Downtime 4

Sam doesn't say anything in response to Hanako. He never really understood this relationship in the first place, and now it seems even more complicated than before.
He just sits there on the couch, Hanako resting her head on his shoulder. Eventually, her breathing gets softer and Sam assumes that she has fallen asleep.
Relieved, he jacks into cold sim and plays some video games.

The next morning, the two wake up on the couch, Hanako's head still resting on Sam's shoulder. His shirt is mildly damp from her drooling.

Hanako, waking up next to Sam after having broken up with him, blushes a deeper shade of crimson than Sam has ever seen before. Even when Auntie Muku was trying to get the two of them to agree to get married. Sam doesn't really understand why Hanako seems so frazzled, and tries smiling at her. It seems to have little effect, but eventually Hanako calms down and the two of them leave the cabin, separately.


Back at the community center, Sam has a chance to get Eula onto the workshop table and install a mod that he found during his searching: gecko grips. He works for just over two hours, but finally thinks that he has them properly installed. To test them out, he writes a note to each of his companions asking for their help to get the rest of his stuff from his apartment.

A few days later, Sam and whoever wants to come help/guard him head to his apartment. WuJen, Sun, and Ichigo offer to come into the apartment with him and help move things. Chougou keeps watch through a few drones, and sends his van along to bring stuff back.

Emiko offers to keep a lookout three blocks west. In case anyone comes from that direction.

Sam's apartment is completely trashed. But, there wasn't that much there in the first place. His only furniture is a mattress on the floor in a corner, which Sun easily brings out to the van. Sam packs up his shop, and brings it out to the van as well. Aside from that, there is just his shotgun and some assorted clothes.

The extraction of Sam's things takes about 20 minutes, all told, and goes off without a hitch.

On the way back to the community center, Ichigo hands Sam a platinum credstick and asks if Sam can crack it.

Sam, looking at the credstick, sees that it is platinum.

"This is a very high security credstick," he tells Ichigo. "I can probably crack it. But it will not be easy. It is going to be at least a full two days of work."

He takes the credstick from Ichigo, and tells him that he will give it his best shot.

Back at the community center, suddenly all of the lights and appliances start to go haywire. Eula climbs onto the ceiling and just drops down onto the floor, then repeats. Unfortunately, Kitaro is right in the middle of one of his sparsely attended classes. Now that one person has been inconvenienced. Sam realizes right away what is happening, and he jacks into cold sim to chase away the meddling icons and set all of the stuff in the community center back to normal.

>>>>>>Sorry. That was just Core-1. He hacks all of my things from time to time.

Sam spends the next day watching TV and playing video games in his room. Ichigo knocks on his door to ask if he wants some dinner.

"I do not have time for dinner," Sam responds. "I am too busy trying to crack this credstick for you."

Instead, Sam has Eula make and bring him a sandwich, and continues his marathon video game session.

The next day, though, Sam figures he should probably get to work on the credstick.

It really is a very high security credstick, and Sam has his work cut out for him.

He spends two hours working, and he feels like he's made a lot of progress. He knows that the coding he is doing is really top notch. But, the credstick seems just as locked as ever.

Another two hours of intensive coding, and Sam is starting to get frustrated. He's doing some of his best work, but the thing is still locked. At this point, though, he thinks he's almost got it.

But, out of the corner of his eye, he notices an ad for a new hour long pilot of a sitcom! So, he pulls that up.

It's not very funny. But, he will watch it again next week.

In the meantime, he gets back to work on the credtstick. He felt like he should have been done with this by now He puts in two more hours of hard work, and finally feels like he's just about got it.

A half hour later, and he unlocks the credstick, gaining full access to the 150,000 nuyen contained inside.

He considers transferring 10,000 into his account, and telling the others that it turned out to only contain 140,000. Or that 10,000 got corrupted. But, he decides not to steal from his friends.

The next day he finds Ichigo and gives the credstick back.

For the rest of the week, Sam continues researching how to get that upgraded pilot for Eula. He thinks that he'll be able to get it, but he will need help from some of his friends. So, good thing he didn't just steal from them. Hopefully, they'll all come away from this job with something to show for it.

Over the next 3 weeks, Kitaro spends every Tuesday and Thursday teaching people in the center how to create their own clothes.
He will invite Homura to join him.
In the evenings, after the classes, he will go out and party with his friends as he often does.

On the other days, he will spend the first few days in his apartment creating a nice lodge.
Basically it's a little shrine covered in expensive cloth with several little silver dishes that can be used to burn incense in.
In the center, there is a small golden Hotei status. Below the shrine, there is a locked box that contains a large amount of regular and refined reagents.

Once his lodge is complete ( force 6 ). Kitaro will take some time to attune to the new health sustaining focus he bought earlier.
Then he will read the spell scrolls he acquired and begin practicing casting the new spells.
The first new spell he learns is "increase reflexes".
He noticed during the last mission that he lacked a bit in reaction speed compared to some of the others and he wishes to improve this by casting an increase reflexes spell and sustaining it on his focus.
The second spell he learns is "fling". Impressive as it was to see Sun throw himself on a grenade, bounce around a bit and then punch a guard in the face, Kitaro thinks they may need a less dangerous way of dealing with this should it ever happen again.
He's hoping this spell will be able to deal with that. While practicing he notices there are a lot of other funny tricks he can do with it as well.

Kitaro will also go to the town for some shopping. He buys a really pretty respirator, a rating 3 medkit, and some stim patches.

Fuchou is in and out of consciousness for a week as nightmarish waves of indescribable agony convert his body into its ghoulish form. For the first few days he can't tell what is real and what is part of the nightmare.

Fuchou eyes grow incredibly hot and painful as his optic nerve burns out and his corneas glaze over and he loses his sight. In moments of intense suffering he considers tearing them out to find some relief; and this is a real option for him as his hands stretch and his fingerbones pierce through his fingertips, gradually turning into fearsome claws; but he is restrained and sedated as much as Ichigo believes he can safely be and those moments pass.

He knows that all he can do is wait, but the pain is so intense in the beginning that the concept of anything except the pure agony of this moment ever subsiding isn't even something that he can conceive of.

With astral sight comes confusion, Fuchou can't tell if he is seeing things or imagining them. He still dreams as though he could see, but when he is awake he feels like he is dreaming. A hunger grows inside of him. He needs something to feed the new hunger, and he craves meat. But he knows from his knowledge of ghouls that he wouldn't crave normal animal meat but that he needs metahuman flesh. Except now it isn't an intellectual bit of trivia anymore, he feels the craving. It disgusts him in the part of his brain that is still human, but it is quickly overcome by the need to nourish himself.

Crazy Carl was able to deliver some important chunks of some anonymous donor along with advice on how to go through the transformation. Fuchou will eat as much as he can fit in his stomach for over a day, particularly enjoying the taste of lungs while simultaneously being horrified that he is eating lungs. He has used up so much energy though that he can't do anything except eat.

He asks Ichigo not to tell the others when he is feeding and hides alone in the corner of the room like he used to when he was chained to a workbench as a younger dwarf. He wonders if he would prefer that now. It doesn't matter. He is what he is and he will do what he can with what he has. Ashamed of himself for a moment, he asks the universe to help him to get through this and eventually goes out to meet the group in his new form. He is still cognizant of who he is and who his friends are and asks them if they are still certain that he can stay with them. If they all approve then he begins tunneling a place for him to escape into the sewers should he need it from his room.

He helps Sam move with his drones, finds Crazy Carl and has a meeting with him to find out what he can help with now that he is part of the ghoul community.

After introducing and explain to the rest of the team about how his dad and I knew each other from military, and the reason he is here if the team is ok with if we add another medic to our team.

If everyone is ok with Cannis joining ichigo will show him around the center, explain how things are here and whatnot Ichigo tells Cannis..."Well if you'll excuse me I have a ton of research to do and a diy clothing class to take on Tuesday, feel free to walk around the center mingle." And ichigo will spend the bulk of his time researching celestial blood and he will let wujen and fuchougou know about the cred stick and ask them if the be willing take a little less then 50 each to give 10 of the 150,000 to sam for helping with the cred stick. If they are ok with this then they will both get 47,000 and I will get 46,000.

Cannis thanks Ichigo. "Then from here on, I am at your service." Cannis raises his voice slightly to project to the other members gathered. He isn't yelling, just letting everyone know. "And that goes for you all. I am looking forward to traveling and working with all of you."

Fouchou

Keeping a distance of at least a few meters, his mouth covered with a black respirator with a silver spirit of air embroidered on it, Kitaro says.
"Dear god mister Fouchou. Are you ok?"

Kitaro has some concerns over keeping a Ghoul in the center but seeing how much suffering Fouchou is in he decides to keep those to himself.
"If there is anything I can do to help?"

Over the next few days, Kitaro will make some nice looking blankets for Fuchou. He will also adjust Fouchou's clothing to his changing form and/or make new clothes for him if he would like that.
He does make sure to keep Homura away from Fuchou since he thinks this whole thing is better kept private.

After about a week of pondering, Kitaro will go down to the center's lodge where Eggsie is sitting on his little pillow. He will carefully put Eggsie in a box with his pillow, scarf, and cap and carry him over to Ichigo.
"Mister Ichigo, I want you to have Eggsie, if there is anything you can do to help mister Fuchou ..."

Cannis

Noticing that Ichigo trusts Cannis, Kitaro feels a bit more at ease and decides to go and introduce himself.
He makes a deep bow and says:
"Greetings, my name is Kitaro. I'm pleased to meet you"

Kitaro makes some small talk with Cannis. He ends with:
"Mister Cannis, would you happen to be interested in learning how to make your own clothes? I'm teaching a class right now."

Sun sits himself down on a bench in the shade of a tree of the plants temple, and begins meditating on all he learned from the various temples.

"I'm a little teapot. Breath in thousand-handed air. Hit on Emiko. Laugh at funerals. Stand strong but bow at adversity."

He shakes his head, frowning from frustration, and tries again.
...
And again...
And again...
...
Someone at the shrine notices his attempts and the frustration it results in, sits down besides him, and starts guiding him.

"Breath in slowly. Breath out slowly. Empty your mind, first, like you do when focusing on your fighting. Yes, you're there. Now, don't think on the words. Just let them pour in and through your mind."

Eventually, things start becoming clear for Sun. He still doesn't truly know how or what, but he realizes now that life isn't the way he sees it. He shouldn't take everything as seriously as he did, and when something clashes with his views, should first see from the other point of view, to understand where they're coming from. He realizes it's especially important for people he tries to help and cares deeply about.

He slowly opens his eyes, visibly calm, explains his realizations about interpersonal behavior and the need for a focus on the spiritual side to the person next to him, and asks him if there's any way Sun can learn about and work more on it.

Emiko contacts Akina:

“Hello Akina, my name is Emiko and I’m a friend of Sam’s. I’m looking to get a better agent for my deck than I already have and he said you’re the one to talk to. Can you hello me with this?”

ichigo will say to Kitaro.."Kitaro i am going to do everything that I can to help our friend. I just need very exotic ingredients and trying to find them is going to be very difficult to do."

ichigo will go to his lab and put the egg in the fridge and will wait till he has all the ingredients to crack the dragon egg.

Sam notices some movement in the lodge, which he had been keeping an eye on. Primarily because he worries that someone will steal the egg, but also not knowing how long the egg has been gestating, in case it started to hatch.
He watches as Kitaro carefully boxes up the egg and brings it to Ichigo.
Sam watches as Kitaro leaves Ichigo with the egg, and then Ichigo... puts it in the refrigerator?
Sam checks to see if Core-1 is somehow messing with his video feed. There's no way Ichigo would do that, right?
Not finding any evidence of someone hacking his feed, Sam sends Eula down to take the egg out of the refrigerator.
When she brings it back to him, he wraps it in a towel and puts it under a light.

Fuchou thanks Kitaro for the new clothes but asks that no harm come to the egg for his sake. He thinks they should return it to a dragon in hopes of gaining their favor because it would give them a better chance of getting the other ingredients that they need. He tells that to anyone involved with the egg. Killing it or hatching it are both dangerous ideas, and only one third of the solution.

He keeps to himself and submits to regular examinations by Ichigo to determine his mental acuity and explores the sewers to see if he can build a little hideout for himself.

Fuchou will also attend Kitaro's sewing class via flying eye, but his claws impede him from any delicate operation and he mostly just watches and appreciates the techniques.

Fuchou will hide from Cannis until they learn his disposition towards ghouls.

Kitaro is pleased that his fashion classes seem to be gaining in popularity.

At first, he is a little annoyed at Fuchou's eye drones constantly buzzing around.
But when he thinks about Fuchou's ... condition ... he doesn't really mind anymore.

Seeing the gathering going on near the front desk, Sam realizes this is turning into a Social Situation. He sends Eula down to do Socializing for him, and thinks to himself that he really needs to get her a linguasoft.

Cautiously approaching, Kin looks at each in the group, clearing his throat to get their attention.

"Pardon me. I'm wondering if anyone here knows Nori or Yumi Tanaka?"

Waiting for a response, the steeliness leaves his eyes, replaced with hopefulness.

After Cannis announces to the group his pleasure to work with the group, Emiko replies, "that is wonderful, I look forward to working with you as well. I am Emiko Amaterasu; it's a pleasure to meet you."


In response to Kin, Emiko says, "I'm sorry, but those names do not ring a bell. Maybe one of the other guys here knows who they are. If not, my name is Emiko and I will try to help if I can."

While waiting for the others to respond, Kin turns to Emiko and, while looking her in the eyes, says "Thank you Emiko. It's nice to meet you. My name is Kin."

He flashes a big smile and gives a slight nod of his head.

From a corner of the room, Kitaro shouts.
"Good day sir, are you here to learn how to make your own clothes?"

If Kin looks towards the voice, He will see a skinny man sitting on the floor between piles of expensive fabrics.
Next to him sits a young Ork woman dressed in lollipop fashion.
A few people surround the pair, they are of varying ages and all look to be rather poor.

The group seems to be busy cutting and sewing pieces of cloth together to make clothes.
The skinny man is doing a lot of talking and explaining.

A small eye drone is buzzing around the group, seemingly trying to get a good view of what is going on.

Kin looks up at the drone, wondering who it belongs to and what it's doing here, before approaching the man sitting cross-legged on the floor.

"I didn't come here to make clothes." He looks down at his suit with fraying edges on the sleeves. "But I could always use something nicer to wear, so I won't rule it out."

He turns toward the Ork woman and flashes another smile, knowing the effect it has on the opposite sex, no matter what species they are or how they are dressed.

"I came here looking for information. Have either of you heard of Nori or Yumi Tanaka? I'm trying to locate them and anything you might know would be helpful."

He pauses, anxiously awaiting their reply.

A pretty, well-dressed, young woman walks into the reception area and makes her way over to the small group that is now gathered in the corner of the room.

She just stands there, though, not saying anything. She smiles a big authentic smile towards anyone who happens to make eye contact with her.

Kin glances over at the woman approaching, wondering if she can give him any information. Looking her up and down, he thinks of other things she might be able to give him. He returns her smile with one of his own. He's beginning to resemble the Cheshire Cat.

He returns his attention to the couple on the floor.