Horizon Odyssey, Chapter 1, A hopeful fresh start

[Rothene]

Noticing Aaron, Lissa smiled and sweeped her brown hair back as she replied, "A beginner wand...explorer...I guess it depends on how do you want to use it in the labyrinth!" A guild badge, definitely an explorer.

Pulling the alchemist with her to a shelf, the shop assistant picked up a wand that resembled a club, "Some alchemist less confident in their blasting powers favour wands that are proficient at close quarter combat when things get ugly, while some of the crazy ones," sorting out a slim looking wand with copper stands wound around it, "Like to go all out with their magic and use ones that focus their magic better. These two are the cheapest range we got, extremely suitable for the first floor and only fifty and seventy en respectively."

With the wands in each hand, Lissa shoved them close to Aaron's face, about close enough that a quick twist of her wrist would send them smashing the alchemist's face, "So which one do you want?"

[CD-Man2021]

Aaron took half a step back, fearing the worst for his eyesight. He would seriously drag the group down if he got a wand in the eye. The club-like wand seemed like a bad choice for him. He expected to be near the back of the group, and he very much doubted Reo or Victor would enjoy having their clothes catch on fire due to the wand’s radius should a monster get too close to the alchemist.
“May I?” He asked, reaching out for the wands. The larger one felt too uneven for him. Too much weight near the end of it. It wasn’t a big complaint, but he didn’t know how he would react during battle, and a simple distribution of weight might be enough to make him fumble a spell. The thinner one felt more comfortable for him. He had already had practice with spells, or at least enough practice to know that he can use them decently enough. The wand would need to be an enhancer, not a crutch.

“This copper stranded one will do the trick.” He said, handing back the two wands along with 70 en. He took a quick look around as she rung him up. There were many books and scrolls lined up along the walls. Definitely a place he would need to return to at some point. A small book caught his attention. It listed various theories, alternate ways to use spells, and unorthodox practices that alchemists might find useful at some point in their careers. It was labeled as half-off--currently at 40 en. He picked it up off the shelf and placed it on the counter next to his soon-to-be wand.
“This as well, please.” He handed the girl the money, thanked her for her time and was about to set off out of the store before another customer stopped him.

It was an elderly looking man, though he seemed to mean no harm.
“Hold on there a sec’, sonny.” The man said, placing his staff between Aaron and the door. “Lemme take a look at that there glove you got on.” Confused, the young alchemist put his wand in his back pocket before outstretching his right hand towards the old man. “Haha!” The experienced alchemist croaked. “I knew it. Ruckus, right? That old fart finally gave away the right handed one.” Aaron raised an eyebrow at the man, but didn’t get a chance to ask his question. “Look here,” the man said, “look here. See how the wrist of this thing has this marking? The one that looks like a feather? That’s ol’ Rukus’ doing. He was lookin’ for a couple a’ people to carry on the gloves he had once he passed on. First one was some lady about your age. No idea where she is now though.” Aaron looked at the wrist where the old man pointed. He saw no markings, no blemishes, not even a scratch. If he didn’t know any better he would say the glove was brand new.

“I…don’t see anything.” He admitted to the man.
“Ya don’t?” Aaron shook his head. “Aw you will. You will, don’t you worry. Come back anytime, I’m always at this shop. Always and forever.” Without much warning, the old man began lightly pushing Aaron towards the door. Taking the hint, the boy exited the store. As soon as he did, the old man closed the door and went back to whatever it was he was doing. To say Aaron was confused was an understatement.
“Eccentric?” He asked himself. That summed up both the old man and the girl that helped him. How did he know about Ruckus? And what was that about the other glove? “I’ll definitely need to come back here again.” He said quietly as he inspected the wrist of his glove again.

[Rothene]

With the report half finished, Robin looked up at Reo's declaration nodding, Robin resumed writing, "Excellent work. If it's further orders you seek...well are you by chance any good at cooking?"

Pointing to the door leading to a kitchen at the back of the building, Robin continued, "There's a well stocked kitchen behind that anyone can use to prepare meals if they rather skimp on tavern or fancy restaurant food. It should be very well stocked at the moment and, I'm thinking that a good meal for everyone when they get back from errands would be wonderful. I'll help out after finishing this report."

[FrankerZ]

It was a little past noon, the streets of the north wing were moderately crowded. Seeing Aaron walk out of the store, Victor rose from the bench. With deft skill, Victor wove his way through the street. Aaron seemed preoccupied with something and didn't appear to notice his approach. Victor reached the other side of the street and could see that the alchemist was staring at his gauntlet.

"Hey kid. Whatchya lookin at?" Victor said as he closed the gap between himself and the boy. "Heh, don't tell me it's broken already..." he said sarcastically with a grin. "Well, I got the warpstone and some medicine. I take it you got your weapon?" Upon closer examination, Victor notice that Aaron was rather concerned about something. Sounding genuinely interested Victor asked: "...Kid. Something the matter? Are you nervous about the labyrinth or something? If you don't wanna talk about it, it's fine. But I'll do my best to help ya if you'll let me."

[Riseatrance]

"Cooking...? ...Fine. I will do it. Just do not complain to me if the cuisine I make is not to your liking." Reo shrugged and sighed as he made his way to the kitchen and inspected whatever on earth this thing actually had in stock. Reo sighed softly and fidgeted around, looking for anything he could possibly make. After all, this was a rather foreign place to him. In the end, Reo tried to work with what little seafood, viands and vegetables he could, but then decided he would just stick to separating them into a salad and viand meal. He had considered the prospect of making soup, but he would rather have waited for Robin's output on that one. Ingredient preparation was a thing; Reo found himself sorely tempted to use his own blade for slicing and dicing, but common sense had the better of him and he used what was already provided, thankfully. It was clear that Reo was not used to the environment for cooking, being much more used to cooking outdoors or at least in open-air areas.

"Geez... Who would have thought I would be relegated to cooking? I haven't cooked for anyone in a while." Reo mused out loud to himself.

[Curry-Kohai]

((So many posts, I feel bad for leaving >.<))

Ihsan smirked, grabbing the lunch she had bought earlier, some meat and vegetables wrapped in a tortilla. As she ate, Aaron left to get himself a weapon. Looks like we're shaping up she thought, chewing on a stray piece of beef that had escaped the tortilla.

When she finished, Reo had gone to the kitchen to prepare food. A second serving was always welcome to Ihsan, and she moved into the kitchen, hearing Reo speak to herself. Sauntering up from behind Reo, she smiled.
"Do you need help? My hands are free."
she said, nodding her head in greeting.

[CD-Man2021]

Victor had emerged from...somewhere. Aaron didn't notice him until after he had announced his presence. He didn’t expect to see the gunner out here, in fact he was surprised that he wasn’t back at the guild hall already. The line at the hospital must have been longer than expected. The alchemist put his hands into his pockets.
“I’m doing alright.” He said. “Just thinking. Probably too much, really.” The alchemist was happy to hear about the medica as well. It wouldn’t do them well to head into battle with no real supplies. “I got myself a decent wand, yeah. It’s nothing amazing, but it’ll do. We should head back to the guild hall before it gets too late.”

As they made their way back, Aaron spoke up. He hadn’t thought about entering the labyrinth. “I’m not too worried about the labyrinth.” He admitted. “As long as the rest of the guild is with me, I don’t think we’ll have any problems, as long as we don’t run into a F.O.E., but even then we can warp out…probably.” Aaron had suddenly remembered about the new guild member that had just joined. “That reminds me, a lady came into the hall earlier to join. Her name’s Emile, from Albis, so I imagine she’s a war magus. It’s…interesting.” Aaron decided to leave out the fact that Emile was a duchess for the moment. He didn’t want to think about it again.

[Rothene]

The report complete, with some room in case he receives anymore sign ups, Robin put the parchment under a weight to prevent it from blowing away. Stifling a yawn and he stretched in his seat, the guild master proceeded to enter the kitchen. Turning to the only guild member remaining in the hall at the time, Robin said, Feel free to make yourself comfortable or help out in the kitchen Emile."

Inside the kitchen, Robin rubbed his hands and asked, "So what are we having here? Seafood? Well now, must have been a good thing I got those on a whim this morning. Stock is hard to come by and neither am I good at cooking that stuff."

Rolling up his sleeves the guild master asked jovially, "So, Reo, any particular task I can do to help? Start a stove? Peel potatoes? You're the head chef as of today, and here you're the boss and Ihsan and I are to assist you. My appetite demands it."

[FrankerZ]

"Ah... so we have a fifth now." Stroking his chin he looked down at the ground. An intrigued smirk was plastered over Victor's face.

"I guess that means we'll be going into the labyrinth soon." Victor firmly grabbed Aaron's shoulder stopping him in his tracks. "Kid, are you sure this is what you want? Exploring the labyrinth I mean..." He would be lieing to say he didn't care for the boy. Aaron reminded Victor a lot of himself when he was younger. Aaron was sharp, he was bright and he seemed clueless; almost exactly like Victor was at his age.

"Look, I can't force you to leave, but you gotta understand the labyrinth isn't a nice place to be... Many, many, many people have likely lost their lives there, and I believe many more will as well... If you're adamant on staying though, I'll do my best to help you in anyway. Just keep in mind that you can always leave if it doesn't work out. I'm sure Robin will understand." He finished with a light pat on the back.

"Alright, let's hustle. I'm feeling rather hungry, hopefully somebody at the guild got some lunch..." He said as he picked up the pace.

[Riseatrance]

Reo didn't bat an eyelash as he remained on task; not turning his back to face Ihsan and Robin who had just come in asking to see if they could help. Reo felt kind of bad that ultimately, he didn't really need their help, but he supposed that perhaps some menial assistance would be handy after all. "I think it would be nice if I made something new," Reo said. "Set a large pot of water to boil... I'll make something 「oriental」 today." he continued, not sounding incredibly assertive but enough to convince anyone to follow an order. He was finishing up preparing the seafood, and took some greens. "...Have you, perchance, also in possession of... noodles? I wasn't able to find any, but I may have looked in the wrong place."

[Rothene]

Grabbing a large pot from a nearby cupboard, more due to knowing where he kept the objects rather than speedy reflexes, Robin started filling it with water from a nearby pump tap. The kitchen was quite large, more than half the size of the main hall with enough room for a table and a few stools around it to dominate the centre of the room.

Looking to Ihsan, Robin shook his head and said, "No, I haven't got any noodles, so you won't find any." Turning to Reo, the guild master asked, "Will rice do? It's probably oriental enough and I've got a whole bag of the stuff a few days ago, in case I get guild members preferring that thing over bread? It's among the dried goods near the edge of the kitchen."

[Riseatrance]

Reo shrugged and took a pot of his own where he placed it nearby the ingredients he had just finished preparing. "Rice will do, if we are lacking. It is fine." he said as he went to where Robin said it was, the dried goods? Yes, the dried goods. Reo noted the location, went back to get the pot (to which he absentmindedly muttered "I keep forgetting this.") and returned to the rice to get some. "Curiously, do any of you know how to cook? I mean, on your own."

[CD-Man2021]

Aaron put a hand under his chin as he listened to Victor. He may be right; the alchemist might be underplaying the labyrinth. Why was he here? Information. That's what it all boiled down to for him. Anything and everything the world had to offer would be accepted into he database of a brain. Some things were more important than others, however. Ruckus' left glove, the supposed markings on them, the girl who held his glove's counterpart, and why. Why him? Why her? Was Ruckus simply passing on his tools before he passed away? Was there more to it than that? Was the labyrinth connected? If not, why would Ruckus instruct Aaron to seek out Horizon? There were too many questions without answers, and that's not including the mysteries that the labyrinth itself held.

"We'll be fine." Aaron said as he began walking along with Victor. "Like I said, so long as we stay as a group and avoid running into a F.O.E., we should have the capacity to easy make it through the first few floors as we are now. Maybe even the first few stratums, though that’s a little too optimistic.” The alchemist scratched his chin. “Listen, when we go in there, we aren’t a group. We’re a team. Everything that happened outside doesn’t matter. I don’t know what’s up between you and Reo, but I assume it has its own troubles. But in the labyrinth, none of that matters. We all have to trust each other…Or at least, that’s what this greenhorn thinks.” He let out a light laugh. “Look at me, trying to sound smart. You probably already knew that.”

[FrankerZ]

"What's happening between me and Reo isn't any of your concern. The situation has been resolved." Coldly dismissing that thought. "It would be wise for all of us to not get on that one's bad side..."

"I digress. you seem to know what you want. And you certainly have some spirit in you." Victor chuckled. The boy greatly amused him. Victor's disposition changed. It was clear to him that Aaron wasn't going to scare easily, he just hoped this would remain true in the labyrinth. Victor became more warm and approachable than he was moments ago; the serious tone become almost playful. "You're very positive. I like that." He smiled as he turned to Aaron.

"Now on the topic of the labyrinth... would I be correct in saying that you don't have a whole lot of combat experience? I only ask because you just bought a weapon correct? And you called yourself a greenhorn. Don't do that." Victor laughed audibly. He really liked this kid.

"If anyone should ask, you tell them you're an explorer. I'm not sure what you can do yet, but if you're not one now, I'll make you one if you'll let me. You look like you're capable, and I certainly have my fair share of experiences with this sort of thing... We're almost there, if you like we can talk more on the subject after you and I get something to eat! Ah yes. I do not remember if I have properly introduced myself. I am Victor Avary." He said informally as he continued walking.

[CD-Man2021]

"I would appreciate that." Aaron said with a genuine smile. As the pair neared the guildhall, the alchemist caught a whiff of a delightful smell. "...Fish?" He asked out loud. He rarely ate seafood, and was more accustomed to the fruits, vegetables, poultry, and meat that his family helped grow. Seafood was only brought in by the caravans, and even then they were rarely fresh. More than once he had skipped out on a meal fearing the worse from the aquatic meal. Aaron made his way into the hall, following the smell into the kitchen.

“Whoa. I didn’t realize we had a kitchen here.” He said. “I wish I was here when you started. I’m a decent cook. I never was one for the physical activity my family needed, so I had to be useful somehow.” From making up for himself through cooking, cleaning, and watching over the younger children to joining a guild to tackle the labyrinth. Funny how things work out.