Closed [The Bean] Starting New Things [Archailist]

[Ball]

56th Summer 514

Ball found himself in The Bean, it wasn't necessarily a day off from patrolling or squirely duties, but it was a new place he hadn't found himself in before. Today was as good a day as any other to start possibly frequenting a new locale. After all, one doesn't ever know what they are going to get themselves into if they stick to the same old stuff day in and day out.

Ordering a cup of whatever this coffee stuff was Ball was sure it was decent, he had seen other knights and civilians take to their morning cup of this black concoction with gusto and seemed to have require they did. The liquid within his mug didn't appear to be made of clay, and the steam that rose from it was rather too hot for him to try and consume it. The moisture in his face was being heated and swelling was occurring so the pycon squire pushed back from his mug and allowed it to cool. After all, burns and swelling didn't do the pyken artist much good.

Ball sat there though, staring at the cup, and realizing that today was a day he could start learning new things. This new mysterious drink called coffee was a good start. It seemed to have a pleasant enough fragrance to him, but he wasn't sure yet of how it tasted. Probably not clay like. If appearances were anything it looked like dark muddy water, surely not made of delish looking warm clay. “Today is a good day as any to strike out and learn something new to add to his growing skill of combat oriented trade skills. After all, a knight can't have too many weapons and skills in his arsenal.

Ball frowned though, beyond the sword, Thorn, bow and arrow and spear Ball had no clue what else he could possibly train in. He remembered seeing the monks of Nyka holding sticks of wood and using them in combat, but the squire had no idea if there was something his size that could be used for such a weapon. The blunt force of the sticks they had was appealing to Ball.

The cup appeared to be cool enough for Ball to try and he reached for it with both hands, slowly and cautiously bringing himself to sample the dark liquid within.

Cost of a CoffeeBall bought a common coffee: 3SM removed from ledger

Created goes to Euthisa

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

The streets of the city weren't a safe place for something barely five inches high. Even to one with quite a good understanding of the streets. Too many horses, carts, people, knights.. all never looking where they were going. Knights weren't very happy with the squirrel using the rooftops to get around the city, because of the 'damage' it caused.. and neither were many people happy when he took to using their heads as stepping-stones to cross the streets. It seemed the entire city just wanted him to be squished. But he wasn't going to go down that quickly. Besides, as long as he kept to the alleys, he'd be fine. They were often deserted.. although just because they were no humans inside, didn't mean that other creatures didn't lurk inside.

Which explained his current situation - staring into the eyes of a moderately large house-cat.

He'd wanted to get some work done down at the Fighters Pit, with Hammer Fist. Although that idea was swiftly dissipating, the longer he stared at the oversized feline. He didn't really want to fight it.. because from the corners of the alley, he could see more eyes staring, and waiting. Usually, he'd be happy to take on a whole group of somethings.. but he didn't fancy his chances against a horde that were several times larger than he was, armed with claws and teeth and.. stuff. He wanted to get training done, after all. At least he had his Py-Pole.. although every time he reached for it, the cat made an odd hissing that he didn't find comforting. So, instead, he held both paws out in front of himself, while warily watching the thing. "Easy.. easy.." It wasn't listening. The cat slowly circled him with its long, sinuous tail swaying languidly. Like it was taunting him.

He wouldn't be baited, but he wasn't going to stand around and do nothing. Suddenly, he reached back for the pole.. and at the same time, it pounced with its paws outstretched. He was faster - the bottom of the elastic pole slapped against its cheek with a resounding crack, and the cat immediately turned and hopped back into the shadows. He wasn't intent on waiting for the rest of them to make their move.. so he turned and bolted for the opening. Right into the ankle of a passing citizen. Out of the pot and into the fire. "Hey! Watch where you're going, oversized rodent!" The man yelled and cursed while holding onto the slightly swollen ankle, while the squirrel backed off.. and his back hit a wall. Or rather, a door. Not wanting to stay out in the streets and risk attack by angry humans and hungry cats for much longer, he pushed the door with all of his strength and it opened just enough for him to slip inside.. with a lot of molding through the tiny gap.. before it closed.

"Huh.. the Bean. I don't remember this place.."

[Ball]

Ball wasn't able to tip the cup forward, it was far too big and he just didn't have the leverage to pick up and tilt the liquid filled mug anyway, instead the three inch clayman found himself once again perched at the edge of the mug, staring into a rippling reflection of his menacing mugshot. The single eye held no pupil and stared back up at himself, the stubble one would call 'hair' bristled and Ball could feel the steam of the liquid causing him to 'sweat'.

Seeing as the moisture from Ball was being robbed from his body by the liquid's heat from within he gulped, Maybe this wasn't a drink for me.. The door unfortunately was going to be his undoing in this case. The door swung shut, the muffled words of a man on the outside of it ignored by Ball as he found himself teetering and then slashing into the mug of coffee. The hot liquid immediately shocking the clay man's senses and eradicating any sense of calm serenity as his hands struggled in the heated liquid to regain a sense of being.

The coffee had a rich scent from within, he could feel the heat being sucked into his being, warming his core and nexus and the sweating he was dealing with ceased. Unfortunately most people had to consume the liquid and wait for the caffeine effects to take hold, Ball just had to submerge himself within the confines of the liquids to gain the effects. The side-effects that the other knights that enjoyed this beverage found Ball's nexus almost immediately, wrapping the small mental core in it's dark embrace.

It was then that Ball's hand lashed out from the cup o' java and wrapped its stubby fingers around the mug's lips and pulled the squire out from within. Dripping in the dark liquid Ball's brownish clay seemed ever darker and heavier as he plopped himself onto the table. Gasping heavily Ball shivered as the air was much cooler outside of the mug then it was within. The room is full of fragrance of the earth. Seeds of life and world's of unseen specks of dirt floating amongst the rays of Syna.

Sadly, he never did notice his fellow pycon had slipped into the Bean at the same time he found himself taking a swim.

Created goes to Euthisa

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

Arch often found himself exploring new places. Willingly or unwillingly. Today, it'd be one of those blind investigations.. although before he really got down to it, he had to stop and admire the view. Well, he said admire.. although the place could certainly use a new lick of paint. One of the windows, covered with wood from the inside.. chairs and tables pushed a little too close together for even the squirrels liking, and he wondered how a regular full-sized human would be able to squeeze themselves inside. It certainly looked busy, though. Perhaps it was just the lack of space that made the less people seem like more, or the fact that the noise seemed to reverberate off every wall to make it sound a little louder. Either way, he diligently pushed his way farther inside, sliding under chairs and tables as he went - it was, after all, much easier than trying to squeeze around them.

Immediately something hit him. Not literally. What am I supposed to do in here, anyway. Evidently by all the mugs that people held, this was a coffee and tea shop.. only, he couldn't really drink coffee or tea. It wasn't clay, didn't have clay.. so what good would it be. Perhaps he could ask the man behind the counter if he could make some tea with clay in it.. or some coffee with clay. He wasn't really sure. But there'd only be one way to find out if they truly did have any...

On the way towards the counter, slipping under one of the tables, he heard a sudden splash from above. What in Sylir..? It didn't sound like a little splash, either. It sounded like someone had spilled their mug, yet there was nothing pouring down the sides of the table, strangely enough. And all four of the chairs seemed to be utterly abandoned, as well. What had made the noise then.. if nothing was sat at the table. He didn't know, but it counted worthy enough for a quick investigation. It didn't take a lot of effort to hop up and catch the edge of the nearest chair before heaving himself up anyway. And from there, he could rise to his feet, run across the seat of the stool, hop into the air mid-run and use the back-rest of the chair to launch up onto tabletop with a nimble spring. Although, what he was met with, nearly made him wan to turn and jump back down again.

Something that was obviously Pycon, although its clay was much darker and.. dripping? It looked like it. Steam poured off its body and it seemed to be drowning in a cup of coffee. Immediately he rushed forwards and offered it a hand, trying to grab the slick clay.. although because of the coffee streaming down its body, he found it exceedingly difficult to actually find purchase on the smaller creature. "Hey, are you alright? Hey!" The Pycon didn't look to be in great shape.. he couldn't even tell if he knew the thing or not. It was just a dark.. dripping.. blob of clay. What a horrible way to end, if it'd drowned.. drowning in coffee..

[Ball]

OOCDear Gods I am sorry this is so late... -.-

Ball burbled, brown bubbles of coffee frothed at the squire's mouth as he sat up, “Totally fine actually. Thanks for asking. You look familiar. I seen you before haven't I?” his voice was rapidly growing in speed picking up with each word as the caffeine coursed and married itself to his nexus sending the energy overload through the proverbial roof. His coffee savior was another pycon, something about him looked familiar, but the caffeine in his body just wouldn't let him connect the dots in recalling who it was.

“If not, I am Ball. Nice to meet you. I was just deciding that today was a good day to learn new things. Care to show me about your staff there? Looks like it be a fun thing to learn can you teach me?” The three inch squire that normally was a violent individual was a reduced to a bouncing rumbling child in all aspects.

Ball's oddly shaped scowl of a mouth started to slowly creep into a full fledged smile of those not fully in control of themselves. “Look at all the dust floating in Syna's rays...” He lifted a hand, pointing at the nearly invisible floating specks in the ray of sunlight coming within the window. Blinking Ball shook his head.

“Sorry about that. You do look familiar to me though, have we meet?” Ball's nexus was struggling now with the overload of caffeine and the pycon's body was clearly revealing it as he slumped down. “What the petch was that stuff?” Ball grumbled as he glanced at the cup, “It was amazing.”

OOCMeh and the post bites... >.<

Created goes to Euthisa

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

The squirrel relaxed once again as the Pycon reassured him - he was fine, apparently.. he didn't sound like he was in the best shape but the squirrel was soon standing back and watching carefully. On much closer inspection, he did look a little bit familiar.. although he couldn't tell where from. Perhaps it was the Shield Games.. or something along those lines. Oh come on. There's only a small handful of squires around the city, and you can't even tell whether you've seen this one before or not. Perhaps you need a bit of that coffee stuff just to get your nexus in the right place today. He was seriously considering it - although there seemed to be a few strange side-effects going on that it would be better to observe before he ordered one.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Archailist - wait, what?" Did the other Pycon not know anything about Py-Poles? At all? "Well.. I'm guessing you're not really much of a fighting Pycon then, if you don't know anything about a Py-Pole. I guess I could show you some stuff about it, though. If you wanted." By this point, the squirrel didn't really know what to say. Things were going by pretty fast - and not just because the other Pycon was talking pretty quickly thanks to that damn coffee. He'd barely entered a room and already met up with a mysterious other Pycon that wanted to know about his weapons. Talk about a quick introduction. "I suppose we'd better go out to the Fighter's Pits before we get this done. But first..." Well, Ball said it was amazing.. and that was good enough for Archailist. He turned his head and the next moment that someone passed, he tapped them on the wrist with the blunt end of his pole and asked if they could fetch him a mug of coffee. Regular coffee.

In a few chimes they returned again - he wasn't even really sure whether the person was just a very happy customer or one of the employees, but he passed them five silver Miza's for their trouble and chuckled quietly across the table once they'd passed. "Let's see how accurate you were, then." There was only a moment of hesitation before the squirrel lowered one of his paws inside the mug and began absorbing some of the dark liquid. The spike didn't come for a few ticks.. at first there was just scalding heat up to his wrist, freezing cold up the length of his arm and a rather temperate warmth through the rest of his body. Then it all began heating at once, and he swore he could feel steam pouring off his shoulders even though they'd never touched the liquid. "Ooooh.. yep, that's good stuff." If he had eyelids, they would have been fluttering.

[Ball]

Ball nodded when Archie took the first timid 'drink' of coffee. A grin formed on his face, “I am a fighting Pycon. Probably the best in hand to hand currently. Maybe not that lady in the Pits she may be better than me... For now. As for us going there. Oh no, we are going to the Training Grounds. Up up up. Squires don't train in the Pits, we train with the knights and the armour and the swords and the clashing and the smashing and the crying and the bleeding and the wind.” Ball nodded,.

“I am Ball. Squire to Ser Pycon.” Another nod came. The grin seemed to have gotten bigger in the last few ticks as he spoke, “Oh oh, I just never used a py-pole before. I would like to learn. Want to buy one first. We should go to the Bazaar get one there and then go up to the Grounds to train. Yes yes. You help me pick one Squirrel Pycon?” Ball paused and looked at the squirrel for a few minutes, “Hey I remember you know! You were the one that was trying to order clay and water at the Rearing Stallion a little earlier this season and they laughed at you.”

Ball snickered, “Yes yes, you were also in the Shield Games. How'd you do huh Squirrel?” Ball sat down back on the table, his urge to learn something new seemed forgotten as he spoke and studied the squirrel shaped pycon.

OOCAnother short reply... -.-

Created goes to Euthisa

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

He had to shake his head a few times at first, to clear the sharp kick that came from the liquid. It was certainly working fast, that was something.. he'd never got this reaction when drinking water or eating clay. It took the other Pycon's words just to bring him back and away from the dark drink slowly disappearing in his mug.. the more he drunk, the faster it disappeared. Funny that. "Oh, you're a fighting one, are yah?" His words seemed to be coming out a little faster too. Everything was.. like he was shivering, but he wasn't particularly cold. Just.. filled with energy, inexplicably rejuvenated from just a few mouthfuls of this liquid. He'd have to try it more often, if he could. Even a mug that was likely the same size as the squirrel felt like it wasn't really enough for him.. it was such a shame that there were other things to focus on, or he likely would have ordered another.. several others. "Heh, we'll have to see how good that is, then, one of the best. I don't think I'm that bad in it, meself."

"Oh, I didn't know that you were a squire." It was why he'd suggested the Pits, after all. "Squire Archailist, under Ser Iros." Well, under in little more than their stature. The Akalak had shown a lot of struggling in their fights together.. simply because the man had a hard time hitting the squirrel when he had nothing but a spear and a big shield. Neither of them was a good weapon when faced with the squirrel, and that tiny dagger that he had was little use as well considering that it had the range of a mouse's fingernail.

"We'll go to the Bazaar then.. buy a Py-Pole. If you want, I can show you how to use it a bit." The squirrel would find some way that the smaller clay one could teach him something in return, but he didn't really know what he could possibly need. The squirrel had all the combat training he could really want.. he didn't need another fight unless it was just for the sheer fun he got out of watching others throwing all they had against the squirrel and never managing to land a hit. If there was anyone that would stand a decent chance, it'd be this one.. he didn't even know how good the other Pycon actually was in hand-to-hand combat, but the fact that he was small like the squirrel meant that he'd be able to go for the chest and the head.. not just end up resorting to feet over and over, like all the bigger species.

Suddenly, it hit him. "Oh.. YOU! Yes, you're the one that refused the fight on the grounds that your fight was unfair.." Everyone had heard about that moment. It was quite a shock.. although apparently it wasn't that much of one either. Perhaps the other Pycon wasn't kidding when he said he was pretty good in hand-to-hand. "Yeah, I was in the Stallion, ordering clay. They should have served it, though!" What kind of bar didn't? "Yeah.. my opponent didn't turn up for the battle. Apparently he'd disappeared to do other things." The best the squirrel could offer was a nonchalant shrug before gesturing to the door. They could continue talking once they were on their way down to the Bazaar to gather the necessary weapons.

[Ball]

"My Speaking"

My Thoughts

Four Chimes Later

Ball had arrived at the Bazaar, his loyal mount Imass was panting heavily from the moderately fast pace that Ball had forced upon the poor dog. The caffeine of the coffee had already started wearing off, leaving the little bean shaped Pycon feeling tired and slow, lethargic to say the least. “Ugh I need more of that wonderful beverage. I should have ordered some to go.” He muttered as he looked in the direction of the Squirrel, “We should be able to find something here in the way of a Pole.” He nodded and started into the inside marketplace.

Within was a crowd of stalls, blankets, merchants, and citizens of the grand fortress city that Ball couldn’t see where he needed to go in order to locate the necessary merchant. Ball knew from a previous season that if a merchant was selling mysterious pink products they would be apprehended and then beat senseless by Ball. Yet right now the squire had one thing – make it two things – on his nexus: More coffee and a Py-Pole purchase. The problem though was to find the proper merchant that sells the poles Possibly the squirrel may know. Turning his head around in a near full circle Ball spotted the other squire pycon.

“Hey Squirrel Pycon, do you know where the merchant would be in this mess?” He frowned, there didn’t appear to be any way for Ball to know, he wasn’t sure if even his fellow squire would know. “I guess we can just look around?”

OOCSorry, late and short >.<

Credit :

Created goes to Raus for aiding in the photo manipulation, Myself for color and transparency manipulation as well as box code. Character is accredited below

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

The squirrel hadn't brought a mount. At least with a fellow Pycon at his side, he didn't have to worry so much about people trying to step on him. The walk was still pretty long though, and he was still carrying the bouncing Py-Pole he'd gone out with that very morning. The few sips of coffee were helping at least. While Ball was feeling a little more lethargic, the squirrel was still in the middle of his kick. "Mmm, probably should have, yes. Very nice stuff. Mmm, could do with some more right now actually, yeah." Sure, there was a bit of a stutter to his voice, and he was speaking a bit faster than usual.. but so what? He felt pretty happy and wide-awake; much more so now than before. He might just become a regular at that place.

"Oh, right, yeah. Uhmmm..." He had to try and actually concentrate now. The coffee in his system made it difficult to focus on one thing, and soon enough he was off on another tangent. Hopefully he'd be able to pull everything back into the bag by the end of the day. "Ooh, uhm. I think they were over there last time I checked. Like, far down towards the exit, near the other side." Immediately the squirrel pushed ahead, easily slipping between and around the legs of the various customers haggling with vendors, or just pushing around for a good view of the best in stock.

"Or, wait. Wait wait wait. Was it this way? No, I'm certain it was down here. Yeah, certain." The further he pushed into the throng, the more wound up he became in his own thoughts. At one point he removed the pole from the small crevice on his back, struck the ground with the butt and pulled back far enough that he could spring himself straight up onto one of the wooden counters with a little bounce of his heels. If the merchants ever caught sight of the little squirrel easing his way across their woolen scarfs and thick coats, they paid no mind at all - Arch was left to his own devices as he begun merrily springing from one stall to the next, searching for.. what was he searching for again? A stick or something? Didn't matter.