Sads meets Smiles

It is early in the day yet. Warm tones from the sun are lighting up the City of Canals as the morning barges are moving about the waterscape. The city is waking up and so is one white haired accessory crafter. The early bird gets the worm. Haru is making friendly conversation to stall merchants as they are setting up. He picks up a raw mineral, amethyst, and draws it up to his monocle to inspect. A good deal. The two work out a barter between that and a well crafted pair of silver rings. There is a pleasant whistle after the exchange as he heads to a railing, placing his hands on it and enjoying the view. Simple pleasures. What he will soon find out is that another member of the Silver Swords is nearby and that requires at least 3 topics of conversation!

That Silver Sword is, of course, known as Jazuhanzu. She's only recently arrived in Fourlands following her recovery from her confrontations at Shibuya and its fall.

She has stopped or a spot of tea at one of the local tea houses, a parchment unfurled upon the table in front of her. An ornate map of the area around Shibuya, hand inked, as if it could be any other way here.

Her location is no doubt not far from Haru's here in the city, thus making a meeting betwen them a simple matter of asking.

It is the weather that Haru is taking in. A nice breeze. The sights. Very inspiring sort of environment. It is enough to let one forget about every other trouble. That is until the catalyst draws Haru and Jazz together. A porter is running cargo from the barges into the shops. The crates denote the fresh tea import. Unfortunately the crate he is carrying busts loose on one side and several cans of the sealed tea hit the ground. It causes Haru's head to swing around to the sound of the clanging.

"Do you need a hand with that," the white haired man asks, walking over and going for a tin. The Lander starts by saying he doesn't, but the crate is losing tin after tin. "The tea house," he looks at the shipping label, "is right over there. C'mon," he says with a smile, loading up an arm full of tins, "its no trouble."

On the way in, Haru notices a familiar Silver Sword with a parchment. The Artificer steps in, then reverses and steps back out, "Hey!" Its a lot of energy first thing in the morning. "I know you, kinda." He doesn't, not really. The name and affiliation. Well you know what? That changes. Not this second, mind. He hands the tea tins over before stopping back out. "Its Jaz, right," he asks, heading over to her table. Sure, he could do an Inspect and know for sure, but he sees that like staring at someone's name tag in a department store.

At the voice there is a twitch of the twin tentacles that hang down from her head admist her flowing purple hair, of which there is entirely too much. Her pointed ears twitch too, of course, and she pauses a moment from inspecting the map she's crawfted. The ink is fresh. She's made some small modifications to it, an ornate flourish to the border here, a swirl in the ocean, notations of geographic features. Her penmanship is quite good, too.

Her pointed hat and hair sweep down over her eyes as she bows her head a moment, lets out a breath, and doesn't look up. Focus. Focus on the paper. On the careful quill dipped in the ink.

"...yes, I recognize your voice. Haru, isn't it?" She says after a halting moment.

Yes, that's Jazz. Anyone who's heard her on chimlink would recognize her voice. It's like the casting coach of an anime said, "We need to find the sweetest, tweest voice possible for this character," and then received what they asked for ... and amped it up even further.

To the assumed name, Haru offers a polished smile. One arm across the chest in a formal bow to Jazuhanzu. "Haru Nox. Artificer. Accessory Crafter." And the reason he is so far out here, "Rare Material Hunter." He stopped just shy of saying 'Treasure Hunter'. If he did, he would have to change his profession to Thief and get sassed by people on it all the time until he got that bit under Locke.

"Besides your voice on the chims, I don't think we've ever really talked before at length," the white haired man says. "Mind if I join you for a cup of tea?" he asks. He is very go-with-the-flow and the markets aren't going anywhere. Probably. "Nice hat by the way," he points out, having an appreciation good accessory wear. It really ties it together like a favorite rug ties a room together.

    Well, Fuka does have to admit Mac Anu is different. And pretty. She's not actually sure what 'help' Haru needed and suspects he just might have had an ulterior motive in asking her if she wanted to come along. But that's okay, Fuka's never met an ulterior motive that didn't at least amuse her. She's a big girl, in some ways at least, and has no particular fears in that regard.

    She does have her own room, naturally. And so she's a fair bit later to get started in the morning than Haru, who was eager to get out to the markets. She does amble on in though, blinking when she sees another familiar face as well. "Heeey Jazu!" she greets the undine cheerfully. Uta likes Jaz, that's more than good enough for Fuka. "I see you met H here." she observes with a playful grin. That's an initial with a lot of potential meaning. The question, as always, is just how serious is Fukaziroh?

"We haven't, no," is Jazu's answer to Haru when he speaks of not having spoken to her much yet. She's distinctive, to be sure. There's an absent nod when he asks if he can take aa seat and join her for the cup of tea, but the comment aobut her hat gives her pause. Her eyes roll up to examine the brim and with a puff she blows her hair out of her eyes. "Ah, right. The hat," she says, as if she wasn't even aware she was wearing one.

Then it's back down to the map. Fuka's arrival is no less cause for her to look up again, though. That person, she recognizes.

"Hello again," she offers to Fuka, "You seem in good spirits, all things considered." It doesn't, for her, seem like a particularly merry time.

Then again, it's not like she's ever been a barrel of laughs on chim either.

The well dressed Artificer grabs a seat, rolling am arm around the back and looking behind to see Fuka. "Good timing! Just grabbed a seat and I hear this place serves a great cup," he says as the outdoor table has a good view of the street. Merchants and military are making their way down towards the oceanside docks where the morning light gives it all an amber hue. Crisp, ocean spray in the air.

"And Jazz was just about to tell me more about herself. To whit makes the hatted woman tick forsooth amongst morning tea," Haru puts in mock drama and some ye olde words strung together. "Like whats going on the with map? Find long lost treasure? A way to go from one place to another faster than before? Instructions home?"

    Fuka does seem in good spirits it's true. But then, that's a fairly fundamental difference between her and Jazu; Fuka doesn't need an excuse to be cheerful. She's like... the antijazz. She's also never managed to get the Undine to crack a smile, but that doesn't mean she's given up trying.

    "Tick forsooth?" Fuka asks dubiously, squinting at Haru. "Pip pip old bean. Speaking of old bean, haven't yet had enough caffiene to deal with the super-weird. Sounds like this place is just the ... uh, place!" she notes. Yes, she has already had some caffiene. Possibly why she's cheerful. Then again, it's Fuka.

"Well," says Jazz after Haru so politely inquires, "I found the Palace Lands."

She lets that hang in the air for a casual moment before she leans back in her chair, adjusting her hat ever so slightly as a rippling glow runs up the side of her face. Undine bioluminescence. Not an uncommon trait amongst them, perhaps, given that they're native to the seas. It gets very dark down there, sorta like Jazz's moods.

Then she stares at Fuka for a long moment. "...what?" she says after the faux-British display. She leans forward to blow on the map lightly to encourage its drying. "There's not a great deal to say about me. I don't contain multitudes or hidden depths or anyting. I'm just trapped here like the both of you."

"Look, if someone doesn't sooth the four ticks, they can get really cranky and no one wants four cranky unsoothed ticks," Haru observes to Fuka in a weird mode that only goes to 11. To the squinting he smiles, raising his cup of freshly poured tea with a, "Pip pip, cheerio," before taking a sip. The near-Victorian jacket, shirt, and monocle really sells it. Just give the man a tophat, cane, and property on Boardwalk and its a done deal.

It isn't the map itself that captures Haru's attention initially. Its the bioluminescence. "I wonder if I can find photosensitive materials deep in the waters that react to biolumens?" he thinks out loud, notably while staring at Jazu's face. Enchanter life. "A case for deep sea diving and," he snaps his fingers, "pearls." Games always have pearls in the water. Its a requirement. Like Iron Ore.

"What? No." The Artificer says in complete disbelief that Jazu is a nondescript entity, "Everyone has a story. A reason to get up, a reason to," he goes to tap the map but stops just shy of it when he notices the drying ink, "go to distant lands. A reason to protect this one. Why you want to stay." The young man does appreciate the words in play here, "Why you want to go. You're not trapped in here with us. We're trapped in here with you, and this place serves tea and zero unsoothed ticks."

    Fuka's already in danger of giggling over Jazu's comment about hidden depths because Undine. Haru's utter nonsense just seals the deal. She bursts out laughing, free and unencumbered by anything like self-awareness.

    Not that she's entirely unselfconscious, but she doesn't much care who's staring at her right now. After a good refreshing morning laugh, she leans to peer at the map. She's more of an off-the-map type but she likes art and creativity, and she approves of the Undine's flourishes even if Jazu seems not to care.

    "Hm. I definitely think it's more everyone being trapped here with me, then me being trapped here with everyone." she notes playfully, still riding the earlier ridiculousness. "That's like a SEA thing, being trapped." she adds, and ... yes, giggling. SEA. Undine. Fuka no. "I don't think we need a super special reason to BE though. I mean, we all have one of our own and it might not matter to anyone else, but it should matter to your friends!"

Jazz reaches up and pinches the bridge of her nose for a moment. "I didn't say I didn't have a 'story'. It's just what it is, hardly a worthy conversation over tea." She inspects the map one more moment before she leans back in her chair. There's a deadpan stare at Fuka at first her expression and then her descent into outright laughter before she, herself, simply lets out a sigh and gestures at her with a thumb. "See? What you see is what you get."

"And yes, trapped. We're trapped here. I won't obfuscate that reality the way some do. Hardly the first person to ask why I'm not in SEA if I feel that, too." She looks up a moment.

"Because I've seen D&D games that go off the rails when you don't think of the characters in the world as people. Because I've seen how players act when you unencumber them from consequences and morality. The Palace Lands is proof of what can go wrong. It's exactly what I feared could happen here if people mistreated the Landers. Not in specific details, but as a nightmare scenario it works pretty well." Tea-sip.

Fuka is laughing. Haru drinks his tea and wants in on this laughter train, too. Alas, Haru will need to catch the next one as he cannot both drink tea and laugh. "I see," he turns to the Fuka who is enjoying herself, "well mostly what I see is Fuka's incredible sense of humor. I get that. Except the SEA, I don't get that. Then that sea?" He points over to the ocean, "thats where sunken treasure is. All about that." Oh he gets it alright. Participates in a fair amount of it, too!

"I can't say I agree with that way of thinking, but thats kinda helpful to hear it from another view. What I'm hearing is that you think of worst-case and negative scenarios so that the rest of us can think positive ones," Haru considers the spin on this one. He puts his tea down and has a bit of his smile on. "Its an important perspective to have in the mix! Such depth, I see, I sea. SEA?" The whole sea thing really has him now, its a vicious cycle. "Then you are in a unique position here. If a Lander asked you why you were fighting in this war, what would you tell them?" There is an air of a serious question from him.

    Fuka shrugs, the correction sliding off her without sticking unpleasantly. "I'm interested in why you're here." she claims. Not, to be fair, interested in why Jazu's not in SEA despite all the puns going on, which do amuse her immensely. Some might say Fuka belongs in Olympus after all, for doing things like focusing on world-shaping magitech instead of saving people when the crisis began... but Fuka sees it much like Jazu does. "Why you do something is more important than what you do." she agrees.

    "Honestly if I'm trapped, I like that I'm trapped here with people I like. The absolute worst would be being trapped just with myself." Fuka observes with a little shudder. Whether this is a self-own or not is subject to some consideration. "So yeah, I think 'trapped with me' has to be worse than me trapped with others!" she concludes brightly.

    Yeah, probably a self-own.

    There are so many Adventurers though. While Fuka generally associates with a few very special people, she's well aware there's got to be thousands of Adventurers out there doing the sorts of horrible things that Jazu fears too. Treating the world as a game, doing whatever it takes to win. She doesn't like it, and doesn't associate with them, but she doesn't stick fingers in her ears and la la la them out of her mind either.

    Instead, she engages in a little clownery at her own expense. So what if she looks like a fool? The fool is a symbol of wisdom after all, or something like that. "When you say incredible, do you mean like awesome? Or like you just can't believe the things I laugh about?" she probes Haru, apparently fascinated at the possibility. Also quite interested in Jazz's answer, but not wanting to focus too hard on that. No sense in making the girl self-conscious by too much attention.

"If that's what you're hearing," remarks Jazz to Haru. She doesn't contest the description, but she doesn't appear overly amused by the puns, either. "Rest assured," she remarks, "I can speak from personal experience in informing oyui all that underwater levels are terrible in every video game. This one is no exception -- though it definitely feels a lot more real for obvious reasons. Don't much love them, gills or no gills." A hand absently reaches up to scratched at the scaled ridges of her own on either side of her neck. "...really ought to be under the arms if they were going for biological accuracy, anyway," she mutters.

"I'd say I was sorry that this was brought to their doorstep, I suppose. It isn't like they asked for this. It's a danger resultant from our presence here, from our opening a door that maybe we should have left shut longer. Now, for all my carping about adventurers acting as colonizers, we're faced with the real possibility of exactly that by a stronger set of allied foreign powers -- made up of Landers, no less, who've bent and twisted adventurers like ourselves to their will. All I can do is try to protect them, both from us and from them."

This is a mood! One that is becoming more despondant by the moment. Haru is very familiar with the kind of black hole gravity force that it can summon. Thrusters to reverse, starting with a look to Fuka's inquiry to incredible. "Incredible as in it brings happiness to me much like the stars bring light unto a dark sky," he tells her, adding a wink to his brand of weird.

The Artificer listens a moment, making a bit of a note of the reason for fighting. "Thanks," is all he says in response. A push out from the table and he offers a polished smile, "sadly only had time for the one cup, but now I feel like I know you a little better Jazz." He looks over towards the market stalls, which is starting to pick up. "Getting back to it," he says as he looks back to Fuka, "want to come with? I am fairly certain what I'm looking for is in stock here." It is difficult for Haru to get the materials he needs to do his craft. He isn't adept at gathering and his merchantilism isn't fantastic either. But! He does have quite a keen eye for quality.

    One day, Fuka's relentless cheer and Jazu's unyielding gloom will square off for control, the hearts and minds of others as the battlefield. There may well be no survivors. Today, however, is probably not that day. She seems quite pleased at Haru's reply, and it earns him a sunny smile. Or would that be a starry smile? Sure he's weird, but Fuka likes weird.

    She doesn't much like the Palace Landers though. And as much as she'd love to just blame the Lander rulers for taking control and forcing Adventurers to do horrible things, she's aware it might not be that straightforward. Maybe they're the true enemy; maybe the true enemy was the people we stabbed along the way.

    "Sure!" Fuka agrees. "I'll come help you look for hidden treasure! I'm pretty good at finding stuff!" she notes brightly. Then pauses. "Just don't ask me to follow directions. Or a map. This one's quite lovely but I get lost easily it seems. Or distracted! Anyways where were we, and what are you looking for?" she blathers.

"Hm. Yeah. Sure. Take care," says Jazuhanzu, nonchalantly, as they begin to get up to flee Her Gloomyness.

She has tea to drink, a map to fix, and a Duchess to seek out herself.