Chronicles of Gaia (RP)

"Avoid this area, got it," Aislin agreed, taking out her pencil and making a small note that would confuse anyone who didn't know Unown spelling, but which clearly stated "Danger" to those that could read it. She waved to Carleton, unsure yet of what she could say to him. She waved harder at Rowan's appearance, happy to see him again. Despite her new revelations during the month apart, she still cared about him. "Not quite, we're still waiting on another person," Aislin corrected to Laura's light snarking. "A person named Sagau." And Claire too, she mentally added, not certain if she had seen the woman come out yet. She glanced over at her two, seeing that Kahlua was ignoring the table, focusing on the Materia in his hands, and Kudret was writing something down into the journal she had given him.

A month passed since the rest of the group arrived at Karston, by now they'd become regulars at 'Ethel's', Celere hadn't finished 'fixing up' the wreck of a property she intended to use as a base of operations until recently, she didn't hang around much either, ever since her surgery had finished healing she'd thrown herself into odd jobs and her main gig of training other people to be more physically capable of defending themselves, but this day was different, there had been subtle changes going on around the place, a few lights here, some hanging decoration... specific trees that usually had decorations after a couple nights, preparations were going on for something and some people likely already cottoned on as to what this was. - 'Twas a quiet night, with little movement as most spent time in their homes, for the group, they'd been escorted to an otherwise nondescript property and led inside, Celere had been busy, and was comfortable with giving this over to them, she'd taken the time to decorate it out to go with the season, "So, uh, consider this a practical gift, a home away from home while we're all stuck on this planet, should be plenty of space for all of you to have your private spaces, that's all I got to say for this!" she shrugged, a smile on her face as she slumped into a chair, almost immediately falling asleep, apparently having a little too much excitement from all this.

Trix, having his learned his weapon in a month, picked up another. "This one." A gleaming blade on the end of a sturdy rope. "Not a good idea to keep your best weapons on display." Having been satisfied with the weapon, he pays for it and leaves. "I'm starvin..." He sets off for 'Ethels', swinging his new weapon at his side.

As Lambda stepped into the building, he was the first one to speak: "You bought this for us? And decorated it all? Thank... you." He'd turned to face the young Saiyan, only to find her passed out in a nearby chair. A light chuckle escaped him. 'So this is what she's been up to these past few weeks.' He'd noticed her slipping out of Ethel's every now and again, often returning at odd hours. She must have been working since the group first reached Karston to afford this place... The demon frowned slightly. He hadn't done much to help out since they'd found a place to stay. He'd felt fatigued, as though something was sapping his strength even now. But now he felt the need to contribute something. Maybe he could ask Ethel about a job when he went back to get his stuff.

In the month that passed, Iliya had kept her distance from most of the group. Toré had more or less managed to convince her to at least start taking the antidote that Hades had created, but even then her recovery was taking a long time. Her Ghost core had been damaged with everything that happened; the amount of poison in her body would have killed any living creature weeks ago. Even so, she kept on going, not wanting to disappoint Toré, who seemed quite determined to help her recover. Claire had successfully finished her trial; her quest had been to save the 'Charmed Ones' in a timeline before she had been born. It had been interesting to see her mother and aunts at a younger age, and she wondered if the mess they had gotten themselves into was something that happened in real life too. In the end they had to cooperate with some of the world's most dangerous demons to restore the balance in the trial world. In the month after the trial ended, Claire had started hanging out with Aislin. It had been a lot of fun to be able to talk to someone else from Earth, and to be able to watch tv shows on Aislin's tablet. Being in another world definitely sounded crazy, but at least she was able to talk with someone not from her family about her magic for once. ((and then my brain gave up on me again))

Seyr walked in, looked around, and walked back out to the front immediately, it wasn't that she was ungrateful, she just had higher priorities at the amount, it'd been a while since she'd needed to do one of these but after a few minutes and a spark of fire magic, she was blowing smoke into the air, making images and patterns appear in said smoke just to see what would happen, *Still following are you?* she mentally sighed, since first notice she'd gotten a good enough read on her unwanted follower, she knew who it was fully by now, though hardly surprised given they would've been in the detonation zone as much as she was, she couldn't help but feel pity, the amount of mutations and general messing up of the body they must have gone through as a result, only to then keep living in that torturous state... *I'll deal with you tomorrow, one final hurrah to the old world, because I sure as hell aint going back there, not when they've put me on some deific pedestal* At some point Lina had managed to bump into and ingratiate herself into the group enough, while there were plenty of seats in here to sit down on, she remained stood up, leaning on a wooden pillar and just watching the scene unfold, she found it cute, a similar holiday in her world took place around this time of year, usually led to a sudden influx of gold due to people paying way too much for last minute pickups, "Oh, right, yeah, gimme a moment, don't know if any of you do this but uh..." pushing herself off her leaning post, she walked over to where a modestly decorated tree was, fumbling with something before stepping back, small boxes placed underneath in a pile, "There we go, looks a bit more in place now." - Bora had entered and immediately spotted the upstairs rooms, he left for several minutes and came back without the kid on his arm, he sat down and looked into the fireplace to watch the embers dance around, he looked somewhat pensive as he did this, sure he'd intended to stay behind, and had intended on announcing this once the rest had all done their business in that hall but ended up not doing so, and now the kid had taken something of a liking to Celere over him, foreign feelings to the male had arisen and despite his age he wasn't really sure how to process it all, "So..." he started, then shook his head as if to deny what he wanted to say, "It can wait, never mind." As for Toré, well, he wasn't doing so hot, over the month he'd fallen on a plan to get Iliya to start taking a more introspective look at her own actions or rather inactions, there'd been a point where he'd tried to get her eat the most tasteless things imaginable, and the poison he'd stolen had come into play, he didn't use it on her, oh no, he'd ingested the entire container at once, he'd told none of the others about it, and had suggested Iliya kindly stay quiet on the matter, but after a couple of weeks it was safe to say it wasn't because of his Monster Biology, he'd probably be dead otherwise, the havoc it was running of his systems was still well hidden though, he could largely in part prevent anything severe until his soul started taking damage, when that happened, he was one hundred percent on a timer to get Iliya on track, his words being something along the lines of; 'Until you've taken the antidote fully and the toxins are purged from your system, this stays in me, just... I can't properly help you unless you help yourself first.' to be honest he couldn't quite remember the exact words.

Kahlua had been more or less training and taking on odd jobs during the month past, trying to get himself to the level he perceived as useful to the group at large. While he was a little too flashy with his magic to ever be a good pickpocket, he'd slowly found himself getting better and better at hiding and ambushing. It was often him and maybe one or two others that set themselves up into ambushing whoever or whatever they were hunting that day. Kahlua had also found that Aislin truly was the infomongerer of their group, for the minute he had explained to her how he performed it had promptly shown him a video of another world that did something similar. ...Strangely, it did help in how he controlled the magic in turn, so it was beneficial. Lina had somehow started joining the group as well, which given how they'd met (Aislin) wasn't as surprising as it should have been. The dragonling was a good team player and worked well with just about everyone there, though her infrequent references to luck and dice were still confusing. Now that they have a base of their own though... it gave him mixed feelings. How long, exactly, were they going to need to stay in this world? Karston was a good place, safe from the Empress they had all learned about by now, but to have a base meant they'd be going out and returning here. ...Then again, Kahlua supposed it was better than living at Ethel's for much longer. He was relatively certain they were starting to get on the owner's nerves.

---

Kudret had been busy this past month, taking the occasional job with the group, learning how to better his swordplay alongside Diemia, and also getting a job at one of the many forges that existed here. It was a welcome reprieve from the constant traveling they had done to immerse himself into blacksmithing once more, and while his experience had been mostly alchemy-related and various farming tools back home, he found himself rising through the apprenticeship rather rapidly. Kudret supposed that the alchemy was what helped as it meant that he could tackle and finish certain pieces in a way that was rather cost-effective. He wasn't entirely sure about that as he had never really paid attention to prices at home... or at school for that matter, that was Ida who paid careful attention to their money habits. A new base was welcome, though he wasn't really certain what the tree was about. Given Aislin's gasp it was probably certain she knew what it meant. He'd ask later. Claire was... strange to have in the group. Lina had joined readily enough, and seemed happy to stick around, but Claire was an oddball in his book. She seemed to have gotten Mage as a class, though a lot of her spells seemed to be more material-based or song-based than the innate magic their trio of mages held. While that is what he is more used to thanks to his own world, traveling with Mizuki, Seyr, Kuja, and Rikazu for months on end had caused this type of magic to be unfamiliar. She also had easily made friends with Aislin, which if he had to be honest, hurt a little. He hoped that soon enough Aislin would open up to the rest of them as much as she had with Claire. ...He also hoped that much of the reason stemmed from being part of the same kind of world, and not for some reason he hadn't seen yet. At the same time though, he was worried over Lynn and Bora. With Bora taking care of the child they had picked up, and Lynn meeting up with someone in Karston frequently, the two alongside Celere had often skipped out on jobs and get-togethers that the group had initiated to stay more or less in touch. Celere's reason was very apparent now that she was done, but it seemed as though Bora and Lynn were almost... reluctant to keep going. Were they thinking of leaving?

---

Aislin, after the intial meetup from the Job Hall and finding the mages later at Ethel's, had worked hard to try and keep the group together. It was she who was often suggesting jobs at least some of the group could do together, and different places they could go and just... hang out, maybe talk a little, grow closer together. She could see that it was helping to make the relative newcomers (all those that joined after the battle and here in Karston) feel more welcome in the group, and that while some people stayed out of it she could kinda tell that it still helped. Aislin had also been keeping track of finances, as now that they actually had money to spend she wanted to make sure no one overspent it, and looking up things over in the various libraries in the city for her own job. Rowan, now sharing her Class, often joined her on these excursions to the library, and while at times they would talk to each other (such as one very awkward conversation...) other times they just read while sitting next to each other. Aislin was, however, also doing her best to keep track of what was going on in the group at large, and thus did know about Lynn meeting up with someone, Bora being rather reluctant to come to the outings because child, and of Tore's... less than successful attempts at helping Iliya to get over herself and get healed. Some may call it meddling, but was it really when all she was doing was mentally checking off the times they weren't there, instead of actively interfering? Hmm, Ama was on to something when she called her a 'Commander' back at the Tower... though she preferred 'Tactician'; in her mind at least, they were the same thing. Aislin still wasn't entirely sure what to feel about Claire. On the one hand, it was really fun watching shows together, understanding the different references they used, and even talking about the magic in Claire's world. On the other, she'd never had a friend before joining the group at large, and even then she still wasn't certain where the line was between 'comrade-in-arms' and 'friend'. Yes, she could talk with Claire about a great deal more than what she could with others here, but when is it too much time spent with her and not enough time with everyone else? Aislin was still trying to figure that part out, and had a feeling that if she didn't figure it out soon there would be hurt feelings involved and she did not know how to fix that. The only thing she'd kept to herself though, was the times when she looked up stuff on the tablet about her theories. The more she read, the more it seemed she was missing a very big piece of the puzzle she was piecing together. At the same time, the more she read the more she was aware she couldn't talk about this with anyone, lest she suddenly find herself a target. With her sub-par skills in fighting and lack of training to be one, she'd be a sitting duck. About the only one she'd even dare try to talk about it with would be Celere, if only because she'd been here longer than anyone else and thus might know more. ...Then again, maybe she didn't, if she was fixing up this base for most of that time. Aislin couldn't help the gasp that escaped her lips at the sight of the tree. She'd almost forgotten about the holidays during her time spent here. Had it really been that long since she had come here? Now she was regretting not looking for trinkets or anything during her stay here in Karston.

Celere awoke with a snort, hands gripping the arms of the chair she was in, "Ugh, those are getting more common, sorry about that, I'll be back in a few, don't let me keep you from doing stuff!" rather than her usual vigor, she took her time walking up stairs, disappearing around a corner for a while, once out of sight and sound, she slumped down, eyes blank as they turned up to the ceiling, *Nightmares, pretty vivid too, think I need to take a step back and look at my life, figure it out, that'll probably stop them.* back to her feet, she could briefly be seen crossing the walkway before slipping into the kids room, where she'd likely stay for an hour or so, she was not coming back anytime soon. Bora ignored all of it, "So, gonna be open, was planning on hanging back but that's clearly no longer a necessity, I'll be sticking around you lot for a while longer, there are things we need to discuss as a group, but that can wait a while, this is neither the time nor the place for that." he was rather animated with a few gestures as he spoke, the most he'd been since he'd arrived, something about his environment was allowing him to relax, be himself rather than the official he was in his own world, "Thinking of taking up Bodyguard jobs, all of you are doing something and being productive, I've been sat around for all this time not contributing, let me know if you find anything, I'll be searching from tomorrow."

Celere had been in the kids room for quite a few minutes, waiting to see how the room would take shape, at first she wasn't wholly impressed, sterile, white walls that gave her a chill down her spine, she did not like how these looked, and the mood of the room was just... fear in it's purest form, she was about to move to wake them up when it began changing to something else, a desk popped into existence, which in turn began to populated by things the saiyan couldn't wrap her head around, she'd seen more species of sentient entities than most of her group likely combined, but these were new, very much new. She left said room and walked to the stairs, "Aislin! Need to pick your brain on something up here, got some weird animal things I want to know about." she turned and went behind a wall, waiting to see if Aislin would humour her on this for a while. (Will populate this post with another character in the morning if another post isn't made, brain decided to fry itself all of a sudden)

Aislin, who had been attempting to ignore the tree by virtue of looking through her bag, glanced up at the call and wondered aloud, "Which weird animals and in our group or outside of it?" She grinned straight after as the admittedly vague question had elicited a laugh from Kudret. Aislin swiftly shut her bag and went up the steps, meeting Celere at the top with a grin. "So where are the weird animals?" She asked, "I mean, I know you're probably well-traveled because Saiyan, but I can make a good guess or two based on what I see in there." This was basically a roundabout way of admitting that she might not know what they are either, but is willing to give it a shot.