Welcome to Gaia! ::

Melvin wasn't alone for long. Soon enough, the portal rippled again as Jordan stepped through. He looked briefly surprised to see someone he didn't know, then offered a polite smile to Melvin. "Hi," he said. "Anything visible today?"

Just got here in more than one sense, apparently; aside being a new face, the guy was wearing a trainee coat. Brand new. Jordan glanced to the monitors and readouts on the equipment. "I don't see any traces in the past half-hour," he observed, "so we're probably in for a couple of boring hours. I'm Jordan, by the way. Sun division." Melvin was saved from the offer of a friendly handshake only by having moved out of range in time.

"Maybe a little," he agreed with Melvin's comment, and decided not to make any comments about how deep underwater the observation post was, how much water pressure must be on the walls, or what exactly might be drifting out there in the dim water.

You're all heart, Ferros said.

Jordan shook Melvin's hand, nodding. "This is Ferros," he added, and held up his right hand so that Melvin could see the heavy ring on his index finger. It had been some time since he'd introduced himself by surname, he realized; division had taken the place of family months ago.

As Melvin clarified that his uneasiness was directed at the handprints covering the glass, Jordan's eyebrows arched. Well then. "I'm sure there's some windex in here," he said, and moved over to the cabinets under the consoles, rummaging around until he located a small and dingy box of cleaning supplies. "Hah. There. It wouldn't be logical to lug cleaning stuff down here only every once in a while. Not when they've got people stuck down here daily with nothing to do. Here, heads up." He straightened up and lobbed the spray bottle in Melvin's direction.

Jordan blinked at the dirty look thrown back in his direction. Had he deserved that one? Possibly, but it seemed a bit over the top. He mentally shrugged it off. Didn't matter.

"Sun's been getting a lot of new faces," he agreed. A flicker of sadness crossed his face briefly at the thought that they needed it, since Sun and Moon had taken some of the heaviest casualties on the Apocalypse mission. At the question, though, he laughed. "He is, actually," he answered. "Oversized hammer. He complains about not being big enough anyway. What's Saliva like?"

Melvin was occupying himself with the cleanup. Jordan moved over to the monitors to check the day's logs so he wouldn't be standing around watching Melvin work without doing anything himself.

"It's not so much a Sun thing as an individual thing," Jordan said. "Some weapons are just like that. The biggest one I've seen is the Life Division assistant's partner, actually." He shrugged. "It does seem like a lot of weapons grow larger with core changes as they grow stronger, so Saliva might not always be small."

He nodded to the question; Melvin seemed smart, if maybe a little eccentric, but eccentric was more the rule than the exception when it came to Hunters. "Ferros has considerable physical weight," he explained, "but he only feels about as heavy as a normal sledgehammer to me. Any lighter and it'd be difficult for us to use his momentum. I suspect anyone else trying to pick him up would have a lot of trouble. Aside pissing off their own weapon," he added dryly. "Which is generally a bad idea to start with."

"Most do," Jordan nodded. "I picked up Madison's weapon once during a battle to return him to her, when she'd been knocked out, and Ferros was furious at me for days. How upset they get depends on the weapon, I guess. There's another reason to avoid it, too," he cautioned. "Holding someone else's weapon for an extended period of time can mess with your mind. I couldn't tell you why - you'd have to ask someone more knowledgeable about the mechanisms of weapon bonding if you want to know - but it can make you a little crazy. Moreso than most of us are anyway," he finished with a shrug.

"Now and then," he answered. "Attacks directly on the island itself aren't a regular occurrence. Other types of weird s**t - well, you can probably expect something bizarre to happen once every month or two. Sometimes it's everyone, sometimes just a few people. Last time something weird happened - well, not counting the weapons golems, that one was deliberately done - we got turned temporarily into minipets." He wasn't saying anything about the horsemen; he'd been trapped in a cell in the lair when the island had been attacked, and hell if he was talking about that. The minipet incident, bizarre and unpleasant as it had been, was a fairly mind-safe subject.

The corner of his mouth quirked in a wry smile. "I don't think anyone's seen Moby d**k in months," he mused. "He usually stays way out in the deep water." Was he kidding? It was impossible to tell.

"Uh - Halloween animals, little Fear creatures manifested out of stray ideas. There's a section in the labs where minis are kept for study and experimentation. You'll probably get assigned to petting zoo duty sooner or later. They're mostly harmless. A lot of them are pretty cute." Jordan chuckled. "Technically all the minipets kept on the island are lab property. In practice, some of them pretty much belong to one person."