1. Negi hadn't expected the spells to work out the first time around, especially when he was doing something as legitimately time consuming such as building a test broom for Cedric to try out later. He had obtained the materials easily enough, and had gone through as many spellbooks as possible on the creation of a flight-worthy broom.

Back home, a broom was used via the natural magical power of a mage, and was a very basic spell. Here however, he was working on imbuing the power of several flight, protective and wind barrier spells into a single item, and was running into trouble keeping the ratio of spells at a tolerable level.


2. Later on, Negi was taking a break, wandering through the city and trying to clear his head. He was still stuck on the broomstick problem, and he was bouncing a ball he had found ages ago off walls, and watching it ricochet around the buildings.

"If only I can get the spells to balance and stick, without having to be renewed several times," grumbled Negi. "I need some kind of insulator first..."

(ooc: choose your scenario 1 or 2. tags'll be slow obviously so bear with me.)

Red Rose was a bar in Western Side that only a few brave men and women chose to venture into. Once the private property of one Snidley Pridlash, the bar was still full of sympathizers and men who could easily stick a knife into your back.

Which is why, of course, they'd only send the best for the job. At least they thought.

Allard, Nomalanga's right hand man, didn't really know the people he had picked out for it, but he was a good judge of character just by a person's eyes and attitude, and so, the quiet peace of this small place and all it's terrible men was interrupted by five people dressed in their best cowboy attires, looking about as dangerous as everyone else inside. Granted, their eyes first drew to the only lady of the group, Aya (aka Sharp Shooter), but she was flocked only by Stacy's best; Ash (Aka Iron Hand), Mal (Aka Lonesome Cowboy), Eine (Aka Fire Hands) and Han Solo (aka Han Solo I mean Scoundrel). Did they really need those nicknames? No but you had to admit it sounded cool.

They had been dressed up to fit even more with the decor, sporting pairs of leather pants, spurs (they made the best noise) and a leather belt which held their guns, they looked as local as any of the other wild animals in this place. The musicians stopped for a minute, but once no one else tried to kill them, they continued.

The bar was modern, sleek and very steampunkish. Lovely ladies in tight clothing stood near the entrance, eying the men with approving gazes. There were rows of tables and wooden ones farther down all playing one game;

Poker.

And that's what they'd come in to do. There mission was to find information about Snidley by playing card games and beating the locals. There was word of a five man team that was unbeatable; A humanoid with four hands named Fingers, a Lion named Leo, a Meerkat named Tim, a robot named Bolts and a Warthog named Stinks.

The liquor was hard, and the game would probably last all day. And hell, if they managed to play good, they might actually walk away with this with not only information, but some money to boot.

[OOC- Just so you four know, I don't really know that much about Poker and it's going to be more about the CR and stuff with dramatic hands than real games of blackjack, so no worries if you don't either.]

Hana was playing on the train tracks.
 
Alright. That wasn’t the true.
 
He sat actually sat on one of the out of commission carriages which had been left at the side of the track.
 
He’d explored the inside but found it to be empty so instead had scaled to the top. His legs hung over the edge, swinging back and forth, kicking the side of the carriage with his heels, letting out a low metallic clang. At first it’d startled the strange native birds from their perches and spooked any other nearby wildlife but by now most had moved to somewhere quieter.
 
He’d passed some time train spotting, which basically has equated to trying to see one then waving frantically as it passed. He liked trains. He supposed he got that from his dad, he’d always loved trains.
 
Eventually though, it’d lost its charm.
 
He pulled his legs up and shifted his body position to lay back on the flat roof, tucking his hands behind his head, falling back onto a favoured activity; cloud watching.
 
The clouds were thinner here and less frequent. Probably because they were in a desert.
 
Hana yawned. He’d spent the day with Sandy. Looking around. Relaxing. Hanging out. Together like always. She’d been oddly happy when Hana had dropped Jinxs new title of ‘sis’ as they talked. Relieved it almost seemed…
 
Now she’d gone. Headed to the med bay to see if she could learn some things from watching.
 
He’d opted out. It wasn’t really his thing (though it suddenly seemed oddly cool when Sandy was showing him what she’d learnt). Besides, that was Sandys thing. He wanted her to have a thing. Because he saw how happy it made her to have something she could do.
 
She’d asked if he’d be okay alone. He knew what she meant. It wasn’t his safety she was asking about (even if she did worry, she knew he could handle himself), it was him being by himself she was unsure about. Even if he’d been doing much better these past few days, he didn’t do well alone. It allowed for past thoughts and feelings to slip past his defences and stir up inside him.
 
But didn’t want anyone to worry about him anymore, especially Sandy. He’d assured her he’d be fine and sent her off.
All he’d really needed was a distraction. Then he wouldn’t have to linger on sad thoughts.
 
But when he was quiet and clam like this, it opened the door. His stomach twisted and turned as he recalled his fights with Ruffnut and Mindy, making him feel physically sick. Just thinking about them depressed him, he hadn’t realized before this all had happened how much he’d put on them, how quickly he’s placed his trust in them. It was natural then, that he felt like this. He shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up so much so quickly.
 
He could feel the bridge of his nose sting and he realized his was bordering on tears.
 
He pushed the depressing thoughts away and distracted himself by thinking of Sandy (which he found to be incredibly easy) and Jinx and what the two of them might be doing right now.
 
Hana’s eyelids soon started to feel heavy and he let them fall, sighing. He could take a quick nap up here then go visit Jinx.