2017-07-08: Zeboim Linguistics 101
- Log: Zeboim Linguistics 101
- Cast: Josephine Lovelace, Noah Hawthorne, Lily Keil
- Where: Lacour - Market District
- Date: July 7th 2017
- Summary: Josie discusses her item of interest with Noah. Lily drops in and provides some unexpected insight.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
The Grande Lacour might vaguely regret the tournament. All sorts of warriors and would-be champions from across the region (from across Ignas in fact), and some of them might not even know to wipe their feet first.
Though on the other hand, at the rates they're charging it might not matter to them much that some of the people renting rooms break the tableware sometimes by accident.
Suffice to say, the sitting room is a nice place. The floor almost shines -- the staff must be kept busy what with the variety of people coming and going. A low-grade murmur of sound fills in the background of the room, kept pleasantly dark and cool against the glare of the day outside -- the sun's just about overhead. A few lights placed on the tables keep the area cheerful instead of gloomy.
"...And that's when the rock broke through the ceiling," Josie says, recounting a section of her most recent adventurous exploits to the man across the table, as a way to make conversation until the drinks arrive.
Which they are now. Josie picks hers up, flashes Noah a smile, and takes a draw from the wineglass.
Whereupon Penelope hops down from Josephine's shoulder onto the table.
Penelope has a sharp piece of glass in her beak. It glints, briefly, in the light shed by the candle on the table.
"...I thought I took that away from you," Josie says to the bird, squinting at her as she sets her wineglass down. Penelope sidles away, drawing back from the archaeologist. "--Hey, drop it!"
Before fluttering down onto the floor.
"...That's the glass shard from the ruin. I could have sworn I threw it out, but..." Josie sighs wearily, closing her eyes. "Anyway... Like I said, I was going to show you this." Just once, she glances sidelong, before sliding the cloth-wrapped object across the table to him.
Sure, it's not the most secure place. But that's almost the point. What's someone gonna do in a public place like this, in a town full of people armed to the teeth?
"What do you think? Ambrose already had a look."
<Pose Tracker> Noah Hawthorne has posed.
Noah Hawthorne is inordinately gifted in taking up space.
He was born for it, for one thing. He's not a small man, neither from head to toe or shoulder to shoulder, and he makes the most of that stature by sprawling in the most languid, strangely collected manner imaginable, booted feet planted wide beneath the table, shrugged down in his seat, arms on those of his chair and his eyes lidded the way a lion will hood its gaze as it suns itself. Beneath the thin scrim of his lashes his focus tracks the object that Josephine places on the table, and he curls upright just enough to reach for it, place his hands on it and drag it back toward himself. He holds it in the cup of one hand above the planed hammock of his middle, rolling his head over to one side as the fingers of his other hand peel back the folds of cloth with surprising care, given all of the aforementioned physical characteristics.
Hazel eyes wander the thing thoughtfully.
"It's always rocks," he says after a long moment, peculiar, one-off accent rounded and mellow with relaxation. "Rocks falling, rocks rolling down ramps, rocks falling out from under you and dumping you into deep pits." After a beat he lifts the chunk of tile and props it momentarily beneath is nose, smelling it. Another beat, and he 'licks it' -- not much, but enough to get a taste of whatever it's made of, and then he squints with vague displeasure, either failing to find whatever he was looking for, or just generally being unenthusiastic about the taste.
"I think I know where the sketch was taken and I want to get out there and look at the spot before I commit to anything. Zeboim's complicated. Not every dialect's been documented, some are similar to one another -- last thing we need's to assume 'hey, this is the dialect where that word right there means 'party,' and it turns out it's this 'other' one where that word really means 'apocalypse.'"
He plays callused fingertips over the texture of the object while he speaks, always and ever tactile, drawn to the textures of the past.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Despite its nice (very nice) setup, and eatery visible from the entrance at the bar, the Grande does have reasonable prices for a number of it rooms, even given the presence of the Tournament. Reasonable may be relative, but it's worth it. Quiet, public enough to be secure, a setting where it's unlikely people will bother her...
And, as it turns out, not an awful place to recover.
'Her' in this case is Lily Keil, accustomed to taking up space in a different way, largely by aggressively defending her own. She steps across the floor while glancing around a at others to ensure she doesn't run into anyone, even worse off in her injuries than the last time Josie encountered her. She wears a black dress and black gloves and boots... And bandages up onto her throat. She hears familiar voice and spots Josie as she approaches from behind and to the side of Noah. She settles in and remains silent--like her steps were silent--and thinks to comment... But her eye fall on the tile, instead.
"..." After a pause she trails into something of a reverie, speaking a language that has likely not been spoken in this area for a very, very long time. She speaks fluent Zeboim, though she halts in a couple of places. She doesn't read the whole thing.
"..." Lily pauses, and says, "The worst are the rocks dumping you places. You..." She glances to the side. "Sorry, it was rude of me to interrupt. Hello, you two. I can leave."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"No kidding. Or if it's not rocks, it's giant metal spheres," Josie says with a sigh, surreptitiously attempting to reach under the table and grab for the increasingly wayward pigeon. This largely results in a lot of flailing blindly, because Penelope is apparently in no mood to have her (sharp, dangerous) treasure taken away again.
"So, how's it taste?" she asks, sitting up straight, having apparently given up on Penelope for now. Josephine's tall for a woman, but Noah outmatches her still -- wherever he comes from, they grow them extra tall. "Can't say I tried licking it." She pauses, gaze lingering on him thoughtfully. "Oh, right, and the scorch marks weren't there originally. Those are from when my house burned down. Just so you know~"
She doesn't elaborate.
Her forehead creases as if she's considering what he's said. "Guess it's too much to hope that it'd be that easy, huh," the archaeologist says at length, punctuating the lot with a sigh and a shrug. "Well, still." The smile comes easily enough. "Once we get out there, I'm sure we'll find more context for it. Besides, it'll be good to get a look at the place again. It's been a while -- there might be something important that I missed. I was a little preoccupied at the time..." Josie leans back, gazing at him still.
"Anyway, I hope it's not something like that. I'm not ready for the apocalypse just yet, you know?"
A faint buzz slides across her spiritual senses. It's not loud today, but she can still feel it -- Malevolence. Even before Josie turns her head towards the girl, she says, "Kiddo. I didn't expect to see--"
And then she looks the heavily bandaged girl over. "...Fengalon's teeth. Is that why you went missing? Lily, you need to learn to take it easy--"
Lily reads aloud from the tile. Josie's expression does a rapid slide from irritatedly-concerned straight into blank straight into baffled. "...Kiddo, I didn't follow that at all." Slowly, she blinks. "Wait... did you just read aloud from that? Noah?" She leans forward against the table, searching his face first for sign of verification.
"--Hold on there a moment, Lily--"
<Pose Tracker> Noah Hawthorne has posed.
Noah ignores essentially everything to do with Penelope.
For one thing, the pigeon has mastered the art of looking absolutely done with everything and everyone, and it has an unhealthy fascination with blood. He learned both of those things within ten minutes of meeting Josie for the first time, and there was, to put it mildly, a lot going on at the time. he still noticed.
For another, he's got a ferret somewhere that takes great pleasure in acquiring things that don't belong to it. Nothing about what's happening surprises him in the least.
It can't outrank artifacts in the contest for his fickle interest, either.
"There's always a surefire way to find out the answer to that question," he says, when she asks him how it tastes. The corner of his mouth sharpens upward, eyes lifted to rest on his tablemate. "You put it in your mouth."
He's about to hand it across to her, taking in the rest of her information in interested but unhurried silence, when there's another voice from behind them. Bent forward like that, arm extending to slide the artifact back to Josie, he freezes, listens, and gradually sinks back into his chair again.
Did she just read it, Josie wants to know?
Tickled interest plays subtly through his expression when he short-nods his answer. "Just full of surprises, Tigereyes," he says. Does not turn to look to see who it is; knows, without looking, based entirely on her voice. The accent, probably. Possibly. Maybe.
Beneath the table, he lifts one boot, places it against the leg of one of the remaining chairs -- one adjacent to both he and Josie -- and pushes with it, unseen. The chair rumbles backward away from the table's edge. "Have a seat."
Rather than hand the artifact back to 'Josie', he places it on the table atop the cloth, and slides it over to rest in front of the newly opened place at the table, brow cocked silently Josie's way, as though making sure that presenting Lily with it is an acceptable decision on his part.
"I'm all for cutting out the guesswork."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily finds her eyes settling on Penelope and her glass shard as she prepares to leave the table, lifting an eyebrow at the bird's weapon. Much of the rest of the conversation she did miss however, and now she's somewhat embarrassed to begin with. That makes no difference in her Malevolent aura, worse than it was before when Lily first displayed it. It radiates from her, insofar as something this dark can have anything to do with radiance.
But awkwardness radiates from her too in a more mundane sense. She considers the question from Josie, but then she sees that baffled look. Josie didn't follow it. Of course she didn't. Did she?
Josie asks her to hold on, and the black-haired woman does, if reluctantly, until she hears Noah's answer. "...It's strange that you call me that still," Lily murmurs. She doesn't dislike it, exactly... But her accent is easy to place, as is her voice, if even quieter than usual, soft with injury. The chair moves backward, and Lily pauses, hesitating, before inclining her head.
"If I'm going to sit down here in this crowd, someone's buying me a drink," she mutters, "And I don't accept drinks from men in these situations."
Cutting out the guesswork. "...First... Yes, this is why I was missing. I was bedridden for a week after the battle at Old Petra. I still can't use my magic properly yet."
Then she looks down at the tile, "This is Zeboim, right...? It's a different dialect from what I'm familiar with, but I can still mostly read it." Lily shakes her head, "Don't ask where I learned it. I think I've known it since I was young."
"Do you want to know what it says?"
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
The ferret is likely to be familiar territory for her.
Short of actually climbing under the table -- which brings with it its own set of nonsense and isn't even an assured victory -- Josephine isn't at all sure what she can actually do with Penelope right not except vaguely hope that she'll lose interest and drop it eventually.
So the bird's running around with a piece of glass. What's the worst that could happen?
And anyway, there are things to discuss.
Josie's lips quick upwards, as if privately (or not so privately) amused. "Just put it in my mouth, huh?" She lifts her hand, as if about to reach across the table for it.
And then Lily arrives.
"'Tigereyes', huh? That's not a bad name for her. Well, if you're aquainted, that means I don't need to worry about introductions!" Briefly, Josie claps both hands together. She's cheerier suddenly, all sign of the earlier wearier irritation with Lily's condition dropped as if it had never been.
Noah nods, if faintly. Josie arcs a pale eyebrow in response. Well, now, her expression seems to read. Dark eyes lift from her to the golden-eyed young lady standing behind Noah.
"...Not bad, kiddo. Tell you what--"
'Have a seat', Noah says.
'I don't accept drinks from men', Lily says.
"--How about I buy you that drink I owe you? Take a load off and sit down." While she gestures with her left hand for the waitstaff, her eyes meet Noah's, and she nods, her agreement here silent. It's coupled with a wide if lopsided closed smile a moment later.
"The more the merrier, huh?"
Though -- earlier irritation briefly gone or not -- Josie does close her eyes momentarily. "Kiddo..." But she doesn't belabor the point.
"Yeah. It's Zeboim. We're pretty sure about that one, right, Noah? So where--"
Lily says, before Josie can even get the question out, that she doesn't know where she learned it.
Folding her arms over her chest, Josie leans back in her seat, both eyebrows raised. "You're just full of mysteries, kiddo, aren't you..." A beat. "Sure. What's it say?"
<Pose Tracker> Noah Hawthorne has posed.
Not getting drinks from men just makes Noah like Lily that much more. He's got a deep-seated dislike of responsibility, and now he's just been freed of the 'responsibility' of paying for someone's drinks: this is a net gain for him.
'We're pretty sure about that one, right?'
"It's Zeboim," he says, and sinks back into that comfortable, easy repose in his seat, one of his hands lifted, resting on the table with his fingers loosely curled around the sweating glass that belongs to him, half-finished. In lieu of contributing to the conversation himself, he brings it to his lips to sip from and exudes, for the most part, a companionable interest in this turn of events, nothing remotely like urgency in his manner. It's misleading in its way; he's thrall to mysteries, particularly those out of the past. This development isn't unlike sitting in a room with a chest that's locked, deciding to wait until one finds the key to open it rather than risk brute forcing the thing, only to have the key waltz through the doors and plunk itself down at the table. It's a foot pressed to an accelerator, speeding them along toward whatever their destination actually is -- a thing more tantalizing for the way in which it remains a big, fat question mark, at least as far as Noah is concerned.
Josie asks the question he would ask, and he perks a brow, watches Lily. Waits for the answer.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"We've met," Lily agrees with Josie, "The nickname is all him." Lily spots Josie's cheeriness, and she might tell her about what she mentioned another time, but for now Lily is sitting down, looking at Josie again. Tell her what...
"Sure," Lily says to Josie, "That's fine." That wide, lopsided smile doen't earn one from Lily in return, but she does watch it for a moment longer before glancing to Noah. Things seem to be fine with him. Lily can wait on the drink.
"It's a long story," the Kislevi says to Josie, "But I'm working on recovering now."
Confirmed twice as Zeboim, and Lily nods, looking back down at the tile. She's sure regardless; she recognizes it, could speak it. "It has the right familiarity," Lily murmurs.
"I could speculate where, but it's pointless. Instead, let's have a look. It's tricky, because of the dialect, and because it's somewhat specialized; there are words I don't know. But I know most of them. I wonder where you got it from."
A breath, "Warning: This key access to this computer system is restricted by Zeboim... Fed. Govt. Code Section 833.16, Top Secret Clearance Only." Her voice is quiet, intent, focused. ...Frankly intense. "Biometic scans may be required for some access, pursuant to Zeboim Fed. Govt. Code 833.16.2. This key is to be returned immediately if in unauthroized hands." Lily waits a beat and shakes her head. "Guess you'd better give it back. But wait, hold on..."
Archaeology is a national interest of Kislev's. And Lily sees--
"Hold on." She gently picks up the tile, ignoring the clothes, still wearing gloves. "This says 'Release' right here...I wonder..." She fiddles with it softly, ignoring any attempts to tell her not to. "Ah--found it--" She reaches up and pulls a tiny pin out of her hair, poking into the base and--
Out sticks a weird golden block. "...Looks like it sticks into something." Lily pauses, sitting up straight again. "Looks like we have a key on our hands." We?
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Well, what do you think? Is it better or worse than 'kiddo'?" Josie asks, regarding Lily for a moment. "Though, I could always try my hand at something else if you want."
She's even got one in mind.
Naturally, the waitstaff are going to take their own sweet time getting over here; the hotel's pretty hopping as far as visitors etc are going. Which is probably fine.
What's about to be said is perhaps not meant for the ears of someone better suited to giving drink recommendations.
"Good," is the most Josie will say about that, as far as Lily actually taking some time off to recover properly.
"Ambrose thought it was, too, so it better be," she comments, leaning in to rest her chin on a gloved hand. "Otherwise, we'd just have to reconsider a whole lot of things about this business, huh..."
Just like Noah, Lily makes some comments about the dialect, earning her a lazy nod from the archaeologist. Apparently linguistics aren't a major point of interest for Josie.
Where'd she get it? "Somewhere out west. I'm going to head back there."
Real soon.
And then Lily takes a breath, and takes a stab at reading aloud.
A number of those words just fall outside Josie's frame of reference entirely. But what she can understand, she can assemble into a working concept, at least.
It's a key. She's just not sure what sort of lock it would even fit into, given the shape.
She snorts, flashing Lily a brief grin. "A little late for that! Besides, you know what they say -- finders keepers."
But wait, there's more. Josie nearly stands up out of her seat, she leans over so far as Lily fiddles with the thing.
So it unfolds. Or at least a part of it does.
And slowly, Josie reaches over to touch it -- or take it from Lily's hands, if she's able.
"...If I'd known you could read the thing, I would've asked you sooner, you know."
She doesn't seem put off by the concept of 'we'.
<Pose Tracker> Noah Hawthorne has posed.
"Because of the stone," Noah says, of Lily's nickname. "And her eyes."
It feels like he's had to explain this a lot since he decided to call her that for the first time. Maybe that was a mistake. It's too late now, though -- he's committed, and sheer bloody-mindedness means it's going to stick.
Beneath the misleadingly half-mast lids, hazel eyes remain weightful where they rest on the Kislevian in the act of translating a past so distant that few people can conceive of what it must have been like. He has the sense, at least, not to press her on the matter of where she learned to speak it -- interesting primarily because it's obviously not her life's work, and what little she's said to that end has been vague and suggestive -- and instead focuses on the pragmatic aspect of the reading. What it means, what it suggests.
Hazel eyes glitter with brief, short-lived amusement, watching Josie practically elongate in order to get a better look at what Lily does with that pin of hers. It's short-lived because the sight of the key causes a complex shift in his expression, fascination warring with pensive thought and other things difficult to name -- things that seem guarded, for no reason at all.
"The ruin is known. Strange that the rubbing taken from the ruin has the same message on it, unless...somehow, the rubbing was taken before you got your hands on it..." Two beats later, he gestures dismissively. "Doesn't matter. We'll find out when we get there."
And the 'we' in that sentence brings him around to the last remark made by Lily, an insertion that does not go unremarked -- though it's not really his place to grant or restrict access to the ongoing endeavor. He's been, in a sense, hired; is here because Ambrose is owed a favor (and to sate his own curiosity, though admitting the latter would be counterproductive to settling his debt).
"You ought to know we're planning to run the blockade to get out that way," he points out for Lily, tone mild, glass lifted again and brought up to hover near his mouth. He studies her with affable but ever-perceptive eyes. "Risky."
Not least, perhaps, to a soldier from Kislev he's seen spending time on the wrong side of the front.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Better or worse than--Lily frowns, looking at Josie like she's just sprouted another head with those gold eyes of hers. "It's fine as those things go, but I don't know if it's--" Noah gives the same answer again and Lily looks at him, still frowning. "I know what the nickname means, I just don't know why you gave me a nickname."
It might be innocent. Maybe.
Lily is busy talking regardless, so she doesn't care about getting her drink or food right away. She's busy with this thing, too. Josie approves of her recovering and Lily looks at her with eyes that recall how difficult a patient Josie was.
Lily says nothing more about whether it's Zeboim for the moment; instead she notes Josie's answers, and adds, "Out west. All right." That's difficiult in its own way. That's fine in another.
Lily also doesn't speak in the halting manner of a translator for the most part, only stumbling across a few words now and then. There's no trace of a Kislevi accent in these sounds. If anything they seem... easy. The truth is mostly that she's rusty.
Lily doesn't look at Noah's guarded expression, instead speaking without looking up, "Ah, well. I guess we're lawbreakers for Zeboim now, too." Another nation added to the list.
"Hm. It's all unknown to me, what happened to it before we get there. But you're right, someone has to find out if anyone wants to know."
A light half-shrug, still favoring the one arm, as Lily lets Josie take her tile from her, setting it down in the cloth and handing her both. "I didn't even know I could read it until recently," she admits, perhaps more openly than she should. "...Noah, I'll ask that you keep that secret, since we're working together on this. The fact that I can read this at all is not something I prefer to share."
He offers caution and Lily sets a hand in her hair, flipping it back over her shoulder again confidently. "That doesn't bother me. I had another route through... But someone has to look after Josie. And I know Aveh defensive protocols better than anyone else you're likely to meet."
She's thoughtful, as if troubled by something... But speaks confidently. "...Your information helped, by the way. I knew most of it, but not all of it. So I'll keep in mind what you said. Though... This is definitely a similar scale of information..." A half-shrug.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Josie just shrugs as if to suggest, if Lily ever feels like it, her nickname is completely up for renegotiation.
At least as far as Josie's go -- Noah is a completely separate story here.
Lily gives her a pointed look. Josie just smiles, innocently.
She's a hypocrite, what else is new?
Another nation added to the list. "Heh heh. How many is that now for you? Three? You'll be number one on the wanted list in no time, kiddo," Josie teases, flashing the younger woman a grin.
"Well, who knows? I only picked this up a few years ago. Maybe it was part of a wall, or..." Josie trails out, rolling her shoulders in a lazy shrug as if to say, 'ruins, you know?'.
They can be pretty strange at times.
"Exactly. Once we get out there, we'll have the chance to look around and see what's going on. Maybe things have changed..."
Particularly since there's more to this thing she's been carrying around for the last few years than she suspected. She definitely has never thought to stick a pin in the end.
Or put it in her mouth, for that matter.
Extended 'key' in hand, Josie turns it this way and that, inspecting the new part in the candlelight. "So if we find out where this slots in... Of course, that might not even be in the ruins," she speculates, toying with the heft of what she had formerly thought to be a tile in her hands. "Hmm, lucky us you came by. I probably wouldn't have figured this one out on my own~" she says, a little too bubbly.
Well, naturally, she wouldn't have. She can't read a bit of this.
Josephine's specialities must lie somewhere other than linguistics.
"I think she can handle it," Josie says, inclining her head to one side. The 'key' is handed back over to Lily. "You're looking at the definition of 'risky'. ...Though it might be best if we avoid doing it the hard way." The... hard way? "I think Leon'd be unhappy if she reopened those wounds."
She pauses. "Does it close up again?" Meaning the 'tile'.
One white eyebrow lifts. "Look after me? Kiddo, just take care of yourself, first," the archaeologist sighs, before finally going for her long-abandoned glass of wine. Which she just about halfway drains in one go. "Still, if things go south, that's a good bit of info to have on hand -- don't suppose you know the weakpoints on their machines? If they've got Gears at the border, I hate to say it, but we'll need a plan."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily hadn't expected Josie's implication, but there it is. Noah's, who knows. She's not done with the idea, but neither does she really want to press it right now. She folds her hands in her lap instead as she waits.
"Three. Four if you count Garlyle, and well, there's one more I'd rather not voice yet." She doesn't think Solaris knows to be after her in particular yet.
About that.
Ruins can be strange, and maybe things are different, but Lily doesn't know, and Lily isn't concerned with it. The black-haired woman shakes her head.
"You would usually have a key in the same place that you intended to use it," Lily points out, "Or within fairly close distance to same. It's possible that they'd do otherwise, for security purposes, but that would make this very important." A beat, "...I guess it is lucky. I didn't know you had something like this, though it shouldn't be a surprise."
Josie's specialties lie in driving Lily nuts. All of these older people seem to be good at that. Josie, Cassidy, a little bit of Noah, Dr. Hetfield... Not so much Meredin, but she probably could.
Lily sighs at the thought and then looks back up from her reverie. "I can," Lily says simply, possibly arrogantly. The key she takes back and looks around it a moment more before starting to wrap it. "Usually," Lily points out, "Those risks pay off for you. Some other time I'll tell you what I was up against when I got these." She doesn't want to bother explaining. "...Yeah," she agrees. "I've worried Leon too much already. Worried a lot of people." She seems glum about that.
"It could close up again... But we might break it if we try. I don't really want to risk it. If it does, looking at the mechanism I'd say you do it by pushing it back in, and then the workings hold the cube in until you hit the release again."
"And I look after myself fine," Lily points out with a point of her finger. "I'm a medic." She looks between both. "If you wait until after I'm healed, I can provide intel and firepower if it goes south. Otherwise, I can provide intel. I can get across either way, and it might be wiser." How? She doesn't say. "...My recommendation is stealth," Lily says. "That's what I would do in this scenario. I know how their machines often work, but I haven't tried to fight them on foot except in a support position, and what I'd do in a Gear is different. If they have Gears, we either use stealth or we run. My magic could maybe do for one Gear, but not two. Otherwise misdirection, or..." She considers. "I know where the fuel lines on a number of Aveh gear models are. If we can get in without being spotted..."
"But that's absurdly risky. If they have Gears, we go a few miles over and punch through the wall where it's not guarded as heavily."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Four, then. I guess it counts. You're a busy girl, kiddo."
Tilting the key again -- this time to eye the carvings on the 'glyph' portion -- Josie nods lazily. "Yeah, yeah. I guess it's the same as leaving the key under the rock, or something."
Briefly, her gaze darkens.
"Of course, if it's not meant for that place, then we have a problem." She waves the thing through the air absently, as if it were a pointer. "Or if someone moved it at some point. We're talking... well, seriously, it's a huge amount of time ago. Anyone could have put it in there." She shrugs, both hands palm out -- or at least reasonably so in the case of the hand holding the key. "But, this is just me talking out loud, you know? I lost my notes in the fire, so it's not like I can refer back, and we're talking about one place I poured over. Do you know how many ruins I've been in?"
Yeah.
Josie goes for her glass again as Lily wraps the 'tile' back up. "Yeah? Tell me sometime. I think I ought to hear this one. No one's told me anything!" The lament is mock, but the pointed glance she flicks Lily's way... not so much.
"...It'd be easier if it folded up, but I'm not about to break the key when it's the only one we got."
At this point, the waitstaff finally wanders on over. This may be a distraction. Josie reaches out to snag the re-wrapped 'tile' and slide it towards herself across the table.
'I look after myself fine', Lily says. Josie keeps her focus on the younger woman as she sloooowly leans in. And pointedly, her gaze flickers down to the places where the bandages are kept. "...I know you're a medic. But pace yourself. One thing at a time." Here, she settles back again, folding her arms over her chest. "Anyway... anything you can tell us about their movements helps. I was thinking stealth. Maybe disguise, but we'd have to knock over a few soldiers and move fast to pull that one off." Under the table, she taps a foot absently. "And they'd have to be the right size -- not good odds, if you ask me."
Staring off into the middle distance, she mulls over the situation.
Her gaze refocuses. A light has gone on. And slowly, she begins to smile like a cat.
"What about a disguise where we're all the right size? I don't suppose either of you knows how to operate a Gear, do you?"
<Pose Tracker> Noah Hawthorne has posed.
It can be fairly observed that it's just Noah's kind of luck, that the moment the ladies at the table start to discuss things he might have strong opinions about, he's interrupted in his ability to pay attention by a member of the staff, there to deliver him a message. He's 'still' getting those -- holdovers from his involvement in establishing a refugee camp at ground zero of the assault on the Exhibition -- and while there are less messages now than there were, those he's getting are of a different and somehow more important character.
By the time he turns back to the table and is able to give the ongoing conversation his focus again, he tunes in just in time to hear Josie say 'I don't suppose either of you knows how to operate a Gear, do you?"
"Whooooa, whoa. Whoa. What?" Both of his hands come up, splay palm-outward, a staying gesture. "Whoa. Hold on. First of all -- stupid plans are my niche in this merry band, okay? Second, since you're asking, I'm guessing you don't have one you're offering, so you're suggesting we steal one. And ordinarily, Miss Josie, I'd be first in line for something like that, but chances are good the only Gears in the area convenient to the purpose are going to be military. I'd sign on the line for that with good enough reason, but we've got places to be. We get caught doing that and we'll be in more trouble than if we just tried to walk through. Trying to decide now makes no sense. We need to get out there and have a look. Terrain, manpower, weather -- it's all going to matter. Besides, we need somebody with access to that kind of tech....well." He reaches up, palms his chin, jaw. "Could be I know somebody. Could call in a favor or two. Maybe. First, though? Let's find out what we'll be dealing with."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Luck is luck.
"I try to make sure I use my time productively," Lily points out, practically easily as she speaks to Josie. It's possible to miss from someone who doesn't pay much attention, but Lily is just different around the archaeology. She nods a moment later after what she's said, "Something like that. Or more likely, it's the key to something within, not the front door. Access key..."
"Whatever, we won't know if we don't go. It was a long time ago, sure..." A shrug. "I see. Yeah, probably a lot of ruins. Fewer for me; that wasn't my job."
Lily puts up her hands. "I'll tell you. Don't worry. If I'm not too tired tonight, maybe later on." A beat, "You'll... Be really interested in how I got out of there." A glance to Noah. This distraction is good. It's useful. Though Lily pauses to order a double whiskey and something to eat. She... orders a lot.
Josie leans in at her comment, leaaans, in, and looks at her bandages. She sighs. "All right, fine. I will, that's what I'm doing. No leaving the building until I'm doing better."
There's another suggestion though. Or at least, general ideas. "Can you imagine? Me, in an Aveh uniform?" She considers. "I could see if the crew have any from their operations." Beat, for Noah, "I work on a pirate ship."
But--wait. A Gear? Lily frowns. "That's not careful--" Noah has them hold on, and shakes her head. "Well, I'm not going to come up with stupid plans for us." Lily considers what Noah's said. "He's basically right. None of these plans without direct intel on the blockade are going to work. What you need to do is arrange some scouting if you can. If Noah knows someone, that's convenient, but..."
Lily shrugs, still paler even than usual. "For the record," she says, "I can operate a Gear just fine. I'm good at it. Part of standard officer training in Kislev."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Will I. Well, now you've got me curious. I guess I'm all yours when you've got a moment." Josie gazes at Lily for a moment, then laughs.
That's all probably on Josie's tab, too. At this rate she really will go broke... but that's a concern for another time.
It's tiring having to be the responsible adult in the room.
Which might go some distance towards explaining Josie's great (?) idea.
Noah's not the only one to put his hands up like that. "--Alright, alright, I get the idea," she says, as if calling for a truce. "Still, you've gotta admit -- no one would search inside one of those, right?" She grins a little too gleefully at the idea. "...It's just that it would be pretty hard to steal one and not get caught, huh?"
Regrettably (??) the easiest answer is to try to locate some measure of the barricade that's not as defended and just slip past in the dead of night or something.
Assuming what the blockade even looks like -- Josie had head off that way at one point to check it for herself, but she had ended up getting stabbed instead which sort of nipped that plan in the bud.
On the other hand, Noah might know someone. And Lily can operate a Gear. "Let's keep that one as a backup, then. I think I can work out how to bypass security on one." Maybe. "But first things first, okay," and here she nods, closing her eyes briefly as she gestures outwards with her left hand, "we'll go and check for how it all looks."
She adds, a moment later, "And we'll go and look at it soon."