"Well, anyone who knows magic can manipulate the elements. So...if you trained your body more would that effect the amount of magic you could use?" She asks, referring to his mention of strength.

He stands up, shrugging his coat off onto the chair and holding out his hands to his side and letting out a cheerful laugh.  His shirt is fairly tight and shows off a lean, hard body underneath.  He wears a shoulder holster with a large caliber handgun on one side and a 4 barrel, low caliber, mini gun hangs on the other.  "I be a perfect specimen of me race."

He takes off the heavy mini gun and sets it on the empty chair on the other side of him. "Me magic don't be comin from me physical body so much, it mostly be comin from me spirit, I kin burn more magic by burnin me calories." 

"Showing off, are you?" Breena remarks.

Her attention is quickly drawn to the firearms. "What are those? I've never seen anything like them." She reaches to take the mini gun but thinks better of it, drawing her hand back.

"Guns.  Think of a bow, or a crossbow, only further along the technological scale.  Definitely a different sort of look than the kind they come out with back home, though."  Jon observed the different guns the man had once again.

"Best not to touch 'em if you don't know about them.  I doubt they're as... volatile as goblin-made ones, but you never know."

He lets out another small laugh.  "You da one dat be suggestin I be fat an out of shape."  He sits down and places a hand on the mini gun.  "Yeah, be thinkin of a crossbow on synth crack, drinkin a nukacola quantum, dat be firin tiny bolts at a rate up ta 50 per second."

He picks it up, pulls off a large flat box from the top of it and then a small handle.  "Dis be da ammo."  He holds up a small piece of brass and lead that flew out when he pulled back the charging handle.  "It be a 22 long rifle round.  Inside be da charge, da primer be on dis end and dis little piece of lead is what be flyin out da business end."  He offers the small bullet to her to look at.

He holds up the clip.  "Dis be holdin 1000 rounds of ammo.  It be weighen as much as da gun."

Jonathan lets out a low whistle (perhaps a strange and amusing thing, coming from a wolf man such as him).  "Fifty per second?  Engineers back home are having a heart attack as we speak."  He smirks.

"What's the point of battle if you throw in something like this? You're guaranteed to win, right?"

Cinder looks at her and just blinks a few times, trying to verify in his mind what she just said.  He sits back down, setting the bullet on the table.  Any jocularity in his voice is gone.  "Darlin, dat's just plain naive.  I wil use anything in a fight dat will give me an advantage.  Me world aint a nice place.  I didn't get me name cause fire be me bitch, I ad da name fur years fore I learnt dat.  I got me name cause I used a cinder block, a big ass brick to smash in a guy's brains when I waz 7.  Der aint no honor when all ya got ta fight fur is yur life.  Der aint no such thing as a fair fight."  There is a severity in his voice that wasn't there before.

"i don't clearly remember my childhood, it was so long ago, but I'm sorry that happened to you. I suppose our worlds are very different, or at least our experiences." She sits solemnly for a few moments, thinking on Cinder's words.

Jonathan ponders for a moment.  "That could be an accurate description of my home, too.  The difference is how low one's willing to sink.  It all comes down to how brutal or cruel you're willing to get to do what you need to do before it compromises who you are.  And how you deal with the people who are willing to be worse than you."

Parker lets out a small barking laugh.  "I doubt not that your world is a difficult and dangerous place, but in my world, every kid that picks up a sword or learns a spell wants to go out and slaughter kobolds.  It is like my people are what the young adventurers want to cut their teeth on."

He shakes his head.  "I have spent centuries trying to change that idea.  I have put up signs and have several tribes of Kobolds under my protection.  I train any with a talent in magic and make sure they are properly equipped to take care of their families."

Cinder looks at the others and lets out a hearty laugh.  "Yeah, things suck all over."  He sits back down, but doesn't put the coat back on.  He picks up the lone bullet from the table and inserts it back into the clip and slaps the clip back onto the mini gun.  "Damn dat thing gets eavy though.  I shud really be leavin it in me room."

He looks at Breena and pats her hand.  "No worries darlin and der be no need fur sorry.  We are a sum of our experiences an I like who I be.  An I gots a question fur ya... how old are ya?"

He glances at the wolf man and nods.  "Sum times da ends justify da means... sum times not."

A look at Parker and he grins.  "Life sucks near da bottom of da food chain.  But from what I seen, ya climbed up a few rungs."

"How old....am I?" She looks like she's asking the question herself.

She begins mumbling to herself and counting years on her fingers. "Well....one thousand....five hundred and thirty.....something. That sounds right...I think that's right. Give or take a few hundred years, maybe."

Cinder looks at Breena for a few seconds before letting out a low whistle.  "Damn Ghatina, you be lookin good fur yur age.  An I thought da runt was old."  He hooks a thumb at Parker.

"Well, that's the thing, I'm a fey creature. Much like elves we age to a certain point and then stop. An elf isn't considered an adult until they're around one hundred and twenty. That aside, as a creature of fey I cannot die of natural causes, as long as I return to Arcadia every few hundred years and stay there for a while I can live forever. Very few of us stay alive that long...age and sadness consume many of us and we decide to go to The Grey Lands." She looks a bit embarrassed by the explanation.

He shrugs.  "I couldn't magine gettin so sad, that I wud wanna die.  Der always be sum thin over da next hill, sum thin in da next town.  As far as I go, I gots no idea ow long I will live."

He takes a breath in and seems to again focus on his language.  "I have read every medical book and journal I have been able to find.  I have read on the human genome and as much as I could on genetics."  He gives a grin.  "Me magic only be limited by my knowledge and juice."

"Oh...well. Then Grey Lands are less of a place where you go to die and more of...a place made purely out of magic. I don't really know how to explain it, I'm sorry."

She thinks for a few moments. "I don't know much about genetics. I've heard a few alchemists mumbling about it before in my travels."

There is another nod of acknowledgment as Cinder sits back in his chair. "Genetics is da study of da body and why ya be da way ya be.  Yur mum has brown air and yur dad as brown air, den ya be avin brown air most likley.  Dat is genetic.  I study it so I kin manipulate it.  Da more I know da more I kin do." 

"So you need to know about genetics to manipulate how things look? That seems a bit...annoying. I can manipulate how anything looks as long as I can see it." She comments, changing the table their sitting at to the colour blue with a wave of her hand and then back to its original colour.

Cinder again shakes his head.  "Nah darlin, ya don't be understandin.  I don't just be changin how things look, I change what dey are.  I kin rewrite a uman's gentic code.  I can cure mutations and so forth.  It don't be easy, and uses lots a juice.  Hell, ifn I studied ya long enough to learn yur genetics, I cud probably turn ya inta a human."

He picks up his beer, draining the rest of it. "I met a mage ere, an we ad a bet.  I turned his friend inta a uman and he tried to dispel da magic.  Only der wasn't no magic to dispel, da magic was done and his buddy was what he was."

"That's incredibly powerful..." Breena replies, looking somewhat pale.

He again leans back in his chair, grinning as he finishes off his beer.  Well... theoretically he could do that, he was pretty sure.  But what he doesn't say is that the amount of power involved in such a transformation could well drain him completely, leaving him either a burned out shell or dead. "Yeah, only through knowledge comes true power baby."

He shrugs. "Mothers used ta come ta me, ta elp fix mutations in der kids.  Ta make em uman."  Small things like fixing minor mutations or defects were no big deal, but he had to turn away the ones that didn't even resemble anything human, they were just too far gone.

She thinks for a few moments, stippling her fingers and furrowing her brow, clearly lost in contemplation. "The dragon outside has expressed a want to speak. She's clearly a creature of high intelligence confined to being mute, unable to share her thoughts with those around her. Would it be possible for you to make her able to talk?" Her usually happy face is stoic as she stares at Cinder.

Jon blinked and stared at Breena for a moment.  "That's... actually an interesting idea, if it would work."  He comments, not really certain what else to say.  "Because I mean, I think the last time I was here there was someone it (I think she?) could talk to mentally, but I don't know where they are now."

Parker speaks up for the first time in a while.  "Selesia?  There is nothing wrong with her speech, she is just young and they have not yet developed."  He sits up in his chair, his head barely coming above the table.