[23:06] <Kotono> "Hah." Grinning as you head into the cafeteria, the portal does the job in a moment. Appearing a moment later nearby is Dana and Willim. As yo usee them the smell of food is about - people are eating and talking, a buzz of conversation about.
[23:09] * Ithea waves at the two more familiar faces. "Hey princess, hey willim. What have you guys been up to?" she asks with a smile.
[23:11] <Kotono> "Princess needs to learn how to bluff," Adrian smirks, "Hey."
[23:11] <Kotono> "Oh, the normal. Scraping Willim's ass up, developing strange new mind powers out of fucking nowhere." Dana shrugs. "Who wants to get drunk with breakfast? Feels like a good dayu for it."
[23:14] <Ithea> "Ah, harnessing the power of your mind. A worthwhile decision always," Ithea says with a nod. As to the second question, as if she hadn't just said anything about developing the mind, she says, "Sure, let's go kill some brain cells."
[23:20] * Willim grabs a mug and, without checking what it is, chugs it.
[23:23] <Kotono> Going to a table drinks appear, guzzled down amid a cry of cheers! "So what happened to get scraped up," Adrian asks.
[23:24] <Willim> "Jaela decided that she wanted to fight me."
[23:26] <Ithea> "Did you give almost as good as you got at least?" Ithea says as she grabs a mug to drink herself.
[23:29] <Willim> "I think so." Willim nods. "She used some kind of magic, though, and that's well beyond what I can do."
[23:30] <Kotono> "Jaela's really good," Adrian observes, "She's not the best fighter or best magician I've ever seen, but she knows how to combine them."
[23:31] <Kotono> Slamming her drink down andg etting another, "Hey, a fight is a fight, and fighting stronger people makes you stronger. So it wasn't a fight wasted, anyway. Find some way to counter it?"
[23:32] <Ithea> "What'd she do exactly to waste you?" Ithea asks curiously.
[23:32] <Willim> "If I had held onto her, I'm sure I could have just eaten her to death." Willim says. "As I told Dana, I was being courteous. Serves me right. She never said 'fair,' just 'friendly.'"
[23:34] * Willim looks at Ithea. "Some sort of spell that let her hit me every time I swung at her."
[23:36] <Ithea> "If you were fighting to the death, even if it was friendly, you really should have gone with all you had, unless you set some conditions not to do it for some reason," Ithea comments as she sets her empty mug down so it can refill. "Interesting spell though, can't recall seeing a spell that does that."
[23:39] <Kotono> "Neither can I," Dana says, "I know a combat technique like that, but it gets you hurt badly. You take the hit and hit them back at the same time. Leads to a lot of double-fatalities."
[23:41] <Ithea> "That actually sounds like something Jaela would do. She can heal herself, some of her smaller wounds seem to vanish without a thought, and even without that, she's still good at taking damage anyway, so she might feel that the rewards outweight the risks," Ithea muses.
[19:47] <Shao_Koahn> "Sure, if she doesn't die." Dana says, "I sort of like it, honestly. Putting yourself dead in the way...mmmm..."
[19:48] * Willim nods. "A good fight should be straight-forward. Nothing like smashing through enemy ranks with raw physical power to get your blood moving."
[19:48] <Ithea> "Well, she hasn't died yet, so hopefully she knows what she's doing!" Ithea comments as she takes a drink out of a new filled mug.
[19:51] <Willim> "It's worked for her so far. She makes up with magic what she can't physically. Not all of us can be, you know." Willim flexes mightily.
[19:55] <Ithea> "Well, enough about Jaela's suicidal tendencies anyway. That's not a topic to get drunk to! Tell us more about your dad and his kingdom, Dana. I'll admit to not knowing much about it," Ithea prods.
[19:55] * Willim nods, gnawing on a hunk of meat and drinking.
[19:56] <Shao_Koahn> Dana grins, "I'm working on it." Another drink is taken, "What do you want to know about?"
[19:58] * Ithea shrugs. "Anything you feel like sharing. What's it like, where's it at, how stuffy is your dad and all his pompous noble yes-men, that sort of stuff!"
[19:59] <Willim> "Will we need to beat them to death eventually? You know, the good stuff."
[19:59] <Shao_Koahn> "Oh God, Daddy." Making a face, "No Dana, you're a proper princess! You can't go fight a dozen trolls at once! No Dana, don't you even think about facing down the 12-fold red cyclone! I forbid it!" Rolling her eyes, "Parents."
[20:00] <Shao_Koahn> "I hope so! See, Afina and I were talking about that, and I figure a good, legal coup would do everyone there a lot of good. Of course, well...Dad's like Jaela. He's good at fighting and at magic. Gotta be able to take that," Dana adds.
[20:00] * Ithea laughs at the mental picture that brings up. "Did he really forbid that sort of thing? You'd think he'd be proud of having an heir so capable of defending the kingdom!"
[20:01] <Willim> "Fighting trolls is fun, though. Nothing like an opponent you can hit for hours on end."
[20:02] <Shao_Koahn> Mimicking in a deep, gruff voice as she rolles her eyes, "Dana, don't you dare! You're a proper young Princess blah blah blah blah blah I'm going to kick his ass." Waving a hand and taking a deep draught, "Please. He didn't get the throne by sitting on it long enough to get ass boils. Fuckin' idiot thinks I'm strange 'cause I like to get beaten up. Besides," With a smirk, "He's probably just
[20:02] <Shao_Koahn> jealous. I get to be a pretty princess and have adventures, while he's stuck on the throne being some smelly old king."
[20:06] <Willim> "Sounds boring. He can't go out and do whatever he wants? He's a king!"
[20:07] <Ithea> "That's one of the problems of being in charge. Everyone -is- out to get you," Ithea says with a grins. "That's the price of politics."
[20:07] <Shao_Koahn> Adrian listens along to it, drinking and eating. At that point he gestures with his fork, pointing at Dana with a bit of sausage stuck in it. "You know, he has a point. Most women don't like getting dressed up in a man's armor and getting beaten until they cough up blood."
[20:08] <Shao_Koahn> "Uh huh," Dana nods to Ithea, as she makes an obscene one-fingered gesture to Adrian. "That and he's busy. Being a king is apparently a lot of work or whatever."
[20:10] <Ithea> "Do you have any siblings? I assume not since he sent his 'request' for you to return, but figured I'd ask anyway."
[20:13] <Shao_Koahn> "Nothing legitimate." He shrugs, "He has a couple of unofficial bastards who aren't in line for the throne and live in far away manor homes, well away from the court. They don't matter much 'cept to save face. Whatever." Making a pfft noise , "Daddy can't keep his cock in his pants, any passing cunt apparently gets him going. One was one of his maids, another a baroness. A poor whore and a rich
[20:13] <Shao_Koahn> whore, whatever." Getting another drink, "So anyay, I was figuring once I can kick Daddy's ass we'd go back and use those resources to help Aurora. A fair trade."
[20:15] * Willim nods.
[20:15] <Willim> "An army of trained soldiers and food to fuel the army. Sounds like a plan."
[20:17] <Ithea> "He's not very popular king?" Ithea asks. "You seem sure the people would jump at the chance to help us out once you beat your dad."
[20:17] <Shao_Koahn> "A match made in Heaven." Starting to grin now as she guns down another mugful, "So, I haven't asked - how are you guys going to go take on Arandalhaz? Anyone made up their minds yet?"
[20:19] <Ithea> "Well, given we do want to test ourselves and such, I wouldn't entirely against going in through the front door and kicking everything in our way down. Plus I kind of don't want to follow Baleruk's 'sneak in through caves and take out the cowards' plan," Ithea replies, as she grabs something solid between drinks. "But it depends on what information we can dig up ourselves on Arandalhaz."
[20:20] <Ithea> "If we go in the way that Baleruk couldn't, it also gives him more incentive not to try to double cross us, since he'd know we're definitely strong then."
[20:20] <Willim> "Never fought an actual dragon before, except for the mist thing. It could be a lot of fun!" Willim enthuses.
[20:21] <Shao_Koahn> "It sounds like a good fight. Maybe we should take Aurora along and beat 'em down head on?" Dana pauses, "Aurora's pretty hard to attack, you know."
[20:21] <Shao_Koahn> "It's the most dangerous hunt," Adrian adds, "As long as I'm not shocked to death at the hands of a dragon, I think I can handle it."
[20:26] <Ithea> "Could be a good test of how far along Aurora's defenses are along," Ithea muses, but then frowns. "At same time, not sure if we do want to give Abigor's spies a good preview either."
[20:30] <Shao_Koahn> "Who says Abigor has any reach with that whole thing?" Adrian frowns, "It's a dragon affair, isn't it?"
[20:37] <Ithea> "I'm sure it is, but we did have a spy trying to sneak in before, we could have more just watching from outside the force field now that we have it up to keep them out," Ithea points out after swallowing a bite of food and taking another gulp of alcohol down.
[20:39] <Ithea> "Still, it might be worth the risk, it's something we'd all want to get together to discuss if we do want to consider taking the Aurora for it's maiden battle voyage."
[20:40] * Willim nods. "It'd be bad if the place got trashed because of it."
[20:41] <Ithea> "Oh, I very much doubt it'd get trashed. Aurora was built to last. I just don't want to give away too much information about it's capabilities if we do have spies around."
[20:43] <Shao_Koahn> "It's worth considering," Adrian frowns, "Honestly, I'm just worried that a strike team without reinforcements may get in over its heads. Having Aurora nearby to fall back to may be invaluable. Teleportation doesn't work in the Earthfall, from what Baleruk said."
[20:46] <Ithea> "Yeah, the teleportation thing sucks. Kills one of my favorite fight tricks," the catgirl grumbles.
[20:48] <Shao_Koahn> "Yeah," Adrian nods, "So we know the dragon's protected, has competent protections and a lot of things to attack us with. Honestly, I think we may need all of Medicant's power for this." He frowns and goes back to his breakfast, "Just a feeling."
[20:50] <Willim> "So, overwhelming force instead of just a test of strength?"
[20:52] <Shao_Koahn> "Might be," Adrian nods.