A day in the lab

    It had been two weeks since Setsuna's fight with Kauchemar, two weeks since he lost, and well way damn longer that he was suppose to bring the kibble. So here he is now, lugging in a rather large bag of kibble into the lab and looking around making sure no one else is here. Letting out a deep breath he moves the kibble over to the corner of the lab. " Ok dropped off kibble, now to just check on the manticore ." Setsuna steps out to check on the manticore and immediately walks back in panicing a little. "The manticore is gone, thats a problem. Ok so maybe accidently breaking the lock while giving the manticore a manicure was something to be more worried about. I didn't expect it to break out though. Also if it broke out Uta would have called me, she would have called instead of going out to capture it..." Suddenly Setsuna grows a little pale as he pictures how Uta vs the Manticore all 1 on 1 style would go and it makes him a little queasy. "Alas Uta I knew ye well."

Uta, as it is a natural sort of way of life for Spriggans, seems to perpetually be in Sneaky Shifty mode without even actively noticing. So she happens to just walk into the Monster Ranch just in time to hear Setsuna Panic, and possibly be unseen and unheard while doing so. Without skipping a beat, she spins on one foot and walks right back out of the threshold she'd just crossed, and protected from sight by the far wall of the barn, she chimlinks Setsuna.

"Hey, Setsuna, you at the monster barn? I'm coming there with the customer to pick it up in five minutes. I trust it's in perfect shape for the exchange, right?"

    Setsuna jumps at the chimlink from Uta, "R..R...Ri...Right five minutes sure. Yeah , I will make it happen. Yeah absolutely. " Taking a deep breath Setsuna looks around as he tries to figure it out. He grabs the large bag of kibble, a mop, a blanket and quickly runs into the monster barn. He lays the sack down as best as he can to make it look like a ball and then takes the mop head off the mop and arranges it like hair and then breaks the mop handle in to two and stabs it around the mop head hair. Finally he throws Uta's slime blanket over the Manticore and then casts some dark magic over the cage to make the light level lower and then he quickly runs in and grabs a slime of any variety and runs back in and opens the bag of kibble and throws the slime in the bag of kibble, to act as a heart beat. Finally he opens his chimlink, " Uta the manticore is sleeping , can you ask the customer if they would want to come back tomorrow, or maybe next week."

Uta chims right back, "Hmmm. Well, if it /is/ sleeping, I guess we have no other choice, indeed. We don't want it to be in a particularly bad mood, do we? We risk angering the monster past the level of our ability to handle it."

There is a short silence.

"Seems like the customer is really eager to come in. I have -barely- managed to convince him to let me go in -first- to check the situation, but I doubt I will be able to hold him for much longer. Most I can do is see what kind of safety measures we need to put in place for him..."

And at this moment, Uta makes her appearance as a silhouette against the frame of light of the barn door.

Theatrical. Dramatic.

    Setsuna takes a deep breath and finally says, "Ok well um ..." He trails off when he sees the silhouette in the doorway and jumps. "Oh goddesses . You scared the hell out of me. " Looking at the manticore pin and then back at Uta and then back at Uta. " I guess you have to check..." Taking a moment he would wait for Uta to examine the manticore watching nervously , so much so he is biting his thumb nail with all the nervousness.

Uta takes a few steps around the 'Manticore'. "Let's see... let's see...", she mumbles, rubbing her chin as she inspects the mound. "Hmmm." She extends her pointed ear, which she somehow seem capable to flick. A weird Spriggan anatomy thing. "Oh. My. Goodness! This heartbeat! This heartbeat!" The nurse swipes her menu open, her brow furrowed, materializes what passes for a sthetoscope in this world, and presses it against the blanket. The expression of concern as she moves the listening end to different spots is patent. "...seems like this manticore's heart is... /feasting/ on the internal organs?! A most unique, if unsettling, medical condition!"

    Setsuna watches Uta examine the manticore and at the mention of feasting he winces. He already knows he will need to go get more kibble however it is a small price if he can buy himself some time to go find the manticore. " So its a medical emergency, I will go let the customer know that the manticore has a rare necrotic heart disease and that we can't turn over the manticore in this situation. It would simply be irresponsible. Probably the monster equivalent of heart worms. " He nods his head, yep all is well and Setsuna feels like he has solved this problem today. With that he begins to inch towards the door to the lab.

"We can't do that!", Uta exclaims, spreading her arms. "See, there... there is this thing where... well... how to put it." She fidgets with her fingers. "I kinda /already/ delivered the manticore. A couple weeks ago." Suddenly straightening up, she navigates her menu and, in a shimmer of light, stashes her medical instrument back into her inventory. "Had to do so all by myself. But it's okay, it was good practice." Yes, there is a little scolding edge in that, which disappears as she segues into the rest of the sentence, "Oh, man. You should have seen that Li Gan guy. He somehow could immediately relieve the monster from my control and control it himself. He had a sort of bracelet/collar thing he put around the manticore's head, and then he could tell it to sit and roll like a puppy. Is that anything like your control ring?" Uta asks. "Because if so, I've never seen the part where, in a flash of light, it can turn the whole monster into a Sarcophagus."

    Setsuna blinks and it sounds like Uta doesn't want to fail in her delivery and is about to calm her down. Is about to take all the blame for it all, before Uta mentions she already delivered the manticore. " Oh..., " Setsuna winces a little at the scolding before the explination of the experience. Then she mentions a sarcophagus and Setsuna seems more intrigued then anything. " A sarcophagus you say? My ring can't do that but some of the guild leaders used a sarcophagus to trap a ...glitched monster." There is an obvious beat at the end of that explination as Setsuna looked for words. Then there is the ssound of digestion as Setsuna looks at the mound of manticore. " We should get the slime out of the kibble bag."

"You're responsible for getting Telltale back into shape," Uta says, deadpan. Has she just identified the slime simply by listening it gnaw at kibbles? "That is interesting. You mention a Glitched Monster... and the impression I got from the way he dealt with the Manticore is that he finds the existence of such hybrid monsters in /Yamato/ specifically of interest. He did not think much of hybrids in the Palace Lands, when I mentioned that." She taps her lips, and begins to pace. "I wonder if the presence of such monsters here is some sort of anomaly... like glitches..." She shakes her head. "But maybe I'm overthinking it. Maybe the sarcophagi are used to capture monsters in general, and- Hm. Wait. Now that I think about it..." She rubs her chin. "When Xander captured his Switchblade Tiger, he /did/ have a resizable collar that calmed down the monster. I wonder if it's the same item..."

    Setsuna looks at the kibble bag and sighs, taking Uta's favorite slime branket and tosses it over his shoulder before he begins to fish around in the bag. " That is interesting, I assumed the sarcophagus was used to capture high level monsters. The type who are not usually capturable or difficult to handle." Taking a moment he considers maybe he needs to spend some time investigating the sarcophagus in the castle basement. " It could be the item Xander used is a mass produced version. "

"Mass produced?", Uta asks. "How would that be different?" She considers for a moment. "And yes, I didn't see Xander's item produce a sarcophagus. I don't know whether or not it can. Maybe it's worth asking."

After shaking her head, she swipes her menu into existence again. "In any case, there was a thing I wanted to show you. It's - wait, is that my slime blanket?!" Uta asks, with another sudden frown. "...you're also responsible for returning it to its pristine condition."
The menu navigation continues, there is some growling (conceivably because she noticed the Girl from the Menu in, well, the Menu), and eventually she materializes a small purple sphere. Baseball sized, it looks organic, yet extra hard. Is there a faint glow coming from it?

"See this thing here? Well, I had it inspected, and..." she then proceeds to rattle out the result of the appraisal of the item. "I thought you'd be interested in learning about this 'special stone'. Sounds like the kind of thing that's up a Necromancer's alley."

    Setsuna winces as Uta growls about him using her blanket. Finally he pulls out the blood red slime and holds him away from Uta's blanket. " Well if it's mass produced maybe it doesn't have all the effects. Like a lower quality item. " Then the sphere of purple is produced and Setsuna stops what he is doing and looks closely at it. " Perpetual state huh? " Taking a moment he stares more and more at it. " Where do you get all these fun toys? "

"Relics 'R' Us. They've got a Dire Giraffe as a logo, you'd love the place." Uta quips back.

After a moment, she drops the tough evasive act and sighs. "Well, to be fair, Jazz gave this one to me. As a reward for my training in Elemental Water." The truth is -- Jazuhanzu simply sent Uta to fetch a different item at the end of Uta's training, and Uta stumbled upon the relic by accident instead of the actual target. That didn't stop the Undine from claiming she meant to do it all along. Uta is oblivious to this to this day.

"Perpetual state, indeed. Oh, speaking of fun toy. You also gotta see the payment I got from the customer!"

Uta swipes her menu open once again, and this time, it is a fountain pen she materializes. Which is notable, considering how pretty much everyone else's using nibs, brushes, and quills. Inspection shows its name as "Sarla's Pen".

"I seriously need to have this inspected one of these days. And to bibliographically research who Sarla is."

    Setsuna looks at all the knew relics as he tries to process it all. " You have two new relics, I am starting to doubt that you were just joking about Relics 'R' Us. " Apparently he would need to find this place of relic treasure trove. "Also of all things a fountain pen. That right that is a treasure in and of itself. " Tilting his head though he does wonder, " How does it know if you are writing a lie? Does it only know if you know or does it know what you don't know?"

"Wait, wait, you could Appraise it? What does it say?" Uta urges. Apparently, she wasn't kidding when she said that she needs the item appraised.

"I haven't had the opportunity to use it -much-, but the... the pen does seem to be pretty... ah... stubborn at times, yes." She scratches her head. "I haven't gotten to use it /much/, but for some reason, I... sometimes seem to know things about Landers I shouldn't naturally know when holding it. Nothing deep up to now, mind you, no darkest secrets or such just... you know, general stuff acquaintances would know." She twirls the writing implement in her fingers. "Haven't dared use it on an adventurer yet. Or... used it much at all. As said, I wanted to have it inspected to know what it is and what it does, exactly."

    Setsuna adjusts his nonexistant glasses as he takes a closer look , " Blah blah blah this pen uses ink, make sure to apply vinegar to ink stains. Also this pen doesn't like you lying about things and will become rather stubborn if you try to lie with it. It wants the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. " Stepping back Setsuna shakes his head and the magical third eye of his appraisal spell disappears. " Thats an interesting thing right there. " Setsuna tilts his head and is fascinated with it. " So if your friend comes back handing out any other pens, please grab a few spare ones. "