Vulpecula and Lyra

    Uta sits on a rock, watching the breeze ruffle the grass and colorful herbs in this clearing surrounded by forest. It is midday in Yamato. Uta has an empty bentou box next to her, neatly packed back to its original state, napkins folded and replaced. She's relaxing now, leaning back, wings hanging down, enjoying the breeze, admiring the majestic view of the Floating City of Fort Ouph among the clouds, and strumming on a lyre. It's some slow yet engaging piece, immediately relatable, where the low strings are plucked regularly, establishing slow yet relentlessly pacing, while the higher notes are plucked more sparingly, while her voice hums the melody, something beautiful that must have been carried to the present days from a forgotten Golden Age of music where-

    ...wait, no, it's Alan Parsons' Projects "Eye in the Sky", arranged for Lyre and vocalizations.

    Still pretty spiffy.

Eye in the Sky? Really?

It's appropriate, at least, and it's a dead give away that Uta's present. Only an 'adnveturer' coiuld make those notes jst yet, right?

Jazz arrived in Fort Ouph by boat, along the river, having descended the gangplank with Estelle in tow, at the very least.

"Uta's ... well... .you'll see," she informs the fox before tucking her hands in her coat pockets.

Shiruba is being a good friend and leader, helping others travel around safely! Also because she needs to check in with the patrols they've had stationed to operate out of Fort Ouph so they don't have to constantly travel across the landmass. Dealing with two tasks and some fun on the time is the kind of efficiency she prefers, so here we are. "I could think of a few descriptions, but it's best you see for yourself. It's the only way to really understand what it is to experience 'Uta'."

It's been a long journey - longer than the fox would have liked, perhaps, but the chance to meet someone new and check out a few things while she's here make up for it. And the stargazing has been wonderful, especially with a chance to use the astrolabe and her spyglass in tandem, for checking and updating her charts... The discussion was nice too, of course. Their mutual interests and similar goals make conversation easy. And she's gone questing with Shiruba, so there's a bit to touch base there too.

Still, Estelle has only vague ideas of who she's here to talk to, beyond an apparently distinctive appearance. Still, her ears perk at a song that isn't in the game's soundtrack, flicking a little now and then as they approach the source.

"You're both making this sound like such a good idea." She notes, tails swishing behind her, even as her silver gaze sweeps along the terrain, trying to peer through the foliage and get her first glimpse of the musician. Even as she hums along. There's a pause as they break into the clearing, though, and she does get her first look of Uta, though.

    Uta, still dressed in her newbie gear consisting of something that could equally be a martial artist's gi or a nurse's uniform, notices some activity, and turns towards the source of the disturbance in the perfect peace of the scene. It's her friends, Jazz and Shiruba, and a third person she does not remember encountering before.

    Her distended Srpiggan wings spring up into the standard "X" configuration, top pair sticking up, bottom pair sticking down, apart. "Oh my goodness. It's finally happening. For real. I have been waiting so long for this moment!", she exclaims, all excited.

    She darts towards the group, reaches into her jacket, fumbles as if looking for something, and once she's covered half the distance that separates her from the group she pulls out what looks like a dragon's scale, about the size of the palm of her hand.

    Upon reaching Jazz, without even greeting or acknowledging the rest of the group, she starts waving the scale all around the small undine, positively ecstatic, the whole operation resembling something halfway between a tribal blessing and a portable metal detector scan at the airport.

Certainly longer than Jazz had liked. Truth be told, she spent much of it on her own, staring out over the ocean or at the sky herself. She had leant her astrolabe to Estelle for her own experimentation, not seeming to find much interest in doing, well, much of anything but wait for enough seconds to tick by for them to have arrived.

She did mostly perk up on arrival, the new sight of the fort and the flying city having her have purses her lips as she lead the way to the introduction to Uta.

... which brings us to noeC where she is being crowded by the nurse and her ... scale?

There is a heavy sigh and her scaling and markings light up in a rippling pattern across her face, bioluminescent.

"Uta, what are you doing?"

Shiruba just sighs and shakes her head a bit at Uta's 'greeting'. "As I was saying...", she remarks to Estelle "You need to experience Uta to understand Uta."

Then she reachs over to grab one of Uta's arms and gently but firmly make her lower it. "Uta, what have you been told about not telling people what you're trying to do first?"

A pause.

"What -are- you doing, anyways?" Why does she always end up being the one to deal with all the eccentrics?

"... Huh." is the comment of the vixen after long moments of watching this go down, her head lightly canted as she watches the spriggan do her thing - whatever that 'thing' may be. She considers the dragon's scale, the woman waving it around, and the reaction on Jazz's face at the hijinks. "Yes, I get what you two meant." She muses, before puling out some star charts from the night before, reconsidering the omens there and how she interpreted them the night before.

"Still, I am curious now, too." She tucks the charts away after long moments, with a murmured 'still auspicious, I think?' Then her gaze turns to the 'show', ears twitching this way and that as she considers what's going on.

    "I don't get it...", Uta says, scratching her head, her wings flopping back again. "I don't get it at all. It did nothing. Nada. Zilch." She looks at Jazz, and points at her scale. "According to this item's description, it's supposed to alert me when someone violates the Laws of Alba, and..." she extends both her hands towards the Undine, "...and there is no way your adorable cuteness isn't breaking some cosmic regulation. It just... doesn't add up. It- oh, AH!", she exclaims startled.

    "Shiruba, when did you come here? You startled me! Wow, you must have practiced your hunter sneaking skills to an amazing level. I didn't see or hear you coming!" Despite the fact that Uta has practically been running towards her.

    A blink. "...Oh, hi!", Uta finally says. "I've seen you before...", she trails off, kind of lost in thought. "...where have I seen you.. where..." There go the wings, perking up again. "Oh, right! I saw you earlier when I was playing the lyre and looking at Fort Ouph!" She smiles wide, and takes a couple of steps back. "Allow me to introduce myself. Uta Furore, Musical Kung-Fu Nurse. Pleased to make your acquaintance!" She bows, one arm extended to point at the wonder in the sky. "Ladies and gentl... well, just ladies, actually. Ladies, welcome to my city!" She straightens up again, and gets an absent expression as she turns to look up and away. "Not that I live in it, mind you. It's just the city I started in, and, based on what I understand, where I'll respawn if I end up dying." She turns towards the group again. She shakes her head and turns to face Estelle once more. "...Sorry, I tend to get distracted from time to time, and I've missed your question. What did you want to know, again?"

Shiruba just stares for a few moments. Then buries her face in one palm with a slow sigh because the explaination barely makes more sense than the lack of knowing did.

"While her level of cuteness is exceptionaly, I doubt she would be standing here if she was breaking any contingencies of reality." Ears flick as she turns to the foxy lady. "You're the one in tune with the cosmos, what do you think?"

Not that trying to tell Uta she's being weird would ever stop her for long.

Jazz stood there, allowing the examination with an expression that indicated a relative assuredness that this was going to go somewhere... and then it did.

Her response is to run her hand down her face.

"Clearly, it's defective. I brought a friend with me. Uta, this is Estellle. Estelle, Uta. Uta, I was wondering... what's the most acidic slime you've come across that's at the, uh, ranch?"

"Estelle Mancer, Astrologian." the fox introduces herself in turn to the spriggan, giving a curtsy in return for the bow. Even as she considers... everything else. The scale gets eyed at the talk of 'violating the Laws of Alba'. Still, she has been asked for commentary. "And, certainly, Jazz does violate some convention about how cute someone can be. But perhaps not the physical laws governing such; the stars have not given any ill omens about it, at least." She does pat the undine on the shoulder, though.

"And the city certainly is something, yes. It'd probably be a better sight under the night sky, with its watchlamp glinting alongside them..." Her tone is thoughtful, hands raising to frame the place a bit as if lining up a photo. But she shakes it off after a moment, as Jazz turns to the topic that brought them together. "But! Yes. We were talking about timekeeping, and the use of chemical timing for calibration came up, and then your name was mentioned as someone to potentialy talk chemistry with..."

    "I don't know, Shiruba, her excessive cuteness might be exactly what broke the system and trapped us here, as far as we know. Well, as far as we knew." She frowns. "I doubt my Relic is broken, Jazz. I've never seen a broken relic before. They all work like a charm. Always. Having a broken relic would probably violate a law of Alba, and my relic would point that out by glow-" She frowns. "...wait."

    She shakes her head to clear it, and continues, "There's this fruit that looks kind of like a lemon, tastes sort of like a lemon, but it's not really a lemon. It's called Sourfruit or something? As if the game designers were trying to avoid copyright infringement on normal plant names. Unless Linnaeus's estate has the most aggressive lawyers in history, I am at a loss why they wouldn't just call it a lemon." She resumes her pacing around, hands behind her back, chin held up in absent-minded reflection. "...I've fed one to a slime. Slimes tend to be pretty acidic on their own, so that probably was the most acidic thing I've ever licked." Uta stops, blushes, and hurries to add, "...measured. Most acidic thing I've ever /measured/."

    Estelle's word seem to flatter Uta. She looks down, and if she weren't blushing already, she'd blush now. "Oh, I'm... I'm flattered that you thought of me, but to be fair, I'm leaning more on the pharmacy side of things. What you are looking for might actually be more in the domain of Alchemy." She straighens up, "Still, I will help you in any way I can." She looks between Jazz and Estelle alternately. "Calibration, huh? Good plan. Not sure how stable alchemical clocks would be on a ship, what with all the shaking going on. Reason why they historically couldn't use pendulums back home." She gets that genuinely confused, frowning, leveled gaze at the duo. "...but why don't you just the clock in the menu for calibration purposes? I mean, I do understand that you cannot trust it to be always aligned with the same timezone, it might drift by fractions of a second as you move east or west, but... if you stand still in one place, it should be sufficient for calibration purposes. It only has time of day and not the date, but I believe counting days should not be too difficult?"

Shiruba looks utterly unsurprised at this point when Uta inadvertently admits to having licked slimes. As for the names. "It was probably just to be more fanciful by describing the fruit's taste," Shiruba replies with a muster of patience. "This is a fantasy world, naming things to be more descriptive is a thing to do instead of using 'real' names for really common things." Or something like that. "It only sounds weird to use because we're familiar with different terms. The Landers don't seem to care." She shrugs a bit, which is sometimes a common gesture around Uta.

"Menu clocks are ill suited, if there even are any. We need something modifiable and... " She then pinched the bridge of her nose as if she can feel a headache coming on.

"Pharmacology still requires a degree of knowledge about chemical properties. Plus, slimes. Anyway, I thought you might be able to help. Now, I'm going to go find a place and try to get my bearings. You all talk," she waves a hand dismissively and goes to head elsewhere, abruptly.

    Uta replies, "You'd probably have to ask a Metallurgist about lightbulbs. Aren't lightbulbs based on the same principle as forges? Like, heating up metal makes it glow, you just use electricity instead of fire to warm it up?".

    "Medicine relies heavily on herbs and spells in this world, to be fair," continues Uta. "I cannot think of much that can help here, but I'll keep you informed if-" She frowns. "actually, no..."

    She looks between Estelle and Jazz. "I don't know if it will be acceptable or not. I just offered an opinion. And don't worry Estelle, I can be pretty distracted myself and miss the obvious."

    "In any case, I agree with Jazz that we should not rely only on menu clocks. Or menu anything. They have a tendency to break exactly when they are needed the most. See long-distance chimlinks when in a battle." She leans forward and paces around with her hands behind her back. "Menu clocks might be used as one possible source of calibration, but we could diversify with chemical, mechanical, hydraulic, and possibly magical means. Writhing tentacles of darkness seem to pulsate at a pretty stable rate. And- hmmm." She scratches her chin. "Now that I think about it, when I pet the slimes, the damage they inflict with associated player flashing happens at a really, /really/ regular pace..." Wings spring up in the X-configuration again. "...I volunteer to pet slimes to see how precise the damage dealing is. For science and exploration!"

Shiruba just... puts a hand over her face again at Uta. There's no real other response that suits how many times the conversation circles around to her affectionate obsession with touching slimes despite the chip damage they inflict on contact.

"You two can discuss the matter as necessary." She finally says. There's no point in trying to stop it either. At least it usually keeps Uta out of bigger trouble, and there's people to keep an eye on her around the ranch. "I need to go check in with the patrols that work out of the Fort for this part of the landmass."

"That's the basic idea, yes, though it's specific metals to make sure it doesn't melt, alongside I think a bit of a vacuum?" The fox's tails flick a little, as she tilts her head and considers the matter of the lightbulb. "Though I think there are other things that can work, if for a shorter amount of time. Enough for a test. I can't remember what they are, though..." She rests her chin on her palm, gaze a bit distance as she shuffles through her memories for a long, long moment before pushing the thoughts aside. "And, you're right. Pharmacy is a very specific subsection of chemistry, so its practices only apply in part."

"... as for other things to use as timing, and the potential for using spells or monster effects, I guess you could do something like that with slimes if you really wanted? It might be good to know on its own, admittedly." 'Even if that's an excuse', she doesn't say, even if the way she's looking at the kung-gu nurse does on its own. "Not too familiar with... 'pulsating tentacles of darkness', either. I take it you have a specific spell in mind, there? Or is it a monster ability?" The flicking of her tails, and the way they shift into something a bit more agitated, says she hopes its more the former. She's see enough to want to avoid tentacle monsters.

    "I mean... it's not like I /want/ to...", Uta mumbles, apologetic. "It's just a... suggestion. That's all." She taps her chin. "Hmmm. No, nothing specific at the moment. I'll have to go through my list of spells and see if- Oh. Music. Why didn't I think of music!", she exclaims, punching her fist. "I wonder if we have metronomes or something similar in this world. Probably not, since pendulum-based timekeeping originated with Galileo in our world, but it's worth researching." She frowns. "Well, assuming, that is, that gravity on Alba still works like on Earth. If not, the whole idea of a pendulum might be shot." She turns towards Estelle, and points at her. "Have you checked the trajectories of the moons? If I recall correctly, a good contribution to Newton deriving the laws of gravity came from his observation of the Moon. Did the observations bring up anything suspicious?"

"I'm still tracking the celestial bodies like that - the lack of an astrolabe, and other such tools, made doing a proper study of their motions difficult before now... and I'm looking into what the Landers have recorded about the motion of the moons." Estelle waves a hand skyward, at that, her gaze turning upward as well. "Though Jazz has noted her study of the tides has shown that the moons don't seem to influence them, so far, which makes me wonder about various interactions... especially since signs all point to Alba being smaller than Earth." Her hands bring in, making a vague globe shape. "It's all quite fascinating, to be honest, and I'm wondering if the moons can eclipse each other, and if they can simultaneopusly eclipse the sun...? That would be a /sight/ to be behold..." There's a metaphorical sparkle in her silver eyes, her tails darting about behind her in excitement.

"... though, a metronome shouldn't be too hard to recreate."

    Despite what looks like a perpetually lost gaze, Uta listens to Estelle's words with close attention. "No tides. That's the kind of thing I was afraid of. There might still be the option that the two moons cancel each other out, or that magic is involved, or some mysterious underwater civilization did something... you know, at this point I wouldn't be surprised if a fantasy equivalent of Atlantis was a thing." She sighs with a smile. "But at least we have a lead. We could build a metronome, I guess, and test it against the built-in menu clock, and as a reference item Landers could use as well. Still, it probably wouldn't be viable for sea travel: being based on the same principle as the pendulum, it would be unfit for sea vessels. No, we'll have to go for spring-load technology." Her eyes go wide, and her wings spring up as she thinks of the next subject. "...If you ever can anticipate such an eclipse, please let me know. I'd love to see one! That would definitely warrant looking into Lander calendars and-"

    Uta bursts into laughter. "...look at me, I've been so engrossed in talking about timekeeping I've completely lost track of the time. Oh, goodness me. I should really be going..."

"Mm! That would be great, wouldn't it? But then we'd have to deal with the Leviathans to try and find any real trace of it, no doubt, alongside whatever guardians they left behind..." She gets lost in thought for a moment, imagining what an Atlantis-like place would be like. But then she shakes herself out, tails wiggling back and forth, and pushes on. "Yes, clockwork is the obvious solution. There should be someone with the right detail-work and proper skills for it amongst the players, right? And we have most of the math and basic concepts behind it. Might be some experimentation, though." She wiggles her nose at the resources potentially lost to trial and error, but it'd be worth it. She can think of proper timekeeping helping the Landers in so many ways...

"... But, right. You've probably got places to be." She offers a hand, though. "But I think I'd like to consider you a friend, and maybe reach out with whatever I find about the calendar and alignments?"

    Uta replies, "Absolutely! Please do.", and a few hand motions through the menu later, Estelle will receive a friend request. "Let us keep in touch with each other. I will also look into magical means of keeping time. Perhaps you might want to ask Kauchemar as well, she's heavily into dance music and her style of magic ties into it. Even if it is not guarranteed, there is a chance that she might know something I do not. And if you need to know things about the Landers? Baroness Wake is heavily into finding out statistics about them, and helping people achieving their dreams. Perhaps she can give you pointers... or maybe you can give some to her. We're all trying to figure things out in this world, after all." She thinks for a moment, and then bursts into laughter. "Sorry, I've just realized that Baroness Wake comes off as the kind of person that dreams big. Right now she's been looking for a castle, for instance. I somehow came up with this thought that the bigger the dream, the more interested she'd be in it. Like, if you were to tell her that, in the long term, you want to build one of those astronomical clocks you see on some bell towers..." Uta shakes her head. "But that's probably not something you are interested in doing, are you?"

"... I mean, that'd certainly be interesting? Deciphering the orbital differences and behaviours, laying them out in a simple, mechanical manner to present to the public..." Her tone iss thoughtful, and she pulls out paper to scribble things down. "That could be an interesting problem to work on on the side, in between other projects..." Her ears are perked again, tails energetic. "Though I'll probably need help with the actual gear-work, when I've got it all figured out."

She pauses, and then tucks it away. "But! That's for another time. As is working in some enchantment to make it more beautiful. Still, I'll keep those names in mind, and reach out to see what expertise and interest they've got in things." She crosses her arms across her stomach once more. "My main focus is my current study of the moons, their cycles, and their influience on the world and divinations. Alongside whatever mysteries I can puzzle out along the way."

    Uta nods and bows. "Goodbye, then Estelle! Hope we'll meet again soon, and that each of us will have more to tell the other."