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[Sup Investigators. Have some spazflail in your brains.]

Ogura Sio, reporting!!

There are dragons. They kill people. There's a force that fights them coming from someplace called Flamegard but they lose a third of their people every year because they haven't even got cannons. Can, can we give them cannons? I know we're supposed to blend in b-but - but! What if it's our mission?

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Isn't it just because they're hungry? [Damn you people and your moral complexities.]

That doesn't preclude the existence of other factors, though. I'm not discounting the possibility that hunger is their only motivation, but I don't think we can automatically assume that, either.

...You said they fight the dragons every year? How long has this been happening? If this is a relatively recent phenomenon, perhaps something happened to rile them up.

They, uh, I'll need to ask... but, even if it's new, we still have to stop them! Monsters like that need to be taken out, or, or chased away from where people live!

Agreed. But if there is a way to do that relatively peacefully, I don't think we should overlook it.

Well, I guess it's better for people too, this way...

[Lies. Sio always things getting to shoot monsters is better.]

[Raidou shoots and stabs monsters on a regular basis. It is often tedious and frequently unpleasant.]

If it can stop them from dying needlessly, yes.

[Of course stabbing is unpleasant. That's why you shoot.]

But... I don't know how you negotiate with something that things you're food.

[Revolvers don't necessarily do a lot of damage. Good for stunning sometimes, though.]

I think it would depend on whether there's something they'd want more than eating you.

[The last time Raidou had had to negotiate with someone who wanted to eat him, he'd plied the demon with liquor. And had then had to beat it down when it decided it wanted to eat him anyway, but a drunk Tarrasque is quite a bit sloppier in battle than a sober one.]

[He considers mentioning this, but he highly doubts that they'll have access to the very large amount of alcohol needed to intoxicate a large group of dragons.]

Why would they even talk to you if they think you're just their lunch, though...

[Negotiating with the EIOs never even got brought up as an option, and Sio is okay with that. Bloodlust aside, monsters are monsters. The idea of them negotiating upsets the order of the world. She doesn't want people to die, but somehow there's something... humiliating in the idea of talking to things that prey on you, instead of fighting them.]

I, I mean, you'd think if it was that easy, someone would've tried it already.

[Raidou is tempted to explain more about the way these things work in his world, but the necessity of not talking to outsiders about his abilities was impressed on him a bit too thoroughly for that. It's one thing if they can see the demons, but otherwise... he just can't. And he can't explain it to anyone because, well, they'd know about the demons then.]

[Although at the rate things are going here, his internal debate is rapidly becoming moot.]

I know. That's why I asked if they'd shown any willingness to talk to humans. If they haven't, then our options are somewhat limited.

[He pauses then, clearly mulling something over before continuing, a bit slowly.] A show of strength may or may not be helpful; it probably depends on their intelligence and their social system, if they have one. And if it turns out that they want something that can't be given anyway, then it doesn't really matter, does it?

[Thinking about it in those terms is easier for her. Strategy, not diplomacy. Sio understands strategy as a concept, even if it is a bit hard to apply it when your one true love is shooting things.

But she isn't alone here. There's Eren, fighting dragons with swords. For his sake she can cool her head.]

Would you talk to Jaeger-san? I just joined up with them but, he's a really important dragon fighter... he'll know everything.

I can, if he's willing to talk to me.

...I need to accompany two other Investigators to see if we can learn anything from the Illuminated, but one of them said he could transport me to you afterwards if there's no chance to talk to him beforehand. I'm hoping we can learn more about the dragons there, too.

[He's still torn about this, although Joscelin offering to send him to the dragonslaying group when they're done has helped somewhat.]

He's got to! This is really important!

[Well, considering Eren... but he's not stupid. She can tell because she, too, is a trigger-happy psycho who isn't stupid. Not when it comes to fighting, anyway. She's sure Eren doesn't want people to die, at least, so anything that helps with that should get at least an elevator pitch.]

The Illuminated are the... magic people, right?

I know it is. And I'm sure he does. too.

[Although depending on how long Eren has been doing this, or thinks he's been doing this, Raidou isn't sure how accepting he'll be of a bunch of questions about the communication skills of the creatures who are killing and/or eating the humans here.]

Yes, they are.

Edited 2014-05-31 20:42 (UTC)

[Sio contemplates this a moment. When she broke into everyone's minds she was sure that the dragons were the mission, but when she takes another moment, while not distracted by the thought of Eren fighting a dragon with a sword...]

They put up the show thing, the thing with the queen and... I was kind of distracted.

So was I, to be honest. I missed parts of that.

[Because he was too busy trying to figure out just how he could get any intel at all after a large portion of the marketplace saw Inugami when they shouldn't have.]

Someone's going to fill us in... right? Someone must've been paying attention.

[She sounds mildly confident. There are some actual professionals among the Travellers after all, or veterans at least. But then there's the lack of a command structure and of course the worry that they're just going to keep her out of the loop because she's useless.]

I would assume so.

[He hopes.]

We could ask someone, as well. Who do you think would be best?

Uh... Remy-san and Hijikata-san aren't Infiltrators right? A-and Joscelin-san. They're veterans...

[She also passes along the distinct impression that she doesn't want to do the asking. She'd feel stupid. And she does that a lot.]

I can ask Joscelin-san, if you like. He's one of the Investigators I'm accompanying now.

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