A consultation

It's a lazy afternoon. The library is an oasis of quiet. Here, the chaos of the world and other people's lives are neatly constrained to paper, and that suits Lin just fine. He sits at a reading table off in the side of the library, two books open in front of him. One from the shelves, another that appears to be his. He scribbles notes in his book with practiced speed, the pen's scratching echoing quietly in the stone of the large library hall. Occasionally he stares at the source book, squinting angrily at the words.

It certainly is quiet. Neat. And while it may suit Lin just fine, the same cannot be said for Robert. There's a distinct awkwardness in he man's form as he steps inside, removing his hat, and surveying the interior as though expecting the disapproving glare of an corps of local librarians at any moment.

Upon locating Lin, he approaches, makes a more close-range assessment. Identity confirmed, he eases into position at a seat across the table. Where he waits, patient and silent, fingers interlaced.

Lin is certainly in his element - alone with his thoughts and, judging by his facial expressions, an impenetrable book. So wrapped up in this, it takes him an awkwardly long amount of time to realise that Robert was attempting to establish any sort of contact. Eventually he glances up and realises someone is just... sitting there. Is something wrong? Lin looks quickly behind him, then finally puts everything together. The concerned expression melts into a friendly smile. "Hi! I'm Lin." The Pooka rests his pen off to the side, eyes twinkling with enthusiasm. "Were you the person looking for an artifact consult?"

SpritesHero inclines his head in a nod of greeting, flashing a smile in return. "Yes!" he replies, eyebrows quickly rising and falling in affirmation. "I don't know if you remember, but we were on that job together. The one with the sewer hooked into somebody's well." For a moment the smile cracks, and his nose crinkles as though detecting something a bit pungent. Not, it would appear, an entirely pleasant memory.

"Yes," he continues, rallying his thoughts. "Specifically, I was trying to see if you might be able to suss out the link between this relic I've got, and a fellow by the name of Bondrewd. Uta advised that you might be able to help, and that the topic might pique your personal interest."

Lin smiles brightly and waves an inkstained hand, broadly and vaguely. "Oh yes! Landers get a lot of construction work done, but they do make some strange civil engineering decisions, don't they? Fort Ouph just hanging in the air like someone forgot to put it back on the ground."

His eyebrows raise high at the Bondrewd namedrop. "I'm all ears. I've been trying to gather more information about Relics. I don't know if I can give you much insight, but I'll try. What did you get? Do you know much about it already?" Focused, he reaches for a tab in his book and flips it over to a new section. There are a few sketches of seemingly random objects, each one surrounded by notes. He picks up his pen and prepares to write.

SpritesHero only shakes his head at first, pulling the relic out and depositing it on the table in front of him. "I'd say that I find those decisions to be completely baffling and have given up on trying to understand, but I'd be lying," he quips. "I suppose all these odd decisions shed some light into the underlying nature of this place. But for the life of me I cannot figure what." He then changes gears.

"I honestly don't know much about it at all," he admits, fingertip lightly trailing over the shimmering, shifting surface, gaze fixated. "It...well, to be entirely truthful, it's a bit too gaudy for my tastes. Colors everywhere. Hypnotic. I never wear it since I find it rather distracting, but at the same time I find myself oddly attached to it." He pauses, then, silent once more for a few moments before his head lifts.

"I guess the closest parallel would be those ugly Christmas sweaters you can never quite convince yourself to get rid of," he concludes, smile turning wry.

"I can't say that I've ever found myself unable to let go of clothing. But when they come from beyond maybe it works differently. I've heard a couple of reports that if you lose one another will just... show up." Lin's pen swoops across his page, laying down a sketch of the scarf and quickly filling the area around it with notes. "You're probably not wrong in thinking there's an undiscovered nature. Lately I've been wondering if this world was even made for us."

The comment is thrown out and immediately forgotten. He's absorbed by his work. Then he reaches into his coat and pulls out a set of spectacles with multiple lenses, then settles them on his face. He leans in close to the scarf and squints at the colours, flicking lenses up and down on the spectacles. "You say you can't get rid of it. Have you tried to? Or do you just not want to let go of it?"

SpritesHero laughs, lightly, then abruptly kills the sound dead upon his lips as he hears it reverberate throughout the library. Guilt flickers in his eyes, until such point as it becomes evident that he is not about to be accosted by a librarian. He settles back in his chair with a slow exhalation.

"Emotional attachment," he clarifies. "I've never physically tried to get rid of it. I..." He trails off, eyes shifting to the ceiling as he strokes at his chin. "I guess the best way to put it would be that I like it. I just don't like being seen -wearing- it. It's..." Another pause. "It reminds me of when I was young, and I'd just watch flames dancing in the fireplace. Something like that."

Lin's smile is dry and thoughtful. He stays focused on the peculiar scarf. "I understand. It is precious to you." The lenses on his spectacles click quietly as he goes through another pass and scribbles notes into his book. Finally he leans back in his seat, removes the spectacles, and replaces them into his coat. "So, this is good news/scary news. You shouldn't be too concerned with being seen wearing it. It gives you hypnotist powers. If I'm reading this right, it passively makes you seem more authentic when you express an emotion. Like a lot of other relics it's got a once a day power too. That's the hypnotism. Works on Beasts, Monsters, and Landers. They'll only be able to focus on you when you use it." The Pooka pauses. He frowns at the page in his book and wrinkles his nose in irritation at the next fact. He leaves it unsaid for now.

"The concern over being seen wearing it," Robert clarifies, mildly, "is more over the fact that it's like wearing a fluorescent Hawaiian shirt to a formal business meeting." The smile flickers into place once more, and this time it lingers as he falls silent. He's not mentally walking through the image, though. He simply sits there, gaze fixed expectantly on Lin. "Something unpleasant?" he hazards at length, leaning in a touch.

"If we could get hawaiian shirts here I'd do that. We're Adventurers! We wield plenty of impossible powers. Getting away with a dress code infraction is probably just one of our lesser known ones." Lin seems eager to dodge the topic of the next upcoming fact. He pauses and slouches in his chair. "Anyway. Slightly scary news. Bondrewd made it. Out of, and I quote the description, 'some of the deadliest monster parts.'"

Far from looking worried, Robert actually looks....relieved? Tension visibly bleeds out of him, and he actually giggles a bit as he slumps in his chair, fingers interlacing in front of him. His thumbs tap, one against the other, in a simulated game of ping pong. "We -should- do that," he agrees at length, his smile turning into an outright grin. "Show up to a formal meeting with folks of consequence. Say that it's what we used to wear in our world when we wanted to convey the utmost respect." Amusement crinkles the ides of his eyes as the grin widens. He shakes his head, and returns to the other subject.

"Not scary. Rather good news, in point of fact. You see, he'd lunged at me during the fight, saying something like 'that's one of mine'. I'd originally thought he was referring to me. Wouldn't have even thought of the relic if Uta hadn't said that he makes relics." Robert lifts his hand, then, a single finger pointed upwards. "You may be interested in several things." he notes. "One: I wasn't wearing the scarf at the time. It was tucked under my breastplate. Yet Bondrewd was able to identify it as something he made after scanning the crowd" A second finger. "Two: It suggests that relics -can- be taken by non-standard methods."

Lin taps an inky finger on his chin thoughtfully, then drums one hand on the desk as he tries to assemble the pieces in his head. "First off: yes, absolutely. Paisley is only worn by the most respected Adventurers." But, back to the matter at hand. More notes scribbling into an increasingly cluttered page. Dripping down into the margins.

"That they can be taken is new information. Or, at least, the guy who made a few seems to think so." Fingers tap on the wooden desk, echoing a staccato beat across the quiet library. "But how did he lose the ones that are now in our possession? And what's his final goal?" Lin pauses for a moment, then adds another question. "Was he doing something else there, and just happened to make a grab for the scarf because it was nearby? Did you get a good look at him and see if he scanned as a Monster or not?"

SpritesHero's relief slowly shifts to a quiet thoughtfulness. One arm folds over his chest, his hand props up his chin. "Indeed. And while I suppose it's possible that he's wrong, he's presumably had considerable experience. I know where I'd place my money on that bet," he comments, eyes flickering shut. He's silent, replaying something in his memory. When he speaks again, it is in distant tones. "If I recall correctly, he said that his goal in coming was research. Before he made the grab, he did...well, some type of Arte. Perhaps? This light pulsed out from him. I got the 'Cosmosphere Exposed' notification. Then he started looking from person to person, and went specifically after me. I can't remember if he hit my breastplate or not, but he either couldn't see it, or would have been able to punch through it. I didn't get off a good scan, but when we chunked him hard and snapped off a bit of his mask, he looked human. Or at least human-ish. And it's worth noting that once we finally chased him off, he said that he'd be back to reclaim what is his."

A few more scribbles end up in Lin's book. He sighs and lays the pen down again. "I wouldn't bet against him. He clearly knows more about what's going on here than us." He straightens up in his chair, and looks across the desk to Richard. "Human-ish. The sample that some people managed to get has some other weird attributes. I wish I had more answers for you but that's about all I've got. He wasn't lying. Mind Control Scarf is something he made. He and all this stuff seems to reference a place called Orth. Have you ever heard of it?"

SpritesHero's expression goes slack. He's really struggling here. Clearly not one of those players who puts much effort into the lore side of the world. "Isn't that the place that got overrun and had to be abandoned about a year ago?" he question, lifting a hand to scratch at his head. "And no, don't worry about it. You've already been very helpful. Took a rather hefty load off my back, to tell the truth."

"You mean Ezzo? I don't know if they're the same. The Relics I've seen that reference it also include Monsters that we haven't seen yet. So I'm thinking it's somewhere... else. Wherever and whatever that could be." Lin stares down at his page, lips drawn thin and grim. "I'll let you know if anything else about this turns up. It's been a theory of mine that a lot of relics are related and this is solid proof that they are. Maybe something happens when we get a collection of them all in one place."

SpritesHero looks just a bit embarrassed. "Ezzo. That's the place," Robert confesses, lifting his hand to rub at his forehead. "Sorry. I've mostly been looking at the tower and things more or less directly related to it. Figured everything else was a trap. A distraction." His hand lowers, his shoulders rise and fall in a tiny shrug. "Not sure I was wrong. Not entirely, anyhow. But maybe I should be paying more attention to it." He falls silent, considering, as he reaches across the table to reclaim his relic. "Wherever and whatever is certainly an option," he agrees, rising to his feet. "Proteus says the thing he had in his hand was a fragment of a dungeon heart core. At any rate, I appreciate the information, and do look forward to anything interesting turning up. It's a bit disconcerting when a fellow says he'll be back, and when his appearance--at least in the first place--appeared to require a tower floor being cleared."

Lin waves a hand vaguely, dismissing the embarrassment. "Nothing to say sorry for. We've all got our own agendas. That is interesting though." Lin looks left cautiously, then right. Nobody around. He flicks open his inventory window and makes a quick selection, materialising a chunk of something in his hand. "One last thing. Was this what he was holding?" Lin holds up a chunk of dungeon heart core.

One eye narrows, the right side of his lips tensing in a rather odd expression that appears to be an examination. "Could be," he allows at last. "Things were hectic, and I only saw a flash before he left." A pause, another consideration. "But yeah, I'd say that looks more or less right. Gives off a similar feel, for sure. But it might be worthwhile getting independent confirmation from Proteus. Or whomever she got her confirmation from. She wasn't with Bondrewd, see. She was with the Sickle hero." Pause. "He didn't use a core fragment, though. He used a bit of glass."

Lin flicks the chunk in his hand back into the hidden depths of his inventory. He doesn't look thrilled by this. "Probably the same deal. But all they seem to do for us is take us back to our home Church." The Pooka sighs and shakes his head, pinching the brow of his nose and leaving behind an inky smudge on his pale skin. "We'll figure it out. I'm sure there's answers somewhere in this library. If not, in the books that the nobles wouldn't let us copy."

Now -that- gets Robert's attention. Although he'd been about to leave, he comes to an abrupt halt, freezing in place. "There are specific nobles who wouldn't let you copy anything?" he asks for clarification. "Or all noble wouldn't let you copy anything relating to a specific--or probable specific--subject matter?"

Lin nods sharply. He twists his pen thoughtfully in two fingers. "Some nobles wouldn't give the library project team access to copy their rarest books. I don't know all the details - Uta might - I was just involved in laying down some enchantments. It's been on my list of things to look into, but I've got something else on my mind right now."

SpritesHero considers, rolling his lip between his teeth. "Could be relevant, might be a complete red herring," he says at length, "but it may be worth noting that Landers have differing levels of complexity. Or, simulation accuracy, I suppose. Not yet sure what drives those differences, but it might be worth checking on the complexity of their memories. Maybe see if there's any correlation there with the ones who are being difficult."

Lin looks to be in complete concurrence with that. "Already working on it. I've found a Lander who's a bit of a historian. And I've got a feeling that the history around here might be more... well... history. It was going even when we weren't in the world." The Pooka squints and pinches the bridge of his nose again, then closes his book. "This might be it for me today though. Everything's beginning to blur together."

SpritesHero utters a grunt-like sound, inclining his head once more. "Much obliged again for the consult" he answers tipping his hat to Lin before placing it back atop his head. He steps out.