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Kale Hearthward THE GOOD BAR

This is the bar with no name. It's tucked into a corner of a busy metropolis, with the sign out front simply reading 'bar'. There's a dwarven barkeeper who seems to always be working no matter when you visit, and a goblin staff who can hand-deliver to seemingly anywhere in the multiverse, and the food and drink on offer may be simple - but it's the best simple fare to be found across the whole convoluted Secundus warpgate network.

Tonight, the whole bar has been rented out. (This isn't a big feat, admittedly, for a sunday night.) There's a printed sign taped to the front door: <CLOSED FOR EVENT: SECONDOS AFTER PARTY> (default font, 48pt, centered horizontally but not vertically).

Inside, things are a bit more decorated. Banners and streamers have been hung in the factional colors, with various artifacts of the expedition placed about the walls - with Kale's hand-drawn map taking up a point of prominence, alongside advertisements for or from various Secundus locales, and photographs of points of interest. The bar's TV has been hooked up to a Syndicate tablet, and is cycling through the various displays of information available on it.

There's rows of food and drink already laid out - mostly fried and alcoholic, respectively, with the staff weaving effortlessly in and out to replace baskets and mugs as soon as they're taken - and the dwarven bartender is patiently waiting for other orders, polishing a glass.

Kale himself is at a spot of prominence, welcoming people in. This is, in theory, an afterparty for the whole expedition - the bar's colored in the colors of all three Sector Zero factions, and he's made an effort to get souvenirs from all across Secundus instead of just his territories - but there's still a detectable bias that leans Hearthward-ward.
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Party tour time

    Arthur loves a good party. And he loves multiple parties following weeks of the climactic release of months and months, years maybe, of work. He contributed mostly to the Paladins end of things, and he's tremendously happy to celebrate a bit of that. Fried food, too! He snags something crunchy and gets to crunching as he swaggers through the door, and admires the map. "DAMN." He rambles. "Some ALL-OUT STUFF. Y'all went WIDE on the EXPEDITION." Crunch crunch munch. "Caught the HELLA ESSENTIAL SHIT too, with that WIDE NET. Plus, look at all that damn DEVELOPMENT. Hell!"

    Just enjoying it, it seems. He snatches a seat and relaxes in the most obnoxious sort of way.
Utsuho Reiuji Utsuho Reiuji was not invited. You can tell because she didn't do anything in Secundus except get lost once.

However she heard there were onion rings and beer at a party, and Utsuho is of the opinion that she can go wherever she wants as long as she brings a gift or something.

Which is why there is a bird girl that is definitely not the same sort of bird as Kale (unnecessarily) kicking the door open with her stone-coated foot before barging in, a corked gourd on a string dangling from her single actual hand and wrist.

She slows down a little when she enters, because she fears she has misunderstood slightly - you bring booze to a party to share around, especially if you aren't invited, but the beer already appears to be here. Still, Utsuho is not going to let a little mistake get in her way. If she let every mistake she made stop her she'd never be doing anything at all!

(Utsuho has not really recognized that this is part of the problem.)

"Hello!" she says, too loudly. "I heard there was a party and a bar and fried everything!"
Cantio A new place! A new party! And a chance to try and figure out what the heck was going on yesterday. Cantio's here as (probably) expected following the end of the Secundus test, dressed in her usual white and purple outfit with the musical-note accents. She stops in front of the bar, squinting at that printed sign for several moments while taking out her phone. She takes a picture of it, then heads on in while trying not to let the off-centered lettering gnaw at her too much.

The difference between the fare here and yesterday is rather stark, but it doesn't bother her in the slightest. She actually lets out a relaxed sigh after looking over all the food, then raises a hand in greetings as well as to announce herself (in case anyone's expecting an ambush or something).

"Hey, Kale. Arthur, Utsuho, hello! There's a lot of stuff here, huh? I've heard only a little bit about this place, but I did hear the onion rings are pretty good." She recommends while leaving her attache case by the door, then takes some time to survey all the gathered stuff that totally isn't biased at all.

"If I knew this was going to be like a little trip down memory lane..." She stops herself, already remembering just how terrible so many of the zones she personally visited were. Instead, Cantio turns to Kale and gives him A Look. "So..."
Kale Hearthward Utsuho has one thing going for her here, at least.

"Hey, Utsuho! You made it! C'mon in! Just set that down wherever," says Kale. "Thanks again for helping me get my part of the expedition set up - is Rin coming along later?"

Arthur gets welcomed in. "Hey - you're the one who organized the whole thing," says Kale. "All that stuff in your lab that I'm not gonna even pretend to understand about."

"Though like, going out and doing stuff being all us - that I'll gladly take credit for."

And then there's Cantio. "Hey!"

And then she gives him A Look. "Ah-"

He coughs. "So - good contest, well fought?" he says, instead of bringing up the thing she's probably referring to. "I'm pretty sure if it'd gone on longer I would have caught back up, in terms of territory and development..."
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: What's your take on the Paladin push?

    "Yeah, you had some BIG BACKUP hittin' the streets. Wonder if it's gonna START STRONGER on the NEXT ONE." Arthur agrees with Kale while he orders a mixed drink. Not too alcoholic, but hey, it's a party! There's also that friendly wave to Cantio. "WHAT UP, CANTY?" That look... "Guessin' you're gonna GIVE HIM SOME SHIT on the NEXT ONE?" He laughs, taking a swig and getting back to his fried foods. "Seems like a lotta dudes made CONNECTIONS about this."
Utsuho Reiuji See? Problem solved, by just pretending there wasn't a problem at all. Utsuho's master plan worked out.

"I think she's taking a nap," Utsuho says, which is technically true: Orin was the one who tried to steal the sake from the onis and ended up in a drinking contest. She is *definitely* taking a nap. On the plus side, it's probably good sake, even though it won't be the very top quality drink - but what an oni considers 'pretty good' is still excellent. And strong.

She sets the drinking gourd down with a thunk on one end of the bar. "But yeah, that was great! The helping. Which I definitely did. Anyway, what are we talking about? Competition...? Oh! Right, the thing with the science."

She waves her hand (actual hand) at Cantio and then immediately goes to look at the food. This is guaranteed to keep Utsuho busy for a few moments.
Cantio "... Well fought, yeah. It'll be interesting seeing how things shake up next time." Cantio smiles pleasantly enough at Kale, actually managing to grin confidently in return at his semi-boast. "Maybe, maybe not. I did have a bit of a lead by the end there, although I never really did get to use it..."

She's totally trying to gauge his reaction to that. Arthur notices the look, and she giggles lightly before shrugging. "Maybe! I mean, I'll probably be focusing more on research than land next time around, so... Who knows. I might even work with him at some point if he finds the right territory for me to work with."

That's probably a good confirmation of where Cantio's mind is going to be later. She joins Utsuho at the food, piling a small mountain onto a single plate and trying to balance it all without dropping anything. She's clearly trying to imitate a far more proficient food-stacker, but hasn't quite reached that level yet.

"You should try joining in, too, Utsuho. It's a good opportunity to stretch your legs, wings, whatever. See new things, fight new people, find interesting stuff, find out interesting stuff."
Kale Hearthward "Ah - yeah, the next one..."

"... Any news on when that might be?"

Cantio accepts his deflection. Kale holds back his sigh of relief. "Yeah, so-"

Then she says something that makes him pause. "Hang on... 'might' work with me?"

He goes over towards her, frowning at her. "(I thought you said you were accepting my protection,)" he whispers to her. "(Like, we had this whole talk about it and everything!)"
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Fondly regard calabash

    Arthur scrutinizes the gourd, and ponders its contents. He has an instinctive distrust of anything that is grown on a vine and then becomes a pottery-equivalent. But he snatches up the sake and gets a refill, with a grin. "THANKS, YO."

    Then it's back to Cantio. "TALL, not WIDE, huh? Yeah, might be EASIER next time. I'm trying to REFIGURE THE SYSTEMS, get some NEW OPTIONS in there." Any news on the next one? Arthur shrugs at Kale. "Eh. MONTHS? YEARS? Probably not. We're probably lookin' at a MATTER OF WEEKS, just NOT THE SAME ZONES. I'mma KEEP Y'ALL UPDATED, let'cha know WHERES AND WHENS."
Utsuho Reiuji Utsuho's offering of sake is *strong* but pretty good, once you get past the fact that it is doing the alcoholic equivalent of kicking you in the face. Whoever made it knows their stuff.

"Mph?" Utsuho asks, around a mouthful. Utsuho was not picky. She will eat anything offered to her.

"Wings *and* legs!" she decides. "Maybe I will. I've never had a place like that of my own before. Building it sounds pretty hard but at least it would have power... maybe I should just start drilling caves bigger or something. It'd be good practice!"

She nods to herself, then shoves an entire fried pickle in her mouth, crunching away. She was looking for dry ribs, but this will do. "Do you usually team up?" she says after swallowing, with intense lack of table manners.
Cantio "(That's the plan, yeah, but I'm not going to announce it to everyone immediately. We need to at least be a little subtle!)" Cantio 'whispers' back to Kale with an exasperated tone, trying to disguise the sounds with the crunch of an onion ring. She pauses, then crunches on another one.

"... That's pretty good." Munch.  "(I mean, unless you want everyone questioning you about that. Especially after yesterday's... Thing.)" She gives Kale another A Look at that last bit, but it's a different A Look from earlier. This one's much more confused.

Arthur guesses at Cantio's idea, and she waggles a hand noncommittally. "Probably. I might even focus more on just exploration rather than land management. Less hassle, more stuff to see, retire while I'm still on top. Or... Gather more intel, at the very least."

Utsuho mentions her own plans, and Cantio strokes her chin lightly in return. "It's definitely different from trying to build everything by scratch. I mean, you can, but it's not quite... Fully the same? It's a lot faster, and a lot of stuff just works if you set your mind to it." She pauses to peer at Utsuho again, then snags a fried pickle for herself.

Crunchy. "It'll make more sense when you try it yourself. Some people did team up pretty consistently, yeah. It might not be a bad idea to coordinate with people you know, you know?"
Kale Hearthward Oh.

... Ohhhh.

"(Right, um, sorry.) Ha ha, you're right, next time you will totally beat me sure, you keep saying that," says Kale, trying to cover for that.

Yeah, Kale and subtle are not normally even parallel things, let alone simultaneous things.

"Well I hope it's not in just a few weeks - I have two weeks of training coming up that I can't put off," he says, which may or may not be an explanation for why he's not around while his player is on vacation. "

"Anyway - yeah, you should take part next time," says Kale. "It's - been an experience, definitely. New connections, like Arthur's saying."

"... As long as you don't end up in like... a meat dimension. Or a sewers dimension. I don't..."

He rubs his face, and goes to get some onion rings. "I don't know why I had three sewers dimensions..."
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Intel, right?

    "Yeah, INTEL'S gonna be good. As long as ya keep the RESONANCE flowing and let me CHECK for the ONYX SHIT, sure fuckin' HELPS ME TOO." Arthur shakes his head clear of the kick-in-the-face alcohol, deciding to water it down (he has a hip flask of Mountain Dew Gamerfuel Supreme).

    Then he shrugs to Kale. "RESONANCE IS RESONANCE. Shit just GOES WILD WHENEVER. Least the MULTIVERSE ain't about to BLOW UP AGAIN." He grins and calls out after Kale, "IT'S GOTTA GO SOMEWHERE, K!"
Utsuho Reiuji Do not tell the onis what horrors have been wrought on their sake. They will not be happy.

Fortunately, even poor subtlety works just fine on Utsuho, and she doesn't see past Cantio and Kale's ruse. Such as it is. "Eeh? Well I'll have to see it then, I guess! I'll show people what I can really do."

Pause. "Meat dimension? I'd be okay with a meat dimension. Well, maybe not a WHOLE meat dimension but, like... a little bit of meat. Sewer dimension... well, you could burn it, at least. I've done that before! Just not with sewers. Normally there's no onyx in THAT."
Cantio Cantio dies a little inside, but she does pull it together enough to raise a hand and give Kale an encouraging(?) thumbs up!

She visibly dies again on the inside when meat and sewer dimensions are mentioned. "Maybe.. It wouldn't hurt to look into terraforming technology before the next time it reopens." She muses aloud, almost looking like she's lost her appetite until she finally finishes loading her plate up.

Careful. Careful. It's a bit of a struggle to get that thing to a table without spilling a single piece, but Cantio manages it, and she's rewarded with finally being able to eat normally while conversing!

"Speaking of that... Oh, that's good. Uh... Yeah, I'll keep an eye out for anything that sounds like it might be an onyx... Thing. Is it something we should avoid touching with our bare hands?" She asks, pausing again to polish off a wing before trying to recall something. "There was that time in... Sector Zero, I think? I remember using specialized suits and gloves on it."

Utsuho brings up her preference for meat dimensions, and Cantio laughs lightly while shaking her head. "Oh, it's... The one I found was definitely too much meat. The ground, the plants, the trees, everything. It was... Unique." She tries to upsell it a bit, but there's definitely a look of lingering pain in her eyes at recalling that horror.
Kale Hearthward "Well, I'm sure the timing will work out just fine," says Kale.

"... Burn the sewer stuff - like as fuel? Maybe? I'll have to think about that. Still wouldn't smell good."

Kale goes for some onion rings.

"Aside from the... weird zones, there's some neat stuff out there," says Kale. "I found a zone that was just people racing solar-powered hovercraft, but each day only lasted like, five minutes. It was kinda neat, though wouldn't want to live there."

"And a lot of cities, some neighborhoods, and this... really nice resort, but all the staff were wearing robes. Never figured out why."
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Should you touch Onyx-traced Resonance with your bare hands?

    Arthur shrugs. "Eh. None of the GRAY CARAPACIANS looked FUCKED UP AND SICK, and they weren't HAZMAT MODE. Don't think it'll be a PROBLEM. Just HOLLAR if you NOTICE, and don't worry about BIOHAZARD SHIT." His expression shifts a bit. "I mean, BESIDES the MEAT ZONES and SEWERS and shit. Like, SHOWER, that shit's NASTY." Driiiink!

    "Yeah, there's BIOFUEL around, right?" Arthur rambles to Kale. "Really, pretty much no kind of USELESS TURF around, not REALLY. In SECUNDUS or ANYWHERE, for real."
Utsuho Reiuji Utsuho thinks about that one for a few moments.

"That one might be too much," she eventually agrees. "I was thinking just a little bit of meat. But if *everything* was made of it, where would you sit? What would you sit on? Or in?? It'd smell weird and you'd need like five baths and nobody wants that. One is enough."

She looks at Kale. "Five minutes is pretty weird! Twenty-four hours is about right, but I guess it would be okay if it was like twenty or twenty-five or something too. Maybe they'd like it if I fixed their sun for them."

There is, presumably, nothing wrong with their sun.

"Wait, what's an onyx thing? Isn't that a rock?" Utsuho lived underground and so she can identify a whole lot of rocks, but that's about as far as it goes. "I mean, it's pretty but it's not bad for you. How do you tell which kind of onyx is?"
Cantio "Sewer matter as fuel? Hh... L-let's not think about that while we're eating." Cantio recommends with a hopeful, if mildly grossed out smile. "Other zones are good to talk about, though! Like..."

"The cult dimension. With the eyeballs and... Er.  Or the port zone! With the... I think those were also cultists." Cantio seems to be losing wind already, shivering after a moment and giving Kale a dull stare. "How were you able to find all the places that weren't awful?"

Arthur reassures her about not needing all that protective gear, at least, and she takes a quick swig of beer before stroking her chin. "If there's potentially limitless zones, then finding trees or even buried matter that can work should be just a matter of time. And maybe even that meat might be worth something if it burns effectively enough..."

Utsuho asks about seats, and Cantio shivers again. "You get used to it after a while. Everything's just a little... Wet. You don't want to bring any of your good clothes or shoes while you're out there." She suggests, then mulls over the onyx thing again. "Right... Is there a specific type to look out for? A shape, or a... Structure?"
Kale Hearthward Kale looks doubtful at the alleged absence of 'useless turf'.

"Maybe - I don't know how you'd, um, fix a sun, though? Might be worth looking into if the next expedition covers that territory again..."

"I don't know," he says to Cantio. "Xion said it might just be my outlook?" He shrugs. "Maybe try looking for, um, not-horrible places? Or go in expecting to find not-horrible places. Does it work like that? Does it respond to expectations? I don't actually know..."

Drinks are refreshed. "By the by," he says to Arthur. "Might be getting a raise because of the expedition - well, because of a lot of things, but the expedition really helped. So I have another thing to thank you for."

"
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: What's the Onyx stuff?

    "I'm tryin' to track down something. It's called the Onyx Tower, somewhere in Secundus." Arthur explains. "Old enemy of mine's wound up there. Don't know *how* that fucker got here ahead of me... But, anyway, apparently it's hella important. Whatever, I'll find it eventually."

    How do you fix a sun? "You know, used to be DUDES whose WHOLE JOB was that. They'd, uhhh, what was it, they'd RIP OUT HEARTS and do BLOOD STUFF on top of TEMPLES. Not anymore. Maybe she can go back to that." What about the raise? "Well you worked your ass off." Arthur says, grinning with a mouthful of something fried. "Makes sense."
Utsuho Reiuji "You just burn it. I don't see what's so gross about that. My job is literally burning corpses and it's all the same - especially after it's ash!"

It certainly doesn't seem to hurt Utsuho's appetite any.

"Well, if I see any I'll let you know," she says to Arthur, before Utsuho sits straight up. "Does ripping out hearts HELP?" she asks, now even more interested than she was before. "I mean, I could do it if it did! But I - " She thumps her chest. "Have the power of Lord Yatagarasu, so I already have the power of the sun. But I've never tried to fix one, I just make my own usually. He's never told me anything about hearts..."

As if to demonstrate, Utsuho makes a little ball of flame that is decidedly not as bright as any sun - it's just a fireball, if a particularly spherical and intense one. She squeezes her hand around it and it goes out again.

"I bet I could find a cool place," she adds, defensively. "Just because I didn't last time. And get a raise. Maybe? I already have money."
Cantio "I'm hoping that's the case." Cantio replies to Kale with a long sigh, stroking her chin and then recoiling when she realizes she's getting wing grease on her face. "I was kind of... In a bad place at the time when that all started."  She doesn't elaborate on that, but she does sounds weirdly pleased about that.

Or maybe where she's ended up after the fact.

Arthur talks about fixing BLOOD STUFF and TEMPLES, which actually catches Cantio's attention rather cleanly. "Are they still doing that? Or is it really a 'used to be' sort of thing?"

She's definitely not planning anything weird with that. Utsuho seems to be somewhat interested in that, too, and Cantio leans back when she sees the appearance of the fireball. "You got that from eating something's heart, huh? That's an impressive sort of power to gain, if... Hmm. Yatagarasu..."

Cantio strokes her chin again, recoils again, then finally wipes her hands off. "You know, you could probably use that to get a lot of money, too. Plenty of places need power that don't have it, and... Well, actually, they might not have much money to pay with if that's the case. Hmm..."

Another pause. "Maybe... Some kind of smithy, then? Or a steelworks?"
Kale Hearthward "Burning corpses-"

"- Well, um, I guess that's... one of those necessary things," says Kale.

His beeper goes off. "Ah - it looks like I gotta dip out a bit early here. Cantio, I'll be in touch about - stuff. The stuff we talked about. Challenges, contest, duels, that sort of stuff," he says, less than subtly.

"Bar's open, and I'm taking care of the tab."
Utsuho Reiuji "Well, I ate Yatagarasu, but I mean, if other hearts would help..." Utsuho's thinking about that now. Her brows are furrowed. She is as deep in thought as she ever is. "I already have money, though. The Concord helps me out! And I help them out." Now Kale gets confirmation that it's the wrong Utsuho. Oh well!

Utsuho is going to abuse that open bar, never fear.
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Is that still even happening?

    Arthur just sort of vaguely shrugs. "NO CLUE. Guess it DEPENDS on the SUN? Not really my BUSINESS what a homie decides to do *for* one'a my SUNS."

    Kale's out? "Good hangout, dawg." Arthur grins, doing a weird sort of pointing gesture that comes out of a motion he was doing in his hair. It's impossible to describe and looks unplanned, nonsically filling space. "Lookin' forward to hearin' how the DUELS go, now that you're makin' these CONNECTIONS."