[closed] BOUNTY DOUBLE FEATURE

[cachemoney]

CHARACTERS: Fiona & Aloy with bounty buddies
DATE: Hanabira, post-ambush
WARNINGS: none as of yet
SUMMARY: Catch-all bounties with my girls!! Let me know here if you want something.

Comments

for rhys: dam imps

[cachemoney]

[Irrigation solutions aren't exactly Fiona's forte, and she finds herself a little perplexed as they trudge away from the farmhouse, following the river toward where the imps are supposed to be clustered. She's put her noble disguise away because she's not about to get it dirty after how expensive it was, and instead is wearing a yukata in the dumbest patterned fabric she could find, because of course she is.]

Okay. Game plan, [she says, looking over at Rhys sidelong.] Are we murdering them? We could just murder them. [She means the imps. They could just murder the farmers too. Obviously she wouldn't, but it's not like they're unmurderable.]

Unless you have some kind of idea of how to fix this without murder.

[dbag]

Oh, my god. Typical Pandoran. Always resorting to murder as the first plan.

[ He is disgusted! Not that he has any other ideas, but he at least had the decency not to immediately suggest murdering them. He was going to at least wait five minutes before he did that. Because he's classy. ]

We could... pay them off. Do imps like money? I don't know, I'm not an impologist.

[cachemoney]

[Look, murder is a fine plan. It gets the job done. If the job can be solved with murder. Which, in Pandora, it usually can.

Screwing up her mouth, she pauses a second to bring the dossier up on the magitek.] Surprisingly, it doesn't say. [This is not surprising, she's being sarcastic. It's not exactly pertinent to the mission, so obviously it wouldn't be in here.]

They're "close to sapient," though. So maybe... shiny things...

[dbag]

[ Why did she make the effort to bring up her dossier. He hates her, that was so stupid. ]

Would they even understand it was, like— a bribe to not come back anymore? Or would they just take it and come back tomorrow?

[ He screws up his face in thought; it's very dashing of him. Honestly, he'd feel worse killing a bunch of almost sapient creatures than fully sapient or not at all sapient ones. It's right at the sweet spot where they're not sapient enough to be assholes, but they're still too smart to be mean to. ]

I don't know, maybe we should just... observe them for a second or two. I wanna see what they're like before I make a decision. [ Because HE is the decision-maker here, obviously. ]

[cachemoney]

[Dashing Rhys for sure over here. She sighs exasperatedly, like she is so long-suffering putting up with this wimp who needs to think before he does anything, but throws her hands up in the air in surrender.]

Fine. We can "observe" them. But start making a mental inventory of shiny things; I'm not writing off the bribery thing yet. [Maybe they can relocate them... bodily... and then give them shiny stuff?? As payment.]

[dbag]

Okay, um. ...Your earring?

[ It's all he can think of. He's just trying to help! Honestly, he's not so sure a group of river imps will be interested in jewelry, anyway, but he'll have to see just how animalistic they look first. Once they get close enough that the imps are in sight, he ducks down behind a boulder (the only thing big enough to fit his limbs behind) and yanks Fiona down, too. Even if she was already going to come down of her own volition. ]

Get down, I'm trying to do recon.

for vaughn: in one basket

[cachemoney]

[Coming from a city inside a cave, Fiona is not really a heights person. She's also not really a bird person, as she associates flying things with rakks, which nobody needs in their life. Particularly not in a closed-in area like this.

Still, she sucks it up and climbs up the ladder after Vaughn, poking her head up through the hatch. She's wearing, like, a beekeeper's helmet -- complete with screen -- because she doesn't trust these birds, but she is trying.]

So... baby birds. They can't, uh... fly yet. Right?

[moneyman]

[ this guy, on the other hand, is jumping right into the deep end as usual. heights? whatever. birds of prey? no big deal. plus, they're probably cute. sort of. ]

Prrrobably not? I dunno, this isn't exactly my area of expertise, either. I'd be more worried about losing a finger, but I'm sure we'll be fine. Worst case scenario, I throw up a shield and we get the hell out of here.

[ he likes to feel useful. ]

[cachemoney]

Really --? [she starts, having assumed that since Vaughn is from one of the Edens or wherever, he just knows all about those kind of garden planet animals. Like birds. Every bird.

Maybe that's planetist though, so she shakes her head and cautiously climbs up through the hatch, immediately kicking it closed so none of the falcons fly out.]

Losing a finger, great. Maybe we can just, like... throw the food at them. Underhand, you know. [A gentle throw.]

[moneyman]

I don't know, you probably shouldn't take my knowledge of wildlife too seriously. I was a bit of an indoor kid. Shocking, I know, but try not to scare the birds with your astonishment.

[ because he has absolutely no idea what would happen. ]

That's probably a good way to start. Less chance of dismemberment. Usually a good thing.

[cachemoney]

[She makes an over the top, shocked expression at this totally unforeseen development -- Vaughn? An indoor kid?? Impossible.]

Alright, well. Let's get to it. [After looking around for a second, she finds a bucket of... delicious-looking assorted meat. Bits. It's like offal or something. Hoisting up the bucket, she follows Vaughn over.]

Oookay. Dig in?

for zarya: tea-m work

[cachemoney]

[Fiona is not a really big fan of tea, but it's apparently a super important part of Hanabiran culture -- enough where she's hoping she'll get a nice, fat reward for tracking this shipment down. Maybe a castle. (Probably not a castle.)

She's just left the tea seller further up the road and is trotting back to retrace her steps when she sees a familiar pink haircut coming her way.]

Zarya! Hey. [She slows down and waves.] How are you at investigation?

[flexing]

[ Zarya pauses to be hailed, not at all bothered to keep the giant sack of rice she'd been hauling over one shoulder, and is quick to start on a broad smile to see a familiar face — but the question put to her pauses it. ]

Investigation? [ She asks it with some wariness. Honestly, why is she everyone's go-to lately for this? Does she look like a detective? ] I have some experience. Why?

[cachemoney]

[Once she's close enough to Zarya to hold a normal conversation, she pauses to look at the gigantic bag she's holding, raises her eyebrows silently, then continues.]

Beeecause. I just got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and you're the first person I saw! Sooo, what do you say we team up, just two hyper-competent women tracking down a very important missing shipment of, uh... goods. Important goods. Which involves a handsome reward!

[She might be trying to talk this up to make it a little more exciting, mostly because it's going to be hella boring if she searches for a bunch of missing tea by herself, she is aware.]

[flexing]

[ Okay, this absolutely does not sound like Zarya's area. But she won't shirk from a task assigned to her, even if it's just by a teammate. She frowns thoughtfully, squaring her stance as she straightens herself up a little more. This is no pause in a stroll, this is now a conversation. ]

This shipment, it was stolen? Or misplaced?

[cachemoney]

[Good, Fiona was sure she'd pegged Zarya right: duty-bound soldier, always ready to do whatever task was appointed to her, no matter how stupid. It makes her miss Riza a little.]

The owner-- merchant! She isn't sure. It wasn't on her cart when she stopped to check, so it's either somewhere along the road, or... [She gestures vaguely at the woods around them. Or someone nicked it off her cart, in which case it could be anywhere.]

for veronica: brew can do it

[cachemoney]

[Ostensibly "tasting" sake does not mean "gulping down cups of it," but Fiona is using the opportunity to do the latter because, you know. It's free. Why wouldn't she?

The only drawback to this method (despite the fact that she is getting progressively more tipsy) is that sometimes she'll get a big mouthful of some horrible flavor combination and it's too late to spit it out. Now is one of these times: she's drinking sake like she's taking shots, though this last one makes her gag immediately after she swallows.]

God, what -- rose and licorice? [She squints at the sheet in front of her, then writes down a series of X's.] Bad, no, no.

[refashioned]

[At a time like this, "restraint" is something that Veronica wonders if she should be advising. The more Fiona takes down sake in shots, the more she wonders if she'll have to play the "responsible adult." For her part, Veronica is sipping her sake like it's wine. Which, frankly, might not be correct either.

And it might also be the worst choice. She shoves away her own taster of rose-and-licorice sake, wrinkling her nose at the same time.]

That or anise—not that it makes much of a difference. Are we really sure they have our best interests at heart with some of these? I'm beginning to doubt that.

[cachemoney]

[Fiona -- already far enough in her cups where she's a little looser with her behavior -- lets her tongue loll out in response.] Maybe it's a plot to slowly poison us with bad flavor combinations. [The conspiracy theory that Hathaway deserves.

Reaching for the next bottle, Fiona pours Veronica a new cup before refilling her own.]

Do you remember how much we're getting paid for this? I'm starting to wonder if it's enough.

[refashioned]

When it's all said and done, we get a bottle of sake to take with us. [There were other factors, too, weren't there? She's at a loss to remember what they were. Veronica's constitution when it comes to alcohol isn't bad for a teenager, but she's still a skinny teenage girl. So it goes.]

So, one: definitely a plot to kill us. And two: definitely not enough. Should we file a complaint?

[cachemoney]

Haha. A complaint that they're not paying us enough to be poisoned. [Makes sense!!

Fiona takes another sip -- a large one, this time; it's basically a gulp -- and then squints at the sheet in front of her to figure out what flavor it is.] Pine and plum? Oookay.

Well -- anyway. If I were going to poison someone, I would offer them a bajillion moneys. Dollars. Because then, like, they'd be dead, right? And couldn't collect anyway.

for maya: kid-napped

[datapoint]

[Aloy is crouched down behind a boulder near the mouth of the proverbial dragon's den -- a literal ogre's den, in this case -- her bow in hand and her Focus switched on, scanning whatever she can from this angle. There is no sign of the ogres outside the cave, but she keeps the Focus on anyway, just in case. A kind of crutch when she goes into unknown situations.]

Maya, [she says softly over her shoulder, expecting her to be crouched down behind her.] Do you see anything?

[feytality]

[She is actually where she's supposed to be, for once in her life. Aloy can count this as a miracle. She's squinting into the cave from around the other girl (being short sucks), sticking out her head a little from the bolder to try to peer inside]

Not really.

[She has to work on her whisper, as it's closer to stage than otherwise, but the ogres don't have good enough hearing to catch on. Yet] I think they're all inside, getting ready to feast on some goats while overplayed 90s rock music starts up in the background...

[Why did Aloy take her along, again??]

[datapoint]

[Yeah, that's a good question.

Aloy has no idea what reference Maya is making -- 90s? Rock music?? -- so she just glosses over it instead of wasting time asking.]

Okay. One second. [Still crouched, she takes a few steps back, grabbing the tripcaster from her side. She attaches a wire -- arcing with electricity -- to the boulder and then, taking careful aim, shoots the wire so its darted end embeds into one side of the cave's mouth. The wire is at such an angle that, if something big were to come lumbering out of the cave... say, something ogre-sized... it would immediately get zapped with electricity.

Putting the tripcaster away, she slides back over to Maya.] Don't touch that, by the way. Do you think you can draw them out?

for hayame: nice rice

[datapoint]

[Farming isn't something the Nora do, and though Aloy had seen rows of maize in the Sundom, they were just that -- rows. Not what looked like fields of meticulously plotted-out puddles.

She stands on a wooden walkway separating sections of paddy fields, basket of rice seedlings in her arms, looking perplexed at where to even start. The farmer had said to just start planting them, but how does one plant something in water? She doesn't get it.]