Cat and Mouse - Aerilon

[umslay]

Who: Ales [Open]
When: November 17
Where: Ales' Airship and Aerilon
Summary: Flying to Aerilon to search for the Black Moogle and looking around the city.
Warnings: None.

Good thing Ales was given permission to take one of the Airline's ships to search for the Black Mage Moogle, or else he'd waste so much time getting from one place to another. And taking other Heroes for the search would makes things go more quickly.

Ales spends several hours on the airship, keeping himself in the navigation room and only allowing Mimi inside to relay any messages one of the passengers wants to give him.

After that, he wandered the streets, greeting each member of the crowd that was closer to his size. The shops were filled with wonderful items, but nothing caught enough of his interest to pay for one of those expensive trinkets.

Fortunately, he found himself in front of O'aka XXIV's shop, eyeing one of the computers. He didn't have enough to buy one of those, but for now, looking at them made him feel a bit better.

Comments

NPC - O'aka XXIV's Shop

[melodiesnpcs]

[ Actually, O'aka didn't expose his real goods for everyone to see; but had only replicas on display for everyone to get an idea of what he was selling. For his "exceptional" winter sales O'aka had moved the products in front of the tavern where he was usual working with what looked like security guards lurking back inside the tavern as he advertised his stuff. ]

Come on people, exceptional pre-winter sales! Get them now or there won't be anything left for you!

[ His attention turned to Ales as he saw him looking at the computer replicas. ]

Heh sir, I'm warning you: At this price, if you're waiting one more week, they're all sold out. If you wanna get one, you must make your move now.

NPC - O'aka XXIV's Shop

[umslay]

[Ales didn't dare touch the computer if he wasn't going to buy it; the shopkeeper might not have been as easy-going on that as most others. A real shame, really, though looking at it more closely, he noticed that the computer looked a bit odd.]

The problem, you see, is that I don't think I have enough to buy one at the moment. [How many more months of flying ships would it take to make enough for the computer? Even the untranslated one?]

A quick question: do you allow customers to buy on credit? I can pay back interest, of course. [The computer was clearly more important at the moment than the reason he came here in the first place.]

[melodiesnpcs]

[ He opened wide eyes and repressed a laugh at the question, before tilting his head. ]

Credit? Then you vanish along with your debt. No thanks, the shop's rule is: no credit, only Gils. And don't try stealing them, the last one who did got his wings burnt off.

[ That's maybe literal. ]

[umslay]

[He didn't know what he was thinking. No competent merchant, especially himself, would consider selling valuable items on credit. It was worth a try, though.]

I see your point. With rare finds such as these, you wouldn't want to lose an enormous profit.

[He turns away from the display and puts on a smile, though still upset at losing the chance to get an upper edge on technology.]

Anyway, I'm primarily here for some other business. There's a thief that's been flying around, he's with the Empire and been causing plenty of trouble with the Heroes of Light. It's a Moogle wearing one of those hats Black Mages wear. He's in hiding somewhere, and I'm helping to track him down.

Just a quick question: seen a Moogle like that around here?

[melodiesnpcs]

A moogle with a Black Mage hat?

[ He stroked his chin and looked up for a moment, thinking, before looking back at Ales. ]

Maybe. How much are you ready to pay to know?

[umslay]

[Oh, now this was a smart man.]

Less than what this computer is worth. [He smiles, putting on all friendly appearances. Even if he'd have to give up most of his funds he already had, he could always make up for it the next time he would run into something as nice as this.

And this information is extremely important to get.]

[melodiesnpcs]

Heh, information are worth a lot but not that much.

[ He nodded then held his hand out to Ales. What he would say would depend on how much Ales is ready to give. ]

[umslay]

[Ales thought for a moment, considering how much to give this guy. He reached into his side-purse and pulled out 2,000 Gil.]

How much will this give me?

[It seemed like a good amount to start with: pretty high, but not so much that Ales would have to reduce most of his spending for the next several months.]

[melodiesnpcs]

Enough for now.

[ He took the money and leaned back in his chair. ]

I've seen one not so long ago. Black Mage Moogles are rare enough that they leave an impression, and that one asked me if I could smuggle him in imperial territories.

O'aka XXIV's shop

[whereishe]

"Your trying to buy a computer?" Yuna stepped up next to Ales, looking down at the short hero. Her tone was laced with curiosity.

Yuna didn't know much about the technology but she wondered what kind it was. She knew that like spells there were strong ones and weak ones but it was to complicated for her to really grasp.

[umslay]

Ales glanced up for a moment at the Hero he recently met that resembled one he met earlier.

"I would love to. Imagine all the information within one of these! But they're kind of our of my buying range, sadly." Was he...looking wistful about the computer?

[whereishe]

"I don't think it will be going anywhere, anytime fast with that price." She wasn't really looking to comfort him, it was just an observation. Her eyes landed on the price of the gunner job.

"I have some money from home but it still isn't enough for what I want."

[umslay]

"None of us are. My housemate thinks he might be able to come up with money for that job crystal but he depends on the generosity of everyone else to get that done." Asking for donations would work only if everyone else didn't have something more pressing to use with their money.

"If I could work only a couple more months, I would have enough to buy something here. But that's too bad, and I'll have to use it for building materials instead." He crossed his arms at that decision.

"Which item were you planning to get?"

[whereishe]

"I was looking at the gunner job. It used to be the skill I used at home. Well, one of them anyway." Her head rolled to the side as she tried to think of a way to buy it. If someone else was she might just toss her money in that pool but she needed to keep some to set up her room.

"I wonder how these jobs work exactly."

[umslay]

Ales had no interest in using that job, but he hoped that Yuna and Show would be able to buy it soon.

And that...was a good question.

"I'm not really sure, either. I know that somehow these jobs and their abilities are stored in our personal crystals and our Moogles extract it, but I have no idea how." All of it was extremely helpful, but it made no sense so far. "Have you asked your Moogle already?" he asked, turning to Mimi, who was looking at other display shelves.

[whereishe]

"Celes isn't sure but he also seems the type who doesn't always pay attention." Which was true because right now he wasn't paying attention even though he was flying so close. If Yuna didn't know better she would have thought that he fell asleep in the air.

Her eyes moved from her moogle back to Ales. "I had something like these jobs back in my world. It was an invention by a friend of mine. He used technology to extract to pure energy and power from memories. Those memories held the skills that we then tapped into."

[umslay]

Lazy Moogle, Ales thought to himself.

"Memories? Really? So would these crystal contain memories of whoever created them as well?" It would fit along well with how Jessie described retrieving jobs from crystals. "Or does the system here not match the one from your world?"

Airship

[2hell_weride]

MarKus left Gundam, his chocobo, where it was safe to keep him. Not wanting to be a total bother, he raps on the door to the navigation room. Since it was going to be a long, and likely uneventful flight, he thought it nice to tell 'that story' that he'd declined sharing days earlier.

Of course, rather than letting himself in like an asshole, he relayed this to Mimi while Kugami sat on a stair and lounged there as if he was too good to keep up with the former life of the hyperactive hero.

[umslay]

Mimi gladly relayed the message to Ales and returned a few minutes later.

"Um, Ales said that you can come in in five minutes. We're almost a point where he can takes some time to pay attention to what you have to say, kupo."

She waits with MarKus until then, sitting quietly until then, clearly too shy to start a conversation. Once they had waited long enough, she got up to check on Ales again.

[2hell_weride]

MarKus just watched the pom pom bounce on Mimi's head, singing back a song to himself as if some kind of timer... not that it ever was. He was never patient, and his groaning showed it.

Maybe there was a pull on the door, or a latch, or an unlock or... I dunno MarKus waits like 7 minutes instead but eventually he gets up and tries the door.

"Yo!" with a little two-finger salute.

[umslay]

The moment he opened the door, a terrified Moogle jumped back, nearly getting hit by the heavy block of wood.

"I-I was just going to tell you to come in!" she squeaked out once she recollected herself.

"You could have knocked," Ales said from his seat. The once he was sitting on was designed for a Tarutaru pilot, which fit him perfectly. He flipped several switches before turning to MarKus.

"Use one of the other seats. I put this on autopilot, but I can't really leave this spot for too long anyway just in case."

[2hell_weride]

MarKus made sure to keep a path clear between Ales and the helm but he didn't sit just yet.

"Anyway, I was gonna tell you about the whole... I guess it was the reason damn near everyone had robots back home and how it got bad, worse, then better. Of course, I helped with it getting better." he says, proudly.

He starts his story with his parents and himself having a machine meant to fight giant aliens that would copy themselves to look like people; a species trying to take over the world from within.

He moves on to talk about how he joined up with a ship full of like-minded people, trying to protect the world from not just itself, but similar invaders, describing things like (Invaders from Getter Robo, Worm from Kamen Rider Kabuto, Festum from Fafner in the Azure Sky, Angels from Evangelion).

"And what made most of all that twice as hard were a bunch of assholes who were, I guess sort of justified, but still being ass holes about people HAVING Giant Robots so they went around trying to abolish them by force. With Giant Robots." Epitome of hypocrisy.

[umslay]

Ales shook his head. "With a more dangerous foe, I would hope that everyone would be smart enough to realize that those robots of yours were protecting them." He turned to face MarKus, disappointment clear in his face.

"Engineers like us just aren't so appreciated, aren't we?" for many reasons. No one from his part of the world cared about advancing society, about learning to be independent of Polokus and his unpredictable dreams. Sure, his inventions might be used for nefarious purposes, but wouldn't they say the same about magic evil-doers?

"It seems that your robots might be better appreciate here."

[2hell_weride]

"Well, they HAD a valid point. At the same time we were fighting off aliens, there was also infighting with other human factions... not to mention the destruction of property. They wanted to get rid of robots while ignoring the need for them." he says again.

"But... well, it's not that I wasn't appreciated, but I was just 'one among the crowd'. Sure, one of the best, but there was a handful of 'the best' working to keep everyone's robots in top condition."

After that, he goes on with the story, which tells of taking out that group, as well as, one by one, picking off alien invaders until the origins of the ship they used came to light. A new group came from a future that they'd caused to cease existing because that was a future that couldn't happen anymore. There was more fighting, but eventually everyone came together against one common enemy which...

"Given all the different kinds of energy we had... it all came from one central source. Like... the original gene pool of power."

[umslay]

"So the issue was with regulating use of robots, then?" It was a completely foreign topic to Ales, since so few of them existed that no one would consider destroying some, especially not when a race of mechanical creatures existed.

He patiently listened to the rest of the story, focusing on the land in front and taking a few breaks to check on several barometers and such.

"What do you mean by that? The 'original gene pool' thing?"