We've Been Trying To Reach You About Your Grunty's Extended Warranty

Karluin, main square. It hasn't been a day since the main battle for the Dungeon Heart.

A large barrel converted into a traveller's wagon is parked here. A grunty, larger than average and clad in a maid outfit, purple wig, and faux slyph wings, is eating off a bucket. A small... well, technically it's a 'ladder': while mounted on a hinge and having a metal frame, each step is flat and horizontal, making it more like a small set of 'stairs'. Anyway, this small hinged ladder, connected to the back of the cart and leading up into it, is lowered, and Uta is sitting on one of the steps, just outside the 'entrance' to her mobile home. She's holding an ice bag to her forehead, and just- well, relaxing.

Gwen has come across Uta and her RV, and she can't help but smirk as she looks the thing over. The towering woman is again wearing her heavy blade outfit somehow now showing effects of the weather and cold? Does she not care? Does she suffer for her fashion? Does it have some enchant that keeps her warm? Who knows, Gwen isn't letting go of that armor set as the black 'armored' sylph comes up to the RV calling out.

"Uta! I brought food!"

Goldenblade couldn't make it for the battle, much to her chagrin, she had wanted to be there, but she can't be everywhere at once. She makes her way down to the city of Karluin and immediately pulls out a sketchpad, taking notes on the ... actually kind of boring architecture. It's on the plain end of whatever fantastic flights of fancy that fairytale castles are on the other end of. It makes it quicker to sketch, admittedly.

Spotting Uta and her wagon, she will drift on over, calling, "HelloooOOOOoooOOOOOooo, Uta!" As for keeping warm in the cold, Goldenblade is well known for her association with fire, and a palpably warm aura follows where she walks.

Uta winces, not in disgust, but what looks like genuine pain, and presses the ice pack closer to her skull. "Don't say that loud, Goldenblade! Gwen might show up and stick me in a nurse's uniform!", says Uta.

While wearing a nurse's uniform.

As if on cue, Gwen announces herself. "Food?!" Exclaims Uta, all of a sudden, and stands up. "Where? I- ow!" More wincing. More pressing of ice against her forehead.

Gwen says "One I'm already here, two you are already in a nurse uniform." She smirks a bit. "Yes I brought some food and kept it warm in my inventory." She's got something nice though she seems in good spirits. She look to golden blade for a moment.

"I have enough for you as well Goldenblade!"

Gwen wiggles a bit she seem concenred as Uta bumps her head. "Are you okay Uta?!"

Goldenblade peers at Uta and the ice pack, then at Gwen, then back to Uta. "You OK?" she asks. She can see that she's not OK, and if she couldn't, Inspect would certainly show it in more detail. What that phrase really means is 'Do you want my clumsy and inexpert attempt to help?'. Because toughing it out might be the better choice.

"Were you in the battle?" she wonders. "How did it go? I tried to get down here, but I got lost on the second floor." She should have taken the train, but ...

She looks over to Gwen as she's offered food, and says, "I won't refuse." She still mostly eats menu food, so cooked food is a luxury.

"Getting better," comments Uta to both questions. "Still got a headache from the failed Loremastering of the Type 28 back there...", she says, and thumbs in the direction of where the boss fight took place. "Not much to do but wait for it to pass. But... " She removes the ice pack and looks down at it, "...in the meantime, I can resort to the old trick of fooling my nerves into thinking they're feeling cold instead of pain." She lazily places her ice pack on her head again. "It's an improvment."

"Soujiro Seta managed to destroy the Dungeon Heart. Someone sent a couple of... Machina-like experiments who seemed capable of learning from us. One of them could learn to use the magical attacks we threw at it against us."

"...I'm already wearing a nurse's uniform?!" She looks down at herself. "Uh, -dang- Gwen, your technique is -amazing-. How'd you do that?!"

She must have taken Gwen's statement as a Fist of the North Star style 'You're Already Dead' -- but for fashion.

"...so, uh. Anyway. What about the food?"

You are already glammed, may become a thing if Gwen ever twigs about it. It's kinda true as it is, at least she's not as off the hook as her mother is. Mayhaps Gwen holds her back to protect the rest of the world from her mom's antics. Or could Morri have been like Gwen when she was younger? Who knows, only time will tell on that one. She looks at Goldenblade and beams at this.

"Aye give me a moment to set up? If Uta will let us in we can eat out of the cold! So I have stew, biscuits and pastries for dessert!"

Goldenblade hrms as Uta describes the battle. "That sounds like a tough fight," she admits. "Machina are bad news, as far as I've heard. But good that he could destroy it!" As far as the headache from Loremastering, she looks quite relieved not to be a Loremaster! As far as Gwen 'transforming' Uta's clothes, she leaves that one alone. Fashion is a thing that passes her by. Possibly because her normal raiment is crafted by an armorsmith rather than a tailor? Possibly because she has a very no-nonsense demeanor and simply won't put up with the cheerful dressup games that the others put up with?

She peeeeers hard as Gwen beans, trying to puzzle out the subtext here. There seems to be something going on, but Goldenblade is one of the all time Slow On the Uptake types. In out of the cold to eat sounds nice, though. "Sounds good," she agrees.

"Please -do- come in!", Uta exclaims, and getting up, she leads the way inside her traveller's cart.

The interior, in the best Japanese fashion, is a paragon of minimalism. One round window, with one horizontal and one vertical bar, and nothing else visible. She opens a cupboard at the far end of the barrel, pulls out four small cubes of wood, and places them on the ground, in the pattern of the stubby legs of a table. A hook is released, and soon a table/desk on hinges is lowered, held up by two chains that connect to the wall/ceiling. "It's small," Uta begins, apologetic, "but it's home." She begins to fiddle with the chains, and the mechanism of the hinges, to detach the board from the 'wall/ceiling'; at this point it's obvious that her hinged-against-the-wall desk is going to be reconverted as a table for the small party to sit around. "Machina are bad news, yes. One of them turned out to be deemed a 'failed experiment' though, so... we probably got out easily."

Gwen will wrap her wings about her body like a cloak, as she will make herself in.

"Yeah if that was a failed experiment? I don't want to know what a successful one would be like. Also are you okay after that fight? Things seem like they were pretty hard on you." She will sit herself down side and go to get the food out and ready to share with everyone else. The stew, the pasties and the biscuits out for her friends.

"I got some neast machina parts I want to work into a gauntlet, could make a hell of a grapple and whip with it."

Goldenblade knows a bit about minimalist architecture, one of her grandkids did the Tinyhouse thing. How this was different from an apartment, she couldn't tell. But she will let Uta set it up for guests to eat, and will then sit. "This is actually quite a useful wagon," she remarks. "I wonder, though... but steam engines have a certain minimum size, because of the expansion vessel and such. And we don't have internal combustion yet..." As far as machina go, she can only shrug. "Glad it wasn't a success, I guess?" she agrees with Gwen.

As far as making weapons with found parts ... she's considered that. But she hasn'y gone there yet. "I'm considering something remarkable for my swords, but I haven't worked out just what yet."

"I don't know, I've kinda grown attached to Gwenty," Uta says, gesturing vaguely towards the tall Grunty outside. As if on cue, the animal exclaims, "It's FASHION time!"

"Seriously, Gwenty runs on plants that grow all over Yamato, gets great mileage, does not pollute, and best of all, can go on autopilot when I normally wouldn't be in the best shape to drive. How long before we can come up with machines that can do all that?"

"Definitely glad it wasn't a success, although... I don't know, there was a voice speaking in Alv at the end. I'm kind of worried of what might have gone on there."

The board is set down properly, with remarkably little effort, and soon after a small tablecloth is covering it. Wooden bowls and spoons are set down. A small box of chopsticks is in the corner, in case they're needed.

"...That would be pretty amazing, yes. Grapples and whips hidden in a gauntlet? Pretty genius." She turns to Goldenblade, and scratching the back of her head, she admits, "I don't know what to suggest there. I do not use nor make swords," while her head sinks a little into her shoulders.

"I am fine, Gwen, yes," she finally confirms. "Loremastering things sometimes gives me a headache and a sore throat. I should be better tomorrow already."

Gwen is now serving out the food at this point. "Maybe, but i might be more up for this given the fuel issues, yeah? Sides I done the engined RV thing too. I ain't going to stop anyone who wants to. WAit Gwenty?" She looks at Uta for a moment.

"Well if your good come on dig in!"

Goldenblade actually laughs when Uta claims that Grunties don't pollute. "You can say that as long as you drink upstream from the herd," she points out, quoting the song inadvertently. "And don't follow them too closely." She smiles kindly, though, and agrees, "We don't have cars that can do that yet, in real life, though trains come close." The grunty calling out still makes her cringe, and says, "I'm so glad I found an actual horse. That would get old fast."

She's got no way to put all that fantasticalness in a weapon, sadly. She'll have to content herself with a razor's wicked edge.

She will dig in when food is served, and mmmmms appreciatively. I don't eat prepared food enough," she admits.

"Gwenty, yes. Taller than average, obsessed with wearing purple wigs and all all sorts of different clothes, also-"

"Mmmmm! I'm having ideas already.", exclaims the Grunty outside, as if on cue.

"...I thought it was a good name for my grunty. Gwenty."

"Fuel... well, we -do- have oil, somewhere. Remember the quest with the oil slimes? And the Gnomish machinery? If there are oil slimes, there might be oil somewhere. Maybe we cannot use -that- particular oil, but maybe we can find some elsewhere." Short pause. "You did the engined thing? Where? In the outside world? Or... in this one already?"

"Itadakimasu!", exclaims Uta before digging in, as instructed. And seeming to take mental note of anything Goldenblade says. "Good to know! See, I don't have the Handle Animal skill, so..."

Goldenblade is eating well enough, so it's not that she's in one of those strange moods, but being fifty years younger has encouraged her in a number of things. One of these is how long she can go without sleep. Well, she did say she'd been trying to get here for the battle yesterday. Did she come straight here without sleep? That might explain why she got lost. It would also explain why she's snoring, face down in her food.

Gwen peers and then lets out a laugh at this she had no idea about this. "Well I see, we can talk about thatr later now we eat!" She will also dig in once her friend have been served. She pauses and sighs and will move Goldenblade so she's not face first in her food. Then finds a blanekt and will slip a pillow under her head.

"Wait you don't?"

Uta shakes her head. "No Handle Animal. Only Handle Monster." She closes her eyes as another spoonful of stew audibly delights her tastebuds. "...and no Cooking either. One of these days I should really learn to cook. Campfire cooking would be really useful, given my nomadic lifestyle...", she gestures at the wagon, all around them.