2017-02-28: Right Now, Preparations Are Essential

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<Pose Tracker> Lestaci Delloro has posed.

A notebook lands on a battered table in this here particular dockside bar and oystery, where you can drink beer and eat fresh oysters if you dare. There are other foods available but the notebook is joined by a small bucket of oysters and a knife because Lestaci Delloro does not fear any shellfish.

"Alrighty," says that same person, flopping down into a seat and immediately leaning it far enough back to click against the ragged railing that faces RIGHT onto the water (where do you think the oysters come from), "I've been quizzing people and I think I've got a thing or two figured out about this memory place."

"I hope you're not afraid of..." Lestaci pauses. "Depths?" That seems like the converse of heights to her.

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

Dockside bars are Talise Gianfair's natural habitat.

Settling backwards into a chair alongside Lestaci, Tal folds her arms across the back of it and leans heavily forward, her legs apart in a stance that would be indecent were she not wearing pants and a long tunic - and if she weren't six foot one and built like a brick wall. She picks up an oyster, knife in hand, as she squints at the notebook a moment.

"Depths? Not really," she assures Staci with a shake of her head and a crooked smile as she pries her knife blade in and adeptly shucks the oyster. She pauses just long enough to nip it down.

"It's train carts I don't like," she says with a grimace.

"What're you planning? Found a nice place to dive into?" Her eyes lift to the other woman, sizing her up a little.

<Pose Tracker> Lynnai Albrek has posed.

Lyn, on the other hand, does fear shellfish (or at least bad shellfish). Though given what she's chosen to eat - some kind of sandwich, contents indistinct but including a dark sauce - it might have been safer with the oysters. She does have beer, though. Alcohol is safer than water most of the time.

"What's wrong with trains?" Lynnai asks, because she hasn't yet entirely realized Lunar doesn't have those. "Though I don't intend to become a train robber, so it's probably for the best that you didn't pick one to go after." Ruins have a much better attraction for her, and depths sound promising.

<Pose Tracker> Lestaci Delloro has posed.

"Do you mean like the little ones they push up and down, that sell you a sandwich?" Lestaci says, frowning. "Pass me the knife," she adds, grabbing an oyster as she leans forwards. Looking to Lyn, she says, "Well, I haven't heard anything about carts. This one's mostly - actually open it up there, to the page with the arrows on it - it's about wind patterns people've reported. Places that were unnaturally cool. Do you know what that implies?"

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

"It's the flicking all the switches on the tracks," Talise says to Lyn with a grimace. "I've had..."

FLASHBACK TO LAST NIGHT: Tal, Ida, Hiro and others soaring off a train cart and through the misty night before landing in a little pigtailed girl's dinner.

"...bad experiences with switches and train tracks," Talise-in-the-present finishes with a slight cringe.

Tapping the point of her knife against an empty shell, Tal leans forward with a frown to inspect the notepad. She reaches out to flip to the page in question. "That there's wind coming from underground somewhere, where the sun can't reach it?" she asks with a crook of her eyebrows.

<Pose Tracker> Lestaci Delloro has posed.

"Not just wind, but big chambers where the air's cooling down. Vast spaces," Lestaci says. "Huge, enormous, untrammelled. And what do we do when we run into something untrammelled?"

She cuts open an oyster herself and slurps it down in the meantime. This may be a cue, at least in her own mind.

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

"That makes sense," Talise muses with a blink. She's not all that scientifically minded; Lunar's somewhat behind in that sense, after all. But this one she can put the pieces together on.

Reaching for her tankard of mead, she knocks it back for a swig, then sets it down with a clunk. She wipes a bit of alcohol away from her lower lip with the back of her hand and fixes Staci with a broad grin, flashing the points of her incisors.

"We get in there and trammel the stuffing out of it," she says emphatically. "And the treasure. That's important too."

<Pose Tracker> Lynnai Albrek has posed.

"So don't mess with the switches," Lyn says, unconcerned. She's not an engineer. Messing with the switches is presumably someone else's job. (She knows a little more about mine carts, and they're basically little trains, right?)

Lyn pauses, brow furrowed. She's trying to guess the actual term, because she knows what trammel really means and that isn't the right word. Scholarship loses again! But she smiles once she hears the joke.

"It sounds promising," she agrees. "Do you have a plan of action, or should we just, ah, wing it? Because I'm all right either way." Though she does kind of prefer a plan; it's the kind of person she is.

<Pose Tracker> Lestaci Delloro has posed.

Lestaci nods to Talise, meaningfully. As she gets her mead on, she tells Lynnai, "Well that's where I'm thinking we kind of mix and match. Obviously we'll need light and ropes to get around in such big spaces, as well as the usual gear. Anything scream to you as something useful?" Another oyster gets shucked, and this one gets a shell kept aside, probably for ashtray purposes after people are done eating.

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

Joke's on you, Lyn: Talise doesn't know what trammeling is. She only has a 2 in Wits. It probably explains when she notes, "We didn't have much of a choice at the time. To play with the switches, I mean."

She crinkles her nose. "On the plus side I got some gold out of it."

Lifting her tankard again, she takes a long drink from it, then clears her throat as she listens to Staci explain. "Well, I've got my usual gear, of course. But... uh. If we're going deep underground, maybe a mine pick or something? Last time I went caving we had to use picks and break through a wall."

<Pose Tracker> Lynnai Albrek has posed.

"I'm good at open spaces," Lyn points out, which is true; her air Symbology is best with lots of air to move around, and her ability to glide (and help the rest of the group with mobility) is also better in those situations.

"But, let's see. Lights, you're right. If people haven't been down there before we'll need to map," Lyn points out, "or at least chalk a way out. Which is fine. Perhaps some other magnifier in case there's secret passages to find, they're not uncommon in some of these ruins... A pick wouldn't hurt but I'd rather keep destroying the walls as a secondary plan."

<Pose Tracker> Lestaci Delloro has posed.

"Yeah... there'd be a lot more resting on them," Lestaci says with a thoughtful frown. "We could blast but that's even trickier. Oh, pry bars, that's useful," she says. To Talise, she asks, "Have you ever had to pry a rusted door open or anything like that? It's easier than you think but it breaks most of the obvious things you'd use."

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

"Trail markers are usually helpful," Talise notes. "I usually find a few of something colourful and drop 'em at some of the key spots, so I can spot 'em and know where I've been. Torches help too."

She rises in her chair, but only long enough to turn it before dropping into it again, one arm hanging over the back. She crooks a knee, heel planted on the chair's edge.

At Lestaci's question, Tal smiles lopsidedly and lifts her right hand, curling it into a tight fist. "Happened to me once. Then I got those gauntlets and it got easier. Turns out if you're strong enough you can still pull a rusty door off its hinges."

<Pose Tracker> Lynnai Albrek has posed.

Lyn reaches into her coat's pockets. She pulls out a stick of pale blue chalk; a little rough but perfectly usable. "How about this," she says to Talise. "This is what I use. The blue makes it look unlike a natural scuff and it's a lot harder to run out during a single expedition. Plus, I can break it in half and give one of you the other half, so we're both prepared."

Lyn takes a big bite out of her sandwich. Apparnetly it's at least decent. (Brisket, maybe?) "I've seen Talise use her gauntlets. Doors aren't likely to be a problem unless they're locked, and I can open some of the locks we're likely to run into if you give me a few minutes. Provided there's not just switches," she adds, because in her experience SOMETIMES THERE IS.

<Pose Tracker> Lestaci Delloro has posed.

"I hope there aren't too many switches," Lestaci muses aloud. Then she nods at this thought of trail markers, which beats her plan of using that lousy garish lipstick she bought a couple of weeks ago.

"Where'd you get that stuff from?" she asks Lynnai.

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

Talise's eyebrows rise as Lyn shwos off the chalk. "Actually that'd be perfect," she agrees. "Probably lighter and lasts longer than carrying a bunch of coloured stakes around, anyway."

She's not wearing her gauntlets right now; hard to hold a drink that way. She takes another drink to cover the fact that she's blushing at the mention of switches. "I'll leave the switch puzzles to you two," she says with a little grimace.

<Pose Tracker> Lynnai Albrek has posed.

"It turns out that if you grind up the mineral they make plaster out of very fine and compress it with a bit of water," Lyn explains, "you get chalk that isn't so irregular as what's from a chalk pit. And you can add dye to the water, and it comes out in colours. It's softer than the stone, and water washes it off almost immediately, but for our purposes it works wonderfully."

"You can buy it at a few stores. I'll show you, if you'd like." Lyn reaches for her beer, taking a long drink of it. "If the switches are stuck," she points out to Talise, "you might not be able to. Once I saw an old crank in one of these ruins, but there was no way I could move it myself - it had rusted in place."

<Pose Tracker> Lestaci Delloro has posed.

"No shit," Lestaci says, soberly. "Any dye at all?" Hm, now she's alert.

Oh, it's commercially available. Lestaci's alertness steps down a notch as she goes to crack open another oyster. "Maybe we should take some lubricant down in the hole with us, then, in case of that. What do you think?"

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

"Oh, that's where it comes from?" Talise asks with a little frown, scratching one cheekstripe with a curled finger. "Wonder if I could make some in red. Red's alreayd really distinctive. Though I guess it might not show well against brown rock...."

She picks up another oyster and digs in with her knife, shucking the thing like she's done it every day of her life. It's quickly popped into her mouth and eaten. Upon swallowing, she nods thoughtfully back at Staci, then looks to Lyn again. "Yeah, actually that's a good idea. If I try to brute-force a lever it might just break it off. But if we lube up the shaft and work it a bit, that ought to do it."

<Pose Tracker> Lynnai Albrek has posed.

Explaining to Talise might be Lyn's new favourite thing. "True chalk comes from a chalk pit; it's just a kind of stone, you find it near the ocean sometimes. This only resembles it; it's made from a different mineral. And the red looks a bit like rust stains, so I didn't," Lyn says, with a shrug. "There's not a lot that scuffs naturally in blues - or greens, but the greens are more expensive. That, and I like blue."

Anyone who has looked at her coat knows that.

Lynnai finishes what's left of her sandwich. "Oil," she adds to her mental list. Sadly, a good dirty joke appears lost on her, at least when she's in business mode. Scholars, man.

No, wait, she got it. She laughs, suddenly and almost out of the blue. Just late. "Very funny."

<Pose Tracker> Lestaci Delloro has posed.

"Get it to pop faster," Lestaci agrees, before smirking lengthily at Lynnai as she 'gets it.'

"OK, so some train oil and one of those cans, I guess... That's probably pretty cheap. And if we have to, we can burn it."

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

It helps that Talise is both a) from a world a couple centuries behind Filgaia in tech, and b) not a genius.

She leans forward, her eyes a little wide as Lyn explains where chalk comes from. "/Oh./ Oh, okay, that's where it comes from. Okay. Blue probably makes more sense, then," she says as she reaches for her mug.

Then she goes quiet and waits for Lynnai to get it.

Lyn laughs. Talise glances sidelong at Lestaci over the brim of her mug of ale. She winks, once.

"I think that hits all the key points," she says as she sets the drink down again. "Aside from the obvious provisions and water and a couple of sacks to put the treasure in, but those are pretty standard."

<Pose Tracker> Lynnai Albrek has posed.

"I made an assumption on those," Lyn admits, with a smile. You don't go hunting without a way to bring it back!

She claps her hands together, once and firmly. "So! It sounds like we have a plan. Let's say... one day to prepare, then we can set off. I don't know how long it will take to get there, but it will give us time to buy or find what we need tomorrow, and maybe see about assistance - if Ida is around I would like to invite her, at least. Does that sound good to everybody?"

Lyn really does like a plan.

<Pose Tracker> Lestaci Delloro has posed.

"Does she want her cut from the net or from the gross?" Lestaci inquires.

<Pose Tracker> Lynnai Albrek has posed.

"How would I know? I'm not her," is Lynnai's response.

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

"We can ask her," Tal says with a wave of her hand. "But yeah, let's take the day to get ready, then take off."

She pauses. "I'm not sure if Sephy will want to come. I mean, she might. She wanders off a lot. But."

She wiggles a hand, then shrugs.

<Pose Tracker> Lestaci Delloro has posed.

"Well I mean, invite as many people as you want if they'll take their share from the gross," Lestaci says.

<Pose Tracker> Lynnai Albrek has posed.

Lynnai Albrek smiles at Lestaci. "Well, Ida is a scholar. She knows more than I do in some fields - so it might be useful to have her along. She's also a good shot, so I don't think she'll be a liability; she has a gun. Frankly, I wouldn't mind working with her long-term - but that's a different issue."

"The important part is: I think she'd be helpful. Three is doable, but if one of us gets hurt, it may take both of the others to carry them out safely. Four is better. Five..." Lyn has no problems with five. "Sephi may or may not. But honestly I think she'd come just for entertainment."

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

Talise smiles crookedly at that. "She probably would. She's an adventurer, that one. And I'd rather have four than three. Five's useful too."

She downs the last of her mead with a long swig and sets her mug down on the table with a thump, smiling widely. "We'll see if she'll go! But between us and Ida I think we've got a good chance at coming out of there with some neat stuff."

<Pose Tracker> Lestaci Delloro has posed.

Lestaci takes another oyster. "Hmm... as long as she's not the sort who thinks it's a funny joke to cut a rope partway through," she says.

<Pose Tracker> Lynnai Albrek has posed.

"She's not," Lyn promises, and then hopes she's read her correctly. "She'd rather have a good exploration - though I don't guarantee she won't poke her head down side tunnels, since we don't know which ones are likely to have anything in them that may not be a bad thing."

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

"Nah, she's not that kind of person," Talise says with a waggle of her hand. "She wants to be helpful. Her and Lord Chauncey both. Plus they want to get home."

She smiles ruefully as Lyn speaks up. "...Though yeah, she's definitely the type who's gonna want to wander into every nook and cranny."

<Pose Tracker> Lestaci Delloro has posed.

"Lord... Chauncey," Lestaci says, dubiously.

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

"Lord Chauncey," Talise says with a sober nod.

"He is literally a stuffed fox who turns into a giant wrestling fox hulk."

<Pose Tracker> Lynnai Albrek has posed.

Lyn adds, "And don't ask me how it works, because I haven't gotten a change to examine him."

She pauses. "It. Him?" Well, it's a stuffed doll, but on the other hand... "She's young," Lyn explains. "Fourteen, perhaps. But adventurous."

<Pose Tracker> Lestaci Delloro has posed.

This is where Lestaci decides to fish out a cigarette and light it, the sea breeze keeping it from totally ruining anyone's sandwich.

"When you say giant," she says finally, "how giant d'you mean?"

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

Tal waggles one hand. "Fourteen, fifteen, maybe. I think she's younger in spirit than she is in body."

She pauses, then scratches at her cheek with a grimace. "At least, I wasn't that young when I was fourteen."

At Staci's question, she lifts her hand a foot or so above her head. "Maybe yay high. A bit more, ish? Big enough for a teen girl to piggyback."

<Pose Tracker> Lynnai Albrek has posed.

Lynnai Albrek finished her sandwich. It cannot be ruined.

"She's not very big, though. I assumed everyone from where you were from was very tall," with a nod to Talise, "but she's certainly not. Is that, ah, a racial trait...?" She gestures toward her own cheeks, where Talise's stripey markings are.

<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.

As Lyn comments on her height, she actually blushes, touching a hand to one of her cheekstripes. "I think it's a 'my family' trait. My mom was a full Beastwoman and she was about this tall, but I know Beastpeople who are shorter." She flashes a lopsided smile and scratches behind one ear. "Most people from Lunar are normal people height.

"I'm just... uh. Big."