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[Qu33n0f1c3]

Sylvia held her head in her hand as she slowly shook her head at the sheer absurdity of the goings on around here. Not only was the fairy proving herself to be an idiot, but the human was clearly not the most restrained person in the world. He seemed to be continuously saying more than was necessary.

Thankfully the fairy calmed herself down and asked what the two of them wanted to be paid. Sylvia looked to the human as he answered, stating that he needed enough money to stay at an inn for a couple of days. Was he a tourist then? It would certainly make sense with the way he'd reacted to seeing the fairy. It was kind of intriguing. Did this guy have any idea what he was getting in to?

"You'll need at least 700 lei if you want to spend a week here comfortably," Sylvia advised the human stranger, "plus a little more for the nature of the job. 1000 lei seems fair, considering the dangers." She looked to the fairy, wondering if paying 2000 lei to have escorts into the forest for a couple measly ingredients was worth it. She'd need to make one heck of a profit to afford something like that.

((The 'leu' is the Romanian dollar. Plural is 'lei'. Their smaller form of currency is the 'ban', plural being 'bani'.))

[Aether Engine]

Eugene listened to the woman as she gave her quick summation of the likely price. Somehow it was higher than he expected, but then again he only had a few days worth of experience in the country to understand how things worked around here.  Whoever this woman was, she certainly had the air of someone who knew what they were doing, a coldness that acknowledged him for the sake of making sure things ran smoothly.

“Well, I guess 1000 lei will be my asking price then.”

1000 lei. Eugene began to wonder if he was under-qualified for something like this.

[abadlex]

Aerial put on a thoughtful look as she listened to Sylvia as she answered the man's question and stated that 1000 lei would be a fair price. The man seemed to agree, meaning that Aerial would have to pay 2000 lei in total and giving her only 200 lei left over. If she could lower the price a bit though...

"I suppose you two deserve a bonus for the possible dangers..." the fairy started. "But 1000 lei sounds like I'm asking you two to look for trouble. Surely 800 lei will be satifactory, seeing as I'm only asking you to fend off the creatures that decide to attack us"

[Aether Engine]

Down to 800 lei. Okay. Lower price, lower expectations.  That seemed to lighten Eugene's psychological load a bit, though he still felt unsure about the whole affair.

“800 lei sounds reasonable in that case,” he agreed.

Eugene's anticipation was rising as the bargaining drew out. Well justified worries about going in over his head were edging along with hopes that things would not turn out as badly as he thought they would.

[Qu33n0f1c3]

Sylvia smiled when Eugene used her numbers as a base, and smiled wider when the fairy provided a generous counter offer. Eugene agreed to it, and Sylvia nodded slowly, though she smirked as well. She did like looking for trouble, but Aerial had a point. They might not even be attacked at all.

"800 lei. Deal. I know that forest like the back of my pa-- hand. I'll be able to sme--tell when trouble's on its way. You've got nothing to worry about with me by your side."

She glanced to Eugene, still excited by the prospect of scaring him silly later.

[abadlex]

Aerial was a bit surprised. Both of them argeed to her counter offer of 800 lei, although it was a bit generous... What sparked Aerial's curiousity was how Sylvia changed her words a couple times, but she decided to ignore it. No need to pry...

"Alright then" Aerial said, flying over to where her coat was. "Let's get started... I need to get large amounts of different ingredients"

She stopped as soon as she passed the man, turning to him. "Oh wait, I never caught your name"

[Aether Engine]

There was something a a little off in the woman's words, something Eugene could not quite place. He thought he caught her using some odd terms, but it felt easy to chalk that up to him not hearing her correctly. He thought he finally detected something else in her speech—a Russian accent? Maybe that was what was throwing him off. Either way, he made a mental note to check his English-to-Romanian dictionary again to keep himself sharp.

Eugene was happy enough to move on to the job. Sort of. With negotiations out of the way, he was now feeling anxious about what would happen next. He looked down at his body that was still fully dressed.  At least he did not have to prepare much.

“Oh, my name?” that was right, he had not given his name. “My name is Eugene.”

Then something else occurred to Eugene, and he turned to the odd woman he would be working with in this job.

“Thinking about it, I do not know your name.”

[Qu33n0f1c3]

Sylvia was glad to be getting a move on, as well as for the fact that no one else had shown up to pontetially steal some pay. It was bad enough the meat bag--Eugene--was there for that.

She turned toward the door as they got moving and drew her clothes closer to her body.

"Names Sylvia, but I'll answer to anything that's not vulgar. I like nicknames."

[abadlex]

Getting her coat, Aerial nodded at Eugene.

"Well Eugene" Aerial said. "Glad to be working with you..."

"And you" she finished, turning to Sylvia.

Putting her coat, Aerial flew to the door and opened it the cold air rushing in. Doing her best to ignore it, she hovered outside and looked up into the sky, trying to tell what time it was.

[Qu33n0f1c3]

Aerial seemed eager to get going now that she had set a price and learned the names of her escorts. Sylvia bristled slightly at the cold burst of air and once more longed to shift into her wolf form. She was in desperate want of its fur right then. She refrained, however, and approached the doorway, nodding to the Eugene fellow as she went.

Aerial had taken to looking at the sky, and Sylvia followed her gaze a moment in hopes of figuring out what she was searching for. The sky seemed unremarkable, and so she shrugged her shoulders and stepped away from the house a considerable difference, after which she turned around and waited, wondering silently what it was Eugene would fight with if an enemy did show its face.

[Aether Engine]

Eugene followed along behind the other two to the outdoors, thankfully with no need to redress himself since he had little time to remove his winter clothes to begin with. As he followed behind them, he briefly mimicked their skyward gaze.

Yep, that sure is the sky alright.

As his sight focused back upon the earth, Eugene looked back to Sylvia, wondering thoughts similar to hers. She was helping with protection in this job, but he did not see any obvious signs of a weapon. Did she use magic too? Or maybe she had something like a knife concealed. Or maybe she just just did bare-fisted brawling. That would actually be kind of badass. A possibility closer to the truth skimmed the back of his mind, a remnant of the one good thing from a recent horrific experience, but a desire to not recall such events left it out of his conscious thoughts.

Just focus on being strong, being brave, he reminded himself.

“So, which way?” Eugene inquired, wondering was to be done next for this job.

[abadlex]

Aerial looked away from the sky, deciding that they had a decent amount of time before nightfall. Time to get started...

"This way" she merely said, hovering off in the direction of the forest. "We shouldn't have to deal with anything on the way to the forest"