"Sure, let's head out"

Giovanni presses his two forefingers to his head and after about half a minute, he says to you, "looks like we have about fifteen minutes before she gets here." "So you seeing her as well?" "Not exactly, she's a bit of a lesbian. If you want to get with her once you join us feel free though." "Us?" "Yep, we're a bit of a group, we started out adventuring and now we have a bit of a complicated situation. We have cohesion pretty well, though, in spite of our differences." Huh, interesting. It's not unheard of for an adventuring group to stay together after they're done, but it's pretty rare. You can't say you've heard of such groups being open to new members, though. "Wait, so where do I fit in to this?" Giovanni shrugs; "you're cute, and if everyone approves of you joining, that will have been figured out by the time you join."

You and he sit in idle chatter for several more minutes, when a woman in full plate mail walks in, with its blue sheen. Mithral. Her hair falls just to her shoulder, silver locks framing her emerald eyes nicely. You raise an eyebrow at the fact that she has both a shortsword at her left and greatsword at her right. "Heh, decided to break out the full armory, eh, Irina?" "Hey, a woman's gotta be able to defend herself in this town." "Point taken." "Anyways, Irina's arrived, do you want to head out?" "Where you taking her, Giovanni?" "Ah, I was planning on taking her to see that one spot that we found up in the mountains." She raises her eyebrows. "Taking her to see botany on your first date? If I didn't know better, I'd say you're a lesbian, Giovanni." "Heh, just because I know how to treat a woman doesn't mean I am one, Irina - if I was, you might be attracted to me." Both of them laugh, perhaps this is a running joke between the two of them.

Regardless, with your date location seemingly Irina-approved, you nod your head, "sure, let's head out." The two of you head out the city gate and towards the hills, eventually finding yourselves outside a small cave. "I'm not a wizard, can't cast transportation magic, but way back when we tied a rope in that cave in order to get up and down easily, that way we don't have to go around the long way." "How long is the long way?" "Two days." Holy titans, that's a long way. You can definitely see why they made the shortcut. You head in, and at the end of a short cave is a fifty-foot length of hempen rope, tied at the top of something. You climb up the sheer cliff using the rope, and emerge up top at . . . another cave. Huh, that was honestly kind of anticlimactic. This cave is much prettier, though, with crystalline structures exposed all around, glinting in the dark. As you're gawking at the crystals, you hear a thud behind you, as Giovanni lands on the ledge, having climbed the rope. "We're not really sure how these got here by the way, there's no natural features which would lend to their formation. Best guess is magic." His explanation breaks you from your wonder, and then it hits you: the crystals are glinting, which means there's a light source somewhere near. "Ah, caught that there's a source of light, did you? Yep, about ten minutes down this path, the exit to the cave is. The light from there reflects off the crystals, getting diminished until it gives just barely enough light down here to cause them to glint." The two of you walk for eight minutes or so, until you see a sharp bend, one massive crystal glowing profusely at the far corner of the bend.

You turn the bend, and - wow, that's a lot of flowers. As light enters your eyes, your vision slowly clears, revealing a small field, filled to the brim with flowers. Purples, pinks, and yellows assail your eyes, green stems and grass filling in the gaps in flowers. Giovanni pulls a bag off his back, seemingly just a common sack cloth. He reaches in, and pulls out a quilted blanket, laying it on the ground, followed by pulling out various food paraphernalia, including milk, bread, and cheese. "So do you always have that bag of holding with you?" "Bag of colding, and yes; a man's got to be prepared." You roll your eyes at his silly over-preparedness, although it did come in handy in this case.

The two of you start slowly picking at the picnic lunch, chatting about this and that. "Anyways, you've picked up a few things about me here and there, but what about you? What brought you out to a backwater like Cyllian?" {if Cleric = true}"Backwater? We have a trade empire which makes us prosperous." "Aye, but hasn't done you much good on your rights, now has it?" Fair point, and one you can't really argue with. "I may be a noble, but sadly I don't have much power to actually change things, not when all the other nobles want to keep things as they are. Maybe if women could actually be nobles, things would change, but as much as I once dreamed otherwise, I don't think reform efforts are going to go anywhere." He trails off, seemingly slightly depressed at the impossibility of progress. "But anyways, I wanted to find out about you when I just talked more about myself. Tell me a bit about yourself if you please."{endif}