[ hm, she really is a curious one. which has its pros and cons-- being stuck with someone on a mission who doesn't notice their surroundings usually ends up being a headache and more like babysitting. the downside is that she is obviously nosy.
he pulls out a small book. ]
I like to take notes.
[ which isn't a lie. sometimes you used to be a scholar and the habits do not die. ]
well this is weird. he is fairly sure he did not imagine that odd feeling earlier when she tried to mind read, but since it didn't happen again and he has no idea what it actually was, he can't really question it too hard.
for now, though, he reorganizes his belongings and will take this time alone to go through his phone. unfortunately childe is useless for asking things about sumeru and on the assumption that scaramouche is even alive in this timeline, that bitch doesn't use his phone so he is also useless. he puts his stuff away for now and will just take notes on what happened today. ]
[sheba has a couple of nice, pleasant conversations!
whenever she asks about the scholars they're looking for traces of, she gets the same answer - the scholars did pass through, and they did purchase some supplies, but they headed off into the desert on their own and haven't been back since. from what the people in the village are saying, how they vanished and what happened to them is a mystery.
but people don't always say everything they know, and as sheba concludes her last conversation with someone within ryo's line of sight, he'll see that as soon as she turns away from the villager, the smile drops off her face and she frowns.
once they've regrouped and found somewhere to talk (me, not remembering if there's an inn or if they're going to have to camp out) - ]
...they're hiding something. Everyone's telling me the scholars went into the desert on their own, but I overheard someone talking about how they'd brought along one of the Village Keepers with them.
[she actually read their mind and heard this, but unfortunately, the person whose mind she read did not think of the person's name.]
I guess it makes a little bit of sense that they might have accompanied them... Village Keepers were scholars at the Akademiya once. What doesn't make sense is the fact that the villagers are hiding it.
[ so it really is some sort of weird conspiracy then. it would be a lot simpler if it was just that they had gone into the desert unprepared and gotten horribly lost. those kinds of stories are pretty common, but...
ryo sighs. ]
Did they say which direction they went off to? It may not help narrow it down too much since the desert's large, but it's better than nothing.
They were going to head west first, to examine the area around the Mausoleum of King Deshret, and then head north from there to try to find the Eternal Oasis. Or, at least, that's what they were saying.
[she frowns, crossing her arms.]
...but I did overhear one of them mumbling about how they didn't know how they planned to get past the Tanit camps.
[ ryo's first thought is that this girl is somehow very good at eavesdropping at the right time.
his second thought is that at least they have a direction to head to. the problem with the desert is, again, even if you are headed to a specific location in it, it's so easy to get turned around-- all it takes is one bad sand storm. but knowing what spots they should have hit along the way would give them a general idea of the path the group should have taken. ]
... interesting. We can head that way in the morning, then. You're all stocked up?
[idly, sheba wonders how she would ever get anything done if she couldn't read minds. ah well. it's fine.]
Mhm, I'm good to go whenever.
[she does not seem at all daunted by the prospect of setting out for a trek through the desert, even though now it seems like there's a chance foul play might be involved. she is pretty confident in her ability to hold her own.]
[ it shouldn't take too long to reach their destination, and things might end up in a fight.
... which yeah, ryo isn't too worried about, but it is easier to deal with people when you are alone than with a witness around and sheba seems to be very observant so.
he will settle down to rest. well he goes to write down notes and then he will "rest" ]
well, not really. she is pretending to sleep. it's not especially obvious that she's just pretending, either - she'd more or less perfected the art of feigning sleep during her days as lord babi's "honored guest" in tolbi. but she can hear the rustle of papers and the skritch-scratch of whatever he's using to write, so she
blatantly violates his privacy and tries to mind read him again i'm sorry. you really waited for me to be done with work just to get this bullshit tag]
[ it works this time because he thinks she is asleep, but unfortunately he is not thinking anything too spicy or interesting-- it really is just about the quest and things like that.
the only thing that might be interesting, is that after a bit, he does think, i guess i should go see childe once this is taken care of.
not to fight him but just to see if anything interesting has happened. ]
[suspicious!! why is he thinking about a fatui harbinger!!
anyway, once her snooping is done, sheba will actually sleep.
she wakes up bright and early the next morning, refreshed and ready to go. onward to the west and the mausoleum of king deshret... however, as they're heading for the western exit of the village, they'll find that there's a young kid waiting for them there.
"You two are from the Adventurer's Guild, right?"
sheba glances at ryo, raising an eyebrow, and then turns her attention back to the kid to nod.]
That's right.
["I want to commission you. I have mora. I saved up my allowance for it..."]
[ that said... it is odd for him to have just been waiting for them. word might have spread around from sheba scoping out the village, but you never know. ]
But what is it?
[ on a surface level it seems like ryo is being nice to a child but he really just wants to know if this is a trap or not. ]
[well, sheba is now invading this kid's privacy and reading his mind as he talks to him. she does not have any way of sharing this with ryo, since she does not want to tell him that she can read minds, but the kid's thoughts at least line up with what he's saying.
"My uncle went into the desert with the scholars... everyone keeps saying it'll be fine and he'll come back and to not talk about it, but it's been too long. Since you're looking for the scholars anyway, could you find my uncle and bring him back home? I can pay you!"]
[sheba is paying closer attention to the mind reading now, just in case the kid tries to hide anything, but he does not. having decided to commission them, he's also decided to be an open book.
"He said... he said some of it had to do with topics that are forbidden for scholars at the Akademiya to be researching, so they would have to be very careful. But don't tell him I said that when you find him, okay? I'm only mentioning it in case it helps you think of a place to look... I don't know what kind of things are forbidden to research but maybe you do. You're adventurers!"
unfortunately they are also outlanders but sheba does not say that part.]
sheba is frowning a little as she mulls this over, and her brows are a bit furrowed when she glances back at ryo.]
...I keep thinking about the way our commission was phrased. "Figure out what the sightings are and determine if they have anything to do with the disappearances." [she crosses her arms.] Whoever submitted the commission to the guild didn't actually commission us to bring them back. Just to find out what happened.
[she starts to say something, pauses, frowns a little deeper, and then - ]
If it's involving forbidden research... I don't know, is it too paranoid to be wondering if there was foul play involved in the disappearances and we're being asked to confirm it for them because whoever was supposed to do it never reported back?
It's possible. When you think about it, the average adventurer would simply assume it's a rescue mission, and would just report whether or not they were able to find them. So there would only be a few results-- they never find those who disappear, or they do, but then it's a question if they find them dead or alive.
[ admittedly, ryo is not interested in rescuing people, he is just interested in the secrets of the desert. but it's fine. ]
[sheba crosses her arms, still frowning. man, she hates feeling like she's being made to do someone else's dirty work for them.
(there is, of course, the chance that she's reading too much into the villagers' unwillingness to be upfront with them and the kid's request, but - it does seem fishy to her.)]
...I kinda wish we'd gotten the chance to meet whoever had put up the commission instead of just going through Katheryne. It would have been easier to get a read on the situation then.
[she could have read their minds and found out what the were really after. tch.]
Oh, I actually tried to get into contact with them. Katheryne said that the poster informed the Guild that he would be unreachable for a period of time after posting the commission, and they would send the mora by a messenger upon completion if they were still tied up.
[ a pause, before he smiles. ]
Odd, isn't it? To post a commission and then say you can't be contacted right after?
Extremely odd. I wonder if that's part of why they were recruiting adventurers from Mondstadt for this - to make it harder for people to ask questions.
[the katheryne in mondstadt only had so much information to give them, after all, and it's not like they could readily ask questions of the person who posted the commission from there. and traveling to sumeru had taken enough time that there really hadn't been the opportunity to do any more digging once she'd arrived.]
Depending on what they find... well, if they're not going to be honest with us, we're not obligated to be honest with them, are we?
It's not like they told us to give them a detailed report on what we uncover.
[ the request was pretty straightforward? like, almost too straightforward, considering missing people are involved, so you would assume there would be a lot more directions attached if you were actually concerned about their safety. ]
...I think if it's actually as shady as it seems like it might be right now, we may end up needing to watch our backs depending on what we find.
[if they stumble across information that whoever posted this commission doesn't want getting out there... well, it wouldn't be the first time someone's tried to kill her. it probably won't be the last, either.]
Probably better that an average adventurer didn't take this one. I think we're both better equipped to handle this than most people.
[ well. that is certainly true. he gives her a curious look, but doesn't prod more, since she could just mean that they have visions. which is the normal assumption to make. ]
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he pulls out a small book. ]
I like to take notes.
[ which isn't a lie. sometimes you used to be a scholar and the habits do not die. ]
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[she will not be taking notes, but that's because she has a good memory for this kind of thing (and can just read minds for a refresher anyway).
she makes a mental note to read his mind again once she spots him writing. for now, though...]
Okay, I'm gonna go ask around about the scholars. I'll let you know what I find out!
[away she goes to be social...]
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well this is weird. he is fairly sure he did not imagine that odd feeling earlier when she tried to mind read, but since it didn't happen again and he has no idea what it actually was, he can't really question it too hard.
for now, though, he reorganizes his belongings and will take this time alone to go through his phone. unfortunately childe is useless for asking things about sumeru and on the assumption that scaramouche is even alive in this timeline, that bitch doesn't use his phone so he is also useless. he puts his stuff away for now and will just take notes on what happened today. ]
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whenever she asks about the scholars they're looking for traces of, she gets the same answer - the scholars did pass through, and they did purchase some supplies, but they headed off into the desert on their own and haven't been back since. from what the people in the village are saying, how they vanished and what happened to them is a mystery.
but people don't always say everything they know, and as sheba concludes her last conversation with someone within ryo's line of sight, he'll see that as soon as she turns away from the villager, the smile drops off her face and she frowns.
once they've regrouped and found somewhere to talk (me, not remembering if there's an inn or if they're going to have to camp out) - ]
...they're hiding something. Everyone's telling me the scholars went into the desert on their own, but I overheard someone talking about how they'd brought along one of the Village Keepers with them.
[she actually read their mind and heard this, but unfortunately, the person whose mind she read did not think of the person's name.]
I guess it makes a little bit of sense that they might have accompanied them... Village Keepers were scholars at the Akademiya once. What doesn't make sense is the fact that the villagers are hiding it.
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[ so it really is some sort of weird conspiracy then. it would be a lot simpler if it was just that they had gone into the desert unprepared and gotten horribly lost. those kinds of stories are pretty common, but...
ryo sighs. ]
Did they say which direction they went off to? It may not help narrow it down too much since the desert's large, but it's better than nothing.
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[she frowns, crossing her arms.]
...but I did overhear one of them mumbling about how they didn't know how they planned to get past the Tanit camps.
[she heard them thinking that, actually.]
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his second thought is that at least they have a direction to head to. the problem with the desert is, again, even if you are headed to a specific location in it, it's so easy to get turned around-- all it takes is one bad sand storm. but knowing what spots they should have hit along the way would give them a general idea of the path the group should have taken. ]
... interesting. We can head that way in the morning, then. You're all stocked up?
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Mhm, I'm good to go whenever.
[she does not seem at all daunted by the prospect of setting out for a trek through the desert, even though now it seems like there's a chance foul play might be involved. she is pretty confident in her ability to hold her own.]
Let's get some rest and head out early.
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[ it shouldn't take too long to reach their destination, and things might end up in a fight.
... which yeah, ryo isn't too worried about, but it is easier to deal with people when you are alone than with a witness around and sheba seems to be very observant so.
he will settle down to rest. well he goes to write down notes and then he will "rest" ]
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...
well, not really. she is pretending to sleep. it's not especially obvious that she's just pretending, either - she'd more or less perfected the art of feigning sleep during her days as lord babi's "honored guest" in tolbi. but she can hear the rustle of papers and the skritch-scratch of whatever he's using to write, so she
blatantly violates his privacy and tries to mind read him again i'm sorry. you really waited for me to be done with work just to get this bullshit tag]
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the only thing that might be interesting, is that after a bit, he does think, i guess i should go see childe once this is taken care of.
not to fight him but just to see if anything interesting has happened. ]
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anyway, once her snooping is done, sheba will actually sleep.
she wakes up bright and early the next morning, refreshed and ready to go. onward to the west and the mausoleum of king deshret... however, as they're heading for the western exit of the village, they'll find that there's a young kid waiting for them there.
"You two are from the Adventurer's Guild, right?"
sheba glances at ryo, raising an eyebrow, and then turns her attention back to the kid to nod.]
That's right.
["I want to commission you. I have mora. I saved up my allowance for it..."]
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[ that said... it is odd for him to have just been waiting for them. word might have spread around from sheba scoping out the village, but you never know. ]
But what is it?
[ on a surface level it seems like ryo is being nice to a child but he really just wants to know if this is a trap or not. ]
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"My uncle went into the desert with the scholars... everyone keeps saying it'll be fine and he'll come back and to not talk about it, but it's been too long. Since you're looking for the scholars anyway, could you find my uncle and bring him back home? I can pay you!"]
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I see. That should be fine then. Did you uncle tell you anything about it before he left with them?
[ tries to dig for any information. ]
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"He said... he said some of it had to do with topics that are forbidden for scholars at the Akademiya to be researching, so they would have to be very careful. But don't tell him I said that when you find him, okay? I'm only mentioning it in case it helps you think of a place to look... I don't know what kind of things are forbidden to research but maybe you do. You're adventurers!"
unfortunately they are also outlanders but sheba does not say that part.]
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We'll be off, then.
[ they were already off before they got interrupted. but once they head out, he'll glance at sheba. ]
We seem to have gotten ourselves into a mess.
[ this is getting more complicated than a simple rescue mission. ]
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sheba is frowning a little as she mulls this over, and her brows are a bit furrowed when she glances back at ryo.]
...I keep thinking about the way our commission was phrased. "Figure out what the sightings are and determine if they have anything to do with the disappearances." [she crosses her arms.] Whoever submitted the commission to the guild didn't actually commission us to bring them back. Just to find out what happened.
[she starts to say something, pauses, frowns a little deeper, and then - ]
If it's involving forbidden research... I don't know, is it too paranoid to be wondering if there was foul play involved in the disappearances and we're being asked to confirm it for them because whoever was supposed to do it never reported back?
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[ admittedly, ryo is not interested in rescuing people, he is just interested in the secrets of the desert. but it's fine. ]
So, depending on what we report back...
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(there is, of course, the chance that she's reading too much into the villagers' unwillingness to be upfront with them and the kid's request, but - it does seem fishy to her.)]
...I kinda wish we'd gotten the chance to meet whoever had put up the commission instead of just going through Katheryne. It would have been easier to get a read on the situation then.
[she could have read their minds and found out what the were really after. tch.]
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[ a pause, before he smiles. ]
Odd, isn't it? To post a commission and then say you can't be contacted right after?
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[the katheryne in mondstadt only had so much information to give them, after all, and it's not like they could readily ask questions of the person who posted the commission from there. and traveling to sumeru had taken enough time that there really hadn't been the opportunity to do any more digging once she'd arrived.]
Depending on what they find... well, if they're not going to be honest with us, we're not obligated to be honest with them, are we?
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[ the request was pretty straightforward? like, almost too straightforward, considering missing people are involved, so you would assume there would be a lot more directions attached if you were actually concerned about their safety. ]
What do you think about all of it?
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[if they stumble across information that whoever posted this commission doesn't want getting out there... well, it wouldn't be the first time someone's tried to kill her. it probably won't be the last, either.]
Probably better that an average adventurer didn't take this one. I think we're both better equipped to handle this than most people.
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Mm. [ hmmm. ] Do you think they're still alive.
[ the researchers. the villagers. ]
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