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After several days' absence, Strahan has returned to the bar proper.

What's he been doing? Does it involve the computer? The computer book? His experiments in shapeshifting?

To all of these? Mostly yes.

But he's also spent a good deal of meditating in front of the replica gate, doing nothing but think.

It's his canon habit too, though this time he decided to sit rather than stand.

Today he wants to make one more attempt at shapechanging before the snows set in and it becomes too chilly to do very much of anything outdoors.

So outdoors he goes, this time wrapped up in woolens and furs [real of course. Strahan doesn't do "politically correct"] and heads outside, hoping - praying - for success this time.

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Outside he will find Amanda practicing with her sword. Several yards a way there is a black gymbag. For the cold weather she is wearing her regualar long sleeve turtle neck and workout slacks. Also enjoying the joys of thermo underwear.

She notices him come out and offers a smile as a hello.

Amanda.

Not the most unpleasant of unexpected surprises, but he was expecting to see someone else out here. Someone a bit more ... purple...

Well? Are you not going to say something in return?

"Hello Amanda. I was not expecting to see you and...

Why do you have a sword?"

Haulting her activites she lowers her sword and walks over to him. "Strahan, this is a pleasent suprise." smiling.

Glancing down at the sword, "At the moment practicing." If he is at all familiar with swordplay from what she was doing she is clearly very good with her weapon. "What brings you out here on this cold Scotish morning?"

His response is to tug the furs about him a bit more tightly as the wind picks up a little. It is a bit cold, and from the feel of the wind, it's going to get a lot colder.

"Practising?" he asks. For a moment Amanda reminds him of Keely. How much Keely wished to be a warrior - so much so she had sought ways to learn the sword from the Mujhar's armsman despite Niall's wishes that she do otherwise.

Keely. Her memory would make him smile but for the fact that she was the one who sent him here in the first place.

He can only hope she managed to give birth to the child he'd gotten upon her before his death.

"I had intended to practise the shapechange; to make another attempt to master it.

I was expecting Asar-Suti to be here, but I suspect he is elsewhere."

He pauses.

"Scottish? Have I left the bar entirely?"

Her blood is hot as sweat beats down her face. She shivers a moment as the cool air nips at her flesh.

"Yes, There is a battle coming soon on another world and I must be prepared." she answers simply.

"I haven't seen him out here yet this morning. Though I haven't ventured far. Normally I see him by the fire."

*grins*

"Perhaps I should have gone there instead if I intended to find him," he says with a smile. As much as the Seker insisted that he did not want to become what he was back in their world, he still had a fondness for fire and flame.

Old habits die hard...

"Battle? What sort of battle? Does this battle have anything to do with your prophecy?"

Prophecies always entail some sort of battle. It's an essential part of the cliche after all.

"Perhaps." But she is glad that he came out. She likes Strahan, he makes for interesting and kind company.

"This particular battle is one that belongs to a different world then mine. i am helping some people rescue their friends." yes her prophecy does cause her to goto more battles then she would like. But that is the Game.

And oddly, he finds he likes Amanda too. He finds it easy to talk to her, telling her about his world and some of the people in it.

"And thus you will need your sword as you expect ... resistance?"

One day he will have to tell Amanda about Keely. Or rather, tell her all he knows about Keely. The two women would probably find a kindred spirit in each other.

"When do you expect to depart?" he asks, finding himself resenting the fact that he cannot leave the bar, being Bound to it. "When do you expect to return?"

"We are expecting an army of about 40,000 demons." she informs him.

Sighing, "I have no idea when we depart nor how long we will be there but I agreed to help and I will."

I'm sure Amanda would like to hear about Keely.

"How are things going with your computer?" Amanda asks. No, he hasn't told her about that but Sooty has.

"More than just a little resistance then," he says, trying to sound as though running into an enormous herd of demons was the sort of thing you encounter in casual conversation.

Fourty thousand demons... It impresses him that Amanda would willingly go up against an army of that size to help others rescue their friends.

It takes a lot of courage to willingly stand up to something like that. Just like it took courage for Niall to stand up to Strahan, as well as Niall's children: Brennan and Hart; Corin and Keely.

Cheysuli courage is something never to be underestimated.

Enough nostalgia.

"Computer? Did the bald man tell you about my computer?" he asks, then adds, "It is going well. I think I have sorted out what electricity is and can power the computer with it.

Attaching the mouse to the computer is not easy. It seems their tails are not long enough, and they are reluctant to stick their tails into that small indentation on the back."

Amanda had signed up for the adventure when she was in a really bad mood and wanted to kill something so an army of demons sounded like a good idea. She isn't quite so eager now. At this point she just wants to get it over with.

"Bald man?" the first bald man that came to mind was Mace Windu whom she was out here to meet but that didn't make any sense. Then she remembered Chypher. Perhaps he means Cypher. "No, I learned of your venture into learning computers from Asar-Suti." Someone whose company she cares for a great deal more then Cyphers.

She lets out an involuntary Laugh, "Please tell me your not trying to attach living mice to your computer." this amuses her, "There is a device called a mouse that you hook up to the computer."

Cypher has that effect on people...

"The Seker told you about my efforts with computers?" he asks rhetorically; the answer is already obvious.

Then he frowns at the laugh. What did she expect him to think of when the grimore mentioned mice?

"I have," he says sulkily. "And they do not appreciate it."

It appears that Strahan's culture clash between the worlds of magic and the worlds of science is best described as a train wreck.

"What sort of device is this mouse? Does it need a grimore to understand too?"

After sobering she appologizes, "I'm sorry, but I was picturing someone trying to click on a live mouse to select an action on the computer."

"Tell you what, perhaps I can help you." she draws a picture of a mouse and explains why it is called such. "Can you please try to explain the kind of computer you have to me?"

[OOC: I have to slowtime to finish up a project but should be back very soon]

He still doesn't understand the humour in the situation, but he manages a smile regardless. Because that is more or less what he was trying to do, once he'd secured the mouse tails to the laptop.

An effort which turned out to be a shining failure.

"The bald man called it a 'laptop'. Does that help you?"

[That's fine. I've still to make dinner and I should do that now that I have time.]

"Yes it does." she smiles, "On your laptop is there a red button in the center or some buttons at the bottom of the keyboard?" she think, "If you like I can take a look at it sometime and show you how the mouse works." she offers.

He is doing remarkably well with this considering he is being thrown head first into the computer age. She really wants to help him. maybe she feels bad that his immortla life was cut short.

"I can show it to you now if you like," he says with unnecessary enthusiasm. "It should not take me long to enter my room, retrieve the laptop and return."

Apparently no one's told him that computers and cold weather do not mix.

"I have travelled from one end of a kingdom to another in less time than it takes to tell you about it; bringing the laptop outside is no trouble for me."

Amanda throws up her hand, "Wait!" she exlaimes. Worried that he would rush off.

"Computers and extreme temperatures don't mix. If you bring it out here the weather would ruin it. You also want to keep it away from fire and extreme heat."

A good thing she stopped him as he was in the process of teleporting into his room and back.

"If that is so then I will have to bring you to it, if I cannot bring it to you."

Or they could go inside, and he could retrieve the object and show it to her.

"Although I am not sure if I would be able to manage it. I have never spirited two people from one place to another, but if Rhiannon could do it with Brennan I certainly could do it with another person too."

Amanda smiles, "I think it would be just as easy if we went inside and you could get your computer."

Simpler is better.

True. Too bad Strahan has a habit of over-complicating matters when a simpler approach would suffice.

But then, it is canon...

"Very well then. We will go inside and I will retrieve my laptop so you may look at it."

With a bright smile Amanda follows Strahan inside and takes a seat at a booth while he goes to get the laptop. While waiting she orders to cups of Hot Chocolate.

It doesn't take him long. In fact it only takes him a split second to vanish, a minute or two to locate the laptop, and another microsecond to return.

Yus, he's still got it.

"Here is the laptop the bald man gave me," he says, presenting it to Amanda.

Setting it down she opens it up. The first thing she does is look for the mouse. [OOC: is it the little red button or pad with buttons at the bottom or does it need to have a 'normal' mouse with cord connected to it?]

Her next move is to turn it on. What is the OS?

[Don't know - I don't have a laptop so I wouldn't know where the mouse goes on one.]

"'OS'? What is an 'OS'?" He stops for a moment. The grimore mentioned something about OS'.

"The bald man asked the bar not to give him a computer with windows on it.

As you can see, there are no windows at all. It is too small for windows anyways."

[OOC: Ah, well then we will say it's thekind with the little red knob in the middle.]

"No Windows? Why not?" she looks puzzled, "Perhaps you're using linux? Do you know this bald mans name?" She certainally has her suspicions. Seeing the little red knob in the center of the keyboard, "This right here is what you use as the mouse."

[OOC: What operating system is on the computer if any?]

He shakes his head "no". "I never got his name, though he wore a rather unusual suit and he had a moustache on his face.

He mentioned something about a matrix though.

As to why he said 'no windows'? I am not sure. Perhaps he does not like windows and wants his computers to be window-less."

[There's always the option of installing a program. I don't know Linux but I do have some understanding of Windows (XP) - it's my computer's OS.]

So it was Cypher

"It's possible that he wanted you to figure it out and put the operating system on yourself. Windows is a type of Operating System. THe operating system is what allows the user, you, to communicate with the computer. The computer itself is hardware. An operating system and any other programs that you put on the computer are called software." She tries to explain.

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