"As much as I like being safe and cozy, I'm not going to be safe and cozy if the Neuroi stop being over there, you know? May as well try and get rid of them so I don't have to worry about 'em."

"Would that God made more people think like that. We must all stand firm against evil." The middle-eastern man nods solemnly.

(Rost shakes his head and frowns almost imperceptibly, then makes a noise of polite agreement.)

"I can't really blame people who can't go toe to toe with Neuroi for not trying? But someone'se gotta, anyway."

Rost comments, "Someone's got to fight for God, for king and country, for any number of reasons. For all that I admit the Neuroi are more serious than most reasons, such reasoning has, alas, worn a bit thin on me. War consumes."

"Yeah, it does that. Survival's the first priority, war tends to make people forget that there are any other priorities."

"We are a beautifully simple species in some regards," Rost comments sardonically. "Defend your life and your stuff. Put others in their place. Take and boast."

"We have finer inclinations as well," Ayden insists. "Love, art, kindness."

"Perhaps. And here we are, chewing over the topic of human nature like a bunch of philosophers."

"There is nothing wrong with philosophy."

"I seem to be on a run of ending up in philosophical conversations in pubs. Though we can switch to a lighter topic."

"Isn't that what pubs are for?" Rost asks, "Deep, intelligent conversation about the nature of the world? Certainly not inane tales, bawdy jokes, bad singing, and other random tomfoolry."

(Ayden bursts out laughing.)

"I am sure there is a way to combine deep philosophical thought with bawdy singing. I'm not sure how, but it has to be possible."

Rost continues to be a little crude and rather sardonic, and not as relaxed as he ought to be. Ayden is apparently involved in 'diverting resources and making connections', (read: smuggling) though he dances carefully around the subject. He has a steady sort of demeanor and has no work for Marena, "As much of my work occurs on larger scales and in circles of high business". Ayden excuses himself after a while. Rost pays her and has another delivery and mentions that he has someone who is offering quite a lot for documents regarding or a sample of that one boat company's mystery metal.

Ahh, smugglers. Such a noble profession.

"I can't make any promises, but I do know one of the engineers working on that project. I might be able to rustle something up."

And she accepts the delivery. That she can make promises about,

Pay's the same - not absurdly high, but pretty good since it's not terribly out of the way. Rost might be leaving the country again soon, though. 

She's only been here and back a few times, but a couple of the locals recognize and wave at her as she hangs out. Eventually it's time to go back.

She'll take what money she can get. And hopefully she can get the documents before Rost leaves, but that may not be likely.

Homewards!

Hey, that one witch who could see her ears is here, apparently! When the boring official opens his office to retreive her pay, Marena could catch a bare glimpse of the witch looking at the papers on the desk and a scraping sound before she vanished.

Huh, that's odd. She'll get her pay, and then head outside to see if she can see where's she's got to.

(There is the sound of faint breathing from the corner by the door, barely noticeable over the official's blathering about paperwork.)

Oookay.

She'll just... smile and nod until the official goes somewhere else. Seems a bit unfair to cause her to be caught, even if she's doing something incredibly suspicious.

Footsteps follow the official out when he opens the door again once business is done. "Ghost" is doing her best to be tricky to follow, but sustaining invisibility for long is tricky and she's not great at walking quietly. She falls into step behind a loud man complaining about the service as he walks toward the door, intending to follow him out.

She bumps into him by accident and he spins and shouts, "What now?!" at the empty space behind him.

(A quiet swear word comes from the empty air a bit away.)

This isn't... a sensible idea, but she doesn't have a lot of time to think and it's the best she's got-- so she'll just pretend she was the one who walked into him. She's just close enough that it'd probably look like she knocked herself backwards, or something.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry sir, I was distracted and I must have failed to spot you."

"Well, be more careful next time! You're flying around all the time, witches can't be clumsy, what if you'd crashed into someone's house, eh? Magic doesn't excuse..."

He's very loud, isn't he? Which makes a good opportunity for Ghost to slip off and catch her breath out back of the post office.

She keeps an eye out for Marena whenever she extricates herself from that situation.

It takes a lot of bowing and scraping to extricate her from that situation, but she manages it.

She finds Ghost. "So, that was exciting. Find out anything juicy?"

"Depends on your standards. Got what I wanted, at least. Sorry about that, by the way."

"No, it's fine. Getting people out of trouble is my specialty."

"And into, I presume? Well, since it'd be rude not to share... I was looking for where they're sending things. This town's been crazy busy the last few days, so stuff can slip through the cracks. A box of biscuits here, some uniforms there, maybe even a bag of black powder... Valuable stuff. I think I explained why I need cash."

"I usually try to only get myself in trouble-- but yeah. And don't worry, I won't tell anyone. You gotta eat. The army isn't going to miss a shirt or two too badly.

...Do you reckon this is 'normal' crazy busy, or 'gearing up for something' crazy busy?"