The Battle of the Eagle and Lion is coming soon! The armorers are holding a seminar on the infamous hilltop ballista, allowing students to learn what goes into its maintenance and care. You’re even allowed to make a few test shots! [Grants Bow +1]

     Andrei still isn’t certain what he’d been doing in ‘Rusalka’ in lieu of drawing his bows; not dry-firing them, thankfully, but something taxing enough that his old injury had flared up with a vengeance, every slightly strenuous motion sending bolts of pain up his bow arm. Even simple actions take more time and care than usual; practice, in his current state, is all but impossible.

     (It hadn’t mattered to him before. It shouldn’t matter now.)

     But the fight is long over now, meaningless from beginning to end. And there is, at least, some merit in allowing it to heal properly this time — if it even does. The upcoming Battle of the Eagle and Lion has once more become the focus of conversation around the monastery and its surroundings, and the memory of the previous occasion spurs him to avoid a repeat performance. He will need to be in a better condition than now.

     The hilltop is more crowded than Andrei expects when he draws near, attempting to scout the battlefield as he had before. It seems someone is finishing a lecture to an assortment of students, gesturing towards the ballista mounted atop the hill. Andrei had all but decided to walk away from the crowd, uninterested in a lecture on a weapon he already knows how to use, until he sees the armorer waving the students encouragingly towards the weapon, hears what the man is saying to them.

     ...They’re using that in the mock battle?

     He changes his mind, walking up to the next student who seems interested in making her way towards the ballista. “Best to refrain from touching that unless you know exactly what you are doing,” Andrei narrows his eyes, earlier shock quickly turning into disapproval for the entire crowd involved in such a demonstration, “A mere lecture is insufficient to prepare one for handling a powerful siege weapon as this.”

Ironically, this month’s mishaps spurred a greater interest in the other countries and continents beyond Fódlan, with more and more students eagerly learning what they can about them. The Cooking Club, with their hands on an Ylissean cookbook, is putting out calls for some brave idiot to go and hunt a bear for a Ylissean-style roast. [Grants Axe +1]

Sakura has always been fascinated by the differences in each culture and since she has come to Fódlan, she has been in contact with several people that came from different continents: Tellius, Valentia, Jugdral, Valm, Archanea and Ylisse.. the last one specially has always rose a lot of curiosity in the petite girl, since she has never been there and mostly because she has been quite raptured by some local dishes she happened to taste long time ago, when she was a little girl at the court of Hoshido: thanks to her social role, she often had the possibility to taste exotic food and because of that, she developed a very genuine interest in knowing foreign culture, especially the part about food and delicacies.

Due to this reason, as soon as she heard about the incredible offer that the Cooking Club has pulled off, she couldn’t help but participate in that idealistic event and she offered a hand to prepare and search the ingredient for a very famous and typical dish of the Ylissean cookbook – the Roast Bear. The peculiarity of this dish, was the fact that a specific part of the bear was needed for that special dish, but unfortunately that was all Sakura knew, since she wasn’t very aware of Ylissean culture. Not yet.

Accepting the task and the risk of it, she was partnered up with another member of the club, in the hopes that the more people would go, the more the task would be a success: following that idea, she found herself in the preparation room, sorting the last things she needed for the expedition. This new axe might come in handy, she thought to herself as she picked up the new weapon she recently obtained, pondering to herself if it was a good idea to jump into such dangerous task. Yet, her thoughts haven’t come to an end that another figure drew close to her, she was picking up some tools as well.

“Are you coming to the expedition too?” it came out naturally, almost as if she already was familiar with her, even though she wasn’t familiar at all and she realized it immediately after the other girl rose her gaze towards hers. “My apologies, I should have introduced myself first: I’m Sakura, my pleasure to meet you” and she offered her free hand, since the other one was still holding the hand axe newly acquired. "And you are..?"