[catchall] don't do things all by yourself

[thedarkbond]

Who: Ren Suzugamori (thedarkbond) & various quest-goers
What: November quest stuff! If anyone needs partners for non-Gilded Cage quests (because the only shady fuck with questionable intent Ren works for is himself), feel free to PM, hit up Ren's plotting comment for quests, or contact at reviseleviathan. I'm open to old and new CR for quests (and if anyone needs an excuse to be dragged into the Wyver fashion show, hey, he's your guy).
When: Late November/Early December
Where: Wyver, Nadril or Olympia depending on the quest.
Warning(s): Self-harm elements in the Hinit to Win It thread with Molly due to his Blood Hunter powers.

[[Starters will go up in the comments below!]]

Comments

Molly - Olympia (Hinit to Win It)

[thedarkbond]

[Ren might not actually live in Olympia, but he visits pretty often despite the length of the train ride - it's a nice place, even if Wyver is a bit less stuffy and thus more his speed. The clinic is one of the few places in the city he actually knows considering his abysmal sense of direction, too, so when he hears they need some help finding ingredients for an antidote, he figures he might as well lend a hand. He usually leaves animals be to do what they like, dangerous or not, but this one sounds like it's the not-fun kind of surprise for the unprepared, which makes him consider it more of a positive against negative deal.

He...doesn't know a huge number of people who live in Olympia, though, and he certainly knows who his preference is out of the options. And that's how he and Molly end up somewhere on the outskirts of Olympia, Ren squinting somewhere only slightly below his own eye level and humming thoughtfully.]

I wonder how big the lizards here usually are... [He's been getting way too used to dragons while working with them in Wyver, so despite hearing "common lizard" he also might have assumed "big lizard" with no real reason to.]

[mollymocked]

Honestly? Hopefully, just big enough. I feel like killing something.

[Molly's mood hasn't been in the pits since the incident in Dranbu, because he has the emotional object permanence of a squirrel, and it's all over and so it can't bother him now. That being said, he had nothing to kill in Dranbu to work some shit out and that urge remained.

At least he had a lot of warm bodies to snuggle up to, even if it meant submitting to some special plants. That was nice. Still, no substitute for the hunter's instincts that kick in whether he wants them to or not. He can be at ease and still feel that urge.] But I also don't feel like fighting something that could swallow me whole either. I want a nice balance.

[He holds his hands out, gesticulating to indicate something about chest high.]

[thedarkbond]

[Ren lets out a slight huff at that, something amused about it.] It's not really very fun if there's no challenge about it, though, is it...?

[He's not really the type for killing things in the first place - unless he has to, but with human threats even then he tends to go for scaring them straight or inflicting so much pain they're unlikely to make the bad decision of crossing him again - but he's very much interested in a challenging aspect to a fight. A good challenge gives him the kind of rush that he's seen Molly turn to various other things for.

He drifts forward a few more paces, closer to the trees, eyes trailing down a little. He can hear...something, he thinks, but it's very quiet, enough that he can't even be certain it's there.

Frowning, he turns his head towards Molly, tilting it slightly as he points forward into the trees (in the direction one of his ears happens to be facing now in an attempt to catch the noise more clearly).] Can you hear something in the grass, or is that just me...?

[mollymocked]

I just want more of a gnoll and less of a troll. [The rhyme falls off his tongue like liquid silver, though it seemed to be wholly unintentional and he grins like a little kid when he realizes what he's done, tongue poking out between his teeth a bit.

And then there's a sound, and instantly the childish carnie gets replaced by the fight expectant hunter. He wouldn't have to answer verbally to prove that he heard it- the tension in his stance and the slow narrowing of his eyes would say as much, but he still hisses back.]

Whatever it is, it's not big. [He's, perhaps, a bit disappointed, but it could just be a mouse or something. He's seen prey animals flee from something bigger in these areas, after all, but what steps out of the taller grass and pokes around the tree isn't a scared prey animal, but a small lizard that does not give a living fuck about the two humanoids staring at it, and seems to be focused entirely on circling the tree and digging at the ground in a hunt for bugs or something.

Molly's expression falls.] Well, that's just disappointing.

Rocket - Nadril (Sunken Treasure)

[thedarkbond]

[Effort is usually one of those things that Ren considers entirely for other people to do, but sometimes his curiosity gets the best of him. Sunken treasure is one of those things that he'd probably call pretty cliche if someone brought it up, but when it's actually happening, it's a little more interesting to his mind.

The carnivorous fish aren't quite a deal-breaker for someone as fond of weird and dangerous creatures as he generally is, either.

As such, he's actually volunteered to do a retrieval just out of personal interest. Probably...don't ask how he fit his hair under any part of this suit, but he's managed it through some feat of the imagination. But somehow he still looks more amused about who he's encountered on the deck just prior to the dive. Seems like they're expected to go in pairs at minimum.]

I don't suppose a laser would help much with the fish here, would it...? [Ren waves a hello even as he says that, his tone at about its usual level of airy and unconcerned.]

[beatupgrass]

[Oh, it's this guy, again. Rocket's grim expression gets more grim, but it's sort of ruined by the fact that his tiny suit makes him look weirdly adorable, like someone dressing up their pet for Halloween.]

I haven't adapted to making it waterproof yet, 'cause I hate water. [He hates it so much, so why is he here?] But I like money, and I brought flash bangs.

[At best he can scare the flesh eating fish.]

[thedarkbond]

[Rocket definitely looks weirdly adorable in this situation, and Ren's hand moves to his mouth without him really thinking about it, fingers curling to disguise a little amusement.]

Well, if you hate water it's better to have a weapon you can rely on if you need to go in, right? [He says that so brightly it's hard to believe he's actually talking about weapons.] That sounds like it'll be okay, though. I have one or two things I can do as well if we need it...

[Which he's not going to specify for the moment, instead wandering over to the edge of the boat. He's never gone diving before, but he knows the gist of what you're supposed to do (and the people actually on the boat had been prepared enough to explain the steps anyway).]

[beatupgrass]

Don't logic at me. [Underneath the suit, his fur bristles. Excuse you, he is the most logical and will not have his irrationality called out like this, sir.

He does turn to one of their hired hands for this objective- as he's calling them- and whisper.] Do either of you guys have a harpoon gun?

[They do not. Rocket swears and joins Ren at the edge of the boat, hefting himself up so he can dangle, half over and half in. The black depths below are inhospitable looking and Rocket doesn't particularly like all the ice around. It sets off a feeling of claustrophobia even knowing he'll be able to breathe fine, and they've been given instructions about what to do if they get caught under the ice.]

You wanna go first? [Said the brave Guardian of the Galaxy...]

Juno - Nadril to Wyver (Mapquest 2kXX)

[thedarkbond]

[If there's one thing Ren absolutely, definitely never needs to be enabled into doing, it's taking photos of interesting things he comes across. So when he hears about Nadril developing maps by just using pictures taken on network devices, he's all over that within about half a second.

Since he lives in Wyver anyway, and it's the furthest away from Nadril, he figures starting out there is a great idea. And what's also definitely a great idea is dragging along someone else from the region who is obviously not going to get grumpy about Ren's constant dragging him around Wyver.]

Oh, come look at these, Juno-san, you said you hadn't seen much forest before...

[They're near the lake just to the south of Wyver, and there's a cluster of dangerous-looking flowers with spiked red "petals" growing out of a bulb. Ren, of course, is bending down immediately to take a picture of those instead of the actual scenery at large like they're supposed to be doing.]

[stuns]

[ it's true, he hasn't, and the forests between wyver and dranbu have proved to be an... experience. which is why juno is hesitant to follow ren forward. unfortunately, curiosity really gets the better of him (it killed the cat, sure, but juno's not a cat). he peers over ren's shoulder, brows poised skeptically as he leans in as far as he dares to take in the strange-looking red bloom. ]

The hell kind of flower is that? I've seen some before, but this one looks like it's ready to stab you if you try to smell it.

[ does that stop him from getting closer to it? not really. ]

[thedarkbond]

[Ren being Ren, as soon as Juno makes that assumption, reaches out a finger and...starts poking the flower gently.] I think I've seen them in the Fields of the Exalted...I don't know what they're called, but I think you're not supposed to eat them raw because they're poisonous. So it's probably fine as long as you're not really hungry.

[Because clearly if they were hungry, the solution would be eating this random spiky flower they came across. After he's had his fill of poking, though, Ren straightens up, surveying the area and taking a few more lazy pictures.] I wonder if they have lilies on this planet. Have you seen those before?

[Apparently Ren is now determined to be Juno's personal flora guide, though he's not even that familiar with the flora specific to this planet himself.]

[stuns]

[ ok yeah ren wins that one, and juno just shakes his head as he pokes it. he half hopes the damn thing tries to grab him if only to prove a point, but that's juno for you. he lingers, even when ren straightens up, ever curious until he's addressed. ]

I've seen lilies, yeah. Mostly at funerals though.

[ especially the kind that are televised. he raises a brow. ]

You like 'em?

Yusei - Wyver (Strut Your Stuff)

[thedarkbond]

[While Ren doesn't generally hesitate to draw attention to himself in circumstances where he can still appear harmless, sometimes it's nice to make a game of it. Like when he gets approached on the street by people looking for people to walk for a show in the next hour and it happens to be at just the right time for Ren to spot someone familiar in the area as he does.

He offers the two women asking around a slight smile and a thoughtful hum, as if he's still considering his options.] Well, it sounds like it'd be fun to join the show...but it might be more fun with a partner. So how about...

[At that point, Ren leans back slightly with the intent of dragging Yusei across to talk to the women as well, but he might just talk to him himself if he's resistant to that part.]

...you join in with me~?

[planetary_bonds]

[Yusei was a little distracted looking at a deal at one of those stalls, so Ren's successful at dragging him back a few steps, at least.]

...What?

[Of course, this also means he's completely lost and doesn't know what you're talking about.]

Did you need help with something?

[thedarkbond]

Right, right, I did. [Ren's manner is as bouncy and airy as it typically is when he's not given reason to be anything else, and he directs Yusei towards the two women, who are wearing some...interesting outfits themselves, with lots of fur involved.]

These nice ladies were just telling me they need some people to help with a fashion show, and that sort of thing is best done in pairs, right? So we should do it together.

[It's altogether polite and vague and indicative of no ill intent, but there's not exactly a lot of wiggle room in the suggestion either.]

[planetary_bonds]

[The interesting outfits get only a blink of acknowledgement from Yusei before he turns back to Ren. He's seen similar in Satellite's red district after all (albeit admittedly not nearly as luxurious). Frankly, he looks more concerned about Ren's request.]

They...are?

[He's not all too familiar with fashion shows, but he knows about the universal "strut down the catwalk showing your stuff" thing and that's usually done one person at a time, isn't it? He's about to counter with that before the rest of Ren's offer comes in and he's left staring, a rare show of befuddlement on his face.]

I'm...not sure if I'm the type of person you'd want for that sort of thing...unless it was for help with the lighting and such...?

[Oh, Yusei. He's completely unaware of what appeals to the masses. Wild hair. Tattoos. Tanned skin. Scars on his neck that hint at the possibility of more. The white shirt and vest he's wearing hides it well, but that hint of collarbone shows that he's got some good muscle on him, too. Intense blue eyes.

Ren might have done so by accident, but he absolutely did snag the perfect person to model something or other. Sorry, Yusei.]

Axel - Wyver (Sacred Monument)

[thedarkbond]

[Ren isn't exactly outstandingly loyal to Wyver as a city, still being plenty willing to help out both Olympia and Nadril when he feels like it - he tends to become loyal to people much more so than he does to place. However, his element of sympathy for Yseverai hasn't faded since the creature's turn to stone, despite the effects the "monument" has even as he's observing it, so the fact that people have started defacing it so soon is...displeasing, to say the least.

Though the effect of the monument might be contributing a little to that, even if Ren is enough used to those sorts of feelings to squash them down from becoming too much of a problem.

Intending to distract himself a little, he casts an eye around the area - and spots a somewhat familiar head of red-orange hair. It's not someone he knows well, admittedly, but Ren will take someone he knows at all in this kind of situation, and he wanders over in that direction with a wave.]

Oh, hello, are you around here again...? [He means in Wyver in general despite the extremely vague wording.]

[icingonthecake]

Axel would agree that loyalty to locations has never really been high on his priority list; he's much more inclined to get attached to people than places, but if helping out in any given location works in his favor, he can usually be persuaded. The plea for help keeping Ysverai's monument safe seemed genuine enough, and if there's one thing Axel's pretty good at, it's reconnaissance, so he decided to have a look into the situation.

He isn't expecting to see any familiar faces in the area, though, and lifts a hand in a casual wave when Ren approaches.

"Well, if it isn't the Void Fanclub, together again," he says with a grin. He gestures toward the statue looming nearby, figuring Ren seems far too fancy to be the vandalizing type. "Thought I'd come see if there was anything interesting going on here," he says. "Seen anything out of place today?"

[thedarkbond]

Short of being fancy, Ren looks far too clean to have been engaging in the kind of vandalism that's been going on - there's not a speck of dust on him. At the question, he taps his chin, acting as if he's not quite sure despite the fact that he's been paying pretty close attention, for him.

"Well, I've been talking to a lot of people coming this way, and none of them said they saw anything out of place. Though a few of them left awfully quickly after I talked to them, it was a little bit rude..."

Though it doesn't show on his face, there's almost a smile to his voice as he says that, some kind of amusement at the obvious disruption his presence had been to their plans. "So I came back here to see if I can see any familiar faces I saw earlier. I was about to start looking when I saw you."

More like he was about to start looking after he shook off the statue's influence a little, but same difference. It's probably fine now.

Mamoru - Wyver (Sacred Monument)

[thedarkbond]

[The thing about stakeouts, in Ren's experience, is that they're really boring. He's not the type who can sit still for five hours until the one specific person of interest shows up, he prefers to be doing his own thing and let someone else sort out that part.

He's really not fond of what's happening to Yseverai's statue, though, so he's employing a...somewhat different method of staking out the monument, that being attaching himself to people in the nearby streets who are heading for it and striking up conversation.

That goes for other Thesaens, as well, and Ren drifts up to the next familiar face he sees approaching with his usual vague smile in place and a greeting wave as he just...starts walking alongside him like this was planned the whole time.]

Are you going to see the monument? It's pretty impressive, there's been a lot of people coming around here lately...

[prizeneck]

[He took the job because he needed to learn more about this place.

Not sightseeing, per se, but the way the society that brought him here functioned. How criminality worked, and what is considered important. Mamoru hadn't traveled much, but whenever he did, he stayed there for long enough periods of time to understand just how long apart cultural discrepancies could be. That, and he wasn't really into both sides at the time - it's not really his fight to wage.

So when he saw this posted, he accepted - it seemed a good way to start. He felt rusty, and even though he was still unarmed, he could definitely work something out.

How a man over 6 feet tall manages to stay unseen for a long period of time is anyone's guess, but it's Mamoru's bread and butter. He slips against a wall and under where he feels is the coolness of a shadow over him, one shoulder resting on the surface as he takes in his surroundings. He memorizes the step patterns, the way several people walked and how different it sounded from the hubbub of most urban places. Tells the system in his shades to memorize a couple of people who seem interesting enough in the way they walk for future reference.

He's there for quite a while until he fully immersed himself in the surroundings that he lifts from the wall and starts walking along into the throng of Thesaens.

So it's not really a surprise when Ren approaches - but he acts like it the same.] Huh, you're going too?

[thedarkbond]

I think it's interesting to visit. [Considering the type of person Mamoru seems to be, Ren doubts he just got here, and even more that he's here for no reason, but he carries on as obliviously as ever.] The monument hasn't been here that long, but it seems like it's pretty popular, doesn't it? There's a lot of people coming through here even now.

[It makes a certain level of engaging a little bit necessary to figure out who's doing the vandalism, he thinks, even if it's just engaging people close enough to the statue to be doing it. With a lot of people moving in and out of the area, there's that risk of losing things in the shuffle.]

You didn't really seem like the type to me to come out to see something like this, though. You were pretty grumpy back in that forest...

Rodney - Nadril (Mapquest 2kXX)

[thedarkbond]

[While expanding the maps of places outside Nadril is probably the most useful application of the new technology from Nadril, there's parts of their own territory that could use an update as well. Given recent events, mapping out towards Dranbu and across the frozen sound that meets Josa Forest is suddenly a bit more urgent, so Ren is happy enough to head out that way with someone else who's taken up the job. While he's not really built for the cold, and he occasionally trips over into snow drifts, he seems upbeat enough about the whole thing for the most part, if making the occasional complaint about how much nothing there is around here.

Ren mostly seems interested in taking pictures of the frozen sound at this point, and the forest across it - there's not a lot other than lots of ice and snow around here otherwise, and he's frowning a bit as he catches the distant hints of Josa Forest in a photo.]

Do you think we should head towards the forest, or would they have mapped it when they were trying to build the train that way...?

!

[doubledoctornocitrus]

[Setting out for the frozen expanses around Nadril without John had seemed like a good idea at the time, but mapping the tundra is miserable work and Rodney's paired with a very...enthusiastic...flower child. Rodney himself is bundled up within an inch of his life and the only reason he's not complaining is that he's been half-preoccupied trying to decide on what sort of algorithm they could be using that used the visual data they were capturing to produce the kind of map that resulted. An interesting-enough puzzle to keep him from more elaborate grumbles than just responding in kind to the young-person's complaints about how much nothing they were taking pictures of.

At the question, though, Rodney drops his mobile back down to peer at the screen and replies with a question of his own, edged in grump.]

How much do you think we have left if we don't head towards the forest? If we'd be done, I say we be done.

[He's not grumpy at Ren. Just. In general. He sighs, though.]

I think the algorithm requires us to take the pictures ourselves, and unless they made sure to have refugees mapping at the time, then we probably need to...

[He gestures Joba-ward.]

[thedarkbond]

[At that question, Ren mostly glances around the nearby tundra, looking a little disappointed at all the nothing.] Probably a lot...snow is nice and all, but I don't know how much more snow I can stand to see without breaking it up with something else...

[He does have a point about the algorithm, though, and also the fact that the train workers were only likely seeing a small part of the forest. If they'd had something like this system, they should've still been "checking in" even while they were missing, which they hadn't seemed to be.

Ren's gaze does slide a bit vaguely over Rodney's bundling up - he himself is a bit more used to cold weather in the normal ranges, but he knows not everyone likes it very much, so he figures it's a good motivational point.] Josa Forest is probably a little warmer anyway, right? Or it was last time I was in there.

[Considering Ren's just wearing a big sweater that's just about falling off his shoulders and over his hands, he's clearly not bothered enough by the cold to dress seriously for it (or not visibly, at least - his hair and sweater are mostly hiding the warming ear and sleeve cuffs he got way back during the initial trek to Nadril), but the suggestion seems innocent enough.]