Day 56: Bill's Hardware (Late Afternoon)

[razing_phoenix]

The day had gone by surprisingly fast. Guy could hardly believe that it was drawing toward an end, but the fact that he'd run into Natalia against all odds was probably what contributed to that. Still, he'd made one purchase, caught up with her at least somewhat, and had lunch, so Guy was set for the most part. The last thing that he wanted to do

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[bodhiandspirit]

While Rita's day hadn't been ideally productive, she'd come across some potentially useful items during the trip. The magnifying lens she'd just purchased was tucked into Rita's coat pocket, and she was careful not to put it next to anything that could scratch the glass

[razing_phoenix]

It was a shame that Guy's funds were limited, since some of these adhesives would have likely helped him with putting together his sheath. He sighed, knowing that he had gotten the largest amount of funds possible, and yet even then it didn't feel like enough. It might have been because he'd come up with an ambitious idea, but that was just his way

[bodhiandspirit]

A sheath, huh? Looking at Guy, it wasn't a surprise that he was a swordsman... though maybe that was just because of his resemblance to Flynn

[razing_phoenix]

The fact that Rita had gone from having an interest in heraldry to being able to cast spells with it in the space of a few days was truly impressive. This wasn't the first time that Rita had shocked Guy with her prowess when it came to knowledge of energy sources, though. It sounded like that skill extended to her ability to use it as well as study it

[bodhiandspirit]

"Offensive," Rita replied succinctly, as if it should have been obvious. "I don't use healing or support magic." The reason for that was a lot simpler than people might have thought: she just found those kinds of spells boring to use. Another possible reason for her disinterest was that she spent most of her years studying alone, and those types of spells were better used by someone with companions, but even after acquiring friends to travel with, Rita still had little interest in learning non-deadly spells

[razing_phoenix]

Guy couldn't say that he was all that surprised by the fact that Rita preferred offensive spells. She just didn't come across as the healing type, probably because of her general personality. Then again, he wasn't a very combative person when it came to his demeanor and it wasn't as if he could heal. In Auldrant, though, it was something you were either born with or you weren't, though Guy doubted he would have chosen to be a healer even if he'd had the choice. There was something about sword fighting

[bodhiandspirit]

"I'm going to find most of that out tonight," Rita answered. "I met a patient who said her old roommate left it behind. The basic description sounds similar to a blastia core. I'll have to see if it's genuine, and if it works." Rita was fairly excited to go see it, but she had to remember that there was a chance that it wasn't a blastia. Maybe it wouldn't even work.

Looking around, most of the tools on display looked both affordable and potentially useful... but chances were slim that the shopkeeper would let a bunch of "mental patients" walk out with hammers and sharp objects. It was vexing to even think that she was being viewed that way by the townspeople, but for now Rita had to keep her anger in check and focus on equipping herself with whatever she could.

"That reminds me," she went on after a pause. "I wanted to hear about the types of energy used on your planet." Though Guy had said that his planet's main source was about to run out, that didn't make Rita any less curious about what it was and how it worked.

[razing_phoenix]

If it turned out that Rita was right and it really was a blastia core, then Guy was going to be pretty amazed. He hadn't often heard of things from their worlds, let alone magical items, showing up in this place. He would have to follow up with her tomorrow or the day after to see if it was the real deal and to get some more details on how it had all happened. If it was something that had been left behind, though, then chances were there wasn't that much information about it. "You'll have to let me know how it goes," he told her with a nod, silently wishing her luck

[bodhiandspirit]

Rita knew that Guy had an interest in this sort of thing, but looking at his change in demeanor, she had to wonder if it went beyond that. Well, if he was passionate about this stuff, then good for him, she guessed. All it would mean for Rita was that Guy would have more information and he'd be more willing to speak at length about it. Win-win for her.

"Fonons..." she mused, mulling over Guy's explanation in her mind. Surrounded by them, full of them... they sounded similar to aer in that respect, but hearing that there were different types was a surprise. Aer was aer, and mana was mana - the only variation found in those sources was density, generally.

"Can you explain the different types of fonons?" she asked, deciding to take full advantage of Guy's knowledge while she could. "And... what sorts of fon machines are typical in your society?" Rita had a feeling that city barriers weren't as common in other worlds as they were on Terca Lumireis, and resources likely went to other types of devices.

[razing_phoenix]

It was no surprise that Rita wanted to know more, and Guy sent her a smile as he continued down the aisle. It wasn't long before he was gesticulating enthusiastically through his explanations. "Well, there were originally only six types. Like I said, they corresponded to an element, and those elements were Darkness, Earth, Wind, Water, Fire, and Light." He didn't know if those sorts of things would differ from place to place, but they all seemed pretty intuitive to him. Then again, maybe that was because he'd been raised knowing only that

[bodhiandspirit]

Rita was slightly relieved that high-power weaponry wasn't on that list, even if that didn't necessarily mean that Guy's world didn't have such things - only that they weren't among to first that came to mind for him.

"...Hm," was Rita's initial response to the explanation, but she followed it up with something more intelligible. "Magic in my world uses the same six elements. There's only one type of aer, though. It's converted to whatever form is needed." Perhaps some aspects of magic were universal... or at least common, even among different worlds.

There was one part of Guy's explanation that she couldn't completely wrap her head around, though. "... Predicting the future?" Rita asked, her eyes wide with surprise at hearing something like that mentioned so casually. "How does that even work

[razing_phoenix]

As Guy had guessed, the elements in his world corresponded with Rita's, though he also had to remind himself that he had a lot in common with both this girl and the place that she came from. It was really no surprise that some aspects of how they casted spells were the same as well. He was curious about what the exact conversion process was for aer, but he lost his chance to ask when the girl came forth with another question

[bodhiandspirit]

In the end, Guy's explanation didn't do much to lessen Rita's skepticism. He'd shed some light on why people believed in the Score's prophecies and where the Score came from, but Rita still understood little about how the Score supposedly worked, and how accurate it truly was. Besides, even if it was generally accurate, there were a lot of factors to be taken into consideration to determine whether it was a true prophecy, or merely a self-fulfilling one

[razing_phoenix]

"More than just that," Guy was quick to reply. He was realizing how difficult it was to explain the sheer amount of control that the Score had over the people of Auldrant. Even if that would hopefully be changing soon, its effects were still clear. "It ran people's lives. Some people even used it to decide minor things like where to buy their food or things like that

[bodhiandspirit]

Though Rita couldn't relate to that kind of society, she supposed she could imagine it. Mindless devotion - or perhaps obsession would better describe it - towards one thing could cause it to control a person's life in every way. For that to happen on such a large scale

[razing_phoenix]

Unsurprisingly, his talk with Rita had seemed to whip past in no time at all. That always happened when Guy was discussing things that interested him, whether it was fonons or the Score. While during this talk he had mainly been explaining rather than learning, it didn't matter either way to him.

However, in a split second Rita had gone from chatting with him to wandering off, though Guy didn't take that to heart. Waiting for him to pay wouldn't be very interesting and she probably wanted to get back to the buses considering how dark it was getting. He didn't think Rita had been here when the zombie attack had happened, but she'd probably heard the stories.

And so Guy sectioned out a sheet of leather that would give him more than enough to work with to make the sheath, granting him some extra material in case he made a mistake. Paying for it went surprisingly smoothly, and before long he had the roll of leather tucked under his arm as he headed back to the drop-off point.