it's.. fuzzy, hazy, seeing out of our eyes again. There's nothing wrong with them, of course -if anything, the more literal visual snow is thoroughly gone. It's just... 

Seeing the sky... 

I'm not - here, in the normal sense that I'd be, if there was just a me, in front, formed and firm and the person that they're always - talking about, when they talk about - what it is to be her... I'm here enough that Tourm's doing the little commentary thing, and she's - thinking of me, and looking, too. 

But beyond that... 

It's a - nice big clearing in some very verdant woods. The ground is bare, all dusty grey-brown and plain, and the sky is dusky - a blanket of navy capped off with blue-tinged thin clouds. There's a lot of trees, a thick green canopy of oddly shaped leaves that stretch out as far as we can see. Not that that's terribly far, but... 

There's a small trodden path in the dirt along a really clear lake, shining with the last remnants of the sun, a patina of pink and dappled reds shining along the surface. It's... very pretty. 

Oh wait... 

I click the goggles down from my head, perfectly landing on my nose like I'd done this a million times and - 

Sketches, lines, fragmentary impressions of the world slip into place around me, little dancing figures in a faintly blue-tinted HUD. I can even - see through the sides, and the quality of the normal v is... exactly like before putting it on. But that's not the important bit... 

There's a bunch of little - markings carved into the dirt, metallic greasy inks catching some of the last embers of the light in the dust and dirt, and a bunch of fussy little swirls around some wooden boxes laid out, with some sort of - stretching out weft of ghostly lines that my head can half interpret and - 

I laugh faintly again, shaking my head. 

It's a fuckin' clever set up but...~ 

Well. 

It's meant to foil people who uh. Can theoretically be mind controlled, w/ a good ol' perception filtery arrangement and some sort of mental illusion, and who can be detected by hostile divinations for targetting and triggering fallback traps, or at the very least, for people who have to actually like, normally see the fucking things, rather ten just get plopped into the middle of this and see that there's a ripe lil system ready to be ransacked. 

I grin a bit, and wander over to one of the chests.

It's a short walk - still only a few dozen meters, but it's enough to feel that the ease and comfort of the sandals and the roll of her hips and panther-like grace of the movement just - come in some natively, even when she's not really thinking about it. There's a certain - stiff casualness in there, too, but that's just how she's angling herself and there's nothing wrong with that. 

The chests are - 

Treassssssssssssure chest!!!!

Treasure chest, treasure chest, treasure chest!! 

Treasure chest indeed!

My hands rub together happily as I kneel down to take a bit closer a look at it, taking a moment to look at the faint olive and honeyed tint to my tan skin, and watch how clean, glossy and nice my nails are. There's even this sort of funky silvery fade in them that makes it look like there's the faintest trace of falling silver stars beneath them, with nails that have just the right amount of glint to the rounded edges. 

But as for what I'm looking at... 

Looks something like - rowan, maybe? Not sure if that's even a particularly meaningful comparison, but. 

It's got bands of - brass perhaps? - and no visible mechanical lock - just a latch and whatever more arcane system it's implementing with the thinner strips of metal streaming along the surface of the wood. It looks professionally done but... 

Treasure chest indeed! 

I sink down into a crouch, leaning down smoothly to take a good long look at it, my hands rubbing together with a lil bit of excitement. 

Aww sure I'll take the excuse to take in the skin tone - looks - fairly normal, but has enough of that - gentle glow of olive and honey to make me pop, and there's a lot going on in my nails, despite how clean and clear they are. Little - dustings of silver sparkling suns with streaks of stardust dancing down along the natural lil lines, perfectly set in place as if suspended in glass, if yo catch the angle just right, and pure white rounded edges out to the tips of my fingers with a lil extra metallic glint to make them catch the eye. 

I place my hand up aside the center band and - 

Yep. 

It's - not corroded, the working is more intact then that, but there's - dust, and smeared oils of skin, grime and kicked up dirt and the traces of the rain, slipping through the cracks. It's old, and there's enough dumb lil security implications that there's no way that the people who put it in here are still like, actually using this, in this state.

Though it's still got to be working, or else the weaknesses and issues wouldn't be quite there, in my vision so... 

Huuuuum. 

Ooooooookay. 

Deep breath. 

Let's be a sensible girl. I can't actually, be detected, if that's like, going to be a problem, so let's not talk about it like that, yeah. The problem is if it's like - primed to be set off to pressure w/out some - authorization signal, or something, or if there's something volatile in the long term in here that'll be a mess to deal with. 

So... 

Realistically, how would you design a proper pressure trigger? It's a reasonable backup up-y thing, if real stealth is possible in this world, and 'm gonna assume that it is. But also like, you don't want to randomly fire off your defenses, to save energy, if nothing else. And... 

My eyes gaze up, staring at the lil crackling lines in the sky, tracing them down into my mindscape and trying to interpret and extend down the lil lines of thought - 

Yeah, got the impression right. It's - a perceptual filter, and it's a - gentle one? If this chest was designed with that in mind, even if it's got a good way to 'recharge or whatever, you don't want something hypersensitive to pressure, just 'cause that's gonna strain it, and you don't want every breeze to engage the safety interlocks. 

Following that... 

Okay, not touching the actual handle but - 

Light touches are okay, anything that could just - happen naturally in a forest clear, is fine. 

What is it like...? 

Tourm strokes her nice manicured fingers along the - shell of the chest. It's clearly not reacting - the design is probably meant to be essentially totally passive, except for some more - mechanical catches and the actual lock mechanism? It just feels weak to a proper plodding passive probing and not a proper scan from someone with skills that we admittedly completely don't have, in a way that makes thinking about anything else feel a little - foolhardy. 

I don't think that it's - actually hermetically sealed? It's hard to describe, but - the way the air flows along her fingertips doesn't feel right for that, and I think it's weak enough to some kinds of elaborate physical probe that that's not too too likely. It - feels like an extension of the cleanliness one, to be honest, and maybe the latch thing, with some big scary thing that doesn't seem like it has terribly relevant weaknesses coiled in behind. It's just trying to - keep the air circulating without making the - membrane too easy to pentetrate, and without forcing tighter tolerances elsewhere. I'm sure it works well enough normally but...

Yeah 's something - more elaborate then that. There's back ups and shit - that's not the kind of thing it's missing but... 

Okay I don't think that - I can just try and open it, rn? That sounds really likely to get it do something funky, or get us somewhere ill advised. 

But... 

Hm. 

I flick my nose shut for a moment and furrow my brow. 

Oh! 

Yeah there's a back up sys, a pretty overcomplicated one, 'd wager. 

I can't - really tell, the intuitiony thingy feels like it works best with - solider systems and things that I can - perceive and parse, and I can't - directly, but... 

Think it'll try to - scan properly, and - it can't - work to detect me in a way that's bad for me, yeah? 

Okay so - 

Noooooooooooot just sticking my dick hand in crazy the slot, let's go sloooow.

I don't actually like, know if this makes any sense but - 

There's no like, trad restraints on what my hair style is, if it's not so constrained by what is logistically or physically possible. I don't think that it - comes default w/ the greater truths of conceptual hair, but there's nothing saying that there's not things that can - slip through. Hell, I'm already sure that my hair works like it's supposed to, just from the lil dangly bit 'top my brow and how that colors turned out. 

(Lovely, btw - hot crimson, bold and blazing, as sharp as 've ever seen a red, regal and just a bit rosy, with that sort of hyperreal textured sheen that you see in some sick obsidian, met with the coolest cobalt I can imagine with a gorgeous glassiness to it, alongside the silky sensual shine, that makes it look at once like this moving flickering fantastical thing of glass and ceramics, and like tender twining clear blue thread that's oh so strokeable.) 

So... 

I brush my fingers 'long my ear, right up against the fuzz of my hair, and pull out a perfect lil blue strand, nestled neatly into a bundle atop my fingers. You know, girl things. 

I suppress the snort a bit halfheartedly, and let myself ride it out. 

I place it against the lil flatness of the latch and...? 

Effortlessly clean palms are v. v. nice for rubbing together, even when it's a fretty gesture. 

It's... reacting, a little, I think? It's probably supposed to be - more sensitive to things w/ qi and things in the actual like, opening mechanism and otherwise work to reject things, and it should still work as - part of me, here. Just 'cause it's physically disconnected doesn't mean that it's not a part of me or wasn't a part of me, or more relevantly my hairstyle which totally fuckin' works like that honesttttttt. 

And there's a slight - haze of something, now? 

Ooh that's v. clever extrapolated me, v. clever of you indeed. 

The vulnerabilities are semi-modal, sure, I can see what the vulnerabilities are, please let this work... 

I think it's - trying to fuzzy match, I think? It's not like, a critical supply thing - you would never just leave this out in the cold, w/ nothing but the kinda ward that's supposed to work maximally smoothly on normies. Probably the theory is that something like this you'd make cheaply at a higher power, and just trust that t's not worth their time messing w/ if they're good enough to deal with? This looks like - some sort of peripheral supply cache for some sect or a retreat in the boonies for some bitch w/ a taste for nice lakes, where you don't super keep - secret-secret things. Probably it's - trying to pick me up but I'm not - the right fit for it, so it's only getting incomplete data such that it's consistentish and trying to find more data to fix the fit? Or it's the bloody fallback system for sensor failure or... 

Oh that's a thought. 

Hey romana uh... 

Oh that is a cute idea... 

I lean into the fuzzily physical, my hand brushing past her bangs, deep brown hair spilling out onto it in a moment, deep and earthy with the slightest hint of a curl nestling softly against her palm in a moment. 

Oh! Um. 

I look away and draw us away and there's a - little braided bracelet on her left hand, cyan and sparkles and glitter and gold. It comes free easily at the little touch I invite her to, to gather it all up. 

A drop of hair, flax and gold and honey and peach, splayed in a little s-curl with a shimmy of our shoulders. 

A quick almost dismissive pluck of hair, sliding down her shoulder, gunmetal grey, a stormy steely patina along the arching hairs. 

A moment, and a tuft of gem-like hair spins itself into existence against her thumb and forefinger, saturated and sharp. 

A contemplative little slip down from the top of her head, hair as red as a red-barn, plain yet sure. 

She reaches up to scratch behind her neck, looking for an apprioate gesture, butsnorts and bled-through snort as a riot of red, shamelessly glittering with tiny gems comes along for the ride before she knows it. 

And she completes the little ritual with a little rub of the side of her head for luck, a shock of silver mingling and mixing into the riot of colors. 

Your move~

It's sort of... catching? It's looping the looking, no pauses, just trying to get a read on all the data.