(2023-01-31) Chit-Chat Isn't Their Forte

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Author:	Luridel
Summary:	Mordecai runs into Lode in Valiance Keep and does his best to make an appropriate amount of polite conversation, which is neither of their strong suits. Mordecai offers her a problem to solve. ~2500 words.
Rating:	T for Teen

A bit of a ways out from the Valiance Keep inn, there is a sideroad that veers off into where various members of the Alliance have set up makeshift workshops with varying degrees of shelter constructed around them. The steady hammering of anvils can be heard nearby, and some people are sidestepping a large obstacle that is slightly encroaching the walkway.

The impediment is a recognizable snoring bear with brown-black hair, that smells like dried ocean with a nice biotic funk. It grumbles when a dwarf hauling a load of pipe elbows stumbles over a stray paw, shrugging upward and drowsily smacking muzzle.

"Are you all right?" a nearby white-cloaked priest asks the dwarf, and when the dwarf waves off his concern with a grumble, he peers down at the bear's paw and asks, "Are you all right?" Mordecai is wearing the same hooded cloak that he was on his last outing, and the fact that it appears stain-free is likely evidence that it's heavily enchanted.

The bear blinks blearily at Mordecai for a moment then seems to deflate a little, mysteriously shedding mass somehow as it resumes the leather clad figure of a particularly burly night elf woman. Lode rolls sleepily to her feet and adjusts her goggles, the lights of her eyes lidded into a thin glint.

"Oh, Light-priest, hey." She does not look or smell to have bathed. "I'm fine. The whole excursion wasn't anything too strenuous. You looked pretty cold, though." She might not have registered being tripped over much.

"Hello, Lode," Mordecai says politely. "It's a lot colder up north than I'm used to. Were you asleep out here…?"

Lode blinks back at Mordecai, then looks around, and returns a shrug. "Yeeees? The sounds are relaxing." CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. Somewhere, a forge is roaring.

Mordecai looks baffled. "Relaxing? Did you spend a lot of time somewhere like this in the past…?"

"Reminds me a little of Gadgetzan, I guess, lots of open air stuff going on. Isn't the HQ in Ironforge? There's a lot of smithing going around there." Lode sweeps a hand out toward the loosely organized crafting area. "You always know something is being formed up from an idea. Anyway, you looking for something?"

Mordecai hesitates, twisting his gloved hands together. "I… suppose I've been trying to make sure everyone's settling in all right?"

Lode rocks on her heels, giving Mordecai a slow blink of her bright eyelights. She looks up and down the grounds of Valiance Keep, hair still bedraggled with dried seawater. "I'm doing fiiiine?" she says with a downward dip of the tone that then rises like an uncertain query. Should I not be? It seems to ask.

"Nice place, I mean. I've never been this far north before either, so it's an intriguing look at a whole new biome, and I'm looking forward to better familiarizing myself with it. There seems to be a thriving lichen ecology I'm curious about."

Mordecai nods. There's a faint look of curiosity as Lode mentions the lichen. "If you don't mind me asking, how old are you?"

Lode takes on a very distant look for a moment. "Two-hundred… something, probably. Why do you ask? How old are you?" She perks a long eyebrow, clearly uncertain where this fairly innocuous line of questioning might be leading

"Oh. I'm just twenty-six. I was wondering because I think some of the kaldorei here were old enough to be alive back when this continent was still a part of Kalimdor." Mordecai tilts his head. "Caspis and Anareline were, I think."

Lode relaxes considerably, her face alighting with recognition when the nature of the curiosity seems to become clear. "Oooh, I get it. Yeah, nah, I'm not nearly that old. Never will be, now, by the looks of it. You'll have to ask one of them if you are hoping for an eyewitness account of the old empire. They might find a fossilized memory if you only give them enough time to break through that many strata."

Mordecai laughs quietly. "I'd never even so much as heard of the tuskarr before the other day. There's still so much I don't know."

"They're certainly not something I was familiar with. I guess they don't travel beyond these territories? Might have to ask someone who's done a lot of sailing around the world. Have you talked to Caspis, personally? I mean, sometimes the olds can be a snore, but he's pretty alright." Lode sniffs. "Has some kind of a history with the failed world tree up here."

"Only a little. He seems kind, though." Mordecai tilts his head. "Should I ask him about that? The tree? Or is it a… sensitive topic for him?"

Lode tilts her head and folds her broad arms, considering. "I mean, I think he has feelings about it, but I didn't take it for the kind of thing he'd be against being asked about. On the contrary, I think he enjoys teaching. That's how I met him, from when he was offering to give some lessons to younger druids."

She goes more thoughtful for a moment. "I guess I didn't really think of how much more weighty it might be, sentimentally, to feel like you're at a stage of life you want to pass on your knowledge in the time you have left—and it is that long behind you."

Mordecai nods. "I think I'll ask, then, if I get the opportunity. Are you considered a 'younger' druid by kaldorei standards? I suppose compared to those in their thousands…"

Lode blinks at Mordecai. "Oh, yeah, I guess you don't know, huh? When I was growing up, all the druids were sleeping—well, as far as I knew. And besides that, I was discouraged from druidry for being female. The Cenarion Circle just wouldn't accept you. You could join the priesthood or the Sentinels, or, like, just live off the land or as an artisan, I guess.

"That only changed recently, after the actual world tree died. But yeah, even besides that issue, it's a drag sometimes surrounded by creaky old timber."

Mordecai blinks back. "Ah. What did you do? Before you were allowed to join?" There's a faint smile at 'creaky old timber'.

"Oh, this and that," Lode waves a bit dismissively, seemingly finding the topic uninteresting. "My folks are trappers and I did some of that. Even before I joined I picked up a little bit of forest horticulture. Tried doing the trading thing for a bit, did a couple decades in the Sentinels. It wasn't for me. I ended up doing a number of ecological surveys for them instead, around southern Kalimdor.

"That was a need that didn't go away even when the druids did. Are you this curious about everyone?"

Mordecai bites his lip and looks down, as if reproached. It takes him a moment to rally. "People are interesting," he says, rubbing his arms like he's cold. "I never used to ask anyone anything. I just kept to myself. I've been trying to get better. About that." There's a slight frown. "Did I go too far in the wrong direction? If I'm being a nuisance, I can leave you be."

The night elf looks moderately perplexed, her eyes widening and shifting quickly to one side and back. "Too far? I don't think so, I just—I guess chit chat isn't my forte." She's gone rigidly still as if concerned about moving the wrong way and breaking something, which given her general habits and normal body language may be a more-than-once occurrence.

"Like, problem solving? Getting chumps dead? I'm pretty solid there."

"I mean, it isn't really mine, either." Mordecai smiles sheepishly. "Do… you want a problem to solve? I have a logistical dilemma I haven't thought of a solution for yet."

"Hm?" Lode's unkempt eyebrow raises again. "I can't promise anything, but I'd be curious to know if it's something I could think on. Otherwise, if I don't get any direct assignments again soon I'm going to head out on an excursion—oh!"

Her eyes light up with far more intrigue. "I heard a band of gnomes set out north from the keep to establish an airstrip. I definitely want to check it out. There was a gnome guy at one of Cap's classes that said he was a pilot, and I've been wanting a closer look at gnomish aircraft ever since."

"Oh!" Mordecai smiles. "If you want a healer to tag along, I'd be happy to go see it." He clears his throat. "Um, so, in order to cast some of my spells, I need to be able to speak. The Power Words in particular. Shield." The glowing bubble of light in question forms around Mordecai as he speaks. It draws a small amount of attention from the nearby artisans, and Mordecai quickly dismisses it, hunching his shoulders a little. "Anyway, I need to figure out a way to be able to speak underwater. To cast. That's, that's why I didn't go swimming with everyone else. I would've just been dead weight."

Lode gives a slow blink at the priest. "Does the sound have to carry for it to work, or do you just need to be able to to do all the motions and breathing and such, ritually?" She idly traces the invisible curvature where the shimmering field materialized just moments before. "Pretty cool. I wonder if it makes you bouncier."

Mordecai seems to relax a little, and he smiles. "I don't think the sound has to carry, but I need to be able to breathe. To speak."

"So, potentially, you could be in an enclosed helm that muffled you, then? That's a much more trivial solution than if it was required to be projected and heard by others." Lode looks as if she thinks this is untroublesome and achievable, readily. "Gnomes to the rescue, again. They've had fully functional diving helmets since—well, since before I started picking things up from them, at least. Fully enclosed, without an impeding mouthpiece."

Mordecai brightens up further. "Diving helmets? How do they work? Do they seal air inside to breathe?"

"Well breathable air is limited in any given space, and you'll use it up quickly in something that small. Definitely don't go sticking your head in anything enclosed unless it's a tested, fully-functional diving helm." Lode gives a pointed look.

"I've seen this done a few ways. The simplest is with tubing that allows an open channel of air to the surface, but this is the most unwieldy and limited to shallow distances, before it becomes impractical to safeguard against kinks or compression in the tubing.

"Another alternative is hooking it up to an air canister, but you either need the right machinery to compress the air into a manageable space, or some finer processes to extract breathable air from elemental material.

"The third way I can think of would produce the most convenient final product, but might take the most expensive and delicate components—a mechanism to filter and convert the surrounding water into breathable air, alchemically."

Mordecai seems to be considering the options. "I've seen alchemists perform transmutations like that, but I've never seen it automated mechanically. That's incredible. How expensive? Money…" Mordecai hesitates. He glances back over his shoulder in the direction of the training yards and the inn, then turns back to Lode. "Money isn't a concern," he says, decisively.

Up goes the eyebrow. "Really then. Fabricating something that advanced might be beyond my skills, but it might be worth finding those gnome crews and asking around what kind of equipment they brought on a long ocean voyage. There might be something they'd be willing to part with for the right price that could be altered if necessary. A shaman might be a boon to the task.

"Anyway, now that you know options exist, you'll know you can look for them. Hmm, I wonder if Cap might be able to lend some expertise. No doubt she would lend herself to such a thing for one of her healers if she could."

Mordecai blinks. "Oh! Right. Jo said she does like challenges. I could ask her. Thank you, Lode."

Lode palms the back of her neck as it not entirely sure what to do with being thanked. "Uuuh, sure, no prob. Oh, yeah, I remember where I saw you before now. You had the freezing bag and were hanging around with the pretty boy. I have to get me one of those."

She clarifies after a moment, "The bag, not the human."

"The—" Mordecai laughs out loud, clearly delighted. "The pretty human is Colson, my husband. And I'm Mordecai. Mordecai Aspenwood. Um, the bag was made by Cressidha. She's on Blue Squad. One of the mages. Colson's twin sister."

Lode stares back, slightly hunched, with one pinky finger twisting in an ear canal charmingly, looking like she expects she is not in on some joke that just sailed by. "Oh, those both are around here for squad stuff, yeah? I should ask if they're hard to make. Something like that might have all kinds of uses in crafting. And, like, preserving food or specimens."

Mordecai nods. "Yes, they're both on Blue Squad. I use mine for chilling food, mostly." He pats at the bag in question. "She could probably make you one. Do you… want me to ask her?"

"That'd be sweet. I'm totally down to hunt some components or barter if there's some special stuff involved. Oh, and I need to find out if there are any known safety specifications, like limits on the temperature of what can go in without hecking up the interior." Lode shrugs. "I can write to her if that's easier."

"I don't mind asking for you." Mordecai pulls the cloak tighter around himself, like he's cold. "But if you have questions about the bag's specifications, um, you should probably write to her."

"Sure, I'll do that then. Uuuuh…" Lode looks around again, increasingly at a loss of how to keep a conversation going, while at the same time suspecting she might be expected to. "Wanna find out what wooly rhino tastes like?"

Mordecai looks around when Lode does. "Oh, um, I…" He hesitates. Social situations are complicated and difficult. "I did already have lunch. Maybe another time? I'm… going to go." He points vaguely in the direction of the inn and the training yards.

Lode does her best to not act relieved that someone to whom she is making an effort to be a Lodely approximation of friendly to is opting to exit. She is not very good at this. "Oh, yeah, it's not like they're in short supply. I'll save some for you and… people." The obvious solution is to only socialize when having an excuse to keep your mouth full.

"Anyway, have a good one!" There's another touch of goblinish cadence to the discerning ear, and Lode simply vanishes, her borders seemingly smearing against a backdrop of workyard bustle then sidestepping into nothingness. When in doubt, shadowmeld.

Mordecai relaxes, because apparently he has chosen correctly and Lode is not offended. "Goodbye," he says politely to thin air, and hurries off towards the training yards.