Dawn walks in from the living room, wearing a pair of very short denim shorts and a black bikini top, opens up the fridge, and pulls out a pitcher of lemonade to pour herself a glass. "Want some, Zo?"

Zoey looks up and blushes, then tears her eyes away as casually as she can manage, looking back down at her project. "S-sure, sis!"

Well, she'll pour a second glass then. She sets it next to Zoey, in reach but not where she'll accidentally bump it, then ruffles her hair.

Zoey reaches up with a free hand to bat at her sister's ruffling. "Daaawwwn," she whines.

She laughs. "Have fun, Zoey, and don't work too hard."

Then she heads back to the couch.

She steps up, take a deep centering breath, and raps her knuckles lightly on the door. She's got the foundation pills, the cash offer, and the pitch memorized well enough, even if she's never found it natural to stick to just that. There's nothing more she can do but take her chance. 

There's something... enchanting about having the winds of fortune at your back. It makes it a little easier to be brave. Besides, she's always been someone who likes reaching out where she can, and a pair of awakeners definitely sounds like quite the find. 

She's dressed in her formal robes - a sweeping yukata the white of freshly pressed snow, lined with the soft orange of the cracking dawn. A pearlescent sculpture of a fox dangles down from a pendant onto the valley of her breasts, shining all the colors of the rainbow and perhaps a few more besides. A polished slate grey ring shines gently on her left hand, a five tailed fox embossed with colorful metals - one tail each in red, yellow, white, blue and green. A silver-grey ribbon wraps around her waist, with an empty loop resting on her left thigh. Her soft brown hair spills down near the fullness of her back, swaying very slightly in an unseen wind, shining softly as the light catches the layers just right. Cerulean blue eyes sparkle with a welcoming warmth as she watches, her hands tucked gently behind her back. Her skin is a fine jade, and her muscle is supple and toned, gently nestled behind her curves.

"I'll get it, sis," Dawn calls, before walking over to the door and glancing out the peephole for a moment. She smiles in surprise and interest, and opens it. "Hi there! Pretty yukata you're wearing. What can I do ya for?"

Something seems... interesting, about this gorgeous stranger. Just a hunch, maybe, or just her being gay (including in a way she's trying not to think about), but she's curious.

She smiles warmly, and bows her head gently in acknowledgement. There's a little ethereal grace to her, especially when she moves, that makes her feel a little more than real. 

"I'd like to speak to you and your sister about an opportunity I have the privilege of offering to the two of you." 

Her affinity was... Fire, right? Her talents there have never been exceptional, but her Master has made sure that she has trained up the basics of all of the elements.

She pulls her hands out from behind her back, and slowly rubs them together, then spreading them apart, a wash of light wafting up from her palms. It feels like a summer's warmth, the kind rays of midday that peek through the clouds, and it very clearly isn't natural, for all that it feels a little familiar to something deep inside her. 

That was fire from nothing, she knows Zoey could build a device to do something like that, she can think of a way she could do it herself, but there's nothing visible that looks remotely like that kind of tool, and it would have to be close enough to her hands to be hard to hide. 

"You'd... better come inside."

She steps out of the way of the door, gesturing toward the couch and chairs, and calls toward the kitchen. "Zoey, important visitor!"

Dawn never interrupts her project time unless it's actually important. She finishes the connection she was soldering, which only takes a moment, then brushes her hands off and heads over to the living room. "Can we get you anything?

She ducks her head lightly, and follows her in. 

"I'd appreciate a glass of water, thank you." 

When Zoey's eye wander over her, there's a faint sense of something in her eyes, a little sense that something lurking inside her is appraising her, or catching a little more than she can consciously register. 

That's. An odd feeling. Something's really weird.

She goes and gets a glass of water, then comes out to the living room with her lemonade, handing the water to the guest before sitting down next to Dawn. 

"Can you do another demonstration, to catch Zoey up, and then tell us about your offer?"

She takes a seat, and gently sips the water, giving Zoey an appreciative little nod of thanks. 

"Of course." 

She takes a deep, slow breath in, and then breathes out. There's a faint feeling of sharpness in the air, a little slip of wire appears between her cupped hands. With a metronomic precision, her breath slides out and in. A little silvery spark slips along the edges of the wire as it unspools in her hand, growing a little into a curl of wire. 

"Hello. I'm Romana, of the Ancient Amber Aerie." 

She pauses, and nods to them.

"A pleasure to meet you both." 

"The... short version is that there's something of another layer to this world. It's possible to - with work, and care, and proper guidance and tools - to cultivate immortality, and gain immense magical powers through the study of cultivation. My seniors' divinations recently detected that the two of you have a lot of potential in those arts, and we wanted to give you an offer to train with us and learn with us, on your path to the peak, if you wish to pursue it." 

She pauses, and purses her lips. 

"There's no inherent disadvantage to being a cultivator, but there are a few things I should warn you about. There are some unscrupulous cultivators who will try to attack young talents, to take things from their bodies and to steal their treasures. There's... something of a masquerade on this world, too. There is a masquerade - not necessarily a formal and absolute one, but one nonetheless. Due to a rather frustrating law of heaven imposed by our forebearers, bad luck tends to come to cultivators who weigh in on mortal affairs heavily, and there are great powers, sects and schools who teach that that means that it's morally forbidden to help mortals with immortal medicine, or who will try to stop you to 'prevent your poor fortune from overspilling'. There are formations that can shelter people from those effects, for the most part and alternate realms where the rules don't apply, and they don't apply much to people with cultivation talent, but... I thought you should know. I know it gets under my skin sometimes, that I can't help people nearly as much as the simple math of what I can do might suggest, and I know some can't handle that tension." 

"As for the deal we are offering... I've got a full collection of foundation establishing resources right here. The clan will do the best we can to support your growth, offer you techniques for cultivation, and trades you wish to study, and access to our cultivation grounds and workshops. The only thing that we ask of you is that you make a faithful effort to learn and eventually pass on our teachings and that you're willing to pay out a percentage of what you gain from missions into closed realms." 

That wire wasn't there before, she could've used sleight of hand but her sleeves aren't close enough to her wrists to make that easy, and then the wire grew longer while both ends were in view, and there's no device that could've made the spark, she only has the one ring so even if that could've been one end what was the other???

She is tentatively convinced this may in fact be magic.

"I see why you called this important, sis."

"Yeah," she replies absently, frowning thoughtfully. To Romana, she asks, "How much time does a cultivator need to train, in an average week, if they're gonna get any good?"

Zoey nods firmly. "Yeah. And how do most cultivators pay for food and shelter and utilities?"

She hums lightly. 

"It depends a lot on your talent and the quality of your method and tools. Someone with a very average method and average talent would probably take half a dozen years working on it about as intensively as a university program to get to what I would consider a basic journeyman level of mastery. For me..." 

A little frown curls at the edges of her lips for a moment. 

"I'm a little good bit beyond that with an exceptionally wide foundation, have a few circumstances that slowed my progress at first, and it still only took me about 3 years to get to where I am on a program of study less intense but more comprehensive than that. It took me... maybe a year to get there myself? For you, if you just want to get your bodies refined and a foundational technique or two, I think you could be at that level within half a year of serious study, and maybe more like two years, if you want to do it more like a hobby. Maybe even sooner, if you have a fortuitous encounter or sudden stroke of enlightenment." 

She tilts her head a little. 

"A lot of cultivators get room and board from their schools. Sometimes early on in their careers in more isolated sects, students will just live like that, with only minimal other expenses reimbursed by their schools. But most cultivators get a stipend, a share of the profits from their training missions, or get their funds from the cultivation trades they perform. If you don't want anything too luxurious, I don't think it should be a problem for you to cover your rent from the incidental profits you get from training, and I can get you a spot in one of the Aerie's complexes to study in, if you'd prefer to board somewhere that might be safer from rogue cultivators, though I'd be happy to arrange at least basic protections for wherever you'd like to set up, and give you a referral to someone more expert than I if you want to purchase something more extensive." 

"Rogue cultivators sound like trouble. What's the risk like?"

She sips at her water lightly. 

"Usually it's not too bad, but something that you have to watch out for, especially in the early realms. There's some people who reject backers, and cultivate on their own. Usually, those people are just... people, though sometimes they develop cultivation techniques on their own with negative mental effects. The biggest problem are... cultivator bandits, essentially. Sometimes they'll swoop in and pillage hidden realms, or use heretical arts to call up malevolent spirits for their own advancement or whatever reasons. They aren't the most common in well settled places, and they often won't bother cultivators who are minding their own business under heavy wards or in places poorly suited for cultivations, but they're opportunists - if they see a chance to seize other people's prizes, they'll often take it. I'd say that if you wanted to go about this on your own, you should try to stay in big cities where you can and try to avoid keeping too many cultivation resources on you without setting something up to conceal it, but they're not so common as to be a constant threat around every corner, even for someone new to the world of the rivers and lakes." 

Dawn glances over at Zoey. Do they believe this girl?

Zoey glances at Romana's hands, then looks back, eyes hopeful. She definitely did something impossible.

The risks, though. 

But doesn't she want an adventure? Hasn't she been dreaming of one?