"Well, you girls told me Luviagelita has been the one building, mining, and lumberjacking, correct?" - Shirou deadpanned
"Yes, so?" - Luvia turned to look at him as he continued.
"And that means she spends a lot of time outside of the compound, yet she has hardly been attacked, correct?"
"That... uh." - Rin pauses and takes a step back to look at herself. She's covered in snake blood and bile all the way up her arms and almost to her elbows.
"I am sure you bathe as often as you can, of course, and doubtlessly also clean and polish your armor, right? But an animal's nose is much more sensitive than a person's, so just because you can't smell anything, it doesn't means an animal can't.
"...miss Edelfelt, would you mind assisting my research into freshening mysteries when we make it back to base?"
"Alright." - Luvia smiles gently, then turns around to look to the East as she feels something in that direction.- "You know, I think we may want to give some serious thought to Sherou's theory."
Mei turns around following Luvia's line of sight, and sees two small, pointy things standing up over the top of the nearest dune. Two small and pointy things seem to sway from side to side, growing longer and thicker as the blonde and the redhead stare at them, then suddenly shake from side to side while keeping the exact same distance no matter what.
It took them a couple of moments but they call it out simultaneously.- "Horns? Horns!"
Indeed, it is a couple of horns, and as they keep watching, the head they're attached to finally becomes visible over the dune's edge. It's just a moment... just a moment, but Luvia would have sworn she was looking at a triceratops' head until the mouth came in sight. The long horns come from atop the eyes and point up and forth, with a wide parietal frill stretching back to cover the neck. The mouth, however, is clearly a carnivore's, a round and wide maw that looks completely out of place on such a massive thing. Its almost comically cute, with the roundness on it that would make one think of a frog's mouth until the lips peel away to reveal rows of triangular teeth reminiscent of a massive shark's.
Mei is frozen, and so is Shirou. It takes Luvia another couple of moments before she remembers where she's seen such a head, albeit bereft of flesh or bone, nothing but the basic structure, albeit with a much longer somewhat thinner snout. Also, it was six or seven times the size.- "Rin, leave the carcass and start walking west." - she calls.
"What, wh-?" - Rin turns around to look at Luvia and spots the bus-sized 'cub' coming over the dune's crest at them. No, not a cub, but a wyrmling. A baby dragon. And it isn't alone, as its sibling let out surprisingly cute noises while complaining and running up to catch to its more adventurous counterpart, spreading sand everywhere as they strut around with the knowledge that they are the absolute masters of everything in sight.- "Alright."
The party just drops what they're doing and starts walking away as the wyrmlings approach and casually begin to nibble on the body. It might actually qualify as cute if it wasn't because the 'little bites' they're taking are each the size of a sheep, and they seem quite capable of swallowing them with no effort at all. Now that they're busy with the snake's body, the group can gaze at them from the side, and see that they do indeed look dinosaur-like, though in a disturbing chimera-like manner, with the maws of a t-rex, the head of a triceratops and the tail of a stegosaurus.
"No wings." - observes Rin as she wipes herself clean as best she can, the party gazing at the wyrmlings feeding off the body, equally awed and interested by the sight.- "The skeleton in the arena didn't have wings either, but I thought the Giant Kings removed them so it couldn't escape or threaten the spectators.
"Hm? You expected them to have wings?" - Shirou is just as interested as the girls, but he hasn't seen the scaled-up skeleton of the undead dragon, so for him, these are simply dinosaurs. It's hardly the strangest thing he's seen since arriving here, so why would he think anything else?- "Why?"
"I mean, they're dragons." - is all the answer Luvia gives him, which prompts him to take a second look.
"They look like an armored hippopotamus. Sure, armored and carnivore hippos with dinosaur heads and tails, but that doesn't really scream out 'dragon' to me."
"Well, the grownups can breathe fire." - Is Rin's comment, and that's enough to end the discussion right there and then.
"So... I think these are what the snake was hunting." - Mei chirps out her contribution, which seems to be widely agreed with.- "It was hiding in the dune they just came over from, and these seem just the right size for a good meal."
"Snakes typically catch whatever is big enough to slide down their gullet, then retreat to digest their food. Something this size... yes, I could see it making a living out of them, depending on how quickly they spawn. Uh..." - Shirou seems thoughtful for a moment.- "So that's what the snake eats, but what do these normally feed on?"
"Giant scorpions?" - Mei answers right away.
"Fair, and let's not go into what those feed on, the river isn't that far away and I could see a lost gazelle or some other animal make its way into the city, assuming the skeletons don't chase them off." - Rin seems to agree with the idea as she finishes wiping herself clean and throws away the rag.
"Hmphr?" - a loud, inquisitive snort comes out from behind them, and the entire group turns around to discover a third dragon wyrmling standing behind them, swaying its head and snorting repeatedly as it tries to shake the bloody cloth off its horns while also trying to reach for it with its tongue, which everyone could tell from this distance, had tiny (relative to size) barbs on it, somewhat reminding Luvia of a cat she used to have.
"Let's just... walk *that* way." - Shirou points North, back towards the central plaza and, more importantly, the transport obelisk in the middle of it.
The wyrmling finally catches the cloth with its tongue, and rips it down, starting to chew on it, enjoying the taste of snake blood on it while trying to get rid of the last bit of the cloth that got dragged down toward the base of its left horn.
Sure, they were going to return on foot so they could stop by the sewage plant on the way back, but if there's ever been a good time for just disappearing from sight, being sandwiched between three (baby) dragons definitively qualifies as it.
"█▄▄▀▀█!?" - An odd, inhuman sound came out of the wyrmling as it grew frustrated with the rag, its siblings immediately stopping what they were doing, straightening up and turning towards the call.- "▄▄█!"
"We're running, we're running now!" - Rin grabs Mei and... it would be incorrect to say she stands her up and begins to run because what the raven-haired magus did was grab a friend while reinforcing herself, tossing said friend unto her shoulders and bolting out of there so fast the dune exploded behind her, Shirou and Luvia as the three broke into a mad dash towards the monolith, and not a second too soon as the house-sized head of the mother dragon (1) rose from behind the eastern dune, its golden eyes fixating on its offspring mewling before gazing upon the group.
It was at this point when Luvia and Rin realized that it is a completely different matter to Gandr a dragon trapped like a fish in a barrel, and something completely different to get stared down by one on the open field, with nothing to hide behind or run to.
Shirou, on the other hand, froze as he gazed at the spear sticking off the dragon's head. A long and impossibly well-crafted weapon of something known as Star Metal, something he felt like cheering when after analyzing it, a copy manifested inside his soul.
The group reached the obelisk and teleported home.
~O~
"So, that happened." - Luviagelita sighed as she sat at the edge of her 'map room' as soon as the dizziness of teleporting went away.
"Thank you, lady Rin." - Mei thanked the ravenette while looking with interest at the large model of the region in the middle of the room, each region showing a different obelisk in its middle, some of which were glowing a soft blue.
"What do you think the dragon eats, normally?" - Shirou smirked as he took a good deep breath and stood up straight.
"Whatever it wants." - replied Luvia without thinking about it twice.
"Well, since we haven't seen hordes of... wait what do you call a group of dragons, a horde? Swarm sounds disrespectful." - Shirou began to say, then lost steam halfway through.
"A pack of dragons? I'd call that apocalyptic." - Rin reached into her bracelet and took out Mei's waterskin to take another gulp of water, then promptly spit it out when the taste of the snake juices reaches her tongue.- "Sorry Mei, I'll wash it before I give it back, or make you a new one."
"Pride. A pack of flying dragons is called a flight, but a pack of non-flying dragons is called a pride, same as a group of lions." - offers Luvia in a matter-of-fact way.- "What?" - she asks after noticing her friend's stares.- "Its only the most famous of all phantasmals, Rin. I'm surprised you *don't* know that."
"I was trying to lighten the mood." - Rin replied, and seemed to think about something for a moment.- "Why do you ask, Shirou?"
"Because we just killed the ambush super predator that was keeping their numbers low, didn't we? I'd like to have the terminology in place, just in case."
"""...!"""
~O~
After everyone had a bath and a change of clothes, they are having dinner in the manor, enjoying a spread of Shirou's food while talking about their future plans.
"...and this is called a dinner dress?" - well, Mei is a bit more focused on how amazingly soft and beautiful her new dress (courtesy of Rin) is. A dark strawberry-red dress to match her hair, and a long slit over the left leg and hip, with a tight corset at its core to stay in place despite it having no shoulder straps. The lemurian warrior is both fascinated and skittish as a child, as this is the first time she's wearing something for no other reason that 'it looks pretty.'
"Yes, but you could also call it a cocktail dress, though those are events usually held at dinner time anyway." - Rin confirms, herself wearing a white blouse with a tall neck, exposed shoulders no cleavage, and a short pencil skirt.
"I think this is the most... womanly piece of clothing I've ever owned. Thank you again, lady Tohsaka."
"Uhm. Maybe we should get you a bracelet? It'll get wrinkled and can get damaged if you keep it in your backpack."
"...!" - Mei freezes for a moment, then smiles.- "I'll think about it."
"Ah... Rin, almost every human skeleton you've seen in the giant's city was a lemurian slave..." - explains Shirou
"I... you are right. If I offended you somehow, I am sorry Mei."
"You did not suggest anything with ill intention, and Shirou told me you are working on a way to break the curse of control the giant kings placed on the bracelets. When you succeed, I'll be happy to wear one, as you have all proved just how useful they can be."
"Let's toast to that and hope that day is soon." - proposes Luvia as she raises her wine glass, her royal blue dress an elegant and fluttery affair.
Shirou smiles when he remembers that out of the two, it is Rin who's in charge of their clothes and armor, so it was her who thought it'd look good on Luvia and tailored it for her. It is a very obvious reminder of how much their relationship has improved over the last two months.
"Alright," -he says after he notices everyone has finally finished their dinner.- "I guess I'll be the one to say it. What do we do about the dragons in the Nameless City?"
"Why do we have to do something about them?" - asks Mei as she looks at him, somewhat confused, which leads to Luvia explaining food chains and what it means for the godsnake to be gone.
"On the other hand, we don't know if that thing was the only thing keeping the dragon population down. I mean, it was just the one creature, and you can't have an ecosystem out of a single predator on top." - explains Rin as she refills her glass.- "If it wasn't us, it would have been something else. Perhaps the mother dragon would catch it in the act one day, or it could simply perish to old age. Besides, the dragon themselves have been around for God knows how long, so they're definitively embedded in the food chain themselves. Removing them would be just as bad, or maybe worse. We don't know."
"So what do you think we should do?" - Shirou frowns as he tries to come up with a plan.
"The responsible thing to do would be to stick around long-term as we study the situation and gain a thorough understanding of the local food chain. And I don't mean just waiting for the next shoe to drop, but talking to the locals about dragon sightings, the largest creatures in the area, and other such things. The rushed patchwork fix would be to just kill the wyrmlings ourselves, but we certainly can't stick around forever to start a dragon population control." - explains Luvia
"Can't we though?" - Shirou comments after a couple of moments of everyone mulling the issue over.- "I mean, a dragon's body has to be a treasure trove of reagents and materials, right? Properly managed it would be an enormous source of wealth in the region."
"I very much doubt the people in Sepermeru would have the restraint or foresight to not just hunt them into extinction, Sherou."
"I doubt they could take down an adult, though." - supplied Mei
"Wait, when did we switch from worrying about the dragons getting out of control to them getting poached?" - Rin asked while holding both hands in front of her, then moving them to hold her head as she thought on the conversation so far.
"I guess... we don't really need to do anything?" - Shirou's voice kind of broke off a little bit by the end.
"Says who? If anyone is going to harvest a dragon for parts, it is going to be us!" - declares Rin as she stands up with both hands on the table.
"A~h..." - Luvia - "As expected."
"I thought as much." - Shirou
"I don't really get it, but I think I'm going to help you!" - Mei
"Hn! First, we need a good map of the Unnamed City. The whole purpose of sending people here is to have them comb through the ruins and they've been doing that for... how long now?" - Rin looks towards the lemurian redhead
"Almost 2 years now." - Mei contributes with a smile
"Right, so they must have maps of pretty much everywhere by now, as well as knowledge on where to avoid and such-"
"Rin," - Shirou gently sits her back down, rubbing her shoulders and smooching her cheek.- "its not an immediate concern."
"Eh?" - the ravenette looks at her beloved idiot with mild confusion.
"Its not something for today or tomorrow. We have other plans already. We can start worrying about that after we help Razma's people escape, and then we still need to escort the supplies and workers to Xel-Ha."
"Eh?" - Rin blinks twice at him.
"The city of Mei's people."
"Ah, r-right." - she nods softly, then looks over to Mei across the table as she calms down.- "Sorry, I got a bit excited."
"I am not sure why it is you want to fight that thing, but it definitively makes me think of you as a daring warrior despite your delicate appearance and manners." - the girl smiles
"Yes, Rin's a regular japanese princess. Delicate, that fits her perfectly." - Luvia tries to hold back a little chuckle
"What happened to 'miss gorilla'?" - Rin deadpans
"Well, it was a good jab. I mean, it successfully pissed you off, didn't it?" - Luvia smiles gently, and looks at Rin through bedroom eyes - "And seeing your reactions was always fun."
"U~h y-you are as b-bad as Shirou!" - She stutters, blushing bright red and turning away.
"Eh? I'm not as bad as Luvia? I must try harder." - Shirou smiles at her freezing and blushing.- "Luvia, did you know Rin's into shibari?"
"What is that? Is it delicious?" - Mei is the one to answer him while Luvia tries to remember where, if at all, had she heard such a word.
"Shirou, you idiot!"
"It is delicious on her." - he nods sagely.
~O~
The following morning, Shirou's black eye is almost gone. Sure, he could have forced it to heal, but he figures the look will help mollify Rin a little bit, and that's always fun.
"Mei, good morning. Do you want to go hunting with me?" - he greets his friend as he finds her in the kitchen, already up and waiting for him.
"Sure. Are we looking for anything in specific?"
"Well, now that I know the food will keep inside the bracelet, I want to prepare some nice meat soup and see what happens."
"I can accept that it'll keep warm, but won't it spill everywhere? What is the bracelet like, inside? Do things just float there or what?" - the lemurian gives him a somewhat confused look.
"Let's find out." - he picks up a glass and fills it with water, then stores it inside his bracelet and takes it out. The glass is still just as full.- "Seems to keep just fine."
"Try moving your arm around, shake it."
"Fair."
They are still trying things out when Luvia climbs up and into the kitchen, wearing a casual, light dress and wooden sandals.
"Sherou? What are you doing?" - she pauses at the top of the stairs as she sees him shaking his arm in various directions
"Seeing if the glass of water I stored inside it will spill."
"...alright."
He takes the glass of water out of his bracelet's storage, and sips from it, then shrugs and empties it before cleaning it and returning it to the shelf.
"I guess we can carry soup on it." - he declares with satisfaction.
"Oh. Are you cooking, Sherou?"
"I was thinking about making a bit of a food reserve, yes."
"It won't keep, though. It will still spoil after enough time has passed." - explains the blonde.- "Yes, even if it is still hot."
"I feel like somebody half-assed an important feature on these things." - he says while looking at his bracelet with a frown.
Well, when the bracelets were created, nobody thought they'd function as a survival aid one day. Their original purpose was to act as translation tools and facilitate the trade of goods and knowledge, so perhaps Shirou is being a little unfair.
"Are we still heading out to hunt?" - Mei looks at him
"Yes, I'd still like to take down a large ...wait, is a male antelope still called a stag?"
"You can call it that, I won't mind." - says Luvia as she looks around the kitchen and notices her friends have been eating fruit and drinking juice, so she heads over, takes a plate of grapes and begins picking at it.- "Besides, I'd like to try more of Sherou's food." - she comments
"Well, I want to try cooking some venison steaks, so yes, we are heading out to hunt. What... never mind, you and Rin are going to stay in bed to read through those books, aren't you?"
"Obviously."
"Alright, make sure she at least cleans herself up before lunch."
"She's not that bad." - smiles Luvia
"You have never seen her with a new book."
"Uhm~ we'll see. Have a good hunt."
With that, the three of them finish breakfast, though Luvia seems quite happy to take a plate of various fruits back down for Rin, as well as a bottle of wine and one of regular juice, leaving Mei and Shirou to organize their hunting expedition.
~O~
"Why are there pirates in the middle of the desert?" - Mei asks while rubbing the sides of her head.
"I mean, he's wearing a bracelet so he's probably only recently ran away from Sepermeru? I am somewhat surprised the king of Stygia hasn't given up on sending pirates and expecting them to work, honestly."
Indeed, their hunt had gone rather well, with Shirou easily sniping a large bull (2) from across the river, and both Mei and himself swimming over to dismantle the body. Everything was going well, or as well as it can go when you are hunting in an area full of hyenas, giant spiders, and crocodiles when a surprisingly drunk somebody called down at them from above the cliff immediately next to them.
"Hey! Kid! Leave my deer alone, that's mine!" - Now, Shirou is not the type to be loaded with prejudice, but righteousness and good intentions will only go so far when faced with a man in black pants, open white shirt, red bandana on his scalp and a hook where his right hand should go, plus a navy saber whose history screamed 'I belong to a pirate.' The pirate burped and grinned at him and Mei.- "I shot it!"
Mei was already reaching for her spear when Shirou stopped her.
"You know what? Fine." - he placed a hand on Mei's shoulder and squeezed gently.- "Come on Mei, we can find another just as quick."
"But... pirate." - she replied softly
"Talk about it later."
And so they got up and abandoned the carcass, walking off after the herd and hoping they hadn't run too far away once they realized nobody was following them. This brings us full circle to their conversation.
"Why are there pirates in the middle of the desert?" - Mei asks while rubbing the sides of her head.
"I mean, he's wearing a bracelet so he's probably only recently ran away from Sepermeru? I am somewhat surprised the king of Stygia hasn't given up on sending pirates and expecting them to work, honestly."
"Alright, why didn't we kill him?"
"His sword didn't have any blood on it. I mean, innocent blood. Sure, he used it during his escape from Sepermeru, but you can't blame a slave for that. And since then, he's wandered about and more importantly, met with a bunch of his peers."
"...so, we're following him to their base?"
"We are following him to their base. But just so we can take a look for now. Check if they have prisoners, slaves, that sort of thing." - replies Shirou.- "After finding another buck, of course. Should give the guy enough time to get some distance and feel safe before we start tracking him down."
"I am surprised nothing ate him yet."
"I'm not. The way he smells, I'm sure the hyenas ran away." - Shirou delivers as dry as he can, earning him a mild slap on the shoulder and a chuckle from his fellow redhead.
"Alright. So... can you explain to me what shebarri means?" - she asks while climbing onto a boulder to take a look into the distance, looking for the gazelle's herd.
"Ah... my country has its own traditions on erotica."
"Wh-" - the lemurian redhead needs to catch herself, lest she falls off the rock as she was trying to stand on top of it.- "Alright, now you're telling me everything, or I just won't forgive you!" - she declares as she finally manages to stand up straight on the rock, pointing at him repeatedly with her right arm.
"Yes, yes. Do you see the herd?"
"Hey, you can't just say something like that and then change the subject!"
In the end, he did indeed tell her. And she did spot the herd.
A second shot took down a large buck, and once again dispersed the gazelles as they fled completely out of sight towards the North. They walked over, with Shirou shooting down two hyenas who weren't able to resist the temptation of free food as from their point of view the animal had just dropped dead for no understandable reason. Sure, it had three horns instead of two all of a sudden, but hyenas are hardly the most discriminating of eaters. A three-horned gazelle is probably just as good as your regular two-horned garden variety, even if the third horn is oddly straight and thin. And with feathers near the tip.
"You know, hyena meat is pretty soft, but tastes awful." - comments Mei as she appreciates the clean shots.
"Carnivores typically don't have a good taste unless you prepare the meat just right."
"Could you?"
"What?"
"Prepare it right. Could you? I am curious."
"Not for lunch. This is the meat of a carrion eater, it'd take at least five or six hours of high-temperature boiling to kill everything that could make you si... uh."
"What is it?"
"Well, you are pretty tough, I'm not sure you could get sick from eating it raw so you might be alright either way..." -he pauses on his dismantling of the hyena to look at Mei up and down.
"You realize you're at the right height for kicking right now, correct?"
"You realize I'm the one deciding everyone's portions during lunch and dinner, right?" - he counters without pause.
"...you are lucky you are cute."
'Seriously though, I don't think I've ever seen anyone sick since I got here. Age of the Gods people are amazing.' - Shirou smiles and goes back to dismantling the animals.- 'Seen plenty of drunkards, though.'
He's quite thankful that the bracelet can differentiate 'hyena meat' from 'gazelle meat', because he really wants to leave the hyena meat to boil for the evening before trying anything with it.
~O~
"It's a ship." - Mei feels like her common sense is being challenged by what's ahead.
"It's a ship." - Shirou nods sagely as they lay down at the edge of a cliff and look down at the pirate ship.
A pirate ship made from stone, at the top of a massive stone neddle, in the middle of a canyon, in the middle of the desert, complete with masts, sails and ropes hanging from said masts. There's a long bridge of rope and wooden planks hanging over the canyon on each side of the ship, connecting it to the plateaus North and South of itself, with a large pirate campsite at the end of each bridge.
"I have so many questions." - Mei feels like her world has grown large, wide, and weird ever since meeting the young man by her side, but if she started counting the number of amazing things she's seen over the last few months, she'd run out of numbers pretty soon.
That's another thing. he's taught her to use numbers so big they aren't real, and it has somehow made her noticeably more aware of the world, somehow. Numbers.
But a massive stone ship resting atop a stone needle in the middle of the desert? This takes the prize. She can deal with seeing dragons, monsters, and what not. Those are sensible things, living things, which she can accept as just things she hadn't seen before.
"This is stupid." - she finally voices her exact feelings.- "It is a stone ship. In the middle of the desert. Why would they carve something like this? How many of them died to carve this hundreds of feet in the air? WHY did they do it? It's... it's stupid!"
Shirou just smiles as he waits for his friend to cool down and go back to normal. He has to admit, it is pretty stupid, but it is also pretty cool.
'I wish I had a camera or a cellphone to record this. Does that make me a bad person?' - he thinks as he watches Mei have a two-minutes meltdown.
"Calm down, deep breaths. In and out, there you go... can you see anything from here?"
"Other than the stupid stone ship?"
"Other than that, yes."
"Alright, alright... " - she lays back down and tries to focus on the pirates. In their campsites, right next to the stupid ship.- "Why are they sleeping on tents if they bothered to carve that thing, anyway?"
"Not enough space? There seems to be a lot of them,"
"I guess so... and yes, they seem to have some people in cages... I guess they learned nothing from being slaves themselves." - complained Mei.
"Well, that means I can't just Caladbolg them into the afterlife, then. Would get their victims too."
"So, what are we going to do?"
"We are going back. I need to prepare lunch and set the fire for the hyena meat. And we're going to ask Rin and Luvia for their help."
"Hn. I get the distinct feeling they'll be happy you did not just run in and try to fight them on your own."
"Rin, mostly. Luvia hasn't seen me do that sort of thing."
"Oh, I told her about it, and so did Rin."
"Eh!? When did you three have the time for that?"
"You really go into your own world when you're cooking." - she smiles at her friend, and begins heading back to base.
"Uhm~ gugh!" - he suddenly stumbles and falls to his knee, overcome by a deep sense of 'duh!' as he remembers something important.
"Shirou, are you alright?" - Mei is moving to help him when he facepalms and dirties his face further after the faceplant on the dirt.
"We could build a large Wheel of Pain and turn them into thralls. The ones that surrender or survive, anyway. We don't need to kill them." - he points out, a finger raised for emphasis before he stands up slowly, not even bothering to wipe himself clean.
"Yes?" - Mei looks unimpressed.
"Why didn't you think of it? Isn't it your people's standard punishment for pirates or something?"
"More of a criminal thing than a pirate-exclusive thing, really. And its always more dangerous trying to take captives than it is to just try and kill someone." - she replies matter-of-factly.
"So basically you didn't mention it because it would be safer if we didn't try it."
"Well, I'm not going to try, and feel like I already know your friends enough to know that neither lady Tohsaka nor lady Edelfelt will try particularly hard, either. Safe is better, after all."
"...I think they're a bad influence on you."
"Maybe I'm a bad influence on them, you know?"
"No, no... I'm pretty sure it's their fault."
His friend smiles and gently dusts him off, standing before him as she does so in a surprisingly sisterly manner that causes Shirou to rub at the back of his head while she does so.
"If anything, I think you should prioritize rescuing their prisoners, Shirou." - she states calmly as she rubs a thumb covered in drool over his cheek to get rid of the dirt there.
"You know what? That's fair. I still want to try building a Wheel though, just in case there's anyone alive afterwards. Anyone we could save, I want to save."
"Hm~ alright." - she says as she rises to the ball of her feet to ruffle his hair a little
"Just like that?"
"Sure. I'm sure you'll give preference to our safety first anyway, so when the fight starts, you'll be less worried about pampering the pirates than over keeping us safe."
"...you..."
"Yes?" - she gives him a completely innocent smile, and grabs him by the hand, beginning to walk back towards the outpost.
Shirou sighs, and gives up. He truly can't win an argument against strong girls, can he?
Author Notes:
I feel like I didn't explain the stone ship right… its just so dumb it is hard to explain. From the front, I guess it'll look like this ████_█_████ with the block on either side being plain/mesa, then the canyon and the river at the bottom, with a fuckhuge rock mesa in the middle, then more river, then another mesa. So basically its a solid stone fortress with just the fragile rope bridges as only way to access it. The bridges are fairly long too, so they'd be easy to cut or let go of to send any invaders down into the river. Honestly, they were really good at choosing a spot for their stronghold. But why the hell did they carve it into a ship. Its just so… dumb. It is cool though, which is what I'm sure the guys at FUNCOM were going for, but just trying to imagine a bunch of pirates hanging with ropes as they chip away at the rock to try and carve a ship out of it seems so extremely unlikely to me, I can't wrap my head around it.
I'd recommend you take a look at a youtube video called "Conan Exiles / Treasure Hunt - Black Hand Landship" to see what the damn cool and stupid thing looks like.
It's smart, yet so stupid. But it is also effective, so is it stupid if it works? Is it stuffective? Did FUNCOM fail successfully when deciding to use this idea?
Yes, this is a setup/transition chapter as we point out 'hey, there be dragons, fo real!' and get ready to 'visit' the Black Hand pirates' stronghold in the desert. Also, I think Mei is somehow transitioning from potential love interest into older sister territory as of late. A very incest-minded older sister, mind you.
To be fair, the cave full of sorcery books is canon. I have steered away from coming up with original characters and such, but using all of the canon stuff to tell a coherent story, so yeah... the cave full of sorcery books is real, and you need to go in there if you want to learn sorcery in Conan Exiles. Which by the way, how come the low-level spells require human blood but the higher level ones require beast or demon blood? I like to roleplay as the good guy or girl, and this barred me from learning sorcery. Couldn't it be the other way around, with human blood being the price for high-end power? Hell, those blood vials use the exact same empty vials as the regular potions, and those fit neatly in a character's hand, as shown whenever you chug a healing potion in-game, so it can't be that much blood, I'm pretty sure my character could survive filling a flask with it semi-regularly. My character can survive a 100m fall with 1/2 its hp, I'm sure it can survive filling a coffee cup with blood.
Also... why the fuck does the Dragon Armor requires no dragon leather? It requires dragon bone, though. And while at that, how come that out of a fuckhuge dragon, we get not a single bit of dragon leather? We get lots of bat hide out of the bat monsters, and there's NO recipe that uses bat skin either so that's no excuse.
1 - Known as The Red Mother in-game, btw. She drops some pretty interesting stuff, such as a two-handed sword with 100% armor penetration, and other unique legendary items. Personally I am confused by the loot table on it since it seems all I ever get is the legendary torch that lasts for about 10000 hours but most importantly for Shirou, the Blood Spear, which gives regeneration to its wielder. Now, in-game it's... less than amazing since it only heals you 1hp per second and in-game you typically have about 400hp and can take about 60 damage per blow, but in-character? I think Shirou would love it. Finally a weapon he can just hand out to a wounded friend and watch as that person's wounds start knitting themselves together.
2 - I was unable to find the word for male gazelles, but the females are called cows, go figure. If anyone knows, let me know, or I may just call them bulls henceforth.