Beth sighed as she looked around at each of her friends. She couldn't help but feel like there was a disconnect and they weren't taking her concerns as seriously as she felt they should. A stray thought occurred to her that this frustration might be what Charlie was feeling when Beth wasn't taking her seriously on Charlie's concerns about Beth getting killed. Making her feel a little sad that she'd dismissed Charlie's concerns so easily. Especially with how she was starting to feel like she had more than enough reason to worry. At least with this woman that Beth dealing with. A woman that only she'd met among her friends.
"I guess you'd have to meet her to realize that she probably has fought people with magic before and came out on top," Beth said, not really sure if that woman had done that, just that she didn't seem to be someone who had been even close to being defeated when she chose to attack. "And maybe I'm worrying about nothing, but I certainly don't want her to look at us as enemies if we're not ready to be her enemies."
"Look, if you're that concerned about it, why not do what Ralph started to suggest yesterday, the idea you shot down as soon as he mentioned it," Amelia said, the only person who looked like they weren't dismissing Beth's concern out of hand. Although Beth wouldn't be surprised if this had something to do with Ameila's desire to get away from the Marquis herself. "If anything, we can just kidnap the queen and make it look like we killed her that way or something. Wouldn't that work?"
"You mean, pull a Fina Fantasy IX?" Beth asked dryly. She didn't want to admit that Amelia's idea wasn't half bad considering the circumstances. She just didn't like how much it was tied to that game. Primarily because she preferred coming up with ideas without relying on fictional stories.
"Exactly," Amelia replied, nodding. "Though, we certainly wouldn't be able to make a Theatre ship that the queen would be able to watch from her castle. After all, airships are just too new, so they wouldn't have anything built like that."
Beth couldn't help but roll her eyes, but Amelia either ignored that or didn't notice.
"You know, we could still have it as a theatre ship, just not put on the performances on it," Wes commented. "The only problem I can see is what would we perform? All we do is play music with our magic. And only music recorded on CDs. It's not like any of us, other than Hannah have done much with music, so that's what I'd be stuck on."
The biggest problem with this idea for Beth was that it was gaining too much traction. It seemed like Beth would be outvoted on the idea if someone came up with an idea of what they could perform. As right now it seemed like Amelia, Ralph, and Wes would be for it, making the votes evenly split, assuming Tim and Hannah didn't vote for it. If either of them did, then Beth would be stuck with that as the primary plan of getting to the queen once they were told to make their attempt. Though, Beth wasn't sure if that was really a good thing or not. As at least it was more of a plan of how to get close to the queen than anything else they had right then.
"Why not see if we have a DVD and use our magic to project it?" Ralph suggested, sounding like he was enjoying this far more than Beth was comfortable with. "We could show any number of movies that would get anyone's attention on this world."
"Yeah, but how many of them would be something that would keep an audience's attention here?" Wes asked, making Beth hope that Ralph wouldn't have a response.
"Well, we could always do something like Spirited Away or something. We could view the movies before we use them in a test to see if the people of this world would like it or not."
"Uh, actually, I'm worried about something else," Hannah said. "Mostly that movies from our world are made with men in dominant roles in society, so how many movies would there be that would cater to the culture on this world? Even Spirited Away, as good as a movie as it is, might not catch as well as I'd probably like."
Ralph looked at everyone as if they had betrayed him or something. Beth wasn't sure exactly what was going through his mind, but she doubted that it was accurate or even clear. Just as she was confident that Ralph would have gone with some movie that was as far off base in the culture of this world as he possibly could if they'd given him free reign on the matter. Even though Beth doubted that he'd have realized the problem until it was too late to do anything about it.
"Look, consider this," Beth offered, hoping that they could get back on track of finding something that would actually work here rather than tangents that were only going to waste everyone's time. "How many movies do you know of where all the guys are wearing dresses and women are the ones in charge?"
Ralph looked at Beth like he wanted to argue but nothing was coming to mind. Beth couldn't say that she felt much satisfaction at Ralph going quiet, but it was at least a relief that he didn't reply. It meant that they could probably get something serious discussed.
Then, as Beth was collecting her thoughts to move on from that topic, Ralph said something that pulled the rug from Beth's feet.
"What about doing a play? We could use the story I made to entertain the children of that village as the base of it?"
Beth wasn't sure she was happy that he'd come up with something that would work or if she'd wanted this topic to fail just so they didn't have to do the 'theatre ship' idea. Yet, she couldn't find any fault with his suggestion, which Wes seemed eager to jump in on.
"That's not a bad idea. It'll take some work to create the script, but since it's not that long, we should be able to come up with something that works and we could pull off without any real trouble."
"You realize we're not actors and actresses, so it's not like we can make the best cast for any play, right?" Tim asked, sounding like he wasn't quite sold on this idea, which Beth couldn't help but feel grateful for, for some reason.
"Hey, it doesn't have to be perfect," Ralph answered promptly, as if he was waiting for that very objection. "I mean, how good could any actors or actresses of this world be anyway?"
"Actually, I think the term of the time period this world has would probably be 'players' rather than actors and actresses," Hannah remarked.
"Doesn't matter," Ralph insisted. "All that matters is that we could perform the play and it would get us close to the queen. Besides, whose to say that we wouldn't create a hit on this world with this story?"
Beth couldn't help but chuckle, even as she rolled her eyes at Ralph's suggestion. He certainly was invested in the idea, if nothing else. While Beth would rather come up with some other idea, she couldn't say that this idea didn't have merit.
Besides, they'd certainly be able to get close to the queen to make an attempt at something if they were to put on a play that they'd already managed to make popular. Then with how popular among the children in the village that Feon and Hesha were from the story had gotten, Beth had a feeling it wouldn't be too hard to make the story a success as a play.
The biggest problem with the idea was how much of it was being drawn from a game that Beth would rather stay just a game.
"Do you really think we'd be able to have the cast of character just us?" Wes asked, telling Beth that the idea had pretty much been sold and that's likely what they were doing, even if it meant that Beth was stuck with an idea she wasn't quite happy with. Not that she felt like complaining. If anything, it would be a plan that they would at least be able to work with in the event that they were asked to make their attempt earlier than Beth was currently anticipating.
Beth let herself lose track of the conversation, since she doubted she'd be able to contribute anything meaningful herself at this point. Especially with the way things were going right then. She didn't want this plan, but it was clear that she was going to be stuck with it anyway. So, she figured it would be best to keep from allowing her distaste for the idea to keep the others from their planning.
If nothing else, it was her way of contributing to the planning phase of the idea.
"Hey, Beth?" Amelia's voice startled Beth out of her thoughts. She looked at her friends and was surprised to see that they were all looking at her. She wasn't sure how much time had passed since she'd stopped paying attention, but it was clear that the others were at least aware that she hadn't been paying attention now. She just hoped that it wasn't because they wanted her to contribute on the subject.
"Sorry, I just got lost in my thoughts," Beth said, hoping her friends wouldn't pry further into her lack of attention.
"Not about that," Amelia assured Beth. "We were just wondering if you knew how long we had until we were supposed to… um, make an attempt on the queen?" Amelia's voice started to sound hesitant and Beth couldn't fault her for that. She herself was rather uneasy about how things would turn out once they were going to execute their plan.
In response, Beth merely shook her head. "Not a clue. I'm not sure my 'contact' knows either. Just that when they want us to, that they'll expect us to be ready."
"So, if there's no way of knowing how long we'd have to get this play set up, we should find a theatre troupe, or whatever they're called on this world, to see if they'd be willing to put on our play," Tim said, his voice much too eager for Beth's preferences. It was clear that he was more than sold on the idea at this point, making it clear that the votes had already been cast without even having done it formally.
"So, what do you think is the best way to find a theatre troupe?" Hannah asked Beth, making Beth feel like she was going to get roped into this planning phase whether she wanted to or not. Even if she was merely behind the logistics of it rather than the main plan. Which was how it seemed everyone else was right then.
Beth shook her head in defeat. She could tell that she wasn't going to be able to do anything about this and she could tell that her friends weren't going to let her sit this one out, either. Which meant that she had to either directly tell them to plan it without her, which she doubted they'd take quietly, or she could just surrender and let them decide what parts they wanted her to deal with.
"Fine. You guys win."
"Hey, they're no winning or anything here," Amelia snapped, interrupting Beth before she could give an answer beyond her voicing her surrender. "We're all in this together, right?"
Beth sighed, she wasn't going to deny what Amelia said, but she also wasn't going to respond to it. Not when it would be giving a silent assent to her accepting the plan that they'd decided on, despite her clear objections. Though she figured they'd probably assume she was fully on board with the idea even if she didn't.
"Whatever. In regards to where we could find a theatre troupe that might be willing to work with us, I'd just have to ask around," Beth said, hoping she didn't sound as reluctant as she felt right then.
"You make it sound so easy," Tim said, sounding like he was trying to tease her, but Beth wasn't in the mood to play along.
She just wanted this topic over with.
"Yeah, but I'm not relating how much walking it'll take. Like walking to any city to ask around for a troupe that's looking for a play to perform or something. Even one that's about to go broke would be useful, as they'd then be willing to try something new and work with us. Since if we tried one that was doing really well, they probably wouldn't give us the time of day with anything we approached them with."
Tim blinked, looking like he was caught off guard with Beth's response. Not that Beth blamed him. She typically wasn't like this. She just really didn't like the idea of trying something like this. It might work, but the premise of the idea just felt wrong in a way that she couldn't quite put her finger on. Nor could she find some other problem with the idea that would show it wouldn't work.
"How long would you need to find out if we could find something like that?" Hannah asked, sounding like she was determined to not like whatever Beth's answer was. Which Beth suspected was because that meant she'd likely get stuck guarding Kystia during the whole trip.
"Not sure, but at least a week or two to travel to the nearest city. Maybe a month to get to the capital if we really pushed it. Then there's the part about how long it'd take us to work out which troupe would be willing to work with us, if there's any at all," Beth mused, offering her opinion while still speculating about what possibilities there were. After all, it wasn't like they'd be guaranteed to find a struggling theatre troupe. Or one at all. There were just too many 'ifs' for Beth's taste, but it wasn't like she had a better idea right then. Though, as she was about to stop talking, another idea popped in her mind, one that sounded more feeble than the current plan they were discussing. "And if I can't find anything that would work for us, we could always try the traveling musician bit. I mean, Hannah could play her keyboard while the rest of us play CDs to entertain an audience."
"Are you suggesting we try that instead?" Wes asked, sounding like he wasn't sure what Beth was getting at.
Beth merely shook her head. "Not really. Just more of a back-up plan than anything else. I mean, what'd I do if we couldn't find a theatre troupe in the first place. If I can't find one, then there's nothing that we can do about that, so wouldn't it be better to have at least some kind of plan in case the first one falls through due to something as simple as that?"
"She does have a point," Ralph allowed. "Especially since we never bothered looking to see if there were any theatres where you could go to watch a play or something."
"Actually, with how this world seems to be in the middle ages, at least compared to what the history of our world calls that, I don't think they'd likely have theatres at this time. Maybe if they were closer to a Victorian age or something, at least a renaissance period, if nothing else," Tim remarked, a hint of doubt entering his voice. "At best I think theatre troupes of this time would be traveling ones."
"Yeah, that doesn't sound very promising," Amelia said, her enthusiasm starting to dampen.
"I'm sure we'll find something," Beth said, hoping that she wouldn't get everyone depressed and feeling defeated before they'd even tried. She wasn't sure if she'd be able to handle it if she caused everyone to essentially give up on the plan before they even tried it. "If nothing else, we won't know unless we try."
"And what do you think will happen if you're not able to find a troupe when you start asking about one?" Wes asked, almost as if he was challenging her.
"I'm just confident that I'll be able to at least find a rumor about a theatre troupe that's struggling," Beth replied, starting to feel a little better about the subject for some reason she couldn't quite explain. "I mean, even if we have to essentially chase them down, I'm sure we'll be able to eventually find one that would be willing to work with us."
"And how would you suggest we chase them down?" Hannah asked, sounding like she was more enjoying the chance to discuss this part than she was when they were still planning the whole thing.
"Well if we wait until we're given a time to make an attempt on the queen, then we could use the airship to travel, but if we're being proactive in all this, then we'd just have to chase them down on foot and hope we're able to catch up to them when they stop at a city or something."
"Wouldn't being chased by an airship make them a little nervous?" Wes asked, glancing towards the castle as if he could see the airship that had left for wherever it was that the Marquis had in mind to wait to see how long the fuel lasted for.
"Only if they can see it approaching and they know that it's coming for them," Beth answered simply. "I imagine they'd be more interested in what it is when they first see it and by the time they realize it's coming for them, we'll be climbing down the ship to talk with them. So, I really doubt they'd run from it unless they're the paranoid type or are on something."
"What drugs do they even have in this world?" Ralph remarked dismissively.
"I don't know but I'm pretty sure they have them. Otherwise, Amelia would have a hell of a time starting on her medical practice in this world without using her magic," Hannah chimed in. "Although, as I think about it, if they don't use herbs or anything like that for treatment of any sickness, then that could account why they never knew about the treatment for their… uh, I think it was called the 'spotted plague' right?"