[ That's an only mildly instantly semi-irritating amount of good mood to be throwing around. It's balanced out by the new guy's evident levels of preparation and skill, given how he's kitted out like - well, like an actual intrepid explorer.

Who is, apparently, an elf or half-elf. A dashing, one-eyed, conspicuously roguishly good-looking elf or half-elf with a winning grin. With all the peculiar and outright bizarre people Krouse has encountered in the last two years, it's a little odd to be thrown by the appearance of someone unexpectedly fantastical instead of mutated. ]

Hanging in there. [ He agrees, turning up the animation he puts into his voice to approach perhaps a quarter of his pointy earred new acquaintance's energy. ] And I wouldn't say no to a team up.

My name's Krouse. [ He'd offer his hand to shake, but there's the water bottle situation; he'll give him a few seconds. ] Great to run into someone again. I lost my last partner in a hedge maze, if you can believe it. Mazes inside the maze.

[ The thing is, this is obviously embarrassing. Krouse wouldn't be caught dead initiating a gesture this unironically 'cool', some intricate jock ritual designed to let them knock each other around without starting an actual fight. If he saw anyone else doing this, his eyes would roll out of his head and go looking for the exit of the labyrinth all on their own, just to get away from the scene of the social crime.

But in the moment, before his brain can catch up, all Krouse feels is a lurch of surprise that dissolves into an oddly warm wash of recognition. He's awkward in Fabian's grip, arm stiff like he doesn't know what to do with it, but he doesn't fight it past a moment's uncertain freeze. ]

Hey.

[ A standard greeting between boys of a certain age and casualness, capable of being inflected in a hundred different ways. This one says, more or less: good to see you, too.

With new context, Krouse reevaluates. For one thing, this wasn't exactly what he was picturing when imagining hellspawn, but that's easy to get over. The biggest shift is that he's slightly less annoyed by Fabian now that he knows it's him, some of the friction rounded off by passing familiarity. ]

Must be. [ They'd better fucking hope it's not. Fate and Krouse have a less than convivial relationship. ] Glad to see you're still in one piece. But of course you would be, right?

[ He's barely even being that sarcastic. If anyone was going to be able to handle the dungeon crawl, it'd be one of the guys who specifically trained for dungeon crawls. ]

[ The biggest difference between Fabian and what Krouse associates with his type so far is that Fabian seems to want to bring everyone in on the good times. In an odd way, it makes him think of another so-called popular kid he once knew, and how unlike the stereotype she was once you got to know her.

It's an association with mixed feelings attached. Better not to linger on it. Krouse sweeps it aside and refocuses on the now, shifting his weight back slightly on his heels in unconscious echo of Fabian's driven exuberance. ]

I've been getting by. [ His smile cracks upward on one side. ] I wouldn't say it's just like the simulations, but it's not not-like the simulations.

Video game joke.

[ In case Fabian doesn't get it, which is more of a gesture at inclusiveness than Krouse usually bothers with. He doesn't know what the gaming environment is like in fantasy world. Maybe they're all about office simulators and coffee shop exploration games. ]

But - hey. Where's your party?

[ Krouse asks the question before he stops to consider that there might be an unpleasant answer, but it's too late to take it back now. ]

[ Krouse twists his mouth in genuine, if subdued, sympathy. He's been there, and there's few things as inconvenient as losing track of your team members in the middle of a job. Given Fabian's assertive attitude (to put it lightly), Krouse is assuming he's the de facto party leader, which just compounds things.

That it's not his fault, given everything he's correctly pointing out about the way the labyrinth keeps peeling people apart, is something Krouse knows doesn't help. Your responsibility is your responsibility, whatever happens. ]

That's rough.

[ He frowns a little too, before he catches himself, flipping the expression upside down. ]

If I had to guess, the point is probably to make us have to cooperate with new people. What the point of that is - [ a shrug. ]

But wherever they are, they're trained to handle this, right? Party splits happen. You just have to adjust and keep going. You'll run back into them eventually.

[ He doesn't actually know that, but he's not dropping 'unless they disappear forever in the maze' into the middle of a pep talk, and there's also no reason to clarify that he means they might have to meet back up on the outside. Fabian's not -

Well, Fabian might be a little stupid, but he's not that stupid. He's probably thought about it already. ]

[ It's convenient that Fabian is shouldering the burden of shoring himself up, because Krouse isn't sure where he'd start if it was up to him. He can float some platitudes, but he doesn't know the guy well enough to know what would necessarily work.

But it's uncomfortable to be this close to it and not have something ready. This is why he usually tried to stay out of other people's drama, if 'drama' is what you can call 'missing teammates in a life and temporary death situation'. He feels a little on the back foot, and not in a way that spurs him to coming up with a clever solution. ]

I don't, actually.

[ Have people. He says it with an answering smile and shrug, mirroring Fabian's expression back to him with a brighter spin. ]

Kind of takes a load off my mind, if I'm honest. And it frees me up to get invested in other people's problems, so win-win all around. [ It's a joke, obviously. Just lightening the mood. ] You're not dragging down the mood. But I do like the sound of getting into some trouble.

[ Krouse has had people throw harder punches his way. It's a little funny that he still braces for this one, some instincts about flying knuckles far older than his stint as a professional criminal.

But it's not bad. It mostly just rocks him to the side, the brief jolt of contact more surprising than painful. He huffs out an exhale and shoots Fabian a look more amused than disapproving, whatever the faux arch of his eyebrows has to say about it. Then Fabian rattles off his little inspirational speech, and it's all amusement, punctuated with a short laugh. ]

Well, we can't have that.

[ He falls into step with Fabian, moving along in the direction he chooses. He doesn't have a better one in mind yet. ]

How's it going to look if the Blood Rush captain ends up kneeling in front of some chump? And on his debut mission, no less. [ It'd be a blow to the competitive spirit. ] I'm not exactly looking to set up a summer home here either.

And you're vastly underestimating the buoyancy of my mood, but if you want to take it as flattery, be my guest. Free points for me.

[ The circle of inspiration is such that Krouse talks the way he does because of indulging in the type of nerd media that Fabian lives out every day of his actual life, a cosmic coincidence fortunately so far lost on both of them.

In the present moment, Krouse scoffs lightly as he readjusts his bag again, listening to the subtle shifts of the labyrinth behind them as Fabian does the visual check. ]

I can fight a monster. [ He confirms. ] Maybe even two, if I get on a roll.

[ If he sounds a little cocky about it, he thinks it's earned. Direct combat isn't his preference, but he can hold his own when he has to. He gives Fabian's appraisal of him a little sidelong glance, judges what it's about, and flicks on a smirk. ]

I have a gun. A less elegant weapon for an uncivilized age, I know, but we can't all have studied the blade.

[ That's interesting. Krouse has a ready list of questions springing to mind - the type of gun, what it uses as ammunition, if there's magic involved - but those strike him as things he can save for later. And possibly ask the person who actually has the gun.

It's not impossible to visualize. He's seen enough magitek style stuff to have a reference point, anyway.

In the present moment, their tactical concerns are a little more immediate. Krouse doesn't exactly slip into grim seriousness, which usually strikes him as an affectation, but he's not devil-may-care, either. ]

Close combat isn't my preference, no. [ He can throw a punch and take one, and he's better at the later than the former. ] What I do works better at range.

[ He considers a choice for a few seconds, then reaches into his pocket to pull out his Swiss army knife and a foil-wrapped granola bar. ]

I never got around to telling you what that is, did I? [ He transfers the granola bar to his other hand, holding both palms out flat. He knows perfectly well he didn't get around to it. ] Want to see?

[ Sharing his power is always a contextual thing here. It's not like it was back on Bet, where there were only so many standard responses to expect. In Etraya, he has to make an individual judgment call about everyone, weighing what he knows about them to figure out the right approach to the reveal.

With Fabian, it comes easy. He has a good feeling about how he'll take it, informed by his enthusiasm and his eager interest in - well, a lot of things. He smiles crookedly at him, a gleam of confidence in his eyes, and looks down at his props.

They switch places, seamless and instant. ]

I teleport things.

[ The next move is an impulse. He hasn't tried it unprompted on anyone since he got here. People don't always take it well. It's just that he kind of wants a real wow factor.

He glances sideways, and he and Fabian switch places as neatly as the granola bar and Swiss army knife. It happens without sensation or interruption in Fabian's stride. One second, he's where he was, and the next, he's on the opposite side. ]

And people.

[ Krouse looks back the other way, smile stopped short of a grin by virtue of slightly comic modesty. ]

Like the spell, with some catches.

[ Fabian's lack of awe doesn't break Krouse's enthusiasm. Getting compared to a spellcaster is a good thing. He tucks his props back into his pocket - with a brief consideration of pulling out his pack of cigarettes, but he's trying to pace himself on those, so he leaves them where his fingers brush against them - and gets back to explaining. ]

It's at will, no limits on use. I need to have something to switch whatever I'm moving with, but that's about it.

[ There are a few other catches, but he'll leave them out for now. It's not that he thinks Fabian will use them against him, more that he doesn't want to highlight the shortcomings while he's talking himself up. ]

And I wasn't a wizard the last time I checked. [ He grins. ] I'm a parahuman. It's more like - do they have psionics where you're from? People whose powers come from their minds?

Kind of like that, but not really magic. And it's not strictly innate. Parahuman powers manifest under stress, but in theory, anyone with the right kind of brain can get one.

[ Or, if you have the right tool to induce them, you can end up with the right kind of brain whether you started with it or not. That's the theory Krouse landed on, at least.

But he's glad that it's clicking. The lack of an upper limit on use is something Krouse appreciates about his power, although his metric of evaluation was video game skill cooldowns and not long rests. ]

Although I guess that's just semantics, except that a dispel magic spell wouldn't do anything to me. You'd need a trump power for that. Which this place apparently has, because my range has been cut back in here. [ Which is a weird, claustrophobic feeling, seeing things he can't touch - and a feeling he doesn't really want to linger on in any depth. ] Have you noticed anything like that for you? With your magic? I'm just wondering how many overlapping different effects are at play here.

[ Krouse nods along to Fabian's touching on magic as if he grasps it perfectly. In his own personal, internal defence, he thinks he does get the gist of it. There's been nothing Fabian, Riz, or Adaine have said that makes him suspect their version of magic has any particularly surprising twists to it - which is an assumption he makes a note to watch himself on. There's going to be something, eventually.

But it's probably not going to come up in this context, so he sets that aside for the moment. Powerful magic being more impacted than minor magic tracks with everything else. He can't think of how there might be an exception that either of them need to worry about just yet. ]

You say that like it sounds weird.

[ Krouse flashes a toothy grin to show that he knows it does, in fact, sound weird. It's also meant to serve as a little bit of reassuring deflection before he soft pedals the follow up. ]

It's an extra lobe in the brain. Like how you have those parts that control moving your arms and legs, right? [ He hopes Fabian is aware of that, because he's not sure how stellar his neurology knowledge is outside of this specific topic. ] This is one that controls using powers. It's not active in most people, kind of like an appendix. [ Do elves have an appendix? ] But if you trigger - get a power - it turns on, starts developing.

That's all it does, though. My brain is otherwise bog standard, unfortunately. Be nice if it did come with anything else as a bonus.