Welcome to Gaia! ::

Jack merely grumbled some more at her amusement.

While Chel might find all the moving helpful, it was starting to distract him; after a few moments, he simply gave a little roll of his eyes and closed them. This was important information to listen to; any other stimuli was just distracting.

(Which should have been a compliment, if Chel really thought about it.)

"Hmm." Jack entwined his fingers together and partially propped his chin upon them, musing. "Memories . . . I wasn't aware they had so much power." All of this was just . . hard to process, like she said. Fear, Insanity, and now Distortion. He could feel Owain sympathizing with his new itch to start researching these effects on one another.

Something else seemed to had made the giant stir again, though. Artifacts, Excalibur, Arthur, Merlin . . . Something about it made Owain rumble, though neither of them could put a finger on what.

He made another thoughtful noise. "Were there queens there as well? Or other dubious figures of authority based on color? What was the land like? I imagine it was similar to Wonderland in that small tasks rewarded you with those memory snippets?"

Noting she was moving positions, his shoulders tensed a little in preparation for personal space invasion, and he allowed one eye to slide open and watch her. "So like the queens of Wonderland, then," Jack noted. The parallels were obvious, but the question to him still was why them? If memories were so powerful, these beings, artifacts, whatever they were called, could just as easily harvest them from the unknowing populace. Either somehow the component of Fear both they and Halloweeners had was necessary, or these things had enough of a conscience, even while asleep, to not draw attention until they were actually powerful.

(( Legacy. )) Owain sounded distracted by something. (( That is what they are. Legacies. ))

Jack would have asked for more, but his partner seemed to be deep in thought, so he let him be. Several thoughts were trickling through nevertheless between them. "Legacies. Merlin and Excaliber. Revenge and Protection." And now, it seemed, Destruction and Grief had stuck their necks out to use them.

He was doubly glad now he hadn't participated in either event, as eye-opening as they sounded.

"If they were meant to be sealed, then it either didn't work or wasn't enough. I imagine soon the rest will start stirring," he sighed. "Creation and Reflection seem to be missing, for one, and Pride is also unaccounted for with what I understand. For another, we of course are still missing our primary power sources. This isn't over by a longshot."

Jack paused, then added in an almost pleasant manner, "You've been very informative."

"Stay?" he repeated with obvious confusion. "What for? I've gotten everything I can out of you, unless you're holding back." More confusing was why she'd let him keep something of hers (an act Jack would never do himself, not so openly nor with something as private as written thoughts).

He set the journal next to his cup of coffee. "I have bits and pieces but not nearly enough to put a picture together. One thing's for sure: we'll be getting more hits from these legacies in the future--more than likely in the Destruction and Grief binary, seeing how they are already active." Jack shrugged as if to say that was all he had for now.

"What ring of hell was your childhood located that you think I'm fun," he asked in a voice so deadpan it eliminated the question mark. Jack looked at her as if she were another species of humanoid entirely--and more than a little awkwardly.

He hadn't been asked to "hang out" for quite some time. There was basketball, yes, and occasional guys nights, but those were fundamentally different. Namely, the only time women were involved were at bars.

"I'm not interested in being a shopping slave if that's what you mean."

Jack scowled and made an affronted noise. "I had friends before," he corrected her. "I...suppose I have those here as well." Though he had yet to find commonalities aside from work and beer and suffering, which weren't enough for him to normally constitute calling someone a friend. The most he had done for anyone was completely meddle in Shiloh and Ian's affairs, but that was simply fixing problems that had no business existing in the first place. That was maintenance, not friendship.

"Let me think. Oh yeah. There was a guys night months ago where I was forced to dress like a ******** cross-dressing hooker in god awful shoes because I lost a bet. That was fun."

Owain urged him to be more open and gentle since Chel was clearly only trying to help--and clearly the giant had bias, Jack was quick to point out. "Look, I don't do hangouts so well," he said with a small gesture of his hands. "Big surprise: I'm better alone, Craft. Not in that lone wolf way, but the people are too ******** annoying to be around for long way. What would we even do?"

He rolled his eyes and rubbed a few fingers into his forehead as if this were physically painful to endure. "I'm not giving you the itinerary of my everyday life. Yes, we've hung out, no, it wasn't anything worth mentioning. I've had chats with god knows how many people over meaningless s**t while on the job, does that constitute hanging out? Jesus."

He was obviously getting more annoyed the more Chel pried, and he went on the defensive. "I've played a few games, Craft, I'm not a goddamn recluse from the backwoods. I just wasn't allowed any growing up except one or two. And I don't really cook." Jack was still debating how much to entertain this clearly hypothetical situation as he sipped what remained of his coffee.

"In my spare time I drink in my room, reminisce about how many people I've pissed off that day, compile information on people's profiles to the point that a stalker might be impressed, and convert others to the cult of caffeine," he said quite seriously.

The sad part was, only one item in the list was intended as a joke.

Jack was surprised (and yet not at the same time somehow) that Chel's would-be profession would have involved more games. Why ditch that for something like Deus? ...Then again, life here almost was like a video game itself, with the same dramatic asspulls and multiple continues to boot. But it was when she suggested cooking something for him that Jack's eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"You want something from me." Why else be this nice? "Not just my time, you already get that by bothering me. What is it?" Trades he could do, it was only business. But allowing Chel to worm her way through without compensation for whatever they ended up doing (as he was slowly finding that saying no was harder than it seemed) was unacceptable. He did not like being in debt, even if it was for something unprompted like this.

His expression remained unchanged (as it Chel would ever be serious about those rings) as he considered the offer. On one hand, one on one encounters were far better than groups for him, he would get a free meal, and his file on the Sun might get an upgrade if he could understand her better. On the other hand, it was Chel, and he didn't know what else might happen while he was in her clutches; she struck him as an impulsive and impromptu sort of person.

"Fine," Jack said at length. "But I am who I am, you'll just have to deal with that. I won't...ragequit, though. Not unless you give me a reason." And he was more than stubborn if he had a reason to be.

He paused, then added, "You will of course be evaluated throughout the excursion." ("Excursion"? What did he call this? "Hang out" was too informal.)