We All Need A Drink

    Miyako sits in a corner of the room, leaning back against the wall, feet up, guitar in her lap, as is so often the case when she's found in a tavern, pub, bar, or other sort of establishment. She plucks out a slow, somber tune, as she muses about the tales she's so recently heard. "Seems to me," she muses to Kotono, "That they're just following orders. Orders they don't have the ability to object to because of the damn crowns. The real problem isn't them, it's the ones giving them those orders." This is probably pretty obvious to most people who've given the matter any thought, really.

    "But we can't get to them unless we can hold things here. So... bigger questions. We know they're based in Shibuya... but what can we do about it? Can we retake the town? Should we even try? Or do we try to lock them in there, keep them from getting out to attack other areas?" This ignores the possibility of them simply sailing along the coast, of course, which she really should have considered herself, given her own history.

"To be honest, Miyako," Kotono replies after sipping her drink from her mug, "I think personally we should make a plan of action and be ready to execute it when the time is right." She sighs. "Of course, that could take time, but at the same time, we don't want to risk annoying the crowns." The green-haired Spriggan rolls her neck around a little. "I don't know if locking them in there is possible. What's to say they don't have some kind of fail-safe?"

A pause as Kotono realizes that she pretty much just spoke without thinking. "Fail-safe? In there?" She frowns a little. "I mean... well..." She sighs. "I got ahead of myself again."

Schneider is sitting in the Dragon's Larder, eating supper, inbetween shifts on the entrance to the tower. "'Just following orders' isn't really an excuse," he points out. "But it's a bit more than 'following orders' if they're mind controlled, yeah?" He drinks his drink. "The trick is figuring out who's mind-controlled and who's embracing this war on their own."

As far as Shibuya, he says, "We'd need some kind of naval force to really pin down Shibuya. Not that I wouldn't be thrilled to throw them back. It seems lately like it's all going their way. We need to reverse the momentum. But I don't know that we can, as tough as their bosses are. Maybe some kind of geurilla campaign?"

It is rarely a dull week when a war is going on, Hunters Guild needs duties addessed, and Haru still hasn't found enough silver to make the necklace he was planning on. The most recent attack has his health lower than it should be. That is, as a craftery-type guy, it should be full. He has made sure Uta has a place to rest off the damage and he goes over to tavern dining and drink before doing that himself. "And about now," he says as he goes to the bar, looking like a lit up tree during the holidays, "a drink." Right up to the bar. One stout, no TWO stouts.

A deep breath from the white haired human, turning to see who is about today. Familiar faces? A couple. Not many he knows well. "Talking war logistics and theories," the silver tongued man asks with a practiced smile on his face.

    Miyako nods, still mulling the subject and picking at the guitar strings. "-We- should've been the ones with a failsafe, something to crash the critical areas if we were forced out. Insufficient paranoia." She sighs softly and strums a quick series of chords, then stills them as Schneider speaks up.

    "Exactly my point," she answers him. "Even if they did take the crowns willingly, who's to say they'd have supported this if it were up to them?" She reaches out to the table, picking up a mug of beer and gulping it down. "And yeah," she adds after calling for a refill, "They've got some pretty big ships over there, with pretty decent weapons. So we'd need bigger, better, more, or all three." She hmms for a moment, then adds, "I'd say submarines, but if they're smart they'll have Undine divers on watch for that kind of thing."

    She glances over at Haru as she swaps her old mug for new, and nods. "Trying to figure out where we go from here."

"It's no use dwelling on the past," Kotono explains. "We have to focus on what to do next instead." The girl stretches her arms over her head before taking another drink. The quick series of chords does catch Kotono off-guard briefly, but she gets her composure back quickly. "I think we should plan what to do one step at a time."

Schneider says to Miyako, "In a way it doesn't matter, anyone with a crown is going to fight us no matter what. If we could pry the crowns off, some would fight us anyhow. Better to send them back to their home Church so they've got to sail all the way back here. The ones with crowns will fight tooth and nail, though."

He nods about planning what to do next, but says, "Our options are wildly limited. And we need more intel also. Like where are /all/ their forces? They scouted out Shibuya and Eas, but they haven't struck Eas yet. Is the Shibuya attack force regrouping? Do they have another force getting into position?"

"Gotcha," is all Haru says to Miyako there, giving the dark haired lady a nod back with his equally monochromatic hair scheme. A hand motions to the wait staff to also give him some finger food to monch on. Sammiches are good. His drink comes first, taken to his lip and graciously gulped half way to replenish his missing mana. Ahhh! Health gets restored slowly that knit the damage lines as he eats. Mouth a bit preoccupied with food and drink to add much more to the war room talk.

    Miyako nods. "We need more information. Who is giving the orders. What do they -really- want. Is this just paranoia, or are they out to conquer simply because they think they can?" She sighs softly and takes another drink before returning her attention to the guitar briefly. "For that matter, we know what they've -done-, but what orders were they actually -given-? Is there something there we can exploit to make them reconsider?"

    She nods to Kotono, offering her friend a small smile. "What would be really nice is if we could just get one of them to sit down and -talk- with us. The others have told us some of what happened, and it -sounds- pretty awful... but we need to be able to be -heard- before we can even begin to think about a solution besides "kill them all"... which knowing that some if not -many- may well be innocents, I cannot espouse."

    Glancing at Schneider, she nods, almost agreeing. "It's a pragmatic solution. And it may well be what we have to do. But... as I said. I simply cannot. I will defend if they attack, but we now know the true price of death in this world. It's all fine and well to say 'let them respawn', but who knows how much they will lose each time? Who knows how close they are to a permanent end?" She shakes her head. "You make an excellent point of how little information we have, however. We need scouts, ones who can travel swiftly and silently. So far they're three steps ahead of us, and we have to catch up before they get farther." She glances briefly over at Haru, curiously, but says nothing, as the fellow is clearly busy.

Nodding to Miyako, Kotono smiles a little as well. "Yeah, it would be nice if we could get one of them to talk with us. I'd prefer to use words over war if it's at all possible." The girl clasps her hands behind her head and leans back a little. "Though that's definitely easier said than done."

Schneider sighs and says, "It's a bit late to make nice with them, they've already made their choice. Defending won't be enough to throw them back unless you can re-create the barrier that came down, separating our server from theirs. If we could do that, then they wouldn't be able to come back, and every one that was killed wouldn't be coming back." But he knows that's not likely.

"True cost of death notwithstanding, /they/ came /here/ and are trying as hard as they can to do /that very thing/ to us. So I'm not going to feel bad about doing it to them. It'd be nice if we could put daisies in their gun barrels and all hug, but they don't want that, and as far as I can tell, there's no way to see which are belligerent because they're forced to and which are belligerent because they want to ne."

Haru is on the same page with the trio. They have something going on and he isn't interupting it more than once. He takes a glance at them for a moment but then goes back to his meal. "Ahh," he finishes it up, paying for it. The damage lines are all gone now. A relatively quiet meal and now for some rest as he heads back out.

    Miyako nods to Kotono. "That's half the problem," she agrees, mulling it over as a certain very bad idea continues to percolate in the back of her head. She's tried several times to dismiss it, but it keeps on crawling back like an earworm.

    "That's why we need to talk," she insists to Schneider. "Sure, we have to keep fighting and we have to defend our own people, Landers and Adventurers alike." She's quite certain on that. "But remember, this is China we're talking about, Country Number Two in the list of 'We Have Reserves'. They can just keep coming until they wear us down, or they get to our leaders and next thing we know we're waking up with crowns of our own." She snorts. "Only way to stop this is to get to the ones giving the orders and make -them- stop it."

Kotono has nothing to say for the time being. She simply takes another swig of her mug and then leans back a little, listening to what is being said. The look on her face indicates she doesn't like this one bit, yet at the same time she seems to have nothing to say.

Schneider nods slowly. "But there's no one /to/ talk to. They all hate us rabidly and unreasonably. I guess they have a secret group of rebels, I heard about that. But the rebels don't seem to know /much/. If they could at least tell us who's in charge, maybe we oculd run a raid to assassinate that one person, and leave them leaderless. At least until that person got back."

    Miyako drains her mug and slams it down on the table. "That was my fucking *point*, idiot. We don't know anywhere near enough about what the hell is going on! All we -can- do for now is play fucking whack-a-mole whenever -they- decide they've got a soft target to hit!" She sighs and bites back worse curses. A growl -does- escape her, though, and she gives Kotono a 'back me up, goddamnit, girl' glare. "What we -really- need to do is catch one of them, tie them down, -break- the damn crown, and then give them the full '24' treatment until we know what's what!"

Schneider boggles as Miyako yells at him. "Why are you yelling at me for /agreeing/ with you, then?" he asks defensively. He won't argue about capturing one of them, that seems like the best idea. "Hold them down and rip the crown off, for starters. But then, will they tell us the truth then, or lie? Should we torture someone who might be on our side? They won't be on our side after that, I imagine. Maybe easier just to sail over there, and send an assassin after their kings? They control all the crown people, ultiimately, don't they?"

    "And how many Kings do they have?" Miyako asks. "How many heirs are available to step up and take their place if we kill one? How many ministers and viziers and dukes and fucking crap will we have to kill to make it stop? I got into the game to /explore/ a new /world/, not to fucking /murder people/!"

Schneider sighs at Miyako. "Obviously we go until we find one that's willing to stop the war. If we don't, they won't stop the war. You don't /have/ to like it. I don't /like/ it, myself. I've spent like 3 days in the Palace Lands, most of it recovering from the rotten trip over there. And they can keep their rotten server. But they're /over here/ trying to kill us for real, and I don't want them over here, and I don't want to wind up lobotomized like a Palace Lander. And I'll fight for as long as I have to for that to not happen. You might not have signed on to murder people, but if you won't fight off the Palace Landers, well, /they/ won't let you go exploring, they'll turn you into a lobotomized slave. If you're OK with that, say so now."

    Miyako looks over at Schneider. *Glares* at him. "I'm -yelling- at you because you're being a fucking -idiot-. Why don't -you- go over and assassinate them, then? It'd solve the problem, wouldn't it?" She snorts, and is about to continue before she catches herself and looks morosely down at her instrument. "Ko-chan... there anybody got a hunting quest out in the area? You keep up with that stuff more than I do. I need to thump something before I take it out on -idiot- here."

Schneider shrugs ar Miyako, grumbles, "At least I'm coming up with ideas and not complaining about how this wasn't what I signed up for. None of us signed up for this crap. None of us signed up for being stuck in a video game. I -would- go over there, too, if I could. But I can't sneak at all, as I've had pointed out repeatedly. So there's not much way I could help. So don't call me an idiot because I don't see /you/ doing anything useful, either. You say we need more information, so how do we get it? Think about that while I go and do something more useful than this conversation, like piss on a rock." And so saying, he finishes his drink and gets up and heads out.