Welcome to Gaia! ::

Sisel leaned on her scythe. To her, the weather felt cool - not uncomfortably so, but she would have preferred a more dry, hot location. She looked down at the Muscheron standing nearby and wondered if anyone else would show up.

She had posted that flier where everyone could see it, right? Oh well.

"Let's give them all a few more minutes." Sisel said, though she wasn't actually looking at Ragweed when she spoke. Instead, she was staring out to the south. On the edge of the horizon, you could see the ocean.

Franziska ambled over to the meeting point, kicking up a small cloud of dust in her wake. She would have preferred to delay her first combat outing until the aches and pains from her crash into Auguste Renoir's office faded, but the situation could not be helped. The chance to see an Arch Lich in action must not be passed up.

"Division Leader Chaikin." She acknowledged Sisel with a casual but respectful salute, before nodding curtly at the Muscheron who was standing there. His height and demeanor made him look childish. There was a reason why Headquarters rarely took the Mushkins seriously.

Franziska, in contrast, took everything seriously. At that very moment she was mentally calculating the odds of the boy knee-capping their quarry, or perhaps biting it in the shin.

"The sun is high." She hacked up a glob of bloody phelgm and spat it onto the ground, without ceremony. "It's a good day to kill."

"Yes," Franziska informed the Mushkin, in a low, rough pan. She flexed her wings to try to work out the cramping in her shoulders. The peppermint tisane she'd taken earlier that day was more effective as a numbing agent against throat burns than a muscle relaxant.

She noted the way that the Mushkin stood. He seemed to wilt a little when she looked at him. None of the rookies back in the army had been so distracted, or so obstinately cheerful, but she still recognized a green recruit when she saw one. There was no art in the way he stood, no sense that an enemy could strike.

"Your first fight?"

Franziska wiped a few flecks of blood away from her lips with the back of her hand. She was attempting to bond with these people, infiltrate this place. It might behoove her to be...supportive.

Hmm.

What could she say that would possibly be supportive? Franziska hadn't been green for twenty years.

"In my homeland, only young children and invalids have never blooded a battlefield. Do not fear. If you are maimed or killed, it will be as a man."

"If you are maimed or killed..." Sisel spoke, finally. "I will reanimate your corpse so that your presence on the grounds will not be missed." She looked down at the Muscheron with a smile. It was hard to tell if she was serious or not, but it wasn't difficult to realize just why Sisel rarely told jokes.

"Franziska." As Sisel greeted her, she peered down at the bloody spittle at the Ejderha's feet. Although she would have asked the winged one if medical assistance were necessary, but Sisel figured that, being an Ejderha, Franziska would have declined. So she refocused her attention to the other woman's face. "Seems you'd gotten yourself into a scuffle. You didn't happen to see anyone else interested in coming on the hunt, did you?"

Ragweed nodded, he himself had seen the ale discount but had decided that he'd rather develop his skills than drown him self in ale, something that he could do another time... Following the Edjerha's gaze he looked down the path to the city wondering how much longer they would wait for people to arrive, the monsters weren't just going to kill themselves and the longer they waited the more damage the monster could cause.

Thinking about it he realised he didn't actually know what manner of creature they would be facing and summoned up the courage to ask Sisel. "Excuse me," he began shuffling over to Sisel and tugging slightly on her garb to gain her attention, "what will we actually be fighting?" he asked looking up at her inquisitivly.

"Rats aren't poor eating." Franziska noted, because it was true. Themeat was tough and stringy, but it roasted like anything else. "Will he want the body?"

"Ah, the carcass..." Sisel thought for a moment, "You will probably have to ask him yourself. I'm afraid humans do not exactly appreciate necromancers asking to borrow any sort of corpses from them - be they former nuisance or not. Though I must say, I personally prefer the meals available from the tavern to, ah, the remains of my hunt." Must be an Ejderhan thing, thought Sisel. She would maybe ask Piraya about it, later.

"Let's go then." Sisel said, gesturing with her hand in the direction they would be heading. "I'm sure you'll learn something, Ragweed. Even if it is simply when it is best to run away."