Session 35 - Don't Put Your Cartography Before Your Chocobo

Ahem.
Previously, across the Horizon...
The Starfall has left Caerwyn two bounties richer, one agent's contact information wiser, and one crew member larger.
The Kings of Pain and Diabolos have been successfully turned in, though Justine Menard will no longer be the bounty drop-off point in the future. Instead, our brave explorers will need their own agent, and after perusing the choices Justine gave them, down-on-his-luck tonberry Decker Avant will be their first try, letter of recommendation in hand.
Artemicion has also joined the Starfall, the moogle blacksmith lending his incredible talents with their promised assistance in crafting a masterwork tragedy of a blade. No longer -- well, not much longer -- will the crew of the most notable ship in Ducorde's skies be forced to make do with what they stole from a theater company two prop rooms ago.
With no need to stay in Caerwyn any longer, with Justine's planned departure and Yves's inventory rapidly filling up with balloons, the Starfall took flight that night to arrive in Machanon midday the next day, with Marina retiring to one of the empty rooms to sleep the rest of the day as a result.
We join our heroes as they search for their next adventure...
**
Saron sits on the Dicelan Sea, its docks a constant forest of masts and mainsails. The Triad sits in the middle of the Dicelan Sea, constantly surrounded by nautical and aeronautical travel both. Multiple villages in Caerwyn sit in little bays and alcoves along the water’s edge, the heroes of old able to enjoy generations of retirement fishing, sailing, or just waiting to die -- whatever it is that old people do.
Thalatte sits on the ocean.
Thalatte is a city of about sixty thousand people and twice as many dreams. While Saroni sits further east, following the coast up to the north, Thalatte has just as much urgency surrounding that cardinal direction, as Thalatte holds something no other city in Ducorde has since Alterna fell.
The rest of the world.
The city long ago ran out of room on land, and as such locals and visitors both will find its blue-capped buildings and gleaming white walls out over the sea itself, docks of previous generations reinforced and repurposed into bases for buildings, new docks built further east to accommodate the ships that venture forth into that great unknown.
Two humans, one sylph, one viera, and one moogle find themselves among travelers as they navigate streets and canals in search of an address...
"Well, this looks like an earthquake disaster waiting to happen." Linnet has been floating nervously a couple inches up ever since she stepped off the airship.
"It's novel," Yves suggests. He has, quite recently, acquired a new bracelet, which appears to be woven together out of little scraps of brightly-colored rubber.
"Cute jewelry. Did you make that?" Linnet asks.
"I can definitely feel the call to go out to sea from here!" Orrey has been taking in all the ocean views and marveling at the canals.
Isa keeps looking off to the horizon as they walk, as if keeping tabs on the ocean in case it decides to sneak up on them.
No one else from the Starfall has attempted to insinuate themselves into your traveling party, though Jasper has sent the Hivemind, Akil, Trelle, Mogni, and Juniper out in search of supplies and anything else needed to get started on Artemicion's workshop.
Bast seems to be more careful than usual about where he walks, the load-bearing capacity of ancient timber not too far from his mind as the party walks over what used to be docks.
The canals are marked by colors, vibrant swirls of bright paint traveling along the otherwise-pristine buildings, with the streets named for famous explorers, the traveler's guide Linnet picked up on her way in said. Your destination is the corner of Copper and Sanae, and after a rowboat slices through the water under the bridge you're on, you're there. There is a directory on the main door, with Room 302 listed as Avant, Bounties & Notary.
"Anyone have a deed they need amended?" Isa muses.
"It's a conquest memorial," Yves is explaining to Linnet. "See, here's the black one. I let it just deflate on its own. It had earned that."
"Useful in his line of work, I suppose. Else I'd suspect he's had to branch out to make ends meet," Bast says.
"Bit of both, maybe," Isa says.
"Is that made of balloons?" Orrey eyes the bracelet.
"Let's go find out." Bast leads the way in the search of Room 302.
"They knew what they did," Yves tells Orrey.
Two flights of stairs and one green carpeted hallway later, Room 302 is before you. The 't' in Avant on the door is peeling. The faintest of 'thok' sounds can be heard from within.
Bast arches an eyebrow at Isa by way of commentary, and pushes the door open.
A little purple dart whizzes through the air in front of Bast, not close enough to be a danger, and stabs itself into the lower right corner of a dart board.
"Damnation," comes the grunt from the right side of the room.
"I mean, at least it's not sword practice?" Linnet mutters to Yves.
"Not enough practice yet?" Bast inquires towards the general origins of the dart.
Decker Avant is a tonberry, as advertised, with gray-green skin and a long pink scarf around his neck, into which are woven multiple pens, pencils, and markers. His desk is covered in notepads, all open, covered in multicolored scribblings. Two more darts are thoked into the left corner of his desk. "Need something signed?" he says with a sigh.
"No, we're needing to sign an agent." Orrey grins as he puns.
"I assume a captain's ledger that you no doubt came into honestly," he adds.
"Mm." Bast wanders over to the desk, pulls a dart out, walks over to match Decker's distance from the board and tries a throw of his own.
Linnet tries to work out the spell for guiding it with a puff of wind, but her control's not that fine yet, so she just makes a weird hand gesture and looks thoughtful.
"You /are/ an agent, right?" Yves asks, just in case someone else moved in without changing the name on the door.
Bast's dart jabs a fraction of a centimeter closer to the center.
"I think the floor's uneven," Decker says. To Yves, he says, "I am, but I'm also too tired for jokes."
"Heh. Looks like we're decently matched." Bast gives the floor an appraising look, to give some weight to Decker's complaint, before looking back...somewhat up at the tonberry. "Not much business lately?"
The fourth dart wings its way over, embedding itself in the wall to the right. "Not a bit," he says, and then he seems to remember himself, because he sits up straighter in his chair, clasps his hands together in front of him on the desk, and smiles the most professional smile possible, one that bypasses brain and eyes both on its way to the rest of the face. "Decker Avant. Pleased to meet you, and you have my full attention."
"From what we heard, you're good to your teams but the last couple bailed on you. There a story there?"
(Linnet glances around the office for a less awkward position than hovering by the doorway, and settles for leaning against the wall about two feet from the dartboard.)
"Was 'bailed' not a euphemism?" Yves whispers Orrey. "I thought they died."
Bast shrugs before replying to Decker. "That's what I'd like to know. We're in the market for an agent, but it sounds like there might be some trouble following you?"
Bast shrugs before replying to Decker. "That's what I'd like to know. We're in the market for an agent, but it sounds like there might be some trouble following you? We're not averse to trouble, on principle. Not too keen on going in blind, though."
"You'll get good work and a motivated performance, but if you already have one foot out the door, let's not waste each other's time," Avant says wearily.
Orrey looks thoughful for a second. "You were recommended to us. Maybe you can tell us a bit more about what you can offer us?"
"Alternately, you lead with the questions and we're happy to oblige. This is most of our first time working with an agent, so I suspect we may be coming at this from a variety of barely informed perspectives." Linnet's expression: Slightly Awkward But Totally On Your Side. "Lady Justine Menard spoke well of you and your relationships with your teams."
The smile doesn't come back, but a few lamps get turned back on. "You know Justine Menard? Well, I wish you'd said that at the beginning." He grabs a blue-capped pen and starts writing. "And you're looking for an agent?"
"We are. After we completed a couple of test missions for her, she offered us a gentle push in the right direction."
"Paperwork is...not her passion in life." Isa notes.
"Well, I can certainly tell you what I have available, though it isn't much at this point... what experience do you have? What were those jobs like?" Two more notebooks slide in front of him.
Orrey pulls out a sketch of Diabolos.
"Poseur pirates - brought 'em back alive, if somewhat thumped - and stopping a big scary sky snake from preying on any more airships. It would probably help if we introduced ourselves, really. Isaline Osler in the back is our connection with Lady Menard, Bast here is our captain, and that's Orrey and Yves. I'm Linnet."
"He was a fairly reasonable sky snake," Yves says, as a mild objection. "After he'd had his head stabbed a few times."
He takes the sketch in one hand and looks up at Orrey in surprise, then sloooooowly drags his attention over to Yves, and then decides perhaps not to do that again.
"Yves is our magical heavy-hitter, Orrey is operational support, and I mostly talk to people and do mid-battle healing. Yves did most of the damage on both bounties, actually."
Orrey shows the ThunderBun sketch. "Lots of Lightning."
"These are really quite good," he tells Orrey in appreciation.
"Isa is our tactical coordinator and doesn't carry that spear just for decoration, and Bast is fifty pounds of cleverness in a ten-gallon hat, even if he did leave the hat on the ship." Linnet smiles. "Bit of a motley crew, but effective for whatever you need done." Bast makes a small bow, flourishing the imaginary hat. And stuffs it on Linnet's head.
"...sorry, Cap'n, that should probably have been your line."
"Thanks! I've put a lot of work into learning. Still got a long way to go, though..." Orrey says.
"We also have actors," Yves says helpfully.
"And you're looking for an agent, for bounties. Are there particular types of bounties you're looking for?" Decker flips a page. "We've got..." and a deep breath. "Search, rescue, search AND rescue, kidnap, defeat, dispatch, retrieve, wreck, sabotage, haul in for questioning, execute, bodyguard, guard bodies, guard transports, locate bodies, salvage, explore, exploit, expand, exterminate, one instance of exfoliate but that didn't go well..." He turns the page. "About eighty other ways to say kill someone before they kill someone ELSE..."
"Pretty much all of those except exfoliating sound like we could handle them," Linnet says.
"Ship combat isn't our strong point at the moment. Still outfitting the ship, though the pirates' cannons didn't help them much," Bast says.
Linnet gives Thunderbun a long, contemplative look.
"I know how to make some stuff that'll exfoliate someone, or something, in double time." Yves looks back at Linnet. "What? ...I mean, they wouldn't be /happy/ afterward, but those follicles would be /gone/."
"Got speed to spare, though," Bast adds.
Decker makes a face. "Well, I mean, those are the theoretical bounties. I only have one right now registered to me, and it was basically a favor. If you're interested, though, I can tell you about it."
"Do tell."
Orrey gets out a notebook and readies his pen.
"A wealthy client -- and a friend, full disclosure -- lost a chest of valuables when a vessel transporting them sank ten leagues northeast of here. The chest is airtight and the items within should have survived. 13,000 gil for the intact retrieval, 5,000 gil if they're irreparably damaged."
"How...deep?" Isa asks.
"I don't know the region, and neither does the client, I'm afraid," Decker replies. "I believe that route wouldn't be deeper than a hundred feet, but there are shoals and rocks and reefs and other nautical terms. I'm from Caelonde originally, I'm sorry."
"Is there a timeframe on this? A deadline?" Orrey looks up from scribbling details.
Decker sighs, perhaps too dramatically. "It's already been three weeks, another month won't hurt."
"Do you happen to know what sank the vessel?" Linnet asks.
"Any survivors?" Orrey asks.
"No, and no, not to my knowledge," he answers Linnet and Orrey in turn.
"Do you have the name of the ship and the captain? And any other information that would help us recreate the ship's path?" Orrey scribbles furiously.
"Yes. The ship was the Errant Signal, captained by the late Kristof Franklin."
"And who is the client?"
Linnet looks a bit askance at Orrey.
"Robb Hourne," is the reply.
Orrey looks over at Linnet and smiles innocently. "I love these kinds of stories! Finding sunken treasure! Adventure on the high seas!"
"How good is the word on where the ship went down? Could make a big difference in how much area we need to search," Bast says.
"I have no reason to doubt Mister Hourne's word," Avant says in a tone that says you shouldn't either.
"...I'm not saying you should. I'm asking how precise his information is. One square mile or a hundred would make a difference in how we work this," Bast says.
"I can give you the missing item report he filed with Attress for the insurance claim," Avant says. "It has all of the information on the crash site. You'll understand that I'm not handing this over without a contract, since this isn't cleared for salvage rights."
Linnet clears her throat politely. "Lady Menard dropped a hint that they might have been bought out from under you - but that the agent doing the buying was rather a jerk. If that's your concern, please know we value a solid working relationship very highly. ...and if Diabolos got 'em, that'd help to know too." Linnet then adds, "'Rather a jerk' wasn't the way she put it, of course, just, uh, paraphrasing."
"I am, after all, responsible for the ship and everyone aboard. If there is something that is likely to pose a problem should we sign on with you...we're not in the habit of getting deterred, but Lady Justine said you weren't the type to send your teams in blind. I'd like to see if there's something to that reputation," Bast says.
Avant clasps his hands again. "You already have a recommendation from the most reputable source I can give you. I am not going to sit here and open the door to competitors or give you my whole ass so you can make a mockery of it. You can sign on, or you can sign off."
"And we're trying to decide what to do with that recommendation. We also have one for Syre Alekhine, if that name rings any bells. Frankly? She sounds like an asshole with her nose up in the sky, so we came to you first because it sounded like you're the type to deal straight and fair with us." Bast leans against the edge of the desk, looking serious shading over into grim.
"We're not looking to mock you, Decker. Got better things to do. And it sounds like the door's off the hinges after your competitors made off with most of your business already. We're looking for someone who will work with us - an ally in this business, not just someone looking to pay the rent. If someone's determined to sink you, they might decide a bomb might work better when they figure out they can't buy us out, and I want to know who and what to watch out for if we're going to work together.
If that's too much to ask, maybe there isn't as much difference between you and Alekhine as we were led to believe."
Decker shrugs. "Lot of divorces to sign, lot of aspiring explorers looking to make their mark. I like Justine and I like all of you for as much as I know you -- the boy's art is tremendous, and the other boy has tremendous presence. I'd be happy to work with you." "But if you want more, I'm going to have to see something back. Without a working relationship, I'm not giving anything else."
"A probationary contract, maybe?" Orrey suggests.
"It's not a lifetime agreement. Believe me, I know," Decker says dryly.
"Officers' vote, then." Bast looks over at the rest of the group.
"I'm in. Sign away." Orrey nods to Decker.
"I have an idea for a bathyscape I want to try out," Yves says, "so long as I can get a few parts and fix the seals problem and, you know what, now that I think about it, powering it with Thunder would cause some issues..." He catches himself. "...but, I mean, I'd like try this out. We're /here/, aren't we?"
"You know where I stand on this, Cap'n," Linnet says.
"For the record, Miss Leveche."
"Sign, please."
Isa gives Bast a long look and a quirk of the lip that indicates the high degree to which she values Justine's recommendation, and at Linnet's vote lifts a shoulder just enough to indicate the mathematical irrelevance of speaking her vote.
Bast spreads his hands in acquiescence. "We're in."
Signatures are had, hands are shook, debates are had over whether or not it should be 'shook' or 'shaken,' eyes are rolled, papers are exchanged, information is gathered, and then you're all back on your way.
With a very rough map with no topographical details, vague descriptions of regions, and such descriptive language as "where the water is not as deep."
If only there was a way to find someone who could help narrow down this location using the tools and skills available to them.
If only.
"Please tell me there are better maps than this available somewhere in this city."
"Funny you should ask," Isa says to Linnet.
"I honestly can't tell whether this was an intentionally drawn map or a labeled coffee stain," Linnet grouses.
"Whoever drew this doesn't understand how scale works..." Orrey frowns over the terrible map.
"...Isa, lead on, please. Preferably not using this map, otherwise we'll end up on the moon for all I can tell. Though now I want coffee. Can we stop for snacks on the way?"
"You're actually out of the cinnamon rolls, or just looking for variety?" Bast asks.
"Oh no, I have plenty of cinnamon rolls, but I can't carry coffee in my bag, it'd spill. ...and I don't have the supplies for baklava on the ship. Yet."
"I'm sure there'll be something once we get up to Domingo. This way."
"Domingo....Tonloya Domingo. Famous swordsperson and explorer. I don't remember what he discovered." Orrey looks crestfallen.
"New way of skewering somebody, perhaps? Or something interesting to skewer," Linnet says.
The Nanab Foundation has one of the most beautiful buildings in Thalatte, a unique open-air design with wide awnings to trap any rain and multiple rooms open to the elements, for would-be explorers to sit outside and listen to tales from those who did and lived to tell them. Six floors in all, your destination is on the fourth, one of the twelve west-facing rooms -- enthusiasm hasn't earned the east, only merit will do.
The door to that room is closed, blocking the east crosswind from whipping through any papers.
The nameplate does say "C. Meracydia."
"Friend of yours, Isa?" Orrey asks. "Where'd you meet him?"
Isa tries to recall. "Originally? I can't remember. One of those faces who keeps popping up at the same events year after year." She gives three brief raps on the door.
"Unlocked!" comes the chipper and very female voice from the other side of the door. "Make sure it's not blowing, none of these papers are pinned!"
Orrey glances at Linnet.
Linnet makes sure to rein in her usual slight breeze before the door is opened. "I can wait in the hall, if need be."
"You're not likely to be the problem, compared to the rest of the city." Isa looks amused by something. "Though if you could counter the breezes that would be ideal."
(Now it's not just Yves distracted working on theoretical problems...)
The room you step into is just as beautiful as everything you've passed through to get here, with the floor a beautifully painted map (of Saron, Orrey immediately notes), shelves full of books, three walls full of all kinds of paraphernalia, one corner full of timpani for some reason, and one railing home to a wind sylph's distracted slouch, holding a map open as she peers at it uncomprehendingly. She has pale orange skin, chin-length light green hair, and sparkling green eyes, and her expression is one of absolute disbelief.
Yves is, meanwhile, distracted by timpani. It is not clear why.
"Someone should probably be arrested for this."
"I didn't do it," Yves says immediately.
"Anyway, what can I--"
Isa steps clear of the door so it can be closed as quickly as possible, and shrugs. "I should have sent word ahead but that's just rude, not criminal."
"Isaline!" Celeste Meracydia smiles wide, and then brandishes the map like a club. "I know this isn't your doing, you'd be beside yourself just like me. What brings you down from the mountains? And who are your friends?" She’s wearing a cloak adorned with white chocobo feathers covering her shoulders and tied at the neck, over a long lace-up light blue dress with a red belt slung low on her hips, with three pairs of glasses of varying prescriptions hooked into the laces from chest to sternum.
(Linnet can't decide where to look first - the gorgeous floor, the bookshelves, the drums, whatever the sylph is deeply offended at...)
Isa shrugs. "I've either become a wastrel vagabond or a daring adventurer, depending on who you ask or what my mood is. These are the other officers on my airship. Captain Bast," she begins, indicating each in turn. "Orrey, Linnet, and Yves. May I present Celeste Meracydia, an exemplary cartographer and a friend from my bucolic youth."
Celeste curtsies. "A delight to meet you all! I would offer you a seat, but, well," she says, indicating three chairs shoved against a shelf, four suitcases and six satchels crammed across them. "Here, look at this."
"I didn't know you herded cows," Yves says, only puzzled for the briefest moment. No doubt the aristocracy does all sorts of odd stuff in their traditional child-rearing practices. "Oh, what are you... researching? Sorting? Mapping?"
"A pleasure." Bast sketches a bow which transitions into craning his neck to look at whatever this happens to be.
Celeste is all motion, slight breezes swishing about her body, rustling her feathers but leaving her hair perfectly still. "This map -- this crime -- is purportedly of the eastern shore of Alterna, but someone has just made up six new islands, as if they're a fanciful painter now." She snorts, decidedly unprofessionally and unladylike. "Might as well put some sea monsters in the margins and go full fanfiction with it."
"What, no dragons?" Linnet asks.
Orrey thinks back to the geography of Alterna to remember whether there are any islands there...
She hands Isa the map, taps a spot on it that looks like any other map to the untrained eye, and then sets about taking everyone's things and putting them in places around the office.
"To be fair," Isa says with exaggerated casualness, "when we were there the geography wasn't quite what I expected."
"Coffee? There's coffee somewhere. Definitely somewhere, and you must tell me everything!"
"There aren't any islands off the eastern shore. Never were. We didn't make any new ones..." Orrey shakes his head in disgust.
Linnet takes the initiative of fetching a few mismatched mugs from a shelf, dusting them off, and filling them with coffee. "I think very little of that trip met anyone's expectations. Especially the weird talking forest and the thunderbird."
"You sure they were intended to be islands? The map we were just looking at had some very creative coffee stains..."
"And the tower. That was something. Something I'm still trying to process," Orrey says.
"You have a map? Wait --" Celeste traces a 4/4 rhythm in the air in front of her, eyes closed, mouthing something.
"I don't think the tower was big enough to change a /map/ just because it fell over, right?" Yves asks, trailing Linnet in hopes of coffee.
Linnet hands him a large mug.
Isa leans against a windowsill, waiting for Celeste to reach her conclusions.
"I don't herd cows, though I did raise two chocobos from the egg. When were you in Alterna, what would make you think you could have made more islands, do you mean Quetzacoalt because I've heard rumors, what tower was this, where did it fall, what did the forest say, and what is the name of your airship?" Celeste then opens her eyes, refreshed and smiling. "I think I got most of it."
"Starfall," Orrey says.
"That was to the last question."
"Easiest to answer." Orrey shrugs.
"The tower fell into the ocean," Yves adds helpfully.
"So did Orrey," Isa appends.
"He got better!" Linnet adds. Ivan/BastToday at 10:57 PM Bast is openly snickering by now.
"Are you okay?" Celeste asks, all concern for the person standing here unharmed in front of her.
"I think technically Orrey fell into the ocean, and then the tower fell on top of him?" Yves frowns, as he sips his coffee. "I was a little distracted at the time."
"The Tower of the Twelve, though it had a Thirteenth Floor." Orrey's gaze goes a long way away for a moment, remembering the discovery.
"Oh, I'm ok. Thanks." Orrey blushes a bit.
"Anyway," Isa asks Celeste, smiling. "How've you been?"
"I wrote down everything the forest said," Yves adds, and then pauses, glancing at Bast, captain/paranoid, to see if he ought to offer more.
"Oh, gosh," Celeste says with a breathless smile, and then her green eyes flick over to Yves.
Bast offers Yves a slight shrug in response.
"Well... when did we last see each other, Isa? Firewalking. I tried waterwalking for a bit, that's much harder, though you wouldn't think it would be from the physics." Celeste rearranges books on the shelves to look just as they did before. "From there I had a semester abroad in Saron, met tremendous people and spent two weeks learning how to serve on a train, which was honestly an incredible experience, everyone should spend some time on the rails if they have the chance."
"Funny thing, that's where we met." Linnet grins around at the crew.
"And Orrey's from Saron, actually," Isa adds.
"From there I went north -- I looked you up in Cardia but couldn't find you, though your friend Arthur was quite nice and offered to put me up while I was there which was very sweet of him -- oh wonderful, Orrey, which part? I was staying about six blocks from the station, above this beautiful little cafe that served miniature waffle sandwiches -- where was I? Oh, yes. My masters project! I'm trying to get one of the east rooms, of course, it's what any of us would want, isn't it? So I've done something remarkable that apparently no one's ever done before!"
Isa nods. "I heard word of a new map. Mind giving us a preview?"
The ear-to-ear grin gets positively impish. "Have they heard word of a new map? Please say no, I love surprising people."
"We live in the Oak Hill Neighborhood. Most of my family's still there," Orrey responds.
"Wouldn't dream of taking that joy away from you," Isa says.
"A map of what?" Orrey is very curious.
"I love Oak Hill!" Celeste claps. "There's this beautiful little shop there that specializes in fabrics, the owner holds weaving lessons every weekend, it was my first time ever using a loom!, and I knit a lovely little pink scarf that I wear on windy days."
"The Alyon's shop? That's my mother's place, actually."
"Now! The map. The map! I love the map. Okay. Sit down. You can't sit down." She's been pointing and snapping her fingers the whole time, giddy with excitement. "Okay, just brace yourselves. You're Orrey Alyon?!"
"Don't let him tell you otherwise," Isa says.
Orrey nods.
"I cannot find the words. These will have to do." She skips over to a part of the shelving that looks like any other and pulls down a leather briefcase. After handing a stack of papers to Bast with a whispered apology, she places the briefcase on the desk and opens it, revealing... another map. This one much more recent and without any of the more artistic trappings. Cardia is clearly labeled on the upper left.
"I have mapped the route to the Forgotten City."
Orrey's eyes widen. "You did what? How?" Orrey heads over to examine the map more closely.
Bast stops habitually and surreptitiously looking through the stack of papers and actually pays attention to the map.
"It started when I was working on my metalworking project, and I was trying to replicate the helmet seen in the works of Tullius Flare..." Celeste takes the long way round through her mapping project, but you gather this much:
This is the work of eleven months of constant research, exploration, blood, sweat, and tears, and only perhaps forty skills tested and set aside for later. Every spare moment Celeste had was in search of finding the actual path to the Forgotten City. She is one hundred percent confident in it, but:
Bast looks around for any replica helmets that might be lying around.
"...I haven't actually made the trip." She grins sheepishly. "It's not an easy one! And my deadline was too fast approaching. I know this is the path, but I haven't actually been there myself. I think this will put me in the first expedition, though, absolutely. Can you imagine!"
"Yes, yes I definitely can! That's amazing!" Orrey's excitement starts to rise again. "Can you fly there or do you have to go by land?"
"That's such a lot of work," Yves says, in true admiration for proper research skills.
(Linnet's paying attention, she's just absorbed. Most of her commentary is either "hmm" or whistles of admiration.)
Isa looks over at Bast. "Really an amazing coincidence, Captain. Here we are with an airship at our disposal, and a gaping lack of a skilled navigator for it."
"Hey, there are a lot of interesting birds out there."
"Hey now, Orrey's not that bad. But it's not his primary expertise, I'll grant you that. And if we end up in Alterna again..."
"When we end up in Alterna again," Isa corrects.
"Oh, it's flight for a time but then walk, if these are anything to go by," she says, tracing one periwinkle fingernail along a section of mountains. "The winds through here, if what I learned about meteorology is right, would certainly prevent any flight."
"...when we end up in Alterna again, this is something we certainly wouldn't pass by." He turns back to the excited cartographer. "When is that first expedition supposed to set out?"
"Well, the presentation is in two days where I can present my findings to the Masters," Celeste says. A knock comes at the door, which gets an "Unlocked!" from her without even pausing for breath. "Once that's complete, then there's usually a month before the expedition is fully ready, though for one of this magnitude I can't say if that would be sped up or not, but I also don't want to overstate its importance. Can I help you with anything?"
"After you deal with your caller, there's something we'd like to talk to you about," Isa says.
The man in the doorway is human, dressed in black and silver clothes, a red cloth tied around his forehead and knotted in the back. "Miss Meracydia?" he asks.
"Yes?" she affirms.
He raises a long, silver cylinder, the funnel end aimed right at her heart.
"Remember us."
Isa launches herself from the windowsill.
End session.