No Sleep For The Isekai'd

***FLASHBACK -- A FEW DAYS BEFORE THE CHIM-CHIM EXPEDITION***

It is late at night.

All is usually quiet in the Monster Barn of the Peko Ranch. A this time of day all lights are usually out, and people are usually fast asleep.

This night is a little different: in addition to the two moons and the stars, tonight the windows of the Slime Lab are also lit. This is not normal, and if not those squares of light or the streak of light visible through the frame of the closed door, at least the curious muted noises coming from the inside hint at something going on inside. They're noises of something squeaking, rolling; small impacts of wood against wood, interspersed with muffled speech.

The squeaking by itself wouldn't be suspicious, slimes do that, but as far as anyone knows, the slime lab is not supposed to have anything rolling, or even worse, impacting. And as far as anyone knows, Uta, who was supposed to be in bed long ago, is not supposed to have anyone else in the slime lab. So... assuming it is her who's talking (and the muffled voice seems to indicate so), who is she speaking with?

The duties of the world have kept Rylen away from home more often than not these days. He had expected a quiet night, sleeping in his own bed, before having to journey back to Ninetails Dominion to deal with the continuing undead threat.

However, things are not quiet, nor peaceful, and the sounds coming from the Monster Barn are upsetting the pekos. The creatures are making a racket, which means there is no sleep for the Beastmaster.

Rylen, dressed in a pair of loose pants and a robe, wanders out towards the barnyard, trying to calm a few of the pekos along the way, before entering the monster barn. Despite the early hour, he has his usual composure about him, though there are some dark circles under his eyes.

Approaching the lab, he taps his knuckles on the door. "Uta?" No titles, just the Spriggan's name. "Is there something going on in there I should be concerned about?"

Kauchemar has a tendancy to hang around the Ranch when she's not doing any 'official' business. The Guild HQ is certainly nice, but sometimes you want to be someplace less crowded to let your muse wander.... That, and she's less likely to keep everyone else up a night when she's not one for sleeping very often herself. So it's no surprise she notices the Lab being active at a time of night that it typically isn't.

"I don't know, Rylen." Rylen is already at the door, and the Nightmare is there behind him like she had just stepped out of the darkness itself. A casual entrance is still an entrance worth making, or why would you bother? Showperson logic. Or would it be showpony in this case? Anyways. "Wouldn't the list of what not to be concerned about be shorter?"

The sight that greets the visitor goes more or less like this.

Someone seems to have dismantled the support boards from the bookshelves (since there's a grand total of about four books in this lab, give or take, most of them were functioning as dust attractors anyway), and built a sort of "arena of bleachers" all around the borders of the central 'behavioural observation space' (not, as the uncultured swine call it, a 'Slime Playpen' -- it's a totally serious simulated biome with stimulating activities for the gelatinous creature to engage in, which fosters advancement of Slime Behavioural Sciences!). Said 'bleachers', needless to say, are filled with excited slimes wiggling up and down (and sometimes circling around and oozing through each other). Furher in, a small barrier separates the 'bleachers' from a couple of extremely squat 'slides', helix-shaped tracks that circle around the inner rim of the 'arena' function as very primitive 'accelerators' for two wooden carts, barely large enough to contain a slime each. Each of these carts have a simplified wooden horse head decoration at the front, and conain, you guessed it, a slime each. Also, connected to one side of each, there is a very long wooden protrusion, working as a 'lance' of sorts.

After rolling down each slide and being sent hurtling against each other at moderate speed (don't want to startle the slimes too much, mind you!), the two carts impact against each other 'lance'-first, and one of them topples the other. The corresponding slime rolls on the playp- I mean... simulated biome, while the other one stays on the cart. The audience wiggles at this turn of events, but that is not a surprise because it has been wiggling the whole time.

Sitting at a distance, on a particularly fancy chair, Uta is observing the whole scene with detached composture. Fitting with the rest of the scene, she is decked in extremely convincing royal robes, complete with full regalia, very closely resembling the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom, but with a twist: A crown and a sceptre whose diamonds have been replaced by colofur 'gems' (actually very convincing baubles) made to resemble slimes, and an orb which is, you've guessed it, pretty much a large slime.

Expert tailors will be able to tell it's just a costume, and that is not real ermine, and miners/jewellers will be able to tell that those are not real gold or diamonds, yet the effect is so impressive that even experts would have to compliment the skill of the tailor who created this kind of replica.

Probably Gwen.

Uta claps her hands daintly, and turns towards her side. "Quite the spectacle, isn't it?", she states in a posh British accent. "I have to give it to you, it was such a marvellous idea to organize this tournament. It really raises the spirits of the nation."

On the chair next to her, a toy crown slowly sinks into a slime with a large white handlebar mustache. Uta stiffens, and quickly pulls the object out, saving it from inexorable absorption. "Don't do that," she snaps in a whisper. "Especially in front of the subjects. It's undignified!"

Uta freezes in panic as she sees people entering. "IT IS NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE!", she screams, blushing a deep red and flailing.

In his half-asleep state, Rylen raises his brows at Kauchemar's appearance out of the darkness. He shouldn't really be surprised that other people hang around the ranch, and luckily the Beastmaster is too tired to really make anything of it. "Good evening, Lady Tenebrae." He offers, and then has to stiffle a yawn.

"Mmm." It's a small sound of acknowledgement. "True, but I've found that if I was concerned about everything a normal person would be concerned about... in regards to Uta, I would spend half my life worrying." Uta does have a way of getting herself into trouble, so he can't exactly be overprotective about it.

As the door opens, Rylen just sort of stands there with a dumbfounded expression on his features. It's a lot to take in. A lot. Clearing his throat, the Beastmaster looks around at the ... chaos. "You've been... busy."

Gray eyes settle on Uta as he lifts his brows towards her, this time. "If it isn't what it looks like, then what, pray-tell, is it? And why is it happening at stupid o'clock in the morning?"

Kauchemar stares at the 'tournament' over Rylen's shoulder.
Stares at Uta.
Stares at the tournament again.

"You know," she finally wickers, "You're right. It's not what it looks like. Because there's not really any words for this." The Nightmare shrugs. "And I can't decide if managing to get them to do something like this is impressive or just really weird."

Another pause.

"Or maybe we should just be glad it's not dolls of various Adventueres and she's having them make out." That sounds like something someone that grew up with a bunch of sisters would say, yeah.

    Merek walks along and into the place because he's about along in the night working. The man wears the dark attire he often does while he nods to people when in the place. He does take a wave to Uta, and anyone else, while he takes a look about that lab, "Well, it looks pretty and nice."

If one were to describe Uta's state at the moment, it would be 'each body part for themselves!' Hunched over, wings flattened against her back the way an animal's ear flatten against the head, eyes which dart left and right looking for an escape that is not there, hands squeezing the scepter so hard one might think she's trying to extract scepter juice.

"It's for- an experiment! I... it's the final test that all the equipment of the lab works properly. I remembered that particle accelerators are a big thing in science and I thought I'd build a Slime Collider!" Uta blurts out, with that right balance between blushing and stuttering that it's honestly difficult if she's making up an excuse or actually telling the truth.

Knowing Uta it could probably be both.

"...then things got a tiiiiiiiiiny bit out of hand...."

Ok, she's definitely telling the truth.

"And, uh, this is the time of day most conductive to... the kind of things I do- wait. That sounded wrong." She shakes her head. "I mean, it was the very last thing left to do before beginning Actual Real Work! It was important to ensure that everything was in proper working order before. And, well, I was so excited at completing the preliminary setup that... that..." she hunches over even more, knees held so close to her sides they're jabbing into them, and how that scepter hasn't yet broken from all the tight squeezing is still a mystery, "...that I thought a celebration would have been in order, and-"

Kauchemar just gets a disapproving frown. "Now, c'mon. That's plain weird."

"Thanks, Merek! I did it all by myself!", she beams at the alchemist, as she straightens up, hands on hips, chest puffed up.

In some ways, it is a very good thing that Rylen is too tired to react to any of this in a way that he likely would if he wasn't running on only a couple of hours of sleep and a very rude awakening. "It's impressive /and/ weird." The Pooka confirms, "Which, I've found, is an apt set of descriptors for most things when it comes to my dear, Uta."

He folds his arms across his chest, giving a somewhat indulgent sigh. Then, as another voice is added, he turns and looks at Merek, giving the man an even more confused sort of look. Perhaps, Rylen is wondering if all of this is a dream, especially as strange people are just showing up at his home out of nowhere. It has a ... very dream like feel to it.

"Not the descriptors I'd use." He replies, but doesn't bother questioning why the man is here. Instead, he turns back to uta.

"You know I'm not really bothered by any experiments you decide to run. I'd just like to be able to sleep and right now... all of this." He motions a hand to everything, "Is bothering the pekos and that's keeping me awake." He rubs at the bridge of his nose. "Do you think you'll be done... coliding slimes... anytime soon?"

"Just like explainations that don't really explain anything, huh?" Kauchemar quips in response to Rylen's tired response. Then raises a brow as Merek wanders in as well. "And there's the one person that sleeps at night even less than I do. Good evening, Merek." The initial gawking at the inescrutably irregular arrangements past, Kauchemar is just sort of rolling with it now. "Well." She clasps her hands together. "But talking about accelerators and colliders makes it sound like you're trying to test... jiggle physics."

    Merek looks between people and nods a bit to Kauchemar, "Of course, what are you up to?" he asks, then he takes a look to Uta, "You're welcome, anyway. What progress you making?" he asks. To Rylen he offers a nod while he smiles, "Good evening."

"Slimes go Bye-Bye. Slimes go ni-ni!", Uta blurts out, and after removing her opera gloves (to avoid damaging them with the acid), she darts to scoop the slimes with her bare hands into a pair of large buckets dangling from the opposite ends of a stick, to be carried across her shoulders. She begins a tour of the cages and vats all around the walls of the laboratory, sand slots the creatures into the appropriate enclosure with the skill of a seasoned postal worker.

Needless to say, plenty of flashing happens, and Uta's HP bar, which pops into existence exactly because of this, decreases each time she touches a slime.

Good thing they're low level monsters and that Uta is quick enough to process them.

"There, done!", she salutes. Then she notices all the goo on her hands, and moves to a nearby baisin to go wash them. "...after we're done with the steam engine, can we work on indoor plumbing?", she mumbles.

"KAUCH!", she (quietly) yells back, all red in the face. "You-- it... gnn...fgppg..." She makes restrained little strangling motions with her wiggling fingers, and despite leaning to dart towards the Nightmare, she manages to restrain herself. She inhales, and continues, "...they jiggle and I study their physics. That is the end of it."

"Progress is... Slime Lab is completely tested. I'm ready to start the first round of REAL experiments as soon as we're done with- Which reminds me, Merek! We have finally located that cave we were looking for!" Uta says, and after a flick of her finger and some navigation in the menu, she shimmers what looks like a roll of parchment into existence. "Here are the details of the trip. We're leaving soon to find the Chim Chims!" Barely able to contain her excitement, she extends the item towards Merek. "It's the last thing I need to do before work on slime research can REALLY start..."

Kauchemar just grins that mischevious viper grin of hers at that brief semi-outburst of Uta's. She wasn't sure if Uta would even know the meaning of that gamer slang.

Watching Uta tend to the task of putting away her slimes has Rylen giving another of those tired sounds, stretching his arms out over his head, "We really need to see about teaching you how to properly handle monsters, my dear." He murmurs, "It's all well and good with the low-level slimes, but one of these days you're going to find one that's too high level to handle quite so easily."

He sighs to himself, "Maybe when some of this nonsense in Ninetails calms down a bit." He chuckles as his arms come back down to his sides, "You might want to talk to Goldenblade about that, I think they were in construction at some point. I haven't a clue about plumbing. My job is just to find the right people and point them at a problem and go... fix it." Rylen doesn't know much about steam engines, either.

The Beastmaster looks between Merek and Uta, but he looks more confused than anything else, and perhaps too tired to bother asking. "Just... whatever you're doing, promise to be careful, aye? You know Xander would try to skin my sorry hide if I let you get yourself really hurt."

    Merek looks along to the place while he nods to Uta, and looks also to Rylen and Kauchemar. There is a little smile while he thinks about it, "I'm glad you are learning. Thank you, I will be sure to come with you to find what we can. I am wondering what the chim chim will be like if we find a few."

The discussion of that particular gaming term must have come up at some point in the past, it appears. Knowing Uta, it likely happened /after/ the Apocalypse.

"...I will be glad to learn," she tells to Rylen. "It seems like it's harder to learn new tricks if you're not 'young' anymore, in this world. I've been doing some research." She looks down and away. "...nothing conclusive, yet, but my preliminary research hints that acquiring new skills might be one of those things people have to figure out properly, yet."

She rubs the bridge of her nose. "Right. Ninetails. The undead menace. I... at this point I'm seriously starting to think whether it's a good idea to actually push the tower as hard as people are doing, or whether we should... you know... slow down and accept that while we are, indeed, parched, our thirst does not justify choking on our drink. We should maybe try and negotiate with Scale Emblem to make the Tower Climb... you know... sustainable." She bites her lower lip. "...even if it means possibly being stuck here for longer than we'd have hoped."

"I promise I will be careful," Uta states. "And I promise I'll get everyone to be careful. I won't stop hammering into them that we are not going to take any unnecessary risk or engage in unprovoked violence. It'll be simple. Get in. Take notes. Get out. Easy-peasy."

"I honestly don't know, Merek. But we must be careful around them. They're probably some extremely wise, ultra-advanced race, considering how the Machina over at Tsushima... what was her name... Spahtjahr! Considering how Spahtjahr said they're among the very few that can repair her leg." Her voice lowers again. "...and that she considers us /insignificant/. You do the math."

The serious moment passed, Uta smiles wide again as she goes to retrieve her gloves and wears them again. "...but who knows. Maybe you'll like them. I tend to be optimistic."

Uta stretches her arms, and yawns. "Aaaaanyway.... I think it's time for me to go to sleep anywa- oh by the Goddesses, look at the time!", she exclaims, after opening her menu and staring at where the daytime clock is. "...what am I doing up this late?"

"Well, I'd be more than happy to try to tutor you. I know Xander is a fair hand with monsters as well. As is Lady Tenebrae, if I recall." Rylen glances over at the Nightmare, trying to guage if he is remembering correctly.

"I wouldn't say they've been pushing the tower that hard. It was over a month between runs, due to the goblin problems and Scale's investment over in Ninetails." Rylen murmurs, "It's not as if they haven't been trying to aid in what's going on elsewhere." He might just be a bit biased though, with his strong connection to a certain Scale Emblem tank.

With a shrug, he seems to not be overly concerned with Tower climbers vs Non Tower climbers. Rylen just sort of... lives in the moment. That puzzled look lingers, though. "I have... no idea what you're talking about." He has not been involved at all with some of the more distant explorations. His hands have been full a bit closer to home.

Kauchemar shrugs a bit. "She may need some kind of enchanted item as a stopgap until she can actually learn the new skills. I'm not at all sure how that works outside of class assignments." Then Uta freaks out about the time, and the nightmare is slapping a palm to her face. "How do you... nevermind, even I don't want to know." At this hour Uta is getting a little too Uta even for her to keep composure over. "Just.. what everyone else said about being careful."

    "I will keep that in mind, about the chim chim," Merek notes then while he nods a bit to Uta, and looks to the place. "Anyway, I am thinking about relaxing for a while and all when we finally find what we're looking for, away from the war," he notes, both hands along the pockets that he wears. "I would like to work on this farm for coffea."

Uta clicks her tongue when Rylen admits that he has no idea of the events of Tsushima. "Hmm. It's a rather complicated story... let me think of how to sum it up in just a few words without losing the big picture..." She sinks into thought for a few moment, complete with finger scratching her chin.

"Jazz has found a doll. Now she has discussions about friendship while playing chess with her." she finally declares with a nod.

"Magical slime gloves would be great," Uta agrees with Kauchemar. "But yes, I'm not sure either. It is something we will have to learn." Another yawn.

"Let me know if I can help in any way, Merek. Coffea sounds good. Well, not good at /this time of night/. But... you know, *yawn* good in general."

She walks over to a sliding pane of one of the cabinets sunk into a wall, pushes it open, and extracts a futon from there. "I think it's time for me to crash."

Rylen continues to stare at the description, perhaps just not quite able to picture it in his tired mind. "I... nevermind." The Pooka yawns again, shaking his head. As Uta seems to be settling in for the night, he turns to the other two. "I'm heading back to bed. I have no idea why you're here, but try to keep it down, please?"

And with that, the Pooka wanders back towards the farmhouse, murmuring something about strange people doing strange things at strange times of night.

"Hello, dread equine of night and dreams, what would I -not- be doing at this hour?" Kauchemar stops after rattling that off. "Rhetorical question," she waves a general pointing of finger across the group, "before any of you smart alecs consider answering." Before she turns and wanders out as well.

    Merek nods a bit to people while he thinks about it, "Alright, you be well in that case, I need to be back to work, you take care," he adds.