Most people at the Rebellion adventure, or at least most people who want to fight. It's the way to get more powerful, and they need powerful people if they are to stand up to Rekenber. And they usually adventure alone—which is to say, they try to find parties outside the Rebellion itself. This is partly to diffuse attention but also partly as "recruitment tactics", by sounding out more people to maybe help them and join their cause. This is a vector of risk, but command judges that risk worth it, as they are still nowhere near the numbers they had before that tragic day years ago. It does, however, also mean that command needs to be very sure, not only of your loyalties, but also of your ability to judge people's characters and control secrets, before allowing you to go out.

It had been tacitly understood that Gonie would be an exception to that last bit, though: his near inability to speak renders him not an amazing recruiter, so the main reason to send him out would in fact be just to train him up. And, relatedly, it was also tacitly understood that he'd adventure with Lucky: most people who know them aren't really clear on what exactly their relationship is, but everyone is very clear on the fact that Gonie will follow Lucky to Niflheim and back if she needs him to, and her loyalty to him is not any less strong.

But the nornir did not smile upon them.

He and Lucky were sent out on a sabotage mission to the Regenschirm Somatology Laboratory, following some leads and evidence collected over a long time regarding the horrible experiments being performed in it on people. It was meant to be a simple mission, more recon than anything, they just wanted to give Rekenber a bit of a headache and the only reason for Lucky to be there was so they'd have an informed guess about what best to explode. But their intelligence on the place's security turned out to have been a gross underestimate, for a very peculiar reason: it seems that the basement, which had been their access point, has been entirely abandoned and taken over by the powerful and poorly-controlled results of the lab's experiments. While they are passive and dormant when left on their own, upon seeing anything move they are stirred into a frenzy and the facility's alarms are all immediately notified.

They were caught—or Gonie was. Lucky evaded detection, but Gonie was identified, and had to trigger his suicide contingency.

So now Rekenber is aware that Gonie exists, and has probably put two and two together and guessed who his parents were, from family resemblance alone. Hopefully they'll believe he's a lone gunman, but... that does mean that he needs to lay low for a while, and that when he does go out again he cannot be seen with anyone from the Rebellion. Including Lucky.

...but he'd never dream of holding her back.

So she starts taking bounties.

She's not going through the Academy nor joining a Guild—what Guild would she even join?—which means that she doesn't have a nice path laid out for her like she imagines most adventurers do, with a planned Skill dependency tree that she's going down and official training sessions with veterans of her trade—who'd even be a veteran, for her? But the Rebellion does have its small library of Skills, collected and curated over the years, which she will be able to make use of as she gets stronger.

Her first Skill tree of choice is Gun (that's not literally the name of the Skill tree but it amuses her to call it that). Skills related to aiming, precision, and marksmanship, except it's the less popular cousins to the ones used by archers, that can deal with firearms. She's not going to be a close combatant, and the Rebellion does have a preference for guns, so it stands to reason. But actually, there's a second part to her reasoning there: those same Skills can help with the deployment of her alchemical concoctions. She carries multiple vials of those with her, and with some custom tools based off modified guns she can launch them, spray them, and pour them at her targets.

But beyond Gun she is also going to be targetting various generic Skills, especially passive ones, to make her a lot more able to adventure: Regeneration, Improved Dodge, Improved Defence, Improved Dexterity, Increase Agility, and so on. She's not sure what role exactly she'll be taking in a party, especially since the most important thing she'll be bringing to the table is her ability to build cool stuff and that's pretty flexible, but all of those seem just pretty useful to have regardless of anything.

She'll probably need to modify her legs to be able to respond to the automatic passive mental states triggered by stuff like Improved Dodge, though, since those tend to assume you can move your legs.

Anyway! She starts taking bounties. It's been over a year (maybe two? she didn't keep track) since she started roaming around Einbech and Einbroch—with Magenta and occasionally Gonie in tow—to kill weak rapidly-respawning creatures for the first few trickles of Stat increases and Skill potential, and they definitely don't give her anything anymore. Plus, with her Regeneration passive and the condensed red potion dispenser in her legs she mostly no longer needs an active healer in her party. Or a party at all, really, at least to go after rank 0 Eden bounties until she gets to rank 1. And her tech probably means that she's able to take on more difficult bounties than would be predicted by her "power level" but cheating is just technique.

The bounty she's eyeing right now, however, is very much not rated for solo play.

"You're new."

Just because she can't walk doesn't mean she can't jump, although in this case it's almost entirely metaphorical as she didn't program her legs to respond to her being startled by changing their hovering level at all. Her heart is still hammering in her throat all the same. "Where did you come from?"

"I was right here!" He extends his hand. "Taharqi, rogue, rank 1, enchanted to meet you."

She feels like this guy does not know how to give the best of first impressions. Still, being a prankster is hardly the worst possible character flaw someone can have. She shakes his hand. "Lucky, who even knows, rank 1, cannot say the same."

"You know what, I deserve that. I have to say, the robot legs are one Hel of a conversation starter, what's up with them?"

"The legs my parents gave me didn't work so I made my own."

His eyebrows shoot up. "You made these?"

"I feel like I should be offended by the surprise."

"No, no, I mean, it's really cool, I've never seen anything like it."

"If you had I'd definitely want their contact information, exchange tricks and all."

"So what-all do they do, I'm guessing it's not just the hovering?"

"It's not! For one I can go really fast—haven't tested it against a powerful rogue or archer or a wolf but it's a lot faster than a regular person running—but I've also got a bunch of condensed potions in them that I can use on myself at will, and the gun," she unholsters it, "is also connected to them and so I can shoot using the same mental interface rather than needing the trigger—though obviously the trigger still works, multiple failsafes and all—so I can also shoot potions, acids and poisons at foes, restorative potions at allies—I've got a spray setting and a focused fire setting and I've been working on miniature capsules for quick delivery but I don't quite have it down yet—"

"Um." She blinks, realising that she's not back home and strangers are a lot less used to how much she talks. "Sorry."

"No no don't apologise that was really cool." Vallynn would find it fascinating and have a bunch of questions about it, but Taharqi is just getting seduced by the practical versatility. "Makes you a one-woman party."

"Well, not really, at least not yet. And there's always the benefit of multiple people watching each other's backs, plus specialisation is good for production. I don't know what role I'll specialise in but once I've started adventuring with a party more I'll find my niche."

"Support," he suggests.

She looks at him and tilts her head.

"The market for healers is filled with Priests of the Church, no one else's got a good Heal—"

"I know someone who does."

"—really?"

"Yeah, but it was stupid, it's not like he had a good idea about how to get it." Because, somehow, the Churches of Odin and Freyja have access to an incredibly efficient and effective Heal spell that they manage to teach to all of their acolytes but which the acolytes themselves can't explain how to get and don't remember the specifics of getting. It's maddening. "He just fished for a Heal when he was young and happened to land on the good one, by accident." Which people do in fact occasionally try to do, but the probability of succeeding is so low that most people don't want to waste a whole Skill slot on trying it. But, well, Magenta is not the most thoughtful of people, is he?

"Ah huh. Well, I think my point stands, so if your potion delivery mechanism is effective you can become a healer and support that is entirely separate from any Churches and which, most importantly, might be shareable. If you're willing to share."

"I'm totally going to share, are you kidding me? Technology is meant to be used, not hoarded. But this is kind of a prototype and I have a bunch of ideas for upgrades—I'm actually planning on a full suit, with better defensive capabilities and with the projective tools being built directly into the gloves so you don't need to carry a bulky gun," which she reholsters, "and so you can get better control of what you're doing—I'm also wondering if I can get actual flight rather than just hovering but that turns out to be a lot harder than you'd expect, I think I'd want to look at the specs for an airship but those are pretty hard to come by—I'm sure I could crack it with enough time but still—that's not a bad idea," she finishes. "Support. But I'd need a party."

"Party with me," he suggests. "Let's do that bounty you've been eyeing together, see if we can work well with each other. No commitments, just trying it out. I have a monk friend who could tank for us, too."

...well, why not? She had been going to look for a party—

—paranoia. She needs a dash of paranoia. "Why?"

"...why what?"

"Why do you want to party with me? We've just met."

"Well, every party starts with just meeting, doesn't it? But if you want to know what exactly I'd been thinking, I saw you here and thought your gear looked really impressive, and the way you'd been holding yourself made me think you didn't have a party—"

"The way I'd been holding myself?" Had she been holding herself some specific way?

"...it's hard to explain. This is a party bounty, you looked thoughtful and a bit nervous, you're here alone, I made a guess. I wasn't completely sure of my guess but it was likely enough that I wanted to talk to you. And I am looking for a healer to round out my party, so, well, you could say my suggestion earlier was partly motivated, too. I do think I'm right on the merits, though, if I didn't I wouldn't have tried to convince you to heal for us."

"Hmm." That all makes sense. "...I want to work on the delivery of potions a bit more, then, but... sure. Let's try it."

"Excellent! How do I get in touch with you?"

"...I'd rather be the one to get in touch with you." That's normal, right? She's pretty sure it's normal.

"Well, that presents a small conundrum, I'm not allowed to tell you where the Rogues' Guild is. How long do you expect you'll take to do what you want to do with your gear?"

"About three days?" she guesses. She actually think it'll only take her one or two but better to be safe.

He will not express his surprise again but: damn. "Alright, we meet up here in three days, same time? And if you're not done you can leave a message with Eden for me."

"Yeah, okay, that works."

She is in fact done in about a day and a half, so three days from then she's in Eden again.

So is he!

And he has company!

"Lucky, this is Annika. Annika, this is Lucky," Taharqi introduces them when Lucky's floated up to them.

"Nice to meet you!"

"Mm."

"Don't mind her, she's like that."

"I'm used to it," she shrugs.

"So, seems like the bounty is still up. You guys ready to rumble?"

"Yeah!"

"Yes."

"Let's go, then."

The bounty was posted by High Priestess Niren of the Temple of Freyja in Ræl, capital of the Arunafeltz States. According to the description, the roweens and desert wolves that live to the northeast of the city have been getting a lot more agitated and aggressive recently, and they suspect something's up in the Ice Cave up there (and yes, it's in capital letters). The bounty requests that the adventurers that wish to take it come to Ræl to speak with the High Priestess for more details.

Sure, they can get a teleport there.

The Arunafeltz States are located in the western part of the continent of Rune-Midgard, spanning an enormous desert and bordered to the west by a desolate plateau beyond which is the Edge of the World. Their geography is not as hostile as Schwarzwald's, though, as they have access to frequent oases, and Thor's Volcano to the south makes its surroundings downright pleasant, with most of the country's food being grown in farms in that region. But Ræl itself lies at the very heart of the country, having been built at and around one of the largest if not the largest natural oasis in the desert.

And it's beautiful.

Broad plazas and thoroughfares; greenery, completely out of place when set against the desert beyond the walls, with tall trees and neat gardens of flowers and grass imported from Geffen or Prontera; the occasional fountain or statue of Freyja or her Valkyries here and there. The buildings are sandstone, near-identical two-story square things set one next to another like toy blocks—except when they're not, when they're hexagonal or circular or have more floors, when they're crested into domes or minarets of reinforced glass and decorated with their own private walled patios.

But most striking of all is Sessrúmnir, the temple of Freyja, overlooking the city from an elevated plateau. From the central plaza one can walk north and climb the stairs leading up to its gates, always open and giving a perfect view of the extensive gardens that surround the cathedral. It's almost as big as the city itself, or at least it feels that way, with its grandiose architecture designed to give one a sense of awe and reverence.

And that's where they find the High Priestess, protecting herself from the sun's oppressive gaze in a charming gazebo by a water lily pond. "Good morning, and may Freyja's love accompany you in your path," she greets the party, standing up from the bench she'd been sitting at and bowing slightly. "Is there anything I could help you with?"

"High Priestess Niren? I'm Taharqi, and these are my partymates Annika and Lucky. We're here about the bounty."

(This is the prettiest place Lucky has ever seen. The city itself was interesting, completely different than what she's used to, but the temple grounds are the kind of place she could believe someone built to honour a god.)

"Ah, yes, I see. I will be leading a service in ten minutes, and had just been taking a rest before it. Would you care to join me?"

"Certainly!"

Wait, really?

Wait, really?

"Wonderful. Right this way, then, please," she says, leading the way towards the cathedral. She walks at a leisurely pace, taking in sights she has doubtlessly seen thousands of times already but which she still seems to appreciate. "Is this your first time in Arunafeltz?"

"Annika and I have been, once, recently, to deal with another bounty, but we didn't stop in Ræl then. I believe this is Lucky's first time, too."

"—yes! This is my first time here, too."

"I hope you're finding the place to your liking."

"It's beautiful, I've never seen anywhere like this before." This may be because she's not seen much of anywhere at all before, but she has been to, for example, Prontera, and it's nothing like this. Even Lighthalzen, with its picture-perfect modern buildings, isn't like this.

"I'm glad you think so. We strive to create on Midgard as close a mirror to Our Lady Freyja's heavenly Sessrúmnir as we can."

Annika rolls her eyes so hard they almost make a noise.

"Ah, good morning, Father," says Niren when she spots an elderly man dressed in similar garb to hers intercepting them.

"Good morning, Mother Niren. And who are your guests?"

"These are Taharqi, Annika, and Lucky, adventurers sent by Eden to help with the problem we're having in the northeast."

"Ah! So you did post the bounty after all? That surprises me."

"Yes. It has started to interfere with pilgrimages."

"I am certain you won't regret it," he says, smiling gently, before turning to the party to address them fully. "I am Zhed Bekento, High Priest of the Sessrúmnir, but you may just call me Zhed; the formalities tire me."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, High Priest," says Taharqi, who's been drinking these people's every word.

"Now what did I just say, young man? Zhed is fine."

"If the outsider doesn't feel comfortable acting so informally you oughtn't insist, Father," she says, in a firm tone.

"Oh, very well." Then he covers the side of his mouth with a hand to hide it from Niren and stage whispers, "But I won't tell if you won't," with a wink.

"We'll keep that in mind, Zhed."

She sighs tiredly. "In any event, you have your duties to attend to, Father Zhed, as I do mine. If you'll excuse us."

"Of course, of course. May the love of the Goddess accompany you in your path, Mother."

"And you in yours," she replies, then resumes walking.

Annika is like 80% sure there was a ton of subtext there she was entirely missing.

"Apologies for Father Zhed; he is sometimes forgetful of the weight and responsibilities that come with his station."

"Not to worry, I'm sure he means well."

"He always does," she agrees, with a small amount of fond exasperation leaking into her voice.

They arrive at the cathedral and the High Priestess gives them directions to the chapel then excuses herself to prepare for the sermon.

"Why are we doing this?"

"Oh I mostly wanted to have that conversation we just had. It was... enlightening. About the way things work around here, and factions and all."

"Is that necessary for the bounty?"

"It's, um, probably good in general? Adventurers are meant to be nosy, not everything we do is bounties." Or so she surmises. Plus, honestly, even if that weren't the case, it's kind of what she wants to be, proactively solve people's problems and all that. It's not clear how this particular conversation will help with anything, but...

...she's not in this just for the Rebellion, is she. It's kind of obvious in retrospect and a little embarrassing to have taken her this long to realise it.

...right. Her goal is the flourishing of all peoples, Surt is just a means to that end. A pretty big means, to be sure, but when it's not costly it's good for them to try to just... help people. 

"One of us should go back to Ræl," she realises.

"—what for?"

"We're not going to get more details about the bounty until the sermon is over, so this time is" wasted "available to us to do other things, and if it's important to learn more about the local situation then it's worthwhile using that time wisely."

"Oh, that's a very good point. ...Lucky?"

"—yes?"

"You're probably the one of us that's best positioned to do that. I was the one who said we'd watch the service so it would not look good for me to miss it, and you're a lot better than Annika at tracking, let's call it 'social reality'."

Not wrong.

...she feels a bit put on the spot but most importantly kind of confused that she's being trusted with something like this when this is literally the first mission she's doing with them and they don't even know if they're going to be a party in the long term (and the odds are in fact against that). Not that she's going to use any of this against them, obviously, but still. "I could do that?"

"—even if we're not going to party in the long term, acting like we're expecting hostile action from each other makes us less effective and good at achieving our goals. At least for the duration of our mission we should ally in deed, not just in word."

She blinks.

"He just does that," sighs Annika. "Guesses what you're thinking like that."

"Well. Alright. I can do that."

"Excellent, we can meet in the central plaza later to debrief."

Lucky is now having a small problem in that she... doesn't know exactly what to do. Get information, kind of generally, about the current state of things in Arunafeltz, is really vague as a goal, especially when it doesn't even have to be mission-critical. 

...but she'd just been thinking that proper adventurers are nosy, so she can just follow her nose. The way she sees it, there are two main things she could do: figure out what problems people have, or investigate further what the political situation is that was being hinted at by the conversation between Niren and Zhed. And between those two, the choice is obvious, to her.

In addition to the standard Eden bounties that are available to everyone at the lounges, major cities (and a few minor ones) have their own bounty boards. Some of the bounties posted there are just the same as the ones posted elsewhere, but others are local, many of which don't even have a proper registration with Eden. A few don't even involve actually hunting anything, which means you can't grow your Stats or Skills with them.

Eden allows anyone to post bounties to their boards like that, with the understanding that if a board starts to fill up those will be the first ones to go in order to make room for Eden bounties. They're distinguishable from Eden's by the lack of an official seal and, of course, you don't get Eden merit from completing them, and there's no guarantee that the bounties are even real let alone that they'll pay up if completed.

Still, Eden does offer to track their completion, and there's a kind of "street cred" you get from doing them, with a certain type of adventurer, when you help people out of the goodness of your heart.

She doesn't keep track of that, though. Or, she does, but in the sense that she's aware that's a dynamic that exists, but she does not want to do these quests for street cred, she wants to do them to help people, which is the whole point of adventuring, in her opinion.

(Lucky might in fact just be "a certain type of adventurer".)

In any event, she goes to look at the bounty board to see if she can find anything enlightening there. Her eyes are immediately drawn to a "Wanted" poster, one of the unofficial bounties, and several things are striking about it.

One, it was posted earlier today; but two, bounties for people are pretty rare and usually tend to have reasonably powerful targets, but that's almost certainly not the case for this particular target because the target is a teenage boy. At least going by the picture.

His name is Phobe, and he's suspected of having stolen a jewel from High Priest Zhed. He used to work in Zhed's estate as an assistant to the house servants, but he disappeared a few days ago and shortly after it was found out that the jewel was missing.

Why... is the bounty for the boy and not for the jewel. Why is the kid wanted, rather than just a suspect in a crime. Why is this a bounty at all and not something the city guard is dealing with on its own.

This is extremely suspicious.

Well, the first thing to investigate is probably the people who posted the bounty and get more details about it. Who would that be?

The bounty was posted by the city guard itself, actually! It doesn't say where to find them, though; probably they assume anyone likely to see the bounty would know?

Well, she doesn't. Is there a city guard person nearby she can ask for directions?

Yeah, over yonder. 

"Freyja light your path, adventurer. How can I help you?"

Why is everyone here so fixated on Freyja.

"Hi! So, um, I saw this bounty, well, this wanted poster on the bounty board, and I'd like to know more about it? It was posted by the city guard so I assume I should inquire further with you guys."

"Ah, yes, for the thief?" he says, nostrils flaring in barely-disguised contempt. "You can ask more at the station; go south along that road and it's the second block after the markets."

"Thank you!"

"You're welcome. Freyja go with you."

...yeah, something like that. She has no idea how to respond to that stuff so she just nods kind of stiffly then goes where she was told to go.

The markets are obvious enough, large tents or carts set up next to the road with people peddling food (as it's nearing lunch time), baubles, souvenirs, religious icons, arts and crafts, and all other manners of such things. A few side streets are also lined with stores, usually smaller or more specialised ones, and the bustle suggests that this is actually where most locals do their own shopping, too, not just tourists and visitors.

And as promised, the station is reasonably easy to find once she's walked hovered past those. A large shield with Ræl's coat of arms hangs above an imposing building with one person wearing the uniform and mask and carrying the scimitars typical of the guard to either side of the door.

Once she's inside, though, the reception is not a very large room, with a desk and a waiting area and several doors leading further into the building. There is a glass wall from the top of the desks to the ceiling, protecting the people behind them, with only small little holes for sound to go through. But there isn't anyone in there at the moment other than two people manning the desks and another guard standing at attention.

Alright cool then there's an obvious place to go. "Excuse me?"

The slightly portly woman with pale blonde curls straightens up at her desk. "Hello, dear, is there something you need?"

(The tired, bestubbled man at the other desk continues looking tired and bestubbled. The oddly nebbishy guard-on-duty looks at her with mild interest.)

Oh, wow, someone in this country who didn't immediately say grace as their greeting, that's her first.

"Um, hi, yes, I saw the wanted poster on the bounty board and wanted to inquire about it?"

Curly's mouth twists. "Oh, yes, what an awful - well! What do you need to know? Are you an adventurer?"

     Stubbly looks her over. "She's got a gun, Meri. If she isn't an adventurer, I'd love to know what she's doing with it."

Meri glares at him. "I don't like to make assumptions, Salo."

She grins. "I think the floating robot legs were more of a giveaway! But yeah I'm an adventurer."

"Whatever you need to know to catch that little rat, I'll give you what we've got," Meri says firmly.

     The nebbish stage-whispers "Meri has opinions about this case."

Meri glares at him too. "Shut up, Niriban. If either of you had any love for Freyja in your heart or soul, you'd have opinions too."

...interesting.

"Well, can you give me a rundown? I want to make sure I understand what happened and what, um, success would look like, I guess. I mean, finding the culprit, yes, but the poster mentions a jewel, too?"

"If you can find the Sacred Opal, we'll be thrilled," drawls Niriban. "But, you know... it's usually not easy to find stolen goods without finding the thief. Not when the goods are unfenceable. ...Salo, you want to explain the facts of the case?"

     Salo grimaces. "Since you're lazy and Meri's crazy, sure." (Meri stares daggers at him. He doesn't care.) "Facts of the matter. The Sacred Opal is a holy relic of the church of Freyja, part of a set of crystals blessed by the Goddess herself. The Opal is in the possession of High Priest Zhed, a reformist with some damn good ideas in my opinion. Enter Phobe. He's a servant in Zhed's estate; Zhed likes to employ natives and half-natives, because he's a better person than anybody in this room. He gives them some honest work, they bring the coin back to their families and learn that Freyja's love isn't just for cops and politicians - everybody's happy. But Phobe was a street rat, and you can take the rat out of the street... he hears about this big chunk of precious rock. And if Niriban and I don't have any love for Freyja, the natives have a lot less. The Opal vanishes. He vanishes too. Zhed tries to keep the details quiet, just says the Stone is missing, but, well. How long does that last. It's as clear as day."

...natives. Are these people... not natives? Were they not born here? What the fuck does that mean. And "reformist", is that something to do with how Niren and Zhed were acting earlier? 

She shouldn't ask that because it'll make her look ignorant and they won't respect her. And there are other, more pertinent kinds of ignorant that she can be instead. "But why did he steal it, if it's unfenceable? And why is it unfenceable? I'm sorry if these questions aren't very smart, I'm a foreigner and I'm realising I really know very little about Arunafeltz and its people and customs." There, that sounded cool and mature and diplomatic, right?

Meri forces a smile. "You're being more respectful than Salo, and he's lived here his whole life. We can deal with a bit of... missing context. Why he stole it, we don't know for sure, but I think it's because he didn't really know how much we do care about it, he only knew it was pretty and that pretty rocks can be sold. But no honest citizen would be wicked enough to buy it, and no fence would be stupid enough. Everyone recognizes it. Even if he teleported somewhere else, any city big enough to have enough cash floating around to actually buy it would have too many people who could recognize it."

She is somehow doubtful that people would actually recognise it, but maybe. It's not like she is from a big city.

"So what happens to the High Priest, if he doesn't have his crystal? What's its significance?"

"Well, he can't perform the ceremonies of his office. It's a sign of the Goddess's favor, and only through it can he channel her blessings. I mean, he can still - do magic. But not create holy water, or, or any of the other really important things."

     "What Meri means," Niriban contributes, "is that it is of ritual significance. As an archaeologist might say."

"...so he just can't be a High Priest until the jewel is found? Like, do his... regular job?" That is a pretty big deal. She thinks. She confesses she doesn't know much about organised religion. But it sounds like a big deal.

Salo nods. "He's still a holy man, and he's still got the ear of the other clergy, but without the opal, that's all he is: a healer and a politician."

"That sounds awful." It doesn't, actually. "And he can't, um... Forgive me if this is insensitive or offensive, but could he not somehow get a new one? Surely something like this must have happened before...?"

"The Pope can invest a new stone with Freyja's power," Meri confirms. "But... you have to understand, this has happened before, and that is not a good thing. There shouldn't be two Sacred Opals. With one floating around the criminal underworld, and them - doing Freyja only knows what with it! It'd be like, like walking around knowing that someone's made a doll that looks like your mother and they're selling copies for coin. It's wrong."

She also doesn't have a mother! These references are all falling flat on her. But she can make the appropriate sympathetic noises. "I understand," she says, nodding with a frown. "It's just... it sounds so senseless, you know? 

"But I think I've got a good understanding of the situation now, unless there's anything more?"

Niriban gives her a considering look.

"No," he says after a moment, "nothing more. Best of luck."

     "Freyja guide you to the truth," Meri agrees.

          "Don't get stabbed," Salo grunts. "The paperwork is annoying."

"I'll do my best," she says with a grin. "Thank you!"

What on Midgard are natives and how are they different from non-natives???

There's probably a lesson of some kind to be learned here about the feasibility of "just helping people" without getting involved in politics, but she'll try to learn it later. What she's going to do now is find Zhed's estate and talk to his employees. There's something fishy about this whole situation and it might just be Lucky's bias against organised religion but she won't know until she investigates more.

The sermon is quite very tedious and not really very informative, but Taharqi can tell that the High Priestess appreciates them for coming. And it'll help them establish their credibility with the locals, if they're seen as sharing in the faith.

The priestess does ask about Lucky, but since Taharqi doesn't know what she's up to he doesn't come up with a lie more elaborate than "she's a devout Odinite". Still the same overall faith, different emphasis in the manner of worship, it's a satisfying enough answer.

When they meet up again afterwards, Lucky places four enchanted chips on the ground around them and activates them, causing a subtle forcefield to be erected around them. It's invisible but for a faint mirage in the air, but it makes it much harder to eavesdrop on them without trying really hard. It wouldn't stand up to anyone who knows what they're doing but the point isn't being perfect camouflage, it's making it harder for them to be overheard accidentally. 

"I think someone is trying to frame a kid for stealing a precious religious artefact," she says once that's set up.

(This is really impressive tech. The fact that you can activate it without needing a Skill... Taharqi bets Lucky invented it herself. It's insane. He has to keep her in his party.)

"That's an opener."

"—sorry. Um. Did you guys find out anything more about our, um, actual mission and stuff?"

"No."

"Not very much," Taharqi agrees. "Some creatures have been getting more agitated than usual, they're not very dangerous for adventurers but they're sufficiently numerous that they're starting to interfere with civilians who are just walking through the area between here and Lighthalzen, especially ones on religious pilgrimages. The job is to just figure out what's up and, if there's nothing in particular up, cull the numbers of the monsters a bit.

"Your thing sounds more interesting, though."

"Oh. Okay. Um. Well, there's—I don't know how much of this stuff is common knowledge? Like, uh, the thing about natives? Or the Sacred Jewels? Do you guys know about those?"

Annika looks at Taharqi.

"...I guess I do know a bit about the history of the place," he concedes. "Uh—Arunafeltz was colonised by migrants from the Kingdom of Rune-Midgard, but there were already people living here before. They didn't worship the gods, though, or not in the same way. They have concepts and stories that can be mapped to similar entities, but much less personified, and in their stories they occasionally merge some Odinist and Freyjan gods with each other or split gods Odinists and Freyjans consider to be the same. And the Freyjan colonists were pretty religious and unhappy with the idea of coexisting with people who didn't share their faith. They were also more technologically advanced so they subjugated the natives and now there's sort of a class separation between natives and non-natives. It's a whole mess.

"I don't know a ton more about it than that, though."

She nods along with his explanation. That was more or less what she'd managed to piece together, with a bit more historical context. "So there's this bounty I found that's not an official Eden bounty and it was posted by the police. It's a bounty for a fifteen year old who vanished a few days ago at the same time as High Priest Zhed's, uh, symbol-of-office? It's a crystal, it's called the Sacred Opal, every High Priest has something like that, High Priestess Niren has a Sacred Ruby. Anyway it vanished at the same time as Phobe did—that's the fifteen-year-old—and Phobe is a native orphan who Zhed employs—employed—at his estate." It was very much an estate. She thinks she's never used that word before. She's not sure. "And there's, um, some stuff about politics, there seem to be two factions? Two big ones, anyway. And High Priest Zhed is the leader of one and Niren is the leader of the other. Zhed's faction is friendlier to natives."

"Why don't you tell us more about it while we make our way to the Ice Cave? That should give us some time and privacy."

"—yeah okay."

"So there's the natives, right, like, the people who were around here before the followers of, um, Freyja, uh—"

"Neither of us is particularly religious."

"—really?" She thought people from the Kingdom of Rune-Midgard were all religious aaaaaand now that she actually says that thought out loud in her head with full words it sounds stupid.

But, still, isn't Annika a monk?

"Really. Annika's a monk because their philosophy aligns with hers not because she particularly loves Odin or Freyja or whatever."

"Mm."

How did he guess what she was—she supposes it's probably an obvious source of confusion.

"Okay. Well, so, there's natives, right, they already lived here before the followers of Freyja left the Kingdom of Rune-Midgard, but they didn't believe in Odin or Freyja, they follow this other religion called, uh, deism I think? Which is sort of like Odinism and Freyjanism except it's not so big on the whole, like, gods are individual people with personalities that you pray or make offers to. And so the Freyjans, um, kind of subjugated them? And, uh, killed a lot of them. That was a long time ago."

"Which, uh, is the thing you said earlier, I know, I'm just trying to organise my thoughts."

"Sure."

"Right, so, like you said there's a class divide kinda, because of all those historical reasons natives tend to be a lot poorer and stuff, and the descendants of the Midgardians generally see themselves as the ones who are really Feltzeen, even though the natives were here first. There's something about this being kind of a promised land for Freyjans? People I asked about this were really vague, I'm not sure if it's, like, an actual part of their theology? But they named the temple you guys were just at after the temple Freyja supposedly presides over in Valhalla so they're really possessive. Of the land, I mean."

"Anyway so there's these Sacred Jewels, they're symbols of office kinda, and they're supposedly given to the High Priests by the Pope herself and the power of Freyja is invested in them? No one was really clear on what that power was, like, they can make holy water with the jewels but I think you don't need jewels for that? Usually?"

"You usually need a blue mana gem. If they can do this with their jewels without the jewels being consumed then probably the jewels have concentrated mana in them."

"—wait do you just need mana for holy water?"

"Specifically blue gems, they're—"

"No, I know how they work, I kind of specialise in—I mean I made these legs, I know how magic crystals work."

"I don't! Care to explain to the less magically-inclined of us?"

"—sure!" Boy oh boy does she. "So, like, the things we call gems, right, they're consumed after a use, and there's three of them, or three common ones, blue, red, and yellow."

"Right. Blue gems are used for Skills like warp, red for offensive Skills, and yellow for..."

"So it's a bit more complicated than that. They're kind of, solidified Skills, in a way? Except, not quite, but they're solid mana and they kind of have intent imbued in them, if that makes sense. Blue gems have a sort of focusing effect, so they're used for Skills that concentrate power into a small or very precise targets, red ones are kind of volatile, they amplify power and increase entropy, basically they're good for explosions, and yellow gems have a kind of stabilising effect, so Skills that have to last for a while and especially that have to be in a specific place for a while will use them often?

"But anyway gems are never actually really necessary, actually, they're usually just there as sort of helpers because the Skill itself was built with them in mind or because it's an inefficient Skill that needs the boost. Usually Skills you can just, like, learn by thinking about them don't need any gemstones, but sometimes they do, but since they tend to be a lot more efficient than the ones people develop in general new Skills will sometimes use them to give them a leg up."

"I don't need blue gemstones to make holy water."

"—really? That's so cool!"

Shrug.

"Trouble," warns Taharqi.

What where?

It's not obvious at first but after a bit she can see the movement of a small pack of three roweens, their sand-coloured fur serving as very effective camouflage in the desert. They don't seem to have noticed that they've been spotted, though.

Oh boy! A fight! Her first fight as a support! Umm!

No, she's practised for this. The gun is in her hand in a second and she sprays the air around them with a gold-coloured concoction that should sharpen their senses and shorten their reaction times for a bit.

And Taharqi steps out of sight and is gone.

...weird. But extremely cool.

Annika quickly summons five Spirit Spheres and, once she's sure Lucky's done with the pre-battle buffs, vanishes with a loud snap and appears in the middle of the pack of roweens to start pummeling them with her fists.

The two of them are clearly somewhat used to working together. The monk's fighting style is being both an unstoppable force and an immovable object, opting to straight-up tank damage rather than dodge so that they can continue to perform their offensive sequences, and Taharqi works around that, weaving between their foes and intercepting them before they can get to Annika.

Or, well, so it seems, anyway, since it's not like Taharqi is visible all the time. But Lucky can probably infer things from the invisible cuts and so on.

Ohkay.

Uh. 

Will she, uh. 

Have the chance to do anything during this fight?

Nope! It's just three roweens, they're dealt with pretty quickly.

Wow alright. She, uh, guesses she can spray them with healing potions once they're done?

They weren't hurt very much, just a couple of scrapes and bruises, and those get taken care of pretty quickly.

"...sorry," says Lucky, when they regroup.

"—what did you do?"

"Well, um. Nothing. I didn't really... help."

Blink.

"...it was three roweens, I hardly see how you could've. You don't need to beat yourself up about it. According to the High Priestess, we're going to find much larger packs when we get farther away from the roads, and you'll definitely be able to help with those."

"Oh. I hope so." Then she won't have been useless to the party.

"Anyway, let's keep going, and then you can keep talking about gemstones and why that's relevant," he says, starting to lead the way.

"Oh! Right, yeah. Um, where was I. Gemstones, blue gems for holy water, right. So, basically Annika was right? If the regular way to make holy water is using a blue gem, and it is doable even without, then that'd mean the Sacred Jewels are actually sort of reusable blue gems. Kind of like foci? Or like wizards' wands and staves. But probably more specialised. They probably have mana stored in them, and maybe Freyja fills them, I dunno if gods do that kinda stuff regularly?"

"Not in my experience."

"I'm from Schwarz so we're not very religious over there and I wouldn't know if they do stuff like that in churches."

"The Church in Prontera claims that the Heal they teach is given by Freyja directly. I think they just hypnotise you into forgetting how you learned it."

"—oh that would explain it, that's so fucking obvious," Taharqi says, smacking his forehead.

"Do you know it?" she asks Annika.

"I know a Heal but not the Church's Heal."

"Did you fish for it?" Annika sounded more sensible than that.

"No."

"So... how'd you get it?"

"Does it matter?"

"I guess not..."

"Okay but I'm curious, now, too."

She makes an annoyed noise. "It came to me in a dream."

What.

"You don't need to believe me."

"No, I mean, it's just, I don't see how that'd work? Like, magically, I mean, that's—"

"I had a dream that I could do it. ...I had a dream that I was someone who could do it. And then at one point I looked for it, when I was looking for Skills, and I found it."

"Someone specific?" Taharqi guesses.

"Do we really need to talk about this?"

No but she's super curious!!!!

"Is it even less believable than it just having come from a dream?"

"Yes."

"I promise I don't think you're making it up. If it helps, I recently had an incredibly vivid dream that feels more like a memory in which I was a tank for a party that was investigating Glastheim shortly after it got overrun with undead, and I don't remember the names of anyone, and it's not like I usually remember the names of random people in dreams but I still haven't forgotten about the dream and it's been really bugging me."

"...my dream was like that, too."

"So how'd—"

Roweens and desert wolves! A bigger pack, five roweens and three wolves now.

Oh yay! She can be useful! She can Shoot them with her Guns. In addition to helping her allies.

She sure can! It's a less easy battle than the first one was, obviously, and Taharqi isn't able to fend off every creature, so a couple of them do go directly after Lucky.

Not if she shoots them in the face.

Indeed not.

Yaaaay and then she can heal everyone! ...but Annika has a Heal so why doesn't she—probably her Heal is underpowered. On account of her being a tank. And focusing on strength.

"Thanatos," Annika says once they've regrouped again. "I was Thanatos, in my dream. I didn't know my name, or my party's, but we were—discussing sealing Surt, and—I recognised what was happening."

"...huh."

"I know it makes no sense."

"No, it's just interesting you were a guy in your dream, because I was not a guy in mine."

"...does that matter?"

"No, not really."

Is that a normal thing. Dreaming of people who existed and getting Skills from them. Lucky's feeling horribly jealous of everyone else, if so.

"Anyway, we keep going down tangents. You were saying, about the Jewels?"

"—right! Okay. So. The thing that's really strange is that, like—so usually different types of stones are better for different things? Because of, um, so they're—do you guys know about basic elements?"

"Water, fire, earth, air?"

"No, not those. Hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, silicon?"

"...I might've heard those names."

"So, like, everything is made out of really, really, really small things. Like, however small you're thinking, they're smaller than that. And smaller than that, too. People are made mostly of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, but there's a bit of a bunch of others, like phosphorus or iron. Anyway, the thing crystals are is elements arranged in sort of a lattice—like, the simplest crystal is ice, so water is two hydrogens and one oxygen, like this, in a triangle, and when water is liquid those triangles are all sort of moving around past each other but when it's solid they get really close together and then they arrange themselves so that one molecule's oxygen is near another molecule's hydrogen, and since they're triangles they arrange themselves in ways that are combinations of triangles, like hexagons, and that's why snow flakes have six points—

"Anyway. Opals are silicon, oxygen, and hydrogen, but rubies are aluminium, oxygen, and chromium, and they're arranged in ways that are completely different, and that's important for magic, the crystalline structure of jewels makes a difference in what kinds of magic they're best for. It's actually really weird, now that I think about it, for an opal to be good at making holy water? I could buy, like, the ruby, maybe, I'd need to think about it, or an emerald, but quartz would be much better for that, that's just silicon and oxygen, but hydrogen isn't, I mean—

"But I bet I could figure out a way to do it. Maybe embed quartz inside the opal, or just have trace amounts of it, if it's not a pure opal. That'd explain why it has to be a special opal and not just any old opal."

"...sure... So there's a special kind of opal that the Sacred Opal needs to be and maybe a special kind of ruby that the Sacred Ruby needs to be?"

"Probably! I really should figure out everything the Sacred Opal can do, I bet I could replicate it."

"Which you want to do because... you think someone is trying to frame a kid for having stolen the High Priest's? Is that the precious religious artefact you were talking about?"

"Right, yes, that's what happened. The Sacred Opal vanished, and so did this kid, who works at High Priest Zhed's estate, and everyone thinks he stole it, and he's a native and very poor, but I think that's bullshit and there's politics involved."

"Why do you think he didn't do it?"

"It just kind of doesn't add up? The guard were all like, this kid's a native and the natives don't respect Freyja and probably think it's just a pretty jewel they can sell for a lot of money, but I asked around and the natives totally do know what the Sacred Jewels are, the High Priests won't shut up about them every sermon—wait, didn't you guys watch a sermon—"

"We did, and there was no mention of the jewels."

"—so they were probably exaggerating when they said every sermon. But. They said everyone knows about them, and also furthermore opals don't actually even sell for all that much, aaaaand this one I don't know for sure sure but I think Phobe is the bastard son of the High Priest's butler with a native who works across the street from him, and the butler isn't a native and marrying a native isn't like illegal but it might as well be, people find the idea scandalous?"

"And you suspect this why?"

"...dunno. Just—I dunno, I might be making it up. Just the way they talked about each other and about Phobe? It was different from the way everyone else talked. The two of them were trying to pretend they weren't in a panic but they were. I think. I don't know for sure—"

Taharqi lifts an appeasing hand. "You don't need to convince me to trust your instincts. I know what it's like when something makes the whole picture make a lot more sense than it would otherwise even if you don't know it's true for sure."

"...yeah, that's it. The picture makes a lot more sense if Mr. Vincent and Ms. Jenny are Phobe's parents.

"And there's just not really a motive. It feels too, too—coincidental."

"Because of the political factions involved."

"Yeah. High Priest Zhed is the leader of a group of, they call it moderates, I guess? Which as far as I can tell is people who think that maybe the whole thing where they subjugated the locals and imposed their customs on them and killed a bunch of them wasn't very nice of them and wasn't super about Freyja's love. And High Priestess Niren is the leader of the conservatives, who—I don't understand what they think, I talked mostly to people who like Zhed." He's much more sympathetic anyway. "So I think it's something political to make Zhed's faction look bad, like, look, obviously the natives suck, see, you tried being nice to them and what'd that get you, it got your jewel stolen is what."