Fishing for Adventure

The light is rising high above the sky as it ascends from morning to noon. Soujiro has been at the docks since first light, helping the fishermen out with their first haul. It quickly turned into helping new Adventuers out. Helping them swim. Helping them fish.

Now it is a whole school of people that are in the water with Soujiro as they get over their fears of the O2 meter when diving. "Ready?" he asks the group. An old man on the dock blows a whistle, signaling the start of the next contest. Who can find the most items underwater. Fish. Crabs. Even trash. Someone has already found a small pearl (game logic, of course).

Schneider arrives fashionably late, of course. Or unavoidably late, anyhow, as he'd put away his swimming trunks last summer, and hadn't gotten them out this year despite the season being close to over. Showing up late, he comes in to see all the people splashing around in the water, and he gives Soujiro a puzzled look. "I thought this was ..." but he's not sure what it was going to be. Just not people splashing around, scaring the lobsters.

Vertina had been down to the Marina to get supplies for the tavern when she caught sight of the crowd of people around Soujiro. Which is nothing new. Them being out in the water is a little different though. Once she's got things paid for and shipped on their way to the Tower the Salamander Godhand wanders down to the docks and sits on the edge of one. "Kind of reminds me of when I was training to harness the Water element."

And there is one shirtless Souji in swim trunks diving down to the bottom of the shallows. The others follow around him and from the surface it looks like a school of fish. The group heads further outwards, noted by bubbles that pop to the surface.

A few stray Sahuagin engage in random encounter style, the school of adventurer fish fanning out with the samurai at the front, handling them in a bit of underwater training. Adventure is where you find it when you make an effort to look! Could be in the water of the docks that are tread upon since level 1.

The whistle blows and the challenge ends. Dozens of adventurers rush to the surface to talk about what they found. That they still had /plenty/ of O2 left and could have gone longer. That underwater fighting is so different. Souji notices Vertina and Schneider land-side, giving them a wave from the waters.

Schneider hops out into the water to greet Seta and the others, himself also shirtless in his Hawaiian-print-looking board shorts. He does not look like the typical sorcerer to be sure as he waves and heads on over. "Swimming lessons, today?" he asks Seta curiously. "I wonder if we could build submarines, or if they'd have the same problems as airships? Then again, the Palace Landers have whole squads of combat Undines."

Vertina watchs the horde of people make their way back to the shore, nodding a bit at the fragments of conversation she overhears. "Main difference is the body moves differently in the water. More resistance," she notes. The laughs a bit. "But it's easier to just dive in and go. So to speak. Sometimes better to not think too hard about it." She props one leg up to rest her arm across the elbow, the other leg left dangling over the edge, toes dipping just the surface of the water. As she's barefoot like most martial artists seem to prefer.

Soujiro Seta floats on the water's surface. "Nothing all that serious," he explains as if there is some big plan to create an aquatic army to combat the Palace Lander's squads. Or take on Leviathans. This is all stuff outside of the Tower anyway. "There was a person that wanted to learn how to swim and it grew from there. Do you remember the first time you ever got in the water? Having people nearby to help you out makes learning it easier!" Its just that simple for him. "And there is so much /stuff/ under here. You never know when taking on that 100th sea slug will get you a rare drop of a pearl that summons a rare fight." Totally not like getting the Carby stone in FF11, nope.

Schneider nods about moving differently in water. "I never went out for swim team, but I know that," he agrees. He gives Seta a nod about not taking on the Palace Landers, but remembers his own first lessons swimming. They're some of his oldest memories, when he was three or four or five-ish. Time didn't really exist back then. Or he didn't understand it very much back then. As far as drops, though, he wonders, "Are there really any worthwhile drops in such a low-level zone?"

Vertina laughs again. "When I took up training Water elements with Arashi, she literally threw me in the water a few times. Something about forcing one to adapt threw experience. I mean, I wasn't afraid of the water, so there may of been some confusion there, but in the end it worked." She makes a scooping motion with one hand and a blurp of water parts from the harbor to bobble into her hand like a large bubbly ball. "I don't know Shneider, but that might just mean no one has looked for it yet."

Soujiro Seta thinks for a moment on that. He makes the effort to reach Schneider on where he is coming from, which is a place of knowledge and logic. Neither of those things are what Souji is known for. He is a 'feeler' and uses his instinct to navigate through life. "Yeenagi attacked through a lower level zone," he recalls, "so there is no telling what could be out there now." He smiles over to Vertina, who gets it a bit better where he is coming from, "Thats right, Vertina, and it would be an easy place to overlook now. So there is never a wasted opportunity when it strikes." And in an unexpected turn, Souji ended up recruiting a low level raid to look for them. Samurai power.

Schneider shrugs to Vertina, explaining, "I just assumed this area had been totally scourerd of worthwhile drops when we first got stuck here. Lowbie areas where anyone could go." He arches a brow about water training, but can only shrug. He can, technically, command all the elements, if not particularly well with some.

Hee nods to Seta about Yeenagi showing up in a lower level region than he should have been in for the difficulty, but Schneider points out, "Yes, but he didn't surprise anyone. Or maybe the first lowbies that went there. We all knew pretty quickly, though, that there was something going on there."

Vertina nods. "That's a fair point." She flicks the ball of water back into the harbor waters. "His cultists weren't very subtle of their presence, someone was clever enough to track them back to the source. And we punched gnoll mugs multiple times."

Soujiro Seta swims out of the waters, heading to the docks. Feeling the conversation has reached its conclusion he doesn't let it linger on. "Follow your hearts. If it isnt here," he smiles, "it isn't here." No sense in forcing it. It is here for him, and nothing is going to force him to be disingenuine about it. He does a quick menu dry off and swaps into his standard green West Wind kimono instead of his Red and White Blood Knight gear. A hand is given to someone getting out of the water.

Schneider shrugs weakly. "I'm not saying swimming's bad or you shouldn't do it. I'm not even saying high-level drops won't happen. I'm just saying I wouldn't expect them to. But teaching kids to swim, or grown up Landers, if they want to learn, that's a good goal by itself, even without any drops. And keeping an eye out in known areas like this will help us prevent any bad guy infiltration."

"It's Soujiro. He'll find a way to do something, and a way to make interesting. And training. Low level area or not," Vertina replies as she shifts to lean against one of the dock posts.