In Negav

Samiel simply shrugged. Someone who didn't get money in this particular city was probably a little mentally handicapped. But he'd already made his mind up about that.

"Well, if you are interested in fair price and the potential of getting in trouble with the Investigators, I'd say Nagi is your man." he said to Breida with a thin smile.

"I on the other hand, am not finding myself with a lot of work lately but have been looking into some lucrative ideas. Nothing fair price about it, but profitable. Especially for one who knows her way around below the earth as a scout."

"What are they talking about?"

Sean thought about the elves' and Nagi's conversation. They mentioned needing a scout, so were they planning to leave the city? What else would they need a scout but to look ahead in hostile territory. On the other hand, what were those Investigators they were talking about? His expression fell flat; he spent way too much time training and too little actually learning about Negav. He shrugged, then turned to the three persons nearby. He hadn't planned anything today, so he may as well try to learn about this city between dimensions.

"Sorry, you said something about needing a scout? Are you planning on leaving the city or something?"

"Of course I'm grabbing a weapon," Breida said, watching Nagi. "You're a self admitted criminal. You may mean what you say about your promises, but don't take offense if I decide not to take any chances. Now, whether or not I have to use it, well, I'd rather not, but I'm keeping the option open. Now, before I agree to anything, I'd have to learn more about what this work is. I don't go into situations blind." She paused in her speech as Samiel spoke up. She turned to listen from him. His offer seemed a little more promising, if she understood the hints right. Scouting underground was better than scouting the surface any day. Not to mention Samiel seemed more stable than Nagi.

"Interesting. Profit is always promising. And below the earth you say? Like with Nagi, I gotta know more about your lucrative ideas before I promise to anything. Still, I'm interested," Breida said. She wondered if she could get these two into a bidding match for her service. It had the potential to get her a nice wage. At least, until the man who had been watching them came up. He mentioned about needing a scout as well. That probably meant that there'd be no bidding. Oh well, two scouts, two jobs. It could be worse. "Leaving the city? Depends on what these men need." Breida said.

Samiel looked at both Sean and Breida.

"Looks like some people here are interested. As for leaving the city... well... not exactly. If you are interested we can go somewhere else to discuss it."

Sean folded his arms and turned to Breida. He couldn't say out loud why he eavesdropped on their conversation.

"Well, you usually employ a scout if you feel like leaving the city walls. Why else would you hire a guy whose job's to go ahead and warn you if the way's clear or not?"

He then raised his hand over his mouth and cleared his throat.

"Was asking cause I haven't explored Negav all that much yet and I figured that you could use a fighter for whatever job you need the scout for."

Horamus paused for a moment, recognizing the voices of the two people he ran into yesterday. He turned around, a look of remembrance in his eyes as his ears perked forward. He was tempted to say hello to Samiel, but it looked like he was in a rather important discussion with Nagi and two other people, and he didn't feel like interrupting him. So, he took a piece of paper out of his pocket, writing a small letter* on it using the top book as a surface, folding it up,and slipping it into Samiel's coat pocket before continuing on his way.

He walked on for a bit more before entering the Venmys-Pieaus Library, returning any books that he had borrowed before making his way to a table. Once he was there, he set the two books that belonged to him down before going over to the shelves, wondering which books he should look over today.

*

Spoiler:

Samiel smiled at Sean. "Well, I don't want to say too much, but if you figure you're savvy and smart enough there may be a part for you. I am a detective. It's my job to find things. I just happened to have accidently found something special recently. If you don't mind a little danger I could use help. The payoff won't be shabby."

Upon the mention of danger and an offer, Nagi almost instantly seemed to snap into full focus. His voice changed to a much more careful and calculating tone, the kind that sounded like it would see right through lies, the kind lying to sounded dangerous, the kind you would expect someone carefully creating a treaty with anouther country to use. "So, what exactly are you talking about here? You've got me interested. Keep talking, I might be willing to help," he said in that strange tone.

Sean closed his eyes and pondered on the offer. He spent most of his time doing requests and taking jobs taking place outside of Negav and very few assignments took place within a city. This could help him build some experience, since that was the entire reason Kai accompanied him in the jungle in the first place. He then looked at Samiel, now that his mind was set.

"Alright, I'm in it. But I'd like some info on what you found and what's the payoff. I don't take on jobs without knowing what exactly I'm getting into."

"Let's not talk about it in the street." replied Samiel. "I'm going to get some breakfast. Follow me to the high tier and join me if any of you are interested in hearing more."

"Alright then. I could do for some breakfast. Human cuisine isn't too bad anyway," Breida said, following Samiel along the streets of Negav. This was shaping up to be a good day. A paying task to do within the city walls, and a fighter with them to ward of dangers. Not to mention a free meal out of it. Depending on the payoff, she just might be able to get that gift she wanted. Even if not, it would cover her basic expenses for the time being. And honestly, what dangers in Negav could compare to the omnipresent threat of predation outside of the city? Of course, knowing Fate, Brieda guessed that it would take that question as a challenge. Not that she minded too much, it would keep the job from being too boring.

Nagi followed behind Samiel as well. He was obviously looking forward to whatever Samiel's plan was. After all, he did need to keep himself occupied, and it would be another two days before he could take on a job. "Stupid people and their flammable caravans. Who honestly uses such a weak transport in such a dangerous world? Idiots, that's who. Idiots who have no fucking clue what their doing," he thought to himself. "So, anyone have any place in particular they want to go to?" he asked.

Sean unfolded his arms and nodded to Samiel.

"Alright for me."

He followed the two elves along the congested streets of Negav. So there was a "Low Tier", a "Middle Tier", and a "High Tier" in this city. His expression fell flat again. That was almost like separating a city in sub-sections like "Poor quarters", "Worker quarters", and "Rich quarters."

Samiel nodded, taking them up towards the higher tier.

"It's a nice place, a little expensive normally, but the owner owes me more than a few favours. Plus, I intend to get a pitfull of skevols soon anyways. It's also private.

They soon came to the Higher Tier, walking into a square that seemed to be filled with mages moving to and fro. Samiel weaved his way through to a small cafe. The elegant sign above the door read "The Archmage Café".

"Order what you'd like. I'll cover." he said. "I'd recommend the Bagels here. All locally hunted."

Hue sat wearily at his desk; the events of yesterday had kept him on duty untill this morning, however he couldn't fathom why his superiors had kept him here. His plan to apprehend Nagi was not going to happen. Just as he was briefing his own squad, expecting Sargent Foxx and her troops to entre, he was interruprted by a member of the Kenshas, the Seventh Field Platoon. The whole operation was to be scrubed, and the Seventh would handel it from there. Why. Hue was never given an explanation from either the Kensha officer or the Colonel, however he doubted the Seventh would tell anyone in Public Security anything of their plans. However that still didn't excuse them for keeping him at the Block without any good reason, but he knew they didn't need to give him one; orders were orders.

The sargent looked down at the files concerning Nagi on his desk, he had kept himself well hidden, but his actions gave away too much about his presence. Hue almost felt sorry for him now that the Kenshas were taking over the operation, but ultimatly it wasn't his concern as to Nagi's fate, he just wanted to bring down a law breaker himself.

"Bagels? How do you hunt bagels? Isn't it just bread shaped like a donut?"

Put his shield and sword down, but not his pistol, since it was unobtrusive, then took a seat. He then looked at the selection of breakfast in the pristine establishment.

Breida didn't say much as they made their way through the city. She hadn't been in the high tier before, and she was curious to see what it was like. So far, it hadn't disappointed her. The mages were even more opulent than the surface elves, let alone the more practical and down to earth terra elves. But there was more stonework featured in their decoration, and less wild plants, something which Breida found slightly reminiscent of Beyr. The mages were also interesting to see, as many favored showy robes and clothes, not to mention jewelry as well. She idly wondered if any Terra elf mines supplied the gems and precious metals.

It wasn't too long before they came to the Archmage Cafe. It looked like a nice establishment, and as Samiel said, it was small, quiet, and out of the way. A good place for a private conversation. Even better, the interior was dim. Still bright by terra elf standards, but it was merely noticable, rather than skin irritating. As she entered, she pulled the hood back from her head, and took a moment to work out a few tangles it had caused in her hair. Sitting at the table in a quiet corner of the cafe, she took a menu and flipped through it. "Thanks, I will. ... now, my mastery of your written language isn't the best. The eggs, I assume they're not turtle eggs? I think I'll try them anyway," Breida said, looking through the menu. "Now, about that job?"

Samiel shrugged. "I don't know, that's what they tell me. I guess Felaryan Bagels are a breed apart. But regardless, the Archmage Bagels are the best in the city."

He waited on the well dressed neko servent to take their orders. He got them a table off to the side, in a corner

After the food arrived, he started to draw on a napkin.

"Now... most of you aren't so established in Negav. But I assume you understand the basic layout of the city - the tiers, arranged like this... because the city was built around a hill. However, even older than the city itself is the underground network below it. Some passages are hundreds of years old, dug deeper and deeper as a way to avoid predator attacks."

He began to sketch a rough map of the underground.

"Now, there's some old trinkets and artifacts to be found in this area, true... but this isn't the whole underground that you see on maps. The thing is... this is only the underground that is inhabited - that which is still affected by the Isolon Eye." He drew a circle to help illustrate that" Beyond that... mostly rumour. But I've heard around here...." he said, pointing to point far down. "There's a cache of really old... stuff. Not sure what it is, but its actual value doesn't matter. The Archaeological Society will shell out tons of cash just to get their hands on a little trinket if its old enough. Now, you can see why a terra elf would be helpful. So... this is mostly just a careful exploration. Then we take what we can and get paid back. Do the rest of you think you could be helpful?"

Sean took a good look of the sketch of Negav's underground, then scratched his head a little bit as a tint of familiarity struck him. Still, building a network of underground tunnels to avoid predators is pretty clever. He frowned a little bit that he didn't bring his backpack with his lantern. However, he stared at the part Samiel pointed, where some... stuff supposedly rest there. The mention that it was nothing but rumors past a certain point sounded fishy. He then turned to Samiel.

"I wouldn't call something helpful until we actually see what it is."

He turned to the servent.

"I'll take some bagels."

Neia slithered along the alleyway, she slowed as she had came to the end however. Neia hated having to cross this area, and open road was bad, most people stuck to the roads in areas like this and avoided the the alleyways. Neia was not most people, for that manner she was not like most of her own people, and there were never many of them around Negav. Leaning out, Neia looked one, then the other way, okay not enough people to get lost in, but also not enough for a true mob and most looked too drunk from the Lit-ciggy tavern to be a threat. Neia looked at the alleyway she was heading towards, she needed to get there, she would be at the guild hall soon, she could relax then. Stealing her never she slithered out into the street and turned to go in front of the tavern.

"Hey you... what the hell"
"Eh Fred? what... OH what they helll mannn" two of the drunks slurred out.

Neia eeped, and looked over at two drunk men, they were also with a large woman, she was huge, but not facing Neia yet. Turning her human torso around Neia slithered her snake tail in the direction of her eventual safty.

She tried to sound authoritarian "Now no need for trouble folks" but it came out week and more scared then she wanted.

The two men hoped onto the streat and walked at her, "Oh noooo, the trouble is we don't think Naga belong in Negav, hell your kind don't belong at all" The drunk man was already yelling. The large woman turned around and looked at what her compatriots were doing and turned white seeing Neia, then turned read, gripping her hand tight, the bottle in her hand broke. "WHAT THE *)%&@!"

"Oh jeez, listen, I'm not anything, don't pay attention to me" Neia reached out with a spell hoping to calm the three down, she didn't NEED this, trouble here was the worst that could happen. The spell didn't take, a bottle hit her in the head, and her glasses went flying, the warm stickyness now making its way over her right eye was not the alcohol from the bottle.

Thane stared down into his mug, his mind simply ticking over as the alcohol produced a pleasant buzz in his head. He deserved this small indulgence, he thought. Getting to this city had been hard enough and even a night later he still felt a little worn. The alcohol was fixing that though. That and the-- His train of thought was interrupted by someone yelling from outside the tavern. They were slurring their words, so Thane couldn't quite understand them, but he heard "your kind don't belong at all" followed by swearing.
"Anytime I hear that, nothing good ever comes of it." Thane muttered to himself as he stood up from the bar and made his way to the door.

He stepped into the street just in time to see a naga woman have a bottle broken over her head. Understanding quickly dawned on Thane. he was already irritated at having his quiet drink interrupted. This display of discrimination and violence when he was trying to relax pushed it too far.
He grabbed the bottle-man's shoulder and spun him around, delivering a brutal uppercut to the
man's chest with his other gauntleted fist. The sheer power imparted to the blow by Thane's huge gauntlets breaking some of the bottle-man's lower ribs with an audible crack.

Thane then stepped back to allow the ex bottle-man to fall and turned to face the bottle-man's friend.
"What the **** are you doing, defending a snake bitch like that?" he spat as he took a drunken swing at Thane, who brushed the clumsy attack aside and delivered a powerful shove to the man’s chest, knocking him over.
“Stay down, unless you want broken ribs like your fried here.” Thane replied as the man started to stand. “You don’t even know this person, leave the decisions to someone who knows what they’re doing” Thane continued, indicating the dazed Naga.

The two men looked at disbelief at the figure looking down at them. “What the $#*#%@ man!” the other quipped up “That’s a man eater!”

Looking at Neia, Thane could see that she was of a light build, her snake body black, her human body was so light that she was probably an albino. She was bleeding from a cut right above her right eyebrow and she was feeling the ground for her glasses, she was looking for them though, her attention far more focused on the humans. Feebly she let out “n-no no, no I’m not. I-I’m harmless.” She then managed to palm her glasses in her left hand and brought the OBC things to her face and put them on. They were big and round, making her looking rather nerdish despite the camouflage shirt and heavy vest she was wearing. She looked like she was about to say more, but was scared, the disorientation was likely a factor here however, being hit in the head by a bottle has seem to have done its intended job.

Thane could feel it a moment before it happened, there was a large presence behind him. The woman was huge, easily seven foot tall, and exercised more than a woman should, were it not for the voice some my have thought her a man. The amazon proceeded to pick Thane up by his favorite skull. “You must be new here, why the hell else would you help trash like this?”

Nagi turned to the person taking orders. "I'll take 6 Archmage Bagels and..." He seemed to be calculating something. "3 Kilograms of Kensha, rare please." He turned back to the group. "Don't worry, I'll buy my own food," he said, holding up a reasonably large bag of skevols. "I can eat more than most people, so I usually buy my own food. Still, you've got me interested Samiel. I'll join in." As he spoke, he staredat Breida's goggles as if he could see into the Terra Elf's eyes, his own blood red eyes clearly visable to her. Three black triangles, one up, one left, and one right, all fit around his pupil so that it touched the edges of each triangle. He studied them for almost a full minutes before relaxing and looking back at the drawing. "I trust you," he said to her out of nowhere. "I can tell by your eyes. You know, they say that the eyes are the windows to the soul. You're a good person, as far as I can tell." He sat back and took a small keyboard like device and began typing a message to C.V., telling him he was going to be out a while and the information he had found about his current problems with the police. After a minute, he put it up and sat back again.

((Um, you can't see Breida's eyes. She has her dark goggles on, she only took off her hood entering the resteraunt))

Breida slid the simple map over to herself and looked at it. It was crude, and lacked many of the details that a Terra elf would put down. Rock composition, structural integrity of the walls and roof, sources of water, known life and such. Of course, she didn't expect Samiel to know such things. Though Samiel himself recognized that he didn't know such things either, hence hiring on a Terra elf. That put him a step above most surface dwellers in Breida's book.

"It certainly sounds promising. And it beats hiding from predators on the surface any day," Breida began, giving the map back. "It'll be good to scout underground again, though I'll need to get a few things first. You surface people will need lights. Either lanterns or some sort of enchanted item or rune. Bring a few apiece, just in case you lose or break one or two. And nothing to bright too, it might hurt my eyes. If we encounter natural caverns, we'll need climbing equipment as well. Rope is a must. It couldn't hurt to bring a supply of rations and water, in case we get lost or trapped. I can get us some of the elven waybread; it's more nutritious than human hard-tack, and it tastes much better. To prevent us getting lost, I'll need paper, drawing tools, and a compass. Stuff for making maps. That might be useful for taking sketches or rubbings of any engravings we find. Those might be worth something to the Archeological society as well. Oh, and the underground tends to be chilly. Especially in areas with water flow. Dress accordingly."

She glanced over at Nagi as he started talking about trust. "Some do say that. Myself, I prefer to judge by actions. Eyes can deceive, and trust is a valuable thing to give about freely."

Nagi nodded at her mention of trust being a valuable thing to give but added his own point to her's. "Well, in a world like this, you have to trust those who you plan to travel with, no matter how safe you think it will be. Trust is a core part of teamwork, and a team has a much better chance of living."

He thought about her list before speaking again. "I can work in pitch-black areas, as well as provide both light creating things and provide some myself in a pinch. I should be able to get a bit of rope easily, and get some food and drinks from C.V. Sadly, I've got nothing for maps. And I'll be fine as far as the cold goes. It never bothered me," he said wth a yawn.