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Ark City, Central District - The Broken Shillelagh


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ShadowWolfSBI

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Both outside and inside, the Broken Shillelagh looks like it could have be picked up whole from Ireland and set down in the Old Town Performing Arts Campus. While it was never exactly the most popular place in the city, it did well enough to run comfortably, without concerns about funding. Even when the occasional brawl rips through the place.

This evening, it would seem to be slightly busier than normal, although entry would show why, as an informal meeting of the artistic board for the theater seemed underway in one of the corners.

From the bar, Nathaniel Stanton and the owner watched, quietly discussing something else.
 

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Re: Ark City, Central District - The Broken Shillelagh

The door to the bar opens, and in steps one of the regular performers, Mozzie, with what appears to be a rather beautiful young woman following close behind him. "May I present to you The Broken Shillelagh. Best damn pub in town." he says, setting his case down next to one of the stools, and taking a seat at the bar, though he faces away from it and leans back against it. "Have a seat, order something you like. Barkeep! Put anything this lovely lady orders on my tab." he says, motioning for Freya to sit.
 

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Re: Ark City, Central District - The Broken Shillelagh

Freya eyed her surroundings warily. Bars were not normally her scene, but she would make the odd exception now and again. Usually with friends, but she didn't really have many of those anymore. Steven was even more of a homebody than she was, and Eliza had preferred to keep their outings to more refined gastronomic destinations, such as restaurants where wine would be preferred to beer. Not that her grad student wages earned her enough to frequent these places - Eliza was good for it though. And that reminded her... at some point, she ought to work up the nerve to see if the Avalon corporation was hiring in their R&D department. Maybe Eliza could give her a reference.

She sat at the bar, smiled wanly at Mozzie's male bravado, and asked quietly for a small glass of whatever was on tap that night. If there was a choice, then the bestseller would do for her. She wasn't picky.

"So how long until you begin your set?" She asked Mozzie, for want of better conversation topics.
 
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Re: Ark City, Central District - The Broken Shillelagh

Mozzie's entrance warranted a look from Stanton and the Publican, although only Stanton commented. "Well, there's another one."

After getting Freya's drink, the Publican stepped over to the 'meeting' and made some quiet comments, perhaps suggesting something to the group.
 

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Re: Ark City, Central District - The Broken Shillelagh

Mozzie raises an eyebrow, his interest in the "meeting" piqued. "Should be about half an hour." he responds to Freya's question, shaking his head slightly and pulling his attention away from the meeting and back to the woman. "So, Cindy. Tell me a little about yourself. Like why someone as beautiful as you spends her time in a lab." he says, his smile forming on his face as he props his elbows on the edge of the bar and pans his vision across the pub.
 

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Re: Ark City, Central District - The Broken Shillelagh

Eliza parked her bike outside the pub. It looked a bit busy today, but she felt a bit nostalgic for the Irish tunes and environment.

After she entered, she paused to take a quick look around. She noticed Dr. Stanton and her former employer, and gave them a friendly smile. She also noticed Freya and raised her arm to wave to one of the few people she could call 'friend', but noticed the man she was sitting with and paused. She wasn't sure if she should interrupt them or not.
 

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Re: Ark City, Central District - The Broken Shillelagh

Freya smirked and looked demurely down at her hands as Mozzie ladeled his compliment upon her. She still had trouble taking these. Her looks had changed rapidly for the better after the alien within her reduced her body fat ratios, reconditioned her muscles, and smoothed out the uniformity of her dermal complexion, removing unnecessary flaws and body marks. In her old life, Freya had never received this sort of attention from men. Now it was commonplace, to the point where it was a bit unnerving, and her defense mechanism was to fall into bad jokes.

"Well, let's see... I'm a Taurus..." She began, showing a creeping smile and a knowing look. "Just kidding. I don't know. I always liked science, biology, and ecology. I specialize in organisms that thrive in extremely hostile environments: extremophiles. And in my spare time, I work out. Swimming, a little weight traini- oh hey! Eliza!"

Freya waved over her friend as she noticed her, surprised to see a friendly face in this environment.

"I didn't know you went to places like this," Freya remarked, sliding off of her bar stool and giving Eliza a friendly hug and a European faux-kiss on either cheek.
 

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Re: Ark City, Central District - The Broken Shillelagh

Mozzie smiles as Freya talks, though his attention quickly turns to the newcomer. "Cindy, who's your friend?" he asks, sitting upright and looking Eliza over, though his actual eye movements were hidden by his sunglasses. "Lady luck smiles on me tonight. I get to entertain two beautiful women." he says, picking up his case and standing from his barstool, setting the case on the bar and opening it, removing the violin within, as well as the matching bow, then stepping over to the stage and smiling, his head raising to properly position the instrument on his neck. With a stroke of his arm, he begins playing Wild Rover, a rather common song of the pub, his voice raising out and singing the lyrics, his eyes focused in the general direction of the two women.
 

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Re: Ark City, Central District - The Broken Shillelagh

"Believe it or not, I used to work here." Eliza replied with a smile, returning the gesture and giving Freya a hug back. She had been hoping to see a friendly face besides the two more 'senior' people she had been previously. While she was on good terms with them, she always felt it hard to approach Dr. Stanton, and the Publican, well, he had a job.

She raised an eyebrow at the sunglass-wearing musician's complement, passing though it might have been. She waited for Freya, or rather Cindy, to introduce them before giving a nod to him. "Nice to meet you." She said simply and watched him start to play.

"Shall we?" She asked, motioning to the barseats where the other two had rose from. She sat down next to Freya, though leaving the musician's seat empty. "To be honest, I never would have expected you to come to a place like this either." She said to her friend, glancing over to musician. "He's pretty good." She commented idly.

If her old boss came by for her order, she'd smile and reply, "I'm driving, so maybe just a soda tonight."
 

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Re: Ark City, Central District - The Broken Shillelagh

"Ah, Mozzie, this is Eliza. Eliza, this is Mozzie. He's a violinist, as you can probably see..."

After Freya had introduced the two she went back to her bar seat and fidgeted with her fingers until the bartender delivered her beverage.

"I'm not intending to drink a whole lot," she explained. "You know we don't like to put too much alcohol in our body. But every once in a while, the old me wins out and says it's time to relax. I'm only here because I was getting burned out looking at lab slides for Steven, and then Mozzie appeared out of nowhere, laying out his best chat-up lines on me and told me about this bar."

Freya shrugged. "Seemed as good a way as any to blow off some steam. Didn't know you used to work in a bar though! I would have thought a smart cookie like you was always inventing things - you know, like a low-yield nuclear device made of legos when you were five or something."
 

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Re: Ark City, Central District - The Broken Shillelagh

At Freya's mention of herself in the plural, Eliza bit her lip and held back a question, just like she had every time it had come up. She was simply curious about the 'other' part of her friend's body and wanted to do some experiments, run a few studies... But she wasn't sure how to broach the subject and, of course, wouldn't do it without Freya's express permission. Instead she decided to latch onto the comments about her own past.

"Well, I didn't come out with a test-tube in my hand, you know." She replied jokingly. "Just being smart doesn't mean you know a lot. I never really had an opportunity to learn all the things I have until, well, until I met doctor Stanton," She nodded in the doctor's direction. "while working here." She paused to watch Mozzie a bit.

"What about you?" She looked back to Freya. "Did you have one of those junior microscope kits and went around peering into pond water when you were five?" Perhaps a bit more likely of a scenario than turning lego nuclear.
 
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Re: Ark City, Central District - The Broken Shillelagh

The Publician greeted Eliza when she walked in, hopping back over from the meeting long enough to get her drink, then whispered something to Stanton, which drew a grunt. Both joined in on the song when Mozzie started. While the owner went back over to the little meeting, apparently trying to hurry whatever business was going on to a close, Stanton's eyes drifted around slightly...


...before stopping on one of the cards from the university, which had apparently gotten stuck on Mozzie's violin case. Apparently, it intrigued him enough to stop singing, something that Mozzie and Eliza would have only rarely seen him do. After retrieving the card, he obviously was studying it.
 

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Re: Ark City, Central District - The Broken Shillelagh

Eliza paused in mid-drink as she watched Stanton retrieve the card. That was rather odd, she thought. Putting her drink down she looked over to him curiously. "I wonder what that's about." She thought out loud.
 

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Re: Ark City, Central District - The Broken Shillelagh

Freya sipped her drink and shook her head.

"No, my parents were both from a science background, but they weren't intending to shove me into it with junior scientist kits. They went the opposite way actually, giving me a lot of toys and trying to encourage me to pursue arts, like playing the piano or getting into sports."

The blonde barked out a clipped laugh as she set the beer down on the bar.

"The truth was, I hated sports, and I was never really good with music. The things that interested me most were the far off places my father got to travel to. He made a lot of trips out into the ocean, you see. Designing and deploying deep diving mobile cameras to explore the lower parts of the ocean for extremophile life. I thought that was really cool, and I'd complain to my mother when he left for months at a time, saying 'I want to go with him! Please!' But she never let me go. I was too young for that sort of thing."

Freya was about to go on, when her backstory was interrupted by Eliza's comment. Stanton appeared to have stopped singing all of a sudden, his attention drawn to the card in his hand.

Having not met the man before, Freya had only Eliza's impression of him to note that this was something out of the ordinary. She quieted down and took another sip, looking on to see if anything came of this.
 

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Re: Ark City, Central District - The Broken Shillelagh

As Mozzie finished his song, he noted that Stanton had stopped singing, which distracted him for several seconds, before he remembered he had songs to play, quickly assuming his stance, and beginning to fiddle, his voice shifting into a rather impressive Irish accent, belting out the lyrics to Finnegan's Wake, another favorite of the usual patrons.
 
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Re: Ark City, Central District - The Broken Shillelagh

While the Publican added commentary between lines of the song, Stanton remained somewhat lost in thought, idly tapping the card against his leg.

After a moment, he muttered "Not enough...", seemingly to no one in particular.
 

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Re: Ark City, Central District - The Broken Shillelagh

Eliza tried to pay attention to Mozzie's singing, but the way Dr. Stanton was acting kept pulling her mind away. Knowing his background, at least as much as most other people, if he was reacting this strongly, it must be important. Eliza just wasn't sure how to bring the subject up without seeming like she was butting in.

After finishing her drink off, she thought she had an idea about how to approach Stanton about her curiosity, though it would be a very transparent excuse. Rather than try it right away, she looked to Freya, hoping her friend might be able to more honestly bring it up.

She then realized Freya and herself had been in the middle of a conversation. "Sorry, it's just I've never seen him take such an interest in something before." She explained, giving an apologetic smile. "Maybe she thought she was protecting you." She replied to Freya's last comment. "As safe as submersibles are, if something goes wrong, it's not like you can parachute to safety or jump in a life raft. At depth, the pressure is crushing. Ah, but you don't need me to tell you that of course."
 

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Re: Ark City, Central District - The Broken Shillelagh

Freya had no real idea what Dr. Stanton's muttering was all about, but having spent a lot of time around frazzled grad students and seeing similar bouts of vocalization, she didn't see such things as any sort of reason to go over and initiate a conversation with the man. If his concerns were very great, he would voice them. Gladly, she returned her attention to her friend.

"My mother never really put it that way. The danger of the sea, I mean. Dangers and extreme climates weren't something she and my father feared, and neither do I. It was more that she just wanted me to have what she thought was a normal childhood, with friends and interests. If anything, I guess she worried I was too clingy. She mistook my curiosity in what dad did for separation anxiety. Which was ironic because it wasn't until he died that I actually experienced that."

Freya sipped at her beer again before adding. "And I know that sounds like I'm fishing for pity. I'm not. It happened a long time ago, and as you know, worse things have occurred in our lives."
 

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Re: Ark City, Central District - The Broken Shillelagh

Eliza nodded to Freya's last comment. "Normal..." She chuckled a bit and took a sip of her soda. "I suppose I had a chance at a 'normal' life... I think it's fair to say that such a life would have been much more boring." She paused and glanced over to Dr. Stanton again. "Sorry, there's just something that's bothered me. I'll be back in a sec." She excused herself and stood up.

"Hope I'm not intruding, doctor." She said a bit tentatively, walking up to the doctor. "But I couldn't help but notice... uh, well, you noticing that flyer." She was still a bit nervous around Stanton, afraid of disappointing his trust in supporting her. "If it's... not private or anything, it seemed... I mean... Is it important and if so is it something I can assist with?" She let the last part out in a quick breath and quickly felt a heat rising in her face. Eliza still felt a need to prove herself to him, but coming out and asking something like that was pretty bold for her and she quickly worried she said the wrong thing.
 
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Re: Ark City, Central District - The Broken Shillelagh

Stanton jerked slightly at Eliza's questioning. "Wha- Oh, the flyer? I'm not sure about it. Something seems vaguely familiar, but it's almost like a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces."

It would seem that he'd been slightly lost in thought, and hadn't quite registered her approach. Although, having seen him in the past on stage, it might not be clear to her whether or not he was covering something.
 
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