[center][u][b][color=518EDC]Alec Xu, Lapis Lazuli of Water
Forest Clearing[/color][/b][/u][/center]

	Morie, as she introduced herself, offered the strange new woman her gym jacket. Alec glanced up at her, true, selfless kindness was something uncommon. But he wasn't sure if her offer was that, after all, his offer of his shoes were not entirely selfless. Giving her his spare shoes could make her more receptive to conversation later, preferably not when everyone was curious for answers. It made a good first impression. He looked at the, presumably, native to this land and noticed she wasn't panicked, alarmed or uneasy. As the other man asked how they would get back, the woman looked at Alecs offering. The Asian stared at her face attentively, trying to discern anything from her facial expressions... he saw the faintest amount of uncertainty. So she wasn't familiar with neoprene? How could anyone not know what wetsuits were? He dismissed the questions and focused on what was important.

Alec had retreated back to where he had originally taken a knee, a subtle way of saying that he insisted that she take the shoes. However, she declined the offer, replying that they should keep their supplies close, and that there was 'no telling what they would need'. Alec hung on those last few words for a moment and started to wish that he had brought rope into his backpack. He looked to her again and saw that her eyes began to glow, she raised her arm and the shadows around the shoes came to life. The shadows lifted the shoes and they came back to Alec, who stared at the shadows unnerved. They ceased right in front of him and it took him a moment to respond, he glanced back up to her, she was offering the shoes back. Alec mustered his courage and slowly brought his right hand closer to the unknown. He kept mental notes of anything, the temperature felt normal, he felt no gravitational effects as he gripped the toplines of the shoes, Alec held the shoes there for a moment. As the shadows reverted back to normal, and as her eyes ceased glowing the shoes slowly became affected by gravity once more. So the shadows were either physical below the shoes, or the shadows were some sort of field that could affect physical properties. Alec tried to think about whatever technology could explain this, but he came up empty. Basically magic. He looked away from the witch and stowed his shoes back into his pack, both theories about her shadows made him think that the blood staining her dress was not her blood. He zipped up the backpack, while she didn't accept the shoes, hopefully the gesture finished Alecs goal.

She began to introduce herself, explaining that she was Aryanna Torre, and she called Earth by its alternate name. Terra was a common name for Earth in science fiction, for some reason just calling Mother Earth, Earth wasn't a common trend in popular sci-fi. But to actually hear it used unironically in a situation like this? Alec wasn't sure what to think of it. Aryanna spoke more, she admitted that she was the one who brought them to Astoria. She explained that she didn't have enough power to send them back, which made sense, any sort of teleportation spell or technology must use a metric ton of energy... or mana, whichever it was. But the admission that she did it concerned him for a split second. That little display of shadow magic must have been an introduction to the kind of place they were in now, where magic existed or where technology was so advanced it was magic to him, and it also served another purpose. Power. By saying she was the one who brought them here and by lifting the shoes back to Alec she displayed that she was the one in power here, despite the numbers by Alec. She knew what kind of place they were in, she knew what kind of foes they could be combating, and she had ways of fighting that none of them fully understood. He looked up at Aryanna, feeling very weak compared to her, in an unknown location and with her powers she held all the cards.
[b][color=518EDC]"Alright..."[/color][/b] he swallowed, [b][color=518EDC]"what's the work then?"[/color][/b]