She is touring the facilitiy

[ironshodboots]

Who: Nazca and YOU!

What: A random day of temple visits, shopping, and job hunting.

Where: Around, probably mainly in the Aspic-Griss Twist vicinity

When: All day Coardi (say time of day if it matters in your tag)

Notes: Open to new or old acquaintances.

Warnings: None so far

It's now been long enough that Nazca has decided, however she got to Baedal, she's unlikely to be leaving it any time soon. As such, she is going to need a source of income, possibly a patron deity, and definitely some allies. She's been more or less shopping for all three.

She's never had to do anything like a job application before, so she's mainly wandering about and keeping her ears open. But she learns fast, and she's willing to take either honest or dishonest work as it finds her. She will also pay a respectful visit to the temple - she's kept up the practice of small offerings to all the gods for now, until she chooses one - and will likely end the day buying some food for supper.

It's a strange life, and she's restless in it, but it isn't all bad. Considering how she came, it could be much, much worse.

Comments

[aintwoundright.livejournal.com]

A corner of his mouth twitches, faint amusement. "I live over in Flyside, if that's not out of your way. Please."

[ironshodboots]

"If I'd minded, I wouldn't have offered," Nazca says, simply. She lets him lead the way.

"So you did clockworks and things before here as well? Or are you a second-generation resident?" She's recently learned that there are such people, but hasn't met many willing to chat at length yet.

[aintwoundright.livejournal.com]

"I did," he explains, nodding. "Family business. My father was a watchmaker and I learned the trade from him. I inherited his shop after he... was gone."

Left. But this isn't the time or place to get into family melodramas.

"But I'm new here. Not from here."

[ironshodboots]

"Nor me." She's quieter; Nazca lost her mother, and she knows what a raw subject that can be. (She's afraid her father didn't long survive her departure, either.)

"I haven't yet found any other Camorri, either."

[aintwoundright.livejournal.com]

He nods, noting the change in her tone. If he'd known what she was thinking she'd be glad no mention was made aloud of anyone's mother--that's a subject that's beyond raw for Gabriel, even a handful of years on from what he did.

"Camorri. Those are... your countrymen? Your race?"

[ironshodboots]

"Adopted countrymen. It's a city-state. I'm Verrari by birth, but I was too small when we left to remember ever living there. The ex-Thyrin empire, though I don't expect you've heard of that, either."

[aintwoundright.livejournal.com]

Gabriel shakes his head, a smile there and gone in a moment. "No. I haven't heard of any of those places. What are they like?"

[ironshodboots]

She considers how to answer the occasion. "Technology is about like here, generally, if not in all the details. Camorr is probably a slightly smaller city in population, but not by much."

Nazca smiles, considering her former home for a moment. "It was a harbor city. Mostly canals, not streets. And we had Elderglass of course - I suppose that's another thing you've never heard of?" It's not something she's had the time or inclination to talk about in much detail, since arriving.

[aintwoundright.livejournal.com]

"No." He smiles again--it holds this time, pleasant, curious. "I don't know what Elderglass is. But a canal city sounds beautiful. I lived in a harbor city too--New York--but we had paved streets, not canals."

[ironshodboots]

Nazca returns the smile - the fact she seldom bothers with charm doesn't mean she's devoid of it, and she really does have genuine affection for Camorr.

"It's left over from...whoever had the world before we did. Not humans, we don't think. Humans can't do anything with elderglass - we can't make it, destroy it, we can't even really shape it effectively. But they're these elaborate structures all over the world." Quieter, she says, "In Camorr, they catch the sunlight, even after the sun's over the horizon. We called it Falselight - it was like twilight a second time."

[aintwoundright.livejournal.com]

"That sounds beautiful." He's fascinated by the idea that there was someone else there before humans, where she's from, but this doesn't seem like the right time to ask.

"You must miss it."

[ironshodboots]

"It was. And I do." The fact that she's calculated the decision to be honest doesn't mean her answer isn't genuinely true. "It's strange to me to think no one else here has ever seen it; all our major cities have Elderglass of some sort."

[aintwoundright.livejournal.com]

He nods, thoughtful. "It's my understanding that this city has been bringing people in from many different worlds and places." He smiles again, trying to be encouraging. "Maybe you're the only one from yours, so far?"

[ironshodboots]

"It seems likely. At least in our cohort - it's a large city." There could be another person from her world somewhere, but she had no easy way to find out.

[aintwoundright.livejournal.com]

"I've met a few people from Earth, like me. But no one else, so far, seems to have come from my specific world. The same time, the same place. I think it draws from multiple universes too."

Which means the city could pull from an infinite number of places. So much power being wielded with no explanation. He didn't like it.

[ironshodboots]

"And I haven't noticed any pattern yet for what people were doing just before they arrived. It doesn't seem to matter." It sounds as if she's been looking.

[aintwoundright.livejournal.com]

"I've noticed we're all the same general age." He shrugs, not sure what to make of it. "Adults, but not elderly. No children. I have to wonder if there's a reason behind that."

[ironshodboots]

She seems pleased that he noticed. "Yes, I noticed that too. And no one infirm, at least so far as I've seen. Everyone is relatively able-bodied."

[aintwoundright.livejournal.com]

"A work force of some kind?" He frowns. "Though they haven't sent us directly to specific jobs. They've let us choose. It can't be a coincidence. I wonder if the other cohorts are like us--all roughly the same generations in them."

[ironshodboots]

"It could be," she allows. She hasn't done enough observation to be sure. "Whatever their purpose, they seem to need us physically fit for it."

[aintwoundright.livejournal.com]

They're just crossing one of the streets that serves as a boundary for Flyside. It only vaguely registers, so engrossed is he in trying to reason out why the city needs young, able-bodied adults.

"I remember the pamphlet said our ambition would be rewarded. Sounds like we're expected to work toward something."

[ironshodboots]

"But they don't seem to care what," she agrees. "It may be to do with the gods, but I don't think so; they seem above whatever politics are running the place, for the most part." They were familiar, if not quite the aspects of the twelve she was used to.

[aintwoundright.livejournal.com]

"I can't see what the goal would be, if we're not being directed toward something." He sighs. Nothing here makes sense and he doesn't like that. "I guess we're more likely to resist if we know what the goal is. Higher chance we'll disagree or try to avoid it."

[ironshodboots]

"Quite. And it could be something... I don't know. Less tangible. Energy, maybe? I don't have enough information to make much of a theory." It frustrates her, in her quiet way.

[aintwoundright.livejournal.com]

"Energy," he echoes--now there's a thought. Could they be harnessing the work of everyone here, somehow? Usually complex systems are a snap for him to grasp, but this city is too vast, with too many unknown variables. He can't get a read on it, can't get enough information to work it all out.

It frustrates him, too.

"It might be worth tracking the rest of the cohort somehow. See if there are any patterns in what we do, what we deal with, who we are."