Almost feels like home.

[Richard]

Richard could tell that the captain was pleased at the idea of getting out of paying someone. Richard didn't really care since he could pay Daxen with some of the money he had saved up. It was not like Richard was going to spend it on some big thing for himself. "See you later Captain."

Richard looked at the young man and saw that he was showing a great deal of interest in the more medieval type weapons. Richard grinned at the thought of fighting someone with a bo staff. It would be particularly funny to see this young man fight with it, but it was a good starter weapon for the untrained warrior.

"So you like the ancient stuff, huh? Its a good choice for your first weapon." Richard picked up one of the staffs that didn't have a sharp end and started to twirl it around with his fingers. He barely knew how to actually use one of these, but that didn't really matter. "Why don't you pick one up and we spar a little bit?"

[Daxen]

Daxen blinked back at Richard and shook his head, "They're not really as ancient as you think. Guns and energy weapons are great, but in close quarters on a ship, people began realizing that explosives and high-energy reactions weren't exactly smart to use around expensive equipment. I think the number was...46 accidents having to do with a stray blast hitting a main computer."

Next thing he knew, Richard was twirling a bo staff and was twirling it; unprofessionally at that. He cringed, "C-Careful, those can hurt. I actually had to learn to use one of these in a history class once, back home..." He went over to the rack and picked up a simple glaive and started doing some showing off of his own; twirling, spinning, jumping, thrusting, throwing and catching, everything imaginable, all with his usual spaced-out look. He didn't even scratch himself with the blade! As he reminisced, he remembered how it wasn't a particularly hard unit in college, and Daxen recalled it as one of the more enjoyable lessons.

Finally resting the rear end of the staff on the ground and leaning on it, he shrugged, "If you w-want to spar, I-I guess we could. G-Granted, I wasn't the b-best in my class, but..." He took a brief moment to wince at the memories of several scratches, one dangerously close to his neck. Thankfully the teacher had ended it after he realized that perhaps teaching historical wars with re-enactments might not have been the best method, even with supposedly-mature college students.

[Richard]

"I know that they are useful in close quarters and that firearms can be a bit risky. For that reason only, I learned to use knives." Richard was pretty good with knives and to prove it he set the Bo staff down so he could flip out a couple of dirks that he had found in one of the boxes. He started to spin the dirks in his palms a little more professional like than the Bo staff.

Richard looked over at Daxen as he talked about his prior experience with staffs. "Well that is interesting. I guess we found your genre of weaponry, which is going to make teaching you how to defend yourself a little easier. As you can obviously tell, I am a novice with the Bo staff and related weapons, but I think there are some books in one of these boxes."

"Don't worry about sparring, but I think I will use the dirks instead of the Bo staff. I will of course leave them covered, so that I don't hurt you." Richard looked around the room and realized that it may be a little crowded in here to spar. "Maybe we should switch to a different room before sparring though. I would hate to damage any of the instruments in this room and be left defenseless.

[Daxen]

At first Daxen didn't respond as he was occupied with getting used to the glaive. The blade was rusting, and the staff felt ready to give at any moment. Clearly it needed some refurbishing, if it was even repairable in the first place. He didn't know exactly how to go about it though, so perhaps Richard could help. Oh, wait, Richard, right.

He returned his focus to his new employer, who had just suggested they spar again, but with him using a knife. He frowned, "That's difficult to do though. The moment you get a good distance away from me, I'll have the advantage. The moment you get too close to me, you have the advantage." He didn't like those; he would always lose track of the battle as his mind wandered, and from that point he'd lose. It's how he always lost in school.

Still, it would be nice to get a refresher, and he nodded, "If y-you want to though, I g-guess we could find another room. A-And I c-can teach you how to use s-staves if you want..." He'd never taught how to wield weaponry before, but he had some classmates he had to tutor before, and they all managed to at least pass because of him. Surely teaching environmental diversity would be similar to teaching how to survive with a polearm?

[Richard]

Richard picked up the Bo staff and looked over at Daxen. He thought about Daxen's comments about advantages and what not. "In a real fight, the enemy will not be concerned about fighting on an even playing field. You have to learn to adapt to each change in a situation." Richard noticed the state of Daxen's weapon and went over to a box of books. He found one labeled the use and repair of staffs. He tossed it over to Daxen and smiled. "You may need this."

Richard slid his dirks back into their sheaths and picked up the Bo staff. "I guess we should get used to the weapons that we are holding before sparring." Richard got up and started sorting them out. He needed to make a detail list of each set for his personal records just in case he wanted to find something later. He pulled out some paper and handed some of it to Daxen. "First things first. We need to catalog all of these weapons."

Richard pulled a box of firearms and ammunition over to him and started sorting through it. Most of the weapons looked rusty and needed to be cleaned up quite a bit. He made notes of which ones would need to be cleaned and how much ammo there was for each different one. He looked over at Daxen to see how he was doing. Daxen looked a little out of his element when talking to people. He needed to do something adventurous to come out of his shell. Richard looked back into the box for his weapons' ammo, so he knew whether or not he needed to pick up some at the next stop.

[Daxen]

It's true, Daxen is definitely not the social butterfly. If he had the option he'd opt to spend the rest of his life terraforming or something, making inhabitable planets...well...habitable. Alas, he's stuck doing something he doesn't really know how to do.

He nearly yelped when the book was tossed to him, causing him to fumble with both the book and the glaive. Miraculously he managed to steady both. As he set them down to accept the paper, it dawned on him that he wouldn't be able to catalog efficiently. He looked around. Let's see...there was this gun, then there was this bigger gun, then there was another gun with a weird-looking trigger. And then there was a bladed.....he didn't even know what to call it.

Without wanting to seem like a total idiot, he tried beating around the bush, "So...o-other than by weapon t-type, any other w-way you want them c-cataloged?" He was hoping he'd say something easy enough to identify, or perhaps he'd hand him some sort of book on identification.

[Richard]

Richard was examining some of the handguns that were in the box. There were some that he had only heard about or saw in books in it. His eyes kept wandering to the Desert Eagle at the top of the case. He decided to add it to his current array of wea
ponry. As he did this, he noticed a book at the bottom of the box that had the word maintenance and guns on it. Richard decided that he might as well sort out the books in the boxes.

Richard looked up at Daxen's question and felt like an idiot for forgetting that Daxen didn't really know much about weapons. Richard sat there and thought what he should have Daxen do. "Just put them into piles based on what they are and then on their size. For example, put all the guns together and then sort them out by size and shape."

Richard didn't knew that it wasn't going to be easy teaching Daxen about different types of weaponry, but it was a challenge that he was willing to accept. He returned to the box that he was sorting and also made notes of how much he was going to have to pay Daxen. Richard was an employer now and he needed to be thinking about stuff like this.

[Daxen]

Daxen nearly cried. He decided he should conserve what little dignity he had left though and merely said, "O-okay," even though his mind said THANK YOU! Organizing by type then by size would be simple enough. Now all he had to do was worry about not setting anything off. All he had to do was not touch a trigger, right?

Not wanting to throw caution to the wind, however, he proceeded to pick up a gun with all the care of a bomb specialist. The process was indeed slow for a while, but he did eventually start to get used to it, and finally realized that no gun was going to blow up in his face.

After he got into a good routine, he decided to make some small talk, "S-So...wh-what made you d-decide to study w-weaponry?" He knew it was probably a potentially-lucrative occupation; much more lucrative than being a freshly-graduated scientist.

[Richard]

Richard looked over at Daxen and saw that he was getting along with his sorting operation. Daxen had asked why he had studied weapons instead of something else. "Only thing I could really pick up being raised on one of the farming planets. Most people that came with the transport ships were more than willing to show of their weapons to would be kids. I eventually got ordered some books to help me out with my studies."

It was an unusual question to ask, but curiosity was a common trait among those that jumped on one of these ships. "So what is it that interests you?" It was probably a good idea to get to know something about his newfound friend. His mind had been getting an overload with all the new information that he had been given to deal with. Knowledge of the weapons system on this ship, all these weapons to catalog, and now someone he would have to teach were really keeping him busy. Richard wondered when the hard stuff was going to happen and whether or not he would be able to keep up with it.

[Daxen]

Daxen only picked up the 'farming' bit and lost focus to the rest of what Richard said. He wondered what it would be like to live on a farm. Probably a lot of hard work, stressing about what kind of weather you'll have, and hoping that you can make a good profit while still having enough to feed your family. Daxen shuddered; it wasn't the ideal lifestyle for him. He just wanted to live comfortably on some semi-urban planet. Not too industrial to make him cry for the environment, but not too rural to make him feel too isolated.

Richard's next question peaked his interest, and he set down the current gun. He thought for a moment before responding with, "I-I'm an ecologist. I st-study the balance between p-plants, animals, and th-their environments. I-It sounds kinda boring, I know, but I-I find it interesting, e-especially when you find one invasive species th-that can throw off an entire community. I-I forget the name of it, but there w-was this one planet that was full of vegetation. Then a t-type of locust was introduced and in s-seven months nearly a quarter of its p-plant life was extinguished."

He thought about giving a lecture, but remembered he had a job to do and it'd probably be a good way to make Richard kick Daxen out anyway. Thus he returned to categorizing.

[Richard]

Richard listened as Daxen spoke about the ecology thing. He had picked up a few things about ecology when he had been traveling. He didn't recall that much of it, but he knew enough to understand most aspects of it. "Ecology, huh? It doesn't sound boring at all. Why don't you tell me about this species that wiped out a fourth of a planet. It sounds very interesting to me."

Richard was almost done with the pile he was on and looked over to see how Daxen was faring. The guy wasn't doing that bad at sorting them out amongst themselves, which would make it a lot easier to catalog later on when he had to get to them. He would let Daxen off early and finish up quickly. Richard wanted to get in a quick nap before having to do any more work on the weapons that he was cataloging. He still needed to clean some of them, but that could wait until later. He needed to have something to do for tomorrow or else Daxen wouldn't get paid.

"When your done sorting, then you are done for the day. Don't want to do all the jobs in one day." Richard almost liked the idea of being someone else's boss, but would probably get bored of it after a while and just start acting like him old self which meant that he would probably just suggest things for Daxen to do and not really give him orders or what not.