Food Court (Day 1, Late Afternoon)

[Chandra Ellison]

It was only the registration day of the tournament, but Chandra was excited to see so many new monsters in Crayton. She had snapped a few discrete pictures that morning and during the interviews and had just finished dropped the film off to be developed. That led to a visit to the food court, and now she was sitting at a small table reading through a packet of tournament rules as Arsenio, her Scovine, prodded at some plastic flowers with a confused vine.

"It's not a real plant," she said, barely glancing its way. "We've been over this before."

Arsenio partially turned at the sound of her voice, then went back to prodding at the plant-shaped decoration.

[Milo Whitewood]

Another tournament competitor arrived at the food court shortly thereafter with the same goal; reading the rules. However, this one was also here for something else. Namely, food.

Milo went up to one of the food stores to order a meal. He doesn't have to wait long for it to be ready. Fast food was great. He plods along with his metallic monster. The construct was looking around curiously. It was a good thing the energy cannon on its back could fold down to be less threatening. Even so, it was probably causing people to keep some distance. It usually did anyway.

Taking a table near Chandra's, Milo sets the tray down and his backpack follows. He roots around in it to find the folded up tournament documentation. That gets placed on the table and he takes his seat. Diva lays down beside him and seems to yawn.

Spotting Chandra and her plant monster prodding the fake plants, Milo tries to identify it. While he had heard about Scovine from people across Amoria he hadn't actually seen one first-hand. It didn't help that the stories were more about the fire hazard aspect of them and Arsenio was certainly not on fire at the moment. In short he didn't have a clue what it was.

-----
Monster Lore to identify the Scovine: Fail

[Chandra Ellison]

Seemingly bored with the plastic plant, the Scovine waddles up toward Milo as its Wrangler is engrossed in her reading. It stares up at him with its weird, squinty eyes, and then raises a vine up towards him. Thin, dark red peppers dangle enticingly from its vine-arms, and the plant wiggles its vine to make them jiggle noticeably.

[Milo Whitewood]

The wrangler watches the purposeful waddle of the monster as it approached. Diva perked up too, sitting upright but not yet intervening.

Milo looked down at the small plant curiously. Were those peppers along its vines? He glanced over to its wrangler, but she looked busy.

"Hi. You have shiny peppers." He tries what he hopes is a compliment as he turned his body toward the plant and smiled. In the next moment he decides to reach a hand out cautiously toward the scovine's raised vine. Did it want a hand shake? It was one of the first tricks Diva had learned, although the claws always made it a little awkward.

[Chandra Ellison]

At his voice, Chandra glances over and does a double-take at seeing her monster so close to a stranger. "Ahh... careful, there. Those peppers tend to... well, burst into fire. I think he's trying to give you one...?"

She reaches out and boops the plant on its giant flower with her papers, causing it to turn back to regards her. "Don't be bothering other Wranglers, Arsenio. That's how fires get started."

The Scovine stares at her for another moment and then turns back to Milo, vines still outstretched and jiggling.

[Milo Whitewood]

"Oh, um, he's not a bother." Milo replies thoughtfully. He noticed Arsenio offering a pepper again. He looked over to Chandra. "Is it safe to take one? I don't want there to be a fire. Um, I'm Milo by the way. Hi." He waved gently to her.

He then nods to his own monster. "And that's Diva."

[Chandra Ellison]

"Chandra Ellison," she replies, smiling and nodding at the greeting. "It's mostly safe. Just take the pepper near the stem and pull it free with a tug. They're safe until they're exposed to air, at which point they sort of... well, they cook themselves very, very quickly. Like, make sure you're not holding it when it goes off."

The Scovine continues to wiggle its vines.

"Diva, eh?" She gives the mechanical wolf a once-over. "I don't think I've ever seen one of those in a NamTech catalogue. What is it?"

[Milo Whitewood]

There's a few more nods as Milo takes in this crucial information. He bends down and very carefully follows it, placing one hand on the vine and another near the stem of the pepper before giving it a tug.

"Thank you." He says down to the Scovine, holding up the pepper and grinning.

His attention switches to the interest in Diva. The Warwolf itself looked pleased, as much as a robotic murder machine could do, as it got up and trotted over to Chandra. It lifts its tail and flexed out its right foreleg as its cannon swivelled left and right. It was absolutely flaunting itself.

"She's a Warwolf. My parents said Warwolves were made by the Majuul Empire during the war, but I don't know how she ended up with us. Um, she really likes attention." If that somehow wasn't obvious.

[Chandra Ellison]

"Oh, a bit like a Jinglot, then?" She tentatively held her hand out to the robot wolf. "She seems really well-behaved. I suppose that makes sense for a construct."

Arsenio shuffles away from Milo and up to Diva, its roots wiggling across the ground as it makes a slow circle around the construct. It starts to tilt forward, and Chandra just about lunges out of her chair to grab onto its flower and straighten it back up. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down there."

There's a small splurt of flame from the tip of the flower's opening, but Chandra had the tube held tight enough that nothing more managed to escape.

[Milo Whitewood]

"Yes, I think so." Milo confirms. He didn't know about the Jinglot's history versus the Warwolf's, so it was a fair comparison to him.

Milo nods in agreement as Diva pushed her head up up into Chandra's hand, effectively nuzzling it. "Not having to eat helps. Outside of a fight her programming is pretty simple." The Warwolf pauses to look back at Milo questioningly.

Then the fun with Arsenio happened.

"Um..." Milo cautiously gets up. "Come here Diva." He beckoned the mildly alarmed construct his way. It was telling that its cannon was now audibly humming with energy build-up. Diva turned to face Chandra and her monster before backing away over to Milo. He met her halfway between the tables and quickly pushed the cannon down with both hands. "No Diva."

[Chandra Ellison]

All attention on her monster, Chandra slowly releases Arsenio's flower, earning some annoyed vine-flails from the small plant. "Well, it's not my fault," she countered, giving it a glare.

"Sorry about that," she said, turning back face Milo. "I'm not sure if he's seen a Warwolf before, and Scovine tend to react to new situations with fire. He should be alright for now." There was a glance back at Arsenio, as if to ensure he understood the implicit command.

[Milo Whitewood]

Diva was calmed down with some pats. Milo dared a chuckle when the danger had passed. The pepper was safely in one of his pockets. "Likewise. Sorry too for Diva being threatening." The wolf immediately let out a whining noise to which Milo just gave its head a gentle push. "Your cannon was charging." He says to it quietly. The Warwolf lowered its head and tucked its tail downwards.

He grinned as he looked back to Chandra. "Your monster was being friendly so it's no sweat! Hey, you're going to be in the competition, aren't you? Me too." Now he moved over to offer his hand. "I'll get to see your Scovine's fire there where he can cut loose huh?"

[Chandra Ellison]

Chandra accepted his hand and shook it. "Possibly! I'm down as an alternate, so it's a bit of a coin flip as to whether or not we're going to get to fight."

After making sure that Arsenio was behaving himself, she reclaimed her seat at her table. "Right now I'm just going over the regulations to make sure I don't forget something."

[Milo Whitewood]

The boy nods in understanding. "Oh, yeah, I need to do the same. It's my first tournament so I don't want to break any rules. Um, it's a shame you're only an alternate. I hope you didn't travel far?"

[Chandra Ellison]

Chandra shakes her head. "Oh, no, I'm a local. AMBA said that they'd put me on an intern list if I helped out, so even if I don't end up actually fighting, it still works out. And I get a good seat to watch all the action, too!"

[Milo Whitewood]

"That's really good! My parents worked for AMBA. They always said good things about it." Milo looked really pleased. "Um, it's Chandra, right? Since you're from here, would you mind if I asked a few questions about the town and nearby monsters?"

[Chandra Ellison]

"Sure! What do you want to know?" She settles into her chair as Arsenio shuffles over to her side. It holds a pepper-filled vine up to her, but she just absently pushes it away.

[Milo Whitewood]

Unbeknownst to their player, Milo apparently had a really good idea of what monsters were in the region and where. His thinking was certainly on this topic regardless.

"What sorts of cool monsters are there around town for starters? Um, and what's been going on with them? I'd love to hear about everything. Erm...!" He points back to his table. "Can I grab my meal and eat with you?"

-----
Monster Lore difficulty 1: Pass with 4 raises (4 raises for as much information as possible - Skill Roll to get a sense for what sort of monsters are likely to be around the region)

[Chandra Ellison]

"Oh, sure, come on over." Chandra scoots over to make room for him at her table. A moment later, she reaches down to keep Arsenio from moving into the place where she just was.

"Let's see..." She thinks for a moment as Arsenio wraps his vines around the arm holding him back. "You've got the Chasma and Treconda out in the swamp, obviously, but there are a good number of wild Nappen around as well, mostly to the south. That's where you'll find some Staguar and Zephid, once the terrain starts to dry out a bit. Taichen, too, but I'd avoid those guys. They're really dangerous."

She bites her lip as she tries to remember more. "Oh, there are some Panchin that run around town, sometimes, getting into trash and such. And I've seen Gympix floating around from time to time, usually when it's windy, but I don't know if they're really wild or if they belong to someone. Presumably we also have some Womburn, as there are always adds on television for removal services, but I've never seen one personally. Well, outside of in tournament matches."

[Milo Whitewood]

Backtracking to get his food and his own papers, Milo joins Chandra on her table. He listens and nods as Chandra shares what she knows.

"There's a lot of monsters active around here then. Wow." He crossed his arms and thought more about it. "I was thinking about getting some bait and trying to tame one while I'm here."