Ruins of Azlant Gameplay

Amissa blinks. "Oh! Uh. Sure. What can I help you with?"

"We're planning a scavenger hunt, placing little items at locations around the colony and the safer area right around it, and so I need to write some clues. I was hoping you could help me with that since you know more about well, basically everything than anyone else I know," Aisha explains with a smile.

"Hmm." Amissa considers for a moment. "If you get me a list of locations you're using, I can probably make some clues based on that, although you'll likely want someone else to make the clues more like riddles than I do. I'm not very practiced at creative works, so I wouldn't want the clues to be too stale."

"I can do the wordplay, I mostly wanna know what sorts of hints you'd give, things that might be trickier to figure out," Aisha explains.

"Okay, sure," Amissa says with a smile. "I can look things over and come up with ideas for you."

"Thanks!" Aisha beams. "I appreciate it. It's a lot of work setting this up but I think it'll be a lot of fun and a good way to bring the community together now."

Later, Amissa and Eliza journey to the other island. As they approach the temple, Amissa turns to her. "Do you want me to introduce you to Aoinse while I'm here? She's a clockwork construct that served an astrologer-priest in the Azlanti Empire."

"I'd love an introduction, she sounds like a very interesting person to know," Eliza enthuses.

Amissa leads Eliza into the facility, and finds Aionse. "Aoinse, this is Eliza. She'll be helping with the restoration efforts while I'm away. Eliza, this is Aoinse. Her expertise with the temple should make things much easier to restore properly."

Aoinse bows at the waist towards Eliza. "A pleasure to meet you, Eliza. I have prepared some reports for you on the current progress made, as well as areas that need to be focused on, for whenever you are ready to read it."

Eliza nods, trying to avoid seeming starstruck by the fully functional Azlanti clockwork. "That sounds excellent, it's very nice to meet you too,", as she peers curiously at all the gears and mechanisms that whirr as Aoinse moves.

Amissa lets Aoinse and Eliza get familliar with each other, and takes a bit of time wandering the temple; sliding her hands along stone walls, taking note of the clockwork constructs that have been repaired and are now working, and absorbing the ambience of a place of worship being brought back to glory.

After some time walking, she returns to Aoinse and Eliza. "Everything going well? How are you feeling about working together?"

"I am feeling very well," Aoinse says. "Eliza seems to be an intelligent individual with a true appreciation for the work of the Azlanti civilization, and I look forward to restoring this temple with her."

Eliza nods as well. "I'm excited to get started on the work we came here to do," she says with a smile. "You're going to be amazed by how much has been done by the time you get back," she says, softly taking hold of Amissa's hand and giving it a squeeze.

Amissa smiles back. "I look forward to it." She sighs. "I honestly wish I could stay and keep working here. It was never my plan to be dragged into being... whatever I am now, and I'm much more comfortable sifting through ancient texts and stone and fitting together what can be deciphered from them. Instead, I'm hunting down someone who even monsters condemn to stop them from destroying everything I hold dear." She shakes her head. "It's absurd. To think I'm willingly stepping away from a newly-discovered bastion of lore to throw myself into danger."

"Still, I appreciate you doing that," Eliza says. "There will be plenty of lore and discoveries to be made after that's dealt with."

Aoinse chimes in with agreement, "Yes, one could even say the work you are doing is of the utmost importance to safeguard the Temple. In that way, you're doing the most work of anyone here to preserve the knowledge for later use."

"Mm." Amissa nods. "True enough. I'm just jealous at this point for all the things you'll be figuring out while I'm gone. Try to leave some for me, will you?"

"Please, as if there won't be enough research here to fill several lifetimes," Eliza says with a smile. "There'll be plenty waiting for you when you get back."

Amissa giggles. "As if you wouldn't be just as greedy if we swapped places."

"Maybe I would be," Eliza concedes, laughing along with Amissa. "I promise to save the most paradigm shifting revelations for when you get back." she jokes.

The day of the festival soon arrives, and though the people of the colony are certainly not finished healing from the trials before, most everyone is in a jubilant mood, feeling as if the festival marks a fresh start, a rebirth for the colony, without the shadowy threats that marred it before.

Amissa looks through the crowd, eventually finding Eliza. She pulls on Eliza's sleeve. "Hey hey hey. Want to help me make an Azlanti-style sand castle?"

Kaimana goes to check out the obstacle course, excited to see what Rayland put together.

As one of the organizers, Aisha can't fairly compete in the scavenger hunt, but she's taken the role of facilitating it, having an answers sheet and providing hints to people who come to her truly stuck, trying to phrase her hints as clever rhymes and cryptic riddles so as to not give answers away.

"That sounds great!," Eliza agrees with Amissa, heading over towards the beach with her. After a few minutes, Machi approaches with a woman from the first colony, Talia Baker in tow. "I bet these two have some grand vision in mind," he tells her. "Mind if we join you two? Think you could use a few extra pairs of hands?"

At the obstacle course, Rayland has outdone himself with a sprawling course that incorporates climbing, swimming, crawling, and balancing, with a bit of a military bent to it. Many of the obstacles require teamwork in helping a runner balance, or in boosting and lifting people up. Adding to it all, Rayland himself runs back and forth along the sides of the course, shouting encouragement and advice as different teams run it. At the beginning, a number of people are milling about, watching, cheering, and forming teams to be the next to run the course.[/b]

Looking at who else is forming a team, Kaimana quickly teams up with Kereda and Milo, the latter especially delighted about the prospect. He notices a woman who must be from the first wave of colonists, judging by her pale skin, evaluating the course with keen interest. "Wanna try the course?" he asks, going for a welcoming smile. "We could use one more person on our team."

"I'd love that," she says with a smile back. "Evie Taylor, nice to meet you," she says, offering a hand.

After the rest of the team introduces themselves, it's not long thereafter that it's time for Kaimana's team to try the course.