Been Caught Steeling

Goldenblade is walking beside a heavily laden wagon pulled by a pair of grunties, and driven by a Lander with a tired expression. The wagon is laden with crates, and the gruntes are not pulling it quickly. Goldenblade is walking beside the wagon with a somewhat distracted look as the road passes by a particularly picturesque view of Eas still half an hour or more away, depending on how little speed the wagon is making, and if the grunties give up entirely. They don't look entirely happy, and the driver breaks his silence to chivvy them a bit. "Not much farther now. And you have such a nice road." Which is true, the road from the harbor at Takamatsu to here is probably the best road in Yamato, almost as smooth as a paved road in the real world.

Goldenblade, walking along, is actually falling behind the wagon as she watches the falls. From this perspective, it's really breathtaking, from a builder's point of view, and it's always captured her attention, though just now, she's running calculations and planning some things. The world will be changing if she has anything to do about it.

Lunaris had a habit of popping up in the most unexpected places, and this was apparently no exception, apparently the rambling explorer had finally made it to Eas rather recently. It wasn't that odd for her, she had spent her first two years in the apocalypse just wandering around throughout the more nature strewn areas, if anything whispers about her were more random rumours of that one weird hermit that didn't visit cities. Though today she rested nearby that waterfall, four orbs of water spinning around her in a rather slow meander as Pecan her fox tried to snap and paw at each of them in turn. It seemed like a fairly easy spell though the concentration from the usually freespirited Cait Sithe appeared rather monumental.

That is, at least, until she hears the wagon and leaning back she soon spots Goldenblade among the group, suddenly those orbs drop with a splash sending Pecan running in a panic. Lunaris however darts up and alongside the small caravan, waving to her friend, "Hey! Doing a supply run or something?" She asks, gesturing towards the rather loaded wagon, "You seem about all the places!"

Goldenblade is distracted and at first doesn't notice Lunaris, but then looks up. "Oh." Is she all over? "I suppose so," she agrees simply. As to a supply delivery, she shakes her head. "Not as such. But," she says, a slow grin forming on her face, "It is for use in the castle." Oh yes it is. She didn't build the castle, of course, but she's been at the heart of the restoration work, and of course the road, and she says, "I'm working out how to build my turbine wheels under the arches." Waterwheels, wooden structures maybe ten feet in diameter, are not uncommon on rivers to do some things, but the falls here are huge and raging, and if they turned a wooden wheel, it wouldn't last a minute. But Goldenblade doesn't build things unless they're meant to last.

Lunaris flicks her wrist as they begin to talk, reweaving the water back around her before forming an orb between her hands, not too unlike a crystal ball. Peering into it she hums, pointing it over towards the mentioned arches, "Turbines! Because you want to give the castle electricity? What are your plans with that anyway? Going to recreate our previous tech?" She didn't seem too concerned about that, then bites her lip and glances back, "Did you hear about where we went with Gilgamesh?" Then a shake of her head, tossing the orb into the sky with a flourish for it to land and be held by her tail instead. "But it's a cool project! Maybe we'll get working kettles soon. Honestly though.. More curious about Radios. What would they pick up on here?"

Goldenblade looks at Lunaris as if she'd just noticed her standing there. But she nods about turbines. "Yes. Electricity. If I can get lights built, with the power in the falls, I can light this place up like daytime. And if that doesn't make the Palace Landers hesitate, I don't know what will. Their players will know what electric lights are, but they've never seen them in the game. But it's just magnets turning quickly that generates electricity, and we've got magnets, and wire's not /that/ hard to make. The turbine wheels are what's going to take the stress of being pounded by the falls. All day, every day, for forever. So, they need to be over-engineered. I've brought in a specialist metallurgist for that. But I need to work out the stresses to get the most turn for the least wear."

"I'm not sure lights will stop them, more than be an impressive technological bastion.. Like, I don't think advancements stopped the Roman's conquering the Greeks, just gave them more reason to do so," Lunaris replies with a smile, it was teasing, mostly. "That said.. A Lander might not quite understand the whole thing. That's a much bigger advantage. The only question is if they'd put it down to magic here. From what I understand the different servers can have.. Some odd differences." She shrugs at that, hardly having been introduced to the intricacies of such. "Still it'll be an amazing achievement, I do wonder how magic and science will interact in the future though! There was so much we -almost- managed in the old world, but couldn't because of missing one thing or another.. All of which we can probably find over here!" With that she grins, twisting the orb around once again, practicing her control by the looks of it.

Goldenblade agrees, "The lights won't stop them. But it'll make them stop and think. 'If we've got lights, what else have we got?' And if they attack all the harder to get it, they'll die all the harder. If I have to do it, myself. As to Greeks and Romans, she shrugs. "It's different for them, and that was real life. But yeah, any tech you don't understand is magic, I guess. But their players will know full well what it is, and the clever ones will worry, and the bold ones will gasp harder no matter how hard the target. We will bleed them."

She shrugs at different servers having different tech levels, and says, "The Palace Lands seemed very like here when I was there." But as to what we might achieve mixing science and magic, she instead asks, "What could we not do in the real world?"

"Can definitely hope so. Though do crowned adventurer's actually feel fear?" Lunaris asks with a tilt of her head, a wince growing on her face. It was not at all a topic she was fond of and it showed rather plainly. Something about the war really affected her. Still she barrages on, "Anyway! Anything we can get over them the better. Though maybe pit traps would work too. Uncrowning pit traps. Monsters that steal head gear.. I don't knowww, it sucks!"

A long sigh escapes her, batting the ball of water at the nearest wall with her tail, frustration. "Anyway, all the better for when we free them! I can't wait to see the Palace Lands myself, really hope we do get to have a look soon." As for the parts they couldn't achieve in the real world she pauses and gives a shrug, "Mythical metals mostly. Superconductors, things that allowed perfect transference of power. Computer bits that don't produce heat, it'd have done a lot of good for tech.."

Goldenblade supposes, "They can feel fear, even if they're driven forward anyway. That's actually the best situation for us, because if fear drives them, they're thinking as much about what's behind them as what's in front of them." It does suck, though, that Goldenblade agrees with, nodding gravely. "Scale's planted mines, I'm told, so there's that."

As far as fantastic materials, she considers, "Mythical metals we sort of already have. The metalurgist I'm bringing in has made a few. As far as superconductors and computer bits, they don't give us anything new. They just let the old things work better. The metals do that, too, to be honest, though that's what I'm actually looking for, for the rotating wheels, an improvement on things we already have."

"Right, so it keeps them distracted, that's not bad at all. I guess.." There's a definite dourness to Lunaris' tone that she soon shifts past, trying to move away from that particular conversation. "Anyway! Let me know if you need a hand with anything, though my investment is mostly on the magical side. So.. Unless it's catching creatures not sure how useful that will be," she admits, shifting around with a rather wan smile before her attention is drawn to those arches onces again.

"Actually superconductors give a lot. Impossible technologies. Physics of our old world could go a bit weird when you had one-hundred percent efficiency. Maybe that won't be the case here, and at any rate we don't have near the right technology yet to play with that!" With that she her mood seems to lift a little, "Anyway, old things working better is a huuuge advantage."

Goldenblade nods about the Palace Landers, and lets the subject drop. She doesn't really care about them, her mood doesn't have any room for them with her focus on the project. It also doesn't seem to have any room for washing, as time spent close to her is starting to reveal.

"What sort of impossible technologies do superconductors give us?" she asks, curious. "I mean, here, we can probably do it with magic anyhow. Maybe a maglev railway..."

"Plenty, though.. I don't know most of it. Not quite an engineer. The one I do know it Nano-circuitry. Because we don't have any superconductors, wires produce heat. Heat fries circuits so we can only make them a certain size. With superconductors you removed that limi--" Lunaris seems to catch herself then from properly nerding out, almost like she realised a bit too much about what she was saying and clears her throat, reaching down to pet Pecan. "Anyway! Old world stuff! More important is what we do here, so much to be helping with and monsters to defeat. Always a Lander or two that needs help." Yes, she was great at changing subjects, totally and very good at it, "Still though.. This world has too many things that.. It has odd secrets. Who knows what you can find."

Goldenblade doesn't know much about electronics at that scale, but says, "It sounds like your one technology just enables another technology, that ... makes computers better?" She shrugs about computers, the first computer she ever owned is the one she logged on to ETO with, and so she's skeptical of the value. She's not quite a Luddite, but she finds value in things outside computers.

"That's right," she agrees, "This world does have strange and odd corners. It's interesting, in that respect. Deliberately, I suppose. I mean, that's what you play a game for, is to have an interesting time. If you made a game just like real life, no one would play it, they'd just live their real life."

Lunaris scratches behind her own ear thoughtfully before shaking her head, though she doesn't provide any extra illumination on the technology point, apparently too scared of outing herself as a nerd or something. Perhaps it's more a case of leaving the past in the past? Her knowledge wasn't really applicable here after all since Lunaris didn't have the skills. "It's the things that go beyond odd corners. Those that are more than just a fantasy world. Those things that if I had seen earlier I might have realised this whole place was.. More than I thought," gesturing vaguely to the sky around them. "I've been seeing this place as just another world with some fantasy elements for a while. Hearing about the crowns? That broke everything I believed about this place," a pause, then a shrug. "ETO was just meant to be a game. I never thought it'd be anything more than that I suppose?"

We're in a computer game, everyone's a nerd to some degree. Goldenblade's more of a building structures nerd, is all. As far as being a world with fantasy elements, well, she knows bupkiss about what is and isn't possible with computers, so if this is all normal computer simulation, or something more advanced, she has no way to tell. "Crowns? How's that special?" she wonders, though. It seems like just another plot device, to her.

Lunaris peers at Goldenblade for a moment at the question, like she was almost confused about it and then lets out a slow sigh, "What kind of game lets the 'players' be controlled? It's the first thing I saw that isn't at all ordinary here. Something that stands out as something being.. Wrong. Games are for escapism and to make friends.. This isn't exactly a game, it's an entire world. All the good and evils and morales of our Old World." She chews her lip thoughtfully for a moment as they walk along, thinking the whole thing over, "There are some obvious game like things.. Certain dungeons having walls to stop you passing until you're the right level.. And yet other things..? Not at all like a game."

Goldenblade shrugs about games, which she doesn't know much about, but says, "Old stories are all about things that steal your willpower away. Tolkien's ring totally sucked out GGollum's self-will, and old movie always have menaces that mind control people. Have you ever seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers? I let my son see it as a child, and it /terrified/ him." She chuckles. "That was all about things that took control of your body. So, I figure the crowns are just a plot device that we've got to overcome."

"No, a game is meant to be played. How do you play a game if you can't even control yourself?" Lunaris asks rather dourly that was clearly not everything she wanted to say given the twitch of her eye. "Nevermind be sent to your own death repeatedly when that apparently does eventually kill you for good." A heavy sigh and she weaves her hands once again calling over a ripple of water between her hands, focusing on that instead. "Anyway. Until we fix that I have magic to practice with. Not going to be much help if I can't defend myself! And after that.. Then I can settle down and start a ranch. That will be lovely. Just... Managing to pacify monsters all but permanently.. That's quite the challenge."

Goldenblade shrugs to Lunaris. Apparently they have different ideas of how games are played. She's never played D&D, so doesn't know about te plethora of mind control spells available to the discerning wizard. As to how you play a game if you can't control yourself, she says, "Well, the point is if you get mind conrtolled, or killed over and over, you lose the game. The object of the game is not to lose." But she nods about practice, anyhow. "Got to practice to get good at anything," she agrees. Starting a ranch, though, she shrugs at. She's a city girl, it seems.

"There's too much here that is weird, it's not just the crowns," Lunaris replies, a tinge of her mind being lost in thought but she doesn't choose to illuminate on it. Too much worrying, too little doing. "Yep, been practicing! Working on my summoner control too as well, the stronger creatures I can tame the better!" The wisps of water dancing aside her hands, choreographed to some strange rhythm that's for certain. "Anyway we're going to win! Hey, you haven't happened to hear about any odd Monsters have you? Like ones that can control others or are just plain weird?"

Goldenblade shrugs about things that are weird, and says, "This whole place is weird, to my way of thinking. You kids who say some things are weird and some are normal confuse me no end. None of it makes /much/ sense, but since there's parts I can work with, I work with those parts. Monsters, though? I dunno. I kill monsters when I find them, if I can. My kids were too old for pokemon, but I think my grandkids play it. Or something like it. I don't get it, myself. In my day, if you didn't like another kid, you punched him in the face. Getting your pets to fight ... well, my dad had this huge rotweiller when I was a kid, it could probably have eaten me. And he loved chasing squirrels. He caught a rabbit once, we were all pretty surprised. He was very proud of himself."

"People have used animals to fight for a long time. Romans had guard geese, you know?" Lunaris asks with a snicker, her footfall crunching the road underneath her, "It's hardly a new idea, or one from a game! Pets have always been considered guardians, from security dogs to police ones. I wonder if there's similar things with cultures here.. Suppose I've never looked into that." She shrugs, glancing at the Grunty nearby, "Though always for labour. Much stronger. Monsters are different though. Always aggressive. No matter how much you pet them. Feels a bit bad forcing your will on them still!"

"Oh yeah," aggrees Goldenblade. "/Animals/ are fine for fighting." She looks at the grunty team. "Or other things. You said monsters before, though, and apparently monsters here are different than animals." This is apparently also inconsistent with Goldenblade's worldview. She nods at the description of monsters as always aggressive. "Dunno how much you can feel bad for a monster. I mean, they're monsters." She shrugs.

"Monsters and Animals aren't that different, just one can't be tamed and is always made to be aggressive. And you can still feel bad for them, forcing your will on anything is a bit.." Lunaris trails off, suddenly further along the trail and not really wanting to take that line of thought further, probably exactly the same reason she doesn't like the Crowns in the slightest. Either way it was something she wasn't planning on diving any deeper into in particular. "Anyway, good luck with your construction work! Hope the electricity thing goes well!"