New Semester, New Beginning

[WhereItSleeps]

Life had come to a tepid crawl in the last few months for Jazu. He had spent much of his days collecting coin and tantalizing the tongues of many, practicing his craft above a flame most nights. With much thanks to the rich bounty of crawlers, he had managed to turn Neverscale Beach into quite the commodity for his meals and training. His days taking ships had long been over but that was no excuse to get rusty. However, as the days continued to amass Jazu was finding little pleasure in hunting down crabs and lobsters to pass the time. Seafood had been his specialty and was easy enough to work with but, he would need more than a few rumbling stomachs to pay his way off of the islands and onward to more interesting cuisine.

Not much more than a year spent in Corone and he had little more than a dented pan to show for it. Despite his best attempts at making contact, he had not heard from his employer since the fiasco that ended with his prized cooking instrument damaged and the only witness to his taking of it silenced. Jazu came to believe that with enough gold or knowledge he could hope to reenchant the heating abilities of his pan or come across some better cooking equipment, but came to make that a secondary task when he decided upon his choice of action.

The University of Molyneux had passed through more than a few lips between savory bites, causing Jazu to develop an interest in school life. Whatever would be in store, he was certain it could not be any more difficult than Zaquelle’s tutelage and decided to test his mental mettle. His first two days had been what some might call hectic. He had attained little instruction or direction before then, and even today, his third, was not entirely sure where he wanted to head with his enrollment status. A book of once empty pages was now in his possession, the first five sheets of paper each now a disaster of ink that few other than himself would likely be able to decipher. Notes with highlights from a few speeches he had sat in on were mixed evenly with recipe ideas and lists of ingredients to look into but Jazu had yet to crack the puzzle that was to be his compass in this grand establishment.

“Utility should be above all else.” Jazu reassured his mind, skimming the pages of his notebook as he walked through the library. No doubt he would need to develop a useful skill from his time spent but what would prove most useful was not so easily predicted. Enchanting sounded useful but it was nothing without a thing to enchant, and the application did not seem to offer much advancements with his current situation. Perhaps some form or ranged magic would be useful for combat purposes but the versatility he was looking for had yet to show itself there either. He closed the book but held it in his hand, turning in a circle before choosing an isle to step down. The smell of old books was pleasant, even if they were not edible but Jazu was too worried about wasting more of his time to enjoy the odor.

[WhereItSleeps]

The chair teetered on its hind legs while his own pressed against the tables edge, supported and balanced the combined mass of Jazu, seat and book. He was only a few pages from finishing his third book in the few hours he had spent here but realized his procrastination had gone on far too long. Jazu picked the dirt from under his last unclean finger nail and returned his gaze back to the pages. So far he had come upon squat, with the exception of a few guidelines that would supposedly help him decide upon a course of study. The directions had seemed simple enough to come back to later but research was proving equal parts unfruitful and aggravating. His feet slid off the edge of the table, finding themselves on the ground and softening the clap produced by wooden legs meeting a hard floor. This was a library after all. He opened his notebook and tossed the one on his lap on top of the slowly growing pile of finished readings.

"Step one: identify what I want.."

He scratched at his scalp with a single finger as he read the words off the page. Now there was a question. What was it that he wanted? Of course food would be at the top of the list, followed by a couple drinks to keep him warm at night, maybe a nice gal or two to do the same but, he had the means for all those things and in the end that was the problem. What he wanted to accomplish and what he need to accomplish it would clearly have to be two different things. In this case, it wasn't the end result he should be searching for, but a means to reach that result. Jazu was on a journey while bound to The Ever Egg and would certainly run into the unexpected along the way. Acquiring ingredients often carried its own perils but during his last mission a cooking pan played the key difference between life and death. Jazu had never been very keen on betting his existence on hunks of metal, which was why he did not carry a weapon. Recently however, he had been reflecting on that error in judgement. The dent in his pan and the resulting loss of its power spoke for itself. He also had to admit that the greaves he had liberated from a cocky asshat just before his first steps into Corone had proven themselves a necessity on more than one occasion. A traditional weapon might not be what he needed but something to help round out his self preservation skills would definitely prove useful.

"Step two: identify my strengths and weaknesses that apply to the goal."

In combat, Jazu had the advantage of not needing a weapon to do some serious damage. The weakness of that was he couldn't keep it up for very long and he was virtually useless outside of close range. Bows or guns were nice ranged weapons but they required ammunition and that sounded like it would be stressful on his pocket. Even most ranged magic he had come across seemed to have a limit, and while generally more powerful than a single arrow, if you only had three shots that was the full extent of its effectiveness. Without a weapon he held a small element of surprise in battle, since most didn't expect an unarmed man to be able to cut or puncture them. Sadly, this only worked initially and was limited to one hand, lowering his effectiveness. Something that extended his influence was clearly necessary but it was starting to become even clearer to Jazu where he was lacking. All these options he had been researching were some way of amplifying the bodies range, empowering and extending it. He was agile enough to avoid a sword or spear and move in to striking distance but that was always a gamble and left too many openings against multiple well coordinated opponents. Perhaps a decent sword would be worth the investment, but what he really needed was not an extension of his body but another body part all together. Compared to fighting at sea on crowded ships, fighting on land was much more unpredictable. Reinforcements could come at any time, there were places to hide, set traps, buildings and other structures to use as needed. It really was a different beast all together and Jazu was the fish that beast had plucked from out the water.

[WhereItSleeps]

“Hard at work again, I see.”

The raven haired girl called out, waving to Jazu from across the atrium. Beams of sun created a gilded silhouette across her olive skin as she walked amongst the trees. Her name started with an L, Jazu recalled that much but wasn't certain on either of her companions. One of them was an E perhaps? The darker skinned girl had shared a number of lectures with him and seemed the perfectionist type but came off sweeter than her tomboyish personality first let on. The third girl he had only seen once before but she was in no way lacking in comparison to the other two. Back on the ship, a fight would be sure to break out over three “fine swag" like them.

Jazu wiped the sweat from his brow, glistening in a completely different manner from the girl quickly approaching him. He had a goal in mind but much to learn before feasibility could be reached, and keeping his face in a book all day was starting to make him queasy. Today's regimen included three hundred kicks between each lecture.

"I doubt I'll ever get used to sitting all day." He chuckled out a quick sigh as he stopped his exercise. He could afford to miss a couple dozen reps today.
"Nelya held a similar temperament when we first arrived.” She spoke every word without letting her smile fade in the slightest. “She used to tease about our skin being a reflection of diligence, so I hate to see you here proving her right.”

It was an invitation that Jazu had surprised himself by catching in time. He wasn’t bad with a merchant or small talk across a table, but Jazu was painfully aware that his dealing with the opposite sex were chiefly shared between a sea-witch and equally fearsome quartermaster. He was awkward around beautiful women, and now he was accompanying three of them.

Nelya and Leliuex hailed from Dheathain, cousins who had lived deep in the jungle wilderness but quickly grew tired of the caste system when they ventured into civilization. It took a few minutes but Jazu began to notice the signs of a warrior from the way Nelya held herself. She quickly attested to trying her best at masking it but said Leliuex was better suited at life in society. The third girl, Hasda was from Ettermire. A lithe, fair and freckled human, her family was well-off and had sent her to Molyneux to learn more of the world. She had jumped at the chance to tinker away in peace but was more than a little disappointed to find out how “backwater” everywhere else was compared with Alerar. She had been overly enthusiastic to show him her latest “toys” but Leliuex quickly changed the subject as Nelya laughed at the notion.