Return of the Emblem Chapter Ten: Converging Destinies

[Eail]

Luka

Oh, so Mushirah wanted to map out parts of Ursium? Well he could help with that certainly, maybe not the Weyland Enterprises part though, someone having too much information on that might give it to some rather..... unsavory individuals. But at the very least he could help out with her mapping otherwise. "Well uh, I suppose I can help out if it's all right...."

[Snowy_One]

Robin shook her head. "What is a 'geek'? Is that Kiganese for something? And I do not understand. If my father or mother died I would be very sad and would want my friends to be there for me to help me through the hard time. Why would Zach want something different?"

[roymbrog]

Well, that hadn’t gone as badly as he expected. Valter had no objections. “Alright, I’ll meet you in the galley,” he replied, and headed for the door. Once out on deck he walked to the stables to pick something up before going to the galley, where there was a surprisingly large amount of people…

[GoD]

"Don't try and think about what that means, you'll just get an unnecessary headache from it all."- Cheslea explained with a wry grin on her face.

"Anyways, I can understand your sentiments Robin, but if Zach wants to mourn in his own special way there's not much you can do. Well, the point I'm trying to make is.... well don't worry, sooner or later Zach will realize what he's done and come rushing back to apologize. Then again guys are thickheaded aren't they?"- Chelsea concluded her explanation with these words and decided to wait for Robin's reply.

"Come to think of it, I may as well help Boss lady with the merchant set-up. Maybe I'll buy some armor....ah so annoying, it's not cute at all."

[Mercakete]

Once Valter left, Norbert shifted his focus entirely to keeping his balance without having to hold onto something. Then, he began walking around. He was a bit clumsy at first, but eventually he could stand and walk fairly normally. Then, he went right up to the doctor who'd been asleep the entire time since the pegasus rider had awoken.

For a moment, he just stood there, looking at the man somewhat perplexedly. He sure is a heavy sleeper... Then, he spoke up. "Hey."

[Snowy_One]

"People are thick-headed, both men and women, for sometimes silly reasons too." said Robin with a mild groan. "And I hope so. I do not want to lose a friend simply because one of us took a message the wrong way, but I do not know how to approach him now. People are not my thing. Hunting and animals are what I know best. Not making up to people whom I have unwittingly offended."

[Script]

A Man Called Gar

Gar's directionless wanderings carved a half-decent map of some of the more key locations of the Prometheus into his head. Unfortunately none of those locations were the galley. So naturally grumbling about it mentally meant the next major room he uncovered was, of course, the galley. He wondered if he should be mad about that, or abuse the power of grumbling for personal gain and he settled on both.

Silly thoughts, aside, Gar took a quick measure of the area looking for people of interest. Raquel was already in the middle of something with a gaggle of others. That looked like fun so Gar headed over. He sat at a different nearby table though, the other one was too crowded for his tastes. "Good morning folks," Gar intruded into their conversation like a jackass. "How's it going?"

[Snike]

Guard duty it was, at least, judging by Reign's comment, and the discussion that ensued when Shadrak and Veronika arrived at the table. The Rexian brought up the idea of staff combat, which, of course, was immediately shot down by Raquel, as she was too physically weak to use one. That would have to be addressed in Blake's response, which he was now beginning to formulate. Before he could speak, however, Veronika suggested that the merchant stay in the Dauntless- an idea that, unknown to the Skotian, Reign had already mentioned earlier on in the conversation. Raquel reacted in a similar way as to how she reacted before the ship battle, except she elaborated a bit more on why she needed to fight. Reign then explained that he'd be acting as Raquel's personal guard, a fact which shocked the girl. Since the discussion was dying down, Blake decided to voice his opinion, before the subject was closed.

... Or not, since Gar just jumped into the conversation. Oh well. His input probably wasn't going to help things, anyways.

[roymbrog]

With table options being either Synthia and Luka, Raquel and her satellites, or Gar, it wasn’t that surprising when Valter took a seat next to Synthia. “Good morning,” he greeted those present. The small bag he had was placed on the table, which caught her attention.

“No,” Synthia said simply, being generally unhelpful as to no what, but she apparently didn’t feel like clarifying.

Valter understood, or at least he thought he did. “I wasn’t going to ask you anyway.”

[Phoenix]

Main Deck

"Oh, a mariner? So I guess that means ya made a deal with the captain then? No real problems then, I s'pose. Be sure to mention that to the quartermaster if he shows up, though," the sailor warned, as he continued his work.

Infirmary

The doctor wasn't responsive, at least not to a simple 'hey'.

Kitchen

Leaning over to check Rook's progress, she realized one of the stews was done. She stopped scaling the fish and stepped in a little. "This one's definitely done," she informed him, leaving him with only the other two to keep an eye on, one of which was only just getting started and looked like a vegetable stew or something. Either that or she hadn't added the beef yet. It seemed likely that that one was going to be the fish stew at this rate and that she wouldn't have to go with three individual beef stews like she originally planned. She took the finished pot off of the stove and set it aside for the moment. "Okay I think we're making some good progress here. Hopefully they won't have to wait too much longer," she said with a nervous smile.

Meeting

"Good morning, Gar," Raquel greeted in a slightly discouraged tone. The discussion at hand wasn't really one she wanted to have and she couldn't even focus on mending her clothing anymore.

Reign decided to elaborate on the situation. "We're discussing our options for keeping Raquel safe in battles. So far all we have is me acting as a human shield and her flailing about I guess."

Raquel glanced at Reign looking offended. "Look, what happened last night isn't going to happen ever again. I'll find a way to protect myself, but it would take me too long to get good with a staff and I'll probably end up hurting myself with a gun," she asserted.

"You know what would be really nice?" Shadrak chimed in. "It'd be really nice if that little monkey of yours would defend you and not just your merchandise."

"I'm not sure where Chip is, actually," Raquel admitted. "Maybe the Dauntless? He wasn't in my bag when I checked it last."

"You didn't leave him in Chousokabe did you?"

"Gods, I hope not ..."

Marksmen

"That's it ... just like that," Anna said as she held Chip's arms in a posture better for shooting things with his pistol. She had him aiming at a bullseye drawn on a piece of parchment and stuck to a bulkhead with a simple tack. "See? Now doesn't this feel better? The recoil won't send you too far back either~" she added in her usual perky tone. Chip was just waiting for a chance to pull the trigger and blast the pretentious parchment.

[Mercakete]

"I'll do that. Thanks fer th' tip!" Gytha replied to the sailor as she continued with the work.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hm, that wasn't enough... If someone tried to steal something, this guy would probably sleep right through it... Norbert thought, feeling a bit embarrassed for the doctor. "Hey, wake up!" he tried again, this time speaking more loudly, taking a hold of the doctor's shoulder and jostling him a bit.

[Eail]

Zach didn't feel like dealing with this so he left the hold, because ya know, fuck the world if any plan that's come up with lasts. Throwing the finger Grant's way as he left to go somewhere else

[Script]

A Man Called Gar

"Yeah, you'd want to have someone teach you staff combat, and I don't think anyone here uses one." Gar stated. "Though you could carry merchandise on you and trick the monkey into defending you that way." Gar chuckled. "So, do you want to ward off or fight someone attacking you, or just not have a meeting with the ground during a fight?" He asked.

[ReformBlade]

About to introduce herself, Synthia seemed to have jumped on it first and blurted out a no to this stranger. What's that about? Either way... "Hi there, I don't think we've met yet. I'm Mushirah, looking to map out the entire world, but I've got a long road ahead of me, hahaha..." And before anyone could say anything, she turned her attention towards Luka, smiling quite enthusiastically, "I would love any help I could get, seriously! This is like... a super important goal for me, so that would mean so much to me if you would!"

Aneda went off in search of any sort of cloth, starting first with her own little pack. Not much there, which is a sad thing. Money, but blood money is gross, or so she heard. They'd probably have some in the um... infirmary place, or the kitchen... though kitchen would not like blood all over their washcloths, I'd think. Infirmary it is! And then she wandered off to go do that.

[Eail]

The way that Mushirah suddenly turned her attention towards him and the was she was smiling sort of embarrassed Luka, he wasn't used to getting praise like that. A small blush started to form on his face as he looked away "It's n-nothing really, h-happy to help...."

'Why must I be so awkward around people aside from Rika....'

[-Cynthia-]

Galley

"Perhaps a person dedicated to defending Raquel is our best move. Not sure how tomes work to block physical attack myself, but I've seen enough mages in action to know that it can be done. Let's get you that tome after breakfast," Veronika suggested to Reign. She was a little hesitant on endorsing the idea of Raquel using a combat staff or a gun- Raquel might be safer just playing dead than trying to use a gun with no training.

Nadya came towards Raquel's table with a large platter of toast. "Heard this is what the boss wanted?" she asked as she came up to them. Veronika took two pieces off of the top, which prompted a look from Nadya. "Yeah I made some for the rest of y'all too," she said as Veronika began to munch.

[Phoenix]

Main Deck

"Y'welcome," the man replied before starting to swab the deck some more. It wasn't too long before some arguing reached his ears. He pretended to ignore it but kept an eye on the source, a small group of about five other sailors bickering about something or other. "Mmm, wonder what they're on about ..."

Infirmary

"Hmm-wha-what-what-what? What's going on? Someone injured? Oh ... pegasus rider. Feeling better?"

Galley

"I'm just trying to not get overpowered when someone comes after me. I really don't have the stomach for maiming or killing people," Raquel answered Gar, seeming to be aiming for the latter of his two options.

"It's true. We all got some basic self defense training, but she didn't do very well with weapons. She knows how to get people off of her ... maybe even remembers a disarm maneuver or two if we're lucky, but she doesn't have the physical strength to actually pull any of that off," Reign assessed.

"... it's kind of vague," Raquel quietly noted, prompting a sigh from Reign.

"Alright, I'm with Gar on this one. Chip's our best bet here. He doesn't seem to have a problem blowing someone's wrathdamn head off."

Raquel was about to protest but stopped herself. The crowd she was in ... complaining about being splashed with blood from a close range gunshot? No, that was just not going to come across as very mature, even though it was a serious concern of hers. So instead of speaking up, she just dropped her shoulder down and frowned, glancing down at her fingers. Slowly but surely, she began weaving tendrils again.

Veronika's suggestion to get Reign a tome caused him to ponder something from earlier that was also bugging him. Right, the tome. This is starting to get expensive. At the academy, they just gave the mages anything they needed. Cost wasn't an issue, they just wanted us to train until we were killing engines for them to throw at the neviskotians. With the way I train, any tome I get will be exhausted inside a week, and with no training at all, I'll lose my edge. Seems like I'm screwed either way. After that depressing thought, he shrugged at Veronika, not being sure whether or not he wanted to bring up just how frustratingly expensive it was to be a fire mage.

Nadya arrived with some toast much to his surprise. He smelled meat cooking and so didn't expect much else with this many people being fed. "Just toast?" he asked, taking a slice as well since that was perfectly normal. "You might be able to put on some muscle with a little more meat, you know."

"Does that really matter?" Shadrak cut in at Reign's comment. "I thought you were going with the monkey idea."

"Having muscle is also important for things like running and dodging, Shadrak," Reign countered. "You tend to face a lot of mounted units too so you really can't have legs that are 'too fit' in my opinion."

"I'll have some stew too, then. B-but just a little. I'm not that hungry and don't want to stuff myself. Thank you, Nadya."

Hammer Industries

"... why ... is this building so damn huge?! How the hell am I going to find this little twerp?" a white haired man said as he stood near the entrance to the Hammer Industries main building. He had a small arsenal on his person including a tomahawk, a sword, a blunderbuss, and several grenades. Standing beside him was a young blue haired girl with little more than a small collection of knives and a bag.

"What's the problem?" the girl inquired.

"Do you have any idea how much security I am going to have to slaughter to reach her if she's held up in a place like this?" the man began his explanation. Apparently he had a problem with fighting an army of security forces. A fair point.

"Wow, I never expected you to take issue with fighting."

"I don't. If I waste too much time butchering them though, she'll get whisked away in the chaos." He crossed his arms and began leaning back to size up the building and count the floors. "Okay here's how this works. We're going in. I'll keep the bloodshed to a minimum at first so they get the sense this is a problem they can actually handle on their own. While they try to take me out, you search the building and find this girl. Once you find her, knock her out and get her out of the building. I'll catch up or something when I have the time, I guess. No telling how long this could take ..."

"Wait ... would he really want you to cause that much damage? I mean this would be like a really major incident. It could even trump Ascension being stolen. 'Latest news, white haired psychopath singlehandedly slaughters Hammer security force and is still at large!'."

"First of all, shut up. Second, they won't know a single detail about me unless there are witnesses. I'm sure you can figure the rest of that one out on your own. And lastly, if he wanted a deft touch, he would have and should have picked someone else."

"Like who?"

"Anyone? I don't care. Now stop talking; I'm still mulling over my options."

"... okay, sorry," the girl replied, quieting down submissively. Just then she noticed something and rose her voice all over again yelling, "Whoa wait-wait! It's her! It's her! She's leaving the building! Look, Zecks! Look-look-look! Look!" She hopped up and down manically and pointed in the girl's direction while yanking on the man's vest.

Sure enough, the girl in question, Lois, was leaving the Hammer Industries building with just two bodyguards escorting her. They were headed for a nearby wagon. "... heheheh. Excellent~"

[Mercakete]

Gytha paused for a moment before shrugging as she continued mopping, replying simply, "I've not guesses meself. First day workin' with this particula crew n' all. Ah, that reminds me, I forgot t' mention me name! Gytha. Anaway, best not t' get involved." All the same, she was a bit curious now and so listened in on the argument.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Oh good, so you're not dead. If you slept any deeper you might as well have been, I guess..." Norbert commented, still rather amazed at just how heavy a sleeper the doctor was. Sleeping that heavily just isn't safe...

"Anyway, yeah, I'm feeling a lot better now that that arrow's gone. Thanks," he replied, shifting the subject back to what he was originally going to talk to the doctor about, "The last time I was awake I was about to be cut open, though, so it's kind of weird not knowing what happened between then and now... I guess what I'm saying is I'm not sure if there's anything specific I'm supposed to know or not." Well, that phrasing worked about as well as legless horse, but he really wasn't sure how to ask. He was still pretty confused about the whole process.

[roymbrog]

Oh, well this was a new face. “I’m Valter, pleasure to meet you,” he replied, after Mushirah had spoken to Luka.

Aaaand then Synthia caught the way Luka turned and blushed. Aww, he was embarrassed. She tried to decide whether to bother him about it or not. Nah, too much work.

-----

Feeling a little bit less like her head was going to explode, Katrina followed after Aneda. You know, going to the infirmary was just a good idea in general. Maybe they had pain pills…

[GoD]

"It will be fine. You won't lose Zach's friendship over this. Just give him some time to cool his head off and you'll be right as rain!.... Well is rain exactly right? eeeeh, you know what? You're good, just find something else to do in the meantime."- With that, Chelsea turned her back to Robin and began to exit the deck, off to go bother someone else, probably Shadrak. However, on her way out the troubadour turned her head towards Robin and, with a full smile said:

"I came here to look at the endless sea, so that maybe my sadness would go away. But it looks like you did the job better than the sea could ever do. See you later, Robin."

And with those words Chelsea left the deck, but the smile she had never once faded.

[Snike]

The newest idea proposed right now was having Chip guard Raquel personally, which was a really sound idea, except for, well, ammo constraints and the friend or foe issue. Reign seemed to agree with this plan, and the discussion began to shift into discussion of breakfast, and the benefits of different types of food groups. The culprit of this change was Nadya, who had brought toast onto the table. Well, if Blake didn't speak soon, he'd lose his opportunity for input, so, he decided to break his silence then.

"Chip could work, but, uh, how many shots can his gun fire without reinstatement?" Blake asked, mainly out of curiosity. "If he can't fire more than once or twice, well, I feel that's an issue we need to look at." The man turned to Gar. "By the way, you're right in saying that no one here actually uses a staff, right now, but, I do know my way around a quarterstaff." He felt it was best left at that, especially since Raquel didn't seem to want to deal with staves.

***

Well that was mature. Fairweather just gave him a rather rude hand gesture and walked off. Lovely. Grant made a mental note to try and avoid the ruffian for at least the near future, then continued on, up out of the holds, and into the galley. Nope, still too many people there. The duelist made his escape, and simply began to wander around the ship, so as to kill some time.

[-Cynthia-]

Nadya caught wind of what they were talking about- she figured this would come up after she took another shot. "No problem. By the way- not that anyone asked my opinion or anythin'- but if ya want to stay out of trouble it might be smart to get on a horse or a pegasus or somethin'. Their legs- or wings- are gonna move faster than you ever will," she suggested.

[Phoenix]

Main Deck

"Just hope it's got nothin' to do with you people," the man noted. He couldn't help but listen to the ensuing argument as well.

"-so what are we going to do about it? We know she's a stowaway."

"Let's just throw her overboard. Simple."

"Ya mean cruel. Why don't we just tell the captain and have him charge her for passage? If she doesn't have the coin, she can work it off."

"Please, how many others are gettin' cheap passage just for bein' on friendly terms with the merchant's people? He'll let her off for simply bein' a good sport about it. Bet she'll get sent to the kitchen or somethin'."

Infirmary

"Nothing wrong; procedure went quite smoothly. Learned a bit too late that 'Robin'-was it?-had a concussion, so had her hold the probes while Sinbad did the actual removal. I personally kept you under and provided step by step instruction. Try avoiding physical confrontation for a few days; personal recommendation," the doctor replied.

Breakfast

"Weyland gave Chip a three barreled model. It's not foolproof, but he can get off three shots before he has to fix it up and reload," Raquel explained. "I'm ... not sure it would be that hard to get him to fight. I just don't know about running around with a monkey in my arms shooting at enemies. It looks really crazy in my head."

"Honestly?" Reign began a rebuttal. "Crazy just might save you some heartache. Shock value is invaluable in combat and you'd have plenty of it running around with a shrieking crackshot in your arms."

Nadya's suggestion of using a horse, made Raquel consider riding Riley valiantly into battle, and oddly enough, she actually felt much safer despite being a taller target atop a larger target. The method seemed to be serving Nadya pretty well so far, so it definitely had some merit, and Raquel knew full well how to ride, so it's not like she would have to pick that up along the way. "I'd be a little worried for Riley's safety ... Chip's too, but I do like that idea. I could barely keep up with Veronika yesterday ..."

"Leg muscles," Reign quietly prodded.

Raquel muttered before glancing down at her fingers to check her own progress. She still had a long way to go but food was there and the toast was disappearing a little faster than she'd like. She was keeping count too ...

[Mercakete]

"Hm, sounds like it's more yer problem t' me," she replied with a shrug. Their captain could handle any stowaways on his ship.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Norbert wasn't entirely certain how to respond to that for a moment or two. Then, his mind formulated a sentence relevant to the information he'd just gathered. I guess that other guy's name is Sinbad, then... After that, the thoughts began flowing a bit more normally.

He frowned slightly at the last bit of what the doctor has said, almost a bit disappointed. It was as though he knew he had a tendency to get into fights. I guess the fact that I had an arrow stuck in me was a bit of a tip-off... Wait a minute, how did he know I have a pegasus? I don't remember mentioning that... Maybe Robin told him. "Is there anything else I should know?" Norbert asked.

[Script]

A Man Called Gar

A three-shot pistol? That was a significant advancement in firepower. Gar wished he was better at thievery because damn could the Guild use something like that.

"Yeah, using someone like Veronika to benchmark yourself next to isn't the best of ideas. I could count on one finger all of the people that could keep up with her," Gar commented. Naturally he was that one, but no point in pointing out the obvious. "But if you go with the horse idea you might as well go full bear and throw on armor too. Even if you don't you might consider it, I'm not exactly an expert on dodging while holding a monkey, but I can't imagine it'd be easy." Gar fed into the muscle build-up lines from Reign.