Almost 5 Feet From the Ground (Ashtoreth)

... Chronicler senses... tingling...

The Chronicler turned around - his intuition was rarely wrong, and his existential urge to be drawn to curious things was far better than any treasure map, and right now, it was telling him to look backwards cos there would be something exceedingly interesting waiting for him just a 180 degrees turn away... and lo! His eyes widened, his breath caught, for before him stood something which he had only seen twice in his lifetime - a girl, with pink hair and a golden eyes (trivial features), who was actually shorter than him (so not trivial)!

But of course, he was a Chronicler. Everything he did was to step into a world of greater knowledge and deeper information. His eyes took her in with expert analysis - height was definitely shorter than him, he would say that she was almost five feet (five feet - so much shorter!), and she was wearing a revealing blue attire that looked as if it was of tropical origin (don't blush, remember what happened on that mission to Destiny Islands with those older schoolgirls playing beach volleyball in the summer...), but her physique seemed to mark that of one not unused to combat, if her muscle structure was anything to go by. Steady forearms, but no more than toning on her abdominal muscles, so perhaps a weapon-user, a polearm to be exact. Not too heavy, judging by her slender figure. Very interesting tattoo on her ankle. Doesn't seem to be of any local design, indicating that she is a world traveller, though the artistry wasn't one he recognised - it certainly wasn't one he'd studied properly. It seemed to be an angular interpretation of a tree-like design, strangely perpendicular in form, not dissimilar to idiomatic graphical interpretations of data forms he'd seen, though the detail in geometric accuracy and different shading was far more organic and accurate than he'd ever encountered before. All in all, a very interesting person.

And she was short.

The Chronicler's face flew into an involuntary grin as he bounded up to her. 'Heya! You don't seem to be from around here. My name's Novi. What's your name? What world did you come from?'

And how old are you? Cos it's gonna be totally awkward if you're like... ten or something. That'd be depressing. And would mean I'm being reeeeally creepy.

Novi paused in his advance, realising that he was startling her. Pulling a face, he said, 'Aww, come on, I'm not scary. Look, I've got like barely five inches on you.'

Although, if you round that up, that'd be like... what, a whole 10 inches!

His smile grew wider at that thought. 'Anyway, it's nice to meet ya, Ashtoreth! That's a bit of a mouthful. Did I get the pronunciation right? Mind if I call you "Ash"? Or maybe "Tori"? Should it be "Rethy"? Judging from the way you pronounce it, the "Ash" part is probably the most prevalent part, but I don't think I can't quite place the linguistic origin, so I can't figure out the most important section from its etymology, since I'm guessing it has a compound meaning due to the length of the name -'

He stopped, and a sheepish expression spread over his features. 'Haha... sorry. Didn't mean to go off all on my own like that. In any case, what're you doing here? Judging from your outfit, you can't have been here for too long, or otherwise you might have decided to get some warmer clothes. I'm from Disney Town, so I'm a world-traveller too. You don't need to tell me where you're from if you don't want to, I get the whole inter-world secrecy thing. Though I wanna make an educated guess at Destiny Islands, or maybe Deep Jungle... though your clothes seem of a more urban make, even though the design's tropical. Maybe an urban world in a rainforest setting? Now that'd be a sight to see!'

'I wonder what the architecture would be like? With such organic resources around, the use of metals to build structures might be -'

Novi paused in mid-rant at the girl's question. 'Eh? Light? Oh, haha, you mean my phone?'

He unzipped one of the pockets on the munny case around his belt and took out the slightly bulky phone. The controls were isomorphic and it was built to take damage (hey, it was made out of the same materials as Gummi Ships after all), so he didn't have any worries about her damaging it. And he felt like he owed it to her after she'd indulged his curiosity.

'It's pretty cool, huh?' he said proudly. 'There ain't one like it in the world. If you press... here, you've got my journal, and uhh... wait, that's my G-Driver... and here we are, we've got the contacts here...'

((Sorry, I'm even later T_T))

Novi looked at her in surprise. 'You kiddin? You've never seen a phone before? Admittedly, it's a weird-looking one, but you know, it's pretty easy to work out - maybe phones in your world's are different. Wait, that'd be amazing! I wonder what technology you use - and how far it's gone. Judging from your appearance, you don't seem to be a technology-based combatant, so you can't have too many gadgets...'

Although, if his theory about the urbanised jungle settlement world held, then she should be aware of such things - it didn't look like her tattoo was done with primitive tools in any case, which suggested the use of hi-tech equipment. So why did she seem to unfamiliar with technology. Maybe it really was because it was just a weird-looking phone.

'Well, in any case, this is a mobile phone - it's a communication device that lets you talk to people all over the universe. I mainly use it to record various things - I'm a Chronicler, it's what I do. I write accounts, take images, so that we can learn more about everything we see and keep a record of everything that happens.'

Novi described his job with a pride in his voice that he couldn't quite cover. 'Without a history, a future's hard to envisage. By knowing the past, we can work to avoid past mistakes and build on our greatest achievements. So in my opinion, being a Chronicler's one of the best jobs ever.'

Novi grinned back at her. 'Yeah! Nothing's better than coming across something really worth solving - cos when you work it out, it's just like... the best feeling in the world, you know? Like you've given something meaning, given it sense and order. Given it some real purpose. A lot of people take it for granted, but being able to know what something's here for, what you're here for, is really, really special -'

As he spoke, his sharp eyes noticed the small shift in her position. The tattoo was no longer visible, and her staff seemed to be held in a position that it could be easily whipped off the ground into a strike. And all that with her sudden giggling fit didn't quite add up. He'd been observing people for years - it was what he did. When information wasn't written down, the only record one could find a lot of the time was by word of mouth. Getting them out of people was another form of treasure-hunting. And this girl was hiding something, for sure.

Novi wasn't a particularly anti-social person, but when faced with a secret waiting to be uncovered, he was unable to help himself. So when he had a girl of such interesting composition before him, it was like a present waiting to be unravelled, but in a chest with a particularly complicated lock. And complicated was what Novi loved best in a challenge - he just couldn't let it go. He had been flexing his curiosity muscles since seeing Ashtoreth (was that what she said her name was?) for the first time, and now he needed only a little tip to go into full information extraction mode.

'Well... I like interesting things,' he began. 'And come to think of it, you're really interesting too. I can't quite place your world origin - you still haven't told me that. Judging from that tattoo on your leg, it might have a cultural basis with maybe tribal roots. It would certainly explain our attire and that staff, though in the same way, I can't pin down your fighting style - in the case that you do, in fact, fight - though judging by the length of the weapon, it focuses on keeping enemies at a distance. Now, I might be reading too much into this, but a lot of polearm users are less secure about close-range action, which also can sometimes be translated into their sociological views... now, I'm not saying you like being a stranger, but you do seem to be quite reserved in telling me about yourself. In any case, you've piqued my curiosity as a Chronicler. I'm not gonna deny I want to know, but I'm no interrogator - if you don't wanna tell me, I won't pester you.'

Though I really, REALLY want to know...

Novi tilted his head to the side, simply watching her for a few moments, and then let out a half-exasperated, almost petulant sigh. It looked like she wasn't going to give, and he didn't want to push any further. From the way her speech stumbled, he felt that if he were to continue trying to extract information out of her in this situation, it would only serve to bring her closer to the edge of her perceiving him as a hostile than as a neutral acquaintance, which he guessed was what he was now.

'Alright, whatever, I can take a hint,' he said a little disappointedly. 'But hey, that's okay. What's yours is yours, right?'

Maybe he'd have a chance to ask her later, when they knew each other better. Maybe not. But in either case, it was useless trying to beat a dead horse, and no matter how much he wanted to know, there was only so much he could do. He didn't find extracting information from people too difficult, but there was something about Ashtoreth which made him reluctant to keep pressing - she was not a battle-hardened warrior who would keep her silence under the threat of terrible pain and eventual death, but neither was she an ordinary civilian who could be persuaded by their innately human natures of greed, desires and vanity. No... she was like a frozen lake - hard to break, but once broken, she broke all over.

Novi put on a bright smile. 'Anyway, there's so much to find out about this place. I wonder how long this town's been here. Maybe if I checked out the architecture and dated some of the stonework, I might get a rough estimate. Man, I don't know where to start!'