Pirate Age: The Golden Era

[Capt. Blu]

Collabo: Mizos & Capt.

Location: Brass Cape

The Stardusk crew had reconvened at the docks after a day of adventure. Runali had lost some of her crew at one point or another when they decided to check out a fair. At first she wasn't going to follow them in, however she had never been to a fair, and the upbeat sounds of music pulled her in. She was glad she went too because if she hadn't she wouldn't have discovered all the cool games there were. One game in particular caught her eye. There was a moving belt of rubber ducks going.. The man standing beside it was calling out, "Step right up, step right up! Hit four in a row with the darts and get a prize!"

It was tempting enough for Runali to take a stab at it. The host of the game happily took her money and twirled his mustache. "You get three tries! Alright little lady, all you have to do is hit those ducks while they're moving. Nothing to it~"

"Yeah, alright. Sounds simple enough." She looked at her first four set of darts she was supposed to throw. She wasn't the best at ranged attacks, and for the longest time she blamed it on her poor eyesight. It was always so difficult to line targets up when her perspective was cut in half… and she wouldn't dare to admit- even a bit blurry sometimes. But over the years she had seen many pirates with so many different disabilities shooting things and people just find. She frowned a little to herself for making so many excuses. How was she supposed to get better if she never tried?

The first try, she missed all of them. "Oof! So close kid, better luck on the next two!" Runali's brow furrowed as she stared at the ducks going down the track one by one. She watched and waited a little longer, this time hitting two of the four ducks, one barely reaching the target. "Oh! Close but not quite! Last try!" The host continued to goad, but Runali didn't acknowledge him.

This time, Runali took a breath. She looked to her left and right as if checking to make sure no one was around. When everything looked clear enough save for the host and a few random people walking past, her focused turned back to the ducks idly moving along the track. She took another deep breath and closed her eyes, listening to the faint shuffle of when the ducks disappeared and reappeared.

One.
Two.
Three.
Four.

Her eyes opened and all four ducks were laying on their sides and the track had stopped. "Ah- Look at that, I got them." Runali smiled. "Neat." The host however was staring with wide eyed shock, having watched the young woman shoot the four ducks with her eyes closed and then act so calm about it. "What do I win?"

"O- Oh, uh, yeah- you get this!" He pulled down a smallish monkey with clips on the hands. "Ah, the larger prizes are for if you get them in all three tries."

Runali nodded and proceeded to wrap the monkey's long arms around her neck and hooked the clasps together so it wouldn't fall off. "Ah, that's okay. I like this little monkey too." She had been eyeing the elephant plush that was dangling overhead but she decided that the game was fair and she got what she deserved. The little monkey was easier to carry anyway. Runali saluted the host before investigating the rest of the amusement park's bright lights and sounds. However instead of all of those things she found herself following the sounds of a small tavern just outside the amusement park. It looked more cozy than the typical taverns she went to and there was no gruff person looking for a fight. The lights were dimmed and everyone was minding their own business, drinking and enjoying the band playing on stage.

She hadn't heard anything like it before despite travelling from island to island. It wasn't anything like the pirate shanties she heard at taverns or the peaceful windchime-y sounds of Yula Fei, or anything she could think of back home. And instead of thinking about each and every island they had gone to, she just relaxed and enjoyed the music and drinks she got.

Present Time: Next Day

Now, the group- with Caleb once again leading the way, walked to the Passano shop. "I'm telling you Kadi, motor-powered wagons are not safe. You can trust an animal not to explode or combust." Runali had wandered off onto a tangent of conversations, most different for each crew member she was talking to. "Aye Jack, the amusement park was really nice. I didn't get a chance to get on the big wheel though. Maybe before I go." Yet, she managed to keep up with them all. "Z, you didn't get into any trouble did you?" She teased. "I'm sure you're as feisty as Sara- when it comes to books at least."

Runali's laughter died down when Caleb stopped right before they entered the shop. Even before she could question what was wrong, it was a little more than clear to see the damaged sign and broken windows. The door was yanked off its hinges and burn marks were on the sides of the walls. The inside looked no better. Shelving units and bins were toppled over, if not broken in two. There were obvious signs of battle with a knife embedded in the wall, blood covering it, and bits of a torn jacket scattered across the floor. On the counter, amongst the mess of broken objects, torn papers, and toppled bins there was what looked like a crushed mechanical rose with a torn note under it.

"This… isn't good." Was the first thing Runali said as she inspected the mess around them. She wasn't sure what to make of it, or why anyone would raid the Passano shop when they were so willing to help everyone. It was still dark in the building and silent, save for a ticking clock, so she could only guess that no one was home.

Zilia was inches away from answering the question, but two things gave her pause. The first was the fact she was pulling a sack of books with her which made it hard to defend herself. The second was Luro sprinting past her at full speed; she looked to see what gained his attention only to drop her sack seeing the state of the Passano's shop. She quickly pulled her sack to a safe location and quickly made her way inside with the others. She gripped the side of her clothes at the sight in front of her once she entered, something terrible had clearly transpired here and the knife covered with blood in the wall only made her worry more.

Her gaze moved to Caleb who calmly walked past her, to her surprise he seemed pretty casual over the whole scene. The simple expression on his face hadn't changed, he showed no sign of being tense, he only walked about the workshop touching things here and there, and viewing the store with an analytical gaze, he eventually tapped a few objects which put more light into the room. Watching him run his fingers over the scorch marks and rub the contents between his fingers she was reminded he was a worst gen, she supposed it took more than this to shake his foundation. Though looking at Luro it seemed he didn't have that same feeling, his back was to everyone as he stood at the counter, but he seemed…bothered by something. She wanted to look at his face but something told her not to go near him at the moment, like staring into the eyes of a dangerous animal she could almost feel his animosity. She watched as Luro picked up the broken rose his grip tightening around it before he grabbed the letter off the counter.

"It seems Risa was kidnapped," Luro said turning around to everyone.

He had his normal smile on his face and Zilia's eyes twitched seeing his body had relaxed, whatever was there a moment ago was gone and Luro walking over to Runali handed her the note.

"I can't really make out the rest of it, it's written in some weird language, Captain can you read it?"

There was a cold chill that went down her spine when Luro ran past her and then it happened a second time when Caleb walked past. Runali hung back as the two looked around. She waited until Luro spoke to step forward and take the note from him. She eyed the weird symbols mixed with actual words, squinting at some of the smudge marks. "I can't really make it out… There's numbers there but they aren't coordinates- At least not any I would understand. The word alley is in here…" She raised a brow and looked up at Luro. "Looks like it's supposed to be a message from her though." Runali spotted the metal flower in his hand but said nothing of it, deciding to turn to Caleb and hand him the note. "D'you think you can decode this? Not sure what language these parts are in or what the numbers are for."

Zilia tried to take a look at the note alongside Runali when she looked, but she wasn't able to work out much more than the others, it wasn't written in any kind of normal language that much was certain. She didn't see anything about Risa or kidnapping in it, but the words seemed more like gibberish than anything else. She watched as Caleb walked over and took the note before taking a look at it.

"To our future victims, hi how is your day going? You don't know us but our Boss gave us orders to retrieve Caleb's box from the Passano girl. She didn't seem keen on handing it over so we tried to take it by force, well she kinda fought back so we took her and the box with us. She's still alive for now, the boss said she got closest to finishing the box so we're gonna make her finish it, then kill her."

Caleb stopped reading and reaching over stopped one of his watches before returning to the note.

"The Boss is kind of impatient though, he said if she doesn't finish it in a few hours he's just gonna kill her and do it himself. He just wants what's in the box Caleb, if you come to Alley and open the box for him it'll save her life. Ah but we're not allowed to let you do that, but still come to Alley so we can kill you and those weirdos with you in our trap….sincerely the guys who kidnapped Risa.

P.S. Could you bring my knife back, my mom gave it to me."

Caleb flipped the note over making sure there was nothing on the back before setting it back on the counter.

"That's all the note says."

"You can read that?" Luro questioned.

"I lived in the Alley for some time, you learn the language while you're there."

"Caleb you gotta take us there! We can't let Risa get killed, she's someone very special."

"I intend on heading there now and retrieving my apprentice, though it's clearly a trap, following me would be lacking in common sense...do you all intend on coming?"

The moment Caleb started reading, Runali squinted suspiciously and walked behind him to peer over his shoulder. She confirmed that the words hadn't changed when she gave it to him, and she was sure she knew how to read, even if she didn't read as often as Sara and Zilia. His explanation of 'alleys' didn't alleviate her confusion, and in fact, only added more questions. She was lucky enough to learn that, that kind of thing was common for Caleb.

Instead of thinking too hard about it, she went back to standing in front of him and nodded towards his question. "Well yeah, of course we're coming to help. Risa is a friend and it's common sense to help a friend. But I do have a question." She walked over and grabbed the knife that was in the wall, deciding it would be of use later. She wiped the blood off using one of the torn fabrics on the ground. "What's this Alley you mentioned?"

Caleb's brows arched slightly at Runali's response and he folded the note putting it back into his pocket. He had a feeling that would be the response but to actually hear it was actually a little surprising, there wasn't an ounce of hesitation in the Captain's answer. He could see why the Guanari's saw so much potential in this one. Though his gaze turned to her crewmates, was she the only one that shared this sentiment he wondered.

"The Captain's right, we're absolutely coming," Luro said holding up a fist. "You'd have to be a pretty terrible person to just abandon Risa like this, especially when she's helping us. I know my friend's aren't like that. Especially Kadi and the new Stardusk that don't even know her. I know they want to help the most, just look at Z's face, she clearly wants to save Risa!"

Zilia had her face in her hands her body shaking slightly as Luro pat Sara and Jack on the shoulder giving them a firm nod.

"Thank you for helping guys, you're the best. You too Kadi, I really appreciate it."

"Your faith is…very heavy Luro….but it's not like I can just walk away anyway. Regretfully I have a conscience."

Zilia lowered hands and adjusted her gloves before giving a small nod to the Captain indicating she was coming along as well.

"My opinion of you has altered slightly, you have my appreciation," Caleb said nodding at Stardusk. "I'll explain once we get there…since my explanation won't make sense anyway. We should move, it will take a few hours just to get through the Alley so we should get there as soon as possible."

Caleb lead everyone out and started heading West through Brass Cape, he had them hop onto a wagon to get there a bit faster, but at a certain point he asked everyone to get off informing they had to walk the rest of the way. The walk was a moderate one, and the bustling of Brass Cape seemed to die down, bit by bit the further on they went. All the wonderments of the Cape slowly seemed to vanish replaced only with buildings that seemed abandoned. The city itself still retained its beauty but it seemed no people chose to live in this particular section. After a bit of time Caleb came to a stop in front of a road that split three ways, he pointed straight ahead as the other ways just circled around.

A large silver arched gate rested in front of them, a decently high brick wall attached to it and stretching far out of distance, there seemed to be wires on top of it making it so the gate was the only way inside. The sight inside the gate seemed similar to the rest of Brass Cape around them, though the road inside the gate was red cobblestone that seemed to stretch indefinitely, buildings similar to the ones around them on either side of it. Just as there were no people outside there didn't seem to be anyone inside either. On top of the gate in big bold letters was a saying on a wooden plaque "If you like liars, then don't stay here."

"Welcome to Sector 389, otherwise known as Madman's Alley. This is where Risa is being held. There are something's I must inform you of before we enter however. However I must impose a question on each one of you. Which way is the sky located?"

Runali had started to say they didn't have to come along should they not want to, but the way Luro praised the crew, she decided to let them speak for themselves. Now however, Runali was peering up at the entrance to Madmen's Alley. She looked as confused as she always did when Caleb spoke, thinking about the question he asked. Crossing her arms, she mumbled. "I have a feeling if I say 'up', I'll be wrong…"

 

[SilentxChaos]

​

Yesterday had been the best Jack had in ages. So naturally, it had to be shattered.

Jack placed a hand on his butterfly swords as Stardusk and Caleb cautiously entered Risa's broken premises, giving a sweeping suspicious glance at the street before following everyone in. He came up behind Zilia to see Luro pick up a broken rose, the giant's usual relaxed face changing sharply. Jack's brow furrowed and he blinked before Runali called attention to the note left. He went to her, peering over her shoulder. His head cocked to one side. "It looks sort of familiar--"

Caleb took the note and deciphered the message.

"Sounds a bit arrogant of them, don't you think?" Jack stated with a dry note.

The cook fell silent as it was settled they'd help save Risa, something that didn't surprise him, and he had no qualms in it either. He watched Runali take the knife and decided to make another sweep of the shop to ensure no other clues were left that may aid them. He didn't expect any; smash and grabs left a lot of mess but no clues to who did it. Finding nothing, Jack got up and nodded at Luro as the giant patted his shoulder and they all left to track the kidnappers. He stuck close to the captain and Caleb, wanting to hear about this Alley mentioned, disappointed when the Nova shipwright didn't elaborate. Jack watched him curiously. The man was calm for his student to be gone, possibly injured, yet the reaction didn't surprise Jack. Their conversation back on the Nova ship allowed Jack a insight to who Caleb was, though many questions still hung around him.

Caleb had them stop when they reached the silver arch into what he dubbed, "Madman's Alley". Jack frowned at the wooden plaque hanging at its top. What if you don't like them but you are one? he thought, only to be sidetracked when Caleb posed his question.

The cook blinked, and felt inclined to agree with the Captain, as the question itself seemed overly simplistic. He looked up at the sky thoughtfully. "I suppose it could depend on your orientation."

 

[Arcadius]

The Pathfinder thought about the words on the note for a while, then turned to Jack. "Arrogant, yes. Perhaps too arrogant, I would say. Dishonest, fake, even. Don't forget the note doesn't tell us what is actually happening to Risa. All we know is, she is not here, and this note, written so that, conveniently, only Caleb can read it, is left behind. Written in a way that will make us fear, worry, act rashly and recklessly," he shared his insights on the situation.

"Obviously, these are instincts we mustn't allow to take over our reasoning. Naturally, we are walking into a trap. So obvious they bothered to mention it in the note. Still, I suppose that's all we have at the moment. Best thing we can do is to walk into the trap, and ideally collect enough prisoners we can interrogate. Either way, messy day ahead." The man almost seemed happy and amused by the notion of walking into an ambush. Perhaps he was looking forward to testing his mettle against more unfavourable conditions.

He spent the trip playing with the hammer of his pistol, clearly impatient to get into a fight, a behaviour he found most unusual in later retrospection. More and more of Pathfinder was seeping into Navigator, clearly. The latter would never be welcoming of the notion of combat. Or would he? Perhaps all the ol' Arc needed was to know, well, that he had it in himself. To dispell all the doubts and questions, the fear of going all in. Pathfinder went through more than enough scrapes and skirmishes in the Dreamscape. He knew he had it in him, and that he had to go all in to win.

Mikchail... Mikhail liked that.

"So, is this some kind of prison?" he asked. "I mean, the walls, the ornamentation on top of them and the number in the name kinda implies some sort of... place with limited entry and leave. The aphorism on top doesn't help much as well."

He smiled for a moment, and then answered Caleb: "What do I know? The sky knows, and makes sure it knows where we are. If it decides up is down and down is up, well, I guess I will have to learn how to fly!"

 

[Capt. Blu]

~Collabo with Mizos and the Capt~​

Location: Brass Cape - Madmen's Alley
Time: ???

"Down?" Luro questioned tilting his head.
Zilia just pointed up causing Caleb to offer a small nod his eyes moving to the other members Stardusk for a moment before he folded his hands behind his back.
"Those who gave specific answers would survive five hours in the Alley," Caleb said. "Maybe six for Kadi."

Runali was going to have to remember to properly thank her crew for tagging along on this sudden wild goose chase, especially since Luro volunteered them all. It was mainly because she had a feeling that keeping up with Caleb was going to only be further confusing- based off the question alone. And as she expected, no one was 100% correct about which way the sky was located. The moment they were told they weren't quite right, Runali's gaze went back to the sign about liars. However that only lasted a short amount of time because the Nova shipwright was talking again.

"Here your ideas are only limited by your imagination. Anything is possible here. Grant it, outsiders may find it all rather confusing." As he started talking, he began walking forward as well, expecting the crew to follow. "I'd recommend sticking close unless you desire to get lost."

Runali looked past him, staring at the straight path ahead. How could they get lost going in one direction?

"Or unless you want to spend a few hours roped in conversation with others."

That made more sense.

"I suppose you already know where to find her?" Alicia spoke up.

"It's likely that they will find us first."

"Is that your way of saying you don't know where they are?" Runali's brow raised in curiosity, while Caleb gave her a blank stare. Instead of replying, he looked down at his watch and stopped it. "I'll take that as a yes?"

"It's best we move from the center of the street."

Now it just seemed like he was purposely avoiding questions. Though this time, to be fair, walking out in the open was probably a bad idea with all things considered. Runali considered things like sneak attacks and sudden snipers- which still was a sneak attack, happening. It made her look up to the tops of the buildings, especially when she remembered the one time she was shot.

Caleb walked up to the silver gate but instead of opening turned and walked down the large wall, he stopped and pushed open a part of the wall causing it to swing open as a hidden door was revealed, he made a motion for Stardusk to follow as he walked inside.

"I already don't like this place," Zilia thought looking at the large gate before following inside.

The Alley itself was surprisingly quiet, all the lights in the buildings around them were off, and there was no trace of people as they walked down the path. There was a decent chance Caleb was taking them down an alternate route to avoid that particular part of the Alley, but as they walked the lights in the Alley lit up as they passed them, acknowledging that they were indeed there. The place didn't seem too different from Brass Cape minus on occasion there was a small click like the moving hand of a clock that filled the area on occasion.

"Let me go on to explain what the Alley exactly is. Madmen's Alley is a place for freedom of expression. There's no limitation on what to build or make here. Consider something that is clearly impossible, something that can never be made…there's a decent chance twenty people have either made it here or are in the process of doing so. The pursuit of knowledge that is mad to all…that is Madmen's Alley. It's best we not let you linger here too long, the whispers of those here will cause you to go Mad, at least that's the rumor, I lived here for some time and I'm completely normal so who knows if it affects everyone. Oh right it might turn from night to day a few times, feel free to ignore it should that happen."

Caleb came to a stop at a crossroads that led down two paths; both of the paths seemed similar with no real definitive differences no matter how far one looked, a row of buildings and lit street lights that faded into the distance. He brought a hand to his chin at this and reaching down tapped one of his watches before turning to the others.

"I should explain the rules here before we go further for your safety. Listen closely as breaking these rules will end up getting us killed and I would like to live past Seliria at the very least."

Caleb then starting naming off the rules raising a finger after each one:

1. "The First rule is Freedom of expression, the Madmen here can't practice their 'insane' arts outside the alley, so having their ideas trounced on or interrupted irritates them. You'll make an enemy of everyone here if you interrupt without good reason, and let me clarify that good reason differs here.

2. Second there is a group dynamic, there is support among the Madmen but at the same time they're very protective of their secrets, no one can read the gibberish of the other Madmen, they write in words only they understand, mutterings only they can translate, due to this working together requires a sense of trust, as no one can translate the other's work without help. This has made them both very divided and close knit.

3. You're allowed to come in sane, but no promises you won't leave mad.

4. You're not allowed to make the sky fall without Pa's permission.

5. John stop stealing my sandwich you bastard!

6. No.


Caleb lowered his fingers and looked back down at the paths.

"The Madmen follow their own logic but these rules are sacred and everyone is required to follow them…make sure not to forget them. Anyone can visit but those who break the rules generally don't leave in the same shape they were in…if they do at all."

"Are five and six important?" Luro asked raising a hand.

"Only if you meet John."

"Who's John."

"Depends how many weasels flew overhead at noon today. I wasn't here so I'm not sure. You all understand the rules right? Again it's very important you never break them."

"…what was four again?" Luro asked rubbing the back of his head.

"We're going to die…"

Caleb repeated four at Luro before looking back at the rest of Stardusk.

"Oh boy there are rules." Runali mumbled when Caleb started. She was as good at remembering rules as she was following them. So, moderately okay. Each one that was listed she would mentally repeat it so she would remember. And even still, when it was finished, she looked over at Alicia. "I'll just ask you if I forget." She gave a smile and a thumbs up when Alicia raised a brow. "Anyway! Caleb said we have five hours, give or take, so we better find Risa in three." She took a step forward and glanced around, trying to figure out where to go next. Checking every building would have probably taken longer than three hours, no matter how empty the place looked. "Hey Caleb if the people that wrote the note are as bold as Kadi says they are, are they really any threat? I mean, anyone that tells you you're walking into a trap seems a little over confident. But maybe that's just all apart of this 'Madmen Alley game'. Still, guess this is a good as time as any to get into a fight."

Caleb's blank gaze moved between each Stardusk making sure they understood the rules before they continued on, it seemed Luro was having difficulty but a part of him expected that. He'd have to keep an eye out just in case something happened. He started to turn and continue when he caught Runali's comment on the kidnappers, he arched a brow at her before recalling the words of their navigator from earlier.

"It's neither boldness or overconfidence," Caleb said. "They just saw no reason to lie to us. Why would you lie to someone about a trap you've set. That doesn't make sense as you want them to walk into it."

Caleb went silent after that before turning back around hitting one of his watches again.

"You should leave normal logic back in Brass Cape, those who have common sense are going to have a hard time here. To answer your question dealing with them shouldn't be too hard. Captain…if you had to look at these two paths which one stands out to you the most."

Caleb motioned to the two similar forks, glancing back at Runali.

"Ah." Runali rubbed her cheek and shrugged. "Makes sense- well, not really but I'll live." She didn't argue with Caleb's logic or lack thereof because she knew she wasn't going to get very far. The captain could barely understand Caleb at face value, so adding onto it with some Alley wasn't going to help. His question made cross her arms and pause for a brief moment, only to point to the leftmost path. "That one." Runali typically figured the paths she couldn't see (or see well enough) were the ones that stood out the most- at least, that was her own logic of it anyway. But she figured that wasn't an important detail at the moment.

Caleb raised his thumb to Runali at her response; he nodded and pointed at the left path indicating that it was indeed the correct one. Zilia looked down the right path and ended up approaching Caleb and questioning why right was the wrong way. When he motioned to walk down it Zilia complied only to smack into something. Rubbing her nose she reached forward and 'gripping' the air quickly pulled down paper revealing a brick wall behind it. Her eyes twitched at the sight only to step back when Caleb walked over and ripped the paper down again revealing the same street.

"It's rude to leave the brick wall up at this time of day. Anyway now that I've guided you all here….we need a guide," Caleb said walking down the left path.

Luro looked over at Caleb at this and rubbing the back of his head motioned to him.

"Aren't you a guide though?"

"I am your guide yes."

"…then why do we need another guide?"

"The Alley rest upon multiple rotating platforms, part of the reason you need a guide is that these shift constantly causing the place to become an ever changing maze. Unfortunately I haven't been here so I'm not sure what rotation we're on."

"Hmmm can't you guess?"

"There are 4,789 rotations last time I checked. I could do an estimate but I'd rather not take you down the more…extreme parts of the Alley. If you don't die you'll forget at least fourteen things about yourself. Thus I'd like to confirm with absolute certainty which rotation we're in."

"That's really specific."

"Agreed."


Caleb lead the group through the empty streets, the lights continuing to light up as they passed them offering the only real sort of 'welcome' in the Alley. However the deeper into the Alley they got the louder the clicking noise seem to get. There was no real direction of the noise, it seemed everywhere at once, a constant reminder of the passing of time as their footsteps echoed on the cobblestone streets, the sound almost matching their footsteps in a strange rhythm.

Caleb came to an abrupt stop and pointed straight ahead.

"There's one of the guides."

Straight ahead was the first real proof of other life in the Alley, a young girl, more than likely ten years old going off her appearance was kneeling on the ground. She was in brown dress with red frills around the edges, she had short brown hair and in her hands was what looked like a piece of chalk. She seemed to be drawing on the street slowly inching downwards, looking at her creation the girl was writing out what looked like a very long formula, a mix of letters and numbers trailed down the long walkway she was currently on and her hand continued to move scribbling more and more of the calculation as her mouth moved silently. Judging from the size of her 'creation' there was a good chance she had been at this for hours if not days, as her writing faded far into the distance.

"Let's find out the current cycle," Caleb said walking over to the girl. "Don't step on her formula."

The girl's hand seemed to stop at the sound of footsteps but she continued roughly a second later more focused on finishing her thought then conversation.

"Those are Caleb's footsteps…I don't recognize the others."

The girl spoke the moment Stardusk were close but didn't look up at them, her voice lacked any energy or spunk, it was flat and mellow.

"It's rare for you to bring visitors Caleb…but it is good to see you."

The girl looked in Caleb's direction and Caleb closed his eyes.

"That was a good joke Mill," he said simply.

"I thought of it earlier, I thought it might be funny," Mill responded without the trace of a smile.

"I'll laugh about it later due to its immense value as a joke."

"I hope you do."

The two stared at each other for a moment before Mill went back to her writing.

"Did you get it," Caleb said looking back at Stardusk. "It's very funny."

"My lack of eyesight makes it impossible to see thus the possibility of seeing Caleb is not an option for me, yet I said that anyway," Mill said. "The pinnacle of humor is at my fingertips."

Stopping her hand she reached over and erased a part of the formula before writing something back in and going back to writing where she left off.

"Mill the time for joking is over. I need the current rotation."

"The current rotation is number 1,026," Mill responded.

"One of the more dangerous ones…good thing I asked," Caleb mumbled.

"You are here for Risa correct?" Mill said writing a two next to what looked like a T.

"You heard us?"

"No one of the people who stole her sat on that crate over there and went on about their trap and the fact you were coming. They went into explicit detail about the kidnapping and about red ducks, he also complained because he lost his mom's knife."

"Ah people do like talking to you," Caleb said nodding. "They must have stopped to share."

"I dislike it, I have things to do. Anyway they smelled of Peach Pudding so they're probably part of the Miner Gang."

Caleb moved his hands to his hips at this and a long sigh escaped from him before he turned to fully face Stardusk, stopping one of his watches he folded his hands behind his back and starting to pace held up a finger before speaking.

"The Miner Gang stealing Risa makes sense. I should explain who they are."

"Please don't." Zilia thought bringing a hand to her face.

"The Miner Gang are bad people…anyway I know where Risa is now if they're involved let's get going."

"That's it!" Zilia thought as Caleb turned and continued walking.

He made sure to go around Mill who raised a hand and scooting down continued writing.

"Try not to stay here too long strangers I don't know. Things are far too normal in the Alley today. That's normally a bad thing," Mill said.

The idea of a brick wall covering a path made her laugh, but she quickly stifled it to avoid Zilia's angry glares. "Guess seeing isn't believing, or however that saying goes." Her words echoed through the empty Alley, making her fall silent again. With better judgement, the constant ticking would have felt more intimidating to Runali- or at least more impending. But, this was the Stardusk captain, so it was just an odd echo at best.

"Don't step on her wh- Oh." As soon as she looked down, Runali stopped mid step just before she could step on some odd mixture of numbers and letters. Carefully, she toed her way in between the spaces until she could get to a clear part of the street. When they got close enough to the small girl, Mill, Runali's gaze fell on the long formula she was writing. She couldn't understand any of it, as she expected, so her attention turned back as Mill 'joked'. Runali had to admit, she was a sucker for blind puns and couldn't help but chuckle a bit, however curiosity got the better of her which was a recurring theme with Runali.

The captain didn't speak up but she did bend down slightly to watch the blind girl work. She was- in her own way- very observant of her surroundings and the writing around her almost as if she wasn't blind at all. Despite the fact that it looked like a heap of nothing, by Mil's focused gaze, it was obvious that those numbers and letters were important. It was a sight to see- pun intended, but they were on a ticking clock and that was getting more and more literal each time she listened to the ticking noises that reverberated through the streets.

"A gang of minors? I mean, thieves they might be, but I don't think kids are 'bad people'. Well, not all of them." Runali stood straight before she adjusted her eyepatch. "Then again, I suppose you mean the digging kind of miners. But thanks little lady for the help we'll try to be out of your way as soon as we can. That or we'll be apart of that bad thing… depending on how it goes today." She mumbled the last part more as a thought than a fact.

"That was a funny joke," Mill said in response to Runali. "They're not either though, that's just their name, kind of like...Kadi is a name or Jack."

"...that's oddly specific."

Once they were past Mill and back on the pathway Caleb started looking through his watches, flipping through a few of them he tapped the one lowest on his wrist and suddenly froze. Blinking he quickly looked around, their current location didn't look much different from where they were moments before but something seemed to have gained his attention. After a brief moment a sound filled the area. Looking up there was a man sitting on the edge of the roof strumming a stringed instrument, the sounds were almost haunting due to the sudden silence, even the clicking had come to a stop. His fingers moved along the instrument for a moment before picking up into a steady strum. With a grin he looked down at Stardusk, Zilia flinched a bit seeing it and looked over to see Caleb was gone.

"What where did he go?!

A woman's voice suddenly accompanied the guitar, a lady dressed in a fine white dress stepped out of one of the alley's, she spun as she came into the open, the lights in the building suddenly coming on and silhouettes forming in the buildings as people quickly opened their windows. Golden instruments poked out of the windows as musical sounds filled the streets, strange contraptions appearing behind Stardusk, a man pulling a lever repeatedly causing strange low sounds to come out of the device, his feet shimmying as he did so. The ground under everyone suddenly moved, causing the buildings to spin and the shimmy man to appeared on the other side of them, behind them were the tickling of ivories a man with long grey hair pounding the keys of his piano, his furry eyebrows arched at the crew as his fingers danced along the keys, he licked his lips and fully went back to his playing.

People flew out of the alleys flipping both over and past Stardusk, hopping here and there, people jumped out of the buildings rolling as they landed, each one grabbing a Stardusk member trying to dance with them. Zilia managed to get away from one only to be grabbed by another and spun; this seemed to repeat as there was no end of 'dance' partners no matter where one escaped too, Luro however seemed wholly content dancing with the lass who had pulled him away.

The lady was accompanied by a few other women who joined her in song, and people appeared on the roof joining the merry dancers, some blaring their instruments as the whole Alley seemed to light up. A man dressed in black finery came out of one of the buildings, he adjusted the top hat on his head, and spinning his cane joined the lady in her song shaking his shoulders as he approached. The woman seemed to move away as he moved towards her, but when she sung she approached him, the two playing a tug of war with their lyrics. Water burst out of the streets, spraying the area in water as makeshift fountains formed around them, people slid down the cobblestone as more and more people seemed to flow out of nowhere.

"Hahaha! This is great!" Luro said spinning his partner.

The instruments took the lead as the singers fell into the background, and the man stepped forward again sliding up to the woman his erratic but stylish movements returning before he let out one last joyful lyric the music abruptly coming to a stop.

The moment the song ended, all the dancers released their partners and ran off, the lights shut off and people ran back into their homes. One guy dove through his window with a laugh before the Alley went completely quiet again, as if the last few minutes hadn't just happened, even the water on the ground was gone.

The wall to a nearby building opened and Caleb stepped out pressing a button on his watch.

"Ah good, shall we continue," Caleb said. "We'll probably run into Miners soon so be ready to fight."

Runali would have waved or saluted a goodbye to Mill like she did most people but the girl seemed busy at work, and of course, she was blind so the pirate captain carried on behind Caleb. That was until the sounds of a guitar made her look up. Before Runali could fully register where the man came from or even how long he had been there, a woman appeared singing in an upbeat and somewhat alluring tone. "Wh-" She didn't notice Caleb's disappearance, much too enraptured by the sudden awakening of the Alley. Runali spun around to see everything going on around her, only to be pulled into dance as well. The first time, she was unsure and a little clumsy, but Runali learned quick and caught the rhythm and danced along with them. Being passed around from dance partner to dance partner was a little disorienting, but she laughed and danced along nonetheless. She was spun a final time, stopping right when the music did, only to watch everything fall back to its previously quiet atmosphere- as if nothing happened.

"Hm..." There were questions behind that contemplative hum, most of them being 'can we do that again?' but Runali was still dazed and in mild disbelief of what just happened. "Well," She started as they followed Caleb. "That was fun."

Zilia was on her hands and knees when the Alley went silent again and Luro was looking around wondering where the feisty lass had gone. Seeing Zilia on the ground he reached down and picking her up set her on her feet, she seemed miles away however as she stared at the ground wide eyed. She slowly brought a hand to her face and closing her eyes seemed to regain her composure before straightening her body.

"I…I'm just going to pretend that didn't happen…"

"It normally happens around this time during this rotation," Caleb said in response to Runali.

"So…people are here then," Luro said looking at the buildings.

"Of course there are people here, one's looking right at us."

Luro stopped and looked around but there was no one looking at him, at least openly. Caleb sighed and walked over to one of the lamps, reaching up he pat one of them causing a part of the light to open and the face of a young man to pop out of it, blinking a few times he twinkled his nose causing the light to glow.

"T-there are people in the… Zilia said pointing at the light before turning and looking at the others.

Caleb closed the hatch hiding the man's face and continued walking, he pointed at Jack's feet as he passed him, one of the cobblestones moved out of the way revealing the face of a woman, she seemed to look at Stardusk before moving the cobblestone back into place.

"There hasn't been a moment when we weren't being watched…they're just really good at hiding their presence," Caleb said.

"There's also someone watching from that cloud above us."

Luro looked up to see someone was indeed peering at them, a white cloud with a face was staring at them, the person arched a brow before pulling their face back in closing the cloud's hatch. Upon closer inspection the cloud was being held up by a strange contraption which quickly sunk back behind a building.

"Don't worry they're just curious. You guys are new, they like new things, new things are interesting, they just want to study you, they'll observe without interrupting us wanting to see how you behave naturally."

"Yeah ignore us."

The comment came from multiple directions but there were no faces accompanying it.

The cobblestone seemed to expand outwards moving in two directions and circling around a large open area that rested directly in front of Stardusk. The large area seemed to be the town square accompanied by a large marble fountain and greenery surrounding the edges where the white brick of the square met the cobblestone that circled around it. There were multiple statues of different figures that rested on the edges of the square. Past the large area was more of the Alley which unlike the area behind them looked a tad different, the buildings shapes were stranger, and the cobblestone walkway were a series of color instead of one solid one, but that was past the square, where they stood was the same as before.

There were multiple men dressed in grey vests and black pants with black paint marks on their faces, standing in the square or rather circle, most of them were hiding behind wooden bushes peering their heads up over them, others were holding branches and pretending to be tree's.

There was a large hole near the fountain, which was covered terribly by a tattered white cloth in an attempt to hide it. There was a dummy doll that was supposed to look like Risa behind held over the hole, and a sign in front of it that read 'This is not a trap Stardusk' just to offer reassurance in the rescuing of their friend.

"Those are the Miners," Caleb said pointing to the 'hidden' figures. "It seems they have weapons and intend on being violent. This must be their trap, how straightforward…I like it, the classics are always effective."

Zilia looked over at Caleb and shook her head before looking at the giant hole.

"…this trap is horrible…did they really think we would-"

"Risa!"

Luro quickly sprinted forward toward the hole, Zilia's eyes widened and she brought her hands to her head, she was actually glad she couldn't speak because the expletives that filled her thoughts shouldn't leave any person's mouth.

The moment Caleb introduced them to the hidden figures in the Alley, Runali had been staring at different spots a little longer as they carried on. Caleb was right about them being really good at hiding because she didn't see many of them when she stared. The few she did see would shift ever so slightly or blink, causing Runali to shuffle back. "Oh boy this place is too- It's very," Runali didn't have a word for it. "Hey Zil, Sara, what's a good word for this place?"

In the brief pause it took for either of them to answer, Runali's brow raised as they approached the Miners. Assessing the situation, the captain put her hands on her hips. "Weird is a good one… Y'know, I'm starting to think actual children could have made more interesting traps." And as Luro ran by, she couldn't help but sigh. "But hey, they managed to get Luro's attention so points on them." Watching as Luro ran towards the dummy and knowing it would be a little too late to grab him, Runali decided to call out, "Luro, brace yourself!"

Luro glanced back hearing his Captain speak but before he could respond his body vanished in the hole, a loud laugh escaping from him as his voice vanished down the hole until it could no longer be heard. The Miners shook their fists and pat each other on the backs before coming out of their hiding spots. With smirks on their faces they drew their swords before one whistled. Shadows formed on the roofs and more Miners appeared on the buildings around Stardusk, a few walked out of the buildings readying the gun's in their hands and turning towards everyone.

"One is down already, your friend isn't going to survive that fall. Now the rest of you will-"

The man cut off as a burst of blue came from the hole and Luro flew out of the hole landing on the edge, he waved his arms almost falling back in before peering down at the hole.

"Guys I think there's a trap here," Luro said pointing at the hole. "You should be careful…where'd all these guy come from?"

"How…gah it doesn't matter! Kill them! We can't let them reach the Boss!" One of the Miner's yelled before they ran at Stardusk.

Caleb sighed as the Miners approached them weapons drawn a few hanging back and aiming their guns at the crew. Caleb reaching back shoved his hands into something before pulling them out into the open, metal gloves surrounded his hands and slamming them together, the metal seemed to vibrate before slowly expanding outwards the small gloves growing into large ones in a matter of seconds.

"I'll assist you to make it go faster," Caleb said before tossing a mechanical bird into the air.

He watched the strange contraption fly off in a random direction before looking back at the approaching miners.

"The faster we get rid of them the sooner we can reach my apprentice."

 

[Eastwood]

Sara watched the proceedings with a frown. Of course she would be kidnapped, why wouldn't she be? It seemed as if every island they arrive in had an adventure in wait. Sara guessed that was the reality of life as a pirate now.

"Retarded." Sara sighed, annoyed at how terrible the trap was. If this is who they were going to fight, she should have just stayed at the boardwalk. "Because that's the only thing that comes to my mind." And, of course, Luro had to spring it. She stepped back and, when he inevitably and implausibly escapes as he always does, ducked into a side-alley and out of sight. Sara figured that his entrance would be distracting enough for her to reposition. After all, if a tactic worked once before, why can't it work again?

 

[SilentxChaos]

Jack reached out and grasped at Luro as he flew by to save the dummy Risa. His fingers caught the giant's sleeve, only for part of it to rip in the cook's Armament fist. He stared at the torn fabric bleakly as the giant fell into the hole.

He looked at Runali. "Do you really think he's--"

The next second, Luro was propelled out of the hole in a stream of blue light. Jack's jaw dropped slightly torn between astonishment and sensical hindsight. "Huh," was all he said, and all he would get to say on the matter. The following moment, the Miners were charging. Jack, pulling out a series of throwing knives, laced the metal with his haki. Five of them approached in front of the rest. Jack waited until they got close enough and threw his knives in one swift motion.

"Pandemonium."

That was her response to the Captain's question about this place, and that opinion remained the same as she watched the Miner's fall to Jack's knives. Staying near someone strong seemed like a good idea at the moment, her gaze wandered to the others concerned for their safety. She immediately looked to Luro knowing his penchant for danger, though he seemed to be holding up fine against the Miners, granted he was far away from the two of them so she decided to focus on who was nearby at the least.

More Miners' quickly ran at the two surrounding Jack and Zilia, forming a circle around them to cut off their escape. The Miner's slowly inched forward and Zilia started writing in her notebook, her gaze raising from it on occasion to observe the slow approach of the Miners. Others waited nearby fiddling with their swords and waiting for their turn to fight.

"We seem to be outnumbered Jack. I…think I can handle this side if you handle that side. I've seen you fight…and I count fourteen of them…would you mind taken out about ten of them?"
The Miner's eyes moved to their dead companions before focusing back on the two, they seemed to be a bit more careful than the others keeping their guards up as they held their swords.

"The others are just waiting to fill in the spots…this is a problem."

Jack glanced at her notes for a fraction of a second before turning back to their opponents. "Focus on what's in front of us. Our friends will back us up."

I hope, he thought, glancing back at Stardusk and the rest. He immediately felt guilty of the thought; he'd never known his crewmates to abandon anyone, or back down from a fight. Presuming that one time Sara ran away, but still came back, didn't count….Jack stopped as he saw the gladiator duck into a side alleyway. Well, that doesn't bode good. Bending down, Jack pulled a knife out of the Miner groaning at his feet and knocked the man out to prevent him from further participating in the fight, wiping off the blood. He replenished the others he lost from the pouch on his hip. He raised them as his hand and blades turned black, counting the men facing them. "Ten you say? Seems easy enough."

Zilia jumped out of the way of one of the Miner's attack, ducking under one as he swung his sword at her. She expected violence but that didn't make this any easier, stepping forward he quickly tripped one of the Miner's and raising her foot slammed it down on him, removing her foot from his skull seeing he was unconscious on the ground. She let out a breath she was holding and glanced back at Jack seeing him wipe the blood off his knife. She offered a small nod to him before sprinting towards the other three.

She jumped slamming her foot into one of the Miner's sending him tumbling into another, hitting the ground she quickly lowered her body to dodge the incoming strike aimed at her and slammed her foot into her attacker's chin sending him flying onto the roof of a nearby building. Standing up she brushed herself off and kicked one of the Miner's to make sure he stayed on the ground.

"Okay that handles that, I should help Jack,"

However the moment she took a step the ground suddenly shifted under the two of them, Zilia looked down only to see the cobblestones light up.

"Huh?"

The ground quickly lifted up partially hurling the two high into the air as someone walked out from under the road carrying an orange and a red goose under their arm, Zilia eyes widened as the ground slowly got further and further away her gaze moving over to Jack, the two were still flying higher into the sky but the scarier part was going to start happening soon.

Zilia stared wide eyed at Jack a 'what do we do' expression decorating her face. She quickly looked down to see Caleb was looking up at them, the same uninterested face as always as he raised his hand over his eyes to peer up at the two.

Zilia quickly pointed down at Caleb and put her hands on both sides of her mouth to indicate to yell for help.

Jack danced back as the remaining five rush him simultaneously, their remaining number lying motionless on the ground with a knife protruding from their chest. The closest Miner screamed and raised his sword as if to throw it. Another black knife sung in the air and hit his blade. The Miner flinched, expecting to hit him, and instead felt his weapon get lighter. He lowered to see the sword had sheared in half by the knife, the other piece clattering to the ground. "Oh man," he groaned, "Dad's going to kill-- ohmygod!" He screamed again as he saw Jack's foot connect with his chest and he sailed backward, his chest armor sporting a foot indentation.

The last four glanced at each other, warily raising their weapons. Jack beckoned them with two fingers. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Zilia approaching, and smirked, thinking this would be a quick end to the bout.

Suddenly, the ground shook beneath his feet. "What the--" Jack staggered and pinwheeled his arms to maintain balance as the stones he and Zilia stood on shook and started lifting in the air. He gasped and immediately went to all fours, unable to tear his eyes away from the fast-leaving ground. This is nothing like the Ferris Wheel! The cook glanced over at Zilia and saw her waving down at Caleb. He waved as well but to seemingly no avail. The cook gritted his teeth. Slowly, he inched across his stone, pausing at every wobble, closer to Zilia. If I can reach her...we might survive the fall with my haki...maybe,. It was not a good plan but Jack didn't see a whole lot of options presently.

Caleb stared up at the two as the rocks under them broke apart seeming to disintegrate leaving nothing but air under the two of them. He looked over at the man who had caused the earth to fling them up into the air and pointed up at the two. The man looked up at the rising Jack and Zilia and the two seemed to have a conversation just as Zilia and Jack reached the apex of their climb.

"Why are they having a casual conversation!"

The man nodded and quickly ran off Zilia looked over at Jack and felt her heart sink as they stopped climbing and started to fall back towards the earth. The doctor waved her arms her eyes searching for something, she noticed that the man from before was pushing something under the two of them as they fell with four others helping others him.

"Oh thank...what?!"

The man had pushed a large bed under the two of them though at closer inspection there were sharp pointed spikes coming out of the object, looking up at the falling Duo he gave them a thumbs up and Zilia felt the edges of her eyes sting with water at the sight.

"Why is there so much misfortune in my life lately."

"No no...something soft," Caleb said standing next to the man. "They'll die if they hit that."

The man nodded and looked up at the fast approaching two, the ground was getting closer and closer and just as it seemed the earth was going to greet them, multiple objects were thrown down into the path of the two, just as they were about to hit the ground a large mess of fluffy shapes of varying sizes were thrown into their path, their bodies slamming into the soft cushion than the earth at the last moment.

Darkness filled Zilia's vision and for a second she wondered if she was dead, it took a moment for her to swim through the softness poking her head out as she quickly looked around. She pat her body a few times and fell forward relief filling her as she noticed they were on the ground again.

"What are you two doing playing around?" Caleb asked raising his gauntlet.

A Miner ran into the fist and hit the ground with small yell before he lowered his fist again.

"We're in the middle of a fight, you should really focus on what's at hand."

"baaaaaaa"

Zilia flinched noticing the softness under her was making noise, leaning to the side she noticed some of the shapes had faces, it didn't take much to realize that some were sheep, she quickly fell out of the pile and back onto solid ground.

"It's a good thing we keep soft things nearby in case this happens. Seems we had sheep nearby too, how lucky. They're soft right."

Zilia rested on her knees her body shaking as she stared at the ground.

"I hate...this town...so much."

Jack staggered and shoved his way out of saving pile of sheep. Despite landing in their soft grace, everything hurt. He'd managed to grab hold of Zilia as they fell and pulled her into a tight embrace while summoning Armament haki across his back. He'd then shut his eyes and prayed to the gods, knowing this would be a painful but hopefully quick death, his ability not strong enough to save them.

It wasn't until Zilia wiggled away, and he heard a familiar baaa of lamb chops humming in his ear, that he opened his eyes and discovered they'd landed on a sheep and mattress. Picking up a sheep and moving it out of his way, Jack finally untangled himself and doubled over with hands on his knees. He threw a withering glare at Caleb but decided not to comment. He instead slowly straightened, and made his way to Zilia. He bent and offered a hand.

"Zilia? Are you alright?" Jack asked with a note of concern.

Zilia looked up at Jack and offered a small nod before taking the hand up, she looked back at the square, the sheep then Caleb who had turned his attention back to the fight at hand. She made a mental note to thank him later, that would have ended differently without his intervention. There was little time to focus on that now, the Miner's didn't seem intent on letting them go and she could see more of them pouring out of the alley.

"Thank you for your assistance Jack. For now let's just focus on what's in front of us…right?"

Zilia turned her attention back to the approaching Miner's and raised her foot up getting back into stance, just as she was starting to advance forward a loud bang erupted from behind the two of them, turning she noticed a resident of the Alley with a large cannon. Each time he would fire the cannon a loud "Baaaaa," would echo before a sheep would slam into one of the Miner's before trotting off. The resident looked at Jack and Zilia and gave them a firm nod before loading another ship into the cannon and firing, more cannons poked out of the nearby windows aiding in the attack. This surprisingly was effective as the Miner's ended up running away from the two's location due to the continuous fluffy barrage. Zilia stood dumbstruck at the sight as sheep flew over their heads and ran off in random directions after hitting their targets.

"W-why don't we just help the others…I suddenly don't want to stay here anymore…"

 

[Capt. Blu]

~Collabo with Mizos and the Capt~

Location: Brass Cape - Madmen's Alley

Runali watched as the Miners began to gather around, boasting about how they're trap worked. She stood, assessing the playing field for a moment. "Good perception Luro, we can just throw all these guys down there to get 'em out of the way." Before the commotion could really go on, Runali raised a hand. "Hi, yes, excuse me. Where exactly is your 'Boss'?" After all, if it was this easy to find them she figured it was worth the shot to ask.

"There's no way we're telling you our Boss is Genius!" One of the Miners, probably the one in charge, sneered at Runali.

Three of the other Miner's brought hands to their faces as the one who spoke looked at his brothers who immediately knocked him to the ground and started kicking him, calling him names as he tried to figure out what he did wrong.

"Uh huh." By the way things were going, it sounded like yet another trap to go through. But who was to say that these Miners weren't just...dumb. Runali twirled the knife she took from the shop and nodded back at her crew. "Clearing the path should be easy enough. If they pose too much a problem, just… throw them in that hole over there."

"Aye Aye Captain," Luro said resting his rifle on his shoulder.

These were the people that stole Risa away, he wasn't about to let that go. There seemed to be sharp things at the bottom of that pit, he didn't get a good luck but it'd probably hurt to get thrown in there, that and they had drawn their weapons so there was no reason to knock them unconscious, granted he probably wouldn't have anyway but now he had a reason, so the Captain couldn't get upset.

"I'll make them pay for hurting Risa."

As the fighting pursued, Runali skillfully weaved through weapons being drawn and fists throwing punches as her crew, with the help of Caleb, took down the Miners. It wasn't all that difficult, like a training exercise if anything. However, as they did, she began to steal weapons off of them while they were too focused on others. There were two pistols she handed to Kadi, a good amount of knives were handed to Jack every time they crossed paths, and at one point she ducked under Luro just to dodge a Miner's blade. "Oh whoops, sorry about that Luro."

Gunshots rang throughout the mini battlefield as Luro shot the Miner's on the roof, ducking down to reload and keep the distance ones from firing on the crew. He clashed with the Miner's on the ground kicking them into the hole and repeated this process until there were barely any left standing. When the Captain slid under him he looked at what she was avoiding and raising his gun smacked the sword out of the approaching Miner's hand.

"No problem Captain," Luro said grinning at the man.

Luro watched as the Miner stared at his empty hand, then the sword, then at him. Clearing his throat the Miner turned and walked back over to his sword picking it up, the moment he did Luro raised his gun and shot him in the back of his skull.

Caleb danced between the Miner's his fists slamming into each Miner he came across, he brought his fist down twisting his whole body as he forced them hard into the ground, small craters forming in the earth where he decided to leave any Miner's that approached. He weaved his body in between strikes and deflected blows as he continuously moved his gauntlets blurring as his attacks sent Miner after Miner flying in a random direction until the space around him was clear. Looking around he lowered his gauntlets before a small yawn escaped from him and flexing his hands the gauntlets formed back into their smaller versions. Caleb looked at the Miner's groaning on the ground, at least the ones still alive or conscious.

"I believe that's all of them," Caleb said. "Their efficiency seems to only be in their numbers not their skill."

Admist ducking and dodging Miners and knocking them into the trap left or whatever crater Caleb made, Runali noticed two things. One, when she hopped over a Miner barreling towards her, she noticed Sara missing from the fray. "Hmph." Was the only response she gave towards it. The next thing she noticed were sheep flying around and hitting the Miners left and right. "...Alright, what?"

Runali shook her head, getting too distracted by the sheep. And then, soon after, it seemed all the Miners had been knocked out. Still a bit confused, Runali looked over at Caleb as his gauntlets changed and then huffed. "Tedious training fights, got it. Now can we look for Risa?? As fun as this was," Runali spent most of the time weaving through Miners while her crew cleared them out, which was normal when her crew fought, "we should really be looking for wherever Risa might be." The captain kicked over a body, realized they were dead, and then moved over to a conscious one. "Should probably wake one of these guys up and ask. I'm sure they know."

Luro shoved over a few Miner's trying to find one that was still alive or breathing, most of the ones moaning seemed to play dead when he approached causing him to move on to the next one.

This process repeated each time one was approached, whatever Miner wasn't already dead was doing a pretty good job at playing Possum, one even had a sheep standing on top of him but he remained perfectly still. Zilia had to give it to them, it was almost hard to tell which ones were dead and which ones weren't, they must have had plenty of practice doing this.

Caleb started to approach another to only stop when one stood up on his own, barely staggering to his feet he pointed over at Runali.

"That's my dagger you got," the Miner said.

He brushed himself off and Caleb looked over at him as he calmly walked over to the two, Luro hit a switch on his gun loading a shot as he stopped a few feet from Caleb and Runali but the Miner didn't seem interested in attacking them anymore.

"I need that for stuff," he said pointing at it. "You give that back I'll tell you what ya want to know…deal?"

The Miner held his hand out for the dagger and Caleb glanced over at Runali, motioning towards him.

"There's gotta be a faster way to do this…" She mumbled as they shifted through the dead and undead. Her impatience was short lived though when one volunteered himself as a tribute- for the knife she was twirling around in her hand. "Oh, is it?" She raised a brow and shrugged. "You shouldn't leave your things when you're robbing people. It's how you get things taken." When Caleb motioned towards the Miner, she started to hand it back, only to pull away. "How do I know you won't run off if I give this to you? I don't trust you- grant it, you're not much of a threat, but still don't trust you." Slipping the knife back on her side, she gestured outward. "Take us to where Risa is and you can have your knife back."

The Miner started to reach towards the knife only to stop when Runali pulled away, he lowered his hand tilting his head at the Captain as she spoke to him. He closed his eyes for a moment and bringing a hand to his chin gave a small nod before falling to his side and closing his eyes. Caleb stared down at the Miner before looking over at Runali seeing the Miner had chosen to play dead instead. Caleb reached over and hit one of his watches having a feeling something like that was going to happen, but that just meant he'd have to get involved a bit more.

A few hands rested on Sara's shoulder and a few men peered over and past her as they stared at the scene ahead of them.

"Whoa that lady took out the boss with one look," One said.

"Well yeah she's that Reaper lady, the Boss must've looked in her eye. I heard she took down Carabis with a stick once."

The Miner's pat Sara on the back giving her a small nod.

"You did the right thing Fellow Miner. Hiding like a coward is the best way to survive these people," the man said nodding.

"Yeah cowardice is the best way to survive in this world. We'll make a coward's coalition."

"Yeah Coward Coalition go!"

The men raised their arms in the air before going back to hiding and peering at the scene from a distance behind Sara.

"…maybe we shouldn't have yelled."

"Probably."

Caleb sighed and walking over grabbed the dagger off Runali's side before tossing it in front of the Miner. The Miner remained still for a bit longer before reaching forward and gripping the Dagger slowly bringing it back to him. He climbed to his feet shortly after at this and brushed off his front, as he did a Miner ran over and set a wooden chair behind him as he sat down before running back to his spot to play dead.

"There's no point negotiating with members of the Alley," Caleb said shoving a hand in his pocket. "Promises of what's to come are almost lies as they haven't come true yet. Fair exchange is the easiest way to get something here, you have to trust the other person will keep their end of the bargain."

"Indeed trusting someone you don't met who tried to kill you. That's the Alley way," the Miner said with a firm nod. "What do you want to know again?"

"Runali asked where Risa is," Caleb said motioning to the Captain.

"Don't know," the Miner said firmly.

Caleb blinked and stared at the Miner who stood up and started to walk away, but bumped into Luro who had stepped into his path, looking up at the tall man he looked back at the others.

"…I answered your question why can't I leave?"

"We have more questions," Caleb said.

"Ah," the Miner said before turning and sitting back in his seat. "What do you wanna know?"

"Your Boss is Genius isn't it? Tell me what happened at the shop."

"Yeah he hired us, the guy asked us to kidnap Risa. He came with us to the shop made some grand speech then made us take her before her brother or father came back. He made me leave my dagger behind though…he's a bit of a jerk. We weren't the group that kidnapped her, that was Miner group number three."

"There are twenty-seven," Caleb looking back at Runali. "Numbered weakest to strongest."

"Yep we're twenty-seven," the Miner said. "I can't tell you where they went though. Sorry but I swore to-"

"Your Boss name isn't Genius it's Sven."

"I know they went in the direction of District Happiness but that's all I know," the Miner said almost a little too quickly.

Hearing that name Caleb brought a hand to his chin a small sigh escaping from him, he looked in one of the directions, more than likely towards Happiness before the Miner leaned forward in his chair resting his hand on his cheek.

"If you lot are going after Sven there's no reason not to help you, didn't realize he hired us…I thought he looked familiar. I'd warn you against him but your Stardusk right? We heard about you guys. The Maiden of Misery is here right? We're part of her cult actually; we have a statue of her in District Overthere."

Caleb pointed to Alicia to indicate who they were walking about causing all 'dead' Miner's too quickly stand up and stop playing possum before running over to her.

"It's the Maiden of Misery!"

"Look at her, she's so shiny!"

"Hey hey sign my shirt!"

"You're not wearing a shirt!"

"Give me your shirt so she can sign it!"

The Miner's crowded around Alicia as their boss grinned watching all the Miner's starting to remove bits of their clothing for the woman to sign, some their pants in a desperate attempt to get a souvenir of meeting her.

The others casually spoke with the other crew of Stardusk. Apparently they were fans of the group.

"Man the guy with the dreads hits really hard. I thought I was going to die there," one of the Miner's said laughing as he rubbed one of his bruises.

"Mark did die though," another Miner said pointing at one of the dead bodies.

"Whoa he did, guess we're not celebrating his birthday huh?"

"Man I really wanted cake too."

The Boss of the Miner's looked back at Runali and Caleb resting his hand on his knee before motioning towards the rest of the crew.

"You got the Pathfinder with you right? I heard he beat Davy in a drinking contest once to get his soul back. When you guys finish your business I like to drink with that guy."

"Duly noted, we should keep going Runali," Caleb said walking in a direction.

Runali's efforts to make sure deals were actually made went null and void when Caleb gave the dagger back. And when he further explained the Alley's way of life, she could only rub her temples a bit. "Right, right. Of course."

The sudden rush of Miners around her crew made her shake her head in disbelief. "Not a place to actually think too hard in, right." She took a brief moment to process what had just happened and watched the Miners suddenly turn into a fan club. It was a warmer welcome than she was used to after killing other people's crew. However, instead of thinking too hard on it, she crossed her arms and followed alongside Caleb.

It was quiet for a brief moment between them before she she spoke, still looking forward, "So you didn't really need our help, huh? I can't imagine a shipwright of the 2nd Worst Gen finding that too much of a task."

Caleb tapped his watches as they walked his gaze raising to the road occasionally as they walked, he had hoped to avoid the place they were heading towards since there were newcomers amongst them but it seemed that wasn't going to happen. He dug in his pouch only to stop when Runali's voice broke the silence; he glanced over at her arching a single brow at her before turning and going back to his pouch pulling out a small red feather.

"Not really," Caleb said simply. "I was going to take care of it myself, you were just nearby."

"What!" Zilia's eyes widened at Caleb's honest answer and her hand curled into fists.

"I appreciate the help of course but I already knew who stole Risa anyway," Caleb said twirling the feather in his hand.
He spoke with the same calm manner as he usually did, and it explained why he seemed so casual about everything, though Zilia had a feeling some of it was just his natural response to things.

"Strength, titles, ranking, none of that really matters to me," Caleb said. "What you leave behind is more important anyway. What's the point of being strong if you don't leave anything worthwhile behind you? Planting a tree is better than being the world's strongest, at least then you leave something for those afterwards."
Caleb said this glancing over at Runali.
"I'm just curious what you all will leave behind. Years from now what kind of stories will they tell of you? Will you be pirate heroes, those who saved Waterdeep, escaped from an inescapable prison and brought joy to many…or will you be fragments of the world who left nothing behind worth mentioning."
Caleb turned his attention forward again and stopped in front of a tall building that seemed to block their way, their sides cut off by the remaining buildings with no alleys, in short a dead end.
"I just wanted to see what you could do so I asked you to come along," Caleb said. "How you responded to change and irregularity. I don't really care what you do, I'm more interested in what you'll do. So I wanted you to come with me…out of curiosity."

"We're in danger because he was curious!"

"Well who really needs a reason to go have fun, right guys!" Luro exclaimed as a laugh escaped from him. "That and Risa was taken, we couldn't just sit by and do nothing with a friend in danger."

"I know," Caleb said walking up to the structure.
Caleb touched the red feather to the building, there was a deep rumble that seemed to shake the very earth they stood on, Caleb put the feather back into his pouch as the building in front of them slowly opened up, the two halves moving away from each other until the way in front of them was clear. Unlike the Alley behind them the place in front of them seemed to be a whole different world in itself.

The Alley ahead of them were full of strangely shaped buildings, some circular, others curved, a myriad of shapes that were either too tall and seemed to touch the sky, or so small it made little sense why anyone would live in them. The cobblestone walkway was replaced with glowing stones, which would occasionally pop up letting off a strange musical note in the process before falling back to the silence. The air had a different feel to it, almost like it could be physically held, it felt palpable like they could physically hold the air around them and a strange sweet scent filled the air as well. Even the sky above them had taken a strange red color with black clouds drifting slowly by.

The street lights were replaced with random contraptions, boxes with multiple lights attached in one area and in another a person merely holding two lights in their hand and standing perfectly still, floating mechanical birds flew around with lights attached to them as well but that paled in comparison to the Blue sun that hung overhead. People ran around the area more focused on their machinations than the new visitors; some were dressed in strange garbs that seemed to resemble a mix of tunics and toga's.
"I was hoping to avoid the actual Alley but no choice in the matter," Caleb said. "Welcome to the real Madmen's Alley, at least one of the eight sections, the Happiness District. The one behind is just for the public…I'll have to ask you to be especially careful here. Risa is somewhere in here and this is the only entrance…so this shouldn't take long."
Caleb walked inside Happiness the people seeming to glance in the crew's direction before immediately going back to their own machinations.

Towards Caleb's answer, Runali gave him a short glance, but she decided to keep quiet on the matter. Even when Luro interjected in his typical happy nature, Runali simply nodded her agreement and put held her hands together behind her back. She remained quiet, and in her own thoughts up until the building in front of them split in two and revealed an… entirely different world. She spoke, more to herself, "This must have taken years to build…"

There were a lot of peculiar things she could have pointed out, but just trying to comprehend it all seemed like it would take more than a day at a time. So Runali stuck by Caleb, gesturing for him to lead the way. "Staying out of trouble isn't really how it works for Stardusk. Unless the Maiden of Misery puts her foot down and Luro is fiddling with his guns. But then that leaves Kadi unattended-" She waved her hand in front of her face. "We'll do our best, just lead the way."

Caleb gave a small nod to Runali's response and headed further into the district, they had barely walked a few feet when the street suddenly went empty again, the people seeming to fade from sight. In front of the crew directly in their path was a large rectangular wooden table and perhaps conveniently there were just enough chairs for every member of Stardusk to sit. There were plates resting in front of each chair along with what looked like tea, a divine aroma coming from the small cups as smoke lifted from the liquid giving away its current temperature. A man dressed in a simple red tunic and brown pants sat at the head of the table facing the crew, a monocle rested on his left eye and with a grin he motioned to the table with his arm.

"...It's probably a good idea not to get involved with this,"

Luro was already walking towards the table but Caleb grabbed him by the back of his shirt.

"Don't interact with him," Caleb said. "Listen very closely, walk around the table, don't speak to him, don't touch anything on the table, avoid the chairs too, avoiding touch it at all."
Caleb said this turning his body and passing the table without casting so much as a glance in the man's direction even as he held a cup towards Caleb. Zilia pushed Luro past forcing him not to interact with the man as Caleb requested, it was probably for the best as well, they were wasting time.

 

[Arcadius]

It hit him the moment the tip of his boot passed through the gate.

Oh. But yes. Yes of course. I know this place. Macropulos did sent me here, on occasion, to meet with Rossum.

He looked around. The streets looked familiar, or rather, they didn't as only streets that had minds of their own could. Rossum called it a "sandbox of ideas", where any kind of ideas could be build and developed, regardless of their insanity, complexity or fundamentally flawed reasoning. Here, people build sandcastles out of pure cognition. Here, daydreaming could be a profession. Here, man could walk free of reason. Here, dreams and prude reality on a confused occasion intertwined, and Arcadius could, during his previous employment, visit the lucid dreamers.

Suffice to say, Rossum found him quicker than he expected. For a split second, Arcadius forgot how letting his mind wander in this place was dangerous. Caleb, crew and others were gone, and he was standing in a familiar doorway, leading to a familiar workshop. Rossum was a towering giant of a man, despite his total disregard for taking care of himself, he had a certain charm or charisma that would dominate mood of the room, just as his tall figure and broad shoulders did so physically.

"Pathfinder! I was expecting you!" Of course he was. This place beget questions, and then punished you for actually asking them. "I need you for one last task! I already paid Macropulos, so no worries about facturation!" Of course he did, and of course she accepted it, despite no longer having Pathfinder in her employ. Life was hell.

Rossum pushed a cogwheel into Arcadius' hand. He looked at the object and instantly regretted it. There was something fundamentally wrong with the object. Perceiving it caused immense mental pain, but the reason for this was hard to pin down. This was usually for Rossum. Most of the work for the man was to take one of his creations and take it somewhere far away. And then usually tell the object what was wrong it it from safe distance, and watch it explode. Dreamscape was ideal with this. One just needed a boring and monotonous dream, devoid of anything worthwhile not blowing up. Arcadius preferred dreams of governmental officials and tax clerks.

"Ah, yes, take also this," Rossum continued and pushed a bullet into his hand. The round had a "3.14" scratched into the brass casing.
"Why... the bullet?" Arcadius asked.
"I couldn't figure out how to make something work with a standard round wheel, so I invented one with pi equals three. It didn't work, keeps overheating. I fear it would also explode once it learns what pi is in normal spacetime, and tries to correct itself. Just take it away, and shoot it from safe distance. Now shoo!"

He wasn't sure how he appeared back with the crew, and he was pretty sure noone other involved could recollect it as well. Suddenly, he was waltzing with Alicia in a huge crowd on a street, the cogwheel burning in his pocket. He gave Tashigi a very confused look, missed a beat in the music and grimaced as she stepped on his foot, occurrence he quickly used to scamper away.

The trap seemed to be a perfect example of a "total misunderstanding of the principle of an ambush, trap, deception or other kinds of tactical bamboozles", as detailed in lord Brumlee's treatise on small unit tactics Des trappisches de Heeres. Lord Brumlee, however, never met a person so devoted to random luck and moronism as Luro.

Still, they were surrounded, and heavily outnumbered. An ample moment to see what Rossum's invention would do this time.

"GET DOWN!" Arcadius yelled, and slammed the bullet with pi on it into the chamber. With all his strength, he threw the cog into where the Miners where thickest, aimed and shot. Just as the bullet left the barrel, he was slammed into from side by a sheep.

As the bullet shattered the cog, it looked at the "3.14" and realized how wrong it was. Suddenly, everything in the vicinity had it's pi added by 0.14, creating a large space where pi was 3.28. This space, of course, pushed back and lowered pi by 0.14 everywhere around.

The universe decided it had enough of this tomfoolery, and simply exploded everything involved, cog, air and associated Miners included.

 

[Eastwood]

'Wasted...' Sara thought to herself, rubbing her wrist and surrounded by the remnants of the Coward's Coalition. After her first and sudden strike at the belly of the leader, they quickly fled but Sara was faster. None of them made ten paces before getting knocked down. Of course, she didn't have to do this, but if someone of her caliber was brought on to fight against self-proclaimed cowards then someone had to suffer for it. Besides, she didn't hit them very hard. 'Utterly wasted.'

She rejoined the group and sighed, seeing their opponents rise from the dead sheepishly. What didn't improve her mood was the idea that Alicia, of all people, had a cult centered around her. She, rather sulkily, followed the crew quietly.

 

[SilentxChaos]

By the end of the scuffle, Jack bristled with knives handed him to by Runali. They stuck out of his vest and belt and boots as he ran out of places to put them and there seemed to be more knives than Miners. Or, less Miners he could take down with the whole of Stardusk jumping into the fray. He felt like a porcupine when the fighting was done and he was trying to find the best way to cross his arms as they met "The Boss", without stabbing himself.

A Miner groaned at Jack's feet and sat up with the remaining living...or undead… rubbing his jaw before displaying a row of cracked and missing teeth. "Mind a hand?"

Jack blinked. "Oh, uh, sure thing." He lifted the Miner up.

"Thanks mate!" he clapped Jack's shoulder and waved a hand with four different knives sticking between fingers.

The cook blinked again before patting his belt and found empty spots. "Hey wait--"

"Whoa nice hair! Can I have it?" another Miner suddenly stepped forward, reaching for Jack's dreadlocks.

"What? No." Jack pushed the hand away, and gripped the wrist sneaking towards his belt. Then all the Miners were surrounding the crew, chatting up a storm, and the cook gave up trying to keep the airheaded lot and their sticky fingers from relieving him of the weapons that had come from their hands in the first place. One unfortunate made the mistake of brushing along the handle of his butterfly sword strapped at the back of his waist; Jack gripped the hand and turned to see a youth squirming in his clutch. "Those aren't meant for you."

The Miner cocked his head quizzically. "You don't come here often do you mister?"

Jack let him go, only for the youth to immediately to turn and start poking at Sara's weapons. That went as well as expected, he thought drily and detached himself from the remaining crowd to stand next to Kadi and Alicia. He leaned towards the Pathfinder. "Did you really drink with Jones? What was that like?"

 

[Capt. Blu]

​

Location: Madman's Alley? Wonderland? Somewhere...

"Perhaps I should explain what's going to happen. If someone's going to make an attempt on your life you should at least know why."

Caleb didn't speak until they were a fair distance away from the strange man's table, the shipwright seemed lost in thought through most of their walk. He seemed to be fighting with something but it seemed he finally came to a conclusion and came to a stop before turning to face Stardusk. The area around them had become barren, Caleb doing his utmost to lead them away form the main parts of Happiness, but that was going to be hard up ahead, there were only so many 'blind' spots he could take them. Even the place they were in still had strange shaped buildings, and weird contraptions that would reveal their presence every now and then.

"It's rumored every few centuries a jerk named Sven is born...while I don't know if that's true... Sven is merely an eccentric noble who left his home behind to try and do some good at Brass Cape. Regretfully his ideas were always just a little...too short sighted or just not good enough. To make a long story short he came across the Alley, saw the 'genius' within it and started stealing from those who reside there. Which...is really bad. Thankfully he hasn't been using the ideas, only gathering them and trying to form his own ideas from them...but that's still bad. The people of the Alley aren't pleased, the only reason they haven't taken action is cause of Pa."

Caleb paused for a moment and with a small sigh messed with one of his watches.

"You should be smart enough to piece together the rest. Now we should keep going forward if not someone might blow up the Alley and kill us, that might be bad."

Runali wasn't sure what was going on as they entered 'Happiness' - or actually, she knew what had happened, but it was taking her a moment to really let it sink in that she wasn't just unconscious and dreaming. Looking over at Caleb as he spoke, she concluded that it would be more or less a nightmare with him in it. "You'd think someone'd fall outta some of these places." She mused, tilting her head slightly to match an off balanced building. But with the Alley, anything went so there was no use questioning the logic of it.

Hearing about this 'Sven' person, Runali hopped forward to fall in step with Caleb. She held her hands behind her back and nodded. "So, just another person upset that they aren't super talented like the next? Welp," Runali shrugged. "Not everyone can be amazing. But aye, stealing is bad. Especially in the alley." Her brow raised when he mentioned someone blowing up the Alley before nodding again. "And our.. What five hours? Are running out, aye. Time to quicken the pace."

Luro nodded in agreement about moving faster, he was worried about Risa and he wanted to have a nice formal conversation with this Sven guy with completely necessary violence.

Luro started to talk to Caleb when the man came to a sudden stop, Luro peered ahead to see there was a large gap in the road where they were heading. A large hole that seemed endless blocked their path, Caleb reached down and grabbing a rock dropped it into the abyss below. He turned his head and listened but no sound came, noticing this Caleb gave a small nod and looked at the other side of the road which was a fair distance away.

"Hm," Caleb said.

Caleb took a step forward and jumped into the hole, Luro quickly ran to the edge seeing his body vanish into the darkness below. He looked over at his Captain only to hear a whistle, looking up Caleb walked out of one of the houses from the other end. Zilia pointed at the sight then at the hole before Caleb knelt down and started pushing the road on the other side, within a few moments the road on the other side had merged back with the original.

"Someone left them separated," Caleb said. "Probably the Miner's to slow us down. Good thing you have a guide. If you jump it, the hole just get's longer and makes you fall."

Caleb motioned for Stardusk to keep following and continued forward.

"Everything you see in front of you is what you've accepted is real…whether you acknowledge it or not," Caleb said looking back at Stardusk. "That's the influence of the Alley. Though I want to save Risa, I also can't let you stay in here too long, Sven made that mistake and now he can't escape the Alley's influence."

The Happiness district proved to have a mess of obstacles to slow down the crew, at one point the crew came across another section of the district that was turned sideways with the street resting vertically on the right and the building's turned sideways where the street should be. Caleb thankfully knocked on a light pole and the ground under them rotated setting everything correctly to allow them to move on.

"The Miner's keep leaving things out in the open," Caleb said sighing.

Caleb's gaze moved up as they reached their next destination, most of the buildings in the area were missing leaving only the streets, but that was mainly due to the fact all the buildings were currently floating above their heads attached to balloons. Zilia made an extreme effort not to be under the shadow of the buildings, though after a moment she figured it must be another trick. The buildings were held up by three large balloons, she figured they must be some kind of decoration of some sort.

"More Miner's," Caleb said pointing ahead.

A group of men were running towards Stardusk drawing their weapons, Caleb looked up at one of the buildings and picking up a rock flicked it towards one of the balloons. The balloon popped and the building plummeted crushing the Miner's as it hit the ground with a loud thud, the windows on the house breaking but somehow the building avoided any further damage.

"T-they're real…." Zilia's eyes twitched as her gaze moved over one of the buildings.

A man peeked his head out and waved a fist at Caleb.

"Sorry," Caleb said holding up a hand before the man went back inside.

More voices came from behind them and turning more Miner's were quickly approaching them, a fair amount of them as well as more could easily be seen on the horizon. With a sigh Caleb looked back in the direction they were going and stopped one of his watches.

"Stardusk you have to keep moving. I'll keep the Miner's busy. The Happiness District goes in a straight line so keep heading that way. I'll catch up."

Caleb drew his metal gauntlets and slammed the knuckles together, some mechanism seemed to click as the two items became one. The end of one gauntlet opened up and a small part poked out, Caleb gripped it and the metal seemed to curve slightly as he pulled the item out revealing a long pole with a slight curve at the top. Giving the pole a small twist the curve's bottom opened before a sharp blade popped out glinting in the light. Caleb spun the weapon in his grip before letting it rest on his shoulder, a scythe had formed from his old weapon and he glanced back at Stardusk motioning in the direction they were heading.

"Go on…this won't take long," Caleb said.

Caleb lowered the weapon to his side and started walking towards the Miner's.

As they walked through the Alley, Runali recalled all of the events that took place before they got there. All she had was breakfast and she was sure Jack didn't drug their food. At least, she hoped he didn't. She didn't remember anything out of the ordinary when she was in the Passano shop either… There had to be something in the air. Though, the more she tried to make sense of it all, the weirder things got. "I wanna accept things at face value, I really do... " Runali was looking under one of the floating buildings, wondering if it was hollow. "But that's really hard to do." Seeing that it wasn't hollow and capable of crushing people, as Caleb displayed, she shuffled from under the buildings, not wanting to risk it.

What was even more unnerving was the idea of their guide not guiding them the rest of the way. Sure, he said it wouldn't take long, but there were a lot of things they had already seen that Runali didn't trust in terms of getting them from point A to point B. "I don't even think our navigator is capable of traversing through this… No offense, Kadi." She watched Caleb walk off to deal with the Miners, curious to see what else those gauntlets could do, only to sigh and gesture forward. "Welp, he said straight so that's where we go. Can't go wasting time, right?"

The Path ahead was for the most part clear seeming like a straight run, however it seemed that no matter how far the crew went the scenery didn't seem to change. The same buildings seemed to repeat as they walked, the same Alley stretched out before them no matter how far forward they went. The sky was the only change seeming to shift between night and day but that was the only real indication of time. Though the sun was setting so quickly it seemed like half the day passed in ten minutes.

"Uh Captain…I don't think we're getting anywhere," Luro said looking around. "I've been stranded enough times to know this feeling…I think we're lost."

Zilia nodded at this and pointed to a building, there was a small red mark on it that she had made during one of their many passes, she pointed ahead to show that same mark wasn't that far away.

They were repeating the street and it appeared endless as there were no other paths, there was only forward and back, there were no turns or anywhere that could take them anywhere else.

"Yeah you're pretty lost."

A voice filled the air around them before a low chuckle followed, the voice itself had a tenor to it, and there was a bit of haughtiness in its tone. It was clear the person was exaggerating a bit as they spoke; the source of the voice seemed to almost materialize out of nothingness, walking out of what seemed to be reality itself as if a fold rested right in front of them. They set a small wooden chair ten feet in front of Stardusk before taking a seat.

"You guys are really stupid aren't you?"

The speaker was a young man dressed a little differently than the other inhabitants of the Alley. He had a white dress shirt with a brown waistcoat over it, decorated with golden buttons. He wore black pants with a silver chain hanging out of the pockets and what appeared to be freshly polished black shoes. He crossed his legs resting his white gloved hands near his knee and grinned at Stardusk. From his face it seemed this man had barely just reached what could be considered adulthood, his short black hair the only disheveled thing on his person, with bangs hanging slightly in front of his green eyes.

"Name's Sven…I hear you're looking for me."

Leaning forward the man who introduced himself as Seven rested a hand on his cheek.

"The Miner's said some people named Stardusk were coming after me…why are a bunch of degenerates coming after me? You're kind of in the way, if I give you some candy will you shoo I kind of have things to do, Caleb's to kill and all that."

The captain stopped in her track and she turned in a full circle. "No..?" She looked around again and squinted. "Noooo?" Runali's dragged her hands down her face. "I knew walking ahead would be a bad idea-" Her hands were halfway down her face when she paused to look at the person appearing out of nowhere. He spoke and Runali frowned a bit. "Huh, I was expecting some old guy to punch…" When he called them stupid, Runali's arms crossed. But when introduced himself she retaliated with, "Big talk coming from someone who can't think of his own ideas." Runali cracked her knuckles and sighed. "Look, fight Caleb all you want. That's between you and him. We came here for Risa, so if you'd so kindly give her back, we will be out of your hair."

Sven's eyes seemed to twitch for a moment at Runali's comment; though he smiled his hands were visibly shaking with anger before he clapped them together. With an exasperated sigh he stood up shrugging his shoulders. Behind them footsteps echoed revealing another Sven who rotated his shoulders before looking up at the roofs of the building around them revealing more of them, one sitting on the edge peering down at Stardusk.
"You know when you address your betters you have to do it properly," Sven said pushing his chair to side. "Why should I listen to request of some social rejects. Society has no use for you and I certainly don't and now you want a favor, that's pretty funny actually."

Sven brought a hand to his mouth the others joining him as they laughed in a strange unison. Though the other Sven's continued to laugh, the main one stopped and shoved his hands in his pockets.
"With the position you all are in, you don't really get to make requests. I don't care what your involvement is, you're in my way and causing me trouble and I've yet to hear an apology. Besides that girl should have just given up the box, if she hadn't been so damn intent on keeping it this could have been easier. You don't even realize what's here do you?"

Sven pulled a hand out of his pocket and reaching over pulled something out of a nearby window, holding it up. The strange shaped resembled a certain fruit, and Sven grinned as it rested in the palm of his hand.
"Artificial Devil Fruit," Sven said. "Some of these loons have been studying how to make actual Devil Fruits! Pa of course didn't let this out because obviously if people found out this kind of power was just sitting here they'd rush to it. I found out though, I found one! All the information is sitting right there but everyone is too stupid to piece it together, but I can see it. All I need is Caleb's piece, his is the final puzzle. Then…then I can be the creator of a whole new route to power. I can make rumors and myths real, put them in the palm of my hand. If you really think I'm letting you all get in the way of that, then you're stupider than I thought. I'm going to end each and every one of you right here, kill Caleb and Risa and become the greatest mind this world knows."
Sven took a large bite out of the Devil Fruit and swallowing it threw it back into the house, a dark purple glow surrounded his body and he eyed Stardusk as the other Sven's took on the same aura their laughs echoing as more and more of them stepped out of the shadows.

"You don't understand anything! You ignorant apes! I'm going to break that overconfidence of yours and show you what the world is really like! I've eaten so many of these things I'm basically a god. I can shatter this whole place whenever I feel like it."

Zilia stared into the eyes of Sven, she shook her head and handed a note to the Captain.
"Captain…. We might just want to end this. I don't think he even knows how far he's fallen"

Luro rested his rifle on his shoulder and clicking a switch a blue mist seeped out of his gun.
"A god huh…been a bit since I fought one of those. I hope you're really that strong or I'm going to be sad," Luro said grinning at the man.

Runali heard the other footsteps around them but trusted her crew to be watchful eyes. She honestly could say she knew the bare minimum about Devil Fruits from Ray and almost everyone that tried to kill her at some point. But the idea of man made power always sounded like a bad idea, especially coming from a crazy person like Sven. "Uh huh…" She looked over at Zil's note, giving a slight nod before taking a step forward. "You talk a lot for someone trying to, what? Be the smartest person around?" She took another step forward, fixing a sleeve. "I dunno, if you kill the people smarter than you... how're you gonna get your ideas?" She gave a cheeky grin, stepping out of Luro's line of sight. "I mean if they're gone, you'll be just like us, yeah?" As she moved out of the way, she made a small gesture at her side, signalling for Luro to fire away.

"Hahahaha! What's that about!" Sven responded pointing at Runali. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. It doesn't matter, I'll just end all this here."
A small grin found its way onto Luro's face at the Captain's signal and he gave a small nod, Sven started to move towards Stardusk when Luro quickly spun and shot at an empty spot next to Sara, a scream echoed from it before Sven fell into reality onto the ground clutching his leg, the other Sven's did the same. Blood poured down the man's leg and he grit his teeth his eyes moving up to Luro who grinned.
"H-how! How did a bullet hit me! My Devil Fruit should have stopped it!"
"It hit you cause you didn't move," Luro said staring at him. "You almost attacked Masu, that's my friend."
"T-this is impossible…I…I'm a god. I…I was perfectly hidden."
"Nah I smelled you, none of your clones smelled close. That stuff you got on is strong, stronger than what Masu wears. Still…this is so boring. I kind of want to let Kadi kill you…but you hurt Risa…so I'm going to enjoy making you suffer for that. Alicia let me borrow your sword for a moment, I'm going to start from the bottom and work my way up. Jack could you hold him down please."

Sven quickly rolled away from Stardusk, and climbed to his feet with a bit of struggling, his face paled and he quickly held a hand up at Stardusk as he held his bleeding leg with the other.
"H-hold on…you kill me and you never get Risa…I-if I don't report to my men she'll end up dying. You don't want that right...you let me go…I give you Risa back. That's fair."

"You mean this one right here."

​

Another voice came from behind Stardusk and Seliria stood a few feet away with Risa, a hand on the girl's shoulder. She seemed mostly unharmed save a few tears in her clothing; Luro rushed over immediately and started patting her making sure everything was still in one place, though Seliria slapped his hands away when he started getting personal.
"Risa! You're okay! Thank goodness!" Luro exclaimed beaming.

The moment Sven was hit, Runali's cheeky smile turned into a genuine grin. "Woo! Nice shot Luro!" She would have high fived him, but he seemed a little too preoccupied with his goals at the moment. Which was fair. When Sven questioned the 'how's and why's of being shot', she laughed, now back at Jack's side. "I thought you were supposed to be the genius." It was when he began pleading for his life, did she consider stopping Luro, until Sel showed up. Even more surprising, she showed up with Risa. "Oh look at that, our job made easy."

Risa looked a bit shaken from the experience, clutching the box Caleb had given to her in between her hands. When she spotted the Stardusk, a bit more life and color returned to her and she smiled- only to look a bit startled when Luro was suddenly in her face. "He- Yes! Hi- Luro!" Fortunately, Seliria managed to help Risa's surprised yelps by swatting him at bay. Risa took a deep breath and started to speak, only to look over at Sven.

"E-eh…w-what. How?! I-I hid her perfectly!"

Seliria raised a finger and pointed at Stardusk.
"Your calculations didn't take them into account. Thanks to this lot we were able to get Risa back. They were the perfect distraction…just as Caleb predicted."

"Caleb…Caleb predicted this?" Sven questioned lowering his hand.

Seliria tossed Sven his Devil Fruit from earlier with the bite still taken out of it, she made motion to turn it around. Sven did so only to see Caleb's signature was on the back, his whole body froze and the fruit fell out of his hands bouncing on the ground and rolling at Jack's feet.
"Caleb's been pulling the strings to this whole thing from the beginning. From the moment Stardusk set foot on the ship. He sent me a message telling me exactly where Risa was and to go get her as he wanted to observe Stardusk more. Apparently he was curious how'd they respond to strange stimuli and wanted to watch them in a dangerous situation. Dealing with you was a second thought, he had already planned ahead. All those Devil Fruits were made by him too…it just gave you pretty colors to show off."
Sven stared at the ground wide eyed in shock; the wound in his leg seemed the least of his concerns as he slowly started to realize everything that had happened. This was all a game, Caleb was just having fun, all of this…all of this meant nothing to him. His plans, his threats, they had already been quelled; Caleb just…took his new friends for a walk…that was it.

"My results were inconclusive though," Caleb said walking out of one of the buildings. "I only got some minor info."
He had his notebook in his hand and seemed to be writing something down.
"I got some interesting facts though, to think Kadi would know someone of such high merit. Sara seems smart enough not to get involved in every fight, having little fear in hiding in the shadows for the battle to end. I expected her to be much more gung-ho about fighting. Luro is straightforward about what he wants. Zilia and Jack a good team in a pinch and he tries to protects those he can even in dire straits, a good trait. So much info at my disposal, this was a good experience."
Caleb closed his notebook and put it away, revealing a bit of his true colors. The colors of an old member of the Alley, and he stood with the same expression on his face.
"Thank you for this research Stardusk. I look forward to analyzing it later. Still…Risa-"
Caleb walked over to his apprentice and slightly bopped her on the head.
"You were supposed to let him have it. Your life is far more important than any of my creations. I can make another box, I can't make another you."
Caleb said this and for the first time since he met the crew a small smile formed on his face, it almost didn't fit on the man's face, foreign to his bored expression. It was surprisingly gentle however with a strange kind of warmth behind it.
"You worried me half the death."
The smile faded from his face as fast as it came and he held up a finger.
"Only your father can make another you and it won't be the same. In fact the chances of it being another you is exactly-"
Seliria covered Caleb's mouth to stop him from talking further on the subject, both Zilia and Sven were holding their heads trying to contemplate everything that had just happened.

Runali, now leaning against Jack, looked on curiously as Sven's world crumbled in front of him. "Y'know, I'd almost feel a bit offended being used- tested on even, but," She walked forward, crouching down in front of Sven and smiled. "I dunno, this just feels pretty rewarding. But hey, we got our girl and you get to keep your life. I think it's a fair win, yeah? And I don't go back on promises. We got what we came for so the Stardusks are outta your hair." She patted his shoulder and stood. "Could be worse!" She turned her back and looked on as Caleb and Risa spoke.

Risa gave an expression similar to when children got in trouble, only to blush and hold the box out to him. "You… You entrusted it to me, so I had to keep it safe." That sheepish smile turned into a more focused look as she pulled the box back to herself. "And also, I.. I think I figured it out- How to open it." She huffed a little, that focus something familiar in the Alley. "But those Miners ruined it so I have to wait until…" She paused and reached to see one of Caleb's watches. "Oh, only a few hours." Her demeanor changed, almost as if the fiasco before hadn't even happened. Risa was herself again, constantly shifting focus from one thing to the next. "Ah! Oh, apologies Stardusk, I wasn't able to get your things! If you're in a rush, I can have them to you by the evening!"

"Relax, Passano. You were just kidnapped. You can take some time to yourself."

"Oh, ah, yes. Right…" She looked back down at the contraption in her hand and gave it to Caleb once again. "We should… probably get back. Thank you again Stardusk for coming to rescue me."

"We'll save you whenever Risa, cause you're our friend. No thanks necessary," Luro said with a grin.

Sven remained motionless his eyes focused on the ground as Luro turned to look at Caleb as he took his box back with a small sigh.

"I got lucky getting such an apprentice. I also knew you'd figure it out. Your potential astonishes even me," Caleb said writing in his notebook. "I must remember this moment."

At the mention of heading back Caleb arched a brow at Stardusk and set the box onto his waist, the moment he did however a hand swiped it and Sven ran down the street clutching the box.

"I won't let you have it! I know I can solve it!"

Sven grinned and grabbing the box twisted it, the box came undone and he grinned as it opened, Caleb held an arm out to stop anyone from pursuing him. There was little reason to explain why as fire erupted from the box and a loud ear shattering sound filled the air as the box exploded in Sven's hand. His screams echoed as he was consumed by the flames his body disintegrating as he was consumed wholly by the ensuing explosion.

Zilia crouched down holding her head and Luro held his arm up in front of Risa to try and shield the two of them from the aftershock, Caleb stood perfectly still staring at the explosion with the same bored expression. When the moment passed only a large smoldering crater remained with no traces of Sven or the buildings around him.

"Delightful," Caleb said writing in his notebook. "All according to plan."

Seliria grabbed Caleb by the front of his outfit and lifted him off the ground.

"Oi…you'd better not have put a bomb in that box and given it to Risa."

"…I did though."

"You idiot! What if she opened it?!"

"So long as Risa followed the rules there was only a twelve percent chance she would open it before Sven stole it. I did the math myself."

"What if she didn't follow the rules?!"

Caleb was silent at Seliria's question, looked over at Risa for a moment before bringing a hand to his chin even though he was still being held.

"Hm."

"Don't you 'hm' me!" Seliria exclaimed before dropping him. "Y…you're such a headache."

Caleb turned to Stardusk ignoring Seliria as she squeezed the bridge of her nose trying to regain what composure she had left while contemplating her life at the moment.

"Before we return…tell me Stardusk. How did all this make you feel? This adventure…did you enjoy it? What feelings flow through you right now?"

Caleb stared at the members of Stardusk and he seemed serious about his question, his eyes moving to each member.

 

[Eastwood]

Sara stared flatly at their new enemy of the week, someone capable of making 'myths and rumors real'. Honestly, who talked like that? Although her interest was momentarily piqued with the introduction of an artificial devil fruit, she was not expecting much from a weakling who needed such things in the first place. Nevertheless, she stood by with her arms folded. At least now she might get a little bit of a challenge. But, of course, the little seed of fun died quickly as she witnessed his meltdown and subsequent stupid end.

"I wasn't hiding." She said, irritated, in response to Caleb's analysis. "I was going to climb up to the roofs to find the leader from higher vantage point and this farce."

How did she feel about this adventure?

"I... We were wasted here. If I knew that this was what we were going to do, I would have stayed at the carnival. The games were harder to win against than this alley of clowns."

 

[SilentxChaos]

​

Their first half through the Alley, Jack worried more over the constant eyes on his crew and Caleb, fearing an attack from one of the dozen peepholes they crossed. Even the little mathematician and spontaneous dance couldn't soothe his paranoia. Except for the fight with the Miners. It required a tunnel-vision process of simple fighting, and surviving, that at least Jack had that to focus on. The sheep certainly threw a wrench in his cool-state of mind but at least they saved his life.

It wasn't until they entered Happiness that the disconnection hit him. This place was wrong, and defied all logic. He kept one hand on a sword as they past the stranger at the table, looking back to see his face split by a cheshire-cat smile and the hairs on Jack's neck stood on end. He uttered an incredulous gasp when Caleb nonchalantly reconfigured an entire street; by the time he watched the building drop, Jack stood next to Zilia, his eye twitching at the ludicrous nature of this hell-hole. The cook wanted nothing more to be rid of this place, and anything to expedite them leaving, he'd do without question.

So when Luro asked him to hold down Sven, Jack didn't hesitate to unsheathe a sword and advance on the half-crazed former lord.

Jack stood back as Seliria appeared with Risa in tow. He re-sheathed the sword and blinked a couple times as Stardusk listened to Caleb's truth. Runali felt his body stiffen as she leaned against him. Mutely, Jack reached for a light in a careful manner to avoid unbalancing his captain, though he automatically threw up a reflexive hand when Sven exploded. He lit a cigarillo and drew in a long puff, letting it out in a slow, drawn wisp towards the sky. This whole time...it was nothing but a test. Everything, this whole farce- apart from Risa getting captured with Caleb's box- was a lie. Jack closed his eyes.

When had he suspected? He didn't, but the hindsight caused Jack to re-evaluate their entire interactions with Caleb from Risa's ransacked store to now, and realized the Alley and it's anomalies were the perfect distractions from Caleb himself even as he posed as their guide. Looking down, Jack saw the faux Devil Fruit at his feet. He placed a foot on it and considered for a moment squishing beneath his heel out of sheer spite.

Jack sighed. He kicked it to Caleb.

"I think I would like to leave, if that's quite alright," he said as he drew another long puff, his hand shaking slightly and his eyes tightening at the corners as he stared at Caleb.

 

[Capt. Blu]

Location: Madmen's....Alley???

"I feel great!" Luro exclaimed throwing his hands up. "That was really fun!"

"Tiring...but I'm glad Risa is safe at the very least,"

Caleb's gaze moved between each Stardusk as he awaited an answer, he seemed to pay more attention to their faces than their actual words, once he went over the faces of each person, he dug into his pouch and pulled the red feather from it. Twirling it in his fingers he walked over to one of the buildings and place his hand on it. Running his hand over it he turned and leaned against the building before turning his attention back to Stardusk.

"What feeling flows through isn't what important right now. Just that you feel something towards it," Caleb said. "Whether you liked or disliked what we've done, the honesty of those feelings is all that matters. That's crucial for my research...granted I can just 'look' for the answer, but that feels rude so I figured I'd ask."

Caleb got off the building and releasing the feather dropped some powder on it before lighting it on fire, the moment he did the world around them seemed to shimmer before slowly melting away, the buildings seeming to form into puddles around them and the ground becoming contorted with each passing second. The air seemed less physical, and there was a strange sense of clarity, almost like a distant thought coming forward before the world around them completely fell apart, dissipating as if it was mist, broken apart by the sun's rays which shone in through the nearby window.


The crew found themselves back in the Passano shop, the shop was repaired with no signs of the previous struggle anywhere, almost as if it never happened. Caleb casually walked past Zilia who was on her knees staring at the completely intact shop with wide eyes before opening the door.

"That was fun, next time we encounter each other I'll take you through the rest of the Alley," Caleb said. "Be well Stardusk."

With that Caleb closed the door behind him and left behind a Zilia on the verge of tears, an agitated Seliria and Luro who was already behind the Passano counter borrowing some of Risa's tools.

"...wait when did we get back here," Luro said looking around.

"...I just want to go back to the ship." Zilia thought putting her face in her hands.


In a much calmer sense, Runali's confusion mimicked Zilia's. Things were happening much too fast to keep up with and everything that did happen didn't make too much sense to begin with. It was a lot and even Runali wasn't sure what to react to.

Caleb posed the question of 'how they were feeling' and Runali was a little disheartened she didn't know every word there was that listed under 'Confusion'. It was a confusion she wasn't sure she ever experienced. And by the way Caleb carried on, it didn't look like she was going to get too many answers for it either. So, she took a breath and relaxed…

...Until suddenly they were back in an undamaged Passano shop without even moving. Runali stiffened a bit and then immediately shut her eyes. "Hmmmmm." She tried to process what happened- to no avail as per usual. "Hmmm." She hummed again, slowly but surely accepting this weird track they were put on. "...Kadi, you sure we didn't die in the Undersea and we just don't know it?" Her eyes remained closed for a few moments more before she breathed a heavy sigh and straightened up. "I'd rather not go back to the Alley. Ever again." Fighting 'clowns' as Sara politely put it, was one thing, but being removed from one place and put into another- without being moved at all seemed to be Runali's limit. For a moment, she started to question if they had actually left- but when there were more questions than answers she shut the thought process down and kept it moving.

Risa, who was now moving around Luro, reorganizing a few contraptions and setting a few papers to the side gave a sympathetic nod to the group. "The Alley can be a bit… over stimulating for people. Especially when they first visit. I apologize you had to go through that, but I suppose it was… for a reason, as Caleb mentioned." She adjusted her goggles and smiled. "I'll throw in something special for your troubles. If you want to come along, feel free-"

Runali gave her a small salute. "It's much obliged, really it is. But I actually have something in mind that's less confusion and more pirate-y." She rested an arm on Sara's shoulder and looked between her and Jack. "It's been, what? A few months since you've been Stardusk, yeah? You too Zil. It's about time you guys represent the crew!" She raised her sleeve and pointed at her Stardusk tattoo. "C'mon, matching tattoos! Be official!" She paused and moved over to Alicia, tapping the bow in her hair. "Unless you wanna be a lot more subtle like, Miss 'Maiden of Misery' here. Or, what was the other again?" Runali waved the thought away and moved over to Kadi, nabbing his compass and opening it to show the symbol inside. "These two don't too much care for the ink, which is fine. But, you gotta have something with it! So? Whaddya three say? Get cool tattoos- or the optional accessory to stake your permanent Stardusk claim? And of course," She looked over at Luro, Kadi, and Alicia, "you all can join for the show if you wanna."

Seliria watched the crew in silence her gaze moving over to Risa as she spoke.

She could understand where the confusion was coming from at the very least, but a few of the stupid ones weren't taking into consideration what just happened. She sighed squeezing the bridge of her nose, she supposed it was too early to expect them to read between the lines, Caleb had way more patience than she did, wasting his day on them.

"…not one said thank you," Seliria mumbled sighing. "I can't blame them but still..."

Walking over to Zilia she leaned down to her and placing a hand on her shoulder handed her a note, waiting for her to read it Zilia seemed to slowly relax before offering a small nod.

She handed the note back to Seliria who returned it to her pocket turning to look as Runali mentioned the others getting their tattoo's.

"It's taken you this long to carry the mark of your crew…you lot are hopeless," Seliria said shaking her head. "That must be why you're Captain Runali, you certainly see something I'm missing."

Seliria turned and walked past the crew making her way out the door, she pat Sara on the shoulder as she passed.

"That was an adorable answer, whatever makes you feel better," Seliria said before she reached the door.

She paused for a moment in the doorway after opening it and glanced back at the others.

"Thank Caleb next time you see him. In his own way he was looking out for you, you have the demeanor of children, so at least have their manners. If you're not dead we'll meet again. Captain Runali I expect you to whip this lot into proper shape. I don't want to accidentally kill you when you aim for second."

With that Seliria walked out closing the door behind her.


A small smile rested on Zilia's face at Seliria's words as she stood up, she wanted to say more to the woman but she supposed that could wait for another time. At the mention of a tattoo Zilia flinched a bit and rubbed the side of her head. She wasn't too certain about all of that, but it seemed the Captain was pretty adamant about it. By all means she was a member of Stardusk now, even if by strange circumstances, and since the Captain was nice enough to let her write her Chronicle the least she could do was show some sense of loyalty. Knowing she'd be going with the other two members was also a bit comforting.

Zilia reached down and touched her right hand, her eyes staring at it for a moment.

"I'll…get an accessory. I can do that much for you Captain. I don't really wear any so I'll have to figure out what I can put on me."


"Bow Black," Luro said in response to the Captain's forgetfulness. "Back when Alicia and I were going to try and kill each other she went by Bow Black, in Utsukushi. I like Maiden of Misery more, I want to shake the hand whoever thought that up."

Luro looked up and smiled at this before going back to what he was working on, whatever it was it seemed to hold more of his attention than the conversation at hand, but he couldn't forget the day they met Alicia, or anyone else for that matter. Though when the Captain spoke directly to him Luro shook his head and put an arm around Risa's shoulder.

"Imma catch up with Risa," Luro said. "That and there's some stuff I specifically need for…all kinds of stuff. Make sure you guys show me your tattoos when you get them though I wanna see! Masu you and Jack should put them where everyone can see, it's a sense of pride."

Zilia arched a brow curious why Luro didn't mention her.

"Z doesn't really show any skin so she doesn't count but you two show your bodies to people. Don't worry letting everyone know you're a pirate is fun. A bunch of people will kill you without listening to anything you have to say! It's really fun."

"…maybe I'll get something like Kadi that can be hidden…"


"Aw Sel, their a good bunch! Just a bit picky about things here and there." She snickered before giving a salute to Seliria. "Aye, of course we'll thank him." Towards her declaration, Runali couldn't help but smile. "Yeah. Don't worry. We'll be ready."

Her attention turned to Zilia when she was given a note, only to nod and put an arm around her shoulders. "Yeah, no problem Zil! You can be apart of theeeee," She looked between Kadi and Alicia, "heh, the fashionable squad." Without looking at Luro, Runali snapped her fingers and pointed over at him. "Ah, right. The Infamous Bow Black. Now dead and the Maiden of Misery takes her place." Her attention did turn to him when he denied the tattoo trip. But, the moment she saw Risa give a sheepish, and somewhat surprised look, the captain nodded. "Aye, have fun! We'll meet you back on the ship later!" Runali waved before shooing Sara and Jack out the door, with Zilia still in tow. "Alicia, Kadi, keep up if you're coming along!"

 

[Mizos]

​

Luro continued to dig in boxes in the Passano shop, putting aside things he felt he needed in another box before he stood up and brushed off his hands. There were a mess of ideas he wanted to try out but without the materials he was in a bit of a bind, thankfully that was no longer a problem. He went to get another box since he wasn't sure when they would be returning to Brass Cape, and it always paid to have extra on hand. He had to make sure to give Risa a little bit of extra as well, he was taking a lot from the shop, even if Caleb had paid generously he felt a little bad taking this much without giving at least something back, he owed that much to his friend.

"Thanks for the help Risa," Luro said moving his box next to the door. "Hey since I'm around anyway let me help you get the stuff for everyone. We can go to the festival afterwards, you got kidnapped and all so you deserve to have some fun. You can show me your wings too, I never got to see the final product."
Luro grinned at this before pulling out his notebook.
"That and you're already on my kidnap list, so even if you decline I'm just going to steal you anyway," Luro said pointing to one of the lines. "That's what this rope is for."
Luro dug into his sleeve and pulled out a bit of rope before shoving it back inside.
"Well actually that was for Jack...but I have more so I can just use it here."

While Luro rummaged, Risa went around him, and organized things into boxes labelled 'Stardusk'. It had fallen quiet when the pirate group left and she wasn't bothered by Luro's collecting. In fact, every time he'd take something off of a shelf, she'd place a sheet of paper there with the word 'Simon' on it. Her brother would that it meant to get new supplies. When Luro spoke, Risa was eyeing the list Caleb had made for them. "Hm? Oh, it's no problem Luro, take what you need. Simon should be here later to-" She looked up from the list. "Oh, um, that would be nice of you, thank you. B-But there's no need to go to the festival, I'm sure you're crew don't want you to.. Miss out on anything important." Risa waved her hand as if trying to dismiss the thought. However at the mention of her wings, she looked over at an intricately designed metal box off to the side.

"Oh well, I can show- You know kidnapping people isn't the answer to everything." She was reminded of the first time they met and a faint blush spread across her face. "Besides… there's no reason to kidnap me if I'll just go willingly." With list in hand, Risa quickly walked towards the door, pulling a sizeable wagon from off to the side. The gears under it and on its side allowed the wagon to move by itself but since it was empty, she just pulled it along.

"Ah its fine, they don't need me right now," Luro said. "I can't fix up the ship yet anyway."
Luro tilted his head at Risa for a moment before shrugging at the idea of not kidnapping her, he picked up another box moving it next to the door. If it wasn't for the Captain he would have just brought Risa onto the Coral years ago. Having a constant supply of these items and a fellow inventor on the ship would make things much easier, he'd probably just take her later once all this was over, first he had to help. At the mention of Risa going to the festival without needing an escort Luro looked over at her before nodding.
"I guess that's okay then. We'll head to festival once this work is done, then you can show me your wings before we leave. It's thanks to you and Oz's along with that nice guy's machine that I was able to make the L.A.S.S. I owe you guys."

A small smile rested on Luro's face as he brushed his hands off staring down at his boxes of wonders, he brought a hand to his chin wondering if he should gather a few more gears, just in case Masu wanted her spear to shoot fire, or Jack wanted to put guns in his dreads.
"All right Risa let's do this, then we'll head to the festival and I'll win you something with completely necessary violence."
"That does sound entertaining."
Luro turned hearing a familiar voice to see Caleb was standing nearby, he stopped one of his watches before adjusting the goggles on his head.
"…in my excitement I forgot something for Seliria in exchange for her help…or more precisely I tried to leave without it and she sent me back here with threats of removing my spine from my body. Though I'm fascinated to see the process again I'd rather not be on the wrong end of it."
"Caleb! Help us get stuff! We wanna go to the festival. Risa said she'll willingly go with me, I don't have to force her like last time."
Caleb glanced over at Risa and digging into his pocket he took out his notebook and making a quick note glanced up at Luro before giving a small nod.
"….I will make a note of my apprentice engaging in courtship rituals. I'll assist so long as I can accompany you. I'm interested in watching what will happen."
"Sounds good to me! Roll up your sleeves let's help Risa."

Risa couldn't begin to list her questions, that were mainly concerns, but Caleb's sudden arrival turned her attention. Usually, it would spook her half to death, but she was so used to Caleb's sudden appearances that now she could only sigh. "I s-suppose the more the merrier." Now, there was really know way of escaping this trip. "Let's get moving before-" She nearly tripped over the wagon she started to pull as she whirled around a little too quickly. "Caleb! That's completely unnecessary!" The moment she said it, she could already see that there was no point in arguing with either of the two pirates that decided to accompany her.

"Oh...boy…" Her hand went over her face and she defeatedly turned back to lead the way. The blush on her face had yet to subside, so she sighed and changed the subject as best she could.
"You mentioned, uh, a nice guy and Oz? Who're they? And I imagine this 'lass' isn't an actual lady…?"

Caleb didn't seem to pay too much attention to Risa's objection continuing to scribble in his notebook; the only thing that made him look up was the questions Risa posed on Luro. With a grin Luro took the gun off his back, hitting a few switches a small sphere fell out of the side of the gun and he held it towards Risa.
"Luro's Anti Sibylline Shooter, or L.A.S.S. it makes it so I can defy fate," Luro said proudly holding out the device. "A few years ago we met the Cutthroats, Oz is one of em, she's really good with tinkering too. The nice guy was some person with red hair that-"
"He met Elliot," Caleb added to avoid further confusion.
"Oh right we talked about that," Luro said. "Anyway the L.A.S.S. is-"
"Let me translate Luro," Caleb said closing his notebook. "My apprentice as good as she is, more than likely isn't going to understand the words that are going to come from you."
Luro blinked a few times but thinking back to the time he explained it to Masu she did seem really confused, he nodded and at Caleb's request put the L.A.S.S. in his hand.
"To simplify it…and this is really simplifying it. This is a generator," Caleb said rotating the L.A.S.S. in his hand. "A pretty powerful one, I'd say at its full potential it can put out about…10 percent of Pandora's power."
Caleb hated using that name but he knew Risa knew it more by that name than the original, thanks to Seliria.
"It apparently has other functions but that's its main focus."
Luro grinned and pat Risa on the back probably a bit too hard.
"What you taught me about your wings and mechanisms, Oz's knowledge and the nice guy's thing helped me make the L.A.S.S. originally. I've just built on it from there."
"Apparently he got the idea for one of the functions from seeing one of my inventions," Caleb said handing the L.A.S.S. back to Luro. "Pure concentrated destructive force."
"That nice guy was really nice to let me see his device," Luro said putting the L.A.S.S. back onto his rifle. "I'll show you how it works sometime. I made two in case you were still working on your wings anyway."

"Ohh, you've met the Cutthroats? I've always wanted to meet them!" Risa's starstruck look faded into a more curious look, as the L.A.S.S was explained. Curiosity turned into surprise. "You made a generator like Pandora!? That's so cool!" She stumbled forward a bit when Luro pat her back, but she the gears were turning in her own mind. She had let go of the wagon, letting Caleb or Luro grab it so she could carefully examine the generator before Luro could put it back."I-I've already finished my wings, but a generator like this would make things a lot smoother for a second pair… I wonder why I haven't tried making a generator..." She fell into a contemplative thought for a moment before nodding. "That's amazing Luro! And, um, incredibly smart." She smiled up at him before turning her attention ahead.

The trip to the shops didn't take as long with Caleb and Luro helping out. Instead of having to deal with haggling prices down with shop owners, most knew Caleb- or at least the Nova pirate name. One particular shop owner who carried nothing but spare and broken parts always attempted to raise prices when she was around. However the moment he spotted Caleb, he was much quicker about the transactions. And Luro was just nice company compared to her usual quiet trips. They even shared a few ideas to trade and use. "It must be difficult working on a smaller ship- especially with limited supplies. Less chances to make mistakes."

A few hours passed, and Risa's wagon was completely full of things that Caleb requested for the Stardusk, along with a few extra bags of things Luro wanted and Caleb suggested. "This went a lot faster than most trips, thank you both."

"I'm sure I'll end up heading back there, if we pass through and you're permitted I'll take you to meet them," Caleb said. "Or you could sneak out, you are at the rebellious age."
Luro smiled a bit as Risa's praise as he pulled the wagon, he generally tinkered because it was fun but he couldn't help feeling a little happy when someone liked his work. Getting to see the curious and happy expression of a fellow creator was one of the greatest joys the world could offer. There was nothing like watching a fellow inventor contemplate, it got him excited to make even more, that and Risa did play a part in its creation so seeing she liked it was nice too. He pulled himself from his own thoughts as they continued.
"Thanks Risa! Let's take care of this quickly!"
Luro took a few extra notes when he wasn't pulling the wagon, trading with Caleb halfway through the journey since he had been pulling it for a bit.

"You understand Risa," Luro said with a firm nod. "It is harder, I have a ton of ideas but with so little supplies I can't experiment as much as I'd like…it's a nice challenge, but sometimes I just want to go all out."
Luro had shared some of his notes with Risa during their exchange, at least the ones not in 'Luro' speak and Caleb just seem to observe taking notes here and there with small nods. At Risa's thanks the two looked at each other before Luro grinned at Risa.
"It's no problem Risa, happy to help," Luro said nodding.
"I was told I played a small part in your kidnapping, this is the least I can do," Caleb said. "That and I have to leave soon, it only makes sense I would seek 'moments' with my apprentice before I leave."
He pat the bag on his side where Seliria's items were as well, thankfully his spine would stay in his body for another day.
"Okay! Let's go have more fun!"
"After dropping the stuff off," Caleb added.
"Oh yeah then let's go!"


Luro wasted little time dragging the two back to the Carnival, moving them to all the games he had the most fun at. The man at the shooting gallery shivered however upon Luro's approach, his eyes moved to his best prizes and he swallowed hard as he picked up one of the guns. After winning a huge stuffed bear for Risa, something for Caleb and eventually himself the man 'closed' his station as his top prizes started to slowly vanish of the shelves.
"We should go on the giant wheel!" Luro said.
"…we're not going to fit with the animal," Caleb said pointing at it. "Especially with three people."
"It's fine we'll just put Risa in the middle. She's the smallest so it should be fine."
"…it's not impossible," Caleb said bringing a hand to his chin. "Risa you can't leave the animal behind. I'm curious of something."
"Agreed come on Risa! Let's go!"

Being at the carnival made Risa realize she hadn't actually taken the time to relax in… awhile actually. At first, she was a little hesitant about being dragged to different games up until she was 'forced' to try one herself. It was fun- and then Luro handed her a large bear that was almost her size. "O-Oh Luro you didn't-" But he was already off trying to win the next prize. "Thank… you?"
"How about-!" She caught both of them in the midst of their planning and theorizing. Trying to get on the ferris wheel with the large stuffed animal wasn't going to happen, not if she or the worker could help it. "How about," She made the two stop. "I just… go with Luro in one and you can take the bear in the other?" For once, it seemed she put her foot down because she was already handing the large bear to Caleb. "We can save those tests for another time."

Luro and Caleb looked at each other as he held the large bear, the two shrugged seeming to be okay with the option, they were all out to have fun anyway.
"Well if you're not willing it would mess with the results anyway, very well," Caleb said nodding.
Luro looked over at the ferris wheel and grinned as Caleb wandered off with the bear. He stopped for a moment however and glanced back at Risa, he stared at her for a moment before tapping one of his watches and walking off.
"All right Risa let's get on, I wonder if you can see all of Brass Cape."
Caleb set the bear in one of the seats before taking a seat next to the large stuffed animal, he said something to the operator which caused the man to flinch slightly but he put on a forced smile and just nodded, he clearly made a conscious effort not to look in Caleb's direction though.
Luro hopped in one of the seats and pat the spot next to him, he grinned rocking back and forth in one of the seats.
"Risa hurry! If it's like on the Nova ship the view's going to be great!"

Pleased by the outcome, Risa followed Luro into the passenger car, wobbling a little as he rocked it back and forth. "Thank you for taking care of my bear Caleb!" She yelled out before finally sitting next to Luro. "I, uh, well. There's nothing like the Nova ship that's for sure. It still amazes me every time I get to board." Risa held onto the bar in front of them as the ferris wheel begin to move. It looked as if she wanted to say something else, before eventually giving up and looking out to enjoy the view. She wasn't actually sure what to say that Luro didn't already know. Brass Cape was always bustling with new ideas and new inventions so there was never really a dull moment. Even her getting kidnapped was 'new'. Risa could have pointed out that if they were high enough, they could probably see where the other airship was being built. Instead, she looked towards the ocean as they got higher and higher. "Do you think the Stardusk will end up getting- preferably not stealing- an airship one day? Or at least, getting one of those man o' war ships that I've seen come and go from here?"

Luro laughed as they got higher and higher staring out over the city, his eyes seeming to twinkle as much as the numerous lights below them. His eyes moved all around the city before eventually settling on the ocean and the Lady Luck in the distance. He gave a small nod at Risa's comment of the Nova's ship, it was amazing being on board of it. It was a finely made craft, he could tell the care put into each section, for being so large the maintenance on it was amazing.
He was pulled from his thoughts when Risa spoke to him, her question caused him to tilt his head slightly, his gaze moving back over to her. He stared at her the smile fading from his face for a moment, though a small one found its way back onto it not too long after.
Luro leaned back and pulling his legs up stood up in the seat, reaching back he clicked something on his rifle causing it to hum slightly.
"Try not to struggle too much," Luro said.
Leaning down he grabbed Risa and quickly pulled her up out of her seat, moving his hands under her he scooped her up into his arms before placing his foot on the edge of the seat and leaping off the Ferris Wheel.
Caleb looked up along with the other passengers as Luro fell with Risa towards one of the roofs a wide grin on his face, the two plummeted towards the ground and Luro turning his body laughed as a burst of blue mist came from his gun softening the fall slightly before he landed on the ground placing one knee down as they touched the roof.
"We're not done yet!"
Luro ran forward his gun humming again jumping from rooftop to rooftop moving towards the ocean, he laughed as he leapt keeping a firm hold on Risa as they moved between building. Luro leapt off one roof a second burst coming from his gun propelling the two forward over a large gap, Luro jumped again as one last burst came sending the two flying forward at even greater speeds flying over the remaining buildings and towards the ship. Luro put his feet down sliding onto the deck of the Lady Luck. With a laugh Luro set Risa down and looked back at his gun, steam burst out of the L.A.S.S. filling the area with heat and smoke as Luro grinned and sat on the edge of the ship.
"I want you to take a look at the ship Risa. I felt that was too far away to really take in the Lady," Luro said grinning at Risa.

The response he gave wasn't one she was expecting. Sure Luro was odd in a manner of ways, but that wasn't something she expected. Nor did she expect to be scooped up like a doll. "L-Luro!?" Before she could process what was going on, they were suddenly leaping out of the ferris wheel. She screamed in panic, at first hiding her face in Luro's clothes. The man was insane! This had to be craziest thing he had done!
And then something hit her. Just before they landed, Risa realized, Luro's reckless jumping and using his generator… it somewhat felt like flying. Grant it, it was more like when she first built her wings, constantly crashing but it was still pretty fun. Her yells turned into cheers and she readily pulled her goggles onto her face. By the time the two landed on the ship, Risa was laughing along with him only to start pacing back and forth in front of him. "Why on earth- How in the world do you come up with such crazy ideas!?" Realizing she was still 'high' off of adrenaline, she stopped, cleared her throat and looked around.
"Your ship?" Risa began to walk around, examining the detail. With her dad and brother constantly patching up boats that floated to harbor, and with Caleb being a shipwright too, she knew at least a little about the craft. However she never had the practice to be good at it. "Well, yes, it's a nice ship. But, why bring me here? My carpentry skill isn't as great as my inventing knowledge. Unless it was just for a tour."

"Hm what crazy ideas?" Luro said tilting his head at Risa.
The same smile rested on his face, nothing in what happened in the last few moments seemed crazy to him. That wasn't important at the moment though, it was the fact Risa enjoyed herself. At the end of it all it was hard not to enjoy an invention working exactly as intended. One wrong move and they probably would have gone through a building or plummeted to their deaths, but that's what made it all the more interesting. At Risa's comment on the ship Luro chuckled and stood up before motioning to the ship.
"Nah I'm just answering your question," Luro said. "I just wanted you to take a good look at it. Cause next time you see this ship Risa, it'll be flying."
A wide grin formed on Luro's face at this and popping the L.A.S.S. out of his gun he let it rest in his hand.
"I made a promise, and I intend on keeping it. I couldn't keep it with the Coral, but I'll make sure that the Lady joins the Minnow in the air. I owe the Captain that, not only as her Carpenter but as a Stardusk."
Luro put the device back into his rifle and walked over to Risa digging into his sleeve. Pulling out something he held the repaired mechanical rose back out the Risa.
"I have a long way to go before we're anywhere near the Minnow…but I'll make an airship. When I do you'll have to take a ride on it, knowing you guys are out there, making new things, coming up with all kinds of new ideas, knowing I got someone who loves this stuff as much as I do gives me hope and makes me want to try even harder so I can put smiles on your guy's face like you did for me. You showed me people can fly, even if only for a second. So I'm going to pay you back for that."

Risa was quiet as he explained himself. Seeing her rose, the one he had given to her before, nicely repaired made her blush, but she happily and carefully took it from him. After he finished, Risa lifted her goggles back onto her head and held her free hand out to him. "Alright Luro. A promise is a promise, yeah? So the next time we meet, Lady Luck will be flying just as well as the Minnow." She looked down at her flower and smiled. "And when you do, you better come straight to Brass Cape. But don't think you'll be the only one showing off cool things. When you see me again, I'll be the best inventor in Brass Cape!"

Risa watched him put the generator away. "But I'll make sure I hit the front pages before then. Who knows, maybe I'll have enough generators to keep this whole city afloat- or maybe even something like, I don't know, wind energy." She paused for a brief moment. "Hm, not a bad idea actually. I should write that down… Anyway!" She was going to get carried away thinking about new inventions and ideas, missing what Luro said. "Aw, Luro. You don't have to- well," she realized of course he didn't have to. And he never listened anyway. So, instead she laughed softly. "People can fly much longer than that, now. I still owe you a look at my new wings. They work much better than they did before. But that shouldn't take too long, you can just stop by before you leave. Well, you- uh, the Stardusk- will comeback to say goodbye, right?"

Luro smiled and grabbed Risa's hand when she held it out. He expected a lot from Risa, he had faith she'd come up with even more amazing things, he had to make sure he brought something cool too. Seeing the ideas already coming forward he chuckled a bit before releasing her hand and pounding his chest, he wasn't going to let Risa down.
"I'll fly back soon as I can, you'll see the wonder you showed me that day Risa," Luro said with a firm nod.
Though as she brought up other people flying Luro crossed his arms over his chest.
"I suppose, Caleb can make ships fly, but I like the way you fly Risa," Luro said before grinning at her. "Yeah! We'll come see you before we leave. I really want to see them. I should probably make sure everything's okay on the ship though since we will be setting off soon."
"I'll escort her back."
Luro turned at the familiar voice to see Caleb sitting on the mast of the ship with Risa's bear, he stood up and hopped onto the deck.
"I was heading back that way anyway."
Caleb handed Risa's bear back to her and tapped one of his watches, he looked back at Luro giving a small nod before turning and walking away. He gave Risa a small look, one that basically meant 'we have to talk' look before he leaped off the side of the ship.

"Oh, right of course. I should-" She turned when she heard Caleb's voice. When she realized she had almost forgotten about their 'plus one', she blushed faintly. "Oh." She watched him hop off the ship before walking to the edge. "Bye Luro! Don't forget to get the rest of your stuff tomorrow!" Risa tossed the bear into the air so she could jump down and catch it when she landed. When the bear landed in her arms, she gave a sheepish smile towards Caleb and followed him back to the Passano shop. "I didn't expect to be… whisked away so suddenly and leave you at the carnival. But the break has been nice. I'm usually in the shop most of the day. It's a nice change of pace."

"It is quite fine, I got all the information I needed," Caleb said glancing over at Risa. "Stagnation is the enemy to all inventors. Doing something different can stimulate the mind and creative juices."
Caleb focused his attention forward before he crossed his arms over his chest.
"Three months…if that."
He said this before glancing back at the ship seeing Luro walking around the ship, taking notes and tapping one of the masts with his fists.
"He'll have that ship in the air," Caleb said. "From our talk, he already has plans for a large version of the L.A.S.S. for the ship. He's just missing a few fundamental parts, which I'm sure he'll figure out in no time."
Caleb turned forward again, though his expression was the same as always there was something about his eyes as he looked ahead at the Passano shop. It was probably the closest thing to excitement that he had shown in some time. His mouth curved up slightly and he shoved a hand in his pocket as he looked over at Risa.
"We have a lot of work to do, can't fall behind."

 

[SilentxChaos]

Collab bet'w. Capt., Winter, Eastwood, Mizos and Silent​

Location: Brass Cape, Upgrading the Newbies

"You were right, boss." Sara rubbed her eyes, trying to process the sudden change in surroundings. "That was very weird, and very unpleasant. Let us never go to that place again." She frowned at Seliria's upfront rudeness and unearned arrogant nature, but restrained herself from saying anything. At the news of a tattoo, Sara turned, somewhat expecting this.

"Yeah, I'll take the tattoo." She said, as she rolled up the sleeves on her left arm, revealing some faded ink, words written in Tilean in an official-looking script.

Alicia groaned at the mention of her former namesake, exhaling as she deflated for a moment. "I wish people would call me neither, I have a name... it's a good name, people should use it" she grumbled before perking a brow at the mention of tattoos, a tradition among outsiders that went against her culture quite directly. "I suppose I'll come along, it's not like I have anything else to do and besides seeing Sara pale at the sight of a needle might cheer me up" she smirked with slight amusement. She'd chosen to ignore Seilria's rudeness and her comments about them as a crew, her opinion only carried as much weight as Alicia decided and she simply decided not to give it much weight at all.

Zilia moved closer to the others before pulling out her notebook, she wasn't going to get a tattoo especially one in 'Luro' style but the least she could do was get an accessory similar to Kadi or Alicia. Her gaze moved over to Sara as she showed her left arm, her brow arching before she started writing only to stop hearing Alicia. She offered a sympathetic look to the swordswoman knowing the feeling, she wasn't exactly please to be the Ashen Philosopher, but she also didn't have to deal with a cult.

"I'll figure out what kind of accessory to use with mine," Zilia said pulling her hood up.

She handed another note to Sara before looking back in the direction Seliria had gone, she wanted to speak to the woman again before they fully left the island…she'd probably ask the Captain to accompany her so she wouldn't have to leave.

"Miss Sara what are those faded letters?"

"Aye," Jack said to Runali's quip about not returning to the Alley. He pinched his nose, feeling dizzy and disgruntled from the sudden shift. He was quite fed up with this whole adventure, he started nodding too eagerly to Zilia's sentiments.

"A...tattoo?" Jack stuttered as their captain whisked them out the door. Like a switch being flipped, Jack stiffened and paled. A crew emblem? Now? It took him several moments to find his voice.

"Er, captain...no offense but, isn't it a bit early for us to being made official? It's only been a few months after all," he said as he twisted the cigarillo in quick little circles.

"Oh joy, alright let's not waste any more time. And also wait too long because if we do I'll forget where the shop is." Runali clasped her hands together, leading the way only to pause and fall into a slower step next to Jack. "Too early? Nonsense Jack, this is the best time to get a tattoo. In fact, the moment you joined as a Stardusk you should have gotten one!" She had a hop to her step as she continued on. "Not that you're not already official. You three proved that a while ago already." Her hands went behind her back and she smiled. "You guys have been Stardusks for only a few months but your loyalty," She paused and grinned at all of them, "And your friendship, have run deep. I'd trust you three with my life, just as I do the others." Runali turned back to leading the way and with a laugh she added. "I wouldn't be so eager for you to get them if I thought you'd stab me in the back."

Sara laughed at Alicia's comment. "You stabbed me, do you really think something as tiny as a needle compares to that? Sure the needle hurts a little bit, but the pain I will feel pales when compared to knowing that there is a worse title than the 'Maiden of Misery'. And if I didn't know better, I could swear that you derive some pleasure from my pain." At Zillie's question, she turned and, finger pointing out each word, read off her tattoo. "Property of Harbor Island Coliseum, Free Woman. And you don't have to call me Miss, Zillie."

Jack opened his mouth but found no counterargument against Runali. She was right; he had gotten crew emblems before, with crews he had liked a lot less, and knew little of. She couldn't know that, of course, but it instilled a sense of guilt all the same. Flicking away the burnt out cigarillo, he rubbed his shoulder. Then, slowly, his hand moved below his right elbow, fingertips making methodical circles on his sleeve.

Do I even want it? He asked himself.

Glancing up, he watched Sara poke fun at Alicia. He hid a hint of smile, looking back at the captain.

He listened to the gladiator answer Zilia and grimaced. Stamped as property but free. Jack sympathized with her-- or, more accurately, what her tattoo meant. Experience taught him the laws of pirates can shackle members of a crew as much as a government's hold over their people, free or not. It's what attracted him to Stardusk in the first place-- Runali Lev's laidback, carefree approach allowed her crew to do as they pleased, so long as they didn't jeopardize the group as a whole. Jack knew he was free to leave… or say no, if he was asked to do something he didn't want to. But how long would that last? Did he want another brand, another shackle? Or worse, a mark of pride that could be stripped away?

Jack's hand closed over his arm and he fell towards the back of the group, lost in thought.

Zilia glanced at Jack at his comment, a part of her understood where he was coming from. She had longer commitments with some of her patients than Stardusk. However since they had joined they had met the Captain's family, were almost killed together by bounty hunters, and had gone to a place considered a myth together. Those were just things that immediately came to mind, matters seemed to move much faster with Stardusk, not that she knew how pirate tattoo's and loyalty worked.

The Captain's unwavering faith was…painful sometimes but it was comforting in a weird way.
It made it a tad hard to actually decline the idea but Jack seemed extra bothered by it though. Looking at him now you wouldn't think this was the same man who asked to join back on Tilea. Tattoo's carried a lot of weight here, Luro wore his tattoo with pride but he had apparently been with other crew's before, was there some weird formality behind it?
Zilia pulled down on her hood slightly at the Captain's belie in them, being trusted this much was a little stressful, but she couldn't deny it didn't feel nice. It was probably due to that there wasn't the smallest inkling to betray her.

She released her hood and looked over at Sara as she explained what her tattoo meant; she gave a small nod understanding the significance of it. The fade in it proved she had been free for some time; she must have earned it some time ago. It was definitely impressive; she found herself staring at the words for a bit too long and with a small shake of her head took out her notebook realizing she had been spoken to.
"I see…there's more of a history to it than I expected. It must mean a lot to you Mi-"
Zilia stopped writing for a moment only to scratch out the word and rewriting held it out to Sara.
"Sara…it must mean a lot to you."
She had watched many slaves and free gladiators fight in the arena, taking a moment to think about it, her tattoo did bring back memories, but she put them aside, most of them were of the dead.
Her gaze fell back to Jack as he moved away from the group, she wanted to offer words of encouragement, something to take his mind off whatever was bothering him, but this was something she didn't understand and pretending she knew what he was feeling would hurt more than help, so she turned her attention forward again.

Runali raised a curious brow over at Jack, but catching a glimpse of his expression, she figured it was best for him to think it through. Sometimes, people just needed time to think. Although time was relatively short considering the tattoo parlor wasn't too far away. "See? I knew I remembered where it was." Her boasting was mainly to herself as she stood in front of the door. Before opening it, she turned on her heel with a rather calm expression compared to her much more giddier one before. "Final Brass Cape chance to hop on board, or bail out? Like I said, you don't gotta make it a permanent mark," She gestured to Alicia as an example. "But you have to at least wear it somewhere." The captain couldn't help but laugh. "I'm pretty sure Sel will judge us even more with that frown if you don't… but we can worry about that later. Anyway,"

Runali pushed the door open with her foot. "It'll be courtesy of your captain!"

A grizzled old man with tattoos covering what was visible of his arms and legs had been sitting on a stool, reading a book only to frown when the door was kicked open. "Unless you're gonna pay for that too I advise you to watch it!" He huffed and stood when Runali put an apologetic hand up. His interest was more in the book than the potential customers, but he sat it down anyway and leaned against the counter. "What're you folks lookin' to get?"

"Who cares what that stuck-up bitch thinks? We're Stardusk, we'll overtake them in no time!" Sara wasn't particularly fond of Seleri, or what she thought constitutes a 'good' pirate should be. In response to Zillia, she tilted her head somewhat confused.

"Not really, when everyone else you know had pretty much the exact same tattoo, it kind of lost its meaning. It felt like part of the system more than anything else. Although, it makes registering to vote easier, this marking is pretty much valid identification for citizenship."

Jack hesitated at the parlor doorway, pausing at its threshold while the others filed in. A pile of memories surfaced of each time he entered a similar shop to get another tattoo, or continuation, or a retouch. A giddy nervousness pulled him each time in a spur of excitement and pleasure. He had loved his tattoos, each resembling a moment in his life, or something he simply enjoyed.

His gut fluttered with longing. Suddenly, Jack stepped forward and belined for the one person who could answer his dilemma.

"Captain, can I borrow you for a moment?" Jack abruptly intervened. Not waiting for a response, Jack grabbed her arm, flashing a quick apologetic smile at the tattoo parlorist before pulling her aside. He guided them to the doorway, but didn't leave. He stuck close to it and looked out at Brass Cape's busy streets with confliction. Rubbing his mouth, Jack took a long moment of silence before releasing a heavy sigh and reluctantly turning back to Runali.

"Captain, I… don't know if this is a good idea."

"We're branding- uh you guys go ahead!?" Runali was just about to show her own tattoo to the man, only to be pulled back to the door. Her brow furrowed towards Jack and she stared at him for a moment. She tried to read his expression before debating what to say, but she honestly couldn't tell what was so wrong.

"Y'know, with as many tattoos as you have I didn't peg you as the nervous about needles type." She raised a brow before closing her eyes and sighing. "Although I'm also guessing that's not what you're so nervous about, hm? So," She looked at him again, genuinely curious. "What's such a bad idea about showing off your Stardusk pride?"

"It's not--" Jack stopped. "It's not quite that." Sighing, he folded his arms and leaned against the wall. "I've mentioned I've sailed with crews right? Of course, how else would you know about my tattoos. My last crew- the ones who left me on Harbor Island- they, we, didn't leave on good terms. Far from it in fact."

"Captain, Runali, I haven't kept my...distrust, as hidden as I should. It doesn't stem from just paranoia." Standing straight, Jack lifted up an arm to undo the cuffed sleeves of his shirt. He started rolling up the sleeve as he asked Runali, "Tell me, what do you know of the code surrounding pirate crew emblems?"

"Right, yes of course." She tapped her cheek in thought. "Well, I dunno how to prove that I won't be like your last captain… Which doesn't help now, does it?" She nodded to herself. "Aye, this is a dilemma." Towards his question, she looked over at him. "Oh, d'you mean the whole live by the symbol, die by the symbol, thing? S'a little… straightforward there, yeah, but I don't expect you guys to like, die on me. No need to be so brash, Jackie. Your life's still your own. You just get a neat symbol to say you… made some friends." She couldn't help but laugh at the childish comparison, but she hoped it would ease his mind at least a little.

He smiled. "Yes, well, I do consider you friends."

Jack took a deep breath, then yanked up his sleeve before he could change his mind. The tattoo was about the length of Runali's hand, stretching from below the space of his elbow and half way down his arm. Curiously, his eyes swept over it only briefly, before they wandered away filled with loathing and contempt. The tattoo itself was unimpressive to look at, except, perhaps, the quality of the ink. It was nothing more than a black blob, near oval in shape with small curves protruding along the edges. The ink was sleek and total; unfaded, and so obsolete in its hue it was like staring at a black hole in Jack's arm. Only the outline suggested, at one time, it had been more.

Jack explained. "This used to be my Borealis mark-- under Hoshi North. A compass rose centered in a pink lotus blossom. It looked like a watercolor painting," a small smile softened his face as he talked about it. It was clear he cared about it, and had once showed it off with pride. His eyes flashed back to his arm and pain flashed across his face. He swallowed then yanked his sleeve down, unable to look at it longer.

"My-- my last crew, took it away. I have five others just like it. They were pieces of who I was, not just the crews I was once belong to… some were personal." Jack looked back out at the streets, his fingers subconsciously returning to the ruined tattoo on his arm. "I'm not worried about dying for you, Captain. Or the crew. It's just...you don't know the crews I've been with. I'm afraid, getting ink again...will lead me to losing one more thing."

An odd red tint touched his cheeks and Jack huffed, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment. "It sounds childish when I say it out loud."

Runali, with her only eye, examined the detail of the tattoo- or the lack thereof until Jack hid it again. "Hmm." There was a thoughtful look on her face as he explained the situation. For a moment, it fell silent and Runali looked out at the busy streets, only for her to laugh lightly and tap his forehead. "The sentiment is appreciated but, c'mon Jack. I'd honestly love to see anyone try." There was an undertone of a threat in her voice, but whether or not it was intentional was hard to tell. But, it passed and Runali was smiling again. "Besides, Jackie, they can't take it away if you don't even have it. So?" She gestured towards the door. "If you're worried about a fight, at least give 'em reason to fight."

Sara made a valid point about her tattoo, and Zilia quickly realized she gave it more meaning than it really had. She mentally sighed a bit at her own lack of understanding, even with how long she stayed in Tilea there were bits of culture that still escaped her. At the comment of Seliria Zilia averted her gaze and opened her notebook, she didn't want to lose her focus at the moment, especially not knowing how she wanted to show the Stardusk insignia. She considered asking Alicia or Kadi for advice since she was getting one in their style but decided to just speak with the Captain about it. She turned to Sara first however and handed her a note.
"Hmm well this symbol will have a bit more meaning I suppose, only a few of us will carry it after all. I want to check something with the Captain so I'll catch up."
After handing Sara the note Zilia started to approach the Captain only to stop seeing Jack had pulled her aside. She picked up bits and pieces of their conversation before she had a chance to realize the intended privacy.

Taking a moment to watch the two Zilia opened her notebook and started flipping through the pages quickly scribbling something down, she felt bad listening in on their conversation but at the very least she could offer some support, especially since she could understand his worry. Walking over to him Zilia held a note out to him; her eyebrows lowered slightly a serious expression replacing her normal one.
"It's not childish. Those feelings towards a symbol matters just as much as the symbol itself. Even removed you still have it in your mind and the significance of it. It takes more than a little 'cover up' to sever bonds that strong. So don't worry so much about it, and if you forget what it looks like for whatever reason I'll show you mine."

Jack gazed at both of them. He took a long moment, considering his words. He'd spent so much time running from his past, being afraid of it, that he never considered if it was time to stop. To fight back...if that fight should even come. A distant shadow loomed over his shoulder yet anymore, it was getting smaller and smaller on the horizon. Maybe it was time to take up a new mantel again. Commit, and start fresh.

A small smile crept over his features. Suddenly, he turned and looped both of them into a hug. "Thank you. Both of you." He stepped back, made a bow, before addressing Zilia. "And while I appreciate your offer, doctor, I will never forget what this black ink used to be."

Taking a deep breath, Jack gave a curt nodded. "Captain Lev? Yours will be the last crew I'll ever join. I'll be sure to make this one count," Jack declared and as he did, his casual half-grin crossed his face as he turned and entered the parlor before his mind could change again.

"Uh, I'd hope so?" Runali tilted her head a bit as he walked back into the tattoo parlour. "What on earth makes him think he'd even need to?" She shook her head and followed him back inside.

Zilia smiled and pat Jack's hand in response before turning and head back into the shop, if he was content now than that was enough for her. It was part of her job to watch over everyone, physically and mentally, but this had stopped being 'work' a long time ago, now it was just habit.

It was because of that Zilia was positive she wanted to bear the symbol, that and she had spent this long trying to find Stardusk, Runali was even letting her achieve her goal with the Chronicle, this was the least she could do.

"Did you guys get tattoos yet?"

"Yup!" Sara rolled up her sleeve to reveal black ink ontop of reddened skin. She didn't get a tattoo of just one star, but seven all connected through a thin ribbon, all around her faded official stamp. It made her arm look a lot brighter, compared to the notary drab that it was before.

Pausing to gaze at it, Jack grinned. "An excellent choice, if I do say so myself."

Jack then approached a second artist and laid out what he desired. The artist nodded before her eyes grew slightly wide and she raised an eyebrow. "You sure you want that? It's gonna hurt. A lot."

The cook nodded.

She shrugged. "Alrighty it's your neck. You'll need to take all that off."

Jack flinched. "Couldn't I just, pull the collar down some?"

Tipping her glasses down, she appraised the cook with a critical sweep of her green eyes. She snorted and shook her head. "Not if you don't want ink on that pretty blazer." She turned around and disappeared to the back of the shop, presumably to prepare for Jack's session.

Sighing, the cook started unbuttoning his blazer and shirt. As he did he looked at Zilia and raised an eyebrow. "By the way… what, pray tell, did you mean regarding your own tattoos?"

At the Captain's question Zilia pulled out a notebook from her pocket, unlike the one she normally wrote in it looked significantly older. It also looked different from her original one as well, with a strange almost plant like design on the front and back of it. Zilia turned the notebook over and showed the back of it, the original Stardusk symbol with the star and cloth was on the back of it, sealed onto the book. She put the notebook away holding a note out to the Captain.

"I haven't put anything on or in that notebook for over a decade Captain, it means a lot to me. Hopefully it's satisfactory our symbol is on it, for particular reasons I can't get a tattoo at the moment."

Zilia put the old notebook away and looked over at Sara's new tattoo, with a small smile she gave a nod and held a note out to Sara.

"It looks very nice Sara. Is there a reason you put it around your other tattoo?"

While waiting for Sara's answer Zilia glanced over at Jack as he addressed her, she was silent for a moment and rubbed her right arm, flexing her hand a few times. She handed him a note before holding the old journal towards him.

"…I think every now and then it just helps to have a reminder. I'll leave it at that."

Jack blinked, and smirked. "I understand." For someone who kept a lot of secrets, Jack would never encroach on those of the people he respected, and called friends. The artist poked her head out again and called Jack to the back. He reached out and patted Zilia's shoulder, then followed her out.

When he got to the back, he took off his shirt, folding and placing them neatly on an empty space on the countertop. The artist glanced, then did a double take when she noticed his back. She clicked her tongue. "That's an...interesting choice."

"It wasn't by choice," Jack said shortly. He asked if she mind him smoking, and she waved assent. Jack rolled a cigarillo before turning to the chair.

"Don't tell me it's a pirate emblem? We gets a lot of you but that's… that's just ugly. And lazy."

Sitting down, Jack wrapped up his dreads so they weren't in her way, smirking slightly. "Nah. It used to be, crew marks were things of art. Strict laws and meanings go into each one, and for one to be altered or removed was...a message."

"Oh?" the artist sat down, only half paying attention to what he said as she started working. "And does this...black hole of yours gots any meaning to it?"

Jack grimaced as the sharp pain of the needle poked at his neck. "I imagine it does," he replied slowly, so as to mess her up, "But most have forgotten it by now." He puffed on the cigarillo and blew it long, keeping his neck muscles relaxed, and watched it curl at the ceiling. "Not even my captain knows it, apparently."

Runali readily and eagerly examined the new tattoos everyone got. Towards Sara, she carefully examined her arm, counting each star and then grinning. "It suits you. I think it looks nice. But," She couldn't help but chuckle. "Are the seven stars foooor, each of the crew? Aw, and here I thought you didn't care about us!" She would have continued to tease, had Zilia not gotten her attention.

Seeing Zilia's notebook, she nodded. "I like it. It's a very… Zil style." In her most dramatic voice, she added. "I'm honored you would put it on such a valuable possession." And just as excited as she was about their new emblems, she was just as excited to see Jack's as well. "These are so cool!"

"What? No." Sara laughed with the slightest sarcastic edge. "Seven stars and seven crew members was just a coincidence."

 

[Capt. Blu]

Location: Nova Ship - Before Brass Cape

Seliria stared down at Zilia as she laid face first on the ground a few feet from her, she watched her body tremble before crossing her arms over her chest. Zilia's hand twitched and she slowly pulled her arm up placing her hand firmly on the ground. Zilia slowly climbed to her feet her breathing heavy as she placed one hand on the ground and brought her leg up to rest on one knee. Saying her body felt heavy was an understatement, she was surprised at herself that she was even able to move right now. She raised her head to look at Seliria who had shifted her body back, she was still a few feet away, her legs shoulder length apart and her body in some kind of stance, unlike Zilia whose clothes were dirty, ripped in a few places and generally disheveled, Seliria looked almost untouched minus a few places where her clothes had clearly been pulled. Judging by the looks on the two faces some manner of altercation had occurred and as Zilia climbed fully back to her feet Seliria lowered her body slightly her eyes narrowing as Zilia raised her hands back up.

Seliria started to approach Zilia but stopped and held a hand up to stop Zilia from moving.

"Wait…we got company."

There was an exasperated sound the moment Seliria mentioned company, followed by Runali recklessly twirling one of the ring blades on her arms. The other was secured on her hip. Robin showed her how, fortunately. "I swear this place is a maze! Hmmm, did that guy say two lefts then a right… There was something about a sign." Runali mumbled to herself, obviously lost and apparently worse at directions than she thought. But, to be fair, when hallways looked the same it was hard to tell.

With a hum, she decided to just give up and wander-

And apparently that led her to wander right into Seliria and Zilia… fighting? Runali stopped twirling the blade around her arm and placed it back on her hip alongside the other. She eyed the two of them, mostly Zil, as if assessing the damage before leaning against the doorway. With a curious brow and a greeting salute, she spoke up, "Alright, I'm... bored enough and nosy enough. Humor me?"

Zilia looked over at Seliria at the Captain's appearance pointing at her, Seliria stared at the other woman for a moment before sighing and slowly shaking her head.

"Don't worry I won't say anything," Seliria said. "However this is a good opportunity."

Seliria made a motion with her hand for Runali to come closer before turning and walking to the other side of the room, the area the two had been in was a large open room within the ship, a little bit longer than the Lady Luck's upper deck, aside from a few tables and chairs which had been set to the side the room was empty, surrounded by dull blue paint, save the floor which was wooden. Seliria grabbing the square table set it up in the center of the room before placing the chairs around it and motioning to them.

"Since you're bored and your friend here asked me to you can learn something," Seliria said before walking over to the door.

She closed it and promptly locked it which was a silent way of saying the lesson was mandatory.

"I'll point you in the direction you need to go afterwards," Seliria said. "Since you guys are going to be playing with the big dogs now it's probably good to test your knowledge anyway."

Seliria turned and walking back over to the table sat at the head of it as Zilia took a seat on one of the sides, crossing her arms Seliria looked at one than the other.

"How much do you know about Haki?"

Runali didn't seem phased by the fact that her question went unanswered. It was a common occurrence, so she figured she'd pry when she needed to. And a time like now? She didn't think she needed to. However when she was gestured in to take a seat, her nose scrunched up. Her goal was to find the 'weapons expert' and bother him and frankly, that sounded better than sitting and learning.

But, what could she do. If Zil wanted to learn and Seliria wanted to teach, she might as well listen. It was only polite after all. And of course, being locked in prompted the captain to sit down. Runali leaned against the table and raised a curious brow towards the question asked. She raised one hand, turning it palm up and palm down, watching the haki slowly form and disappear on her arm.

"I know… uh, enough to use it, really. My lessons in that were… cut shorter than intended, so most of it is self taught." She wondered about her mentor, something she didn't find herself doing often anymore, thinking about how many lessons she must have missed when they disappeared. But the past was the past and with all things considered, Runali thought things were going fairly well up till now.

Seliria looked at Runali at her answer giving a small nod, she glanced over at Zilia who shook her head but that was to be expected, she had approached her over that fact in the first place. Seliria reached up and squeezed the bridge of her nose, so one had basic experience and the other had basically none.

"How you all have survived this long is astonishing," Seliria said lowering her hand. "Listen you're going to be dealing with people that are far more powerful and use Haki like its second nature. You're not going to last five seconds without knowing what you're dealing with and being able to adapt to it. Since only two of you can use Haki the rest of you are in terrible shape, and two of you are in bad shape."

Seliria stood up from her seat and started to pace around the table, she brought a hand to her chin her eyes moving to the two in the chairs before speaking.

"Let's go over everything, Captain and Zil, it's up to you to tell your crew about this. I'd rather leave this to Caleb but letting you die wouldn't be right. I'd like you to knock the Red Pirates down a peg, need you alive for that. Killing them would be nice…but embarrassing them by having their precious spot taken, that's even better, Carabis' pride would be damaged losing to you lot. How do you feel about that Captain Lev, if you beat the Red Pirates I make even take you all a little more seriously."

Seliria's exasperation made Runali give a cheeky smile. "We're just lucky I guess?" Her head rested on her hand and she chuckled a little at the idea of her crew being in 'terrible' shape. Sure, she was more interested in this learning experience but she couldn't help but think Seliria was being a tad bit dramatic. "Have a little faith Sel. But don't worry, we'll learn what we can from you. I'm sure you're a great teacher." She seemed genuine about the compliment as she watched the cook pace back and forth.

The moment the Red Pirates were mentioned, Runali's mood shifted almost instantly. "Guuuhhh…." The captain's head went into her hands and she groaned in dramatic despair. "Don't remind me about Carabis…" She had a nice long few months not remembering the new revelation about the Red Pirates' Captain, and now Seliria was bringing them up again. Though, now that she was in the Worst Gen she assumed they'd be hearing that name a lot. So there was no running from it.

When asked how she felt about it, she slammed her hands on the table. "Of course I'm going to beat the Reds! There's no question about it!" For a moment, there was an aura of determination surrounding her only for it to disappear and for her to deflate back into her seat. "But I'm not allowed to kill him…" Runali's one eye rolled and she huffed. "It's a parlay. And a story for… another day." Not everyone needed to know they were related. The roller coaster of emotions settled and she waved a hand in front of her, as if dismissing the thought entirely. "Aye, aye. That's our next step- knocking the Reds down their pedestal."


"Don't call me Sel."

At her response to the Red Pirates Seliria was silent watching Runali's expression for a moment, the normal coldness seemed to fade for a brief moment but upon closing her eyes it seemed to return almost immediately. She leaned against the table next to Runali and crossed her arms over her chest, it was good to see she could get riled up with the right push at the very least.

"Good we have those feelings in common, now this lesson won't be a waste of time," Seliria said leaning off the table. "Okay then let's get started. Dealing with you lot would be easier than dealing with Carabis. You're not as annoying as they are."


"…but still annoying it seems," Zilia thought glancing at Seliria.

She supposed they were Second gen, they probably dealt with the Red Pirates more than they wanted, she thought Seliria was a little too willing to let Runali into their conversation, she supposed this was her end goal.

"Let's go over what Haki is first and foremost, I'll make it simple for you," Seliria said.

Zilia pulled out her notebook and put her quill to paper her eyes lowering slightly as Seliria folded her hands behind her back.


"Haki put simply is Spirit, it's not overly different from a sense. Every living creature has Haki within their body, but it tends to lie dormant and it's rare for people to summon it forth. Every member of Stardusk has Haki in their body, but only two of you can use it even though it's known among you, use that as an example. Fighting Spirit, presence, intimidation, things that you can naturally sense Haki is like these things. It's not impossible to use Haki with the right training and knowledge, it's not some exclusive power like Devil Fruit."

Zilia wrote every word down her eyes narrowing, so that meant that she could use Haki then, but she didn't know much about it much less how to use it.

"Haki can awaken for multiple reasons, there are some who are born with the abilities, but the known ones I can count on one hand so don't cling to that hope. Haki can come out through intense training or and this is very rare, extreme shock. I only know a few people who have had it come out this way. That being said Haki even if it is summoned forth isn't all powerful, it can run out and it gets stronger by fighting stronger opponents. Simply put you lot are behind a lot of people in terms of your Haki's strength, the Red's being one such. Are you following me? If so I'd like the Captain to summon her Haki out, mainly for an example for Zil. Keep it manifested as long as you can."

"Hm, okay Sel." Runali nodded, pretending she'd remember not to call her that. To be fair, Robin called her that more often than not so the name was sticking. As she started explaining what haki was, Runali closed her eyes for a brief moment, taking in what she said. A lot of it was a refresher. It was something she remembered hearing once long ago and only kept in the back of her mind. Her thoughts didn't stay there for too long because Sel asked if they were keeping up which Runali opened her eye and gave a nod. "Loud and clear." Runali sat up straight and held her arms out, showing Zilia as the familiar black color seeped down her arms and all the way to her finger tips. She opened and closed her fists before resting her arms on the table. "I can keep this up for as long as I'm concentrating. Learned that the hard way. Several times over actually. But it coulda been worse I suppose."

Runali shrugged a bit before looking over at Zilia and raising her arm towards her. "Still feels the same and it can adapt to your movements. Only difference is the color really- and ya know, being able to hit a lot harder. Or protect yourself."


Seliria squeezed the bridge of her nose blaming Robin for that blasted nickname but that was something to deal with later, Zilia seemed confused about what she was seeing. With a sigh Seliria motioned towards Runali before speaking.

"Now that I've explained Haki, let's get into the types. There are three kinds of Haki, two of which can be used by those that manage to actually summon it. Armament Haki and Observation Haki. What your Captain is doing here is called Armament Haki."

Seliria roughly pat Runali's arm with her fist as Zilia continued to take notes.

"Armament Haki is basically an invisible armor, using your spirit the user is able to create a shield around their body, there's some around my body as well. Armament is the most common Haki and more than likely the kind you'll encounter the most. If you've ever hit someone with an attack that should have downed them and they shrug it off there's a decent change they used their Haki to soften the blow."

Seliria held up her own hand and her skin suddenly turned black, almost as if the her arm had turned into metal, she flexed her fingers a few times and Zilia's eyes narrowed recognizing that color.

"If you concentrate the Haki into one area you can toughen up the area further which causes this to happen. Your Captain has probably blocked swords with her Haki like this if I'm not mistaken. Getting hit when Haki is like this would more than likely knock you out if not kill you depending on the strength of your opponent."

Seliria made a small motion with her hand calling Zilia over to her, the doctor complied and standing up made her way over to Seliria and Runali. Seliria let the Haki fade from her arm and raising her finger flicked Zilia in the forehead, a burst of wind erupted from the blow and Zilia flew backwards across the room. She managed to place her feet down but still hit the far wall fairly hard bringing a hand to her forehead.

"Armament can also be used offensively amplifying the attacks or weapons of the user. Figured it'd be easier to show the effects than explain it. Anything imbued with Haki hits substantially harder than without it. That Cook of yours imbues his weapons with it right? He could easily cut through swords if he wanted too, almost like they were butter depending on the strength of his Haki."

Zilia rubbed her forehead making her way back to the two of them not exactly pleased about what just happened, but she got the gist of it. Anything hit with Armament Haki hit harder than a normal attacks, she was sure Seliria pulled back a little too.

"Though this all sounds amazing Armament has its limits too but we'll touch on the drawback of Haki at the end. No sense explaining it if you don't get it."

Seliria brought a hand to her chin making sure she wasn't forgetting anything.

"Oh right Armament is the only Haki that can directly hurt a Devil Fruit User, the fun ones who can do stuff with their bodies. That friend of yours Ray used Ice right? If he got hit with Armament it would 'solidify' his body basically evening the playing field, as such it's handy for dealing with Logia type users. I can confirm from experience it works."

Seliria motioned to Runali.

"There are all kinds of ways to use Haki, I don't do that thing your Captain does as you see but we're both using the same kind. The use of it varies and you can even imbue bullets and other such things with Haki, Armament is very versatile. Any questions or concerns you two?"


Runali was quiet throughout the entire explanation, nodding and agreeing when Seliria mentioned her blocking sword attacks. When Zil was knocked across the room, she flinched a bit, knowing that it probably hurt. But Zil had also been tossed around a few times earlier- so it looked like- and she got up just fine. She was a tough doctor, she could handle it.

"Huh." Runali started when Seliria mentioned it being effective against people like Ray. "I always thought the one time I hit him with armament, it was an accident. Good to know." At the opportunity to question, Runali raised her hand. Then she paused and let the armament disappear and raised it again. "Say, is it possible to have, uh, more than one haki at a time?"

Zilia looked over at Runali offering a small nod at her question, she had the same inquiry. She did say there were three known types so she was curious of the possibility. Seliria hearing this question arched a brow at the Stardusk Captain before a small 'hmph' escaped from her before she walked over to the far wall.

"That's actually a good question, I didn't expect that from you," Seliria said. "Yes it is possible to use all three Haki, though only two can be acquired by training. The last one you have to be born with."

Seliria opened the wall and took a pistol out of it before walking back over to the table, loading a single bullet into the gun.

"This is a good time to talk about the second type of Haki, the other one that can be trained and used. Observation Haki."

Seliria tossed the gun to Runali and stood directly in front of her, after a moment she closed her eyes and turned her back to her, Zilia tilted her head taking out her notebook before Seliria spoke.

"Runali, I want you to put that gun against the back of my head and pull the trigger," Seliria said.

Zilia nearly dropped her quill at Seliria's words but the cook made a motion with her hand to indicate it was fine.

"Just do it, I may as well show you before explaining it. Don't tell me when you're going to fire it, just pick a moment. Make sure it's directly against my head before you do. Trust me it'll make sense in a moment."

"Well don't get your hopes up Sel, the questions just started." Runali gave a cheeky grin only to raise her brow when she was given a gun. "Oh Sel, glad I can fool you and probably like… most of the people I know, but," She held the gun up, "between you and me my-" Runali paused and glanced over at Zilia, pausing for a brief moment. "Hm… Nevermind. Let's just see how this goes."

Runali raised the gun, doing as instructed and pressing it directly against Seliria's head. 'Man I'm gonna have two angry captains at my throat if this doesn't go well.' Without a second thought, that would more than likely be doubt, Runali pulled the trigger. She recoiled a bit, not used to firing guns and definitely not used to being so closed to a target with them. Catching her own footing, Runali watched to see if Seliria did know what she was doing.

A small smoking hole had formed in the wooden wall directly in front of Seliria, her head slightly leaned to the side as her eyes remained shut. Turning to the two she opened her eyes and took the gun back slightly bopping Runali on the head for the 'Sel' ignoring the dropped jaw of Zilia whose hands trembled holding onto her notebook. She turned and placed the gun back onto the small shelf before folding it back into the wall.

"Observation Haki…acts as a sort of extra sense though that's putting it lightly," Seliria said.

"It does just as its name says. Let's you observe, it allows you to sense the presence of others, feel their emotions and if trained enough allows you to read another movements, such as their attacks. Generally the more angry they are the easier it is to read their attacks, especially if they want to kill you, but if trained hard enough you can read them even if they're calm. I saw the attack with my Haki, knew what it would do to me, and moved out of the way, it's like a premonition. Also as you can see, I'm able to use both types of Haki showing it is possible to wield multiple types of Haki."

Seliria said this offering a small nod to the two, Seliria eyed the two for a moment and motioned to the two of them.

"You can also see how powerful a person is this way. When I tell you lot that you're weak it's not a baseless assumption, I can quite literally see how strong you are with my Haki. Though you are stronger than the average pirates so congratulations for that."

Seliria walked back over to the table and sat on the edge of it, Zilia continued to take notes her eyes narrowing a bit, it seemed having this Haki trained allowed you to not only read your opponent but sense all manners of things about them.

"If mastered you can even see the presence of others even if they're out of sight. Though even I'm not at that level. Caleb tells me that it's like seeing a silhouette of a person, so keep in mind that Caleb knows where you all are no matter where you are, thanks to his skill with Observation. Though it doesn't have any physical enhancements training this skill can give you a big advantage over your opponents. Any questions?"

Runali looked on at the damage done and then listened to Seliria explain the phenomenon. She even accepted the soft hit before sliding back into her chair and glancing at Zilia. "Well, guess I we don't have to jump ship for killing the cook." She chuckled a little before nodding at Seliria. "I suppose her insults are warranted then, yeah? Though, I didn't think any of us were as strong as you all were. Sure, we're in a league of our own, but we've got a lot of work to do before we get to that kind of power." Her head lazily rested in her palm as she looked at Seliria. "But don't worry, we'll catch up when you least expect it. Just be ready." She gave her usual bright smile before turning to Zilia. "Do you have any questions Doc? I think that's all I've got. I just gotta… master Armament. Figure out Observation, master that," The captain had began listing things off on her fingers.

"Easy peasy. Nothing to it- Oh wait, what's the third one? I can't know if I'm born with something if I don't know what it is."

Zilia gave a small nod in agreement with the Captain, both for avoiding jumping ship and eventually catching up to the 2nd Gen. She didn't have any desire to pursue power but she wanted Stardusk to reach greater heights, that would allow her to write even better things for the Chronicle, and if she could do that, it would be enough. She expected another insult from Seliria but she just stared at the two with a surprisingly calm expression.
"Of course you're not as strong," Seliria said shaking her head. "Still you might not be as hopeless of a Captain as I first thought. You understand and accept your limitations but seek to surpass them. Still until you take the third spot that's an opinion not a promise."
Zilia gripped the quill tighter in her hand but shook her head at questions, she was waiting until Seliria was done before asking, she seemed to answer most with her explanation anyway. At Runali's comment of mastering it Seliria shook her head.

"You take things way too lightly," Seliria said. "Well it doesn't matter, so long as you have to drive to train and improve the reasoning is your own. You managed to at least summon Haki so you're not completely hopeless."
Seliria gave a small shrug at this and grabbing one of the seats spun it before sitting down in the chair.
"The last Haki, the one you can only be born with…it's pretty much a one in a millions chance of acquiring it so it's extremely rare. It's said those who have it are chosen if you believe in that garbage."
Seliria raised a hand and waved a hand in front of her face before continuing.

"The Haki is called Conqueror's Haki and it allows someone to exert their willpower over another," Seliria said narrowing her eyes at the two. "I don't have this Haki so I can't show you…but I can tell you what it's like to be hit by it. I'm sure you've sensed someone's anger, or perhaps murderous intent but this…this is different. When I was a child I saw someone use it once, thousands of men approached this person and they seem to glance in their direction. In the next moment all the men fell to the ground unconscious, their bodies twitching and their eyes rolled into the back of their heads. I ended up passing out too after watching them destroy a part of a ship by looking at it."
Seliria folded her hands together her eyes narrowing a little, she seemed a tad bothered by the memory but the moment passed quickly and she raised her head.
"Those with this Haki can easily knock out people with weaker wills, even people who don't know how to use it properly can still knock out anyone in the area weaker than them, but those trained in it can pick out the weak people in a group and put them down to keep from fighting them. In short you meet someone like this, they'll knock out the weak links who aren't worth their time the moment you meet. I've heard but don't quote me on this, that can destroy their surroundings just by letting their Haki out.
Zilia felt her hands tremble a bit as Seliria spoke of this final Haki, someone with the power to knock people out with their presence alone, she was glad that it was something someone had to be born with, being able to train that kind of power naturally would be worrisome. She still took notes noting how serious Seliria seemed to get about this particular one, though she suffered the effects of it herself so she supposed that made sense.
"…any questions about this one?"

For once, Runali gave a confused look. It lasted only a few moments because she scratched her cheek. "This is important. Why would I take it lightly?" She waved it away, more interested in the explanation of Conqueror's Haki. She had a wide eyed expression of intrigue, her thoughts going a mile a minute. "That sounds so cool…" She became a little more thoughtful as she mumbled off the possibilities of actually having a power like that. She was going through a list of strong pirates she knew. Did Alton and Robin have Conqueror's Haki? Did Captain Alcinoe have it? She immediately ruled out Carabis, but he could have had the other two…

She had no choice but to train even harder in order to catch up. If every pirate captain in the Worst Gen had at least one Haki skill, then she needed to have two. She didn't know how exactly she planned on training but she was sure that she was going to. It was already cemented in her mind.

Though, just because she had made up in her mind this plan, she didn't take Seliria's more serious tone lightly. Conqueror's Haki was something that would be a challenge to face and until she could figure out more about it, she would just have to work on keeping her guard up and having a stronger will, as Seliria put it. "Hmm, I suppose I could ask how to have a stronger willpower and all that… But I kind of want to learn that myself. Trial and error type of thing. But also, it's not everyday we'll find someone that has Conqueror's haki or even knows about it…" Runali sat in thought, staring at the table for a moment. There was a long pause before she looked up again. "How'd you get better at haki? Well, what kind of rigorous training did you have to go through?"

Seliria seemed quiet for a long moment as she watched Runali and Zilia, she could tell Zilia was a tad concerned but that didn't stop her hands from moving, on occasion she would put notes aside which Seliria figured were questions she wanted to ask. What really drew her attention was Runali's reference towards a stronger willpower, she hadn't intended on giving her a straight answer anyway, but the Captain seemed to find the proper answer to a question like that. Pursuing such a thing was different for everybody, as not all had the same weaknesses.
That was probably the wisest thing the young Captain had said all day and her brows arched a bit at her words. When she asked how to strengthen her Haki Seliria closed her eyes and looked over at Zilia who seemed to have a determined expression on her face, giving a small nod to indicate she wanted to know as well.
"I'll give your Doctor a list of training exercises to do," Seliria said. "They'll be harsh and will push your body to new limits so it's best she know how they work anyway so she can patch you up."
With a small sigh she brought her hands to her hips figuring she should inform Runali of a few things since she was at least trying to become stronger, that and she had a feeling the Guarneri's wanted this lot to get stronger.
"I'll tell you the weaknesses so you can understand how to beat them, and how to strengthen them," Seliria said holding up a finger. "First and foremost, Armament and Observation are not unlimited. If you exhaust yourself or use too much of it, you'll run out and won't be able to use it for a bit. So learn to manage it, understand how long you can keep it manifested and push yourself to extend that time while keeping the same level of power, once you do that make it stronger and repeat the process until it's natural. Observation Haki weakens if you lose your concentration, if you don't focus it won't matter how good it is, also random attacks with no real focus are hard to predict. Conqueror's has no real weakness save the strength of the user so you'll just have to deal it you encounter someone with it. So long as your willpower is strong it won't knock you out."

Seliria went silent seeing Zilia was writing all this information down before she continued.
"To make your Armament Haki stronger…that cook of yours has Armament. Fight him. Clash your Armament with his, the weaker Armament tends to lose in clashes. Enough force will break through Armament depending on the strength of the wielder. Armament will naturally get strong as you do, you'll come to understand your limit when you hit and get hit by it. That's the more known way anyway I'll give Zil notes on extra methods to train with. Observation Haki…tie a blindfold around your eyes and let yourself get attacked, this will force you to awaken to your other senses and dodge it, essentially you'll learn to 'feel' the attack coming even if it's not there.
This will only train you in dodging the attacks, for the rest…ask Caleb I don't know much past that. How he senses people is on a whole other level I don't know what he did to get that strong, my specialty is Armament."
Seliria paused for a moment glancing over at Zilia letting her catch up as she had explained a bit, when Zilia stopped writing she looked back at Runali.

"That will only get you started though. If you want to get stronger, it's actually simple. Fight stronger people, you're Haki is your spirit, strengthen that, go up against people who are stronger than you are and clash with them, you'll grow and your Haki will as well," Seliria said. "That's the best way to strengthen it…but that's useless if you can't even control it in the first place. Your weakness might actually come in handy in this case."
Seliria crossed her arms at this and sat back down in her chair, a long sigh escaped from her and she leaned back in her chair, it seemed she was a tad tired after her long explanation. Though she realized she didn't answer a part of the Captain's question.
"I was almost killed multiple times as a child, put into life threatening situations everyday to awaken mine. Normal people don't awaken to it for a reason, the kind of training you have to do…would kill lesser people. Each person has their own way of teaching though."
Seliria held up her hand and closed it into a fist as she hardened the Haki around her body.
"If you want while you're on the ship, I'll put you through some of the training I do so you have something to practice with. I'm doing that for your friend here."

"So fight people, and fight people blind. Got it." She tapped her a eyepatch. "Hm, I'm practically halfway there at this point." For a brief moment, Runali wondered about all those times she did have to fight blind, whether it was for one reason or the other. However, she had always chalked it up as relying on her hearing. Though she never mentioned it, she recalled back in Yula Fei when she had to fight the one captain on the ship… who's name was forgotten because she didn't care to remember.. She remembered being able to 'see in the dark' but she, again, didn't think to much of it. Runali hummed in thought at her musings only to glance over at Zilia. "Oh? You don't gotta request favors on my behalf Z. But I am into the training idea. "With the crew around, it's a little hard to pick fights with people." She laughed a little. "They beat me to it most times. Not to say spectating doesn't have its perks." She stretched her arms over her head before patting Zilia's shoulder. "Besides! A bruise here and there won't be too bad. I've got a doctor to fix me up." Her grin turned sheepish. "I mean, I am all healed up from the fight with Alton, so it should be fine, right?"

Seliria sighed and squeezed the bridge of her nose at the Captain's response, that didn't give her much confidence but at the very least she was trying. The Guarnari's saw potential in this Captain and crew, even Caleb seemed interested. Strange as his fellow crewmates were their sense of judgment was good, she'd seen proof of that more times than she'd care to admit. Still they had a way to go, they were good but that was about the extent of it.

"Just…don't forget not to treat it as just one of your senses," Seliria said sighing. "If I heard that gunshot then dodged it'd be too late. Observation goes past that point, your senses can be lied too…Observation is a bit harder to trick."

Zilia ended up averting her gaze from Runali at the comment of a favor, it was a bit of both in the end as there were some things she wanted to know as well. At the mention of a few bruises however Zilia glanced back at her, narrowing her eyes as she started to comment that a 'few' bruises were still bad. Seeing the look on Runali's face however she just hung her shoulders knowing her Captain wasn't going to listen, she was already interested.

"So long as you don't push yourself it should be fine…I'd rather your wounds not reopen."

"Zil it's fine," Seliria said. "If the Captain thinks a few bruises is what this training is going to be than that works for me."

Seliria slammed her Armament fist into her other hand her eyes narrowing slightly as she stared at the two.

"It's good to learn things the hard way sometimes."

"Why is my life flashing before my eyes again…"

 

[Capt. Blu]

Location: Brass Cape - Ports

After Just 'One More Day' of Brass Cape Adventure

"This was supposed to be a supply trip." Runali was leaning against the side of the ship with her arms folded. They came to Brass Cape on a whim, found adventure, and for some of them, a new way of looking at the future ahead. Instead of a single day trip, it turned into a week and a few days of wonders- although Runali was still skeptical about their time in the Alley. The extra two or so days were so Luro could have time to make the minor adjustments he wanted.

"Aw, do you really have to go?" Risa gave the Stardusk captain a playful pout before holding her hand out to her. "If you guys ever need anything, feel free to stop by!"

Runali returned the handshake with a grin. "Yeah! Of course! Thanks for all of the stuff." Speaking of thanks, she walked over to where some of the Novas were watching them depart and gave a small salute towards Caleb. "I haven't gotten the chance to yet. We've been a little all over the place. But, thank you. For everything." She waved over at Seliria, who wasn't too far behind, and grinned. "You too Sel! I haven't forgotten my promise, don't worry!" Looking back at Caleb, she patted his shoulder. "Thanks for giving my shipwright all that cool stuff. Can't wait to see what's in store."

Luro had spent the majority of his time working on the ship, the entire first day especially. Zilia kept him company during, surprised how earnest Luro seemed when he worked on the ship. A small smile resting on his face as he moved from place to place, measuring, reinforcing and adding here and there, without taking a single moment's break. It was due to this however when he finished his 'minor' work he passed out in the Rum Room. The little improvements were more on the inside than outside, most the inside was now filled with Brass Cape material, a bit of brass metal put here and there in 'weak' points, it showed mainly in the decks. He wanted to add more to the outside but he instead just gave it some polish, it would take a little more than two days for everything he wanted to add. He instead worked on fixing up the rooms, he made some changes to Jack's kitchen, more to make things a little easier on him, gave him a few more tools and room to work with, fixed cracks here and there. He touched up some of the crew's rooms as well, save Zilia and Alicia's, mainly because Zilia stopped him from going inside.

"I'll save the big stuff once I finish building the L.A.S.S. After that…Lady will be fit for a Worst Gen Crew!"

"Risa!"

At their departure Luro picked up Risa and placed her on his shoulder, he started to move towards the ship only for Zilia to stop him reminding him that Risa couldn't come with them. With small pout Luro put Risa down and gave a small nod.

"I wanted to try…" he said laughing a little. "You're right though Z, Risa's gotta be the best here, so she's gotta stay. Keep doing your best Risa, I'll be cheering for you, Z too!"

Caleb watched the scene between the three with mild interest only to look away when the Captain walked over to him, he blinked a few times wondering what the Captain of Stardusk wanted with him, he expected customary farewells. The moment Runali thanked him Caleb's brows arched slightly, pulling out his notebook he immediately started writing.

"What a pleasing moment, I'll record this," Caleb said before closing the notebook. "Anytime Captain of Stardusk, the faces of you and your crew are much more interesting now, I look forward to seeing them in the future."

Caleb raised a hand to the others.

"Be well Stardusk, hopefully when we meet again your faces will be like now covered mountains."

He lowered his gaze back to Runali at the mention of Luro and nodded.

"We'll meet again in the air Runali Lev," Caleb said shoving a hand into his pocket. "I look forward to it."

For a moment it seemed his demeanor had shifted, his simple tone replaced with an earnest one a bit more serious than his usual self, but it vanished as quick as it came and he was already messing with his watches again.

"Well at least one of you has manners."

Seliria walked over to Runali at her thanks, a small flowery bundle in her right hand. Though she still wore the same agitated expression her body was a bit more relaxed than he face, which Zilia after spending some time with the women knew she was in a good mood. Though that didn't stop her from being the same old Seliria.

Raising her head to the members of Stardusk she shook her head.

"I put my time into helping you and your Captain. If you survive I expect a good fight later. I'll spit on your graves if you lose to the Red Pirates."

Caleb looked over at Zilia who smiled and gave a small nod, there seemed to be a small moment of understanding between the two but that was the extent of it. Seliria leaned towards Runali and moving over to her ear whispered something into it. After a moment she backed away straightening up again.

"You deserve something for the trouble you went through, that's for that."

With that said Seliria went silent again quickly covering Caleb's mouth when he pointed at the bundle and started talking, it didn't stop him from talking but it muffled what he was saying.

"Aha, accomplishing so many things in the matter of a week. Look at us go." Runali laughed at the idea of their faces being 'more interesting', and happily took the compliment- at least, she thought it was a compliment. His next set of words rang through her a bit and her bright and happy looked turned into a more determined one. "Aye. Of course."

"Bah, Sel! You mean when we survive! There's no time for doubting. Besides, you'll miss us too much so we have to come back." Her playful teasing subsided when Seliria leaned forward. She couldn't help that after being attacked once by her, she was readily prepared the next, but the moment passed and she now had a genuine look of surprise. For a moment, she watched Caleb talk while Seliria covered his mouth, only to cross her arms and smile. "You guys are full of surprises, that's for sure. But don't worry, something as important as that is worth being, uh, kept to heart."

Seliria only offered a scoff at the Captain's comment of 'when' but left it at that, she held her other hand out after Caleb stopped talking and one of the Junkers handed Seliria another bundle, this one was wrapped in a simple blue wrap but the case was of decent quality. She handed it to Runali motioning to it

"Snacks," Seliria said. "Simple treats and the like, there are varying flavors so I'm sure there's something in there for everyone. I made some a little gummy so Luro could play with them and not be annoying for five minutes."

Caleb started to reach for the box only for Seliria to smack his hand away.

"They might be poisonous if you made them, they shouldn't eat them," Caleb said.

"You want to die today don't you?"

Seliria shoved Caleb away and motioned to the rest of Stardusk, Luro throwing his arms up in the air and talking to Risa about her wings, Zilia trying to calm him down, Alicia, Sara, Jack, Kadi.

"You lot are terrible by yourselves, but together you're tolerable," Seliria said looking up at the others. "I personally think you're all hopeless but the Guarneri's have faith in you, as does Caleb. Regretfully I'm outvoted so I just have to see what happens."

Runali took the bundle from her, waving as the Junker gave a farewell salute without saying a word. "Wow Sel, you sure are thoughtful." As the rest of the crew came forward, she tossed the box to Jack, relaying the 'snack' message. "Hah, be glad you only get visits from us then. And visits as a group." She gave a thumbs up, about to say something more only to step back as Robin glided over to them, taking a spot in between Caleb and Seliria.

As bright as ever, Robin waved at the Stardusk crew. "Go easy on us when you come back. Everyone's always eager to challenge and fight. No one ever wants to stop by for… snacks or just to talk."

"Sorry captain, but no can do! I already made the promise to Sel that we'd give our A game. And it just wouldn't be fair, you know? But we can always have snacks and chat afterwards."

The Nova captain, or first mate depending on the day, gave a sly smile and winked. "A good answer. And I expect no less."

Unlike Robin's bubbly energy, Alton followed behind much more casual and much more quiet, something that became an all too familiar sight. He offered a nod to the Stardusk, standing behind his own crew.

Though before he could speak, Runali stared into his glasses and squinted. "You were holding back weren't you?"

He straightened up and by the way his head turned, he looked at the rest of the Stardusk before falling back to Runali. "Guess you'll have to find out the next time we fight."

"Alright Guarneri. It's a deal. Until next time." She held her hand out making Robin nudge Caleb to the side a bit. Alton's usual stoic expression cracked into a small smirk and he shook her hand.

Robin, now leaning on Caleb, watched the interaction and scoffed. "Always so serious."

Seliria closed her eyes at the mention of their promise causing Caleb to glance in her direction past Robin. He looked over at Runali as she spoke to Robin and made a small motion with his head.

"That's the closest thing she has to a smile...good answer," Caleb said giving Runali a small thumbs up.

"Caleb I know the ship can function for a day without you, I can put you in another light coma."

Seliria started to leave when Zilia approached her, when she was handed a note she glanced over at Alton who approached before going back to reading the note. Caleb didn't move since Robin was leaning on him but did glance in that direction.

After a brief moment Seliria's brow arched and she looked back up at Zilia, she stared at the Doctor's determined expression and put the note in her pocket.

"I'm going to keep this so when you fail I can remind you how silly you are."

Zilia offered a smile to Seliria and the woman sighed before making a motion to go away.

"Someone has to be serious on the ship," Seliria said to Robin looking over at the two.

Looking back at the Stardusk crew, her gaze moved to each member for a moment, Zilia shaking Alton's hand as well while Luro started asking a mess of questions to Alton, only to be pulled away.

"Tashigi was much cuter when she was a kid…what happened?" Seliria thought shaking her head. "You don't have the aura of your father, nor the skill of your mother…which is a good thing. You should be your own woman anyway."

Seliria closed her eyes her grip tightening on the bundle in her hand.

"Masuma… Tashigi…Arcadius…Kunal…Makachi…Vilimar….Lev. Each one of you has the potential to change something in this world all on your own. If you're together and can keep from being useless…I wonder what kind of future you'll help shape."

"I agree Seliria," Caleb said glancing at her. "I'm curious as well."

"Caleb what did I tell you about making assumptions."

"Not to do it but I'm not doing it."

"Robin could you move I need to hurt him."

"Robin please don't move."

Seliria glared at Caleb before snapping her fingers as something came to mind.

"Masuma!" Seliria said looking at Sara. "Keep an eye on Tashigi, you know how to punch her when she's being stupid right? Do that and when we do butt heads I'll be happy to show you how much of a 'Bitch' I can be. I'll make sure Zil has enough supplies to fix you up afterwards."

Seliria rotated her shoulders and turning walked away from the group.

"That goes for the rest of you as well."

Runali was a little distracted watching Robin laugh and hug Caleb, rubbing her cheek against his. "Aww, you can't hurt this face! He's adorable."

"Love, they're not children… you're gonna smother him."

"Nonsense Alton, Caleb doesn't mind- right, Caleb?"

When Seliria said her parting words, Runali blinked and then gave a small salute as she walked away.

"We've still got a few things to do here before we leave and I'm sure you've heard it enough, but we'll see you later!" Robin had finally let go of her shipwright and took Alton's hand when he gestured it was time for them to go. He offered a nod to the crew as well before walking off.

Once they all left Runali put her hands on her hips and looked at Lady Luck. "Well. You heard 'em crew. We've got work to do before we see them again. So? Let's not waste any time! It's time to set sail!"

 

[Mizos]

​

Brass Cape's escapades still echoed in Zilia's mind as she wrote in the Chronicle wanting to write everything down while the experience was still fresh. Her quill moved quickly across the pages, the only pause in her writing was to refill her ink. Zilia would turn the page making small notes on a nearby piece of paper as need be to keep from being too distracted. She continued this for a time before her hand came to a stop, halfway down a page. With a narrowed gaze she raised the tip from the paper and set the quill to the side.

"…I shouldn't just write this part from my point of view…but unfortunately there's no one in the crew I can dep-"

Zilia eyes widened and standing up she grabbed her notebook and turned towards the door. However when only stacks of books filled her vision her eyes twitched, her entire room was filled with all the books from the library, carefully stacked in chronological order of the volumes, and organized from A to Z. She didn't think too much about the number, but taking a closer look most of the books were touching the ceiling of her room, and there was very little walking room. No matter which way she turned only stacks of books met her vision as well, due to that it took her twenty minutes to find her door before running out of it.
"Captain! I need to talk to you in private. Please come to my room…uh…actually no let's go to yours!"
Zilia after a bit of a search held the note out to Runali, the Captain was the perfect person for this.

Sitting on the edge of the ship as they sailed out, Runali was eyeing one of Jack's daggers that she may or may not have asked for. She seemed to be in deep thought up until Zilia bounded up in a more excitable way than usual. It startled her a bit and she had to quickly catch Jack's knife before it ended up in the ocean. "What's up Zil? Where's the fire?" Runali hopped down from her perch and looked at the note. "Oh. Yeah sure alright. Must be important." She gestured forward, signaling for Zil to lead the way. Before they made it to the captain's room, she paused by the kitchen, quietly sliding the dagger onto the table. Though before Jack could turn around, she was already hurrying off to her room and closing the door behind them. "Alright Z, what's up?"

Zilia wasn't sure why the Captain had one of Jack's knives but it seemed like something to casually ignore at the current moment. There were far more important things and she wanted to get all of this in while everything was fresh in her mind. Once they were inside Zilia gave a small nod and started writing in her notebook, she had to rely on the Captain for this, going off all she had seen back at Brass Cape, and this was for the Chronicle she had to make sure it was just right.

"I was writing in the Chronicle but at the Nova Pirates I froze, their entry…is pretty important and I need another view on them. I need you for this part however…mainly…because you're the only person who can give me a proper opinion about one of them, or at least one that's…well Runali like."

Zilia let Runali read over the note before she immediately handed her another note, the handwriting wasn't hers, and there seemed to be notes here and there. A small figure was drawn on the top that looked suspiciously liked an angry mini Seliria.
"Captain...I need your…Runali-ness. Luro's the only other person I can ask but he'll just ask me why I'm not writing about Risa, and I already have notes from him about Caleb, I need a new perspective. Those are notes from Caleb, it's how to speak 'Seliria'. He gave it to me and told me to share it with someone who can tolerate being in the same room as her for five minutes. Since we both had the pleasure of 'sparring' with her I know you can. In exchange for helping me…I'll tell you what those notes mean and what Seliria and I were doing together…deal? Please Captain I can't ask anyone else!"

"Oh, story stuff." She mused as she read over the note. "Story stuff about the Novas." Now, she was more talking to herself as she read. "Not too sure what you mean by proper opinion but-" She paused and took the next note. This time, she couldn't help but laugh a little. Not just because of Zilia's meticulous researching, but because she didn't understand what was so wrong Seliria. "Sel's a pretty nice lady. A little rough around the edges but I like her." Runali laughed again and handed the papers back to her.

"And I'm the only Runali I know so, sure I'll be glad to help. After all," She sat in her hammock, letting it swing back and forth a bit. "You want this book to be a good one." There was a slight pause before she added. "Annnnnd I'll admit I am a bit curious why my doctor of all of my crew was getting roughed up by a Nova."

A bit of relief hit Zilia hearing Runali was going to help her, she didn't doubt she would but there was also that small fear in the back of her mind. At her comment on Seliria Zilia gave a small nod in agreement, she was right to ask Runali this. What she wanted to write required honesty, and that required understanding.
"Thank you Captain. I think the Nova's are important people to add. I'll touch more on that later. For why I was with Seliria…"
Zilia trailed off for a moment on the page tapping her quill against it before she continued to write.
"I had spoken with her in private, I've…read many stories Captain and have done a lot of research into the background of some places during my travels. One of them…involved Seliria. During our conversation about it, she took one look at me and said I was weak. When I agreed she went silent and asked to spar with me. You walked in around that time."
Zilia handed Runali the note before pulling out the notes from Caleb and holding it out to Runali pointed at the first entry written in Caleb's handwriting.
"First lesson...Seliria doesn't pay attention to things not worth her time. She doesn't talk or acknowledge the presence of others a majority of the time, if she's talking to you, than she's interested no matter what words come out of her mouth."
It didn't explain why the two were fighting but at least what lead to it was revealed.

She nodded towards the first note about the Novas being important. There was something different about that group of pirates that she not only enjoyed but questioned. She was a little disheartened that she didn't get to spend too much time with the captains during the trip, but the two were adamant on their 'date vacation'. Or whatever they called it. She glanced over at the two new blades sitting on her desk and reminded herself of the work she needed to do. She had a lot to do if she wanted to compete- and win against Alton the next time they met.

Runali's focus was pulled back to the notes and she got comfortable in the silence, taking the time to carefully read through everything. As she normally did, Runali was ready to defend her crew. Reading that Seliria called Zilia weak, despite her holding her tongue, her brow furrowed to show enough of how she felt about it. Caleb's notes about Seliria made her nod in agreement. "Well, yeah. She told us that." Runali cracked a smile. "Maybe not directly, but sort of…" She tried to figure out the right words for it. Her hands fidgeted in the air as she thought. "Ah, well- when we first met her on the ship. The moment she attacked me, she said she was sizing us up. If Sel wasn't interested, she could have killed me then and there- or according to Caleb she wouldn't even said hello." The captain leaned back. "And if she was willing to fight you after calling you weak means that it could've been one of her 'tests'. Hm, that crew sure does a lot of tests. Probably ingrained in their brains with all of the building they do. But, I think I'm getting off track. Keep on with the talking- or, writing."

Zilia nodded in agreement and wrote down what the Captain was telling her, that one was pretty obvious though, she expected the Captain to understand that. It was the next lesson that caught her off guard, and she held it up to the Captain pointing to the second lesson.
"Lesson Two. If she talks to you…she wants to protect you."
Zilia wrote in her notebook and held it towards the Captain, this was part of the reason why she wanted to make sure this was just right, and why she was choosing to explain all of this.
"In short…her words give away how much she cares. Caleb informed me she makes no effort to clear up the misunderstandings though…which of course makes her a lot of enemies. I mean no one wants to be called weak…but weakness is perception. What comes to mind when I'm called weak will be different from what might come with you Captain…that's what Seliria does. Forces those thoughts to surface, if you feel bothered, if her words irk you…there's a reason for it. Whether you know that reason or not changes from person to person…but that's her way of protecting, being well…."
Zilia held the note out and pointed to the next lesson.
"Lesson Three. Someone has to do the job."
"Being the person to ground you. Everyone here is amazing Captain. You've all endured so much, you've gone up against the navy, an armada and the dead just to name a few. There aren't a lot of people who will say you're not good at what you do. Plenty will sing tales of your adventure…by all means I am…but the higher up you are…the harder it hurts if you fall. That's why even if she's hated, even if she has to be mean, Seliria will always be that one person to say 'you're not good enough'. Most of the time people don't listen, she is just another person and she knows her opinion won't carry much weight to many; others just yell back but at the end of the day she makes an effort knowing it might not matter. Because and don't repeat this, she likes the ones that come back and prove her wrong, it means they survived the worst of it, and if her words managed to reach them, even for a moment and helped them that's all that mattered."

Zilia turned and sat down in the chair, she liked each Nova even Caleb with his strange eccentricity, his strange honest nature made it hard to hate him, even after everything they went through, he didn't hesitate at all to be upfront with them. Seliria though showed her care in another way, and Zilia couldn't help but respect how hard she tried, even if it was in a mean way.
"In the Passano shop…the comment towards you when she left. It showed she has faith we'll reach second eventually. It was in that moment I realized the strength of the Nova's Captain…it's...similar to our own in a way. Knowing that…can you guess why she made me spar?"

She thought of Seliria as a lot of things, like a teacher and a chef… and a really hard hitter. She looked a little surprised by the word 'protector'. Grant it, sure she'd protect her crew, but for a pirate crew she had only just met, Runali couldn't help but be surprised. Which meant she had those feelings before they had even met. Although, maybe with how much the Novas knew about them it should have made sense.
"Huh." Was all she made effort to say about it.
Zilia's following note made Runali rub her cheek, something she did often when she was in thought. "Hmm… S'pose so. Right, everyone's perception is different. Guess I have to start having better reasons about why I think you guys are tough and the likes." There seemed to be a few things she wanted to say and then would abandon but instead, only nodded towards it and moved to the third lesson. This one was something the captain had known well in her years of being a pirate. It was part of the reason she didn't think too much about Seliria's insults and 'mean' behavior. The Stardusks had been through hell and back- literally- but that didn't come without its hardships. Runali thought so highly of each of her crewmates, but even she knew they had their limits. "Yeah, we're good… but not good enough. Not yet at least." She let that thought hang in the air and began to swing in the hammock again.

"S'funny you mention this. The captains seem to have the same idea too." Runali read Zilia's final note again, still lazily swinging back and forth. "Bah, you're making me guess? You're working me here Zil." She chuckled before tilting her head left and right. "Wellll, I think it's something like Sel sees potential in you. Maybe didn't like the fact that you called yourself weak and wanted you to prove her wrong. Maybe wanted you to realize it yourself. Maybe she was lying about you being weak- or didn't know the proper way of saying 'you could be better'. Maybeeee- There's a lotta maybes here Zil, I could keep listin' em but you could also just tell me~?"

Zilia continued to write as the Captain spoke, she would of course get the opinion of the others but for this section she needed Runali, and she wanted to make sure she got it right.
"Haha…thinking about our strengths huh. Reasons are good but it's nice just knowing you feel that way. You should let it come naturally, let Kadi and Alicia do the 'heavy thinking' as Luro would say"
At the Captain's guess Zilia smiled giving small nods here and there before writing in her notebook again, those were pretty good guesses, she held the answer out to the Captain.
"I didn't know 'why' I was weak even though I acknowledged it. I had an idea, I know my limits…but weakness without a reason is apparently 'inexcusable' and she sparred with me because of that. Surprisingly the reason was different than what I thought once we got into it."
Zilia paused for a moment when she turned the page, her eyes lowered slightly and she stared at the blank page tapping the quill against it. It seemed she was fighting something, trying to find just the right words to explain what was on her mind, after a brief moment she continued writing.
"I think the Nova's are a reflection of a better us. Not that Stardusk is bad or anything I think we're good but…well I don't understand Luro, sometimes with Jack I can feel a wall between us…it's not often but on occasion the distance is there. Alicia is very kind and considerate…but sometimes I think it's too much…it makes me wonder how much faith she has in us. Sara…well I'd be here all day if I talked about Sara, I just don't understand her on too many levels, same with Kadi. I get lost when it comes to you as well Captain. These things will probably change with time of course I get that…but when I look at the Nova's I can tell how strong they are. Not just in strength but unity. I watched Caleb and Seliria and the two seem to hate each other, but Caleb gave me these notes showing he understands Seliria and Seliria asked us to thank Caleb as she understood what he was trying to achieve. He probably introduced us knowing she'd take an interest and I'm willing to bet Seliria helped Caleb in the Alley knowing what tricks he was up too."

Zilia paused in her writing for a moment, she looked up at Runali with a determined gaze, and with a narrowed brows she continued writing.
"I like them Captain. I want to surpass them…which surprises me. They're on a whole other level, understanding one another in a way that's hard to fathom. I've only heard stories of the Cutthroats and well…I saw the interaction with the Red Pirates so maybe this is just because of my own inexperience but still…I like them. Robin's smile, Alton's calm but gentle demeanor, Caleb's seemingly endless curiosity and Seliria's mean kindness. I look at them and I'm amazed not only how well they're put together, but how they face what's right in front of them in their own unique ways. I'm sure they endured their own share of troubles as well but for what little time we spent with them…I feel so close. I still think I'd ultimately choose everyone here to write a Chronicle on of course…but the Nova's are important and I want to make sure I get them right…that's why I wanted to talk to you Captain. I…respect the way you faced the Nova's…that's why I want to hear. What did you think of the Nova Pirates?"

Since she had started the little private chat with Zilia, she was relatively calm reading through the notes. The answer she was given was understandable and fair in her mind. "If you want to get better, you have to know what you're bad at." She commented quietly. It was almost as if she was reminding herself of what she was told. It reminded her of what the captain's said about her own faults. However, there was a spark of life to her as she carried on reading. She 'talked' about the crew and Runali had sat up, wanting to say so many things but keeping quiet to finish sentences.

It wasn't until she got to the word 'unity' did she jump to her feet. "THAT'S IT!" She pointed to the word for emphasis, not exactly showing Zilia what she was pointing at. And before Zilia could look, Runali was holding Zilia's shoulders, and then all of a sudden cupping her face. "Ah! You're the best! You figured it out! I mean, you put words to it! You're good at that!" She let go of Zilia and aimlessly walked around the room, with paper still in hand. "From the moment we met them! Even with how the Junkers could so easily maneuver together… And with the ship..." Her stream of consciousness was fading between thoughts and actual words as she paced around. "It's not just a strength by themselves. It's a strength together! It's unity!" Runali seemed to be so excited about the new word, only to pause and fall into thought. She also, quite literally fell into a seated position on the floor. "Hm… But you're right. About us." Her arms crossed and she leaned forward to look at the paper that was now on the floor. "You're right, you're right. You're right… but it's there. I see it." She hadn't looked at Zilia as she spoke, and now her brow furrowed at the note. "It's not as often, but in our own way. In a Stardusk way, it's there."

Similar to an overactive child, she was suddenly rolling to lay on her back, holding the paper in the air to read. "The Cutthroats, I respect them. What they do is great. They're great! But… that's just as far as it goes. Respect. I mean, I'm honored Captain Al thinks I'll be a great leader... The Reds? I don't have reason to like them, they tried to kill me for some reason. And I was dead most of that time!" She waved her hand, dismissing the thought. "But with the Novas…" She was sitting up again, taking the note and putting it in her desk. "It's more than that. Respect, most definitely. But this? It's an admiration. I think that's the word for it? I'm pretty sure it is."

It fell silent for a moment as Runali got up, closing the desk drawer. She leaned on the edge, looking out through the only port window in her room. "Hm. Kinda reminds me of when I had a mentor actually." Her laugh was a bit softer, but she stood up and smiled at Zilia. "I think they're amazing. And I think we've got a long way to go."

 

[SilentxChaos]

Collab bet'w Capt. and Silent​

Location: Lady Luck,

Sometime relaxing


The majority of the crew were returning from a supply run and a land break on some small island. It was a routine for them, Runali noticed. Zil would either get supplies or check out wherever books were. Luro would find the nearest tavern if he didn't stay on the ship to work. Even Kadi wandered off to explore. However there was a newer part of this routine Runali picked up on. Alicia and Sara had disappeared together for longer periods of time. The first time they left and returned, it was easy to pick up that they had been training together. It had her wondering what was so secretive that they needed to go off on their own, but she wasn't going to pry too much. Not yet at least. It wasn't just the training Runali was curious about, it was moreso the time after.

Runali had known of Sara's general distaste for being on the ship- and her outward distaste of being a pirate. It was something she wanted to talk to her crewmate about, not wanting her to be miserable but… they never had the opportunity. And now, Sara seemed to have found a distraction from it.

It wasn't a new thing for Runali to observe her crew. She did it often, but recently, it became a lot more amusing to do. The captain found herself wandering into the kitchen while she waited for the rest of the crew, and unsurprisingly, there was Jack doing what he did best. "Oh, what's for lunch today? Anything new and spectacular- not that I wouldn't appreciate it regardless."

Jack grinned down at his onion chopping as the captain approached, distinguishing her lighter and more random footsteps. He almost gotten it down who was coming to visit his kitchen based on their footfalls. Luro's the most noticeable, heavy and ambling, and Jack picked his up first from all the wandering he did at night. Alicia and Sara both had the strides of soldier's- purposeful, determined, evenly paced- though the swordswoman certainly maintained a softer and gentler step. Zilia was quiet; Kadi's direct though Jack noticed a subtle change since he returned with his soul, and Jack hadn't quite pinned it yet.

The cook didn't look up from his work as Runali came in, but gestured her to a stool on the other side of his workspace with his knife hand. "A little specialty from home sounded good. It's called chilli. You might like it; it has a spice to it."

He glanced up at her and pushed a wooden bowl forward. "Here, try these. I just picked them up from the market. Fresh cherries. The island is quite well known for them, from what I was told. Make sure to spit out the seeds in the empty bowl there.

"So, captain, what brings you down here?"

Runali didn't need to be told twice about taking a seat. Having an actual chef in the kitchen after being without one continued to remind her that there were 'rules' and 'boundaries' that were set by the chef. Even their old chef Nolan didn't like the wandering bodies and hands messing with things- despite how nice he was. "Ya know what I like about you?" She popped a cherry into her mouth. "Always courteous of taste." She spit the seed out into the bowl like instructed before continuing. "Oh, not bad. I like these. But yeah, you pay attention to those kinds of things. You're always watching. You give free snacks. You're perceptive. You make great food And you're, most importantly, observant." Runali was well aware of the redundancy of her statements. It showed on her face as she gave a cheshire grin after eating another cherry. "Observant enough to have some of the crew's more routined patterns memorized, yeah?" At this point, now she was just goading Jack into a chat, despite knowing he'd talk to her anyway.

Ever since Jack and Runali had their heart to heart in Jaipur, they had found a common interest in casual conversation. Although it more so became observing the world around them. It was a relaxing and kind of fun past time Runali didn't realize she enjoyed with another person, but then Jack came along and now it was casual.

The cook paused when Runali started speaking, raising an eyebrow at the flattery, and more than a little guarded. But as she went on he quickly understood what the captain was getting at and grinned. Picking up his chopping board, he carefully pushed the diced onions into the cauldron at his feet with the edge of the knife. "I certainly like to think so," Jack responded to her comment of his observational skills. He paused after setting down the chopping board, foot tapping, as she asked a question.

"Hmm. You're referring to Alicia and Sara, aren't you?" A mischievous smirk played along his face as he grabbed a few tomatoes and started on them. "They've been going off on their lately whenever they make port. Or...is it Zilia? I've noticed her scribbling in a journal lately, seeming to keep tabs on the crew as well."

Runali tapped her nose the moment Jack figured it out. "Aye, I am! Well, the duo. Zil's notes are as much of a wonder as… Luro's." Grant it, she knew what the doctor was writing about, however she promised the doctor to keep the chronicles to herself until she was ready to share them with the crew. The captain kept her word.

"If I'm not mistaken, it's some kind of training. Hard to say all of them are though. But if it's not training- s'definitely sparring don't you think?" No one came back with black eyes and scars if they weren't fighting and Alicia was the last person to start trouble. So far, based on their only fight, Sara was the only one to actually get a good hit on Alicia so she couldn't imagine any other pirate doing something like that to her. And they always ended up returning together just as they left, so the captain felt no sudden urgency when they came back injured. However, when there were no outward signs of training, it did pique her curiosity a bit more. "Whatever it is, those two have been a little closer, yeah?" She thought over what she said before adding, "At least, Sara seems to be a bit, hm, happier to say the least."

Jack nodded thoughtfully. "Indeed. Sara appears to finally acclimate to living on the sea. And it must be training or sparring, isn't it? They are warriors after all, and I've only noticed Sara talking books to Zilia." Granted, those exchanges tended to be brief, based on if a book was being borrowed or return. Jack had a hard time imagining what else the fearsome pair could be up to, or if they even shared anything else in common other than the fighting arts.

Deciding to take a small break, his curiosity piqued, Jack plucked a cherry from a bowl and arched his brow to Runali. "What do you think they would talk about?"

Runali nodded in agreement up until he posed a question about their conversations. They were an odd duo and by the looks of it, they didn't have much in common. And by the sound of it, Sara was always in some state of competition. Alicia wasn't like that at all. "What does a Yula Fei royal and a Tilean gladiator wander off to talk about?" She couldn't help but snort. "Sounds like one of those stories I've heard old women gossip about back home. Forbidden romances or something." She waved her hand, holding a cherry in her hand, as if to brush the thought aside. That is, until she thought about it a little longer. "You don't think…?" Runali shook her head. "Nah. Sure it's possible, but not an actual thing." She had known Alicia for years but even then it was easy to pinpoint prim and proper to- just about any other emotion she had that wasn't her default 'calm'. But she didn't know what went on while they were gone so… anything was possible?

Jack chewed, humming with pleasure at the sweetness and underlying tart flavor. "These would make a nice pie, I think. Or perhaps a cobbler."

Folding his hands on his stomach, as Jack rocked his stool and looked at the ceiling, returning to the topic at hand. "I mean, it could be. There's plenty of stories out there about two apex warriors, facing off, and when one has won the other falls into helpless admiration." He flapped a hand airily before picking up the bowl and spitting a seed into it. "Sara does seem to admire Alicia a great deal. I think she shows it in her need to compete all the time."

Poor Alicia, burdened with comrades who only ever wanted to fight her. He shook his with a rueful smirk. Glad I don't have that kind of attention.

Reluctantly getting back up, Jack finished off dicing the tomatoes, pouring them into the cauldron after the onions. He took a damp rag set aside and wiped off the chopping board, then started on the counter itself. "You know," he said after a moment's thought, "I was asked to make the two of them lunch not too long ago. Right before they went off again."

"Well, I did say possible. But one can't see past her fists and the other, her sword." It was a rough metaphor but Runali figured he'd get the gist of it. "Whatever type of admiration it falls under, it helps them. Well. Helps in their own way. One for strength, one for patience. Ya know, that kind of thing." With a shrug, she leaned against the countertop, watching Jack work. Her brow raised at the mention of Jack making them lunch. For a brief moment, she thought about it, only to chuckle. "I can't imagine it being the romantic picnic type of lunch. Unless, let me guess, it was something close- courtesy of you, but they didn't catch the hint?"

"Captain, I have absolutely no notion of what you mean," Jack said, winking. Done with the cleaning, he turned to the fireplace and coaxed a flame with firewood and flint and steel. He hooked the caldron up, brushed his hands together, before finally confessing to Runali. "Well, maybe not romantic, but I made sure to include a wine flask for Sara and a bag of tea leaves for Alicia. Some sconces, a bag of grapes, cheese…"

Jack stopped, briefly touching his forearm before looking at Runali with a concerned, slightly guilty expression. "Do you think that's too much?"

That cheshire grin was once again on her face when he winked and when he admit to it, she laughed. "Ah, Jack you're getting predictable!" She teased, but shook her head. "Too much? Have you seen those two? They aren't exactly the most," Runali paused to think of the word for it. "Well, socially aware. You could have had rose petals decorating it and it wouldn't be enough."

Predictable? That suited him just fine. Chuckling, he conceded to Runali's point. "Perhaps next time I'll add cookies shaped in a heart. Can't get more obvious baking than that, can it?"

Jack matched the captain's grin. After a moment though, the joking aside, Jack's thoughts turned back to the more plausible reason for the two crewmates' disappearance. He posed a new question to his captain while beginning preparations for the meat, sprinkling seasonings into the heating pot. A spicy aroma began filling the small kitchen.

"If they are sparring- which, I think we can concede is the best answer given their natures- the question remains, who's training, and to what end?"

At this, Jack was genuinely unsure. He imagined Sara may be the orchestrator, considering her constant desire to become stronger and improve herself. While he wouldn't think Alicia believed she'd gotten as strong as she can, the serene swordswoman seemed far more accepting of her current skills, and would likely not seek a new form of fighting that of which Sara could offer. He retained his theories, for the moment, more curious to hear the captain's thoughts.

Runali hummed her agreement about the cookies, and curiously peeked over into the pot. It smelled pretty good, and he wasn't even done yet. "Biased opinion goes to the sword." Runali's response was without hesitation, her gaze still in the pot. "Reason?" When her food curiosity was sated, she looked back up at Jack and started to explain, "Two different worlds there. One's got the patience of someone who's gotten tormented by Luro for like, four years. But Sara's got more of a selfish focus, ya know?" She shrugged. "Not that it's a bad thing. I just don't see her trying to help anyone else get stronger before she does."

"A fair truth," Jack agreed. Even more seasonings went to the meat as Jack started mashing and grinding it for the chili. As he worked, he hooked a foot under the table and pulled out a box crate. Satisfied with the consistency, he bent down and rummaged in it, pulling out a sack of potatoes and random tins of cooking essentials, before making a noise of triumph and bringing out two bottles labelled 'oil' and 'vinegar'. He swished them around and set one in front of Runali before uncorking his and giving it a sniff.

His face deflated. "Damn it. He got to this too," he looked at her, "I've had to get creative about hiding some of the rum from Luro. I've been thinking of infusing a few bottles with fruit, trying something new, you know? How he keeps finding them without my noticing..." He set the bottle aside and gestured at Runali's. "Is yours water too?"

When the captain realized what Jack shuffled around for, she laughed. She expectedly opened the bottle given to her. She had already guessed the results, but checked anyway. "Water. But good effort. I don't think I would have found it." She swirled the water around, still laughing. "The problem is, you're hiding it. Luro's like 80% alcohol, if you really want to hide something from him- well, for one, you could try hiding it where it's obvious. 'Hiding in plain sight' or however it goes. There's nooks and crannies all over this ship thanks to Luro and his hidden rum stashes. Hiding it only.... gives him an extra hiding spot. But also, this is alcohol so he could probably sniff it out a mile away." Reading the label, Runali added. "And honestly this is Luro we're talking about. He'd probably drink this without reading it. Probably wouldn't bat an eyelash either."

"Huh." Jack considered her advice of picking more obvious hiding spots the next time while drinking water from the 'oil' bottle, in lieu of nothing better at hand. He then continued prepping lunch by throwing in the meat in the pot, followed by minced garlic, and sometime after than a load of seasonings, some Runali may recognize as common in her homeland cuisine. As he did, he continued to talking to his captain.

"Speaking of Luro, I've been hearing him wandering more often at night. Keeps muttering to himself like he's talking to other people," Jack said with a slight grumble. He hadn't gotten much sleep thanks to that, and who- or what- Luro conversed with kept him up even more. "Is that common?"

Once more Runali's attention turned to the food when she smelled something familiar. Not being able to name it made her look back up. "Oh that-" She paused and raised a curious brow. "Paranoid he's plotting something are we?" She took a drink of water in the 'vinegar' bottle and shrugged. "I guess, in a sense," Runali's brow furrowed a little as she tried to figure out how to explain it. "Hm. Remember when we split up after seeing the Drowned King- of course you do, that was a wild adventure. Anyway, the 'dream place' that we went to… it changed us in a way. And I was thinking about it some time ago and well, I suppose the only good explanation for it is that it changed us into... representations of ourselves- or what we wanted to be. Makes sense that Sara was head to toe in 'knight and shining' armor gear. And Alicia as that… that one symbol that means balance. I forget what it's called. And instead of Luro changing into something- there was just… more Luros." She remembered how wild of a time that was before laughing a bit. "Different than the original though. All of them had their own personalities and opinions. It was like looking into Luro's head and it was just as confusing as you could imagine it." She looked down, grabbing another cherry out of the bowl. "So, I imagine that's who he talks to when he talks to himself. Just… a bunch of other Luros with varying levels of morality and opinions." She shrugged and popped the cherry into her mouth. "S'nothin really new. He's done it since I've known him. I'd be more worried if he didn't talk to himself really. There's something dangerous about him when he's sober and too focused. Can't say what it is because I'm not too sure, but there's a lot I don't know about him."

As weird as it was to say aloud, for some reason it made sense- especially with how long the two had known him. The giant was definitely odd and definitely a more questionable member of the crew, but Runali accepted him no less than the others. "Don't worry, you get used to it though."

Jack let out a sympathetic noise when hearing about the multiplying Luros. Though he'd gotten several accounts of what happened in the dream land from others, the giant's had been most confusing as he constantly talked about a Lai and Lura, a Maka with bananas, and a cloak that wasn't liked very much. The understanding that multiple Luro's had been present- somehow- made a logical explanation. He noted her observations of the carpenter, having known Luro longer than he had, a small frown forming between his brow. He would be sure to notice if Luro became suddenly too intent.

"Not exactly comforting, but you do have a point," he suddenly smiled, "Perhaps you should give points to Zilia. Luro appears to gotten fond of her; I notice the two together quite frequently, though I believe our good doctor is less than pleased and always appears to be suffering headaches while listening to him."

"Well of course I have a point, I'm the captain." She laughed, nodding towards his statement about Zilia. "Ah, yeah you're right. I first thought it was because she couldn't yell at him or say no. But now, I kinda think he knows what she's gonna say- or wants to say before she even writes it down. That or maybe he's just really good at reading her expressions… but bad at the… understanding part. Zil doesn't have to say words. You can practically hear those looks on her face." She laughed again. "Or at least feel them. But I'm dunno why Luro's taken a liking to Z enough to drag her into his chats." Runali sighed and gave a small shrug. "Maybe that's what he actually meant when he said he needed a lass to listen to his troubles."

"He is...surprisingly intuitive. Though I used to believe it was only in the best way to annoy others," Jack mused, thinking back to the interactions between Luro and Alicia. He went back to poking the kitchen fire, the crew's lunch nearly done. Now it was just waiting and to let it simmer. Jack gave the chili an extra stir than sat down with the captain, picking up a few cherries. The bowl was half-empty already.

"You have to admit, he and Zilia have one thing in common: they're one big question mark."

"Bah, you're thinking too hard about it." Runali found trying to understand Luro's antics a lot harder than just accepting them at face value. Sure, that didn't stop her from wondering about the giant on her ship, but she figured she'd learn during the journey. Which, she had been.

"Jack we're on a pirate ship sailing with no real course-" Runali paused, reminding herself that she did in fact give Kadi a direction to go towards. "With no real solid look into the future. We've willingly banded together as a crew- for the most part- and we've become friends. Sometimes, that's all you have and hey, sometimes it's all you need." Runali tapped the half empty cherry bowl, just to make a sound. "If you dig too deep, you might find something you don't wanna know about- at least not so soon."

There was a brief moment's pause as if Runali was in some deep thought, but her demeanor changed and she once again grabbed another cherry. "But I am curious about those markings on Zil's arms… but I'll wait till she wants to say." Runali remembered it from the Undersea. "You're not wrong. They're both a questionable duo. But," Her brow raised curiously. "I could say the same about you. No one goes through 'nothing' and comes out as paranoid as you." She pushed the bowl towards Jack, letting him take the last cherry. "But I digress, or whatever fancy terms Kadi's used. I'm not going to pry unless you want to tell me. S'how I know you really trust me after all."

Jack placed a hand on his chest in mock astonishment. "Captain, though I appreciate your respect of privacy, trust me when I say I am an open book." Something about his grin made it hard to discern if he was joking or not. He took the last cherry with a thank you, and chewed it thoughtfully as he thought more on what she said.

"I will admit, you and I see things differently. To me, it's always better to know than to not know information. Especially when it's something you'd rather not hear," his voice dropped a bit, and his eyes lost the bit of humor that normally glittered and made his smile believable, most of the time. "If you know it, it can't hurt you. But if you are blind to it, then that information has tendency to reveal itself in the most inopportune time. It'll surprise you in the worst of ways and the moment it catches you off guard, you open yourself to an attack."

Runali's eye closed for a moment as she listened to what Jack had to say. She nodded a bit, letting him know she was paying attention before finally opening her eyes again when he finished. "You misunderstand Jackie. It's not that I don't want to know, it's that I'm willing to wait for it. Specifically for my crew, at least in this case. Information is given when it's needed the most- and sometimes it just so happens that it's during a bad situation we need it the most." Runali shrugged and gave a small smile. "Take Kadi for example. Not once did he ever tell us that he was, well dead before we went to the Undersea. He hinted about his old crew and deeds that needed to be taken care of, but it was his choice not to speak up about the lack of a soul." She fiddled with the bowl as she spoke.

"Consider he told us earlier than he did- before we met you, Z, and Sara. Before we got separated for a whole two years..." Her brow raised, her gaze becoming slightly more serious. "You wanna know what would have happened? We would have tried going to the Undersea, guns blazing as Stardusks do. But we would have died there. A few years ago, we weren't ready to face something like that and so it was information that just… wasn't meant to be told. Not then, but now- or a few weeks ago. That's what I mean. But it's not always so secretive, you know? Alicia is practically an open book. We've been to her home- we should take you all there some time, they love us- and well, we've seen her at her lowest when her father died. The only secret Alicia has is that she secretly enjoys our company and that's no secret at all." Runali smiled again.

"I'm not saying your suspicions aren't… uh, valid. I'm just saying, sometimes if you know too much at the wrong time, well, worse things can happen. Trust me, there's a lot I wonder about my crew. All of you. But if I cross the wrong line, not only will I break a bond of trust we have but, well, hey, who knows what'll happen if I find whatever demons you guys are hiding in your closets- at least, when we're not ready to face them." Airing the unintentional tension, Runali laughed a bit. "And opening ourselves to an attack? We're pirates Jackie, we're always going to be under attack. And you all are more than just crewmates, you're friends. And I trust none of you are trying to kill me- well besides Luro but he still means well."

He became quiet and serious as she talked, starting at her with an odd intense gaze, and drinking in her words with thought and consideration. He made a faint nod when he followed her line of thinking and could understand how she arrived to her conclusions. Jack didn't agree with it; his experience taught him a vastly different ideology that would not, could not, be cast aside. But the fact Runali was taking her time to stop and tell him why she believed there were times not knowing was better than knowing forced Jack to pause and reconsider his own approach.

"Beg your pardon, captain, but I can't say I agree with you wholly," the cook said slowly, taking his time before speaking, "It's just my experience, you understand. Those crews I spoke of back in Jaipur? The ones I was betrayed by? They had secrets too. Didn't turn out so well for them….however," he gave her a slight smile, "You do raise a point with this particular crew. Stardusk have a way of defying odds and I'm honestly astounded by your foresight, and insight, to how your crew functions. You'd be amazed how many captains don't hold such a regard."

Sensing her need to switch the tone, he got up and walked back to the cauldron with an empty bowl. He took the ladle he had hanging on the fireplace and spooned chili into the bowl then set it down in front of her. "Here. First dibs, as my captain." He said with a wink.

She could tell by his look that he was analyzing what she said. It was a familiar look of someone piecing together things that did and didn't make sense. She didn't say anything however, until he mentioned he didn't agree fully. Runali couldn't help but grin. "Oh I didn't expect to sway your opinion," Her one eye lit up towards the chili. "Nice!" She didn't hesitate to take the bowl, but before she took a bite she added. "It was just something to think about when it comes to the crew. But," She waved her hand dismissively, "I've known you all long enough to pick up on habits and personalities. It's nothing special. Outsiders- well, it's trust until they give a reason not to be trusted. But I suppose that's also where our differences lie."

She tasted the chili and hummed, hopping to a different subject. "I love it! It's… different. Different, but somehow still familiar." Runali continued her taste test- which essentially just turned into her eating the chili before pausing to once again add to the conversation from before. "Y'know, if I expected you all to agree with me I'd just have a buncha… boring minions." She chuckled. "It wouldn't be any fun if all you guys did was agree with me. There's a… hm, in Alicia terms, a 'balance' with the crew." She tried to figure out how to word it, never the most fluent at explaining herself. "Basically, sometimes we need a few no's here and there. I mean as many times Z and Alicia have said things are a bad idea, I'm sure most of the time they're right. And the times we have listened probably saved us from an injury or death." She smiled and shrugged. "But rules are made to be broken, risks need to be taken, y'know all that fun stuff."

The captain smiled and nodded as if cementing the statement and continued eating. She'd have to start making lists of her favorite foods from him- but then she realized it'd just be a long list of any time he made food.

Though he did not comment on her response, Jack took it heart nonetheless. He preened himself at the praise. Chili was a popular dish in his home country, and to that extent he'd been anxious to hear Runali's reaction. He relaxed with relief. Propping his chin with an elbow on the table, he grinned at his test-taster. "Cumin and a dash of curry. Common spices in your homeland's dish, adds a nice kick to mine. Two cultures blending together for one delectable pot." He chuckled and started cleaning up. With the captain appraising lunch with a thumbs up, that meant he'd actually needed to serve it soon for the rest of the crew.

The thought made him perk up. "You know, with lunch coming up soon, this makes a great opportunity to observe the crew with our newfound insights." Jack looked at her with a mischievous smirk that mimicked her own impish grin. "Want to place a few wagers?"

Runali hummed her contentment as he told her the ingredients, still enjoying the chili. However the moment he mentioned 'crew' and 'wagers', Runali's brow raised and she set the empty bowl down. "You had my attention and now you have my interest. What's the stakes, what's the game?" She couldn't help but grin at the idea of this becoming some sort of trend between the two of them. It sounded fun.

Jack beamed. Spooning chili into bowls, he leaned toward her confidentially. "Five bets, closest to being correct at least three times wins 150 dollars. I'll start…"