Welcome to Gaia! ::

Smiling again, Clarice gave the girl's shoulder a small squeeze, "There we go, no beastie of myth and legend is gonna keep us down, right? I've had more than a few run-ins with the Hell Ponies, and know how to deal with them." Deal with as in run away and plant various traps, pitfalls, and mines in the hopes of slowing them down for long enough to get her and her team way the hell away. But Madison didn't need to know that.

The trip to the pod room was relatively short, and lacking in people running around with flaming limbs. At the door, Clarice paused to ask, "You remember how to do this part?"

"The process is pretty simple, we have a goal or problem...and then we figure out a means to take care of it. Most of the tech here is a combination of regular technology and runic magic. We can't actually cast magic ourselves, or anything, that would make us...well, like them. But we can utilize FEAR power through runes. It's just a matter of figuring out the right combination and arrangement of runes, and then fine tuning the language. In the end, we've created a system of magic tools that anybody with proper instruction can use." She realized she was started to lecture, and turned to the trainee, waving her hands a bit, "But you don't have to worry about any of that right now!"

She went to a desk and signed both Madison and herself in for pod-use, before giving her own pod a good once-over. "No, we'll be spawning in a different location. We randomize the spawn point, unless there's a very specific goal in mind, like the festival. Plus the old ones have been changed due to...recent events."

"Mmmm...may as well get some pet shopping done, we're starting to go through their food faster now, trying to get more to Ascend. I was going to do it tomorrow anyways, and an extra pair of arms would be handy." s**t, sorry Brant! Even though he was nowhere in sight, there was a sort of reflexive guilt when it came to accidentally saying something that might offend him or make him feel bad. It could be chalked up as a terrible side effect of working with Dr. H while at the same time trying very hard not to become him. She'd have to do something nice for the trainee to make up for this slip, if only to make herself feel better.

She gave a small, awkward laugh, and was relieved to answer Madison's following question, "Oh that, it just depends on circumstances. If the area is clear, there's a few small portals fixed around Halloween that we can activate and just dump the items through. If there's eyes on us, though, we own a few public storage locations. Nothing to draw suspicion. So we can just drop them there, and another hunter will use the portal later when it's clear."

"Oh yeah, they've go all sorts of stores, some for things you would not even believe." Like body parts. New and used. Clarice made a small face at the mention of getting a male golem. She didn't like getting all p***s-plus either, especially when she got one of the...weirder male races. And weird in Halloween was saying something.

She felt it would be better not to go into detail on the subject with Madision, however. No need to upset the girl even more over the trip. So she kept her voice light as she got into her pod, "Well, there's only one way to find out. personally, I'm still hoping to get a sexy succubus on one of these trips. Because if you're going to take a body for a test drive? Might as well go for the Ferrari." Of course, Clarice usually ended up with the station wagon or VW Bug. But a little optimism never hurt.

Clarice came to and her first thought was bath. BATH. The smell lingered like a....really bad smell. Not to mention the less than comfortable feeling of being all penisy. Stepping out of the pod, she looked for Madison.

"Right...so. The portal areas tend to be in incredibly unpleasant places, for obvious reasons. Whoever is manning the Lab's portal storage will take care of the goods, you can grab items in an hour or so, after they've been inspected and sanitized. Don't forget to fill out a mission report whenever you get that code cracked." She shifted a bit, and inhaled with a grimace. She still felt like she smelled, trick of the mind or not. "I don't know about you? But I'm definitely ready for a nice bath. Like a dozen of them."

"And maybe it is serious, but..." Clarice gave a small scowl, "I recognized the guy in the cloak. We had him here for awhile, so...there's an even chance that it could have just been to stir s**t up, rather than anything actually significant. We'll just have to see, but the Death Division should find at least some of this to be useful."

"The a*****e in red," the assistant's mouth quirked up. "He wasn't the most pleasant of guests." Clarice stretched a bit and scratched at the back of her head. Frowning she sniffed her hair. Damn you imaginary stench!

At the mention of Kouki, Clarice's eyebrows shot up, "Ohhh...so that's snake, huh? Nice. I'll leave you two to it then. Good work today, Madison!" Bathbathbathbathbath. "Just send me a text if you run into any trouble, I'm second under the Life listing."