The Guild Capitol: Chapter One

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The entrance to the portal that led to Asteroid Manifest was grand -- a great stone arch depicting sculptures of feathers and scrolls scribbled with Archean text guarded it, along with two Peacekeeper sentries who looked that the newcomers, nodding once in hello, before returning to their alert stations. The whole scene looked almost from a storybook, instead of smoothly paved asphalt, instead pretty marbled cobblestone (which was oddly flat to walk on) and a wide road headed towards many buildings that seemed almost out of place with how advanced they were compared to the stone roads. A large fountain rested in the center of a circled town square, four figures sculpted into it; one was a woman with a dryad looking face, her body wrapped in tight clothes as she was forever suspended in a graceful bound. A second creature looked to be almost spiderkin, but was quite large in comparison to vavare and had a much taller and leaner torso, with insect eyes and mouth that was locked tightly with vertical razor teeth. A third man was also sculpted, vaguely familiar to any who had met with Arya on the first mission; a simple silhouette with an almost cartoonish skull for a face. Finally, the sculpted man most heightened was none other than a depiction of Ragnarok himself, his swirling flames across the bottom of his robe forever suspended in stony projection.

Cafe store fronts littered with different aliens of all kinds and likeness, many walked around and avoided the new tourists though did smile and wave a few times as they passed. The large fountain was occupied by a woman, with fox ears and tail, wearing a top half of a kabuki mask while playing a shamisen, three orbs of water of different shades being played around with by the three draconic serpents that seemed delighted with her presence. On the other side of the fountain was a group of Terrans -- or would have been, if many of them didn't look malformed or changed, one man with spindly arachnid legs sticking out of his side as he wore a mask, a few of them having differing features of cross species from the Galaxy. One old geezer was covered head to toe in runic tattooos and was tiredly carrying heavy and thick gossamer dragonfly wings on his back as they sang merrily.

Across the way were a group of three normal looking Terran, all women, who were handling equines of massive size, two of them easily twelve feet in height, the third dwarfed by about four less feet. While the first two were powerful and the color of the sky; one a blue roan and the other a stormy gray, the smaller was spindly, quicker, and of a dark black, looking almost skeletal. The final oddity about these horses were the fact that they each had a pair of alarmingly huge wings. The bigger two gracious and feathery, and the tinier one with large, leathery bat-like ones.

Kay was attracting attention again. This timeby a group of three almost elvish looking people, all wearing that same wolf-embroidered tabard. They then quickly lost interest when they spotted Flora, who was waving them off, chuckling and returning to speak among themselves.

"Welcome to Capitol Square!" Flora said happily, "This is basically everyone's entertainment center for the more city-minded folk."

Dawn chuckled and looked over to James and the shuttles, coming over to him. "Hm, should we get one for them?" She asked thoughtfully

"It would be a nice gift for our friends." Rigel added "Anyone know when their birthdays are?"

"That's... sensible." Asher said weakly. The thought of what the Family could do with a virus that could kill immortals was a bit sickening. "You have a sample of it, then?"

~~
"Hmm," said James. "Nobody talks about their birthdays much around here, funny that. Even the kids kind of keep it to themselves!" He laughed, "For the record, mine is July tenth. I know a lot of peoples' actually, but that's just from medical records so I'm not sure we're allowed to say."

Rigel frowned a little then nodded "True, not many from Vestia or Silver Devil like to talk about their birthdays." He said then shrugged "Doesn't mean we can't throw a party for them."

"Surprise party" Dawn said and chuckled.

"No, just theoretical research." Inquisitor Spinner sighed, "Although... After a panicked outcry from Ares, we asked Merith to get his blood drawn, on the off chance he may be holding a dormant species from during his... stay... with the Family while you were all captured."

"I feel like some of them might stab you in the face if you threw a surprise party for them," James said with a laugh. "If we try this, we gotta pick our victims carefully. Sooo carefully."

~~
"That seems like a good idea," Asher agreed. "Have you considered the possibility that Heny or Thalia might be carrying it? They were prisoners as well, and they might be willing to consent to have their blood drawn."

"Asher should be fine with a short party, or we could just pick a day and celebrate everyone's birthday at once." Rigel said with a shrug.

"Oh, a friendship day" Dawn said and giggled

"I think Asher would panic about being noticed and try to hide behind a curtain," James said. "Our safest bet is to celebrate everyone's birthday at once." Besides, that sounded like a lot of fun.

Well, at least Asher won't be angry, but yeah, all birthdays at once sounds good. " Rigel said with a nod. "Now we just have to pick a day and let everyone else know."

"Man, I think we're gonna need to wait a couple weeks for the excitement to die down. We so can't do it before the trial," James said, tapping on the roof of the shuttle with his fingertips as he thought.

Dawn nodded then smiled "We can buy stuff though." She said excitedly

"Shopping sprees are funded by Vestia, right?" James took the little model shuttle, Asher would like it. "How do we do this? Do we try to figure out something to give each person, or do we kind of secret Santa it?"

Hm, that was a good question. "If each of us gets one gift for everyone, that would be fair, right?" Dawn asked then shrugged. "Mix the two thoughts and only have who it's too on the package not who it's from?"

"Yeah, that might work. That's a ton of presents to find though, we're talking what, twenty-plus people, so maybe we should assign everyone who wants to participate a person or two, to keep things simpler," James suggested. "We can set a maximum amount a person can spend too."

Dawn thought about that then nodded. "Yeah, this can also be a going away party, since the kids would be staying here." She said with a frown before turning to start looking around again. They could get ideas anyway.

"Aww. We need to buy the kids so many presents," James said, looking a bit sad. He didn't spend much time with the kids, but they were nice. "What do kids like?"

"Toys usually." Dawn said and shrugged. "Maybe something to remember us with?"

"Well yeah, but like what sorts of toys? I've been in a few toy shops, and the number of dolls and remote control cars and plastic horses is staggering," James said. "Yeah, we can get them a photo album and write nice things on it."

"Ares says that Heny would not have received the infection at the time, since her children are considered an importance to their agenda. As for Thalia... That was uncertain." Spinner said thoughtfully.

Dawn shrugged and chuckled "I don't know, we should find out what Terran kids like."

Asher smiled slightly. Well, it was nice that Heny hadn't passed the disease on to her children in any form. That was a relief, at least. "I'll discuss it with Thalia, see if he's willing to give you a sample to test," he said.

~~
James looked amused. "Man, three of us here, and none of us have any idea what to do! Maybe we should ask the kids."

Rigel laughed and nodded. "Yeah, maybe we should ask then what they like." He agreed.

"First let's look around this shop more! We have lots of time to plan." James looked at a tree covered in glittering ornaments, fascinated by their intricate designs.

Bianca had disappeared into some sort of birdhouse.

"Oh, a Christmas tree" Dawn said, looking at the tree and coming closer. "Nice"

Rigel nodded and went over to look at a shelf of board games.

James picked up an ornament of a humanoid lion driving a chariot pulled by creatures that looked a bit like four legged geese. "I'm guessing this isn't a Terran Christmas tree," he joked cheerfully.

Dawn laughed and shook her head. "Never heard any story like that beforw." She agreed

James sorted through the ornaments curiously. "Hmm, we could get the kids ornaments. Kids don't really need toys when they have craft supplies, do they?" He looked at an ornament of a stylized glass dragon, smiling.

Dawn shrugged then shook her head "they can't play with an ornament though, it's just to look at. Though maybe we could get one for all of them and a toy they can play with."