Bottle Of Jack

Nureha handled the flustered and rather disconcerted Lander who gave them the assignment after she and the others returned from the depths of the maze-like cellar. She said her goodbyes and broke away from the party, packing away a strange flute with writing down one side to examine later.

Meanwhile, she drifts to the edge of town and out into the overworld. There is nothing particularly dangerous in these fields, as of yet, so the breeze blows through her hair and petals scatter up in little puffs.

She hums that low, ominous hum to herself as she watches the water -- A haunting hum in the back of her throat that has a mechanical quality to it, like the hyper-fast precise language of the enchanter.

    There on the beach was a raven, black scaled Salamander. He was staring out over the ocean water. Watching it move back and forth. His eyes were staring endlessly at it, barely a blink. Thoughts probably elsewhere or maybe even on the mission he just helped with.

Before he let out a sigh as flopped backwards on to his back, looking up at the sky. "... coms work... quests work... do we even have xp..?" He mutters to himself in further thought.

The soft, repetitive sound of her voice comes far before the light pat of her shoes across the sand. It fades in and out of audibility, only a few notes sung and repeated and repeated.

She brings her humming to a stop when she gets close to him but doesn't say anything, arranging herself with stately dignity down on the sand in her floppy robe and tattered skirt.

She has a very plain black wooden staff she is using as a walking stick, putting it across her lap as she looks out at the water. "I used to hate that when I started. Lots of questions.." her expression is peaceful, or at least a good approximation of it. "..not a lot of answers."

    Xander looks over and stares over at Nureha, "... Is this going to be a thing? Am I going to keep running into you now?" He then goes to flop his arm over his eyes, as he rests there. "And yeah, more questions than I like."

He doesn't move his arm as he speaks, but his tail does thump the sand slightly. "Kingdom coms still work. Suggested the idea that with us finding out that quests are working, that those more experienced get the less experienced together to run stuff. Start teaching people."

Xander lowers his arm to rest on his stomach, crossing his fingers together. "... Also you have a nice singing voice."

"Thank you." she smiles, one ear twitching. "That's a very nice thing to say, but I was more concerned about you. You seemed to be coming down on yourself pretty hard, so.. I asked around, kept an eye out for you." Nureha swishes her tail once, hard sideways and down. She settls her hands in her lap, letting him work things out at his own pace.

    Xander closes his eyes as he listens to her, but stays quiet. "We might be imperfect beings, we can still strive to be perfect." He says bluntly. "I knew better than to do what I did. I could have gotten everyone hurt or worse, killed."

He opens his eyes once more. "... I don't... want to see another," he stops himself and tsks gently. "Anyways, you shouldn't worry about me. We got the mission done, some coin in our pockets, and life lessons for the trouble."

Nureha plays with the staff in her lap for a long minute of silence, sitting there with the words dying away on the beach. "I think we worked pretty well together, for such an impromptu gathering. People are searching for something in believe in. The game or.. themselves or.. a cause they champion. But few look past tomorrow. It's a game, after all. Why would they do anything else?"

    The quest isn't over until you've gone back and reported. You have to close out stories that way, if not some other, or the audience won't like it. Best to get it all done in one session. But it's not like she has much to say to the Lander, so Kyo ends up, for a little while, at a loss. There'd been direction, but now where does she go? Things are awfully quiet, without the comment stream, the forums, the outside pings.

    So, she wanders. You can't get many places sitting by yourself. That wandering finds her the next-worst, but far better thing--two people by themselves. This'd be so easy to joke about it, but the atmosphere's wrong. Awkward. How does she approach that?

    Joking about it's still the best thing she can come up with. Even being wrong has its benefits, sometime, over not doing anything at all. Some people appreciate a good mistake. So she keys into her chimlink, and asks.

    "Hey, Nureha." Pause. "Am I interrupting your date?"

    She'll wander into view a little bit after that.

Nureha turns her eyes up to the sky briefly, her face carefully school in perfect lines of dignity. Her chimlink, however, emits an unladylike snort of amusement as one ear flickers.

<<My dear, I believe he has to thaw a little more around the edges for that. Thank you for the kind thought, though. >>

She evinces surprise when Kyo wanders into view, putting her hands on the staff and straightening up as her tail curls and thumps to one side as she tilts her head. "Ah. You are.." she peers at Kyo as if suddenly trying to place her. She bites her lip, eyebrows shooting up in vague recognition. "I wasn't aware many of us made our way to Alne in one piece." She wobbles a hand. "..in the loosest of senses meant, of course."

    Xander's jaw clenches a little, he is very unaware of the guest for the moment. "... It is a game that takes into account the possible fundamentals of reality. For all we know, for anyone may know, we may no longer come back to life when we get killed." He admits with a knit of his brows. "... All we can do is hope that /isn't/ the case."

Then when Nureha's attention seems to focus elsewhere, he looks upside down from where he lays, his black to silver hair dragging across the sand slightly, "Hm?" Looking at Kyo. ".. You.. are from that duty quest..." He says softly.

    Kyo gives Nureha a 'really?' look, before twirling about once, wolf's tail trailing the motion, coming around into a half-ready stance, feet just past shoulder width apart, one hand on her hilt--though it's a cross draw, so it's not like she'd draw it that way. It's a pose an artist would use.

    "You hadn't noticed? Maybe I need to make more noise." It's a confident look.

    She nods to Xander. "Kyo Kirin, at your service, again." She doesn't ask if he's heard of her. If he had, there wouldn't be a need to ask. She'd made sure to keep her appearance distinct from every other Nero Idol. To do otherwise would be to start a war.

    She looks back out over the water for a moment, then back again. "Though, you look like you're doing fine." She lies without so much as a hint of sarcasm. "So, sorry, if I did something unnecessary."

"Hope." Nureha says faintly, chewing the inside of her lip as she looks across the water. "Well." she looks back at him. "It seems the Black Wave didn't take that, at least. It's something to work with." she is sitting on the sand in her tattered skirt and robe pooling around her feet, and gestures for Kyo to come join them.

"We work with what we have, yes? I think.." she trails off, saying after a moment's thought. "..That outside of a few.. minor issues, that quest does well at teaching basic teamwork skills. I will continue poking around, see if I can evaluate a few more of them. "

"And I would be grateful for your continued assistance, Kyo. We were fortunate to have you."

She puts a hand up to her ear, her eyes growing distant for a moment before she looks back at Kyo. She keys into the chimlink, saying. "My apologies for not recognizing you. You'll have forgive a moment's inattention, even though such things are never an excuse."

    Xander falls very quiet as the two ladies talk, his heavy scaled tail thumps the sand gently from time to time. He doesn't really even respond much, seeming to be lost in his own thoughts.

When he does speak up, "Probably be a good. You and Kyo seeing about maybe getting another experienced player or two new players and teaching them the ropes."

He looks at them both with a silly grin. "I'd be to hard on them anyways."

    "We all made it through. Nobody fell..." Catching the words 'except the monsters' in her throat, Kyo finishes with "...on our side." That was a Lander, right? Well, someone would reappear to refresh the quest. It's not like these things were all one-offs. That would be a big waste of scripting. Still...

    Nureha's thanking her. Kyo smiles. It does reach her eyes, red irises comfortably narrowing. She brushes some hair to the side. "You're welcome. It was fun, wasn't it?" Even if it was too real. "Maybe a lot of people need to relearn the game, now." Even if isn't a game--oh, wait, that could sound bad. Clarify, clarify. "Dealing with all of the, you know, new senses." There.

    To the chimlink, "Oh, don't worry about it. Don't mind it. Maybe I do need to make some noise. It might be good if some people did."

    Her boots, even though they go past her knees, do seem to be flexible enough to let her sit down, so she does. To Xander, she tries out a grin of her own. "No harder than you are on yourself, right?" She nods. "If nothing else, it'll mean we don't have to sleep outside. Not while we can't..." She searches for the word, "...can't just find the comfy bed a few feet away." She doesn't sound all that upset about it, even if she probably should be.

"Then maybe we all still have something to learn." Nureha pushes herself to her feet, brushing the sand off her robe as she does so. "I'll let you know how things progress. We could always use your help, as well as your insight." she inclines her head to Xander.

"And we'll figure out some way to deal. All of us." she crinkles her nose. "..Though do let me know if you decide to make some noise. I wouldn't want anything untoward happening."

    The dark scaled Salamander looks at Kyo first and snorts gently, then rolls his eyes to even Nureha's statement. "I am not sure what insight I can give. There are to many unknowns." he expresses motioning up to the sky. "We don't even know what we are dealing with and that makes it even harder to stand at ready."

Xander's arms than flop down on the sand, spread out. "To create a plan, you need information. Data. Yes, you can come up with something on the fly, but those can fall apart, unless you can think on your feet fast enough."

    Xander then goes to sit up and shakes his head, getting some of the sand out of his long black hair, before huffing a silver bang out of his face. "There is no redo or undone button. There is no way to escape from the system. People will need to learn, one way or another, they are /stuck/ here... Though I do wonder.." Xander goes to stand up. "... What /would/ really happen if someone is killed." That went dark.

    Kyo laughs. "Sure. I'll let you know before I cause any trouble." She resists the urge to do something like pat Nureha's head, but that resistance is visible.

    She cocks her head to one side, and gives a thoughtful pause over Xander's words. "Scouts, scouts and strategists. There's going to be a need for a lot of those, right? Just like when a new game is out, before the walkthroughs come up. Oh, maybe... the people who made the ETO guides are around here, too? Ahh, but, I can't remember a lot of names from the BBS. Sorry."

    Though she'd just sat down, she stands up, too, stretching, and shaking her tail. It's still sandy. Yuck. Why did she sit down on that, anyway? "If someone were killed... it's probably already happened, so I think we'll find out soon. Especially if people keep trying to raise their levels back up. Some are going to be in a rush, you know?"

    "Yeah, that is what worries me." Xander admits. "I'm with the Aincard Liberation Front and apparently they been trying to push the Tower." he shakes his head gently, "If anyone has died, I'll probably hear about it and the possible results."

He also hand waves slightly, "And probably get called a coward because I am not trying hard enough, but honestly rushing in, well," he laughs. "I guess I lost that argument today..."

    Xander looks between the two. "You two seem like good friends and I'm sure you both got better things to be doing, then," He does a playful hair flip, trying to lighten the mood or at least, show a more 'fun' side, instead of super serious, "Hanging with this--" He can't even finish before he laughs, "N-Nevermind. That-- that was going all sorts of wrong, A-anyways."

e goes to step away. "I am going to head back to the Tower city and see if I can learn anything else. Also check on some people there."

He then turns away and waves his hand to the both of them, "Feel free to reach out though and stay safe!"