2017-12-13: Cleanup in Aisle Carina

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=============================<* Humphrey's Peak *>==============================

Humphrey's Peak is a small town built on the side of the tallest mountain on Stark's Island. The eponymous peak towers over the town, while the altitude makes Humphrey's Peak cooler than the cities in Aveh and the Badlands. It is a small, largely pleasant village. Homes are in good repair and the people here have made a decent living with herds of sheep and goats, along with some mining. The homes are orderly and some manage to grow a few gardens, too.

There is a small school in Humphrey's Peak, built on the north end of town. The two-story building includes classrooms and professors, who teach using the records and artifacts acquired from the ruins across the Badlands. Some of the experts on the Metal Demon Wars and other past eras can be found here, working hard on their research, and a small but significant library of pre-Day of Collapse literature can be found.

Nonetheless, despite its relative happiness, Humphrey's Peak shows signs of desertification. Canals carved along the outskirts of the town and up its middle have gone dry. Snowmelt from the mountains is less and less common, and the people of Humphrey's Peak find that their wells are going dry. Life may be more orderly here, but there are ever reminders of Filgaia's desperation.

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WVqKTCx7Ug

<Pose Tracker> Carina Wynne has posed.

Boy, what a day it's been, huh?

Once the Metal Demon intruder was taken care of, the mysterious bug-masked figure who sure looks a lot like Carina ran off towards the nearest alley. A minute later, Carina returned, mumbling something about having "forgotten something".

(It was probably her dad, who somehow slept through the WHOLE THING.)

The store, alas, is closed for cleanup and repairs now. Carina's mother came back shortly after the whole mess, and so loaded the cart with some merchandise (specifically the one most susceptible to get ALL STANKED UP that could still be salvaged) and also Carina's dad. The family will be staying over at a friend's while this mess is being taken care of.

And Carina is working hard at it! Or hardly working. Currently, she's rolling her head on the counter, wearing a makeshift breathing mask made from the remains of a cool shirt. It's not very effective. Ostensibly, she's inspecting the damage on individual pieces of armor, but she's not attending to the pile right now.

Good thing some of the Drifters agreed to give her a hand. There's plenty to be done-- Chief of all, the huge icky mess the Metal Demon left (hopefully Jay has SOME kind of industrial cleanser), shelves knocked down, mannequins strewn about in their component parts, and even more merchandise to help Carina sort through. What's a total loss? What can be fixed? What's still good to sell?

She hasn't said a word about that MYSTERIOUS MASKED HEROINE yet. She's been a bit evasive on it, but maybe she just hasn't been prompted clearly enough. 

<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

Lunata looks just a bit dazed as she often does after any exertion of Ge Ramda's power; she's pretty convinced that a toll will be exacted upon her sometime soon, she's just never quite soon... when. It isn't like the Wheel of Spirits works on a schedule, it seems... but it always seems to be when she least expects it.

She's sheathed Orochi-Agito back towards its scabbard and returned to the shop, with a face as she says, "I can't believe he got away... and-- who was that girl in the helmet anyway? She was so powerful...! Like-- some sort of Hero?"

You could just hear the capital 'H' in her voice. 

<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

Perhaps Catenna was mistaken. The mysterious masked stranger must've been none other than Mystere.

Nevertheless, she's not absolved of her responsibility to help clean up Carina's shop. It was her inability to hurl Yarobeleedt out the door that caused this, in her mind, or at least allowed him to vomit his staunch all over the store. She bears some measure of guilt for the happenings, even if logically it probably wasn't her fault.

Catenna does not have industrial cleaners, but she has a bizarrely potent combination of herbs and powders. They combine in a bucket and form a frothy mixture. The bucket currently dangles from her hands as she steps through the door, a bag of sponges clipped to her belt.

"She was... very impressive, yes," she admits to Lunata with a quiet smile. "But some heroes, I think, prefer not to receive accolades... perhaps she is one such? Though it is a shame. I should have liked to know more of her."

Setting her bucket down, she looks over to Carina with a light smile. "I hope you do not mind help," she says as she kneels to soak a sponge in her cleanser. The scent of it is clear and pure, as if she'd somehow liquefied moonlight. 

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Jacqueline couldn't help but feel sorry for Carina. It wasn't her fault that the Metal Demon had shown up when it was her turn to run the store. She was an innocent bystander in all this, after all. Jacqueline wasn't sure what had caused the demon to attack, but there was also the chance that it would return with friends. And if that happened...

...Well, she wasn't about to leave Carina alone.

Fortunately, she has plenty of experience cleaning up messes in stores and, as an alchemist, she's plenty used to dealing with terrible liquid messes! When experiments go awry, sometimes the only thing to do is clean up the mess - and that was something she had plenty of skill in doing. Altogether, this meant she wasn't just hanging around waiting for danger that might not come.

With Catenna having her own mixture, she didn't need to handle the entire store herself. She's chosen another part of the store to clean up. She's had a change of clothes since then, and is now wearing a thick coat over it all just in case.

The previous outfit had to be burned. There was no salvaging it.

"Yes...I would've liked the chance to thank her, though." Jacqueline adds in, sending a smile Carina's direction. There's a knowing look on her face...but that could mean anything, really! "If she hadn't shown up when she did, things might've gotten worse..." 

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

Shalune had stumbled out of the shop shortly after the fight, emerging as a shambling pile of cut-price sweaters topped by an extra-large size drifter's hat that threatened to eclipse even the bobbles of her unusual one. Having divested herself of accidentally-stolen stock, she's now stood in the doorway of the shop, sketching the layout as she remembers it, or more accurately chewing on the end of her pencil making the noise that all craftspeople make when confronted by a fairly large job - sucking air through her teeth.

"... that guy really did a number on this place..." she admits after a moment, wincing. "I mean, if he was just smashing things, that'd be easy, but that acid stuff he spewed-- I mean, I think you're tearing up the floor, just to make sure nothin's rotted through. Aw, man..." she huffs to herself, but shakes it away as she sticks her dog-eared book back in her pocket and takes up a broom.

At least she seems ready to clean; whatever material her coat is made out of, it mostly survived the assault, and her boots are sturdy enough to cope as she methodically drags the broom in long pulls. Her old broom was one of her most beloved possessions until she upgraded it into a strange modular firearm on a whim, after all.

"Right, right," she grins toothily. "That's the way it works. They just go ~whoosh~ and then they turn back into a mild-mannered shopkeep or somethin'. At least until you get to the arc where they're unmasked and have to cope with all the identity issues, an' stuff like that." 

<Pose Tracker> Carina Wynne has posed.

"Oh, hey guys!" Carina grins and waves as people come in. "Naw, I don't mind help at all! Thanks a lot! I can treat you all to pizza later, maybe."

She wanders over to look at Catenna's bucket. "Oh, hey, this is nice." Somehow this nice smell is canceling out the rank-arse stonch, making her not have to suppress her gag reflex for a friggin' minute!

The matter of the Hero immediately comes up. "Right?" Carina says, pumping her fists. "I, huuuh, I was all the way over there so I didn't see much, but she was doin' all these cool moves. She clearly trained hard for 'em, and wasn't like all confused and wingin' it or anything. I think people were calling her... the Metal Digger or somethin'?"

Jay gives her a weird look. She tenses up. C-Crap, does she know? Should she tell them? Aaaargh, life's complicated. But then she remembers something.

"Oh hey, Miss Jay! By the way, thanks for interceptin' that thing before." She gives her a BIG THUMBS UP that is functionally identical to the one the alleged 'Metal Digger' gave them all earlier.

"Really could've beaned my whole skull in. Armors are supposed to protect people, and this one could've straight-up killed me. Is that what irony is? Really makes you think..." She cups her chin, pensive.

It's... It's not that much to think about.

"Oh, hey, that's a neat broom," she remarks, looking away as she tries to change the subject away from identity issues. 

<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

If Jay had suspected something, Lunata certainly wasn't. "She was like-- pow, poom, Pretty Shotgun Kick!" She looks up towards Ge Ramda for a moment, who... is actually helping out with the cleaning with her own broom.

The lich stares back at her and shakes her head.

"No way! Why're your moves all elegant and no fun and games?" Lunata finds it in herself to complain.

She scratches her cheek as she says, "Oh, Lunie, did you get a glimpse of her? You should totally draw her!" she suggests to Shalune, resident artist. 

<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

A tragic casualty of the Yarobarf was Catenna's favourite dress. She wore a simple tunic to this one, coming just a little way down her thighs, and a pair of slightly slouchy ankle-boots.

Indeed, Catenna's bucket smells startlingly nice for something that is basically a cleaning solution made up of some plants she dug out from somewhere. Settling to a knee, the priestess lathers up her sponge and begins to carefully mop up a section of the floor, though her gaze is on Carina as the enthusiastic shopkeeper pups her fists and enthuses so effusively about the mysterious stranger.

"I am only sorry that were unable to help you sooner," she admits with a self-reproving smile and a dip of her head. "That Metal Demon should not have been allowed to do this to your establishment. I wish I could have pushed him out of here before we did." 

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

"Oh, you don't have to, really...if you really want to pay us back, you should swing by the store again sometime, and treat yourself to some of our delicious food." Jacqueline replies, offering a pleasant smile.

She glances to Shalune, thinking it over.

"Indeed...it was like he had something against the store itself, but I can't so for sure what..." She comments. He wasn't exactly speaking intelligently, but he must have come here for a reason...

"'Metal Digger', hm...? I'll keep that in mind, if I see her again." Jacqueline comments with a smile...and then Carina thanks her, and gives a great big thumbs-up. She chuckles a bit sheepishly.

"I'm just glad you weren't hurt...I was worried." She replies with a nod. She had moved so quickly the thing had knocked the wind out of her, and she was equipped to defend herself...she didn't want to think about what it would have done to an ordinary human who wasn't prepared for it.

She glances toward Catenna, then.

"We did what we could...that one seemed particularly...stubborn, however/ 

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

For a moment, Shalune stops and blinks at Lunata, furrowing her brow as she tilts her head. "Mmm... I don't know that I really remember that much, but--" she hooks her broom easily between her legs, and fishes for the notebook again, her tongue poking out of her mouth as she scribbles terribly quickly. The drawing is certainly-- accurate, except that it's a tiny little doodle in the margin of someone going 'waaah' as they kick their way across the intervening space.

Yarobeleedt is represented just by a shapeless black squiggle. Oh well.

"But--" she protests, as if it were terribly important - pumping her fists and all - "--it wouldn't be right if Lunie and Ge Ramda weren't elegant!"

"Mm... that wasn't one of the Hyadeans I know, though. I mean, if I'd seen them around Wayside, I'm pretty sure I'd remember," she adds as she taps at her lips, then shrugs and offers a bright smile towards Carina. "But, you did really well against him! I mean, everything was kinda shaky at the start, but once we got him outside it was all good!... even if we kinda made as much of a mess of this place as the bad guy did," she adds as she puffs up her cheeks. 

<Pose Tracker> Carina Wynne has posed.

Carina glances at Lunata, grinning again. But... Why is she talking to thin air? Well, at least she's not being stalked by some weird monster anymore.

But then she suggests that Shalune draw the masked heroine. "Oh yeeeeeah! That would be so cool!" Carina practically slides over to her (going around the barf zone, because seriously), stars in her eyes.

She looks at the ensuing doodle, tears beading in her eyes. "W-Wow, it's so beautiful!" She sniffs, then looks briefly confused. "What's a Hyadain? What's a Wayside?"

Catenna reprimands herself. Carina won't have it. "Hey, hey, hey, don't sweat it. Most of the time I just fire a warning shot and that's all it takes. That, though? That was a slug monster that didn't make any sense. You can't reason with that. Sometimes a weird slug monster just doesn't want to get out of the store."

Her arms are crossed. She says this as one delivering untimely wisdom, hard-earned through years of experience with weird slug monsters that she's undoubtedly had.

'You' did well against him? Carina looks away again. "Huuuh, I only shot it and got to safety, nothing like you guys... But again, don't sweat it. I'm just happy everyone's fine. We're gonna lose a little money, but we'll manage."

She squints at the damage. The gunk being cleaned away reveals that it did do a number on the floor. It might need to be replaced entirely. "Ugh, at this rate, though, we're not opening again 'til January... Wish we could continue selling stuff while we fix things and build our inventory back up."

She crosses her arms, DEEP IN THOUGHT. 

<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

Lunata seems to detect something in the air, and perhaps shuffles very neatly out of the way as Carina puts herself in the danger zone of being a target to Jacqueline's more mercantile proclivities.

She looks to Shalune for a moment, eyes starry. "... that's great! Totally a like for like!" she nods proudly.

Why is that broom moving on its own to clean Carina's store anyway? 

<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

With a lopsided smile, Catenna looks back up at Carina, continuing to scrub the floor. "No... he is not a reasonable one," she murmurs.

The priestess-turned-scrubmaid rinses out her sponge; soaking it up again, she sets to work cleaning the next patch of flooring. The gentle moonlit scent seems to wash away a little bit of the stonk, but it's like climbing a mountain. Politely, it's... a process.

Catenna clears her throat. "Hyeadeans, yes," she concedes with a nod towards Shalune, then to Carina again. "I have seen that one before... Hyadeans are what some of the Metal Demons call themselves, that is to say. I am not sure why a Metal Demon would attack you. But then, he is...."

Her brows furrow. "...he is an odd one," she concedes.

Carina's sink into thought leaves Catenna glancing at Jacqueline, clearing her throat a bit as if to prompt her friend. 

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Shalune says she doesn't recognize that particularly Me - Hyadean. She must not have heard what Lunata said...

...That was probably a good thing.

"Hyadeans are...well, I'm sure you've heard the term 'Metal Demon' before..." Jacqueline says. Catenna summarizes it, and Jacqueline nods.

"Yes, exactly. As for Wayside...it's a Hyadean settlement. They're good people. They've helped us out, and we've helped them. Not all of them are like the one from earlier." Jacqueline explains.

Carina sinks deep into thought, after that...how could they continue selling stuff while fixing their store up?

Hmm...what a mystery!

It is around this time that Catenna looks at Jacqueline and clears her throat, as if prompting her. Jacqueline nods, and sends Carina a smile.

"You know...we may be able to help you out with that. You've seen how we do things. If we joined forces...it'd give your family a way to continue selling their wares and spreading their name even further, as well as providing a variety of merchandise that the Caravan Kinship doesn't already cover." She suggests. "What do you think? You don't have to respond right away, if you'd prefer to think and talk it over with your family." 

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

"Um," notes Shalune, trying to distil down everything she's learnt about Metal Demons lately. In the end, she just has to squint and scratch under one bobble of her hat, batting the string out of the way of her pink hair. "They're-- the good bad guys," she decides eventually. "Except they're really good guys!"

She settles back, though, and offers an encouraging grin. "But I mean-- look, against a Metal Demon, 'I shot it then got to safety' is pretty damn good going for anyone who hasn't really fought before. You held out long enough for the main event to happen, right?" she adds, puffing up a little in borrowed pride. ... perhaps it's for the best that Shalune seems to intuitively understand the mores at play here.

Lunata's encouragement sends her grinning, and she's drawing again, the cleaning... ... kind of forgotten for the moment. "It's all about the different styles, Lunie! Masked Heroes always blast in like that, but you'd be more-- um--" She draws what looks like a rock spire, and then a big circle behind it, and then a small Lunata (you can tell from the floating blob attached to her labelled 'Ge-Ge') holding her sword up. "--like that. Totally like that," she adds with deadly serious affirmation. 

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

"All 'by the light of the moon...!'" the pink-haired girl immediately crows.


... ohh, that circle's a moon... 

<Pose Tracker> Carina Wynne has posed.

Carina looks at that floating broom. It's been bothering her. She looks back to Lunata, then: "Y'know, I've been meanin' to ask... are you some kinda... broom witch?"

She is instructed on Hyadeans. They're bad guys... but also good guys?!?

She looks gradually more and more confused for a second, but her new friends break it down more understandably. "Ooooooh, I get it! That's wild stuff. Wonder why they use that name. It just seems kind of hard to pronounce is all."

Shalune speaks encouragingly. "A-Aw. Well, thanks." She scritches at her chin. That part may not have been the most important one, but well... After that, a magic belt did seem to be doing most of the work there.

She continues watching Shalune draw, not minding that she's slacking off because, well, she's sure been slacking off too. "Oooooh."

It dawns on her. She points at Lunata. "That's right, you're not a broom witch at all, you're a sword witch! A sword witch and warrior of love!"

And then, Jay has an offer to help with the Wynne family's predicament. Carina's eyes widen and light up. "Heeeeey, that's an AMAZING idea! I am SO down. I'll wanna talk to mom and pop first, but I'll try'n convince them."

She looks at Catenna, intent of further patronage all-too-clear. 

<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

A-- a broom witch?! She looks back towards Ge Ramda for a moment to try to explain it, before-- realising that she probably shouldn't.

She looks back to Shalune like she might've just cottoned onto something grand. "Shalune! Lunie! Ge Ramda...!" She gawks at thin air.

"I need a broom sword. Like-- oh, I'm just a lowly servant cleaning... ka-shink!" A pause, as she makes a gesture like an iai draw.

Ge Ramda just looks so nonplussed at all this, and... returns to cleaning...

"Hey! What's wrong with that idea?!" Lunata complains, looking back towards Jay and saying, "You'd be in good hands! Jay's an amazing merchant, I'd know! She always helped balance out Uncle Tom's books back in Adlehyde!" 

<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

Glancing towards Shalune, Catenna clears her throat a little, then smiles lightly. "I am sure Celesdue is appreciative of masked heroes as well," she murmurs.

Running her sponge across the floor, Catenna manages to liberate another couple of times from the rancid stonk. She pauses, though, to smile as she looks from Jay to Carina, watching the young armourer brighten.

For a moment she's not sure why Carina's looking at her like that.

Then it dawns on her. She clears her throat, sinking back onto her knees and smiling politely up at Carina once more. "If you need us to meet them, I am sure that would be alright - to be sure, after all, that we are good people. Though I can vouch for this group being so.

"Dinner invitations, perhaps, may be an idea on that front...?" 

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

"It's-" Jacqueline about to explain, but decides to stop herself. "You'd most likely be better off asking one of them yourself..."

Jacqueline doesn't mind any of the slacking off herself, either...mainly because she honestly expected it to happen sooner or later, and a part of her figures it might even go faster with fewer of them working, but giving it a more focused effort.

She chuckles kindly at Lunata's display, and then looks away a bit sheepishly.

"Ah...amazing may be a little much..." She replies, shaking her head before glancing over to Catenna.

"That's...a wonderful idea, actually. It might help to give them a better idea of who we are...and tasting yours and Lunata's cooking would help sway anyone." She agrees with a nod and a smile. 

<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.

"Ooh..." chimes Shalune in tandem with Lunata, her eyes lit up and the exhalation of air about on par with a religious experience. She pumps her fists immediately, clearly in agreement. "I mean, I could always make a sheath like that! ... oh, but I wonder what'd happen when it turns into the Rephaim, or tries to turn into a box..." Eh?

But Shalune's not one to let herself get deterred, and she looks fired up all over again. "Let's try it anyway! We can always make you a side sword, or somethin'! I've been wanting to learn all that stuff anyways! I can't call myself an ARMsmith if I can't do other weapons too!"

Pause.

"Um, not that I really call myself an ARMsmith anyways," she realizes sheepishly, one hand scratching in her hair as she grins at Carina. "Um. I'm Shalune, sorry. Ehehe, if you need anything fixed or tuned up or generally banged with a hammer, I'm your girl. If you leave me alone I just start inventing weird stuff as well," she adds with absolutely no guile or bashfulness to it whatsoever. "Lunie's the best cook and sword witch you've ever seen, along with Ge-Ge." 

<Pose Tracker> Carina Wynne has posed.

Carina only now figures out that Lunata is talking to the ghost of her dead grandma. Is that what's going on?! More evidence may be needed! Detective Carina is on the case. In any case: "A broom sword would be super neat!"

Shalune says a lot of very puzzling things. Carina latches onto one of them. "'Try' to turn into a box? Does it just have... not enough self-confidence to turn into a box every time?"

But this great mystery may have to wait. Catenna proposes meeting Carina's parents. "Hmmm, maybe. Though I dunno if that'll be necessary. I mean, they'll believe me when I tell 'em Miss Jay probably saved my life. Doesn't get more 'good people' than that, yeah?"

Then Catenna proposes a dinner invitation. "...On second thought, maybe they WILL need convincing!" She nods along as Jay approves of that particular idea, then mentions...

Carina's head turns 180 degrees to look at Lunata. (Okay, a bit fewer than that.) "You cook too?!"

Shalune gives herself a more proper introduction. Oh, hey, Carina knew she forgot something.

"Oh!! That's really cool. I'm Carina Wynne, by the way! Dunno if you caught that." She thumbs to herself. "I work on..." She holds her hands out, in the general direction of parts of the store that aren't completely trashed. "I do... well, a bit of everything you see here! Clothes, protective gear, even some accessories."

"I'm... not as great as my parents at it just yet," she admits, sighing out, "but I try hard." 

<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.

"A-ah? Haha... yeah, I'm kind of the second cook onboard the CaraKin," Lunata sounds just a little shy as she gestures to Catenna. "But I won't be outdone, even if Catenna's curries are really amazing! We'll make your parents proud, I'm sure of it."

Curiously, the broom appears to have disappeared as it finishes its lot, turned back into a matte little black cube that floats behind Lunata...

Dead grandma, huh? It might be more apt than Carina thinks. 

<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.

Catenna is enlightened. Carina's reaction leaves no doubt as to what she had in mind.

"If you wish, we can prepare something pleasant for you. The CaraKin often eats well. Lunata is quite talented in the kitchen; I also do my best to provide meals, though they are not of a sort most would be familiar with." Usually they're spicy.

Her smile broadens just a bit as she glances towards Lunata. "She is a wonderful cool - extremely talented, and most creative," she compliments the girl for Carina's benefit. "And I would hardly say you are outdone at all, Lunata. Our specialties simply lie on different sides of the menu."

Clearing her throat softly, she looks back towards the young armourer and secret hero. Wetting her sponge again, she answers, "I am Catenna, a Priestess of Celesdue. I travel with the Caravan Kinship in the hopes of helping those in need. If you have spiritual questions, I am at your disposal." 

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Jacqueline chuckles as Carina changes her mind pretty quickly on the idea of whether or not her parents need convincing. Who wouldn't change their mind, when faced with the possibility of a delicious meal? There were certain perks for having great cooks as some of your best friends.

Jacqueline nods as Carina introduces herself. They'd already met, of course, but it was good for the others to know as well.

"There are more of us you haven't met yet, as well...we'll have to find some time to introduce you sometime." She comments. She was certain they'd all like her...

...Well, probably. Most of them, anyway.

And then, she offers Carina a kind smile.

"That's the important thing. To keep trying at it, put your heart into it, and to never give up...we're all still learning, in our own ways." She says.

In a way, that was what the Caravan Kinship was all about it.

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