Welcome to Gaia! ::

Looking down at the shards of crystals that were scattered on his desk, Chalcanthite knew he needed to gather better specimens in order to make a better prototype. Brushing the fragments onto a small tray, he locked it away in the top drawer of his desk as usual so that neither Voce nor his sister could meddle with his things.

The journey down to the Rift was one he could do while blindfolded or half drunk, leaving him able to look through the scrawled notes in his notebook as he walked. Paths that were safe, free of the more aggressive youma, were laid out in the well-used notebook. It had been through a bit due to being chewed on a few times by Voce but he didn’t see the need in rewriting his notes just yet. He’d organize them better in the next version of this little guide of his but it would take time and proper planning.

Hearing a voice as he entered the Rift, he lowered his notebook and saw a captain standing there sort of confused. Was this their first time? They certainly didn’t look like they knew where they were.

“Hello, are you lost?” Giving his route one last glace, he tucked the notebook into the inside of his coat. He preferred it there instead of in subspace because the weight of it was reassuring. “You need to be on your toes if this is your first time in the Rift.” Looking out into the darkened depths, he didn’t need to see it all to know that it could be dangerous if you were uninformed.

“If you need a guide, I come down here frequently.” Taking a few steps ahead, he knew Voce would be showing up shortly to greet him and look for a treat or crystal as motivation to search things out for him today.

Looking them over for a moment, as they jumped and then calmed. It reminded him on when he would manage to startle Desiree or Liam because he walked quietly at home. Offering his hand in response to their introduction, he shook their firmly. “Chalcanthite, though you will also be meeting my personal youma as well. Their name is Voce.” Looking back out into the rift, he knew they’d be around at some point once he got a bit deeper into the place.

“A healthy dose of caution and preparation is perfectly acceptable, I myself spend what may be considered far too much time down here.” So much so that at one point or another the question on if he was trying to become half youma had come up. It was the furthest from the path he was walking, always reminding him of the dripping tar and black crow feathers of a fallen general, and so he shook those questions off.

“You can always turn down the offer but I will say it is in your best interest to at least have one fellow officer with you on the first few visits down here until you manage to get a sense of the area as well as what lays within.” Taking a step forward, he started down one of the rocky paths slowly. Keeping vigilant as usual, there was still that calm and collected air to him as he went.

Keeping his pace even as he walked over the rough ground, he scanned the for any crystals that might work for his project, more often than not the ones within reach were useless for that but that didn’t always mean he wouldn’t find another use for them. The question had him pausing for a moment, pulling a hand up to brush some of his hair behind his ear as he thought. It all blended together still though not as much as it had before Liam.

“About once a week, more if something requires my attention. I would say my time down here now is less frequent than before. It may have been more apt to ask how often I left the Rift in the past.” There’d been reasons for it, for why he’d decided to isolate down here where most people would find that insane.

“I find it quiet, to a point, and after the missions I joined here I prefer it over my office at times even now.” Looking back over his shoulder, he made sure they kept up as he diverted over to one of the less visible paths. It looked as if it was cut through the rock, worn over time instead of manufactured. The unsettling thought that one of those large and ancient youma had made it used to bother him but after years and not seeing anything that large he was confident whatever made the paths he chose wouldn’t come back to complain.

It was comforting in its own way though, the familiarity he had of this place when things were otherwise shaky in his life back then. It was odd to hear someone nervous about it given most of the agents he interacted with were also generals or on his team so had his supervision if they wanted to come here.

“As long as you avoid any poor judgment calls or pull out a starseed to bring them swarming, you should be fine.” Not that he hadn’t done something similar to test a theory in the past, do as he said not as he did in this case but they didn’t know that or need to know that as it stood.

“Voce will be up ahead by the large wall of crystals I gather from, they have a knack for finding ones that fit my needs that are higher up. We are working on a better way for them to retrieve the crystals since some tend to be out of my reach and I am not one for making myself that open in order to scale the wall.” Not that he really had it in him to do that himself, his lungs would protest too much even after he’d stopped filling them with smoke.