Exploring the Pit: The First Ai'Brone (Closed to Alyssa)

[Cards of Fate]

“Son of a bitch!” Vincent spat retracting his arms from the open maw of an oven. The young scholar cradled an injured arm as he inspected his singed skin. A light pink line was beginning to form where his tanned arm had accidentally brushed the burning hot edges. He growled and slammed the hatch shut trapping the pie to its slow cooked demise. He glanced around the decrepit kitchen and its rusty stoves before honing in on the sink. He quickly wandered over and turned the knob, shoving his arm under the faucet. Nothing. He growled a string of obscenities as he looked around once more.

His blue eyes set upon the ice box across the room and scampered quickly over to it, stepping agilely over piles of lumber and metal as he crossed the room. He threw the door open and thrust his arm elbow deep into it. A small rune in the back seemed to suck the very heat out of the container and kept the whole thing cool. The scholar glanced inside and pulled out a frosty flask of green liquid. Grinning he sank his teeth into the cork and ripped it free, spitting it out onto the ground. He quickly brought it to his lips letting the fizzy citrus flavored drink flow over his tongue. He gulped it down eagerly whilst his other arm rested against the cold wall.

He took this time to observe his work. Over the past weeks he had taken a break from his almost constant studies to begin restoring the kitchen to its former glory. Rotted wooden counters had been torn out and replaced with smooth polished oak. Several rusted wood burning stoves had been polished to the best of his ability, and those that couldn’t be saved had been scrapped entirely. Aside from the still busted sinks and perhaps needing a fresh coat of paint on the walls the scholar felt incredibly proud of his work.

When the burning sensation was gone from his arm the scholar removed himself from it and went to sit down on a nearby stool while he waited for his dinner to finish cooking. He had made way too much food and was willing to share with anyone who poked their head in. Hanging out in the library or kitchen all the time could be terribly lonely business.

[Alyssa Snow]

"This goes here.... and, I think this goes here?" The young blonde muttered with a scratch of her head. She pushed a component into a much larger conflagration of wires, glowing bits, and whirring pieces. It clicked into place and the device she tinkered with began to rattle and chatter.

"Well, that's not good..." Alyssa curled her lip in thought while wiping a bead of sweat from her brow. She leaned back in her chair and fluttered her top to help cool herself in the stuffy workshop littered with all manner of contraptions and crystals. Meanwhile, the device grew louder and started to screech. Alyssa jostled forward and struggled to remove the piece she had inserted. Her nails could not grip, and smoke began to emanate from the glowing bits.

"No no no! Come on!" She mumbled through clenched teeth until the inevitable happened. In a flurry of sparks, pops, and hisses, the device sputtered to its death. Alyssa shielded her face with an arm until only the faint gurgle of some mysterious fluid bubbled out of it. The lights went dark and all motion ceased.

"Damn it," she swore as she pushed the mess into a bin of similarly destroyed contraptions. Alerian engineering still fell outside the girl's grasp. With a huff, she propped her chin in her hand and glanced to her pistols hung on the wall in front of her workbench. Her determined eyes ran over their polished chambers, fine crafted edges, and smooth alloy frame. Their secrets still remained tightly kept within. She was close, but still not there. One day...

"Ugh!" Alyssa ruffled her hair in frustration, blond locks tousled, knotted, and kinked. "I need a break."

Just then, a waft of something heavenly found its way over the aroma of burning metal, oil, and grime into her nostrils. Her body perked and righted. A few more sniffs and she was hooked. Alyssa pushed the chair from under her and stuck her head out into the hallway. A few more takes of the scent and her head cocked toward the kitchen.

The hunt was afoot.

Hair in a mess, clothes dirty, and hands black with grease, the teen gunner sauntered toward the scent which wafted from the kitchen. Her mouth salivated the closer she got, and Alyssa's stomach growled with a reminder of her lack of breakfast. She popped her head in while hugging the door frame and noticed a boy similar to her age by the ovens.

"Hello?" she called out timidly.

[Cards of Fate]

“Hello?” The words snapped Vincent from his idle thoughts as the scholar leapt to his feet.

“Hello!” he replied straightening his purple robes and running a hand through his messy mane of blonde hair. “You look familiar! Not that it’s hard if you live in dusty basement with a population of like six people…” he trailed off for a moment as he bit his lip and furrowed his brow. “Your name is on the tip of my tongue...Allllll, Alphonse? No no that’s the suit of armor from that one show…” he rubbed his chin for a moment. “Allydia? No! Alyssa!” He slapped his forehead. “Duh! You’re the Judgment Arcana!”

He paused for a moment, forgetting how to go about introducing himself. It had been simply him and his books for the longest time, not a lot of new faces when you live in the middle of nowhere. Finally after what seemed like ages of internal debate the scholar stuck his hand out to shake hers and gave her a goofy grin. “I’m Vincent Cain! Hierophant and number one chef in the entire Red Forest!”

Alyssa began to reach for his but then the both looked at the grease on her hands. “Perhaps I should wash up…” she began quietly glancing around.

“Oh yes there's a sink right over…” Vincent trailed off scowling. “Fuck! I keep forgetting the damn thing doesn’t work!” he growled. “There’s a bunch of pipes and shit under it but I have no clue how to go about even attempting to fix it.” he yawned and glared at the offending basin. “I think there might be some sort of water pipe or something downstairs that I need to go turn on…”

[Alyssa Snow]

“Well, I’m no expert, but I might be able to figure it out. Let me see.” The girl shuffled to the sink, got down on her knees, and stuck her head under the counter. Her body shuffled to her back and sounds of metal clanging against metal rang out.

“This should go here, and this here… Hmm… Some kind of rune? Let me try…” The faucet began to sputter and cough to life. “This! Yes!”

Water poured from the sink, a sickly black and brown at first. Then, as Alyssa scrambled to her feet, the stream began to clear.

“How…” he paused for a moment as he contemplates the stream of water before he simply closed his gaping mouth and sighs. “Thanks!”

“Yeah, I like to tinker around with things. I should consider us lucky, my last project exploded...heh.” The girl scrunched her face into a weak smile as she began to scrub the dirt and grime from her hands.

“So, I couldn’t help but notice something smelled really good. What’re you making?” she asked. Alyssa shut off the faucet with the twist of a knob and pulled a hand towel from a nearby rung. As she dabbed her hands dry, her attention fell on the humming oven beside him and the source of the delectable aroma.

[Cards of Fate]

“It’s a dish from my home called Pizza. Basically it’s baked bread, tomato sauce, melted shredded cheese and whatever else you feel like throwing on it! Would you like some?” The scholar replied glancing at the oven door. “Should be about ready soon….” he sank to his knees and opened it gingerly glaring at the golden brown cheese.

The waft of heat and food flooded the kitchen like a tsunami. Alyssa involuntarily wetted her lips. “Really?! Could I? I’m starving…”

“Of course! I love to share with my fellow Hierarchy members! Plus I made way too much to eat by myself!” the scholar rose to his full height and glanced around until he found a pair of oven mitts hanging up above the sink and slid his hands into them. He bent over and carefully reached his gloved hands in to extract the stone disk the pizza was resting it on.

He righted himself clutching the burning hot plate and turned around to set it down on an island counter behind the oven. He quickly pulled out a disk like slicing utensil from a nearby drawer and expertly cut the pie into eight slices. The scholar quickly crossed the kitchen and pulled out two plates from a cabinet and returned to the young woman dishing each of them two slices to start.

“Careful” he warned. “It’s a little hot.”

[Alyssa Snow]

Alyssa took the plate from him, full of steaming, gooey goodness. Her stomach gurgled softly in anticipation.

“Let’s grab a table,” she suggested as she walked toward the ice box. “and what do you like to drink? Grape or orange?”

Alyssa popped open the alchemical cooling unit and reached in to grab her choice of beverage, Raiaeran White Grape.

“Orange for me, thanks.”

The girl wrapped her pinky around the neck of the second flask and pulled herself out of the ice box. She turned to him with a smile.

“Shall we?”

Vincent nodded and they worked their way through the scrap, unfinished repairs, and into the dining area. Alyssa passed several wooden tables riddled with wood rot, tilted horribly to one side, or in pieces until she found one suitable enough for them. She set down the food and drink and fetched one of the better chairs she hoped would hold her weight long enough for a meal. Vincent similarly found himself a place to sit across from her.

“So how long have you been the Hierophant?” she asked while popping the cork of her beverage. “I feel bad asking because I haven’t heard too much about you and you already knew who I was…” Alyssa let out a nervous laugh.

[Cards of Fate]

Vincent paused for a moment at her question as he chewed on his piping hot slice of pizza. He swallowed and furrowed his brow. “Officially?” he asked scowling. “A few months or so…” his voice trailed off. “But when I first met Leona about a year ago she told me that it was my fate to become her Hierophant…” the scholar drummed his fingers on the table as his gaze found itself fixated on the orange drink. “As for not knowing much about me…it’s understandable really. I focus so much time on my studies I often forget to eat or sleep…”

He shrugged and uncorked the bottle after staring at if for several minutes and guzzled a bit of it smacking his lips. “It’s not often I even find my way out of my lair at all! Especially with my knee injury a couple of months ago…” he glanced around at all of the work he had yet to accomplish. He was no carpenter but he had read enough books on woodworking to make him confident enough to restore the tables he had thus far. It also helped that his culinary accomplice Ioder, and surprisingly Tobias Stalt, had been keen on helping him out.

Vincent paused and glanced back up to Alyssa realizing he had been more involved in a monologue than a conversation. “Whoops I didn't mean to hog the conversation!” he apologized running a nervous hand through his hair. “What about you? How long have you been the judgement card?”

[Alyssa Snow]

“That’s okay,” Alyssa managed after a gulping down a bite of the new food. She made a mental note to log it away as something to ask Anvil to try and make. The thought of his over the top dwarf reiteration put a warm smile on her face.

“And I’m actually the Tarot of Justice, but I’ve had a few people confuse me with Leona from time to time. Justice and Judgement do go hand in hand after all.” Alyssa scrunched her lip at the thought. Lately, she felt more at odds with the seer than a companion. Much of Leona’s actions were questionable, but usually paid off in some positive way. Lately…

She blinked away the thought.

“Anyway, I’ve only been the Tarot of Justice for a few months now? I haven’t really felt like a fit for the role, though. The Hierarchy has been pretty quiet recently. Not a real demand for someone to drop the gavel if you know what I mean?” She awkwardly smiled at Vincent before silencing herself with another bite of his cooking. Warm cheese, tangy sauce, crisp bread, “pizza” as he called it was quickly becoming a favorite food.

“Sho...,” she mumbled before she checked her manners, swallowed her mouthful, and washed it down with a gulp of grape juice.

“Sorry, so… Ioder tells me you two have been exploring the other floors of our new home. Have you found anything interesting?”

Alyssa took another increasingly addictive bite..

[Cards of Fate]

Vincent winced at his obvious mistake. “Fuck I’m so sorry!” he yelped returning his gaze to the table between them. His cheeks flushed a bright red.

‘I did not just fucking do that’ he thought angrily to himself. ‘I did not just call her the wrong fucking card, that’s almost as bad as fucking up her name Vincent, you twat!’ The scholar bit his lip, suddenly he wasn’t as hungry as he had been just moments before.

He took a moment to try and calm himself down. It had been a while since he had had a flare up of his social anxiety; something about this world made such a thing less common. After a deep breath, he relaxed a bit and began to speak once more. He was vaguely aware of the rest of her half of the conversation but it was her question that had caught his attention in his semi-flustered state. “Yeah, Ioder and I have been snooping around a bit. The lower level floors are pretty dark, and it seems like whoever built this structure first simply carved the whole thing straight out of the rock…”

He took another bite out of his slice and pondered for a moment. “Well we did find this hot springs…” he grinned slightly. “Ioder and I were exploring after I had started to recover from my knee injury a couple months ago and we found it on...I guess you would call it the third floor.” he paused for a moment to let his thoughts catch up with him and saw Alyssa was beaming at him.

“Did you just say hot springs?” the excitement in her voice was readily apparent.

“Yup! There were some unexplored halls too! If you want we could go explore them a bit after we finish eating? Or before, pizza is pretty good when it’s cold too!”

[Alyssa Snow]

“Cold pizza?” Alyssa looked down to her lunch and tried to imagine it at room temperature. “Cold, wet bread sounds pretty gross to be honest… Let’s finish first, I’ll get my things and we can go for an adventure. I want to see this underground hot spring.”

“Okay, but you’re missing out. Cold pizza in the morning is the breakfast of champions,” Vincent replied with a grin.

“Ew, gross.” Regardless of the frown on her face, Alyssa took a few more bites and chased them with juice. Her hurried pace let her new acquaintance know she was eager to stretch her legs and maybe enjoy a soak. Alyssa cleaned her plate first, but Vincent didn’t lag too far behind. Together, they cleaned up. Vincent tended to the oven and Alyssa the dishes.

“Alright,” Alyssa began as she dried her hands, “let me just run off to my room and get on something more adventure worthy than a tank and shorts. Shouldn't be but a few!”

Then, as suddenly as she arrived, she skipped out and disappeared around the corner.