World Tree MUSH

    It's a stormy night, but the rain hasn't started yet. It's just kind of late, with the clouds threatening, full to bursting and rumbling unsteadily. A good time to find shelter for anyone! This world, sadly, is not so modern as some, but does seem to have some anachronistic inventions to make life easier, like decent glass. Finding a shop or the like open is harder though! At least the street lights look to be electric, so this isn't a completely rustic town.

    A bunch of laughter indicates one room at least is open. Looks like a pub. Probably not one set up with rooms, but just to wait out a storm maybe. Lots of laughter and looks like betting on a contest. A female voice rings out, "Look guys, you really just aren't in my league. Give it up! If you aren't going to be a challenge, don't try at all."

    As far as a certain german young man goes, this most certainly isn't the first not-so-modern world that he has visited. So he's at least taken to learn how to blend in, regardless of his attire and presence. Even if it is mostly by way of concealment.

    It's for that reason alone, that when the door to the pub opens up again, it is to permit inside one (1) tall young man of short, brown hair-- with most of his figure hidden underneath a dark-blue, hooded cloak of some voluminous fabric (that is, mind you, tattered and stained a bit from long, loooong travels). The hood is flipped back to keep his face exposed, at the very least, and he doesn't seem to hesitate at all in coming inside.

    Though he does pause, upon hearing the voice of a woman ringing out, and his green eyes sweep towards the source of it by way of sheer curiousity.

    The threat of rain is always pretty bad for delicate electronic equipment. That isn't to say shinki are delicate in the least, but water- to a shinki that has not been waterproofed in some time, can lead to some pretty negative effects for even the hardiest of models.
    One such shinki gets lucky before the oncoming storm. Without a place of her own to truly call home, a black-clad Altines manages to find an open window and flits inside before the rain can begin.
    Hopefully no one will take notice of her and try to shoo her out again like some kind of pest.

    Some of the men laugh... and a petite blonde girl is near them, looking annoyed and dressed way too frivolously for this place, in a t-shirt and jeans. She waves another guy off. "Look, you're all pretty impressive for the locals, but I'm not like you. It's fine, I just have to wait for a hero or something. Like the kid who walked in!"

    She must mean Sieger. Even though he looks probably older than she is, since the girl is maybe sixteen? Most of the men in the pub are now looking at Sieger, but one of them is rubbing his arm. "Boys, I think she's the real deal. Some kinda offworlder."

    All of them are looking away from Alty, so the blonde is the only one who sees the robot, unless Sieger does. Rather than annoyed, she just squints as if confused!

    "...Eh?"

    The sudden attention brought upon Sieger by most of the pub leaves the young man stiffening up in place -- and in all fairness, he's still in his late teens, so he likely doesn't look *that* much older than the blonde who pointed him out.

    His eyes blink rapidly, twitching rapidly back and forth between the girl and the crowds surrounding him and her. Alright. There's a few things he can gather from all this. The girl's wearing modern clothes here, so in all likelihood she is a traveller between worlds. This in turn means, in combination with her behaviour, that she is probably strong. And for whatever reason, she is putting him on the spot above everyone else, as if in some kind of challenge.

    Cue the sweating off bullets.

    "U-... uh, hello," he offers sheepishly, with one hand poking out from underneath the cloke to give a half-assed gesture of greeting. "I'm just... passing through."

    Perching on the window sill, the little robot casts a wary glance about the room. Thus far it looks like she hasn't been spotted, or at least not by someone that's going to chase her out. There's a tiny sigh as Alty spends a beat clambering down from the window to the floor so she can better get out of sight but then... The little shinki practically locks eyes with Saber.
    Alty goes stock still and freezes. Though when the blonde pulls the locals' attention to Sieger, Alty rallies, starting to quickly clamber down from the window.

    The men laugh uproariously, and a huge, burly mand just puts a hand toward Sieger's shoulder. "Relax, boy, nobody is drunk quite yet. We're just looking for some fun, not a fight. Come on in out of the cold, just don't raz the... person here." He laughs again, joined by his fellows, as he gestures toward Saber.

    Saber, who hasn't given her name yet, lifts two fingers in a casual gesture. "Yo." Then she's looking over her shoulder again. Quieter, toward Alty, she has to ask, "Sneaking in? What the hell are you, some kind of drone? Wish all this modern lingo had some kind of plugin for other worlds."

    Sieger does not laugh. He does not look any less worried, in fact.

    But, he does at least mirror Saber's gesture, with the slightest hint of a wiggle given to his own fingers. "...Yo. I'm Sieger," he offers, in english that holds a hint of a german accent to it. "What... uh... was all that stuff you were talking about just now?"

    Somehow, he manages to not notice Alty yet. Even if he does notice that Saber is speaking quietly there. He seems bemused by it, but maybe he is assuming she is talking to herself?

    "Dsfsfdfddffgdf!"
    That is the sound of a shinki getting caught. Just as she was trying to slide into the nearest shadow. Well, it looks like stealth is out the window now as she halts mid-step into a stumble.
    Up comes one tiny finger and with a "Shhh! Shhh!" the little thing heaves a heavy sigh.
    "I'm not a drone, I'm a shinki." Comes Alty's reply, doll-jointed shoulders sagging. "And I just don't want to get kicked out."
    Nope, Saber isn't talking to herself, that's a very tiny girl right there, now rubbing at her scarred eye and scuffing her toes awkwardly.

    Saber is looking at Alty with narrowed eyes. "Heh, skulking around. I have my eye on you." She doesn't sound all that aggressive for some reason! Something about Alty has caught her attention aside from the foot tall robot thing.

    Sieger needs some attention though. "Hah, these guys were just having an arm-wrestling match. One of them was dumb enough to call me names so I bruised his knuckles!"

    The big guy grumbles, "We just called her young lady," he whispers.

    Cue Sieger giving a few more bemused blinks at Saber. "...So that's what you were all on about? That no one could beat you in an arm-wrestling mawhhhaaaatisthat?"

    Yeah he just noticed Alty. There's no way he couldn't at this point. His eyes visibly widen to mark that particular realization of the one-foot-tall robot hovering over there, too, but thankfully for everyone involved, he doesn't raise his voice at all with that, nor does he point. But he does *stare*.

    Whelp, there's no hiding now. But Alty has probably resigned herself to that since she first locked eyes with Saber not too long ago. She doesn't exactly get much closer, but she does crane her head up- up- way up- because of the conversation she's been wrangled into.
    "I- I wasn't skulking!" She huffs. "People around here have been shooing me off like a rat or something all day and I just wanted to get inside before it started to rain!" The shinki harrumphs, folding arms across her chest, before rubbing at her eye again.
    "Wh- what?" That's to Sieger's staring.

    "Well they won't kick you out now!" Saber laughs, still not offering up her own name. "Looks like a tiny doll to me. Like a familiar or something. Sit down, relax. Anyone who bugs you will get a piece of me, 'cause I want you here." She thumps her palm on the table, then waves Sieger over.

    "Come on, siddown. We're the offworlders here, I bet they're wondering what we're made of." She grins, then directly asks Alty. "How'd you get that scar?"

    Oh, Sieger, what have you gotten yourself into this time?

    After a split second of hesitation, he comes stepping over, and slides himself down over to sitting opposite from Saber, with a curious look given over the blonde. "...So... Who are you, anyway?" He asks, bluntly. "And you, for that matter." That directed down over to Alty, whom he gives a confused look again. "... You are very small." Well. Really subtle, Sieger.

    A moment is spent looking around the room. When no one tries to give Alty the boot, as indicated by Saber, the shinki's shoulders sag slightly again when she's bidden to join and sit.
    It takes her some work-- scrabbling up the leg of a chair. And she doesn't ask for help either as she struggles a bit, but ultmately clambers into an empty seat that is just way too big for her, plopping to sit down, legs crossed.
    "Mn. Alty." That seems to be her name, given in response to Sieger, before she pauses, tensing visibly when prodded on her scar, a question that makes fingers brush over the mark dominating the right side of her face. "... I got it in a fight." She answers, not sounding particularly happy about it.

    "Me?" Saber laughs. "Just call me Saber, okay? My real name... you wouldn't believe it." She grins and thumps back in a chair, the various men sattling down to laugh among themselves and some pay attention out of curiosity here. "I'm just passing through causing trouble. Master says I shouldn't wreck anything here though so..."

    Alty joins in and Saber grins. "Yeah, I figured. You don't exactly look like a knight, sucks that you got a scar from it. What'd the other guy look like though?"

    "...Okay but..." Sieger begins to say in response to Alty, only to end up shaking his head to himself. No, maybe it's better not to press her right now.

    But as if to make up for that moment of social grace, he turns his attention fully to Saber with his brows lifted uuuuupwards. "Why won't you try me?" He suggests to her. "Calling you something like 'Saber' is going to feel very silly very quick!" Still blunt, this one.

    "She's dead."
    Alty too is quite blunt when asked about 'the other guy'. Though it only prompts her to rub at her eye again as though out of nervous habit once the answer comes out, hugging knees to her chest, regardless of Sieger deciding to not join in pressing her.
    But then her lips purse. "A knight? ... No I'm not a Type Xiphos, I'm an Altines." She does point out, as though expecting that to mean something, before frowning. "Why wouldn't we believe it?"

    "What's wrong with Saber? Is that any worse than calling someone 'Sir' or 'Lord?' Besides, it's what I am. A Saber-Class. Long dead hero-ghost-whatevers raised to fight." She grins. "The legends ain't like what you think is all. But Master would be pretty pissed if I just told people who I was, sorry."

    Alty says that, and Saber frowns. "So then you won? Better than being 'the other guy' huh?"

    "...Wait, run that by me one more time," Sieger urges of Saber after several long seconds of... just kind of blankly staring at Saber after her explanation. And then he looks over to Alty with a similiarly blank stare. "... None of what either of you said made any sense to me at all. But okay, hold on..."

    The teenaged boy lifts up his hand to, rather rudely, point a single finger at Saber. "So you're a ghost?!"

    "I said she's dead." Alty repeats for Sieger's sake, sounding pettish at having to repeat herself, and looking all the more agitated, giving her eye another rub before dipping her head in a quieter nod. She won that one apparently, but the tiny robot's brow knots and a dawning realization seems to sink in. Hold on. Wait for it.
    "... G-ghost?"

    "Bahaha!" Saber laughs, tossing her head back. Yeah, she's laughing even though Alty was sounding so serious. "Ghost is close. I'm not like haunting anyone. I'm just a knight who died and was famous. So some wizards called my spirit up, gave me a body, and now I fight for someone else. So I am sort of a ghost but it's not like I'm out seeking vengeance for my death." She grins. "Or maybe I am, but it's nothing you two would worry about, right?"

    She frowns. "Anyway, let's wait out the storm. Saber it is for now, until Master shows up and says otherwise."