melodiesoflife | Event || The Festival Of Light

Jack laughs. "Exactly, it's the principle of the thing!" He does the same at the next slot over, tosses the worker his gil, and picks up one of the guns. Sights are wonky, so he puts it back down and picks the next one over. Theeere we go.

"I'm more used to these. Got a little of my skill back, when I set up my Custom Job. Don't get me wrong, love that greatsword, bow and arrow's nice. That spear you made me's a thing of beauty." Jack raises the gun. "But this feels so much better."

"I never really even picked up a weapon til I got here. And I still don't, really. Blacksmithing tools are about as close as I get."

Ed lines up his sight, takes a deep breath, and takes his shots. He has some close hits, but nothing prize-worthy. The booth worker hands him a tiny prize for all of his effort, in the form of a small wooden whistle.

"Well. Better than nothing, I guess?"

Ed's admission earns him a full-on double-take, and Jack looks at him for a long moment as if to try to tell whether or not he's kidding. "...What year did you say you came from, again?" Right. Ed's from. Further back in time. But for some reason, Jack had gotten a very different vibe from the man.

Jack was a crack shot back on Earth. It feels so different than when he's got Gunner equipped, even though he loves that Job. There, the gun becomes some sort of projection of his will, something to cast magic through? Here? It's just a tool.

Ping! Plunk! Jack isn't sure why he gets so much satisfaction out of shooting at the guy with the robes and the hair.

After a moment, Ed somewhat reluctantly admits, "Okay, so, I've carried a knife from time to time, but I tried not to use it so I don't feel like it counts." He much prefered to fast-talk his way out of a sticky situation, and it often worked. When it didn't, well, at least he had that as a back up. "And it was 1953 for me."

Jack earns himself a round of golf claps from Ed. "Sheesh, I should have just been passing my money over to you instead!"

Jack waves his head back and forth as if considering what Ed is saying. "Too modern to be carrying weapons on the street, and before there were way more of these rolling around," Jack raises the gun before he puts it back down. "Okay, I can see it. Ditto on the talking my way out of a corner, though. Solves more problems than it causes."

Of course his prize is a cactuar plush. "Ohhhh no. I have seen enough of this for a lifetime." He waggles it at Ed. "Only world where I've gotten my ass kicked by a plant."

"I don't know if talking my away around things solves more problems than it's caused, but at least I can use it to, um, temporarily distract folks in order to make a getaway." Just talk circles around your opponents and leave before they can figure out what you meant. Check.

"And if you think a plant can't kick your ass, you've never had accidental moonseed poisoning." Ed shrugs with a smirk. The hazards of alchemy are wide and weird.

"Better than a kewpie doll, anyway. Or a wooden whistle." He holds up his own runner's up prize.

"Okay, the previous times I've had my ass kicked by the cactus or potato plant, I can't call those accidental. Definitely poisoning, though." Jack laughs.

Hmm, but it brings up a thought. Jack casually leans against the stall as he looks at Ed carefully. "You've mentioned a little bit about what you did back on Earth. Getting into a lot of trouble, but you don't seem to have been in the Saving The World business, like I was."

"And you're also not one of us knuckeheads charging straight at any danger coming our way." Us, because Jack knows for sure that he is in that category.

Ed's eyebrows raise at being sized up like that. He's not sure how to feel about it.

"N....o, not really a save-the-world type. But to be fair, my world isn't in this kind of peril."

He shrugged, not sure what Jack was insinuating. Or at least he was pretending to, anyway.

"I was an alchemist. Studied magic for a long time. I travelled around central and southern California selling my stuff and learning how to make new things. Not too different than here, though having a stationary store is a nice change."

"H-unh. You get so used to the world being in danger, you sometimes forget that it's not like that for everybody. Nice to be from a world where you don't have to constantly get tested, see what you're made of."

"And, this is the second time in two weeks that alchemy is coming up in conversation." Two guesses as to who Jack's other conversation partner was, and they don't count. "It's real, where you're from?" He gestures a hand at Ed. "And Humans have mastered it?" But this would explain Jack's other question about Ed, and why he probably should stay on the back lines.

"It is, and we have. Well, some people have." He tries very hard to suppress a knowing smirk, but it slips out a bit. "It's just one of many types of magic out there, but it's one of the most intently studied. Mostly since it's the foundation for a lot of other disciplines, and it's based in actual chemistry."

Ed chuckles quietly at the idea of his world in danger, though, wondering if he'd even notice if it was. He was always too embroiled in his own schemes.

"I think if my world was in trouble, though, I'd probably be too busy to notice. Good thing there are a lot of mages out there to take care of things like that."

Jack nods along in understanding, and the look on his face is completely fascinated. "That was always the legends on Earth, that alchemy was just chemistry with...improvements? But, my world, we never got it to work, humanity as a whole decided to give up on the study."

"No magic where I come from, but it's common for you?" Jack shakes his head with another grin. "Say that two years ago, and I wouldn't even be able to wrap my head around it. Is the magic here familiar to you, then?"

"I wouldn't say common. Or even widely accepted. But it's out there, no matter what someone thinks of it. People have been studying it for hundreds of years. It takes a lot of dedication and training to get any good at it, and that's only if you're born with that certain something that allows you to cast it at all."

As far as the magic here, Ed makes a face that says that it is and isn't really the same.

"It's different. Like how fast you can learn it. The Jobs thing is really different, but spellcasters do usually pick one or two disciplines and stick to them."

Jack points at Ed on his last remark. "Even on this world, I'm noticing the Jobs thing is weird. The natives don't pick things up as fast as we do."

"With the physical Jobs, it sort of makes sense, you focus on one weapon or one manner of fighting, is it really the same with magic? You'd think it's all," waves his hand like he's searching for a word, "interchangable?"

Oh, maybe this does make sense, Jack keeps his thought train going out loud, "But if magic came out of science, swapping from healing magic to damaging magic is like comparing biology to chemistry. Same basic idea drives them both, maybe some principles work across disciplines, but it's hard to switch your way of thinking from one to another?"

"Well, think of it like being a doctor. A medical doctor is going to have a lot of base knowledge, but a heart specialist isn't going to know the finer points of podiatry. It's sort of like that. Different spells, components, cultures, interpretations... there are a lot of factors."

Ed'sbrow furrows thinking on Jobs in Crystallis, though. "We have the freedom to have two Jobs, and change them around when we want. The natives get one they have to stick with their entire life. I'd hate that. Even magic back home isn't that strict. You're totally free to study whatever kind you want."

Event || The Festival Of Light

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