Ruins trade route

[Frozen]

Novice Diplomat
Rank: D
Description:
Make low-level connections with potential and existing trade/political partners in other countries. Carry out any tasks given by them to gain their favor.
Restrictions:
None. Repeatable.
Rewards: 25 EXP 500 Ryo

The southern ruins of the fire country, such a horrid place it became. Once one of the biggest and richest places in the world, now nothing more than a memory of what it once was. Nobody let it be human or aliens, knows exactly what has happened here. The collapsed buildings, the fire and the many creatures that took this deserted land and named it home. Elsa watched from the mountains the lower ruins. “Such destruction.” she whispered to herself. She was continuing on her mission to find potential trade partners and had finally come to the end of her rounds in the fire country.

All in all, her trip hadn’t proved to be very fruitful due to the poor condition this region was in, but she owed it to her kingdom to try negotiating with whoever was in charge around here. That being said, she knew better then to venture in forsaken place without protection. Thankfully, she had purchased an icy blue staff to look a little bit more intimidating. Plus it would give her something to swing at anything that jumped out at her. Elsa jumped down the large mountain and slid down, her hands clenched on her staff. She wasn’t going to go all the way down; it would take too long to go around the ruins, so she decided to walk through it.

With every step she took she was beginning to think that nobody lived here at all, despite being told that there was quite a large population. The walls surrounding the city were tattered and destroyed, she sighed as she jumped to the other side, inside the ruins. The view was much darker then she’d expected. It looked like a ghetto, with broken down buildings, and fires everywhere. Strange. This place was empty. She shrugged and walked down the street. She heard strange sounds; the sound of a baby crying, the screech of a strange creature and several other noises.

She could do nothing to help these poor creatures, many have tried in the past. They were rumored to have disappeared or even mutated. She shook her head as she hears a sound coming from behind her. She quickly turned around and aimed her staff at the noise “Reveal yourself!” she ordered in a powerful voice. A woman named Elise stepped cautiously from behind the pile of rubble which had hidden her until then. Sweeping her black hair behind her ear with one lazy hand, she stood facing the traveler with her hands on her hips, her dark sakura orbs burning into her ferociously.

Narrowing her eyes, the powerful girl cocked her head to the side slowly. "Who are you to order me around?" She asked her, glaring. She had been living in the ruins of the lost city for almost twenty years now, going wherever her curiosity took her. And now, this traveler had the audacity to try and tell her what to do. Clenching her fists at her sides, her form seemed to shimmer as the air around her began to heat up, responding to her anger and her emotions. Narrowing her eyes even more, until she was almost squinting at the traveler, she hissed, "Well?"

[Frozen]

Elsa took a step back. Clearly she should have asked the last town whether the inhabitants here were hostile or not. She was slightly disappointed and quite worried for her own safety. Though not too much, at least it had the intelligence to speak coherently. She laid down her staff and took a few steps backward. She laughed before answering. “My name is Elsa I am merely an over anxious traveler here to potentially set up a trade agreement” she said chuckling. She then spotted something and with a swift movement, she threw her staff toward Elise, slamming into a strange creature behind her.

“It seems I have attracted unwanted attention.” said the princess with a smile. Elise turned around and jumped out into the darkness. The woman emerged after a series of weird noise were heard from it. She was covered in green slime and she wasn’t that happy. “Well then then. unless you want to find yourself in my current situation.” she wiped some slime from her forehead. “I’d suggest we stick together.” She finally said. Esla placed her hands on her hips and went to retrieve her staff, contemplating. “Sure." She said finally, eying the green slime her with distaste. That stuff looked nasty.

Looking up at the sky, she sighed. "It'll be getting dark soon." She said, as if it was almost a hassle to mention the oncoming night. "My name is Elise, by the way,” the other woman added, snatching up a piece of an old wooden beam from the ground and placing her free hand at the other end. There was a soft crackle, and the end of the beam caught alight. "They won't come near us if there's a flame." She informed Elsa, squinting into the darkness before igniting her hand and throwing a fireball as hard as she could into a pile of rubble. A squeal of pain was heard, then it cut off abruptly. "Stupid things."

Elsa couldn’t help but smile. “They are most annoying creatures. I am most curious to where they come from.” she asked. A small lining of chakra surrounded her body as she created water in her hands and drank it. Elsa then turned her gaze toward this mysterious girl, she could manipulate fire, and she must be an powerful human she read about. Elise paused for a moment after drinking out of her flask, placing her hands in the pockets of her large jeans. "Nice to hear you’re trying to get involved in the economy,” she replied finally, shrugging softly.

Her shoulder blades itched, but she tried to ignore it. She couldn't. Wouldn't get her arms out. Especially not in front of a foreigner. She had been taught. She knew all about those who hunted people for their bloodlimits. She was determined, as a child, to study as hard as she could. Her reasoning had been that she'd get herself killed if she never revealed her extra limbs. It seemed that Elise and Elsa were both hiding something about themselves.

[Frozen]

The princess rested her staff on her shoulder and walked down on the remains of the street. She turned around toward the powerful. “We must make haste before night fall” she said as she urged her to hurry up the pace. The place was creepy enough during the day. She didn’t want to see it during nightfall; she could only imagine what kind of creatures woke up during that time. She suddenly stopped and faced the young woman. “I can tell you don’t trust me.” she said looking at her with a small smile. “Although I’ll tell you straight up that I’m not a great fighter. You really have nothing to fear,” she added as she scratched her nose.

She could feel it; her emotions were giving her away. She knows how foreigners were seen as in these parts. They were abominations, threats to their way of life. Or at least that’s what the children were taught nowadays. Elsa wasn’t like that, though. She just wanted to bring what she could to the region to hopefully create a symbiotic relationship between the snow and fire countries. “I’m no forcing you to trust me, but please do try and hide your feelings better.” she said with a smile. She quickly turned around and bashed a creature away from her. It screeched in pain as the upper body twists on itself before using its arms and dragged itself into a dark hole. She groaned of disgust.

"I guess you could say that." Elise replied to her comment about her being 'very knowledgable'. "And yeah, I don't trust you. Sorry, I don't do hiding feelings." She added, folding her arms as she lit another creature aflame. "Those things are gross." She said simply, throwing her hand out and roasting another of the creatures as it threw itself at her. Elise turned around and lifted her shoulders. It would be nice if she could just get over this fear she was having. Elsa seemed to be quite nice and harmless.

The two continued for another hour down a broken path. They didn’t encounter any of the creatures from before so they felt at peace for now. Elise suddenly stopped and spotted the remains of a residential house. “Hmm. We won’t make it for nightfall. We must find a shelter” Without saying another she walks along the wreckage and found the door. It seemed like the house had been destroyed from the inside. She spotted some stairs and a door; she opened it and found a storage room. She looked back and yelled for her to hear. “Hey! I think I have found decent shelter for the night.”

Elise seemed to almost flow up the stairs, she was so silent. Stood in front of Elsa, leading the way. Truth be told, if something jumped out at Elsa, she probably wouldn’t be able to react in time. Elsa looked over Elise’s shoulder into the room. "Hmm, it'll do." She agreed, stepping past her into the room. Scanning it once more, the foreigner unceremoniously plopped herself on the floor, crossing her legs and folding her arms. "Fireplace!" She exclaimed gleefully. "We'll be able to keep warm, too." Elise gathered a heap of scattered broken floorboards, throwing them into the fireplace and lighting it with a wave of her hand.

[Frozen]

Elsa knew that the two of them would probably part ways sometime the next day, so she decided to bring up her trade mission. “Say, Elise. Do you know who I should talk to about setting up a trade agreement? And I hate to ask, but how many people live in these parts? You’re literally the only person I’ve seen so far.”

Elise paused and slowly inhaled as the thick air got trough her nostrils. She didn’t mind, but the darkness made it practically unavoidable. Elise turned her head as the fireplace illuminated the place. It was a storage room all right. There were racks of different kind of canned food, and they were filled with thick dust. Curious, she picked one up and blew the dust away. The stuff expired last year, so it was pretty recent. While this was probably troubling to Elsa, this was a normal sight for Elise.

“We live deep in the ruins, although we are very disconnected. There isn’t any government in place so we just sort of fend for ourselves. We have a few thousand, I would estimate. What are you selling exactly? I can probably save you some time and say that we don’t have a lot of money or need anything advanced.”

Elsa nodded her head as she listened. She looked around the room and noticed that there were a few lamps around, but with no electricity. There was a lone rack against the far wall where all the canned food was, near the fireplace there was an old rug and a sofa; both very dusty and the worst nightmare of any asthmatic. Placing back the canned food, she walked toward the fireplace and bent down so she could feel the heat in her hands. She looked at the powerful; the dim light of the fire illuminated her, almost making her look magical.

“You’re probably going to laugh, but my people sell ice. We can make pretty much anything out of ice and sell it fairly cheaply. Our ice is pretty high quality too so it should last an entire winter season if you wanted it for structural reasons. However I don’t know if there is a need for that kind of stuff here. Just looking around I can tell that people in these parts are disconnected from society so perhaps we could sell some technology. Or weapons if those creatures are a big problem.

Elise looked at her more intently like trying to see through her. The woman’s eyes flickered red and she chuckles. She turns her gaze back at the fire. “Ice you say. I guess that’s pretty useless to us. But technology? We could definitely use that…” Elise trailed off as she felt her extra limbs start to get jittery. She was, of course, from the spider clan. However for all she knew, her family had just mutated leaving her a freak of nature. She pushed the thoughts from her mind then continued, “what can you offer us?”

[Frozen]

Elsa and Elise discussed possible products that Arendelle could provide and what kind of payment the ruin folk could offer. About an hour passed before the sun finally set, leaving the ruins in complete darkness aside from the fire. The pair of women would then drift off to sleep before awaking the next day. Today they would be heading towards the most populated area of the ruins to try gauging interest in Elsa’s plan. From what she heard from Elise, the princess was fairly confident that they would both benefit from a trade agreement, but getting it to work out would be another story.

For one, the ruins were extremely xenophobic. For two, there was no possible way they could pay with money since they were scavengers. However, Elsa knew something about fallen civilizations; there were always treasures to be claimed. Artifacts useless to the ruin folk could be worth a fortune back home if she could find the right buyers. Upon arriving at the congregation of makeshift huts, Elsa and Elise would go ask each person they could find about their living conditions and ask to see any strange artifacts that they could use to barter should Arendelle send a shipment of tech this way.

One such inhabitant tried to claim a can of red spray paint was some sort of relic. It was sort of difficult to describe what exactly Elsa was looking for since these people didn’t have much knowledge about any sorts of advanced technology. That person actually ended up dropping the canister of red spray paint on the ground. Elise happened upon the abandoned can and curiously examined the device. Not five seconds passed from the moment that she picked it up to when she sprayed herself in the face, causing her eyes to burn terribly. She immediately dropped it and pressed her hands firmly against her eyes while screaming out in pain. She jerked about uncontrollably while shouting as loudly as she could, “My eyes! My eyes! Why!?”

She eventually relaxed and searched the area for something she could use to exact her revenge on the evil object. She found what she was looking for in a nearby trash can, a splintered baseball bat. She carried it with her over to the fallen spray paint can and glared angrily at it. “KEEYAH!” she issued her war cry while bringing the bat down atop the can. With the powerful collision that ensued, the can with its pressurized contents literally exploded with Elise no more than a couple feet away from where it once rested.

Sharp bits of metal flew in all directions at near supersonic speed; many of them stuck and pierced Elise in her limbs and torso. None of the projected can fragments pierced anything vital, fortunately, but that did nothing to lessen the spider lady’s suffering. She fell to the ground crying loudly after making a short series of stupid mistakes. “It hurts! It hurts!” she whined. This was getting nowhere fast.

[Frozen]

Elsa had moved on to a different hut at this time, so she had no idea what exactly had made the screeching sounds. She heard something else right before, kind of like an explosion. She quickly ran over to where the noise was coming from too see a rather odd sight. "Ahhh what happened." Elsa asked as all she had saw was pieces of aluminum on the ground with red paint splattered everywhere and a broken bat on the group with Elise screaming in pain. "Hey what’s wrong with you,” she asked as she let down her walking staff on the ground and headed up to the lady who’s extra limbs were finally exposed, flailing madly.

Elise was not happy at that moment and she was even less happy about her situation when she saw Elsa approach and felt her comfort her. She had nothing against getting help in particular and she would have welcomed the kindness of just about any foreigner at this point. What made her less happy in her current agony was that she felt embarrassed. Welp, once all that was sorted out, the pair continued talking to the rest of the people in the area. Not surprisingly, nearly everyone had artifacts and valuable gems that had been passed down for generations. Not only that, but there were apparently many homes that had never been checked for valuables so the ruin folk would have no trouble paying.

Feeling as though this was enough information as she needed, Elsa thanked Elise for her time and made her way towards the shore. She had certainly met some interesting characters on her journey through the fire country!

-exit-    

[☆ F ☆]

+55 EXP base, +25 EXP Mission, +500 Ryo Mission.