Idealistic War

In the great city of Alsteem, many things are happening at the same time, every day! From some scientist thinking he's got the next great invention, students going to school, workers going in and out of the factories, priests preaching against the industrial era, a great deal is happening constantly.

For Crystal, none of those were on her agenda right now. She was currently heading home with a large supply of groceries, so as to not have to go shopping for food again for the next week. She was making her way down the street with five bags stuffed against each other and filled to the brim with meat and vegetables.


Martin, on the other hand, was not currently very impressed by the city and it's going-ons. He much preferred the dark caves he's been traversing for the past week, actually. Though admittedly this place was somewhat more hospitable than the wolves...

"Ah, I'm hungry..." he snatched an apple off the top of one of Crystal's bags as they passed each other, and it went entirely unnoticed by Crystal as he continued walking in the opposite direction of her, and munched on the apple, "Where can I get a solid bite to eat around here..."

Captain Jack was busy with pirate business. Very important pirate business. He was in fact performing a keg stand to the cheers of the bar. The pretty bar maid held the tap and, to show off to her, he performed a few push ups from his handstand, eliciting more cheers from the crowd.

The bar maid shut off the tap and Jack did a handspring off of the bar, failing to stick it and landing straight on his arse to the laughter of the crowd. Jack rose, caught the barmaid's eye and bowed with a grin, receiving applause. 

"Bar wench," he shouted over the raucous crowd with a ever so slight joking tone, "deliver me a pint this instant!"

"Coming right up, my good sir!" She replied in good spirit. Jack grinned.

"That's 'Captain' to you!" He called back before sauntering through the crowd with an aura of natural self-comfort and slight inebriation to find his crew.

Willard McCullers was at one of the many tables of the bar, leaned back, his foot propped on a table, and his arm wrapped around one of the pretty waitresses. He was having a grand ol time with his a few of the bar-goers, playing a game of poker. When he noticed the Captain walking through the crowd, he grinned and waved the man over, "Oi, Capt, how about a game or two? Let's show these land lovers how to really play cards."

---

Aera walked around the town. She held a book in one hand, reading the passages silently to herself. She wasn't really paying attention to where she was going, sometimes bumping into someone and mumbling a 'quiet 'I'm sorry' as she continued to walk on, ignoring their angry comments. So engrossed in the book was she, that she barely noticed anything going on around her.

One would find this behavior odd, probably dangerous as well. However, the girl seemed so content with her book that no one really had the heart to stop her. That or they just didn't want to approach the weird book girl.

"And with his final breath, he whispered his words of regret," She read aloud, frowning slightly as she closed the book, "That was a more depressing ending than I anticipated."

Mei Miyamoto walked into the bar with a rather wide grin; and a sack full of money. Her latest job had been a huge success. She had earned enough that she wouldn't have to worry about money for a while. This left her more time to search the area around the town for her target.
 
However, she had different plans for her gold at the moment. She stood up on the counter, and turned to rest of the bar.
 
"I, the great and powerful Mei Miyamoto, declare that drinks are on me!" she said.
 
The faster she got everyone around her drunk; the more likely they were to say something useful.
 
--
 
"HEY! BOOK GIRL! LOOK OUT!"
 
At that moment; a rather strange machine with multiple whirling blades crashed in to the ground a few feet away from the girl.
 
A girl climbed out of the wreckage of the machine; looking just a bit disoriented.
 
"I've got to start getting other people to test these things for me..." muttered Pricilla. "Looks like the flying clockman needs a better fuel source..."

Petra, who was already in the bar in the first place, was enjoying the noise and the commotion around him. There were drunken men singing chants of how they celebrate the fact that they're drunk (which of course, he found quite ridiculous), and there were some women who were with some of the men and others trying to avoid the ones without women. However, there were particular people in the bar who stood out to him. The one who stood out the most was this girl who called herself "the great and powerful Mei Miyamoto" and offered everyone free drinks. 

Of course, with a wide grin, he sat on the seat slightly beside where she was standing and whistled. "Getting everyone drunk, are you? Seems like there's going to be more chaos in here! Barkeep, grab me some drinks, I'll pass it around to everyone!" he said with a loud, energetic voice to try and let his voice get heard over the crowd.

Everyone cheered as he obtained the mugs and started passing it around mostly to the well-built men who looked like they could be up for a fight or two. Things were going to get enjoyable soon.

----------------------------

The noisy bar was not a place for someone trying to seek some peace of mind. Alieze was long gone, telling her captain that she needed to take a break and walk around town for some fresh air. She thought that she should take her time to look for shops to get parts from and possibly new ideas for inventions which she could use to augment the prototype ship they had. Looking at her prosthetic arm, she opened and closed its hand, her eyes fixated on it with seeming disinterest. 

"It will take a lot of work... but I'll get there."

Her shoulder bumped into a girl who was reading a book as she quietly apologized, stepping past right away... until she heard a loud crash. There, a strange machine turned into a wreckage just a few steps in front of the book girl. Turning around, her attention was mostly on the wreckage itself. It had parts that resembled some attempt at creating a weaponized aircraft. It seemed to be functional if she heard the pilot right. It piqued her interest, as she came to the conclusion that the pilot was a fellow inventor. 

"The parts here... I could salvage it, if you have no more use to it. Or, if you so wish, I could perform a complete repair in exchange for its blueprints."

Her way of speech was very calculative and lacking of emotion. Inside her head, she was thinking that if she could manage to get a hold of the blueprints of this fascinating machine, she might be able to use it to create something amazing.

"Of course," Jack answered with a grin, taking a seat, the alcohol making him forget about his rotten luck and participate in what was always going to be a failure. But Jack had something against just failing - if he was going to fail, he'd do it with flair. The barmaid delivered his beer as the community cards were flipped and he managed to convince her to help him play the hand from his lap.

Picking up his cards he asked her, "What do you think? Raise?" 

"Fold," she whispered. His hand was abysmal. He nodded in understanding.

"All in!" He declared loudly, dramatically thrusting his chips into the middle of the table and causing the barmaid to giggle.

A group of men had just recently entered the bar, and hearing the declaration of free drinks, had joined in on the cheering along with everyone else, taking their own respective glasses. What made these men stand out from the rest, is that if one was paying attention, they were still wearing uniforms that would denote that they worked at the university of piltover. The only odd thing about that is simply that ordinarily, a professor would never allow themselves to be caught in a bar like this, so it was a bit odd to anyone who didn't know about what happened inside the facility.

--------

Martin witnessed the crash, and held back a laugh as the quiet book girl was almost hit. Of course he wouldn't have laughed if she were hit, but he found it funny just how close she was. He decided to keep watching as it happened.

Crystal on the other hand had looked back, but had to keep going. It wasn't the weirdest thing she'd seen in this city so far, but it still caught her attention, "Geez, people need to be more careful..." She said as she made her way away from the group with her groceries.

All in? The captain must be confident in his hand. However, Will was pretty sure his was better. Besides, he never backed down from a challenge. "Alright, Capn', let's make this all or nothing." The man grinned as he pushed all his chips into the middle.

Something caught in the corner of his eye and his grin faltered. He scrutinized the men at the bar before turning to his captain, "What's some pansy ass professors from the academy doing in a place like this?"

----

Aera yelped in surprise, stumbling back with a tiny splash of water. Her magic ability activating in her surprise. The girl looked at the contraption with furrowed eyes and such concentration that would almost seem like she was glaring. It was then that she remembered her precious book and the water that appeared when she fell back. She quickly checked to make sure the book was unharmed before standing and attempting to dust herself off. Too bad most of got on her was mud and would not be easily removed.

"Um, no," said Pricilla; to the girl who seemed to be eying her invention.

She'd had bad experiences in the past; when her inventions had been rather horribly misused. She wasn't going to trust anyone with blueprints for her inventions any time soon.

Having given her answer, she turned her attention to the girl she'd nearly squished.

"Hey, book-girl! Are you alright?" she asked. "Sorry about nearly squishing you,"

--

Mei grinned at the man passing out drinks. It seemed that he had guessed she was deliberately attempting to get everyone in the bar drunk. Well no matter; surely he wouldn't guess her reason for doing so.

She turned her attention to the men entering the bar. They didn't seem to be the sort that normally frequented places like this. Clearly they would be an easy source of information.

She hopped down from the bar, and headed in their direction.

Jack shrugged uncaringly. The alcohol in his system stopped him thinking about the money he had almost certainly lost. He eyed the professors across the bar and shrugged with an uncaring grin. Despite the external appearance of inebriated bliss, Jack decided not to order any more alcohol. His mind was whirring, fighting through the fog of inhibition to analyse the situation. 

"Ahh," the Captain sighed, dropping his cards to the table and turning his head towards the suspicious people. "I'm sure they're just here to party with us big dogs," he assured with a grin and continued with a giggle, "although we arrrrrrrrr fearsome pirates, we can kick their arrrrrrses if we need to." As pirates went, the Captain and Willard were quite the bar-fighting team; even when they were drunk they destroyed for fun.

Fult poured himself a drink while sitting in Captains chair in the ship which he stole sometime back and was now floating at the skies aimlessly. He read the letter which the secret order had sent to him, same time tasting the drink, he set down the letter. " Inventor ship's to sink from sky... a Lending hand or two would be nice...." Taking another sip off the drink while looking at lump of ice which he had set down in captains cabin with shadow of object inside.

He set down the drink while got up from captain's chair. Stepping outside to deck heading to wheel. Few charred spots on the deck after his take over. After Reaching the wheel he set his eyes on compass before spun the ships wheel to make ship turn toward northeast.

"No rest for the wicked.."

Already drinking from their glasses, the various professors were laughing about something. They seemed to be celebrating something, "... great win for science today indeed!" one of the men nudged the other and the looked at the approaching girl, "Why hello there! Is there something I can help you with young lady?" he gave her a big grin.

----

Martin took another bite from his apple before walking over to the site of the crash, "You know, you should try to extort her for money," he said so blatantly, keeping his face straight, "After all, she nearly killed you,"

"My name is Aera," The girl answered simply, not bothering to glance at the others as she put away her book into her bag. When she heard Martin's words, she tilted her head thoughtfully, "Oh, was she really going to kill me? Huh," She turned her head to Pricilla, "Are you by chance an assassin? I've never met an assassin before."

----

Willard laughed heartily, slapping the table, "Right you are Cap'n." Still, something about those men spelled bad news. Will kept his ears open just in case as he continued to play poker and soundly trounce his Captain in this game of chance.

"W-what? No! I'd never kill anyone!" said Pricilla. "Sorry to disappoint; but I'm just an inventor,"

She paused; realizing that she'd forgotten to introduce herself. It was rather rude of her; especially considering the girl had just introduced herself.

"My name is Dr Pricilla Cogs; or, if you need a nickname, Dr. Pi," she said. "Soon to be Professor Pi if I get that job at the university,"

Nobody really called her Dr. Pi; but she was sure it would eventually catch on. It was certainly better than her other nickname.

--

"Tell me more about this 'great win for science'; and I might just give you the honor of spending more time in my awesome presence!" said Mei.

She knew it was only a matter of time before they talked; for no one could possibly withstand her amazing skills of seduction! She'd never really attempted to seduce information out of anyone before; but she was sure she was doing an amazing job of it.

"Ahh, she's interested in our inventions, Professor!" The man that had addressed her directly said.

"Well then, Professor, why don't you tell her about it? Soon everyone will know anyway!" He laughed loudly, and some of the others followed suit.

"Well little lady, what we've done today is perfect our ultimate defense against evil wizards and monsters! If one of them comes around and threatens the town, they'll have another thing coming!" He then patted the top of her hat before returning to his colleagues, and downing a half full glass of beer.

-----------------------_--------

Martin snorted from holding in a laugh. An assassin? That was too good. What kind of assassin would crash into you? "So Dr. Pi huh? That's neat. And you, did you just use water magic a second ago?" Martin asked Aera, pointing at her, "I like magic, except when it's being used on me. Why don't we all be friends, so long as none of you are..." he fought off a laugh, "assassins, and all that,"

----------_---------------------

Crystal had made it home without incident, and left off all of her groceries and such. Having succeeded in this simple task, she was now on her way to the church. She would find the priest of her church, and intended on talking with him about maybe trying to find a peaceful resolution with the university. It was only a matter of time until she succeeded, after all, as far as she was concerned.

With a slightly exaggerated sigh of disgust, Jack stood up and left the table. "Eh, Willard, matey, I'm gonna go see what these shady bastards are up to. If you come over, let's wait until we're finished with the questioning before we beat on the motherfuckers, right," he paused briefly, "or mostly, at least."

Jack sauntered over to Mei and threw an arm around her shoulders as if he knew her. "Greetings, friends! What brings you good gentlemen - and fine lady - here?"

"So you're not an assassin," She sounded genuinely disappointed at this fact. Her interest in this woman dropped about 50%. Oh well, maybe if she's lucky, she'd get to meet an actual assassin. Aera blinked when the man spoke to her, "That's good, I enjoy magic as well," she then tilted her head in thought, "Sadly, I'm not an assassin. How does one become an Assassin?"

---

Will growled in disgust at what he heard those bastards from the academy say. He really hated people like that. It seemed Jack had heard them as well as he let known his own disgust at those meant, "Right, I've got your back Cap'n." One wrong move and those prissy scientists were dead, Willard thought as he followed Jack. Though he wasn't quite as friendly as his Captain was.

Pricilla stared at the strange person she'd just almost squished. Something was downright strange about this girl; and she wasn't sure what to make of her. Who in their right mind would actually want to be an assassin?

However, she had bigger things to worry about at the moment. She turned towards the man offering to be her friend.

"I would very much like to be your friend if you're the kind of friend who watches a girl's invention while she goes to fetch something to clean it up with," she said.

She paused for a moment, then added.

"It's already patented; but I'd prefer not to come back to find that all that's left is the frame," she said.

If there was one downside to living in a town full of mad scientists; it was their tendency to scavenge any mechanical parts they could get their hands on. 

--

Mai frowned as she heard what the men were working on. On one hand; a weapon against monsters could prove really useful; especially if a certain monster she was hunting happened to be nearby.

On the other hand; this sounded like something that would most likely be turned against most magic users. And her scroll was magic powered.

As she prepared to ask them more questions about what was going on, however; a strange man suddenly put his arm around her. She had no idea how to react to this. Her brain pretty much went into stand by mode for a moment.

Then....

"What are you doing?" she said, to Jack. "I believe you've mistaken me for an armrest. That is a mistake you will soon regret..."

She started to reach for her scroll.

Fult snapped his fingers causing the mana bombs which he had placed on the engineer ship explode, causing ship to fall down from sky with several other explosions. that was fifth ship so far he had demolished after he had received the orders. he had experimented best ways to destroy a ship he came across.

He didn't even blink as he watched the ship slowly sink and fall from sky. he of course had filled his ship cargo with food from each ship he destroyed. acting stranded sailor.

The professors turned back to the new lad, and it was clear to them he had already had quite the fill on drink. A couple of them seemed reserved to interact with one of the 'brutes' of the bar, but the one who had spoken to the girl spoke again, in a very cheery voice, "Why, it's a celebration good sir! Can't a few men have a drink in a bar and have a good time if they're feeling the mood?" He laughed heartily and slapped one of his fellows on the back. The man had a long mustache that seemed to quiver with each laugh. The man that had his back slapped gave a soft 'hoho' at the other man's comment, before fixing his glasses.

"By the way, I think you've offended the young lass here," someone passed him another full glass of beer and he took a big drink from it.

---------------------------_-------------

"Ahh, you want to become an assassin?" Martin asked, and he made his tone super serious, "Well, I hear that the only way to do that is to kill someone. Then when you go to bed, the murderous group of assassins will send someone to meet you in your sleep, and they recruit you in that manner," he made a hand gesture that would probably come off kind of silly.

He then smiled and turned to Pricilla, "You want me to babysit your machine? Well, as a token of our new friendship, I shall do you this favor!" He made an over-exaggerated bow, "I will perform this duty with utmost precision,"

------_----------------------------------

Crystal made it to the church, and took a moment in front of the big double doors out front. Ah, this building really brings back memories. But now was not the time for that. She had already gushed at the nostalgic feeling and longing for old memories yesterday. Today, she was already comfortable in home, and ready to start working. She gently pushed open the large doors, and made her way in.

"Father!" she called out, "Are you there?"

"Ah, Crystal my child. You are finally here," an old man, clearly garbed in priest's clothing, stepped out from a side corridor. 

"I am not late, am I?" Crystal asked, actually worried for a moment.

"No, no. Do not worry," The priest chuckled, "Rather, I was early. Now, we must get to work. Today feels important, doesn't it?"

"It does... James," Crystal smiled warmly, and the priest just shook his head. If things went well, Crystal thought, this would be a very important day indeed. She needed to start working her own kind of 'magic', and convince Father James to begin a peaceful negotiation with the university.