zenderael_rl | [EVENT]

"Hmmm," Alison mused, glancing at all the stalls. There were so many! "Starting at one end might be best, otherwise we might get lost," she said, grinning. No, she wouldn't actuallu get lost. She might wind up at the same section more than once, however, but even that she wouldn't mind.

"Let's go that way," she said, pointing to the left.

"Sounds good!" Eileen agreed, starting off towards the left. It was as good a place to start as any, after all, and Eileen was eager to consume all kinds of delicious food. As they walked, attempting to make idle conversation, she added, "You know, when I texted you about this, I was kind of surprised. I guess I assumed you might have heard about it before I told you." Alison had always struck her as the sort of person who knew the majority of the events that were going on at any given time. Discovering she had, apparently, not known about one had been a bit of a surprise.

"I'd had a busy day," she admitted. "Day after the cafe got torn apart, I had something try to get into my house." She gave a chuckle, along with a casual shrug, as if it wasn't that big a deal.

If Eileen pestered, she'd probably give the same story she'd given her father.

"Lease things settled down the rest of the week." For her, anyway. "Oooh, souvlaki," she pointed out, instantly distracted with approaching the stall and purchasing a few sticks of pork to nibble on. Mostly so she wouldn't fill up on sweets before getting anything more substantial into her stomach, but she also loved souvlaki.

Eileen froze momentarily as Alison admitted something had tried to get into her house, and her eyes widened, hurrying to catch up to Alison. "Something tried to get into your house? Was it another monster?" If it was, Alison was lucky to be alive. Maybe some vigilantes had come by. Eileen had run into quite a few of them during the week when she wandered around Underwood. Several of them had even escorted her places if she asked them nicely, but mostly, she found their guns to be a bit intimidating.

Still, at least things had settled down...

And then Eileen was distracted by the souvlaki, quite happily purchasing a stick for herself, as well. "Oooh! I love this stuff, don't you? It's so tasty."

"Delicious," she answered, taking a nibble off one of the sticks, which kept her mouth full and distracted her from answering the other questions. But once she'd swallowed, she shrugged again. "It was a dyadavias. Big, two-headed bird thing. Wasn't hard to spot over the fence, so some people took care of it." And then another bite of pork, because she was hungry, having skipped out on snacks all afternoon.

So the vigilantes had come to the rescue after all. Thank God for that. Grinning a little, Eileen took a bite of her pork and smiled at Alison, making sure she swallowed before speaking again. "You were lucky some of the vigilantes were passing by. I always heard those things could get pretty destructive if you provoked them." Not that she had made a habit of it. Anais really didn't have a need to go after them.

"Yeah, they can." And it had been provoked, and shattered the windows in the kitchen, but Alison wasn't going to mention that. Rhys had barely been scratched, Alison and her father (and the dogs) were fine, so it wasn't worth dwelling on.

Another nibble of pork before she spoke again, using it as a convenient pause while pondering what to say. "How're you guys holding up? Haven't seen any big nasties around the house?"

"Not yet," she confessed. It was a little disappointing, to be honest. Not that she wanted to see one, of course, but it just seemed like everybody else had been having close encounters with the things while she and her housemates remained untouched. "They called off events for a while, though, until things settle down." If they settled down. Still, no one wanted to be wandering through the woods only to stumble across a real-life dragon or something. No one had any actual weapons at these things. "And we're thinking about holding off distribution until, you know, we don't have to worry about getting attacked by vicious beasts on the way to the post office to mail things."

"None of your neighbors are out protecting people?" Alison asked. There were so many out there these days, keeping people safe, helping them get to/from work, they'd probably be willing to help someone get to the post office. But that meant having to rely on them, which she wasn't sure Eileen would want to do. "Or you could ask if anyone on the forums is willing to help. I mean, some of what you guys sell could be useful in all this."

"Some of the armor, maybe." The chainmail, specifically, she supposed as her face fell a little bit. What people could really use was something that wasn't a gun. Some of these monsters, you needed to get up close and personal with them to get the job done. "But it isn't like we can make actual weapons." Of all the times to not have a forge. Of course, if they had one and a monster visited them, it would probably be destroyed by now. "And most people just assume we aren't working with decent-quality stuff because of the kind of people we cater to." She highly doubted they were high on anyone's list when it came to fighting the monsters.

Alison shrugged. "You just need to change your market audience. Redo the website a bit, keeping in mind which things are actually useful right now. Go into detail about their usefulness, the quality of the items and their materials..." She smiled, laying her hand on Eileen's shoulder. "I could help you, if you like. Get word out that you've got good stuff, maybe put up some posters about the city."

Alison, Eileen determined, was one of the sweetest people alive to even offer to do something like that for them. As tempting as the offer was, though, Eileen was a little hesitant, and she raised a hand to absently tuck a loose strand of hair behind an ear. "That's sweet of you to offer, but you probably have your own stuff to do. I don't want to keep you from it."

That kind of stung, even if it wasn't intended to. Alison had lost the one thing she'd spent most of her time on, so outside of her parents and the two dogs, she didn't have any of her own stuff, really. Not anymore.

She didn't let it show, though, smile still broad, and let out a soft chuckle. "I've got some time, between the dogs and shooting practice. Besides, we could just talk about it online. I can go over your site and make suggestions. It's up to you, though."

Meanwhile, she still had another skewer of pork to finish off, and started working on that while she looked at the other stalls around them to see what else was available.

Oh God no, Alison, Eileen hadn't meant it that way at all! And if she had known that it hurt her, even a little bit, Eileen immediately would have apologized for it. As it was, however, she didn't know, and she looked up to see Alison smiling. The extra help certainly couldn't hurt, especially now, and she nodded. "If you're sure you have the time. I just don't want to inconvenience you or anything."

"Of course I have time," she said, smiling back to Eileen. "Just hit me up whenever you do, okay?" Eileen had more going on, she figured, so it'd be more convenient to do it when Eileen was able to.

Alison caught sight of a gyro stand, and instantly perked. Those were also delicious! Though much more filling. If she ate one, she probably wouldn't have room for anything else for a while, but, well, there'd still be later.

"Wanna grab a gyro?" she asked Eileen, nodding towards the stand.

"Okay!" she agreed, beaming back at Alison. She was offering to help, after all, and she couldn't turn that down, not now. And she was sure the housemates would be on board when she explained the plan. It looked like there was a bright side to all of this after all.

The mention of gyros pulled her from her thoughts, and she looked up, eyes zooming completely in on the gyro stand. "Oh my God yes." There really was no other way to respond to that. Gyros, after all, were the best things ever.

Alison grinned and headed for the stand, finishing off the last bite of her skewered pork and tossing the skewers into a conveniently located trash bin. There was a line- of course there was a line, gyros were amazing- and she got into it, glancing back at Eileen. "I'm at my parents' now, by the way. Dad was over when that thing tried to get in, so he insisted." That and the shattered windows and worry for her dogs had been enough to send her packing. At least her parents were local.

"I don't blame him." If it had been her house that the giant two-headed bird had tried to destroy, she probably would have fled to her parents' house, too, even if she really didn't want to be there. Would her parents insist, if something like that happened to her? For all she knew, her mother would dismiss it as a side-effect of LARPing too much. If an actual monster showed up, she'd probably insist it was animatronic or something. "Though, if he hadn't offered, you could have always come and stayed with us." Monster would have even tolerated the dogs, so long as they realized he was in charge and they could deal with periodic bops to the head from the kinds of hiding places only a cat could have gotten into.

She chuckled. "I would've wound up at their place anyway." She loved her parents, in all honesty, and got along really well with them. They've been supportive all her life, and she wouldn't imagine trusting anyone else as much. "Dad really loves the dogs, anyway." Almost as much as Alison did.

"I've still got my cell, but I can give you the house number, in case you need anything and my phone is off."

"It's probably for the best," Eileen admitted after a minute. "Monster might not like the dogs invading his territory. He'd probably jump out at them from all his little hiding places." And there were quite a few of them. Monster had been with her for years now, and she still didn't know where all of them were.

Eileen nodded, digging around in her bag for her cell phone, thumbing through her contacts quickly before finally finding Alison's name. She made sure to select the option to edit the information before offering it to her. "It's better to be safe than sorry, right?"

Alison giggled. Oh, cats, you are so amusing. She'd never had one, however, being more of a dog person, and her parents hadn't really had pets at all. Probably why her dad was all over her dogs- mom wasn't much of a pet person at all.

She took the phone and put her parents' number in before handing it back. "Hopefully it'll never come up, but yeah, just in case." She smiled, and then noticed her turn to order was up and stepped up to the stand to place it.

After paying, she stepped to the side to let Eileen go up, and took a bite of her gyro while she waited.

"You never know." She smiled a little as she took her phone back, tucking it away once again. "I might go home, find a giant monster on our back porch, and then panic and call you because I wouldn't know what else to do." God, she hoped not. That was the last thing she wanted after this. They had no experience with giant monsters.

She paused just long enough to place her gyro order, pay, and then happily move away from the stand with her gyro. These things really didn't have any right to be as delicious as they were.

[EVENT] - Kharveryos

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