[-----TAKEN FROM JILLIAN'S PERSPECTIVE-----]

Viorar - Crescent Moon Alley: Intersection
The cobblestone road stretches out - curving and bending with
serpentine grace and imbued with a darkened grey color. Wrought from black
iron, elegant street lamps line the corners of the intersection, their dull
lights providing enough ambient luminence for visibility. A large lamp post
on either corner of the intersection illuminates a faint yellow glow and a
large signpost hangs from one of them.

Jillian seems to have predominantly lead the way back to Viorar, but in truth, she was just following the direction the Lobstrocity had gone; the size of the thing had made decent-enough-sized tracks along the way, so it was an easy route. Her erstwhile aggravation with Gforte's handling of Erim's presence had more or less subsided, and her tail had shown this relatively well, aloof and back in the air as it normally was.

Gforte spends most of the way back silent, mulling over various things in his head. If the plans he had were still acceptable, how exactly to go about repairing the Lobstrocity, WHAT he would need to repair it. He also spent some time wondering if he should even bother trying to make Jillian not pouty at him. Of course, Gforte still had no idea about that one.

"That thing is in rough shape. Do you normally do the repairs yourself, or is there a mechanic you take it to?" Jillian broke the silence with little fanfare, stopping along the road with a hand on her hip, looking ahead at where the mech had gone. "More importantly, does funding stand to pose an obstacle?"

Gforte steps up next to Jillian, and gives a rough smile. "I'll thank you not to insult her while she's not here. Rough as the Lobstrocity is, all the work done on it is done by my hand. As for funding..." He produces a small leather sack and jiggles it. "I've got cash, no need to worry about it. But first, I wanna make a little side trip. Any idea where a necromancer around here is?"

"A necromancer? As far as I know, the local morticians dabble in trace amounts of actual necromancy. But I don't know of your full intent, so I can't say if this is what you're looking for or not." Jillian shifted her footing, giving a subtle smirk in regards to the comment about insulting his beloved machine. "But to answer your question specifically, no, I'm not sure where one would be. Or if there even IS one."

Gforte sighs, and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Goddamnit, you'd think in the 'City of the Night' they'd have entire gangs of wanna-be necromancers all along the back alleys." He taps his foot for a while, thinking before he responds again. "Well shit, let's hit up the mortician, see if he has what I need. Any chance you know the way to one, or do I need to ask directions?"

Jillian glances toward the rest of the city, then back at Gforte. "I don't think it could be too hard to find. Though I don't think that was the city's intention when they built it; nighttime doesn't always have to harbor thugs and ne'er-do-wells. But let's follow the road a little ways, it is unlikely to be a difficult find."

Gforte shrugs. "Let's sightsee then." He takes off down one of the streets at random, hoping to find his way via Zen Navigation.


Viorar - Medical Center: Caithness
This building is a miniature private hospital, with many beds laid out,
most of them accompanied by sick children or the elderly. Various shelves
and cabinets along the back room behind the desk are open, with prescription
medicine lurking within. On the side end where the beds are laid out, the
dainty purple curtains are closed tightly for privacy purposes. There
appears to be only one active healer in this vicinity.

Jillian kind of steps off to one side as they arrive at the desired location; she doesn't seem uncomfortable, but perhaps she didn't have an overt fondness for the aspect of necromancy. Whatever the reason, she allows Gforte to move to the fore once inside, her expression as indiscernable as it usually is.

Gforte steps up the the Saiyan doctor and polietly looks around for a little while, waiting until he is noticed before launching into his very well prepaired and completely tact request. "Yo. Got a necromancer around here? Or, barring that, a bunch of dead bodies in a pile?"

The doctor glances first at Gforte, then at Jillian, then back and the former once more, raising an eyebrow. Typically when people asked her about something, it wasn't quite so... that. She shook her head, wonder where this guy had come from. "The mortuary generally keeps their clients a bit more organized than the manner in which you profess, sir. But if you'd like, you may go and ask Caroline yourself. She's downstairs."

Jillian only smirks in response to this; apparently she had expected something like it, but as often as it seemed to happen, the 'art' of Gforte's social graces were amusing from time to time, when they weren't outright annoying.

Gforte waves vaugely at the doctor as he leaves. "Yeah yeah, corpse protocal and whatnot. Later Doc."

Viorar - Medical Center: Morgue
This room is filled with the stench of the dead. It is here the corpses
of players who have fallen to ill fate are deposited. If you have died this
is where you may retrieve your corpse. Bodies of people are crammed into
shelves and indexed according to properties such as height and weight. The
unluckier corpses are stacked in a pile at the center of the room.

Gforte comes down from the stairs for the doctor's office and gives the coroner a much wider, friendlier smile. A smile reserved for people he wants to make a deal with. "Evenin' Miss. How is your day today?"

Caroline glances over her shoulder, having recently finished with a 'client' that she was in the middle of draping a cloth back over. "Oh, hello. I'm doing... 'bout the best I can be, considering my line of work. What brings you down here, today?" She turns to face Gforte and Jillian, looking in rather pleasant spirits despite the whole 'being surrounded by dead people' thing.

Jillian catches herself glancing at a couple of the lockers where a few unlucky people have found themselves, seemingly leaving Gforte to do what he needed to do. Death was not one of her favorite things, but she was attempting to conceal it for both their sakes'.

Gforte maintains his winning smile. "Well, you see, a good while ago I managed to lose my left eye in a fight. It was a good eye to me, and I've mourned it's loss, but I need a new one now. Can you help me out?"

Caroline's pleasant demeanor hits a bump right there for a moment, studying Gforte to see if he were being serious. She casts a subtle glance behind him at Jillian, who still seems a little distracted, before looking again as Gforte. "You need... an eyeball. Uh, well... that's not an impossible request. But, ah.. you realize that, like everything else, they come in a wide variety of traits."

She seemed to be trying to carry on the subject as normally as she could, for all of the one time she'd likely been asked about it. Jillian turned to face the two of them after a moment, stepping up toward Gforte.

Gforte nods emphatically. "Oh yes of course. I'm looking for a dead one. Well, preferrably dead. I mean, it'd be really awesome if I could see out of it after getting it put in, but that's a plus. If I were to put any other kind of 'want' on it... I'd like a nice storage compacity."

"I see... well. Generally, we don't just give away, uhm... dead things. But you know, situations do arise, from time to time, where we wind up with excess. But due to authorities and all that business, we're not technically allowed to discard anything. So, I'll tell you what. Give me just a moment, and I'll see what I can find." With that, Caroline turns to leave Gforte and Jillian behind, heading into a smaller room in the back.

Crossroads disappears into the Void.
"This isn't quite what I expected, but it is a fairly intriguing concept. I'd thought your motives for wanting a necromancer were a bit... darker, to be honest." Jillian smiles faintly; very faintly.

Gforte raises an eyebrow at Jillian. "What? You expected me to raise a zombie or something to do my bidding? That's just silly. Nah. First step is to take care of personal stuff, then we move on to business."

Jillian shrugs, as the sounds of rustling through containers and assorted other things can be heard from the back room. "To be honest, I didn't know. But then, when most people request a necromancer, not many of them do so with benevolent thoughts. Just speaking from experience."

You say 'You want a replacement eye just... to have, then? Even if it doesn't work like a real one?'

Gforte taps the side of his head with a smile. "It all falls into a master plan I have. See, I remembered something. Back when we went to that glen in the forest, you mentioned something about mana-trails, and things having them. I figure, these shards have to have a pretty noticable one. So, I get a dead thing, and hide the shards in it, and BAM. Other people hunting the shards can't track them."

Jillian starts to say something, then stops, frowning somewhat. As opposed to pointing out the flaws of this plan, curiosity gets the better of her when the notion of hiding something as big as his hand in something as small as an eyeball is brought up. "You'd have an easier time hiding them in a full-on corpse than you would an eye, you realize. Unless you have a potent shrinking spell that I don't know about."

Gforte nods in agreement with Jill. "Yeah I know, they're too big. Luckily you're talking to a mad scientist. I'll make something work eventually." He looks around and taps his foot a few times, somewhat impatiently. "It's a work in progress, yaknow? Can't expect me to have built a giant robotic lobster, a giant skeleton, AND a shrink ray. There'd be no time for drinking."

Jillian still looks unsure, but perhaps of other things. Before she has a chance to correct a few spots of his 'plan', Caroline returns with a small, capped jar, with what appears to be your average-sized eyeball floating around in a significant amount of clearish fluid.

"Lucky situation, this one. A lot of times, certain parts don't make it to the morgue in one piece. Thankfully, this one is undamaged. Given the, uh, biology of the thing, unless you know a master surgeon, I don't see you getting much use out of it, other than for aesthetic value." Caroline pauses, looking between Jillian and Gforte. "But if you still want it, then by all means."

The coroner hands the jar to Gforte, unperturbed, as Jillian folds her arms under her bust. "Don't worry about payment, since this is something of a... strange case. I don't personally know what I'd charge for it, anyway; it'll get thrown away after too much longer. So take it, hopefully you'll get some use out of it."

Gforte flashes the Coroner a brilliant smile as she hands him the jar of eyeball, and nods to her. "Thanks a lot! This will do just perfectly. Come on Clara, let's get out of the nice woman's hair." Gforte doesn't even bat an eye at casually lying about Jill's name, he just turns and makes his way up the stairs.

Jillian rolls her eyes, but offers Caroline a curt nod of thanks, before turning and heading upstairs to follow Gforte. Lying for the sake of bettering a situation was one thing, but just for fun? Geez.

Moonlight City, Viorar - Fountain
Placed in the center of the city known as Viorar is a large fountain
that serves as the crossroads of the various city alleys. A faint breeze
shuttles in the salty scent of the western ocean, which seams with the
earthy cologne of the eastern mountains. To the south is the medical
center, indicated by a large white cross. A small path leads over a dense
lawn into a dojo to the west, while a bright light shines from within a
brick house directly east. To the north is yet another building, though
much larger in size and tree-shaped, with many towers screwing out of the
sides of the upper levels.

Gforte steps ontop the street and lifts up the eyeball to examine it. Apparentally as satisfied as he said he was, he turns to Jillian with a grin. "Right! That's the first bit of the plan done. Just a few more and this end can be wrapped up. Still, we have more things to worry about. What do you want to handle first Jill, booze or mech parts?"

Jillian considers this for a moment. Both sounded equally decent to her, actually. "We've been out for awhile, so I suppose it wouldn't hurt to stop for a drink. I'm assuming your machine isn't going anywhere until you decide it is, so barring your own plans, I'm in no absolute hurry."

Gforte nods along with Jillian. "Right. So, let's go find the closest place to get stinking drunk." He sets off down yet more random streets, relying on his tried and true method of finding places he's never been before by wandering around like a lost person.


Viorar - Tavern: Mischievous Spirit
The western ocean can be viewed at this area of the tavern. There are
more lamps attached to the walls around here, but these contain a brighter,
whiter light. A distorted cubic stand lies at the corner here, holding up a
dull maroon cloth covering over cases of various alchoholic beverages. Next
to this tent area is a neon sign glowing: Mischievous Spirit. The stairs
leading down to the patio area and exit lie to the east.

Jillian actually manages a small smile at this time, perhaps the first legit version she'd expressed in quite awhile. She glances around at the current patrons for a moment, before going right to the bar, her tail flicking about in a show of her own appreciation.

Gforte steps up to the bar himself, setting the jar on the bar counter and flashing a winning smile at the giant teddy-bear thing. "Hey Chief. Lemmie get a few shots of whatever burns on the way down."

Jillian shakes her head slightly at Gforte's request, looking up at the Dudbear that was the bartender. "Best give him what he wants. I'll have something with a bit of fruit in it, but make sure the alcohol's there. Something strawberry, if you have it. Elsewise, use your best discretion."

The bartender laughs, a jolly sort of sound considering his makeup, and turns away, mentioning something about "dubs," "duds," and "gaks". He goes about mixing up a couple of drinks at Gforte and Jillian's request, however, looking to rather be anjoying his work as he does.

Gforte turns away from the beartender and examins the rest of the patrons, leaning back against the bar casually. "You know, this day actaully feels pretty good so far Jill. I got an eyeball, threw someone off our tracks, and now there's booze involved. All I need now is some snacks, a woman to love, and some fire. Then the day will be complete."

Jillian smiles at the beartender as well, taking her drink, which actually kind of looks more like strawberry-colored foam in a glass than an actualy drink, and smirks. "Some of those things I could see, but its an interesting combination to put all of them in one desire. By the way, who are you implying when you say 'someone off our tracks'?"

Gforte collects one of his shots and downs it before pulling his lips back in a grimace. "If you're fighting an entire army of dead people, it's a good idea to take a look at the people who deal with the dead around the area. The ravens, or whatever they're called, might have gotten a few prototype bodies from local mourges for testing. And, if their soldiers know what we look like, it's good for them not to know our names. Get it?"

Jillian was quiet for a moment. For all of the brashness that he handled situations, she had to admit that Gforte was a clever fucker. She never really had to worry about being tracked, herself, but then... being a mortal with a limited (and potentially more volatile) lifespan was likely a different case. Maybe he deserved some credit after all.

Jillian nods after a momentary pause and a the downing of part of her own drink. "I take it you've been in situations like this before. That was almost choreographed, your explanation."

Gforte turns around, facing the bar again, and downs his second shot of intoxication. "Been a part of two armies. Fought countless more in my head after I got boxed. Sensory deprivation gives you a lot of time to think. A whole lot."

"I bet." Jillian wasn't going to split hairs over the concept of imprisonment. In a sense, she'd had her own experiences, too. Not quite the same, but lack of free will was lack of free will. "Speaking of, given your notion earlier... I'm going to go out on a limb and assume your intent to locate the remaining shards."

Gforte shrugs, and looks over at Jillian. "That was the plan, wasn't it? Collect the shards, keep evil fuckers from gathering them to do evil, and then take them to that mana place." Gforte contemplates the empty shot glass in his hands. "With any luck, it all goes down good, and you and I go down as heroes."

Jillian sets her glass, about half-full yet, down on the bartop behind her. "Their original location doesn't exist anymore. The Sanctuary was destroyed some time ago, when the Dark Beast first emerged. If you're talking about the Holyland, then you'll need a different plan of action, since we just got them OUT of th-" She stops abruptly, calling herself into question on how much she needed to actually say.

Jillian picks up her chain of thought, looking up at him. "In any case, don't you remember the conversation with the boy and his father? We can't bring them all together. Not all at once."

Gforte raises an eyebrow at Jillian's half said word, but doesn't push it. For now. "Nah. I didn't remember talking with the kid and his dad. Spell it out for me, what happens if all the shards are brought back together at once again?"

"I don't know. Nobody does, except the Tree. And she wouldn't say. The premise was that catastrophe would result if the shards were brought back together again. This was what was discussed earlier; I'm sure you were there, but unsure if you were listening or not." Jillian glances over her shoulder, at her glass. "It's generally a good idea to take her word for it."

Gforte sighs heavily, and pushes his empty shotglass to the side. "Great. 'Catastrophe', AKA "It's really vauge but you should be afraid of it!" Seriously, would knowing be so bad, I mean, would letting us even figure out if we have a chance be terrible? Is it meteors or giant earthquakes or Godzilla rearing up from the seas to attack? Whatever. So you're telling me that gathering the shards and putting them in the Holyland is a BAD idea. So what's a good idea?"

Jillian doesn't say anything right away. SHE knew why the Mana Tree had chosen not to say what would happen, but how do you explain that to a mortal? The concept of higher beings' tactics of manipulation were kind of an obscure thing, even for her, but... "I don't know. I'm concerned, because if Erim's already here, I don't know why they aren't -already- gathered, save the fact that we have half of them."

You say 'If she wanted the situation to commence, I feel she could've already done so. Why it hasn't, then, is what confuses me. I can only guess there is something else going on...'

Gforte scoffs. "So that means there are eight of these things, right? Answers one question. As for the crazy bitch, maybe she's leaving this up to mortal hands. Get us to fuck ourselves over, then she can point to the other immortals and say "Oh look at them, pity how they blunder about, destroying themselves so readily. Surely they need more direct guidance, we Immortals must now go to their realm and keep them from wiping themselves out." Gforte's imitation of her sounds needlessly highbred and snooty, and when he's done he collects another shot and downs it.

You say 'When you put it that way, you make it sound like you're intentionally being manipulated to drag yourself into the fire. The only thing we concerned ourselves with is keeping the shards out of the Holyland; whatever happens if they are brought together, we can't have it happen there. Under any circumstances. That is why I brought you the shards; if they're going to be protected, we needed someone to do it outside of the Holyland.'

You say 'You... were her first choice, believe it or not. It was the Tree's request that I leave the shards in your care, when I returned.'

Jillian looks up at Gforte. "I'm only a messenger. I don't know if you still believe me or not, but it is the truth. I'm doing what I've been asked to do, nothing more."

Gforte raises an eyebrow at Jillian. "No shit. First choice huh? Yeah, I believe you, but there's still some questions to be had. When was this choice made by the holy root-bearer?"

"The flow of time is different up there than it is down here. But the obvious answer is that it was made sometime between when you found out I was missing, and when I returned. Time in the Holyland is a lot quicker than that down here, but the Mana Tribe ages more gracefully than other species. It's a lot to take in, I understanding." Jillian shrugs, reaching back to take hold of her glass once again.

You say 'I don't know as much as you might think I do. But I do know a lot, I'll admit. I'm sorry if you feel played, but I don't always agree with my superiors, either. The Oracle and I tend to take sides more often than not, too.'

A loud horn sounds off from the harbor, signaling the departure of a large vessel.
Gforte shakes his head. "Nah. That works just fine. The tree told me to be the one to hold the shards? Fine. We work by my plans during that time." Gforte downs his last shot, then gives Jillian an odd, detached sort of grin. "Drink up. We'll rest for tonight and then work on starting a cataclysm tomorrow."

Jillian still looks a little upended by something, but she nods despite this, tipping back her drink and polishing it off.