosalyn's voice is an unspoken signal for Nimue to give it up (for now). Which is odd, because she didn't even really raise her voice at all? "The two of us represent Team Lustre. Our third and fourth are unavailable, for the time being."     'I mean, it's fifteen year old scrap salvaged off of apocalyptic battlefields, like, even the shit that dropped onto my world when I was a kid was dangerous.'     "Ah." Rosalyn says, finally seeming to relax. A smugly knowing smile spreads across her face. "Ancient battlefield magitech. So it's that kind of thing. No problem." Assumption made, she moves ahead with more of a spring in her step. "Is decoding the runes another job? Do we get a favour for that?" They both mean the single letter-number stencils.
Natsuki Nuki	'Hey, I don't mind~' Natsuki, a woman from the timeperiod where smoking was much more common and Osakan besides, has an automatic response to Nimue sidling up on angle for a ciggy-wiggy: Like this was the most normal thing in the world, she pulls up the pocket of her trailing fashion hoodie and fishes into it to retrieve a pack of Marlboros and tap out one with a flick of wrist and a firm dap down on the torn plastic. "So you're off work then?" Natsuki asks Nimue, with the mostly-followed introduction giving the impression of 'off duty working women' which Natsuki understood as one of the types of more esoteric elemental forces. Fixing her ballcap to settle a little more tightly over head to give ears the most clearance, Natsuki grins. "They're my clothes. Why not go custom? Room for a pony's tail but not for real ears on a hat. Dumb, right?" She loosely gossips, the roll of her pack-offering fingers knuckling out a disposable lighter if Nimue actually takes a cigarette from her. "I'm Natsuki - the Lady Nue, formally. Concord Partner." She introduces, smoothly and almost in aside, as if it was subtly obvious. That the girls had already given their own names helped it, of course, but the sidling up for a ciggy helped a lot. 'I think we've got literally the whole day. We're just, like, inside!' "Okay?" She asks, then shrugs. "We'll be in different ones. It's fine, unless you like cloves. Do you like cloves?" She asks, before bringing out her own cigarette to set into her teeth as an accessory while her lighter was in play. She had time. She had all day! Hearing 'world ending' gets her to grinning, now with the white roll of unlit tobacco extending off of it. She can't help it, red eyes all giddily aglow with getting a favor from Petra. Such things would be delicious for their rivalry, as well! Giggling anew, like birdsong in the middle distance instead of underbreath laughter, Natsuki steps forward at the heavy obstruction, leaning and crouching down to lift it up casually with any additional help that rushes forward. She had a feeling - a good one, for specifically her and no-one else, and gleefully heads forward into close proximity of the rune-bled egg across the newspaper. "It's like it hatched, but it only spilled these meanings. I wonder if there's still a sweet yolk in this particular egg?" She openly muses, having already called dibs. Her advance quickly moves her to besides the egg, reaching down to lift the egg out of the nest brazenly. Why not? It was so wonderfully jeweled!! 'Even here, in such a peaceful-looking place... Better that it's left to us, then.' In the middle of All That, something occurs to Natsuki. "Hey, who're you? Did you just show up? Did I ignore your introduction? What's your deal? Why are *you* helping Petra?"
Lustre Team	'--Ah!! A guy!'     "I know right?!" Nimue suddenly yells. Which gets Rosalyn to put on a sparklier smile, and say "No need to worry. Even if a city full of bombs goes off," She raps her knuckles against the silver-cobalt front of her huge shield. "You're safe behind me."     '... Ziluan. It's good to meet you all.'     Nimue stares at Rosalyn. Rosalyn idly plays with the little braid in her hair. "The pleasure is ours." she says. "That's a lovely horse. May I ask which house you hail from?" Nimue decides right now is when she wants to start helping out, wedges the butt of her staff under one of the doors, and makes a big, theatrical noise out of popping it open; with drags Rosalyn's attention back to dashing in front of her, yelling "Hey don't--! How many times do I have to remind you?!"     Her reward is a teetering mountain of junk falling on her. She stops the bulk by bringing up her arm-length shield, gets hit in the head with the corner of a box toppling over the top, yelps, and blocks the entire door with magic screen of clearish-blue water that splashes from the face of her shield instead. "Nimue! Get it together!" she whines.     'Again, I'm here for something more than just gain. It's good to help people sometimes.'     "Uhuh. Okay." says Nimue, before immediately scurrying off to Rosalyn, jumping up on her tiptoes to get at her head while she's busy holding back the avalanche. "Oh my gosh I'm so sorry! I didn't think it would be a big deal! It's not like we're in a dungeon, right? Oh gods I'm so glad you were there! I would've totally gotten crushed if you weren't so fast! Look at how much there is! Isn't it heavy? Oh what am I saying, obviously not for you! Can I see where it hit you? Does it hurt?"     Rosalyn puffs out air from the diaphragm, firming up her stance, and saying "This is obviously nothing. But I've told you a million times, it doesn't matter how good I am if you run out in front! Just be patient, and we'll get through it all in no time." Well now. Doesn't she sound confident all of a sudden.
Lustre Team	'So you're off work then?'     Once Rosalyn has the luxury of standing aside and allowing the giant heap of trash to tumble out, Nimue gets to jump up and down and applaud, which makes Rosalyn embarrassed, which makes her shoo Nimue off, which makes her gravitate right back to Natsuki and get her free Marlboro. "Mhm mhm~ There's nothing coming in for A Rank adventurers right now, so we're killing time~ It's a side gig~" she says, like a city girl.     'They're my clothes. Why not go custom? Room for a pony's tail but not for real ears on a hat. Dumb, right?'     "I'm always saying that." Nimue scoffs, even though she's staring holes through Natsuki and can't stop smiling. "It's so backward! They can make helmets for elves but they can't sell a hat if your ears are on top? Yeah right! The market moves soooo slow." She fishes around in her cutesy little travel pouches, find a funny-looking brass gear-greeble, flicks it twice, sparks the end of the cigarette, and then doubles forward, hand over mouth, eyes watering.     'I'm Natsuki - the Lady Nue, formally. Concord Partner.'     "Mhm? Mm!" Rosalyn slaps Nimue on the back, forcing her to instantly cough up a cloud of smoke, which she doesn't recover from any time soon.     "You have my apologies for not introducing myself earlier. I wasn't familiar enough with the style of your culture to recognize your heraldry." Rosalyn says . . . genuinely apologetic? Only barely.
Ziluan	"--Ah!! A guy!" "Oh! NEW guy! Hey newbie, I'm Regulus!" Oh no. Was Ziluan not loud enough on his way over? Maybe he should've crinkled that bag more after stepping on it, or coughed a bit more. The air here does feel remarkably different from how it does back home, so it might not even be too odd for him to cough more often to make sure he doesn't sneak up on anyone else again. "My apologies. I'll be more careful." He says with a slow nod and an apologetic, yet still subdued tone to Petra. He's a little more surprised by Regulus' eager greeting, but he relaxes a moment later to give her a deferent nod as well. "Thank you, Regulus. You mentioned something about music. Is paper used for music in this era?" He's really got no clue about anything, apparently. Petra did mention paper documents earlier, though, so he actually has a lead! Even though he knows what he's looking for, though, he still has plenty of other things to look out for, like- "The 'bombs' could be literally anything." "Things I don't recognize..." That part worries him more than anything else Petra's said so far, and for good reason. "That would be most of these items. Do bombs often have a certain shape, or a tell?" He asks, keeping one hand near the sword at his hip every time someone pries a door open. At least he's got good reflexes. When printer falls from a precariously balanced stack of tech scrap, he's already there to catch it out of midair and toss it towards an open space before it can (not) explode. When killbots start swarming, he's quick to begin slicing them apart with his sword, or to pick up a mop or other nearby thing to start battering them back until they're shut down or stopped from getting whacked around too much. It might be a little more worrying when he does that with a loaded RPG, swinging it around like a thick staff and doing all sorts of crazy martial arts tricks with it to pound some killbots into submission. It's a miracle that it doesn't actually explode, especially with his hands so close to the trigger. "Not great, he went on this spiel about conflict being necessary for development." That actually puts Ziluan slightly more at ease once Riku describes the person. "I see. That's...  Someone who could've thrived in a different era." He replies, letting out another quiet hmm'ing sound. It's not a judging or a worried one, either. He'll have to keep that one in the back of his head if he ever meets them. "Did I ignore your introduction? What's your deal? Why are *you* helping Petra?" "I didn't have much to introduce. I'm... A freelancer." He explains, pausing for a moment once Natsuki helps him realize that he's missed quite a bit with figuring out his own introduction. With the gap in his memory, it would be helpful to come up with something more descriptive than his name, and having this sort of questioning right off the bat actually sets his mind at ease. There's even the slightest crack of a grateful smile on his face. "I know how to fight, but I have ways of finding people and places. I saw Petra's job posting, and it sounded like the most direct way of making money in a short time." He says, having just recently used an RPG as a thick staff. "You're safe behind me." His first impression of Rosalyn is a strong one, and he nods affirmingly while looking at the shield. "Noted. I'll be counting on you." He still has no idea what an actual bomb looks like, but he's sure to throw more printers in the way of her shield later until someone clues him in about them. Better to do that than to force her to run around more like Nimue just did! "That's a lovely horse. May I ask which house you hail from?" That question, meanwhile, has him pausing a little more to figure out how to answer that without scaring anyone. "I... I'm not sure. My best guess is a warrior's, but I haven't found out which one it is yet."
Petra Soroka	"...but there's a load of weird devices to check out!"     "There might even be vinyls, honestly!" Petra calls out after Regulus, hand cupped around her mouth. Partly, she's just trying to boost Regulus's spirit, because Petra Soroka is a sucker, but now that she says it, she's kind of hoping for the same. It's a treasure hunt!     "You know, it is kind of crazy," in response to Atoli, "Just how much *stuff* people make. I mean, you know, I'm not gonna start running topless in front of a government building with 'STOP WAR' painted on my chest, but I was around the whole superfaction war secondhand. And it was a *crazy* waste, seeing it all now. The amount of shit made, and then dumped, or exploded, or sabotaged, or even used, for no real reason, is just mind-blowing."     Petra pulls a long, elaborate sword off where it's wedged into a shelf packed with garbage, with its blade snapped off a foot off the hilt. She flips it around, catching the hilt backhandedly before putting it back, having sated her interest. "And, obviously how many people died for this stuff to go unclaimed. Died or, were just overwhelmed or displaced or whatever, enough to write it all off and start over." ". . . to safely contain and inject dangerous magical gir--"     "What's that?" Petra pokes her head up at 'contain and inject'. "Huh? For who? Lemme see." "Didn't the Union have better things to do than spy on others and their paintings?"     "Pretty sure she was in the Union, dog." Petra finds a circle of glass that looks close enough to an ashtray, and knocks her cigarette against it. A moment later, after mental images of the entire warehouse catching fire with them inside, a blobule of Silver squishes the smoldering ashes and consumes them. "The Concord keeps records of magical artifacts and stuff too." "Doesn't Hiromi talk like that too? Or is it different?"     "Sorta similar! Hiromi and Nika actually met, and Hiromi commented on it. Similar enough to her perspective too."     When Riku pulls the box away from his pile, there's nothing immediately notable about its contents. Cloth packs of decayed whatever, some defused grenades in plastic packaging, MREs, and so on. But looking up at the next box to dislodge from the wall, he catches some movement in the form of tiny beady eyes glaring out from the shadows deeper in the room. A pair of rats scuttle out, dragging another grenade, and in order to protect their domain, they coordinate together to pull the pin and then sprint back to safety. "I'm sure you could have totally handled this job on your own, right?"     "I mean, sure, but," It's literally that easy to butter Petra up! "It's really just a matter of time, right? I don't wanna miss my classes tomorrow, so I'm paying for help." "I knew this was below your pay grade! What's she like~?"     Lilian may get mad at her for how quickly Petra responds, but Lilian doesn't need to know. Also, it's just too boring to be doing this work without talking, and Petra can talk and talk and talk.     "Her name's Oresnhika, or Nika for short. She's got-- hold on, what local tech are you familiar with? Like, electricity, computers?" Petra has the flash of insight in her mind that she could sabotage Atoli by pointing out that she's larping her avatar from a video game, but that only works if Nimue is both familiar with video games, and not *also* doing that, which is totally possible.
Petra Soroka	"Anyways, she didn't have many friends besides me for a long time-- not because she isn't nice, because she's really sweet and super funny, it's just circumstances-- so now that the radio's an option, I'm kind of just excited for her to be able to meet more people." "This is different! This is so easy! And it's networking!"     Nope! Petra's picking sides here! Just like with Haseo and Atoli arguing (mostly the former) every step of the way, these two must be poked and prodded at for her amusement too. Petra leans an elbow against the frame of one of the storage doors, with the Silver behind her autonomously sorting through the contents.     "Well, she's got a point, you know, Rosalyn. Knowing me is kind of a stroke of luck all on its own, so you've already been rewarded once. Networking wise, I mean. I'm known to make stuff happen." "I wonder if there's still a sweet yolk in this particular egg?"     "Slurp it!!!" If Petra had really considered this endeavor, she'd probably have come to the conclusion that letting Natsuki loose on a building full of cursed objects should be repayment enough. She's not even considering that now, though, and is instead just gassing up her fellow Partner. "Slurp that egg!"     It's some kind of mechano-biological thing! Rotted out now, the egg that should have hatched into some sort of knowledge-focused librarian guardian is instead curdled with a curse of the inverse. "Look at how much there is! Isn't it heavy? Oh what am I saying, obviously not for you!"     Petra turns away and snorts, covering up her mouth. "Pfffft--" She coughs to hide the laughter, then says, "So, you two, uh, been working together long?" "I know how to fight, but I have ways of finding people and places."     "Those job boards really bring in all sorts..." Petra marvels, about the absolute most basic kind of introduction a guy could possibly give. It's like seeing a perfectly round stone on a riverbank. A sky with precisely zero clouds. "If you want money, you might want to try and not destroy stuff to sell it, though."
Regulus	"Is A rank badass?" Regulus asks. Honestly Regulus just lives in her own little world sometimes and she was thinking of RECORDS which sort of disrupts a lot of Regulusbrain in short order. "Uh, I mean, I think the records are just a different thing than I thought they were but yeah there's sheet music and such." She also likes Nika and wants her to be able to radio more! And if she can't work on it directly she can do this indirectly which cheers her up too. "You know there might just be!" She agrees to the idea there might be secret vinyl records lurking around here. Or other weird music based items. She's looking! In the meantime she picks up a strange looking raygun labeled the Deponyizer. Regulus turns it around in her hands, mystified, until she sees a greyed out stick label warning: NOT FOR USE ON PONIES. Regulus tosses it to the side. Why would anyone need something like that, she wonders. "Lilian really looks out for all of then huh." She adds. "She has a lot of people she looks after. I'm kinda amazed she can manage it all."
Riku Asakura	'That's...  Someone who could've thrived in a different era.' Riku nods to Ziluan, agreeing with him.  "Maybe, I mean... war isn't good or anything.  I do feel bad if people feel out of place, though.  It feels awful if they fight for something and then that thing they fight for changes so much that they can't go back to it.  Nobody should be left by the wayside.  That's what I feel, anyway." 'Pretty sure she was in the Union, dog.' "Oh!  Well then, I guess this makes more sense then.  Though I wonder if the painting has some sort of historical significance?" Riku wonders aloud.  It's weird to take notes on a painting, unless it's important in some way, right? 'Sorta similar! Hiromi and Nika actually met, and Hiromi commented on it.' Riku nods at that, thinking about how similar they are to each other, but somehow are different too.  He's distracted by the conversation for a bit, and then starts looking over the box.  Old military equipment, MREs, stuff like that.   Something catches his eye when he looks back into the room and sees the beady eyes.  He struggles to see in the darkness until the light catches the pin.  He realizes what it was almost too late, managing to shut the door and shout to the others as he hits the deck. "GET DOWN!" EXPLOSION.
Atoli	"... Ziluan. It's good to meet you all."     "Oh you brought a horse! That's really cool! ... I always wondered how much trouble that was. Video games always give you mounts like they're things but a real horse has gotta need tons and tons of care, right? Like special food... do you have to brush its mane, or cut it when it's too long? Oh! Does it need to do exercise to stay ready? Like working out?"     ... she'd like a horse, she thinks, but probably not all the trouble that comes with one. Or the space you need for it!     ... that must be why video games don't worry about it. "Just how much *stuff* people make."     "Right? I mean even just on Earth... we've got oceans full of plastic that's killing animals, strangling fish, confusing birds... thinking about that but on the scale of this place, it's kind of sad."     Her tone drops transparently.     It's not even something she particularly has to heart!     "But I hope we can find the painting for your friend! It's important to look after the people close to you. Especially since not everyone asks for help when they need it." "Huh? For who? Lemme see."     "O-Oh, I'm not sure if--"     There's realistically no stopping Petra!     It's a whole binder full of a long and half-lost, partially-faded, and by-now unsigned procedure, pushed and approved not by Union command but something called a 'Senior Ally' which apparently had the pull to bypass command?     It details and proposes and pushes into production a number of different ways to pump an unrealistic amount of antidepressants - which, obviously, do not work that way - into subjects (some variant of 'magical girl' but the jargon is all blotted out) meant to be aged anywhere between    and   , and then contain them into appropriately sized stasis capsules and indefinitely keep them there. The procedure does not go into 'and then what'.     There might not be an 'and then what'.     It's not great. "Slurp it!!!"     "Huh? No, wait, you shouldn't be putting random things you find on the ground in your mouth! It might be cursed! Or it might be like, expired!"     Those are not REMOTELY on the same scale of badness. EXPLOSION.     "H-Huh?!"     They found the bombs!!     Atoli's nowhere near Riku and so can't possibly know these are grenade-lobbing rats, which is somehow both worse and better than the bomb threat?     "Is everything okay? Do you need help??"
Haseo	"--Oh my god, you're Haseo's--"      "Man. Can you keep your fantasies to yourself for at least a little bit? You don't even know either of us."      She knows this annoys him. He knows that she knows it annoys him. What annoys him even more is that Atoli's too dense to realize what she's doing, and what annoys him the most is that she reminds him of the freaks on the Apallaku forums who talk about other players like they know them, although unlike those weirdos, he can't just turn his M2D off and walk away from her. Well, he could technically , but he doesn't trust her around... People.      "Which!! Our wonderful, wonderful guild leader is present here! This is Haseo,"      Haseo's broken from his thoughts as he hears Atoli say his name, his mind then processing what was said before he finally turns his attention to Nimue and Rosalyn. Well, she already did the introduction, so there's no reason for him to do more than the bare minimum when it comes to saying hello.      "Hey."      He doesn't even maintain contact as he greets them, instead turning his head and immediately losing interest as he instead proceeds to focus on searching for... He doesn't know, and he doesn't care!      "Hey Haseo!! Find anything?"      "I just started, give me a minute!" He reaches to grab a container, grunting a bit as he lifts it up. If there are really bombs in here, why the hell are they opening this shit blindly? Wait. Why is he letting Atoli open this shit? She's the healer! If something happened to her, that'd be bad.      "Hey! Atoli. How about you keep an eye out for anything that looks interesting and let me or someone else take a look? I'd rather not limit test what happens if we get blown the hell up."
Natsuki Nuki	Smoothly interacting with the side gig girlies, Natsuki in her 'off the clock' mosey through the debris and storage container of the last great war can't help but carry on. 'They can make helmets for elves but they can't sell a hat if your ears are on top? Yeah right! The market moves soooo slow.' Natsuki's exasperation grows expressive in its sighing intensity with twitter-flutter in parallel, agreeing and being mad about it besides. "Oh, I know why. But it's because it's a human team for *huamn* baseball, and they don't recognize real ears in their product line. But I wanted it official!" It's insistent, a necessary thing. Right? Right?? "Official is better. That's why a girl's got to be resourceful." Natsuki advises, as if sharing known wisdom. Then she watches Nimue hit a ciggy and... Smoothly smile at Nimue go eyewatering at the first drag, taking the power position of cool elder offering (corrupting death sticks) new experiences to the indulgent. "Careful there." Natsuki purrs, leaning only a third of the way to Nimue's ear when she does, before Rosalyn enters and claps partner on back. Rising and retaining grin, she nods at Rosalyn. 'I wasn't familiar enough with the style of your culture to recognize your heraldry.' "I have more obvious shapes. I've dressed down, so you're forgiven. I've not heard of the Blue Moons either, so now we've met." Code-switching easily, it's smooth to go between red and blue oni for Natsuki - knowing several personally. 'I know how to fight, but I have ways of finding people and places. I saw Petra's job posting, and it sounded like the most direct way of making money in a short time.' Freelancer means one thing in this case. "A sword for sale? Or just a wandering hero-type? Wanting to make the most money in the shortest possible period means you're willing to work as a warrior, either way." Natsuki stretches. "Today it's labor, though. I hope you're not afraid to work for your pay, Ziluan." > The Egg! Slurp that Egg! Natsuki lifts the jeweled idiot egg like a preserved delicacy, the thin goop of the trailing runes having webbed off of the papers in her lifting of it now laying across her hand. "A treat just for me?" She coos, before using her thumb to work her suddenly-sharp nail underneath the rotten jewelwork to sickly crunch a hole into the putrid pot and lift it to her lips. Her eyes dreamily lid as she audibly gulps down the cursed mixture until even the webbing was drained out and sucked up like noodles, runes disappearing in ropes and trails of clinging-creeping curse that works as black veins down cheeks, throat, and gone. Releasing the kiss on now-empty jeweled shell with a satisfied sigh, Natsuki snorts out an appreciating 'mm', and opens eyes while black text swims across the whites around her glowing-red eyes, letters appearing and disappearing. "This aged stuff is, like," She trails off, blinking a few times and the runes receding and eyes dilating. "So~o flavorful?" She flutters, and goes back in on the jeweled shell like a large hard candy she had ordered at the fair.
Petra Soroka	"I'm kinda amazed she can manage it all."     "That's because she's amazing. There's no one better." Petra pries open a crate labeled 'Cullgene gas', rattles the bottles inside of it, and then tosses the lid back and moves on when they turn out to be empty. "But even though she can, it should be easier for her, and that's what I'm for." "Nobody should be left by the wayside. That's what I feel, anyway."     Petra hadn't inserted herself into this side conversation before, but this particular sentiment is one that weighs her down just by being in its vicinity. Really, between Callisto, Shockwave, then these storage warehouses today....     "I kind of feel bad for the guy, honestly. Shockwave. I feel like I wanna help him, after being totally blindsided by a twenty year long mental gap that changed everything for him." After being so sincere, Petra swerves around to the equally sincere but more flippant point of, "Besides, I vibe with his whole thing about eternal conflict and all. I think that's cool." "Oh you brought a horse! That's really cool! ... I always wondered how much trouble that was."     "I love horses. I've honestly been looking into getting one. 'Cause I've got my castle, I've got the money, and I went horseback riding again recently and it was a really really good time. They're sort of a ton of work, but, like, it's a hobby! So you should enjoy it!"     "You! Guy." Petra points at Ziluan, already having let his name slide out of her mind. "What's your horse's name?" "O-Oh, I'm not sure if--"     While looking through the documents that she demanded Atoli show her, Petra's face gradually falls more and more. Eventually, she puts them down, quietly upset and frustrated at something she isn't saying out loud. "I don't like this at all. I think the Union was, like, a horrible organization." "Can you keep your fantasies to yourself for at least a little bit? You don't even know either of us."     "Huh? Excuse me? We've met several times, *Haseo*, and I've talked with Atoli a bunch over the radio. We're basically friends-- right, Atoli? Aren't we friends?" This is transparently yet another attempt to upset Haseo, but Atoli seems like the kind of cheery wallflower to agree. "Official is better. That's why a girl's got to be resourceful."     "Oh my god." Petra groans, suddenly realizing. Her tail thwips back and forth, accidentally denting one of the doors with a clang. "I'm definitely gonna have to hit you up about fashion stuff, Natsuki. I'm sick of cutting holes in my pants." "I have more obvious shapes."     "You're a real obvious-shapes kind of gal. I mean, not that I'm not, but I've got my metaphors. 'Cause I was thinking, after Callisto, and Riku here's reminded me, that type of big retro--" "GET DOWN!"     Petra cuts off and ducks away, Silver flattening into a blast dome that curves the bulk of the explosion back into the room. She shakes her head, ears ringing, as the smoke clears, and kicks the wall to feel how damaged it is.     "Oh, shit. They built these *expecting* explosions, huh? What happened?"
Ziluan	"Nobody should be left by the wayside." "With this world being as large as it is, he'll find his way." Ziluan replies to Riku, setting aside a snow globe and doing a double take when he sees the fluttering glitter bits moving around inside of it. His grip tightens on his sword briefly, but he relaxes once the fake snow settles and it doesn't blow up in his face. "No world needs war, but people that know it can still stop others from going through what they did. It'll take time, but it sounds like he's in good hands." He adds, apparently assuming Riku  is going to be the person to do it! "a real horse has gotta need tons and tons of care, right?" "They do, if they're meant for..." Hearing that tone in Atoli's voice, Ziluan briefly considers how to answer her horsing questions without breaking her heart about what they're actually used for. Judging from her clothes, she doesn't strike him as someone that's been exposed to much war herself. Plus, he doesn't know a lot about caring for horses himself. He can't even bring himself to tell her about finding this one on a battlefield, like the past several he's encountered. "... Longer journeys. They usually eat hay, but some fruits and vegetables are safe. Regular exercise is important to keep them healthy for those journeys as well." "What's your horse's name?" Crap, how's he going to keep the illusion and not break Atoli's heart now that Petra's asked him that out of the blue? He's heard of other grand horses at home, but he can't just use one of their names. That'd just be tacky! Looking over at the horse that's kinda-way-over-there, he finally notices that it's actually got a pretty blonde-ish mane, and so he settles on- "Gold Hare." "A sword for sale? Or just a wandering hero-type?" "I hope you're not afraid to work for your pay, Ziluan." "A sword for sale." He confirms to Natsuki with a brief nod, but his gaze drifts aside for a moment as he considers the topic of heroes. "I wouldn't know where to start becoming a hero if I wanted to." He's not even dressed like a proper hero, is he?  His clothes are ratty, his hair is dirty, and he's shown up for a job about finding old war records instead of doing something more noble! His horse isn't even his own, but one he found from a battlefield instead of raising and training himself. "No fear, Lady Nue. We'll find those records soon enough." And then Natsuki slurps that egg. Perhaps tellingly, Ziluan doesn't look worried one bit about what she's eating, nor even considered the possibility of her getting sick from it. Alas, century eggs hadn't been invented yet, so the most he gets is an idea on how to cook rather than a comparison point.
Ziluan	"If you want money, you might want to try and not destroy stuff to sell it, though." Looking over at the wrecked printers and killbots around along with the heavily dented launcher in his hand, Ziluan nods solemnly before setting it aside. "Noted. Thank you, Petra." That still leaves the question of WHICH things he should bring back with him to sell, he's already gotten at least one clue from Petra: The things he broke might be those same valuable things! which ones would it, be though...? It couldn't be the killbots. Something that aggressive could be useful for warmongers or people wanting to defend their homes, but those kinds of things couldn't possibly be useful in a place this peaceful. That would rule out the strange staff/RPG, too, being in a similar vein as the killbots. The records are off limits, too, since Petra needs them for the job itself, and she's already explained well enough that the previous owners wouldn't care much about these anymore. That just leaves the strange boxes/printers. If they were left intact, however, that would mean whatever's valuable about them isn't the shell. "Perhaps the innards..." Ziluan murmurs to himself with a thoughtful noise, remembering how one of them had burst apart when he threw it aside. When he comes across another intact all-in-one copier printer unit, he drags it out carefully so as to not damage whatever secrets it might be hiding, and carefully feels around its surface like a safecracker if the knob was an entire unpowered printer copier. It's just a matter of time until he's able to pry the cover open and pull open the tray, only to be met with more confounding parts on the top end and trays full of unused, yellowing copy paper on the bottom end. Remembering what Petra had said about the paper records earlier, he flips through the unused reams of paper in the machine briefly, but his search eventually takes him back to the top when he pulls out... The toner cartridge! He tucks that into a satchel, and just in time for- "GET DOWN!" No time to figure out where or why, just an order to follow. Without missing a beat, Ziluan reaches for Petra and Regulus, hand bouncing off Petra's dome before he just tries to toss Regulus to the ground behind Rosalyn and dropping himself to the ground as well. He's not sure why Riku shouted that warning until he hears the explosion from the rat grenade, but seeing the explosion and the burst of flame has his eyes going twice as wide as they've been this whole time. He's also staring at the explosion for a weirdly long time even after the dust clears, like he's just started disassociating or something.
Regulus	Regulus nods along to Petra getting into her job. She feels her job is similar, making it easier for Vertin. "Do you ever worry that..." Regulus begins. "Nah, no, nevermind." "I feel really bad for Shockwave!" Regulus admits. "Guy had his emotions ripped out, his personality erased, He can't even be upset about it, it's so fucked up!" She realizes, a little late, that Petra means the whole twenty year long mental gap but fortunately Regulus has reasons to feel weird and upset about that too. "Yeah!" She adds. "That sucks!" She doesn't get into the matter of the eternal conflict because she's hitting the deck and yelling fuck real loud. She'll need a minute before she can get back to searching because she needs to say fuck real loud a few more times.
Atoli	"Hey! Atoli. How about you keep an eye out for anything that looks interesting and let me or someone else take a look?"     "Right!"     Like she didn't just do the opposite of that!     Considering the EXPLOSION, contained or otherwise, she won't need to be told twice to scoot over a bit and stand behind Haseo.     She will also keep unsafely peeking over his shoulders, around him and, inevitably, wander off again.     "Eheh... you can be so kind, sometimes! It's a nice side of you, you know? It's a shame it takes so much work to get it to come out." "I love horses. I've honestly been looking into getting one."     "A castle? Like... a real, actual castle? I guess that would be a way to make sure you have enough space for a horse to live in... do you have, um, staff for it? Like servants? No, wait, does that mean you're sort of like a queen or a princess or some other title like that?"     She considers.     She begins to panic.     "I-I haven't been disrespectful or too casual with you if that's the case have I? I can adjust!"     She begins doing awful and toxic arithmetic in her mind. "We're basically friends-- right, Atoli? Aren't we friends?"     !     Thankfully she is quickly snapping right out of worrying too much! Atoli's smile widens and she nods, as cheerful as she's predictable. "Y-Yeah! After all, we're on a quest together!"     ... her bar for friendship might be... "They do, if they're meant for..."     One can easily imagine the tiny, wet-eyed chibi Atoli who gets progressively sadder and sadder as she hears about the woes of warhorses and, especially, this one! Ziluan, expertly, makes sure none of that happens.     "Gold Hare is such a pretty name! Can I um... when we're done here, could I... maybe just a bit... ride it? Would that be okay?" She's imposing! No!! NO!!! She laughs nervously and glances away, back at Petra. "I-It'd be a bother, probably, so, it's okay if not..."
Riku Asakura	BEFORE EXPLOSION 'I kind of feel bad for the guy, honestly. Shockwave.' Riku nods with Petra on this point.  "I do too, even if I am concerned about what he might want to do in this time of relative peace.  I'd be a hypocrite, though, if I didn't try to help him.  So... that's what I am going to do!" 'Besides, I vibe with his whole thing about eternal conflict and all.' Riku is, uh... less thrilled about this.  For reasons he stated already.   'It'll take time, but it sounds like he's in good hands.' "Well, I am going to do my best.  So is Petra, and I am sure others will want to chip in.  The life of a soldier can't be an easy one, right?" Riku, who is not a soldier, would not know! 'Guy had his emotions ripped out, his personality erased, He can't even be upset about it, it's so fucked up!' "I turned off the radio; did he say that?  Holy crap, that's... awful.  I guess it's even more important to help him." AFTER EXPLOSION Riku gets up from the ground and shakes himself off from the near-death experience.  When Petra asks what happened, he stands up and points at the room.  "I think I saw some critters in there; they had a grenade and pulled the pin.  I think they, uh... claimed that room.  It's okay; it's just full of old military gear anyway." He holds the box he pulled out to Petra. "See, just dead grenades and MREs and stuff like that.  I'm going to try a different door and hope that nothing explodes..." he says and, in fact, opens a new door.  This one he can actually walk around inside.  It seems to be filled with totes instead of boxes.  The plastic kind.
Lustre Team	'Noted. I'll be counting on you.'     Rosalyn smiles. Nimue frowns. "You're in good hands." she says.     'I... I'm not sure. My best guess is a warrior's, but I haven't found out which one it is yet.'     Rosalyn's smile turns Polite. "How is that? Is it that you've somehow lost your memories? People don't usually assume that they're from any house at all if they can't remember one."     'I mean, sure, but, it's really just a matter of time, right? I don't wanna miss my classes tomorrow, so I'm paying for help.'     The moment Rosalyn takes that specific expression and tone with Ziluan, Nimue somehow finds her way right back to Petra, standing unusually close behind her as she tries the next door. "Classes? What kind of classes~? I bet you're studying something incredible! Is it-- No it's not magic. But I'm still really curious about what kind of magic you use! But it's . . . let me guess . . . mmmmm . . . Archeology?"     'Her name's Oresnhika, or Nika for short. She's got-- hold on, what local tech are you familiar with? Like, electricity, computers?'     Rosalyn, who has no idea who Hiromi is, but intuits through context that someone with a long name that is approved of by someone who sounds vaguely important might matter, says "The Guildmistress has a computer. She uses it for work." She sounds very confident about this, despite describing nothing. "I have a phone. Nimue doesn't." Wait that says a lot actually. "I thought I might need one. Admittedly, I don't have much practice with it. I might just embarrass myself if I try to use it now." She's describing a phone to Petra like chopsticks to a Chinese local.     'Anyways, she didn't have many friends besides me for a long time-- not because she isn't nice, because she's really sweet and super funny, it's just circumstances--'     Rosalyn has to jump in front of beam going off, fired from a decrepit old raygun balanced precariously on stacked shelves. Nimue nods vigorously, clasping her hands together. "Isn't it sad? It's always like the circumstances are always happening to the sweetest girls. It's so, so important that girls like you are there to help give them those chances to finally break out of their shells and show them how much the world loves them. I'm behind you one-hundred percent!"     'Well, she's got a point, you know, Rosalyn. Knowing me is kind of a stroke of luck all on its own, so you've already been rewarded once. Networking wise, I mean. I'm known to make stuff happen.'     Nimue runs over to the explosion and starts fussing at everyone for an injury report. Rosalyn widens her eyes at Petra, then narrows them again. "Really? That's good to know. I'm sure everyone will be happy to hear that, back at the Guild. We're known to make things happen too." she says, cooly. "If you have any further requests, feel free to file them with our employer. I can give you the contact information right now, actually."     'Is A rank badass?'     "Mhm~ Only S rank is higher~" says Nimue, sidling up to Regulus now. "You know, we climbed up all the way from the bottom. Eight years! So you can pretty much rely on us to do anything~" She giggles are some stupid private joke, and repeats 'anything'.
Natsuki Nuki	In the aftermath of the egg, as Natsuki finishes off the encore of the jeweled eggshell and licks clean the tips of fingers, her eyes track over the continuing expanse of just raw stuff seeming to expand endlessly. It was sooooooooooo much? Like, way too much work. Focusing again, feeling the curse-drunken adaptation working through her and draining from sinuses like a headcold, Natsuki rolls head to look at Riku and the whole explosion situation. Outside the explosion comfortably enough she doesn't need to do more than be sort of hunched in cover as she is to only deal with the dust of the explosion. "You good?" She asks, more amused than anything else. Riku could test his power here! It was fine! Stepping over the crumple of papers and through the wreckage of shelves and storage bins, Natsuki rummages, looking for more suspect objects like the greediest of gobblers. It'd be nice if she found a fire safe or convenient box labelled 'FILES' but all the ones she keeps going for come from law firms and blacksites and not the right kind of storage. Some are just empty boxes with a slip of paper of all the inventory checked out! "What a dumping ground. . ." Natsuki summarizes bluntly, leafing through stacks and on the prowl. 'I'm definitely gonna have to hit you up about fashion stuff, Natsuki. I'm sick of cutting holes in my pants.' Locking in, Natsuki perks up, blinking away the crawling lettering forming nonsense sentences in the margins of her eyes. "Oh, and yours is so classic! You're going to be buying low ride everything forever, girl, be glad you've good shape for this. If you can make the tail play nice with the top of a low skirt, you're in business. Otherwise... Yeah, I know some needlepokes who can set you up." Natsuki premises vaguely, having had to do her own modifications long before she had her cursed grandeur. "Sometimes you're going to whap things, though. Even if it's got a head and eyes of its own." She councils, nodding sagely despite the object lesson already taking place. "Retro? Like... Jackets and boots and shorts over a bodysuit sort of retro-nwe or... what?" 'A sword for sale.' "Okay, Mr. Quick-Money. I will happily pay you - what's your price? What's a payment, to you?" Natsuki asks, suddenly interested.
Lustre Team	'Lilian really looks out for all of then huh.'     'That's because she's amazing. There's no one better.'     Nimue glances back over her shoulder. Rosalyn is in the middle of bashing a killbot to death. She glances at Petra, then Regulus, then Petra, then Regulus, and says, mood suddenly surreptitious, "Who's that? You all have such a complex and nuanced culture, haha~ Oh I can hardly keep track . . ." She sighs.     'Besides, I vibe with his whole thing about eternal conflict and all. I think that's cool.'     The minute Nimue rushes off to loudly whine that she 'can't use curse removal yet' about the whole evil egg thing, Rosalyn says, "Have you considered the royal army? Or whatever the equivalent is, here? It looks good on a resume."     'I have more obvious shapes. I've dressed down, so you're forgiven. I've not heard of the Blue Moons either, so now we've met.'     "Oh? I guess we're quite far out of the way, out here." says Rosalyn. "The Blue Moon guild is one of the elite guilds recognized by throne. It's been around for more than a hundred years. We wouldn't be here on official business, just for something like this, so I understand why you'd be dressed down too." It seems like she thinks there's a wavelength here, right before her sorting through boxes causes a horrid little gribbly mass of tangled wires to jump up and try to grab her face.     'So~o flavorful'     "Oh gods . . ." Nimue gasps, popping her head up from behind a fortress of shitty filing cabinets, looking as if she'd gotten secondhand high, and breathing heavily to go with it.     'Hey! Atoli. How about you keep an eye out for anything that looks interesting and let me or someone else take a look? I'd rather not limit test what happens if we get blown the hell up.'     Rosalyn gives Atoli a look. "He's your guildmaster? Really? He acts like a common labourer." "Rosa! Look! I found matching necklaces!"
Haseo	"We've met several times"     "We're basically friends-- right, Atoli?"      "We met like twice, and we've never met in person? What? Are you the kind of person who considers yourself familiar with someone just because you partied with them once?"      Haseo says that, and then immediately realizes he's at least passingly familiar with 90% of the people he's partied with. But that's because he doesn't play with other people that much.      "Y-Yeah! After all, we're on a quest together!"      Haseo just rubs his temple and sighs as Atoli basically says the thing that he was making fun of Petra for. Well. At least he didn't tack on calling her a freak like the original draft of that sentence in his head. Atoli is right, he can be so kind sometimes.      His exasperation is short lived at the sound of the explosion, however, as he immediately rushes over to stand in front of Atoli, a reflex he picked up from dungeoning and the arena. Thankfully, it seems to have been contained, but it doesn't stop Haseo from visibly frowning as he crosses his arms.      "So. I didn't care before but I guess I should start caring a little. Why does this dumbass Union have a death bunker?"      He's your guildmaster? Really? He acts like a common labourer."      "Yeah. Sorry about that. I don't do the whole roleplay thing."
Atoli	"I have a phone. Nimue doesn't."     "Oh... the first few months when I got my first phone I kept taking forever to respond to texts! And if I tried going as fast as everyone else I'd make tons of mistakes. But! It's okay! It's a skill you learn really fast. And besides it's so useful to be able to ask Google things!" "Mhm~ Only S rank is higher~"     "Oh wow... so you're like, almost the best? Are the other two members who couldn't make it also rank A? Ah but eight years though that's... that's such a long time! You must have had so many adventures! I bet you have stories to tell for days!"     Be careful, she'll want to hear them all! "He's your guildmaster? Really? He acts like a common labourer."     "He can be a bit..."     Atoli looks at Haseo.     Then back to Rosalyn.     "On-edge?" It's a pun! She's so happy with it. "Yeah. Sorry about that. I don't do the whole roleplay thing."     "Haseo!!"     She's not going to be making the impression any better.     "You should be nice to them! They're from guilds too, you know? They must be really busy and in high-demand, and they still took the time to come here!"     Atoli huffs and puffs and mostly just stares at Haseo.     She has no menace and no aura.     "You never know when guild-to-guild networking might help you out in the future! Moon Tree has a few allied guilds for example! It's good to keep cordial relationships for bigger events."     It's really for the best that this has caused her to miss Natsuki SCHLURPING THAT EGG. She would be horrified and also worried and also probably disgusted all at once.
Lustre Team	'Oh, and yours is so classic! You're going to be buying low ride everything forever, girl, be glad you've good shape for this. If you can make the tail play nice with the top of a low skirt, you're in business.'     Nimue sighs. "I know you must have it really hard, but sometimes I kind of can't help but being a little jealous of having ears and tails like that. Is that bad? I hope it isn't. I really admire it . . ."     'A sword for sale.'     "Ah. That's disappointing." This time Rosalyn loses interest.     'A castle? Like... a real, actual castle? I guess that would be a way to make sure you have enough space for a horse to live in... do you have, um, staff for it? Like servants?'     And then regains it. "Oh! How did you acquire it? From family?"     'Yeah. Sorry about that. I don't do the whole roleplay thing.'     Nimue instantly makes a face. Rosalyn is stricken silent, until Nimue interposes herself between her and Haseo, and says "Act normal." in her sourest tones.
Ziluan	"Gold Hare is such a pretty name!" Ziluan's feeling just a smidge proud of having come up with that one the fly, but there's a deep sense of foreboding he can't put his finger on yet. "Can I um..." The feeling gets stronger. Has he made a mistake? "when we're done here, could I... maybe just a bit... ride it?"")] Mistakes have been made. Not because Atoli wants to ride the horse, since he answers her question with a light nod and "Y... Yes. This one was trained well not to be startled by new riders." It's not a lie, because he knows the kinds of training war horses are put through. No, it's knowing that someone is probably expecting to see this horse again, and that means this horse is no longer expendable. Losing it would just be that much more painful, then, but he'll manage. He has to manage. "Have you ridden a horse before?" "Is it that you've somehow lost your memories?" Rosalyn gets a nod from Ziluan, and he gestures at the patterns on his sword's handguard before drawing it in an underhand grip to hold it up for easier viewing. "Most weapons I've seen since awakening have simpler guards than this. If this wasn't a personal item or a reward, then..." He takes a longer moment to think about it, and the other possibilities that come to mind have him letting out a slightly nonplussed once the other ways of getting something this fancy start to filter through. "... Theft, or banditry." Still a little troubled by realizing those other possibilities, he looks back up at Rosalyn once he sheathes the weapon. "What would you guess, Lady Rispada?" "what's your price? What's a payment, to you?" Natsuki puts him on the spot! Not knowing what's used as currency in this world yet nor how much of it is worth anything, Ziluan- "I don't know." -answers right away! It wouldn't make sense to be dishonest or evasive for something like this to avoid hurting anyone's feelings, so he doesn't. Also, because it helps takes his mind off being traumatized by seeing an explosion for some reason he can't quite grasp just yet. He also really doesn't want to grasp why seeing that had him sweating like that. Instead, he just gets right back up and dusts himself off, although he's still sweating more than before. "I'm unfamiliar with the currency of this region. For a job like this and the payment offered as a favor than money, I'd assume a fair amount would be a day or two's lodging and meals." "Oh! How did you acquire it? From family?" Once again, Ziluan's caught between a rock and a hard place! He doesn't want to lie to Rosalyn, but he also doesn't want to break Atoli's heart by just saying he found it on a battlefield where its previous owner probably died. Instead... "It was lost when I found it. I wasn't able to locate its owner after searching for some time-" Did he kill its previous owner? There's no way for him to know, but there's no way to deny that. "-so I started to care for it and... It's been with me ever since." 'Gold Hare', meanwhile, just looks kind of bored hanging around at that parking pole. It's trained well enough not to wander around too much, at least, content to circle around the pole a few times idly and not jumping once. Even the explosion didn't shake it up!
Lustre Team	'Oh... the first few months when I got my first phone I kept taking forever to respond to texts! And if I tried going as fast as everyone else...'     Nimue is here again! To relitigate this topic! "Do you think you could teach me? I'm a fast learner! Rosa thinks I can't handle it, but we can't call each other with just one phone, so you'd be a huge help!" she rambles, getting closer and closer by the second.     'Oh wow... so you're like, almost the best? Are the other two members who couldn't make it also rank A?'     "Exactly! I'm going to make it to S rank before you know it! And so is Rosalyn! Then we'll be an S-Rank Team and everyone will be fighting for the slots!" She's still getting closer. Even when she sighs "Ah . . . Then maybe Isa or Arda will want to stay . . . or both?!" She doesn't speak Japanese, but it felt like there were a couple of 'chan's implicit in there.     'On-edge?'     "Oh I don't care about him." Nimue says. She is now in Rosalyn's way, who stares in open-mouthed offense that this somehow happened. "Tell me about you!"     'You should be nice to them! They're from guilds too, you know? They must be really busy and in high-demand, and they still took the time to come here!'     Rosalyn makes a snooty sound of self-satisfaction. "We are. You're actually quite lucky to cross paths with us under such casual circumstances, you know." she says. "It seems your guild isn't quite as . . . predisposed towards order and formality as ours, but I'm certainly curious about the big guilds 'across the pond'." "There's a guy in charge." "Yes I noticed." "They can't be that big. Atoli should just join us instead." "What? No!"     'Most weapons I've seen since awakening have simpler guards than this. If this wasn't a personal item or a reward, then...'     Her expression screams 'Oh shit, I was right?'. Rosalyn blinks back incredulity, coughs, smooths out her hair, and says "I wouldn't want to venture a guess when I still know so little about your homeland. Even though I wouldn't be at fault whatsoever for making an incorrect guess, it wouldn't befit a professional Blue Moon to make such a trifling mistake."
Petra Soroka	"Gold Hare."     Petra had considered a long internal tangent about the alternative type of horse owner, emblematized by Sue, who doesn't name their horse at all and sees it as a companion in war. This isn't a type of person she's particularly close to, sentimentally seeing horses more like pets, but it *is* one she's familiar with. And so, with this information on her mind, she narrows her eyes at Ziluan's oddly long hesitation, and....     "Cute! That's a cute name!" Yay! "Oh, Atoli, you also have to cool them down manually a lot, because they can get overheated way more easily than people." "No, wait, does that mean you're sort of like a queen or a princess or some other title like that?"     "It makes me something," Petra doesn't actually want to elaborate on that, because, like, 'princess' is such loaded language, but there's no way in hell Petra could ever be a 'queen'. Whenever she has to, she just says 'ruler', but that doesn't really convey much status either! Leaving it ambiguous also serves to make Atoli more uncertain and sweaty, which is good.     "I'm just Petra, though. I don't even tell my subjects to call me anything different." "Can I um... when we're done here, could I... maybe just a bit... ride it?"     Petra pops her head out of the room she's searching through, like a mom overhearing a conversation between kids. Insistently, "You have to let her ride it. Or else you aren't being nice."     She might've gaslit herself a little bit, by trying to gaslight Atoli into saying they're friends.     After the explosion, Petra forms a little fan out of her morphmetal, blowing the smoke away as she rejoins the others. Noticing Ziluan's shellshocked expression, she helpfully explains just a little too late, "That's a bomb, by the way." "I think they, uh... claimed that room. It's okay; it's just full of old military gear anyway."     There's really no coherent sorting algorithm to the rooms at all. Most of the time, things lumped together in rooms are at least similar along one axis, or logically collected from the same location, but it doesn't hold strictly true at all. So, it's entirely possible that there's something important behind the critter barrier.     Petra looks down at the box, then at the scorch mark. "Yeah, okay. Let's leave them to it."     There's staircases to go up too, four floors in total, with hundreds of rooms on each floor. Going up a floor has an omnipresent spicy smell to it, like whiskey, from something that must have exploded somewhere else. Possibly relatedly, little fiery spirits duck in and out of every crevice, or potentially lurk behind closed doors in massive spiderlike nests, acting like disturbed bees for being investigated. "But it's . . . let me guess . . . mmmmm . . . Archeology?"     "That's-- *so* close, actually, to my interests, at least. I'm studying journalism, because I feel like it's a super underrated skill in the whole, world-trotter hero for hire environment we've got out here? I've only ever studied magic as a side thing, because of... it's kind of complicated for me at all."
Petra Soroka	The fact that Petra only seems to get chattier and more relaxed, rather than anxious, when Nimue sidles up way too close to her, suggests very poor things about her sense of boundaries and emotional stability. She keeps her perfectly casual tone while lifting up the next door one-handedly, talking way more than she's actually asked. "It's so, so important that girls like you are there to help give them those chances to finally break out of their shells and show them how much the world loves them."     "Well, I can't take all the credit, or even most, but the whole circle of friends around her are all really important to me too. Really," Petra giggles at a private joke, "The world was the one thing she didn't need to be convinced loved her." "I thought I might need one. Admittedly, I don't have much practice with it."     Rosalyn gets half as much attention to her responses at best, being farther than two feet away from Petra. "Oh, so that kind of tech's imported multiversally? I guess that's not too uncommon nowadays. That makes sense." "If you have any further requests, feel free to file them with our employer. I can give you the contact information right now, actually."     "Oh, that'd be great. Go ahead." Petra gives Rosalyn the confirmation before even pulling out her phone, with the Silver hovering around her pocket to give her a direct line. "That'd be your Guildmistress, right? What's she like?" "If you can make the tail play nice with the top of a low skirt, you're in business."     "Oh shit, yeah, the one I *didn't* have to cut through were my elastic low rise pants. I could just get a bunch of those-- oh, but there's no way I'll ever wear a skirt. I feel like-- you know, the silhouette? I think I've gotta get *baggier* pants too, to really lean into the whole, triangle type broadness-distribution. You know?"     Stream of consciousing her fashion thoughts, Petra looks over her shoulder to Natsuki for confirmation and then double takes. "Woah-- cool, actually. Your eyes? What was in that egg thing?"
Petra Soroka	"Jackets and boots and shorts over a bodysuit sort of retro-nwe or... what?"     "I'm thinking 'bout *mechs*. And for you, it's gotta be-- it's gotta be kinda organic *inspired*, right? And seeing Fukuide's big transformed form, and stuff like, what Ohma Zi-O was spinning up, I feel like you're along *that* track. In terms of shape. Big flat broad shoulders, the bulky straight lines and trapezoids and stuff, organic shape-- right? You get it?"     Petra is attempting to conjure up the image of White Tiger Thunderzord from first principles, as Natsuki's most ideal mech-type. Incidentally, this is basically an identical body type to the Beauty of Ash. "Who's that? You all have such a complex and nuanced culture, haha~"     "Who's Lilian?" Petra perks up again to Nimue. That's one of her favorite words! So much so that she pretty much glosses over everything else Nimue said. "Dame Commander Lilian Rook, Paladins Chevalier, Immunes commander, Trideag Association's director-- she's, um, a knight in the Paladins, and one of the coolest, most reliable, kindest, most-- like, everything, people in the sector. Also my--" She hesitates an amount of time exactly long enough to glance back down at her t-shirt, which is also what she's thinking in her head. "Fffriend." "Have you considered the royal army?"     Petra puts a finger to her cheek, seriously thinking through the suggestion. Or, at least, she's imagining how nice it would've been to be *Queen Liliana's* royal knight, and the intervening time returning to Cinnuint.     After a bit, she says, "... Oh, but I kind of made my own royal army myself. And really, I'm getting headhunted more often than I'm putting out resumes, nowadays." "Yeah. Sorry about that. I don't do the whole roleplay thing."     Her whole demeanor shifts instantly when Haseo talks sooo derisively to Rosalyn, as if he has any fucking right in the world. She crosses her arms and scoffs, drawing out her words like they physically pain her.     "Goddddd! Do you *get off* on this? Are you *begging* to be cringe? You know this is *real life*, don't you, you fucking slopbrained gamer? Roleplay having *taste* for once."
Lustre Team	'It makes me something'     A glowing red circle appears in the center of Petra's hitbox. Metaphorically. She could have sworn Nimue was in Atoli's personal space, not hers, and yet, "Mhm~? Com~pli~ca~ted? Let me guess! It has something to do with that 'mistress'~?" She glances suggestively at Petra's shirt no less than four times.     Rosalyn hears the word 'subjects', and errs cautiously on "Very well. Just Petra, then." while gently trying to pull Nimue away from her. The two of them are very good at being subtle about fighting over proximity from Petra, up until they eventually aren't. It's like a rehearsed talent.     'That's-- *so* close, actually, to my interests, at least.'     Nimue giddy-giggles. Her stare is somehow both vacuous and sparkly at the same time. "Oh wow! You're chronicling adventures! That's so cool! Oh, oh! If you're interested in magic, I can help! I'm told I'm a very good teacher~" Rosalyn's eyes say 'nobody says that', but she keeps her mouth shut now, after hearing about the castle. Even when she gives her a big wet glitter-eyed "Awwwww!!" at the comment about Nika.     'Oh, so that kind of tech's imported multiversally? I guess that's not too uncommon nowadays. That makes sense.'     "More so in the last ten or fifteen years than before." Rosalyn says, trying to sound world-wise. "I wasn't that interested at first, but your economy has really come a long way! I'm really impressed with some of your craftsmanship." Who? The entire Multiverse?     'That'd be your Guildmistress, right? What's she like?'     "She's--" "Such a baddie! Like you have no idea--" "--a retired S-Rank Adventurer herself. She's . . . She knows how to delegate." "I want her to call me a--" "You'll like, her, actually. I'm sure. Here's the number."     'Dame Commander Lilian Rook, Paladins Chevalier, Immunes commander, Trideag Association's director-- she's, um, a knight in the Paladins, and one of the coolest, most reliable, kindest, most--'     Nimue wiggles even closer than Petra's phone. "Knight?! Wow! What a coincidence!! You know, Rosa used to be in the royal army! Her whole family is knighted! Don't you think we'd all have so much to talk about?" Rosalyn opens her mouth, obviously torn, squeezing out the words, "I . . . f, she's, that big of a name, here, then--"     'Fffriend.'     She looks straight off to the side. "I'll pass." "Oh come onnnnnn! Rosaaaaaaa! It'll be like a double--" "In literally what way?!" "Don't get maaaaad! I just want you to make more friends!"     'Roleplay having *taste* for once.'     Nimue may actually be telepresent. She somehow has her arms out in front of Rosalyn and Petra, railing them off from Haseo, despite having just been wheedling between them. "Yeah! Gods! Nobody wants to hear it, you ogre!"
Atoli	"Have you ridden a horse before?"     "Only once! We did a school trip and there were these ponies..." A pony isn't really a horse! Riding a pony in a little safe coop isn't the same as riding a horse! This is a BIG WARHORSE! Atoli crumples at how she feels this makes her sound, all of a sudden. "... I guess not, huh? It's okay if we don't move or go anywhere, I'm just a bit curious what it's like." "It was lost when I found it."     She lights up again. "So you saved it? That's so...!" Right? RIGHT? Atoli, giddy, happily hops up and down a bit, in a way that's slightly restricted by the staff she's holding but just mobile enough she's a bumping-someone-with-the-staff risk if people don't mind themselves. "You're like people who find birds with broken wings and make them little splints and take care of them but for horses!" That's highly specific and a bit self-praising. "Was it your first time? Have you taken care of a lot of horses before?" "Oh, Atoli, you also have to cool them down manually a lot,"     "Really? Is it because they're so big and have so much muscle?" You can't hit her with animal trivia like that that's cheating! "I'm just Petra,"     "Okay!" Oh thank GOD. Atoli's stress goes down. "You have to let her ride it. Or else you aren't being nice."     She's staring at Ziluan with those wet puppy eyes now. "Do you think you could teach me? I'm a fast learner!"     "I'd be happy to! It's really not that complicated once you get started, but it's a bit scary at first! And then it's like... how did I ever live without this, right?" "Ah . . . Then maybe Isa or Arda will want to stay . . . or both?!"     "Stay...?" Atoli tilts her head, wondering about that phrasing. Guild drama? Poaching? Playstyles too different? "Are things not going well?" And now she's being a bit nosy! "Tell me about you!"     "Oh, me? Well... I guess there's not that much to say, I'm a bit..." Bland? Uninteresting? Boring? She cycles through the words and considers saying all three. "I'd never be able to say anything half as cool as a rank A adventurer. Really, I only started pla--" DON'T SAY PLAYING THE GAME. "--taking it seriously recently. Um, despite all his flaws, it was actually thanks to Haseo. He taught me the basics, kind of!"     The most interesting thing she can think to say about herself is that Haseo made her less boring. Welp. "They can't be that big. Atoli should just join us instead."     "Ah, how many members is it... w-well, my main guild, Moon Tree, has about one thousand members! But Canard, um... well it's..." Oh she's playing with numbers under her breath and it's certainly under a thousand! Under a hundred! Under ten, even! "... Canard is still new and growing! Haseo is doing his best, despite how he acts!"
Atoli	"Do you *get off* on this? Are you *begging* to be cringe?"     "O-Oh, he's... it's..."     Stress! BARS EMPTYING.     Atoli struggles finding the correct words to interject, takes a few steps back, and then just falls a bit quiet at the hostility. It's not even directed at her! It's...     "Mm?"     What IS that tone? No, no, not a voice tone.     A single note. Ringing in her ear.     The cleric shuffles away, turning a corner and another past the rows and rows of locked doors and units.     "This one...?"     THUNK. That staff is so useful as a lever, especially if she casts an attack buff first. The rust and damage sure helps.     A few moments pass, during which Haseo is running afoul of women, as he does, before Atoli, having disappeared, raises her voice to summon Petra. "Petra! I think I found something less depressing than the last one!" Low bar, but it's worth a look?
Lustre Team	'You're like people who find birds with broken wings and make them little splints and take care of them but for horses!'     "Like a woman, you mean." Nimue frowns. "Come on. He's a mercenary. He totally just did that because it's convenient."     'I'd be happy to!'     "Yay! Oh gosh! Don't tell Rosa okay? It'll be out little secret!" She actually grabs Atoli's hands now, bouncing up and down. "And a girl has to have her secrets, right~?"     'Are things not going well?'     "No no, it's fine!" Nimue says. Rosalyn now has to intervene for the sake of their professional image. First by pinching the side of Nimue's neck, so she flinches and grabs it with her hand, thus letting go of Atoli with a little 'ow!', then by saying "The Blue Moon Guild is undergoing a very big expansion right now. A lot of restructuring is underway, and experienced personnel are being juggled around. Lustre Team has been around for years, so we aren't being merged anywhere else; we just have to wait for the chips to settle." she pauses. "But personally, I'm hoping for someone from Burnish Team." "Huh? No way. Halo Team." "You're so . . ."     'Um, despite all his flaws, it was actually thanks to Haseo. He taught me the basics, kind of!'     "Honey, forget everything he said! If you need to know about adventuring, I'll tell you!" Nimue says, leaning so close into Atoli's face that she can faintly smell her lip gloss. The low contrast between her pupil and iris is sort of eerie like this.     'Ah, how many members is it... w-well, my main guild, Moon Tree, has about one thousand members!'     Rosalyn spins around. Her battle skirt clips a doorway. "How many? Are-- Are you counting subcontracted guilds, or?"     '... Canard is still new and growing! Haseo is doing his best, despite how he acts!'     "Ick! Bleck! Ew! So you're not even in his guild?! You're just there for charity?! Girl he is using you! Next he's going to be telling you to make him sandwiches!"
Haseo	"You should be nice to them!"      "You know this is *real life*"      Haseo just tilts his head at the reactions he's getting. The hell is their problem!? They act like he murdered their cat or something.      "I am being nice! And of course I know this is real life! Why the hell do you think I said I don't roleplay?!"      He thinks he gets where the commucation breakdown happened the more he thinks about. They think he's making fun of those two by implying their whole guild is some sort of larp when the people he was really making fun of aren't even here. It's also just true, he comes off as a common laborer because he is one. He works retail. But who the hell openly admits that? The other alternative is they just don't like his tone, which he can't do anything about.      He can do something about the former however, but the answer is will he? Can he say sorry to a woman? No. The answer is no. He would rather die slowly from guilt and playing hypothetical apologies in his head than give a genuine 'sorry' immediately. His usually stern face softens for a few seconds at that realization, before he's able to grab hold of the part of him that cares and bury it.      Yeah! Gods! Nobody wants to hear it, you ogre!"      Getting yelled at and name called, even if deserved, is all he needs to justify the shitty part of him that thinks being an asocial loser is a valid response. He's just going to keep quiet from now on and-      "Girl he is using you! Next he's going to be telling you to make him sandwiches!"      "No I wouldn't!? I know how to cook for myself, why the he-"      Haseo huffs. The cooking thing is completely wrong, he never wants to see Atoli in real life for a lot of reasons currently. Can't really deny that he's been using her though, even if a lot of the time it feels like it backfires and he gets swept up in her plans sometimes. Man. He'd really like the shitty gamer part of him to have a win tonight.      Defeated, he just crosses his arms again and turns around to sulk.
Lustre Team	'I am being nice! And of course I know this is real life! Why the hell do you think I said I don't roleplay?!'     Nimue takes a deep breath, gets up on her tippy-toes, cups her hands around her mouth, and hollers "Shu~t u~p cree~p!"     'No I wouldn't!? I know how to cook for myself, why the he-'     Rosalyn . . . puts her hand on Haseo's shoulder. Well, she moves to, and then thinks better about it. She hoverhands two inches away like he smells bad. "I think you should give up on this one." she says.
Petra Soroka	"Let me guess! It has something to do with that 'mistress'~?"     Petra puts her hands up defensively, following Nimue's looks down at her chest and then back up at her face. "Hydrochoeria? No, no, I conquered that myself. No, *she*...."     Petra has now put 'conquer' and Lilian right next to each other in her mind, and can't finish her sentence, especially after having had a conversation with Lilian about that exact word already. Failing to spark any kind of concluding current to that thought, Petra instead defaults to the answer she can always give. "Well, everything I do has to do with her, anyways."     A minute later, after Nimue is dislodged from her, Petra considers whether she should've so immediately copped to 'mistress' that she didn't even notice the word. "If you're interested in magic, I can help! I'm told I'm a very good teacher~"     Over the course of a couple hours of knowing Lustre Team, Petra has mastered the skill of glancing at the one who isn't talking to her like they're the camera and she's Jim from Office. She silently acknowledges Rosalyn's misgivings, and proceeds to say anyways, "Uh, really? And that's just all healing magic, right? I've actually sort of got healing... magic myself, but it's hard to actually see." "You'll like, her, actually. I'm sure. Here's the number."     The two switch places. Petra side-eyes Nimue while saying, "Cool, thanks. I'll see about hitting her up sometime." "Oh come onnnnnn! Rosaaaaaaa! It'll be like a double--"     Petra snickers with an impolite "pffff-" out of the corner of her mouth. Though... it kind of would've been nice to do a double... date? Oh god, but Lilian would probably recoil from the term 'double date' too, wouldn't she? And then Petra would look like *Nimue*!     "So-- uh, Royal Army, huh? Was that your resume to get into the Blue Moon Guild?" "Petra! I think I found something less depressing than the last one!"     Petra's gotten distracted from searching at all for the past few minutes, between Rosalyn, Nimue, and bullying Haseo. When Atoli calls out, Petra realizes she's totally lost track of her, and scurries after in an instinctual urge to not leave the healer alone. The seemingly random storage space picked out of many holds....     An unassuming box, filed away among many similar, full of papers that have gone stiff and dry with time. She and Atoli pull it out, and sure enough, inside is a documentation of Union artifacts from 'APU-ART', for 'Ariamis, Painting of'.     Petra pulls out the thick folder, complete with some photographs of the giant snowy painting, and documentation on its effect and the world that lies behind it. There's a lot of photos, inside and out, of what it was like nearly twenty years ago, which may be exactly what Petra's client is after.     "No shit, you actually found it. Was that divination of some kind, or something? Alright, let's just nab whatever else we want and go, hell yeah."
Haseo	"I think you should give up on this one."      Haseo just quietly accepts the hover hand rather than try to move away and nods. God knows it's what he deserves. He debates opening his mouth to agree with Rosalyn, and does briefly, but decides to just take his L in silence.
Lustre Team	'Hydrochoeria? No, no, I conquered that myself. No, *she*....'     Nimue waits with bated breath, eyebrows way, way up.     'Well, everything I do has to do with her, anyways.'     "Yeah?! Yeah?!" Nimue pauses just to squeal. "I knew it!"     'Uh, really? And that's just all healing magic, right?'     "That's right. She's--" "No! Nono! I can fix things too! And-- um-- I can-- I can cast 'sleep'! And 'hold person'! And--" She starts counting off her fingers. "And 'stun' and 'fascinate' and 'hallucination' and 'grasping shadow' and 'tendrils of--'" "None of which she needs, I presume. She appears to be very accomplished, Nimue. You observed it yourself."     'Cool, thanks. I'll see about hitting her up sometime.'     Nimue bites her lip like Petra is being let in on a saucy little secret.     'So-- uh, Royal Army, huh? Was that your resume to get into the Blue Moon Guild?'     Rosalyn stiffens up all of a sudden. You could almost swear she want a little paler. She sniffs impatiently, turning her chin, closing one eye and only half-opening the other, as if the question were slightly insulting. "It didn't hurt. But the Blue Moon Guild is a very serious organization. No one gets in without a full evaluation, during the yearly intake, overseen by no less than four S-Rank Adventurers and the Guildmistress herself." "Yeah! It's so hard! It took me five years to get in! Rosalyn did it first try!" "Mm, be that as it may, I wouldn't want to misrepresent things by making it sound easy~" The tonal switch is comically blatant.     'No shit, you actually found it. Was that divination of some kind, or something?'     "Yayyy! Wow, you're amazing!" Nimue says, somehow unclear as to whether she's glazing Petra or Atoli, despite physically applauding. "So the job is done right? So we can keep these necklaces!" "Didn't you want a favour?" "I'm saving that until we can 'double up'~" "When the hells freeze over." "Don't say that! Here! Isn't it pretty?"
Lustre Team	With the need to tank explosions and wild chemistry finally over, Rosalyn relents with a little sigh. Holding up a very pretty pendant, she comments "Oh, it's actually just my colour." and decides to try it on against her breastplate; which causes Nimue to hasten and try and do the same in synchronicty with hers.     Which produces the sound of two voices speaking at nearly the same time.     "APU-ART, Ariamis, Painting of, header bar, Njorun Vault entry number 1-1-0-0-4-8-2-9-3-7-1-2-1-9-6-4-1 dash form omega two. Page one. Physical description. Framed painting of dimensions--"     "APU-ART, Ariamis, Painting of, header bar, Njorun Vault entry number 1-1-0-0-4-8-2-9-3-7-1-2-1-9-6-4-1 dash form omega two. Page one. Physical description. Framed painting of dimensions--"     "Oh gods. What kind of lazy bastard made a pendant just to read off forms for--"     "H-haha. Um. Rosalyn? It's not coming off."     "What? Did it--"     "Ha . . ."     "No."     "Yeah . . ."     "No!"     "Yup."     "Again?!"     "Yuhuh."     "Why?!"     "Ah . . . um . . . hehe~"     "It's been one week Nimue! One week! One!"     "T-tada~"