It Points West

It's cold out. It's cold and there's wind.

Never the less, Jazz is out here on the bridge, leaning against its side rail and waiting. Waiting for Xander, whom she had a previously made appointment with. Her long hair is wafting a bit in the wind. She has a lot of it, after all.

A lot. Her bangs sweep over her eyes and she utters a curse word.

    "This kind of weather is that moment you wish you could find a hair-tie, am I right?" Xander's voice remarks against the wind. He was wearing his normal armor, though his tunic is now something more long-sleeved and higher up on the neckline.

"The ocean doesn't help with the cold, that is for sure." The Salamander adds as he walks ever closer to Jazuhanzu, but he moves around her to try to see if he can use some of his six foot frame to help block some of the wind from getting to her. "So," He tilts his head gently, as his own bangs are being gently blown around by the wind, along with his ponytail, "About that compass..."

"You know..." The voice seems to come from somewhere other than the road. Kita is still dressed in the somewhat tattered coat she had last been seen in. The Imp has clearly not spent much time gathering resources or leveling. "I could help you with that if you want." Her voice has a slightly defensive tone to it, as if she were expecting a negative reaction even if there is no good reason to believe that.

"A braid or some hair pins would accentuate the whole aesthetic you've got going on." As Xander makes his appearance, though, she seems to get a more wary expression. Kita still isn't sure what to make of the man who is helpful on one hand, and yet barks orders on the other.

It's hard to tell if she cares at all about the matter of the compass. It seems like just the offer of helping Jaz with her hair was a stretch of her usual social capacity.

"Oh, hullo again," says Jazz as Kita just arrives alongside Xander, more or less.

"I mean, I don't know the first thing about caring for hair this long. I never had it in my real life. Fortunately, I don't seem to be getting much in way of split ends, and it just grows ... impossibly fast." She sweeps her hair out of her eyes, though let's be honest, hair in your eyes is a classic anime trope.

"Yeah, I can make one for you. You got a needle, a bowl, and a cork, right?" She holds her hand out to Xander expectatly thereafter.

    Xander pulls up his inventory menu to get the items, before handing them to Jazuhanzu. "Hopefully this weather doesn't mess up your ability to make it."

His eyes then look up to the sky, as his tongue rolls over his sharp fang carefully. "Or doesn't do something nastier like let loose." The Salamander then looks over to Kita, "By the way," He tries to give her a gentle smile, "Any luck finding your friend?"

The gothically dressed mage keeps a few steps away from the two, perhaps uncertain if her presence is welcome at all or not. "You want to be as gentle with it as possible. That's the important part." Kita's own hair is relatively short, but in an attractive fashion. "My hair was dyed like this when I did the original body scan, but the game seems to grow it back in this color, which is convenient." For someone living in Japan, having outlandish blue and white hair would have stood out and gone quite against most social norms.

"Do you want me to try and braid it back?" She offers, "I used to help my mom with her hair, so I know a fair bit."

The girl's blue eyes look over to Xander, and that shadow of pain passes over her features as she shakes her head. "No. Not yet. It's my fault for that. First day logged in and I didn't think to add her to my friends list since we were spending New Years together. This whole mess is fucked up."

Taking the items from Xander withouut a second thought, Jazz takes a moment to address Kita's comments first.

"YEah, it's purple all the way down for me, unfortunaqtely. I spawned in like this and, well... it wasn't my idea and I have noooo idea what to do with it. But, we can talk about that in a moment. Everyone's curious about me making a dumb compass." She eyes Xander a moment, then she clears her throat and proceeds to fill the bowl, calling fiirst on water to fill it.

She then produces a bit of copper ore from her coat and sets it aside, followed by the cork and needle. Then?

...welll, then lightning crackles between her fingers, sparking.

"Who needs weather?" she asks, "I'm a sea-witch, apparently." And then she lightnings the needle, letting it arc between the copper ingot and the needle. It seems to take a great deal of careful concentation from her. Neither too little electricity, nor too much, to properly make it.

She then takes the needle, pushes it through the cork, and drops it now full bowl of water. It starts to bob around.

    Xander watches all this take place. His arms crossing over his chest as he observes what she is doing and noting not once. Not a single, one, darn time, does Jazuhanzu open the menu. Nope. She just does it like anyone would have in real life.

Though he does address Kita as he continues to watch the Sea Witch do her thing, "I'm sorry to hear it. I'm sure she'll show up, just have hope in that. If my guild wasn't so focus on handling the Tower and the HQ construction, I'd see if our commander would be willing to help do a search."

Xander then watches as the needle in the water bobs gently, waiting to see what it does as it floats there, but he still continues to talk with Kita, "Maybe you could find someone with some art skils-- and maybe-- just as a thought-- put up some Looking for posters on notices? Couldn't hurt, could it?"

    Now the Salamander moves his full focus to Jazz as it seems she's done with her little project. "Have you tried doing this also with the crafting menu?" He asks her directly raising a brow.

"Probably the random avatar options, then." Kita replies, making sure she gives the Undine space to do whatever sort of strange experiment she is working on. People were clearly interested in the compass, though the Imp doesn't seem to have any real idea why that would be. "I imagine that would be a little disorienting. Especially now with it being a long term change."

That hint of anger still boils beneath the surface, though at least this time she isn't lashing out at Xander about it. "Yeah. She's tough. Probably more worried about me than anything else." That doesn't stop Kita from worrying, herself.

The idea of using some sort of artistic impression seems to spark an idea from Kita. "Actually..." She reaches into her bag, pulling out what looks like a leather-bound book. It has some complicated runes on it. She opens it, flipping ot a page that shows a pencil sketch of an athletic looking girl with short hair, held back by barrettes. The girl is standing with a suitcase, looking as if she were about to depart for someplace by airplane.

"This is Jurou. Pre-Salamander, that is..."

"No," says Jazz to XAnder, "That would be silly since a water compass isn't in the crafting menu, and it's way too simple for it. It's not really 'crafting' properly, as far as I can tell." She shrugs her shoulders and then glances towards Kita, taking in the picture she's produced while addressing her. "Oh, no, not random but not my choice either. A friend set up the character for me. I'm actually not even on my own account." She smiles, "funny how it all works outm, huh?" THe needle in the cork is now pointing due west, in fact. "Seems it worked," she adds.

    Xander then goes to reach for the bowl and lifts it with some care. He then turns himself in place, watching how the compass behaves. "... What made you think the crafting system wasn't working right?" His tail flicks gently, though with some mindful care of how close he is to both of them. "... Now this makes me really wonder if..."

    Though the Salamander looks over to Kita as she shows off a draw and he blinks a few times, "... Did you do that?" He smirks. "You have some amazing skills!" Then he looks more directly at her, before placing the bowl down. "Was her name Jurou in real life?" His brows furrow a little.

"But-- Y-yeah. Do that, but her, um, avatar. Just do maybe like two or three of them, place one in Alne, another maybe in the Port Town to the east, and... One in the Town of Beginnings to the West of here." He points in the directions. "Maybe someone has seen her or... Maybe she'll see your drawings and come looking for you directly." Then he hrms, "If you do a fourth, maybe I can set it up in our alliances new HQ."

"Huh." Kita looks quizzically at the Undine then, as if she were observing her for the first time. "I honestly never thought of doing that." She hrms to herself, toying with a fringe of white hair, "At least your friend has good taste."

She turns the book back towards herself, her hand coming down to flip through pages. "Mmm." It's a soft sound of acknowledgement. "I was an art-design major. It seems like that translates pretty well into the game world." This tidbit likely also gives an idea of the girl's age. The fact that her Avatar is a body scan likely means she's somewhere in the late teens or early-twenties in real life.

"It would take a bit of time, but I can probably do some versions of her Salamander avatar. I don't have as much experience with it as the real person." More sketches are visible on the pages, many of them seem to be random people, though the same girl, Jurou, appears more often than the others. "I had a lot of time on my hands in Ezzo."

As for the question of her name, Kita just nods. She seems hesitant to explain much more than that. "So... what's the big deal with the compass, anyways?"

"Oi," says Jazz, putting her hand to her face.

"Being trolled into infinity by a life long friend. When we get out of here, I am going to tell him *exactly* how much I appreciated his humor at my expense." She sounds angry, but one does not have to work hard to detect her underlying fondness for her friend. "Good tsate," she snorts, seeming to disagree.

"Nothing," she finally turns to address Xander.

"Too many people were starting to be a little 'oh, it's so realistic'. I wanted to prove that fundamental forces of nature didn't exist. I didn't think anything would happen when I tried to simulate as something basically foundational to the world as magnetism. Why would the video game model *magnetism*? The automap pointed north because it was programmed to point north but..." She turns the compass in the bowl, observing it as it once again d rifts to point westwards, "...behold. We have a polar *west*."

    Xander rubs his chin softly as he thinks over Kita's situation. "Did she also do a body scan? Maybe you can also just focus on the facial features." He says softly in thought. "Just keep it to the face, I'd imagine being a Salamander, given I am one myself, probably wouldn't change the facial features too much with a full body scan."

The Salamander looks back over to Jazz as she explains things. "You know, if scientific forces are holding up to be true, and given you created this, since it wasn't in the menu, then it might be possible that other things that are not supposed to be /in/ the game could actually /be/ created."

    Xander drifts his focus back over to Kita, "That is the importance of this Compass. It is an example of not only crafting can be done without the use of the in game menu, but also, as she now explained," He looks to Jazz, before back to Kita, "Basic science principles might apply."

The Rune Knight shifts his weight in thought, as he closes his eyes, tapping his claw finger against the scales of his chin. "Though I am no science major. I just have the basics knowledge of standard science taught in school and whatever other lessons I had to pick up from training, though most of that was computer related." He realizes he is rambling out loud, which also makes it obvious of the slight lisp in his words.

Xander ahems softly as he forces himself to recompose. "Its-- something to think about either way."

The idea that poor Jazz had been trolled by their friend into this avatar causes a first from Kita. She raises one hand and laughs behind it. It's the first thing to break through the haze of anger and worry. "Yeah, well. Everyone needs something to hold on to in order to drive them." By the time she lowers her hand, though, that brief expression is gone, back behind the more serious demeanor.

"What I mean is, you've got a character who looks like she can be pretty useful. The cute ones are good to manipulate men, especially those with a hero complex. People tend to protect the small, cute ones." Kita's own avatar is quite attractive, though the serious set of her expression likeky takes something away from that. "Use it to your advantage."

Listening to their explination about crafting and sciences, the Imp's tail twitches along the ground, "I mean, I imagine there's a physics engine of some sort. There usually is one behind most game graphics." The girl bites at her lower lip, where there is a small pink spot that suggests she might have had a piercing there at some point. "So it seems there's more to the crafting system than the menu gives us? Curious."

"Mmm." Kita gives another of those soft sounds of affirmation, "We both did. At least it's something I can try. Better than wandering aimlessly in a sea of unfamiliar faces." Kita closes the book, tucking it back away into her bag. Strangely, she doesn't use the inventory menu for it.

"Benjiro is a genius. He said he'd try to get in game later on expansion day. I have no idea if he made it, or where he is if he did. If he's not, he's probably tremendously guilty for causing this problem for me. And good, he should be. Asshole," answers Jazz, who puts her palm to her face with a pained sigh at her words. Exasperation, really.

"Maybe. Or it could simply be that magnetism is modeled, or that something is exerting a magnetic force to the west. I don't know the answer to any of that, but it raises some quewstions that we need answered eventually. I don't think anyone should get too far ahead of themselves on the matter." She glances towards Kita again, "My advantage," she mutters.

    Xander drums his fingers on the rail as he hand comes to rest there "Well," He says looking to Kita, "I hope it helps and you find her." He goes to walk past her, to give her a friendly pat on the shoulder, but then things second of it as his hand falls by his side.

The Salamander slowly looks over to Jazz, "... Yeah. Sure." Though he doesn't add to much to what she said, maybe agreeing or disagreeing. What he does do, is toss her a silver coin. "Thanks for showing me and the information." Then goes to slip around her and turns to face them both. "And I'll still keep an eye out for your friend Kita."

Then Xander starts to walk off, seeming to be off in his own thoughts over what he was shown.

"Do you know if he did body scan for his character?" Kita asks. Though she still seems to carry that wariness to her, the young woman has a spark of curiosity behind it. "If so, I might be able to draw a picture of him if you can describe him. Post it up in Alne?"

She taps on her bag, fingertips exposed from her gloves. "If you find him, you can always punch him in the face for making you adorable?" The idea of Jazz seeing sweet revenge on her friend is an amusing one, and it ever so slightly quirks the corner of Kita's lips.

She follows Xander briefly with her eyes when he approaches. It is likely that look that might act as discouragement to touch her. Whatever it is, she certainly seems wary of him. As he walks away, she adds quietly, "He's weird."

"Yeah, take care," she replies to Xander, waving gingerly after him before she finds her attention slowly drawn back to Kita.

"This is actually his account, like I said. I was going to get my own but I hadn't gotten set up yet. I'd only been back in Japan a couple days at that point. So maybe he made it? maybe not. Honestly, I hope not. Much as I miss him, I'd rather he not be stuck here too." She looks down a moment, hair shrouding her face in thought.

"I am SO punching him, though."

"Hmm." Kita gives a thoughtful sound as she nods. "Well at least he knows what you look like, so if he is here he might be able to track you down." The idea of being able to offer some sort of services like that seems to appeal to the girl. It's a way of putting her artistic talents to work for people within the world of Yamato.

She thumbs over her shoulder in the direction of the city. "Do you want me to walk you back to town? I figure you're so small and cute you can probably bring down entire civilizations with your power but... you know. Might not want to be out here alone."

Jazuhanzu just wilts under the assault of talk of her cutenesss. ".... yeah, sure, and you can help with the hair too. I never grew it out long before and now I suddenly have all the hair and I am really thankful for the in game hygiene magic." She waves her hand. "It gets pretty anime-wafty when I get all witchy." She lets out a forlorn sigh.