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Who: Jacob Kane (Cain) & someone else. Maybe you.
When: October 14th and forward.
Where: All around Keeliai.
What: Hoofing it around town to get a better finger on the pulse of current happenings. If it's a place where people are, Cain could feasibly be there.
Warnings / rating: Nah.

It was really rather astonishing how quickly Cain could adapt to things. He even surprised himself sometimes, what with the fact that he had literally been pulled into another world with a universe-threatening war and only a few hours after the fact he was on the streets looking for more information. Part of it, he acknowledged, was simply that it hadn't sunken in all the way yet. Regardless of that fact, it was always smarter to push forward than stand still when the world was still spinning around him.

Early on, it was easy to see that he was pissing off some kedan just by being around and initiating conversation. Cain started to pick his questions more carefully, but it wasn't going to stop him; kedan population seemed way higher than foreigner population and that was where he was going to need to get gossip or info if from anywhere. He wasn't above pestering some people on the street or trying to get shopping done if it looked like he might get away with starting a conversation.

Hell, Cain was even willing to stoop to the old classic: "Hey, do you have the time?"

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While everyone else was concerned about the deteriorating relationship between the foreigners and the kedan, Dante was using the tension as an excuse to stop acting like a respectable member of society. Granted, he never even tried to pretend he was, but lately, he can't even see the point in hiding his sword. It's no wonder that the Kedan around the water sector are more used to dealing with nuisance foreigners. Upon being greeted by Cain's increasingly inconsequential banter, they simply roll their eyes and move on.

Dante himself, meanwhile, was watching Cain try and get any information he can to no avail. Somewhere deep down, a there was a responsible adult telling Dante to go help, but he's having far too much fun watching Cain try to stumble around in the metaphorical dark. Cain doesn't have to be very observant to notice that someone his grinning at him from an outdoor table near a cafe.

Oh, it took little to no time for Cain to notice he had an admirer from across the street. In fact, for as much Dante had been watching Cain, he'd been watching Dante back. That white hair stood out to him, but more than that, it was that attitude. He wasn't kedanese and yet was clearly taking an amusement in watching Cain run around to get whatever admission of information he could.

Soon enough, Cain plopped himself in the seat across from Dante and flagged a waiter down. "I'll take a coffee and a scone. He's paying," he said pleasantly, gesturing to Dante as he did. Once the waiter had come and gone, Cain leaned back into his seat and gave Dante an entertained grin. "Got something to say?"

Dante grumbles under his breath the second he hears the phrase "he's paying". Granted, this was a common occurrence back home, and he's much better off here, but he still can't help but cringe at the thought of being told he's paying. Nearly twenty years of being dead broke will do that. However, the second the waiter left, he was back to grinning.

"Just that you're wasting your time." He finally spoke up. "The locals aren't exactly the most friendly bunch around. You'd be better off trying to chat up a brick wall."

The grudging acceptance of Cain's presumptions only made him grin wider. No further comment would be made unless Dante said something, but for now he would happily take the coffee and snack on someone else's dime if they weren't going to fight him on it. He had no qualms about that; money was money and to be saved for more important things, duh.

"Even brick walls have stories to tell if you know what part you're looking at," Cain said obtusely. It didn't actually make much sense, but that was part of his point: any kind of reaction was giving him something that he didn't have before. He wasn't going to write it off. "Aren't we here to fight for them?"

"Maybe, but you'd be better off asking the guy who crashed into the wall. He's a lot more interesting." He responds with a nearly nonsense metaphor of his own, though also with an underlying point. Efficiency is always the way to go, even if you're not taking things seriously. From his standpoint, either you have limited time and should get as much done as you can, or this blows and you should get it done as quickly as possible so you can go back to doing what you want. Either way, no need to waste time on things that will only give you small tidbits of information unless you can't get that anywhere else.

"We are. That doesn't mean they like us." He starts explaining, with a completely level and nonchalant tone of voice. "I'm sure you've heard the news right now, but the emperor turned up dead a while back, and the big bad's come out to blame us."

Whatever crazy point they had both gotten off at, at least they were there together. Cain got what Dante was trying to get across, even if his own personal philosophy ran counter to it. He was the man who had all the time in the world and sometimes the smaller pieces all helped build a bigger picture than going for the immediately obvious source. Whatever the case, it was always good to have different perspectives going in at different angles and he wasn't going to be an ass about that.

"Heard about the Emperor," allowed Cain. "Not so much about the baddie pointing the finger. How'd he get away with that? He's the bad guy."

"Well, some of us got the bright idea to to give the emperor the third degree a few weeks before he died." Dante continued explaining. His account may have been grossly oversimplified, but he's trying to cover the important parts. Besides, if he wanted a more comprehensive summary of the recent events, he should have paid for his own damn food. "I mean, I get why they did it, the guy did next to nothing about Mal. But that doesn't stop the kedan from pointing fingers once someone brought it up."

"So that's where we're at right now." Dante confirmed, eerily easygoing about the whole affair.. "The guy in charge's dead, a whole bunch of other people have gone missing, the locals hate us, and the odds look pretty crappy right about now."

It was really easy for Cain to laugh considering Dante's flippancy about the whole situation. He shook his head and leaned back in his chair and let out a long, amused breath. Jesus, they couldn't have handed their bad guy a better opportunity, could they? Not that everyone could be held responsible for the actions of the group as a whole, but somehow Cain got the feeling that there wasn't a whole lot of cohesiveness to the foreigners. That definitely was making things even worse than they needed to be.

"Think we're going to lose?" he asked. It was one opinion among many, but this guy didn't seem like the type to shirk away from the question. "Is anyone even fighting anymore?"

Sadly, Dante wasn't helping with the cohesiveness part. He was used to charging in alone and making any alliances he needed on the fly. Even his supposed partners back home tended to come and go. After all of these years, he still hasn't realized that he typically tends to survive for longer when he's not alone.

"Everyone's fighting." Dante assured confidently. "Or they damn well better be. It's just hard to hit a target who hides out of sight."

Cain wasn't much for working together, either, not unless he was at the head of the arrangements and had everything else in hand. Something to do with a lack of proper trust and the ability to leave his fate in the hands of people he didn't know, presumably, but he wasn't here to headshrink himself. If no one else was going to work together, Cain wasn't sure cared enough to unite them.

"Then what are they fighting?" asked Cain. "The locals? Each other?"

"For any way to get to this guy they can." A flash of seriousness shot across Dante's face, but disappears as soon as it appears. "There's also the cultists, the violent locals, and the poisoned foreigners. The enemy's fond of making others do his dirty work."

The waiter came back to drop off Cain's order, and he took a moment to simply sip at his coffee and taste the treat. When he was done and settled in more comfortably for whatever haul this guy was willing to take, Cain asked, "Poisoned foreigners?" The others, at least, were self-explanatory.

"Yeah. There's a poison going around that turns folks into raving lunatics." Dante was trying to be as up-front as he could, mainly because the stakes were getting pretty high an he's beginning to think that doing things like getting word out might be worth the time and effort. "The cultists carry it with them, so if you see them, try not to get stabbed. It'll pretty much ruin your whole month."

Cain appreciated up-front. He wasn't the type to dance around things in the first place and when others could be just as frank or otherwise informative without needing to weigh it all down, he had a tiny, infinitesimal sliver of faith for humanity restored. He went back to his coffee for a moment, grinning into his drink.

"Is that how long it lasts until it leaves, until you die, or until someone kills you?" he asked.

"Don't know. Nobody's gotten better without help before. Could last forever, as far as anyone knows." He casually responded while propping up his feet on the table. "It's a pretty peaceful place, all things considered."

The feet didn't bother Cain. He merely nudged his plate away from possibly getting kicked and made no other note of the motion. Dante was being casual more than outright rude and Cain didn't care much besides. He had sat through a lot worse than someone with no table manners.

"Oh? Name three peaceful things about it."

"The place isn't crawling with monsters yet." Dante's standards of "peaceful" were very low.

"The cultists are actually cowards when they don't think they're winning. And there's been next to no fighting."

Cain laughed. All right, that was generally a peaceful situation when put like that, but not exactly the sort most people would consider in their current environment. Then again, it took a lot to make someone give up home when you were embroiled in a war and weren't ready to throw in the towel.

"I'll give you those," he allowed. "Doesn't mean the rest of it isn't shit, though. Has there been any motion in fixing that? Actual motion."

Sadly, this was in comparison to his real home. He had only been here for a few months, and for the bulk of it the shell had been the more peaceful option, and still was.

"Well, we've been working on fixing the problem with the evil world-devouring guy, but apart from that? You'd have to ask someone else about the other problems."

If Dante was comparing to his own world, then Cain really didn't want to go visit. Even the problems he had back home weren't quite as flamboyant as the ones Keeliai was experiencing although the severity might have been easily matched.

"Fair enough," Cain said with a dip of his head. "Jacob Kane, by the way. Thanks for the lunch."

Dante's world sucked, and admittedly there were things that he would certainly trade that crapsack for. But it suited him, so that was something.

"Dante" He nodded back. "Next time, try asking before you start telling a guy to pay for your food. I didn't even agree to a date or get to pick out a pretty dress."

"What, this isn't speed-dating?" Cain asked facetiously. There was a lot he could say to the joking, he could insist on seriousness and keep them on track, but there didn't really seem to be a whole lot of track to cover when it was all boiled down to the basics. They really were just in a tight spot with little to no direction on where to go until something presented itself.

"I've never been on a speed-date where I've had to pay for anything, so I'd say not." It was aimless smartassery, but that was just how he spoke most of the time. He actually was fairly on track. "So, can I chalk you down for team "please kill this son of a bitch ASAP"?"

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Water Sector

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