Welcome to Gaia! ::

When Melvin returned back from finding fear artifacts, he was surprised to see Jordan by himself. He hadn't been aware he had been here, and was surprised to see he wasn't surrounded by his usual escorts.

After meeting up with Rin, it didn't take any time for the three of them to decide on doing another mission. The more time they did their work, the more hope there seemed to be that everyone could go home. The longer the portals were up, the more Melvin worried they would go down.

They were given a set of daggers and directions on what zones to look, and were soon heading out. "I didn't see you here at first, Jordan. Did your guys leave you behind?"

Jordan had been pleased to be assigned to a group with someone he knew, even if he hadn't yet seen the guys. They'd be back soon enough. "No, I was out on an outpost when the message came though," he answered Melvin's question. "Tracking down a wendigo that'd been killing people in Canada. Would've been getting home in a few days." He shrugged. "I guess they're pulling a percentage from each base and outpost to get personnel quota. One out of four."

The twisted shape of something unidentifiable and ruined loomed out of the sand. Jordan checked it; not a match to the instructions they'd been given.

"Ugh, wendigos. You dodged a bullet if you ask me. Ugly ******** that make you smell like penguin vomit for months." Rin tried to lighten the mood a little to alleviate her frustration at finding nothing useful again. She looked to Melvin, slightly softer this time, "it's how you worded your question, really." She shoved some rubble aside. "Perhaps you should start asking you your own questions first in your head cause in that instance you would have asked yourself, 'hey, did Rin leave you behind?' in a circumstance where you'd be wandering all on your own." She wondered if that made at least half-sense to him.

"Stink? You met a Windigo?" He said, looking to Rin. It would continue to amaze him what his fellow hunters got up to. He had never even seen one and actually couldn't really picture one. It was a name almost everyone heard with no real context other than it was one of those scary monsters you often first heard in elementary school from an eccentric friend.

"Can't say I would want to meet one. I have no idea what penguin vomit smells like, but that is a smell that seems too specific to be good." The fact Rin used that specific odor meant it had to be bad - and come with a story.

As Rin schooled him on social etiquette, he imagined a situation where he would pause to ask himself the same thing in the subjects place, and guessed it made sense. "That would make sense, I guess, but you don't flank me as much as Rep does Jordan and Harrison." Though he would still feel hurt if she openly left him behind.

"No matter how boring the island gets, I do t think I'd volunteer for missions unless it was very important. Doesn't make sense to me to throw yourself into danger when the Leads seem to get a kick out of doing that already."

He looked up in time to see a dagger beside a piece of ruins and pointed it out. "Found one." He headed over and checked to make sure it was still finely planted and holding strong. It seemed to be working well, and he was glad that they had working barriers around. The Deus version of a fence. "Wonder what all we are keeping out."



Daggers placed: 0/2
Daggers checked: 1/2

"A scorpion? Big one?" The huge bugs didn't bother Jordan, really; giant bugs were monstrous, dangerous, but they could be fought. They could deal a lot of damage out, but they could also be crushed; they didn't swarm, didn't get under - He turned his train of thought deliberately and carefully away.

"Off-base missions have been mostly boring with occasional spikes of activity and stress. Not much different from the usual." He shrugged. "I guess if you hated people, had someone to avoid, or just preferred to be alone an outpost would work better than the island."

"Oh, that yeti?" Jordan snorted. "It was polar bear, not penguin, but I guess that doesn't really matter for the eventual outcome, and it did come out."

He spotted a dagger sticking out of the sand under the shadow of a jagged piece of rock, and checked to make sure it was firmly planted. "This one's good."

Daggers placed: 1/2
Daggers checked: 2/2

"The size of a bus," Rin enthused at Jordan as she held her hand out wide. This would have worked better if she had two.

She laughed hard at the recollection of the yeti, "yeah, whatever the ******** it was it took months to get the smell out of my hair." Her wide toothy grin turned on Melvin. "I was still in the splash zone so when it's head exploded-," she was cut short by Melvin's return to awkward questions. This time she didn't correct him so much as give him a look.

"Just as well that you missed that one," Jordan told Melvin, quirking a faint smile. He spotted a location and crouched to place the dagger, fixing it firmly in the ground and then brushing off his hands as he rose.

He froze for just an instant at the question, automatically opening his mouth to deny it. He thought of Rep, and of Harrison, and of the way Harrison drew in on himself when they were fighting, and of how little good trying to pretend everything was normal was doing. "Maybe," he said instead. "It wasn't the main purpose for accepting the assignment, but maybe." He looked off toward the hazy horizon, a troubled look crossing his face briefly, then shook his head.

"Well," he said, "looks like we're done here, anyway. We should probably go back before we attract the attention of further giant scorpions."

Daggers placed: 2/2
Daggers checked: 2/2

Rin untensed as things seemed to pass smoothly enough. She smiled, false, but to cover the look up as if it had never happened. "Yes, I'm sure your guys are back at the base looking for us anyway." Her smile turned more genuine. She was sure they were very worried.